Agathon’s elenchos
A new reading of Pl. Smp. 199c3-201c9

Luca Castagnoli

This article aims at presenting an accurate analysis of the text and logical structure of the so-called Agathon’s elenchus (Smp. 199c3-201c9). I shall argue that Socrates’ elenchus is neither valid, as many scholars either presuppose tacitly or maintain explicitly, nor trivially invalid, as others’ oversimplified readings suggest. Agathon’s elenchus is an amazingly refined mechanism in which linguistic ambiguities and fallacious inferences are masterly employed by Socrates to achieve his purpose: making Agathon and the other symposiasts (and us the readers with them) ready for Diotima’s teachings, by having them believe that their image of Eros is actually untenable. I shall maintain that Socrates’ (unusual) dialectically unfair behaviour can be actually explained, since there exists a particular exegetic perspective from which Socrates’ questions and inferences turn out to be absolutely clear and valid; but Socrates intentionally leaves this perspective unavailable  to Agathon (and to us) throughout the passage, therefore his elenchus cannot be considered correct all the same.