Abstract

In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates asserts that madness is a good thing if it comes from the gods, and demonstrates this using the example of love. Eroticism becomes thereby philosophy, the lover a philosopher, with Plato’s Socrates serving as prototype. The question remains, however, how madness can be reconciled with a philosophical search for truth which relies entirely on rationality. This question must be considered within the context of the growing antagonism between irrationality and rationality, enlightenment and counter-enlightenment, cultic ritual and reason, in the fifth century. Evidence of this antagonism forms a helpful background for interpretation of the question of the role of insanity in the philosophy of the Platonic Socrates. It can be shown that Plato gives Socrates characteristics from the context of contemporary counter-enlightenment and thereby transforms these and integrates them into philosophy. This process can be clearly demonstrated by means of the comparison of Socrates with a gadfly in the Apology.