The Other of the Other: Seth Benardete’s View of Socrates

Following in the footsteps of his teacher Leo Strauss, Seth Benardete
devoted his life to understanding “the problem of Socrates”: Plato’s
complex and enigmatic portrayal of the ironic Socrates’ embodiment
of the philosophic life. This paper introduces Benardete’s rich and
dense interpretive work by focusing on his understanding of two of
Socrates’ most distinctive characteristics: his daimonion and his eros.
Like Strauss, Benardete reads Plato’s dialogues as a response to
Aristophanes’ fundamental but friendly critique of Socrates in the
Clouds. In this context, the daimonion and eros emerge as the
manifestation of Socrates’ self-knowledge, and thus of political
philosophy as the “eccentric core” of philosophy. Guided by Plato,
Benardete subsequently moves beyond the “quarrel between poetry
and philosophy” to trace the Socratic turn and the origins of political
philosophy all the way back to Homer.