Socrates Among the Corybantes: Being, Reality, and the Gods

193 Pages·2000·3.003 MB·English

by  Carl Levenson

SOCRATES
AMONG THE CORYBANTES
CARL LEVENSON
Philosophy / Religion
Carl Levenson received his doctorate from the Uni-
versity of Chicago where he wrote his dissertation on
Augustine's Confessions under the direction of Mircea
Eliade, Paul Ricoeur, and David Tracy. He is a Professor
of Philosophy at Idaho State University.
SOCRATES
AMONG THE CORYBANTES
In Plato's dialogues, we find many references to
Corybantic rites—rites of initiation performed in honor of
the goddess Rhea. But in the dialogue titled the Euthydemus,
there is more than a mere reference to the rites to be found.
Within the context of Socratic dialectic the ancient rites of
the Corybantes are acted out—although veiled and dis-
torted. This is what Carl Levenson argues in his new book
Socrates Among the Corybantes.
If Levenson is correct in his thesis about the
Euthydemus, then this dialogue is a valuable source for the
history of religion as the rites of the Corybantes were meant
to be secret. And since the Corybantic rites are of the
Dionysian / Eleusinian type, Plato gives us a glimpse of
the reality of Dionysiac ecstacy. This interesting knowledge
of these rites has usually been lost in the academic asser-
tion that the Euthydemus was just a satire on philosophic
arguing (which it is), and hence it has been consigned to a
marginal place in Plato's canon. But here Plato is rejecting
his abstract theories on form in favor of intimacy with the
reality of the world, of matter and being rather than form.
Levenson states that complete immersion in the material sub-
strate of the world is what Plato discovered at the heart of
Dionysian ecstacy, and the aim of ecstasy, as Plato said, is
to purify the soul of ancient guilt.

Socrates
Among
the
Corybantes

As if befell Parmeniscus in the legend, who in the
cave of Trophonius lost the power to laugh, but go it
again on the island of Delos, at the sight of the
shapeless block exhibited there as the image of the
goddess Leto, so it has befallen me. When I was
young, I forgot how to laugh in the cave of
Trophonius; when I was older, I opened my eyes and
beheld reality, at which I began to laugh, and since
then I have not stopped laughing.
S0ren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
We must recognize the presence in Plato...of a
peculiar vein of freakish humor.
A. E. Taylor, Plato

Socrates
Among
the Corybantes
Being, Reality, and the Gods
CARL LEYENSON
Spring Publications
Woodstock, Connecticut
Dunquin Series 25
© 1999 by Spring Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Spring Publications, Inc.;
299 East Quassett Road;
Woodstock, Connecticut 06281
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper.
Book designed and edited by JFL.
Book composed by B. Spalding Harris.
Cover design by Christopher Ludwig.
The cover image is from an ancient Greek statue of Socrates.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Levenson, Carl Avren, 1949-
Socrates among the Corybantes : Reality, being, and the gods
/ by Carl Levenson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88214-226-7 (alk. paper)
1. Plato. Euthydemus. 2. Corybantes. I. Title.
B369.L48 1999
184—dc21 99-41161
CIP
In memory of Benjamin Crain Levenson (1918-1998),
my father and a musician;
and in honor of Sylvia Pisner Levenson, my mother.