The Socratic Way of Life

Thomas L. Pangle’s book on this single work of Xenophon draws on long familiarity with it that has to be respected. It enables him in his introduction to relate Xenophon and his Socrates to more recent figures who loom large in political discourse. It helps him to see the importance of things that Xenophon does not say in Socrates’ defense (pp. 37-41) or elsewhere, trying to tease out Xenophon’s own views from some of his silences. He finds relevant not only what Xenophon (unlike Plato) chooses not to mention (p. 80) but also what he mislabels (monologue as ‘dialogue’, p. 92). He notices many twists that are unusual in this work and therefore invite us to notice them that much more, while also drawing attention to some expression that is used for the first time in it (e.g. an exclamation with Zeus’s name at 2.2.13, 84). Pangle is an experienced and observant reader of Xenophon.

With this rich monograph on Xenophon’s Memorabilia —equally remarkable for its loyalty to Strauss and its originality—Pangle has definitively established himself as Strauss’s greatest living student. . . . Pangle’s reading of Hercules’ choice between Virtue and Vice (Memorabilia  ii 1) leads to a revealing contrast between ‘Heroic and Socratic Virtue’, one that valorizes ‘his joyful study, together with friends, of great old books.' The attention Pangle gives to pictorial representations of this famous passage in the notes (241, 253-254) points to another excellence of his book: it is filled with reliable erudition. Particularly interesting is Pangle’s attention to Shaftesbury (116, 196, 203, 218, 238-241, 253, and 256), but useful references to Telemann (229 and 241), Handel (229 and 241), Proust (245), Benjamin Franklin (219n22), and John Adams (241n97), constitute a welcome step . . ... Unusual too is Pangle’s attention to philology; he has inspected the manuscript tradition and it shows (220, 221, 226, 229-230, 232- 235). But what shows even more is his attention to what he calls ‘conventional’ (233n29 and 237n63), i.e., non-Straussian, scholars. More charitable than he could otherwise have been, Pangle is in dialogue throughout with Xenophon’s non-Straussian expositors, including currently active scholars like Louis-André Dorion and Vivienne Gray (see Index entry on 283). . . . I will be hoping that the new orthodoxy will follow Pangle’s example by illuminating, even if only by contrast, the kind of ‘noble generosity’ (111) that made Xenophon’s Socrates intent on benefiting others, even if that meant dying καλῶς.

Pangle’s book is especially impressive in its portrayal of the Xenophontic Socrates’ understanding of the divine and the role of the gods in the city. It is difficult to overstate the importance to philosophy’s understanding of itself of the differences here between Plato’s Socrates and Xenophon’s. Pangle is to be applauded for grappling with this subject. May Zeus grant us more edifying commentaries from Pangle in this vein—and more work on Xenophon by any and all newcomers wishing to read him not just as a statesman but as a philosopher.