The scene of Socrates’ death relates to us the philosopher’s last words, expressed in the famous and enigmatic sentence “we owe a cock to Asclepius. Make this offering to him and do not forget.” Before and after these words, however, Socrates makes and repeats a gesture that is overshadowed in the particular narrative structure of the Phaedo: he covers his face. This is a gesture of modesty, in which we can see the ambiguity and ambivalence of an idea that stands half way between polarly characterized semantic fields. In fact, the meaning of the idea of modesty extends from the initial anthropological field (nature/culture) to a psychological and social significance (society/individual) until it becomes the ontological background (qualified secret/unqualified secret) against which we can post-subjectively comprehend the problem of individual identity and the more general question of being. Therefore, if we bring Socrates’ gesture to a proximity with the mysterious figure of Melville’s Bartelby, we can grasp, in the comprehension of modesty, the meaning of the enigma as a selective and non-intellectual or cognitive experience of the meaning of the meaningless, that is, of the capacity of the individual to bear the burden of non-sense.

La scena della morte di Socrate ci tramanda le ultime parole del filosofo, espresse dalla famosa frase enigmatica “dobbiamo un gallo ad Asclepio. Pagate questo debito e non dimenticatevene”. Ma prima e dopo queste parole, Socrate compie e ripete un gesto, che la particolare costruzione narrativa del Fedone platonico mette in ombra, ovvero quello di coprirsi il volto. Si tratta di un gesto di pudore in cui possiamo vedere all’opera tutta l’ambiguità e l’ambivalenza di questa idea, che si colloca sulla barra di separazione fra ambiti semantici polarmente connotati e che si riverbera, dall’iniziale piano antropologico (natura/cultura) a quello psicologico e sociale (società/individuo), fino a costituire lo sfondo ontologico (segreto condizionato/segreto incondizionato) per una ricomprensione postsoggettiva del problema dell’identità individuale e, con questo, della più generale questione dell’esserci. Ecco che l’ultimo gesto di Socrate, accostato alla figura misteriosa di Bartleby narrata da Melville, ci permette di cogliere, nella comprensione del pudore, il significato dell’enigma come esperienza selettiva, non intellettuale o conoscitiva, del senso del non-senso, ossia della capacità del singolo di esserne all’altezza e di sopportarlo.

L'ultimo gesto di Socrate. Il pudore e l'enigma

TAGLIAPIETRA , ANDREA
2012-01-01

Abstract

The scene of Socrates’ death relates to us the philosopher’s last words, expressed in the famous and enigmatic sentence “we owe a cock to Asclepius. Make this offering to him and do not forget.” Before and after these words, however, Socrates makes and repeats a gesture that is overshadowed in the particular narrative structure of the Phaedo: he covers his face. This is a gesture of modesty, in which we can see the ambiguity and ambivalence of an idea that stands half way between polarly characterized semantic fields. In fact, the meaning of the idea of modesty extends from the initial anthropological field (nature/culture) to a psychological and social significance (society/individual) until it becomes the ontological background (qualified secret/unqualified secret) against which we can post-subjectively comprehend the problem of individual identity and the more general question of being. Therefore, if we bring Socrates’ gesture to a proximity with the mysterious figure of Melville’s Bartelby, we can grasp, in the comprehension of modesty, the meaning of the enigma as a selective and non-intellectual or cognitive experience of the meaning of the meaningless, that is, of the capacity of the individual to bear the burden of non-sense.
2012
5
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/5078379
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