Freud and Plato on Sophistic Joking

In a recent article I dealt with some features of the Platonic dialogues which illustrate Freud's theory of play.4 His theory rests on the fundamental principle that various forms of play are means for release of psychic tension resulting from conflict between rational and nonrational impulses. For his part, Plato was aware that logical thought does not proceed in a vacuum; it takes place in a social context which brings many levels of personality into play. Plato's sensitivity to this aspect of philosophy is directly connected with his own recognition that nonrational impulses can express themselves in disguised form through higher activities. The most important of these activities is, of course, philosophy itself. Philosophy, which for Plato typically took the form of spontaneous dialogue, was verbal activity par excellence, and his theory of love takes account of the fact that erotic impulses in particular may be diverted into complex “play,” including play with words. Freud's general psychological theory provided him with the means to rediscover this insight and then to refine and elaborate it in many directions not open to Plato. His investigation of verbal play in particular led him to a study of joking, some aspects of which can again be illustrated by a curious feature of Greek intellectual life that attracted Plato's attention.

We are indebted chiefly to one dialogue—the Euthydemus—for information on this point. The dialogue is not one of Plato's better-known works. It contains several rousing declarations of what true philosophy is, but since it is an early Socratic work, it does not include any developed metaphysical doctrine. Its relative obscurity, however, may also be due as much to the fact that most of what it