PLATO and the PEDAGOGY of LAUGHTER

Abstract

The main hypothesis of this work relies on how Plato uses laughter as a pedagogical tool in the dialogue Euthydemus. We emphasize how the author draws the reader's attention to the risible behavior of the sophist brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. We intend to evince how Plato retrieves Socrates' comic character in order to contrast him with the sophists. The explanation for this is simultaneously pedagogical and philosophical. The aim is to demonstrate that traditional interpretations always tend to underestimate the comic elements in Platonic dialogues, especially when treating the author as a kind of "tamer of laughter".