Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 2009, 36, 40-49

© 2009 Human Kinetics, Inc.

Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest

for Knowledge
Heather L. Reid

In his seminal work, Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga argues persuasively that sport
is a form of play. This view is widely accepted among sport philosophers today, as
evidenced by the use of terms such as ‘nonserious,’ ‘autotelic,’ and ‘gratuitous’ to
describe the subject of our study. At the same time this play-paradigm seems at
odds with the modern world, which takes sports very seriously, puts them in the
service of deliberate ends, and views them (or competition at least) as essential for
human thriving. Indeed our modern use of sport seems to better resemble ancient
Greece, where athletic contest (agōn) served specific political and educational
goals. Huizinga claims that the ancient Hellenes simply became unaware of their
contests’ autotelic character (5: 30–31); my own concern is that we moderns are
becoming unaware of–or indifferent to–sport’s contemporary ends.1 Insofar as we
still value the social and educational potential of sport in the modern world, we
can benefit from a study of its corresponding function in the ancient world. What
my own study of these phenomena reveals is that sport’s social and educational
benefits derive not from its playful character, but from its philosophical origins as
a knowledge-seeking activity.
Like philosophy, democracy, and other forms of competitive truth seeking
that emerged in ancient Greece, athletic contests display the characteristics of
authentic questioning, impartial testing, and public demonstration of results; fea-
tures that endure in such modern practices as courtroom trials and scientific exper-
iments. Hellenic sport was born with these knowledge-seeking characteristics, not
least because it was conceived in response to an emerging philosophical recogni-
tion of the fallibility of humanity and its traditional hierarchies. By setting up
rational, impartial, and publicly observed selection methods, both athletics and
philosophical inquiry managed to subvert worldly power and authority, thereby
fostering agreement among diverse communities without suppressing individual-
ity. Later sport and philosophy were adapted to the educational function of culti-
vating individual virtue (aretē) or, in modern parlance, moral character. As we
continue to pursue social and educational goals through sport, it is important to
understand how these functions were related in ancient times to sport’s philo-
sophical characteristics. Indeed we may better put sport in the service of humanity
today, by viewing it not merely as playful, but also as philosophical; as an expres-
sion of what Aristotle called the natural and universal human desire to learn and
know (1: 980a).

The author <reid@morningside.edu> is with Morningside College, Sioux City, IA 51101.

40
 Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge   41

I. Contests of Truth: The Social Function

of Truth-Seeking Athletics
“Olympía, déspoin’ alatheías” (Olympia, mistress of truth). So begins Pindar’s
eighth Olympian Ode (10: pp. 136–7). The ancient association between Olympia
and knowledge seeking derives partly from the existence of an oracle at the site,
but also from the less tangible sentiment that athletic results from Olympia were
reliable indicators of truth about the gods’ wishes and the relative merits of ath-
letes and their tribes. There was nothing new or revolutionary in the association of
athletics and truth. Our earliest accounts of sport-like activities (up to a millen-
nium before the Olympic Games) among Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Assyrians,
Minoans, and Hittites, show royals using athletic display as public evidence for
social standing and worthiness to lead. Rarely, if ever, though was the worthiness
of the ruler actually challenged.2 What was distinctive about Hellenic athletics
and Olympic style contests was that they were knowledge-seeking, rather than
presumption-affirming. Their outcomes were generally uncertain, they were gov-
erned by impartial rules, and they were subject to public scrutiny.
As a result, Hellenic athletics were from the start subversive. But what they
subverted specifically were dogmatic and relativistic standards for truth (i.e., those
controlled by worldly rank and power) and what they promoted were more impar-
tial and universal standards, capable of settling disagreements among diverse and
even warring tribes. Philosophical inquiry emerges in 6th century Ionia as an
approach to studying nature that has similar characteristics and similar results.
Having encountered competing religious and mythological claims from neighbor-
ing cultures, the Presocratic philosophers sought a more impartial and demon-
strable method of understanding nature—one that bypassed worldly authority and
social hierarchies. The dreams of athletic glory still harbored by underprivileged
youth are evidence that social subversion remains part of our modern conception
of sport. But sport’s power to challenge social hierarchies faces erosion–as it
always has–by those in power who would be subverted. To preserve sport’s
socially subversive function, we must appreciate its connection to authentic ques-
tioning, impartial testing, and public display of evidence.

Uncertainty and Authentic Questioning

The Greek term ‘philosophia’, which literally means “love of wisdom” (9: p.
1980),3 seems to have been coined in the 6th century BCE by Pythagoras, who
used it to describe those rare thinkers, like himself, who acknowledged not their
wisdom but rather their ignorance (2: 1.12). It was of course Socrates who made
this conception of philosophy famous by declaring more than a century later that
his renowned “wisdom” derived precisely from the awareness that he lacked
knowledge. We cannot truly love and desire what we think we already possess; so
we are philosophers only as long as we pursue authentic questions with uncertain
answers.4 Sport, likewise, is philosophical only as long as it is actually open to
finding answers which may conflict with what people already believe. The contest
must not be designed simply to affirm the status-quo, or any other preferred out-
come: it has to reflect the spirit of really wanting to know. When challengers
boxed the pharaoh in Ancient Egypt, the question of who would win was neither
42   Reid

authentic nor was its answer uncertain. Although such contests were intended to
reassure subjects of the pharaoh’s divine invincibility, they begged their own ques-
tion. Philosophical sport begins with authentic questions derived from real uncer-
tainty about outcomes.5
But where did such “authentic questions” come from? What prompted Preso-
cratic philosophy and contemporary athletics as described in Homer and practiced
at Olympia to embrace the uncertain, impartial, and public pursuit of truth? The
answer quite simply is: closely competing claims among divergent stakeholders.
Mycenean funeral games, perhaps the earliest form of philosophical sport, settled
competing claims to the deceased’s property. Patroclos’ funeral games as depicted
in Homer’s Iliad take this concept further by negotiating Achilles’ and Agamem-
non’s competing claims to honor and authority. Later, at Olympia, the religious
puzzle of who should have the honor of lighting the sacrificial flame came to be
solved by a simple footrace from the edge of the sanctuary to the altar.5 And in 6th
century Ionia, increased contact among diverse cultural traditions in the absence
of overarching authority prompted the development a more universal method of
truth-seeking.6 It shouldn’t be a surprise that the method they invented (now
known as philosophy and early natural science) resembled athletic games, since
all were responses to competing truth-claims.
What was distinctive—and subversive—about the athletic and philosophical
methods of truth-seeking is that the answering of the questions they ask is dele-
gated to the contest rather than tradition or authority. In this way they exhibit the
characteristically philosophical quality of uncertainty, or acknowledged igno-
rance. Although modern sport no longer addresses questions about religious favor
or worthiness to lead, it still negotiates competing claims to excellence and often
decides the distribution of cash, prizes, and educational opportunities. It is impor-
tant, therefore, to remain sensitive to the authenticity of our questions by keeping
social presumptions from compromising the integrity of the contest. The athletic
success of marginalized classes and races certainly has helped to subvert modern
social hierarchies, and it is widely recognized that preemptive exclusion of par-
ticipants based on class or race runs counter to the logic of philosophical contest.
But exclusion based on sex and inequities derived from financial disparity persist
in sport, drawing little criticism, perhaps because they reflect our presumptions
about athletic excellence. Sport’s ability to subvert social hierarchies requires first
that we honor its philosophical heritage of authentic questioning.

Open and Impartial Testing

The very act of authentic questioning displays intellectual humility with respect to
the truth, but for sport to be philosophical, humility must also be reflected in the
construction of the test. If one’s method for resolving disputes is simply to let the
local sovereign decide, or even to set armies to battle, one hasn’t fully acknowl-
edged the limitations of the human mind. Insofar as “truth” is understood as some-
thing universal and eternal, knowledge of such truths must be reliable and demon-
strable; not just a matter of belief, persuasion, or worldly power (military, political,
or otherwise). As Heraclitus taught us about the river, the world of senses is con-
stantly in flux;7 if we are to know something universal we must therefore approach
it through reason. This is why the Pythagoreans sought to understand the kosmos
 Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge   43

using impartial criteria such as number and proportion.8 It is also why Olympia’s
judges and organizers (the so-called hellanodikae), enforced contest rules very
strictly while rejecting all subjectively-judged events. Since their goal was to ded-
icate truly pleasing victors to a supremely wise god, their own biases and prefer-
ences couldn’t be allowed to interfere. Impartial mechanisms for truth-seeking act
to neutralize the effects of human fallibility and worldly bias, providing equal
opportunity for diverse possibilities: athletes, ideas, even hypotheses.
The basic features of Olympic-style sports, such as common starting lines
and level playing fields, exhibit the philosophical drive for rational impartiality.
Already in Homer’s Bronze Age, the fair construction of contests is emphasized.
In the chariot race, for example, there is no permanent track, so a common starting
line is literally drawn in the sand and the reliable elder Phoenix is sent off to ref-
eree the turnaround point. The starting positions are determined by drawing lots,
and when young Antilochos recklessly cuts off Menelaos at a narrow stream
crossing, a dispute erupts over the validity of the results. A serious discussion and
redistribution of prizes ensues until the community is satisfied with the end result.
The Homeric creed “to always be the best and outdo others” (4: 11.784) generated
authentic questions about who was the best. In the context of hand-to-hand
combat, the truth of a warrior’s aretē is important, and contests provided a rela-
tively impartial mechanism not just to affirm, but to impartially test it.9 Insofar as
the community’s welfare depends on contest results (whether they are imagined to
represent god favor or military prowess), it is essential to sport’s social and philo-
sophical functions that contests be constructed and conducted impartially.
Modern sports rules generally respect the principles of impartial testing;
competitors even switch sides in field and court games just in case some advan-
tage has slipped through the cracks. On the other hand, the competitive and often
greed-fueled drive to gain any advantage possible sets up an antagonistic relation-
ship between competitors and officials that often leaves the purpose of the contest
behind. Just as with scientific experiments, the value of the results depends on the
integrity of the test. Not only must competitors obey the contest rules, officials
must meticulously enforce them. The proliferation of doping in the 1980s and
1990s was due not only to unscrupulous competitors, but also to financially-inter-
ested foxes guarding the drug-testing hen house; it took the establishment of an
impartial and independent drug-testing body (WADA) to gain any real traction on
the issue. To be sure a variety of stakeholders can serve their interests though
sport. But the goods that all of us seek—results, revenue, honor, entertainment—
depend for their value ultimately upon the integrity and impartiality of the
contest.

Public Display of Evidence

The third characteristic of philosophical sport is public observation of the contest
and the effect this has on their acceptance of the results.10 Rooting for one’s
favorite athlete or team is as much a part of sports as arguing for one’s thesis is
part of philosophical inquiry. In neither practice, however, should the winner be
determined by who supports it or even how many support it. Rather, each candi-
date should be subjected to the rational and impartial test before everyone’s eyes.
The public’s interest in accurate results requires that popular opinion defer to
44   Reid

demonstrable evidence. Public demonstration leads to acceptance of contest

results by fostering consensus without appeal to tradition, authority, faith, or
violence. Indeed the unifying and pacifying effects of athletic games were thought
to contribute to the Achaean victory over the Trojans and the Hellenic victory over
the Persians. Olympia’s sacred truce made the Games a rare opportunity for
diverse (and often warring) tribes to come together for a common cause of worship.
Intellectuals came to exchange ideas just as boxers came to exchange blows.
Indeed intertribal contact at Olympia fostered the economic development of trade,
as well as the political negotiation of peace.
But getting rivals to agree on anything—even to imagine that they could
agree—takes more than a safe time and place. It takes common interest in a
common cause. Since the worshippers at Olympia had a common interest in
selecting victors who would please the relevant god—they took a common inter-
est in the validity of contest results. In this regard, nothing was left to chance. A
month-long pre-Olympic training camp was held at Elis under the supervision of
holy-men to assure the worthiness of every candidate. At the Games competitors
were literally stripped of their cultural differences and socially-constructed
inequalities and a stadium was built so that everyone could observe the process.
No doubt political rivalries were played out in the Games, but the public scrutiny
facilitated acceptance of the results even when they subverted personal preference
or conventional wisdom. Most important, the cooperation expressed in the Games
paved the way for economic and military cooperation without subjection to a
single authority. Through the use of such mechanisms as blind review and public
presentation, philosophers and scientists engage in a similar kind of competitive
cooperation for the common cause of truth, one ideally independent of power,
politics, cultural ideology.
Modern sport is still subject to widespread public scrutiny, albeit increasingly
through the medium of television. What has changed is the influence on the con-
test of unseen factors such as doping. In some sports this has eroded public confi-
dence in the validity of results and thereby reduced their unifying power. An
excellent example is the Tour de France, which found a winner in Lance Arm-
strong who was able to unify diverse people in the common cause of fighting
cancer. After Armstrong’s retirement, cycling’s long-term doping problems were
unmasked and the sport has been scrambling to restore its public credibility and
hence its value to sponsors. Even Armstrong harnessed his comeback bid to a
respected dope-testing expert who promised to monitor the champion and place
his test results on the Internet for all to see. Once a sport loses public credibility,
its potential for social subversion dries up. Both the impartiality of the test and the
authenticity of the question are drawn into doubt, and we regress to the pharaoh’s
boxing match with its dispassionate and incredulous spectators. In the modern
world, sport remains a worthy way to challenge social hierarchies and assump-
tions, but only insofar we values and preserve its ancient philosophical structure.
Sport must be open to authentic questions, secure the impartiality of its tests, and
strive for public transparency in its results.
 Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge   45

II. Contests of Virtue: The Educational Function

of Ancient Athletics
In Ancient Greece, the social function of athletics was already well-developed by
the time that gymnastics became an integral part of education for excellence
(aretē). Confusion abounded even in Plato’s time about how exercises apparently
focused on the body could build the moral strength we like to call ‘character.’ No
doubt it was the youth’s obsession with sports that led Socrates into Athens’ gym-
nasia where he learned and adapted tricks from the athletes’ trade to turn young
men’s souls away from victory and toward wisdom. But this philosophical jour-
ney, at least for Plato, does not leave athletics behind. Rather the force of character
revealed and developed through sport seems essential for those who would become
philosopher-kings in the Republic. This is because the body (sōma) was to the
ancient mind inanimate. Intentional physical movement was a product and expres-
sion of the mind/soul (psychē). The fit athletic body, as a product of voluntary and
intentional movement, is merely testament to the aretē of the soul. Athletics func-
tioned within ancient education not merely as physical training, but as a way to
cultivate strong, truth-seeking souls that would ultimately serve their communi-
ties. Their goals were not so different from ours; let us observe their methods.

Socratic Contest
It is well known that Socrates turned the natural investigations of the Presocratics
toward the explicitly educational ends of moral philosophy. Less well known are
the connections between the Socratic method known as elenchos and athletic con-
test. Plato’s persistent use of athletic settings and metaphors is more than literary
window-dressing. The Socratic dialogues exhibit the same characteristics of truth-
seeking as athletics described above. Like competitive sport, they expose imper-
fections, test for improvement, and provide public evidence of their findings.
Socrates adapts this athletic framework, along with its attendant lust for victory
(philonikia), away from the relativistic goal of defeat and toward the idealistic
goals of truth and virtue, that is, philosōphia.
Socrates was put on trial for corrupting the youth by publicly exposing local
wise men’s ignorance. The social subversion already associated with Greek
athletics was certainly part of his aim. Indeed he compares his “labors” in Apology
to those of the athletic Heracles, who liberated the Greeks from onerous monsters
and tyrants (22a). But Socrates’ shame game (indeed the verb for Socratic
examination, elenchō, means to disgrace or put to shame) has the explicitly
educational function of motivating Athenian youths to inquire for themselves
rather than pay sophists for gimmicky answers.11 Just as athletes are motivated by
losing, or at least the risk of losing, to spend long hours in training and preparation,
Socrates’ disclosure of ignorance is designed to motivate serious philosophical
inquiry. In this sense it is a benefit and he describes it as a service both to the city
and to the god, adding that the city should reward him like an Olympic victor,
46   Reid

since champions only make the city think itself happier, whereas Socrates offers
them a chance at true happiness (36e).
This idea that agonistic struggle (with its shaming and defeat) can be per-
ceived as an educational service remains central to justifications for scholastic
athletics today. Socrates’ use of dialectic clearly aims at the improvement of the
individual. “You love to win, Socrates,” says Callicles in Gorgias (515b); it is a
charge the philosopher does not deny. But Socrates is less interested in winning
the argument, than he is in winning over his interlocutors to the practice of phi-
losophy. He exemplifies–if he doesn’t invent–the friendship aspect of competi-
tion, explaining his challenge to Callicles as a test of the soul analogous to a stone
that tests gold (486c).12 Socrates’ elenchos is also described as an intellectual
undressing comparable to athletic nudity and aimed explicitly at psychic improve-
ment.13 He insists that everyone participate, chastising the aged Theodorus for
refusing to enter the philosophical conversation by comparing him to a voyeur at
a Spartan wrestling school. Replies Theodorus, “The Spartans tell one either to
strip or to go away; but you seem rather to be playing the part of Antaeus. You
don’t let any comer go till you have stripped him and made him wrestle with you
in the argument.” Socrates’ response is telling:
That, Theodorus, is an excellent simile to describe what is the matter with
me. But I am more of a fiend for exercise than Sciron and Antaeus. I have
met with many and many a Heracles and Theseus in my time, mighty men of
words; and they have well battered me. But for all that I don’t retire from the
field, so terrible a lust has come upon me for these exercises. You must not
begrudge me this, either, try a fall with me and we shall both be the better.
(Theaetetus 169bc)
Importantly, and unlike today’s scholastic sports, submission of oneself to the
contest is required—but all contestants are expected to benefit, not just the
winners.
As philosophers we value the challenge and even refutation of our arguments.
Why is public discourse about the value of failure in sports so rare? Misapprehen-
sion of athletic goals—even in educational settings—explains this phenomenon.
Colleges and universities use sports as a means to financial ends and students do
the same. Since financial (but not educational) results depend on winning, its pri-
macy in that environment goes largely unquestioned. Public risking and losing, on
the other hand, the value of which is educational (but not financial) is generally
avoided—and at the expense of moral education.

Struggling With Souls in Plato

In Plato’s Republic, athletics are woven into education explicitly for the purpose
of developing souls capable of philosophy and, eventually, community leadership.
The authentic question here addressed by athletics comes from uncertainty about
who should lead. And the role athletics plays in answering that question is not
simply the testing of hypotheses, but the testing and selection of souls that can
withstand the rigors of mathematical and philosophical education aimed at an
understanding of the Good. Plato also expects athletic soul training to turn
 Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge   47

individuals’ interests away from personal pleasure and material wealth in favor of
public service. Indeed the guardians and philosopher kings will not have personal
property or individual families.
The aretē sought in Plato’s Republic is described as the healthful and harmo-
nious organization of the intellectual, spirited, and appetitive parts of the soul.
Plato seems to think athletics can achieve this because they require the intellect to
apprehend the rules of the game and then to recruit the spirit and appetite to its
cause. In another dialogue, Phaedrus, this virtuous harmony is illustrated by the
athletic metaphor of a two-horse chariot in which the intellect drives a noble and
spirited horse alongside the strong but less obedient appetitive horse. Since ath-
letic success depends on the taming of selfish appetites and the directing of honor
or spirit toward the noble ends apprehended by the intellect, sport could train the
soul for higher education and ultimately public service. Significantly, Plato doesn’t
neglect any element of the soul in his account. Appetite and spirit are needed to
climb the arduous path from the cave of appearance to the divine light of truth—
and they prepare for this expedition through athletic competition.
Athletics in the Republic are neither playful nor autotelic. Plato uses them
explicitly to train souls and select a social elite who will go on to distinguish
themselves in academics and, ultimately, public service. Candidates are to be kept
“under observation from childhood,” and subjected to “labors (ponous), pains,
and contests (agōnas)” so that they may be tested “more thoroughly than gold is
tested by fire” (413cd). Our modern ideas that sports are a means of recreation,
entertainment, or personal and institutional income are all negated in Republic by
the abandonment of appetitive desires (which include wealth as well as physical
pleasure). Modern scholastic sports, by contrast, are generally pursued for profit
and at the expense of academics and public service. Whereas the primacy of
wealth is unquestioned today, in Plato’s Republic the most prestigious careers are
based on public service and require the abandonment of personal ambitions and
often one’s family and property. As seriously as sports are taken in educational
institutions today, I suspect Plato would lament that we don’t take them seriously
enough to put them explicitly and intentionally in the service of our most impor-
tant social functions.

Conclusion
Some say that we should look to Rome rather than Greece to see our own athletic
values reflected in antiquity. There, they say, sports were primarily entertainment
enjoyed by masses of inactive spectators and exploited by politicians who sought
public favor. But even the bloody spectacle of gladiator fights preserved the truth-
seeking and educational functions that connect sport and philosophy. While the
Emperor saluted the Roman spectators, who were seated in tiers according to
social class, the contest itself challenged that hierarchy. It gave the lowly “social-
ly-dead” gladiator the opportunity to prove his social worth by prevailing in a
publicly observed and strictly regulated test of relevant virtues. The condemned
gladiator who received the wooden sword of freedom from the emperor as the
community shouted its approval stands as an enduring symbol of sport’s ancestral
ties to philosophy.
48   Reid

Today, as philosophers of sport seek to critically examine and improve ath-

letic competition in our world, they should remember to recognize the ancient
resemblance between sport and philosophical inquiry. This connection recalls the
important social and educational functions of ancient Greek athletics and it chal-
lenges us to preserve the integrity of sport as a knowledge-seeking practice capa-
ble of serving noble human ends. We should appreciate sport’s capacity for social
subversion as well as its potential for individual education. This requires the
humility to ask authentic questions about hierarchy and authority and the courage
to let the contest answer them impartially without manipulation from worldly
interests and hierarchies. Finally, we need to preserve the public’s confidence in
the results—enforcing the rules of the contest no less rigorously than a scientific
study. After all sport, philosophy, and science all share knowledge-seeking char-
acteristics. Sport philosophers may preserve the social and educational value of
athletics if we view sport not just as a form of play, but also as a form of knowl-
edge seeking—one still capable of serving social and educational goals, as it did
in Ancient Greece.

Notes
1. Huizinga’s conception of play turns out to be so broad that I think he can plausibly include
Greek agōn within it. What we need to avoid is a narrower conception of play that ultimately
denies or ignores sport’s potential (in the ancient or modern world) as an important educational
and political tool.
2. Donald Kyle (8: p. 37) describes these earliest contests as “fields of play on which status
was defined and social orders were (re)constituted.” He notes, however, that competition was
rarely open and equal. Superhuman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs could not risk losing.
3. Sport,’ by contrast, is a modern term that derives from the Anglo-French desporter, which
means to divert or amuse. This etymological heritage helps to explain the focus on play in the
philosophy of sport literature. In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga claims that play is older than
culture itself (5: p. 1). By focusing on Greek athletics, I am not denying this claim, but rather
looking to the intentionally cultural practice of sport.
4. This is how Aristotle (1: 982b12–21) distinguishes the first Ionian philosophers from the
myth-tellers that came before them. He says they believed they were ignorant and pursued phi-
losophy to escape that ignorance; preferring reason and evidence to the traditional faith and
storytelling.
5. This is based on a passage in Philostratos (Gym. 5). For the latest on the scholarly debate
over the passage, ser Valavanis (12: pp. 141–5).
6. In fact the Ionian intellectual revolution was based upon political, social, and religious
changes described by Kirk, Raven and Schofield as a transition “away from the closed tradi-
tional society (which in its archetypal form is an oral society in which the telling of tales is an
important instrument of stability and analysis) and toward an open society in which the values
of the past become relatively unimportant and radically fresh opinions can be formed both of the
community itself and of its expanding environment” (7: p. 74). More specifically in Ionia this
included material wealth and the opportunity for contact with other cultures such as Sardis and
Egypt (7: p. 75).
7. Heraclitus was famous for saying that you can’t step in the same river twice. On the reli-
ability of reason, see (3: p. 27).
 Sport, Philosophy, and the Quest for Knowledge   49

8. The Milesians sought a single substance underlying all things. The Greek term kosmos,
means not only universe but order. The general idea of Pythagoreanism was to impose order on
disorder. Numerical philosophy emphasized proportion and a common standard by which all
things could be measured/ordered. See (3: p. 106).
9. Says Kyle (8: pp. 56, 68) of the Homeric era: “Contests were a mechanism of status-
definition. . . . [In the Odyssey] sport clarifies status relationships (and here ethnicities as well)
and furthers the hero’s reintegration and return to society.
10. This is implied in the common roots of the words agōn (contest) and ‘agora’ (market-
place).
11. In addition, in writing aporetic dialogues, mightn’t Plato be attempting to produce the same
effect among his readers? It makes particular sense that Plato should have portrayed Socrates
defeating rival educators in Athens. After all, Plato had his Academy to promote.
12. Since friends are by definition those who seek the benefit or improvement of their friends,
the competitor’s challenge is a form of friendship. See Hyland (1978).
13. This is suggested when Theaetetus is asked to “show himself” for Socrates’ examination
(Theaetetus 145b). Socrates then scolds Theodorus for refusing to enter the conversation, asking
him whether it would be right, were he visiting a Spartan wrestling-school, “to sit and watch
other men exercising naked—some of them not much to look at—and refuse to strip yourself
alongside of them, and take your turn of letting people see what you look like?” (162b).

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