Emidio Spinelli – Socratic Shadows in Hans Jonas – June 18, 2026

Abstract:

The aim of this talk is to document and comment on an encounter – or rather, a theoretical dialogue – between a major 20th-century philosopher, Hans Jonas, and one of the most significant, if not decisive, figures in the entire history of Western philosophy: Socrates. It must be said at the outset that this would be no easy task if one were to confine oneself to the works Jonas published during his lifetime. In the writings published over the course of his long philosophical career, in fact, we never find an essay or even a single chapter devoted entirely and specifically to the analysis of Socratic thought. We do, here and there, find sporadic allusions and fleeting mentions, sufficient only to bear witness to certain recurring characteristics of Socrates, which seem to constitute, so to speak, the almost ‘automatic’ backdrop to the relationship Jonas maintains with him.
Anyway, from a brief and selective overview of references to Socrates in Jonas’s published works, two key points seem to emerge.
1. He appears to cut the Gordian knot of the ‘Socratic question’ in a clear and unequivocal manner: the, and not just one, privileged source of reliable information on Socrates can only be Plato, he and he alone, drawn upon across the full range of his dialogical works.
2. On several occasions and in various ways, however, he seems to wish to distinguish Socrates from Plato and thus to align himself with those who believe it is possible to describe a distinct Socratic character that is not overshadowed by the Platonic one.
If this is the case, it will then be legitimate and useful to identify a privileged textual locus, in which and from which a complete and coherent Jonasian portrayal of Socrates can emerge. Precisely for this reason, a specific attention will be devoted to a short, still unpublished, but highly significant paper: Socratic Virtue and Wisdom. After examinig the strict interconnection existing among some Socratic key-concepts (as for example: nature, good, goal, knowledge), Jonas here presents Socrates as the champion of a strong idea of theoria, intended as knowledge of the essence and based on a form of (inacceptable) dualism even more radical than the Platonic dualistic approach.

Bio:

Emidio Spinelli is currently Full Professor at “Sapienza” Università di Roma (‘History of Ancient Philosophy’/Department of Philosophy) and Vice-Rector for Right to Study and Didactic Quality at the same University. He has been President of the Società Filosofica Italiana (2016-2025) and also President of the Italian Organizing Committee on occasion of the XXV World Congress of Philosophy (Rome, 1-8 August 2024). His major scholarly interests include ancient scepticism, Presocratics, Atomists, Socrates and the Socratics, Plato, Stoics, Epicureans, literary and philosophical papyri, ancient theatre, reception of classical antiquity, Hans Jonas, and Giuseppe Rensi.