Abstract:

Shame and rationality might well seem to have nothing to do with one another: shame belongs to the domain of psychology and morality, rationality to that of logic and reason; shame depends upon particular social formations while rationality has a universalist aspiration. But Plato’s Gorgias shows how shame and rationality interact with one another: the force of norms of rational discourse is not only strengthened but is even established by the use of conversational techniques employed to create feelings of shame. Can rationality really do without shame at all? And is there not a kind of rationality inherent in shame itself? I offer in part a close reading of passages in Plato’s Gorgias, in part an analysis of the relations between shame and rationality. I suggest that the normative force of rationality depends upon emotions like shame, and that rationality is one form of socially sanctioned discursive practice among others.