Abstract

The paper aims to examine the semantics of hybris as “inversion” as one of the leitmotifs of the Symposium relating to the topic of interacting opposites. This theme unfolds throughout the dialogue at the level of the vocabulary, the characters’ behavior, the philosophical content and the structure of the dialogue. The analysis of these levels of the text is implemented by means of the key metaphors of inversion and hybris in the Symposium – androgynes of Aristophanes and silenes from the speech of Alcibiades. The author concludes that the Symposium may be called, overall, a philosophical apology of hybris as inversion of “object” and “method” in the form of a sui generis “satyric drama”