The Jewish gadfly: Solomon Maimon's Socratic irony and modern Yiddish humour

A critical aspect of the ancient Athenian gadfly's philosophical activity was the humorous and ironic stance he used to sting his interlocutors. This paper makes the case for Maimon as a Jewish Gadfly, one that similarly relied on humour and irony to dismantle critically unexamined positions and challenge religious authority, whether Jewish or Christian. In analysing Maimon's Socratic irony and skeptical modern Yiddish humour, the paper pursues two main lines of thought; first, it emphasizes the previously neglected significance Maimon has had in the history and the reception of what we currently conceive of as “Jewish humor” and second, analyses the way in which Maimon's humour performs the same subversive and skeptical role Socratic irony did.