Dialectic Shame: The Elusive Status of a Transformative Emotion

In Plato’s dialogues, elenchos works as a refutative practice that generates dialectical shame, exposing contradictions between an interlocutor’s stated beliefs and what emerges through Socratic questioning. This productive shame, which is an internal spur toward truth and moral realignment, offers a useful lens for reading hagiographic and martyrological narratives, where refutation likewise produces shame that redirects characters toward spiritual insight or transformation. By placing Platonic dialectical shame alongside the shame of refutation in hagiography, this contribution highlights a shared narrative logic across a longue durée: refutation becomes a catalyst for ethical or spiritual conversion.