I shall take a little break before proceeding with St. Dionysius because the Intro is transitioning to the Saint’s treatment of the non-entity, evil, which treatment is apparently lengthy, and thus I will have to shore myself up for its necessary negativity.

From The Concept of Irony With Continual Reference to Socrates

To ask questions denotes in part the individual’s relation to the subject, in part the individual’s relation to another individual. In the first case, it is an effort to free the phenomenon from any finite relation to the individual. Inasmuch as I ask a question, I know nothing and am related altogether receptively to my subject. In this sense, Socratic questioning is clearly, even though remotely, analogous to the negative in Hegel, except that the negative, according to Hegel, is a necessary element in thought itself, is a determinant ad intra [inwardly]; in Plato, the negative is made graphic and placed outside the object in the inquiring individual. In Hegel, the thought does not need to be questioned from the outside, for it asks and answers itself within itself; in Plato, thought answers only insofar as it is questioned, but whether or not it is questioned is accidental, and how it is questioned is not less accidental. Although such a question form is supposed to free the thought from every solely subjective determinant, nevertheless in another respect, it succumbs entirely to the subjective as long as the questioner is seen only in an accidental relation to what he is talking about. But if asking questions is seen as a necessary relation to its subject, then asking becomes identical with answering. And just as Lessing has already wittily distinguished between replying to a question and answering it, so there is a similar contradistinction fundamental to the difference proposed by us, namely, the contradistinction between asking and interrogating; hence the true relation comes to be the relation between interrogating and answering. Admittedly there is still always something subjective about it, but if it is borne in mind that the reason for the individual’s asking thus and so is found not in his arbitrariness but in the subject, in the relation of necessity that joins them together, then this will also disappear.

In the second case [the relation of the individual to another individual], the subject is an account to be settled between the one asking and the one answering, and the thought development fulfills itself in this rocking gait, in this limping to both sides. This, too, is of course a kind of dialectical movement, but since the element of unity is lacking, in as much as every answer contains a possibility of a new question, it is not the truly dialectical evolution. This understanding of questioning and answering with the meaning of dialogue, which is like a symbol of the Greek conception of the relation between deity and man, where there certainly is a reciprocal relation but no element of unity (neither an immediate nor a higher unity), and genuine duality is really lacking also, because the relation empties itself in mere reciprocity – like a pronomen reciprocum [reciprocally retroactive pronoun], it does not have the nominative but only casus obliqui [dependent cases] and only in the dual and plural forms.

If what has been said so far is accurate, then it is manifest that the intention in asking questions can be twofold. That is, one can ask with the intention of receiving an answer containing the desired fullness, and hence the more one asks, the deeper and more significant becomes the answer; or one can ask without any interest in the answer except to suck out the apparent content by means of the question and thereby to leave an emptiness behind. The first method presupposes, of course, that there is a plenitude; the second that there is an emptiness. The first is the speculative method; the second the ironic. Socrates in particular the latter method. When the Sophists, in good company, had befogged themselves in their own eloquence, it was Socrates’ joy to introduce, in the most polite and modest way of the world, a slight draft that in a short time expelled all these poetic vapors. These two methods do in fact have a strong resemblance, especially for the kind of observation that pays attention only to the element; indeed, this similarity becomes even greater because Socrates’ questioning was essentially aimed at the knowing subject for the purpose of showing that when all was said and done they knew nothing whatever. Every philosophy that begins with a presupposition naturally ends with the same presupposition, and just as Socrates’ philosophy began with a presupposition that he knew nothing, so it ended with the presupposition that human beings know nothing at all; Platonic philosophy began in the immediate unity of thought and being and stayed there. The direction that manifested itself in idealism as reflection upon reflection manifested itself in Socrates’ questioning. To ask questions – that is, the abstract relation between the subjective and the objective – ultimately became the primary issue for him. (p. 34-37)

So the Greek emphasis on the eternal distinction between two people conversing is one of ever blossoming fullness and relationship between the two and the subject being talked about. This brings me to a slightly related comment about the difficulty of language in many philosophical works. I agree with others that it can be simplified, as I am want to do, but I also appreciate it as an art form. Highly detailed descriptions that dance and play around the subject are like a very detailed line drawing of a perhaps simple enough building. It adds shading like that in graphic novels. It also adds the movement of an intricate dance. It is accurate to say that the building is cubed and the dance is ballet, but there’s more to art and appreciation than that.

Another aside, I really enjoyed his lampooning of Xenophon and his description of Plato’s adoring relationship to Socrates previous to this passage.