tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017234.post5434133337927259398..comments2023-11-16T07:12:40.867-05:00Comments on Dissoi Blogoi: A Fallacy Noted, and Put AsideUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017234.post-3181126095833308662007-09-01T14:35:00.000-04:002007-09-01T14:35:00.000-04:00Please forgive yet another comment (so soon and wi...Please forgive yet another comment (so soon and without even any response to my initial comment on this thread), but I have just reexamined 3 passages that seem, almost by themselves, to vindicate Senn's contention that "There are certainly a number of passages in the <I>Apology</I> in which the good condition of soul is characterized as the greatest good." Senn of course <I>refers</I> to them in the passage Michael quotes; but it helps actually to <I>look</I> at what they say. See if you don't agree:<BR/><BR/>"<I>…If one of you disputes this and says he does care [for wisdom, truth, and the best possible state of his soul], I shall not let him go at once or leave him, but I shall question him, examine him and test him, and if I do not think he has attained the goodness [aretē] that he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior things.</I>" (Ap. 29e-30a)<BR/><BR/>"<I>…I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying to persuade him not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself should be as good and as wise as possible…</I>"(36c)<BR/><BR/>"<I>…It is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible</I>" (39d; all trans from Grube).<BR/><BR/>It is true that at 29e (as well as at 36c) Socrates appears to be urging his listeners to care for <I>other</I> things besides simply the soul's being as good as possible (elsewhere (e.g., 30b, 31b, 41e) called simply "virtue"): he seems to urge them to care for truth and wisdom as well. (So, accordingly, at 30a we have the plural "most important thing<B>s</B>".) But we should note that at 30a7-b2, 31b5, 39d6-8, and 41e2-5 Socrates mentions only virtue or (what is the same thing) the soul's being as good as possible and fails to mention truth and wisdom; and in all these passages Socrates is trying convince his listeners of what is <I>most</I> important. Now, as there cannot be more than one <I>most</I> important thing, these textual facts strongly indicate that the use of "kai" (usually translated into the English "and") at 36c7 and in the last half of 29e1 is epexegetic: we are to understand those "other" things to be in fact one and the same with virtue or the soul's being as good as possible.<BR/><BR/>Isn't this at least prima facie reason for taken Socrates as regarding virtue as the greatest of all goods (whether or not he also regards it as the sole intrinsic good)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11017234.post-48052435525069901902007-08-31T10:13:00.000-04:002007-08-31T10:13:00.000-04:00"…Why would [Senn] have written, 'There are certai..."…Why would [Senn] have written, 'There are <I>certainly</I> a number of passages in the <I>Apology</I> in which the good condition of soul is characterized as the greatest good'?"<BR/><BR/>One guess: Though his sons, at the time of his speech to the Athenians, are quite young (one a "lad", the others younger, and one no more than a babe in arms – <I>Phaedo</I> 60a), Socrates has already determined that, when they become adults, they will have to be admonished if they care for anything before virtue (41e):<BR/><BR/>"<I>…when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue…</I>" (trans. Grube)<BR/><BR/>There is not supposed to be something peculiar about Socrates' sons; as Socrates points out, the same is true of all the Athenians that Socrates has been similarly admonishing his whole life. At Ap. 41e, then, Socrates is clearly suggesting a view according to which one – anyone! – ought to be given "grief" if they care for <I>anything</I> before virtue. The view suggested is that if one is human, then <I>necessarily</I> one <I>ought</I> to care for virtue before <I>anything</I> else (and not just before "external goods and the good of the body"). Certainly <I>one</I> perfectly appropriate way of describing such a view is to say that, according to it, virtue is, in <I>one</I> sense at least, the "greatest" good there is (at least for human beings) – i.e., in the sense that nothing (at least right now) ought to be taken more seriously than it. (Of course, even according to such a view, virtue might properly be said <I>not</I> to be the "greatest" good in some <I>other</I> sense: e.g., if there is some other good for the sake of which virtue ought (now) to be taken most seriously of all things. The words "greatest" and "good" in English – and, I would think, the corresponding Greek words – are notoriously polyguous.)<BR/><BR/>Now given the fact that, as Michael notes, Senn concludes, "None of this, however, proves that for Socrates virtue is the sole ultimate end", it stands to reason that Senn did indeed recognize that although Socrates does characterize virtue as (in one sense) the greatest good, this doesn’t imply that Socrates regards it as the sole ultimate end. From at least those passages Michael quotes, it's not clear to me that Senn himself was taken in or tempted by the "fallacy" Michael describes. In fact, he seems to warn us against it, which is maybe why he "puts it aside" and turns to a different argument.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com