Dissoi Blogoi

Mystery Passage

2008-11-05T22:25:00.002-05:00

Needless to say, no one could pick out a type of bookstore in this way today.

No googling allowed!

I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street. Evening was just closing in and it was raining. I had been wandering for hours in similar mean streets, always in the rain and always in evening twilight. Time seemed to have paused on that dismal moment when only a few shops have lit up and it is not yet dark enough for their windows to look cheering. And just as the evening never advanced to night, so my walking had never brought me to the better parts of the town. However far I went I found only dingy lodging houses, small tobacconists, hoardings from which posters hung in rags, windowless warehouses, goods stations without trains, and bookshops of the sort that sell The Works of Aristotle. I never met anyone. But for the little crowd at the bus stop, the whole town seemed to be empty. I think that was why I attached myself to the queue.

Ancient Philosophy from Brazil, Online

2008-11-05T21:45:00.003-05:00

Issue II, Volume II, of the Journal of Ancient Philosophy, published jointly by the University of São Paulo and the University of Campinas, is now available online.

Contents:

Articles:

João Hobuss:  Sobre o Significado da Doutrina da ‘Mediedade’ em Aristóteles

Yara Frateschi:  Virtude e Felicidade em Aristóteles e Hobbes

Susan M. Purviance: Thumos and the Daring Soul: Craving Honor and Justice

Barbara Botter: Ressemblance et Participation chez Platon

Translations:

Marco Zingano:  O Tratado do Impulso e da Faculdade Impulsiva de Alexandre de Afrodísia e sua versão em Miguel de Éfeso

Reviews:

Zingano, Marco: Estudos de Ética Antiga. São Paulo: Discurso Editorial, 2007. ISBN: 978-85-86590-61-0 (Inara Zanuzzi)

I notice that the first issue has an essay by Carlo Natali, which will test my very minimal Portugese: "O Logos peri philias. Notas sobre a natureza e os propósitos dos livros VIII – IX da Ética Nicomaquéia".

Btw, the webpage has one of the clearest images I've seen of the Aristotle bust from the KHM in Vienna:

"a wonderful thing happens"

2008-11-03T16:07:00.003-05:00

Some day in the study of virtue it might actually be useful to study what those who clearly have a virtue say about it. Consider for instance these remarks of Col. John Ripley, who died today, an American Marine who led 600 men in battle against 20,000 Vietnamese soldiers: "When you know you're not going to make it, a wonderful thing happens. You stop being cluttered by the feeling that you're going to save your butt."

Here's a serious warrior reflecting on how something 'wonderful' happens in battle when you cease caring about your own ... (it's essential to the sentiment that one say) butt.

Gods As We See Them, part II

2008-10-31T14:07:00.002-04:00

I asked yesterday about Xenophanes' argument (is there one?), because it seems to me that the fragments are today standardly taken to express an indifference argument, but I don't see that that is the only, or most plausible, alternative.

The indifference argument would be: different kinds of creatures represent the (bodily form) of the gods differently; there is no reason for preferring one such representation than another; thus, no such representation should be affirmed.

Now indifference arguments are common in presocratic philosophy. Still, this one seems off the mark here, for two reasons.

First, if that's the sort of argument that Xenophanes had in mind, he would never have presented the argument in a cross-species form-- because it would have struck his audience as absurd to say there was no reason to prefer what humans suppose over what oxen and lions might suppose! At least, this would be far from a natural claim to make.

Second, as put forward with regard to different groups of human beings, the argument is too sophisticated: one has to assume that each culture and racial group is on a level with every other, which is an egalitarianism that would have been more problematic for Xenophanes' audience than any theological conclusion he would have wanted to establish.

The truth is, we impute this indifference argument to Xenophanes because we find it easy to accept. We ourselves presuppose equality of cultures, and we presuppose, too, an innate tendency to 'paint the world with our own thoughts' (a la Hume and Freud), and so, from variations of the sort that Xenophanes describes, we quickly conclude that the differences point to the essentially subjective origin of the phenomena.

The move is well displayed by McKirahan's commentary. This is the argument as he reconstructs it:

...we Greeks think the gods have the appearance of Greeks, yet all other peoples portray the gods as having the distinctive characteristics of themselves; but a god cannot simultaneously have the characteristics of all human peoples, and there is no reason to prefer one anthropomorphic account to another. More radically, [Xenophanes] challenges the very conception of anthropomorphic gods. In this case too, the belief stems from humans projecting their own nature onto the divine.

I guess I want to say that this reconstruction stems from modern scholars' projecting assumptions that they find plausible onto Xenophanes.

I'll say tomorrow what looks to me an argument that has a better chance of being what Xenophanes actually thought.

Gods As We See Them

2008-10-30T14:47:00.005-04:00

I've been thinking about some sayings attributed to Xenophanes in connection with a passage from NE VI. I'll say what the connection is tomorrow, but for now the sayings, which you know, and some comments:

Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods all sorts of things that are matters of reproach and censure among men: theft, adultery, and mutual deception. (B11)

Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black; Thracians that theirs are are blue-eyed and red-haired. (B16)

But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own-horses like horses, cattle like cattle. (B17)

Comments:

1. Wikipedia expresses a common view in saying that Xenophanes is ridiculing what he describes. But what in the Greek (see below) suggests ridicule? I've heard Jim Lesher in a lecture point out how hard it is to judge whether a remark in an early Greek writer is meant to be a joke. In fact Lesher remarks, conservatively, in his SEP article, merely that "Xenophanes comments on the general tendency of human beings to conceive of divine beings in human form".

2. What is the argument which leads from "oxen and lions would draw the gods as like themselves" to "gods lack bodies" (or to whatever the conclusion is supposed to be)?

3. I don't think it is sufficiently appreciated by commentators how what is ascribed to gods (in these passages) are shapes and appearances conceived of as good (beautiful). Isn't the thought that Ethiopians find black skin and the snub noses lovely--that's why they represent the gods in that way. Presumably they are right to take the gods to be beautiful. And perhaps that's also why it's a mistake to ascribe adultery, theft, and fraud to the gods, as Xenophanes says elsewhere. (Lesher says that Xenophanes is supposing that "an attribution of scandalous conduct would be incompatible with the goodness or perfection any divine being must be assumed to possess" -- yes, if you are using 'goodness' in the sense of what gives appeal, not for what we might call 'moral' goodness.)

πάντα θεοῖσ' ἀνέθηκαν Ὅμηρός θ' Ἡσίοδός τε,

ὅσσα παρ' ἀνθρώποισιν ὀνείδεα καὶ ψόγος ἐστίν,

κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν.

ὡς πλεῖστ' ἐφθέγξαντο θεῶν ἀθεμίστια ἔργα,

κλέπτειν μοιχεύειν τε καὶ ἀλλήλους ἀπατεύειν.

ἀλλ' εἰ χεῖρας ἔχον βόες [ἵπποι τ'] ἠὲ λέοντες

ἢ γράψαι χείρεσσι καὶ ἔργα τελεῖν ἅπερ ἄνδρες,

ἵπποι μέν θ' ἵπποισι, βόες δέ τε βουσὶν ὁμοίας

καί <κε> θεῶν ἰδέας ἔγραφον καὶ σώματ' ἐποίουν

τοιαῦθ', οἷόν περ καὐτοὶ δέμας εἶχον <ἕκαστοι>.

Αἰθίοπές τε <θεοὺς σφετέρους> σιμοὺς μέλανάς τε

Θρῆικές τε γλαυκοὺς καὶ πυρρούς <φασι πέλεσθαι>.

Delays in the Post

2008-10-29T08:46:00.002-04:00

What is it they say about vacuums? Okay, I'll try to break free from my lethargy and post something...

Maybe it's not quite lethargy but simply a lack of conviction that the things that interest me currently would interest others generally.

Nicomachean Ethics VI in Brazil!

2008-10-16T06:18:00.005-04:00

I'm in São Paul for the week, for a conference in Nic. Eth. VI at the university, organized by Marco Zingano. Here's the very interesting program that my host has arranged, centered on a new translation and commentary of David Reeve:

Colóquio Ethica Nicomachea - livro VI

Departamento de Filosofia, Universidade de São Paulo

15 a 17 de Outubro de 2008

Programa do Colóquio

Dia 15 de Outubro de 2008, Quarta-Feira

- 14h00 : Gavin Lawrence (University of California) : Aspects of Wisdom: Aristotle and Phronesis

- 15h30 : Hendrik Lorenz (Princeton University) : Aristotle´s Practical Philosophy

- 17h00 : Cristina Viano (CNRS, Paris) : Sur la vertu naturelle

Dia 16 de Outubro de 2008, Quinta-Feira

- 10h00 : C. D. C. Reeve (University of North Carolina) : Nicomachean Ethics VI: translation and commentary (introduction to the text)

- 14h00 : C. D. C. Reeve (University of North Carolina) : Nicomachean Ethics VI: translation and commentary (discussion of the text)

Dia 17 de Outubro de 2008, Sexta-Feira

- 14h00 : Michael Pakaluk (Institute for the Psychological Sciences) : Practical Truth

- 15h30 : Fabio Morales (Universidad Simon Bolivar) : The Relation between Sophia and Phronesis in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics

- 17h00 : Catherine Darbo (CNRS, Paris) : tba

Organização : Marco Zingano mzingano@usp.br www.fflch.usp.br/df

And here's the view from my room:

As for 'practical truth', maybe I'll say more about that strange bird tomorrow.

De Dή

2008-10-11T14:59:00.007-04:00

I forgot something yesterday. Highlight also a word in the first clause of the sentence:

Διττῆς δὴ τῆς ἀρετῆς οὔσης ...,

since the codices have δέ, δή being Susemihl's correction. It seems that all the translators quoted by Gotthelf go along with this (since all of them use a roughly postpositive 'then') but should they?

This is not as insignificant a point as many fine points of translation, since δή serves to underline the chapter break (doesn't it?) --and perhaps here, as sometimes elsewhere, the chapter break should be viewed as irrelevant for the argument.

Also, Gotthelf had asked whether the genitive absolute construction at the beginning was more accurately rendered in English as a dependent or an independent clause: and, if what Aristotle really wrote was δέ, then presumably he was taking that construction itself to be bearing the weight of connecting his new point to what had preceded (cp. 1101b10, perhaps 1108b11, 1111b4, 1162a34, 1176a30. Is there a rule? I don't know.) In English, I think, the same force would be achieved with an independent clause (beginning with 'So' or the equivalent).

And then, interestingly, it wouldn't be true that, as Gotthelf claims, "a closer mapping onto the Greek syntax is more accurate". Or, rather, as is so often the case, it turns out that what looks to be a closer mapping really isn't.

Synecdoche

2008-10-10T13:15:00.006-04:00

I wonder if you saw the review of C.C.W. Taylor's Clarendon Aristotle volume on Nic Eth II-IV, by Allan Gotthelf.

I've been reviewing (for many months now) that volume for Classical Review, and what I find so daunting is formulating a judgment on the translation as a whole, since this requires a considerable amount of attention.

I suppose a quick method would be to look at some very challenging sentences of Aristotle, or sentences at which the translator aguably does not do such a good job, and rely upon these in the manner of an experimentum crucis. But Gotthelf has found an even easier method, which is to judge the entire translation by its first sentence, and by the translator's choice of equivalents for nine words!

You might not believe me, but yes, it's true--Gotthelf's conclusion, based on this evidence alone, is unqualified:

In sum, then, we appear to have a translation that eminently meets the goals of the Clarendon series: it is accurate, readable, and accompanied by a philosophically-oriented commentary -- to which we now turn.

You might say that 'appear' serves to qualify, but in the context, rather, it serves to restrict the evidence for his conclusion to the evidence which Gotthelf has presented.

(But did the editors ask that the examination of other texts be deleted? After all, Gotthelf promises something more:
Let's ask if Taylor's translation accomplishes this, and how in that regard it compares, in some sample passages, with the most frequently used recent English translations...
But then he goes on to examine only one sentence.)

By the way, as regards that sentence, Gotthelf looks at ways in which other translations diverge, and then asks whether Taylor is better on these points. But perhaps a better way of going about it, would be to ask in what ways Aristotle's Greek is possibly suggesting something non-standard, or subtle, or interesting, and then see whether this gets suitably captured in any of the translations, Taylor's included.

I'll give you the sentence and highlight what I see as areas which require special attention, and then you can consider whether the translations are completely satisfactory at these places:

Διττῆς δὴ τῆς ἀρετῆς οὔσης, τῆς μὲν διανοητικῆς τῆς

δὲ ἠθικῆς, ἡ μὲν διανοητικὴ τὸ πλεῖον ἐκ διδασκαλίας ἔχει

καὶ τὴν γένεσιν καὶ τὴν αὔξησιν, διόπερ ἐμπειρίας δεῖται

καὶ χρόνου, ἡ δ' ἠθικὴ ἐξ ἔθους περιγίνεται, ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα

ἔσχηκε μικρὸν παρεκκλῖνον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἔθους.

Survived to Tell the Tale

2008-10-08T09:25:00.002-04:00

Who isn't on Anthony Preus' mailing list? But if you're not, you might find this interesting, from a missive today:

A conference to honour Alasdair MacIntyre on his 80th birthday will take
place at University College Dublin, 6-8 March 2009.

The theme of the conference will be "What happened in and to moral philosophy in the twentieth century?".

Alasdair MacIntyre will deliver an autobiographical paper, "On having survived the moral philosophies of the twentieth century".
Details at http://www.ucd.ie/philosophy/macintyre

(More to come later.)

I Dream a Genius

2008-09-24T15:23:00.002-04:00

Not a philosopher or classicist among the MacArthur 'genius' fellowships this year.

(A point of method. Shouldn't the very first genius fellowships be awarded to those who have a genius for recognizing genius, and then we can proceed from there?)

But I thought you might be interested in seeing all past recipients from those fields.

Classics
Ann Ellis Hanson Historian
Leslie V. Kurke Classicist and Literary Scholar
Dirk Obbink Classicist and Papyrologist
Thomas G. Palaima Classicist
Gregory Vlastos Classicist and Philosopher

Philosophy
Stanley Cavell Philosopher
Patricia Smith Churchland Philosopher
Leszek Kolakowski Historian of Philosophy and Religion
Richard Rorty Philosopher
Thomas M. Scanlon Philosopher
Judith N. Shklar Political Philosophy

Now, if only genius were received as a gift, as much as the fellowship.

I'm Back

2008-09-24T13:08:00.002-04:00

Hi, it's me again. I thought I'd resume blogging on ancient philosophy and see if anyone notices.

Actually, I won't see if anyone notices, since I don't care much about that, and that's not why I blog.

It was refreshing to take a break, and I was contemplating stopping for good. But then in reflecting upon my work habits for the day, I realized that I was consistently wasting half an hour after lunch reading Drudge, or checking e-mail for the nth time, or (even worse) looking at pseudo-necessary purchases on Amazon or eBay. Thus, I figured, why not blog instead? Call that the 'maximin argument' for blogging. It's the least worst waste of one's time. (Say that five times fast.) By the way, that's also the maximin argument for reading this blog.

Also, my wife told me not to stop blogging. (End of argument.) (Hey, but what does that mean .... ?!)

Also, it seemed wrong to blog when there were so many reviews of worthy books waiting to be commented upon, as, for instance, this review of James Warren's introduction to the Presocratics (which apparently no one has commented upon over at the BMCR blog).

Also, I wanted to see how my blog looked on Google Chrome.

And that's all for the day. If Aristotle's right, to do just this much is enough to be half-way to resuming as before.

Every New Word a Neologism

2008-05-09T17:01:00.009-04:00

I have been traveling so much recently (Florida, Vienna, now California) that I have not had time to post! But here is a curiosity for today.

Samuel Johnson once said that a book you haven't yet read is for you the same as if it has been recently published. (The Odyssey fresh every generation.) Can we say similarly that a word that you didn't know is as if it had recently been coined?

I encountered a word today which I know I had never seen before, and yet which for all I know may not be uncommon. It's not surprising that there should be words like that, but I don't know if this is such a word. So I ask you, have you seen this word before in English?

The word is: hypothecate.

It's used in two senses in English (see the OED entry below). Its more common sense is 'to support a loan with a pledge of property', e.g. you borrow money, and you pledge collateral for the loan; the creditor has the right to take possession of the property and liquidate it if you default on the loan, but you remain the owner of the property in the meantime. The loan is secured not by you, but by the property: that is, if the liquidation of the property ends up not being sufficient to repay the principal of the loan, you are off the hook for the rest (A pawnshop works in that way: the pawnbroker lends money for a fraction of the value of the pawned property and cannot take possession of it until some period for repayment has elapsed.)

In the less common sense, to hypothecate is to hypothesize (see Ezra Pound's pedantry, below).

Wikipedia says that maybe the noun, 'hypothecation', is used now in a third sense, as an abbreviation of 'hypothetical dedication' (yikes!), as in the earmarking of tax receipts for some particular purpose, to wit: "The new gasoline tax is a hypothecation for the funding of public transportation."

So, be honest with me: Did you know this as an English word already? (Yes, I am aware that anyone who knows the word will think it obvious that everyone does, and so a confession of ignorance is hazardous. But by the same token a confession of ignorance may be refreshing.)

(I suspect it's not common in English, even as a legal term of art, because the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1993 decided a case which hinged on the meaning of the word as used in a corporate charter.)

1. trans. To give or pledge as security; to pledge, pawn, mortgage.
1681 STAIR Instit. IV. xxv. §5 (1693) 619 The Fruits of the Ground..which by the Law were Hypothecat for the Rents of the said year. 1754 ERSKINE Princ. Sc. Law (1809) 197 The whole cattle on the ground..are hypothecated for a year's rent, one after another successively. 1755 N. MAGENS Insurances II. 55 We oblige ourselves and hypothecate, for the Security and Payment of the Sum of this Writing, the said Ship..and we oblige ourselves not to dispose thereof in any manner, until the said Sum be entirely paid. And whatever is done to the contrary, let it be null, as a Thing done against an express Prohibition and Hypothecation. 1756 ROLT Dict. Trade, Hypotheca, among the moderns to hypothecate a ship, is to pawn or pledge the same for necessaries; and into whose hands soever the ship comes, it is liable. 1797 BURKE Regic. Peace III. Wks. VIII. 319 Whether they to whom this new pledge is hypothecated, have redeemed their own. 1827 SCOTT Napoleon (1834) I. vi. 206 The assembly adopted a system of paper money, called assignats, which were secured or hypothecated upon the church lands. 1855 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. xii. III. 148 He had no power to hypothecate any part of the public revenue.
2. trans. = HYPOTHESIZE v. 2.
1906 Nature 7 June 136/1 Mr. Cowell hypothecated a resisting medium through which the earth travels. 1912 R. FRY in Gt. State ix. 271 Mr. Wells's Modern Utopia..hypothecates a vast superstructure of private trading. 1915 E. B. HOLT Freudian Wish i. 4 One will best..not hypothecate to this end any such thing as ‘psychic energy’. 1920 E. POUND Let. 12 Sept. (1971) 161 You are talking through your hat when you suggest that I..was ever ass enough to have picked ‘La Figlia’ for the fantastic occasion you hypothecate. 1952 Pediatrics IX. 724 One had to hypothecate the existence of a mutation of organisms.
Hence hypothecated ppl. a.; also hypothecator, one who hypothecates or pledges something as security.
1779 SIR W. JONES Comm. Isæus Wks. 1799 IV. 205 The property..was distinguished like all other hypothecated estates, by small columns, and inscriptions..containing a specification of the sum for which they were pledged. 1828 WEBSTER cites Judge Johnson for Hypothecator. 1865 Day of Rest Oct. 574 The iron box in the back sitting room, containing the hypothecated jewels, had been rifled.

Scholarship in Logical Empiricism

2008-05-01T08:06:00.004-04:00

It's always interesting to see how scholarship in ancient philosophy looks from the outside. Consider this paragraph from the review today in NDPR of the Cambridge Companion to (of all things) Logical Empiricism:

Another feature of much recent work on logical empiricism on display in this Companion is that comparatively less attention is paid to detailed argument reconstruction and assessment, and comparatively more to uncovering the causes -- both 'internal' and 'external'/socio-historical -- of the logical empiricists' beliefs. This follows the wider trend in history of philosophy more generally, but logical empiricist scholarship, unlike other subfields such as ancient and early modern philosophy, lacks the argument reconstructions and evaluations of earlier generations of scholars. Of course, there are very able philosophers, like Scott Soames, who have engaged in detailed argument reconstruction and assessment of logical empiricists' views (Soames 2003). However, readers hoping for work like Soames' in this Companion will likely be disappointed.

There are all kinds of interesting questions here.

Is it really the case that scholars in ancient philosophy, as the reviewer suggests, now have greater license in speculating about 'internal' and 'external' causes of philosophical views, because a previous generation of scholars spent lots of time giving logical paraphrases of arguments in classical texts? Does anyone now see things in that way, or isn't it rather that efforts of the earlier generation are viewed as flawed because limited and distorting?--whereas the minority of scholars who do regard the earlier analyses as valuable continue still to read texts in that way.

Also, I wonder about the comparison of 'logical empiricism scholarship' with 'ancient philosophy scholarship', in this sense. That is, I wonder if, quite counterintuitively, scholars in ancient philosophy as a whole have the same interests in mere history as does 'logical empiricism scholarship'. I once heard Warren Goldfarb say that he studied Wittgenstein's Tractatus because he wished it were true (although he knew it wasn't); but I don't think that generally 'logical empiricism scholars' think that, say, Carnap's Aufbau just might be true. Yet I wouldn't be surprised to find that a common motive among scholars of Plato, Aristotle, or (say) the Stoics, is that they indeed suspect (and not merely wish) that what they are studying is true--and they engage in the historical scholarship with a view to the truth. So ironically it might be the case that scholarship in ancient philosophy ends up being, in intention, less a matter of history than scholarship in logical empiricism.

Also consider this. That logical empiricism is being studied historically, by 'scholars of logical empiricism', shows that it is now part of the history of philosophy. But if Quine (say) is part of 'history', then which philosopher --even those alive today--isn't a part of 'history', and why isn't 'history' completely on a par with what is written by philosophers active today? That is, 'scholarship in logical empiricism' tends to break down the supposed difference between philosophy and history of philosophy.

Also consider: if logical empiricism is a matter of 'history', then it is one philosophical movement among others in 'history', in which case, surely, it needs to be argued for that it deserves special prominence of influence over any other school or movement in the history of philosophy, and yet, demonstrably, the landscape of philosophy in the U.S. is a direct result of logical empiricism. (The landscape is not that which one would see if, for instance, the most dominant members of a previous generation were unreconstructed Kantians or Thomists.) So isn't the profession, then, captive to arbitrary accidents of power and influence?

My Favorite Blog for Links

2008-04-29T00:22:00.001-04:00

My favorite blog for links?

Without question Terry Teachout's About Last Night, where scrolling far down in the right-hand column one may find links to the only existing movie of Willa Cather; movies of Leonard Bernstein conducting the overture to Candide, a young Van Cliburn playing a Liszt Hungarian rhapsody, or even (believe it or not) Mark Twain (a film made by Thomas Edison); and sound recordings of G.K. Chesterton, P.G. Wodehouse, Dylan Thomas, W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot ("Prufrock" and "Waste Land")--among many others.

Be forewarned: don't start looking at his collection unless you have an hour free!

And Teachout besides is the best writer reviewing the arts today.

WASAP the Finale: Pierre Destrée at Johns Hopkins, 4pm Friday

2008-04-28T12:05:00.001-04:00

The last talk of the DC Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy is to be given by Pierre Destrée at Johns Hopkins on
Friday May 2 at 4pm. The title is "Catharsis in Aristotle's Poetics".

Here is a link to a page of the Johns Hopkins web site that gives directions, information about parking, and link to a campus map.

The Free Rider and the Dumb Ass

2008-04-26T10:46:00.007-04:00

Here are some further thoughts on the Free Rider problem, and why the 'discovery' of the problem is distinctively modern.

I'd like to add to the Free Rider problem another difficulty, what I call the 'Dumb Ass' problem. The Free Rider problem is: Why should an individual contribute his share to a system of social cooperation, when he gets the same benefit, and even greater benefits (those of convenience and no loss of opportunity), even if he does nothing? The Dumb Ass problem is: Why should an individual contribute his share to a system of social cooperation, when others are doing nothing, and he'll get none of the benefits that ought to come of contributing?

Two examples from warfare:

Free Rider: the soldier who lays low and lets his buddies do all of the fighting; he comes out into the clear when the danger has passed.
Dumb Ass: the soldier who follows orders and holds his position, getting killed for it, when everyone else has breaks ranks and flees.

The puzzle about the Free Rider is why shouldn't everyone be a free rider?--and yet if everyone is free-rider, then social cooperation fails. The puzzle about the Dumb Ass is why ever should anyone be a dumb ass?--and yet if no one is prepared to be, then social cooperation fails.

We suggested earlier (following the SEP article) that a reason the Free Rider problem might be thought a problem in modern but not classical contexts is that classical thinkers more readily allowed the possibility, and reality, of altruism. But I think this is too crude, and false.

It's rather the case that the classical world generally held a different view of self-interest, which one might begin to spell out with the following statements:

1. 'Rational self-interest' involves not simply doing something that admits of a rational explanation (and is therefore 'rational'), but also doing something which benefits one's reason; and reason is benefited both through its expressing itself and through achievement. Thus, for instance, someone who acts in order to do his part to fulfill some rationally appealing ideal is pro tanto acting in accordance with rational self-interest. (Therefore, nothing excludes the Dumb Ass' acting in his rational self-interest. In some cases, perhaps, the Dumb Ass makes a choice of his rational self-interest over, as it were, his corporeal interests.)

2. The most valuable goods are those possessed through doing or achieving something (being active) rather than through receiving something (being passive). (Therefore, nothing excludes the Free Riders' acting against his rational self-interest: the goods he enjoys through free riding are ones that he merely receives.)

3. Greatness is a good (it is a 'value'), and greatness, or a certain superiority, is achieved through conferring goods on other persons, not through being the object of the conferral of goods. And so, someone who gives something to a friend thereby makes himself 'better' than his friend, and his friend's reciprocation is motivated, in part, by the concern to restore an equality in the relationship. (Therefore, the Free Rider is 'inferior' to those from whose social cooperation he benefits.)

Add to the above the following crucial consideration. In the dominant classical conception, human beings are by nature 'social' (civic, association-forming), and thus the question of how one is best to realize one's nature, and therefore attain one's true self-interest, is a question not of whether to enter into associations at all, but rather simply which associations are sufficient. But the dominant modern conception is that human beings are originally 'left alone' (compare Locke's 'state of nature', as the best version of this), and as result to form an association with another always requires a sacrifice or loss (of options, choice, freedom).

By the way, given the disparity as described between classical and modern, it seems to me naive to speak of the discovery of some problem or paradox by moderns, which classical thinkers all missed. What might concern me, rather, is whether modern social theory doesn't rest on some serious mistakes about human rationality and welfare.

What Goes Around Doesn't Always Come Back Around

2008-04-24T16:38:00.003-04:00

A student told me about this earlier today, and I couldn't believe it. Yet here's proof:

Aristotelis opera /
	ex recensione Immanuelis Bekkeri, edidit Academia regia borussica ; accedunt fragmenta scholia index Aristotelicus.

	Availability
Status:	v.1 Renewed - Due on 05-10-08 v.5 Renewed - Due on 05-10-08
Location:	CU: Mullen Library Stacks
Call Number:	PA3890 .A2 1960
Number of Items:	4
Library Has:	v.1-2 v.4-5

In the Mullen Library at the Catholic University of America, the Berlin Academy Aristotle circulates (this student has the two borrowed volumes in her room)! I was told that other, even more valuable rare books are in the stacks.

(What's the market price for each volume -- $1000 ... $2000 ... ?)

Make Your Voice Heard!

2008-04-23T17:07:00.002-04:00

I've constructed a poll for Dissoi Blogoi. Here's your chance to tell me and others what you really think of this blog!

To participate, simply follow this link.

(The real reason I've contrived this poll is to let you know about the application which it uses, Doodle. Recently I needed to schedule an exam in one of my courses, and I used Doodle for coordinating everyone's schedule. It's very convenient -- just go here and follow the link for "Schedule an event". )

Change in Topic

2008-04-23T10:17:00.002-04:00

For this Friday's lecture by Rachel Singpurwalla, which now will be:

'The Unity and Virtue of the Spirited Part of the Soul in Plato's Republic.'

Truth and Freedom in Plato's Republic

2008-04-21T23:04:00.000-04:00

The Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy

presents

Rachel Singpurwalla
Fellow, Center for Hellenic Studies

"Truth and Freedom in Plato's Republic"

Philosophy Library, Aquinas Hall
The Catholic University of America

Friday, April 25th, 2 pm

We're All Analytical Philosophers Now

2008-04-17T10:56:00.004-04:00

Here's a curious comment from Alex Pruss on his blog:

Occasionally, I find myself party to conversations about analytic and continental philosophy. It seems to me that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sextus, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, ibn-Rushd, al-Ghazali, Maimonedes, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant and Frege all practiced analytic philosophy for a significant part of their philosophical lives—some of these, indeed, for just about all of their philosophical lives. When I read these people, I find them kindred souls, clearly engaged in the same rational pursuits, using pretty much the same tools, as I am. To denigrate analytic philosophy would, thus, be to cut oneself off from much of our philosophical tradition, and to lack the tools of analytic philosophy is to severely limit one's ability to engage this tradition. Fortunately, I have found it rare these days for continental philosophers to denigrate analytic philosophy.

Hold on there! Can we define terms? What do you mean by 'analytical philosophy'?

Here's one definition, which uses a paradigm and counts something as more or less analytical depending upon its closeness to the paradigm. The paradigm is either: Frege's analysis of number in the Grundlagen, or Russell's analysis of definite descriptions in "On Denoting" (you pick). Both purport to use techniques of formal logic to solve long-standing philosophical puzzles.

'Analytical philosophy' so defined would be the project of aiming to solve long-standing philosophical puzzles through the application of techniques of formal logic. In that sense no one on that list except Frege is an 'analytical philosopher'.

If you say an 'analytical philosopher' is someone who cares about clarity and argument, then I'd say, why don't you simply drop the qualifier--and the substantive too-- since every thoughtful person cares about such things? Yet, if you were to say that an 'analytical philosopher' is someone who places himself under the constraint of not putting forward anything, or putting it forward 'as finished', unless it is clear and demonstrated (and why ever should one constrain oneself in that way?), then you eliminate nearly all of the figures on that list.

More troubling, perhaps, is why anyone would want in the first place to go through a list of significant philosophers and claim that they all "practiced analytic philosophy" -- not to mention that this assertion would have come as a complete surprise to those revolutionaries who initiated "analytical philosophy". (Aristotle and Hume "practicing" the same thing? Russell and Augustine? Ayer and Maimonides?)

Praeter Intentionem

2008-04-14T15:36:00.003-04:00

Suppose I make a general resolution to use just as much force as would be necessary to protect my life against attacks-- and it turns out that in one instance the force which is required is lethal. Have I murdered someone or only defended myself?

What about in the case in which, before I make the same resolution, I believe, with confidence and on good reasons, that a certain powerful enemy will make an attempt on my life?

Again, suppose I make a general resolution to promote the activities of the Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy and, as it happens, a paper given by myself is on the program. In advertising that paper, am I promoting myself or only the program? (Of course I knew that my paper was on the program in advance.) And if it could be one or the other, how would we decide between the two?

You judge for yourself.

April 18
Michael Pakaluk (The Catholic University of America)
"Necessitated Actions and Double Effect in NE III.1"

Skinner Building, Room 1115
Department of Philosophy
University of Maryland, 2 pm

A Defense of that Poor Whipping Boy

2008-04-11T11:09:00.007-04:00

Have you ever seen a home inspector inspecting a house by taking a long screw-driver and poking it into the wooden sill of the house at intervals, to see if the tool digs in at any point, meaning that the wood is soft and rotted?

That's how I feel too frequently when reading philosophy.

Consider the excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that I posted the other day. According to the author, Aristotle and other thinkers in antiquity failed to see the Free Rider Problem because they committed the Fallacy of Composition, confusing the goal of the community with the goal of the individual.

Here's the passage quoted by that entry in which Aristotle is said to commit the fallacy:

We see that every city-state is a community of some sort, and that every community is established for the sake of some good (for everyone performs every action for the sake of what he takes to be good). (Aristotle 1998, Politics, book 1, chap. 1, p. 1)

But now consider the Aristotelian text. You can see that something is wrong, because the lines quoted in SEP do not contain Aristotle's conclusion!

Ἐπειδὴ πᾶσαν πόλιν ὁρῶμεν κοινωνίαν τινὰ οὖσαν καὶ
πᾶσαν κοινωνίαν ἀγαθοῦ τινος ἕνεκεν συνεστηκυῖαν (τοῦ γὰρ
εἶναι δοκοῦντος ἀγαθοῦ χάριν πάντα πράττουσι πάντες), δῆ-
λον ὡς πᾶσαι μὲν ἀγαθοῦ τινος στοχάζονται, μάλιστα δὲ
1252a.5
καὶ τοῦ κυριωτάτου πάντων ἡ πασῶν κυριωτάτη καὶ πάσας
περιέχουσα τὰς ἄλλας. αὕτη δ' ἐστὶν ἡ καλουμένη πόλις
καὶ ἡ κοινωνία ἡ πολιτική.

Here's how I might translate, and you see that the inference occurs after the passage quoted (highlighted):

Since every city-state (as we see) is a kind of association, and every association is established for the sake of some good (everyone does everything for the sake of something regarded as good), plainly every association is directed at some good, and the association which does that most of all, and is directed at the good which holds sway over all the rest, is that association which itself most holds sway and embraces all the others. This is what is called the 'city-state'-- 'political society' in fact.

One might wonder how the statement merely of the premises of an argument could possibly constitute a fallacy of any kind.

Perhaps the idea is that the fallacy is contained solely in the line, "every community is established for the sake of some good (for everyone performs every action for the sake of what he takes to be good)". Yet here the translation (due to David Reeve, apparently) attributes a distributivist sense to Aristotle's universal claim, which is not required and fails to fit the context. (Jowett for instance, tipping in the other direction, has: "mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good".) (My own intuition is that Aristotle writes πάντα πράττουσι πάντες in order to include collective as well as individual action -- since clearly some things done are done through the actions of several.)

Moreover, gar ('for') doesn't always introduce a claim meant to stand as premise to implied conclusion.

Soft wood, I'd say; I personally wouldn't rest anything on it.

On the article itself, I don' t know if you consulted it, but it contains its own curiosity. As some readers of this blog have pointed out, the Free Rider Problem arises only if one excludes 'altruistic' motivation as original in an agent. But on this point the SEP entry says two things:

1. Scientific social science became possible only once the motives of agents were postulated as being purely self-interested, in the manner of Hobbes. (Oops, someone forgot to tell the Scottish moralists about this.)

A century later, Hobbes did not bother to advise acting from self-interest because he supposed virtually everyone naturally does so. From that assumption, he went on to give us the first modern political theory of the state, an explanatory political theory that is not merely a handbook for the prince and that is not grounded in normative assumptions of religious commitment. To some extent, therefore, one could credit Hobbes with the invention of social science and of explanatory, as opposed to hortatory, political theory.

(Notice that 'social science' thus understood becomes a purely descriptive project and cannot be of a piece with practical reasoning.)

2. But, on the other hand, perhaps the postulate of purely self-interested action is false.

Against the assumption of purely self-interested behavior, we know that there are many active, more or less well funded groups that seek collective results that serve interests other than those of their own members. For a trivial example, none of the hundreds of people who have been members of the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment is likely to have had a personal stake in whether there is a death penalty (Schattschneider 1960, 26). In our time, thousands of people are evidently willing to die for their causes (and not simply to risk dying -- we already do that when we merely drive to a restaurant for dinner). Perhaps some of these people act from a belief that they will receive an eternal reward for their actions, so that their actions are consistent with their interests.

To summarize, according to the author of the SEP entry, the postulate which is necessary for a field's becoming a science is perhaps in fact false!

Thank goodness we've long since worked our way clear of such obvious mistakes as the Fallacy of Composition!

BACAP Upcoming Tomorrow

2008-04-09T08:14:00.001-04:00

The Departments of Philosophy and Classics
Brown University
The Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy

Present

Heike Sefrin-Weis
University of South Carolina

Commentator: Daniel Devereux
University of Virginia

April 10, 2008
7:30 PM

“Pros Hen and the Foundations of Aristotelian Metaphysics”

Seminar Friday 10:00-12:00 pm
“An Aristotelian Science of Being?”

Philosophy Department
54 College Street, Room 119

For more information, please contact Mary Louise Gill, mlgill@brown.edu

Grad Student Aristotle Conference and Workshop

2008-04-08T21:43:00.005-04:00

CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference and Graduate Student Workshop on Aristotle

October 4-5, 2008
Saint Joseph’s University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Free Rider Problem, and Aristotle the Whipping Boy

2008-04-07T10:39:00.006-04:00

I think it's best to speak first of the "Free Rider Phenomenon" and then state a problem.

The Free Rider Phenomenon

Membership in a group is like an exchange: each person makes a sacrifice (S) (i.e. he gives up or does not take something he might otherwise have gotten) and in exchange gets a good(G) which is achievable only by the efforts of the group as a whole.

Suppose that he will still get G even if he does not sacrifice S. The group's provision of G does not hinge on his particular sacrifice of S. (This is what Tuck means in saying that "his contribution is negligible".) Then he might not sacrifice S and still get G. In that case he would get something for nothing; yet his continuing to get G will depend on others' making that sacrifice. Thus he's a "free rider" on the sacrifices of others.

Now, we know what some ancient thinkers might have called such a person--unjust, pleonectic, shameless, and unconcerned about the nobility, propriety, or appropriateness of his actions. "So people act badly"--you might say-- "what's the special problem?"

The phenomenon becomes a 'problem', I think, when we presume that the reasoning, "I can get G without S, therefore I shouldn't sacrifice S" is regarded as both (i) rational and (ii) universal or natural, i.e. common to human rationality. Then:

(i) If it's common to universal human rationality, then if one person may justifiably reason in that way, then all persons may-- but then the reasoning would be self-defeating, because no one would sacrifice S, and thus the group would not provide G after all.

(ii) If it's rational, then attempts to persuade or coerce individuals to act otherwise are attempts to persuade or coerce them to do something which is (strictly) irrational--and yet their achieving G seems eminently rational.

The Free Rider Problem, then, takes the form of a paradox: practical rationality is both impractical (self-defeating) and irrational.

---

About the comments: I think Eric Brown has made the interesting suggestion that the problem 'should philosophers rule' (Plato, Rep.) or, more generally, 'should philosophers regard themselves as bound to contribute to civic life' (a Stoic problem) --is a Free Rider problem. -- Yes, I think so, but wouldn't the difficulty need to be generalized more for this to count as a discussion of that problem?

Papabear I think points in the right direction, but let's see if we can't get clearer about it.

---

To whet your whistle, consider the following passage from the SEP article on the Free Rider Problem. Once more poor Aristotle serves as a whipping boy and is maligned. The author seems to agree with Tuck that the problem wasn't recognized for centuries, and his explanation is that everyone was blinded by the fallacy of composition:

This fallacious move between individual and group motivations and interests pervades and vitiates much of social theory since at least Aristotle's opening sentence in the Politics. He says,

We see that every city-state is a community of some sort, and that every community is established for the sake of some good (for everyone performs every action for the sake of what he takes to be good). (Aristotle 1998, Politics, book 1, chap. 1, p. 1)

Even if we grant his parenthetical characterization of individual reasons for action, it does not follow that the collective creation of a city-state is grounded in the same motivations, or in any collective motivation at all. Most likely, any actual city-state is the product in large part of unintended consequences.

Argument from the fallacy of composition seems to be very appealing even though completely wrong. Systematically rejecting the fallacy of composition in social theory, perhaps especially in normative theory, has required several centuries, and invocation of the fallacy is still pervasive.

Classical Thought and the Free Rider Problem

2008-04-05T08:16:00.005-04:00

I have in mind a series of posts on "the free-rider problem" and classical philosophy.

My thoughts were turned to this by a remark of Richard Tuck. Tuck has claimed (in a recent podcast on the subject, and also in print) that the free-rider problem, commonly regarded as an important problem involving collective action, was never identified as a problem by classical thinkers, and has been discovered only within the last hundred years or so.

Tuck is not alone in thinking this of course, but with his interests in the history of political thought, he's given the point some emphasis. As he says in the podcast (go to Philosophy Bites and scroll down to 10 Feb 2008):

It is very recent. Although people have occasionally thought they found precursors of this idea in the writings of Hobbes or Hume or Rousseau, or even to some degree back to antiquity, if you look at them fairly closely it turns out not to be the case. This particular argument--that I shouldn't collaborate in cases where my actions or my contribution is negligible--is virtually never found until the middle of the 20th century. And it's certainly the case that it's now taken on an enormous life of its own, and it's a major theme in political science. That's an oddity. Why should it be that something that seems so obvious, allegedly, to people now, didn't seem obvious for two thousand years? That's kind of curious.

Thus, some questions.

First, (for those who aren't familiar with it) what is this problem?
Second, is it really true that the problem is not articulated by classical thinkers?
Third, if this is true, why was it not articulated by them?

The third question is important, as there are a variety of reasons why the problem might have been articulated only in modern times, besides the explanation that we're smarter (include under this: our science or formal methods are better), or that social conditions have changed ("man and mass society", and all that) so as to make the problem seem pressing. Such as? For instance:

the 'problem' arises only given untenable or false premises, so the ancients reasonably never stated it;
if the 'problem' had been raised, they would have regarded it (on reasonable grounds) as having an obvious 'solution'; thus it would not have seemed interesting to them;
they would have regarded the problem as uninteresting, since they would have assimilated it (again, on reasonable grounds) to a much broader class of concerns, which did interest them, but which had a very different structure and form.

Heroes of Philosophy

2008-04-04T08:36:00.013-04:00

I recently discovered the work of contemporary Glaswegian sculptor Alexander Stoddart, whose work is often classical in spirit, and monumental in proportion. Consider this statue of David Hume on the High Street of Edinburgh, across from St. Giles:

Or this work depicting Immanuel Kant, worthy of a Stoic wise man:

His statues of St. Augustine, Adam Smith, and John Witherspoon are more along usual lines:

Clearly Aristotle or Plato would be worthy of this sort of treatment. But what about a recent philosopher? It seemed to me that perhaps Rawls -- although an objection might be that his personality was set against any kind of display drawing attention to himself. What do you think?

They Haven't Saved the Best for Last

2008-04-03T08:16:00.003-04:00

Only because "you shouldn't make comparisons". Let's just say that the Saturday program for the coming Texas Workshop (sent by a friend who will be there) looks very good also.

Saturday, April 5
8:30-9:00 Refreshments

9:00-12:00 Morning Session
Chair: Alexander P. D. Mourelatos (University of Texas at Austin)

9:00-10:30: “Dunamis for Kinesis and Dunamis for Energeia in Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX ”
Speaker: Mina Fei-Ting Chen (University of Texas at Austin)
Comments: Michael White (Arizona State University)

10:30-12:00: “Good, Better, Best: Teleological Principles in Aristotle’s Biology”
Speaker: Mariska E.M.P.J. Leunissen (Washington University in St. Louis)
Comments: Lesley Dean-Jones (University of Texas at Austin)

12:00-1:30 Lunch

1:30-6:00 Afternoon Session
Chair: Gül Russell (Texas A&M University)

1:30-3:00: “Stoic Logic and the Logic of Truth-Functions”
Speaker: Kevin Tracy (Lawrence University)
Comments: Robin Smith (Texas A&M University)

3:00-4:30: “Stoic Prolepsis and Meno’s Paradox”
Speaker: Henry Dyson (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
Comments: Hugh Hunter (University of Oklahoma)

4:30-6:00: “On Laws of Nature in Aristotle”
Speaker: Tiberiu Popa (Butler University)
Comments: Eric Sanday (University of Kentucky)

April Fools

2008-04-02T10:00:00.003-04:00

Today is April Fools day!

(Now is that an April Fools prank, or simply something false? What if I thought of it yesterday? I couldn't have said it then and made it a prank. Or suppose I'm simply late with it, as with a lot of other things.)

Texas Workshop, and an Insult to Hoeller

2008-04-02T08:48:00.004-04:00

This weekend, the annual Texas Workshop; I once found the full schedule on the web, but that's disappeared. For now, the first two days:

THIRTY-FIRST ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY WORKSHOP
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
APRIL 3-5, 2008
All sessions are in 501 Rudder Tower
Thursday, April 3
7:00-8:30 PM “Plotinus on the Objects of Sense Perception”
Speaker: Steven Strange (Emory University)
Commentator: Scott Austin (Texas A&M University)
Friday, April 4
8:30-9:00 Refreshments
9:00-10:30 “What’s So Funny About Being Overcome by Pleasure? Protagoras
352a-358d”
Speaker: Brooks Sommerville (University of Toronto)
Comments: Howard Curzer (Texas Tech University)
10:30-12:00 “The Aporia of Euthydemus 288d-292e”
Speaker: Rusty Jones (University of Oklahoma)
Comments: Anthony Carreras (Rice University)
12:00-1:30 LUNCH
1:30-3:00 ”Doxophilia”
Speaker: Sean Kelsey (UCLA)
Comments: Blinn Combs (Trinity University)
3:00-5:00 Keynote address: “Socrates in the Phaedo and Aristophanes”
Speaker: Marwan Rashed (´ Ecole Normale Sup´erieure)
6:00-9:00 PM Reception/Buffet Dinner at the home of Carolyn and Robin Smith

On a different note, what I've been listening to this morning, an album that competes for 'ugliest design ever'. It looks like something nightmarish from the DDR, not WDR.

It's Official-- A Break

2008-03-26T20:12:00.001-04:00

I just realized I've been taking de facto a break, so might as well make it de jure.

I'll return on Tuesday, April 1st (just fooling, of course).

Clean Up Operation -- Feel Free to Skip This Post

2008-03-19T10:36:00.005-04:00

I'll tell you how I like to deal with the problem I presented in my last post, and then I'll move on.

It's a real problem-- since surely the etymology of the word akolasia never was marked out in a diagram anywhere earlier.

This is a fairly fine-grained point, and I don't imagine that many of you have an interest in this that would compel you to work through the details. I'm presenting these remarks today simply for the sake of completeness.

Here's my way of marking out what is going on (see below). The lines highlighted in green represent those that I think belong to the original and primary discussion of the passage; the lines highlighted in yellow represent what I think is an interpolation and digression. That they are an interpolation is, I think, clear from the fact that περὶ ἡδονάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί (b10) refers back to σωφροσύνης καὶ ἀκολασίας in the first line of the passage.

In my view, the content of the phrase, τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομάζοντες μεταφέρομεν, belongs at the point of the red caret mark, because the metaphorical usage of the term akolasia is actually explained by the phrase ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες· κατὰ ταύτην γὰρ ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται τὴν ἀκολασίαν, viz. the term akolasia is originally used of children, because they are the ones for who it is most obviously true that they are 'undiscplined' in the sense of "undisciplined, when they might have been 'cured' had they been disciplined"--and it's in accordance with akolasia used in this sense, that the vice is named (κατὰ ταύτην γὰρ ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται τὴν ἀκολασίαν).

I don't see quite (yet) the exact form that the words τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομάζοντες μεταφέρομεν would have taken before they were displaced (and maybe you have ideas?). Nevertheless, it seems clear that the content of those words belongs at the point of the caret mark.

A small point: you may think that διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς is awkward; and I would agree. Yet the construction is not unbelievable as referring back to διακεῖσθαί πως, because that phrase is a stock phrase which stands for something pointed out in connection with virtues and vices but needing further specification (see πρὸς δὲ τούτοις κατὰ μὲν τὰ πάθη κινεῖσθαι λεγόμεθα, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἀρετὰς καὶ τὰς κακίας οὐ κινεῖσθαι ἀλλὰ διακεῖσθαί πως, NE 1106a5-6), and the EE author just conceivably thinks of the chart of virtues and vices as going a long way toward providing that sort of specification.

περὶ δὲ σω-
φροσύνης καὶ ἀκολασίας μετὰ ταῦτα διελέσθαι πειρα-
τέον. λέγεται δ' ὁ ἀκόλαστος πολλαχῶς. ὅ τε γὰρ μὴ κε-
κολασμένος πως μηδ' ἰατρευμένος, ὥσπερ ἄτμητος ὁ μὴ

1230b.1
τετμημένος, καὶ τούτων ὃ μὲν δυνατός, ὃ δ' ἀδύνατος·
ἄτμητον γὰρ τό τε μὴ δυνάμενον τμηθῆναι καὶ τὸ δυ-
νατὸν μὲν μὴ τετμημένον δέ. τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ τὸ
ἀκόλαστον. καὶ γὰρ τὸ μὴ πεφυκὸς δέχεσθαι κόλασιν,
1230b.5
καὶ τὸ πεφυκὸς μὲν μὴ κεκολασμένον δὲ περὶ ἁμαρτίας,
περὶ ἃς ὀρθοπραγεῖ ὁ σώφρων, ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες· κατὰ ταύ-
την γὰρ ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται τὴν ἀκολασίαν. ∧ ἔτι δ' ἄλλον
τρόπον οἱ δυσίατοι καὶ οἱ ἀνίατοι πάμπαν διὰ κολάσεως.
πλεοναχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς ἀκολασίας, ὅτι μὲν περὶ ἡδο-
1230b.10
νάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί, φανερόν, καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ περὶ ταύ-
τας διακεῖσθαί πως καὶ ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσι καὶ τῶν ἄλ-
λων· διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς. [ τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομά-
ζοντες μεταφέρομεν]. τοὺς δὲ ἀκινήτως ἔχοντας δι' ἀναι-
σθησίαν πρὸς τὰς αὐτὰς ἡδονὰς οἳ μὲν καλοῦσιν ἀναισθήτους,
1230b.15
οἳ δὲ ἄλλοις ὀνόμασι τοιούτους προσαγορεύουσιν.

Thread from the Translation Workshop

2008-03-14T09:32:00.004-04:00

Here's a loose thread from last week's 'Translation Workshop', a curious passage from the Eudemian Ethics and something of a parallel. The trouble, provided by the highlighted sentence, requires in solution something more, I think, than careful attention to words in translation or even parsing of structure can offer:

πλεοναχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς ἀκολασίας, ὅτι μὲν περὶ ἡδονάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί, φανερόν, καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ περὶ ταύτας διακεῖσθαί πως καὶ ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων· διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομάζοντες μεταφέρομεν. (1230b9-13)

which Solomon renders:

But though 'profligacy' has more than one sense, it is clear that the profligate are concerned with certain pleasures and pains and that they differ from one another and from the other vicious characters in being disposed in a certain manner towards these; and we described previously the way in which we apply the term 'profligacy' by analogy.

Now there are two problems presented by the highlighted clause.

The first is that akolasia is not discussed so much as merely mentioned earlier in the treatise, and certainly the origin of the word for it is not.

The second problem, much more serious, is that the verb used to refer to that earlier discussion, διαγράφω, although it can mean 'describe', more exactly means 'to mark out or mark off, as with lines', and is elsewhere in the Eudemian Ethics used always to refer to the chart of virtues and vices at 1221a1-- and yet clearly the etymology of the word akolasia is not even the sort of thing that could be depicted in a chart.

Solomon's note to the sentence takes account only of the first of these difficulties: "This seems to refer to words which must have been lost at Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1221a 20".

------
Fyi, the fuller preceding context is this, which I provide because I think a proper solution needs to make use of this.

λέγεται δ' ὁ ἀκόλαστος πολλαχῶς. ὅ τε γὰρ μὴ κε-
κολασμένος πως μηδ' ἰατρευμένος, ὥσπερ ἄτμητος ὁ μὴ
1230b.1
τετμημένος, καὶ τούτων ὃ μὲν δυνατός, ὃ δ' ἀδύνατος·
ἄτμητον γὰρ τό τε μὴ δυνάμενον τμηθῆναι καὶ τὸ δυ-
νατὸν μὲν μὴ τετμημένον δέ. τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ τὸ
ἀκόλαστον. καὶ γὰρ τὸ μὴ πεφυκὸς δέχεσθαι κόλασιν,
1230b.5
καὶ τὸ πεφυκὸς μὲν μὴ κεκολασμένον δὲ περὶ ἁμαρτίας,
περὶ ἃς ὀρθοπραγεῖ ὁ σώφρων, ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες· κατὰ ταύ-
την γὰρ ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται τὴν ἀκοκασίαν. ἔτι δ' ἄλλον
τρόπον οἱ δυσίατοι καὶ οἱ ἀνίατοι πάμπαν διὰ κολάσεως.
πλεοναχῶς δὲ λεγομένης τῆς ἀκολασίας, ὅτι μὲν περὶ ἡδο-
1230b.10
νάς τινας καὶ λύπας εἰσί, φανερόν, καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ περὶ ταύ-
τας διακεῖσθαί πως καὶ ἀλλήλων διαφέρουσι καὶ τῶν ἄλ-
λων· διεγράψαμεν δὲ πρότερον πῶς τὴν ἀκολασίαν ὀνομά-
ζοντες μεταφέρομεν.

Solomon's translation:

The term 'profligate' (unchaste) has a variety of meanings. It means the man who has not been (as it were) 'chastised' or cured, just as 'undivided' means one that has not been divided; and these terms include both one capable of the process and one not capable of it: 'undivided' means both that which cannot be divided and that which though it can be has not been; and similarly with 'unchaste'--it denotes both that which is by nature incapable of chastening and that which, though capable, has not actually been chastened in respect of the errors as regards which the temperate man acts rightly, as is the case with children; for of them it is in this sense that the term 'unchaste'¹ is used, whereas another use of it again refers to persons hard to cure or entirely incurable by chastisement. But though 'profligacy' has more than one sense, it is clear that the profligate are concerned with certain pleasures and pains and that they differ from one another and from the other vicious characters in being disposed in a certain manner towards these; and we described previously the way in which we apply the term 'profligacy' by analogy.

Can You Identify This Passage?

2008-03-11T08:21:00.004-04:00

Here's a passage I like for its colorful writing. But can you identify it? (And although monkeys never would type it, they too could very easily google it.)

Aristotle, in his book of Politics, when he conies to compare the several kinds of government, he is very reserved in discoursing what form he thinks best: he disputes subtilely to and fro of many points, and judiciously of many errors, but concludes nothing himself. In all those books I find little commendation of monarchy. It was his hap to live in those times when the Grecians abounded with several commonwealths, who had then learning enough to make them seditious. Yet in his Ethics, he hath so much good manners as to confess in right down words that "Monarchy is the best form of government, and a popular estate the worst." And though he be not so free in his politics, yet the necessity of truth hath here and there extorted from him that which amounts no less to the dignity of monarchy; he confesseth it to be, first, the natural and the divinest form of government; and that the gods themselves did live under a monarchy. What can a heathen say more?

Note: 'conies' does indeed come from the word for rabbit (as in Pepys diary, "I find that a coney skin in my breeches preserves me perfectly from galling") and is cousin to 'cunning'.

"I'd Like to be Known as 'The Big Aristotle'"

2008-03-10T06:04:00.006-04:00

According to Wikipedia, his nicknames include "The Diesel", "The Big Daddy", "Superman", "The Big Cactus", "Wilt Chamberneezy", "The Big Baryshnikov", "The Real Deal", and (after recently gaining an MBA degree) "Dr. Shaq".

But surely the best, greatest, and most honorable nickname of Shaquille O'Neal, the American basketball star, is "The Big Aristotle".

The nickname arose from a USA Today story in 2000, which tells of a motivational conversation O'Neal had with his stepfather:

Phil Harrison, his Army sergeant stepfather -- whom O'Neal always refers to as his real father -- had a pivotal phone conversation with his stepson when the playoffs turned intense. Harrison always had taught his stepson about compassion; a young O'Neal watched him give away bagfuls of White Castle cheeseburgers to homeless men. He rounded up O'Neal's entire boyhood basketball team and made them visit sick kids in a hospital at Christmas.

But this time Phil gave O'Neal a lecture instead about the importance of consistency in excellence:

This time, the lesson was harsh: There is no compassion for a loser. "In this world we live in," he told O'Neal, "if you win, you're probably going to be one of the greatest ever. If you don't, you're going to be a bum." Click.

O'Neal responded to the challenge and from that point began striving to excel not simply in occasional plays but rather throughout entire basketball games:

In fact, [O'Neal] called attention to his mind, not his brawn. "I'd like to be known as 'the Big Aristotle.' It was Aristotle who said excellence is not a singular act, but a habit."

(But where's the tatoo that says "Hexis not praxis"?)

End of Translation Workshop

2008-03-08T08:06:00.009-05:00

Today I'll conclude my 'Translation Workshop' in an unusual way. I'm going to give solely my rendering of the final few lines, but I'll do so giving the context of the entire passage in Greek. The reason for this strange way of proceeding is that the most difficult decisions for rendering the final lines involve discerning the structure of Aristotle's reasons, not his choice of particular words or phrases, and in fact some of that structure reaches back to much earlier in the passage. This was not recognized by any of the other translators (and I've been following the usual way of rendering things so far), so I'll discuss the final lines simply in relation to my own rendering. You'll see what I mean in a moment.

Below is the passage which we've been looking at, and I'll place the final lines to render in red. I'm also going to take liberty in formatting the passage, to bring something out that you probably did not notice:

τὸ δ' ὄνομα τῆς ἀκολασίας καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς παιδικὰς ἁμαρτίας φέρομεν· ἔχουσι γάρ τινα ὁμοιότητα. πότερον δ' ἀπὸ ποτέρου καλεῖται, οὐθὲν πρὸς τὰ νῦν διαφέρει, δῆλον δ' ὅτι τὸ ὕστερον ἀπὸ τοῦ προτέρου. οὐ κακῶς δ' ἔοικε μετενηνέχθαι·
κεκολάσθαι γὰρ δεῖ τὸ τῶν αἰσχρῶν ὀρεγόμενον καὶ πολλὴν αὔξησιν ἔχον, τοιοῦτον δὲ μάλιστα ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ ὁ παῖς· κατ' ἐπιθυμίαν γὰρ ζῶσι καὶ τὰ παιδία, καὶ μάλιστα ἐν τούτοις ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις. εἰ οὖν μὴ ἔσται εὐπειθὲς καὶ ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον, ἐπὶ πολὺ ἥξει· ἄπληστος γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις καὶ πανταχόθεν τῷ ἀνοήτῳ, καὶ ἡ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἐνέργεια αὔξει τὸ συγγενές, κἂν μεγάλαι καὶ σφοδραὶ ὦσι, καὶ τὸν λογισμὸν ἐκκρούουσιν. διὸ δεῖ μετρίας εἶναι αὐτὰς καὶ ὀλίγας, καὶ τῷ λόγῳ μηθὲν ἐναντιοῦσθαι – τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον εὐπειθὲς λέγομεν καὶ κεκολασμένον –
ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸν παῖδα δεῖ κατὰ τὸ πρόσταγμα τοῦ παιδαγωγοῦ ζῆν, οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν κατὰ τὸν λόγον. διὸ δεῖ τοῦ σώφρονος τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν συμφωνεῖν τῷ λόγῳ· σκοπὸς γὰρ ἀμφοῖν τὸ καλόν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖ ὁ σώφρων ὧν δεῖ καὶ ὡς δεῖ καὶ ὅτε· οὕτω δὲ τάττει καὶ ὁ λόγος.

The key here is γάρ at b13, the lectio difficilior (recall the critical apparatus which I gave here), the reading which I accept.

It's a characteristic of γάρ ('for', quia or enim) in Aristotle that it reaches back. Usually of course γάρ reaches back to the sentence immediately beforehand, and scribes and critics have looked for it to do so also here at b13, and that's why it was changed to δέ, because there's no obvious way in which it reaches back to the preceding sentence.

But in fact γάρ sometimes reaches back farther than that, sometimes very far back indeed, and this is one of those cases (I believe) in which it does: I take it to reach all the way back to Aristotle's observation at b3 that the term akolasia had been transferred on good grounds (οὐ κακῶς δ' ἔοικε μετενηνέχθαι), and this sentence now provides the reason why the transference was well-grounded.

To give the reason, Aristotle articulates an analogy--this in accordance with standard Aristotelian doctrine, that it's an analogy which licenses the metaphorical extension of a term for one thing to another thing. Here the analogy is: as a child is related to the direction of his master, so, in a moderate person, the faculty of sense-desire is related to the reasoning part.

This, then, gives us the key to discerning the structure of arguments:

1. Everything between οὐ κακῶς δ' ἔοικε μετενηνέχθαι at b3 and ὥσπερ γὰρ at b13 is a digression (on the meaning of 'disciplined' or 'well-restrained').

2. You might have thought that it was awkward that Aristotle had placed two clauses beginning διὸ δεῖ in close proximity, and indeed that would have been awkward. Only, as it turns out, the clauses are not in close proximity (logically, even though they are so locally): the first belongs to the digression, and the second belongs outside the digression.

3. Furthermore, as we shall see, the second dio clause introduces a supporting point hardly connected at all with the line of argument we've been following so far!

Here's how I would render:

[a dio clause, giving a supporting point, within the digression] .... That’s why sense desires need to be moderate and few, and not in any way resistant to reason. (that’s the sort of thing we refer to it as ‘docile’ and ‘well-restrained’).

[outside the digression] --since, as a child needs to live under the direction of his guardian, so too the sense-desiring part needs to live under reason.

[a dio clause, giving a new supporting point/corollary altogether] That’s why the sense-desiring part needs ‘to agree with’ the reasoning part: (i) The attractiveness of the action is a target for both of them. (ii) And a moderate person has sense-desire only for the things he should, and in the way that he should, and at the time that he should; and reason issues orders in that way also.

What's the significance of this last supporting point? Understand διὸ δεῖ here to mean, in effect, "that's the sense in which it's right to say that the sense-desiring part needs to 'agree with' reason". (Beresford intuited that something like this was being claimed, and so he put scare quotes around 'to agree with'.)

This is a point which I believe is directed against Plato. Aristotle himself is not committed to saying that one part of the soul should 'agree with' (συμφωνεῖν) another part. But he does want to account for the naturalness of that way of speaking, and the discussion that he has just finished, in which the epithumetikon part was shown to be analogous to a child, gives him a good occasion for accounting for that way of speaking, viz. for just the same reason that one can say that a moderate person is 'well-disciplined' (viz. the analogy he has given), one can say such things as that the epithumetikon 'agrees with' reason. (And then in the last two clauses, σκοπὸς γὰρ ἀμφοῖν κτλ., Aristotle gives the non-metaphorical cash-value of this way of speaking.)

And just think that articles have been written, too, about the significance of συμφωνεῖν τῷ λόγῳ here, when it's not even something Aristotle is defending in his own voice!

A Greek Idol, part III

2008-03-06T09:29:00.011-05:00

Once again, it's not too late to join this show. Also, if you have on hand another translation which you think is better in some places than the ones we are considering, please feel free to post that for our benefit. (I'm on break this week and cannot easily get at my office, e.g. Irwin or Ostwald.)

Once again, here's the Greek:

εἰ οὖν μὴ ἔσται εὐπειθὲς καὶ ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον, ἐπὶ πολὺ ἥξει· ἄπληστος γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις καὶ πανταχόθεν τῷ ἀνοήτῳ, καὶ ἡ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἐνέργεια αὔξει τὸ συγγενές, κἂν μεγάλαι καὶ σφοδραὶ ὦσι, καὶ τὸν λογισμὸν ἐκκρούουσιν.

Here are the offered translations:

(Senn) If, therefore, [a child or appetite] is not obedient—and [not obedient] to the ruling [entity]—then it will go too far; for, in the one who lacks understanding, the longing for what's pleasant is unfulfillable—unfulfillable even [if filled] from every [source]; and the actualization of the appetite increases what is inborn, and if [the appetites] are great and vehement, they will drive out even reasoning.

(Beresford) So [in either case] unless it does as it’s told and is under the ruling element it will run amok, because desire for pleasure, in a thing without sense, is insatiable and is set off by anything. Also, the exercising of desire [in adults] will cause its connate [faculty] to grow, and when desires are big and extreme they even knock out deliberation.

(Pakaluk) So if such a thing isn’t docile, and doesn’t follow the thing that has authority over it, it will grow too large. Why? Because:

its wanting pleasure is something that can’t be satisfied, and
in a thing which itself lacks direction, the wanting of pleasure is occasioned by anything at all; and
the activation of any sensual desire leads to the increase of anything akin to it; and
when sensual desires are strong and intense, they even deflect rational reflection.

(Rowe) If, then, whatever desires shameful things is not ready to obey and under the control of the ruling element, it will grow and grow, for the desire for the pleasant is insatiable and indiscriminate, in a mindless person, and the activity of his appetite augments his congenital tendency; and if his appetites are strong and vigorous, they knock out his capacity for rational calculation as well

(Taylor) ... so if it is not made submissive and subject to some control, it will grow to a large extent. The appetite for pleasure is insatiable and attacks the thoughtless person from all sides, and the actual occurrence of bodily desires increases that aspect of our nature, especially if they are strong and intense, and if they drive out rational thought.

(Ross/Urmson) If, then, it is not going to be obedient and subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great lengths; for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable and tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite increases its innate force, and if appetites are strong and violent they even expel the power of calculation.

Remarks:

1. ‘docile’/ ‘doesn’t follow’: I understand Aristotle to mean two different things by εὐπειθές and ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον. The former I think is meant to signify an attitude or manner; the latter some pattern of behavior. (The former, if you will, is dispositional, the second law-like.) That’s why I’ve not followed Beresford’s appealing ‘does as it’s told’ for εὐπειθές, because that phrase combines two things that Aristotle (I think) wished to introduce separately.

2. ‘follows the thing that has authority over it’ (ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον)— It’s not ruling, but authority, which Aristotle has in mind: what is precisely at stake is whether what has authority succeeds in ruling. ‘Subject to some control’ (Taylor) is therefore too indefinite; ‘subject to the ruling principle’ (Ross/Urmson) gets the sense right, but its connotation is such that it can’t easily be applied to the child/guardian relationship, which Aristotle’s phrase is meant to cover also. (Senn’s ‘subject to the ruling entity’ and Beresfords’s ‘under the ruling element’ are slightly better.)

3. ‘it will grow too large’ (ἐπὶ πολὺ ἥξει)—I think this is the proper sense of the expression. ἥξει suggests arrival at a stopping point in a some process of development or growth; ἐπὶ πολὺ signifies that the grow has gone too far, beyond its proper limits or scope. The best analogue in the Aristotelian corpus is τὸ ἐπὶ πολὺ ἀφικνεῖσθαι, Magna Moralia 1213b6, where the author argues that, just as all natural powers, because of an inherent weakness, have a limited extension of their operation, so too the capacity for friendship can only ‘go so far’: ἐφ' ἁπάντων γὰρ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐξαδυνατεῖ ἡμῶν ἡ φύσις ἀσθενὴς οὖσα πρὸς τὸ ἐπὶ πολὺ ἀφικνεῖσθαι. (See also Nic. Eth. 1121b16, καὶ διατείνει δ' ἐπὶ πολύ, stinginess ‘has an extensive influence on us’).

4. 'Why? Because ... ' (γάρ): now there come four reasons why it will grow excessively. How we render these reasons must depend on our understanding of what the reality is that Aristotle wishes to describe. There is no getting around that, because Aristotle’s phrases are too clipped to allow us to guess the meaning simply from a contemplation of his language. Rather, we must have in mind a reality which we then can see the language as appropriately discussing. As might be expected, there is a logic to the reasons Aristotle provides:

Epithumia contains no inherent or intrinsic principle which would place a limit on its growth: ‘its wanting pleasure is something that can’t be satisfied’
Epithumia has no external limits, because nearly anything can stimulate it: 'in a thing which itself lacks direction, the wanting of pleasure is occasioned by nearly anything'. Here the ending -θεν suggests direction from, and πανταχόθεν is meant to signify, I think, that the stimulus for sense desire, for an disciplined child or adult, can come from any direction. (Aristotle has in mind a contrast, I think, with how a mature and reflective person won’t place himself in circumstances in which, or allow himself to perceive things by which, epithumia would predictably get stimulated.)
Not having any internal or external restrictions on its growth, epithumia moreover contains an inherent principle of expansion: ‘the activation of any sensual desire leads to the increase of anything akin to it.’ τὸ συγγενές means vaguely, I think, anything akin to some particular desire: e.g. (undisciplined) desire for this woman, if actualized (by imagination, action), tends to increase desires for other women; (undisciplined) desire for this extra food now tends to increase also desires for extra food at times before and after. The claim is general because there are hundreds of ways in which this works, as we all know from experience.
The growth of epithumia even tends to block the imposition of limits that would be placed upon it by (what Aristotle presumes to be) the naturally superior power of reasoning: ‘when sensual desires are strong and intense, they even deflect rational reflection.’

The progression therefore is: (1) no intrinsic limit; (2) no extrinsic limit; but (3) inherently expansive; and (4) becoming resistant to its natural principle of control. That's why it's best to give these in a list in a translation. Anyone giving four coherent reasons in such a short span of text would do so. Not to give them in a list is the distortion.

A Greek Idol, part II

2008-03-05T06:54:00.004-05:00

Our continuing 'contest' of translation. Here first the Greek:

And now the offerings:

(Senn) And [the word] seems not to have been badly transferred [to the case of adults]; for what longs for the shameful things and can increase much needs to be restrained, and the appetite and the child are most [of all] of that sort. For children too live according to appetite, and in them most [of all] is the longing for what's pleasant.

(Beresford) And the transfer of the term seems to makes good sense, because what’s [“unruly,” i.e.,] in need of discipline [in both cases] is something that (a) wants shameful things and (b) tends to grow rapidly. That very nicely describes both desire and a child. (Children live by their desires, and wanting pleasure is a typically childish thing.)

(Pakaluk) It’s not such a bad thing that the term has been transferred. Why? Because a thing that both (i) goes after disgraceful things and (ii) has the potential for tremendous growth needs to be restrained; and both sensual desire and a child are very much like that. (Children are like that because they too live to gratify their senses; in fact, they want pleasure more than anyone.)

(Rowe) Nor does the transfer of usage seem inappropriate; for least to be indulged is the part of us that not only desires shameful things but can become big, and this characteristic belongs to appetite, and to the child, above all--since children too live according to appetite, and the desire for the pleasant is strongest in them.

(Taylor) The transferred application seems not a bad one; for something which has an appetite for shameful things and a capacity for considerable growth requires to be disciplined, and bodily desire on the one hand and children on the other seem particularly to be things of that kind. Children live in accordance with bodily desire, and the appetite for pleasure is particularly strong in them;

(Ross/Urmson) The transferrence of the name seems not a bad one; for that which desires what is base and which develops quickly ought to be kept in a chastened condition, and these characteristics belong above all to appetite and to the child, since children in fact live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest.

Remarks:

Curiously, only Ross/Urmson among the published translations gets it right that it’s the name (ὄνομα) that has been transferred, not the usage.
‘goes after’ – one needs a broad term for orexis (Latin: inclinatio), and the choice of an English equivalent will depend upon context. ‘Desire’ or ‘appetite’ are less preferable, because they suggest some element of purposeful intention (of getting or doing shameful things), whereas what Aristotle is claiming, I think, is that the inclinatio of such a thing does not rule such things out. Senn’s ‘longs for’ strikes me as misleading, since in English we tend to use ‘longs for’ for what Aristotle calls psychikai epithumiai (except metaphorically, e.g. “I long for an ice-cream sundae”).
‘sensual desire’—I would use this phrase as a quasi-technical term in English, which is justifiable, because by this point in Aristotle’s exposition, epithumia has become a quasi-technical term for ‘the faculty which goes after the pleasures that come through the sense of touch and, secondarily, taste’.
‘they live to gratify their senses’—a contextual (i.e. not matching word-for-word) rendering of κατ' ἐπιθυμίαν ζῶσι, which I think captures the meaning. Often one might use ‘sense gratification’ for epithumia, taking the activity to stand for the part of the soul which the activity gratifies. Or perhaps instead: ‘they do whatever gratifies their senses’.
Notice ‘they too’ (καὶ τὰ παιδία)– almost a Freudian point about the importance of the pleasure principle in apparently innocent children. Senn and Rowe caught this; I think Ross/Urmson’s ‘in fact’, although certainly possible, misses the point.
‘has the capacity for tremendous growth’ is preferable to Beresford’s ‘tends to grow rapidly’, because it’s not the child’s inevitable physical development (as Beresford seems to presume in his notes) but rather his psychical development that Aristotle is concerned with in the comparison.

A Congruence of Virtue and Pleasure

2008-03-04T16:38:00.015-05:00

I've gone to excess, no doubt, and it would be akolasia if it were a matter of the sense of touch (including consolation and comfort) rather than the sense of taste.

I mean my recent obsession with coffee. Actually, this represents my acquisition of various virtues, and in a moment I'll explain better why.

My obsession began last fall with the purchase of a Bunn drip brewer, the only home machine that brews at the proper (high) temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 degrees Centigrade).

This raised my standards and necessitated, of course, the purchase of a burr grinder for better quality.

But having correctly ground beans inspired me to get an espresso machine. And soon after that using beans that were roasted weeks ago became intolerable.

Thus, finally-- i.e. for the while--I bought an air corn popper doing off-label duty as a coffee roaster. (There's a big secondary market for those things on e-bay.)

My own freshly roasted beans. Ahhh.....

Now you know that, according to Aristotle, the mark of a trait of character is what we take pleasure in, and are pained or distressed by. Also, a mark of liberality is what we regard as a proper expenditure of money.

Well, to pay for these machines, I gave up spending money at Starbucks for the last several months. Then, last week, when I tried a Starbucks capuccino simply as an experiment , I found it so disgusting that I couldn't drink it. (And my wife has changed in the same way.)

So, you see, I've acquired--count them--two new virtues.

A Greek Idol, part I

2008-03-04T09:55:00.010-05:00

It's not too late for you to get in this game. If you wish to propose a translation yourself, to be put side-by-side by the others, give it a try, write it up, and position it as the next Diminishing Flea. Or else simply cast a 'vote' or suggest a friendly amendment to your favorite version below.

Meanwhile, I begin with my own attempt, and some remarks by way of comparison. Consider this part I of this 'Greek Idol' contest.

τὸ δ' ὄνομα τῆς ἀκολασίας καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς παιδικὰς ἁμαρτίας φέρομεν· ἔχουσι γάρ τινα ὁμοιότητα. πότερον δ' ἀπὸ ποτέρου καλεῖται, οὐθὲν πρὸς τὰ νῦν διαφέρει, δῆλον δ' ὅτι τὸ ὕστερον ἀπὸ τοῦ προτέρου.

(Senn) The word "lack of restraint" we apply also to childlike errings; for they have some similarity [to adult errings]. (Now which is named after which makes no difference regarding the things now [at hand]; but it's clear that the later [is named] after the earlier.)

(Beresford) We also use the term “unruliness” of bad behavior in little children, because that’s a somewhat similar thing. It doesn’t matter for our purposes which use of the term comes from which, although it’s clear that the later one comes from the earlier one.

(Pakaluk) The term for unrestraint we apply also to bad behavior in children, since these are alike in a certain respect. (Not that it makes any difference for present purposes which is named after which, but clearly the later is named after the earlier.)

(Rowe) The term 'indulgence' is one we also apply to the ways children go wrong, for these have a certain resemblance to self-indulgence. Which is called after which makes no difference for present purposes, but clearly the later is called after the earlier.

(Taylor) Now we also apply the term akolasia to the naughtinesses of children, as they have a certain resemblance. It makes no difference for the present purpose which is called after the other, but it is clear that the posterior is called after the prior.

(Ross/Urmson) The name self-indulgence is applied also to childish faults; for they bear a certain resemblance to what we have been considering. Which is called after which, makes no difference to our present purpose; plainly, however, the later is called after the earlier.

Remarks:

I suspect Aristotle uses the phrase τὸ δ' ὄνομα τῆς ἀκολασίας (rather than something like ἀκόλαστοι λέγονται) because he wants to have ἀκολασία available as a subject for the next clause. If so, the implicit subject of ἔχουσι would be the compound, 'unrestraint and bad behavior in children' and not simply 'bad behavior in children'. (Cp. below: ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ ὁ παῖς .)
‘Being undisciplined’ would work better and be more accurate in this context than ‘unrestraint’ (or, when it sounds better, ‘lack of restraint’, as Senn thinks here); but in English the former can’t mean the vice of ἀκολασία, whereas ‘unrestraint’ just barely can. Beresford's 'unruliness' is idiomatic but doesn't make the proper connections, either with the etymology of ἀκολασία or with the intended vice.
‘Not that it makes any difference’—this idiom in English prepares the way for an assertion nonetheless, as does Ar.’s corresponding Greek.

That's all for today. More tomorrow.

Comparison of Translations

2008-02-27T10:27:00.005-05:00

Today, a comparison of Rowe's translation with another recent one, that of C.C.W. Taylor in his Clarendon Aristotle volume. I add also the revised Ross translation as a baseline for the comparison.

I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll comment on these sections one-by-one, maybe starting only with the first. For today I add some notes for you to consider, not comprehensive at all, but 'starters' I hope.

[Corrigendum, March1: The discussion has so far been carried out in Diminishing Fleas.]

τὸ δ' ὄνομα τῆς ἀκολασίας καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς παιδικὰς ἁμαρτίας φέρομεν· ἔχουσι γάρ τινα ὁμοιότητα. πότερον δ' ἀπὸ ποτέρου καλεῖται, οὐθὲν πρὸς τὰ νῦν διαφέρει, δῆλον δ' ὅτι τὸ ὕστερον ἀπὸ τοῦ προτέρου.

(Taylor) Now we also apply the term akolasia to the naughtinesses of children, as they have a certain resemblance. It makes no difference for the present purpose which is called after the other, but it is clear that the posterior is called after the prior.

(Ross/Urmson) The name self-indulgence is applied also to childish faults; for they bear a certain resemblance to what we have been considering. Which is called after which, makes no difference to our present purpose; plainly, however, the later is called after the earlier.

1. There's a difficulty in finding a pair of English words which (i) match the opposition between akolasia and kekolosmenos (roughly, ‘undisciplined’ vs. ‘disciplined’); and (ii) which can be applied both to a child and to an adult with a bad trait. (If you pick ‘self-indulgence’ for akolasia, you have to use a different word, ‘indulged’, for the child.)

2. Do you think that Aristotle is making up his mind here about which is called after which? If so, should the translation bring that out?

οὐ κακῶς δ' ἔοικε μετενηνέχθαι· κεκολάσθαι γὰρ δεῖ τὸ τῶν αἰσχρῶν ὀρεγόμενον καὶ πολλὴν αὔξησιν ἔχον, τοιοῦτον δὲ μάλιστα ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ ὁ παῖς· κατ' ἐπιθυμίαν γὰρ ζῶσι καὶ τὰ παιδία, καὶ μάλιστα ἐν τούτοις ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις. εἰ οὖν μὴ ἔσται εὐπειθὲς καὶ ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον, ἐπὶ πολὺ ἥξει·

(Rowe) Nor does the transfer of usage seem inappropriate; for least to be indulged is the part of us that not only desires shameful things but can become big, and this characteristic belongs to appetite, and to the child, above all--since children too live according to appetite, and the desire for the pleasant is strongest in them. If, then, whatever desires shameful things is not ready to obey and under the control of the ruling element, it will grow and grow, ...

(Taylor) The transferred application seems not a bad one; for something which has an appetite for shameful things and a capacity for considerable growth requires to be disciplined, and bodily desire on the one hand and children on the other seem particularly to be things of that kind. Children live in accordance with bodily desire, and the appetite for pleasure is particularly strong in them; so if it is not made submissive and subject to some control, it will grow to a large extent.

(Ross/Urmson) The transferrence of the name seems not a bad one; for that which desires what is base and which develops quickly ought to be kept in a chastened condition, and these characteristics belong above all to appetite and to the child, since children in fact live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest. If, then, it is not going to be obedient and subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great lengths; ...

1. Note the difficulty in rendering epithumia. ‘Appetite’ is misleading (in English it refers usually to hunger only). ‘Bodily desire’ is strange and, besides, doesn’t match what Aristotle means to be talking about (he had said earlier that the virtue and vice deal with only a subclass of somatikai epithumiai, viz. those involving touch and, indirectly, taste).

ἄπληστος γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις καὶ πανταχόθεν τῷ ἀνοήτῳ, καὶ ἡ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἐνέργεια αὔξει τὸ συγγενές, κἂν μεγάλαι καὶ σφοδραὶ ὦσι, καὶ τὸν λογισμὸν ἐκκρούουσιν.

(Rowe) ... for the desire for the pleasant is insatiable and indiscriminate, in a mindless person, and the activity of his appetite augments his congenital tendency; and if his appetites are strong and vigorous, they knock out his capacity for rational calculation as well.

(Taylor) The appetite for pleasure is insatiable and attacks the thoughtless person from all sides, and the actual occurrence of bodily desires increases that aspect of our nature, especially if they are strong and intense, and if they drive out rational thought.

(Ross/Urmson) ... for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable and tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite increases its innate force, and if appetites are strong and violent they even expel the power of calculation.

1. It seems that some distinction between epithumia and orexis needs to be preserved in the translation; it's at least a relation as between specific and more general. The alternatives above are: appetite/desire; and bodily desire/appetite. But neither seems satisfactory.

2. What exactly is Aristotle's thought here? Are you happy with these ways of rendering τῷ ἀνοήτῳ?

διὸ δεῖ μετρίας εἶναι αὐτὰς καὶ ὀλίγας, καὶ τῷ λόγῳ μηθὲν ἐναντιοῦσθαι – τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον εὐπειθὲς λέγομεν καὶ κεκολασμένον – ὥσπερ δὲ τὸν παῖδα δεῖ κατὰ τὸ πρόσταγμα τοῦ παιδαγωγοῦ ζῆν, οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν κατὰ τὸν λόγον.

(Rowe) This is why they should be moderate and few, and offer no opposition to rational prescription (which is the sort of thing we mean by 'ready to obey' and 'not indulged'); for [a note says: 'Reading ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸν παῖδα '] just as a child should conduct himself in accordance with what the slave in charge of him tells him to do, so too the appetitive in us should conduct itself in accordance with what reason prescribes.

(Taylor) So they ought to be moderate and few, and ought not to oppose reason in any way--we call something like that submissive and disciplined. Just as the child ought to live in accordance with the instructions of its tutor, so the desiderative part ought to be in accordance with reason.

(Ross/Urmson) Hence they should be moderate and few, and should in no way oppose reason--and this is what we call an obedient and chastened state--and as the child should live according to the direction of his tutor, so the appetitive element should live according to reason.

1. Now how does Rowe's opting for gar seem? What's the structure of the argument?

2. Tutors don't direct childrens' lives now -- I think 'guardian' is best. But what weight should be given to the thing said by way of direction, and how much to the person giving the direction? Rowe wishes to emphasize the former, Ross the latter.

διὸ δεῖ τοῦ σώφρονος τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν συμφωνεῖν τῷ λόγῳ· σκοπὸς γὰρ ἀμφοῖν τὸ καλόν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖ ὁ σώφρων ὧν δεῖ καὶ ὡς δεῖ καὶ ὅτε· οὕτω δὲ τάττει καὶ ὁ λόγος.

(Rowe) Hence in the moderate person the appetitive should be in harmony with reason; for the fine is goal for both, and the moderate person has appetite for the things one should, in the way one should, and when--which is what the rational prescription also lays down. Let this, then, be our account of moderation.

(Taylor) That is why the desiderative part of the temperate person ought to be in agreement with his reason; for the goal of both is the fine, and the temperate person desires the things he should and as he should and when; and that is what reason prescribes for its part.

(Ross/Urmson) Hence the appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with reason; for the noble is the mark at which both aim, and the temperate man craves for the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and this is what reason does.

1. By to epithumetikon does Aristotle mean what might be called a faculty? (Strangely, Rowe's phrase, 'the appetite', suggests this even more than Ross' 'appetitive element'.) But the correspondence with epithumia is obscured in Taylor (clearly bodily desiderative part won't do.)
2. Is it that the epithumetikon needs to agree with reason, or does Aristotle implicitly mean a reciprocal relationship, and reason needs to agree with the epithumetikon as well (i.e. they 'are in agreement with each other')?
3. Is there no way of putting to kalon into ordinary and natural English?
4. Why 'craving' now in Ross/Urmson?

Translation Workshop I

2008-02-25T09:50:00.006-05:00

I thought I would try today one of the 'features' I had in mind for this blog, viz. a 'translation workshop', which I envision as useful primarily for students.

Some concerns:

The choice of a text is largely arbitrary and couldn't possibly be equally useful to all. Therefore, I'll pick something that currently interests me, although in the future, as I said in an earlier post, I'd be happy to entertain suggestions from others. What isn't arbitrary about the text below is that it is related to a text I had earlier considered, the so-called 'definition of virtue' in NE II.6, since when that 'definition' is understood in the subversive manner I suggested earlier, then the text below becomes much more important (I think).
Any passage for translation worth its salt could easily lead to a discussion requiring multiple posts to resolve, continuing over weeks. I don't know quite how to handle this, but I imagine that after a handful of posts I'll carry out the discussion simply in the comments area ('Diminishing Fleas'). Thus those who are interested will know where to look, and those who are not will not be troubled.
To generate discussion, I'll raise a few questions, but I don't want to impart too much of a slant to the discussion -- I want to hear what you think.

So then, first the text (from Nic. Eth. III.12), with textual issues highlighted; then the sample translation, with some highlighting; then some questions.

(Yes, I know that Nic. Eth. is a sorry hobby-horse of mine, and apologize for that! I can plead only that I am planning soon to trade up to a newer hobby-horse.)

Text:

τὸ δ' ὄνομα τῆς ἀκο-
λασίας καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς παιδικὰς ἁμαρτίας φέρομεν· ἔχουσι
1119b.1
γάρ τινα ὁμοιότητα. πότερον δ' ἀπὸ ποτέρου καλεῖται, οὐθὲν
πρὸς τὰ νῦν διαφέρει, δῆλον δ' ὅτι τὸ ὕστερον ἀπὸ τοῦ προ-
τέρου. οὐ κακῶς δ' ἔοικε μετενηνέχθαι· κεκολάσθαι γὰρ δεῖ
τὸ τῶν αἰσχρῶν ὀρεγόμενον καὶ πολλὴν αὔξησιν ἔχον, τοιοῦ-
1119b.5
τον δὲ μάλιστα ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ ὁ παῖς· κατ' ἐπιθυμίαν γὰρ
ζῶσι καὶ τὰ παιδία, καὶ μάλιστα ἐν τούτοις ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος
ὄρεξις. εἰ οὖν μὴ ἔσται εὐπειθὲς καὶ ὑπὸ τὸ ἄρχον, ἐπὶ πολὺ
ἥξει· ἄπληστος γὰρ ἡ τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις καὶ πανταχόθεν τῷ
ἀνοήτῳ, καὶ ἡ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἐνέργεια αὔξει τὸ συγγενές,
1119b.10
κἂν μεγάλαι καὶ σφοδραὶ ὦσι, καὶ τὸν λογισμὸν ἐκκρούουσιν.
διὸ δεῖ μετρίας εἶναι αὐτὰς καὶ ὀλίγας, καὶ τῷ λόγῳ μη-
θὲν ἐναντιοῦσθαι – τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον εὐπειθὲς λέγομεν καὶ κεκο-
λασμένον – ὥσπερ δὲ τὸν παῖδα δεῖ κατὰ τὸ πρόσταγμα
τοῦ παιδαγωγοῦ ζῆν, οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν κατὰ τὸν
1119b.15
λόγον. διὸ δεῖ τοῦ σώφρονος τὸ ἐπιθυμητικὸν συμφωνεῖν
τῷ λόγῳ· σκοπὸς γὰρ ἀμφοῖν τὸ καλόν, καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖ ὁ
σώφρων ὧν δεῖ καὶ ὡς δεῖ καὶ ὅτε· οὕτω δὲ τάττει καὶ ὁ
λόγος. ταῦτ' οὖν ἡμῖν εἰρήσθω περὶ σωφροσύνης.

Bywater's apparatus:

4. τὸ] τὸν K^b M^b αὔξησιν] ἕξιν αὔξησιν K^b: fort. αὔξην ἔχοντα M^b Γ 6. καὶ ante μάλιστα om. K^b M^b ἡ] γὰρ καὶ ἡ Kb 8. πάντοθεν K^b 12. καὶ om. K^b 13. δὲ] γὰρ Lb M^b Γ

Sample translation (of C. Rowe):

The term 'indulgence' is one we also apply to the ways children go wrong, for these have a certain resemblance to self-indulgence. Which is called after which makes no difference for present purposes, but clearly the later is called after the earlier. Nor does the transfer of usage seem inappropriate; for least to be indulged is the part of us that not only desires shameful things but can become big, and this characteristic belongs to appetite, and to the child, above all--since children too live according to appetite, and the desire for the pleasant is strongest in them. If, then, whatever desires shameful things is not ready to obey and [be] under the control of the ruling element, it will grow and grow, for the desire for the pleasant is insatiable and indiscriminate, in a mindless person, and the activity of his appetite augments his congenital tendency; and if his appetites are strong and vigorous, they knock out his capacity for rational calculation as well. This is why they should be moderate and few, and offer no opposition to rational prescription (which is the sort of thing we mean by 'ready to obey' and 'not indulged'); for [a note says: 'Reading ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸν παῖδα '] just as a child should conduct himself in accordance with what the slave in charge of him tells him to do, so too the appetitive in us should conduct itself in accordance with what reason prescribes. Hence in the moderate person the appetitive should be in harmony with reason; for the fine is goal for both, and the moderate person has appetite for the things one should, in the way one should, and when--which is what the rational prescription also lays down. Let this, then, be our account of moderation.

Some questions:

1. This passage is particularly difficult (I think) among passages in Aristotle in its resisting attempts to render it in ordinary English. For instance, I've highlighted above in orange everything above which, I think, is not natural in English. (It's easy to point these out. The difficulty is: Can you do better?)

2. Where do you think the translation is less accurate than necessary, or unnecessarily misleading? E.g. "the ways children go wrong" suggests Aristotle has in mind different types of going astray (types of bad upbringing), but I don't think such a suggestion is carried by τὰς παιδικὰς ἁμαρτίας. I've noted a few passages like that in bold green. (Again, it's perhaps easy to point these out; difficult to improve upon.)

3. Questions about word choice: one might wonder about 'in a mindless person', 'knocks out' (which is the primary meaning of the word, instead of something like 'evades' or even 'resists'); 'lays down' for τάττει (which seems too weak--isn't Aristotle's image of a commander or leader?).

4. A very small point: presumably 'be' is omitted by an editorial oversight before 'under'? I've added it in brackets.

Four Years Old

2008-02-23T09:34:00.008-05:00

Today, Dissoi Blogoi, δ.

Vassar College, 1914 debate team.

Test Your Skill at Physiognomy

2008-02-22T15:02:00.003-05:00

The following appealing visage is that of:

(a) Franz Brentano
(b) Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg
(c) Theodor Mommsen
(d) Hermann Bonitz

Answer in the comments.

The Master of Those Who Discover

2008-02-22T14:24:00.011-05:00

Something of a pleasant distraction for today: a stamp commemorating the authority of Aristotle, for Columbus.

From the website non-contradiction.com.

Aristotle's Greek is a bit different from the Latin (which is actually a paraphrase quotation of Roger Bacon from his Opus Maius, c. 1268):

Διὸ τοὺς ὑπολαμβάνοντας συν άπτειν τὸν περὶ τὰς Ἡρακλείας στήλας τόπον τῷ περὶ τὴν Ἰνδικήν, καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον εἶναι τὴν θάλατταν μίαν, μὴ λίαν ὑπολαμβάνειν ἄπιστα δοκεῖν (De Caelo, 298a9-12).

And the sentence almost immediately preceding that selection seems not unimportant, the conclusion of a series of arguments for why the earth is spherical:

Ὥστ' οὐ μόνον ἐκ τούτων δῆλον περιφερὲς ὂν τὸ σχῆμα τῆς γῆς, ἀλλὰ καὶ σφαίρας οὐ μεγάλ ης.

WASAP not ASAP

2008-02-22T10:40:00.003-05:00

The next presentation in the Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy has been rescheduled. It was formerly planned for next Friday, Feb. 29th, but note the new date and time:

Richard Bett (Philosophy, Johns Hopkins)
"How Ethical Can an Ancient Sceptic Be?"
Friday, March 28th, 3 pm
Center for Hellenic Studies

Fleas for Excuses

2008-02-21T16:34:00.003-05:00

Austin from Austin. By reading on I might have found from Austin himself the answer to my question about diminishing fleas. See this passage from "A Plea for Excuses":

For this problem too the field of Excuses is a fruitful one. Here is a matter both contentious and practically important for everybody, so that ordinary language is on its toes: yet also, on its back it has long had a bigger flea to bite it, in the shape of the Law, and both again have lately attracted the attention of yet another, and at least a healthily growing, flea, in the shape of psychology.

A strange passage, perhaps, because Austin doesn't usually recycle clever images; and "on its toes"/"on its back" is particularly infelicitous. In this case, his words don't do much for me.

Presocratics Commentary in an Introductory Course

2008-02-20T07:59:00.005-05:00

I have an idea for two regular features on this blog: (1) a translation quiz or workshop, and (2) a periodic workshop about teaching. The translation quiz might pose a Greek text and sample translation, and then solicit comments for changes or improvements (and, really, anyone might propose these for us, not simply myself). The teaching workshop would raise a question about teaching and solicit views.

For instance, as regards (2), here's a question about teaching the so-called presocratics. Some professors assign only collections which have no commentary (Freeman's Ancilla) or minimal commentary (Barnes' Penguin volume), preferring to give their own. But others like to assign a secondary source which in any case gives an alternative commentary.

I usually count myself in this second camp. Now my question is: Which secondary work offering a commentary, or historical narrative, do you think is best? If only one such commentary were to be required reading in a unit on the presocratics in an introductory course in ancient philosophy, which should that be? (Assume that if the commentary does not itself contain the testimonia and fragments, as e.g. McKirahan does in his Philosophy before Socrates, then these would otherwise be somehow made available to the students.)

In the past I've used McKirahan, Hussey, and Waterfield's congenial The First Philosophers in that role. But recently I've been looking at James Warren, Presocratics: Natural Philosophers before Socrates (U Cal Press, 2007), which I'm now thinking may be the best of the lot. It is brief, accessible, clear, comprehensive in its way, and to my mind shows good judgment.

But what's your view? No need to answer the question in the terms set: thinking outside the box is welcome.

Does Flux Boil Down to Compresence? A Last Word.

2008-02-19T06:26:00.005-05:00

Here is my answer to the questions I raised yesterday.

Irwin begins by agreeing (it seems) that, for Plato, Flux implies Compresence (as I have maintained, on the 'simple' interpretation):

These appearances of compresence are the result of motion, change, and mingling, so that everything merely comes to be (hard, soft, light, heavy, and so on) and nothing stably is what we take it to be (Tht. 152d2-e1).

But then he shifts and says that for Plato the implication actually works in the other way, viz. that Compresence implies Flux, because when opposites are compresent in a thing they make it unstable:

In speaking of heavy, light, and so on, Plato clearly refers to the Heracleitean doctrine of the compresence of opposites; he thinks no further explanation is needed to justify him in describing such a doctrine as a doctrine of flux. He therefore assumes that it is appropriate to speak of 'flux', 'change', and 'becoming' in describing the instability that is manifested in the compresence of opposites.

So how is it that Irwin so easily converts "A implies B" into "B implies A"? Does Plato think that Flux implies Compresence (as the text seems to say, and as the 'simple' interpretation asserts) or that Compresence implies Flux (as Irwin construe him as saying)?

The reason for this shift in interpretation, is that Irwin interprets flux, and change, as mere 'succession' in time of properties: for something to be in flux is for it to have (stably and completely) some property F at one time and (stably and completely) the property not-F at some other time. On this view, Flux couldn't possibly imply Compresence, and, if that is how one understood flux or change, the most charitable interpretation one could place on Plato would be to hold that he thinks Compresence suggests or implies Flux, perhaps because Flux in some broad and extended sense includes Compresence. So "A implies B" gets converted to "B implies A" by charity!

That Irwin interprets Flux as the succession of properties over time:

In Plato's report, 'Heracleitus says somewhere that everything passes away and nothing remains, and in likening beings to the flow of a river he says that you could not step into the same river twice' (Cra. 402a8-10). This claim is about the succession of properties in the same subject over time.

(Notice that this interpretation of the 'river fragment' in Plato requires that we think Plato thought nothing of "we step and do not step; we both are and are not", and also that Plato failed to read "Everything passes away and nothing remains" in the subtle way suggested by Catherine Osborne in a comment on this blog.)

That any view about Flux as the succession of properties over time could imply nothing about Compresence:

Plato does not assume that the instability Protagoras attributes to things is simply change over time; he uses terms that are appropriate for change in order to describe the instability involved in the compresence of opposites.

We ought not to assume, then, that when Plato speaks of flux he must have succession in mind; and so we ought not to be surprised when he begins by speaking of compresence and continues by speaking of change. ...

If Aristotle see that this is Plato's conception of flux, he does not mean to say that Plato thinks sensible objects undergo continual change over time, or that change over time is what makes them unsuitable as objects of knowledge. He may simply recognize that, given Plato's broad interpretation of flux, compresence of opposites counts as a kind of flux. We ought not to conclude, then, that Plato's argument from flux in sensibles relies on anything more than the compresence of opposites.

Two points in conclusion:

1. Irwin in effect argues: "For Plato, Flux boils down to Compresence. Thus, everything he wants to say about Flux is captured already in my account of Compresence." But this won't work, because the doctrine of Flux for Plato is a doctrine about the change of sensible particulars. Even Irwin uses this language, e.g. "sensible objects undergo continual change over time" (see immediately above). So if Flux boiled down to Compresence, this would be the simultaneous compresence of opposite properties in sensible objects, not the loose compresence of opposite properties, in Irwin's sense (as explained in earlier posts). Admit that Flux boils down to Compresence, and one is still stuck with two doctrines of Compresence in Plato.

2. Whether Irwin's view of Compresence of Opposites is in the end a philosophically more sophisticated view than what I have called the 'simple' view, depends upon the sophistication of (i) Irwin's compresence of properties; and (ii) the interpretation of change as mere succession of properties over time.

And we may leave it at that.

Socrates Comes to Life

2008-02-19T06:23:00.001-05:00

This is going to be either very good or very bad.

The Yale Working Group in Ancient Philosophy is pleased to invite you to

"Socrates on Trial"
A Dramatic Performance of Plato's 'Apology.'"

With Steve Wexler
Professor of Law
University of British Columbia

This Wednesday, February 20th, at 6:30 p.m.
Rm. 317, Linsley Chittenden Hall (63 High Street)

Flux and Compresence

2008-02-18T10:44:00.004-05:00

I've been looking at T. Irwin's interpretation of Plato on the Compresence of Opposites. You will recall that this was recommended as a philosophically more sophisticated view than, for instance, the simple and perhaps simplistic idea that Plato believed that all things were infested with contraries because all things were changing.

The simple and simplistic idea is expressed in the following argument:

1. Each thing, in any respect in which it is perceptible, is changing.
2. Anything which changes, in the respect in which it changes, has compresent opposite properties.
3. Thus, each thing, in any respect in which it is perceptible, has compresent opposite properties.

According to this argument, Flux implies Compresence, because change requires that the changing thing somehow partake simultaneously both of the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem of the change. (Note: on this view, change in the true sense is not a mere succession of qualities, e.g. a thing changes if at time T1 it is F and at some later time T2 it is not-F.)

Now here's a curiosity about Irwin's interpretation. As we saw, he re-interprets Compresence in a very broad way, and as being about properties rather than particulars. For Irwin, Compresence becomes, in effect, the view that each property is such that there is at least one other property for which it is not a sufficient condition; i.e. for each property there is at least one other property that fails to be fixed when the former is fixed. Thus on this view circularity has opposites 'present in it', because to say that something is circular is to imply nothing about whether it is (say) green or not-green. So (Irwin would have it), both green and not-green are present in circularity.

Yet, at the same time, Irwin acknowledges that Plato is committed to a Doctrine of Flux. Below I give the relevant passages from Plato's Ethics below (from pages 161-2).

Now, when you read these passages, ask yourself: How can Irwin acknowledge all of these things, and yet still give such a weak reading of Compresence? If Flux implies Compresence of Opposites, in the sense of the simultaneous presence of contrary or contradictory properties in particulars, how can Irwin consistently affirm Flux but deny Compresence in that sense? Or is Irwin committed to two different accounts of Compresence, the sophisticated and the simple?

I'll give you my take on this in a later post.

...Plato himself speaks of change in sensibles and seems to regard this as a reason for denying that they can be objects of knowledge and definition. In the Cratylus he suggests that knowledge requires the existence of unchanging forms as objects of knowledge; even if sensibles are all in flux, forms must be exempt from flux (Cra. 439c6-440d2). In this passage Plato does not actually affirm that sensibles are in flux, but in other dialogues he seems to affirm precisely that; after he has argued that the Forms are different from sensibles, he claims that sensibles undergo constant change, whereas Forms are completely unchanging (Phd. 78c10-e4; R. 495a10-b3, 508d4-9, 518e8-9, 525b5-6, 534a2-3). ...

[Plato] explains who Protagoras' belief in the truth of appearances leads to the doctrine that 'nothing is any one thing itself by itself', because, for instance, you cannot call anything large without its appearing small,or heavy without its appearing light (Tht. 152d2-6). These appearances of compresence are the result of motion, change, and mingling, so that everything merely comes to be (hard, soft, light, heavy, and so on) and nothing stably is what we take it to be (152d2-e1).

The Law of Diminishing Fleas

2008-02-15T07:41:00.005-05:00

I suspect Austin used the phrase as being more elegant than "diminishing nits".

It occurs, of course, at the opening of his essay, "Unfair to Facts":

This paper goes back to an old controversy between Strawson and me about truth. Of course comments on comments, criticisms of criticisms, are subject to the law of diminishing fleas, but I think there are here some misconceptions still to be cleared up, some of which seem to be still prevalent in generally sensible quarters.

The phrase has since been picked up and used widely on the internet to refer to comments on comments on comments .... on a blog post. But what did it mean originally?

Some have supposed that Austin was referring to how some microscopic mites live on fleas, and maybe even other microscopic mites live on those mites, etc., "all the way down". The point would be that the importance of comments is miniscule when compared with the original paper commented upon, and thus comments upon comments are proportionately even smaller in importance. An iteration or two of comments and replies, and one's words will have almost no importance at all.

But it's unlikely that this was Austin's image. First of all, fleas don't live on other fleas, even if mites do. Morever, his "Unfair to Facts" was a reply to Strawson's reply to Austin's "Truth", which was itself a reply to something by Strawson. Thus, "Unfair to Facts" would have represented a mite, upon a mite, upon a flea, upon an animal, and Austin couldn't have supposed that that essay was so insignificant. (Look at his words, and you'll see that he doesn't.)

A student in my J. L. Austin graduate seminar last night, himself raised on a farm, proposed a much more satisfactory explanation. He pointed out that fleas are removed in successive 'passes' over an animal, and that each pass yields fewer and fewer fleas. One certainly wants to remove all of them all, so that the animal is clean, but eventually one has to give up as having done well enough-- even though some fleas may remain, and if so they will return eventually in force. (Thus also our 'nit picking', but for lice, not fleas.)

Not only does this image make more sense, it also fits Austin's understanding of philosophy perfectly. For him, philosophy is simply a matter of removing fleas, and it requires the same attention to detail. One is fixed on removing them all--that's the goal of the 'treatment'--but one is likely to fail, and then the infestation, and 'illness', will return in full force.

The one objection to this interpretation, as I see it, is that it does not attribute to Austin any sense of reciprocity in his exchange with Strawson. Strawson has got the fleas, and Austin is removing them. Strawson's own comments don't count as removing anyone's fleas at all, except perhaps in intention only and misguidedly.

And yet I think a careful attention to the tone of Austin's essay confirms that that was how he conceived of the exchange.

More, and Less, on Compresence

2008-02-14T16:20:00.009-05:00

Irwin in a sense does deal with the first objection I raised yesterday against his account of Compresence of Opposites, but through what seems to me a kind of unfortunate verbal slide.

The objection was that his construal is too weak and captures too much. Any instance in which one property is indeterminate relative to some other concurrent property would count as "Compresence of Opposites", and that can't be what Plato was driving at (viz. in those passages which make us want to ascribe that sort of doctrine to him).

I gave as examples yesterday a circle which could be green or not, or a green patch which could be circular or not. Yet actually the problem for Irwin's account is worse than that. Because Irwin characterizes "Compresence" in terms of types only, his characterization carries with it no notion that those tokens need even be instantiated in the same subject. Thus, that the core of an apple is white yet its skin can be either red or not red would also count as "Compresence of Opposites".

Admittedly, for someone in debate to point out even that sort of weak "compresence" would suffice to rebut the claim that a thing of the one sort makes it so that the other thing is of that other sort. We could rebut the claim that the white core of the apple made the skin red by pointing out that there are apples with white cores and not-red skin. Or we could rebut the claim that the circularity of a green circle is responsible for the greenness of the circle by pointing out that there are circles that are not green. Which is all to say that we might serviceably take what Irwin calls "Compresence of Opposites" as shorthand for a certain argumentative move one makes, in response to a proposed claim about what sorts of things "make it so that" other things are the way they are. That is, we can take "Compresence of Opposites" to be a fancy way of saying that one should use Moore's Open Question Test to examine a proposed definition. And I suppose in that way we might in some sense "save" this otherwise much too weak characterization of Compresence.

But to understand the doctrine in that way would be, so to speak, to change it from a metaphysical or physical thesis (which it is for Plato) into an elenchic strategy for dealing with claims about what "makes" something to be what it is--claims which will clearly be relative to the interests and theories of those who are proposing the definitions to be tested.

Now if you look carefully at Irwin's exposition in Chapter 10 of Plato's Ethics, you'll see that changing the point of the doctrine is exactly what he does. He accomplishes this by the purely verbal maneuver of restating the doctrine until it takes a form which might pass muster. Here's the relevant paragraph (p. 157):

The discussion of explanation in the Phaedo refers primarily to properties: having a head, being taller by a head, and so on. When he contrasts the 'safe' explanation referring to Forms with the defective explanations he has illustrated, Plato insists that we should say that beautiful things are beautiful because of the Beautiful Itself, not 'by having a bright colour or shape or anything else of that kind' (Phd. 100c9-d2). He seems to mean the same by saying (1) that bright-coloured things, say, are both beautiful and ugly, (2) that bright colour is both beautiful and ugly, or (3) that bright colour makes things beautiful and ugly. The third formula conveys his main point most accurately. [Emphasis mine.]

In one of the next sections of the book Irwin goes on to discuss Plato's commitment to the doctrine of flux. And I almost think that that transition from (1) to (3) was meant to foreshadow it playfully, as an instance.

More (or Moore?) on Compresence of Opposites

2008-02-13T10:06:00.010-05:00

A natural view to take about Plato is to say that he holds (in the 'middle' dialogues at least) that anything perceptible is either changing or open to change--it is therefore 'becoming', a condition intermediate between nothingness and being--and that therefore at least in some respects, and perhaps in all, it somehow has opposite properties at the same time--because change is not unnaturally viewed as a thing's simultaneously sharing in the terminus a quo and terminus ad quem of the change. (If the changing thing didn't simultaneously share in these, it would be either one or the other and wouldn't be changing.)

If I had to describe the doctrine of Compresence of Opposites in Plato, that's how I'd describe it initially.

But the version of the doctrine one finds in Irwin is something else entirely, so much so that I'd hesitate to describe is as a doctrine of Compresence of Opposites at all.

Irwin's thought is similar to G.E. Moore's "Open Question Test" in the Principia Ethica. Suppose we define 'beauty' in terms of some shape or color. But it will remain an open question whether something with that shape is beautiful -- in fact we won't find it hard to imagine a case where something with that shape is beautiful, and another case in which something with that shape is ugly. The property of having that shape, then, is compatible with both beauty and ugliness. Thus both opposites, beauty and ugliness, are 'present' in that shape--that is to say, some tokens of that type of shape are beautiful, and some are ugly.

According to Irwin, that's what Compresence of Opposites amounts to for Plato.

Now I won't judge whether this view is philosophically more sophisticated than the simple, or even simplistic, view which I sketched at the beginning of this post.

But I do think it's wrongheaded as an interpretation of Plato for various reasons, of which I'll mention two.

First, the interpretation is 'against the intention of Plato' (as it sometimes used to be said), because the wrong things get included as examples of 'Compresence of Opposites'. For example, on Irwin's interpretation, that a circular shape can be either green or not green, or a green surface either circular or not circular, would illustrate Compresence of Opposites -- but that kind of thing is surely not what Plato meant in the passages that lead us to ascribe such a doctrine to him.

Second, Plato frequently discusses cases in which one and the same thing has opposite appearances at the same time (large and small, equal and unequal, one or indefinite, cp. Rep. 478d2, εἴ τι φανείη οἷον ἅμα ὄν τε καὶ μὴ ὄν), and, far from taking these to be strange cases insofar as they involve relatives (which is what Irwin says to dismiss them), he apparently takes them to stand for what is true but less evidently so of anything perceptible.

To my mind, Irwin's view seems plausible only on the supposition that Plato postulated Forms in order to deal with difficulties of definition--his view seems to be a translation, really, into an ancient context of relatively recent disputes about whether mental and ethical terms can be defined with observables--whereas 'Compresence of Opposites' in Rep. V and especially in the Phaedo is presented more as a way of dealing with phenomena of causation (sc. dependence) and change.

Compresence of Opposites

2008-02-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting passage by a scholar writing on whether Plato accepted some doctrine of the "Compresence of Opposites" in sensible particulars, and, if so, what that doctrine is best taken to mean.

He considers the following version of that doctrine:

For any property F that admits a contrary (con-F), all sensible F things are con-F.

And he argues as follows that Republic book V gives no support for the doctrine so formulated:

[Someone might claim] to find direct evidence for this principle in Republic 5's description of "the many beautiful things," on which the sight-lovers focus their attention, as also appearing ugly (479a-b), [if we take] these many beautiful things to be particular objects. [But to do so would be to fail] to notice ... that when the sight-lovers are introduced as accepting "beautiful things" (kala pragmata) but not beauty itself (476c1-3), these are the "beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and all the things fashioned from these" the sight-lovers have just been said to enjoy (476b4-6). It is surely no accident that the same properties the Phaedo's Socrates can no longer accept as making things beautiful recur so prominently here.

The author then concludes that the above formulation of Compresence of Opposites should be rejected "in favor of the more philosophically sophisticated interpretation ... developed by Terence Irwin."

Now it would be too easy to deal with this argument by saying that, since it defers to a particular interpretation of the Phaedo, it has no more weight than the "Forms as Properties" interpretation of the relevant passage in the Phaedo -- that is, apparently no weight at all.

One might also point out that, of course, even if the argument were successful, to remove one reason in favor of a certain formulation of Copresence of Opposites would hardly be to remove all reasons (not even all the reasons in the Republic), when the author has said nothing to indicate that all of the evidence can be dealt with in this way. (And we shouldn't expect that it could, because not all the evidence is going to have a verbal resemblance to certain lines in the Phaedo.)

And one might wish to put aside, too, the question of whether the 'argument' is not really an argument but another appeal to authority, as perhaps having too obvious an answer to be interesting.

Rather, I'm concerned with two other matters, which I'll discuss later:

--How sound is this scholar's point about the words of that passage from the Republic? and,

--Exactly what is the alternative version of Compresence of Opposites offered by Irwin: is it more 'philosophically sophisticated', and does it capture better what Plato meant?

Forms as Properties

2008-02-08T08:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a passage from a discussion of the theory of Forms. The author is maintaining that, although Plato in earlier parts of the Phaedo seemed to have held that a Form is an individual which is a perfect exemplar of that of which it is the Form, the final argument of that dialogue contains claims which are at odds with such a view:

In the later passage [in the Phaedo], Socrates describes how he can no longer accept, as explanations of what makes things beautiful, references to their having a bright color or a certain shape (100c9-d2), saying that he prefers instead the safe explanation that "if anything else is beautiful besides the beautiful itself (auto to kalon), it is beautiful for no other reason than that it participates (metechei) in that beautiful" (100c4-6; cf. 100d3-e3). The point of rejecting bright color or a certain shape as what makes things beautiful is that, while these properties may well be sufficient to make some things beautiful sometimes, neither is in fact necessary, whereas the form of beauty is supposed to be that property instantiation of which is both a necessary and sufficient condition of a thing's being beautiful. Already in the Phaedo, then, Plato suggests a conception of forms as properties, and of participation as property instantiation, that is much less problematic than the conception of forms as individual and perfect instances of a property that drives some of the Parmenides' criticisms

One might cavil at some of the language: for example, surely the view earlier in the dialogue is that Forms are paradigms rather than perfect instances.

But for me the passage raises questions, which I'll raise also for your consideration and comment:

Do we know what it means to say that a Form is a 'property' or that participation is 'property instantiation'? Is this something evident or straightforward? (If we suppose that these terms are uncontroversial, aren't we settling in advance the 'problem of universals'? And wouldn't one with some justification presume that Plato, at least, was a platonist about such things?)

If we know what this language means, must the cited passage be understood as putting forward that sort of view (or is it naturally or best so understood)? What is the argument in the passage that it should? (To me the phrase 'whereas the form of beauty is supposed to be that property instantiation of which ... ' looks like it is assuming what is meant to be shown.)

That those sentences in the Phaedo are puzzling and difficult to interpret, I freely admit. That they plainly put forward a view at odds with the view that Forms are individual and perfect exemplars, this I don't see (-- yet--maybe you do see).

Multiple Posts

2008-02-08T08:28:00.000-05:00

A point of clarification about the posting policy of this blog.

It's a common practice of blogs to post once on a subject and allow discussion to take the form of a thread of comments on that single post.

I've often taken a different approach here. Many times I choose to 'serialize' my comments about something, presenting them over a series of days, in posts which have something of a dramatic or narrative structure. This procedure seems to me often better for examining a philosophical claim or argument.

In my view, a blog post should be (roughly) no larger than what can fit on a screen and be seen in one view. It should present essentially a single thought. If due treatment of something requires more than one thought, it therefore requires more than one post. Several posts on a topic, then, imply nothing about the importance of that topic.

But that I shouldn't take up discussion of anything except matters of importance -- that's another demand, and one that I doubt a blog should even attempt to meet. On the other hand, I think this blog has succeeded better than most at avoiding topics so easy to discuss but that can squander our energies.

First Meeting, Washington Area Symposium in Ancient Philosophy

2008-02-07T00:22:00.000-05:00

Professor Athanasios Samaras
George Washington University

The household in Plato's Laws

Friday, February 8, 2008

2 pm
Leahy 100
The Catholic University of America

The Theory of Forms

2008-02-06T08:10:00.000-05:00

I want to consider the question of whether we should attribute a theory of Forms to Plato, as this is raised in Palmer's review.

It might be considered a frivolous point, to observe that there are dozens of books, articles, and encyclopedia entries on Plato's theory of Forms, so that, even if Plato did not hold such a theory, or even a theory (at all), still, an argument which supposed that he did would most appropriately be evaluated by the granting, for purposes of argument (indeed), of that premise.

That is, it would have been easy--and I think most responsible--for Palmer to express briefly his own doubts that Plato ever held a theory, then proceed to discuss Rickless' interpretation on the widely-granted premise that he does. Someone unable for the purposes of a review to reason on that premise should probably simply decline to review Rickless' book -- just as, say, someone who thought the phenomenological method had little merit should probably decline to review a book on Scheler or Ingarden.

You might be thinking, "This is too simple. It's not that Palmer denies that there is any theory of Forms in Plato; he rejects Rickless' way of stating it."

Actually, no. Palmer argues that there is no theory of Forms in Plato, and that Rickless' attempt to find or reconstruct a theory leads him inevitably to distort Plato's views. I'll deal with the question of distortion later. Let's look now at Palmer's arguments that there is no theory.

I won't dwell long on the paragraph which begins:

The systematizing impulse driving Rickless's reconstruction of the theory of Forms is reminiscent of that found in Russell Dancy's Plato's Introduction of Forms.

and which concludes:

Out of it came his first publication in ancient philosophy, "How Parmenides saved the theory of forms" (The Philosophical Review 107 [1998], 501-54), which this monograph now supercedes. Rickless perhaps does not altogether appreciate the depth of Dancy's influence on his approach to the problems he tackles here. The very impulse to systematize is an important case in point.

except to say that I personally find it obnoxious that Palmer in effect claims that he understands Rickless' motives and method better than Rickless does. And isn't it human that he misspells a word as he adopts this untenable posture?

Next Palmer says:

Rickless never doubts that the middle-period dialogues contain a fully-developed theory of forms.

This sentence I think suggests dogmatism and inflexibility. Yet in fact, we don't know whether Rickless spent years puzzling over the question of a theory before finally arriving at his view, and whether he did or not is irrelevant. Note also the fudge-term, 'fully developed'. Is it that he reconstructs a theory which is the problem, or a 'fully developed' theory?

It might be useful to define terms. What is a theory after all? A view? The belief that Forms exist together with (as must be the case) some beliefs about what Forms are like? Note that although, clearly, Rickless is fond of formalism (and we can argue about the advantages and disadvantages of formalization and rational reconstruction), the views he attributes to Plato are actually not very complicated. Perhaps in some sense it's puffery to call it a 'theory' even on Rickless' formalization.

But here is Palmer's argument:

In actual fact, however, the existence of certain imperceptible forms in which sensible particulars participate is typically presented as no more than Socrates' favored hypothesis. This status is especially clear in the Phaedo, where it enters the third argument that the philosopher should welcome death as something Socrates and his interlocutors already agree upon (65d4-7), and where it is likewise presumed without further argument in both the recollection and affinity arguments for the soul's immortality. Socrates' recap of the recollection argument marks the existence of forms as an unargued [sic] and as yet unsecured hypothesis (76d7-e7), and he makes it perfectly clear in his subsequent account of his method that the forms' existence has merely the status of a hypothesis (100a3-b9). Rather than a fully developed theory of forms, the Phaedo gives us a theory under construction, and much the same holds true of the Symposium and Republic. A crucial feature of the method of hypothesis as described in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic is that it eventually becomes necessary to go beyond just considering what accords with one's hypothesis by examining the hypothesis itself, with a view to ultimately grounding it in an unhypothesized first principle. The Parmenides is best understood as conducting the projected examination of Socrates' favored hypothesis.

Since the "theory of forms" is more accurately a hypothesis under development in the Symposium, Phaedo, and Republic, Rickless's attempt to furnish a systematic reconstruction of the "theory" in would-be definitive fashion not only is misplaced but also makes it more difficult than necessary to understand what to make of Parmenides' criticisms.

I'll put aside Palmer's use of the Phaedo, which seem to me faulty. What I wish to emphasize instead is that his argument contains ambiguities and false contrasts. Palmer uses the word 'hypothesis' in two ways: (i) as contrasted with 'conclusion' and meaning a premise, and (ii) as contrasted with 'definitive' and meaning provisional. On neither meaning does something's being an hypothesis exclude its being a theory, since theories may be both posited and provisional (as it seems all scientific theories are). So these paragraphs do nothing to defeat the claim that Plato held a theory. Perhaps Plato never held a theory, but Palmer gives no reason for this claim.

Yet suppose the point of these paragraphs is the notion that Plato's views were always changing throughout the 'middle period' dialogues, so one cannot pin down and state a single theory that covers all of them adequately. Even if that were granted, it's not clear that this would imply problems for the truth of Rickless' interpretation (I don't say how he understands his interpretation; I say its truth), since it seems that it would suffice to say that Rickless' reconstruction captures one position that Plato adopted, or a favored position, or the strongest position, or a representative position -- and that the Parmenides is best viewed as reflections which take that 'snapshot' of a developing theory as their starting point.

Actually, given the odd, logic-chopping character of the Parmenides, who is to say that as advance work for the dialogue, Plato didn't try to throw his thoughts into a more formal cast than he required of himself before? Surely we would be justified in suspecting systematic thought about the Forms in connection with the Parmenides if anywhere.

But as to whether the Parmenides is indeed best viewed in such a way -- to examine that question, we would (surprise, surprise) need to look at the actual interpretation of the dialogue which Rickless gives.

More on a Non-Review

2008-02-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

I asked yesterday about the appropriateness of the strategy announced in the following paragraph:

It will not be necessary further to summarize Rickless's understanding of Parmenides' criticisms of Socrates' theory and of the response to them indicated in the dialectical exercise, for he has himself done so at length in his article on the Parmenides for the web-based Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Instead, since how one understands what Plato has to say about forms in previous dialogues will obviously determine to a large degree how one is inclined to respond to Parmenides' criticisms of young Socrates' theory, it will be worth concentrating first on some of the presuppositions that guide Rickless's reconstruction of the "high" and "higher theory of forms" before turning to some of the problems in his account of how the Parmenides indicates this theory needs to be revised.

Note that when Palmer writes, "It will not be necessary ... for ...", he is implicitly admitting that if an adequate summary were not available, then it would be necessary for him to say more -- and that's why the review is, as it were, condemned by the very words of the reviewer.

Note, furthermore, that Palmer did not write--waiving any reference to the SEP article--"It will not be necessary further to summarize Rickless' understanding of Parmenides' criticisms of Socrates's theory and of the response to them, because it's enough to examine the premises on which that interpretation depends". This is what he should have said, if he really did have criticisms of the presuppositions of Rickless' interpretation so thoroughgoing and devastating, that it made further direct examination of Rickless' interpretation unnecessary.

Of course criticisms of that sort are hard to come by (compare as an instance of that sort of thing G.E. Moore's painstaking explanations in "The Refutation of Idealism" of how he aims to remove a principle on which all arguments for idealism seem to depend); and the review does no such thing.

(Nor could it. The dialogues of Plato are separate works, and even if Rickless were markedly wrong about the Phaedo, he could be right about the Parmenides nonetheless; indeed, the inference might even go in the other direction, and the correctness of his interpretation of the Parmenides would, so far, count as evidence in favor of his interpretation of other dialogues.)

But I find that Palmer's review in several places puts something forward and then takes it back.

We saw already that "summarize at length" does not make a great deal of sense.

And then there are:

"determine to a large degree" (a fudge-- do the presuppositions determine or fail to determine?)
"the existence of certain imperceptible forms in which sensible particulars participate is typically presented as no more than Socrates' favored hypothesis" -- (if it's only 'typically' so presented, then sometimes it's not so presented )
and, perhaps most strikingly, in the last paragraph of the review Rickless is criticized for not following Meinwald, and yet the reviewer admits that, for all we know, Meinwald may not be right ("Even if one does not agree with her development of this distinction .... some distinction along the lines..." ).

Let me be perfectly clear that I fault the reviewer far less than the editors of NDPR. They should have sent the review back to Palmer with the instruction, "instead of an essay on your disagreement with Rickless over the middle-period dialogues, please give us a review of the argument of the book", and along the way they might have dealt besides with the review's various misspellings ('supercedes'); solecisms ('unargued hypothesis'); colloquialisms ('In actual fact'); and clichés ('cashes out') .

Reviewing by Proxy

2008-02-03T06:45:00.000-05:00

It's difficult to review a book without reviewing it, and yet that is just what Palmer does, and what he admits to doing.

Rickless' book is an interpretation of the Parmenides, and, if you consult its TOC, you'll see that its pages 53 to page 250 (the last page) are dedicated to that task.

This is the bulk of the argument of the book, and whether the book succeeds or not, depends upon whether it succeeds at this task. In fact, since Rickless claims that his interpretation is the first which allows a reader to understand each particular twist and turn of the complex deductions of the dialogue, then presumably that claim at least needs to be considered. (That is, if someone is reviewing this book. If such a task seems unpleasant or too onerous, then one ought to decline to review it.)

Yet if you examine the review, you'll find that the following, extremely superficial sketch, is just about all that Palmer says about this main burden of the book:

Chapter 2 considers how Parmenides' criticisms suggest this theory needs to be modified. Chapter 3 articulates a view of the method Parmenides recommends that enables one to read it "as a direct and rational response to the problems raised in the first part of the dialogue" (95). Chapters 4 through 7 then run through the arguments in Parmenides' demonstration of this method to reveal what Rickless takes to be the Parmenides' fundamental lesson, namely, that certain principles of the high and higher theories of forms are to be abandoned.

Then, strangely, he says the following:

It will not be necessary further to summarize Rickless's understanding of Parmenides' criticisms of Socrates' theory and of the response to them indicated in the dialectical exercise, for he has himself done so at length in his article on the Parmenides for the web-based Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

That is, Palmer declares that he isn't going to explain--or, presumably, examine critically--the main argument of the book he is reviewing.

Now I don't know what it means to summarize something at length. Rickless' SEP entry is 18,000 words long, or about 55 double-spaced pages. Imagine that instead of referring us to the encyclopedia, Palmer at this point in his review had said, "First I'll summarize the argument of the book; then I'll criticize it", and he proceeded to give an 18,000 word summary. How would that have been adequate, as a review? A fortiori.

But then the encyclopedia article does not present itself as a summary of a book, so if a reviewer were to explain the book by the article, he'd need to say how the book differs, and which parts of the article represent the book. And then of course after doing all this, he would need to give a judgment on whether the book or the article is better, and how. (To bring in a separate article actually implies more work for a reviewer, not less.)

There's also a question of whether a reviewer isn't shirking the responsibility of giving his own judgment if he, in effect and in his own mind, allows the author to summarize the book for him.

Palmer's reply might be that in examining only the first chapter of the book (which is what he does), he says enough to undermine the presuppositions of Rickless' interpretation, which therefore makes a consideration of the rest of the book unnecessary. The reference to the SEP article was a mere courtesy.

I'd be more inclined to accept the integrity of such a strategy, if it didn't also turn out that it's much easier to examine chapter 1 than the rest of the book.

But, be that as it may, I'll look at the success of Palmer's approach in another post.

Source Criticism

2008-02-02T09:47:00.000-05:00

Did you see the informative doxographygraphy ? (That's not diplography.)

Note that Placita Dogmata has little to do with opera.

Was That a Philosophical Mugging?

2008-02-01T23:33:00.000-05:00

In the next few posts, I want to take a look at a review of a recent book by Sam Rickless, Plato's Forms in Transition: A Reading of the Parmenides.

When the review came out last December--by John Palmer in NDPR--I was stuck by what seemed its harsh tone. The fact that several friends immediately wrote to me about it showed that my perception was not unusual. Without question, the review had 'made an impression'.

Yet the question was raised in my mind: Did Rickless write a very poor book, as the reviewer seemed to suggest, or was he treated unfairly? I know Rickless to be a very able philosopher, so my first suspicion was of the latter, and I thought too that, if this were so, then it would interesting to show this on the blog (as belonging to its muckraking function).

Back then, I only had time to glance at the review. So I kept it in the stack at the bottom of my mailbox, to revisit it when I at last had some free time. Today I found that time, studied the review more carefully, and reached a considered judgment. And tomorrow I'll let you know something of the direction of my thought.

Not to leave you only with a teaser, I'll end by copying some lines (emphasis mine) from near the end of the review. (Given that they are at the very end, you may not have even gotten to them.) They're striking because one would never think that they could belong in a harshly negative review of a book:

It is natural to think that the Parmenides satisfies the expectation raised by the youthful Socrates' insistence that it would be truly remarkable if someone were to show that the forms themselves admit in themselves opposite attributes (Prm. 129c1-3) and that they are in themselves capable of combining and separating (129e2-3), so that the forms would be revealed as involved in the same complexities to which Zeno showed sensible particulars to be subject (129e5-130a2). Rickless argues that this expectation is borne out in the dialectical exercise in a manner that demonstrates the need to abandon the axiom of Radical Purity, the theorems of Purity and Uniqueness, and the auxiliary principle of No Causation by Contraries. This is a provocative new view worthy of taking its place alongside other interpretations of the dialogue's overall purpose.

The Solution to the Well-Defined Problem

2008-01-25T15:00:00.000-05:00

My advice for how to interpret that difficult passage in Nic. Eth. II.6? Simply continue reading beyond the passage-- since then it becomes clear, I think, that the words which I place in brackets below are not meant to be part of the definition at all, but rather a comment upon the definition:

Ἔστιν ἄρα ἡ ἀρετὴ ἕξις προαιρετική, ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς [ὡρισμέν η λόγῳ καὶ ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν].

If we bracket those words for the moment, then the definition of virtue given here (which is said, btw, to state the genos only, at 1114b27), is of a trait (ἕξις) which disposes someone to choose in a certain way (προαιρετική), and which is intermediate (ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα) as between two other states, in a manner relative to us (τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς). As Taylor points out in his commentary, that and precisely that is what Aristotle had established in his discussion which precedes the definition.

But what is the reason for the bracketed words? They comment upon the definition, and Aristotle gives the sense of that comment in the lines that immediately follow.

First Aristotle clarifies his definition with a couple of glosses:

μεσότης δὲ δύο κακιῶν, τῆς μὲν καθ' ὑπερβο λὴν τῆς δὲ κατ' ἔλλειψιν· καὶ ἔτι τῷ τὰς μὲν ἐλλείπειν τὰς δ' ὑπερβάλλειν τοῦ δέοντος ἔν τε τοῖς πάθεσι καὶ ἐν ταῖς πράξεσι, τὴν δ' ἀρετὴν τὸ μέσον καὶ εὑρίσκειν καὶ αἱρεῖσθαι.

It is a trait intermediate between two vices one of which is so by excess and the other by defect. And they are so because they either fall short of or exceed what they should, in emotions or in actions, whereas virtue identifies and chooses the intermediate mark.

The sentence which next follows is, I think, a gloss as well on the bracketed words:

διὸ κατὰ μὲν τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ τὸν λόγον τὸν τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι λέγοντα μεσότης ἐστὶν ἡ ἀρετή, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἄριστον καὶ τὸ εὖ ἀκρότης.

That is why, with respect to its nature and the definition that states its essence, virtue is an intermediate trait, whereas with respect to what is best and what is excellent, it is a high point.

The reason for this last gloss is that Aristotle is perfectly well aware that, to anyone who has actually striven to be virtuous, it will seem strange and even paradoxical to say that virtue is something intermediate. Rather, from the point of view of someone striving to be good (κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἄριστον καὶ τὸ εὖ), virtue looks like a nearly unattainable pinnacle. (Think, e.g. of the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded it is said to "the bravest of the brave", for those who distinguish themselves "…conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty...". Nothing intermediate about that! And there are lots of other examples.)

So Aristotle thinks that he has to defend his definition. He therefore says that, in fact, as regards the nature of a virtue, and considering it formally (i.e. with a view to its logos), each virtue, it turns out, falls between two opposing vices. Someone immersed in the task of trying to act well might not notice this; yet this will be how a discerning person will define it.

And this is exactly what he had said in the bracketed words, and so the text should be translated:

Virtue is a trait (ἕξις) which disposes someone to choose in a certain way (προαιρετική), and which is intermediate (ἐν μεσότητι οὖσα) as between two other states, in a manner relative to us (τῇ πρὸς ἡμᾶς)-- that is, when virtue is marked out by its formal definition (ὡρισμέν η λόγῳ ), and in the way that a person with insight into practical matters would mark it out (ὡς ἂν ὁ φρόνιμος ὁρίσειεν).

This explains perfectly the reading of the codices -- the key is to see that the problematic words are not in the definition but about the definition--

-- and it also shows why all of those dozens of articles on the passage should quietly be pushed aside and forgotten.

Classics
		Ann Ellis Hanson	Historian
		Leslie V. Kurke	Classicist and Literary Scholar
		Dirk Obbink	Classicist and Papyrologist
		Thomas G. Palaima	Classicist
		Gregory Vlastos	Classicist and Philosopher



	Philosophy
		Stanley Cavell	Philosopher
		Patricia Smith Churchland	Philosopher
		Leszek Kolakowski	Historian of Philosophy and Religion
		Richard Rorty	Philosopher
		Thomas M. Scanlon	Philosopher
		Judith N. Shklar	Political Philosophy