History: What's At Stake?

A reader writes:

Your defense of the history of philosophy reminded me of this essay by Bernard Williams.

He shares your view about the narrowness of the virtues of analytic philosophy and the conception of philosophy as humanistic (i.e. “What I have to say, since it is itself a piece of philosophy, is an example of what I take philosophy to be, part of a more general attempt to make the best sense of our life, and so of our intellectual activities, in the situation in which we find ourselves.”) But this last clause, "in the situation in which we find ourselves," indicates--I think--his departure from your view about the continuity between contemporary and historical philosophers.

It seems that Williams holds that who "we" are is both historically determined and susceptible, at a given time, to wider (and inclusive) or more narrow (and exclusive) scope. I take it that you're operating at a higher altitude than Williams, and so the "we" is much more historically continuous and less likely to be exclusive.

Well, I'd better not go on too long here since I'm not sure I'm marking clearly enough what I think the difference between you and Williams is (perhaps only his Nietzschean perspectivalism?). I wonder what you make of Williams' defense of the study of the history of philosophy.

A difference between my view and Williams' also comes out in his phrase, "make the best sense of our lives, and so of our intellectual activities". A careful reading of his essay reveals, I believe, that Hilary Putnam is in the end correct in his charge that Williams "views physics as giving us the ultimate metaphysical truth". Williams tries to side-step this, by demurring from any affirmation of 'ultimate' truth: but change this to, simply, "views physics as giving us truth", and the charge ends up being correct.

For Williams, philosophy does not tell us how the world is; it simply tells us 'how we make sense of the world'. It is about our grasp of and interpretation of the world, not the world itself. Thus, it ends up being a high-level sociology of thought. I don't find in Williams essay any sense that philosophy is an intellectual adventure, that it involves a commitment to truth that may lead one to 'convert' and accept something one hadn't even anticipated believing in beforehand. The attitude Williams expresses is quite unlike the attitude that was shown, say, by Russell when he took that bicycle ride and came back convinced that the Ontological Argument was sound; or by Plato, who came to think that what we ordinarily take to be reality is, rather, the least real, like shadows on the wall of a cave.

In Williams, one sees a commitment to an intellectual life that cannot give an account of itself. It is, I believe, incapable of explaining to a younger generation why anyone should take seriously what Williams, when he was a young man, was taught to take seriously. Williams I think confesses as much, when he brings in Nietzsche near the end of the essay:

I accept that analytic philosophy owes many of its successes to the principle that small and good is better than broad and bad. I accept that this involves a division of labour. I accept that you want to get on with it. I also admit something else, that it is typically senior philosophers who, like senior scientists, tend to muse in these expansive ways about the nature of their subject. As Nietzsche says in a marvellous passage about the philosopher and age:

It quite often happens that the old man is subject to the delusion of a great moral renewal and rebirth, and from this experience he passes judgments on the work and course of his life, as if he had only now become clear-sighted; and yet the inspiration behind this feeling of well-being and these confident judgements is not wisdom, but weariness.

I don't think Williams succeeds in explaining why Nietzsche's judgment doesn't apply to himself. The essay seems to me, alas, the expression of someone weary of life and weary of philosophy.

A Defense of History

How would I defend the study of the history of philosophy?

First, I would deny that there is any distinction between doing philosophy, and studying the history of philosophy. The reason is that it is impossible to do philosophy by restricting ourselves to things said in the present. We must therefore try to understand and evaluate what was said by those who came before us. But then it seems arbitrary to draw a line somewhere and say that "going back to this point, these people in the past count as contemporaries, whereas before this, it is a matter of 'history'."

When people draw such a line, they do so, not on the basis of time, but rather because someone in the past does or does not belong to the same 'school' as they. Frege is not 'history', but Herbert Spencer, although a contemporary of Frege, is 'history'--Why? Because those who draw such a distinction are in the same school as Frege, but not Spencer.

Again, much of what is called 'problem-solving analytic philosophy' is getting straight about what is claimed by someone like Quine or Davidson--both dead, both in the past, both surely now part of 'history'. And yet getting straight about Quine differs from getting straight about Aquinas only because one counts oneself in the same 'school' as the one but not the other.

It is inevitable that philosophy be done in a 'school'. A philosopher is either a 'founder', or a follower developing the ideas of a founder, or a combination of the two. Since that is so, then that one belongs to one school rather than another needs a justification. It is extremely unphilosophical to be an analytic philosopher simply because the only courses available at one's university were in analytic philosophy. But one cannot give an educated justification of this sort without being able to justify adherence to one's own school over any other--which is 'history of philosophy'.

Thus, there is no distinction between doing philosophy and doing the history of philosophy. Someone who insists on this distinction, is insisting, really, that one attend to only a part of philosophy--which is imprudent and perhaps implies a poor education.

This mention of being well-educated leads to two further reasons for studying the history of philosophy. The first is that it is a mark of being a well-educated person, that barriers between the present and the past are removed. This used to be seen vividly and directly, when old books were accessible only through dead, 'scholarly' languages. Not to know the old books, then, was a sign of a poor education. The same thing holds today, even if those books are translated. Not to be conversant with those books--not to see them as interlocutors and 'contemporaries' in thought--bespeaks a poor education, a lack of intellectual development and power. It is one thing of course to reject the arguments or ideas of an Aristotle or Scotus after having a competent grasp of them; but it is another thing altogether to reject these without knowing them, or, really, not even being in a position to understand them.

A similar point may be made if one considers intellectual virtue--that is, what qualities and traits of the mind are to be valued. Those who place analytic philosophy above all others, generally do so in part because they value only some intellectual virtues, in particular, clarity and order of ideas. Thus training in mathematics and formal logic is regarded as the best background for philosophy. Yet there are other intellectual virtues, which must be acquired in other ways--through the study of history and languages, and through the development of what used to be called 'humanity'. (It is because analytic philosophy fosters only some intellectual virtues that students are rightly dissatisfied with it.) Without a broad study of the history of philosophy, one cannot in practice acquire the full range of intellectual virtues.

What Use is History of Philosophy?

Perhaps you noticed J. Schneewind's review yesterday in NDPR of a rather lackluster defense of the value of the study of the history of philosophy, in Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy (OUP 2005, edited by Tom Sorrell and J.A.G. Rogers).

Schneewind complains that the contributors, including some very distinguished historians, instrumentalize the study of the history of philosophy. They fail to go beyond asking how the study of the history of philosophy might be helpful to analytic 'problem-solving' types, thus leaving unchallenged a presumption of the superior worth of the latter. And, in conclusion, he suggests a cynical explanation:

We hear much about what analytic philosophers miss if they ignore history, but nothing of damage to historical work from being oriented to problem-solvers' uses of it. No one here asks why, and even whether, historians of philosophy should care about the response of problem-solvers to their work. Is it only because the problem-solvers largely control hiring, promotions, and raises?

I was struck by the absence, apparently, of any contribution to the volume by an historian of medieval or ancient philosophy.

But then the review led me to consider: What is the best defense of the history of philosophy? If one were taking a principled approach, and claiming the high-ground, what should one say?

I have my ideas, which I'll share tomorrow.

Meletai Sophias

I flattered myself that the letter was indeed personally addressed to me--the one inviting me to contribute to Existentia, a new journal hailing from Budapest--until I saw a colleague, not an ancient philosopher, carrying around a copy similarly received in the mail.

I found the statement of "Aims & Scope" of the journay amenable: "Our periodical is focussed on classical European thought, especially on the timeliness and actualization of the imperishable doctrines of ancient Greek authors. This ancient humanism, the essential digest of which is philosophy, permeating the whole of human paidei/a and culture, is what our periodical wishes to display."

Bravo!, I say.

But then, strangely, this impressive statement concludes: "Although not an advocate of any one trend or school in philosophy, it endeavors to keep abreast of developments within phenomenology, hermeneutical philosophy and contemporary continental philosophy; it is also interested in investigations that probe possible points of intersection between the contintental and the Anglo-American traditions. Most articles are devoted to the philosophy of Hoelderlin, Husserl, and Heidegger."

Huh? What did I miss?

What the Affinity Argument Is

This will likely be my last post on the Affinity Argument of the Phaedo, which isn't stirring up a lot of interest, it seems.

I claimed yesterday that the Affinity Argument should not be understood, as usual, as an 'argument from analogy'. What is it then?

Let's say that an argument from analogy is one that notes similarities or resemblances between one thing or another, and then, on the basis of that, concludes that the two will be similar in other respects as well. Such an argument has all of the reliability of an induction based on accidental features ('This swan is white, and so it this, and so is this...')--that is, no reliability. Plato simply couldn't have been interested in an argument of that sort. He wasn't foolish enough to think than any serious form of reasoning could have that form.

What the Affinity Argument does aim to present us with--and in this respect it is characteristically Platonic--is an argument about the nature of things. Plato's claim is that the nature of the soul is such that we should reasonably group it with things the nature of which is not to perish.

He begins by dividing all that exists into two classes, the composite and the non-composite. Since he thinks that anything composite will be variable, he can then conclude from the fact that something is not variable, that it is non-composite. Thus, he works with the two classes: variable and invariable.

He thinks that the things in these different classes have different natures. (It doesn't just happen to be the case that something is in one class rather than another.) He then considers in which of these classes the soul is more reasonably placed, by considerations that have a bearing on the nature of the soul.

He gives three such considerations:

1. The soul is naturally not 'visible', whereas changeable things are 'visible'.
2. The soul is the sort of thing that, when it acts on its own and is free from constraints placed on it by the body, or by care of the body, then it tends to 'depart' (oichetai) to the Forms, until it actually 'makes contact' with them.
3. The soul is naturally ordered to rule over the body.

I don't think it has been noticed by commentators that, in each of these considerations, Plato is appealing to natures.

The appeal to nature in the first consideration is contained in the line 79b6:

a)lla\ mh\n h(mei=j ge ta\ o(rata\ kai\ ta\ mh\ th=| tw=n a)nqrw/pwn fu/sei e)le/gomen: h)\ a)/llh| tini\ oi)/ei;

"But we call things visible and invisible with reference to the nature human beings, do we not?"

Perhaps you've wondered about this before. Why the reference to specifically human vision? Plato's thought is that human sense organs are naturally adapted to perceive mutable, perishable things; whereas the human mind is naturally adapted (it is a 'natural instrument') for sensing unchanging, imperishable things. Each 'sense' has its natural objects. It follows that if something falls under the latter, but not the former, then it belongs in the class of unchanging, imperishable things.

Nature enters into the second consideration in just the way that H. Lorenz explains in his excellent SEP entry: we discern the nature of the soul when it is in circumstances such that it acts according to principles internal to it, and in such circumstances we see that it flees to be with the Forms. (It's as if: suppose whenever we let out an animal, it ran away to dwell in the forest; this would indicate that it was wild, that it did not belong at home.)

Nature enters fairly obviously into the third consideration, as it is Plato's claim (echoed repeatedly in the Republic and the elsewhere) that nature directs the soul to exercise authority over the body: tw=| me\n douleu/ein kai\ a)/rxesqai h( fu/sij prosta/ttei, th=| de\ a)/rxein kai\ despo/zein: kai\ kata\ tau=ta au)= po/tero/n soi dokei= o(/moion tw=| qei/w| ei)=nai kai\ po/teron tw=| qnhtw=|; (80a2).

An Argument from Analogy?

I shall address in this post and the next another common misunderstanding of the Affinity Argument, that it is an 'argument from analogy'.

If it is, then the criticism then proceeds: analogies are persuasive but not demonstrative; they can even be misleading; and Simmias' criticism shows how easy it is to devise an analogy which seems to support the opposite conclusion, that the soul is perishable.

Some lecture notes posted online by Sally Haslanger illustrate well this approach:

II. THE AFFINITY ARGUMENT

(a) The world consists of two sorts of things: the things which are divine, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, deathless (eternal), [invisible, incomposite] and the things that are not. (Arewe supposed to get these conclusions from recollection argument?)

(b) The soul is more like the former in the following ways (this is seen especially if we consider the soul of the philosopher which has been purified of bodily influences):

(i) it is invisible

(ii) it is closer to unvarying than constantly varying

(iii) it rules the body and so is more divine

(c) So the soul is plausibly one of the incomposite, indissoluble, deathless things.

Problems?

The analogy is weak: we don't get obvious similarity of the soul in the crucial respects.

In particular, there are things which are invisible and incorporeal (the harmony), and possibly incomposite (material elements?), which aren't among the divine class of things Socrates mentions.

Bostock reaches a similar conclusion: "Fairly obviously," he says, "Plato does not himself think that the conclusion strictly follows from the premises, but knows well enough that analogies can never count as conclusive proofs; from the fact that the soul is like the forms (or like the gods) in one way, it will never follow that it is like them in other ways too. For all that, analogies can quite often be persuasive, especially if they are full and detailed. But the present analogies really are not: on the contrary, there appear to be equally good analogies pointing in the opposite direction, as Plato himself goes on to point out" (120).

Yet what is the evidence that Plato does not think that the conclusion of the Affinity Argument 'strictly' (?) follows from the premises? Or that he acknowledged that there are 'equally good analogies pointing in the opposite direction'? (Doesn't he deny that Simmias' comparison is sound?)

In any case, these criticisms are based on a faulty appreciation of the Affinity Argument, which is not an 'argument from analogy' at all.

What is it, then? I'll explain tomorrow.

Back from a Brief Respite

Last week was Spring Break at my university. Besides climbing a mountain, I traveled to Ottawa, for a very enjoyable trip, to serve as the external examiner of a dissertation.

I'll resume posting on the Phaedo and Affinity Argument shortly.

A Second Voyage

Here's yet another passage to be filed under, "Strange Thing I Only Just Noticed". It's from the Phaedo, after Socrates has just finished presenting his "three initial arguments", and just before Simmias and Cebes give their objections. Simmias is the speaker; but he begins by signalling Socrates' likely agreement with what he says, and he speaks with so much more authority than he does elsewhere in the dialogue, that one can't help taking this to express Plato's view as well. I give first Gallop's translation, then the Greek:

I think, Socrates, as perhaps you do too, that in these matters certain knowledge is either impossible or very hard to come by in this life; but that even so, not to test what is said about them in every possible way, without leaving off till one has examined them exhaustively from every aspect, shows a very feeble spirit; on these questions one must achieve one of two things: either learn or find out how things are; or, if that's impossible, then adopt the best and least refutable of human doctrines, embarking on it as a kind of raft, and risking the dangers of the voyage through life, unless one could travel more safely and with less risk, on a sooner conveyance afforded by some divine doctrine (85c-d).

e)moi\ ga\r dokei=, w)= Sw/kratej, peri\ tw=n toiou/twn i)/swj w(/sper kai\ soi\ to\ me\n safe\j ei)de/nai e)n tw=| nu=n bi/w| h)\ a)du/naton ei)=nai h)\ pagxa/lepo/n ti, to\ me/ntoi au)= ta\ lego/mena peri\ au)tw=n mh\ ou)xi\ panti\ tro/pw| e)le/gxein kai\ mh\ proafi/stasqai pri\n a)\n pantaxh=| skopw=n a)pei/ph| tij, pa/nu malqakou= ei)=nai a)ndro/j: dei=n ga\r peri\ au)ta\ e(/n ge/ ti tou/twn diapra/casqai, h)\ maqei=n o(/ph| e)/xei h)\ eu(rei=n h)/, ei) tau=ta a)du/naton, to\n gou=n be/ltiston tw=n a)nqrwpi/nwn lo/gwn labo/nta kai\ dusecelegkto/taton, e)pi\ tou/tou o)xou/menon w(/sper e)pi\ sxedi/aj kinduneu/onta diapleu=sai to\n bi/on, ei) mh/ tij du/naito a)sfale/steron kai\ a)kinduno/teron e)pi\ bebaiote/rou o)xh/matoj, [h)\] lo/gou qei/ou tino/j, diaporeuqh=nai. kai\ dh\ kai\ nu=n e)/gwge ou)k e)paisxunqh/somai e)re/sqai, e)peidh\ kai\ su\ tau=ta le/geij, ou)d' e)mauto\n ai)tia/somai e)n u(ste/rw| xro/nw| o(/ti nu=n ou)k ei)=pon a(/ moi dokei=. e)moi\ ga/r, w)= Sw/kratej, e)peidh\ kai\ pro\j e)mauto\n kai\ pro\j to/nde skopw= ta\ ei)rhme/na, ou) pa/nu fai/netai i(kanw=j ei)rh=sqai.

Gallop's translation follows Fowler's (Loeb) in suggesting that there are only two alternatives among things 'one should strive to achieve'. But aren't there four?

1. learn from another (how it is)
   
2. discover for oneself (how it is)
   
3. cling to the best and least refutable human account
   
4. cling with greater security and safety to a more stable divine account.

1. and 2. are surely different: 'learning from another' is standardly contrasted with 'discovering for oneself' by Plato (e.g in Alc. I), and here Plato keeps them distinct by interposing o(/ph| e)/xei. But then, once we see that these are different, then 4. as well looks like an independent alternative.

And then I was struck by the similarity between 3. and Socrates' talk of a 'second voyage' later in the dialogue. In that later passage, startlingly, he begins by saying that he was unable to learn from another or discover by his own efforts the sort of cause he was looking for:

Now I should most gladly have become anyone's pupil, to learn the truth about a reason of that sort; but since I was deprived of that, proving unable either to find it for myself or to learn it from anyone else (ou)/t' au)to\j eu(rei=n ou)/te par' a)/llou maqei=n), would you like me, Cebes, to give you a display of how I've conducted my second voyage in quest of the reason? (99c)

After this, Socrates gives his 'safe explanation': presumably, then, he thinks of this as "the best and least refutable among human accounts" (corresponding to 3.).

But then, we may wonder, does Socrates give us something even better to cling to--a divine account (corresponding to 4.)? Perhaps he does, in the myth that comes last in the dialogue.

Scottish News

In my mailbox today, the odd announcement:

Following Gordon Graham's appointment to a new post at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy is relocating to the USA. This process will take some time, but the first stage has now been completed.

Yes, I understand that McCosh was in Princeton, yet still this strikes me as a great shame. And will the Reid Archives will move from Aberdeen to Princeton as well?

Lord Monboddo, esteemed author of Antient Metaphysics, would no doubt shudder. (And you were wondering perhaps what the connection was to ancient philosophy. You see there was one.)

Philosophy on a Mountain

In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, snow has evidently been unusually light this winter. When we came to a steep, exposed section of the winter Lion's Head trail, which should have been covered with snow, we found that it was all ice and rock. I didn't feel comfortable attempting it unprotected, and we had no rope. So we turned back, giving up on the summit, and instead climbed nearby Boott Spur at 5500 ft. (Mt. Washington is 6288 ft.)



This is the Boott Spur ridge.















Practicing 'French technique' on the way up.











Having attained the ridge.












On the summit of Boott Spur: it's gotten a little bit foggy. But not the slightest breeze. It's perfectly calm.

One Instance

(One more post for today. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'll be standing on the summit of Mt. Washington and unable to post.)

Sam Rickless has posted a handout on the arguments of the Phaedo, which illustrates well the logical structure one would want to attribute to the Affinity Argument--three distinct considerations, each leading to the same crucial conclusion. And yet the text, it seems, does not allow us to construe it in this way:

Affinity Argument (78b-80d)

1. Noncomposite things are indissoluble.
2. Things that always remain the same in the same state are most likely noncomposite.
3. Forms always remain the same in the same state.
4. Sensible things never remain the same in the same state.
5. Forms are invisible.
6. Sensible things are visible.
7. Invisible things always remain the same in the same state, and visible things never remain the same in the same state.(3,4,5,6)
8. The soul is invisible.
9. The soul is indissoluble.(1,2,7,8)
10. When the soul investigates things that remain the same in the same state, it too remains the same in the same state.
11. The soul investigates the Forms.
12. The soul is indissoluble.(1,2,3,10,11)
13. The nature of the divine is to rule and lead.
14. The nature of the soul is to rule and lead (the body)
15. If X is F and Y is F, then X resembles Y.
16. The soul resembles the divine. (13,14,15)
17. The divine is indissoluble.
18. If X resembles Y and Y is G, then X is G.
19. The soul is indissoluble.(16,17,18)

The Structure of the Affinity Argument

Here's something that puzzles me about the Affinity Argument: What is its basic logical structure? From the way Socrates begins the argument, one would think that the argument should hinge on whether the soul is composite (syntheton) or non-composite (asyntheton). And yet the argument never returns to this notion, after it is introduced.

Socrates begins the argument (78b-c) by saying:

ou)kou=n toio/nde ti, h)= d' o(\j o( Swkra/thj, dei= h(ma=j a)nere/sqai e(autou/j, tw=| poi/w| tini\ a)/ra prosh/kei tou=to to\ pa/qoj pa/sxein, to\ diaskeda/nnusqai, kai\ u(pe\r tou= poi/ou tino\j dedie/nai mh\ pa/qh| au)to/, kai\ tw=| poi/w| tini\ ou)/>: kai\ meta\ tou=to au)= e)piske/yasqai po/teron [h(] yuxh/ e)stin, kai\ e)k tou/twn qarrei=n h)\ dedie/nai u(pe\r th=j h(mete/raj yuxh=j;

a)lhqh=, e)/fh, le/geij.

a)=r' ou)=n tw=| me\n sunteqe/nti te kai\ sunqe/tw| o)/nti fu/sei prosh/kei tou=to pa/sxein, diaireqh=nai tau/th| h(=|per sunete/qh: ei) de/ ti tugxa/nei o)\n a)su/nqeton, tou/tw| mo/nw| prosh/kei mh\ pa/sxein tau=ta, ei)/per tw| a)/llw|;

dokei= moi, e)/fh, ou(/twj e)/xein, o( Ke/bhj.

Well then, must we not ask ourselves some such question as this? What kind of thing naturally suffers dispersion, and for what kind of thing might we naturally fear it, and again what kind of thing is not liable to it? And after this must we not inquire to which class the soul belongs and base our hopes or fears for our souls upon the answers to these questions?

You are quite right.

Now is not that which is compounded and composite naturally liable to be decomposed, in the same way in which it was compounded? And if anything is uncompounded is not that, if anything, naturally unlikely to be decomposed?

I think that is true.

Given such a beginning, one would think the Affinity Argument should proceed by giving three different considerations (and there seem to be three considerations) for why the soul is not composite, thus:

1. Something perishes just in case it is composite.
2. It is likely that the soul is not composite, for three reasons:

(i) like other non-composite things, the soul is not perceptible through the bodily senses;
(ii) the soul has kinship with (i.e. naturally yearns to be with) non-composite things;
(iii) the soul naturally rules, as do only non-composite things.

3. Thus, it is likely that the soul does not perish.

And yet, as I said, that the soul is non-composite, or is like or akin to non-composite things, is not asserted anywhere in the argument, either in the course of the argument, or as a conclusion. The argument's conclusion is the following, which notably leaves out the very attribute on which the entire discussion was said to hinge:

…ta/de h(mi=n sumbai/nei, tw=| me\n qei/w| kai\ a)qana/tw| kai\ nohtw=| kai\ monoeidei= kai\ a)dialu/tw| kai\ a)ei\ w(sau/twj kata\ tau)ta\ e)/xonti e(autw=| o(moio/taton ei)=nai yuxh/,…

...this follows, that the soul is most like the divine and immortal and intellectual and uniform and indissoluble and ever unchanging.... (80b)

Sure, one can say that the notion of 'non-composite' is expressed in that of 'indissoluble' (or 'not liable to be dissolved'), however: (i) earlier Socrates had distinguished these two notions, and he proposed that indissolubility was a consequence of lack of composition, not identical to it; and, more importantly, (ii) it would still be the case that the logical structure of the argument is obscure, because, in the course of the argument, lack of composition changes from being that on which the argument hinges, to being one feature among many which a certain class of existences displays.

Addendum on Affinity

One small addition to Lorenz' explanation of the 'kinship' part of the Affinity Argument: Socrates' grounds for claiming a kinship between the soul and the realm of the invisible and eternal, are not located entirely in the Affinity Argument, but they are als0--and perhaps largely--given in an earlier passage, called 'Socrates' Defense' (64a-69e). This is the passage which immediately precedes the Cyclical Argument.

In the Affinity Argument, Socrates refers back to this 'Defense' at 79c2 and d9:

ou)kou=n kai\ to/de pa/lai e)le/gomen, o(/ti h( yuxh/, o(/tan me\n tw=| sw/mati prosxrh=tai ei)j to\ skopei=n ti h)\ dia\ tou= o(ra=n h)\ dia\ tou= a)kou/ein h)\ di' a)/llhj tino\j ai)sqh/sewstou=to ga/r e)stin to\ dia\ tou= sw/matoj, to\ di' ai)sqh/sewj skopei=n ti to/te me\n e(/lketai u(po\ tou= sw/matoj ei)j ta\ ou)de/pote kata\ tau)ta\ e)/xonta, kai\ au)th\ plana=tai kai\ tara/ttetai kai\ ei)liggia=| w(/sper mequ/ousa, a(/te toiou/twn e)faptome/nh;

Now we have also been saying for a long time, have we not, that, when the soul makes use of the body for any inquiry, either through seeing or hearing or any of the other senses--for inquiry through the body means inquiry through the senses,--then it is dragged by the body to things which never remain the same, and it wanders about and is confused and dizzy like a drunken man because it lays hold upon such things?

pote/rw| ou)=n au)= soi dokei= tw=| ei)/dei kai\ e)k tw=n pro/sqen kai\ e)k tw=n nu=n legome/nwn yuxh\ o(moio/teron ei)=nai kai\ suggene/steron;

And now again, in view of what we said before and of what has just been said, to which class do you think the soul has greater likeness and kinship?

Although 'Socrates' Defense' is not usually counted among the passages in the Phaedo that give an 'argument' for immortality, it's there that Socrates gives his fullest account of how the soul behaves when it operates 'alone by itself'.

The Affinity Argument

It's perhaps best not to state any plans for a blog, even short-term plans, since one can hardly persevere with a blog if it imposes any kind of additional constraint. However, I do have in mind, at least, a series of comments on the Affinity Argument of the Phaedo. (Yet don't charge me with inconstancy if I don't fulfill this intention.) What is its structure? What is the strength of its conclusion? Why is it stated as it is? And there are other puzzles.

I had wished, among other things, to draw attention to what I regard as persistent misreadings of the argument. But at least two such misreadings, I find, are already nicely corrected, in a fine contribution by Hendrik Lorenz to SEP, on "Ancient Theories of Soul". One wouldn't expect to discover, perhaps, a superb exegesis of the Phaedo under such a heading, but there it is.

Lorenz makes two points that I think are exactly correct and are worth quoting. First, he observes that the purpose of the argument is simply to overturn the presumption that the soul is more easily dispersable than the body (perhaps on the ground that the soul is constituted, as in the popular imagination, of mist or spirit):

What [Socrates] does, in fact, conclude is that the soul is most like, and most akin to, intelligible being, and that the body is most like perceptible and perishable being. To say this is plainly neither to assert nor to imply (as Robinson 1995, 30, appears to think) that soul in some way or other falls short of intelligible, imperishable being, any more than it is to assert or imply that body in some way or other falls short of, or rather rises above, perceptible, perishable being. The argument leaves it open whether soul is a perfectly respectable member of intelligible reality, the way human bodies are perfectly respectable members of sensible reality, or whether, alternatively, soul has some intermediate status in between intelligible and perceptible being, rising above the latter, but merely approximating to the former. Socrates does seem to take his conclusion to imply, or at least strongly suggest, that it is natural for the soul either “to be altogether indissoluble, or nearly so”, but, in any case, that the soul is less subject to dissolution and destruction than the body, rather than, as the popular view has it, more so. If this position can be established, Socrates is in a position to refute the popular view that the soul, being composed of ethereal stuff, is more liable to dispersion and destruction than the body.

Second, he observes that the argument wishes to assert not simply the likeness or resemblance of soul to the realm of intelligible and constant reality, but also its kinship, and that this kinship, Socrates thinks, is revealed in how the soul behaves under conditions in which its true nature is likely to be manifested:

The affinity argument is supposed to show not only that the soul is most like intelligible, imperishable being, but also that it is most akin to it. Socrates argues that the soul is like intelligible being on the grounds that it is not visible and, in general, not perceptible (anyhow to humans, as Cebes adds at 79b), and that it shares its natural function with the divine, namely to rule and lead (the body in the one case, mortals in the other). There is a separate argument for the kinship of the soul with intelligible being. When the soul makes use of the senses and attends to perceptibles, “it strays and is confused and dizzy, as if it were drunk” (79c). By contrast, when it remains “itself by itself” and investigates intelligibles, its straying comes to an end, and it achieves stability and wisdom. It is not just that the soul is in one state or another depending on which kind of object it is attending to, in such a way that its state somehow corresponds to the character of the object attended to. That would not by itself show that the soul is more akin to the one domain rather than the other (this is the point of Bostock's criticism, Bostock 1986, 119). To understand the argument properly, it is crucial to note that when the soul attends to perceptibles, it is negatively affected in such a way that its functioning is at least temporarily reduced or impaired (“dizzy, as if drunk”), whereas there is no such interference when it attends to intelligibles (cf. Socrates' fear, at 99e, that by studying things by way of the senses he might blind his soul). The claim that the soul is akin to intelligible reality thus rests, at least in part, on the view that intelligible reality is especially suited to the soul, as providing it with a domain of objects in relation to which, and only in relation to which, it can function without inhibition and interference and fully in accordance with its own nature, so as to achieve its most completely developed and optimal state, wisdom.

Lorenz' entire entry is first-rate--very much worth studying.

Cool Reason

Suppose someone knows something very well. What he knows is interesting, beautiful, and deep--for instance, a fundamental theorem in mathematics. Knowing this, he thinks about it.

Now suppose that an entire life for him is stitched together from activities such as this. One might say--if one had a certain sort of sensibility--that such a life would be akin to the life of the gods. It would be how a blessedly happy person, a makarios, would live. It's the life to be enjoyed by those who are graced to live on the Isles of the Blessed. And it is the sort of life to which our 'happiness' approximates.

Now, will that life be exceedingly pleasant; painful; or neutral--neither pleasant nor painful?

Plato and Aristotle give different answers on this point, and one wonders whether this difference--and not the issue about Forms or anything else--isn't the most significant difference in their philosophies. (This is a difference that can't but ramify throughout every part of a theory of ethics, of striving and therefore of motion, and of existence.) Aristotle says that such a life would be filled continuously with pleasures, and with pleasures that count as the greatest of all. Plato, at least as regards the Philebus, holds that such a life would be neutral--without pain, to be sure, but also entirely lacking in pleasure. There he recognizes pleasures of learning, but not pleasures inherent in thinking or knowing.

For my part, I began adequately to appreciate this difference when preparing last week a presentation on the Philebus for the NY Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. And then I began to wonder: Does Plato maintain this Philebian view consistently throughout the dialogues?

Here, for instance, is something I found in the Phaedo, 65c1-9. It is a passage in 'Socrates' Defense' at the beginning, where Socrates is advocating a philosophical life as one devoted to those activities that the soul is fitted to engage in 'alone by itself', without, he thinks, any assistance from the body, and not in the service of the body.

a)=r' ou)=n ou)k e)n tw=| logi/zesqai ei)/per pou a)/lloqi kata/dhlon au)th=| gi/gnetai/ ti tw=n o)/ntwn;

nai/.

logi/zetai de/ ge/ pou to/te ka/llista, o(/tan au)th\n tou/twn mhde\n paraluph=|, mh/te a)koh\ mh/te o)/yij mh/te a)lghdw\n mhde/ tij h(donh/, a)ll' o(/ti ma/lista au)th\ kaq' au(th\n gi/gnhtai e)w=sa xai/rein to\ sw=ma, kai\ kaq' o(/son du/natai mh\ koinwnou=sa au)tw=| mhd' a(ptome/nh o)re/ghtai tou= o)/ntoj.

“In thought, then, if at all, something of the realities becomes clear to it?”

“Yes.”

“But it thinks best when none of these things troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor any pleasure, but it is, so far as possible, alone by itself, and takes leave of the body, and avoiding, so far as it can, all association or contact with the body, reaches out toward the reality.”

That the soul's activity is free from pleasure might seem strange. Rowe's gloss is clearly unsatisfactory:

...the inclusion of pain in the list is perhaps partly suggested by the verb paralupein (a)lghdw/n =lu/ph), and pleasure is naturally paired with it; mhde///, however, makes us pause on this last item--as well we might, since h(donh/ seems to be the last thing which should (para)lupei=n us. But S. says 'some sort of (tij) pleasure'; the reference is to any of the 'so-called pleasures' of 64d3, and his description of these would certainly be consistent with the claim that they 'annoy [the philosopher's soul] by a diversion' (LSJ's rendering of ).

Rowe at first explains the inclusion of pleasure as the result of what psychologists call 'clang association', a line of superficial connections, based on the sound of a word. (But Plato couldn't be a great writer and throw things onto a list in that way.) Then he points out--not consistently with this first explanation--that Plato takes care to flag pleasure especially, with mhde////. And then his final remark seems incorrect, because tij won't have a restrictive sense if it falls under the scope of a negation. (Fowler and Gallop rightly have 'any pleasure'.)

It would seem better to say that Plato, as he writes this, accepts the Philebian doctrine, and he intends to indicate that neither pain (as expected) nor pleasure (as probably not expected) will be part of, or contribute to, the activity of the soul 'alone by itself'.

Pleiades Viewed

I marvel at the Pleiades, when on clear evenings I look at the constellation in the night sky.

In today's Journal I read about another Pleiades, a project of the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina, which aims to put online, in an open-content manner, the resources and underlying research of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World.

From the Pleiades web page:

Combining open-content approaches (like those used by Wikipedia) with academic-style editorial review, Pleiades will enable anyone — from university professors to casual students of antiquity — to suggest updates to geographic names, descriptive essays, bibliographic references and geographic coordinates. Once vetted for accuracy and pertinence, these suggestions will become a permanent, author-attributed part of future AWMC publications and data services.

The Journal reports that Pleiades is off and running with a $390,000 NEH grant, awarded in January.

Pure Schema

I'm delighted to annouce that the web site for the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy (BACAP) is now active, thanks to some talented persons in the IT office at Clark.

It is at this point simply a structure; I'll be filling it in with content over the next weeks and months.

But here are some of the things it allows us to do:

• list events in BACAP
• list events in ancient philosophy generally, here or around the world
• host discussions of BACAP lectures and seminars
• post syllabi, handouts, and other teaching materials for ancient philosophy
• make past issues of the Proceedings available for purchase and perhaps perusal
• post 'working papers' in ancient philosophy (as other disciplines regularly do)
  

I Think, I See

You are at a party, in a room crowded with people, and someone who has just arrived asks you to pick out Simmias for him. You don’t think you know who Simmias is. So he shows you a picture of Simmias. Then you either:

(i) look around the room and, while keeping an eye on the picture, match the picture to someone in the room whom the picture resembles (albeit imperfectly so);

(ii) study the picture, put it aside, and, while keeping it in mind, search for and succeed in picking out Simmias;

(iii) look at the picture and realize that you had met that person before (“Oh, sure, I met that guy once—didn’t know his name was Simmias, though”), and then pick him out.

Only (iii) involves recollection. But note:

(a) it involves phenomenologically having an experience of something as a past experience by you;

(b) there needs to be a third thing besides the picture and Simmias, namely, your thought of having met the man called Simmias in the past; and,

(c) you couldn’t be making use of this past experience in this way, it seems, if Simmias were right before you, since then you would simply do (i), i.e. match the picture to the person.

The memory as intermediary becomes necessary, it seems, only when the person to be identified is not directly perceived.

These considerations, I think, lead to a difficulty in the doctrine of recollection in the Phaedo. There seems to be an inconsistency, in that dialogue, between two distinct notions of how we have access to the Forms. Let us call these: Forms as viewed versus Forms as recollected.

Forms as viewed is the notion which Socrates gives early in Phaedo, when he makes his ‘defense’. There he says that a true philosopher tries to free himself as much as possible from reliance upon the senses, because only then can he think about, view, and ‘touch’ absolute realities (65e-67b, passim). His language here suggests that we encounter the Forms through a kind of intellectual perception. We see them, but with the mind rather than with the senses.

But Forms as viewed cannot, it seems, be regarded as due objections of an operation of recollection. If we have access to Forms simply by seeing them, then sensible particulars, it seems, must play the role of simply picking them out (as in (i) above); the appeal to some additional process of recollection looks to be both unnecessary and impossible.

The point may be summarized with this argument:

1. To recollect is to call to mind something that one is not perceiving directly.
2. Thus, anything that one perceives directly is not an object of recollection.
3. To think of a Form is to perceive it directly.
4. Thus, no Form is an object of recollection.

Against Method

I was talking with a friend the other day about the absurd grip that the Leiter rankings now have over the profession and students, which seemed to us much the same as U.S. New and World Report becoming the arbiter of academic excellence. We lamented that Richard Heck's sometime objections had been, as it seemed, not well articulated--and of course they appeared motivated, since their provenance was an institution that was declining in the Leiter rankings.

So I've been giving the matter some thought and have devised this alternative argument.

First, I would ask everyone who participates in formulating the Leiter rankings to produce together a ranking of the 100 greatest philosophers of all time. Place in order, from 1 to 100: Hume, Rawls, Aquinas, Austin, Epicurus, Russell, Malebranche, Carnap, Scotus, Reid, Heraclitus, Spencer, Ferrier, Meinong, Bergson, Plato, Husserl, Plotinus, Abelard, Scheler, Quine, Maimonides, Parmenides, Brentano, et al.

The reason for requiring this, is that surely it is easier to rank figures from history, where time has clarified their thought and importance, than to rank contemporaries; and someone cannot claim competence to do the latter, if he cannot do the former.

Of course, anyone who did attempt such a thing, would show himself incompetent to do so, because, in the first place, he couldn't possibly have sufficient knowledge to make good judgments, since what he would need to know would be so vast, and, secondly, a reasonable person, to the extent that he knew anything about these philosophers, would be disposed to deny that any such ranking could be meaningful.

Let us, however, waive this difficulty, and suppose that those philosophers who participate in the Leiter rankings agree to give us their ranking of philosophers from history.

Next we ask: Would they agree on this ranking, or disagree?

Surely they would disagree. But lack of agreement is a sign of absence of knowledge. So their lack of agreement would show that, collectively, they lack reliable knowledge about philosophical merit, and thus their judgments about philosophical merit today, also, could not be trusted.

But let us waive this difficulty also and suppose that they agree on a ranking. Then: either they rank near the top figures who are the most influential for contemporary anglophone philosophy, such as Frege, Russell, Kripke, Davidson, and Quine, or they rank near the top figures such as Plato and Aristotle, who are not thus influential.

But, if the former, then, once again, we have grounds for doubting that they have sound judgment. And, if the latter, then we may wonder why they rank highly programs in which philosophical attention is focused primarily on philosophers who are not of the highest rank.

Oh, I forgot to say: I would put Feyerabend first.

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY!

My Mom Might Say

"Just in case you forgot ... this Thursday, Feb. 23, is little bloggy's first birthday."

Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?

Do the gods love an action because it is pious, or is an action pious because the gods love it? That old chestnut is of course the 'Euthyphro problem.'

A crucial assumption in Plato's treatment of it, it seems, is that an act or condition of love is for something, and what it is for provides the reason for (explanation, account of) that love. We can therefore distinguish (i) qualities that we attribute to things as a consequence of someone's love for them, and (ii) qualities of things that are prior to the love that someone has for them, and which motivate and explain that love. Euthyphro effectively takes piety to fall under (i), but Socrates thinks he has shown that it falls under (ii), in which case Euthyphro's definition has been refuted.

Isn't Plato concerned that, if we did not grant his assumption, then love--and the gods, too, insofar as they loved--would be irrational? Just as, in the application of a word to a thing, there must be a reason why we apply a word to that thing but not to others (the logos kata ten ousian), so, in our loving some things but not others, there must be a reason, located in the object, why this is so. If there were no such reason, then our love would be something irrational and even apeiron. (Love which doesn't begin because of something in the object of love also won't stop, ever, because of something in the object. It's therefore without any limit.)

We might object to the language (that love should be 'limited') or even to the concept, but that this is the view of Plato and Aristotle, at least, seems clear. We apparently find exactly the same notion in the Symposium--love is motivated by beauty--and in Aristotle's ethical writings--in his presumption that there are three reasons for loving something, its goodness, usefulness, or pleasantness.

I was therefore a bit surprised to find, when I was studying the book recently, that Eros Unveiled by Catherine Osborne reaches something of an opposite conclusion:

There are two main claims that I have tried to defend. One is that the correct way to understand the ancient tradition concerning eros is to see love as inexplicable, in the way suggested by the motif of Eros the god of love with his arrows. In other words we are not to seek the reason why anyone loves another by looking for some quality that is admirable or desirable in the other, but rather to see love as occurring regardless of whether there are desirable features in the beloved. The second claim follows from this, namely that where desire or admiration of fine qualities occurs and is associated with love, it would be a mistake to suggest that the desire or appeciation was itself love, or was the motive that inspired us to love. Rather it makes more sense to see desire, and appreciation of what is good, occurring as a result of love, as the expression of the love that enables us to see such qualities as good and desirable. (219)

What of the Symposium, and what, then, of Aristotle?

Osborne dispatches with Aristotle by saying that he is concerned with a different phenomenon from love altogether: his writings on philia are about 'cooperation' or 'befriending', not love.

As for the Symposium, Osborne points to Plato's personification there of love as daimones who are intermediaries between earth and heaven. What this indicates, she says, is that Plato thinks that we need love even to be turned enough toward beauty, in the first place, as to find it desirable. Thus eros explains our finding beauty attractive; it is not the case that we find beauty attractive and then as a consequence love it.

(There is no discussion of the Euthyphro in the book, understandably enough.)

The Prophysics

"That which comes after the science of nature comes before it."

A riddle? Yes, but how do we resolve it?

The riddle is Aristotle's. In Metaphysics Gamma, he complains about natural scientists who apparently deny, in one way or another, the principle of non-contradiction (PNC)--xrw=ntai de\ tw=| lo/gw| tou/tw| polloi\ kai\ tw=n peri\ fu/sewj, "Many natural scientists, even, adopt this theory". Heraclitus is reputed to have denied it; Anaxagoras's infinite mixture apparently does so; and so on.

Of course, in reply Aristotle gives us his famous series of dialectical arguments, in Gamma 4, aiming to show that someone who 'says anything at all' is thereby committed to the PNC. These sorts of arguments are a part of metaphysics, as Aristotle tells us: it is the task of the philosopher, he says, who thinks about things simply insofar as they exist, to give this sort of defense of the PNC.

o(/ti me\n ou)=n tou= filoso/fou, kai\ tou= peri\ pa/shj th=j ou)si/aj qewrou=ntoj h(=| pe/fuken, kai\ peri\ tw=n sullogistikw=n a)rxw=n e)sti\n e)piske/yasqai, dh=lon: prosh/kei de\ to\n ma/lista gnwri/zonta peri\ e(/kaston ge/noj e)/xein le/gein ta\j bebaiota/taj a)rxa\j [10] tou= pra/gmatoj, w(/ste kai\ to\n peri\ tw=n o)/ntwn h(=| o)/nta ta\j pa/ntwn bebaiota/taj. e)/sti d' ou(=toj o( filo/sofoj.

Clearly then it is the function of the philosopher, i.e. the student of the whole of reality in its essential nature, to investigate also the principles of syllogistic reasoning. And it is proper for him who best understands each class of subject to be able to state the most certain principles of that subject; so that he who understands the modes of Being qua Being should be able to state the most certain principles of all things. Now this person is the philosopher.

And yet Aristotle also says that if the offending natural scientists had had sufficient training in 'analytics', they never would have gone off the rails the way that they did. That sort of training, Aristotle says, is the sort of thing that someone should acquire before beginning physical investigations at all (or investigations in any particular science).

e)/sti de\ sofi/a tij kai\ h( fusikh/, a)ll' ou) prw/th. o(/sa d' e)gxeirou=si tw=n lego/ntwn tine\j peri\ th=j a)lhqei/aj o(\n tro/pon dei= a)pode/xesqai, di' a)paideusi/an [4] tw=n a)nalutikw=n tou=to drw=sin: dei= ga\r peri\ tou/twn [5] h(/kein proepistame/nouj a)lla\ mh\ a)kou/ontaj zhtei=n.

Natural philosophy is a kind of Wisdom, but not the primary kind. As for the attempts of some of those who discuss how the truth should be received, they are due to lack of training in logic; for they should understand these things before they approach their task, and not investigate while they are still learning.

So apparently clarity about the PNC belongs, now, not to 'the things that are after the physics', but rather to the 'the things that are before the physics'.

Well, which is it? As I said, it's Aristotle's riddle, not mine.

Aristotle and the Desire to Understand

"Human beings naturally strive for understanding."

Pa/ntej a)/nqrwpoi tou= ei)de/nai o)re/gontai fu/sei.

A question. Of course something like this idea is found, for instance, in Plato's account of eros. But is there a specific Platonic antecedent--some form of words in Plato upon which it might, with some plausibility, be said that Aristotle is building or drawing? I have only Ross' commentary on the Metaphysics to hand, and he refers simply to Jaeger's tracing the view to the Protrepticus.

----

I'll place suggestions here, since the Greek text may suitably be added.

Thomas Johansen has drawn attention to Timaeus 88a8-b2:

dittw=n e)piqumiw=n ou)sw=n fu/sei kat' a)nqrw/pouj, dia\ sw=ma me\n trofh=j, dia\ de\ to\ qeio/taton tw=n e)n h(mi=n fronh/sewj

"... since there are two desires natural to human beings, one for nourishment, attributable to the body, the other for wisdom, attributable the most divine element in us ..."

I would note Philebus 58d4:

... a)ll' ei)/ tij pe/fuke th=j yuxh=j h(mw=n du/namij e)ra=n te tou= a)lhqou=j kai\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein....

"... but if some faculty of the soul naturally desires the truth and does everything for the sake of this..."

But it is the context of this remark that I find strikingly similar to Met. 1.1. Beginning by drawing a comparison with sight, Socrates argues that that there is a kind of knowledge which, although not useful, surpasses all the others in the clarity, accuracy, and truthfulness of its object (the superlative, a)lhqe/staton, is recurrent in the passage): thus, even a small portion of this is more valuable than any amount of useful knowledge. The passage, I think, quite mirrors the argument at the opening of the Metaphysics. But Socrates calls this knowledge phronesis; Aristotle, sophia.

Does Epistemology Drive Metaphysics?

I've wanted to post something on Deborah Modrak's interesting lecture in BACAP last Thursday, "Aristotelian Form, Function, and Definition". Modrak's distinctive approach to the Metaphysics was to see the central books of the treatise as motivated, at least in part, by epistemology.

The objects of perception are concrete particulars. They provide the basis for knowledge even though the objects of knowledge are universals. This sets up a tension within Aristotle’s epistemology. Its resolution depends upon his success in providing an ontology that grounds the universal in the particular. Not only is there a tension between universal and particular, there is also a tension between that which is intelligible and that which is observable and a tension between simplicity and complexity. Aristotle calls our attention to the relation between perception and knowledge in the opening lines of Metaphysics I. In the central books of the Metaphysics, he expends considerable effort to present and explicate an ontology of form, function and composite substance. In light of the many references Aristotle makes to knowledge and definition in these books, it seems likely that he intends to offer an ontology that will resolve the tensions inherent in his picture of knowledge.

My first reaction, however, was to doubt that this is correct. Why? Three reasons:

1. If Aristotle's metaphysics is supposed to respond to epistemological difficulties, then (unless we invoke developmentalism) he ought to draw explicitly upon that metaphysics, in passages outside the central books of the Metaphysics, which pertain to how we come to know, e.g. Post. An. II.19 or Physics I.1. And yet there are no signs of this. (Or are there?)
2. It doesn't look as though epistemological problems figure importantly among the perplexities (in Beta) which apparently motivate the Metaphysics.
3. Generally Aristotle seems to see no 'tensions' where we might think there are such. He seems dismissive, for instance, of the Heraclitean account of the sensible world which, Aristotle thinks, tempted Plato. If epistemology begins with the aporia, 'How is it possible that we have knowledge?', are there signs that Aristotle was ever troubled by this difficulty?

In brief: if, as we might agree, ancient scepticism differs from modern, then mustn't ancient epistemology differ as well? And yet I worry that Modrak is perhaps bringing in a modern notion of epistemology.

The Florentine Summa Platonica

I wasn't aware of the importance of the Philebus in particular for the Italian Renaissance. From the introduction to Michael J.B. Allen's edition of Marsilio Ficino's commentary on the dialogue:

In 1462 Cosimo de' Medici granted Marsilio Ficino a villa at Careggi and put at his disposal a number of precious Greek manuscripts, including a complete manuscript of Plato. Afterwards two or three dialogues became especially dear to Ficino, among them the Philebus. Like the majority of the Platonic dialogues, the Philebus had been unavailable to the Latin west since antiquity, and it was Ficino who translated it from the Greek for the first time. More than this, he deliberately placed it in the climactic final position of the initial decade of dialogues he prepared for Cosimo's study. Cosimo and his friends discussed the decade culminating in the Philebus and these discussions informally constituted the inaugural meetings of the Florentine Academy. In 1464, as Cosimo lay dying in the last two weeks of July, it was the Philebus that was read to him; and during the reign of his successor, Piero, it was on the Philebus that Ficino first chose to lecture to the city's patricians, including the young Lorenzo. ...The first public articulation of Ficino's "direct acess" to the Plato text was a series of lectures he delivered on the Philebus, a series which later formed the basis of the written commentary. Consequently, the Philebus was in the vanguard of what was both a revival of an ancient academic philosophy, and also a wide-ranging religious, cultural and intellectual movement peculiar to the Renaissance and constituting one of its chief glories, Florentine Platonism.

Plato On Models and Trees

One arbors the thought: What will the topic be? Plato's method of division as tree-age? The ramifications of Plato's doctrine of models? Whatever it is, I am sure Mary Louise Gill will be attacking it root and branch.

RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY
34 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Fellowship Program

Mary Louise Gill
Brown University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study


"Plato on Models and Trees"


Wednesday, February 22
4 pm

Waiting for the Unmoved Mover

I was looking for a good statement of the problem about the subject matter of Aristotle's Metaphysics--you know, the difficulty about whether it is theology or "the science of being qua being". Turning to the usually reliable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I found S. Marc Cohen's contribution on "Aristotle's Metaphysics", which contained this tantalizing passage:

In Book E, Aristotle adds another description to the study of the causes and principles of beings qua beings. Whereas natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that although not subject to change are nevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there is still room for a science that studies things (if indeed there are any) that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter. Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. Aristotle's identification of theology, so conceived, with the study of being qua being has proved challenging to his interpreters. We will deal with this issue in §14 below.

But then there is no §14! The entry skips from §13 (so superstition is not to blame) directly to §15. I begin to wonder: Is this perhaps a Straussian moment for the SEP? But then I look again at the index at the front of the entry and see:

§14. Substance Eternal and Immutable [Not yet available]

The article is copyrighted 2003. Perhaps we'll have to keep waiting for the Unmoved Mover to show up. Whatever it's other attributes, it's not disponible.

Walk With Me

I don't want to worry you with minutiae, nor can I expect you to wish to become immersed in them, but for the sake of efficiency I'll probably need to post largely on Philebus 42c-55b for the next two weeks. You see, I'm preparing to present on that text for the NY Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy on Feb. 25; I know neither that passage nor the dialogue very well; and I haven't much extra time to blog, in addition to preparing.

I'm afraid I haven't gotten very far. In fact, I've made negative progress, stumbling on a passage that precedes the one I am supposed to discuss, 41c. Let me share my difficulties with you. They aren't philosophical but simply, at this point, concern translation. First the Greek, then Dorothea Frede's translation, then Hackforth's.

Swkra/thj
a)lla\ mh\n ei)/pomen, ei)/per memnh/meqa, o)li/gon e)n toi=j pro/sqen, w(j o(/tan ai( lego/menai e)piqumi/ai e)n h(mi=n w)=si, di/xa a)/ra to/te to\ sw=ma kai\ xwri\j th=j yuxh=j toi=j paqh/masi diei/lhptai.

Prw/tarxoj
memnh/meqa kai\ proerrh/qh tau=ta.

Swkra/thj
ou)kou=n to\ me\n e)piqumou=n h)=n h( yuxh\ tw=n tou= sw/matoj e)nanti/wn e(/cewn, to\ de\ th\n a)lghdo/na h)/ tina dia\ pa/qoj h(donh\n to\ sw=ma h)=n to\ parexo/menon;

D. Frede
SOC.:We did say a short while ago in our discussion, as we may recall, that when what we call desires are in us, then body and soul part company and have each their separate existences.
PRO.: We do remember, that was said before.
SOC.:And wasn't it the soul that had desires, desires for conditions opposite to the actual ones of the body, while it was the body that undergoes the pain or the pleasure of some affection?

Hackforth
Soc. Well now, we said a while back, if our memory is correct, that when we have within us what we call 'desires', the body stands aloof from the soul and parts company with it in respect of its affections.
Prot. Our memory is correct: we did say so.
Soc. It was the soul, was it not, that desired a condition opposite to that of the body, and it was the body that caused our distress, or our pleasure, because of the way it was affected?

Remarks:
1. No one captures the force of a)/ra to/te. Frede collapses both into 'then'. What Plato means is, 'exactly at that time' or 'straightaway it happens that'. He wants to emphasize that the relationship between body and soul is changed by the mere presence of a desire.
2. Where does 'part company' come from? It's odd that it's in Hackforth, stranger still that it is in Frede (who does not say in her 1993 commentary that her translation is indebted to Hackforth's). Hackforth I suppose is rendering \ xwri\j ... diei/lhptai. I can't see what it is supposed to correspond to in Frede.
3. Likewise, Frede's 'each have their separate experiences' has no warrant.
4. 'Undergoes' in Frede for to\ parexo/menon is misleading, as suggesting that the body feels pleasures and pains. Rather: causes, provides, furnishes, provides the occasion of, is the occasion of. So Frede has to explain a supposed looseness in Plato's speech. She adds a footnote to the passage: "That pleasure and pain are also experienced by the body is only a loose way of referring to the immediate feelings of deprivation and replenishment." But Plato doesn't say that.

The Curs[or] of the Eyes

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Rigor Mortis

Commentators compare Aristotle, Metaphysics II.3, in its discussion of limits of accuracy, to Nicomachean Ethic I.3. But I find it interesting that the former contains a 'moral' reason for lack of accuracy, not mentioned by the latter:

Again, some require exactness in everything, while others are annoyed by it, either because they cannot follow the reasoning or because of its pettiness; for there is something about exactness which seems to some people to be mean, no less in an argument than in a business transaction. Hence one must have been already trained how to take each kind of argument, because it is absurd to seek simultaneously for knowledge and for the method of obtaining it; and neither is easy to acquire. Mathematical accuracy is not to be demanded in everything, but only in things which do not contain matter. Hence this method is not that of natural science, because presumably all nature is concerned with matter (Ross, 995a7-16)

kai\ oi( me\n pa/nta a)kribw=j, tou\j de\ lupei= to\ a)kribe\j h)\ dia\ to\ mh\ du/nasqai sunei/rein h)\ dia\ th\n mikrologi/an: e)/xei ga/r ti to\ a)kribe\j toiou=ton, w(/ste, kaqa/per e)pi\ tw=n sumbolai/wn, kai\ e)pi\ tw=n lo/gwn a)neleu/qeron ei)=nai/ tisi dokei=. dio\ dei= pepaideu=sqai pw=j e(/kasta a)podekte/on, w(j a)/topon a(/ma zhtei=n e)pisth/mhn kai\ tro/pon e)pisth/mhj: e)/sti d' ou)de\ qa/teron r(a/|dion labei=n. th\n d' a)kribologi/an th\n maqhmatikh\n ou)k e)n a(/pasin a)paithte/on, a)ll' e)n toi=j mh\ e)/xousin u(/lhn. dio/per ou) fusiko\j o( tro/poj: a(/pasa ga\r i)/swj h( fu/sij e)/xei u(/lhn.

I think sumbolaion here is 'contract', and Aristotle's point, quite perceptive, is that attempts to put too much detail into contracts can seem to display, and perhaps typically do (echei ti to akribes toiouton), an absence of trust and friendliness. (We presume: it is impossible for contracts not to be open-ended; it is impossible to make fully explicit all of the terms of a contract.)

This would seem to imply a reason why rigor beyond a certain extent can be excessive in ethics as well: it would not allow sufficient scope for the good judgment of one's hearer. And yet (I think) that reason seems unstated in Nic. Eth., where we might most expect to find it.

A common view of the search for an ideal of rigor, in Frege and writers who follow him, is that complete rigor eliminates the need for intuition: in fact you can show that nothing like 'intuition' is needed for mathematical reasoning, if you can give a proof with complete rigor. But then presumably in fields in which the elimination of 'intuition' is impossible, or undesirable even if possible--limits to rigor are set primarily on moral grounds, and one offends (lupei) by inappropriate and excessive rigor.

Davidson and Aristotle

A passage in a recent review in NDPR of some collected papers of Donald Davidson led to a reflection and a thought about Quine. Here is the passage:

One of the characteristic features of much of Davidson's writing from the 1960s and 1970s was that there were only very sparse references to figures from the history of philosophy -- Kant and Hume were two of the few exceptions. It may have been thought, on that basis, that Davidson was a thoroughly ahistorical thinker, with little regard for or interest in the previous history of philosophical inquiry. Such was not the case, however, as the essays included in this volume under the heading 'Historical Thoughts' make plain. Davidson was a historian of ideas, studying under Whitehead, before being persuaded by Quine that the ideas were more important and interesting than the history, and although Davidson's knowledge of the history of philosophy often remained in the background of his writing, it was nevertheless always present.

Davidson's own PhD dissertation was written on Plato's Philebus, and the essay in which Davidson returns to this topic, in connection with the work of Gadamer (the essay was written for Gadamer's Library of Living Philosophers volume), is included here, as are essays on Plato and Socrates, on Aristotle, and on Spinoza. The essay on Spinoza, 'Spinoza's Causal Theory of the Affects' (1993), focuses on parallels between Spinoza's combination of substance monism with attribute dualism, and Davidson's own monism approach in the philosophy of mind. Alongside two other essays included here, 'Thinking Causes' (1993) and 'Laws and Causes' (1995), it provides important elaboration and clarification of the position that has come to be known as anomalous monism.

The reflection was an encounter I had once with Quine. I was conferring with Quine about the lectures he gave in 1946 on David Hume's philosophy and about a paper I had written on the subject. He asked me whether, then, I was writing my dissertation on Hume. I said no, but that I was writing on ... Aristotle. (I said this almost wincing, thinking that, for Quine, Aristotle would have a status slightly above witchcraft.) Quine paused, looked upward briefly, then turned to me and said--as if at last being able to interpret my remark charitably--"Well, Davidson wrote his dissertation on Plato."

The thought was that Quine had lamented the passing, in the turmoil of the '60s, of the strict standards that Harvard used to have, for general examinations in the history of philosophy. They were abolished, I take it, because success in them seemed to some a matter of rote study. ('Rote study', I wonder, or 'concrete expertise'?) And yet, the method did produce not a few Davidsons.

Happiness for the Sake of Something Else

Do you think that the following could have been written by someone who thought that it's a conceptual truth that eudaimonia is the end point of our efforts and striving?

o(moi/wj de\ ou)de\ to\ ou(= e(/neka ei)j a)/peiron oi(=o/n te i)e/nai, ba/disin me\n u(giei/aj e(/neka, tau/thn d' eu)daimoni/aj, th\n d' eu)daimoni/an [10] a)/llou, kai\ ou(/twj a)ei\ a)/llo a)/llou e(/neken ei)=nai:

Similarly the final causes cannot go on ad infinitum,-walking being for the sake of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of something else, and so one thing always for the sake of another.

The passage, which for me falls under the category, 'interesting things I just noticed', is from Aristotle, Metaphysics II.2.994a9-11. It's part of a series of arguments that there must be first principles and causes with respect to each type of cause, material, formal, final, and efficient. These lines of course involve the final cause.

One of John Ackrill's arguments for an inclusivist interpretation of eudaimonia, in his classic paper, was that it was something of a conceptual truth that eudaimonia was that for the sake of which we did every thing else; thus, he argued, eudaimonia had to include everything which someone might reasonably count as an ultimate goal. And thus, too, it couldn't be identified with anything which conceivably could be engaged in for the sake of something else. Thus, in particular, Aristotle could not have identified eudaimonia with any single activity, because no single activity has that sort of status--no single activity is the sort of thing that could not reasonably be engaged in with a view to something else.

Yet here we find Aristotle supposing, as if coherent and conceivable, that eudaimonia is subordinated to something else. His objection to that subordination has to do, not with its absurdity, but with the regress which he thinks would result (as he says later, "if there is no first there is no cause at all").

If Aristotle had held the view that Ackrill imputes to him, he would not, I think, have written these lines. On the other hand, these lines would quite naturally have been written by someone who identified eudaimonia with theoria.

They Must Perforce Prey Upon Themselves

I am alluding of course to Albany's famous lines in Lear IV. ii:

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

It's a passage often used to express a felt disturbance at evil, as some kind of violation of a basic natural order or natural law. Something is wrong if human beings are preying upon other human beings. In our murders, treachery, and betrayals, we must be experiencing the effects of some kind of original catastrophe or upsetting of a cosmic order.

I don't know what someone convinced of metempsychosis would say of lions hunting wildebeasts, but I strongly suspect that, if deeply enough convinced of his outlook, he would view human beings' killing animals in much the same way as Albany views human beings killing other human beings. Something is wrong.

Plato's view in the end, in the Republic, is that justice, social unity, and peace can result only from our following some natural order--each doing what is his own 'work' by nature. That is why, I think, he turns almost instinctively to meat-eating when he wants to express the difference between a city founded on that sort of a natural order, and one whose social life is based upon some fundamental upsetting of that order. "Yes, we are constantly killing one another in wars. Yes, we are afflicted with ceaseless strife. But our way of life requires that. War and strife are an understandable consequence of a way of life based upon something that is fundamentally disordered. We kill and eat, without true necessity, ensouled --that is to say, rational-- beings. Is it any wonder, then, that human social life is beset with so many evils."

Someone other than Plato might have made the introduction of slavery the significant change in the transition between the healthy and luxurious state.

Plato looks at the luxurious state in much the same way that partisans of 'small is beatiful' look at the economies of Northern hemisphere countries.

Small is Beautiful

That the distinction, vegetarian/meat-eating, is important for the transition in Republic II, between the healthy city and the city of luxury, is clear. But why is this distinction important for Plato?

There are two reasons, I think, one proximate and the other remote. I'll explain the proximate here and the remote in the next post.

The proximate reason is that, in Plato's mind, the desire to eat meat is the principal non-necessary desire which is not subject to natural limits, requires land for its satisfaction, and therefore leads to expansionism and war between cities.

The demand for animals used for work, or for warm clothing, is limited. Each family will need only an ox or two for that purpose. The lifespan of an ox is about 30 years; this means that each adult male will need only a single ox for his own lifespan of hard, physical work. Once dead the skin of that ox, if converted to leather, would probably make sufficient leather garments for a single man's lifetime. An ox or two won't need much land for pasture.

But the demand for animals for food is not limited, at least not in any similarly obvious way. Even a small family would need several large animals per year for meat. As their tastes become more refined, they'll be satisfied with fewer and fewer parts of the animal. These animals will need far more land for pasture than would be needed for a family in the 'healthy' city--or land would need to be dedicated to raising grain for them.

Even if the citizens of the luxurious city did not have more children than they should (Plato thinks that they will, perhaps because of the proliferation of 'reciters, actors, dancers, producers' in the luxurious city, who will inflame sexual desire), their habits of eating meat alone will require them to look for more land. This, indeed, is what Plato seems especially to emphasize:

Do we need, then, to carve ourselves a slice of our neighbour's territory, if we are going to have enough for pasturage and ploughing (nemein te kai aroun) ? And do they in turn need a slice of our land, if they too give themselves up to the pursuit of unlimited wealth (chrematōn ktēsin apeiron), not confining themselves to necessities (huperbantes ton tōn anagkaiōn horon)? (373d)

(By the way, this surely is Plato's introduction of pleonexia, and thus 'love of money'. It was not present at all in the healthy city.)

The Vegetarian City

The transition in Republic II from the healthy city, the 'city of pigs', to the luxurious city, struck me in a new way, now that I've owned and raised a pig. Consider:

1. When I first got a pig, I was told never to feed him meat: he'd become spoiled and would come to want only that.
   
2. In any case, when we acquired a dog, what few meat scraps we had went to the dog, and vegetable matter went to the pig.
   
3. The few times we had something to give to him that was originally from the ground--some old potatoes or turnips--it was clear that that was what he really liked. After all, a pig is a rooting animal. He once ate 15 pounds of old yams in under 5 minutes.

So when I read Plato's descriptions of the diet of the citizens of the first, healthy city:

They will live on barley-meal and wheat flour. ...
And for dessert we can offer them figs and chickpeas and beans; and they will roast myrtle berries and acorns in front of the fire (372b-d)

Even before I got to Glaucon's line about a 'city of pigs'--and not thinking of it, as if independently--I was thinking to myself, "That's just the food that my pig would really like."

Scholars debate as to why Plato sketches first a 'healthy' city and then has to change, almost artificially, to talking about a luxurious city. Reeve, following Nettleship, says that the healthy city is meant to isolate one important human motive only, the 'love of money', before another motive, the 'love of pleasure', is added on. White says, unhelpfully, that justice and injustice are not so clear in the healthy city, and thus, in order to display them clearly, Plato had to advance to a luxurious city. (Fine: but then why introduce the healthy city at all?)

But this time reading Plato's account it was clear to me that one important motive, at least, for Plato's first describing the healthy city, is that he wanted to describe a city of vegetarianism.

First the evidence, and then, in a subsequent post, the reason why.

The evidence that the distinction, vegetarian/meat-eating, is an important distinction in the transition between the two cities:

1. As explained, Plato's description of the diet of the healthy city is meant to be provocative: it mentions foods that his audience would recognize as especially suited to herbivorous animals.
2. At 370e, when Plato talks about the healthy city's need for people to specialize in herding animals, he is careful to mention only work-related functions of animals: "... so that farmers can have oxen for ploughing, and so that builders as well as the farmers will be able to use animals for carrying materials, as so that weavers and shoemakers can have hides and wool." It's conspicuous that animals are not raised in order to be eaten.
3. Glaucon, of course, criticizes the healthy city because of its diet. (Griffith has a note: "Pigs were considered slow and stupid...as well as dirty and greedy--the emblem of all that was uncouth." Perhaps so, but that is not to the point in the context. Bloom is correct in saying that Glaucon's main objection to the city pertains to the palate.)
4. The first new sort of worker Plato mentions in his new city are hunters, who of course cater to exotic tastes: "we must have hunters of all kinds"(373b). (I think of the famous Hunt Mosaic from Antioch in the Worcester Art Museum.) And then Plato concludes his initial description of the luxurious city by emphasizing this point about diet: "And besides those, we shall need people to keep pigs as well. We didn't have them in our earlier city, since there was no need for them. But in this city there will be a need for them, as also for all sorts of other livestock, in case anyone wants them to eat" (373c).
5. Finally, as Griffith's translation makes clear, Plato carries on this allusion to meat-eating in his account of the expansionist tendencies of the luxurious city:

Do we need, then, to care ourselves a slice (apotmēteon) of our neighbour's territory, if we are going to have enough for pasturage and ploughing? And do they in turn need a slice of land, if they too give themselves up to the pursuit of unlimited wealth, not confining themselves to necessities? (373d).

Why Didn't It Work?

It should be a good idea: a clearinghouse for syllabi in philosophy. And yet the APA Online Resource Center Syllabus Collection has only a handful of specimens (and only one in ancient philosophy, offered by Richard Bett), and it hasn't been added to in five years.

Why--I wonder--has the idea flopped? Is it that people don't know about it? (I didn't.) Or do philosophers, who resist centralization anyway, find it unnecessary, since it is easy enough to find or post a syllabus already on the net?