Phaedo 66e-67a

Please be patient with me on this for just a little longer. What is at issue is whether talk in the Phaedo of 'true philosophers' and non-philosophers is consistent, nonetheless, with non-philosophers' having virtue but to a lesser degree. If it is, then it's not clear that the Phaedo and Laws are incompatible, as Bobonich claims.

Since virtue depends upon knowledge, according to the Phaedo, then, as an anonymous commentator has already pointed out, what is at issue is whether knowledge can differ in degree.

Yet Plato clearly allows that it can. Phaedo 66e-67a is perhaps the most important passage where he does so, but there are others besides:

It really has been shown to us that, if we are ever to have pure knowledge (kaqarw=j ti ei)/sesqai), we must escape from the body and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself. It seems likely that we shall, only then, when we are dead, attain that which our argument shows, not while we live; for if it is impossible to attain any pure knowledge (kaqarw=j gnw=nai) with the body, then one of two things is true: either we can never attain knowledge or we can do so after death. Then and not before the soul, is by itself apart from the body. While we live, we shall be closest to knowledge (e)gguta/tw e)so/meqa tou= ei)de/nai) if we refrain as much as possible from association with the body and do not join with it more than we must, if we are not infected with its nature but purify ourselves from it until the god himself frees us (Grube, 66e-67a).

a)lla\ tw=| o)/nti h(mi=n de/deiktai o(/ti, ei) me/llome/n pote kaqarw=j ti ei)/sesqai, a)lla\ tw=| o)/nti h(mi=n de/deiktai o(/ti, ei) me/llome/n pote kaqarw=j ti ei)/sesqai, a)pallakte/on au)tou=+ kai\ au)th=|+ th=| yuxh=|+ qeate/on+ au)ta\+ ta\ pra/gmata+: kai\ to/te, w(j e)/oiken, h(mi=n e)/stai+ ou(= e)piqumou=me/n te kai/ famen e)rastai\ ei)=nai, fronh/sewj, e)peida\n teleuth/swmen, w(j o( lo/goj shmai/nei, zw=sin de\ ou)/. ei) ga\r mh\ oi(=o/n te meta\ tou= sw/matoj+ mhde\n kaqarw=j gnw=nai, duoi=n qa/teron, h)\ ou)damou= e)/stin kth/sasqai to\ ei)de/nai h)\ teleuth/sasin: to/te ga\r au)th\ kaq' au(th\n h( yuxh\ e)/stai xwri\j tou= sw/matoj, pro/teron d' ou)/. kai\ e)n w(=| a)\n zw=men, ou(/twj, w(j e)/oiken, e)gguta/tw e)so/meqa tou= ei)de/nai, e)a\n o(/ti ma/lista mhde\n o(milw=men tw=| sw/mati mhde\ koinwnw=men, o(/ti mh\ pa=sa a)na/gkh, mhde\ a)napimplw/meqa th=j tou/tou fu/sewj, a)lla\ kaqareu/wmen a)p' au)tou=, e(/wj a)\n o( qeo\j au)to\j a)polu/sh| h(ma=j:

From this passage one might argue: If knowledge is by degree and approximation, and virtue is coincident with knowledge, then virtue apparently would vary in degree as well. Similarly, if it followed that someone had virtue in no degree, if he lacked a full grasp of the Forms, then everyone would lack virtue, even ostensible philosophers such as Socrates and his friends, since no one while living in the body has that sort of full grasp.

Seems like a closed case, doesn't it?

But these implications are perhaps avoidable. It may just be possible to allow degrees of knowledge but draw a sharp distinction between philosophers and others nonetheless, as I'll explain in a subsequent post.

No Disagreement, There

A fallacy:

1. All and only true philosophers have virtue.
2. Most people are not philosophers.
3. Thus, most people lack virtue entirely.

Why? Take 1. to mean: "A person has virtue to the extent, and only to the extent, that he is a philosopher." Take 2. to mean: "Most people are not very much like philosophers."

Bobonich:
"We saw that in the Phaedo Plato holds that all non-philosophers are radically ethically defective."
Translation, without disagreeement:
"We saw that, in the Phaedo, Plato holds that to the extent that someone is not a philosopher, to that extent he is is radically, ethically defective.

Bobonich:
"The fundamental failure of non-philosophers is epistemic: they do not grasp what is genuinely fine or good and do not appreciate the genuine good-making and fine-making features of people, actions, and things."
Translation without disagreement:
"The fundamental failure of non-philosophers is epistemic: people are not philosophers precisely insofar as they fail to grasp what is genuinely fine or good..."

Bobonich:
"Non-philosopher's beliefs are shot through with confusion and error."
Translation without disagreement:
"Only to the extent that someone is similar to a true philosopher does he avoid confusion and error."

Etc. etc.

Differential Diagnosis of the Phaedo

I won't scruple over the point. Socrates does argue in the Phaedo that true philosophers and only true philosophers have virtue and are happy. That's not at issue, in my view. What is at issue is whether this is the language of an ideal, allowing degrees of participation and approximation, or the language of all-or-nothing. Bobonich says the latter, and it is crucial to his thesis that he maintain the latter. What are his grounds?

This is the crux. If the Phaedo countenances degrees of virtue and happiness, then it's easy, and most plausible, to say that the Laws presupposes this as well, and that there is no fundamental change in outlook, in this respect. (If there were development in the Laws, we'd have to look elsewhere for it.)

The point can be made more strongly. Proper method in interpreting philosopher, it seems, requires a working presumption of continuity. The burden of proof would therefore be on someone who maintained an incompatibility.

Yet how can Bobonich show that the language of the Phaedo is not the language of an ideal? How can we rule out that when Plato says 'A true philosopher is F' he means 'Insofar as someone is a philosopher, he is F'?

Here's an instance of the difficulty. On p. 15 Bobonich quotes Phaedo 68b8-c3:

Then you have sufficient indication that anyone whom you see resenting death was not a philosopher after all, but a lover of the body and also a lover of wealth or a lover of honor, either one of these or both.

Bobonich then glosses this: "The differences between philosophers' and non-philosophers' attitudes toward death are thus explained by more basic differences in their goals or ultimate ends. All non-philosophers are afraid of death because the goods that they value are conditions of the body or at least require embodiment" (15).

Good enough. But why shouldn't we gloss what Plato says as: "Everyone, to the extent that he is a non-philosopher, is afraid of death, that is, insofar as he values goods that are conditions of the body or require embodiment"? (Moreover, even if we accept Bobonich's explanation of why Socrates holds this, that explanation itself admits of being stated with reduplication, viz. insofar as one is a philosopher, one has a basic difference in goals or ultimate ends.)

I don't yet see how this is to be ruled out. I already mentioned that the language of variation in degree ('as much as possible') runs throughout the Phaedo, and that the scheme of reincarnation itself seems to presuppose degrees of closeness to the ideal of virtue. These make it 'antecedently probable' that the above passage should be understood with implicit reduplication, as I have suggested.

But here are three more considerations. If there were a sharp distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, then:

• becoming a philosopher ought to involve a kind of conversion, an abrupt and radical change;
• there would be nothing in a non-philosopher that could be responsive to Socrates' example or exhortations;
• (it seems) there would be no degrees of virtue within the class of philosophers.

I don't see that there is evidence in the Phaedo that Plato believes any of these things, and it strikes me that there is much evidence to the contrary.

Statistically Improbable Phrases

A new feature (at least for me) of book searches in Amazon is that you can get a list of 'Satistically Improbable Phrases' found in a book, to help you see what is distinctive about it. (A new approach to the idion, to be sure.)

For instance, a search for Martha Nussbaum's anthology on De Anima yields the following juicy list:

literal coloration, deliberative phantasia, destruction simpliciter, passible intellect, functional flesh, receiving form without matter, homoiomerous parts, homonymy principle, non paradigmatic sensory experience, functionally defined parts, single mover, logos enhulos, weak commensurability, incidental sensibles, noetic domain, material intellect, internal mover, first potentiality, compositional plasticity, distinguishing generation, practical nous, first actuality, receiving matter, compositional matter, second actuality

New party game: compose sentences using only members of this list, one-syllable verbs, and prepositions, avoiding Russell's strictures against nonsense in Mysticism and Logic.

And how can ancient philosophy not be a science, with so extensive a technical vocabulary!

Top Ten

The top ten reasons why I started this blog:

10. The god Apollo told me to start it. Here I'll stay, until the god summons me to depart.

9. All human beings by nature yearn to blog.

8. My aim was to be divine, and this was as close as I could get.

7. Blogging is elemental: "The earth floats on water, like a blog."

6. My daimonion hindered me from doing everything else that I wanted to do.

5. But Averroes had three blogs.

4. I've descended to blogging, to release fellow bloggers from bondage.

3. It is necessary that one blog: to wonder whether one should blog, is already to blog.

2. For this we were born, for this one purpose we came into existence: To contemplate a computer screen.

1. To disprove the first line of the Nicomachean Ethics.

Crito Revisited

In an earlier post, Crito--Quia Absurdum, I said that if we did want to reconstruct the political theory implicit in the Phaedo (a dubious enterprise), we should look to the Crito, on the grounds that the Phaedo was meant to be continuous with that dialogue, and that the Crito would reveal the view of law that Plato took into his middle period (on the usual view of Plato's development).

I said that three passages were important, and here I'll say why.

Recall what is at issue. We are evaluating Bobonich's Claim, in Plato's Utopia Recast, that the Phaedo holds that non-philosphers lack virtue entirely or can't at all be happy, but that the Laws holds that non-philosophers generally can be made virtuous and happy by the laws, and that this marks a real change in Plato's view.

I have been asking, in effect: How do we know that Plato did not always hold, in an ordinary sense, as has often been thought, that laws are meant to make citizens virtuous and happy, and that it's just this ordinary sense that gets unfolded in the Laws--so that there is no philosophical change?

And the Crito supports this latter suggestion.

Passage 3 takes virtue above all to be the goal of the law: "Ah, Socrates, be guided by us who tended your infancy. Care neither for your children nor for life nor for anything else more than for the right, that when you come to the home of the dead, you may have all these things to say in your own defence."

Passage 2 suggests that living under good laws, in the ordinary sense, can make a life worth living: "Will you then avoid the well-governed cities and the most civilized men? And if you do this will your life be worth living? "

Passage 1 (along with several similar passages) suggests that law itself, because it is resonable, is open to persuasion and inherently has an aspect of persuasion: "We say that he who does not obey does threefold wrong, because he disobeys us who are his parents, because he disobeys us who nurtured him, and because after agreeing to obey us he neither obeys us nor convinces us that we are wrong, though we give him the opportunity and do not roughly order him to do what we command."

Forthcoming: Aristotle and the Metaphysics of Metaphor

The Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy presents

Aristotle and the Metaphysics of Metaphor

Fran O’Rourke
(University College, Dublin)

Commentator:
Ioanna Patsioti
(Deree College)

Walsh Function Room, Boston College
Thursday, 31 March 2005 at 7:30 p.m.

The lecture will be preceded by a seminar on
"Analogy and Unity of Understanding in Aristotle"
Walsh Function Room
3:00-5:00 p.m.

"The Abolition of Reciprocal Wrongdoing"

I said in my inaugural post that occasionally I would post on topics in medieval, if they had some connection to classical, philosophy.

Here's something that arises out of my reading of Maimonides for a class in medieval philosophy.

Maimonides is explaining the purpose of law. All law, he says, is for the welfare of the soul or the body. Laws that promote the welfare of the soul do so by inculcating true opinions about divine things, proportionate to a person's capacity to understand. Laws that promote the welfare of the body do so in two ways: they either 'abolish reciprocal wrongdoing', or they aim to inculcate 'noble qualities', the virtues.

It's this notion of the 'abolition of reciprocal wrongdoing' which I find fascinating and profound. Why? Because it looks at harm socially, as typically eliciting a comparable response. According to Maimonides, the law aims to rule out not so much injuries but rather 'squabbling', 'warfare', 'strife'.

In this regard, the notion is set off from modern principles such as Mill's Harm Principle, which, I believe, looks at harm in relation to individuals only, either the one who harms, or the one who is harmed. (A harm is, after all, the violation of a 'distinct and assignable duty'.) (Yes, I am maintaining that a principle is not social, if it does not take into account reciprocity.)

The relation to classical philosophy of all this? --Because Maimonides' insight seems to me classical, and I would use it as a guide to interpreting, say, the perplexing reform that Socrates seems to have promoted in rejecting the popular notion of 'helping friends, harming enemies'. Harming enemies is precisely 'reciprocal wrongdoing'.

Okay, this is mere speculation (but why not?): It seems to me that, for instance, Vlastos' reading of that reform ( in "Socratic Piety") is, in contrast, individualistic--in a way that is not entirely faithful to a classical outlook. Vlastos has Socrates replace 'harming enemies' with (in effect) universal benevolence, grounded in an individual's grasp of some objective characteristic of Form.

There may be nothing to this, but then again there may--and, after all, this is a blog.

A Shift Next Week

Next Thursday, March 31, Fran O'Rourke of University College Dublin will be giving the next lecture in the BACAP series at Boston College. I'll give you more details later. The point of this post, is to say that I plan on counting that lecture as an artificial deadline. O'Rourke's lecture will be on the distinction between analogy and metaphor according to Aristotle. (I gather: why analogy is important in science and metaphysics but metaphor is not.) So I'll treat that lecture as a convenient time to shift focus--not in an exclusive way, of course!--from attention to Plato, especially the Laws, to attention to Aristotle.

I do need, after all, to write a review of Gabriel Lear's book. Two reviews, in fact. (There's a story in how that happened. It's not as problematic as it may seem.) So I need to give it double attention.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Could everyone be getting this wrong? If so, that would give me no pleasure.

Here’s the passage I have in mind:

Righteous indignation is intermediate between grudging ill will and malice, all of these having to do with pain and pleasure at things that happen to one’s neighbors: the person who tends towards righteous indignation is distressed at those who do well undeservedly, while the grudging person exceeds him, being distressed at anyone’s doing well, and the malicious person is so deficient when it comes to being distressed that he is even pleased (Nicomachean Ethics 2.8.1108b1-5, Rowe and Broadie translation).

[1108b] (1) ne/mesij de\ meso/thj fqo/nou kai\ e)pixairekaki/aj, ei)si\ de\ peri\ lu/phn kai\ h(donh\n ta\j e)pi\ toi=j sumbai/nousi toi=j pe/laj ginome/naj: o( me\n ga\r nemeshtiko\j lupei=tai e)pi\ toi=j a)naci/wj eu)= pra/ttousin, o( de\ fqonero\j u(perba/llwn tou=ton e)pi\ (5) pa=si lupei=tai, o( d' e)pixaire/kakoj tosou=ton e)llei/pei tou= lupei=sqai w(/ste kai\ xai/rein.

Pleased by what?

By the misfortunes of others, as Rowe and Broadie explain in their comments, “Whereas the other two attitudes involve pain at others’ good fortunes, malice involves pleasure in their misfortunes” (309). In this they follow the common opinion.

I suppose this interpretation is based on an etymology. ‘Malice’ renders e)pixairekaki/a, which looks like it should mean ‘taking pleasure in the bad’—what we call Schadenfreude.

The problem is, the interpretation hardly makes sense of how the Doctrine of the Mean works here. How is Schadenfreude an extreme deficiency, and therefore a contrary opposite, of the excess that is spite or envy? I don't see it. Maybe they're not? “The extremes of this triad,” Rowe and Broadie say in their commentary, “are not mutually exclusive, and in fact at Rhetoric II.9, 1387a1, they are said necessarily to coincide.” I’m not sure about that Rhetoric passage, but I am sure that in the Nicomachean Ethics contrary vices are not meant to coincide.

I think I see a way out of the difficulty. Does anyone else? Let me know your thoughts, in the comments box, and I'll add my own two cents later.

Phaedo 113d-e

Isn’t the language of the Phaedo generally that of approximation to an ideal? Socrates regards the philosophical life as a successive purification; he says that souls differ in how 'corporeal' they are; he describes a philosopher as someone who lives 'as much as possible' detached from the body. You can't become more purified, less corporeal, or more detached, if you weren't less so earlier.

Moreover, the entire scheme of reincarnation seems to presuppose variation in degree of virtue. To be sure, true philosophers are set apart: they’ve attained the ideal and, upon death, manage to escape cycles of reincarnation and become united with the gods. But everyone else becomes reincarnated within a hierarchy of animals, depending, it seems, upon the goodness of their lives. What could determine ranking here, except approximation to virtue and thus (in some sense) degree of virtue? If all non-philosophers were not virtuous and had only shadow virtues, how could they be ranked?

This question becomes pointed if we consider Phaedo 113d, precisely where Socrates describes judgment in the afterlife for 'average' (me/swj) people:

When the dead arrive at the place to which each has been led by his guardian spirit, they are first judged as to whether they have led a good and pious life. Those who have lived an average life make their way to the Acheron and embark upon such vessels as there are for them and proceed to the lake. There they dwell and are purified by penalties for any wrongdoing they may have committed; they are also suitably rewarded for their good deeds as each deserves (Grube).

e)peida\n a)fi/kwntai oi( teteleuthko/tej ei)j to\n to/pon oi(= o( dai/mwn e(/kaston komi/zei, prw=ton me\n diedika/santo oi(/ te kalw=j kai\ o(si/wj biw/santej kai\ oi( mh/. kai\ oi(\ me\n a)\n do/cwsi me/swj bebiwke/nai, poreuqe/ntej e)pi\ to\n )Axe/ronta, a)naba/ntej a(\ dh\ au)toi=j o)xh/mata/ e)stin, e)pi\ tou/twn a)fiknou=ntai ei)j th\n li/mnhn, kai\ e)kei= oi)kou=si/ te kai\ kaqairo/menoi tw=n te a)dikhma/twn dido/ntej di/kaj a)polu/ontai, ei)/ ti/j ti h)di/khken, tw=n te eu)ergesiw=n tima\j fe/rontai kata\ th\n a)ci/an e(/kastoj:

It’s the ‘being suitably rewarded’ which suggests degree of virtue. If non-philosophers were entirely non-virtuous, because they lacked the requisite perception of the Forms, then how could they do meritorious good deeds at all? (Rowe in his commentary says that the passage seems to suggest ‘some kind of hierarchy’ among the inhabitants of Hades, that is, degrees of virtue.)

A similar problem is raised by Plato’s saying next (113e2) that especially bad people are given special punishments because of ‘the enormity of their crimes’ (dia\ ta\ mege/qh tw=n a(marthma/twn). If all non-philosophers were not virtuous, because all of them lack the requisite perception of the Forms, then it’s hard to see how some of them could be especially bad.

The relevance of this is the following. If Plato in the Phaedo thinks that only philosophers can be virtuous in a strict sense, but others can have various degrees of virtue, in some looser sense, then he could easily hold that strict virtue alone is important for 'salvation' (the topic of the Phaedo), but that virtue in some approximating sense, too, is important for political theory.

It’s in the spirit of Dissoi Blogoi to counterpose arguments on a question. So in a subsequent post I’ll give Bobonich’s arguments against this, that the difference between virtue and non-virtue in the Phaedo is indeed all-or-nothing.

(Btw, Phaedo 113d-e is not discussed in Plato's Utopia Recast, although the book does comment on other eschatological passages in the dialogue.)

Eyes on the Prize

As we have seen, Bobonich’s Claim has an all-or-nothing character. He says: according to the Phaedo and Republic, no non-philosophers can be virtuous or happy; according to the Laws, all citizens, even non-philosophers, can be virtuous. That's a chief virtue of his Claim: it's a sharp thesis.

But I wonder if this is the language of Platonism.

What I mean is, Platonism is a philosophy of ideals, and of departures in different degrees from those ideals. A Platonist thinks that there are Forms, and then particulars which participate to varying degrees in those Forms. The Divided Line, the Ladder of Eros, and the Cave Allegory are all devices to represent degrees, and stages, of approximation to some ideal. Nothing is all-or-nothing, on this way of looking at things, except the distinction between the ideal and everything else.

Suppose virtue itself follows this pattern. Then ideal virtue, ‘true virtue’, will be something the gods have, and which a philosopher might just attain, if he gets everything right, but which everyone else will have to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon his approximation to the ideal.

It would be easy to hold, on this picture, both that “All non-philosophers are non-virtuous”, that is, that non-philosophers can only approximate to virtue, and that “All non-philosophers can be virtuous”, that is, that non-philosophers can approximate to virtue.

But Plato clearly does look at virtue in this way. Recall Symposium 212a: “’Do you think it would be a poor life for a human being to look there and to behold [Beauty itself] by that which he ought, and to be with it? Or haven’t you remembered,’ [Diotima] said, ‘that in that life alone, when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen—only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he’s in touch with no images), but to true virtue (because he is in touch with true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given birth to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.”

I don't know if Bobonich considers this objection in his book; I need to look into that. (But the Index indicates he does not discuss Symposium 212a.)

Crito--Quia Absurdum

I wonder if we should take the Crito as relevant to any investigation of the ‘political theory of the Phaedo’. Yes, I know the Crito is supposed to be an early dialogue and the Phaedo a middle dialogue; nonetheless:

• Plato clearly writes the Phaedo to make it seem continuous with the Crito; and
• since the Crito gives a theory of law (of sorts), then that, presumably, would be the baseline view that Plato takes into his middle period.

(Bobonich apparently regards the Crito as not relevant: his Index Locorum lists only one, incidental citation of the Crito, at n. 155, p. 525.)

Three passages in the Crito, I think, are potentially important. I’ll simply give the passages (Jowett's translations, again). In each, the Laws are personified and address Socrates in prison.

Readers of this blog may count this as a challenge: If we were to take these passages as relevant, would they count for or against Bobonich’s view, and why? Let me know your view, in the comments box. On Tuesday, March 22, I'll post and say why I think the passages are significant.

PASSAGE 1, Crito 51e-52a

…We say that he who does not obey does threefold wrong, because he disobeys us who are his parents, because he disobeys us who nurtured him, and because after agreeing to obey us he neither obeys us nor convinces us that we are wrong, though we give him the opportunity and do not roughly order him to do what we command, but when we allow him a choice of two things, either to convince us of error or to do our bidding, he does neither of these things. We say that you, Socrates, will be exposed to these reproaches, if you do what you have in mind, and you not least of the Athenians but more than most others.

kai\ to\n mh\ peiqo/menon trixh=| famen a)dikei=n, o(/ti te gennhtai=j ou)=sin h(mi=n ou) pei/qetai, kai\ o(/ti trofeu=si, kai\ o(/ti o(mologh/saj h(mi=n pei/sesqai ou)/te pei/qetai ou)/te pei/qei h(ma=j, ei) mh\ kalw=j ti poiou=men, protiqe/ntwn h(mw=n kai\ ou)k a)gri/wj e)pitatto/ntwn poiei=n a(\ a)\n keleu/wmen, a)lla\ e)fie/ntwn duoi=n qa/tera, h)\ pei/qein h(ma=j h)\ poiei=n, tou/twn ou)de/tera poiei=. tau/taij dh/ famen kai\ se/, w)= Sw/kratej, tai=j ai)ti/aij e)ne/cesqai, ei)/per poih/seij a(\ e)pinoei=j, kai\ ou)x h(/kista )Aqhnai/wn se/, a)ll' e)n toi=j ma/lista.

PASSAGE 2, Crito 53c

Will you then avoid the well-governed cities and the most civilized men? And if you do this will your life be worth living? Or will you go to them and have the face to carry on--what kind of conversation, Socrates? The same kind you carried on here, saying that virtue and justice and lawful things and the laws are the most precious things to men?

po/teron ou)=n feu/ch| ta/j te eu)nomoume/naj po/leij kai\ tw=n a)ndrw=n tou\j kosmiwta/touj; kai\ tou=to poiou=nti a)=ra a)/cio/n soi zh=n e)/stai; h)\ plhsia/seij tou/toij kai\ a)naisxunth/seij dialego/menosti/naj lo/gouj, w)= Sw/kratej; h)\ ou(/sper e)nqa/de, w(j h( a)reth\ kai\ h( dikaiosu/nh plei/stou a)/cion toi=j a)nqrw/poij kai\ ta\ no/mima kai\ oi( no/moi;

PASSAGE 3, Crito 54b

Ah, Socrates, be guided by us who tended your infancy. Care neither for your children nor for life nor for anything else more than for the right, that when you come to the home of the dead, you may have all these things to say in your own defence. For clearly if you do this thing it will not be better for you here, or more just or holier, no, nor for any of your friends, and neither will it be better when you reach that other abode.

a)ll', w)= Sw/kratej, peiqo/menoj h(mi=n toi=j soi=j trofeu=si mh/te pai=daj peri\ plei/onoj poiou= mh/te to\ zh=n mh/te a)/llo mhde\n pro\ tou= dikai/ou, i(/na ei)j (/Aidou e)lqw\n e)/xh|j pa/nta tau=ta a)pologh/sasqai toi=j e)kei= a)/rxousin: ou)/te ga\r e)nqa/de soi fai/netai tau=ta pra/ttonti a)/meinon ei)=nai ou)de\ dikaio/teron ou)de\ o(siw/teron, ou)de\ a)/llw| tw=n sw=n ou)deni/, ou)/te e)kei=se a)fikome/nw| a)/meinon e)/stai.

(By the way, what Tertullian actually said, apparently, was credibile, quia ineptum est; that is, in effect, "truth is stranger than fiction".)

Proper Developmental Method

Richard Kraut's excellent article, "Plato", in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, includes a section, "Does Plato Change his Mind About Politics?", which raises some good questions about method. Kraut writes:

Just as any attempt to understand Plato's views about forms must confront the question whether his thoughts about them developed or altered over time, so too our reading of him as a political philosopher must be shaped by a willingness to consider the possibility that he changed his mind. For example, on any plausible reading of Republic, Plato evinces a deep antipathy to rule by the many. Socrates tells his interlocutors that the only politics that should engage them are those of the anti-democratic regime he depicts as the paradigm of a good constitution. And yet in Laws, the Athenian visitor proposes a detailed legislative framework for a city in which non-philosophers (people who have never heard of the forms, and have not been trained to understand them) are given considerable powers as rulers. Plato would not have invested so much time in the creation of this comprehensive and lengthy work, had he not believed that the creation of a political community ruled by those who are philosophically unenlightened is a project that deserves the support of his readers. Has Plato changed his mind, then? Has he re-evaluated the highly negative opinion he once held of those who are innocent of philosophy? Did he at first think that the reform of existing Greek cities, with all of their imperfections, is a waste of time — but then decide that it is an endeavor of great value? (And if so, what led him to change his mind?) Answers to these questions can be justified only by careful attention to what he has his interlocutors say. But it would be utterly implausible to suppose that these developmental questions need not be raised, on the grounds that Republic and Laws each has its own cast of characters, and that the two works therefore cannot come into contradiction with each other. According to this hypothesis (one that must be rejected), because it is Socrates (not Plato) who is critical of democracy in Republic, and because it is the Athenian visitor (not Plato) who recognizes the merits of rule by the many in Laws, there is no possibility that the two dialogues are in tension with each other. Against this hypothesis, we should say: Since both Republic and Laws are works in which Plato is trying to move his readers towards certain conclusions, by having them reflect on certain arguments — these dialogues are not barred from having this feature by their use of interlocutors — it would be an evasion of our responsibility as readers and students of Plato not to ask whether what one of them advocates is compatible with what the other advocates. If we answer that question negatively, we have some explaining to do: what led to this change? Alternatively, if we conclude that the two works are compatible, we must say why the appearance of conflict is illusory.

The view that the Republic and Laws could not possibly conflict is surely ridiculous--and something of a red herring. It's what Kraut says after considering that view which is truly important (hence the emphasis). That passage, I think, makes one valuable point, but also suggests something which I think is not correct.

The valuable point is that, in developmental studies, one must first establish that there is a change (that is, an incompatibility or inconsistency of views across time), before attempting to give an explanation of it. The change is the explanandum; one's developmental theory is the explanans. In this regard, one might also wish to emphasize that it's of crucial importance to state the change correctly. For instance, I think it is not correct to say, without qualification, that Plato is 'opposed to rule of the many' in the Republic. Rather, he thinks that ignorant people should not have political authority just because of their numbers, and he also thinks that political authority is a burden not a benefit, to be avoided if possible. That presumably has to be included in the explanandum, not 'opposition to rule of the many.'

The incorrect suggestion (it's a suggestion only, not an explicit claim--the suggestion comes from the nearness of the ridiculous view that has been rejected) is that, when there is an appearance of incompatibility, the person who in the end wishes to deny it, and the person who in the end wishes to affirm it, are on equal terms. (Kraut's way of putting it suggests that, either way, one 'has some explaining to do.')

Rather--and of course-- the presumption should be in favor of compatibility, within a work as well as across works, and the burden of proof falls on the person who wishes to affirm incompatibility. The reason for this is that apparent inconsistencies arise all the time in our reading of any interesting philosopher, and a presumption of consistency prevents us from continually stalling in our progress to understand.

The Social Life of a Dualist

In an earlier post I asked whether it made sense to ask what political view was implied by the Phaedo. Suppose it does. Then can we argue in the following way?

If a political view is implied by the Phaedo, then a fortiori a social view is implied—that is, an outlook on life with others. But the social view that Plato would have had, if Bobonich is right about his political view, would be both (i) mad, and (ii) not something we have any reason to attribute to him. Therefore either he did not hold that political view, or, if he did, he was inconsistent, and any attribution of a change in outlook to him would be hazardous.

The political view (according to Bobonich) is that no non-philosophers have any virtue whatsoever. They cannot be happy. They live ‘lives unworthy of being lived’. No philosopher can take a genuine interest in a non-philosopher. Philosophers and non-philosophers have no shared basis for genuine human fellowship.

It’s clear that the ‘social’ view would be just the same—but take it to apply to neighbors and associates rather than citizens.

Now is this the outlook of the person who wrote the Phaedo and sketched the character of Socrates there? Is it the outlook of the character Socrates?

My sense from reading the Phaedo is that these suggestions are incredible. (But what's the textual evidence? Help me out here.) The Phaedo seems humane and broad in its appeal, and Plato portrays Socrates as having genuine goodwill towards others generally and exhorting others without restriction to virtue.

How Bad Could It Be?

“Things are never so bad, nor so good, as they seem.” Does the maxim hold also of both ends of Plato’s philosophical career?

Recall the Claim: that Plato changes from holding, in the Phaedo and Republic, that no non-philosophers can be virtuous, to holding in the Laws that citizens generally can have all the virtues.

So far I’ve been trying out, as it were, the ‘not so good’ part of the maxim. That citizens generally could be fully virtuous seemed to depend on an unsupported interpretation of the preludes. The preludes, it seemed, were introduced by Plato not for autonomy, nor for knowledge of the foundations of law for its own sake, but rather for ready obedience to law, merely.

But what about the ‘not so bad’ side of things? Does Plato early on think that there is some limited but real sense in which people generally can be virtuous? If so, maybe we can pull the two ends of his career together, and make them meet. Then there’s no big change, and no need of a theory to explain it.

But how bad could things seem? Very, very bad, Bobonich maintains. Here’s what he says about the Phaedo:

We saw that in the Phaedo Plato holds that all non-philosophers are radically ethically defective. All non-philosophers lack genuine virtue and they lack genuine virtue because they have the wrong ultimate ends. They are oriented towards sensible objects and not towards genuine non-sensible value properties. As a result, their lives fail to be happy and, in fact, do not seem to be worth living (41-42)

His view seems to be based on the plain meaning of Socrates' words in the Phaedo.

But could Plato have really been so...extreme, so fanatical? And this notion of a 'life not worth living' is intriguing. What does it mean, and where does Plato talk about it? (More later.)

New, Improved Look

I've fiddled and diddled and have come up with something that, for the time being at least, is an improvement over my original ORANGE.

Be assured that, as blogmaster, I'll be watching carefully the runways of Paris and Milan, looking for the latest trends in color.

It's All in Xiao

May Sim, an ancient philosopher at Holy Cross College and a colleague in BACAP, has a series of interesting papers on Aristotle and Confucius. Her "Virtue Oriented Politics: Confucius and Aristotle" (forthcoming in a volume on Aristotle's Politics edited by Lenn Goodman and Robert Talisse) at several points touches on Confucius' agreement with Aristotle, that political authority should have virtue as its goal. She claims, however, that because Confucius takes life within a family as the paradigm of virtue, for him virtue in even its fullest form is, potentially, more widely shared:

In Aristotle's ideal constitution, only the ruler--or the citizen in his temporary role of ruler--can exercise genuine practical wisdom on a public plane. Nor can one exercise the ultimate [degree] of virtue in a constitution of the wrong type. In Confucius' view, however, it seems that the good private person is also the good citizen and the virtuous man. This is clear when Confucius responded to the question as to why he is not in government by saying, "It is all in filial conduct (xiao)! Just being filial to your parents and befriending your brothers is carrying out the work of government" (2.21). Where Aristotle more sharply distinguishes the virtues of the citizen from the virtues of the good man, and separates both from any excellences that might pertain to his family relationships, Confucius blends them. Perhaps in a way Confucius allows more people to attain genuine moral virtue, the same kind of virtue as the ruler or junzi. They act in their private capacity, as Aristotle would see it, where Aristotle would look for participation. But their seemingly familial and communal virtues are of social and political significance in Confucius' view. For Confucius, the virtues of the junzi are accessible even within one's family.

I'm not sure that Aristotle is so very far apart from Confucius: think of his comparison of familial relationships and political rule in NE 8.9-12; or his suggestion in 10.8 that a completely virtuous and happy person would live in obscurity and be hard to recognize.

But May's comments led me to wonder what (so to speak) the default view is, on the question of the goal of legislation. Is the view that legislation should aim at virtue something that people naturally arrive at (if we can speak this way)? Or is that a philosopher's thesis?

Aristotle in NE seems to regard the view as, if not something obvious and an endoxon, at least an implicit presumption and ideal of legislation. For instance:

1103b3-4 (see also 1113b22-30)
And thus by performing just actions we become just; by performing moderate actions, moderate; and by performing courageous actions, courageous. What happens in city-states supports this as well: legislators make their citizens good, by getting them used [to acting like that]. (That's the point of a legislator, without exception; and anyone who fails to do this gets it wrong; and it's precisely this that makes the difference between a good and bad constitution.)

ou(/tw dh\ kai\ ta\ me\n di/kaia pra/ttontej di/kaioi gino/meqa, ta\ de\ sw/frona sw/fronej, ta\ d' a)ndrei=a a)ndrei=oi. marturei= de\ kai\ to\ gino/menon e)n tai=j po/lesin: oi( ga\r nomoqe/tai tou\j poli/taj e)qi/zontej poiou=sin a)gaqou/j, kai\ to\ me\n bou/lhma panto\j nomoqe/tou tou=t' e)sti/n, o(/soi de\ mh\ eu)= au)to\ poiou=sin a(marta/nousin, kai\ diafe/rei tou/tw| politei/a politei/aj a)gaqh\ fau/lhj.

1102a8
It seems also that a true practitioner of political skill is someone who has taken special pains to get it right about virtue. Why? Because he aims to turn his citizens into good men who are obedient to the laws. Clear examples are the legislators of Crete and Sparta (and any others like them, as is supposed, in past times).

dokei= de\ kai\ o( kat' a)lh/qeian politiko\j peri\ tau/thn ma/lista peponh=sqai: bou/letai ga\r tou\j poli/taj a)gaqou\j poiei=n kai\ tw=n (10) no/mwn u(phko/ouj. para/deigma de\ tou/twn e)/xomen tou\j Krhtw=n kai\ Lakedaimoni/wn nomoqe/taj, kai\ ei)/ tinej e(/teroi toiou=toi gege/nhntai.

The Politics of Dualism

Here's a post on which I think many persons might wish to comment.

Section 1.8 of Plato's Utopia Recast is entitled 'The Phaedo: Political Implications'. It begins: "The Phaedo does not explicitly discuss political theory, but the dialogue offers a view of non-philosophers and we should consider its implications for what Plato's political theory could be."

Is this a misguided, or an interesting project?

Misguided: "That's like asking what are the political implications of Descartes' Meditations, or Dame Julian's Revelation of Divine Love. To raise that sort of question is to misconstrue the purpose of that sort of text. The Phaedo presents itself as an investigation among close friends of 'last things'. You can't but distort it if you take it as giving 'doctrines' which can be extracted out and treated as if they were part of a general philosophical system, with a political theory included. And all of this is not to mention the difficulties raised by possible irony and devices of distancing, if the dialogue is handled, properly, as literature."

Interesting: "A philosopher should mean what he says. The Phaedo maintains that only philosophers can be virtuous; only they can be happy; only they have the chance of reaching the goal of human life, that is, liberation from cycles of reincarnation. I admit it's a thought experiement: what kind of political theory might be offered by someone who thought that. The answer you come up with is: a political theory in which the ideal is a city-state which has the goal of producing philosophers; where the goodness of this project is more important than the welfare of any individuals; and where there is no real unity of purpose between philosophers, for whom society is constructed, and the rest, who live essentially to foster the well-being of philosophers. But now turn to the Republic, and--is it merely a coincidence?--that's much like the political theory one finds there. So the thought experiment turns out to be fruitful. It effectively predicts a theory of political society much like what Plato actually develops."

So which is it?

Extent of Autonomy

Okay, now I'm confused. Help me out.

I posed the question yesterday: to what extent does the argument of Plato's Utopia Recast depend upon Bobonich's interpretation of the preludes, and, in particular, to what extent does his Claim depend on this, viz. that in the Laws Plato comes to think that citizens generally might be completely virtuous?

Bobonich's interpretation of the preludes depends, as we have seen, upon his interpretation of those passages (in books 4 and 9) in which Plato uses the free/servile doctor analogy. I thought, then: consult the index locorum, for places where Bobonich refers to these passages.

The index suggests that Bobonich refers to these passages in basically two places: at the beginning of the book, where he gives a sketch of the argument, and at pp. 97-105, where he gives his exposition of those passages, concluding with his statement (on p. 105) of the principle of Autonomy. We've looked at all these places already. So apparently we now see the role that these passages play in his interpretation.

Or do we? Well, not quite, because--as I also found--sometimes Bobonich refers to 'the medical analogy', without citing any passages.

Here's a puzzling instance of that. Near the end of the book, Bobonich is arguing that, in the Laws unlike the Republic, Plato thinks that citizens' participation in government is inherently good. Why does Plato come to think this? Is it perhaps that Plato holds to a principle of autonomy, according to which it is simply good that persons govern themselves? Bobonich tests out this idea:

There is more than one way in which such autonomy might obtain. To begin, we might return to the Laws' medical analogy. There Plato appeals to the status of the patients to justify the doctor's treatment. Because the patients are free people, they should be brought to understand and accept the principles governing their treatment. One way of understanding this is as appealing to the intuition that it is better for the individual to be self-ruled than to be ruled from without. Something like this intuition may account for the immediate attractiveness that the Athenian's interlocutors find in the proposal that the legislator in Magnesia should do what has never been done before and treat the citizens as free people. On such an account, the value of political activity consists in its being an expression of one's capacity to be a self-governing agent (447-8).

I'm puzzled first of all by the qualifications : 'one way of understanding this', 'something like this intuition may account...'. Why should a later discussion in the book be qualified, when the earlier discussion was not? Shouldn't a crucial thesis become confirmed over time, not weakened? Recall that, when he first gave his interpretation of the medical analogy earlier, Bobonich added no comparable qualifications: 'These passages also give a first answer...', 'As Plato presents the analogy...' (105).

But what confuses me even more is that Bobonich, it seems, next denies that Plato accepts Autonomy. Here is the immediately following sentence from p. 448:

But as we have also seen, such an account is not sufficient for Plato. Self-governance is valuable for the individual only if it is self-governance in accordance with the right principles.

So it looks as though Bobonich is maintaining that Plato puts forward, in the medical analogy, a view of autonomy that he does not elsewhere accept and which is not generally consistent with his philosophy (or what am I not seeing?).

But then two remarks:

1. If Plato does not accept Autonomy, then shouldn't we attribute it to the medical analogy passages only if we're absolutely bound to do so? (But we're not so bound, as we saw--far from it.)

2. We should perhaps distinguish between a strong view, viz. that Plato asserts Autonomy in the medical passages, and a weak view, viz. that Plato asserts merely that citizens should be instructed about the basis of the laws for its own sake. From now on, let's consider the latter view only, not the former, which seems misguided.

(Btw, in case you were wondering: it doesn't help to look in the book's general index, which is very incomplete. For instance, under 'autonomy' one finds only: '203-5, 488 n.37'. The discussion on p. 448, and several others, is not referenced.)