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?

BACAP Lecture February 9: Modrak at BU

Here's an event I'm looking forward to:

The Boston Area Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy
and
The Department of Philosophy of Boston University
present

Deborah Modrak
Professor of Philosophy
University of Rochester

"Aristotelian Form, Function and Definition"

Commentary by Mary Louise Gill,
Professor of Classics and Philosophy
Brown University

Thursday, February 9, 2006
7:30 p.m.
Room 525, in the Department of Philosophy
745 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston University

For information contact: roochnik@bu.edu

Professor Modrak will present a seminar
"On Defining Socrates and other Composite Substances"
Friday, February 10, 2006
12 noon
The Mugar Library, Boston UniversityRoom 424

The Republic an Apologia?

In general I've been enjoying the slight liberties Tom Griffith takes in his translation of Plato's Republic (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), since they make the dialogue more natural and idiomatic. But the passage below annoyed me, because it seemed misleading.

Why? Because it changes the genre of the Republic, turning it into an apologia, when that is not the character of the work. The Republic is not a 'defense' of justice against charges. One simple reason is that the dialogue is just as much an investigation into injustice, and it carries out an extended comparison between justice and injustice. And the conclusion reached at the end of Book IV is not that justice is blameless, but rather that it is more profitable.

Yet that raises the question: What is the nature of its investigation into justice and justice?

Here's the passage, 368a5-c5; it occurs just after Glaucon and Adeimantus have completed their speeches at the beginning of book II.

tou=to/ moi, w)= fi/loi, eu)= dokei= e)/xein: pa/nu ga\r qei=on pepo/nqate, ei) mh\ pe/peisqe a)diki/an dikaiosu/nhj a)/meinon ei)=nai, ou(/tw duna/menoi ei)pei=n u(pe\r au)tou=. dokei=te dh/ moi w(j a)lhqw=j ou) pepei=sqai. tekmai/romai de\ e)k tou= a)/llou tou= u(mete/rou tro/pou, e)pei\ kata/ ge au)tou\j tou\j lo/gouj h)pi/stoun a)\n u(mi=n.--o(/sw| de\ ma=llon pisteu/w, tosou/tw| ma=llon a)porw= o(/ti xrh/swmai. ou)/te ga\r o(/pwj bohqw= e)/xw: dokw= ga/r moi a)du/natoj ei)=nai-- shmei=on de/ moi, o(/ti a(\ pro\j Qrasu/maxon le/gwn w)/|mhn a)pofai/nein w(j a)/meinon dikaiosu/nh a)diki/aj, ou)k a)pede/casqe / mou--ou)/t' au)= o(/pwj mh\ bohqh/sw e)/xw: de/doika ga\r mh\ ou)d' o(/sion h)=| parageno/menon dikaiosu/nh| kakhgoroume/nh|.

o(/ te ou)=n Glau/kwn kai\ oi( a)/lloi e)de/onto panti\ tro/pw| bohqh=sai kai\ mh\ a)nei=nai to\n lo/gon, a)lla\ diereunh/sasqai ti/ te/ e)stin e(ka/teron kai\ peri\ th=j w)feli/aj au)toi=n ta)lhqe\j pote/rwj e)/xei.

Here is Griffith's translation. I highlight the phrases that trouble me, which come largely from rendering bohqei=n as 'defend' rather than 'aid' vel sim. (I suspect Griffith is misled by Socrates' mention of a battle just prior to this passage, at 368a3. Of course even in a battle it's possible to give aid, without defending--for instance, by supplying someone with ammunition.)

A fair description, I think, my friends. There was certainly something inspired about your performance just now--to be able to speak like that in favour of injustice without being convinced it is a better thing than justice. And judging by the evidence of your whole way of life, I believe you when you say you are really not convinced, though from what you actually said I wouldn't have believed you. The trouble is, the more firmly I believe you, the less certain I am what to do next. I can't defend justice. I don't think I have the ability. I say that because you have rejected the arguments by which I thought I had proved to Thrasymachus that justice was something better than injustice. On the other hand, I can't not defend her, since I can't help feeling it is wrong to stand idly by when I hear justice coming under attack, and not come to her defense for as long as I have breath in my body and a tongue in my head. So the best thing is to make what defense I can.

Well, Glaucon and the rest of them insisted that they wanted me to make a defense, and not abandon the argument. They wanted me to make a full investigation into what justice and injustice both were, and what the true position was concerning the benefit they both brought.

Passing the Time on a Drive

".... and from this it follows that substance is prior to relation, because, as I said, a relation exists in a substance, and .... Boys?!... Are you paying attention?"

Muddy Man Meets His Day

That I wasn't acting qua swineherd when, this morning, I took a well-fattened Muddy Man to the abattoir was hardly a consolation.

At first we tried luring him up a ramp onto the truck with M&M's, said to be a great treat with pigs. But he was too savvy.

We eventually just picked him up and lifted him in -- at about 200 pounds!

The Stack of Books on My Desk

My postings are not at random, as they may seem. Here is what I am reading now in ancient philoophy. Over the next few months, my posts will likely center on these works.

Plato, Philebus,
for the NYC Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy;

Plato, Phaedo,
for the Introduction to Philosophy course I'm teaching now, a semester-long examination of the Phaedo (I took from Bostock the idea of basing an intro course on the Phaedo);

Plato, Republic,
since I'm still trying to understand the basic argument of the Republic and have sketched several papers related to this theme;

Aristotle, Metaphysics,
for a seminar on that work, which I'm teaching this semester;

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
because I'm completing a translation of this work.

SKOPOS in Aristotle

What is a skopos in Aristotle? A mark, target, goal? Is it only that?

The question was raised in my mind when looking at the end of Met. I.2: "We have said, then, what is the nature of our sought-after knowledge, and what is the mark (skopos) which this investigation and plan of inquiry ought to hit."

ti/j me\n ou)=n h( fu/sij th=j e)pisth/mhj th=j zhtoume/nhj, ei)/rhtai, kai\ ti/j o( skopo\j ou(= dei= tugxa/nein th\n zh/thsin kai\ th\n o(/lhn me/qodon.

Clearly, Aristotle explains the nature (phusis) of this knowledge, wisdom, in chapter 1: It is, as he says, a knowledge of first principles and first causes. But what has Aristotle said about the skopos of the investigation? (Presumably, the skopos is different from the phusis.)

Suppose that what Aristotle says in chapter 2 concerns the skopos. But in I.2 he says such things as that: the search for this knowledge is motivated, not by practical necessity, but by wonder (982b11-22), and that the search ends when we arrive at a confident understanding of how what previously was wondered at is in fact necessary (983a12-21). Also, that the search ends when we've traced causes back as far as something divine (982b28-983a11).

That is to say, what he tells us in I.2 concerns how we know that we've arrived at it. That chapter gives us marks, or criteria, for recognizing that we've finally got hold of what we were searching for.

But, if so, then a skopos is not merely a 'target'. One thinks of a skopos as something like a bullseye--it is what one at the start aims at, or takes as a goal once and for all. The arrow either hits that target or not. But Aristotle seems to think of it, rather, as something which tells us whether we are reaching the target or not. It would be more like the sighting of the target within a 'scope'. Indeed, as he elsewhere says, the skopos is "that with a view to which we make adjustments, tightening or loosening", e)pitei/nei kai\ a)ni/hsin (e.g. NE 1138b22) --that is, continuously so.

Here is an analogy. Suppose someone is on a treadmill machine at the gym. He wants to get a 'cardio' workout and maintain his heartbeat at 140 beats per minute. To do so, he holds onto sensors on the railing of the machine, which register his heartbeat: when his heartbeat is at 140, a red light goes on; when the heartbeat goes above or below, the red light goes off.

On this picture, his goal and target is to keep his heartbeat at 140 beats per minute (since that is what is best for conditioning his heart). But his skopos is that the red light remain on: the light confirms that he's reached his goal.

Thrasymachus Another Callicles?

Rachel Barney (see her informative SEP article on the subject) thinks not :

Because of [a] shared agenda, and because Socrates' refutation of Callicles can be read as a sketchy, perhaps deliberately unsatisfying rehearsal for the Republic, it is tempting to assume that the two figures represent a single philosophical position. But in fact, Callicles and Thrasymachus are by no means interchangeable...

For her, everything hinges on whether Thrasymachus holds that injustice is a virtue and justice a vice.

According to Barney, Thrasymachus is largely a debunker. He's a 'conventionalist', who claims that there is no justice and injustice, and that talk of such things merely masks power relationships. But he holds back from making claims about what is right or wrong 'by nature'.

In contrast, Callicles, although he too debunks common ideas of justice as mere conventions, additionally claims that naturally crafty and brave persons, who are stronger than others, ought to dominate over them. He asserts a morality of the naturally strong.

Barney admits that it might seem as though Thrasymachus takes that extra step also:

...it is worth asking what Thrasymachus‘s ideal of the ‘ruler in the strict sense’ adds to his account of justice. It seems to confirm that he is no conventionalist, since that view involves treating all actual laws as equal while on Thrasymachus' account not every regime counts as the real thing. More problematically, Thrasymachus' glorification of tyranny renders retroactively ambiguous his slogan, ‘Justice is the advantage of the stronger’. His praise of the expert tyrant (343b-c) suggests that, in addition to the debunking theses noted earlier, this slogan may also mean something like: it really is right and proper, part of the due order of things, for the strong to take advantage of the weak. This is precisely the claim that, as we will see, is expressed in the Gorgias by Callicles' theory of ‘natural justice’. If Thrasymachus too means to make this claim then he, like Callicles, evidently has what we may call a moral world-view — a view, that is, about how the world ought to be.

But what clinches it for her is that Thrasymachus, she thinks, 'weasels out' of saying that justice is a vice and injustice a virtue:

However, as we have seen, Thrasymachus only flirts with the revision of ordinary moral language which this view would imply; when Socrates suggests that according to him justice is a vice and injustice a virtue, he weasels out.

When precisely does he weasel out? According to Barney:

When Socrates asks whether, then, he holds that justice is a vice, Thrasymachus instead defines it as an intellectual failing: “No, just very high-minded simplicity,” while injustice is “good judgment” and is to be “included with virtue and wisdom” (348c-e).

However:

(i) I don't see how, in this passage, Thrasymachus' 'including injustice with virtue and wisdom' (e)n a)reth=j kai\ sofi/aj tiqei=j me/rei th\n a)diki/an ) is not the same as his 'holding' that it is a virtue.

(ii) A few lines later Thrasymachus agrees that he regards injustice is 'something noble and powerful' and that he attributes to it 'all the other things that people attribute to justice' (fh/seij au)to\ kai\ kalo\n kai\ i)sxuro\n ei)=nai kai\ ta)=lla au)tw=| pa/nta prosqh/seij a(\ h(mei=j tw=| dikai/w| proseti/qemen, 348e9-10). It would be bizarre for him to say this but then deny that injustice is a virtue. And it would be even more bizarre for him to say this but deny that it was good to be unjust, that one 'should' be unjust if possible.

(iii) In the refutation that follows, Socrates, in arguing against Thrasymachus, explicitly takes him to be maintaining that an unjust person, as such, is good and wise (fro/nimo/j te kai\ a)gaqo\j o( a)/dikoj, 349d3).

(iv) After the refutation is over, Socrates implies that refuted view was that justice is a vice and a kind of foolishness, but injustice is a virtue and a kind of wisdom (diwmologhsa/meqa th\n dikaiosu/nhn a)reth\n ei)=nai kai\ sofi/an, th\n de\ a)diki/an kaki/an te kai\ a)maqi/an, 350d4).

In sum: Barney's view cannot be sustained. Her view that Thrasymachus is distinct from Callicles hinges on the claim that Thrasymachus 'weasels out' of saying that injustice is a virtue. But Thrasymachus does not weasel out of this; in fact, he says so rather plainly.

Et nos cedamus amori

A quick quiz on what will almost certainly be the most studied discussion of aspects of ancient philosophy for months to come: Benedict XVI's encyclical, released today, "Deus caritas est".

1. The first footnote in the encyclical is to:

(a) The opening lines of the gospel of John
(b) Thomas Aquinas, S.T., on caritas
(c) Aristotle on friendship
(d) Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil

2. The first difficulty the Pope raises is an echo of:

(a) Augustine's Confessions
(b) Aristotle on friendship
(c) I Corinthians 13
(d) Tina Turner, "What's Love Got to Do With It?"

3. True or false. The Pope gives an interpretation of Metaphysics Lambda.

4. Which passage from Plato is discussed?

(a) The Cave Allegory
(b) Aristophanes' tale from the Symposium
(c) The charioteer from the Phaedrus
(d) None of the above: Plato is not discussed

5. The first half of the encyclical is principally concerned with:

(a) eros
(b) antiphilesis
(c) philia
(d) storge

ANSWERS:

1. (d) "According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice." [1] Cf. Jenseits von Gut und Böse, IV, 168.

2. (b) "So we need to ask: are all these forms of love basically one, so that love, in its many and varied manifestations, is ultimately a single reality, or are we merely using the same word to designate totally different realities?" See NE 1155b12: po\teron e\(n ei)=doj th=j fili/aj e)sti\n h)\ plei/w..

3. True. "The divine power that Aristotle at the height of Greek philosophy sought to grasp through reflection, is indeed for every being an object of desire and of love —and as the object of love this divinity moves the world[6]—but in itself it lacks nothing and does not love: it is solely the object of love." [6] Cf. Metaphysics, XII, 7

4. (b) "Of all other creatures, not one is capable of being the helper that man needs, even though he has assigned a name to all the wild beasts and birds and thus made them fully a part of his life. So God forms woman from the rib of man. Now Adam finds the helper that he needed: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). Here one might detect hints of ideas that are also found, for example, in the myth mentioned by Plato, according to which man was originally spherical, because he was complete in himself and self-sufficient. But as a punishment for pride, he was split in two by Zeus, so that now he longs for his other half, striving with all his being to possess it and thus regain his integrity." [8] Plato, Symposium, XIV-XV, 189c-192d.

5. (a), eros, regarded as inseparable from agape: "The Greeks—not unlike other cultures—considered eros principally as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering of reason by a “divine madness” which tears man away from his finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by divine power, to experience supreme happiness. All other powers in heaven and on earth thus appear secondary: “Omnia vincit amor” says Virgil in the Bucolics—love conquers all—and he adds: “et nos cedamus amori”—let us, too, yield to love."

Scoring:

5 correct: You have a good sense of humor; or you are a serious Catholic; or you are a serious time-waster and accidentally stumbled upon vatican.va. In any case, raise a toast to eros.

4 correct: Next time, pleonekteon yourself.

3 correct: That's fine. Out of misguided agape, we're counting your score as a 4.

2 correct: You are probably yielding a little too much to love. Perhaps you are in love with love.

1 correct: For penance, purchase and read one of the books on the sidebar.

0 correct: Congratulations, you've reached a limit!

Nettleship on Limit and Pleonexia

Here is Nettleship's explanation of the point of the argument:

In all other arts the man who is without the idea of right or wrong (in the wider sense of the words), or the idea of a limit at which he must stop, is not the man who understands his art; he is the man who knows nothing about it. For suppose two musicians meet over the tuning of an instrument; if they are really musicians, they at once recognize a principle of right and wrong, which sets a limit beyond which it would never occur to them to go; in plain English, if the instrument is rightly tuned, the musician, the man who knows, would never think of tuning it further.

He then points out that principles of maximization (to achieve or get as much as possible) are opposed to this conception of correct action:

The word[s] 'limit' [and 'measure'] certainly suggest[] to us something that stops progress, and prevents us reaching perfection in anything. The Greek associations of the words, at least in Plato and Aristotle, are quite different. The idea of limit is that of something on the attainment of which perfection is attained; it is not that which puts a stop to progress, but that without which progress would be a meaningless process ad infinitum.

This correct (I believe) construction of Plato's argument cannot be arrived at if we take pleonektein competitively, as 'winning out over someone'. The way Plato understands it, to say that an unjust person pleonektei as regards an unjust person is to say that he is unsatisfied even with what he has, as an unjust person: if he could, he would take even more than he has. In contrast, a just person is satisfied--he does not want more than a just person should get in a just action--but he would not be satisfied if he received what an unjust person should receive, because, he thinks, less is due to an unjust in comparison with a just person. (Note that a just person wishes for no more than he thinks it right that he gets--this is the reason, I think, why Plato uses both ethelein and axioun.)

And now we can see, too, why David Reeve's criticisms are off the mark. Reeve says:

Now it is true that the Craftsman does not try to "outdo" his fellow Craftsmen in that he does not try to go beyond the principles of his (and their) Craft. But the Unjust man does not try to "outdo" his fellows in that way either. Instead, he tries to get the better of them by practicing the Craft of Injustice as well as possible.

Not so. A just person aims to practice the craft of justice by seeing that his actions conform to a 'limit' (as Nettleship says); but an unjust person does not aim to practice injustice in this way. To suggest that he does is to suggest, wrongly, that he takes something about his unjust action as inherently desirable. On the contrary, he always wants more: that is, if he could do something that would result in his getting more, whatever this was, he would prefer that.

Reeve then says:

Moreover, the fact that the Unjust man tries to "outdo" everyone in the sense of trying to get the better of them does not in the least show that Injustice is not a Craft--practitioners of competitive Crafts, such as Generalship or Boxing, do it all the time.

But we've seen that this competitive sense of pleonektein is not what Plato has in mind.

(I'm not sure yet what to think of Rachel Barney's gloss, in her article at SEP: "The use of pleonektein in this argument is confusing, and perhaps confused, but the important point seems to be that the goods realized by genuine crafts are not zero-sum. The doctor's restoration of the patient's health does not make anyone else less healthy; if one musician plays in tune, so may another." )

Thrasymachus and Callicles

Is there a received view on the relation between Thrasymachus' view and that of Callicles? Is their view fundamentally the same or in some important sense different?

Wouldn't the following passage from Republic I suggest that Plato took them to be the same? The passage occurs just before Socrates gives his final three arguments against Thrasymachus:

That's a much more awkward proposition, my friend. It makes it hard to know what to say. If you said that injustice was profitable, but nevertheless admitted, as most people say, that it was wickedness, or something to be ashamed of, we would be able to make some reply along conventional lines (ta nomizomena legontes). As it is, however, you're obviously going to say that it is good and strong, and credit it with all the qualities which we used to attribute to justice, since you didn't shrink from classifying it with goodness and wisdom. (348e-349a)(Greek available here.)

The view which the passage describes is exactly what Polus in the Gorgias holds: injustice is profitable but also wicked and shameful. One may refute a position like that by beginning from injustice's being shameful, and then arguing, ad hominem, that this would imply its somehow being unprofitable as well--as Socrates does in his refutation of Polus.

But, if so, then, by extension, the more consistent and therefore more problematic view, proffered by Thrasymachus, is--from Plato's view at least--philosophically on a par with that of Callicles.

"A Grossly Fallacious Argument"

That is David Reeve's verdict, at least, on the argument we've been looking at. Here are his objections, in Philosopher-Kings:

Now it is true that the Craftsman does not try to "outdo" his fellow Craftsmen in that he does not try to go beyond the principles of his (and their) Craft. But the Unjust man does not try to "outdo" his fellows in that way either. Instead, he tries to get the better of them by practicing the Craft of Injustice as well as possible. Moreover, the fact that the Unjust man tries to "outdo" everyone in the sense of trying to get the better of them does not in the least show that Injustice is not a Craft--practitioners of competitive Crafts, such as Generalship or Boxing, do it all the time. Hence Socrates has not succeeded in showing that Injustice is not a Craft, and, therefore, not a virtue.

Now is this correct?--or rather should we think, with Nettleship, that:

Socrates' argument seems unconvincing, not only because of its abstract character but for a further reason. It goes very much to the root of the whole question, and people are very seldom able to face the ultimate issues raised by any question.

What is the root of the whole question? Let me know what you think of the merits of Reeve's objections, and I'll give you Nettleship's judgment, tomorrow.

(By the way, can Somebody tell me the Reason for all of the Upper Case Letters?)

Why Physics?

Indeed, why?

Brad Inwood will look for an answer, from Stoic points of view:

Wednesday, April 26, at 5:30. Brad Inwood, University of Toronto
Gerard House 119, Brown University

"Why Physics? Stoic views on the contributions of natural science to human happiness".

Abstract:

'Why Physics?' is a consideration of why a Stoic would want to pursue a
study of nature, especially in view of their origins as a Socratic
school and of Socrates' attitude to physics; I also take into account
the views of an early Stoic, Ariston of Chios, who claimed that both
physics and logic are unnecessary for human happiness. I argue that
there is no uniform Stoic answer to the question and that the question
is itself a philosophically interesting one. I then show how Seneca
answers the question, why and to what extent he holds that the study of
physics is indispensable for human happiness.

This lecture, jointly sponsored by the Classics and Philosophy faculties at Brown, is in place of a previously scheduled lecture by Pierre-Marie Morel in BACAP, which, regretfully, has had to be postponed until Fall 2006.

Reflection on Seeing That One Sees

...How are we aware that seeing is going on (as opposed to hearing etc)? Is it by sight that one is aware that one is seeing (ie that the faculty of sight is the one that is operating right now)?

It seems that it would be by sight, because to see just is to get a visible object actualised, so one is ipso facto aware that it is vision, not hearing, that is going on. But actually that won't do: the rest of the chapter problematises the easy answer canvassed (hypothetically) at the beginning. So the final question is more complicated: not just how am I aware that I am seeing and hearing, but how am I aware of both those things and I can distinguish between them?

From a recent comment by Catherine Osborne, on a post from last year's discussion of reflexive perception, "A Saving in Need of a Phenomenon".

(Once again, comments added to posts that are not on the current webpage will not show under "Recent Comments". I therefore highlight them at my discretion.)

Three Observations

Three observations about the argument at Republic I, 348b-350c:

1. Plato implicitly asserts that a just person has pleonexia. If a just person 'wishes to have more' only as regards an unjust person, then in some circumstances he has pleonexia.

2. Plato implicitly takes the standard of pleonexia to be absolute or strict equality. Since a just person wishes to have more than an unjust person would have, then the relevant standard, in relation to which he has more, is that he have the same. (So, for example, if it were right for a just person in a distribution to get 60%, when an unjust person, in those circumstances, should get the lesser amount of 30%, then, even though this is just and right, still, the just person would be getting 'more'--because it is more than 50%.)

3. Pleonexia is shown toward actions, especially virtuous and noble actions, and not only as regards 'commutable goods': to look for more of a say; or to have greater authority; or to have a greater claim to decide how something should be done--these are all instances of pleonexia.

I take it that we should view Aristotle's doctrine, in Nic. Eth. V.1-3 (= EE IV.1-3) , as a deliberate correction of each of these points:

1'. Pleonexia becomes a mark of a certain sort of unjust character; a virtuous person in no way displays it (1129a32).

2'. Pleonexia is decided relative to proportionate equality (1131a22); thus to want what is materially more, if you deserve more, is to want what strictly is the same amount.

3'. Pleonexia is properly for goods of fortune only (1129b2); it cannot be shown relative to such things as just actions.

The Argument at Republic 348b-350c

I wish to sharpen and restate a question I posed in the comments as regards the argument in Rep. I, 348b-350c, and then raise another.

The first question is this. One might have thought that the argument can be captured, more or less, as follows:

1. A just person wishes and thinks it right that he have more than an unjust person, but does not wish and think it right that he have more than a just person.
2. An unjust person wishes and thinks it right that he have more than a just person, and also wishes and thinks it right that he have more than an unjust person.
3. Thus, a just person aims to exceed, not his like, but only those unlike him.
4. But an unjust person aims to exceed both his like and unlike.
5. Each of these is to be identified with that class to which he may be likened.
6. A knowledgeable person wishes and claims that he should do more (in a certain domain) than an ignorant person, but does not wish and claim that he should do more than a knowledgeable person.
7. An ignorant person wishes and claims that he should do more (in a certain domain) than a knowledgeable person, and also wishes and claims that he should do more than an ignorant person.
8. Thus, a knowledgeable person aims to exceed, not his like, but only those unlike him.
9. But an ignorant person aims to exceed both his like and unlike.
10. Thus, a just person may be likened to a knowledgeable person; an unjust person to an ignorant person.
11. Thus, a just person is knowledgeable; an unjust person is ignorant.
12. But virtue implies wisdom and knowledge.
13. Thus, injustice is not virtue (as Thrasymachus had claimed).

But there is no mention here of a just or unjust person's having more 'than the just action'. So why does Plato add this extra detail? What work does it do in the argument, as he understands it, and in which way is the above construction faulty or incomplete?

As I said in the comments, it might look as though the argument works just as well (or badly) without the very awkward additional remarks about actions. So then why does Plato go out of his way to include these?

A second question.

Why does Plato twice use the double construction "wishes to have more and thinks it right that he have more" rather than one of these alone? He seems deliberately to use both, but what is the purpose of this? (Yes, I do believe that such details are deliberate.)

dikai/ou mh\ a)cioi= ple/on e)/xein mhde\ bou/letai o( di/kaioj (349c1)

dokei= a)\n ou)=n ti/j soi, w)= a)/riste, mousiko\j a)nh\r a(rmotto/menoj lu/ran e)qe/lein mousikou= a)ndro\j e)n th=| e)pita/sei kai\ a)ne/sei tw=n xordw=n pleonektei=n h)\ a)ciou=n ple/on e)/xein; (349e10-13)

Pleonexia in Republic I

I think the faulty translations cited in my previous post show that this passage has been misconstrued. (Jowett may have it right, but he hasn't rendered it in such as way as to make it clear what the right way of taking it is.)

We naturally take Plato's discussion of pleonexia to be about competition: to have pleonexia is to get the better of someone else. It means winning out, getting one's way, and prevailing. Pleonexia, in this sense, is libido dominandi.

But Plato, rather, pretty clearly takes it to be, after all, about coincidence or disparity in judgment, which may or may not carry with it any imposing of one's will . This is clear from the general principle he gives, on the basis of an induction, at 350a:

Do you think it's the same for every branch of knowledge and ignorance? Do you think there is ever any knowledgeable person who would deliberately choose, either in action or in speech, to do more than another knowledgeable person would do? Wouldn't he do the same as someone like himself would do in the same situation? (Griffith)

Notice that Plato explains the coincidence of judgment first in terms of the persons involved ('do more than another knowledgeable person') and then in terms of the actions of such persons ('do the same as someone like himself would do'). Notice, too, that he explains each of these using a counterfactual: Does a knowledgeable person do the same as another knowledgeable person would do, sc. in his circumstances? To show pleonexia with respect to someone, on this way of looking at things, is to judge that you should do something that, in some way, in its result, goes beyond what that other person would judge that you should do.

Thus, for an unjust person a)ciou=n tou= dikai/ou pleonektei=n is to judge that he should get something which, in its result, is more than a just person would judge that he (the unjust man) should get in those circumstances; and for him a)ciou=n th=j dikai/aj pra/cewj pleonektei=n is to judge that what he should get is more than what a just person would judge that he (the unjust man) should get.

Thus the correct translation of:

ti/ de\ dh\ o( a)/dikoj; a)=ra a)cioi= tou= dikai/ou pleonektei=n kai\ th=j dikai/aj pra/cewj;

would be something like:

"And what about an unjust man? Doesn't he claim that he should get more than a just person would claim for him, and isn't what he claims he should get more than what he justly should get?(or: 'more than what a just person would claim he should get')"

(I take pra/cij to be schematic: it stands for whatever sort of action is indicated by the context; in this case, getting.)

Bargain Fares to Tucson

A blog has many purposes....

I'm not attending this year, but many of my friends are participating in the Arizona Plato Colloquium in mid-February. With a view to that, I note that Travelzoo is advertising bargain fares (act today) to Tucson from various cities. Check out the Top 20 deals at travelzoo.com. (The link takes you to a page where you are requested first to subscribe to Travelzoo's unobtrusive e-mail bulletin for travel deals.)

Republic 349b-350c

Here's a question about translation. How should one render, in the argument at Republic 349b-350c, sentences such as the following?

ti/ de\ dh\ o( a)/dikoj; a)=ra a)cioi= tou= dikai/ou pleonektei=n kai\ th=j dikai/aj pra/cewj; (349c4-5)

Here are some options:

“How about the unjust then? Does he claim to overreach and outdo the just man and the just action?” (Shorey)

"And what of the unjust --does he claim to have more than the just man and to do more than is just." (Jowett)

"What about the unjust man? Does he think it right to outdo the just man and the just action?" (Griffith)

"What about an unjust person? Does he claim that he deserves to outdo a just person or someone who does a just action?" (Grube/Reeve)

Of these, Griffith's and Shorey's make no sense: one can't assign any meaning to 'outdoing an unjust action'. Grube/Reeve supply a subject that doesn't exist in the Greek. And Jowett changes the verb.

The problem is that if you take pleonektei=n to mean 'outdo', then it cannot intelligibly take an action as an object.

I have my own view of how this should be handled. I'll share this (and thoughts of a tie-in with Nic. Eth. 9.8) tomorrow. But what are your ideas?

Another Small Point in Republic I

Here's another passage which caught my eye this time in Republic I. This one is right after Thrasymachus enters the discussion for the first time. You will recall, he tells Socrates not to define justice as what is advantageous or profitable, and then, with derision, he predicts that Socrates will not, after all, attempt to give a definition but will merely ask questions and refute answers that other people give. Once again, the Griffith translation:

"Anything to allow Socrates to play his usual trick--not answer the question himself, but wait for someone else to answer it, and then take what he says and try to prove it wrong."
"Really, my dear fellow!" I said. "How could anyone answer the question if for a start (prw=ton me\n) he didn't know the answer--didn't so much as claim to know it (mh\ ei)dw\j mhde\ fa/skwn ei)de/nai)--and on top of that, even supposing he did have some idea on the subject (ei)/ ti kai\ oi)/etai), if he'd been told by a man of some authority not to say any of the things he thought (mhde\n e)rei= w(=n h(gei=tai )? No, it makes much more sense for you to speak. You're the one who claims to know the answer (fh\|j ei)de/nai) and have something to say." (337e4-338a1)

This puzzles me because it seems as if Socrates is saying that it is not possible to try to answer a question, without being convinced that one knows the answer. And yet this seems wrong: Couldn't one answer, rather, with what seems likely? If, to save the claim, one wants to insist that someone who says what seems likely to him knows that it seems likely, then the claim becomes empty, because presumably everyone always knows what seems true to him.

Also, is the 'method of hypothesis' of other dialogues perhaps developed with a view to this? That is, someone who thought that one could genuinely answer a question only if one knew the answer might think that a hypothetical answer would be a way of loosening, in a sense, the restriction. (One knows that the hypothetical claim is true but cannot assert the antecedent or consequent.)

Also, Socrates claims elsewhere that he knows that he does not know. Does that imply, then, that there are only a few questions that he could answer, but these are only about his own knowledge? (Presumably he could say, "No", if asked, as here, whether he can give a definition of justice.)

Or am I misreading the passage because "for a start ... to know" and "on top of that ... have some idea" is an example of what lawyers call "pleading on a hypothesis" and what Socrates is saying is that he could answer, if he had some idea (which falls short of knowledge), but even then he couldn't give his answer to Thrasymachus, who has ruled out the alternatives he would be likely to offer?

A Small Question about Republic I

I'm back, refreshed, and ready to blog.

I begin with a small question about book I of the Republic, which I've been studying, looking at the Tom Griffith translation as I go along. (By the way--what are your thoughts about this translation? I have some comments about passages in book I, which maybe I'll share later.)

My question concerns 336a. I don't have any commentaries to hand, and so do not know what the standard answer to this question is. Does anyone know?

After dismissing the proposed definition, "justice is helping friends and harming enemies", Socrates asks (in the Griffith translation): "Do you know...who I think was responsible for the saying that it is just to treat one's friends well, and one's enemies badly?" And then he supplies the answer: "I think it was Periander, or Perdiccas, or Xerxes, or Ismenias, the Theban, or some other rich man who thought he had great power." (To which Polemarchus replies: ) )Alhqe/stata le/geij.)

I've always passed over this without much thought. But now I wonder:

1. (Of course) Is there any logic to Socrates' list of names?

2. Xerxes is mentioned by Callicles in the Gorgias as a 'strong man' who thinks he should get a larger share than others (483e): So does Plato think "helping friends and harming enemies" is similar to the definition that Thrasymachus is about to give, "the advantage of the stronger"? Yet how are they similar?

3. Why does it seem obvious to Polemarchus that Socrates' account of the provenance of the saying is correct? What has led him to think this? (Is it that they both suppose that only someone who thought he was immune from being harmed would think that the didn't need to view justice as some kind of universal reciprocity--and that the remarks here tie in, then, to the social contract theory that Glaucon will put forward in book II?)

4. What is the force of "thought he had great power" (me/ga oi)ome/nou du/nasqai), i.e. thought he did, when he really didn't? That is, what is the relationship between someone's being mistaken about what counts as power, and his being disposed to think he should help friends and harm enemies. (Again, the concern about merely apparent power echoes the Gorgias.)

Posting Will Resume January 13

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

I've been enjoying vacation and holidays.

Blogging will resume on this site on the very next Friday the 13th.


Michael Pakaluk

Degrees of Dubiety

Received today in my mailbox:

Based on your present knowledge and past life experiences our University administration
office has been trying to contact you. We feel you may qualify for one of our Univsersity
degrees in your area of expertise.

We have been qualifying people based on thier experiences in past and present jobs and
are offering qualified degrees with transcripts for those that qualify.

If you call our offices now we can confirm our information and send you either a Bachelors',
Masters', or Doctorate within 2 weeks.

I'm following this up and will let you know how it turns out. I'm looking for a degree in spelling or typing.

Divers Reviewers Wanted

A request from that admirable journal, BMCR, which dovetails nicely with my post on open sourcing:

BMCR is passing its fifteenth birthday in these weeks and is settled in
its ways of doing business. It remains a mild irony that this, the
second-oldest electronic journal in the humanities, is devoted to
disseminating information about the print medium. More than an irony,
it is a puzzle to us that various efforts to bring digital resources
within the purview of reviewership have fallen flat. Occasionally we
succeed in placing a physical manifestation of a digital artifact with
a reviewer (usually a CD publication), but despite having gone so far
as to promote the establishment of BMERR (Bryn Mawr Electronic
Resources Review), we have not sustained a community of practice around
serious reviews of web-based publications.

This is a concern for the scholarly world as a whole in two regards.
First, there are more and more very high quality and quite serious
scholarly works that appear in digital form; second, many observers and
participants in the scholarly communication world argue strongly for
Open Access publication -- that is to say, publication whose costs are
defrayed in some way *other* than by user charges. A freely accessible
web publication done to appropriate technical standards is the ideal in
that regard, and we are pleased that BMCR has indeed followed that
model for the electronic version (some of you remember that there was
once also a print version) for all its history.

But if it is true that reviewers are so strongly enticed by the
prospect of a free book or a free CD that absent such an enticement
they are unwilling to come forward, then we will soon be at an impasse,
as more and more important material becomes available in a form
unsusceptible to the enticement of reviewers. Now the future of
reviewing itself is a subject of interest to us, not least because one
of us will be participating in a panel on that subject at the APA
meetings in Montreal, but we are for now convinced that the first and
most obvious way forward is to insure that serious scholarly work,
however published, gets serious scholarly reviews.

To that end, this message is designed to elicit our traditional BMCR
volunteers on the usual terms. Indicate to us your qualifications and
interest, and if we approve your request, we will assign you the review
-- this time, without a free book to take away at the end. The
following resources have been commended to us in recent weeks (and we
pass them along on the same terms with which we report Books Received,
not as special selection or commendation, but simply as report of
notice received by us). Given the scope of these particular works, we
would welcome proposals for collaborative reviews.

*Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (http://www.insaph.kcl.ac.uk/ala2004/) ,
second edition, by Charlotte Roueche/.

*Vindolanda Tablets Online (http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/) , ed.
Alan Bowman et al.

*The editions of the D-Scholia and the Lexeis Homerikai
(http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/klassphil/vanthiel/index.html)
by H. Van Thiel, of Cyril's Glossary (one ms. version only) by U.
Hagedorn.

*J. Lundon's Scholia Minora in Homerum
(http://www.gltc.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=52;c=238) .

This note is also notice that we welcome encouragement from authors,
publishers, or readers to pay attention to other good new work as well.
We also welcome suggestions for other ways to improve attention to
important work.

Shackleton Bailey, R.I.P.

December 19, 2005

DAVID SHACKLETON BAILEY, RENOWNED LATIN SCHOLAR

Gloria Negri, Globe Staff

Professor David Roy Shackleton Bailey, whose name in scholarly circles is closely associated with that of the Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, died Nov. 28 of Alzheimer's disease at Heartland Health Care Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. He was 87. He had lived in Ann Arbor since retiring from Harvard in 1988.

"Shakleton Bailey was a prodigious scholar, a towering figure in textual criticism and the editing of Latin literature, and a brilliant student of Roman Republican history, prosopography and society," Richard F. Thomas, chairman of the Department of Classics at Harvard, said in a statement.

Prosopography is a study that identifies and draws relationships between characters or people within a specific historical, social, or literary context.

Dr. Shackleton Bailey, who did not hyphenate his surnames and was often called, "Shack," was also a well-known cat lover. In 1965, he dedicated Volume 1 of his edited "Cicero's Letters to Atticus" to his cat, Donum, which is Latin for gift. The dedication read, "Donum Donorum," or gift of gifts.

Sometimes, friends said, Dr. Shackleton Bailey got along better with cats than with people. But he was discriminating.

"As everywhere," Thomas said, "he applied judgment as he believed did the cats who particularly took to him."

Kristine Zvirbulis, Dr. Shackleton Bailey's wife, said Donum was among three of his favorite felines. After Donum came a cat named Max, his "evening cat," who sat on his lap and knew when to jump down at the professor's bedtime. His "day cat," who spent the time in his study with him, was Poppaea, named for Nero's wife.

"Shack was a kind of gentle curmudgeon with a wicked sense of humor," his wife said.

Thomas described him as, "quirky, difficult, cultured in profound and complex ways, endowed with a rare and keen sense of humor, now cutting, now playful, a critic of human foibles and a man whose dedication to logic, reason, judgment, and the primacy of intelligence made those in his presence careful of their thoughts and words."

However, social events were generally not Dr. Shackleton Bailey's forte. "He did love manhattans and martinis until the very end," his wife said. But he was adverse to small talk. "He once told me he went to a dinner party that was so boring he spent the time removing cat hairs from his suit."

Zeph Stewart, a retired Harvard classics professor, recalled a party that he and his wife hosted, partly for Dr. Shackleton Bailey when he arrived at Harvard. He "stared at his shoes" the whole evening and on the way out thanked a woman who was not the hostess. "My wife thought the party a disaster," Stewart said. "But the next day, a woman who had attended phoned and told her she had "never seen Shackleton so animated."

While Dr. Shackleton Bailey might have seemed the absent-minded professor on social occasions, he was far from that in his field. "Scholars, students, and the general educated reader will continue to be indebted to Shackleton Bailey, particularly for his work on Cicero's letters, our best evidence for the twilight years of the Roman Republic," Thomas said. He was "brilliant at representing the idiom" of Cicero. He edited or critiqued more than 50 volumes and wrote more than 200 articles and reviews.

Dr. Shackleton Bailey, who never used his first or middle names, was born in England. He attended Lancaster Royal Grammar School, where his father, a mathematician, was headmaster. He read classics at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge, where he earned his bachelor's degree.

He lived through the Blitz in London during World War ll while working with military intelligence, either decoding or developing codes, according to Raymond Detter of Ann Arbor, a longtime friend. Once, when Detter asked Dr. Shackleton Bailey what it was like to live through the Blitz, he replied, "It was easier to get into the restaurants."

After the war, Dr. Shackleton Bailey was for 20 years Cambridge University Reader in Ancient Tibetan. Then, he returned to the classics as a fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge and later of Gonville and Caius College, where he was also bursar. In 1967, he married Hilary Amis, the former wife of author Kingsley Amis, and moved to Ann Arbor where he taught at the University of Michigan.

There, Dr. Shackleton Bailey was known not only for his scholarship but for his eccentricities, Detter said.

"He would stand on his head in the corner and sing the German song, `Horst Wessel.' "

He became professor of Latin at Harvard in 1975. He was a doctor of literature of Cambridge University and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Dublin.

When Dr. Shackleton Bailey retired and returned to Ann Arbor in 1988, he became an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan. In 1994, after his first marriage ended in divorce, he married Kristine Zvirbulis, who shared his love for cats.

Dr. Shackleton Bailey remained a legend even after retiring, Thomas said. After his illness was diagnosed, he continued to work on his editing through last summer, he said.

He never lost his distinguished English accent, nor his quirky habits, said Detter, who often dined with Dr. Shackleton Bailey.

"Shack was not the most gregarious person in the world," he said. "He was a bit of a miser, and when he was out walking, his head was always down looking for money. He would put what he found in jars at home. He would also steam off stamps that hadn't been postmarked and use them again."

He was an avid poker player, but never minded losing at the game.

Dr. Shackleton Bailey was a fellow of the British Academy, a member of the American Philosophical Society, an honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, and a recipient of the British Academy's Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies.

In spite of all the honors bestowed for his scholarship, Detter said, Dr. Shackleton Bailey was "never pretentious."

A memorial service will be held in late February at his Ann Arbor home.

Aristotelian Flatworlders

I've been consoled that, with grading and extra advising responsilities at the end of the semester, I've not had the time to post on this blog. Doesn't that mean that I blog only when I genuinely have spare time for doing it? That a blogger blogs usually, but not always, shows that blogging has the appropriate degree of importance for him.

Admittedly, these extra responsibilities haven't kept me from doing some reading on the side. Well, there is reading, and then there is reading. Looking at Thomas L. Friedman's bestseller, The World is Flat, hardly counts as reading in the sense of looking at, say, Crivelli on truth.

If you haven't read it: Friedman's book is about recent trends in globalization, which have the effect of removing inefficiencies and barriers to business, especially for India and China; hence the playing field of the world is increasingly becoming level and therefore, in Friedman's term, 'flat.'

My interest in the book is from the point of view of academia. How will universities change, how should they change, if at all, given trends in globalization? What new form might scholarship take? What will count as 'publication'? What role will major academic presses play in the future? Will their importance inevitably diminish? And also that of libraries? Etc.

I've been thinking of to what extend these new trends in globalization have analogous applications in scholarship. For instance, in software development, there is something called 'open sourcing'. This happens when some geek figures he can write a program that works better than an expensive version offered by Microsoft or Adobe; he makes a rough attempt and puts the program and its source code on a server for everyone to see; and various programmers around the world then work on parts of the program, as they wish, and improve them--until the program, the result of the combined efforts of this informal community, ends up being as good as the industry standard or better. For instance, Linux was developed in this way, as a free alternative to Microsoft operating systems.

What are possible analogues in scholarship? It seems to me that translations might be done in a similar way, through a kind of 'open sourcing'. Someone posts a rough translation of a commonly studied text, or the starting point is an outdated translation in the public domain (Jowett's Plato, Ross' Aristotle, etc.). Call this the 'Working Translation.' Then, when a scholar writes a translation of part of this text for a reading group, say, or because he is studying some passage, he is free to edit and improve the corresponding part of the Working Translation accordingly. Naturally, some working equivalents would have to be decided upon and followed, to insure consistency. And someone would need to check, to be sure that changes are truly improvements, or at least arguably so. So the project would need a General Editor. Yet conceivably in a year or so the latest version of the Working Translation, which would be free and freely available on the internet, would be superior to any translation available in print.

Suppose the corpora of Plato (Jowett) and Aristotle (old Oxford) were dealt with in this way. Could an excellent, free translation be arrived at for these works in the collaborative manner described above, and how long would this take?

Guest Bloggers: My Students

While grading mountains of papers these last few days, I amused myself by seeing whether I might find within them thoughts or insights that might serve as interesting posts on a blog such as this (that is, on this blog, which is the only blog such as this--or, maybe not: J.L. Austin once insisted that one shouldn't say that "A duck is like a duck", and along the same lines perhaps it is misguided to say that This blog is the same sort of thing as this blog).

I culled out 8 such ideas, which I shall present as a series of posts. I attribute these to the students--de facto 'guest bloggers'--with their permission. (Yes, in some cases I clarify or sharpen the student's idea slightly; but the basic insight remains the student's.)

Half of the ideas are of students in a course I am presently teaching at Brown University, and half are from my students at Clark University.

'being in the strictest sense true'

I've hesitated to continue on to the second text in the Metaphysics which, according to Crivelli, recognizes 'states of affairs', because the issues are much more complex than with the first. (And, besides, who is not busy this time of year?)

And if Δ 29 has been dealt with, couldn't we simply cite the philologist's law, "twice is always; once is never", and dismiss Θ 10 accordingly? (We might call that 'Hume's law' as well--uh, Hume's 'custom'.)

But perhaps all will work out if things are set out in order and without haste. As a start, then, here is Crivelli's translation of the most important Θ 10 text. Tomorrow I'll give his discussion of it.

T 2 Given that what 'is' and what 'is not' are spoken of, in some cases with reference to the figures of predication, in others with reference to the potentiality or the actuality of these or to their opposites, and in others by being in the strictest sense true or false, and this [sc. to be in the strictest sense true or false], in the case of objects, is to be combined and to be divided, so that he who thinks of what is divided that it is divided, and of what is combined that it is combined is right, while he who is in a state contrary to that of the objects is wrong, when is it that what is called true or false 'is' or 'is not'? For it must be investigated what it is that we call this. For it is not because we truly think that you are white that you are white, but it is because of your being white that we who say this are right. (1051a34-1051b9)

Note that 'objects' is pragmata, and 'is right' is aletheuei. Of the three uses of 'is' distinguished here, the first two are introduced in the same way ('with reference to', kata), and the crucial third use is introduced in a different way. There is a dispute as to whether 'in the strictest sense' (kuriotata) separately qualifies 'being' (on), in which case the phrase seems out of place, or both terms together qualify 'true or false' (as Crivelli construes it).

T 2 is the text as regards which, as I mentioned earlier, Crivelli says: "But the items with regard to which Aristotle in T 1 uses 'object' are probably states of affairs. It can then be plausibly inferred that the items with regard to which Aristotle in T 2 uses 'object' are also states of affairs."--so that his interpretation of this text depends, it seems, on his interpretation of Δ 29, which we have contested.

Here is the Greek from Perseus:

e)pei\ de\ to\ o)\n le/getai kai\ to\ mh\ o)\n to\ me\n kata\ ta\ sxh/mata tw=n kathgoriw=n, to\ de\ kata\ du/namin h)\ e)ne/rgeian tou/twn h)\ ta)nanti/a, to\ de\ kuriw/tata o)\n a)lhqe\j h)\ yeu=doj, tou=to d' e)pi\ tw=n pragma/twn e)sti\ tw=| sugkei=sqai h)\ dih|rh=sqai, w(/ste a)lhqeu/ei me\n o( to\ dih|rhme/non oi)o/menoj dih|rh=sqai kai\ to\ sugkei/menon sugkei=sqai, e)/yeustai de\ o( e)nanti/wj e)/xwn h)\ ta\ pra/gmata, po/t' e)/stin h)\ ou)k e)/sti to\ a)lhqe\j lego/menon h)\ yeu=doj; tou=to ga\r skepte/on ti/ le/gomen. ou) ga\r dia\ to\ h(ma=j oi)/esqai a)lhqw=j se leuko\n ei)=nai ei)= su\ leuko/j, a)lla\ dia\ to\ se\ ei)=nai leuko\n h(mei=j oi( fa/ntej tou=to a)lhqeu/omen.

Apoblogia

Why did I start Dissoi Blogoi, and why do I keep with it, despite the occasional false turn along the way? I don't do this to procrastinate, or even to help others make good use of procrastination. Rather, I do this to declare, to criticize, to provoke, to prove.

1. To declare. The blog makes things better known, in a chance way, of course, and relative to me. ( This is not a notice board nor quite a 'publication'.) Things such as: what people are working on or maintaining; noteworthy remarks of others; common mistakes or misunderstandings (as I think); connections between ancient philosophy and other areas.

2. To criticize--and thereby, it is hoped, to raise common standards. To uncover shortcomings, deficiences, and flaws. Especially: to do so when the usual, standard, or conventional means have apparently failed. Good muckraking is good blogging.

3. To provoke. A blog conforms to an important genre of philosophizing: the recording, and expression, of cotidian thoughts. Why? To stir, to incite to thought.

4. To prove. Out of jealousy for my field. I want this blog in ancient philosophy to show, eventually, in the long run, the vitality and appeal of the philosophy of the ancients. The blog stakes out a place in the blogosphere for a certain group of interests and questions. And as it, or something like it, there flourishes--as I believe will happen--then something gets proved about the discipline.

And all this is to say nothing of the learning, culture, thoughtfulness and astuteness of the blog's commentators. These marks, I am sure, impress others as much as they impress me.

Sophrosune from Top to Bottom

I find this a particularly interesting paper, since the problem it begins with is something that I've wondered about many times myself:

Sophrosune from Top to Bottom
Roslyn Weiss

In Book 4 of Plato's Republic, Socrates locates sophrosune not in the producer class of the polis and the appetitive part of the soul, but disperses it throughout the polis and soul. In light of the fact that this odd and unexpected move threatens the uniqueness of justice and, moreover, virtually assimilates justice to moderation, the question arises why Socrates defines sophrosune in this way. I suggest that Socrates wishes to make clear that not only do the lower parts of the city and soul dislike being ruled, but philosophers and reason dislike ruling. Since all parts of the city and soul are asked to do what they don't want to do, all must restrain themselves, curbing their desire to do what they would prefer to do. In other words, what they all must exhibit is sophrosune.

Fortunately I have been asked to comment on this paper, when Roslyn Weiss reads it at the upcoming Eastern APA. I can't of course post on it now but plan to do so after the event.

There are some curiosities on the program. For instance, I had never regarded Ayn Rand as a serious philosopher, and yet on Dec. 29:

GIX-2. Ayn Rand Society
1:30-4:30 p.m.

Topic: Ayn Rand as Aristotelian

Chair: John Cooper (Princeton University)

Speakers: James Lennox (University of Pittsburgh)
"Axioms and Their Validation"

Allan Gotthelf (University of Pittsburgh)
"Concepts and Essences"

Fred Miller, Jr. (Bowling Green State University)
"Values and Happiness"

Robert Mayhew (Seton Hall University)
"Literary Esthetics"

One could hardly find a more distinguished and competent panel.

The OC

Is it the case that a commitment to study philosophy implies a commitment to live in a certain way, or to pursue, or to reject the pursuit of, certain goals? It seems to me that there is a conception of philosophy according to which it does. I'll call this the Old Conception (or 'OC', which is very distant from Orange County!).

I have in mind the approach to philosophy through a protreptic. Here is how such a protreptic works. First, some short list of goals in life is presented: wealth, fame, power, honor, comfort (including 'physical pleasures'). It is claimed that just about everyone pursues one of these, or some combination of them, whatever he might take himself to be doing with his life. Second, it is pointed out that none of these goals stands up to rational scrutiny; none really makes sense as the goal of a human life. Third, it is pointed out that this reflection and self-knowledge, perhaps attained for the first time--that none of these goals makes sense as the goal of a human life--itself is an instance of a new goal that now shows itself, namely, understanding and knowledge. And this does seem to be the sort of thing that a human life might reasonably be directed toward. Finally, a 'life devoted to philosophy', then, is put forward simply as a life devoted to achieving understanding, beginning with and including this initial self-understanding.

This I call the OC.

Now this initial self-understanding includes, therefore, some sort of rejection of certain goals as ultimate goals; and the continued seeking of understanding implies some permanent setting aside of these goals. One can imagine different ways of setting these goals aside. One way would be to dismiss them with contempt--"It is beneath the dignity of a philosopher to care about such things as fame and power". Another way: to cultivate an indifference toward such things. Yet another: to take them as they come, but to seek them only in some obviously secondary way.

Now here are some further questions:

1. Is the life to which someone is committed, in committing himself to philosophy, according to the OC, different from the life to which any academic researcher or scientist should, in principle, be committed (again, according to the OC)? Is there something that is in this way distinctive or special about the pursuit of philosophical understanding?

2. According to the OC, can philosophy be a profession? Can it be something that one 'goes into', like law or business?

3. (A more particular question, but interesting, I think.) Is there some special incongruity, between being dedicated to philosophy according to the OC, and the development of ratings and rankings of philosophers or philosophy departments--and, if so, would this incongruity help to explain some of the discomfort some people feel about such rankings? The argument would be: such rankings can only be of influence (i.e. power), fame, or honor; yet even if the rankings were roughly correct in these terms, and such things did loosely, at least, accompany some kinds of achievement in philosophy, still, the rankings either turn, or threaten to turn, some implicitly rejected goals into goals once more.

4. Would it be the case, then, that the OC would effectively be excluded in academic philosophy, to the extent that the study of philosophy were guided by the outlook presupposed in rankings? That is, there would be a selection from the start, and students who might formerly have studied philosophy because they had been persuaded in the manner of an old protreptic, will not think of studying, as a consequence, professional philosophy, any more than they would think of law school or business school as, in the first instance, an appropriate path for a life well lived. (They might indeed opt eventually for law school or business school, but only on the grounds that if there is no way to pursue philosophy, then they might as well pursue wealth or power effectively.)

I don't know--perhaps this is a 'cranky' speculation. But how could someone read Plato for long without at least considering it?