Download Handout #1 - David O. Brink

Draft of 10-­‐9-­‐11 PHIL 202; Fall 2011 Greek Ethics Professor David O. Brink Handout #1: Socrates Our knowledge about Socrates is quite limited and indirect. We know only a few things for sure about Socrates. 1. Plato (427‑347 BCE) was a younger contemporary and student of Socrates (470‑
399 BCE). 2. Socrates was the first truly systematic (Western) philosopher. 3. Socrates inspired Plato and other subsequent philosophers, including Aristotle (384-­‐322 BCE) (Metaphysics i 6, xiii 4) (who had some independent evidence about Socrates's views) and many Athenian youths, including the iconoclast aristocrats Critias and Alcibiades (associated with the Thirty Tyrants). 4. Socrates was brought to trial on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, convicted, and executed in 399 BCE. 5. We have no record that Socrates ever wrote anything. We have two main sources for the views of Socrates -­‐-­‐ Plato and Xenophon. Socrates is the main character in many, though not all, of Plato’s dialogues, and Xenophon wrote several works that purport to describe Socrates’s life and teaching. Unfortunately, these two sources disagree at many points. A. Plato's Socrates is both paradoxical and ironical; Xenophon's is neither. B. Plato's Socrates may win arguments, but rarely persuades his opponent; Xenophon's Socrates persuades all those with whom he argues. C. Plato's Socrates is concerned primarily with human affairs; Xenophon's Socrates is concerned with theology. D. Plato's Socrates regularly flouts conventional Greek moral views, as when he denies that one should ever harm one's enemies (in flat contradiction of Homeric views); Xenophon's Socrates rarely contradicts Greek popular morality. Though Plato’s Socrates is more interesting than Xenophon’s, that doesn’t make Plato’s account more reliable. However, it's hard to see how Xenophon's account explains (3) or (4), whereas Plato's account explains these facts well. SOCRATES AND PLATO If we accept Plato’s dialogues as evidence about the views of Socrates, does this leave us any room to interpret Plato as an important philosopher in his own right, and not just the biographer of Socrates? As Irwin suggests, we might think of Plato as a Socratic philosopher, who shares philosophical concerns and commitments with Socrates and at least initially works out his own views within the Socratic paradigm but gradually develops his own philosophical views, which, though indebted to Socrates at many points, are also critical of Socrates on some matters and positively transcend Socratic concerns on other 2 matters. Attention to the content and style of Plato's dialogues and the testimony of Aristotle (Metaphysics i 6; xiii 4) allows us divide the dialogues reasonably well into four groups. • Early or Socratic Dialogues o Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Laches, Charmides, Euthydemus, and Lysis • Transitional Dialogues o Protagoras and Gorgias • Middle or Platonic Dialogues o Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus • Later Platonic Dialogues o Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws The Socratic dialogues are fairly short, address only ethical questions, often by asking the “What is F?” question of particular virtues (e.g. piety, courage, and temperance), typically end on a negative note, and contain regular professions of Socratic ignorance. In these dialogues Socrates is agnostic about an afterlife. Though Socrates seeks forms as answers to requests for definitions of the virtues, he apparently does not separate the forms, as Plato does. Other dialogues in this group concern what would then have been fairly recent historical events involving Socrates, and these would be expected to be reasonably accurate historically. The transitional dialogues are philosophically more complex and contain constructive philosophical doctrine. Though there are continuities with stylistic and substantive commitments in the Socratic dialogues, and some later figures identify with Socratic commitments found in these dialogues (e.g. the Cyrenaics see their own commitment to hedonism as embracing a Socratic commitment, defended only in the Protagoras), there are also new defenses of older commitments and new commitments, some of which anticipate themes in paradigmatically Platonic dialogues. Middle period dialogues are Platonic. They are long and complex and are not restricted to ethical topics. The character Socrates is no longer agnostic about an afterlife but embraces psychophysical dualism and the immortality of the soul. Aristotle tells us that, unlike Socrates, Plato separates the forms and was led to do so by considerations of sensible flux, and we find such arguments in the Phaedo and Republic. There is considerably less dialogue, and it is often just a fig leaf for the exposition of systematic views. There are significant differences among the dialogues in this period. The Meno and Phaedo are usually thought to be comparatively early, earlier, for instance, than the Republic. The Parmenides and Theaetetus are usually thought to be comparatively late. The Parmenides, for instance, explores concerns about the theory of Forms in earlier middle period dialogues. Late period dialogues raise questions about and sometimes revise middle period doctrines. The Laws is generally agreed to be the latest of the dialogues (it was unpublished at Plato’s death), and there are important stylometric similarities between these other dialogues and the Laws. Socrates in not a character in the Laws and plays a smaller role in some of these dialogues. 3 This grouping is roughly chronological and reflects stylistic, historical, and thematic considerations. This thematic grouping of the dialogues presupposes that there are interesting philosophical differences in the dialogues. It is a further question whether these thematic differences also represent chronological development in Plato's views. Many who accept something like this thematic grouping also suppose that it represents a picture of Plato's philosophical development from an early stage where he was a disciple of Socrates, to a stage of exploring and questioning Socratic commitments, to a stage of developing his own philosophical views that are both continuous with but different from those of Socrates, to critical reflection on his own philosophical views. But the thematic claim does not require the developmental one. Though neither claim is uncontroversial, both are commonly accepted. In the Early Dialogues, Socrates questions a mixture of prominent and ordinary Athenians about the nature of particular moral virtues, about which they claim expertise. His interlocutors propose definitions of the virtues, which Socrates examines and criticizes relentlessly. The interlocutors confess confusion or are driven to say inconsistent things, and the dialogues typically end on a negative note, not having articulated an acceptable definition of the virtue in question. SOCRATIC PARADOXES In the course of these dialogues, Socrates introduces and embraces several striking claims. 1. Moral Knowledge and Socratic Ignorance. (a) Socrates seems to believe that we should expect to find expertise in matters ethical, as in other crafts (Crito 46c‑47d); (b) yet he claims to be ignorant himself and believes that others know even less than he does (Apology 19c, 20c‑e, 21d, 33b); (c) yet he seems quite confident about some moral claims and is willing to rely on them in arguing with others (Ap 17bc, 28b, 29b, 41e). Though (a) and (c) are consistent, both appear to conflict with (b). 2. Virtue and Happiness. Socrates believes that (a) an agent's own happiness (eudaimonia) is or ought to be the ultimate end of all of her action (Laches 181ce, 192d; Charmides 169b, 173e; Euthydemus 278e w/ 280b6, 282a), yet he believes that (b) familiar, other-­‐regarding virtues (e.g. courage and justice) are admirable. (a) and (b) commit him to other claims. He believes that (c) one should be virtuous at any price (Ap 28b, 29b, 32bc; Cri 48cd, 49b). In fact, Socrates believes that (d) virtue (e.g. temperance, justice, courage, piety, wisdom) is both necessary and sufficient for the agent's happiness (Ap 29b‑30b, 30d, 36c, 41d‑e). This implies that (e) a good person cannot be harmed (Ap 41cd) and that (f) one cannot profit by vice (e.g. injustice). 3. Virtue is Knowledge. This cognitive account of virtue seems to imply several things: (a) that knowledge is necessary for virtue (La 192cd; Ch 159a), and by (1b), that no one is virtuous; (b) that knowledge is sufficient for virtue (Ap 25c‑26a, 37a), which implies that weakness of will is impossible; and (c) the unity of the virtues (La 199e), which implies that you cannot have one virtue without the others. Many of these claims are counter-­‐intuitive and would have struck ancient, as well as modern, ears as implausible. What’s even more surprising is that Socrates thinks that he can defend such counter-­‐intuitive claims by the elenchus – his method of question and answer, which depends on the agreement of one’s interlocutor. 4 Subsequent philosophers in antiquity all take these claims very seriously. No one rejects them all, and many claim that they are preserving what’s most important in the legacy of Socrates. To appreciate Socrates's philosophical significance, it will help to have a sense of some different elements in the intellectual and philosophical landscape on which he appears. HOMERIC BACKGROUND Homer is not a philosopher, but his depiction of heroic action in the Iliad and Odyssey reflects ethical assumptions about virtue and a good life. 1. The good person (agathos) is the Homeric hero -­‐-­‐ a successful (male) warrior of aristocratic birth and upbringing who displays courage and power and is successful in battle. 2. A Homeric hero depends upon goods that lie outside his control – external goods. (a) Though virtues of character are admirable, they are not necessary to be agathos. (b) External goods (strength, social status, success, and social recognition) appear to be both necessary and sufficient to be agathos. 3. The Homeric hero is agent-­‐centered. Though the agathos should protect dependents and supplicants, this is because it demonstrates his power, not because they have a legitimate claim on him. 4. The Homeric conception is unstable. (a) Being agathos depends upon vulnerable external goods. (b) It is socially unstable, because it pits heroes against each other in divisive struggles over scarce external goods. 5. The Homeric world-­‐view reflects an anthropomorphic polytheism. Natural events and human affairs are to be explained as the operation and interaction of various gods, who are themselves large-­‐scale versions of the Homeric heroes. THE LAW-­‐CONCEPTION Not everyone accepted these Homeric claims. Hesiod, tragedians, and various natural philosophers appeal to the value of law and order. 1. The chief virtue is justice. 2. Justice involves conformity to social norms that protect and promote the good of the community or a common good. SOPHISTIC AND RHETORIC Part of understanding Socrates's innovation requires contrasting his methods with other superficially similar methods. Like Socratic inquiry, both rhetoric and sophistic involve public inquiry into ethical and political questions, and both can involve dialogue in which the interlocutor's claims are confuted. Rhetoricians offered to teach the art of persuasion. This might seem to be an especially valuable skill for members of the democratic Assembly who sought to shape the political agenda of Athens or hold political office. Like Socratic dialectical inquiry, rhetoric depends on the beliefs of its audience. But Socrates believes that whereas dialectic aims at truth -­‐-­‐ in particular, truth about how best to live -­‐-­‐ rhetoric aims at securing the audience's 5 agreement or approval of the orator's objectives (Euthydemus 272b1-­‐2 and 8, 275d5-­‐278e, 305b-­‐306c). Moreover, whereas philosophy aims to benefit its audience, rhetoric aims to flatter and, hence, to please its audience (Gorgias 462b-­‐465d, 502e-­‐503d). As a rule, rhetoricians did not claim to educate people or make them better. By contrast, the sophists did. A feature of some forms of sophistic that might arouse hostility is eristic method, and Socrates clearly sought to distinguish his own method from eristic. Most generally, eristic involves various debater's tricks that exploit ambiguities or unclarities in an interlocutor's claims, typically unfairly, in order to confound him. Like rhetoric and unlike Socratic dialectic, eristic aims at victory in debate, rather than the truth (Euthydemus 272ab). Still another reason for distrust of sophistic is that some sophists hold moral views that appear subversive of the cooperative virtues on which the stability of Athenian democracy depends. For instance, it is sometimes thought that the sort of challenge to a cooperative conception of the virtues expressed by Callicles in the Gorgias and Thrasymachus in the Republic should be understood to be a product of sophistic teaching. But not all sophists are critics of conventional morality. On Plato's view, many sophists merely repeat common moral convictions without examining them, much less revising them. Protagoras is an important case in point. Indeed, Protagoras famously thinks that "a man is the measure of all things, of those that are, of how they are, and of those that are not, of how they are not" and that "as things appear to each of us, so they are" (Theaetetus 152a). Though Socrates's dialectical method also begins from common beliefs, he believes that if practiced the right way it can be used to distinguish between true and false beliefs, especially about how best to live. Moreover, he thinks his methods allow him to show that Homer, Callicles, and Thrasymachus are wrong and that the cooperative virtues are essential to leading a good life.