Socrates in the cave on the philosopher’s motive in plato

Socrates in the Cave On the Philosopher’s Motive in Plato SOCRATES IN THE CAVE Edited by Paul J Diduch and Michael P Harding Recovering Political Philosophy Series Editors Timothy W Burns Baylor Unive.

Recovering Political Philosophy

Postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for and guidance of our political lives has provoked a searching re- examination of the works of past political philosophers The re-examination seeks to recover the ancient or classical grounding for civic reason and to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of modern philosophic rationalism This series responds to this ferment by making available outstanding new scholarship in the history

of political philosophy, scholarship that is inspired by the rediscovery of the diverse rhetorical strategies employed by political philosophers The series features interpretive studies attentive to historical context and language, and

to the ways in which censorship and didactic concern impelled prudent thinkers, in widely diverse cultural conditions, to employ manifold strategies

of writing, strategies that allowed them to aim at different audiences with various degrees of openness to unconventional thinking Recovering Political Philosophy emphasizes the close reading of ancient, medieval, early modern and late modern works that illuminate the human condition by attempting

to answer its deepest, enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foundations for contemporary political, social, and economic life The editors encourage manuscripts from both established and emerging scholars who focus on the careful study of texts, either through analysis of a single work or through thematic study of a problem or question in a number

of works

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14517

Paul J Diduch • Michael P Harding

Editors Socrates in the Cave

On the Philosopher’s Motive in Plato

Recovering Political Philosophy

ISBN 978-3-319-76830-4 ISBN 978-3-319-76831-1 (eBook)

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Editors

Paul J Diduch

University of Colorado Boulder

Boulder, CO, USA

Michael P Harding Montgomery College Germantown, MD, USA

Palgrave’s Recovering Political Philosophy series was founded with an eye to

postmodernism’s challenge to the possibility of a rational foundation for and guidance of our political lives This invigorating challenge has pro-voked a searching re-examination of classic texts, not only of political phi-losophers but of poets, artists, theologians, scientists, and other thinkers who may not be regarded conventionally as political theorists The series publishes studies that endeavor to take up this re-examination and thereby help to recover the classical grounding for civic reason, as well as studies that clarify the strengths and the weaknesses of modern philosophic ratio-nalism The interpretative studies in the series are particularly attentive to historical context and language, and to the ways in which both censorial persecution and didactic concerns have impelled prudent thinkers, in widely diverse cultural conditions, to employ manifold strategies of writing—strategies that allowed them to aim at different audiences with various degrees of openness to unconventional thinking The series offers close readings of ancient, medieval, early modern, and late modern works that illuminate the human condition by attempting to answer its deepest, enduring questions, and that have (in the modern periods) laid the foun-dations for contemporary political, social, and economic life

The editors of the present volume have sought answers to an tant, simple, and yet rarely raised question: Why does Plato present Socrates in dialogue with interlocutors whose promise and interest in phi-losophy are questionable? The Platonic Socrates’ frequent exposure of the incoherence of these interlocutors’ understanding of virtue makes the question more acute, since it makes clear that no devotion to justice or

impor-SerieS editorS’ Preface

vi SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

noble activity as ordinarily understood can explain this activity The tributors to this volume therefore offer interpretations of dialogues that attempt to provide more adequate answers, clarifying either Socrates’s philanthropic virtue or Socrates’s relentless attempt to ground through dialectic the philosophic or scientific life, or to explain how these two motives might be best understood to belong together

con-Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA Timothy W. BurnsUniversity of Texas, Austin, TX, USA Thomas L. Pangle

The editors would like to thank J. Scott Lee and the Association for Core Texts and Courses for facilitating the small, conversation-focused panel discussions that led to the idea for, and much of the contents of, this volume

For their helpful observations, the editors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers at Palgrave, in addition to friends and family who have offered their insight and encouragement, including especially Andrea Kowalchuk, Auksuole Rubavichute, James Guest, Kevin Slack, Jason Lund, Travis Hadley, Laura Rabinowitz, Wayne Ambler, Greg McBrayer, Joshua Parens, and Tim Burns

1 Editors’ Introduction: Why Clarifying Socrates’ Motives Matters for Platonic Philosophy 1

Paul J Diduch and Michael P Harding

2 The Strange Conversation of Plato’s Minos 11

15 Plato’s Sons and the Library of Magnesia 315

Pavlos Leonidas Papadopoulos

Wayne  Ambler is an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado

Boulder He lived and taught in Rome for one decade and led study abroad trips there for a second decade Ambler’s main academic field is political philosophy and especially that of the ancient Greeks He has translated two of Xenophon’s longest works and three of his essays, all for Cornell University Press His doctoral dissertation on Aristotle was hon-ored as the best dissertation in political philosophy for its year He has also

published outside of his main field—on Twain’s Connecticut Yankee and

on the challenge of understanding how to regulate modern technology

Mark  Blitz (AB and PhD from Harvard University) is Fletcher Jones

Professor of Political Philosophy and Director of the Henry Salvatori Center at Claremont McKenna College He served during the Reagan administration as Associate Director of the United States Information Agency, where he was the senior United States official in charge of educa-tional and cultural programs abroad, and as a senior professional staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations He has been Vice President of the Hudson Institute and has taught political philosophy at Harvard University and at the University of Pennsylvania He is the author

of Conserving Liberty; Plato’s Political Philosophy; Duty Bound: Responsibility

and American Public Life; Heidegger’s “Being and Time” and the Possibility

of Political Philosophy; and is co-editor (with William Kristol) of Educating the Prince.

James Carey is a member of the faculty and former Dean of St John’s

College, Santa Fe For a number of years, he served as Distinguished

noteS on contributorS

xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Visiting Professor in the Philosophy Department at the United States Air Force Academy Though Dr Carey has written and lectured broadly in the history of philosophy, his focus in recent years has been on medieval phi-losophy He has recently written a book on the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas

Paul J. Diduch is an instructor in the Herbst Program of Humanities for

Engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder His articles and reviews

on Plato and Thucydides have been published, and he is working on Socrates’ critique of pre-Socratic science, and the problems of virtue and knowledge in Plato’s thought

Robert  Goldberg has taught for 22  years at St John’s College in

Annapolis, where he held the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Ancient Studies from 2012 to 2014 His chapters, articles, and review essays on Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, ancient democratic theory, and Leo Strauss have been published, and he is working on a study

of Plato’s philosophy of law Before coming to St John’s, he taught at Kenyon College, where he was also the John M. Olin Faculty Fellow in History and Political Theory

Travis  S.  Hadley teaches political theory, American political thought,

and American government, most recently at Christopher Newport University in the Departments of Government, as well as Leadership and American Studies He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of North Texas in 2014 His research includes classical political thought, specializing in Thucydides, and focuses broadly on moral issues related to statesmanship, specifically democratic governance He has co- authored an article on Pericles, “The Moral Foundations of Political Trust: Thucydides’ Pericles and the Limits of Enlightened Statecraft,” highlight-ing the importance of public trust for democratic leaders

Michael  P.  Harding is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political

Science at Montgomery College He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of North Texas and his doctorate from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas In addition to Montgomery College, he has taught at the University of Dallas and the University of North Texas and is teaching graduate liberal arts courses at Johns Hopkins University He also serves as chairman of a Washington, D. C area non-profit devoted to promoting liberal education

xiii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

David Levy is a tutor at St John’s College, Santa Fe, USA. He received

a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Penn State in 2003 and his PhD in political science from Boston College in 2010

Jason  Lund studies political philosophy and international relations at

Baylor University He has presented papers on Leo Strauss and on Plato’s

dialogues, including a co-authored paper on the Meno exploring the link

between the problem of virtue and the problem of knowledge Additionally,

he has received funding from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Alexander Hamilton Institute to attend roundtables on Plutarch and

Shakespeare, Cold War statesmanship, and the Federalist Papers In his

dissertation, Jason aims to explain why it is that Socrates thinks that self- knowledge is a necessary precondition for the proper study of natural sci-ence, as well as to show how this explanation has contemporary and not merely antiquarian significance

Mark J. Lutz is Director of the Society for Greek Political Thought and

Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on

classical and contemporary political philosophy, as well as of Socrates’

Education to Virtue (1998) and Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws (2012).

Gregory  A.  McBrayer is Assistant Professor of Political Science and

Director of the University Core Curriculum, Ashland University He has

published, with Mary P Nichols and Denise Schaffer, Plato’s Euthydemus (Focus: 2011), and he is the editor of Xenophon: The Shorter Writings

(Cornell, Forthcoming)

Mary  P.  Nichols served as Professor of Political Science at Baylor

University from 2004–2017 Her fields of interest include the history of political philosophy, especially Greek political thought, and politics, litera-

ture, and film Several of her articles have been published in Political

Theory, the Journal of Politics, Polity, the Review of Politics, and Perspectives

on Political Science Among her books in classical thought are Citizens and Statesmen: A Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics (Rowman and Littlefield), Socrates on Friendship and Community: Reflections on Plato’s Symposium,

Phaedrus, and Lysis (Cambridge); and Thucydides and the Pursuit of

Freedom (Cornell, 2015).

xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Pavlos Leonidas Papadopoulos is Assistant Professor of Humanities at

Wyoming Catholic College He received his PhD and MA in political losophy from the University of Dallas, where he taught courses in philoso-phy, politics, and history, and his BA from St John’s College, Annapolis

phi-Joshua Parens received his BA in Liberal Arts from St John’s College

and his MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago

He arrived at the University of Dallas in 1997 and is now Professor of Philosophy and Politics, the Director of the Institute of Philosophic Studies, and the Dean of the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts His

latest book, Leo Strauss and the Recovery of Medieval Political Philosophy,

was the first title in a book series published by University of Rochester Press and Boydell & Brewer, which he is co-editing with Douglas Kries of Gonzaga University He has published many articles on Alfarabi, Maimonides, and Spinoza and two books on Alfarabi on Plato and

Aristotle, respectively with SUNY Press: Metaphysics as Rhetoric (1995) and An Islamic Philosophy of Virtuous Religions (2006) His previous book

Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature was

published by the University of Chicago Press (June 2012) He co-edited with Joseph Macfarland the second edition of the classic anthology by

Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi, Medieval Political Philosophy: A

Sourcebook (Cornell University Press, 2011) He also has writing projects

on Bacon, Descartes, Montesquieu, and Heidegger

Roslyn  Weiss is the Clara H.  Stewardson Professor of Philosophy at

Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.  She earned her Doctorate in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1982 and a Master’s degree in Jewish Studies from Baltimore Hebrew University in 1992 Her fields of expertise are Ancient Greek Philosophy and Medieval Jewish Philosophy

She has published four books on Plato, Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of

Plato’s ‘Crito’ (Oxford, 1998); Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato’s

‘Meno’ (Oxford, 2001); The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies (Chicago,

2006); and, most recently, Philosophers in the ‘Republic’: Plato’s Two

Paradigms (Cornell, 2012); and more than 40 scholarly articles on Greek

and Jewish philosophy Her current project is the first complete translation

into English of the medieval Hebrew philosophical work, Light of the Lord,

by Hasdai Crescas

© The Author(s) 2019

P J Diduch, M P Harding (eds.), Socrates in the Cave, Recovering

Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76831-1_1

1 See Rowe’s recent methodological reflections for a critical appraisal of developmentalism and related reading practices “Methodologies for Reading Plato” (Oxford Handbooks Online) Influential works in the school of developmentalism, particularly in Plato’s ethics

and political philosophy, include Irwin (Plato’s Ethics New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), Klosko (The Development of Plato’s Political Theory New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Kraut (The Cambridge Companion to Plato New York: Cambridge University

2

The emerging counter-consensus is that the core basis of the former orthodoxy—the so-called early, middle, and late taxonomy that somehow captures Plato’s emerging philosophic maturity—is a limited and even unhelpful interpretive schema Unlike the developmentalists, Plato schol-ars today tend to start by treating each dialogue on its own terms, and most agree that dramatic aspects like character, action, narration, and setting are essentially related to, and reflective of, Plato’s philosophic intentions

The passing of developmentalism brings with it the promise of new understanding, for questions that seldom occurred under the old regime are now being asked about Plato’s Socrates Several authors have seen that

if Socrates is not simply a mouthpiece for Plato, and the dialogues are not mere vehicles for the transmission of doctrine, then one must explain why Socrates the character speaks and acts as he does That is, if Socrates is doing something more complicated than dispensing dogmatic arguments, then one has to treat him as a character within the drama of each dialogue and, ultimately, within the dialogues as a whole Seen in this light, the question of Socrates the character, the attempt to make sense of his motives, interests, and intentions, is a concern of highest importance,

Press, 1992), and Vlastos (Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher, 1991) For examples of more nuanced instances of the developmentalist hypothesis, see Kahn (Plato and the Socratic

Dialogue New  York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Reshotko (Socratic Virtue

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Rowe (Plato and the Art of Philosophical

Writing New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) For additional various critiques of

developmentalism, see especially Bloom (The Republic of Plato New  York: Basic Books, 1991), Craig (The War Lover Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), Denyer (Plato,

Alcibiades Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Howland (“Re-reading Plato:

The Problem of Platonic Chronology.” Phoenix 45 [1991]: 189–214, Pangle (The Roots of

Political Philosophy Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), Peterson (Socrates and Philosophy

in the Dialogues of Plato New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Press (Who Speaks for Plato? Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), Reshotko (Socratic Virtue), Tigerstedt

(Interpreting Plato Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1977), Weiss (Socrates

Dissatisfied Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), and Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) For useful reflections on reading Plato through his art of writing, see Strauss (“On a New Interpretation of Plato’s Political Philosophy.”

Social Research 13 [1946]: 326–357; City and Man Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1964, 50–62), Craig (The War Lover, xiii–xxxviii), Klein (A Commentary on Plato’s Meno

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965, 3–31), and Bolotin (“The Life of

Philosophy and the Immortality of the Soul.” Ancient Philosophy 7 [1987]: 39–56) For

criti-cal responses to the “Straussian” approach to reading Plato, see Klosko (“The ‘Straussian’

Interpretation of Plato’s Republic.” History of Political Thought 7 [1986]: 275–293), Roochnik (“Irony and Accessibility.” Political Theory 25 [1997]: 869–885), and Ferrari (“Strauss’ Plato.” Arion 5 [1997]).

P J DIDUCH AND M P HARDING

of whom are clearly Socrates’ intellectual inferiors? Similarly, why make time for Hippias, Meno, or Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, let alone Ion and Euthyphro—all of whom, at times, scarcely follow Socrates’ dialectical moves? Plato gives us enough of a glimpse at Socrates’ intellectual circle to make us realize that if Socrates wanted to spend his time with the philo-sophic set, he very well could have So why choose to talk to interlocutors whose promise and even interest in philosophy is questionable? A brief survey of the dialogues thus alerts one to the diversity of types and abilities

in Plato’s dramatis personae And this observation alone suggests that Socrates’ motivation, his activity as a whole, seems much more complex than the straightforward communication of ideas

Plato has Socrates himself bring our question to a point in the Republic

as he explains to Glaucon how they can justly force the philosopher back down into the cave:

My friend, you have forgotten, I said, that it’s not the concern of law that any one class fare exceptionally well, but it contrives to bring this about in the city as a whole, harmonizing the citizens by persuasion and compulsion, making them share with one another the benefit that each is able to bring to the commonwealth And it produces such men in the city not in order to let them turn whichever way each wants, but in order that it may use them in binding the city together.

2 Important studies of Plato that focus on Socrates’ total activity, including his own

philo-sophic or intellectual development (Socratic developmentalism), include Bruell (On the

Socratic Education Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), Cropsey (Plato’s World Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1995), Lampert (How Philosophy Became Socratic Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), Leibowitz (The Ironic Defense of Socrates New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Levy (Eros and Socratic Philosophy New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), Lutz (Socrates’ Education to Virtue Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), Nichols (Socrates on Friendship and Community New  York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), Sebell (The Socratic Turn Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), Smith Pangle (Virtue is Knowledge Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), and Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers) See also Pangle and Burns (The Key Texts of

Political Philosophy New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Linck (The Ideas of Socrates London: Continuum, 2007).

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: WHY CLARIFYING SOCRATES’ MOTIVES…

4

That’s true, he said I did forget.

Well, then, Glaucon, I said, consider that we won’t be doing injustice to the philosophers who come to be among us, but rather that we will say just things to them while compelling them besides to care for and guard the oth- ers We’ll say that when such men come to be in the other cities it is fitting for them not to participate in the labors of those cities For they grow up spontaneously against the will of the regime in each; and a nature that grows

by itself and doesn’t owe its rearing to anyone has justice on its side when it

is not eager to pay off the price of rearing to anyone… (519c–520b)

The passage is pivotal in the dialogue for several reasons, not least for its implications about the seeming lack of a genuine common good in even the “best” or most just city For our purposes, let it suffice to note that Socrates himself, in contrast to his portrait of the philosopher, is admitting implicitly that he does not owe a debt to his own regime and, thus, that there is no obvious civic or even moral necessity for him to “go down” with Glaucon and help the brothers fend off the teachers of injustice.Modern readers are especially likely to balk at this suggestion, given certain presumptions in favor of democratic enlightenment On this view, one simply assumes that the philosopher, Socrates included, returns to the shadows to liberate others from their mental captivity—that this is some-how his duty or the moral responsibility of the genuinely wise Socrates’ own remarks, however, urge us to suspend and interrogate this conclu-sion And in so doing, he challenges us to look more carefully at his own self-presentation and self-understanding

From the Republic, then, we are led to several other dialogues where

Socrates offers various biographical remarks to explain and to justify his

way of life These include, most importantly, Symposium, Phaedo, Apology, and Theaetetus But while helpful in one sense, Socrates’ accounts are, like

many of his arguments, often difficult to interpret and seemingly

contra-dictory In Symposium, for example, it seems like the study of erotic desire

is what led Socrates to converse with others In Phaedo, it is the attempt to

remedy the deficiencies of natural science by approaching the beings

indi-rectly, through speech In Apology, by stark contrast, Socrates distances

himself from science, claiming that his conversations and refutations were part of a divine plan to justify his ignorance and vindicate virtue And in

Theaetetus, Socrates claims he is an intellectual midwife, who, with the

help of the god, serves others by delivering their wisdom Thus, when it comes to un-riddling the motives of his primary character, Plato deliberately

P J DIDUCH AND M P HARDING

leads the reader in various and ostensibly incompatible directions The ultimate interpretive challenge is to weave these strands together, to assemble Socrates’ intellectual biography, to articulate his self- understanding, and to match it with his deeds But depending on where one starts, or which of Socrates’ accounts one chooses to emphasize, one tends to highlight certain aspects of Socrates’ character at the expense of others It is vital therefore to take a broad look at how others have approached this question, to understand the competing views, and to see what questions or problems might help refine our approach

Competing Views

Nearly all scholars of Plato resolve for themselves the question of Socrates’ motives in one of three ways: (1) Socrates is motivated by the god, the divine voice, or a general concern for virtue, to carry out a moral- philosophical mission; his philosophizing is, thus, ministerial to what might be best understood as ethical or moral ends; (2) Socrates is moti-vated by the promise of advancing his own wisdom or knowledge to undertake his various dialectical refutations; or (3) some more or less coherent amalgam of the above, though in most cases motive 1 or 2 pre-dominates Without too much injustice, then, we might identify camp one with “Socrates, The Moral Missionary” and camp two with “Socrates, The Philosophic Investigator.”

The moral Socrates of camp one is by far the most well known; he is, one might say, the traditional or conventional Socrates, and for good rea-son, since there is ample textual evidence one can marshal to support this

position Plato’s most beloved dialogues, Apology, Crito, and Republic,

present a Socrates who is preoccupied with the question of virtue, so much

so that their contents make it seem like Socratic philosophy is inseparable

from the pursuit of the just life Indeed, in Apology, Socrates famously

stands witness, martyr-like, to his own moral integrity, presenting himself

as the divine scourge of Athenian moral corruption

One finds support for this view in other dialogues as well, where Socrates seems no less concerned with the moral bearing of his interlocu-tors Socratic exhortations to virtue abound in dialogues as different as

Gorgias, Theaetetus, Meno, and Alcibiades I There is a compelling pattern

of evidence suggesting that Socrates is, indeed, concerned to help others toward moral seriousness, that he thinks a moral life is better than an immoral life, and that he is eager to take on the sophists (among others)

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: WHY CLARIFYING SOCRATES’ MOTIVES…

6

who offer teachings to the contrary Not surprisingly, the majority of Plato scholarship reflects this pattern, although there is considerable diversity among scholars regarding the moral Socrates, especially pertaining to his relation to the forms, his conception of virtue, his understanding of love and friendship, and his beliefs about the gods.3

With all that said, there are several specific difficulties that attend a straightforward reading of the missionary Socrates First, any attempt to defend Socrates’ motives as morally serious must also grapple with Socrates’ irony and, more importantly, his trenchant critiques of Athenian morality and morality as such Often in the very dialogues where Socrates identifies with the virtue he seeks to understand, he also reveals problems with said virtue, usually by exposing inconsistencies in his interlocutor’s assumptions about the virtue in question.4 This is not to say that Socrates’ critical scrutiny of virtue is fatal to its goodness, or that Socrates thinks that incoherent beliefs about virtue are necessarily bad for the interlocu-tor, though Socrates does seem to believe that common virtue is inferior

to some higher or purer expression At the very least, Socrates’ tently critical stance toward ordinary morality precludes assimilating his motives to those of his moral but non-philosophic counterparts But the difficulties do not end here; for if one accepts Socrates’ critique of ordi-nary virtue, and yet nonetheless wants to argue that Socrates is moral or virtuous in some higher or non-ordinary way, one faces the difficulty of showing how Socrates’ higher morality is sufficiently related to the

consis-3 Historically, some conception of the moral Socrates has dominated the major schools of Platonism, from the early Academics to Middle-Platonism, Stoicism, and Neo-Platonism This is also true of later European revivals of Platonism, as with, say, Marsilio Ficino, the Cambridge Platonists, and Friedrich Schleiermacher Plato has not been without his moral critics, however Karl Popper comes to mind as a noted critic, blaming Plato for casting a

totalitarian spell on political thought (The Open Society and Its Enemies Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 2013) In the realm of ethics, Gregory Vlastos famously criticized Plato for

his inadequate understanding of love (Platonic Studies Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1973) Recent scholars in political theory who make their own well-developed and

compelling cases for a morally concerned Socrates include Leon Craig (The War Lover), Mary Nichols (Socrates and the Political Community Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1987 See also Socrates on Friendship and Political Community), James Rhodes (Eros,

Wisdom and Silence Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), Roslyn Weiss (Socrates Dissatisfied See also: The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 2006, and Philosophers in the Republic Ithaca: Cornell, 2012), and Catherine Zuckert (Plato’s Philosophers).

4 Excellent examples of this include Euthyphro, Meno, and Republic.

P J DIDUCH AND M P HARDING

ordinary conception of virtue such that the language of ordinary morality still makes sense in describing his motives To put this in another way: if Socrates shows that doubts about the goodness of ordinary virtue, doubts especially about duty, devotion, or sacrifice, govern a willingness to trans-form virtue into something higher, something more rational or philo-sophic, then one has to consider whether the philosopher’s so-called virtue—the rule of reason in the soul—is sufficiently akin to its ordinary counterparts to warrant using the same names.5 These problems, while perhaps not insuperable, show how Socrates himself has put obstacles in the way of using his often morally charged rhetoric as a guide to his genu-ine motivations

The second major camp—Socrates as philosopher of nature or sophic investigator—sees Socrates’ activity in the dialogues as motivated mainly, if not exclusively, by intellectual self-interest or the goal of further-ing his own wisdom without particular regard for others This interpretive stance is informed by a reading of the Socratic turn which argues that Socrates, despite his incisive criticism of his scientific predecessors, contin-ues nonetheless to advance the ends of science (knowledge of causes) albeit on a new footing Socrates’ novel approach to the scientific project unfolds in the realm of speech or dialectics, a move which has at least two core motivations: (1) given the weak position of the claims of natural sci-ence subsequent to Socrates’ critique of them, Socrates seeks to explore, test, and ultimately refute the rivals to science whose understanding of the world relies on divine action or other non-intuitive causes, namely poets, priests, diviners but also Protagoreans and other “fluxists” and (2) by focusing on speech, Socrates attempts to clarify how the beings are present

philo-to common awareness or common sense, not only philo-to assess the psychic roots of divine experience but also to describe clearly what of the beings is revealed by mind or how the world shows itself through mind-dependent form.6 As for Socrates’ willingness to outwardly identify with virtue and the god, these are exoteric tactics contrived for his friends and for self- protection in order to soften or conceal altogether the harsher aspects

of the truth about nature.7

5 Consider Stauffer (Plato’s Introduction to the Question of Justice Albany: Statue University

of New York Press, 2001, 130–131) See also Leibowitz, The Ironic Defense of Socrates, 156.

6 See Sebell, The Socratic Turn, 53 and Smith Pangle, Virtue is Knowledge, 103.

7 Consider, for example, Sebell, The Socratic Turn, 134–143.

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: WHY CLARIFYING SOCRATES’ MOTIVES…

8

Despite being unconventional and somewhat contrary to the surface of the dialogues, position two is very powerfully supported by its textual expositors.8 It does especially well to explain the notable dissonance between Socrates’ critiques of moral virtue and his seemingly tireless quest for virtue There are, however, two potential areas of difficulty with this general account of Socratic activity: the first we might call logical-epistemological; the second, existential-psychological

We note first that, depending on how one understands Socrates’ tique of pre-Socratic science, especially reductive causality, one will have to adjust or calibrate one’s conception of the ends of Socrates’ theoretical enterprise That is, if one concludes that Socrates thinks that problems of coherently relating parts and wholes, or material and form, are fatal to

cri-certain kinds of causal understanding (as, arguably, is indicated in Phaedo and Theaetetus), then it is not clear what sort of science is left to pursue if

one also wants to hold on to intelligible necessity as a standard for edge.9 At the very least, if one wants to argue that Socrates’ activity con-tinues to be a kind of meaningful science, then one must be clear how science can accommodate itself to or be done in light of Socrates’ ostensi-bly skeptical identification of problems with learning and knowledge Or

knowl-to put this differently, one must show how Socrates’ knowledge of rance is also somehow a genuine knowledge of causes

igno-Second, and more directly related to our volume’s concerns, if one claims that Socrates is motivated strictly or even primarily by intellectual self-interest, it is not obvious how one is to then explain Socrates’ seeming

8 See especially the work of Ahrensdorf (The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), Bartlett (Plato, Protagoras and Meno Ithaca: Cornell, 2004), Bolotin (Plato’s Dialogue on Friendship Ithaca: Cornell, 1979), Bruell (On the Socratic Education), Burns and Pangle (Key Texts in Political Philosophy), Leibowitz (The Ironic Defense of Socrates), Levy (Eros and Socratic Philosophy), Lutz (Socrates’

Education to Virtue), Pangle (The Roots of Political Philosophy and Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), Sebell (The Socratic Turn), Smith Pangle (Virtue is Knowledge), and Stauffer (Plato’s Introduction to the Question

of Justice) See also Carey (“Education and the Art of Writing.” The St John’s Review 57

(2015): 120–148) We mention here also Seth Benardete, whose work on Plato, though ficult to interpret, suggests that Socrates was principally concerned with problems of eidetic

dif-analysis (Socrates’ Second Sailing Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

9 If Strauss is right, and Socrates’ core theoretical insight is the discovery of noetic geneity, then one has to wonder if noetic heterogeneity precludes intelligible reductive cau- sality, and, if so, what sort of intelligible necessity is compatible with or entailed by said

hetero-discovery (What is Political Philosophy? Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, 132,

142–143).

P J DIDUCH AND M P HARDING

efforts to help other interlocutors, particularly his friends, fellow citizens, and future philosophers.10 That is, if the Socratic critique of virtue also entails that moral motives are non-viable for explaining Socrates’ behavior (given concerns of internal coherence), then one can legitimately ask if all

or even most of Socrates’ engagements with others are fully and sively intelligible as occasions of intellectual self-interest? And if not, or if

exclu-one grants that, in some secondary way, Socrates is concerned with others,

then one must also account for how a seeming deviation from a strict rational motive is also somehow rational; that is, if Socrates is sometimes not optimally rational (whatever that might mean), then one must some-how reconceive what it might mean to live rationally as a philosopher Here, we think, that if one follows the path of camp two, one has to ask difficult questions about the relation of emotions, attachment, and practi-cal reason How, for instance, does Socrates determine the right level of care, concern, attachment, or detachment? Or, how much irrational or non-rational love of one’s own can or does the rational life tolerate? Or to

put this family of questions in the terms of the Phaedrus: how much

mad-ness, if any, still moves the philosopher?

In this way, keeping these questions in mind, we encourage the reader

to pursue the ultimate challenge of making sense of Socrates’ motives To that end, the reader will find both major camps well represented in the pages that follow, in addition to discovering that there is considerable nuance and difference within the major lines of division and also between them Our hope is that the chapters collected here help map the terrain for clear articulation and comparison Ultimately, we believe our volume may aid in discerning new possibilities for thinking through the figure of Plato’s Socrates and therewith the character of Platonic political philosophy

10 One might also consider in this vein Plato’s motives to found a school, write dialogues,

or his efforts to help Dion of Syracuse.

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: WHY CLARIFYING SOCRATES’ MOTIVES…

© The Author(s) 2019

P J Diduch, M P Harding (eds.), Socrates in the Cave, Recovering

Political Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76831-1_2

as the dialogue progresses, it becomes clear that he hasn’t given nearly as much thought to law as Socrates has And Socrates, who appears to know the comrade, must have known that, too He could hardly have asked the question with the hope or expectation that he would finally learn what law

is if only he could induce the comrade to tell him So why does Socrates ask someone who knows less, much less, than he knows what law is? Why bother? What could he reasonably hope to gain from asking?

Now, someone might claim that Plato writes dialogues merely as a charming way to present his own philosophy If we just hear what Socrates

R Goldberg ( * )

St John’s College, Annapolis, MD, USA

e-mail: robert.goldberg@sjc.edu

12

says, we find out what he thinks And because Socrates is Plato’s spokesman,

we find out what Plato thinks as well The dialogue form, then, is merely

a far less tedious way to present the dry-as-dust ideas that philosophy

trades in To this we must reply that in the Apology Socrates himself tells

us that his conversations with others, including or especially with those who, as he has every reason to suspect, have given far less thought than he has to the matters he asks them about, have an urgent purpose—namely,

to test the veracity and competence of the god at Delphi This god, Apollo, once told Socrates, through human intermediaries, to be sure, that no one was wiser than he was In disbelief, Socrates eventually set out to refute the god or his oracle by finding others, such as political men, poets and divin-ers, and ordinary craftsmen, who were thought to be more knowledgeable

or wiser than himself In discovering that they supposed they knew

things—including the greatest things (22c4–6, 22d6–8; cf Laws 10,

888b2–4)—that through refutations Socrates was able to show them or to detect they did not know, he came to see that, as he but not the god had put it, Socrates was wisest (cf 21b5–6 with 21a6–7) Now, the context in which Socrates tells us all this informs us that what he discovered in this way was really something of momentous importance: that no human

being he thus examined possessed a wisdom superior to his own human

wisdom; in other words, no one he examined possessed or, when Socrates was done with him, could even suppose he possessed a more-than-human wisdom, a wisdom that may therefore be called divine And since Socrates includes the diviners and oracle-givers (22c1–3), he suggests that he had been able to ascertain that no one possessed any wisdom communicated

to him by a god whether directly or indirectly This is a strange thing for Socrates to be suggesting as part of his defense speech when he is on trial for his life in part for not believing in the gods the city believes in One of those gods is Apollo, and it appears to have become clear to Socrates that Apollo has not conferred any divine wisdom on anyone he has examined

We might go so far as to ask, then, what reason Socrates could now have

to believe in Apollo (cf 22e4–5), if he finds no evidence, among those who do, that they have learned anything—including, for instance, how to live well (38a1–6)—from him or his fellow Olympians.1

1 Among the other things that they appear not to have learned is what happens to us when

we die (Apology 29a1–b6; cf 39e1–41d2 and consider diamythologe ̄sai at 39e5; cf Republic

1, 330d4–331d3) All references to Plato are to the Oxford Classical Texts edition by John Burnet; translations are my own.

R GOLDBERG

While the Apology teaches that Socrates had a philosophic purpose in conversing with others, the conversation he has in the Minos appears dif- ferent in kind from that described in the Apology The comrade does not

present himself as wise, as knowing something noble and good that Socrates then leads him to see he does not know; it is not, for the most part, a conversation in which Socrates cross-examines his interlocutor,

subjecting him to a series of refutations Unlike the Charmides, Laches,

Meno, and Theaetetus, for instance, it does not even seem to end

inconclu-sively, with a failure to define the thing under discussion Socrates does seem to refute the two definitions of law that the comrade offers And yet

he leads the comrade to a third definition that by the end of the dialogue the comrade appears to accept If the conversations Socrates refers to later

in the Apology—the conversations in which the gadfly Socrates serves the

god who sent him by exhorting his fellow citizens to virtue (29d2–30b4, 30e1–31a1)—are really a distinct kind, and not the same refutations that

he already spoke of presented now in a new, more beautiful light, then

perhaps the conversation of the Minos belongs to those For in the Minos

Socrates does take someone whose faith in law as such appears to have been shaken and leads him through a series of arguments to those laws that he can have faith in We need to take a closer look at the dialogue, then, to see how Socrates accomplishes this feat and what, if anything, he might have learned from doing so In this way, we might be able to deter-mine whether Socrates’ conversations that are not chiefly refutations may nevertheless serve a philosophic purpose

The Minos or On Law is one of only two Platonic dialogues whose titles take the strange form of offering alternatives The other is the Hipparchus

or Lover of Gain Each takes place with a nameless “comrade” and so

nei-ther is named for Socrates’ interlocutor; both titles refer instead to men who died long ago Whereas “Hipparchus” refers to an Athenian tyrant,

or a son and brother of one, from perhaps 100  years earlier, “Minos” refers to a Cretan king and son of Zeus from the remote past, mentioned

even in the Odyssey as already dead, perhaps centuries before Homer wrote

it (11.568) As we learn later in our dialogue, Minos was the legendary

lawgiver of Crete And because the Laws, Plato’s longest dialogue, is set in

Crete, and appears to pick up on one or more of the questions of the

Minos, one of Plato’s shortest dialogues, the Minos has been looked upon

as its introduction—and this despite the fact that the cast of characters is not the same, with Socrates himself replaced by someone known only as the Athenian Stranger We might ask whether and how the question of the

THE STRANGE CONVERSATION OF PLATO’S MINOS

14

Minos—What is law?—is a philosophic question at all This would point to

the prior question of what philosophy is Perhaps the safest thing to say for

now is that the question of law is a question of political philosophy As to

what that is, we will tentatively accept Aristotle’s virtual definition:

politi-cal philosophy is “philosophy concerning the human things” (Nicomachean

Ethics 1181b15; cf 1152b1–2).2 This still leaves in the dark, of course,

what philosophy proper might be The Minos itself may suggest an answer

to that question

Because Plato had Socrates raise the question of law explicitly only in an obscure, brief, out-of-the-way, and therefore easily overlooked dialogue (one that German scholars two centuries ago declared to be spurious), we might think that Plato found it a relatively unimportant question Indeed, Xenophon doesn’t have Socrates explicitly raise the question of law at all Nor is it said to be one of the “human things” that, according to Xenophon,

Socrates was always examining in conversation (Memorabilia 1.1.16) The

one character that, in his Socratic writings, Xenophon does present itly raising the question is Socrates’ associate Alcibiades, who asks his guardian Pericles to teach him what law is, in what appears to be a private

explic-conversation (Mem 1.2.39–47).3 Although Xenophon presents their versation as part of his defense of Socrates against the corruption charge and assures us that it demonstrates Alcibiades’ political ambition and

con-therefore displeasure with Socrates’ teaching, the manner and substance of

Alcibiades’ refutation of Pericles does appear Socratic—so much so that one suspects Xenophon doth protest too much The fact that the question

of law is relegated to an out-of-the-way place by Plato and entrusted to Alcibiades by Xenophon might suggest not its relative unimportance, then, but rather its extreme sensitivity So it is perhaps not surprising that

in the Minos Plato presents Socrates as restoring the comrade’s faith in law

In this light, the Minos appears to be a work of political philosophy in the sense that it is a political presentation of philosophy—that is, a politic

presentation Socrates raises the question of law while defending the law he’s questioning So far from corrupting others, he leads them back to the straight and narrow path

2 All references to the Ethics are to the Oxford Classical Texts edition by I. Bywater;

transla-tions are my own.

3 This does not mean that Xenophon’s Socrates does not converse with others on law and

in this way reveal that he has indeed raised (and answered) the question of what law is; see

especially Memorabilia 4.4.

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But how did Socrates’ comrade come to stray from that path in the first place? We’re given only intimations Let’s look at the first of them When Socrates asks, like a bolt from the blue—“Law for us, what is it?”—the comrade requests clarification as to what sort of law he is asking about; the comrade does not say and is not asked what sorts of law he believes there

are Since the word for law (nomos) can also mean custom, he could have

in mind, in addition to the written laws of the city, the unwritten laws, whether natural or divine or merely traditional with origins unknown Socrates answers the question with a question: Does law differ from law

with respect to its being law? Readers of the Meno will be reminded of

Socrates’ response to Meno’s first definition of virtue: What is the one and

the same eidos—that is, class or class characteristic—that all virtues have,

on account of which they are virtues?4 And just to give a brief indication

of one way in which Plato teaches the reader, and a way in which a more thoughtful interlocutor might be taught by Socrates, I will mention that Socrates likens law to gold and to stone His analogies point in different directions To mention only one thing, gold is worth much while stones are worth little Were we to go further into the analogy than we have space

to go here, we would want, among other things, (1) to ask where gold and the value of gold come from and to compare that with law and the value

of law and (2) to note that law, like stone but unlike gold, can be used in the plural; and once we had read the entire dialogue, we would want (3)

to consider what if any bearing on this passage a much later one has, where Socrates mentions in passing that (at least some) stones might be regarded

as sacred (cf 319a5 with 313b1)

To return to the comrade, he says nothing about the analogies Socrates used but answers that law (all law) is the things that are made into, or acknowledged or recognized as, law We have to go into the weeds a bit to understand the significance of this answer The phrase the comrade uses is

ta nomizomena, a passive participle, made into a noun by the addition of

an article, of the verb nomizo ̄, a verb that comes from nomos Added to nomos is the suffix from which we get the English -ize, as in legalize or sati-

rize Nomizo ̄ has a range of meanings, a fact Socrates exploits throughout

this dialogue on law It can mean, for instance, to hold (an opinion), as in

“We hold these truths to be self-evident.” It can also mean to believe or

believe in and is used in the official indictment of Socrates, who is charged

4 Cf Meno 72c1–d1 Interestingly, Socrates does not ask for the eidos of law: does it have

one?

THE STRANGE CONVERSATION OF PLATO’S MINOS

16

in part with “not believing in the gods the city believes in.”5 In defining law

as ta nomizomena, then, the comrade appears to mean that laws are

grounded in nothing more substantial than the fact that (some) human

beings have made or hold them to be laws If this is all there is to law, then

it would seem that its commands and prohibitions lack any intrinsic authority to bind us.6 This is what I am calling the first intimation we get from the comrade of how he came to have doubts about law, or at least

that he does have doubts about it.

Whatever the comrade’s doubts may be, and whatever their causes,7Socrates himself is not yet ready to accept that law is nothing more than whatever human beings hold to be, or make into, law He may suspect that law is much more than this, at least for the comrade himself For he offers the comrade a series of analogies (each of whose implications again we cannot go into here) to suggest, paradoxically, that law is something like a capacity or faculty within us that perceives certain commands and prohibi-

tions to be laws (313b–c) On the model of ta nomizomena and nomos, Socrates asks the comrade whether speech (logos, which also means reason) seems to him the same as the things spoken (ta legomena), sight the things

seen, hearing the things heard, and, accordingly, law the things nized as law Without considering what might be the mutual dependence

recog-of, say, sight and things seen (and things seeable), and its implication for law and things recognized as law, let me just note that Socrates has here made an inroad: the comrade replies, “Just now they [i.e., law and the things recognized as law] came to appear to me as different” (313c4) Socrates asks again, “What then might law be?” And to pursue his ques-tion further, he places himself in the same boat as the comrade and has a hypothetical third person follow up with the two of them, using and elab-orating the analogies Socrates had just used Now, it is possible that Socrates employs this device of conjuring up a third person simply to place the comrade at ease by pretending that he is as perplexed as the comrade But perhaps Socrates really is perplexed, at least in the sense that to deter-mine whether law might be a special faculty of human beings by which

5 What it means to believe in a god and how one comes to do so might then be one strand

of Socrates’ inquiry here.

6 This is not to deny what the Athenian Stranger says of the necessity for laws—that without

them, human beings would differ not at all from the most savage beasts (Laws 9, 874e–875a).

7 When the comrade gives his first definition, he may already have in mind the fact, which

he will emphasize later, that Athenian laws change from one time to another, as well as the fact that laws change from one place to another.

R GOLDBERG

they are able to recognize some commands and prohibitions as binding and others not, he must subject himself to the same kind of scrutiny that

he subjects others to (see Apology 38a4–5) In any case, he has the new

questioner elaborate the analogies by speaking of sight and hearing as perceptions that disclose, through eyes and ears, the objects of seeing and hearing.8 And the questioner goes on to add a new analogy and then a new possibility: Is law some perception or disclosing, just as the things learned are learned by science disclosing? Or is law (not a perceiving or disclosing but) some finding, just as the things found are found—as things healthy and unhealthy are found by the art of healing, and what the gods are thinking, “as the diviners assert” (314b4), is found by the art of divining?

By asking whether law is some perception or disclosing, could the

ques-tioner have in mind something like what we mean by a sense of right and

wrong? The comrade doesn’t ask for explanation Nor does he comment one way or the other on the suggestion that divining, or prophecy, may be

an art (perhaps a question on Socrates’ own mind, however—how to test the claim the diviners make).9 Instead, he replies only to the last question

asked: for surely art for us is a finding of things (pragmata)—isn’t that so?

“By all means,” the comrade affirms

When Socrates asks, apparently in his own name now, which of these

“we” would most of all conceive law to be, the comrade gives an answer that implies that law is none of them—not some perception or disclosing, not like a science, nor an art That is, he does not conceive law to be a faculty that might disclose things that really are, the way sight or science does, or an art that might find the things that are healthy and unhealthy (or good and bad) for us Instead, he says, apparently referring to a city’s laws, “These resolutions and decrees—what else would someone assert law to be?”10 And he now gives his second and final definition of the

8 In the case of seeing, Socrates or the questioner speaks of its objects as things (pragmata) whereas in the case of hearing he speaks of them only as sounds He thus suggests that seeing

and not hearing discloses things that really are One wonders whether law might not be more

like hearing than seeing The only other use of pragmata in the dialogue comes in the

defini-tion of art, which we will come to presently In all other cases, “things” and “thing” merely translate the neuter article when added to an adjective or a participle to make it into a noun

By the way, at 315c6 the comrade will tell Socrates, “Surely you know because you yourself hear …”; the word he uses for know is the perfect tense of the verb to see According to the comrade, then, it is possible to have seen (or to know) by hearing.

9 The doubt that divining or prophecy is a genuine art is planted not by Socrates, of course, but by the unidentified questioner.

10 The word “these” in Greek (tauta) can be used, as it is here, to express impatience with

what it refers to as well as scorn The comrade thus scoffs at the city’s resolutions and decrees.

THE STRANGE CONVERSATION OF PLATO’S MINOS

18

dialogue: “So that what you’re asking about, this whole thing, law, risks

being the resolution of the city” (314c) The word “risks” (kinduneuei) is

telling There is something disturbing to the comrade in the thought that law may be nothing more than whatever commands and prohibitions a ruling group or individual decides on and backs by force Apparently, the comrade needs law to be something more One can imagine someone, like Thrasymachus or Alcibiades, feeling liberated at the thought that law is nothing more than the commands and prohibitions issued by a city’s ruler

or ruling class (cf Clouds 1421–1426) The comrade is troubled by it We

need to note that the word he uses for resolution, as in a resolution of

Congress or an assembly, is the word dogma, a word that also means

opin-ion and literally means the outcome of an act of opining; it can also mean

one’s conviction (see, for instance, Republic 3, 412c9–e8) and can have

the same connotation that dogma has in English Socrates restates the comrade’s definition: “You are saying, as it seems, that law is political opinion” (314c2) Although the comrade accepts this, it is not quite the

same as what he had said For one thing, political opinion (doxa politike ̄)

can have the connotation of “expert opinion about the city”; for another,

a man like Socrates can have political opinion, but it would hardly count

as law for an entire city, and perhaps not even for himself His restatement does have the advantage, however, of recasting the comrade’s definition in

terms of the same sort as the questioner had used, since opinion (doxa)

like science, according to Socrates, can designate a faculty of the soul (see

Republic 5, 477b4–478a1) Nonetheless, it appears that Socrates is not yet

ready to regard as answered, on the basis of the conversation so far, the

question of whether we have a distinct faculty capable of recognizing

cer-tain commands and prohibitions as binding

In fact, it is not until near the end of the next section that Socrates is prepared to say that law is coming to light to himself as some (or a

certain—tis) opinion (314e7–8).11 Something that transpires in this tion must have prepared him Perhaps it is this: Socrates asks the comrade

sec-a series of questions from which it emerges thsec-at sec-according to the comrsec-ade those who are law-abiding are just and those who are lawless unjust Moreover, we learn that he regards both justice and lawfulness as most

noble or beautiful (kalliston) Given his suspicion of law, however, we

11 The word Socrates uses for “is coming to light” (kataphainetai) has a prefix that

indi-cates motion downward Perhaps by using it he means to suggest that this is a demotion of law to the status of (a) mere opinion The same is true with the word he uses for “clear”

(katade ̄lon) in the next clause (314e8–9).

R GOLDBERG

should be surprised that he grants this But through the calculated order

in which Socrates poses his questions, he elicits opinions of the comrade that are at odds with his doubts about law In particular, Socrates secures his assent to two propositions: first, that the lawful are lawful through law; next, that the lawless are lawless through lawlessness; only then does Socrates ask whether the lawful are just, a proposition the comrade can now readily assent to In other words, however problematic the comrade finds the law of the city to be, lawlessness in his view is certainly an evil; and from that point of view, law and lawfulness are goods that he can associate with justice, which itself is something most noble, while both injustice and lawlessness are, of course, most shameful.12 In his next two questions, Socrates is able to bring out the opinions underlying the com-rade’s assent: first, the one (presumably justice and law) saves cities as well

as all other things and the other destroys and overturns them;13 second, therefore we must think about law as being something noble (or as some noble being) and seek it as good, a proposition to which the comrade’s assent is emphatic (314d8) This strange distinction between how they must think about law and how they must seek it perhaps means that their search for law as something good will be guided and therefore colored, if not entirely compromised, by the thought that it must be in addition

something noble, or even a noble being.

Having established this much—not about law, we note, but about the comrade’s opinions about law—Socrates returns to the comrade’s second and final definition Interestingly, he returns to it in its original form, not

to his restatement of it, asking, “So then, didn’t we assert that law is the resolution of a city?” Socrates now appears to sign on to that definition,

though he calls attention to it as an assertion The comrade affirms that

they did assert or say it.14 When Socrates asks him whether some resolutions

are worthy (or decent—chre ̄sta) and others worthless (or base—ponēra),15

12 Cf Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1129b12: “All lawful things are somehow just” (my

italics).

13 Euthyphro 14b2–7, with its similar wording, may offer a little help with what this might mean See also Crito 50b3 and context.

14 There are neutral words for saying and speaking that Socrates does not use here The

word he does use (phe ̄mi) can mean “say” but is also used to mean “assert”; when negated,

it means “deny.” It is not clear that the comrade hears it as “assert” rather than “say.” But Socrates (and Plato through Socrates) speaks with exquisite care.

15 The words Socrates uses for worthy or decent (chre ̄stos) and worthless or base (ponēros)

can have strong moral overtones but literally mean useful and burdensome Although I’ve

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20

the comrade answers emphatically that they are And so Socrates can now point out to the comrade the contradiction between two of his opinions and watch to see which opinion is the more important or fundamental to him As Socrates notes, law was not (in what was just agreed to) worthless, and therefore it is not correct to answer so simply that law is the resolution

of the city The comrade agrees since, as Socrates explains, it would not harmonize for a worthless resolution to be a law This view of law, while it has the advantage of being quite high-minded, may imply that many or even most resolutions of the Athenian assembly, for instance, which after all might be worthless or base, would not deserve to be called law But we have to add that Socrates does not himself embrace this view, which he merely elicits from the comrade Whether or not it is also Socrates’ view, it

is likely to be our own Law has a high name for most if not all of us, as the phrase “the majesty of the law” might remind us.16 When we read Platonic dialogues, we should keep in mind that we are likely to be closer in our (insufficiently examined) opinions to Socrates’ interlocutors than to Socrates Even Socrates, when he is on trial for his life, tells us that he (still, and perhaps even on this occasion) examines himself as well as others

(Apology 28e5–6 and 38a4–5; cf Charmides 167a1–5, retaining the

man-uscripts’ reading at a4)

Indeed, the next part of this set of exchanges could be taken to indicate that Socrates rejects the comrade’s view He prefaces it with the remark, already referred to, that law is coming to light to himself as some opinion Perhaps, then, what he has established about the comrade’s views—namely, that not only justice but, because of its connection with justice, also law is something most noble, or something noble and good (314d6–8;

cf Apology 21d), and thereby worthy (or decent) (314e1–3)—supplies

some of the evidence he needs in order to confirm that law is mere opinion and not a distinct faculty of soul But, as his use of the progressive verb “is coming to light” suggests, he has yet to fully confirm it with the comrade His next step is consistent with this suggestion He asks the comrade:

translated the words according to their less literal meanings, one should not lose sight of the more literal ones It is left to the reader to decide what each interlocutor has in mind It is

possible that Socrates substitutes chre ̄stos for the “noble” together with “good” he used

shortly before.

16 See Harvey C. Mansfield, “On the Majesty of the Law” in the Harvard Journal of Law

& Public Policy 36.1: 117–129, for a helpful account, well-informed by Plato’s Minos, of this

aspect of our view of law and its importance, as well as the neglect of it in contemporary theories of law.

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since law is not worthless (or base) opinion, then isn’t this clear, that it is

worthy (or decent) opinion—if indeed (he adds) law is opinion? To this

the comrade replies with a simple “Yes” (314e8–10) When Socrates asks the comrade what worthy opinion is (or what opinion is worthy) and, perhaps because the comrade does not have a ready answer, follows up by asking him whether worthy (or decent) opinion is true opinion, the com-rade reveals his faith in truth by replying again with a simple “Yes.” And

he perhaps reveals his faith in the objects of true opinion by giving his emphatic assent when Socrates asks whether true opinion is the finding-

out of that which is or, as the term tou ontos also means, of being Does

Socrates himself think that worthy or decent opinion is true opinion? Does

he think that the object of true opinion is that which is (or being)? Keeping

in mind that the word for worthy or decent more literally means useful,

readers of the Republic will recall that among the opinions useful to the

city—opinions that help to form and support its notions of decency—are

those that make up the noble lie (3, 414b8–415d4).17 There is also some doubt whether any things or aspects of our world, including perhaps the

world itself, are things that are, or beings in the strong sense—fixed and

everlasting—or rather things that are always in a process of coming to be

and passing away (cf Phaedo 96a8–10).

To return to the Minos, however, the opinions of the comrade that

Socrates has drawn out of him suggest that law is this: the finding-out of that which is or of being This is the definition of law that Socrates has thus dangled before him And yet Socrates refrains from stating it Instead

he says this: “Law, then, wishes to be the finding-out of that which is [or

being]” (315a2–3; my italics).18 In this way, Socrates makes the definition his own His formulation, we note, reads less like a definition than a characterization of law The comrade, however, apparently mishears what Socrates says, or believes Socrates did say what Socrates, by way of the comrade’s own opinions, had led him to expect him to say, and recasts it

as a definition He asks Socrates incredulously (as if he can’t believe his own ears), “Then how come, Socrates, if law is the finding-out of that

17 The noble lie is needed to support the dogma that the happiness of the city is the sary and sufficient condition of the happiness of the individual, a dogma in turn necessary for loving and therefore caring for one’s city (Republic 3, 412c12–e8).

neces-18 In the context, this implies of course that law wishes to be true opinion One might define philosophy itself as true opinion with regard to that which is In light of this, what Socrates says here may indicate the ground of the necessary conflict between philosophy and the city.

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which is, we do not always use the same laws in regard to the same things—

if the things which are [or the beings] have indeed been found out by us?”

(315a4–6) That is, he believes Socrates had just said that law is the finding-

out of that which is This becomes the third and final definition of law when Socrates strangely chooses to accept as his own and defend the com-rade’s mistaken formulation, even after repeating it in its original form (315a7–8) So intrigued is the comrade, and perhaps so much would he like what he expected Socrates to say to be true, however incredible he finds it, that he fails to register what Socrates actually said even when, in response to the comrade’s expression of disbelief, he repeats it And this suggests that Socrates has struck a nerve: the finding-out of being is exactly what the comrade longs for law to be and cannot for a moment believe it actually is It is perhaps because Socrates sees this that he decides, silently,

to defend the definition as the comrade believes he heard it rather than explain the definition as he actually said it Had the comrade registered Socrates’ qualification “wishes to be” and pressed him on why he refrained from stating it in the form he led the comrade to expect, the rest of the conversation may have taken a very different course But then the com-rade would have been a very different person Socrates appears to be inter-ested in the comrade just as he is

Although Socrates had said only that law wishes to be the finding-out of

that which is, we do not yet know whether he thought that some law somewhere was or is or might someday be that finding-out In addition,

we should note that “finding-out” differs both from the way he ized science (a disclosing) and even from the way he characterized art (a finding).19 Embedded in the formulation he chose to use, therefore, is the suggestion that what law wishes to be is something that, in his own view perhaps, is neither an art nor a science At any rate, to defend this third definition of law, Socrates takes advantage of an opening provided by the comrade, whose incredulous question allowed for the possibility, in its second if-clause, that the Athenians frequently change their laws precisely because they have not in fact found out the things which are (the beings):20

character-19 The word for finding-out (exeuresis) is compounded of the word for finding (heuresis) and the prefix ex- (out); it can also be translated as “discovery” and even “invention.” The Greek word for “science”—episte ̄mē—could also be translated as “knowledge”; epistēmē is

the subject matter of Plato’s Theaetetus.

20 Note that here the comrade also turns the singular Socrates used into a plural What he

might have in mind he doesn’t say and Socrates doesn’t ask In the Apology, when

interrogat-ing Meletus, Socrates clarifies one of his questions by explaininterrogat-ing that he’s askinterrogat-ing “what

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“So human beings, if they do not use always the same laws, as we opine, are not always able to find out that which law wishes—that which is [or, being]” (315a8–b2) And what Socrates does next elicits from the comrade further intimations as to what may have shaken his faith in law in the first place Socrates proposes that they consider, from the point of view just mentioned, whether it is really the case that human beings do not always use the same laws (315b2–5) The comrade is astonished that Socrates could even suggest such a thing It is plain to all that the Athenians change their laws from one time to another and that laws in Athens differ from those, for instance, in Persia The comrade has a point So how are we to make sense of Socrates’ peculiar suggestion? Perhaps he means this: most,

if not all, of what we normally call laws—say, the resolutions of cities—are laws in name only

The comrade, however, does not ask Socrates what he could possibly mean, nor does he seem to detect this implication In his longest speech of the dialogue, the comrade reminds or proves to knuckle-headed Socrates that of course laws change (315b6–d5) In doing so, he speaks only about laws in various times and places that either forbid or permit, or perhaps demand, the sacrificing to gods of human beings, including one’s own sons, and that regulate how and where the dead are to be buried At the same time, his words make clear that he believes that the way present-day Athens handles these matters—no human sacrifices and no burial of the dead in private homes—is superior to the abhorrent ways of ancient Athens and certain barbarous and even Greek places of his own day In making his

case against Socrates’ definition as he misheard it, he appears in fact to confirm to some extent that “definition” as Socrates stated it Law wishes

to be, at least in part, the finding-out of gods—the highest beings—and the demands they make on us with regard to our lives and deaths.21 Or, as

we could also put it, law wishes to be the finding-out of, among other things, what is sacred with regard to human life At one point, the comrade

even appears to identify what is holy or pious (hosion) with what is lawful

(315b8–c1).22 It is also possible that the comrade took Socrates himself to

human being it is who first knows this thing itself—the laws” (24e); Socrates speaks as though (genuine) laws are not man-made but exist independently.

21 Consider in this regard Laws 1, 632b7–c4, and 12, 958c7ff.

22 If so, does he mean that what is holy or pious is therefore also lawful, or that what is lawful is therefore also holy or pious? Near the end of his speech (315d4–5) the comrade uses

a phrase whose meaning is uncertain (kata t’auta nomizomen) The usual way of ing it would have it saying something like “neither do we always have [or use] the same

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be implying that genuine laws—those laws that are the finding- out of that

which is—would be laws made by gods, not by human beings (cf 315b1); perhaps only gods could know that which is (or the things that are) and

therefore lay down laws that never change (cf Parmenides 134c–e) If the

comrade did take Socrates this way, then his choice of examples of laws that change could be intended specifically to show Socrates that we have

no unequivocal evidence for the existence of divine law, if not the gods themselves, since laws declaring what the gods demand of us themselves differ from one time and place to another However that may be, the com-rade appears to be as skeptical of gods, or of our knowledge of gods, as he

is of law He may therefore feel completely at sea regarding how he ought

to live; he has nothing to look to for guidance Finding laws he can have faith in may thus be of vital importance to him

The way in which Socrates responds to the comrade’s long speech may shed further light on his purpose in having this strange conversation with him Conceding that the comrade might be right and that this may have escaped his notice, Socrates observes that as long as the comrade gives his opinions in a long speech, and he in turn, they may never “come to terms”;

if, however, the examination is conducted in common, Socrates adds, “we might soon agree” (315d–e) And he orders the comrade to conduct the examination in whichever of two ways he wishes: examine together in common with me either by inquiring of me or by answering me Now, the purpose of the examination appears to be to “come to terms” or to “reach

agreement.” The word for “agree” that Socrates uses means to say—that

is, not necessarily to think—the same thing.23 What Socrates may be ing at, then, is not to educate the comrade in such a way as to share his own, philosophic understanding of law, but rather to see whether the

aim-comrade will, in the course of the examination, come to say and believe

laws …”; the italicized portion translates the phrase in question, construing it as the direct

object of the verb But kata t’auta would normally mean “according to [or based on] the

same things.” The comrade might be saying, then, something more like “neither do we always base what we recognize as law on the same things ….” In that case, he could mean that we don’t base our laws on the same considerations or beings, or, given the context, on

the same gods or teachings about the gods Thomas Pangle also appears to take kata t’auta

as the direct object but has “neither do we … at all times lawfully accept the same things”

(The Roots of Political Philosophy Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 57); cf Leo Strauss (in Roots 70, bottom) Consider Laws 12, 948d1–3.

23 The word for “say the same thing” is homologeo ̄; the word for “think the same thing” or

“to be of one mind” would be homonoeo ̄.

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what Socrates suspects he will say and believe.24 This suggestion could put the question Socrates opened the dialogue with in a new light When

Socrates asks, “Law for us—what is it?”, he may have in mind the problem

of whether there is one world in common both for those who sense that there somehow exist in the world such things as binding commands and prohibitions and for those who have determinedly searched for the exis-tence of such things and so far, at least, come up empty-handed If there

is one world in common for both, Socrates should be able to explain, should have an account of, those who radically differ with him or the

grounds of the difference (cf Nicomachean Ethics 1154a22–25), and

should be able to confirm his account somehow through examining them

in speech

Now we cannot in this chapter go through the rest of the dialogue in the same detail we have gone into so far (and even now we have had to omit many things) There are several passages of particular importance for our purpose, however, that we need to take a look at and treat with some, albeit insufficient, care The first of these is the one that comes immedi-ately after the comrade’s opting to have the examination conducted in common by answering whatever Socrates wishes to ask Socrates takes the comrade through a serious of exchanges (315e–316b) purporting to show, contrary to what the comrade believed he had shown in his long speech, that all human beings use the same laws always Socrates begins with the seemingly nonsensical question of whether the comrade recog-nizes (or holds) the just things to be unjust and the unjust things just, or the just things just and the unjust things unjust And he goes on to ask about the heavier things and the lighter things, the noble things and the

shameful things, and, extending this to all cases, the things that are and the things that are not (or the beings and the non-beings) He asks also

whether all people at all times also recognize these things this way To all

of this the comrade assents Now, the word Socrates uses for “recognize”

or “hold” is again nomizo ̄, the word whose root is nomos or law In this

way Socrates suggests that the fundamental law (the law of laws), the law

that does not change from one time or place to another, but that all ples everywhere and always recognize, is that the just things are just and not unjust, the unjust things unjust and not just, and similarly with the

peo-24 In the Gorgias, a dialogue that treats Socratic dialectic and rhetoric (see, e.g., 474a4–6,

517a4–5, and 521d6–e1), Socrates tells Polus that he will try to make him say the same things that he himself says (473a2–3).

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noble things and the shameful things.25 Perhaps, then, it is the finding-out

of the just and the unjust as well as of the noble and the shameful that law above all wishes and even claims to be Socrates finishes this series of

exchanges with a remark suggesting that they have now proven that law is

the finding-out of that which is: “Whoever, then, fails to hit upon that which is, also fails to hit upon the lawful” (316b) We note that, however skeptical the comrade might be when it comes to law and gods, he exhibits

no doubt whatsoever when it comes to justice As we may put it, the rade is certain that what’s right is right (and in no way wrong) and what’s wrong is wrong (and in no way right), even if he is uncertain as to which

com-things are right and which com-things are wrong His sense of right and wrong

(and of the noble and the shameful) appears to be in no way impaired by whatever doubts he has about gods and law

Now, Socrates says nothing to indicate his own agreement with this view, which the comrade attributes to all peoples everywhere and always In

fact, elsewhere in Plato, Socrates indicates that he does not agree with it— for example, toward the end of Republic 7 (at 538d–e), where he speaks of

the ability of dialectic (i.e., the art of conversation) to show that what (any) lawgiver says is no more noble than shameful, no more just than unjust, and no more good than bad; indeed, that dangerous conclusion is the rea-son why the guardians must not come to the study of dialectic (which

Socrates, punning, calls the “song” or “law” itself—the same word, nomos,

means both—to which the rest of their education has been but a prelude) until the age of 30 (537d–e).26 But Socrates refrains from refuting the com-

rade, which, as the first book of the Republic should convince us, he could

easily have done Instead, Socrates, who might now have confirmed that law is mere opinion and even perhaps “a certain opinion” (314e7)—the opinion that the just is just and not unjust and that the unjust is unjust and

not just or that justice and injustice are beings—which, as such, can be

shown to be a false opinion, apparently wants to see where what we are calling the comrade’s sense of right and wrong might lead him

25 Note that Socrates has suggested in passing that even the view that the things which are, (simply) are, and the things which are not, (simply) are not, is the product of law or is some-

thing that is merely held (nomizo ̄; cf Sophist 240e10–241a1) The world as we believe we

know it is constituted by law or by what in us makes us receptive to law.

26 Even in the Minos passage we’re looking at, Socrates gave an indication of his

disagree-ment He did so by inserting—between the just and the unjust on the one hand and the noble and the shameful on the other—the heavier and the lighter Perhaps just as what is heavier from one point of view is lighter from another, what is just from one point of view is

unjust from another Cf Republic 5, 479b6–8 and context.

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In response to this “proof” that law is the finding-out of that which is,

the comrade concedes that as Socrates speaks in this way, these things do appear lawful both everywhere and always But he confesses he is not per-suaded when he bears in mind that we (Athenians) never cease changing laws this way and that (316b6–c2) In other words, the comrade fails to see even the surface meaning of what he has agreed to in the foregoing exchanges, one implication of which would be that most if not all of what

he calls Athenian laws are not genuine laws at all Nor does Socrates point

this out to him Instead, he replies along the lines of another implication

of their exchanges—that what never changes is the fundamental law (or

alleged sense or insight), the law that holds, for instance, that the just things are just and not unjust and the noble things noble and not base As Socrates tells the comrade when he confesses he is not persuaded, it is pos-sibly because he is not keeping in mind that the things being moved around like pieces on a draughts board (presumably “the just” and “the unjust” themselves) are the same (316c3–4) In other words, only the commands and prohibitions that receive the designation “just” or “unjust” are changing

At this point, Socrates tells the comrade to look at these things with him in another way and embarks on a second proof, so to speak, that

genuine laws do not change or that law is the finding-out of that which is

(316c4–317d2) Doing so requires him to present the arts as issuing in prescriptive writings by expert knowers which, as such, amount to written laws.27 And with respect to the first example or analogy Socrates offers, the comrade affirms that he does call the expert knowers in the art of healing (i.e., medicine) “healers.” Through the way in which he answers two fur-ther questions it emerges that the comrade is less certain that expert

knowers always hold (nomizo ̄) the same things with regard to the same

things than that Greeks among themselves, and barbarians both among themselves and in relation to Greeks, always hold the same things with regard to those things they know, though not through expert knowledge

or science, but especially through having seen.28 Indeed, Socrates praises

27 The word for “expert knowers” (episte ̄mones) comes from the word I’ve translated as

“science” and could be translated as “scientific knowers.” In this section, then, Socrates seems to combine what he had formerly distinguished—science and art.

28 The word for “know” (eidenai) that Socrates uses here and the word that the comrade uses for “knowers” (eidotes) in his reply (316d5) come not from the word for “science” but from the word for “to have seen” (the word needn’t mean “know” literally through having seen, with one’s eyes; it is related to eidos and to idea—the words for the Platonic “form” and

THE STRANGE CONVERSATION OF PLATO’S MINOS