Argument Analysis Paper
Week Two
Socratic Origins of Western Philosophy
This week, we will dive deep into the origins of the western philosophical tradition in ancient Greek philosophy. We will look at some of the ‘Pre-Socratic’ philosophers, who, according to Aristotle, were concerned primarily with an ontological understanding of the nature of the ultimate ‘stuff’ that makes up the entirety of the universe, and see exhibited the transition from ‘mythological thinking’ to philosophical thought.
We will then examine what is different about the all-important figure of Socrates for the study of ancient Greek philosophy (which is why everything that came before him is known as ‘Pre-Socratic’), his concerns with ethical life, his method of doing philosophy, Plato’s reports on his trial and execution in ancient Athens, and some of the key issues that his philosophical practice and ultimate death at the hands of the Athenian law courts raise for us today.
Weekly Objectives
- Outline the basic themes of Pre-Socratic Philosophy.
- Identify why Socrates is the paradigmatic figure of Western Philosophy.
- Practice the distinctive features of Socratic Method in Philosophy and other forms of inquiry.
- Explain Socratic/Platonic approaches to the relationship between Philosophy and Religious/Political Authority.
Activities
Readings
- Textbook: Ancient Greek Philosophy - Socrates and Plato - "Euthyphro," "Apology," "Crito," and "Phaedo"
Supplemental Resources
- “Presocratic Philosophy” opens in a new tab
- “Socrates—469-399 B.C.E.” opens in a new tab
Required Activities
- Discussion 2
- Quiz 2
Proctoring information is due this week to the appropriate Dropbox folder. See the Proctoring Module in the Content area for more information.
×If you have questions regarding any of these activities, make sure to post those questions in the Open Forum.
Previous Next“No man is wiser than Socrates” --The Oracle at Delphi, message from the Greek god Apollo, via the Delphic Pythia, to Chaerophon, friend of Socrates (Plato, Apology, 21a)
Sixth-Century BCE Beginnings
While Socrates (c.470-399BCE) was not the earliest representative of the Western philosophical tradition, he certainly has some claim to having been the pivotal figure in the development of that tradition. That this is so is illustrated by the fact that though the tradition dates back over a century before him, everything prior to him has become known as ‘Pre-Socratic’ philosophy—the philosophy before Socrates, as it were. This, of course, suggests that he contributed something special to the tradition, and what that was we shall soon see.
However, and here, as in so much else, we must use Aristotle as a guide, we need to first consider briefly those who came before Socrates, and what their contribution was to the development of Western philosophy. The earliest of these ‘Pre-Socratic’ philosophers, Aristotle tells us, lived and worked in Miletus, a Greek colony on the coast of what is now western Turkey. According to Aristotle (Metaphysics 983b5-19), these ‘Milesian’ nature-philosophers were interested in identifying what Aristotle referred to as the ‘material cause’ of all things—the ‘archē’, or first principle of things, and their origins.
How shall we understand this all-important Greek term? Perhaps, we can best do so by thinking of all the English words that are derived from it—‘archeology’, ‘archetype’, ‘archery’, ‘architecture’, etc. The connotation here is of something original, ancient, structurally basic, at the center of things. In fact, Aristotle treats this as a search for that substance that lies at the basis of all reality.
As we saw from last week’s lecture, this is a fundamental ontological question: What sorts of things are there that constitute the basic ‘stuff(s)’ of what there is (think of this via analogy to modern physics, with its quest for determining how many ‘forces’ are fundamental forces or how many different sub-atomic particles are necessary for a complete particle physics)? One way of looking at this question is to ask about the quantity of the basic stuff—is there one basic stuff, two basic stuffs, or many basic stuffs? (Of course, if there are no basic stuffs, ontology is sort of ‘out of business’!) Each of the Milesian philosophers—Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes—seems to have believed that there was only one basic ‘stuff’; one archē, upon which everything that exists is based. This idea, that all reality is reducible to one fundamental principle or ‘stuff’ is known as the doctrine of monism. Last week’s lecture actually ended with reference to Spinoza, a famous monist who believed that the one substance that exists is God (or Nature) Himself, and that everything is a manifestation of this one supreme infinite substance (a monistic doctrine also known as ‘pantheism’). On the other hand, one may think that there are two basic substances required to account for everything that is, and that would make one an advocate of dualism in ontology (Descartes, who we will be reading later in the semester, is famously such a figure, dividing the world as he does into matter, ‘extended stuff’, and mind, ‘thinking stuff’, although it might just be more accurate to regard him as a ‘pluralist’, since if you add God, Infinite substance, to the mix, you get three fundamental principles instead of two).
Here’s what Aristotle has to say about the beginnings of this Milesian monist tradition:
“Thales, the founder of this school of philosophy, says the principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got this notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 983b20-27)
Another of the Milesian nature-philosophers, Anaximenes, made air his fundamental principle; we can all try to imagine the various reasons why he might have picked air instead of water as the fundamental substance.
However, perhaps the most intriguing of the Milesian philosophers was Anaximander, who wasn’t satisfied to pick one ‘element’ among the many that exist in the material world, thinking that to show such favoritism does a disservice to the others. Instead, he termed his fundamental principle ‘apeiron’—the boundless, indefinite, or infinite ‘stuff’, not identical to any of the ‘stuffs’ with which we are familiar, but from which they all ultimately derive, and, as such, it really can’t be characterized much further, except that it is the infinite source from which all things come (still, however, conceived of as a material, not a spiritual, principle). Compare this, for example, to modern big bang cosmology, with its ‘beginning’ state of all the matter in the universe (and space-time itself) compressed into an infinite density known as ‘the singularity’! Maybe Anaximander’s apeiron wasn’t far off the mark!
Previous NextOther Important Pre-Socratic Philosophers
Perhaps the most radical monism ever formulated was that of Parmenides (c. 515 -450 BCE), who thought that reality was ultimately not only one type of ‘stuff’, but numerically only one existing entity—Τò `’Εν (The One). He seems to have argued that, since nothing is not (since to be is to be something), all there is, is Being—‘εστιν (‘It is’). This ‘it is’, which, ultimately, is all there is, must be eternal (since if it weren’t, even for a split second, there would be nothing, which is a contradiction, since nothing is not). It must also be without change, since to change is to become something other than ‘it is’, but there is nothing else for it to become! It must be ‘one’, since if it were two, the two would be different from one-another (even if only located in different spaces), but then there would be something that the other was not (and not-being, as we have already seen, is impossible). It also can’t have parts, since to have parts is to differentiate one part from another part, resulting in one part not being like the other part in some way (but ‘not being’ is impossible). Thus, whatever ‘It is’ is, it is one, eternal, changeless, undifferentiated, and really nothing more can be said about it.
The implications of this picture of the way the world ultimately must be would mean that our ordinary perceptions—of change, multiplicity, motion, etc., are all in some sense illusory, since none of these is compatible with the concept of ‘It is’ that Parmenides proposes. If such a proposal seems entirely without merit, it may surprise that Parmenides’ student, Zeno of Elea, tried to come up with logical arguments in support of the idea that these ordinary features of perception must be illusory because they really do not make any sense when one thinks clearly about them (these are often known as ‘Zeno’s Paradoxes’).
For example, take the concept of motion: Suppose I use a bow and arrow to shoot an arrow into the air; it appears to move from point A to point B on a specific trajectory. However, this must be an illusion since, at any given moment, the arrow must occupy a space equal to itself. If this is true, when does it find the time to shift locations? Between the moments? To Zeno, such ‘motion’ makes no sense; either the arrow moves where it is or its moves where it isn’t. If it moves where it is, then it isn’t where it is (which is contradictory); if it moves where it isn’t, then it is where it isn’t (which is equally contradictory). Those being the only two alternatives, motion must be an illusion. If you’re having trouble conceiving of this, think of the point in digital terms; there is a series of moments; nothing moves between the moments, it’s just that there is something different from one moment to the next—what exists at one moment doesn’t exist at the next moment, but its place is taken by something quite similar but also quite different, since it’s a new moment. Since there is nothing between the moments (because nothing is not), whatever there is at one moment ceases to exist at the next moment, replaced by something else!
Of course, this argument against motion can’t be the whole picture, since even if it were implying correctly that motion were impossible, it would rely on the multiplicity of moments—but, for Parmenides and Zeno, multiplicity is not. And, therefore, if all the moments are really just one big timeless moment, nothing can move or change, since these things take time!
Of course, just like the opposition between Thales (water) and Anaximenes (Air), if Parmenides and Zeno insist that change is an illusion, there must be a Pre-Socratic who believes that change isn’t only real, but basic: Heraclitus (c 575-435 BCE) is such a figure, best known for “One cannot step into the same river twice.” Or, as Plato would have it, “Heraclitus somewhere says that all things are in process and nothing stays still, and likening existing things to the stream of a river he says that you would not step twice into the same river.” (Crat., 402A). The river, after all, is constantly flowing (i.e., changing), and in some even miniscule way, you yourself aren’t the same person when you take the second step (since you’ve already taken the first). Heraclitus also compares change to an everlasting fire, which is constantly changing (i.e., flickering); if one tried to ‘freeze’ it in place, it would simply die out.
Previous NextPre-Socratic Philosophers Continued
You are probably aware of another Pre-Socratic philosopher by name because of the Pythagorean Theorem (which was actually known in ancient Egypt and Babylon prior to Pythagoras). Pythagoras (c 570-495 BCE), was an almost mystical and mythical figure (he apparently never wrote anything, like Socrates himself), and he seemed to think that numbers were the archē:
“…the Pythagoreans, as they are called, devoted themselves to mathematics; they were the first to advance this study, and having been brought up in it they thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of these principles numbers are by nature the first, and in numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into being….since, again, they saw that the attributes and the rations of the musical scales were expressible in numbers; since, then, all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modeled after numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number.”—Aristotle, Metaph, 985b23-986a2.
Pythagoras and his followers seemed well impressed by their discovery that the notes on a musical scale could be expressed as numerical ratios, and considered numbers to be the foundation for all that is (compare, if you will, Galileo’s suggestion that the ‘book’ of nature is written in the language of mathematics, or Johannes Kepler’s search for the ‘music of the heavenly spheres’ (Kepler was the discoverer of the elliptical shape of the orbits of the planets around the sun). This sort of number ‘mysticism’ would have been well-known to Pico della Mirandola as well, through his exposure to the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah.
There are more Pre-Socratic philosophers than we have time to consider, but we can’t end without making reference to ancient Greek atomism. It often comes as a shock to find that this most modern sounding of doctrines has its roots in the ancient Greek world. The original Greek atomists, Leucippus (d. 370 BCE) and Democritus (470-360 BCE), postulated that everything in the world was made of tiny particles that were indivisible (hence the ancient Greek ‘ατομα—atoms, ‘that which cannot be divided’). However, the atoms were conceived to be in constant motion, so it was necessary to postulate the empty space in which they could move, κενον—the ‘void’. “Democritus sometimes does away with what appears to the senses, and says that none of these appears according to truth but only according to opinion: the truth in real things is that there are atoms and void. ‘By convention sweet’, he says, ‘by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color: but in reality atoms and void.” (Democritus, fr. 9).
One way to look at ancient atomism is to suggest that it breaks the Parmenidean ‘One’ into the atomic ‘Many’, and then posits the ‘void’ (i.e., empty space) as a place in which the atoms can move (this would have provoked an interesting discussion among the two camps; after all, is the void something or nothing? If nothing, and nothing is not, then the atoms have no place to move nor spaces between them, and we are in some sense back to the One. If the void is something, then not everything is made of atoms, so atomism wouldn’t qualify as a ‘monism’, since there are two kinds of ‘things’—atoms and the void—and not one. What sort of thing is this ‘void’ that seems as if it is something and nothing at the same time?). We are, of course, even in modern physics, still debating the ultimate nature of space (or in contemporary terms, space-time).
Ancient atomism was further advanced by Epicurus (341-270 BCE), who made his atoms ‘swerve’ instead of having them travel in straight lines, the better to combine in order to form the ordinary objects of experience with which we are familiar. The Roman philosopher Lucretius (99-55 BCE) gives us the most complete ancient atomistic view in his surviving text, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). By now, however, we are way beyond the Pre-Socratic period in ancient philosophy.
To Sum Up
What Pre-Socratic philosophy gave us was a clear attempt to understand the nature of the world in an ultimate, fundamental way (i.e., in an ontological way), without resorting to traditional ancient Greek religion (what we would call ‘mythology’), a look at various candidates of vastly different types for a fundamental substance--what we today would call ‘molecular’—water—‘mixture’—air, fire—‘abstract objects’—e.g., numbers—even more ‘abstract concepts’—the indefinite, the One—‘processes’—e.g., change—and the all important notion of the atom (the existence of which was still being debated all the way through the beginning of the twentieth-century). Of course, today we know that that which cannot be divided is that which sometimes can be divided, with rather dramatic results!
Previous NextHow Socrates Became Socrates: Plato’s Apology
One thing that should be obvious already is that if Socrates is important enough a figure so that everything in philosophy that came before him is now known as ‘Pre-Socratic’ philosophy, he must have represented something very different in ancient Greek philosophy. And this he did, since instead of being concerned with ontological questions about the nature of the universe, he was more concerned about the human world, and especially questions relating to ethics and the quality of the human spirit. The sorts of questions he is most famous for asking, “What is the best way for people to live in the best society they can have,” and “Isn’t the most important thing the care of one’s own soul,” are profoundly important questions, obviously still quite relevant today. Think about the summation of Pre-Socratic philosophy above; we’ve certainly achieved great technological and scientific advancements from the days of the atoms that couldn’t be divided to the modern atomic age; regrettably, we perhaps haven’t made as much moral progress during the same time period, and I can just hear Socrates, if he were alive today, reminding us that this is the sort of thing he was talking about—if we don’t take care of our own souls first and answer the deeply important moral and human questions, progress though we do, we also put ourselves in imminent danger of extinction. The condition has become acute, the patient critical!
Despite Socrates’ importance to our philosophical traditions, he remains an enigmatic figure at best, since he never seems to have written anything! His practice of philosophy was entirely within an oral tradition. We know about him only through the writings of others, primarily Plato, one of his ‘hearers’ (not ‘students’, really, since Socrates claimed not to have been able to teach anyone anything, but instead to just be a ‘midwife’—someone who can only assist with a birth, in this case, the birth of knowledge, especially self-knowledge, that can only come from within). While there are a few other sources besides Plato, for the purposes of this course, the Socrates we are talking about and reading about is Plato’s Socrates (Plato wrote mostly in dialogue form, in which the main character is usually, though not always, Socrates), and while there are many scholarly attempts to try to figure out what in Plato represents the historical Socrates’ views, and what represents Plato’s views expressed through the mouthpiece of Socrates, we won’t attempt to make this distinction at all. Besides, the Socrates we read about in Plato is pretty much the Socrates of historical influence, since this is basically all we have to go on, more or less.
This is why the readings this week, even though they are about Socrates, are all written by Plato. The Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, are a quartet of dialogues written by Plato that take as their subject matter the trial and death of Socrates (Euthyphro, Crito, and Phaedo, are each Socrates’ main interlocutors in their respectively named dialogues, while ‘Apology’ doesn’t mean, as it usually does in English, to apologize for something, but has its other meaning, ‘to give an account of oneself and one’s behavior in a law court’, and the Apology is Plato’s account of Socrates’ defense of himself at his trial.
Previous NextApology Continued
Since everyone likes a good mystery, let’s present Socrates’ deadly fate at the hands of the Athenian judicial system as the founding mystery of the western philosophical tradition: Why was he executed (who said philosophy couldn’t be dramatic)? More specifically, and most relevant to us today, how is it that a figure in ancient Athens, known for asking important questions about the human soul and the best way to live, a critical thinker who wished merely to gain wisdom about the things he considered so important, could be found to be so bothersome, so annoying, and so dangerous to ancient Athens, that he should be judicially executed for his philosophical activities? What’s worse, Athens wasn’t some city-state ruled by a despot or a military junta (we know that these kinds of polities can’t tolerate dissent and questioning in any form); it was a democracy! Though citizenship rights were heavily restricted—only males over the age of maturity who were themselves sons of Athenian citizens could vote and actively participate in political life, women being excluded, as were, of course, slaves, but also the resident foreign born—nevertheless, within the community of citizens each citizen was treated equally in the political sense—one man, one vote, all able to participate in the debate and formulation of public policy relevant to the issues of the day. Athens was a ‘direct democracy’ and not a ‘representative’ one—the citizens didn’t elect ‘representatives’ to do their political business for them, they did it directly, themselves, by giving speeches in the Assembly and trying to sway each other to adopt each other’s views and vote accordingly. In this sense, participatory democracy was at its zenith in ancient Athens. That’s the mystery: How could so important a founding figure of ancient philosophy, with its presumed commitment to an honest and open search for wisdom, be an enemy of a regime with a democratic form of government that we would say is so valued in part for its commitment to such free and open inquiry? What explains this paradoxical affair?
When you read the Apology, pay careful attention to Socrates’ cross-examination of one of his accusers, Meletus (the court system was democratic as well—no attorneys, no public prosecutors; if you were accused of a crime by a fellow citizen, you yourself had to go to court and defend yourself, call witnesses, give evidence and testimony, etc., and the jury was supposed to find either for you or for your accuser). It’s an interesting interrogation: Socrates is accused of corrupting the youth of Athens through his philosophical activity, resembling that of the Sophists, a class of teachers who taught primarily the sons of wealthy citizens essentially the political art of public speaking—rhetoric—so that when these sons themselves became of age to be citizens, they, too, could be influential in the debates in the Assembly. Many of the Sophists became quite wealthy from this activity; in this regard, the primary difference between Socrates and the Sophists was not only that he didn’t charge for the conversations he had, claiming to have no wisdom to impart, but instead to engage in serious conversation in order to perhaps produce wisdom in the process, but Socrates cared deeply about the truth, while the Sophists didn’t care a bit what one did with the rhetorical skills they taught, believing mostly that truth was ‘relative’. This interrogation of Meletus begins with the seemingly innocent question about who Meletus thinks improves and educates the the youth of Athens, since he has accused Socrates of corrupting them, and winds up putting Meletus in the absurd position of claiming that everyone in Athens improves and educates the youth except Socrates, who alone is their corrupter! Socrates then goes on to show that when it comes to the training and care of horses, it takes expert knowledge and experience to care for them well; if that is lacking, one is just as liable to harm the horses as care for them. Surely, the youth of Athens are as complicated as horses! That Meletus thinks that everyone in Athens educates and improves the youth, all except Socrates, suggests that he doesn’t think that the education of the young takes much in the way of knowledge, experience, and expertise; for horses, yes, but for the young people of Athens, why, anyone can do it (except Socrates, of course)!
It’s a nice point that Socrates makes on his behalf, showing that Meletus is a hypocrite and cares not for the education of the young himself, and takes a very cavalier attitude to the whole issue. However, it would not have been lost on the people of Athens the real point that Socrates was making: If it takes expertise, knowledge, and experience to care for horses, and educate the youth; if, indeed, it takes such to do well any organized human activity worth doing, how is it that democracy is a good form of government? After all, ‘democracy’ means ‘the people rule’—all of them (all of the citizens), and therefore it apparently takes no specialized knowledge, skill, or expertise, to run the affairs of the city. To put it bluntly, Socrates is implicitly asking, “How can democracy be a good form of government if democracy means ‘rule by the people’ and the people are ignorant and don’t know what they are doing?”
The ignorance was exhibited by the disastrous position that democratic Athens found itself in at the time of Socrates’ trial: Having just lost a long war with Sparta, and decimated by plague; having just recently been restored after overthrowing a coup by those who came to be known as the ‘thirty tyrants’ (a group Plato represents Socrates as disobeying, even at the risk of his life), to ask such a question couldn’t have been reassuring to a population desperate for reassurance. Of course, that is perhaps what they needed; to be awakened from their long political nightmare, into the morning of a new political day. Again, what was missing was political/moral wisdom, to go back to what was suggested in last week’s lecture, “With all thy getting, get understanding.” Quite obviously, the people of Athens not only resented it being pointed out what a terrible job they had been doing of governing themselves, but were obviously fearful of what it meant, that maybe they really couldn’t do it after all? So they killed the messenger!
It’s tough (and sometimes even downright dangerous) to be confronted with one’s own ignorance; people will often prefer to think they know what they don’t know instead of admitting what they don’t know, so that they can possibly learn what they need to learn. That’s the secret of the Socratic wisdom mentioned in the quote at the beginning of this lecture—Socratic wisdom consists in the knowledge of one’s own ignorance. The reason Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, according to the Oracle at Delphi (the Oracle’s motto was “Know Thyself!”), was because he alone knew and admitted that he didn’t know, while everyone else seemed to think they knew when they didn’t, and that made them doubly ignorant, not only not knowing, but not knowing that they knew not! How does one overcome such difficulty? Socrates had a method!
Previous NextSocratic Method
Socrates practiced philosophy through the use of a conversational method variously known as ‘Socratic dialectic’, ‘Socratic method’, or Socratic elenchus’. To illustrate how it works, imagine that you are participating in a group conversation about some contemporary matter of moral controversy, for example, the contentious issue of abortion. You may have participated in such a discussion in the past, and know how it usually works: Someone has the courage to speak up first and state a view: “I am opposed to abortion!” Some others in the discussion group may show their agreement by nodding their heads, while others show by their body language that they are in disagreement with what has been said. The next person speaks up, “I disagree; I think a woman has a right to decide what happens to her body!” Everyone involved begins to take sides in the ‘debate’. Opinions are expressed for and against, the decibel level goes up, and at some point, the ‘discussion’ is over (usually because of time limitations) and everyone leaves feeling either victorious because they think that their side of the debate was the winning side, or frustrated because no one’s mind was changed by the discussion, which generated more heat than light. Furthermore, there is a sense that there is no point in having such discussions because no progress is ever made!
The reason for this feeling that no progress is ever made in these sorts of ‘discussions’ is because they are not really discussions at all: What has just happened is a contest (Socrates would have called it eristic, from ‘Eris’, a Greek god associated with chaos), and in a contest the goal isn’t to ‘make progress’, but to win. This is a ‘zero sum game’ in which for every winner there must be a loser; since no one wants to be a loser, no one will ever concede a point to the other side!
Socratic method is different from this kind of contest: The goal of a Socratic discussion is to get closer to the truth, and it is assumed that this is a goal that should be shred by everyone, so that it is presumed that everyone is on the same side! There is no contest; instead, there is a concerted effort to seek the truth—and if the discussion gets closer to the truth, everybody wins (and if it fails to, everyone loses).
One may well ask, “But how does one get closer to the truth?” Well, the truth is never easy, but the method that brings us closer to it isn’t that difficult to understand. The way it works is simple: When someone states a view concerning some matter of controversy, and you think you disagree, don’t immediately voice your disagreement; instead ask the person who has stated a position on the matter why they believe what they’ve asserted. Asking this question immediately does two things: First, it shows respect for the other person with whom you are engaging in discussion (you think you disagree; by asking the question ‘why’, you are implying that there might be a reason for taking the position different from yours that you perhaps hadn’t thought of, and its expression just might get you to change your view). Second, it places responsibility on the person who has spoken up to show the reasoning behind the position they have taken; the position taken must be justified by supporting it with evidence. If this cannot be done, perhaps the position is untenable, or, at least, there is no good reason to hold it; if it can be done, perhaps you will discover that you need to reconsider your opposition.
Example of a Socratic-style Conversation
Let’s get back to our ‘abortion’ example above. This is, perhaps, the way a more Socratic-style conversation might proceed:
Mary: “I’m opposed to abortion!”
Jane: “That’s interesting. Why?”
Mary: Because I think that abortion is murder and all murder is wrong. If abortion is murder and all murder is wrong, then abortion is wrong, too.”
[Mary has now given what we call in philosophy an ‘argument’ supporting her position: She has told us why she holds it. Jane should be able now to see this, as well as see something else that is very important to the conversation: presumably Jane believes as well that murder is wrong. Not only that, but she can understand Mary’s logic and realize that both she and Mary use the same underlying logic in their thinking (even though they disagree). They thus have more in common than Jane might have realized at the outset, given her disagreement with Mary. However, Jane probably doesn’t agree with the claim that ‘abortion is murder’. So the conversation continues]:
Jane: “Well, I agree that murder is wrong, and I see the logic of your argument, but why do you think that abortion is murder?”
Mary: “Abortion is murder because ‘murder’ is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being; the fetus is deliberately killed in [elective] abortion, and the fetus is an innocent human being. So, if the fetus is an innocent human being, and abortion deliberately kills it, and ‘murder’ is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being, then abortion is murder and murder is wrong, so abortion is wrong, too.”
[Notice that Jane can follow Mary’s logic here quite easily; again, she realizes that both she and Mary have the same logic in common. Not only that, but she is probably in agreement as well with the statements that ‘murder is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being’ and that ‘abortion kills a fetus’. However, if her opposition to Mary’s view is substantial, she probably disagrees with the claim that ‘a fetus is an innocent human being’. So, the dialogue continues]:
Jane: “Well, I agree with what you said about murder and about what abortion does, but how do you know that a fetus is an innocent human being, as opposed to being on its way to becoming an innocent human being?”
Here, we have a question that asks about a central lacuna in the argument; could it be that Mary has presupposed something that she would need to demonstrate in order to make her argument work properly? How does one demonstrate that a fetus is better described as ‘already being a human being’, instead of ‘a being on its way to becoming a human being’? At this point, the conversation could become quite complicated, indeed.
However, notice the difference between this and the so-called discussion (contest) we described earlier. Here, even if we haven’t yet resolved the issue, we’ve made progress because we have increased our understanding not only of what we have in common, but also which question would have to be resolved before we could make any further progress. Jane and Mary now know that they both agree on what abortion does, on the definition of murder, that murder is wrong, etc. More importantly, they have seen that they both use and understand the same logic, and can follow each other’s inferences. It is this common rationality that puts them both on the same side: The side of the pursuit of truth, which is what philosophy (and Socrates’ method) is all about! It’s hard to have disdain or contempt for someone with whom you have so much in common. So, at this point, Mary might reply:
Mary: “Hmm. This is a more difficult issue to resolve. Let me think about this for a while, and I’ll get back to you.”
The same kind of conversation, of course, could have started with a statement in favor of the morality of abortion, and would clarify logic, evidence, and remaining issues to be resolved.
Notice as well that even though progress has been made, the issue has not been resolved. This leaves a ‘gap’ in the argument and the dialogue is said to be ‘aporetic’ (from the Greek word for ‘gap’). Some of the dialogues that Plato wrote that contain Socratic conversation (for example, the Euthyphro, as we shall see this week) are aporetic: The main issue isn’t resolved, but we learn a whole lot along the way.
Previous NextEuthyphro, Crito, Phaedo
The other three dialogues in the quartet shed light on events both before and after Socrates’ trial. The Euthyphro is concerned to analyze the nature of piety, the sort of goodness that is so deep its connotations are religious or spiritual. As suggested above, this dialogue is aporetic, it never resolves the definition of ‘piety’, but contributes greatly to our understanding of it. In doing so, it raises the issue of the independent status of ethics from religion; not that the two are unrelated, but the nature of the justification for ethical truth must be logical and independent of authority, whether legal or religious. The dramatic high point in the dialogue comes when Socrates asks a question that exposes a fundamental lacuna in Euthyphro’s position: See if you can spot what that is and what it means. Being able to discern the argument is a skill worth developing, not only in philosophy, but in everyday life as well; they are fundamental to good reasoning.
The Crito takes place in Socrates’ jail cell, after he has been convicted, while he is awaiting the day of his execution. It presents a surprising scenario—Crito has made plans with some of Socrates’ other friends to bribe the jailers and allow Socrates to escape his fate and leave Athens. Socrates, who still considers himself an innocent man, wrongly convicted, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity, tells Crito that he will only leave his cell if Crito can convince him that it is the morally right thing to do! It takes some getting used to, this notion that it could be morally right for an innocent man to accept the fate of execution and not escape his fate when given the opportunity to do so, especially when no one will be harmed in the process (at least physically). Of course, since you already know that Socrates is executed, you know the outcome of the conversation: Socrates refuses to take the offer and leave. This dialogue also provides a rare look at Socrates being interrogated (as opposed to being the interrogator) in the argument, albeit by playing a dual role—speaking not only his own part in the drama, but also the part played by the laws of Athens as they interrogate Socrates concerning the morality of the action contemplated.
Finally, the Phaedo takes place on the day of Socrates’ execution, and is an extended conversation on the nature of death and the afterlife. While Socrates never commits himself explicitly to any particular view, it seems quite clear that he believes that death is not the end. This is exhibited by his final act, in which he requests a sacrifice to the Greek god Asclepius—the god of healing—appearing to give thanks to what is about to happen. Perhaps this goes a long way to helping us understand the courage and sacrifice of this most profound early philosophical figure, who, at seventy years of age, was willing to follow principle even if it led to martyrdom. That he accomplished something is evident by the fact that we are still studying his story almost two and a half millennia after it took place.
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