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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

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Socrates: An Examined Life

CHAPTER 3

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Socrates devised no grand systems of metaphysics, episte- mology, or logic as Plato and Aristotle did, but his influ- ence on these two intellectual giants was profound.

Unlike many great philosophers, he a!ects people as much by his character as by his ideas. "rough the power of his words and the extraordinary force of his personal- ity, he has helped make philosophy relevant to the daily lives of ordinary people. At a time when most philosophy was directed at cosmological speculations (à la "ales, Par- menides, and others), Socrates turned to critically vexa- mining people’s basic concepts, core beliefs, and moral thinking. After him, philosophy was never the same.

3.1 THE PHILOSOPHICAL GADFLY

Socrates (c. 469–399 BCE) was born and raised in Athens and spent all his days there except for a term of military service in which he soldiered in the Peloponnesian War. In battle he was said to be courageous, levelheaded, and steadfast. In civilian life he was passionate yet self- controlled; down to earth yet propelled by high ideals and concern for the spiritual self; plain-spoken yet intel- lectually sophisticated. Except for his preoccupation with philosophy, his life was outwardly commonplace—the son of a stonemason or sculptor, a married man, and the father

of three sons. By all accounts he was ugly, having a pig nose, bulging eyes, outsized lips, a prominent potbelly, and a peculiar gait. His looks were not helped by his slovenly appearance (barefoot and unkempt), which fit well with his indi!erence to material concerns and conventional expectations.

Once at a banquet, Socrates showed that he could be a good sport about his looks—and make a serious point to boot. One of Socrates’ friends—a handsome young man named Critobulus—challenged Socrates to a beauty contest in which each of them would try to persuade the judges (the audience of partygoers) that he was the more beautiful. Socrates argued in his characteristic style.

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“I would trade all of my technology for an after- noon with Socrates.”

—Steve Jobs

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"e ballots for choosing the most handsome were cast and counted, and every vote went to Critobulus. In mock dismay, Socrates declared that Critobulus must have bribed the judges.

Despite his unpleasant features, in face-to-face encounters Socrates had a power- ful impact on those he conversed with. He exuded an inexplicable charisma that was especially attractive to the young. He unsettled his listeners, prompting them to crit- ically inspect their beliefs and to question their pursuit of fame, money, power, and pleasure. "is is how Alcibiades, a bright associate of Socrates,’ describes the e!ect:

“Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?”

—Socrates

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To Socrates, this kind of self-examination is essential to living a good life. Noth- ing, he says, is more important than the care of one’s soul (the inner person), and the only way to nurture it is through philosophical reflection.

3.2 THE SOCRATIC METHOD

In one form or another, the Socratic method has been part of Western education for centuries. It is one of the ways that philosophy is done, a powerful procedure for applying critical thinking to many statements that may seem out of reason’s reach.

As Socrates uses it, the method typically goes like this: (1) Someone poses a question about the meaning of a concept (for example, What is justice?); (2) Socrates’ companion

Socratic method Question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are me- thodically scrutinized to uncover the truth.

“[Socrates] is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same.”

—Alcibiades

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gives an answer; (3) Socrates raises questions about the answer, proving that the answer is inadequate; (4) to avoid the problems inherent in this answer, the companion o!ers a second answer; (5) steps (3) and (4) are repeated a number of times, ultimately revealing that the companion does not know what he thought he knew. "is negative result may seem uninformative, but it is actually a kind of progress. False answers are eliminated, opinions are improved, and perhaps the truth is a little closer than before.

Let’s watch Socrates in action. Here is his conversation with "rasymachus, a teacher eager to demonstrate that Socrates is not as wise as people say he is.

Early Women Philosophers: Themistoclea, Arignote, and Theano As we’ve seen (Chapter 2), Pythagoras inspired a long line of followers—Pythagoreans— dating from the sixth century BCE well into the new millennium. What isn’t so well known is that many of these followers were women, distinguished philosophers in their own right. Here is part of Mary Ellen Waithe’s discussion of three of them:

"e ancient sources indicate that women were active in early Pythagorean so- cieties and may have played a central role in the development of early Pythago- rean philosophy. Diogenes Laertius reports that:

Aristonexus asserts that Pythagoras derived the greater part of his ethical doctrines from !emistoclea, the priestess of Delphi.

Early Pythagoreans viewed the cosmos or universe as orderly and harmonious. Everything bears a particular mathematical relationship to everything else. Harmony and order exist when things are in their proper relationship to each other. "is relationship can be expressed as a mathematical proportion. One of the “sacred discourses” is attributed to Pythagoras’ daughter, Arignote. Accord- ing to Arignote:

"e eternal essence of number is the most providential cause of the whole heaven, earth and region in between. Likewise it is the root of the con- tinued existence of the gods and daimones, as well as that of divine men.

Arignote’s comment is consistent with one attributed to her mother, !eano of Cro- tona, in that all that exists, all that is real can be distinguished from other things through enumeration. "e eternal essence of number is also directly related to the harmonious coexistence of di!erent things. "is harmony can be expressed as a mathematical relationship. In these two ways, number is the cause of all things.

Mary Ellen Waithe, “Early Pythagoreans,” in A History of Women Philosophers (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho!, 1987), 11–12.

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"e question is “What is justice?” and "rasymachus insists that justice is whatever is in the interests of the strongest—that is, might makes right.

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“In appearance Socrates was universally admitted to be extraordinarily ugly, but it was the kind of ug- liness which fascinates.”

—W. K. C. Guthrie

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As you can see, Socrates uses his question-and-answer approach to show that "rasymachus’ definition of justice is wrong. In particular, he applies a common form of argument called reductio ad absurdum. "e basic idea behind it is if you assume a set of statements, and you can derive absurd or false statements from it, then you know that at least one of the original statements must be rejected. So in the preceding dialogue, Socrates says in e!ect, let’s assume that "rasymachus is right that justice is whatever is in the interest of the powerful, and that people are just if they obey the laws made by the powerful. It is clear, however, that the powerful sometimes make mistakes and demand obedience to laws that are not in their best interest. So if "rasymachus’ definition of justice is correct, then it is right for people to do what is in the interest of the powerful, and it is also right to do what is not in the interest of the powerful. His idea of justice then leads to a logical contradiction and is therefore false.

3.3 KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE

Why does Socrates persist in asking questions that often annoy or embarrass his inter- locutors? Why doesn’t he just give lectures or impart his wisdom in some other way? What does he hope to accomplish through his peculiar way of doing philosophy?

First, whatever Socrates hoped to achieve with his approach, he was certainly not trying to be a Sophist (see Chapter 2). Socrates and the Sophists were indeed alike—alike enough to lead many in his day to brand him a Sophist. ("e playwright

reductio ad absurdum An argument form in which a set of statements is assumed, and absurd or false statements are derived from the set, showing that at least one of the original statements must be rejected.

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Aristophanes did just that in his play Clouds.) But unlike the Sophists, Socrates thought of his method as a way to pursue the truth, not as a means to win rhetorical victories. Unlike them, he was no relativist insisting that truth depends on who you are or where you’re from. "e Sophists were teachers who charged a fee for their tute- lage. Socrates charged nothing and denied that he taught anything, asserting instead that he merely guided people to discover wisdom within themselves.

Socrates’ strange method and mission spring from his ideas about the soul and how to live a good life. He insists again and again that nothing in this life is more important than the care of the soul, the true self. Your soul is harmed or helped by your own actions: doing wrong damages your soul, and doing right benefits it. Nothing else and no one else can a!ect the welfare of your soul as much. "us Socrates asserts that “nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death” and that doing injustice is far worse than su!ering injustice inflicted by others. "is view explains why he thought it better to stick to his moral principles and face execution than to give up his principles and live.

Socrates couples this moral perspective with an extraordinary thesis: virtue is knowl- edge. For him, knowledge refers to both knowing what virtue is and knowing how to apply that understanding to life. "is knowledge is self-knowledge and is comparable to the know-how possessed by expert craftsmen. "ey understand everything about their craft, including how to practice it. Likewise those who know virtue in this sense will grasp it and conduct their lives by it. "ey will attain a good life and benefit their soul. Socrates believes that people who have this kind of wisdom will automatically behave accordingly. To know the virtues is to have them. He thinks people naturally tend to pursue the good if they know what the good is. If they don’t pursue it, it’s because of ig- norance: they don’t know anything about virtuous living. So virtue comes from knowl- edge, lack of virtue is due to ignorance, and the welfare of the soul hangs in the balance.

Now Socrates’ famous dictum takes on richer meaning: “"e unexamined life is not worth living.” It’s not worth living because it harms the soul and makes life unsatisfying. An unexamined life is likely to be a wretched life, an existence bereft of the good that moral knowledge brings.

Socrates considered it his duty to help people attain the necessary moral under- standing. "at is the purpose behind his dialectic, and the reason he pestered the Athenians so relentlessly. And he was not afraid to rebuke them for their upside- down priorities:

“Let him that would move the world first move himself.”

—Socrates

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“[T]here’s one proposition that I’d defend to the death, if I could, by argu- ment and by action: that as long as we think we should search for what we don’t know we’ll be better people—less fainthearted and less lazy—than if we were to think that we had no chance of discovering what we don’t know and that there’s no point in even searching for it.”

—Socrates

“Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”

—Socrates

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Socrates in the Clouds In Socrates’ day, conservatives and liberals struggled to defend their social positions and worldviews, just as they do in our own time. In fifth-century Athens the contest was traditional ideas and values against the new learning of the naturalistic (nontheistic) philoso- phers and the relativistic and rhetorically tricky Soph- ists. Aristophanes, a well-known comedic playwright, championed the conservative view and wrote the play Clouds to attack what he considered the causes of social decay. For satirical purposes, he chose a likely character to embody the distressing trends: the well- known Socrates.

Socrates is portrayed as a top Sophist and the buf- foonish head of a school called the "inkery, which teaches nonsense along with sophistic logic and rheto- ric. "e lead character is a farmer who is tormented by his creditors and wants to learn how to outsmart them by rhetorically transforming right into wrong and the weaker argument into the stronger. At the school he discovers that the students learn such wisdom as which end of a mosquito does the buzzing and how far a flea can jump. He finds Socrates suspended in air in a basket, declaring that “only by being suspended aloft, by dangling my mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy . . . "e earth, you see, pulls down the delicate essence of thought into its own gross level.”

"roughout the play, Socrates and the "inkery are shown to be ridiculous and de- praved. "e farmer is finally disillusioned by it all when his son announces that it can be shown with the new logic that a son’s beating his father or mother is morally right.

Clouds presents us with distorted pictures of both Socrates and the Sophists. "e Soph- ists were never so inane, and Socrates was not only not a Sophist, he was a critic of theirs, an opponent of relativism, and a believer in the power of reason to search out the truth. But the play gives us a sense of the kinds of issues that divided traditionalists from the new thinkers and raises important questions about truth, rhetoric, education, and critical thinking. On the other hand, some scholars argue that Clouds—with its grotesque portrait of Socrates as a loony Sophist—may have contributed to the suspicions among Athenians that led to Socrates’ trial and execution.

DETAILS

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So to Socrates, a clear sign that a person has an unhealthy soul is her exclusive pursuit of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure instead of the soul’s well-being. "e good of the soul is achieved only through an uncompromising search for what’s true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life.

It seems that if anyone possessed such wisdom or had insight into moral mat- ters, surely Socrates did. But he often claimed to be ignorant and to be as lacking in wisdom as those he questioned. Some of his professions of ignorance are meant to be ironic: he plays the role of eager pupil to get his interlocutors to act the teacher and thereby lay bare their ill-formed arguments. At other times, he seems to be making an honest but qualified admission: he does not have a complete and final theory of ethics or virtue as the gods are thought to have. He must, as everyone else must, continually apply his probing interrogations to expose error and get ever closer to the truth. He and anyone who follows this path must settle for less than perfect knowl- edge. But for mortals, that is enough.

3.4 SOCRATES’ TRIAL AND DEATH

Eventually Socrates was indicted and charged with disrespecting the gods approved by the state, acknowledging new gods, and corrupting the youth of the city. He was tried before five hundred jurors, a majority of whom voted to convict him. His sen- tence was death or exile, and he chose death by poison rather than leave his beloved Athens. In his dialogue Apology, Plato (who was present at the proceedings) recounts the events of the trial, including Socrates’ address to the jurors. Socrates is portrayed as a man of brilliant intellect and unshakeable integrity who would not compromise his principles, even to escape death.

"e trial occurred in a volatile atmosphere that worked against Socrates. "e people of Athens had only recently restored democracy to the state after a year of tyrannical rule, and two of Socrates’ acquaintances had sided with the latter. Another had committed treason. In addition, many Athenians worried that intel- lectuals were spreading new ideas that could subvert traditional beliefs concerning nature, morality, and religion—and these radical thinkers included Socrates and the Sophists. Of course Socrates had also stirred resentment against him by subjecting many Athenians to his uncomfortable cross-examinations.

Socrates denies the charges and rebuts the accusations that he is “guilty of wrong- doing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others.” He declares that not only has he not harmed anyone, he has actually done Athenians a service by arguing with them and turning their attention to the well- being of their souls.

He contends that his reputation as a pernicious intellectual is based on a mis- understanding. A follower of his had once asked the oracle of Delphi if there was any man in Athens wiser than Socrates, and the oracle said that there was not. But Socrates knew that he was not wise, so he went about Athens interrogating people who were thought to have great wisdom. In all cases he found that they thought

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“"e only good is knowl- edge and the only evil is ignorance.”

—Socrates

“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For any- thing that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”

—Socrates

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themselves wise but were actually far from it. "e oracle, he concluded, must have meant that he was wisest because he did not assume he knew things that he in fact did not know.

Here is Socrates’ speech to the jury:

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Socrates’ Last Minutes

DETAILS

In the last moments of Socrates’ life, while he waited in prison for his sentence (death by poison) to be carried out, he discussed with friends the nature of the soul and immortality, speaking in the same calm and clear voice that he always used. Earlier they had tried to persuade him to escape, to safely live out his days far away from Athens. "ey were ready to engineer his getaway; even the guards would probably look the other way. But he refused their o!er, explaining that he could not break the laws of the state even though it had treated him unjustly. In the end he was serene, even content, while his tearful friends in the room with him were overcome with grief. Phaedo, a follower of Socrates, recounts to his friend, Echecrates, the final conversation:

Socrates said: You, my good friend [the jailer], who are experienced in these mat- ters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed. "e man answered: You have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates, who in the easi- est and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of color or feature,

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looking at the man with all his eyes, Echecrates, as his manner was, took the cup and said: What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or not? "e man answered: We only prepare, Socrates, just so much as we deem enough . . . "en holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank o! the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment. Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness: What is this strange outcry? he said. I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not o!end in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience. When we heard that, we were ashamed, and re- frained our tears; and he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard and asked him if he could feel; and he said, no; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and sti!. And he felt them himself, and said: When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered himself up, and said (they were his last words)—he said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? "e debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? "ere was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth.

Such was the death, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, and justest, and best of all men I have ever known.

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Plato, Phaedo, !e Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst’s International Library, 1914), 268–271.

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13.�8IBU�JT�UIF� �NJTVOEFSTUBOEJOH�UIBU� 4PDSBUFT�TBZT�IBT�MFE�UP� IJT�UBSOJTIFE�SFQVUBUJPO

14.�8IBU�EPFT� �"SJTUPQIBOFT�IBWF�UP�EP� XJUI�4PDSBUFT��SFQVUBUJPO

“[W]hile I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”

—Socrates

1MBUP�� Apology

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15.�8IBU�EPFT�4PDSBUFT� TBZ�JT�UIF�SFBTPO�GPS�IJT� iFWJM�OBNFw

16.�8IZ�EPFT�4PDSBUFT� UIJOL�IF�LOPXT�NPSF�UIBO� UIF�QFPQMF�XIP�DMBJN�UP� IBWF�XJTEPN

“"is man here [Socrates] is so bizarre, his ways so unusual, that, search as you might, you’ll never find anyone else, alive or dead, who’s even remotely like him.”

—Alcibiades

68 CHAPTER 3 4PDSBUFT��"O�&YBNJOFE�-JGF

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17.�8IBU�JT�4PDSBUFT�� FYQMBOBUJPO�GPS�UIF� PSBDMF�T̓QSPOPVODFNFOU� BCPVU�IJN

THEN AND NOW

Your Examined/Unexamined Life If there is anything from Socrates that is applicable to the twenty-first century, it is his ad- monition to live an examined life. Do you live such a life? "e following statements express some fundamental beliefs—beliefs that countless people hold but may never have thought much about. Read each statement and select the ones that you sincerely believe. "en recall if you have ever seriously questioned these beliefs. (Passing thoughts and idle revelry do not count.) Be honest. "is little experiment could be very revealing—and helpful as you think about your life and values.

1. God exists and watches over me. 2. God sometimes answers prayers. 3. "ere is a heaven. 4. I have both a body and an immortal soul. 5. My emotions are not under my control; they just happen. 6. It is wrong to criticize other cultures. 7. It is wrong to judge other people’s actions. 8. "e moral principles that I was raised to believe are the right ones. 9. Political conservatives are wrong about most issues. 10. Political liberals are wrong about most issues. 11. I make free choices; all my decisions are up to me. 12. I can come to know some things by faith alone. 13. My emotions are my best guide to what is morally right or wrong. 14. People are basically bad. 15. People are basically good.

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“People think the world needs a republic, and they think it needs a new social order, and a new religion, but it never occurs to anyone that what the world really needs, confused as it is by much learning, is a new Socrates.”

—Søren Kierkegaard

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“Philosophy asks the simple question, what is it all about?”

—Alfred North Whitehead

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“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”

—Socrates

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22.�8IZ�EPFT�4PDSBUFT� TBZ�UIBU�IF�JT�BSHVJOH�GPS� UIF�"UIFOJBOT��TBLF

72 CHAPTER 3 4PDSBUFT��"O�&YBNJOFE�-JGF

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1MBUP�� Apology

“And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.”

—Plato

3FWJFX�/PUFT� 73

vau28703_ch03_053-075.indd 73 05/09/17 05:59 PM

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“It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an injurious or insulting word—on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray.”

—Epictetus

WRITING AND REASONING CHAPTER 3

1. Could the execution of someone for saying unpopular things happen in the United States? Why or why not? Are there countries in the world where such things happen regularly? Is the execution of someone for his or her o!ensive speech ever justified? Explain.

2. What do you think Socrates would think about modern consumer societies?

3. Socrates is often regarded as the noblest of the great philosophers. Is this opinion justified? Why or why not?

4. Write a Socratic dialogue between yourself and a friend. Imagine that your friend declares “Everyone lies. No one ever tells the truth,” and you want to show that those statements are false.

5. Write a Socratic dialogue between two fictional characters. Imagine that the opening statement is “Courtesy to others is always a cynical at- tempt to serve your own interests. Respect for people has nothing to do with courtesy.”

R&7*&8�/OTES

3.1 THE PHILOSOPHICAL GADFLY t� 4PDSBUFT�JT�POF�PG�QIJMPTPQIZ�T�HSFBUFTU�NJOET�BOE�UIF�NPTU�SFWFSFE�mHVSF�JO�JUT�

history. He changed the course of philosophical inquiry, and his influence on phi- losophy’s two most admired thinkers—Plato and Aristotle—was profound.

t� 4PDSBUFT�XBT�QBTTJPOBUF�ZFU�TFMG�DPOUSPMMFE �EPXO�UP�FBSUI�ZFU�QSPQFMMFE�CZ�IJHI� ideals and concern for the spiritual self, and plain-spoken yet intellectually brilliant.

t� 1FPQMF�IBWF�CFFO�JNQSFTTFE�BT�NVDI�CZ�4PDSBUFT��DIBSBDUFS�BT�CZ�IJT�XPSET� t� )F�JOTJTUFE�UIBU�OPUIJOH�JT�NPSF�JNQPSUBOU�UIBO�UIF�DBSF�PG�POF�T�TPVM�BOE�UIBU�UIF�

only way to nurture it is through philosophical reflection.

74 CHAPTER 3 4PDSBUFT��"O�&YBNJOFE�-JGF

vau28703_ch03_053-075.indd 74 05/09/17 05:59 PM

3.2 THE SOCRATIC METHOD t� 4PDSBUFT�JOUSPEVDFE�UIF�4PDSBUJD�NFUIPE �PS�EJBMFDUJD�POF�PG�UIF�XBZT�QIJMPTP-

phy is done, a powerful procedure for applying critical thinking to many state- ments that may seem out of reason’s reach.

t� ɨSPVHI�IJT�CSBOE�PG�RVFTUJPO�BOE�BOTXFS�EJBMPHVF �4PDSBUFT�PGUFO�EFNPOTUSBUFE� that people who thought themselves wise were not wise at all. For example, he showed that "rasymachus’ concept of justice was unfounded.

t� ɨF�4PDSBUJD�NFUIPE�PGUFO�UBLFT�UIF�GPSN�PG�reductio ad absurdum.

3.3 KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE t� 4PDSBUFT��NFUIPE�BOE�NJTTJPO�TQSJOH�GSPN�IJT�JEFBT�BCPVU�UIF�TPVM�BOE�IPX�UP�MJWF�

a good life. He asserts that nothing in this life is more important than the care of the soul, the true self. Your soul is harmed or helped by your own actions: doing wrong damages your soul, and doing right benefits it.

t� 'PS�4PDSBUFT �WJSUVF�JT�LOPXMFEHF��)F�CFMJFWFT�UIBU�UP�LOPX�UIF�WJSUVFT�JT�UP�IBWF� them, for people naturally tend to pursue the good if they know what the good is. If they don’t pursue it, it’s because of ignorance: they don’t know anything about virtuous living.

t� 5P�4PDSBUFT �B�DMFBS�TJHO�UIBU�B�QFSTPO�IBT�BO�VOIFBMUIZ�TPVM�JT�IFS�FYDMVTJWF�QVSTVJU� of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure instead of the soul’s well-being. "e good of the soul is achieved only through an uncompromising search for what’s true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life.

3.4 SOCRATES’ TRIAL AND DEATH t� 4PDSBUFT�XBT�BSSFTUFE�BOE�DIBSHFE�XJUI�EJTSFTQFDUJOH�UIF�HPET�BQQSPWFE�CZ�UIF�TUBUF �

acknowledging new gods, and corrupting the youth of the city. He was tried before five hundred jurors, a majority of whom voted to convict him. His sentence was death or exile, and he chose death by poison rather than leave his beloved Athens.

t� 4PDSBUFT� EFOJFE� UIF� DIBSHFT� BHBJOTU� IJN� BOE� DPOUFOEFE� UIBU� IF� EJE� OPU� UFBDI� metaphysics and did not try to make bad arguments look good. He declared that he had done Athenians a service by arguing with them and turning their attention to the well-being of their souls.

reductio ad absurdum

Socratic method ,&:�5&3.4

/PUFT 1. Xenophon, Symposium, “Banquet,” IV. 64, v. 4, trans. O. J. Todd (London:

William Heinemann, 1922), Internet Archive, http: the_bundle.archive.org. 2. Plato, Symposium, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst’s International Library,

1914), Classics, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html.

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH� 75

vau28703_ch03_053-075.indd 75 05/09/17 05:59 PM

3. Plato, !e Republic, !e Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst’s International Library, 1914), 18–20.

4. Plato, Apology, !e Dialogues of Plato, vol. 3, trans. B. Jowett (New York: Hearst’s International Library, 1914), 118.

5. Plato, Apology, !e Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett (Oxford: Hearst’s Interna- tional Library Co., 1896).

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH Jonathan Barnes, trans., Early Greek Philosophy (London: Penguin Books, 1987).

David Gallop, trans., Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Anthony Gottlieb, !e Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000).

W. K. C. Guthrie, Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

Ted Honderich, ed., !e Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1995).

Christopher Janaway, “Ancient Greek Philosophy I: "e Pre-Socratics and Plato,” Philosophy 21: A Guide through the Subject (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Mary Ellen Waithe, ed., A History of Women Philosophers, vol. 1 (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho!, 1987).

Robin Waterfield, trans., Plato: Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

vau28703_ch04_076-103.indd 76 05/09/17 05:59 PM

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

4.1 PLATO’S LIFE AND TIMES t�"QQSFDJBUF�1MBUP�T�JOøVFODF�PO�8FTUFSO�UIPVHIU�BOE�XIZ�IF�IBT�CFFO�TP� IJHIMZ�SFHBSEFE�

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t�%FöOF�rationalism�BOE�empiricism �BOE�LOPX�XIJDI�EPDUSJOF�1MBUP�BDDFQUFE� BOE�XIZ�

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���� *..035"-*5: �.03"-*5: �"/%�5)&�406- t�6OEFSTUBOE�UIF�FBSMZ�(SFFL�DPODFQU�PG�UIF�TPVM�BOE�IPX�JU�DIBOHFE�PWFS�UJNF� t�&YQMBJO�1MBUP�T�UXP�BSHVNFOUT�GPS�JNNPSUBMJUZ�UIF�BSHVNFOUT�GSPN�SFDPMMFD- UJPO�BOE�BóOJUZ�

Plato: !e Really Real

CHAPTER 4

vau28703_ch04_076-103.indd 77 05/09/17 05:59 PM

1MBUP��5IF�3FBMMZ�3FBM� 77

Plato’s influence on Western thought has been immense. He was the first to labor systematically in the full range of philosophical subjects—from epistemology and metaphysics to ethics, aesthetics, politics, and mathematics. And he was the first to bring these studies together under one banner—philosophy—and to maintain that this intellectual enterprise is the only way to attain true wisdom. Along the way he covered terrain that few others, if any, had ever trod, probing the nature of happi- ness, love, education, beauty, mind, language, the soul, immortality, and the good. He is rightly called the “father of Western philosophy” because most of its branches of inquiry can trace their beginnings to him, and they cannot be deemed complete without taking him into account. Even if he had written nothing, his contribution to the West would still be immense, since he both transmitted to us the wisdom of his beloved teacher Socrates and bequeathed the results of his own genius to his best student, Aristotle.

On the fact of Plato’s influence and genius, eminent philosophers from our own era concur:

!e safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.!ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD1

Plato and Aristotle were the most influential of all philosophers, an- cient, medieval, or modern; and of the two, it was Plato who had the greater e"ect upon subsequent ages. I say this for two reasons: first, that Aristotle himself is an outcome of Plato; second, that Christian theol- ogy and philosophy, at any rate until the thirteenth century, was much more Platonic than Aristotelian.!BERTR AND RUSSELL2

It is pointless to ask who is the world’s greatest philosopher: for one thing, there are many di"erent ways of doing philosophy. But we can say what the various qualities of great philosophers are: intellectual power

t�&YQMBJO�1MBUP�T�DPODFQU�PG�UIF�USJQBSUJUF�TPVM�BOE�XIZ�IF�UIJOLT�UIF�TPVM�NVTU� IBWF�NPSF�UIBO�POF�BTQFDU�

t�&YQMBJO�XIZ�1MBUP�UIJOLT�JU�T�NPSF�CFOFöDJBM�UP�CF�KVTU�UIBO�VOKVTU� t�3FDPVOU�UIF�TUPSZ�PG�UIF�SJOH�PG�(ZHFT �BOE�FYQMBJO�XIBU�(MBVDPO�UIPVHIU� JU�QSPWFE�

���� 5)&�*/%*7*%6"-�"/%�5)&�45"5& t�%FöOF�democracy �meritocracy �BOE�aristocracy. t�&YQMBJO�UIF�NBLFVQ�PG�1MBUP�T�JEFBM�TPDJFUZ�BOE�XIBU�IF�WJFXT�BT�UIF�DFOUSBM� UFOFU�PG�QFSTPOBM�BOE�DPNNVOJUZ�NPSBMJUZ�

78 CHAPTER 4 1MBUP��5IF�3FBMMZ�3FBM

vau28703_ch04_076-103.indd 78 05/09/17 05:59 PM

and depth; a grasp of the sciences; a sense of the political, and of human destructiveness as well as creativity; a broad range and a fertile imagina- tion; an unwillingness to settle for the superficially reassuring; and, in an unusually lucky case, the gifts of a great writer. If we ask which phi- losopher has, more than any other, combined all these qualities—to that question there is certainly an answer, Plato.!BERNARD WILLIAMS3

4.1 PLATO’S LIFE AND TIMES

Plato (c. 427–347 BCE) was born in Athens into an influential aristocratic family and grew up during the perilous years of the Peloponnesian War, a struggle between Athens and the Peloponnesian states. His family expected him to have a career in politics, but Socrates involved him in the larger and nobler pursuit of wisdom through philosophy. He became Socrates’ greatest student, and Socrates turned out to be the best and wisest man he had ever known. His world was upended, however, when in 399 Athens’s democratic government found Socrates guilty of impiety and the corruption of Athenian youth. !e sentence was exile or death by poison, and in accordance with his principles, Socrates chose death and was executed. Plato was twenty-eight.

Disgusted by the unjust treatment of his teacher and friend, Plato left Athens. He traveled widely, visiting the Greek cities Megara and Syracuse, southern Italy, Sicily, and possibly Egypt. He met with notable mathematicians and philosophers, including the followers of Pythagoras and Heraclitus; but he also encountered many who seemed, to his dismay, to prize pleasure and luxury above virtue.

In 387 he returned to Athens and founded the Academy, a college and research center often regarded as the first university. Ostensibly its aim was to train future rulers, for Plato insisted that the best and wisest rulers are those schooled in philosophy as well as politics. It focused on a wide range of studies, from botany to dialectic to political theory, and it gained renown for its investigations in mathematics and astronomy. (!e Academy endured for hundreds of years until it was abolished by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.) !e Academy’s most distin- guished student was Aristotle, who entered the school at age seventeen and remained for twenty years.

Plato’s thinking is embodied in his dialogues, twenty-five of which exist complete. !ey were written during a span of fifty years and have been divided into three periods: early, middle, and late. !e early dialogues include Euthyphro, Crito, Meno, Protagoras, and Gorgias. !ese works por- tray Socrates as a brilliant and principled deflator of his contemporaries’ bogus claims to knowledge. !e middle dialogues include Phaedo, Sympo- sium, Republic, and !eaetetus. !ese encompass Plato’s best-known ideas in epistemology and metaphysics. !e late dialogues include Parmenides, Sophist, Critias, and Laws. !ey document Plato’s evolving views on the Republic and on other themes from the earlier periods.

“If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.”

—Galileo

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Scholars tend to regard the early dialogues and Apology (which is not in dialogue form) as mostly reflecting the ideas of the historical Socrates. !ey hold that the dialogues from the middle and late periods generally convey Plato’s own thinking, even though he often has his words coming from Socrates. But whether the pre- sumed speaker is Socrates or Plato, observant readers get the sense they are entering into the mind of an extraordinary philosopher and a great writer. !ere are reasons why Plato is deemed such a towering figure in the world of ideas, and they are to be found in his dialogues.

4.2 KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY

Plato and Socrates believed that we can know things, that there are truths to be dis- cerned about reality. !ey thought there is a way the world is and that we can come to know what that way is: we can attain knowledge. But the Sophists rejected this view. For them, knowledge of objective reality is not attainable, because truth is rela- tive. (Recall that relativism is the view that the truth about something depends on

“Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse con- dition than those who have none, or very slight ones.”

—Plato

“You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from set- ting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.”

—Plato

Diotima of Mantinea Diotima of Mantinea is said to have been one of the very few women philosophers of note in the ancient world. She is mentioned in Plato’s Symposium where Socrates claims to have talked with her years earlier and found that she had some insightful things to say about the nature of beauty and love. Scholars have generally doubted that she ever existed, maintain- ing that she was a fictitious person invented by Plato—his one and only fabricated character in his dialogues. But some have argued that although her existence cannot be proven beyond all doubt, the weight of evidence actually favors her historical authenticity.

!e philosophical views attributed to her di"er substantially from Plato’s. In addition to her positions on love and beauty, she’s credited with thoughtful discussions of personal iden- tity, the transmigration of souls, the good, the doctrine of ideas, the role of reason, and im- mortality. Diotima’s theory of the latter is especially interesting. Mary Ellen Waithe points out that, unlike Plato, Diotima rejected the notion of an immortal soul that transmigrates:

Rather, her concept of immortality is that one becomes immortal through the process of generating one’s own qualities in the beloved. One becomes immortal because one’s qualities survive in the person of the beloved, and not because one’s soul continues to live.

Mary Ellen Waithe, “Diotima of Mantinea,” A History of Women Philosophers, ed. Mary Ellen Waithe (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho", 1987), 109.

PORTR AIT

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what persons or cultures believe.) !ere is no objective reality to be discovered; there are only beliefs (or opinions, as Plato says) that people endorse. Plato thought there was urgent need to show that the Sophists were wrong. He knew that if the Sophists were right, philosophy would be an empty exercise, knowledge would be impossible, and wisdom would be merely a philosopher’s dream.

If Plato could prove his case, it would also constitute a formidable reply to skep- tics. Skepticism is the view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way. Skeptics may deny that we have knowledge of anything or maintain that we lack knowledge of only some things, such as an external world, physical objects, or other minds. In any case, they hold that many or all of our beliefs are unfounded. A standard skeptical argument says we lack knowledge because we have no way of distinguishing between beliefs that we take to be instances of knowledge from be- liefs that are clearly not instances of knowledge. From either a skeptical or relativist standpoint, then, we have only beliefs; knowledge is a lost cause.

Believing and Knowing But what if a belief we have for no particular reason just happens to be true—isn’t that knowledge, or at least as good as knowledge? Accidental truth of a belief was good enough for the Sophists but not for Plato. He and most other philosophers past and present say knowledge has three necessary and su#cient conditions: to know a proposition (1) you must believe it, (2) it must be true, and (3) you must have good reasons for—be justified in—believing it true. On this traditional account, merely believing something is not enough; what you believe must be true. A belief does not count as knowledge unless it is true. But a mere true belief is not knowledge either, because you can have a true belief and yet not genuinely know. Let’s say you believe for no reason that three ducks are now swimming on Walden Pond, and suppose your belief is true—there really are three ducks swimming on Walden Pond. Does your true belief count as knowledge? According to Plato, no—because you have no reason to think that three ducks are now swimming on Walden Pond. You have only a true belief by accident, a lucky guess, and that’s not knowledge. As Plato says:

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So for Plato, knowledge is justified true belief. (Philosophers disagree about the exact nature of the required justification or reasons, but most accept that knowledge is true belief that is in some sense backed by good reasons.) !e Sophist may claim to sometimes have true beliefs (accidentally), but to Plato they are a long way from being knowledge.

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skepticism !e view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way.

“Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”

—Plato

,OPXMFEHF�BOE�3FBMJUZ� 81

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Plato takes for granted that we can identify false beliefs and that we can grasp mathematical, conceptual, and logical truths. !erefore, he says, we must be able to acquire knowledge. We know that 2 ! 5 " 7; that a triangle has three sides; and that if A is larger than B, and B is larger than C, then A is larger than C. Moreover, these truths are objective: they are true regardless of what we think. We do not invent them out of our imaginations; we discover them. No matter how hard we try, we cannot make 2 ! 5 " 9.

Plato reasons that if such truths are objective, they must also be about real things. But what sort of real things? Certainly not the objects of our sense experience, he says. !ese are forever changing from moment to moment, and whatever property an object has (red, tall, good, or bad) can be viewed from a perspective in which it seems the opposite of what it was. From one perspective, we may see blue, but from another standpoint, we may see not-blue. Plato concludes that since a sensory property can both be and not be, it is not a reliable indicator of fully real things.

So Plato contends that the truly real things we can come to know are not of the physical world. Consider: No one can draw a perfect line, or square, or triangle; there are always imperfections, even if only at the molecular level. But scientists and mathematicians study perfect lines, squares, and triangles. !e objects of their investigations do exist, but they cannot be the objects of sense experience. Plato concludes that they must exist as ideal, changeless things in an immaterial real- ity beyond sense experience. Ponder this also: !ink dog or chair or tree, and ask yourself what the object of your thought is. It is obvious that the mental object remains completely unchanged despite the radical changes that occur in any par- ticular dog, chair, or tree. !us the objects of knowledge exist, Plato says, but they

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“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”

—Plato

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are not particular, individual sensory things. !ey are general and abstract objects of the mind.

Plato holds that our sense experience gives us not knowledge but opinion— fallible, transitory belief. Mere opinion is what the Sophists tra#c in. Real, immu- table, certain knowledge is obtained through the intellect. Only through our powers of reason can we reach beyond the physical world to take hold of real knowledge of lasting truths. As Plato says in Phaedo:

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Reason and the Forms So for Plato, reality comprises two worlds: the fleeting world of the physical accessed through sense experience; and the eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genuine knowledge accessed only through reason. In spelling out the contents of the latter, Plato articulates the central notion of his philosophy: the Forms. He propounds two closely related meanings of Forms. In one sense of the term, the Forms (also called Ideas) are perfect conceptual models for every existing thing, residing only in the eter- nal world penetrated by reason alone. !ey are the ideals, or standards, that we can first come to know and then use to assess the notions and objects we encounter in ev- eryday experience. !rough reason, we can access the Form of “table” and thus know the ideal template of “table.” With this knowledge we can understand the essence of a table and use this understanding to make judgments about all physical tables. Likewise when we access the Form “courage,” we know what the ideal of courage is and can use this knowledge to appraise a particular instance of courage. As Plato sees it, the truly real world is the world of the independently existing Forms—the domain of the perfect and everlasting. In fact, Plato thinks the Forms are more real than the objects detected through sense experience. With knowledge of the really real, we can understand the “less real” realm of the imperfect and transitory.

Plato also thought of the Forms as properties that can be had by several particular things—in other words, the Forms are universals. Every blue thing is a particular instance of the universal of blueness. Every triangular thing is a particular example

“Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.”

—Aristotle

Forms In Plato’s philoso- phy, the objectively real, eternal abstract entities that serve as models or universals of higher knowledge.

blueness universals

,OPXMFEHF�BOE�3FBMJUZ� 83

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of the universal of triangularity. Particulars reside in the temporary, imperfect world of the material; universals are found in the eternal, perfect world of the really real.

In either sense, the Forms bring order to the world. We can comprehend items in the physical realm because they “participate in” (or “partake of ”) the Forms, and

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Critiques of the Forms Plato’s theory of the Forms is probably his most famous and controversial doctrine. !rough the centuries it has been sub- jected to numerous critiques and interpretations—including some from Aristotle and Plato himself. In the dialogue Par- menides, Plato imagines the old philosopher Parmenides and his student Zeno discussing the Forms with the young Socrates. Parmenides lodges some tough criticisms against Plato’s Forms, criticisms that Socrates is at a loss to answer satisfactorily. In his own works, Aristotle raised many of these same objections. Scholars have been impressed by Pla- to’s willingness to attack his own brainchild, and they have debated whether he is actually criticizing himself or faulting common misunderstandings of the theory.

!e most widely discussed criticism in Parmenides is also one that Aristotle brings up. It’s called the “third man argument.” It may be tough to grasp at first, so several read- ings are recommended. !is is how the scholar G. M. A. Grube explains it:

[I]f you postulate one Idea [Form] to account for the fact that all big things are big, you are still left with two classes of big things— the Idea and the particulars—and you still have to explain why both those classes of big things are big. You will then have to have a further Idea for both classes to participate in, and then in the same way a third Idea to account for the fact that the first and the second Idea have a common predicate, big, and so on ad infinitum.

DETAILS

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G. M. A. Grube, Plato’s !ought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), 33.

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“What di"erence is there, do you think, between those in Plato’s cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don’t know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?”

—Desiderius Erasmus

the physical world achieves order and resists chaos because it also participates in the Forms. A brown horse participates in the Forms of brown and horse. A courageous act participates in the Form of courage. A beautiful child participates in the Forms of beauty and child.

So acquiring knowledge, or wisdom, is a matter of clearly discerning the Forms. But how do we do that? Plato says we must use the same approach that Socrates took when he searched for knowledge: dialectic. !rough logical argument and the cru- cible of questions and answers, Socrates looked for the meaning of concepts such as “justice” and “piety,” weeding out the erroneous concepts while trying to edge ever closer to the truth. !e implicit aim was to uncover the Form of justice and the Form of piety and thus grasp true wisdom.

For Plato, the greatest of the Forms is the Form of the good. To grasp the Forms is not only to achieve a supreme wisdom, but also to acquire the highest virtues, to receive the blessings of those virtues, and to become a better person. Ultimately, the serious searcher for knowledge will reach the summit of understanding in the Form of the good. To attain this Form is to understand the final and complete explanation for everything—to come to know the best way for anything to exist, to know what is the highest good for everything in the world.

Plato suggests that even before we begin to pursue the Forms, they are already in our minds waiting to be uncovered. How is this possible? His answer is the doctrine of innate knowledge. He thinks knowledge of these immaterial ideals is already pres- ent at birth, inscribed in our minds (our immortal souls) in a previous existence. We are born with this knowledge, and we somehow acquired it before our present lives. Accessing this knowledge then is a matter of using reason to recall what we previ- ously knew in another life.

To many ears, this recall theory may sound preposterous. But in Meno, Plato attempts a brilliant demonstration of it. In the dialogue, he depicts the character of Socrates discussing innate knowledge with Meno. To prove his point, Socrates calls over an unschooled slave boy and asks him a series of questions about a ge- ometry problem. Socrates draws a two-foot-by-two-foot square (four square feet), then tells the boy to draw another one that is twice the size of the first. Initially the boy thinks that doubling the length of each side of the square will produce a square twice as large as the first. So he draws a four-foot-by-four-foot square (sixteen square feet) but sees right away that that answer cannot be correct. As Socrates asks fur- ther questions, the boy comes to the right answer on his own. Socrates says that he merely helped the boy recollect knowledge that he already possessed, bringing innate knowledge to consciousness.

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“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.”

—Plato

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“No civilization, includ- ing Plato’s, has ever been destroyed because its citi- zens learned too much.”

—Robert McKee

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Many thinkers reject Plato’s notion of a preexisting state in which we acquire knowledge, and they are skeptical of the claim that we are born with knowledge. But the idea of innate knowledge in some fashion is still attractive to some philosophers, for it would explain how we could possess knowledge (the truths of mathematics, for example) without relying on sense experience.

Plato’s Rationalism Plato’s theory of knowledge is a rationalist view. As discussed earlier, rationalism is the view that some or all of our knowledge about the world is gained indepen- dently of sense experience. Plato was the first great rationalist, but many other emi- nent philosophers have also taken a rationalist stance: for example, René Descartes (1596–1650), Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677), and Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). !e opposing view is known as empiricism, the doctrine that knowledge of the world comes solely from sense experience. We may come to know logical and math- ematical truths through reason, but we can know nothing of the world except through our senses. !e great empiricists include John Locke (1632–1704), George Berkeley (1685–1753), and David Hume (1711–1776).

rationalism !e view that some or all of our knowledge about the world is gained indepen- dently of sense experience.

empiricism !e belief that knowledge of the world comes solely from sense experience.

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“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

—Plato

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THEN AND NOW

Modern Platonism

Platonism refers to views derived from Plato’s doctrines, especially his theory of Forms. In the twenty-first century, Platonism is alive and well in the form of mathematical Pla- tonism, a kind that has widespread acceptance among mathematicians. Mathematical Platonism says that mathematical entities—such as the number 3; 2 ! 2 " 4; all prime numbers; and pi—are abstract objects that exist independently of the thoughts and prac- tices of rational beings.

Suppose you think of the number pi—what is it exactly you are thinking about? Pla- tonists might say you are thinking of an object that exists somewhere beyond space and time and that has certain properties regardless of what you or anyone else thinks or does.

A typical objection to mathematical Platonism is that it proposes a great divide between mathematical concepts and the human mind, between the mathematical world and the world we live in. If such a divide exists, it would seem to make human interaction with the mathematical realm inexplicable or maybe even impossible. How can the mind, living as it does in this material world, know anything about the imperceptible, strange mathematical entities that exist in an entirely alien sphere that is neither physical nor mental?

Mathematical Platonists have o"ered answers to this question, and the debate continues—all because of something Plato said almost twenty-five centuries ago.

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Shadow cast by object

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Object placed on raised walkway

behind prisoner

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!e debate between rationalists and empiricists has been raging for hundreds of years, with Plato making the opening move in the fifth century BCE. !e discus- sion continues today in both philosophy and science. Both sides have the burden of explaining how we come to know mathematical and logical truths as well as such facts as the existence of material objects, the shape of the Earth, and the movements of subatomic particles.

4.3 ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

In the Republic, Plato presents what is probably the most famous tale in Western philosophy: the “Allegory of the Cave.” !rough the persona of Socrates, Plato tells a story that works on many levels. Primarily the allegory illus- trates facets of Plato’s theories of knowledge and meta- physics, but it can also be seen as a metaphor for the search for ultimate wisdom through philosophy.

Imagine, Plato says, prisoners chained for life against a wall in a cave so that they can see only shadows on the opposite wall. !e shadows appear because behind and above the wall to which the prisoners are chained there

burns a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway along which people pass carrying vessels, statues, and replicas of animals. !e prisoners see the shadows of these artifacts on the wall and hear the people’s voices echoing o" of it, and they mistakenly believe that these sights and sounds are the real world. But the real world—the truth—lies above the darkened cave out in the bright sunlight.

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“Plato described ordinary life as unthinking, lived in a dim cave of shadowy reflections, but said that it is possible to leave the cave and see things in sunlit clarity as they actu- ally are.”

—Huston Smith

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“Justice in the life and conduct of the state is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.”

—Plato

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”

—Plato

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“Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes prac- tice. We do not act rightly because we are excellent; in fact we achieve excel- lence by acting rightly.”

—Plato

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Scholars have read this story in di"erent ways, but the most obvious interpreta- tion centers on the individual’s struggle to acquire the highest form of knowledge, the Forms. In this reading, the prisoners represent the majority of people who have only transitory beliefs to guide them, who are in the darkness of ignorance, believing that their sensory experience, dim reflections, and shallow thinking reveal all that exists. If a prisoner is released from his chains and is shown the true source of the shadows, he will not believe his eyes, and he will prefer to think as he always has— just as people will often prefer comfortable commonplace assumptions to deeper understanding. If he is dragged into the light, his eyes will hurt, and he will be disoriented, just as the truths of philosophy—the eternal Forms—can at first seem strange and frightening. But if he stays in the light, his eyes will eventually adjust; the persistent seeker of wisdom will gradually grasp the Forms and bask in the light of understanding. When he finally does see things as they really are in the full sun- light, he will pity the prisoners he left behind and will return to the cave to enlighten them—just as Socrates and Plato try to rescue people from their ignorance and turn them toward genuine wisdom. But those who dwell in darkness will revile the en- lightened former prisoner, thinking him a ridiculous fool, and might even put him to death for spreading heresy. Athenians treated Socrates in a similar way, executing him for trying to nudge others toward real knowledge—a fate that has often befallen those who have dared speak unconventional truths.

4.4 IMMORTALITY, MORALITY, AND THE SOUL

!e early Greeks held diverse ideas about the soul and immortality. In the epic poetry of Homer—the defining literary tradition of Greek civilization—the soul (psyche) is a pitiable thing, a far cry from the modern notion of soul as the supremely important essence of the real person. As one scholar describes it:

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For many early Greeks, to have a soul is merely to be alive; not having a soul is to be dead. !e soul was not laden with much more importance than that. !is link between soul and life, however, was eventually expanded: everything living (in- cluding animals and plants) was supposed to have a soul. Some thought the soul

“!e price good men pay for indi"erence to public a"airs is to be ruled by evil men.”

—Plato

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hardly di"erent from the body. Both were made of the same stu" but di"ered only in configuration. !e body was material; the soul was too, but its matter was finer. For those who took this bodily view, the relationship between mind and body didn’t matter nearly as much as it did to philosophers of later centuries. In any case, the soul did not have the importance that later thinkers would give it. And whatever concept of the soul was prevalent, the idea of immortality was not necessarily part of it.

At the end of the fifth century, however, the soul was generally thought to be more than just a sign of life. It was assumed to be the seat of emotions and desires, the center of practical thinking, or the possessor of moral virtues. Socrates and Plato declared that the intellect is the highest, most divine part of a human, and intelli- gence is the greatest function of the soul. !rough reason the soul guides a person’s life and restrains the immoderate actions and reckless passions of the body. It is the soul that grasps eternal truths (the Forms), and it is philosophy that frees the soul from the bewildering and blinding influence of the senses. Little wonder, then, that Socrates urged Athenians to take care, above all, of their souls by continually search- ing for knowledge.

The Immortal Soul In the Apology, as Socrates waits in prison for his sentence to be carried out, he re- flects on life after death and the fate of the soul. He considers two prospects: (1) that death is oblivion, like an eternal sleep without dreams, or (2) that the soul lives on after the body dies and can engage in conversations with the previously departed. He doesn’t say which possibility is actual, but he hopes for the latter.

In the Phaedo and other dialogues, Plato, through the persona of Socrates, sets forth arguments for the soul’s immortality. One is the argument from recollection, which Socrates illustrates with the story of the slave boy and the geometry problem

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—Michael Shermer

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(discussed earlier). We acquire knowledge, says Socrates, by recalling what our souls knew (knowledge of the Forms) before we were born. If he is right, it seems our souls do not perish with our bodies, and this suggests that immortality is at least a plausible theory.

To this line, Plato has Socrates add the so-called a#nity argument. !ere are two types of being or existence, Socrates asserts. !ere is the type of existence that is “human, mortal, multiform, non-intelligible, dissoluble, and never constant in relation to itself.” !e body is most similar to what has this type of existence. In con- trast, there is the type of existence that is “divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, unvarying, and constant in relation to itself.”9 !e soul is most akin to what has this type of existence and therefore probably shares in all these attributes, including being both divine and immortal.

The Three-Part Soul As you can see, Plato believes that soul and body are very di"erent entities—that is, he assumes that dualism is true. Dualism is the view that the mind (or soul) and matter (or body) are two disparate things. Soul and body consist of di"erent kinds of stu". (As we will see later, in the seventeenth century Descartes famously arrived at the same conclusion, as have many others who came before and after him.) Plato is a very sophisticated dualist because he thinks the soul has a complex internal struc- ture: he claims that the soul has three distinct parts or aspects.

He recognizes that a simple, unitary soul could not account for psychological conflict, the internal struggles that humans are obviously prone to. He reasons that internal conflict in the soul cannot happen unless the soul consists of more than one part:

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Plato provides an example of the kind of psychological conflict involved:

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dualism !e view that the mind (or soul) and matter (or body) are two disparate things.

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Plato’s tripartite soul has these aspects: (1) appetite (the “avaricious” part), which desires satisfaction of the bodily cravings for food, drink, sex, sleep, and other useful or pleasurable things; (2) spirit (the “competitive” part), which wants to preserve a sense of self and serve ambition (and is thus motivated to maximize honor, self- esteem, recognition, success, and winning); and (3) reason (the philosophical or in- tellectual part), which should pursue truth (both practical and theoretical), regulate the other two parts, and rule the soul as a whole.

Plato believes he is on solid ground when he asserts that the reasoning part should dominate the soul. An eminent Plato scholar explains:

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The Moral Soul With his notion of a three-part soul, Plato is able to shed light not only on human psychology but also on the foundations of morality. Most of his treatment of the latter is found in the Republic, which is ostensibly about the workings of the ideal state (or society) but is largely about the nature of morality (justice) and the necessary conditions for human happiness. !e discussion begins in the Republic’s first chapter with the Sophist !rasymachus insisting that justice is nothing more than rules devised by the strong and imposed on the weak. He then argues that the moral man will always be at a disadvantage compared to the immoral. It pays to be immoral, he declares; being moral is for suckers. Here is !rasymachus making the point:

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“!e philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.”

—Plato

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“And now—Plato’s words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: ‘the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes.’”

—Daniel Keyes

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!e challenge to Plato, then, is to show that !rasymachus is wrong, that the moral person will in the long run fare better than the immoral one. !rasymachus thinks it’s more beneficial to be unjust than just—or to appear just while actually being unjust. !e fundamental question here is, Which is the best way to live— unjustly or justly? More precisely, which kind of life is good in itself (inherently good), not just good because the consequences of living that way are advantageous? !e question is about the inherently good life and not the consequences of living a particular way, because it is possible for both just and unjust living to result in positive benefits. (A just man’s good reputation, for example, might a"ord him advantages; an unjust man can always turn circumstances his way.) So this is es- sentially what Plato is up against: he must demonstrate that the poor, sick, reviled, homeless moral man has a better life (is happier) than the rich, healthy, respected, powerful immoral man.

Plato answers this challenge by referring to his concept of the tripartite soul. A man is moral and behaves morally, he says, when the three parts of the soul act in harmony and fulfill their purpose—that is, when each part performs its proper function well. A man’s soul is in harmony when appetite motivates him to act confi- dently and satisfy basic needs; when spirit pushes him to achieve success, honor, and recognition; and when reason rules wisely over appetite and spirit and ensures balance among all three. To achieve this state of harmony is to be a just person, and a just person acts justly. As Plato says:

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!e result of having this harmonious and just soul, Plato says, is enduring happiness—the priceless byproduct of the good life. !e balance, stability, and integration of the inner parts of ourselves dispel internal conflict and make true

“Reading Plato should be easy; understanding Plato can be di#cult.”

—Robin Waterfield

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happiness possible. !is kind of happiness is more profound than a fleeting surge of pleasure or a period of gladness: this is a deep, durable satisfaction that is not a"ected by the ups and downs of fortune.

!e inner state of the immoral person, however, is disharmony, where the three aspects of the personality pull against one another, each one wanting something that conflicts with the wants of the other two. Desire struggles with spirit for dominance; reason controls neither; the result is unwise, self-defeating action and internal chaos. Such internal strife and external foolishness is the essence of unhappiness.

!is is Plato’s reply to !rasymachus and others who assert that the best life is an immoral one. !e unjust life is out of balance, he says, with inner conflict among the parts of the soul wreaking psychological pain and external calamity. From an immoral life may come transitory enjoyment but no true happiness. But the just life, despite any outward misfortune and the disdain of the unjust, is the most beneficial and, in the best sense of the word, the happiest.

“[O]ther thinkers have philosophised since the time of Plato, but that does not destroy the interest and beauty of his philosophy.”

—Frederick Charles Copleston

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The Ring of Gyges In the Republic, Glaucon, who is Plato’s older brother, asks Socrates whether jus- tice is good in itself or only a necessary evil. Playing the devil’s advocate, Glaucon puts forth the hypothesis that egotistic power seeking in which we have complete freedom to indulge ourselves might be the ideal state of existence. However, the hy- pothesis continues, reason quickly shows us that others might seek to have the same power, which would interfere with our freedom and cause a state of chaos in which no one was likely to have any of one’s desires fulfilled. So we compromise and limit our acquisitive instincts. Justice or a system of morality is simply the result of that compromise. It has no intrinsic value but is better than chaos and worse than undisturbed power. It is better to compromise and limit our acquisitive instincts.

To illustrate his point, Glaucon tells the story of a shepherd named Gyges who comes upon a ring, which at his behest makes him invisible. He uses it to escape the external

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sanctions of society—its laws and censure—and to serve his greed to the fullest. Glaucon then says:

Suppose there were two such rings, then—one worn by our moral person, the other by the immoral person. !ere is no one, on this view, who is iron-willed enough to maintain his morality and find the strength of purpose to keep his hands o" what doesn’t belong to him, when he is able to take whatever he wants from the market-stalls without fear of being discovered, to enter houses and sleep with whomever he chooses, to kill and to release from prison anyone he wants, and generally to act like a god among men. His behavior would be identical to that of the other person: both of them would be heading in the same direction.

Glaucon asks whether it is implausible to suppose that we all would do likewise. !en he o"ers a thought experiment that compares the life of the seemingly just (but unjust) man who is incredibly successful with the life of the seemingly unjust (but just) man who is in- credibly unsuccessful. Which would we choose? Socrates counters that to be just is indeed always better than to be unjust. Immorality corrupts the inner person, making one truly worse o" psychologically and spiritually.

Plato, Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 359d–360c.

4.5 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE

In the Republic, Plato proposes a political theory that has challenged thinkers and stimulated debate ever since. He argues that the only kind of society that can ensure people get their due is a meritocracy, a system of rule by an elite distinguished by abilities and achievements. He contrasts meritocracy with a form of government he strongly opposes: democracy, rule by the people as a whole. In his view, democratic rule is mob rule, the reign of a rabble too easily swayed by emotional appeals and bad arguments. Plato had plenty of experience with democratic rule, for in his day Athens was a democracy in which governmental decisions were made by direct vote of adult male Athenians. !ere were no representatives of the citizenry, because the citizens themselves made political or governmental decisions. (Greek democracy was far from rule by all the people, for only free men were full citizens, and women and

meritocracy A system of rule by an elite distin- guished by abilities and achievements.

democracy Rule by the people as a whole.

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slaves were excluded.) He never forgot that it was a democratic vote of his fellow citizens that committed the ultimate injustice by condemning to death his teacher and role model, the venerable Socrates.

Plato’s political theory dovetails with his theory of the soul as well as with his epistemology and ethics. He argues that the makeup and functioning of the ideal society is directly analogous to the makeup and functioning of the soul, or mind. As we have seen, Plato maintains that the soul is composed of three fundamental com- ponents: appetite; spirit; and reason, or the intellect. !e just, or moral, person will be a well-balanced composite of these; each performing its own distinctive function in harmony with the others, with the appetites and spirit ruled and coordinated by reason. In similar fashion, Plato says, a society consists of three types of people, each one identified according to which of the soul’s components predominates:

1. !ose who are moved by appetites (producers—laborers, carpenters, artisans, farmers).

2. !ose who are moved by spirit (auxiliaries—soldiers, warriors, police). 3. !ose who are moved by reason (guardians—leaders, rulers, philosopher-kings).

In a just society, these three perform their proper functions, with the producers and auxiliaries being led and controlled by the guardians. !e just state is a harmoni- ous community governed by reason, just as a moral or virtuous person is a tripartite being presided over by the rational faculty of the soul.

Plato says citizens are assigned to one of the three functions based on their apti- tude and performance, and once appointed, they are expected to remain in that class and not cross over to another. !is scheme reflects his theory of ethics. To be virtu- ous and happy, he says, we must act according to our talents and aptitude, striving for excellence in the endeavors nature has chosen for us.

Plato, then, envisions an aristocracy (a society ruled by a privileged class)—not an aristocracy of the rich, landed, or well born, but of the intellect. !e guardians are true philosopher-kings. !ey wield all the political power by virtue of their greater talents and intelligence. In the ideal republic, the guardians—contrary to the usual custom—cannot own property, for owning property might tempt them to govern for personal gain rather than for the good of society. !is powerful elite can include women and anyone from the lower classes, because the only qualification for becom- ing a ruler is simply to be of superior intelligence and character.

To modern minds, some of the elements of Plato’s society may sound both wrong and alien. His ideal state rests on massive inequality among citizens who are sorted into three classes marked by unequal shares of power and privilege. Granted, people are assigned to di"erent classes according to merit, but inequality is still the rule. Plato maintains that equals should be treated equally, but to him the classes deserve di"erent treatment because they are not equal. !ey are di"erent. For Plato, all men are not created equal.

!en there is the authoritarianism of Plato’s state, in which no one gets to choose their own role in life. In general, once assigned to a social role, citizens cannot jump to a di"erent one. !ere is no social mobility except within a class and in the case of guardians being chosen from lower classes.

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“Plato was a bore.” —Friedrich Nietzsche

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aristocracy A society ruled by a privileged class.

“Democracy is a charm- ing form of government, full of variety and disor- der, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike.”

—Plato

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Criticism has also been leveled at Plato’s assumption that the unity of the com- munity trumps personal liberty. For example:

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In the following selection from the Republic, Plato has Socrates explain to his companions his concept of morality within individuals and communities. !e dis- cussion is narrated by Socrates.

1MBUP��The Republic

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“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils—no, nor the human race, as I believe—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.”

—Plato

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i*OEVCJUBCMZ�w i"OE�XIFO�TPNFPOF�DPNNJUT�UIF�XPSTU�DSJNF�BHBJOTU�IJT�PXO�DPNNVOJUZ �XPVMEO�U�

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“Democracy passes into despotism.”

—Plato

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1MBUP��The Republic

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3&7*&8�/05&4

4.1 PLATO’S LIFE AND TIMES t� 1MBUP� IBT� IBE� B� USFNFOEPVT� JOnVFODF� PO� 8FTUFSO� UIPVHIU� BOE� SFMJHJPO�� )F� JT�

rightly called the Father of Western Philosophy because most of its branches of inquiry can trace their beginnings to him, and they cannot be deemed complete without taking him into account.

t� 1MBUP�XBT�CPSO�JO�mGUI�DFOUVSZ�"UIFOT��)JT�MJGF�BOE�IJT�UIJOLJOH�XFSF�DIBOHFE�CZ� three major events: his introduction to Socrates, his witnessing the trial and death of Socrates, and his subsequent travels to meet other philosophers.

t� *O�����IF�GPVOEFE�UIF�"DBEFNZ�JO�"UIFOT �B�DPMMFHF�BOE�SFTFBSDI�DFOUFS�PGUFO�SF- garded as the first university. In various forms, the Academy endured for hundreds of years until it was abolished by Justinian I. !e Academy’s most distinguished student was Aristotle.

4.2 KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY t� 1MBUP�SFKFDUFE�UIF�SFMBUJWJTN�BOE�UIF�TLFQUJDJTN�PG�UIF�4PQIJTUT�BOE�PUIFST �BOE�IF�

provided an important analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. t� 1MBUP�UIJOLT�UIBU�XF�DBO�BDRVJSF�LOPXMFEHF �UIBU�LOPXMFEHF�JT�PCKFDUJWFMZ�USVF �

and that the objects of knowledge are real things.

WRITING AND REASONING $)"15&3��

1. What is Plato’s theory of Forms? What elements do you find most plau- sible? Least plausible?

2. What is Plato’s distinction between opinion and knowledge? Is it the case that any proposition based on sense experience cannot count as knowledge? Explain.

3. According to Plato, science can give us only opinions, not knowledge. Do you agree? Why or why not?

4. Consider Plato’s view that we do not actually learn anything for the first time; we just recollect what we knew from a previous life. (Remember, he attempted a demonstration of this idea in Meno with the slave boy.) Is he right about this? Which is the better explanation of our knowl- edge: (1) that when we learn, we acquire knowledge for the first time; or (2) that we remember what we used to know previously? Why?

5. What lesson is Plato trying to teach with his allegory of the cave? Suppose the allegory is a metaphor for the search for wisdom through philosophy. What would the various aspects of the story stand for?

102 CHAPTER 4 1MBUP��5IF�3FBMMZ�3FBM

vau28703_ch04_076-103.indd 102 05/09/17 05:59 PM

t� 'PS�1MBUP �SFBMJUZ�DPNQSJTFT�UXP�XPSMET��UIF�nFFUJOH�XPSME�PG�UIF�QIZTJDBM�BDDFTTFE� through sense experience; and the eternal, nonphysical, changeless world of genu- ine knowledge accessed only through reason.

t� ɨF� DFOUSBM� OPUJPO� PG� IJT� QIJMPTPQIZ� JT� UIF� 'PSNT � UIF� PCKFDUJWFMZ� SFBM � FUFSOBM� abstract entities that serve as models or universals of higher knowledge.

4.3 ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE t� ɨF� NPTU� GBNPVT� UBMF� JO� 8FTUFSO� QIJMPTPQIZ� JT� QSPCBCMZ� UIF� i"MMFHPSZ� PG� UIF�

Cave,” a story that Plato tells to illustrate facets of his theories of knowledge and metaphysics.

t� ɨF�NPTU�PCWJPVT�JOUFSQSFUBUJPO�DFOUFST�PO�UIF�JOEJWJEVBM�T�TUSVHHMF�UP�BDRVJSF�UIF� highest form of knowledge, the Forms, and on the opposition by the unenlight- ened to this wisdom.

4.4 IMMORTALITY, MORALITY, AND THE SOUL t� ɨF� FBSMZ� (SFFLT� IFME� EJWFSTF� JEFBT� BCPVU� UIF� TPVM� BOE� JNNPSUBMJUZ�GSPN� UIF�

notion of the soul as merely an indication of life or as an insubstantial shadow to the soul as the seat of emotions, thinking, or moral values.

t� 1MBUP�PĊFST�TFWFSBM�BSHVNFOUT�GPS�UIF�JNNPSUBMJUZ�PG�UIF�TPVM �JODMVEJOH�UIF�SFDPM- lection and a#nity arguments.

t� 1MBUP�BDDFQUFE�UIF�NJOE�CPEZ�UIFPSZ�LOPXO�BT�EVBMJTN�CVU�BMTP�BSHVFE�UIBU�UIF� soul consisted of three aspect or parts: appetite, spirit, and reason.

t� 1MBUP�TBZT�UIBU�B�QFSTPO�JT�NPSBM�BOE�CFIBWFT�NPSBMMZ�XIFO�UIF�UISFF�QBSUT�PG�UIF� soul act in harmony and fulfill their purpose—that is, when each part performs its proper function well.

4.5 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE t� 1MBUP�EFDMBSFT�UIBU�UIF�POMZ�LJOE�PG�TPDJFUZ�UIBU�DBO�FOTVSF�QFPQMF�HFU�UIFJS�EVF�

is a meritocracy, a system of rule by those most qualified to govern. In his view, democratic rule is mob rule, the reign of a rabble too easily swayed by emotional appeals and bad arguments.

t� 1MBUP�NBJOUBJOT�UIBU�KVTU�BT�UIF�NPSBM�QFSTPO�JT�B�XFMM�CBMBODFE�DPNQPTJUF�PG�UIF� three parts of the soul, a society consists of three types of people, each one identi- fied according to which of the soul’s components predominates. !us, a just soci- ety has producers, auxiliaries, and guardians.

t� 1MBUP�T�JEFBM�TPDJFUZ�IBT�CFFO�DSJUJDJ[FE�GPS�JUT�JOFRVBMJUZ �JUT�BVUIPSJUBSJBOJTN �BOE� its subordination of individual liberty to the needs of the community.

,&:�5&3.4 aristocracy democracy dualism

empiricism Forms

meritocracy Platonism

rationalism skepticism

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH� 103

vau28703_ch04_076-103.indd 103 05/09/17 05:59 PM

/PUFT 1. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Free Press, 1979), 39. 2. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schus-

ter, 1945), 104. 3. Bernard Williams, Plato: !e Invention of Philosophy (Abingdon-on-!ames,

UK: Routledge, 1998). 4. Plato, “Meno,” 98a, !e Collected Works of Plato, trans. W. K. C. Guthrie, eds.

Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 381.

5. Plato, Phaedo, trans. David Gallop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 65b–65c. 6. Plato, Meno, !e Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, vol. 3 (New York: Hearst’s

International Library, 1914), 34–36. 7. Plato, !e Republic, Book VII, !e Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett

(New York: Hearst’s International Library, 1914), 265–269. 8. G. M. A. Grube, Plato’s !ought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), 120–121. 9. Plato, Phaedo, trans. Gallop, 78a–84b. 10. Plato, Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1993), 436b. 11. Plato, Republic, trans. Waterfield, 439e–440a. 12. Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1981), 126. 13. Plato, Republic, trans. Waterfield, 343d, 344c. 14. Plato, Republic, trans. Waterfield, 443d. 15. Plato, Republic, trans. Waterfield, xxviii.

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH Julia Annas, Plato: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). David Gallop, trans., Plato: Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). G. M. A. Grube, Plato’s !ought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980). W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato: !e Man and His Dialogues—Earlier Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). R. M. Hare, Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Ted Honderich, ed., !e Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1995). Christopher Janaway, “Ancient Greek Philosophy I: !e Pre-Socratics and Plato,” Philosophy I: A Guide through the Subject, ed. A. C. Grayling (Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1995). C. J. Rowe, Plato (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1984). Mary Ellen Waithe, ed., A History of Women Philosophers, vol. 1, 600 BC–500 AD (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho", 1987). Robin Waterfield, trans., Plato: Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

5.1 THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE t�"QQSFDJBUF�XIZ�"SJTUPUMF�T�XPSLT �FWFO�BGUFS�OFBSMZ�UXP�BOE�POF�IBMG�NJMMFOOJB � BSF�TUJMM�SFMFWBOU�UP�NBOZ�BSFBT�PG�TUVEZ �BOE�XIZ�IJT�JOøVFODF�PO�8FTUFSO� UIPVHIU�IBT�CFFO�TP�QFSWBTJWF�

t�3FDPVOU�UIF�NBJO�FWFOUT�JO�"SJTUPUMF�T�MJGF �JODMVEJOH�UIPTF�TVSSPVOEJOH�IJT� DPOOFDUJPOT�UP�1MBUP �"MFYBOEFS �BOE�UIF�-ZDFVN�

���� -0(*$ �,/08-&%(& �"/%�5365) t�&YQMBJO�IPX�"SJTUPUMF�BOE�1MBUP�EJòFS�JO�UIFJS�WJFXT�PO�TFOTF�FYQFSJFODF � UIF�FWFSZEBZ�XPSME �BOE�UIF�BDRVJTJUJPO�PG�LOPXMFEHF�

t�%FöOF�deductive argument, valid, invalid, syllogism, demonstration,�BOE� necessary truth.

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t�#F�BXBSF�PG�TPNF�PG�"SJTUPUMF�T�NPTU�JNQPSUBOU�DPOUSJCVUJPOT�UP�NPEFSO�TDJFODF�

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Aristotle: Reason and Nature

CHAPTER 5

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 104 05/09/17 06:00 PM

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 105 05/09/17 06:00 PM

"SJTUPUMF��3FBTPO�BOE�/BUVSF� 105

Upon hearing about the life and work of Aristotle for the first time, a man or woman of the twenty-first cen- tury could very well find the whole story hard to believe. Which is understandable: Aristotle’s soaring achievements in numerous fields, his massive output of philosophical masterpieces, and his immense influence down through the ages do seem to verge on the incredible. Fortunately, it’s all real.

His interests were wide-ranging, and his thinking and writing covered nearly every topic in philosophy. He laid the foundation stones for several disciplines that now make up the curriculum of the modern university, and his intellectual fingerprints can be found on ideas and issues that are still debated today. He wrote treatises on zoology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, anatomy, music, theology, mathematics, sociology, history of thought, law, ethics, politics, language, rhetoric, and the arts. For many of these, he produced the first systematic analysis and ex- position, and in some subject areas his writings are still the best introduction available. After almost two and one-half millennia, his discourses on politics, ethics, and poetry remain must-reads in those fields. His empirical investiga- tions in biology were relevant and authoritative until the eighteenth century, and his astronomical theories were gospel until Galileo’s telescope raised doubts about them.

Aristotle also invented formal logic, an achievement that was considered the first and last word on the subject until the twentieth century when new logical systems were added. In the process, he devised the handy method of using letters to represent arguments, an invaluable innovation that helped make further progress in logic pos- sible. !rough a winding historical path, the influence of his logic can be traced to modern applications, the most important being computer science.

Aristotle’s philosophical and literary output seems all the more astonishing when we consider that most of his works are now lost, with only thirty-one surviving, and these alone are impressively voluminous. Unfortunately, the lost ones were of high literary quality, while the extant compositions seem to be less graceful lecture notes or compilations. His works on ethics include Nicomachean Ethics and Politics; on gen- eral questions about reality, Metaphysics; on physics, Physics and On the Heavens; on psychology, On the Soul; on natural history, On the Generation of Animals and On the Movement of Animals; and on logic, Categories, Topics, Prior Analytics, and Posterior Analytics.

Writing without the benefit of hundreds of years of scientific and technological advancement, Aristotle was bound to get some facts wrong. (He thought, for example, that the universe was Earth-centered and that some animals generated spontaneously from dew and mud.) But these errors cannot undermine what scholars say is most valuable in Aristotle’s works: his systematic and logical ways of clarifying, analyz- ing, and answering philosophical questions. His arguments, even when they arrive

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at wrong conclusions, are often provocative and revealing. !is is how one eminent scholar describes Aristotle’s methods:

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5.1 THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE

In 384 BCE Aristotle was born in the small town of Stagira in Macedonia (now north- eastern Greece), the son of a physician, Nicomachus, who served the Macedonian king. !e young Aristotle probably learned anatomy from his father and was ex- pected to take up his father’s profession, but he followed another path instead. At age seventeen or eighteen, he entered Plato’s famous Academy in Athens and remained there for twenty years.

We know little or nothing about Aristotle’s deportment and appearance in his Academy years, and ancient sources that o"er such information are of dubious reli- ability. Here’s one such description of Aristotle given by Diogenes Laertius, a Greek biographer:

“What really characterizes Aristotle as a philosopher is not the number and weight of his conclusions (his ‘doctrines’), but the number and power and subtlety of his arguments and ideas and analyses.”

—J. L. Ackrill

%JPHFOFT�-BFSUJVT��Lives of the Philosophers

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Aristotle loved and admired Plato, but during his career he also sometimes de- parted from the master’s doctrines, putting forth his own theories and critiquing Plato’s. On this point he is thought to have said that he cherishes Plato but cherishes the truth more.

Around the time of Plato’s death in 347, Aristotle left Athens for Assos on the western shores of Asia Minor (now Turkey). !ere he did philosophy and conducted

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research in marine biology. Later he relocated to Lesbos, an island near Assos, where he carried out more biological investigations, married a woman named Pythias, and had a daughter by her.

In 343 or 342, Philip, the king of Macedonia, o"ered Aristotle a tutoring job in Pella, the capital of the Macedonian kingdom. !e student was none other than the king’s son, thirteen-year-old Alexander, later known as Alexander the Great. !is position probably lasted two or three years. What, if anything, Alexander learned from Aristotle and what Aristotle thought of his famous pupil is unclear. At any rate, within six or seven years Alexander was crowned ruler, and he began his quest to conquer the known world.

In 335, after being away from Athens for twelve years, Aristotle returned to found a school of philosophy and science called the Lyceum, named after its location, a grove just outside Athens dedicated to the god Apollo Lyceus. In this period Aristotle lectured, wrote many of his treatises, instituted research programs, and established the first major library of antiquity. During this time, Pythias died, and Aristotle formed a relationship with another woman, Herpyllis, who gave him a son, Nicomachus.

In the meantime, under Alexander’s leadership Macedonia was exerting consid- erable influence over Athens, a trend that many Athenians resented. In 323, after the death of Alexander, Athens revolted against Macedonian domination, and Aristotle became an object of suspicion because of his ties to Macedonia. Athenians soon charged him with impiety, as they had Socrates, but Aristotle left Athens before they could act against him. Aristotle, being well aware of what Athenians had done

“[Aristotle] bestrode antiquity like an intel- lectual colossus. No man before him had contributed so much to learning. No man after him might aspire to rival his achievements.”

—Jonathan Barnes

Lyceum Aristotle’s school of philosophy and science, named after its location, a grove just outside Athens dedicated to the god Apollo Lyceus.

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to Socrates, is supposed to have said that he would not allow Athens to “sin twice against philosophy.” So he went into exile in the town of Chalcis on the Aegean island of Euboea. A year later, at the age of sixty-two, he died there.

5.2 LOGIC, KNOWLEDGE, AND TRUTH

Plato declares that we can come to know things, that these things are objectively real, but that they are not the objects of sense experience. !e truly real things, he says, are abstract objects of the mind existing in a realm beyond the reach of sense experience. Sensory properties are not reliable indicators of reality. !e truly real are the independently existing Forms, and these eternal objects are more real than any- thing detected by our senses. Plato is the original, through-and-through rationalist.

Aristotle, however, is not. He believes that knowledge is possible, that we can grasp objective truths about reality, but that our knowing begins with sense

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Aristotle and Alexander We know that for a while, the young Alexander of Macedonia (later to become Alexander the Great, 356–323 BCE) was tutored by Aristotle. !rough the centuries the relationship between these two has been the subject of wild speculation, tall tales, and forgeries. !e truth is, we know scarcely anything about it. Bertrand Russell, twentieth-century philosopher and the author of A History of Western Philosophy, mentions the few shreds we have:

As to Aristotle’s influence on [Alexander], we are left free to conjecture whatever seems to us most plausible. For my part, I should suppose it nil. Alexander was an ambi- tious and passionate boy, on bad terms with his father, and presumably impatient of schooling. . . . I cannot imagine [Aristotle’s] pupil regarding him as anything but a prosy old pedant, set over him by his father to keep him out of mischief. . . .

It is more surprising that Alexander had so little influence on Aristotle, whose speculations on politics were blandly oblivious of the fact that the era of City States had given way to the era of empires. I suspect that Aristotle, to the end, thought of him as “that idle and headstrong boy, who never could understand anything of philosophy.”

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), 160–161.

-PHJD �,OPXMFEHF �BOE�5SVUI� 109

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experience. Here is one philosopher’s elegant way of drawing the distinction between the two ways of viewing the world:

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And here is Aristotle explaining that our sense experience gives us the raw mate- rials for reliable knowledge:

“How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.”

—Aristotle

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But how exactly do the raw data of our senses lead to knowl- edge? As noted in the last chapter, we possess knowledge when we have a true belief supported by reasons. !is is also Aristotle’s view, but he is not content to leave it at that. He wants to clarify and systematize our acquisition of knowledge, and to do that he invents the field of logic, the study of correct reasoning (see Chapter 1). Spe- cifically, he devises the first system of deductive inference or argu- ment. Recall that an argument is a group of statements in which one of them (the conclusion) is supported by the others (the premises).

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A deductive argument is intended to provide logically conclusive support for its conclusion so that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. If it succeeds in providing such support, it is valid; if it fails, it is invalid. Aristotle recognizes that logic is a potent tool that can be used in every area of knowledge and every rational inquiry. His main concern, however, is to develop principles of logic to facilitate the search for knowledge in the sciences.

His achievement is monumental; for a millennium, scholars swore by his system and assumed it was both perfect and complete. !at assessment, however, was over- blown. Aristotle’s logic may very well be perfect as far as it goes, but modern logi- cians have shown that it does not go far enough. !ey have proved that there are more forms of deductive inference than Aristotle realized.

In any case, to understand how Aristotle’s logic is used in the quest for knowl- edge, we need to understand some of the basics. !e heart of his system is a precisely stated form of deductive argument called a syllogism, another Aristotelian inven- tion. A syllogism is a three-statement argument in which two premises support a conclusion. For example:

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!e words that name classes, or categories, of things (like dogs) are called terms. Each statement has both a subject term and a predicate term. For instance, the sub- ject term in “all dogs are animals” is dogs; the predicate term is animals. Aristotle thought up a way to lay bare the logical structure of a syllogism by using letters (vari- ables) to stand for the terms. !is is how our syllogism is represented:

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Aristotle realized that it is an argument’s inner structure that determines whether it is valid. Notice that our syllogism is valid because if all A are B, and all B are C, it must be the case that all A are C. Given the form or pattern of the argument, the conclusion fol- lows inexorably. !is means that in a valid argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. But the truth of the premises is entirely unrelated to validity. We can plug any terms we want into our syl- logism, and insert either true or false statements—and the argument would remain valid. (See Chapter 1 on these points.)

deductive argument An argument intended to give logically conclusive sup- port to its conclusion.

valid argument A deductive argument that succeeds in providing conclusive support for its conclusion.

invalid argument A deductive argument that fails to provide conclusive support for its conclusion.

syllogism A deductive argument made up of three statements—two premises and a conclusion.

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With his ingenious way of representing statements, Aristotle could make and examine a large variety of syllogisms, some valid and some not (some exemplifying correct reasoning, and some incorrect). He thought all the important statements found in science could be reduced to just four patterns—usually written like this: All S are P; No S are P; Some S are P; and Some S are not P. By inserting various combinations of these four statements into syllogistic form, we get 256 distinct valid and invalid arguments (only fourteen are valid). Together they constitute a compendium of possible arguments to use or avoid. With the syllogism and these four statement patterns, Aristotle believes he has found the tools he needs to acquire and systematize all scientific knowledge.

To him, scientific knowledge (what he calls episteme) is not so much knowing that something is true, but knowing why it is true—knowing the explanation for a phenomenon. He holds that the perfect vehicle for acquiring such knowledge is the syllogism because its premises provide the explanation or reason for the state of a"airs described in the conclusion. If the premises are true, and the form is valid, the conclusion will state a scientific truth. !us Aristotle’s logic allows us to evaluate whether a proposed explanation for a phenomenon is correct.

He gives us this example:

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“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

—Aristotle

term A word that names a class, or category, of things in a deductive argument.

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!e phenomenon to be explained is that the planets do not twinkle. Using the syllogistic form, we can arrive at the correct explanation: nearby celestial bodies do not twinkle, and the planets are nearby celestial bodies.

In Aristotle’s system, the syllogism is a proof, much like a proof in mathematics. !e premises are essentially axioms from which a theorem, the conclusion, is derived. Such a proof is called a demonstration because it shows what the conclusion is based on (true premises) and that the conclusion follows deductively. To say a statement is demonstrable is to say it is derived logically from legitimate starting points. To say it is not demonstrable is to say it cannot be derived that way.

Aristotle also insists that all the statements in his syllogism be necessarily true— that is, they must be the kind of statements that could not have been false. To him, scientific knowledge cannot be otherwise than it is. Science is made up of logical sequences of necessarily true explanations from which are derived necessarily true claims about the world.

But at this point Aristotle’s demonstrative syllogism seems to have a problem. We know that the necessarily true conclusion is supposed to be based on necessarily true premises. !e conclusion, in other words, is the result of a proof. !at gives us reason to believe it. But what are the premises based on? Where is their proof? It won’t do to say a premise must be deduced from other premises, from another proof. If that’s the case, the sequence of deductions would go on forever. Aristotle admits that it’s not possible to supply a proof for everything. Not every statement is demonstrable. His answer is that the primary premises or axioms of science can be known intuitively by an immediate apprehension of the mind. !ese axioms are fundamental and grasped directly without the help of intervening statements and inferences. As Aristotle says:

“Aristotle is the first to write like a professor: his treatises are systematic, his discussions are divided into heads, he is a profes- sional teacher, not an inspired prophet.”

—Bertrand Russell

necessary truth A truth that could not have been false.

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“To say that what is is not, or that what is not is, is false and to say that what is is, or that what is not is not, is true.”

—Aristotle

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 113 05/09/17 06:00 PM

113

THEN AND NOW

Aristotle and Modern Science

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From Aristotle, modern science has inherited a systematized set of remarkable ideas—some right, some wrong, many astonishingly influential, many not, and almost all useful in one way or another. Because he lacked the technical and conceptual tools of today’s science and started (in some cases) from dubious assumptions, a number of his theories and analyses are very wide of the mark. For example, he erred in his claims about the movement of the stars and planets, his beliefs and theories about biology (remember, Darwin postdated Aristotle by over two millennia), and his assessment of the completeness and application of his logic. But none of this detracts from his most important contributions to contemporary science. A distinguished scholar explains:

!e concepts and the terminology of the Lyceum provided the medium within which philosophy and science developed. . . . When today we talk of matter and form, of species and genera, of energy and potentiality, of substance of quality, of accident and essence, we unwittingly speak the language of Aristotle. . . .

It is worth noting that our modern notion of scientific method is roughly Aristotelian. Scientific empiricism—the idea that abstract argument must be sub- ordinate to factual evidence, that theory is to be judged before the strict tribunal of observation—now seems a commonplace; but it was not always so, and it is largely due to Aristotle that we understand science to be an empirical pursuit.

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Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 137.

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5.3 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS

As we’ve seen, the early Greek philosophers were interested in the world at its most fundamental level. !ey asked: What is the universe made of? What things exist? How are they structured? !e first philosophers, in other words, tried to plumb the deepest waters of metaphysics (the study of reality in the broadest sense). Aristotle was well aware of their thinking and set out to critically examine their theories, which he mostly found wanting. He also countered their views with theories of his own—clearer, more insightful, more sophisticated theories. Countless philosophers, scientists, and other thinkers have been taking the measure of these ideas ever since.

Substance For Aristotle, and for many other serious thinkers both before and after him, the most important question in metaphysics is one that has been asked in several di"erent ways. !e most general way (and perhaps least helpful) is, What is being? But there is also: What is real? What fundamental realities exist? What is it that underlies everything that is? What basic existing things do all other things depend on for their existence? To Aristotle, the answer that all these questions are looking for is substance. As he says:

“Aristotle was the best educated man that ever walked on the surface of this earth. He is still, as he was in Dante’s time, the ‘master of those that know.’”

—!omas Davidson

"SJTUPUMF��Metaphysics

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But why does such a general, abstract question matter at all? For one thing, people seek understanding for its own sake. We are stuck with reality as it is, and we want to know if it is as we think it is. Many grand attempts to see reality clearly have begun out of fear that our commonsense picture of the world is a delusion. For another, whatever view of the world’s primary elements is adopted, it’s sure to a"ect how and why sci- ence is done. What would a scientist study if she thinks reality consists of nothing but numbers, or prime matter without any characteristics, or Plato’s transcendent Forms?

In Metaphysics, Aristotle reviews several substance theories and rejects them on various grounds. For instance, the theory of the ancient atomists is that the funda- mental stu" of which everything is composed is atoms. !e objects around us are insubstantial, fleeting amalgams of atoms, which are the real, eternal things that make up (and help us make sense of ) the world. A few other possibilities:

Aristotle wants to clear up all the confusion, but he does so in a roundabout way, systematically defining substance from di"erent perspectives. He begins by pointing out a linguistic fact that suggests a truth about substance. Propositions state some- thing about a subject, indicating that it is of a certain quality, quantity, size, shape, or some other characteristic. !ese characterizations, or predicates, tell us about the subject, but they are meaningless unless we know what subject is being referred to. What we most need to know is an answer to this question: What is it? And it is this answer that identifies the substance. It is in virtue of the subject, that which is being described, that each of the predicates is, Aristotle says. “!erefore that which is pri- marily and is simply (not is something) must be substance . . . [Substance] is that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated.”8 Substance is that which fundamentally is; everything else is parasitic on it.

Does this mean substance is like a pincushion, a blank substratum that is merely the bearer of properties (pins)? Aristotle says absolutely not. What happens when all the pins are taken out of the pincushion, when all the properties are removed? If anything remains at all, it would be without any features and entirely beyond our ken. (Philosophers call such featureless stu" “prime matter.”) Aristotle asserts that a nebulous nothing cannot be substance, and he rejects the notion that we can have no knowledge of the fundamental underlayment of reality.

If featureless matter cannot constitute substance, perhaps form can (not to be confused with Plato’s Forms). !e term means the shape, pattern, or function of material stu". !e matter of a bronze statue is the bronze; the form is the shape

“All men by nature desire to know.”

—Aristotle

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form !e shape, pattern, or function of material stu".

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"SJTUPUMF��Metaphysics

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imparted to the bronze by the sculptor. Can form alone be substance, the primary being of the world? Aristotle again says no and insists that matter without form and form without matter (like Plato’s Forms) are equally improbable.

But he does argue that a composite of form and matter can constitute substance, with form being the essential element that makes matter more than amorphous stu". !e sort of form Aristotle has in mind, however, goes deeper than mere shape or pat- tern. His kind of form is the essence of a thing. A thing’s essence is its nature—the features without which it could not be what it is. A dog’s features can vary in many ways (hair color, breed, weight, etc.), and he will still be a dog—as long as his essential characteristics (the features that make him a dog) remain. If he loses those, he will cease to be a dog. For Aristotle, then, matter plus form-as-essence equals substance:

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Change Aristotle’s view of substance helps him counter the theories of early phi- losophers who hold that apparent changes in the world are illusions. Parmenides, for example, argues that the universe does not consist of numerous objects and forces; it is actually just one thing—solid, uni- form, and unchanging. We might think the world is a place of movement, multiplicity, and transition, but we would be wrong. Aristotle sees that if those who deny the possibility of change are right, there can be no need and no reason for science, the empirical enterprise that Aristotle tries so hard to establish.

!e change deniers backed their position with a simple argument: Either change is (1) a transition from something to that same something (because the new something is present in the original something), or (2) a transition from nothing to something. If (1), then no real change takes place. If (2), then the something would arise out of nothing, which is absurd. Change, therefore, is not possible. Aristotle debunks this view and sets out to show that change is not only possible but commonplace. In the process, he produced the West’s first plausible analysis of change.

He begins his examination of change by noting something that seems intuitively obvious to most: when a thing changes, there is always some- thing that continues, that persists through the process. Something is di"erent, and something is not. !ere are, as Aristotle notes, three compo- nents to every change: the subject of change (that which persists through the change); the prechange situation (before modification); and the post- change situation (after modification). It’s the first item that is the key to

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explaining how an object of change can change while not changing. Aristotle says that whether the change is an alteration of a thing’s properties or the coming to be of a new thing, “there must be something underlying” the process. !ere is either a persisting thing whose properties change, or a thing out of which a new thing arises.

In terms of matter and form, Aristotle says, change works like this: When a new thing arises (as when gold is shaped into a statue), the persisting element is the matter (the gold) from which the statue is fashioned. Substance comes into being, a new blend of matter and form. When a thing undergoes a change of minor properties (as when a man dyes his hair red), the persisting element is the substance man, which experiences a change in nonessential properties, an alteration in matter but not in form.

Cause Aristotle seeks to put science on a solid intellectual footing, and to do that he has to develop a theory of causal explanation. Explicating change and substance is not enough. He thinks any science worth the name should be able to search for and find answers to this question: Why? Why is something the way it is? More precisely, what is the explanation for a phenomenon’s characteristics? As Aristotle asks, “On account of what?” He points out that the early Greek philosophers thought there was only one way to answer this, and that was to tell what something is made of. !e explanation for everything is that it is composed of water, air, or some other material thing. Aristotle insists that the material composition of a thing is just one kind of explanation; actually there are three others. His translators have named them four “causes” (and tradition has gone along with that), but a more accurate label is the four “becauses” or “explanatory factors.”

!e explanation that cites material composition is known as the material cause. Why is this earthen jar the way it is? Because it’s made of clay. “[T]hat out of which as a constituent a thing comes to be is called a cause,” Aristotle says, “for example, the bronze and the silver and their genera would be the causes respectively of a statue and a loving-cup.”10 !e formal cause explains why something is the way it is by citing its form, that is, the structure and properties that make it what it is. Why is this animal a horse? Because it has the properties that constitute the form of a horse. To use Aristotle’s example: Why is this an octave? Because it has a ratio of two to one (the form of an octave). !e e!cient cause explains the main source or initiator of a change. What has produced this result, or sparked this sequence of events, or instigated this state of a"airs? !is type of explanation is akin to what most people think of as a cause of something. As Aristotle says:

“It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.”

—Aristotle

“Live and die in Aristotle’s works.”

—Christopher Marlowe

material cause A thing’s material composition.

formal cause A thing’s structure and properties that make it what it is.

e!cient cause !e main source or initiator of a change.

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focus on thefundamental things

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!e final cause explains what a thing is for or for what purpose it exists. Aris- totle says this explanatory factor tells us “that for the sake of which.” Such an expla- nation is easy enough to grasp when the something in question is an artifact. For what purpose was this statue sculpted? To honor a fallen hero. For what reason was this bridge built? To span the gorge. We humans have purposes, and we manipulate nature with those purposes in mind. And the intelligent behavior of nonhuman animals can also involve purposes when it is goal directed, as when a hound pursues a fox or an eagle searches a field for mice. But is there purpose in nonmental natural processes—in the development or functioning of feathers, fins, eyes, teeth, leaves, and roots?

Purpose Aristotle thinks so. In Physics he rejects the mechanistic view that every natural event happens by chance and without purpose. He o"ers several arguments for his stance, including this one: !e physical features of animals provide benefits to them (to help them eat, hunt, avoid danger, etc.); they enable functions that are useful to the animals. !ese beneficial functions arise with regularity, not haphazardly or randomly. If this is true, then the mechanistic view must be false—the features of animals can develop toward inherent ends or goals. Eyes develop for seeing; claws for hunting or digging; teeth for killing and eating. !e development of such features is, as Aristotle says, “for something.” Here he is making the point:

final cause What a thing is for or for what purpose it exists.

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“I do not agree with Plato, but if anything could make me do so, it would be Aristotle’s arguments against him.”

—Bertrand Russell

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So for Aristotle, the primary explanation (the final cause) for the development of all living things is teleology—the existence of purpose or ends inherent in persons or things. !e development of living things is directed toward a natural goal or objective (telos), toward the realization of the form inherent in them. Development is pointed toward particular outcomes, and in this way it unfolds according to a purpose—not purpose in the sense of intentional action or deliberation, but pur- pose as an internal goal toward which nature strives. Final cause explanations are accounts of living things developing or growing toward “the good”—the particular good for the things themselves. Since wolves have sharp teeth “for the sake of ” kill- ing prey—that is, sharp teeth are good for wolves—it is good for wolves to have sharp teeth. And what’s good for a creature is that which is essential to them, the

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teleology !e existence of purpose or ends inherent in persons or things.

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DETAILS

Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII.7, W. D. Ross, 347–348.

Aristotle’s God !e traditional God of major Western religions (Chris- tianity, Judaism, Islam) is thought to be the creator of the world; the source of all that exists; and the divine, but involved, father deeply interested in the a"airs of his human children. !is is not Aristotle’s God. In fact, he would think the term God hopelessly mis- leading as a label for his notion of the divine (although his translators have usually employed the word). He thinks his way, argument by argument, to a divinity who is essentially an “Unmoved Mover”—a being that is the source of motion and change in the uni- verse but does not itself move or change.

Aristotle begins with what he thinks are reason- able premises: the universe is eternal (it has always existed), and everything that moves (or changes) is moved (or changed) by something. So what has caused the movement (and change) that we see all around us?

Aristotle reasons that movement could not have been started by a first cause, because there can be no first cause in a universe that has always existed. But there has to be some sort of ultimate cause of movement or else nothing would be moving now, which is absurd. And this ultimate mover must itself be unmoved or else something would have to move it, and something would have to move that, and on and on to infinity—another absurdity. !us, things move because an ultimate, Unmoved Mover makes it so.

!rough an impressive series of arguments, Aristotle derives a clearer picture of this motionless mover. It is a living, eternal, single substance, unchanging, indestructible, without shape or size, and perfect. It is, in Aristotle’s language of causes, a final cause of everything. As a final cause, it compels movement through a teleological relationship—by being the object of desire (or love) of things in the world; the end that everything else ultimately aims at or strives for. By being such an object, it causes movement in the universe without itself moving. As Aristotle says:

[!e Unmoved Mover] produces motion by being loved, and it moves the other moving things. . . . !e first mover, then, of necessity exists; and in so far as it is necessary, it is good, and in this sense a first principle. . . . On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature.

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properties that make them the kind of thing they are. !us final causes are about a thing’s form. Sharp teeth are not only good for a wolf; they are part of what makes a wolf a wolf.

5.4 HAPPINESS, VIRTUE, AND THE GOOD

Teleology is the heart not only of Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics but of his ethics as well. Whatever we do, he says, we aim at some end or object, and this goal is something good, otherwise we would not strive for it. In gardening, our aim is the healthy growth of plants. In medicine, our aim is the cure or prevention of disease. In each case, our objective is to obtain some good. But notice: Some things are good because they are a means to other goods; these are instrumental goods. And some things are good in themselves, for their own sake; these are intrinsic goods. Because intrinsic goods are what all our actions are ultimately pointed toward, they are the highest goods.

With this distinction in mind, Aristotle asks what he believes is the founda- tional question of ethics: What is the highest good for a human being? Here is his answer:

instrumental good Something good because it helps us attain something else good; something good for the sake of something else.

intrinsic good Some- thing good in itself; something good for its own sake.

"SJTUPUMF��Nicomachean Ethics

&WFSZ�BSU�BOE�FWFSZ�JORVJSZ �BOE�TJNJMBSMZ�FWFSZ�BDUJPO�BOE�DIPJDF �JT�UIPVHIU�UP�BJN�BU�TPNF� HPPE��BOE�GPS�UIJT�SFBTPO�UIF�HPPE�IBT�SJHIUMZ�CFFO�EFDMBSFE�UP�CF�UIBU�BU�XIJDI�BMM�UIJOHT� BJN��������*G �UIFO �UIFSF�JT�TPNF�FOE�PG�UIF�UIJOHT�XF�EP �XIJDI�XF�EFTJSF�GPS�JUT�PXO�TBLF� � FWFSZUIJOH�FMTF�CFJOH�EFTJSFE�GPS�UIF�TBLF�PG�UIJT �BOE�JG�XF�EP�OPU�DIPPTF�FWFSZUIJOH�GPS� UIF�TBLF�PG�TPNFUIJOH�FMTF� GPS�BU�UIBU�SBUF�UIF�QSPDFTT�XPVME�HP�PO�UP�JOöOJUZ �TP�UIBU�PVS� EFTJSF�XPVME�CF�FNQUZ�BOE�WBJO �DMFBSMZ�UIJT�NVTU�CF�UIF�HPPE�BOE�UIF�DIJFG�HPPE��8JMM�OPU� UIF�LOPXMFEHF�PG�JU �UIFO �IBWF�B�HSFBU�JOøVFODF�PO�MJGF �4IBMM�XF�OPU �MJLF�BSDIFST�XIP�IBWF� B�NBSL�UP�BJN�BU �CF�NPSF�MJLFMZ�UP�IJU�VQPO�XIBU�XF�TIPVME �*G�TP �XF�NVTU�USZ �JO�PVUMJOF�BU� MFBTU �UP�EFUFSNJOF�XIBU�JU�JT��������

/PX�XF�DBMM�UIBU�XIJDI�JT�JO�JUTFMG�XPSUIZ�PG�QVSTVJU�NPSF�DPNQMFUF�UIBO�UIBU�XIJDI�JT� XPSUIZ� PG� QVSTVJU� GPS� UIF� TBLF� PG� TPNFUIJOH� FMTF � BOE� UIBU� XIJDI� JT� OFWFS� EFTJSBCMF� GPS� UIF̓TBLF�PG�TPNFUIJOH�FMTF�NPSF�DPNQMFUF�UIBO�UIF�UIJOHT�UIBU�BSF�EFTJSBCMF�CPUI�JO�UIFN� TFMWFT�BOE�GPS�UIF�TBLF�PG�UIBU�PUIFS�UIJOH �BOE�UIFSFGPSF�XF�DBMM�DPNQMFUF�XJUIPVU�RVBMJö� DBUJPO�UIBU�XIJDI�JT�BMXBZT�EFTJSBCMF�JO�JUTFMG�BOE�OFWFS�GPS�UIF�TBLF�PG�TPNFUIJOH�FMTF�

/PX�TVDI�B�UIJOH�IBQQJOFTT �BCPWF�BMM�FMTF �JT�IFME�UP�CF��GPS�UIJT�XF�DIPPTF�BMXBZT�GPS� JUTFMG�BOE�OFWFS�GPS�UIF�TBLF�PG�TPNFUIJOH�FMTF �CVU�IPOPVS �QMFBTVSF �SFBTPO �BOE�FWFSZ� FYDFMMFODF�XF�DIPPTF�JOEFFE�GPS�UIFNTFMWFT� GPS�JG�OPUIJOH�SFTVMUFE�GSPN�UIFN�XF�TIPVME� TUJMM�DIPPTF�FBDI�PG�UIFN �CVU�XF�DIPPTF�UIFN�BMTP�GPS�UIF�TBLF�PG�IBQQJOFTT �KVEHJOH�UIBU� UISPVHI�UIFN�XF�TIBMM�CF�IBQQZ��)BQQJOFTT �PO�UIF�PUIFS�IBOE �OP�POF�DIPPTFT�GPS�UIF� TBLF�PG�UIFTF �OPS �JO�HFOFSBM �GPS�BOZUIJOH�PUIFS�UIBO�JUTFMG�������

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”

—Aristotle

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vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 121 05/09/17 06:00 PM

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Aristotle argues that the good life—a life attaining the highest good—is one lived according to the light of reason and is therefore marked by true happiness. It is to live rationally and to do so excellently; an achievement that results in a rich and satisfying life. To live this way, he says, is to possess the moral and intellectual virtues in full. A virtue is a disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence— for example, honesty, compassion, loyalty, benevolence, temperance, and fairness. Virtues, in other words, are excellences of character. !ey are neither pure emotions nor the product of our genes. !ey are, as Aristotle says, a choice for which we can be praised or blamed.

!ey are also excellences that we learn through practice:

virtue A disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence.

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Figure 5.10 "�DPQZ�PG�"SJTUPUMF�T�Nicomachean Ethics �IBOEXSJUUFO�JO� DPMPSGVM �PSOBUF�DBMMJHSBQIZ�JO������

“We are not concerned to know what goodness is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study [of ethics] its practical value.”

—Aristotle

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"SJTUPUMF��Nicomachean Ethics

122 CHAPTER 5 "SJTUPUMF��3FBTPO�BOE�/BUVSF

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 122 05/09/17 06:00 PM

How do we recognize the virtues (and vices) when we see them? Aristotle holds that a virtue is the midpoint (the “golden mean”) between the extremes of excess and deficit, and the extremes are the vices. Courage, for example, is the virtue that comes midway between the vices of cowardice (too much fear) and rashness (too little fear).

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"SJTUPUMF��Nicomachean Ethics

Unlike some other theories of morality, Aristotle’s doctrine is aspirational. It asks us to do much more than just observe minimal moral rules—it insists that we aspire to moral excellence, that we cultivate the virtues that will make us better persons. In this sense, his theory is goal-directed, not rule-guided. !e moral virtues are ideals that we must ever strive to realize. In Aristotle’s view, character is not static. We can become more virtuous by reflecting on our lives and those of others and practicing virtuous behavior.

“We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.”

—Aristotle

)BQQJOFTT �7JSUVF �BOE�UIF�(PPE� 123

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 123 05/09/17 06:00 PM

DETAILS

Aristotle’s Soul Plato has an otherworldly view of the soul: the soul is the immaterial essence of a human being, a sepa- rate entity, existing before it is im- prisoned in the body and living on after the body dies. Aristotle, how- ever, rejects this view, arguing in- stead for a thoroughly naturalistic soul. In his most general account of the concept, he says the soul is the form of the body—the char- acteristic way the body functions. One scholar expresses Aristotle’s view like this:

[F]or a thing to have a soul is for it to be a natural or- ganic body actually capable of functioning. . . . !us Aristotle’s souls are not pieces of living things, nor are they bits of spiritual stu" placed inside physical bodies; rather, they are sets of powers, sets of capacities or faculties. Possessing a soul is like possessing a skill. A carpenter’s skill is not some part of him, responsible for his skilled acts; simi- larly, a living creature’s animator or soul is not part of it, responsible for its living activities.

Accordingly we needn’t ask if the soul and body are one, just as we needn’t ask if ears and hearing are one, or (to use Aristotle’s example) if a piece of wax and the wax’s shape are one. And the perennial philosophical question of how the body and soul interact is moot.

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Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 106–107.

Figure 5.11 "DDPSEJOH�UP�"SJTUPUMF �UIF�TPVM�JT�OPU�B�XJTQZ�TQJSJU� �EXFMMJOH�JO�UIF�NPSUBM�DPJM��JU�T�UIF�DIBSBDUFSJTUJD�GVODUJPOT�BOE� �DBQBDJUJFT�PG�UIF�CPEZ��5IF�TPVM�JT�B�OBUVSBM�PCKFDU �OPU�B�QBSBOPSNBM� PS�TVQFSOBUVSBM�FOUJUZ�

124 CHAPTER 5 "SJTUPUMF��3FBTPO�BOE�/BUVSF

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 124 05/09/17 06:00 PM

WRITING AND REASONING $)"15&3��

1. How does Aristotle’s theory of knowledge di"er from Plato’s? In each theory, what is the role of sense experience? What are Plato’s and Aristotle’s attitudes toward the everyday world? Which attitude is more reasonable? Why?

2. What is a virtue? According to Aristotle, how can we identify virtues? How are virtues related to the aim of living a good life? Do virtuous people generally live more satisfying lives than those without virtue? Explain.

3. How has Aristotle influenced modern science? Did Plato a"ect contemporary science in a similar way? Why or why not?

4. What is Aristotle’s notion of substance? How is substance related to form and matter? Why does he reject the “pincushion” view of substance? Do you agree with him?

5. What are Aristotle’s four causes? How would he characterize the four causes of a house? Do you think a horse has a final cause? Why or why not?

R&7*&8�/OTES

5.1 THE LIFE OF ARISTOTLE t� "SJTUPUMF�XBT�CPSO�JO�4UBHJSB�JO�.BDFEPOJB �UIF�TPO�PG�B�QIZTJDJBO �/JDPNBDIVT �

who served the Macedonian king. At age seventeen or eighteen, he entered Plato’s famous Academy in Athens and remained there for twenty years.

t� "SPVOE�UIF�UJNF�1MBUP�EJFE� ��� �"SJTUPUMF�MFGU�"UIFOT�GPS�UIF�XFTUFSO�TIPSFT�PG� Asia Minor, where he did philosophy, conducted research in marine biology, and married a woman named Pythias by whom he had a daughter.

t� *O� ��� � BGUFS� CFJOH� BXBZ� GSPN� "UIFOT� GPS� UXFMWF� ZFBST � IF� SFUVSOFE� UP� GPVOE� B� school of philosophy and science called the Lyceum. In 323 he became an object of suspicion because of his ties to Macedonia, so he fled Athens, going into exile on the Aegean island of Euboea, where he died at the age of sixty-two.

5.2 LOGIC, KNOWLEDGE, AND TRUTH t� "SJTUPUMF�CFMJFWFT�UIBU�LOPXMFEHF�JT�QPTTJCMF�BOE�UIBU�XF�DBO�HSBTQ�PCKFDUJWF�USVUIT�

about reality, but unlike Plato he thinks knowing begins with sense experience. t� 8JUI�UIF�JOWFOUJPO�PG�MPHJD �"SJTUPUMF�USJFT�UP�DMBSJGZ�BOE�TZTUFNBUJ[F�PVS�BDRVJTJUJPO�PG�

knowledge, and the heart of his deductive system is a precisely stated form of argument called the syllogism. To aid the analysis of arguments, he devised a way to lay bare the logical structure of a syllogism by using letters (variables) to stand for the terms.

t� 5P�"SJTUPUMF �TDJFOUJmD�LOPXMFEHF�JT�OPU�TP�NVDI�LOPXJOH�UIBU�TPNFUIJOH�JT�USVF � but knowing why it is true—knowing the explanation for a phenomenon. He says the perfect vehicle for acquiring such knowledge is the syllogism because its prem- ises (axioms) provide the explanation or reason for the state of a"airs described in

Key Terms 125

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 125 05/17/17 04:51 PM

the conclusion. !e axioms can be known intuitively by an immediate apprehen- sion of the mind. !us Aristotle’s logic helps us evaluate whether a proposed expla- nation for a phenomenon is correct.

5.3 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS t� 'PS�"SJTUPUMF �UIF�NPTU�JNQPSUBOU�RVFTUJPO�JO�NFUBQIZTJDT�JT �8IBU�CBTJD�FYJTUJOH�

UIJOHT�EP�BMM�PUIFS�UIJOHT�EFQFOE�PO�GPS�UIFJS�FYJTUFODF �5P�IJN �UIF�BOTXFS�NVTU� be substance.

t� )F�SFWJFXT�BOE�SFKFDUT�TFWFSBM�TVCTUBODF�UIFPSJFT �JODMVEJOH�UIF�OPUJPO�UIBU�TVC- TUBODF�JT�B�GFBUVSFMFTT�QSJNF�NBUUFS��)F�BTTFSUT�UIBU�B�OFCVMPVT�OPUIJOH�DBOOPU�CF� TVCTUBODF �BOE�IF�SFGVUFT�UIF�OPUJPO�UIBU�XF�DBO�IBWF�OP�LOPXMFEHF�PG�UIF�GVOEB- NFOUBM�VOEFSMBZNFOU�PG�SFBMJUZ��6MUJNBUFMZ �IF�BDDFQUT�UIBU�B�DPNQPTJUF�PG�GPSN�BOE� NBUUFS�DBO�DPOTUJUVUF�TVCTUBODF �XJUI�GPSN�CFJOH�UIF�FTTFOUJBM�FMFNFOU�UIBU�NBLFT� NBUUFS�NPSF�UIBO�BNPSQIPVT�TUVĊ��)JT�LJOE�PG�GPSN�JT�UIF�FTTFODF�PG�B�UIJOH�

t� "SJTUPUMF�BSHVFT�UIBU�DIBOHF�JT�OPU�POMZ�QPTTJCMF�CVU�DPNNPOQMBDF��)F�TBZT�UIBU� whether change is an alteration of a thing’s properties or the coming to be of a new UIJOH �iUIFSF�NVTU�CF�TPNFUIJOH�VOEFSMZJOHw�UIF�QSPDFTT��ɨFSF�JT�FJUIFS�B�QFSTJTU- JOH�UIJOH�XIPTF�QSPQFSUJFT�DIBOHF �PS�B�UIJOH�PVU�PG�XIJDI�B�OFX�UIJOH�BSJTFT�

t� "SJTUPUMF�JEFOUJmFT�GPVS�LJOET�PG�DBVTFT��NBUFSJBM�DBVTF� B�UIJOH�T�NBUFSJBM�DPNQPTJ- UJPO �GPSNBM�DBVTF� B�UIJOH�T�QSPQFSUJFT�UIBU�NBLF�JU�XIBU�JU�JT �FċDJFOU�DBVTF� UIF� NBJO�TPVSDF�PS�JOJUJBUPS�PG�B�DIBOHF �BOE�mOBM�DBVTF� XIBU�B�UIJOH�JT�GPS�PS�GPS� what purpose it exists).

t� 'PS�"SJTUPUMF �UIF�QSJNBSZ�FYQMBOBUJPO� UIF�mOBM�DBVTF �GPS�UIF�EFWFMPQNFOU�PG�BMM� MJWJOH�UIJOHT�JT�UFMFPMPHJDBM�UIBU�JT �UIF�EFWFMPQNFOU�JT�EJSFDUFE�UPXBSE�B�OBUVSBM� HPBM�PS�PCKFDUJWF��%FWFMPQNFOU�JT�QPJOUFE�UPXBSE�QBSUJDVMBS�PVUDPNFT �BOE�JO�UIJT� way it unfolds according to a purpose—not purpose in the sense of intentional BDUJPO�PS�EFMJCFSBUJPO �CVU�QVSQPTF�BT�BO�JOUFSOBM�HPBM�UPXBSE�XIJDI�OBUVSF�TUSJWFT�

5.4 HAPPINESS, VIRTUE, AND THE GOOD t� "SJTUPUMF�BSHVFT�UIBU�UIF�HPPE�MJGF�JT�POF�MJWFE�BDDPSEJOH�UP�UIF�MJHIU�PG�SFBTPO�BOE�

is therefore marked by true happiness. It is to live rationally and to do so excel- MFOUMZ��5P�MJWF�UIJT�XBZ �IF�TBZT �JT�UP�QPTTFTT�UIF�NPSBM�BOE�JOUFMMFDUVBM�WJSUVFT�JO� full. A virtue is a disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence; it is a choice for which we can be praised or blamed.

t� )F�IPMET�UIBU�B�WJSUVF�JT�UIF�NJEQPJOU� UIF�iHPMEFO�NFBOw �CFUXFFO�UIF�FYUSFNFT� PG�FYDFTT�BOE�EFmDJU �BOE�UIF�FYUSFNFT�BSF�UIF�WJDFT��$PVSBHF �GPS�FYBNQMF �JT�UIF� WJSUVF� UIBU� DPNFT� NJEXBZ� CFUXFFO� UIF� WJDFT� PG� DPXBSEJDF� UPP� NVDI� GFBS � BOE� SBTIOFTT� UPP�MJUUMF�GFBS �

KEY TERMS deductive argument FċDJFOU�DBVTF mOBM�DBVTF form

formal cause instrumental good intrinsic good invalid argument Lyceum

material cause necessary truth syllogism teleology terms

valid argument virtue

126 CHAPTER 5 "SJTUPUMF��3FBTPO�BOE�/BUVSF

vau28703_ch05_104-126.indd 126 05/09/17 06:00 PM

/PUFT 1. J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 11. 2. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, vol. 2, in trans. R. D. Hicks, Dio-

genes Laertius (Cambridge, MA: 1972). 3. Anthony Gottlieb, !e Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks

to the Renaissance (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 233. 4. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.1, A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J. L. Ackrill (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1987), 255–256. 5. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.2.71b9, in Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader, 40. 6. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.1, W. D. Ross, trans., revised by J. Barnes (Revised

Oxford Aristotle, 1984), text: W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924). 7. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.1–2, trans. Ross. 8. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.1, 3, trans. Ross. 9. Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.4, 17, trans. Ross. 10. Aristotle, Physics, II.3, 194b23–26, Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader, 98. 11. Aristotle, Physics, II.3, 194b29–33, Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader, 98. 12. Aristotle, Physics, II.8, 198b34–199a9, Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader, 107. 13. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1908), Bk. I, chs. 1, 2, 7. 14. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross, Bk. 2, ch. 2. 15. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Ross, Bk. 2, chs. 6–7.

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J. L. Ackrill, A New Aristotle Reader (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle [Past Masters Series] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe, trans., Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Ted Honderich, ed., !e Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Hugh Lawson-Tancred, “Ancient Greek Philosophy II: Aristotle,” Philosophy I: A Guide through the Subject, ed. A. C. Grayling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Christopher Shields, ed., !e Oxford Handbook of Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2012).

Mary Ellen Waithe, ed., A History of Women Philosophers, vol. 1, 600 BC–500 AD (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho", 1987).