Plato, Phaedo

Few dialogues are as deeply disturbing and perplexing as the Phaedo, and though all the dialogues concern themselves with what it is to be human, and what the human life looks like, no dialogue explores the consequences of these questions like the Phaedo. For the Phaedo is about dying, being dead, and the preparation for death; since man is mortal, and if he is to live in the truth, he must confront his mortality. And since philosophy claims to be the best life, she must justify herself in the face of death. Given the fact of our imminent doom, why should we spend our days in philosophy? Does not the fact of death make such speculation, especially on such abstract, abstruse subjects like metaphysics, vain? In the words of the Philosopher-King, "he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. This too is vanity."

Socrates rejects this line of thought, the fears that characterize his young companions' questioning into the soul. For since, reason they, philosophy might not even prolong one's life but might (as the case of Socrates suggests) on the contrary prematurely shorten it, is not a live dog better than a dead lion? But Socrates reassures his friends: the soul is immortal, and after death we shall continue to be what we are now. This knowledge, for which ample proofs are given, reassures his friends and provides Socrates with the courage to face death and show his young friends that he is the "wisest and justest of all men." In the face of a constantly changing, hostile world, the soul persists always, giving the philosopher hope in the most hopeless of circumstances. This has some fairly significant implications: since we are, properly speaking, our soul, we should neglect the passions of the body and care only for the soul; the soul is, in reality, 'imprisoned' by the body, and since knowledge is of spiritual things, the body is of no help in the search for wisdom. The philosopher therefore is a hater of bodily things.

Such a view of the Phaedo is hardly original. This is the standard, conventional interpretation of the Phaedo, and one encounters it everywhere - encyclopedias, articles, and introductory philosophy courses at the university. But - if one rereads the Phaedo with sufficient care, one begins to see the extraordinarily conflicted nature of the dialogue. Socrates claims the philosopher is a hater of bodily things, but he has children in his very old age, presumably enjoying the prior, accompanying pleasures; he spends not a little time rubbing his leg prior to his attack on bodily pleasures; and he idly plays with Phaedo's beautiful hair (as, we learn, he was in the habit of doing). Further, we know from the Symposium that he drank more wine than anyone else, never got drunk, and enjoyed himself more than anyone present. Such actions are not the actions of a man convinced that the body is vain. Socrates is neither a Christian ascetic, sacrificing good things as penance for the kingdom of heaven, nor a Buddhist monk, convinced of the vanity of all desire.

Far more disturbing, however, is the treatment of the soul. To be sure, Socrates lays out four arguments for the immortality of the soul. Unfortunately, all of them fail, containing patent logical errors. A great thinker is apt to err in first principles, but not usually in minor steps of logic; Spinoza's Ethics might not be absolutely true, but few would deny it is internally consistent. But even more grievous; the arguments Socrates advances strip the soul of everything personal, which ignores our primal fear of death and longing to live forever: we want ourselves, what makes us us, to persist, not some abstract Form or Intellect, which has no knowledge of individual things nor memory of our life. In short, we long for what Christ promises; for our perfected person, body and soul, our self, to rise again and have life everlasting. Whether such a thing be possible - that is the leap of faith. That the Christian message has proved so powerful is in part because it addresses man's most primal, urgent longings; precisely the longings Socrates betrays in his Four Arguments (consider the opening of the Second Argument and how it moves from the particular to the universal until nothing of the particular is left).

Though Socrates teaches falsehood for the sake of comforting his companions and inspiring them to seek out philosophy, there is no indication that he himself is convinced by his sophisms - rather, the contrary. It seems therefore that he did not think what these arguments proved had been sufficiently demonstrated, and from this two conclusions might be drawn: one, that Socrates did not think the personal immortality of the soul could be known through reason. Two, that Socrates positively affirmed the personal mortality of the soul. I myself prefer the first option, for it is more in line with his gentle skepticism (he does not say, "I shall not believe it till you prove it to my satisfaction," but "How can that be? Let us investigate it together"), more confident the possibility of future inquiry, and it preserves the fundamental difficulty resulting from the failure of his earlier arguments: why philosophize if you cannot know, but can only hope (and scarcely have a reasonable hope, at that), that the soul is immortal? Is not everything vain again?

Unfortunately, the Phaedo does not provide sure, open answers to these questions. Matters thus look very bleak, a cause for the deepest despair. But some consolation might be present in the Allegory of the Cave and reflecting upon courage. For there is no question that for those who have truly tasted it, the philosophic life is superior to that of all others (the challenge of revelation is for the time being set aside). Once one has seen knowledge, to live in ignorance is intolerable, at least for those few souls who love wisdom, but even men living in ignorance wish to think their ignorance the truth (Cipher's decision to re-enter the Matrix is the clearest modern example of this). And courage is the perseverance in a judgment which reason knows to be true - in this case, that philosophy is the best life. For even if death is the end, philosophy remains the best life, and one should take even more care over one's soul, because it is the most precious of all things. Abandoning this for a life of hedonistic despair and nihilism would be weak and shameful, the willing enslavement to the bodily passions which is so fatal to philosophy (Socrates, remember, was famous for his temperance). Still, this is far less reassuring than it might have been, for Socrates seems to suggest that only courage separates us from despair.

Plato, Minos

Through this introduction to the life of Socrates through the shorter Platonic dialogues, I begin to get the feeling that Plato is guiding us from a love of what we think we know (authoritative opinion) to a love of the truth. Whatever else may be said for Bruell's take, I have to admit it's rather wonderful. The medievals held that the short dialogues are the best gateways into Platonic philosophy (though what that itself is is a matter of some dispute, and I claim provisional ignorance), and the Straussians tend to agree. I at least am finding the order of dialogues he recommends perfect: dialogues 'on' gain, law, and justice (among other things). Most incredible is the way Plato effortlessly illustrates thoughtful popular opinion on these things, and how similar a man in 21st century America might have the same opinions on gain, law, and justice as a 4th century BC Athenian.

Never have I read a dialogue where I was more invested in the outcome than in the Minos. Socrates asks a nameless companion, "What is law, for us?" Socrates immediately presses the issue towards defining law as something not entirely up to us ("a discover of what is), but he is initially unsuccessful. His companion's final definition of the law is as following: Law is the official opinion of the city; that is, political opinion. Opinion, and not knowledge. Here begins my difficulty: this is precisely my definition of law: customarily accepted political opinion. But if it is mere opinion, not knowledge, why ought it to be respected and heeded? Why should the philosopher, who has knowledge, not be above the law? I react with some horror at the implication of my own view, for widespread disrespect for the law would be devastating to the city. Plato, it seems to me, is trying to raise the reader up from such a vulgar view of law, and so I was hoping very much to find a persuasive argument that was not intended to be ironical.

Unfortunately, I did not find it. Socrates links justice and law very closely when he gets his companion to agree that the lawful are just and the lawless unjust. But is this true? That there could be unjust law I have no doubt: laws which defraud the poor and vulnerable, laws which treat political equals unequally, or worse offenses. If the law may be unjust, then are not the unlawful just and the lawful unjust? Yet this returns to disrepecting the law, for if the view that in some cases the unlawful is just is promulgated, one will simply call all laws which moderate one's vulgar desires unjust and himself just when he is unlawful - surely a great disgrace.

Through linking the law with justice, Socrates persuade his companion that "Law is true opinion", and therefore that "Law wishes to be the discovery of what is", like the other arts: medicine, agriculture, gardening, cooking, etc. The companion raises a difficulty: if this is so, why do cities everywhere not use the same laws, as they all use the same medicines, etc? (a similar impasse might be raised against the proposition that certain things are true) And Socrates' response is most unconvincing: professing ignorance that this is indeed the case. And after the companion enlightens him with a description of contrary laws and customs (like Herodotus, a bit), Socrates avoids his clear, eloquent speech and instead moves into being a sophist to produce agreement. His response is quite puzzling. After the companion pleads that he wishes to be convinced (as did I - I longed, positively longed to be convinced), but that "when I consider that we never stop changing the laws, I can't be persuaded", Socrates says, "Perhaps you do not perceive that these things, being moved like droughts pieces, remain the same" - which I don't understand at all.

Further, the argument progresses on the assumption that law is some sort of techne: as the heavy is heavy in Athens and Sparta alike, and the healthy is as well, etc. law will be the same everywhere. He uses four examples: medicine, agriculture, gardening, and cooking. How do these illustrate the nature of law? Medicine seems accurate enough: the causes of health in a man can be approximately codified, and doctors, whether in Athens or Lycaea, will use similar means to induce health. Agriculture is similar, but seldom relies on written "laws" - most often tradition and experience (though I suppose these are similar in practice to the 'laws' of medicine) to produce bountiful crops. But gardening? What is the aim of gardening? And cooking? These seem far more dependent upon private whim and fancy than they do with a written law, intending to be the discovery of what is (also, in the Gorgias, Socrates uses cooking as a negative example to illustrate rhetoric). Perhaps Plato did not intend to undermine Socrates' argument that law is the discovery of what is, or that I'm missing something crucially important, but Socrates did not convince me that the lawful are always just, and that therefore law is the discovery of what is; if Plato did not intend that, he sure came close.

I have seldom been in a position of wishing to be convinced, and yet being unconvinced. It is rather unpleasant. Is law nothing more than authoritative political opinion, whose justice is entirely accidental? Are justice and law completely separate things? I don't want to hold either of those opinions, but till I work something out (perhaps Aquinas' Treatise on Law, which I have completely forgotten, would help), that is unfortunately where I linger: in the shadow of vulgar opinion.

"What else would law be, Socrates, except those things that are lawfully accepted?"

Plato, Hipparchus

I am under no illusions about the depth of these brief notes on the Dialogues. I have read the Hipparchus carefully only a few times. Doubtless indeed I should see more of it if I read it carefully twenty times, but I must move on; and even in this brief introduction I have learned much about the Socratic life and how philosophy constitutes itself in the face of the authoritative public opinion against which it must inevitably conflict.

It helps, truly, to have a good guide. I am reasonably intelligent, but I am young and have read little. Christopher Bruell is very learned, utterly brilliant, and has been reading Plato carefully for at least fifty years. His book, On the Socratic Education is an exquisite thing, written late in life, and ironically entitled "An Introduction", which it most certainly is not. The writing is far denser than it needed to be, with seemingly endless subordinate clauses everywhere you look till you have almost forgotten what the subject was; but this is no criticism, for Mr. Bruell is a smart enough man to write intentionally. The difficult, dense writing employed by him, Leo Strauss, and those like him, is truly a barrier set up against the average reader, but the barrier is there on purpose. Not everyone is meant to embark upon philosophy; not everyone should begin to question their authoritative, traditional opinions. Such men might be made worse by philosophy, like Meno; better for them to remain simple, moral people. Though we today would call sentiment 'elitist', 'snobbish', or 'aristocratic', I believe Strauss and his students thought it was the truth, and inculcated it in themselves and employed it in their writings. But they learned it first from their masters, particularly Plato. But enough of Bruell - I shall turn to what little I have gleaned from the Hipparchus.

The Hipparchus is first in the path of sixteen Bruell lays out, indicating that he intends the Hipparchus to be the introduction to Socrates and his education, if not the introduction to philosophy. In it, Socrates approaches a young man and asks, "What is the love of gain, and who are the lovers of gain?"; or the dialogue begins in the midst of on ongoing conversation. His young companion immediately launches an impassioned, indignant assault upon the lovers of gain as sellers of the worthless, cheaters, frauds, evil men, etc. He neglects to seek out what gain could be. What is it? We think first of increase of wealth or money, but also increase of good things, since gain in the first sense is held to be good. The companion seems ignorant of this double meaning, and Socrates exploits the ambiguity rather mercilessly. Through his questioning, he shows his companion that he believes gain is always good, and thus it is unreasonable to expect anyone, even the decent or just man, from seeking it; even more, that those who love gain what is good; thus, cheaters and frauds turn out to be lovers of the good. This shocking conclusion is rendered unconvincing to the reader (and Plato intended it to be so), since Socrates banishes justice from the dialogue quite early on, locking out his companion's complaint against the lovers of gain, and refusing to acknowledge the opposing view, that gain could be criticized. And by subtly switching the terms of the argument, and proceeding on a false assumptions (when the companion defines the lover of gain in terms of the worthless, Socrates acts as if he meant "worthless for producing gain" - obviously not what his interlocutor intended), he is easily able to reduce the counter-arguments to nonsense, 'proving' his argument true.

The companion thinks of gain as a good, but wishes to restrain the love of gain in the name of decency or justice. He further argues that the lover of gain is "he who thinks it worthwhile to make a gain from that which the decent wouldn't dare to gain from", and what he has in mind is most likely the unjust increase of money through deception, bribery, etc. But in calling them gains, he implicitly recognizes them as good, since he resolutely adheres to the proposition that gain is good. Further, he asserts those who pursue such gains are harmed by them, which means he is forced to argue that the good harms. He is confused about the nature of gain, and Socrates is so willfully obtuse that the nature of gain is never clearly spelled out in the dialogue.

Why does Socrates hold this conversation? Why is he so brutal to his interlocutor? In what way is the Hipparchus meant to be a defense or propaedeutic to philosophy? This is difficult for me to say, probably because I have read insufficiently. But perhaps Socrates sees a danger in the companion's criticism of the lovers of gain, for since he does not recognize the ambiguity inherent in the word, the philosopher might well be included in his condemnation. As to what this different love of gain might be, I am rather unsure; but the interlude on Hipparchus hints that it may have something to do with wisdom.

"This is a memorial of Hipparchus: Do not deceive a friend."

Plato, Ion

What a pleasure it is to return to inexhaustible literature! This short gem of a dialogue is the beginning of my return to Ancient Greece; on deck now is the Iliad and a modern doorstopper, Tragedy and Hope, recommended to me by David Fabe via Josh Barr.

The Ion appears to be part of a critique of poetry and the poets. Through inquiring if Ion is clever about all poets, not just Homer, Socrates is able to show Ion that the rhapsode's ability is not an art or craft, that it possesses no knowledge, and that in general, the poet does not know what he is talking about. But when one reexamines the argument, specifically with the question how Socrates gets Ion to admit all this, it becomes ever clearer that Socrates uses poorly constructed arguments for his assertions - switching subjects unbeknownst to Ion, ignoring implications, etc. Further, the examples he uses make the question of what τέχνη and ἐπιστήμη are completely unclear, inviting us to consider the possibility that the argument is not intended to be taken seriously, culminating in a twin example of generalship: Ion claims he knows what a general should say to exhort his troops before battle, and this he learned from Homer. Socrates changes the subject again ("So the rhapsode is a general? Seriously?"), mocks him, and ends the discussion, but it is unclear just how a general should learn to exhort his troops, and perhaps Ion's claim is not quite so ridiculous. Through an examination of the general, it seems that far from banishing the poets from the city, they are necessary to form its soul, and provide a vision of the whole for its citizens.

There is more. Homer occupies a special place in Athens; he is an artist who truly formed the soul of man; his depiction of heroic virtue was the standard until Alexander the Great, and his work was about as authoritative to the Greeks as the Bible was to the Medievals. As such, Homer is the commonly received opinion or tradition of the Greeks (Athens' cave, perhaps - what a great cave!), and by focusing solely on him, Ion is the most conventional, unreflective of men. He does not inquire or even seek to inquire whether there might be alternatives to Homer, using him to bolster his own achievements and reputation. Socrates, in investigating the link between art, poetry, and "speaking well or badly" (is this related to knowledge? the word "knowledge" occurs very seldom in the dialogue, hardly an accident), is investigating the very foundation of the city's most dearly held beliefs, what reason there is to hold those beliefs, and whether there might be alternatives: a dangerous business, for it is simple to see such a man as subversive.

I am sure that hardly covers the entire Ion. I have only read it five or ten times, and will probably see more as the count approaches fifty. But it is a good beginning. Reading Plato is like reading nothing else; it is exhilarating, shocking, infuriating, and provoking towards education of the highest sort; a great adventure. This is the first of the Dialogues I have read carefully; one down, thirty four more (plus the Letters) to go.

"As for me, I speak nothing but the truth, as is fitting for a private human being".