Socrates and Eudaimonia

Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie, 2012

At Euthydemus 278c–282d, Socrates defends strong claims about the relative value of wisdom, fortune, and other goods in relation to happiness. He concludes that wisdom guarantees all of the good fortune a person needs, and that wisdom alone is good and ignorance alone is bad. However, Socrates’ arguments prove insufficient to establish his strong conclusions. I argue that Socrates does not aim to support his strongest conclusions with adequate arguments. Instead, the context indicates that Socrates’ arguments – with their evocative examples and strong but unsupported conclusions – are designed primarily to draw Clinias into the activity of philosophy.

Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2004

We shall dismiss this business of Chaerephon, as it is nothing but a cheap and sophistical tale [sophistikon kai phortikon diegema]"-Colotes, according to Plutarch's Moralia 14, 1116f-1117a. Socrates' account of his "mission" on behalf of the god at Delphi is one of the most memorable parts of his most famous memorial in Plato's Apology. But it is also controversial as to what it means to Socrates and what it should mean to readers of Plato's text. 1 First, there is the curious fact that the story occurs nowhere outside the competing versions of Socrates' defense-speech in Plato and Xenophon, and in the latter version the oracular report differs significantly in content and import: there the Pythia proclaims, not that no one is wiser than Socrates, but that no one is more generous or more just or more "soundminded" (sōphrōn), and Xenophon's Socrates uses this as evidence that he "outshone the rest of mankind" and "deserves congratulations from gods and men alike" (Apology 14-18). 2 Furthermore, the sequence of events that make up Socrates' "mission" is itself difficult to discern, from its apparent prompting by the oracular message to Chaerephon, to Socrates' initial effort to refute it, to his ultimate practice of elenchos in order that the oracle (or, at least, his interpretation of the oracle) might remain unrefuted. 3 Not surprisingly, it was already a matter of controversy in the third century BC, as we read in the above quotation from Plutarch's Moralia. Whereas Arcesilaus interpreted the story of the Delphic oracle, and the account of elenctic practice occasioned by the oracle, as a model for his own skeptical orientation, Colotes, the Epicurean, charged that he had been duped by Socrates' sophistic oratory. 4 To be sure, Colotes' charge of sophistry is meant to be abusive and has value for us only insofar as it counters a piously uncritical reading of Socrates' self-portrayal in Plato's Apology. 5 In what follows I shall argue that an appreciation of the irony and mock-humility with which Socrates accounts for his "mission" to phi

2018

Paper presented to the SAGP at its 2005 meeting with the Central Division o f the APA Socrates and Plato do not speak or write in one voice about wisdom, yet their altogether unique theorizing about it represents the focal point of the West's first philosophy, philosophia as the "love of wisdom." Significantly, then, Plato's differing notions and wordings for wisdom throughout his dialogues must be continually revisited and reexamined. Tentatively, I adopt Gilbert Owen's wording and senses of "univocal" and "equivocal," which he used in relation to Aristotle's philosophy, only as a heuristic guide, to inquire into Plato's own 'equivocal' senses of wisdom.1 Because Plato has no 'univocal' or single-minded sense of wisdom, it is critical to revisit certain claims and assumptions about his contrasting and complementary usage of terms, their meanings, and importance for his overall theory of wisdom. By so doing, his philosophy emerges in clearer sight. By this analysis, some of these claims are re-evaluated and overturned. Of particular interest are those views that have been formerly accepted as developing or changing from Plato's Republic to the Laws regarding the kind of wisdom, hence also the philosophy necessary to guide the State. My interpretation diverges at key junctures from some of the standard interpretations of the meaning and significance of these changes. First, we can agree that clear differences are to be found between Plato's depiction of philosophical wisdom and the philosopher rulers in the Republic and in the Laws. By way of preliminary background for these changes, Plato's depiction of the kind of philosophic wisdom necessary for political leadership, at the same time, also reflects the underlying nature, constitution, and values of their different forms of political society and government. As a result of these Platonic interconnections, Plato's description of the nature of political society, and his characterization of philosophers as political leaders contain further reason and evidence for his making novel developments in the theory of wisdom between the Republic and the Laws. Instead of dividing and breaking away from theories in earlier dialogues, Plato's final views actually serve to advance, broaden, and perhaps unify his overall conception of wisdom and philosophy.

Philosophy in Review, 2012

Unlike many of its counterparts (e.g., A Companion to Socrates, Blackwell, 2006), this companion (CCS) devotes more of its contents to Socrates' philosophy and less to his historical and political circumstance and his many influences upon subsequent cultures. In this sense, the CCS is more a companion to philosophy than is its counterparts. Those pieces in CCS which are less philosophical nevertheless survey a variety of scholarly literature devoted to a specific problem closely related to doing Socratic scholarship (e.g., an overview of the primary sources for Socratic philosophy, itself a famously problematic issue). Those readers seeking discussions of matters more ancillary to Socratic philosophy will do better to consult, say, the Blackwell volume.

Plato Journal

Did Plato change his mind? This has become a topical question once again, especially after the publication of two books which dispute some received wisdom about the 'Socratic' dialogues [1]. The received wisdom imagined that we might distinguish between an early period of Platonic thought and the middle period dialogues. In particular (many still suppose), between dialogues such as the Protagoras or the Laches and the Phaedo or the Republic we can see Plato changing his mind about metaphysics (are there transcendent forms?) and psychology (is the soul simple or complex?). The popular diagnosis of thisespecially since Vlastos defended it in detail [2]-was that Plato changed his mind because he began to move away from the influence of the historical Socrates, so that the middle period represented a break from the Socratic view. This stark view of Platonic development began to blur at the same time as a different set of questions came into focus, about how one should read the dialogues. It is now de rigueur to observe that the character of Socrates in the early dialogues is an emphatically fictional figure. To represent Socrates as a strictly historical personage (whether as having actually said these things or as having been committed to things like this) is to miss a great deal of the complex literary features of the early dialogues. This, in turn, is to miss the way in which Plato exploits literary technique to make philosophical points. Perhaps Socrates is not-ever or always-marked out for special, pietistic attention, but, rather, engages us in a complex piece of interpretation, itself to provoke philosophical reflection [3].

Is Socrates a Model for the Rest of Us?, 2005

A revised version of a chapter in Craig de Paulo, Patrick Messina, and Marc Stier, eds. Ambiguity in the Western Mind, (Peter Lang, Inc. International Academic Publishers, 2005). The philosopher who, on the standard interpretation, seeks above all others to escape ambiguity is Plato. The world of forms is, after all, portrayed as a attractive realm precisely because everything is just what it is and nothing else. Yet, at the same time, Plato presents his philosophy is a literary form that, if only we could recognize it as such, is highly ambiguous in nature. In recent years, the importance of the dramatic character of the Platonic dialogue has been widely recognized. Scholars have paid greater attention to who says what to whom and under what circumstances. The irony of having an ironist—Socrates—as one’s main spokesman has been duly noted. This essay on Plato’s Symposium follows a very few contemporary philosophers in taking this new way of interpreting Plato one step further. He takes seriously the challenge that is put to Socrates in the Symposium, a challenge that touches not just or mainly his philosophy but his way of life. Along with other new interpreters of Plato, the essay suggests that Plato’s ideas may be found in not just in Socrates’ words but in the speeches of other characters in the Platonic dialogues. Stier, however, goes further in suggesting that, however noble it is, Socrates’ life may not be the Platonic model for the rest of us human beings. The picture presented of Socrates in the Symposium suggests that he is too different from even the best of other human beings to serve as a model for us. Socrates is a profoundly strange creature, whose qualities suggest that he has partly escaped from the usual circumstances of human life, circumstances that are best presented in Aristophanes account of how we were mutilated by the gods. As a result, Socrates escapes from human eros as well. Yet because he lives among us, and seeks to understand us in order to understand himself, Socrates must pretend to share a common nature with us. The ambiguity of Socrates position—and the danger that accompanies that ambiguity—is revealed when Alcibiades burst into the drinking party and tells tales about his mentor / tormentor. As the drama ends, the ambiguity of Socrates position is shown to parallel the ambiguous nature of the dialogue itself, in which tragedy and comedy are intertwined.

Classical Review, 2010

College of Dupage, 2023

This essay explores Socrates' unique involvement in Athenian politics, and we observe that Socrates' philosophical advice for politicians in the apocryphal dialogue Alcibiades I, which is grounded in the dialectic practice of "cultivation of the soul," embraces the belief that even if the entire city is blessed with having the most perfect technological/technē and scientific knowledge/epistēmē, "possessing all the sciences put together," it would still represent an impoverished state. For according to Socrates, there is no hope or "chance of getting any things well and beneficially done" if we do not have, in the first instance, the philosophical understanding/phronēsis of "good and evil" to inform and guide all of our so-called technical efforts and inspire our scientific achievements (Charmides 174d). In relation to Socrates' understanding of the philosopher and polis and what is required in order to envision and potentially establish a just and virtuously functioning city, what we find in three of Plato's dialogues might be classified as an "idealized" state and practice of politics in the Republic, a "paradigmatic" political model in the Statesman, and a "philosophical-propaedeutic" view of politics in the Alcibiades I. The problems associated with fully reconciling Socrates' practice of philosophy with politics are explored by Charles Griswold who claims that scholars searching for such a reconciliation often mistakenly do so by offering readings that suggest a legitimate "blueprint" for politics can be found in and drawn from the dialogues. There are also readings, he points out, that issue warnings against attempting to enact such a blueprint. Such approaches expose the difficulty or even impossibility of demanding that Socratic philosophy rise to the level of instituting a praxis of politikē, and so caution should be exercised when dealing with this issue, and it is essential that interpreters embrace the literary or dialogic dimension of the portrayal of Socratic philosophy in the dialogues. This so-called "dramatic-philosophical" dimension, as Griswold contends, breaks open a "horizon for reflection on ethics as well as politics," and in doing so, allows us to approach these issues in a more authentically Socratic manner, namely, "as open to question." Contrary to viewing this issue in terms of an "open question," J. A. Corlett argues that scholars seeking a consistent and cohesive view of Socratic politics often focus on the seeming inconsistency between Socrates' claims in the Apology regarding his disobeying the law insofar as it is unjust and potentially harmful to the life of a philosopher and Socrates' bold support of an individual's legal obligation in the Crito. Corlett finds no such contradiction to exist, and he argues against what he claims is the false assumption that the Crito espouses a Kantian or deontological conception of the laws and then portrays Socrates' unquestioned duty to them, whether or not the laws and the political institutions establishing them are corrupt and unjust. Corlett convincingly shows that it is Plato's creative/literary portrayal of the laws/nomoi that represents an authoritarian view, which is to say that it is the personified laws that express the conviction that it would be unethical and unjust to "disobey the legal authority of even a wrongful conviction." But this is not Socrates' position.

Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 2014

Socrates’ purposes, in his philosophical conversations with others, remain a puzzle. We review eleven distinct interpretive options, many of which stretch back more than a hundred years, finding all of them untenable. We then propose an original, twelfth interpretation as the most faithful and charitable alternative. Our discussion takes as its focus Plato’s dialogue Laches as a representative of the aporetic dialogues.