Plato's fable : on the mortal condition in shadowy times PDF
Preview Plato's fable : on the mortal condition in shadowy times
PLATO’S FABLE f NEW FORUM BOOKS Robert P. George, Series Editor A list of titles in the series appears at the back of the book PLATO’S FABLE ON THE MORTAL CONDITION IN SHADOWY TIMES f Joshua Mitchell princeton university press princeton and oxford Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX201SY All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mitchell, Joshua. Plato's fable : on the mortal condition in shadowy times / Joshua Mitchell. p. cm. — (New forum books) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12438-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Plato. Republic. 2. Political anthropology—Greece—History. 3. Philosophical anthropology—Greece—History. 4. Classical literature—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series. JC71.P6M56 2006 321'.07—dc22 2005016653 ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12438-4 ISBN-10: 0-691-12438-8 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ pup.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 If man were wholly ignorant of himself he would have no poetry in him, for one cannot describe what one does not conceive. If he saw himself clearly, his imagination would remain idle and would add nothing to the picture. But the nature of man is sufficiently revealed for him to know something of himself and sufficiently veiled to leave much in impenetrable darkness, a darkness in which he ever gropes, forever in vain, trying to understand himself. —Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America The wisdom of Plato is not a philosophy, a search for God by means ofhuman reason. Such a research was made as well as it can be by Aristotle. Plato’s wisdom is nothing but an orientation of the soul toward grace. —Simone Weil, Intimations of Christianity This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS f Preface ix A Note on the Translation xv Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Imitation in Mortal Life 1 The Disappointments of Reason 3 Hegel and the Origins of “Identity Politics” 5 Rousseau’s Gentler Form of Imitation 7 Beyond the Reformation Categories of “Identity Politics” and Socialization 11 Reason Revisited: Plato’s Critique of “Rationality” 12 Honor’s Place 14 (Divine) Reason 16 The Mortal Condition in Shadowy Times 18 Chapter 2 PLATO’S FABLE 21 Rendering Each Its Due 22 The Origin of the City 27 Fables, Lies, and Medicine 34 Fool’s Gold 47 Noble Education—and Beyond 51 From the City to the Soul 56 The Philosopher 59 The Hunt for the Good 68 The Decline toward Tyranny 75 Timocracy 79 Oligarchy 82 Democracy 89 Tyranny 99 The Prisoner’s Dilemma 111 Envy 113 Sadomasochism 114 viii CONTENTS Rights and the Relativity of All Things 115 Averting Ruptures 119 The Pathos of Measurement, and Power 122 Trivia 126 Medical Crises, Legal Gridlock 133 Ethics as First Science 137 Beyond Debt 139 The Misplaced Search for Origins 146 The Opinings of the Divided Soul 152 The Inaction of the Divided Soul 156 Chapter 3 CONCLUSION 167 The Fable of Liberalism 167 The Tocquevillean Wager: Mimesis and the Mediational Site of Renewal 175 The Socratic Wager: Mimesis and the Philosophical Practice of Death 189 Bibliography 195 Index 203 PREFACE f A N APOLOGY, of sorts, would be in order if I were here offering yet another “interpretation of Plato.” Perhaps in an earlier age— say, in the aristocratic age—further justification for what I have done would not be required, since this offering, small though it may be, would be received under the category of “commentary” rather than “in- terpretation.” And while that would not hallow what I have provided here, it would certainly authorize it. We do not live in such an age, however; and so a warrant of a dif- ferent sort is required, one that vindicates a project such as this one on more imaginable grounds. “Commentaries,” which presume a durable tradition, within which the conventions of scholastic conduct remain tacit, hold little sway in an age that has no enduring interest in tradition. And “interpretations,” at their worst, fall into the category of mere per- sonal opinion, for which no one concerned with science in its fullest sense should have patience. Knowledge is not soliloquy. At their best, of course, “interpretations” are far more than mere per- sonal opinion, as a perusal of the secondary literature on the history of political thought demonstrates. At their best, such works warrant our at- tention less because they are perspicuous articulations of the original au- thor’s intention than because they provide a resumeof a coherent, even if deeply troubled, moment of history, when for a time thinkers labored under a set of prejudices that set the boundaries of their generation. In their more distinguished expressions, the fecundity of a original text, and the light cast on it by its interpreters, unwittingly cooperate to di- vulge the contours of a historical moment that is fleeting—as all are. Here, contingent interpretation is correlative to canonical authority. To- gether they issue that third thing: an authoritative self-understanding that holds sway for this or that community, here and now. Somewhere between the accidents of personal opinion and the Timeless lies “inter- pretation.” While “interpretation” of this sort is certainly more than mere per- sonal opinion, its compass remains more restricted than our aspiration, hushed though that might be. In the terms of Plato’s fable, such “inter- pretation” corresponds to the passing shadows in the Cave that are first identified by the cleverest of the prisoners below. For a time, a coherent world is brought into focus by their efforts, and then shifting light and the transience of all things conspire to wreak havoc with their labors.
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