Studies in Greek Philosophy

325 Pages·1995·9.271 MB·English

by  Gregory Vlastos, Daniel W. Graham

Gregory Vlastos
STUDIES IN GREEK
PHILOSOPHY
GREGORY VLASTOS
VOLUME II: SOCRATES, PLATO.
AND THEIR TRADITION
Edited by Daniel W. Graham
l'RINC'ETON UNIVERSITY I'RESS
l'RIN\ETON. NFW JERSEY
Copyright <!J 1995 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdum: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved
Library of Co11gress Catalogillll·ill·Publkatitm Data
Vlastos, Gregory.
Studies in Greek philosophy I Gregory Vlastos.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v.l. The Presocratics - v. 2. Socrates, Plato, and
their tradition.
ISBN 0-691-03311-0
I. Philosophy. Ancient. I. Graham. Daniel W. II. Title.
BI71.V538 1994 180-dc20 94-3112
This book ha~ been composed in Times Roman
Princeton University Press books arc printed on acid-free paper,
and meet the guidelines li1r pcm1anence and durability of the
Cumminee on Pmduction Guideline~ for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
CONTENTS
AcKNOWI.EDGMENTS vii
IN TROD! rcnoN xi
Non; ON TEXTUAL CONVENTIONS XV
/..I.H OF ABHREVIA TIONS xvii
PART ONE: SOCRATES
1. The Paradox of Socrates 3
, Platis's Socrates' Accusers 19
.1. Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates 011 Trial 25
-1. Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience 30
:'i. Socrates on Acrasia 43
h. Was Polus Refuted? 60
PART TWO: PLATO
r\. ETHICS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THEORY
7. The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic 69
x. The Rights of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations
of Justice 104
9. The Virtuous and the Happy: Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory 126
10. Was Plato a Feminist? I 33
B. METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
II Ancmme.\·is in lhe Me11o 147
l~a. The Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles 166
l~h. Addendum to the Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles 191
12.:. Addenda to the Third Man Argument: A Reply to Professor
Sellars 194
l~d. Postscript to the Third Man: A Reply to Mr. Gcach 204
IJ. On a Proposed Redefinition of "Self-Predication" in Plato 215
VI CONTENTS
C. SCIENCE
14. The Role of Observation in Plalo's Conception of Astronomy 223
15. Disorderly Motion in Plato's TimaeuJ 247
16. Creation in the Timaeus: Is It a Fiction? 265
PART THREE: AFrER PLATO
17. A Note on the Unmoved Mover 283
18. Minimal Parts in Epicurean Atomism 285
19. Zeno of Sidon as a Critic of Euclid 315
8/BLIOGRAPHl'." THE WORKS OF GREGORY VLASTOS 325
INVF.X LOCORUM 331
GENERAL INDEX 343
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
l-IE PAPERS in this volume were previously published as noted be
low. The editor and the heirs of Gregory Vlastos gratefully acknowl
edge the permission to reprint granted by the agencies indicated.
1. 'The Paradox of Socrates"
Queen's Quarterly 64 ( 1957-58): 496-516
Copyright, the heirs of Gregory Vlastos
J Platis's Socrates' Accusers
AlP 104 (1983): 201-6
The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore .
." \. Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates on Trial
TLS. No.4, 524. Dec. 15. 1989. p. 1393
Tillll'.\' Literary Suppll'lnent, London.
-L "Socrates on Political Obedience and Disobedience"
Yale Rel'il'\1' 63 (1974): 517-34
The Yale Review. Copyright © Yale University, New Haven.
5. "Socrates on Acrasia"
Phoenix 23 ( 1969): 71-88
The Classical Association of Canada. Toronto.
6. ··was Polus Refuted?"
AlP 88 ( 1967): 454-60
The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore.
7. "The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic"
Helen North, ed., lmerpretations of Plato: A Swarthmore Symposium
ILeiden: E. J. Brill. 1977), Mnemosyne. Suppl. vol. 50: 1-40
E_ J. Brill. Lciden. The Netherlands.
X. "The Rights of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations
of Justice"
1-1. Tristram Englehardt. Jr. . and Daniel Callahan. eds .. Morals,
Science and Society (Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Hastings Center.
1978), pp. 172-201
Copyright © The Hastings Center. Briarcliff Manor. N.Y.
lJ. 'The Vit1uous and the Happy: Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory"
TLS. No.3. 961. Feb. 24. 1978. pp. 230-31
Timc•s Literary Su11f1h•nu•111. London_

INTRODUCTION
U
NUKE THE FIRST VOLUME of this collection, which contains all
Vlastos' major discussions of Presocratic philosophy, the present
volume contains only a fraction of the author's discussions of Socra
tes and Plato. His Platonic Studit~s; Socrates. /mnist and Moral Philosopher;
and Socratic Swdies comprise much of his major work on these two philoso
phers. Nevertheless, the present volume fills major gaps in his other collec
tions and shows the wide range of his interest and ability.
"The Paradox of Socrates," originally a lecture for a general audience,
provides Ylastos's first extended statement on the Socratic Problem. i.e .• the
prohlem of how to reconstruct the views of the historical Socrates from the
ancient evidence. We must rely on Plato's Socratic dialogues as the source for
Sm:rates, for only Plato can account for the data. Plato's Socrates-whose
conversations Plato fictionally recreates, rather than documenting-has a
complex view of how to save Athenian souls. In a discussion that anticipates
much of his later interpretation of Socrates. Vlastos sketches salient points of
Socrates' method and philosophy and in a famous passage criticizes him for a
"failure of love." This essay is still one of the best introductions to the para
dox of Socrates.
In his review of E. N. Platis's Socmtes' Accusers, Vlastos shows his knowl
edge of and interest in the prosopography of Socrates' accusers. Reviewing
Brickhouse and Smith's Socrates on Trial, he dissents from the authors on the
important role they assign to the claimonion in Socrates' thought. In "Socrates
on Political Obedience and Disobedience." Vlastos discusses the argument of
the Crito and attempts to locate Socrates' position between the extremes of
passive obedience and political disobedience.
Vlastos reexamines the argument against weakness of will from the Pro
laMuras in "Socrates on Acrasia." rejecting the account he had given in his
introduction to the Pro/agoras. ··was Polus Refuted" discusses the debate be
tween Socrates and Polus in the Gorgias. concluding that Socrates' argument
i~ fallacious.
Vlastos makes an important defense of Plato against Karl Popper's criti
cism. in "The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato's Republic." Argu
ing that there is a legitimate normative and mcta-nom1ativc theory of justice in
the Rt•public, he maintains that justice is based on impartiality. not on inequal
ity as Popper would have it. Although Vlastos defends Plato from charges of
subverting the notion of justice. he does not shrink from the consequences,
often downplayed by others, that the worker will be as a slave to the intellec
tual. Plato's theory docs indeed fail. but not for want of formal equality: it
fails because it rejects substantive equality. In a companion essuy. "The Rights
xii I NTRO DliCTI ON
of Persons in Plato's Conception of the Foundations of Justice," Vlastos adds
to his analysis of justice in the Republic the observation that beyond fonnal
equality a further condition is needed to provide a basis for rights: that condi
tion is supplied by the Principle of Functional Reciprocity. But even thus
supported, Plato's theory of justice still fails to satisfy minimal conditions
established by single-standard moral systems.
In his review of Terence Irwin's Plato's Moral Theory, Vlastos accepts
Irwin's account of Plato's eudaimonism but criticizes his instrumentalist inter
pretation of Socratic virtue: virtue is not a mere means to an end. "Was Plato a
Feminist?" takes up the problem of Plato's attitude toward women; Vlastos
gives a complex answer. maintaining that in some respects Plato favored equal
rights for women, in other respects he did not. Behind the apparently different
attitudes. Vlastos finds a belief that women could in principle share intellec
tual excellence with men, although in contemporary Greek societies social
and educational disadvantages made equality impossible.
The theory of recollection appears for the first time in Plato's Mello. Exam
ining the theory and its data, Vlastos defines recollection as "any enlargment
of our knowledge which results from the perception of logical relationships."
Plato for the first time marks off non-empirical from empirical knowledge.
But he asserts much more than the distinction, for he now comes to hold that
sense experience is not a source of genuine knowledge. The new epistemol
ogy is introduced along with a doctrine of reincarnation which seems to have
inspired the theory of recollection.
Vlastos's 1954 paper. "The Third Man Argument in the Parme11icles." is an
epoch-making essay (see Introduction to Volume I) that spawned a whole
industry of exegesis on the Third Man Argument. The machinery of the Self
Predication' assumption and the Non-Identity assumption have become part
of the koi11e of ancient philosophy scholarship. Vlastos's conclusion that
Plato's discussion of the argument was a ··record of honest perplexity" satis
fied no one; scholars quickly attempted to find a Platonic trump card to solve
the puzzle or evidence that he modified his later views to avoid the problem.
Vlastos responded to early criticisms of his views by Wilfred Sellars and Peter
Geach, leading philosophers from opposite sides of the Atlantic. whose atten
tion shows how influential was Vlastos's essay right from the first. A follow-up
article, "Plato's 'Third Man' Argument (Parm. 132AI-B2): Text and Logic,"
PQ 19 ( 1969). was reprinted in Platonic Studies (see Appendix I of the reprint
for a bibliography of recent papers to 1972). But the latter article was more of
a restatement and a criticism of alternative views than a new argument, and it
is the 1954 paper that constitutes the starting-point of all recent work on the
Third Man Argument. Vlastos criticizes an important recent interpretation of
1 Vlash" gives credit fur lhc in~ight lu A. E. Taylor: hut the lcnn i' VI;IStus"s.
INTRODUCTION Xiii
Sdf-Predication by Alexander Nchamas in "On a Proposed Redefinition of
·Self-Predication' in Plato."
Plato's views on the study of astronomy expressed in Republic VII arc the
topic of "The Role of Observation in Plato's Conception of Astronomy."
Plato's criticism of empirical astronomy have been interpreted. at one ex
treme. as a rejection of all empirical evidence, and at the other as recommend
ing a temporary moratorium on empirical research until mathematical hypoth
eses can be developed. Vlastos argues for a middle way: the troublesome
phrase "let go the things in the heavens" means to reject sensible phenomena
a~ providing knowledge, but nevertheless use them as data for theoretical
astronomy.
It was long the prevailing opinion that Plato's description of the creation of
the world was an allegorical representation of an uncreated cosmos. In "Disor
derly Motion in Plato's Timaeus." Vlastos's first essay in ancient philosophy,
he vigorously criticized this view held by his mentor F. M. Comford. Vlastos
further supported his position some twenty-five years later with the essay,
··creation in the Timaeus: Is It a Fiction?" which takes into account arguments
of Harold Chemiss.
Although the great bulk of Vlastos's work consisted of research into early
Greek philosophy down to Plato, three essays show his knowledge of later
Greek philosophy. His short "Note on the Unmoved Mover" criticizes W. D.
Ross's claim that Aristotle's Unmoved Mover is an efficient cause. In a de
tailed and closely argued essay, "Minimal Parts in Epicurean Atomism,"
Vlastos rejects the interpretations of minimal parts as physically indivisible
clements on the one hand, or mathematically indivisible magnitudes on the
11thcr: rather. Epicurus holds that the sizes of atoms occur in integral multiples
nf a minimal size. A sequel, "Zeno of Sidon as a Critic of Euclid," continues
hi~ attack on the influential view of the Epicureans as advocates of mathemati
cal atomism. He shows that the Epicurean mathematician Zeno of Sidon can
not he shown to he more than a methodological critic of Euclid.