The Philosophy of Socrates: A Collection of Critical Essays

361 Pages·1971·67.235 MB·English

by  Gregory Vlastos

Modern Studies in Philosophy
The Philosophy of
SOCRATES
Modem Studies in Philosophy is a scries of antholo-
prcsenting contemporary interpretations and
evaluations of the works of major philosophers. The
editors have selected articles designed to show the
Systematic structure of the thought of these philoso-
phers, and to reveal the relevance of their views to
the problems of current interest. These volumes are
intended to be contributions to contemporary de-
bates as well as to the history of philosophy; they
not only trace the origins of many problems impor-
tant to modern philosophy, but also introduce major
philosophers as interlocutors in current discussions.
Modem Studies in Philosophy is prepared under the
general editorship of Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Liv-
ingston College, Rutgers University.
Gregory Vlastos is Stuart Professor of Philosophy at
Princeton University. He had previously taught phi-
losophy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario,
and at Cornell University.
MODERN STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY
AMELIE OKSENBERG RORTY, GENERAL EDITOR
The
Philosophy of
SOCRATES
A
Collection of Critical Essays
EDITED BY GREGORY VLASTOS
ANCHOR BOOKS
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
1971
Tin's anthology has been especially prepared for
Anchor Books and has never before appeared in
book form.
Anchor Books edition: 1971
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number73-131115
Copyright © 1971 by Gregory Vlastos
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
First Edition
CONTENTS
Preface vi
l. Introduction: TheParadox of Socrates
GREGORY VLASTOS 1
Our Knowledge of Socrates
A. R. LACEY 22
Socrates in the Clouds
KENNETH J. DOVER 50
Elenchus
RICHARD ROBINSON 78
5. Elenchus: Direct and Indirect
RICHARD ROBINSON 94
6. Socratic Definition
RICHARD ROBINSON 110
Elenctic Definitions
GEORGE NAKHNIKIAN 125
Socrates onthe Definition of Piety:
Euthyphro 10A-11B
S. MARC COHEN 158
9. Socrates at Work on Virtue and Knowledge
in Plato's Laches
GERASIMOS SANTAS VJJ
10. Virtues in Action
M. F. BURNYEAT 2CK)
11. The SocraticDenial of Akrasia
JAMES J. WALSH 235
12. Plato's Protagoras and Explanations of
Weakness
GERASIMOS SANTAS 264
13. Socrates on Disobeying the Law
A. D. WOOZLEY 299
14. Plato's Earlier Theory of Forms
R. E. ALLEN 319
Notes on Contributors 335
Selected Bibliography 336
Index Locorum 340
PREFACE
I am proud to present here five new studies of the
philosophy of Socrates by Professors R. E. Allen, M. F.
Burnyeat, A. R. Lacey, George Nakhnikian, and A. D.
and to reprint previously published essays by
;
Professors S. Marc Cohen, Kenneth J. Dover, Richard
Robinson, Gerasimos Santas, and James J. Walsh. I am
grateful to each of these authors for his collaboration;
and to the following publishers for permission to repro-
duce previously published material: the Journal of the
History of Philosophy and the Review of Metaphysics;
also to the Columbia University Press, the Oxford Uni-
versity Press, andRoutledge andKegan Paul.
For works which regrettably could not be included in
this volume, the reader is referred to the bibliography at
the end. Though some are old, a reassuringly large num-
ber fall within the last two decades, attesting the con-
tinuing vitality of Socratic studies, which seem to be pur-
sued more intensively today in the English-speaking
world than at any previous period of philosophical and
classical scholarship.
I wish to make special acknowledgment of the help
of Paul H. Drymalski, my editor at Anchor Books, and of
his assistant Ronnie Shushan, for her generous coopera-
tion. I am also grateful to Robert Van Gulick, Princeton,
'70, who prepared the index and helped in many other
waj
My wife died suddenly while this book was in press. I
dedicate my essay to her memory. I do so because of
what our love meant to my work. The best insight in this
essay—that Socrates' ultimate failure is a failure in love-
grew out ofwhat I learned about love from her.
Gregory Vlastos
Princeton, April 1970
INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX
1.
OF SOCRATES
GREGORY VLASTOS
The Socrates of this book is the Platonic Socrates, or, to
be more precise, the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues.
That this figure is a faithful and imaginative recreation
of the historical Socrates is the conclusion of some very
reputable scholars, though not of all. It is the conclusion
I would be prepared to defend myself. To try to do this
in detail would be out of place in this Introduction. All
I can do here is to indicate the main consideration which
has ledmeto this conclusion.
There is one, and only one, serious alternative to
Plato's Socrates, and that is Xenophon's.1 The two are
irreconcilable atcertainpoints, andthese are crucial.
Xenophon's is a Socrates without irony and without para-
dox. Take these away from Plato's Socrates, and there is
nothing left.
This Introductionis adapted from an address to a meeting ofthe
Humanities Association of Canada at Ottawa on June 13, 1957,
published in the Queen's Quarterly (Kingston, Ontario), Winter
1958. It is reprinted here (with slight changes) with the permis-
sion of the editors. I offer no apologies for the style and form of
the presentation. For more scholarly treatment of the same topics,
thoughnotnecessarilyof the same theses,thereaderneedonly turn
to the rest of this volume. If he should like to see how I try to
round interpretations of Socrates on a close readingof Plato's text,
fe may consult papers of mine listed in the bibliography at the
end of this volume.
1Why the Aristophanic portrait, though composed much earlier
than either Plato's or Xenophon's, offers no basis for correcting
Plato's, will be clear to anyone who goes through Kenneth Dover's
masterly study, "Socrates in the Clouds," in this volume. As for the
Aristotelian references to Socrates (on which see Section V of A. R.
Lacey's "Our Knowledge of Socrates" in this volume; for more
detailed treatment see Th. Deman, he Temoignage d'Aristote sur
Socrate [Paris, 1942]), they tally completely with the portrait of
Socrates in Plato's early dialogues, supporting the latter at every
pointonwhichit differs from the Aristophanic or the Xenophonean
portraits or from both.
Gregory Vlastos
Xenophon's Socrates is so persuasive that, "whenever he
argued," Xenophon declares, "he gained a greater measure
of assent frem his hearers than any man I have ever
known" (Memorabilia 4.6.16). Plato's Socrates is not per-
suasive at all. He wins every argument, but never manages
to win over an opponent. He has to fight every inch of the
way for any assent he gets, and gets it, so to speak, at the
point of a dagger.
Xenophon's Socrates discourses on theology and theodicy,
argues for the existence of a divine mind that has created
man and ordered the world for his benefit. Plato's refuses
io argue over anything other than man and human affairs.
Plato's Socrates maintains that it is never right to repay evil
with evil. He says this in studied defiance of the contrary
view, axiomatic in Greek morality from Hesiod down, and
fixes here the boundary-line between those who can agree
with him on fundamentals and those who can't. Xenophon's
Socrates has never heard of the boundary-line. He stands
on the wrong side, the popular side, parrots the common
opinion that the good man will "excel in rendering benefits
to his friends and injuries to his enemies" (Memorabilia
2.6.35).
What does this prove? If Plato and Xenophon cannot
both be right, why must Plato be right? That his Socrates
is incomparably the more interesting of the two figures,
in fact the only Socrates worth talking about, proves
We
nothing. cannot build history on wish-fulfillment.
Fortunately there is another consideration that proves a
great deal. It is that Plato accounts, while Xenophon does
not, for facts affirmed by both and also attested by others.
For example: that Critias and Alcibiades had been com-
panions of Socrates; or again: that Socrates was indicted
and condemned on the charge of not believing in the
gods of the state and of corrupting its youth. Xenophon's
portrait will not square with either of these. Not with
the first, for his Socrates could not have attracted men
like Critias and Alcibiades, haughty aristocrats both of
them, and as brilliant intellectually as they were morally
unprincipled. Xenophon's Socrates, pious reciter of moral
The Paradox of Socrates 3
commonplaces, would have elicited nothing but a sneer
from Critias and a yawn from Alcibiades, while Plato's
Socrates is just the man who could have gotten under
their skin. As for the second, Plato, and he alone, gives
us a Socrates who could have plausibly been indicted for
subversion of faith and morals. Xenophon's account of
Socrates, apologetic from beginning to end, refutes itself:
had the facts been as he tells them, the indictment would
nothave beenmadeinthefirst place.
How far can we then trust Plato? From the factthat he
was right on some things it does not follow, certainly,
that he was right in all his information on Socrates, or
even on all its essential points. But we do have a check.2
Plato's Apology has for its raise en scene an all-too-public
occasion. The jury alone numbered 501 Athenians. And
since the town was so gregarious and Socrates anotorious
public character, there would have been many more in
the audience. So when Plato was writing the Apology, he
knew that hundreds of those who might read the speech
he puts into the mouth of Socrates had heard the historic
original. And since his purpose in writing it was to clear
his master's name and to indict his judges, it would have
been most inept to make Socrates talk out of character.
How could Plato be saying to his fellow citizens, 'This is
the man you murdered. Look at him. Listen to him,'3 and
point to a figment of his own imagining? This is my chief
reason for accepting the Apology as a reliable recreation
of the thought and character of the man Plato knew so
well. Here, as before, I speak of recreation, not report-
age. The Apology was probably written several years
after the event. This, and Plato's genius, assures us that
it was not journalism, but art. Though the emotion with
which Plato had listened when life and death hung on
his master's words must have branded those words into
2In a fuller discussion I would have addedother checks, notably
Aristode's testimony.
3Here and throughout this introduction I use single quotation
marks to indicate an imaginary quotation, reserving regular quota-
tion marks for citations from the texts.
Gregory Vlastos
4
his mind, still, that emotion recollected in tranquillity,
those remembrances recast in the imagination, would
make a new speech out of the old materials, so that those
who read it would recognize instantly the man they had
known without having to scan their own memory and
ask, 'Did he open with that remark? Did he really use
that example?' or any such question. This is all I claim for
the veracity of the Apology. And if this is conceded, the
problem of our sources is solved in principle. For we
may then use the Apology as a touchstone of the like
veracity of the thought and character of Socrates de-
picted in Plato's other early dialogues. And when we
do that, what do we find?
We find a man who is all paradox. Other philosophers
have talked about paradox. Socrates did not. The para-
dox in Socrates is Socrates. But unlike later paradoxes,
Scandinavian, German, and latterly even Gallic, this
Hellenic paradox is not meant to defeat, but to incite,
the human reason. At least a part of it can be made quite
lucid, and this is what I shall attempt in the main part
of this essay. For this purpose I must point out the
roles whose apparently incongruous junction produces
paradox:
In the Apology (29D-E) Socrates gives this account
of his lifework:
So long as I breathe and have the strength to do it, I will
not cease philosophizing, exhorting you, indicting which-
ever of you I happen to meet, telling him in my customary
way:
Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the
world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't
you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you
can, and to advance your reputation and prestige—while for
truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you
have no care orworry?
This is the Socrates Heinrich Maier had in mind when
he spoke of "the Socratic gospel."4 If this makes us think
4Sokrates (Tuebingen, 1913), pp. 296ff.