Socrates

by William J Prior

  Method

  Of course, there is one aspect of the elenctic dialogues that distinguishes them from the “middle” dialogues. In the elenctic dialogues Socrates practices the elenchus; in the “middle” dialogues this method changes and gradually disappears. As Robinson writes:

  Three things happen to the elenchus in the middle and later dialogues. First … it loses its irony. Second, it is incorporated into the larger whole of dialectic, which somewhat changes its character. Though still negative and destructive in essence, it is harnessed to the car of construction. Though still moral in its purpose, the ultimate moral end recedes a great deal, and a large scientific programme occupies the middle view. Third, while often referred to and recommended, it gradually ceases to be actually depicted in the dialogues. Refutations take less of the total space.7

  It should not come as a surprise that the elenctic dialogues differ from those dialogues that are not elenctic, for the group of elenctic dialogues was distinguished precisely because in this group Socrates practices the elenchus. As I argued in Chapter 2, it is the practice of the elenchus, rather than an early date or some other criterion, that distinguishes those dialogues thought to be “Socratic” from those thought not to be. As Robinson points out, however, the transition from the method of elenchus to other, more constructive methods, in particular the method of hypothesis, is a gradual one. The Meno shows us both methods in operation together. There is no reason why Socrates should have abandoned the method of elenchus. We saw that in the late Sophist the Eleatic Visitor praises the method as a way of clearing the mind of false beliefs. There is no contradiction between the method of elenchus and the method of hypothesis, though the method of hypothesis is constructive in its aim and the method of elenchus is destructive. The dialogues simply shift their focus from one method to another.

  Metaphysics: the Theory of “Separate” Forms

  As noted above, the way in which most interpreters distinguish the “middle” dialogues from their predecessors is that the “middle” dialogues contain the theory of “separate” Forms, whereas their predecessors do not. It is sometimes said that the “middle” dialogues are metaphysical whereas the elenctic dialogues are purely ethical. This distinction has its origin in a claim made by Aristotle. Socrates, says Aristotle, sought universal definitions, but he “did not make the universals or the definitions exist apart; his successors, however, gave them separate existence, and this was the kind of thing they called Ideas” (Metaphysics M.4, 1078b30–32). It may seem that Aristotle is denying that Socrates had any theory of Forms or Ideas at all. This interpretation runs up against the fact that Socrates in the elenctic dialogues refers to Forms or Ideas on several occasions. As we saw in Chapter 4, one such occasion is Euthyphro 5c–d and 6d–e, where Socrates first asks for the Idea of piety, and then reminds Euthyphro that this is what he wants. He uses the term idea as a name for what he is seeking in both passages (5d4, 6d11.) If Aristotle is construed as saying that only Plato used the term “Idea” to refer to his Forms, then this passage shows that he is mistaken.

  Aristotle might better be read as saying that Socrates had a theory of universals but not a theory of separate Forms. Forms are mentioned in several elenctic dialogues. As was stated in Chapter 4, in the Euthyphro and Meno he describes them as what he is looking for in his search for definitions. In the Hippias Major he states that it is by justice that just people are just, and that this justice is something, and likewise for wisdom and beauty (287c–d). In the Protagoras he asserts that justice and piety are both “things” that exist (330c–d). As was stated earlier, Socrates believes that Forms are universals, characteristics of things, causes, and standards. They are what Socrates is seeking in his definitions; that is, they are essences. One can argue about whether the Socratic references to Forms in the elenctic dialogues constitute a theory.8 However one decides that question, the references are metaphysical in nature.

  Metaphysics: Being and Becoming

  The contrast between the elenctic dialogues and the “middle” dialogues is not a contrast between dialogues that have no metaphysics and those that have a metaphysics; it is a contrast concerning the nature of that metaphysics. The Forms of the “middle” dialogues are said to be “separate” from their participants; the Forms of the elenctic dialogues are not. As Plato uses the term “separate” to mark this distinction, he also uses the phrase “itself in itself” to characterize Forms. Plato emphasizes the separate existence of Forms when he introduces the theory at Phaedo 100b and Symposium 211a and when he opens the theory to criticism at Parmenides 130b–c.

  What does Plato mean by this claim? The answer to this question does not lie in the theory of Forms itself, so much as in another doctrine that Plato introduces in the “middle” dialogues: the doctrine of two worlds, or of “being and becoming.” In Republic VII, in Plato's explanation of the allegory of the cave, Plato refers to “the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm” (517b). At Phaedrus 247c–d he describes a “place beyond heaven,” a place “without color and without shape and without solidity,” containing “a being that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence, the soul's steersman.” R. E. Allen summarizes this Platonic concept of separation and of the two worlds that give rise to it as follows:

  The philosophy of the middle dialogues is a nest of coupled contrasts: Being and Becoming, Appearance and Reality, Permanence and Flux, Reason and Sense, Body and Soul, Flesh and the Spirit. Those contrasts are rooted in an ontology of two Worlds, separated by a gulf of deficiency. The World of Knowledge, whose contents are the eternal Forms, stands to the World of Opinion, whose contents are sensible and changing, as the more real stands to the less real, as originals stand to shadows and reflections. The visible world is an image, unknowable in its deficiency, of an intelligible world apprehended by reason alone.9

  The doctrine of two worlds, of a world of “becoming,” composed of phenomena in perpetual flux, and a world of “being,” composed of unchanging, eternal Forms, is not present in the elenctic dialogues (though it is hinted at in the doctrine of Recollection in the Meno). The Forms of the elenctic dialogues are “in” the objects they characterize. In the dialogues that refer to the early theory of Forms there is one world, not two. The Forms of the elenctic dialogues are properties, characteristics of things; the Forms of the “middle” dialogues are separately existing substances. If there is a “red line” distinguishing Socratic metaphysics from Platonic it is not the existence of Forms, but their separation from the sensible world and the distinction between being and becoming that is responsible for it.

  The references in the elenctic dialogues to the Forms occur primarily in the context of definition. Forms are what definition is about. The theory of Forms in the elenctic dialogues is in some sense a logical theory. That does not mean that it is not also a metaphysical one. In the “middle” dialogues its use is wider. In particular, it underwrites Plato's theory of knowledge, as we shall see below. The theory of Forms in the “middle” dialogues is also referred to with a kind of religious devotion that is absent in the elenctic dialogues. Allen makes this point when he says that, in introducing the Form of Beauty in the Symposium, “Plato's prose suddenly bursts into dithyrambs, in the manner of a choric ode,”10 and when he says a few lines later, “this is a metaphysical description which is also a hymn.”11 Allen also states that “Plato's emphasis in the Symposium and Republic on vision and rebirth has a certain analogy to the ritual of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which celebrated fertility and purification, and culminated in a Beholding, or Epopteia, where the sacred objects of the cult were exposed to the wondering eyes of the worshippers suddenly, in a blaze of light, and the worshippers were assured of their kinship to the god and their salvation.”12

  Plato's description of the ascent of the philosopher to the Form of the good in the allegory of the cave in Republic VII certainly has this same religious tone. When Vlastos says that Plato's “p
ersonal religion centers in communion with divine, but impersonal Forms. It is mystical, realized in contemplation,”13 he is making the same point. Plato was a philosopher of the rationalist bent, and a sober one at that; but he was capable of flights of religious devotion that are unsurpassed and rarely equaled in philosophy. And the focus of his religious devotion was not the gods of Greek religion, but the Forms, and in particular the Form of the good.

  Metaphysics: The Form of the Good

  In the elenctic dialogues Socrates on occasion mentions the Form of the good, usually in the company of the Form of the beautiful (to kalon). At Protagoras 332b he asks whether there is such a thing as beauty, and immediately after that whether there is such a thing as goodness. In the Gorgias, at 506d, he speaks of good as “that by which, when it's present in us, we are good.” Similarly, at Hippias Major 287c he says that it is “by the good [that] all good things are good.” This concern with the good continues in the Cratylus, Phaedo, and Symposium. At Cratylus 439c–d Socrates asks Cratylus “are we or aren't we to say that there is a beautiful itself, and a good itself, and the same for each one of the things that are?” At Phaedo 65d he asks Simmias whether there is such a thing as the Just itself, and then he repeats the question for “the Beautiful and the Good.” At 75d he refers to “the Beautiful itself, The Good itself, the Just, the Pious, and, as I say, … all those things which we mark with the seal of ‘what it is,’ both when we are putting questions and answering them.” At 100b Socrates states, “I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest.” In the Symposium, at 206a, Diotima gets Socrates to admit that everyone loves the good and wants it to be their own forever.

  There is no doubt that Socrates regards the good, along with the beautiful, as a Form. In the dialogues that grant the Forms separate existence, he assigns the good separate existence, saying that is “itself,” “what it is,” and “itself by itself.” The good, along with the beautiful, is the Form that gives value to the things that participate in it. Only in the Republic, however, does Socrates assign a special role to the good in the hierarchy of the Forms. This special role may be hinted at in Book V, at 452e, where he says that “it's foolish to take seriously any standard of what is fine and beautiful other than the good.” It is developed, however, in the three analogies of sun, divided line and cave in Books VI and VII. The good is thought to be, not only the cause of the intelligibility of the other Forms, but of their being, and it is said to have a status superior to being. It is the unhypothetical first principle from which all explanation originates.

  There is nothing like this account of the good in the elenctic dialogues. Some interpreters have, however, suggested that there is an anticipation of the account of the Form of the good in the Lysis. In the Lysis Socrates investigates the nature of friendship with two young interlocutors, Lysis and Menexenus. Because of their youth, Socrates has to play both roles in the elenctic argument: he proposes definitions of friendship, and then criticizes them. Late in the dialogue, after several failed attempts to explain what a friend is, Socrates makes use of a complex formula to explain friendship, or what is beloved. Whoever is a friend is a friend to someone, for the sake of something and on account of something. For example, a sick person is a friend to a doctor for the sake of health and on account of disease. Health, that for the sake of which the sick man befriends the doctor, is a good thing. Disease, on the other hand, is bad. The sick man is described as a friend, not just of a doctor, but of medicine, for the same reason. Medicine, again, is considered good, in that it produces health. So health is a friend, and disease is an enemy.

  We desire health for the sake of some higher good (presumably happiness). So happiness will be dear to us as well. But can there be an infinite series of “for the sake of” relationships? Socrates asks, “don't we have to arrive at some first principle which will no longer bring us back to another friend, something that goes back to the first friend, something for the sake of which we say that all the rest are friends too?” (219c–d) What could this first principle, this “first friend” (prōton philon) or first beloved, be? It is this first principle, the first friend, Socrates says, that is the real object of our love or friendship, it is what is “truly a friend” (219d). Aren't all our concerns directed, not at those things which have value as means to the end, but to the end itself? “The real friend is surely that in which all these so-called friendships terminate” (220b).

  Then comes the question that makes this passage seem relevant to the Form of the good in the Republic. Socrates asks, “But then is the good a friend?” (220b) We love the good on account of the bad, but not for the sake of anything higher. We love the good for its own sake. It is an intrinsic good. It is the “first friend,” the prōton philon, and we love everything else for the sake of it. This passage tells us something that the Republic also tells us, that the good is the ultimate source of value, and it tells us something about the good that is not explicit in the Republic: that the good is the ultimate object of love. It also argues that there cannot be an infinite regress of objects of love; there must be something that we love for its own sake. The metaphysical and epistemological framework that characterizes the good in the Republic is missing, however. The passage does not assert that the good is of a different order of being from other things, or that it is the unhypothetical first principle from which all explanation proceeds, or that it is the object of the highest form of inquiry, dialectic. So this passage in the Lysis may be an anticipation of the Form of the good in the Republic, but it does not reveal much about its (admittedly rather mysterious) nature.

  Epistemology

  The fundamental epistemological distinction on which the elenctic dialogues rely is the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Knowledge is the cognitive state that Socrates is seeking; ignorance is the state that he professes that he is in. As the elenchus shows, it is also the state that his interlocutors turn out to be in. In the Gorgias, however, at 454d, Socrates augments this basic distinction with another, that between knowledge and conviction. Knowledge is infallible. Conviction, on the other hand, is fallible; it can be true or false. In the Meno, at 97b, Socrates distinguishes between knowledge and true or right belief. That knowledge and true belief are different is one of the few things that Socrates says he would claim to know. In the Meno, right opinion is convertible into knowledge: “true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man's mind, so that they are not worth much until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why” (97e–98a). One may have knowledge and opinion concerning the same objects. To use an example from the Meno, one person may know the road to Larissa while another may have only right opinion about it.

  The Meno introduces the doctrine of recollection, according to which everyone has true beliefs latent in one's soul, beliefs that can be converted into knowledge by questioning. Many interpreters think of this doctrine as Platonic, rather than Socratic, and the Meno as the dialogue in which the transition from Socrates to Plato begins to take place. In the Phaedo, at 72e, Socrates links the doctrine of recollection with the theory of separate Forms, which as we have seen is a doctrine that many interpreters see as the distinctive characteristic of Plato's “middle” dialogues. This is one reason why the Meno is often described as a “transitional” dialogue. The doctrine of recollection is referred to in the Phaedrus as well, at 249c.

  In the Apology Socrates stated that he possessed only human wisdom, which consisted in awareness of the fact that he was ignorant of the first principles of ethics. He held that only the god is wise, and he may have thought that the gap between divine wisdom and human ignorance was unbridgeable. The doctrine of recollection offered an account of how that gap might be bridged. It described the soul as a traveler between two worlds, the world we experience with our senses and the world we experience after death. In the Phaedo those two worlds a
re identified as the world of phenomena and the world of Forms. In the “middle” dialogues there are actually two accounts of how this gap might be bridged. The second account is ascent. In the Symposium, from to 210a to 212b Diotima describes a ladder of ascent in which the lover rises in stages from the love of a single beautiful body to an experience of the Form of beauty itself. In Republic VII, 514a–517c, Socrates describes an ascent from a cave, representing the sensible world, to the world outside the cave, representing the intelligible world, wherein the ultimate object of cognition is the good, represented by the sun. Plato never explains how these two accounts, recollection and ascent, are to be reconciled with each other.