by Plato
Taking his earlier published works first, it should have been possible for an alert reader to extract from them the rudiments of the theory. As in the Euthyphro, when Plato sought to define certain ethical qualities he did so in such a way as to emphasize the oneness of the concept, the need that it should embrace all instances of the quality and exclude everything that did not instantiate it. He emphasized that what he required was some formula which would capture the quality without offering examples or lists of things where the quality could be found. Thus, as a direct result of his Socratic searches for definition, he was led to seek an identifiable unity which was different from the instances, one of them or all of them.
Furthermore he was led to demand that these qualities which he sought to define should be real. Justice, temperance, courage and holiness, indeed virtue as a whole, were thought to be something real, which belonged to a man and deeply influenced how he acted. The value of discussing them was tied up with their reality and their potency. Justice in particular had long been thought to be not merely the property manifested in just acts, but rather a powerful principle deeply embedded in the workings of the universe. Courage had long been considered a potent force within the individual, a possession which in many cases became the salvation of his city.
One of the problems was the fact that the instances from which the Idea was distinguished were often not very convincing. Socratic definition had sought to isolate a quality and see it in its own right, away from such imperfections as its instances might display. Nobody imagined that justice itself, as cosmic force or motivational factor in the mind of the true politician, could ever be unjust. But what human being had never shown signs of injustice? The Socratic dialogues present to the reader many instances of humans with a reputation for fine qualities, but who are so portrayed as to seem to fall short of the ideal. In the Gorgias and Meno the search for a man of real virtue, past or present, is singularly unsuccessful, unless it be Socrates himself. Perhaps, then, there were no real instances of some of these qualities – or not at least since Socrates was alive. In that case could it be that justice, courage, piety, etc. simply ceased to exist or diminished in stature just because Socrates had died? Was virtue any less a legitimate and real object of study at a time when there was no genuine instance of it? Ought it not to be what it is, entirely independent of the few who seem capable of putting it into approximate practice?
The split between the ideal and the physically actual in ethics was mirrored also in the sphere of mathematics, an area of increasing concern from the end of the Gorgias and the Meno on. The Phaedo makes much of the example of equality, never fully instantiated (or so it was thought) in the physical world. Mathematical Ideas are more difficult for us to envisage than for Plato, for he was used to Pythagorean theory which saw basic arithmetic notions as representative of something not only really existent in the physical world but really a force within it. The cosmic power of geometrical equality is expounded in the Gorgias (508a), for instance. Mathematics also provided particularly credible examples of meaningful concepts that remained ever the same regardless of how imperfectly they were instantiated in the physical world.
From the Socratic search for definitions of ethical concepts and an increasing interest in pure mathematics Plato’s Theory of Ideas was developing. It is possible that the Hippias Major, which displays such an interest in the theory of definition as would suggest the formation of an ontology of definable concepts, represents a middle stage between the ontologically more naive definition dialogues (assumed to have been written early) and the developed Theory of Ideas in the Phaedo (see Paul Woodruff, Plato: Hippias Major, Oxford, 1982).
Even so it would have been a surprise for the average reader of the Phaedo to encounter the Theory of Ideas represented as a much-discussed theme of (Plato’s) Socrates. Ideas as a class of realities are simply not discussed in the dialogues until now, unless perhaps the accepted chronology of the dialogues is mistaken. It is likely, therefore, that much of the discussion had arisen from others’ impressions of what Plato’s treatment of his definienda implied. Had he been criticized by rivals or mocked by the comedians for what he seemed to have in mind when seeking definitions of qualities which made no reference to the bearers of those qualities? Certainly there exist fragments of Antisthenes and of Middle Comedy which seem to be mocking Plato’s Ideas, and whereas the former’s criticism might not provoke widespread reaction the comedian’s voice was heard by many and might rapidly fan rumours about some peculiar theory held by Plato. And whereas a lesser thinker might trim his sails, Plato could only be expected to embrace with relish the consequences of his search for entities unchanged by the decay of physical realities. Yes, he did believe in perfect, unchanging and eternal realities to which the things of this world could only hope to approximate. They were, in fact, the very goal of his philosophy, and, he thought, of all true philosophy.
The Phaedo then is an admission by Plato of the importance of these supposed realities to him and to all that he stood for. How much metaphysical dogma attaches to the Theory at this stage is unclear, and there must have been many details of it which Plato had failed to satisfy himself on – among them, no doubt, the range of things which might be expected to have Ideas, an issue which the Parmenides (130b ff.) still fails to clarify. In the earlier part of the Phaedo the Ideas seem to surface in a natural manner, a manner which helps make the overall thrust of Plato’s views seem unsurprising. But the rigid two world ontology of the Argument from Similarity cannot fail to emphasize the remoteness of the Ideas from everything which the ordinary man is aware of, and the project of explaining the state of things in terms of the Ideas (100b ff.) – in terms of such static and non-physical entities – would probably have shocked many early readers. The particulars are not only named as they are because of the Ideas, they are what they are because of them.
Plato has now passed beyond the stage of allowing his Theory to emerge gently and in the way most conducive to winning acceptance. He wants the Theory to sound increasingly remote, farther and farther from the ordinary man’s world of experience. A theme initially introduced with the relatively innocent appeal to man’s belief in a real justice (65d) develops into an explanation of the world in terms utterly foreign to us – foreign to us, but not to the Socrates who stands at the verge of the next world. We should not complain that this is so; Plato is taunting us, holding out notions which are as yet beyond our reach. Even now he is not presenting us with a fully articulated philosophy; he is inviting us to seek further, warning us also, perhaps, that the goal of this search is not to be realized in this life but in a world to come.
One major question is the link between the explanation of phenomena in terms of Ideas and their explanation in terms of an Intelligent God which ‘Socrates’ had previously been searching for. The explanation in terms of Ideas in fact brings back into consideration forces such as fire and heat, which ‘Socrates’ had earlier rejected as candidates for properly explaining the world. If the final approach to causation is to satisfy him it must relate somehow to purpose, to the intelligent design of the universe. Furthermore, at 99c–d, Socrates sees his method of tackling the problem via the Ideas as a ‘secondary approach’, a phrase which would normally suggest the use of oars as a second-best alternative to sails at a time when the wind fails. The destination remains the same, but the ideal course to the destination lets you down, and so you revert to a more laborious means of propulsion. There is no help for ‘Socrates’ for the simpler journey to the Mind which organized the universe, and we are thus obliged to work our way back to it.
The first step on the path is to establish why any particular thing will come to have the property P; Socrates demands that we explain it in the first instance with reference to its participation in P-ness. The focus is not upon sundry ingredients, not themselves P, which have been physically required for the acquisition of P, but rather upon the property itself – for if x is P (Simmias is tall, for instance) becau
se some Intelligence demands it be P, then it does not help us understand that Intelligence if we focus upon other features of x which are not themselves P (Simmias’s head, for example, or eight centimetres). Intelligence has required that P-ness come to be in x, and therefore something must be present in x, or come to belong to x, which brings P-ness with it or which entails P-ness. In the physical world Intelligence works through physical means to bring about the various facets of its design, through fire to bring about heat, through soul to bring about life. If an odd number of rulers is important to the design of a government, then a number such as three or five will be chosen to bring it about. Intelligence works out what properties need to be present, and then what can be relied upon to bring them. The Ideas are the design-elements of the universe (explicitly so in the Timaeus), and the Designer reasons out how, when and where they will come to be present in it.
No doubt the virtues of justice, temperance, courage and wisdom are likewise seen as part of the universal purpose, instantiated where possible in the individual according to the design employed by Intelligence. How do they come to be instantiated? Presumably by the introduction of something into the soul whose presence necessarily entails these virtues. For Socrates, one supposes, that something would in each case have been moral knowledge; but for Plato, perhaps, it was becoming some fundamental orderliness (Gorgias 507–8), linked closely with the study of the order of the heavens (Timaeus 90a–d). Mathematical properties are there seen as contributing to the universal design, so it is no surprise that Ideas of such properties as equal or odd appear regularly in the Phaedo.
There can be no surprise, then, that the philosopher is keen to apply his mind to the Ideas. If they are the design-elements of the universe, part of the universal plan which the world is striving to realize, their loveliness will be prior to the loveliness of any earthly thing, which, for some portion of its limited life, may strive to instantiate them. They are not subject to the limitations of earthly matter, so that they do not merely reflect the plan; they are just as one would plan them to be. By studying them the philosopher has access to the very mind which organizes the universe.
Notes
Euthyphro
1. the King Archon: (‘the King’ for short) was nothing like a monarch, but was known as such because his functions had once been a monarch’s duty; he was that one of the nine archons (chief magistrates) entrusted with overseeing religious law, which included cases of homicide (a religious crime) as well as impiety. His Porch was in the Agora.
2. Euthyphro: It is difficult to be certain about who Euthyphro was, whether there could be any truth in the story of his prosecuting his father (which seems (i) far-fetched and (ii) chronologically problematic), or, if he was not an actual person with the tendencies of our character, why Plato would depart here from his normal habit of employing speakers who had really existed. A ‘Euthyphro’ is mentioned also in the Cratylus as being a seer who is inclined to be ‘carried away’ (in a religious manner) with etymologizing (d396). It has become fashionable to make something of the literal meaning of the names of Plato’s interlocutors; the present name has associations with a ‘straight’ or ‘orthodox’ mind, which seems apposite but proves nothing.
3. the Lyceum: A gymnasium which took its name from the precinct of Apollo Lyceius, in which it was set. Elsewhere in Plato we learn that it is a frequent haunt of Socrates (Symposium d223), and meet his conversations there (Lysis and Euthydemus).
4. don’t call it ‘suit’… but ‘prosecution’: The difference is between private cases and a public indictment or graphe.
5. Meletus: This was not an uncommon name, but it is tempting to identify the present one with, for example, the one who accused Andocides of impiety, also in or around 399 BC, or the poet mentioned by Aristophanes at Frogs 1302. There is no reason to assume that the present Meletus would have agreed with Socrates that he was an ‘unknown’, for there is a touch of malice in Plato’s words. Andocides’ accuser is probably the author of speech 6 of ‘Lysias’, and the religious attitudes taken there bear a striking resemblance not just to the attitude expected from the accuser of Socrates, but also to the attitude taken here by Euthyphro!
6. I’m corrupting his contemporaries: The corruption charge seems to have been more serious than that of religious innovation. For the exact charge see Apology 24b–c, Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1.1, and Diogenes Laertius 2.40.
7. your first concern: A good Socratic sentiment: note the attention given to education in the ideal state of Republic 2–3.
8. don’t recognize the old ones: This part of the charge, which is actually rather ambiguous, spoke of Socrates’ failure to accept (whether for outward recognition or inner belief) the gods of the city, and of his introduction of other strange new divinities. See Apology 24b–c, Xenophon Memorabilia 1.1.1. Suggestions of Socrates’ religious unorthodoxy are recurrent in Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, where it is not a matter of his personal divine sign but of his physicalist explanation of phenomena usually associated with gods.
9. divine sign keeps visiting you: On the divine sign, see Apology 31c–d and 40a; it appears from these references that it was a kind of inner voice that ‘told’ Socrates not to do certain things that he might otherwise have done. It is never represented as a god, but it is called here a daimonion or ‘divine thing’: the singular of the term used in the charge to refer to Socrates’ ‘new divinities’. Euthyphro immediately thinks of the divine sign because it is a form of prophecy which makes Socrates akin to himself.
10. if they believe somebody to be clever: Socrates thinks of the sophists and of the animosity which many Athenians felt towards them: see Protagoras c316–d and Anytus at Meno 91c.
11. without a fee: For Socrates’ generosity and failure to charge a fee (as the sophists did) see Apology 33a–b. This clearly set Socrates apart from the sophists in Plato’s mind.
12. according to plan: Note the ironic inaccuracy of Euthyphro’s predictions.
13. a wild goose in flight: The humour is aided by the fact that the Greek verb for ‘prosecute’ also means ‘chase’; while we talk of ‘going on a wild goose chase’ the Greeks simply spoke of ‘chasing a flying thing’.
14. farming on Naxos: Debate continues as to whether the historical details are plausible. The large Aegean island of Naxos would appear to have been outside Athenian control since 404 BC. If so, then one must explain the judicial delay or posit either anachronism or the total invention of the story by Plato. Tredennick favoured this last possibility. There are grave doubts as to whether such a case could have any hope of success under Athenian law. On the other hand it suits Plato perfectly in so far as it takes religious orthodoxy to its logical (and unorthodox) conclusion, contrasting well with Socrates’ mild but acknowledged unorthodoxy. It is particularly important that Socrates too was sometimes represented as turning son against father, as in the closing stages of Aristophanes’ Clouds, and by the unnamed ‘accuser’ at Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.49–51. Euthyphro’s ‘piety’ is really a much greater threat to the bond between father and son.
15. the Interpreter: An official, apparently the senior member of a board of three, who advised on how to tackle matters of religion, especially religious pollution.
16. authority in such matters: Exactly what Meletus would have thought of Euthyphro’s attitudes is important to the interpretation here; clearly it would suit Plato’s polemical purposes well if Meletus did subscribe to similar beliefs to Euthyphro’s. That is a distinct possibility if he is to be identified with the Meletus who prosecuted Andocides; see note 5 above.
17. one standard: Plato is here using the Greek term idea, by which he refers to the entities of his notorious Theory of Ideas in the middle-period dialogues. How technical its use is here is a matter of some controversy. But Plato’s message would of course have been intelligible to his audience even without their being familiar with this theory. The word is related to a verb of vision, and suggests a recognizable mark.
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br /> 18. a criminal: Literally the ‘one who commits injustice’; this is significant, as holiness is later to be viewed as a subdivision of justice.
19. Zeus… for similar reasons: The references here are to well-known tales in Hesiod’s Theogony (126 ff., 453 ff.): Uranus (Heaven) imprisoned his children deep in the body of Gaia (Earth) until Kronos, the youngest of them, was able to attack and castrate him; Kronos tried to avoid having his own throne usurped by a child by swallowing his offspring, but his wife Rhea tricked him into swallowing a stone rather than Zeus, his youngest son, causing him to vomit and so return his older children. Zeus subsequently did overpower Kronos, and imprisoned him.
20. about the gods’ conduct and about mine: The tactic of appealing to myths concerning the gods and heroes in order to justify personal behaviour is mocked by Aristophanes at Clouds 1047–70; it is seen as particularly dangerous by Plato himself at Republic b378, where these very examples of Uranus, Kronos and Zeus are being considered.
21. like this: It is difficult to believe that Socrates is genuinely interested in the possibility that Euthyphro might be right. Belief that all such myths were literally true would not have been widespread (like ‘creationism’ among modern Christians), and intellectuals like Xenophanes and Heraclitus had for a century been openly criticizing the acceptance of the myths of Hesiod and Homer.
22. described by the poets: Principally Hesiod and Homer: strife between gods supporting the Greeks and others supporting the Trojans is prominent in Homer’s Iliad.
23. the Robe: Every fourth year the Panathenaea was celebrated particularly lavishly, and a robe was embroidered for the statue of Athena Polias. The Robe became almost a symbol for Athens herself. Evidently Socrates has reservations about the representation upon it of the battle between gods and giants.