Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes

P1: FCW 0521863848pre CUNY434B/Schollmeier 0 521 86384 8 Printer: cupusbw July 14, 2006 Human Goodness Pragmatic Var...

Author: Paul Schollmeier

32 downloads 1058 Views 3MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

P1: FCW 0521863848pre

CUNY434B/Schollmeier

0 521 86384 8 Printer: cupusbw

July 14, 2006

Human Goodness Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes Human Goodness presents an original pragmatic moral theory that successfully revives and revitalizes the classical Greek concept of happiness. It also includes in-depth discussions of our freedoms, our obligations, and our virtues, as well as adroit comparisons with the moral theories of Kant and Hume. Paul Schollmeier explains that the Greeks define happiness as an activity that we may perform for its own sake. Obvious examples might include telling stories, making music, or dancing. He then demonstrates that we may use the pragmatic method to discover and to define innumerable activities of this kind. Schollmeier’s demonstration rests on the modest assumption that our happiness takes not one ideal form, but many empirical forms. Paul Schollmeier is professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is the author of Other Selves: Aristotle on Personal and Political Friendship and the coeditor of The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. H. Adkins.

i

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



ii

July 14, 2006

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes

PAUL SCHOLLMEIER University of Nevada, Las Vegas

iii

9:38

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521863841 © Paul Schollmeier 2006 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2006 isbn-13 isbn-10

978-0-511-25014-9 eBook (MyiLibrary) 0-511-25014-2 eBook (MyiLibrary)

isbn-13 isbn-10

978-0-521-86384-1 hardback 0-521-86384-8 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



To the Spirit of Iver C. Berg My Geometry Teacher Who Taught Me What Congruence Is

v

July 14, 2006

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

· , !" # $. – %&'

vi

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

9:38

Contents

Acknowledgments

page ix

Preface

xi

Schema

xv

1 2

An Apology The Method in Question

1 32

3 4 5 6 7

Human Happiness Moral Freedoms Moral Imperatives A Question of Cosmology Human Virtue

68 114 152 192 238

8

A Symposium

274

Select Bibliography of Works Cited or Consulted

289

Index

295

vii

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



viii

July 14, 2006

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

9:38

Acknowledgments

I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Departments of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Oregon. The archaic, if not anachronistic, courtesy of granting visiting appointments to wayfaring scholars is alive and thrives at both institutions. I also express my sincere gratitude to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for a sabbatical leave. This respite from my pedagogical duties enabled me to begin to pull together my thoughts on the themes of the present work and to organize them into their current form. I wish to acknowledge two anonymous referees for Cambridge University Press. With their comments they saved me from several errors of both substance and style. The remaining errors may serve to illustrate a theme of this book: Human knowledge, despite our concerted efforts, remains decidedly finite. Nonetheless, should you, my reader, spot any mistakes, I would be grateful to be informed of them. We surely ought not to let our limited abilities unduly limit our aspirations. But I must not fail to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their kind offices. The present enterprise and its success or lack thereof depended in innumerable ways upon our many informal conversations and discussions. Indeed, these informalities at times eclipsed in their insightfulness the formalities of more scholarly research. I had the pleasure of discussing three papers on themes central to the present work at scholarly meetings when my thoughts were still nascent. I presented “Kantian Imperatives and Greek Values” during a symposium in honor of Arthur W. H. Adkins, who was a professor of mine at the University of Chicago. Robert B. Louden and I subsequently published the paper in a Festschrift entitled The Greeks and Us (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 145–160. I presented “Happiness and Luckiness” at the XXth World Congress of Philosophy in Boston. This essay is available on the World Wide Web in The Paideia Project On-Line at . I presented ix

P1: FCW 0521863848pre

x



July 14, 2006

Acknowledgments

“Practical Wisdom and Empirical Principles” at the XIIth InterAmerican Congress of Philosophy in Buenos Aires and at the annual meeting of the Ohio Philosophical Association. It was published in The Proceedings of the Ohio Philosophical Association (Delaware: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1989), pp. 92–103. To those who were kind enough on these occasions to offer me their comments and encouragements, I am very grateful. One paper based on passages taken from the book manuscript has already found its way into print. “The Pragmatic Method and Its Rhetorical Lineage” was published in Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol. 35 (2002), pp. 368–381. Another paper, a spin-off from the manuscript, has also been published. “Ineluctable Slavery” appeared in Skepsis, vol. 12 (2001), pp. 134–141. I presented this paper at the XIth International Symposium of Philosophy. A request to write a book review inspired me to rethink the ancient doctrine of the mean. The result is a new interpretation that shows how closely allied are Aristotle’s concepts of the practical intellect and the moral mean. The book was Aristotle, Virtue, and the Mean, and my review came out in Dialogue, vol. 38 (1999), pp. 610–614. I thank the editors for this little scholarly assignment. A final word on the paraphrases and translations. The translations and paraphrases of passages from the primary texts in the Greek or the German are my own versions of modern and contemporary translations. These versions, please note, are of greater or lesser originality, depending on my facility with the language of a text, on the apparent difficulty of the passage in question, and on my perception of the abilities exhibited by previous translators.

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

9:38

Preface

You shall find, dear reader, no new ideas in my book. At least, I trust not. If you seek novelty, you had best search another volume for the pleasures of your diversion. I cannot presume on a topic of so great an importance as ethics to have discovered a truth not yet known to my fellows, whether philosophically inclined or not. Even this very point others made centuries ago. Immanuel Kant did, for example. If, however, you are a seeker of self-knowledge and its pleasures, read on. I have attempted to explore knowledge of this variety, and I do believe that I have met with some success. But I must offer you a word of caution at the very outset: Any success in an endeavor of this alluring sort is at best rather elusive, and whatever success one might actually claim could quite possibly be illusive. But how can I hope to gain self-knowledge without discovering a new truth? you may ask. This book, I would respond, is merely an experiment in the analysis of ideas about human goodness. But the ideas I intend to analyze are not at all unique to me. I propose to take a concept of happiness gleaned from the ancients and to see what the consequences might be if we were to take it seriously as a principle of moral philosophy. What could happiness tell us about ourselves, our autonomy, our obligations, and our circumstances, not to mention our virtue? One might be tempted to think that an experiment with self-knowledge is itself a novel idea. But proponents of the experimental method for the moral sciences have in the past century made the idea very current. I am thinking of William James and John Dewey, especially. These philosophers themselves claim an ancient lineage for the procedure. They trace its origins through David Hume and John Stuart Mill down to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. In my experiment I shall elaborate a hypothesis that is rather limited. I pretend to no divine knowledge of any eternal or necessary sort. One cannot but at times feel that certain ideas do provide a glimpse of eternity. But even xi

P1: FCW 0521863848pre

xii



July 14, 2006

Preface

these ideas, though they may fill us with ecstasy, we cannot take for certain. They may perhaps approach the ideas of a god, I concede, and we ought surely to treat them with some diffidence. But I must ask, How could we ever be sure that we have stumbled upon any idea truly divine? My hypothesis concerns human knowledge. I take our knowledge to rest on a feeble intellect and on frail senses. Our faculties with their contingent natures can hardly grasp even their proper objects. What is more, these objects themselves are apparently contingent. They not infrequently change under our very gaze. How could one ever hope to grasp their truths with much confidence? Nor dare I attempt an experiment that would tie all truth, if only human, into one tidy bundle. Truth, if it is one, is too grand a thing for our mind to grasp. We must therefore choose our experiments and choose them carefully. I have chosen to elaborate a hypothesis that sheds some light on truths now forgotten by many. There are surely good reasons for our forgetfulness. But our lapse has consequences that appear to me equally great, if not grave. The truths by which we presently live do have their advantages. But because they are not exhaustive, these truths also have their disadvantages. If you wish, you may think of this book as dedicated to the idea of an ephemeral teleology. An ephemeral teleology?! Yes, the phrase does sound oxymoronic. We are today much accustomed to thinking of teleologies, especially moral ones, as requiring eternal, fixed forms. But need they? I for one do not think so. We are surrounded by plants and animals whose forms of life are very obviously teleological and yet constantly changing over their lifetimes, not to mention their species evolution and extinction. I wish to remind you that we ourselves are of these fleeting forms as are the ecosystems within which we dwell. And so I shall ask, What are the implications of a temporal teleology, autochthonous and almost evanescent by comparison to its alternative, for moral theory and practice? I shall, then, have repeated recourse to the ancient Greek philosophers. I mean Plato and Aristotle. They expound a natural and moral teleology that we would do well to take into consideration. Many philosophers, of course, would argue that their teleology requires eternal forms for its foundation. I am not convinced that it does. But my reservations need not trouble you. My purpose is to trouble you with a larger question. I wish to ask, Need a moral or a natural teleology rest on invariable forms? I think not. What I shall do, then, is take the ancient concept of teleology and make use of it as if it were of variable forms. David Hume and Immanuel Kant provide extraordinary confirmations of this principal idea, especially if one considers how inimical their philosophies seem to be to those of the Greeks. With his distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact, Hume echoes the ancient distinction between knowledge and opinion. Kant advocates a moral teleology that includes a concept of value very similar to that of the ancients, despite its

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



Preface

July 14, 2006

9:38

xiii

transcendental form. His teleology also contains other concepts useful for my analysis, such as freedom, imperative, and cosmology. But Kant and Hume remain the Scylla and Charybdis of our efforts to understand the Greeks. These gentlemen are veritable demigods who cast conceptual shadows so long as to obscure our vision of ancient philosophy. I suspect, for example, that our tendency to attribute fixed rational forms to moral teleology arises in large part from Kant. From Hume would appear to arise our reluctance to accept a rational teleology of any sort in moral matters. I shall borrow from the American philosophers their method, albeit with some modification. I shall also attempt to reconstruct their general philosophical outlook. My intention is to apply the experimental method to moral problems with the purpose of advancing intellectual teleologies and not emotional ones. A moral experiment, I shall argue, is successful if its hypothesis is conducive to the enriched activity of our mind rather than to the enhanced passivity of our emotions. The consequences of this change for our felicity are not insignificant. My hope, then, is that by recalling an idea, almost archaic by contemporary standards, and by arraying it before you, gentle reader, with other ideas, both ancient and modern, I can foster in your soul a forgotten moral outlook and attitude. But I must now ask you, if you be of kindred spirit and so inclined, to peruse my book itself.

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



xiv

July 14, 2006

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



July 14, 2006

A Schema of Topics Analyzed

Human Ephemer

Theoretical Reason (Chapter 1)

a

Practical Reason

Method (Chapter 2)

Poetical Reason (Chapter 8)

Hypotheses

Formal Cause (Chapter 3)

Efficient Cause (Chapter 4)

Mater ial Cause (Chapter 7)

Final Cause

Human (Chapter 5)

Divine (Chapter 6)

xv

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863848pre



xvi

July 14, 2006

9:38

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



July 14, 2006

9:42

1 An Apology

1. ΓΝΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ! Who cannot remember the very first time when he or she heard these words uttered? KNOW THYSELF! I know that I can distinctly recall when a high school chum announced to some fellow classmates and me that this pronouncement, together with the injunction NOTHING IN EXCESS, was the most famous and the most important utterance of the Delphic oracle. Nor can I forget the quizzicality that immediately followed this revelation. NOTHING IN EXCESS surely appeared to be a reasonable, if at times a difficult, maxim to follow. But KNOW THYSELF? This great injunction rang hollow. Know thyself, when there are so many other intriguing things seemingly waiting to be discovered? Not to mention the ingenious things no doubt waiting to be invented? How could a nostrum seemingly so empty be the summation of ancient Greek wisdom? You may imagine our consternation when this same friend kindly informed us in almost the same breath that the Greeks highly esteemed a playwright who wrote a play about a man who murdered his father and married his mother. They had even given him a prize for it, he claimed. We were apoplectic! The Greeks, we had been taught, were the very paragons of our culture. They had fought so valiantly against so many at Marathon and Salamis.1 Yet what better inspiration for philosophy than these ancient paragons who appear so paradoxical! Who better to invoke for my present undertaking than these haunting spirits? Whether we will or not, we are all obliged to concede that the Greeks present paradigms that overshadow our culture. Every philosopher – nay, every person – must somehow come to grips with these ancient ones. We may ponder them, we may applaud them, we may deplore them, we may attempt to ignore them, but escape them we cannot. 1

The mischievous friend was Michael Jay Williams, Esq., and his language was more colorful than my own. This incident remains indelibly engraved in my memory.

1

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

2



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

And so I must ask, Why? Why must every philosopher explicitly, and every person implicitly, grapple with these Greeks? Could the phenomenon be a cultural conundrum of some intransigent sort? Or does it have its origins in human nature itself? I wish to suggest that this chronic problem has its origins within our very nature, which we share with the Greeks. If they were anything, the ancient Greek philosophers were surely astute observers of the human frame and fabric. More particularly, I believe that they may serve to remind us, despite ourselves perhaps, of an important fact about ourselves. This fact, we soon shall discover, is an organicism that lies deep within us as well as without us. We also know that these Greeks claim to be the children and the grandchildren of the gods. This claim alone, I should think, would be sufficient to render them worthy of our attention. Who are we to doubt their word? They surely ought to know who their own ancestors are, to paraphrase an ancient argument. At the very least, one ought not to dismiss their claim out of hand. We might even find, should we deign to give it serious consideration, that we ourselves are nearer and dearer to the gods than we may have imagined. We do, after all, trace our lineage back to the ancients. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before we can hope to fathom them, we must first make an effort to become better acquainted with these ancient ones. And with ourselves. 2. The divine injunction to know myself, I confess, I did not take as seriously as one ought for a time considerably longer than I would care to admit. But I did early on make a concerted effort to get to know the Greeks, and Socrates quickly became a focus of my endeavors. His claim that the unexamined life is not worth living was a source of many spirited discussions among my college classmates and me (Apology 37e–38a).2 I well remember that our debates almost always ended in frustration, though I no longer recall why they did. Nor am I entirely sure that we divined a connection with the Pythian oracle. But I would like to think that we did. Even now an examination of the Apology can be an occasion for philosophical frustration. One would think that a reasonable procedure for considering this monologue would be to ask, How does Socrates himself implement his claim about the unexamined life? After all, he does give us an account of an examination that he made regarding his life. But this procedure, ingenious though it appears, soon gives us additional grounds for reflection. What we discover with it initially seems not terribly profound and not a little puzzling. When we approach the Apology with our question in mind, we find Socrates recounting at his trial his attempt to understand another 2

More literally Socrates asserts that an unexamined life is one not to be lived by a human being ( ). The implication is that an unexamined life is less than human!

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

3

pronouncement made by the oracle at Delphi. He explains that a bold friend of his had asked the oracle whether someone was wiser than he, and the oracle had responded that no one was (Apology 20c–21a). He found this response to be less than credible, and he decided to undertake an inquiry and to see whether he could not find someone wiser. He actually thought, he tells us, that he might refute the oracle (21b–c). He soon discovered, however, that the oracle was in fact irrefutable. He was forced to conclude that he was the wisest of all because he was unable to find anyone who was wiser. What was this great wisdom of his? His wisdom was merely that he did not know and did not think that he did ( . . . , )! But this meager knowledge was sufficient to make him wiser than all the others. He sought out and tested numerous people who had a reputation for wisdom, among them politicians, poets, and handicraftsmen. He found that he was wiser than they were because they each thought that they knew something though they did not (21c–22e). Socrates, then, demonstrated with his examination that he was indeed wiser than anyone else. But he also showed that his wisdom was merely ignorance! This ignorance we have in fact come to know as Socratic ignorance. His example thus suggests that an examined life is worth living because it is one that we knowingly live in ignorance. I suppose that a life of this sort might be a smidgen better than an unexamined life, which, presumably, one ignorantly lives in ignorance. Yet one cannot but wonder, How worthy is any life of ignorance? What is more, you may perchance have noticed that we again encounter the Delphic oracle and its more troublesome injunction. Our ability to know ourselves would seem to be rather dubious. Through Socrates the oracle is apparently telling us something about human knowledge. To the consternation of his jury, Socrates professes his belief that the oracle meant for him to be taken as an example for us all. What she appears to be saying, he asserts, is that our wisdom is worth little or nothing (Apology 22e–23b). Need I also mention the little paradox of how one might know that one does not know? If we know that we do not know, then we would know at least one thing, would we not? But if we do not know at least one thing, then we would not even know that we do not know. Socrates’ discovery, whichever way we take it, seems at best oxymoronic. Let us persevere, nonetheless. We can learn another fact or two about Socrates and his wisdom even from Plato’s account of his trial. Socrates informs us that his knowledge is of one kind only. Eschewing divine wisdom of any kind, he asserts that he does not even know of any wisdom that might be greater than human ( !). The knowledge that he himself claims to possess is merely human wisdom ( " !) (Apology 20d–e). Wisdom of our sort it is which is worth little or nothing (23a).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

4



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

Unfortunately, he does not bother to explain what the difference might be between wisdom of these two kinds. But we can see that the people whom he examined apparently thought that they had knowledge akin to divine knowledge. At least, they thought that they knew something beautiful and good (# $ ) (21d or 22b–c). Could divine knowledge thus be to know that one actually knows? And could human knowledge, again, be to know only that we do not know, if we know anything? That is, could our knowledge be to know that we are ignorant? Perhaps we ought to ask, Have we ever encountered a similar distinction between these kinds of knowledge? I believe that we have. Where? In Plato’s Republic, of course! When he discusses the qualifications for an ideal ruler, Socrates obviously distinguishes several kinds of knowledge if we take the term in its widest sense. He recognizes a distinction between knowledge and opinion, and he further differentiates understanding from reasoning and belief from conjecture. With these distinctions, if carefully analyzed, we shall see what divine knowledge might be and, more important for us, what human knowledge is. Consider the famous paradigm of the divided line, which Socrates uses to make his distinctions. With this figure Socrates represents indifferently our intellectual powers and their objects. But we need consider only our powers. Socrates asks us to imagine a line divided into two unequal sections. These two sections, we may say, represent opinion (%&) and knowledge ($' ) (Republic 6. 509d, 510a). Opinion, of course, concerns the multiplicity of visible and audible objects, and knowledge the unity of an intelligible object, which is an idea (Republic 5. 476a–b). He asks us to imagine further each section subdivided into two unequal segments (Republic 6. 509d–e). To the lower segments he assigns conjecture (() and belief ( ), and to the upper segments reasoning ()) and understanding (%" ) (511d–e). Conjecture and belief concern sensible images and their objects, but reasoning and understanding concern intelligible objects and their principles (509e–510c). I want to focus not on the lower but on the upper portion of this figure. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the upper segments of the line both concern hypotheses and how to use them in intellectual inquiry. With these two segments Socrates illustrates two ways in which we can so use them. He is at some pains to show that one may use a hypothesis either to establish a conclusion or to establish a first principle. Consider the use of a hypothesis to arrive at a conclusion. This usage is one familiar to any high school sophomore who has signed up for a geometry course. One starts from hypotheses (*& + ,), assuming them to be true without argument, and then from them one draws a conclusion (*#./). For example, our geometer might assume the definitions of a triangle and a square and then proceed to make an inference about these

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

5

concepts. When we use diagrams for this purpose, we use them only as images of the concept under consideration (510b, 510c–511b).3 Consider now the use of a hypothesis for arriving at a first principle. We may find this procedure less familiar, but college students who have studied mathematical logic have an inkling of what it is. One goes from hypotheses (*& + ,), such as geometrical definitions, to a first principle that is nonhypothetical (*

01 .% ). One then goes back to the original and other hypotheses. We might, for example, go from the postulates of Euclidian geometry to the concepts of set theory and then back to the postulates of Euclidian, Riemannian, and Lobachefskian geometries. We use no images for this purpose. Our thinking is “of ideas, through ideas, and to ideas” (510b, 511b–d).4 I would like to emphasize two points about this analysis. Socrates suggests, first of all, that we undertake an inquiry of either type only by hypothesis. We merely assume a hypothesis to be true for the purpose of drawing a conclusion from it. Or we can use a hypothesis as a “steppingstone” or “springboard” in an attempt to arrive at and to establish its truth with a first principle (Republic 6. 511b–c). That we can understand a hypothesis by means of a first principle, he explicitly asserts (511c–d).5 Second, we use a hypothesis in either way according to Socrates for the purpose of a conceptual inquiry. In the one way we attempt to draw out the implications of a concept, and these implications are themselves conceptual. Images, if used, merely reflect conceptual content. In the other way we attempt to organize our hypotheses with a first principle, but this organization is conceptual, too. Images are not even under consideration (511b–c).6 3

4

5

6

Incidentally, the divided line itself functions as a geometric diagram does. It serves to illustrate epistemological and ontological concepts. Nagel is a contemporary philosopher who expresses this concept quite succinctly, though he does not connect it with Plato. “An advance in objectivity,” he asserts, “requires that already existing forms of understanding should themselves become the object of a new form of understanding, which also takes in the objects of the original forms” (View 5. 74–77). Few contemporary translators would appear to translate these passages consistently with the term “hypothesis.” But Reeve did in his recent revision of Grube’s translation (Cooper). So did Lindsay and Bloom before him. Most contemporary philosophers, however, would agree about these two functions of a hypothesis. Irwin does, for example, though he uses both the terms “hypothesis” and “assumption” (Ethics 16. 274). Annas also agrees about these functions (Introduction 11. 277–278). Tait discusses the objects represented by the divided line, and he shows in some detail how knowledge can have this conceptual purity. He argues that Plato is defending what we would call exact science, and that science of this kind is “true of a certain structure which the phenomena in question roughly exemplify but which, once grasped, we are capable of reasoning about independently of the phenomena which, in the causal sense, gave rise to it” (11–12, 15–16).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

6



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

We may now distinguish, I think, human from divine knowledge. Divine knowledge I would take to be ultimate, nonhypothetical, knowledge of first principles. If they have any knowledge, would not the gods have knowledge of first principles and not merely knowledge that they assume to be true? Indeed, they would presumably have knowledge of the one and only first principle of anything and everything.7 Human knowledge I take to be hypothetical knowledge. Following Socrates, I would argue that our hypothetical knowledge is of two kinds. We can not only reason hypothetically, but we can also understand hypothetically. That is, we can not only use our hypotheses to arrive at conclusions, but we can also arrive at prior principles as best we are able with the aid of our hypotheses. Or dare we presume to do more than to aspire to a knowledge of a principle that is truly first?8 If there can be knowledge so wondrous! Socrates himself professes not to know if knowledge of a nonhypothetical sort is in fact possible. He actually expresses some skepticism about any knowledge of an ultimate first principle. His skepticism extends explicitly to the ne plus ultra idea of the good (2 3 $ 3 (,), which, he states, is “the last to be known and hardly to be seen.” “God only knows if it happens to be true!” he declares. This idea 7

8

Contemporary physicists would call knowledge of this sort a Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) or a Theory of Everything (TOE). In their hope to develop a theory of this sort, they are currently attempting to reconcile the hypotheses of general relativity with those of quantum mechanics. Their general theory would advance a principle concerned with only a single science, however. With a different method we thus arrive at a distinction very similar to that which Vlastos makes between knowledge that is certain and knowledge that we attain by elenchus. Vlastos argues that certain knowledge absolutely cannot be otherwise, and that elenctic knowledge depends on our dialectical skill and on our opinions (Socratic 2. 48–58). Socrates, Vlastos also points out, relies on an assumption that elenctic knowledge is a consistent set of beliefs. But need Socrates assume that our beliefs, though shown to be consistent on a given occasion, are true, as Vlastos argues (Socratic 1. 25–28)? Not in any absolute sense, I would think. Human knowledge, if open to dialectical challenge, can be true only by hypothesis. Our knowledge must remain hypothetical whether we attempt to reason or to understand. Brickhouse and Smith argue that Socrates does have divine knowledge, revealed to him not only by the oracle but also in his dreams (Socrates 2. 105–107). They allege two facts in support of their claim, that Socrates trusts the oracle because a god would not lie, and that he evidenced his trust in divination when he concludes that the poets produced their works through divine knowledge (105–106). I can only respond that Socrates explicitly denies himself any grand claim to wisdom greater than human (Apology 20d–e). More particularly, he implies that he did doubt the veracity of the oracle when he undertook to disprove it (21b– c), and he in fact criticizes the poets and others for their very claim to possess knowledge of the beautiful and good (22a–c; see 21c–e). Brickhouse and Smith agree, however, that Socrates also possesses human knowledge, which they, too, call elenctic knowledge, and that elenctic knowledge is less than certain. Knowledge of this kind has its limitations, they argue, of both an inductive and a deductive nature (Socrates 2. 133–135).

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

7

constitutes “for him appearances that thus appear ( . . . *- !% 4 !)” (Republic 7. 517b–c)!9 We have to admit, then, that human knowledge does amount to precious little. All knowledge that we might presume to possess is merely hypothetical, whether we use our hypotheses for understanding or for reasoning. Nor may we exempt this very distinction between hypothetical and nonhypothetical knowledge. We can know only hypothetically that we do not know nonhypothetically. Our knowledge is worth little or nothing, as Socrates declared. We cannot truly know a single thing. We can see, too, that an examined life is more worthy for us than an unexamined one. An examined life is a life not without some diffidence about our intellectual powers, which are rather fallible. At least, a life examined in a Socratic manner is. To know that we do not know is to know that we are apt to err. But an unexamined life is a life of foolish confidence. To think that one knows when one does not is to court disaster. A life of this sort can only be the stuff of tragedy, or, if we happen to be lucky, the stuff of comedy. Finally, we resolve our little paradox about human knowledge. In one breath Socrates uses the word “knowledge” in two senses. We can know humanly that we do not know divinely. Or we can know hypothetically that we do not know nonhypothetically. This usage is surely pardonable if the resulting paradox garners our attention. And I believe that it did, did it not?10 We find, then, that Socrates can indeed help us understand the Delphic injunction to know ourselves. We are obliged to conclude that we can know ourselves only by hypothesis. If we had other than hypothetical knowledge, we would know who we are through divine eyes. But only through our own eyes can we come to know who we might be. Our self-knowledge can be only hypothetical. But we now find that we must accept yet another conclusion. Selfknowledge turns out to be merely self-ignorance. We have seen that we must acknowledge our ignorance about the objects of our intellectual endeavors. But our ignorance about these objects surely entails an ignorance about our very selves. Or may we presume to know ourselves in some way other than that by which we know any and every other thing? Our self-knowledge, too, is worth little or nothing! 9

10

Shorey wryly remarks that Plato is “much less prodigal about metaphysical ultimates” than his interpreters sometimes are (Republic, vol. 2, pp. 130, n. b). He also argues that the nonhypothetical first principle is not to be taken in an ontological sense, but that this principle is for us only an ultimate hypothesis. It is “an unrealized methodological ideal” (Idea 229–232). I take his argument to be a reminder that the nonhypothetical can be for us merely a dialectical assimilation of our hypotheses. It only appears to be nonhypothetical, as Socrates says. Vlastos agrees about the ambiguation (Socratic 2. 64–66).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

8



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

No wonder Socrates had such a difficult time with his jury! His jurors would appear to lead lives unworthy of human beings, thinking that they know themselves when they do not. He more than once becomes the object of their indignation when he asserts that the certainty of others about themselves makes them less wise than his ignorance about himself (Apology 20c– 21a, 29b–31c). He must admonish the jury even when he reminds them of his penchant for dialectics (17c–18a, 27a–b). Perhaps we can now better understand the accusation of impiety (24b–c, 26b–c). What becomes of our traditional gods if we have no divine knowledge of them? Socrates argues that he is following the divine oracle when he practices philosophy. But he also avers that he must test the utterance of the oracle to see for himself whether or not it might be true. Stop and think for a moment. If we have only human knowledge of our gods, we are in effect left on our own with the dreaded dialectical daimon whom Socrates claims to serve (31c–d). A strange divinity, indeed! 3. Contemporary philosophers, I have since learned, long after the late-night debates with my college companions, take an even less sanguine view of our sagacity than does Socrates. Yet these very philosophers, excepting the more obstreperous among them, do frequently present the appearance, at least, of being able descendants of our Athenian. I would like now to draw upon an American philosopher of this able sort for support in our endeavor to understand ourselves. This philosopher exhibits not only the diffidence of Socrates but also the dialectical acumen. I refer to none other than William James. One might imagine that James would find a life of ignorance, when viewed as a life of hypothetical knowledge, quite familiar and quite possibly congenial. He would surely applaud Socrates for the view that human knowledge is merely hypothetical. In fact, the American and the British philosophers were among the first moderns, if not the first, to observe how successful the hypothetical method is in the natural sciences and to advocate its adoption in the moral sciences. Their hope was to free us from our moral prejudices and to put us on our way toward moral progress. Nonetheless, James would likely feel a residual discomfort about a Socratic life of ignorance. What would make him uncomfortable, I think, is the purpose for which Socrates employs the hypothetical method. Socrates uses the method in intellectual inquiry exclusively for the sake of our concepts themselves. We understand with a hypothesis, on his account, when we arrive at a first principle for concepts. Or we reason with a hypothesis when we draw conclusions about concepts. In either way a hypothesis enables us only to relate our ideas to one another. I have, I admit, some sympathy for this philosophical antipathy. You no doubt do, too, if you have any empirical tendencies. Our uneasiness arises from the fact that we are accustomed to using a hypothesis for inquiry not

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

9

about conceptual but about perceptual objects. That is, we tend to make an inquiry about the intangible and invisible objects of our intellectual life a secondary concern. Our primary concern is to inquire about the visible and tangible objects of our quotidian life. Of course, if inquiry about concepts can advance inquiry about percepts, so much the better. But are we right to indulge our ontological predilection? What reason might we have for supposing that the more rational conceptual entities are less appropriate objects of our cognitive concern than more the ephemeral perceptual entities? Can we defend our decision, if it was a decision, to assess human understanding and reasoning by their bearing upon things apparently physical? I would suggest that we might mitigate our metaphysical qualm by returning to our ancient dialectician. Curiously, if we can see how Socrates defends the practice of employing a hypothesis in conceptual inquiry, we shall be in a better position to examine how James defends the practice of applying a hypothesis in perceptual inquiry. What I intend to show is that the ancient and the contemporary concepts of knowledge, despite their considerable differences, do have some rather astounding similarities. We shall also see that, despite these similarities, the contemporary concept of knowledge resembles most of all the ancient concept of opinion. Plato presents in the Republic another paradigm that will prove helpful for addressing our present quandary. This paradigm is the simile of the sun. Socrates uses this simile as an illustration of the good and its role in determining our epistemology and our ontology. Though urged to do so, he admits that he is not able to explain what the good itself might be. His fear is that he would not be of the sort able to succeed in the attempt, and that in his eagerness he would only make himself look ridiculous (Republic 6. 506d–e). His reluctance apparently bears no irony (504e– 505a). He argues instead that the good, whatever it might be, has a nature and function in the intelligible world similar to the nature and function of the sun in the visible world. This point is especially worthy of our consideration. The sun, he explains, lavishes its world with light, and its light serves as a medium for human vision (Republic 6. 507c–508a). The light of the sun obviously gives vision to our eyes and makes objects visible. Without light our eyes can hardly see and objects can scarcely be seen (507d–e). The good, too, he continues, causes a medium, but its medium serves human intellection. This medium, he implies, is truth ( #/ ) and being ( 5) (508d). In truth and being we now encounter nothing less than the famous idea of the good (2 3 $ 3 (,) or the form of the good ( $ , ). With its form the good gives both intelligence to a knower and intelligibility to an object known. That is, its form is the cause not only of truth and knowledge as they are known but also of truth and, presumably, being as they are (508e–509a).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

10



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

Plato’s assumption, which Socrates never quite makes explicit, appears to be that our knowledge, if adequate, would be the same as its object. The good gives rise to a form that we would grasp if we truly knew and that an object would be if it truly were. After all, a form of this type is itself an idea and, hence, at once an epistemological and an ontological entity! That which truly knows and that which truly is share an ideal identity.11 But can we ever know the form of the good? Alas, we cannot. We can, unfortunately, know an object only by means of a hypothesis. Socrates thus assumes that any knowledge of ours can only approximate a form of the good. Our hypothesis might have an object that is a cause of truth and knowledge in our minds and of truth and knowability in an object. But most likely our hypothesis does not have an object of this sublime sort. If it did, we would have stumbled upon the one and only, nonhypothetical, first principle of the all.12 Now, I would draw your attention to the fact that with his simile Plato confines the intelligible realm to knowledge and its objects only. This realm is, of course, that of being. The good causes a medium through which we can know concepts and through which concepts can be known, if only hypothetically. Socrates does not devote any attention to opinion and its objects, except to mention them by contrast. The realm of opinion, he states, is that of coming to be and of ceasing to be (Republic 6. 508d). When he develops his simile, Socrates thus concerns himself only with the realm of knowledge and knowable objects. He is obviously concerned with knowledge because it is a necessary qualification, sine qua non, he argues, for an ideal ruler, who must be a philosopher as well as a politician (Republic 5. 473c–d). He acknowledges, nonetheless, a need for opinion. He asserts that a candidate for political rule must have not only knowledge but also 11

12

I take this interpretation to be nothing unusual. Annas, for example, would agree with the interpretation in its essentials. She rightly points out that the good is fundamental both in the understanding of things and in the nature of things. But she is quick to caution us not to confuse “the sovereignty of the good with shallow optimism about Providence and all being for the best.” She finds Plato extremely pessimistic “about the amount of goodness to be found in the actual world” (Introduction 10. 245–247). I am not so sure how pessimistic Plato is, but the extant world is less than perfect, to be sure. Irwin would seem to agree. He asserts that we must be able to grasp a form “by some cognitive state, superior to mere belief, that does not require knowledge of the Good” (Ethics 16. 271). But he does not indicate that this cognitive state could very well be hypothetical knowledge. Annas would appear to disagree. She overlooks the possibility that one might have hypothetical knowledge about the good, and she suggests instead that one can have opinion about it. Citing Republic 5. 506b–e, she claims that Socrates himself possesses opinion of this kind (Introduction 10. 243–244; 8. 194). But Glaucon is the one who suggests in the passage cited that Socrates might have opinion about the good. Socrates himself not only denies that he has knowledge of the good but also replies to Glaucon that opinion without knowledge is shameful. If so, opinion would hardly be appropriate to provide us with an awareness of the good.

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

11

experience, especially in political and military matters (Republic 7. 519b–d, 520c, 539e). Plato, therefore, leaves a lacuna in his analysis. One would think that more might remain to be said about the realm of opinion and its objects. Perhaps another offspring of the good, so to speak, somehow between the good and the sun, could produce a medium for opining, similar in function to both the intellectual light of knowing and the visual light of seeing. This medium might transmit opinable forms, distinct from intelligible and sensible forms, to explain how we can hypothesize about objects of opinion. Could there be, then, an intellectual medium concerned with becoming? If so, are there intellectual functions concerned with opinion and its objects? In other words, Can we use a hypothesis to understand a first principle concerned with objects of becoming? Or to attempt to understand one? Can we use a hypothesis to reason about objects of this sort? Affirmative answers to these questions could put us more at ease about the ontology to which we have become accustomed. To answer these questions would seem a Herculean task. Could we by ourselves hope to discover a medium for opining? I myself am not entirely indiffident about my own powers, and you may not be, either. But, fortunately, we need not put our philosophical prowess to the test. Other, more able philosophers have already discovered and discussed a medium of the very kind we seek, though they fail to divine its connection with ancient philosophy. The American pragmatists now make their appearance, and in their forefront we find William James. James does not explicitly acknowledge, as far as I can tell, that his empirical epistemology has any connection with the ancient distinction between knowledge and opinion. What this pragmatic philosopher does do is explain for us how we may know objects of becoming. When he does so, he enables us to see that knowledge in the contemporary sense is essentially the same as opinion in the ancient sense. More to our present purpose, he also indicates that there is a medium concerned with opinion and its object. James speaks neither of the good nor of the sun. But he does speak of human experience. He argues that our experience provides us with an intellectual medium! To distinguish it from the conceptual light of Plato, one might call this experiential medium an apperceptual light or, less pedantically perhaps, a perceptual light.13 But James calls this medium simply knowing. Knowing, he explains, is one part of experience that connects 13

James himself follows common usage when he speaks of concepts and percepts. But he would do better to speak of concepts, appercepts, and percepts. An appercept I take to be an intellectual awareness of a perceptible object. A percept is more strictly a sensed awareness of a perceptible object. We might argue by analogy that as knowledge divides classically into knowledge proper and opinion, so perception divides into apperception and perception proper. That is to say, perception is a homonymic genus. I shall for the most part conform to common usage, but I would ask the reader to bear this distinction in mind.

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

12



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

other parts of experience with one another. The parts that it connects are, I need hardly remind you, a subject who knows and an object that is known (Empiricism 1. 4–5)! He continues to argue that this medium of knowing has functions astoundingly similar to the Platonic media of intellectual light or of sunlight. Our experience is “double-barrelled,” he famously asserts. It functions, through knowing, both as an intelligence in a subject and as an intelligibility in an object! Or, as he himself puts the matter, experience separates itself into the consciousness of a knower and the content of an object known. This separation, he argues, experience brings about through different associations of a part of itself with other parts. Associations in one context play the role of a knower; in another context they play the role of a known thing (9–10). Consider his own example. A room, such as the one in which you are now sitting, is situated at the intersection of two processes. The one process is subjective, and the other objective. Both processes determine a context for the room, and they each do so with associations. Its subjective context is one of the biography of the person who happens to be in it, but its objective context is one of the history of the building in which the room is located. The one is the result of operations such as “sensations, emotions, decisions, movements, classifications, expectations, etc.” But the other is the result of such operations as “carpentering, papering, furnishing, warming, etc.” (12–15). But how can a single room be in two places at once? James explicitly answers this question with an analogy. Our room is in two contexts very much as a point can be in two lines. The room is at an intersection of two processes that connect it with associations of different kinds, just as a point, he implies, can be at an intersection of two lines that connect it with other points in different series. But the room, like the point, he asserts explicitly, “would remain all the time a numerically single thing” (12). James would thus appear to rely on an assumption curiously Platonic – namely, that our knowledge, if adequate, would be identical with its object! Our experience on his account yields an entity that is at once epistemological and ontological. Though he does, I concede, speak disparagingly of the possibility that our knowledge might be the same as its object. When he does, however, he speaks only of absolute knowledge, which he takes to be mere dogmatism (Will 1. 13–14, for example). Indeed, he clearly argues that empirical knowledge can be identical to its object. Knowing, he asserts more generally, utilizes an identical “presentation” or “a mere that” which enables a subject to know and an object to be known. That is, “the very same that” is present in the mental activities “ending in the present” and “extending into the future” and in the activities terminating in “previous physical operations” and continuing in “future ones” (Empiricism 1. 13–15, his italics).14 14

Myers does not think that James can distinguish a thought from a thing in this way. He considers James’s example of a pen, which also may, as may any object, receive its function

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

13

We can now begin to see how James defends our ontological penchant for perceptible objects. James and Plato advance epistemologies and ontologies with an incredibly similar structure, despite their obvious differences. We may draw an analogy between the good and its function and human experience and its function. As the good provides a singular form that gives us the ability to know and enables an object to be known, so, too, our experience provides a singular form that enables us to know and an object to be known. After all, “a mere that” is a form that both a thought and a thing have in our experience. One can also see that a Platonic form and a Jamesian form are both ultimates. At least, for us they are. The good does not exist for us except as forms of knowledge and known objects. The most we can know about the good appears to be only that it is the source of the forms (Republic 6. 508e– 509a).15 So, too, pure experience does not exist for us except as forms of knowledge and objects known. We can know only the various natures that we encounter within it and not experience itself (Empiricism 1. 26–27). However, I would not dream of denying a salient dissimilarity between the Athenian and the American. The Platonic good provisions us with a conceptual form, which philosophers frequently take to be fixed, but Jamesian experience can provide us only with a perceptual form, which is fleeting. The one form is ideally eternal and necessary, but the other is empirically contingent and temporal.16 We may conclude, I think, that James supplies a philosophical foundation that can give us some confidence about our turn from ancient to contemporary ontology. As the good provisions us with an ideal medium for knowledge in the ancient sense, so human experience provides an empirical medium

15

16

from subjective or objective associations (James 11. 309–310). He asserts that we cannot point to an undifferentiated that, which functions in both contexts, nor can we view the same pen in both contexts without contradiction (310). James, however, advances these very propositions himself. There is no undifferentiated that, which is free from any associations, except for “new-born babes” or “men in semi-coma” (Empiricism 3. 93–94). A pen or any object does have contradictory attributes in different contexts, just as a man may be “tall in relation to one neighbor, and short in relation to another” (Empiricism 2. 80–82; 3. 100–106). Myers has fallen into the pitfall, James would say, of taking for real distinctions distinctions merely verbal (Empiricism 3. 103–104). Irwin suggests that the good is “not identical to any of the other Forms” but that “it is not independent of the totality of the Forms whose goodness it explains.” The good, he tells us, is “the appropriate combination and arrangement of them” (Ethics 16. 272–273). But could we not know a combination and arrangement of this sort? Hypothetically, of course. We would thus know the good as more than a source of the forms. If only! In more contemporary terms I am arguing that Plato and James present us with two versions of what Nagel would probably call a heroic skepticism. Both philosophers assume that our knowledge has some identity with its object, and yet they both argue that our knowledge is merely hypothetical (see View 5. 68–70). Nagel, of course, does not ascribe this view to Plato. He asserts that Plato advances a heroic epistemology, which apparently presupposes an absolute identity between our knowledge and its object (69). But Nagel is hardly alone in this ascription.

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

14



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

for knowledge in the contemporary sense. But, of course, a medium of either type, ideal or empirical, cannot enable us poor mortals to know anything in an absolute sense. Only in a hypothetical sense can we know. But we now encounter a philosophical prejudice that for us mortals can only border on ultimate, if it is not in fact ultimate. The Platonic good may indeed provide a foundation for our knowledge and our reality. But how could we ever know that we are so honored? Only our humble experience would appear to provide a foundation for human knowledge, however exalted it might seem. Our ideas, though they may at times appear to approach the divine, are human only, and they have their origin, decidedly modest, in our meager impressions. Within our own experience we thus find media for both conception and perception. We may employ within our experience a conceptual form to define a knower and an object known, but we may also employ a perceptual form to define a perceiver and an object perceived. But even a conceptual form for us is knowledge only in the pragmatic sense. And pragmatic knowledge is none other than opinion in the Platonic sense. Opinion for Plato concerns a perceptual object. It takes for its object becoming, and becoming is surely perceptual if anything is. We also see, even more importantly, how James enables us to fathom better our self-knowledge. Consider a simple syllogism. Self-knowledge, if we are right to follow James, surely includes knowledge of our own concepts and percepts. But knowledge of our own concepts and percepts constitutes our only knowledge of an object, if our associations be not pure illusion. Self-knowledge would, therefore, be the sum total of all knowledge not only of ourselves but of anything else, be it ideal or real! At least, it would for mortals, such as we be. I would like now to consider whether James could retain the Socratic distinction between understanding and reasoning. Can our self-knowledge include both understanding and reasoning about ourselves? Within Jamesian experience, I mean. I believe that it can. James himself retains the distinction if only implicitly. He recognizes, though applied differently, two functions for hypotheses. He rather clearly implies that we can use a hypothesis for understanding. A knower can establish a hypothesis if it leads to another part of experience that is conceived. Indeed, our ideas may form “related systems” that correspond to systems of realities, presumably experiential (Empiricism 2. 52–54, 61). Lest he seem to do so, I would again point out that he does not admit any human ability to know in a classical sense when we refer one concept to another. He might seem to suggest that our knowledge can concern concepts only. But he takes care to remind us that, when we refer our concepts to one another, we have only virtual knowledge (67–69). We can have actual knowledge only when we refer our concepts to percepts (54–58). But James also acknowledges that we may use a hypothesis to reason. This use of a hypothesis is essentially what he calls knowing. He all but asserts that

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

15

a hypothesis is one part of experience. This part is usually a conceptual part, and it constitutes a knower. And a knower, he argues, may take a concept for true if it leads to another part of experience that is perceptual. This perceptual part constitutes a known object (Empiricism 1. 25–26; also 2. 52–58, 60–61). James thus argues that we may understand a concept by creating a system of concepts and by verifying it with other concepts. But he emphasizes that these other concepts are themselves subject to verification with percepts. Nor ought we to use our hypothesis to reason about our concepts and to use our percepts as mere images of them, except perhaps as an intermediary process. We ought rather to use a hypothesis to reason about our percepts themselves and to treat them as objects to be known. In other words, he gives lesser priority to understanding than to reasoning, and he argues that reasoning concerns not conceptual but perceptual objects. But he does concede that we do, practically speaking, rest many of our verifications on our concepts alone. We simply take them for true if they are not contradicted (Empiricism 2. 67–69). He also adds that we may take our concepts as their own objects when our concepts can never terminate in a percept. I might do so, for example, with my concept of your curiosity or anger (72–74). But I wonder whether we ought not rather to make understanding prior and to avoid an emphasis on reasoning. With understanding may not our hypotheses enable us to find a first principle for our percepts? With them we may not arrive at an ultimate, truly first principle, but we might well discover a principle that can present us with an enlarged perceptual view of ourselves and of our perceptual predicament, so to speak. May we not use hypotheses concerned with perceptual objects as a “steppingstone” or a “springboard”?17 Our inquiry would now seem complete! Indeed, you might wonder, Why did I bother with Plato? Have I not in fact repudiated him? Why did I not simply follow James from the start? My answer must be that James, though he utilizes empirical principles, neglects a rather important perceptual principle of association. He appears to reject an association of this kind because he rejects what he takes to be its customary ontology – as do most, if not all, contemporary philosophers. This principle of association is the relation of a whole to its parts. Incredibly, James assumes that the ancient Greek concept of a whole and its parts can be a concept only in a rigorous logical or ontological 17

Nagel propounds an objective view of ourselves that bears some similarity to this enlarged perceptual view (View 4. 60–66). But his concept of the interrelationship between the objective and the subjective view differs from my own, as we shall see in Chapter 3. I would also agree with Nagel that we appear to possess an a priori rationalism without having any innate knowledge (View 5. 82–84). I wish only that I could have expressed the matter so well myself. But his concept of what practical function this rationalism has also differs from mine, as we shall see in Chapter 4.

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

16



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

form. That is, only in the form of an eternal absolute. But he takes pains to refute any logical or ontological relations among objects and to make use of experienced relations only. He does not allow himself to begin with logical or ontological wholes and to make them prior to their parts, he explains. He begins instead with experienced parts and makes wholes out of them (Empiricism 2. 41–42). To connect these parts, he uses only relations that are themselves experienced. We must take into consideration, he argues, everything that we find in direct experience, especially experienced relations (42). He is thus able to build upon the principles of association that David Hume set forth before him. To the principles of contiguity, similarity, and causation, he adds what he calls the principle of “co-conscious transition,” by which one experience passes into another (44–45, 47–49).18 We can thus be cognizant only of objects that are contingent and temporal. We find in these objects only an epistemological continuity, not an ontological one. But this epistemological continuity, he further informs us, is not one that we know but one that we feel (49). The mere felt continuity of one experience passing into another is in fact what constitutes not only an object but its very nature, he argues (50–52).19 But it ain’t necessarily so! to repeat an old jazz refrain. I agree with James that we ought to take into account everything that we directly experience. But in experience we find, I believe, that a whole need hardly be a necessary entity. Do we not encounter organic wholes constituted by empirical interactions of cause and effect among their parts? Consider the plants and animals that surround us. Or consider your very self and my own self! We thus encounter in daily, everyday experience wholes that are not eternal absolutes in any sense. The wholes that we encounter and the causal interactions that we observe within them are nothing other than relative temporalities. What is more, the principle of cause and effect philosophers have long recognized to be a principle of association. At least, we have since Hume, whose epistemology James builds on. The origin of the idea of continuity and sameness, James does rightly assert, lies in the sense of continuity occasioned when one experience passes into another within ourselves. We cannot abstract this idea, he rightly argues, 18

19

Or is this felt transition implicit in Hume’s concepts of probability and necessity (see Understanding 6–7.)? Myers takes James to be arguing that the relations among objects are “immediate perceptual data” and “distinct entities.” He appears to think that we ought to take as a literal identity what is merely an analogy that James draws between our internal feelings of relations and our external feelings of visual or tactile sensations. James claims, he tells us, that “we can literally see (hear, feel, touch) relations.” Myers accordingly concludes that James is vulnerable not to a conceptual regress but to a perceptual one (James 11. 330–332). His recommendation? That James rely not on a perceived continuity but rather on a continuity that we feel (332– 333)!

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

17

into a static absolute concept, lest we lose experience itself (Empiricism 2. 50–52). But must we conceive of this idea, so abstracted, as an absolute concept? May we not associate this idea as a percept with an object perceived? Does not one perceived object pass continuously into another? Indeed, all objects of this sort obviously do so and do so unceasingly. We can, therefore, accept the principle of continuous transition that James advances. But we ought to regard this principle as one that we can perceive and not merely feel. As a consequence, we find that we inhabit not a universe with an unchanging, absolute order but a universe that has a changing, relative order within it. Our universe would have an order at least to the extent that it has within itself an organic unity of parts, despite any residual disorder, and this organic unity we can attribute to it as an object. Indeed, it would appear to have a plurality of organic unities within it, and they would all appear to be objective. James has a universe admittedly more chaotic. He characterizes it without one single type of connection and more as a conglomeration of connections. His most vivid metaphor is a fetish with myriad appendages. Our universe may have a core of common perception, he says, but its parts remain mostly out of sight of one another. Our universe is thus largely subjective and pluralistic (Empiricism 2. 46–47). Our ontological hypothesis suggests, what is more important, that, though we eschew what James takes to be its ontology of being, we can yet embrace the ancient ontology as if it were an ontology of becoming. We may set aside any concept of an alleged unchanging whole and take up a concept of a changing whole. Why could one not entertain the Greek hypotheses concerning natural objects as if they had an ontological nature of a merely transitory sort? One could then ask, Is our universe an organized whole? and, Are we ourselves organized wholes? James’s reliance on Hume, incidentally, gives us another, more familiar perspective from which to view the difference between Plato and James. Consider how Hume distinguishes relations of ideas from matters of fact. Relations of ideas, he suggests, are logical relations subject to the principle of contradiction. But the principles of association, or custom, govern matters of fact known solely by experience. Why? Relations of ideas we know to be true because their contraries are false. But matters of fact can be either true or false because their contraries may also be true or false (Understanding 4. 1. 25–26).20 20

Myers recognizes that James follows Locke and Hume in distinguishing relations of ideas from matters of fact. He observes that James attempts to trace our knowledge of ideas as such back to the organic structure of our brains (James 10. 281–283). But Meyer has reservations about James’s deployment of this distinction. He argues that the distinction is not “abrupt or clear-cut” because we may, James argues, incorporate our knowledge of ideas into our knowledge of empirical facts (288–289). He thus forgets the fact, though he mentions it, that the distinction between concepts and percepts rests with our intention.

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

18



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

With this distinction we can see more clearly the dissimilarity between the Platonic and the Jamesian concepts of knowledge and the similarity between the Platonic concept of opinion and the Jamesian concept of knowledge. I take the Humeian relations of ideas to bear a rather close resemblance to knowledge in the ancient sense, and opinion in the ancient sense I take to resemble closely our impressions of matters of fact. After all, the Platonic dialectic does concern ideas themselves and turns on the principle of contradiction. But empirical knowledge turns on the principles of association and concerns matters of fact! It concerns percepts, remembered or imagined, taken to be factual. I thus offer you, dear reader, an initial pragmatic variation on a Platonic theme. You can now see that within our humble experience a relation need not be a logical or an ontological one in the sense of an eternal, unchanging concept. We may experience a relation that is logical or ontological in the sense of a temporal changing appercept. Or, one might say, we may experience a relation in the pragmatic sense of a perceived object. This pragmatic stance obviously differs from the Platonic one. I am granting less priority to knowledge in Plato’s sense than to opinion in his sense. Opinion, I reiterate, I take to be identical with apperceptual, or more commonly perceptual, awareness. But my pragmatic stance differs from the Jamesian, too. An experienced relation is more one of understanding than reasoning, and because perceptual it is not one merely emotional. What I hope to show before long is that an understanding of our percepts is essential for human happiness. We cannot hope to act for the sake of a rational function of our own if we cannot perceive our own empirical functions and the empirical functions of other objects. In other words, there could be no happiness for us because we could not act for the sake of an action itself without percepts of this kind. 4. What about moral knowledge? If our knowledge is merely ignorance, could we mortals ever hope to live a good life? If our knowledge is hypothetical and concerns only our own concepts and percepts, could we possibly know any objective truth, let alone a moral truth? William James himself despairs of obtaining a moral truth, or any truth, that might be objective. Nonetheless, we can only now, I think, begin to discern what an ethics, at once pragmatic and objective, might be. Let us conjure up our dear Socrates one more time. At his trial Socrates claims to be possessed of a spirit or daimon (). More literally, he informs us that within him something divine and daimonic ( 6% %) comes to be. This something, he says, is a certain voice, and this voice, he explains, has a curious function. When it comes to him, the voice does not persuade him to perform any action, but it only dissuades him from performing an action that he had intended to do (Apology 31c–d). This spirit, I wish to suggest, is sufficient to provide Socrates with a foundation for ethics. We shall see that a kindred spirit will prove sufficient for us,

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

19

too. But I first ought to acknowledge that the Socratic spirit comes bearing fresh paradoxes. The foundation it provides is justice itself, to be sure. This proposition ought not to be surprising. But the proposition has an epistemological peculiarity that might be surprising. If I am right, justice of the Socratic variety can be hypothetical only. This assertion my reader may find, at least initially, rather unPlatonic. Yet you must admit that the assertion, if it stands up, is not unpragmatic. But we soon face another paradox. Socrates actually asserts that he is possessed of moral knowledge! At his trial he makes not one but two assertions about his knowledge. He famously professes to know that he does not know. But he also proclaims that he knows what he ought to do or, rather, what he ought not to do (Apology 29b). But the assertion that his knowledge is really ignorance might seem to deny him any claim to moral knowledge. As if to draw attention to this apparent contradiction, he admonishes us, when he claims to have moral knowledge, that to think one knows when one does not is most reproachable (29b). When we resolve them, however, we shall find that these two paradoxes are not entirely unrelated. But to resolve them, we must first ask, What moral knowledge does Socrates claim to possess? His claim is that someone about to act ought only to consider whether he engages in actions that are just or unjust (% )) and whether he performs actions that are the work of a good or bad man ( $ 3 7 $ 3) (Apology 28b). But what would be the work of a good person? Surely, anyone who is good performs just actions. But what would a just action be? These bare assertions seem at best platitudes. Fortunately, Socrates goes on to explain what he means by goodness and justness. These concepts he defines in a way not at all unfamiliar to those familiar with Plato’s more ambitious dialogue about justice. We are just, he states, when we stay where we find ourselves stationed by a ruler or where we think we might best station ourselves (Apology 28d). A just action, he implies rather strongly, is to do the work appropriate for us. Or, more colloquially, it is to mind our own business (see Republic 4. 433a–b). He again uses himself as an example. His station is to philosophize and his work is to examine himself and others (Apology 28d–29a). His work, more particularly, is to show others that human wisdom, especially if compared with divine wisdom, is worth little or nothing (22e–23c). This he does by showing others that he is wiser than they. The paradox of moral knowledge aside, he professes to know only that he does not know. The others pretend to know when they do not (21b–e). But how can we know what our station might be? Socrates finds that his daimon indicates to him what it is. This spirit simply dissuades him from leaving his philosophical post. That is why he does not participate in politics, except when required by law. He would have been unable to philosophize and of no service to the Athenians if he had entered politics. Any attempt to oppose their unjust and illegal actions would have meant that he would

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

20



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

have been put to death long ago. To fight for justice, therefore, he found that he had to refrain from becoming a politician and to remain a private person (31d–33a). We see, then, that Socrates has a spirit that provides him with a foundation for morality. This foundation turns out to be nothing other than justice, though he gives us only an adumbration of what it is. We moderns might say that his spirit works in a manner almost Kantian. As Immanuel Kant argues that whatever is not consistent with his concept of the categorical imperative is impermissible, so Socrates argues that whatever is inconsistent with the concept of his function is not just. Kant, in fact, uses the concept of his categorical imperative to define a moral function for us. This function, however, is merely autonomy or self-legislation. Yet one might wonder, How could this foundation be hypothetical? This question is likely to be disconcerting not only for the self-avowed Platonists among us but also for many nonPlatonists as well. We can answer this more troubling question by staying with our example. Socrates leaves little doubt that his concept of justice provides him with a rather firm conviction about his own work. He avers that he cannot break faith with the god of Delphi and that he cannot keep quiet but must continue to practice philosophy. He actually declares, often to the dismay of younger readers, myself once included, that he could not stop philosophizing even if he were offered an acquittal on condition that he would (Apology 29b–30b, 37e–38a). How, then, could his concept possibly be only hypothetical? Indeed, Socrates defends literally to the death his concept of justice. How many of us would have the courage to defend so valiantly a mere hypothesis? And yet we might very well find ourselves obliged to admit that justice so defined must be hypothetical. We know already from Socrates that all human knowledge is of this kind. But all our knowledge would include our moral knowledge, would it not? Those readers who remain skeptical may wish to recall the paradigm of the divided line. Only with hypotheses can we understand or reason, Socrates argues. We can have no nonhypothetical divine knowledge, and our hypotheses, however we use them, remain nothing more than hypotheses. They are merely assumptions from which we attempt to arrive at a first principle or from which we draw a conclusion. However, our little syllogisms may not be entirely convincing, especially if our lives were at stake. Can we find a more persuasive argument? I believe that we can. If we consider why he practices philosophy, we can see not only that Socrates knows what justice is by hypothesis. We can see also that he tests his hypothesis about his own function to the very best of his ability. Indeed, he tests it in a manner that we ought to find quite acceptable today. Socrates’ experience with the oracle was what led him to the realization that he ought to philosophize. He was so at a loss with the utterance of the oracle that he had to examine it. How did he undertake his examination?

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

21

With reluctance he hypothesized that the assertion about himself was true, and he attempted to refute it by discovering counterexamples! He turned to those who seemed to be wise with the expectation that they would prove to be wiser than he (Apology 21b–c).21 But he found that his hypothesis withstood its tests. He was not able to refute the oracle because he was unable to find a single counterexample. He failed to find someone wiser than he, though he continues his search (23b–c). Because he could not refute it, he simply had to conclude, despite his best efforts at refutation, that the oracle meant for him to serve as an example of the fact that human wisdom is worth so precious little (23a–b).22 In a similar way Socrates takes on the job of waking us up to the fact that moral knowledge is not worth much, either. His work, in other words, is to teach us that all knowledge, even of the moral variety, is merely hypothetical. In this capacity Socrates likes to refer to himself as a gadfly. His function, he says, is to awaken the Athenians, as a fly might awaken a lethargic horse, and to urge them to care for their virtue, as would a father or a brother (30d–31b). His work regarding knowledge in general and moral knowledge in particular is thus the same. As he examines and refutes those who think that they know when they do not, so he examines and rebukes those who state that they are virtuous when they are not (29e–30b; also 41e–42a). Indeed, one might imagine that many who are conceited in their ignorance would in fact be numbered among those conceited in their virtue or lack thereof. He argues, accordingly, that he would make the Athenians not seem but be happy ( ) (36d–e). Unfortunately, he does not at his trial elaborate his concept of happiness, either. He tells his jury only that his greatest benefit to them was his attempt to persuade each to take care to be his best (,# ) and his most prudent (! ). That is why he deserves to be boarded at the Prytaneum, he contends (36c–d). I shall simply assume for now that to be happy is to have a spirit that functions well. Indeed, the ancient Greek word for being happy means etymologically to be well in spirit.23 More specifically, I shall before long argue 21

22

23

Oddly, Popper does not appear to consider Plato’s methodology as such. At least, I have been unable to find a passage in which he does. When he discusses the method, he invariably turns his attention to Plato’s ontological assumptions (e.g., Society 1. 3. 31–32). With his distinction between certain knowledge and elenctic knowledge Vlastos would agree. Elenctic knowledge, he argues, includes moral knowledge, and moral knowledge in its turn includes presumptive knowledge. Knowledge of the presumptive sort is not self-evidently true and is always subject to elenctic confirmation or refutation (Socratic 3. 73–75, 138– 139). Yet Vlastos would distinguish mathematical from moral knowledge on the grounds that mathematics is certain knowledge and contains no presumptive knowledge (83–86). Non-Euclidian geometries, however, suggest that all disciplines contain knowledge subject to further scrutiny. The word is a compound of 8, which means well, and , which means spirit.

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

22



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

that to be happy is to act on the basis of a moral hypothesis about our function. The implication would be that to refute old moral hypotheses and to formulate new ones would be to become our most prudent and our best. The Socratic daimon, we may conclude, is an intellectual power by which we accept hypotheses as true, even moral ones, and by which we refute and revise our hypotheses when we encounter evidence to the contrary. These hypotheses would include even our most cherished and hallowed concepts, such as justice itself. In this very way Socrates was able to discover his own function of philosophizing as well as the value of our all-too-human knowledge. Socrates may thus claim both that he knows nothing and that he has moral knowledge. When he claims to know nothing, Socrates claims not to have divine knowledge but only human knowledge of his ignorance. He knows humanly that he does not know divinely. We should, I submit, take his claim about moral knowledge in a similar way. When he claims to have moral knowledge, he claims to have merely human knowledge of what he ought or ought not to do. My reader can surely see how pragmatic a philosophy Plato offers. Moral knowledge is nothing other than a hypothesis to be evaluated by its consequences for our virtue and happiness! Any American philosopher worthy of the name should be quite pleased with a philosophy of this kind, should he not? Do not the pragmatists all argue that we ought to appraise human knowledge by examining its consequences? Do they not want especially to use the hypothetical method to deal with moral matters? So one would think. William James, for example, argues that moral knowledge can be only hypothetical. Indeed, no knowledge is nonhypothetical on his account. He argues at length against absolutist knowledge of any sort. An absolutist, he explains, claims to know with certainty that he knows something (Will 1. 12). What occasions this certainty is a supposedly indubitable adequation of our knowledge with a known object (13–14). Instead of absolute knowledge, James argues for what he calls empiricist knowledge. An empiricist does not claim to know infallibly that he has knowledge. He may have knowledge, and he may assume his knowledge to be adequate to some degree with its object. But he does not assume that he can know with any certainty that he has knowledge that is in fact adequate. “To know is one thing, and to know for certain that we know is another,” James declares (12, his emphasis). Socrates would surely find the mental attitude of James’s absolutist quite familiar. A state of this sort would be tantamount to one of divine knowledge, to which his examinees pretend. Only if we knew the forms themselves would we have knowledge of this indubitable certainty. The forms alone could make us truly knowledgeable and objects truly knowable. But we would have to be nothing less than gods to possess knowledge with a provenance so unshakeable.

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

23

He also would, I think, find the epistemological diffidence of an empiricist rather congenial. One might not think that he would because not to know that we know might not seem quite the same as to know that we do not know. But the Bostonian and the Athenian appear to agree that we can know humanly that we know only humanly. James argues, if I read him rightly, that we do not know divinely that we know humanly, and Socrates that we know humanly that we do not know divinely. I assume only divine and human knowledge. Yet our sailing is not all so smooth. Despite their agreement that our knowledge is only human, James provides our moral knowledge with a foundation that, I believe, Socrates might well have some hesitation about accepting. This foundation James calls “our passional nature.” When we have no intellectual grounds, we must decide among hypotheses on the basis of our passions. Not to decide among them, he argues, would itself be a “passional decision” (Will 1. 11). Decisions that rest on our passions are especially the stuff of moral knowledge, he explains. A moral question is a question not about a sensible object but about what is good; and what is good, he implies, is a felt object. If we wish to decide a question of moral worth, we must thus forgo any scientific pretense and consult our heart a` la Pascal. But moral questions are not exclusively so privileged. We must ultimately determine even the worth of science, he argues, through counsel with our heart (22–23).24 James is quite explicit about our passional nature, which he identifies with our willing nature. This nature includes old “habits of belief ” that now appear inescapable as well as such factors as “fear and hope, prejudice and passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste and set.” These varied factors make up an “intellectual climate” that lends “authority” and “prestige” to our moral opinions. As if he were not clear enough, he adds that “we hardly know why or how” we hold a moral belief (8–10).25 With this concept of our passional nature James also distinguishes among moral hypotheses. His distinctions include one that is particularly illustrative for our purposes. The distinction is that between a live and a dead hypothesis. A live hypothesis we are willing to act on, and a dead one we are not, James argues. Our very willingness to act is in fact what brings a hypothesis to life. But its fitness for action has another consequence, he explains. This fitness is what actually brings us to believe in a hypothesis. Our willingness to act on 24

25

Brennan, by the way, shows quite nicely how James’s concept of our passional nature is pivotal not only for his view of morality but also for his epistemological, metaphysical, and religious views. This position is not unknown among contemporary philosophers. Williams, for example, appears to accept it. He argues that we may be able to show how our practices hang together, but that we may not be able to provide a reason for them to someone who does not share them (Ethics 6. 113–115). The implication is that we are habitually attached to them. They “command some loyalty,” in Williams’s words (116–117).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

24



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

a hypothesis and our belief in a hypothesis vary in direct proportion (Will 1. 2–3). He even argues that our belief in a hypothesis can actually create its truth by causing a fact. This proposition he finds especially true of a hypothesis concerned with moral matters (24–25). He argues, for example, that if we believe that another person likes us, and if we expect to be liked and act with trust, our belief itself will in many instances cause another to like us. But if we stand aloof, we are unlikely to be liked. As an example, he advances the romantic notion that, if he courts her with the firm belief that she cannot but love him, a man is bound to vanquish a woman (23–24). We thus encounter a difference of no little consequence between Platonic ethics and pragmatic ethics. Would Socrates agree that we can base our moral beliefs on our feelings? He would not. Socrates argues that the best philosophers themselves as well as their hypotheses are both dead! At least, as far as our passional nature is concerned they are. His proclamation is fortunate because it points the way to a moral theory that can avoid the intellectual extreme of Platonism so-called and the passional extreme of pragmatism. Socrates actually claims that death is a boon for those among us who claim to be philosophers! He explains that death, if not complete oblivion, is a migration of the soul to another place (Apology 40c). To dwell in this place, he argues, if all the dead were there, would be a great good (40e). He offers three rather poignant reasons for so thinking. The most poignant is that we would find in Hades true judges, such as Minos and Rhadamanthus (40e–41a). The implication, left unsaid, is that to be judged truly by others is a benefit. Who among us would not find judges of this kind a relief? Not to mention Socrates himself. Many contemporary readers may find this discussion about death somewhat superstitious if not downright silly. Oblivion might seem a more viable option than a bloodless life after death. But Socrates explains himself at greater length and makes his position more plausible in his prison cell on the very day of his execution. This discussion takes us to the heart of his conception of an intellectual life, both in its epistemological and its ethical aspects. He argues that philosophers are particularly good candidates for death because they practice nothing other than dying. But he appears to speak rather of a psychological death than of a physiological one, though he does not make the distinction explicit. Death he defines quite simply as the departure of our soul from our body (1 9 :.09 3 ##$/). The soul is released from the body, and the body from the soul, and soul and body, he states, come to be separately by themselves (Phaedo 64c). We may call a death of this kind psychological, I think, because this departure of soul from body we are able to accomplish epistemologically. Philosophers cannot adequately obtain true knowledge when their soul has ties to

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

25

their body, Socrates argues. What we seek to know, of course, is justice and goodness themselves. But these concepts we can grasp only with our intellect itself in accordance with itself (9 ; +1 (# 6 9< ), he informs us emphatically. We cannot see them with our eyes or perceive them with our other senses (65d–66a). Our eyes and ears, our most acute senses, are of little service in the search for truth because they are not accurate enough. The other senses are even less helpful (65a–b). But we philosophers also find ourselves without any leisure for philosophy when our soul has emotional ties to our body. The body hinders us not only with its idols and follies but also with its desires and fears, and it keeps us busy with its needs (66b–e). Socrates explains that our practical knowledge (! %" ) and our virtue constitute a catharsis () ) of our emotions. To become virtuous, we ought to exchange pleasures and pains for knowledge. Courage, for example, we attain with knowledge about what is to be feared, and temperance with knowledge about what is to be enjoyed. We cannot merely exchange pain for pain or pleasure for pleasure, he explains. To face death through fear of greater evils is cowardice. One is still acting out of fear (68d–69c).26 We philosophers above all ought thus to separate our soul epistemologically from our body and to collect our soul together apart from the body and live by the soul itself and her power (67b–d). “Those who bear the thyrsus are many, but the Bacchantes are few,” he informs us, “and these few in my opinion are none other than those who have philosophized rightly (= !#!"% > ' )” (69c–d). He even confides that he himself has left nothing in his power undone to become one of them (69d). Socrates a Bacchant? Yes! A Bacchant, he explains, is one who undergoes a catharsis by obtaining wisdom in exchange for pleasure and pain. Only thus may one go to dwell with the gods (69c). What Socrates suggests, in other words, is that we ought to live rationally, not passionally, if we wish to act morally. Even though he agrees with James that we ought to act on a moral hypothesis. We can also see, if we reflect for a moment, that James offers rather benign examples, such as friendship and courtship, in support of choosing a moral hypothesis by passion. Socrates could easily counter with examples that, we might say, are malign. One example that springs immediately to mind would be his jury and its actions. The jury did not rest its decision to condemn him on affection or love but rather on hatred ( ,0 ), jealousy (! % ), and slander (#/) (Apology 18d, 20d, 22e–23a, 23d–e, 24a–b, 28a–b, 31e). These passions Socrates traces back to those whom he calls his earlier, mostly anonymous, accusers. These accusers he finds particularly dangerous 26

Also see Apology 38e. Socrates there states that to act out of fear of death would be a thing unfree ( #? ).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

26



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

and not merely because they make accusations that are serious. He all but calls their accusations old “habits of belief”! They were made when the jury was young and are of long standing. He might also have said that the accusations made up an “intellectual climate.” They were not made openly, nor were his accusers known, except for one (18a–d). He in fact argues that Meletus and his cronies, to whom he refers as his later accusers, relied on this malignant moral climate when they brought their charges against him (19a–b, 23c–24b, 28a–b). Indeed, he can explain why they were caught up in this climate of prejudice. They brought the old accusations against him afresh because they could not admit their ignorance about him. They pretended to know what he taught when they did not (23c– d; also 24c–26b or 26b–28a). Socrates, then, would disagree with James or any philosopher who might attempt to argue that we could rest our moral hypotheses on our passions. Only a hypothesis free from any taint of sensation as well as emotion is worthy of moral consideration. This position I take to be a worthy one, and I shall have more to present in its defense. For the moment I suggest that not only a philosopher who advocates conceptual knowledge but also a philosopher who attempts to defend perceptual knowledge would wish to undergo a catharsis of sensation and emotion as well. Recall that perceptual knowledge, more properly called apperception, has an intellectual content. This content, strictly speaking, is what Plato calls opinion, and it is hardly mere sensation. No more than their concepts would anyone want their percepts to be distorted by a passion. A Jamesian would no doubt feel obliged to protest. How, then, are we to decide among hypotheses when we lack sufficient evidence for a decision? When we are in circumstances requiring action, we do not always have the luxury of sitting back and waiting for more evidence to turn up. Moral questions, because they concern practical matters, cannot always wait. These urgent questions we must let our passions decide (Will 1. 22–23). Indeed, we may face a decision that is forced and momentous (see 3–4). We can respond, first of all, that decisions made in haste are not always the best precisely because practical matters are subject to prejudice. The Athenians apparently thought capital cases so urgent that they could not take more than a day to decide them. But Socrates argues that his jurors might well have acquitted him if they had had more time for their deliberations. The additional time he could have used to address the old slanders against him. To remove them in a short time, he states, is no easy task (Apology 18d–19a, 37a–b). More important, Socrates could urge grounds other than passion for deciding moral questions, even pressing questions of life and death. We may act on any hypothesis that does not elicit opposition from our spirit, he could argue. This criterion is the one that he himself uses, once again, to evaluate his defense after his condemnation. He remarks that he thinks

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

27

what has happened to him to be something good! Why? Because his daimon did not oppose him at any time during his speech at his trial, though it had opposed him during other speeches (39e–40c). What this would mean in more contemporary terms is that we ought to act on a hypothesis until we have evidence to the contrary. To act on the basis of some other hypothesis would be to neglect a hypothesis, tested as best as we have been able, for the sake of an untested one. We in fact would be acting as if we knew when we did not. Socrates uses the hypothesis that death is an evil as an example of such ignorance. To fear death is to seem to know what one does not, he declares (40a, 29a–b).27 Socrates is more explicit on the day of his execution. He argues that we ought to act on the best argument known to us. Or, rather, he views favorably the statement of Simmias that we ought to do so. Simmias declares that, if we cannot avail ourselves of a divine argument (#%$. 6.), we can take only the human argument that is the best and the hardest to disprove ( . . . ,# ' #%$ . . . .&#$%) and sail through life upon this raft, as it were (Phaedo 85b–d). This method Socrates accepts as his famous second sailing. After abandoning his study of Anaxagoras, he decided that he could not discover that which is good and necessary ( $ - ,) and which binds and holds things together. But he would hypothesize the argument that he judged to be the strongest (+ , . . . #%$ @ A *

, ) and accept as true whatever agreed with it and to reject as not true whatever disagreed with it (99c–100a).28 27

28

James himself does mention refutability, though he does not attach much importance to it. He suggests merely that it enables us to know in an incomplete sense and yields a substitute for knowing in a complete sense (see Empiricism 2. 67–69). Brickhouse and Smith, suspecting a fallacy, are very concerned about the fact that Socrates appears to equate good with not evil. Socrates thinks, in this instance, that death is something good because his daimon did not indicate that it was evil (Socrates 5. 256–257). But anyone who wishes to employ the hypothetical method must make a similar assumption. We assume, do we not, a hypothesis to be true until it proves to be false. This fact may yield yet another reason to think human knowledge “worth little or nothing.” Brickhouse and Smith are also anxious because the Socratic daimon appears to be neither infallible nor informative. Socrates learns from his daimon only that an action is wrong, but not “what it is that is wrong, when it is wrong, why it is wrong, and what it is to be wrong” (253–254). But their anxiety only draws our attention to the fact that to discover a refutation for a hypothesis is easier than to discover a reformulation. Nor does a refutation always point the way to a reformulation. Suckiel does her best to defend James’s concept of passional belief. She explains eloquently that James limits his concept with two principles. The one principle is that we may passionally accept a hypothesis because of its practical consequences. We may do so if our belief decides “a genuine option,” which is a live, forced, and unique option. An option of this kind would be a religious hypothesis, for example. We may also rely on passion if our belief in a fact is “a necessary condition” of its being true. Social relationships present facts of this kind (Philosophy 5. 74–79). The other principle is that we may accept a hypothesis passionally if

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

28



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

If, then, we take a Socratic attitude to heart, we find ourselves obliged to side against James on another matter as well. Our willingness to act on a hypothesis does not create our belief in it, but our belief in a hypothesis creates our willingness to act upon it. Socrates explains that he stays in prison because the Athenians thought he ought to be condemned, and because he thought he ought to accept their judgement. If his muscles and bones had an opinion about what is best, he tells us, and if his actions depended on their contractions and extensions, he would have been long gone to Megara or Boeotia (98b–99a). We may, nonetheless, agree with James that our belief in a hypothesis can create a fact. Obviously, a belief, once we act on it, creates a new fact, which is our action itself. But I am obliged to point out that what kind of hypothesis one believes in determines what kind of fact one creates. Belief in a moral hypothesis entertained by means of our intellect can, as we shall see soon, create the fact of our happiness if we act upon it. But belief in a moral hypothesis entertained because of a passion can at best create the fact of a pleasurable satisfaction if acted upon. 5. Socrates probably appears to most scholars and students alike in much the same light as he does to his most infamous admirer. In his drunken encomium Alcibiades uses an analogy to characterize our enduring and endearing dialectician. He compares him to statuettes of Silenus that open up to reveal figurines of gods ( $# . . . ') inside of them (Symposium 215a–b).29 He relates that one day he himself saw some figurines within Socrates, and he thought them to be both divine and golden and to be entirely beautiful and marvelous (216e–217a). What could our inebriate mean? He is not so far gone in his cups that he cannot explain himself. Socrates makes speeches that contain gods within them, he declares, much as Marsyas plays melodies on his flute with gods within them (215b–d). On the surface his speeches may appear laughable, Alcibiades admits. But when we open them up, we discover that his arguments are the only ones that have any understanding (3). They are the most divine, and they are filled with the figurines of virtue ($)#;

29

our belief might enable us “to arrive at evidence for its truth.” A religious hypothesis also exemplifies this principle (82–85). I would respond with two observations. Suckiel would surely admit that we may as easily with reason as with passion accept a hypothesis on the bases of these two principles. May we not choose rationally to entertain a hypothesis in light of its possible consequences, either intellectual or practical? Of course, we would do so only provisionally and tentatively. I would also remind Suckiel, even more to the point, that James selects his hypotheses, especially his moral ones, from within an intellectual climate that, he admits, is prejudicial. A moral belief, James informs us, has for its object not a known fact but a fact merely felt. This analogy has perplexed many translators and editors. Dover, for example, remarks that no such image other than this very one has survived from antiquity (166).

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

29

9 ) and of all things needed for one intent on beauty and goodness (221d–222a). This satyric figure is not entirely inept. Alcibiades suggests that Socrates has knowledge, indeed of the divine type, that he can call on to refute his interlocutors. And Silenus, as you may recall, was the divinity who, when caught by Midas and forced to declaim on what is good for mortals, cried out with a laugh, What is best of all for you mortals would be never to have been born! But for you what is second best would be to die quickly! Is not this cry, shrill though it be, the silent cry of Socrates? Do not his dialectical refutations of their hypotheses, especially their moral hypotheses, often lead his interlocutors to wish that they had never spoken to him? We might be tempted to say, What is best of all for us mortals is never to formulate a hypothesis! But the second best, because the first is surely inescapable, is to have our hypothesis refuted as quickly as possible! I would point out, however, that Socrates was ever so gently rebuking Alcibiades on the prior and, shall we say, more importunate occasion when these divine figurines allegedly appeared. Socrates demurred at the idea that he might contain anything divine within him. He even accused his friend of aiming to get true beauty ( #/ #') for opined beauty ( - %&" ). Intellectual vision waxes when physical vision wanes, and you, he explains to him, have a long way to go yet. “You are in fact looking to get gold for bronze. But, my blissful friend, have a better look,” he warns, “lest my being good for nothing ( B) escape you” (218d–219a). I suggest that we might take this kindly rebuke seriously, though Alcibiades does not (219a–d).30 There may be ideal objects much as there may be material ones. But mere mortals – you yourself, dear reader, and I myself – have no way of ever knowing an eternal thing, nor have we any way of ever knowing even a temporal thing. Why? Because we can never penetrate the vexing veil of human cognition and sensation. We can only grapple with any reality in the same way in which we must grapple with one another – by means of solitary opining of our own. And so we do not find any images truly divine within Socrates as Alcibiades claims. Not even a divine satyric image. We find only human images, though perhaps of gods, within him. But we cannot wonder that Alcibiades should think them divine. These Socratic images are, to be sure, far finer than any others that we might hope to encounter within any other human being. No doubt, they are far finer than will ever be those crude images within either you or me. We now return once again to the pronouncement of our beloved, though bothersome, oracle. All knowledge would appear to be nothing other than 30

The scholars, too, tend not to take this rebuke seriously. For example, Dover claims that “the analogy will not stand up to detailed scrutiny” (171).

P1: FCW 0521863841c01

30



July 14, 2006

Human Goodness

self-knowledge! What we know, whether viewed as thoughts or as things, is only our own concepts and percepts. We may presume to knowledge about ideal objects no more than to knowledge about material ones. God only knows! Socrates himself declares (Republic 7. 517b again). You by now agree, I hope, that we ought to take his declaration literally.31 We may, nonetheless, formulate hypotheses about conceptual objects and perceptual ones. To assume that conceptual things do exist, or that perceptual things do, would be, I think, to formulate a hypothesis with as much or as little sanction as the assumption that passional things exist. We no doubt find that hypotheses of both kinds are surely intellectual and moral conveniences, so long as we do not forget that a hypothesis of either kind is merely, after all is said and done, a hypothesis. Yet I must ask you not to forget that I am relying on the Jamesian concept of human experience and its insight. Our hypotheses are merely concepts that we can employ to constitute ourselves as knowers. And our hypotheses have for their objects either concepts or percepts that we take to constitute what we can know. Both knower and known thus remain for us merely parts of our own experience. One part of our experience only can know only another part of our experience. But James and Socrates, I also remind you, exhibit a difference in principle. Socrates relies on the principle of contradiction for his dialectics, but James reckons on the principles of association for his pragmatics. I would suggest that for moral matters the principle of contradiction is much less opportune than the principles of association. With principles of association, especially cause and effect, we may treat our human concepts not as knowledge approximating eternal verities but as opinion approximating temporal vagaries. We ourselves are less likely creatures of ideal matter and more likely critters of material stuff. I wish to suggest, however, that we are obliged to part company with James when we verify our moral hypotheses. We ought to test a moral hypothesis with our percepts and not with our passions. If we can ever hope to alleviate prejudice and slander, we can best do so through new experiences guided by winnowing and weighing evidence and not by wallowing in mere emotion. You now have before you, dear reader, my apology for striking up new variations in moral philosophy generally and particularly for defending our contemporary reservation about Socrates’ employment of hypotheses. If we use the principle of contradiction to test our hypotheses, we cut ourselves off from our moorings to this world of contingency. James is quite right about its ontology. Only if we use the principles of association can we keep ourselves tethered to dry land. The earth from which we arise and to which 31

Socrates in fact sets forth only as a thesis or a hypothesis that there are absolute ideas (e.g., Republic 6. 507a–b; or Phaedo 100b). He at times relies on mere agreement (Republic 5. 475e–476a).

9:42

P1: FCW 0521863841c01



An Apology

July 14, 2006

9:42

31

we return contains autochthonous forms of its own as well as its own matter. These earthly forms one and all have all the contingency of a desert moon or a wily coyote. With his daimon Socrates formulates a hypothesis and tests it with other concepts. His daimon thus concerns what we might call relations of ideas. But our reflections on relations of ideas too often tempt us into thinking that we have knowledge more godlike than could ever be possible. Witness the recalcitrant interlocutors whom Socrates so often encounters. These rarefied cogitations might even tempt us to think that we may count our spirit among the immortals. Though he denies us divine knowledge, Socrates himself seems to many reputed Platonists to accept without demure the hypothesis that our soul is immortal.32 I would, therefore, argue that we may wish to consider a new daimon for addressing questions of moral philosophy. Or, more accurately perhaps, I suggest that we consider the Socratic daimon in a new guise. I do not deny the Socratic daimon its due, which is to decide conceptual matters. But I would argue that a daimon of another variety is necessary to decide moral matters, which remain, after all, matters of fact. This new daimon, then, can only rest on the empirical principles of association. These principles enable us to establish true opinion about our own being, which is a decidedly contingent affair. We might say that our philosophy is not idealistic but doxastic. Or, perhaps, pragmatic. James, I hope, would applaud this new experiment in moral philosophy. He sees his own philosophy as merely an experiment that follows on the labors of other empiricists, such as David Hume and John Stuart Mill. With typical diffidence he actually invites us to tinker with his theory. Radical empiricism is only one variation on an empiricist theme, he confides with a candor so characteristic of him (Empiricism 2. 90–91). I propose, then, not without some trepidation, a new pragmatism, both radical and daimonic! Daimonic because it resurrects the Socratic concept of our human spirit, but radical because it relies on the Jamesian concept of experience. I hope that you find this philosophical innovation sufficiently intriguing and promising so that you might be willing to entertain my argument through some, at least, of the following pages. But a question still remains. Were those Greeks the children of the gods or not? If they were daimons, they were either gods or children of gods (see Apology 27c–d). But can we say that they were gods? I think not. Therefore, though mortal, they were indeed children of the gods! And us? Are we daimons, too? Could we also be children of the gods? Perhaps we are their grandchildren! 32

But see Chapters 3 or 5.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02



July 26, 2006

2 The Method in Question

1. How can we know ourselves? Is there any method to the madness called self-knowledge? You might well demur if I said, We may know ourselves by experimentation. And yet who does not like to try out something new? We all do, I imagine. But if you have ever tried out something new, you have, unwittingly perhaps, performed an experiment, and your experiment may well have been a moral one. You may not have undertaken a scientific experiment with all its formal protocols. But you probably did utilize the experimental method in a rudimentary fashion. You very likely tried out a new idea by acting on it, and you likely evaluated your idea by its practical consequences. American philosophers have made the experimental method the hallmark of their philosophy. Consider William James, for example, or John Dewey, not to mention Charles Saunders Peirce. Their express philosophical purpose was to bring this method from the natural sciences to the moral sciences. They were not the first, however. British philosophers before them took up the cause. David Hume explicitly embraced the experimental method in the very title of his Treatise.1 Even the ancient Greeks made use of the method. With it Socrates attempted to bring justice down from the heavens and into our hearts. Yet despite these philosophers and their efforts, and despite our practices and their familiarity, we remain rather ambivalent about the experimental method and its moral applications. One can fairly say that most philosophers and most people find the method to be a reasonable procedure to employ in the natural sciences. But do we have the same attitude about applying this method in the moral sciences? Hardly! We feel a distinct discomfort about its employment for resolving not only ethical problems but social and 1

The full title of his work is A TREATISE of Human Nature: BEING an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into MORAL SUBJECTS.

32

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02



The Method in Question

July 26, 2006

19:40

33

political ones as well. Who wants to be subject to a lame-brained experiment regarding our way of life? Or our manner of government? Why, then, do we hesitate to take advantage of the experimental method in moral matters? I submit that we do not seem to adopt it because we do not understand its full scope and import. For our shortsightedness the pragmatists themselves, ironically enough, are largely to blame. They fail to see fully the philosophical roots and ramifications of this method because they do not have an adequate grasp of its historical lineage. The plain fact of the matter is that we have been employing the method in moral matters for a considerable time. But neither philosophers nor practitioners recognize it as we actually use it. I wish to show that the experimental method does have a scope appreciably wider than one might initially imagine, and that it accordingly has a practical import of greater significance as well. Only if we place it in its proper intellectual perspective can we enhance our understanding of it and our use of it. We shall see that this method constitutes the only discipline worthy of the name for discovering objective foundations for our moral decisions.2 What, then, might this perspective be? This perspective is, in a word, rhetoric! Rhetoric?! Yes, rhetoric! I must ask you to set aside any prejudice you may harbor toward this intellectual discipline if only to hear my argument out. I shall demonstrate that the experimental method is essentially the same as the rhetorical argument by example. Both techniques have the same structure, and they both have the same ontology. These techniques are arguments that proceed from particulars through generalities to other particulars, and they concern objects that are contingent. Objects of this precarious sort, of course, happen to include ourselves and the objects of our endeavors. What I am suggesting, then, is that rhetoric, without claiming to discover eternal verities for our moral edification, can provision us with an objective foundation for ethics. This intellectual art can provide an understanding of ourselves as temporal and local beings who are subject to change and who are enmeshed in circumstances also subject to change. I would ask, Should not our moral foundations, like the foundations of our homes, require regular attention and occasional alteration? But I almost forgot. We shall in our inquiry at the very outset encounter an intellectual daimon of the empirical variety. This daimon is not an epistemic spirit of eternal concepts but rather a doxastic spirit of temporal percepts. Though he devotes more attention to the first, Socrates himself draws our 2

Though hardly a pragmatist, Nagel is a contemporary philosopher who actually does recommend “normative hypotheses.” But he denies that we have any general method for choosing among them. We can only consider which hypothesis appears reasonable “in the light of everything else one is fairly confident of ” (View 8. 154).

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

34



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

attention to this second daimon. I wish to suggest that we ought neither to overestimate the epistemic daimon and its importance, nor ought we to underestimate the doxastic daimon and its significance.3 2. That rhetoric can be an art of self-knowledge we shall best see if we begin by considering our only account of an ancient conversation. I have in mind Plato’s dialogue between Socrates and Gorgias. The conversation therein reported is important for us not so much because of what these two renowned characters have to say about rhetoric but more because of what they leave unsaid. Socrates himself offers a concept of rhetoric resting on knowledge, and Gorgias a concept resting on public opinion. What they each fail to take into account is a concept of rhetoric resting on opinion about matters of fact. This concept, also overlooked by our contemporaries, is the very one that, I dare say, can serve us well in moral matters. One may fairly assert, I think, that Socrates cuts a rather curious figure in the Gorgias. Even a casual reader would not be able to deny that he views dialectic as an art superior in some significant sense to rhetoric. But a more cautious reader would have to admit that he gives the appearance of regarding dialectic and rhetoric both with no little esteem. He surely exhibits an extraordinary admiration for rhetoric. Almost surprised at himself, Socrates exclaims to Gorgias that this art, because it has so great a power (), plainly appears, even to him, to be something daimonic ( ) (Gorgias 456a)! This exclamation is no mean praise. Socrates himself possesses a daimon of his own, and he attaches the utmost importance to it. His daimon is a divine spirit within him (see Apology 31c–31d). This divine spirit, as you may perchance recall, provisions him with the inspiration not only for his dialectical art but even for his philosophical career. His spirit serves to guide him in the search for truth and to provision him with moral truth especially. One might surmise, then, that a rhetorical daimon would provide us with inspiration for a rhetorical art. But what would a daimon of this kind be? And what might its function be? Could a rhetorical daimon be on a par with a dialectical one? Socrates suggests that it could not, and I can only concur. Could a rhetorical daimon, nonetheless, have any functions similar to those of a dialectical daimon? Could a spirit of this variety, for example, guide us in our search for truth about moral matters? Socrates argues that it could not, but I shall argue that it can. Let us return to our dialogue and ask, What do Socrates and Gorgias have to say about rhetoric and its power? One can easily see that they find rhetoric 3

The more familiar English term would be “dogmatic” rather than “doxastic.” But “dogmatic” has acquired pejorative associations all its own. Indeed, these associations would appear to arise because we who speak English fail to distinguish clearly between epistemic and doxastic attitudes in the ancient sense.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

35

to be an art that has a conspicuous power over moral and political matters. This art is, in a word, architectonic. After a rather tedious discussion, they define rhetoric as the ability to persuade with speeches ( . . . . . . ) in the law courts, deliberative assemblies, and legislative assemblies, and in all other public meetings (Gorgias 452e). They actually personify the art itself as an artisan, literally a demiurge ( ), of persuasion in the souls of the audiences at these gatherings (452e–453a).4 Its power, Gorgias boasts, is “our greatest good” and “the cause of human freedom and of political rule over others” (452d). And more than ready he is to expound at length on the theme of political rule. Through his ability to persuade, a rhetorician may assume the power to elect other artisans ( again), such as engineers and generals, to their official positions as well as to set various policies, such as the construction of fortifications or harbors. Only on the advice of Themistocles and Pericles, he points out, were public works of such sort undertaken in Athens (455a–456a). One can easily see why Gorgias would regard his art as architectonic. Rhetoric, he boasts, can actually encompass within itself all the powers of the other arts, such as medicine, gymnastics, or business (456a–b; also 455d– e). Not only can a rhetorician, if he does not wish to have himself elected, determine which of the other practitioners are elected to an office (456b– c). A rhetorician can also persuade the other practitioners to be, so to speak, slaves to himself. If he wishes, the physician, the trainer, and the banker will all be working for him (452e). We must give Gorgias the palm, I am afraid. That rhetoric has this uncanny power does not go unrecognized even today. But we are also obliged to observe that the rhetorical art seems to possess some rather severe constraints. Though he praises it, Socrates does express a reservation about rhetoric and its power. This art would seem to have limits arising from its audience, he argues. A rhetorician is not an artisan of instruction ( ). He is an artisan only of persuasion ( ), because at public meetings he must speak before a multitude of people and for a short time (Gorgias 455a). Socrates is making use of the distinction, familiar to students of Plato, between knowledge ( ) and opinion (), which in this argument he calls belief ( ).5 Knowledge we may distinguish from opinion by its alethetic qualities. Knowledge must be ever true and never false, but opinion may be either true or false, he reminds us (454c–d). Knowledge is always true because its object does not change, but opinion is true or false because 4

5

More literal translations would be “public servant” or even “civil servant.” A less literal but more contemporary translation might be “opinion maker.” Readers with an eye for the Greek will find their premonition confirmed in Chapter 6. See Republic 6. 511d–e for a similar vocabulary.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

36



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

its object does change. Truths of the one sort, we may say, are necessary, those of the other sort contingent. This distinction enables Socrates to explain that persuasion is a genus with two species. Persuasion of the one kind produces knowledge, which is always true. Persuasion in this sense he specifically calls instruction. But persuasion of the other kind produces belief, which is true at times and at times false. Dialectic, presumably, produces instruction with knowledge, but rhetoric, he concludes, produces only persuasion in a specific sense without knowledge (454e–455a). We now see how severe are the limitations that rhetoric would seem to have. Socrates charges that this art amounts to little more than the blind leading the blind or, rather, the ignorant leading the ignorant. A rhetorician does not claim to have specialized knowledge about practical matters, such as public health. Nor do those to whom he speaks have any such knowledge. Rhetoric is a mere machination, he concludes, for effecting persuasion (458e–459c). These properties are surely perplexing. In rhetoric we have an art that is seemingly so potent that it can accomplish the greatest things, and yet this very art would seem to be so uninformed as to be all but impotent to do anything. How can a rhetorician accomplish so much apparently and yet know so very little? I need hardly point out that these paradoxical properties have a certain ring of contemporaneity to them. Consider the media moguls and the policies and practices that they perpetuate over the electromagnetic waves.6 6

Williams would apparently agree with Socrates that ethical knowledge and opinion do differ, and that ethical opinion is without foundation. But he obviously argues against Socrates that we ought not to take our critical reflection on our opinions in the direction of theory. We ought rather with Gorgias to use any “ethical material that, in the context of reflective discussion, makes some sense and commands some loyalty.” Because unfounded, our ethical opinions are in fact prejudices, he candidly and cheerfully concedes (Ethics 6. 116–117). Williams invents a concept of “a hypertraditional society,” that is illustrative. A society of this sort he characterizes by maximal homogeneity and minimal reflection (Ethics 8. 142– 143). He asks, Does this society have ethical knowledge? The answer, he argues, depends on whether we take knowledge to be objective or nonobjective. No, he argues, the people in this society do not have objective knowledge. They have not reflected on their concepts and the implications of them. But they do have nonobjective knowledge. They carefully deploy moral concepts in accordance with proper criteria. Knowledge of this sort reflection is apt to destroy (147–148). This concept of a hypertraditional society is a gem. I take it to present the social conditions that a dialectician or a rhetorician often faces. Socrates encounters conditions similar to these at his trial, and Gorgias, as he admits, deals with conditions of this sort himself. But would you not agree that we ought to use philosophy or dialectic to overcome this ingenuous navet´e? Yes, dialectic can supplant with objective knowledge this nonobjective knowledge, so-called, and it ought to do so. But rhetoric, if employed as an art, can also overcome this attitude, especially with regard to moral matters, as we shall soon see. And it ought to do so, too.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

37

When presented with this paradox, Gorgias is at a loss, and he protests lamely. This way is so very easy! he replies helplessly in defense of his discipline. We have only to learn this one art alone, and we shall not be put down by the others (Gorgias 459c). But we ought not to forget that he is reportedly tired after having given a demonstration of his rhetorical prowess immediately before this discussion of his art (447b–448a, 458b–c). This concession on the part of Gorgias is as unfortunate as it is curious. Despite the alleged circumstances, one cannot but wonder about his philosophical acumen. Though a formidable rhetorician, Gorgias appears to be at best an unpracticed dialectician. He is too quick to accept a dichotomy that, we shall see, unfairly favors dialectic over rhetoric. To be sure, there is rarely time for instruction at public meetings or in other situations that call for action. But does the lack of time, or even the character of the audience, make rhetoric the appropriate art? Might not the decisive factor be rather the nature of the knowledge required for practice? Gorgias errs, I submit, when he concedes that knowledge has only one opposite in ignorance. He is either forgetful or ignorant of the fact that knowledge is a homonymic genus in the ancient Greek language. Knowledge surely has another opposite in opinion. We accordingly ought not to limit our consideration of knowledge to knowledge in the specific sense. We not only know necessary truths about eternal things, we also opine contingent truths about temporal things. That is, we know not only things as they are, we know also things as they appear. My own purpose is in fact to draw you away in your practical concerns from any concern with eternal truth to a concern with temporal truth. Of what value is knowledge of eternal truth for practice? When we act, we need not knowledge of nowhere and nowhen but knowledge of somewhere and somewhen. Namely, of here and now! We must have true opinions about ourselves and our situation. Only with knowledge of this kind can we decide what we ought, or ought not, to do. These temporal truths, I shall argue, rhetoric alone can supply.7 7

Irwin touches on this possibility when he wonders why a rhetorician could not persuade because he appears to know “the relevant facts.” Socrates makes a rhetorician appear “a suspicious character with a false pretense to knowledge.” But why is any “false pretense needed?” he asks (Gorgias 123–124, his italics). Unfortunately, he does not pursue the question in his commentary. Nagel, too, advocates an objective view of ourselves for ethics. But he enlarges this view far beyond what is relevant for our conduct. He not only seeks to rest his objective view on “eternal and nonlocal truth” (View intro. 10). He also explains that truth of this variety considers “the world as a whole, as if from nowhere” in “oceans of space and time.” He finds himself, he humbly tells us, reduced to “a momentary blip on the cosmic TV screen” (View 4. 60–65). I am suggesting that we ought rather to be cognizant of temporal and local truths, and that these truths may concern our objective selves in our present time and place. Surely, knowledge of this fortuitous sort would suffice for our practical purposes. And a recognizable image of ourselves or others on a television screen can obviously have its practical uses.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

38



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

But we now find ourselves drawn into a controversy of long standing. I refer to the ancient dispute between dialectic and rhetoric or, if you prefer, between philosophy and rhetoric. This dispute, too, turns on the difference between knowledge of the two aforesaid kinds. We often overlook this difference because the word “knowledge” in modern languages, such as English, is also a homonymic genus that includes as its species both knowledge in a strict sense and opinion. Because they do not acknowledge this homonymity, philosophers and rhetoricians tend, even today, to argue about what kind of knowledge is really and truly knowledge. If, however, we take into account knowledge in both senses, we shall be able to accord to dialectic and rhetoric each its distinct power and its proper domain. We shall find that dialectic can be superior only with regard to theoretical knowledge; but with regard to practical knowledge, rhetoric is the superior art. Rhetoric, in other words, yields true opinion about matters of fact, including matters of moral fact. Matters of moral fact? Yes, kindly grant me this assumption, if only for the moment. I shall soon have more to say about facts of this variety. Let us consider what Socrates has to say in another well-known dialogue about the distinction between knowledge and opinion. This very distinction he uses to define who a philosopher is. A philosopher (! ! ) is someone who desires to know, and someone who desires to opine he dubs a philodoxer (! ) (Republic 5. 475e–476d, 479d–480a). The faculty of knowledge and knowledge itself concern that which is ( "), but opinion and its faculty concern, paradoxically, that which is and is not ( . . . # $ " % & ") (476d–477b, 478a–d). That which is, Socrates indicates, is a form ( ) or an idea ('(), but that which both is and is not is a mere appearance (! ( ). Justice, for example, is an idea, which is always one and the same. It is “unmixed.” But a just action, because it “communes” with matter, “prevaricates.” It is not fixedly just or unjust (475e–476a, 478e– 479c).8 This distinction between necessary and contingent objects ought not to be entirely unfamiliar. David Hume makes use of the distinction when he divides human reasoning into its kinds. Reasoning of one kind concerns relations of ideas, he argues, and reasoning of another kind matters of 8

Annas attempts to argue that knowledge for Plato does not concern forms only. She denies that knowledge and opinion need always concern objects that are different (Introduction 8. 193–194, 209–211). Knowledge, she agrees, concerns that which is, and belief that which is and is not (201–202). But knowledge and opinion, she claims, can yet regard the same objects. Knowledge can be not only about forms but also about appearances that have no opposites. “Nothing can be,” she argues, “both a man and a not-man” (203–208, 209). But what appearance does not have an opposite? Shorey cites a scholiastic riddle devised to show how something can both be and not be a man. A eunuch, for example, is and is not a man (Republic, vol. 1, pp. 530–531, n. c). Or, more generally, Homer, because of his blindness, is both a man and not a man.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

39

fact. The relations of ideas are demonstrable, and their contraries imply a contradiction. These objects rest on the principle of contradiction, he thus implies. Clearly, they remain the same always. Matters of fact have contraries that do not imply a contradiction, nor are they demonstrable. These objects can obviously be other than they are, and they must rely on a different principle, he suggests (Understanding 4. 1. 25–26). Perhaps we are more familiar with this distinction as that between analytic and synthetic propositions. Immanuel Kant is probably the philosopher most responsible for this terminology. Analytic propositions state nothing in their predicate that is not already thought in their subject. They rely on the principle of contradiction, he informs us. Synthetic propositions contain in their predicate something not thought in their subject. They require, he states, echoing Hume, a principle different from that of contradiction (Prolegomena pream. 266–267).9 But Socrates goes on to explain that knowledge in the narrow sense differs also from ignorance () ). Knowledge concerns that which is, and ignorance that which is not ( & ") (Republic 5. 476e–477a). But opinion, too, differs from ignorance, he argues. Opinion concerns that which is and is not, and, again, ignorance that which is not (478b–e). Opinion, we might say, lies on a mean between knowledge and ignorance. Opinion has an object that is less luminous than that which is, but more luminous than that which is not (478c–d again). Between that which is and that which is not lies that which is and is not (477a–b).10 We can already see how one might defend rhetoric against its alleged deficiencies. Provisioned with these distinctions between knowledge, opinion, and ignorance, Gorgias could turn against Socrates the very argument advanced to show that an absence of knowledge is ignorance. He might have argued that an absence of true opinion about contingent matters is also ignorance, albeit of a different kind. And that a person who has knowledge of necessary truths may very well lack true opinion of contingent truths. A person of this mind would, therefore, be ignorant. Indeed, the attempt to apply necessary truths to contingent matters is an all-too-common source of false opinion. The consequences of so doing can be downright disconcerting, if not outright tragic. 9

10

Kant claims that John Locke also recognized this distinction but not its significance (Prolegomena pream. 270). Irwin argues that a philodoxer holds opinions of which some are true and some are false (Ethics 16. 268–269). He offers an example. One might hold that a bright color is beautiful in statues. This would be an opinion, he argues, if a bright color is beautiful in some statues but in some not beautiful (269–270). I am arguing that a philodoxer holds opinions that are each partially true and partially false. Any bright color we see in a statue is neither entirely bright nor entirely a color. Obviously, what we sense cannot be brightness itself or color itself. A color seen on a given occasion has a shade and hue that our organs, the intervening light, and its object all affect in their various ways.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

40



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

Callicles, who appears later in the dialogue between Socrates and Gorgias, does in fact turn the tables on Socrates in this very manner when he attempts to defend Gorgias’s position. Philosophy is a fine thing to study in our youth, he argues, but we must in our maturity give it up for more splendid things. Otherwise, we shall cut a ridiculous figure because we shall lack the experience () ) with customs and characters necessary to lead a successful life (Gorgias 484c–485e).11 Could rhetoric, then, be an art concerned with opinion in this objective sense? If so, rhetoric would remain an art not of instruction but of persuasion. It could not yield truths about eternal objects but only truths about temporal objects. But a discipline of this kind would be objective and not subjective. A rhetorician, if only he could somehow appeal to objective opinions about the contingencies of our practical concerns, would no longer be at the mercy of the haphazard opinions so often held with emotional attachment. How, then, might rhetoric become objective in this way? Plato, I am sorry to say, cannot be of much help to us. He does attempt to overcome the apparent incongruity between the power that rhetoric wields and the ignorance that is alleged. But he does so by arguing that a rhetorician simply must rely on knowledge in the strict sense. His argument is worth our consideration, however, because he offers his rhetorician two techniques for acquiring knowledge. These dialectical techniques, we shall see, point the way toward analogous rhetorical techniques, which he does not acknowledge. Plato outlines his concept of the rhetorical art for us in a dialogue that portrays Socrates in conversation with Phaedrus. In this dialogue Socrates suggests, as one might expect, that the dialectical art ought to assimilate the rhetorical, and that knowledge in a strict sense ought to provide a foundation for our opinion (Phaedrus 260d–262c). But how does dialectic lead us toward knowledge? A dialectician has at his disposal induction (*) and division ( ). “To see together in one idea the often disparate parts so that with a definition one makes clear each thing” he calls induction. Division, he states, is “to sever an idea again according to its species” (265c– 266b). These techniques would obviously enable a speaker to formulate his principles and to apply them. He expresses the greatest admiration for these dialectical techniques. If someone is able to practice them, he declares, “him I would follow in his footsteps as if he were divine” (266b–c). But he reminds us that no 11

I take Dennett to be arguing against a dialectical methodology when he takes on ideal moral theories. But he appears less than sanguine about any method, though he considers only two. He argues that a utilitarian algorithm will not serve us very well because of the difficulty of assigning moral value to particular events. Nor would a Kantian imperative of universalizibility be of much help because of the inexhaustible number of maxims to be tested (Idea 17. 1. 495–500).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

41

dialectician is divine. No one can attain more than human knowledge. The name “wise” ( !) is appropriate for a divine being alone, says Socrates. Only the name “lover of wisdom” (! ! ) is appropriate for a human being (278b–d). Human knowledge, you might perchance recall, Socrates holds to be hypothetical only. We see, then, that a dialectician can persuade us, or, more precisely, instruct us about intelligible objects. But he would do so on the assumption that knowledge of changeless truths provides the best guide for human action, or, at least, that a human approximation to knowledge of this sort does. But I still find myself obliged to ask, Does not the world, especially the moral world, change and change at times capriciously? Do we not, then, require knowledge of changing truths to guide us in our action? In a word, do we not need opinion about these pertinent but impermanent objects? Even Socrates recognizes that rhetoric must have some concern with opinion. A rhetorician must know human souls and their kinds, and he must by perception be able to espy (+ ' ) these types in an audience. Otherwise, he would not know what speech to deliver to whom (Phaedrus 271c–272b). A rhetorician thus needs opinion to practice his art. But how can one attain opinion about perceptible objects? As far as I can tell, Socrates has no suggestions to offer. He appears simply to assume that anyone who knows audiences and their differences would be able to opine them with ease.12 Would not, then, an intellectual discipline that could enable us to organize objective opinions and not subjective ones be helpful in practical matters? Perhaps a rhetoric that employs not dialectical techniques but techniques of its own would be of service. But is there a rhetoric of this kind? There is! Plato had an able contemporary who happened to be a student in his academy, and who also had an interest in rhetoric. I refer to the Stagirite. Indeed, Aristotle appears uncannily aware of our predicament. He offers a theory of rhetoric that contains both inductive and deductive techniques, and these techniques concern objects that change! When we turn to his theory, we discover almost immediately that Aristotle takes into account the paradoxical properties of rhetoric that concerned Socrates and Gorgias. He clearly acknowledges that rhetoric is an architectonic art of public speaking. On his account rhetoric is effective at public meetings very similar to those which Gorgias discusses. These meetings 12

With an analysis of the divided line Tait argues, rightly I think, that the segment representing reason and its object is equal to the segment representing opinion and its object. This equality would suggest that the reasoned object and the object opined are quite similar, though the one is an intelligible form and the other a sensible approximation (21–24). Their equality suggests further that a person who reasons about a concept might more easily recognize its approximate percept. But, still, the question remains, How do we cognize not a concept but a percept concerned with a sensible object?

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

42



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

divide rhetoric into its kinds. Deliberative rhetoric is appropriate for legislative assemblies, adjudicative rhetoric for law courts, and demonstrative rhetoric for public ceremonies (Rhetoric 1. 3. 1358a36–1358b8). He also recognizes that a rhetorician faces deficiencies in an audience. His arguments echo those of Socrates. To use a scientific argument for instruction at public meetings would not be easy or would be nearly impossible, he states (Rhetoric 1. 1. 1355a24–27). An audience of this kind is unable to grasp many premises together or to make a syllogism of any length (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1357a1–4). The audience he actually assumes to be simple (1357a11–12). Can Aristotle, then, overcome the discrepancy between rhetorical power and its seemingly impoverished resources? We now find that Aristotle parts company with his teacher. He claims for rhetoric not an intelligible but a perceptible objectivity. This art concerns not things of the kind that cannot change but things that can and do change. No one deliberates about things that cannot possibly be other than they are ( . . . , -.* )* / ( / 0), he argues. Rather, we deliberate about things that are able to turn out either way ( % , ! (* (1 -! (* 01) (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1357a4–7). Among things of this kind we find our very own actions, he asserts explicitly (1357a23–27). But if he is concerned with them, is Aristotle able to provide us with any techniques for ascertaining truths about these unstable objects of our endeavors? He is. He argues that rhetoric is the power () to know what can be persuasive ( 1 ) (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1355b25–26). What can be persuasive, he continues, relies on the character of the speaker; on the disposition, apparently emotional, of the audience; and on the argument itself ( 2,+ ,+ *) (1356a1–20). But the argument, especially enthymeme, is the body of persuasion, he argues (Rhetoric 1. 1. 1354a11–16). Any appeals to character or passion ought only to help prepare an audience for persuasion, presumably by argument (Rhetoric 2. 1. 1377b20–1378a5). But they all too often serve, he does concede, merely to warp the judgment of an audience (see Rhetoric 1. 1. 1354a16–26).13 But what might an enthymeme be? An enthymeme is nothing other than a rhetorical syllogism. Arguments of the rhetorical variety are either deductive or inductive, Aristotle explains. An enthymeme () is a deductive rhetorical argument, and an example ( .) is an inductive one (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1356a35–b6). All rhetoricians, he goes so far as to assert, 13

Aristotelian scholars today frequently contend that practical knowledge must rely on character; and character, they argue, rests in turn on passion. Nussbaum presents a conspicuous example. She does recognize that Aristotle finds a role for “general rules and accounts” in practical wisdom (Fragility 10. 298–299). But Aristotle holds the view, she argues, that we accept practical principles because “people whom we revere as people of practical wisdom” judge them “appropriate” (299–300). The people whom we so revere, she explains, rest their judgments on their perception (300–301). But their perception rests ultimately on desire, which is right passion (307–309).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

43

produce persuasion through proof by enthymeme and example and by no other means (1356b6–8). We can already see, then, that a rhetorical art can be objective if it rests on arguments, inductive and deductive, concerned with objects of change. That these rhetorical arguments resemble dialectical induction and deduction Aristotle explicitly notes (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1356a35–b6 again). A dialectician may in fact make a good rhetorician because he knows from what and how syllogisms come to be made. But a rhetorician also knows the difference between logical, presumably dialectical, syllogisms and enthymemes as well as with what sorts of things enthymemes, and presumably examples, are concerned (Rhetoric 1. 1. 1355a10–14).14 But my reader might harbor an objection. Have you not forgotten about the intellectual deficiencies of the audience? Do not their shortcomings make futile any attempt at an alleged objectivity? That these shortcomings can frustrate a rhetorician I concede. Rhetoric is, after all, an art of discovering what can be persuasive, not what is persuasive (Rhetoric 1. 1. 1355b10– 12). Indeed, despite his inductive and deductive techniques, a rhetorician can encounter a subjective surd in his audience. Aristotle himself acknowledges this point with an analogy to medicine. A physician can treat his patients properly, he asserts, even though they cannot regain their health (1355b12–14). His analogy implies that a rhetorician can argue persuasively even though his audience cannot do what they ought. Less-than-scrupulous speakers might now seem to have all the excuse they need for abuse. If they cannot do what is good, may we not do what we will with our audiences? Not so, I must reply. May a physician abuse his patients if they cannot recover? He must still treat them properly. And so must our rhetorician. He has an obligation to attempt to persuade his audience to do the best that they can, given their subjective limitations. Their limitations would include, I suppose, their intellectual ability, already noted, their moral habits, and, not least, their emotional state. 14

Williams is quite right to be chary about “the universalistic standpoint” present in contractarian and utilitarian theories, and he successfully lodges many objections against current theories of these types. He argues, rightly I think, that our moral percepts ought to arise out of our particular awareness (e.g., Ethics 6. 110). But he would go so far as to argue that our “mature reflection” is “expressive” of our “ethical dispositions,” even if it is about them (Ethics 4. 50–51, e.g.). I am arguing against Williams that our ethical awareness we are obliged to evaluate rather by rational discussion than by emotional disposition. And that our practical rationality is expressive of our external impressions, not our internal ones. Nagel argues against Williams that we ought to harmonize a universalistic standpoint with “personal projects and individual actions.” The universalistic morality, he explains, does express “our own disposition to view ourselves, and our need to accept ourselves, from outside” (View 10. 198, his italics). My position is that we can, and we ought, to view ourselves from outside, presumably by perception, but that our external view is less than universalistic. This view is at best a proximate generalization about our particular situation.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

44



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

We thus see that rhetoric can be an art of opinion that is objective. This art can employ inductive and deductive techniques concerned with objects of change. But, more important, we can now discern and delineate our human daimons, both dialectical and rhetorical, and their functions. Our dialectical daimon, I would assert, concerns concepts as intelligible entities. As intelligible, our concepts themselves constitute both our knowledge and its internal object. We may employ dialectic with its techniques of induction and division to discover what Hume would call relations of ideas. Our rhetorical daimon, however, concerns concepts as perceptible entities. As perceptible, our concepts constitute both our opinion and its internal object. But these concepts we take to reflect a reality external to them. My assumption is that our opinions, even our general opinions, purport to be percepts. Or, I should say more precisely but less popularly, appercepts. With rhetoric and its techniques of example and enthymeme we can thus discover what Hume would no doubt call matters of fact and among them, perhaps, matters of moral fact. But no more than a dialectician can, can a rhetorician hope to attain an ultimate truth, which would be nonhypothetical. The rhetorical art can only help us express our love of truth, which is, more precisely for it, a love of opinion (! ). This art, because it concerns percepts, neither attains an ultimate true opinion about its objects nor, if it could, would its opinion remain true for long. Perceptible objects are inexorably possessed of an indisputable inscrutability and instability. I need not remind you, I am sure, that either method, dialectic or rhetoric, is merely a method of self-knowledge. For us poor mortals, both knowledge and opinion remain their own objects. We can know only our own concepts and percepts, nothing more and nothing less, though we may and do conveniently assume otherwise. These techniques, wondrously useful though they are, can serve merely to assist us in wending our way through our own human experience with its dreams and delusions, which, we may at best hope, have some bearing upon a world external to them.15 3. What about pragmatism? you may be wondering. How does this discussion of ancient rhetoric, intriguing though it may be, pertain to contemporary pragmatism? I now propose to show that the pragmatic method is in fact the very same method as the rhetorical argument by example. We shall see, too, that this method, because rhetorical and exemplary, has important practical 15

Nagel believes that a method for attaining true self-knowledge does not yet exist. He so believes because he recognizes the shortcomings we encounter with a dialectical method. Philosophy, he asserts, “is after eternal and nonlocal truth,” even though we cannot attain it (View intro. 10). I am arguing that we can employ a rhetorical method in pursuit of temporal and local truth, though this method, too, has its limitations.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

45

implications yet to be acknowledged. I want especially to suggest that the method in question will enable us to hypothesize our moral principles and our moral identity. But how could an argument merely rhetorical yield a hypothesis that might serve as a moral principle? To answer this question, we must have recourse to Aristotle again and his theory of rhetoric. Let us ask simply, Could we use an argument by example to arrive at a moral principle, if only a tentative and tenuous one? Because it is inductive, an argument of this kind would surely appear to hold some promise of fulfilling this function. But to see that it actually can, we must undertake a more sophisticated analysis of rhetorical example. One might think initially that an example could not yield a general principle of any kind. An example seems to take us not to a general conclusion but only to a particular one. Aristotle argues literally that example proceeds not “as a part to a whole, nor as a whole to a part, nor as one whole to another, but as one part to another.” With the terms “part” and “whole,” he refers to a genus and its species. We have an example, he explains, “when both parts fall under the same genus and the one is better known than the other” (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1357b27–30). To illustrate this concept, he offers a political example. His example clearly indicates how an argument of this kind can prove one particular by another. One might show, he explains, that Dionysius wishes to establish a tyranny because he is asking for a bodyguard. To prove that he does, one could cite other leaders known to have become tyrants after asking for a bodyguard and obtaining one. Pisistratus did so, and so did Theagenes (1357b30–33).16 I would ask you to notice that this argument by example does establish a general hypothesis. Its hypothesis is in fact a practical one concerned with politics. How does it do so? An example proves its particular by establishing a general proposition and then by applying it. Aristotle actually implies that the known and unknown particulars in this example all fall under one genus. And he specifies for us what this genus is. These instances fall under the general proposition that someone who wishes to be a tyrant asks for a bodyguard (1357b35–36). But one might ask, If they fall under it, would not the known particulars in an argument by example prove the general proposition? The answer is, They do. Aristotle explicitly so argues in his logic. “An example,” he states more technically, “is when a major term is shown to belong to a middle term by means of a term similar to the third term,” which would be the minor term (Prior Analytics 2. 24. 68b38–39). In other words, an example proves a 16

A bodyguard in ancient times was not a personal bodyguard but a military detachment not unlike a sizable police force. Contemporary tyrants are not unacquainted with an institution of this sort.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

46

general proposition by means of a known particular similar to an unknown particular. We must know, he continues, that “the middle term belongs to the third term, and that the first also belongs to the term similar to the minor term” (68a39–40). Though he does not say so, we must also know that the middle term applies to the term similar to the minor. What is required, in other words, is that both the middle and the major terms apply to the known instances, but that only the middle term applies to the unknown instance. Pisistratus and Theagenes both asked for a bodyguard and became tyrants, but Dionysius thus far has only asked for a bodyguard. To explain his analysis, Aristotle uses an example from history. He supposes that the Athenians are trying to decide whether they ought to fight against the Thebans. The Thebans are their neighbors, and so the Athenians, when deliberating, might consider other wars against neighbors. Aristotle assumes that the Thebans fought a war against the Phocians. The outcome of this war is known to have been bad. The Thebans did not find that to fight against their neighbors was in their interest, he reports. The Athenians, accordingly, would do well to conclude that to fight against the Thebans, because they are neighbors, would not be in their interest, either (69a2–7). The Athenians would no doubt find that more examples would lend their general proposition more strength and hence would strengthen their conclusion (see 69a11–13). If they remain skeptical, they would also have the option of verifying their conclusion with a declaration of war and an attack on their neighbor. They would have to be both skeptical and rash, perhaps. We may represent this course of thought with a diagram shaped like an arrowhead: Not Good

War with Neighbors

Thebans against Phocians

Athenians against Thebans

The solid lines on the left of the diagram indicate what we know about the previous instances, and the dotted line in the center indicates a major premise or generalization based on the known instances. This side of our diagram thus constitutes an inductive argument. The solid line at the bottom

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02



July 26, 2006


19:40

47

right of the diagram indicates what we know about the new instance. This line demarks a minor premise for a deductive argument. The dotted line on the very right of the diagram indicates what we conclude about the new instance. Our inference thus rests on the major premise in the center and the minor premise on the right. We also may represent the inference schematically: A

B

D

C

In this diagram, A represents not good, B stands for war against neighbors, C for Athenians against Thebans, and D for Thebans against Phocians (68b41– 69a2). The solid lines represent what we know about the Theban war and the proposed Athenian war, the dotted lines what we conclude about wars against neighbors in general and the proposed conflict in particular (see 69a7–11). The similarity between the past conflict and the proposed one is the property of being a war against a neighbor. The similarity inferred from the past conflict is the property of being bad.17 A general hypothesis such as this one, though admittedly not very abstract, may obviously serve as a principle of action. For the moment I can only assure you that this proposition and others may serve as a moral principle. We may use them as principles of happiness in the ancient Greek sense of the word and not merely in the modern Humeian or Kantian sense. I cannot prove this moral fact with my present argument, however. I ask only that you suspend your judgment about my presumption that we can act on 17

Dennett recommends “rhetoric or other only partially or impurely rational means of persuasion” for making decisions. But he does not discuss method. He puts forth instead a process of satisficing, which requires what he calls helter-skelter heuristics and arbitrary conversation stoppers. The heuristics, he explains, draws our attention to the salient features of our circumstances, and the conversation stoppers serve to keep our analyses manageable (Idea 17. 2–3.). He is surely on the right track. But rhetorical examples can serve less arbitrarily both as heuristic devices and as conversation stoppers. Examples are a source of new particulars for comparison with our present situation, and their generalizations place limits on our analyses of these particulars. This method does retain some arbitrariness, however. Our examples depend on our concepts and percepts, and these concepts and percepts on our experience, which can only be frightfully finite.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

48



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

an empirical generalization for its own sake. But even if you cannot suspend your judgment, you would surely agree that we can use a proposition of this sort as a prudential principle. We may now ask, Does the pragmatic method resemble the rhetorical argument by example? Unfortunately, any proposed analogy between this method and this argument might not initially seem apt. Most philosophers would think that the pragmatic method does not consist in establishing a general hypothesis but merely in testing one. The method is usually thought to be a way of evaluating a hypothesis by examining its consequences for our action. A true hypothesis is one that has value for practice. It can serve as a guide for conduct by indicating what actions are satisfactory. A false hypothesis cannot. The pragmatic method would seem to offer, to put the matter in more Aristotelian terms, only a procedure for moving from a general proposition to a particular one. It would be an enthymeme at best, if indeed it is rhetorical. But we ought to ask, How do we arrive at a generalization that we wish to test? One can, we shall see, use the pragmatic method to establish a general proposition by arguing from particulars. The pragmatists themselves tend not to emphasize this aspect of their method. But, nevertheless, their method has an inductive aspect, and, more important, it can yield a moral hypothesis. William James himself appears to be a source of our initial reservation. The pragmatic method, he asserts, attempts “to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences.” To test a concept, he explains, we need only ask what practical difference it would make if this notion rather than that were true. If there are no practical differences, any question about alternative concepts and their truth is moot. A question can be real only if differences in conception lead to differences in action (Pragmatism 2. 45–46). To make this definition clearer, consider what no doubt is its most famous example. This example concerns a human being and a squirrel. An inquisitive person knows that there is a squirrel clinging to a tree trunk, and he is trying to get sight of the squirrel by going around the tree. But as he goes around the tree, the squirrel goes as quickly around its trunk in the opposite direction. The result is that this individual can get only an occasional glimpse of the bright eye of his quarry. This predicament presents a problem, which James refers to, tongue in cheek no doubt, as metaphysical. The problem is, Does the person go around the squirrel or not? Clearly, the fellow goes around the tree, and the squirrel clings to the tree. But has the person gone around the squirrel? The solution that James offers in illustration of his method turns on what one practically means by “going around.” If one means by this concept to go from the north of the squirrel to the east, to the south, to the west, and to the north of it again, then the person clearly goes around the squirrel.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

49

But if one means to be in front of the animal, and then to be to the right of, in back of, to the left of, and in front of it again, then the person does not go around his agile antagonist. The squirrel constantly keeps its belly turned toward the person. What this example illustrates is that the meaning of a hypothesis depends on its practical implications. “To go around” in this case is ambiguous. It may mean to take four positions relative to the location of an object, or it may as well mean to take four positions relative to the sides of an object. Any dispute about the concept would thus turn on what the consequences of it are for practice, and any resolution would turn on the same practical consequences (43–44). James puts his point in more general terms. Any difference in abstract truth, he asserts, must express itself “in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere, and somewhen” (49–50). He concentrates on going from hypotheses to consequences because he wishes to use the pragmatic method to resolve philosophical controversies. You would be astonished, he says, to see how philosophical disputes collapse when subject to the pragmatic method (49– 50). And what he does is truly astonishing. One need only open a book of his and examine its table of contents to see major philosophical issues decided with an openness of mind unique to him even among professed pragmatists. We see, then, that the pragmatic method does evaluate a hypothesis by its implications for practice. But we must still ask, Where do these hypotheses come from? With his definition of the method, James places an emphasis on the deductive part of the experimental method only, though he does not always make his emphasis explicit. And his work he devotes primarily to using the pragmatic method to descend from hypotheses to their consequences. A crucial clue to seeing better how much the pragmatic method resembles the method of example we find in the pragmatic concept of truth. James himself provides a statement of his concept sufficiently clear for our purposes. Consider what he says about a true thought. His fullest characterization of its general nature is that a true thought is a way of binding up one moment of our experience with other moments of experience. In his own words, truth is “a leading that is worth while.” A particular of experience, he explains, “inspires us with a thought that is true,” and we may guide ourselves with this thought to other particulars of experience and make a connection that is advantageous for us (Pragmatism 6. 204–205, italics again his). He illustrates this concept of truth with a less famous example of a cowpath. If we are lost and hungry in a forest, our discovery of a cowpath may be our salvation. Our recognition of the cowpath for what it is can lead us in our thoughts to the concept of a dairy farm at the end of it. Our hypothesis about a cowpath can thus lead us in our action from our bewildered experience in the woods to an experience of cozy comfort in a farmhouse (202–204). If we follow the path and see the farmhouse come into view, we

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

50



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

then verify our hypothesis and soon enjoy its practical consequences and their advantages (206). James does concede that this statement about his general concept of truth is somewhat “vague.” But he avers that the statement is, nonetheless, “essential” (204–205). What I take to be essential about it is the connection of some particulars of experience with other particulars by means of a true thought. What I wish to show is that this inference by means of a true thought characterizes an inference through a general hypothesis established with an argument by example. This similarity becomes clearer when we dispel some of the vagueness found in James’s statement of his concept of truth. Let us pause for a moment and ask, What happens when we become curious about an object? We may be inspired with a true thought, James says. But can we say more about this moment of inspiration? I submit that we cast about in our mind for similar objects, and that we try to use their qualities to understand the object under present scrutiny. That is, we use particulars that are better known to us in our attempt to understand a particular that is less well known. If we find no resemblances to familiar objects, we must enlist the experience of others or give up the attempt, at least, for the time being.18 But these known objects that we seek out in our attempt to understand an unknown object are none other than rhetorical examples! The resemblances that we see between familiar objects and an unfamiliar object suggest other resemblances that we do not yet find in the object of our interest but might characterize the object more fully. Take James’s cowpath again. The initial impressions of this object in the forest call to mind similar impressions gleaned from past forays in the woods. It is well worn; it meanders along; it has large, visible hoof prints; and so on. These similarities in turn inspire us with other impressions that we recall about the previous paths but are not as yet known about this path. Namely, that they all have led to a dairy farm with a farmhouse. What these more familiar objects provide, then, are middle and major terms for a practical syllogism. In this example, the perceived properties of the cowpath, taken together, are the middle term. The trait of leading to a dairy farm is the major term. The inductive syllogism is: Those trails were cowpaths; those trails led to a farm; therefore, cowpaths lead to a farm. The deductive syllogism is: This trail is a cowpath; cowpaths lead to a farm; therefore, this trail leads to a farm. The major premise, that cowpaths lead to a farm, is the hypothesis of our argument. We verify this proposition by recalling other cowpaths that we have encountered or simply by following out the present one. At least, the pragmatists would call a premise of this sort a hypothesis. The rhetoricians, I 18

Actually, John Dewey gives some consideration to this process. But he fails to offer a formal analysis or to connect his analysis with rhetoric (Think 6. and 7.).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02



July 26, 2006


19:40

51

admit, seldom, if ever, refer to their major premises as hypotheses. But they are usually political creatures, who thrive in situations calling for action. And so they do not unexpectedly put forth their premises as timeworn truths, though they might also refer to them as moral principles. We might schematize James’s cowpath example: Goes to a Farmhouse

Cowpath

Familiar Trails

Unfamiliar Trail

We may analyze the diagram in terms of a practical train of thought that is both inductive and deductive. The major premise the dotted line in the center indicates. We establish this premise inductively with instances having properties indicated by the solid lines on the left. The solid line on the right indicates the minor premise. And the dotted line on the right our deductive conclusion. James’s squirrel example is amenable to a similar schema in a more complex variation. This schema has two middle terms:

Known Objects

Goes Around

Goes Around

Goes to North of, etc.

Goes to Right of, etc.

The Squirrel

Known Objects

With this diagram we have two major premises, and we are left to decide which is the better under the circumstances. Our decision turns on which middle term applies and which does not. What I have argued, then, is that rhetorical argument by example is in its essentials the experimental method. You agree, I hope, that we may

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

52



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

schematize both methods in the very same way. Either method guides our inferences from particulars through a general hypothesis to another particular. They guide us, in other words, from particulars to particulars.19 I would now remind you that Aristotle and James also agree about the particulars from which and to which our generalizations guide us. These particulars are of the same ontological kind. James clearly argues that knowledge does not concern mere concepts. Knowledge viewed in this way constitutes the danger of reifying language and of taking logical entities for real. Knowledge concerns rather our percepts, which concern real entities. But these entities can change in their relationships with other entities. They may even exhibit contradictory attributes in different relationships (Empiricism 2. 80– 82; 3. 100–106). Aristotle would agree that rhetorical example concerns not concepts but percepts. He argues, as we have seen, that rhetoric concerns not that which cannot be otherwise, but that which can be either way (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1357a4– 7). That which can be either way, I would assume, turns out to be what it is because of its relationships to other entities of a similar sort. This assumption one may verify by consulting Aristotle’s discussion of causality (see, for example, Physics 2. 3.). I would think, then, that my argument has brought us to familiar turf. Surely, contemporary philosophers ought not to find terribly strange the use of examples for philosophical reflection on moral matters. The secondary literature especially abounds in arguments of this kind. The examples most often used, however, are counterexamples that are counterfactual. The penchant for examples of this sort reflects, I suspect, the ease with which one may refute an old hypothesis and the difficulty with which we try to formulate a new one. But modern philosophers, too, press examples into philosophical service. Hume commends not an abstract deductive method for moral science but a particular inductive method. To determine our general maxims, we ought to follow an experimental method “with a comparison of particular instances.” Though he says literally that we deduce them, we would say today that we induce our moral precepts from these particulars (Morality 1. 173–175; also Treatise intro. xvi–xvii). Even Kant recommends examples. He argues that they may serve us for the development of our moral judgment. Examples (Biespiel) can especially assist us in separating his preferred rational judgments of action from empirical ones, he explains (Practical 2. 162–163). He also urges that we 19

Nagel observes that in searching for generality we take “the particular case as an example” and that we form “hypotheses about what general truth it is an example of.” Though he invokes its concept, he unfortunately neglects to explore any theory, rhetorical or not, of example (View 8. 152). We may, nonetheless, recognize with him that our moral generalizations vary in breadth, relativity, and externality. I shall especially wish to consider objects that have value external to our interests or, as he states more simply, objects that have intrinsic value of their own (View 8. 152–153).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

53

use instances (Bel¨ag) of duty to stimulate and to enliven a moral interest in young people. They can serve as “leading strings” to enable the young to feel their own worth and to remove them from sensuous attachments (152–157).20 Nor ought contemporary philosophers to find a rhetorical ontology unusual. At least, the British and Americans among us ought not. The pragmatists and analytic philosophers, so-called, tend to trail along in the footsteps of the modern empiricists. But the empiricists have long held that real entities are visible and tangible objects – objects notorious for their contingency and instability. 4. A rhetorical pragmatism, or a pragmatic rhetoric if you prefer, is what we have discovered. We are now in a position to see how a pragmatism of this variety provides a discipline for self-knowledge. I think we can do so without great difficulty, in fact. We need only make a rather simple association. Philosophers of rhetoric tend to dissociate a speaker from an audience and to speak generally and perhaps glibly of a distinct audience. But I shall collapse their distinction and reassociate a speaker and an audience. I wish to speak of a unique audience of one, namely, the speaker himself or herself. Or, more pointedly, I shall speak of you or me, entirely by yourself or myself. This reassociation of speaker and audience is really a fate foisted upon us willy-nilly. Could one possibly doubt that human knowledge is no more than self-knowledge? Even with our dialectical or our rhetorical techniques, we can merely array and analyze the concepts and percepts within our own minds. Only if we presume to assume that these mental entities bear some resemblance to entities purportedly physical may we hope to gain any knowledge of objects allegedly actual. We know our own and other identities, if any there be, only through a veil, taken to be translucent, of our cognition and perception. Yet with our presumption we shall discover a rhetoric of self-knowledge that can provision us with an ethical foundation stable enough and reliable enough for practical purposes. But rhetoric can provide a foundation only as firm as the facts of the matter allow. Many contemporary philosophers eschew an objective foundation for ethics. They are quite right to do so because the foundations under consideration are most often inappropriate. These foundations are purportedly knowledge of eternal, necessary, and immutable truths. Hardly the stuff of practice! Pragmatism of the rhetorical variety that I am advocating can enable us to create an objective yet empirical foundation for our morality. Our foundation requires only an informed opinion about practical matters of fact. With the argumentative techniques of example and enthymeme, we 20

O’Neill offers an interesting discussion of examples in Kant and Anglo-American philosophy. Her discussion turns on the interplay between moral principles and examples of different kinds, though she offers no formal analysis of the technique (Constructions 9.).

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

54



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

may organize our opinions and create a morality that is relevant to us and relative to our circumstances and yet real enough to guide us in our practical pursuits. To see best how rhetoric can lead to self-knowledge in this way, I suggest that we examine more closely how rhetoric leads to knowledge. I speak, of course, not of knowledge in the strict sense but of opinion. What I propose to do is to place rhetoric within the context of human experience. And I speak of experience in the pragmatic sense. I wish to show how rhetorical example enables us to opine objects in our experience, including our own selves. With an argument by example we may organize our concepts and percepts and formulate hypotheses not only about what we ought to do but about who we ought to be. What, then, is pragmatic experience? Recall what William James has to say about knowledge and experience. Knowing is a relation of the kind into which different portions of experience enter. The one portion is a knower, and the other portion is an object known. Experience itself separates into these two parts (Empiricism 1. 4–5). What distinguishes the knowing part and the known part are their associations. Associations of one kind constitute a mind, and those of another constitute a material world (9–10). A book, for example, we associate with other thoughts in our mental life and with other things in our physical life. A book lies within our field of consciousness, but we also hold it between our hands (11–15). But how does experience enable us to know? James argues that when we know something, we are able to use a concept to reason about a percept (Empiricism 2. 52–54). Knowing, he explains, consists in a felt transition from the one to the other. When we feel a transition of this kind, a concept as one part of experience knows a percept as another part of experience. That is, a concept leads to and corresponds with a percept. The concept is thus a knower, and the percept an object known (56–58). He offers an example of a transition of this felt sort. Suppose that I claim to know a certain building, say Mandel Hall. If I do, my idea of it ought to be able to lead us to the building, to explain for us its history and uses, and to point out various details of its construction. My concept of the building, James asserts, has passed into a percept of it, and it has done so by means of a continuing and corroborating experience (54–56). I would now draw your attention to a curious and crucial philosophical fact. The rhetorical argument by example can better enable us to understand who a knower is and what a known object is. Why? Because we may place argument by example within this context of experience pragmatically defined. After all, the experimental method and the exemplary method are essentially the same techniques, and both techniques apply to objects the same in kind. What I wish to suggest is that we may use a general hypothesis supported by past particulars as a concept with which we may understand a new particular.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

55

When we apply it to a new particular, we are applying our general hypothesis to a new percept, in other words. Our hypothesis, on my account, is thus a concept that constitutes us as a knower, and the new particular is a percept constituting an object to be known. The old particulars are objects perceived and known in the past. With this methodological insight we can now make disciplined the felt transition that James observes from a concept to a percept. If we wish, we might even demarcate this transition with the formal schema of argument by example. The transition does remain one of an experience that is corroborating and continuing. But we now make an informed transition by way of a generalization from known particulars to a particular presently unknown. We can form a generalization from the details of familiar buildings, say, and apply it to an unfamiliar building by the same architect. My concept of rhetorical experience thus differs, I concede, from the pragmatic concept. We can see how it differs if we consider what James calls the strategic point in the ramparts of empiricism. This point, he explains, is “the co-conscious transition” that unites one portion of our experience with another portion. James argues that this transition, if not empirical, opens a breach through which pour dialectical and metaphysical fictions. But the transition can be part and parcel only of experience, he rightly claims. Only our consciousness of a felt transition in the passing of one part into another is what gives continuity to our experience (Empiricism 2. 47–49). I agree that our consciousness of the transition from one part of experience to another provides unity for our experience. But I think rather that our consciousness of this unity can be a conceptual one. The concept is a general one arrived at through particulars. But it is not a dialectical concept of an eternal truth. Our concept is merely a rhetorical one with a contingent content that may be true or false. An experienced concept thus provides a link from one experienced percept to another percept already or about to be experienced. The link may be true or false depending on our own sagacity and the stability of the object under scrutiny. James might respond, What I meant all along is that this feeling of coconscious transition guides our thinking along the paths delineated by the experimental method. What I said about a felt transition applies to what I say about the pragmatic method. My reply must be, Our thinking in accordance with the experimental method or, more generally, rhetorical argument by example can give form and guidance to our feeling of co-conscious transition. Our thought ought surely to guide our feeling, even a mental feeling. Our feeling ought not to guide our thought.21 21

Suckiel is quite right to argue in answer to his critics that truth for James not only is subject to verification but also leads to our satisfaction (Philosophy 6. 94–105). Indeed, only truth that is verifiable, she reminds us, will be consistently capable of satisfying our desires (103– 104). But, unfortunately, she criticizes James for arguing that truth is only a descriptive

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

56



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

What I am arguing, then, is that we may place the rhetorical art and especially its argument by example within pragmatic experience. My reader may already have surmised my next contention. I want now to argue that we ourselves may be both the subject and the object of our own rhetorical experience. We are both a knower and an object known, after all. Or we can be if we aspire to a modicum, at least, of self-knowledge. What this suggestion means is that we may use rhetorical example as a method to construct our own moral identity. By our own example we knowers may make ourselves known to ourselves. How would this method work? Clearly we do have concepts, and our concepts do concern our percepts, and some percepts of ours appear to be about ourselves. We are not only beings with a mental life, but apparently beings with a physical life as well. That is, our concepts and percepts of ourselves have not only a history in our consciousness but also a history in environments apparently physical. We embody our concepts in our actions, and our embodiments are perceptible even to ourselves – though, perhaps, not always as perspicaciously as to others. These concepts and percepts can be material for major and minor premises of practical reasoning, both inductive and deductive. We have a tendency, though, to focus our attention on the deductive aspect of practical reasoning. A practical syllogism we usually think of as a deductive inference or what Aristotle calls an enthymeme. From a general proposition by means of a particular one we draw a conclusion that states what action we ought or ought not to perform. If not without moral restraint, we then do what we ought to do or do not do what we ought not to do.22 Who could deny the practical importance of deductive arguments? Arguments of this kind are essential. Because it is rhetorical demonstration, enthymeme is indeed the best proof, Aristotle argues (Rhetoric 1. 1. 1355a4– 8; also 1. 2. 1356b23–25). We may find enthymemes so persuasive because

22

concept and not an explanatory one. A descriptive concept is merely an abstraction from particular instances of truth, she argues. But an explanatory concept shows why we make justifiable judgments about phenomena. It shows that “true propositions accurately represent reality – independently of human experience and belief” (120–121). I must disagree with Suckiel about an explanatory concept of truth. James cannot subscribe to a concept of truth that ensures the accuracy of our knowledge. To do so would be to accept the position that human knowledge is adequate to its object. But if we had adequate knowledge, we would have knowledge that is certain and not hypothetical (see Will 1. 12–14). But I do agree with an implication of her criticism. I am arguing that our knowledge has an object with a nature of its own, even though we cannot adequately know it. This nature is something we can perceive and not merely feel. Its continuity over time, in other words, arises from objective associations rather than from subjective ones. Raz, for example, focuses his anthology, which contains articles deemed to have made significant advances, on practical reasoning and its deductive applications. Millgram, however, has recently come to the defense of induction in practical reasoning, though he does not consider any method.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

57

we prefer not to challenge our general principles or to change them only reluctantly. We also know that with deductive arguments we can evaluate our principles. James obviously emphasizes the deductive phase of the experimental method for this purpose. He tests hypotheses by their consequences for action. But does not inductive reasoning have a practical import equally great if not greater? Too often we act on a generalization accepted with insufficient empirical evidence or with little or no evidence. These generalizations, when we are aware of them, we pejoratively call prejudices or stereotypes. One would think that we ought rather to muster the best evidence that we can for any generalization, especially a moral one. What I am suggesting, in other words, is that we hypothesize our moral principles by means of examples, and that we ought to test our principles by examples as well. Even principles concerning our very selves.23 With our examples, then, we can, if we take the trouble, formulate practical hypotheses that we may use to determine our conduct and to develop our character. We can formulate generalizations about moral matters from particular instances that we experience. We also may obviously revise our generalizations as the particulars we experience are enhanced in quality or increased in quantity. What I would like now to do is to show how our concept of rhetorical example allows us to employ the pragmatic method much more widely than we may have imagined, especially when applied to ourselves. We must return to Aristotle for a final foray. Recall what Aristotle says about rhetoric and its audiences. He divides rhetoric into three species by differentiating its audiences, as we have seen. But these audiences also differ in their concern with time and its three dimensions. Adjudicative rhetoric concerns what has happened, deliberative rhetoric what will happen, and demonstrative rhetoric what is happening (Rhetoric 1. 3. 1358a36–b8). If we look within ourselves, we obviously find that our thoughts about ourselves take on these three concerns of rhetoric. Do we not sometimes 23

McDowell agrees that we may act in accordance with a concept of what our life ought to be. He even argues that this concept is a generalization that we may inculcate in others with examples. This generalization we may apply with an awareness of new particulars (Reality 3. 65–67). Yet he argues that we can have no moral code. Why? Precisely because our moral principles are generalities true only for the most part. We cannot devise any practical syllogisms with a universal premise and a necessary application to a particular. There are no objective rules of conduct, he avers (57–65). But may we not apply our generalities to particulars? I would ask. We must surely apply them with diffidence and discretion, I admit. But reasonable resemblances between known particulars and an unknown particular would give us warrant to extend our generalization, even if it is not universal and necessary. A salient dissimilarity would yield no warrant, however. I would think that our generalizations may also have some objectivity, if we derive them from experienced particulars. Their objectivity, of course, could never reach certainty. If it did, we would be more than human.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

58



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

wonder if we should have performed this or that action? Or, more typically perhaps, why we did this or that? We surely do expend considerable effort thinking about the future. We plan for our careers, we plan for our day, we even plan for lunch. But on occasion we think about our present predicament, too. We do so on weddings, birthdays, and funerals, for example, or at family reunions, office parties, and national holidays. We may, then, use the experimental method to address problems concerned with our present, past, and future selves. We who live in contemporary societies exhibit a tendency to concern ourselves almost exclusively with the future and sacrifice the present and the past on the altar of our hopes and aspirations. But surely we would do well to be practiced also at addressing past transgressions against other creatures, both human and nonhuman, and at acknowledging the plethora of values, both moral and natural, in our environments. Aristotle also shows how we may take advantage of a wide range of intellectual resources when we ponder ourselves. He does so implicitly by recognizing examples of three kinds. An example may be a history ( (

. (), a fable ( ), or a parable ( 3 ) (Rhetoric 2. 20. 1393a28–31). These kinds differ from one another with respect to the particulars used to support a hypothesis. A historical example is an actual past event. We might want to establish the general hypothesis that those who take Egypt will attempt to take Greece, if we wish to show that the Greeks ought to prepare for war with the Persian king. To establish this generalization, we could point out that Darius took Egypt and then attacked Greece, and that Xerxes did so, too (1393a31–b4).24 A fable is a fictitious example. Aristotle cites an Aesopian fable about a fox and a hedgehog. A hedgehog offerred to help a fox rid itself of its fleas. But the fox refused, saying that its fleas were full and drew little blood, but that new fleas would be hungry and drain more blood. The moral of this tale – its hypothesis – is that a creature whose desire is sated is less likely to cause harm than a creature driven by desire. And so its conclusion is that an established tyrant who has enriched himself would not cause more harm, 24

Legal scholars take historical examples quite seriously. Examples of this sort, which they call precedents, are the engines of case law. Levi, for example, explicitly asserts that “legal reasoning is reasoning by example” or “reasoning from case to case.” Reasoning of this kind, he explains, involves three steps: “similarity is seen between cases; next the rule of law inherent in the first case is announced; then the rule of law is made applicable to the second case.” He even cites the Prior Analytics (Reasoning 1. 1–2 and n. 2). McDowell makes an attempt to historicize our values. But, unfortunately, he merely views general moral propositions as a tradition handed down from the past. He argues that our ethical outlook is the result of our upbringing, and we can only reflect on and refine infinitely the details of our outlook. He makes no attempt, as far as I can tell, to seek support for or refutation of traditional values in the particulars of experience. Indeed, he argues that we cannot reconstruct ethical demands from natural materials, though we may take independent facts into account if relevant (World 4. 80–82, e.g.).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

59

but that a new tyrant who might well be greedy would likely inflict new harm (1393b22–1394a1).25 A parable is a Socratic argument, Aristotle tells us. To prove that officials chosen by lot are not necessarily competent, one may argue that athletes chosen by lot need not be the best competitors, nor need sailors chosen by lot be the best helmsmen (1393b4–8). The hypothesis gleaned from these particulars would be that to select an individual by chance is not to choose the most capable person for a job.26 We can now see that, because they are of these kinds, rhetorical examples can enable us to expand considerably the sources for formulating and testing a hypothesis entertained in our quest for self-knowledge. Indeed, these kinds suggest that one might formulate our practical principles out of materials generated by our different intellectual faculties. Historical examples obviously arise from human memory; fables emerge from our imagination; and parables originate in conception. We thus need not restrict our evidence for our moral experiments to what we remember to have happened, though the future does resemble the past (see 1394a6–8). We may also consider what we imagine might happen, and imagined possibilities are a fecund source of innovation. But we may take into account similarities that exist between different intellectual fields, such as politics and athletics or seamanship.27 Fastidious philosophers might take umbrage at the fact that rhetoric has apparently subsumed philosophy by allowing argument by example to include philosophical parables. But they need not feel particularly paranoid. 25

26

27

Without discussing rhetoric, Nussbaum rightly argues for the importance of literary examples, though she gives priority to an emotional interpretation of them. She advocates a concept, taken from Adam Smith, of the “judicious spectator.” A spectator of the judicious sort employs both reason and passion, she explains. Our sympathy for characters in novels, for example, can lead us to take them seriously as examples of individuals who face difficult social situations. But we must be sure to temper our sympathy for these characters “with a true view of what is going on” (Justice 3. 72–77). An example of this sort appears to bear a resemblance to dialectical induction (see Prior Analytics 2. 23.). Dennett would call examples of this kind intuition pumps. He argues that they are “the dominant force” in philosophy, and that they are “powerful pedagogical devices” (Room 1. 12, 17–18, e.g.). With his desire to systematize our traditional values, McDowell all but offers parables. But he is more a dialectician than a rhetorician, though he would no doubt deny it. He in effect takes our moral standpoint and its prescriptions to be quasi-eternal because we cannot reconstruct them out of any natural descriptions. He actually attributes a view of this kind to Aristotle (World 4. 79–80)! What MacIntyre calls a narrative I would thus call an argument by example. I can agree with him that an example enables us to make sense of our actions. We ought to set up a secret police force if we wish to be a tyrant, for example. But, unfortunately, MacIntyre does not appear to require that our examples ultimately have reference in experience to our percepts (Virtue 15. 209–211).

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

60



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

Philosophy properly concerns conceptual entities, rhetoric perceptual ones. Rhetoric thus treats philosophical concepts as appercepts or, as we more commonly say, percepts, albeit general ones. After all, dialectic concerns objects that are changeless, but rhetoric confronts objects that change.28 Nor ought these philosophers to feel especially singled out. We can make rhetoric an architectonic discipline encompassing vast expanses, indeed the whole, of the intellectual world. Example with its species easily embraces the disciplines of history, poetry, and philosophy. These three disciplines would appear to be exhaustive. History and poetry Aristotle himself distinguishes by their objects, which are that which has happened (4 ) and that which might happen ( # ) ( ) (Poetics 9. 1451a36–b5). Philosophy in a broad sense would include all the sciences, both natural and moral, because it concerns a universal ( ), presumably, that which is (1451b5–10). But we may, I think, place examples in another perspective with the aid of the Greek distinction between knowledge and opinion. A Socratic parable does resemble knowledge in the narrow sense, I concede. Though not about unchanging objects, a parable concerns general concepts. A parable would thus seem to be about that which eternally is. But its concepts, again, are actually percepts, though general. That is, they are general concepts about that which is but momentary. A historical example is most obviously concerned with opinion. Its generalizations are obviously concepts about objects that are among those capable of change. These concepts rest on particulars that are percepts about individuals, such as Alcibiades, and their actions and passions (but see Poetics 9. 1451b10–11). But these objects, though once capable of change, are, we must admit, now fixed unchangingly in the past (see Ethics 6. 2. 1139b5–11). A fable is more complicated. It appears to establish a general concept with contingent particulars, and these particulars purport to be about changeable objects. But its purported objects might seem to be somehow unchangeable because they are not anything actual (see Poetics 9. 1451b5–7 again). Indeed, fables have a charm all their own because they support a generalization so obviously true with alleged percepts so obviously false. We might even view these distinctions in Humiean terms. By doing so we can perhaps see more easily how rhetoric can assimilate philosophy herself. Philosophy properly speaking, at least in the Greek sense, concerns relations of ideas, which have no concern with actual existence. But we may view philosophical concepts as mere percepts. That is, we need not treat these concepts as relations of ideas in accordance with the principle of

28

That we might know or opine the very same proposition, Aristotle explicitly acknowledges (Post. Ana. 1. 33.).

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

61

contradiction. We may treat them as matters of fact in accordance with the principles of association (see Understanding 4. 1. 25–26).29 A historical example clearly concerns ideas as existent. It concerns remembered matters of fact, and matters of fact are existent entities. Rhetoric easily assimilates this discipline, then. Even general principles of history, if one were to seek them, are merely factual matters. To those alleged to assert that the Greeks have no theory of history, I would respond that one ought to take into account their theories of rhetoric. A fable might seem to concern relations of ideas. It appears to have no reference to anything actually existent. But one might better say that an Aesopian fable, for example, treats of imagined matters of fact. Accordingly, a fable can take license with our percepts precisely because that which exists can be other than it is. That foxes and hedgehogs might talk implies no contradiction.30 With its examples, then, the rhetorical art can easily become an architectonic discipline of a scope wider than even Gorgias had imagined. I am now obliged, however, to remind my reader that, when we argue by example, we ought to construct our general hypotheses from particulars that are objective rather than subjective. Even a fable, an imagined example, must rest its moral on true opinion. Though parts of it are imaginary, a fable turns only on the parts that are true enough to fact. Foxes do have fleas, fleas do suck blood, and a flea, when sated, sucks less blood. But how can we be sure that our opinions have any objectivity? We can never be entirely sure, I am afraid. But we can try our best to be as objective as our humble experience allows. Let us follow Aristotle a little further. He does concede that both example and enthymeme we must make out of opinions held by an audience. And, presumably, his concession would hold of an audience of one. Rhetoric, he asserts explicitly, draws its arguments from held opinions (0 ). These opinions include especially those “about which we are already accustomed to deliberate” (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1356b33–1357a1). But held opinions can be objective. Aristotle in fact defines them for us objectively. Held opinions, he asserts, most often include only what is probable, but they also include what is necessary. These probabilities and necessities are what he calls probabilities (') and signs () (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1357a22–33). A probability, he explains, is that which happens for the 29

30

Surely, we need not worry about the fact that Hume limits relations of ideas to the mathematical sciences. He does concede that we may make immediate inferences of this sort in other sciences (Understanding 12. 3. 163). If so, why may we not also make mediated inferences, if shorter, of the same sort (see Understanding 7. 1. 60–61)? Hume clearly recognizes the distinction between general and particular matters of fact. General facts are the subjects of “politics, natural philosophy, physic, chemistry, &c.” These sciences study properties “of a whole species of objects.” Particular facts are the concern of “history, chronology, geography, and astronomy.” But poetry, he unfortunately argues, is less the object of understanding than of sentiment (Understanding 12. 3. 164–165).

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

62



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

most part ( % 5 ) and that which concerns those things that can be other than they are (1357a34–36). A sign he illustrates with an example. That Socrates is both wise and just is a sign that wise men are just. Signs of this type are refutable. But signs can be irrefutable, and he calls them conclusive ( ). A fever, for example, is a conclusive sign that someone is sick. A sign of this type, if true, is necessary (1357b3–17).31 In his logic Aristotle explains more explicitly what he takes signs and probabilities to be. When he does, he implies even more strongly that both are objective. A sign is a demonstrable proposition, either necessary or held, ( - & / - / 0 ), for it is “a thing ( 6) which, when it is, another thing is ( 7 . . . " 0), or when it has come to be, another thing has come to be before or after it (/ 7 ( / 8 ( ).” A probability is a proposition held ( 0 ), for it is “that which people know to happen for the most part or not to happen (9 . . . : % 5 ; 8* / & ) or to be or not to be (" / & ")” (Prior Analytics 2. 27. 70a2–9).32 Probabilities and signs, then, can be objective. And we can see without difficulty how one can use these materials for constructing examples. A sign that wise men are just, Aristotle himself points out, is the particular fact that Socrates is wise and just. A sign that those who attack Egypt attack Greece is the fact that Darius did, and that Xerxes did, we could add. A probability provides less a particular than a general fact, such as the fact that a fox has fleas, or that a flea, when hungry, sucks blood. But are we still not limited to whatever opinions an audience happens to hold? And might not only a few among these opinions be objective probabilities and signs? No, we do not need to rely solely on held opinions that happen to be objective. A rhetorician ought obviously to have recourse to opinions of this kind. They are immediately persuasive by themselves. But these very opinions he can also use to prove other opinions that an audience does not hold (Rhetoric 1. 2. 1356b28–30). These new opinions he may not prove through demonstration, of course. But, surely, he may establish them through enthymeme and example (1357a7–21).33 A rhetorician, then, can have the power to create a new objectivity in the minds of an audience. Socrates and Gorgias agreed, as we have seen, that a 31

32 33

This passage begs for comparison with Hume’s discussion of probability and necessity (Understanding 6–7.). Essentially following the Ross translation. I am arguing that Aristotle advocates a rhetorical method for organizing our practical knowledge much as Nussbaum argues that he advances a logical method for organizing our theoretical knowledge. Though I might take issue with details, I would agree that demonstration can validate knowledge in the strict sense, but I would add that deliberation can validate knowledge in the sense of opinion (Fragility 8. 249, 250–251). I could not agree that ethics and politics are not sciences, however (250, 257–258). They are moral sciences because we may analyze our moral concepts simply as concepts. But, of course, we may also organize our moral concepts as percepts about factual matters.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

63

rhetorician can create persuasion in the souls of an audience. Indeed, they actually call a rhetorician an artisan or a demiurge (Gorgias 452e–453a)! I would take their agreement to mean that rhetoric can give us the power to create a new objectivity in ourselves or in others. With James we might say that a rhetorician can create a new object within our experience. One would do so by creating new associations within our own souls or within other souls.34 My argument, I hope, is by now sufficient to give you, dear reader, an idea of what a rhetoric of self-knowledge might be. My present purpose is an analysis of concepts that provide a useful method, at once rhetorical and experiential, for discovering a foundation for morality. My hope is that I have provided sufficient detail to show that rhetoric can include pragmatism and to show what might be the general consequences of this view for our knowledge of our own abilities and endeavors. Argument by example is an especially pragmatic method and a method more general than the hypothetical method as conceived by the American progmatists themselves. And what an expanse of material we have to develop our self-knowledge! If I am right, we have essentially the whole of human culture – its histories, its literatures, and its sciences, even philosophy itself – at our disposal. We may find paradigms for human character and conduct in all these sources, varied as they are. But my eventual purpose is a slightly different one. By providing a rhetorical context for it, we especially enable ourselves to perform a moral critique of pragmatism. Philosophers both in antiquity and in the present have a penchant for subjecting rhetoric to various moral evaluations, some being in fact rather harsh. Once we see it as rhetoric, we may transfer these evaluations to pragmatism itself. I shall in fact begin an evaluation of this sort in the next chapter. 34

We may agree with MacIntyre that “an historically extended, socially embodied, argument” is a tradition, and that an argument of this kind is “about the goods which constitute that tradition” (Virtue 15. 222). I would not want to deny the importance of moral tradition. But I would argue that a tradition is an extended and shared argument by example or rather examples. We obviously share our examples, whether we take them from Shakespeare, say, or television sitcoms, and our examples do concern our goodness. We may also agree that virtue and its exercise sustain and strengthen a tradition (223). But I would point out that virtue by itself cannot establish or develop a tradition. Our practical reason, rather, establishes and applies with the rhetorical art moral generalizations resting ultimately on probabilities and signs. With these generalizations and their applications reason of this kind can sustain and strengthen virtue and hence tradition. But see Chapters 3 and 7 on practical reason and virtue. MacIntyre does recognize the need for “the virtue of having an adequate sense of the traditions to which one belongs.” This virtue, he explains, consists “in knowing how to select among the relevant stack of maxims and how to apply them in particular situations” (223). I could hardly have put the matter better myself. This virtue I take to be none other than practical wisdom itself. Practical wisdom with rhetoric and its examples and enthymemes enables us to discover general, if contingent, propositions about moral matters and to apply these generalities to the particular matter at hand.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

64



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

I have, then, not attempted to work out all the details of a rhetorical pragmatism. You may, if you so wish, have the pleasure of working them out for yourself. Nor would I be the last to add that there are other rhetorical theories amenable to this purpose besides the Aristotelian. I would ask, however, that you rest your rhetorical theory on a cognitive foundation of perception and its objects and not on a conative foundation of mere emotion. With this request I commend rhetoric to you as a liberal art of self-knowledge.35 5. Irrational our rationality proves to be, and irrefragably so! Irrational we are fated to be even when we think with the aid of dialectical or rhetorical methods. Dialectic, as we have seen, offers methods, definition and division, which are appropriate for knowledge of our ideas as concepts. Dialectic concerns ideas as intelligible objects that do not change. In a word, ideas as ideal. Rhetoric offers methods, example and enthymeme, suited for knowledge of our ideas as percepts. That is, rhetorical methods concern ideas as sensible objects that do change. Or, more simply, ideas as real. But irrational? How could our dialectical and rhetorical conclusions be irrational? Surely dialectical conclusions could not be irrational, you may be thinking. But how could they not be? I must ask. Remember, we have no divine knowledge. To have knowledge of this wondrous sort we would have to have knowledge no longer hypothetical concerned with ideas eternally true. But our dialectic can rest only on hypotheses concerned with mere human ideas. Inexorably these hypotheses must thus prove false. Rhetorical conclusions are rather obviously irrational. Rhetoric rests on hypotheses concerning probabilities and signs, but probabilities and signs are percepts true contingently. Eventually these hypotheses also prove false, even capriciously so, because their objects can and do change. Their objects are at the mercy of forces beyond our ken, and they include among their number our very own selves.36 35

36

Many contemporary philosophers acknowledge the importance of language for determining human goodness. Dennett argues that language not only gives us reasons to consider but enables us to consider new reasons (Room 2. 43–49). McDowell argues that a natural language is a store of wisdom about what are reasons for acting (World 6. 125–126). Foot, too, recognizes the importance of speech for determining what our goodness is (Goodness 4. 55). They could thus agree, I would hope, that an art of language is of equal, if not greater, importance. MacIntyre would deny that what he calls a narrative is false. He takes issue with Sartre for arguing through a character in a novel that “to present life in the form of a narrative is always to falsify it.” He argues against Sartre that a life without a narrative would be “the disjointed parts of some possible narrative.” He also points out that we are the authors of our own narratives when we live them. The difference between an imaginary and a real character does not lie in the narrative form but in the degree of authorship. We have more constraints in our real narrative (Virtue 15. 214–215). But can we really and truly know ourselves? I cannot see how we ever could. We shall never know whether or not our sense impressions resemble their objects or whether or not

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

65

This insight into the irrationality of what we take to be our rationality invites us to reconsider who a philosopher is and who a philodoxer is. Indeed, we may now distinguish philosophers of two kinds and philodoxers of two kinds. Many, if not most, professional scholars would argue that for Plato a philosopher can possess only knowledge in an absolute sense. Dialectic, according to this Platonic view, is a way to eternal, unchanging truths. That Plato holds a view of this sort appears rather doubtful. He calls absolute knowledge nonhypothetical, and he argues that philosophers can only strive toward truth of this kind. The gods alone can truly be said to be wise, he reminds us. We humans can only aspire to wisdom (Phaedrus 278b–d again). A philosopher who is without divine pretensions aspires not to absolute wisdom but only to human wisdom of a relative sort. We may formulate hypotheses about our ideas and attempt to advance with our hypotheses toward a nonhypothetical first principle. Or we may employ our hypotheses merely to draw conclusions about our ideas (Republic 6. 509d–511e). I would add that our ideas are relative to our impressions, and our impressions relative to our circumstances, which in turn are bound to change. True, a philosopher may, with the aid of dialectic, treat ideas as ideas and study their relations to one another. In this manner we can treat our ideas as if they were eternal truths. But because we have the ability to view them as unchanging, we cannot conclude that we do grasp ideas that are truly unchanging. On the contrary, our ideas most often prove to be rather flimsy stuff, as do the impressions from which they come. Who, then, might a philosopher be? Someone who can contemplate our ideas merely as ideas. A false philosopher takes his ideas as such to be absolute and divine truths. But a true philosopher does not take any ideas to be god-given. He or she theorizes about them merely as human and relative truths. These truths at their very best can be only crude approximations of any divine truth. We mortals are able to formulate hypotheses only, and we find them all too soon refuted. Who, then, might be a philodoxer? I wish to argue that we may distinguish philodoxers of two kinds as well. The one kind is praiseworthy, and the other not. These kinds are, I think, both implicit in Plato’s dialogues. But Socrates devotes almost no discussion to philodoxers in an approbative sense, and he discusses at length those who are philodoxers in a pejorative sense. He, in fact, ridicules them. Philodoxers in the approbative sense are those who love opinion and recognize it for what it is. They recognize that knowledge in a specific sense they have any objects, not to reiterate the fact that their objects, if any there are, appear liable to unchanging change. Nonetheless, I can agree that a life without a narrative would be a jumble of disjointed parts, though I would prefer to call a narrative an example. I agree, too, that the difference between fiction and fact lies in external constraints, though these constraints are ultimately those which we perceive.

P1: FCW 0521863841c02

66



July 26, 2006

Human Goodness

concerns eternal and unchanging truth, and that opinion concerns truth that is temporal and changing. They do not confuse the two but assign to each its appropriate domain. The one concerns being, the other becoming. But these philodoxers Socrates would appear to think of as philosophers. He argues that a philosopher is someone who is not a persnickety thinker. A true philosopher loves all of knowledge and not some one part of it (Republic 5. 474c–475c). But to love knowledge in its entirety would be to love not only knowledge in the strict sense but also opinion. Philodoxers in the pejorative sense, Socrates suggests, confuse knowledge and opinion, and for knowledge they substitute opinion. That is, they mistake for the unchanging objects of knowledge the changing objects of opinion. These characters believe, in other words, that their opinions concern necessary truths, though they concern truths merely contingent (475d–476e). Nowadays these characters may seem improbable. But I submit that we find major figures of this sort even in modern philosophy. Hume himself presents an example, I am sorry to say. He argues that philosophy concerns matters of fact; and matters of fact, he implies, are essentially matters of opinion. He honestly admits that he can find for moral reasoning no objective necessity in its object (Understanding 7. 1. 63–73). And yet he feels impelled to ascribe the alethetic qualities of knowledge in the specific sense to opinion. He must thus have recourse to a subjective necessity in order to explain causation. This subjective necessity, he concedes, is a mental habit (74–76). Kant agrees with Hume that our knowledge concerns an object without any necessity of its own. After all, he credits Hume with awaking him from his dogmatic slumbers (Prolegomena pref. 257–260). Yet he too holds that knowledge can be only necessary, and he argues that its necessity cannot be of an empirical origin. Kant accordingly advocates a subjective necessity for knowledge, albeit of a different kind from that which Hume advances. He substitutes a necessity of pure reason and its concepts for one of remembered concepts and habit (Prolegomena pref. 260–261; 2. 310–313).37 What I advocate, then, is philodoxy as love of opinion. I am arguing that true philodoxers love opinion, but they recognize that opinion is contingent knowledge about objects of change. They accept the fact that opinion may be true or false, and they acknowledge that opinion may be true or false because its object can and does change. In short, a philodoxer in an approbative sense is a rhetorician in the best sense. I wish only that I could take James to be a philodoxer in the best sense. He argues repeatedly against dogmatism, and he adjures us to regard our concepts ultimately as percepts. Yet he does not recognize opinion concerned with cognized matters of fact but only opinion concerned with felt matters 37

But, then, contemporary analytic philosophers with their logical schemata are hardly immune to this philosophical malady. Quine presents an obvious exception.

19:40

P1: FCW 0521863841c02




July 26, 2006

19:40

67

of fact. Mere feeling, when continuous, is what gives identity to an object, he argues (Empiricism 2. 49–52). But I might put my conclusion in a way more congenial to the Socratic spirit. A true philosopher could be only a dialectician and a rhetorician both. On the assumption, that is, that he or she would love knowledge in every sense and not try to reduce knowledge to only one sense. But, of course, a true philosopher could only aspire to knowledge in either sense. Am I arguing that we ultimately do not know but only opine? No, I am arguing that we can know. With definitions and demonstrations, we can know our own ideas. Knowledge in a strict sense is relations of ideas, as Hume so ably puts it. But these relations of ideas are not at all absolutes. They concern merely human ideas arrayed in accordance with the principle of contradiction. But I am also arguing that we do opine. I recognize with Plato the difference between knowledge and opinion. As does Hume, so may we accept the obvious fact that matters of fact are contingent or, if you will, irrational. But factual matters are not subject to the principle of contradiction. Yet facts so unreliable are amenable to argument by example, which would appear to be our least irrational guide for our action. Socrates accuses philodoxers of being dreamers because they take images for things (Republic 5. 476c–d). We must humbly accept this accusation. I am offering you nothing less than an oneiric philosophy. We, too, are dreamers because we take our percepts for reality. But we are dreamers of a different persuasion because we know that our dreams are merely dreams. That our impressions might resemble objects external to us, or that they should be caused by objects of this sort, are for us convenient hypotheses and nothing more.

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



July 20, 2006

3 Human Happiness

1. The familiar countenance in your mirror, when you gaze upon it, have you ever pondered the question, What am I? Perhaps, after a late glass of whisky, we all have on one occasion or another. I do not mean to ask, Who am I? We are each obviously so-and-so who lives at such-and-such an address. But I do mean to ask, What am I? What is a human being? What is the nature of this creature whose mercurial image now floats before my eyes? Surely, this question occurs to everyone in those anomalous moments when we slip out of our routine. No one, I am afraid, can truly answer this inordinate question, not even after a sip or two of good scotch. We are all destined inexorably to fail in our attempts to cogitate our own essence, despite our best efforts to obey the injunction of Delphic oracle. Why are we so destined? Obviously, we cannot presume to any divine knowledge of what we are. If he taught anything, Socrates surely taught us that we are incapable of aspiring to knowledge of any truth, true once and for all. He thought the mere presumption to knowledge of this kind to be the height of human folly. Can we not have human knowledge of ourselves? you may ask. I concede that we can. But our knowledge consists of tenets all too tentative. Socrates discovered his divine ignorance only by treating a pronouncement of the oracle as a hypothesis and by attempting to falsify it. With our knowledge we shall never be able to tell what ideal concept, which we would imperfectly imitate, might define what we truly are. Nor shall we be able to tell what material object, which would manifest itself in our machinations, might constitute our real selves. We can only test whatever concept we formulate about our identity with whatever percepts we have of ourselves, however much under our very gaze these percepts may twist and turn like the legendary Proteus. Well and good, you may say. But what are we to do? Shall we ignore our nocturnal question when we wake up in the morning, if indeed we remember it? Or should we not rather attempt to answer as best we can this unfathomable question? I think that we ought to make an attempt at 68

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

69

an answer, and I would suggest that we may begin to appease our curious curiosity with a hypothesis. A reasonable hypothesis to start with might be that human beings are essentially an intellectual activity. We are, after all, alleged to be rational animals! Perhaps an activity of this variety might make us what we are and make us morally good. We appear to be off to a good start. Our hypothesis apparently enjoys the sanction of ancient authority. Indeed, the ancient Greek philosophers repeatedly attempted to impress upon us that we are essentially an intellectual activity. Plato and Aristotle both argue that an activity of this kind we may value, if we so wish, for the sake of itself alone if not also for the sake of its consequences. We may value it as a final end, in other words. This activity they call our happiness ( ). But despite this endorsement, we find ourselves enmeshed in controversy almost immediately. What is the nature of this intellectual activity that we might possibly be? Many philosophers, mostly Platonists of one stripe or another, would argue that, if we wish to advocate an intellectual activity, we could hope to advance only a concept of happiness that is a theoretical activity. Reason of the theoretical kind, they explain, grasps what are most certainly necessary truths because it concerns indubitable concepts, pure and unchanging. We can be happy only when we philosophize about these sureties. One might suspect, however, that knowledge so certain and so pure is beyond the ken of us humans. We obviously know any theory, including philosophical theory, only by hypothesis. But I must also ask, How practical would a theoretical activity be even of this more humble human sort? We might contentedly philosophize away while the world tumbles down around us. Knowledge even of this kind would most likely be a disconcerting source of tragedy or comedy in varieties all too familiar. What might we be, then? I have little doubt, dear reader, if you have dabbled in moral philosophy, that you will recognize the aforesaid concept of happiness as the usual. Nor would you likely be surprised if I said that the aforesaid objections are the usual, too. What might come as a surprise, however, is that Plato himself brings against this very concept these very objections! One might wonder, then, whether we would not be prudent, at least, to revisit his concept of happiness. If we analyze it, we might possibly discover his concept to be a moral principle more pragmatic than we might have supposed. 2. That happiness is our goodness Plato does not doubt in the least. His assurance is manifest in a dialogue that by any account is his most celebrated. I refer to the Symposium. In this dialogue Plato portrays, among other things, Socrates relating a conversation he had with a woman named Diotima. In their conversation both she and he simply assume that happiness is our ultimate goodness. “By the possession of good things, those who are happy

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

70



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

are happy ( ),” she asserts, “and we have no additional need to ask further why he who wishes wishes to be happy.” “You speak the truth,” he replies (Symposium 205a). This agreement between Socrates and Diotima is for us most unfortunate. Because they agree, they do not pause to explain why happiness is our goodness. Nor do they even bother to discuss what happiness is. One might wonder, too, about the good things that make us happy. But let us not worry about these details. At least, not for the moment. I want to worry about a prior question, How viable a moral concept might happiness be for us mortals? Whatever might prove to be its content, and however we might hope to realize it, is happiness an eternal form, a tad too rich, perhaps, for our blood? Or is the concept somehow appropriate for us worldlings? Socrates and Diotima agree that happiness is a good that the gods enjoy (Symposium 202c, for example). But Diotima and Socrates further suggest that happiness might also be a good allotted to human beings. I wish, accordingly, to inquire about the metaphysical complexion of this moral concept. How, if there is indeed a difference, does divine felicity differ from human? Or, more to the point, Can we make a fulfillment of this kind, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, our own? I should like, therefore, to speak of love ( ). Love can provide the answers to all our questions! Diotima assures us. Love can answer not only our philosophical questions but even our practical ones. But how can he do so? If we eavesdrop on their conversation again, discreetly of course, we shall catch Diotima relating to Socrates a paramount fact about this affliction. Love is the very source of human happiness! she intimates. He who loves loves good things and loves good things to become his own (Symposium 204e, 206a). But he who makes good things his own, they have already agreed, is happy through their possession (204e–205a). What, then, might love be? Love is a daimon ( )! Indeed, Diotima informs us that love is a rather curious daimon. He has the power of translating and transporting messages between divine and human beings. With humans gods do not mingle, she explains. Only through a spirit comes about any intercourse or discourse between immortals and mortals. This communication is not without its protocols, either. It requires injunctions and requitals of the gods, and of us entreaties and sacrifices (202d–203a). What might this talk of a messenger and his messages mean? One cannot but wish that Plato had used fewer metaphors, despite their often sublime qualities. Fortunately, Diotima herself offers some resources for an interpretation of this particular image. She would appear to suggest that love is a daimon who is a go-between with resources sufficient to help us find our way from what we lack to what we wish to have (203c–e). Love, in other words, would appear to be a spirit who can help us fulfill our needs. She explains with an example. Her example strikes rather close to home – philosophy itself. Only through love are philosophers able to seek wisdom, she informs us. Philosophers, who are literally lovers of wisdom, love wisdom

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

71

because we are neither wise nor ignorant. If we were wise, we would not have any love of wisdom. We would surely be gods, and we would have no desire for knowledge because we would already have it. Nor would we have any desire for knowledge if we were totally ignorant. The ignorant who are truly such feel quite sufficient unto themselves. A person who feels no need has no desire, she rightly asserts (203e–204a). Diotima rests her example on the premise that we love only what we lack. Love is love of something, she explained to Socrates earlier. Love, in other words, must have an object. But the object of our affection must be something that we do not have. Otherwise, we would not wish to have it. We might appear to love something that we already have, she continues in a manner almost offhand. But when we say that we want something that we already have, what we really want is to have in the future what we enjoy in the present (199c–200e, 206a). Well and good. But how does a daimon with this charge help us attain what we want? Diotima does not trouble herself to explain her example further. But the example might bring to mind another daimon much more famous. Readers of Plato’s Apology may recall the daimon so important for Socrates and his life! Socrates has a spirit that is surely philosophical, if any is. His spirit, in fact, arises because he is neither wise nor ignorant. He is not possessed of divine wisdom or of abject ignorance. He professes only to know that he does not know! Hence, he displays a rather pronounced desire for more knowledge.1 Can this Socratic daimon enable us to understand better what love might be? I think it can. No one could deny that Socrates fancies himself an erotic figure of some sort. He actually claims, when the symposiasts propose the theme of love, that he knows nothing other than erotic matters ( ) (Symposium 177d–e)! He also reiterates this claim at the beginning and ending of his speech (198c–d, 212b–c). I would venture to surmise that his assertion could possibly be an allusion to his love of wisdom, not to mention his love of others who, too, love wisdom. Let us, then, ask, How does the Socratic daimon work? This spirit works only by hypothesis, of course. Socrates, recall, did not at first believe the oracle when she said that he was the wisest of men. So he treated her utterance as a hypothesis and attempted to refute it. But he failed in his attempt. He discovered that he was in fact the wisest of all because he knew that he had only his meager hypothetical wisdom, worth little or nothing (see Apology 20d–22e). Indeed, no love for wisdom could consummate itself in a greater object than a hypothetical one. Recall, if you will, Plato’s figure of the divided line. Socrates uses the divided line to show that we humans can have only 1

The scholars have long taken note of similarities between love and Socrates. But they fail, as far as I can tell, to observe any philosophical resemblances. They note instead merely physical ones (see, e.g., Rosen. Symposium 7. 233–234).

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

72



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

hypothetical knowledge. We may use our hypotheses as steppingstones for understanding a greater first principle, or we may use them as assumptions for reasoning to a lesser conclusion. But however we use them, we use only hypotheses in our attempt to attain knowledge (Republic 6. 509d–511e). Could a hypothesis, then, help us attain the object of our desire? Most likely it could. With a hypothesis may we not attempt to possess what we lack? When we seek knowledge, for example, a hypothesis surely functions for us in this way. Though he did not gain wisdom, with his hypothesis Socrates did begin to become wise. At least, he learned that he did not know. He was thus wiser than those who thought they knew when they did not. They were abjectly ignorant of their very ignorance! What, then, might love be? I would venture the hypothesis that love is a spirit who enables us to hypothesize! Indeed, we may say that a human being is no more and no less than an animal that hypothesizes or Homo hypothetens. Such is the human spirit, and such our rationality! Through Socrates we see how we may formulate hypotheses about things we desire to know. But may we not also formulate hypotheses about things we desire to opine? If so, could we not hypothesize about the things we desire to be or to do? About our very identity, that is, and our activity? We and our activity remain, after all, objects curiously contingent.2 We might now hazard a guess about the nature of the divine injunctions and compensations requisite for intercourse with the gods. Would not these be the philosophical requirements of hypothesizing and the rewards of understanding or reasoning successfully? And the entreaties and sacrifices on our part – what might they be? Could they be the relinquishing of old hypotheses and the searching for new hypotheses? The metaphor, I concede, is obscure about these points, which Diotima does not take up. So I shall not press my interpretation.3 2

3

MacIntyre offers the thesis that a human being is “a story-telling animal.” He argues that we are storytellers not only in our fictions but also in our actions and practices. We can know what we are to do only if we can discover what story we are a part of. We enter society with imputed characters and roles, and we must learn what characters and roles are imputed to us if we are to understand others and to respond to them (Virtue 15. 216). I agree that stories can serve to determine our character and our role in society and in life, presumably. But I would argue that a story can do so because it embodies a general hypothesis and illustrates it with a particular application. A story is an example, in a word. If we can see it as an example, whether imagined or remembered, we are then free to evaluate a story and its general hypothesis by its consequences. If need be, we could also revise and reformulate our hypothesis. We might even present others with an example of our new hypothesis in the form of a new story. I cannot tell whether Lamb is profound or pedestrian when he notes, “ and represent the mysterious agencies and influences by which the gods communicate with mortals” (Lamb, p. 179, n.1). Rosen thinks that, when he discusses love, Socrates contradicts his claim to know only that he does not know. Socrates, he argues, claims to know what the soul is and thus what

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

73

But one might object that Diotima would seem to imply with her example that philosophers are the only lovers destined to be happy. I must reply that they are hardly the only ones. Diotima uses the word “love” in its widest generic sense. “Every desire for good things and for being happy is for everyone the great and beguiling love ( ),” she affirms. Love includes, to take her own examples, not only love of wisdom ( ) but also love of sports ( ) and even money making (!" )! Although, she explains, those who love these things are not usually called lovers (Symposium 205c–d). One could easily add more examples of loves for other things of the soul and the body and for external objects. This word “love” is like the word “poetry,” she tells us. The word “poetry” in ancient Greek means to make anything that a human being might make. Poetry would thus include all the arts and crafts. But the word also means more specifically and exclusively to make a musical or metrical composition (205b–c). In modern English we in fact retain only this limited meaning, and we restrict the meaning even further to making a verse composition, which we call a poem.4 We encounter, then, once more, encrusted over with new conceptual and verbal accretions, we might say, our human daimon. We would best think of this spirit, which so unfailingly shadows our argument, as taking on three metamorphoses at least, though some might think them three entities. Our

4

the bond between men and gods is. To have this knowledge, he must resort to prophecy, “which allows us to surmise what we seek to know” (Symposium 7. 206–207). I would suggest that Socrates has hypothetical knowledge of love. After all, he knows hypothetically that he does not know. May he not also hypothesize about the nature of our soul and our ability to hypothesize? Nonetheless, I do concede that the formulation of a new hypothesis often does feel divinely inspired. But any hypothesis, however prophetic it turns out to be, cannot mark an end to human ignorance. Rosen takes Diotima to argue that we properly circumscribe the word “love” to one species only, and that this species is love of physical beauty (Symposium 7. 241, 243)! He declares further that our love for beauty “is not an end in itself.” If I read him rightly, he appears to think that we rather use our love of physical beauty for the sake of our goodness. Beauty of this kind would thus be a means to our happiness (240–241). But Diotima clearly implies that “love” refers to a homonymic genus. She explains that we apply the name for the genus to a certain species only, and that for other species we misuse other names (# !$% & ) (Symposium 205b). I would also ask, Ought we to love beauty of any kind for the sake of attaining our goodness? Perish the thought! Beauty is surely an end of its own if anything is. Rosen would thus imply that beauty is distinct from goodness. But I would understand Plato to identify beauty with goodness as well as with truth. Clearly, Socrates identifies beauty and goodness when he questions Agathon (Symposium 201c). Diotima, too, appears to identify these two qualities when she helps Socrates understand what love is (204e). Besides, I would remind my reader that to separate beauty from goodness would be decidedly unGreek. The very word '% is itself testimony to how closely the Greeks identified these qualities in their culture.

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

74



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

spirit appears not only in theoretical and practical cognition but apparently in practical conation as well. With our hypotheses we may attempt to fulfill our need for knowledge, opinion, or action. We may, indeed, view all three guises as shades of love. If dialectical, our spirit takes for its beloved a concept that is itself an object. A concept of this sort we call an intelligible entity or an idea.5 If rhetorical, especially if pragmatic, our spirit enamors itself of a percept that purports to be an external object. This percept is a sensible entity or an impression.6 But our spirit as practical desires to embody a concept in a percept. This percept, too, we may take for an object, which would be our action.7 A percept of this kind, as you may already suspect, is rhetorical as well. Yet one might still wonder, Even if known by hypothesis only, would not the form that our spirit contemplates still be theoretical? Would not human happiness, then, be an attempt to embody an eternal, fixed form in our action? And if so, would we not somehow be pretending to divine happiness? But if it is not theoretical, how could our concept of happiness be anything more than an ephemeral form, almost flimsy by contrast? And yet an attempt to embody a concept of this lesser sort would appear more suitable for mortals, such as we be. We must, therefore, ask, Does our happiness have a form that is permanent or transient? To answer this question, we must return to love and ask another question, What is his function ( )? Hearken to the words of the Mantinean woman again. Diotima tells Socrates that the work of love is “a begetting ( ) in beauty ( )( ))( in accordance both with body and with soul” (Symposium 206b; also 206e). “Pregnant (*) all human beings are in accordance with body and soul,” she explains to him, “and when we come of age, our nature desires to beget” (206c). One who is bursting with child is driven to distraction for beauty, she continues, “because he who is possessing it can relieve his heavy pangs” (206d–e).8 Pregnant, did she say? All human beings?! Yes, she did, and she would appear to mean males as well as females. Because she explains further that human pregnancy is a condition that induces us to strive to reproduce ourselves in perpetuity. Human love is a desire not simply for human goodness but also for our immortality ('% ). We desire our goodness to be forever ours, she argues. We all thus strive to attain our immortality (206e– 207a).9 5 6 7 8

9

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. This chapter! Lamb and many others translate “)( )”( in this passage as “upon the beautiful.” This translation implies that love begets not by parturition but by copulation. But Diotima clearly speaks of begetting in the sense of giving birth and not of having sex. Dover takes the passage quite literally. He thinks that males can be pregnant only with semen and beget when they ejaculate (147)!

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

75

But now the aforesaid objection would seem most apposite. We seem to be able, or at least to desire, to participate in divine happiness. If we wish to be immortal, do we not desire to identify with an eternal form? How else might we possibly achieve immortality? Diotima takes up this very objection. She explains quite explicitly that we cannot achieve immortality after this fashion. We are not like the gods, she tells us, who are ever the same ( ' + ).10 A mortal may participate in immortality only by leaving behind the old and decrepit for the new, which is different from (, ) and yet similar to its old self (+ - ) (208a–b; 207c–d). What can she mean? She explains further still. Though we say we are, we can never be quite the same. We cannot remain the same because we do not retain the same characteristics. We are continually becoming a new person, in other words. Our body is continually changing. Our hair and nails, for example, are obviously being replaced. Even our soul constantly changes, she argues. Our pleasures and pains, our desires and habits, our opinions and our knowledge itself all come and go (207d–208a). What Diotima suggests, then, is that immortality is of two orders. The gods are immortal in their unchangingness, but we mortals are immortal only in our changingness. We have seen that we cannot truly know our happiness, but we can only hypothesize about it. We now see that we must hypothesize about an object subject to change. That is, we may form only an opinion about the object of our innermost desire – our once and future selves. Human happiness, then, is not forever the same, as it would be if we were fortunate enough to possess a divine form. Our happiness can be only similar to itself from one precious moment to the next. We can attempt to embrace only a form that is not fixed in any way but in every way fleeting. Hence, we cannot but feel a desire to possess in perpetuity whatever goodness we might pretend to possess in the present (see again Symposium 199c–200e or 206a!). Socrates would argue that we must use dialectic to form our hypotheses about conceptual knowledge, and that our conceptual knowledge can provide a paradigm for grasping our impressions and their flimsy objects. But I wish to argue rather that we ought to use rhetoric with its examples to form hypotheses about perceptual knowledge, and that our perceptual knowledge can better inform us of our flickering impressions and their fickle objects. Do not these objects appear to have forms of their own? Do not these forms apparently come to be and cease to be? We may, nonetheless, agree with Socrates that we cannot possess any eternal knowledge, nor can we perform any action truly immortal. We may grasp only a tentative concept and engage in a tenuous deed, whether we 10

Actually, only one god turns out to be so pedigreed. He is, of course, the demiurge, who creates the universe and the other gods (see Timaeus 34a–b). But I anticipate Chapter 6.

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

76



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

use dialectical or rhetorical techniques. Consequently, we can never really and truly ever possess what appears to be our happiness. We can strive only to maintain our happiness, or rather its semblance, amidst the disconcerting ebbings and flowings of our selves and our surroundings. We can now answer another objection, apparently more formidable, that has surely arisen in the minds of more learned readers. What about the ladder of loves? Does not Diotima argue that we ascend from the love of a physical object to the love of the eternal form of beauty itself ( ) (Symposium 210a–e, 211b–d)? One might argue, therefore, that we do aspire to embody an eternal form in our activity, and we seek especially to embody this form in the activity of philosophizing. The Platonists, so-called, would seem to be right after all. This objection I must accept. But I must accept the objection with a qualification, and the qualification I take from Plato himself. Diotima argues, I must concede, that we do strive to attain a glimpse of beauty itself in its singular form ( ) (211a–b). Beauty itself is eternally and entirely and singularly beautiful, she explains (210e–211b). She even declares that life is worth living for any human being (. ' $/) who contemplates beauty itself (211d).11 But this form, Plato clearly indicates, we ought to value, could we but grasp it, not merely for itself but also for its consequences. Our love, Diotima explicitly argues, does not end in an ascent to the invariable form of beauty. But the form of the beauty provisions us for a descent of a very practical kind. Once we have caught sight of it, we can use this concept to perceive beauty in a visible object. Only with this perception, she tells us, can we beget true virtue ('0 '"%1) and not its illusion. Only thus can we become a friend of the gods (%2) and immortal ('% /), (Symposium 212a; but see, too, Republic 6. 519c–520a).12 11

12

Do you hear an echo of the Apology? The implication is that an unexamined life is bereft of beauty, but that an examined life might aspire to beauty (see Apology 37e–38a). An important, though sorely neglected, passage. Rosen, however, does recognize its importance. He argues that with a vision of beauty we can attempt to express virtue in our discourse. But because he thinks that we can possess beauty only by contemplating it, he unfortunately overlooks the fact that we can also express virtue in our action. He goes so far as to assert that love has “the specific excellence” of assisting us “in the attempt to attain immortality via the perception of beauty” (Symposium 7. 275–277). Vlastos is famous for finding fault with Plato’s theory of love. He argues that Plato denies us any love for an individual person. We can love only a universal, which might be instantiated in a person, but we cannot love a person himself. What we could love, he claims, would be an abstract complex of Platonic ideals (Platonic 1. 31–33, esp.). I submit that Vlastos has forgotten two important tenets of Plato’s philosophy. He would appear to assume, first, that our love for a universal is an exclusive affection. That is to say, we cannot love anything else if we love a universal. But this assumption is false. Love for a thing of beauty may not be as fine as love for beauty itself, could we but get a glimpse of it. But we can love beautiful things as well as whatever concept we have formed of beauty. A

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

77

But we must now take care not to forget that we cannot ever truly understand beauty itself, try as we may. We can only hope through our hypotheses to catch no more than a glimpse of this unique form. Nor can we ever aspire to embody an eternal form in our actions. We cannot remain one and the same through all eternity. But we can only remain similar to ourselves through time. We may embody an ephemeral form only. And only thus may we taste immortality. What, then, about the Phaedo? another learned reader might ask. Socrates explains to Cebes and Simmias, does he not, that we have an immortal soul? But how could an immortal soul not be an eternal form? Indeed, Socrates argues that our soul is a form that can bear only one of two contraries. She bears life rather than death, and she breathes life, as it were, into our body. Because she cannot be without her contrary, our soul may never herself accept death. She, rather, departs from our body when we die. Our soul, therefore, is immortal (Phaedo 105c–e). Ah, but you forget, my friend, what immortality is for us mortals. Mortal immortality, if you will, is merely to remain similar to ourselves through psychological and physical change. Our soul does not perish through changes of these sorts, but she endures and animates our body by remaining always similar to herself. Nor does she lose her potential to beget life after leaving one body. She may animate yet another in a similar way. Socrates, for example, lives when Phaedo narrates the dialogue to Echecrates (see hierarchy of love no more denies reality to love on a lower level than does a hierarchy of knowledge deny reality to conjecture or opinion (see, e.g., Republic 6. 509d–510b, 511d–e). His second lapse is metaphysical. He must surely concede that there can be no object without a form. Even objects of becoming have forms, albeit imperfect ones. Matter itself has an ultimate atomic structure for Plato (Timaeus 53c–55c). I would ask, then, how could we love an individual if not for the forms he embodies? Without any form we would find nothing to love! An individual is a unique, if imperfect, instantiation of various ideals (see, e.g., Phaedrus 251a). Nussbaum accepts and attempts to advance Vlastos’s criticisms of Plato. She, too, assumes that on Diotima’s account we can have true love of only one kind. The ladder of loves, she explains, shows that our love can be only for beauty itself, and that through its contemplation we assimilate ourselves to ideal beauty and isolate ourselves from becoming (Fragility 6. 176–184). Though she quotes it, she thus fails to give due consideration to Diotima’s assertion that the beautiful can serve us as a paradigm for beautiful virtues and actions. Not to mention the fact that any philosopher worth his salt must return to political life (Republic 6. 519c–520a). Nussbaum also appears to assume that through contemplation we can approximate, if not embody, a universal free from change (Fragility 6. 181–183). She thus commits the very error that Agathon made in his praise of love and that a young Socrates made when he spoke to Diotima. She thinks that love itself has the qualities of its object (see Symposium 204b–c). I would also note that despite our best cogitations we cannot become one with beauty itself and hence become immortal through unchanging knowledge. We are merely changing intellectual and moral instantiations of universals, and we are immortal only through becoming a new self similar to our old self (Symposium 207c–208b). Nussbaum, in fact, finds Plato aware that our knowledge will come to an end (Fragility 6. 195–196).

P1: FCW 0521863841c03


78


July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

esp. Phaedo 102a). He lives, too, when we read the dialogue millennia later, even surviving translation into barbaric languages (also see Symposium 215d)! Indeed, Socrates himself does not without qualification declare that the soul is immortal. He concludes only that our soul is most like ( ) the divine and immortal, and that she is most nearly (3 ) indissoluble (Phaedo 80a–b). What is more, he merely hypothesizes (4% ) beauty itself to be (100b). We are, I would conclude, an intellectual activity. But we are not an intellectual activity that is pure wisdom. If we were so refined, we would be gods, and we could pass our time, if time there would be for us, sipping nectar and munching ambrosia. We are rather an activity that is an intellectual inquiry. Because we know that we do not know, we are neither wise totally nor totally ignorant. We may only strive, therefore, to know more about the inscrutable objects of our scrutiny, including our own selves. How else might we come to grips with our paltry powers and our pitiful practices? Our poor souls exist, then, merely as daimonic hypotheses that constitute our identity. Only if we have a hypothesis about ourselves do we have a form that we might attempt to embody in our character and in our conduct. But any hypothesis about our selves can ultimately concern merely a percept purported to be about a less-than-stable object of changeless change. Our hypothesis can be only opinion, nothing more and nothing less. We might, then, best denominate any ethics of happiness not a eudaimonic ethics but merely a daimonic ethics. We see that we could never discover what our happiness really is, no matter how hard we try. Nor, if we knew, and we do not, could we ever truly embody what we take to be our happiness in our lives. We can only attempt to embody an approximation through change. My reader might observe, too, that we have discovered a teleology, at once moral and mortal. Our hypothesis, such as it is, can be, if we so wish, a formal cause of our action. This formal cause, should we choose to act on it, would become an efficient cause of our action.13 This same formal cause, should we choose to act on it for its own sake, would become a final cause of our action as well.14 3. What is human happiness? You are willing to concede, I hope, that we can have a practical concept of happiness. That is, the concept can be a general opinion that we may grasp, if only hypothetically, and that we may embody in our practical activity, if only haltingly. We mortals, then, might well find happiness itself to be an activity that makes us what we are and makes us morally good. But what might happiness be? What is this activity that the

13 14

Chapter 4. Chapters 5 and 6.

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

79

ancient Greeks claim we may value primarily for its own sake? which, indeed, if I read them rightly, they claim we ought to so value! Plato, unfortunately, does not appear to offer an explicit definition of happiness. Why he does not define it, I wish I knew. But he does permit us a glimpse of the concept in a more ambitious dialogue concerned with justice. Socrates suggests in the Republic that, to define happiness, one ought first to define justice. In a passage often overlooked, he apparently assumes that justice provides a condition, no doubt a moral one, for happiness. A man who is just ( ' 5), he argues, lives well (6 .$); and someone living well (6 7) ) is happy or even blissfully happy ( ) (Republic 1. 353e–354a; also Gorgias 470d–471d). Shall we, then, take up this suggestion and ask, What is justice? Does a just person really live well? and Is a person who lives well happy? Justice Socrates does define explicitly. We are just, he argues, when our intellectual and instinctual powers each engage in an activity proper to itself ( 4* 8 ) (Republic 4. 441d–e). We are wise ( ) when our mind knows what is beneficial for our soul, both part and whole, and rules over her (442c). We are courageous (' 2 ) when our combative impulse preserves the principle of our mind about what is fearful and what is not amidst pains and pleasures (442b–c). Our appetitive impulse, he tells us, has temperance (3 ") when it agrees that our mind ought to rule (442c–d).15 This concept of justice rests on a psychological presupposition: We have a soul that is tripartite, Socrates argues. Using the principle of contradiction, he distinguishes within us one intellectual power and two instinctual powers. We know that our calculative (5) faculty and our aggressive (%"5) and appetitive (%"5) faculties all differ from one another because they may obviously be in conflict with one another. Our intellect, for example, may fight against and restrain either our aggressive or our appetitive impulses (Republic 4. 436a–441c).16 15

16

Plato appears to sound a note of pessimism about our ability to control our appetitive impulse and to acquire temperance. One would think that we would exhibit temperance when our appetites preserve an opinion about what is desirable and what is not. But Plato takes temperance to be what we would more properly call restraint. Indeed, Socrates argues explicitly that temperance is restraint () because it is an agreement within our soul about what parts ought to rule and to be ruled (Republic 4. 430e–431b). This pessimism may also be evident in the fact that Plato finds our appetites to be the cause of war and other great evils (Republic 2. 373e). There is, however, nothing sacred about the number three. The tripartite division is simply sufficient for distinguishing the general lineaments of our faculties. Plato himself subdivides these three faculties in the very dialogue that we are discussing. The appetites, for example, he divides into the necessary and the unnecessary (Republic 2. 372d–373a; 8. 558d– 559d). The unnecessary he further divides into the lawful and the unlawful (Republic 9. 571a–572b). Williams denies that any psychological, or even biological, theory of our nature could provide a foundation for morality. But he does not ask of psychology, as does Plato, for

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

80



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

Also implicit in Plato’s definition is the presupposition that justice must rest on firm habit (9 ) (Republic 4. 444d–e). Indeed, Socrates proposes to test in a rather severe manner the guardians and their ability to retain their principles. Their tests are to include, metaphorically, ordeals by theft, sorcery, and force. That is, they must be given tasks that will try their abilities to remember and not to be deceived, to resist pleasures and pains, and to stand up to physical suffering (Republic 3. 412d–414b). We might say, then, that we are just when our intellectual and emotional powers work together in an organic unity. We may also say that this unity is a rational one that our mind conceives and constructs. Our mind, when wise, knows the whole of which it is a part and governs the whole in accordance with its knowledge. A just action, Socrates adds, is one that preserves ($7")( and perfects (7 7") a habit of such sort (3" 0 ,9 ) in our soul (Republic 4. 443e–444a).17 To illustrate his concept, Socrates presents two analogies. The one analogy is to music, and the other to gymnastics. The musical analogy is the more well known. When it is just, our soul, he explains, resembles a musical composition. He likens her activities to different musical tones and describes

17

general concepts of our faculties and their functions. He seeks instead specific concepts of moral norms and maxims for our action (Ethics 3. 43–47). These specific norms, however, general concepts of our nature obviously cannot provide. We can discover them only through our experiences of particular circumstances. McDowell, too, denies that a theory of our nature could provision us with any principles for morality. He argues that our practical wisdom gives us a “specific ethical outlook,” and that any attempt to reconstruct this outlook from nature leads to “bald naturalism” (World 4. 78–80). But naturalism of this bald variety, he suggests, is reductive and denies us any freedom (76–77). I would ask, however, Can we not learn by empirical observations that human beings possess an ethical outlook, as McDowell puts it? Can we not see that our practical reason can grasp truth and control desire without attempting to subject this faculty to outside influences? I think we can. Lest a Kantian object that we cannot empirically know with any certainty that we are free, I would hasten to add that this inference about our reason can be no stronger or weaker than any other empirical inference. We can never divine any fact about ourselves with absolute certainty. So shallow is our self-knowledge. Shorey translates “$7"”( and “7 7"” as “preserves” and “helps to produce” justice in our soul (Republic, vol. 1, pp. 413–417). Other translators tend to follow his lead. But if we only produce and preserve it, we shall never find that justice issues in just actions. Our actions, being a means to it, would issue only in this virtue. Once we have acquired it, however, we can perfect this virtue with our action. A virtue is, after all, a capacity for action, and action is its end. Translations of this infelicitous sort may be one source for a common misinterpretation of Plato’s view of virtue. But another source may lie deeper in a failure to distinguish actions that instill virtue during early education and actions that issue from virtue once we have acquired it. Slote, for example, thinks that good action for Plato is action “creating and/or sustaining the strength (or health, etc.) of the soul.” But he himself argues that good actions are those that “express or reflect inner strength” (Morals 1. 21, his emphasis; also 19–20). Plato would surely accept both propositions.

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

81

justice as a harmonizing together (9 ) of the highest, the lowest, and the middle tones, and, he adds, any others in between (443d–e). He takes his gymnastic analogy from medicine. As health is an interaction among our physical faculties of prevailing upon (2 ) and being prevailed upon (2%) by one another in accordance with nature ( 3 ), so justice is an interaction among our psychological faculties of prevailing upon (2 ) being prevailed upon (2%) by one another also in accordance with nature ( 3 ) (444c–d).18 What would our happiness be, then? My hypothesis, based on these familiar passages in Plato and to be bolstered by yet other considerations, is that, when our intellectual and emotional powers function together in an organic unity, we are happy. I am agreeing with Socrates that to be just is to live well, and to live well is to be happy. But to be just, we now see, is to have a soul organized rationally and rationally functioning. That a just soul is a condition of living well Socrates attempts to explain with another medicinal analogy. But Glaucon interjects. No more with a corrupted soul than with a corrupted body, is life worth living ( . ), he declares (Republic 4. 444e–445b)!19

18

19

Both music and gymnastics in their classical sense are wider concepts than their modern counterparts. Gymnastics includes, besides athletic competition, dancing, hunting, and horse riding, as well as nutrition and medicine (Republic 3. 403c–410b, 412b). Music includes not only music proper, concerned with melody and harmony, but all activities associated with the muses, such as literature, arts, crafts, and architecture (Republic 3. 392c–401d). Glaucon employs almost the very same phrase that Socrates uses at his trial. But Socrates adds a qualification. Namely, an unexamined life is one not worth living for a human being ( . ' %$/) (Apology 37e–38a). The implication is that to examine our life and to find it worth living is to discover our happiness! I am delighted to discover a new ally in Foot. With her most recent book she agrees that human goodness exists in a rational activity. She argues that human beings alone can choose to act from rational grounds. Quoting Aquinas, she explains that we humans can know our end as itself an end and our means to an end as means (Goodness 4. 53–56). Our rational activity, she further argues, we may define by a “general account of human necessities.” This account would include “an identification of elements of human good together with the story of what creatures of the human species can and cannot do.” Human good, she notes, depends upon “characteristics and capacities that are not needed by animals, never mind by plants” (Goodness 3. 41–47). Unfortunately, Foot does not agree that happiness is human goodness. She argues that happiness is primarily an enjoyment occasioned by a perception of the fact that something is good, though it may also be a gladness or a cheerfulness about what is good. That is, our happiness requires a propositional content that we are achieving something good. Her favorite examples are philosophizing and gardening (Goodness 6. 82–85, 97). What she calls happiness is thus an enjoyable awareness that we are engaged in a rational activity. Aristotle explicitly acknowledges an enjoyment of this kind as an adventitious pleasure that accompanies our happiness (Ethics 10. 4. 1174b31–33). Foot thus advocates a position that differs nominally from the position I am borrowing from the Greeks. She recognizes that our goodness lies in a rational activity, but she does not see that a rational activity might itself constitute our happiness. I would, however, like

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

82



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

I must add, however, that we need not only this moral condition but also appropriate material conditions. We must remember that we are no more than mere mortals. We most obviously have a body. Incredibly, moral philosophers tend to forget this most elementary fact. Until we encounter a problem with our health, that is, or our budget. But we could not perform a single action if we did not have a body. Nor ought we to forget that our body has needs of its own. Ultimately, we are an organism in an ecosystem.20

20

to think that, if she had considered it, Foot would have agreed with the ancient definition. Indeed, she points out that our happiness cannot consist in pleasure or contentment alone (Goodness 6. 85–86). We must take our happiness in a deep contentment with objects of a certain kind. These objects “are basic in human life, such as home, and family, and work, and friendship” (86–89). She appeals to her concept of our species life and how one might benefit a specific organism. One might benefit an organism by acting on it “to make it better” or by acting on its environment to protect it “from external harm” (90–94). She also argues in favor of certain common features of moral evaluation. These features include voluntariness, which entails intention and knowledge of what one is doing. They also include formal characteristics, such as the nature of an action, the end of an action, and the relation of the action to the judgment of an agent (Goodness 5. 66–77). I would now ask you to notice that Foot presents in her discussion of human goodness the three psychological functions on which our happiness rests. Knowledge is present explicitly in the formal features of moral evaluation. But courageous activity is present implicitly in protecting an organism from harm, and temperate activity is implicit in making an organism better. What is alone lacking for a complete discussion of happiness is justice of the kind found in our soul, and justice of this kind requires only the harmonious interplay of the aforesaid functions. Foot does, nonetheless, touch on justice of the social kind with her mention of family, work, and friendship. I am, of course, committing the naturalistic fallacy, so-called, and with gusto! To deny that we have a function distinguishing us from other beings and to deny that our goodness lies in our function appear to me simply to fly in the face of plain matters of empirical fact (also see, of course, Ethics 1. 7. 1097b22–1098a20). Foot heartily agrees that values are facts! She takes the view that human rationality is both reason-recognizing and reason-following. She explicitly argues that we can perceive moral facts and we can act on them (Goodness 1. 8–13, 20–23). She rejects explicitly the invidious distinction between fact and value (24). Nagel would agree, I imagine, that my position, like his own, is “normative realism.” He defines this position as an objective point of view that enables us “to discern what we really should do” and “to correct inclination” (View 8. 138–141). But, of course, he would not agree with me about the specific norms that we apprehend and apply in our action or about the interrelationship between these norms and our subjectivity. He retains a subjective surd (158–162). Dennett would appear to agree with the ontological essentials of this position but not with one important specific. Though apparently unaware of doing so, he actually advances a concept of the tripartite soul. He clearly recognizes our aggressive and appetitive functions. Indeed, he presents a natural history in which arise entities who are “crude guardians of their own interests.” These interests include “food seeking, predator avoiding, mate locating, mating, and health maintaining” (Room 2. 21–23). But one might better put predator avoidance under our defensive propensities. An entity with these interests, he explicitly asserts, “brings with it into the world its ‘good.’”

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

83

But we ought now to ask, What is this eudaimonic, or better daimonic, principle with which our intellect ought to organize her soul, discipline her powers, and develop her functions? Do we all share one and the same concept of happiness? Or do we each employ a different one? And could not a determined criminal discipline his soul with percepts decidedly immoral? One might think that a career criminal would actually need a discipline that is ice-cold. I admit these questions to be important. But I cannot hope to answer them, fortunately. You cannot tell us what our moral principle ought to be? Fortunately? No, I cannot. Fortunately! I cannot define a concept of happiness for you because what you ought to do depends upon your circumstances, both internal and external. We ought surely to do our best to develop concepts of our intellectual and instinctual powers and their activities, of how we ought to engage in these activities, when and where to engage in them, and so on. But these concepts are general precepts that we can only glean from particular percepts. We may say, to be sure, that these moral concepts do include some principles that we all share. These principles Plato himself makes explicit in his account of an ideal society. They explain the origin of a city. One principle is human neediness. Socrates argues that we come together in a city because each of us happens to be non–self-sufficient (! :) , " ). We have many needs, and to satisfy our needs, we must seek help from one another (Republic 2. 369b). But how do we help one another? Another principle is human cooperation. We may best help one another by each presenting his own work in common for all ( 4* ; % ), Socrates argues. We each ought to spend our time in one function, he explains, and provide one product for the others. We can thus perform a job for which we are naturally suited, perform our job better, and at the opportune moment (369e–370c). This principle modern readers know as the division of labor. We see, then, that our daimonic activities include social activities. We share with others two principles requiring and enabling us to organize into a society. These principles are in fact the principles of justice. May not justice well lie, Adeimantus wonders, in some service that we each perform for But Dennett also recognizes an intellectual function. He explains that the good of these creatures is “rather like Platonic Forms, pure abstracta,” though an entity need not recognize that it embodies them (Room 2. 23–24)! We humans, however, do recognize the forms we embody, and we can consciously act on our recognition. This recognition even gives us reasons for acting (24–26)! We have brains, which Dennett likens to “semantic engines”; and brains enable a creature to be “not only sensitive to patterns in its environment, but also sensitive to patterns in its own reactions to patterns in its environment” (Room 2. 28–30)! But, alas, Dennett also argues that we do not have perfect rationality. We remain subject to an irrational surd or a “syntactic engine.” We are ever so slightly like his famous Sphex (Room 2. 28, 30–31).

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

84



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

one another (Republic 2. 371e–372a)? That we each perform a function in accordance with the division of labor, Socrates argues, is indeed justice itself. Put in more colloquial terms, justice turns out to be that everyone mind their own business (Republic 4. 433a–b). We see, too, that we have already condemned the cool, calculating criminal and his shadowy activities. This nefarious character is unjust because he has no social function to perform for others. He manages to take what he needs from society, but he also manages not to contribute to society. He thus recognizes, at least implicitly, that he is non–self-sufficient, but he refuses to acknowledge any cooperative role for himself within a division of labor. But there are also other moral principles that we do not all share. What might they be? Socrates argues that these principles are concepts that enable us to perform our diverse social functions, and he delineates three general functions of this kind for his city. The rulers provide intellectual guidance for the city (Republic 2. 375e–376c), the soldiers provide for its defense (373e–374d), and the workers, shall we say, supply its needs (369c–d, 370c– 373d).21 Our whole life, Socrates argues at length, we must devote to our own social function and to our social function exclusively. Infamously, he favors the abolition of any distinct functions for a family or for an individual. A city ought to have as much unity as possible, he argues, and this unity it can supposedly obtain by abolishing all ties other than its own (Republic 5. 457b–466d). This position, no doubt, appears especially extreme to many contemporary readers. It so appears to us because we tend to another extreme – if not in word, at least in deed. We tend to favor the abolition of all activities associated with society or family in favor of individual activities. That our familial ties and social affiliations have become at present so tenuous surely attests to this fact.22 With regard to social organization, then, we might wish to consider less exclusiveness than either Plato or we appear to prefer. Aristotle, I believe, offers an alternative more moderate. He suggests that we ought to acknowledge not only our political and social roles but also our familial and individual roles (Politics 1. 1–2.). To give the undue priority to social and political functions, he explicitly argues against Plato, would destroy a city (Politics 2. 2–4.). But anyone who could live without these wider functions could be only a god or a beast (Politics 1. 2. 1253a1–7).23 21

22

23

These divisions, as do those of the soul, have their subdivisions, of course. The workers, for example, include, among others, farmers, weavers, and builders (Republic 2. 369d). On American individualism and its uncomfortable implications and complications one might especially consult Bellah et al. These alternatives our contemporary social and economic extremes would appear to approximate. I refer to the jetset and the homeless.

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

85

We ought also to recognize that we function within natural circumstances. Plato and Aristotle themselves touch on this fact. Our happiness, they argue, demands that we utilize natural resources in a moderate fashion. Plato observes that a greedy exploitation of our environment can easily lead to conflict and war (Republic 2. 372c–373e). He also notes that human society is subject to natural change, which can be cataclysmic (Timaeus 21e–23d). Aristotle suggests that our happiness depends on a moderate exploitation of natural resources, including human resources (Politics 7. 4–5.).24 You can see, then, that I am at best able to offer only a general hypothesis about what activities can define who we are. I can suggest only what our common nature and her activities might be. But this hypothesis, because general, does have its advantage. Though it is in theory subject to revision, we may find that in practice we need revise it with much less frequency than we would if it were more specific. Indeed, I am suggesting that we give serious consideration to a hypothesis over two millennia old, and that we might even do well to adopt it with, we shall see, only a very modest, yet not unimportant, modification!

24

Annas also recognizes that one may reject Plato’s “monolithic pattern” of human nature and yet accept his attempt “to ground the appeal of morality on human nature.” His concept of justice is “an intelligible demand on human nature, something in accordance with our potentialities for living creative and fulfilling lives.” His theory appeals “to facts about people the way they are” and “to facts that hold of everyone,” she argues (Introduction 13. 328–331, her emphasis). But she herself advocates that we develop a contemporary individualistic morality on Plato’s appeal to human nature and its facts. Plato, she explains, offers an “impersonal” morality, which “ignores everything which makes for individual and personal commitment.” She prefers instead an “impartial” morality, which requires that we “see other people as agents with desires, interests, and attachments like one’s own.” That is, we ought “to see people as individual sources of value” (331–334). I can only agree with MacIntyre, then, when he avers that we find our identity within a moral community. He argues that we cannot seek the good or exercise virtue only as individuals. We all approach our circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity and its role, such as a son or daughter, cousin or uncle, citizen or professional, or member of a clan, tribe, or nation (Virtue 15. 220–221). But I would argue that we may yet have an identity as an individual, even though an identity of this kind entails a role or a practice in his sense. My point, in other words, is that not all practices are social activities. I would point out, too, that we encounter natural identities and natural roles as an organism within an ecosystem. MacIntyre also reminds us of a helpful distinction concerning our personal identity. He distinguishes between a strict identity, “which is an all-or-nothing matter,” and a psychological continuity, which is “a matter of more or less.” Strict identity, he explains, would require that a claimant, say, have all the properties of an heir or not be an heir. Psychological continuity would be to have more or less the same abilities at fifty that one had at forty. But he goes on to argue that we can find a strict identity for ourselves only in “the concept of story and of that kind of unity of character which a story requires” (Virtue 15. 216–217). I would argue that a hypothesis can best provision us with a strict identity for our character, if only provisionally and temporarily. But our hypothesis about our character we may find embodied in a story, of course.

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

86



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

This general hypothesis, however, can serve only as a criterion for evaluating more specific concepts of our activities and ourselves. Any specific concept ought to be such that it enables us to organize our soul and her activities harmoniously. That is, our precepts ought to be consistent with our tripartite psychology. Nor would a specific concept enable us to remain in harmony with ourselves if it put us out of tune with our surroundings. We remain part and parcel of larger wholes, both social and natural.25 But we have yet to address another question of no little import. We must still ask, Is our rational activity itself our ultimate good? Or is our rational activity good because of its effects? Ought we to value our activity for its own sake, in other words, or ought we to value it for the sake of something 25

Williams is skeptical about an objective ground for ethics because he believes that a ground of this kind would have to demand of us some one life of a particular kind (Ethics 8. 152– 153). I share his skepticism about this demand for a particular life. But an objective ground that is general need not be prescriptive in this narrow sense. I am arguing that a ground for ethics can provide a general criterion for evaluating a plethora of particular lives, much as a biological genus provides for a variety of species. We could even draw an analogy between moral perception and perception of secondary qualities. Williams argues that we cannot because our ethical perceptions occur within some cultural world or other; but our color perception, say, depends on physiological faculties that have evolved in a physical world (148–152). But we can see that our ethical perceptions do rest on a general psychology and ultimately a cosmology, to use an old-fashioned term, which can provide an “adequate theory of error” (151). With MacIntyre we could, if we like, call our search for more specific hypotheses a quest. A quest, he argues, is a search for a good that can constitute for us a final end. This good will enable us, he explains, to order other goods, to understand the content of our virtues, and to give our lives integrity and constancy. A quest is thus a process of education in selfknowledge and in character (Virtue 15. 218–219). Obviously, we do continually seek better hypotheses with which to define our good, which is our happiness; and a hypothesis about our good has the advantages that MacIntyre enumerates. MacIntyre also argues that our virtues sustain our quest. They are dispositions that enable us to overcome “harms, dangers, temptations and distractions” and that enable us to increase our self-knowledge and our knowledge of the good (219–220). I am arguing, of course, that our practical reason with its hypotheses best sustains us on our quest. It does so in part through the cultivation of virtue, which can strengthen our resolve and keep us from moral digressions. But reason of this kind can also require that we allow old virtues to wither away and cultivate new ones to replace them. McDowell claims that we can refine the details of our ethical obligations, which we are aware of through our upbringing, but that we cannot construct our obligations out of natural materials. We can only take notice of natural facts that are relevant, presumably to our obligations (World 4. 80–82). I cannot but wonder who brought up our upbringers. In other words, from whom could those who started the tradition of ethical upbringing have gotten their obligations? I do not wish to deny the importance of moral education. But I would argue that education of any kind must start with empirical knowledge of some kind if it is to be true education. Moral education would best start, I am arguing, with empirical knowledge of our specific roles in society and in nature. Specific empirical concepts taken from our present circumstances would serve us better as moral norms than traditional ones that, though they may have served well enough in the past, can have no privileged application to our present predicaments.

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

87

else? When we are happy, do we perform an activity without regard to its consequences or do we do so with an eye to its consequences? Simply put, does our rational activity have intrinsic or instrumental value? Plato might seem to be of two minds about this question, however we formulate it. He surely offers arguments in favor of its intrinsic value. With his commonplace tests, for example, Socrates suggests that a just person will not forsake justice for other gain in any form (Republic 4. 442e–443b). But Socrates also implies with his political principles that we might find justice and happiness to be of instrumental value. The principles of non– self-sufficiency and the division of labor do serve us for the satisfaction of need (Republic 2. 369b–370c). We are better able with these principles than without to act in a manner that fulfills our needs (372a–c). The answer to our question is that we value happiness both for its own sake and for its consequences. At the very beginning of their discussion, Socrates and Glaucon explicitly agree that justice is a good we value for itself and its effects. They recognize goods of three kinds. There are those goods we value for themselves only, those valued for themselves and their effects, and those valued only for their effects. They see no need for argument to show not only that the highest good is valued for itself and its effects, but also that justice is a good of this kind (Republic 2. 357b–358a). Implicit in their agreement is a resemblance between justice and other goods, such as health (see Republic 2. 357c). Socrates later draws an analogy between justice and health, making this resemblance more explicit. Justice and health we seek both for themselves and for their effects, he argues. As we value healthy activities for their own sake and for their ability to preserve our health, so do we value just activities for their own sake and for their ability to preserve our justness (Republic 4. 444c–e). But we ought to value happiness for itself primarily. This point Socrates makes clear in his discussion of the guardians and their happiness, for example. He argues that the guardians, who defend their city from external and internal enemies, are probably the most happy of its citizens. Why? Because they perform the function of defending their city without regard to external reward. For their pains they are allowed only those external goods necessary for fulfilling their function. In addition to weapons, they receive merely room and board (Republic 4. 419a–421c; Republic 5. 465d–466c).26 26

MacIntyre has aptly described an activity with intrinsic value. An activity of this kind he calls a practice, and he very nicely portrays its internal values. He asks us to consider chess. Chess has obvious values internal to it, including “analytical skill, strategic imagination and competitive intensity.” But he also mentions as other examples of practices in this sense modern experimental sciences, such as physics, chemistry, and biology; the arts, especially portrait painting; and athletic games (Virtue 14. 187–191). Unfortunately, MacIntyre neglects the external values of these practices except to mention them by contrast. A young child, for example, may be initially motivated to play chess by the prospect of a reward, such as candy (188). Or a portrait painter might be motivated

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

88



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

Yet the guardians do defend their city. Their actions accordingly have beneficial consequences for themselves and their fellow citizens. They become especially necessary when their city or a neighboring city allows its needs to exceed its resources. The division of labor requires that there be specialists in the art of war, and that these specialists be able to defend their territory and its resources (Republic 2. 373e–374d). I would conclude, then, that our happiness is an activity that has a value primarily intrinsic and inherent. Happiness is inherent, at least potentially, because it rests on the natural functions of our soul. But to realize our happiness, we must with training and teaching organize these functions and cultivate them. Happiness is intrinsic because we can value this activity primarily as a goal in itself. But happiness does have value for its consequences. This value is an instrumental content contingent upon our resources, internal and external.27 An astute reader might now object, What about knowledge? The selfappointed Platonists may not be quite so quick to succumb to your

27

by considerations of fame and fortune (189). But many practices in his sense obviously do have important external values as their consequences. Performing scientific experiments, for example, not infrequently leads to new knowledge, and a portrait can have significant political and social effects. Even playing games can have good effects on our health, mental or physical. Williams overlooks the value of happiness as itself an end. He does not see that our reason could enable us to engage in an activity for its own sake. He identifies an activity proper to reason with concepts, apparently Kantian, of an autonomous will and its duty, and he dismisses any rational activity of this kind as untenable. He argues that reason only “controls, dominates, or rises above the desires” without, apparently, being itself a source of action (Shame 2. 40–43). Annas agrees with me about reason and its activity. She argues that Platonic reason is unlike Humeian reason. Reason for Plato “is thought of as having considerable motivation force of its own.” Hence, reason decides for the whole soul “in a way that does not take the ends of the other parts as given but may involve suppressing or restraining them.” Yet she does not quite argue explicitly that reason initiates an activity of value for itself. Reason, she asserts, has goals that “must dominate the whole life,” and its goals are “more than the dominance of rational planning” (Introduction 5. 133–135; also 125–126). But Irwin finds that Platonic reason is more like Humeian reason. He does argue that we are “capable of forming rational desires for non-instrumental goods that we can rationally discover.” But these rational desires are non-instrumental only in that they do not “simply endorse the preferences of the non-rational parts” of our soul. Our reason “discovers what is good for us by considering our nature as a whole, and not simply the aspects of our nature that are evident to the non-rational parts” (Ethics 15. 247). The implication is that reason can coordinate our desires for the sake of deferred satisfactions. The rational part “does not simply endorse the longer-term preferences of the appetitive part; it must modify them in the light of its view about the good of each part and of the whole.” The nonrational part can see in turn that the rational part makes decisions promoting “the satisfaction of its own longer-term preferences” (246). Again, our reason, he asserts, identifies ourselves “with something more than a restricted range of desires.” “Rule by the rational part,” he explains, “realizes our capacities as whole selves, rather than simply satisfying desires that constitute only a part of ourselves” (253–254).

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

89

arguments. They could agree that happiness is an activity we value primarily for its own sake. Only an activity of this sort could provide a human life with a goal. But their prime candidate for a life of this sort might still be a life of philosophizing. And philosophy, they would aver, has no practical consequences. At least, for Plato it does not. But these queer Platonists tend to forget that the guardians who are permitted to study philosophy are not allowed to linger in their studies. Or, if they remember, these philosophers do not think that Plato justifies their descent into politics. But acknowledging that knowledge has value for its own sake, Socrates does argue that, when they complete their studies, the guardians must be cajoled or coerced to leave the academy and to enter politics. They are destined to rule in their city (Republic 6. 519c–520a). And with good reason he so argues. The guardians, as do other citizens, have a job to do. He explicitly appeals to his principle of division of labor to show that they must fulfill their function (Republic 6. 519e–520a). The implication is that their city needs wise rulers who understand what the city is as a whole and what would be best for her, and who are able to rule in accordance with their understanding of her (see Republic 4. 428a–429a).28 28

When they divide human goods, Socrates and Glaucon classify knowing, which Glaucon actually denominates being prudent ( 2 ), not as a good valued merely for its own sake but rather as a good valued both for itself and its consequences (Republic 2. 357c). Most scholars, especially the Platonists and their antagonists, hold that knowledge for Plato is something good for its own sake only. Nussbaum is not atypical. She cites this very passage concerned with the classifications of goods, but she neglects to give any consideration to those goods valuable for themselves and for their effects. She compares intrinsic and instrumental goods only to one another (Fragility 5. 144–146). She accordingly attempts to argue that Plato finds knowledge, especially if philosophical, to be of value solely for its own sake (147–148). Annas, however, agrees that knowledge is good for itself and its effects. She correctly observes that Plato finds knowledge especially useful for military matters. But she finds this application “odd” and “grotesque.” Plato would seem to assume the guise of an “aggressive technocrat,” she laments. For him “pure theory proceeds in contempt of the practical world,” and yet it proffers “occasional spinoffs that improve war technology” (Introduction 11. 275–276). But she forgets that the guardians arise through the ranks of the military and that they have an interest in these applications for defense. After all, defense is an essential function of their city. Yet Annas also appears to view Plato as a Platonist. She cannot see why the guardians, once they have tasted philosophy, would ever want to waste their time on political matters. She does recognize that justice requires them to fulfill the function of ruling their city. They see their own happiness and interest “merely as part of the workings of the whole.” She also recognizes that they view their happiness “impersonally” and that they “see themselves externally” as “citizens with a part to play” (Introduction 10. 266–267, 268–269). But she asks “why should I do what justice requires?” The guardians “do not act in, or against, anybody’s interests, but in accordance with the impersonal prescriptions of what is absolutely just and good” (267–268, 269, her italics). Annas thus assumes that we ought to decide what our happiness and interest are from our own personal point of view. She apparently does not see that we can discover a natural

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

90



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

What most philosophers, both professors and pupils alike, find bothersome about this concept of knowledge is, I suspect, that Plato calls its object, the concept of justice, a form (+ ). In his discussion Socrates proposes to show not only that justice is a form found in a city but also that this form is found in her citizens (Republic 4. 434d–435b). But does not a form of this kind rest on what we nowadays may presume to be a mistaken metaphysics? Does not the very term itself imply an eternal, unchanging verity of some divine sort? I am afraid not. We can never, first of all, know the good itself or its form. Socrates is almost embarrassed when Glaucon presses him to explain what the good is, and he politely suggests that to do so would be beyond his powers at the moment. Instead he offers to elaborate his famous metaphor about the offspring of the good. But even so he still finds himself obliged to refuse a request to explain the parent concept later (Republic 6. 506b–507a). Nor can we know what justice as an ideal form might be. Plato stresses in the Republic that our knowledge of justice is merely hypothetical. From the very beginning Socrates suggests to Glaucon and Adeimantus that they might best use a hypothesis to define justice, though he does not use the term. He argues that they ought to search for justice writ large in a city and then to see if they can find justice writ small in its citizens (Republic 2. 368c– e). He even cautions them that the concept of justice they discover in a city, if not confirmed in its citizens, would have to be revised (Republic 4. 434d– 435a). But luckily they find their initial hypothesis confirmed, and revision is not needed (442d, 443b–d, 444a). More important, however, Socrates reminds us that we cannot embody even a hypothetical form in our activity, no matter how hard we try. Socrates cautions Glaucon and Adeimantus that they cannot expect a just city or a just citizen to be identical to their concept, even though it is merely hypothetical. They must rest content in their political discussion if they can show that a city or a citizen comes only to approximate their conceptual ideal. He uses another analogy. They have created a paradigm () of justice in words, as an artist might create a paradigm of beauty on a canvas. And no more than an artist would be at fault if no one existed with such beauty, so they are not at fault if no city or citizen exhibits their concept. concept of our happiness only through our reason and our external impressions. She would appear to have in mind a concept of happiness that is passional and rests on internal impressions (see Introduction 13. 332). A rational concept of happiness is impersonal and external because our general nature is the same for everyone or approximately the same. That our general nature is the same would not, however, rule out more specific natural abilities and talents that we might share with some, but not all, others. I also wonder if Annas grasps our social nature at its fullest. If we are parts of a whole, would not our happiness be at its best when in harmony with our whole? We would be taking cognizance of and acting in concert with a larger self. But, I hasten to add, we need hardly think of ourselves as parts of one whole exclusively.

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

91

Truth in words, he argues, is a finer thing than truth in deeds (Republic 5. 472b–473b; see, too, Republic 6. 484b–d). But I must now diverge, if ever so slightly, from our dear Plato. I would agree that we may use dialectic to attain theoretical knowledge. But I would argue with Aristotle that for practical knowledge we ought to employ rhetoric. With rhetoric we may discover the paradigms that we can embody in our action, if we so wish. Especially with argument by example (!) we ought to establish our moral principles – our own concept of our happiness. We ought to employ, accordingly, not the logical principle of contradiction but rather of the empirical principles of association. With these principles we can define only a deformed form, so to speak. That is, we can form only an empirical concept of our specific happiness as best we can from what we take to be our actual abilities to grapple with objects apparently situated before us at a given time and place.29 I must ask yet again, Why ought we as creatures of becoming expect our ideals to be anything more than imperfect? Even our most general precepts arise solely from our empirical percepts. We can thus resort only to remembered or imagined impressions for guidance in our present pursuit of happiness. That is to say, we must rely merely on ideas in a humble Humeian sense. 4. But is happiness truly our goodness? If we were to eschew a dialectical life of intelligibles, could we find our final end in a rhetorical life of perceptibles? This question takes us back to American pragmatism. American philosophers do not find the ancient Greek hypothesis about our happiness at all congenial. They express reservations especially about what they take to be 29

Aristotle distinguishes more sharply than Plato between knowledge of a theoretical and a practical kind. Theoretical knowledge has an object that cannot be otherwise, but practical knowledge has an object that can be otherwise (Ethics 6. 1. 1139a6–15). Theoretical knowledge we value for itself only, but we value practical knowledge for itself and its consequences (Ethics 6. 12.). The Platonists so-called would actually appear to be more Aristotelian than Platonic. Aristotle is the one who argues that we ought to strain every nerve to imbibe theory and thus to immortalize ourselves (Ethics 10. 7. 1177b33–1178a2). He is also the one who entreats us not to heed those who recommend that we attend to things human (1177b31–33). I take this plea to address the position taken by his predecessor. Plato clearly argues that philosophers must leave their studies and attend to politics (Republic 6. 519c–520a). Korsgaard agrees that Aristotle finds in theoretical knowledge an activity valued exclusively for itself (Creating 8. 238–239). But she also agrees in general that we may value what we do for itself and for its effects. She rests her discussion on Aristotle’s distinction between an activity ( ) and a motion ( " ). An activity we engage in for the sake of itself, but we engage in a motion for the sake of something else. We may take a walk, for example, for its own sake, or we may walk to the bank in order to withdraw some money. But we may also perform as an activity something that is a motion, she points out. We might engage in building houses as an end in itself, but we are at the same time producing houses (236–238).

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

92



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

the metaphysical status of the ancient concept. They take the concept, as do so many contemporaries, to be an eternal, unchanging ideal. What an odd notion! Because of their metaphysical qualms, these pragmatic philosophers, ironically enough, neglect to give any consideration to the content of the Greek concept. They proceed instead to propound a very different hypothesis about our happiness. They argue not only that human values are not eternal or unchanging but also that our values are, therefore, not rational or objective. What values do they espouse, then? Those which arise out of our passions and are subjective. Their aversion to Greek metaphysics, however, and their subsequent neglect of Greek values present us with an exceptional opportunity for testing our own hypothesis. I propose to ask, How well could the Greek concept of happiness stand up to the American concept? Ought we to advance the ancient, objective concept of our goodness or the contemporary, subjective concept? That is, ought we to seek our happiness in an activity valued for its own daimonic self or in an activity valued for its hedonic effects? An answer to this question entails consequences that are not inconsiderable. I wish especially to ask, How compatible is the American view of knowledge and its object with the Greek view of our goodness, should it prevail? Could we possibly combine the contemporary pragmatic method with the ancient concept of happiness? A moral theory combining a pragmatic method with a daimonic end would avail us of the advantages of American and Greek ethics both. We would be able to enjoy the resourcefulness and refinements of an empirical methodology together with the fulfillments and finalities of a moral teleology. I suggest, then, that we turn to a paradigmatic pragmatist to see whether the ancient hypothesis can prevail. Consider William James, to take an example at random. One can see immediately that James advances an ethics containing a rather astonishing concept of human nature. His concept bears a salient similarity to that of the Greeks. James argues that our intellectual faculty has a function that, he explicitly asserts, is “teleological”! The mind in its capacity for conceiving or theorizing “functions exclusively for the sake of ends” (Will 4. 117–118, his emphasis). What is more, James not only advocates a teleology, but he also advocates a teleology that rests on an organic concept of our psychological faculties! Our intellectual faculty, he explains, appears only “as one element in an organic mental whole.” This whole includes, besides our cognitive ability, our emotional responses to external things of practical interest (140–141). One might, then, be tempted to surmise that James has a moral position more similar than we might have thought to the position of the Greeks. After all, Plato clearly argues in favor of a teleology, though he does not use the term, which German philosophers invented in the eighteenth century. And the teleology that Plato advocates is an organic one as well. Our psychological

4:41

P1: FCW 0521863841c03



Human Happiness

July 20, 2006

4:41

93

faculties each have a function to fulfill, he argues, and they function together in a whole within which the mind rules over our passions. But our conjecture would be a tad premature. James develops a concept of our psychological faculties with a dissimilarity to the Greek concept no less striking than its similarities. He argues that our intellectual faculty ought to be ruled by our instinctual ones. Though part of an organic whole, our cognitive faculty is a mere “minister to higher mental powers.” But these higher powers, he claims, are “the powers of the will.” They are our “response to the nature of things,” a response that he characterizes as “moral and volitional” (140–141). The teleology that James advances follows from his concept of reflex action. A reflex action is “the result of outward discharges from the nervous centres,” and these discharges are “the result of impressions from the external world” (113–114). Relying on modern physiology, he explains further. Though it is an “essentially teleological mechanism,” our mind effects concepts for no other purpose than “the interests of our volitional nature.” Its ends are set by “our emotional and practical subjectivity” and not by our sense impressions (117–120). James thus agrees with Plato in advocating a moral teleology, and both philosophers favor an organic psychology. But Plato advocates a teleological end that is intellectual; James prefers an end that is passional. With their psychologies the one gives precedence to our mental powers, the other to our emotional powers.30 We might wonder, then, What does James have to say about our goodness? James does argue that human goodness is happiness. But his concept of happiness bears to the ancient concept a resemblance no more than verbal. Happiness, on his account, is the satisfaction of desire. “The essence of the good,” he declares, “is simply to satisfy demand” (Will 6. 200–201, emphasis his). By “demand” he means nothing other than the demands of desire reinforced by a physiological reflex. What demand we satisfy depends on what demands we have. We cannot, alas, satisfy them all. Our desires are always greater than our world can 30

McDowell is a contemporary ethicist who takes a position similar to that of Plato. He denies that his position is Platonic. Or, at least, that it is “rampant platonism.” He argues rightly, I think, that reason is not autonomous in the sense that it is independent of anything human, and that spontaneity is “our way of actualizing ourselves as animals” (World 4. 77–78). Yet he does advocate what he calls “naturalized platonism” (91–92). We can actualize ourselves only from within “a specific ethical outlook,” he argues (78–80). He explicitly asserts that a “decent upbringing” alone can initiate us into our ethical thinking. Thinking of this sort we cannot escape, though we may refine its “detailed layout” (80–82, 91–92). He would thus substitute for eternal Platonic values inculcated traditional values. Williams is a contemporary who takes basically the same position as James does. But he makes matters even more acute, or perhaps more chronic, by placing an emphasis on our acquired emotional dispositions, which he takes to be all but incorrigible (Ethics 3. 47–53, esp.).

P1: FCW 0521863841c03

94



July 20, 2006

Human Goodness

possibly supply, he continues (202–203). We ought, therefore, to satisfy as many demands as we can. That is, we must strive for the “best whole.” But the best whole turns out to be the one that results in the least dissatisfaction or that, in other words, prevails with the least cost (205–206, his emphasis again).31 With his moral teleology James is, we might say, standing Plato on his head. Plato claims that we are happy only when our intellect rules our passions, and not when our intellect is ruled by our passions. But James claims that, when our passions rule our intellect, we are happy, and not when our passions are ruled by our intellect. Happiness for the Greek is a reflective action, but for the American a reflex action. We may thus reformulate our original question, Is a Platonic or a Jamesian teleology more desirable? Ought we to pursue happiness in the ancient sense of an action valued primarily for the sake of itself? or in the contemporary sense of an action valued primarily for its satisfactory consequences? What is at stake is thus whether our action has value that is primarily intrinsic or instrumental. Whether or not its value is inherent is not at issue. Inherent it is on either hypothesis. With this articulation of our question, we now summon another ancient spirit who has been lurking about the premises of our argument. This spirit is that of Callicles, who was a reluctant host for the dialogue between Socrates and Gorgias. The dialogue was the one in which they discuss rhetoric and its power, you may recall. Plato portrays Callicles as impelled to come to the defense of Gorgias. In defending his guest, Callicles actually charges Socrates with speaking as if our lives had been turned upside down (:) . ' #

Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes

Human goodness

Psychology: Themes and Variations

Psychology: Themes & Variations

Victorian childhood: themes and variations

Women and Immigration Law: New Variations on Classical Feminist Themes

Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations

Bird Song: Biological Themes and Variations

Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations

Psychology: Themes and Variations (with Concept Charts)

Six themes on variation

Natural Goodness

Ontological Goodness

Natural Goodness

Blue Goodness

Platonic Studies

Natural Goodness

Blue Goodness

American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screendecades)

American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1990s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades)

American Cinema Of The 1970s: Themes And Variations

Against Absolute Goodness

Goodness and Advice (The University Center for Human Values Series)

In Search of Goodness

God and Goodness

Goodness and God's Will

Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes

Human goodness

Psychology: Themes and Variations

Psychology: Themes & Variations

Victorian childhood: themes and variations

Women and Immigration Law: New Variations on Classical Feminist Themes

Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations

Bird Song: Biological Themes and Variations

Attention in Early Development: Themes and Variations

Psychology: Themes and Variations (with Concept Charts)

Six themes on variation

Natural Goodness

Ontological Goodness

Natural Goodness

Blue Goodness

Platonic Studies

Natural Goodness

Blue Goodness

American Cinema of the 1910s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screendecades)

American Cinema of the 1960s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1990s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades)

American Cinema Of The 1970s: Themes And Variations

Against Absolute Goodness

Goodness and Advice (The University Center for Human Values Series)

In Search of Goodness

God and Goodness

Goodness and God's Will

Recommend Documents