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Problem
of
of
Political Science
and
the
Socrates
by
Leo Strauss
David Bolotin
St. John's College, Santa Fe
Christopher Bruell
Boston College
Thomas L. Pangle
University
of Toronto
The
following
which
lectures
of
lectures
by
the
late Leo
Strauss
Interpretation has
able
sources: none of
lectures
was edited
by Pro by him
that
among his papers in a state that would have it be published posthumously. In order to
part
this
fact,
the editors
mini
have decided to
These 27
and
present
them as
with
the bare
six
lectures
were
delivered
at the
November
7, 1958,
typescript, which was ap based on a tape recording. The original typescript can be found in parently the Strauss archives at the University of Chicago. The typescript contains
some
handwritten
corrections,
we are
and although
these are
not
in
Professor Strauss's
who worked
hand,
told
by
Professor Joseph
Cropsey,
Professor Strauss for many years and who is now his literary executor, that they might well have been made at his direction. Partly for this reason, and also because the revisions do seem to be improve
closely
indicating
for
a
what
the revisions
were
also
editorial changes
few
interpretation, Winter
128
Interpretation
are
grateful
tion, which we made without comment). We Stauffer for his secretarial assistance.
The last five
more of these six
to
Mr. Devin
lectures
were published
previously, in a
somewhat
heavily
edited
form,
under
tures,"
in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss, edited by Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of
[
1989
by
The
University
of
Chicago]),
pp.
103-183.
of
Socrates
I begin
with a word of
thanks to my colleague
said
and
feel
much
happier
would
after
he
I
these
words
Otherwise I
own glad
have
and
responsibility,
scientist, be
are1
cause quite a
marginal as
few
passages
of
these lectures
far
as political science
is concerned,
very I do not
agree.
By
study
of political
things as is not
or
subject to
nor
simply
lary
cal
to political activity.
philosophy.
Originally
distinction
between
political
philosophy is a consequence of the distinction between science in general and philosophy in general, and that distinction is of fairly recent date. Political philosophy or political science was originally the quest for the best regime or the best society, or the doctrine regarding the best regime or the best society, a pursuit which includes the study of all kinds of regimes.
The
political philosopher was
ity
who attempted
to
speak about
we
originally a man not engaged in political activ the best regime. If we seek, therefore, for the
science,
merely have to
identify
the first
man not en
in
political
activity
less
a man
His
name was
had three
chief charac
body consisted of three parts, the artisans, the farmers, and belonging to his city consisted of three parts, the sacred,
of
the common, and everyone's own. The laws too consisted only
three parts,
laws regarding outrage, laws regarding damage, and laws regarding homicide. The scheme is distinguished by its apparent simplicity and clarity. But, as Aris
totle observes, after
having
considered
it, it involves
much confusion.
The
con
fusion is
caused
by
Outstanding
among the particulars which Hippodamus suggested is his proposal that those who invent something beneficial for the city should receive honors from that
1996
by
The
University
of
Chicago. All
rights reserved.
interpretation, Winter
130
city.
Interpretation
When examining this proposal, Aristotle brings out the fact that Hippo damus hadn't given thought to the tension between political stability and tech we have made closer to nological change. On the basis of some
observations2
home,
bridled but to
of
we
suspect
the
existence of a and
connection
un
concern with
nological progress.
permanent
and
his
tech
seems
to lead
not
only to
confusion
confusion,
or permanent revolution.
an
The
unusual strangeness
man who
planned
was
the unusually had fathered it. I quote, "He also invented the division of cities into parts and he cut up the harbor of Athens. In his other activity too he
extensive account of ambition
led
by
he lived in
expensive
warm3
too overdone a
adornment of clothes
way.
He
attracted
attention
by
his hair, and also by the adorned character of his cheap but which he wore not only in winter but in summer periods as well. And
to be known as learned in giving an
a peculiar account of nature as a
account of nature as a
he
whol
wished
It
looks
build
as
if
whole,
the
number
three as the
key
to all
on
it his
triadic plan of
elaborated
things, enabled or compelled Hippodamus to the best city. It looks as if Hippodamus had
a mathematical physics
applied a
formula
in
hope thus to
achieve
the
utmost
clarity
and simplicity.
But in fact he
arrives at
he has
by
themselves.
Our
search
for the
disappointing
thought4
result.
cannot
mortifying Hippodamus may have been the first political scientist; his have been the origin of political science or political philosophy.
this
has led to
and somewhat
We may
raised raised
wonder whether
is
not5
deserved
punishment
we
origin
of political
science
having
inquiry
into the
is
relevant or necessary.
Every
concern
for the
the
no
past which
is
more
dissatisfaction
with
present.
In the best
present
is
self-sufficient.
Given the
extreme
rarity
of
wisdom, the wisdom of the wise men of any present needs for
the wise men of the past. But the
its
support the
dissatisfaction
with
the present
reason.
may have more peculiar or more Let us cast a glance at the present
distressing
reasons
What I
am
say is less
than with
the majority of
political scientists
going to in fact do
what
Chicago,
are engaged
in
by
science,
by
That politi
to the
cal science
is
scientific
to the extent to
it
can predict.
According
131
remains alive.
no
by
it naturally If it
harm if is
that evidence.
or change.
action
concerned
either preservation
preserves
it
bring
of
some
for the worse; if it changes it means to betterment. Political action is then guided by considerations
one cannot think of
better
worse, but
better
or worse without
implying
is
then guided
appear
by
some notion
character of
of good or
notions as
they primarily
have the
on
opinion;
prove to
they
be
bad
reflection
they
of
questionable.
as are no
As such, as opinions, they point to such longer questionable, they point to knowledge
point
thoughts6
of good
bad. Or
more
precisely they
good,
points
i.e.,
of
the
essential character of
to the fundamental
question of political
philosophy,
and
if therefore the
fundamental
question of political
philosophy retains its original evidence, polit temptation for thinking men. Positivistic political
question cannot cannot
be
answered
rationally,
be
answered at all.
Positivis
the evident
phy.
is therefore constantly endangered by both the urgent and character of the fundamental question raised by political philoso
compelled
It is therefore
political philosophy.
The
most elaborate as a
form
which
history
cal
of political
philosophy
detailed
proof of
philosophy,
show
see
Sabine,
political
in any
manner or
form. That
function to
obsolete.
that
precisely,
Prior to the
justi
fiably
mind
had
reached
of su
history
begin
of political philosophy.
Or, in
other
words,
philosophy is
would
perseded
at
Such
history
degree
naturally
of
question as
to the
of
identity
the
first
will
political philosopher.
with some
competence, it
that beginning.
begin
Hippodamus
Miletus
and
be
satisfied with
One may, however, wonder whether this kind of history is of any value. If we know beforehand that the history is the
study.
of political of political
philosophy
history
of a capital no reason
error,
One has
philosophy lacks the necessary incentive for dedicated for entering into the thought of the past with sympa
one
thy, eagerness, or respect, or for taking it seriously. Above all the necessary and sufficient proof of the
the
of political science an
up to date training in
132
Interpretation
in any way the study, however perfunctory, of the history of philosophy. They would argue as follows: The political scientist is is
to
which calls
science requires
political
concerned with the political scene of the present age, with a situation which
for
unprecedented
solutions,
not
perhaps a
judicious
mixture of politics
about
contemporary with that wholly unprecedented it. All thinkers of the past lacked the
minimum requirement of
for speaking
intelligently
about what
political
fundamentally
lore;
not
it the better; let us therefore make a clean sweep. I do believe that this step is advisable. It is quite true that we are confronted
the
less
we
know
of
Our
political situation
has nothing in
common with
The human
race
any is
it is
divided into is
a number of
independent
from
by
formida
and there
of governments.
not
governments,
and
societies
have distinct
by
ent
no means and
ments,
necessarily harmonious interests. A difference of kinds of govern therefore of the spirit more or less effectively permeating the differ
and
societies,
of
their
future,
hope for, from the point of view of our part of the globe, is uneasy coexistence. But one can only hope for it. In the decisive respect we are completely ignorant of the future.
makes
harmony
one can
However
may
most
be, it has
important
this in common
respect political
is ignorant
of
incapable
reliably to know in
predict
the
outcome of conflict
is
unpredictable
because
one cannot or
how
long
this
or
live,
how
the opposed armies will act in the test of battle. We have been brought to
chance can
be
controlled or
does
said
not
seriously
affect the
broad
of society. chance
Yet the
science which
is
control
of chance.
technology, hence on discoveries and in ventions, hence on events whose occurrence is by their very nature unpredict able. A simply unprecedented political situation would be a situation of vitally
now more than ever on science and
important dicted
in
its
consequences could
of
be
pre
In
other
the
disappearance
disappearance
of situations
political
But let
sound.
us assume
We
see
already today
that science
is
still
in its
infancy
that there
is entirely is
133
politi
between the
things.
They literally
do
not speak
clearer of
science
the
citizen and
comes all
from the primary perspective, the perspective of the citi zen, to the secondary or derivative perspective, the perspective of the political scientist, not dogmatically and haphazardly, but in an orderly and responsible fashion. For this
the
purpose one requires an articulate
understanding
of
of
the citi
Only
understand of
the perspective
the citizen.
The
safest empirical
basis for
or
such
an
inquiry
how
is the study
of the
historical
genesis of political
science,
this way
for the
first time,
scientific emerge
therefore,
out of
of course
in
a still primitive
form,
out of
the pre
understanding
of political
directly
being by
virtue of a
very
complex
transformation
philosophy,
and modern
political
by
virtue of a adequate
very
losophy. An
guished of
understanding Plato
and
distin
from
a mere use of
writings of
the political
Aristotle, for
most
important documents
tific understanding of the
most
of
the emergence of
pre-scien-
political
important documents
the
The
most
is the distinc
in
The distinction be
settled
means
by
science or
by
human
reason
may pursue, is, before the tribunal of reason, as Any good as any other end. Or, before the tribunal of human reason, all ends are equal. Reason has its place in the choice of means for pre-supposed ends. The
most
the
regarding the ends, does not lie within A bachelor without kith and kin who dedicates his
question
whole
of
amount of
money,
provided
he
the
in the
his country
or of
the human
The denial
of
the
possibility of rationality, distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate ends, leads naturally to the denial of the possibility of a common good. As a consequence, it becomes impossible to conceive of society as a genuine whole
which
is
capable
to
act.
Society
is
understood as a
kind
of
receptacle,
or a
pool,
within which
individuals individuals
and groups
and groups.
resultant of which
the
actions of
In
society,
is
134
Interpretation
qua
society
government or as
government,
an append all
appears as
derivative from
Since
Hence
political science
becomes
a choice of ends
non-rational.
is
not
and cannot
be rational, any
is, strictly
a
speaking,
Political
other
science, is
science
study
of non-rational
science,
political
is
us
a rational
study
at
of non-rational
Let
then look
Scientific knowledge
of
political
things is
preceded
by
what
is
loosely
knowledge
From the
knowledge
of political
things is suspect
prior
to examination;
status of
i.e.,
prior to transformation
into
scientific
folklore.
must
be invested in
establish facts with which, to say the least, every sane adult is thor familiar. But this is not all and not the most important point. According oughly to the most extreme, but yet by no means uncharacteristic view, no scientific
to
finding
and all
of
any kind
can
be definitive. I
no
quote:
"Empirical
hypotheses;
there are
final
propositions."
For
the
proposition, "Hitler's regime was destroyed in 1945", is a final proposition, in no way subject to future revision or in no way a hypothesis. If propositions of this kind and nature must be understood as hypotheses requiring further and
further testing,
ever8
political science
is
compelled
to become
ever more
more remote
from
what
the citizen
cannot
issues. Yet
tion;9
it
consists
the
discovery
in
in inductive reasoning, or As regards causality, present-day positivism teaches be no other justification for inductive reasoning than that it suc
of causes.
practice.
In
other
words,
causal
laws
are no more
bility.
Probability
statements are
same
observed and
include
frequencies
no rational
basis. It is
necessity; it is
a mere assumption.
There is
no rational objection
nothingness,
and
happening
will
be
only into thin air, but into a vanishing not only into
the possible end of the
as well.
What is true
of
apply to its
and
dence, nothing
out of
prevents us
nothing radically
causality has no evi from assuming that the world has come into being through nothing. Not only has rationality disappeared from
beginning. Since
the principle of
by
problematical.
All
coherence
rationality has
of
gone.
Rationality
may be
thought to survive
by
virtue of
of contradiction as
a principle of necessary and universal validity. But the status of this principle has become wholly obscure since it is neither empirical nor dependent on any agreement, convention, or logical construction. We are then entitled to say that
135
in
general10
and
by
the abandonment
reason,
or
by
the flight
from
reason.
has been
in
certain quarters
reason.
abandonment of
by
no means
an"
reflection,12
broader
and
deeper
pro
we must
try
to indicate.
day
positivism
is logical
positivism.
With
some
respects.
is
not
deviating from Hume's teaching, it is a logical teaching, that is to say, it a psychological teaching. The supplement to the critique of reason in
positivism
logical
is
is
symbolic
and natural
logic
and
theory
of probability.
In Hume that
positivism
supplement
a
is belief
analysis
instinct. The
sole concern of
logical
logical
of science. of
Kant,
Hume,
the validity
its psychological genesis. Yet Kant was enabled to transcend psy because he recognized what he called an a priori, let us say, act of chology pure reason. Hence science was for him the actualization of a potentiality natu
question of ral
a priori.
Therefore it
cannot avoid
becoming involved in psychology, for it is impossible to avoid the question, why science? On the basis of the positivistic premises, science must be under
the activity of a certain kind or organism, as an activity fulfilling important function in the life of this kind of organism. In brief, man is
stood as which cannot or an an
live well, without being able to predict, and live, organism, the most efficient form of prediction is science. This way of accounting for science has become extremely questionable. In the age of thermo-nuclear weap
ons
the positive
relation of science
to human
survival
has lost
all
the apparent
evidence which
it
formerly
possessed.
society;9
Furthermore,
difficult the
still
survival of underdeveloped
societies,
dares to say that the development of these Who societies, that is to say their transformation, that is to say, the destruction of their traditional manner of living, is a necessary prerequisite for these people's
living,
without
or
living
kind
well?
Those
people
survived
and
sometimes
lived
happily
any
science.
of a certain
of
While it becomes necessary to trace science to the needs organism, it is impossible to do so. For to the extent to be
shown
one would
in fact
are
judgment
on
science,
judgments
declared to be impossible
by
By
in
which
positivism
present-day He still
rules
universally
valid rules of
justice,
and
that those
may
136
Interpretation
properly be called natural law. This means from the point of view of his present day followers that his thought antedated the discovery of the significance of
cultural
diversity
or of
historical
change.
As
everyone
knows,
for proving the impossibility of rational or universally judgments is taken from the fact of such diversity and change. All
argument
thought is
separated
from Hume
by
what
is
the
day discovery of
proposition:
history. The
man
vulgar expression of
this decisive
is the trite
does
not think
in
a vacuum.
All thought is
said
to be essentially
dependent
on
the content
be
understood
situation in which it occurs. This applies not only to thought, but to its character as well. Human science itself must as a historical phenomenon. It is essential not to man but to a
certain
not
historical type
supplied
of man.
of science can
be
of
by
or
the logical
science,
or
by
psychology.
The
prem
ises
science,
the essential
character of
science,
or
as
it is laid down
by
the
logical
since
analysis of
meaningfulness, to
of of
history,
everything which can possibly become the object dependent on the structure of thought, or, if you wish,
thought is as such
logical
constructs.
The fundamental
science cannot must
science will
be
historical is in
psychology.
outside of
History
it is
not
be
course
is
The historical
process
is
rational.
Science in
general and
is histor
ical psychology in particular, is located within the process. It depends on prem ises which are not evident to man as man but which are imposed on specific
men,
on specific
by
history.
The first
man who
conclusion
from the
discovery
of
history
was
Nietzsche. He
mental
was
funda
It is
us
to be objective, but
subjective.
character solved
it
cannot
help being
for
by
the
fact that he
He
saw
only
a reason
for
self-complacency.
clarity the
problem of
diagnosed
the crisis of
modernity.
clearly than anyone else, prior to the World Wars at any rate, At the same time he realized that the necessary, al
to the origins.
human
future,
was a return
movement
toward a goal, or
for the overcoming of this crisis, or for a Nietzsche regarded modernity as a the project of a goal, which might very well be
degradation
of man.
He
described that
goal most
forcefully
has
in Zarathustra's
speech on the
Last Man.
all
a man who
achieved
suffering, misery, insoluble riddles, conflicts, and inequality, and therefore free from all great tasks, from all heroism, and from all dedication. The characteris-
137
this
life is the availability of what we are entitled to Nietzsche believed that this life was the
anarchism, socialism,
and
intended
nism. of
communism,
and
that
democracy
conflict,
liberalism
were
only
and
half-way
houses
on
Man's
possible
humanity
evils
greatness, he
held,
requires
of
suffering;
modern project
therefore reject the very desire for the re in this life, to say nothing of a next. stands or falls by science, by the belief that science can
one must
loosen
all
fetters. Science
appears as
being
the activity
of3
reason par
excellence, the
modern
project14
alism,
of
in the essentially
was origi noth
beneficent
character of reason.
Rationalism is
optimism.
Optimism be
actual world
is the best
possible world
because
ing
given.
Optimism
became eventually the doctrine that the actual world can and will be trans formed by man into the best imaginable world, the realm of freedom, freedom
from oppressions, scarcity, ignorance, and egoism, heaven on earth. The re action to it calls itself pessimism, that is to say, the doctrine that the world is necessarily evil, that the essence of life is blind will, and that salvation consists in negating world or life. Politically speaking this meant that the reply to the
atheism of atheism
the
left,
communism,
was
an atheism of
with
political
implications,
the pessimism of
Schopenhauer, Nietz
sche's teacher.
Schopenhauer's he
pessimism
did
not
Schopenhauer
and
by his
premises to understand
world,
or what
saintliness,
as a work or product of
life
and world.
World and life cannot be legitimately if they are the cause of saintli ness and salvation. Schopenhauer's pessimism did not satisfy Nietzsche for the further reason that the approaching crisis of the twentieth century seemed to
negated
call
for
counter
position
which
was
no
less militant,
give
no
less
prepared
was.
to
sacrifice
passive
everything for
pessimism of
a glorious
future,
than communism in
its way
reason,
most
The
Schopenhauer had to
pessimism.
It
was
of which
reason
is only
pale
reflex,
reached
its
intransigent
form.
Nietzsche first presented his thought in a book called The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. This book is based on the premise that Greek culture is the highest of all cultures, and that Greek tragedy, the tragedy of Aeschylus
and
Sophocles, is
the
peak of
that
peak.
The
decay
of
tragedy begins
with
Euripides. Here
in the tradi
tional admiration for classical Greek antiquity. The tradition combines the high
est admiration
for Sophocles
with the of
highest
admiration
tradition believed
in the
harmony
the
and
according to the
clearest pieces of
evidence, among
which a
138
not
Interpretation
the least
with
Euripides. There is
gulf,
an unbridgeable
gulf, between
classical
at
its
height
and
Socrates
destroyed
classical
tragedy. In
a
to achieve this
supreme act of
destruction, Socrates
must
have had
truly
demonic power, he must have been a demi-god. Not his knowledge, but his instinct compelled him to regard knowledge and not instinct as the highest, to
prefer
the
lucidity
of
knowledge
to
the
precision of
dialectics,
Socrates'
and and
even the
incarnation
of critical
par excellence.
praise of of
thought, he is the non-mystic, and the non-artist knowledge means that the whole is intelli
whole
knowledge
the
knowledge
virtue which
is the remedy for all evils, that virtue is is knowledge is happiness. This optimism
proto-type and
is the death
of tragedy.
first
ancestor of not a
the
job
but
way
not
of
life,
that
him to live
and
to die.
only the
antiquity
origina
turning
in the
history
mankind"
of
Nietzsche
proclaims
tor of rationalism, or
fateful
strand
in the
history
We
we
shall make
repelled
by
Nietzsche's partly indefensible statement if Nietzsche fails to make and to which he does
tes made, the
assumption
assumption
which
which
not even
refer, but
of
Socra
intelligibility
the
whole means
rationalism
implies the
assumption
the initial
rationalism
final supremacy of the good. Rationalism is indeed optimism if demands a teleological understanding of the whole. There is good
assertion
evidence
for the
According
who
founded
In the
words
of
Cicero,
which
prior to
Socrates
was
they
go,
the
and even
about
philosophy down from heaven and to to introduce it into the household, and to compel
call
and manners and about good and make
bad."
first to
place
it in
to
philosophy
inquire
life
In
other
words, Soc
rates was
the first to
purposeful
is to say,
whole.
activity,
key
to the
I have tried to
show
of political science.
why it has become necessary for us to study the origin This means, as appears now, that it is necessary for us to of Socrates. A few words in conclusion. The problem of
question of
Socratic
position.
But it
1 39
never wrote a
technical question, a merely historical question. Socrates line. We know Socrates only from four men who were more or less contemporary with him. Aristophanes 's comedy the Clouds, Xenophon's Socratic writings, the Platonic dialogues, and a number of remarks by Aristotle
are
important
first four
sources.
Of these four
sources
Xenophon's
Socratic
phon
writings appear at
of
is the only
these
man
who15
has
shown
in deed that he
history,
follow
I
for Xenophon
wrote
the
famous
continuation of
willing to His
discussion begin
with an analysis of
Xenophon, but I
Socrates
because the
oldest statement on
in
completeness
devote the
next meeting.
(OCTOBER
29, 1958)
chief sources on which we
Of the four
thought
of
depend if
we wish
to understand the
Socrates,
may receive of Socrates from the Clouds was expressed Nietzsche in terms like these. Socrates belongs to the outstanding seducers
sion which anyone
by
of
the
of
soul,
or
enlightenment which
is
accompanied and
by
the
virtue of
body
and soul.
foremost
sophist, the
fits perfectly into the whole work of Aristophanes, the great reactionary who opposed with all means at his disposal all new-fangled things, be it the democracy, the Euripidean tragedy or the pursuit of Socrates. The
tion of Socrates
point of view
from
which
Aristophanes looks
novel
at
justice,
not
old-fashioned
to him as a teacher of
injustice
but extremely foolish as well and hence utterly ridicu only extremely lous. He meets his deserved fate: a former disciple whose son had been com
evil
pletely
corrupted
by
lucky
and
ridiculous
Socrates burns down Socrates 's thinktank, and it is only a accident if Socrates and his disciples do not perish on that
to
perish.
occasion;
they deserve
far
The Clouds
are
when
defending
himself
against
his
official
accusation,
as to call the
tes, the first accusation which and final accusation. But even this
Aristophanean comedy an accusation of Socra became the model and the source of the second
expression
Especially
of
if the comedy is
viewed
in the light
of
its wholly unfounded character, one must describe Aristophanes 's action as a Ariscalumny. As Plato says in his Apology, he did none of the things which
140
Interpretation
appears as a sophist and a
philosopher,
course
whereas sworn
of natural
the
enemy
And, finally,
comic
treatment of
Socrates,
a treatment characterized
by
the
levity,
must appear
end.
To
speak
first
of the
striking
dissimilarity
between
we
Aristophanes'
Socrates
and
and the
true
Socrates, i.e.,
the Socrates
whom
Xenophon,
tes was not always the Socrates whom these disciples have celebrated. Plato's
Socrates tells
ophy in does not
an
on
the
day
of
and
to an amazing
we not
degree
when
he
was young.
He
long
this preoccupation
whether it did not last till close to the time at philosophy lasted the Clouds were conceived. As for Xenophon's Socrates, he was no
longer young
air"
or as a man
question of
seems phy.
he was already notorious as a man who was "measuring the resembling Aristophanes 's Socrates, and had not yet raised the what a perfect gentleman is, i.e., the kind of question to which he
when after
his break
he did
not
present
of philosopher as or
did Plato
and
Xenophon.
by
Aristophanes for
would
one of
comedies would
Socrates
And
while
a comic
have been politically in the same camp poet is perhaps compelled to caricature have have begun to
there
Aristophanes.
even
his fellow
partisans, the
caricatured.
caricature must we
the man to be
After
little bit
whether
of
fire
where
was so much
smoke,
we go on and
begin to
wonder
Aristophanes
accuser,
one
Platonic dialogue in
presented as
having
performance of the
Clouds. The
occasion was a
banquet
them
at
the end
of which
awake, two
of
being
Aristophanes
and
were engaged
in
friendly
was
conversation
subject
than
which
none
more
tophanes,
Aris is the
tophanes to
thesis propounded
by
Socrates. In
analysis,
The
is
a mixture of
friends
or about
their
innocuous
The
overestimation of their
Envy
of what?
would seem
to be envy
friend's16
wisdom.
The friend's
may
141
he believes and therefore he may be somewhat ridiculous, but be substantial enough to afford cause for envy. This analysis may of comedy is monstrously inadequate as an analysis of comedy in general, but it makes sense as Socrates's explanation of one particular comedy, the comedy
as great as
be
his
wisdom
par
brief,
on
the basis
of
no more plausible
are a
friendly
warning
addressed to
of
by
is
envy possibility that the primary object of Aristophanes 's envy Socrates's wisdom but Socrates's complete independence of that popular
necessarily depends, or Socrates's perfect freedom. As in all cases of this kind, the differences of interpretation ultimately proceed less from the consideration or the neglect of this or that particular fact
applause on which the comic poet
primary and fundamental disagreement. In our case the fundamental disagreement concerns tragedy. According to the view which is
or a
now
predominant,
since
highest,
fate
appears
tends to see
tragedy at its highest is truer and deeper than comedy at its life is essentially tragic. In the light of this assumption Socrates's to be simply tragic. On the basis of this assumption scholarship much more clearly the connection of the Platonic dialogues with
into the
question question
with
tragedy
whether as
raising the
Plato was familiar with the assump is not peculiar to modem times. No one tragedy was more aware than Plato of the fact that tragedy is the most deeply moving art. But from this, he held, it does not follow that tragedy is the deepest, or the highest art. He silently opposes the popular preference for tragedy. He suggests
to
whether
it
was
Plato's
assumption.
tion; the
prejudice
in favor
of
man must
be tragic
simply
matic
equated correct
trusively
dramatic poetry with tragedy he makes his Socrates unob Adeimantus by imputing to Adeimantus the assertion that dra
poetry embraces comedy as well. If we do not disregard the fact that the difference between tragedy and comedy corresponds somehow to the difference between weeping and laughing, we can bring out the issue involved in this
way.
One
of
modem
times, Sir
. .
Thomas
prove
to in his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation: ". More, that this life is no laughing time, but rather the time of weeping, we find
saviour
that our
himself I
wept
find
at
we
that he laughed
so much as once.
us no example of
that he
never
it. But
weeping
example of opposite.
Of the Platonic
and
Xenophontic Socrates
never
find
on
we
that he wept so
much as once.
He left
of
weeping, but
example of
laughing. He left
His
irony
is
us many examples of his joking, and none of his indignation. byword. He is not a tragic figure, but it is easy to see how he can
142
Interpretation
a comic
become
the
figure. The
philosopher who
falls into
ditch
while
observing
ordinary who, having find his way in it, is of course ridiculous, as Plato's Socrates himself points out. Viewed in the perspective of the non-phi
heavenly
returns
things or the
philosopher
left the
cave of
life,
to it and
cannot
losophers,
tive
of
ridiculous,
are
and viewed
in the
perspec
non-philosophers
necessarily
ridiculous;
the
meeting It is, as
is
of comedy.
of
hence
regarding Socrates is
These
remarks
prejudices.
are merely made for the purpose of counteracting certain The decision of the question under discussion can be expected only of
interpretation
will
be facili
tated,
to say the
least, by
general.
In glancing
struck
and
at modem
interpretations
of
by
the
political
background When
the
political
to
forget,
or
of
the comedies. It is as
are
if these
dealing
with comedies.
exuding deadly and No doubt they unwittingly contribute to the effect of the deadening comedies. Still, it is simpler to remember what Hegel has said about the Aris tophanean comedies: "If one has not read Aristophanes one can hardly know
of
first
line
black
coated ushers
seriousness.
how robustly
be."
and
inordinately
gay,
of what
beastlike contentment,
man can
Hegel's
when
statement reminds us of
has to
overcome
desire to understand, to and to love the Aristophanean comedy, it is appreciate, necessary that we should first be repelled by it. The means which Aristophanes employs in order
to make us laugh include gossip
or
and
blasphemy.
rustics
Through this
ill-looking
their best
and
ill-smelling
free
and as
sturdy
in
free
the
or
slave,
they
size
up
cows
horses, in
fools
of no
at17
one, be he
god or
wife or glorious
having
been fooled
by
the
them
ever so
loving
the
country
and
its
old and a
tested ways,
despising
and
new-fangled
and rootless
which
shoots
up for
day
so
in the city
that
its
with the
beautiful
they
can
and
enjoy
Aeschylus, Sophocles
amazingly experienced in the beautiful so that they will not stand for any parody which is not in its way as perfect as the original. Men of such birth and build are the audience of Aristophanes or (which is the same for any noncontemptible poet) the best or authoritative part of his audience. The audience
Eurip
ides;
and
143
as
Aristophanes
appeals or which
he
conjured
is the best
democracy
democracy
whose
rural popula
Aristophanes
makes us see
this audience at
periphery to its
center of sublime
delicacy;
do
not see
it
it strongly, in its bonds and bounds. We see equally well, only half of it, apparently its lower half, in fact its higher. We see only one half of humanity, apparently its lower half, in fact its higher. The other half is the
although we sense preserve of
tragedy.
Comedy
and
tragedy
but in
a way that the comedy must be sensed in the tragedy and the in the comedy. Comedy which begins at the lowest low, [ascends to the tragedy highest height,]18 whereas tragedy dwells at the center. Aristophanes has com
such
pared
beast
which
is
attracted
the
Graces
which,
however,
eagle of
when
it
can
be induced to
arise
soars
Zeus: it
enables
world of
the gods, to see with his own eyes the truth about the gods and to communicate this truth to his fellow mortals.
higher than any other art. It transcends every other art; it transcends in particular tragedy. Since it tran scends tragedy, it presupposes tragedy. The fact that it presupposes and tran
Comedy
rises
scends
expression
in the
parodies of
tragedies
which are
so
characteristic of
Comedy
Only
the comedy can present wise men as wise men, like Euripides and Socra
tes, men who as such transcend tragedy. This is not to deny that the Aristophanean comedy abounds with what is ridiculous19 ridiculous on the lowest level. But that comedy never presents as
what
what
only is by
within
the bounds
of
ridiculous. There
but
no
must
as
be absent, and hence that which is most distinguished from being dead in Hades.
is causing compassion. Also the truly Whereas in Aristophanes 's Frogs Aeschylus and Euripides are presented be
absent also what
as engaged
in
violent
name-calling, Sophocles
remains silent
throughout. The
Aristophanean comedy while abounding with what is by nature ridiculous on the lowest level, always transcends this kind of the ridiculous; it never remains
mere
buffoonery. That
to sight
worth within
which
is
by
nature
not
ridiculous is
not
omitted; it
comes
the
comedy.
and
its
to the presence
The Aristophanean comedy owes its depth within it of the solemn and the serious. We must
try
to find the
proper expression
which
Aristophanes is
se
rious. The
proper
expression,
a
i.e.,
own expression.
Here
difficulty
In
drama,
of
his
own
name.
The dramatic
play.
what
he is
driving
at
by
the
outcome of
his
Aristophanes
himself
144
makes
Interpretation
those human beings or those causes victorious
given which
in his
view ought
unpleas-
to be victorious,
ing
and
effect of
pleasing is incompatible with the required gratifying be, a drama is a play; certain human
be
other
beings,
way in
those other
human beings
human beings, they speak and act in the would act. The dramatic effect requires
because the
actors cease
contradistinction
to the
they
to represent,
or
because the
poet ceases to
be invisible
or
inaudible
annoying or ridiculous. Hence, whereas the destruction is fatal to the tragic effect it may heighten the comic
then able in his comedies to speak to the audience
characters possible
effect.
Aristophanes is
chorus or
directly; his
his
may
address not
only
one another
but the
audience as well.
It is
even
Acharnians,
reveals
himself to be the
chorus or
himself. At any
rate
Aristophanes
can use
his
for stating to the audience and hence also to his readers his intention. Thus he tells us that it is his intention to make us laugh but not
his
characters
through buffoonery. He claims that he is a comic poet who to its perfection. But much as he is concerned
concerned with the
with
has
raised
the
ridiculous, he is
on
comedy no less
of
serious,
with
making
men
better
by fighting
what
behalf
the
is good for the city or corruptors, by teaching is simply the best, and by saying what is just. Through his work, being and justice have become allies. He also makes a distinction between the
city
against enemies and what
well-
its
wise element of
his
ridiculous
element:
the
former
should
verba poetae
compel us to wonder
justice
and wisdom:
are
they
that
identical he
or
different? The
just things
made the
claim
poet
may
the
succeed
in reconciling the
the other, or
of
claims of
serious on
the
ridiculous
justice
on
other,
fundamental tension it
consists on
must remain.
In
understands
quality
of
of a
comedy
in preserving or restoring the ancestral or the old. The the other hand depends very much on the inventiveness
being
novel.
as
qualified
reactionary in
political
things;
a revolutionary.
is
essential to the
being
consists in its in the fact that in that comedy the comical is all pervasive: the serious itself appears only in the guise of the ridiculous. This must be intelligently understood. Just as literally speaking there can be no com peculiar greatness of
comedy
the total
comedy
or
plete
falsehood,
given the
primacy
of
truth, there
cannot
be
a ridiculous speech
145
of
length
which
does
passages,
given
the primacy
in
integrating
the serious
or even
inevitable limitations Aristophanes succeeds perfectly or the just into the ridiculous. The comical delusion is
never
impaired. How does he achieve this feat? It is easy to see how the castigation of the unjust can be achieved by ridi cule. For the sycophants, the demagogues, the over-zealous ju showing up rymen, the would-be heroic generals, the corrupting poets and sophists, it is
obviously useful to make a judicious use of gossip or slander about the ridicu lous looks and the ridiculous demeanor of the individuals in question. Further
more, one can hold up a mirror to the prevailing bad habits by exaggerating them ridiculously, by presenting their unexpected and yet, if one may say so,
destroyed
logical
consequences:
run
for
instance, by presenting
is
characterized
an
entirely
new-fangled
Athens,
women
by
women,
which
by
communism of
property,
the
final form
of extreme
democracy;
how the
equality of the communist order conflicts with the natural between the young and beautiful and the old and ugly; how this inequality natural inequality is corrected by a legal or conventional equality in accordance
with which no youth can of
enjoy his
girl
onerous
duty
scene
satisfying is too
hag;
demagogues little
clever
by
probably
present
in the
audience.
For the
folly
ridiculed
by
Aristophanes is
of
in the light
the
times,
of
in the
of
perspective of
who prefer
the simple,
brave,
Marathon,
with
those
Aeschylus to Euri
Contemporary
Greek
injustice
might arouse
indignation
and not
laughter if it
means: as
defeated
ease,
as
defeated
by
ridiculous
the
war-like
manhood
is defeated
wives'
by
their
with
abstinence
from inter
Cleon is defeated
his
own means
by
the
baser
sausage
seller who
is boosted
by
Yet how
defeat
of
the unjust
by
ridiculous
words,
victorious
justice? Or, in
other
how
can
one present
without
destroying
as of
comedy?
Aristophanes
this
difficulty
toward the
the just
or
the
movement
ancient soundness
is
a movement
just
busybody, the his farm, he Living man who natural pleasures: food, drink and, last but by no means least, enjoys the simple love. He enjoys these pleasures frankly. He gives his enjoyment a frank, a
man
is
his
own
business,
life.
the opposite of a
at
private
home,
on
wholly
unrestrained expression.
He
If he does this
as a
146
Interpretation
stage, he
says
in
be
said
in
public with
he
propriety be published;
presented as a
is
ridiculous.
of
justice is comically
movement
of public
folly
lication
of
essentially
enjoys
the
improper
everyone
because they are by nature enjoyable. privately A major theme, the first theme of the Aristophanean comedy, is then the tension between the city, the political community, and the family or the house
of
the
family
wife, legal
eros.
is love, and in the first place the love of husband The love of the parents for the children appears most
characteristically in the case of the mother who suffers most when her sons are sent into wars by the city. No such natural feelings bind mothers to the city. Thus
one might think that the
family
should
be the
the
model
for the
city.
In his
this
Assembly
thought;
shown
fantastic
character of
household,
therefore
lacking
ertheless
property of the members and therefore ruled by women. Nev the importance which Aristophanes assigns to the tension between city leads
one
family
polity.
and
healthy
city
or
the ancestral
The hero
the
poet
of the Acharnians, Dicaiopolis, who is clearly identified with himself, privately makes peace with the enemy of the city while every
one else
war
is
at war.
He is
persecuted
for this
act of
high treason
party but precisely by his rustic neighbors who are Marathon fighters. Dicaiopolis makes his head
on the executioner's
Euripides;9
using devices which he had in splitting his persecutors into two parties and therewith in stopping the persecution; as a consequence he enjoys the pleasures of peace, the pleasures of farm life, while everyone else remains
and while
block
borrowed from
he thus
succeeds
of as
expressing the same thought, if one says with Aeschylus and Euripides agree in the Frogs,
par
the
ancient
Aeschylus,
modem
Euripides
who gave
as
Socrates
in Plato's Ban
quet, Aphrodite is
nean
a goddess to whom together with Dionysus the Aristopha comedy is wholly devoted. Incidentally, this agreement between Aristophanes and Euripides and this disagreement between Aristophanes and
Aristophanes
was aware of
the
revolutionary character of his whole enterprise. The action his comedies expresses this characteristic of Aristophanes 's
Peace,20
thought. In the
and
by21
the
Birds,
Thesmophoriazusae,
politics
of soundness
in
is
achieved
by
radically
novel
means,
by
incom
politi-
polity
and
its
spirit.
about the
politically
problematic character of
147
But to return to the argument at hand, the phenomenon in the light Aristophanes looks critically at the city as such is the family or the household. His comedies may be said to be one commentary on the sentence in
the Nicomachean Ethics which reads: "Man is
than a political one,
and
by
nature a
pairing
animal rather
for the
the
than
begetting living in
poles
and
is
is
more common
herds)."
The two
between
Aristophanean comedy
on
moves
have hith
the other
erto appeared
to be
the one
hand,
is
and on
of enjoyment of
the pleasures
from the
one pole or
to the other
effected
in the
by wholly In the Peace the hero, Trygaeus, who is the comic poet himself in disguise, succeeds in stopping the horrors of an insane, fratricidal war
comedies means which are
ridiculous
unprecedented or extreme.
a
thin
as
by
for the
war and
he
wants
Having
not
arrived war
for the
in heaven, he finds out from Hermes that Zeus is responsible, itself, but for the continuation of the war: Zeus has put savage
War in charge, War has interred Peace in a deep pit, and Zeus has made it a capital crime to disinter her. The hero bribes Hermes with threats and promises, the chief promise being that Hermes will become the highest god, into assisting Peace. Trygaeus, acting against the express command of the highest god, succeeds in disinterring Peace and thus brings peace to all of Hellas. He does nothing, of course, to perform his promise to Hermes. Hermes him in
disinterring
is
superseded
completely
by Peace,
who
alone
is
worshipped.
By
rebelling
the
against
Zeus
and
the other gods, Trygaeus becomes the saviour. The just and
pleasant
gods.
life
be brought
about except
by dethroning
The
same
theme
is treated from
a somewhat
different
point of view
in the
Wasps. In that comedy a zealous old juryman is prevented by his sensible son, first through force and then through persuasion, from attending the sessions of
the law
at
of court and and
home
thus
not
from acting there unjustly. The son wishes his father to stay to hurt his fellow men, to feast and to enjoy the pleasures
The
son succeeds partly.
refined,
modem society.
The father is
prevailed not
upon to refined
stay away from the court and to go to a party. But he is enjoyments: he merely gets drunk, becomes entangled with
acts of assault and cannot
fit for
girl
flute
and enjoys
can
battery. His be
subdued.
savage nature
The father is
not a typical
juryman,
on
being
a poor
fellow
who
depends for is
ex
his livelihood
tremely
eager
he loves
to condemn people.
He
desire to
an a
injunction
of
defendant, he is
him
savage
having
of
committed a sin
148
gods.
Interpretation
It is surprising that the gods should be more punitive than men, for, as Trygaeus finds out when he had ascended to heaven, men appear to be less evil
than
they
underlying Wasps. To
gods.
from above, from the seat of the gods. The of the savagery of the gods is nowhere contradicted in the men somewhat more humane one must free them from the
they
are viewed
As Plato's Aristophanes
god.
puts are
thropic
The
other
gods
most philan
men.
In the
Thesmophoriazusae the
nian women
poet shows
by
the Athe
because he had
of what
There is
no question as
to the truth
Euripides had
the
reckoned with.
To
save
himself, Euripides,
It is
not
who
is
said
followed
only
concession which
he is
compelled
to make
longer say nasty things to the Clouds, the Thesmophoriazusae has a where the philosopher fails.
women
that he will no
about
happy
ending;
a poet succeeds
In the Birds
sick of soft
we see
which
they
a
are
lawsuits
they do
they
not wish
to pay,
not
and are
in
a
search
for
quiet,
and
happy
city
where
a man
does
have to be
busybody.
Having
one of a
arrived at
expect
information,
all will make
founding
city comprising
birds
the
democratic
world state.
That city, he
explains
to the
birds,
the
birds
the rulers of all men and all gods, for all traffic between men and gods (the
sacrifices) has to
posal
new
pass
in
which
pro
is adopted; the
gods;
they
into submission; the birds become the The ruler of the birds is our clever
to the universal
Athenian. But he
birds. The birds
wisest of all
men.
democracy
of
the
praise
they
beings; they
all-seeing, all-ruling
what
and altogether
friendly
among
not
to
Their life is
altogether
pleasant;
is "base
by
convention"
men
is
noble
desertion,
abolition of
least his
the
beating
father
wishes
is be
are
given able
to
to
beating
to
indulge his
inclination
with
impunity
of
the
birds
father he is told by the Athenian founder of the city of the birds that according to those laws the sons may not only not beat their fathers but must feed them when they are old. This is to say, it is possible to establish
beating
of one's
a universal
democracy
and
hence
universal
happiness
family. Eros,
which
men, requires
in the
case of men
family
city
149
of
the birds
is in the
process of
Athenian founder is
soothsayer,
spanked,
wishes to
visited
by
five
men:
by
decrees
laws
who are
thrown
out and
who
and
in the
central
air"
place
by
Meton,
Thales
"measure the
warns
The founder
the
Meton
as another
and
him
of
by
the citizens
love
dislike. Even in
the perfectly
happy
which seems
and
which
be
said
publicly
with propriety.
They
are
ridiculous
and
hence pleasing
propriety is sensed as a burden, as something imposed, its dignity to imposition, to convention, to nomos. In the something owing background of the Aristophanean comedy we discern the distinction between
to the extent to which
as
nomos and physis.
Hitherto
we
have
recognized step. as
the locus
of nature
in the fam
further
adultery
uses
That step is indicated by the frequent well as by facts like these: the hero of
son who corrects
the Birds is
some extent
pederast,
and
the sensible
in the Wasps
not
force
against
his
aged
tophanes does
stop
at
tempted to say that his comedies celebrate the victory of nature, as it reveals
itself in the pleasant, over convention or law, which is the locus of the noble and the just. Lest this be grossly misunderstood, one must add immediately two
points.
nomos
is
viewed
in the light
of
Aristophanes has
of nomos.
no
doubt
as
accompanying knowledge of nature. Above all, to the fact that nature, human nature, is in need
not reject nomos
Aristophanes does
but he
attempts
to
bring
to light
its
problematic
and precarious
body
and
the needs of
status, its status in between the needs of the the mind, for if one does not understand the precarious
unreasonable expectations modem
status of
nomos, one
is bound to have
from
nomos.
The
profoundest student of
Aristophanes in
interpretation "The
of
the Phe
nomenology of the
Mind (the
which
is
"Religion"
entitled
in the
subsection entitled
Art-Religion"
religion
Art-Religion Hegel it
means
expressing itself completely by art). By the the Greek religion, which he regarded as the highest
mination, or
full self-consciousness, in the Aristophanean comedy. Hegel says, "The individual consciousness having become cer In that comedy, Everything objective the tain of itself presents itself as the absolute
achieves
power."
family, justice
self-con-
150
Interpretation
taken back into it. The comedy presents
of alien and celebrates
sciousness or plete
the com
everything everything transcending the individual. The comedy cele brates the triumph of "the subjectivity in its infinite Man has made freedom from fear himself the
of
security."
insubstantiality
everything which he formerly regarded as the substantial content of his knowledge or action. This victory of subjectivity is one of the most important symptoms of the corruption of Greece. For our pres
complete master of ent purpose aesthetics
it is
not
necessary to dwell
not
on
Hegel does
consistently
maintain
But
we must note
that
nean
what
Hegel
calls
by
i.e.,
the opposite of
self-consciousness.
Let
nean
which we
find in the
he
puts
into the
mouth of
Aris
Only
few
points can
be
mentioned
here.
of
was
supposed
to make
his
speech
in honor
Eros
after not
made a pause.
But Aristophanes
got a
hiccough
and
he did
his
body,
place.
or perfect self-control
the physician
Aristophanes in have
proves
to
be interchangeable
the
general.
Aristophanes begins
power of
men
not seem to
experienced
Eros,
for if they had, they would build for him the greatest of temples and altars and bring him the greatest sacrifices, since Eros is the most philanthropic of all
gods.
following
now.
four23
story.
In the
olden
was
different from
it is
Each human
ears,
etc.
being
consisted of two
human be
exceeding
to attack
since
In this
they
undertook what
to ascend to
heaven in
could not
order
know
to
kill man,
by doing
covered
so
they
would out:
deprive themselves
honors
and sacrifices.
Zeus dis
this way
as
to weaken men
by
a
became This
they
are now.
After this
incision,
for
cutting them into two so that they each half is longing for the other.
wholeness,
is24
longing for
from
eros.
The
original
female. Those
present
an
human beings
beings
are the
are
who
original
female
are
present
human beings
from
homosexuals; they
most
because they
the
manly;
they
which
But taken
by
itself the
myth
teaches that
by
part of
in
which
they
of
become25
a serious
danger to the in
We
record
here in
the
Birds,
who succeeds
dethroning
-151
becoming
the
ruler
of
the
universe
through
the
birds, is
the
pederast
Peisthetaerus.26
[we must] go back to the origins of rationalism, and therefore to Socra document regarding Socrates is Aristophanes 's comedy, the Clouds. For an adequate understanding of the Clouds it is necessary to consider
. . .
repeat a
few
points
made
in general, or to understand the spirit of his comedy. last time. Aristophanean comedy has a two-fold
laugh
and
to
make us
to teach us
is
all pervasive.
not
presented
in
way
opportunity The just life, as he sees it, is the retired life, life pleasures of farm life, enjoyment of the pleasures love. These
The
pleasures are given
as to afford
to
achieve this
feat?
the
characters use
in the comedy a frank, unrestrained expression. the language of what, as I have learned through my frequent
readings
in the American Journal of Sociology, is called in this country the language of the stag party. The movement from the ridiculous of public folly to
the praise of public soundness is therefore a movement
public
of
folly
this
to the ridiculous of
impropriety,
not
alyzes
a
state of
family,
and
in this
context
the
family
appears
whole
to be one
appeal
from the
polis
words, Aristophanes
and
presupposes
law
or convention.
On the basis
not
tions the
family itself,
father,
the crime
from the
the
absolutely wrong in one of the comedies, in the Wasps. Hence the more proper description of the fundamental polarity would be this: the conflict between the pleasant on the one hand and the just and noble on the other. Now this life of
gaiety, peace,
and
enjoyment,
the natural
life,
for the
gods are
harsh. This
Here is I
a place
clearly in the Birds and in the Peace. blasphemies in Aristophanes.27 for the famous
comes out most
my general interpretation of the Aristophanean comedy by con it with the interpretation given by the greatest mind who has devoted trasting himself in modem times to Aristophanes, and that is Hegel. Hegel sees in the
concluded
152
Interpretation
of
subjectivity
morality,
over and
everything
gods.
objective
substantial,
over
family,
the
The subject,
to almost everything
of
in Aristophanes
this
thing
it, subjectivism, is in Aristophanes not the self-consciousness of the subject, but knowledge of nature, and the very opposite of self-consciousness. Aristophanes has brought this out most clearly
taking back,
we call
however
in
a scene
in the Birds in
a student of
which
by
an
astronomer,
admires and
nature,
loves that
student of
nature, but he
him
against
the
enmity
of
of the citizen
body,
or
or the populace.
In this
birds, but
the
application
to human
beings does
not require a
effort of the
intelligence
very Aristophanean
great
com
edy is knowledge of nature, and that means for the philosophy is a problem, philosophy does not have
tence. Here is
where
ancients philosophy.
But
in,
repeat a of
few things
the Clouds
said at
At the
beginning
sleep.
it is dark. Strepsiades, the hero of the comedy, the Socrates's downfall, is lying on his couch and cannot find
Socrates
his downfall to
light in the
literal sense, to a kind of Sancho Panza, to a rustic who has lost his bearings or has gone astray. It will do no great harm if this comparison sug
gests siades crook. a
similarity between Aristophanes 's Socrates and Don Quixote. Strep is not an embodiment of stem, old-fashioned justice, he is rather a
He is
has
married a
patrician
lady. The offspring of the marriage, their son Pheidippides, has inher ited the expensive tastes of his mother's line. He is a passionate horseman. He
run
has
exorbitant
debt. In
order
to get
rid
of
his debts,
Strep
siades
had decided to
send
his
spendthrift son to
Socrates,
ager of a at
thinktank, so that he might learn how to talk himself out of his debts lawcourts. Strepsiades knows this much of Socrates, that Socrates talks about
the
heavens, and besides, teaches people for money how they can win every lawsuit, by fair means or foul. But although he lives next door, Strepsiades
does
not
matter
know Socrates's name, whereas his sophisticated son knows it as a of course. His son refuses to become Socrates's pupil. The elegant
young horseman has nothing but contempt for Socrates and his companions, "those pale-faced and ill-dressed boasters and beggars", hence Strepsiades him self is compelled to become Socrates's pupil. Let us reflect for a moment about
this situation,
common people
do know
of
it comes to sight right at the beginning of the Clouds. The know nothing of Socrates, not even his name. The patricians Socrates, but they despise him as a ridiculous sort of beggar.
as
153
Socrates does
ety. gotten
any danger from the two most powerful sections of soci If Strepsiades had remained within his station, Socrates would never have
not run
get
a certain
inbetween
type
of
is
not
distinguished
by honesty.
who
Here
we remind ourselves of
Wasps,
is
gods look askance at acquittals, is also socially an inbetween type. Needless to say that the demagogues too belong to the inbe tween type. Strepsiades then sends his son to Socrates so that he might leam
dishonest
practices
corruption of
his son,
for him. Strepsiades is ultimately responsible for a possible and yet this will not prevent him from making Socrates
or school.
alone responsible.
Socrates's thinktank
Misled
by
what
the Platonic
Socrates
ing
all
in his apology addressed to the Athenian people about his spend his time in the market place, some people think that the school house of
a pure or
Socrates is
impure invention
of
his friends
and
to study
with
them the books of the wise men of old, and that he never ceased
considering with them what each of the beings is. Given the fact that Socrates was the leader in these gatherings, and that the activities mentioned cannot well in28 be engaged in the market-place, Xenophon tells us then in effect that Socra
tes was a teacher, if a
perfect
has pupils,
munity Strepsiades is
received
of teachers and
enters
building, is
a school.
by
a pupil of
considerable
time before
he
meets
Socrates. Socrates is
not as
of access as
Euripides in
a comparable scene
pupil
is going
But
pupil
on
in the
s
Strepsiades'
pupils.
a pupil
induces the
to blurt out
he knows. Socrates's security arrangements are most inept. We leam through the pupil that Socrates and his pupils study mathematics and
the
natural science.
can
jump.
For example, they investigate how many feet of its own They need not leave the tank in order to catch the flea. Then
aware of
flea
Strep
air,
siades
and
becomes
Socrates aloft,
suspended
in
basket, walking
on
looking
over
the sun, or
and
looking
down
on
Socrates descends
of ment's thought to
siades
leams
of
immediately
without
having
given a mo
question of pay.
has knocked
at
In fact, nowhere in the play, after Strep Socrates's door, do we find any reference to Socrates
Only
once
is there
very
casual reference
to
Strepsiades
offers
is
not
sophist
fellow,
his
who makes
neediness.
Socrates's first
words addressed
154
Interpretation
one?"
been, "Why do
money.
you
call
me,
you ephemeral
Socrates
shows
himself
particular of
He is induced to
a
converse with
which
Strepsiades
either
not
by
greed or
vanity, but
rather
by
desire to talk,
is
prompted29
by
volume of
by
sheer enthusiasm
pursuit.
science
and rhetoric.
duality
of
to a
duality
of principles.
The first
cosmic
and
principle
is aether,
and
which
is the
original
whirl or
principle,
power of
is the clouds,
choruses.
which give
understanding
speech,
inspire the
The
clouds correspond
to rhetoric,
they can take any shape they like, or since they can imitate everything, or since they can reveal the nature of all things, and since at the same time they conceal the sky, they conceal the aether, or heaven, or the highest reality, for
since
rhetoric
and concealing.
The
clouds are
the only
by
Socrates.
They
are worshipped
by
him
as
because they are the origin of the greatest benefit to men, whereas the highest cosmic principle, aether, is responsible for both good and evil. The
clouds cises.
love
lazy
or
inactive
not
people and
demand
abstinence
from
bodily
exer
Socrates does
clouds.
hesitate to
only the
that
exist."
he
no
longer
by
Strepsiades,
thing
mind
you,
complies with
out these
regarding his worthiness to hear of them and his ability to understand them. The Aristophanean Socrates is characterized by an amazing lack of phronesis, of practical wisdom or prudence. Still, since Strepsiades has no interest beyond cheating his creditors, Socrates limits himself to teaching him speech, gram mar, et cetera. He does not even attempt to teach him natural science. But Strepsiades
proves
lower
or easier
branch
of
knowledge. He is therefore
pupil.
to
force his
son to
become Socrates's
He is particularly anxious that Socrates should teach Pheidippides the Unjust Speech, the Unjust Argument Just and Unjust Argument are personi
Socrates merely replies that Pheidippides will hear both Unjust Speech. Socrates himself will be
Socrates does
not
teach
and
injustice, he merely
injustice. He
own cannot
his
pupils
to the arguments
between justice
cannot
be held
responsible
hold her
by
argument against
injustice.
existence of
right
on
justice is
"with the
gods."
Zeus did
not perish
for
having
done
violence to this
father,
but
unable
points out
the Unjust
praises old-fashioned
155
to the
in the
spirit of the
Aristophanean
than the
comedy.
It
refers
necessities of
nature, to
demands
of temperance. regard
It
as
encourages people
base, for
one cannot
help being
defeated
by
a
eros and
by
women.
again supplied
by
the
conduct of
Zeus. In
word, the
ancestral
morality, the
Aristophanes, is contradicted by the ancestral theology it is based. At the end of the exchange the Just Speech admits its
son's accomplish
defeat,
and deserts to the camp of the Unjust Speech. Pheidippides leams the art of speaking. Trusting in his
ments, Strepsiades refuses to pay his debts, and, in addition, insults his credi tors. He heaps ridicule on his former oaths regarding his debts and on the very
gods.
Then
controversy
arises
between father
and son.
The
son
despises Aes
chylus and
son prefers a
Euripides,
who, he says,
is
he
quotes
from Euripides
description
The
of
brother his
and sister.
Strepsiades is
proves
deeply
shocked.
son goes so
to
beat
father,
but he
justly
his father's satisfaction, through the Just Speech, in beating his father. But then, when Pheidippides declares
to
also prove
by
entitled
to beat his
mother, Strepsiades's
Cursing
and
himself
and
his dishonesty, he
Socrates
and
other
gods,
justifies this
action as
was
the
punishment
for the
impiety
of
us not
forget
that it
not
teaching
stand
that a
son
lessons, but Socrates's alleged impiety may beat his own mother, which aroused Strepsiades's
Socrates's
or
unquenchable
ire,
and
brought
about
Socrates's downfall. If
we wish
to
under
Aristophanes 's
to
this31
case against of
Socrates,
and raise
vulsion
kind
subject,
to
the
question
as to the particular
significance of
the
permission
beat
one's mother as
ing
one's
given
by
the
Euripides'
of
s presentation of
brother
that the
and
and sister.
shall express
as
follows. Granted
cannot
family
is
the
family
The
be
secure
against
flourish
except
incest
city.
compels
a part of
prohibition expand
and, as it were, to
into the
The
prohibition against
a quasi-natural
family
teaching By rebelling Strepsiades merely acts in the spirit of his love for his son, which has inspired his escapades into dishonesty. Given the delicate and complicated character of and city, and ultimately between nature and con the relation between
and the city.
alleged outrageous
Socrates,
family
poles can
by
reference
to the gods.
without
For the
not
harshness. Yet
the
human
subject
beings
by
the laws to
156
men must
Interpretation
Hera is both Zeus's do
what wife and sister a great
not33
difficulty
remains.
Men
do, but
what
altogether
gods.
who
long
with all
It is necessary to consider the conduct of Socrates's goddesses, the Clouds. The Clouds do not express Socrates's sentiment regarding the non-existence of the other gods very far from it. They present themselves as being on the
friendliest terms
nial of
with
to Socrates's de
They
highly
pleased with on
Socrates's
great
They
congratulate
Strepsiades
provided
him
perfect
happiness,
he has
memory,
indefatigable dedication to study, and extreme continence. And last but not least, if he honors the Clouds. They promise him in particular that he will
surpass all public
Greeks in the
art of public
speaking,
and
over to send
speaking which he needs in order to get rid of Socrates. When Strepsiades proves to be too dumb, they advise him to his son to Socrates in his stead. While Strepsiades fetches Pheidippides
they
rates
remind
Socrates
of their great
to take the
says.
fullest
A
advantage of
generosity toward Socrates and advise him Strepsiades's willingness to do everything Soc
change makes
itself felt
during
Just
Speech
and
the Unjust Speech. When the Just Speech praises the ancient sys
they
applaud.
They
never applaud
insults them in
express
fate,
and
cated son.
especially as to what he may have to After Strepsiades has come to his senses,
from his
sophisti
tell him that he got only what was coming to him because he had turned to
dishonesty. Strepsiades replies, with some justice, that the Clouds had encour aged him. But the goddesses reply that it is their constant practice to guide men into misfortune, so that they may leam to fear the gods. Need less to say, the Clouds do not raise a finger, if Clouds can raise a finger, in defense of Socrates and his thinktank. I suggest this explanation. The
on evils
Clouds'
intent
only
worshipper
in Athens up to
claim
now
They
are
that
they help
Either34
they
in Athens. There is
as35
Socrates,
whom
they favor
their sole
success
by
the
whole
they
will
will
be instrumental, if only
by
permission, in his
destruction. The
use a
Clouds36
be
by
I may
when
they
see
how
unpopular
sitting divinities into the city they desert him he is bound to become. They change their posi
new
pretty.
tion as soon as
they
see
157
divinity.
They
are wiser
because they
virtue
both Socrates's
his
His
consists
not
which enables
him
in his daring, his intrepidity, his non-conformity, to worship the divinities worshipped by the city, and to
worshipped
worship
new
divinities
wisdom,
by
no one
vice
is his lack
of practical
or
prudence.
unjust.
For it
he does
not rebuke
dishonesty
the life
of
business
may very well mean that once have already made a decision to
the creditors
and expensive chariots
dishonest
sold
means.
Besides, it is by
expensive
place. on
Pheidippides the it is
horses
not
did
not
And it is
justice, based
mythology, is
intellectually
inferior to the
for injustice. If
all men
pursuit
tophanean Socrates is
slightest
dedicated,
have the
incentive for
hurting
anyone else.
Yet,
and
this
seems37
to be the be
ginning to Socrates's error, not all men are capable to lead a life of contempla tion. As a consequence of this grave oversight the Aristophanean Socrates is wholly
unaware of
the
devastating
effect38
which
his indifference to
practical
matters must
have
on
the city, if
non-
by
Socrates's
sentiments.
Socrates is
self-knowledge.
His lack
his lack
so
of self-knowledge.
unpolitical.
It is because
of
his lack
of self-knowledge
that he
is
If
one remembers
praises of
Aphrodite
Dionysus,
or
to the praise
complete
of
immediately,
with great
surprise, Socrates's
im
munity to wine and to love. The Aristophanean Socrates is altogether unerotic. It is for this reason that he is thoroughly amusic. However closely he may be
with Euripides, there is a gulf between him and Euripides precisely because Socrates has nothing in common with the poetic Muse. As a necessary consequence of this, when Euripides is persecuted in the Thesmophoriazusae,
linked
he is
capable
to save
himself,
not
whereas
when
Socrates is
persecuted
in the
Clouds, he has
nature and of
no means of
rhetoric, is
defense. Socrates's pursuit, the precise study of a public power, whereas poetry is a public power. Socrates is the
most
Aristophanes 's
of
comical presentation of
important
statement of
the case
secular contest of
which
Plato
the
beginning
said
to be the reply
to Aristophanes.
The
political proposals
of
Aristophanes 's
complete39
communism,
not only regarding property, but regarding women and children as well, is introduced in Plato's Republic with arguments literally taken from Aris
tophanes 's
Assembly
most
important difference
be-
158
Interpretation
best city
of
tween the
the
Assembly
of Women
and that of
its40
capstone or
its foundation
difference
tion
corresponds
to a
According
important
to Plato the
use of
direc
is
vertical.
makes
the Assem
bly
of
Women, it is
at
least equally
represents
directed against,
and
Clouds. Thrasymachus
place of the
Speech, and Socrates takes the Just Speech is in Plato, of course, victorious.
the Unjust
are
The
chief
Adeimantus. As for music, Socrates demands in the name of justice that the poet as free poet be expelled from the city. As for eros, the tyrant, injustice
incarnate, is
his
revealed
to be
eros
of
kinship
with
What, then, do
science?
Aristophanes
leam from Aristophanes regarding the origin of political presents Socrates in about the same light in which Aris
totle
presents
fails to
understand
Hippodamus from Miletus, as a student of nature as a whole who the political things. The concern of philosophy leads beyond
or
because,
is
unable
of
concerned
with
Philosophy
and
or
the
com
people,
hence philosophy is
poetry,
Philosophy, in
it
contradistinction to
cannot charm
is
amusic
and unerotic.
It
cannot
things,
whereas
Philosophy
is then in
need of
being
by
a pursuit which
because it is
music and
self-knowledge. problem
man
Poetry
is
self-knowledge.
Plato did
not
to say to
him, "Stranger,
you
hold
our
human
very
To
which
the
Stranger,
for
with
having
this, I is
not of of
looked away toward the god and having made the experience going said what I just said. But if you prefer, be it granted that our
race
seriousness."
some race
The
recognition
by
is worthy
of some seriousness
philosophy
or political science.
If this
however,
of who was
decisive importance for understanding nature as a whole. The philosopher the first to realize this was Socrates, the Socrates who emerged out of
Xenophon
and
Plato. I
first
of the
Xenophontic Socrates.
writings appear
At first
source
Xenophon's Socratic
character of
Among
the four
authors of
Socrates, Xenophon
alone combined
the
159
he
important
qualifications.
He
was an acquaintance of
Socrates,
and
has
was able and willing to be a historian. In by this, Xenophon's testimony does not enjoy in our time the respect it so patently deserves. The reason for this anomaly can be stated as follows. Xenophon is not very intelligent, not to say that he is a fool. He has the mind of a retired
shown
deed that he
spite of
horses, battles,
of the most
and recollections of
outstanding scholars extreme form and therefore in a particularly enlightening form. Bumet con tended that Xenophon did not know Socrates well, seeing that Xenophon him
self
He was much more attracted by dogs, battles, than by the truth. John Bumet, one in this field, has stated this view in the most
practically says that he was a youth in 401, that is to say, when he had already left Athens for good and was with Cyrus in Asia Minor. Bumet sug
gests that
Xenophon
was attracted
by Socrates,
not on account of
Socrates's
intelligence, but on account of Socrates's military reputation. The most obvious difficulty for this theory is the fact that we owe all our specific information about Socrates's military exploits to Plato, and even in the case of
wisdom or
Plato the
most
detailed
report
is
given
by
an
intoxicated
man.
Xenophon he does
barely
of
Socrates's
virtues
not even
Socrates's military virtue, his courage, or manliness. He leaves it at an to Socrates's having shown his justice, both in civil life
in
campaigns.
Besides,
or
young man,
which
is
applied
to
Xenophon
clever
by
an
man."
emissary of the Persian king, means in the context, "you The term is used in order to counteract a remark which
made.
It
cannot
be
used
for
fixing
Xenophon's date
study
of
of
birth.
prejudice against
on
Xenophon is
based,
not on a sober
of
his writings,
the specific
do
not
leave
room
for the
Romanticism, in all its forms, has rendered impossible the tme understanding of Xenophon. As for Bumet in particular, his dissatisfaction with Xenophon had a special reason. He was un
commonly sensitive to the presence in Socrates's thought of natural science, and Xenophon flatly denies that Socrates had anything to do with natural sci ence. While the modem criticism of Xenophon is of no value, its sheer power
may incline
phon was a
us
Xeno
work, the
which presents
been regarded,
was
most extensive book, the Education of Cyrus, historical book, is rightly regarded, and has always work of fiction. Xenophon's achievement as a historian
only
a part of
his his
literary
activity.
In
order to
describe his
which
literary
as a whole
it is
wise
is
sometimes
activity found in
the
manuscripts of
There he is
sometimes called
phon.
As for the
to
refer
suffices
relationship between oratory and history in antiquity, it to Cicero's rhetorical writings. The expression, the Orator Xeclose
160
Interpretation
means
nophon,
who
but
that
he
was a man
fully
possessed
one can
leam that
art
by
or
studying his writings. The expression Demosthenes than the art of Isocrates.
shall
that41
art of
Pericles
Anticipating
Socratic
result of
this
lecture, I
an
Xenophon's
rhetoric was
rhetoric. art of
of public
speaking
writing.
Tradition tells
sense of shame.
phon's art of
of strong us This description certainly fits the writer Xenophon, or Xeno writing. A man who possesses a strong sense of shame will re
frain
evil,
from hearing, seeing, and speaking of the ugly, the is noble and just and pious and
ones."
more pleasant
For
instance, Xenophon
than that it
was
big,
rather
big, deserted,
and poor.
But
of a
he
He
would without
would
any hesitation say that it was big, a given individual that he was brave
and shrewd crook.
inhabited,
and well-off.
than that
He
expects
mentions as of
he is
silent
nable
because
Lest
we
traitor was
highly
rewarded
by
the
treason, Xenophon
throughout a
not to shock our
would suggest
that
shocked by the fact that an abomi king who was benefited by the act of that king had the traitor tortured to death
be
whole year
for his
that
treason.
But
since
Xenophon desires
will add
not
only
feelings, but
certain
also
the remark
treason
a
that he cannot be
such a
fitting
retribution
for the
place.
act of
is
said to
would
Going
direction, Xenophon
for his
mother
of a man
step is
be X, but
why he entitled his so-called Expedition of Cyrus, Anabasis, Cyrus's Ascent, is that the only part of the story which was happy as far as Cyrus was concerned was the ascent, the way up from the coast to the interior,
the
reasons as
was most unhappy for Cyrus. These examples must here for showing that Xenophon's maxim regarding the preferability of re membering the good things rather than the bad ones circumscribes what is now ascent and which
suffice
generally known as irony. The ironical is a kind of the ridiculous. In one of Xenophon's Socratic writings Socrates describes the general ion is
about
opin
present
Xenophon's Socrates
and
way Aristophanes of the most striking differences between42 Aristophanes 's Socrates is that the former is urbane
some
of the
Clouds. In
patient,
whereas
lack
of ur
banity
phon's occurs
and even
politeness,
ever
Socrates
addresses
impolitely
in the only
conversation
between Xenophon
Socrates
which
is
re-
'161
in Xenophon's Socratic
writings.
Xenophon's Socrates
calls
Xenophon,
"You
phon,
treats
wretch!"
That is to say, Xenophon's Socrates treats Xeno in the same way in which Aristophanes 's Socrates
friend,
have
given
him
roll."
a good slave
In Xenophon's
"My
roll."
a good
same meter.
phon's substitute
Socrates in the Oeconomicus, the perfect gentleman Ischomachus, be Xeno for Aristophanes 's Pheidippides? Pheidippides comes to sight in the Clouds
as
Socrates's
pupil as
tes's teacher in
which of
justice, just
was
in the Clouds
things
throughout occupied
shown and
by
use
ridiculous
Socrates is
city,
by
Xenophon to be in
harmony
with
respectability
might
or political excellence of
the highest
one
dare to say,
constitute a
reply to
Aristophanes'
Clouds
on
the level of
the
use
Clouds,
wholly
to
paradoxes.
Let
us rather
turn to the
most
obvious, to the
much as we can.
Fifteen
writings
have
come
down to
us as writings of
Xenophon. Four
of
Cyrus,
the Edu
ings.
or rather
writings
Hellenica,
are
and the
Minor Writ
of
strange.
The title
the
Expedition of Cyrus, the Ascent of Cyrus, fits only the first part of the work. The bulk of the work deals not with the ascent of Cyrus but with the descent of
Xenophon,
the44
descent
by
Xenophon
of
of
the Greek
mercenaries who
his
ascent.
The title
the Education
not of Cyrus fits only the first book of the work. The bulk of the work deals but with the exploits of Cyrus after his education had with Cyrus's education, been completed. The title of the largest of the Socratic writings, Memorabilia
This
strange
translators, who called the book by Recollections of Socrates, for the book is entirely de Memorabilia Socratis, voted to what Xenophon remembered of Socrates. By calling the book Recol
some editors as well as
lections simply, Xenophon indicated that his recollections simply, or his recollections par excellence, are not his recollections of his deeds in Asia
Minor,
Socrates. The
of
in the Expedition of Cyrus, but his recollections of Socrates occurs only in the title of one of his four
of the
of Socrates, just as the name of Plato's works, again, the Apology of constitute, as it were, one pole of Xenophon's
Apology
of one of
The
other pole
is
constituted
by
by
162
Interpretation
shows that
Cyrus is
not absent
from Xenophon's
It
could not
and
be
otherwise.
Cyrus is
presented
by
Xenophon
as
model of a
mler,
especially
of a captain.
since
according to
a principle of
both Xenophon's
and
necessary
for
being
a perfect captain
is
one's possess
captain, Xenophon's Socrates too is a ing perfect captain. On the other hand, Socrates is present in the three most exten sive Xenophontic writings which are not devoted to Socrates, the Hellenica, the
perfect command of the art of the
Expedition of
there
teristic
Cyrus,
of
and
each of
these
writings
occurs a single
reference,
charac
feature
Xenophon's
be
said to
be the
presence
in
it
of
There is
that both
and
Socrates in
spite of the
fact
are excellent
difference
to be to
an opposition. mention
most
simply
by failing
courage,
cises,
eager
and
Socrates does
exercise, the
art,
since
Cyrus is
it. Since there is, an opposition between Cyrus and Socrates, there is needed a link between then, Cyrus and Socrates. This link is Xenophon himself. Xenophon can be a link
to exercise it and Socrates does not
to exercise
between Cyrus
sophists.
and
Socrates because he is
was
a pupil of
Socrates
and not of
the
Xenophon
great empire
induced to accompany Cyrus, the namesake of the builder Cyrus, by his friend Proxenus, who had been a pupil of
rhetoric.
Gorgias,
wealth
school of
Gorgias in
by just
could rale
incapable to
himself feared
by
praise and
withholding
praise sufficed
for the
or of
He did
not
punishment,
harshness. But
those
Xenophon,
and
the
pupil of
Socrates,
He
both
gentlemen and
was as excellent at
beating them, as he was at praising the good have become the sole commander of the Greek army if he had desired it. Hence
he
could phon shows
castigating the bad and base, and the noble. Hence he could
seriously desire to become the founder of a city in Asia Minor. Xeno by his deeds the radical difference between Socrates and the other his
age.
wise men of
Socrates
was
the
Socra
tes was the opposite of a mere speculator about the things in heaven and be
neath
the earth.
Socrates,
and
not
Gorgias, for
example,
was
the political
because he had
in
man
is
submission, but
ical things,
Therefore,
163
leam something important by observing the training of dogs and of horses. Therefore there exists a relation between Xenophon's Socratic writings and
those
of
his
minor writings
which
deal
with
dogs
and
horses. It is perfectly
or rather on
more
dogs,
hunting
blame
of
must
now
political
teaching
of
Xenophon's
Socrates, but
giving
some
few
remarks
have the time for that. Therefore, I make a conclusion to this lecture. There are four Socratic do
not
writings, the
Memorabilia,
will
the
Oeconomicus,
the
Banquet,
and the
Apology
to be
of
a
try to show that the Memorabilia are meant Socrates's justice, that the three other Socratic writings
present
Socrates simply, without a limited regard to his justice. The Oeconomicus pre sents Socrates as a speaker, the Banquet presents Socrates as a doer, and the
presents
Socrates
as a silent
deliberator,
not
or
thinker. The
the
Memorabilia,
books, is
to
character of
it forth. If
one
indications carefully, one comes to see that the Xenophontic Socrates did not limit himself to the study of the human things, but was con
as
cerned,
every
are
other
philosopher,
with
he
human things
whole.
for the Platonic Socrates, the key for the understanding of the whole is the fact that the whole is characterized by what I shall call noetic heterogeneity. To
state
it
more
simply,
by
the
not
kinds the It is
character of which
does
For
fully
through sense
perception.
for this
reason
or political science.
the
premise
that
political
by themselves,
that there is an
essential
difference between
things,
Or
more
is
an essential
common
good and
sectional good.
did
the
of
justice to the
by
This
means
that
he
limitations
life,
the political
life,
which
while
according to Xenophon
and
dig
it. Moderation
as
other
proves
respects,
recognition of
of everything connected with quality of Socrates. Here as well the essential difference between the political
and the
essential
non-political, or,
more
differences,
or of
posed
to the
madness
of the
164
Interpretation
also,
and
moderation means
in
a sense even
primarily, the
recognition of opin
ions
did deed
Socrates,
from
The
the
highest, but it is
the
first, because it is
is
philosophy as continence is related to virtue proper. It is the founda the indispensable condition. From here we can understand why Socrates tion, could be presented in a popular presentation as having limited himself, his
related to
The human
or political
things
indeed the
clue
to all
or
things, to the whole of nature, since they are the link highest and the lowest, or since man is a microcosm, or
things and their correlatives are the form in
of
which
since
or political
. .
the highest
principle
[end
tape]
(NOVEMBER
3, 1958)
presentation of
Plato's
and
Xenophon's
replies
Socrates
understood,
tophanes's
as
to
Aristophanes 's
presentation
is
not a piece of
buffoonery, but it
fact
that
goes
to the root of
it is
a comedy.
The Clouds
the Birds
in
conjunction with
Aristophanes, especially
documents
are
Thesmophoriazusae ,
the
greatest
of the contest
be
supremacy.
They
the
greatest
documents
The Aristophanean comedy is based on the fundamental distinction between nature and convention. It is therefore
the case
of poetry.
based
Greek
Philosophy,
or
word,
as represented
by
Socrates is
physiology in the It
recognizes
two
principles
corresponding to the difference of natural science on rhetoric on the other. These principles are Aether and the
this alliance
with
Clouds. Now in
tion of
spite of
what is in heaven and beneath the earth, is radically unpolitical. It simply transcends the political. It is oblivious of man, or rather of human life, yet human life is its basis. Hence it does not understand itself. It lacks self-
knowledge,
into
wisdom.
Because it is
must
unconcerned with
human life it is
a whole which
is
ruled
therefore
be integrated
and
the
philosophy is
protected and at
philosophy finds its place, or through which the same time perfected. The Xenophontic, and
especially the Platonic, thesis asserts exactly the opposite. deed the physiology of the Aristophanean Socrates, but a Platonic psychology let
wisdom within which us
Philosophy,
certain
not
in
psychology,
and
the capstone of
through
which
poetry becomes
self-knowl-
good.
Socrates
was
eminently
political.
He
165
therefore
general
of practical wisdom. of
He
was
the erotician
This is the
a question
Plato
and
only Plato
decided the
between poetry
great
of
dialogue,
the greatest
Xenophon. The
theme
of
said
to be this. Socrates was the citizen, the statesman, the captain. Socrates was
political as no philosopher ever
tes is only
one pole
founder
panied
of
was, nay as no statesman ever was. Yet Socra in Xenophon's thought. The other pole is Cyms, be it the the Persian Empire or the younger Cyms whom Xenophon accom
ascent while
in his
indicates that
I
stated
Socrates is profoundly political he was also something else. last time what I believe to be characteristic of Xenophon's way of
put
writing.
To
it very colloquially
to that of Jane
about
and
provisionally
Xeno
phon's manner
Austen,
not
things to
of
not
exactly
remember
the good
but at any rate match-making in Xenophon's case things rather than the bad ones. It is preferable to speak
term. Good may mean to be what
the good things rather than the bad ones, as Xenophon explicitly says. Now
good
an ambiguous
good,
of
or good may mean what is generally thought to be good. Socrates especially by Xenophon, Xenophon is very anxious to show that Socrates was good according to the general notion of goodness, and that is
deepest in Socrates
as we shall see.
writings consist of
and
Oeconomicus,
which
the
of
Xenophon
part, in
the indictment of
Socrates,
as
extensive second
Xenophon
shows
fited
into
Apology of from quoting the indictment with com to the effect that "Socrates commits an
which45
him. Just
Plato in his
by
not
duces
other
divinities
He
by
corrupt
young."
ing
the
By
which
he
accused,
nor
He
proves that
Socrates
acted
justly
in the
sense of
legal
of
into
contact with
one's
fellow
Xenophon, identical with being just, although perhaps not is, with being merely legally just. Hence the purpose of the Memorabilia as a whole is to prove Socrates's justice, both legal and translegal.
according to The three simply
other
Socratic
writings can
with
Socrates
Now the
to his
justice,
his activity
simply.
166
Interpretation
of man or
activity
thinking
these
with
Xenophon,
with as
of
speaking,
doing,
and
Socratic writings,
with
his deeds,
not
the
Apology of Socrates with his silent deliberation. Two indispensable at this point. The Banquet deals with the
of a number of other gentlemen as well.
deeds
of
Socrates, but
deeds
We
are
More
with
not performed
in
earnest or with
seriousness, but
performed playfully.
therefore
entitled
deeds
we
in
earnest.
am
in
to believe that
have this
Hellenica. In
occur
accordance with
tyrants,
which
and
only the
narratives of
that is to say,
properly Socratic
belonging
Secondly,
hand,
three
and
and
the three
other
writings on
fundamentally
established
deal
with
Socrates
simply.
Now the
justice
Memorabilia. There
a number of minor
divergences
get
rid
by
Apology
of Socrates to the
since
Memorabilia,
dangerous undertaking
it is
the fact that certain may sections of the Hellenica are used by Xenophon in his writing Agesilaus, with many minor stylistic changes. The differences between the Agesilaus and the two
writings.
required one
by
adduce
corresponding
college
sections of
is
history
boy knows,
required
or should eulogy.
know,
history
differs from
the style
for
And the
in this
the Agesilaus because this simple idea did not occur to some of them.
and
The Memorabilia, to repeat, are devoted to the subject of Socrates's justice, their first part Socrates's legal justice. The accuser had charged Socra
to47
tes with corrupting the young. He had specified this somewhat vague charge
by
contending, among
other
things,
that
companions to
look
down
on the established
laws, by saying
lot. No
it is foolish
pilot,
a
to elect the
a flutecom
magistrates of player
the city
and yet
by
builder,
by lot,
harm
By
such
speeches, the
them men of
companions
down
with contempt on
democracy,
show
and made
Xenophon
goes out of
his way to
Socrates
was
167
to
deny
on
not
his
companions
look down
with contempt
the established
deny
this charge
because he
its accompaniment, the established laws. He does cannot deny it. Socrates was an outspoken
critic of the
loyalty
to the
was
deficient in
a point of
importance. He
was not
The
of
standing
after
Socrates
was
age, Critias the tyrant and Alcibiades. Xeno in no way responsible for what these men did
they had left Socrates, whom they had left precisely because Socrates disapproved of their ways. In order to show the wickedness of Alcibiades in
particular, Xenophon
tion
which
records once
Alcibiades is
a
many other things and among them the conversa had with his guardian, Pericles. Alcibiades asked
Pericles,
what
law? Pericles
Law is
not48
fittingly
defines law in
such a
way
as to
as
fit
to
democratic law
what should
as such.
or
an enactment of
be done
of
the enactments
the ruling few in an oligarchy or of a tyrant in a the other hand that the law merely
tyranny
equally law,
the ruled,
and on
imposed
by
the rulers on
and
by
the democratic
majority
origin
on
the minority is an act of violence rather than a law. A law owes its
not
lawfulness,
never raises raised
in itself is
origin.
Xenophon's Socrates
law. This
question
dangerous question,
and rash
what
is
is
only Alcibiades
not yet
by
Xenophon's young
who raises
this question
Alcibiades. Yet the young and rash in the style characteristic of Socrates had
Socrates
at
the time
he
raised
with
frequently
quot
ing ing
different
language
to
speaking to outstanding
the
common people on charge.
men on
the one
hand,
men of
tempt to
deny
this
and most
important
part of
his
alleged
impiety. As Xenophon
the charge of
makes or of
of
graver than
Athenians"
injustice,
corrupting the
the young,
young.
corrupted
whereas
nians"
devotes
corrupt
three times as
Socrates
In
order
to prove that
Socrates
Xenophon
was
mentions
frequently
and
that he
relying
on
divination, especially
his "demonic in
private
differently
than in public, he adds the remark that Socrates was always in the open, in
168
Interpretation
where
places49
he
largest
Still,
have
no
privacy
of
any kind,
and yet
have
was always
in the
heard him say anything impious. Immediately afterwards, how he admits that Socrates's thought would not necessarily become known ever, through what he said in the market place. There is one, and only one, univer sally known fact which according to Xenophon proves Socrates's piety. This is Socrates's conduct at the trial of the generals after the battle of the Arginusae,
where
clear prove
Socrates
that
alone upheld
his
sworn
duty
not
is
while
justice, it does
necessarily
the gods
belief in the
existence of
Xenophon's
refutation of
the indictment of
and
Socrates,
we
have
his legal piety could not be or that Socrates was not unqualifiedly just. This, however, is perfectly proven, compatible with the fact that he possessed translegal justice, which consists in
come to realize that
men.
men
to the highest
crucially important to Socrates as he indi cated by frequently quoting the Homeric verses in which Odysseus is presented as having conducted himself in an entirely different way when confronted with among
respect was
in this
entirely different kinds of people. The bulk of the Memorabilia is meant to show how beneficent Socrates was. The fourth book of the Memorabilia is the only
part of
the
be
said to present
Socrates
as a
teacher rather
than as
him
only
by being
serious
but
He
by joking
was
as
well,
and
manner.
naturally
attracted
by
by
the
most
gifted,
who revealed
with which
they
learned,
desire for
learning. Not
Xenophon
greatest part of
the
to
Socrates's
was,
not
conversations with
natural
the handsome
Euthydemus,
refrains
whose characteristic
conceit.
Xenophon
teacher Socrates as
not
in
kinds
talked
differently
to
different
Socrates taught only by conversation. His art consisted in the art, or the for the skill of conversation is dialec skill, of conversation. The Greek
tics.
we
was
two-fold.
Socrates, Socrates brought back the subject matter to its basic presupposition, that is to say, he raised the question "what
When
is?"
169
subject under
discussion,
and
he
contradictor
himself
This
may say is the higher form of dialectics. But, Xenophon goes on, Socrates discussed something on his own initiative, that is to say, when he talked to people who merely listened, he did not raise the question "what
when
is"
but
proceeded
and
thus
he
produced
agreement
dialectics,
important
seus.
which
among the listeners to an extraordinary degree. This latter kind of leads to agreement as distinguished from truth, is the most
It is the
art which
Homer
when
ascribes
to Odys
contra
Socrates
kind
of
dialectics
he talked to
dictors,
Socrates
that is to say, to
men capable
to contradict
intelligently,
to people who
are capable to go
applied
beyond the
accepted
opinions,
the political or
rhetorical
dialectics in his
hardly
any
specimen of
Socrates's be
exhibiting the higher kind of dialectics. For it goes without saying that the mere
use of
the
formula,
"what If
is", does
we want
handled
appropriately.
Xenophon
understood
it
we must translate
Socrates's
statements ad
hominem
would
take if
they
were addressed
to contradictors, or to men
possessing good natures. Xenophon is very sparing in his explicit praise of Socrates. And when he praises Socrates, he shrinks from using superlatives. The strongest expression
which
he
ever uses
in this
connection
is his
statement
Socrates
ment
of
make a certain
The
state
Socrates
or
I51
was
others good
derived
pleasure
from
with
horses, dogs,
birds, he derived
pleasure
from
friends,
"together
scan the treasures of the wise men of old which they have left my friends behind in writing and if we see something good, we pick it out, and we regard
it
become
another."
useful
to one
Of Socrates's study
ing
works of
best from them, Xenophon does not give us a single example. He draws our attention to what he regarded as Socrates's most praiseworthy activity, but he demands from
a certain
kind
of
his
readers
that
they
into
his
clear
good
knowledge. In the
passage quoted
Socrates
his friends,
"friends"
or
friends. We may say that Xenophon never records conversations be is an tween Socrates and his friends in the strict sense. Of course,
ambiguous term. mere
It may be applied to friends strictly speaking, as well as to acquaintances, and hence also to the intermediate forms of relationship.
chapters of
Seven
friendship. Xenophon
and
acquain
and comrades of of
Socrates, but
most
no conversation
between
Socrates. The
case
is
a conversation
and
complains to
Socrates
about
170
Interpretation
blackmailed
a
being
that
by
attention
to the fact
Crito,
In the
same
landed gentleman, uses dogs to keep wolves away from his sheep. way, he says, he should use the informers to keep other informers
property.
worth-while to the
Crito would, of course, have to make the arrangement protecting informer. Crito acts on Socrates's advice. They
who
find
certain
Archedemus
is
Archedemus
Crito."
was one of
Crito's friends
between saying that Crito did not belong to Socrates's friends, and saying that Socrates honored a useful informer. I sug gest that we choose the former alternative. We have here
a choice
of
long
and strive
or noble.
It
ascends
from
conversations
of
Socrates
with anonymous
with52
a conversation
acquaintances, to
son of son of
to
whom
Socrates
was
sake of
Ariston,
Glaucon
and
sake of
Plato.
Immediately
Socrates took
Glaucon,
one of
Xenophon
men
the
expect
to
be treated
to a
conversation
between Socrates
for the
sake of whom
Socrates took
an
descent begins,
which
leads
us via
anonymous people.
beauty, outstanding craftsmen, sickly youth, again to That is to say, Xenophon builds up the argument in such a
a venal and a
way very
as
anonymous people
down to
anonymous people.
of
gests a peak of
the third
book,
the whole
to that peak, a
conversation
between Socrates
can not
it. The
peak
is
missing.
This formula
be
applied
writings as a whole.
become
audible, but it
can
be divined. The
means
unsaid
is
more
important than
what
is
said.
For the
reader
this
that he must be
all
Among
chief
careful.
alludes to
Socrates's
that
is that in
the
which
is."
he
It
says
Socra
things
what each of
beings
appears
from the
distinguishing
according to their
kinds
or classes.
few
say the least, Xenophon gives very preoccupation of Socrates. It is also hard to see
to
But,
how Socrates
same
constantly consider what each of the beings is, and, at the time, constantly be in public places and almost constantly talk about subjects other than what each of the beings is. At any rate Socrates's constant
"what is",
with
is tme, the
same
Xenophon tells
us also that
'171
tirely
the that
Xenophon
the latter
assertion.
He
asserts
things, or what the sophists call the cosmos, in order to prove had ever heard Socrates say something impious or irreligious, for
suspect as the presumptuous attempt to pry into the But I have already indicated what one has to think about Xenophon's Socrates. When asserting that Socrates limited
makes
the study
of nature was
of
his study
called
to
his Socrates
wonder whether
the
students of
philosophers
preceding Socrates,
now re
that
man cannot
garding nature, for the various philosophers, says Socrates, contradict each other and behave like madmen. Some of them believe that being is one, but
infinitely many beings. Some say that all things change, but others, that nothing changes. Some say that everything comes into being and perishes, but others say that nothing comes into being or perishes. The
others that there are characterization of these contentions as mad permits us to see contentions about the whole
clearly
which
Socrates
beings,
things,
and
do
not come
into
being
Xenophon's
Socrates's
infinitely
many things,
there is only
finite
number of
kinds
or classes of
beings
which we
intend
when we raise
things, that is to say, of the the question "what is". Those kinds or
are unchangeable and
classes,
as
not come
do
him
by
the fact
heterogeneity. The
is
not sensible
example,
nor homogeneous, but heterogeneous. Yet the heterogeneity heterogeneity, like the heterogeneity of the four elements, for but noetic heterogeneity, essential heterogeneity. It is for this reason
one,
that Socrates
could
of]53
political science.
Only
if there
political
is
essential and
heterogeneity
things
there be an
not
essential
difference between
things,
geneity
sion
which
are
political.
The
are,
discovery
and common.
of noetic
hetero
permits one
they
to
reduce essential
differences to something
the
vindication
The
discovery
of
noetic sense.
heterogeneity
Socrates
means
of what
called
it
a return
from
madness
to sanity
sobriety, or, to
use
the Greek
term,
or
by
moderation.
Socrates
most54
discovered the
obvious
paradoxical
fact that, in
way, the
most
important
truth
is the
truth,
of
surface.
Furthermore,
classes,
means
is
be
a a
variety
single
being, in the
kinds
or
total
experience of
being,
whether
cally
or romantically,
being
that
feeling,
or
172
Interpretation
or a certain
sentiment,
kind
of
experience.
There is
h-
indeed
many
mental mental
vision,
or
perception,
mental
patterns, many
perceptions,
be
connected
by
gismos,
by reasoning, by putting two and two together. recognizing the fact that the political is irreducible to the non-political, that the political is sui generis, Socrates does justice to the claim raised on By
of
behalf
nity,
the political, or
polis.
by
the political
itself,
namely
mean
by
far
by
the
The
polis presents
itself
as exalted
the
household
and the
individual. Yet
the
polis
this
does
not
necessarily
the
claim of
thing, to be the authoritative interpreter of the highest simply, or to be beyond the peak. The judgment on the status of the political will depend on the result
of
political.
Socrates's
may be
said
to
from the
phenomenon of
political phenomenon.
minion of
The
reason
political appears
freemen
law
is
more
freemen?
and
that
freemen
as such means
them, is law,
to do and
and
alone.
Law
which
tells everyone,
not
includ
ing
the
full citizens,
what
they
ought
what
they may
do,
not until
further notice, or for a given time, but forever. The well-being of the city, nay, its being, depends on law, on law-abidingness, or justice. Justice in this sense
is the is
political virtue par excellence.
Justice
as
law-abidingness
comes to sight
and
as a virtue
by
the consideration of the alternatives, which are to law that the distinction between
force in
law. It
with a view
legitimacy
and and
illegitimacy
is
primarily
with
made.
"Kingship
is
mle over
accordance
the city, whereas the rale over unwilling human beings and This remark seems to apply only according to the will of the ruler is to monarchs, but Socrates goes on to say, "The regime in which the magis tracies are filled from among those who complete the laws or the customs is
of
tyranny."
the laws
aristocracy.
The
regime
in
which
filled
on
the basis of
qualification all
is
plutocracy.
The
regime
in
which
is
democracy."
be
either royal or
This may be thought to mean that republics too tyrannical, the decisive point being whether the mlers are Yet there is this
obvious
limited
by
be
law
or not.
difficulty,
ought to
and
subject
law,
the
act
law
famous
sovereignty in
to
times.
Still lawgivers
we
cannot
arbitrarily. a
They
are supposed
enact good
laws. Hence
and
distinction
between legitimate
good
may have to
distinction between
and
likely
good
to produce good
laws,
bad regimes,
men
as regimes most
likely
to produce bad
to make good
173
be the
not
rale of
is
knowledge,
of
inheritance,
is
election,
nor
force,
nor
knowledge
highest
how to
king
not
or a ruler.
the
only because he alone can be the origin of excellent laws, but likewise because he has a flexibility which laws however wise necessarily lack. The man of the highest political wisdom is
political wisdom
to any
law,
seeing law,
guided
whereas
every law
proper
is blind to
some extent.
or
The justice
of
the tme
then in
lawabidingness
the habit of
in legal justice. He
must
be
He
by
translegal
justice, by
as good as
helping
to be
a
them to
become
is
possible,
and
must assign
fitting big boy owns a small coat and a small boy owns a big coat, we must take away the big coat from the small boy and give it to the big boy, and vice versa. That is to say, by questioning the ultimacy of law, we question also the
what use a
ulti-
his, but
for him. To
macy At the
of
legal
property.
of
beginning
view
argument via or
from the
totality
of
of
his possessions,
possessions,
is the totality
his
useful
property
could
which
not
to him, to the view that only that can be regarded as a man's he knows how to use, that is to say, how to use well. So heroin possibly be the property of a juvenile delinquent. We are thus
against
brought up
any property except under the strictest supervision of the wise. There is a simple formula expressing the view that the political art at its highest transcends law as
such, namely, the thesis
with
men
can possess
of
is identical
the
the
economic
art, that
is to say, the
art
by
means of which
father,
eo
husband,
rates nor
nomine.
master rules
slaves.
natural
law,
or natural
right,
law. One
example of un
written
law,
gression
prohibition
incest between
parents
and
As little
as
Plato's
in this
crucial context
Summarizing
may say that there is fundamental agreement analysis given in the Platonic dialogues, especially the Republic
by
and
the States
man, only Xenophon is much more laconic, reserved, or bashful than Plato. Now we have followed Xenophon's Socrates up to the point where the absolute
rale of the wise appeared
to be the only
wise solution
man
The
use,
to every unwise
the
thing
he is best fitted to
the
work which
would exercise
his
rule
by
174
Interpretation
his wisdom,
virtue of would
i.e.,
of
wisdom will
by
the
unwise.
He
to
sway the
unwise
by
persuasion alone.
But
the
unwise
be
able
Is there
no
limit to the
persuasive power of
the wise?
Socrates,
who
relation to the
his
a more homely way by his relation to his wife Xanthippe. In Xenophon's Banquet, Socrates is asked by a companion why he did not educate Xanthippe, but had a wife who, of all the women present, past,
goodness.
city of He illustrates it in
he thought, illustrates this difficulty by his Athens. Socrates failed to persuade the city of Athens of lived
what
and
future, is probably
become
for if he
handling
horses
will
most
horse, horse, in the same way he, Socrates, desiring to live with quired Xanthippe, well knowing that if he could control her, he
can
such a will
handle
horse he
along
succeeded somehow
living
with
Xanthippe;9
or
mother
in ruling her by persuasion. When his son Lamprocles was because of the abominable things she had said to him out
talked to Lamprocles and silenced him. He did not
her
wild
temper, Socrates
wise can rule
even
try
by
persuasion,
and since
it is equally
very
impossible, considering
the
wise should rale
the
numerical relation of
the unwise
by force,
one
has to be
indirect
This indirect
in the
rale of
laws,
on
the making of which the wise have had some influence. In other
unlimited rale of undiluted wisdom must
words, the
wisdom
be
replaced
by
the
rule of
diluted
by
consent.
Yet laws
cannot
be the
mlers
they
must
be applied,
interpreted,
administered,
and executed.
tion of the political problem is then the rale of men who can best complete the
laws,
supplement equity.
the essential
deficiency
the
of
of
the
laws is
The best
solution of
political problem
is then the
regime
in
Greek
at
the same
equitable, in Greek, the epieikeis, which means in time the better people, and this means for all practical pur
poses the
landed
gentry.
Xenophon has
of
he
regarded as
his Education of Cyrus, his political work par excellence. Xenophon tacitly claims that he has found the best regime in Persia, prior to the emergence of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. The best regime is a greatly improved Sparta. Every free man is a citizen and has
access to all
offices,
with
the exception of
hereditary kingship,
public
a
schools,
public schools
in the
American
sense.
The
to be
farms,
sons
in
a position
holding
of public
The best
regime
is then
an
aristocracy disguised
as
democracy. The
175
destroy it,
animating this best regime comes to sight when Cyras is about to or to transform it into an absolute monarchy. Cyras urges the gentle
no
longer merely
principle of
of
decency,
excellence,
or
the things
wealth.
increasing
their
The
is
then the
cultivation of
human excellence, as opposed to the increase of wealth. As Xenophon indicates by presenting his utopia in a work of fiction, the
not
regime as
he
understood
it
actual,
and
thence that it is
as
likely
ever
being
or
possible.
Political life
it
always
be, is
more
is
generous and
effective
leadership
in
tolerably
is that
good republic.
The
Xenophon himself
cessor called
exhibits
of
Dercylidas,
the prede
in Asia Minor
Dercylidas Sisyphus
by
his outstanding resourcefulness. He the Spartan authorities for what they regarded as lack of
to
discipline,
sibility
and
he
always
other compromise
of the
solutions regime. of
loved to be away from home. Xenophon indicates which are important given the practical impos
no question
best
There is
a gentleman
is that
is to say,
one's
forth this
reports
that
gentleman55
son
particularly well known as a gentleman. In the opinion of the father was an enthusiastic lover of farming. He could
without
down farm
the son,
buying
it
and
this story
by
Socrates asks, "Did your father keep all the farms which did he sell them, when he could get much The son
by
Zeus!"
The
compromise
farming
extreme
regarding money, on the one hand, and and trade, is trading in farms. It is not necessary to discuss here the concession to human frailty, which Xenophon considered, namely,
beneficent tyranny.
principle of pelled or
Generally
as
speaking,
by
saying
little
as possible about
enabled,
more than
any
other
classic, to
velli, who,
incidentally, generously
a principle of
acknowledged
this
debt.
Only
what
in
a principle of
The
sents
crucial result of
Socrates's
it, is
the political
being
peak,
the dilution of
of wisdom
wisdom
by
consent
on
dilution
or
by
to
lence
or virtue exists
be simply the highest, proves to be unfounded. Man's true excel beyond the political, or is transpolitical. Xenophon's Soc-
176
rates
Interpretation
is the
representative of man's transpolitical excellence, whereas
his Cyrus
is the Cyrus
polis.
representative of that
life
which
is highest if the
principle characteristic of
the political is adhered to and thought through. The polarity of Socrates and
corresponds
Xenophon has
political and
fundamental tension between philosophy and the between the two ways of life, the the transpolitical most clearly in the Oeconomicus, which is his
to the
presented the tension
a conversation
Socratic
The Oeconomicus is
obulus,
a
between Socrates
well.
and
Crito's
son
Crit
young
man who
did
not
do too
of
Socrates
encourages
Critobulus
the
household,
general.
of which
farming
is
distinguished, if
subordinate,
part.
Socrates
farm
ing
or of
in
This
he does
general.
he is
young
man eager
to
leam the
art of a
Xenophon's Socrates
he
declines to teach it, whereas he is perfectly willing to teach the peaceful art of farming. Socrates had acquired his command of the art of farming, not by
once
in his life,
temple in
farmer
called
in
one
sitting,
cloister of a
Athens,
rather
in transmitting to a young man a teaching which he had acquired in one day, in one sitting, just by listen ing. Yet, as has been indicated, what Socrates teaches is not merely the art of farm. His teaching
the art of
farming
consisted
farming, but
which
household,
includes
an
wife,
art which
everything else the art of educating and managing one's Socrates had also learned at that single session with Is
what
chomachus.
of
life
of
com
regarding
which
Socrates
consulted
the gentleman
farmer, Ischomachus,
Socrates did
not
on
the
occasion of
learn
perfect
gentlemanship
transmits this
by thinking
or
by dialectics,
but merely
man who
by listening, just
as
he
on a
opinions
alone,
by
fully by
listening. In
of
other
words,
no
intellectual
is
required
morality.
Ordinary
morality
consists
ordinary
whereas as
highest morality, the transpolitical morality, virtue is knowledge. The first part of the teaching which Socrates transmits to Critobulus con cerns, as I said, the education and management of one's wife. Ischomachus is
regards the
very
time
proud of at which
the way in
which
he has
educated
his. He
could not
know
at
that
he his
gave wife
had
with
educated
Socrates his glowing report about the way in which he that in later years this woman would have a love affair
their son-in-law
Callias,
the son of
Hipponicus, less
than
year after
111
their
daughter,
and
that
as a consequence of
this Callias
Ischomachus's daughter together in his house, just Hades had Demeter and her daughter Persephone together in his
wife and
house. He was, therefore, called Hades in Athens, and Plato's Protagoras is based in its setting on this story, the Protagoras taking place in the house of Callias, and there are quite a few allusions to the fact that we are there in Hades. But this only in passing. Now this is not merely a joke, but indicates
the great problem
of
the
relation
between theory
and
practice,
or
between
knowledge
do is
a
and virtue.
story.
wife
different
occupied
by
direct
However this may be, the center of the Oeconomicus is life of the perfect gentleman, Is
of
chomachus,
and the
life
ways
of
life
are presented as
incompatible. One
one must order to
most obvious
as
ways of
life is that
be
well
off, or,
Aristotle
be
a perfect
gentleman,
whereas
it,
one must
remarks occur
in
a work on of
economics, one
must raise
through the
work
Socrates's life, Socrates's means of support. The answer is that Socrates did not have to worry since he had
in
which
nice passage
the question comes up that from all money, and the answer given
are
is,
are."
according to Xenophon
than the political
claims of
and
higher in instill
dignity
respect
for the
the
life, they did everything in their power to city, and of political life, and of everything
be the
characteristic recognition of the essential
connected with
of
it. Here
Socrates. We have
shown
before that
quality difference
between the
political and
differences,
or of noetic
heterogeneity,
appeared as
in
opposition
tes. But Socratic moderation means also, and in a sense primarily, the recogni
tme, but salutary to political life. Socrates, Xenophon says, did not separate from each other wisdom and moderation. The political is indeed not the highest, but it is first because it is the most urgent. It
tion of opinions which are not
is
related to
dation,
could
the
philosophy as continence is related to virtue proper, it is the foun indispensable condition. From here we can understand why Socrates
be
presented as
having
they
a
or political
things. The human or political things are indeed the clue to all
whole of
nature, since
are the
lowest,
and
or since man
is
their
corollaries are
the form in
of
sight, or,
error.
since
Philosophy is
primarily
political
ascent
most
a fundamental and primary philosophy because philosophy is the massive, the most urgent, to what is highest
human things is
178
Interpretation
in dignity.
Philosophy
is primarily
political
philosophy because
political philos
ophy is required for protecting the inner sanctum of philosophy. This lecture has been a bit longer than I would have wished,
plan
and also
has
gone
wrong for
some other
reasons,
and the
so
will
devote the
next
my lecture to
Republic,
last
one on
Friday
to the subject,
Plato
and
by
now
poetry
and philoso
One
could venture to
philosophy, is
any
of
the
pre-Socratics or of
Aristotle,
issue
or
therefore we
really deal
with
the crucial
by
raising the
how Plato
conceives of
the relation
between
philosophy
and poetry.
(NOVEMBER 5, 1958)
those who approach Plato in order to become enlightened
Among
about
by
him
Socrates, it has become customary to pay the greatest attention to certain dialogues called the early dialogues, and especially to the Apology of Socrates. The Apology of Socrates may be said to be Socrates's own account, given on
the most solemn occasion, of his way of to be increased
given
life;
and
by
the
account
is
account,
an account
in
public of
to the
which
public par
his way
eration,
presses
life
he
gave on
day
of
solemnity
of
is Plato's
suffers
This
consid ex
or
any
this
kind,
lay
claim
with
know the Platonic Socrates only through Plato. The much a Platonic writing as any other Platonic writing. is
even a
Platonic Platonic
dialogue,
work of
the people
of
Athens. It is
art, and
We
Plato's thought in
order
presented
in treatises. What
ourselves of so
perfectly that
birds flew to
peck
at
them. The
who
by
two
features. It is
an
imitation
something,
imitation if it
of
is
perfect
makes
one
in the
disregard
from something essential. Painted grapes cannot be eaten, to say nothing of the fact that they are not three-dimensional. But grapes are not painted for the sake of birds. The ab
something essential,
straction
from something
179
bringing
In
out
more essential.
works
something more essential, of heightening something like the Platonic dialogues abstraction is made in the
first
place
speaking,
see them.
happening
visible and
We merely hear people talk. We do not, strictly And secondly abstraction is made from chance. Everything in the work is meaningful or necessary. The abstraction from the
visibility.
from
purpose of
making
us concentrate on
the
audible and
The
problem of
is, in
exists no
Platonic
utterance about
of
Still, Plato's
Socrates
gives us a most
of all writings.
A writing,
to
important hint, when he speaks of the essential defect as distinguished from a wise speech, says the same
Plato,
in
contradistinction
Socrates, did
produce
writings,
one
is
entitled
to assume
that the Platonic dialogues are meant to be writings which are free from the
essential
defect
of writings.
They are writings which, if properly read, reveal flexibility of speech, and they are properly read if the
becomes
detail
clear.
necessity
and
of
every
part of them
they
are
meant
be developed in
too great
defect. At any rate, as it was stated it is based on the premise that Plato's Socrates is Plato's spokesman. Yet what entitles us to accept that premise? Socrates is
not always
Plato's
the
spokesman.
He is
not
Plato's
the
spokesman
in the
the
Timaeus,
the
Critias,
Sophist,
the
Statesman,
Parmenides,
and
Laws. What does Plato signify by making Socrates a silent listener to other men's speeches? As long as we do not know this we cannot have clarity regard
ing
tes
Socrates's
alleged spokesmanship.
Certainly
of
Plato
never said
is his
spokesman.
When
speaking
a word
dramas
as
distinguished from
narratives
his Socrates
says
himself,
that is
dialogue is
would
sort of
not
in his
own name.
case of
full
of sound and
dare to say that according to Shakespeare life is a tale told by an idiot, fury, signifying nothing? Everyone would say that these are
not of
the words,
can
Shakespeare, but
view
of
Macbeth,
these
wrote
speare's prove
holding
and
the
expressed
by
words.
Perhaps
one can
even
by
the speaker
play his thought exclusively by the play as speech, that is to say, the speeches of his
refutes
Macbeth's
a whole,
by
by
say
characters.
This
and
speeches and
deeds,
are
trustworthy
than the speeches, is basic for the understanding the clue to the meaning of
180
Interpretation
which
is
not
in the
the
speakers as
speakers, is the
clue
to the thematic, to
speakers.
No doubt it
is
paradoxical
of
is
no
more of
revealing
thought
us
Plato's thought
is
the
of
Shakespeare. Let
as
let
Plato's
But this
will
be
of no
a spokesman who
irony
is tantamount to
having
no spokesman at all.
Irony
means primar
ily
is
dissimulation. It
dissimulation. The
his superiority is "ironical in his relations to the says Aris totle. That is to say, he does not let his inferiors feel their inferiority, or his superiority. He conceals his superiority. But if his superiority consists in wis
aware of
dom, his
noble
dissimulation
must consist
say, in presenting himself as less wise knows. And given the fact that there is
a great
his
irony
kinds
will consist
in speaking
comes ent
differently differently
answering, but
of
speaking to differ
raising,
questions.
wonder.
people,
as well as never
always
The
Wonder
beginning
means
of
understanding
the
Platonic dialogues
is
here
not
merely
admiration of
beauty, but
perplexity,
recognition of
the sphinx-like character of the Platonic dialogues. than the outward appearance which one
one
To begin
must
with we
have
no other clue
with
try
to describe. To begin
big
question
mark,
and
nothing
else.
But, fortunately,
The very
manyness and
logue,
and
hence
sheds some
variety is an articulation of the theme, Platonic dia light. The student of the Platonic dialogues is in
by
an unknown
species,
or rather
genus,
His first task is to classify in accordance with the most obvious, the visible appearance. I mention three classifications which are evidently In the first
as
necessary.
place
dialogues,
dialogues in
which
Socrates
conducts the
conducts
conversation,
conversation.
dialogues in
the
than Socrates
the
Secondly,
distinction between
dia
logues,
the performed
dialogues
no
looking
a
characters of the
dialogue
gives
and
an
In the
narrated
participant
in the dialogue
In
a narrated
dialogue the narrator, who may be Socrates himself, can he said to a participant, as well as his
not with
regarding the participants which he could to the participants. For instance, if the Republic were
we could not
propriety
make
dialogue,
know that
at a given moment
Thrasymachus
in his face
-181
because he
was
was
a nar
rated
dialogue Socrates
into
with
him,
or even
his
accomplices.
Thirdly,
untary
compulsory dialogues, voluntary dialogues being dialogues Socrates spontaneously seeks, while compulsory dialogues are dialogues Socrates cannot with propriety avoid.
and
If
this
we
look
at
Plato's
Apology
and
of Socrates from this point of view we see that the Athenian people, or his accusers, is a
performed and
conversation,
observations
compulsory dialogue. Socrates did not spontaneously seek this does he tell us the reason why he says what he said, or his
to the
order
participants'
regarding the participants, which he could not with propriety make face. We would have to turn to the Gorgias, for instance, in
an answer
to find
background
that in his
of
the Apol
ogy
of Socrates,
where we
explains
position as an
accused
he
was
in the
by
tribunal
of children that
he did
they
would
propriety say
we note
Socrates
presents
himself in his
performed and
compulsory
as
conversation with
the Athenian
people
which
the Platonic
Socrates is Socrates
tions
in56
presented
by
a whole.
The
Apology
of
makes us expect
Socrates
presented as engaged
in
conversa
the market-place with anybody who just happened to be there. But the Platonic Socrates in deed, as distinguished from his compulsory self-presenta tion in public, is extremely selective. He talks with youths who are promising,
with retired
politicians,
rarely
with
ordinary
citizens as such.
He
is famous, or ridiculed, for using the examples of shoemakers and other crafts men, but in contradistinction to Xenophon's Socrates, the Platonic Socrates
never
has
discussion
with a craftsman.
He
shoemakers,
but
On the is
other
hand
find him
never engaged
in
Timaeus
explains
clearly his inferior. He is silently present the cosmos, and he silently observes the Eleatic
not
or the
a conversation with
ides is clearly the superior, Socrates still being very young. To summarize, the Platonic Socrates, outside of the Platonic Socrates's self-presentation in his sole
public one
speech,
converses
only
to
people,
who
in
way
or other
belong
an
elite,
although never
sense,
tes's
with
inbetween
people.
This
induces
us
by
Socrates
which
is
182
Interpretation
Socrates is compelled, not indeed by the Athenian demos, but by young companion, to stay in the Piraeus, and this compulsory stay sup the occasion for an extensive conversation on justice, in the course of Socrates founds
compulsory.
some plies
a perfectly just city, not in deed, but in speech. Before Platonic dialogue, one must consider the fact that there are considering any many Platonic dialogues, or that Plato's work consists of many dialogues be which
cause
imitation is
chapter
of
it imitates the manyness, the variety, the heterogeneity of being. The not a simple reproduction. The individual Platonic dialogue is not a
philosophy,
from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences or from a system nor is it the product of an occasion, or the relic of a stage of
characterized
less
by its
subject
by
the
manner
in
which
it treats the
subject matter.
Each^dialogue hence in
while
a
treats its
specific
subject
matter
by
means of a
specific
abstraction,
with
and
distortion. For
instance,
piety
being
silent about
To
understand a
recognize
ing
the
the
dialogue in
This
char
principle
is
revealed
acters,
action.
dialogue, time,
place,
the dialogue takes place. It is reasonable to expect that the setting was
by
Plato
on
to our sight
first
conversation
Athens'
As for the setting of the Republic, the in the Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, the seat of
power, in the house
of a
day
in
took place
time.
The
surroundings
are
Athens,
what
which
lives in the
of
The
surroundings
in the light
the tradition
had
tioned
by
name.
in the Republic ten companions, men Ten in the Piraeus. This is a reminder of the rale of the Thirty
are
There
Tyrants, during
thus
reminded of
which of
himself somehow con down the democracy and restoring an oligarchic or aristo nected, putting cratic regime. Yet the characters of the Republic have nothing in common with the oligarchic reaction. The family of Cephalus, in whose house the conversa
tion takes place, as
as the chief and
well as
Niceratus,
were victims of
the
Thirty
Tyrants. Just
on courage are
the chief
on moderation
any
rate some of
of a rebellion performs
individuals in his dialogue on justice are innocent victims in the name of justice. The restoration which Socrates
not
likely
183
be
a restoration on a
different
plane. and
The
spirit of this
Socratic
restoration
is indicated
by
Athens,
race
race or
are
by
the promise of a
dinner,
as well as of a
torch
in honor
But
we
about either
the torch
justice. The
feeding
of
the
body
is
replaced
by
the
extended conversation on
justice
constitutes
in itself
training in
or
self-control
regarding the
of asceticism. much
body,
it
of
constitutes an act
in the imitation
the
Republic, his
perfect com
less
ascetic
monwealth
of
his
The
antagonist of
As becomes
and a
from
Socrates in the Republic is Thrasymachus, the rhetorician. a brief exchange between a follower of Thrasymachus
which
follower
Socrates, by
the
and
Socrates is interrupted, Thrasymachus starts from the quite unparadoxical view that the just is identical with the legal. Since what is legal or not depends in
each case on the
decision
of
identical
behaves
and
with
Thrasymachus
answers,
he forbids to say certain things, or forbids to he demands a fine from Socrates for payment, for
as
give certain
which
Plato's brother
vouches, just
Plato himself
on
vouches
for
a payment of another
kind demanded
which
from Socrates
symachus
the
day
of
us
his
of
accusation
the
manner
in
Thra
behaves
reminds
the behavior of the city of Athens towards that the just is the
of
Thrasymachus,
does He
plays
legal, is
the thesis of
a sense
polis
which
polis.
the
polis.
He is
to play the
easily in crashing Thrasymachus continues to play a role in and in silencing Thrasymachus, but he58 has been silenced. At the beginning of the fifth book the Republic after
the art
of rhetoric.
Socrates
succeeds
there
the scene
with which
the Republic
an or
opens. of
In both
action
scenes we
have
the
imitation
decision,
Thrasymachus does
second.
By
the
beginning
The into the
of the
a member of of
the city.
restoration of city.
Thrasymachus
the
The
restoration of
justice
the
help
of
Thrasymachus's art, the art of rhetoric. In Aristophanes 's Clouds, we may recall, Socrates had been
the
revelation of was
responsible
for
the weakness of the Just Speech. The Just Speech was weak
on mythology, on
because it
gods.
based principally
show
the
were
stories
alleged guardians of
Socrates is to
the
strength of
the
manifestly
If
must
184
Interpretation
all ancient
mythology, from
hearsay
or
then, in deed
Speech, but he
the
strength of an
entirely new, novel, unheard of, Just Speech. The Platonic Socrates transcends
the generally accepted and impure
consists
notion of
in giving to
everyone
what
determined
positive
by
custom,
law,
positive
justice, according to which justice is his due, for what is a man's due is law, and there is no necessity that the
law declares to be just is
as such
positive
just merely by virtue of positing, of convention, therefore one must seek for what is just intrinsically, by nature. We must seek a social order which as such is intrinsically just, the polis which is in accordance with nature. Of such a city
It is wholly novel. It the Republic it is founded in speech.
there is
no example. must
be founded in
order
to be. In
Yet
what guidance
do
we possess after we
have been
compelled to question
According
to the
generally accepted view, justice is not merely the habit of giving everyone what is due to him, it is also meant to be beneficial. We shall then say that justice is
the habit of giving to everyone
what
is
good
for him.
According to
Aristotle the
first impression he
the
received
philanthropic character of
giving to everyone what for him, justice is the preserve of the wise. For just as the physician alone knows what is truly good for the body of a man, only the wise man, the physician of the soul, knows what is truly good for the whole man. Further
scheme presented therein. of
is
good
more,
as
selfless.
whole.
giving to everyone what is good for him, justice is utterly It is selfless devotion to others, pure serving others, or serving the Since in a just city everyone is supposed to be just in the sense that he
of
the habit
be dedicated to the
service of
own.
others,
no one will
think of
himself,
of
his
own
happiness,
women,
of
his
Total communism,
communism
and
expression of
bers? In
The is
other
answer
with the well-being of all its mem is everyone to dedicate himself entirely to the polisl words, why is this. The good city is the necessary and sufficient condition for
the highest
a
excellence or virtue of each according to his capacity. The just city in which being a good citizen is simply the same as being a good man. city Everyone is to dedicate himself, not to the pursuit which is most pleasant or
attractive to
him, but
some
reciprocity of giving and taking. The just city is then the everyone does that which he is by nature fitted to do, and in
that which is
a
by
nature
good,
perfectly
rational society.
Nothing
is fair
or
or
holy,
except what
is
useful
to say, in the last resort, for the greatest possible perfection or virtue of each member. To mention only the most shocking and the
and
185
every
of eugenics.
The
the
wise or of
how
are
the wise
to
find
the
unwise?
You
see this
is the be
same problem
which we
out
use of
the support of a
number of
But how
the
wise
The
wise rale
forthcoming with fairly large secure the loyalty of the the auxiliaries by persua
by hampered by
rational out a
persuasion alone.
For in the
is
not
city the auxiliaries will not be demonstration. The unwise, and espe
good
are persuaded
by
nature, is
That fundamental
replacement of
Its first
part consists
in the
the earth as the common mother of all men, and therewith of the
fraternity
tory,
or
of all
men,
by
of
a part of
land,
the
fatherland,
part of
the terri
the
fraternity
citizens.
The first
the funda
natural status of
to a part of the human species, the citizens of a given city. The second part of the fundamental untruth consists in ascribing divine origin to the existing social
hierarchy59
hierarchy,
not
or more
generally stated, in identifying the existing social hierarchy; that is to say, even the polis according to
rational
nature
is
society is is
not
simply
how
rational.
Hence the
recurs
of
difficulty
one can would
in
an even sharper
the question
polis.
This transformation
be
wholly impossible if the citizens of an actual polis, that is to say, men who have not undergone the specific education prescribed in the Republic for the
citizens of
the
be
persuaded would
to bow to the
rale of
the
philosophers.
The
problem of
be
altogether
insoluble if the
It is in the
.
multitude context of
. .
persuasion
by
the
philosophers.
multitude
is
persuadable
by
the philosophers,
(unclear)
be integrated into the best city because the best city is not possible without the art of Thrasymachus. To the best of my knowledge the only student of the Republic who has understood this crucial fact become friends. Thrasymachus
was
Farabi,
is
an
Islamic
philosopher who
flourished
around
900
the
founder
which
of medieval
appropriate
Aristotelianism.
According
which
Socrates,
be
philoso
philosopher's62
dealing
is
with
combined with
pher's62
the way
with
Thrasymachus,
appropriate
for the
dealing
one
the
multitude.
The first
reason
why the
noble
required
impossibility
on
the
is
meant
186
ings
other.
Interpretation
and the essential
defect
of
the particular
or closed political
society
natural
on
the
The particular or closed political society conflicts with the nity of all men. Political society in one way or another draws an arbitrary line between man and man. Political society is essentially exclusive or harsh. The discussion of justice in the first book of the Republic may be said to culminate
frater
in the
suggestion that of
the just
man
does
not
do any harm to
anyone.
Pursuing
benefi
this line
cence.
universal
But this
line
of
thought is
on
dropped silently, yet not unnoticeably, behalf of justice. The guardians of the just city
acquaintances,
makes or
friends,
and
harsh to enemies,
same view which
or strangers.
his Socrates
express the
Xenophon
tes, into
that
he,
the pupil of
Socra base
he
was at
beating
and
the
generally,
therewith
the nature of
political
things.
As I have indicated, the action of the Republic consists in Socrates's first bringing64 into the open his latent conflict with Thrasymachus, then in his si
lencing Thrasymachus,
him
an
and
finally
in reconciling Thrasymachus
by
assigning to
somewhat
important, if subordinate, place in the best city. To express it differently, the action of the Republic turns around the strength and
ness of rhetoric.
the
weak
We
noticed
tion
from
rhetoric who
the people
in its
ways will
is greatly increased. To begin with it is only expected that have already grown up in the best city and have been educated believe in the noble lie. Later on it is expected that the people
can
of an actual
city
on
be
persuaded of of
phers.
Only
philosophers
say that evils from the city if the philosophers do not become kings. That the can become kings depends on their ability to persuade the multi be kings. But
at
the basis
the
end of
Republic,
reformu
is its
central
drastically
follow,
not
if the
philosophers
they have
ten,
and
on
if they be
bring
up the
children without
any influence
the parents
the children.
Socrates does
not even
try
the philosophers
from
keep
only the
children
in the
city.
The majority
regard as
of men cannot
city be brought
the
by
persuasion alone
to undergo what
they
rest of
future
generations will
lute limits to persuasion, and therefore the best city as sketched in the Republic is not possible. The best city would be possible if a complete clean could
sweep
be made,
yet
there is always
a powerful
heritage
which cannot
be
swept
away
187
and whose power can only be broken by sustained effort of every individual by himself. The best city would be possible if all men could become philosophers, that is to say, if human nature were miraculously transformed.
was
founded in
would seem
speech65
speech
in
order
to
follow that
but the
novel
just
as well
right.
provides against
this conclusion
by
conceiving
of
the justice
the city
doing
In
which of
one's
job
individual, being strictly Accordingly he defines justice as doing one's job, or rather as well. A being is just if all its significant parts do their job well.
as parallel
order
to be
he
would
his
soul
not necessary that a man should do well the job have to fulfill in the perfectly just city. It suffices if the parts do their jobs well, if his reason is in control and his sub-rational
truly just it is
powers who
obey his reason. But this is strictly possible only in the case of a man has cultivated his reason properly, that it is to say, of the philosopher.
and
only the philosopher, can be simply just, regardless of the quality of the city in which he lives, and vice versa, the non-philosopher will not be simply just regardless of the quality of the city in which he lives. Socrates
which
speaks
less
of
doing
one's
job
well
than simply of
doing
one's
job,
has
a common
meaning of minding one's own business, not to be a to lead a retired life. To lead the just life means to lead a retired
par
of of
be is
in
letters, but
justice
of
business,
Obviously
other
self-sufficiency,
hence
philosophy.
Justice thus
is
possible re
gardless of whether
is
possible or not.
Justice thus
understood
has
whether
vulgar
den,
business,
that is to say,
his
philoso
phizing, is intrinsically pleasant. To exaggerate somewhat for the sake of clarity, in the best city the whole is happy, and no individual is happy, since
the philosophers are burdened with the duties of administration. Outside of the
happy. At this point we may begin to distinction between compulsory and voluntary dialogues means, and why the Republic is the only dialogue narrated by Socrates which is compulsory. But all this does not mean more than that the individual is capable
city the
city is
not capable.
which
life. This
ent ways.
essential
transcends political
understood
in three differ
According
its
dignity
is philosophy,
accessible
only to
what
188
he
Interpretation
natures, to human beings
to the
who possess a certain natural
calls good
equip but
ment.
According
faith,
teaching
not
of revelation
the transpolitical is
accessible
through
on
which
does
depend
election.
divine
grace or
God's free
According
in something which every human being possesses as well as any human being. The classic expression of liberal thought is the view that
political
society
for the
sake of
rights
as of
which
every human
being
possesses regardless of of
divine
To
return
to the argu
ment of
Republic, by realizing
in the language imaginative
not of
the essential
limitations have to be
with
of
ideal how
ism, idols,
or what
Socrates
might
called
the charm of
the
presentation of
justice,
but
the understanding,
felt that
charm.
(But the
strengthen stands
life,
or political responsibility.
Philosophy
work, the
present of
falls is
by
the city.)
political possible
most extensive
Laws,
which
the66
Plato,
the
best city
which
is
for beings
gods,
whereas
the Republic
is his
presentation,
the
guise of such a
presentation, his
Cicero has wisely said. This being so it is remarkable that the Pla tonic character who is the chief interlocutor in the Laws is not Socrates. In light
things,
of
as
cal
everything that has been said before, this fact forces us to raise the paradoxi question, is then not Aristophanes 's presentation of Socrates in a decisive
respect confirmed
by Plato? This question can be answered without any para doxes. The Platonic Socrates, as distinguished from the Aristophanean Socra tes, is characterized by phronesis, by practical wisdom. He is so far from being
political
blind to
acts
realized
their
essential
character,
and
that he
consistently in
accordance with
It
is, then,
of
the
which the
which
individual is
If the
perfection of
what
is the
fall
without
becoming
inhuman
or
which the city cannot flooring degraded? The Platonic Socrates begins his when
beneath
discussion city
which
of
Glaucon
the city
of
pigs, but
which
he describes the first city, that Socrates calls the true city,
the city which is nothing but city. This is a city which does nothing but satisfy the primary wants, the wants of the body, food, clothing, and and in
shelter,
nothing emerged. It is
which
yet
lost,
or
a state of
innocence, which, because it is innocent, is so easily dormancy, a state characterized, not by virtue, but by simplicity
and
good-naturedness,
the human
by
is
for
government.
In the
moment
faculty
developed,
for,
to
1 89
say the least, there is no necessity whatever that the faculties should develop in the right direction. The need for government is identical with the need for
restraint and the need of
for
virtue.
understood
is
required
for the
sake
living together,
the
flooring
coming degraded. It is
popular or political
serious concern
the city cannot fall without be for this kind of virtue, called by Plato
which
virtue.67
We may
call
it
utilitarian virtue.
Its rationale,
or
of
the city.
Yet there is
virtue.
hence
another
kind
of
virtue,
genuine
genuine virtue
is,
virtue
is knowledge. This is
Platonic in the
the
as well as of
The formula
edge or course
virtue and
means what
says.
Virtue in the
understanding,
or
and vice
strict sense
knowledge
in the
ignorance
both
of
akra
is nothing but knowl is nothing but ignorance, of physeos, of the peaks of being. This
strict sense
strict sense
courage, moderation,
justice,
moral
term,
The
virtue,
we can state
the
view of
the Platonic
ends
moral virtues
roots.
The
for the
they
city
on
mind on
only in the
needs of
only
such
they
are acquired
only
by
As
they have
no solidity.
by
philosophy
has lived in a well-ordered city in participating in virtue by habituation and not the greatest tyranny for his next life, as Plato states
man who
towards the
end of
by
habituation in
which
accordance with a
reasoning
or
point of
is the
need
is inclined to
Bergson has
the other
root
virtue and
for society or the needs of the body, whereas the does not need a calculation for that. In
the two roots of morality, one of them
philosopher
our
century
spoken of
being
the city,
being
the open or universal society. What Bergson said about the first
agreement with
is in fundamental
more strik
ing is the disagreement regarding the second root. The place occupied in Socra tes's thought by philosophy is occupied in Bergson's thought by the open and
society inspired by a kind of mysticism. Yet if morality has two radically different roots, how morality, how can there be a unity of man, and how is it
universal requirements of of can
there be a unity of
society
the
on
the mind
on
other agree
completely,
of man consists or
considerable
of
part of
has
his
openness
to the to
is
The dualism
being
part,
and
man.
being
both
open
sense
being
the whole
itself, is
Furthermore,
wholes68
are
190
Interpretation
the
transcending
individual,
inducing69
above and
beyond
such
consists
in
such
rising
beyond oneself, in
dedicating
oneself to
something
of man
We
the question of the unity of the human soul. This implies the Republic abstracts
Every dialogue,
of
I suggest, is
to the
characterized
by
from something
characteristic
most relevant
subject matter
discussed. The
the Republic
is the
abstraction
Republic is
But
the
body
limit to communism,
strictly
speaking
observed
where
his
body
with
with
anybody else, whereas he can well share his others. The same abstraction from the body can be
of
in the discussion
Republic,
same and
is treated
as
if it had the
difference between
same
baldheaded
baldheaded. The
intention is
by
the provisions
children and
children.
The blood
rendered
relation
between
parents, this
bodily
relation, is to be
invisible. Also,
on
and above
all,
is based
the
parallelism of
man, the
individual,
replaced
and
man and
the
polis
is
soon
by
the
soul and
the
polis.
The
body is silently dropped. With the same connection belongs Plato's failure to provide for the dinner promised at the beginning of the conversation. Further
more,
we understand
almost
forgets to
mention
among the
studies of
to be pursued
by
future
not
philosophers
the
field
the
of solid geom
etry, geometry
least,
we mentioned
exaggeration of
the rhetorical power of the philosophers, which is only the reverse side of the
abstraction phers.
from the
bodily
force the
non-philoso
At any rate, the question of the unity of man is discussed in the Republic in the form of the question of the unity of the soul. The question arises because
of
the
evident
necessity to
or
reason on
the one hand and the sub-rational powers of the soul on the the unity of man thus
other.
The
question of
becomes the
soul.
question of
the bond be
suggests a partition of
is the high
Aristotle in his Politics in kindred context, reason rales spiritedness politically or royally, by persua sion, whereas it rules desire despotically, by mere command. It appears, then,
by
highest
and
the
lowest in man,
or
that
We
shall venture
characteristically hu
is translated broader meaning,
man, the
human-all-too-human, is
or
spiritedness.
The
by
spiritedness, thymos
191
meaning occurs also in the Platonic dialogues. We may say that spir itedness is a Greek equivalent of the biblical Especially in the Republic
"heart."
Plato
prefers of
by
desire,
as
course, belongs
as much
opposing spiritedness and desire, whereas to thymos in the original sense, to the heart,
Plato's preference, especially in the Repub from the fact that desire includes eros, erotic desire in the highest lic, and lowest sense. Spiritedness in the sense of the Republic is radically distin is70 guished from eros. It anerotic or anti-erotic.
spiritedness.
understand we start
does
To
By
eros.
assigning to
second
spiritedness a
higher
status
This depreciation
appears most
needs
in the he in the
book the
and
clearly in two facts. When Plato indicates for the satisfaction of which men live in society,
silent about procreation.
mentions
food
drink but is
When he describes
absolutely under the sway of eros, as eros incarnate. The tyrant, however, is injustice incarnate, or the incar nation of that which is destructive of the city. Spiritedness, we should then say,
ninth
presents
him
as
as opposed
passion.
It is for this
rulers,
as a
reason
that
Xenophon
unerotic man.
Yet how
shows
the71
thoroughly
polit
and
honor,
primarily,
attachment
to
fatherland,
and
hence love? Is
the guardian,
dog
The
who
loves his
then, cannot be understood merely as attachment. The harsh, exclusive element is equally essential to patriotism. This harshness is not essential to eros because two human beings can love one
passion,
another without
but is
shows
supplied
others.
This harshness is
not essential
to eros,
There
remains a greater
difficulty. Spiritedness
itself
not also a
desire for victory, superiority, rule, honor and glory. Is it then kind of desire? With what right can it be distinguished from desire,
as
or even opposed
to it? The
answer
irascible,
distinction
which
is the
outgrowth
and spiritedness.
distinction is
two-fold
of
identical
with
root of
society,
the
body,
and
the
mind.
which are ultimately the needs To these two kinds of needs there
desires. Desire is directed toward its good, the good simply, but spiritedness, of which anger is the most obvious form, is directed towards a goal as difficult to obtain. Spiritedness arises out of the desire proper
correspond
two kinds
being
to the
resisted or thwarted.
satisfaction eros
Spiritedness is
needed
of
the desire.
Hence
spiritedness
is primarily the desire to generate human beings, spiritedness is the derivative willingness to kill and to be killed, to destroy human beings. spiritedness is in the service of secondary in comparison with desire,
Whereas
Being
192
Interpretation
desire. It is essentially obedient while looking more masterful than anything else. But as such it does not know what it should obey, the higher or the lower. It bows to it knows
ence.72
It divines something higher, it is aidos, rever Yet qua essentially deferential it is of higher dignity than the bodily desires, which lack that deference. The spirited man is, as it were, always on
not what.
the
look-out,
He is
or on
which
he
can sacrifice
him
self.
prepared to sacrifice
himself
and
as anxious
for
honoring
as
he is for
being
is
ately
most
concerned with
self-
self-assertion, he is
spiritedness
at the same
in the
same act
forgetting. Since
undetermined as
to the
body
. .
or
.
them,
or oblivious
(tape
not
being
changed)
thymos, the I in
for As
spiritedness, thymos
does
have this
desire has.
etymological
neutral
speculation,
passing.
such, spiritedness is
of objects
desire,
body,
and
radically ambiguous, and therefore it can be the root of the most radical confu sion. Spiritedness thus understood is that which makes human beings interest
of tragedy.
of
tragedy because
the
thwarted1*
wrath of
Achilles,
together,
in the
Odyssey
region of
ambiguity,
a region
in
which
where
and vice
tween the two. It is the locus of morality in the ordinary sense of the term.
Philosophy
book
ness. of the
is
not spirited.
When
joining issue
with
Laws,
Spiritedness
be
subservient
to philosophy, whereas
desire,
eros, in
agree
philosophy.
Here
we
between Plato
and
becomes in the
case of
Aristophanes. As desire for superiority, spiritedness sensible men the desire for recognition by free men. It is
to political
therefore essentially
related
liberty, hence
to
law,
and
hence to
justice. Similarly, as essentially deferential, it is a sense of shame, which as such bows primarily to the ancestral, the primary manifestation of the good.
it is essentially related to justice. Spiritedness in its normal for justice, or moral indignation. This is the reason why spirited ness is presented as the bond through which man is in Plato's dialogue on one, justice, the Republic. And the action of the Republic can be said to consist in
reasons
For both
form is
a zeal
first arousing spiritedness or the virtue belonging dedicated to non-understood justice, that is, what
to
it,
idealism,
tiveness
and
by political By understanding spiritedness we understand of moral indignation, which easily turns into
vindic-
we now
The ambiguity
of spiritedness
is
not
exhausted, how
ever,
by
the
ambiguity
of moral
indignation.75
It
shows
itself
most
strikingly in
193
stated
unjustified
indignation. No
soliloquy.
one
has
this more
seven
directly
Hamlet
enumerates
all of
them are
objects of moral
center
indignation,
he
mentions
injustice
This is
shifts
insensibly
into the
unjustified
indignation
about unrequited
love.
perhaps
The Republic
tion
ness
the
purification of
spiritedness, that
purifica
which consists
in its
submission
center of man.
The In
world of abstracts
other
which
words
from charis,
The
grace
in the
classic sense
in
it is essentially
to eros.
world of spiritedness
is
not
the
in Plato's view,
whether
they
anangke, as grace and compulsion, this question coincides with the question of
the
relation and
and
the
Banquet, between
the
most com
pulsory
cannot
question voluntary for that matter, in any lectures be conveniently discussed today, nor,
of
devoted to
political science.
(NOVEMBER 7, 1958)
collapse of rationalism.
This
collapse
induces
us
extent
to
which
it is
an
rationalism. The first step in this inquiry, to the empirical inquiry, is the question of the origin of ratio
nalism.
For
a number of reasons or
this
question can
be identified
with
the prob
lem
no
of
Socrates,
of
the
philosophy in
general.
It is
doubt
the
the
utmost
importance to
to it
contrast
classical
political
philosophy
with
philosophic alternatives
by
philosophy.
But before
one can
do that
have
understood
political
philosophy
by
itself. I limit
myself
to the
question
concerning the
the
question
the
problem which
obstacle
come.
That
problem and
sentation of
Socrates. Socrates is
He does
not understand
the political
He
difference between philosophy and the polis. He is unaware of the does not understand the political in its specific character. The reason for this is give one unerotic and amusic. To this accusation Xenophon and Plato his
essential
being
Socrates is
He
understands
the political
in its
non-rational character.
He
realizes
the
critical
importance
of
thymos,
of
194
Interpretation
as
spiritedness,
and
the
multitude.
He
un
derstood the
For he
whole
was
political
in its
specific character.
In
fact,
no one
the first to
grasp the
significance of the
idea,
of
is
characterized
by
articulation
into
classes or
kinds,
be
understood of
only
not
by
thought,
and not
by
sense perception.
Whatever
we
think
quate.
may inade
It does
reply to the
wide-spread
charge that
Socrates
was amusic.
or
According
political
to a
the
opponent of classical
sophists.
philosophy is sophistry, the teaching and the practice of the Greek This view deserves the reputation which it enjoys. A single superficial
reading of the first book of the Republic, of the Gorgias, or of the Protagoras, is sufficient for producing it. In the nineteenth century this view came to be understood as follows. Classical political philosophy is related to the sophists
as
tion,
German idealism, especially Hegel, is to the theorists of the French revolu and in particular to the French philosophes. Both the adherents and ene
the principles of 1789 have adhered, and still adhere, to this view.
are
mies of
Liberals favor
inclined to
The
most
longer
that
assert a
equality,
but
a simple equality.
For the
view
classical political
all classical
thought,
and
and
analogy between
we are
liberalism
sophists
Now, however,
simply
liberals
or
understanding of either classical political philosophy But this is not the proper place for such an examination.
myself to
or of
the
Here I limit
the
following
teaching
remarks.
Plato's
criticism of
the soph
against
the
way
us name
of
life. He had in
the name of the
to that
which
is
by
intellectuals,
sake,
and
intellectual
conceals the
own
cultivate their
gain, power,
scription,
a
or prestige.
other
words, intellectual is
merely
external
de
description
for
certain
bureaucratic purposes,
living by writing and writing and reading tax declarations, for example, but something ill-defined. Intellectuals form a profession, but in all other profes
not
their
by
profession to
exists no such
intellectuals. One
could perhaps
profession of
intellectuals
is distinguished from
by
195
of
its
claims.
of
confusion, increases
confusion
therefore it is a
return
menace not
To
defends the
young.
sophists
they
are corruptors of
the many charge, by many themselves who make that charge, or by the polis as it actually is and always will be. The sophists are mere imitators of the polis and of the politi
not as
cians.
Gorgias
and
and
are
oric,
was
or
philosophy is opposed not to political philosophy, but to rhetoric, that is to say, to autonomous rhet to the view that the highest art, the political art, is rhetoric. This view
rhetoricians.
political on a
but
Classical
indeed based
philosophy, but
on a
philosophy
which excluded
the
of political philosophy. of
Plato has
this philos
funda
bodies, whereas soul and mind are merely derivative. It justice, or right, is in no way natural or in accor
dance is
with
by
Hence in
principle
system, they say today, any any convention, any opinion, any other. There is no nature, no truth, in this kind of thing, and therefore there cannot be a science of these things. The true art or science
value as good as
dealing
interest,
is the
art of
influencing
to one's
that is to say, the art of rhetoric. But in the Republic at any rate Plato
speaks much
less emphatically
of
This enmity is
so grave
because the
as
the
"bitches
barking
at their
The
great alternative
to classical political
our opinion
Plato
between
He
emphasizes
delusion, he
these noble
Philosophy
convince
needs then
as
its
supplement.
Philosophy
is
quarrels
only
If he is to
in poetry is lost if poetry is us he must show that nothing understood as ministerial. In the Republic Plato discusses poetry twice. The first discussion, in the second and third books, precedes the discussion of phi
which
admirable
The
second
discussion, in the tenth book, follows the discussion of philosophy. The first discussion takes place between Socrates and Adeimantus, whose characteristic
is
moderation or
desire,
and who
has
dissatisfaction
with what
discussion takes
place
between Socrates
196
Interpretation
whose characteristic
Glaucon,
is
desire
to
rather
than sobriety
more
or austerity.
The
second
discussion
daring
of
than the
first. The
promises
be
infinitely
untrue
speeches
to
be told to
children.
The
with
makers
unconcerned
fit to be told to children, that is to say, to immature human beings regardless of their age. The distinction between fit and unfit
whether their stories are
stories
has therefore to be
made
by
poets,
by
the political
authorities, in the best case by the wise founders authorities must be concerned with whether the
goodness of men and citizens. poetic qualities.
stories
to the their
They
are not
concerned, it seems,
with
As
In
regards
likely
to be
better
The
the
poets.
they
be
must compel
models of
human
The
presentation must
be left to the
to think
of
poets.
the poets
is formi
not
dable. It say
of a
Aphrodite
of
as a model of civic
excellence,
to
Adeimantus
gods must
be
presented as
And the
gods must
be
presented as
simple,
deceiving.
no
somewhat perplexed on
difficulty whatever to accept the first proposition, but he is by the second proposition. The reason for this appears
context.
same
For it
only
noble motive
for
can
deceiving
they
striking
If the
man's
how
avoid
deceiving
for
most
rale
laid down
by
Socrates is the
prohibition against
presenting the
when
terrors of death and the suffering from the loss of a man's dearest. The poets
are not permitted
they
adequately
or sorrow.
everyone else
must
write
is
speechless through
suffering, grief,
They
poetry on the principle that a good man, by virtue of his selfsufficiency, is not made miserable by the loss of his children, his brothers, or his friends. The poets may present the lamentations of inferior women and still
more
inferior men,
so that
to the passions
by poetically imitating
the passions, it consecrates the passions. The ministerial poetry on the other hand helps man in learning to control the passions. It is necessary to consider this contention also as
a
reply to Aristophanes. According to Aristophanes the as such teach justice. Plato denies that claim.
Poetry
right
poets present
sympathy
force the
powers
in
197
Appealing
by
Aristophanes Plato de
they do
not
give
must
their audience any relief, so to speak, from this salutary teaching. Poets
tables on
Aristophanes; he draws
critique of
dictment
against
Aristophanes.
as such
Especially
name of
convinc
ing,
or
amusing, is the
comedy
in the
the polis, a
the
center of
ridicule
foul language
permitted
against one
another,
they
are sober or
drank, is
convey.
not
to be
in the just
city.
The
levity
fostered
by
comedy is bound
and
to counteract
any lessons of justice which All the devices of comedy, slander, ob explicitly
or
scenity,
blasphemy,
parody,
of all
are
implicitly
rejected
by
Plato.
In
spite of or
because
poetry.
no doubt left, and in fact it is explicitly stated, that the is rather austere and therefore less delightful than the best poetry poetry. We are expected to abandon something of great worth for the we shall miss
which
sake of
justice. What
verse
the Homeric
in
clearly stated in the discussion of Achilles expresses his contempt for his chief, the
is
most
king
Agamemnon.
to
Hearing
in
no
such
insults
of mlers
by
not conducive
obedience at
pleasure, this
appears
would
any way be
rate".
surprising"
is
from
brief
consideration of
drunkard,
we
who possess
the eyes of a
dog
pleasure
derive from
insult
hearing
this verse is
two-fold. In the
first
place
it is
a most
perfect of a
which can
be hurled
against a
king
or a captain.
deer, he thinks only of flight. But a deer is a noble, graceful therefore he is compared to a dog, to the eyes of a dog, an ignoble, slavish, back;9 therefore he is com crawling expression. But a dog can attack and fight pared to a deer, which can only run away, and so on. It is a perfect circle.
by a noble subject against an unworthy king. It expresses a noble feeling, the feeling of indignation, about the rule of unworthy rulers. Socrates men, about the oppression of bom rulers by merely factual
Secondly
it is
an
insult hurled
understandably76
deplores that
all,
all
we
should
have to
miss
such gems.
We
shall
have to
city
miss above
tragedy
and
comedy,
for,
says
must
imitate
and
dedicate himself entirely to one job, hence, in a sense, be many different kinds
In
be both
a comic and a
when
tragic
poet. not
This latter
to the puri
point
is
suggested
by
he speaks,
versa.
tan
Adeimantus, but
good comic poet
to
the
is
It is
suggested
that in the just city one kind of man, the by this same Socrates, who demands highest kind according to him, must have two jobs, that of the philosopher and
198
Interpretation
other men
that
they
perform a
their
or mind
their own to be
business, but
We
another
poets77
urges
the
comic
"not to
mind
serious."
to see that
Socrates leaves
discussion
an
opening for
discussion, for
obey
completely different
argument until
poetry
someone persuades
such a
by us by
saying, "We
must
our present
another,
more
beautiful,
argument."
re-opening
of
consideration
one cannot
teach control of the passions if one does not know the passions, and
knowing
is
to present, to
imitate,
or
to express, the
even
passions.
In
accordance with
this
case of
Plato's
presentation of
Thrasymachus's
of
contradicts
his speech,
or
rather, it
the
his Socrates, or to be still more precise, it contradicts the speech of Plato's Adeimantus. We are, then, in need of another argument, a more beauti ful argument, regarding poetry. The first step in that argument is dictated by
the most obvious flaw of the
contest
what
first argument,
poets.
of
the first
round as
it were, in the
between Plato
and
the
In the first
what
crucial
question,
is,
regarding
poetry.
Poetry
came
gods,
to
demons, heroes,
must
political
poetry
of
One cannot leave it, then, considering poetry from the point of view of the city, or of morality. The ultimate judgment on morality will depend on how poetry is related to truth. The first discussion of poetry takes place at the earliest possible moment in
the
founding
of
the best
city.
The second,
and
in
a sense
final, discussion
of
poetry takes
place after
the political part of the Republic is not concluded, as some people seem to
think,
somewhere
Philosophy
the subject of philosophy comes to the in the Republic is a part of the political philosophy is introduced in the Republic as a mere means for estab
when
lishing
mary
the
Aristotle,
interpreter Republic
of
Plato
sum
that ever was, does not even refer to the rale of the philosophers in
and criticism of
his
ends at
end of
At that
place
best city as described before is not only vant. It makes no difference, Socrates justice
presented
it has become perfectly clear that the impossible, but in a sense, even irrele
says
there,
whether the
in speech, exists,
or will
exist,
on earth or
in
certain that
it
individual.
199
be
for justice
for
injustice,
during
of of
life
death. The
final discussion
and
poetry introduces the discussion the punishment for injustice. At the beginning
poetry Socrates says that the necessity of rejecting especially dramatic poetry has in the meantime become so much clearer, for in the meantime the differ ence between the various kinds or forms of the soul has been brought out. By
this he does not merely mean the exposition regarding the tripartite division of the soul
and above
into the reasoning, the spirited, and the desiring part. He means also, all, the various forms of badness of the soul, the timocratic, oligar
and
chic,
and
democratic,
ninth of
tyrannical
after
forms
which
eighth
books.
Only
is79
badness
place.
final discussion
of
poetry take
much as
For poetry concerned with the goodness and badness of the soul as is philosophy. Only now, in the second and final discussion of poetry,
raise
does Socrates
more of
precisely,
appearances a painted
For example,
bed
bed in
even of
by
sleep, like the bed made by the carpenter. Yet the carpenter is not the tme bed. The true bed is the idea
which
the
bed,
is
beds,
bed,
made
by
by
bed
the
made
by
the
painter.
The
painter
does
not reproduce
visible
bed; he reproduces the bed as it appears perspectively. He imitates not the bed, but the phantasm of the bed. Imitation is then the reproduction of
which
something
is
at the
of a phantasm of
something
in its
turn
is
modeled after
the
truth,
or
in
imitation
of
mere appear
presents a general
have to know the original, the thing itself, truth. The poet, does not know the general in his general
the
art of
possess
the
general.
Up
rates
poet
is
compared poet
by
Socrates to
relation of
the
by
the
triad,
the
one
contends, generalizing from this, bed, carpenter, painter, who possesses genuine knowledge, that is to say, the only one
and
point of view of goodness
is
poetry is at the third from the truth, but from philosophy as well. The common remove, not only craftsmen are superior in wisdom and understanding to the poets, or to quote
does
Hence
we conclude
by
from the Phaedrus, "Even the lovers of bodily toil or of gymnastic training are far superior to the poets, for they are not concerned with mere phantasms at
200
Interpretation
things."80
any rate, that is to say with merely imagined and absurd description and denigration of poetry
absurd, for the questions,
men who were as
extreme
signify?
It
cannot
be simply
listen to Socrates, or answer his somewhat leading intelligent as I or most of you, and not one of them protests.
concerned with said to
Philosophy, it
or the
appears, is
with
the
forms,
are
imitate
artifacts.
here
the
presented as artifacts.
ideas,
The very summit and cause of the poetry, For the poets do not possess knowledge of the
only opinions. They imitate opinions especially imitate phantasms of virtue, and therefore also opin regarding virtue, they ions about and phantasms of the divine. They imitate the human things as they
nature of things.
or appear
They imitate
in the light
of
opinion,
of authoritative opinion.
Or,
to use a Platonic
world of
Poetry
praises
artificiality because it entirely belongs to the and blames what the city, what society, praises
blames. The city praises and blames what it has been taught to praise and blame by its legislator or founder. The legislator laid down the moral order of
the city
by looking
with
at
the idea
of
justice, just
as a carpenter makes a
bed
by
the
looking
his
mind's eye at
remains within
by
legislator,
who
in
some
way
or another
the idea
a
of
justice.
morality defects
interpretation of what unwittingly The artists, Nietzsche says, have at all times been the valets of a religion. But, as Nietzsche knew, for a valet there is no hero. If
perhaps given perfect
of a
morality,
they
are
in the best
position
to
know the
their
master conceals
in
public and
morality to
critics of
which
they
are
subject.
or
In truth,
however, they
imitators
are
the severest
criti
cizes
established
of
established order.
poets as as
When Plato
of
imitators, he
them in
he had
them,
he himself had
made
his first
critique of
poetry in the
completed
second and
third
book
of
there he had
poetry.
subjected
After he has
the
political part of
the
Republic, he
us
takes away
nature of
part of
the
scaffolding
of
by letting
divine the
of
the
teaching
book
of
the Republic
by
the
teaching
conveyed through
poetry in the
second
necessarily
The legislator
must persuade or
only
good
happy,
wine
and
Laws
of
where an old
Athenian
not
Cretan
the
desirable
character of
drinking
it is
made clearer
than in the
the
201
poetry must comply. There are standards of poetic be considered. Grace or pleasure in their way are as
as morality, and of this element the poets themselves are the best judges. That is to say, Plato did not favor ill written pious tracts. The relation between legislator and poet is entirely reversed, however, in a later discussion
important
where
is, how
should the
legislator
state
entirely on compulsion and force, or should he state the law doubly, that is to say, both as mere commands and justifying them by a prooemium or a
ing
double
statement
is
much
duplicity
is
not
sufficient, for
the
audience
homogeneous
and81
or uniform.
Very
the
roughly,
prelude
every
to the
on
audience consists of an
intelligent
The
law
must
function. It
intelligent
the one hand and the unintelligent on the other. Yet intelligent people are
sometimes persuaded
by
different
arguments
well go so
far
as to
become
The
author of
has learned to
competence
shows
his
in this
respect
and who
kinds
of
differently. This
man cannot
legislator, for
the
the legislator is
same
thing
to all.
man who can write
the
proper prelude?
of preludes
half he
poets."
of
the
by
address the
myth
according to
what
the
inspiration
and
hence do
not
know
they
say.
But then
say that the irrationality of the poet consists, not in ignorance of what he says, but in self-contradiction. Since the poet imitates human beings, he creates characters of contradictory moods who contradict one another, and in
this way
in this way
82he
contradicts
himself does
without
knowing
contradict
which of
the to
contradictory statements is tme and identify himself with the poet. The
speaks
which
is false. The
not
philosopher goes on
poet
truly
himself. He
ambiguously by impersonating contradictory characters, so that one can not know which, if any, of the characters through which he speaks comes closest to what he thinks. The legislator on the other hand must speak unam
easy matter. The legislator wishes, for but what is a moderate funeral depends example, that funerals be moderate, people to be buried, whether they are rich or very much on the means of the dignity. No one appre poor or of moderate means. Each station has its peculiar
biguously
and simply.
But this is
no
ciates
that peculiar
dignity
who
can
praise
with
equal
felicity
the tomb of
excessive
202
Interpretation
because the
on
adorned tomb
poet
knows best
people.
and
moods of
the
rich,
late
inbetween
If the legislator
then to legis
and
intelligently
human things he
must understand
he
is helped in acquiring that understanding by sitting at the feet of the poets, for the poets, we may add, understand the human things not only as they appear in
the light
of
the
law,
or established
morality, but as
men's
they
are
in
themselves.
poet
The
who
legislator knows
souls.
Since it is the
teaches the
a
legislator,
being
the valet of a
theology
or of
morality that he is rather the creator of them. According to Herodotus, Homer and Hesiod created what we would call Greek religion. Plato has expressed this
thought
as
clearly
as
he
could
in his
simile of
is to say,
of
we
humans,
see
nothing, that
is to say, nothing
higher,
than shadows
artifacts, especially
living
around on
artifacts.
high. We do
as
But
is
shown
clearly
by
noble
disapproving
altogether of
do exactly the same thing as Plato himself. The discussion of poetry in the Laws leads us to
poets possess genuine
realize and
Plato the
etry is
knowledge
of the
soul,
of
psychohgia
as Platonic philosophy is psychology in the Platonic sense. The neces itself, every philosophy sary although not sufficient condition for philosophy being psychology in the
itself,
more
precisely, just
for
not
Platonic
sense
is that the
soul
is
not regarded as
derivative from
body
or as
secondary in relation to the body. A materialistic philosophy is indeed radically different from poetry. It would need poetry, understanding of the life of the
soul as we
know it
as
human
supplement.
We
see this
beings, only in the form of a dubious sentimental clearly today when poetry appears as the only refuge
from
psychology and a sociology which are unable to articulate human life in its fullness and depth because they are constitutionally ignorant of the differ
a
ence
between the
noble and
the
base, for
that
psychology
and that
are83
sociology
which regards
of materialistic origin.
on the other
hand,
be
body as derivative, has the same literally tme of course, for philosophy
and not
is
things,
soul of man.
soul,
with
Philosophy is necessarily also concerned with that body and number and the relation of the soul to these
entrusts
the treatment
of
that other
thing
as a
to the
Timaeus,
who presents
cosmology,
a mathematical
physics,
likely
tale. The core, or the arche, the the doctrine of the soul,
poetry. an
and
initiating
principle of
this core,
or arche,
Yet is it
entirely different
than does
philosophy treats its subject in The poet sets forth his vision of
203
try
is
a vision with
poetry
expresses
expresses
logismos. Therefore itself in poems, epic, dramatic, or lyric, whereas philosophy itself in treatises. In the treatise proper names do not occur except Treatises
"impersonal."
accidentally.
them,
lifeless, but what lives in dies in them, what undergoes various kinds of fate in treatises is not human beings but logoi, assertions with their accompanying reasoning. Plato refers frequently to this life and fate of the logoi most clearly perhaps in
are
They
are not
or what
the
Phaedo,
where
Socrates
that
assertions,
tes himself.
presses
might
die,
expresses the fear that his logoi, let us say his is to say, prove to be refutable. Yet the primary the death of Socrates's logoi but the death of Socra
More generally stated, it is not true that Platonic philosophy ex itself in the form of treatises. Platonic philosophy is incompatible with
dialogue,
of a
kind
imitation. Not only is the subject matter of poetry the same as that drama, the fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, likewise the treatment is funda
of
mentally
the same character in both cases. Neither the Platonic dialogue nor
men
the poetic work is autonomous, both are ministerial, both serve to lead the understanding of the human soul.
to
But is this
Did
we not admit
forth his
refuting
present
vision of
alternative
the
human85
soul without
visions,
whereas
and
it seems, from Dante's, and both visions strikingly differ again from Shakespeare's. The very question as to which vision is the most adequate cannot be raised, let alone answered, in the
sion of the soul
strikingly differs,
so
element of poetry.
However,
into the human drama. The reasoning is frequently, not to say always, faulty, deliberately faulty, as it should be within an imitation of human life. And on
the other
hand
with what
right
can one
and
Homer
by
reasoning?
They did
poems contain
reasoning.
hidden, unexpressed thoughts. These thoughts include Homer's Furthermore, we must say that every human phenomenon has its
non-poetic side.
poetic and
its
medical side.
of
Philosophy
true. Think
the way in
which
Goethe
presented
both. But this is obviously not in the Faust the two sides of
contrasting Faust's and Mephistopheles's remarks on Faust's love for Gretchen. Poetry does justice to the two sides of life by splitting itself, as it
love
by
were, into
tragedy
not
and
says said
is
both
Finally, philosophy is
whereas
understanding,
passion.86
to our
passion,86
poetry
works a
This
would
be true if philosophy
were
entirely
on
our
mathe-
204
Interpretation
the solu therefore
But philosophy in the Platonic sense is a solution and in fact tion to the human problem, the problem of happiness. Philosophy is
matics.
not
teaching, but
affect and
way in fact
of
presentation
of philoso
being, just
ourselves
as
In the
of
words of
Plato, "We
is
the authors
the
tragedy
which
at once
Is there then
etry,
or rather
no
difference
whatever
what we
ordinarily mean by poetry simply, does not imitate, Plato says in the tenth book of the Republic, the sensible and quiet or reposed character, but it
prefers
the
interesting
not the
The theme
of
poetry is
simply
the good man not feel grief at the loss of his son, for instance? Will torn between
he
not
be
his
grief and
his
duty
if
and
hence be two-fold
will
alone
I believe he
he
would
be
ashamed of
another would
dare to
many
which
things which
he
have
another see
him
doing."
That
but
which
with
he
conceals
from others, is
propriety Poetry legit
alone gives
we
adequacy
to
and with
with propriety.
imately
brings to light
from
our
what
bring
light.
our
Poetry
us relief
it deepens
happiness. Yet
must understand
the expression, the good man, not only in the common sense
but
man
sense.
good
in the Platonic
is
not an
sense
philosopher. myself or
philosopher
individual like
like
philosophy or of philosophy tout court or tout long. Plato means then by saying that poetry does not
the
good of
present
life
yet
life that poetry does not present the philosopher, the thinker and the thought. I quote from the Phaedrus, "The superheavenly place has not
praised and will never
here,"
be properly praised by any of the poets that is to say, by any of the poets in the ordinary and narrow sense. But is not the poet too a thinker? And does not poetry present also the poet as poet, for example Hesiod in his Works and Days, Dante, and Shakespeare in his Tem
pest, to say nothing
of
been
Aristophanes. And
while
Still, it is
of
not essential
to poetry that it
order
Plato
presents the
life
of
thought in
to
instill his
readers with
love
of the
life
sophic life, poetry does not present become themselves poets. But be this
thought, or to call them to the philo poetry in order to induce its hearers to
as of
inferior to the
philosopher
and ways
it may, poetry as poetry presents men life inferior to the philosophic life.
Poetry
presents ways of
life
characterized
by
fundamental
choice which
ex-
205
philosophy
piness.
as
problem of
hap
by
to
Aristotle,
way
of
political means
it
can
be
solved
only
by
and
through the
philosophic
presents men
then
of
Poetry,
however,
either
a possibility.
only such human beings for whom the philosophic life is not From Plato's point of view the life which is not philosophic is
problem or else
obviously incapable of solving the human the human problem in a wholly inadequate or in
case
it does
solve
an absurd manner.
In the first
it is the theme
we
of
From here
may
understand ministerial
why it is according to
nature that
philosophy
function,
presents
human life
as
function
Yet
by
articulating the
cardinal problem of
as
it
comes sophic
which
to sight
within
the non-philosophic
life, poetry
prepares
philo
legitimate only as ministerial to the Platonic dialogue in its turn is ministerial to the life of understanding. Autonomous poetry
life.
Poetry is
respect.
It lives in the
of passion
element of
imagination
and of which
images,
But
autonomous
purification of
modify passion. It ennobles passion and poetry does not know the end for the sake passion is required.
the
NOTES
1.
2. 3.
"are"
substituted
"observations"
by
editors
is"
of the ms.
reasons"
substituted
"warm"
by
of the ms.
substituted
"thought"
4. 5. 6.
substituted
"not"
by by
editors
for "well
worn"
of the ms.
editors
for
"though"
of
the ms.
inserted
by
hand
above
the line.
"thoughts"
substituted
by
editors
for
to
"thought"
of
the
ms.
of"
7. The
words
"science
which
is
said
have
rendered possible
this control
have been
added
by
hand
8.
at the
bottom
the line
indicating
in
the text.
"ever"
substituted
by
editors
for
"every"
of
substituted
general"
inserted
by by
editors
for
comma of
hand
above
the line.
inserted
by
hand
above
the line.
above
"reflection"
inserted
by
by
hand
the line.
removed
"product"
13. The
"the"
word
after
substituted
by
the editors.
14.
15.
16. 17.
"project"
for
of the ms.
"who"
added
"friend's"
by
editors.
substituted
"at"
by
editors
for
"friends"
of the ms.
substituted
by
editors
for
"as"
of the ms.
206
Interpretation
words
18. The
apparent
height,"
have been
added
by
lacuna in the ms., though there is no visible sign of anything being 19. The word after has been removed by the editors. 20. substituted by editors for of the ms.
"but"
"Peace"
"Bees"
21. "is
22.
not"
substituted by editors for "the chief of the ms. of the ms. by editors for 23. inserted by hand to fill a lacuna in the ms. 24. The word after has been removed by the editors. 25. substituted by editors for of the ms. 26. "the pederast inserted by hand at the end of the paragraph. 27. This sentence has been inserted by hand at the end of the paragraph. 28. of the ms. substituted by editors for 29. The word after has been removed by the editors. 30. substituted by editors for of the ms. 31. of the ms. substituted by editors for 32. of the ms. substituted by editors for 33. This word has been crossed out by hand in the ms. and the words "themselves do have been inserted by hand after the following words "what the 34. The word after has been removed by the editors. 35. substituted by editors for of the ms. 36. inserted by hand above the line to replace which has been crossed out. 37. substituted by editors for of the ms. after 38. The word has been removed by the editors. 39. substituted by editors for of the ms. 40. substituted by editors for of the ms. 41. of the ms. substituted by editors for 42. substituted by editors for of the ms. 43. substituted by editors for of the ms. 44. "Xenophon, substituted by editors for "Xenophon. of the ms. 45. inserted by hand above the line. 46. substituted by editors for of the ms. 47. substituted by editors for of the ms. 48. The word after has been removed by the editors. of the ms. 49. substituted by editors for 50. substituted by editors for of the ms. of the ms. 51. substituted by editors for 52. substituted by editors for "of of the ms. 53. The words "originator of have been added by the editors to fill a lacuna in the ms., which
achieved
by"
"a"
substituted
"the"
"four"
"this"
"is"
"become"
"became"
Peisthetaerus"
"in"
"on"
"by"
"prompted"
"that"
"the"
"this"
"his"
"they"
"the"
"not"
gods"
"the"
"Either"
"as"
"is"
"Clouds"
"gods"
"seems"
"seem"
"to"
"effect"
"complete"
"compete"
"its"
"it"
"that"
"hat"
"between"
"in"
"takes"
"take"
the"
The"
"which"
"are"
"is"
"to"
"with"
"to"
"not"
"places"
"place"
"word"
"words"
"I"
"I'll"
"with"
has
room
for
impossible to
the
read.
54.
"most"
inserted
by
hand
above
line. for
of
"gentleman's"
"gentleman"
substituted
"in"
by
editors
of
the ms.
for
for
"on"
the ms.
"has"
of
the ms.
59. The
added
words
"or
at
more
by
hand
generally stated, in identifying the existing social hierarchy" have the bottom of the page, with an asterisk above the line their
proper place
in the text.
substituted
indicating
by
editors
for
comma of
the
ms.
(unclear)
is
what appears
ms. of
of
"philosopher's"
substituted
"limitation"
by
editors
"philosophers"
the ms.
63.
64.
substituted
"bringing"
substituted
"speech"
the ms.
"bring"
of
the ms.
previous word was
65.
inserted
by
"justice", but
the final
"ice"
hand
originally
written as
201
word
has been be
a
underlined
at
by
the editors.
67. There
sign of
seems to
lacuna
anything
being
missing.
"wholes"
substituted
"inducing"
substituted
"an"
of the ms.
"in
using"
of the ms.
70. The
"is"
word
after
removed of
by
the editors.
"the"
substituted
"reverence"
by
editors
the ms.
"reverent"
substituted
"
by
editors
for is
of the ms.
what appears
(tape
being
"
changed)
of
here in the
ms.
In the
omitted
section,
or
Professor Strauss
thymos.
was
probably speaking
desire,
spiritedness,
"thwarted"
word words
has been
underlined
by
the editors.
vindictiveness or punitiveness.
itedness is
hand
text.
at
not
exhausted,
however, by
the
indignation."
ambiguity
of moral
the line
indicating
substituted
"poets"
by
editors
for
"understandingly"
of the ms.
substituted
"the"
by
editors
for
"poet,"
of
the
ms.
added
word word
by
editors.
"is"
79. The
"as"
after
"things"
has been
removed
by
the editors.
80. The
81.
(followed
by
added
by
hand
at
of the ms. by editors for editors for commas of the ms. by substituted by editors for of the ms. Question mark substituted by editors for period of the inserted by hand above the line. substituted
substituted
"is"
"or"
ms.
"human"
86. The
manuscript
has
"passions,"
with
the final
"s"
by
hand.
"excludes"
substituted
by
editors
for
"excluded"