Category Archives: Greek Philosophy

Codes in Aristotle’s Moral Reasoning

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“As Aristotle consistently says, the best generalizations about how one should behave hold only for the most part.  If one attempted to reduce one’s conception of what virtue requires to a set of rules, then, however subtle and thoughtful one was in drawing up the code, cases would inevitably turn up in which a mechanical application of the rules would strike one as wrong— and not necessarily because one had changed one’s mind; rather, one’s mind on the matter was not susceptible of capture in any universal formula”  -John McDowell (1)

The above viewpoint articulated by McDowell is also called by him “non-codifiability.”  That is, knowledge of ethical reasoning is non-discursive, it is irreducible to rules, precepts or other, linguistic or not, ways of conceptualization.

However, someone may object that such a view cannot be sustained, that in fact when ethical generalizations are made correctly, they are exemplars of codifiability.  In order to see why this is so, let us distinguish between two kinds of moral generalizations.

  1. Simple Generalization:
    In situation X, do Y.
  1. Sophisticated Generalization:
    In situation X, do Y most of the time.

It would be granted, I think, that moral reasoning involving type A would be problematic, for the reason that McDowell, merely echoing Aristotle, points out above.  There would be too many exceptions to this kind of rule to be productively reliable.  Furthermore, perhaps, such indeterminate applicability even undermines its status as a rule. 

Thus the Sophisticated Generalization is an improved version of the Simple Generalization, for it accommodates the “what if” scenarios implied in the Simple Generalization.  However, the Sophisticated Generalization, to return to the original objection, seems (problematically for the non-codifiabilist) to both explain moral reasoning and articulate it in a codifiable way.

However, let us see if the Sophisticated Generalization is actual codifiable.  Any statement allowing for variation or accommodation of an exception such as  “In situation X, do Y most of the time,” is really another way of saying that, “In situation X, do Y, except in case X1 do Y1, except in case X2 do Y2, etc.”  If this is the case though, this shows that the Sophisticated Generalization is not a general rule, but a set of particular rules collected into a dictum.  And if this collective of rules cannot allow for the nuance necessary in moral reasoning, for it will be hard to see at which point the exceptions will cease, then the Sophisticated Generalization falls prey to the same fault as the Simple Generalization.  Both are unable to parallel exhaustively, via a set of codes, the complexity or adaptive variation one encounters in day to day moral reasoning.    

(1) John McDowell, pg. 58, Virtue and Reason, in “Mind, Value and Reality”

Against Empiricism: Galen’s Arguments

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Galen’s Rationalism, properly understood and practiced, involves an appropriation of experience, in that by taking hold of and building upon phenomena the doctor-philosopher achieves a superior type of knowledge, an art of medicine.  Insofar as this is the case then, Rationalism is inarguably a more robust theory of knowledge compared to Empiricism, which in fact is subsumed into this Galenic Rationalism.  On the other hand, however, if Empirical phenomena are not incorporated into the superior methods of Rationalist understanding, then to this same degree they are deficient and wanting.  This naked kind of Empiricism is exactly the target of Galen’s criticism, of which I present two arguments below.

The first of these criticisms can be subtle on a first reading, and deals with argument itself.  Galen says,

For it is not their view [the Empiricists] that one can judge the truth of the matters in question in these accounts, since they believe that evident perception and memory suffice for the constitution of all arts.  But, to judge such matters it is necessary to suppose that there is some power in us which is able to consider and to judge what is incompatible and what follows.  If, then, there is no such power in us, we should not endeavor either to produce arguments ourselves or to refute those arguments which have been argued badly (Outline of Empiricism 44 trans. Walzer, Frede).(1)

Galen is not here saying that Empiricists recuse themselves from the dispute about the role of reason in medicine; rather he is forcing the point that the Empiricists have no standing when it comes to arbitrating any dispute because they have nothing to arbitrate by, except inert experience.  In order to appeal to the superiority of Empiricism over Rationalism, one has to make use of reason itself, but this would appeal to something beyond experience and memory, a resource which Empiricism does not have.  In fact, Galen implies that Empiricists are unable to be consistent in their adherence to Empiricism, since even it requires “some power in us which is able to consider and to judge what is incompatible and what follows.”  Thus, even on a strictly Empiricist program, there must be judgments about what is similar or dissimilar, compatible or incompatible, consistent or inconsistent concerning the phenomena under investigation, if one is expected to categorize or understand the information.  In summary, to argue at all is to enter into the Rationalist camp.(2)

There is an equally clever, perhaps sophistic, argument against Empiricism which was mentioned earlier in the treatise as well, but gets it full narrative force in On Medical Experience.  Galen is attempting to use a traditional sorites-type argument and apply it to medical practice.  The puzzle is summarized as follows: if it is agreed that the art of medicine is constituted only by a number of experiences, at precisely what number of experiences do we say that a doctor has acquired the art of medicine?  He pesters the Empiricist to respond as to why a certain number of experiences is not sufficient to guarantee this art: is it 12, 40, 100 times?  No matter the number, though, says Galen, it will be a finite number.  He can then ask why it is that one less than this critical number is not sufficient to constitute the art.  More importantly though, he has shown a point of inconsistency in the Empiricist’s method which cannot be solved by experience.  The inconsistency is that the Empiricist’s initial position was that one experience was insufficient for the acquisition of the art.  But now when say the critical number is 50, in the process of passing from 49 to 50 experiences, that is, the addition of one experience, then the Empiricist claims that this single experience makes all the difference.  I take it this sorites argument appeals to Galen’s earlier contention that Empiricism, in its very nature, is not equipped to deal with arguments, since these lay outside the realm of phenomena.  Yet it also seems that Galen is pointing out something about the very nature of experience.  Experience, as the Empiricist wishes to have it in the medical art, is deeply limited in Galen’s view, because, were it not for the addition of something else at a given point during the procedure of induction, induction would blithely continue on ad infinitum with, quite literally, no reason for it to pause in its course.  The impetus for experiences to coalesce into an art cannot come from experiences themselves, no matter how numerous, but from some guiding rational principle that orders and arranges the information into a comprehensible whole.  This rational principle, of course, if it is discerned by a faculty specially designated to identify this rationality, need only be exposed to the faculty a single time for it to be properly identified.  This efficacy, a singular identification from a single exposure, is Galen’s point, and he is here forcing the Empiricist to concede it, whether it be Galen’s explanation of a Rationalist faculty or under the conditions of Empiricist induction, as this sorites argument would have it.

 

Footnotes:

(1) This text is extant only in a Latin translation by Nicolaus of Reggio in 1341.  I unfortunately do not have access to this text.

(2) There is not only an appeal to rational argument, but further, to a faculty, perhaps analogous to that between experience and the senses.  Thus there is both reason and the faculty of reason, neither of which the Empiricist can appeal to.  This argument plays right into Galen’s second objection as well, as I show.

References:

Galen. “An Outline of Empiricism.” Three Treatises on the Nature of Science. Trans. Richard Walzer and Michael Frede. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 1985.

Galen. “On Medical Experience.” Three Treatises on the Nature of Science. Trans. Richard Walzer and Michael Frede. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 1985.

Plato’s Philosophical Answer to the Three Deficiencies of the Written Word

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In the Phaedrus Socrates gives a probably completely fabricated Egyptian story that relates the discovery of writing, as two mythological interlocutors differ in their appraisal of whether the new invention enhances or diminishes memory.  Socrates is clearly on the skeptical side, as he relates how Thamus probed the inventor Theuth on the utility of writing:

This will provide a forgetfulness in the souls of those who learn at the expense of memory, since they do not remind themselves by themselves internally, but because of a dependence on writing they are reminded externally by foreign impression  (translation mine, Phaedrus 275a2-5).[1]

Socrates adds, lest there be any doubt, that anyone who thinks that writing could instill anything clear and certain (saphes kai bebaion) would be full of simplicity (euetheias gemoi).  Socrates is just beginning to criticize writing, however, since he has two more accusations to level:

For writing certainly has this incredible feature and it is truly like painting.  The offspring of painting stand as living creatures do, but if you inquire anything, they are completely and reverently silent.  It is the same thing with words; you might think they speak on the grounds that they have some knowledge, but if you ask about any of the things spoken because you want to learn, [sc. ὁ λόγος] a word always signifies the one same thing alone.  And whenever it is once written, likewise the entire word rolls around promiscuously with those who understand, and with those for whom it is not at all fitting, and the word does not know for whom it is and is not necessary to speak to.  When it is wronged and reviled unjustly it always lacks the help of its father; for it is neither able to defend nor help itself  (translation mine, Phaedrus 275d4-e5).[2]

In summary, there are three main limitations to the written.  The first is that writing inhibits the cultivation of memory, making one dependent on orthographic conventions, onto which, in turn, our ideas are slavishly hitched.  Next, because written words are fixed and unalterable, they cannot clarify meaning or respond to questioning.  Lastly, and related to their inflexibility, words are unable to adapt to the needs of their audience.[3]  It should be noted that these same problems accrue to anything written, which is why Thomas Szelzak 1999: 31 has astutely commented that, “he [Plato] emphasizes the basic failings of writing, which are inherent in its nature.[4]  But whatever is inherent in a thing’s nature cannot be eliminated by a more or less skillful use of the thing.”

This raises the question, however, whether there is a counterpart to the written, a legitimate brother, possessed of the abilities which the written word lacks.[5]  This activity, in fact, is philosophy, and to be more precise, it is collection and division,[6] which provides the proper antidote to the problems of the written; for it is in collection and division that a method adequate to avoiding the perils of the static written word are found.

THE SUPERIORITY OF COLLECTION AND DIVISION IN CONTRAST TO THE WRITTEN

Now we will look at the benefits which collection and division possesses, by  emphasizing this process insofar as it compensates for, in Plato’s mind, a perceived set of deficiencies in the written word.[7]  The first is that in the process of collection and division there is a premium set on memory, for in a very Platonic sense, collection and division is quite straightforwardly a technical kind of remembering, (anamnesis) recollection:

For it is necessary for someone to comprehend what is said form by form, as it proceeds from many perceptions into one thing collected together by reasoning; and this is a recollection of those things which our soul saw then when it was traveling in procession with a god and scorned the things which we now say exist, and rose up into the real existence  (translation mine, Phaedrus 249b6-c1).[8]

We have here an explicit reference to collection and division.  As one proceeds to perceive the various particulars of whatever is the object of study, if one understands things “form by form,” then one simply is recollecting.[9]  It should be no surprise then, if, as this passage would lead us to believe, recollection is necessarily connected with the process of collection and division, that recollection is not spelled out in much detail.  Since collection and division, if it is successful, results in Platonic recollection and, as we have already noted, collection and division is a process which cannot be adequately explained in words.[10]  Whereas the serious accusation was leveled against written words that they do not help memory, but in fact are destructive of it, dialectic is here portrayed as that by which one is able to recollect the pure images of the forms.

So we have seen how collection and division has supplied the first defect found in the critique of writing: instead of weakening memory, collection and division is a work of memory par excellence.  Additionally, collection and division is also able to clarify and respond to an interlocutor, and unlike the second charge levied against writing, it is able to do so in a skillful way:

[The dialectician is] one who sees comprehensively divergent things in many places and leads them into one genus (ἰδέα), in order that by defining each thing he makes the thing clear concerning which on any occasion he wishes to teach about (translation mine, Phaedrus 265d3-5).[11]

Especially striking here, but which would ordinarily be missed unless we specifically had in mind the shortcomings of the written, is that collection, being spoken of here in isolation from division, is both clarificatory and responsive.[12]  It is clarificatory, in that while mere inscribed words, like a painting, signify the one same thing all the time (hen ti semainei mono tauton aei), collection is able to make a thing clear (delon).[13]  Yet this clarity is not reserved for the practitioner of dialectic alone, for he also is able, in teaching, to convey the nature of his knowledge to someone.[14]  Unlike that which is unresponsive and written, the practitioner of dialectic division is able to convey to his listener a kind of knowledge by making the object of his inquiry clear by defining each thing (ekaston horizomenos delon poie) in contrast to static written words which are entirely, solemnly mute (semnos panu siga).

The third and last judgment against the written is that it is unable to adjust to the demands of a proper audience.  Here again we see that dialectic, or collection and division, is able to compensate for this particular defect of written language.  In fact, some of this plasticity is due to the very nature of collection and division throughout the corpus, “Platonic dialectic is a method that is open; it does not develop through a specific plan. There is not a blueprint or a standard formula that is used by either Socrates or Plato”  (Kuperus 2007: 193).  Moreover, it is these very conditions, which in modern parlance we might say make it more of an art than a science, that, “dialectic is a skill to be acquired, much more than it is a body of propositions to be learnt”  (Robinson 1984: 74).[15]  If collection and division cannot adapt, it is no knowledge at all.[16]  Thus although it can be said that collection and division is not a method as set of directions, quite significantly it is a method insofar as one wishes to avoid the errors which vex the non-dialectician: poor memory, a lack of clarity and a non-adaptive “knowledge,” if it is even worthy of that qualified appellation.[17]

 

REFERENCES:

[1] τοῦτο γὰρ τῶν μαθόντων λήθην μὲν ἐν ψυχαῖς παρέξει μνήμης ἀμελετησίᾳ, ἅτε διὰ πίστιν γραφῆς ἔξωθεν ὑπ’ ἀλλοτρίων τύπων, οὐκ ἔνδοθεν αὐτοὺς ὑφ’ αὑτῶν ἀναμιμνῃσκομένους·

[2] δεινὸν γάρ που, ὦ Φαῖδρε, τοῦτ’ ἔχει γραφή, καὶ ὡς ἀληθῶς ὅμοιον ζωγραφίᾳ. καὶ γὰρ τὰ ἐκείνης ἔκγονα ἕστηκε μὲν ὡς ζῶντα, ἐὰν δ’ ἀνέρῃ τι, σεμνῶς πάνυ σιγᾷ. ταὐτὸν δὲ καὶ οἱ λόγοι· δόξαις μὲν ἂν ὥς τι φρονοῦντας αὐτοὺς λέγειν, ἐὰν δέ τι ἔρῃ τῶν λεγομένων βουλόμενος μαθεῖν, ἕν τι σημαίνει μόνον ταὐτὸν ἀεί. ὅταν δὲ ἅπαξ γραφῇ, κυλινδεῖται μὲν πανταχοῦ πᾶς λόγος ὁμοίως παρὰ τοῖς ἐπαΐουσιν, ὡς δ’ αὕτως παρ’ οἷς οὐδὲν προσήκει, καὶ οὐκ ἐπίσταται λέγειν οἷς δεῖ γε καὶ μή. πλημμελούμενος δὲ καὶ οὐκ ἐν δίκῃ λοιδορηθεὶς τοῦ πατρὸς ἀεὶ δεῖται βοηθοῦ· αὐτὸς γὰρ οὔτ’ ἀμύνασθαι οὔτε βοηθῆσαι δυνατὸς αὑτῷ.

[3] As Charles Griswold has pointed out, “Legitimate discourse is discovered by its speaker; it has as its primary goal self-instruction, and its secondary goal the generation of similar discourses in the souls of others (278a)” (Griswold 1986: 211).

[4] Pace Ronna Burger, who, in a transparent bid for special pleading, says, “Socrates’ critique of the silent written word is thus shown to be a condemnation of a part, and not the whole, of the art of writing.  The discriminating selectivity and power of self-protection which are denied to the illegitimate logos are, through that very denial, made manifest by the Platonic logos…”  (Burger 1980: 91).  However, it seems evident that the same objections stand just as firmly against Plato’s dialogues as they do any other writings.

[5] A masterful approach as to exactly how the Phaedrus as a whole can be taken as an exhortation to one philosophical life, among many, is given in Chapter 6, G.R.F. Ferrari (1987).

[6] Due to the self-imposed constraints on wordcount on this blog however, I will not go into details about collection and division here.

[7] Compare here the superiority of philosophy to rhetoric:  Ἐξαρκεῖ. εἰ γὰρ καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι διπλοῦν, τὸ μὲν ἕτερόν που τούτου κολακεία ἂν εἴη καὶ αἰσχρὰ δημηγορία, τὸ δ’ ἕτερον καλόν, τὸ παρασκευάζειν ὅπως ὡς βέλτισται ἔσονται τῶν πολιτῶν αἱ ψυχαί, καὶ διαμάχεσθαι λέγοντα τὰ βέλτιστα, εἴτε ἡδίω εἴτε ἀηδέστερα ἔσται τοῖς ἀκούουσιν.  ἀλλ’ οὐ πώποτε σὺ ταύτην εἶδες τὴν ῥητορικήν·  (Gorgias 503a5-9) “Good enough! For if this [question about rhetoric] is also two-fold, of the two  one is certainly a flattery and a shameful public oratory, and the other noble, a preparative so that the souls of the citizens will be as good as possible, and it strives earnestly to say the best things, whether they be more pleasant to listeners, or more distasteful.  But you never yet saw this rhetoric.”

[8] δεῖ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον συνιέναι κατ’ εἶδος λεγόμενον, ἐκ πολλῶν ἰὸν αἰσθήσεων εἰς ἓν λογισμῷ συναιρούμενον· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνάμνησις ἐκείνων ἅ ποτ’ εἶδεν ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ συμπορευθεῖσα θεῷ καὶ ὑπεριδοῦσα ἃ νῦν εἶναί φαμεν, καὶ ἀνακύψασα εἰς τὸ ὂν ὄντως.

[9] I mean here by recollection the Platonic doctrine of remembering things in the here and now by dint of the soul’s previous association with them in a previous life.  The Phaedo has a particularly clear description: Καὶ μήν, ἔφη ὁ Κέβης ὑπολαβών, καὶ κατ’ ἐκεῖνόν γε τὸν λόγον, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰ ἀληθής ἐστιν, ὃν σὺ εἴωθας θαμὰ λέγειν, ὅτι ἡμῖν ἡ μάθησις οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ἀνάμνησις τυγχάνει οὖσα, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτον ἀνάγκη που ἡμᾶς ἐν προτέρῳ τινὶ χρόνῳ μεμαθηκέναι ἃ νῦν ἀναμιμνῃσκόμεθα (Phaedo 72e3-7). “Furthermore, according to that argument [of recollection], Socrates, which you are accustomed to make often, if it is a true one, then our learning happens to be nothing other than a recollection.  And in accordance with this, it is necessary that in some previous time we somehow learned those things, which we now recollect.”

[10] This is not to say that the theme of memory is not in the Phaedrus.  In fact, it is everywhere in the dialogue. Both μνάομαι and its cognates μνεία, ἀμνημονέω, ὑπόμνημα, including the just cited ἀνάμνησις (249c2) appear a total of 18 times.  It is interesting to note the effect, as a ὑπόμνημα, that writing is said to have on the individual is merely that of a reminding while the process of collection and division, as a ἀνάμνησις, is a remembering.  In Smyth this distinction is corroborated by ὑπό in composition meaning “slightly,” while ἀνά is “back” (1698.4, 1682.3)

[11] εἰς μίαν τε ἰδέαν συνορῶντα ἄγειν τὰ πολλαχῇ διεσπαρμένα, ἵνα ἕκαστον ὁριζόμενος δῆλον ποιῇ περὶ οὗ ἂν ἀεὶ διδάσκειν ἐθέλῃ.

[12] Division is described thus: τὸ πάλιν κατ’ εἴδη δύνασθαι διατέμνειν κατ’ ἄρθρα ᾗ πέφυκεν, καὶ μὴ ἐπιχειρεῖν καταγνύναι μέρος μηδέν, κακοῦ μαγείρου τρόπῳ χρώμενον· [Next, for someone] to be able to cut up again form by form according to the joints at which place it is natural, and not to attempt to destroy any part at all, making use of the manner of a bad butcher  (265e1-3).

[13] The descriptions quoted here of the written which contrast with division are from 275d4-e5.

[14] Charles Kahn 1999: 372 has noted that, “[After Socrates’ palinode in the Phaedrus] Plato argues that philosophical dialectic, the systematic study of unity and plurality, provides the foundation for all rational inquiry and all successful discourse.”

[15] Lewis Campbell 1867: xi has artfully expressed the exotic epistemology behind Plato’s doctrine of the relationship between the mind and the written word:  “Plato never conceived…that a new method could possibly level intellects, or become a substitute for invention.  He never imagines a form of thinking as separable from thought.”

[16] Miles Burnyeat 2012: 187 explains the importance of this idea, “”It is a direct consequence of this epistemological stance [i.e. knowledge comes through the mind] that there is no such thing as historical knowledge or knowledge transmitted by the word of another person.”

[17] Method (μέθοδος) is not so distinct and stepwise a process as is normally imagined.  I agree with the sentiment of Paul Woodruff 2007: 153, “When I speak of method, I do not mean it in the sense of a modern, scientific method, but in the original Greek sense of ‘being on or along a road or pathway.’”

 

Burger, Ronna. “The Art of Writing.” Plato’s Phaedrus: A Defense of a Philosophic Art of Writing. University: University of Alabama, 1980. 91.

Burnyeat, Myles. “The Passion of Reason in Plato’s Phaedrus.” Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. 238-58.

Campbell, Lewis and Plato. Introduction. The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato,. Oxford: Clarendon, 1867. Xi.

Cooper, John M. Ed., and D. S. Hutchinson, eds. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997.

Ferrari, G. R. F. Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato’s Phaedrus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.

Griswold, Charles L. “Theuth, Thamus, the Criticism of Writing, and the Praise of Dialectic.” Self-knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus. New Haven: Yale UP, 1986. 203-18.

Kahn, Charles H. “12 Phaedrus and the Limits of Writing.” Plato and the Socratic Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 372.

Kuperus, Gerard. “Traveling with Socrates: Dialectic in the Phaedo and Protagoras.” Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato’s Many Devices. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 2007.

Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon: With a Supplement 1968. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.

Piccone, Enrique. “Four Features of Dialectic in Plato’s Phaedrus.” Understanding the Phaedrus: Proceedings of the II Symposium Platonicum. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1992. 261-64.

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Sayre, Kenneth. “A Maieutic View of Five Late Dialogues.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. 221-244.

Smyth, Herbert Weir, and Gordon M. Messing. Greek Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1956.

Szlezák, Thomas Alexander. “The Critique of Writing in the Phaedrus.” Reading Plato. London: Routledge, 1999. 31.

Werner, Daniel. “Plato’s Phaedrus and the Problem of Unity.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Vol. 32: Summer 2007. By David Sedley. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.

Wohl, Victoria. “Chapter 2: Pornos of the People.” Love among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2002.

Woodruff, Martha K. “Plato’s Different Device: Reconciling the One and the Many in the Philebus.” Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato’s Many Devices. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 2007