Tag Archives: socrates

Old Age and Justice in the Republic

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Near the beginning of the Politics Aristotle says that the young should not study politics, for they have not yet acquired the experience requisite for such a science.  Perhaps a similar concern, free of prohibition, offers Plato a reason to introduce the character of Cephalus at the beginning of the Republic.

Cephalus, as it turns out, is a very old man.(1)  Socrates tells us that he is very eager to speak to the aged, because all have to travel down the path of old age, and he wants to know “what kind of road it is, rough and difficult, or easy and passable.”(2)  Plato uses Cephalus, as seems plain from his hasty exit, for a characteristically dramatic and philosophical purpose.  Cephalus himself elaborates on the topic of old age, eagerly opining to a rare audience, Socrates, that although the carousing long nights of youth are no longer possible, gone also is the despotism of sexual desire.  More importantly, he mentions that though wealth is a palliative in old age, character is more important.(3)  More somberly, Cephalus continues on to admit that of late he has been haunted by the fear of his life after death— the hand of death is beginning to point at him.  “The tales told concerning those in Hades, how it is necessary that those who have been unjust must pay the penalty there, although entirely laughable up to this point, at that point [of encroaching mortality] they harrow his soul that they may be true.” (4)

Cephalus emphasizes however, that just deeds, stored and accumulated throughout a life, are a sweet hope to the man in old age that he will escape such horrors.  It is from Cephalus then, by the exortation of old age, the idea that a complete life must be lived justly in order to reap the easy conscience of old age, and that character, informed by the requirements of justice may allow a soul to pass into the blessed afterworld, that the great themes of justice and morality are introduced into the dialogue.  Far from being an abstract treatise, Plato foresees for us a path that all must take, that of a burdensome or light old age, and gives us no determination of the fate of Cephalus, but bids us examine our own.

 

REFERENCES:

Translations mine.

  1. 328b9 μάλα πρεσβύτης
  2. 328e3-4 ποία τίς ἐστιν, τραχεῖα καὶ χαλεπή,
    ἢ ῥᾳδία καὶ εὔπορος.
  3. 329d3 ὁ τρόπος
  4. 330d7-e2 οἵ τε γὰρ λεγόμενοι μῦθοι περὶ
    τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου, ὡς τὸν ἐνθάδε ἀδικήσαντα δεῖ ἐκεῖ διδόναι δίκην, καταγελώμενοι τέως, τότε δὴ στρέφουσιν αὐτοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν μὴ ἀληθεῖς ὦσιν·

Philosophical Humility, or, Admitting I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know

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I have seen many a conscientious reader of Plato smirk when considering Socrates’ plea that he knows one thing, he knows nothing.  We are in on the joke, I think many people believe; Socrates is much more clever than I and certainly more enlightened than the characters, in comparison real rubes, he systematically dismantles in the dialogues.  Socrates, under the hallowed authority of this confession, is a figure to whom we give lip service as the fount of all western education: be humble, accept your limitations, pursue the truth, and recognize that learning is never complete.

Nevertheless, Socrates is critical not only of a lack of knowledge, but also that erroneous “knowledge,” the misinformation, to which he also unwittingly adheres.  In the Gorgias, he goes so far as to say this.

I therefore, would cross-question you with pleasure, if you are the kind of person I am. But if not, I would let it be. Of what kind am I? Of those who are pleased to be refuted if I say something untrue, and with pleasure I would refute if someone said something untrue, and in fact I am not less pleased being refuted than refuting. For I think it is a greater good to be refuted, by as much greater it is a good to rid oneself of a great evil than to rid someone else of it. For I do not think that a thing could be such an evil for a man, as much as having a false opinion concerning the things about which our discussion is about (Gorgias 458a1-b1). [1]

Far from being shameful, Socrates thinks it is a actually a good to be refuted rather than a harm, and he prefers this to refuting someone else!

In light of this Socratic admission, I have thought how it applies to students who are hesitant to admit, in a classroom setting, and in one way or another, that they do not know.  However insofar as this is a legitimate fear, I assume that students have done their due diligence in homework, readings and independent thought on the subject. If they have not completed all of these preparatives, then these students are not candidates for Socratic humility, admitting they know what they do not know, but are simply poor students.

Thus I take it as a given, that if one is a prepared student, it is a philosophical good to admit what and when one does not know, for this is THE propaedeuctic.  Of course, these are also applicable to discussions of ancient philosophy in non-academic settings, and may even be useful generally when there are group intellectual discussions.

Fear of Appearing Stupid

I am sure we can all relate to this.  We are hesitant to speak up in class because we think our comment too obvious, or our question too stupid.  I have found that personally, as a participant and as a teacher, that an attitude of patient charity towards every single comment and question leads to more confidence in the questioner and more frankness in the answer.  Yet I am not a proponent of the idea that there are no stupid questions.  Rather, I think whether a question is stupid or not, the questioner should be a position in which he is encouraged to ask the stupid question, and not feel intellectual pain over it, while still being lead toward more intelligent questions.

Fear of Academic Worth

Another obstacle to Socratic humility is fear of having one’s academic worth undermined if one does not know the answer to a question or asks for clarification on background information owing to lack of knowledge.  As jockeying for the glory of the admiration of one’s peers is always in play in a classroom, I think, then acknowledging one’s ignorance in even minor issues often is an obstacle to learning and academic growth.

Fear of Preparedness

This I think is the most difficult of the fears.  For I think that if a student actually is prepared, but is hesitant to speak up in such a way because it might imply she is not prepared, this too is an obstacle to Socratic humility and to learning.  One way for a student to overcome this fear, is to couch his confession of ignorance (on whatever item of knowledge it is) in the context of expressing knowledge which is illustrative of the fact that the student does not some things, just not all, on this subject.

In conclusion, I think it is apparent that these are not only fears of the individual, but also expectations that the group can, in the snide inner voice we like to imagine we do not have, impose on an individual.  “Oh, you don’t know X about Y on Z, then you must not be very bright.”  “You need clarification on this, are you serious!”

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

[1] (a.) ἐγὼ οὖν, εἰ μὲν καὶ σὺ εἶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὧνπερ καὶ ἐγώ,
ἡδέως ἄν σε διερωτῴην· εἰ δὲ μή, ἐῴην ἄν. ἐγὼ δὲ τίνων
εἰμί; τῶν ἡδέως μὲν ἂν ἐλεγχθέντων εἴ τι μὴ ἀληθὲς
λέγω, ἡδέως δ’ ἂν ἐλεγξάντων εἴ τίς τι μὴ ἀληθὲς λέγοι,
οὐκ ἀηδέστερον μεντἂν ἐλεγχθέντων ἢ ἐλεγξάντων· μεῖζον (5)
γὰρ αὐτὸ ἀγαθὸν ἡγοῦμαι, ὅσῳπερ μεῖζον ἀγαθόν ἐστιν
αὐτὸν ἀπαλλαγῆναι κακοῦ τοῦ μεγίστου ἢ ἄλλον ἀπαλλάξαι.
οὐδὲν γὰρ οἶμαι τοσοῦτον κακὸν εἶναι ἀνθρώπῳ, ὅσον δόξα
(b.) ψευδὴς περὶ ὧν τυγχάνει νῦν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος ὤν.

Socrates’ Swan Song

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In the maddening swirl of language, we seldom reflect on the meaning of individual words or phrases.  It is not so surprising then, when we pass by even more obscure idioms and metaphors, although this paradoxically does not prevent us from using them again in turn!

One of these phrases is “swan song”, often meaning the last effort or final production coming from someone in his respective field before retirement, or sometimes, death.  This idea has a long pedigree in Western thought.  It first appears in literature in Aeschylus (Agamemnon, 1444), and has not performed its own swan song in our communal imagination since.  The idea behind the myth was that the swan is silent its entire life save the prescience it is granted of its oncoming death, then the swan pours out the first and final charming melodies from its soul.

Socrates himself alludes to this myth, albeit not without commenting on what he sees as its probable origin:

But I seem to you more common than the swans regarding prophecy, which when they sense that it necessary that they die, they sing in the interval before death, indeed, at that time, especially and most beautifully do they sing, rejoicing that they are about to go to the divine, the very thing they serve.  And men, because of their own fear of death, they both slander the swans and they say that the swans lament their death singing because of pain, and they do not consider that no bird sings when in hunger or cold or during any other pain it undergoes, nor does the nightingale, the swallow, nor the hoopoe, which they say laments singing because of its pain.  But these do not appear to me to sing because they are pained, nor do the swans, but I think, since they are prophetic, being from Apollo, and foreknowing the good things in Hades they sing and rejoice during that day more than in the time before.  I myself think I am a co-laborer of the swans and a priest of the same god, and I have the gift of prophecy from my master not worse than theirs, nor do I think I am freed from a life more melancholy than theirs.

ὡς ἔοικε, τῶν κύκνων δοκῶ φαυλότερος ὑμῖν εἶναι τὴν μαντικήν, οἳ ἐπειδὰν αἴσθωνται ὅτι δεῖ αὐτοὺς ἀποθανεῖν, ᾁδοντες καὶ ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ, τότε δὴ πλεῖστα καὶ κάλλιστα ᾁδουσι, γεγηθότες ὅτι μέλλουσι παρὰ τὸν θεὸν ἀπιέναι οὗπέρ εἰσι θεράποντες. οἱ δ᾽ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τὸ αὑτῶν δέος τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τῶν κύκνων καταψεύδονται, καί φασιν αὐτοὺς θρηνοῦντας τὸν θάνατον ὑπὸ λύπης ἐξᾴδειν, καὶ οὐ λογίζονται ὅτι οὐδὲν ὄρνεον ᾁδει ὅταν πεινῇ ἢ ῥιγῷ ἤ τινα ἄλλην λύπην λυπῆται, οὐδὲ αὐτὴ ἥ τε ἀηδὼν καὶ χελιδὼν καὶ ὁ ἔποψ, ἃ δή φασι διὰ λύπην θρηνοῦντα ᾁδειν. ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε ταῦτά μοι φαίνεται λυπούμενα ᾁδειν οὔτε οἱ κύκνοι, ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε οἶμαι τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ὄντες, μαντικοί τέ εἰσι καὶ προειδότες τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου ἀγαθὰ ᾁδουσι καὶ τέρπονται ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν διαφερόντως ἢ ἐν τῷ ἔμπροσθεν χρόνῳ. ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς ἡγοῦμαι ὁμόδουλός τε εἶναι τῶν κύκνων καὶ ἱερὸς τοῦ αὐτοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ οὐ χεῖρον ἐκείνων τὴν μαντικὴν ἔχειν παρὰ τοῦ δεσπότου, οὐδὲ δυσθυμότερον αὐτῶν τοῦ βίου ἀπαλλάττεσθαι. ἀλλὰ τούτου γ᾽ ἕνεκα λέγειν τε χρὴ καὶ ἐρωτᾶν ὅτι ἂν βούλησθε, ἕως ἂν Ἀθηναίων ἐῶσιν ἄνδρες ἕνδεκα. Phaedo 84e-85b