Tag Archives: translation

Mirroring the Ego: Aristotle’s Origin of Friendship Part 1

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Like few philosophers before or since, Aristotle is a keen taxonomist.  He orders and arranges things, ideas and arguments into various categories, some of which are very helpful.  Others seem bizarre or quaint to the modern reader.

In the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle devotes an entire chapter to discussing friendship.  Aristotle divides friendships into three categories: the perfect, the pleasurable, and the useful.  As one could guess, you can do no better than a perfect friendship.  As Aristotle launches upon one of his characteristic asides he discusses the origin of friendship in general.

The marks of friendship with respect to the relationships of our intimates, and by which friendships themselves are defined, appear to come from our relationship with ourselves.  For they define the friend as someone who wishes or does the good, or what appears good, on account of the other, or as someone who wishes his friend to exist and to live for his own sake.  This is the same thing mothers feel toward their children, or friends who have come into conflict.  Others define the friend as someone who spends time and chooses the same things as his friend or as someone who shares in the joy and sorrow of the friend.  This latter definition especially concerns mothers.  With one of these ideas they also define friendship.  Each of these is found in the good man’s relation with himself (and with respect to other men, in that way in which they think they are such, just as it is said, virtue and the good man seem to be the measure for each).  The good man is likeminded with himself, and he grasps at the same things with his entire soul.  And he wishes the good for himself and what appears to be good, and he does it (for to do good is characteristic of a good man) and on account of himself (that is, for the sake of the intellectual faculty, which very thing each man seems to be).

τὰ φιλικὰ δὲ τὰ πρὸς τοὺς πέλας, καὶ οἷς αἱ φιλίαι ὁρίζονται, ἔοικεν ἐκ τῶν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐληλυθέναι. τιθέασι γὰρ φίλον τὸν βουλόμενον καὶ πράττοντα τἀγαθὰ ἢ τὰ φαινόμενα ἐκείνου ἕνεκα, ἢ τὸν βουλόμενον εἶναι καὶ 1166a.5ζῆν τὸν φίλον αὐτοῦ χάριν· ὅπερ αἱ μητέρες πρὸς τὰ τέκνα πεπόνθασι, καὶ τῶν φίλων οἱ προσκεκρουκότες. οἳ δὲ τὸν συνδιάγοντα καὶ ταὐτὰ αἱρούμενον, ἢ τὸν συναλγοῦντα καὶ συγχαίροντα τῷ φίλῳ· μάλιστα δὲ καὶ τοῦτο περὶ τὰς μητέρας συμβαίνει. τούτων δέ τινι καὶ τὴν φιλίαν 1166a.10ὁρίζονται. πρὸς ἑαυτὸν δὲ τούτων ἕκαστον τῷ ἐπιεικεῖ ὑπάρχει (τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς, ᾗ τοιοῦτοι ὑπολαμβάνουσιν εἶναι· ἔοικε δέ, καθάπερ εἴρηται, μέτρον ἑκάστων ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ὁ σπουδαῖος εἶναι)· οὗτος γὰρ ὁμογνωμονεῖ ἑαυτῷ, καὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ὀρέγεται κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν ψυχήν· καὶ βούλεται 1166a.15δὴ ἑαυτῷ τἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ φαινόμενα καὶ πράττει (τοῦ γὰρ ἀγαθοῦ τἀγαθὸν διαπονεῖν) καὶ ἑαυτοῦ ἕνεκα (τοῦ γὰρ διανοητικοῦ χάριν, ὅπερ ἕκαστος εἶναι δοκεῖ)· NE 1166a1-17

Here as elsewhere, Aristotle appeals to the definition of friendship as someone wishing well for another person for the sake of that person.  To perhaps oversimplify it: relational altruism.  Now altruism, as it turns out, is quite the tedious topic, tending toward an exhaustive regress.  Every time seemingly altruistic motives are displayed, a gainsayer can point here or there and say, “See, you really did it to satisfy x or y for yourself!”  This problem or paradox of altruism, however, as vexatious as it is for us, does not seem to have arisen by the time of Aristotle.  Nevertheless, since this definition– doing something for someone else’s sake alone –seems integral to Aristotle’s attempts at understanding friendship, we are saddled with solving the implications of this difficulty ourselves.

The problem is that Aristotle affirms (1) Friendship is wishing well for the other for his own sake (2) Friendship originates from the relationship we have for ourselves.  The difficulty for me in accepting both these beliefs is that (1) seems precluded by (2).  If friendship is really an extension of my own relationship toward myself, then only in so far as that relationship partakes or mirrors my own relationship toward myself, can it be said that it is a friendship.  However, this very idea undercuts the notion that we do things merely for the sake of the friend as in (1).  For example, if a friendship either becomes or appears to become different than our relationship with ourselves, will we not dissolve the friendship?  Yes, as I understand it, in accord with (2), but no, if we consider (1) alone.

I will discuss in the next post a possible solution to this problem.

Plato’s Pharmacy

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Phaedrus: Tell me, Socrates, wasn’t it here, indeed from this spot, that Boreas is said to have snatched Oreithuia from the Ilisus?

[Socrates and Phaedrus haggle over the precise location of the abduction for a few lines.]

Socrates: But if I should disbelieve it [the abduction] as the wise men do, I would not be strange; but as a wise man I would say that the wind of Boreas pushed her down from the nearest rocks as she was playing with pharmakeia (sun Pharmakeia). And thus having died, it is said she was snatched at the hands of Boreas, or from the mount of Ares. For this account also says she was snatched from there, not here. While I think such things elegant, they are from a man who is too clever, a busybody and not a fortunate man either, in so far as it is necessary for him after this to amend the form of the hippocentaur, and again, that of the centaur, and a crowd of such gorgons and pegasuses and a number of other extraordinary things as well as certain others of a strange and terrible nature. If anyone disbelieves in these creatures, and reduces each according to its likelihood, seeing that he is using a kind of rustic wisdom, he will need a lot of leisure.  For myself there is no such leisure.

Φαῖδροςεἰπέ μοι, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐκ ἐνθένδε μέντοι ποθὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἰλισοῦ λέγεται ὁ Βορέας τὴν Ὠρείθυιαν ἁρπάσαι;

paucis versibus extractis

Σωκράτηςἀλλ᾽ εἰ ἀπιστοίην, ὥσπερ οἱ σοφοί, οὐκ ἂν ἄτοπος εἴην, εἶτα σοφιζόμενος φαίην αὐτὴν πνεῦμα Βορέου κατὰ τῶν πλησίον πετρῶν σὺν Φαρμακείᾳ παίζουσαν ὦσαι, καὶ οὕτω δὴ τελευτήσασαν λεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Βορέου ἀνάρπαστον [229δ] γεγονέναι—ἢ ἐξ Ἀρείου πάγου: λέγεται γὰρ αὖ καὶ οὗτος ὁ λόγος, ὡς ἐκεῖθεν ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐνθένδε ἡρπάσθη. ἐγὼ δέ, ὦ Φαῖδρε, ἄλλως μὲν τὰ τοιαῦτα χαρίεντα ἡγοῦμαι, λίαν δὲ δεινοῦ καὶ ἐπιπόνου καὶ οὐ πάνυ εὐτυχοῦς ἀνδρός, κατ᾽ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν, ὅτι δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἀνάγκη μετὰ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν Ἱπποκενταύρων εἶδος ἐπανορθοῦσθαι, καὶ αὖθις τὸ τῆς Χιμαίρας, καὶ ἐπιρρεῖ δὲ ὄχλος τοιούτων Γοργόνων καὶ Πηγάσων καὶ [229ε] ἄλλων ἀμηχάνων πλήθη τε καὶ ἀτοπίαι τερατολόγων τινῶν φύσεων: αἷς εἴ τις ἀπιστῶν προσβιβᾷ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἕκαστον, ἅτε ἀγροίκῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ χρώμενος, πολλῆς αὐτῷ σχολῆς δεήσει. ἐμοὶ δὲ πρὸς αὐτὰ οὐδαμῶς ἐστι σχολή…
Phaedrus 229b-d

The particular attitude being described in this passage, a perspective today referred to as scientific reductionism, leads Socrates to pronounce that the reduction of phenomena to scientific “facts” takes no less ingenuity than it does facts. We can not but help to giggle at Socrates’ methodological exasperation at the mismeasures and guesses of the “wise men”.

I have found it a little strange however, that when this passage has been translated, Pharmaceia (uncapitalized, like every other word, in manuscripts) is translated as the name of Oreithuia’s playmate rather than literally. Pharmaceia, as the dictionary has it, is a medicine, the first asides mention specific instances of it as an emetic and as an abortifacient. Of the three translations I have read, however, each of them translates the word as a proper name.

It would seem well-fitted and more apt to translate the word as drug here. As they are wont, the wise men deconstruct fables according to individual elements of probability, and they do so by extracting the literal from the metaphorical.

For instance, when Boreas, the North Wind, is said to have snatched someone, the wise man considers the question, “What would it mean if we said the wind ‘snatched’ and ‘took away’ someone?”. The answer, if we had discarded the possibility of theophany at the outset, and of course we have, is that the wind swept someone away to their own demise.

Similarly, donning the perspective of a wise man, when we hear that Oreithuia was playing with Pharmaceia, would we immediately think of Pharmaceia as a mere name, or would we proceed farther, considering that this name also signified something else?
I think the later is more likely. On the wise men’s take, Oreithuia has played around with drugs and, in an altered state, comes too near some perilous cliffs, when an inopportune gust pushes her over the cliff.

One could almost imagine her as a wild eyed flower child prancing in the nude on the very precipice.

The Phaedrus: dialogue transcends the written

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The Phaedrus, to pilfer a phrase Socrates himself uses in the same dialogue, is a “beast more complex than Typhon”  (230a).  But our fascination does not extend equally to each of the many topics brought up in this dialogue.  One of the areas of interest for many readers happens to be “speech” as such, discussed near the end of the dialogue.  Plato’s antagonistic critique of the written word often garners the immediate attention of those coming to the dialogue for the first time.  The conspicuous attention this critique demands is understandable.  The “attack” on the written word comes within the context of the written word.  That is to say, a dialogue, composed of written words itself, is criticizing the written word.

The main points against writing are as follows:

1)     Writing is a crutch for memory.  Instead of aiding our memory, writing disables our latent ability to know something within ourselves  (275a-b).

2)    Writing is not dynamic.  It cannot answer questions, but must resort to its author to resolve any difficulties brought about by its misuse or misunderstanding  (275d-e).

3)    Writing is not personalized.  Writing has no detailed knowledge of the soul of the listener, and therefore lacks the requisite adaptation to this soul that speech requires (276e).

Whether one agrees with this list of shortcomings, one could at least sympathize with the thrust of the criticism.  Perhaps these are the pitfalls of the written word, one could admit, but there are also benefits.  A book, for instance, “lives” longer than its author.  Also, one cannot well go on changing his opinion if it has once been laid out in black and white.  The written word is not fickle: to turn objection number 2 on its head, it says the same thing forever.

However, neglecting the relative worth of the written word for a moment, it is quite another thing for Plato, on his own principles, to act as if the written word were the proxy for the author himself.  This would seem a clear contradiction of the implicit principle at work throughout the entire polemic against writing, namely, that writing is not a person.    But this is in fact what we do see.

Phaedrus:  In reality, Socrates, I did not at all learn the very words [of Lysias’ speech]; however I did learn the intention of nearly all the speeches, in which ways the lover differs from the non-lover.  I will go through summarizing each of them in order, beginning from the first.

Socrates:  …showing me first what you have in your right hand under your cloak.  For I guess that you have the speech itself.  And consider this about me, that I really am partial to you, but when Lysias is present, it is not at all seemly to provide myself to you for practice.  But go on and show me.

Φαῖδρος
τῷ ὄντι γάρ, ὦ Σώκρατες, παντὸς μᾶλλον τά γε ῥήματα οὐκ ἐξέμαθον: τὴν μέντοι διάνοιαν σχεδὸν ἁπάντων, οἷς ἔφη διαφέρειν τὰ τοῦ ἐρῶντος ἢ τὰ τοῦ μή, ἐν κεφαλαίοις ἕκαστον ἐφεξῆς δίειμι, ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου.

Σωκράτης
δείξας γε πρῶτον, ὦ φιλότης, τί ἄρα ἐν τῇ ἀριστερᾷ ἔχεις ὑπὸ τῷ ἱματίῳ: τοπάζω γάρ σε ἔχειν τὸν λόγον αὐτόν. εἰ δὲ τοῦτό ἐστιν, οὑτωσὶ διανοοῦ περὶ ἐμοῦ, ὡς [228ε] ἐγώ σε πάνυ μὲν φιλῶ, παρόντος δὲ καὶ Λυσίου, ἐμαυτόν σοι ἐμμελετᾶν παρέχειν οὐ πάνυ δέδοκται. ἀλλ᾽ ἴθι, δείκνυε.
Phaedrus 228d-e

Phaedrus here stops his game, and confesses to hiding the speech, as the pair seeks a suitable spot to stop and read the speech.

Well before the critique of writing begins, at 275, Socrates is coaxing Phaedrus to share with him the latest speech of Lysias.  As is clear from the context, Phaedrus disavows any verbatim knowledge of the speech, but nevertheless is surreptitiously attempting to practice his unskilled rhetoric on Socrates.  Socrates will brook none of it, and demands to see Lysias himself.  What is it that we readers expect, before having been subjected to the critique of writing, when Socrates makes this demand?  As Plato probably anticipated, our reaction as readers was probably an expectation that “Lysias” was actually the written speech of Lysias himself.  If this is the case though, how can this be reconciled with the later idea that the written is only a limited representation of the author and not at all the person proper?  Why does Socrates, given what we know he will defend later, use a speech as a proxy for Lysias’ presence?

The most obvious answer is that Socrates wishes to “out” Lysias as a writer of speeches.  He will not allow Lysias to speak beyond the boundaries of his created medium.  As such, Socrates creates a notable dichotomy between this speech and the speeches that he himself will offer.

More curious however, is the presumption that while Lysias’ speech is static, with all its concomitant problems, Socrates’ offered speeches are not.  Is there any reason to believe that Socrates own speeches are exempt from the pitfalls of writing I highlighted above?

We can imagine that the conversation with Phaedrus is different because Socrates handcrafts a couple different speeches to Phaedrus himself, along, of course, with the intervening discourse we read in between the speeches and framing the entire dialogue.   But on to a greater discrepancy: What about the dialogue itself?  The dialogue itself is not crafted to our personal needs, is it?  The simple answer is no.  Charitably, we must admit that such personalization is impossible in a dialogue format, because it is, as Socrates notes of written work in general, mute and unchanging.  However, it does model conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus, which, in the context of the philosophical conversation about speech, is easily expandable into our own situations by way of analogy.  Furthermore, and more obviously, the dialogue quite clearly makes the point that the written is limited in so far as it cannot answer questions and respond, although this criticism cannot be sustained with the same force as it can with a dialogue.  The dialogue genre, while nevertheless written, seems to be the most endurable, the most tolerable, form of the written.

The dialogue is different.