In the Laches, as in most Socratic dialogues, Socrates asks his interlocutors to define a certain moral quality – in this case, courage. Socrates assumes that if one really knows what courage is, one will be able to give a definition that identifies the common essence that all instances of courage share – the feature that makes all courageous things courageous. An inability to provide such a definition will be regarded by Socrates as evidence that the interlocutor knows nothing about courage. (After all, how can I know that so-and-so is courageous if I don’t even know what courage is?) Following his usual pattern, Socrates asks the interlocutor to propose a definition of courage. Once the interlocutor has done so, Socrates will ask him more questions, in order to reveal that the interlocutor holds other beliefs that are inconsistent with his suggested definition. The interlocutor is then offered the opportunity to revise his beliefs in the face of the discovered inconsistency. If the interlocutor offers a revised definition, Socrates then seeks to elicit further beliefs that contradict it. As long as the interlocutor is still holding inconsistent positions, he has not yet reached the level of his deep beliefs.
For understanding the Laches – Socrates’ discussion of the nature of courage – some background is helpful. Any contemporary reader of Plato would have known that Socrates’ two main interlocutors in this dialogue – Laches and Nicias – were both famous generals. Nicias, in particular, was responsible for one of the greatest disasters in Athenian history. During the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the Athenians sent an expedition, under Nicias’ command, to conquer Sicily so as to secure its grain supply. Nicias’ excessive caution, conservatism, and reliance on omens led to the catastrophic failure of the expedition (the entire force was slaughtered, including Nicias himself) and ultimately to Athens’ defeat in the war as a whole. (Since Athens’ defeat created in turn the climate that led to Socrates’ execution, Nicias’ mistakes can be seen as indirectly responsible for Socrates’ own demise.) Given Nicias’ own poor military judgment in real life, there is a certain irony in his defending, as he does in the Laches, a conception of courage that lays great stress on accurate judgment about the future. The implication is that Nicias does not himself possess the virtue that he talks about.
Nicias defends a highly intellectualized conception of courage. Laches, by contrast, defends a more traditional conception that lays primary stress on nonrational aspects of courage. Socrates tries to show both men that their beliefs about courage are inconsistent and confused. It is noteworthy that Nicias claims – and an examination of other Socratic dialogues (e.g., the Protagoras) seems to support the claim – that the intellectualized conception of courage he is defending is in fact that of Socrates himself. If this is so, why does Socrates attack his own view? Presumably because he doesn’t simply want Nicias to parrot Socrates’ own view back to him; he wants to see if Nicias understands the view. And it turns out that Nicias doesn’t, since he also continues to hold other beliefs that conflict with what he says about courage.
As I have mentioned, once a definition has been proffered, Socrates then elicits further beliefs that can be used as premises for a deductively valid argument against that definition. As you read Plato’s dialogues, you should be trying to identify what the premises and conclusions of these arguments are. In the case of this dialogue I have done the job for you, but for later dialogues you will learn to do so yourself. (Note that the numbers I cite represent marginal line numbers, not page numbers.)
Laches’ first definition of courage (190 e-192 b) Courage = standing firm in battle
Socrates’ refutation: 1. Courage is a property that all instances of courage share. (premise) 2. Standing firm in battle is not a property that all instances of courage share. (premise) 3. Courage does not = standing firm in battle. (conclusion from 1 and 2)
Laches’ second definition of courage (192 b-d) Courage = endurance
Socrates’ refutation: 1. Courage is fine and noble. (premise) 2. Nothing harmful and injurious is fine and noble. (premise) 3. Courage is not harmful or injurious. (conclusion from 1 and 2) 4. Endurance is sometimes harmful and injurious, e.g., when it is in a foolish cause. (premise) 5. Courage does not = endurance. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
Laches’ third definition of courage (192 d-193 c) Courage = wise endurance
Socrates’ refutation: 1. If courage = wise endurance, then the more wisdom one has when enduring danger, the more courageous one is. (premise) 2. Skill is a kind of wisdom. (premise) 3. If courage = wise endurance, then the more skill one has when enduring danger, the more courageous one is. (conclusion from 1 and 2) 4. The less skill one has at doing the dangerous thing one is attempting, the more couragous one is. (premise) 5. Courage does not = wise endurance. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
Nicias’ first definition of courage (194 d-199 e) Courage = knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful (i.e., of what is worth fearing and what is worth hoping for)
Laches’ first attempted refutation: 1. Doctors have knowledge of illness and health. (premise) 2. Illness is fearful (i.e., worth fearing) and health is hopeful (i.e., worth hoping for). (premise) 3. Doctors have knowledge of the fearful and hopeful. (conclusion from 1 and 2) 4. Being a doctor doesn’t automatically make one courageous. (premise) 5. Courage does not = knowledge of the fearful and hopeful. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
Nicias’ reply: (3) is ambiguous. Doctors may know various things about conditions that are in fact hopeful or fearful (e.g., illness and health), but they don’t necessarily know when or whether illness and health are hopeful or fearful. (3) is true if it means that doctors have the technical knowledge about how to produce sickness and health, but false if it means that doctors have the moral knowledge to evaluate whether sickness is worth fearing. [Notice how this answer enables Nicias to resolve Socrates’ puzzle about how wisdom in some cases seems to increase courage and in other cases seems to decrease it. Different kinds of wisdom are at issue. The technical wisdom about how to reduce risks makes one’s action less courageous. The moral wisdom about which risks are worth taking makes one’s action more courageous.]
Laches’ second, and Socrates’ first, attempted refutation: 1. Few human beings possess knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful. (premise) 2. Whoever possesses knowledge that most humans lack is wiser than most humans. (premise) 3. If lions and boars possess knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful, then they are wiser than most humans. (conclusion from 1 and 2) 4. If courage = knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful, then either lions and boars possess knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful, or else lions and boars are not courageous. (premise) 5. If courage = knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful, then either lions and boars are wiser than most humans, or else lions and boars are not courageous. (conclusion from 3 and 4) 6. Lions and boars are not wiser than most humans. (premise) 7. Lions and boars are courageous. (premise) 8. Courage does not = knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful. (conclusion from 5, 6, and 7)
Nicias’ reply: Reject premise (7). [Notice how in both Laches’ objections, Laches simply asserts his premises rather than drawing them from Nicias’ beliefs.] Socrates’ second refutation: 1. Fear is the anticipation of future evil; hope, of future good. (premise) 2. The knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful is the knowledge of future goods and evils. (conclusion from 1) 3. Knowledge has to have a unified subject-matter; knowledge of future F must also encompass knowledge of past and present F. (premise) 4. The knowledge of future goods and evils = the knowledge of good and evil generally. (conclusion from 2 and 3) 5. Knowledge of good and evil generally is the whole of virtue, not just a part of it. (premise) 6. The knowledge of future goods and evils is the whole of virtue, not just a part of it. (conclusion from 4 and 5) 7. Courage is only a part of virtue, not the whole of it. (premise) 8. Courage does not = the knowledge of future goods and evils. (conclusion from 6 and 7)
Nicias does not know how to reply to Socrates’ argument, and the dialogue ends without resolution. But this does not necessarily mean that Socrates (or Plato) had no solution to offer. Just as Socrates prefers to elicit answers from his interlocutors rather than simply asserting his own views, so Plato may be trying to motivate us to figure out the answer for ourselves. Direction of Fit and the Euthyphro Problem
A relation between the mind and the world has a world-to-mind direction of fit when the mind is bringing something about in the world (thus making the world fit itself to the mind). A relation between the mind and the world instead has a mind-to-world direction of fit when the mind is responding to or registering the way the world already is (thus making the mind fit itself to the world).
Imagine that you make a shopping list and head off to the store. A spy follows you and writes down everything you buy on his own list. Your list has a world-to-mind direction of fit; you put a can of beans in your cart because the words “can of beans” appear on your list, so reality (the “world” item) is being made to respond to your list (the “mind” item). But the spy’s list has a mind-to-world direction of fit; he puts “can of beans” on his list because you put a can of beans in your cart, so his list (the “mind” item) is being made to respond to what you’re getting (the “reality” item).
To better understand the concept of “direction of fit,” consider the following cartoon:
The point of the cartoon depends on the fact that naming is ambiguous. There’s one sense in which to name something is to tell what its name already is; that’s the sense the teacher in the cartoon has in mind. There’s another sense in which to name something is to give it a name it didn’t have before; that’s the sense the student is appealing to. In the first sense, naming has a mind-to-world direction of fit; that is, the mind is reporting on the way the world already is, so it’s the mind’s job to fit or adapt itself to the world. In the second sense, naming has a world-to-mind direction of fit; that is, the mind is trying to make something the case, and so is making the world adapt or fit itself to the mind. (Compare the difference between your now telling someone what your name (already) is and your parents’, on the day of your birth, telling the hospital official filling out your birth certificate what your name (thereby) was.)
Notions like deciding and determining are often ambiguous in the same way. If I’m a gangster deliberating about which of my hitmen to send on a job, I’m trying to decide or determine who the murderer will be. In that sense, deciding has a world-to-mind direction of fit; my decision will bring the reality about. After the hit occurs, a detective may try to decide or determine who the murderer was; but in this case deciding has a mind-to-world direction of fit. The detective isn’t trying to decide which suspect to make the murderer; the detective is simply trying to ascertain which suspect is already the murderer.
The notion of declaring is similarly ambiguous. When a legislator declares what the law is, the legislator makes it the case that that’s what the law is. The legislator’s declaration has a world-to-mind direction of fit. By contrast, when a judge declares what the law is, the judge isn’t making it so, but is simply reporting an already existing fact. Thus the judge’s declaration has a mind-to-world direction of law. (In reality matters are somewhat more complicated, since in case law, where precedents are crucial, a judicial decision both reports on what the law has been and helps to shape what the law will now be.)
A news story from 18 June 2007 (news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/13412671.html) announced: “The Brazilian scientists’ 14-day expedition extended the Amazon’s length by about 176 miles (284 kilometers), making it 65 miles (105 kilometers) longer than the Nile.” This line is unintentionally funny because it makes it sound as though the explorers somehow succeeded in stretching the Amazon river. Of course they didn’t literally make the river longer; they simply discovered that it was longer than they had previously thought. What the explorers did had a mind-to-world description of fit, but the news story makes it sound as though what they did had a world-to-mind direction of fit.
Ambiguity between directions of fit can be found all over the place. This is one reason philosophers don’t like the question “who’s to say what’s right or wrong?” This question often seems to muddle together the question “who is in a position to recognise what is right or wrong” (mind-to-world direction of fit) with the question “who is in a position to make something right or wrong?” (world-to-mind direction of fit).
All of which brings us to the “Euthyphro problem” – so called because the earliest known discussion of it occurs in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro. Euthyphro is at one point inclined to define the pious/holy as what all the gods love, to which Socrates asks whether things are pious/holy because the gods love them, the gods’ love thus making them pious/holy (world- to-mind direction of fit) or whether the gods instead love those things because the things are pious/holy already (mind-to-world direction of fit). In monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the question usually takes the form “Are actions right because God commands them, or does God command certain actions because they’re right?” In either case, the question is whether the relation between moral rightness and divine approval has a world-to-mind or a mind-to-world direction of fit. (This problem has worried theologians in the monotheistic traditions more than it ever worried the Greeks, mainly because Judeo- Christian-Islamic theology attributes to God a radical supremacy more extreme than anything that most ancient Greeks would have granted.)
Why does this question pose a problem? Well, if one takes the position that actions are right because God commands them, giving the relation a world-to-mind direction of fit (this option is known as theological voluntarism, because, deriving from the Latin terms, it regards God’s willing (voluntas) of morality as prior to his understanding (intellectus) of morality), this seems to make God’s commands arbitrary. After all, one might think that if God forbids murder, that must be because there’s something wrong with murder, something about murder that God doesn’t like. But if theological voluntarism is true, then it is God’s forbidding murder that makes it wrong, and so there is nothing wrong with murder until God forbids it. But that in turn means that before God forbids murder, there is as yet no reason to forbid it, and so God has no reason for what he commands. This makes God’s commands arbitrary and random, and that seems like an undesirable conclusion; surely a wise and loving God would have some good reason for what he commands. (Moreover, if nothing has moral value until God decides so, then it would seem to follow that God has no moral value until he decides so, which seems odd too. How could a being without (as yet) any moral value possess such authority?)
But if one instead says that God does have some good reason for forbidding murder, that means that there’s already something wrong with murder before God forbids it. The relation between God’s prohibiting murder and murder’s being wrong would then have a mind-to- world direction of fit; God’s forbidding murder is simply a response to the wrongness that he perceives murder to have. (This option is known as theological intellectualism, because it regards God’s understanding (intellectus) of morality as prior to his willing (voluntas) of morality.) But this view has problems too. For it seems to suggest that God is subject to some moral standard that he did not create. But how can this be true if God is conceived as the supreme power over, and explanation of, everything in the universe? How can there be a moral standard independent of God?
Some philosophers have even used the Euthyphro Problem as an argument against the existence of God, as follows:
1. If there is a God, then either actions are right because God commands them or else God commands actions because they are right. (Premise) 2. If actions are right because God commands them, then God’s commands are random and arbitrary. (Premise) 3. God’s commands cannot be random or arbitrary. (Premise) 4. It is not the case that actions are right because God commands them. (2, 3) 5. If God commands actions because they are right, then God is subject to a moral standard beyond himself. (Premise) 6. God cannot be subject to any moral standard beyond himself. (Premise) 7. It is not the case that God commands actions because they are right. (5, 6) 8. It is not the case that actions are right because God commands them, nor is it the case that God commands actions because they are right. (4, 7) 9. There is no God. (1, 8)
We shall be looking later in the course at some attempts to answer this argument. (Thomas Aquinas, for example, is a theological intellectualist who tries to refute (5); on his view, God is goodness personified, so God’s nature is the standard of morality. But God’s will is not the standard of morality; God first sees (by looking at his own nature) what is right, and then wills accordingly. Thus the standard of morality is independent of God’s will (thus avoiding divine arbitrariness) but not independent of God (thus safeguarding divine supremacy). John Locke, by contrast, is a theological voluntarist who attempts to refute (2); on his view, God does have a reason for what he commands, namely impartial love of humanity, but God’s reason is not ours, since we are not impartial; hence our reason for obeying God is respect for his authority, and we would have no reason to do at least some of what God commands if he didn’t command it.)
What’s worth noticing, however, is that the so-called “Euthyphro Problem” causes no puzzlement to either Socrates or Euthyphro; once they clearly see the issue, both unhesitatingly accept theological intellectualism, regarding divine approval as a response to the moral value of actions (mind-to-world), rather than its creator (world-to-mind). The most likely reason for this is that the Greeks did not regard divinity as involving the kind of supremacy that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians attribute to God; thus they had no particular inclination to affirm (6). (In Homeric epic, for example, Zeus, while supreme over the other gods, is subject to the requirements of Fate.)
In Greek thought, the virtue of holiness is always regarded as having something to do with the gods. If holiness is not obedience to divine commands, however, but such commands are rather a response to certain actions’ being holy already, what does the holiness of those actions consist in? Socrates several times hints that the virtue of holiness should be defined in terms of its end, i.e., whatever product it produces. He even gets Euthyphro to describe that end as “salvation to individual families and to states,” i.e., as human welfare. Although this dialogue is like the Laches in that it ends in apparent puzzlement, there is some evidence that Socrates is trying to get Euthyphro to recognize that holiness is the art of promoting human welfare – in which case it would, predictably, be identical with that knowledge of good and evil which Socrates implies is the essence of all virtue. If this is the intended moral of the Euthyphro, then Socrates is steering us toward a definition of holiness from which, unexpectedly, all reference to the gods drops out.
We will get a better picture of Socrates’ views on holiness and service to the gods, however, in the next dialogue: the Apology. The Euthyphro Problem
Is divine approval the cause of or the response to moral value?
Socratic version: Are things holy because the gods love them, or do the gods love them because they’re holy?
Judeo-Christian-Islamic version: Are actions right because God commands them [theological voluntarism: God’s commands express his voluntas, his will or free creative choice], or does God command them because they’re right [theological intellectualism; God’s commands reflect his intellectus, his understanding of what is already right]?
Argument for theological voluntarism: If God commands things because he sees that they’re already right, then God is subject to a moral standard he didn’t create. But God is absolutely supreme, and so cannot be subject to any authority he didn’t create. [Notice that this works only for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic version, since the Greek religion of Socrates’ time did not attribute such strong supremacy to the gods.] God is the ultimate reason for everything, and so must be the ultimate source of morality as well.
Argument for theological intellectualism: If things are right because God commands them (and likewise, wrong because he forbids them), then before God issues any commands, nothing is either right or wrong. So, for example, there’s nothing wrong with murder until God forbids it. But that would mean that God could have no reason for what he commands. So God’s commands would be completely random and arbitrary. But God is a perfect being, and no perfect being would issue random and arbitrary commands; a perfect being would have a good reason for any command he issues. So God must have some reason for forbidding murder; there must be something about murder that he doesn’t like. So there is something wrong with murder before God forbids it, and God’s command not to commit murder is a response to this already-existing wrongness. Also, if moral value depended on divine commands, then God wouldn’t be good until he first decreed that he was good. But God is inherently and necessarily good, before he commands anything; so goodness does not depend on divine commands.
Moral argument for atheism: If God exists, then either actions are right because God commands them, or else God commands them because they’re right. But if actions are right because God commands them, then God’s commands are arbitrary, which is impossible for a perfect being. And if God commands actions because they’re right, then God is subject to an authority he didn’t create, which is impossible for a supreme being. So both options are impossible. But one of these impossible options would have to be true if God existed. So God does not exist.
The Scholastic solution: God does not merely possess the property of goodness; he is pure Goodness itself. But Goodness is the standard of morality. And God cannot change his own nature to make himself no longer good. Hence the standard of morality (= God’s nature as Goodness personified) is independent of God’s will (thus safeguarding God’s perfection) but not independent of God (thus safeguarding God’s supremacy).
Using the Scholastic solution to solve a different problem: Can God make logical contradictions true? Can God make 2 + 2 = 5, or create a four-sided triangle, or create a stone too heavy for him to lift? On the one hand, the right answer seems to be no; logical contradictions are absolutely impossible. On the other hand, if God’s power is constrained by the laws of logic, and God himself cannot create or change the laws of logic, then God’s power seems to be limited by something outside himself, which seems to threaten his supremacy. Solution: God does not merely possess the properties of existence and rationality; he is pure Being itself and pure Reason itself But Being and Reason are the standard of logic. Hence the standard of logic (= God’s nature as Being and Reason personified) is independent of God’s will but not independent of God.
Questions about the Scholastic solution: What does it mean to talk about a person who is pure Being or pure Goodness or pure Reason? Those seem like abstract properties; how could Being or Goodness or Reason be a real individual entity in its own right? We’ll come back to these issues when we talk about Plato’s Republic and Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will. Morality and Self-Interest: The Socratic Approach
Start with an ordinary “common sense” conception of morality (having respect and consideration for other people’s interests, for example) and an ordinary “common sense” conception of self-interest (money, power, pleasure, fame – “material” success generally). Given these two conceptions, it seems easy to see how morality and self-interest might sometimes conflict; that is, it seems as though there will be cases in which the best way to achieve material success will be by running roughshod over other people’s rights, etc.
But Socrates argues that we can’t consistently hold or make sense of the claim that morality and self-interest conflict. We can’t regard a life as being beneficial to us if it doesn’t allow us to regard ourselves as admirable (his argument against Polus in the Gorgias), we can’t regard a trait as virtuous without treating it as something that enables us to live more successfully (his argument against Thrasymachus in Republic I), and so on.
Now perhaps those arguments work and perhaps they don’t. But suppose they do. They might still seem to leave unanswered the question of how morality and self-interest are in harmony. Socrates may have shown us that they don’t conflict, but given the conceptions we started out with, we may still be puzzled as to how and why it could possibly be true that they don’t conflict. This worry can be seen as part of what’s underlying the objections that Glaucon and Adeimantus raise at the beginning of Republic II.
One possibility that G. & A. raise is that morality and self-interest might be reconciled by viewing morality as a strategy for achieving our self-interest. Behaving immorally increases the likelihood that other people will respond in kind, and we don’t want that, so we grudgingly adopt a policy of morality in order to encourage others to behave cooperatively toward us. Their concern about such a solution, however, is that it makes the value of morality depend on the value of appearing moral. But what if these two could come apart? The reason G. & A. introduce the story of Gyges’ magic ring that makes its wearer invisible is that if one possessed such a ring, one could act in immoral ways (stealing, killing, whatever) while still appearing to be a virtuous person. Their question is: are morality and self-interest always in harmony, or are they only in harmony in cases where one can’t be immoral without being found out? What they want, but aren’t sure it’s possible to get, is a convincing argument for the claim that morality is more in your self-interest whether or not it causes you to appear to be moral. (Part of the subtext here is that Socrates himself was eventually executed by people who thought he was immoral; Plato of course regards Socrates as moral, indeed as a great benefactor to humanity, and so Plato would like to be able to show that Socrates was better off being moral even though he didn’t appear moral to his contemporaries.)
For this course we’re not reading the rest of the Republic, where Plato has Socrates trying to answer this question. But it’s worth asking whether Socrates has resources in what we’ve already read to address this question.
In thinking about whether morality and self-interest are in accord, G. & A. are thinking of morality in traditional terms, as involving respect for others; and they’re likewise thinking of self-interest in traditional terms, as involving material success. The example of Gyges’ ring seems to show that there’s no logical necessity that these two will go together. Perhaps that’s true, so long as we stick with understanding morality and self-interest as they’ve traditionally been conceived. But Socrates might well argue that what this shows is that there’s something mistaken in those traditional conceptions.
Once again, suppose Socrates is correct in thinking he’s shown that morality and self-interest have to go together. (He may or may not be right about that, but his interlocutors have admitted he’s right, so we might as well do so for the sake of argument.) Then Socrates, or Plato, may be seen as trying to guide us through the following argument:
1. Morality and self-interest cannot conflict. [assume Socrates has shown this] 2. Morality as conventionally understood and self-interest as conventionally understood can conflict. [assume Glaucon and Adeimantus have shown this] 3. Therefore: either the conventional understanding of morality is mistaken or the conventional understanding of self-interest is mistaken (or both).
If one accepts this conclusion, one has the choice of whether to revise the traditional understanding of morality or the traditional conception of self-interest. Suppose we take the first option: that is, suppose we revise our conception of morality so that running roughshod over other people’s rights is no longer immoral. (This is one way of developing the position Thrasymachus takes in Republic I, and the similar view defended by Callicles in the later parts of the Gorgias.) This would indeed allow us to reconcile morality with self- interest – but is it a logically coherent option? The arguments Socrates gives against Thrasymachus in Republic I (e.g., that conflictual models of success are inconsistent with expertise) are supposed to show that it isn’t (as are the analogous arguments against Callicles in the Gorgias).
Maybe those arguments work and maybe they don’t. But suppose they work. Then we have to reconcile morality with self-interest, but we can’t do so by revising the traditional conception of morality. (Or at least we can’t do so by giving up on the respect-for-others aspect of the traditional conception of morality; Socrates may wish to revise the traditional conception in other ways.) So we are logically compelled to revise our conception of self- interest instead, so that it is no longer something whose achievement could ever require disrespecting others’ interests and rights. What Socrates is perhaps trying to show us, then, is that we cannot consistently identify self-interest with purely material success; our own concepts and commitments already entail, whether we realise it or not, that justice and the other virtues are part of (not just strategic means to) our well-being, just as playing a particular note is part of (not just strategic means to) playing a certain piece of music.
So if Socrates’ arguments are correct, then morality is necessary for well-being. But is it also sufficient for well-being, as Socrates seems to suppose when he claims in the Apology that a good person can never be harmed? Or might it be necessary without being sufficient. Plato’s student Aristotle explores these issues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Common Misconceptions about Socrates and the Socratic Dialogues
[Of course when I call them misconceptions I mean that I think they’re misconceptions. You’re not required to agree with me!]
Socrates tricks his interlocutors into contradicting themselves.
No, he doesn’t; all he does is ask them questions. If they give inconsistent answers, that’s their fault, not his.
Socrates tricks his interlocutors into agreeing with him.
How so? Once Socrates has shown that the interlocutor’s initial answer implies X, it’s still up to the interlocutor whether to embrace X or instead go back and reject the initial answer.
Socrates makes people confused.
No, they were already confused before he got there, since they believed inconsistent things. Socrates simply helps them to recognise their pre-existing confusion. So he really makes them less confused than they were before (since he’s helped them get rid of some mistaken beliefs). Of course they feel more confused than they were before, since Socrates has revealed to them a confusion they didn’t previously know they had. (The doctor who reveals to you an illness you didn’t know you had shouldn’t be blamed as though he’d made you sick.)
Socrates takes malicious pleasure in refuting and humiliating his interlocutors.
I don’t think so. Socrates thinks it’s better to know the truth than to believe a lie; so from his point of view he’s benefiting people by showing them they’re mistaken, thus rescuing them from a false belief. (Of course, sometimes his interlocutors prefer seeming (to others, to themselves, or both) to know over actually knowing; so it doesn’t seem to them that they’ve been benefited.) Also, keep in mind that Socrates is modeling not just how to converse philosophically with others but how to converse philosophically with oneself.
The problem is that the participants just have different definitions; no two people have the same definition.
But what Socrates shows is that, e.g., Laches disagrees not just with, say, Laches or Nicias, but with himself; he contradicts himself. The person Laches has a different definition from is not Socrates but Laches. As for the frequent claim that no two people have the same definition of any term, wouldn’t that mean they’re all speaking different languages? Are there really six billion different languages on earth, with no way to translate from one to another? If that were so, how could we ever find it out? Remember, the fact that people give different initial responses doesn’t show they’re not ultimately committed to the same response. Moreover: it’s arguably impossible for people to disagree about something unless they all agree on its meaning. If you say “a bank is a good place to put your money” and I say “a bank is a terrible place to put your money,” we’re disagreeing only if we both mean the same thing by “bank” (viz., a financial institution). If, instead, you’re talking about a financial institution and I’m talking about the edge of a river, then we mean different things by “bank” and so our statements don’t actually disagree with each other. So the fact that we disagree about something proves that we agree, not disagree, on implicit definitions.
No progress gets made in a Socratic dialogue.
Socratic dialogues often end without the main question being explicitly answered, but that doesn’t mean there’s been no progress. A number of positions that formerly seemed workable have now been ruled out as nonworkable; that certainly counts as progress. (If you were a detective investigating a murder and there were ten suspects, and you managed to rule out four of them, would you think you’d made no progress?) Excerpt from Plato’s Alcibiades to illustrate the difference between giving a philosophical argument and merely putting forward one’s own opinions:
SOCRATES: Then are we to say that these people understand those questions, on which they differ so sharply that they are led by their mutual disputes to take these extreme measures against each other? ALCIBIADES: Apparently not. SOCRATES: And you refer me to teachers of that sort, whom you admit yourself to be without knowledge? ALCIBIADES: It seems I do. SOCRATES: Then how is it likely that you should know what is just and unjust, when you are so bewildered about these matters and are shown to have neither learnt them from anyone nor discovered them for yourself?. ALCIBIADES: By what you say, it is not likely. SOCRATES: There again, Alcibiades, do you see how unfairly you speak? ALCIBIADES: In what? SOCRATES: In stating that I say so. ALCIBIADES: Why, do you not say that l do not know about the just and unjust? SOCRATES: Not at all. ALCIBIADES: Well, do I say it? SOCRATES: Yes. ALCIBIADES: How, pray? SOCRATES: I will show you, in the following way. If I ask you which is the greater number, one or two, you will answer "two"? ALCIBIADES: Yes, I shall. SOCRATES: How much greater? ALCIBIADES: By one. SOCRATES: Then which of us says that two are one more than one? ALCIBIADES: I. SOCRATES: And I was asking, and you were answering? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then is it I, the questioner, or you the answerer, that are found to be speaking about these things? ALCIBIADES: I. SOCRATES: And what if I ask what are the letters in "Socrates," and you tell me? Which will be the speaker? ALCIBIADES: I. SOCRATES: Come then, tell me, as a principle, when we have question and answer, which is the speaker – the questioner, or the answerer? ALCIBIADES: The answerer, I should say, Socrates. SOCRATES: And throughout the argument so far, I was the questioner? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you the answerer? ALCIBIADES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, which of us has spoken what has been said? ALCIBIADES: Apparently, Socrates, from what we have admitted, it was I. SOCRATES: And it was said that Alcibiades, the fair son of Cleinias, did not know about just and unjust, but thought he did, and intended to go to the Assembly as adviser to the Athenians on what he knows nothing about; is not that so? ALCIBIADES: Apparently. SOCRATES: Then, to quote Euripides, the result is, Alcibiades, that you may be said to have “heard it from yourself, not me,” and it is not I who say it, but you, and you tax me with it in vain.
The Concept of Soul in Greek Philosophy
Greek philosophers often refer to the soul, and it’s easy for a modern reader to think that they’re talking about something whose existence is controversial. But they’re not.
Nowadays, when people use the word “soul,” they often (not always) have something very specific in mind – a part of the human being that is immaterial, separable from the body (and so capable of surviving death), and the seat of personality or self.
But the meaning of “soul” (or its Greek equivalent, psukhē) in ancient philosophy is much broader. The soul is just whatever it is that distinguishes a living being from a corpse. So in Greek it doesn’t make much sense to wonder whether there are souls (which would be the equivalent of wondering whether anything is alive) or whether you have a soul (which would be the equivalent of wondering whether you’re alive). Indeed, in this way of thinking even plants have souls – i.e., they have some principle of life.
What was controversial was what the nature of the soul was – whether it was material or immaterial, separable or nonseparable, mortal or immortal, etc. Epicurus, for example, was a materialist; but he didn’t deny the existence of the soul. He just said that the soul was a system of atoms held together by the body, and dissolving at death. Plato, by contrast, in his dialogue Phædo, has Socrates defend the view that the soul is immaterial and immortal. Plato’s student Aristotle held the intermediate view that the soul was the organizational structure of the material body (something like software to the body’s hardware) but was not itself material or reducible to matter; that the soul as a whole did not survive death but that the aspect of the soul responsible for rational thought did; and that this surviving aspect was not the self and its survival did not constitute personal immortality. The Stoics believed that the soul was a portion of the divine fire that governs the universe; some thought it survived death and some didn’t. (For reasons that will become clear when we read more about Stoicism, the Stoics didn’t think it mattered very much whether there was an afterlife or not.) Of those Greeks who believed in a personal afterlife, some believed in a bodiless existence while others believed in reincarnation. All these disputes were regarded as disagreements about the nature of the soul, not about its existence.
Socrates’ view of the afterlife is hard to pin down. In the Apology he says he’s agnostic as to whether there’s an afterlife or not. (He also says that the good are rewarded and the bad punished, but given his agnosticism about the afterlife he’s presumably referring to the healthy or unhealthy state of the soul in this life.) In the Phædo and Republic, by contrast, Socrates gives detailed arguments for the immortality of the soul. A widely (though not universally) held interpretation is that in the Apology (which is a fairly early dialogue) Plato is presenting the views of the historical Socrates, while in the Phædo and Republic (which were written later), Plato has started using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own views. (The Gorgias is an intermediate case; it ends with a purported description of the afterlife, but Socrates doesn’t offer any argument for its truth. As it happens, the Gorgias was written later than the Apology but before the Phædo and Republic.)