sign in sign up
<<
Home , Demiurge (magistrate), Demodocus (dialogue), Epinomis, Hipparchus (dialogue), Hippias Major, Hippias Minor

The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth: the Wisdom of Noble Simplicity

L. M. J. Coulson

A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of

Department of Classics and Ancient History School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney

November 2016

Statement of Originality

This is to certify that to the best of my , the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes.

I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged.

L. M. J. Coulson November 2016

i

Acknowledgements

Throughout this undertaking it has been my great good fortune and privilege to have the gracious and generous support of my family, supervisors and colleagues.

On November 5, 2012 Professor Eric Csapo and I met for the first time. At that meeting Eric suggested the apparently paradoxical use of εὐήθεια in Ancient as a postgraduate research topic. This thesis is a direct consequence of his suggestion, encouragement and forbearance. Eric’s erudition in the Classics’ disciplines is extraordinary and gives constant cause for admiration.

Professor Rick Benitez is officially designated as my auxiliary supervisor. However, he has been far more that that, especially in the last year of this project when the depth of his Platonic scholarship and generous support made an invaluable contribution to the completion of this thesis.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked closely with these exceptional scholars.

Ben Brown, Tamara O’Neil, Marie McInnes, Julia Kindt, Peter Wilson, Alastair Blanshard, Bob Cowan and my fellow Classics’ Department students have variously and gainfully contributed to realising this dissertation.

Thank you one and all.

ii

Cited Translations

Alcibiades 1 - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. Alcibiades 2 - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1966. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. Cleitophon - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Burnet, John (ed.) 1903. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1967. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1966. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1967. Greater - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Bury, R. G. (trans.) 1967 and 1968. Lesser Hippias - Lamb, W.R.M. (trans.) 1925. Letters - Bury, R. G. (trans.) 1966. Lovers - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1967. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1966. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1925. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1925. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1967. - Shorey, Paul (trans.) 1969. Emlyn-Jones, Chris and William Preddy (edits. & trans). 2013. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Harold N. Fowler (trans.) 1921. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1955. - Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1925.

iii

Abstract

Εὐήθεια is a problematic term in Classical Greece, and indeed remains so. Etymologically understood, εὐήθεια is a compound of εὖ+ἦθος meaning good disposition or character. Yet in the term habitually connotes foolish naïveté and simplemindedness. I hypothesise that Plato resuscitates εὐήθεια to vindicate ’ construal of the term as noble simplicity, and amplify its positive semantic and philosophical value to entail the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind.

There is little scholarship concerning εὐήθεια’s use in Ancient Greece. This thesis hopes to compensate in part for that lack, in particular the instances and implications of εὐήθεια in Plato. I endeavour to present a coherent defence of the hypothesis that Plato’s regeneration of authentic εὐήθεια has a potent ontological and epistemic function in Platonic philosophy’s purpose to foster the purification, simplification and unification of the embodied soul in order to propagate divine Good.

iv

The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth: the Wisdom of Noble Simplicity

Table of Contents Statement of originality i Acknowledgements ii Cited Plato Translations iii Abstract iv Introduction 1 Historical Plato 2 Platonic 5 What follows 12

Part I The εὐηθ- root 16 1. Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. B.C.E. Greek Literature 17 Variously negative instances of εὐηθ- root words 17 Ambiguous and positive instances of εὐηθ- root words 19 2. Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues 29 3. Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues 40 4. Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic dialogues 60 Εὐήθεια in the Platonic corpus 70

Part II Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι as Eikons 72 5. The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth 75 Prerogative of the Εὐηθέστεροι Myth 75 Myth in Plato 85 Plato’s mythos/logos conflation 89 Apologia 95 Reconstructionism and moral nostalgia 100 6. Function of Εῦήθεια’s Eidos and the Eikonic Εὐηθέστεροι 106 Seven premisses for the functional potency of εὐήθεια’s eidos and the εὐηθέστεροι as virtue eikons in Plato 106 Platonic goodness 108 (i) Good speech, accord, grace and rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια. (ii) Εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. The Good Platonic 109 Εὐήθεια’s eidos of good 114 The Pursuit and practise of godlike good governance 117 Democratic governance in Plato 123

7. Function of Εῦήθεια’s Eidos and Eikons in Platonically Good Education 129 (iii) The young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely, to cultivate authentic εὐήθεια in their souls. Platonically good education 129 Musical and gymnastic educational practices in the Republic 136 Tripartite Soul Theory in Republic 140 The Cave Allegory 144 Mathematical educational practices in the Republic 146 Platonic 151 Platonic partitions 156 8. The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity 160 The εὐηθέστεροι’s noble character and simplicity are good 161 (iv) the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. Simplex sigillum veri - simplicity is the sign of 169 (v) The εὐηθέστεροι took their beliefs to be real truth. Fall to the ascendancy of cunning 172 (vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. 9. Godlike Virtues 177 (vii) The εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. Platonic virtues 177 Godlike noble courage 181 Godlike temperance 184 Godlike righteousness 185 Are the εὐηθέστεροι wise? 186 10. Evoking the Eidos of Εύήθεια and Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons 193 Platonic and souls 194 Μίµησις and Ἀνάµνησις 200 Ἀνάµνησις 206 Δαίµων, δαιµόνιον and εὐήθεια 209 Conclusion 222 Afterword: εὐήθεια in the 21st century 226 Appendix 230 Bibliography 231

Introduction

“ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίµων (man’s character is his daimon)” (DK 22B119).

Εὐήθεια is a problematic term in Classical Greece, and indeed remains so. Etymologically understood, εὐήθεια is a compound of εὖ+ἦθος, and so has the semantic value of good disposition or character. Yet in ancient Greece the term routinely connotes foolish naïveté and simplemindedness. Nonetheless, as Eric Csapo notes, several notable Attic literati take “the improbable step of advancing intractable simplemindedness as a positive virtue.”1 Accordingly, a habit “sprang up among the of giving a double meaning to the words εὐήθεια and εὐηθικῶς.”2 The instances and implications of authentic εὐήθεια in Plato is the substance of this dissertation.

Like other educated Greeks of his era Plato was probably a logophile interested in etymology, which is particularly evident in his Cratylus (named for a follower of Heraclitus). George Kennedy that in this dialogue “three basic positions emerge ... names (and all words) originated with a divine name-giver, exist by nature (phusis), and reveal a necessary relationship between a sign and a signified.”3 While the Cratylus is certainly an aporetic dialogue it does highlight Plato’s regard for etymological scrutiny and semantics, and supports the view that he selects and applies words with great care.4

I argue that Plato chooses to utilise εὐήθεια in four ways: first, reflecting the word’s colloquial negativity: secondly, in a moderate, less offensive sense; thirdly, in an ironic and/or ambiguous sense: and fourthly, in a direct challenge to the hegemony of εὐήθεια’s derogatory meaning in order to resuscitate its correct etymology of εὖ+ἦθος – good disposition. I hypothesise that Plato’s regeneration of authentic εὐήθεια seeks to redress what Thucydides warns are the dire consequences of losing “the ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια)” (Th. 3.83.1). That Plato’s progressively positive use of the term in the so-called early and

1 Csapo 2011, 121-2. 2 Csapo circa 1996. 3 Kennedy 1993, 86-7. 4 Plato’s predilection for a kind of linguistic naturalism is apparent in the Cratylus’ detailed interpretation of words as encrypted descriptors, particularly evident at Cra. 419c 420d.

1

Introduction

transitional dialogues culminates in the Republic’s affirmation of authentic εὐήθεια as the noble simplicity of a “the truly good and fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind” (R. 400e).5 This, I submit, is a godlike disposition that is personified at Laws 677e-680b in what I propose be termed the εὐηθέστεροι myth.

Despite clear evidence for the significance of authentic εὐήθεια in Platonic philosophy there is surprisingly little scholarship on the topic, and in the main εὐήθεια maintains negative connotations. Notable exceptions are a 1974 Henri Joly footnote: Claude Gaudin’s 1981 paper, ‘ΕΥΗΘΕΙΑ, La théorie platonicienne de l’innocence’; Anne Gabriele Wersinger’s references to εὐήθεια in her 2007 essay ‘“, fais de la musique!” Le destin de la musique entre paideia et philosophie’; and Eric Csapo’s circa 1996 unpublished notes and his 2011 book chapter, ‘The Economic, Poetics, Politics, , and of the “New Music”.’6 This dissertation draws upon and attempts to augment that scholarship in order to foster debate about εὐήθεια’s meaning and function in Plato. In particular, I hope to establish the potency of authentic εὐήθεια and that the mythic εὐηθέστεροι embody it as the original wisdom of noble simplicity.

Historical Plato To better understand Plato as a dramatist it is useful to envision the ethico-religious and socio-political circumstances of his life, while acknowledging that doing so rests on convention and conjecture. It is generally accepted that Plato lived in Greece from 428 to 347 B.C.E.7 Like Heraclitus, Plato’s family claimed royal consanguinity, were wealthy and politically influential. His father Ariston supposedly descended from the last Attic tribal king, Codrus: his mother claimed an exceptional political forebear, Solon the Lawgiver. Plato had two older brothers, and Adeimantus, and a sister, . Through his distaff lineage, Plato was the nephew (or cousin) of Critias and Charmides. Accordingly, he was deeply embedded in Athenian historical and political tradition, and we might reasonably suppose that he was fated to become a political luminary.

5 My understanding of authentic εὐήθεια is explained in Chapter 3. 6 Joly 1974, 41: Gaudin 1981; Wersinger 2007; Csapo c1996, 2011. 7 Henceforth all dates are B.C.E. unless otherwise noted or used in reference to scholarship.

2

Introduction

Many scholars accept that certain events in his early life were particularly troubling and evocative for Plato the man and Plato the philosopher. In the first 24 years of his life he witnessed the distressing conflict of the protracted and ’ ignoble defeat in 404. The ‘experimental’ democratic Athenian society, wherein Attic tribal values were repressed and mocked, succumbed to a Spartan state that retained its traditional customs and laws. There followed the mercifully short, bloody and much despised nine-month rule of the Thirty , in which Plato’s relatives Critias and Charmides had a prominent part. After a brief civil war the democrats regained power and in 399 they indicted, tried and executed Plato’s revered teacher , whom many regarded as Athens’ most virtuous and wisest man. Seeing Socrates publicly denounced and put to death by the city he loved was doubtless profoundly shocking for Plato.

These were perilous times, and following Socrates’ conviction Plato and a number of his fellow travellers left Athens.8 Among the various accounts of Plato’s travels during this absence are Carl Huffman’s observations. In ’ life of Plato (3.6) Hermodorus is cited for a report that after Socrates’ death, when Plato was 28, he went to Euclides in Megara with some other Socratics. The report continues to say that he visited Theodorus in Cyrene and Philolaus and Eurytus in Italy. Finally, he is said to have visited the prophets in Egypt in the company of Euripides! Scholars accept the trip to Megara which is based on the excellent authority of Hermodorus, who was a student of Plato, and are rightly amused by the absurd story that Euripides went to Egypt with Plato. ... The text of Diogenes does not allow us to be certain, but if the report were drawn from Hermodorus it would fit very well with Plato’s supposed contact with Philolaus on his first visit to . It also would explain the mention of Philolaus in the Phaedo which many scholars regard as being written around

the time of Plato’s first visit to Sicily.9 It is said that the circumstances of Plato’s early life discouraged his direct participation in politics; however, there is evidence to the contrary. Though he may have eschewed official engagement in Athenian politics he did participate in foreign political intrigues.

8 Plato perhaps left Athens at the behest of family and friends who were concerned for his safety. He may have departed during the delay before Socrates’ execution, which might explain Plato’s absence from Socrates’ death that is noted in the Phaedo. 9 Huffman 2006, 5.

3

Introduction

Evidence suggest that during his 12-year self-imposed exile, Plato visited the court of the Syracusan Dionysius I in 388. This initiated Plato’s extended association with Syracuse’s political intrigues. He came home to Athens in 387 to establish his Academy, and in the following year accepted an invitation from Dionysius II, the newly installed ruler of Syracuse. Plato spent the next two years there before returning to Athens somewhat chagrined by the experience. Nonetheless, Plato went back to Syracuse in 361 in response to a request from , Dionysius II’s guardian uncle. Once more dismayed by Syracusan politics Plato soon went home to Athens. This is not the place to explore the often confusing and inconsistent accounts of these Syracusan episodes; however, it is reasonable to suppose that Plato’s close encounters with attempts to nurture philosophical kingship probably shaped his philosophy, and indeed his Academy’s engagement with politics. Political intrigues aside, after founding the Academy, Plato dedicated his life to teaching and promulgating philosophy. He died in 347, leaving the Academy to his sister’s son . The Academy’s educational structure and teachings have an immense and enduring influence, not least among those is the “sincere love of truth, and the relentless striving after it, as far as this is compatible with our moral frames”.10

It is generally accepted that Plato was disenchanted with the ethico-religious and socio-political economy of his esteemed Athens. He chose philosophy as the most useful way to resist and alleviate this decline. Plato’s philosophy, I suggest, reveals and teaches what we might describe as his Weltanschauung, a particular and comprehensive conception of the and humanity’s relation to it. Plato’s worldview regards the universe as a recurrent process of cosmic degeneration and regeneration. For Plato, Athens was evidently at a place in a cycle of change that induces human corruption and social decay. Yet, he holds steadfastly to the realistic prospect of individual renewal and regeneration, even in an era of rapid ethical decline. As Popper expresses it, Plato “certainly believed that it is possible for us, by a human, or rather by a superhuman effort, to break through the fatal historical trend, and to put an end to the process of decay.”11

10 Gauss 1937, 139. 11 Popper 1966, 20.

4

Introduction

A core tenet of Platonic philosophy’s way to overcome the forces of degeneration is its psychology, which claims humans are embodied with a tripartite soul whose “divine governing principle” (R. 590d) can be sufficiently nurtured to remember its cosmic lineage and purpose to reunite with divinity. Plato’s psychology envisions the embodied soul as a part of a unified, simple and good cosmos, and holds that a harmonised embodied soul can act on each part of the cosmic whole, for better or worse. Plato promotes the need for human awareness of its place in the scale and relativity of macrocosmic and microcosmic cycles. He wants us to be especially alert to the harm wrought by incompetent and unethical private and public governance. As authority that is driven by the desire for triumph and bounty exasperates the tripartite soul’s corruption, disorder and decay. For a polity to be good its citizens must first know what goodness is, and I contend that in Plato that obliges the cultivation of εὐήθεια’s good disposition. Plato’s practical philosophical method encourages a return to good order by ennobling and enabling the embodied soul’s good governance. A soul governed in accord with cosmic rhythm remembers its responsibility to contribute to cosmic harmony and manifest divine Goodness through the practise of human virtue.

Platonic dialogues Attica’s transition from an oral to a literary tradition introduced documents of rational analysis, verifiable authorship and static content.12 Nascent historians, and dramatists now had a practical means to textualise and more widely disseminate their work. Accessibility to accumulating written texts changed the nature of Greek discourse and the critical deliberations that questioned the validity of extant beliefs and challenged the hegemony of epic’s stories.13 Plato is a notable contributor to this literary revolution. The public delivery of his discourses might be understood as an artistic dramatisation of his philosophical method. Joanne Waugh suggests: “Plato’s dialogues were, at least initially, part of public discourse, and that the as well as the character Socrates were put

12 Luc Brisson believes the Greeks’ innovation of combining vowels and Phoenician consonants “made their script more readable than a syllabic scheme and thus more accessible, perhaps to the majority of Athenian citizens” (Brisson 2008, 7-8). 13 See Havelock 1973, and Turner 1952.

5

Introduction

forth as models for the way in which public discourse should be conducted and by whom.”14 Waugh believes that apart from circulating among the literate, Plato’s dialogues may have been produced as public recitals, which supports the claim that Plato wants his philosophy to make a broad impression. Plato’s initial audience, albeit an elite, were educated in the lore and language he employed. His repudiation of Homeric epic was probably shocking; assuming the soul is immortal deemed problematic; and a justice paradigm challenging the sophistic view that ‘might makes right’ sceptically received. Nonetheless, Plato artistically weaves his philosophy into the imagined encounters of familiar characters, carefully vested with mythic tradition and pious custom.

Much has been written about the emergence of Plato’s independent thought and his departure from merely dramatising Socratic elenchus. Perhaps an important point of differentiation is the sensibility of Socratic and Platonic dialectic. Both intend to challenge and change by engaging in rational dialogue to elicit metanoia, change of mind or heart, that which perhaps necessarily precedes dianoia (taken as understanding). The Socratic method is often confronting and disturbing, whereas we might loosely define Plato’s dialogues as transitioning to a more diplomatic and appealing conduct of ‘public discourse’. They seem to increasingly be consciously crafted as emotionally and intellectually charming methods of persuasion. Plato perhaps came to accept that Socratic elenchus can be counter productive and on occasion provoke obstinate and irrational defiance at the shock of recognising one’s own ignorance. Plato was not loath to shock his audience (see the Cave Allegory discussion in Chapter 7), however, as a skilled teacher he recognises the necessity to engage and encourage in order to educate.

It is believed Plato began to write his dialogues soon after Socrates’ death. While their order of completion is debatable, generally, Platonic dialogues are divided into three groups: early and transitional, middle and later.15 Another categorization divides them into Socratic and non-Socratic. Howland believes:

14 Waugh 2000, 47. 15 The widely accepted classification following Charles Kahn’s Plato and the (Kahn 1996).

6

Introduction

The great majority of Plato scholars, both in Europe and North America, now accepts ... that Plato wrote and completed the dialogues, one after another, over the course of his philosophical career, that they therefore reflect different stages in his thought, and that it is possible to distinguish Plato’s latest dialogues from the rest, and, with less certainty, his middle dialogues from his earliest works.16 Attempts to chronologise Plato’s corpus gave rise to what is referred to as the ‘development’ hypothesis that is countered by ‘fictive’ chronologists.17 I briefly address a question arising from that debate; does a developmentalist chronology of Plato’s dialogues support claims that his philosophy undergoes any evident development and change? This thesis uses an approximate developmentalist arrangement of the dialogues as a structural aid in what is essentially a thematic survey. I note that organisation, perhaps coincidentally, does suggest a perceptible shift in εὐήθεια’s etymological nuance and philosophical function. Irrespective of developmentalism’s validity, I concur with Asli Gocer’s remark that “Plato’s dialogues can be read together in ... a coherentist manner ... that points of convergence in the Platonic corpus are more fundamental than those of divergence. This approach stresses elements of continuity in Plato’s thinking without being committed to either developmentalism or anti-developmentalism.”18 For me, Howland fittingly sums up the issue of the dialogues’ chronology: “So long as we insist upon bringing chronological distinctions to the study of the dialogues, the texts we confront will continue to reflect the commitments of extrinsic interpretative schemes. In that case, we may do many things, but I do not believe that we shall be reading Plato.”19 Therefore, while I employ a developmentalist framework I am not wedded to it.

Scholarly readings of Platonic text invariably give rise to discussions about the presence of Plato’s voice in his dialogues. Can we claim to know what he believed, understood and reasoned, or that anyone speaks for him? Catherine Zuckert believes that: “Nietzsche comes to suspect that Platonic doctrines, like ‘the idea of the Good’ and the ‘immortal soul’, constitute public teachings that Plato himself did not believe and that, therefore, differ markedly from Plato’s own

16 Howland 1991, 195-6. 17 Harold Tarrant argues that the arrangement of Plato’s works was significantly influenced by Thrasyllus’ organisation of the corpus in a manner that was “intimately connected with Thrasyllus’ own view of Platonic philosophy” (Tarrant 1993, 179). 18 Gocer 1999, 19. 19 Howland 1991, 214.

7

Introduction

activity or philosophy properly understood.”20 Zuckert says: “If Nietzsche’s suspicion is correct, since Plato has proceeded on a misperception of its own origin and essential nature and must, therefore, be radically reinterpreted in light of its political origins and goals.”21 Perhaps; though irrespective of any misperception or erroneous footings Western philosophy is what it is, and while it may not be entirely a footnote to Plato, it nonetheless bears his indelible imprint. It is a vain hope to propose that the influence of Platonic philosophy, albeit variously understood, can somehow be expunged from Western philosophical intellection because Plato’s ‘beliefs’ are allegedly unverified and his ‘voice’ unconfirmed. In any event, I submit that the Nietzschean view may not recognise the novel ways in which Plato’s ‘new’ philosophy uses psychology, tradition, and technology. He fosters philosophical experience as a rational activity of self-discovery, intended to validate and regenerate certain values using methods that are likely seen as ‘novel’ in their divergence from contemporary mores. Despite his regard for pious conventions Plato’s articulation of what is good and just was arguably disruptive and revolutionary. Furthermore, his insistence on the quest for self-knowledge constantly refreshes his heuristic method. As a way to rationalise and comprehend one’s place in a vast cosmic process his philosophy is eternally novel in its aim to purify and simplify by challenging the destructive forces of corruption. Conceivably, Plato’s oft-discussed self-effacement from his dialogues evidences his aim to encourage and develop the seeker’s constant attentiveness, though ironically the absence of Plato’s definitive ‘I’ is used to support claims that he neither speaks in his dialogues nor affirms beliefs. Yet, there is broad acceptance that that in itself is a statement of Plato’s that his philosophy obliges rational self confirmation of its usefulness.

Is Nietzsche correct to allege that Plato does not believe in concepts like “the idea of the Good” and the “immortal soul”? Can we say with any assurance that Plato’s dialogues reveal what he believes, and defend such contentions? For my arguments to stand I must accept that Plato does speak in his dialogues and that what I construe as his positive conception of authentic εὐήθεια is a credible

20 Zuckert 1996, 10. 21 ibid.

8

Introduction

expression of his true beliefs and understanding. This dissertation therefore makes statements like “in Plato”, “for Plato” and so forth. Thus, I am obliged to defend the basis for such attributions. Plato, like Socrates, does not claim to impart knowledge; he seeks to abet its recollection and self-discovery. Many accept that Platonic dialogues are not doctrinal; they want to inspire and embolden the audience to ‘do’ philosophy by persuasively teaching ways for an individual to gain insight and rationally navigate to knowing they know what they know. As Richard Kraut remarks: “These dialogues were intended by Plato to be devices by which he might induce the audience for which they are intended to reflect on and accept the arguments and conclusions offered by his principal interlocutor.”22 And Holger Thesleff believes: “We may pretty safely accept that Plato felt himself to be a new Socrates, continuing the search that his master had begun.”23 While it may be commonly accepted that Plato does offer a philosophical method, how can an investigation of his works avoid the paralysis of apprehension and futility and sufficiently appease those who scorn abstraction and claim that contradictions render Plato’s legacy irrelevant and undeserving of contemporary attention?

One approach to determining what Plato may believe is the argument that, to stay in character, certain of Plato’s dramatis personae must speak the truth and so perhaps express what Plato believes to be true. Who might belong to that candid cohort? Diogenes Laertius explicitly states: “[Plato’s] own views are expounded by four persons – Socrates, Timaeus, the Athenian Stranger, and the Eleatic Stranger – even when Socrates and Timaeus are the speakers it is Plato’s doctrines that are laid down” (D. L. 3.52).24 Christopher Rowe holds that the Platonic Socrates is Plato’s “alter ego, his persona, his mask”.25 And a case may be made that on occasion Glaucon and Adeimantus express Plato’s teachings. However, in Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, a number of eminent Platonists argue for the “antimouthpiece” case, a term likely derived from J. J. Mulhern’s 1971 paper, ‘Two Interpretive Fallacies’.26 Gerald Press explains

22 Kraut 2013, §6. 23 Thesleff 2000, 59. 24 Press 2000, 1-2. 25 Rowe 2007, viii. 26 In Systematics 9:168–172.

9

Introduction

that the ‘mouthpiece’ theory assumes: “That the words and arguments of some character in a Platonic dialogue can be taken to state Plato’s (or the historical Socrates’) own beliefs and arguments.”27 Debra Nails writes: One need not, and I do not, argue that Plato simply had no doctrines; and it would be absurd to argue that the dialogues have no philosophical content, that only the Platonic method is important. Nevertheless, I maintain that the primary function of the dialogues was to stir academic dialectic by illustrating exemplary philosophical discussions and by setting out complex philosophical positions for critique.28 Even granting Nails’ point that the “primary function” of Platonic philosophy is “to stir academic dialectic”, I nonetheless hold that if “it would be absurd to argue that the dialogues have no philosophical content” then it is improbable to suggest that Plato’s philosophical beliefs and psychology are not expressed in his dialogues’ “philosophical content”. Of course, in keeping with Platonic method those beliefs attend to Plato’s dialectic purpose, which necessarily requires the audience to exercise their own analysis and interpretation. Plato spent most of his life promoting philosophy so we might infer he saw himself as a philosopher practising the philosophy he espoused. Granted, effacing himself is an essential aspect of Plato’s technique, however, that does not mean his ’voice’ is not ‘present’ and audible in his own dialogues. It does mean his presence requires discovery, and the detection and implications of those encounters has generated conjecture for centuries.

If Plato seeks to foster the embodied soul’s recollection of its innate knowledge and develop a rational basis for right opinion and understanding might we not suppose that he believes in and pursues these same aims? As Richard Kraut points out: We should not lose sight of this obvious fact: it is Plato, not any of his dramatis personae, who is reaching out to a readership and trying to influence their beliefs and actions by means of his literary actions ... penetrating the mind of Plato and comprehending what his interlocutors mean by what they say are not two separate tasks but one, and if we do not ask what his interlocutors mean by what they say, and what the dialogue itself indicates we should think about what they mean, we will not profit from reading his dialogues. ... It is unrealistic to suppose that someone as original and creative as Plato ... would have started his compositions with no ideas of his own, or, having such ideas, would have decided to suppress them.29

27 Press 2000, 5. 28 Nails 2000, 25. 29 Kraut 2013, §11.

10

Introduction

Moreover, it seems credible to suggest that even oppositional interlocutors contrarily, and perhaps momentarily, reflect Plato’s beliefs. If he does consciously suppress or deliberately misrepresent his beliefs we have no basis to assert that a Platonic philosophy exists. Indeed, Eric Ostenfeld observes that we might conclude that: “Plato’s mouthpiece is everyone appearing in the dialogue. That is, everyone appearing in a dialogue offers ‘a little guidance’, is a seed in the reader’s mind, provoking him/her to reach a personal answer to problems raised by Plato.”30 Attempts to hear and understand Plato’s voice are challenging, nonetheless, it is surely not an irrational and unproductive pursuit.

Perhaps we cannot definitively state what Plato does or does not express in his dialogues since, as Thesleff explains, they: “Are not treatises but dramatic pieces written for specific audiences, they contain allusions, thought-play and thought experiments that can only be interpreted today hypothetically or tentatively ... It may well be that Plato is obscure to us because he is deliberately brief, mentioning familiar arguments and problems under debate in the Academy.”31 Still, it is implausible to suggest that the absence of Plato’s first person voice justifies claims that his dialogues express none of his discernible beliefs or philosophy. Granted, Plato wants his audience to be aware of their own beliefs and from that beginning come to understand and know their true self. As Howland advises, each Platonic inquiry: “Can be completed only by the reader’s synoptic reflection upon the variety of perspectives from which, having entered the dialogues as an active participant, he has investigated the issue at hand.”32 If that is the case, then Plato believes his dialogues offer the possibility of helping to elicit a lived philosophical practice that he believes can bring happiness. Plato’s genius is to offer a way to journey with him, to undergo a cognitive experience of self-discovery. Ultimately, this may or may not be in accord with his personal way, though it seems improbable that he invites seekers to particulate in such a quest without offering evidence of his beliefs. Gabriela Carone’s points out that: “Plato encourages us to take our own positions on the many questions posed by his dialogues, as was done

30 Ostenfeld 2000, 219. 31 Thesleff 2002, §5 & §12. 32 Howland 1991, 194.

11

Introduction

by those philosophers who came after him.”33 We are factors in our own Platonic interpretative equation, and might suppose that Plato wants our philosophical computations to produce the courage and will that move us away from ignorance and toward higher intellection. Plato’s dialogues are intended to encourage that philosophical practise and that is determined by our cognitive disposition to usefully engage with his dialectic. If we do not admit that Plato’s true intentions are discoverable I submit that that engagement can only be marginal and unsatisfactory, and centuries of scholarship suggests that is surely not the case.

Platonic philosophy generates long thoughts that humanity has held for millennia. Plato might not speak to us as an overtly “active participant” in his psychological method, however, that does negate the power of Platonic philosophy to provoke self-discovery and champion the rational quest for reality and truth. Plato teaches that happiness is a realistic outcome of that quest, and frequently explains the considerable effort and responsibility required to achieve it. His message is simple – it is within your power to be happy by living a virtuous life – and I accept that he believes that. My hypothesis that authentic εὐήθεια is of significance in Plato rests on what I trust are sound arguments drawn from the textual evidence that Plato believes his regeneration of εὐήθεια has a practical and potent function in his philosophy.

What follows The Platonic method to encourage self-discovery promotes the usefulness of quotidian deliberation on abstractions related to virtue, which might involve reflecting of reality, truth, divinity, the soul, goodness, evil et cetera: “To talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man” (Ap. 38a). Discerning Plato necessitates entering his metaphysical world and yielding to the mystery and uncertainty that ensues: “I … am unable to suppose that any other study turns the soul’s gaze upward than that which deals with being and the invisible” (R. 529b). Relying on Platonic texts to support an interpretation that is even marginally

33 Carone 2005, 194.

12

Introduction

controversial risks accusations of special pleading, ad hominem argument, and failure to offer authentic insights or contribute to Platonic scholarship. Nonetheless, I trust this dissertation expands debate about the significance and function in Plato of authentic εὐήθεια and the mythic εὐηθέστεροι’s society. The following chapters endeavour to present a coherent and informative defence of the hypothesis that for Plato authentic εὐήθεια is a semantic sign of potent ontological and epistemic force. I argue that in Plato fruitfully cultivating the noble simplicity of good disposition assists to gratify the embodied soul’s affection for dialectic. Therefore, the possession and habit of authentic εὐήθεια is crucial for the cognitive reception of Plato’s higher education, and hence the rational development of a godlike soul that enables it to realise its telos of propagating divine Good.

This dissertation is in two parts. The first chapter of Part I surveys instances of εὐηθ- root words in sixth, fifth and fourth c. Greek literature. These are divided into variously negative, ambiguous and positive instances. Of particular note is Thucydides’ lament for the loss of “the ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια)” (3.83.1), and the evidence that despite its largely pejorative use there are instances of εὐήθεια that reflect its authentic etymology of good disposition. Chapter 2 initiates the primary focus of the thesis, εὐήθεια in Plato. This chapter surveys εὐηθ- root words in Plato’s so called early and transitional dialogues, notes the idiomatic negative use of εὐήθεια, and presents examples of its moderate, ambiguous, ironic and arguably positive use. Chapter 3 surveys Plato’s supposed middle dialogues. The chapter includes the Republic’s declaration that: “Good speech, then, good accord, and good grace, and good rhythm wait upon good disposition (εὐηθείᾳ) ... the truly good and fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind” (400de). Chapter 4 examines εὐήθεια and the εὐηθέστεροι in Plato’s so-called later dialogues; notably, the Laws’ account of a mythic society that formed the noble, good and simple εὐηθέστεροι.

13

Introduction

Part II argues for the potent function of authentic εὐήθεια’s eidos (εἶδος) and the eikonic (εἰκών) εὐηθέστεροι.34 I assert Part I’s conclusion that Plato reinstates εὐήθεια’s true semantic and philosophical value of εὖ+ἦθος, good disposition, and argue that authentic εὐήθεια has a telling eidetic function in Plato. Chapter 5 puts the case for the prerogative of the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative to be considered a Platonic myth, explores the role of myth in Plato and his mythos/logos conflation, presents an apologia against persistent claims that the εὐηθέστεροι are ‘stupid’, and considers reconstructionism and moral nostalgia in Plato. Chapter 6 opens by offering seven premisses, derived from the Republic and the Laws, to ground my arguments for the philosophical potency of authentic εὐήθεια and the εὐηθέστεροι myth in Plato. The chapter discusses the first two of these premisses: (i) good speech, accord, grace and rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια; (ii) authentic εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. I explore notions of Platonic good and the good Platonic cosmos, propose an application of eidos to illustrate the function of εὐήθεια, consider the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance, and offer observations about in Plato. Chapter 7 takes up premiss (iii), the young must be encouraged to pursue authentic εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely, to cultivate authentic εὐήθεια in their souls. The chapter surveys the function of εὐήθεια in a Platonically good education and significant aspects of that education: viz., musical and gymnastic educational practices in the Republic; the Republic’s theory of the tripartite soul; the Cave Allegory; mathematical educational practices in the Republic and Platonic dialectic. The chapter’s last section explores the partitioning of progressive cognitive activity in Platonic philosophy, the tripartite soul and its affections, and authentic εὐήθεια’s goods.

Chapter 8 argues that noble simplicity is a godlike virtue. It considers premiss (iv), the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια),

34 The preamble to Part II explains why and how I employ the term εἶδος in relation to εὐήθεια. The word eikonic is an adjectival form of the Greek εἰκών used to describe the εὐηθέστεροι’s eikonic status as godlike human virtue-heroes that are the product of harmonious conditions.

14

Introduction

therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. I then consider premiss (v), the εὐηθέστεροι took their beliefs to be real truth, in the context of the axiom simplex sigillum veri - simplicity is the sign of truth and the notion of simplicity and complexity in Plato. And lastly, I address premiss (vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. Chapter 9 supports premiss (vii), the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. The chapter proposes that Platonic virtues include godlike noble courage, godlike temperance and godlike righteousness. It concludes by asking, are the εὐηθέστεροι in any sense wise, and might their noble simplicity entail a kind of original godlike wisdom? The final chapter, 10, considers why and how the eidos and eide of εὐήθεια might be evoked to usefully serve Plato’s philosophical purpose. This chapter discusses Platonic cosmology and souls, µίµησις and ὰνάµνησις. The last section reviews daimōn and daimonion in Plato and the possible function of εὐήθεια in my construal of a daimonion as the personal tutelary ‘voice’ of a well-nurtured embodied daimōn. The chapter concludes by recalling the Heraclitus’ fragment, “ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίµων (man’s character is his daimon)”.35

35 Heraclitus, DK 22B119.

15

Part I The εὐηθ- root

Scholarship concerning εὐηθ- root words, specifically εὐήθεια, is limited despite evidence of efforts in the late fifth and fourth c. to reinstate its positive meaning. This survey of the εὐηθ- root in early Greek literature seeks to augment that scholarship, though it does not claim to be an exhaustive register of the word’s occurrences or a philological discourse. Rather, it explores the largely disparaging early instances of the words and then offers evidence of their ambiguous, moderate and positive use. I contend that these latter examples credibly attest to an intentional divergence from εὐήθεια’s negative connotations, and hypothesise that εὐήθεια undergoes a notable semantic and philosophical regeneration during the designated period, particularly in Plato.36

36 The Platonic corpus is surveyed in Part II.

16

Chapter 1

Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature The ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια) of which nobility (γενναῖος) had the greatest share was ridiculed and vanished and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow (Th. 3.83.1). Variously negative instances of εὐηθ- root words Cognates of the εὐηθ- root appear neither in nor , and may not be in use prior to the fifth c. Still, in the Septem Sapientes fr. 6, perhaps a genuine transmission of early sixth c. gnomic proverbs, an idiomatically negative instance of εὐήθης appears in a plea to be “neither guileless (εὐήθης) nor malicious”.37 Possibly another circa sixth or early fifth-century negative instance of εὐήθεια is in work of the iambic poet Hipponax of Ephesus. Noted for his biting satire, in the disjointed fragment 154.1(W) he addresses someone as a “εὔηθες κρίτη (foolish judge)”.

Later in the fifth c. Euripides and other dramatists, and other historians, and other philosophers, and notable orators/rhetoricians confirm the prevalent pejorative use of εὐήθεια and its cognates.38 Two instances of εὐήθεια in Aristophanes warrant mention. In Clouds Strepsiades holds a kneading trough (kardopos) while arguing with Pasias over his alleged indebtedness to him. During the conversation the sophisticated Strepsiades mocks Pasias for naming “the kardopos foolishly (εὐηθικῶς)” (Cl. 1258), probably inferring linguistic incompetence. And in fr. 897a.2 Aristophanes derides a “stupid law (εὐήθη νόµον).”39

37 Septem Sapientes Phil., Apophthegmata (ex collectione Demetrii Phalerei ap. Stobaeum), fr. 6.5: “µήτ’ εὐήθης ἴσθι µήτε κακοήθης (be neither guileless nor malicious.” 38 Dramatists - E., Hipp. 639, Andr. 625, and Hel. 747: X., Ap. 28.2; Mem. 4.2.2: Ar. fr. 897a.2; Cl. 1258, Ec. 521. Philosophers - Arist., Metaph. 5.1024b.32, 1062b.34; EE 2.1221a37, 7.1245a12; Rh. 1413b2; LI 969a14, 969a21 (perhaps written by Aristotle or a student): Thphr., HP 8.6.2, 9.19.2; CP 4.12.13; Sens. 21.7, 47.1, 48.1: Eudem. frg.106.7: Aristox., Elements of Harmony 53.13: Isoc., Busiris 11.46.2: Is. On The Estate Of Pyrrhus 50.3: Alcid., frg. 15.11: Speus., Letter to Philip II 8.27. Historians - Ephor., frg. 149.30: Hdt. 1.60.3, 2.45.1: Theopomp. Hist., frg. 349.1: Xenocr, frg. 149.4: Epicur., Letter to Menoeceus 126.6 Callisthenes of Olynthus fr.9.2: frg. 50.5: Palaeph., On Incredible Things or On Unbelievable Tales 5.2, 8.3, 19.2, 27.7, 28.12 and 49.9: Aen.Tact., Poliorcetica 28.7.5, 30.2.1: Megasth. fr. XXIX.59. Orators - Aeschin., Against Timarchus 1.56; 1.16; Against Ctesiphon 3.256; Tenth Epistle 10.9 (almost certainly not Aeschines’ work):8.17; Against Agoratus 13.85; For Mantitheus 16.6; On the Scrutiny of Evandros 26.2: Anaximen., to Alexander 29.16.4: Hecat. Abd. frg. 25.66: Hyp., Phil. 2.7; Ath. 3.19; Epit. 6.7: Is. On The Estate Of Pyrrhus 50.3: Hyperides, Against Philippides 2.7; Against Athenogenes 3.19; Funeral Oration 6.7.Lys., Accusation of Calumny: Is. On The Estate Of Pyrrhus 50.3: Timae. frg. 12*.28. 39 Edmonds 1957, fr. 897a2.

17

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

Occurrences of εὐήθεια in Herodotus’ Histories are also notable. Herodotus reports a scheme devised by Megakles to restore Pesistratus as Athens’ tyrant. Megakles arranges for a physically imposing woman to be dressed in gleaming armour and then ride through Athens besides Pesistratus in a chariot. Pesistratus supporters proclaim the woman to be herself, which the Athenians believe, and Pesistratus is restored. Herodotus says, to his mind being duped by this ruse was: Exceptionally naïve (εὐήθεια) [and] that it is strange, since from old times the Hellenic stock has always been distinguished from foreign by its greater cleverness (δεξιότης) and its freedom from silly foolishness (εὐήθεια). 40 The passage is noteworthy on at least two counts. It evidences the contemporary negative use of εὐήθεια, and directly opposes it to the apparently admirable quality of cleverness (δεξιότης). Herodotus’ account probably mirrors a prevalent Attic attitude that regards barbarians as simpleminded because they lack the Athenians’ sophisticated cunning. Yet, the “naive” plan’s success clearly reveals their credulity and also conveys the potentially harmful consequences of εὐήθεια, understood as gullible naiveté. At 2.45.1 Herodotus remarks that the saga of Herakles and Busiris is “a silly (εὐήθης) story which they [the Greeks] tell about Herakles”41 because they are ignorant of the Egyptians’ authentic sacrificial rites. Despite the εὐηθ- root’s customary negative connotation here it is perhaps somewhat less pejorative. This might also be the case in the Ionian historian Megasthenes’ work Indica, then the Hellenistic world’s most complete, albeit problematic, depiction of life in India. In this work Megasthenes claims the priestly Brahman class’ reliance on mythology reveals their “great simplicity (εὐήθεια).”42

These early historians’ use of εὐήθεια illustrates that its colloquially pejorative meanings ranged from gross stupidity and harmful credulity to silly foolishness, naiveté and trusting innocent.

40 Hdt. 1.60.3. 41 Hdt. 2.45.1 42 Megasth. fr. XXIX.59), 15.1.59

18

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

Ambiguous and positive instances of the εὐηθ- root An ambiguous early instance of an εὐηθ- root occurs in Bound, once dubiously attributed to Aeschylus.43 At 385 the jovial asks Prometheus: “What lurking mischief do you see when daring joins to zeal? Teach me this.”44 Prometheus replies that he sees the “lurking mischief” as “lost labour and light- headed simplicity (εὐήθεια)”. Here εὐήθεια reflects the dominant pejorative usage, still, Prometheus is addressing Oceanus, his son-in-law and would be rescuer. And the author qualifies εὐήθεια with “light-headed” (κουφόνοος), possibly implying that εὐήθεια per se is not necessarily undesirable where it is thoughtless simplicity, or a type of amiable silliness. Consequently, this example may stand as a less derogatory instance of the εὐηθ- root. Oceanus’ reply to Prometheus is also noteworthy: “Leave me to be affected by this, since it is most advantageous, when truly wise, to be deemed a fool (ἔα µε τῇδε τῇ νόσῳ νοσεῖν, ἐπεὶ κέρδιστον εὖ φρονοῦντα µὴ φρονεῖν δοκεῖν),” which is evocative of the wise Socrates’ frequent claim of ignorance.

An ambiguous example of εὐήθης appears in an Archilochian’ epigram dated by West to the mid-fifth c.: 45 συκῆ πετραίη πολλὰς βόσκουσα κορώνας, εὐήθης ξείνων δέκτρια Πασιφίλη like a fig tree on rocky ground that feeds many crows, good-natured Pasiphile is receptive to strangers.46 The naïve and easy-going Pasiphile amiably embraces visitors, and εὐήθης might be read as relating her spontaneous, innocent hospitality to strangers.47 This less derogatory use of εὐήθεια as innocent generosity is perhaps also apparent in

43 In the 19th c. C. E. R. Westphal raised doubts about the ascription and subsequently other academics supported his view, among them W. Schmid, Mark Griffith, Alan Sommerstein, Anthony Podlecki and M. L West. West considers Griffith’s arguments conclusive and advocates the work being that of Aeschylus’ playwright son Euphorion, which may place it as late as 415. See Westphal 1896, Schmid 1922, Herington 1970, Griffith 1977, Taplin 1978 and West 1979. For the sake of exposition I calculate Prometheus Bound’s authorship date as the latter fifth century. See Griffith 1977: Herington 1970; Sutton 1983. 44 Smyth (Trans.) 1926. 45 fr. 331 (W) ; M. L. West claims these lines are more likely written by or Archias, which might situate the verse around 450 (West 1989-92). 46 Gerber 1999, 293. 47 I acknowledge Petropoulos’ gloss that takes the “fig tree on rocky ground that feeds many crows” as a metaphor to imply Pasiphile personifies a female sexual organ and/or is a brothel or innkeeper (Petropoulos 2013). However, that does not detract from my reading of εὐήθης here.

19

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

Herodotus’ account of the incident in Memphis when Syloson gives his coat to the then comparatively unknown Darius: “Syloson supposed that he had lost his cloak out of goodness of heart (εὐήθεια).”48 Herodotus perhaps infers εὐήθεια’s goodness of heart is an authentic noble simplicity to be esteemed since he recounts Syloson’s subsequent reward.49

Lysias uses εὐήθεια to convey what might be characterised as the hazards of naïve innocence. In On the Scrutiny of Evandros 26.5 he advises the gentlemen of Athens against being too trusting, as he does in Against 12.87, and Against Simon 3.41.50. However, at Against Simon 3.44 Lysias uses εὐήθεια to plausibly expresses a positive meaning by approvingly relating the “simpler (εὐήθεια) sort of man” to a lover as opposed to a villainous slanderer.

The instances of εὐήθεια in the Hippocratic corpus are also instructive.51 Particularly the non-pejorative uses of the words to denote clinically simple, mild, benign or the least invasive treatments, and in some instances to actually depict good states of health.52 Notably, at De diaeta in morbis acutis 11.27 Hippocrates uses εὐήθης to infer wellness and wholeness. The affirmative use of εὐήθεια is even more apparent in Coa praesagia 344.2 and Prorrheticon 1.122.2, where he describes the flow of sweat and saliva when feverish as “εὐήθεα (good).”53

The immensely significant Peloponnesian War dominated the latter third of Greece’s fifth century. One of its many consequences was a reaction among some notable Attic literati that Csapo describes as “the improbable step of

48 Hdt. 3.140.1. 49 When Darius came to power Syloson asked to be restored to the kinship of his country, . Darius agreed, albeit after the Persians had significantly depopulated Samos in their bloody reprisals against revolt. See Godley 1920, 3 &139-142. 50 Lamb 1930, 278-9 and 90-1 51 Notwithstanding attribution conjecture, the texts known as Corpus Hippocraticum are here taken as Hippocrates’ work and dated to the latter 5th and early 4th c. 52 Hp, Epid .,6.7.1.35, 6.7.1.39; Mul., i–iii, 120.12; VM., 8.5; Fract., 46.3; Art,, 82.1; Mochl., 26.1; Prorrh., 1.94.4, 2.12.16, 2.30.2; Prog., 20.3; Coac., 273.3; Acit., 11.27, 12.14 ( Littré 1846 & 1861, 184-5 and 196-7). 53 “The convulsions, for the one not sweating, the saliva flowing past, being feverish, it is good (Τὰ σπασµώδεα, ἀνιδρῶντι, πτύελα παραρρέοντα, πυρετώδει ἐόντι, εὐήθεα)” (Coac., 344.2): “Convulsions, being in a sweat, in a fevershing state, sputum flowing out, this is good (Σπασµώδεα, ἐν ἱδρῶτι πτύελα παραρρέοντα πυρετώδει ἐόντι, εὐήθεα)” (Prorrh., 1.122.2).

20

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

advancing intractable simplemindedness as a positive virtue.”54 This seemingly entailed a conscientious effort by several prominent actors to restore εὐηθ- root words’ etymological authenticity in the cause of social rectification. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War relates: “The bloody march of revolution” from the Corcyrean stasis of 427, the fifth year of the war. The violence wrought “many and terrible sufferings ... [as] revolution thus ran its course from city to city ... [carrying] still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning (δεξιός) of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals” (Th. 3.82.1- 3). Thucydides reveals the underlying political subtext of the military struggle and its dire social consequences. Tumultuous conflict incited volatile alliances and vindictive reprisals. Rival parties cunningly courted allegiance with Athenian democrats and Lacedaemonian oligarchs in their struggles for supremacy.

The of civil instability corrodes and supplants traditional values of fidelity and trust. Even reliance on the meaning of words is degraded, their semantic values corrupted to even oppose right value. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence (Th. 3.82.4.). As Csapo expresses it, Thucydides exposes the: “Manipulation of language to political ends and the crisis of faith it precipitated.”55 Disbelief in another’s words and fear of interpretive distortion rendered hitherto dependable communication untrustworthy. The disarray of Hellenic factional rivalries destabilises and sullies language’s authentic meaning, degrading the most basic means of human interaction. While for Thucydides this phenomenon probably indicates ethical and cultural collapse, Csapo notes it does not necessarily infer a general and permanent “mutation of meaning”. He believes Thucydides is not suggesting a widespread linguistic volatility; rather, just referencing examples of how corrupted ethical values can grotesquely distort language.56 Nonetheless, Thucydides clearly states that partisan politics can manipulate language to

54 Csapo 2011, 121-2. 55 Csapo circa 1996. 56 ibid.

21

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

deceitfully colour, camouflage and, importantly, recruit: “Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever (δεξιός) than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first” (Th. 3.82.7). Significantly, Thucydides associates simpletons with honesty and opposes them to clever roguery, echoing his denigrating use of δεξιός at 3.82.1-3.

Thucydides then declares: “The cause of these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition” (Th. 3.82.8). Both sides claim to serve the public good and in their struggle to vanquish each other moderation falls victim to enmities that countenance no restraint. Thucydides unambiguously identifies what he considers the wicked outcomes of this intemperate disorder: οὕτω πᾶσα ἰδέα κατέστη κακοτροπίας διὰ τὰς στάσεις τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ, καὶ τὸ εὔηθες, οὗ τὸ γενναῖον πλεῖστον µετέχει, καταγελασθὲν ἠφανίσθη, τὸ δὲ ἀντιτετάχθαι ἀλλήλοις τῇ γνώµῃ ἀπίστως ἐπὶ πολὺ διήνεγκεν. Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια) of which nobility (γενναῖος) had the greatest share was ridiculed and vanished and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow (Th. 3.83.1).57 This passage has considerable bearing on my thesis, so I wish to establish that this translation, and my interpretation, of it are reasonable. First, I consider translations other than Dent’s. Benjamin Jowett translates “καὶ τὸ εὔηθες, οὗ τὸ γενναῖον πλεῖστον µετέχει, καταγελασθὲν ἠφανίσθη” as, “the simplicity which is so large an element in a noble nature was laughed to scorn and disappeared.”58 C. F. Smith renders it, “that simplicity, which is the chief element of a noble nature, was laughed to scorn and disappeared ... ”.59 Gregory Crane translates it as, “that good nature, of which nobility has the greatest share, was laughed down and annihilated”.60 And a recent Jeremy Myott translation renders it as “simplicity of spirit, which is such an important part of true nobility, was laughed to scorn and vanished ... ”.61

57 Dent 1910. I also note that Csapo, Nussbaum, and Crane believe care is needed as to how “τὸ γενναῖος” is translated at 3.83.1, observing that it can be correctly understood as “men of high birth.”57 That said, “τὸ γενναῖον” can also be understood as “noble in mind”.57 Accordingly, the passage may be read as Thucydides’ critique of the social chaos that ensues when “blunter wits were more successful” (3.83.3), and the temperance of noble mindedness is deposed by ignoble ignorance. 58 Jowett 1881. 59 C. F. Smith 1920. 60 Crane 1998, 100. 61 Myott 2013.

22

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

Thus, Dent believes for Thucydides “nobility has the greatest share of ancient simplicity. Jowett holds that 3.83.1 implies that simplicity is a “large element in a noble nature” and Smith similarly translates it as, simplicity “is the chief element of a noble nature”. Crane takes εὐήθεια to reflect its etymological origins as “that good nature, of which nobility has the greatest share,” while Myott understands εὐήθεια as “simplicity of spirit, which is such an important part of true nobility”. In light of these translations, it seems reasonable to conclude that for Thucydides εὐήθεια is a laudable character trait, which is indicative of an ancient simplicity that is an essential element in a truly noble nature.

There is also considerable commentary on Thucydides 3.83.1. It includes Martha Nussbaum’s view that “the 'greatest part' of noble character is lo euithes, which can be rendered as 'guilelessness ', 'openness ', 'simplicity ', and which is here contrasted with suspiciousness and the inability to trust”.62 Smith notes that “τὸ εὐηθές as εὐήθεια .. is cited by grammarians (Photius, Thomas Mag., Moeris) as furnishing a characteristic example of the original meaning of the word [εὐήθεια]”.63 E. C. Marchant similarly observes that in this passage “τὸ εὔηθες” is used “in the earliest, good sense of the word, according to its etymology (Plato, Rep. 400 E)”.64 Marchant’s reference to Republic 400e as an example of εὐήθεια’s “earliest, good sense of the word, according to its etymology” supports my association of εὐήθεια at Thucydides 3.83.1 with Plato’s resuscitation of the term. Arguably, Simon Hornblower ‘s comments also have Platonic overtones. He believes the: “sentence is of the first importance; it is a clear, absolute, and conservative authorial rejection of the 'relativistic' moral teaching of certain of the , whose outlook is too often wrongly ascribed to Th. merely because (as his speakers show) he was familiar with the various moves in their games.”65

Indeed, Crane’s commentary posits that Thucydides endorsed the restoration of εὐήθεια’s ancient simplicity and that Plato was committed to that endeavour: “Thucydides sought to assimilate the decades of brutality that he had

62 Nussbaum 1986, 405. 63 C. F. Smith 1894. 64 Marchant 1909. 65 Hornblower 2003, 487.

23

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

observed and that he wished to reconstitute, in a new rationalized form, that ‘ancient simplicity’ (as Crawley renders to euethes at 3.83.1) of which the ‘well- born’ (to gennaion) … enjoyed such a great share.”66 Tellingly, Crane holds that “Plato would make the pursuit of this synthesis his life’s work,” and that Thucydides “was struggling to preserve and reestablish in more defensible form that ‘ancient simplicity’ whose demise he laments at 3.83.1”.67 A struggle that I argue Plato enjoins and advances.

Mary Williams cites another Thucydides’ passage in her remarks on 1.83.1. Williams believes Archidamus’ remarks at Thucydides 1.84-85.2: “more closely summarize the ‘ancient simplicity’ than do most other speeches in the History … [as] Archidamus recognizes that all of these elements of his advice work together to form one complete policy because he connects together courage, good order, planning, self-control, honor, and courage.” 68 In Williams’ view: “The parallels in language between [these passages] and that of the ‘ancient simplicity (3.83.1) suggest that Thucydides is deliberately linking his own definition of virtuous character with the words of Archidamus.”69 Clifford Orwin supports attributing virtue implications to the ‘ancient simplicity’ at 3.83.1. Orwin contends that Thucydides’: Interest in the ‘ancient simplicity’ [εὐήθεια] is not because he clings to the supposed values of his class. It is from his awareness of the dependence of decent politics on traditional virtue grounded in piety, which must be grasped even as the flaws and perils of this same 70 virtue must be grasped. Orwin’s assertion that “decent politics [depends] on traditional virtue grounded in piety” is reconsidered in the discussion of Plato’s political anthropology.

As to the latter part of 3.83.1, translators and commentators broadly agree that Thucydides laments the ridicule and disappearance of εὐήθεια for its loss, as Dent puts it meant, “society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow”. While I do not suggest that Thucydides believes the derision and loss of εὐήθεια is the only or principal cause of social disharmony I do claim that Thucydides considers that the lack of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity is morally and thus

66 Crane 1998, 7. 67 Crane 1998, 19 & 22. 68 Williams 1998, 96. 69 ibid. 70 Orwin 2000, 865.

24

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

socially detrimental. If that is the case, the cultivation and preservation of εὐήθεια has considerable philosophical ramifications, which I contend Plato concedes and addresses in his philosophy.

Given the ethical value Thucydides attributes to εὐήθεια at 3.83.1 we might surmise that he challenges late fifth c. hegemony of εὐήθεια’s pejorative use. By pointedly endorsing εὐήθεια’s authentic etymology he defends the values of noble simplicity and good disposition as the essential foundation of private and public harmony. Indeed, Csapo holds that from the time of Thucydides nostalgia for the noble simplicity of the Attic ancestors functioned as an intellectual counterweight to the perceived moral decline and sophistic relativism that derided traditional Greek virtues.71

Xenophon’s major history of Greece, Hellenica, begins in 411 where Thucydides’ History ends and continues to the battle of Mantinea in 362. At Hellenica 2.3.16 recounts a quarrel between Critias (Socrates’ former pupil and Plato’s cousin), and his Thirty Tyrants’ colleague Theramenes. Theramenes opposes Critias’ plan to avenge being sent into exile by executing many Athenian citizens. Critias responds to Theramenes’ objections by claiming that the Thirty must ruthlessly defend their authority by eliminating those who oppose them. For Theramenes to think otherwise, says Critias, is “naïve (εὐήθης)”.72 Though apparently disparaging, there are reasons to suggest that here εὐήθεια implies innocence rather that foolish stupidity, especially as commentators believe when Critias made the remark he still regarded Theramenes as a friend and ally. Xenophon’s autobiographical Anabasis is set from 401 to 399 and narrates events in which he participated. Namely, a 10,000 strong Greek army’s up country march to Persia, and subsequent return to Greece, in support of the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger’s bid to dethrone his brother Artaxerxes II. There are two instances of εὐήθεια at Anabasis 1.3.16 that suggest innocent naiveté. A recalcitrant Greek soldier remarks that it is “guileless (εὐήθεια)” for the soldier addressing the assembly to suggest they ask Cyrus for ships to return home, and that it is equally “naive

71 Csapo 1996. 72 Subsequently, Critias accused Theramenes of treason who was found guilty and executed.

25

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

(εὔηθες)” to request a guide.73 Εὐήθεια here implies an active sense of innocent trust. It is also interesting to note that Xenophon’s depiction of the Greeks seemingly questions the customary characterisation of foreigners as gullible and the Greeks as having superior cunning (cf. Hdt. 1.60.3).

Isocrates’ Panegyricus speech of around 380 has perhaps another less negative use of εὐήθεια. At 4.169.1 he makes a self-deprecating comment that many men might laugh and mock his foolishness (εὐήθεια). While here εὐήθεια may not be overtly complimentary its context suggests that Isocrates perhaps uses εὐήθεια to extol his lack of sophistication.

Demosthenes’ works are replete with εὐηθ- root words. In some cases they are certainly pejorative, though most are used to chastise and caution the Athenian Assembly against allowing their good-hearted nature to put Athens at risk.74 In Exordia Demosthenes warns the Assembly against the dangers of naïve trust: “All and every take advantage of your good disposition (εὐήθεια)” (24.2). In Against Aristogiton 1 he tells the Assembly that: “If you come here and take seats with your usual easy good nature (εὐήθεια), I am afraid that the case may be reversed” (25.12). The use of εὐήθεια in the panegyric Erotic Essay, possibly written by Demosthenes, is particularly relevant to this survey. Epicrates’ admirer tells him, you are the most enchanting of noble youths: Great is the grace and charm of your words whether in jest or in earnest. For you are innocent (εὐήθης) without doing wrong, clever without being malicious, kindly without sacrifice of independence ... all in all, like a child of Virtue sired by Love.75 Clearly, εὐήθεια is a worthy quality of this “child of Virtue sired by Love,” for apparently grace and charm attend εὐήθεια. The author also suggests that in this instance youthful εὐήθεια entails being “clever without being malicious, kindly without sacrifice of independence”. And here, the good disposition of εὐήθεια neither precludes intelligence nor connotes foolish credulity.

73 Brownson 1922. 74 D., Exordia 24.2, 32.3, 46.4; Olynthiac 1.15, 2.6; On the Peace 5.25; Against Onetor 30.38; Against 56.18; Against Aristocrates 23.47, 23.100; Against Leptines at 20.6, 20.145; Against Boeotus 1 39.25, 39.27; Against Boeotus 2 40.34; Against Aristogiton 1 25.12; On the Chersonese 8.44; Letter 1.7, 3.34; Philippic 3 9.10, 9.47, 9.51, 9.73; Philippic 4 10.15. The hazards of εὐήθεια’s good-hearted gullibility are also noted in various works of Lysias: On the Scrutiny of Evandros 26.5; Against Eratosthenes 12.87; Against Simon 3.41, 3.44. 75 Dem. 61.21, DeWitt 1949. 57.

26

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

The virtues of youthful εὐήθεια are also evident in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which is “about the cognitive features of language and style”.76 He writes that impassioned youth are: “Not ill-natured (κακοήθης) but simple-natured (εὐήθης) because they have never yet witnessed much depravity” (Rh. 2.12.7). Aristotle positively contrasts being εὐήθης to its antonym κακοήθης, being ill-disposed and malicious. Claiming that youthful εὐήθεια entails not having “yet witnessed much depravity” arguably infers that people are born in a natural state of εὐήθεια that can be degraded by increasing exposure to corrupting influences.77 J. H. Freese offers that here εὐήθεια means that youth: “Do not look at things in a bad light, but in a good [presumably] because they have as yet not been often deceived [and] are not always ready to suspect.”78 Freese’s gloss arguably reflects the ethical implications of Thucydidean εὐήθεια in that its corruption and lack can cause a loss of goodness and trust.

Indeed, a work by Dinarchus seemingly associates εὐήθεια and good- hearted trust. At 1.104, in his Against Demosthenes, Dinarchus writes: “You have such complete confidence in your own arguments and such contempt for these men’s simplicity (εὐήθεια) that you expect to persuade the jury.”79 Unlike instances of εὐήθεια in Demosthenes that clearly admonish the Athenian Assembly, Dinarchus’ usage is perhaps less chastisement and more an endorsement of a worthy quality, notwithstanding, it is one that can render the Assembly susceptible to cunning manipulation. The notion of εὐήθεια as youthful innocence is also evident in Dinarchus’ Against Daüs Concerning Slaves, fr. 19: “In administering his property rather childishly Cephalio was honest and simple (εὐήθης) of character.”80 Apparently, Aristotle and Dinarchus believe εὐήθεια can be a simple good-natured state of uncorrupted innocence and trust that is perhaps a natural and original condition of youth.

76 Rapp 2010, Intro. 77 Benitez suggests that Aristotle’s usage might mean that: “1. The character that εὐήθεια designates remains constant, but the evaluation of that character changes. 2. The character that εὐήθεια designates changes. With εὐήθεια it’s (2), with δικαιοσύνη it’s (1), with ἀπαθές its both” (Benitez 2015). 78 Freese 1926, footnote to Arist. Rh. 2.12.7, 248. 79 Burtt 1962, 249. 80 ibid.

27

Chapter 1 - Εὐηθ- root Words in Sixth, Fifth and Fourth c. Greek Literature

In sum, idiomatically unflattering εὐηθ- root words in fifth and fourth c. Greek literature are ubiquitous. Still, in several significant instances the words are less derogatory, and even complimentary. At 3.83.1 Thucydides assign εὐήθεια the admirable quality of noble simplicity and laments its loss, while in other instances εὐήθεια implies a good-natured disposition. I submit that the more positive 4th c instances of εὐήθεια buoy claims that it becomes less pejorative and more positive, and evidence the term’s semantic renewal. Thus, though εὐήθεια’s negative implications persist and predominate we might surmise that its more etymologically accurate use is employed to ameliorate the contemporary ethical mores that flout Attic traditions of piety, noble simplicity, good-heartedness and trust. Hence, these eventful years mark a notable transition for the εὐηθ- root’s usage in Greek literature. The following chapters continue to survey εὐήθεια in Plato’s dialogues to ascertain if its regeneration is evident there and if so to consider the function of εὐήθεια in Platonic philosophy.

28

Chapter 2

Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

The rehabilitation of the ethical meaning of the word [εὐήθεια] interacts with the refusal of its pejorative connotations in a more intricate manner than what could have been expected. The of Platonic texts brings us to the borders of what one might call the power of the negative, as included in the concept of εὐήθεια. Which is why the usage of the word, or of words of the same semantic family, is never naïve in Platonic texts and one should therefore identify each major one of them.81

A survey and analysis of εὐήθεια in Plato is the core of this thesis. I suppose that Platonic dialogues utilise these words in four ways. First, as colloquially pejorative; secondly, in a more moderate and less offensive sense; thirdly, to be deliberately ironic and/or ambiguous; fourthly, to directly challenge εὐήθεια’s negative connotations by regenerating its semantic value of εὖ+ἦθος, good disposition and its Thucydidean meaning of noble simplicity. I then submit that Plato positively employs the latter connotations to advance his philosophical aims.

Claude Gaudin is one of the few scholars to consider the implications of εὐήθεια in Plato. As he notes: “The usage of the word [εὐήθεια], or of words of the same semantic family, is never naïve in Platonic texts and one should therefore identify each major one of them.”82 In which case, Plato’s conscious use of εὐήθεια might often disclose critical insights into his philosophy’s method and intent to affirm an embodied soul’s cosmic divine heritage through self- knowledge. This is an objective that assumes an embodied soul’s natural intuition to rationally know its own godlike nature. I argue that the cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια is essential to realising that embodied soul’s telos. Moreover, that Plato’s purposeful renewal of εὐήθεια assists his aim to moderate what he regards as the degradation of contemporary society, reflecting Thucydides’ contention that the loss of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity (Th. 3.83.1) is a critical factor in the ferment of ethico-religious and socio-political strife.83

81 Gaudin 1981, 146. 82 ibid. 83 There are conflicting views about Plato’s familiarity with Thucydides. I concur with Lucia Prauscello views: “Personally, I side with the increasing (though by no means universal)

29

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

Acknowledging the ongoing debate about the chronology of Platonic dialogues, this survey and analysis approximates to a developmentalist model.84 In an attempt to retain some semblance of novel discovery I try to avoid filtering a dialogue under discussion through awareness of later works in order to allow that εὐήθεια’s semantic and functional transition might relate to the evolution of Plato’s philosophy.85 Perhaps considering Plato’s resuscitation and use of εὐήθεια helps to better understand what ideas and techniques he variously considers, puts aside, adopts, adapts and holds as fundamental tenets.

In what some deem his early and transitional dialogues Plato employs εὐηθ- root words to mixed purpose. The Charmides, believed one of his earliest works, ponders temperance qua soundness of mind. In a seemingly disparaging use of εὐήθης Socrates poses a riddle: how can a person who says “that doing one’s own business is temperance [be] such a fool (εὐήθης)” (162a)? Yet, in this case εὐήθης is perhaps ironic, since moderation in the conduct of “one’s own business” is admirable.86 In the same dialogue the adjective εὐηθικός is colloquially negative where Socrates tells Critias their agreement to some earlier concession “has found us so simple-minded (εὐηθικός)” (175c). Here εὐηθικός seems to mean gullibility and unsound reasoning, though being self-effacing it might be read as only a gentle reprimand.

Some translations of the , perhaps known in antiquity as On Lying, includes a notable εὐηθ- root words. This dialogue also provides pertinent insights into Plato’s early dramatisation of important philosophical binaries: viz., veracity/mendacity and simplicity/complexity. The Hippias Minor stages a debate

scholarly comments that Plato read Thucydides and actively engaged with the text” (Prauscello 2014, fn. 92). 84 See Brandwood 1976 and Khan 1996. 85 Analysing Platonic dialogues without proper perspective can corrupt interpretation. In an effort to avoid decontextualisation this study often includes material prior and subsequent to noteworthy instances of εὐηθ- words. 86 Note that arguably the Republic’s only clear definition of justices states: “We must remember, then, that each of us also in whom the several parts [of the soul] within him perform each their own task ... will be a just man and one who minds his own affair” (441de). I also acknowledge the description of justice at Republic 612bc: “We have proved that justice in itself is the best thing for the soul itself ... there can no longer be any objection, can there, to our assigning to justice and virtue generally, in addition, all the various rewards and wages that they bring to the soul from men and gods, both while the man still lives and, after his death?”

30

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

about the ethics of honesty between Socrates and the sophist Hippias during which they each refer to the Iliad’s famous heroes to support their arguments.87 Hippias declares: “Homer made the bravest man of those who went to Troy, and Nestor the wisest, and the wiliest/most complex (πολύτροπος)” (364c). Socrates responds with a doubtless contentious objection: “When you said that he made Odysseus the wiliest, to tell you the truth, I do not in the least know what you mean by that. Now tell me, and perhaps it may result in my understanding better. Has not Homer made Achilles wily” (364e)? Hippias promptly defends his characterisation of the Homeric heroes: Not at all, Socrates; he made him most simple (ἁπλοῦς); for in ‘The Prayers’, when he depicts them talking with one another, he makes Achilles say to Odysseus: “... hateful to me as the gates of is he who hides one thing in his heart and says another ...” Hom. Il. 308 ff. In these lines he makes plain the character of each of the men, that Achilles is true and simple (ἁπλόος), and Odysseus wily (πολύτροπος) and false for he represents Achilles as saying these lines to Odysseus (364e–365b). Hippias’ assessment probably reflects a widely held belief that the simple Achilles is brave and the wily Odysseus is cunning and false.88 Yet, Plato has Socrates repudiate this common conception of Achilles’ superior virtue by arguing that to lie voluntarily one must know the truth, as doing the former necessitates awareness of the latter. A person can knowingly lie only if they have knowledge of a truth that thus entails awareness of what is untrue. Arguing that Achilles is less virtuous than Odysseus was surely and extremely controversial. Gaudin’s scrutiny of the so-called Hippias Minor paradox argues that the validity of Plato’s provocative stance is supported by the Homeric text, which reveals Achilles’ serious shortcomings “vis-à-vis the requirements of ἦθος [moral character]”.89 Gaudin’s remark is also pertinent to the wider survey of εὐήθεια (εὖ+ἦθος) and its ethical implications in Plato as it suggests someone of good ἦθος has a truthful and good moral character.

87 Hippias is a sophist of considerable stature who was prominent at the end of the 5th c. He was from the small city of in the northwestern , and often chosen as the city’s diplomatic representative. Leake says Hippias’ “vanity is an important subterranean theme in this dialogue, [which] Socrates delicately unmasks” (Leake 1987, 300). 88 J.B. Koffman says that Sophocles also draws on the Achilles/Odysseus ethical tension in Philoctetes, where he depicts Odysseus’ clash with Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, who objects to Odysseus’ command to deceive the forsaken and wounded Philoctetes. See Koffman 1974. Also of note is the opposition of Ajax’s simplicity and Odysseus’ cleverness in Pindar Nemean 7 and 8, and the heroes’ characterisations in ’ Ajax and Odysseus speeches as they argue to win the prize of Achilles’ armour. 89 Gaudin 1981, 148-9.

31

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

Socrates presses his point by questioning Hippias about the relationships between veracity and simplicity. He asks, are the false “wily and deceivers by reason of simplicity (ἠλίθιος) and folly or by reason of unscrupulousness (πανουργία) and a sort of intelligence (φρονέω)” (365e)? Hippias agrees the latter is the case, and that the false knowingly do harm. Socrates’ question arguably conveys and implicit condemnations of sophists’ teachings.90 Notably, he segregates simplicity from unscrupulous intelligence and a “sort of intelligence” that associates with falsity. The passage is another example of contrasting simplicity and truth to sophisticated cunning, and also perhaps opposing the authentic wisdom of philosophy to the false wisdom of the sophists. Hippias’ attempts to refute Socrates argument by claiming that: “Achilles was induced by the goodness of his heart (εὐήθεια) to say to Ajax something different from what he had said to Odysseus; whereas Odysseus, when he speaks the truth always speaks with design, and when he speaks falsehood likewise” (371e).91 Conceding εὐήθεια here, or a sematic intention close to it, Socrates’ rejection of Hippias’ explanation is doubly significant. First, Hippias allies “goodness of heart” to the defence of Achilles’ honour. Second, Socrates denies that Achilles has a good ἦθος, deeming him a wily and cunning deceiver (cf. 364e). Both men therefore hold that εὐήθεια, as “goodness of heart”, or similar, is a commendable character trait.

90 The sophists of Plato’s era claimed to teach skills that assured political success in exchange for often substantial fees. These men were suspected by some of taking over the insights into nature, which had been provided by natural philosophers, and abusing that knowledge to discourage their students from the traditional values (see Pangle 1987, 149). The prominent role of Sophists and what they represent in Plato’s dialogues warrants some attention. Plato regularly uses oppositional pairs in his dialogues: good and bad, just and unjust, order and disorder, and so on. The clever sophists serve his binary argument structure well. He depicts them as interlocutors who personify much that is bad and disorderly in Athenian society, opposing what Plato regards as virtuous and wise: “When men unfit for culture approach philosophy and consort with her unworthily, [the] ideas and opinions ... they beget ... may in very deed be fairly called sophisms, and nothing that is genuine or that partakes of true intelligence” (R. 496a). Clearly, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle et al deride the sophists of their day, a view that retains currency. Yet, it needs be noted that historically sophists were considered to be truly wise sages. As Diogenes Laertius remarks, “Sophists was another name for the wise men (οἱ δὲ σοφοὶ καὶ σοφισταὶ ἐκαλοῦντο) (D. L. 1.prologue.12). Håkan Tell notes “the word σοφιστής was in use in reference to a wide category of sophoi both during and after Plato’s lifetime. Its broad continuous application is an indication that Plato’s restricted use of the term was neither in general use nor universally accepted” (Tell 2011, 26). Tell says Plato’s contemporary Isocrates uses “σοφιστής as an unmarked and inclusive term to refer to the wisdom [that was] tradition in a broad sense, presumably entailing everyone from the Seven Sages onward” (Tell 2011, 37). Still, Marcel Detienne writes: “Plato was correct to regard [the Sophists] as masters of illusion who presented men not with the truth but with fictions, images, and ‘idols,’ which they persuaded others to accept as reality” (Detienne 2010, 25). 91 I concur with and incorporate Pangle’s 371e translation note that a better reading of the manuscripts is to use “εὐηθεας” to connote “goodness of heart”, guilelessness, integrity and simplicity rather than ‘εὐνοέω’, well inclined (Pangle 1987, 292).

32

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

At the conclusion of the Hippias Minor, Socrates enigmatically advises that “it is in the nature of the good man to do injustice voluntarily, and of the bad man to do it involuntarily, that is, if the good man has a good soul ... if there be such a man” (376b). In his explanation of Hippias Minor’s paradox W. K. C. Guthrie suggests that in asking “if there be such a man” Socrates clearly infers there may not be such man; viz., a man who has complete abiding knowledge of the Good does not exist.92 If that is the case, it perhaps recommends a spatio- temporal scalar model for the human fall from godlike virtue that might explain Achilles’ defeasible moral principles. In Plato the epic heroic age of Achilles perhaps serves as a metaphor for a relatively virtuous transitional phase in a degenerative cycle from prelapsarian noble simplicity and goodness: a point in the cycle of a human microcosm where corruption begins to accelerate the fall from grace and the diminishing of εὐήθεια.

The Protagoras is another supposed early Platonic dialogue. Plato’s critique of Attic society to problematise contemporary ethics, religion and politics is increasingly apparent in this work. The Protagoras is possibly set about 433, two years before the onset of the Peloponnesian War; around the time Pericles sent troops to bolster the Corcyrean fleet prior to hostilities with Corinth at the Battle of Sybota.93 And in the following year at the Battle of Potidaea an Athenian fleet clashed with Corinthian colonists. These events, and Pericles’ decree forbidding Athenian trade with Megara, are widely regarded as precipitating the ensuing war.94 Hence, this period of Athenian history arguably initiates what Thucydides deems the corruption that comes to pervert language and hasten the loss of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity (Th. 3.83.1). The Protagoras’ historical setting, I suggest, sustains the view that Plato regards this era as a watershed in the battle between traditional and nascent notions of Athenian public and private virtue.

92 Guthrie 1986, 197-8. 93 Recall, Thucydides’ History: “The bloody march of revolution” from the Corcyrean stasis in the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War, 427, and its violent consequences of “many and terrible sufferings” as “revolution thus ran its course from city to city ... [carrying] still greater excess ... as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals” (Th. 3.82.1-3). 94 Yunis contends that Plato censures Pericles in the Gorgias “because he did not make the Athenians better, meaning more just” (Yunis 1996, 145).

33

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

The Protagoras explores the possibility of teaching, or at least regenerating, goodness and virtue. Εὐήθεια occurs in a passage where Socrates advances the idea of true goodness and recounts Simonides’ supposed interpretation of Pittacus’ remark about the difficulty of being good: “He does not mention truth in this connexion, or infer that some things are truly good, while others are good but not truly so: this would seem silly (εὐήθεια) and unlike Simonides” (343de), an instance of εὐήθεια as mildly critical. At 355e-357b Socrates discusses the quantifying of pleasure and pain and calls men ruled by pleasure evil. He says, pleasure falls under the art of measurements (µετρητιϰὴ τέχνη), as the “salvation of our life depends on making a right choice of pleasure and pain” (357a). Gaudin believes this passage is especially pertinent to εὐήθεια as it is an early example of Plato’s reasoning that: “The calculation of the ‘temperate’ may appear to be ‘stupid’: submitted to the subjective appreciation of the value of pleasure and pain, it can become misleading.”95 As I understand Gaudin, he infers that where temperance moderates appetite it can be negatively misconstrued as εὐήθεια, in the sense of being a foolish and naive renunciation. According to Gaudin, the use of εὐήθεια in Protagoras and other Platonic dialogues suggest that it is feasible to: “Suspect that ‘inanity’ is going to be modified and go from negative to positive through the integration of some elements and through the elimination of others.”96 I concur, and submit that Plato does attempt to mitigate εὐήθεια’s idiomatic connotations of undue and potentially harmful naiveté.

The Euthydemus is also regarded as an early Platonic dialogue, and is thematically similar to Protagoras as it is largely about education. In this instance, a discussion between Socrates and the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who claim that for a fee they can teach virtue. The dialogue’s audience is the youth Cleinias and his admirer Ctesippus, the former serving to demonstrate Socrates’ capacity to educate youth. Euthydemus has εὐηθ- words that are both moderately chiding and positive. The former appears in a rhetorical Socrates’ question that reproaches excess: “How can we prosper? Will it be if we have

95 Gaudin 1981, 156-7. 96 ibid.

34

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

many good things? Or is this an even sillier (εὐήθεια) question” (279a)? Socrates then approvingly describes Cleinias as being “so young and simple minded (εὐήθης)” using genial banter to tease Cleinias’ about his youthful innocence and simple good nature, a remarks that conceivable presages the same nuance of youthful εὐήθης found in Aristotle (Rh. 2.12.7) and Dinarchus (fr. 19).

The is another of Plato’s supposed early dialogues, though some classify it as Platonic dubia.97 Nonetheless, it is cited here to note possibly ironic and favourable uses of εὐήθεια. The dialogue again features the polymath sophist Hippias of Elis who invites Socrates to attend an oration he is about to deliver. Socrates declines, so Hippias engages him in a discussion about during which Hippias offers three of beauty and Socrates four. Each is refuted which results in a philosophical impasse, not an uncommon outcome in Plato’s earlier less self-assured works. Perhaps to exemplify the merit of traditional virtue, Socrates recalls that ancient orators were “so simple- minded (εὐήθεια) ... [they were] unconscious of the fact that money is of the greatest value” (282d).98 Socrates probably is disapprovingly contrasting Hippias and his fellow well paid sophists to good-hearted archaic orators who acted in the public interest. The ambiguity and irony of εὐήθεια here rests on whether these orators were too naïve to value money and foolishly ignored a ready fee, or rather had a simple good-hearted disposition that valued community service above personal reward. Context, I submit, strongly favours the latter. Indeed, David Sweet contends that ancient orators shunned public acclaim and discounted personal benefit. They valued the public interest and were celebrated for the sagacious counsel freely offered to their communities.

97 The dialogue’s authenticity has been questioned since the mid nineteenth century. However, many Platonic scholars now accept it is authentic. Notable exceptions include Charles Kahn and Holger Thesleff who argue against authenticity on grounds of classical sources’ silence about the work, and its supposed stylistic anomalies. Other scholars note that references in classical material to many ancient works are often omitted so it is somewhat problematic to cite their lack as a justification to dispute attribution. Arguments for authenticity rest on belief in the consistently correct canon of Thrasyllus, and the Hippias Major’s unique and inventive features that reveal philosophic and literary craft believed beyond a forger’s skills. See Woodruff 2010. 98 Socrates probably alludes to the pre-Socratic philosopher :”For the earlier sophists of the school of Anaxagoras must have been very ignorant to judge from what is said, according to your view; for they say that what happened to Anaxagoras was the opposite of what happens to you; for though much money was left him, he neglected it and lost it all so senseless was his wisdom” (Hp. . 283a). Socrates’ remark also probably references the so termed Seven Sages of the late seventh/early sixth century. Among them, Bias, Chilon, Cleobulus, Periander, Pittacus, Solon and .

35

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

Hence, these ancient orators “cultivated the private good in the sense of knowledge of the sort that they would not or could not make public”.99 Sweet says that in contrast modern sophists ply their craft to “convert the public into the private”, capitalising their knowledge and statuses to transform civic sentiment into personal wealth by reducing “the multiplicity of opinion to a single denomination that has value in any city, namely gold”.100

At 293d Socrates makes a typically self-effacing remark, expressing seeming concern that his responses to Hippias might be thought “too silly (εὐήθεια) and easy to refute”. Here εὐήθεια is at least ambiguous and likely charged with irony: can the wisest man in Athens (Ap. 21a) be silly? Plato again associates εὐήθεια with Socrates where Hippias accuses him of being “unreasoning and undiscerning and foolish (εὐήθεια) and unreflecting” (301c). Hippias intends εὐήθεια to be offensive, yet since Socrates is the target of his disdain it plausibly renders εὐήθεια ironic and perhaps in truth flattering. Hippias’ mockery of the wise Socrates as his intellectual inferior invokes a Socrates’ rejoinder that repeats εὐήθεια in ironically scornful praise of Hippias: “You are always aiding us with admonitions ... for our foolish (εὐήθεια) state of mind” (301c). A response that suggests Socrates does not regard εὐήθεια as offensive when uttered by Hippias yet idiomatically accurate when applied to Hippias. Plato thus infers that being called εὐήθεια by a prominent sophist is no dishonour; rather, being judged nobly simple and good-natured is an accolade. The use of εὐήθεια continues in this ironic vein at 301d. Hippias proudly declares that he knows “the state of mind of all who are concerned with discussion” (301d). Socrates’ retort openly mocks Hippias: For we, my friend, were so stupid (ἀβελτερία), before you spoke, as to have an opinion concerning you and me, that each of us was one, but that we were not both that which each of us was—for we are not one, but two - so foolish (εὐήθης) were we. But now we have been taught by you that if we are both two, then each of us is inevitably two, and if each is one, then both are inevitably one; for it is impossible, by the continuous doctrine of reality according to Hippias, that it be otherwise ... but first, Hippias, refresh my memory: Are you and I one, or are you two and I two (301de)?

99 Sweet 1987, 343. 100 ibid.

36

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

Plato uses ἀβελτερία to denote stupid (avoiding the εὐηθ- root), and context suggests that here εὐήθης is again ironic. I submit that Plato employs εὐήθεια to affirm Socrates’ intellectual and virtuous superiority over the sophists, especially given the passage’s conclusion that it is foolish to not concede Hippias’ improbable “continuous doctrine of reality”.101 Plato also infers that only a fool would call Socrates foolish.102

The Phaedo, which is variously styled a transitional and/or an early middle Platonic dialogue, is an intricate metaphysical tour de force that discloses Plato’s absence from his teacher’s execution.103 This eulogy to Socrates features an eschatological myth that elaborates arguments for the soul’s immortality. The Phaedo signals what I posit to be Plato’s increasingly constructive use of εὐήθεια. That said, the word first appears in the idiomatic sense of foolishness in Socrates’ efforts to assuage the grief of the companions in attendance at his impending execution. Socrates explains that self-restraint: “Consists in not being excited by the passions and in being superior to them and acting in a seemly way [for] it is absurd to be brave through fear and cowardice ... [and] silly (εὐήθεια) self- restraint amounts to little more than ... fear that ... [we] may be deprived of certain pleasures which ... [we] desire” (68cde). Gaudin argues that here εὐήθεια is not only disparaging: “Its objective is to denounce what people usually consider as virtues: a courage or a temperance of sorts.”104 As I read this passage, and interpret Gaudin, Plato condemns the sort of insincere courage and temperance that is motivated by fear or vanity, and foolishly attempts to masquerade as the genuine virtue of self-restraint.

101 Socrates scornfully paraphrases the continuous doctrine of reality then asks Hippias to again defend his claim that “embodiments of reality are by nature so great and undivided” (301b). A statement that probably expresses the doctrine which holds that qualities are not separate from their objective phenomena, reflecting what Hippias and fellow sophists regard as the entirety of reality. As Michael Morgan notes: “What Hippias abhors is the tendency to chop up properties and wholes so that one is inclined to consider the properties of the parts as independent of those of the wholes and vice versa” (Morgan, 1983,133-158). Socrates and Plato strongly oppose the “continuous doctrine of reality” as it challenges the extensive metaphysical inferences of entities, properties and qualities in Platonic philosophy’s account of reality and change. 102 Recall that Aeschylus says that “it is most advantageous, when truly wise, to be deemed a fool” (Aesch. PV:385). 103 See ‘Introduction’, fn. 8. 104 Gaudin 1981, 146.

37

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

An important aspect of εὐήθεια in Plato is apparent at Phaedo 100d, where insists that Socrates continue to defend arguments for the soul’s immortality. In response Socrates invokes the Forms, in particular the Form of Beauty: “I hold simply (ἁπλόος) and plainly and perhaps foolishly (εὐηθικός) to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful but the presence or communion (call it which you please) of absolute beauty” (100d). Here Plato associates simplicity, plainness or purity and εὐήθεια as Socratic characteristic, and thus allies these to his virtue champion and defender of Form theory. Parenthetically, I contest suggestions that Plato infers Socrates is conceding that he is too simple and foolish to adequately explain Form theory, especially given the cerebral nature of his subsequent elenchus. In my view this passage positively endows the venerable Socrates with simplicity, purity and a good disposition, and so further advances the affirmative representation of εὐήθεια in Plato. By pointedly identifying εὐήθεια with his revered teacher Plato juxtaposes Socrates’ noble and simple nature to the cunning wiles of his ignoble accuser. The Phaedo also begins to reveal what Csapo says is “the habit which has sprung up among the Greeks of giving a double meaning to the words εὐήθεια and εὐηθικῶς”.105

In sum, instances of εὐήθεια in Plato’s supposed early and transitional dialogues confirm the term’s commonly pejorative use. Nonetheless, it seems apparent that on some occasions the word has decidedly moderate, ambiguous, ironic and positive connotations (cf. Euthd. 279d, Hp. Mi. 371e, Hp. Ma. 301c and Phd. 100d). Of particularly note is Plato’s contestation of εὐήθεια’s colloquial by associating it with good-heartedness and the wise Socrates. The seeming resuscitation of εὐήθεια’s etymology (εὐ+ἦθος – good disposition) perhaps indicates a growing awareness of its inappropriate use and semantic usefulness in Platonic philosophy. Commenting on Socrates’ statement that “wrong words are not only undesirable in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil” (Phd. 115d), Wersinger says this “presupposes a conception of language in which words are not limited to an instrumental function but do have an impact on the soul”.106 The inference for the consideration of εὐήθεια in Plato is that if wrong words, or

105 Csapo circa 1996. 106 Wersinger 2007, 59-60.

38

Chapter 2 - Εὐήθεια in Early and Transitional Platonic Dialogues

words wrongly used, have the capacity to adversely impact the soul we might suppose that words employed in their correct way can have a positive impact on the soul. Platonic dialogues might then be seen to increasingly decry the distortion of language and endorse the Thucydidean valuation of εὐήθεια as “the 'greatest part' of noble character”.107 Indeed, Plato’s revitalisation of authentic εὐήθεια perhaps, as Orwin expresses it, indicates an “interest in the ‘ancient simplicity’ … from his awareness of the dependence of decent politics on traditional virtue grounded in piety”,108 and reflects what Hornblower refers to as the absolute “rejection of the 'relativistic' moral teaching of certain of the sophists”.109

107 Nussbaum 1986, 405. 108 Orwin 2000, 865. 109 Hornblower 2003, 487.

39

Chapter 3 Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

If Plato’s occasionally affirmative use of εὐήθεια in early and transitional works indicates a positive regeneration of the term we might expect increasing evidence of that trend in his supposed middle dialogues. Indeed, for my hypothesis, that Plato resuscitates εὐήθεια to serve his philosophy, to be credible his seminal middle work, the Republic, needs to support that supposition.

The Republic investigates what justice is and is not. If for Plato true justice is indicative of good character we might anticipate that the Republic will disclose an affiliation between justice and εὐήθεια. Scholarship suggests that Plato’s words in Book I, and throughout the Republic, are carefully chosen.110 In which case any use of εὐήθεια is probably intended to convey a definite meaning. However, before investigating that prospect I consider it contextually useful to provide a brief introduction to the Republic.

The drama opens with a description of an inaugural nightlong festival featuring a horse race during which with riders pass lit torches.111 Socrates and Glaucon are in attendance to perform their religious duty. As they are about to leave they meet Polemarchus and accept his invitation to go down (καταβαίνω) to Piraeus and visit the home Polemarchus’ devout father, Cephalus, a wealthy respected metic.112 The patriarch warmly welcomes his visitors, noting that

110 Some scholars believe the Republic’s first Book is an earlier work that Plato progressively revised prior to using it as the Republic’s proem. Plato may have rewritten Book I thirty seven times and its opening lines more often than that (Mitchell & Lucas 2003, 23). Some hold that the Republic was perhaps begun around 390 and concluded 10 to 15 years later, as the length and scope of the Republic necessitated writing and revision over several years. The Republic’s action arguably takes place around the 421 Peace of Nicias, about fifty years before the work was completed (Brandwood 1990 and Thesleff 1982). As to the six and ten book divisions of the Republic see Sedley 2013, 70-1. 111 The festival of Bendis honoured a Thracian goddess (Bloom 1991, 441). 112 The Republic’s first word καταβαίνω, I went down, is surely carefully chosen to announce a spatio-temporal concept evident throughout the dialogue. Socrates literally walks down from Athens to Piraeus harbour, and Eric Voegelin suggests that καταβαίνω also refers to Athens’ transition from a land to a sea power, and that it also “opens the vista into the symbolism of depth and descent” (Voegelin, 2000, 107). Which, I suggest, alludes to Plato’s conception of cosmic degeneration that he saw exhibited by Athens’ fall from traditional virtue to the ascendancy of cunning. Indeed, the Cave Allegory may indicate the Republic’s raison d'être; to go down into the cave of contemporary ignorance and free people from their illusions. Also, see Chapter 7, ‘Platonic Dialectic’, re the Republics’ dialectic function.

40

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Socrates rarely comes down to Piraeus.113 Cephalus speaks of life in older age and offers the first of Book I’s four definitions of justice. Socrates objects to the definition, and Cephalus passes his place in the debate to his son then departs to attend a sacrifice. Ten men are now assembled to conduct the Republic’s deliberations .114 Socrates’ elenchic skill soon brings Polemarchus to concede, “the just man is good” (335d), and acts to neither benefit friends nor harm enemies. This premiss establishes two of the Republic’s principal intentions: to assert that true justice is a virtue, and to rebuke the unjust manipulation of Athenian society by the so-called just to favour friends and injure enemies. Notably, if the premiss that “the just man is good” proves to be true it suggests an affiliation between the just and the good, which infers a relationship between the just and εὐήθεια’s good disposition. And if the just are good and the εὐήθικοι are just then justice and εὐήθεια might entail each other.

Plato casts the eminent sophist as Book I’s principal interlocutor.115 Having previously failed in his attempts to interject the sophist now takes centre stage and immediately attacks Socrates and his supporters: “What balderdash is this that you have been talking, and why do you Simple Simons (εὐήθης) truckle and give way to one another” (336c). Clearly εὐήθης is intended to be offensive, though being accused of acting a fool by a well-known sophist might ironically compliment Socrates. Plato perhaps chooses εὐήθης to

113 Piraeus is Athens’ cosmopolitan port and the base for its democratic factions. As such it was the source of the resistance that overthrew the Thirty Tyrants installed by to rule Athens following its defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Cephalus may initially represent departing traditional ethico-religious values. His sons Lysias and Polemarchus played a leading role in opposing the Thirty. Lysias, a celebrated logographer and orator referenced in Plato’s Phaedrus, escaped to Megara after paying substantial bribes; the Thirty executed his brother Polemarchus. 114 The ten are Socrates, Plato’s elder brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus (the Republic’s only interlocutors after Book I), Polemarchus and his brothers Lysias and Euthydemus, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (the eminent sophist), Niceratus (son of the Athenian general and statesmen Nicias, executed by the Tyrants), Charmantides (perhaps a playful reference to a student of Plato’s rival Isocrates), and Cleitophon (son of Aristonymus and possibly a moderate oligarch). Alan Bloom contends that this gathering of 10 to openly discuss an ideal state ironically presages the despotic rule of the Thirty, brutally administered by a committee of ten, allegedly lead by Plato’s uncle Critias who put the Republic’s convening host, Polemarchus, to death (Bloom 1991, 442). 115 At 5th and 4th c. Athens sophists arguably differed from their predecessors (see Chapter 2, fns. 90 & 115. They were often non-Athenian and highly paid instructors of youths seeking careers in public life. The sophists of Plato’s era considered themselves uniquely equipped to teach rhetoric and other political skills. Plato does not decry rhetoric per se since he employs it. Rather, he abhors its use to distort reality and conceal truth, such as disguising injustice as justice by perversely arguing that the worse is the better cause by making “the weaker argument the stronger” (Ap. 23d), and vice versa.

41

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

extol the wise Socrates’ authentic good nature, and infer that Thrasymachus is the fool since he does not comprehend Socrates’ real wisdom and goodness. A reading Socrates seems to sustain in his scornful response to Thrasymachus’ demand for a precise definition of justice: “You are clever (σοφός), Thrasymachus” (337a).116 Thrasymachus then claims that in the expedient relativism of Athens’ Realpolitik might makes right: “I affirm that the just is nothing else than the advantage of the stronger” (338c). This provides a key premiss for Plato to argue against.

Thrasymachus then disdainfully invokes εὐήθεια to emphasise the power of this ‘injustice’ model: “Injustice rules all those who are simple (εὐηθικός), in every sense of the word and just” (343c). Clearly, Thrasymachus uses εὐηθικός derisively to infer guileless credulity, however, he relates εὐηθικός to being just. This Thrasymachean justice paradigm is important to understanding authentic εὐήθεια in Plato, especially with respect to his political anthropology. If those who legislate the law do so primarily to benefit themselves then civil justice become merely an instrument of their frequently capricious aspirations. Platonic justice might support laws enacted and enforced by the just. Yet, most citizens are powerless to resist the unjust lawmaker’s self-interest, or contradict an attendant legality narrative that claims there is no better alternative. In such circumstances, in Thrasymachus’ words, “injustice rules all those who are simple”, or in Platonic terms, those who are good-hearted. The Republic thus poses what is for me a critical question. In Plato, does being truly just necessarily entail authentic εὐήθεια, and is it realistic for a State to be justly ruled by those who are εὐηθικός, or is Thrasymachus correct, might makes right?

116 My bolding of ‘are’. I hold that in Plato there are kinds of σοφία: true wisdom and sophistically contrived false wisdom. Moreover, that Plato’s efforts to reverse εὐήθεια’s polarity from negative to positive might involve an analogous attempt to reverse the common semantic polarity of σοφία to reveal what he considers instances of spuriously attributing true wisdom. I submit that Plato wants to reveal that both εὐήθεια and σοφία are routinely misused and thus he contests the dominant negative meaning of εὐήθεια and the presumed positive connotation of σοφία. He deliberately contradicts the positive associations of σοφία with true wisdom to infer that such alleged σοφία is merely δοξόσοφος, being wise in one’s own conceit, which can give the appearance of wisdom that is “not true wisdom (Phdr. 275a).” In a Republic passage Socrates ironically calls Thrasymachus wise, and later says that “private teachers who work for pay, whom the politicians call sophists inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom” (R. 459a). So, who might we judge as truly wise where Socrates is termed εὐήθεια and Thrasymachus σοφία? Cf. R. 493ab, Hp. Ma. 283a.

42

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Evidence that authentic εὐήθεια and justice are affiliated is seemingly made apparent where Thrasymachus associates εὐήθεια with Socrates, whom we can reasonably suppose Plato regards as having a good disposition and being just: “You must look at the matter, my most simple-minded (εὐήθεια) Socrates, in this way: that the just man always comes out at a disadvantage in his relation with the unjust” (343d).117 As Plato’s justice champion it is improbable that he wants to suggest that Socrates is simple-minded. Perhaps the words Plato chooses for Thrasymachus to say also poignantly evoke Socrates’ tragic vulnerability to the might of an unjust authority. Thrasymachus’ use of εὐήθεια might be dubbed, in Thucydidean terms, a Corcyrean perversion of language, inferring that his derision of Socrates’ noble simplicity and virtue reflects Athens’ moral decay. For, as a consequences of social decline, “reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence” (Th. 3.82.4). Thrasymachus continues to explain the ‘reality’ of contemporary Athenian justice: It is not the fear of doing but of suffering wrong that calls forth the reproaches of those who revile injustice. Thus, Socrates, injustice on a sufficiently large scale is a stronger, freer, and a more masterful thing than justice, ... it is the advantage of the stronger that is the just, while the unjust is what profits man’s self and is for his advantage” (344c). He is now so confident that his pronouncements on justice have carried the day that he makes to leave. However, Socrates asks him to stay and continue the discussion of “a far weightier matter ... [Thrasymachus’] assertion that the life of the unjust man is better than that of the just” (347e). So, Plato begins in earnest to expose and challenge what he regards as the corrupt belief that “the life of the unjust man is better than that of the just” by making it an issue of ethics. Socrates asks Thrasymachus if justice is a vice. He responds: “No, [justice is] a most noble simple-mindedness (γενναία εὐήθεια) or goodness of heart” (348c). Presumably, for Thrasymachus being just is a perilous “noble simple-mindedness” that is only advocated by fools. He thus takes his negative construal of εὐήθεια to appropriately describe those he thinks are incapable of protecting their own best

117 Thrasymachus’ remark concerning the potential disadvantage of εὐήθεια might be regarded as another indication of Plato’s awareness that an aspect of εὐήθεια might be undesirable.

43

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

interests. Thrasymachus uses a phrase similar to Thucydides’ concept of εὐήθεια as noble simplicity (Th. 3.83.1), though with a contrary intent. The verbal similarity between the two statements might indicate Plato’s clear demarcation of εὐήθεια qua noble simplicity from its pejorative connotation by positively aligning authentic εὐήθεια with the good, just and the wise Socrates. Several scholars comment on Thrasymachus’ remarks at 348c. Lesley Brown believes that despite Thrasymachus’ derogatory intent, γενναία connotes nobility (even generosity), and so preserves the implication of noble moral character.118 That is, “γενναία εὐήθεια” expresses good character irrespective of the speaker’s intent. Brown’s point arguably sustains the argument that here εὐήθεια validates its positive Thucydidean inference of noble simplicity, and plausibly echoes Thucydides’ lament that its loss exacerbates injustice and disorder.

Guthrie says Thrasymachus’ claim that being just entails εὐήθεια, understood as foolish naiveté, reveals his annoyance that: “Noble minds evade ... the implacable of the Realpolitik of Athens.”119 The sophists conceivably regard εὐήθεια as foolish moralistic primitivism that is entirely anachronistic and self-destructive in Athens’ Realpolitik. Thrasymachus believes the unjust control the naively just because cunning invariably triumphs over good-hearted trust. Demosthenes arguably echoes similar views in his repeated admonition of the Athenian Assembly to avoid the gullibility of their εὐήθεια.120 Plato probably wants to repudiate εὐήθεια’s connotations of self- destructiveness. Gaudin’s remark that Plato modifies εὐήθεια meaning “from negative to positive through the integration of some elements and through the elimination of others,”121 suggests that Plato seeks to eliminate the inference that authentic εὐήθεια causes an undesirable credulity that makes the good-hearted susceptible to the unjust. A warning that is particularly warranted in a society where authentic εὐήθεια struggles to survive and seems a practical necessity in the interest of εὐήθεια’s retention and cultivation.122

118 Brown 2007, 48. 119 Guthrie 1976, 99 & 102. 120 See Chapter 1, fn. 74. 121 Gaudin 1981, 156-7. 122 Plato’s efforts to moderate the “false value” of εὐήθεια is discussed in Chapter 5.

44

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Having derided justice as a weakness of the nobly simple and good-hearted Thrasymachus now declares that in reality injustice is “goodness of judgement (εὔβουλος)” (348d).123 He then responds to Socrates’ question, are “the unjust intelligent and good” (348d) by affirming that that is indeed the case “if they are capable of complete injustice” (348d). Thrasymachus then dispels any doubt that his notion of injustice as intelligent and good is antithetical to Platonic justice: “You should range injustice under the head of virtue and wisdom, and justice in the opposite class” (348e). Socrates and Thrasymachus perhaps parallel the struggle for the nobly simple and good-hearted just to survive at an unjust sophisticated Athens. Still, the difficulties and disadvantages of respecting and cultivating εὐήθεια do not diminish its essential merit, and that perhaps is Plato’s point. If we accept that authentic εὐήθεια entails, or at least attempts to uphold, true justice then Socrates’ defence of justice arguably also defends authentic εὐήθεια.

In effecting that defence, Socrates poses Thrasymachus a provocative question: does “the just man ... want to overreach or exceed another just man” (349b)? Thrasymachus’ response again relates justice to εὐήθεια: “By no means ... otherwise he would not be the charming and innocent (εὐήθης) that he is” (349b). Evidently, for Thrasymachus εὐήθεια is such a benign state of innocence that it can neither avoids disadvantage nor seeks advantage. Despite this opinion, a few passages later Thrasymachus reluctantly concedes that: “The just soul and the just man then will live well and the unjust ill ... furthermore, he who lives well is blessed and happy, and he who does not the contrary ... [so] the just is happy and the unjust miserable” (353e–354a). However, Thrasymachus’ apparent capitulation to Socrates’ relentless elenchus is not a victory for justice over injustice. As Book I concludes, Socrates acknowledges that he has neither refuted Thrasymachus’ might makes right justice paradigm, nor established whether justice is “vice and ignorance or wisdom and virtue” (354b). In familiar self-effacing mode Socrates admits, “for me the present outcome of the discussion is that I know nothing ... if I don’t know what the just is, I shall hardly know whether it is a virtue or not, and whether its possessor is or is not happy” (354c).124 Socrates has, however, made it clear that the Republic’s purpose is to determine which is the case.

123 Plato use εὐβουλία once more at Republic 428b to describe a city as “εὔβουλος”, well counseled. It is improbable that Plato considers exhortations to be unjust as being well counseled. 124 Socrates’ claims of ‘ignorance’ are ubiquitous in Plato’s dialogues (cf. Chrm.175ab, Ly. 222de, and Prt. 361ab), possibly affirming that the truly wise know what they know and do not know.

45

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Book I’s deliberation on justice and injustice are perhaps best understood as explorations of their purported features and benefits, rather than a concerted attempt to produce a Platonic justice definiens that is persuasively couched in ethical validation. What is significant here is that the book relates justice to goodness (335d), and the noble simplicity of εὐήθεια’s good-heartedness with the just and Socrates (343cd, 348c). Feasibly then, in Plato the wise Socrates and other just people have nobly simple good-hearted dispositions. If that is the case, and these are characteristics of authentic εὐήθεια, then the cultivation of εὐήθεια in Plato has a potent philosophical function. This is significant, as being just is the quintessence of the moral deliberation that determines the pursuit and practise of virtue. Still, despite a seeming emergent endorsement of εὐήθεια in Plato perhaps he only deploys it in Book I to display Thrasymachus’ colloquial vocabulary.

In Book II Glaucon, Plato’s brother, becomes the principal interlocutor. He pursues the ethical analysis of justice by proposing that the measure of true justice is its correlation to what people regard as good.125 These Republic sections on the relationship of justice and goodness closely relate to my inquiry, for if authentic εὐήθεια is the noble simplicity of good disposition it is probably related to justice. Glaucon urges Socrates to categorise justice as one of three goods: good for its own sake, good for both its own sake and its likely outcome, and good only for its likely outcome. Socrates answers that justice belongs to the second good, the “fairest class, that which a man who is to be happy must love both for its own sake and for the results” (358a).126 Glaucon replies that many believe justice “must be practised for the sake of rewards and repute due to opinion but that in itself is to be shunned as an affliction” (358a), though adds he does not believe “what men say ... of justice” (358c). To determine the good of justice Glaucon says the first topic they must discuss is “the nature and origin of justice ... [why] by nature, some say, to commit injustice is a good and to suffer it is an evil, but

125 Some dispute the widely held view that Adeimantus and Glaucon were Plato’s elder brothers and claim they were his uncles or cousins. In any event we might suppose these men were Plato’s close older relatives and as such warranted his respect and deference. Also see fn. 8 regarding Plato’s absence from Socrates’ execution re his family’s possible influence. 126 If justice and εὐήθεια are synergetic, then the Republic’s ratification of justice as the “fairest good” posits that in Plato the function of cultivating εὐήθεια relates to the practise of justice and the pursuit of happiness.

46

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

that the excess of evil in being wronged is greater than the excess of good in doing wrong” (358e).127 Evidently, at this juncture the Republic’s inquiry rests on the broad concept that man’s natural, or original, state is the source of private and public justice. The Republic thus develops the key Platonic theme of origins while exploring whether by nature it is a better good to do or suffer injustice. Socrates’ response to Glaucon’s request arguably reverses Thrasymachus’ negative association of justice and noble simplicity: “When we have set up an unjust man of this character [one who feigns justice], our theory must set the just man at his side—a simple (ἁπλόος) and noble (γενναία) man, who, in the phrase of Aeschylus, does not wish to seem but be good” (361b).128 Here ἁπλόος commends simplicity, as at Phaedo 100d. Advocating that a just man is simple and noble echoes and parodies Thrasymachus’ γενναία εὐήθεια (348c) quip to gainsay his negative insinuations and instead asserts that the alliance of justice and noble simplicity is positive and laudable.

Adeimantus, the dramatis persona of Plato’s other brother, advances the Republic’s concerns with the and appeal of justice by examining contemporary ethico-religious values. He says, seeming justice may come “from reputation, office and alliances” (363a), and observes that laymen and poets “all with one accord reiterate that soberness and righteousness are fair and honourable, to be sure, but unpleasant and laborious, while licentiousness and injustice are pleasant and easy to win and are only in opinion and by convention disgraceful” (364a). Adeimantus notes that many believe “injustice pays better than justice, for the most part, and [people] do not scruple to felicitate bad men who are rich or have other kinds of power to do them honour in public and private, and to

127 At Gorgias 492c seemingly reflects Thrasymachus’ justice doctrine: “No, in good truth, Socrates — which you claim to be seeking — the fact is this: luxury and licentiousness and , if they have the support of force, are virtue and happiness, and the rest of these embellishments — the unnatural covenants of mankind—are all mere stuff and nonsense.” As Shorey notes; “Glaucon employs the antithesis between nature and law and the theory of an original social contract to expound the doctrine of Thrasymachus and Callicles in the Gorgias. His statement is more systematic than theirs, but the principle is the same; for, though Callicles does not mention a social contract, he infers that conventional justice entails an agreement of the weak to hold the strong in awe. In this instance Glaucon affirms that no really strong man would enter into any such agreement. The social contract without corrupt purpose is also suggested in the Protagoras at 322b (cf. also Cri. 50c)” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 358e). 128 Such a man “does not wish to appear the bravest, but to be the bravest” (A. Th. 592).

47

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

dishonour and disregard those who are in any way weak or poor, even while admitting that they are better men than the others” (364ab). Plato problematises and challenges the contemporary conception of justice that dishonours and disregards “those who are in any way weak or poor” (which for Thrasymachus includes the εὐήθικοι), and so questions extant beliefs in order to foster the correct basis for progress to right opinion and understanding.

Adeimantus then addresses the ethico-religious implications of the strange things people say about the gods and justice: That the gods themselves assign to many good men misfortunes and an evil life but to their opposites a contrary lot; and begging priests and soothsayers go to rich men’s doors and make them believe that they by means of sacrifices and incantations have accumulated a treasure of power from the gods that can expiate and cure with pleasurable festivals any misdeed of a man or his ancestors, and that if a man wishes to harm an enemy, at slight cost he will be enabled to injure just and unjust alike, since they are masters of spells and enchantments that constrain the gods to serve their end (364bc). While Socrates censures such attitudes Adeimantus persists his exposition of them, asking what effect “the esteem in which men and gods hold virtue and vice” (365a) has on the souls of impressionable youth. Might young men be moved to pose Pindar’s question: “Is it by justice or by crooked deceit that I the higher tower shall scale and so live my life out in fenced and guarded security” (365b)? Impressionable youths may conclude that real justice delivers no great benefit, and believe that: “If I am unjust and have procured myself a reputation for justice a godlike life is promised” (365b). Yet, those who encourage “crooked deceit” and beliefs that the gods can be bribed and constrained by sacrifices and incantations are impious “teachers of cajolery who impart the arts of the popular assembly and the court-room [for] against the gods ... neither secrecy nor force can avail” (365d). The Republic’s, and I submit Plato’s, view of the binding relationship between true justice and piety is emphatic: “If we are just, we shall, it is true, be unscathed by the gods” (366a), inferring that only the unjust need fear divine retribution. This passage also intertextually links to the Protagoras’ association of justice and piety: “Justice is of the same kind as holiness, and holiness as justice” (331b). Hence, acting justly might be considered an act of pious observance and being unjust is an act of impiety.

48

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Nonetheless, Plato acknowledges that the appeal of injustice endures. Adeimantus asks why “prefer justice to supreme injustice? If we combine this with a counterfeit decorum, we shall prosper to our heart’s desire, with gods and men in life and death, as the words of the multitude and of men of the highest authority declare” (366b). Socrates sets out to “show the falsity of these arguments ... [and] that justice is best” (366c) and that it warrants a courageous defence. Adeimantus now issues a crucial philosophical challenge: “No one has ever adequately set forth in poetry or prose - the that the one [injustice] is the greatest of all evils that the soul contains within itself, while justice is the greatest good” (R. 366e). Plato evidently accepts that challenge and embarks on a formidable task, to rationally convince a disparate audience that “justice is the greatest good”. Establishing this truth is critical to the coherence of Platonic philosophy and, in my view, also relates to the function of goodness of εὐήθεια.

Adeimantus says people need proof that justice truly “belongs to the class of those highest goods which are desirable both for their consequences and still more for their own sake” (367c), though like Glaucon he admits believing that justice is superior to injustice.129 Socrates replies that the righteous are obliged to defend justice: “It be actually impious to stand idly by when justice is reviled and be faint- hearted and not defend her so long as one has breath and can utter his voice” (368bc). As a devout man Socrates is duty bound to safeguard justice, and we might suppose that Plato also considers it his duty to do, hence the Republic. Socrates mentions that the defenders of justice “are not clever persons” (368d), perhaps an ironic comment to be compared with Thrasymachus’ statement that “the unjust man must act as clever (δεινός) craftsmen do” (360e). If the courageous defenders of justice “are not clever persons” might the antithesis of clever cunning be εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity, which Thrasymachus despairingly associates with the just.

129 Socrates approves, and praises Adeimantus and Glaucon: “I had always admired the natural parts of Glaucon and Adeimantus, I was especially pleased by their words on this occasion ... it was excellently spoken of you, sons of the man we know, in the beginning of the elegy which the admirer of Glaucon wrote when you distinguished yourselves in the battle of Megara — ‘Sons of Ariston, whose race from a glorious sire is god-like.’ This, my friends, I think, was well said. For there must indeed be a touch of the god-like in your disposition if you are not convinced that injustice is preferable to justice” (367e-368a). Contrast the last sentence here to the claim at 365b that the unjust can live “a godlike life”.

49

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Socrates’ defence of justice apparently associates simplicity and goodness, a theme that he arguably sustains in his account of a simple, frugal community that Glaucon describes as “a city of pigs” (372d).130 Socrates suggest that such societies degenerate from a “healthy state” to become the “luxurious city ... a fevered State” (372e), perhaps inferring a social decline from justice to injustice that might also be analogous to the soul’s first fall from grace to embodiment. Socrates claims that the growing complexity of a State’s economy and the attendant appetite for luxury is “the origin of war ... from which the greatest disasters, public and private, come to states” (373e). As if to illustrate how such disasters can arise in the complexity of a “fevered state” at 376c he brings attention to the harm caused by inappropriate schooling, and declares that being educated in the epic tradition is tantamount to moral ruin.131 Plato chooses to oppose epic education in order to identify and promote the conditions and practises he deems most conducive to the propagation of justice as “the greatest good”. While Plato’s construal of a good education may not appear relevant to a survey of εὐήθεια I include it to note Plato’s concern with the lack of virtue in ethico-religious and socio-political authority, and the conditions that bring about the denegation and loss of εὐήθεια.

Controversially, Socrates announces: “Hesiod and Homer and the other poets ... composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind” (377d). He particularly decries the anthropomorphic caricature of divinity: “Neither must we admit at all ... that gods war with gods and plot against one another and contend—for it is not true ... still less must we make battles of gods and the subject ... of stories and embroideries, and other enmities ... of gods and heroes

130 Some scholarship suggests the “city of pigs” describes the rudimentary character of archaic Attic societies, and that Socrates subsequently acknowledges this reading by allowing Glaucon’s request to add more luxury to his proposed city. Yet, the remark might also imply a transition from a simpler, uncompetitive rustic community to the expanding economic complexity of a luxurious “city”. The “city of pigs” phrase may also allude to the sacrifice of natural simplicity on the altar of increasingly unrestrained appetite for pleasure and luxury; (a sow was ’s favoured offering and the regular sacrifice at the Eleusinian mysteries (cf. R. 378a). 131 If we accept that Plato’s audience where exposed to the Hippias Minor before the Republic we might suppose the former’s questioning of Achilles’ virtue may have prepared them for the Republic’s objections to the widely accepted tenets of epic .

50

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

toward their kith and kin” (378bc).132 Believing that these “enmities many and manifold of gods” are true can generate lifelong harm, as opinions taken into the mind at a young “age are wont to prove indelible and unalterable ... [so] the first stories that they hear should be so composed as to bring the fairest lessons of virtue to their ears” (378de).

The relevance of εὐήθεια, as the noble simplicity of good disposition, to Plato’s educational model is especially apparent in his explanation of divine qualities. For Plato, stories that mock and contradict the truth of divine Good deny the reality of “the true quality of God [that] we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse ... [for] God of course [is] good in reality and always to be spoken of as such” (379ab). What is more, “the fairest and best possible abides for ever in a simple way (ἁπλόος) in [God’s] own form” (381c). A Platonically good education seeks to impart the reality of divine Good, and that “the fairest and best possible abides for ever in a simple way” in God’s own form. Socrates reiterates the simple nature of the divine: “God is altogether simple (ἁπλόος) and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others by visions or words or the sending of signs” (R. 382e). Here ἁπλόος probably connotes simplicity as an unalloyed pure unity, the One. This is discussed more fully in Chapter 8, where I argue that Plato’s concept of a simplex divinity, noble simplicity, and a unified living cosmos informs our understanding of his method to purify, simplify and unify the embodied soul.

A noteworthy feature of the Republic’s first two books is the association of εὐήθεια with simplicity, justice and just men (335d, (343c, 348c, 361b), good- heartedness, the wise Socrates (336c, 343d) and the assertion that “God is altogether simple” and true. We might then suppose that godlike noble simplicity, good-heartedness, justness and wisdom (as personified by Socrates), might be qualities of authentic εὐήθεια.

132 Note that in the Euthyphro Socrates ask Euthyphro: do “you believe that there was really war between the gods, and fearful enmities and battles and other things of the sort, such as are told of by the poets and represented in varied designs by the great artists in our sacred places and especially on the robe which is carried up to the at the great Panathenaia” (6bc)?

51

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Book III continues to makes the case that in Plato’s ideal city epic mythology’s “entire vocabulary of terror and fear” (387b) must be prohibited. Homer’s harmful portrayal of good men and gods publicly lamenting and grieving is forbidden. Youthful courage must be bolstered by extoling not dreading death, for the good need have no fear of dying and the afterlife, and “both poets and writers of prose speak wrongly about men in [these] matters of greatest moment” (392a).133 The influence of such wrong words can be serious, for youth must imitate (µίµησις) what is fitting to the pursuit of virtue, the exemplars for courage, temperance and righteousness.134 Those “who are brave, sober [and] pious ... [since] imitations, if continued from youth far into life, settle down into habits and (second) nature in the body, the speech, and the thought” (395cd).135

Simplicity, in the sense of non-complexity, is the focus where Socrates and Glaucon assess the merits of musical modes: “The mixed Lydian ... and similar modes” (398e) must be done away with.136 Leave us only two musical modes, the ones “that will best imitate the utterances of men [who are] the temperate [and] the brave ... we shall not need in our songs and airs instruments of many strings or whose compass includes all the harmonies ... [or] maintain makers of ... many stringed and poly-harmonic instruments” (399ce).137 Socrates echoes his remarks at Republic 395c, affirming that fitting rhythms and harmonies can express and inculcate worthy virtues, thus the Republic unambiguously prescribes non- polyharmonic and non-complex songs and tunes to instil proper harmony. Socrates reiterates the purifying merits of simple rhythms with another reproach of complexity: “Come then, let us complete the purification. For upon harmonies

133 Presumably Plato does not include himself among the “poets and writers of prose [who speak] wrongly about men in matters of greatest moment”. 134 See Chapter 10 for a discussion of µίµησις. 135 The precept of educational µίµησις was widely accepted in Plato’s era. Here he perhaps invokes it to amplify its ethico-religious consequences. The Republic Book X, from 595c, has a detailed account of µίµησις with regard to Platonic Forms. 136 Evidence suggests that for Plato a correct and refined education avoids New Music. Hence, a proper source of µίµησις is the simplicity of Dorian harmonies, as opposed to the “evil rhythm and disharmony” of more complex Ionian, Phrygian and Lydian strains. Cf. Laches: “One who is truly a man and worthy of his argument ... Such a man is exactly what I understand by ‘musical,’—he has tuned himself with the fairest harmony, not that of a lyre or other entertaining instrument, but has made a true concord of his own life between his words and his deeds, not in the Ionian, no, nor in the Phrygian nor in the Lydian, but simply (ἀτεχνῶς) in the Dorian mode, which is the sole Hellenic harmony” (188cd). Also see Csapo 2011, 124-5. 137 I hasten to add that it is erroneous to assume Plato was not a lover of the ’ Arts. See fn. 152 below.

52

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

would follow the consideration of rhythms: we must not pursue complexity nor great variety ... but must observe what are the rhythms of a life that is orderly and brave” (399e). Gaudin describes Plat’s attitude to New Music as evincing his “obsessional fear of whatever is -harmonic, poly-technical or polymorphous.”138

Plato’s apparent abhorrence of the “complexity [of] great variety” produced by “many stringed and polyharmonic instruments” further infers his advocacy of simplicity.139 He deems non-complexity, arguably simplicity, as a moral sanative that can promote the virtues of courage, moderation and piety. Moreover, taken in the broader context of Platonic philosophy, his advocacy of simple music perhaps explains why the good rhythms and order of a harmonised embodied soul accords with the simplicity of its divine cosmic origins. Rationally ordering a soul’s godlike good governance to cosmic rhythm might then be understood as a process of purification and simplification, for divinity is good and simple (cf. 379ab, 381c, 382e).

Socrates continues to discuss the significance of rhythm in explaining how to cultivate an embodied soul’s harmonic attunement. He says metric feet of good and orderly rhythm oppose “illiberality, and insolence or madness or other evils” (400b). Considered in the context of prior Republic passages, this may infer that the simplicity of good and orderly rhythms opposes the complexity that begets “illiberality, and insolence or madness or other evils”. Seemingly to parade the vital function of good rhythm Plato musters the good ‘εὐ’ prefix: Gracefulness (εὐσχηµοσύνη) and gracelessness are attendant upon the good rhythm (εὐρυθµία) and the bad ... good rhythm and bad rhythm accompany the one fair diction, assimilating itself thereto, and the other the opposite ... [where] the rhythm and harmony follow the words (λόγος) and not the words these ... [as] the manner of the diction, and the speech ... follow and conform to the disposition of the soul (400cd).140 Gracefulness thus attends the good rhythm that accompanies “fair diction”, which follows and conforms to “the disposition of the soul”.

138 Gaudin 1981,162-3. 139 Chapter 8 proposes that noble simplicity is a virtue. 140 The verbal noun λόγος can signify a soul’s custom. This may be understood as an “inward debate of the soul” (‘λόγος’ IV LSJ 1889). Cf.: “The talk which the soul has with itself about any subjects which it considers. You must not suppose that I know this that I am declaring to you. But the soul, as the image presents itself to me, when it thinks, is merely conversing with itself, asking itself questions and answering” (Tht.189e).

53

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Plato’s assertion that good speech, grace and rhythm “conform to the disposition of the soul” is immediately followed by the Republic’s pivotal acclamation of εὐήθεια’s cognitive potency to guide and be followed by its attendant goods: Good speech (εὐλογία), then, good accord (εὐαρµοστία), and good grace (εὐσχηµοσύνη), and good rhythm (εὐρυθµία) wait upon (ἀκολουθέω) good disposition (εὐήθεια), not that weakness of head which we euphemistically style goodness of heart (εὐήθεια), but the truly

good and fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind (400de). 141 While I acknowledge that this passage falls within a discussion about the merits of poetic metre I submit that it dispels any doubt that Plato seeks to regenerate εὐήθεια’s authentic root etymology and semantic value. He not only emphatically supplants εὐήθεια’s negative vernacular, he endows it with a critical ontological function in his psychology of goodness. For him, εὐήθεια is “the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind”. Plato emphasises εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition definiens by isolating εὐήθεια’s εὖ+ἦθος root components; “εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος”.142 Notably, he affirms that good speech, accord, grace and rhythm are guided by and follow (ἀκολουθέω) εὐήθεια’s “truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind”.143

I also offer the recent Republic translation of Emlyn-Jones and Preddy: Fine language then, melodiousness, and good rhythm match goodness of character, not in the sense of simplicity that we say by way of endearment, but the quality of mind equipped with a truly good and fine character.144 ... So shouldn’t our youngsters pursue these goals everywhere, if they are going to manage their own affairs (400de)?145 This translation similarly defines εὐήθεια as “the quality of mind equipped with a truly good and fine character”, confirming that in Plato authentic εὐήθεια is a desirable cognitive quality. As discussed above, Marchant’s commentary on Thucydides observes that “τὸ εὔηθες” at 3.83.1 is used “in the earliest, good sense of the word, according to its etymology [as expressed at] (R. 400e)”.146 I submit

141 The sequence of εὐήθεια’s goods may have cognitive causal significance. The cumulative effects of εὐήθεια’s goods might participate exponentially in a harmonic ῥυθµός that orders a tripartite souls’ right function to become godlike and wise. A possible relationship between the partitioning of εὐήθεια’s goods and other partitioning in Plato is discussed in Chapter 7. 142 Plato exhibits his abiding interest in etymology noted in the Introduction. 143 Hereafter” wait upon (ἀκολουθέω)’ is understood as being guided by and following, as suggested by ἀκολουθέω, in LSJ 1889. 144 Emlyn-Jones and Preddy footnote: “Goodness of character” = euētheia: S. is using this word in a positive sense: contrast Thrasymachus’ negative definition at 1.348c12 (“naïveté,” “simplicity”).” 145 Emlyn-Jones and Preddy 2013, Republic 400de. 146 Marchant 1909.

54

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

that Plato’s definition of εὐήθεια in the Republic probably seeks to expand the Thucydidean depiction of εὐήθεια as noble simplicity to represent that laudable quality as the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind.

Indeed, Plato deliberately distinguishes his positive construal of authentic εὐήθεια as the “truly good and fair disposition” from “that weakness of head which we euphemistically style goodness of heart (εὐήθεια)”. However, this is not to be understood as inferring that euphemistic “goodness of heart” is not an admirable attribute of authentic εὐήθεια. Adam notes, that this refers rather to a euphemistically pejorative interpretation of εὐήθεια’s “goodness of heart” to be a “weakness of head”.147 This interpretation is evident in Plato’s ironically negative use of colloquial εὐήθεια that endorses Socrates’ “goodness of heart” when sophists accuse him of being εὐηθικός.

While Republic 400de is ostensibly about the type of poetry permitted in the just city, the philosophical significance of simplicity, rhythm and harmony extends far beyond this discussion of poetic verse to its function in a good and harmonious life. For as Socrates says: “We must not pursue complexity nor great variety in the basic movements, but must observe what are the rhythms of a life that is orderly and brave (399e).” In my view this passage, and indeed the Republic, cannot be read merely as instruction for the education of Kallipolis’ guardian and magistrates. Rather, it also needs to be understood as a guide for the would-be philosopher’s harmonious guardianship of their soul.148 The significance of εὐήθεια at 400de transcends its textual context and the boundaries of Kallipolis. Indeed, in Chapter 7, I suggest that cultivating εὐήθεια (as the good and fair disposition of character and mind), prepares an essential substrate that is necessary to prepare the seeker for the higher education of Plato’s dialectic.

147 James Adam objects to Henricus van Herwerden expunging ‘ὡς’ from ‘ὡς εὐήθειαν’ on the ground that ὡς relates to οὖσαν, understood, as this is the antithesis of ‘εὐήθειαν’. He says: “The antithesis is between ἄνοιαν and εὐήθειαν: and if the sentence is read so as to lay stress on these two words, it will be seen how easily οὖσαν can be repeated after εὐήθειαν. The sense is: not the εὐήθεια which is really ἄνοια, but which we euphemistically designate as if it were εὐ-ήθεια (i.e., as before, in the good sense of the word), but εὐήθεια in its true and etymological sense (ὠς ἀληθῶς) — the εὖ τὸ ἦθος κατεσκευασµένην διάνοιαν. This explanation seems to me better than to regard ὡς εὐήθειαν as attracted for ὡς εὐήθεια (sc. ἐστίν)” (Adam 1902, note R. 400e). 148 I concur with Smith’s assessment of the “Republic as an instrument for the intellectual training and preparation of the power of knowledge in the soul for the ultimate goal of dialectic, cognitively speaking” (N. Smith 2000, 134).

55

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Socrates confirms εὐήθεια’s vital function in Platonic philosophy: “Must not our youth pursue these [εὐήθεια’s goods] everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do” 400e? In his translation of 400e, Shorey notes that it is unquestionably an instruction to youth “that their special task is to cultivate true εὐήθεια in their souls”.149 I take Shorey’s notion of “true εὐήθεια” to infer the etymologically and philosophically authentic εὐήθεια as Plato defines it at 400de. In Wersinger’s view these passages delineate εὐήθεια as “the thought which equips the character in excellence (ἀρετή) and beauty”.150 Arguably, Socrates considers that pursuing εὐήθεια “equips the character in excellence and beauty”, and he notes that the good speech, accord, grace and rhythm guided by εὐήθεια can be followed “everywhere” in life: Weaving is full of them [εὐήθεια’s goods] and embroidery and architecture and likewise the manufacture of household furnishings and thereto the natural bodies of animals and plants as well. For in all these there is grace or gracelessness. And gracelessness and evil rhythm and disharmony are akin to evil speaking and the evil temper but the opposites are the symbols and the kin of the opposites, the sober and good disposition (R. 401a). Conceding Shorey and Wersinger, we might infer that cultivating “true [authentic] εὐήθεια” in the soul is a “special task” that engenders the “the thought which equips the character in excellence and beauty”.151 That interpretation further advances the hypothesis that authentic εὐήθεια has a positive and potent function in Platonic philosophy.

Having proclaimed authentic εὐήθεια to be “the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind” Plato recalls the Muses’ arts to possibly explain the value of a good musical education in cultivating authentic εὐήθεια’s good accord, grace and rhythm. For Plato: Education in music (µουσική) is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, and otherwise the contrary ... one who was properly educated in music ... would praise beautiful things and take delight in them and

receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good (401de).152

149 Shorey 1969, note R. 400e. 150 Wersinger 2007, 56-7. 151 See Part II preamble and Chapter 6 re the eidos of εὐήθεια. 152 What might Plato express with the term µουσική? LSJ defines µουσική as “any art over which the Muses presided” reflects Plato’s understanding of the word gives rise to interesting conjecture. Is Platonic philosophy a Muse’s art? Plato’s Academy was established about 387 in the Hekademeia (Ἑκαδήµεια) district of Athens, named for the founder hero Academus. It is said the school was located in a grove dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and that the Academy had a shrine (τέµενος) dedicated to the Muses, a museum (Μούσειον). Penelope

56

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

Plato seemingly considers the assertion of music’s worth as an apodictic argument verified by what he deems conclusive evidence that music conveys the accord, grace and beauty of rhythmic harmony to the “inmost soul”, goods he has just designated as being guided by and following εὐήθεια. The virtues Socrates previously identifies as worthy of imitation (399a) are galvanised by the “true musicians ... [who must] recognize the forms of soberness, courage, tolerance, and high-mindedness and all their kindred and their opposites” (402bc). For music to incite these virtues and the “beautiful (fair) disposition in the soul” (402d) it must be simple, not complex (399ce, 399e).153 New Music’s “variety engender[s] licentiousness ... while simplicity in music begets sobriety in the soul” (404e).154 If simple music can incite virtue, grace and beauty, or fair, disposition in the soul it can feasibly do so by helping to cultivate εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition of character and mind. And there is textual evidence to support that premiss.

While reviewing the most desirable attributes of a Judge in utopian Kallipolis, Socrates concludes that: “To be truly fair and good and judge soundly of justice ... the better sort [of judges] seem to be simple-minded (εὐήθεια) in youth and are easily deceived by the wicked, since they do not have within themselves patterns answering to the affections of the bad” (409a).155 Those deemed worthy of the highest office in Plato’s ideal State appear to require the youthful εὐήθεια that eschews “patterns answering to the affections of the bad” (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5). Socrates seems to suggest that the judges in Kallipolis must retain εὐήθεια’s truly

Murray notes that historians “rejected the goddesses of poetry, and rather than appealing to the Muses as a source of authority, they name themselves as guarantors of the truth of what they tell. Plato, by contrast, exploited these traditional associations, and it was Plato’s appropriation of the Muses for the newly emerging discipline of philosophy that ensured their survival into the age of prose” (Murray 2004, 374). John Dillon also contends that Plato’s deliberate association with the Muses is strategically important for him and his successors, since Plato regards “philosophy the greatest gift of the Muses compared to the other arts, particularly poetry and drama” (Dillon 2009, 2). Cf. Phd. 61a, R. 499d, 528e-530c & 545c-546d, Cra. 406a, Phdr. 259bd, Lg. 653c-d, 654a, 658e & 664a, et al. Arguably, the Academy purposefully subordinates each facet of human conduct under the aegis of Platonic philosophy, or perhaps more correctly is dialectic art. It therefore seems incongruous to claim that Plato was antagonistic to the arts per se: what he objected to was the misapplication of the arts that offered false stories and lies. 153 Shorey notes: “Music and beauty lead to the philosophy of love, more fully set forth in the Phaedrus and the Symposium”(Shorey 1969, footnote R. 402d). 154 The possible correlations and implications of a simplex Platonic divinity (379ab, 381c, 382e), simple music and noble simplicity are discussed in Chapter 8. 155 Here the Republic echoes other uses of εὐήθεια as a kind of original innocence (cf. Euthd. 279d: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5).

57

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

good and fair disposition of character and mind into adulthood. Perhaps, where εὐήθεια can survive and flourish in the luxurious city’s complexity its disposition is likely to manifest in the “truly fair and good ... [who] judge soundly of justice”.

There are several more instances of εὐήθεια in the Republic. In Book VII’s discussion of Socrates says to Adeimantus: “Perhaps you are right and I am a simpleton (εὐήθεια). For I, for my part, am unable to suppose that any other study turns the soul’s gaze upward than that which deals with being and the invisible” (529b). This is likely another instance of self-effacing irony that associates being εὐηθικός with the wise Socrates (cf. Chrm. 175c, Hp Ma. 301cd, Phd. 100d). A passage at 560d in Book VIII about perverted language probably echoes Thucydides’ account of the verbicide stemming from tumultuous partisan conflicts (Thuc. 3.82.4), and is relevant to weighing the consequences that might ensue from εὐήθεια’s loss. Naming reverence and awe ‘folly’ thrust it forth, a dishonoured fugitive. And temperance they call ‘want of manhood’ and banish it with contumely, and they teach that moderation and orderly expenditure are ‘rusticity’ and ‘illiberality,’ and they combine with a gang of unprofitable and harmful appetites to drive them over the border (560d). I also note Plato’s regard for “reverence and awe”, and that he equates temperance to the courage of traditional self-restraint, which is also suggestive of Thucydides.

Plato’s early and transitional dialogues evidence his reinstatement of εὐήθεια’s root etymology and sematic value. In the Republic he allies εὐήθεια to the wise Socrates (343d, 529b), the just (343c, 349b) and suggests it has the qualities of good-heartedness and nobly simplicity (348c, 361b). At 400de Plato unequivocally validates εὐήθεια as “the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind”, and at 400d-401a I contend that he upholds the hypothesis that pursuing and cultivating authentic εὐήθεια has a positive and potent function in Platonic philosophy. In my view, Plato’s positive ratification of εὐήθεια in the Republic encompasses his advocacy of its noble simplicity. Moreover, that his efforts to assuage the pejorative sense of εὐήθεια’ simplicity relates to his conception of a simplex divinity (381c, 382e), the rejection of cleverness and complexity (360e, 368c, 399e), and the endorsement of musical simplicity (397d, 398e, 404e).156

156 See Chapter 8, ‘The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity’.

58

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

The last said middle Platonic dialogues considered here is the Phaedrus. The dialogue is perhaps an analysis of Pythagorean metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls. The Phaedrus explains that souls which have had a proper philosophical life are rewarded by being exempted from drawing lots to participate in the cycles of mortal ensoulment: “The soul of him who has been a guileless (ἄδολος) philosopher or a philosophical lover ... when for three successive periods of a thousand years they have chosen such a life [living justly], after the third period of a thousand years become winged in the three thousandth year and go their way” (249a).157 Colloquially, εὐήθεια is pejoratively associated with guilelessness, yet here Plato rejects that negative inference by relating guilelessness to an embodied soul’s highest post-mortem attainment.

Socrates continues to defend the merit of guileless simplicity in his account of ’ ancient Oracle at windswept Dodona:158 “The people of that time, not being so wise (σοφός) as you young folks, were content in their simplicity (εὐήθεια) to hear an oak or a rock” (275bc). This sympathetic portrayal of ancient wisdom, simplicity and trust mocks young folks’ probably sophistically contrived wisdom is another example of Plato differentiating true wisdom from the wisdom that esteems itself greatly superior to the simple wisdom of the ancients.159 It is notable that Socrates makes this statement about the Dodona oracle immediately after a thinly veiled attach on Phaedrus’ adherence to written oratory, asserting that: Trust in writing ... will discourage the use of ... memory ... [and offer] pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise (δοξόσοφος), but only appear wise” (275ab). Phaedrus responds by accusing Socrates of making up stories (275b), whereupon Socrates tersely asks: “Perhaps, it makes a difference [to you Phaedrus] who the speaker is and where he comes from, for you do not consider

157 Platonic soul states and stations are discussed in Chapter 10. 158 The revered Dodona sanctuary was possibly 600 years old by Plato’s time and held to be the most ancient holy site in Greece. Homer refers to it at Odyssey XIV.327, as do Hesiod fr: 14 — Strabo, vii. p. 327 & 97 — Scholiast on Soph. Trach. 1167 (Evelyn-White 1914). Petitioners wrote their questions on lead strips that were folded and placed in a jar. A priestess drew from prepared responses, perhaps written on oak chips. These were short ‘yes’ or ‘no’ type answers, or names of deities to whom sacrifice must be made. Accounts of earlier Dodona eras suggest priestesses answered questions by interpreting the cooing of doves who were in the tree, and sounds from the oak’s wind blown branches and leaves (See Oberhelman 2006, 239-10, and Parke 1967). 159 See fn. 116 concerning Plato’s representation of true and false σοφία.

59

Chapter 3 - Εὐήθεια in Middle Platonic Dialogues

only whether his words are true or not” (275c)? A reply that juxtaposes the ancients’ noble simplicity and animistic trust in doves and a holy oak, against modern youths’ acceptance of sophistic ‘wisdom’ as ‘truth’ merely because of the speakers reputation and δοξόσοφος, being wise in one’s own conceit.160

In sum, Plato’s believed middle works, especially the Republic, supports the hypothesis that he purposefully reinstates authentic εὐήθεια’s semantic and philosophical value as “the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind”. And that he advocates pursuing it everywhere to cultivate “the thought which equips the character in excellence and beauty”.161 I reiterate my view that Plato’s concept of a simplex divinity, endorsement of musical simplicity and rejection of complexity are associated with his resuscitation of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity in that it assists his aim to redress the habitually negative inferences of εὐήθεια’s simplicity.

160 δοξόσοφος - LSJ 1889. 161 Wersinger 2007, 56-7.

60

Chapter 4

Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

The first of Plato’s later works noted here is the Timaeus.162 It sets out his cosmology and gives an account of Attic mytho-history in the human cycles of catastrophe and post-diluvian renewal. There were many deluges and “the noblest and most perfect race amongst men were born in the land where you now dwell ... what is now the Athenian State was the bravest in war and supremely well organized also in all other respects. It is said that it possessed the most splendid works of art and the noblest polity of any nation under heaven of which we have heard tell” (23cd). Of note here is the claim that the prelapsarian origins of the Athenian State is a society of “the noblest and most perfect race” who lived in “the noblest polity of any nation under heaven”. This infers that nobleness is an ancient and admirable trait, and is suggestive of Thucydidean εὐήθεια (Th. 3.83.1) as “the ancient simplicity of which nobility had the greatest share”, as being a “large [or chief] element in a noble nature”, and that “simplicity of spirit, which is such an important part of true nobility”.163

Toward the dialogue’s conclusion the Timaeus (a Pythagorean visiting from Locri in ), uses εὐήθεια in the colloquial sense of naïve credulity to describe men “who, being students of the worlds above, suppose in their simplicity (εὐήθεια) that the most solid proofs ... are obtained by the sense of sight” (91d).

The Statesman is the next later dialogue considered. This dialogue might be understood as bridging the Republic and the Laws.164 Charles Kahn believes that for Plato “this move was of monumental importance, [because] the of the republic has been conceptually relocated” to the golden age of Kronos.165 It is reasonable to concede a practical similarity between the education of the Republic’s Guardians and Judges and the Statesman’s instruction

162 Some argue that the Timaeus can be considered one of Plato’s middle works. See Cherniss 1957 and Thesleff 1989. 163 Th. 3.83.1 as translated by Dent 1910, Jowett 1881, C.F. Smith 1920 and Myott 2013. 164 See Bobonich 2002 and Klosko 2007. 165 Kahn 2009, 161. I also note Benitez’s remark that “the transition occurs right there, in the trilogy Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman” (Benitez 2015-16).

61

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

in the kingly arts. Kahn says in the Statesman Plato reasserts “the primacy of knowledge,” and that the dialogue is replete with references to legality so it does not neglect the importance of regulation, perhaps anticipating the Laws.166 Arguably, the notion of the Statesman as the transition between those two works is also revealed by the extent of Socrates’ participation in the three dialogues. In the Republic he is the central character, in the Statesman an almost incidental observer, and in the Laws he does not appear. While the Statesman has no instances of εὐήθεια it nonetheless has passages that are pertinent to this survey.

The Eleatic Stranger returns to the Platonic theme of Attic society’s autochthonous roots by recounting the tale of “the ancient folk [who] were earthborn and not begotten of one another” (269b).167 The Stranger announces that the: “Old tales ... have their source in one and the same event ... [and since] no one has told the event which is the cause of them all, and so I must tell it now” (269bc). He tells of a Golden Age of Kronos that conflates Hesiod’s Works and Days’ Golden Age, the fable of Atreus and Thyestes, and sundry fragments of Egyptian, Pythagorean and Orphic tradition.168 As Cropsey expresses it, in this idyllic age of the autochthonous Attic forebears: “The existence of man is betrayed as an effortless trajectory, from painless extrusion out of to an unconscious evanescence, and in the interval a tranquil sufficiency shared by all that breathed. As there was no need that impelled, so there was no fear, not even, so it appears, of the Shepherd himself.”169 This blessed, peaceful era is contrasted with “the life of the present age ... the age of Zeus” (272b), and brings the Stranger to conclude that “the people of those old times were immeasurably happier than those of our epoch” (272c).170

166 Kahn 2009, 161. 167 Blackhirst believes that “the boast of autochthony has a deeper, spiritual and cosmological dimension beyond being merely a device of ethnic chauvinism. Autochthony is the subject of the most sacrosanct secrets of the Acropolis cult and it is Plato’s purpose to restore understandings of its deepest and therefore most universal significance” (Blackhirst, 2003-4, 6). 168 “Of the portents recorded in ancient tales many did happen and will happen again. Such an one is the portent connected with the tale of the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes” (Plt. 268e). The fable of Atreus and Thyestes presents the fantastic idea of Zeus reversing the revolution of heavenly bodies to vindicate Atreus’ ownership of the golden ram (cf. E. Or. 995-1012, El. 699-744). In an era where many accepted that the influenced earthly life, reversing the earth’s rotation logically implied a reversal of the ’s growth cycles. This brings about an autochthonous rebirth of man from the earth. See Fowler 1921, fn. R. 268e & 270d, Csapo 2008 on Egyptian, Pythagorean and Orphic choruses, and Gantz 1993, 547-8. 169 Cropsey 1995, 118. 170 What some refer to as Plato’s moral nostalgia is discussed in Chapter 5.

62

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

The Stranger’s mytho-historic tale seems to endorse the virtue of happily living a harmonious life, free from the confusion and strife of complex diversity. The universe, mingling but little good with much of the opposite sort, was in danger of destruction for itself and those within it. Therefore at that moment God, who made the order of the universe, perceived that it was in dire trouble, and fearing that it might founder in the tempest of confusion and sink in the boundless sea of diversity, he took again his place as its helmsman, reversed whatever had become unsound and unsettled (273de). Howland’s commentary of these passages posits that: “This new beginning involves a turn to philosophic prophecy of the broadest sort: the myth of the reversed cosmos (269c-274e) ... which the Stranger introduces as an interpretation of a certain ancient portent (and related stories), [that] ostensibly displays the fundamental motions of both the cosmos as a whole and the living beings within it.”171

As the Statesman concludes, the Stranger’s gives a salutary warning: “The soul ... that is too full of modesty and contains no alloy of courage or boldness, after many generations of the same kind becomes too sluggish and finally is utterly crippled” (310de). This statement is perhaps consequential to considerations of εὐήθεια, as it further advises why Plato seeks to eliminate the excessive timidity, which can utterly cripple the soul, from his regeneration of authentic εὐήθεια. This reiterates what I take Gaudin to infer in his claim that Plato modifies εὐήθεια “from negative to positive through the integration of some elements and through the elimination of others”.172

The Laws is Plato’s longest, and probably last, written dialogue.173 Irrespective of whether that is the case, evidence suggests Plato perhaps anticipated that the Laws would not become widely available until after his death.174 It is thus reasonable to surmise that Plato knew an audience largely

171 Howland 1991, 192-3. 172 Gaudin 1981, 156-7. 173 Some scholars accept that , Plato’s secretary, transcribed, compiled and edited the Laws from Plato’s unfinished wax tablets. Phillip divided the voluminous work into twelve books, which might explain its problematic structure. It is said that Philip saw an absence of procedures to educate Magnesia’s rulers as a lacuna in the Laws. He evidently did not consider the extensive details of philosophical education in the Laws Books I, II and VII, the Republic and other Plato works as sufficiently informative. Thus, he dutifully attended to the Laws’ supposed shortcomings by writing Epinomis, or Appendix, as a supplement to the work. See Jaeger 1986, 214, and Stalley 1983, 3 & 1994. 174 Bury notes, “the author himself indicates his own advanced age by the artistic device of representing the three interlocutors in the dialogue as old men, and by the stress he repeatedly lays upon the fact of their age, as well as upon the reverence due from the young to the old” (Bury 1967 & 1968, vii).

63

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

conversant with his prior dialogues would understand the Laws as a synoptic text. In that regard, I note Rowe’s comments “that the text of the Laws tends specifically to direct the reader, for the required level of justification, to arguments, and conclusions reached, in other dialogues”.175 It is therefore plausible that the Laws affirms Plato’s most evolved and firmly held philosophical tenets, and that he presents them in the context of his prior dialogue’s teachings.

The dialogue narrates how best to found the new colony of Magnesia, Plato’s supposed second best model of a justly ruled State. He apparently abandons the utopian ideal of the Republic’s Kallipolis to embrace a more pragmatic, flexible and attainable socio-political order that rests on the citizens’ willingness to comply with the legal authority of a State’s law (νόµος).176 The Laws presents expansive and arcane views of ethics, metaphysics, culture, politics, and particularly religion (notably in Book X). Yet, some characterise it as a lesser Platonic work.177 Other scholars, with whom I concur, claim that the Laws has substantial philosophical content and merit. Perhaps the Republic is usefully understood as a guide for the good and godly governance of the tripartite soul, whereas the Laws is a more practical model for the happy and symbiotic accord of good public and private governance.

The Laws, I submit, offers a remarkable account of how Plato’s theodicy seeks to achieve private and public order through a theocratically inspired justice system that asserts the reality of divine Good and Reason. That account often involves the Athenian’s reaffirmation of familiar Platonic concepts, such as the nature of cardinal virtue and goodness. For instance, he asserts that: “The union of justice, prudence and wisdom with courage is better than courage by itself alone” (630ab). Perhaps mirroring the Statesman’s imagery of weaving virtues to depict just and wisely moderated courage.178 In his praise of Cretan law the Athenian

175 Rowe 2010a, 35. 176 νόµος might also be read as the composition of melody or harmony (νόµος - LSJ 1889). 177 For instance, in his Loeb Introduction Bury remarks: “Not only does it lack the charm and vigour of the earlier dialogues, but it is marked also by much uncouthness of style, and by a tendency to pedantry, tautology and discursive garrulity which seems to point to the failing powers of the author” (Bury 1967 & 1968, vii & 52). 178 The notion of Platonic godlike courage is discussed in Chapter 9.

64

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

explains that: “Goods are of two kinds, human and divine; and the human goods are dependent on the divine, and he who receives the greater acquires also the less, or else he is bereft of both” (631b). There are several important inferences to be made here, (discussed more fully in following chapters). Perhaps paramount among them is that for Plato, human goods derive from and are dependent on divine Good, thus we might suppose that human goodness is as good as it is godlike.

The Athenian follows his explanation of the relationship between divine Good and human good by ranking virtues: “Wisdom, in turn, has first place among the goods that are divine, and rational temperance of soul comes second; from these two, when united with courage, there issues justice, as the third; and the fourth is courage ... of these goods themselves, the human look up to the divine, and the divine to reason as their chief” (631cd). The passage expands on the dependence of human goods on the divine by advising that divine Goods “look up ... to reason as their chief”. This division of virtues might infer some type of ascending causal sequence of progressive interdependence.179 According to the Athenian’s account, the fusion of wisdom and rational temperance with courage produces justice. Does that mean justice is the last attained of these four virtues, and is thus the ultimate aim of pursuing wisdom and practising virtue? And courage, though ranked fourth is seemingly an essential, foundational virtue for it is courage that is wisely tempered to bring justice (630ab).

Plato employs his accustomed imagery of musical rhythm and harmony in the Athenian’s continuing analysis of goodness and virtue: Music ... deals with rhythm and harmony, so that one can rightly speak of a tune or posture being ‘rhythmical’ or ‘harmonious,’ [and] one can use this language about the posture and tune of the brave man and the coward, and one is right in calling those of the brave man good, and those of the coward bad … the postures and tunes which attach to goodness of soul or body, or to some image thereof, are universally good, while those which attach to badness are exactly the reverse (655ab). Markedly, Plato reiterates the correlation between one of the goods guided by εὐήθεια – good rhythm – and the brave and good, and acknowledges that the “postures and tunes which attach to goodness of soul or body, or to some image

179 See fn. 141 regarding the sequence of εὐήθεια’s goods, and Chapter 7 regarding their possible relationship to the partitioning of cognitive activity, the Tripartite Soul and its affections .

65

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

(εἰκών) thereof, are universally good”. This suggests an intertextual link to the Republic’s advice that youth must imitate virtue exemplars “who are brave, sober [and] pious” (R. 395c).

In the Laws’ Book III the Athenian tells of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, living in a prelapsarian age. (677e-680b). 180 It is a pre-political society of harmony and contentment, for “civil strife and war ... disappeared during that time ... [people] were kindly disposed and friendly towards one another [and] had no need to quarrel about food” (678e). These simple hunter-gatherers and herdsmen were: Not excessively poor, nor were they constrained by stress of poverty to quarrel one with another; and, on the other hand, since they were without gold and silver, they could never have become rich. Now a community which has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed; for in it there is no place for the growth of insolence and injustice, of rivalries and jealousies. So these men were good, both for these reasons and because of their simple-mindedness (εὐήθεια), as it is called; for, being simple-minded (εὐήθεια), when they heard things called bad or good, they took what was said for real truth (ἀληθέστατα) and believed it. For none of them had the shrewdness (σοφία) of the modern man to suspect a falsehood; but they accepted as true the statements made about gods and men, and ordered their lives by them ... and shall we not say that people living in this fashion for many generations were bound to be unskilled, as compared with either the antediluvians or the men of today, and ignorant of arts in general and especially of the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury; and that they were also more simple (εὐηθέστεροι) and brave and temperate and in all ways more righteous [than the men of today] (679be). The potential ramifications of this passage are critical for my thesis, and are discussed more fully in following chapters. However, before noting the significance of εὐήθεια’s instance here I will consider aspects of the widely held interpretations of this mythic narrative. It is generally agreed that Laws 677e-680b explains why a prepolitical society has no need of lawmakers for, like the Homeric Cyclops (680ad), the governance model was patriarchal. While I do not reject that common reading, I submit that it gives rise to interpretive anomalies, and that we can identify other dimensions of the passage’s philosophical purpose.

180 Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survive the cyclic destruction of flood by building an ark. Finding themselves the lone human survivors in a desolate world they entreat Zeus to grant them human companions. Zeus sends to instruct Deucalion and Pyrrha to scatter stones on the ground. They obey, and the stones become humans according to the gender of the stone thrower. In the Jason Golden Fleece legend the Phoenician Prince Cadmus, whom Herodotus credits with introducing the Greek Alphabet (Hdt. V.58), plants dragon’s teeth that transform into armed men: the Spartoi - Σπαρτοί (the Sown-men). See Kraeling 1947 and Gantz 1993. Cf.: “The tale of the teeth that were sown, and how armed men sprang out of them” (Lg. 663e): “the aboriginal sons of the dragon’s teeth” (Sph. 247c). These references probably allude to “the Phoenician tale” (R. 414c).

66

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

At 678b the Athenian ask: “Do we imagine ... that the men of that age [the εὐηθέστεροι], who were unversed in the ways of city life—many of them noble, many ignoble—were perfect either in virtue or in vice?” This might give rise to an assertion that the εὐηθέστεροι are either noble or ignoble, and neither virtuous or vicious. Yet, Plato explicitly states that theirs was “a community … in which the noblest characters will be formed” (679b), and that these people “were good (679c)” and “more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous [than the men of today]” (679e). In his comments on this passage Bernadette says that: “The absence of the conditions that would have encouraged injustice and insolence reduced the twofold character of the law in the genetic structure of law—the beautiful and the just—to the single element of the beautiful. The Stranger implies that men then had the noblest character”.181 It therefore seems difficult to sustain an argument that the εὐηθέστεροι are not noble, virtuous or morally good when their character is the noblest and virtuously superior to modern man.182 Another claim, that since the εὐηθέστεροι lack the “shrewdness (σοφία) of the modern man” they are stupid is in my view also incorrect. Such views ignore the context that strongly suggests σοφία is actually pejorative and not praiseworthy.183 We need to differentiate between lacking techne (ἄτεχνος) and true wisdom; that is, having knowledge of a human craft and having godlike wise.

At the conclusion of this instructional narrative the Athenian compares the εὐηθέστεροι’s patriarchal society to that of the Homeric Cyclops: “Everybody, I believe, gives the name of ‘headship’ to the government which then existed—and it still continues to exist to-day among both Greeks and barbarians in many quarters. And, of course, Homer mentions its existence in connection with the

181 Benardete 2000, 99. 182 Commenting on Laws 679e E. B. England remarks: “The three comparatives which follow εὐηθέστεροι contain the only fresh points in this paragraph. They come in as an expansion the praise implied in the ἔζων κατὰ ταῦτα in c7” (England 1921, Lg. 679e). 183 A common default translations of “σοφία” as wisdom might conclude that Plato infers the εὐηθέστεροι are unwise. I consider this a mistaken reading and that here σοφία is best understood as pejoratively meaning cunning and devious (see fn. 116). Seth Bernadette suggests the passage implies that the εὐηθέστεροι were less wise than ‘modern’ men as it was “impossible for the ancestral laws to have translated correctly the eidetic structure of the good, in which good sense heads the virtues of soul and mind guides the eightfold structure of good.” Benardete adds: “Without gold and silver they [εὐηθέστεροι] could not know that wealth too was a good” (Benardete 2000, 96 & 99). Chapter 5 disputes such readings of Laws 679be.

67

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

household system of the ” (680b). This latter comparison serves as an example of a mythic society that also practised an εὐηθέστεροι style “headship” model of governance. Supposing that any other Homeric reference to the Cyclops’ character (cf. 9.275) also pertains to the εὐηθέστεροι is, in my view, erroneous.

I draw a number of inferences from Laws 677e-680b that are vital to my analysis. Since the εὐηθέστεροι are “more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous” than modern man I conclude that they are closer to their divine heritage of noble simplicity, goodness and beauty, and so relatively godlike.184 I will therefore contend that in Plato the εὐηθέστεροι exemplify godlike human virtue, and infer that their noble simplicity personifies the goodness and beauty of authentic εὐήθεια, as defined at Republic 400de. Hence, the εὐηθέστεροι are worthy virtue-heroes.185 Being godlike and more righteous we might also suppose that the εὐηθέστεροι are just. Recalling Cropsey’s apposite commentary on the Statesman’s myth, “the existence of man is betrayed as an effortless trajectory, from painless extrusion out of earth to an unconscious evanescence, and in the interval a tranquil sufficiency shared by all that breathed. As there was no need that impelled, so there was no fear, not even, so it appears, of the Shepherd himself.”186 In the Statesman, the Stranger compares such peaceful eras to “the life of the present age ... the age of Zeus” (Pol. 272b) and concludes that “the people of those old times were immeasurably happier than those of our epoch” (Pol. 272c). Cropsey’s gloss and the Stranger’s caparison suggest similarities between the Statesman’s myth and Laws 677e-680b.187

I also infer that what the happy εὐηθέστεροι “took ... for real truth (ἀληθέστατα) and believed” is in human terms superlative or real truth. What Heidegger describes as truth “qua unhiddenness, the fundamental trait of [truth]

184 Cf. Laws 631cd: “And wisdom, in turn, has first place among the goods that are divine, and rational temperance of soul comes second; from these two, when united with courage, there issues justice, as the third; and the fourth is courage ... of these goods themselves, the human look up to the divine, and the divine to reason as their chief” (Lg. 631cd). In Chapter 9 I explore the possibility that the εὐηθέστεροι posses a kind of ‘original wisdom’. 185 Cf.: “Really true and assured opinion about honour, justice, goodness and their opposites is divine, and when it arises in men’s souls, it arises in a godlike race” (Pol. 309c). 186 Cropsey 1995, 118. 187 A parallel is perhaps also evident in the Timaeus mythology: “The noblest and most perfect race amongst men were born in the land where you now dwell” (23c).”

68

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

being itself”.188 It is that which reveals and leaves unhidden, which is not to suggest that this is the Form of Truth itself.189 Applying ‘modern’ notions of moral agency to the εὐηθέστεροι’s ethical deliberation about truth and falsity are problematic at best. Irrespective of whether such claims rest on ethical generalism or particularism the dilemma of defeasible moral principles does not arise as for the εὐηθέστεροι immorality did not exists. Given their idyllic and fearless lives, Socrates remarks at Phaedo 68d is informative: “All except philosophers are brave through fear.” The εὐηθέστεροι are brave, though presumably not through fear, thus their society predate philosophy. The philosophically cultivated love of wisdom and quest for truth is superfluous in the εὐηθέστεροι’s pious society of real truth. As I understand their community, the εὐηθέστεροι have no need of philosophical purification and simplification, understood as the “removal of evil from the soul” (Sph. 227d), as they represent the human godlike apotheosis of both. They have not been subjected to the sophisticated cunning and evil of human depravity (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5), or the “wrong words ... [that] infect the soul with evil” (Phd. 115d). Hence, they are godlike to the extent that is mortally possible. Indeed, Plato might consider that the revelation of the unhidden (ἀληθέστατα) has devolved from the ages of the εὐηθέστεροι to contemporary society, thus the need for Platonic philosophy to teach the need for purity, simplicity and unity.

While the Laws εὐηθέστεροι narrative relates to Plato’s political anthropology, I also infer that it serves the fundamental purpose of those teachings; to inspire the harmonisation of the embodied soul. Malcolm Schofield seems to support that view. He believes that: “It will appear that the historical narrative of Book 3 is laying foundations for some principles that can be used to deal with ordinary human nature within the overall context of the idealising project, and with its resistance to or lack of interest in the life of virtue with which

188 Heidegger 1998, 179. 189 The trusting nature of the εὐηθέστεροι’s acquaintance with their real truth does not negate the authenticity of that relationship. Adriaan Peperzak says, “the impossibility of touching upon the unmixed truth does not impede a serious relationship to it. The ‘Socratic’ way of dealing with world and society suggests an orientation that cannot be known, although it is necessary for a high degree of authenticity” (Peperzak 1997, 165).

69

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

the idealising project is concerned”.190 In the εὐηθέστεροι’s community “the noblest characters will be formed; for in it there is no place for the growth of insolence and injustice, of rivalries and jealousies”. It is a harmonious society devoid of the conflicts born of excess, inequality and the competitive strife fermented “the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury” (679d).191 In the Platonic cosmos such societies might be considered points of origination from which the human microcosms declines in the ‘Fall to the Ascendency of Cunning’ (see Chapter 8). Youthful εὐήθεια (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5) is arguably the contemporary remnant of this prelapsarian noble simplicity and innocence, which we might regard as humanity’s natural godlike state.

My understanding of Plato interprets the εὐηθέστεροι’s conditions as conducive ennobling and harmonising the embodied soul, and potentially a polity. Intrinsic and extrinsic conditions that inhibit the progress of insolence, injustice, rivalries and jealousies are likely to produce people who are noble and good. As the product of such circumstances, and given the cognatic connection to εὐήθεια, I reiterate my inference that the virtuous εὐηθέστεροι epitomise authentic εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of character and mind as the manifestation of Thucydidean ancient noble simplicity.192 Nussbaum’s remark that in Thucydides “the 'greatest part' of noble character is lo euithes ... is contrasted with suspiciousness and the inability to trust” suggests that we might deduce a similar contrast in the Laws’ distinction between the noble simplicity of the ancient εὐηθέστεροι and the complex shrewdness (σοφία) of “modern man”. That reading reiterates Plato’s advocacy of simplicity (cf. Chrm. 331b, Hp. Mi. 365e, Phd. 100d, R. 348c, 361b), and his aversion to its antithesis, cunning and complexity (cf. R. 360e, 368c, 399e).

190 Schofield 2010, 23-4. 191 Cf. From “the origin of war ... the greatest disasters, public and private, come to states” (R. 373e). 192 Williams comments on Thucydides 1.83.1 says Archidamus’ remarks at 1.84-85.2 “more closely summarize the ‘ancient simplicity’ than do most other speeches in the History … [as] Archidamus recognizes that all of these elements of his advice work together to form one complete policy because he connects together courage, good order, planning, self-control, honor, and courage” (Williams 1998, 96).

70

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

In the following chapter I revisit the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative, argue that it might be considered a Platonic myth and submit that these noble virtue- heroes fill the lacuna created by Plato’s rejection of epic education. I also endeavour to determine a meaningful correlation between Plato’s regeneration of εὐήθεια qua noble simplicity and goodness (cf. Phd. 100d, R. 348c, 361b), his advocacy of a simplex divinity (cf. R. 381c, 382e) and simple music cf. (cf. R. 397d, 398e 404e), and his disapproval of complex multiplicity (cf. R. 404e-405a) and cunning cleverness (cf. R. 360e, 368c Phdr. 249a, 250bc, 275bc).

Εὐήθεια in the Platonic corpus This survey of εὐήθεια in the Platonic dialogues evidences that his supposed early and transitional works reflect the term’s colloquially pejorative norm.193 Still, there are instances in these dialogues of εὐήθεια having moderate, ambiguous, ironic and arguably positive connotations (Euthd. 279d, Hp. Ma 301c and Phd. 100d). These latter examples challenge the habitually negative understanding of εὐήθεια and hint at its authentic etymology. This is particularly apparent where Plato’s associate εὐήθεια with the wise and good Socrates.

The believed middle Platonic dialogues reveal a more pronounced and persuasive semantic resuscitation of authentic εὐήθεια. In the Republic Plato associates εὐήθεια with Socrates (R. 343d, 529b), the just (R. 343c, 349b), good- hearted noble simplicity (R. 348c, 361b) and admirable innocence (R. 409a). Εὐήθεια is positively endorsed at 400de as “the truly good (εὖ) and fair disposition (ἦθος) of the character and the mind”, which guides and is followed by “good speech, good accord, good grace and good rhythm”. Wersinger’s gloss that in the Republic εὐήθεια is “the thought which equips the character in excellence (ἀρετή) and beauty” further sustains the view that Plato invests εὐήθεια with a potent philosophical function. Indeed, that is immediately evident at Republic 400e where Socrates declares that youth must pursue εὐήθεια “everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do,” which Shorey interprets as an explicit instruction “to cultivate true εὐήθεια in the souls.”194 In considering

193 I also note instances of εὐήθεια in Platonic spuria, namely at Demodocus 385c, Hipparchus 229c and Alcibiades 2 140c, each of which attest to the colloquially pejorative use of the term. 194 Shorey 1969, note R. 400e.

71

Chapter 4 - Εὐήθεια and the Εὐηθέστεροι in Later Platonic Dialogues

the potent function of εὐήθεια in Platonic philosophy it is useful to recall Crane’s commentary on Thucydides 1.83.1. He believes that, like Thucydides, Plato was committed to the restoration of εὐήθεια’s ancient simplicity in order “to assimilate the decades of brutality that he had observed and that he wished to reconstitute, in a new rationalized form”. Crane holds that “Plato would make the pursuit of this synthesis his life’s work,” and struggle “to preserve and reestablish in more defensible form that ‘ancient simplicity’ whose demise [Thucydides] laments”.195 A regret that I hold scholarship suggest Plato shares and addresses in his resuscitation of εὐήθεια.196 As Joly says in an unelaborated footnote, it seems evident that: “Plato rejects the popular and pejorative meaning of εὐήθεια, naïvety and nonsense, and interprets it as a reference to ἦθος, a morality which expresses itself in speech, in song and in dance.”197

As for the supposed later Platonic dialogues, I submit that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι account (677e-680b) validates and progresses the Republic’s acclaim of authentic εὐήθεια. I infer from Laws that, being the progeny of a harmonious society, the εὐηθέστεροι personify εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and good disposition. Moreover, that they are more virtuous and godlike than modern man and so worthy virtue-heroes. I also infer from the Laws that the εὐηθέστεροι’s society serves as a metaphor for the conditions most likely to cultivate a godlike embodied soul, and indeed society. And, that the εὐηθέστεροι knew real truth (ἀληθέστατα), the unbidden aspect of things, and had no need of ‘modern’ philosophical methods.

The Part II preamble explains my use of eidos in relation to εὐήθεια. In chapter 5 I consider, why the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι account might be considered a Platonic virtue-hero myth, the role of myth in Plato’s mythos/logos, defend the standing of εὐηθέστεροι as virtue-heroes and discuss reconstructionism and moral nostalgia. Chapter 6 proposes seven premisses as a basis to argue for the potent function of εὐήθεια in Plato, which are then supported in the following chapters. Chapter 10 explores why and how evoking εὐήθεια can help to achieve Platonic philosophy’s aims.

195 Crane 1998, 19 & 22. 196 Marchant 1909; Hornblower 2003, 487; Crane 1998, 7, 19 & 22. 197 Joly 1974, 41.

72

Part II Εύήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι as Eikons

Part II of this dissertation affirms Part I’s conclusion that Plato regenerates authentic εὐήθεια to reflect what he considers its semantic and philosophical value: the noble simplicity of the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind. I now advance the assertion that authentic εὐήθεια can have a meaningful eidetic function in Platonic philosophy, and establish that the affirmative renaissance of εὐήθεια is personified in the Laws’ by the εὐηθέστεροι virtue-hero eikons.

Before proceeding, it is appropriate to defend my use of the word εἶδος (eidos) in the terms, the eidos of εὐήθεια and εὐήθεια’s eidos (discussed in Chapter 6). Some claim εἶδος in Plato predominantly signifies Platonic Forms. While I acknowledge that my construal of εἶδος may contravene that association I consider it unreasonable to assert that Plato only uses εἶδος as a designation for his Forms.198 As Thesleff points out: The connotations of the term eidos (and idea) are notoriously unclear ... the meaning ‘characteristic shape’ was in the foreground when eidos began to be employed for noetic forms, its equally pre-Platonic meaning of ‘kind’ (species) or class soon became a complication. Plato has no systematic hierarchy of genos-eidos, but he often uses eidos (occasionally idea) loosely as ‘aspect’, ‘type’ or ‘sort’.199 Ample textual evidence attests that Plato “often uses eidos (occasionally idea) loosely as ‘aspect’, ‘type’ or ‘sort’”,200 and/or to convey the notion of form of, nature, figure, shape, appearance, image.201 Shorey also notes that Plato makes no

198 I do not here engage with discussion of Platonic Form theory, such as Third Man arguments and the like. The supposedly exposes a flaw in Plato’s Form concepts that necessitates a serious revision of the theory. Arguments derived from Parmenides 132a and 135a are seemingly refuted in Plato (cf. Prm. 135bc, Phdr. 247d, R. 476b). As Form theory is essential to the coherence of Plato’s philosophy he is unlikely to abandon it. Also, I do not support the view that sensible instantiations are particulars of an Instantiated Form. 199 Thesleff, 2002. 200 Some instances in Plato of εἶδος translated as aspect, type, sort/kind, class, species, state: Euthphr. 6d: Cra. 386e, 411a: Tht. 157c, 181c, 181d: Sph. 219c, 220a, 220e, 222de, 223c, 225c, 226e, 227c, 229c, 230a, 234b, 236d, 253d, 258cd: Plt. 258c, 262c, 262e, 263b, 267b, 287e, 288a, 288d, 289b, 307a: Phlb. 18c, 32b, 32c, 33c, 35d: Smp. 189e: Phdr. 237a, 263c, 266c, 277c: Ly. 222a: R. 357c, 363e, 376e, 396b, 397c, 424c, 427a, 434b, 437d, 454b, 454c, 477c, 477e, 505c, 572b, 585b: Ti. 40a, 48e, 49a, 51a, 54d, 55d, 60a, 81a, 84c, 87d: Lg. 700b, 700c, 864b. 201 Some instances in Plato of εἶδος translated as form of, nature, figure, shape, appearance, image, likeness: Cra. 440a: Phd. 73d, 87a, 92b, 98a, 100b, 103e, 106d, 110d: Tht. 162b, 203e, 204a, 205d: Sph. 266c: Plt. 278e: Prm. 129a, 130b, 130d, 131c, 132a, 132d, 135b: Smp. 196a, 205b, 205d, 215b: Phdr. 229d, 249b, 251b, 253c, 259d, 265e: Chrm. 154d: Ly. 204e: Grg. 503e: Men. 72cd, 80a: R. 380d, 432b, 434d, 435b, 440e, 445c, 445d, 511a, 572c, 597a, 597c, 602b: Ti.

73

Part II: The Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

unqualified division of εἶδος and ἰδέα, and that they may convey a meaning of “apprehended aspect”.202 That said, the English language may be unable to adequately capture Plato’s many and varied uses of eidos. My usage in relation to εὐήθεια reflects an interpretation of it as a deliberated mental image – a noumenon (νοούµενον) – a useful apprehension ‘seen’ by the mind that nurtures goodness. I recall Wersinger’s commentary on Republic 400de that εὐήθεια is “the thought which equips the character in excellence (ἀρετή) and beauty”203 to support my explanation of εὐήθεια’s eidos, and offer two other scholarly interpretations to clarify what I seek to convey by an eidos of εὐήθεια.

First, I cite Agnes Horvath, the sociologist and political scientist who founded the International Political Anthropology journal, which hosts annual symposia on the Platonic dialogues.204 Horvath believes that: “In order to be able to guide others, the leaders of the community or public opinion must possess a mental image of what is the good, the true and the beautiful; this is what Plato called the eidos (εἶδος has an affinity with the Greek for seeing).205 While I acknowledge that Horvath may be discussing Platonic Forms, nonetheless, she believes for Plato’s an eidos is a way “to guide others” with “a mental image of what is the good, the true and the beautiful”. Similarly, when I refer to an eidos of εὐήθεια I suggest that εὐήθεια is an instantiation of the Good Form, what we might understand as a particularised small ‘f’ form or eidos of that Form.206 And that cultivating and contemplating εὐήθεια can elicit “a mental image of what is the good, the true and the beautiful” and guide good speech, accord, grace and rhythm to follow.

Peter Pesic may not be a noted Platonic scholar, however, his assessment of εἶδος also helps to describe my construal of an εὐήθεια eidos. In ‘Seeing the Forms’ Pesic explains that “εἶδος initially denoted something strongly physical and sensual,

35a, 42d, 48a, 52a, 53c, 55a, 56a, 56b, 56d, 56e, 62c, 64e, 69c, 76a, 88d: Criti. 116d, 118a: Lg. 632e, 837a, 842b. 202 Shorey 1969, fn. R. 508e. 203 Wersinger 2007, 56-7. 204 http://www.politicalanthropology.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=440&Ite mid=196 205 Horvath 2008, 256-7. 206 Republic 402c helps to convey my concept of a small ‘f’ form: “True musicians ... [who must] recognize the forms of soberness, courage, tolerance, and high-mindedness and all their kindred and their opposites”.

74

Part II: The Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

as in ‘good looks,’ in contrast to the abstract connotations of the Latinate word “form … [and that] these words have a prior significance that comes from their direct reference to the act of seeing.”207 In considering “the vexed problem of how individual good things ‘participate’ in the εἶδος of the Good”, Pesic concludes that: Plato's verb µετέχειν literally means ‘meta-having’: having in common, in co-operation, not alone or in isolation. Plato’s account of vision is precisely a ‘participation’ … individual instances of the good thus stream out from the mind to the Good that then informs them, exactly paralleling the way that our vision reaches out from us, contacting εἶδος in the process, and returns to us in turn. Such an interactive phenomenology gives a far more convincing account of ‘participation’ than does a merely static and abstracted sense of ‘inclusion’. 208 These “images (εἶδη) or likenesses” (R. 511a) of εὐήθεια’s good might enable having a share of and partaking in (µετέχω) divine Good through a kind of intuitive “interactive phenomenology”. Thus, the eide of εὐήθεια might facilitate communion with the divine through the intellectual apprehension, cultivation and practise of εὐήθεια.

I trust the insights of Wersinger, Horvath and Pesic assist understanding my supposition that cultivating authentic εὐήθεια in the soul can entail a cognitive process that evokes eide or “mental images” of practical goodness. Such an eide of εὐήθεια, I submit, can bring a would-be philosopher to believe in, understand and know the truth of their embodied soul’s divine goodness and beauty.209

207 Pesic 2007, 1-2. 208 Pesic 2007, 6. Also see C.M. Gillespie 1912, 197-9 & 203. 209 Cf.: “The greatest thing to learn is the idea (ἰδέα) of good by reference to which just things and all the rest become useful and beneficial” (R. 505a). Here “ἰδέα” might be what Horvath calls “a mental image of what is the good, the true and the beautiful” (Horvath 2008, 256-7), and what Wersinger terms “the thought which equips the character in excellence (ἀρετή) and beauty” (Wersinger 2007, 57).

75

Chapter 5

The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

In this chapter I contend that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative at 677e-680b warrants consideration as a Platonic virtue-hero myth, briefly review the scholarship about myth in Plato and its role in his mythos/logos, contest certain assessments of the εὐηθέστεροι, and considers reconstructionism and moral nostalgia in Plato.

Prerogative of the Εὐηθέστεροι Myth Plato writes that it is commendable to praise “good men in times past, that [would- be philosophers] in envy may imitate them and yearn to become even as they” (Prt. 326a). The Laws’ description of the εὐηθέστεροι’s surely qualifies them as “good men in times past”. They are “more simple (εὐήθεια) and brave and temperate and in all ways more righteous” (679e) than the men of today. I therefore submit that the good εὐηθέστεροι are credible mythic eikons of godlike human virtue, that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative at 677e-680b is a mythos/logos intended deliver contemporary instruction, and that the depiction of this prepolitical postdiluvian society might be considered a Platonic virtue-hero myth.

It is probably uncontroversial to assert that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative presents a prelapsarian ideal of human society before the fall to corruption. In Marco Mazzoni’s view: A reflection on the anthropological characteristics of the “first man” [εὐηθέστεροι] and how that lead to the genesis of the , made possible by the exceptional potential of cognitive heuristics and mythos, becomes not only a great excuse for a critical stance towards the ethical and political corruption of the men of the fifth and fourth centuries, but also an important opportunity for the delineation of the bases ... [for the] reform of society that accompanies all the thought and work of Plato.210 The εὐηθέστεροι’s harmonious community is, I offer, an iteration of a “first men” society that formed the noblest characters. Given their spatio temporal strife free conditions in Plato mytho-history I have inferred that the εὐηθέστεροι have a relatively close proximity to their divine nature, personify εὐήθεια’s truly good

210 Mazzoni, 2003, 7.

76

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

and fair disposition of character and mind, possess superior human godlike virtues and can thus be regarded as eikonic virtue-heroes. Csapo characterises εὐήθεια as: “A product of the relative harmony of the universe as it was mirrored in the harmonious social relations of the primitive tribal communities, and in the harmonious relations of the parts of each individual’s soul.”211 In my view, Csapo’s analysis succinctly explains how and why the εὐηθέστεροι, as the embodiment of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and goodness, function in Platonic philosophy as virtue-heroes who are capable of teaching goodness and harmony. As such, the Laws’ mythic εὐηθέστεροι narrative arguably contributes to what Mazzoni says is Plato’s “critical stance towards the ethical and political corruption of the men of the fifth and fourth centuries” and the “reform of society ... [that] accompanies all the thought and work of Plato”. 212 I also again note Crane’s view that Plato’s “life’s work” was “to reconstitute, in a new rationalized form, that ‘ancient simplicity’”.213

The urgency to reform a society by challenging and changing extant beliefs can be hastened by circumstance. Plato lived in the disordered aftermath of the human calamity that follows defeat in a protracted war. As is often the case, such conditions can incite the degeneration of virtue to the extent that it might accelerate beyond measure and restraint to end in vicious anarchy.214 This postwar world is Plato’s sphere of empirical ethico-religious and socio-political discovery. The assessment that he lived in ethically perilous times is widely accepted as historically informing Plato’s philosophy. It is reasonable to suppose that Plato intends his philosophy to serve as a regenerative impulse to help mitigate social malaise by reviving the noble simplicity of εὐήθεια’s good disposition. By awakening the embodied soul’s “divine governing principle” (R. 590d) he may begin to arrest public corruption and hearten the good governance of the “city within” (R. 592b). I hold that the conditions of the εὐηθέστεροι’s mythic society is useful in realising that aim.

211 Csapo 2011, 123-4. 212 Mazzoni, 2003, 7. 213 Crane 1998, 7 & 19. 214 Nietzsche claims “Socrates and Plato [are] symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution” (Nietzsche 1889, TI 2:2).

77

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Plato’s philosophical method of using a dramatised mythos/logos (discussed further below), probably reflects the findings of his sociological analysis. Allen believes that: “In a Platonic universe, the subjects of inquiry in psychology, sociology and economics are not independent.”215 Indeed, Popper says: “Plato’s greatness as a sociologist ... lies rather in the wealth and detail of his observations, and in the amazing acuteness of his sociological intuition. He saw things which had not been seen before him, and which were rediscovered only in our own time.”216 Plato’s “sociological intuition” enables him to discern the best techniques of engagement and persuasion and identify those most responsive to his way of addressing public and private dysfunction. His problematising of a wayward Athenian society reflects extensive and insightful psychological, sociological and fiscal inquiry. Plato is probably also mindful that a dismayed society that has arguably lost its sense of honour and moral shame is fertile psychological ground for a novel eudemonistic philosophy that offers a happy life in return for virtuous living.

Despite its corruption, Plato’s Athens probably still values and heeds the example of brave, virtuous heroes, ideals of the truly noble and righteous who are above and beyond contemporary venality. Homer and Hesiod remain prominent source of Attica’s moral mores. Homer’s earliest interpreter, Theagenes of Rhegium (c. late 6th c.), considered Homeric works allegorical and intended to instruct. Plato’s repudiation of epic was not unique. , perhaps erroneously credited with founding the Eleatic School, is particularly critical of Homer and Hesiod, from whom “all men have learned” (B10 DK). Xenophanes says that their anthropomorphic depictions “ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgrace among mortals” (21 B11 DK), and that epic tradition teaches an iniquitous . Heraclitus also notes that Hesiod was “the instructor of most men” and that Homer is unworthy of recitation.217 Despite his obvious deployment of epic’s mythic totems, Plato strongly contests epic’s depiction of gods and heroes. In the Hippias Minor he questions Achilles’ heroic

215 Allen 1987, 62. 216 Popper 1966, 38. 217 Havelock 1978, 5-6.

78

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

virtue, asserting that the famously honourable hero is a liar who is worse than Odysseus. And in the Republic Plato repudiates epic’s “entire vocabulary of terror and fear” (R. 387b) as harmful “false stories” (R. 377d).218

In discrediting and censoring Homer and Hesiod as the basis for a good education, Plato detaches his philosophy from central canons of Attic society. I posit that in contesting the sway of epic in Greek education Plato creates an ethico- religious and socio-political lacuna. And that that might further compound the sense of lost meaning and confusion felt by his audience, and so make his philosophy less appealing. How then does Plato overcome this possible aversion to his ideas and provide his audience with “stories that ... bring the fairest lessons of virtue” (R. 378e) that encourage harmony and order? His challenge is twofold: he must correct epic’s erroneous depiction of divinity, and offer suitably godlike Attic heroes to validate his philosophy’s theocratic virtue narrative. Catalin Partenie notes that Plato is obliged to be “not only a myth-teller, but also a myth-maker”.219 The mythoclast must become mythogenic in order to create and populate his mytho history with credible virtue heroes who have audience appeal and ethical authority.

Who might be fit for this purpose? Perhaps some famous figures from Athens’ recent history are suitable. Plato lauds the Attic society that complied with the constitution of his forbear Solon.220 Then citizens acted for the collective good: “At the time when the Persians made their onslaught upon the Greeks—and indeed one might say on nearly all the nations of Europe ... we had Reverence, which acted as a kind of queen, causing us to live as the willing servants of the existing laws ... and because of all this, our mutual friendliness and patriotism was greatly intensified” (Lg. 698bc).221 What of the celebrated heroes from the glorious victory at Marathon; might their courageous example supplant the undesirable influences of epic heroes? There is the valiant Pheidippides, though his athletic heroics are

218 Plato’s objections to epic are perhaps similar to his criticism of sophistic rhetoric. It is not Homeric or rhetorician’s art that he deplores, rather it is the potentially corrupting influence of false stories and wisdom. Plato does not want to eliminate Homer, Hesiod and all poets from Attic life as his works are replete with respectful homage to Homeric epic and its enduring legacy (cf. Ap. 41a: R. 383a, 391a, 595b). 219 Partenie 2004, xv. 220 Plato’s mother Perictione (possibly Charmides’ sister and Critias’ cousin, of Thirty Tyrants notoriety) claimed descent from Solon (Guthrie 1975, 10). 221 Plato’s advocacy of acting in the collective interest reflects his cosmology wherein each cosmic part can act for the good of the whole cosmic order.

79

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

merely a “lesser good” of the body (Lg. 631b). Miltiades’ inglorious defeat at Paros the year after Marathon and his death in prison probably excludes him; and Themistocles was perhaps too populist and cunning. What of Aristides ‘the just’? Herodotus describes him as “the best and most honourable man in Athens” (Hdt. 8.79), and Socrates calls Aristides “a good man (Men. 94a)”, “whose fame stands high among us and throughout the rest of Greece” (Grg. 526b). Yet, Aristides’ colluding with Themistocles to fortify Athens and deceive Sparta probably excludes him. Surely Pericles, Athens’ first citizen, warrants consideration. Probably not, since Plato might regard Athens’ hubristic imperialism as the intemperate root cause of the Peloponnesian War.222 So, it seems that for various reasons Athens’ recent heroes are not sufficiently detached from contemporary corruption and sophistication to qualify as ennobling Platonic virtue-heroes.

What of the venerable Socrates, Plato’s champion of virtue and wisdom, his protagonist gadfly ever ready to sting a sophist antagonist? Socrates is surely a tragic virtue-hero, and a honourable man who is courageous, pious, temperate, just and wise. In the Phaedo’s last sentence Phaedo says Socrates is “of all those of his time whom we have known, the best and wisest and more righteous man” (Phd. 118a). Laches praises Socrates’ courage in the retreat from Delium (La. 181a), and finds him “living up to any fine words however freely spoken” (La. 188e). Significantly, Socrates also displays noble philosophical courage in his defence of justice (cf. R. 368c). However, he is embroiled in Athens’ recent political machinations. Despite opposing the Thirty Tyrants he is tried and executed by the restored democracy, perhaps because among the notables he supposedly perverts are his “good friend[s]” (Grg. 518e) Alcibiades, Critias and Charmides, some of the democrats’ most reviled enemies. Socrates may have been unjustly accused; nonetheless, history tells us that a majority of the Athenian

222 See Chapter 2 re the ethical and political consequences of Athens’ policies that likely precipitated the ensuing war. For instance, bolstering the Corcyrean fleet prior to the Battle of Sybota, the clash with Corinthian colonists at the Battle of Potidaea, and Pericles forbidding trade with Megara and engaging in disingenuous negotiations with Sparta. Also note the Gorgias’ passage: “You’re eulogizing people who feasted the Athenians, indulging them with what they had an appetite for. It’s said that they made the city great; but that it’s swelling and festering because of these earlier people no one notices this. For without justice and temperance they have left the city full of harbours and dockyards and walls and tribute and that sort of rubbish. And so when that crisis of the disease comes, they’ll hold responsible the advisers who are there at the time, and eulogize Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, the ones responsible for the evils” (Grg. 518e-519a). Yunis contends that Plato censures Pericles in Gorgias “because he did not make the Athenians better, meaning more just” (Yunis 1996, 145).

80

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Assembly voted to execute him. While Plato and his fellow travellers might widely extol Socrates as a wise and virtuous hero, he is however an actor in contemporary political intrigues and Plato requires virtue eikons who are free from religious and political eristic. Moreover, perhaps Plato does not entirely approve of Socrates methods and wants to ensure his own philosophy is not taken as a mere apologia of Socratic thought.223

Having rejected the Attic heroes of epic and recent history, and thought better of Socrates’ catholic appeal, whom might Plato summon as virtue exemplars to help combat venality and cultivate godlike goodness? Ideally such heroes will have mytho-historic credibility, superior virtues and be unsullied by contemporary sophistication, cravenness, intemperance, irreverence and injustice. To satisfy his need for suitable virtue-heroes I submit that Plato offers the nobly simple, brave, temperate and righteous εὐηθέστεροι (cf. Lg. 679d) as eikons of superior human virtue. Plato raises the εὐηθέστεροι from the primordial Attic earth that survived the deluge, steeps them in autochthonous mythology and plants them in Athens’ ethico- religious heritage. These reimagined mythic Attic forebears fittingly redress the moral archetype lacuna created by rejecting epic’s misrepresentation of divinity and the afterlife. They personify the nobly simplicity of εὐήθεια’s “truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind” (R. 400de) and are mortal heroes beyond reproach. Plato purposefully differentiates them from the canonical epic pantheon of gods and supermen to repopulate his ethical pantheon with exemplars of his . Thus, Plato both subsumes and transcends conventional myth, recasting the mythic εὐηθέστεροι as the human apotheosis of godlike virtue.

A critical consideration in my construal of the εὐηθέστεροι as worthy virtue-heroes is the inferences discussed in Chapter 4. I proposed that they are virtuously superior because they are the product of a community where the “noblest characters will be formed; for in it there is no place for the growth of insolence and injustice, of rivalries and jealousies”(679bc). It is a community, devoid of the “warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and

223 Zuckert notes that in Ecce Homo Nietzsche remarks that he does not consider Plato “merely as a follower, much less the dupe of Socrates” (Zuckert 1996, 26).

81

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury” (679d). This society is directly opposed to contemporary Athens’ sophistic forensics, and so suggestive of the environment Plato deems ideal for the development of εὐήθεια and godlike virtue. That is not to infer that Plato considers it possible to return to some kind of a prelapsarian utopia. As discussed below, he does however want the embodied soul to remember is original pre-fall state, and seek reunion with its divine origins. Arguably, the “more simple and brave and temperate and in all ways more righteous” (679e) εὐηθέστεροι assist the instruction of that endeavour.

The image of happy progenitors living in a peaceful society of noble goodness might aid to renew a Platonic audience’s Attic pride, enhancing the mythic tale’s allure and instructive value at various levels of ethico-religious and psychological engagement. In Pierre Destrée’s view: “Plato’s myths, and also ‘images’, are to be conceived not only as intellectual tools in a purely intellectual argumentation, but as emotionally loaded, protreptical ways to motivate his audience ... to adopt a philosophical life, and also (but both things are the two faces of the same coin) to pursue a morally good life.”224 The εὐηθέστεροι are, I suggest, “emotionally loaded” mythic likenesses of Plato’s cardinal virtues, and in that sense are eikonic images of ensouled humanity’s godlike virtuous potential.

In her analysis of Platonic heroes, Angela Hobbs remarks that the: “Particular selection of role model (or models) will again bring into sharp focus the question of whether we want to aim at a human or divine ideal ... especially ... in a culture such as that of ancient Greece which possesses a mythology and literature in which gods and semi-divine heroes figure so prominently.”225 The εὐηθέστεροι narrative, I argue, precisely addresses the “human or divine ideal” question by offering virtue-heroes who are both mortal and godlike. They thus help to address Plato’s twofold challenge to correct epic’s false depiction of divinity by presenting godlike Attic heroes that endorse platonic philosophy’s theocratic virtue paradigm, and support his claim that humans have, and can retain, their godlike nature through the practise of virtue.

224 Destrée 2012, 112. 225 Hobbs 2000, 65-6.

82

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

At Plato’s Athens the mythic εὐηθέστεροι might be defined by a popular soubriquet, καλὸς καγαθός, to be noble and good, a perfect gentleman: “If any man refuses to avoid by every means the one kind [base and evil], and with all his power to practise the other kind [ἀγαθὰ καὶ καλά - noble and good] — such a man knows not that everyone who acts thus is treating most dishonourably and most disgracefully that most divine of things, his soul” (Lg. 728ab). The mythic εὐηθέστεροι are good because of their noblest character and simplicity. I therefore style them καλοί καγαθοί, noble and good, and submit that as such we might regard them as honourable carers of their embodied souls. Cultivating noble and good (καλοκαγαθίαis) character and conduct is fundamental to Platonic philosophy’s aims. Plato wants people to be happy: “A good and honourable man or woman, I say, is happy” (Grg. 470e), while “every man and woman ought to pass through life in accordance with this character, playing at the noblest of pastimes” (Lg. 803c). For Plato, the pursuit of happiness obliges the cultivation of a disposition appropriate to virtuous living. As the personification of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and good disposition I submit that the καλοί καγαθοί εὐηθέστεροι can function as useful eikons of the noble and good disposition and virtue required to attain philosophical happiness.

Nonetheless, does the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative satisfy the scholarly criteria to be considered a Platonic myth? Franco Trabattoni believes: “A myth could have philosophical interest if and only if it is connected with truth. So the philosophically more fruitful myths are for the most part those created by philosophers.”226 Plato created the εὐηθέστεροι account, and as I understand it the narrative is instructive to the extent that it assists in the betterment of the embodied soul by revealing its truly righteous nature. I also recall the inferences drawn from Laws 677e-680b and suggest that the mythic εὐηθέστεροι mythos conveys other Platonic . It is possible for an ensouled being to be good, virtuous and godlike, to know real truth and create a community (at least within) in which the noblest characters can be formed. Thus, a fundamental truth of the εὐηθέστεροι account is that harmony begets the noble simplicity of a truly good

226 Trabattoni 2012, 309.

83

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

and fair disposition. If, as Trabattoni has it, an authentic myth is connected with truth and serves a philosophical purpose then I submit that the εὐηθέστεροι narrative might be regarded as a Platonic myth.

Some hold that a criterion for a genuine Platonic myth is its capacity to persuade a disparate audience to a particular belief, and perhaps to discard harmful beliefs. Among them Partenie, who argues that for Plato the purpose of philosophy is “to make others believe, and do, various noble things; and myth may prove an efficient means of persuasion. A myth is supposed to make one adopt a particular belief (R. 415c, 621c; Phdr. 265b; L. 804e, 887d, 913c, 927c), and its persuasive powers are not to be underestimated (Phd. 114d).”227 So, do the εὐηθέστεροι help to persuade others to “believe, and do, various noble things”. I accept the view that Plato chooses his words carefully, in which case why did he write this narrative about an ideal community that produces noble, virtuous people if not to persuade his audience to some useful belief, and why did he especially choose the word εὐηθέστεροι to describe them. I endorse Crane’s view that Plato lamented the loss of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and that his commitment to restoring it is a significant endeavour of his “life’s work”.228 If Crane is correct then clearly the εὐηθέστεροι narrative is intended to usefully instruct a contemporary audience. I also note the passage in the Republic that exhorts the imitation of those “who are brave, sober [and] pious” (395c).229 Plato tells us that the εὐηθέστεροι are “more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous [than the men of today]” (679e). May we not then reasonably suppose that he considers them worthy of imitation and so likely “to make others believe, and do, various noble things”?

There are other quite specific scholarly measures of a myth’s instructive function. For Catherine Collobert a myth’s didactic use may manifest in three ways: First, it may facilitate understanding by supplementing some aspects of theoretical discourse that the listener is incapable of understanding ... Second, it may speed up understanding when in the particular context the conceptual and analytic grasping proves useless or too lengthy ... Third, it is more easily memorized than reasoning and therefore could be a way of memorizing the reasoning that lies behind the image.230

227 Partenie 2009, 5-6. 228 Crane 1998, 19 & 22. 229 See Chapter 10 for a discussion of µίµησις. 230 Collobert 2012, 106.

84

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

How might we assess the εὐηθέστεροι mythos using Collobert’s criteria? First, does the tale “facilitate understanding by supplementing some aspects of theoretical discourse that the listener is incapable of understanding”? Given the mythic content of Plato’s dialogues is generally accepted to be philosophically useful and that the εὐηθέστεροι narrative appears in the Laws’ Book 3, theoretical discourse about states, statecraft and legislation, I submit that the narrative serves to assist those less capable of understanding that discourse. The v society gives a meaningful starting point for Attic society’s origination, and a clear undertraining of its virtuous and peaceful nature. Hence, the εὐηθέστεροι chronicle “may speed up understanding when in the particular context the conceptual and analytic grasping proves useless or too lengthy”. As for Collobert’s third criterion, “it is more easily memorized than reasoning and therefore could be a way of memorizing the reasoning that lies behind the image”, the εὐηθέστεροι account draws on familiar mythology, is arguably entertaining and is thus more readily recalled. These noblest characters are presented as superior humans because they are the product of a strife free community wherein noble and virtuous people are formed. It is feasible that in recollecting such ancestors the audience might discover the reasoning behind Plato’s explanation of social decline and be more inclined to cultivate the conditions conducive to personal and public harmony that he seeks to stimulate.

Glen Most says that Platonic myths are monological, recounted by an elder narrator to a younger audience, claim origination in an older, authoritative oral source, describe unverifiable objects and events, gain influence from accepted tradition not from the speaker’s experience, often have “an explicitly asserted psychagogic effect” (or at least have that intention), are not arranged as dialectic discourse but rather as descriptions and narrations, and are invariably located either at the commencement of an lengthy dialectical account or at the end of one.231 While, in the context of the dialogue the listeners are not young in a chorological sense they probably are less mature with regard to their philosophical developments. And in any event, we need to look beyond the dialogue’s cast to Plato’s broader audience that in many instances are younger readers and students.

231 Most 2012, 24.

85

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Does the Athenian appeal to traditional authority? As is often the case, Plato’s uses the influence and appeal of mythic elements drawn from communal tradition in his construction of the εὐηθέστεροι mythos, among them the authority of traditional belief in autochthony and the epic gravitas of Hesiod and Homer (cf. 680bc, 681e).232 The εὐηθέστεροι tale cannot be verified so we might suppose that the Athenian’s authority rest on the credibility of folklore and probably familiarity with the Platonic corpus.233 Does the account have a psychological value? If, as I contend, it satisfies Collobert’s criterion to assist understanding and reasoning then it does. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that the Laws does have an explicit ethical psychology which I suggest is evident in the εὐηθέστεροι passage’s discourse about social and private virtue. As to whether the Laws’ adjoining passages’ constitute a dialectical account, I again cite Rowe’s explanation of dialectic, with which I concur: “Platonic dialectic is not so much a matter of talking, and playing the game, but talking to get results; and the results tend to be treated as permanent rather than temporary, contextual, gains”.234 If that is the case, and the εὐηθέστεροι account intends “to get results”, then it both borders and is itself Platonic dialectic.

While I acknowledge that Trabattoni, Partenie, Collobert and Most’s criterion might not definitively qualify the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative as a Platonic myth I do contend that they lend sufficient support for the narrative to warrant consideration as a Platonic virtue-hero myth. To advance that notion let us now consider how Plato uses myth to achieve his philosophical aims.

Myth in Plato As an educated Athenian, Plato is well acquainted with Athens’ epic tradition, and his dialogues show respect for both Homer’s and Hesiod’s contribution to Hellenic culture. In the Apology Socrates asks: “What would any of you give to meet with and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? I am willing to die many times over ... for I personally should find the life there wonderful” (Ap.

232 See fn. 167 re autochthony in Attic tradition. 233 Rowe 2010a, 35. 234 Rowe 2010a, 35.

86

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

41a). Herodotus regards Hesiod as Greek theology’s founding father, a datum Plato does not necessarily refute. Indeed, Most holds that in the course of his life Plato came to respect Hesiod, particularly the Works and Days.235 Still, it has been said that Plato’s extensive use of myth might contradict his apparent censure of Greek epic. A disapproval that is especially evident in the Republic, where Socrates deplores poets’ detrimental “lies” and “false stories”. Nonetheless, Plato employs epic elements to construct his own “opportune falsehoods” (R. 414b). It thus seems dubious to say that Plato rejects myth as he employs it. His objections to epic are largely moved by what he regards as its harmful misrepresentation of divine nature and the afterlife. While Plato rebuffs such epic pedagogy he employs the power of epic mythology to convey certain truths for, as Havelock explains: “Greek epic, so far from being an oral improvisation, is a compendium of social and personal conventions, as these become illustrated in an appropriate mythos—one that is told in a way and with a style that will continuously provoke their utterance.”236 We might then conclude that Plato’s dialogues conflate mythos and logos to articulate a credible and instructive mythos/logos, such as the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative.

The origins of Plato’s mythic conflation are noteworthy and instructive. They derive, at least in part, from what was already a centuries old Homeric and Hesiodic tradition, sundry Egyptian and Semitic mythic remnants and the sifted vestiges of Orphic mysticism and . Most comments that Plato learned “dialogue and myth … not only from Alexamenus of Styrus and Zenon (Diog. Laert. 3.48), from the Sophists and Sophron, from the mysteries and the Orphic texts—but above all from Attic tragedy and the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod, both of them genres politically institutionalised at Athens as the predominant literary forms at that time.”237 Plato employs these “politically institutionalised” genres and “predominant literary forms” to initiate engagement, develop themes, challenge beliefs, refine arguments and persuade. These elements and purposes are, I submit, evident in the εὐηθέστεροι narrative.

235 See Most 2009. 236 Havelock 1978, 123. 237 Most 2012, 22.

87

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Among the examples of traditional, variously amended and conflated Platonic myths are Gyges (R. 359d–360b), (Ti. 21e–26d); the Sauromatides (Lg. 804e); the Noble Lie (R. 414b–415d) that combines the Cadmeian autochthony myth with the Hesiodic myth of ages; the (R. 614a–621d); the Gorgias myth (Grg. 523a–527a); Aristophanes’ androgyne myth (Smp. 189d–193d); the Phaedo myth (Phd. 107c–115a); the volitant soul (Phdr. 246a–249d) and Theuth myths (Phdr. 274c–275e); the Statesman’s cosmological myth (Plt. 268–274e); the soul’s incarnation myth (Lg. 903b–905b),238 and, I offer, the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι myth (Lg. 677e-680b). Many authoritative lists of Plato’s myths omit the latter, though Rick Benitez has classified it as a Platonic myth.239

Plato’s presentation of his myths may also be revealing. Naoko Yamagata observes that Socrates respectfully recounts Plato’s Homeric myths. Yet, Socrates does not deliver Hesiodic myths and Plato often has those recounting them point out that they are fictitious.240 Despite Yamagata’s observation, Hesiod’s extensive sway in Plato is significant here as it pertains to the spatio-temporal setting of the εὐηθέστεροι narrative. Hesiod was greatly admired throughout Ancient Greece, and provided a dynamic stimulus to the cerebral branch that blossomed into the Classical Greek enlightenment.241 J. H. Haubold believes that the Hesiodic corpus provides “a useful template for intellectual change in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.” Haubold surmises that perhaps the likes of Protagoras and Plato “look to Hesiod for a model of how Muse-inspired poetry gives way to more challenging, more secular, and more properly human attempts to pursue knowledge?”242 Another Haubold remark seemingly supports the contention that Plato may have seen Hesiod as a useful ally in promoting the pursuit of wisdom.243 Haubold asks whether Hesiod “charts a recognizable development from divine to human

238 See Partenie 2014. 239 Benitez 2014. 240 Yamagata 2010, 85. It is pertinent to note that Socrates has a minor role in the Statesman and does not appear in the Laws. 241 Despite his obvious Hesiodic affinity, in Protagoras Plato expresses what might have been an extant opinion (or at least his disapproval) of Hesiodic sophism: “Sophistry is an ancient art, and those men of ancient times who practiced it, fearing the odium it involved, disguised it in a decent dress, sometimes of poetry, as in the case of Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides” (316d). However, this passage also supports claims that ‘sophist’ came to mean something quite different in Plato’s era from what the term suggested centuries earlier. See Chapter 2, fns. 90 & 115. 242 Haubold 2010, 30. 243 Among others, Most notes the numerous instances of Hesiod in Plato (Most 2009, 57-61).

88

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

knowledge, and from myth to reason [logos]?”244 Such a development is integral to Plato’s mythos/logos conflation that deftly adapts myth to buoy the charm and utility of his philosophy. Indeed, G. R. Boys-Stones capably summarises Plato’s unique engagement with Hesiod, and with myth in general: Plato clearly expects us to place his view of Hesiod within a broader intellectual context … Hesiod, in short, not only has interests which Plato shares, but comes across as epistemologically self-aware in his discussion of them in a way which is characteristic of philosophy as Plato will come to understand it. Hesiod ... can be used both to give a voice to the cumulative tradition of inchoate and abortive attempts at philosophy which Plato sees in its past, and also to provide a foundation for the new direction in which he tries to set it for the future.245 And Hugo Koning reiterates the important point that where Plato usefully invokes Hesiod what results “is a blend of both new and old elements—though it remains a uniquely Platonic blend.”246

In my view, Partenie correctly interprets the philosophical utility of myth in Plato, and also hints as the possible truth giving function of the εὐηθέστεροι mythology: “For Plato, myth is the only device available to enable us to explore matters that are beyond our limited intellectual powers. Myth may be false in its fantastical details, but it may mirror the truth.”247 That is why Plato is so dependent on and indebted to myth; it helps him “mirror the truth”, for as Socrates explains: “Tales are of two species, the one true and the other false ... and education must make use of both, but first of the false ... we begin by telling children stories, and the story is, taken as a whole, false, but there is truth in it also” (R. 376e-377a). These stories might arise from an historical convergence of authentic human inspiration and insights that become accepted as the transmission of à priori truth. Platonic myths, and the εὐηθέστεροι narrative, rely on an audiences’ familiarity with the celebrated folklore of such truths, which require no confirmation. As Harold Tarrant remarks: “Plato’s myths require the reader’s initial trust, that we are expected to respond to them as something that is in some sense true, and that their educational value is not to be held in question. Only thus could they retain the power to stimulate further understanding of ourselves the

244 Haubold 2010, 30. 245 Boys-Stones 2010, 2 and 32. 246 Koning 2010, 92. 247 Partenie 2004, xix.

89

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

microcosm and of the universal macrocosm in which we live.”248 I submit that their eikonic value as virtue-heroes enables the εὐηθέστεροι to “retain the power to stimulate further understanding of ourselves the microcosm and of the universal macrocosm in which we live”. Plato, I suggest, wants us to understand that while the εὐηθέστεροι community that forms the noblest character is mythic, its godlike human harmony and virtue are personally achievable.

The truths of Platonic myths are discrete from their fictional origins and maintain contemporary relevance. What matters to Plato is the philosophical potency of a myth and its power to fulfil his purpose. David White remarks that: “The absence of an indicated source for the myth suggests that its origin, whether human or divine, may be irrelevant—the myth’s function is ... more crucial than its point of origin.”249 Drawing upon Greek epic’s communal and hard-held beliefs endows Plato’s unique mythos/logos with an ancient and credible provenance that can be either human or divine. In Csapo’s estimation: “Myth might be more usefully defined as a narrative which is considered socially important, and is told in such a way as to allow the entire social collective to share a sense of this importance.”250 Plato’s mythic narrative both borrows from and contributes to that “social collective” of Attic mytho-history. Myth imbues Platonic dialogues with a gravity of authenticity that makes them more appealing and persuasive, especially where rational debate is premature in relation to the philosophical attunement of his audience. Myth is thus integral to Plato’s pedagogic practice and I hold that given the εὐηθέστεροι narrative is mythical it at least has a collective social importance and instructive worth.

Plato’s mythos/logos conflation Plato wrote when archaic traditions of oral transmission were being subsumed by a novel literary revolution, an era we might style a discursive cusp wherein extant mythos and resurgent logos are contiguous and combined. Attica’s literary transition produces documents of avid inquiry, verifiable authorship and static content in a

248 Tarrant 2012, 65. 249 White 2007, 37. 250 Csapo 2004, 9.

90

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

genesis that arguably seeks to reconcile the tension between ancient oral custom and portable literature. Historians, philosophers and dramatists now have the applied technology to record and distribute written texts. The onset of the Classical Greek Enlightenment may initiate an age of intellectual innovation; nevertheless, it is neither the finale for myth nor for its pervading influence. A more scientific awareness of human existence does change the nature of Greek discourse and its more critical deliberation challenges the hitherto dominant epic explanations. Yet, that discourse retains and builds on communal mytho-historic roots.251 Plato is a prominent actor in Greece’s literary revolution. Understood as the medium for his philosophical method, his mythically and historically informed dialogues are read largely by a literate elite though, as discussed in the ‘Introduction’, they may have been accessible to a broader audience. According to Waugh, Plato’s dialogues “were, at least initially, part of public discourse, and that the Socratic method as well as the character Socrates were put forth as models for the way in which public discourse should be conducted and by whom.”252 Waugh believes the dialogues were also produced as public recitals: a view that aids analysis of Plato’s works as performance dramas. The literary aspect of myth in Platonic dramas is, in Collobert’s view, essential to understanding “the relation between philosophy and literature, given that myth is in the first place a poetic discourse.”253

Crucially, myth helps to demassify and expand Platonic philosophy’s appeal to a disparate audience that likely includes philosophers, mathematicians, theologians, literati, rhetors and sundry interested parties. As Most remarks: Plato wrote his dialogues ... perhaps above all, for potentially interested external non experts, i.e. for young men (and their parents) who wanted to know what they should do in life. He wanted these writings to reach not only people who had already made the decision to devote themselves to the philosophical way of life but also, and perhaps above all, non-philosophical readers, and to convince these that their life would be less valuable

if they did not study (Platonic) philosophy. 254 To achieve this “Plato had to study, master, deploy—and then invert the most successful strategies of literary communication in contemporary Greek culture,”255 which is herein referred to as his mythos/logos. A number of Plato’s

251 See Havelock 1973, and Turner 1952. 252 Waugh 2000, 47. 253 Collobert 2012, 1. 254 Most 2012, 22. 255 ibid.

91

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

public, irrespective of their education, probably viewed his philosophy as controversial. Plato’s repudiation of epic, his immortal tripartite psychology, and criticism of the might makes right justice paradigm were likely considered shocking, atypical or at best problematic. His poetic artistry seeks to overcome that resistance by presenting a captivating mythos/logos. Plato carefully and unashamedly employs communal beliefs and reimagined encounters of celebrated characters to impart his philosophy. He offers a method of seeking truth through the changes aroused in the development of self-knowledge by simultaneously proposing novel ideas while upholding traditional value.

Several scholars comment on Plato’s affiliation and conflation of mythos and logos. G. R. F. Ferrari believes: “The border between logos and muthos in the dialogues is, for Plato, a matter of form rather than substance.”256 We might then take Plato’s mythos/logos conflation as both a product of and a factor in the Greek Enlightenment’s integration of myth and literature. In Most’s view: “No one before Plato assigned to the problematic relation of mythos and logos so central a role in his thought as Plato did.”257 Most also observes that the enlistment of myth in Plato’s philosophy is also evident in his etymological innovation. A “number of invented compound words ... are attested for the first time in Plato’s works, and in Most’s view were most likely coined by him: muthologia [µυθολογία] appears eight times in his writings, muthologêma [µῡθολογεύω] twice, muthologikos [µῡθολογικός] once, muthologeô [µῡθολογεύω] as many as seventeen times.”258

I infer from the textual evidence and scholarship that Plato considers mythos and logos as correlative and synergetic. Collobert believes: A logos can be a tool for doxa, dianoia, and dialectic. Used by a poet, a sophist, a politician, and a philosopher, it can be true, false, persuasive, deceptive, and cryptic ... as used by the philosopher, the true logos is an image which makes distinctions, divisions, and clarifications. It is useful for dismissing false logoi as pretenses which reflect deceptive reality ... that does not imply that myths are inadequate to capture the greatest realities or that these realities cannot be put into images ... Rather, given that images are not tantamount to accounts of truth, Plato maintains that the dialectician should be able both to put them into images and to account for them (see e.g. Lg. X 966b).259

256 Ferrari 2012, 86. 257 Most 2012, 13. 258 ibid.; italics added. 259 Collobert 2012, 107.

92

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

I especially note Collobert’s remark that “as used by the philosopher, the true logos is an image which makes distinctions, divisions, and clarifications”, and that “true logos” evidently has the unique capacity to both dismiss “false logoi” while conveying truth in a mythic guise. This seems an apt account of how Plato’s mythos/logos challenges and expose the false logoi that condones injustice and disparages authentic εὐήθεια. It is also seems apparent that the εὐηθέστεροι narrative distinguishes their superior virtue from that of modern men, partitions that virtue into the Platonic cardinal virtues, and clarifies what type of community is conducive to the formation of such noble and virtuous characters.

Other useful commentary about Plato’s reimagining of mythic tales cites Timaeus. For instance, Luc Brisson comments on this dialogue’s Hesiodic affinities and aspiration to be credible: “The Timaeus is akin to a myth (muthos) like the one told by Hesiod in the Theogony. Yet it also wants to be an explanation (logos), backed up by arguments, of the origin of the world in which we live.”260 Of specific interest is the Timaeus’ “εἰκὼς µῦθος (likely account)”, which gives the case for the necessity of imagery to assist human understanding. If in our treatment of a great host of matters regarding the Gods and the generation of the Universe we prove unable to give accounts that are always in all respects self-consistent and perfectly exact, be not thou surprised; rather we should be content if we can furnish accounts that are inferior to none in likelihood, remembering that both I who speak and you who judge are but human creatures, so that it becomes us to accept the likely account (εἰκὼς µῦθος) of these matters and forbear to search beyond it (Ti. 29bd). It is helpful to consider this passage in conjunction with 48d: “What we previously affirmed, the import of the ‘likely’ account (εἰκὼς µῦθος), I will essay (as I did before) to give as ‘likely’ an exposition as any other (nay, more so), regarding both particular things and the totality of things from the very beginning.” The Timaeus is a definitive instance of Plato’s mythos/logos synthesis offering a “likely account” that is “inferior to none in likelihood”. Commenting on these passages, Myles Burnyeat writes: “It is not that mythos is equivalent to, and no different from logos, but that eikos mythos is a logos as well as a myth.”261 I also note Elsa Grasso’s remark that: “The distinction to be made between eikôs logos—or eikôs muthos—and irrefutable discourse is indeed entirely based on the

260 Brisson 2012, 390. 261 Burnyeat 2009, 169.

93

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

relation between the physical copy and the original.”262 Grasso’s comments further inform my construal of the εὐηθέστεροι as physical virtue eikons who personify εὐήθεια’s particularisation of divine Good and simplicity. That is, I understand the εὐηθέστεροι tale to be a “likely account” (εἰκὼς µῦθος) in that it functions to depict a man in his most godlike state. The εὐηθέστεροι as virtue- heroes might thus be a benchmark for Attic ethics. Indeed, to use Carone’s words, “we can see how the myth provides the macrocosmic background for ethics”.263

The Timaeus is a noetic experiment of immense scope and audacity in which Plato endeavours to describe what we cannot know. In my view the work exhibits the potent function of Plato’s mythos/logos as a respectful and effective conflation of oral tradition and rational literature. Yet, some say the work is irrational or merely reject it as an enigmatic oddity. Perhaps such views look through the analytical prism of scientism that obscures, distorts and even trivialises Plato’s methods and intent. Peter Kingsley points out that: “So-called ‘scientific’ endeavour in the fifth and early fourth centuries BC was governed by mythological considerations – and, above all, by the reading of Homer.”264 Kingsley, in my view correctly, advises against “the danger of importing anachronistic issues into the study of the ancient world as a substitute for attempting to understand it on its own terms.”265 Refuting the Timaeus based on the findings of ‘modern science’ misses the mark and neglects its rational philosophical merit.

Kathryn Morgan ably addresses the erroneous idea that myth is incompatible with rational thought: The opposition that we know as mythos versus logos, or myth versus science and rationality ... [is an] opposition [that] has been influential in the entire western reception of philosophy. This influence, however, risks blinding us to the important role played by myth in Greek philosophy, not just as a foil but as a mode of philosophical thought and presentation.266 For Plato, myth can often serve the cause of higher human intellection as “a mode of philosophical thought and presentation”. An important consideration here is the Platonic notion that the embodied soul has intuitive affections for the rational knowledge of its divine reality. Failing to acknowledge that human longing for

262 Grasso 2012, 342. 263 Carone 2005, 160-1. 264 Kingsley 1995, 80-1. 265 ibid. 266 Morgan 2004, 3.

94

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

explanations and meaning as a fundamental tenet in Plato can obscure the functional implications of myth in Plato. This is a psychological condition that Plato understands and addresses with the poetic art of his mythos/logos. He engages the audiences’ mytho-historic communal imaginings to provide his philosophy with what Claude Calame describes as “a spatio-temporal framework.”267 Hence, Plato’s dialogues situate and devise their mythos/logos, such as the εὐηθέστεροι narrative, within a “spatio-temporal framework” of trusted, shared meaning that might gratify and progress the embodied soul’s affections for picture-thinking (εἰκασία), belief (πίστις), understanding (διάνοια) and reason (νόησις) (cf. R. 511de: disused further in Chapter 7). Scholars cite myths in various Platonic dialogues to illustrate this relationship within the myth’s framework of elements, position and purpose. White says that the Statesman’s cosmological myth helps explain the function of myth in Plato “in terms of content and placement in the dramatic structure ... [the myth] serves as the structural locus for formulating an approach toward realising knowledge”.268 A function, I argue, that can be served by the εὐηθέστεροι virtue eikons in conveying the images, beliefs and understanding that can bring “a mode of philosophical thought” that knows what human society is most conducive to philosophical happiness.

In Collobert’s words: “Plato’s myths are not in need of any decoding process. As they are told, simple and unsophisticated, they retain the ability to become relevant to us by our rediscovering meaning within us.”269 Myth is indispensable to Platonic authority and instruction. It provides the structural framework for the mytho-historic dramas intended to rationally act in diverse ways upon dissimilar people at different stages of their philosophical development. That action may initiate a process of self-knowing that can become a lifelong practise. Attempting to distinguish Plato’s mythos from his logos is an unproductive exercise akin to unthreading a rug in the name of analysis, destroying the pattern in the process and then forgetting what the rug actually depicts. The intent and method of Platonic mythos/logos is, like a rug, perhaps most usefully viewed holistically.

267 Calame 2012, 108. 268 White 2007, 10. 269 Collobert 2012, 87.

95

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Apologia I trust I have established that the semantic and philosophical value of authentic εὐήθεια in Plato is the noble simplicity of a truly good and fair disposition of character and mind. Moreover, that proposing the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative at 677e-680b as a Platonic virtue-hero myth warrants consideration. Nonetheless, before arguing for the potent function of εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons in Plato it is prudent, if not necessary, to address persistent interpretations of εὐήθεια as unreasonable naiveté, and the opinion that the εὐηθέστεροι are stupid.

The Hippias Minor’s Achilles/Odysseus passages reveal Plato’s efforts to detach authentic εὐήθεια from connotations of harmful naiveté – what Goldschmidt terms the “false value of naïve simplicity”.270 Gaudin argues that despite Plato’s resourceful defence of Achilles he has serious misgivings about an ingenuous simplicity that is easily duped.271 I concur with Goldschmidt and Gaudin, and regard the Hippias Minor as an early admission by Plato that susceptibility to exploitation arising from undue moderation is indeed an undesirable “false value” of εὐήθεια. In Chapter 3, I discussed Plato’s intent to purge harmful gullibility from his regeneration of authentic εὐήθεια and thus from its personification as the εὐηθέστεροι. In the Republic Socrates addresses concerns about excessive gentleness, which might entail undue naiveté: “The gentleness [is] a quality which the philosophic nature would yield ... [yet] if relaxed too far would be softer than is desirable but if rightly trained gentle and orderly (R. 410de). As mentioned, the Statesman also seemingly broaches this subject: “The soul ... that is too full of modesty and contains no alloy of courage or boldness, after many generations of the same kind becomes too sluggish and finally is utterly crippled” (Plt. 310de). Taking “too full of modesty” as excessive reticence and timidity supports the supposition that the more brave, temperate and righteous εὐηθέστεροι exemplify the authentic prelapsarian εὐήθεια that is not too gentle or “full of modesty”. Clearly, their noble souls have not been crippled by generations of sluggishness.

270 Goldschmidt 1962, 76. 271 Gaudin 1981, 156-7.

96

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

However, some Platonists may not hold the εὐηθέστεροι in such high regard. Brisson’s comment on the Laws εὐηθέστεροι passage rest on his interpretation of Gaudin’s commentary to infer that Plato’s use of “the adjective euethes and the noun euetheia to express both goodness and stupidity of character.”272 From that remark Brisson concludes: “By using these two terms, Plato wants to indicate that the goodness of these men is due largely to their stupidity.”273 I consider this a misrepresentation of Plato’s intended depiction of the εὐηθέστεροι as the personification of authentic εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and goodness, and that Brisson also disregards the significant account of the community that forms these noblest characters. Surely it cannot be the case that Plato attributes goodness, a quality he regards as divinely derived and dependent, to the truly stupid. Nonetheless, suppose that he does. Plato portrays the εὐηθέστεροι as virtuously superior to modern man. Can truly stupid people be so virtuous? Conceding that the εὐηθέστεροι do exemplify authentic εὐήθεια, I note that Plato associates the same truly good and fair disposition with the wise Socrates. It is unlikely that he wants to infer that being εὐηθικός means Socrates is stupid. After all, isn’t stupid a comparative term, and is it intelligent to say that humans, albeit mythic, who manifest noble simplicity, goodness and superior virtue are stupid?

Brisson’s claim that the εὐηθέστεροι are stupid apparently rests on the belief that they lack discernment, in particular an inability to differentiate between truth and falsity. He says the εὐηθέστεροι did not have sufficient knowledge to know that “beneath what they are told concerning gods and men, there may lay some falsehood. For to suspect (huponoein) implies a knowledge (sophia) and a science (epistēmē) which they lack.”274 Brisson adds: “Plato’s critique ... goes further ... the men of this time are seen to be not only incapable of any allegorical interpretation but even of that discernment of the true and the false, which is considered obligatory in the Republic and the Laws.”275 Let us then address the claim that because the εὐηθέστεροι are not suspicious and lack knowledge of modern science they are stupid.

272 Brisson 1998, 123. 273 ibid. 274 Brisson 1998,123-4. 275 Brisson 1998, 124.

97

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Brisson inferences that the εὐηθέστεροι are too naïve to doubt and too stupid to know probably stem from his reading of Laws 679cd, which raises the controversial issue of the εὐηθέστεροι’s relationship with truth: “Being simple- minded (εὐήθεια), when they heard things called bad or good, they took what was said for real truth (ἀληθέστατα) and believed it. For none of them had the cunning (σοφία) of the modern man to suspect a falsehood.” As discussed, I take ἀληθέστατα to infer unhidden, real or superlative truth. I submit that the reason the εὐηθέστεροι had access to that truth is their relatively godlike character, a divine propinquity that is retained in their harmonious life, and has no need of philosophical schooling. Heidegger’s remarks about truth as ‘unhiddenness’ are relevant here. Commenting on Republic’s Cave Allegory, specifically 517b, he writes: “The guiding thought is that the highest idea yokes together the act of knowing and what it knows ... the primacy of the idea of the good as enabling both the correctness of knowing and the unhiddenness of the known. Here truth still is, at one and the same time, unhiddenness and correctness."276 My supposition that the unhidden truth is known to the εὐηθέστεροι perhaps illustrates “the idea of the good as enabling both the correctness of knowing and the unhiddenness of the known”. If Plato is attempting to convey that the human experience of real truth is possible, however rarely achieved, it is unlikely that he intends to infer that stupidity, and not godlike virtue, is requisite to that revelation.

It is also incorrect in my view to believe that Plato wants to infer at 679c that the cunning (σοφία) and suspicion of “modern man” that the εὐηθέστεροι lack are worthy qualities. As discussed, routinely interpreting σοφία in Plato to denote sound judgement or authentic wisdom is wrong. Indeed, I hold that Plato’s treatment of σοφία is somewhat parallel to his semantic reversal of εὐήθεια’s colloquial meaning.277 He wants to reveal what he regards as σοφία’s common misapplication by challenging the habitual reading of σοφία to mean real wisdom (cf. R. 336c: Tht. 176d: Phdr. 275ab), by establishing it as “the wisdom (σοφία) that knows what is and what is not dreadful ... being opposed to the ignorance (ἀµαθίᾳ) of these things” (Prt. 360d). The context of σοφία at 679c strongly suggests that this is an instance of Plato using σοφία ironically to disapprove of contemporary sophistic cunning and false wisdom (cf. R. 459a & 493ab: Hp. Ma. 283a).

276 Heidegger 1998, 177-8. 277 See fns. 116 and 183.

98

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

A necessary attribute of a worthy Platonic virtue-hero is probably piety or righteousness. In the Theaetetus we read that: “God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous, and there is nothing so like him as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness. It is herein the true cleverness of a man is found” (176c). The passage apparently affirms the εὐηθέστεροι’s godlike status as they are “in all ways more righteous” (Lg. 679e) and so “like him”. It also states that being “most nearly perfect in righteousness” connotes true cleverness. This “true cleverness” is compared to “seeming cleverness and wisdom [that] are paltry when they appear in public affairs and vulgar in the arts” (176c), the type of false wisdom I attribute to σοφία at Laws 679c. We might infer that as they are “most nearly perfect in righteousness” the εὐηθέστεροι are truly clever, and so lack the “seeming cleverness and wisdom” of “vulgar arts”.278 Indeed, they are “ignorant (ἀµαθής) ... of the arts of war as now practised by land and sea, including those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law- suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury” (Lg. 679d). I reject the interpretation of ἀµαθής in this passage to support claims that the εὐηθέστεροι are stupid because they do not know of the arts that “with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury”. In the luxurious city authentic “true cleverness” and authentic σοφία are rarely recognised and valued. Ironically, given Brisson’s reading, this means among modern men the suspicions and ignorance of “seeming cleverness and wisdom” are rife.

My evaluation of Laws 677e-680b suggest that Brisson, and others, misinterpret the depiction of the εὐηθέστεροι in Plato. For me, such analysis discounts the contrary and compelling textual evidence, and perpetuates flawed opinions about the function of εὐήθεια in Plato. Brisson believes: “Plato wants to indicate that the goodness of these men [εὐηθέστεροι] is due largely to their stupidity.”279 Without entering into a debate about the meaning of stupidity, we can agree that most consider it to be derogatory. Therefore, for objections to my reading of εὐήθεια in the mythic εὐηθέστεροι narrative to stand we must concede that Plato

278 Discussed further in Chapter 9: ‘Are the εὐηθέστεροι wise?’. 279 Brisson 1998, 123.

99

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

uses the term in the colloquially pejorative sense of foolish stupidly. I do not accept that is the case, and contend that he more likely evokes the Thucydidean implication of εὐήθεια as laudable ancient noble simplicity, and that he also intends for the εὐηθέστεροι to express the value of εὐήθεια set out at Republic 400de. Granted, Plato may use εὐήθεια to convey a type of naive innocence, nonetheless, he frequently extols the cardinal virtues he associates with the good εὐηθέστεροι and asserts that all human goods derives from a simplex divinity. Thus, if in the Laws he does want εὐήθεια to imply naiveté and innocence in my view he infers that those are good and virtuous qualities of noble simplicity.280

Pierre Vidal-Naquet’s commentary on Laws 679e is also of interest. He notes: “Justice, temperance, courage . . . the traditional virtues from which Plato made a theory of virtues in the Republic, are here, except for the greatest of them all, wisdom (sophia), which is the virtue of the mind, the virtue of philosophers, of possessors of knowledge (Rep. 428e-29a). Wisdom replaced by simplicity (εὐηθέστεροι), in the dual sense of this word, is an ambiguous compliment.”281 With respect, I do not consider εὐηθέστεροι is ambiguous here, or that Plato intends the valuation of the virtues he attributes to the εὐηθέστεροι to be less worthy here than where he designates them cardinal virtues.282 In Chapter 10, I propose that the godlike εὐηθέστεροι might possess an original sophia, “the virtue of the mind” that is “true cleverness” as they embody εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of character and mind.

It may be demanding, even precarious, to be εὐηθικός in Athens’ realpolitik, or indeed the present day (cf. R. 495ab). However, I hold that for Plato the pursuit and cultivation of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity and good disposition in integral to his philosophy’s purpose. If, as I argue, the mythic εὐηθέστεροι epitomise those virtues we are well advised to heed Plato’s depiction of the community that formed such noble characters. It is an idyllic model of harmonious prelapsarian godlike governance before the fall to the frenzied luxurious city. A model that is suggestive

280 See Chapter 1 re Crane’s view that the re-assimilation into society of ancient noble simplicity is Plato’s “life’s work” (Crane 1998, 19 & 22). 281 Vidal-Naquet 1986, 297-8. 282 I acknowledge scholarship that suggests instances of demonic vices in Plato.

100

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

of the pre-embodied soul’s communion with the divine in a state of purity and simplicity to which it can return. The prepolitical εὐηθέστεροι society thus serves Plato’s philosophical purpose to explain the soul’s real godlike nature and the earthly circumstances most likely to sustain it. Some may claim that I make too much of this εὐηθέστεροι mythology, and note that Plato only uses the word once (perhaps the rarity of its occurrence enhances its gravitas). In any event, the frequency of εὐήθεια and its cognates in Plato is not the issue. What I am concerned with is the philosophical significance of Plato’s efforts to reinstate noble simplicity and cultivate authentic εὐήθεια in the soul. For, as I understand it, fostering the rational development of a truly good and fair disposition of character and mind is foremost among Platonic philosophy’s aims.

Reconstructionism and moral nostalgia Even granting Plato’s regeneration of εὐήθεια and valorisation of the εὐηθέστεροι I might be accused of what Rachel Barney dubs, a reconstructionist reading of Plato. Barney observes that there is a wide assumption in Platonic scholarship: That Plato sees his time as one of profound moral and political disorder. More precisely, he sees it as an After contrasted with a more virtuous before. Back in the good old days-back when the center still held religious tradition, moral unreflectiveness and austere economic conditions all helped to sustain a more decent and upright society.283 I concur that Plato “sees his time as one of profound moral and political disorder” and that there is “a more virtuous Before”, especially, with regard to the prenatal state of a embodied soul. My Platonic commentary uses terms like ‘before’ and ‘beyond’ as I consider them helpful to understanding the scale and relativity of Plato’s spatiotemporal model of cosmic and microcosmic bond. Am I, therefore, a reconstructionist?

Barney says the reconstructionist reading of Plato holds that he “diagnoses the collapse of the old morality as having had at least partially intellectual causes. The ideas of scientists and sophists have brought moral corruption as the price of intellectual progress – a charge reminiscent of that presented, at least on a naive reading, by Aristophanes in .”284 Apparently, Thucydides holds a

283 Barney 2002, 207. 284 Barney 2002, 207-8.

101

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

similar view about “the collapse of the old morality”, and like Thucydides Plato decries the consequent “moral corruption”, which he probably believes is exacerbated by impiety and sophism.285 The Republic advises the difficulty for “the noblest pursuit” to survive such conditions: “The very qualities that make up the philosophical nature do, in fact, become, when the environment and nurture are bad, in some sort the cause of its backsliding ... and so great as regards the noblest pursuit is the destruction and corruption of the most excellent nature, which is rare enough in any case” (495ab). Plato wants to prevent “the destruction and corruption of the most excellent nature” by bad environment and nurture. Hence, the urgency for a reformative philosophy that can nurture a good environment that can revel real truth and the revival true virtue. Plato does not deny “intellectual progress”; he engages in and progresses it to address the social decline that he perhaps regards as the inevitable consequence of a cyclic cosmic process. A notion of he cosmos perhaps reflected in Dante Germino’s comment that for Plato “the cosmos as a whole is an entity, engaged in a pulsating movement of perfection and decline throughout its psychic articulation.”286 However, that is not to suggest that Plato consider decline, at least for the embodied souls, as irresistible and immutable. A reconstructionist reading of Plato might more aptly conclude that what Plato decries, above all, is the corruption of the embodied soul in environments of ethical and rational decline. This misfortune is exasperated by the ignorance that negates the embodied soul’s “virtuous Before” and numbs its intuitive affection for reason.

Barney uncontroversially explains that in response to Athens’ inglorious circumstances Plato devises a twofold agenda: “In ethics, he seeks to establish the reality of objective moral truths against the trendy immoralist or moral sceptic, via the ; in politics, he provides the blueprint for a virtuous society with a stable system of moral education.”287 Barney’s following assertion brings to mind Platonic cosmic psychology: “Both projects involve much that is new − if

285 I note Hornblower’s contention that εὐήθεια in Thucydides represents “a clear, absolute, and conservative authorial rejection of the 'relativistic' moral teaching of certain of the sophists, whose outlook is too often wrongly ascribed to Th. merely because (as his speakers show) he was familiar with the various moves in their games” (Hornblower 2003, 487). 286 Germino 2000, 16. 287 Barney 2002, 207-8.

102

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

the old ways had been entirely right, they would not have been vulnerable to corruption − and in the Republic, where they are largely carried out, they turn out to involve radical innovation.”288 In remarking that if the “old ways had been entirely right, they would not have been vulnerable to corruption” Barney may only refer to the social decline of the Athenian state, nonetheless, I borrow her “old ways” simile to consider the relevance and importance of cosmic order in Plato’s efforts to challenge and change society. Plato holds that the microcosmic embodied soul can recollect its original divine nature, its “old ways” of cosmic existence. If for him corruption is an essential and unavoidable aspect of cosmic transformation, then a first and fundamental lesson of his philosophy is to restore an embodied soul’s capacity to recognise corrupting forces. That discernment enables an embodied soul to moderate its susceptibility to corporeal influence and so nurture an environment that assists its intuitive yearning for its “old ways” of divine communion.

It is sometimes supposed that Plato’s Kallipolis is merely a model for an ideal State, yet its analogy of Kallipolis and the tripartite soul is clear. Thus, the Republic might be understood as an extensive problematising of contemporary society and also as a guide for the remembrance and cultivation of the embodied soul’s “old ways”. As Nicholas Smith advises:

[If] Plato regards his Republic as an instrument for the intellectual training and preparation of the power of knowledge in the soul ... then, serious reading of the Republic would provide Plato’s readers with a kind of training, or at least a sample of such training, comparable in nature and in purpose to what Plato assigns to the mathematical studies he describes in book VII.289 Plato seems to corroborate Smith’s gloss: “If we found some larger thing that contained justice and viewed it there, we should more easily discover its nature in the individual man [and therefore] must refer back to the individual” (R. 434de). Instruction for the ideal governance of Kallipolis might then be read as training the godlike good governance of the “city within” to recollect its “old ways”.290 A philosophical guide that permits “the best man and the more righteous to be the happiest ... most kingly and a king over himself” (R. 580bc), since he has the self- knowledge needed to resist corruption and recall his divine cosmic heritage.

288 Barney 2002, 207-8. 289 N. Smith 2000, 134. 290 See Chapter 6 re godlike good governance and Chapter 10 re anamnēsis.

103

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

Barney notes that a Platonic philosophy does employ novel variation and innovation. I submit that for an embodied soul the Platonic method of defence and regeneration is less about novel invention and more about renewing and restoring it to what it already is, the divine part of the mortal soul that years to reunite with the rhythmic harmony of cosmic order.

Barney’s discussion of Plato’s moral nostalgia also relates to my construal of the “old ways” in Plato’s psychology. She asks: “Does Plato believe in a “good old days”, morally and politically − a state of grace in relation to which his own time came after the Fall?”291 The answer to that, I submit, is a resounding yes. While I accept that the “virtuous Before,” “old ways” and “good old days” can mean happier and more righteous eras in Attic history (such as the community of the εὐηθέστεροι), I repeat my contention that they can also relate to the embodied soul’s original prelapsarian state, before its fall in the cycles of embodiment. Platonic mytho-history frequently depicts events prior to and beyond present experience to provide a spatio-temporal meaning of human origin that may well be taken as depicting the “good old days”. The εὐηθέστεροι myth allegorises Attica’s “good old days” of godlike human virtue-heroes. It is an ethico-religiously superior before that serves Plato’s persistent fall theme by juxtaposing the conditions and virtues he deems worthy of emulation to present day vice.292 Nonetheless, Plato’s moral nostalgia neither imagines nor promotes a return to archaic tribalism, to somehow rewind history and rebuild modernity on a utopian model of ancient noble simplicity. I submit that Plato offers the eikonic εὐηθέστεροι to help revive the embodied soul’s moral nostalgia and recollect its “old ways” in the “good old days” of divine kinship. The Athenian explains in the Laws that: “The fact that you believe in gods is due probably to a divine kinship drawing you to what is of like nature, to honour it and recognize its existence” (899e). Whether the εὐηθέστεροι exist is immaterial, what matters is that they usefully attest to harmonious circumstances that can hearten the reality of an ensouled being’s “good old days”, and hence their potential to become like god; simple, noble and good.

291 Barney 2002, 209. 292 For commentary ethics in Plato see Louden 1984, Irwin 1994, Crisp 1996, Kraut 1999 and Annas 2004, 2006 & 2008.

104

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

We might then regard Plato’s arousal of the embodied soul’s moral nostalgia for its divine heritage as intrinsic to his philosophical method. Marguerite Deslauriers observes that “moral nostalgia ... is not so much a view about the past, historical or mythical, as it is a view about nature.”293 In Plato, I take “nature” to encompass the filial relationship of the microcosmic embodied soul to its cosmic nature. Hence, what Barney terms “moral nostalgia” might be understood as the soul’s “yearning for the joys of that other time” (Phdr. 250c) before its fall. To gratify that yearning its affection for higher intellection desires that which “draws the soul on through the impulse of its flowing ... the πόθος (yearning) that signifies it pertains not to that which is present, but to that which is elsewhere (ἄλλοθί που) or absent” (Cra. 420a). Thus, the embodied soul’s “moral nostalgia” is a yen for its “virtuous Before,” its good “old ways”.

Barney’s notion of another “Before” in Plato may contradict that view: “Plato cannot have been an ethical reconstructionist: however bleak his perception of his own era, the Before part of the picture is missing.”294 In the context of Plato’s tripartite psychology, claiming that “the Before part of the picture is missing” is at odds with my interpretation of Platonic psychology’s raison d’être. That is, the “Before part” is the divine rational part of the Platonic tripartite soul, the embodied cosmic nous that can be activated as the “divine governing principle” (R. 590d). In Plato, this is the ensouled particular of the cosmic "mind (νοῦς) that arranges and causes all things" (Phd. 97c), and being omnipresent it occurs is each soul state and station.295 It is essential that a would- be philosopher believe in the prenatal existence of their “Before part” for it is that reasoning part of their soul that must be remembered and empowered if they are to pursue their godlike nature. Acknowledging that this part of the tripartite soul existence is then a precondition for attaining, or at least loving and gainfully pursuing, wisdom. It is the tripartite soul’s “Before part” that establishes the plausible continuum for the embodied soul’s prenatal and post-mortem states and stations. It is the necessary element of the city within that unites divinity and humanity, which where sufficiently revitalised enables the embodied soul to realise its telos by returning its “Before part” to cosmic harmony.

293 Deslauriers 2002, 233. 294 Barney 2002, 226-7. 295 The states and stations of Platonic souls are noted in Chapter 10.

105

Chapter 5 - The Εὐηθέστεροι Myth

In sum, I submit that the textual evidence and arguments presented effectively challenge assertions that the good εὐηθέστεροι are stupid. Plato explicitly states that the circumstances of the εὐηθέστεροι’s life produces the noblest characters who are “more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous” than modern man. This is meaningful, for the εὐηθέστεροι’s society, and we might assume their soul, is devoid of excess and sophistication, especially the type of ‘wisdom’ and ‘arts’ that ferment and feed on strife. I also trust that I have sufficiently defended the prerogative of the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative for it to be considered a Platonic virtue-hero myth. Moreover, that any who might regard my views as a trivial reconstructionist waxing of Platonic moral nostalgia are sufficiently disarmed to now contemplate my claim that εὐήθεια’s eidos and the εὐηθέστεροι eikons has a potent function in Platonic philosophy.

106

Chapter 6

Function of Εύήθεια’s Eidos and the Eikonic Εὐηθέστεροι I recall the preamble to Part II that expounds my construal of εύήθεια’s eidos. It offered observations by Wersinger, Horvath and Pesic to explain my use of the term as an ‘aspect’, ‘type’ or ‘sort’, ‘form of’, ‘nature’, ‘figure’, ‘shape’, ‘appearance’ or ‘image’ of εύήθεια.296 Herein, these represent cognitive processes that entail eide or “mental images” of practical goodness that engenders “the thought[s] which equips the character in excellence and beauty”.297 The eide of εύήθεια are “the offspring of the Good ... [and are] intelligible … to reason and the objects of reason” (508b).298 As discussed, I consider the cognitive substrate afforded by the cultivation of εύήθεια to be a necessary preparation for rational participation in dialectic’s higher intellection.

I propose that the εὐηθέστεροι personify εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity of truly good and fair disposition, and that they function in Plato as eikons of godlike human virtue. Acting as a mythic mnemonic that can stimulate an embodied soul’s affection for dialectic and advance its emulation and practise of virtue. Plato, I submit, presents these images to also depict the prelapsarian community that forms noble and virtuous characters in conditions that might be indicative of the soul’s pre embodied harmony and simplicity. The eikonic εὐηθέστεροι are thus arguably a touchstone for the original reality of ensouled godlike virtue and the human potential to realise that harmony by cultivating authentic εὐήθεια. These functions of εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons perhaps demonstrate how Plato transitions and unifies subjective, theoretical reasoning into the objective truth of real practise by converting the psychology of good into virtuous conduct.

This chapter offers seven premisses to ground my assertion that εὐήθεια’s eidos and the εὐηθέστεροι eikons have a potent philosophical function in Plato. I argue for the first two of these premisses by exploring the meaning and use of goodness in Plato, as inferred by the Republic’s validation of authentic εὐήθεια. I

296 See fns. 200 & 201. 297 Wersinger 2007, 56-7. 298 In Plato “intelligible” things are “realities which can be seen only by the mind” (R. 510e-511a).

107

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

consider the Good Platonic cosmos, propose a relationship between εὐήθεια’s eidos and divine Good, discuss the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance, and offer an interpretation of democracy in Plato.

Seven premisses for the function and philosophical potency of εὐήθεια’s eidos and the εὐηθέστεροι eikons in Plato I apply seven premisses derived from Republic 400de and Laws 679ce to support my arguments that the eidos of εὐήθεια and εὐηθέστεροι eikons have a potent function in Platonic philosophy.299

In the Republic we read that: Good speech, then, good accord, and good grace, and good rhythm wait upon (ἀκολουθέω) good disposition (εὐήθεια)300 ... the truly good and fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind ... [then] must not our youth pursue these [the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind] everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do (400de).301 The following premisses arise from this passage: (i) good speech, then good accord, and good grace, and good rhythm follow and are guided by εὐήθεια. (ii) εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. (iii) the young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely, to cultivate εὐήθεια in the soul.302

The Laws describes the εὐηθέστεροι’s community as one that formed “the noblest characters”, men who: Were good, both for these reasons and because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), as it is called; for, being simple (εὐήθεια), when they heard things called bad or good, they took what was said as real truth (ἀληθέστατα) and believed it. For none of them had the cunning(σοφία) of the modern man to suspect a falsehood ... compared with ... the men of today, [the εὐηθέστεροι were] ignorant of ... those warlike arts which, disguised under the names of law-suits and factions, are peculiar to cities, contrived as they are with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury; and they were also more simple (εὐηθέστεροι) and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous (679ce).303

299 Hereafter these premises are italicised. 300 As at fn. 143: “... wait upon (ἀκολουθέω)” is here understood as “follow one, go after or with ... be guided by” (ἀκολουθέω, LSJ 1889). 301 My term ‘authentic εὐήθεια’ assumes this definition. 302 Shorey says youths’ “special task is to cultivate true εὐήθεια in their souls” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 400e). 303 “for these reasons” refers to the previous statement that in a society where there is “... no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one [a community] in which the noblest characters will be formed; for in it there is no place for the growth of insolence and

108

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

This Laws’ passage suggests four premisses: (iv) the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. (vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. (vii) the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man, and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. I take these seven premisses to be credibly derived from the cited passages and other textual evidence for Plato’s regeneration of εὐήθεια, and will endeavour to establish that they are true. Furthermore, given the close cognatic relationship of εὐήθεια and εὐηθέστεροι, and their superior virtue, I ascribe to the εὐηθέστεροι the characteristics implied at Republic 400de and so hold that the εὐηθέστεροι personify authentic εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition of character and mind.

Platonic Goodness

(i) good speech, then good accord, and good grace and good rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια. (ii) εὐήθεια. is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. The first premiss reflects Plato’s anaphoric use of the good (εὐ) prefix to poetically accentuate the goods that follow and are guided by εὐήθεια. The second premiss defines εὐήθεια as truly good and fair disposition.304 Applying simple modus ponens logic to these premisses we can conclude that if good speech, accord, grace and rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια, then the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind is sufficient to summon and guide those goods. Accordingly, this chapter argues that the cognitive cultivation of εὐήθεια can develop the “possession and habit of the good” (R. 509a), which fosters the cosmic resonance of the embodied soul’s goodness with divine Good.

injustice, of rivalries and jealousies” (Lg. 679bc). Also note, I translate “εὐήθεια” as simplicity and “εὐήθεις” as simple. 304 Hereafter a lower case good differentiates a mortal good from the capitalised divine Good.

109

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

How might we understand goodness in Plato? He originates the cause of each mortal good as a divine gift: “We have nothing good which they [the gods] do not give” (Euthphr. 15a); “from its Composer the universe has received only good things” (Plt. 273b); “God [is] ... the cause ... only of the good” (R. 380c). The Republic further explains: human goods are “the offspring of the Good ... [that] the Good begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the Good is in the intelligible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this in the visible world to vision and the objects of vision” (508b). Seemingly then, εὐήθεια’s goods are intelligible (cognitively visible) “offspring of the Good” where they are the objects of reason.

The Laws affirms the divine origins of mortal goods: “Goods are of two kinds, human and divine; and the human goods are dependent on the divine, and he who receives the greater acquires also the less, or else he is bereft of both” (Lg. 631b). As to “these Goods themselves, the human look up to the divine, and the divine to reason as their chief” (Lg. 631d). Benitez notes that: “The Good, as Divine Reason, is to be seen as efficient cause of the good-things in the universe.”305 In Platonic philosophy that obliges accepting that divine Reason and Good exist, and that each human good in effect derives from both. The would-be philosopher begins the ascent from ignorance toward godlike good and reason by acknowledging a higher source of authority and , and accepting their own divine lineage. Hence, “the lover of wisdom associating with the divine order will himself become orderly and divine in the measure permitted to man” (R. 500cd).306

The Good Platonic cosmos To persuade belief in higher Reason and Good, Plato adopts a strategy that is not uncommon in ways that encourage thought experiments to establish belief in mortal access to divinity. Advocates of a reciprocal communion between the divine and man usually place the onus of proof on the seekers of truth and the lovers of wisdom to confirm truth and reality. For Plato that entails the

305 Benitez 1995, 137. 306 As I understand Plato, instances of human communion “with the divine order” may be fleeting, prolonged or to some extent stationary in accordance with the embodied soul’s degree of cosmic harmonisation and particularised agential circumstance. Also see Chapter 10 re a daimōn’s daimonion.

110

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

development of self-knowledge and the acceptance of one’s own godlike nature. That way to reality and truth assumes the embodied soul’s intuitive desiderium for its original “Before” can arouse its affection for dialectic. Therefore, Platonic psychology relies on a love and longing for divine Good and Reason, which is pursued by recollecting the lost “teachings of the Creator and Father to the extent of [mortal] power” (Plt. 273b).307 Plato employs this regenerative affection for good and higher intellection to attract and persuade the lover that virtuous living brings happiness, now and after life.308 His message is simple, to be happy be good: “The happy are happy by acquisition of good things, and we have no more need to ask for what end a man wishes to be happy, when such is his wish” (Smp. 205a). For Plato than, an ensouled being naturally loves divine Good and Reason and seeks to emulate it for that affection is intrinsic to the orderly union of the cosmos and present in all cosmic parts.309 Thus, men “love the good to be theirs ... and love (ἔρως) loves the good to be one’s own for ever” (Smp. 206a).310

We might, therefore, surmise that the Plato’s notion of good rests on his cosmic theory of an embodied soul’s origins, the composition of that soul’s mortal nature and its potential eschatological fates. That is, the loving impulse of divine Good’s creation imparts an embodied soul’s rational love of divine Good, which it intuitively pursues in order to return and reunite in the harmony of its divinely good origins. Gocer’s commentary on the Timaeus assist our understanding of this Platonic cosmic model, and possibly hints at the function of εὐήθεια in Plato: “Plato’s well-known and fabulous cosmological account contends that the embodied universe was fashioned by god, purely out of the goodness of his heart, desiring it to be as much like him as possible.”311 This interpretation may be controversial, nonetheless, conceding Gocer and noting that in Plato εὐήθεια often

307 Amir says that in the Symposium Plato reveals: “The motive force in love is a yearning for goodness, not just completion. From this he concludes that love is always directed towards what is good, indeed that goodness itself is the only object of love. When we love something, we are really seeking to possess the goodness, which is in it. Not temporarily of course, but permanently” (Amir 2001, 7). 308 Cf. Cri. 48b, Euthd. 278e, 282a and R. 354a. 309 See Chapter 10 re the cosmic principle of mimēsis. 310 Liddell Secom believes: “ is a daimōn (a spirit or messenger) who mediates between gods and mortals facilitating the search for beauty, wisdom and the good. Lacking these attributes, love desires and yearns to attain them. Love, then, is a lacking and a reaching for more that mediates and moves between opposites” (Secomb, 2007, 11). I argue in Chapter 10 that a daimonion is the tutelary ‘voice’ of a suitably nurtured embodied daimon’s guidance. 311 Gocer 1999, 32.

111

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

denotes “goodness of heart” (cf. R. 343d, 348c and 400e), gives rise to a provocative conclusion: authentic εὐήθεια as goodness of heart may be derived from and dependant on a divine Good that is perhaps the dispositional impulse that brought the Platonic universe into being. If mind is akin to cause (cf. Phlb. 31b) and the divine Good mind causes εὐήθεια, then attaining εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of character and mind can entail becoming like god in the sense of possessing the cognitive causal impulse that guide the divinely derived good speech, accord, grace and rhythm to follow.

White’s commentary on Statesman 273bd also lends credence to the idea of εὐήθεια’s fair and good disposition being a godlike quality: “The cosmos, understood as an ordered unity, displays beauty and goodness bestowed by a divine creator, or more literally, by a producer of harmony.”312 This insight reflects the Platonic conception of cosmic harmony as the cause and product of a unified order than can be fortified by an embodied soul’s beauty and goodness. It also underlines that εὐήθεια’s truly fair (beautiful) and good disposition is, like each human good and beauty, “bestowed by a divine creator”. Referencing the Statesman, White holds that for Plato: “the cosmos is alive (269d), in continuous motion (270a), constituted in part by a corporeal principle (273b), and subject to ‘destiny’ in its manner of rotation and in the consequences of this destined variation (272e ).”313 The “continuous motion” of Plato’s living cosmos involves inevitable cycles of degeneration and regeneration, yet is it ever an ordered unity of beauty and goodness. If, in the Platonic cosmos, goodness and beauty is bestowed, embodied, loved, pursued and gifted from and to its origin it might then be envisaged as a type of cosmic life force: a vital unifying current that flows throughout the entire cosmos in various intensities during cycles of macrocosmic and microcosmic degeneration and regeneration. A design that is suggestive of a cosmic omphalos (ὀµφαλός) nurturing its offspring with divine Reason and Good in order to sustain itself through a reciprocal exchange.314

312 White 2007, 4. 313 ibid. 314 "God surely ... from his seat in the middle and at the very navel (ὀµφαλοῦ) of the earth delivers his interpretation" (R. 427bc). Notably, ὀµφαλός may be translated as umbilical cord or containing the seed-vessel ('ὀµφαλός', LSJ 1889). P. W. Kuchel advises that the main ancient Omphalos at Delphi, which according to legend marked the centre of world, "was a symbolic optical trans-former that represented the centre of the World by the theoretical notion of reflective spatial inversion" (Kuchel 2011, 355).

112

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

The Timaeus explains that Plato’s living cosmos has many living parts: Cosmos, more than aught else, resembles most closely that Living Creature of which all other living creatures, severally and generically, are portions. For that Living Creature embraces and contains within itself all the intelligible Living Creatures, just as this Universe contains us and all the other visible living creatures that have been fashioned (30cd). The standing of this living cosmos paradigm is emphasised as the Timaeus’ last sentence: “Our Cosmos [is] itself a visible Living Creature embracing the visible creatures, a perceptible God made in the image of the Intelligible, most great and good and fair and perfect in its generation—even this one Heaven sole of its kind” (92c). The cosmic intelligence or nous, feasibly the cosmic Soul, of this visible living creature probably has an autopoietic telos.315 So it has a vital self-interest in the cultivation of good and fair dispositions in each cosmic part, as their condition arguably sustains the cosmic generative life force. Thus, in the Platonic cosmos, where an ensouled mortal cultivates εὐήθεια in their tripartite soul, perhaps in expectation of happiness, they can contribute to the well-being and harmony of the living cosmos. If that is the case, irrespective of the relative cyclic circumstance of the cosmos and an embodied soul part, mortals have the capacity to exchange goodness and reason with cosmic Good and Reason, and presumably each other. We might imagine this vigor as the “universal fire” (Phlb. 29c) that ignites and fuels creation.316 A creative force that we can perhaps also envision as the eros that “loves the good to be one’s own for ever” (Smp. 206a). The Sophist perhaps also alludes to the inclusive holistic process of cosmic interaction and initiation: “Generation participates in the power of acting and of being acted upon in even the slightest degree” (Sph. 248c). If each piece of the living cosmos can interact and contribute to the whole, “in even the slightest degree”, then it and each of its microcosms consists of immeasurable parts that can commune with and influence each other.317 Hence, each cosmic part may conscientiously contribute to the generation of goodness, beauty and reason, which I hold is facilitated by the cultivation of εὐήθεια. I also note that this model insinuates the dismal fate of “crippled” (cf. Plt. 310de) soul’s that are alienated from intercourse with cosmic good and beauty.

315 As I understand autopoiesis it is the intuitive telos of self-maintenance, reproduction and survival. 316 The Philebus discusses the cosmic communion between gods and the dependence of all life on a cosmic life force: “Fire ... exists in us and also in the universe ... my fire, and yours, and that of all living beings derive nourishment and all that from the universal fire” (Phlb. 29c). This universal fire in us is evidence of the elemental kinship with the cosmic soul (Phlb. 30a). 317 There are clear parallels between the Platonic living cosmos model and the concepts of holistic medicine, where the human body is the macrocosm.

113

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

Carone elaborates on the concept of a unified dynamic cosmos made up of myriad interactive parts: in particular, our responsibilities as one those parts. She believes that the Laws emphasises “both the importance of our taking responsibility (aitia) as rulers (archontes) over the parts (moria) that have been allotted to us in this complex universe (903 bc, 904 c7), and that we too share with the cosmic mind the administration of not just our part, but also the entire system (896 e–897 b).” Her views are evocative of a statement in Gorgias: “Where there is no communion, there can be no friendship. And wise men tell us, Callicles, that heaven and earth and gods and men are held together by communion and friendship, by orderliness, temperance, and justice; and that is the reason, my friend, why they call the whole of this world by the name of order (κόσµος)” (507e508a). The Gorgias, like other Platonic dialogues, markedly cites the virtues exemplified by the εὐηθέστεροι as requisite to the order that holds heaven and earth and gods and men together, evidently from their mutual desire to propagate harmonic cosmic survival. Carone’s remark, that we must take responsibility as the rulers of the parts that have been allotted to us, reiterates the significant contribution that each embodied tripartite soul’s can make to the universal whole. In Platonic terms, that likely translates as the human responsibility to become as godlike as possible through remembrance, purification and simplification.

Hence, a principal Platonic theme then is bringing order and harmony to disorder and discord. Realising an embodied soul’s good order and equilibrium in a Platonic cosmos requires attentiveness to each part of the tripartite soul to ensure they “have their motions relatively to one another in due proportion” (Ti. 90a). In other words, invoking the embodied soul’s “divine governing principle” (R. 590d) to responsibly govern “the city within” (R. 592b).318 In the Platonic cosmos a well-governed, balanced tripartite soul can act on and help to harmonise other embodied souls, and indeed contribute to the conduct of good and reason order throughout the cosmos. Cultivating εὐήθεια’s eidos of good character and mind begets goods that nurture the embodied soul’s good governance and rouse its affections for the higher intellection. The possession and habit of εὐήθεια can

318 Bloom 1991.

114

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

function to support the propagation of divine Good, and so cosmic wellbeing, because it contributes to the balance of cosmic whole. As Thucydides apparently realised, and with which in my view Plato concurs, the lack of εὐήθεια in an embodied soul and society manifests as the discord that breeds mistrust and strife. I therefore conclude that there is ample evidence to support the claim that in Platonic philosophy cultivating authentic εὐήθεια in the soul advances godlike good in humanity and thus propagates divine Good throughout the cosmos.

Εὐήθεια’s eidos of good As discussed in the preamble to Part II, I employ the concept of εἶδος in relation to εὐήθεια to infer a type of mental imaging, “the thought which equips the character in excellence (ἀρετή) and beauty”.319 I suppose that cultivating authentic εὐήθεια in the soul entails a cognitive eidetic process that employs visual imagery to see, recognise and apprehend aspects of goodness. This eidos of εὐήθεια can afford a share of and partaking in divine Good as an intuitive phenomenological interaction with that intelligible. Recalling the terminology borrowed from Horvath, herein the eidos of εὐήθεια is “a mental image of what is the good, the true and the beautiful”:320 herein, the noble simplicity of the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind. I do not suggest that Plato regards his Forms to be thought images. I do however contend that in Platonic philosophy the embodied soul has an intuitive knowledge of the Forms that can be verified by reason, and that a mental image or eidos of a good can reveal the intelligible “realities which can be seen only by the mind” (R. 510e-511a).

John Findlay reflects the association of eidos with Platonic Forms in his remark that “eide are the living Meanings or Natures whose force is felt in all instantiation, and whose sense creates all understanding.”321 Nonetheless, his comments help to explain why cultivating authentic εὐήθεια in the soul can instantiate it as a particularisation of divine Good and assist our understanding of the force that engenders. What Angela Hobbs describes as, “that inner harmony of

319 Wersinger 2007, 56-7. 320 Horvath 2008, 256-7. 321 Findlay 1974, 235.

115

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

soul which both arises from and results in knowledge of (or a set of beliefs derived from) the Good,”322 a cognitive state that I submit Plato considers obligatory for those who seeking to make divinity a personal reality.

Plato often employs light and sight metaphors to illustrate and advance the practise of cognitive imaging. Brisson observes that most of the terms Plato uses to describe “the activity of the intellect pertained to [the] vocabulary of the gaze ... thus [Plato] transposes this favouring of sight by the ‘historians’ and ‘philosophers’ who preceded him from the level of the sensible towards that of the intelligible.”323 In the Republic Plato uses the ’s light to carry this idea. When eyes “are directed upon objects illumined by the sun, they see clearly, and vision appears to reside in these same eyes [for] when [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to possess reason” (508cd).324 Εὐήθεια’s divinely derived goods might be understood as objects illumed by the sun of divine Good, the source of their reality and truth. Gazing upon such thought images (eide) as objects of reason helps to impart “truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower ... being the cause of knowledge, and of truth in so far as known” (508e).325 An eidos of εὐήθεια can aid the cognition, belief and fusion of human goodness to be known as the reality and truth of divine Good. The tripartite soul’s rational part, an embodied soul’s microcosmic sun, illumes its

322 Hobbs 2000, 231. 323 Brisson 2008, 11. 324 Adam notes that here “Plato means that as Light, coming from the Sun, enables colours to be seen, and the faculty of Sight to see, so Truth (or rather Trueness, as Bosanquet remarks), coming from the Good, enables the Ideas to be known, and the faculty of νοῦς to know. It should be carefully noted that Truth (or its source, the Idea of Good) is not yet regarded as creating, but only as actualizing the faculty of Reason. The conception of the Good as the ultimate cause of all Existence follows later (509 B ff.): here it is represented only as the cause of Knowledge. See also on 490 B, 508 D (ὅταν µὲν κτλ.). If we would grasp the full significance of Plato’s comparison, we must not be content with the merely philosophical interpretation of Light, but remember also the many poetical and religious associations which attached themselves to such words as φῶς and φέγγος, especially in the Mysteries. ... The prominent position occupied by Light in the half- religious, half-philosophical teaching of (see Zeller{3} III 2 pp. 498 f., 500 note 2, 616 al.) may to a large extent be attributed to the elaboration and expansion of the mystical elements involved in Plato’s simile, the whole of which, together with the similes of the Line and the Cave, is of the greatest importance for the history of ” (Adam 1969, 60). 325 Lamberton observes that according to ’ Republic Essay 5, the “soul turns within itself and focuses on mind (νοῦς) and systematic knowledge (ἐπιστήµη) ... fusion of knower and known— this poetry knows the essential truth and loves to contemplate beautiful actions and accounts of things (λόγοι) ... [it is] packed with advice and the best counsel … offering … participation in thoughtfulness and the other virtues” (Lamberton 2012, xxi-xxii).

116

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

own divine nature and so lights the way to a well lived life, for “it is not living, but living well which we ought to consider most important” (Cri. 46b). The eidetic functional potency of εὐήθεια is determined by, and helps to determine, the extent of the tripartite soul’s rational capacity to know its godlike self as an object of divine Good and Reason, and the subject of human good and reason.

When εὐήθεια’s goods are “the objects of knowledge [they] not only receive from the presence of the Good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived from it” (R. 509c). Εὐήθεια is, then, both the subject and object of apprehension, the knower and the known of an embodied soul’s divine reality, and can thus be its own “cause of knowledge, and of truth in so far as known”. Platonic light imagery explains that while goods and reasons may be illuminated and revealed by the sun they are not the sun. We must consider them to be “counterparts, as being like the Good or boniform [akin to the Good] but to think that either of them is the Good is not right. Still higher honour belongs to the possession and habit of the Good” (509a).326 The possession and habit of human goods may engender a godlike states of goodness and reason, yet it can only be a boniform of divine Good and Reason. Man can be godlike but not divine. The eidos of εὐήθεια is not the Good Form, it is merely an intelligible revelation of it.

Εὐήθεια’s goods are part and parcel of cosmic divine Good, the mortal side of divine Good that is held in the microcosm of an embodied soul as it retained cosmic affinity: its divinely originated part or daimōn, which I take to be its rational governing principle. Findlay’s spatiotemporal account of eide assists understanding my representation of εὐήθεια’s eidetic function to both prove and propagate divine Good for the benefit of each cosmic part. The Eide and the eidetic Knowledge of them [Forms] are essentially two-sided: being what they are, and being all that anything is or could be, they have not only a side intrinsic to themselves, but also one that is extrinsic or for other things, and this second side can, on profounder reflection, be seen to be entirely dependent on the first side, so that knowing what an Eidos is goes with knowing how it could be instantiated and vice versa.327

326 Shorey notes that Plato “may have chosen ἕξις here to suggest the ethical aspect of the good as a habit or possession of the soul” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 509a). 327 Findlay 1974, 236.

117

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

The image of a two-sided Form of goodness, one its divine Good the other its dependant mortal offspring, might aid “profounder reflection” that explains the symbiotic relationship of an autopoietic living cosmos and an embodied soul as its instantiated microcosm. The Good, though intrinsic, can derive benefit from the mortal side of good through that sides knowing the origin and responsibly of it instantiation. Findlay’s remarks might also illustrate the two-sided nature of cosmic complexity and simplicity (see Chapter 8).

A number of scholars speak to the notion that the purpose of the Platonic cosmos is to generate and propagate good. Carone posits that the living Platonic cosmos has a cosmic soul that performs “the function of securing goodness ... a function that we may call teleological.”328 I concur, and consider Carone’s assessment as further confirmation that the Platonic cosmos has an autopoietic telos as a self-sustaining entity that is nourished by its reciprocal exchange of good with the suitably nourishing parts of its entirety.329 Thus, Plato’s cosmic model fosters good in order to sustain and propagate divine Good. Carone believes that in Plato “god is a model for humans, for whom virtue consists also at least partly in an activity of apprehending and pursuing good ends.” I conclude that as an aid to the apprehension and pursuit of good the eidos of εὐήθεια functions to serve those “good ends”.

Plato’s living cosmos seemingly reflects the Pythagorean model that is imbued with ethical values and numerical relationships,330 an encompassing “whole universe, which we imitate and follow through all time” (Plt. 274d). Carone reasons that “it is precisely because the universe is an organism for Plato, that we should not be surprised to find him assuming that any movement of a part should affect the whole and have consequences that reach well beyond its own initial sphere.”331 This reiterates her views about the cosmic responsibility to ensure the embodied soul usefully participates in a mutually sustaining relationship, a bond that feasibly originates the Platonic concept of souls’ actions and cycles. The tripartite soul’s

328 Carone 2005, 28. 329 See fn. 316. 330 See Huffman 2014. 331 Carone 2005, 187.

118

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

daimōn, or divine reason, is the essential bonding cell of cosmic nous, “the mind (νοῦς) that arranges and causes all things” (Phd. 97c).332 Accordingly, an embodied soul has the potential to “reach well beyond its own initial sphere” and act in cosmic mind for good to the extent that soul is well governed by godlike reason.

The pursuit and practise of godlike good governance It seems Platonic good requires the cultivation of the tripartite soul’s godlike good in order to balance and harmonise the city within. I argue, therefore, that being Platonically good necessitates the pursuit and practise of the embodied soul’s godlike good governance, “for he who has a good soul is good” (R. 409c).333

Realising perfection on earth for both the embodied soul and the State, may be beyond human grasp, yet Plato does not consider either beyond better governance.334 Discussing the Republic’s quixotic ideal Socrates observes: “Perhaps there is a pattern of it laid up in heaven for him who wishes to contemplate it and, so beholding, to constitute himself its citizen” (592b). I interpret this as a direct appeal to aspiring philosophers to embrace a concept of heavenly citizenship. A status that obliges corrects philosophical instruction in the practices of remembrance, purification and simplification intended to unite the tripartite soul through the godlike good governance of its “divine governing principle” (R. 590d). Those aspiring to citizenship of the heavenly realm must therefore cherish their soul’s divine origin and accept responsibility for its well-being.

Plato’s vision of the cosmos as a “Living Creature” and embodied souls as among its communing microcosmic parts is also delineated in the Laws: “To each of these parts, down to the smallest fraction, rulers of their action and passion are appointed to bring about fulfillment even to the uttermost fraction ... all partial generation is for the sake of the Whole, in order that for the life of the World – all blissful existence may be secured” (903bc). An embodied soul is a part of “the

332 .I. G. Kidd notes that a concept of great importance for was that “human reason (νοῦς) is a daimōn in us which is συγγενής to the reason which governs the universe (Ft87.6ff), and so it can understand the latter because of its kinship (F85).” And at 2:7-8: “The air is full of immortal souls, in which appear as it were clear marks of truth” (Kidd 1988, 430). 333 I take “godlike good” to be the “offspring” of divine Good that manifest in humanity, including εὐήθεια’s goods; and “governance” to mean the orderly harmonisation of the tripartite soul. 334 Plato may not consider that an ideal state is feasible: “The city whose home is in the ideal ... I think ... can be found nowhere on earth” (R. 592ab).

119

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

Whole,” and its governance of its “action and passion” determines that soul’s contribution to the World’s blissful existence.335 Plato holds that a similar dynamic relationship exists between the character of a State, as a macrocosmic “Whole”, and the microcosm of a citizen’s embodied soul. In Carone’s view, “the same way as nous reigns over the universe, it must also govern the microcosm if order is ever to exist in humans and in politics (and harmony be promoted even with regard to our natural environment).”336 Thus, the bad governance of a State can adversely affect the state of an embodied soul, and the good governance of an embodied soul can benefit a State’s governance. Ideally, therefore, Plato wants the State and the individual to be responsibly ruled by godlike good governance.

In the Laws we read that, in accordance with cosmic law and order, ensoulment confers the agency of change: “All things that share in soul change ... [they] possess within themselves the cause of change, and in changing they move according to the law and order of destiny” (904d). An embodied soul then has the power to change itself and other cosmic elements, as might occur in an exchange between a citizens’ soul and a State. That exchange can confirm really true and assured opinion about goodness and virtue, or sanction evil and viciousness. The power to exercise that prospective influence presumably entails considerable responsibility. Accordingly, Plato holds robust views about private and public governance, and their reciprocal potential to incite good or evil in each other. Arguably, that infers that civic virtue can be determined by citizens’ manifestation of their embodied soul’s goodness.

A Republic passage informs us that irrespective of the tests to composure “a good guardian of himself and the culture which he has received maintain[s] the true rhythm and harmony of his being ... and the character that would make him most useful to himself and to the state” (413e). Notably, goodness and an εὐήθεια good (true rhythm), are deemed vital in a guardian who is “most useful to himself and to the state”. I hold that “guardian” may also refer to the function of the tripartite soul’s divine governing principle. For Plato, good embodied souls, as

335 Cf. :“Not being excited by the passions and in being superior to them [is] acting in a seemly way” (Phd. 68c). 336 Carone 2005, 160-1.

120

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

microcosms within a State macrocosm, can usefully pattern and change their polity. Thus, theoretically, the better the citizens’ governance of their soul’s state the greater the potential to better the governance of the State they inhabit. Similarly, a State’s ethico-political economy can have a marked effect on its citizens’ souls through both the display and sway of it civic disposition. Accordingly, “the discovery of the natures and conditions of men’s souls—will prove one of the things most useful to that art whose task it is to treat them; and that art is (as I presume we say) the art of politics” (Lg. 650b).

Nurturing the embodied soul’s good governance can, with nobly courage, foster the rational ethico-religious and socio-political debates that may inspire a just and orderly State, as the good guardian of himself is “most useful to himself and to the state” (R. 413e). To rephrase Republic 369a, “looking for the likeness of the greater in the form of the less”, we can suppose that Plato wants to see the likeness of the well-ordered citizen’s soul in the leadership of the macropolis. The idea of the private soul benefitting the state of a State is also evident in the Republic’s “spark” imagery. By examining the city and individual “side by side and rubbing them against one another, as it were from the fire-sticks we may cause the spark of justice to flash forth, and when it is thus revealed confirm it in our own minds” (435a). Those sparks may, for instance, bring about the reciprocal exchange of virtue, for where “the individual is brave, thereby and so is the state brave, and that both should have all the other constituents of virtue in the same way” (441cd). That such individuals can abet godlike good governance of a State is noted by Lucia Prauscello who speaks to the notion of dynamic sparks arcing between public policy and private souls: “From the start of the Laws, Cleinias and Megillos, the interlocutors of the Athenian Stranger, and with them also the ‘external’ audience are left with no doubt that legislative activity and political art have a precise addressee: the souls’ of the polity.”337 The State’s use of its legislative activity and “political art” to influence “the souls’ of the polity” is of considerable concern to Plato. At root, however, is the practical necessity to focus on the individual’s power to change and rightly rule actions and passion, and that obliges the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance. Consequently, Plato’s political anthropology

337 Prauscello 2014, 2.

121

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

accepts that there is a critical osmotic relationship between citizen and their polis that can symbiotically moderate order and stability. Understandably then, Platonic philosophy fosters the harmony of the tripartite soul to induce civic order and propagate divine Good. A Republic passage explains the necessity for concordance in the relationship between private and public (or any other) proper authority. While preferring divine and intelligent government from within, it notes the necessity for external guidance where internal rule proves too weak. When the best part is naturally weak in a man so that it cannot govern and control the brood of beasts within him but can only serve them and can learn nothing but the ways of flattering them ... then is it not in order that such an one may have a like government with the best man that we say he ought to be the slave of that best man who has within himself the divine governing principle, not because we suppose, as Thrasymachus did in the case of subjects, that the slave should be governed for his own harm, but on the ground that it is better for everyone to be governed by the divine and the intelligent, preferably indwelling and his own, but in default of that imposed from without, in order that we all so far as possible may be 338 akin and friendly because our governance and guidance are the same (590cd).

Horvath, who refers to the polis as a “macroanthropos”, points out the critical relationship between citizen souls and the political stability of their polis. In classical ontology, the polis appears as a ‘macroanthropos’, bearing the imprint of authenticity at the communal level, as it embodied the care of the soul or self-discipline, and thus the character of its people. The reality and thus the meaning of the political community were dependent on the care of the soul and the consequent stable quality of its subjects.339 If “the reality and thus the meaning of the political community” depends “on the care of the soul” then an embodied soul’s intelligent use of its natural divine governing principle can help to determine a political community’s good disposition, whereas “a small nature never does anything great to a man or a city” (R. 495b). Thus, in terms of euthenics, the good of the relationship between a “macroanthropos” and its citizenry rests on the citizen’s good governance of their embodied souls, an assessment apparently shared by Prauscello: What defines a polis is its citizens: it is the disposition of the rulers and the ruled towards each other and towards the city as a whole that decides the quality of governance. In this sense Greek political thought gives particular emphasis to the moral character of the citizenry as something that pre-exist and determines political ; decision-making and even institutional make-up. This is most true of Plato, for whom, as is often noted, 340 statecraft coincides with soulcraft.

338 Hannah Arendt remarks that the guarantee of Athenian citizens’ isonomy, equality before the law, was not because “all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόµος would make them equal (Arendt 1963, 30-31). 339 Horvath 2008, 257. 340 Prauscello 2014, 1.

122

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

In my view, Prauscello’s observation that in Plato statecraft and soulcraft coincide encapsulates the aim of Platonic political anthropology. Her comments lend further support to the contention that the mutual interest of soulcraft and statecraft obliges an active exchange of goodness in the intelligent pursuit and practise of godlike good governance. For Plato, the “good guardian of himself” is the “most useful” citizen. Hence, their good soulcraft can provide a practical benefit for the state, which as a macroanthropos also has the power to impress its populace for better or worse. Particularly where conveyed by the authority of its political actors, as the virtue of the State rests on the virtue of its citizen leaders. Plato thus wants those leaders to behold “the Good itself ... [and] use it as a pattern for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves throughout the remainder of their live” (R. 540ab).

Plato’s political anthropology also allows that where there is “a polity which naturally makes men worse” the restoration of good civic order may compel a revolution, or provoke voluntary exile: apparently the latter was Plato’s choice following the . The legal code of Magnesia sets out a citizen’s right to revolt or leave: Whatsoever be the way in which a member of our community—be he of the male or female sex, young or old, —may become a good citizen, possessed of the excellence of soul which belongs to man, whether derived from some pursuit or disposition, or from some form of diet, or from desire or opinion or mental study, to the attainment of this end all his efforts throughout the whole of his life shall be directed; and not a single person shall show himself preferring any object which impedes this aim; in fine, even as regards the State, he must allow it to be revolutionized, if it seems necessary, rather than voluntarily submit to the yoke of slavery under the rule of the worse, or else he must himself quit the State as an exile: all such sufferings men must endure rather than change to a polity which naturally makes men worse (Lg. 770de). The pursuit and cultivation of εὐήθεια, I submit, is necessary to arouse and nurture the “the excellence of soul which belongs to man”. I note Csapo’s remark that “noble simplicity indeed plays an important role in Plato’s theory of political evolution.”341 Conceding Csapo, and that εὐήθεια entails noble simplicity, infers that the eide and eikons of authentic εὐήθεια can help to realise Plato’s political anthropology’s preferred soulcraft/statecraft accord. I recall Orwin’s comment about ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια) in Thucydides and suggest it may aptly apply

341 Csapo 2011, 122-3.

123

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

to Plato: “It is from his awareness of the dependence of decent politics on traditional virtue grounded in piety, which must be grasped even as the flaws and perils of this same virtue must be grasped.”342

Perhaps the principal lesson from Platonic political anthropology’s acknowledgment of the dynamic interaction between a citizenry’s embodied souls and their polity is that a microcosmic soul can advantage or disadvantage a macrocosmic isonomy, be it familial, social, economic, national, global or cosmic. And if the eide of authentic εὐήθεια contribute to the godly good governance of the tripartite soul, then its function in Platonic philosophy is indeed broad and potent.

Democratic governance in Plato I consider it useful in a discussion of Platonic good governance to briefly consider Plato’s attitude toward democracy, and politics in general, as it pertains to what I regard as Platonically good soulcraft and statecraft. Opinions about Plato’s political tendencies can be quite stern. For instance, Jeremy Shearmur reveals that Karl Popper’s “key, but unannounced, theme” in The Open Society and Its Enemies is to parallel Plato and Hitler.343 Surely this distorts Platonic philosophy’s commitment to the rule of law, as conveyed in the Republic and elsewhere:“The law is not concerned with the special happiness of any class in the state” (519e), and the law must be “the ally of all classes in the state” (590e).

Plato’s anti-democratic views are frequently cited to support claims that he opposes democratic governments. However, we are well advised to seek a broader interpretation of his presumed anti-democratic sentiments, and supposed pro- oligarchic sympathies. Sara Monoson believes our interpretations must be moderated by what she describes as Plato’s “substantial measure of ambivalence, not unequivocal hostility” toward democracy. After Athens’ inglorious defeat in the Peloponnesian war, Plato is among the many who question the reckless

342 Orwin 2000, 865. 343 Shearmur 1996, 86-7.

124

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

policies of Greece’s relatively experimental democracy.344 We might also suppose Plato is equally appalled by many Athenian oligarchs’ traitorous conduct and cravenness during the war and its unhappy aftermath. Especially, the role of his relatives Critias and Charmides in the Thirty’s bloody eight-month rule.345 Athens’ reinstated prodemocracy regime declared an amnesty (perhaps the first in western history), however, their vengeful execution of Plato’s revered teacher was perhaps a reprisal for Socrates’ close association with some of the Thirty (especially Critias).346 Socrates may have accepted the verdict as necessary for the preservation of Athenian law, perhaps even of democratic rule. Nonetheless, Plato surely considered it an injustice. His self-imposed twelve year exile following Socrates condemnation was, at least in part, likely a protest against the iniquity of Athenian society.347

Plato’s antipathy to any type of expedient partisan politics is evident in the Gorgias where Socrates remarks: “I think I am one of few, not to say the only one, in Athens who attempts the true art of statesmanship, and the only man of the present time who manages affairs of state: hence, the speeches that I make from time to time are not aimed at gratification, but at what is best instead of what is most pleasant” (Grg. 521d),348 a statement unlikely to endear factions of any persuasion. Yunis’ commentary of the Gorgias suggests that Plato wants to elevate his philosophy above mere censure or endorsement of factional politics. He believes it is significant that in the passages on Pericles “Plato distances himself from the ideological controversy that usually motivated criticism of

344 For instance, in Peter Hunt’s view in the latter half of 406 the Athenians made two appalling decisions: “They freed the slaves who had fought in the battle of Arginusae and gave them citizenship, and they condemned to death their victorious generals” (Hunt 2001, 359). 345 William Morison cites Plato’s Seventh Letter (L. 7.324d) to evidence Plato’s disillusionment with politics: “The extreme behaviour of his second cousin [or uncle] Critias-along with another cousin [or uncle], Charmides, the leader of the Ten who governed the Piraeus during the rule of the Thirty-effectively ended any thoughts he [Plato] had previously entertained about a future political career” (Morison 2014, § 3). 346 As some leaders of the tyranny were deemed to be followers of Socrates - particularly Critias one of the most hated Thirty–Socrates was accused of sympathising with them. Plato vigorously refutes this at Apology 32bd. During the Tyrants’ brief rule Socrates evidently sided with the democratic resistance, yet when they came to power those democrats executed him. 347 See fn. 8. 348 The Gorgias’ opening portends the ensuing battle between Socratic elenchus and expedient sophism: “To join in a fight or a fray, as the saying is, Socrates, you have chosen your time well enough” (Grg. 447a).

125

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

democracy in the late fifth century.”349 Yunis also notes that Pericles “receives extraordinarily favourable treatment in the Phaedo,”350 yet Plato faults Pericles largely “because he did not make the Athenians better, meaning more just.”351 The Laws’ preambles (Lg. 718b-723d) also counter Plato’s supposedly adamant antidemocratic views, as they set out what is essentially a democratic mechanism to approve legal authority. Indeed, Magnesia’s colonists must only obey the laws they deem just, or else presumably revolt or leave “a polity that naturally makes men worse”. Which might infer that Plato encourages revolt to even preserve Magnesia’s democratic principles.

What Plato contests is not democracy per se, rather he opposes any government that is cowardly, intemperate, unjust and corrupt: “Do you suppose ... that a democracy or any other government —even a tyrant—if it has gained the mastery, will of its own accord set up laws with any other primary aim than that of securing the permanence of its own authority” (Lg. 714cd)? As Monoson argues, there needs to be “a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between Plato’s thought and the practice of democracy.”352 Monoson holds that: The canonical view of Plato as a virulent antidemocrat is not sound. Rather, in his work, a searching consideration of the possibilities raised by some democratic ideals and institutions coexists alongside severe criticisms of democratic life and politics. ... A substantial measure of ambivalence, not unequivocal hostility, marks his attitude toward democracy as he knew it.353 Above all, Plato decries the vicious State, a polis ruled and populated by those who ignore divine governing principles: “No polity of today is worthy of the philosophic nature” (R. 497b). The Statesman’s political critique apparently only spares theocracy from censure: “The tyrant has arisen, and the king and oligarchy and aristocracy and democracy, because men are not contented with that one perfect ruler “ (301cd),354 further evidencing the theodic foundations of Plato’s philosophy, and probably political anthropology.

349 Yunis 1996, 139. 350 Yunis 1996, 207. 351 Yunis 1996, 145. 352 Monoson 2000, 3. 353 ibid. 354 While some commentators take “that one perfect ruler” as a literal reference to an improbably ideal mortal ruler, I suggest that the passage can imply that few tripartite souls experience the harmonious rule of their divine governing principle, which as the soul’s “sole ruler [is] a perfectly right form of government” (Plt. 301d).

126

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

Indeed, the Laws confirms that Plato supports a system of just theocratic governance. Colonists arriving at Magnesia are greeted with the proclamation that justice is an “avenger of them that fall short of the divine law; and she, again, is followed by every man who would fain be happy” (716a). Justice derived from the observance of a theocratic authority is the civil reality of cosmic law and order, the practical application of divine Reason. If the State ought to be named after any such thing, the name it should have borne is that of the God who is the true ruler of rational men ... wherever a State has a mortal, and no god, for ruler, there the people have no rest from ills and toils; and it deems that we ought by every means to imitate the life of the age of Kronos, as tradition paints it, and order both our homes and our States in obedience to the immortal element within us, giving to reason’s ordering the name of ‘law’ (713a &713e-714a). Notably, this statement of Platonic theocracy follows soon after the εὐηθέστεροι myth, which arguably bears mythic similarities to the age of Kronos.355 Arguably then, the passage advocates imitating the community of the εὐηθέστεροι and “obedience to the immortal element within”, that divine guiding principle that can intelligently govern good souls. Theocratic considerations are then at the heart of Platonic soulcraft and statecraft, since “no one who believes, as the laws prescribe, in the existence of the gods has ever yet done an impious deed voluntarily, or uttered a lawless word” (Lg. 885) for they heed their immortal element within.

A practical way to assess Plato’s said anti-democratic attitude is to ask what democracy might mean in the context of his tripartite psychology. Plato’s theory claims that in a properly functioning tripartite soul the rational divine part, the daimōn that is the “immortal element within us”, moderates spirited courage and restrains appetites in order to establish and maintain the soul’s equilibrium. Thus, one can know “the true rhythm and harmony of his being” (R. 413e) through the practise of godlike good governance.356 Understood as a political regime, the harmonised tripartite soul is not a democracy. For Plato, rational governance of the soul disdains what some might call democratic principles. Neither courage nor

355 I take a less chronologically literal view of the “golden age” vis-a-vis metal ages, etcetera. and suggest that in some respects the community of the εὐηθέστεροι is a golden age. I also note that in Cratylus we read: “Don't you suppose that if anyone of our day is good, Hesiod would say he was of that golden race” (398bc)? 356 Prauscello notes the significance of rhythm in Plato: the “ability of rhythm to prepare, train and condition our future emotional response that provides the important link between the (human) sensorial perception of pleasure in order and the emotional belief (doxa) it generates,” (Prauscello 2014, 147). And in the Laws we note that only man and gods can access the orderly and “pleasurable perception of rhythm and harmony” (Lg. 654a).

127

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

appetite is permitted unfettered freedom of expression or allowed to assume control by bent of its collective demands, which are perhaps in the majority. Plato warns against the disorder of unrestrained and dominant democratic appetites: We have to tell how the democratic man develops from the oligarchical type ... when a youth, bred in the illiberal and niggardly fashion ... gets a taste of the honey of the drones and associates with fierce and cunning creatures who know how to purvey pleasures of every kind and variety and condition, there you must doubtless conceive is the beginning of the transformation of the oligarchy in his soul into democracy” (R. 559de). And at Republic 560a Socrates says: “Sometimes, I suppose, the democratic element retires before the oligarchical, some of its appetites having been destroyed and others expelled, a sense of awe and reverence grows up in the young man’s soul and order is restored.” I interpret both passages as an endorsement of the rational, balanced governances of the tripartite soul, not the advocacy of oligarchic or totalitarian States. I concur with Monoson, who expresses dismay at: The stubborn endurance of the view of Plato as a proto-totalitarian thinker. Readings that link Plato to a totalitarian political agenda not only betray the historical insensitivity of the commentator but also entirely misrepresent the spirit of Plato’s works. They also erect impediments to the serious investigation of his assessment of the moral significance of democratic forms of power. Surely we need not adopt such imprecise and highly charged language as well as such anachronistic categories of analysis to give full due to the considerable nondemocratic elements of Plato’s thought.357 Plato may favour the rational authoritarian rule of the tripartite soul, however, we are well advised to take Monoson’s advice and avoid “historical insensitivity of the commentator[s] … [who] entirely misrepresent the spirit of Plato’s works”. For one thing, we need to carefully differentiate the possible inferences of nobility, aristocracy and tyranny in Platonic philosophy from their modern insinuations. In Plato, nobility might be taken as a honourable disposition of a soul’s simplicity and goodness; aristocracy as the soul’s divine lineage; and tyranny as the sovereign authority of reason in public and private governance (cf. R. 580bc). While none of these term’s connotations inevitably implies another, in my assessment of Platonic godlike good governance the three are wholly and positively integrated.

Plato’s frequent allusion to the dysfunction of Athenian governments, in my view, also serves as a metaphor to stress the dire consequences of allowing a tripartite soul to be intemperately directed by democratic disorder: “We ought to

357 Monoson 2000, 13.

128

Chapter 6 - Function of the Εύήθεια Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons in Plato

examine next, in like manner, the Attic polity, and show how complete liberty, unfettered by any authority, is vastly inferior to a moderate form of government” (Lg. 698a). The problematising of contemporary society in the Republic and the Laws might be understood as advancing the rational governance of the tripartite soul by exposing the perils of disorder, for “if men are capable of ruling themselves, they are good, but if incapable, bad” (Lg. 644b). Where a tripartite soul’s spirited and appetitive parts are at “complete liberty, unfettered by any authority” there is the disorder of ungodly governance. It is thus at the level of the city within, that Plato’s anti-democratic sentiment are understandably adamant, as where a democratic State aids and begets the soul’s mayhem it is deplored for such a State denies and atrophies what the “best man ... has within himself [that] divine governing principle, [the authority of] the divine and the intelligent [by which everyone is best governed]” (R. 590d). Hence, the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance can empower the “divine governing principle” and harmonise a soul to the rhythmic accord of divine Good and Reason.

In sum, this Chapter has addressed the first two of the seven premisses that argue for the potent philosophical function of authentic εὐήθεια in Plato. That (i), good speech, then good accord, and good grace and good rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθει; and (ii), εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. I have considered the potent function of εὐήθεια in the context of Platonic goodness, the Good Platonic Cosmos, the purpose of εὐήθεια’s good eide, the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance, and notions of democratic governance in Plato. I conclude that Platonic good entails εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition of character and mind, and the good speech, accord, grace and rhythm that authentic εὐήθεια begets. Moreover, that harmonising the tripartite soul requires godlike good governance and that that necessitates the valuation and cultivation of εὐήθεια. Therefore, I assert that εὐήθεια, as the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind, can help bring lovers of wisdom to “the vestibule of the Good and of the dwelling of the Good” (Phlb. 64c).

Let us now consider the function of authentic εὐήθεια in Platonically good education and the higher schooling of Platonic dialectic.

129

Chapter 7

Function of Εύήθεια’s Eidos and Eikons in Platonically Good Education This chapter argues for the third of my seven premisses; the young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely, to cultivate εὐήθεια in the soul. I have argued that Plato’s exposition of εὐήθεια at Republic 400de entails a broader endorsement of its noble simplicity to encompass a guiding disposition that can cultivate good speech, accord, grace and rhythm. I now submit that therefore εὐήθεια has a significant function in a Platonically good education, which apparently comprises of fitting educational practices that culminate in the higher philosophical instruction of Platonic dialectic for “those whose natures are capable [of being] something fine and noble” (Plt. 309a).

The chapter has seven sections. The first briefly assesses what I term a Platonically good education. The following four sections discuss fitting educational practices in the Republic, including musical and gymnastic education, Plato’s tripartite psychology, the and an evaluation of mathematical education.358 The concluding two sections explore Platonic dialectic, and the possible correspondence in the partitioning of, εὐήθεια’s goods, Platonic cognitive activity, the tripartite soul’s divisions and its affections.

Platonically good education (iii) The young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely; to cultivate authentic εὐήθεια in their souls. In Shorey’s view the Republic’s instruction to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere implies a responsibility to cultivate “true εὐήθεια” in the soul.359 Evidence suggests that Plato considers a good education as that which develops the embodied soul’s essential

358 The sections dealing primarily with the Republic presents the material in its approximate order of appearance in the contemporary arrangement of the dialogue’s format, as I consider that order is often significant. 359 Youths’ “special task is to cultivate true εὐήθεια in their souls” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 400e.). Herein that “true εὐήθεια” is referred to as ‘authentic εὐήθεια’.

130

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

nature in order for it to be known and manifest as goodness. As a consequence of certain instruction (and/or a suitable natural disposition), a Platonically good education prepares “the best endowed natures” (R. 526c) to possess a receptive cognitive substrate – envision the mind as a wax tablet – that is a surface able to receive “the impression that one wishes to stamp” (R. 377b), “one” in this case being Plato. Retaining and cultivating authentic εὐήθεια is, I contend, vital in forming such a dispositional substrate. Since, we might reasonably suppose that Plato encourages the advancement of the noblest, good and fair disposition of character and mind as the most suitable cognitive substrate for the impress and patterning of his dialectic.

The wide-ranging and long-term benefits of a good education are variously extolled throughout Plato: “The soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture” (Phd. 107d), and Rachana Kamtekar concurs that Plato’s concern with education is “vast and multifaceted”.360 In the Laws the Athenian says, “the education we speak of is training from childhood in goodness, which makes a man eagerly desirous of becoming a perfect citizen, understanding how both to rule and be ruled righteously” (643e).361 Thus, attaining and maintaining goodness, which I take to entail the cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια, is the purpose of a Platonically good education for, as emphatically expressed in the Laws, “all the gold on earth, or under it, does not equal the price of goodness” (Lg. 728a).

Glen Morrow observes that the Platonic aim of perfecting humanity through good education sets Plato “in the main stream of Greek tradition … that flowed on into Hellenistic times and left upon the whole Graeco-Roman world the conviction that the aim of education is to develop in the child the qualities of mind and character that most fully express the ideal of human nature.”362 Morrow’s remark that Hellenic education aims to develop “the qualities of mind and character that most fully express the ideal of human nature” plausibly supports claims that

360 361 Kamtekar 2008, 336. As I understand “to rule and be ruled righteously” it infers both private and public godlike good governance. 362 Morrow 1960, 297.

131

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

cultivating εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind is intrinsic to the Greek tradition of education that aims to develop “the ideal of human nature”. In the Laws the Athenian also discusses the importance of proper early development: “In the case of every creature ... it is the first shoot, if it sprouts out well, that is most effective in bringing to its proper development the essential excellence of the creature in question” (765e).363 And later: “Either real play or education worthy of the name ... is what we assert to be in our eyes the most serious thing” (803d).364 We might then proceed by presuming that, for Plato, in order to bring “to its proper development the essential excellence” of an ideal human nature an “education worthy of the name” must cultivate goodness, and authentic εὐήθεια is both good in itself and conductive of goods.

At Laws 653bc the Athenian explains that a good education develops reason and teaches discernment as the basis of ethical agency: After grasping the rational account [of pleasure and love, and pain and hatred] they consent thereunto that they have been rightly trained in fitting practices − this consent, viewed as a whole, is goodness, while the part of it that is rightly trained in respect of pleasures and pains so as to hate what ought to be hated ... and to love what ought to be loved, if you were to [term] this part education, you would be giving it ... its right name” (Lg. 653bc). Discerning what ought to be loved and hated is a major Platonic theme. Indeed, in some respects it underpins his psychology and clarifies why self-knowledge is so essential in his philosophy of purification and simplification. For, in order to arrive at, or at least pursue, “that knowledge [which] is right opinion combined with rational explanation (Tht. 208c) one must be “rightly trained in respect of pleasures and pains”. This epistemic aspect of a Platonically good education rest on the assumption that it arouses and advances what the embodied soul intuitively knows. Plato’s schooling does not impose dogma; it attempts to help learners know themselves by drawing out their soul’s memory and recollection of its godlike nature. To further the realisation that those who “search eagerly within themselves to find the nature of their god … may reach and grasp him by memory … [and be]

363 In Plato education and schooling is discussed in various contexts. These discussion often allude to images of relative immaturity and budding potential, such as a first shoot, children, youth and the young and tender, and so on. I contend that these terms can be generally understood to also indicate the relative stages of philosophic development in “every creature”. That is, I consider Platonic dialogues are instructive aids for receptive adult minds. 364 “real play” can include “certain pastimes—sacrificing, singing and dancing” (Lg. 803e), though significantly, as discussed below, “real play” may refer to Platonic dialectic.

132

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

inspired and receive from him character and habits, so far as it is possible for a man to have part in God” (Phdr. 253a). In the Meno we read: “The soul has learned all things ... [and] by remembering ... [through] an act which men call learning [it can] discover everything else, if we have courage and faint not in the search” (81d). Good education then is a “process of drawing and guiding children towards that principle which is pronounced right by the law and confirmed as truly right by the experience of the oldest and the most just” (Lg. 659d). Smith believes this “process of drawing and guiding” infers that “if knowledge is an innate power of the soul, then education does not provide knowledge to the soul which lacks it, but instead develops and actualises the power that is already there.”365 Platonic education thus intends to assist self-actualisation and not indoctrinate dogma.

For education qua Platonic philosophical schooling to be effective it must motivate goodness, and that obliges Plato to contest what he deems to be bad education. That includes certain epic based instruction and the authority of sophistic training which Plato considers the propagation of illusion and ignorance. Challenging the twin foes of epic’s lies and sophistry’s counterfeit wisdom obliges Plato to compete, indeed battle, on two contiguous fronts: ethico-religious and socio-political. To do that Plato’s educational strategy has integrated tactics; to attract, recruit, persuade and organise. The ones most likely to benefit from his methods are “those whose natures are capable [of being] something fine and noble” (Plt. 309a), and willing to make the effort “to see and found a city within” (R. 592b).366 Plato’s tactics often involves criticising established educational practices, and that may deter rather than persuade potential devotees. Such as Socrates’ protest that “nurses and mothers ... shape [children’s] souls by these [epic] stories ... but most of the stories they now tell we must reject” (R. 377c). And particularly his famous assertion that: “Hesiod and Homer and the other poets ... composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind” (R. 377d). These claims that epic stories can be harmful and opposed to private and public good are probably offensive for many Athenians.

365 Smith 2000, 134. 366 Translation from Bloom 1991.

133

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Education intended to advance goodness is “the most serious thing” for Plato. He especially rebukes epic’s anthropomorphic portrayal of gods behaving badly as it disseminates a corrupting blasphemy: for “is not God of course Good ... in reality and always to be spoken of as such” (R. 379ad). The reality of divine Good, and of its dependant human goods, is a primary Platonic tenet. If an education is to be Platonically good it must uphold these truths as the basis of the ethico- religious values that foster the correct opinions of those who are “between understanding and ignorance” (Smp. 202a). Plato challenges epic as a bulwark of Greek ethico-religious education yet, as discussed above, his philosophy embraces certain epic traditions to enhance his rational logos. Havelock explains, that Plato applies “philosophical standards ... [to] the Greek poetic tradition which had hitherto nourished and preserved the and ethos of his society.”367 He simultaneously uses that “preserved ... nomos and ethos” to galvanise his novel psychology while problematising its influence on contemporary ethico-religious attitudes.

Consequently, Plato’s philosophical concepts might seem innovative. Indeed, Jon Mikalson believes "Plato’s claim that all human actions involving justice are of concern to the gods and hence are all matters of ‘religious correctness’ and ‘proper respect’ is revolutionary."368 Plato seeks to restore “religious correctness” and “proper respect” for divine Good and Reason by uprooting much of epic’s implanted traditions. For him “all the poetic tribe, beginning with Homer, are imitators of images of excellence and of the other things that they create, and do not lay hold on truth” (R. 600e), a criticism echoed in the Laws. The poets of Megalopolis must compose “noble and laudable phrases ... to portray by his rhythms the gestures, and by his harmonies the tunes, men who are temperate, courageous, and good in all respects, and thereby to compose poems aright” (Lg. 660a). Plato wants to disrupt and eliminate epic’s false stories from education as he cannot usefully draw and guide people to know their true divine nature if they are, in his view, being trained to live in ignorance and attribute human vices to the divine. That said, Plato productively tills the fertile ground of communal epic consciousness to plant his own ethico-religious mythos, the εὐηθέστεροι myth in my view being a case in point.

367 Havelock 1978, 333-4. 368 Mikalson 2010, 205.

134

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

What of the sophists, Plato’s second foe in his battle for good education? At Plato’s Athens, citizens who value their public performance often seek the tuition most likely to help them. Consequently, sophists claiming to teach persuasive rhetoric and ready wisdom invite patronage from those aspiring to office and influence.369 Hence, there is a robust demand for sophists’ instruction, especially from those of high repute. Indeed, it seems the more excessive the teacher's assertions and fees the more enticing their tuition.370 This sophistic training conflicts with Plato’s notion of good education. Several Republic passages typify his disdain for those who claim to impart real wisdom: “These private teachers who work for pay ... [inculcating] nothing else than opinions ... and [calling] this knowledge wisdom (σοφίαν) ... knowing nothing in reality about which of these opinions and desires is honorable or base, good or evil, just or unjust” (493ab).371 Such “private teachers” are incapable of engaging in the highest art of philosophy, for “when men unfit for culture approach philosophy and consort with her unworthily, what sort of ideas and opinions shall we say they beget? Will they not produce what may in very deed be fairly called sophisms, and nothing that is genuine or that partakes of true intelligence” (496a)? Plato exposes the sophists’ ignorance of reality and truth and their inability to draw out awareness of the embodied soul’s divinity and goodness: sophistic “education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions. What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes” (518bc). A Gorgias’ passage perhaps best expresses why sophistry is anathema to Plato’s good education paradigm, which therefore in my view means that sophistry negates the retention and nurture of authentic εὐήθεια. Sophists do “not know what is really good or bad, noble or base, just or unjust, but [have] devised a persuasion to deal with these matters so as to appear to those who, like himself, do not know to know better than he who knows” (Grg. 459d). For Plato, then, sophists proliferate ignorance and so impede the aim if good education to dispel ignorance by encouraging “really true and assured opinion about honour, justice, goodness ... in men’s souls” (Pol. 309c).

369 See fns. 90 & 115 re the status of sophists before and during Plato’s era. 370 “the mixed type [of diction] … is far most pleasing to boys and their tutors and the great mob” (R. 397d). 371 Plato again highlights the perverse use of σοφία to imply real wisdom. See fn. 116.

135

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Socrates’ remarks in the Republic concerning the founders of Kallipolis sets out the responsibilities of the educators and the educated in the Platonically good education model: “It is the duty of us, the founders ... to compel the best natures to attain the knowledge which we pronounced the greatest, and to win to the vision of the good, to scale that ascent, and when they have reached the heights and taken an adequate view ... to go down again among those bondsmen and share their labours and honours” (R. 519cd). To successfully compete with epic’s lies and sophistic wisdom good educators must help would-be philosophers “to win the vision of the good”, which for me describes εὐήθεια’s εἶδος. Having seen that good and ascended from ignorance the well educated must be willing to go back down (into the cave) and help their kin to be free from the madness of illusion (παράνοια) by sufficiently changing their minds (µετάνοια) to believe, understand and know that cave dwellers are oblivious to reality and truth.

The challenge for a Platonically good education to change minds means it must confront what we might term ‘big beliefs’. In doing so Plato encourages people to question what they believe and why they believe it. Consider Socrates’ remarks to Glaucon about determining “what each thing really is” (R. 533b). Socrates says, to have: [A] clear waking vision of it [reality] is impossible for [anyone] as long as they leave the assumptions which they employ undisturbed and cannot give any account of them. For where the starting-point is something that the reasoner does not know, and the conclusion and all that intervenes is a tissue of things not really known, what possibility is there that assent in such cases can ever be converted into true knowledge (R. 533c). Renouncing common, hard held beliefs and rejecting long esteemed sources of supposed truth and reality takes bravery, a type of virtue that I propose might be considered a godlike noble courage.372 I suppose that “those whose natures are capable [of being] something fine and noble” (Plt. 309a) possess such courage and that their good education and/or natural disposition can bring them to “fully express the ideal of human nature”.373

372 Discussed further in Chapter 9. 373 Morrow 1960, 297.

136

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Musical and gymnastic educational practices in the Republic A Cratylus passage advises that: “The Muses and music in general are named, apparently, from µῶσθαι, searching, and philosophy” (406a).374 Perhaps echoing that passage, John Dillon believes that Plato considers “philosophy the greatest gift of the Muses compared to the other arts, particularly poetry and drama”.375 In Kamtekar’s estimation, Plato’s “outlook on the arts (poetry, theater, music, painting) is dominated by considerations of whether they help or hinder correct education.”376 This useful insight assists our grasp of the arts in the context of Platonically good education, and also helps to refute persistent claims that Plato disdained the arts. As Csapo observes, the Muses’ Arts (µουσική) have a paramount standing in the pursuit of harmonisation: “The restoration of God’s music is the first step to restoring harmony in both the soul and the polis.”377 Enhancing the embodied soul’s harmonic resonance with the cosmic order of divine Good is surely the fundamental aim of Platonic philosophy and, conceding Csapo, pursuing that purpose must therefore endorse the restoration of “God’s music”. Noting that Plato has a simplex conception of God (discussed in Chapter 8), then for him God’s music is simple music or, in a metaphysical sense, the rhythms and harmony of simplicity itself. If that is the case, and Plato considers “philosophy the greatest gift of the Muses”, then little wonder that his efforts to restore “harmony in both the soul and the polis” advocates simplicity. I recall Crane’s notion that Plato makes the reestablishment and defence of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity “his life’s work,”378 and hold that we can indeed consider the validation and dissemination of that noble simplicity intrinsic to the purpose and process of good Platonic education.379

Allowing that Platonic philosophy is “the greatest gift of the Muses”, then we might regard suitably qualified educators, or dialecticians, as musicians in that they reveal the harmony and rhythms of the cosmos. Consider Phaedo 61a;

374 As at fn. 152, Plato arguably takes the term music (µουσική) to express what the LSJ defines as “any art over which the Muses presided” (‘µουσική’, LSJ 1889). Plato regards his philosophy as a µουσική “whose music is the sweetest” (Phdr. 259d). Cf. Phd. 61a, R. 499d, 528e-530c & 545c-546d: Cra. 406a; Phdr. 259bd; Lg. 653cd, 654a, 658e & 664a. 375 Dillon 2009, 2. 376 Kamtekar 2008, 336. 377 Csapo 2011, 123-4. 378 Crane 1998, 22. 379 A supposition discussed more fully in Chapter 8.

137

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

philosophy is “the greatest kind of music”, and the observation in the Protagoras that music-masters insist on acquainting “souls with the rhythms and scales, that they may gain in gentleness, and by advancing in rhythmic and harmonic grace may be efficient in speech and action” (Prt. 326b). Notably, musical education in Plato seeks to advance goods that follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια; good speech, grace and rhythm, which plausibly also infers good accord. Prauscello believes that it is the “ability of rhythm to prepare, train and condition our future emotional response that provides the important link between the (human) sensorial perception of pleasure in order and the emotional belief (doxa) it generates.”380 This is a view that succinctly explains the Muses arts’ essential role in a good Platonic education to both promote cognitive “pleasure in order” and the beliefs that can maintain an embodied soul’s resonance with good cosmic rhythm.

The Republic has much to say about musical education. Music must be taken up “before gymnastics ... [as] the beginning in every task is the chief thing, especially for any creature that is young and tender. For it is then that it is best moulded” (377ab). Another reason for music’s primacy in Plato is evident in Joshua Wilburn’s assertions that for Plato music “is designed to make people admire and praise the right kinds of things so that they become the right kinds of people.”381 A view which reflects Plato’s recurrent entreaty to develop good discernment, as what can be truly called education is being “rightly trained ... to hate what ought to be hated ... and to love what ought to be loved” (Laws 653bc). Wilburn adds, music: “Aims to habituate individuals to feel shame and disgust towards character and behaviour that are genuinely aischron, shameful, and to feel admiration towards character and behaviour that are genuinely kalon, admirable or beautiful.” Fitting music, being simple, arguably promotes the discernment and beauty (καλός) of simplicity.382 Simple musical modes encourage the virtues and “best imitate the utterances of men ... [who are] temperate [and] brave ... we shall not need in our songs and airs instruments of many strings or whose compass includes all the harmonies” (399cd). Musical

380 Prauscello 2014, 147. 381 Wilburn 2013, 63. 382 Wilburn 2013, 73-4. See Chapter 5, ‘Prerogative of the Εὐηθέστεροι Myth’ re discussion of the εὐηθέστεροι as καλὸς καγαθός.

138

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

simplicity helps to constrain the tripartite soul’s appetites since it develops the cardinal Platonic virtue of temperance: “Employing ... simple music ... engender[s] sobriety” (410a) and so assists rational harmonisation by moderating spirit and appetite. Wilburn contends that “early moral education ... is largely concerned with preparing the spirited part of the soul for [a] role as reason’s ‘ally’.”383 He argues that since “the spirited part of the soul, for Plato, is the part of the soul responsible for what we might call our social or other-directed emotions and desires ... it is one of the primary tasks of early musical education in the Republic to shape those desires and emotions of the spirited part.”384 Which again reflects the critical need for discernment in an education intended to convey balance and goodness.

Musical education thus has a paramount function in harmonising the soul: Education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained … he would praise beautiful things and take delight in them and receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good (401de).385 Prauscello remarks that the educational power of music is most effective for two reasons: “First, rhythm and harmony - that is the notional element of music - reach a person’s inner recesses of the soul more than anything else (µάλιστα) and cleave to it ‘most powerfully’ (ἐρρωµενέστατα). Second, music sharpens, in a pre- rational but not anti-rational way, our sensory awareness and responsiveness to the beautiful.”386 Good, simple music is, I submit, a requisite preliminary practise that rightly trains a would-be philosopher’s cognitive substrate to “praise beautiful things and take delight in them and receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good (401de). The seeker’s “inner most soul” is thus prepared to rationally apprehend the true beauty of Platonic dialectic. I consider that it is reasonable to contend that Republic 401de, coming as it does so soon after authentic εὐήθεια’s commendation 400de, is also a validation of εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition. Those who have taken good benefit from the

383 Wilburn 2013, 63. 384 Wilburn 2013, 73-4. 385 Seemingly, an endorsement of authentic εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition and the goods it advances. 386 Prauscello 2014, 38.

139

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Muse’s Art and are equipped for dialectic are “true musicians ... [who] recognize the forms of soberness, courage, tolerance, and high-mindedness and all their kindred and their opposites, too, in all the combinations that contain and convey them, and apprehend them and their images wherever found” (402c). Prauscello believes this passage conveys that a suitably educated person “will be able to recognize ... and perceive the concrete manifestations of the various virtues (temperance, courage and so on) as they present themselves to us in this embodied life.”387 The εὐηθέστεροι present such an image of exemplary “soberness, courage, tolerance, and high-mindedness”, and can thus be most useful to the “true musicians”.

In the Republic’s ideal Kallipodean education the suitably qualified follow schooling in the Muses’ Art (µουσική) of music with “the exercises and toils of gymnastics with a view ... to arouse [the high spirited part of their nature] rather than for mere strength” (410b).388 If the purpose of musical and gymnastic instruction is to benefit the soul one might think the idea of arousing its high spirits is counterproductive for is it not that part of the tripartite soul that must be wisely moderated to produce justice (cf. Lg. 631cd)? Plato quickly dispels any misunderstanding of “high spirits” as an unmoderated force: “An education in music and gymnastics had not the purpose in view that some attribute to them ... namely to treat the body by one and the soul by the other ... they [are] ordained both chiefly for the soul’s sake” (410bc). For where music and gymnastics are “harmoniously adjusted to one another ... the soul of the man thus attuned is sober and brave” (410e). This is another instance of Plato affirming that a harmonised soul holds the cardinal virtues that he attributes to the ensouled εὐηθέστεροι (Lg. 679e). Later in the Republic, Socrates offers an explanation of gymnastics’ participation in the corporeal nature of cosmic process: gymnastics “is devoted to that which grows and perishes; for it presides over the growth and decay of the body” (521e).

387 Prauscello 2014, 2. 388 I will not speculate here on the possible sequences and relative contiguity of ideal Platonic educational practices. Save to suggest that these practices may be variously understood as daily routines in schooling for elite youth and, in the long thought of Platonic philosophy, almost certainly be lifetime practices for the lovers of wisdom.

140

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Might we then suppose that for Plato gymnastic education is only for the body’s sake, and might that contradict what we read at 410c? Wilburn posits that, “broadly speaking, gymnastic education is the bodily part of the choral art concerned with dancing and orderly movement, and musical education is the vocal part of the choral art concerned with singing and orderly speech.”389 Granting Wilburn, and the textual evidence at Republic 410c-e, I suggest that for Plato gymnastic education has a catalytic function that acts in concert with other educational practices to help attune the tripartite soul. I also note, apropos Wilburn’s remarks, that right choristry: “Concerns the actions of fair and noble souls” (Lg. 816d). Morrow argues that in Plato that infers: “Not merely harmony between character and the expressive words and movements of the choric performance, but especially harmony between a noble character and the words and gestures used to express it.”390 These observations seemingly advance assertions that authentic εὐήθεια has a potent function in a good Platonic education, as it “concerns the actions of fair and noble souls” and cultivating εὐήθεια can advance the “noble character and the words and gestures used to express it”.

Tripartite Soul Theory in the Republic Plato’s education paradigm may reflect the traditional Greek view that good schooling aims to develop “the qualities of mind and character that most fully express the ideal of human nature”. However, to pursue that ideal through Platonic philosophy would-be philosophers must harmonise their embodied tripartite soul. In that cause Plato urges them to venture beyond the remit of contemporary educational custom. For, if harmonising the embodied soul is the fundamental aim of good Platonic education it is essential for Plato’s pupils to imagine that their soul has constituent parts and to accept that they each, and collectively, have a specific and proper function. This is likely a novel and disruptive concept, as is the notion of the embodied soul’s interaction with the cosmos and each of its parts, including other embodied souls.

389 Wilburn 2013, 63. 390 Morrow 1960, 370.

141

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Having referred to the “spirited part” of a man’s nature, and made the point that education in music and gymnastics are “chiefly for the soul’s sake” I submit that it is logical for Plato to now define the embodied soul’s makeup and how that may relate to a good education. Consequently, the Republic’s account of musical and gymnastic education is followed by the exposition of Plato’s Tripartite Soul Theory. Put simply, the theory states that “the soul of a man within him has a better part and a worse part, and the expression ‘self-mastery’ means the control of the worse by the naturally better part” (431a).391 This is not an easy task, for “the simple and moderate appetites which with the aid of reason and right opinion are guided by consideration you will find in few and those the best born and best educated” (431c). Plato’s warning that only a few can moderate the appetitive part with the “the aid of reason and right opinion” is significant for two reason. First, it might be interpreted as limiting progress in Platonic philosophy to “the best born and best educated”, and so expose Plato to accusations of elitism. Granted, formal education is perhaps only available to a few of suitable birth and means, nonetheless, Plato’s audience is probably broader than that (especially in performance), and I offer that here the “best born and educated” are those who by nature and/or intuitive learning possess a nobility of spirit and good disposition. Secondly, I find it meaningful that Plato issues this caution at the beginning of his tripartite soul explanation. His frank admission of the difficulty his devotees face in achieving the Platonic notion of a rationally balanced soul speaks both to Plato’s integrity and the need for a certain type of courage to become a philosopher.

Plato’s audience is likely to greet the Tripartite Soul Theory with both suspicion and trepidation, especially after his degree of difficulty notice. He uses partitioning to better explain this tripartite psychology and perhaps mollify his audience’s doubt and disquiet. Plato partitions the embodied soul into three parts, each of which has a naturally correct function. We “learn with one part of ourselves, feel anger with another, and with yet a third desire the pleasures of nutrition and generation and their kind” (436ab). The part that learns is the tripartite soul’s philosophical part, its lover of wisdom, for “surely it is obvious to everyone

391 Cf.: “The victory over self is of all victories the first and best” (Lg. 626e), hence the Platonic imperative to gain knowledge of the self.

142

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

that all the endeavour of the part by which we learn is ever towards knowledge of the truth of things, and that it least of the three is concerned for wealth and reputation ... lover of learning and lover of wisdom would be suitable designations for that” (R. 581b). However, that is not to suggest that the learning, wisdom-loving part of the embodied soul is invariably ascendant. The “ruling principle of men’s souls is in some cases this faculty and in others one of the other two [tripartite soul parts] ... that is why we say that the primary classes of men also are three, the philosopher or lover of wisdom, the lover of victory and the lover of gain” (R. 581c).392 The tripartite soul is represented as a cohort of three agents or personalities, each of which, in various circumstances, can take command and dominate beyond the proper purview of its function.

Platonic dieresis is discussed below, though I note here Christopher Bobonich’s remark that: “A fundamental aspect of Plato’s psychology in the Phaedo and the Republic is its commitment to a partitioning thesis. On this account, individual human beings consist of distinct agent-like parts.”393 Bobonich contends that Plato’s: “Fundamental claims constituting the partitioning strategy are that (1) the person is a compound of distinct agent like parts that are themselves the proper or ultimate subjects of beliefs, desires, and other psychological states and activities, and (2) these parts have different characteristic beliefs, desires, goals, and abilities.”394 Relating Bobonich’s analysis to Plato’s tripartite soul model, then each of its parts can have agential force and be “the proper or ultimate subjects of beliefs, desires, and other psychological states and activities”. We might then suppose that Platonic philosophy takes account of this in its methods of instruction and persuasion. Particularly given that the tripartite soul’s parts have diverse and potentially conflicting “characteristic beliefs, desires, goals, and abilities”, and that the aim of tripartite psychology is finding a way to resolve these conflicts and imbue harmony within and among the parts to create a rationally coherent whole.

392 We may take the tripartite soul’s two mortal parts as “the lover of victory and the lover of gain”, which respectively desire triumph and booty. The Timaeus explains that an embodied tripartite soul “has within it passions both fearful and unavoidable ... and blending these with irrational sensation and with all-daring lust, they thus compounded in necessary fashion the mortal kind of soul” (Ti. 69cd). 393 Bobonich 2002, 217. 394 ibid.

143

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

As I understand it, Plato’s tripartite soul model partitions the embodied soul into a rational wisdom-loving part; a spirited lover of victory part; and the appetitive lover of gain part.395 I take the rational wisdom loving part to function properly where it is the soul’s charioteer (Phdr. 246a–254e), and has become the “ruling principle of men’s souls,” the reinsman that Platonic psychology intends to become the tripartite soul’s moderator of wayward spirit and appetite. Those spirits ad appetites which are referred to in the Timaeus as: “Passions both fearful and unavoidable—firstly, pleasure, a most mighty lure to evil; next, pains, which put good to rout; and besides these, rashness and fear, foolish counsellors both and anger, hard to dissuade; and hope, ready to seduce” (Ti. 69d). The cultivation of temperance and self-control is thus a critical aspect of a good Platonic education. The rational charioteer can also determine the justness. What is said to be the Republic’s only clear definition of justice suggests that being just rests on having a rationally guided tripartite soul: “We must remember, then, that each of us also in whom the several parts [of the soul] within him perform each their own task ... will be a just man and one who minds his own affair” (441de).396 Hence, where a tripartite soul’s parts function as a balanced, coherent whole its “divine governing principle” (590d) is active, and that permits “the rational part to rule, being wise and exercising forethought in behalf of the entire soul” (441e). It is this condition of the embodied soul that I term its godlike good governance.

Plato’s Tripartite Soul Theory is integral to a Platonically good education as it clarifies the practical purpose of that education: “Assuredly ... the blending of music and gymnastics will render them [the rational and spirited parts of the soul] concordant, intensifying and fostering the one with fair words and teachings and relaxing and soothing and making gentle the other by harmony and rhythm” (441e- 442a). For me, this passage also testifies to the potent function of εὐήθεια in advancing the “fair words”, “harmony and rhythm” requisite to bringing a tripartite soul to its proper order and purpose. Socrates implores the young to pursue εὐήθεια “everywhere”(400e), as good speech, accord, grace and rhythm wait upon εὐήθεια.

395 There is conjecture that in some dialogues Plato’s voice and his brothers’ persona might represent the three parts of the Tripartite Soul (ψυχή); viz., Glaucon as the appetitive (ἐπιθυµία) part, Adeimantus as the spirited (θυµοειδής) part and Plato as the rational wisdom loving (λογιστικός) part. 396 Recall in the Charmides that Socrates ironically asks, how can a person who says, “that doing one’s own business is temperance [be] such a fool (εὐήθης)” (162a)?

144

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

The Republic’s Tripartite Soul Theory is, I offer, textually positioned to stress the substantial contribution of good musical and gymnastic education to the tripartite soul’s good governance. It also prepares the audience for what follows. In order to harmonise the tripartite soul, and so stimulate what Morrow calls “the qualities of mind and character that most fully express the ideal of human nature”, a would-be philosopher must first discern the real truth of their circumstance. Plato addresses that serious concern somewhat later in the Republic by delivering the Cave Allegory’s revelatory shock.

The Cave Allegory I suggest that the Republic’s Cave Allegory (519cd), despite being rather removed from the account of musical and gymnastic education and the Tripartite Soul Theory, is intended to assist the audience’s understand of what is required to undertake and benefit from a good Platonic education. Having explained that fitting educational practices are “chiefly for the soul’s sake”, and proposed his tripartite psychology to teach why and how the embodied soul can best function, Plato relates his famous Cave Allegory. This allegory can shock and shake the audience into a realisation of their dire circumstance.397 It is thus necessary in a Platonically good education, since it can awaken a cave dweller to the harmful dangers of bondage to sensible illusion. However, to impart that realisation Plato must persuade his audience to accept that their souls are imperilled by the cave’s stupefying ignorance.

The alarming cave parable is then especially notable for its potential to deliver a primary psychological shock at various levels of philosophical development, particularly to those who reject their cave dweller status. Conceivably, Plato considers it his duty to his fellow ensouled beings to warn them of the cave’s dangers and offer a way to escape. That is perhaps the prevailing purpose of the Republic, and indeed his entire oeuvre.398 Those who

397 Cf.: “Whenever one applies an external shaking to affections of this kind [forms of fright which are due to a soul’s poor condition], the external motion thus applied overpowers the internal motion of fear and frenzy, and ... brings about a manifest calm in the soul and a cessation of the grievous palpitation of the heart which had existed in each case” (Lg. 790e-791a); “the torpedo’s shock” (Men. 86bd). 398 Recall Republic 519ce. If we have won “the vision of the good [scaled] that ascent and ... reached the heights and taken an adequate view, we must ... go down again among those

145

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

choose to leave the cave need to accept their responsibility to go back down and help others to recognise and escape their plight. Plato takes great pains to explain that revealing the reality of captivity to a cave dweller requires great care. He gives particular attention to a captive’s possible reaction to the shock of confronting their imprisonment. They may comprehend and accept the jeopardy of their situation, or indignantly refuse to accept the terrible truth in self-calming denial. Hence, the cave allegory cautions that those who accept the responsibility of going back down into the cave must be judicious in their approach lest the shock strengthens a captive’s embrace of illusion. For if the prisoner were compelled to look at the light itself, would not that pain his eyes, and would he not turn away and flee to those things which he is able to discern and regard them as in very deed more clear and exact than the objects pointed out ... and when he came out into the light ... he would not be able to see even one of the things that we call real (515de-516a).

There can be no incentive to escape the ignorance of illusion until its existence is admitted. A hapless prisoner sufficiently shaken and willing to at least attempt unshackling their chains from the cave wall first needs to gradually comprehend the hazards of their situation. For Plato, acknowledging that one lives in a cavern of unreality is often the first and essential step in stimulating an embodied soul’s recollection of its truly godlike nature and intuitive yearning for higher knowledge. The allegory’s reality jolt is however tempered by the prospect of escape. That probably requires embracing a philosophy that can elevate the cave dweller from dim ignorance toward the light of truth, and so an ascent “from the subterranean cavern to the world above” (532b). The shock of recognition offers an opportunity for a cave dweller to challenge their beliefs and begin to resist habitual illusion, accordingly, platonically good education places great weight on correct discernment. In that regard, the Cave Allegory serves to “compare our nature in respect of education and its lack” (514a). The allegory graphically describes living in the mechanical belief (cf. 590d) that fleeting “shadows of artificial objects” (515c) represent the truth of reality. It thus presages the consequences of living in a cave of ignorance in hopes that that realisation will arouse the embodied soul to reach for its own light of divine kinship.

bondsmen and share their labours and honours”. See fn. 112: the Cave Allegory may indicate the Republic’s raison d'être; to go down into the cave of contemporary ignorance and free people from their illusions.

146

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

The Cave Allegory also poignantly alludes to Socrates’ fate as a truth seeker who caused considerable disquiet among some influential cave dwellers. This adds to the allegory’s contemporary relevance and instructive utility for both Plato’s neophytes and the students whose ascent from their cave is more advanced. In a surely Socratic reference, Plato writes of one who “returned from his journey aloft [to have cave dwellers] lay hands on and ... kill [him for trying] to release them and lead them up” (517a). To “lead them up” from the cave of ignorance to the light of truth necessities “the ascent and the contemplation of the things above [which] is the soul’s ascension to the intelligible region” (517b).399 Plato again cautions those who, like Socrates, encourage that ascent to “the intelligible region” lest like him they are “compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to contend [with] the shadows of justice or the images that cast the shadows and to wrangle in debate about the notions of these things in the minds of those who have never seen justice itself” (517de). A passage that suggests Socrates’ enquiry into what justice is intends to arouse the nature of real justice in the mind caves of those who have “never seen justice itself”, minds that in ignorance might “lay hands on and ... kill” the truly wise, just and nobly simple.

I therefore conclude that the Republic’s Cave Allegory participates in the fundamental mission of a Platonically good education to dispel ignorance and pursue reality. The allegory asks ensouled beings to face and know the truth of their corrupted mortal circumstance, however shocking. For the cave dweller who chooses to acknowledge their dire situation there is an opportunity to escape by at least aspiring to ascend.

Mathematical educational practices in the Republic Following the Republic’s instructive Cave Allegory we read of other fitting educational practices. Socrates says music and gymnastic practices are necessary for a Platonically good education, though evidently they are not sufficient. He

399 I support the view that Plato does not regard the sensible and intelligible realms as two separate worlds. Rather, the Platonic cosmos is a living universe that entails the sensible and intelligible realms as a united whole. Plato does not endorse a two-world theory, such as those based on the hypothesis that matter preceded Soul. Dimitri El Murr comments that in Statesman’s cosmology account, “Plato depicted an indefinite alternation of cosmic cycles, the two worlds within the myth may well be intended as no more than two contradictory aspects of one and the same world, our world” (El Murr 2010, 295-6.).

147

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

asks, what “would be the study that would draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being ... what other study is left apart from music, gymnastics and the arts” (521d -522b)? That study, “applies to all alike ... [it is] a common thing that all arts and forms of thought and all sciences employ ... this trifling matter ... of distinguishing one and two and three ... in sum, number and calculation” (522bc). then can unify “all arts and forms of thought and all sciences”, which has a critical utility in Platonic philosophic method. Mitchell Miller contends that “Plato considered these studies [mathematics] valuable as a ... propaideutic for dialectical study of forms ... enabling the philosopher-to-be to ‘turn’ from sensibles to forms of the Good ... [which] involves a transcending of the sensible.”400 Miller’s views sustain the supposition that good educational practices and/or naturally good disposition can suitably prepare a cognitive substrate to usefully receive the imprint of Platonic dialectic, and so enable it to “draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being”.

The cave dwellers who are sufficiently shocked into wanting to transcend the sensible and ascend to higher philosophical studies need look to fitting education to aid their escape. Logically, therefore, Plato offers his exposition of mathematical studies immediately after the allegory, for as Eves holds: “The study of mathematics furnished the finest training for the mind and, hence, was essential for the cultivation of philosophers.”401 Mathematics unifies the educational practices that necessarily precede the would-be philosopher’s reception of dialectic instruction. Miller believes there are five propaideutic mathematical practices that “enable the would-be philosopher to first emerge from the cave, for each of the five, even while it may begin with something sense-perceptible, teaches her to treat this as, at best, an image of the purely intelligible structures which her thought really refer.”402 A view which reflects Glaucon’s remark that students of mathematical studies “make use of the visible forms (εἴδεσι) and talk about them, though they are not thinking of them but of those things of which they are a likeness ... what they really seek is to get sight of those realities which

400 Miller 1999, 73-4. 401 Eves 1990, 106. 402 Miller 1999, 74. According to Miller the five are “‘arithmetic and calculation,’ plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and harmonic theory” (Miller 1999, 73).

148

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

can be seen only by the mind” (510de-511a), a process I submit that might employ the eidos of εὐήθεια. For “ those which partake of likeness become like, and those which partake of unlikeness become unlike, and those which partake of both become both like and unlike, all in the manner and degree of their participation (Prm.129a)”. Hence, the greater ones proximity to goodness (including holding mental image of it), the more likely one is to manifest that goodness and so help to propagate divine Good.

The attention to mathematical studies in the Republic continues to challenges a cave dwellers’ unthinking acceptance of illusion, since mathematics may “invite the intellect to reflection because [it can] provoke thoughts [that] at the same time issue in a contradictory perception ... those that do have that effect ... [Socrates] set[s] down as provocatives (παρακαλέω), when the perception no more manifests one thing than its contrary” (523bc). Provocative (παρακαλέω) things, like mathematics, “impinge upon the senses together with their opposites, while those that do not I said do not tend to awaken reflection” (524d). Smith translates παρακαλέω at Republic 524d as “summoners” and holds that Plato intends the Republic itself to be such a summoner in order “to turn the students away from the sensible realm, towards the intelligible realm”.403 I concur with Smith, and also with his assessment of the “Republic as an instrument for the intellectual training and preparation of the power of knowledge in the soul for the ultimate goal of dialectic, cognitively speaking.”404 As I have argued, this “intellectual training and preparation” can form a cognitive substrate that is amenable to realising “the ultimate goal of dialectic” and arrive “at the limit of the intelligible” (532ab). Indeed, I hold that Plato’s entire opus has that practical intent.

Socrates uses the example of perceiving three fingers to explain how the intellect can be provoked, or summoned, to simultaneously reflect on contradictory awareness. At first we may only see three similar, non-contradictory fingers, since “the soul of most men [is not] impelled to question the reason and to ask what in the world is a finger ... [and] such a perception will not provoke or awaken

403 N. Smith 2000, 133. 404 N. Smith 2000, 134.

149

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

reflection and thought” (523de).405 We can count how many fingers there are, and calculate their relative positions, length, thickness, shade et cetera. We thus perceive and reflect on a relational scale of quantity and quality that fingers can be either longer or shorter, thicker or thinner, nearer or further, and so concurrently manifest contradiction. Such intellection may “draw the mind to the apprehension of essence” (524e), thus, “the qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of truth” (525b).

Geometry, “knowledge of the eternally existent” (527b), is the next mathematical practice presented in the Republic. Some ancient sources suggest Plato’s Academy inaugurated one of the earliest enrolment prerequisites, purportedly inscribing above its entrance: ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ - Let no one unskilled in geometry enter here.406 Dillon comments that we cannot be sure when the “the famous, though no doubt mythical notice ... was invented!”407 Yet, David Fowler assigns such weight to the subtext of this “mythical notice” that the “well-known and often-cited story provides an epitome of the main theme” of his book, The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy: A New Reconstruction.408 Fowler says that while: “The evidence for the story is late and of doubtful provenance there can be no doubt that for Plato mathematics is extremely important. However, that the inscription corresponds so well with Plato’s own opinions can be used as an argument against its authenticity.”409 Thus, as Fowler notes, regardless of the its validity there is ample evidence of Plato’s high regard for the mathematics of geometry: “This branch of study [geometry] really seems to be indispensable for us, since it plainly compels the soul to employ pure thought with a view to truth itself ... [so] we must not neglect this study, but must use it in the education of the best endowed natures” (526ac). The theme of mathematics’ vital contribution to Platonic philosophy’s quest for “truth itself” is reiterated in the acclaim of geometry. Socrates notes that even geometry’s “by-products are not slight, for the better reception of all studies there

405 Here Plato anticipates (as he often does) a supposed Aristotelian principle. In this instance, “that ‘substances’ do not, as qualities do, admit of more or less” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 523d). 406 Saffrey 1968, 67-87. 407 Dillon 2003, 96. 408 Fowler 1999, 199. 409 Fowler 1999, 203.

150

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

will be an immeasurable difference between the student who has been imbued with geometry and the one who has not” (527bc), and gives further notice of mathematical studies’ unifying function.

The Republic’s fourth mathematical study is astronomy, which involves “the movements of solids” (528e). Astronomy has considerable potency in Platonic philosophy, especially for its psychology of unicity and simplicity through purity: “There is in every soul an organ or instrument of knowledge that is purified and kindled afresh by such studies [astronomy] when it has been destroyed and blinded by our ordinary pursuits, a faculty whose preservation outweighs ten thousand eyes; for by it only is reality beheld” (527de). Plato lauds astronomy for its capacity to awaken the embodied soul’s “organ or instrument of knowledge”. Astronomy is not merely an abstract science; it is a practical way to help remove the veil of ignorance that blinds the embodied soul from apprehending its true divine nature. Astronomy visibly and intelligibly inspires the embodied soul’s resonance with cosmic harmony, it “turns the soul’s gaze upward [and] deals with being and the invisible” (529b) and can “convert to right use from uselessness that natural indwelling intelligence of the soul” (530c). The Republic’s account of a fitting preparatory education thus concludes by affirming the existence of an embodied soul’s “organ or instrument of knowledge” and the necessity for its “natural indwelling intelligence” to be usefully employed. The duty of a Platonically good education is to draw out that divine nous and enable its rightful purpose.

The “right use” of a good mathematical and other educational practices can impart a moral benefit. Ian Mueller believes that this is the case, since in the: “Republic Plato highlights the role of mathematics in directing the attention of the potentially divine individual away from the lower world to the higher world and its apex, the .”410 As such, it is conducive to the retention and cultivation of εὐήθεια because it brings the mind’s attention to goodness and beauty, and so develops the cognitive substrate requisite for the useful reception of dialectic’s truths. The ethical value of mathematics in a Platonically good education is that “the qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of

410 Mueller 2005, 117: my capitalisation of Good

151

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

truth ... facilitating the conversion of the soul itself from the world of generation to essence and truth ... provided it is pursued for the sake of knowledge and not for huckstering” (525ac). Truth is the primary concern of Platonic ethics, and mathematics can help an embodied soul’s essential divine truth to be known. Another important aspect of mathematical education in Plato is that it “applies to all alike ... [it is] a common thing that all arts and forms of thought and all sciences employ” (522c). The unifying influence of number and calculation also sustains Plato’s theory of cosmic unity. Indeed, whatever one identifies as a fundamental Platonic tenet engages in “the study of unity [as it is] one of the studies that guide and convert the soul to the contemplation of true being” (525a).

To introduce the next section, I recall Miller’s remark that mathematical practices in Plato are the “propaideutic for dialectical study”. While I agree with Miller’s assessment I submit that an appropriate preparation for Platonic dialectic entails the right use of the soul’s “natural indwelling intelligence”, and that that can broadly encompass the retention and cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια. Indeed, Smith believes that while we might: “Suppose that the field of mathematics provides the only studies suited to prepare those with appropriate natures for dialectic and it may be that they are necessary; it may only be that they are illustrative or exemplary of such preparatory studies.”411 Let us now consider how Platonic dialectic functions as the highest level of a Platonically good education.

Platonic dialectic Having set out good educational practices, explained the structure and proper function of a tripartite soul, delivered the Cave Allegory’s shock and extolled mathematical instruction Plato now demonstrates the Republic’s usefulness “as an instrument for the intellectual training and preparation of the power of knowledge in the soul such training”.412 Subsequently, his explanation of is itself a dialectical exercise. 413

411 N. Smith 2000, 133. 412 N. Smith 2000, 134. 413 Platonic dialectic is here understood as a philosophical τέχνη, a technique or method that helps “to distinguish the aspect of reality and the intelligible” (R. 511bc). Thus, a true dialectician is one “who is able to exact an account of the essence of each thing” (R. 534b).

152

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

The purpose and significance of dialectic as the pinnacle of Plato’s educational paradigm is well documented. Some of that scholarship is suggestive of the remark in the Laws’ that “either real play or education worthy of the name ... [is] the most serious thing” (803d). Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan address this association of “real play” and dialectic education. They assert that: Platonic dialectic is not only argument; it is also play ... if to play is a divine gift for Plato, then it becomes clear that, by ignoring this aspect of his writing, some contemporary scholarship has created a totalitarian, rather prohibitive Plato who can be attacked or deconstructed at will as the bulwark of unfashionable, institutional thinking.414 Apart from endorsing the valid point concerning ill-considered attacks on Plato, my construal of the Corrigan’s remarks and Laws 803d is that while Plato regards education and dialectic as “the most serious thing” he deems it a “divine gift” of playfulness that can reveal an embodied soul’s godlike nature. His dialectic is then, being a divine bounty, an integral aspect of Platonic religiosity, which regrettably is often ignored in some scholarship’s awkward and restricted deconstruction of Platonic philosophy.

The Republics’ divided line simile makes a strong case for the power of Platonic dialectic’s technique: The other section of the intelligible ... [is] that which the reason itself lays hold of by the power of dialectics, treating its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards so to speak, to enable it to rise to that which requires no assumption and is the starting-point of all, and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward (καταβαίνω) to the conclusion, making no use whatever of any object of sense but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas ... to distinguish the aspect of reality and the intelligible, which is contemplated by the power of dialectic, as something truer and more exact than the object of the so-called arts and sciences whose assumptions are arbitrary starting-points (511bc). Plato again chooses the Republic’s first word, καταβαίνω, to describe his dialectic’s, and indeed the Republic’s, technique of proceeding downward “to the conclusion” using only “pure ideas”, which I submit infers a method of simplification. From a dramatic device perspective, this detailed explanation of Plato’s dialectic technique might be seen as intentionally breaching drama’s fourth wall to address his audience in a seeming aside that reveals the Republic’s, and indeed Platonic philosophy’s, premeditated aim to influence its audience. The

414 Corrigan 2005, 2.

153

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

passage also offers a glimpse of how Plato might use his dialogues as texts to augment his oral schooling. He establishes that the imperative function of his dialectic is to transcend the sensible by distinguishing “the aspect of reality and the intelligible” for: When anyone by dialectics attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all of sense to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist till he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the Good in itself, he arrives at the limit of the intelligible (532ab). That dialectic ultimately aims to foster the apprehension “by thought itself [of] the nature of the Good in itself” clearly evidences dialectic’s ethical aspirations and the necessity for a properly good preparation (entailing the cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια), before it can take effect.

Dialectic treats “its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards”. Those who choose to leave the cave to pursue the love of wisdom may come to engage with dialectic where they have been effectively unbound from beliefs based on illusion and ignorance. Since, “where the starting-point is something that the reasoner does not know, and the conclusion and all that intervenes is a tissue of things not really known, what possibility is there that assent in such cases can ever be converted into true knowledge or science” (533c). Platonic dialectic must therefore do “away with hypotheses, up to the first principle itself in order to find confirmation there” (533c). This is essential for the soul’s well-being, as “it is literally true that when the eye of the soul is sunk in the barbaric slough of the Orphic myth, dialectic gently draws it forth and leads it up, employing as helpers and co-operators in this conversion the studies and sciences which we enumerated” (533cd).415

To aid understanding of this dialectic process Plato again reveals his “commitment to a partitioning thesis”416 Socrates divides cognitive activities into four levels that can culminate in the copingstone of dialectic: “The first division [is] knowledge (ἐπιστήµη), the second understanding (διάνοια), the third belief (πίστις), and the fourth conjecture or picture-thought (εἰκασία) — and the last two

415 Shorey notes “Orphism pictured the impious souls as buried in mud in the world below” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 533d). 416 Bobonich 2002, 217.

154

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

collectively opinion, and the first two intellection, opinion dealing with generation and intellection with essence” (533e-534a).417 This division sets out a sequence of cognitive progress from picture thought (εἰκασία) to belief (πίστις), then from understanding (διάνοια) to knowledge (ἐπιστήµη), the latter here understood as the higher reasoning and intellection stimulated by dialectic. My construal of εὐήθεια’s eidos as fostering the “picture thought” of and belief in good may help to convey its critical function in the cognitive preparation and receptiveness necessary to benefit from the higher education of Platonic dialectic’s progression to understanding and knowing “by thought itself the nature of the Good in itself” (R. 532b).

Plato’s use of familiar imagery to explain abstraction is evident in the masonry metaphor he employs to emphasise dialectic’s foremost rank in Platonic education. Set “dialectics above all other studies to be as it were the coping-stone (θριγκός) — and that no other higher kind of study could rightly be placed above it” (534e),418 and “all the preliminary studies ... are indispensable preparation for dialectics” (536d).419 Validating dialectic as the paramount and discrete “coping- stone” of Platonic education does not however preclude its involvement as a philosophical technique in preparatory “preliminary studies”, where is may also make “the impression that one wishes to stamp upon [creature that are young and tender]” (R. 377b).420 Such impress, evoking the masonry metaphor, might envisage dialectic as a kind of binding mortar applied in the consistency most likely to strengthen a would-be philosophers’ rational commitment to pursue divine Good itself. As Smith notes, Platonic dialectic presents “the intelligent reader with images of the truth, which are plainly identified as such by their author, and which serve to draw the mind away from the ephemera of the senses towards the higher realities the images themselves only approximate.”421 I submit

417 Shorey’s translation of εἰκασία as “picture-thought” reflect Plato’s wide use of vision metaphors to aid understanding of his metaphysical concepts. 418 θριγκός may also be translated as the “last finish” (‘θριγκός’, LSJ, 1889). 419 Shorey notes, “Plato’s purpose throughout is ... to mark definitely the boundaries between the mathematical and other sciences and pure dialectics or philosophy ... [Plato] had no idea of doing away with the fundamental difference that made dialectics and not mathematics the coping-stone of the higher education —science as such does not question its first principles and dialectic does” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 527a). 420 Again, I hold that Plato’s references to ‘children’, ‘youth’, ‘the young and tender’ et cetera might also imply relative stages of philosophic development. 421 N. Smith 2000, 133.

155

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

that this “higher kind of study,” which draws “the mind away from the ephemera of the senses towards the higher realities,” can simultaneously sustain and cope different degrees of philosophical advancement. That is, dialectic is not only actively engaged as the culmination of preliminary education, it can have effect at various junctures of philosophical schooling.

Indeed, the Republic’s recounting of dialectic’s ways and means to its disparate audience attests to that broader efficacy, as it seems implausible that the entire Republic, as dialectic, is intended to only impress advanced philosophers. In which case, dialectic’s considerable power can participates in varying and diverse ways throughout philosophical progress, often as an intermediate finishing layer that sustains, culminates and elevates, albeit at times in marginal increments. In so doing dialectic might provide the “hypotheses, underpinnings, footings, and springboards so to speak” that are necessary for its own subsequent advancement by drawing on what already exists to revitalise intuitive impulse, forestall decline or renew progress. Its affect is in accord with the “certain harmony of spirit ... rhythm measure and grace” (522ab) of the embodied soul with which it interacts. Afflatus aside,422 Platonic dialectic’s “intelligent words” can germinate the innate seeds of higher intellection, and that might occur in a moment of self-reflection, during a dialogue or throughout a lifetime. The aptitude of an embodied soul to benefit from dialectic is regulated by all its “preliminary studies”, which involves its prior patterning, philosophical maturity, ethical stability and natural disposition. In my terms, that which determines a cognitive substrate’s capacity to receive, retain and regenerate dialectic encounters. Those who derive the greatest benefit from these encounters are “the most stable, the most brave and enterprising ... [who] possess also the gifts of nature suitable to this type of education” (535ab).

What might we count among “the gifts of nature” that are suited to dialectical education? At the commencement of the Cave Allegory Plato advises that there are:

422 Afflatus: “the miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge” (OED 1989), that dialectic perhaps fosters.

156

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Four affections occurring in the soul: [ranking] intellection or reason (νόησις) for the highest, understanding (διάνοια) for the second; assign belief (πίστις) to the third, and to the last picture-thinking or conjecture (εἰκασία), and arrange them in a proportion, considering that they participate in clearness and precision in the same degree as their objects partake of truth and reality (511de). Accepting that these natural affections of the embodied soul can act in it own best interest we might reasonably reckon them gifts of divine nature.423 The counsel that these affections “participate in clearness and precision in the same degree as their objects partake of truth and reality” relates to why cave dwellers cannot “partake of truth and reality” because they do not look upon the objects of either. Where the embodied soul’s affections are realised as “gifts of nature” they can facilitate the soul’s progressively eager desire for dialectic education. I also note a close correlation between the partitioning of an embodied soul’s affections and the cognitive activity that can progress to dialectic’s intellection. That is, from εἰκασία to πίστις, then to διάνοια and ἐπιστήµη, which I suppose are broadly sequential though frequently concurrent. There is thus a direct parallel between the first three affections of an embodied soul and the mental activities that precede dialectic. I therefore submit that the highest affection of the embodied soul, intellection or reason (νόησις), and the highest level of cognition - knowledge (ἐπιστήµη), understood as the coping stone of dialectic - might represent the same level of intellection, which is “the excellence of thought ... of a more divine quality, a thing that never loses its potency, but, according to the direction of its conversion, becomes useful and beneficent” (518e). I also hold that εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of charterer and mind is a gift of nature: “We have nothing good which they [the gods] do not give” (Euthphr. 15a). These divine gifts are often evident in youth (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5), and cab be retained to good effect by the “the most stable, the most brave and enterprising” (535a).424 Where it might usefully function as an eidos of good surely εὐήθεια evokes “excellence of thought [that] becomes useful and beneficent”. 425

423 Cf.: “When a man's soul is stripped bare of the body, all its natural gifts, and the experiences added to that soul as the result of his various pursuits, are manifest in it” (Grg. 524e-525a). 424 Good speech (εὐλογία) can be understood as praise or a gift, and significantly, a blessing called down from above. I acknowledge the anachronistic implications of applying LSJ 1889, ed. 9, definiens to Platonic text. 425 It is pertinent to note Gaudin’s remark that εὐήθεια “is the ethos taken as the character of the man when he uses διάνοια harmoniously: it is over this character that the λέξις of the reciting poet, the rhythm, the harmony and the grace of dance and music are regulated” (Gaudin 1981, 160).

15 7

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

Conceding that there is a correlation between Plato’s partitioning of cognitive activity and the embodied soul’s affections, we might suppose that his dialectic technique purposefully appeals at various levels to gratifying the embodied soul’s affections. If that is the case, Plato intends his dialectic to cultivate and ultimately realise the truth and reality of the tripartite soul’s “more divine quality” by utilising its natural gifts of affection for picture-thinking or conjecture, belief, understanding and intellection or reason. For an embodied soul to accomplish that highest human state of godlike cognition it must progress from picture thought (here an eidos) to generate right opinion. In the context of this thesis that means the mental image engendered by εὐήθεια’s divine gifts of truly good and fair disposition can bring belief and right opinion. Such cognition guides the good speech, accord, grace and rhythm that can indicate right opinions and understanding, so that perhaps “by thought itself [one comes to know] the nature of the Good in itself”, which only dialectic’s intellection can reveal.

I conclude this discussion of Plato’s dialectic with a brief review of his criteria for a competent dialectician. The Republic advises: Give the name dialectician to the man who is able to exact an account of the essence of each thing ... this [is] true of the good likewise ... to define in his discourse and distinguish and abstract from all other things the aspect or idea of the Good ... striving to examine everything by essential reality and not by opinion ... to know the Good itself or any particular good (534bc). Evidently, for Plato a dialectician’s task is to discern and propagate divine Good. Hence, a suitably qualified dialectician must be able to “distinguish and abstract from all other things the aspect or idea of the Good ... to know the Good itself or any particular good”, noting that I regard εὐήθεια’s eidos as a mental aspect of good that is a particularisation of the Good.

The Phaedrus explains the application of the dialectic art: Serious discourse ... is far nobler, when one employs the dialectic method and plants and sows in a fitting soul intelligent words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, which are not fruitless, but yield seed from which there spring up in other minds other words capable of continuing the process for ever, and which make their possessor happy, to the farthest possible limit of human happiness (276e-277a). A competent dialectician must master this noble technique of planting and sowing “intelligent words” in fitting souls to propagate benefits for the teachers and

158

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

students who may in turn broadcast them to “spring up in other minds … capable of continuing the process for ever”. The passage also supports the view that Plato considers his philosophy to be a potent and enduring method that has relevance in any human age. The dialectician knows that “those permitted to take part in such discussions must have orderly and stable natures” (539d), for me that infers a suitable cognitive substrate. The fruits of that participation may be substantial, for it can bring “the farthest possible limit of human happiness”.

Platonic partitions As we have seen, Platonic dialectic employs diaeretic partitioning as a teaching aid: Krader and Levitt remark that: “Dialectic in Plato is conceived to be superior to mathematics and other sciences, for it has access by diaeresis.”426 I do not suggest that each instance of partitioning in Plato is diaeretic. However, I do contend that his use of partitioning often assists the mental imaging and understanding of abstract metaphysical concepts. Evoking such images is particularly evident in the Republic. Indeed, Smith believes the “Republic may be understood as a dianoetic work - that is, as providing the sorts of images that are supposed to be understood by their consumers as images, in the consumers’ educational quest for some understanding of higher realities.”427 The Republic divides the ascent to coping dialectic into four cognitive parts, the embodied soul into three parts, and the soul’s affections into four. Furthermore, I propose that the list of goods guided by εὐήθεια is another instance of partitioning in the Republic, which might suggest these goods are sequentially and concurrently causal. Such a causal sequence thus begins with good speech (εὐλογία), since, “good ... rhythm (ῥυθµός) and harmony (ἁρµονία) follow the words and not the words these” (R. 400d).428 Then come good accord (εὐαρµοστία), good grace (εὐσχηµοσύνη) and good rhythm (εὐρυθµία). I suppose these goods collectively and individually support the orderly function of tripartite soul’s parts and the needs of its affections, and similarly help to progress the mind’s reception of Platonic dialectic’s intelligent word. I will not here speculate on how the partitioning of εὐήθεια’s goods might participate in a coherent alliance

426 Krader and Levitt 2010, 214. 427 N. Smith 2000, 133. 428 Cf.: “It is the function of speech to lead souls by persuasion ... [as] men of a certain sort are easily persuaded by speeches of a certain sort for a certain reason to actions or beliefs of a certain sort” (Phdr 271cd).

159

Chapter 7 - The Function of Εύήθεια Eidos in Platonic Education and Dialectic

with the partitioning of the tripartite soul, the soul’s affections and the cognitive processes of dialectic, save to say that such surmise perhaps rests on granting that the causal sequence of εὐήθεια’s goods might relate to, and participate in, the divisions and sequences of other Platonic diaeresis.

This chapter has presented practices and techniques of Platonically good education. Explored specific aspects of that education by focusing on the Republic’s musical and gymnastic educational practices, Tripartite Soul Theory, the Cave Allegory, mathematical education and Platonic dialectic. I conclude that the propaideutic aspects of a Platonically good education involves the cave allegory’s shocks of recognition to challenge beliefs; understanding the structure, function and affections of the tripartite soul; and the cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια. Where a requisite substrate is suitably prepared, a fittingly good disposition may be further elevated by the copingstone(s) of Platonic dialectic, the only educational technique that can “distinguish the aspect of reality and the intelligible” (R. 511bc). The chapter concludes by suggesting that Plato’s partitions of cognition, the tripartite soul and its affections, and εὐήθεια’s goods might symbiotically participate in a Platonically good education.

I have argued that the pursuit and cultivation in the soul of authentic εὐήθεια has a potent function in a Platonically good education, as the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind is essential in the propaideutic preparation for the effective reception of Platonic dialectic. The following chapter argues that the εὐηθέστεροι are virtue eikons who personify εὐήθεια and exemplify the godlike virtue of noble simplicity.

160

Chapter 8

The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

(iv) the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. (vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. Evidence supports the claim that Plato challenges εὐήθεια’s idiomatic connotations of naïve simpleton and semantically resuscitates the word as the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. In my view, the renascence of εὐήθεια in Plato reflects Thucydides’ lament at the loss of “the ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια) of which nobility had the greatest share” (Th. 3.83.1). To paraphrase Crane’s assessment, Plato makes the reestablishment and defence of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity “his life’s work”.429

In this chapter I will argue that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι account (hereafter referred to as the εὐηθέστεροι myth), epitomises the conditions for an embodied soul to attain godlike good and that that entails εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity. I contend that since the εὐηθέστεροι exemplify godlike cardinal virtues they are godlike, and that therefore their noble simplicity is a godlike virtue.

I offer three premisses to support my contentions. The first posits that, the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. The second states that, the εὐηθέστεροι took their beliefs to be real truth. The third proposes that, the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish.

429 Crane 1998, 19 & 22.

161

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

The εὐηθέστεροι’s noble character and simplicity are good

(iv) the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. The Laws’ account states that the εὐηθέστεροι are good because of their environment and simplicity. I note that Plato differentiates between these two causes of goodness. Does that suggest that the εὐηθέστεροι’s simplicity is innate? I suggest that it does, and recollect the notion of youthful εὐήθεια as essential to an embodied soul. This godlike quality of noble simplicity can be ridiculed and ruined, thus Plato seeks to protect and nurture the survival of this good and fair disposition.

Csapo believes that “from the time of Thucydides we can detect a nostalgia for the ‘noble simplicity’ that once characterized good men, but was vanishing in a world where faith and trust were no longer possible because the absolute standard of the Good that once governed morality had given way to relativism and the individual calculation of advantage.”430 Arguably, Csapo’s insights support my view that Plato imagines the εὐηθέστεροι myth to evoke “nostalgia for the ‘noble simplicity’ that once characterized good men”. In a society where the “absolute standard of the Good that once governed morality had given way to relativism and the individual calculation of advantage,” the pursuit and practise of virtue declines and noble simplicity is dishonoured. Plato, therefore, sets out to affirm and revive the virtue of noble simplicity as the truly good and fair disposition of character and mind in his efforts to provide an intellectual counterweight to the “false stories” and sophistic wisdom that subverts truth and trust. The εὐηθέστεροι’s mythic age evidently exemplifies the ideal human circumstances for the embodied soul to retain its noble simplicity and godlike goodness. The εὐηθέστεροι are not subject to the vagaries and strife of the modern world, and so beyond and before the need for philosophic purification and simplification. They are eikonic because they epitomise the virtuous human state that can exist in a harmonious environment. Ridding a whole society of its cunning and destructive arts may not be feasible, yet for Plato that aim can be pursued by an individual in any society through the responsible godlike good governance of their tripartite soul.

430 Csapo 2011, 121: my capitalisation of Good.

162

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

I submit that Plato’s resuscitation of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity in its Thucydidean sense is sustained by his broader advocacy of simplicity. In some instances where Plato cites the admirable as simple and the simple as admirable he juxtaposes simplicity and multiplicity to express a preference for the former. In the Republic he opposes the simplicity of fitting music to the discordant complexity of polyharmonics. I also count his sharp admonishment of unseemly cunning as relevant to discussing simplicity in Plato. However, before exploring that and other specific instances of Plato favouring simplicity I consider the broader implications of simplicity and complexity in Plato.

Some interpret Plato’s concepts of simplicity and complexity as clearly defined and oppositional, others might deem them vague and contradictory. My understanding of simplicity and complexity in Plato derives from the Platonic model of the cosmos wherein, as I perceive it, simplicity is a primary principle of cosmic unity. Plato’s cosmos is a unified living entity, a universe of Good order governed by a simplex divinity’s immutable laws: “God is altogether simple and true in deed and word” (R. 382e). Notwithstanding ancient theories of and Platonic indivisibles, the procreation of simple natural laws requires the manifestation of multiple sensibles.431 Yet, the divine simplicity and orderly economy of those laws involve complex processes and particularisations. The Platonic cosmos therefore must inevitably display the apparent multiplicity of its myriad facets. Hence, we might not see the symmetrical simplicity of the unified cosmos and its causal laws; rather, we habitually note their complex asymmetrical effects. Thus, for Plato not all multiplicity is opposed to good as it is a necessary consequence of his cosmological model. Accordingly, in the broader Platonic cosmic sense simplicity and complex multiplicity are not opposing, as they are aspects of the same cyclic continuum, or in Findlay’s terms the opposite sides of the same thing.432 However, Plato does consider multiplicity detrimental where arrayed as the corrupt complexity that opposes the purification and simplification of the embodied soul, and so counters the prorogation of divine good.

431 This is not the place to expand my views of Platonic Atomism. Yet, I question Hylton’s position that in Platonic Atomism’s “picture of the mind and it capacities ... there is no overt concern at all with the nature of thought or the mind or experience, in any sense” (Hylton 1990, 108). 432 Findlay 1974, 236.

163

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

Plato especially condemns the unseemly sophistication that stimulates complexity and strife in the tripartite soul. He imagines such souls as a microcosmic part of the cosmos that are subject to the same laws and processes. A Platonic embodied soul is made complex in its compounding as an admixture of “the immortal element within us“ (Lg. 714a) and mortal spiritedness and appetite (cf. Ti. 41). Plato’s unified cosmos does not admit separate worlds of simplicity and complexity. The embodied soul is a complex particularisation of the simplex cosmic soul (cf. Ti. 41), nonetheless, it remains a part of the unified cosmic whole. As symbiotic components in that universe each soul can cycle through various degrees of purity and simplicity in states of amendment, or come to repose in a final station.433 During such cycles an embodied soul can be relatively purified and simplified if a tripartite soul’s love of wisdom is ascendant and can thus administer godlike good governance. However, where “the lover of victory and the lover of gain” (R. 581c) triumphs the disharmony of psychological complexity abounds. Therefore, as I interpret Platonic psychology, a tripartite soul’s simplicity or complexity is determined by the goodness of its governance. Where spirited ambition and avid appetite thrive the tripartite soul’s divine governing principle is malnourished. If its mortal parts become increasingly entangled by convoluted ignorance the simplicity of rational guidance withers. Where the tripartite soul is increasingly simplified through awareness of its divine nature and the practise of virtue it becomes more godlike and fit to pursue its rational telos to turn away from the allure of sensible complexity and seek the true simplicity of its intelligible nature.

I reject suggestions that Plato’s tripartite embodied soul model is antithetical to claims that the soul’s nature is simple, and concur with Christopher Shields’ belief that Plato’s “argument for a tripartite psychology in the Republic IV cannot be understood to advocate a conception of the soul in any way incompatible with his characterizations of the soul as simple given elsewhere in the corpus.”434 Shields adds: “It would be a mistake, as Plato says it would be a mistake, to infer that the forms of complexity ascribed to the soul throughout the Republic are, in any relevant sense, incompatible with the simple

433 The states and stations of Platonic souls are discussed in Chapter 10. 434 Shields 2001, 141.

164

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

souls he understands to be our true natures.”435 If Plato aims to quicken an embodied soul’s realisation of its truly simple nature then Platonic philosophy is primarily a method to help purify and simplify an embodied soul in order for it to return to its “union with divine virtue” (Lg. 904e), as “the study of unity will ... guide and convert the soul to the contemplation of true being” (R. 525a). That reunification is in accord with Plato’s cosmic order. It enables the soul’s immortal element to contribute to the unity of cosmic simplicity that is intrinsic to Platonic method and purpose. The more developed an embodied soul’s simplicity the greater its manifest godlike virtue. Such simplicity is thus a godlike quality and so truly noble, as that soul’s affinity with divinity is determined by and determines its proximity to and belief in its divinity. As its host’s naturally good and beautiful disposition of mind flourishes so the soul increasingly resembles the harmonious unity of cosmic order, noting that unity does not necessarily entail uniformity. In this way the soul’s ontological truth overturns, or at least mitigates, its host’s belief in a merely phenomenological existence.

I hold that a tripartite soul’s progress to simplification compels its host to discern and deconstruct the complexities attendant to their soul’s mortal parts. Plato often explains that being good is difficult (cf. Phdr. 250a, Prt. 339b-347b, Tht. 177a), and advocating simplicity in the quest for goodness might further challenge would-be philosophers. Especially since Plato’s sociological observations probably reveals that human attraction to multiple complexity is pervasive and persuasive. Complexity offers an alluring immediacy of choice that titillates and sustains appetitive expectation. It amplifies confident anticipation of gratification since it expands and escalates the apparent multiple choice and probability of satisfying the desire for triumph and booty. The more those desires are fed the more likely they will prosper and thwart “obedience to the immortal element within us“ (Lg. 714a). As it increases the prospect of pleasure multiplicity is itself appealing, irrespective of what it actually delivers. Disappointed expectations are readily assuaged by a new wave of anticipated pleasures. Why settle for one source of gratification if many can be imagined and pursued?

435 Shields 2001, 151.

165

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

This reveals manifold complexity’s perversely anodyne appeal. That is, the illusions of myriad choices mitigate the anguish and pain of authentic aporia.436 Decisions become less important because their consequences are perceived as only one of many short-term gratification options. Multiple, short- range choices telescope a moral agent’s prospect horizons, bringing outcomes closer and foreshortening rational consideration of long, even mid, term consequence. The more dominant the anticipation of proximate goals the less likely the agent is to cultivate the virtues of noble courage and temperance in pursuit of lengthier aspirations. The anodyne salve of ready expectation and rapid satisfaction can induce a self-calming illusion that the fear of error is best avoided by discounting any responsibility for outcomes. Complex multiplicity thus tends to operate in a constricted space-time scale that induces this spatiotemporal insanity. I have written on this phenomenon elsewhere, to propose that such irrationality fails to see beyond the scale’s of one’s own spatiotemporal horizon and so pleads ignorance of a decision’s relativity to different spatiotemporal scales: e.g., a moral agent’s deliberation based solely on the scale of a human life span and its attendant appetites oblivious to the longer impact those decisions may have in the scale of a family, society, nation or planet. Or, understood in Plato’s terms, looking only to the immediate horizon of mechanical gratification at the risk of damaging the embodied soul’s long term welfare. In the context of a Platonic cognitive scale that translates as the short-term thought of human gratification overruling the long thought of the simplified embodied soul being reunified in its divine cosmic being.

The prospect of numerous triumphs and much gain spurs the mortal soul’s unbridled rush round the luxurious city’s labyrinth of multiple pleasures, and panders to the intemperance that ignores “the simple and moderate appetites which with the aid of reason and right opinion are guided by consideration” (R. 431c). In ignorance these immoderate incitements can assume irrational authority and defeat the embodied soul’s natural desire to pursue what is truly good (cf. Ti. 69cd). The

436 Parenthetically, if the εὐηθέστεροι live without uncertainty about their beliefs, as they take them to be real truth, then epistemologically the εὐηθέστεροι reflect the human mind prior to its decline to the aporetic tension between the impulse to both believe and doubt.

166

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

probability of corporeal complexity harming the embodied soul’s discernment of reality and truth is most concerning to Plato, since: “The salvation of our life depends on making a right choice of pleasure and pain—of the more and the fewer” (Prt. 357b). He seeks to obviate alluring complexity as it provokes the illusion of false (some may say infantilised) sovereignty that can rapidly decline to vicious indifference. Plato promotes a personal sovereignty that is “a kind of beautiful order and a continence of certain pleasures and appetites, as they say, using the phrase ‘master of himself’” (R. 430e). For Plato, the complexity that stimulates and feeds on disharmony can be fatal for an embodied soul as it decreases the likelihood of its qualification for post-mortem refinement in the purgative waters of the lake (cf. Phd. 113d-114a). Crippled souls risk becoming irredeemably and eternally dammed to the station of . Hence, for Plato the quest to purify and simplify the embodied soul is literally a matter of life and death.

I posit that Plato’s defence of the embodied soul against dissonant complexity includes two vital tactics; first, to mitigate multiple complexities charms, and secondly to elevate the status of simplicity. To address the former he stresses the critical need for discernment and temperance, for: “When a man’s desires have been taught to flow in the channel of learning ... they will be concerned ... with the pleasures of the soul in itself, and will be indifferent to those of which the body is the instrument ... [they] will be temperate and by no means greedy for wealth” (R. 485de). As to the latter, I submit that he champions simplicity as a noble godlike virtue and emboldens the soul’s natural affections so it may come to rationally know and cultivate the benefits of noble simplicity, for “according to the trend of our desires and the nature of our souls, each one of us generally becomes of a corresponding character” (Lg. 904c). Indeed, Plato’s advocacy of simplifying the tripartite soul seemingly becomes more evident as his psychology of harmony evolves. No doubt he is aware that compared to beguiling complexity the appeal of nurturing noble simplicity qua a godlike virtue may be limited, particularly since that might require real philosophical courage and the foregoing of some pleasures. How then might Plato go about elevating noble simplicity to what I contend it can be, a noble godlike virtue?

167

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

Socrates says God is eternally and completely simple and truthful: “A god ... being the fairest and best possible abides for ever simply in his own form” (R. 381c), and “the divine and the divinity are free from falsehood ... [as] God is altogether simple and true in deed and word” (R. 382e). Hence, a compelling argument for the godlike nobility of simplicity in Plato is that he considers it to be a divine attribute. We might thus suppose that for Plato simplicity is noble where it is godlike, and being godlike it is good. Consequently, the conclusion of premiss (iv), that noble character and εὐήθεια are good, rests on whether εὐήθεια, as the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity, is godlike. Clearly it is, because the good εὐηθέστεροι are ensouled humans and each human good is dependent on divine Good, and so godlike. As discussed, since the εὐηθέστεροι’s virtue is superior to modern man we might suppose that their noble character and simplicity is also superior, and so more godlike. They thus exemplify εὐήθεια in it purest and simplest human aspect.

However, some might question that a type of natural noble simplicity is related to what Plato regards as his cardinal virtues. Proclus discusses that relationship in his fifth essay on the Republic: Virtue is something simple and very similar to the divine itself, to which we say that the One especially belongs. He who is going to approach as closely as possible to such an entity must flee the life that is the opposite of simplicity, and so it will be necessary for him to be pure of all complexity ... [thus] the young ... must stay as far as possible from all the activities that attract one to this complexity (K49.25).437 Proclus upholds the relationship between divinity and simplicity, and counsels those who seek to approach the divine One to avoid complexity.438 In his commentary on the poetry suitable to the propagation of virtue Proclus again equates simplicity to divinity, and states that the soul must rightfully resemble beauty and simplicity: “The poet must everywhere look to these two things in his imitations, his modes, and his meters: the beautiful and the simple, of which the one is intellective and the other divine. And rightly so, since the soul must make herself resemble these things, which are prior to her (K63.10).”439 As a credible interpreter of Plato, I offer Proclus’ analysis as further evidence that in Plato simplicity is divine, and that the embodied soul’s rightful condition is a state of beauty in simplicity.

437 Lamberton 2012, 17. 438 I note Molina comment: “Thus the union with the One, who is over all things, seems to have occurred, in thought, after an intellectual effort that followed the stages traced by Plato in the Symposium” (Molina 2010, 231). 439 Lamberton 2012, 43.

168

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

I hold that Proclus’ assessment of simplicity in Plato is also evident in the Republic’s critique of New Music. Plato sanctions music that “will best imitate the utterances of men ... [who are] temperate, the brave” (399c), that is, the simplicity of Dorian (cf. La. 193e) and Phrygian harmonies. He criticises dissonant polyharmonics as exacerbating ethico-religious and socio-political decline, and disdains the complexity of Lydian and Ionian modes that are not conducive to harmonising the soul. The “makers of triangles and harps and all other many stringed and poly-harmonic instruments ... [and] the flute [pipes] the most ‘many- stringed’ of instruments” (399cd) must be eliminated, which recalls Gaudin view that Plato’s rejection of poly-harmonics is a “prevention against the assault of the multiple.”440 Plato’s assessment of complex and simple music enhances the latter’s virtue and diminishes the former’s appeal. Given that Platonically good educational practices aim to benefit the soul we might reasonably conclude that Plato considers efforts to harmonise and ennoble an embodied soul are conducive to enlivening the simplicity of its godlike nature. The Republic also relates being noble and simple to the virtue of justice: “We must set the just man at his side—a simple and noble man, who, in the phrase of Aeschylus, does not wish to seem but be good” (R. 361b). Apparently, in Plato justice entails noble simplicity, which ratifies its godlike virtue status as “both justice is holy and holiness just ... since justness is either the same thing as holiness or extremely like it, and above all, justice is of the same kind as holiness, and holiness as justice” (Prt. 331b). And arguably, this association with the just further evidences the Thucydidean nature of the noble simplicity Plato seeks to reassimilate into society.

In sum, the premiss under consideration here is that since the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. The εὐηθέστεροι must be accepted as legitimate eikons of godlike virtue if the εὐηθέστεροι myth is to have a potent function in promoting noble simplicity as a godlike virtue. This is probably a difficult task in a society

440 Gaudin 1981, 66-7.

169

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

besotted with the complex adornments of status and pleasure, where ethical expediency is authorised by sophistic cunning. Offering the εὐηθέστεροι as the personification of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity might summon idiomatic inferences that they are simple-minded and naïve. Even if deemed more virtuous that the people of the luxurious city many may view them merely as an irrelevant anachronism. To establish the εὐηθέστεροι as true eikons of virtue, and advance the worth of noble simplicity can Plato bestow on them the ultimate Attic authority of being deemed godlike? Plato’s representation of εὐήθεια as the noble simplicity of truly good and fair disposition lends some credence to the divine status of the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity’s, as does his designation of simplicity as a divine attribute, and the assertion that each human good derives from and is dependent on divine Good.

However, there is another persuasive reason to claim the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity is a godlike virtue. These noblest characters are the progeny of a pre-political society located at the onset of a mortal cosmic cycle. Being at the beginning of a social cyclic process we might suppose that they are relatively pure and have a divine propinquity that affords them a far greater retention of godlike simplicity and good compared to modern man. If that is the case, the mythic εὐηθέστεροι exemplify a superlative, prelapsarian human goodness. This is not a cultivated philosophical attainment, rather an embodied natural quality yet to be affected by degenerate complexity and sophistication. In the cyclic scale of human society the εὐηθέστεροι require neither simplification nor purification. They live blissful lives, as they have no religious, political or economic reasons to be conflicted (Lg. 713c-714b). This is a fundamental truth of the εὐηθέστεροι myth, that harmony begets the noble simplicity of a good and fair disposition of character and mind. The εὐηθέστεροι are then, I conclude, legitimate Platonic eikons of the human capacity for godlike virtue. These good virtue-heroes can validate the reality of the embodied soul’s abiding kinship with the godlike truth of its noble simplicity.

170

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

Simplex sigillum veri - simplicity is the sign of truth v) the εὐηθέστεροι took their beliefs to be real truth. The premiss under consideration here is broached in Chapter 4 where I discussed the connotations of ἀληθέστατα at Laws 679d: “Being simple-minded (εὐήθεια), when they heard things called bad or good, they took what was said for real truth (ἀληθέστατα) and believed it”. In this passage I submit that εὐήθεια is not pejorative and infers the positive Thucydidean sense of laudable ancient and noble simplicity. I also submit that ἀληθέστατα can be understood as real or superlative human truth, which is not the Form of Truth. I suggested that for Plato the revelation of real truth might have devolved from εὐηθέστεροι eras to such an extent that contemporary society requires philosophy to rejuvenate humanity’s conception of real truth. And in Chapter 5 I cited Heidegger’s notion of “unhiddenness” to propose that the unhidden, real truth that the εὐηθέστεροι believed elucidates “the primacy of the idea of the good as enabling both the correctness of knowing and the unhiddenness of the known … [that] here truth still is, at one and the same time, unhiddenness and correctness."441 I proceed, therefore, on the basis that the nobly simple εὐηθέστεροι knew real truth.

The paramount importance of truth in Platonic philosophy is generally accepted. As Thesleff remarks: “Plato was convinced that there exists a high level of truth and reality.”442And Gauss contends that in Plato “philosophy is essentially nothing but a sincere love of truth, and the relentless striving after it, as far as this is compatible with our moral frames.”443 In the Republic we read, philosophers “must ... have this further quality in their natures ... the spirit of truthfulness, reluctance to admit falsehood in any form, the hatred of it and the love of truth” (485c). Indeed, “the lovers of wisdom are lovers of reality and truth ... their nature akin to the highest and best [and] such a nature bred in the pursuits that befit it will be perfectly good and philosophic so far as that can be said of anyone” (501d). The Platonic cosmic process is itself a divine truth: “The divine motion of the universe ... [is called] ἀλήθεια [truth], because it is a divine wandering θεία

441 Heidegger 1998, 177-8. 442 Thesleff 2000, 64-5. 443 Gauss, 1937, 139.

171

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

ἄλη” (Cra. 421b). For Plato, truth in public affairs is also critical to the propagation of divine Good: “Neither could men who are uneducated and inexperienced in truth ever adequately preside over a state” (519c). Debate about Platonic notions of truth, the true, correspondence to beauty, realism, revelation of being et cetera includes such views as Raphael Woolf’s understanding of philosophical and non- philosophical truth in Plato.444 In my references to Platonic truth I presume that they infer the truths that Plato considers philosophically admirable.

Plato’s depiction of divinity as “altogether simple and true in deed and word” (R. 382e), is suggestive of a maxim that Plato might affirm: simplex sigillum veri – simplicity is the sign of truth. Indeed, Socrates says: “With reference to ... truth and simplicity ... the two are identical” (Cra. 405c). The Phaedrus’ myth of Theuth and Thamous, discussed in Chapter 3, also infers a correlation between what I take to be noble simplicity and truth. The account references the ancient Oracle at Dodona, who “not being so wise (σοφία) as you young folks, were content in their simplicity (εὐήθεια) to hear an oak or a rock, provided only it spoke the truth” (Phdr. 275bc).445 Without entering into a debate as to how the Dodona priestesses knew what was true (perhaps like εὐηθέστεροι they only recognised real truth), there seems to be a correspondence here between ancient simplicity and access to real truth. Which given the association of both with divinity infers a godlike quality. This truth is not the product of a progression from belief and opinion to understanding and realisation. Like divinity, it simply is and ever at once a reality.

The greater the simplification of the tripartite soul the more godlike it is. The stronger its wings the higher it rises and the better its perspective. Hence, the divine and noble quality of simplicity hastens the ascent from ignorance to divine truth, since “the wing on which the soul is raised up is nourished by [simple truth]” (Phdr. 248bc). A maturing winged soul’s divine governing principle can

444 Woolf argues that in the Republic two kinds of truth are evident: “Philosophical truths ... are considered unqualifiedly good to possess, whereas non-philosophical truths are regarded as worth possessing only to the extent that possession conduces to good behaviour in those who possess them. In the non-philosophical arena it is an open question, to be determined on a case-by-case basis, whether falsehood is more efficacious in furthering this practical aim than truth” (Woolf 2009, 9). 445 Another instance, I submit, of Plato using σοφία to imply false wisdom. See fn. 116.

172

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

discern the pleasures and pains of multiform sensibles, avoid the complex and prolong its flights of true intellection. Hence, and paradoxically, an embodied soul’s progressive simplification increases its awareness of complexity’s perils. As that soul’s true responsibility to be a rational moderating agent progresses it comes to accept the duty of descending back down into the cave of complex illusion, for now it has learnt to identify deceptive shadows.

On my reading of Plato, awakening the embodied soul to the truth of its divine nature necessitates purification and simplification in order to reinstate its noble simplicity. That soul can then apprehend itself and its world as a unified oneness, which we might count as the ultimate simplicity of truth and the truth of simplicity. However, we must first and necessarily correctly perceive the complexity of our soul and the world to know our true place on the scale of compound nature. Until we do that we cannot recognise the caverns of ignorance and activate the longing to leave them.

Fall to the ascendancy of cunning

(vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant (ἀµαθής) of the modern art that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. The εὐηθέστεροι, we are told, are good because they are the product of a strife free society and their εὐήθεια (here understood as the noble simplicity of good and fair disposition). As discussed in Chapter 5, I challenge the reading of ἀµαθής at Laws 679d to infer that the εὐηθέστεροι are stupid as I hold that their lack of ‘modern’ knowledge does not entail stupidity. In the setting of the εὐηθέστεροι myth, I submit that the juxtaposition of the ancient εὐηθέστεροι’s lack of such knowledge, the depiction of the εὐηθέστεροι’s community (679bc) and the comparatively negative connotation of σοφία at Laws 679c make is quite clear that Plato regards the εὐηθέστεροι and their era to be ethically superior to contemporary society. As a prelapsarian ideal, we might reasonably assume that this community represents a Platonic origination point for human society from which it declined. In the context of this thesis, I understand that to be a metaphor for the fall from authentic εὐήθεια, the noble simplicity of good disposition, to the ascendancy of sophistic cunning and complexity. The world Plato probably saw

173

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

around him, in which “warlike arts … arouse suspicion … [and] law-suits and factions contrive with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury” (Lg. 679d).

The fall from εὐήθεια’s simplicity to complexity is reflected in J. B. Koffman’s observation: “Despite an initially virtuous beginning to the practise of public reason, the seed of decline into guile and suspicion is coeval with the mixture of dynasties. ... [as] innovation corrupts the continuity which makes euetheia a good quality.”446 Koffman’s remarks also indicate the difficulty for authentic εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity to survive in an increasingly complex society where cunning factions “contrive with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury”. Unsurprisingly then some see it as Plato’s life’s work to defend and sustain εὐήθεια at his beloved Athens.447

Plato’s support for simplicity might also be apparent in his denunciation of modern cunning, since such cunning can promote the pursuit of the multiple complexities that oppose good. I therefore proceed on the supposition that the ascendancy of cunning is exacerbated by complexity. Indeed, Socrates’ remarks at Phaedrus 229e-230a link complexity to cunning and oppose it to a divine nature of gentleness and simplicity: “I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself ... to know whether I am a monster more complicated (πολύπλοκος) and more furious than or a gentler and simpler creature, to whom a divine and quiet lot is given by nature.” Here πολύπλοκος can also connote tangled, complex and convoluted, a condition that Socrates markedly relates to being monstrous “and more furious than Typhon”, ‘the father of all monsters’. Socrates unfavourably contrasts that state to the “gentler and simpler creature, to whom a divine and quiet lot is given by nature”. What Socrates wishes to convey is the necessity to know whether we are behaving like monsters or in accord with our divine nature. This suggests that Plato considers natural simplicity and gentleness the antithesis of entangling complexity, which arguably he regards as most monstrous where cunningly disguised as wisdom.

446 Koffman 1974, 114-16. 447 Crane 1998, 19.

174

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

I have argued that at Laws 679c Plato uses σοφία to describe the modern cunning that the εὐηθέστεροι lack, and that that lack does not mean the εὐηθέστεροι are stupid, or lack discernment. Rather, it illustrates Plato’s use of σοφία to differentiate the false wisdom of sophistic cunning from the real wisdom of divine nous.448 Whereas εὐήθεια exhibits how “names which we believe have the very worst meanings appear to be very like those which have the best” (Cra. 437), σοφία can appear to have the very best meaning while in truth it means the very worst, and expresses the antithesis of authentic wisdom, cunning ignorance. As Plato explains, the cunning can seem wise in the company of like fellows yet in the company of the good they appear stupid: That cunning fellow quick to suspect evil, and who has himself done many unjust acts and who thinks himself a smart trickster, when he associates with his like does appear to be clever ... when the time comes for him to mingle with the good and his elders, then on the contrary he appears stupid ... but since he more often meets with the bad than the good, he seems to himself and to others to be rather wise than foolish (R. 409cd). More evidence of Plato’s disdain for the “cunning fellow” who fools think wise appears in a Theaetetus passage that compares righteous and wicked cleverness, and speaks to the menace of unrighteous cunning and feigned wisdom: God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous, and there is nothing so like him as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness. It is herein the true cleverness of a man is found and also his worthlessness and cowardice: for the knowledge of this is wisdom or true virtue, and ignorance of it is folly or manifest wickedness; and all the other kinds of seeming cleverness and wisdom are paltry when they appear in public affairs and vulgar in the arts. Therefore by far the best thing for the unrighteous man and the man whose words or deeds are impious is not to grant that he is clever through knavery; for such men glory in that reproach, and think it means that they are not triflers, ‘useless burdens upon the earth’ ... we must tell them the truth— that just because they do not think they are such as they are, they are so all the more truly; for they do not know the penalty of unrighteousness ... [for] unless they depart from their “cleverness,” the blessed place that is pure of all things evil will not receive them after death, and here on earth they will always live the life like themselves — evil men associating with evil — when they hear this, they will be so confident in their unscrupulous cleverness that they will think our words the talk of fools” (Tht. 176cd-177a). This passage makes several significant points. Consider its depiction of cleverness, virtue and wisdom: the knowledge of “true cleverness” is “wisdom or true virtue”, which entails knowing that “God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous”. Ignorance of this “is folly or manifest wickedness”, and “other kinds of seeming cleverness and wisdom are paltry when they appear in

448 Some instances of σοφία in Plato might be understood to parallel with his semantic reversal of εὐήθεια’s colloquial polarities. See fn. 116.

175

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

public affairs and vulgar in the arts”. Those “useless burdens upon the earth” who indulge in such seeming cleverness and wisdom “glory” in the reproach of being told they are “clever through knavery”. They are ignorant of the penalty for unrighteousness, and “unless they depart from their ‘cleverness’” they will live for eternity as “evil men associating with evil”. Yet, being “so confident in their unscrupulous cleverness” they consider those who tell them this to be fools.

Here Plato clearly distinguishes the nature of true cleverness, virtue and wisdom from the ignorance of “seeming cleverness and wisdom”. I have discussed the passage’s opening lines concerning divine righteousness and how that relates to establishing the godlike status of the εὐηθέστεροι. In the context of a fall from the grace of noble simplicity to the ascendancy of cunning, this sentence begins to define the divine prelapsarian benchmark of true righteousness, wisdom and virtue. The passage then explains in some detail from where and to what humanity has fallen. In perhaps one of Plato’s most strident criticisms he condemns those who participate in the vulgar art of “seeming cleverness and wisdom” as “useless burdens upon the earth” who will live for eternity as “evil men associating with evil”. Understandably, Platonic philosophy is adamantly opposed to such evil and prioritises the restoration of righteousness as a means of defending against it: for nothing is so godlike “as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness ... for the knowledge of this is wisdom or true virtue”. Hence, the more righteous εὐηθέστεροι, as godlike virtue eikons, may well help to abate the ungodliness of cunning. Furthermore, as discussed below, being in all ways more righteous the εὐηθέστεροι might possess the “true cleverness” that might epitomise a type of original wisdom.

The Republic provides further evidence of Plato’s disdain for the cunning of “seeming cleverness and wisdom”. Socrates’ remark at 368d that “we are not clever persons” is, I submit, related to the prior statement, “the unjust man must act as clever craftsmen do” (360e). Plato does not want the truly wise Socrates to be considered a “clever craftsmen” who is unjust. Another Republic passage reveals Plato’s scorn for specious accolades of wisdom for “clever craftsmen” that are most apparent in wrongly governed cities, which:

176

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

Forewarn their citizens not to meddle with the general constitution of the state, denouncing death to whosoever attempts that—while whoever most agreeably serves them governed as they are and who curries favour with them by fawning upon them and anticipating their desires and by his cleverness in gratifying them, him they will account the good man, the man wise in worthwhile things, the man they will delight to honor (426bc).449 This seems a thinly disguised critique of contemporary Athenian society, where those who in fawning cleverness gratify bad leaders are honoured as being good and “wise in worthwhile things”. Plato’s aversion to clever cunning is particularly apparent where he discusses: [Philosophy’s] unworthy wooers [who] rush in and defile her as an orphan bereft of her kin, and attach to her such reproaches as you say her revilers taunt her with … [are] those that are most cunning (κοµψός) in their little craft. For in comparison with the other arts the prestige of philosophy even in her present low estate retains a superior dignity; and this is the ambition and aspiration of that multitude of pretenders unfit by nature, whose souls are bowed and mutilated by their vulgar occupations (495d). Plato uses of κοµψός, which can be translated as ‘refined’ or ‘gentlemanly’, to describe the cunning “unworthy wooers” and revilers of philosophy, is probably an example of his intent to expose the perverse use of language. This is another stern censure of the cunning “little craft” that misuses philosophy, and those “multitude of pretenders unfit by nature, whose souls are bowed and mutilated by their vulgar occupations”. Plato segregates truth from the most cunning “pretenders unfit by nature” to approach authentic philosophy, for where cunning is ascendant reality and truth are undoubtedly obscured. Nonetheless, Republic 495d also reveals his positive expectations, for even in a society that has fallen to the ascendancy of cunning the “prestige of philosophy ... retains a superior dignity”.

In this chapter I offered three premisses to support my arguments that noble simplicity, as exemplified by the εὐηθέστεροι, is godlike, good and virtuous. I contended that the εὐηθέστεροι are the product of a strife free society that forms the noblest characters, and that they epitomise εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity of good disposition. That the εὐηθέστεροι’s proximity to divine origin suggests that they are godlike, and that therefore their noble simplicity (εὐήθεια) and virtues are godlike. I then discussed the εὐηθέστεροι’s ‘truth’ to propose that the truth they knew and believed was real truth. Which further advances the claim that their noble simplicity godlike is godlike as it entails access to reality. I thus

449 Noting the discussion in Chapter 6 re democracy in Plato one might suppose that his admonition of States that tell “their citizens not to meddle with the general constitution of the state” is almost a prodemocracy statement.

177

Chapter 8 - The Godlike Virtue of Noble Simplicity

suggested that ‘simplicity is the sign of truth’. I argued that Plato’s advocacy of simplicity and disdain for complexity is variously evident and that where he seeks to encourage the former and moderate the latter he bolsters the standing of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity. The final section characterised the decline from divine righteousness, virtue and wisdom to the vices of contemporary society as the fall to the ascendancy of cunning. I concluded that the εὐηθέστεροι, as eikons of godlike righteousness, have a potent function in Plato’s efforts to address moral malaise by reinvigorating noble simplicity.

The next chapter continues to argue that the εὐηθέστεροι are virtue-heroes who can function to confirm and inspire the pursuit and practise of what Stewart describes as: “Plato’s Doctrine of an Eternal and Immutable Good, variously manifested in Justice Itself, Temperance Itself, Courage Itself, and the other Forms of Moral Beauty.”450

450 Stewart 1909, 175-6.

178

Chapter 9

Godlike Virtues (vii) the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. Chapter 5 styles the εὐηθέστεροι καλὸι καγαθόι, noble and good, and the previous chapter concluded that their noble simplicity is a godlike virtue. The Laws account also relates that εὐηθέστεροι are more simply, brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man. This chapter explores these εὐηθέστεροι virtues and includes noble simplicity among them, to argue that they are noble, good and godlike. And that therefore, being mythic eikons of godlike virtues, the εὐηθέστεροι are worthy virtue-heroes. The chapter commences with a discussion of virtue in Plato and proposes possible criteria for Platonic virtue. It then explores each of these godlike virtues, and concludes by proposing that the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity might entail a kind of godlike original wisdom.

Platonic virtues There is abundant evidence in Plato of virtue’s primacy. In the Apology, Socrates tells the Athenian Assembly: “I am always busy in your interest, coming to each one of you individually like a father or an elder brother and urging you to care for virtue (Ap. 31b). And he later famously declares: “I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living” (Ap. 38a). In the Laws we read that: “All our laws must always aim at one single object, which ... is quite rightly named ‘virtue’” (963a). Clearly then, virtue is of paramount importance for Plato.

However, some note that understanding what Platonic virtue actually means is unclear. For instance, while Gocer acknowledges that: “It is uncontroversial that Plato considers having virtue is sufficient for moral goodness (Republic 427b, 434e, 449a; Laws 859d – e) Plato’s view on what

179

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

constitutes virtue is far from settled.” 451 Similarly, Zuckert contends that Plato does: “Not claim to know what virtue is in itself or the particular forms of virtue like justice are. He simply had a hypothesis, that things became just or equal or noble by participating in the just, the equal, or the noble in itself.”452 I do not want to contradict Gocer, or especially Zuckert’s understanding of Platonic virtues as participating “in the just, the equal, or the noble in itself”. Nonetheless, I offer some criteria of Platonic virtues from, and beyond, their glosses in order to establish that the nobly simple εὐηθέστεροι exemplify those virtues.

Gocer holds that evidently in Plato virtue is “sufficient for moral goodness”. Thus, we might accept that as one criterion for Platonic virtue, noting that if that is the case and the εὐηθέστεροι are virtuous then they are morally good. Zuckert’s comment “that things became just or equal or noble by participating in the just in the just, the equal, or the noble in itself” arguably infers another criterion for Platonic virtue; its practise is self-validating and sustaining. And à propos the εὐηθέστεροι, we might surmise that as noblest characters they participate in “the noble itself”.

Plato’s frequent instruction of what virtues to practise is the basis for another criterion. These so-called Platonic cardinal virtues are named in a number of dialogues. In the Laches Socrates confirms that “courage [is] a part of virtue ... there being also other parts, which taken all together have received the name of virtue ... temperance, justice, and other similar qualities” (198a). The parts of virtue are seemingly synergetic yet distinct A Protagoras passage reiterates that “wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and holiness [are] attached to one thing ... virtue” (Prt. 349bc).453 Therefore, a criterion for virtue in Plato is that they comprise wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and righteousness, and notably include the cardinal virtues he attributes to the εὐηθέστεροι.

451 Gocer 1999, 24. 452 Zuckert 2009, 179. 453 The virtue of wisdom and the εὐηθέστεροι is discussed below.

180

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

In the Gorgias Socrates tells Callicles he does not give proper attention to the fact “that heaven and earth and gods and men are held together by communion and friendship, by orderliness, temperance, and justice ... [and] it is by the possession of justice and temperance that the happy are happy” (507e-508ab). For Plato, then, the virtues of “orderliness, temperance, and justice” are the stuff of cosmic unity that permits communion between humanity and divinity: and it is from “the possession of justice and temperance that the happy are happy”. We might then infer three more criteria for virtue: its practise facilitates communion between humanity and the divine, contributes to cosmic unity and brings happiness.

The Laws also discloses the relationship of virtues and divine Good: “Wisdom has first place among the goods that are divine, and rational temperance of soul comes second; from these two, when united with courage, there issues justice, as the third; and the fourth is courage” (631cd). Thus, the virtues in Plato correlate to divine Good. And, where “really true and assured opinion about honour, justice, goodness and their opposites is divine, and when it arises in men’s souls, it arises in a godlike race” (Pol. 309c), which we might suppose infers that the virtues are divine and the virtuous godlike. The Athenian’s commendation of virtuous temperance arguably endorses that view. Conduct that: “Is dear to God and in his steps ... [is] expressed in one ancient phrase, namely, that ‘like is dear to like’ when it is moderate ... he amongst us that is temperate is dear to God, since he is like him” (716bd). I therefore conclude two criteria for the Platonic cardinal virtues is that they originate in divine Good (631b), and that those who posses them are godlike as they follow “in the steps of God” (716b) and are like and dear to him. This conclusion recalls the inference that the εὐηθέστεροι, who are more temperate than modern man, are “like him” and so more godlike.

While there is debate about the nature of virtue in Plato, we might reasonably assign some criteria to them. Virtue is sufficient for moral goodness: its practise is self-validating and sustaining; the Platonic cardinal virtues include wisdom, temperance, courage, justice and holiness (the latter two here taken as righteousness); the practise of virtue facilitates communion between humanity and the divine, contributes to cosmic unity and begets happiness; Platonic cardinal virtues originate in divine Good; and those who posses these virtues are godlike.

181

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

Before discussing the Platonic cardinal virtues in more detail it is useful to briefly review some Neo-Platonist analysis of virtue, in particular works of Plotinus (who was termed a Neo-Platonists by 19c Classical scholars), and of Tyre. Among my proposed criteria for virtue in Plato are that it facilitates communion with the divine, and that its practise can bring an embodied soul to a godlike state. José Molina commentary of Plotinus apparently alludes to both these criterion of Platonic virtue: It seemed that the assimilation with god recommended by Plato in the Theaetetus, had found its methodology in Plotinian epistrophe (Plot., I, 2, 4; V, 3, 6.). Thus ascending the path of purification and seeking after virtues were established: first the natural virtues, then the ethical ones, then the political and cathartic virtues and finally the heoretic or contemplative ones.454 Molina advises that: “We must remember, the ultimate objective of this ascent was not simply purity and virtue for its own sake, but rather one’s own deification.”455 Classifying the virtues requisite for an ascent to purity as natural, ethical, political, cathartic and finally heoretic or contemplative warrants far more attention that is permitted here. Nonetheless, I note that this partitioning of the virtues, if that is what it is, might suggest a sequence somewhat similar to the progress of cognitive dialectic states to rational knowledge from understanding, belief and conjecture or picture-thought (cf. R. 533e-534a), and perhaps more correctly indicate variable advancements within and between those levels of virtue and cognition.

Charalampos Magoulas commentary of Porphyry notes that: In Sententia 32 Porphyry distinguishes between four levels of virtue: civic, purgative, contemplative and paradigmatic. According to the taxonomy of these levels, the paradigmatic virtues are the most important because they comprise all the other levels and correspond to the Platonic Forms. As Plato suggested extensively (e.g. in the Allegory of the Cave, Republic VII), the knowledge of Ideas or, in that case, the possession of paradigmatic values could be beneficial for the society through its transformation to knowledge of ruling or civic virtues. Moreover, according to Porphyry, all levels comprise the four fundamental virtues of Plato’s Republic (wisdom, temperance, justice and bravery).456 Views that speak to the function of virtue in Plato’s political anthropology, and that the virtues exemplified by the εὐηθέστεροι can exist on a mutable scale of attainment and retention relative to divine Good.

454 Molina notes: “To these virtues, Porphyry was to add those called paradigmatic, because he was interested in emphasizing the intellectual nature of the ascent to the One; , on the other hand, was to add the theurgic virtues. Cf. Plot., I, 2; Porph., Sent.,32; the aretological itinerary is described in the Life of Proclus, written by Marinos of Neapolis. On Neoplatonic ethics, see Staab 2002, 155–182 and Baltzly 2004, 297–321.” 455 Molina 2010, 229-30. 456 Magoulas 2010, 224.

182

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

Neoplatonism reflects Platonic philosophy’s imperative that virtue must be pursued and practiced to promote the godlike good of the tripartite soul. Though, as Gocer points out, and Plato often stresses (cf. Phdr. 250a, Prt. 339b-347b, Tht. 177a), being virtuous is difficult: “If being good really amounts to having a certain psychology, it is indeed important to know how it is possible to remain virtuous (courageous, wise, moderate, just, etc.) in the face of error, fear, confusion and other distracting affective states.”457 To help manage the complexities attendant to “error, fear, confusion” and other distractions Plato offers the guidance of his tripartite psychology. Indeed, Bobonich contends that: “We can only understand the goodness of the individual virtues by understanding the goodness of the conditions of the parts of the soul that constitute these virtues.”458 I interpret this to mean that Platonic virtues are determined by, and determine, “the goodness of the conditions” of the tripartite soul’s parts. The godlike good governance of those parts determines that goodness, and the extent to which it can attain the “kind of health and beauty and good condition of the soul [that] beautiful and honourable pursuits [win]” (R. 444de). Let us now consider the godlike Platonic virtues that “beautiful and honourable pursuits” hearten and which the εὐηθέστεροι personify.

Godlike noble courage As I understand it, in Plato godlike noble courage is the resolve required to worthily engage with Platonic philosophy and pursue virtue from the love of wisdom. It is the wisely moderated courage that begets justice: “Wisdom has first place among the goods that are divine, and rational temperance of soul comes second; from these two, when united with courage, there issues justice” (Lg. 631cd). It is, I contend, the type of courage Plato attributes to the virtuous εὐηθέστεροι because they are good and of the noblest character.

Godlike noble courage is not the unrestrained spirited courage that is arguably depicted in the Laches as a kind of cowardice: “Some have acquired courage (ἀνδρεία) in pleasures, some in pains, some in desires and some in fears, while others, I conceive, have acquired cowardice in these same things” (191e).

457 Gocer 1999, 24-5. 458 Bobonich 2002, 218.

183

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

As Benitez observes: “If we are to appreciate the image of courage [in the Laches] then, we must first break with it, and the most decisive way to do that is to see that the image is compatible with the very opposite of courage – cowardice.”459 Acts driven by most fears are not courageous; rather they are the type of ἀνδρεία Plato equates to cowardice. This is not the godlike noble courage that Socrates and Laches agree can be among the “nobler qualities ... [where it is] a certain endurance of the soul ... [and that] endurance joined with wisdom is noble and good ... wise endurance [is] courage” (192cd).460 A concept of noble courage as an enduring pursuit of unverifiable outcomes is mirrored in Rabieh’s comment that in “longing for noble achievements, a courageous individual has the capacity to persist in philosophic endeavors despite the lack of clear connection to his happiness.”461 Such courage is a practical necessity for the pursuit of wisdom and the attainment of justice, as it perseveres and sustains the “longing for noble achievements ... despite the lack of clear connection to ... happiness”. This courage is obligatory for any real philosophers, as “a cowardly and illiberal spirit … could have no part in genuine philosophy” (R. 486b), for those “who have no capacity for courage and self-restraint and the other qualities which tend towards virtue ... are carried away into godlessness” (Plt. 308c).

The Cratylus’ etymological analysis further explains the function of nobly tempered courage in the conduct and defence of a just life: The word ἀνδρεία (courage) implies that courage got its name in battle, and if the universe is flowing, a battle in the universe can be nothing else than an opposite current or flow (ῥοή). Now if we remove the delta from the word ἀνδρεία, the word ἀνρεία signifies exactly that activity. Of course it is clear that not the current opposed to every current is courage, but only that opposed to the current which is contrary to justice (413e). Where courage is wisely tempered it opposes the vicious current of injustice and, as Socrates infers, exercising such courage obliges piety: “It is actually impious to stand idly by when justice is reviled and be faint-hearted and not defend her so long as one has breath and can utter his voice” (R. 368c). In his assessment of this passage’s moral overtones Cropsey argues that Plato prepares the ground for

459 Benitez 2000, 97. 460 I do not accept that this definition of courage is one Socrates wants to refute in the Laches. Rather, I hold that it represents the intellectual, philosophical courage that he seeks to defend (and refers to at R. 368c), while exposing the confused understanding of what noble, virtuous courage really is. 461 Rabieh 2006, 165.

184

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

“Socrates to claim that ... the true possessor of courage and temperance ... is the truly moral man.”462 As, in my view, the more righteous εὐηθέστεροι are true possessors of noble courage and temperance I again submit that are “truly moral”.

In keeping with Plato’s commitment to the rational confirmation of beliefs in order to attain right opinion, understanding and reason, it is prudent to ask if the practise of noble godlike courage is rational. Rabieh contends that the model of human virtue that Glaucon sketches at Republic 358d, 361d–62a: “Is not merely courageous but rationally and happily courageous. In other words, truly noble courage must be rational in the sense that it cannot be something possessed by a fool, for only a fool, Glaucon implies, would choose that which makes him miserable.”463 Rabieh’s gloss gives credence to the view that if the εὐηθέστεροι are nobly courageous they cannot be fools. Rabieh believes that the “admiration or even longing for noble courage testifies to our wish not just to be secure and well provided for but to flourish.”464 As I understand Platonic psychology, the “longing for noble courage testifies to our wish” to courageously endure in pursuit of the rational flourishing of the tripartite soul. In Plato, the rational desire that Rabieh terms “the wish to flourish” requires “the need to think about our own situation and the world around us … [which] according to Plato [can] lead to the philosophic life.”465 The cave allegory is a case in point of Plato delivering a shock to reveal the truth of our “own situation and the world around us”, which can motivate the desire to love wisdom and live a philosophic life.

Admitting that reality and leaving the relative comfort of one’s cave to quest for the unknown demands the enduring mettle of noble courage. Those with that courage “are capable of devoting themselves to something noble, that is, to something whose advantage to themselves is unclear.”466 Noble courage is then essential for the lover of wisdom to resolutely pursue the unknown to “the limit of the intelligible” (R. 532b).467

462 Cropsey 1995, 186. 463 Rabieh 2006, 111. 464 Rabieh 2006, 163-4. 465 ibid. 466 Rabieh 2006, 165. 467 He who “by dialectics attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all perceptions of sense to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist till he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the Good in itself, he arrives at the limit of the intelligible” (R. 532ab).

185

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

Godlike temperance Temperance is a Platonic cardinal virtue that might be variously described as moderation, sobriety, self-restraint, discretion and discernment. In the Charmides (also known as On Temperance), Socrates says: “The doing of good things is temperance” (163e), and that he has “a presentiment that temperance is something beneficial and good” (169b). Temperance is necessary for the godlike good governance of the tripartite soul, as “the orderly one [soul] is temperate ... so the temperate soul is good” (Grg. 507a), and being a human good it derives from and is dependant on divine Good (Lg. 631b). Temperance can indicate other virtues and happy, godlike disposition: “The temperate man ... being just and brave and pious, is the perfection of a good man ... [and] who desires to be happy must pursue and practise temperance” (Grg. 507cd), for “he amongst us that is temperate is dear to God, since he is like him” (Lg. 716cd).

In the rational harmonisation of the tripartite soul temperance serves to coalesce and balance, as there is “a likeness between soberness and a kind of harmony” (R. 431e). Thus, godlike temperance can arrange “a kind of beautiful order and a continence of certain pleasures and appetites, as they say, using the phrase ‘master of himself’” (R. 430e). Hence, temperance (σωφροσύνη) indicates self-mastery.468 In collaboration with wisdom and noble courage it contributes to the realisation of justice: where “wisdom ... and rational temperance of soul ... [are] united with courage, there issues justice” (Lg. 631cd). Hans Joachim Krämer notes the potent function of εὐήθεια in that process, as he holds that the idea of εὐήθεια is a “synthesis between ἀνδρεία and σωφρόσυνη.”469 Gaudin also speaks to the function of εὐήθεια as a moderator: “Εὐήθεια is a µέτριον [moderating measure], therefore, the correct balance between opposed properties, the agreement between φύσις [natural disposition] and the strictly ethical ἀρετή [moral goodness].”470 We might then understand the virtue of godlike temperance as indicative of the good speech, accord grace and rhythm that are guided by and follow the noble simplicity

468 Shorey notes, “σωφροσύνη and σωφρονεῖν sometimes mean etymologically of sound mind or level head, with or without ethical suggestion, according to the standpoint of the speaker. Cf. Protagoras 333 B-C. Its two chief meanings in Greek usage are given in 389 D-E: subordination to due authority, and control of appetite, both raised to higher significance in Plato's definition” (Shorey 1969, fn. R. 430e). Gocer also comments that σωφροσύνη “is best translated as ‘self control’, partly because this is a virtue that requires of a kind of mastery” (Gocer 1999, fn. 23). 469 Krämer 1959, 200. I take άνδρεία to be a tripartite soul’s untempered spirited part, and σωφρόσυνη to be a spirited part that where moderated by soundness of mind becomes noble godlike courage. 470 Gaudin 1981, 159-60.

186

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

of εὐήθεια’s truly good and fair disposition of the character and mind. The type of temperance that is therefore possessed by the εὐηθέστεροι, and which might infer that their courage is a moderated, godlike noble courage.

In the Charmides Critias explains the necessity for self-knowledge in the development and application of temperance: Self-knowledge is temperance, and I am at one with him who put up the inscription of those words at Delphi. For the purpose of that inscription on the temple, as it seems to me, is to serve as the god’s salutation to those who enter it. ‘Hail!’ ... ‘Be temperate!’... for ‘Know thyself!’ and ‘Be temperate!’ are the same (164de). This passage initiates a Socratic elenchus that concludes with the “ that temperance is the knowledge of what one knows and does not know” (172d). Thus, the kind of knowledge that one needs to be temperate enables moderation from discerning what “one knows and does not know” for “salvation of our life depends on making a right choice of pleasure and pain” (Prt. 357a). Rational self- knowledge is, therefore, essential to practising the godlike temperance necessary to purify, simplify and unify the tripartite soul. Having first attained to self-mastery and beautiful order within himself, and having harmonized these three principles [functions of the tripartite soul] and having linked and bound all three together and made of himself a unit, one man instead of many, self- controlled and in unison, he should then and then only turn to practise ... believing and naming the just and honourable action to be that which preserves and helps to produce this condition of soul (R. 443de). Self-mastery can thus bring “beautiful order within” and the “kind of health and beauty and good condition of the soul [that] beautiful and honourable pursuits [win]” (R. 444de).

Godlike righteousness Apart from being noble, courageous and temperate the εὐηθέστεροι are “in all ways more righteous (δίκαιος)” (Laws 679e) than modern man.471 As Plato often mentions, the divine has a high regard for the righteous: “For by the gods assuredly that man will never be neglected who is willing and eager to be righteousness, and by the practise of virtue to be likened unto god” (R. 613b). Indeed, righteousness is of such importance that “there is nothing so like him [God] as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness” (Tht. 176c).

471 The word δίκαιος may mean observant of custom and duty to gods, well ordered and balanced, lawful and just (‘δίκαιος’ (LSJ 1889).

187

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

Righteousness can entail justice, which is the “excellence or virtue of soul” (R. 353e), and is akin to piety: “Justice is holy and holiness just ... justness is either the same thing as holiness or extremely like it, and above all, justice is of the same kind as holiness, and holiness as justice” (Prt. 331b). A “just, pious, and good man is surely a friend of the gods” (Phlb. 39e), and “holiness is that which is precious to the gods” (Euthphr. 15b). Given the εὐηθέστεροι’s superior righteousness I conclude that being just and pious they are friends of the gods and precious to them. The god liked εὐηθέστεροι might then be regarded as eikons of justice and piety, and arguably the kind of virtue-heroes referred to in the Pindar fr.133, cited at Meno 81b: “Glorious kings and men of splendid might and surpassing wisdom ... for all remaining time are ... called holy heroes amongst mankind.” However, to be such godlike Pindaric heroes, and indeed Platonic paragons of virtue (cf. Prt. 349bc), the εὐηθέστεροι apparently need to possess a type of wisdom.

Are the εὐηθέστεροι wise? In the Theaetetus Socrates says to Theodorus, “to become like God (ὁµοίωσις θεῷ) is to become righteous and holy and wise ... [and] the knowledge of this is wisdom or true virtue” (176bc). Consequently, to be regarded as truly godlike and virtuous must εὐηθέστεροι be in someway wise? The Republic’s last lines implore Plato’s audience to “hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward as the victors in the games go about to gather in theirs” (621cd). Might this mean that only the wise can pursue Plato’s “upward way” of godlike righteousness? To sustain my assertion that the εὐηθέστεροι are godlike eikons of virtue I therefore need to establish, or at least credibly argue, that the εὐηθέστεροι are in some Platonic sense wise.472 I note, however, that that does not necessarily entail the type of wisdom that may result from philosophical refinement.

472 This discussion is not included in my initial analysis of the εὐηθέστεροι myth (Lg. 677e-680b), as I consider it more useful to have it in a chapter about their godlike virtues, since it raises the question; can the εὐηθέστεροι be considered truly virtuous in a Platonic sense if they do not posses some type of wisdom?

188

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

The εὐηθέστεροι are the product of a harmonious society that we might characterise as ‘wise’, as it is devoid of excess and human conflict: “For without harmony, my friends, how could even the smallest fraction of wisdom exist? It is impossible. But the greatest and best of harmonies would most properly be accounted the greatest wisdom” (Lg. 689e). Such a society produces the noblest characters who are good, courageous, temperate, righteous and arguably know real truth. I have proposed that this prelapsarian human community can serve as a metaphor for the conditions most conducive to the harmonisation of the tripartite soul and its corporeal polities. To achieve that state requires developing the wisdom of divine Reason. Still, might we understand wisdom in the age of the εὐηθέστεροι as a type of original godlike wisdom and so among their virtues? My inquiry into that question calls on textual evidence and pertinent commentary. I accept that these passages might not directly relate to the εὐηθέστεροι. However, they are about Platonic virtues and their godliness, which I submit makes them relevant to Plato’s characterisation of the εὐηθέστεροι as virtuously superior ensouled humans. I also advise that I assume that the association of wisdom and virtue I cite in text and commentaries may suppose an understanding of wisdom as a philosophically acquired virtue.

Platonic dialogues frequently ally wisdom with virtue or present it as a product of other virtues.473 In the Protagoras we read that: “The five names of wisdom, temperance, courage, justice, and holiness attached to one thing ... all these are parts of virtue” (Prt. 349bc). Does that imply that virtue must entail wisdom, or just that wisdom is one of the virtues? For the purposes of this discussion I accept that wisdom in some form is necessary for virtue, and that perhaps it is attained as the culmination of harmonising the other virtues. The Theaetetus recounts that “to become like God (ὁµοίωσις θεῷ), is to become righteous and holy and wise” (176b). If, as I argue, the εὐηθέστεροι are godlike and so have “become like God”, or more correctly remained like God, then their superior righteous piety is possibly attendant to a kind of natural, original wisdom. Indeed, the same Theaetetus passage might imply as much for it says that

473 Cf.: La. 192cd, Lg. 631cd, Prt. 324d-325a, R. 433be, 621c, Tht. 176c.

189

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

in being “most nearly perfect in righteousness … true cleverness of a man is found” (176c). This “true cleverness” is then compared to “seeming cleverness and wisdom [that] are paltry when they appear in public affairs and vulgar in the arts” (176c), the type of false wisdom I have ascribed to σοφία at Laws 679c. We might then infer that being “most nearly perfect in righteousness” the εὐηθέστεροι are truly clever, as they lack the “seeming cleverness and wisdom” of “vulgar arts”. And if that is the case, they probably possess a type of wisdom.

As they are “in all ways more righteous [than the men of today] (Lg. 679e), consider the Laws’ passage which relates that justice (here entailed by righteousness) issues from courage where it is united with wisdom and “rational temperance” (Lg. 631cd). I hold that the εὐηθέστεροι’s courage and temperance are noble and godlike, which suggests that they possess their righteousness might arise from tempered wisdom. As mentioned, in the Laches Socrates and Laches agree that courage is among the “nobler qualities ... [it is] a certain endurance of the soul ... [and] endurance joined with wisdom is noble and good” (192cd).474 If, as I hold, the good εὐηθέστεροι are nobly courageous then again, they have a factor and the products of wisdom.

In the Republic Socrates asks: “Could you find anything more akin to wisdom than truth” (485c). I have proposed that the truth the εὐηθέστεροι know and believe is real truth, a truth that is only available to the pure of heart and godlike. As such, I suggest that they posses a wisdom of sorts, possibly similar to that ironically alluded to in the tale of the Dodona Oracles’ ancient simplicity (Phdr. 275bc).

And in the Cratylus Socrates ask: “The good are the wise, are they not” (398b)? Plato writes that the εὐηθέστεροι are good and if, as I contend, they are the godlike personification of εὐήθεια then they have a truly good and fair disposition of character and mind. Might that goodness, as the offspring of divine Good, entail a type of godlike wisdom?

474 See fn. 460.

190

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

In the Phaedo Socrates says: “The only right coinage, for which all those things [virtues] must be exchanged ... is in fact wisdom; and courage and self- restraint and justice and, in short, true virtue exist only with wisdom” (69ab). I contend that the εὐηθέστεροι are truly virtuous, and if true virtue “exists only with wisdom” then the εὐηθέστεροι are at least in the company of wisdom.

Is there any support for the notion of an εὐηθέστεροι wisdom in relevant commentary? Andrew Ford observes: “To be sure, the idea that the ancients were wise—even uncannily so—was widely proclaimed in the [Greek] culture.”475 Plato’s audience might accept that the εὐηθέστεροι are wise because they are their mythic ancient forebears. Yet, as discussed, the idiomatic connotations of εὐήθεια as foolishness may linger in the communal Attic psyche and discourage that association. That concern might be countered by arguing that Plato’s devotees will readily agree that he is unlikely to attribute goodness and superior virtue to fools.

In his comments on the Apology, Cropsey remarks that: “Courage, temperance, and justice ... become true virtue only when they are combined with wisdom.”476 Again, I argue that the εὐηθέστεροι are truly virtuous. Conceding Cropsey, might that infer that the εὐηθέστεροι can only attain that status if they are in some way wise?

Perhaps, for Plato the possession and habit of noble simplicity’s truly good and fair disposition of εὐήθεια endows wisdom. J. B. Koffman notes that Plato’s listing of the εὐηθέστεροι’s virtues at Laws 679de: Differs noticeably from the most common foursome in that wisdom [sophia or phronesis] is replaced by ‘euetheia’—an interesting word having two quite revealing connotations: goodness of heart, guilelessness, and simple-mindedness, on one hand, or foolishness and simplicity (as of the simpleton) on the other hand.477 Koffman adds: “The first [meaning] is more pertinent here [as] it is clear that the positive interpretation is intended.” 478 Assuredly it is. While I do not in any way suggest that Koffman infers that we may take εὐήθεια at Laws 679de to mean virtuous wisdom, I do think his observations are pertinent here and the grounds for further discussion.

475 Ford 2010, 153. 476 Cropsey 1995, 186. 477 Koffman 1974, 113. 478 ibid.

191

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

I also offer that Gaudin’s assessment of εὐήθεια (despite in Chapter 5 rejecting Brisson’s analysis of Gaudin), can be helpful in considering an εὐηθέστεροι wisdom paradigm. Gaudin believes that: Even though εὐήθεια may indeed be more of a trait of character than a virtue, it shares a fundamental relationship with courage, temperance and justice. One could even say that it is the virtue of these virtues if one considers that to each philosophically derived essence 479 there must correspond a reality which happens to be its tangible attainment. This assessment of εὐήθεια as “the virtue” that is the “tangible attainment” of virtue might suggest that εὐήθεια is the good and fair disposition of the truly virtuous. Gaudin also believes that: “If perfect virtue presupposes a harmony between the human mind and an impartial Good, the possibility of such harmony rests on man having the possession of a certain virtue, a virtue capable of taking him to the knowledge of Good.”480 Arguably, for Plato wisdom is the virtue that culminates the “harmony between the human mind and an impartial Good”, that which brings “the knowledge of Good”.

I submit that, drawing on Koffman and Gaudin, we may suppose that at Laws 679de εὐήθεια (taken as the noble simplicity of a truly good an fair disposition), does have a relationship “with courage, temperance and justice”. We cannot ignore the fact that Plato tells us the εὐηθέστεροι are good, or the probability that they personify εὐήθεια. Therefore, we might suppose that establishes a reciprocal relationship between the virtuous εὐηθέστεροι, Platonic virtue, divine Good and Reason. Their virtue may not be perfect; indeed is that humanly possible, yet Plato clearly states that it is superior to contemporary virtue. At the very least then I propose that the εὐηθέστεροι posses the disposition and virtues that contribute to the attainment of wisdom.

To conclude my consideration of the εὐηθέστεροι as wise I return to a Platonic text. Toward the end of Republic’s Book 10 the embodied soul’s earthly accretions are likened to those of the sea creature. Socrates says, that to know the soul’s true nature:

479 Gaudin 1981, 145. 480 Gaudin 1981, 154.

192

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

We must ... consider adequately in the light of reason what it is when it is purified, and then you will find it to be a far more beautiful thing ...we must look to its love of wisdom ... and we must note the things of which it has apprehensions, and the associations for which it yearns, as being itself akin to the divine and the immortal and to eternal being, and so consider what it might be if it ... were raised by this impulse out of the depths of this sea in which it is now sunk, and were cleansed and scraped free of the rocks and barnacles which ... cling to it in wild profusion of earthy and stony accretion ... and then one might see whether in its real nature it is manifold or single in its simplicity (611c-612a). How might this passage relate to the εὐηθέστεροι and wisdom? I have argued that since the εὐηθέστεροι are the product of a strife free society they are truly and more virtuous than modern man, and that their noble simplicity is a godlike virtue. I also contend that the εὐηθέστεροι are as close to their divine heritage as we might suppose it possible for a human to be and are thus godlike eikons of human virtue.

Since they possess godlike virtue, I infer that the εὐηθέστεροι have embodied souls that are truer to their divine nature. They are more pure, simple and righteous than contemporary souls weighed down by “the rocks and barnacles … of earthy and stony accretion”. An εὐηθέστεροι soul is more singular “in its simplicity” and “akin to the divine and the immortal and to eternal being”. Consequently, the nobly simply εὐηθέστεροι souls’ “love of wisdom” is more active than modern man’s. This is not necessarily the type of wisdom we might attribute to the would-be-philosopher. Perhaps the wisdom they love is relatively manifest in their propinquity to divine Good and Reason. I submit that there is no doubt that Plato represents the εὐηθέστεροι as human Attic forebears who must therefore be ensouled. Accordingly, their souls comply with the Platonic construal of the human tripartite soul’s origins, elements and right function. And, being good, we can assume that their souls are pure, simple and in relative accord with cosmic rhythm: “He who has a good soul is good” (R. 409c). If this is the case, then the εὐηθέστεροι must have soul’s that in Platonic terms are wisely governed by their divine governing principle, “the true ruler of rational men … the immortal element within us” (Lg. 713a &714a). And being more virtuous than modern man they are presumably wiser than contemporary souls. However, a superlative does not necessarily infer a demonstrative: that is to say, being wiser than someone else doe not necessarily infer the possession of wisdom. Hence, we may not conclude that the εὐηθέστεροι are wise, we may however claim that in Plato divine wisdom is active and revealed in their character.

193

Chapter 9 - Godlike Virtues

This dissertation began by surveying εὐήθεια’s predominantly negative use in Classical Greek literature, and progressed through Plato’s semantic and philosophical regeneration of the term. I then asserted that in the Republic Plato unequivocally delineates the Thucydidean construal of εὐήθεια as ancient noble simplicity to entail the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind, and that the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι myth personifies εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity of good and fair disposition. Given a common construal of εὐήθεια as naïve foolishness, or even stupidity, it might seem startling to now propose that their noble simplicity preserves a type of godlike original wisdom. In the ethico-religious context of the εὐηθέστεροι myth this wisdom perhaps represents the most pristine form of an embodied soul’s godly good governing principle that precedes and transcends the modern conception of philosophical wisdom. Perhaps that natural nous is evident as the noble simplicity of youthful εὐήθεια (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5).

In this chapter, I have argued for the premiss that as the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man they are thus worthy virtue-heroes. I proposed criteria for virtue in Plato (including that virtues are godlike), and then briefly reviewed the said godlike Platonic cardinal virtues in relation to the εὐηθέστεροι. The chapter concluded by proposing that the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity might entail a type of original godlike wisdom.

I will now consider how and why evoking the eidos and eikons of εὐήθεια might have a potent function in Platonic philosophy.

194

Chapter 10

Evoking the Eidos of Εὐήθεια and Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons Previous chapters have argued in support of these seven premisses: (i) good speech, then good accord, and good grace and good rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθεια. (ii) εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. (iii) the young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely; cultivate “authentic εὐήθεια in their souls”.481 (iv) the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. (v) the εὐηθέστεροι take their beliefs to be real truth. (vi) the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. (vii) the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. I contend that in Plato the sweep of εὐήθεια’s semantic arc extends from merely opposing the hegemony of its idiomatic negativity to establishing εὐήθεια as the noble simplicity of truly good and fair disposition of character and mind. Moreover, that the eikonic εὐηθέστεροι personify εὐήθεια and are godlike virtue- heroes. Indeed, the εὐηθέστεροι are possibly the superlative human representation of divine Good in Plato.

This chapter explores why and how Plato evokes the function of the εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons to simplify and harmonise the embodied soul, and so enable it to propagate divine Good.482 I consider Plato’s cosmology and soul theory, the possible purpose of a Form of the Soul and how that might relate to the function of εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons. I then offer an overview of why and how Plato employs µίµησις and ἀνάµνησις and consider the involvement of εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons in them. The chapter concludes with a discussion of daimōn in Plato and how εὐήθεια might facilitate the refinement and emergence of what I term the daimōn’s daimonion.

481 Shorey 1969, fn. R. 400e. 482 As previously discussed, I take the eidos of εὐήθεια to facilitate thought “images (εἶδη) or likenesses” (R. 511a) as a cognitive vision or “picture thought” that can apprehend goodness and encourage the practise of godlike virtue.

195

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Platonic cosmology and souls Platonic theories about goodness, the soul, transcendent Forms, eschatology et cetera evidently rest on Plato’s vision of the cosmos as a living entity of interactive parts. Embodied souls are among the microcosmic parts that share a common cosmic heritage and have “the power of acting and of being acted upon in even the slightest degree” (Sph. 248c). As discussed in Chapter 6, in this model embodied souls can commune with and influence each other, and the wider cosmos, “in even the slightest degree”. Recalling Carone: “It is precisely because the universe is an organism for Plato, that we should not be surprised to find him assuming that any movement of a part should affect the whole and have consequences that reach well beyond its own initial sphere.”483 The Platonic cosmos also reflects the Pythagorean cosmic model of ethical values and numerical relationships.484 We find ourselves in a “whole universe, which we imitate and follow through all time” (Plt. 274d). To explain why Plato’s cosmogony and cosmology is arguably the ethical and rationally numeric basis of his tripartite psychology, and indeed his entire philosophy, I look to the Timaeus’ account of what we might suppose it to be the reciprocal relationship between the simplex Platonic cosmos and its parts.

In the Timaeus, “He” is the generator of “All” and “His” audience is the gods (41a). “He” decrees that “it is proper to designate ‘immortal,’ the part we call divine which rules supreme in those who are fain to follow justice always and (the gods)” (41c). I pose two related questions here. Is this immortal part only designated as divine where it “rules supreme in those who are fain to follow justice always and [the gods]” (41c)? Consequently, might it be the case that the part of the Platonic tripartite soul that is immortal and of divine origin is not necessarily godlike unless it “rules supreme in those who are fain to follow justice always and (the gods)”?

483 Carone 2005, 187. 484 See Huffman 2014.

196

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

The immortal part of the embodied soul is embodied with prospects of purification and simplification that can enable its reunification in its divine origin of numeric cosmic simplicity. Nonetheless, I contend that there are circumstances where those prospects are extremely diminished through lack of care and attention. As I understand Platonic psychology, an embodied soul’s immortal part can pass to and from other prenatal and post-mortem states in its cycles of purification and simplification. There are also potentially two permanent afterlife stations for an embodied soul’s immortal part, eternal damnation and eternal bliss.485 For Plato, the divine form is ever simple (unified) and Good (R. 381c), thus I cannot concede that the divine can be damned. I surmise that a soul’s immoral part does not necessarily remain good, for where its heritage of divine Good is annihilated it suffers for immortally in Tartarus.486 This view is compatible with Platonic cosmic theory, as Tartarus is presumably part of, and a participant in, cosmic process.

485 As I understand it, Platonic soul theory allows for a soul’s immortal part to exist in different states and stations. These occur in the continuous cosmic process of souls “being conjoined now with one body, now with another, always undergoing all kinds of changes either of itself or owing to another soul ... save only to shift the character that grows better to a superior place, and the worse to a worse, according to what best suits each of them, so that to each may be allotted its appropriate destiny” (Lg. 903e). These include the embodied soul state, post-mortem and prenatal soul states, and the two soul stations of eternal damnation and immortal bliss. Thus, after leaving the body the embodied soul can transition to other states and stations. Flitting souls weighed down by the heavy corporeal burden of the earthly and visible are “dragged back into the visible world, through fear of the invisible and of the other world” (Phd. 81c). These souls sink “quickly into another body again and grows into it” (Phd. 83e). Most post-mortem souls go to the Acherusian lake and “after remaining there the appointed time, which is for some longer and for others shorter, are sent back to be born again into living beings” (Phd. 113b). Souls “who are found to have lived neither well nor ill go to the Acheron ... [where they] dwell and are purified, and if they have done any wrong they are absolved by paying the penalty for their wrong doings, and for their good deeds they receive rewards, each according to his merits” (Phd. 113de). Then there are the two Platonic soul stations. Some souls are “incurable, on account of the greatness of their wrongdoings, because they have committed many great deeds of sacrilege ... [and] are cast by their fitting destiny into Tartarus, whence they never emerge” (Phd. 113e). Rare souls of “simple and moderate appetites which with the aid of reason and right opinion are guided by consideration” (R. 431c), and leave the body in a pure and simple state. Such a soul has “pursued philosophy rightly and ... it goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy ... [and] lives in truth through all after time with the gods” (Phd. 80e-81a) in the station of simplified divine unity. 486 I will not here engage in the debate as to whether the “immortal” part refers to the embodied soul in its entirety, which has the potential to become “divine and just” through its harmonic purification and simplification, or whether the immortal part is only a tripartite soul’s cosmic remnant of divine rationality. Possibly each part of a Platonic tripartite soul can have an afterlife of transitive post-mortem and prenatal souls states. However, in Platonic soul theory real immortality, understood as being beyond annihilation, is perhaps only attained when souls have transitioned through various states, including embodiment, and eventually arrive at an eternal station of either everlasting damnation or divine bliss. That is, souls that become convoluted by evil squander their cosmic legacy of access to divine Good, whereas those that are properly purified and simplified to godlike goodness can be reunified with divine Good and Reason.

197

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

The immortal part of a Platonic soul has the potential to “fain to follow justice always” in the embodied fulfilment of its “divine governing principle” (R. 590d). However, for the “immortal element within us” (Lg. 714a) to maintain its heritage of divine Good, the “natural indwelling intelligence of the soul” (R. 530c) or nous, needs to be nurtured so its divine governing principle can manifest as that soul’s good governance. This is achieved in the pursuit and cultivation of godlike good and the practise of the virtues. This entails gratifying a soul’s innate affection for rational intellection in order to realise its telos to reunite with cosmic origin. Conversely, where a soul’s affections are utterly malnourished by myriad cycles of sterile embodiment its post-mortem immortality is more likely to exist in the hellish station of Tartarus, the antithesis of a soul’s immortal reunification in the blissful station of divine Good. Hence, in answer to the two questions raised above, I offer that the immortal part of the embodied soul is ever thus, though its divinity depends on the cultivation of godlike good governance, and where that is lacking the soul may deteriorate to such an extent that it can no longer contribute to divine Good, yet it remains a part of cosmic order in the station of Tartarus.

We can ascertain from the Timaeus that the embodied tripartite soul is an impure compound, a mortal kind of soul that still retains a semblance of its simple, uncompounded cosmic origins as its immortal element. [Into the] bowl wherein He had blended and mixed the Soul of the Universe, He poured the residue of the previous material [the Soul of the Universe], mixing it in somewhat the same manner, yet no longer with a uniform and invariable purity. And when He had compounded the whole, He divided it into souls equal in number to the stars, and each several soul He assigned to one (41d). Platonic method intends to help purify and simplify mortal souls so that they may eventually go home to their assigned star, or at least avoid eternal damnation in Tartarus. This is not an easy task however, for the mortal kind of soul has within it the irrational sources of its own destruction. [Having constructed the universe as] one single Living Creature containing within itself all living creatures both mortal and immortal ... His own engendered sons ... imitating Him, on receiving the immortal principle of soul, framed around it a mortal body, and gave it all the body to be its vehicle, and housed therein besides another form of soul, even the mortal form, which has within it passions both fearful and unavoidable—firstly, pleasure, a most mighty lure to evil; next, pains, which put good to rout; and besides these, rashness and fear, foolish counsellors both and anger, hard to dissuade; and hope, ready to seduce. And blending these with irrational sensation and with all-daring lust, they thus compounded in necessary fashion the mortal kind of soul (69cd).

198

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

To overcome the foolish counsel of rashness and fear, dissuade anger and avoid the attraction of expectation Plato teaches discernment by developing self- knowledge, a subject that has previously been addressed in some detail. As Zuckert expresses it, in the Timaeus: “The constitution of the human being proves to be an image of the way in which the good is combined with the necessary ... the best life for a human being is to recapture and duplicate the orderly motions of the cosmos in his soul, so that soul will return to its star and not undergo the trauma of rebirth in sensible form (cf. 82b-84b, Phdr. 248c-249a).”487 Plato endeavours to facilitate an embodied soul’s happy reunification with “its star” by mitigating its cycles of embodiment and, at the most primary level of his philosophy’s objectives, sufficiently cautioning against vice for an embodied soul to avoid immortal damnation. I argue that evoking εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons can function for the good of that soul and assist it “to recapture and duplicate the orderly motions of the cosmos”.

The reference at Timaeus 41d to a “Soul of the Universe” is particularly pertinent to my inquiry, as if for Plato such a Soul exists I posit that it might represent the divine station of pure uncompounded simplicity to which the tripartite soul’s divine part intuitively yearns to return. Admitting that is the case informs my understanding of why and how Plato evokes the eidetic and eikonic functions of εὐήθεια. At Philebus 30a Socrates suggests that the body of the universe has a soul, “since that body has the same elements as ours, only in every way superior”. Like Prince, White, Germino et al, I suppose that for Plato there is a universal or world soul that we might describe as the Form of Soul.488 Germino claims that this represents “the idea or Form of the cosmos itself”, and Carone terms it “a cosmic soul (or world-soul)”.489 Whether cosmically immanent or the

487 Zuckert 2009, 456. 488 Brian Prince believes that since “Plato permitted himself Forms of Life and Death, it is hard to object to the Form of Soul ... [thus it] must be one of the Forms Socrates would be prepared to recognize” (Prince 2011). White observes: “If all living things have souls, then the cosmos has a soul” (White 2007, 138). Germino claims that the notion of a Soul Form for Plato “is the idea or Form of the cosmos itself, articulated into nobler and less noble souls that, according to their rank, animate parts of the cosmos itself or merely human bodies” (Germino 2000, 16). Carone argues that Plato “believes that there is indeed an entity in the structure of reality that we may call by the name of god ... [which] is ultimately an inherent aspect of life and intelligence within the universe itself: its cosmic soul (or world-soul)” (Carone 2005, 28). 489 Germino 2000, 16: Carone 2005, 28.

199

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Form of Plato’s living cosmos, I submit that if such a Form exists in Plato it can be considered the one simplex perfection of the unified Soul, of which the embodied tripartite soul’s divine element is a particular.490

The degree of εὐήθεια’s cultivation in an embodied soul contributes to its goodness and thus to its purification and unified simplicity; viz., its godliness. For Plato, the more godlike the embodied soul the less need for its extensive post- mortem refinement, and in rare instance it may forgo that refinement and be stationed in a simplex eternity. The real, true and indeed singular purpose of Plato’s philosophy is therefore to purify, simplify and unify the tripartite soul to realise that its “real nature ... is single in its simplicity (R. 612a). That soul can then contribute to the divine Good of cosmic order, as each part, each soul in that cosmos (embodied or otherwise), has a measure of influence, a contribution to make whether for better or worse. All things are ordered systematically by Him who cares for the World—all with a view to the preservation and excellence of the Whole, whereof also each part, so far as it can, does and suffers what is proper to it. To each of these parts, down to the smallest fraction, rulers of their action and passion are appointed to bring about fulfillment even to the uttermost fraction (Lg. 903bc). Evoking εὐήθεια’s eidos of good and the eikonic εὐηθέστεροι’s virtues can, in my view, function to assist Plato’s “life’s work” to stimulate the possession and habit of noble simplicity.491 The good and fair disposition of character and mind that “best follows after God and is most like him” (Phdr. 248), as it advances the embodied soul’s restoration to the “ordered unity ... beauty and goodness bestowed by [its] divine creator.”492 The cognitive prompts of εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons can synergistically resonate to encourage the knowing of good and the

490 Necip Alican suggests that “the soul could be considered a particular fashioned after the Form of Soul, without necessarily clarifying the corresponding arguments, in this case, with the added complication of a special ambiguity between (I) taking each soul as a particular fashioned after a generic Form of Soul and (2) taking each soul as a particular fashioned after the form of that specific soul” (Alican 2012, 445: my capitalisation of “Form of Soul”). Alican also believes “combining the two possibilities [(1) & (2)] instead of choosing one promises a more fruitful approach” (Alican 2012, 445.). A line of inquiry I endorse. Alican says, like the arguments for the immortality of the soul, a final argument for a Soul Form stands or falls on the same grounds, “whether the soul is taken as a particular, a form, or something in between, such as an immanent or intermediate form” (Alican 2012, 445). I will not here expound my conception of what I term the Soul Form’s particularised godlike form, and how that might ontologically and epistemologically relate to the debate about Forms as universals existing prior to (ante res) objects, in objects (in rebus), and/or after objects (post res). 491 Crane 1998, 19. 492 White 2007, 4.

200

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

practise of godlike virtue by revealing the reality that gives “truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower ... and the cause of knowledge, and of truth in so far as known” (R. 508e). An embodied soul is thus uniquely the subject and object of εὐήθεια’s good virtue.493

I contend that, given the soul’s innate affections for picture thinking (εἰκασίᾱς), right opinion, understanding and reason (cf. R. 511de) it is naturally receptive to the eide and eikons that afford pleasing glimpses of truth and reality (cf. Phdr. 247d). To foster these glimpses Plato wants to eliminate the cognitive dissonance of illusion and false wisdom by amplifying awareness of the soul’s incompatibility with the discord of complexity. Achieving that advances the cognitive resonance that apprehends the “realities which can be seen only by the mind” (R. 510e-511a). That enriches the good thought that knows, or more correctly recollects, the soul’s affinity with harmonious simplicity.494 In this way the soul’s real and natural goodness can be known, initiated and sustained by right opinion and understanding, for it is “with the soul, by means of thought, we participate in real being” (Sph. 248b). Thus, εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons of real good and virtue can have a potent function in Platonic philosophy’s aim to arouse the embodied soul’s “union with divine virtue” (Lg. 904e).

To attract and instruct the true lovers of wisdom, Plato offers a philosophy that he claims will bring happiness in return for living a virtuous life. The success of this practical method rests on a crucial Platonic precept: “The colourless, formless, and intangible truly existing essence, with which all true knowledge is concerned ... is visible only to the mind, the pilot of the soul” (Phdr. 247cd). Persuading people, who believe that their sensory existence is all there is, to accept the existence of “the colourless, formless, and intangible” is challenging and probably requires a metanoia, or change of mind. Inducing that involves

493 See Chapter 6, ‘The Good Platonic cosmos’, and fn. 325 re Proclus’ Republic Essay 5. 494 Cf: “For the divine part within us the congenial motions are the intellections and revolutions of the Universe. These each one of us should follow, rectifying the revolutions within our head, which were distorted at our birth, by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe, and thereby making the part that thinks like unto the object of its thought, in accordance with its original nature” (Ti. 90cd).

201

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Plato’s attempts to empower “the pilot of the soul”, as “all things that share in soul change ... [and] possess within themselves the cause of change, and in changing they move according to the law and order of destiny” (Lg. 904d).495

To conclude my analysis of Platonic cosmology and souls I cite an issue that is relevant to that matter. If the embodied soul rationally seeks to recollect its memories of union with divine kinship in order to return to that state then we might surmise that its divine governing principle is ever attempting to look back so it can look forward to returning to what it can again be. As I understand Plato, this divine nous where embodied can manifest as human intellect. However, it also exists beyond the bounds of corporality as it is must be Before and after embodiment. At the level of authentic wisdom the embodied soul’s divine intelligence therefore transcends any spatio-temporal definition of looking back or forward, as it becomes the intuitive rational guidance from divine Reason, and is thus is independent of human dimensions. It just is.

In occasioning such rational intellection, I submit that Platonic psychology employs techniques that assume a moral agent has the faculties of µίµησις (mimēsis) and ἀνάµνησις (anamnēsis).

Μίµησις and Ἀνάµνησις As I understand it, Platonic philosophy entails an extensive and reciprocal relationship between µίµησις (representation and reproduction) and ἀνάµνησις (recollection and calling to mind). And that their function has extensive implications for putting the “the pilot of the soul” in charge. Representation and reproduction of goodness and virtue (by such as εὐήθεια’s eidos and eikons) may

495 “And this is a law of Destiny, that the soul which follows after God and obtains a view of any of the truths is free from harm until the next period, and if it can always attain this, is always unharmed; but when, through inability to follow, it fails to see, and through some mischance is filled with forgetfulness and evil and grows heavy, and when it has grown heavy, loses its wings and falls to the earth, then it is the law that this soul shall never pass into any beast at its first birth, but the soul that has seen the most shall enter into the birth of a man who is to be a philosopher or a lover of beauty, or one of a musical or loving nature, and the second soul into that of a lawful king or a warlike ruler, and the third into that of a politician or a man of business or a financier, the fourth into that of a hardworking gymnast or one who will be concerned with the cure of the body, and the fifth will lead the life of a prophet or some one who conducts mystic rites; to the sixth, a poet or some other imitative artist will be united, to the seventh, a craftsman or a husbandman, to the eighth, a sophist or a demagogue, to the ninth, a tyrant. Now in all these states, whoever lives justly obtains a better lot, and whoever lives unjustly, a worse” (Phdr. 248ce).

202

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

bring to mind thought images that aid the recollection of an embodied soul’s divine nature: “The thought which equips the character in excellence and beauty.”496 This in turn can initiate good right opinion and virtuous acts, which sustains further useful recollection, and so on. Thus, I submit that in Plato the dynamic interaction and collaboration of mimēsis and anamnēsis facilitates the conscious resonance of goodness and virtue that can stir an embodied soul to recollect and manifest the truth of its godlike reality.

At the outset of this brief discussion about mimēsis, I note Raphael Foshay’s comments that he chooses: “To leave the term mimēsis untranslated from the Greek, since the usual English translation as ‘imitation’ fails to capture several of the key resonances in its aesthetic, ethical, psychological, and epistemological ranges of significance.”497 While I sympathise with Foshay’s reluctance to anachronistically interpret the meaning of µίµησις in Plato, for the sake of exposition I understand it to in part infer representation and/or reproduction. Foshay correctly points out that in Plato mimēsis has extensive “aesthetic, ethical, psychological, and epistemological ranges of significance.” I argue that the useful function of εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons falls within those “ranges of significance” for I share Prauscello’s belief that Plato has a “deep awareness of the transformative power of mimēsis and its grasp on the psychology of the individual.”498 Kamtekar also speaks to the notion of mimēsis’ “transformative power”, describing it as a “mechanism by which people acquire opinions”.499 Since holding right opinions about goodness and virtue is a Platonic imperative µίµησις can thus have a persuasive “transformative power” in Plato.

That said, there are differing views about µίµησις in Plato. Stephen Halliwell explains that: “Plato’s importance as the ‘founding father’ of mimeticism is much more complex and much less easily condensed into a unified point of view than is normally supposed. Plato’s relationship to mimēsis has suffered from the common but poorly grounded conviction that he held an

496 Wersinger 2007, 56-7. 497 Foshay 2009,1. 498 Prauscello 2014, 63. 499 Kamtekar 2008, 336.

203

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

unchanging and consistently negative attitude to the subject.”500 Halliwell, in my view correctly, advises that Plato did not hold “an unchanging and consistently negative attitude to [mimēsis]”. However, his remark that Plato has a “prolonged and profoundly ambivalent relationship with mimēsis”501 is perhaps debatable. My reading of Plato’s attitude to mimēsis does not indicate that it is “ambivalent”. Rather, I hold that he distinguishes between two quite different types of mimēsis, one that he consistently derides and another that he consistently advocates. Plato especially opposes the mimicry motivated by inappropriate education, such as epic’s “entire vocabulary of terror and fear” (R. 387b), and warns that the “mimetic art is an inferior thing cohabiting with an inferior and engendering inferior offspring” (R. 603b).502

Halliwell makes an important point in noting that Plato’s: “Critique of poetry and mimēsis is really aimed at lovers of Homer who are willing to face a philosophical scrutiny of their love: it is written, and needs to be read, from a position of intimate knowledge of poetry, not severe detachment from it.”503 Plato’s objections to the mimēsis he opposes employ “philosophical scrutiny” in an attempt to uphold truth and change the opinions of those who might admit philosophical development. Perhaps, he regards those someone with an “intimate knowledge of poetry” as a current or potential lover of wisdom and so a suitable candidates for Platonic instruction. His engagement with these would-be philosophers necessarily involves the differentiation of harmful and inappropriate mimēsis. That means denouncing sophistry, whose clients he wants to save from the bad education sold by the “ignorant ... [who] is all imitator (µιµητὴς) of the philosopher ... that we must truly call ... the absolutely real and actual sophist” (Sph. 268c), and pointing out what is truly worthy of emulation.

Plato does object to mimēsis where it promulgates lies and misrepresents reality and truth, yet, he endorses mimēsis befitting the cultivation of goodness and virtue. We might understand this approved mimēsis as “the correctness of

500 Halliwell 2002, 24. 501 Halliwell 2002, 70. 502 Plato, like many other educated Greeks, considers drama an imitative art. That suggests he either did not consider himself to be a dramatist (which I contend he is), or that drama where employed in the highest art of philosophy transcends his imitative disfavour. 503 Halliwell 2002, 55.

204

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

imitation ... the reproduction of the original in its own proper quantity and quality” (Lg. 668b). Benitez’s analysis of this and adjacent Laws’ passages notes: “Correctness obtains when the imitation renders complete the quantity and quality 504 (hoson te kai hoion) [of the original] (668b6-7).” Moreover: “Since correctness of imitation is supposed to lead directly to benefit and goodness and beauty (cf. tên de orthotêta kai tên ôphelian kai to eu kai to kalôs, 667c6-7), we cannot think of correct imitation as mere copying. This suggests a view about imitation that is more sophisticated than usually thought.”505 I concur with Benitez’s insights, and take them to further clarify why evoking εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons may facilitate the “correct imitation” that can “lead directly to benefit and goodness and beauty”. Golden also notes that mimēsis in Plato “was used to describe a process that went beyond the copying of external form to the representation of essential character”.506 Hence, we might surmise that Plato considers appropriate mimēsis helpful in advancing the noble simplicity of good and fair disposition.

Such Platonically useful mimēsis can be focused and scientific: “Some who imitate do so with knowledge of that which they imitate” (Sph. 267b), and “that which is founded on knowledge, [is] a sort of scientific imitation” (Sph. 267e). Golden speaks to this fundamentally epistemic nature of mimēsis in Plato, describing it as “a great formal principle that penetrates every aspect of our existence”.507 Golden’s comments are suggestive of the notion that the embodied soul, as the known and knower, reproduces goodness and virtue as a reflective representation of itself that “can penetrate every aspect of our existence”.

Gocer relates mimēsis to the essential poise of Platonic cosmology: “What explains Plato’s assumption of the desire for stability and equilibrium is the cosmic principle of imitation that god puts in place (Tim. 88d, 69b-d, 39de, 41d: Laws 903b, Phil. 28d).”508 If, for Plato, mimēsis is “a great formal principle that penetrates every aspect of our existence”, a “cosmic principle ... that god puts in place”, then it necessarily involves him and each ensouled being. Consequently,

504 Benitez 2009, 245. 505 Benitez 2009, 248. 506 Golden 1975, 120. 507 Golden 1975, 120. 508 Gocer 1999, 25.

205

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Plato encourages the correct understanding and use of mimēsis as it has a vital function in bringing an embodied soul to accord with the emulation of cosmic rhythmic harmony, since that stable equipoise is in their mutual interest. Platonic philosophy effectively progresses that accord by evoking the representations and reproduction of goodness and virtue. Regardless of an embodied soul’s locus in a broader cosmic cycle, constructive mimēsis can cultivate its good and fair godlike disposition, even in ungodly circumstances.

There are specific examples of the representations Plato deems beneficial to the soul and so warranting reproduction: “If they imitate they should from childhood up imitate what is appropriate to them — men, that is, who are brave, sober, pious, free and all things of that kind ... imitations, if continued from youth far into life, settle down into habits and (second) nature in the body, the speech, and the thought” (R. 395cd). The appropriate eikons for correct imitation are courageous, temperate and righteous, as are the mythic εὐηθέστεροι who we might reasonably suppose to be “earthly copies of justice and temperance and the other ideas which are precious to souls” (Phdr. 250b). Indeed, Carone notes that, “the age of , removed as it is from us, can prove inspiring, insofar as it invites us to emulate, so far as possible, its ideal environmental conditions.”509 I do not presume to know what Carone infers by “ideal environmental conditions”, however, the εὐηθέστεροι’s environment as described in the Laws is apparently ideal for the formation of the noblest characters, in a human community that apparently lives in accord with the stability and equilibrium of cosmic principles. In such conditions that are devoid of strife, extreme poverty or wealth the dissonance of insolence, injustice, rivalries and jealousies do not occur people are good, courageous, temperate and more righteous. Consequently, it seems that by Carone’s criterion the εὐηθέστεροι can inspire and invite emulation of their ideal environment. One that Plato presents as the conditions that form the noblest characters and so likely sustains the most godlike embodied souls.

A reason why Platonic mythos/logos might evoke the mythic εὐηθέστεροι to inspire the emulation of real human virtue is evident in Morgan’s observations.

509 Carone 2005, 127-9. See 354 re the Age of Kronos and the εὐηθέστεροι’s society.

206

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Because it is difficult for the human soul to perceive reality, we create an image (the myth), which is more ‘human’. This discourse mediates between us and the narrative about the intelligibles which a dialectician could recount ... Myth, therefore, is the characteristic discursive mode of the human condition. Imitation in the myth is intimately connected with memory and recollection.510 Morgan correctly identifies the intimate connection between Plato’s mythos/logos, mimetic representation and reproduction, and the anamnestic process of recollection and calling to mind. I hold that the εὐηθέστεροι myth can serve as an ideal mediator in the Platonic patterning of “a fitting soul” (Phdr. 276e) for its effective reception of dialectic. Evoking the emulation of the myth’s ideal human conditions and virtue-heroes can induce the cognitive imagery that enables the apprehension and intellection of higher reality. For as Golden argues: “At least until the soul is released from the body, the principal means at our disposal for apprehending reality are imitative ones.”511 Mimēsis that stimulates the cultivation of εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity of good and fair disposition of character and mind is likely to arouse the embodied soul’s affection for dialectic and gratify its yearning for divine Good and Reason.

The εὐηθέστεροι are mythic, yet the godlike virtues they represent are truly human. Plato uses his mimetic art to dramatise a mythos/logos that represents reality and truth by using images, like the eikonic εὐηθέστεροι, that affords cognitive access to the intelligible. As Halliwell explains: “Plato’s approach to the psychology of mimēsis is grounded in the assumption that there is continuity, even equivalence, between our relations to people and things in the real world and to people and things presented in mimetic art.”512 Granting that Plato does accepts that “there is continuity, even equivalence” between his audience and the mythic εὐηθέστεροι, we can readily accept that evoking their image has a useful function in Plato’s “psychology of mimēsis”. Golden believes that: “The discovery of a suggestive metaphor, myth or other image is the first important step in the process of apprehending reality; it must, however, be followed closely by a profound logical and dialectical analysis of the degree to which it accurately reflects the

510 Morgan 2004, 223-4 511 Golden 1975, 121. 512 Halliwell 2002, 76.

207

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

truth of which it is an image.”513 I submit that, in Golden’s terms, the εὐηθέστεροι myth’s suggestive metaphors and imagery qualifies it as an aid to the cognitive apprehension of reality, and that in the Laws it is followed by “a profound logical and dialectical analysis”. In response to those who might not attribute such dialectic to Laws’ Book 3, I recall Row’s remarks that “Platonic dialectic is not so much a matter of talking, and playing the game, but talking to get results”.514 We might reasonably suppose that in Book 3 Plato rationally argues for an outcome that urges the practical benefits of wise private and public governance.

The Platonic cosmos is alive, and embodied souls are living microcosms that are from and of that cosmos. If µίµησις is “a great formal principle that penetrates every aspect of our existence,”515 and a “cosmic principle ... that god puts in place,”516 then in Plato mimēsis is an innate principle of the embodied soul. If the telos of such souls is to empower their divine governing principle in order to be reunified with their assigned star, then logically what the soul intuitively wants to imitate is its own true nature. Accordingly, divine Good logically obliges the embodied soul’s emulation of good in order to advance its own, and cosmic, existence.517 Morgan seemingly concurs: “Each soul lives honouring and imitating (µίµησις) the god it followed in heaven.”518 Gocer similarly holds that: Plato takes imitation of the divine paradigms as a powerful organic principle of generation and preservation not only for human life but for all living things as well (Tim. 88d: Republic 395b - 396d) ... [it is] precisely because of the transformative power imitation has that Plato holds that the right sort of model be imitated.519 Thus, Plato evokes the good eide and virtue eikons of εὐήθεια to provide “the right sort of model” for imitation. These models can be rationally represented and responsibly reproduced in humanity (albeit by degrees), and help to regenerate

513 Golden 1975, 130. 514 Rowe 2010a, 35. 515 Golden 1975, 120 516 Gocer 1999, 25. 517 From such hypothesis some argue that Platonic philosophy is ultimately the pursuit of cosmic self- interest to serve its divine Good. Note R. E. Allen’s’ comments that “As Bishop Butler was later to say, the trouble with human beings is not that they're too selfish, but that they're not selfish enough. ... People are not selfish enough if they think their interests stop at their skin's edge. Real selfishness, because of the fact of interdependence, involves affirming what is good for those with whom we live, and undertaking the benefit of all. There is in this not contrast between in and altruism. That contrast is sunk in a life, and a social order, aimed at justice and proper proportionality, as elements in the Common Good” (R. E. Allen 1987, 62). 518 Morgan 2004, 224. 519 Gocer 1999, 32.

208

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

and preserve the principles of good order throughout the living cosmos. For, as Prauscello expresses it: “Psychological and behavioural assimilation through mimesis are for the person experiencing them a state of being as 'true' as that of empirical reality”.520

Ἀνάµνησις Platonic psychology presumes humans can usefully participate in ἀνάµνησις (anamnēsis), here understood as recollection and calling to mind. It takes considerable effort to recollect: “Those things which our soul once beheld, when it journeyed with God ... a man who employs such memories rightly is always being initiated into perfect mysteries and he alone becomes truly perfect (Phdr. 249c).521 This Phaedrus passage affirms the embodied soul’s divine origins and that its prenatal epistemic ontology transfers as an embodied soul’s recollectable memories. Significantly, the passage also suggests that Plato considers human perfection a real possibility, though his philosophy is perhaps more realistically intended to persuade the benefits of pursing perfection, however testing that quest. Ἀνάµνησις is evidently a dynamic factor in the cognitive activity of that pursuit, and hence critical to rational engagement with Platonic psychology.

The Phaedrus’ explanation of an embodied soul’s inherent real knowledge also notes the earthly difficulties and dangers that must be overcome for souls to recollect their journeys with God and the “holy sights they once saw”. Every soul of man has by the law of nature beheld the realities, otherwise it would not have entered into a human being, but it is not easy for all souls to gain from earthly things a recollection of those realities, either for those which had but a brief view of them at that earlier time, or for those which, after falling to earth, were so unfortunate as to be turned toward unrighteousness through some evil communications and to have forgotten the holy sights they once saw” (249e-250a). The “realities” that prenatal souls behold Before “falling to earth” are retained by embodied souls’ Before part as the memories of its good old days.522 Facilitating the recollection and calling to mind of those memories is a principal aim of

520 Prauscello 2014, 157. 521 Benjamin Jowett notes: “The notion of a previous state of existence is found in the verses of and in the fragments of Heraclitus. It was the natural answer to two questions, ‘Whence came the soul? What is the origin of evil?’ and prevailed far and wide in the east. It found its way into Hellas probably through the medium of Orphic and Pythagorean rites and mysteries” (Jowett 1953, 191). 522 See Chapter 5, ‘Reconstructionism and moral nostalgia’.

209

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Platonic philosophy, since “the forgetful soul ... has no place in the roll of competent lovers of wisdom” (R. 486d). The embodied soul is then both object and subject of its own recollection and learning: viz., it intuitively attempts to remember and know its reality, as “every soul pursues and for its sake does all that it does, with an intuition of its reality” (R. 505e). The soul becomes real to itself when it is the knower and the known, an can call to mind what was beheld “in the nether realms ... [the] knowledge of all and everything ... [and so] be able to recollect all that she [the soul] knew before about virtue and other things” (Men. 81cd). Anamnēsis is, therefore, essential to the pursuit of the embodied soul’s telos and the sustained practise of virtue.

Tarrant’s comments on the Meno also explain why and how Plato stimulates anamnēsis: “Expecting to receive truths into ourselves from outside sources will end in disappointment, for meaning is something that we must find through recollection from within ourselves.”523 If the embodied soul truly has the real memory of knowing “all and everything” then those memories are indeed held “within ourselves”. In Plato, these memories of divine kinship can be re- called by “a mind endowed with measure and grace, whose native disposition will make it easily guided to the aspect of the ideal reality in all things” (R. 486de). Such a well-disposed mind, I submit, represents a substrate of authentic εὐήθεια that can be “easily guided to the aspect of the ideal reality in all things” by Platonic dialectic and its own remembrance. That soul then knows what it knows.524

Tarrant’s observations provide further useful insights into the vital function of anamnēsis in Plato. Tarrant believes that recollecting the “prenatal experience of the nature (81cd) of things could supply the reasons which will confirm our true beliefs about virtue etc. in the present life.”525 Moreover, that the Meno implies “knowledge of how the virtue comes ... must depend upon an understanding of what virtue is”.526 To discover this “one should search for the thing itself before its properties” (71ab, 86de).527 I hold that the good εὐηθέστεροι

523 Tarrant 2012, 65. 524 Bringing “truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower ... being the cause of knowledge, and of truth in so far as known” (R. 508e). 525 Tarrant 1989, 67-8. 526 Tarrant 1989, 67. 527 ibid.

210

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

as eikonic virtue-heroes can aid “understanding of what virtue is”, for those who live in a harmonious state possess true courage, temperance, righteousness and (I contend) noble simplicity. And “when one has a recollection of anything caused by like things, will he not also inevitably consider whether this recollection offers a perfect likeness of the thing recollected” (Phd. 74a)? The godlike εὐηθέστεροι might be among the “like things” that abet recollection of what the embodied soul “knew before about virtue and other things”.

Jowett alludes to Wordsworth in remarking that: “It was easier to think of a former than of a future life, because such a life has really existed for the race though not for the individual, and all men come into the world, if not ‘trailing clouds of glory,’ at any rate able to enter into the inheritance of the past.”528 The εὐηθέστεροι may be mythical; nonetheless, their virtuous persona is real. In Plato, an embodied soul’s “inheritance of the past” is the trailing clouds of glorious memories it brings into the body. Evoking the εὐηθέστεροι myth, I suggest, attests to humanity’s divine inheritance and serves Plato’s entreaties to recollect and realise the “knowledge of ethical principles latent within.”529

The Meno explains that the process of anamnēsis in Plato is not irrational. The tripartite soul’s rational divine nous is capable of calling to mind and capturing prenatal memories as true opinions. To ensure that these: Fine possessions [that] effect all that is good ... do not ... run away out of the human soul ... one makes them fast with causal reasoning. And this process ... is recollection and when once they are fastened, in the first place they turn into knowledge, and in the second, are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more prized than right opinion (Men. 97e-98a). Hence, for Plato anamnēsis, as the suitable representations and reproduction of good, entails rational intellection. That causal reasoning can produce the right opinions and valuation of its “fine possessions” and bring recollection from memory to become abiding true knowledge.

The evidence suggests that the synergistic affiliation of µίµησις (mimēsis) and ἀνάµνησις (anamnēsis) is essential in a philosophy that proclaims, “the lovers of wisdom are lovers of reality and truth” (R. 501d). Mimēsis of the right models

528 Jowett 1953, 191. 529 Tarrant 1989, 67.

211

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

can help awaken the embodied soul to recollect the reality of its true cosmic heritage, by emulating exemplars “who are brave, sober, pious, free and all things of that kind ... [can] settle down into habits and (second) nature in the body, the speech, and the thought” (R. 395cd). Which is surely suggestive of the goods and virtues evoked by the noble simplicity of εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons. The possession and habit of a good and fair disposition generates the character and mind that is both encouraged by and encourages anamnēsis. As the embodied soul knows that it knows itself better the better it knows the truth of what it “knew before about virtue and other things”. Among the latter, I contend, is its godlike virtue of noble simplicity.

Δαίµων, δαιµόνιον and εὐήθεια There is extensive scholarship on δαίµων in Plato, and Socrates’ δαιµόνιον is often its focus. In my brief analysis of Platonic daimōn I too reference Socrates’ daimonion. However, my evaluation differentiates between δαίµων and their δαιµόνιον, and proposes that evoking the eide and eikons of εὐήθεια can help to enable a daimōn’s daimonion to function as a tutelary deity.

Several Platonic texts mention daimones, among them the Phaedo: “After death, the tutelary genius (δαίµων) of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together” (107d). The Republic advises: “No divinity (δαίµων) shall cast lots for you, but you shall choose your own deity (δαίµων)” (617e), and that sends “with each, as the guardian of his life and the fulfiller of his choice, the genius (δαίµων) that he had chosen” (620de). The Timaeus suggests that a person’s soul is their daimōn: God has given to each of us, as his daimōn , that kind of soul which is housed in the top of our body and which raises us [and he] who has seriously devoted himself to learning and to true thoughts, and has exercised these qualities above all his others, must necessarily and inevitably think thoughts that are immortal and divine ... and ever tending ... [to their] divine part and duly magnifying that daimōn who dwells along with [them] ... must be supremely blessed (εὐδαίµων) (90bc).530 From these passages we might then deduce that for Plato: each person has a δαίµων that is a “tutelary genius”; and he who has “seriously devoted himself to learning and to true thoughts” attends to their “divine part [by] duly magnifying

530 Lamb notes that here “εὐδαίµονα” literally means “with a good daimōn” and is a play on δαίµων and εὐδαίµων (Lamb 1925, fn. Ti. 90c).

212

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

that daimōn” and is thus “supremely blessed”. Hence, the divine part of each embodied soul, which I take to be its divine governing principle or nous, is that soul’s unique δαίµων, or “tutelary genius”.

These passages have long informed views about the nature and function of the daimōn in Plato. Anna Corrias observes that Plotinus’ “notion of the daimōn as a pars animae was derived mainly from … Timaeus 90 A–C, … Phaedo 107D 6–9 … and Republic X.617E.”531 Adopting Plotinus’ terminology, each embodied soul’s chosen daimōn is an embodied soul’s divine pars animae, its ‘god particle’, which assumes authority to the extent of its careful magnification.

Yet, some suggest personal daimōnes exist only in the virtuous. For instance, Rosalyn Weiss concludes from her analysis of daimōn in Plato that: The unjust thus go through life daimōn free. They have no warnings before they do injustice, no cautionary bell that tips them off that what they are about to do is horribly wrong and as such to be avoided. ... Any person for whom injustice is not already a concern has no daimonion. What distinguishes Socrates from others who care about justice is that he has his daimonion even as a child.532 While, as explained below, I agree with Weiss’ contention that “any person for whom injustice is not already a concern has no daimonion”, I do not accept that “the unjust thus go through life daimōn free”. Plato makes it clear that each embodied soul has a daimōn; therefore, no one is without a daimōn as they are essential and innumerable. What is rare, and perhaps what Weiss intimates, is having a sustained attentiveness to the “cautionary bell that tips them off that what they are about to do is horribly wrong”. Weiss’ gloss can thus be taken to illustrate what I suppose to be the difference between a daimōn and its daimonion. Each soul has a daimōn as divine reason, however; only those who have “seriously devoted … [themselves] to learning and to true thoughts” are blessed to hear their daimonion’s cautionary bell of tutelary guidance.

Hence, my understanding of δαίµων and δαιµόνιον in Plato envisions the latter as a good embodied soul’s manifestation of the former. The δαίµων, taken as Plotinus’ pars animae, is the divine particle that “God has provided to each of

531 Corrias 2013, 445. 532 Weiss 2005, 84.

213

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

us” as our embodied soul’s chosen tutelary “genius”. I conceive a δαιµόνιον as a dynamic manifest quality of a δαίµων that is duly magnified by devotion to learning and true thoughts. A daimōn’s daimonion might naturally arise in childhood, or even in adulthood, perhaps as an attribute of εὐήθεια’s uncorrupted goodhearted noble simplicity evident in innocent youth and some adults (cf. Euthd. 279d: R. 409a: Dem. 61.21: Arist. Rh. 2.12.7: Din. Orat. 73.2.5). Therefore, for me the daimonion is an active ethical guide for those sufficiently well disposed and/education to summon divine guidance of their own daimōn. In Plato, the voice of that tutelary genius is depicted as the Socratic daimonion.

Why do I differentiate between a δαίµων and its δαιµόνιον? A Platonic δαίµων as a pars animae may be of divine origin and immortal, nonetheless, that does not necessarily infer that it is pure and simple. I contend that the δαίµων, which each soul chooses to accompany its embodiment, can be variously assessed on a scale from viciousness to vice.533 That part of the embodied soul that is its δαίµων may remain relatively close to its divine nature, such as the daimōnes that likely accompany the ensouled εὐηθέστεροι, though there is reason to suppose that an εὐηθέστεροι δαίµων escapes the cycles of embodiment and goes to an afterlife station on the Isle of the Blessed. Δαίµονες can also be understood as the souls of men from the golden age.534 Conjecture that the εὐηθέστεροι virtue-hero myth epitomises the earliest Greek humans living in a golden age that seemingly borrows from Hesiod’s heroic age is a view perhaps supported by Waldemar Hanasz remark that: The race of heroes, the only one not named after a metal, is explicitly named ‘divine’ and ‘demigods’ and is shown to be superior and more righteous than its silver and bronze predecessors. The heroic race reflects some of the characteristics of the golden one, especially in its post-mortem afterlife on ‘the Isles of the Blessed’.535 Plato then arguably situates the εὐηθέστεροι in an era that at the least is similar to a Hesiod’s golden age.536An age when “there was a law concerning mankind, and it holds to this very day amongst the gods, that every man who has passed a just and

533 Cf.: “When a man's soul is stripped bare of the body, all its natural gifts, and the experiences added to that soul as the result of his various pursuits, are manifest in it. So when they have arrived in presence of their judge ... every act has left its smirch upon his soul” (Grg. 524e-525a). 534 ‘δαίµων’, LSJ 1889. 535 Hanasz 1997, 40. 536 See fn. 355.

214

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

holy life departs after his decease to the Isles of the Blest, and dwells in all happiness apart from ill” (Grg. 523ab). Plato’s audience is doubtless aware of Hesiodic mythology and might readily accept that the more righteous εὐηθέστεροι have “passed a just and holy life” and so dwell happily with the gods.537 Accordingly, some may regard the εὐηθέστεροι as men from a golden, heoric age who dwell on the “Isles of the Blest”.

A Cratylus’ passage expands the notion of good embodied souls as δαίµων. This, then, I think, is what he [Hesiod] certainly means to say of the spirits: because they were wise and knowing (δαήµονες) he called them spirits (δαίµονες) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same. Now he and all the other poets are right, who say that when a good man dies he has a great portion and honor among the dead, and becomes a spirit, a name which is in accordance with the other name of wisdom. And so I assert that every good man, whether living or dead, is of spiritual nature, and is rightly called a spirit (δαίµων) (Cra. 398ac). This apparently sustains conjecture that the δαίµων of good men’s souls, such as the εὐηθέστεροι, are reunited in the simple purity of divinity. They become the δαίµονες who enjoy immortal bliss on the Isles of the Blessed and, as I understand Platonic souls’ states and stations, can therefore no longer participate in the cycles of soul embodiment. The passage also lends weight to the εὐηθέστεροι’s gravitas as virtue eikons. Having lived a good life they warrant honour among the dead, becoming wise and knowing spirits.538 I also note that the living good are “rightly called a spirit (δαίµων)”, which supports my hypothesis that where an embodied soul is well governed by its δαίµων that soul can attain a godlike “spiritual nature”, to the extent that is mortally possible.

A daimōn can also be chosen by a “flitting soul”, which is quickly re- embodied as it retains the heavy burden of corporal desires from its prior lifecycle (cf. Phd. 81cd). Therefore, to escape the cycles of embodiment, or at least avoid an eternity stationed in Tartarus, these and most other post-mortem souls are in need of further refinement and simplification. That is the purpose of Platonic

537 At Cratylus 397c+e Plato speaks of “the earliest men in Greece ... [as] a golden race”, and at 398a quotes Hesiod WD 122 ff: “They [daimōn] are called holy spirits under the earth, noble averters of evil, guardians of mortal men.” I note Hesiod’s use of the term “guardians of mortal men” and that Plato’s citing of it might relate to the Republic’s Guardians. And again mention the supposition that the Republic serves as a Platonic guide to unify and simplify the tripartite soul through the guardianship of its divine governing principle, or its δαίµων. 538 Parenthetically, recalling the last Chapter, if the εὐηθέστεροι are δαίµονες, an attribution that “is in accordance with the other name of wisdom”, then the εὐηθέστεροι are, at least post-mortem, wise.

215

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

philosophy, which presumes that within each soul is the anticipation of “the sweet and cheering hope of pleasant things to come, the fearful and woeful expectation of painful things to come (Phlb. 32bc)”. Hence, the intent of Platonic philosophy is to further the good governance of an embodied soul to pursue pleasures derived from the love of wisdom and “the sweet and cheering hope” of divine reunion. To rekindle the souls’ recollection of it divine heritage, by increasing its desire for the “class of pleasure, which [is] an affair of the soul alone, [and that] originates entirely in memory (Phlb.33c)”.

While in Plato daimōnes invariably exist as the divine part of an embodied soul, as I understand Platonic soul theory, at ensoulment they must be conveyed in variable states of godlike purity and simplicity. Thus, an embodied souls’ awareness of their “class of pleasure” and “sweet and cheering hope” can be considerably different. In the context of this thesis, I thus infer that the noble simplicity of εὐήθεια’s good disposition is embodied in diverse stages of progress and retention. Nonetheless, embodied souls have the capacity to recollect their retained memories of kinship with divine Good and cultivate their authentic εὐήθεια, which nurtures their intuitive affections for the rightful pleasures of dialectic’s higher intellection.539 To enjoy those pleasures Plato urges embodied souls to recall to mind and restore the reality of their daimōn’s divine nature, and that challenge reflects the wide-range of that possibility. While participating in cycles of rectification and embodiment a daimōn remains divine. Nonetheless, given their variable states of harmony at embodiment some daimōnes are more capable than others of pursuing and practising godlike good governance.

The need for humans to rectify the distortion of harmony occasioned by birth is made clear in this Timaeus passage. For the divine part within us the congenial motions are the intellections and revolutions of the Universe. These each one of us should follow, rectifying the revolutions within our head, which were distorted at our birth, by learning the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe, and thereby making the part that thinks like unto the object of its thought, in accordance with its original nature, and having achieved this likeness attain finally to that goal of life which is set before men by the gods as the most good both for the present and for the time to come (Ti. 90cd).

539 See Chapter 7, ‘Platonic dialectic’.

216

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

To rectify an embodied daimōn’s “congenial motions” we must learn “the harmonies and revolutions of the Universe” by activating the embodied divine nous to be “like unto the object of its thought, in accordance with its original nature. Thoughts that are conducive to our daimōn being brought to “accordance with its original nature” are stimulated by the understanding and intellection derived from dialectic. Where that occurs the daimōn attains “that goal of life which is set before men by the gods as the most good both for the present and for the time to come.” Evidently then, a daimōn’s embodied state, “both for the present and for the time to come”, can be determined by the choices that arise from cognitive activities. Where that intellection is godlike an embodied daimōn can return to its original unity and simplicity, which is “the most good”. It is for this reason that the concept of an embodied daimōn as an invariably noble and virtuous pars animae seems to me Platonically irrational, since each embodied soul’s daimōn can only and must be in one of the myriad states of virtue and vice before it is embodied. Otherwise it has escaped embodiment and been stationed in eternal bliss or damnation. For a soul qua daimōn that attains the “goal of life” presumably “goes away into that which is like itself ... [and] lives in truth ever after with the gods” (Phd. 80e-81a). Given that soul’s daimōn is its original nature I suppose it is that which is reunited and stationed “in truth ever after with the gods”. Subsequently, these rare daimōnes are no longer available to be chosen for embodiment. Where a daimōn and its divine Good atrophies a soul can become so morally enfeebled that it is dammed to Tartarus, and being denied access to Divine goodness for eternity it can no longer participates in the cycles of embodiment.540 To pursue the “goal of life” and avoid Tartarus, Platonic philosophy urges desires to “flow in the channel of learning and … be concerned … with the pleasures of the soul in itself” (R. 485d). Therefore, each daimōn that comes into life requires varying degrees of rectification to its “original nature”; rectification that I contend entails the cognitive cultivation of εὐήθεια to safeguard the broad purpose of its good eidetic and eikonic function.

I propose that the δαιµόνιον signified in Plato by Socrates’ δαιµόνιον voices the mortally accessible expression of divine guidance whose occurrence, or non-occurrence, indicates the extent of a δαίµων’s rectification to its “original

540 This again raises the conjecture that immortality does not necessarily entail divine Good.

217

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

nature”. Thus, an embodied soul’s accord with the rhythms and “revolutions of the Universe” regulates the manifestation and influence of a δαίµων’s δαιµόνιον. A daimonion can only transpire where a daimōn’s divine embodied state is sufficiently established to initiate discernible communion between divine nature and human nature. The more evolved the tripartite soul’s practice of godlike good governance, the more likely its daimōn will deploy its daimonion. Where heeded above the raucous assertions of the tripartite soul’s spirited and appetitive desires, the presence and/or absence of the daimonion’s voice expresses the daimōn’s tutelary guidance and divine genius.

It might, therefore, seem paradoxical that Socrates’ daimonion is cited as a cause of his indictment and execution for blasphemy. Socrates asks why Meletus brings charges against him, and Euthyphro responds: “I understand, Socrates; it is because you say the divine sign (δαιµόνιον) keeps coming to you” (Euthphr. 3b). The δαιµόνιον that “keeps coming” to Socrates is represented as an opposing impulse, a type of ‘stop’ sign. As he explains to the Athenian assembly: You have heard me say at many times and places ... something divine and spiritual comes to me, the very thing which Meletus ridiculed in his indictment. I have had this from my childhood; it is a sort of voice that comes to me, and when it comes it always holds me back from what I am thinking of doing, but never urges me forward (31cd). Socrates later tells those about to judge him: A wonderful thing has happened to me. For hitherto the customary daimonion always spoke to me very frequently and opposed me even in very small matters, if I was going to do anything I should not; but now, as you yourselves see, this thing which might be thought, and is generally considered, the greatest of evils has come upon me; but the divine sign did not oppose me either when I left my home in the morning, or when I came here to the court, or at any point of my speech, when I was going to say anything; and yet on other occasions it stopped me at many points in the midst of a speech; but now, in this affair, it has not opposed me in anything I was doing or saying. What then do I suppose is the reason? I will tell you. This which has happened to me is doubtless a good thing, and those of us who think death is an evil must be mistaken. A convincing proof of this been given me; for the accustomed sign would surely have opposed me if I had not been going to meet with something good (40ac). The oppositional nature of Socrates’ daimonion is also noted in the Theaetetus: “The daimonion that comes to me forbids me to associate with some … but allows me to converse with others” (151a). And at Phaedrus 242bc he says: “When I was about to cross the stream, the spirit and the sign (δαιµόνιόν) that usually come to me came—it always holds me back from something I am about to do—and I thought I heard a voice from it which forbade my going away before

218

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

clearing my conscience, as if I had committed some sin (ἡµαρτηκότα) against deity.”541 Socrates variously calls his daimonion “a sort of voice”, something that always speaks to him, a divine sign, an accustomed sign, the spirit and the sign. From this we can infer that he believes his daimonion is of divine origin, prophetic, a constant presence, and a spiritual governor that manifests as a heeded ‘voice’. This sign of the divine advises him how to clear his conscience and avoid committing sin, often and actively communicating opposition, even in “very small matters”. If that is the case, the Socratic daimonion seem to represent a so-called human conscience, or synderesis, that acts as a moral arbiter of conduct.

The general interpretation of Socrates’ daimonion as a ‘stop’ is reflected in Brisson’s remark that: “Its role is to provide Socrates with an instantaneous warning in the day-to-day conduct of [his] mission; hence, it must be one that requires little or no interpretation on Socrates’ part to make clear the identity of the action warned against.”542 While I accept this common assessment of Socrates’ daimonion as apotropaic, I question that his response to it “requires little or no interpretation ... to make clear the identity of the action warned against”. When Socrates’ spiritual guide tells him to ‘stop’ he listens and submits. Not to do so will conflict with his conscience and risk sin. Nonetheless, Socrates can choose to either obey or disobey his tutelary guide. The daimonion’s voice is a provocative (παρακαλέω) thing (cf. R. 524d) that can provoke action or inaction as it summons the choice between the two. Surely, that evaluation obliges volition, a deliberative process that, however fleeting, entails a moral agent’s reference to what they deem virtue or vice.

Hence, for Socrates, and anyone who attends to their tutelary daimōn’s daimonion, a cognitive process probably precedes their decision to obey or disobey; notwithstanding that is can go unnoticed. Indeed, McPherran believes that: “Socrates seems to have grounded reliance on his daimonion on both inductive and deductive considerations.”543 These considerations likely involve

541 The English word ‘sin’ and ἁµαρτάνω may both mean ‘to miss the mark’. 542 Brisson 2005, 29. 543 McPherran 1996, 9.

219

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

virtue values, hence, deductive deliberations can become inductive, and vice versa. That is, rational deduction can induce moral action, and an incentive to act can be expressed as rational conduct. So such considerations likely precede a moral agent’s attentiveness to the presence or absence of a daimonion’s voice. In which case that voice can be a guiding consequence of cognition, albeit subject to the agent’s ethical reflections. I, therefore, disagree with Brickhouse and Smith’s claim that Socrates’ has no moral volition in obeying his daimonion. When the daimonion tells Socrates that he should desist from what he is about to do, he can be completely certain at least that he must not continue what he was about to do. But this information tells him nothing about what it is that is wrong, when it is wrong, why it is wrong, and what it is to be wrong.544 To suggest that Socrates daimonion experiences involve “nothing about what it is that is wrong, when it is wrong, why it is wrong, and what it is to be wrong” in my view fails to acknowledge that Socrates’ philosophical mission (and indeed Plato’s) is grounded in the rational discernment of what in truth constitutes virtue and vice. Which refutes Brickhouse and Smith further contention that “what Socrates gets from the daimonion, therefore, is virtually worthless for the pursuit of the sorts of truth Socrates seeks philosophically, truth which explains and defines, and which thus can be applied to the judgments and deliberations required for the achievement of the truly good life for men.”545 Quite the contrary, the presence or absence of his daimonion is, I submit, continually denying and affirming what he regards as the correct conduct of philosophical truth, since he is sufficiently good to summon and ‘hear’ its absence as consent and its presence as censure.

This notion of Socrates’s daimonion being a constant guide in his philosophical mission is reflected in Pierre Destrée observation that: “If one considers in which contexts these interventions [of Socrates’ daimonion] take place, one realizes that they always occur in the context of philosophical activity and are linked to Socrates’ mission.”546 Conceding that Socrates’s daimonion encounters “always occur in the context of philosophical activity” then his daimonion is not only a ‘voice’ of denunciation, its silence voices sanction. At

544 Brickhouse and Smith 1986, 523. 545 ibid. 546 Destrée 2005, 68.

220

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

Apology 40bc he recounts that his divine sign did not stop him coming to the Assembly, which he assumes would have been the case if doing so was sinful. He reasons that coming to stand trial and being condemned to death “is doubtless a good thing”. Why? Because, “a convincing proof of this [has] been given me; for the accustomed sign would surely have opposed me if I had not been going to meet with something good” (40ac). Therefore, Socrates concludes that death is not evil, and asks: “What greater blessing could there be” (Ap. 40e). Here, he takes the absence of his divine sign as an affirmation of his actions and even to affirm the good prospects of his afterlife. This suggests that while Socrates may hear the ‘voice’ of his daimonion as a ‘stop’, the comparative state that establishes the voice’s presence, its absence, is for him an auspicious divine sign that his current words and deeds are virtuous and in accord with his philosophical mission. His daimonion is present and prophetic as both the voice of denial and the silence of affirmation, and I hold that in either instance his choice to comply entails cognition and volition.

Irrespective of the esoteric nature of the topic, it is important that discussions of daimōn and daimonion in Plato recognise that he is engaging his audience in a rational ethico-religious paradigm. McPherran believes that Socrates “is not just religiously, but completely rationally (and morally) inclined: a man whose theologizing is grounded in discursive reason”. The Socrates McPherran portrays: “Insists that the extrarational must be submitted to the court of secular ratiocination whenever possible.” 547 McPherran’s view about “the court of secular ratiocination” suggests that for Plato a daimonion, or similar afflatic experience, can be rationally defended as real and true.548 Such a defence presumably rests on Plato’s cosmic principle that divine Good and Reason participate thought-out his living cosmos and can be communicated between divinity and humanity. Hermann Gauss remarks that: “For Plato the Good is transcendent, and not a goal within the reach of a human sage … as such a transcendent quality it is a principle of religion rather than a morality.”549 Divine Good and Reason may be beyond human reach, nonetheless, it is that for which the embodied soul yearns and aspires to achieve.

547 McPherran 1996, 12. 548 ‘afflatic’ from “afflatus”: “The miraculous communication of supernatural knowledge” (OED 1989). 549 Gauss 1937, 77.

221

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

In Plato, divine Good is both a principle of religion and morality, since the two are inseparable constituents of his ethico-religious paradigm. In Harald Høffding’s view: “The relation between religion and ethics is a very simple one; religion is faith in the preservation of values, and ethics investigates the principles according to which the discovery and production of values take place.”550 The description of Socrates’ daimonion as a divine, moral guide expounds Plato’s affiliation of religion and ethics, and asserts the real potential of communion with divine guidance for those who practise godlike governance as the rational direction of their divine governing principle.

Religion’s essential function in Platonic ethics extends to other aspects of Plato’s philosophy. Schofield notes that: “Plato’s rationale for writing god into the popular ideology of the Republic and the Laws alike is not hard to understand,”551 as religious tradition has a socially persuasive and enduring authority. And Benitez and Tarrant in my view correctly hold that: “Platonic philosophy is thoroughly welded to the frame of religion, from and metaphysics to ethics and psychology.”552 Carone also remarks that Platonic philosophy has a fundamentally theocratic nature. She argues that Plato: “Believes that there is indeed an entity in the structure of reality that we may call by the name of god.”553 And Gauss observes: “Of Plato’s being a deeply religious man, there can ... be no question [he] accepted his philosophical profession as religious duty.”554 Platonic scholarship that is not grounded in the crucial influence of religion in Plato can miss the mark. We might thus suppose that for Plato being guided by an embodied daimōn’s daimonion is a realisation of piety that verifies human intimacy with divinity. If, as I argue, such divine tutelary experience entails moral agency and deliberation, I submit that Plato’s metaphysical depiction of daimonion is as a cognitive activity of volition to obey and/or placate a moral conscience (cf. Phdr. 242bc). In that respect, a daimonion’s ‘voice’ might signify a mortal’s access to the real knowledge of their true godlike nature.

550 Høffding 1906, 373-4. 551 Schofield 2009, 113. 552 Benitez and Tarrant 2015, 218. 553 Carone 2005, 28. 554 Gauss 1937, 83.

222

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

In the words of the Symposium’s Diotima, we might regard a well-nurtured daimōn as enabling the instantiations of “the spiritual (δαιµόνιον) [that] is the means of all society and converse of men with gods and of gods with men, whether waking or asleep (Smp. 203a).555 As a sensible manifestation of intelligible divinity, a daimonion’s guidance represents cognitive communication between humanity and divinity. Those willing to countenance the reality and capacity of their godlike nature can summon the tutelary guidance of their daimōn’s daimonion. The potential to ‘hear’ the daimonion’s guiding voice is, I submit, a crucial aspect of Plato’s aim to establish the reality of divinity as a enduring familiarity with a personal tutelary deity. Plato offers Socrates as the living proof that such kinship can exist. We might suppose that among Plato’s audience there are those who concede that they have had some real daimonion experiences, or at least had cognitive cautions that influence what they deem truly moral. Plato wants each would-be philosopher to admit the possibility that such experiences evidence the presence of a personal tutelary deity. Above all, he want the lovers of wisdom to accept that the frequency and intensity of these encounters rests on being suitably disposed to the cognition of real goodness and the practise of true virtue.

Hence, the state of an embodied daimōn’s nature regulates the capacity to experience and heed its daimonion. The more godlike a soul becomes the more pure, simple and unified its daimōn and the more potent its daimonion’s divine guidance. A daimonion thus represents a mortal’s cognitive expression of their embodied soul’s relative excellence and beauty, or as Voegelin expresses it: “On the quality of the daimōn depends the quality of the soul.”556 Thus, for better or worse, in Heraclitus’ words, “a man’s character is his daimōn (ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίµων)” (DK 22B119). Where a moral agent posses the habit of a truly, good and fair disposition their daimonion loudly rings the “cautionary bell that tips them off that what they are about to do is horribly wrong and as such to be avoided.”557 Accordingly, the pursuit and cultivation of εὐήθεια (εὐ+ήθος) to sustain the divine character of an embodied daimōn enhances the likelihood that its daimonion will become an interactive, real instantiation of divine Good and Reason.

555 I note the Platonic conception of ignorance as being asleep and having real knowledge of the self as being awake in: cf. Ap. 31a and R. 476cd. 556 Voegelin 2000, 137. 557 Weiss 2005, 84.

223

Chapter 10 - Evoking Εὐήθεια’s Eidos and the Εὐηθέστεροι Eikons

In sum, this chapter examined why and how the eidos and eikons of εὐήθεια might be evoked to aid Platonic philosophy’s aim to propagate divine Good. My consideration of Platonic cosmology and soul theory contended that an embodied soul may be the knower and the known, the subject and object of εὐήθεια’s good disposition. And that an embodied soul’s purity, simplicity and unity can contribute to the harmony and equilibrium of the living cosmos. I also argued that Platonic method assumes a moral agent’s cognitive capacity to utilise µίµησις (representation and reproduction) and ἀνάµνησις (recollection and calling to mind) in the interests of their embodied soul, and that the eidos and eikons of εὐήθεια can participate in the synergy of mimēsis and anamnēsis. The chapter concluded with my proposal that a daimonion is only manifest where an embodied soul’s divine part, its daimōn, is properly cherished. And that those who do so are “supremely blessed (εὐδαίµων) (Ti. 90bc)”,558 for they can hear and heed the voice of their daimonion’s divine tutelary guidance.

558 I again note Lamb’s remark that “εὐδαίµονα” literally means “with a good daimōn ” (Lamb 1925, fn. Ti. 90c).

224

Conclusion I set out to establish that Plato’s resuscitation of εὐήθεια’s semantic and philosophical value reflects Thucydides’ understanding of it as the “ancient simplicity (εὐήθεια) of which nobility had the greatest share” (Th. 3.83.1). Moreover, that like Thucydides Plato laments, and seeks to redress, the loss of εὐήθεια. Indeed, I noted Crane’s view that reintegrating εὐήθεια into contemporary society is Plato’s “life’s work”.559 I asserted that Plato affirms εὐήθεια as the noble simplicity of “the truly good and fair disposition (εὖ τε καὶ καλῶς τὸ ἦθος) of the character and the mind” (R. 400e), and that εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons have a potent function in Platonic philosophy.

The thesis presented my arguments in two parts. In Part 1, Chapter 1, I surveyed εὐηθ- root words in sixth-, fifth-, and fourth-century Greek literature, and classified these instances of the words. The chapter concluded that while the pejorative use of εὐηθ- root words in fifth and fourth century Greek literature is prevalent, there are noteworthy exceptions of its less derogatory use. On some occasions the words imply laudable good-heartedness and simplicity, reflecting εὐήθεια’s etymology of εὖ+ἦθος – good disposition.

Chapter 2 introduced the core of the thesis, an analysis of εὐήθεια in Platonic dialogues. The survey of εὐηθ- root words in the so-called early and transitional Platonic dialogues identified moderate, ambiguous, ironic and positive uses of εὐήθεια (cf. Euthd. 279d, Hp. Mi. 371e, Hp. Ma. 301c, Phd. 100d). I suggested that the frequency and context of εὐήθεια’s positive use indicates an attempt to revive its semantic value of good disposition.

Chapter 3 focused on Plato’s supposed middle dialogues. Especially significant in this chapter, and crucial to my dissertation, is the declaration in the Republic that “good speech, then, good accord, and good grace, and good rhythm wait upon good disposition (εὐήθεια) ... [which is] the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind” (400de). I then argued that Plato’s aim to propagate goodness entails the cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια in the soul.

559 Crane 1998, 22.

225

Conclusion

Chapter 4 surveyed εὐήθεια in Plato’s said later dialogues. The focus of this chapter was the Laws’ account at 677e-680b of a mythic society that was strife free and so devoid of human enmity. Such a society forms the noblest characters, in this instance the good and virtuously superior εὐηθέστεροι. I claimed that the more righteous εὐηθέστεροι personified εὐήθεια’s noble simplicity of truly good and fair disposition of character and mind, and that they are eikonic heroes of godlike virtues.

Part II explored various aspects of Platonic philosophy to support my argument that the eide and eikons of authentic εὐήθεια have a potent function in Plato. The preamble to Part II included an explanation of how and why I associate the term eidos with εὐήθεια. In Chapter 5, I argued for the prerogative of the Laws’ εὐηθέστεροι narrative to be considered a Platonic virtue-hero myth, which I term the εὐηθέστεροι myth, and discussed the function of myth in Plato’s mythos/logos conflation. I presented an apologia to refute claims that the εὐηθέστεροι are ‘stupid’, and discussed my understanding of Plato in the context of what Rachel Barney terms Platonic reconstructionism and moral nostalgia.

Chapter 6 offered seven premisses derived from the Republic and the Laws to ground my arguments for the philosophically potent function of authentic εὐήθεια in Plato. The chapter attended to the first two premisses: (i) good speech, accord, grace and rhythm follow and are guided by authentic εὐήθειαˆ, and (ii), εὐήθεια is the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind. To establish the rationale of my argument I considered what constitutes goodness in Plato, and explored the Good Platonic cosmos. I then proposed that cultivating εὐήθεια’s eidos, understood as the cognitive imaging of goodness, can manifest as acts of virtue. I argued that nurturing the embodied soul’s divine part requires the pursuit and practise of godlike good governance, and that that entails the cultivation of εὐήθεια. The chapter concluded with a discussion of democracy in Plato and distinguished between the democratic governance of the State and of the tripartite soul.

226

Conclusion

Chapter 7 took up the key third premiss: the young must be encouraged to pursue εὐήθεια everywhere if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do, namely, to cultivate authentic εὐήθεια in their souls. I argued for the potent function of what Shorey calls “true εὐήθεια” (herein authentic εὐήθεια), in a Platonically good education, and reviewed the fitting practises and techniques of a that education. Specifically, I examined the Republic’s musical and gymnastic educational practices, Tripartite Soul Theory, the Cave Allegory, mathematical education and Platonic dialectic. I contended that these practices, the cave allegory’s shock of recognition, and understanding the structure and proper function of the tripartite soul are essential propaideutic aspects of a Platonically good education. That these practices and techniques contribute to the fitting preparation of a cognitive substrate suitable for the germination and patterning of Plato’s dialectic, the copingstone of Platonic education. I posited that the pursuit and cultivation of authentic εὐήθεια truly good and fair disposition of character and mind is necessarily a factor in and a product of good education. Therefore, εὐήθεια is critical to the formulation of that cognitive substrate. The chapter concluded by suggesting a possible correlation between the partitioning of εὐήθεια’s (perhaps sequential) goods, the tripartite soul and its affections, and Platonic cognitive processes.

Chapter 8 argued that the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity is a godlike virtue. I first considered premiss (iv), that the εὐηθέστεροι are good because a community that has no communion with either poverty or wealth is generally the one in which the noblest characters will be formed and also because of their simplicity (εὐήθεια), therefore, their noble character and simplicity are good. I argued that the εὐηθέστεροι’s noble simplicity is noble and good, and is thus a godlike good virtue. I then discussed premiss (v), that the εὐηθέστεροι took their beliefs to be real truth, in the context of the axiom simplex sigillum veri - simplicity is the sign of truth. And lastly I discussed premiss (vi), the εὐηθέστεροι are ignorant of the modern arts that are contrived with every device of word and deed to inflict mutual hurt and injury, as they lived in a society where noble simplicity and virtue flourish. I considered notions of simplicity and complexity in Plato and concluded that noble simplicity, as personified in the εὐηθέστεροι

227

Conclusion

virtue-hero myth, is godlike and so noble and virtuous. I proposed that the εὐηθέστεροι’s access to real truth discloses their embodied soul’s harmonious proximity to its divine origin of godlike purity and simplicity. The final section investigated the consequences of losing noble simplicity and what I term, the fall to the ascendancy of cunning.

Chapter 9 argued for premiss (vii), the εὐηθέστεροι are more simple and brave and temperate, and in all ways more righteous than modern man and are thus worthy virtue-heroes. The chapter explored what I style godlike Platonic cardinal virtues: godlike noble courage, godlike temperance and godlike righteousness. I concluded by asking whether the εὐηθέστεροι are wise, and suggested that their noble simplicity entails a kind of godlike original wisdom. Given this dissertation began by surveying εὐήθεια’s predominantly negative use in Classical Greek literature it might seem incongruous to propose that the εὐηθέστεροι, as the personification of εὐήθεια, might posses a kind of wisdom. While that suggests a remarkable transformation, there is in my view sufficient evidence in Plato to at least countenance that possibility.

The final chapter, 10, explores why and how εὐήθεια’s eide and eikons might be evoked in the process of purifying, simplifying and unifying the embodied soul in order to propagate divine good. The chapter considered Platonic cosmology and soul theory, discussed the synergistic dynamics of Platonic µίµησις (as representation and reproduction), and ἀνάµνησις (as recollection and calling to mind). The last section proposed a construal of a Platonic daemonion as the tutelary guidance of a properly nurtured daimōn, and held that εὐήθεια’s eidetic and eikonic functions can help to actuate a daemonion’s ‘voice’.

I now assert that Plato’s regeneration of authentic εὐήθεια is apparent, that we might reasonably acknowledge its legitimate function in Platonic philosophy, and that that insight can aid our understanding of Plato.

228

Conclusion

Afterword I hold that it is important to defend and disseminate Platonic philosophy, simply because of what it sets out to do; foster a harmonious and happy examined life through the love of wisdom and the quest for truth. Yet, some people who are familiar with Plato do not honour him and even deride his philosophy. Plato’s psychology is fundamentally simple, to be happy be good. Albeit a method that necessitates the recognition and moderation of complexity its simplicity perhaps makes it easy to attack and misconstrue in a sophisticated mistrusting world. Nonetheless, it is surely dangerous and truly foolhardy not to give at least some credence to Plato’s analysis of life’s most vital concerns, and his quest to dispel ignorance through. While Plato’s works do generate innumerable accolades, there are institutions of supposed ‘higher learning’ that deem his philosophy an irrelevance. I therefore conclude my thesis with some brief remarks concerning the valuation of Platonic philosophy and authentic εὐήθεια in the 21st century.

Authentic εὐήθεια in the 21st century What is remarkable about the 21st century for us is that we are living during this period of Homo sapiens’ (wise person’s) existence. Trivial as that might seem, it nonetheless gives us a unique spectator’s perspective of this human era. For instance, we might believe that some earlier peoples were wiser that we, and practised that encourage truth, honour and virtue. Whether that is the case or not, such conjecture gives rise to evaluating the status of philosophy in our era. For, as Adriaan Peperzak puts it, if philosophy is entangled with “the doxastic, ethical, political, historical, literary, and religious elements of the entire culture how can philosophy distance itself from the admixtures and corruptions of human lives?”560 One response is to say that while philosophy can claim these associations with humanity, it now lacks the gravitas to effectively address ‘modern’ social issues. However, another response might be that “the prestige of philosophy, and philosophers, even in her present low estate retains a superior dignity” (R. 495d). In this instance, I am particularly concerned with maintaining the dignity and utility of the Classical philosophy recommended by Plato.

560 Peperzak 1997, x.

229

Conclusion

Plato’s heuristic method encourages the rational scrutiny of contemporary society, the love of real wisdom, the quest for reality and truth and, above all, the attainment of self-knowledge. I hold that those aims and attendant ethical values are as worthy now as they ever were. Hence, it is naïve and foolish to dismiss Platonic philosophy as an anachronistic, socio-political anthropology with no extant relevance, especially where misologists hold sway. Who can deny that good speech, accord, grace and rhythm are not admirable human attributes, or that the virtues of noble courage, moderation and justice must have currency in a fit human economy? However, such claims are often greeted with wry smiles and scorn. Indeed, Rabieh believes that “the focus of liberal political life on establishing security and material prosperity so as to enable human beings to pursue their individual versions of happiness has made noble courage sometimes seem an awkward and even suspect relic of the past."561 And, I submit, the same may often be said of other Platonic cardinal virtues. David Sweet’s characterisation of sophists’ cunning pursuit of material prosperity in Plato’s era still rings true. Sweet says such people: Convert the public into the private, they capitalise on their reputations and turn public sentiment into personal wealth. ... money is a beautiful proof of this ability of theirs. It shows in what sense they can reduce the multiplicity of opinion to a single denomination that has value in any city, namely gold.562 Rabieh and Sweet point to why Plato’s philosophy still matters. Where virtue is seemingly an “awkward and even suspect relic of the past” and converting “public sentiment into private wealth” is lauded as wisdom the principles of Platonic ethics might moderate iniquity.

Thucydides’ lament at the loss of ancient noble simplicity and Plato’s elevation of εὐήθεια’s goods and virtues are motivated by circumstance not unlike our 21st century milieu. Societies where citizens lose trust in the speech and conduct of their fellows is readily riven by factional discord and the calamities of conflict that arise from ignorance. Hence, the practical techniques of Platonic philosophy to foster harmonious lives are relevant in any human society. Cropsey holds that "if in the end it is philosophy that must nurture the ennobling measure

561 Rabieh 2006, 165. 562 Sweet 1987, 343.

230

Conclusion

which fosters human doing, then the philosopher might eventually make a claim to be an authentic carer that is not without merit."563 This is probably a controversial statement, which brings us to the nub of the issue. Who is ultimately responsible to “nurture the ennobling measure which fosters human doing”? We may each live as we choose. Perhaps, as a man who where he “sees lawlessness spreading on all sides ... is content if he can keep himself clear of the iniquity of impious deeds while his life lasts and, when the end comes, depart, with good hopes, in security and peace" (R. 496). However, what of the authority that shapes and patterns our choices and deeds, particularly where it claims a legitimate duty of care for our young and broader social standards?

The copingstones of many educational systems are its universities, the public institutions of ‘higher learning’. As such, we might suppose they advocate higher reason and the love of wisdom, and agree that: “Wisdom has to do with the fairest things” (Sym. 204b). How then might these public resources that claim to benefit our society assess what the “fairest things” are? While Diane Swanson’s views largely relate to university business schools they aptly apply to universities in general, and certainly hint at what some of them consider the “fairest things”. Given the groundswell of corporate misconduct, the need for better business ethics education seems obvious. Yet ... schools have even gone so far as to cut ethics courses in the wake of corporate scandals ... top university officials must ... insist that ethics courses be required in business school curriculum. Otherwise, students will continue to get the message that practising managers have little or no legal and ethical responsibilities to society.564 Of course, ethical misconduct is not restricted to the corporate world. Politics, sports, religions et cetera, even universities, are frequent sources of such reports. While we might look to each of these to care about and take some responsibility for their conduct in the public’s interest, I particularly note universities’ duty of care.

By most measures the public interest entails the maintenance of an orderly and peaceful society. That requires accepted standards of conduct that protect human rights of life, liberty and general wellbeing. From a learning perspective, arguably the most important quality of human conduct is knowing how to develop

563 Cropsey 1995, 125. 564 Swanson 2004, 43.

231

Conclusion

and apply those standards. Understanding, for example, that what is often socially acceptable, even legal, is not necessarily ethical or in the public interest. Responsible carers have a duty to participate actively in the process of ethical development and application. It is the basis of human behaviour and thus of social harmony which, in Platonic terms, determines human happiness.

As the pinnacle of our educational system, universities have a primary care for social cohesion, and surely that entails the cultivation of appropriate ethical practices. Presumably, accepting that responsibility requires universities to embrace and propagate the compelling arguments for living a well-examined life. In my probably biased view, those arguments are often found in Classical literature and philosophy. Indeed, perhaps the only academic discipline that can claim to teach a rational basis for ethical conduct is philosophy; especially, for me, Platonic philosophy. We might then conclude that where Classical and Platonic scholarship are valued and have a vigorous influences in higher education that education is more likely to assist in what Barney describes as establishing: “The reality of objective moral truths against the trendy immoralist or moral sceptic … [as] the blueprint for a virtuous society with a stable system of moral education.”565

It may seem odd to conclude an thesis with a quote from a central bank governor. I do so because for me his words convey why Plato values εὐήθεια’s good and fair disposition of character and mind so highly, and how that disposition is as relevant in the 21st century as it was at ancient Athens. At the conclusion of an address entitled, ‘Observations on the Financial System’, Glenn Stevens, the then governor of the Australia Reserve Bank, remarked that the root causes of misconduct in financial institutions: Seem to include distorted incentives coupled with an erosion of a culture that placed great store on acting in a trustworthy way. In the end, though, you can't legislate for culture or character. Culture has to be nurtured, which is not a costless exercise. Character has to be developed and exemplified in behaviour ... this is a never-ending task.566

565 Barney 2002, 207-8. 566 Stevens 2015.

232

Conclusion

Might we not reasonably expect our universities to conscientiously develop a culture where the characteristics of εὐήθεια and exemplary behaviour can advance trust? Surely, failure to do so does our educational system and society a disservice. Worse still, by not properly addressing, valuing and upholding the worth of human virtue universities might actually be sanctioning and propagating vice. That is not to infer an advocacy of paternalistic intervention or moralistic prescription. It is merely to reason that if our universities claim to be institutions of higher learning they will wisely accept the social responsibility their warrants and authority bestow.

233

Appendix

εὐηθ- root words in Plato

Alc 2 [Sp.] 140c9,149e5. Chrm.162b1, 175c8. Demod. [Sp] 385c2. Ep. [Dub.]. 360c7. Euthd. 279a3, 279d8. Hipparch. [Sp.] 229c2. Hp.Ma. [Dub.] 282d2, 289e1, 293d8, 301c2, 301c7, 301d9. Lg. 630e1 (Bude trans.), 679c3, 679c3, 679e.2, 722a8, 818b5. Men. 75c2. Phd. 68e5, 87c7, 100d4. Phdr. 242d7, 242e5, 275b8, 275c7. Plt. 276e1, 309e8. Prt. 343e2. R. 336c1, 343c6, 343d2, 348c12, 349b5, 400e1, 400e2, 409a8, 425b7, 529b3, 598d2. Sph. 267e10. Tht. 175e.2, 210a7. Ti. 91e1.

234

Bibliography

Adam, James (ed.) 1969. The Republic of Plato. Edited with critical notes, commentary and appendices. Volume II: Books VI-X and indices. Cambridge University Press. Adkins, A. W. H. 1973. ‘ἀρετή, τέχνη, Democracy and Sophists: Protagoras 316b-328d’. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 93, 3-12. Ahbel-Rappe S. and R. Kamtekar (eds.) 2006. A Companion to Socrates. Blackwell. Alfarabi 1962. Muhsin Mahdi (trans.), Alfarabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Free Press of Glencoe. Alican, Necip Fikri 2012. Rethinking Plato: A Cartesian Quest for the Real Plato. Rodopi. Allen, R. E. 1987. 'The Speech of Glaucon: On Contract and the Common Good'. In Spiro Panagiotou (ed.), Justice, Law and Method in Plato and Aristotle, 51-62. Academic Printing and Publishing. Altman, William H. F. 2011. ‘Reading Order and Authenticity: The Place of Theages and Cleitophon in Platonic Pedagogy’. Plato 11, http://gramata.univ- paris1.fr/Plato/article103.html, accessed 03.14. Amar, Mubarak A. 1971. Collective Religion in Plato’s ‘Laws’. Princeton University Press. Amir, Lydia 2001. ‘Plato’s theory of Love: Rationality as Passion’. Practical Philosophy 4:3, 6-14. Annas, Julia 1999. Platonic Ethics, Old and New. Cornell University. (2002). ‘What are Plato’s ‘Middle’ dialogues in the middle of?’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 1-24. Harvard University Press. (2004). ‘Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing’. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 78:2, 61–75. (2006). ‘Virtue Ethics’. In David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, 515-536. Oxford University Press. (2008). ‘Plato’s Ethics’. In Gail Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 266- 285. Oxford University Press. (2010). ‘Virtue and law in Plato’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s ‘Laws’: a critical guide, 515-536. Cambridge University Press. Arendt, Hannah 1963. On Revolution. The Viking Press. Arrighetti, G. (ed.) 1973. Epicuro:Opere. Einaud. Auricchio, F. Longo (ed.) 1988. ‘Ermarco. Frammenti’, La scuola di Epicuro 6. Bibliopolis. Ausland, Hayden W. 2000. ‘Who Speaks for Whom in the Timaeus-Critias?’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 183–200. Rowman and Littlefield.

235

Bibliography

Baker, Ernest 1918. Greek Political Theory: Plato and his Predecessors. Methuen. Barney, Rachel 2002. ‘, Moral Nostalgia, and the ‘City Of Pigs’ ’. Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17:1, 207-236. Benardete, Seth 2000. Plato's ‘Laws’: the discovery of being. University of Chicago Press. Benitez, Eugenio E. 1995. ‘The Good or The : Causation and the Unity of Good in Plato’. 28:2, 113–140. (2000). ‘Cowardice, Moral Philosophy, and Saying What You Think’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 83-98. Rowman and Littlefield. (2009). ‘Plato’s Laws on Correctness as the Standard of Art’. Aesthetics (was Literature & Aesthetics) 19:1, 237-256. (2014). Unpublished handout for ‘Plato’s Myths’ unit. University of Sydney. (2015-16). Unpublished notes. Benitez, Rick and Harold Tarrant 2015. ‘Philosophy’. In Oxford Handbook of , 218. Bergmann, Michael and Jeffrey E. Brower 2006. ‘A Theistic Argument Against Platonism (and in Support of Truthmakers and Divine Simplicity)’, 357-86. In Dean W, Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2. Clarendon Press. Bickermann, E. and J. Sykutris (ed.) 1928. ‘Speusipps Brief an König Philipp...,’. In Berichte. Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 80. Tuebner. Betegh, Gabor 2009. ‘Tale, theology and teleology in the Phaedo’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 77-100. Cambridge University Press. Blackhirst, R. 2003-4. ‘The Mythological and Ritualistic Background of Plato’s Timaeus’. Religio Perennis, 6. Blondell, Ruby 2000. ‘Letting Plato Speak for Himself: Character and Method in the Republic’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 127-146. Rowman and Littlefield. Bloom, Alan 1987. ‘An Interpretation of Plato’s Ion’. In Thomas L Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, 371-95. Cornell University Press. (1991 trans.). The Republic of Plato. BasicBooks. Bobonich, Christopher 1991. ‘Persuasion, Compulsion, and Freedom in Plato’s Laws’. The Classical Quarterly 41:2, 365-388 (1994). ‘Akrasia and Agency in Plato’s Laws and Republic’. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 76:1, 3-36. (2002). ‘Parts of the Soul and the Psychology of Virtue’. In Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, 216-288. Oxford University Press. (2002). ‘Virtue, Goods, and Happiness in the Laws’. In Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, 89-209. Oxford University Press. (2008). ‘Plato’s Politics’. In Gail Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 311-335. Oxford University Press. (2010). ‘Introduction’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide, 1-11. Cambridge University Press.

236

Bibliography

Bonazzi, Mauro, Louis-André Dorion, Tomoko Hatano, Noburu Notomi, Marcel Van Ackeren 2009. ‘“Socratic” Dialogues’. Plato 9. http://gramata.univ- paris1.fr/Plato/article88.html, accessed 11.14. Bosch-Veciana, A. 2007. ‘Socrates as a ‘figure’ of the philosopher in the Gorgias’. In I. A. Bosch-Veciana and J. Monserrat-Molas (eds.), Philosophy and Dialogue. Studies on Plato’s Dialogues, 93-136. Institut d’Estudis Catalans i Barcelonesa d’Edicions. Bostock, David 1999. ‘The Soul and Immortality in Plato’s Phaedo’. In Gail Fine (ed.), Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, 404-424. Oxford University Press. Boys-Stones, G. R. 2010, ‘Hesiod and Plato’s history of philosophy’. In R. Boys- Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 31-51. Oxford University Press. Brandwood, Leonard 1976. A Word Index to Plato. W. S. Maney and Son. (1990). The Chronology of Plato’s Dialogues, Cambridge University Press. Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith 1986. ‘“The Divine Sign Did Not Oppose Me”: A Problem in Plato’s Apology’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16, 511-526. (1989). ‘A Matter of Life and Death in Socratic Philosophy’. Ancient Philosophy 9:2, 155-165. (1991). . Clarendon Press. (2014). Plato: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/ plato/#SH5b, accessed 11.14. Brisson, Luc 1998. Gerard Naddaf (intro. & trans.), Plato the Myth Maker. The University of Chicago Press. (2005). ‘Socrates and the Divine Signal according to Plato’s Testimony: Philosophical Practice as Rooted in Religious Tradition’. In Pierre Destrée and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), Socrates’ Divine Sign: Religion, Practice, and Value in Socratic Philosophy, 1-12. Academic Printing and Publishing. (2008). Catherine Tibanyi (trans.), How Philosophers Saved Myths. University of Chicago Press. (2012). ‘Why is the Timaeus Called an Eikôs Muthos and an Eikôs Logos?’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 369-391. Brill. Brooks, Thom 2006. ‘Knowledge and Power in Plato’s Political Thought’. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 14:1, 51-77. Brown, Lesley 2007. ‘Glaucon’s Challenge, Rational Egoism and Ordinary Morality’. In Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner (eds.), Pursuing The Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic, 42-60. Edinburgh University Press. Brownson, Carleton L. (trans.) 1922. Xenophon, Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3. Harvard University Press. Bruell, Christopher 1987. ‘On the Original Meaning of Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Lovers’. In Thomas L. Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, 91-110. Cornell University Press. Burger, Ronna 1984. The Phaedo: a Platonic labyrinth. Yale University Press. Burian, Peter 2011. The Complete Euripides: Volume V: Medea and Other Plays. Oxford University Press. Burnet, John (ed.) 1903. Plato: Platonis Opera. Oxford University Press.

237

Bibliography

Burnyeat, M. F. 1977. ‘Socratic midwifery, Platonic inspiration’. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 24, 7-16. (2009). ‘Eikos muthos’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 167–186. Cambridge University Press. Burtt, J. O. (trans.) 1962. Dinarchus, Minor Attic Orators in two volumes with an English translation 2. Harvard University Press. Bury, R. G. (trans.) 1967 and 1968. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 and 11. Harvard University Press. Butcher, S. H. (ed.) 1903. Demosthenis orationes, Vol. 1. Clarendon Press, Repr. 1966. Bydén, Börje and Katerina Ierodiakonou 2012. ‘Greek Philosophy’. In John Marenbon (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy, 29-57. Oxford University Press. Caizzi, F. Decleva 2003. ‘Glaucone, Socrate e l’antropologia della pleonexia’. Elenchos 24, 361-373. (2006). ‘Minor Socratics’. In M. L. Gill and P. Pellegrin (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, 119-135. Blackwell. Calame, Claude 2012. ‘The Pragmatics of ‘Myth’ in Plato’s Dialogues: The Story of Prometheus in the Protagoras’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 123-143. Brill. Capra, Andrea 2010. ‘Plato’s Hesiod and the will of Zeus: Philosophical rhapsody in the Timaeus and the Critias’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 200-218. Oxford University Press. Carone, Gabriela Roxana 2005. Plato’s cosmology and its ethical dimensions. Cambridge University Press. Carpenter, Amber D. 2010. ‘Intelligent (?) Souls: Plants in Plato’s Timaeus’. Phronesis 55, 281-301. Cherniss, Harold 1947, ‘Some War-Time Publications concerning Plato. I’. The American Journal of Philology 68:3, 113-146. (1957). ‘The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato’s Later Dialogues’. The American Journal of Philology 78:3, 225-266. Clay, D. 1994. ‘The origins of the Socratic dialogue’. In P. A. Van der Waerdt (ed.), The Socratic movement, 23-47. Cornell University Press. Clay, Diskin 2007. ‘Plato Philomythos’. In Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to , 210-236. Cambridge University Press. Cleary, John Joseph 2013. Brendan O’Byrne and Fran O’Rourke (ed.), Studies on Plato, Aristotle and Proclus: The Collected Essays on Ancient Philosophy of John J. Cleary. Brill. Collobert, Catherine 2012. ‘The Platonic Art of Myth-Making: Myth as Informative Phantasma’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 87-108. Brill. Connolly, Tim 2013. ‘Plato’s Phaedo’. In The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/phaedo/, accessed 28.05.13.

238

Bibliography

Corrias, Anna 2013. ‘From Daemonic Reason to Daemonic Imagination: Plotinus and Marsilio Ficino on the Soul’s Tutelary Spirit’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21:3, 443-462. Corrigan, Kevin and Elena Glazov-Corrigan 2005. Plato’s Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium. Penn State Press. Crane, G. 1998. Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism. University of California Press. Crisp, Roger (ed.) 1996. How Should One Live? Clarendon Press. Crombie, I. M. 2013. An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines (RLE: Plato): Volume 1 Plato on Man and Society. Taylor and Francis. Cropsey, Joseph 1995. Plato’s World: Man’s Place in the Cosmos. University of Chicago Press. Csapo, Eric c1996. Unpublished notes. (2004). Theories of Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. (2008). ‘Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance’. In Martin Revermann and Peter Wilson (eds.), Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin, 262-290. Oxford University Press. (2011). ‘The Economic, Poetics, Politics, Metaphysics, and Ethics of the “New Music”’. In Dimitrios Yatromanolakis (ed.), Music and Cultural Politics in Greek and Chinese Societies, Volume 1: Greek Antiquity, 307-314. Harvard University Press. Dain, A. and A. Bon (eds.) 1967. Énée le tacticien Poliorcétique. Les Belles Lettres. Desjardins, Rosemary 1990. The Rational Enterprise: Logos in Plato’s Theaetetus. State University of New York Press. Delacy, Phillip H. 1939. ‘The Problem of Causation in Plato’s Philosophy’. Classical Philology 34:2, 97-115. Dent, J. M. 1910. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. London. E. P. Dutton. Derrida, Jacques 1981. ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’. In Barbara Johnson (trans,), Dissemination, 429-450. Athlone Press. Deslauriers, Marguerite 2002. ‘Commentary On Barney’. Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 17:1, 233. Destrée, Pierre 2005. ‘The Daimonion and the Philosophical Mission - Should the Divine Sign Remain Unique to Socrates?’. Apeiron 38:2, 63–80. (2012). ‘Spectacles from Hades. On Plato’s Myths and Allegories in the Republic’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 109-126. Brill. Destrée, Pierre and N. D. Smith (eds.) 2005. ‘Socrates’ Divine Sign: Religion, Practice, and Value in Socratic Philosophy’. Apeiron 38:2, 127-142. Detienne, Marcel 1999. Janet Lloyd (trans.), Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, 109-124. Cambridge University Press. Devereux, D. T. 1979. ‘Socrates’ First City in the Republic’. Apeiron 13:1, 36–40. DeWitt, Norman W. (trans.) 1949. Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation. Harvard University Press. Dillon, John 2003. The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC). Clarendon Press. (2009). ‘The Muses in the ’. The Afterlife of the Muses Conference. http://www.academia.edu /4380867/The_Muses_in_ the_ Platonic_Academy, accessed 21.03.14 Diels, H. (ed.) 1879. Doxographi Graeci. Reimer, Repr. 1965.

239

Bibliography

Diels, H. and W. Kranz 1952. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 2:6. Weidmann, Repr. 1966. Dittmar, H. (ed.) 1912. Aischines von Sphettos, Studien zur Literaturgeschichte der Sokratiker. Untersuchungen und Fragmente von. Weidmann, Repr., 2001. Dixsaut, Monique 2012. ‘Myth And Interpretation’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 25-46. Brill. Döring, K. M. 1984. ‘Der Sokrates des Aischines van Sphettos und die Frage nach de historischen Sokrates’. Hermes 112, 16-30. (1987). ‘Der Sokrates der Platonischen Apologie und die Frage nach dem historischen Sokrates’. Würzburger Jahrbucher N.F. 13, 75-94. (1998). ‘Sokrates’, In H. Flashar (ed.), Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike Bd. 2/1, 141-178. Schwabe. Döring, K, M. Erler, S. Schorn (eds.) 2005. Pseudoplatonica. F. Steiner. Dorion, Louis-André (intro. and ed.) 2003. Xénophon, Mémorables, Livre I. Les Belles Lettres. Easterling, P. E., Bernard Knox, E. J. Kenney, B. M. W. Knox, and W. V. Clausen (eds.) 1989. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Volume 1, Greek Literature, Part 2, Greek Drama. Cambridge University Press. Edmonds, J. M. (ed.) 1957. The fragments of Attic comedy, Vol. 1. Brill. El Murr, Dimitri 2010. ‘Hesiod, Plato, and the Golden Age: Hesiodic motifs in the myth of the Politicus’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 276-297. Oxford University Press. Emlyn-Jones, Chris and William Preddy (edits. & trans). 2013. Republic/Plato. Harvard University Press. England, E. B. (ed., intro. & notes) 1921 . The Laws of Plato, Vol 1. Longmans, Greene & Co. Erler, M. 2007. Platon. Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike, Bd. 2/2. Schwabe Verlag Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (trans.) 1914. Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica: Works and Days. William Heinemann. Ferrari, G. R. F. 1987. Listening to the cicadas: a study of Plato’s Phaedrus, Faculty Of Classics. University Of Cambridge. (2009). ‘Glaucon’s reward, philosophy’s debt: the myth of Er’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 116-133. Cambridge University Press. (2012). ‘The Freedom Of Platonic Myth’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 67-86. Brill. Festa, N. (ed.) 1902. ‘Palaephati περὶ ἀπίστων’. Mythographi Graeci 3.2. Teubner. Findlay, J. N. 1974. Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines. Humanities Press. Fine, Gail (ed.) 1999. Plato 1, Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford University Press. (1999). Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Oxford University Press. Ford, Andrew L. 2010. ‘Plato’s two Hesiods’, 133-156. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod. Oxford University Press. Forde, Steven 1987. ‘On the Alcibiades I’. In Thomas L Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, 222-239. Cornell University Press. Foshay, Raphael 2009. ‘Mimesis in Plato’s Republic and its interpretation by Girard and Gans’. Anthropoetics 15:1. http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ ap1501/1501foshay.htm, accessed 02.16.

240

Bibliography

Fowler, David H. 1999. The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy: A New Reconstruction. Oxford University Press. Fowler, Harold N. (trans.) 1921. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12. Harvard University Press. (1925 trans.). Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9. Harvard University Press. (1966 trans.). W. R. M. Lamb (intro.), Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1. Harvard University Press. Frede, Dorothea 1992. ‘Disintegration and restoration: Pleasure and pain in Plato’s Philebus’. In Richard Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato, 425-463. Cambridge University Press. (2002). ‘Comments on Annas’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient. Harvard University Press. Freese, J. H. (trans.) 1926. Aristotle, Rhetoric: Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22. Harvard University Press. (1926). Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22. Harvard University Press. Fuhrmann, M. (ed.) 1966. Anaximenis ars rhetorica. Teubner. Furley, David 1989. ‘Truth as What Survives the Elenchos: An Idea in Parmenides’. In Pamela Huby and Gordon Neal (eds.), The Criterion of Truth, 1-12. Liverpool University Press. Gantz, Timothy 1993. Early Greek Myth. Johns Hopkins University Press. Gare, Arran 2007. ‘The Primordial Role of Stories in Human Self-Creation’. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 3:1, 93-114. Gaudin, Claude 1981. Amaury de Cizancourt (trans.), ‘ ΕΥΗΘΕΙΑ, La théorie platonicienne de l’innocence’. Revue philosophique de la Franceet de l’étranger 171:2, 145-168. Presses Universitaires de France. Gauss, H. 1937. Plato’s Conception of Philosophy. MacMillan. Gerber, D. (ed. and trans.) 1999. Greek Iambic Poetry from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries. . Germino, Dante 2000. ‘Editor’s Introduction’. In Dante Germino (ed.), The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Order and History: Volume III, Plato and Aristotle, 1-6. University of Missouri Press. Gerson, Lloyd P. 1999. ‘The Recollection Argument Revisited’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 1-16. Academic Printing and Publishing. (2000). ‘Plato Absconditus’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 201-210. Rowman and Littlefield. Gill, C. 2002. ‘Dialectic and the dialogue form’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 145-171. Harvard University Press. (2006). ‘The Platonic dialogue’. In M. L. Gill and P. Pellegrin (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, 136-50. Blackwell. Gillespie, C. M. 1912. ‘The Use of Ει̂δ̓ ος and Ἰδέα in Hippocrates’. The Classical Quarterly 6:3, 179-203. Gocer, Asli 1999. ‘Hesuchia, a Metaphysical Principle in Plato’s Moral Psychology’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays on Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 17-36. Academic Printing and Publishing. Godley, A. D. (trans.) 1920. Herodotus, The Histories. Harvard University Press. Golden, Leon 1975. ‘Plato’s Concept of Mimesis’. Brit J Aesthetics 15, 118-131.

241

Bibliography

Goldschmidt, Victor 1962. Les dialogues de Platon: Structure et methode dialectique. Presses Universitaires de France. Gomme, A. W. 1913. ‘The Legend of Cadmus and the Logographi’. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 33, 53-72. (1945). A historical commentary on Thucydides, Volume 1. The Clarendon Press. Gonzalez, Francisco G. 2000. ‘The Eleatic Stranger: His Master’s Voice?’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 161-182. Rowman and Littlefield. Grasso, Elsa 2012. ‘Myth, Image and Likeness in Plato’s Timaeus’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 343-367. Brill. Griffith, Mark 1977. The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound. Cambridge University Press. Guthrie, W. K. C. 1975. A History of Greek Philosophy: Volume IV, Plato: The Man and his Dialogues: Earlier Period. Cambridge University Press. (1981). A History of Greek Philosophy VI: Plato: The Man and His Dialogues: Earlier Period. Cambridge University Press. Hall, Robert W. 1964. ‘Όρϑή Δόξα and Εύδοξία in the Meno’. Philologus 108:1-2, 66–71. Halliwell, Stephen 2002. The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems. Princeton University Press. Hanasz, Waldemar 1997. ‘Poetic Justice for Plato’s Democracy?’. Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 25:1, 37-58. Hansen, Michael J. 2010. ‘Plato’s Parmenides: Interpretations and Solutions to the Third Man’. Aporia 20:1, 65-76. Hatthaway, Ronald F. 1969. Hierachy and the Definition of Order in the Letter of Pseudo-Dionysius: A Study in the Form and meaning of the Pseudo-Dionysian Writings. Martinus Nijhoff. Haubold, J. H. 2010. ‘Shepherd, farmer, poet, sophist: Hesiod on his own reception’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 11-30. Oxford University Press. Havelock, Eric A. 1973. Oral Culture and Civilization of Writing: from Homer to Plato. Bari. (1978). The Greek Concept of Justice: From Its Shadow in Homer to Its Substance in Plato. Harvard University Press. Heidegger, Martin 1998. Thomas Sheehan (trans), ‘Plato’s Doctrine of Truth’. In William McNeill (ed), Pathmarks, 155-182. Cambridge University Press. Heitsch, E. 2002/2004. Platon : Apologie des Sokrates, Übersetzung und Kommentar, Platon Werke I 2, 2nd edition. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. (2002). ‘Dialoge Platons vor 399 v. Chr.?’. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, 6. Vandenhoeck und Ruprech. (2003). ‘Hat Sokrates Dialoge Platons noch lesen können?’. Gymnaisum 110, 109-119. (2004). Platon und die Anfänge seines dialektischen Philosophierens. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Herington, C. J. 1970. The Author of the Prometheus Bound. University of Texas Press. Hesiod, Hugh G. Evelyn-White (trans.) 1914. Works and Days: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Harvard University Press.

242

Bibliography

Hobbs, Angela 2000. Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good. Cambridge University Press. Hodkinson, Owen 2013. ‘Epistolarity And Narrative In Ps.-Aeschines Epistle 10’. In Owen Hodkinson, Patricia A. Rosenmeyer and Evelien Bracke (eds.), Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, 323-345. Brill. Honderich, Ted (ed.) 2005. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. Hornblower, Simon 2003. A Commentary On Thucydides. Oxford University Press. Hort, A. (ed.) 1916/1968. . Enquiry into plants, 2 vols. Harvard University Press, 1916, Repr. 1:1968; 2:1961. Horvath, Agnes 2008. ‘What Kind of Political Anthropology? Turning Iconoclasm into Golden Age’. International Political Anthropology 1:2, 255-264. Howland, Jacob 1991. ‘Re-Reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology’. Phoenix 45:3, 189-214. Huffman, Carl A. 1993. Philolaus of Croton: Pythagorean and Presocratic. Cambridge University Press. (2014). ‘’. Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/ sum2014/ entries/pythagoras/>. Hunt, Peter 2001. ‘The Slaves and the Generals of Arginusae’, American Journal of Philology 122:3, 359-380. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Hyland, D. A. 1988. ‘Republic, Book II, and the Origins of Political Philosophy’. Interpretation 16, 247-261. Hylton, Peter 1990. Russell, idealism, and the emergence of analytic philosophy. Oxford University Press. Inwood, Brad 1987. ‘Professor Stokes on Adeimantus in the Republic’. In Spiro Panagiotou (ed.), Justice, Law and Method in Plato and Aristotle, 97-103. Academic Printing and Publishing. Inwood, Michael 2009. ‘Plato’s eschatological myths’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 28-50. Cambridge University Press. Irwin, Terence (trans.) 1979. Gorgias: Clarendon Plato Series. Oxford University Press (1995). Plato’s Ethics. Oxford University Press. (2010). ‘Morality as law and morality’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s “Laws”: a critical guide. Cambridge University Press. Jacoby, R. 1923. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden. Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm 1986. Gilbert Highet (trans.), Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture. Volume III: The Conflict of Cultural Ideals in the Age of Plato. Oxford University Press. Jaeger, W. 1928. Über Ursprung und Kreislauf des philosophischen Lebensideals. Verlag d. Akad. d. Wiss. Joly, Henri 1974. Le renversement platonicien: logos, episteme, polis. J. Vrin. Jones. W. H. S. 1868. Hippocrates Collected Works I. Hippocrates. Harvard University Press. Jowett, Benjamin (trans. & intro.) 1881. Thucydides Volume 1. Clarendon Press. (1931 trans.). Plato: The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2. Oxford University Press.

243

Bibliography

Kahn, Charles H. 1996. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: the philosophical use of a literary form. Cambridge University Press. (2002. ‘On Platonic chronology’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 93-127. Harvard University Press. (2009). ‘The myth of the Statesman’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 93-127. Cambridge University Press. Kamtekar, Rachana 2008, ‘Plato on Education and Art’, In Gail Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 336-59. Oxford University Press. (2013). ‘Ancient virtue ethics: An overview with an emphasis on practical wisdom’. In Daniel C. Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virtue, 29-48. Cambridge University Press. Kenaan, Vered Lev 2010. ‘The seductions of Hesiod: Pandora’s presence in Plato’s Symposium’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 157-175. Oxford University Press. Kennedy, George Alexander 1993. ‘Language and Meaning in Archaic and Classical Greece’. In George Alexander Kennedy (ed.), The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Volume 1. Classical Criticism, 78-91. Cambridge University Press. Kidd, I. G. 1988. Posidonius, Volume II, The Commentary, Part 1. Cambridge University Press. Kingsley, Peter 1995, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition. Clarendon. Klosko, George 2006. The Development of Plato’s Political Theory, 2nd. edit, Oxford University Press. Koffman, J. B. 1974. ‘Truth and Tradition in Plato and the Cambridge Platonists’, http://hdl.handle.net/1974/5253, 113-14. Koning, Hugo 2010. ‘Plato’s Hesiod: not Plato’s alone’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 89-110. Oxford University Press. Krader, Lawrence, and Cyril Levitt (eds) 2010. Noetics: The Science of Thinking and Knowing. Peter Lang Publishing. Kraeling, Emil G. 1947. ‘Xisouthros Deucalion and the Flood Traditions’. Journal of the American Oriental Society 67:3, 177-183. Krämer, Hans Joachim 1959. ‘ Bei Platon Und Aristoteles’. Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 6. Kraut, Richard 1999. ‘Sokrates and Democracy’. In Gail Fine (ed.), Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, 34-55. Oxford University Press. (2013). Edward N. Zalta (ed.), ‘Plato’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/plato, accessed 05.14. Kuchel, P. W. 2011. ‘Ancient Omphalos at Delphi: Geometrically a Space- Inverting Anamorphoscope’. Archaeometry 53, 387–395. Kuhn H. 1934. Sokrate, Ein Versuch über den Ursprung der Metaphysik. Verlag die Runde. Kühn, C. G. (edt.) 1830. Claudii Galeni opera omnia, 18.2. Knobloch, Repr. 1965.

244

Bibliography

Lachièze-Rey, P. 1930. Chez Boivin and Cie (eds), Idées morales, sociales et politiques de Platon. Broché. Laks, André 2008. ‘Speculating about ’. In Patricia Curd and Daniel W. Graham (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy, 353-364. Oxford University Press. Lamb, W. R. M. (trans.) 1930. Lysias. Harvard University Press. (1925 trans.). Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9. Harvard University Press. (1955 trans.). Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8. Harvard University Press. (1967 trans.). Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3. Harvard University Press. Lan, Conrado Eggers 1995. ‘Body and Soul in Plato’s Anthropology’. Kernos 8, 107-112. Lane, Melissa 2011. ‘Ancient Political Philosophy’. Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/ fall2011/ entries/ancient-political/, accessed 03.2013. Leake, James 1987. ‘Introduction to the Lesser Hippias’. In Thomas L. Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, 300-306. Cornell University Press. Lee, Mi-Kyoung (Mitzi) 1999. ‘Thinking and Perception in Plato’s Theaetetus’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 37-54. Academic Printing and Publishing. Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott (LSJ) 1889, An Intermediate Greek- English Lexicon, 9th edition. Clarendon Press. Littré, É. (ed.) 1839, Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 1. Baillière, Repr. 1973. (1840 ed.). Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 2, Baillière, Repr. 1961. (1844 ed.). Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 4. Baillière, Repr. 1962. (1846). Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 2–3, 5. Baillière,Repr. 2:1961; 3:1961; 5:1962. (1846 and 1861). Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 5 and 9. Baillière, Repr. 1962. (1853). Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate. 8, Baillière, Repr. 1962. Lorenz, Hendrik 2008. ‘Plato on the Soul’. In Gail Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 243-265. Oxford University Press. (2009). ‘Ancient Theories of Soul’. Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/sum2009/entries/ ancient-soul, accessed 05.14. Louden, Robert B. 1984. ‘On Some Vices of Virtue Ethics’. American Philosophical Quarterly 21:3, 227-236. Macurdy, Grace Harriet 1905. The Chronology of the extant plays of Euripides. Press of the new Era. Magoulas, Charalampos 2010. ‘Virtues in Iamblichus and the Shift of Paradigm: Interpretation Under the View of Plato’s Protagoras and Symposium’. In ΣΧΟΛΗ: Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 4:2: Special Issue, Iamblichus of Chalcis, 220-228.

245

Bibliography

Marchant, E. C. 1909. Commentary on Thucydides Book 3. MacMillan. Marquez, Xavier 2012. The Stranger’s Knowledge: Political Knowledge in Plato’s Statesman. Parmenides Press. Martin, V. and G. Budé (eds.) 1928. ‘Eschine. Discours’, 2. Les Belles Lettres, Repr. 1962. Mayhew, Robert 2010. ‘The theology of the Laws’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s “Laws”: a critical guide, 197-216. Cambridge University Press. Mazzoni, Marco 2003. ‘L’uomo e la nascita della società: mythoi antropologici e sociogonici all’interno dei dialoghi di Platone’. Etica and Politica. https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/5482/1/Mazzoni_E%26 P_V_2003_1.pdf, accessed 2.15. McLendon, Hiram J. 1959. ‘Plato without God’. The Journal of Religion, 9:2, 88-102. McPherran, Mark L. 1996. The Religion of Socrates. Pennsylvania State University Press. (1999). ‘An Argument ‘Too Strange’: Parmenides 134c4-e8’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 55-72. Academic Printing and Publishing. Miller, Mitchell 1980. The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. (1999). Dialectical Education and Unwritten Teachings in Plato’s Statesman. The Catholic University of America Press. (1999). ‘Figure, Ratio, Form: Plato’s Five Mathematical Studies’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 73-89. Academic Printing and Publishing. Mitchell, Basil J. and R. Lucas 2003. ‘Questions Asked: An Evening’s Argument’. In An Engagement with Plato’s Republic: A Companion to The Republic, 1-11. Ashgate. Michelini, Ann N. 2000. ‘Socrates Plays the Buffoon: Cautionary Protreptic in Euthydemus’. The American Journal of Philology, 121:4, 512-3. Mikalson, Jon D. 2010. Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy, Oxford University Press. Molina, José 2010. ‘Iamblichus’ Path To The Ineffable’. In ΣΧΟΛΗ: Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 4:2: Special Issue, Iamblichus of Chalcis, 229-238. Monoson, S. Sara 2000. Plato’s Democratic Entanglements: Athenian Politics and the Practice of Philosophy. Princeton University Press. Montuori, M. 1998. J. M. P. and M. Langdale, J. C. Gieben (trans.), Vita e Pensiero, Socrate, Fisiologia di un mito. terza edizione accresciuta. Sanoni. Morgan, Kathryn A. 2004. Myth and Philosophy from the Presocratics to Plato. Cambridge University Press. Morgan, Michael L. 1983. ‘The Continuity Theory of Reality in Plato’s Hippias Major’. Journal of the History of Philosophy 21:2, 133-158. (1992), ‘Plato and Greek Religion’. In Richard Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato, 227-247. Cambridge University Press.

246

Bibliography

Morison, William 2014. ‘Critias’. In The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep. utm.edu/critias, accessed 08.14. Morris, T. F. 2011. ‘Plato On True Simplicity: Republic 408c5–410b4’. History Of Political Thought 32:3, 379-396. Morrow, Glenn Raymond 1960. Plato’s Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws. Princeton University Press. Most, Glenn W. 2009. ‘Plato’s Hesiod: An acquired taste?’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 52-67. Oxford University Press. (2012). ‘Plato’s Exoteric Myths’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 13-24. Brill. Mueller, Ian 2005. ‘Mathematics and the Divine in Plato’. In Teun Koetsier and Luc Bergmans (eds.), Mathematics and the Divine, 90-122. Elsevier Science B.V. Mulhern, J. J. 2000. ‘Interpreting the Platonic Dialogues: What Can One Say?’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 221-234. Rowman and Littlefield. Murray, A. T. (trans.) 1939. Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation. Harvard University Press. Murray, Gilbert 1951. Five Stages of Greek Religion. The Beacon Press. Murray, Penelope 2004. ‘The Muses and their Art’. In Penelope Murray and Peter Wilson (eds.), Music and the Muses: The Culture of Mousike in the Classical Athenian City, 368-389. Oxford University Press. Myott, Jeremy (edit. & trans.) 2013. Thucydides: The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Cambridge University Press. Nails, Debra 2000, ‘Mouthpiece Schmouthpiece’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 15-26. Rowman and Littlefield. Nails, Debra, and Holger Thesleff 2003. ‘Early academic editing: Plato’s Laws’. In Samuel Scolnicov and Luc Brisson (eds.), Plato’s Laws: From Theory into Practice. Proceedings of the VI Symposium Platonicum: Selected Papers, 14-29. Academia Verlag. Nelson, Eric 2006. ‘Political Republican Visions’. In John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig, and Anne Phillips (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, 193-210. Oxford University Press. Neugebauer, Otto 1969. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Dover Publications. Nietzsche, Friedrich 1889. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (trans.), Die Götzen-Dämmerung - Twilight of the Idol. Penguin Classic 1968. Nightingale, Andrea Wilson 2000. Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Norlin, George (trans.) 1980. Isocrates in three volumes. Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, M. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.

247

Bibliography

Oberhelman, Steven M. 2006. ‘Dodona: City in Epiris’. In Nigel Guy Wilson (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, 239. Routledge. Orwin, Clifford 2000. ‘Review Essay On Thucydides’. Political Theory, 28:6, 865. Ostenfeld, Erik 2000. ‘Who Speaks for Plato? Everyone!’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 211-220. Rowman and Littlefield. Oxford English Dictionary 2009, Second Edition 1989. Oxford University Press. Panagiotou, Spiro (ed.) 1987. Justice, Law and Method in Plato and Aristotle. Academic Printing and Publishing. Pangle, Thomas L. 1987. ‘On Theages’. In Thomas L Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues., 147-174. Cornell University Press. Parke, Herbert William 1967. The oracles of Zeus: Dodona, Olympia, Ammon, Blackwell. Parente, M. I. (ed.) 1982, Senocrate–Ermodoro. Frammenti, fr. 149.4. Bibliopolis, Partenie, Catalin (ed.) 2004. Plato: Selected Myths. Oxford University Press. (2009). Plato’s Myths. Cambridge University Press. (2014). ‘Plato’s Myths’. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/sum2014/entries/plato-myths. Patterson, Richard 1999. ‘Forms, Fallacies, and the Function of Plato’s Parmenides’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 99-106. Academic Printing and Publishing. Pelosi, Francesco 2010. Sophie Henderson (trans.), Plato on Music, Soul and Body. Cambridge University Press. Pender, E. E. 2010. ‘Chaos corrected: Hesiod in Plato’s creation myth’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 219-245. Oxford University Press. Penner, Terry 1992. ‘Socrates and the early dialogues’. In R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato, 121-169. Cambridge University Press. (2002). ‘The historical Socrates and Plato’s early dialogues: some philosophical questions’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 189-212. Harvard University Press. (2006). ‘Plato’s ethics: early and middle dialogues’. In M. L. Gill and P. Pellegrin (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, 151-169. Blackwell. (2007). ‘What is the Form of the Good the Form of? A Question about the Plot of the Republic’. In Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner (eds.), Pursuing The Good: Ethics And Metaphysics In Plato’s Republic, 15-41. Edinburgh University Press. Penner, T. and C. Rowe 2005. Plato’s Lysis. Cambridge University Press. Peperzak, Adriaan Theodoor 1997. Platonic transformations: with and after Hegel, Heidegger, and Levinas. Rowman and Littlefield. (2003). The quest for meaning: friends of wisdom from Plato to Levinas, Fordham University Press.

248

Bibliography

Pesic, Peter 2007. ‘Seeing the Forms’. Plato 7. http://gramata.univ paris1.fr/ Plato/ article75.html, accessed 03.16. Petropoulos, (Yiannis) J. C. B. 2013. ‘A Misunderstood Ancient Wedding- Song— or Two’. The Center for Hellenic Studies. http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn= Article Wrapper&bdc=12&mn=4363, accessed 6.12.13. Popper, K. R. 1966. The Open Society And Its Enemies: Volume I, The Spell Of Plato. George Routledge. Prauscello, Lucia 2014. Performing Citizenship in Plato’s Laws. Cambridge University Pres. Press, Gerald A. (ed.) 1993. Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations. Roman and Littlefield. (2000). ‘Introduction’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 1-14. Rowman and Littlefield. (2000). ‘The Logic of Attributing Characters’ Views to Plato’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 27-38. Rowman and Littlefield. Prince, Brian D. 2011. ‘The Form of Soul in the Phaedo’. Plato 11. http://gramata. univ-paris1.fr/Plato/article101.html, accessed 7.14. Rabieh, Linda R. 2006. Plato and the Virtue of Courage. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Rackham, H. (trans.) 1981. Aristotle, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 20. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann. Radermacher, L. (ed.) 1951. ‘Artium scriptores. (Sitzungsberichte der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften)’. Philosophisch- Historische Klasse, 227.3, 135-41. Rapp, Christof 2010. ‘Aristotle’s Rhetoric’. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/ entries/aristotle-rhetoric, accessed 02.2014. Reale, Giovanni 1987. John R. Catan (ed. & trans.), A History of Ancient Philosophy: From the Origins to Socrates. SUNI Press. Reeve, C. D. C. 2006. Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic. Hackett Publishing Company. Regali, Mario 2010. ‘Hesiod in the Timaeus: The Demiurge addresses the gods’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 259-275. Oxford University Press. Rios, R. da (ed.) 1954. Aristoxeni elementa harmonica. Publica Officina Polygraphica. Ross, W. D. (ed.) 1924. Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 2 vols. Clarendon Press, Repr. 1970. Roussel, P. (ed. & trans.) 200. Isée. Discours, 3rd ed. (1st ed. 1922).

249

Bibliography

Rowe, Christopher 2002. ‘Comments on Penner’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 25-36. Harvard University Press. (2003). ‘Plato, Socrates, and Developmentalism’. In Naomi Reshotko (ed.), Desire, Identity, and Existence: Essays in Honor of T. M. Penner, 17-32. Academic Printing and Publishing. (2003). ‘Socrates, the laws, and the Laws’. In Samuel Scolnicov and Luc Brisson (eds.), Plato’s Laws: From Theory into Practice. Proceedings of the VI Symposium Platonicum: Selected Papers. Academia Verlag. (2006). ‘Socrates in Plato’s dialogues’. In Sara Ahbel-Rappe and Rachana Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, 159-170. Wiley. (2007). Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing. Cambridge University Press. (2009). ‘The charioteer and his horse: an example of Platonic mythmaking’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 134-147. Cambridge University Press. (2010). ‘On grey-haired babies: Plato, Hesiod, and visions of the past (and future)’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 298- 316. Oxford University Press. (2010a). ‘The relationship of the Laws to other dialogues: a proposal’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide, 29 -50. Cambridge University Press. Rudebusch, George 2007. ‘Neutralism on Book I of the Republic’. In Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner (eds.), Pursuing The Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic, 76-92. Edinburgh University Press. Rue, R. 1993. ‘The philosopher in flight; the digression (172C-177C)’. In Plato’s Theaetetus: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 11, 71-100. Oxford University Press. Russell, Bertrand 1945. A History of Western Philosophy and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Simon And Schuster. Rutenber, C. G. 1946. The Doctrine of the Imitation of God in Plato. New York. Sanders, Lionel Jehuda 1987. Dionysius I of Syracuse and Greek Tyranny. Routledge. Sayre, Kenneth M. 2006. Metaphysics and method in Plato’s Statesman. Cambridge University Press. Schiller, Jerome 1967. ‘Phaedo 104-105: Is the Soul a Form?’. Phronesis 12:1, 50-58. Schmid, W. 1922. ‘Untersuchungen zum gefesselten’. Prometheus 8, 94. Schofield, Malcolm 2003. ‘Religion and philosophy in the Laws’. In Samuel Scolnicov and Luc Brisson (eds.), Plato’s Laws: From Theory into Practice. Proceedings of the VI Symposium Platonicum: Selected Papers. Academia Verlag. (2006). Plato, Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press. (2009). ‘Plato’s authoritarian myth of political legitimation’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 101-115. Cambridge University Press. (2010). ‘The Laws’ two projects’. In Christopher Bobonich (ed.), Plato’s Laws: A Critical Guide. Stanford University Press. Scott, Gary Alan 2007. Philosophy in Dialogue: Plato’s Many Devices. Northwestern University Press.

250

Bibliography

Scott, Gary Alan and William A. Welton 2000. ‘Eros as Messenger in Diotima’s Teaching’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 147-159. Rowman and Littlefield. Secomb, Linnell 2007. Philosophy and Love: From Plato to Popular Culture. Edinburgh University Press. Sedley, David 1996. ‘Three Platonist interpretations of the Theaetetus’. In C. Gill and M. M. McCabe (eds.), Form and Argument in Late Plato, 79-103. Oxford University Press. (1999). ‘The Ideal of Godlikeness’. In Gail Fine (ed.), Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, 309-328. Oxford University Press. (2003). ‘A Socratic Interpretation of Plato’s Theaetetus’. In J. Cleary and G. Gurtler (eds.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy XVIII, 277-313. Brill. (2004). The Midwife of Platonism. Text and Subtext in Plato’s Theaetetus. Oxford University Press. (2009). ‘Myth, punishment and politics in the Gorgias’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 51-76. Cambridge University Press. (2010). ‘Hesiod’s Theogony and Plato’s Timaeus’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 246-258. Oxford University Press. (2013). ‘Socratic intellectualism in the Republic’. In George Boys-Stones, Dimitri El Murr, Christopher Gill (eds.), The Platonic Art of Philosophy, 70-89. Cambridge University Press. Senn, Scott J. 2012, ‘Socratic Philosophy, , and "Obedience": Decision Making without Divine Intervention’. Plato 12. http://gramata. univparis1.fr/ Plato/article119.html, accessed 04.15. Shearmur, Jeremy 1996. The Political Thought of Karl Popper. Routledge. Shields, Christopher 1999. ‘The Logos of ‘Logos’: Theaetetus 206c-210b’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays On Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 107-124. Academic Printing and Publishing. (2001). ‘Simple Souls’. In Ellen Wagner (ed.), Essays on Plato’s psychology, 137-157. Lexington Books. Shorey, Paul (trans.) 1969. Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 and 6. Harvard University Press. Skemp, J. B. 1989, ‘The Timaeus and the Criterion of Truth’. In Pamela Huby and Gordon Neal (ed.), The Criterion of Truth, 83-92. Liverpool University Press. Slings, S. R. 1981. A commentary on the Platonic . Academische Pers. (1999). Plato: Clitophon. Cambridge University Press. Smith, Charles F. 1894. Commentary on Thucydides Book 3: Edited on the basis of the Classen-Steup Edition. Ginn & Company. (1920 trans.). Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume II: Books 3-4. Harvard University Press. Smith, Nicholas D. 2000. ‘Images, Education, and Paradox in Plato’s Republic’. In Mark L. McPherran (ed.), Recognition, Remembrance and Reality; New Essays on Plato’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, 125-142. Academic Printing and Publishing. Smith, P. Christopher 2000. ‘No Doctrine but ‘Placing in Question’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 113-126. Rowman and Littlefield.

251

Bibliography

Smyth, Herbert Weir (trans.) 1926. Aeschylus, Aeschylus in two volumes, I, Prometheus Bound. Harvard University Press. Stalley, R. F. 1983. An Introduction to Plato’s Laws. Hackett. (1994). ‘Persuasion in Plato’s Laws’. History of Political Thought, 15, 57–77. (2003). ‘Justice in Plato’s Laws’. In Plato’s Laws: From Theory into Practice. Proceedings of the VI Symposium Platonicum: Selected Papers, 175-185. Academia Verlag, (2009). ‘Myth and eschatology in the Laws’. In Catalin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths, 187-205. Cambridge University Press. Stauffner, D. 2006,.The Unity of Plato’s Gorgias. Rhetoric, Justic, and the Philosopic Life. Cambridge University Press. Stern, Paul 1997. ‘The Rule of Wisdom and the Rule of Law in Plato’s Statesman’. The American Political Science Review 91:2, 264-276. Stevens, Glenn 2015. ‘Observations on the Financial System’. Address to the Australian Financial Review Banking and Wealth Summit. http://www.rba.gov.au/ speeches/2015/sp-gov-2015-04-28.html. Stewart, J. A. 1909. Plato’s Doctrine Of Ideas. Clarendon Press. Strauss, Leo 1973. The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws. The University of Chicago Press. Strycker, E. de, S. R. Slings 1994. Plato’s Apology of Socrates: a literary and philosophical study with a running commentary. Edited and completed from the papers of the late E. de Strycker. Brill. Susemihl, F. (ed.) 1884. ‘Aristotelis ethica Eudemia’. Teubner, Repr. 1967. Sutton, Dana Ferrin 1983. ‘The Date of ‘Prometheus Bound’. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 24:4, 289. Swanson, Diane L. 2004. ‘The Buck Stops here: Why Universities Must Reclaim Business Ethics Education’. Journal of Academic Ethics 2:1, 43-61. Sweet, David R. 1987. ‘Introduction to the Greater Hippias’. In Thomas L Pangle (ed.), The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, 300-306. Cornell University Press. Taplin, Oliver 1978. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oxford University Press. Tarrant, Harold 1989. ‘By Calculation of Reason?’. In Pamela Huby and Gordon Neal (eds.), The Criterion of Truth, 57-82. Liverpool University Press. (1993). Thrasyllan Platonism. Cornell University Press. (2000). ‘Where Plato Speaks: Reflection on Ancient Debate’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 67-82. Rowman and Littlefield. (2012). ‘Literal and Deeper Meanings in Platonic Myths’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 47-66. Brill.

252

Bibliography

Taylor, C. C. W. 2002. ‘The origins of our present paradigms’. In J. Annas and C. Rowe (eds.), New Perspectives on Plato, Modern and Ancient, 73-84. Harvard University Press. (2008). ‘Plato’s Epistemology’. In Gail Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 165-190. Oxford University Press. Tell, Håkan 2011. Plato’s Counterfeit Sophists. Harvard University Press. Thesleff, Holger 1982. Studies on Platonic Chronology. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum. (1989). ‘Platonic Chronology’. Phronesis 34:1, 1-26. (2000). ‘The Philosopher Conducting Dialectic’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 53-66. Rowman and Littlefield. (2002). ‘An Introduction to Studies in Plato’s Two-Level Model’. Plato 2. http://gramata.univ-paris1.fr/Plato/article33.html, accessed 10.13. Todd, O. J. 1922. ‘On the Date of Herodotus’ Death’. The Classical Quarterly 16:1, 35-36. Cambridge University Press. Trabattoni, Franco 2012. ‘Myth and Truth in Plato’s Phaedrus’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 305-322. Brill. Tredennick, Hugh (trans.) 1933. Aristotle, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17-18. Harvard University Press. Tschemplik, A. 2008. Knowledge and Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Theaetetus. Lexington Books. Turner, Eric G. 1952. ‘Athenian Books in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C’. An inaugural lecture delivered at University College London, 22 May 1951. Lewis & Co. Vander Waerdt, P. A. (ed.) 1994. The Socratic Movement. Cornell University Press. Van Noorden, Helen 2010. ‘Hesiod’s races and your own: Socrates’ “Hesiodic” project’. In R. Boys-Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod. 177-199. Oxford University Press. Van Riel, Gerd 2005. ‘Socrates’ Daemon: Internalisation of the Divine and Knowledge of the Self’. In Pierre Destree and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), Socrates’ Divine Sign: Religion, Practice, and Value in Socratic Philosophy, 31-42. Academic Printing and Publishing. (2012). ‘Religion and Morality. Elements of Plato’s Anthropology in the Myth of Prometheus (Protagoras, 320d–322d) in Plato’s Dialogues: the story of Prometheus in the Protagoras’. In Catherine Collobert, Pierre Destrée, Francisco J. Gonzalez (eds.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths, 145-164. Brill. Verdenius, Willem Jacob 1991. Mimesis: Plato's Doctrine of Artistic Imitation and Its Meaning to Us. Brill. Vidal-Naquet, Pierre 1986. Andrew Szegedy-Maszak (trans.), The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

253

Bibliography

Vince, J. H. (trans.) 1930. Demosthenes, Demosthenes with an English translation. Harvard University Press. Vlastos, G. 1991. Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Cambridge University Press. (1994). M. Burnyeat (ed.), Socratic Studies. Cambridge University Press. (1999). ‘Happiness and Virtue in Sokrates’ Moral Theory’. In Gail Fine (ed.), Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, 105-163. Oxford University Press. Voegelin, Eric 2000. Dante Germino (ed.), The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Order and History: Volume III, Plato and Aristotle. University of Missouri Press. Vogel, Cornelia J. de 1986, Rethinking Plato and Platonism. , bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum. Brill. Walsh, J. 1984. ‘The dramatic dates of Plato’s Protagoras and the lesson of ‘arête’. Classical Quarterly 34, 101-106. Warren, Paul 2003. ‘Intellectualism, Politics, and Terry Penner’s Socrates’. In Naomi Reshotko (ed.), Desire, Identity, and Existence: Essays in Honor of T. M. Penner, 71-94. Academic Printing and Publishing. Waterfield, Robin (ed. and trans.) 2009. The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists. Oxford University Press. Waugh, Joanne 2000. ‘Socrates and the Character of Platonic Dialogue’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 39-52. Rowman and Littlefield. Wehrli, F. (ed.) 1969. Die Schule des Aristoteles, viii. Eudemos von , 2nd ed. Weiss, Rosalyn 1987. ‘The Right Exchange: Phaedo 69a6-c3’. Ancient Philosophy 7:39, 57-66. (1992). ‘Ho agathos as Ho dynatos in the Hippias Minor’. In H. H. Benson (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates, 242-262. Oxford University Press. (2005). ‘For Whom the Daemon Tolls’. In Pierre Destree and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.), Socrates’ Divine Sign: Religion, Practice, and Value in Socratic Philosophy, 61-96. Academic Printing and Publishing. Wersinger, Anne Gabriele 2007. Amaury de Cizancourt (trans.), ‘"Socrate, fais de la musique !" Le destin de la musique entre paideia et philosophie’. In F. Malhomme et A.G. Wersinger (eds), Mousikè et Aretè, La Musique et l’éthique de l’Antiquité à l’Âge modern, 45-62. Vrin. West, Elinor J. M. 2000. ‘Why Doesn’t Plato Speak’. In Gerald A. Press (ed.), Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity, 99-112. Rowman and Littlefield. West, Martin L. 1979. ‘The Prometheus Trilogy’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 99. 130–48; (1989 ed.). Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Vol. 1: Archilochus. Hipponax. Theognidea. Clarendon Press. (1989-92 ed). Iambi et Elegi Graeci anteAlexandrum cantati, 2 vols: Callinus. Mimnermus. Semonides. Solon. Tyrtaeus. Minora adespota. Oxford University Press. (1990). Studies in Aeschylus, (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 1), Teubner. Westphal, R. 1896. Prolegomena Zu Aeschylus Tragödien. Teubner. White, David A. 2007. Myth, Metaphysics and Dialectic in Plato’s Statesman. Ashgate. Wilamowitz,-Moellendorff, U. von 1919. Platon. Weidmann.

254

Bibliography

Wilburn, Joshua 2013. ‘Moral Education and the Spirited Part of the Soul in Plato’s Laws’. In Brad Inwood (ed.), Oxford Studies In Ancient Philosophy, Volume XlV, 64-102. Oxford University Press. Williams, Mary Frances 1998. Ethics in Thucydides: The Ancient Simplicity. University Press of America. Wilson, N. G. (ed.) 2007. Aristophanes Fabulae I, I and II. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford University Press. Wimmer, F. (ed.) 1866. Theophrasti Eresii opera, quae supersunt, omnia. Didot, Repr. 1964. Woodruff, Paul 2010. ‘Plato’s Shorter Ethical Works’. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/sum 2010/ entries/plato-ethics-shorter/, accessed 11.12.13. Woolf, Raphael 2003. ‘Commentary on Sedley’. In J. Cleary and G. Gurtler (eds.) Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy XVIII., 314-323. Brill, (2009). ‘Truth as a Value in Plato’s Republic’. Phronesis 54:1, 9-39. Yamagata, Naoko 2010. ‘Hesiod in Plato: Second fiddle to Homer?’. In R. Boys- Stones and J. H. Haubold (eds.), Plato and Hesiod, 68-88. Oxford University Press. Yunis, Harvey 1996. Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens. Cornell University Press. Zaslavsky, Robert 1981, Platonic myth and platonic writing. University press of America. Zuckert, Catherine 1996, Postmodern Platos. University of Chicago Press. (2009). Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues. The University of Chicago Press.

255