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Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) As “Care of the Soul” in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education James M

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Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) As “Care of the Soul” in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education James M College of DuPage DigitalCommons@COD Philosophy Scholarship Philosophy Spring 2015 Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) as “Care of the Soul” in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education James M. Magrini College of DuPage Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Magrini, James M., "Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) as “Care of the Soul” in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education" (2015). Philosophy Scholarship. Paper 43. http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub/43 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Scholarship by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Facilitating an Ethical Disposition (Hexis) as “Care of the Soul” in a Unique Ontological Vision of Socratic Education Dr. James M. Magrini College of Dupage, USA Abstract This essay adopts a Continental philosophical approach to reading Plato’s Socrates in terms of a “third way” that cuts a middle path between doctrinal and esoteric readings of the dialogues. It presents a portrait of Socratic education that is at odds with contemporary views in education and curriculum that view Plato’s Socrates as either the teacher of a truth-finding method or proto-fascist authoritarian. It argues that the crucial issue of attempting to foster an ethical disposition (hexis) is a unique form of education, in terms of “care of the soul,” that unfolds only within the context of sustained dialectic interrogation. Education is a “difficult” process that entails the “turning” of the soul back to itself in an enlightened form, which is bound up with an ontological relationship of distance to the so-called “truth” of the virtues that appear in limited and dissembling ways to Socrates and the interlocutors. Ultimately, it is shown that “care of the soul” is grounded in the attunement (a pathos and deinon) that locates the human being in the world in such a way that “not-knowing” is the most original way in which our Being-in-the-world unfolds, and to embrace this “difficult” truth is to at once set oneself on the arduous but rewarding educative path toward the potential development of an ethical disposition (hexis). Keywords: Plato, Socrates, education, dialectic, ethics, disposition, ontology, phenomenology Introduction This paper interprets Plato’s Socrates and the crucial role that the fostering of a “good” disposition (hexis) of the soul plays in education (paideia) and the influence this has on one’s soul (psyche) and the disposition (hexis) to not only behave ethically, but to also understand that the continued, ever-renewed pursuit of the virtues is the highest task one can undertake in pursuing the examined life. The issue of what is involved in fostering an ethical disposition of soul receives scant, if any, attention in education or curriculum literature focused on Socratic education, and this is particularly the case with teacher education texts.1 In fact, when Socratic education is mentioned it is often times limited to discussions concerning either the critique of Plato as authoritarian educator or the belief that the “Socratic-method” is applicable in the classroom for “producing” knowledge through a quasi, or mock, maieutic process of eliciting the students’ response to teacher-directed-questioning. Both views have their origins in epistemology: the former is concerned with how the possession of knowledge and its political 1 This is not the case with scholarly interpretations of Socratic education such as we find in Mintz (2010), Scott (2000), and Teloh (1986), to name three such examples. 1 power-structures are used to oppress the masses, and although this is a relevant concern that indeed broaches the realm of ethics, it begins as an epistemic issue with the claim, a slippery slope fallacy, that Plato’s idealist philosophy sews the seeds for authoritarian politics to take root. Thus, it ignores the beneficial aspects of an authentic Socratic education as I later define it for the reader. The latter view also sits within an epistemological register and gives the erroneous and disingenuous impression that Socratic dialectic can indeed lead us to “correct,” or what might be called, “apodictic” (propositional) results. The students acquire knowledge if the educator practices the method of the dialectic with expertise. On this account, Socrates can be read as advocating “correctness” (orthotes) with respect to truth, i.e., privileging propositional knowledge over “philosophical understanding” (phronesis) with respect to the virtues and the related view that the dialectic is a disposable method for the attainment of truth, and when truth is procured, the method is jettisoned, hence it is a means to the end of the attainment of knowledge. I argue that both views are flawed and grounded in a “doctrinal” misreading of Plato’s dialogues. In addition to epistemology, careful readers should also focus on the ontological and axiological aspects of Socratic education, which includes the necessity to fully understand the role that character development plays in the examined life, or the life of demonstrating, in terms of holding oneself in the askesis that is the practice of dialectic, the quest for better understanding the virtues, and in the process, ethically transforming the disposition of one’s character (hexis) or soul (psyche). When Plato (1997) describes education (paideia) in terms of the “turning around of the whole soul” (periagoge holes tes psyches) back to itself in an enlightened manner, this cannot occur through simply “putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes” (518b). Rather, the “turning” required, which for Plato is the essence of an “authentic education,” is possible only in terms of the radical change or transformation occurring in and to one’s character (hexis), which is made possible only through the rigorous and sustained practice of dialectic in communion with well-meaning and non- competitive like-minded individuals. I address these issues in the four sections: (1) I introduce the ethical character/disposition in Plato’s Socrates and the problem associated with the “pathos of truth” (arrogance in the perceived possession of knowledge), which, as I show, is related to an ethically impoverished or underdeveloped character; (2) offering a non-doctrinal reading of Plato’s Socrates, I explore in some detail three typical scholarly interpretations of Plato and Socratic education and show why these views emerge from problematic readings of Plato with an overly narrow and misdirected focus; (3) I analyze the problem of the “pathos of truth” in two dialogues, the Euthyphro and Apology, in order to contextualize my educational concern and address the problems associated with the both the arrogant, dogmatic belief in “knowledge possession” and the ignorance of “human limits,” and these issues later become an ontological concern related to the nature of the “truth” (alethiea) of the Being of virtue; and (4) I conclude by presenting the reader with a unique vision of Socratic education, which differs radically from the three views of which I am critical. Here, my concern is analyzing Socratic education in ontological and axiological terms, which avoids reducing of education to an epistemological issue. Ultimately, I offer the reader a view of Socratic education, which I argue is demonstrating care for the potential development of a “good” disposition (hexis) in the continued and ever-renewed search for “philosophical understanding” of the virtues as they are instantiated in praxis in the community of others in dialogue. 2 1. The Ethical Character (Hexis) and the “Pathos of Truth” The Moral Problem of Epistemological Arrogance The concern (melete) for fostering an ethical disposition (hexis) represents the educative pursuit of moral growth and evolution of the human being. For Socrates, the “good,” excellent (arête), and ethical life transpires and takes shape through a process of education-through-dialectic that is transitory and precarious at best, and in the extreme, difficult and painful – as we will see, it is an undertaking that often ends in frustration and even failure. The term hexis is the “disposition of the soul on account of which people are said to be of a certain sort” (Cooper, 1997, 1683). In Plato (1997) we find hexis described as the change (metabole) in the constitution (hexis) of a thing in its development (kinesis), which, when completed presents “percipient beings with something to perceive” (Laws, 894a). If this is related to the realm of praxis and ethike, this indicates that when this process of “change and alteration” occurs to the soul or disposition of the individual, in and through the sustained and “well-meaning” questioning-and-refutation of the dialectic, the person’s behavior manifests in terms of a self-showing that indicates “what” that person is like based on the presencing of his hexis in praxis. For example, in the Republic, Socrates describes a man with a “good” ethical disposition (hexis) that facilitates the “good” organization of his soul in such a way that allows him to resist the temptation to wantonly feed the soul’s “multifarious beast and his lion,” to keep them from growing wild and strong, which would ultimately “enfeeble the man in him so he gets dragged wherever the animals lead him” (589a). In perhaps a better-known representation of hexis, as related to Plato’s soul in tripartite, it is possible to state that the character of the charioteer in the myth of the winged soul demonstrates an ethical disposition that would be consistent with a Socratic education (Phaedrus, 246a-257a). Reading the myth, the charioteer demonstrates the “moral” ability to steer the “Heavenly” path while controlling the wild, winged horses - the black representing the soul’s base drives and appetites, the white representing the spirited, higher level passions.
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