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A Footnote to Plato: Human Nature and Character in the Laws

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A Footnote to Plato: Human Nature and Character in the Laws A Footnote to Plato: Human Nature and Character in the Laws Eli Friedland A Thesis In the Department of Political Science Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) at Concordia University March 2018 © Eli Friedland, 2018 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Eli Friedland Entitled: A Footnote to Plato: Human Nature and Character in the Laws and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor Of Philosophy (Political Science) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Dr. Marguerite Mendell External Examiner Dr. Ryan Balot External to Program Dr. Eric Buzzetti Examiner Dr. Horst Hutter Thesis Co-Supervisor Dr. Marlene Sokolon Thesis Co-Supervisor Dr. Travis Smith Approved by Dr. Daniel Salée, Graduate Program Director April 26, 2018 Dr. André Roy, Dean Faculty of Arts and Science Abstract A Footnote to Plato: Human Nature and Character in the Laws Eli Friedland, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2018 This dissertation argues that Plato makes a crucial and still-pertinent distinction, in the Laws, between genuine responsibility and political responsibility, and that that distinction can only emerge from a close engagement with the characters crafted by him. I propose, and defend in detail, that the character of Megillos, in Plato's Laws, can be seen on close consideration to lean profoundly toward the philosophic life, despite and because of the image of the typical or even particularly obtuse citizen that he deliberately presents himself as. How he comports himself, and why, is an indication in the Laws of genuine responsibility as a way of life that requires neither political recognition nor political reward. That Megillos shares this way of life with the Athenian Stranger – often taken to be the philosophical character in the Laws – is, I show, key to Plato’s teaching on taking responsibility for the laws. Conversely the character of Kleinias – the Cretan statesman in the Laws – reveals a disposition that is far more dependent on such recognition and reward than the character himself realizes, a character whose very belief in his own independent responsibility disguises, to himself, his deep reliance on and affinities with the people he considers his inferiors. I first bring these understandings of the Laws’ characters to an examination of the general conflicts between the demands of necessity as they impose themselves on the Stranger and Megillos, and as they appear to Kleinias in the form of moral and political righteousness. Following this, I closely consider Plato’s iii teaching on natural and conventional right as it emerges in the controversial discussion of sexuality, and particularly homosexuality, in Book 8 of the Laws. That discussion comes into a profoundly different light when the ramifications of character are brought to bear upon it, than it does when taken as a simple statement of Plato’s “beliefs”. The strange image of animal desire and self-control is presented most forcefully there by the Stranger to Kleinias as a seeming standard of natural right, and seems to present homosexuality (and all extramarital liaisons) as “against nature”. Upon closer consideration, however, that image turns out to be at odds not only with “the nature of beasts” that it presents as its foundation, and not only with the very human psychology to which it seems intended to appeal (through a sense of honor), but also – indeed especially – with the philosophical “Socratic” eros that the Stranger and Megillos (though not Kleinias) agree is the highest human eros, and which is even presented as the most desirable eros politically. The Stranger’s hesitancy or refusal to speak of his image as simply true emerges as a pregnant hesitancy, as a deliberate and successful attempt to speak separately with Megillos about the severe limits of human voluntariness even as he urges Kleinias to celebrate voluntariness as a capacity that only the dishonorable would fail to exercise. In having that conversation, the Stranger and Megillos do responsibility, and responsibly leave intact Kleinias’ (and the city’s) own image of political responsibility as genuine. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation was undertaken with the generous funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as well as of GRIPP Montréal, and faculty and special scholarships from Concordia University. The debts and pleasures of gratitude that I have experienced and accrued in writing this dissertation – and beforehand – are not, and should not be, repayable. Mom, you were the first and most important example of genuine responsibility in my life, and throughout my life. In my own personal dictionary, the words responsibility, respect, and love all have meter-wide fold out posters of you attached. My gratitude for you is beyond compare. Thank you. Amos, my brother, I have never been equal to your living lesson of what a brother is. You have encouraged me, provoked me, and above all been an example for me of the absolute connection between moral and intellectual virtue when each is at its highest. Thank you. Jess, my sister, it is just as true that I have never been equal as a brother to the sister you are to me. You are my rock. And may I say, not at all unrelated to my gratitude for you, what a joy it is to discuss and share the trials and blessings of parenthood with you as we each raise our children. Thank you. To all my brothers and sisters, and to all of my nieces and nephews, thank you. And not only because “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”. To my father, I want also to express my gratitude, and particularly. There is a debt by wayward paths that I owe, whose only sufficient requital is profound gratitude. As Yeats put it so well: v An aged man is but a paltry thing A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress And “Nor is there singing school but studying / Monuments of its own magnificence…” Travis Smith, my dissertation co-advisor, you have been so interested and involved in my dissertation project from the outset that I could not and cannot tell a difference between the time before you officially became my advisor and the time after. You undertook a fresh, slow, and careful rereading of the Laws, you considered my interpretation carefully, and you evaluated my arguments with both generosity and rigor. Then you questioned me, you pointed out what I had missed, you interrogated me on details and generalities, you pressed me as one inquirer to another. I could not have asked for a more thorough or careful or thoughtful reader. Thank you. Marlene Sokolon, my dissertation co-advisor, I thank you for keeping me grounded time and time again as I submitted this curious thing piecemeal and out of order, for pushing me to connect the dots, and in particular for taking the helm of the entire department while doing so. I have depended upon your considerable knowledge of Greek, and I hope that I have not taken this, or anything, for granted. Thank you. Horst Hutter, you are an inspiration to me. You changed my life when I walked into your classroom for the first time twelve years ago. Few moments in my life can match that one in magnitude. Thank you. Christina Tarnopolsky, my friend and teacher, I miss you and the conversations we have about Plato until the wee hours. You care about the problems, but above all you care vi about thinking. And you live that conflict to an exceptional and admirable degree. Thank you. Mark Antaki, my friend and teacher, what your honesty, and above all self-honesty, and (which is to say the same thing) your devotion to thinking has given me – and provoked in me – is beyond my capacity to repay. Thank you. Geoff Sigalet and Cam Cotton-O’Brien, what a blessing you have been for me. This dissertation owes a great deal to the many and varied conversations we have had over the years. Friendship: no words, my friends. Thank you. Alex Roldan, likewise. You are an exemplar for me. Thank you. To the staff of the Political Science Department at Concordia – in particular Julie Blumer, Kathryn Rawlings, Eve Pankovitch, Joanne Downs, and Helen Szyroka (Julie and Helen retired now, and good for you!) – I could not have found my way without you. More than that, far more, is that you make us all a family, and you welcomed me to that family. I cannot even imagine walking into the department without you there to welcome me, without your anchor. Thank you. Natalie, to whom do I owe more? Merci Natalie, infiniment. Such a paltry thank- you for a debt so deep, and wide. A debt beyond friendship, but of friendship too. And this not even to mention that what is worthwhile in these pages has been debated in our conversations, and tested in our crucible. Thank you. And, finally, to Hector, Léo and Charlotte, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are my blessings. Vous êtes ma vie. You are, moreover, the only way that I have ever learned anything. I cannot think of more particularly fitting or beautiful words vii than Irving Layton’s, for when I am with you, when I think of you, when I see you or remember who you were in who you are: They dance best who dance with desire, Who lifting feet of fire from fire Weave before they lie down a red carpet for the sun.
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