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Socrates' Strongest and Deepest Concern "SOCRATES' STRONGEST AND DEEPEST CONCERN" By MARILYN KANE B.A., The University of British Columbia, 1994 M.A., The University of Wales, Lampeter, 1996 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of Philosophy) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA December 2002 © Marilyn Kane, 2002 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of j h i l&scp-K^/ The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date April 16 j02. DE-6 (2/88) ABSTRACT The Socrates of Plato's early dialogues (henceforth "Socrates") presents a problem for the interpreter. Since he claimed not to be a teacher of arete, and neither was he able to learn virtue from anyone else, what exactly did he think he was achieving by the numerous energetic arguments he instigated? Certainly, he challenged the conventional stultification of Athenian thought and punctured puffed-up egos, but did he intend to do more? One theory is that, in spite of his denials, Socrates really was teaching people, but only by hinting at valuable moral information so that they would have an opportunity to conceive true beliefs about morality on their own, "autonomously." Gregory Vlastos referred to "moral autonomy" as Socrates' "strongest and deepest concern." Another theory is that Socrates was seeking someone who had an expert's grasp of moral issues so that he could adopt their principles and live a better life henceforth. On this model of moral edification, contra Vlastos, it is thought that the neophyte would be prudent to subordinate himself to the moral expert, rather than insisting on making up his own mind about moral issues. Richard Kraut refers to this as Socratic "moral authoritarianism." My contention is that both the autonomy and the authority theses are mistaken in detail and misguided in general. I believe that both of these interpretations place disproportionate weight on the kind of knowledge Socrates claims to have lacked, and neglect the importance of "the good judgment that he manifestly possesses."1 Both tend to view the Socratic model of making moral progress as acquiring a set of rules or moral definitions that would, supposedly, enable a person to solve all vexing moral problems, but they give short shrift to the fact that Socrates targeted not only propositions but also persons for moral analysis and assessment, with an eye to their improvement. Brickhouse and Smith. 1994, 23. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Acknowledgements iv Prefatory Note v I. Introduction 1 II. Three Theories of Socrates 8 III. Plato's Early Socrates 36 (A) The Craftsman Who Knew No Craft 45 IV. The Autonomy Thesis 49 (A) Socratic Education 61 (B) Socrates: A Knower and a Teacher? 81 V. The Authority Thesis 106 (A) Authoritarianism in the Apology 107 (B) Authoritarianism in the Cri to 123 VI. Socrates' Real Strongest and Deepest Concerns 144 (A) Socrates' Core Beliefs 148 (B) Practicing Socratic Virtue 168 VII. Summary and Conclusion 179 Select Bibliography 185 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to many people for their help during the process of researching and writing this dissertation. Above all, I'd like to thank my parents. My colleagues in the philosophy department at Douglas College have also been unwavering in their moral support and encouragement, so a hearty thanks is due to Leonard Angel, Brian Davies, Bob Fahrnkopf, Bob Nicholls, Guangwei Ouyang, and Doug Simak. David Cockburn and Bob Sharpe from the University of Wales, Lampeter, have also given me encouragement from afar. Thanks is due too to my thesis supervisor, James Dybikowski, for his patient reading of numerous drafts and his useful comments and criticisms, as well as to the other members of my committee, Paul Russell and Robert Todd. Paul Bartha was extremely helpful both in his role as examiner and as graduate advisor, and Steven Taubeneck and Nicholas Smith were excellent and enthusiastic examiners who offered valuable comments and suggestions for further studies. iv PREFATORY NOTE Translations from Greek to English used in this work have been done by several translators. In each case the name of the translator has been noted. Where there is no such notice, translations are my own. v 1 I. INTRODUCTION The Socrates of Plato's early dialogues (henceforth "Socrates") makes the "interpreter's job extraordinarily difficult. He is a unique person embarked on a mission which he invented,"1 and is notoriously hard to pin down and comprehend. This dissertation examines and critiques two twentieth century theories of what Socrates was essentially doing, or trying to do, in his unique philosophical pilgrimage: that of Gregory Vlastos and that of Richard Kraut. It also offers a third way of looking at the spirit and purpose of the Socratic enterprise which, I believe, is both textually supported and has the practical advantage of providing a much needed counterpoint to the narrow and impersonal way in which Socrates' mission is nowadays often construed. The relevance of all this to contemporary moral reflection is clear: given that Plato's early dialogues provide us with a model of a moral and philosophical life, having as rich and deep an understanding of that model as possible would seem essential. In the following chapter, Three Theories of Socrates, I provide a preliminary sketch of the three different interpretations of Socrates which constitute the subject matter of this dissertation, and discuss some of the philosophical issues that underlie these three ways of seeing Socrates. However, before anything can be made of this debate, there is a prior problem that must be dealt with. A perennial issue in Socratic scholarship 1 K. Seeskin. 1987,150. 2 involves determining how much Plato's dialogues reflect the views of Socrates, as opposed to his own views: the so-called Socratic problem.2 This issue is considered in chapter three, Plato's Early Socrates, in which I briefly answer the questions: "Which of Plato's dialogues are thought, for the purposes of this work, to be early and Socratic?" and "What claims of historical authenticity is it reasonable to make for the Socrates who appears in these dialogues?" Chapter four, The Autonomy Thesis, is a discussion and critique of Gregory Vlastos' view. Vlastos' theory is that, in spite of the fact that Socrates frequently and ardently denied being a teacher of virtue, Socrates really was teaching people about virtue, but only by hinting at valuable moral information3 so that they would have an opportunity to conceive true beliefs about virtue on their own, "autonomously." Vlastos refers to this "moral autonomy" as Socrates' "strongest and deepest concern." I argue that Vlastos' autonomy thesis rests on dubious assumptions which simply do not respect the texts, and therefore cannot be accepted holus bolus. Richard Kraut's theory is presented in conscious opposition to that of Vlastos. His contention is that, far from being an enthusiastic advocate of moral 2 Actually, the Socratic problem can also include determining whether Plato's or Xenophon's portrait of Socrates is more authentic, and sometimes Aristotle's occasional comments about Socrates and Aristophanes' portrayal of Socrates in his comedy The Clouds are also thrown into the controversy. This wider controversy has no real place in this project, since I am arguing ad homimen, on the basis of Vlastos' and Kraut's premises about which works are taken to be genuinely Socratic, and they confine themselves to Plato's early dialogues. 3 For the purposes of this work, words like "virtue," "the virtues," "morals," and "ethics" will be used interchangeably. It is my contention that little would be accomplished by carving up, like the sophist Prodicus might, fine distinctions between such concepts here. 3 autonomy, Socrates actually recommended a model of moral edification according to which the moral neophyte would be well advised to subordinate himself to the moral expert, rather than insisting on making up his own mind about moral issues, as Vlastos claims is a Socratic ideal. Kraut refers to this (alleged) Socratic advocacy of the subordination of one's own powers of reason, reflection, and imagination to the directives of a moral expert as Socratic "moral authoritarianism," and believes that this technique of gathering moral knowledge would be a vast improvement over Socrates' own aporematic elenctic4 procedure, which was really only a fall-back position, a regrettable second-best in a world devoid of moral experts. In chapter five, The Authority Thesis, I argue that Kraut's interpretation rests on specious arguments and results in a distorted picture of Socrates and his mission. Oddly, although Vlastos and Kraut appear to be at complete loggerheads in their interpretations of Socrates, it is my contention that, in point of fact, both have a great deal in common, and that this common ground reveals a kind of tunnel-vision in their approach to the dialogues, (a problem in addition to the specific problems found in each of their positions). In particular, both share a tendency to envision the Socratic recipe for making moral progress as chiefly a matter of acquiring the answers to Socrates' famous "What is X?" questions, where X was (usually, but not always) one of the traditional Greek virtues, such as courage, piety, justice, and so forth.
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