Plato's Socrates, Sophistic Antithesis and Scepticism

DOUGAL BLYTH | 25 Plato’s Socrates, Sophistic Antithesis and Scepticism Dougal Blyth The University of Auckland [email protected] ABSTRACT In some Platonic dialogues Socrates apparently shares significant characteristics with contemporary sophists, especially a technique of antithetical argumentation. Since sophists an- ticipated later Academic philosophers in arguing antithetically and a resultant form of scepticism, then, with Socrates’ repeated claims to ignorance, Plato’s depiction of him arguing antithetically suggests later Academics could plausibly appeal to Plato for evidence that Socrates and he were sceptics, as it seems they actually did. Keywords: Plato, Socrates, Sceptics, Sophists, antithesis. https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_19_2 26 | Plato’s Socrates, Sophistic Antithesis and Scepticism Later members of Plato’s school, those we the most plausible for them individually and to- collectively call Academic sceptics, claimed gether, in virtue of their shared characteristics, consistency with both Socrates and Plato.1 Sev- although it is not meant to imply that they form eral scholars in recent years have traced and in- an exclusive group, nor to deny the relevance of terpreted the limited evidence for this ancient evidence from other dialogues. sceptic interpretation of Plato, and evaluated it Quite a number of other dialogues do not more or less positively.2 Moreover some scholars exhibit a predominance of either antithetic ar- have advanced in their own names sceptic inter- gumentation or Socratic refutations, but instead pretations of both Socrates and Plato.3 While it more or less systematically supported claims, of- seems to me that the truth about Plato overall ten implicitly at least attributable to Socrates, or is more complex (although in a sense consistent another main speaker, although certainly those with this view),4 here I want to draw attention to of Socrates are often hedged about with warn- another kind of support for the interpretation of ings that they are only his beliefs (e.g. Meno 98a- Plato’s depiction of Socrates as a sceptic, from b, Rep. 6.506c-e), or merely the implications of the evidence of fifth century BC sophists. the current argument in a given dialogue (cf. I will argue that Socrates, in some Platon- Crito 46b, Phaedo 107b, Rep. 3.394d), or occur ic dialogues concerned with both individual in highly rhetorical contexts (e.g. Symp. 211c- sophists and the nature of knowledge, shares 212a; Phaedr. 245c-57b).6 Thus, finally I shall significantly in a range of characteristics be- consider a problem for an Academic sceptic in- longing (or at least attributed by Plato) to sever- terpretation of Plato’s Socrates, the problem of al sophists, including, significantly, a technique his belief statements, and present as briefly as of antithetical argumentation.5 Moreover inde- I can an evaluation of some possible ways later pendent evidence suggests some sophists an- Academics might most plausibly reconcile this ticipated the later Academic philosophers not significant common feature of many dialogues just in arguing antithetically but also a form of with a sceptical interpretation of Plato overall.7 scepticism, and that among these sophists antithetical argumentation probably led to their scepticism. Thus, in conjunction with Socrates’ ACADEMIC ARGUMENTATION repeated claims to ignorance in the dialogues, AND SOCRATES in this sophistic context Plato’s depiction of him arguing antithetically suggests that later One argumentative technique that undeni- Academics could indeed quite plausibly appeal ably connects Plato’s Socrates explicitly with to Platonic dialogues for evidence that Socrates the sceptical Academy is dialectical refutation. was a sceptic. Cicero refers to Socrates’ use of this against the I will initially restrict the detailed case to the sophists at Fin. 2.2, where he then reports that plausibility of a sceptical interpretation of the Arcesilaus (c.316-c.240 BC), who is said to have Socrates presented by Plato in the Protagoras, initiated the sceptic turn in the Academy when Hippias Minor, Gorgias, Meno, Lysis and The- he became its scholarch (c.265 BC), revived aetetus, and Plato as the author of these. The this technique, which was no longer in use in justification for focusing on these dialogues is his own day. Yet later in the same work Cicero merely that, on the basis of the evidence I shall shows that Arcesilaus also engaged in extended discuss, the sceptical interpretation seems to me speeches designed to counterbalance an oppos- DOUGAL BLYTH | 27 ing dogmatic position (Fin. 5.10). As Acad. 1.45 Yet as I shall show below, both the latter tech- puts it, he argued against everyone’s opinions, niques seem also to be found repeatedly in Plato. This will then raise the question of motive. so that when equally weighty arguments A speech directed against another speaker’s were found for contrary positions on the position might be considered in intention just same subject, it was easier to withhold as- eristic, or again refutatory, that is, designed to sent from either position (trans. Inwood achieve either a merely verbal victory in the and Gerson). one case, or a seriously meant change of mind in the opponent. But a refutation, in the latter A.A. Long, who regards Arcesilaus as the origi- case, might aim at either the opponent’s or audi- nator of the conception of Socrates as a sceptic,8 ence’s adoption of the opposite case (as formally also states, also in a reductio ad absurdum, for instance), or merely the realisation of ignorance (as similarly Arcesilaus in effect was the founder of in Socrates’ dialectical refutations); the aim is Greek scepticism, as a methodology then aporetic. for demonstrating that every claim to This recognition of ignorance (as apparently knowledge or belief could be met with in many Socratic refutations) might involve the a counter-argument of equal strength.9 presupposition that neither foregoing case is correct, so motivating the search for a new ac- In the following I aim to raise doubts about this count of the matter (zetetic scepticism), or if no claim. further alternative seems possible, the presup- Long rightly distinguishes between the pro- position will be that one or other of the two op- duction of arguments on either side of a case posed foregoing cases must be correct and the and arguing the opposite case to an opponent, other not (i.e., a dilemma), in which case either noting that more reliable sources do not report further inquiry is again required (again, zetetic Arcesilaus to have argued both sides of a case scepticism), or the abandonment of either all himself.10 This was subsequently the practice of opinions or just claims to certain knowledge the later Academic scholarch Carneades (214- (ephectic scepticism, epochê).14 In what follows I 129/8 BC), who notoriously spoke publicly on will aim to locate sophistic, Socratic and Aca- successive days for and against the view that demic scepticism within these contours, and, justice is intrinsically beneficial to the agent, with some further adjustments, trace their while on the Athenian embassy to Rome in 155 deeper similarities.15 BC.11 Moreover Cicero, who used reports of these speeches in De republica Bk 3, structured most of the works of his retirement around this SOPHISTIC ANTILOGY AND principle.12 SCEPTICISM Long himself acknowledges that Arcesilaus could justifiably claim to be practicing Socrates’ Clearly fifth century sophists realised two own technique of refutation, and observes that things about speeches: firstly, that they can the techniques of argument contra, or both pro be more or less persuasive, and secondly that and contra, owed something to the rhetorical there is always a speech that can be made for tradition—that is, ultimately, to the sophists.13 the opposite case.16 In the Clouds Aristophanes 28 | Plato’s Socrates, Sophistic Antithesis and Scepticism presents the Right and Wrong Speeches as liv- Socrates interprets Protagoras both in the The- ing teachers in Socrates’ school.17 Thus it was aetetus (152a, 161c) and Cratylus (285e-386a). common knowledge by the late 420s BC that Note that Socrates’ subsequent depiction of Pro- some sophists were teaching that every argu- tagoras in the Theaetetus (166d-167d) as aiming ment is opposed by another, and it is the power to improve people by changing the way things of persuasion, not the truth of a case, which de- appear to them, while implying that the latter’s termines which argument wins a case. Diogenes own rhetorical practice was indeed eristic-re- Laertius (9.51) states that Protagoras was the futatory, does not contradict the proposal here first to declare that there are two mutually op- that he recognised the proto-sceptical implica- posed arguments on any topic, while Aristotle tion that no speech can be naturally right or reports that Protagoras promised to make the wrong, since it presupposes just that.21 weaker argument stronger (Rhetoric 1402a14- Fragment 4 from Protagoras expresses apo- 6). Plato’s Apology 18b-d, 19b-c, has Socrates retic scepticism about the gods.22 We can see this claiming this was the popular belief about him- as another application of the same principle. If self as a result of the Clouds.18 human logoi cannot attain any objective truth, The Clouds demonstrates that the popular it might seem that we can be assured what the perception was that one case is naturally right, truth is by the authority of the gods, communi- while the sophists unscrupulously teach people cated in prophecies and oracles, and the many to win with the naturally weaker, or unjust, case. famous mythical poems inspired by the Muses. But it seems Protagoras went further, drawing But Protagoras denies knowledge of the gods as a conclusion that went beyond merely eristic a source of truth.

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