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Daimonion of Socrates: a Search for Definition and an Epistemological Assessment

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Daimonion of Socrates: a Search for Definition and an Epistemological Assessment THE DAIMONION OF SOCRATES: A SEARCH FOR DEFINITION AND AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT by ALTON R. POPE B.M.E. , Cornell University, 1951 S.T.B. , Boston University, 1957 A MASTER'S THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS Department of Philosophy KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 1969 Approved by: Major Professor TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 PART I. NECESSARY BACKGROUNDS II. THE RELIGIOUS INHERITANCE OF FIFTH CENTURY GREECE 14 Gods and Daimons, and Their Relation to Human Beings Popular Religious Practices Grammatical Considerations III. SOCRATES: THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 27 His Mission Personal Characteristics and Behavior His Beliefs His Trial and Death PART II. THE DAIMONION OF SOCRATES IV. THE DAIMONION IN PLATO 82 The Eight Dialogs The Effect of Plato's Own Views V. THE DAIMONION IN XENOPHON AND OTHER PRIMARY SOURCES 115 The Daimonion in Xenophon Other Contemporary Sources: Aristophanes and Aeschines Noncontemporary Sources: Cicero and Plutarch VI. DEVELOPMENT BY EARLY PHILOSOPHERS AND PLATONISTS 139 Cicero Plutarch Apuleius Proclus Summary ii iii Chapter Page VII. COMMENTARY BY MODERN PHILOSOPHERS 159 Descartes Hegel Nietzsche Kierkegaard Others VIII. INTERPRETATION BY MODERN SOCRATIC SCHOLARS . 184 Naive Interpretations The Voice of Reason The Voice of the Sub-conscious The Voice of God The Daimonion in Psychology IX. THE DEFINITION OF SOCRATES' DAIMONION .... 233 Limitations of Socrates' Own Definition Review and Evaluation of Others' Definitions A Definition of the Daimonion PART III. AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT X. SOCRATES' EXPERIENCE OF THE DAIMONION .... 266 Experience of the Daimonion: Parapsy- chological and Religious Similar Experiences of Others Pragmatic Evaluation Theoretical Evaluation XI. THE DAIMONION AS A "VOICE OF TRUTH" 313 The Criterion of Truth: Comprehensive Coherence The Truth-Claims of Religious Experience The Truth-Claims of the Daimonion PART IV. CONCLUSION XII. CONCLUSION 360 APPENDIX 366 BIBLIOGRAPHY 370 " "This Socratic daimonion has always been a crux philologorum , a difficulty that has nevertheless operated more enticingly than forbiddingly, and by its mysterious spell even deceptively. Since time immemorial one finds a strong propensity to say something about this thing, but there the matter usually ends. The curiosity which is tickled by whatever is mysterious is satisfied as soon as the thing is given a name, and profundity accepts satisfaction when one says with a thoughtful air: 'Ah, what is one to say? ' Soren Kierkegaard The Concept of Irony , p. 185. iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION For more than 2400 years, the Greek philosopher Socrates has been held in high honor as among the world's foremost heroes of thought and action. Countless are the men who have given him their full measure of respect and admiration, and who have rallied around his conviction that "an unexamined life is not worth living," joining him in the effort to understand the meaning and purpose of human existence. There are two impressive observations concerning Socrates that motivate the present discussion. The first of these is the indisputable claim that Socrates was a man com- mitted to the fullest possible use of his reason. This is apparent from even the most superficial examination of his life and teaching, and is often made explicit in his own words. In one of the dialogs of Plato regarded as among those most faith- ful to the historical Socrates, he tells his friend Crito that he is incapable of obeying anything other than the rule of reason: "I am still what I have always been--a man who will accept no argument but that which on reflection I find to be truest.' Later in the same dialog he expressly calls reason 1 2 Plato Apology 38 a. Plato Crito 46 b. his "guide. m1 That Socrates was without question a man of reason receives further support from a trio of eminent Socratic scholars. One refers to his "obstinate rationality." Another cites his obeying "one law only, the oracle of the higher reason in his breast." A third, calling him "a man who was common-sense personified," reflects further that "Socrates paused at every step to interrupt the flow of thought in order to test its depth and purity. Each fresh conception had to deliver its passport in the course of cross-examination; every slumbering doubt was awakened, every hidden contradiction was exposed." If the commitment to a full use of human reason is one sure fact about Socrates, however, there is another fact--if the evidence from primary sources can be trusted- -which is just as certain. Socrates received unquestionably and un- questioningly the guidance of the daimonion. His reliance on the daimonion was well known; he spoke of it often, and in no less than eight dialogs attributed to Plato and three writings X 48 c. 2 A. E. Taylor, Socrates (Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday Co. , Inc. , 1953), p. 46. 3 Paul Shorey, What Plato Said (Abridged ed. , Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 14. 4 Theodor Gomperz, The Greek Thinkers , trans. Laurie Magnus (2 vols. , London: John Murray, iyb4) , II, 89. 5 Ibid. , I, 385. " of Xenophon are there specific references to it. When these two observations are brought together, the resulting picture is of a man dedicated to using his reason and at the same time obeying without question the counsel of his daimonion. "This man, who more than any other proposed to clarify by the power of his intellect what was unclear and ambiguous, recognized mysterious forces which he obeyed without •i examining their claim. What was the daimonion of Socrates? How did it func- tion? What is its significance? And why did the one who was always pressing for understanding and definition, who was forever asking --whether of piety or beauty or friendship or justice- -"What does it mean?", follow unhesitatingly the guidance of the daimonion? Surely it appears inconsistent for the man of reason to be so uncritical of something as nonrational as the sudden warning of the daimonion. If the daimonion constitutes a problem for the student of Socrates, there arises a further problem for the student of philosophy, respecting the epistemological status of Soc- rates' experience of the daimonion and the value and correct- ness of its counsel. Specifically, did the daimonion in its monitions and silences present serious claims to truth; and were those claims in fact true? In the two areas of Socratic studies and epistemology, Paul Friedlander, Plato , trans. Hans Meyerhoff (2 vols., Vol. I, New York: Harper & Row, 1964; Vol. II, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), I, 32. 4 the daimonion poses important and enticing questions: (1) What was the daimonion of Socrates, and how did he reconcile his reliance on it with his firm commitment to reason? and (2) What is the verdict of epistemology upon this kind of experience and its claims? The thesis that is here presented answers these questions, in the light of certain important assumptions in the two general areas of Socratic studies and epistemology. On these assumptions the discussion builds, and the conclu- sions reached depend heavily upon them. Within the area of Socratic studies, the first and crucial assumption which is here granted is that Socrates actually experienced a form of inner communication or assurance which was not totally a subjective phenomenon; i.e., there was an objective source for the guidance he received. It may of course be doubted that Socrates really had his daimonion. Plato and Xenophon, the major primary sources, do not establish the fact that Socrates had a daimonion, but only the fact that he spoke as if he did. The only possible evidence for it is the unsupported testimony of Socrates himself, and he may have completely misunderstood-- in the light of his religious inheritance- -what was simply a subjective process within his sub-conscious mind, or even a psychotic manifestation. Clearly, some position must be taken concerning what only Socrates himself experienced, and 5 what even he might not have been able accurately to conceive. The assumption here is that Socrates did experience a real, not an imagined or purely subjective, form of communication. A second assumption in the area of Socratic studies relates both to the veracity of Socrates' statements about the daimonion, and to his honesty in reporting it. It is here granted that Socrates was not wholly mistaken about the daimonion; and further that when he spoke of it, he did so without any intent to dissemble. This last point, which has occasionally been challenged in the Socratic literature, appears reasonable in the light of the "whole" Socrates. It is clear that he was a man of intellectual and moral integrity. For him to pretend to be guided by a daimonion when he was not would be a brand of dishonesty wholly in- consistent with all that is known of him. On occasion, to be sure, he adopted the counterfeit methods of the sophists, but it was for the purpose of showing up the pretensions of men who were trying to pass off cleverness for true wisdom. In general, his life presents the testimony of a man whose word can be trusted, and should be trusted. Neither Ryle nor Winspear, the two contemporary scholars who most severely challenge the accepted Platonic portrait of Socrates, sug- gests that for Socrates to speak of his daimonion was a deliberate falsification or pretense. There is a very serious problem concerning the 6 historical Socrates, and therefore the first major task of this thesis will be to assess the historical data available especially in the dialogs of Plato, with special reference to the daimonion. Subsequent chapters will consider the degree to which the portraits of Socrates by Plato and Xenophon may misrepresent the historical Socrates, but will establish too a consensus on the fact of the daimonion in his experience, and on the broad nature of its effects.
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