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Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2012 Goodness (The Good, Agathon) Ferber, Rafael Abstract: Unspecified Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: http://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-68135 Originally published at: Ferber, Rafael (2012). Goodness (The Good, Agathon). In: Press, Gerald A. The Continuum Companion to Plato. London/New York: Bloomsbury, 177-179. TOPICS AND THEMES TREATED IN THE DIALOGUES denied that one could have many close on this idea under the title of the ‘exact itself’ friends (Nicomachean Ethics 9.10). But (284d; cf. Ferber 2002:190). But the idea of unlike Aristotle, Plato did not investigate the good is treated explicitly only in the sixth such friendship systematically, though he no and seventh book of the R . in the course of doubt appreciated it: Socrates much admires, three similes, though caution is warranted: for example, the bond between Lysis and his the Platonic Socrates gives in these similes agemate Menexenus. When he visits Socrates only his ‘opinions without science’ (R . 506c) in jail, Crito affirms that he will never again and even these opinions are incomplete find such a companion ( Crito 44B), and tries (506e1–3). First, he distances himself from to convince Socrates to let him bribe the existing philosophical conceptions of the jailer, since it is shameful to value money good, where the good consists in pleasure or in more than friends. But for Socrates evad- knowledge (cf. 505b–c). Both conceptions are ing the law is wrong, and so he refuses the refuted, one because there are also bad pleas- aid proffered by his friends. So too, Phaedo ures (cf. Grg .499c6–7), the other because this assures Echecrates that Socrates died in the conception would be circular (cf. Euthyphro presence of many friends ( Phd . 58C), but he 292e3): knowledge would be knowledge of is amazed that Socrates conversed with them something, namely, the good. Second, the unsentimentally, as on any other day (58E– Platonic Socrates says positively three things 59A). Though Socrates may have described about the good: (a) it is not sought like ‘just himself, tongue in cheek, as an expert in ta and beautiful things’ (505d), where we may erôtika , when it came to philia what most be satisfied also with the appearance, but as interested him, and Plato, was the love of something which really is good. So we may wisdom or philosophia . be conventionalists concerning the ‘just and beautiful things’, but we are realists concern- ing the good. We want not the apparent, but the real good. (b) It is the final cause of all GOODNESS (THE GOOD, AGATHON) that is good in desire and action (517b7–c4). (c) The knowledge of the idea of the good is Rafael Ferber the condition of the knowledge of just and The good is for the Platonic Socrates that for the beautiful things, that is, the ideas of jus- which everything is done (cf. Gorgias 468b). tice and beauty (506a). This means that if This is an ‘axiom’ to which Plato seems to the ideas of justice and beauty were not also adhere during his whole writing career (cf. good, they would not be ideas of real but Symposium 205e–206a, Republic 505d–e, only of apparent justice and beauty. Since Philebus . 65a). But the Socratic good without knowledge of the idea of the good becomes for Plato in the R . the idea of the no other knowledge is of any use to us (cf. good, which is also the ‘greatest thing to be 505a2–3), knowledge of apparent justice and learned’ and the ‘greatest lesson’ ( megiston apparent beauty would not be of any use to mathêma , R . 505a, 519c). us. Therefore knowledge of the idea of the We may find a first allusion to this idea in good is required to know the goodness and the Lysis in ‘what we like in the first place’ usefulness of just and beautiful things. ( prôton philon , Ly . 219d), cf. Penner and These two negative and three positive (for- Rowe (2005:278–9). The Politicus may touch mal) determinations are supplemented by the 177 99780826435354_Ch04_Fpp_txt_prf.indd780826435354_Ch04_Fpp_txt_prf.indd 117777 22/1/2012/1/2012 55:16:04:16:04 PPMM TOPICS AND THEMES TREATED IN THE DIALOGUES substantive description which the Platonic Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge, Socrates gives in the three similes. Common realize the good in the city (on all three simi- to them is that the idea of the good figures as les cf. Ferber 1984:49–166, 1989:49–219; cause (q.v.; aitia , 508e3.517b2) or principle Schindler 2008:139–75). ( archê , 510b7). In the simile of the sun (q.v.), The Phlb . starts with the search for a cer- it functions as the cause of knowledge, truth tain state of the soul which can render the and being, although it is itself not being ( ouk life of all human beings happy (cf. Phlb . ousias ontos tou agathou , 509b8–9), but 11d4–6). But it asks nevertheless the Socratic ‘surpasses the being in dignity and power’ question ‘. what in fact is the good . .’ ( epekeina tês ousias presbeia kai dynamei (13e5–6) and holds on to a ‘single form’ ( mia hyperechontos , 505b9–10). Thus Plato seems idea ) of the good (65a1), which Socrates tries to found his ontology and epistemology on to hold down with the conjunction of three a supreme principle which – if the cause is qualities ( poia ): ‘beauty, symmetry and truth’ not the same as that which is caused – must (65a2; cf. Ferber 2010). In his old age, Plato be ‘something else and more beautiful than seems to have held a public ‘lecture on the knowledge and truth’ (508e5–6) and being good’, although this lecture may go back (but cf. Baltes 1997; Ferber 2005; Seel 2007). to earlier ‘seminars’ or ‘ synousiai ’ ‘on the We can see in this description of the good good’. (cf. Simplicius, in Aristotelis Physica the inauguration of the problem of the third commentaria Phlb . 542.1012, 545.24). After between and above being and thinking: As an anecdote reported by Aristoxenos about light and its master, the sun, functions as Aristotle, the hearers of the lecture expected a third item ( R . 507d.e), so the idea of the to be told good functions as a third item between and above thinking and being. In the simile of the . something about one of the recog- line (q.v.), the idea of the good, though not nized human goods, such as wealth, mentioned there, functions as an unhypo- health or strength, or, in sum, some mar- velous happiness. But when it appeared thetical principle (anhypothetos archê ) of the that Plato was to talk on mathemat- mathematical ‘presuppositions’ ( hypotheseis , ics and numbers and geometry and 510c6), that is, the four arts of the quadri- astronomy , leading up to the statement vium (on the text of the simile cf. Lafrance that there the good is one ( hoti tagaton l994; on interpretations between l804 and estin hen ), they were overwhelmed by l984, Lafrance l987). the paradox of the whole matter. Some The image of the cave (q.v.) shows us what then thought little of the thing and oth- education means for Plato. It is ‘a leading of ers even reproved it. (Aristoxenus, The the soul’ ( psychês periagogê , 521c1) that is Elements of Harmony II) also a return of the soul’s attention to the really good. But the idea of the good func- In this lecture, Plato may have presented the tions also as a principle of Plato’s politics so idea on the good in a dialectical way, where that not only every soul in her private life, unity as we find it in the abstract structures but ‘anyone who is to act sensibly in pri- of mathematics may have played a signifi- vate or public must see it’ (510c). Because cant role (cf. Burnyeat 2000). From this lec- the philosopher-kings and -queens know the ture, only fragments from notes taken by his really good, they will also, in the sense of the hearers, especially from Aristotle, survive 178 99780826435354_Ch04_Fpp_txt_prf.indd780826435354_Ch04_Fpp_txt_prf.indd 117878 22/1/2012/1/2012 55:16:05:16:05 PPMM TOPICS AND THEMES TREATED IN THE DIALOGUES (cf. the collection of fragments in Gaiser we all do in fact desire the genuinely good l963:441–557; Isnardi-Parente l997:406–84, things obtaining which will make us happy l998:5–115; Krämer 1990:203–17). But we ( Gorgias 468b; Men . 77b–78b; Republic find in Aristotle’s Metaphysics a ‘short and 505d–e); evidence of this includes our pur- principal’ summary (987a27, 988a17) of suit of what appears good, our loss of desire the public lecture whose content Plato may for things once we learn they are not good, have already communicated earlier to his and our efforts to determine what really is advanced students (cf. Ferber 1989:211–16). good. What are the genuinely good things the possession and correct use of which make us happy? In the Philebus , Socrates argues HAPPINESS (EUDAIMONIA) that the good or happy human life con- tains a mixture of knowledge and pleasure Rachana Kamtekar ( Phlb . 20d–22a). In the Grg . (470e) and R . In contemporary usage, ‘happiness’ is some- bk 1 (354a), Socrates says that our happi- times taken to be a feeling, as temporary or ness depends entirely on whether or not we permanent as feelings are. In ancient Greek are virtuous, but at other times he makes the usage, in contrast, eudaimonia , the term weaker claim that having virtue makes one translated ‘happiness’, characterizes a whole happier than any of those who lack virtue, life and not just a moment of feeling, and has no matter what else they have and one lacks an objective dimension: the happy life not ( R .
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