Did Socrates Separate the Forms?1

David O. Brink; UCSD Draft of 10-25-20 DID SOCRATES SEPARATE THE FORMS?1

Abstract: Aristotle tells us that Plato separates the forms whereas Socrates does not. Aristotle himself thinks that Plato was wrong to separate the forms and that Socrates was right not to. Commentators have focused on the meaning of separation and reconstructing and assessing Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato, for the most part accepting Aristotle’s claim that Socrates did not separate the forms. This essay challenges that assumption. Separation involves the capacity for independent existence. If so, Socratic assumptions about definition, knowledge, and the primacy of character imply that the forms of the virtues not only can but do exist uninstantiated.

In addition to Plato’s early dialogues, Aristotle provides some of the most important and influential evidence we have about Socrates and his relationship to Plato.2 Among the things that Aristotle tells us is that Plato separates the forms whereas Socrates does not (Metaphysics I.6, 987a31-b10; XIII.4, 1078b29-31; XIII.9, 1086a30-b12). Aristotle himself thinks that Plato was wrong to separate the forms and that Socrates was right not to (1086b3-7). Though we are free to disagree with Aristotle’s philosophical verdict about the merits of separation, we have reason to take his testimony about the content of the views of Socrates and Plato quite seriously. He was a member of Plato’s Academy for twenty years, and he presumably had better information about the views of Socrates and Plato than is available to us. Aristotle’s testimony provides evidence for distinguishing within Plato’s dialogues between Socratic and Platonic dialogues and for a broadly developmental, rather than unitarian, reading of the relation between Socrates and Plato.3 Aristotle’s claims raise a number of interpretive and systematic issues. What exactly does it mean to separate the forms? Though there are several possible forms of separation (chōrismos), Gail Fine has made a strong case in her article “Separation” for thinking that the relevant kind of separation in this context for both Plato and Aristotle is the capacity for independent existence.4 On this conception of separation, forms are separate just in case they can exist uninstantiated by sensible particulars. But even if this is what separation involves, it leaves many questions about Aristotle’s testimony unanswered. In what sense does Socrates not separate the forms? Does Plato indeed separate the forms and, if so, why? What are Aristotle’s objections to separating forms, and are these good objections to Plato?

1 I am grateful for helpful feedback from Lesley Brown, Gail Fine, Monte Johnson, and Sam Rickless. 2 As is common, I assume that Plato’s early dialogues, supplemented by Aristotle’s testimony, provide our best evidence of the philosophical views of Socrates. In particular, I assume that by relying on a combination of philosophical content, dramatic content, and stylometric analysis we can provisionally divide Plato’s dialogues into different periods and groups: early Socratic dialogues (e.g. Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Laches, Charmides, Euthydemus and Lysis), transitional dialogues (e.g. Protagoras and Gorgias), middle period Platonic dialogues (e.g. Meno, Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus), and late period Platonic dialogues (e.g. Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws). I read transitional dialogues as ones in which Plato is reflecting on and exploring the presuppositions and implications of philosophical commitments in the Socratic dialogues. 3 For a good discussion of unitarian and developmental narratives in Plato, see Terence Irwin, Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), Chapter 1. 4 Gail Fine, “Separation” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 31-87 and reprinted in Gail Fine, Plato on Knowledge and Forms (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003) (my pagination for this article is indexed to the reprint in Fine’s book). Also see Gregory Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 256-64. 2

The nature of forms and separation is just one dimension along which to assess Aristotle’s relation to Plato.5 Although many commentators accept Aristotle’s comparative claim that Plato separated the forms, whereas Socrates did not, there has been considerable focus on interpreting and assessing Aristotle’s claims about and disagreement with Plato. 6 For instance, there is lively controversy about whether Aristotle correctly understands Plato’s reasons for separating the forms and whether Aristotle’s reasons for refusing to separate the forms are sound.7 By contrast, there seems to be less controversy about Aristotle’s testimony about Socrates, in particular, his claim that Socrates did not separate the forms.8 However, I want to take seriously some skepticism about Aristotle’s testimony about Socrates. There is an interesting interpretation of Socratic commitments about the virtues that implies that the forms of the virtues are not just separable but in fact separate. The foundation of this argument for separation is Socratic intellectualism about the virtues. Because the virtues require knowledge of definitions of the virtues — definitions that must meet some fairly exacting criteria — we should conclude that Socrates believes that no one possesses the requisite knowledge and, hence, that no one is in fact virtuous. This is skepticism, not about the possibility of virtue, but about whether anyone is in fact virtuous. If no one is virtuous, then no one instantiates the virtues. This might seem to imply straightaway that the forms of the virtues exist uninstantiated. However, that is too quick a route to separation, because we might claim that there can be and are virtuous actions and institutions even if no one is in fact virtuous, because these are the actions that a virtuous person would perform or the institutions that a virtuous polis would enact. But we remove this obstacle to separation if we adopt a principle about the primacy of character that maintains that actions only count as genuinely virtuous if performed in the right way by a virtuous person and that institutions only count as genuinely virtuous if adopted in the right way by virtuous individuals or groups. Socratic skepticism about moral knowledge and virtues of character together with this thesis about the primacy of character imply that the forms of the virtues are separate. The primacy of character is perhaps the most controversial part of this argument for Socratic separation. It is neither obviously Socratic nor obviously correct, but it has some plausibility as both an interpretive and a systematic claim. At the very least, we can defend the interesting and non-trivial conclusion that Socrates does separate the forms insofar as he embraces the primacy of character. This should give us some pause about accepting Aristotle’s testimony about Socratic assumptions about the forms.

5 Famously, conflicting developmental narratives of Aristotle’s relation to Plato are presented in Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development, trs. R. Robinson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934) and G.E.L. Owen, “The Platonism of Aristotle” Proceedings of the British Academy 51 (1966): 125-50. More nuanced views can be found in Gail Fine, On Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) and Christopher Shields, “Plato and Aristotle in the Academy” in The Oxford Handbook of Plato, ed. G. Fine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2008). 6 See, e.g., J.D. Mabbott, “Aristotle and the Chorismos of Plato” Classical Quarterly 20 (1926): 72-79; Harold Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1944); W.D. Ross, Plato’s Theory of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), ch. 10; F.M. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides (London: Routledge, 1939), p. 74; Terence Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), pp. 148-57; and Fine, “Separation,” pp. 295-98. 7 See, especially, Fine “Separation” and On Ideas. 8 R.E. Allen appears to be an exception, claiming that Socrates did separate the forms, because he distinguished between forms (universals) and their instances. See R.E. Allen, Plato’s Euthyphro and the Earlier Theory of Forms (London: Routledge, 1970), p. 136. But that cannot be the meaning of separation for purposes of evaluating Aristotle’s testimony about Socrates and Plato forms, since Aristotle himself separated the forms in that sense. See, Fine, “Separation,” pp. 295-98. 3

1. ARISTOTLE’S TESTIMONY AND SEPARATION Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all recognize the existence of forms (eide) or universals (katholou, koina) and assign them epistemological importance. But they differ in their reasons for recognizing forms, their beliefs about the nature of forms, and the epistemological significance they ascribe to forms. As with many topics in the Metaphysics and elsewhere, Aristotle situates his own views in relation to those of his predecessors, especially Socrates and Plato. For instance, in Metaphysics I.6 Aristotle contrasts Socratic and Platonic reasons for recognizing forms and their conceptions of them.

For, having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these views he [Plato] held even in later years. Socrates, however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to any sensible thing but to entities of another kind …. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were apart [para] from these … [987a31-b7].9

Later in Metaphysics XIII Aristotle is discussing the forms for mathematical objects, such as triangles and circles, and their relation to actual material bodies. Here, he again contrasts Socratic and Platonic commitments about whether the forms are separate.

The supporters of the ideal theory were led to it because they were persuaded of the truth of the Heraclitean doctrine that all sensible things are ever passing away, so that if knowledge or thought is to have an object, there must be some other and permanent entities, apart from [para] those which are sensible; for there can be no knowledge of things which are in a state of flux. Socrates occupied himself with the excellences of character, and in connection with them became the first to raise the problem of universal definitions …. [I]t was natural that Socrates should seek the essence. For he was seeking to deduce, and the essence is the starting point of deductions. … But Socrates did not make the universals or the definitions exist separately [chōrista]; his successors, however, gave them separate existence, and this was the kind of thing they called ideas [XIII.4, 1078b12-31].

Here, Aristotle repeats his claim that sensible flux was one of Plato’s reasons for positing forms and that Plato was among Socrates’s successors who did separate the forms. Of course, flux is not the only reason Plato has for positing forms. Aristotle recognizes that Plato also appeals to other reasons for positing forms, including the one over many assumption — that there must be a single form of F common to all the F-things that explains why they are F (I.9, 99b5-15; XIII.4, 1079a7-9). In his essay On Ideas (Peri Ideōn),10 Aristotle discusses Plato’s reasons for posting forms, including the one over many assumption (80.8-81.22). And in Metaphysics I.9 Aristotle thinks that Plato posits forms as ideals or perfect paradigms of which sensible particulars are imperfect copies (I.9, 991a21-30; cf. On Ideas 83.20-21). What is crucial for our purposes is not so much why Aristotle thinks Plato posits

9 Unless otherwise noted, I rely on the translations contained in the Revised Oxford Translation in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). Here (in the last line) and elsewhere, I adapt Ross’s translation to make clear that “para” is consistently translated by “apart” and “chōrismos” and its cognates are consistently translated by “separation” and its cognates. Chōrismos does signify separation; para can, but need not, signify separation. 10 I rely on Fine’s translation in On Ideas. 4 forms as that he thinks that Plato separated the forms whereas Socrates did not. On this issue of separation, Aristotle sides with Socrates, against Plato.

They [those who believe in Ideas] thought that the sensible particulars were in a state of flux and none of them remained, but that the universal was apart from [para] these and different. And Socrates gave the impulse to this theory, as we said before, by means of his definitions, but he did not separate [echōrise] them from the particulars; and in this he thought rightly, in not separating them. This is plain from the results; for without the universal it is not possible to get knowledge, but the separation is the cause of the objections that arise with regard to the Ideas [XIII.9, 1086b1-7].

Book I of On Ideas explores more fully Aristotle’s disagreements with Plato’s conception of forms. For the most part and with some qualifications, Aristotle endorses Plato’s reasons for positing forms but disputes the claim that these arguments require forms with the properties that Plato ascribes to them in middle and late period dialogues.11 In particular, Aristotle thinks, Plato’s best arguments for positing forms do not require that forms be separate. Of special interest here is Aristotle’s contrast between Socrates and Plato — his claim that whereas Plato separated the forms Socrates did not. To assess whether this contrast is correct, we need to know how we should understand separation (chōrismos and its cognates).12 Separation is a relation between two (or more) relata. There are different possible conceptions of this relation. One conception of separation is that X and Y are separate just in case they are different. Another conception of the separation relation focuses on definability and treats X as separate from Y just in case X is not definable in terms of Y.13 Yet another conception of separation is that X and Y are separate just in case X is a perfect exemplar or paradigm and Y bears a deficient resemblance to X or exhibits less reality than X.14 However, to assess Aristotle’s claims about Socrates and Plato, we need to understand how Aristotle understood separation. Fine makes a strong case that the primary sense of separation for Aristotle in connection with the nature of forms is a relation of ontological independence. 15 On this conception, X is separate from Y just in case X can exist without or independently of Y. To say that forms are separate from sensible particulars, in this sense, is to say that forms could exist uninstantiated by sensible particulars. That is, the form of F would exist even if there were no sensible particulars that are F. To say that forms are separate or separable in this sense is to assert a kind of realism about universals. Though there is room for debate about whether Aristotle is correct that concerns about sensible flux led Plato to separate the forms, it is plausible that Plato does believe in separated forms (in this sense) in the middle and late dialogues. Insofar as we want to assess Aristotle’s claim that Socrates did not separate the forms, we should focus on his (Aristotle’s) own ontological conception of separation. This will also make discussion more manageable by fixing on one plausible conception of separation. Finally, it should provide a maximally charitable reading of Aristotle’s claim. It might not be so surprising if Aristotle’s claim about Socrates proved problematic on some non-Aristotelian conception of separation. It would be more surprising if it turned out to be dubious on Aristotle’s own conception of separation.

11 See Fine, On Ideas. 12 Aristotle uses his own term for separation — chōrismos and its cognates — to describe the commitments of Socrates and Plato. Plato does not use chōrismos to describe this kind of separation in any of the dialogues. See Fine, “Separation,” p. 274 and Vlastos, Socrates, p. 257. 13 See, for example, Terence Irwin, “Plato’s Heracleiteanism” Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1977): 1-13. 14 See, e.g., R.E. Allen, “Participation and Predication in Plato’s Middle Dialogues” Philosophical Review 69 (1960): 147-64 and “Plato’s Early Theory of Forms” in The Philosophy of Socrates, ed. G. Vlastos (Notre Dame University of Notre Dame Press, 1971). 15 See Fine, “Separation” and On Ideas, pp. 51. This sense of separation corresponds to Aristotle’s conception of priority in nature (Metaphysics 1019a1-4, 1028a31-b2). 5

2. DEGREES OF SEPARATION So, our question is whether Aristotle is right that Socrates does not separate the forms, where separate forms would be ones that do or could exist uninstantiated, independently of sensible particulars. But even when we specify that the sort of separation in question involves ontological independence, there are still different forms and degrees of commitment on the separation question that we need to distinguish. We should distinguish stronger and weaker claims that Aristotle might be making about Socrates’s attitude toward separation. Aristotle might be making a fairly strong claim that Socrates denied that forms are separate.

Anti-Separation: Unlike Plato, who did separate the forms, Socrates was committed, explicitly or implicitly, to denying that forms are separate.

Presumably, Aristotle does not think that there is evidence that Socrates explicitly considered the issue of separation and denied that forms are separate. For instance, none of Plato’s early or Socratic dialogues contains such an explicit denial of separation. However, Aristotle could mean that Socratic commitments about the forms imply that forms are not separate. Alternatively, Aristotle might have a weaker claim in mind. He might believe not that Socrates was committed to denying that forms are separate but rather that Socrates did not commit himself, as Plato did.

Non-Separation: Unlike Plato, who did separate the forms, Socrates did not commit himself, explicitly or implicitly, to separating the forms.

There are different ways that Non-Separation could be true. Aristotle could mean simply that Socrates did not explicitly separate the forms. But this seems too weak an interpretation of Non- Separation. When Aristotle says that Plato does separate the forms on account of considerations about Heraclitean flux, presumably he does not mean that Plato explicitly separated the forms. For Plato never uses “chorismos” or its cognates in connection with forms in middle period dialogues, such as the Phaedo and Republic, in which he appeals to sensible flux as part of an argument for forms.16 So presumably Aristotle believes that Plato is committed to separating the forms, whether or not he did so explicitly. But then the claim that Socrates did not separate the forms could be understood analogously, as the claim that he did not commit himself, explicitly or implicitly, to separating the forms. This is still a weaker claim than Anti-Separation.17 Even so, there are multiple ways in which Non-Separation could be true. It could be that Socrates considered the issue of separation and was simply agnostic. Or, it could be that although he never addressed the issue, none of his claims about forms commit him to the idea that they are separated. Since the Socratic dialogues do not explicitly address the issue of separation, we might prefer the second interpretation of Non-Separation. Since Non-Separation makes a weaker claim than Anti-Separation, Aristotle’s claim about Socrates is more secure if interpreted as Non-Separation than if interpreted as Anti-Separation. It is significant, therefore, that the separationist interpretation of Socrates that I will explore would deny Non-Separation and not just Anti-Separation. That is, the separationist argument that I will consider does not simply deny that Socrates rejected separation. That could be true if he were non-committal. Rather, the separationist argument denies Non-Separation, on the ground that Socrates was in fact

16 See Fine “Separation,” pp. 262-63. 17 Fine’s conclusion seems to be that Aristotle attributes Non-Separation, rather than Anti-Separation, to Socrates. See Fine, “Separation,” pp. 296-98 6 committed to separating the forms, because he was committed to thinking that the forms of the virtues are uninstantiated. According to this separationist thesis, Aristotle’s testimony about Socrates and his attitude toward separation are mistaken, whether interpreted as the stronger claim, Anti-Separation, or the weaker claim, Non-Separation. But the separationist thesis is itself ambiguous between stronger and weaker claims. The weaker interpretation understands separation as a modal claim involving the capacity for independent existence.

Possible Separation: Forms could exist uninstantiated by sensible particulars, even though they are in fact instantiated.

This is how Fine understands separation.18 On this reading, to say that forms are separate from sensible particulars is to say that forms could exist uninstantiated, even if they are in fact instantiated. Though the form of bed is instantiated, the form of bed would still exist even if, contrary to fact, there were no beds. By contrast, a stronger separationist thesis would assert not just that forms could exist uninstantiated but that at least some forms do so exist.

Actual Separation: At least some forms do exist uninstantiated by sensible particulars.

Whereas Possible Separation asserts that forms are separable, Actual Separation asserts that forms are separate, and not just separable. Because what is actual must be possible, but not vice versa, Actual Separation is a stronger separationist thesis than Possible Separation. The distinction between separability and separation allows us to identify an even weaker potential interpretation of Aristotle’s testimony. In claiming that Socrates did not separate the forms, it is possible to read Aristotle as claiming that Socrates did not believe that the forms were separate, even if he thought they were separable. I suspect that that interpretation of Aristotle’s testimony is too weak. For it would make the difference between Socrates and Plato more tenuous than Aristotle evidently believes. However, we needn’t take a stand on this issue, because the separationist argument that I will explore denies even this extremely weak interpretation of Aristotle’s claim. For it alleges that Socrates is committed to thinking that the forms of the virtues are separate, and not just separable. It alleges that Socrates believes, or is at least committed to believing, that there are no virtuous persons and, hence, that virtue is uninstantiated. If Socrates believes that the forms of the virtues not only can but do exist uninstantiated, then there is no sense in which Aristotle’s testimony about Socrates and his attitude toward separation is correct.

3. SOCRATIC SKEPTICISM ABOUT VIRTUE AND SEPARATION The separationist interpretation of Socrates concerns the virtues, considered individually and as a whole. It insists not only that Socrates believes that there are forms of the particular virtues — piety, courage, temperance, and justice — but also that he is skeptical that these forms are instantiated, because he believes that no one in fact has the relevant virtues. We need to examine both claims, viz. that Socrates believes in the existence of forms for the virtues and that he is skeptical that there are any virtuous people. It is hard to dispute Socrates’s commitment to forms. One might wonder about the range of forms that Socrates recognizes, but there seems to be little doubt that he recognizes forms for the virtues.19 Certainly, Aristotle is not in doubt about this.

18 Fine, On Ideas, p. 51. 19 There are vexed questions about the range of forms that Plato recognizes. On the one hand, he denies that flux requires us to posit forms for sensible properties such as being a finger (Republic 523c-d), he is uncertain 7

Socrates, however [in contrast with Plato], was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions … [Metaphysics I.6, 987b1-3; cf. XIII.4, 1078b17-32].

Famously, Socrates confronted both prominent and ordinary Athenians who claimed to possess moral knowledge about some particular virtue and asked them to provide a definition of the virtue that would support their claims to moral knowledge. For various values of F — piety, courage, temperance, and justice — he would ask his interlocutors the “What is F?” question and examine their answers. In doing so, he was looking for the form or universal of the virtues, and a good definition of the virtue would identify that form or universal. Because good definitions specify the essence of the virtue, the form of a virtue is, as Aristotle recognizes, its essence. Of course, a distinctive feature of the Socratic dialogues is that they end on a negative note, with Socrates having found his interlocutors’ definitions unsatisfactory in various ways and not having identified a satisfactory alternative. This will be one element in the case for Socratic skepticism about virtue. But we should be clear in distinguishing skepticism about the possibility of moral knowledge and skepticism about whether anyone is knowledgeable. One explanation of skepticism about the possibility of moral knowledge might be that there are no moral properties or universals. But Socrates never shows any signs of this sort of skepticism. Indeed, his pursuit of the examined life is precisely a life dedicated to discovering the forms of the virtues. If Socrates is any kind of skeptic, he is a skeptic about the existence of virtuous people, not a skeptic about the possibility of virtue and virtuous people.20 If so, then we should agree that Socrates believes in the existence of forms for the virtues. The separationist interpretation of Socrates depends on the claim that Socrates is skeptical that anyone is virtuous. What is the basis for this skepticism? Socrates believes that knowledge is necessary for virtue, that is, that you don’t count as virtuous unless you have knowledge of the nature or form of the virtue (Laches 190b-c). But if you have knowledge of the form F, then you must be able to state that knowledge in the form of an acceptable definition of F (Euthyphro 5c-d, Charmides 159a, Laches 190c; cf. Gorgias 455c), which explains why the failure of his interlocutors to provide suitable definitions reveals their ignorance. Moreover, these assumptions are reinforced by Socrates’s frequent analogy between virtues and crafts. We expect a craftsman to know his craft, including the product at which the craft aims and reliable methods for producing this product, and we expect a craftsman to be able to teach others by giving a proper account of his craft (e.g. Laches 185b-e). Against the background of these assumptions about the dependence of virtue on knowledge and the requirement that knowledge be articulable, it is significant that the Socratic dialogues all end on a negative note, having rejected all proposed definitions. If knowledge is necessary for virtue, and whether to recognize forms for human being, fire, or water (Parmenides 130c), and he denies that there are forms for mud, hair, and dirt (Parmenides 130c-d). On the other hand, he recognizes forms for shuttle (Cratylus 389a-c), bee (Meno 72a-c), and bed and table (Republic 596a-b). For an attempt to reconcile these different Platonic commitments about the range of forms in terms of different Platonic mechanisms for generating forms, see Gail Fine, “The One Over Many” Philosophical Review 89 (1920): 197-240. However these tensions are best resolved, Plato does not waver in his recognition of forms for the virtues, and, on this issue, he fully agrees with Socrates. 20 At the beginning of the Protagoras Plato represents Socrates as skeptical whether virtue is teachable (319a- 320c). This skepticism is likely directed at Protagoras, suggesting that Protagorean relativism undermines Protagoras’s claim to teach virtue. But it might also reflect Socrates’s own skepticism about whether virtue is in fact taught, for reasons we will explore below. But that virtue is not yet taught does not entail that virtue is not teachable. It would be very surprising to see Socrates express skepticism about whether virtue can be taught. 8 knowledge must be articulable in acceptable definitions, then the inability of his interlocutors to provide an acceptable definition shows that they lack the moral knowledge they claim to possess. By itself, this just shows that those particular interlocutors lack moral knowledge and, hence, virtue. It doesn’t show that no one has the relevant knowledge. But since all his interlocutors prove ignorant, we might think that this provides inductive support for the skeptical conclusion that no one possesses moral knowledge and virtue. Moreover, the inductive argument is stronger if it is no accident that moral knowledge is hard to come by. Socrates accepts various constraints on the nature of good definitions and, hence, the forms. These constraints are clearest in Plato’s Euthyphro, but they are also at work in other Socratic dialogues. First, Socrates makes the unity or one over many assumption that there is some one form of F-ness common to the many F-things (5d). Second, Socrates assumes that the form of F must enable anyone, including the person who is not yet F, to identify any and all F-things as F (6e, 9a). We might gloss this as the assumption that the form of F must provide a reliable decision procedure that allows anyone to sort objects into the F and the not-F. Third, the Euthyphro famously insists that even a perfectly reliable decision procedure does not provide an adequate definition, because it must explain why F-things are F or in virtue of what they are F. A good definition must not just supply a reliable correlate or symptom of F-ness, even a perfectly reliable one; it must reveal the nature or essence of F-ness, which explains what makes F-things F (11a). This is what is wrong with Euthyphro’s third definition of piety as what all the goods love. Because the gods love that which is pious because it is pious, it follows that being god-beloved is a correlate or symptom of piety, rather than its essence. And this is why even if Euthyphro’s definition provided a perfectly reliable decision procedure, it would still fail as a definition of piety. These three constraints on acceptable definitions and forms are significant. Moreover, it is not enough that there be such a definition for the virtues or even that one have some sort of implicit or imperfect grasp of it to display virtue. One must be able to articulate a definition that meets all of these constraints in order to have moral knowledge, and, without knowledge of the form of the virtue, one cannot display the virtue. These strong assumptions about forms and definitions and their role in knowledge and in virtue are part of what some people have in mind when they speak of Socratic intellectualism. 21 Socratic intellectualism explains why moral knowledge and, hence, virtue are hard to come by. This explains why moral knowledge is hard to come by, but, importantly, without implying that it is impossible. Is it so hard to come by that it is reasonable to conclude that Socrates thinks that no one has this knowledge and, hence, that no one is virtuous? I think that it is not unreasonable to see this as a plausible Socratic conclusion, for which the failed dialogues provide inductive support. However, further support for this skeptical conclusion comes from Socrates’s own professions of ignorance. In the Apology Socrates tells us that the Oracle at Delphi told Chaerephon that Socrates is the wisest man of all (21a). Socrates reports that he tried to test the wisdom of the Oracle by finding others who appeared more knowledgeable, especially about ethical matters, than he but that he was forced to conclude that they knew even less than he did. If Socrates has any wisdom at all, it must consist in his recognizing his own ignorance (21d). Indeed, Socrates is quite insistent about his ignorance in matters ethical (Apology 19c, 20c-e, 21bd, 33b; Laches 186e, 200c; Gorgias 509a). But these two claims together imply that no one has moral knowledge.

21 Here, I understand the doctrine of Socratic intellectualism to refer to the idea that virtue requires articulable definitions of the virtues that meet these constraints on adequate definitions. But Socratic intellectualism can also refer to other Socratic doctrines. Sometimes, it refers to the thesis that knowledge is sufficient for virtuous action, a doctrine that Socrates endorses in the Apology (25c-26a) and defends in the Protagoras (351b-358e). Sometimes, it refers to the Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge, in particular, knowledge of good and evil, discussed at the end of the Laches (199b-d) and explicitly endorsed in the Protagoras (330a-334a, 349d, 359a- b). 9

1. Socrates is wisest of all on ethical matters (testimony of the Oracle). 2. Socrates does not have knowledge of ethical matters (Socratic ignorance). 3. Hence, no one has knowledge of ethical matters.

Unless Socrates is being insincere in his claim about the Oracle or in his profession of ignorance, he must accept this skeptical conclusion. Of course, Socrates is frequently ironical. So perhaps he is not sincere about the Oracle or his own ignorance. The proper interpretation of Socratic professions of ignorance is a complex topic, which I cannot resolve here. But his disavowals of knowledge are too frequent and emphatic to be dismissed as ironical, or so I shall assume. 22 Moreover, Aristotle associates this disavowal of knowledge with Socrates.

[T]his is why Socrates used ask questions but did not answer them — for he used to confess that he did not know [Topics 183b7-8].23

We have good reason to take seriously the premises of this argument, and the argument is valid. So, there is good reason to say that Socrates is committed to its conclusion. Remember, this is skepticism, not about the possibility of moral knowledge, but about whether anyone actually has it. If there are forms for the virtues but no one actually possesses virtue, because no one has moral knowledge, this seems to imply that the forms of the virtues not only can but do exist uninstantiated.

1. There are forms for the virtues. 2. To have a given virtue, one must have knowledge about the relevant form. 3. To have knowledge of a given form, one must be able specify that form in an acceptable definition. 4. No one is yet able to specify a form of any virtue in an acceptable definition. 5. Hence, no one has knowledge of the forms of the virtues. 6. Hence, no one has any of the virtues. 7. Hence, the forms of the virtues are uninstantiated. 8. Hence, the forms of the virtues are separate, and not just separable.

This line of argument for Socratic separationism deserves to be taken seriously. I do not claim that Socrates explicitly endorsed this line of argument, only that he accepted the premises of the argument. If this is a valid argument, then Socrates is committed to its separationist conclusion, whether he explicitly recognizes this or not.

4. VIRTUOUS ACTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS Perhaps the most surprising conclusion of the separationist argument is the moral skepticism in (6). If we accept the argument for (6), the separationist conclusions in (7) and (8) may not seem so surprising. After all, the idea that the form of justice is uninstantiated doesn’t seem to add much of consequence to the idea that no one is just. It is the skeptical claim that is arresting. But the

22 See, e.g., Irwin, Plato’s Moral Theory, pp. 39-40 and Plato’s Ethics, ch. 2, esp §§9, 17. Cf. Gregory Vlastos, “Socrates’ Disavowal of Knowledge” reprinted in Gregory Vlastos, Socratic Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Also see Gareth Matthews, “The Epistemology and Metaphysics of Socrates” and C.C.W. Taylor, “Plato’s Epistemology” both in The Oxford Handbook of Plato. 23 I take Aristotle to be treating Socratic professions of ignorance as sincere, though one might take Aristotle to be saying only that Socrates frequently professed ignorance without any commitment to the truth or sincerity of these professions. See Lesley Brown, “Revisiting Agreement in Plato” in Virtue, Happiness, and Knowledge: Essays for Gail Fine and Terence Irwin, ed. D. Brink, S. Meyer, and C. Shields (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2018). 10 argument for that conclusion appears valid, and all the independent premises in the argument have good Socratic pedigree, or so I have argued. Nonetheless, we might well question the validity of the argument for the separationist conclusion. In particular, one might doubt that (7) follows from (6). Though the separationist conclusion may be less surprising than the skeptical conclusion, we might still think that we could resist the separationist conclusion, even if we have conceded the skeptical conclusion, if only for the sake of argument. This is because one might think that there could be instantiations of the virtues that were not people or agents. Even if no one is just, some thing might be. The most obvious alternative bearers of virtue would be actions or, in some cases, institutions. So, for instance, one might claim that even if there are no just people, there can nonetheless be just actions or institutions. In “Separation” Fine briefly considers a separationist argument similar in outline to the separationist argument developed above. Her response is to appeal to virtuous actions, rather than virtuous people, to instantiate the forms for the virtues.

Socrates, like Plato, believes that knowledge is necessary for virtue; he also believes (perhaps unlike Plato) that no one has the requisite knowledge. Hence, for Socrates, no one is virtuous. So is not virtue uninstantiated, and so not separate? Against this it might be argued … that even if no one is virtuous, there can none the less be virtuous actions; a nonvirtuous person — a person lacking the knowledge necessary for virtue, for example, can still perform a virtuous action; and virtuous actions instantiate virtue. So even if no one is virtuous, virtue might none the less be instantiated.24

Fine does not argue, as I have, for regarding Socrates as a skeptic about the existence (as opposed to the possibility) of virtue. But she entertains the conclusion of that argument and sees a possible argument from skepticism about the existence of virtuous people to separated forms for the virtues. However, she thinks this inference is invalid, because there would still be virtuous actions without virtuous people. Why should we think that non-virtuous people can perform virtuous actions? Fine doesn’t say. But one explanation would be to identify the virtuous action as the one a virtuous person would perform. This would allow us to recognize actions as virtuous even if there are no virtuous people, provided that there are actions that a virtuous person would perform. Aristotle may seem to hold a view like this. In describing the relationship between virtuous actions and virtuous character in Book II of the Ethics he seems to identify virtuous actions with those a virtuous person would perform.

Hence actions are called just or temperate when they are the sort that a just or temperate person would do. But the just and temperate person is not the one who [merely] does these actions, but the one who does them in the way in which just or temperate people do them [NE II.4, 1105b7-9].25

In fact, Aristotle thinks that this is partly how people become virtuous — by getting in the habit of performing virtuous actions. There is more to becoming virtuous than that. One must learn why the action is virtuous and perform the virtuous action for the right reason, taking pleasure in doing so (1099a17-20, 1104b3-8, 1105a17-b12). But a necessary part of someone who is not virtuous becoming virtuous is performing virtuous actions, those that a virtuous person would perform. Of course, Aristotle is not a moral skeptic; he thinks that there are virtuous people. So, it is less clear whether he would be as comfortable recognizing actions that a non-virtuous person would perform as virtuous if he thought that no one was virtuous. Since Aristotle himself thinks that the

24 Fine, “Separation,” p. 297. 25 Here I rely on Terence Irwin’s translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, 2d ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999). 11 forms are not separate, he might doubt that there is such a thing as what a virtuous person would do if there were no virtuous people. So, the Aristotelian rationale for recognizing virtuous actions or institutions might not apply on the Socratic assumption that there are no virtuous people. If so, the apparent gap in the separationist argument between moral skepticism and separation might close.

5. THE PRIMACY OF CHARACTER Another way of closing the gap in the separationist argument would be to distinguish between virtuous actions and actions conforming to virtue. In his discussion of a good will in the Groundwork Kant distinguishes between actions that conform to duty and those that are performed in the right way from a sense of duty. 26 Only actions that both conform to duty and are performed from a sense of duty display a good will (4: 397). The prudent shopkeeper, who does not cheat his customers because that would be bad for business, conforms to duty but does not display a good will. By contrast, the honest shopkeeper, who refuses to cheat his customers because it would be wrong to do so, displays a good will. Having and displaying a good will is very much like virtue; indeed, it is the closest analog to virtue in Kant’s Groundwork.27 We might say that actions conform to virtue if they are such as would be performed by a virtuous person, but if they are not performed in the way a virtuous person would perform them, then those actions conform to virtue but do not display or manifest virtue. Perhaps Socrates’s position is or should be like Kant’s in this regard. Perhaps he should allow that there are actions that conform to virtue even if there are no virtuous people but deny that that there are any actions that display virtue unless they are performed by a virtuous person guided by the sort of knowledge that a virtuous person has. To say that only actions performed by a virtuous person in the right way would be virtuous is to say that actions that conform to virtue without being performed by a virtuous person in the right way are not truly virtuous but rather some sort of simulacrum of virtue. Since they are not brought into being in the right way, these actions are not genuinely virtuous. Here, the separationist might adapt Aristotle’s concept of homonymy. Homophones are homonymous, rather than synonymous, just in case they have different, though perhaps related, meanings (Categories 1a1-2). 28 For example, Aristotle claims that eyes that are incapable of functioning are eyes only homonymously and that the body of a living person and the body of a dead person are bodies only homonymously (De Anima 412b19-20, 412b20-27). The separationist might say that actions that conform to virtue but are not performed by a virtuous agent for the right reasons are virtuous only homonymously. In the passage in question, Aristotle says only that the actions that a virtuous person would perform are called virtuous, not that they are virtuous. One explanation of his failure to go further and claim that such actions are virtuous is that he thinks actions conforming to virtue but not performed by a virtuous person are virtuous only homonymously. Similar claims would apply to just institutions. They too would be just only homonymously if they were not enacted by virtuous individuals or groups for the right reasons. The claim that genuinely virtuous actions and institutions must be produced by virtuous agents for the right reasons and that actions and institutions that merely conform to virtue are

26 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals [1785], trs. M. Gregor in Practical Philosophy [The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) (Prussian Academy pagination). 27 Kant’s own account of virtue is developed in The Metaphysics of Morals [1797], trs. M. Gregor in Practical Philosophy, especially the Doctrine of Virtue, and The Lectures on Ethics, trs. P. Heath [The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Also see Anne Margaret Baxley, Kant’s Theory of Virtue: The Value of Autocracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 28 Also see Christopher Shields, Order in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). 12 simulacrums of virtue and virtuous only homonymously involves a commitment to the primacy of character.

The Primacy of Character: Actions and institutions are virtuous only insofar as they are the products of a virtuous character.

This thesis about the primacy of character should be distinguished from the kind of primacy of character embraced by virtue-theoretic normative theories. A virtue-theoretic normative theory treats character as the primary normative notion and treats other normative notions, such as the good or the right, as derivative.29 For instance, whereas consequentialist moral theories analyze both duty and virtue in terms of promoting the good and deontological moral theories analyze both the good and virtue in terms of honoring one’s duty, virtue-theoretic moral theories explain duty in terms of doing what a virtuous person would do and goodness in terms of a virtuous life. A virtue-theoretic normative theory both explains other normative notions in terms of virtue and explains virtuous action by appeal to virtuous or admirable character. But a virtue-theoretic normative theory might explain virtuous action counterfactually by appeal to what a virtuous person would do. This would not capture the further causal thesis that actions and institutions are only genuinely virtuous insofar as they are the products of virtuous character. Though primacy of character might well take a virtue- theoretic form, virtue-theoretic normative conceptions need not embrace the primacy of character in my sense. The primacy of character implies this additional causal claim. If Socrates accepts the primacy of character (in this sense), this closes the gap in the separationist argument. For then moral skepticism implies separation.

1. There are forms for the virtues. 2. To have a given virtue, one must have knowledge about the relevant form. 3. To have knowledge of a given form, one must be able specify that form in an acceptable definition. 4. No one is yet able to specify a form of any virtue in an acceptable definition. 5. Hence, no one has knowledge of the forms of the virtues. 6. Hence, no one has any of the virtues. 7. Actions and institutions are virtuous only insofar as they are the products of a virtuous character. 8. Hence, there are no virtuous actions or institutions. 9. Hence, the forms of the virtues are uninstantiated. 10. Hence, the forms of the virtues are separate, and not just separable.

The primacy of character implies that the absence of virtuous people ensures that the virtues are uninstantiated, because actions and institutions that conform to the requirements of virtue are not genuinely, but only homonymously, virtuous and so do not instantiate the virtues. Does Socrates accept the primacy of character? I’m not sure that there are any texts that are decisive on this question. Greek ethics is often taken to be an ethics of virtue that treats the question what sort of life one should live to be central. But the crucial question is not whether Socrates embraces an ethics of virtue, but whether he embraces the idea that actions and institutions are only virtuous insofar as they are the product of a virtuous character. That depends on how Kantian Socrates is and how much he thinks the moral quality of our actions and institutions depend on the moral quality of the reasons and motives that produce them. It might be reflected in the Laches where Socrates claims that there must be some end or goal at which virtue aims and that this end or goal is

29 See, e.g., Gary Watson, “On the Primacy of Character” in Identity, Character, and Morality, ed. O. Flanagan and A. Rorty (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990). 13 some state of the agent’s soul (185b-e). It might also be reflected in the Laches and elsewhere, where Socrates resists behavioral definitions of the virtues in favor of ones that appeal to cognitive and/or affective states of the agent’s soul (e.g. 190e-195a). I am not sure that this is decisive evidence that Socrates endorses the primacy of character. But, as far as I can see, the claim that Socrates is sympathetic with the primacy of character is at least as plausible as its denial. Moreover, the primacy of character is a perfectly plausible philosophical commitment for a virtue theorist.

6. CONCLUSION If Socrates does or should embrace the primacy of character, then this closes the gap in the separationist argument. Socrates’s reasons for accepting the skeptical conclusion that no one is virtuous would be equally good reasons for thinking that the virtues are uninstantiated. We would have a valid argument from Socratic premises to the conclusion that the forms are separate, and not just separable.30 But that would mean that the contrast that Aristotle draws between Socrates and Plato concerning their attitudes toward separation was mistaken, not because Aristotle was mistaken about Plato, but because he was mistaken about Socrates. This wouldn’t force us to reject all of Aristotle’s testimony about the relation between Socrates and Plato and the support it provides for distinguishing between Socratic and Platonic dialogues and a developmental thesis about the relation between Socrates and Plato. But it would draw into question one important element in that testimony.31 Because we can’t say for sure that Socrates accepted the primacy of character, perhaps all we can conclude with confidence is that there is an interesting argument with some Socratic pedigree that Socrates did in fact separate the forms, contrary to Aristotle’s testimony.

30 One might wonder if one could resist the conclusion that the forms of the virtues are uninstantiated by appeal to the virtuous character and actions of the gods. Even if no human is virtuous and no human action is virtuous, perhaps the gods are virtuous and act virtuously. If so, this would prevent the virtues from being uninstantiated. However, it’s clear that Socrates does not think the anthropomorphic conception of the Olympic gods depicted by Homer represents the gods as virtuous. This is something on which Socrates and Euthyphro agree (6a) and that serves as a premise in Socrates’s critique of the voluntarist reading of Euthyphro’s third definition of piety. Whether Socrates himself believes in the gods and, if so, what he believes about them are interesting but vexed questions that exceed the remit of this essay. While remaining agnostic on the answers to these questions, we can nonetheless conclude that these Socratic commitments imply that the virtues are uninstantiated by mortals. This conclusion is interesting and important, whatever Socrates believes about the gods. 31 Skepticism about this part of Aristotle’s testimony about the relation between Socrates and Plato does not require us to agree with Burnet’s extreme claim that Aristotle never understood the teachings of Socrates or Plato. See John Burnet, Platonism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1928), p. 56. 14

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