Irony and Accessibility the Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy: an Interpretation of Plato's Phaedo by Peter J

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Irony and Accessibility The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato's Phaedo by Peter J. Ahrensdorf The War Lover: A Study of Plato's Republic by Leon Harold Craig Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos by Joseph Cropsey Review by: David Roochnik Source: Political Theory, Vol. 25, No. 6 (Dec., 1997), pp. 869-885 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191963 Accessed: 20-08-2014 17:09 UTC

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IRONY AND ACCESSIBILITY

THE DEATH OF SOCRATESAND THE LIFE OF PHILOSOPHY:AN INTERPRETATIONOF PLATO'SPHAEDO by PeterJ. Ahrensdorf.Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1995. 238 + x pp. THE WARLOVER: A STUDY OF PLATO'SREPUBLIC by Leon Harold Craig. Toronto:University of TorontoPress, 1994. 439 + xxxviii pp. PLATO'SWORLD: MAN'S PLACE IN THE COSMOSby Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 227 + x pp.

During the fall semester of 1995, I taught Plato's Republic to a class of freshmen.The next spring,I workedthrough it with graduatestudents. These autobiographicaldetails are worthnoting because even if what they reportis common, it is nonethelessstartling: Plato's greatestdialogue can be success- fully taught both to beginners and to sophisticatedstudents. The Republic, whose philosophicalrichness and complexity are undeniable,is nonetheless uniquely accessible. Althoughbefuddled by, say, the divided line, the beginning student can still read the dialogue with pleasure and profit. With the possible exceptionof sectionsfrom Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the same cannot be said for other philosophicalmasterworks. The severe difficulties of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel's Phenomenology,or Wittgen- stein's Tractatuslie forbiddinglyon the surface.By contrast,the surface of the Republic, as is true of so many Platonicdialogues, is welcoming.1 Plato himself, throughhis characterSocrates, may well addressthe source of this phenomenon.In his famous diatribeagainst writing in the Phaedrus, Socrates says this:

Writing,Phaedrus, has this strangequality, and is very like painting;for the creaturesof paintingstand like living beings, but if one asks them a question,they preservea solemn silence. And so it is with writtenwords (logoi); you might thinkthey spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you questionthem, wishing to know abouttheir sayings, they always

POLITICALTHEORY, Vol. 25 No. 6, December 1997 869-885 ? 1997 Sage Publications,Inc. 869

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say only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written,is bandied aboutalike amongthose who understandand those for whom it is not fittingand it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak. (275d-e)2

As opposed to the "living, breathing"(276a) words of a speakinghuman being who stands before and hence can direct an appropriatelycrafted message to a particularaudience, a writtenwork indiscriminatelyputs forth the same words to every reader. An inference is obvious: since this critique of writing is itself written, Platonicdialogues must have been conceived with an eye to overcomingthis very deficiency. Plato strove, in other words, to make his writing able to discriminateamong its readers(i.e., to know to whom to speak and to whom to be silent).3The dialoguesare multilayered, and this is one reasonwhy they are able to address,for example, both freshmenand graduatestudents. But how exactly do they accomplish this? A widely accepted answer would be Socraticirony. Simply put, Socratesdoes not say exactly what he means. Instead,cognizant of what his interlocutorcan comprehend,Socrates says different things to different people. If the interlocutoris not able to follow a complex line of thinking, then Socrates may address him in an appropriatelycomprehensible manner. To the grief-strickenand manifestly unphilosophicalCrito, for example,Socrates may well withholdhis complex thoughts about the relationshipbetween positive law and justice itself and instead simply encourage his friend to obey the rulings of the Athenians. Socrates may argue thus even if such a straightforwardstatement does not adequatelyexpress his own far more subtle position. If this is the case, and if such ironic withholdingis characteristicof the dialogues themselves, then a possible answer(or at least the beginningof one) would be suppliedto the question of how a philosophical work as the Republic becomes uniquely accessible. Probablyno moderncommentator has made irony and the multiplelayers of Platonic writing more central to a reading of the dialogues than Leo Strauss.In The Cityand Man, he begins his well-knownchapter, "On Plato's Republic,"with an analysis of Phaedrus 275 and concludes, "The Platonic dialogue, if properlyread, reveals itself to possess the flexibility or adapt- ability of oral communication."The dialogue, Strauss continues, "says differentthings to differentpeople-not accidentally,as every writingdoes, but thatit is so contrivedas to say differentthings to differentpeople, or that it is radicallyironical." From this, Straussinfers that "the properwork of a writingis trulyto talk, or to reveal the truth,to some while leading othersto salutoryopinions."4

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The political corollary of such a hermeneuticalposition is readily forth- coming: "Ironyis essentially relatedto the fact that there is a naturalorder of rank among men."5There are those few capable of understandingphilo- sophical difficulties and those many who do better with less than the truth (i.e., with "salutoryopinions"). Freshmen with no inclinationto advance in philosophy may leave a readingof the Crito with the superficialimpression that all forms of civil disobedienceare simply bad. They are therebyencour- aged to obey the law. By contrast,the advancedstudent should be urged to explore what appearsto be a contradictionlying just beneaththe surface of the dialogue.After all, at 46b Socratessays thathe is a manwho obeys nothing but reason. Why, then, does he also say one should always obey the law? Crito does not ask what the properresponse is to a law thatis not reasonable. The elitism implicit in Strauss'shermeneutic presupposes a radical gulf between those capableof miningfor the truthand those in need of superficial opinion. The true teaching of the dialogue is hidden from those who would neitherunderstand nor benefit from it (and who, for reasons to be discussed shortly, would, if exposed to the philosophicalteaching, bring harm to the philosophers). The three books here underreview follow Strauss'slead, for each distin- guishes between a surfaceteaching and a hiddenor buried,a more genuinely Platonic,depth. While each is in its own way helpful, all are finally deficient, and this is precisely because they misconstruethe meaning of the surface- depthrelationship in a Platonicdialogue. These authorsdenigrate the surface by treating it as a philosophically insignificant facade. They disconnect surface from depth and thereby disrupt the structuralcontinuity that, I propose, is the dialogues' most notable achievement. In the course of discussing these books, I offer a proposal that aims to preserve the integrity of the dialogues' surface. Far from being superficial cant, and as opposed to being a screen or a disguise, the surface must be respected as a significant dimension of the philosophical content of the dialogue itself. I do not imply that the Platonic dialogues have no depths to be mined or that,ultimately, such depthsare accessible only to a few. Instead, I hold that the surface of the dialogue is a phenomenon that must be philosophicallypreserved. Even if the surfaceis transfiguredas the result of a philosophicalinterpretation of the dialogueas a whole, such transfiguration must be conceived as anAufhebung, a dialecticalsublation that does not only simply negate but also preserveswhat is being negatedby elevating it. My proposal also has a political correlate.The sensibility suggested by what I offer should perhapsbe describedas more "liberal"or "democratic"

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than that implicit in the books here underreview, for I insist that beginning readers, ordinarycitizens, must be invited to read furtherand to enter the projectof philosophy.In otherwords, the commentatormust assume thatthe superficialreader can be taught,and such teachingshould begin with a clear articulationof the surface.This surfacedepicts characters, deeds, places, and times, as well as arguments,jokes, and myths, and these depictions are, in the annals of Westernphilosophy at least, uniquely accessible. The surface is where all readers,and hence all thinking,begin. While Socrates'sstatement in the Republicthat "the beginning (arche) is the most importantpart of every work"(377a)6 itself requiresinterpretation, it nonethelessshould remindus whence we, as readers,originated, and to where, ultimately,we must return. The wide varietyof surfacephenomena of Plato's dialogues-everything from the explicit argumentsto the myths-have a "facevalue," and while the face is but the exteriorof a humanbeing, it remains,even when the interior is probed,what we look at and what looks back at us. Even when we know someone exceptionally well, even if we are able to see throughthem, we cannot overlook, nor should we fail to be guided by, the face. The face, in otherwords, is not a mask,and so it cannotbe discarded.To a greateror lesser degree, the three books here underreview treatthe surfaceof the dialogues precisely as a mask, and theirdoing so is the crux of my objections.7

PeterAhrensdorf's book on the Phaedo is, almostparadoxically, straightforward in its explication of the irony in Plato's dialogues. "Socrates," Ahrensdorfannounces, "was a supremelyironic man" (p. 4). Reiteratinga theme familiarto readersof Leo Strauss,he says, "Socraticspeech ... is, in a very precise sense, double talk;it seeks to lead those who areable to benefit from the truthto grasp the truth,and it seeks to lead those who are not able to benefit from the truthto embraceopinions which, while perhapsnot true, may nonetheless be beneficial to them" (p. 6). And what sort of untrue opinionsbenefit those unableto readcarefully? Religious ones. Ahrensdorf's thesis is that averagecitizens need religion to secure meaningand a foundation for their moral and political worldview.Intelligent philosophers suffer no similarneed. As a result,average citizens are threatenedby philosophical atheism, and careful philosophersprudently hide their deepest views from the ignoranteyes of the vulgar. Ahrensdorfbegins with a short chapterthat attemptsto provide histori- cal evidence that the situationjust described obtained in classical Athens.

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Unfortunately,as a historian,he is far from compelling. Consider,for example, the following: "TheGreeks claimed to derive theirmoral codes and their laws from the Gods" (p. 11). What Greeks?The ones depicted in Homer's Iliad? The ones who listened to Solon? The audience of Aeschylus's Or- esteia? And did all these Greeks really share the views of those in fourth- centuryAthens who read Plato? Ahrensdorfcontinues: "The conviction that gods exist-and, specifically, that gods who rewardthe righteousand punish the wicked exist-was, in the Greeks' view, the foundation not only of their religious life, but of their political, moral and family life as well. Accordingly, they regarded any challenge to that fundamentalconviction as an intolerablechallenge to their whole way of life" (p. 15). Again, this broadstatement is worrisome.For if it is correct, then surely the "Greeks"must have regardedthe Iliad, whose gods rarely appear just and whose most righteous hero, Hektor, surely deserved betterthan he got, as positively blasphemous. In any case, Ahrensdorf begins with the premise that "the religious persecutionof the philosophersposed a grave threatto the very survival of philosophy in ancient Greece. The threat of imprisonment,exile, or even execution hung over theirheads at all times"(p. 13). Withoutagain worrying aboutwhether Ahrensdorf is justified in assertingthat "ancient" philosophers "at all times" were plagued by the threatof persecution,I simply note that this notion is basic to much of Strauss's own work. In his early book, Persecution and the Art of Writing,Strauss, taking his bearingslargely from the Jewish and Islamic medieval tradition,claims that "philosophyand the philosopherswere in gravedanger."8 This is becausephilosophers necessarily challenge religious doctrine that, in stark contrast, the vulgar desperately need. If fully broughtto light, the intellectualassault on traditionalreligion would redoundto the profounddetriment of the philosophers.Knowing this, when philosophers speak about, for example, the immortalityof the soul, their writings "mustbe regardedas accommodationsto the acceptedview." In other words, "The exoteric"-or surface-"teaching was needed for protectingphilosophy."9 In a similarvein, Ahrensdorfargues that the Phaedo, Plato's most overtly religious dialogue, is essentially two-layered. On the surface, Socrates at- tempts to demonstratethat the soul is immortal and that good people are rewardedin the next life. In its depths,however, the Phaedo actuallyteaches the radical finitude of human life and the irrationalityof expecting divine rewardafter death. Ahrensdorfproceeds methodically,and often helpfully, through the entire dialogue to argue his thesis. A basic syntacticalrhythm informs his writing throughout.After presenting an initial analysis of the surface of the text, Ahrensdorffrequently begins a sentence with a phrase

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 874 POLITICALTHEORY / December 1997 such as, "Whenwe look more closely at what Simmias says, here, however ..." (p. 84), or "Yet upon closer examination . . ." (p. 156). He regularly commutesbetween the superficiallypious level of the dialogueand its deeply atheistic one. Consider, for example, his treatmentof what is frequentlytermed "the affinity argument."Socrates divides "beings"(ta onta) into two forms (eide: 79a6): the visible and changeable multiplicity of sensible particularsand invisible, changeless entities such as "theequal itself, beautyitself and each thing itself which is" (78d3).'0 Since the soul through its ability to think apprehendsthe latter,it is more like the latter;since the body is responsible for sensation, it is more like the former (79e). Furthermore,"nature" has dictated that the soul rule the body. Since ruling is a divine activity, once again the soul must be counted like the divine and imperishable(80a). Therefore,Socrates concludes, "it is fitting for the body to dissolve quickly and for the soul to be entirelyindissoluble or to be nearlyso" (80b). As Ahrensdorfnicely shows, thereare problemsin this argumentthat go beyond its obvious logical weakness. Specifically, "inasmuchas immortal beings are incorporeal,how could they affect, and hence rule over, mortal beings? And inasmuchas immortalbeing are always the same, how could they adapttheir rule to the changingneeds and circumstancesof theirmoral subjects"(p. 97). In other words, in addition to moving illicitly from one degree of similarityto another,"the argumentseems to suggest that, given the natureof the soul... it cannotbe immortal,and that given the unchanging and incorporealnature of the immortalgods, they cannot rule over us and hence cannot grant us . .. immortality" (p. 99). The proof, according to Ahrensdorf,suggests preciselythe oppositeof what it seems, on the surface, to show. As such, Ahrensdorf'sSocrates deceives his friends,albeit with their benefit in mind. "By claiming to believe in the immortalityof the individual soul, [Socrates] deliberatelyencourages them to embrace a belief and to cherish hopes which he himself regardedas false" (p. 200). Socrates's friends, like "ancientphilosophers" at "all times," fear both persecutionas well as death. (Are they, and Socrates,thus cowards?)Con- vincing them that the soul is immortalassuages both fears. Similarly,and more significantly,Plato deceived his readersinto thinkingthe philosopher to be a pious believer in divine justice and the afterlife. He practiced a pragmaticrhetoric designed to protectphilosophy from the fury of the vulgar. And, accordingto Ahrensdorf,his strategyworked. Reviewing briefly a few historicalsources (and never wondering how reliablethey are or whetherany might themselves be ironic), Ahrensdorf,after citing approvinglyPlutarch's Nicias (chap. 23) states that "it was Plato . . . who brought about this remarkable improvement in the status of philosophy" (p. 203). Plato,

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"throughhis portrayalof Socratesas a pious man ... removedthe chargeof impiety againstthe philosophersas a whole" (p. 203). Once again, this is a theme familiarto readersof Strauss.For example, Straussalso comments on Plutarch'sNicias (chap. 23):

In what then does philosophicpolitics consist?In satisfyingthe city thatthe philosophers are not atheists,that they do not desecrateeverything sacred to the city.... This defense of philosophy before the tribunalof the city was achieved by Plato with a resounding success.

The strengthof Ahrensdorf'scommentary is that, in its straightforward explication, it regularlycommutes between the surface and the depth, even if only to show the unphilosophicalnature of the formerand to delegate to it the pedestriantask of protectingthe philosopher.Real philosophizing, for Ahrensdorf,takes place only in the hiddendepths, far from the conventional concerns of ordinarymen.

It is from these depths that Joseph Cropsey seems to speak. Unlike Ahrensdorf'spatient and methodicalattempt to demonstratethe philosophical vacuity of the surface, Cropsey's writing is economical to the extreme, and while at times eloquent and provocative,it is also laced with contempt. For example, in explaining why he does not cite a single commentator, Cropsey says, "I have been unableto benefit from scholarshipon the precise subjectof this volume"(p. x). Presumably,all othercommentators have been far too superficial for Cropsey. But what exactly is Cropsey's "precise subject"?He describes it as the "unbrokendramatic sequence" of dialogues depicting the last days of Socrates's life: Theaetetus,Euthyphro, Cratylus, Sophist,Statesman, Apology of Socrates, Crito,and Phaedo. These dialogues offer "anevident unity and thus a truehermeneutic object" (p. ix).12 There are problems. First, immediatelyafter announcingthis unbroken unity,Cropsey violates it. His first chapterconsists of a previouslypublished article on the Protagoras, a dialogue with no dramaticlink to the others.His justificationis "theheavy involvementof a numberof the dialogues with the teaching of Protagoras"(p. x). In other words, Cropsey'sjustification relies on thematic connections. This is puzzling because if thematic connection between dialoguesis the properbasis for establishinga "hermeneuticobject," then why would the Republicbe excluded from any discussion of Socrates? Note also why Cropsey does not treatthe Cratylus:"Because the reference

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 876 POLITICALTHEORY / December 1997 of the natureof speech to the existence of the things in themselves [i.e., the subject of the Cratylus]raises questions that are sufficiently attendedto in the othertexts" (p. x). Does this imply thatthe Cratylusis a merelyredundant work with no contributionof its own to make? Furthermore,the theme Cropsey attributesto the Cratylus-namely, the relationshipbetween the natureof speech and things in themselves-is crucialto an understandingof Protagoras.In other words, Cropsey'sreasons for includingthe Protagoras and excluding the Cratylusare, strangely,the same. In any case, farfrom having a "precisesubject," Cropsey, in his 225 pages, treats an appended version of the dramatic account of the last days of Socrates. And, remarkably,Cropsey has found not a single commentator whose work could aid his own "searchfor the meaning" (p. x) of these dialogues. Cropsey says this: "In making this inquiryI resolved to begin from the beginning and to take account, almost without exception, only of what appearsin the texts" (p. 2). But to what beginningdoes he refer?Again, the Protagoras,the subjectof chapter1, is an appendageand not a truebeginning. As I show below, when he comes to the Phaedo, Cropseyalso fails to begin at the beginning.Finally, it is far from clear what text Cropseyaccounts for. As is inevitable in a short book with a large agenda,huge swaths of text go unmentioned.At times, Cropsey seems to be paraphrasing,but of course in doing so he invariablyleaves muchout. Cropseynever explains why. Perhaps this is because he wishes to place the burdenon the readerto discover his principleof exclusion. Another example of Cropsey's apparentcontempt for the "superficial" issues is his lack of comment on philological questions. For example, in discussingPhaedo 75d2 (on his page 191) he cites what,according to Burnet, is Iamblichus'semendation of the manuscript.Perhaps he is rightto do so, but surelysome justification is warranted.Unfortunately, Cropsey provides none. If Ahrensdorf'scharacteristic linguistic turn is a phrasesuch as "yet upon closer examination,"in Cropseyit is his use of "we."For example:"We who read are sensitive to Socrates'proviso ..." (p. 201), or "Wewho readare left to suppose . . ." (p. 204). A striking example is found during Cropsey's treatmentof "recollection"in the Phaedo. The contextis this:how did human beings attainknowledge of items such as "the equal itself' (74al 1)? Sense perceptiononly provides access to the many equal things, such as sticks or stones, and these appearsometimes equal and sometimes not (74b8).13By contrast,equality never appearsto be inequality(74c4). Throughoutone's life, one is made awareof sensible equals, as well as the fact thatnot only do these equals "fallshort of' (endei:74d6) the equal itself but that(amazingly) they "wish"(bouletai: 74b10) and "strive"(oregetai: 74a2, 75bl) to be like

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEWESSAY 877 the equal itself. In other words, ordinary experience discloses that the standardsby which sensible things are measuredare not themselves resident in the sensible world. Measuringtwo sticks of (approximately)equal length, the measurer calls on "the equal itself." However, sensation is not itself capable of supplying us with knowledge of the equal itself.

Therefore,before we began to see and hear and to sense in other ways, we had to have gotten knowledge of the equal itself, what it is, if we were going to refer the sensible equals to that and realize that all such [sensible] things are eager to be such as that [the equal itself] and that they are inferiorto it. (75b4-8)

Since humanlife as such is characterizedby sensation(75b 10), knowledge of the equal itself must have been gotten before birth(75c). This conclusion applies not only to knowledge of the equal itself but to

the beautifulitself and the good itself and the just and the holy and,just as I was saying, abouteverything on which we stampthe seal the "verything which is" (to "autoho esti") in the questions we ask and the answerswe offer" (75cl 1-d3).

This passage is difficult both philosophically and philologically. The phrase to "auto ho esti," which I translateas "the 'very thing which is,' " is Burnet'semendation of whatappears in the manuscriptsas toutoho esti ("this thing which is"). Iamblichushas simply to ho esti ("the what it is"). This textual debate is covered in Burnet'snotes, and the details of the Greek are not relevanthere. The interestingquestion is, Whatdoes "stampwith the seal of being" mean?Cropsey formulates two options:"what Socrates means ... is certifying or confirmingby discoursethat the things themselves do exist. The alternativemeaning is thatwe, in philosophizing,impress or impose their being on such things as the beautiful and the just in their abstractionfrom perceived things"(p. 191). Here Cropsey slips in his "we":"Regrettably, no one in the company questions Socrates about the meaning of the arresting locution, and we are thus left in doubt"(p. 191). But why must "we"be left in doubt?Why don't "we"instead pursue the question, What is the ontological status of entities like the equal or beauty itself? Is their reality subjectiveand derivativefrom some humanactivity- that is, is it like a seal that is produced by the stamp (itself a human artifact)-or is it objective and independent-that is, is the equal itself an already existent reality that merely needs to be discovered and articulated? Cropsey is right that Socratesdoes not providethe answer on the surfaceof the dialogue. But surely Plato offers readers some tracks to follow, and Socrates's silence is meant to invite philosophicalreflection. Unfortunately, this is an invitationCropsey never accepts.

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Phrases like "the equal itself," which employ the intensive pronoun (itself), are far morecommon in the Phaedo thanthe familiarPlatonic words form or idea. Indeed, Plato foreshadows the importanceof the intensive pronounin the openingline of the dialogue.Echechrates asks Phaedo,"Were you yourself with Socrateson that day when he drankthe poison in prison, or did you hear it from someone else?" (57a). In fact, the first word of the dialogue is the intensivepronoun itself: Autos. In asking,Were you yourself there?,Echecrates asks, Wereyou really,actually, there? Do you really know what you are talking about, or is your description of Socrates's death mediatedby someone else's report?Echecrates wants firsthandknowledge; he wants the real thing. His wanting this prefigures precisely what it is philosopherswant. Having realized that two sticks are not exactly equal in length, the philosopheris impelled to strive for direct access to what really is equal.The philosophertoo wantsthe realthing, that which cannot be sensed but nonethelesssomehow structureswhat can be sensed;that which does not change, but in which changeablethings somehow participate.These entities that are coupled with the intensivepronoun-the equal itself, beautyitself- thus offer us some intimation,however fleeting and even metaphorical,of the immortalityof the soul, which Socratestalks aboutat such length in the body of this dialogue. Again, however, the ontological status of what is named by phraseslike "the equal itself' is not obvious, and the reader should ask whether such entities have an objective existence independentof human cognition or whetherhuman beings somehow impose or even constructthem throughthe use of abstract nouns coupled with intensive pronouns. In this context, considerSocrates's use of the verboregetai, "strive,reach for, graspat, yearn for."He tells us thatimperfectly equal things like sticks and stones "yearnto be like the equal, but fall short"(75a). But how can sticks and stones yearn for anything?Earlier in the dialogue, Socratesused the same verbto describe the philosopheras one who "yearnsfor being"(65c).14 In otherwords, at 75a the verb associated(at 65c) with the subjectivedisposition of the philosopher is appliedto objects. Does Socratesanthropomorphize? Does he projecthis subjective state onto putativelynonhuman objects? The readeris invited to wonder about the status of these "itselfs"that informour experience. The dialogue, on its surface, invites the reader to ask questions. But Cropsey'sresponse is, "we are left in doubt."In fact, however,not all of"us" are left in doubt,at least not by Plato. Instead,we are left in wonder,the sure provocation for philosophical reflection. Cropsey seems not to find the dialogues wonderful, for he neither pursues philosophical questions nor invites his readers to do the same. Perhaps this is because he ultimately believes that philosophy is pointless.15 Referring to (but not explaining)

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Phaedo 60d-61a, where Socrates tells Cebes that he has been composing poetry in prison, Cropsey says, "[Socrates]dies as a poet because a philosopher must be a poet" (p. 2). Why "must"this be? PerhapsCropsey believes that the argumentsand clues and provocationsfound on the surface of the dialogue are simply too superficialto pursue. Perhapshe believes that the depths can only be satisfactorilyexpressed through some version of elegiac poetry. If so, then he is, as I believe, either simply wrong or, if he is right, then Plato is not worth studying in the first place.

III

Leon Craig also seems to believe that the depths of a Platonic dialogue can only be reachedthrough poetry. He signals ratherthan states this view. Four examples: first, his title, The WarLover, is based on a phrasethat "for some strangereason ... is never utteredin this dialogue"(p. 58). Second, his epigraph, a few lines from Alexandre Kojeve (reiteratinga now familiar theme), is arrangedtypographically to look like a poem:

But here is the difficulty: the numberof people who read Plato is limited; and the numberwho understandhim is still more limited.

Third, after a twenty-five-page prologue on how to read a Platonic dialogue, Craig begins chapter 1 with an eleven-page summary of the Republic in which he uses the literal meaning of Greek propernames. As a result, we find phraseslike "Bold Fighter [Thrasymachus]presents his own laconic definition . . ." and "Gleaming [Glaucon] . . . challenges Sure Strength[Socrates]" (p. 5). With no justificationof its interpretivevalue, this philological maneuver is difficult to take seriously. Craig begins with a surfacephenomenon, the etymology of names,and seems to suggest thatthey containa deepermeaning. He does not, however,solidify this suggestionwith argument.In this instance at least, his conception of the depths is far too superficial. A fourthexample: Craig's footnotes, which accountfor 133 of his nearly 500 pages, functionas a voluminoussubtext. These massive notes (one, note 17 to the Prologue, is itself sixteen pages long) travel far indeed from the Republic and touch on a wide variety of subjects in political philosophy as well as literature.How exactly these extraordinarydigressions contribute to an understandingof the Republicis not obvious. Perhapsthey are meant to constitute a teaching accessible only to those readerswith the wherewithal

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 880 POLITICALTHEORY / December 1997 to trouble themselves with a text strategicallyburied below the body of the book itself. As he states in one of these footnotes (p. 306), Craig takes Plato to practicea numerologicalesotericism in which the numberseven is crucial. On any list of seven, for example, the fourthor centralitem holds pride of place. Sure enough, the fourthof Craig's seven chapters-each of which is named after a famous novel (anotherunexplained literary gesture)-is omi- nously titled "Heartof Darkness"and containsthe book's centralthesis. Its topic is what Craig takes to be the animating,albeit hidden, issue of the Republic, namely "spirit"(thumos). This word, Craig tells us, is found only thirteentimes in the dialogue,but Plato uses its cognate,thumoeides, "exactly twenty-eight(i.e., 4 x 7) times"(p. 96). (By contrast,thumos occurs "49, or 7 x 7, times" in the Laws.)16 Craig'sthesis is thatspirit is "themost crucialpart" (p. 109) of the human soul, which in turn is describedas "this perplexing,perplexable thing each of us is, and hence intimatelyfamiliar with, while understandingit hardlyat all" (p. 85). Spiritis the source of anger,of righteousindignation, and of the desire for victory; it is what characterizesSocrates's primaryinterlocutor, Glaucon (548d). In the "tripartitepsychology" offered in Book IV, it is treated,along with desire andreason, as one of threedistinct parts of the soul. The argumentthat secures spirit as a distinctpart of the soul is, however, problematic.Its first step is taken duringthe famous analogy between city and soul. When "Glauconand the othersbegged" Socrates "to seek out what each [justice and injustice]is," Socrates,acting from his own sense of piety, agrees. To find out whatjustice is, a just city must be createdfor, Socrates says, it would be too difficult to see justice in the individual.To explain, he offers an analogy with seeing letters. If someone orderedus to read small letters from afar,they would be too hardto see. It would thus be a godsend if they could be "biggerand in a bigger place," for then they could be read (368b-d). This analogy makes two assumptions:(1) the city and soul are both like the alphabet(i.e., are wholes composed of discrete elements or parts), and (2) the city and soul are isomorphic.Socrates invites us to question (2) when he adds, "if they do happento be the same" (368d). This possibility should trigger questions about (1) as well: even if the city is like "letters"(by, for example, having a tripartiteclass system), it is at least questionablewhether the soul-which, after all, is not a materialor extended thing-is a whole with parts(i.e., is isomorphicallyletterlike). Socrates suggests as much when he poses the question,Do we act with threeseparate parts of the soul or with the soul as whole (436a)? One clue favoringthe latteris the mannerin which Socratesjustifies the two assumptionscited above: they make, he says, the task at hand "easier"

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(368e7, 369a9, 370a6, 370c4). The tripartitepsychology is invokedto further the city-soul-letteranalogy, which itself is invoked to facilitate the task of finding justice and demonstratingto Glaucon its comprehensivesuperiority to injustice. The artificialityof the tripartitepsychology is apparentin the account of desire found in Book IV. Socrates exemplifies desire with thirst. He insists that for the purposeof his argument,thirst should be consideredas having a single object only, namely, drink (ratherthan a good drink:438a). For this reason, andbecause it is manifestlypossible for a personboth to want a drink and to resist drinking(on the groundsthat it is not good to do so), andbecause the principleof noncontradictionis said to hold (436b), theremust be a second part of the soul that is responsiblefor the agent's resisting the drink.This is "calculation"(439d). For all its problems,this passage at least takes the form of an argument. But when commencing his discussion of "spirit,"Socrates abruptlyshifts strategy:instead of arguing,he tells a story-"I once heardsomething that I trust"(439e), he says. He tell the tale of Leontius.One day,this man was (like Socrates) "going up from the Piraeus ... when he noticed corpses lying by the public executioner. He desired to look, but at the same time he was disgusted"(439e). Leontiuscould not restrainhis desire, he did look, butthen he railed at his eyes, "Look,you damnedwretches" (440a). His angerhas its origin in spirit, which when functioningproperly is the ally of reason in the war against desire. Whatmakes this story so strange(in additionto the simple fact of its being a story) is the kind of desire Socratesuses to illustratespirit: Leontius desires to see (idein epithumoi:439e9). But why did Leontius want to see corpses? Curiosity? Morbid fascination?A desire for perverse titillation?Whatever the answer,the desire to see is akin to the desire to know. To see a corpse is to stare at death, witness its motionless domain, and to learnits look. Recall that the philosopheris later describedby Socrates throughthe metaphorof seeing; he is "a lover of the sight of truth"(475e; compare533a5). Implicitly, then, the Leontius story suggests the collapse, ratherthan the separation,of the parts of the psyche. The tripartitescheme is underminedeven as it is broached. Craig elaboratesseveral of these points, at times insightfully (see pp. 18, 97, 101). What he does not offer is an explicationof this story as an element in what I would term the dialectical ascent of the Republic.For example, as its implicit underminingsuggests, the tripartitepsychology of Book IV may well be provisionaland be laterrevised and supersededby what is offered in Book IX. Here (58 la-b), the sharpdistinction between the threeparts of the soul-now renamedas the honorloving, the money loving, and the wisdom

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 882 POLITICALTHEORY / December 1997 loving-is mitigatedby the descriptionof all three as "loving."Love, and not spirit,operates as the unifyingthread holding the humanpsyche together. Craig understandsthe major role love plays in the Republic, which he signals by affiliatingit with spirit.(See chapter3, titled "Sons and Lovers.") But, again, what he does not do is methodically explicate the dialogue's treatmentof eros. This is a majorweakness in his commentary,for eros, in my view,17 can best guide the reader through the immense complexities of the dialectical ascent that is the Republic.To mention only a few points: a majorconcern of the city in speech is control of eros. Specifically,all facets of sexual intercourse-partners,frequency, the time of life duringwhich it is allowed-would be strictlymonitored (461a). This theme of the control, or repressionof eros, is foreshadowedas early as 329c, when Cephalusquotes Sophocles's expressionof delight in old age as an escape from the "frenzied and savage master"that is eros. The notion of eros as master or tyrant reappearsmuch later during the discussion of tyranny,where it is reported that "love has from old been called a tyrant"(573b). The implicit problem, of course, is thatphilosophy, as its etymology immediatelysuggests, is itself an erotic activity. Socrates makes this clear when he takes up the following challenge presentedto him by Glaucon. After hearingthe particularsof the "thirdwave" (andrecall thatthe Greek for "wave"is kuma,which comes from the verb "to swell" and also means "fetus")-that is, the proposalthat philosophersmust be kings-Glaucon is aghastand demands that Socrates offer a defense. To do so, Socratesexplains who the philosopheris. And to do this, he turnsto eros. "Do you remember," he asks Glaucon, "thatwhen we say a man loves something,it is rightly said of him, he must . . . cherish all of it?" (474c). A philosopher, Socrates continues, is a "desirerof wisdom," (475b), a "lover of the sight of truth" (475e), andphilosophical natures "are always in love with thatlearning which discloses to them somethingof the being thatis always and does not wander about, driven by generation and decay" (485b). The philosopher "goes forwardand does not lose the keenness of his passionatelove ... before he grasps the natureitself of each thing which is" (490b). In short,a readingof the Republicthat takes its bearingsfrom the surface generates a problem. The city in speech, the apparentlyperfectly just city, requiresthe severe repressionof eros. But philosophyitself, as is repeatedly statedon the surfaceof the text, is an erotic activity.18(Erotic too is the Idea of the Good: after all, it gives birthto the sun "in a proportionwith itself' [508b]). Carefulattention to the surfacethus generatesa question:Why are these two strandsor themes (i.e., the positive and negative evaluations of eros) in apparenttension throughoutthe dialogue as a whole? This question, I believe, is the key to the entiredialogue, for the Republicis not a systematic

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions REVIEWESSAY 883 deductionbut a dialogue.As a result,its essentialdynamic is thatof dialectical revision and development.To returnto my earlierexample, what is proposed as a psychology in Book IV, the radicaldisjunction of the three partsof the soul, may well serve a dialectical purpose at that stage of the dialogue. On furtherreflection, however, it requiresrevision, and this it receives by Book IX, where, as mentionedabove, the severity of the distinctionis mitigatedby the unifying threadof each partloving something.So while it is indeed true that the tripartitepsychology of Book IV, one of the most famous surface teachingsof the Republic,is negatedin the courseof the dialogue,its negation is akin to a Hegelian Aufhebung.The surfaceteaching is not junked;even if it is revised, and in this sense elevated, it is nonetheless still preservedas a moment in the dialectic. The surface of a Platonicdialogue is a dimension of the whole work and so must be taken into serious account by a philosophical reader. In an importantsense, the Phaedo, for example, is in fact about what it seems to be about-namely, the immortalityof the soul. Although Socrates fails to prove personal immortality,he may nonetheless have demonstrated,in his account of "recollection,"that humanbeings have some cognitive access to thatwhich is beyond the changeableflux of sensible life. Entities(or are they merely words or concepts?) like "the equal itself' somehow inform our experience,and a life devotedto theirstudy (and to an examinationof whether they are entities or mere words or concepts)is a "preparationfor death."This is to say that the philosophicallife aims beyond itself for that which, unlike life itself, is formal and stable. Another example: the Phaedo, just as it seems to, does indeed present a kind of body-soul dualism. This dualism is not, however, of the radical or metaphysicalsort that divides the two as entirelydistinct kinds of substances. Instead(or so I would argue),the dualismlatent in the Phaedo is a far more "phenomenological"one. In the course of ordinaryhuman consciousness- when, for example, someone turns in on himself to concentratehard on a question (as Socratesseems [phainetai:84c3] to do)-the soul experiences, albeitfleetingly, a kindof independence.The thinkerturns away from sensory input, collects his thoughts, directs them hard toward the question, and thereby"uses pure thinking(dianoia) itself in relationto itself' (66al-2). This "itself' talk animatesSocrates's description of philosophy as "puri- fication" and as the practice for death and dying. Such language may well generate the impressionof a soul destined to spend a disembodiedeternity in Hades. While such an impressiondoes no justice to the fullness of Plato's thinking,it is not simply wrong.As Ahrensdorfrightly shows, the arguments of the Phaedo fail to prove personalimmortality. But this does not mean they are to be philosophicallyjunked as mere disguise or political protectionfor

This content downloaded from 128.197.26.12 on Wed, 20 Aug 2014 17:09:55 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 884 POLITICALTHEORY / December 1997 the philosopher.The Phaedo does demonstratethat the soul is immortal:not literally immortal,to be sure, but immortalin the sense thatthe soul, when it itself turns to itself (i.e., when it thinks hard) can make contact with those entities (the "itselfs")that are beyond the flux of mortal existence. This, I would argue,is the true natureof Platonicdualism. My account of the surfaceof a Platonicdialogue has, like the interpreta- tions here under review, a political correlate.Beginning readers, like the surfaceitself, are to be takenseriously and treatedwith respect.My proposal is thus more "democratic,"more "liberal,"than that entailed by the radically ironic reading of Ahrensdorfor the poetic excess of Cropsey and Craig. Beginning readers, ordinarycitizens, are to be invited to read and, more important,to rereadthe dialogues. Responsible commentatorsmust make this invitationclear. In doing so, they will mimic Socrateshimself: after all, he hauntedthe agora and was willing to talk with "bothyoung and old ... foreignerand citizen" (Apology, 30a). (And, as we know fromthe Symposium and the Menexenus,with both men and women.) Of course, Socrates not only invites but also exhorts and rebukes his interlocutorsfor not thinkingcarefully enough. So too must the commentator urgereaders to rethinktheir superficial impressions and integrate them within a comprehensiveanalysis of the dialogue as a whole. But superficialimpres- sions, like the surfacesthat generatethem, are the beginning.To use one of Plato's own metaphors,they arethe tracksto be followed in the huntfor being andtruth. Perhaps most readerswill not have the staminato pursuethe quarry far enough. Still, the natureof the dialogues' constructionmakes it unmis- takablethat Plato wantedthem to try. If the political correlateof the hermeneuticstance I proposeis democratic or liberal,then its stylistic correlateis clarity.This is not to imply that a final interpretationof a Platonic dialogue gleams with mathematicalprecision. Instead,it is to insist thata set of questionsgenerated through the "wonderful" provocations located on the surface of the text be methodically tracked. Questions are not the same as (Cropseyian)doubts, nor need they reflect an abject confusion that requirespoetry for solace. Even if their answers are terribly elusive, the structureand genesis of even the most complicated questions can be articulatedclearly. Showing that this is so is, I believe, the primary task of the teacher. Insofar as one might hope to learn from a commentary,so too does this task belong to the philosophicalcommentator.

-David Roochnik Boston University

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NOTES

1. It is of course true that several of Plato's dialogues (the Parmenides,for example) are as forbidding as any other great philosophical work. Such dialogues present interpretive problems of their own that I cannot considerhere. 2. The translationis that of H. Fowler in the Loeb edition (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 3. The most comprehensivetreatment of these themes raisedby the Phaedruscan be found in Charles Griswold's Self-Knowledgein Plato's Phaedrus(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986). 4. Leo Strauss,The City and Man (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1978), 53-54. 5. Ibid., 51. 6. I follow the translationof Allan Bloom (New York:Basic Books, 1969). 7. The notion of the mask plays a significant role in Nietzsche's thinking. His god, Dionysus, was after all the god of the mask. In a sense, therefore,my criticism of Straussand his followers is precisely, and surprisingly,that they are too Nietzschean. This is a point noted by StanleyRosen, in his Hermeneuticsas Politics (Oxford,UK: OxfordUniversity Press, 1987), 124. 8. Leo Strauss,Persecution and the Art of Writing(Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952), 17. 9. Ibid., 15, 18. 10. Translationsare my own. The Greektext is thatofJ. Buret, Platonis Opera(New York: Oxford University Press, 1967). 11. Leo Strauss,On Tyranny(Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1975), 220. 12. Cropsey offers no argumentwhy he includes the Cratylushere. Presumablyhe bases his inclusion on 396d, which would be plausiblebut not conclusive. 13. Actually, in the Greek this is difficult to translatesince toi can be construedas either masculine or neuter. 14. Recall the first line of Aristotle's Metaphysics:"All human beings by nature yearn (oregontai) for knowledge." 15. Again, see Rosen, Hermeneuticsas Politics, 107-23, for an elaborationof this criticism of Strauss. 16. It is not clear how Craig documentsthis textualdatum. He cites Brandwood'sconcor- dance in his bibliography,and so I assume that this (ratherthan, say, the superiorThesaurus Linguae Graecae) is his source. 17. And here I follow StanleyRosen, "TheRole of Erosin Plato'sRepublic," in The Quarrel Between Philosophyand Poetry (New York:Routledge Kegan Paul, 1988), 102-9. 18. Also on the surface of the text is the repeateddescription of Glaucon as an erotic man: see 474d, 368a, 402e.

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