THE ROOTS of SOCRATIC PHILANTHROPY and the RULE of LAW: PLATO's CRITO Martin J. Plax1 I the Argument Most of the Research on P

THE ROOTS OF SOCRATIC PHILANTHROPY AND THE RULE OF LAW: PLATO’S CRITO

Martin J. Plax1

I The Argument Most of the research on Plato’s Crito in recent years has been devoted to deter- mining the reasons Socrates chose to remain in jail and face the death penalty. But there is no consensus of what those reasons are. Some scholars have marshaled evidence to prove that Socrates’ decision was grounded in the arguments made by the Laws of Athens regarding the obligation of the citizen to obey the laws of the city. They argue that Socrates took hemlock out of an obligation to obey the laws and that the Speech of the Laws presents the stron- gest case for Socrates’ action. They also claim that Socrates would not put something into the mouth of the Laws that he does not believe. The Speech of the Laws justifies the Rule of Law and this is Socrates’ intention.2 Other scholars have marshaled evidence to prove that Socrates’ reasons were grounded in some explicit arguments he made about the philosopher’s inde- pendence from the law. They take the view that Socrates’ reasons for obeying the law are rooted in some philosophic doctrine of justice separate from Soc- rates’ reasons for dying articulated by the Laws of Athens.3 Both sides have yet to resolve their differences over how they understand the relationship of the philosopher to the city of which he is a citizen. The disunity among scholars regarding this matter however, masks a unity regarding their belief in Socrates’ goodness, justness or even his perfection, or near perfection. Most scholars also share the assumption that all of Socrates’ interlocutors engage in ‘sincere intent,’ that is, they neither make statements which they do not believe nor do they agree with statements made to them by Socrates unless they sincerely agree with them. But, as John Beversluis has demonstrated,4 this principle is not ubiquitously present, nor systematically operative, in all the dialogues. Socrates explicitly invokes the sincere assent requirement with only four interlocutors: Crito, Protagoras, Thrasymachus and Callicles. According to Beversluis’s analysis of the enforcement of that requirement, Socrates enforces it only with Crito. 1 2020 Miramar Blvd, South Euclid, Ohio 44121 USA. E-mail: [email protected] 2 David Bostock, ‘The Interpretation of Plato’s Crito’, Phronesis, 35 (1990), pp. 1–20. This view is also supported by Ronald Polansky, ‘The Unity of Plato’s Crito’, Scholia, 6 (1997), pp. 46–67, although Polansky’s essay is not defined by that problem. 3 This view is expressed with great care by Roslyn Weiss in Socrates Dissatisfied (New York, 1998). 4 John Beversluis, Cross Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato’s Early Dialogues (Cambridge, 2000). POLIS. Vol. 18. Issues 1 and 2, 2001 60 M.J. PLAX

Beversluis argues that ‘although (Socrates) ignores a good deal of what Crito says and misinterprets much of what he does not ignore, Crito seems not to notice; if he does, he does not protest.’5 I have argued elsewhere that, in the Euthydemus, one learns that Crito tends to speak indirectly, especially when a subject is in dispute. He does not fully disclose his own opinions until he knows the opinions of those with whom he is talking. In effect, he is generally reticent about revealing any of his emotions and he is consistently reluctant to admit that he is ambivalent about anything.6 This essay will deviate slightly from Beversluis’s position and argue that Socrates ignores what Crito says because he recognizes Crito does not say what he believes and that this reluc- tance on Crito’s part is rooted in an aporia created by his actions. Further- more, if Crito fails to protest against Socrates’ misinterpretations, it is because those misinterpretations give voice to Crito’s true beliefs. Because of the great interest in Socrates’ reasons for accepting the death penalty, scholars have paid less attention to Crito, in spite of the fact that the dialogue is named after him. This tendency can be corrected by attending to the traditional subtitle of the Crito, E Peri Prakteon, Ethikos. The first is sometimes translated as ‘Duty.’ More literally, it means ‘concerned with action’ and thus might be better translated as ‘what one should do.’ As for Ethikos, it refers to showing one’s character. When set beside EPeri Prakteon, Ethikos can be understood as revealing one’s character not simply by one’s words, but also by one’s deeds. Understanding both Crito’s and Socrates’ character through their words and deeds combined is more easily accomplished if one treats the Crito as though it were a drama. Paying attention to the dramatic setting of any dialogue places a special burden on any philosophic reader. Not only must one judge the nature of the arguments made, but also the reader must imagine how the characters in the dialogue are speaking and what they might be hearing when another character is speaking. The inseparability of form and content means that analyzing the dramatic setting can never cease until it is completed by a full characterization of the soul of each of the characters in the drama. All speakers in a dialogue reveal themselves continuously, so that an understanding of the dramatic setting is never completed until one has completed an analysis of the drama implicit in every statement by every speaker, at every moment. At the root of the dramatic approach to the Platonic dialogues is the assumption that theoretical problems arise from everyday experience7 and that those theoretical problems can never be entirely separated from those experiences without being self-refuting. In the case of the Crito, a dramatic

5 Ibid., p. 74. 6 ‘Crito in Plato’s Euthydemus: The Lover of Family and of Money’, Polis, 17 (2000), pp. 43–7. 7 Stanley Rosen, Metaphysics in Ordinary Language (New Haven, 1999).