PROCEEDINGS Table of Contents Basanizein. Practical Experience as the Touchstone of Platonic Education ................................................. 1 Francisco Benoni (University of Verona) Concealment, Compulsion, and the Educated Citizen of the Protagoras .................................................... 8 Ryan Drake (Fairfield University) Imag(in)ing Nature and Art in Plato’s Phaedrus......................................................................................... 20 Marina McCoy (Boston University) Aristotle, Philosophêmata, and Aristotle’s Disciplinary History of Philosophy .......................................... 25 Chris Moore (Pennsylvania State University) Aristotle on Pleonexia, Proper Self-Love and the Unity of Justice.............................................................. 32 Marta Jimenez (Emory university) Philodemus and the Peripatetics on the Role of Anger in the Virtuous Life .............................................. 42 David Kaufmann (Transylvania University) Among the Boys and Young Men: Philosophy and Masculinity in Plato’s Lysis ......................................... 50 Yancy Dominick (Seattle University) The Dis-Community of Lovers: Kinship in the Lysis ..................................................................................... 58 Benjamin Frazer-Simser (DePaul University) How to Speak Kata Phusin: Magico-religious Speech in Heraclitus ............................................................ 71 Jessica Elbert Decker (California State University) Heraclitus and the Riddle of Nature ........................................................................................................... 80 Justin Habash (Ohio State University) Anaximander and Epictetus on Death and Return ..................................................................................... 94 Babette Babich (Fordham University) The Other Euthyphro Problem .................................................................................................................. 107 Doug Henry (Baylor University) The Woman Question in Republic V ......................................................................................................... 112 Mary Townsend (Loyola University) The Platonic Phrase “palin ex archês”: Structural Use and Philosophical Significance ............................ 119 Andy German (Ben Gurion University) Natural Tensions in the Forms of Life of the Polis .................................................................................... 139 Greg Kirk (Northern Arizona University) On the Ontological Primacy of Nouns ....................................................................................................... 145 David Roochnick (Boston University) The Furthermost Reaches of Community: The Stoics on Justice for Humans and for Animals ................ 156 Robin Weiss (University of Cairo) Finding the Definition of Soul in Aristotle’s De Anima ............................................................................. 169 Brian Julian (Boston University) What Dialogues Disclose About Cyrus the Great ...................................................................................... 176 Tim Burns (Baylor University) Retracing Plato’s Republic in Cicero’s Dream of Scipio ............................................................................ 198 Stevens (East Carolina University) The Value of the Present Moment in Neoplatonic Philosophy ................................................................ 203 Danielle Layne (Gonzaga University) Βασανίζειν Practical Experience as the Touchstone of Platonic Education 1. Introduction Socrates remarks throughout the Republic that the education of the guardians encompasses both theory and practice.1 At the end of book III (412E-414A) he explains which powers threaten their education and which tests they must be set in order to check their capacity for retaining true belief. The ones who pass these tests become rulers: practical experience demonstrates whether education has been successful or not.2 I will argue that practical experience plays the same role in book VII: the philosopher must be sent back to the cave for fifteen years and tested (539E- 540A). The analysis of the image of the cave will demonstrate that the tasks the philosopher is set mirror the ones in book III: the disruptive powers he is faced with are the same. In both passages the image of the touchstone (βάσανος) plays a crucial role. As rubbing gold upon the touchstone (βασανίζειν) is the only way to check whether it is actually pure gold or not, so practical experience is the only way to check whether rulers-to-be have pure gold in their souls – that is to say, their souls are led by the rational part. Education without practical experience is insufficient: only under testing the guardians reveal the gold in their souls and prove to be worthy of ruling. 2. Book III, 412E-414A This short passage is crucial to understanding what Plato means by practical experience and why it is needed. Yet, these pages have gone largely unnoticed.3 After describing the musical and gymnastic education, that engenders in the guardians’ souls harmony and true belief, Socrates states: I think we should observe them at all ages, to make sure they are the guardians and defenders of this belief, and that neither magic (γοητευόµενοι) nor force (βιαζόµενοι) can make them forget, and jettison their conviction (δόξαν) that they should do what is best for the city.4 Training to become a guardian is life-long and involves learning music, gymnastics, and the ability to retain throughout one’s life the harmony acquired thanks to these disciplines. Guardians are always exposed to the risk of forgetting the opinion of what is best for the city. Socrates asserts that belief can be lost by our minds (δόξα ἐξιέναι ἐκ διανοίας) in two ways: 1 In book II, Socrates states that the guardian’s job requires knowledge and practice (ἐπιστήµην ... µελέτην, 374D5- 6; τέχνης ... ἐπιµελείας, 374E2). Rich people, conversely, have neither knowledge nor practice in war (ἐπιστήµῃ ... ἐµπειρίᾳ, 422C6). In book VI, the guardians are the ones who know about each thing that is and have practical experience (ἐγνωκότας ... ἐµπειρίᾳ, 484D6-7), and the rest of human excellence: indeed, they match virtue in word and deed (ἔργῳ τε καὶ λόγῳ, 498E4-499A1). This is the reason why Socrates asks which study and way of life (µαθηµάτων τε καὶ ἐπιτηδευµάτων, 502D1) will prepare them for their task. Their education requires both knowledge and exercise (µάθησιν ... ἄσκησιν, 536B3). 2 This is the first time the distinction between guardians and rulers appears in the Republic. 3 In most of the works on the Republic and on platonic education, these pages are barely mentioned – if not ignored altogether. Cf. for instance Stenzel 1928, ch. III; Nettleship 1935, Jaeger 1944, book III, ch. 9; Murphy 1951; Cross- Woozley 1964; Friedländer 1964-75; Annas 1981, Gill 1985, Scolnicov 1988, ch. 10-11-12; Reeve 1988, Gastaldi 1999, Ferrari 2007, Renaut 2014. 4 Resp. 412E5-8. Transl. Ferrari-Griffith 2000. I will always use this translation. 1 willingly, with our consent (this happens when a false belief is replaced with a better one); unwillingly, without our consent, in the case of all true belief (πᾶσα ἡ ἀληθής). True belief – the one guardians are endowed with – can be lost in three ways: theft, force, seduction (κλαπέντες, βιασθέντες, γοητευθέντες, 413B1). Each of these is briefly explained. By theft Socrates means either people who are talked into changing their minds, because some argument (λόγος) makes them forget their belief, or people who forget because of the passage of time. The latter condition is clear: time can make people forget. This is why guardians must be held in check throughout their lives: showing once the ability to act in accordance with the principles of their education is not enough; it is necessary to hold on to these principles in every action despite the forces that drive away from the true belief of what is best for the city. As for the former condition, I think that Socrates is referring to the arguments of the sophists and to their ability to understand and manipulate the mood of the masses. This topic is analyzed in book VI (especially 493A-C): Socrates describes their ability to understand the pains and pleasures of the masses and to use their speech to manipulate them as if they were a large beast. The sophists call good what pleases them, even though it is not: in this way, they strengthen false beliefs on what is truly pleasurable and painful, good and bad. By force Socrates means those whom pain (ἀλγηδών) or grief (ὀδύνη) causes to change their beliefs. This remark receives no explanation. However, it is clear that pain has the force to make people forget their true belief. The words ἀλγηδών and ὀδύνη can mean both bodily and psychic pain. Several examples can be found in the Republic: in the allegory of the cave, the prisoner who is freed from his chains feels pain (ἀλγοῖ) and at first he wants to turn back to the familiar realm of shadows (515C9); people who are ill are mistaken in thinking that the cessation of pain is truly pleasurable (583D3-4, here recurs the verb ὠδύναµαι); the man who griefs for his lost son is unable to moderate his grief, resist to it and reflect on what has happened (606A-C). All these examples show the power pain has over human beings: it impairs their judgment; it makes them acquire a wrong perspective on what is truly pleasurable and painful; it prevents them