Abstract
This chapter explores the role of self-knowledge in the Socratic and Buddhist ethical traditions. Socrates (in Plato’s “early” dialogues) and the Buddha (in the Pāli Canon) diagnose the primary cause of human suffering as a widespread misunderstanding of the self. They recommend a radical reconceptualization of selfhood as a necessary step toward their ultimate concerns of human well-being (eudaimonia) and liberation (nirvāṇa). In particular, they argue, we wrongly identify bodies, physical states, social status, or possessions as self. But Socrates endorses a view that the Buddha rejects, namely, that certain conscious states of mind (psychē) are self. Buddhists would object that the irreducible complexity and impermanence of mental states render them implausible candidates for selfhood. Similar concerns motivated Plato to advance the metaphysical theory of Forms, which may offer resources for a reply. The chapter closes with a review of an apparent tension, shared by both traditions, between the goals of embodied social virtue and world-transcendence. The Platonic philosopher and the Mahayāna Bodhisattva both experience a liberating insight which motivates them to return to the “cave” of social service or saṃsāra: both motivations are susceptible to consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-ethical interpretations, and I suggest that the two traditions are mutually illuminating.
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Notes
- 1.
The treatment of “ancient philosophy as a way of life” has become increasingly familiar in anglophone scholarship on later Greek philosophy, particularly in the wake of foundational work by Michel Foucault and Pierre Hadot (see Hadot 1995; Hadot and Chase 2004; Chase et al. 2013; Sorabji 2014); this basic concern arguably bridges the Graeco-Roman and Indic philosophical traditions (see for instance Carlisle and Ganeri 2010; Ganeri 2013) . For the Socratic origins of philosophy in this sense, see for example Cooper (2012, pp. 24–69). For his influence on the first-generation “Socratics,” see Boys-Stones and Rowe (2013). On Plato in general, Fine (2008) is a helpful overview of recent literature, and Cooper and Hutchinson (1997) is now the standard translation in English.
- 2.
Plato , as several scholars have argued, spent the first half of the fourth century effectively “constructing” the social practice of philosophy as a more broadly applicable lifestyle based on the idiosyncratic life of Socrates , inviting others to follow in Socrates’ footsteps (Blondell 2002; Nightingale 2000), and vying with his contemporary Isocrates (cf. Antidosis 271) to define the kind of “learning outcome” that philosophia offers. Socrates’ behavior struck some of his contemporaries as sufficiently peculiar to warrant its own verb (sōkratein): see for example Aristophanes, Birds 1282.
- 3.
“You will not easily find another like me—and if you take my advice, you will spare my life” (Ap. 31A); “I make you be happy (eudaimōn)” (Ap. 36E). But “You [sentenced me to execution] in the belief that you would avoid giving an account of your life, but… [t]here will be more people to test you, whom I now held back… they will be younger and you will resent them more” (Ap. 39C–D).
- 4.
Since the historical Socrates left no written record, we are dependent on divergent witnesses, especially his pupils Plato and Xenophon and the contemporary comic playwright Aristophanes, for an account of his views—the “Socratic problem” (Blondell 2002; see also Press 2000). In this chapter, we are primarily interested in Plato’s depiction of Socrates and the model of philosophy and selfhood that he derived from Socrates. For these purposes, this section will rely primarily on the set of dialogues by Plato generally considered “early,” which present a more or less coherent picture of Socratic thought (see for example Irwin 2008) .
- 5.
Socrates’ relationship with the gods , and especially with Apollo (whom he repeatedly describes himself as serving), is an interesting and broad-ranging question. See McPherran for a compelling interpretation of the evidence: Socrates is committed to “the value of rational elenctic philosophy” while acknowledging that this commitment “is crucially shaped by—and, reciprocally, also shapes—[his] conception of himself as a divinely guided servant of the gods” (McPherran 1996: 10).
- 6.
Unless otherwise specified, translations from Plato are taken, sometimes with minor adaptations, from the standard translations in Cooper and Hutchinson (1997).
- 7.
- 8.
For the nature of Socratic “wisdom ,” see for example Cooper (2012, p. 48); for the role of definition in his method, see Aristotle Metaph . 1.6, Matthews (2008, pp. 123–124). For a vivid depiction of the experience of encountering Socrates , see Plato , Laches 187E-188B: “You don’t appear to me to know that whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and associates with him in conversation must necessarily, even if he began by conversing about something quite different in the first place, keep on being led about by the man’s arguments until he submits to answering questions about himself concerning both his present manner of life and the life he has lived hitherto. And when he does submit to this questioning, you don’t realize that Socrates will not let him go before he has well and truly tested every last detail…”
- 9.
Socrates recognized that the poetic tradition—stretching back to Greece’s literary fountainheads, Homer and Hesiod—offered a kind of inspired moral and aesthetic truth (a point stressed at Apology 22C, Ion, and in Republic 2), but the poets that Socrates met were unable to articulate and explain that inspiration on interrogation. Socrates also found that technical experts, like physicians and engineers, were deceived by their domain-specific knowledge into imagining themselves wise in general.
- 10.
See Vlastos (1983) , with replies by Kraut , Brickhouse and Smith, and Polansky.
- 11.
In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates does not explicitly claim to know nothing (or to know one thing, namely, that he knows nothing). See for example Matthews (2008, pp. 117–18).
- 12.
In this sense, Plato’s Apology can be read as a “metaphilosophical” text (see Sellars 2014).
- 13.
LSJ s.v. φιλοσοφέω A.
- 14.
Socrates reinforces this twofold function elsewhere in the Apology, when he glosses his function as a civic gadfly as “persuading (peithōn) and reproaching (oneidizōn) you all day long” (Ap. 31A), and explains his activity as encouraging his contemporaries to “give an account of [their] life,” “testing” them, and “reproaching [them] for not living in the right way” (39D).
- 15.
The “soul ,” for Socrates, is roughly speaking the locus of cognitive and emotional activity and the seat of free moral choice. The force of the noun psychē develops substantially between Homer (eighth century BCE) and the classical period (see for example Sullivan 1995).
- 16.
The “excellence of the soul ” described here includes wisdom , one of the four traditional moral virtues or human excellences (aretai). Socrates elsewhere treats wisdom as identical with, or causal of, the other three traditional moral virtues: justice (dikaiosunē), courage (andreia), and self-control (sophrosunē). Socrates may have treated the four virtues as effectively identical with one another and with wisdom. (See for example Brickhouse and Smith 2010, 2015).
- 17.
For instance, Plato’s Gorgias is a tour de force display of Socrates ’ capacity to compel hostile interlocutors to grant the value of psychological virtue . Several studies of the “early Socratics” trace the depiction of Socrates by Xenophon , Plato, and contemporaries (see for example Boys-Stones and Rowe 2013; Vander Waerdt 1994).
- 18.
- 19.
Socrates maintains, it seems, that conformity (or majority opinion alone), authority, involuntary appetite, and status or reputation are all insufficient motivations for action. A crisp statement is Crito 46A: “I am the kind of man who listens to nothing within me but the argument that on reflection seems best to me.” Against conformity, see Apology 32B-33A (in his own practice) and Crito 47A-48A and Gorgias 471E-476A (in theory); against authority, see Charmides 161C, Apology 32C–D; against appetites and status as sole motivators, see Apology 32B-33A.
- 20.
For example, when the prophet Euthyphro announces his intention to prosecute his father on the grounds that this is the reverent or pious thing to do, Socrates infers—and Euthyphro agrees (Euth. 4E-5A)—that Euthyphro thinks he knows about a virtue called “piety,” and that Euthyphro can demonstrate this wisdom by articulating a definition that will capture each and every action that qualifies as “pious” (Euth. 6D–E). Socrates also supposes that he himself can learn from such an articulation, and thereby become wiser and improve his prospects as a virtuous moral agent (Euth. 5A–B, 9A; cf. Apology 26A). In practice, Euthyphro is unable to produce a definition for which Socrates cannot produce a counter-example.
- 21.
In Plato’s later dialogues, however, Socrates himself produces moral definitions that are not explicitly refuted: for example, the definitions of virtue terms in Republic 4.
- 22.
As a classic early study in social psychology showed, this is a common phenomenon (Nisbett and Wilson 1977).
- 23.
For eudaimonism in ancient Greek thought, see for example Annas (1995).
- 24.
This sentence alludes to the familiar Platonic distinction between appearance and reality: outer “goods” appear to make us happy or well-off, but only wisdom really makes us happy.
- 25.
For the idea in Xenophon that self-knowledge might amount to a knowledge of one’s capacities, see Johnson (2005a).
- 26.
On Socratic self-knowledge see for example Johnson (2005a); Moore (2014) ; Rappe (1995); Tsouna (2001). Key Platonic passages include Phaedrus 229E and Philebus 48C, both cited below; Charmides 164D (where Plato has Socrates state that a traditional Greek virtue , self-control (sophrosunē), is in fact identical with self-knowledge ), Protagoras 343B, and Rival Lovers 138A. The Alcibiades I, whose authenticity has been doubted, offers an excellent summary account, which is also discussed in §2.2.3.1.
- 27.
The same observation occurs in the Philebus, generally thought to be a late dialogue (48C): “The ridiculous (geloion) is… among all the vices, the one with a character that stands in direct opposition to the one recommended by the famous inscription in Delphi. — You mean the one that says “Know thyself,” Socrates ? — I do. The opposite recommendation would obviously be that we not know ourselves at all.”
- 28.
Chrysippus at Plutarch , De stoic. Rep. 1048E, perhaps reflecting the ubiquity of irrationality.
- 29.
For the question, perhaps closely related, whether a stream of consciousness is ‘egological’ or ‘nonegological’, see Thompson (2011, §3) .
- 30.
See below, §2.4.1.1, and Sorabji 2006 , pp. 115–17. The Alcibiades I, if it is by Plato , may contrast the self (auto to auto) with each self (auto hekaston) at 130D, but the vocabulary is difficult to interpret.
- 31.
For the argument that the soul must be self-reflexive, see Gerson (2003, p. 31) .
- 32.
For the notion of self-specification as a cognitive agent in modern psychology , see Christoff et al. (2011).
- 33.
On Socrates ’ “denial of weakness of will” and intellectualism, see for example Devereux (2008, pp. 144–150).
- 34.
It occurs clearly in Plato’s chronologically latest dialogue, the Laws: “As in other matters it is right to trust the lawgiver (nomothetēs), so too we must believe him when he asserts that the soul is separated from [or “better than”] the body in every respect, and that in actual life (autōi tōi biōi) what makes each of us (hēmōn hekaston) to be what he is is nothing else than the soul, while the body is a semblance (indallomenon) which attends on each of us…” (Plato, Laws 12, 959A–B).
- 35.
For the thesis of the “unity of the virtues ,” see Laches 199D–E, Devereux (2008, p. 150).
- 36.
In this list, capacities like “courage” and “self-control” only become virtues when wisdom is added: without it, the name “courage” could simply describe recklessness. The doctrine that only virtue is good, and everything else indifferent, becomes an essential view of the later Stoic school.
- 37.
See Devereux (2008, p. 150).
- 38.
Socrates ’ argument does not establish with certainty whether wisdom is one and the same as eudaimonia , or an (essential) component of eudaimonia (Euthydemus 282A–B). See Parry (2004).
- 39.
For a recent overview of the debate, see for example Smith (2004).
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
See for example Inwood (1985), and the chapter on Stoicism in this volume (McRae ).
- 43.
See Sorabji (2000, pp. 56, 64–65).
- 44.
See for example Epictetus Disc. 1.1.23 (see also Sorabji 2006, pp. 181–200).
- 45.
See Arius Didymus 65.
- 46.
See Cooper (2012, p. 13).
- 47.
For Socrates as Stoic role model , see DL 7.23, Sellars (2006, p. 4), with index s.v. Socrates.
- 48.
The Stoics countenance “positive emotions ” (eupatheiai), and they also recognize unavoidable “first movements” or instinctive reactions. See Sorabji (2000) for a detailed discussion.
- 49.
For Socrates , see for example Plato , Symp. 172A-173E and Boys-Stones and Rowe (Boys-Stones and Rowe 2013); for the early Buddhist tradition, see Gombrich (2009, pp. 161–79) and Harvey (2012, pp. 29–31). For similarities in the practice of the Socratic and early Buddhist traditions, see Carpenter (2014, pp. 20–47).
- 50.
For Socrates , see Vlastos (1991) ; for Plato and the later Hellenistic tradition , see Nussbaum (2013, pp. 13–77), with Gorgias 464B-465D; cf. Gorgias, Helen 14, Democritus B51, Isocrates, Peace 39. For the Buddhist tradition, see for instance the “poisoned arrow” simile of Majjhima Nikaya 63; at least since Hendrick Kern in 1882 and 1884, medical metaphors have been popular in Western scholarship for interpreting the four noble truths , although they have also been overplayed (see Anderson 2013, p. 189). For a discussion of the use of medical analogies in both Buddhist and Greco-Roman traditions, see Gowans 2010 .
- 51.
A rich comparison of eudaimonia and nirvāṇa has been developed by Keown (1992, ch. 8) , who influentially articulates Aristotelian virtue ethics as a framework analogous to Buddhist ethics. See also §4 and §5 below.
- 52.
Early Buddhist critiques of acquisition, loss, praise, blame, pleasure and pain as human motivations (e.g., AN 8:6) can be profitably compared with Socrates’ views . “These eight worldly conditions keep the world turning around (anuparivattanti)… gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pleasure and pain.” For a general comparison of Socrates’ mission with Buddhist practice, see Carpenter (2014, p. 3).
- 53.
Although Socrates does not explicitly articulate a list of (something like) three kleśas , Plato comes close. Approaching his argument for the tripartition of the soul (Rep. 4; see §2.3 below), Plato suggests that happiness arises from (1) self-control (sophrosunē) applied to appetite (epithumia), preventing involuntary desires ; (2) courage (andreia) applied to temper (thumos), preventing involuntary aversion; and (3) wisdom ( sophia ) applied to reason, preventing ignorance; and the just cooperation of all three in practice.
- 54.
The Buddha also teases out the apparent absurdity of pursuing abstract philosophical or cosmological concerns when we have no idea how to cure ourselves from the “poisoned arrow” of suffering (Majjhima Nikaya 63), the cure which is his teaching; similarly, the Buddha claims to teach only this lesson, although he also differs from the dramatic Socrates in claiming to possess a much wider range of knowledge (SN 56.31).
- 55.
As a matter of style, Socrates perhaps places heavier weight on dialectical arguments from social consensus and common practice (endoxa); here, he plays up the idea that we are all prepared to lose harmful or useless parts of our body, or suffer bodily pain, for our greater good.
- 56.
- 57.
Ganeri (2012) .
- 58.
One sutta even suggests that it can be especially damaging to identify with the fleeting and impermanent contents of the mind (SN 12:61).
- 59.
For instance, Nāgārjuna Vigrahavyāvartanī 22, 27, and 29, with Candrakīrti Prasannapadā 248–49, cited in Sorabji (2006, pp. 288–89).
- 60.
See Edelglass and Garfield (2009, pp. 298–304). For a comparison with Nyāya thought, see also below, §2.3.3.
- 61.
Compare for example the often-cited Kālāma Sutta (AN 3:65), which illustrates both the Buddha’s method of question and answer, and the idea that the interlocutor should “get to know for themselves” (attanāva jāneyyātha); see Edelglass & Garfield (2009, pp. 175–78) .
- 62.
Socrates repeatedly disclaims wisdom , in a move that appears diametrically opposed to the Buddha’s assertion of general knowledge (although both interestingly restrict their teachable expertise to self-knowledge and happiness ; see below, §1.3); and Socrates appears to embrace the efficacy of inferential reasoning, about which the Buddha is more cautious.
- 63.
For the “practice” of non-self , see Carpenter (2014, pp. 31–32), who profitably compares Epictetus ’ “Socratic” view (in this case, identifying reasoned voluntary choice, prohairesis, as self) with Buddhist praxis.
- 64.
There are, of course, exceptions, primarily arising from Socrates’ value for virtuous social action. For example, Socrates thinks it is right to obey the laws of his state and fight in battle, anticipating the Platonic and Aristotelian view that thumos (temper, spirit) can be useful in defense of family or loved ones or community . This also presages the tension between purely “contemplative” virtue , mostly withdrawn from social action, and “social” virtue, which might even engage in public affairs; see §3.2.
- 65.
In the standard formulaic description (e.g. SN 3:3), the arahant has destroyed the taints (āsavas), lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached their own goal, utterly destroyed the fetters of existence, and are completely liberated through final knowledge.
- 66.
For example, this wood-and-iron is an artefact, hammer, because it has the capacity to pound nails; if its structure changes in such a way that it can no longer pound nails, it ceases to be a hammer as such, though it may be made of the same stuff as it was; if it pounds nails especially efficiently, it is an excellent hammer. This muscular tissue is an organ, heart, because it pumps blood and supplies oxygen; if it ceases to do so, it is no longer a heart as such, and if it does so very well, it is an excellent heart. And this flesh-and-bone is an animal, human, because… well, why? For essences in Aristotle , see for example Chiba (2012). For Aristotelian teleology, see for example Johnson (2005b).
- 67.
On prohairesis in Aristotle’s concept of selfhood , and ‘self as practical reason’ in general, see Sorabji (2006, pp. 181–200).
- 68.
- 69.
The independence of Aristotle’s ethics from his metaphysics is an open question.
- 70.
See Metaphysics Θ, Cohen (2016).
- 71.
- 72.
- 73.
Ranging from (1) simple social habituation from an early age (Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics) to (2) “spiritual exercises ” undertaken to cultivate concentration or moral virtue (see Hadot 1995 and §5.2 below) to (3) visualization exercises and analytical arguments aiming for insight (e.g., Plotinus Enn. 1.6.9, 5.3.9) . See Burnyeat 1999. Functionally, these eventually play a role similar to the interlocking function of sīla , samadhi, and pañña in Buddhist pedagogy.
- 74.
See Irwin (2008) .
- 75.
Rep. 2, 368C-369A; on the analogy, see for example Ferrari (2003).
- 76.
On these three “clusters of motivation,” see Cooper (1984).
- 77.
This experience is a “phenomenological datum ” for Plato (Shields 2013) . As Socrates puts it here, “the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, at the same time” (Rep. 436B8–9). See Brown (2003§2.1). Compare Aristotle , Metaphysics 4(Γ)0.3, 1005b19–20.
- 78.
Ton de onta hēmōn hekaston ontōs, Laws 959B.
- 79.
See Sorabji 2006 : 116–17.
- 80.
- 81.
Shields 2013 : 167–8.
- 82.
This, again, is the argument of Shields 2013.
- 83.
Something like this might be the sense of the famous “closing prayer” of Plato’s Phaedrus.
- 84.
A metaphor used artfully and helpfully by Shields 2013: 168 .
- 85.
For the “constitutive” model of the soul as a plural citizenry of motivational forces that need harmonization, contrasted with a Humean “combat” model in which either passion or reason would have to conquer (if reason were a force of motivation at all), see Korsgaard 2009 : 133–35.
- 86.
See Burnyeat 1999 .
- 87.
Republic 4.
- 88.
On this passage and its interpretation in later Greek philosophy, see Sorabji (2006, pp. 64–65).
- 89.
See Aristotle, DA 2–3.
- 90.
In the Greek tradition, accounts of personhood in terms of psychophysical holism or interdependence , analogous to Buddhist nāma-rūpa analysis, will not develop explicitly until the Hellenistic period . For that development, see Gill (2009).
- 91.
Milindapañha 25–28 (Edelglass and Garfield 2009, pp. 272–74) . It is interesting, of course, that this dialogue represents a conversation between a Buddhist monk and a Greek-speaking king conversant with Greek philosophy; Milinda’s initial response to Nāgasena might suggest a typical Greek response to the Buddhist analysis, that it was an impractical form of nihilism or nominalism.
- 92.
As we have seen, Plato also makes use of the chariot analogy for the soul ; this may have been coincidence or a cross-cultural commonplace , going back at least as far as the Kaṭha Upaniṣad in the Indian tradition.
- 93.
See the pithy summary in Burnyeat and Levett (1990, pp. 8–9). In the following sections, I will adopt an interpretation of psychological synchronic and diachronic unity as a virtue to be achieved, although I will only be able to touch briefly on the broad questions of metaphysics and epistemology implied by this reading.
- 94.
See Siderits (2003) .
- 95.
- 96.
As an example of Plato’s appeal to language and understanding as a ground for the necessity of Forms, see perhaps Parmenides 135B–D (though the interpretation of this passage is difficult).
- 97.
- 98.
- 99.
In particular, (1) whether both properly qualify as “flux” for Plato : As Colvin (2007, p. 761) points out, it is not clear that the compresence of opposites is considered by Plato to be “Heraclitean flux ”; for the view that it could be, see Fine (1992, p. 55); and (2) how they cut across the differentiation between substantial and merely relative change, on which see Irwin (1977) . Evidently diachronic flux could be substantial (I really do get shorter) or only relative (I get shorter relative to the growing Theaetetus); but perhaps synchronic flux must be relative (I am short relative to Simmias and tall relative to Phaedo).
- 100.
This is ordinarily viewed as a “succession of properties in the same subject over time,” where the change is not merely relative but substantial; but it can also be relative change. The language of s-change is adapted from Irwin (1977, p. 4) . I follow Irwin in treating both self-change and aspect-change as kinds of flux).
- 101.
Tht. 151E-152A.
- 102.
As the historical Parmenides put it in one of the most exegetically contested fragments we have, “Thinking and being are the same” (B3 DK). Compare also the Nyāya response to Buddhist no-self theorists (above §2.3.3).
- 103.
Whether Plato was satisfied with any final “version” of a theory of Forms is an open question; see for example Peterson (2008).
- 104.
This is much debated; for the evidence from the Theaetetus, see discussion in Burnyeat and Levett (1990, pp. 8–9).
- 105.
For their role in Plato’s theory of perception, see the “simile of the divided line” in Republic 6, 509D-511E.
- 106.
In various “early” dialogues, including Lysis, Socrates professes a kind of expertise in “erotics”; this may be partly a tongue-in-cheek claim pointing to a pun (erōs, “love ”; erotan, “ask questions”; cf. Cratylus 398C–E), but Socrates is also represented as a lover in the romantic sense (erōtikos, erastēs) by many characters, and Plato develops a powerful account of Socrates’ erotic “love” as applying to Beauty and Wisdom here in the Symposium.
- 107.
One, which Aristotle stresses in Metaph. 1.6 and elsewhere, is the nature of “participation.” Surely the proposition that “Alcibiades is beautiful” has meaning, but how does (the body of) Alcibiades, a spatiotemporal object of sense-perception, participate in a timeless, unchanging Form? (This question is explored partly in Timaeus). Do Forms participate in themselves, or in each other? (This question is explored partly in the Sophist).
- 108.
See Plutarch , Life of Theseus 22–23: “The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”
- 109.
This reductio relies on the assumption, already familiar in Presocratic Greek philosophy, that “like knows like”: I cannot apprehend something from which I am utterly dissimilar (e.g., Empedocles B109 DK).
- 110.
See Sorabji (2006, pp. 34–35 and 115–17).
- 111.
- 112.
For interpretations of Plotinus’ interesting view , already much discussed in antiquity, see Rist (1963), Kalligas (1997), and Sikkema (2009). For difficulties with Plotinus’ view introduced in connection with the Greek view of reincarnation (in contrast with the Indic view), see also Sorabji (2006, pp. 122–23) and Sorabji (2012).
- 113.
- 114.
See discussion below. The fundamental value of contemplation is clear for ancient Platonists: see for example Cooper 2012, ch. 6, Sorabji , 2004, 17(a). It is a debatable but viable interpretation of the fundamental texts for Aristotle , including especially NE 10.7: see for example Ackrill, 1975; Kraut 1989; Sorabji 2006, p. 35.
- 115.
The tension between these cosmological metaphors and the insistence on the non-spatiality and non-temporality of the intelligible world (noētos topos) was developed in later Platonism; for a very helpful explanation of Plotinus’ treatment of this point, see Wilberding (2005).
- 116.
cf. Aristoxenus, Harmonica, 2.30, Dillon (2003).
- 117.
- 118.
He teasingly criticizes the “Heraclitean ” school as difficult to talk to, since they’re too flexible with their definitions to play the dialectical game properly (Tht. 170E-180C). Aristotle expresses exasperation with radical scepticism in similar terms (Metaph. 4.5).
- 119.
For this idea in later Platonism, see for example Griffin (2014b).
- 120.
See Jinpa (2002, pp. 148–51).
- 121.
See for example Siderits (2003, ch. 2) .
- 122.
See for example Proclus in Parm. (Morrow and Dillon 1992).
- 123.
See Dodds (1928).
- 124.
On early Pythagorean theories of metempsychosis, see for example Burkert (1972).
- 125.
“To describe what the soul actually is would require a very long account, altogether a task for a god in every way… but to say what it is like is humanly possible…” (Phaedrus 246A); the philosopher “won’t be serious about writing… with words that are as incapable of speaking in their own defense as they are of teaching the truth adequately” (Phaedrus 276C); “there is no writing of mine about these matters, nor will there ever be one” (Letter VII B-C, if authentic ). For the celebrated problem of Plato’s “unwritten doctrines,” see recently Gerson (2014) .
- 126.
See in particular the “Myth of Er” (Republic 10, 614a–621d), the myth of judgement (Gorgias 523a–527a) and the myth of the “winged soul” (Phaedrus 246a–249d).
- 127.
E.g. Meno 80D-81A, Phaedo 73C.
- 128.
An ancient bust of Plato , inscribed with the phrases “all soul is immortal” (Phaedrus 245C) and “the responsibility is the chooser’s: god is not responsible [or: to blame]” (Rep. 10, 617E), may point toward the Platonic ideas that especially captured popular imagination in antiquity (Miller 2009). For the influence of this passage in late ancient philosophical theories of the “choice of lives,” see recently Wilberding (2016).
- 129.
See Johansen (2008).
- 130.
- 131.
Plato refers to an enarges en tēi psychēi paradeigma, a “vivid pattern in the soul ”, which philosophers recognize eternal truths .
- 132.
Here and elsewhere, Plato develops the distinction between someone who is “gentle” or “tame” (here, hēmeros) and someone who is “wild” or savage; compare also the savagery “like wild animals” of ordinary “political” life at 496D, and the question at the opening of the Phaedrus whether the self is gentle like a god or savage like a monster. The tame person is governed by reason and does no harm to others; in fact, as Socrates stresses in the Gorgias, the philosopher would rather be harmed than do harm, though he would prefer to avoid both (Gorg. 469C).
- 133.
Knowledge that p, according to one definition mooted in Meno 98A, is true belief that p accompanied by understanding of the reason (aitia) why p is so; but a similar account of knowledge as “justified true belief” is rejected in the Theaetetus.
- 134.
Loosely, in Ned Block’s terminology, real knowledge is always available to “access consciousness” (Block 1995).
- 135.
Crucially, Socrates makes clear that the policy is just only because in this constitution the philosophers have been intentionally nurtured to serve the common good, and therefore they owe some support to the common interest; in other constitutions, where philosophers arise “spontaneously”, they are at liberty to do as they will.
- 136.
So Brown (2004).
- 137.
So Weiss (2012).
- 138.
- 139.
Kraut (2000, p. 214).
- 140.
See for example Annas (1999), ch. 2.
- 141.
See Kraut (2000, p. 213).
- 142.
- 143.
See for example Śāntideva’s Introduction (Śāntideva 1998), 10.55.
- 144.
See Dillon (2003) for the “heirs of Plato ,” and Gerson (2006 and 2013) for a view of Aristotle in the context of ancient Platonism. The Platonic dialogues served subsequent philosophers as an “inexhaustible mine of suggestion” (Whitehead 1979, 39)—a reservoir of fundamental questions and tentative methods. Plato’s perceived comprehensiveness and pedagogical flexibility contributed to his enduring appeal, especially in later antiquity. See Boys-Stones (2001), chs. 6–7, for a rich theory of Plato’s value in antiquity, and Dillon (1996) for the development of Platonism following Plato .
- 145.
See Mills (on Skepticism ) and McRae (on Stoicism ).
- 146.
It remains an open question whether Aristotle’s account of the human good is really grounded in his metaphysics and theory of human nature. Some (e.g., Hursthouse 1999; Foot 2001) have argued positively; others (e.g., MacIntyre 1984; McDowell 1998b) have denied it. I do assume a positive answer here (cf. Irwin 1980). For an excellent and detailed study of later twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century views on this problem, see Berryman forthcoming.
- 147.
- 148.
- 149.
For the development of dialectical practice in the Academy, see recently Fink 2012. Irwin 1988 offers one influential account of the relationship between earlier Academic dialectic and Aristotle’s science of demonstration. Martha Nussbaum has emphasized Aristotle’s attention to the appearances or phainomena in terms of ordinary beliefs and assertions Nussbaum (1986: ch. 8), although it is continually debated whether Aristotle had a definite method of analyzing widely held opinions (endoxa) in quite this way (e.g., Frede 2012; Reinhardt 2015). Aristotle also played a role in inspiring the twentieth century turn toward “ordinary language” philosophy in English—philosophy that attends especially to “what we do or do not say or, more strongly… what we can or cannot say” (Ryle 1953: 67)—although most current scholars of Aristotle would not consider him an “ordinary language” philosopher in that sense. It is also interesting, as a separate but related question, to consider the influence of the subject-predicate structure of Greek on Aristotle’s ontology ; see for example Mann 2000: 7–8.
- 150.
LSJ s.v. hode. See also below, n. 151.
- 151.
The intuition is captured in the literal force of the Greek verb for “mean” (sēmainein, literally “point out”); later Greek philosophers explicitly emphasized this function of demonstrative language (see for example Porphyry, in Cat. 56,9; the speaker might have been literally envisaged as “pointing with the finger” metaphorically, as Ammonius puts it at in Cat. 10,2. Augustine’s famous theory of imposition (e.g., Conf. 1.8.13) has roots in this literature on the Categories). We might also compare Kaplan’s earlier notion of the true demonstrative (1989a; see also his revised view in 1989b).
- 152.
Consider Aristotle’s criteria of separability and “this-ness” for being-ness (ousia) or substantiality at Metaphysics 7.1 , and the assumption that a real being is both a “this” and a numerical unity (Cat. 3b10–13). (Plato , too, stresses that if a thought successfully refers, it refers to something real and unitary: Parmenides 132B–D). What Aristotle means by either of these criteria is another scholarly crux; on separability, see (just for instance) Fine 1984, Morrison 1985 ; on the “this,” see Gill 1989: 31–4, and Irwin 1988 , e.g. 90 and 211–213. A fuller and current discussion
- 153.
Like Irwin 1988 : 211–213 (see his 558 n. 34), I take tode to be the demonstrative and ti the indefinite article, and the whole phrase tode ti to mean “some this.” This is one among many possible interpretations (see for instance Gill 2006: 355 with notes), which can in turn be fundamental for the analysis of Aristotle’s criteria for substancehood.
- 154.
On the role of the Categories in Aristotle’s philosophy, see for example the excellent introduction to Bodéus 2001and chapters in Bruun and Corti 2005. Frede 1985: chs. 2–3 provides an excellent introduction to its place in the Aristotelian corpus. Wedin 2000 is an example of a careful metaphysical reading of the Categories, while Menn 1995 argues that the treatise should be viewed as a handbook for Topics-style debate, and Morison 2005 develops a compelling case for the Categories as an introduction to logic . Compare Ackrill (1963, 78–9), who suggests that the dialectician of the Categories might point out some particular entity—say, Socrates or Bucephalus—and try to answer the question “What is it?” (ti esti?)—perhaps for the sake of dialectical exercise, debate, and philosophical insight.
- 155.
“Every substance (ousia) seems to signify a certain this” (Cat. 3b10–23). Aristotle goes on to make a finer-grained distinction between primary ousiai (like Socrates ), which seem to have this feature primarily, and others. The metaphysics of the Categories—if indeed it is meant to be a metaphysical treatise—is notoriously tricky to pin down; a relatively comprehensive analysis that attempts a reconciliation with the Metaphysics is Wedin 2000. See also Mann 2000 for a fuller discussion of the context and history of the work.
- 156.
Aristotle is certainly sensitive to the conventional nature of language ; a locus classicus is De Int. 1.1. Aristotle points out a specific example of ordinary Greek usage coming apart from logical meaning at Cat. 10a28-b13 (there is no Greek adjective aretaios meaning “virtuous” from the noun aretē, “virtue ”; instead Greek uses spoudaios).
- 157.
“I can discover no chariot. ‘Chariot’ is a mere empty sound” (Questions of King Milinda 3.1.1).
- 158.
- 159.
There are a wide range of readings of what Aristotle might mean by “separable”; see again Fine 1984, Morrison 1985 , and for a brief survey, Miller 2012, 307–9.
- 160.
Thus ὁ τις ἄνθρωπος ἢ ὁ τις ἵππος can be used as examples of individual οὐσίαι (Cat. 3, 1b4–5), as individuals that are ‘one in respect of number’ as well as form (Metaph. 5, 1016b31–3), and exist naturally (Phys. 2.1, 192b9–11). See for example Charlton 1994. Modern metaphysicians sympathetic to Aristotle (such as Fine 1994 and Koslicki 2010) tend to treat the unity of organisms as a central target for any promising explanation of composition.
- 161.
Common-sense realism about personhood is arguably a common feature of ancient Greek thought (for an overview, see Sorabji 2006 ); there were exceptions, such as Democritus (fr. 68 b9).
- 162.
See for example Metaph. H.3, 1043a35-1043b5; Metaph. Z.11, 1037a5–11; DA 412a6–9.
- 163.
See for example Physics 191a8–12.
- 164.
LSJ s.v. empsychos.
- 165.
The more common translations of nous as “mind ” and noein as “think”, in a philosophical context, can mask some of their more ordinary and non-cognitive force; cf. LSJ s.v. noeō A.2 “perceive by the mind, apprehend… take notice… art aware…”.
- 166.
- 167.
E.g., Metaphysics Z.11 .
- 168.
See for example Dhp 277–79 and MN 26 (Ariyapariyesana Sutta).
- 169.
- 170.
This “therefore” represents a debatable but likely interpretation; for the debate, see above (n. 145), and again Berryman forthcoming.
- 171.
Nic. Eth. 1.7, frequently referred to as the “function argument,” is another major locus classicus of Aristotelian scholarship. See Kraut 2014 : §2 for a brief overview.
- 172.
According to one reading of Nic. Eth. 10.7–8. There is a famously difficult question here. Aristotle offers a fairly broad account of human happiness in Nic. Eth. 1.7 ( eudaimonia is the activity of psychē according to its best aretē), and proceeds to spend much of this particular treatise analyzing and defining virtues of character and intellect. But in the tenth book, he seems to restrict the highest happiness just to theoretical or contemplative wisdom . Readers have often wondered whether this more restrictive account is compatible with the preceding books of the treatise, and whether it is really plausible (what about the human need for food and basic external goods, as Aristotle himself observes at 1178b33–35)? Many different solutions have been offered: Ackrill (1974) defends a fairly comprehensive and pluralist reading of the treatise, but is challenged by Kenny (1992) and Kraut (1989) ; and there are helpful recent contributions. See Irwin 2012 for a helpful summary of key issues, and a tentative endorsement of a moderate and pluralist account of Nic. Eth. 10, including both contemplative and practical virtue .
- 173.
Aristotle suggests, interestingly, that the psychological state (hexis) of practical wisdom (phronēsis) which guides individually virtuous decisions is identical with the state of political expertise that guides collectively virtuous decisions (Nic. Eth. 6.8). See Cooper 2012: ch. 3 for one depiction of how practically wise and politically active philosophers might structure a just community which allows others to pursue pure contemplation (138–40).
- 174.
Compare Plato , Phaedrus 229E, Philebus 48C, Samyutta Nikaya 22:82; 22:45.
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I would like to record my gratitude to Gordon Davis, Richard Sorabji , Mark McPherran , and Adam Kay , who kindly read and commented on earlier drafts of this chapter. I am, of course, solely responsible for its remaining faults.
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Griffin, M. (2018). The Ethics of Self-Knowledge in Platonic and Buddhist Philosophy. In: Davis, G. (eds) Ethics without Self, Dharma without Atman. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67407-0_2
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