Interpretation A

A JOURNAL
Winter 1993-1994
Thomas Lewis

OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Volume 21
Number 2

Identifying

Rhetoric in the Apology: Does

Socrates Use the Appeal for Pity?

Joel Warren Lidz Reflections in Plato's Cave

on and

Bernard Jacob

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

Mary

L. Bellhouse

Rousseau Under Surveillance: Thoughts New Edition

and

on a

Translation

of

Rousseau,

Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues

Peter Augustine Lawler Maurice Auerbach Tocqueville
on

Socialism

and

History

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political:

Theology, Decisionism,
of the

and

the Concept

Enemy

Discussion

Victor Gourevich
Book Reviews

The End

of

History?

Will

Morrisey

Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus,

by

Charles L. Griswold, Jr. Leslie G. Rubin Citizens

and

Statesmen: A

Aristotle's Politics, John S. Waggoner

Study of by Mary P. Nichols

The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron: A Critical Introduction, by Daniel J.

Mahoney

Interpretation
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Interpretation
Winter 1993-1994

A Volume 21 A

Number 2

Thomas Lewis

Identifying
Reflections

Rhetoric in the Apology: Does

105 115 135
on a

Socrates Use the Appeal for Pity?

Joel Warren Lidz
on and

in Plato's Cave

Bernard Jacob

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes Rousseau Under Surveillance: Thoughts New Edition

and

Mary

L. Bellhouse

Translation

of

Rousseau,
169
181

Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues Peter Augustine Lawler Tocqueville

on

Socialism

and

History
the Concept

Maurice Auerbach

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political:

Theology, Decisionism,
of

and

the

Enemy

201

Discussion Victor Gourevich The End

of

History?

215

Book Reviews

Will

Morrisey

Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus,

by
233

Charles L. Griswold, Jr. Leslie G. Rubin

Citizens
and

Statesmen: A

Aristotle's Politics,

Study of by Mary P. Nichols

245

John S. Waggoner

The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron: A Critical Introduction, by Daniel

J.

Mahoney

253

Copyright 1994

interpretation

ISSN 0020-9635

Identifying

Rhetoric in the Apology:

Does Socrates Use the Appeal For Pity?

Thomas Lewis
McMaster

University
devices in
similar
]
Socrates'

Many
and
Gorgias'

rhetorical

defense

speech

have been identified Antidosis from this

and

compared

with

rhetorical

devices in

Isocrates'

Palamedes. Two

main

lines

of

interpretation
for

emerge
an

work.

The first treats the

rhetorical elements as a vehicle rhetoric of

ironic parody

of the

disreputable forensic
pretation and portrays

the day. The second rejects the parody inter

Socrates'

the rhetorical elements as a subordinate part of

attempt to provide a sincere and truthful account of

his life. This

paper explores

the
not

possibility take into account

Socrates'

that the

interpretations
a

of

parody

and of sincere

truth-telling do
is
still well

deeply
I
the

embedded rhetorical

strategy that
this

hidden in the defense

rhetoric

speech.

offer as an example of

deeply

embedded

use of

conceal this appeal

not appear

for pity and his very successful attempt to in the peroration of his defense speech. This rhetoric does
appeal

to

fit

within either

the interpretation of rhetoric as parody or the

to truth-telling.

interpretation

of rhetoric as subordinate work provides a

John Burnet's
analysis.2

cently R. E. Allen
speech as

and

foundation for the parody interpretation. Re Kenneth Seeskin have extended and refined Burnet's
Seeskin interpret
Socrates'

Both Allen Plato's

and

rhetoric

in the defense

attack on

the pandering rhetoric that permeated the courts and

the

assembly.

Allen interprets the Seeskin

Apology

in general,
Seeskin
claim

whereas

claims that

as a parody of disreputable rhetoric rhetoric in Plato has in mind

Gorgias'

the Palamedes

as

the specific target for an ironic the

parody.

Although Allen

and

emphasize

highly
the

rhetorical

quality
to gain

of

the defense speech,

that

they
use

Socrates

eschews

use of rhetoric

an acquittal and

his

of standard rhetorical
of

devices is

sufficiently transparent to
rejects.

be

an

ironic parody
of

the disreputable pleading that he

attack on rhetoric
3
Socrates'

between this
rhetoric

in the

They also Apology and

emphasize
Socrates'

the similarities

denunciation

in the Gorgias.

Those

who understand

defense

as a sincere and truthful account of

his life
house

largely

discount the

role of rhetoric as

parody

or as persuasion. Brick-

and

Smith

claim either

parody

or persuasion would

be

at odds with
life.4

Soc

rates'

sincere and

straightforward

presentation of

his way

of

Thus, for

example,

they

reject

as a rhetorical

the possibility that Socrates is using the story of the Oracle device. "Were he then to be intentionally misleading about such

interpretation,

Winter 1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

106

Interpretation
point, he
would

a substantive which

be guilty

of

the very sort of dishonest

agrees there

rhetoric

for

he

condemns

the

prosecution."5

C.D.C. Reeve

is

no overall
presence

ironical

and

parodying tone

in the Apology. Reeve

recognizes

that the

of some rhetorical elements means that

Socrates does

make some attempt

to

persuade, but Reeve insists that the

to
truth-telling.6

persuasive element
gives more

is

much subordinate

Thus,

although

Reeve

weight

to the rhetorical
significance

elements than Brickhouse and

rhetoric.

Smith, he

also

discounts the

of

Both the
nate to

view of rhetoric as

ironic parody

and

the

view of rhetoric subordi rhetorical elements so

truth-telling

set aside

the possibility that the

far
a

identified in the Apology may be

reluctance

part of an overall rhetorical strategy. rhetoric

Is there

to open up the possibility that these

of a much more

surface

indicators
claims a

deeply

embedded

devices may be only rhetorical structure? Livio

to "a

Rossetti
ception,
spade a

there

is

such a reluctance and ungrounded

that

it is due

kind

of precon a

traditional but
and

attitude, [that prevents]

rhetoric as

us

from calling

spade,

from treating

Socrates'

rhetoric."7

If Rossetti is correct, we may that prevents us from treating

may
emerge

ask what

has

created and sustained an attitude

Socrates'

rhetoric as rhetoric.
masterful use of rhetoric

I believe

an answer

if

we realize rhetoric

that the

rhetoric.

Skillful

may be skillfully
some of

concealed

despite
Perhaps

progress

in

identifying

the rhetorical

may from its audience. Thus, elements in the Apology,

concealed

not appear as

much of a powerful

rhetorical structure still could

be

from

view.

we cannot call

this spade a spade

what we are

because it has been

at.8

so well

hidden

that we do not recognize

looking

With the

difficulty
some of
claims

of

recognizing
rhetoric

rhetoric

in

mind

I turn to

identifying

and

Socrates'

explicating where Socrates

in the Apology. I focus

and

on

the peroration

that he has not,

that he

will

not, stoop to the

courts of

disrep

utable methods of singles out one

forensic

rhetoric so common appeal

in the

Athens. He
the appeal

particularly disreputable

that he

will not use

for

pity.

THE PLEA FOR PITY IN THE PERORATION

Socrates'

Most
at

scholars

have

accepted

refusal not

to appeal for pity pretty

much

face

value.

They

agree

that

by

hauling
Homer,
not

his he

family
could

before the

court

Socra
as

tes eschews the appeal for pity, even though

have

employed

it, for

he
or

says:

"To
a

quote

the very words

of

even

am not

from

rock"

(34d). Socrates does

just

omit

sprung from an oak the appeal for pity. He

explicit claims

emphasizes

that his

failure to

appeal

sion, and

he

offers a

number of

for pity is the result of an reasons for his decision. He

deci
he is

concerned with more

tarnishing his reputation with such disgraceful behavior. Even important, he insists it would be impious for him to plead in a way which

Identifying
would

Rhetoric in
a

the

Apology
verdict.

107
More
sub

induce the jurors to

adds

render other

than

just

and

lawful

over, he

that such impious pleading

stantiating the very charge of Some scholars argue that

than just eschew
refusal to appeal
an

impiety
for
pity.

be self-incriminating that has brought him to court.

would

by

Socrates'

sense of

propriety leads him to

go

further

appeal

They

suggest that

by

emphasizing his

Socrates is urging the jurors to overcome any temptation they may have to be moved by pity. Feaver and Hare (p. 212) claim that Socrates emphasizes his rejection of the appeal for pity to attempt to make the jurors discount any emotional factor that would improperly influence their decision. I offer a very different view of disavowal of the appeal for pity a view consistent with choice of words from Homer. By the reminding jurors that he is "not sprung from an oak or a (Odyssey, XIX, 163),
Socrates' Socrates'
rock"

reminder

Socrates is reminding them that, like Odysseus, he too has relatives. But this is more than a general association with the powerful and wily Odys
"Not sprung from an oak or a Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, to
seus.
rock"

are

Penelope's

words as she presses master of

identify
next

himself. Odysseus,

deception
rate

that

he is,

responds to

Penelope's interrogation

with ever more elabo

lies to

keep

up his disguise. The

day,

still not recognized

by

the

suitors, Odysseus takes them by surprise and kills them all. Part of this phrase is also spoken in the Iliad by Hector just before he is

killed

Achilles. It is unlikely that Socrates is alluding to Hector (Iliad, XXII, 126), however. Hector, speaking to himself, is lamenting that Achilles is deaf to any appeal Hector might make to him. Hector concludes that neither

by

promises,

nor

respect,
would

nor

pity

can

dissuade Achilles. Hector Socrates

claims

would appeal

to

Achilles if he

listen,

whereas

he

will not appeal

to the
and

jurors

even

though
more

they
apt.9

would

listen. The

comparison

between Socrates
and

Odysseus is
mately
that

The

prowess of

both Socrates

Odysseus is inti
explore

connected to their

mastery

of speech.

Accordingly, I

the possi

for pity Socrates is engaging in bility by Odysseus-like deception. That is, he is disguising his appeal for pity so well that he can use the appeal and he can also claim credit for not using the appeal.
emphatically eschewing the appeal

To
the

elucidate

the appeal

Gorgias'

peroration of of

for pity I examine Palamedes. The Palamedes is

considers

Socrates'

peroration

in light

of

the

an example of

the rhetoric
pity.

day,

and

Palamedes
the

but then

rejects

the

appeal

for

An
the

appreciation

of

rhetorical

force

Palamedes'

of
words.

words

helps to

reveal

more subtle rhetorical

force

Socrates'

of

The futation

peroration of a

defense

speech summarized refutation with

the

main points of

the re
pity.
court

and often

buttressed the

an explicit appeal
and relatives

for

Defendants

often paraded their

jurors'

distraught friends
"Direct

before the

to appeal to the that failure to

nism towards

compassion.

requests

for pity
Thus

were so common

beg
the

for the

jurors'

compassion was regarded as a sign of antago

popular courts and

their

methods."10

we

may

expect

to

find

an appeal

for pity in the Palamedes. Indeed, Palamedes

acknowledges that

108
he is

Interpretation
expected to conclude with an appeal peroration of

for

pity.

There is

no appeal

for pity
a good

in the

the

Palamedes, however; instead,

Palamedes has

deal to say about his refusal to appeal for pity. Palamedes begins his peroration by summing up many aspects of his good character, and then, concerned not to appear boastful, he remarks: "It is not for me to praise myself, however, having been accused of these things, the present (32)." Although he occasion forces me to mount a defense in every way I
can"

claims

he

would

be justified in mounting

amedes explains some things are not

defense in any way he can, Pal it is not necessary to appeal necessary

a

for

pity:

Appeals to pity, entreaties, the supplications of friends are helpful when the trial takes place before a crowd; but when it is before you, first among the Greeks and
men of good repute, nor

it is

not proper

to persuade you
proper

by

using the

help

of

friends,
not

entreaties,

nor pity.

Rather, it is

for

me to escape this charge

by

appealing to the clearest principles entangling in deception. (33)

of

justice, putting forth

the truth, and

Palamedes

claims an appeal

nary people (a crowd), who Under the but it has no place when addressing the "first among the guise of explaining his departure from the standard plea for pity, Palamedes takes the opportunity to flatter his audience. He also continues to praise him
Greeks."

for pity may be proper when appealing to ordi do not understand the clear principles of justice,

self, by indirectly alluding to himself as the kind of person who, even in these and desperate circumstances, is prepared to let the outcome rest on "the "the principles of He attempts to counter the possibility of appearing
truth"

justice."

too boastful

by

suggesting that it is the

the
principled

virtue of

his fellow Greeks that

appeal

allows

him to

adhere to

way

and

forego the

for

pity.
expect

Socrates begins his him to

peroration

by

acknowledging that the jurors may

appeal for pity with a flood of tears and a tearful parade of relatives and friends. Like Palamedes, he says he refuses. Also like Palamedes Socrates does not simply omit the appeal for pity. He too emphasizes that he refuses to appeal for pity, and then he uses his refusal as a talking point to explain the impropri

ety

of such appeals and entreaties

(34bc).12

He

points out

that the jurors and he

the

jury the facts and jurors determine where justice lies and "return a just and lawful (35c). For after all, he claims that like them, he too is an Athenian, and anything less is beneath Athenians. By eschewing an appeal for pity, he presents himself as
exist on a moral

higher

plane,

where a

defendant tells

verdict"

someone who would never

presses

his

confidence

evenhanded

stoop to such discreditable pleading, and he ex in Athenian jurors to abide by their oaths and dispense justice. Like Palamedes, Socrates presents himself as a man of
of

principle and principles.

are

he flatters the jurors that they too are Athenians On these points the perorations of the and

the

highest

Apology

the

Palamedes

very

similar.

Identifying

Rhetoric in

the

Apology

109

There are two rhetorical refinements in peroration, however. The Socrates' first is consideration of the possible impact of his refusal to appeal for pity. He says he understands that some of the jurors may be annoyed and angry
Socrates'

at

with a much

his refusal, especially if they remember how they begged for pity less serious charge (34bc).
It may be that
one of

when

faced

on these facts, will be prejudiced against me, his reflections, will give his vote in anger. If one of you is so disposed I do not expect it, but there is the possibility I think that I should be quite justified in saying to him, My dear sir, of course I have some relatives. To

you, reflecting

and

being irritated by

quote the
rock,"

very words of Homer, even f am not sprung "from an oak or from but from human parents, and consequently I have relatives yes, and

a
sons

too, gentlemen, three of them, one of them almost grown up and the other two but all the same I am not going to produce them here and beseech only children
you to acquit me.

(34d)

What is the cause of this anticipated irritation and anger? If it is beneath Socrates to appeal for their pity, and y^t the jurors know they have appealed for pity, or they know that they would appeal for pity if hauled into court, then Socrates risks implying that they are beneath him. He may seem to be dis

tancing himself from

Notice he
claims

them

by
is

his

refusal

stressing his commitment to the honorable way. not due to lack of respect, but it may sound like
still, it may
sound

lack He

of

respect, indeed

worse

like

scorn or contempt

(34e).

will provoke an

angry

reaction

if his

refusal

to appeal for pity is

interpreted

as contemptuous arrogance.
Socrates'

choice of words
an

is

calculated

to diffuse

rather

than to exacerbate
criticism.

angry
of

reaction.

He

exempts most of the

jurors from any

It is only
most of

"one"

them who may be provoked to

vote against

him,

and even

this he does

really expect, "but there is the them are like him; they would not stoop to
not

possibility."

Socrates implies that

pleading.

such
who

disreputable

He

also

implies that
court.

even

those few among

them,

men of enough character

to recognize what a

may have begged for pity, are man should do when brought into
and resentful

They

are not men who would

be angry

towards someone

who abides

by

their principles better than

they have

themselves.

They

are men

who recognize and respect

honorable

behavior.11
Socrates'

To

appreciate

the

rhetorical

force

of

words consider what strikes a principled

he does

not say.

Although, like Palamedes, he

distance himself from them

by insisting
that

that what

tone, he does not he does is foreign to them.

take the
low"

He does
the

not say:

"I take the high road,

allows

whereas you always

(even

if they do). Instead, he

principled way. else

they

are much

like him in their devotion to

them to think of someone

Moreover, he
ambiguous

encourages each of

among them (the

"one")

whom

they

can all

feel

superior provoke

to. He

chooses claim

his

words

to dissipate any

anger or resentment

he may

by

his

to the

principled way.

1 10

Interpretation
second refinement

The
credit

ing

use of the appeal for pity after claiming for eschewing the appeal for pity. Socrates makes his appeal by introduc his family in speech rather than in the flesh. He says he mentions his family

is

Socrates'

only to
element

emphasize

his

refusal

to

use

them to plead for pity. There

is

another

here, however. Although he does not physically display his family in he does display them in speech. He has three sons; two are only chil court, dren. Rather than literally bring them to court, Socrates invokes the images of
his
and

children.

He

makes an appeal

for pity

by

alluding to his

family
make

so

indirectly

subtly that he can also claim credit for not using them to
Palamedes'

this appeal.

Some
and

of
even

may

may have been swayed by an appeal for pity, (as Socrates explains) be irritated when it is not made. However,
audience
Gorgias'

if

we accept

the Palamedes as an example of

rhetoric,

we must con an

clude that on
appeal

balance Palamedes
He
must expect

expects

to strengthen his case

of

by forgoing

for

pity.

the disadvantage

forgoing

to

be

more

than offset

by

the propensity to think

well of

ploy and appearing to embrace truth and justice come lows this reasoning and improves upon it. He anticipates the possible annoy ance he may cause by not making the appeal for pity. Then he chooses his
words

for pity him for refusing this what may. Socrates fol
an appeal

to allow each juror to attribute this irritation to someone else them to rise above an

and

to

encourage each of

ill-spirited irritation. He

encourages

them to think

well of a man who

Then, having
appeal

claimed maximum credit

for pity by introducing Socrates uses his apparent disavowal

the peroration. He asks:
answer
kind?"

lives up to the best of Athenian standards. for not appealing for pity, he makes the his family in speech rather than in person.
of

the appeal

remainder of

"Why

do I

not

for pity to structure the intend to do anything of

this

(34d). To

this question he

uses

the appeal for pity as an

example of all the methods of eschewed

of

(34e). He
on

rejects

the

disreputable pleading which he claims to have appeal for pity and other disreputable methods

pleading

such methods

finds them personally disgraceful and that discredit the reputation of the whole city. To protect the city's
the grounds that he

reputation

he

urges the

jurors to "make it
brings

clear

that anyone who stages these

pathetic scenes and so

ridicule upon our

quiet"

condemned than

if he kept perfectly
methods of

city is far more likely to be (35b). Then he sets aside the ques

tion

of appearances and moves

toward the crux of the

would

issue. He

claims

that to

use such

disgraceful
to attempt
of

solemn oaths to return a

if he

were

pleading lawful verdict (35c). Moreover, he claims that to induce them to break their oaths he would be guilty of
just
and with which

induce them to break their

the very charge

impiety
is

he has been

charged

(35d).

Socrates handles identifying for pity, Socrates seems to be reminding the jurors that he has done what he said he would do. He seems to substantiate the claim he made in the exordium that he would speak the truth in his usual simple and straightforward fashion (17c). words sound very different if his use of rhetorical
read without

If the

peroration

the subtle way

the

appeal

Socrates'

Identifying
technique is understood
as

Rhetoric in

the

Apology

-111

I have suggested, however. From this

perspective

his

rhetoric

is

so much more subtle than the rhetoric of

Palamedes that Socrates

an appeal

can conclude when

his defense
made

by

claiming

credit

for

not

making

for pity

he has just

this very appeal.

THE PRESUMPTION THAT RHETORIC CAN BE RECOGNIZED

I have

used some of

the rhetorical techniques in the Palamedes to

more refined use of these techniques
Socrates'

help

to

identify
Most

the similar

but

in the Apology.
so one

readers

have

not remarked on are

use of

these
so

techniques,
many

might well ask whether missed them?

they really there. Could I believe they could, partly because they
of

readers

have

are so

partly because identified.

the

the presumption that

if they
of

were used

subtly used, and would be readily they

not stress

Socrates himself

raises

the question
rhetorical

identification, but he does

and straightforward
words rather

difficulty

of

identifying

technique. Indeed he takes the opposite

even

position.

those like the

words. and

He implies that identification is easy jurors who are listening to his

exordium

for his

than reading

This implication

appears as a suppressed premise

in both the

exordium

the peroration. In the

the

claim

that rhetoric

is the
to

suppressed premise of not

the argument

that,

since rhetoric will not

is readily identified be seen

claims

be used, it is
would

being

used.

In the

peroration

it is

the suppressed premise of

the

counterfactual argument

that, if he had

used rhetoric

(he

he did not),

they

have

noticed.

In the

exordium

Socrates begins his defense

not to

accusers'

warning to the jurors

response

be deceived

to the

accusation of

being

by deceptively

responding to the his skillful speech. This immediate

skillful speaker

by

follows Aris

totle's advice on opening a defense. Aristotle

warns

impressed the jurors, "One must therefore make the speech one intends to make; and for this purpose you impression made by the Accordingly, Socrates
adversary."'4

that, if the accusers have room in the hearer's mind for

must

destroy
that

the

claims will

he is

particularly
as a speaker

astonished at when

this charge, for it is

obvious

untrue and not

it

be

confuted

very quickly

it becomes
claims

that he does
of skill will words

have the

slightest skill

(17b). He

his lack

become

obvious when

they

hear his

straightforward speech

in the first

that

occur of

to him (17c). In
courts

deed, he
tive

claims

he is

so unfamiliar with

the language

the

(the

decep

rhetoric of

the courts) that his

might almost seem

of place and

it

speaking will sound entirely out that he is from another country and speaks a
manner of speech

different

dialect."

Socrates
alien,
on

rests

his

claim

that his

will

sound simple, perhaps even

the

presumption

that the

skillful speech can

presumption

be readily identified if
speech sounds

as skill

ful

speech.

Socrates

uses

that

simple and

112

Interpretation
(as his
speech

straightforward
sets aside the

will) then it is

simple and straightforward.

He

possibility that the

the
undetected

simple and straightforward sound of

his

speech

may be the
that

result of

use of skillful rhetoric

a rhetoric so

skillfully

used

by passing In the peroration Socrates

as

it

speaker.16

confutes

the charge of

being
in

a skillful

claims that would

he has

spoken

a simple and straight

claims

forward fashion done

he

said

he

in the

exordium.

He

that to

have

otherwise would not

duty. In short, he claims of man who engages in decep tive speech (35d). Moreover, he claims that even if he were that sort of man he would not have attempted to prevail upon them to go against their solemn
oaths.

be reputable, moral, he is just not the sort

or consistent with

his

religious

For

as

he

says:

Above here.

all you must not expect

it

when

stand charged with

impiety by

Meletus

Surely

it is

obvious

that if I tried to persuade you and prevail upon you

by

my entreaties to go against your solemn oath, I should be teaching you contempt for religion, and by my very defense I should be accusing myself of having no religious belief. (35d)

Here Socrates
would

again

is the

suppressed premise

that rhetoric

presumes

that appeals to pity, and

by

extension are.

is readily identifiable. other impious appeals,

recognition would

be

recognized

by

the jurors

for

what

they

This

have two

consequences.

He

the very things of which he is accused. is readily identifiable need not be introduced by Socrates; it may be imported into a reading of the Apology by the reader. In either event, by trading on the presumption that rhetoric is readily identifiable,
one of

sumably by the example of ing himself by being seen to do The

presumption

be teaching them contempt for religion (pre his impious behavior), and he would be incriminat
would

that

rhetoric

Socrates
either of

entrenches

the

presumption

in the

mind of were

the audience

an audience

jurors it for

or of readers
what

that if he

to use rhetoric the audience

so

would see

it is. Because his

Thus the
reader

rhetoric

is

subtle,

however, it is

not

immediately bility that Socrates

use of rhetoric.
so well concealed.

apparent.

is

not provoked

to investigate the possi

is both using rhetoric It is not surprising that

and

taking

great care to conceal

his

Socrates'

appeal

for pity has

remained

CONCLUSION

In the

peroration
rhetoric

Socrates identifies the he

refuses

appeal

for pity

as an example of

the
so

disreputable

to employ. He then makes the appeal

for pity

subtly that he can

who

go on

to

claim credit

for

being

the kind of man who would

not make such an appeal.

He

also anticipates the possible annoyance of

jurors
the

take his disavowal

of

the appeal for pity at

face value,
refusal

by flattering

jurors that it is beneath

them to

be irritated

by

his

to appeal

for pity

Identifying
for
ric as men of principle

Rhetoric in the

Apology
Socrates'

-113

they

too appreciate

honorable behavior.

rheto potential of as

is far

more subtle

than

Palamedes'. Palamedes forgoes the

on

the

appeal

for pity

and relies

solely
of

the ploy of

displaying

himself

the kind of
attempts

man who refuses

to stoop to such disreputable pleading. Socrates

to

obtain

the rhetorical force

Socrates'

subtle rhetoric
pounds and

both making the appeal for pity and disavowing it. in the peroration is difficult to detect. He com
with

the

difficulty

of

detection

his misleading

claims

in the
so

exordium

the

peroration.

In the

exordium

he

claims that rhetoric

fiable that the

evidence
ric

simple and straightforward sound of no rhetorical ability.

readily identi his speech will be clear

is

that he has

In the

peroration

he

claims

that

rheto

is so readily identifiable that if he were to use rhetoric his audience would quickly recognize its use and condemn him for impiety. Thus it is very difficult for the reader to overcome the attitude which Rossetti claims prevents us from
Socrates'

treating
his
the
rhetorical skill peroration

rhetoric as rhetoric.

It is difficult because Socrates has

the
reader's

used

to create

and sustain

belief that the

rhetoric

in

is

not rhetoric.

Although

Socrates'

rhetoric enough of an

in the

peroration

is in

deeply

embedded, I believe I to
open

have identified possibility

tions of

underlying

rhetorical

structure

of comparable rhetorical structures

other parts of

the

speech.

up the If

similar rhetoric

is identified elsewhere, it will be difficult to sustain interpreta the Apology as either ironic parody or as sincere and straightforward
Socrates'

truth-telling.

We

will need a more comprehensive

understanding

of

use of rhetoric.

NOTES
1. George Norlin, Isocrates (London: William Heineman, 1929). James A. Coulter, "The Re Defense of Palamedes and Plato's Critique of of the Apology of Socrates to Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 68 (1964): 269-303. Gorgianic
Gorgias'

lation

Rhetoric,"

cess,"

2. John Bumet, ed., Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates and Crito (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924). R. E. Allen, "The Trial of Socrates: A Study in the Morality of the Criminal Pro in M.O. Friedland, ed., Courts and Trials (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), pp.
3-21 ; Socrates
and

Legal Obligation (Minneapolis:

of Socrates a Discovery (Albany: State
Parody?"

University of Minnesota Press, 1980);

Philosophy
and

Kenneth

Seeskin, "Is
reprinted

the

Apology
and and

Literature 6 (1982): 94-105;

Rhetoric,"

in Dialogue

University

of

Douglas Feaver
(1981): 205-17.

John Hare, 'The

serves as a

Apology
of a

as an

Inverted

Parody

New York Press, 1987). See also Arethusa 14 of

of the

3. The Gorgias
denunciation

basis

parody interpretation

Apology only if

Socrates'

not a in the Gorgias is taken pretty much at face consid itself Gorgias is in the rhetoric denunciation of the if interpretation firm basis for a parody as an example of rhetoric, however. For explorations of the Gorgias ered as part of of Plato's Socratic rhetoric see Steven Rendall, "Dialogue, Philosophy, and Rhetoric: The Example

of rhetoric

value.

The Gorgias is

Socrates'

Gorgias"

in the

Gorgias,"

"Enactment as Rhetoric Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (1977): 165-79; Charles Kauffman, "Refutative Rhet Philosophy and Rhetoric 12 (1979): 1 14-29; Thomas J. Lewis,
Gorgias,"

Interpretation 14 (1986): 195-210. True Rhetoric in the 4. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, "Irony, Arrogance, and (New York and London: Apology, in E. Kelly, ed., New Essays on Socrates
oric as

Sincerity in Plato's University Press of

114*

Interpretation
version appears

America, 1984), pp. 29-46. A revised University Press, 1989), pp. 37-47.
5. Thomas C. Brickhouse
of the
and

in Socrates

on

Trial

(Princeton: Princeton

Mission,"

Socrates'

History

Nicholas D. Smith, "The Origin of Socrates of Ideas 44 (1983): 658. A revision of this article appears in

Journal
pp.

on

Trial,

89-100. 6. C.D.C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989), p. 8. 225. 7. Livio Rossetti, "The Rhetoric of Philosophy and Rhetoric 22 (1989): that I am using 8. I hope it is clear from the contexts in which I have used the word
Socrates,"
"rhetoric"

it in the traditional
reasoning
to ensuring
a sense of rhetoric as

narrow

sense,

rather

than as an overall

science of

discourse

or of practical
narrow

meaning that "a

has

emerged

in the twentieth

century.

Thomas Cole defines the

speaker's or writer's self-conscious manipulation of

his

medium with a view

(The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient his message as favorable reception as Greece [Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991], p. ix.) 9. In his note on this line John Bumet assumes that Socrates is alluding to Odysseus (Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates and Crito, p. 145). Leo Strauss makes the same assumption in
possible."

Studies in Political Philosophy, with an introduction Chicago Press, 1983), p. 48. Brickhouse and Smith Iliad

by

Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: because both the

University

of

claim that

passage

from the

and that from the Odyssey fit the context of the Apology, they cannot tell which passage Socrates is referring to or if he is referring to either (Socrates on Trial, p. 202, n. 63). 10. John O. Lofberg, Sycophancy in Athens (Chicago: Ares, 1976), p. 15. 1 1 Quotations from the Palamedes are from the translation by Kenneth Seeskin in Dialogue
.

and

Discovery, Appendix A.
12. Brickhouse
and

explanation of why he will for pity (Socrates on Trial, pp. 202-9). My interpretation of the peroration is reasons for not appealing for pity, whereas I very different, however. They explain explain how Socrates attempts both to make an appeal for pity and also to claim credit for not

Smith

offer a

detailed

Socrates'

examination of

not use an appeal

Socrates'

making an appeal for pity. 13. See Brickhouse and Smith, Socrates on Trial, pp. 207-9, particularly n. 71. 14. Rhetoric III, XVII, 15. The exordium is one part of the defense speech where the
rhetoric much of

role of

has been
offered

much

debated. Brickhouse

and

Smith (Socrates

on

Trial,

pp.

48-57)

summarize
exordium pp.

this debate.

For

from that

by

a very different interpretation of use of rhetoric in the Brickhouse and Smith, see Livio Rossetti, "The Rhetoric of

Socrates'

Socrates,"

227-28. For

an exploration of

just how

deeply

Socrates'

embedded

rhetoric

dium,
phy
of ert

see

and

Thomas J. Lewis, "Parody and the Argument from Literature 14 (1990): 359-66.
use of

Probability

may be in the exor in the Philoso

Apology,'

15. Note the

the

argumentum ex

contrario, an argument based on the supposed reversal

facts that

arrests attention and arouses and

interest

Socrates is

not

from

another country.

See Rob

J. Bonner, Lawyers 1927), pp. 228-29. 16. I believe this is

Litigants in Ancient Athens (Chicago: Rossetti

means

University

of

Chicago Press,

an example of what own

by

the claim that in the exordium

Socrates,"

Socrates is

"concealing

his

prose"

rhetorically

elaborate

("The Rhetoric

of

p.

228).

Reflections

on and

in Plato's Cave

Joel Warren Lidz

Bentley

College

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Socrates'

Despite

explicit statement
of paideia and

to the

effect

that the Cave image has to

do

with

the effect
of

the lack thereof upon our nature

(514a),

majority
other

those who have

written about

the Cave have focused instead

which

on

issues, particularly
placed upon

that of the degree to the Divided

Line.1

the Cave is

formally
be

con

sistent and/or parallel with

suspect

that the emphasis

can

which

has been

the

Cave's

relation

to the Divided Line

attributed

to two considerations, the first

on epistemological

being

the modern philosophical tradition's

focus Had

issues

and attendant

bifurcation

of sense and

reason.2

tators seem to take for granted,

mathesis or episteme

Socrates intended the Cave to deal primarily with knowledge, as most commen however, he would probably have spoken of instead
of paideia.

Paideia

connotes

the process

of

en-

culturation,

not
even

the simple acquisition of theoretical

or practical

knowledge.
must

Moreover,
understood

if

we make

the plausible

assumption

that the

Cave

be

from

within

the context of the Sun and

Line,

we are still

left

with

the obvious

fact

that all three

images

occur within most

the framework of the Repub

nature of

lic

as a

whole, while the Republic'?,

fundamental theme is the

the relation between well-being

latter

being

the

proper work

(eudaimonia) and moral excellence (arete), (ergon) of a human being (353a).

prisoners'

the

When Socrates
whether rather

asks about the

condition,
of

he does have
of

not ask

they
or

would see

anything

the artifacts

carried at

the parapet,
seen

merely but

he

also asks:

"do

you think these people would

themselves
other

of

one another except concern

for the
only

shadows?"

(515a; my

emphasis).

anything of In

Socrates'

words,

is

not

with

ignorance

the true sources of

one's experience of the concerned not versus

world, but

also with one's self-ignorance.

The Cave is

only

with

the distinction between

also with

perception/appearance/opinion

thought/reality/knowledge, but
life.
which

that between

prephilosophical

versus philosophical

The

second reason of

I believe

accounts

interpretations
applied

the Cave lies in the fact that

when

for the popularity of formal Socrates offers his own

as a whole must

explication of the

Cave, he begins by
before"

saying, "this image

be

to what was

said

(517b). But the fact that Socrates tells

Glau-

interpretation, Winter 1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

116
con to

Interpretation
"apply"

"attach"

or
before"

(prosapteon)

what

has been

said about

the Cave to

"what

was said

need not with reference

imply

that Socrates intends the Cave to be

interpreted solely
noted

to the Sun and Divided Line. A.S. Ferguson

"applied,"

long
as

ago

that

if

one translates prosapteon as of what precedes

then one will

be

led to interpret the image in the light

it,

whereas

if

one

trans

lates it
Line

"attached,"

then the image becomes

supplemental

to the Sun and

cannot

similes.3

However, I

can think of no reason

of

why the Cave image

both
them

relate

to the preceding images

Sun

and

Line,

while also

superseding

in

various respects.

Another
should

question arises

in this

regard:

When Socrates
might

says

that the

Cave

everything that Glaucon? seems emi between himself and This discussed had been previously discussion with nently plausible in view of the fact that the bulk of
what was said not mean
Socrates'

be "applied to

before,"

he

Glaucon both before

paideia:

and after

the

Cave image deals

with various courses of

citizens, dialectic for others. Following his pre sentation of the Cave image, Socrates draws, in the space of less than one page, a few parallels between the contents of the Cave and the Sun image, and

"noble

lies"

for

some

then notes that those who manage to escape from the Cave are unwilling to
concern

themselves

with

human dealings. Socrates then begins

nature and content of a philosophical

very

lengthy

discussion concerning the

within a

education, the

sort of paideia which would enable one

to best rule the multiplicity of parts

city

or within oneself.

This

paper

tends toward the conclusion that the

soteriological
myth.4

Cave image is best

refers

under

stood as a

protreptic,

Socrates in fact

to the

philoso

pher-rulers as
possible

attuned

(502c), but such saviors are only because they have first guarded their own souls (413c) by becoming to the intelligible structure of Being. By viewing this attunement to the
saviors of our

"the

regime"

structure of

Being

as

the Cave's

leitmotif,
in

we can avoid

the sort of

interpretive

secondary literature. As a final introductory remark, I should say that in my attempt to avoid reducing the cave to any single theme, it may appear that I have gone too far in the opposite direction, providing what is largely a series of observations and
reductionism which prevailed so much of

has

the

the meaning of the Cave. This approach seemed appropriate, in that Socrates describes the Cave as an image, and his discussion of however, the Divided Line explains that eikasia is the least clear of the four faculties of
reflections on

(509d). Yet it is precisely this lack of clarity which provides the first intimations of our goal intimations which can never be other than more or less vague signposts on our way toward the Sun. 1 must also confess to a
apprehension

for writing which exhibits spontaneous suggestivewriting is especially well suited to evoking the reader's own reflections. In the present instance, such writing seems faithful to the Cave's hidden meanings. many

longstanding
as

predilection

ness,

such

Reflections
THE MYTHIC SETTING

on and

in Plato's Cave

'111

The Republic

opens

quasi-mythically

with

Socrates

descending

"to

Peiraias"

noted that this is an unusual linguistic formation, in that it atypically omits the definite article. She suggests that Plato intends the reader to recall he Peraia, "the Land and notes that the festival which has captured is in honor of Bendis, a Thracian goddess identi curiosity
Beyond," Socrates'

(327a). Eva Brann has

fied

with

Hecate,

goddess of the underworld.

of

Socrates'

well-to-do are

host, Ceph
of

alus, is said to be at the threshold shades, in the house of

Socrates'
Pluto,"

death (328e). "We

in the city

writes

Brann.5

cles,
save

descent, like that of other Hellenic heroes before him (e.g., Hera Theseus, Orpheus) is fraught with danger. His ostensible mission is to
and

Glaucon
of

Adeimantus from the temptations

and

and

dangers

of a

deficient Hades

theory

justice,
that

thus
are

of a

deficient way
are

of

life. The
in

symbolism of

suggests that not

only

the prisoners

dwelling
shades

a world of

insubstantial
of what

images, but

they

themselves

like

insubstantial images

it is to be human.

IMAGINING THE CAVE

From this "land

or

beyond,"

Socrates

who

describes himself

for"

as

"greedy
construct

to"

"sticking
"fair

close

speech of a

diverse images
city"

of

images (glischros eikadzo; 488a) cities, ranging from a "cavelike

which

will

in

dwelling"

to
not

an

image
exist

(kallipolis; 527c),
our nature

Glaucon does his

believe to

"anywhere
which

earth"

on

(592a). Socrates

commences

parable with a statement

implies that

is the

sort of

thing

which can

be influenced

by

education:

Imagine

our nature

in its

education and want of education.

(514a)6

Since Socrates begins the Cave image "in its

education and

by telling

us

that it is a likeness

of

our nature
ply"

lack

education"

of

"attach"

or

Greek
the

word paideia,

it only to the Divided Line would like the German word Bildung,
purposes of

(514a), I infer that to "ap be a mistake. Insofar as the

connotes our condition of

enculturation

i.e., image should instead, for

of

the process whereby one becomes comparison,

fully

human

I believe

be "placed

beside"

(the

literal translation
ment:

the Greek parabole) the whole of

portrays prephilosophical

our experience.

2. The Cave image

the to
Socrates'

life

as a condition of enslave

cave-dwellers are renowned

"in

bonds."

We

can relate

this condition of enslave

ment

pronouncement, "The

unexamined

life is

not worth

living

for

human

being"

(Apology, 38a). This

standard

translation seems to

118*

Interpretation
be translated
either as

me

to miss the point. Ou biotos can

"not

worth

living

or

as

"not

[worthy]
contrast

to

be

lived."

The fact that Socrates here

makes reference

to

humans (when desire to

another
would

such

is normally implicitly understood) only emphasizes his the properly human (rational-deliberative) mode of life with human life
I
suggest of
which

the nonhuman, rather than to contrast a

is

worth

living
a

with

human life
in
mind

which

is

not.7

Thus,
not

that a

superior

translation
human."

be: "The

unexamined

life is

Bearing

the Hellenic contempt

worthy for slaves,

being

lived

by

we can understand

why the
of

prephilosophical

(enslaved)

condition of

the cave-dwellers

would symbolize a

less than

fully

human

condition when contrasted with as

the the

philosophical

way
the

life. (In the Sophist [253c], dialectic is described

man.)

episteme of

free

3. The Cave image

will concern

images

and

that

of which

they

are

images; it

is therefore lack
of

self-referential.

Such

an

image

of

"our

nature

in its

education and

education"

presented

for didactic

purposes will

state of education
whom

both

of

the one

who creates

necessarily reflect the the image and of the one for

conditions and

the image is
nature

constructed.

The image both lack

of

is

conditioned

by

"our

in its

education."

education and

4.

Why

are we

to rely on our capacity

for

image-making

and

image-appre
says

hension
that: "so

(eikasia)

as

the most appropriate method for understanding our nature?

pages prior

Approximately

fifteen is

to relating the Cave

image, Socrates

hard is the it

condition suffered

by

the

most

decent

men with respect

to

the cities that there

no other single condition

like it, but I

must make an

image
make

of

by bringing

goat-stags"

unfamiliar or

from many sources, as when painters (488a). Socrates implies that when attempting to describe an unique sort of experience, it is best to rely upon the imagination
together elements

as a means of

bringing
the
need

the unfamiliar into the ambit of the

seeks

familiar. This is
nature and

precisely
merely

what
real

Cave image does: it

for
a soul

to

illuminate the distinction be

those
a result of cultur

tween the

well which

ordered

apparent needs

(desires)

according to disrupt the psyche as

ally conditioned of images plays

opinions such an

concerning what is true and good. Since the concept important role in Books VI and VII of the Republic, images.

we should reflect on

the nature of

EXCURSUS I: IMAGES AND IMAGINATION

a.

Images

contain reference to

something

other than

originals of which

they

are

images; they
prisoners

point

themselves, namely, the beyond themselves. It is this

in
effect

pointing beyond themselves the

accounts

fail to

for their
relation

"imprisonment."

recognize and which,

b. The

between images

presuppose the existence of

is asymmetrical, in that images originals, but originals do not presuppose the exisand originals

Reflections
tence
of

on and

in Plato's Cave

-119

Gadamer
seem

images. The One (Unity) is ontologically prior to the Many. As H.G. writes: "As the unity of what is unitary, the idea of the good would to be presupposed by anything ordered, enduring and consistent. That

means,
eros

however,
and

that

it is

presupposed as the
of

unity

of

the

many."8

The

soul's

and overcoming thus, toward unity qua self-identity. c. One original can produce many images of itself; there are many Caves, but only one exterior. Moreover, the many images can vary in their degree of resemblance to the original. Since the original is not accessible as such, the

impels it toward

an

its

condition of alienation

from Self

Being,

question arises as to

how

one

is to determine the degree to Consider the

which a resemblance analogy:

holds between image

that

and original.

following

Suppose be
a

(i)

there

exist a number of

Greek original, and copy long since been lost. Under such circumstances, the look (eidos) of the original is not accessible to us at least not as such. Yet we hypothesize that the many Roman statues
of a are all copies of one

Roman statues, each of which that (ii) the Greek original has

appears to

original,
copies.

which

is the

cause or explanation of the resem

would

blance between the

unity, both
nal. of

Such
relation

resemblance

further
relation

constitute

the copies in

to one another and in

at

to the origi
and

Assuming
lovers

that the copies only hint

of

the

beauty
do in

of

the original,

that

we are

beauty,

we will no

doubt be driven to
we could of

wonder about

the ap

pearance of the original.

reconstruct

But the best

such a case would

be to

power of our

We

will

("recollect") imagination, by considering the similarities between the copies. thereby profess to have inferred a single, invisible look from many,
the appearance
as

the original on the basis of the

similar

looks. But insofar

the possibility always

exists

that something about to

the copies remains to be noticed,

principle.

such a quest would seem

be interminable in

d. Images may
present

or

may

not

reveal

themselves as

themselves as what
originals.

they

are

images

or

images; i.e., they may (deceptively) as what they

As Socrates
states: a

are not

Unity

can appear as multiplicity.

"each

with

[Form] is itself one, but, by showing actions, bodies, and one another,

themselves everywhere
each

in

community
mis-taken

looks like

many"

(476a). Opinions

reality but masquerade as reality. Opinions for truth if one fails to examine them dialectically.
are about e.

are

inevitably

Images

are ambiguous

to be. An
points
of

image is

a mask which

in that they both are and are not what they appear both conceals and reveals the original; it

away from its source. (As Heraclitus said: "The nature things likes to hide itself [Diels-Kranz, fr. 123].) Plato's identification of

both toward

and

the

real and

the intelligible suggests that

what

it is to be in

sensu strictu

is to be

absolutely (kath hauton). Something which is deficiently F provides a clue as to what the absolute F is like. Whether one could determine what F itself is like simply
performing the way in which the

by

feat

of mental abstraction would seem

to depend

upon

elements of

the

mixture are combined.

If

each element

120

Interpretation
its
pristine character within

retained
candies

the

mixture

like

a mixture of
mixed were

and

M
the

then abstraction would suffice; but if

being

to

alter

look

or nature of

the elements (as in the case of colors of paint, or

sodium and character

chlorine), then
manifest

abstraction will not

do the trick. In the latter case, the its

in

thing is

affected as a result of statement at

being
latter

related

to something
view.

else.

Judging from
originals. stand

Socrates'

476a,

the

seems

to be his

f. Images (qua shadows)

present a are

Analogously,

opinions

relatively inarticulate

unarticulated version of accounts of reality,

their

which all

in is

need of examination

(elenchos),

not mere refutation.

For example,

three definitions of
which

justice in Book I

recognize

that justice has to do with that

owed

(borrowed property, benefits

or

harms,

obedience), but each

fails
alus,
thus
ria

to account
who

for the Good

as the prime

determinant

of what

is

owed.

Ceph
and

is

ruled

by

love

of

money

and practical affairs

(philochrematia)

represents

the appetitive part of the soul, adopts strictly conventional crite

enemies,"

for

justice

determining what one owes others. His son, Polemarchus, who defines is ruled by love of as "Doing good to friends and harm to
see

victory (philoneikia) and love of honor (philotimia), and fails to friend is one who knows one's good, then one must know one's
order of

that

if

own good

in

to be able to know one's

ruling (philarchia), defines justice

not see that

friends. Thrasymachus, who is ruled as "the advantage of the

toward the question of
what

by

love

stronger,"

but
the

does
sents

his definition
requisite

points

what possesses

strength

(ability)
we

to determine

is truly

advantageous.

He

repre

the

philosophical character gone

bad (cf. 491b-496a).

Perhaps
our

have been

asked

to

use our

nature, because

our nature

capacity for eikasia in thinking about like that of images is erotic, deceptively
and of all our

ambiguous and

constantly transcending itself,

faculties, imagina

tion is best suited to encompass this

myriad of existential modes.

TOPOGRAPHY OF THE CAVE

See human beings

as

though

they

were

(oikeisei spelaiodei)

with

its entrance,

living in an underground cavelike dwelling long one, open to the light across the

whole width of the cave.

(514a)

The fact that the humans dwell underground is consistent both with the Socrates' notion that the Republic takes place in Hades, and with "noble of metallic souls, which describes the citizenry's common from the Earth ancestry
1
.

lie"

(414d f.).

2. That the

dwelling

is described

as cavelike

(i.e.,

as an

image

of a cave

rather than se) is probably intended to imply that the Cave is artificial. Dale Hall attributes to A.S. Ferguson the recognition that: "the as a cave per can

be

understood

only if

we recognize

unnatural.'

sense

Unnatural,

that

is,

condition is 'in some because their confinement deprives them

that the

inmates'

Cave

Reflections
of

on and

in Plato's Cave

121

sunlight, the 'natural

"eyes"

medium

for the

eye'."9

This, however,
sight.

assumes that

by

nature,
metallic

all

possess the same

we all possess

souls,

capacity for souls (eyes), but

In terms

of the myth of

some souls are

golden, others

silver, bronze; i.e., some souls function better, are less alienated from reality than others, and so are more valuable than others. 3. Socrates implies that it is natural for us to be born into a cavelike dwell
and yet others

ing,
it

and

this

suggests

that everything which

we experience after

taking leave

of

will

be

understood

in the light (or

should we

say,

darkness)

of our previous

subterranean

life. The Cave

can never

be entirely transcended.
legs
and necks

They

have been there in the

since childhood with

remain

same place,

seeing only in front

suggests

of them.

in bonds, (514a)

so that

they

1. Contra

Rousseau, Socrates
it
means

that

we are

born in

chains.

The

para

ble

reveals what &

to be imprisoned
Aeschylus'

within

as well as

to be liberated
contrasts

from
with a

polis, construed as a source of tyrannical opinion. The story

predecessor, that in

Prometheus Bound,

wherein

Prometheus

reminds mortals of their origins:

Hear For

what troubles there were

among men, how I found them

witless and gave

. . .

them the use of their

men at

wits and made

them master of their minds

first had

eyes

but

saw to no purpose;

they had

ears

but did

not

hear.

dreams they dragged through their long lives and handled all things in bewilderment and confusion. They lived like swarming ants in holes Like the
shapes of
.

in the ground, in the sunless caves without intelligent calculation.

.

of

the

earth.

...

All their doings

were

indeed

Prometheus then describes how he dane things

us

provided

humankind

with

useful,

mun

in short, "Humanity is the

the

ta chremata

the sort of things of which Protagoras tells

within

measure."

To the humans
of

the cave,

Prometheus

provides numbers and

letters,
This

beasts

burden,

ships and medicines.

By

con

trast,

Socratic
the the

myth

focuses
shift

on those

things requisite for the proper to

func

tioning
an

of

soul."

from

chremata soul

dikaia, from
discussion
and

things good

(useful) for

body

to things good for the

(and from

outward

behavior to
with

internal condition), is exemplified marchus, who defines justice as "helping

mies."

by

Socrates'

Pole
as of

one's

friends

harming

one's ene

Socrates subtly

shifts

from

Polemarchus'

physically

hurting

or

debilitating

one's enemies

understanding of harming to harming in the sense

own"

corrupting another's character (335a-d). For Socrates, true justice deals (443d).'2 "that which is truly about oneself and is [properly] one's 2. Although the
prisoners are aware

with

only

of

that

which

lies before them,

they

are affected also of

by
a

that

which

lies

invisibly

behind them.

They

thus

run

the danger Men

was

missing

lesson taught

by

Heraclitus:
of what

are

deceived

by

their cognizance

(gnosin)

is

manifest

Homer,

wisest of

the Greeks. For he was

deceived

by

boys

killing

(to phaneron) as lice when

122

Interpretation
said to

they

him: "What
we

we see and

catch, these

we

leave behind;

what we

don't

away."

see or

catch, these

carry

(Diels-Kranz, fr. 56)

Heraclitus here grasp the

and

speaks

riddle of

life

the lice themselves

killed

a number

of Homer's wisdom, for the latter failed to lice like death. The meaning of the riddle of the is elusive. I interpret the riddle as follows: Having caught of lice, the boys leave them behind; but other lice attach

ironically

and

themselves to the boys

story:

and are

unwittingly

carried

away

by

them.

Moral

of

the

What

we

don't

"know"

i.e.,

are not aware of

can

hurt

us.

In the

cave
opin

parable,

shadows

function

much

like Homer's lice: many

shadows

(i.e.,

ions)
less

"carried"

are

unknowingly

(i.e., held) by

the prisoners,

yet are nonethe

potent.

Their light is from

fire

burning

far

above and

behind them. Between the fire

and

the prisoners there is a road above, along which see a wall, built
puppet-handlers

like the

partitions

(thaumatopoiois)
. . .

set

in front

of the
wall

human beings

and over which artifacts

.

they

show their puppets.

See along this

and other

humans carrying

and statues of men

(andriantas)
image,"

living

things made of stone, wood and

others are

every
silent.

other sort of material.

Some he

utter sounds

(phthengomenous),
us,"

"It's

a strange

said.

"They're like

said. (514b

515a)
not

Socrates modestly includes himself among the

the
"they"

prisoners.

He does

say

whether

who are

"like

us"

refers

to the prisoners, the puppet-han

dlers 2.

or

both.
us"

does Socrates say "They're like rather than "We're like them"? After all, the cave and its denizens were constructed as the model against which we were to compare ourselves. Are we images of them or are they images of

Why

us?

Who is

more real?

Perhaps the
upon

prisoners are

images

of us

in the

sense

that

their existence this mythic

depends

ours; we created them "in our own

image."

But

image
an

we create of ourselves seen of

in

order

to understand ourselves dif

fers from
image.

the

images
image

by

the prisoners, in that the cave

and

image is

synoptic

(537c): it is

both images

originals, and we are aware of

it

as an

3. Socrates does
sounds,"

which

inarticulate,

and

not say the puppet-handlers speak, only that they "utter is presumably meant to suggest their utterances are relatively so in need of dialectical examination. In the Apology, Socrates as

even goes so

far

to approach the pronouncements of the

Oracle in
might

this way,

thereby raising
divine

questions as

to his

piety.

But then, the fact that Socrates treats

speech with

the same modesty

he treats human speech

of

better be

construed as evidence of

his

piety.

is a natural substance it (more than once) and controlled Those persons behind the parapet control the fire. Although the fire is impor tant to the environment of the cave, the prisoners can't see it. The
while

4. Note that
the sun

fire (an image

the sun)

unlike

can

be artificially

created

prisoners'

Reflections
knowledge
of

on and

in Plato's Cave
the
shadows.

123
So

reality is thus

mediated

by

those

who control

long
of

as

the prisoners fail to recognize the

will

nature of

their situation, the motives

those controlling the shadows

be

all-important

in

determining

the pris

oners'

fortune

(daimon)."

Thus,

the

prisoners will

be

unable to choose a

way

of

life for themselves.

The theme is
of a choice

between

life

of

intellectual bondage discussion

with
lives"

versus

freedom

anticipated near

the

beginning

Socrates'

of

Glaucon in Book

between justice and injustice II, where Glaucon speaks of a "choice of and that phrase recalls the choice of lives made (360e), by the mythic Heracles,
who was

forced to
in
a

choose

between Pleasure It

and

Virtue. The Cave image

a

can

be

understood as a continuation of this theme of

choosing

life, presenting
of

the

alternatives of

highly

picturesque manner. object of

contrasts an

image

the

Beauty
with un

the noetic

realm

(the

the philosopher's eros) outside the

within.

Cave

the life of comfortable

familiarity
a

By describing

what

it is like to

dergo

transition from

life

of

familiar

appearances

toward

Being

in itself, it

also suggests

why the life of Virtue is unpleasurable in the short term only. 5. Dale Hall argues that: "the upper level of the cave must represent the state
who

of

those

have been

made as good as possible

philosopher-ruler."14

by

the musical and gymnastic

considerations militate

training directed

by

the

But two

against this conclusion:

workers"

First,

the

fact that

thaumatopoiois connotes
are

"wonder

implies that those

chained within

the cave

in

effect mesmerized

by

persons whose stock

in trade is deception. Secondly, those on the upper level of the cave carry images of objects, not the originals. Those images will pre sumably resemble their originals to a greater or lesser degree, though insofar as
those carrying the artifacts have not taken leave of the cave, any such resem

blance

will

be strictly

accidental.

The best the

whether

wonder-workers can achieve

is

right opinion.

6. It is

a serious question as

to

those chained might not

by
the

virtue of
question

being
meet

so chained

be in

a position

best

suited

for their

nature

i.e.,

of natural versus conventional

slavery is

raised

and whether

it is therefore
parapet
"vision"

not

for the

escapee who returns

cave.

to the cave to take control of the

for

the sake of the entire

not

be in danger. Liberation

In this way, those born with defective of the few proves salvific for all.

will

Do

you suppose such men would

have

seen

another other

than the shadows cast

by

the

anything of themselves fire? (515a)

or of one

Not only is the understanding of the world determined by others, but even their understanding of their own nature is. Strictly speaking, therefore,
there is
no

prisoners'

true self-understanding for the prisoners, any

of

more

than there
mediated

is

understanding
others whose

their environs, since their understanding of self

of

is

by

understanding

the self's nature

is deficient.

124

Interpretation
were able

If they

to discuss with each other,

they

would

think

they

are

naming the

things going

by

them that

they

see

(515b).

They

would consider the truth to

be

nothing but the

shadows of artificial things.

(515c)
images
of

The

prisoners would reality.

identify

the familiar (in this case,

as

images)

as

the one true

The familiar (which

Hegel noted,

remains unexamined

by
at

its familiarity) has the distinct 516d Socrates notes that the prisoners
virtue of

advantage of pride

being

predictable,

and

themselves

on

being

able

to

predict

the images passing by. But this ability is only the

prisoners with an

possible

because those in
aimed at

control present

maintaining the

status

quo),

not

arbitrarily created order (presumably because that order is inherent in nature.

LIBERATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

Consider

what their release and

if something
It
would

of this sort were

healing (iasin) from bonds and folly would be like by nature to happen to them. Take a man who is
. . .

released and compelled to stand

be painful,

and

things whose shadows

and to walk and look up toward the light. up because he is dazzled, he would be unable to make out the he had seen before. (515c)

1. Socrates The

speaks not

that the effects of

ated.

merely of a release, but of a healing, imprisonment are not erased simply by virtue
undergone

which of

implies liber
partial

being
from

healing

by

the soul parallels the movement

apprehension of one's object renders

toward a fuller grasp:

healing,

as a

making whole,
seems

the soul capable of apprehending reality in its plenitude.

not explain

2. Socrates does

how this liberation takes place, though it

fair to
scribes.

assume that

the parable seeks to produce the very phenomenon it de

One

its

nature.

recognizing that it exists and by understanding Our liberation paradoxically consists in an understanding of our fini
escapes the cave

by

tude: "Know Your

Self."

3. While

under natural conditions

light

makes

the power of sight able to

function, it here temporarily produces the the principle mia dunamis ton enantion).
What do
nonsense more
you suppose

opposite result

(in

accordance with

he'd say if
while

someone were to tell

him that before he

saw

(phluarias),

now,

because he is

somewhat nearer to what

is

and

turned toward

beings, he
at

sees more correctly?

(515d) distinguish between

him

1. The

escapee

is

first

so confused

that he cannot

nonsense and guide.

reality, but

must

have

the
are

difference

pointed out to

Despite the fact that the beings

by

his

inherently
The

clearer than their shadows,

the shadows seem clearer to the escapee.

prisoners'

thought comes to

rest

among things that become (gignomena).

Reflections
2. The issue here is
which

on and

in Plato's Cave
guided

125

way

of

life is best: that

by

artificial

firelight

or that guided

by

natural sunlight.

Like J.S. Mill's

man who

is

most of

capable of

judging

pleasures

only because he has

a position

experienced a wide

variety

them, only the escapee is in the cave (cf. 582b).

And

to choose between life within or without

being

shown each of

questions to

distinguish

before
and

was truer

by, he was compelled with thing is? Wouldn't he believe that what he saw (alethesterap. and if compelled to look toward the light itself,
the things which pass
what each

would not

his

eyes

hurt

and would

he

not

flee back to the

objects

he

can make out

hold them to be really clearer than what is being shown? And if someone Wouldn't he find it painful? When he came to the dragged him away by force
. . .

light

...

he

would

be

unable

to

see even one of order

the things now said to be true.

He'd have to
make out

get accustomed

in

to see what

is

above.

At first he'd easily

and other

the shadows and then the images

(eidola)
(515d

of the

humans

things

in water, and, later, the things themselves.

516a)
comfortable own senses.
examined

1. Once again, the familiar is the comfortable, and the attractive that it leads the escapee to deny the evidence of his is the
power of one's
movement

is

so

Such life.
not a on

origins,

and

hence the importance

to more
clear

of

the

2. The
the

from less

clear

is

a gradual of

process,

sudden revelation of
escapee's part.

truth, and demands an arduous process No pain, no gain: chalepa ta kala.

able to make out the sun and see what

habituation

Finally
its
in
the

he

would

be

itself in its

own

domain (chora)not
would

appearances a position steward

(phantasmata)

it's like (516b). Finally, he

be

to conclude that this is the

source of

the seasons and the years, and is

the cause

(or governor) of all things in the visible place, and is in a certain way of (i.e. that which explains: aitios) all those things he and his
,

companions

had been

seeing.

(516b-c)

1. Not surprisingly, only the interior of the cave is described in any detail. Like the heavenly lights of Genesis (1:16 f.), the sun outside the cave seems to
exist

for the

sake of earthbound

mortals, that

they

might

"find the

way."

2. Plato presumably does

to see the sun. In the Phaedo

not mean that

the

ultimate point of

the

(99d-e), Socrates
beings"

speaks of

the danger of
with

journey is looking
which

directly

at

the

sun or of

trying

to make out things

of

directly

his

eyes

led him to

search

for the "truth

in logoi. He describes this

as a

"second-best
When he

way.""

recalled

his first home

and what was

held

as wisdom

there,

and

his

fellow prisoners, he
pity the
others.

would consider

himself fortunate (eudaimonidzein)

and would

(516c)
to the
new

Having

adjusted

environment, the escapee's understanding of

his

own situation undergoes a reversal.

His initial

experience was one of

pain, but

126
he

Interpretation
himself
even as

now regards

fortunate,

stand

him; thus,

the escapee's

only pity those who cannot understanding of his own experience

and can

under under
mixed

goes a reversal.

Ironically,
has

this good

fortune

will prove

to be

very

blessing,
at

in that it

will not extend

to the

escapee's

physical

well-being.

For

while the escape

made possible a truer

perception of others

the same time alienated the escapee from the

life in the cave, it has to the point where he is freedom jeopardizes

perceived as a threat.

Amidst unenlightenment, the

mind's

the

body's life.
He
would

hold in disdain their honors

and

those

quickest at

(katharonti)
The

the shadows and predicting what would pass

out"

making out by next. (5 1 6d)

of

practice

of

"making
"knack"

shadows

would,

in the language

the

Gorgias, be
as a skill a

a mere (tribe) unlike true paideia, which Socrates refers to (techne; 518d). A knack is an image of a skill, in that a knack is also
"know-how,"

kind

of

but knacks is

are put

into the

service of of

the

mere appear

ance of the

Good,

as rhetoric

a mere

knack/image

dialectic.

If he

went

back to his
he

old place

again,

and so

would provoke

in the cave, his eyes would be full of darkness laughter. It would be said that his vision had hold
of

thereby been

corrupted.

If it

were possible to get

the one who attempted

to lead them upward, he would be killed.

(516e-517a)
ridiculousness is
can

This implies that the beliefs

appearance of

be the

product of

conventional

and values

(cf. 457a).
the escapee
no more correct

2. The
privy, the

prisoners'

perception of

than their

perception of

anything

else

in the

cave.

Like the

realities

to which he has been

escapee's

true nature
one with
other

escaping, he is
with again

(at)

is inaccessible, because alien, to them. Before the others, but other than himself; now he is one

himself, but is

than the others. The escapee

(i.e., his

soul) is

once

in the cave, but is

no

longer

of

the

cave.

In

a wonderful

novel, Rebecca
an under

Goldstein has

made much

the same point

in

discussion between

graduate student and

his philosophy
life is

professor:

"The

living,"

unexamined

not worth

Eva

said quietly. not

"You really believe that, don't you? I think it's the examined life that's worth living, at least what these guys call the examined life. Sub quadam
specie."

aeternitatis

"So

you prefer the existence of

cave?"

those pathetically chained prisoners in Plato's

his way out of back inside, with all stumbling those pretensions about enlightening the others, he doesn't even know how to live in their world anymore. He can't even see in there. For him it's all darkness and
chained together. philosopher who makes comes

allegory "At least they're

of

the

The

the cave makes his way alone. And

when

he

shadows."

Reflections

on and

in Plato's Cave
there."

127

"That's because it really is all darkness and shadows in "Not for the others. Not for the ones who are chained together.
unfree.

see."

They

can

"But chained, Michael! Think! So unfree that theydon't So foolish they have no idea they are
fools."

even

know they're

"I'm
"So

not so sure who the

fool is in this

story.

you

think the fact that

blessing."

they

are attached to one another

transforms their

bondage into
"But

a
do."

"Yeah. I think I
viewed

between

people count

from outside, from the for

objective point of view,

these attachments

nothing."

"I don't believe that. And I don't believe

woman
does."16

you

do

either.

I don't believe any

SOCRATES'

COMMENTARY ON THE CAVE

This image
revealed

as a whole must
sight

be

applied

to what was said before. Liken the domain

by

to the prison

home,

the light of the fire in it to the sun's power,

and the ascent

to what's above to the soul's

journey

to the intelligible. A god

knows if it happens to be true. (517a-b)

The Cave image is former

preceded

by

the

images

of

the Sun and Divided

of

Line,

the

having

arisen

in the

context of a
"divine"

discussion

knowledge

versus opinion

sun is an erotic image: not only is it said to concerning the Good. The be responsible for our seeing things "as beautifully as (508a), but also for those birth, growth and nurture (509b). The Line image, by con
possible" objects'

trast, is

meant to

thing

eros

logical form, which is some lacks. The Line illustrates that the ontological dependence of visible
certain

illustrate

things about

things
visible ages

upon

the

Sun is

paralleled

by

the relation between

(a)

visible

images

and

subsumes the points made in the preceding images it introduces something which they had omitted: human beings. More over, the Cave integrates an element of negativity absent in the other images,

the

objects; (b) (hupotheses) and noetic other two images, for while it

visible objects and

intelligible beings; beings. The Cave effects a

and

(c) dianoetic im

sort of

Aufhebung

of

inasmuch

as

it

makes

lack

of paideia

(symbolized

by darkness,

the absence of

light)

an

important

element of

the

myth.

EXCURSUS II: LIGHT

a.

Perhaps Plato

uses a

light

metaphor

neous, has the quality of oneness, and fest in the world, but merely allows that heterogeneity to manifest itself. Light has the character of a power (dunamis) specifically, a power of showing forth

because light, being purely homoge does not create the heterogeneity mani

128

Interpretation
permits that which

(apophainesthai). It

is

other than

light itself to be

seen while

itself

not

being

an object of perception.
compares

b. In the Parmenides (130e-131e), the young Socrates light in an unsuccessful attempt to respond to
notion of unlike

Forms to
the

Parmenides'

criticism of

Forms. It

seems

that the young Socrates

wishes

to point out that

the objects it renders visible, light is that: "Light is

main

ubiquitous and nonphysical.

Eugen

Fink

writes

symbol of

the

arbitrary difference between

yet

no

metaphor of

Being

and

Platonic ontology, it is the beings. Light becomes mani

fest in
nor

illuminated things, dispersed throughout that

all and

is

no mere part

which

thereof; it is neither divided is divided and dispersed in it. As the dis

concordant.'"7

persing

scattering, it is

nonetheless one and

mogis).

In the knowable, the idea of the good is seen last and Once seen, it must be concluded that it is the
everything.

with

difficulty

(or barely:

cause of all

that is right and

fair in

One

who

is to

act with sound

judgment in

public or

in

private

must see

it. (517c)
was seen

Just but
one

as

the sun

last in the

visible

realm,

so

the

Good is
of

seen

last in

the intelligible

realm.

One does

not need

to see the Form

the

Good to act,

does

need

to see

it in

order

to act prudently. The Good makes prudence

possible.

Those

who reach

this point aren't willing to attend to human affairs, but their souls

are eager to spend

(or

waste:

diatribein)

time above.

(517c)

Plato's
nature
of

concern with

intellectualism is here
Socrates had
Such
men are

made quite clear.

Discussing

the

the philosopher,
itself."

earlier

distinguished between three

to approach the Beautiful
with

types of men. He mentions

first those "who

are able

itself
as

and see

it

by

described

ironic

understatement

being

"rare"

(spanioi; 476b). Second,

there are those who hold that there are

beautiful things, but who deny that there is Beauty itself; such persons are in that they mistake likenesses for that of which the likenesses are likenesses (476c).18 Finally, there are those who believe there is Beauty itself
"dreaming,"

and who are able who

"to

catch sight

both

of

it

and of what participates

in

it,"

and

do

not confuse that which participates with

that

which

is

participated
philosopher

in;
is

such persons are

deemed
the

"awake"

and possess class of men

knowledge. The
not confuse

identified but
pates and

not with

first
is

(who

see

that-which-is alone

by itself),

rather with

the third sort of men,

which

who

do

that which partici

that

participated

in

the sort of

men who

distinguish be

tween noeta and aistheta.

Whereas the

second class of

men, the

"dreamers,"

remain unaware of the

eidetic realm, the members of the

first

class are oblivious

to the

domain

of

becoming.

They
with

have
the

escaped the of

cave, but choose not to return to

it. Such

dispensing

world"

"body

the

(Timaeus, 32c) by

those persons who

Reflections
prefer

on and

in

Plato'

Cave

129

the purity

of

the noetic realm

is

satirized

in

an exchange

between Socra

tes and

Protarchus in the Philebus (62a ff.):

us

Socrates: Now let

imagine

a man who understands what

give an account of

it

conformable with

his knowledge,

and who moreover

Justice itself is, and can has a

like understanding of all that is. Protarchus: Very well. Socrates: Will
account of of such a man

the divine circle

be adequately possessed of knowledge if he can give his and the divine spheres themselves, but knows nothing
so

these human spheres and circles of ours,

that when he is
are of

building

house,

the ruler that he uses, no less than the circles,

the other sort?

Protarchus: I

am moved

to mirth,

Socrates, by

this description we are giving of

ourselves confined to

divine

knowledge."

This interchange
than pure

emphasizes that

human

existence occurs

in

physical, less

form,
of

never

in

"bodiless
not

knowledge

the "divine

circle"

(Philebus, 64b). Humans seek for its own sake, but to measure the hu

cosmos"

man circle against

it.
from divine he is
contemplation to

One

who returns

human things

will seem graceless

and ridiculous when are two

compelled to contend about

the shadows of justice. There

when they kinds of disturbances of the eye, stemming from two sources have been transferred from light to darkness and when they have been transferred

from darkness to light. (517d-518a)

The

reason

for disorientation
to it. Upon

when one

has left the Cave is different from

when one returns newness of

leaving

the situation, but

upon

Cave, disorientation is due to the returning to it, the problem is not lack of
the

familiarity, but
is
no
now seems

that a transformation of
of

longer intelligible. The way

nugatory.20

has occurred, such that the cave life pursued by the denizens of the Cave
vision

Education is
the
soul
. .

not what certain men profess

it to be.

They
were

assert that

they

put

into

knowledge that isn't in it,

.

as though soul of

they

putting

sight

into blind

eyes.

But this

power

is in the

each, and the instrument

with which

each leams must be turned around, together with the whole soul, from that which

is coming into being, until it is able to brightest part of that which is. And we

endure

looking

at that which

is

and the

affirm

that this is

the good. (518b d)

This

conception of education

writes and explains the elicited over

whole

bears closely upon the way in which Plato divergent interpretations which his writings have widely centuries. If his the writing aims at such a turning around of the
must

soul, then clearly he

find

a manner of

writing best

suited

to effect

this. The primary

goal will not

by

e-ducing

(drawing

be to convey his the reader's thought, out)

own

and

thoughts, but to educate thought is educed by the

130

Interpretation
in
an object

apparent presence of opposites expect

(532a-c). Hence the

reader should

to be

presented with real or apparent conflicts which stand

in

need of

resolution.

Another way of looking at this is to note that when the Platonic Socrates engages others in discussion, he does not primarily aim at persuading others to a certain point of view. As he says to Theodoras: "You are truly a lover of
argument,

Theodoras,

the way

you

take me so

facilely
to

for

a sack

full

of argu

ments"

(Theaetetus, 161a). Rather, he

about

provides an occasion

for his interlocutor

prepared

to learn something
examine

himself,

and

in

so

doing,

become better

to

the "greatest

subject"

(505c). The

order of

the cosmos reveals

itself

only to those
There
be

with a well-ordered soul.

would

be

an art of this

turning

around, concerned with how the power can

easily and efficiently turned around. This art takes it as given that sight is there, but neither rightly oriented nor looking at what it ought. The other virtues of the soul thus seem close to those of the body; they aren't there beforehand, but are
most

later

produced

by

habits

and

exercises,

while sound

judgment is

more

divine. It

loses its power, but according to the way it is turned, becomes useful and helpful or useless and harmful. The vision of those with a small soul (psucharion), who are said to be wicked but wise (or clever: sophos), sharply distinguishes the
never

things toward

which

it is turned,

so that the more

they

accomplish.

If this

part of such a nature were

sharply they see, the more evil trimmed in childhood, and its

ties with

becoming
a

severed, then

it

would see

true things. (518d 519c)

Cleverness is
means-oriented.

form
to

of

intelligence, but
here
referred

considered as

such, it is strictly

The

persons

to as

having

"small"

(i.e.,

petty)

souls would seem

correspond

to those

in

control of

the fire and artifacts:

their vision

is relatively

clear when compared

to that of those in chains. The

attached

original condition of
pleasures"

the soul

is that its

of

being
the

to "food and similar

which

"turn the
to

downward"

soul's eye

(519b).

The
tree of
ness

reference

food

and

effect on

soul

is
the

reminiscent of another

soteriological

myth, that of Adam and Eve.

of

Eve's

attraction

to the

fruit

of

the

knowledge
she

Good
the

and

Evil leads her to

eat

fruit

not out of willful

hadn't

even

been

created at

the time God gave Adam the proscrip

nutritive and

tion

but because

of

fruit's aesthetic,

intellectual

value

(Gen

esis, 3:6). The Primal Pair is then evicted from the Garden, not because of their disobedience, but because of God's concern that his status qua immortal might be usurped by them (3:22), and the price they pay is loss of moral innocence,
as well as alienation

from God, Nature

and each other.

But the Eden

gloss on

myth portrays no mere

and gains of myth

loss

of

Paradise, but

rather presents a

the pains

nudity) to Culture. The

moving from Nature (symbolized by unabashed of the Cave also presents a transformation which

is

Janus-faced,
his

for the

escapee

both

gains and

quence of

escape.

Whereas Eve's failure to

keep

loses something as her soul turned

a conse

upwards

Reflections
toward the
was no
word of

on and

in Plato's Cave

-131

the

Creator

produced a rapture

in her

being

such

that she

longer

subordinate
so

only to
of

God, but

now subordinate

to the relatively

inferior Adam,

the failure

those with small souls to

an

keep

their souls
mode of

looking
being.

upward

toward true beings renders them subject to

inferior

Neither the We

uneducated nor those who spend all their

could govern well. must compel

The former lack

a single aim and

life educating themselves the latter refuse to act (519c).

saying is the
them
...

the best natures to go to the study

. .

which we are

greatest, to see the good and to go up that ascent remain there. (519c-d)

[but]

not permit

to

That

is,

the former lack

must

direction,

while

the latter lack the proper motiva

tion. A mean

be

struck even

in the
In

case of education.

Socrates here lays

one must

emphasis on not

educating solely
students.

oneself.

On the
with

other

hand,

be

discriminating
only the "best
cause

in choosing
can

natures"

are to

be liberated

keeping by way

the myth of metallic souls,

of

the "greatest

study"

be

only they

be liberated.
up spontaneously
against the will of the regime and

Such

people grow

don't

owe

their rearing to anyone and so are right in not paying off the price of rearing to
anyone.

(520b)
of

The
spite,

"soil"

the Cave produces

an

inferior

crop.

Superior

plants grow

de

because of, the Cave. This passage makes an interesting counterpoint to the Crito (50d-51b), where the Laws argue that the citizens must obey
not

because they
So

owe their

rearing to the Laws.

common

you must go

down into the

dwelling

of

the others and get habituated

.

Then you'll know far along with them to seeing obscure things (skoteina). better than they what each of the images is because you have seen the truth about

fair, just and good things. Thus the city will be ruled by us and by you in a waking state, not in a dream as the many cities are nowadays. If you discover a life better than ruling for those who are going to rule, it is possible that your wellthe
governed

city will in gold, but in the

come

into being. For there be happy,

alone will
a

the

truly

rich

rule, rich not

riches needed to

life

of goodness and wisdom.

(520c)21

NOTES
Again,"

1.

See,

e.g., the following: J.

Revisited,"

Ferguson, "Sun, Line

and

Cave

Philosophical

Quarterly

Cave,"

Phronesis 7 (1962): 38-45; J. Malcolm, (1963): 188-93; J. Malcolm, 'The Line and the Classical Quarterly 31 (1981): 60-68; J.E. Raven, "Sun, Divided Line and 'The Cave Classical Quarterly n.s. 3 (1953): 22-32; R.G. Tanner, "Dianoia and Plato's Clas
Cave,"

Cave,"

sical

Quarterly

n.s.

20 (1970): 81-91.

1 32

Interpretation
makes

2. At 507b, Socrates
objects, suggesting that
an

it

seem

that the sensible and

intelligible

regions are

related, but at 508d he states that the

soul can

be turned

either

toward sensible or
of

externally intelligible

internal

relation obtains

between the two kinds

beings.

3. "Plato's Simile
Ferguson
the

Light,"

of

complained about

Part I, Classical Quarterly 15 (f921): 152. On the same page, interpretations of the Cave exclusively with reference to the Line: "if
purpose?"

Cave is

applied

to the

Line,
on

can one avoid

sion of articles which

focus

assimilating their content and these formal issues, see J. Malcolm, 'The Cave

For discus
and

Revisited"

A.D. Woozley, Plato's Republic: A Philosophical Commentary (London: Mac millan, 1964), pp. 206-28. 4. Myths are said in the Republic to deal with the genesis of something whose true origins lie beyond our ability to know (382d) and to influence the development of moral character (377b).

R.C. Cross

and

Although
phors can

a myth

may

not

be entirely true, it

can nonetheless of

be useful, like

drug

(382c). "Meta

be

a mode of

understanding, and so

acting upon,

our condition.

do explicitly
of

and

systematically
'myths,'

and often with art what

the ordinary person

Philosophers merely does by instinct. Plato,

who understood

his

this situation better than most of the metaphysical philosophers, referred to many theories as and tells us that the Republic is to be thought of as an allegory of the

[592]."

soul

Iris Murdoch, The

of

Sovereignty
(p.

5. "The Music
ascent and

Republic,"

the
also notes on

of Good (New York: Ark, 1985), p. 94. Agon 1 (1967): 3. The Republic is replete with

imagery

of

descent. Brann
that in the

88)

that Pythagoras

is

said

[katabas] into Hades

pointed out

to look

Odyssey,

the way of life of those who "Odysseus tells Penelope of the

of myself and

have "told how he descended have gone John Sallis has

to
below."

day

when, in his words, 'I went

down to Hades to inquire about the return Highlands: Humanities, 1975), p. 316.

friends.'"

my

Being

and

Logos (Atlantic

6. Quotations from the Republic are based primarily upon The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968). I have used Shorey's Greek text and have made numerous modifications in the translation. Some passages have been paraphrased. Stephanus pagination refers Republic unless otherwise indicated. 7. In the Gorgias, for example, Socrates attacks Callicles, not by arguing that one who lives a disciplined life will be of good fortune (eudaimon), but by attempting to shame Callicles by liken
to the

ing

the

life

of greed

(pleonexia)

which

he

advocates to the

life

of a catamite

(494e)

or cormorant

(charadrios; 494b).
8. H.G.

Gadamer, The Idea

31.

of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian

as an

Philosophy

(New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1986), p. 9. "Interpreting Plato's

10. 11

Cave

Allegory

of

the Human

Condition,"

Apeiron 14 (1980): 78.

of

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 1942), pp. 440-55, passim.

.

trans. D.

Grene (Chicago: he

University

Chicago Press,

Although Socrates
the Gorgias

speaks

highly

of the crafts when

wishes

to use them as a paradigm of

knowledge, in
ucts of

(518e),

wherein

he

criticizes excessive concern with the material prod

the crafts, he speaks

disdainfully

of

them.

12. From the opening of the Republic, Socrates seems to describe the dwelling of the body in the Cave exclusively from the standpoint of the soul, which would explain the appropriateness of
the
of

Republic

Eros in Plato's

fortune"

a discussion of related themes, see Stanley Rosen, "The Role Review of Metaphysics 18 (1965): 452-75. 13. Heraclitus anticipated this pillar of Platonism: "One's way of life (or "character") is one's (Diels-Kranz, fr. 119).

being

set

in Hades. For

Republic,"

14.

"Interpreting
to oars

Plato's

Cave,"

p.

83.

15. We know from Menander (fr.

241)

that this phrase

was used

by

sailors to refer to the

taking
Straus
17.

in the

absence of sufficient wind.

It

can also connote a safer attempt at something.

16. Rebecca
and

Goldstein, The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (New York: Farrar, Giroux, 1989), p. 117.
translation
reads:

My

33. The German

an und

from Metaphysik der Erziehung (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1970), "Das Licht ist keine willkurliche Metapher der platonischen Ontologie,
und zerteilt und zerstreut

p.

es

ist das Symbol der

zentralen Differenz von Sein ist doch kein Stuck daran; es wird nicht

Seiendem. Das Licht west in allem Belichteten durch das was in ihm zerteilt

Reflections
und zerstreut
einig."

on and

in Plato's Cave

133

ist. Es

als

das

gleichsam

Zerstreuende

und

Auseinandersetzende ist

gleichwohl eins

und

18. At the opposite extreme to the lovers of sights and sounds is what R.W. Hall refers to as an "intellectual One with such "an omnivorous appetite for learning cannot be left forever to its own devices, or fed whatever it desires in the way of intellectual fodder. [A]t a certain stage
glutton."

the proper

ordering

of studies

systematically."

matters arrayed

becomes crucial, along with the resulting synoptic vision of these "Plato on Philosophical Journal of the History of Phi
Character,"

losophy

25 (1987): 333. 19. Plato's Philebus, trans. R. Hackforth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 20. "For Plato, the task of theorizing was to make men better; to arouse in men a Desire to
their place in the order,
participate
and

re

assess

through the action of such a re-assessment to become beings

.

better fitted to
a method

For the moderns [t)heorizing became re-defined as Alan Blum, Theorizing (London: Heinemann, 1974), p. 168. 21. I wish to thank my friend Kenneth Quandt (formerly of the Classics Departments of Uni versity of California at Berkeley and Boston University) and the anonymous reader for their many helpful comments.
order.

in that

for producing

agreement."

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Philologus 112

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the

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Greece

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Rome 24 (1977): 23-28.

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Classical Quar

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Cave." Republic."

Smith, N.D. "The Objects

129-37.

of

Dianoia in Plato's Divided

Line."

Apeiron 15 (1981):

134

Interpretation
of

Stocks, J.L. "The Divided Line

73-88.

Plato, Republic

VI."

Classical

Quarterly 15 (1921):

Sze, C.S. "EIKASIA

(1977): 127-38.

and

PISTIS in Plato's Cave Plato's

Cave."

Allegory."

Classical

Quarterly 27
81-

Tanner, R.G. "DIANOIA

91.

and

Classical

Quarterly
and

n.s.

20 (1970):

Wilson, J.R.S. "The Contents

New Essays
on

of the

Cave."

In F.J. Pelletier

J.

King-Farlow,

eds.,

Plato

and the

Pre-Socratics. Guelph: Canadian Association for Pub

lications in Philosophy, 1983. Pp. 117-27. Review of Metaphysics 44 (1991): 525-47. Wood, R.E. "Plato's Line J.H. "The Origins of Plato's Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Wright,
Revisited."

Cave,"

17(1906): 130-42.

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

Bernard E. Jacob
Hofstra

University

PART I. DIALECTIC AND THE ORGANON

This

article

is devoted to

identifying
of

the purposes

for

which

Aristotle in
subsidiary

tended dialectic. Aristotle treats treatment

of

dialectic in the Topics

to

and adds a

fallacies, Sophistical Refutations,

It is
often said

form

with

the eight books of

the Topics the high

a single whole.

that Aristotle

devalued dialectic from

Eighteen hun

position assigned

it

by

Plato. This is
was

not a new claim.

dred

years ago as

Alexander

of

Aphrodisias
that

contrasting Plato's
of

hymning

of

dialectic

the keystone

(thrigkos, Rep. VII 534E)

dialectic is only
pp.

philosophy itself form in

which

with

Aristotle's different

conclusion of

a certain syllogistic

inquiry

(Alexander

Aphrodisias,
more

1-2).

Moreover,
presents

the

way of Aris

totle presents dialectic seems

exercises

firmly

connected to

than to philosophy since

Aristotle

it

as what

elementary pedagogical Professor Brunp.

schwig calls the "game none play any disputation formally organized as a scholastic
played

longer,"

(Brunschwig,
down the

ix)

that

is,

the

exercise.

The disputation format has

centuries since and
scene;'

in different

ages a major role perhaps

in

education

has

but its pres temporarily, from the educational only recently faded, in Aris continued so did not prevent a failure of philosophic interest ence, long, totle's texts on dialectic. And when Pierre Aubenque concludes that dialectic re
mains at which

the heart of Aristotle's thought,

crept

it is

disguised

and

devalued dialectic differentiate

and

has

back into philosophy

and which

Aristotle

seeks to

exclude

much recent

from philosophy (Aubenque, pp. 255, 282-302, 374). Nevertheless, scholarship has come to emphasize the importance of Aristotle's dia
an

Aristotle.2 I would rather conclude that Aristotle understanding of distinguishes dialectic from philosophy, but conceives of dialectic as playing a most honorable role in the life of the philosopher.

lectic to

The

Priority

of the Topics
the Sophistical Refutations
name applied

The Topics has been the

and

form

part of the

Organon,
works

which

collective

to Aristotle's

"logical"

for two

This article is adapted from a part of my doctoral dissertation, "Finding the Place for Rhetoric: New School for Social Research. Aristotle's Rhetorical Art in its Philosophic
Context,"

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

136

Interpretation
years.

thousand

The term

"logical"

requires quotation marks

in this

context

because the term has a meaning for Aristotle that is different from its meaning logos.3 Aristotle can refer to today. Aristotle's logical works are the arts of these arts collectively as analytics (Met. Gamma 3 1005b3-5; Rhet. A4 1359M0; Met. Kl 1059M5-19) and decisively orients them toward their em
ployment

in human thought.
charged with a special value

The human capacity for logos is

tradition.
Socrates'

in the Socratic

second of

Whatever devaluation
some

sailing in the Phaedo is a turn to the logos (99D). dialectic Aristotle effected, it is still the case that in

degree logos

retains

its

deeply

ambiguous

Socratic

character and

impor

tance

for him.
safe

It is

to say, I think, that in one respect at least Aristotelian philosophy consists

in the

execution of

th[e] Socratic

program.

finding

adequate words, that the audible and capable of

logos

of

It is in speech, in searching for and things, the logos of nature (phusis)

becomes

being

understood.

(Klein,

pp.

175-79).

It is the
stood.

"things"

"nature,"

or offer

If

analytics

a subject

may for treatment in isolation from its human

no part of analytics

the way to

however, that become capable of being under knowledge, it is not for Aristotle itself
use.

As

most commentators pp.

agree, for Aristotle

is

a science

(Ross,

20-21; Owens

[1978], 49-50,
vant.

128-35; Owens [1981], p. 26 notes 7-9; Weil; Evans, pp. 5-6, 73-77; Aubenque, pp. 285-86). Aristotle eschews the temptation of a
pp.

speculative

interest in the formal

says variable

science of

logic,

and

why he does

so

is

rele

Father Joseph Owens

with

that Aristotle viewed analytics as concerning

itself
sive

the

thought as

activity of humans and with the aspect of at least discur something humans did. Such thought was, thus, contingent

(Owens

[1978],
the
no

clusion of

128-35; Owens [1981], p. 26). Owens also cites the con sixteenth-century Aristotelian, Zabarella, that there is, properly
pp.

speaking,

science of our

thought because

such

thought is "our

product"

(Zabarella, 1.3).
The
science view

that Aristotle did

opinion

not

treat any discipline

of

the Organon as a

is the dominant

among

commentators on

that opinion

is

paradoxical

to the extent that the same

Aristotle today; but authors persist in treating

the syllogism, that

is,

the Prior

Analytics,
bother to
plays an

and not

the

Topics,
is the

as

the

apex of

Aristotle's "logical
Analytics. Most
of

thought."

For

such authors

the Topics

precursor of

the

them do not

explain

the import role,

or order of the

Organon

where

the Prior

Analytics

introductory
"early"

and

the Topics

is
a

the climactic

work.

The

reversal of the order of

the Organon is assisted

work and

by

philological conclusion that the

Topics is

an

therefore only to

be

understood as a precursor to the

Analytics.

There is evidence, however, that the conclusion that these disciplines were is far reaching in its implications and that there was controversy over the character of Aristotle's analytical disciplines from a very early period.
not sciences

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

137

This controversy has affected the treatment of the corpus Aristotelicum, for it is responsible for the creation and organization of the Organon. Paul Moraux tells
us:

When he
. .
.

speaks of

different kinds
of

of

sciences, Aristotle does not

of

mention

logic.

From before the time

as a part

Alexander
it
as an

Aphrodisias,
.

some wanted as an

to consider

logic

(meros)
has its

of the philosophical

sciences, and others,

. .

instrument for

(organon). Alexander itself: it

always

considers

organon;

logic is

not practiced

anaphora

(reference)

to a science
. . .

certainly thus an instrument. [A]ll the commentators Stoics and certain Platonists who considered logic as (Moraux [1951],
p.

different from it; it is indicate that it is the

a part of philosophy.

174)

The

scientific

treatments proposed

by

Stoics

and

by

Platonists differ. It in the

seems to on a

be the Stoics
(P.

who were attracted

to the creation of a regional science

of

level

with physics and ethics

for the study

logic, very

much

modern sense

Hadot,

p.

154). It is

not as a regional science

that Plato's

Socrates

speaks of

dialectic.

has enduring attraction, and at its heart lies a turn to logic.4 ward the formalization of The energy behind the turn toward formaliza tion is strong, and few have chosen to resist it. Although Alexander affirmed
approach

The Stoic

the instrumental nature

of

the logos works, he did

"logic"

he is

credited with
with

first using the

not called a

word

"concerned
what

the principles of valid

inference"

formalization, for in its modern sense, that is, (Kneale and Kneale, pp. 1,
not oppose of

23). Even if logic is Aristotle

science, but the formalization continues, both logic

and

logic

and of

called syllogism

the syllogism thus

explicitly formalized are already potentially the object of Thus, when Pierre Aubenque speaks of the "formal

a science.

character"

(p.

285)

of

Aristotle's dialectic, that

our

characterization

may

seem unproblematic

in light

of

ordinary

conception of

the nature of

"logic."

But Aristotle's

differing

ap
Al
of

proach cautions

that

too-ready

an agreement as

to

dialectic's formal
about

character

may

cover over

important

aspects of

Aristotle's thought
awaits

dialectic.5

though formalization is precisely the fate that

others
not

the Topics at the

hands

(e.g.,

see

Stump [1978],

pp.

205-14, 219, Stump [1989]),

the Topics is

convenient organization of scendent to speech

essentially formal. Instead the dialectic to which the Topics is oriented is a the human activity of thought for human uses tran itself. Similarly,
a case can

be

made

that none of

Aristotle's

logos

works

thought in a

is essentially formal, but each is instead a tentative organization of form that is apt to assist in the process of seeking and learning.
see

Although it is important to
Prior Analytics
mark or

that a

formal

character

is implicit in, say, the

the
same

the

other parts of

the

Organon,
which

one must at

time
and

the

degree to
check of

which

Aristotle keeps the formal

to the ends

side of syllogistic

dialectic in disciplines

in

relation

for

he believes the

Organon,
in
which

the the

logos,

are useful

(Weil). There

are several ways

138

Interpretation
of

understanding

the

essential character of

the

works of

the Organon will

be

hampered

by

The

order

attributing to them a of the Organon culminates in the

principles

too-formal character.
analysis of

demonstration from

self-evident

first

(Posterior

Analytics)

and a consideration of

dialec

tic arising or apparently arising from accepted or endoxic premises (Topics, Sophistical Refutations). Demonstration and dialectic each concerns itself with

its

own syllogisms.

The formal

structure of

the syllogism

is treated in the Prior

order of

Analytics. That book

appears at an earlier point

in the least

the

Organon

than does any of the above noted works.

It is

at

arguable that such an

ordering demotes the formal syllogism in demonstration and dialectic.

and subordinates

it to its

pragmatic uses

The fact that the demonstrative

that

and

the

dialectical

syllogisms

have

a similar

is, similarly join the extremes by means of an appropriate mid "validity", noted (An.Pr. Al 24a26-28; A29-30 45b29-46a31; An.Post. A2 is dle term, 71b24-25), but the basis for the distinction between the demonstrative syllog
ism
and

the dialectical syllogism does not turn on formal considerations. In

stead, the syllogisms apportioned to

demonstration, just

as

those apportioned to
which

dialectic,

are characterized

by

the nature of the subject matter of

its
of

syllogisms

treat. Each such syllogism is distinguished

calls a material

by

what

Alexander

Aphrodisias
each

distinction (he kata

ten

hulen).6

The definition

of

kind

question.
with

of syllogism turns on the underlying character of the premises in Thus the Posterior Analytics and the Topics consider the material

which

their

syllogisms

deal,

that

is, they

consider

precisely that from

which

the Prior Analytics abstracted.

syllogistic

Demonstration involves

first principles; but dialectical

syllogisms proceed

reasoning proceeding from self-evident from creditworthy opinions

(endoxa),
cepted as

that

is,

the propositions contained

in the

syllogisms are matters ac

true, but only have the status of belief or opinion for all that (Top. Al 100a25-100b23; An. Post. A2 71M7-25). It follows, then, that demonstrative
merely
parts of an axiomatic system and

that, likewise, the dialectical syllogism proceeds from more than arbitrary premises since it pro ceeds from principles which the participants accept. From this fundamental
syllogisms are not material

distinction

of

the dialectical syllogism a secondary formal distinction

follows. Dialectical
presented as of whichever

syllogisms

actually

used

in

disputation

are

in

principle

questions, since the inquirer stands ready to proceed on the basis

contrary seems true to the respondent (An. Pr. Al 24a23-24bl6). Moreover, even in the Prior Analytics Aristotle seems to cite as the chief

motive

for working

out

the syllogism that the syllogism is

"fecund"

in the

production of

arguments, that

is,

that

it is chiefly to be
can

valued as a means

(An.Pr. A30-31).
A too-formal
conception of

analytics, then,
which

be misleading

and

turns the

Organon

is the capstone of the Organon. Aristotle's analytics, his logos works, have come down to us in a traditional
on

its head. It is the Topics

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

arrangement,
not as

139

sciences, but

under

the

name of

organon, the Instrument or

Organon. Such

an Organon is not valued solely in itself, but also or even because it leads to another end. In its canonical form, the Organon primarily consists of six works. The first three are works concerned with the term (Cate

gories), the sentence (de

Interpretatione)
of

and

the

syllogism

(Prior Analytics).
and

These in turn
cal

culminate

in the Posterior Analytics, the Topics

the Sophisti

Refutations. The first

these considers the requirements of science (epis

teme); the second and third, the resources and procedures of dialectic and those fallacies and corruptions of dialectic which make eristic and sophistic reasoning
possible.

If the Organon
must

as a principle of organization

is

to

determine the

identity

of

the ends to

which

be taken seriously, it is instrumental. In

are

one par

ticular,

one must understand

that

if the first three books

for the

sake of

understanding terms,

sentences and syllogisms as used

in demonstration
demonstration

and and

dialectic,

then the entire structure will turn on the

uses of

dialectic. It is to these that

inquiry

must turn.

Aristotle's Philosophic Sciences The Posterior Analytics has to do

with

the

conditions which make science

(episteme)
all

possible.

The book begins

with an

insistence that

all

science, that

is,

syllogistically derived, necessary knowledge, presupposes pre-existing knowledge (An. Post. Al, B19). This pre-existing knowledge is understood as
the principles

(archai)

of

knowledge;
In
to
our access

to these we

must

have

access
of

in

some

way other than by Analytics Aristotle

we come

science.

a celebrated passage at

the end

the Posterior
which

points

to

what we call

the universal, to

through the

repeated experience of

the same thing. We call that access

induction (epagoge), and our human capacity to achieve induction is under stood as intelligence (nous) (An. Post. B19, 100b-5-17; N.E. Z6). Aristotle affirms that induction also provides us with unmediated access to or noetic The Posterior Analytics lies within the grasp of the first principles of
things.7

presupposed

framework
not

of a noetic

grasp

which

is

constituted

through

induc

tion, but the book is

entirely
pp.
concerned

concerned with

primarily the knowledge that grasp makes possible and so is the conditions for demonstrative proof by syllogism (Aquinas,
with of

concerned with

this

noetic grasp.

Instead it is

13-14, 163).
the demonstrative
proof

The hallmark sality

or omatic or

is its

absolute

necessity,
proof

univer not axi

and unchangeableness.

The necessity hypothetical because it is not derived

of

demonstrative

is

as part of an axiomatic system

hypothetically. It is
that

a requirement of science

(episteme)

that

its

principles

must not

only be true, but

inherently
be

necessary

and

eternal, indemonstrable
requirement

and

immediate;

is, they

must

self-evident.

From the

that the

140

Interpretation
be self-evident, necessary distinguishing science from opinion and
point of view of what occurs
and eternal
sensation.

principles of science

follows the

neces

sity
ered

of

It follows, too, that

can

there is no science of the contingent. Even

when

the

contingent

be

consid
part"

from the

"naturally"

or

"for the

most

(epi to polu) the result is, for (An. Post. A8 75b33-36).

Aristotle, in

a sense science and

in

sense, not

The first

principle of a science

each science.

"To

argue

least in part, also unique in the case of from first principles is to argue from first principles

is,

at

which are unique

to

each genus

(to

oikeidn)."

ex archon

(An. Post. A2

72a7;

A9 75b37-76a31.) Aristotle not only believes that there are several sciences resting, in each case, on different and uniquely appropriate principles, but he denies the existence of a single all-embracing genus of things for, as
see also

Aristotle
that

elsewhere

proves,

being
and,

is

not a genus

(Met. B3 998b22-23). With

world

far-reaching

and problematic claim goes cosmos as a

the acceptance of

constitution of

the

corollary, that the

equivocity in the is (at best) a

arts of

universe and not a

unity (An. Post. A 10 76a37-39). For Aristotle's being. The

analytics, these conclusions portend the acknowledgement that the common

principles of thought are not the common principles of
which sense

in
are

the principles of thought and the principles of

equivocal

being,

respectively,

common, is itself

The
that the
to

standards of
are

(An. Post. A6, A9; S.E. 11). the knowledge whose character is set forth in the Posterior

Analytics

rigorous.

They

are so

rigorous that it has become

a commonplace

canons of

the Prior

Analytics
of

are more appropriate to mathematics than

Aristotle's

works.

"What Euclid later

did, haltingly, for

knowledge"

geometry, Aristotle
pp.

wanted x-xi).

done for every branch

human

(Barnes [1975b],

The fact is that "Aristotle simply does not mean to present such a (Wieland, p. 128). The Aristotelian corpus has, in comparison to the standards
set

system"

forth here, a distinctly aporetic character (Edel, pp. 204-7; Wieland; Barnes [1975a]). The Posterior Analytics do not present a method of investigation,

instead it is
how
we we collect

into

an

intelligible

whole the scientist's various

discoveries

how

facts that their interrelations, and in particular their may best be revealed and grasped. (Barnes [1975b], pp. x-xi; explanations, may also Barnes [1975a], p. 82)
so arrange the

see

It may be possible to in the rigorous manner

science
which reality.

argue
of

that

Aristotle taught that Analytics has

as a exists a part of
of

even science conceived

the Prior

secondary character, for

true the
wisdom

(episteme) ultimately only

brings into

(sophia)

living
is
actual

knowledge8

the attributes

highest

genera of

Thus,

science

articulates

itself in

taneous grasping

of

living knowledge of a being when and only when it knowing. But as living knowledge it is also the simul the principle from which the whole of the science derives;

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

it is Aristotle's
genus of wisdom

141

(sophia),

the most accurate science in the case of each

being

and, unqualifiedly, of the most honorable beings (N.E.

Z7; Met.

Al-2 981b26-982bll).

"Knowing
76a26). Short
the sciences
access

(to gnonai)
of sophia

whether one

knows (oiden) is

difficult"

(An. Post. A9

there is necessarily
can

(epistemai). These

be

no surer

to the self-evident

attributes.

For those driven

being of which by love of wisdom (philosophia)

be tentative. The
precise

the status of controversy in any case than the problematic any science demonstrates only the
over

deep

the status of re
of tentative-

gional sciences as sciences must ness was

degree

extremely important and controversial subject, and that controversy waged not least within Socratic philosophy. Aristotle's characteristic divi
an

is

sion of

the

whole

into

separate sciences contrasts

as

to accept such
Socrates'

divisions. In proceeding

strongly he does Aristotle

with

Plato's
to

refusal

attempts

preserve

Aristotelian
science.

first sailing, the sciences of pre-Socratic philosophy, in a revised form.9 These are best thought of as leading in the direction of
a

As

result,

actual

Aristotelian
claim of

science approaches

philosophy because unavoidably

any

such

again

science, despite its the way to its

character

achievement,

must retrace again and

principles.10

Professor Benardete

speaks of this

tentative

that affects Aristotle's works:

remain scientific unless

Science is

cannot

long

it

re-examines

continuously the

ascent

to science. Science cannot be institutionalized without

a

becoming dogmatic. Decay

necessary
as

addresses men

insofar

Aristotle, as political scientist, any ascent. morality is an absolute and not open to question; but Aristotle himself founds political science, he cannot be unaware of its
concomitant of
. . .

for

whom

problematical premises.

(Benardete [1978],

pp.

2,4)
the inversion
at of

In this sense, the Posterior Analytics task of coming to know. "The principles
of

expresses stand at

the

actual

the end, not

the

beginning

the

investigation.""

This is less

evident

than it should be because the human to exhibit an

soul

in

dealing

with art and science seems

irrepressible tendency
abandons

to

up the (Davis [1985],

cover

route pp.

by

which

the principles of the art or science were reached

p.

75-97; Ferrari,
to

61). The Posterior Analytics originally obtained,

and

the way
not

by

which access

science was

this access is

itself

accessible obtain

to demonstration. This abandonment

of expression

is justified
of

by

the

desire to
In

clarity
with

for the demonstration

that

knowledge

which was obtained. comparison

the "sweet Analytics

scientists"

European
offers

scholars and

[which] ravished generations of (Barnes [1975b], p. ix), Aristotle's dialectic

admiration

aim of

only the lowered horizons of wrangling dispute. The the Posterior Analytics is admiration of all that is

for the

clearest and most

precise

in human knowledge.
as a result of the powerful pull of the
will

Precisely
readers

have

tendency

to downgrade dialectics

Posterior Analytics many as explicated in the

142

Interpretation

Topics. Thus, the

teenth and

downgrading

of

the

Topics,

which occurred

during

the nine

widespread conclusion early twentieth centuries, accompanied the Prior Analytics. As the version of surpassed and was an Topics that the early of Topics out made his have (Ross, p. Ross says, "his own Analytics
date"
. .
.

59;

see

Kneale

and

Kneale,
in
p.

pp.

33, 43). That

for the
pp.

conclusion at

the

same

time also

satisfied a

desire

rooted

admiration

syllogism and

for logic in its later

59). The
philologi

scientific
cal

form (Evans, conclusion furthers

Aristotle did
reason

2; Forster,

265-71; Ross,

p.

an

interest in the
a science.

scientific aspect of

logos,

that

is,

of

what

not

treat as

for this

as presented

is only increased by in the Posterior Analytics.

Wieland has
said

The tendency to downgrade the Topics fascination with demonstrative knowledge

often results

Wolfgang

this attitude

in
as

an unjustified

belief
the

that the only Aristotelian methodology ted of "deductions from a

syllogistic

is demonstration,
point of

if his

works consis means of

few

intuitively
128). The

obvious principles

by

method"

(Wieland,

p.

the

Eric Weil

on

has been that dialectical thought has

an

newer scholarship from inexpugnable role to play

in human
If

affairs and stands at

least in

coordination with science.

one accepts

this assessment and then seeks to understand the order of the

Organon,
lytics
and

one obtains a

surprising

confirmation of the relative roles of the

Ana

the Topics. The

relation of science

(and the Posterior Analytics) to

relation suggested

dialectic (and the

autobiographical

Topics) is
description

analogous
of

to the

by

Socrates'

his turn from

physical

science

to the logos

(Phaedo 95E-100A). This has the

tion
of

following

meaning for

our study.

First,

so

far

as

the organiza

the

Organon authentically

reflects

Aristotelian thought,
as
well

we are vouch

safed

the admission that for Aristotle dialectical method, the through the

method of

investi

gation

logos,

must always

follow
that
we

as

precede apodictic

knowledge. At
one

level this is the

affirmation

have

more experience of

the

artless and spontaneous realm of an affirmation of

everyday life

than of science.

But more, it is
of expe

the importance

of such spontaneity.

The spontaneity
one
are

rience is denial
which of

deeply

interwoven into the Aristotelian

fabric; it is
of

the separate existence of the

forms. Such forms

the
a relation

meaning of the immanent in and

must express

themselves through the development

individual (tode ti), but reveals,

(one

almost says

who) stands in

to the essential it reflects and

counterpart

imitates,
only
point
as a

such

that the mimema "is not

derived from its

p.

or almost produces

its

counterpart"

(Zuckerkandl,
tendency
of science

36). This is important if

way to
goes

resist the

to

hide its beginnings. Yet the higher status,

was

beyond this. The Posterior Analytics, although

of

here

conceded the
as previous

treated

by

the ancient organizers

the

Organon Organon

to and to that extent as subor

physical

dinate
tions

to

dialectic. As Socrates
so

reports

he turned from
to

science, the
of

first sailing,

the
to

order of

moves

from the discussion

the condi

of science

dialectic. Science

stands

dialectic

as

the unachieved,

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

perhaps

143

humanly

unachievable, goal

of

contrast which underlines

the problematic status of

philosophy to philosophy and thus as a dialectic. Moreover apodicmethod of such proof

tic proof

is the way
an art other

of

sciences, but the

is

not

itself
to

science, but

(e.g., S.E. 11 171a40-172bl); demonstration

The
evaluation of either

refers

something depends finally

than itself.
on

demonstration

or

dialectic

its

use.

It is to that
reserves

use one must turn to understand the

ultimate purposes

Aristotle

for dialectic.

Paideia

and

Dialectic

Aristotle distinguishes dialectic, which evaluates opinions and beliefs, from knowledge or science, which demonstrates the truth. Aristotle also distin
guishes

dialectic from philosophy

and

and

from sophistry

and as

from

rhetoric.

Aris
as

totle taught first philosophy

philosophic

political

philosophy

science,

and each

from the dialectical treatment Aristotelian

project.

of puzzles.

is obviously shot That he taught brings in

men

philosophy through with insight

and

gained

view a

fourth

He

urged

young

to acquire paideia, to come to be

to understanding the relations of dialec tic, philosophy and science by returning to Pierre Aubenque and his insistence on the formal nature of dialectic and on the identity of that formal dialectic with
well educated. can gain some clue paideia or

We

being

well educated.

Aubenque logue
as

makes

both these

points

in the

context of a

reading

of

the Platonic the dia

or pseudo-Platonic

dialogue, The Rival Lovers. Aubenque

For Aubenque

understands

being

concerned with

the question of wisdom, that

is,

with what of

learn
of

ing

a wise man
which

should most seek.

solution

the "node

problems"

the dialogue raises lies along the way to the

main

thesis of his

book that the reality of Aristotle's ontology is dialectic. For Aubenque the dialogue presents a contest between Plato's
totle's contrasting
sation with must conceptions of and

and

Aris
taken

dialectic,

carried on

in the form

of a conver much

involving

Socrates

two young rivals.

One

of

the rivals is

culture,

and

the other is not. Aubenque remarks that the term dialectic

have been already common coin in Plato's time, "where the idea of total is obscurely associated with that of dialogue."12 Aubenque goes on to claim that Plato tries to transform dialectic into a knowledge that is universal because

ity

it is
that

supreme.

Such knowledge is
aggregate of all

not universal

in the

sense

that polymathy
of

is,
its

as

the

knowledge;

rather

it is the Idea

the

is, Good,

knowledge
edge

of which permits

the rare

philosopher

to assign to all other

knowl

place.

It is this in this
call

revised combination of

the universal and science, uni sense,

which

versal science

new and nonencyclopedic under

Plato
says

paradox

ically by virtue

wants of

to

dialectic

his

new scheme. can

Aubenque
call

it is solely

its universality that Plato Good dialectic (pp. 281, 277).

But the Rival Lovers is

"audaciously"

the science of the

concerned also with

the argument, attributed to Aris-

144

Interpretation
as

totle, that Plato's Science-of-the-Good

a more traditional version of

dialectic must, in turn, be

replaced

by

dialectic

now conceived as paideia.

ing

with

the young

rivals

who stand

in for the
The

absent and

Socrates, deal unnamed Aristotle,

grants that paideia

is

wide

ranging

and even universal.

But

having

conceded

that he the

attacks

it

as shallow and useless.

pentathlon who can

possessor of paideia

is likened to

competitor

in the

who concentrates on or which

is especially

gifted

only hope to be second best to anyone in any one of the athletic contests in

the

pentathlete competes.

Overall victory is tainted

by

the

knowledge

that

others are

best in

each particular sport.

arguments

Aubenque believes that the

in favor
akin

of

Aristotle's
wisdom

paideia

down Platonic in

wrath

because

paideia

is

to the

proffered

bring by
is

Gorgias. Gorgias
skill

argued

that the

kind
him

of

knowledge

a wise man should seek

persuasion

because

persuasion

is the reality
Socrates'

of wisdom.

It is this teach

ing by

Gorgias that brings

upon

attack on

Aristotle in the Rival Lovers

what

signals

in the Gorgias; and the the kinship between Aristotle and

attack

Gorgias. And
persuasion of

Isocrates
and

understands as

philosophy does

not

differ from the

Gorgias

the paideia of Aristotle.

of rhetoric

It is

good to recall these of

traits
.

teaching
and, in

Isocrates.

They help

above all to set

in Gorgias [that are] perpetuated in the before us the antiplatonic

rehabilitation of opinion
. . .

origins of a certain number of parallel with

Aristotelian themes: the

that,

the art that to a greater degree than rhetoric

takes

opinion as object and to which

Aristotle

returns the old name of

dialectic.

(Aubenque,

p.

264)
Gorgias
and

Aristotle is
with

matched with

Isocrates,

and

in

apparent contrast

Socrates, (1) in rehabilitating paideia, the Rival Lovers (Aubenque, pp. 282-85), and (2) in what
Plato's

second

best

way13

of

the the

now can

be

seen as

corollary

of

rehabilitating paideia, returning the name

moves within with

dialectic to
the

an art

that

is

universal, but only is contrasted with the savant,

the realm of opinion, so that the dialectician

the

skilled man, with

specialist.

It is true that Aristotle

regards

rehabilitates paideia and

dialectic, but Aubenque dis

of a role

Aristotle's

simultaneous assignment

to

dialectic

that does not

come

deny
with

the possibility of philosophy or a more ultimate this

wisdom.

to

issue

failure

on

Aubenque's
Aristotle

part

by

questioning his

assumption

that Aris

totle's

dialectic is the

substance of

paideia.14

What is this
rian apt

paideia?

was said

by

ancient commentators

to claim to
theo-

teach a nonscientific

paideia,15

a second mode of

knowledge (peri

pasan

duo tropoi tes

at

hexeos)

hand

judging
or

not"

good

theory

pursuant to which "there is the ability to show an (krinai eustochos) whether a researcher has got hold of a (Part. An. Al 639al-5). The evidence about Aristotle's

understanding of paideia is sparse; it consists of the cited reference to Parts of Animals supplemented only by scattered passages where Aristotle refers to a paideia or its lack (Part.An. Al 639a 1-10; Rhet. A2 1356a29; Met. Gamma 3 1005M-5; N.E. A3 1094bl3-28).

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

In

145

identifying
pp.

dialectic

and paideia

Aubenque

stands with a substantial num

ber

of other commentators

(Ross,
one

pp.

Evans,
me.

17-20). At least

author,

20-23; Moraux [1951], pp. 174-76; however, Father Ernest Fortin, denies
arguments seem

that Aristotle

identifies

paideia with

dialectic. His
paideia not
common

decisive to

Fortin's

key

observation

is that
proper

the art that

embraces

has

as

its

object

the mode

only includes dialectic, that is, to all the sciences; but it also

knowing
what

the mode

to each science

(Fortin,

p.

256).
on paideia the-

If

we return

to the one passage in which Aristotle reflects

matically,

is

remarkable
capable of

is that

one who a

is completely

educated

(holds

pepaideumenon) is
a science
eipein

in making is proceeding rightly or not in the case of practically all sciences (hos peri panton) (Part. An., 639a5-10). Thus the major role of paideia is to
as to whether one engaged

judgment

prepare one

to

address wouldbe researchers with standards

for

appropriate or

ganization and

treatment

of a given subject.

Knowing

that precision is

inap

propriate to ethical and political matters

not

itself

kind

of political science

(N.E. A3 1094M3-28), that rhetoric is (Rhet. A2 1356a29), and that it is foolish to

(Met. Gamma 3

question the principle of noncontradiction prime examples

1005M-5)

are

the

that Aristotle gives of

paideia.

It is hard to latter is
terms

identify

any

of these

insights

as a product of

dialectic, for

the

a method of argument which aims at

disclosing
with

contradiction within

given premises.

Dialectic is

universal and

deals

the universal dialectical

(koinoi)

while

the examples Aristotle gives of paideia

science."

involve,
not

primarily,
with

identifying

"the

mode proper

to each

Paideia is

identical

dialectic. It is better to

conclude

tentatively

with

Father Fortin that

rudiments of

Nothing
mastery
youth]

is to

prevent

[the young] from acquiring the

Iphilosophy]

or,

to use Aristotle's own term, its paideia, even if he cannot hope to gain a complete
of

it

until much

the student who has not

will

later. What is more, there is every reason to suspect that received the proper formation at this privileged moment [of

be hard

pressed to attain wisdom at a more advanced age.

(Fortin,

p.

259)
Dialectic is
not

identical

with

paideia, but nothing prevents it

from

being

in

Aristotle's
[T]he

view productive of paideia.

As Fortin

says:

student who wishes

to

acquire paideia must

first leam to

recognize a able to

principle as opposed to a conclusion or, to put

it very simply, be
(P.

distinguish

between

what

is known

and what

is

unknown.

252)

plish,
calls

It is this step that Aristotle's dialectic does attempt and claims to accom although it does so only in so far as dialectic has become what Aristotle
"peirastic."

Moreover there is

at

least

one occasion on which

this very

peirastic use of

dialectic is

called productive of paideia.

In Plato's Sophist the

Stranger, adopting
tic. Aristotle
with

a suggestion

by Theaetetus,

calls

it

paideia or noble sophis

his tendency to

separate out parts and stages of

the

whole

146

Interpretation

cannot

be

understood

if

paideia

is

collapsed

into dialectic

collapsed

corpus must

into dialectic. Instead, the interrelations of be brought into play, for if Aristotle can be
wisdom sought

if philosophy is the entire Aristotelian

or

said

to

have

a candi

in the Rival Lovers it is neither paideia nor dialec date for the tic, but rather philosophy and philosophic science (he kata philosophian epis teme) (see Top. A2 101 a35). And paideia is the early stage, or the beginnings
of

philosophy, while peirastic

dialectic, I hope

to show, provides access to

paideia and philosophy.

In the Gorgias Socrates

sune) in the polis, that
original and copy.

calls

true species of politike, namely,

sophistry and rhetoric copies (eidola) of the foundation (nomothetike) and justice (dikaioa

is,

the coupled pairs stand to each other in the relation of

Something

is

original, but is inferior to it

and

copy in the bad sense if it pretends to be the less authentic; a copy is a counterfeit. Some
sense, if it
(somehow)16

thing is

also a

copy, but in the

good

re-produces

the

original and makes

it

to that extent present where

concerned with copies

it

otherwise would not

be.

The Gorgias is primarily be

seen whether

the poisonous consequences of rhetoric

in the bad sense, that is, with in Polus and in Callicles. It remains to in different
ways useful copies of

dialectic

and paideia are

philosophy which contribute in their way to the wise man's happiness. We will be better able to opine on that when we have identified the purposes or uses for
which

Aristotle intends his dialectic.

PART II. ARISTOTLE'S DIALECTIC

Having
zation

considered

the structure of Aristotle's

logos

works and

their organi

cates

into the Organon, I have argued that the structure of the Organon repli in a certain way the "Socratic described in the Phaedo and that this
turn"

within

is the meaning of how Aristotle's thematic treatment of dialectic is placed the Organon. I have also argued that dialectic differs for Aristotle both

from

being

related to

educated, possessing paideia, and from philosophy, but is closely both. In this part we will take a closer look at what Aristotle has to

say about the purposes that dialectic can serve. For that purpose, we turn to the Topics and its

companion

Sophistical Re

futations. The latter, although treated as a separate title in the manuscript tradi tion, is shown by both internal and external clues to be the culminating book
(the ninth) of the Topics.'1 Accepting this, Aristotle's treatment of the art of dialectic in the Topics falls into three parts, to which we add the Sophistical Refutations as a fourth. Within the Topics proper, Book Alpha constitutes an

introduction
through Eta

and of

overview

of

the proposed

art

of

dialectic.18

Books Beta
ways

the

Topics,

the

bulk

of

the
of

book,

work

through the

to

produce and test

arguments.19

Book Theta

the Topics is

devoted to the

over

all structure and conduct of

the

disputation. It is left to Sophistical Refutations

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

to provide an analysis of
solutions.

147

fallacies

and sophistic and eristic argument and their

Aristotle
where
aseos).

gives

comes closest to a

dialectic in the Topics. Aristotle brief definition of dialectic in the Prior Analytics (Al 24a24)
no precise
of

definition

he defines dialectic Indeed he

that
what

suggests

"inquiry into that being precise

as

contradiction"

(erotesis

antiph-

is inappropriate (Top. Al 101a

and attack

19-24),

is to be

sought

is

way to defend
and uses an

any

problem

consistently.

Aristotle believes that every

one

has

elementary form
one

of

dialec in

tic, trying

to test and maintain arguments

and

(Rhet. Al 1354al-6; dialectic is

see also

S.E. 1 1

172a30-172bl)
which

that the practice of

already
an art.

engaged

by

sophists and eristics

(S.E. 34 183a37-184b9). But

protodialectic

is

a practice

(This striking priority in reducing dialectic to an art is made in his culminating chapter, chapter 34, of the Sophistical Refutations.) Dialectic as an art, he says in the opening lines of the Topics, is the way
claims

he

to

have been the first to transform into

claim of

of

reasoning, based on the best opinions, about any

our own

difficulty

whatsoever and of

asking, in

case,

no questions which contradict each other when we

ourselves uphold an argument.

(Top. Al

100al8

21)

Although Aristotle begins

and a

way
the

of

calling dialectic an undertaking (pragmateia) investigation (methodos), Aristotle's precise description is that

by

dialectic
such as

can

demonstrative
art

"undertake the testing of all things, and is an art of a sort, but not (S.E. 11 171a40-172bl). As Aristotle requires
arts"

in

all

arts, this

is

marked

by

an effective operation

(ergon)

which aims

at,

but does

not guarantee a result of

(Top. A3

101b5 10).

The

ergon of

dialectic is

"a capacity

making

syllogisms about a

difficulty

from

relevant propositions

which are as

generally believed as is Dialectic also has a perspective dictated

need

possible"

(S.E. 34 133a37-133bl).
which

by

the uses for

it is

created.

The latter fulfills the

for

some

finite
a

set of purposes which will give

or skill

dialectic its definition. For dialectic is

terminate because it lacks
case of

capacity

that

is

otherwise

inde

a proper subject matter

(Evans,

pp.

73-77). In the

dialectic,

the perspective leads

its

practitioners to seek to

investigate
1356b35-

those opinions
with other

which need and will receive clarification accepted opinions

through comparison

commonly
use of

(Top., A4, 10-1 1; Rhet. A2

opinions, endoxa, is

36). Thus, the lectic. The

commonly

accepted

central

to

dia

endoxa are

what seems to

be the

case to all or to most or to the wise, and of the

latter

either

by

all or

by

most or

by

the most famed and reverenced. (Top. Al

100b22-25)
no

Dialectic itself definite

grows out of the

capacity to

develop

arguments; it has

subject matter and so

is

capable of

considering

what

is

common

to all

148

Interpretation
whatever,
and

subjects

in

a peculiar

way

of

developing

both

sides of

any

ques

tion (Top. Al

100al8-21, A2 101a35-37; Rhet. A2 1356a32-33, 36; S.E. 11 172al2-21; An.Pr. Al 24a24). This itself is a result that
achieve, for
each science

1355a33no sci

ence can

is

a science of something, and even

first

in being philosophy is universal only insofar as it deals with that which is prior (Met. El 1026a23-32; S.E. 11 172al2-21). Dialectic is an art which, like every
perspectival

art, is directed to a

subject matter supplied

by

human

uses

and purposes.

Aristotle
we will

goes on

to

discuss these

purposes

in

greater

detail,

discussion that

follow. In

doing
and

so we should remember

that the line

between dialec

tic,
on

on

the one

hand,
as

sophistry

or

eristic, on the other, will

who

finally

depend

the character and moral choice of the one

is using
see

dialectic,

and not on

the

4, 1004M8-27; Sophist 253E; Gorgias 487E-488B). Following Aristotle's fur

such also

discourse

(Rhet. Al

1355bl7

18;

Met. Gamma

ther

discussion
as

should allow us of

to get a better notion of the place or neighbor

calls

hood,

Alexander

Aphrodisias
still at

it, in

which

dialectic,

although

it lacks

a proper subject

matter, is

home.

The Uses of Dialectic in Topics A2 There is

the
a passage

locus

classicus

early on in the Topics (A2 101a25-101b4) that provides for Aristotle's evaluation of the uses of dialectical art. We

turn to that passage, but

the
and

uses of

with the warning that the explication and evaluation of dialectic that is introduced in this passage are qualified, deepened argument.

finally

transformed in the course of Aristotle's subsequent

What
which

emerges and
we will soon

is developed in the
turn.

course of this argument

each of

is

peirastike20

to

Nevertheless,

the three distinct functions

passage

of

dialectic

which

Aristotle

characterizes as useful

in the

in A2

requires

discussion.

The first
exercise

use of

dialectic that Aristotle

will

mentions

is that dialectic
is

will provide

(gumnasia). Aristotle
given

further
that

emphasize the gumnasia

importance

of

gum-

nasia; in Book Theta he twice

and

repeats

a purpose of

dialectic,
whose

there we are

some clue as

to the nature of the ability to

cultivation the exercise

is devoted.

sake of an ability [with logos] and foremost with theories and (protaseis kai enstaseis). For the dialectician in the unqualified sense, so to speak, is someone who can come up with theories and objections. Making up a theory is turning the many into one (for one needs to grasp as a whole that in relation to which the argument is being made). And making objections is turning the one into many, for objections either divide up or dissolve the argument, that is both to concede and to deny that which has been put forward as a

Practicing

is for the

objections

theory.21

is

exercise

This ability or capacity can only develop through strenuous use. Gumnasia (Top. A2 101a27-30; Theta 5 159a25-26; Theta 14 163a29). The

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

exhortations and the

149

training

activities suggested

in Book Theta

show

just how

strenuous the exercise

is to be:

become

accustomed to convert arguments

investigate
to

arguments

that the case stands thus

and not

thus,

and

straightway

seek

find
one

the

undoing

of each

if

has

no one else

to argue with, argue with oneself

leam thoroughly primary be

questions

arguments of most

frequent occurrence,

and

especially

about the

well provided with

definitions
of the endoxa and of

have ready

at

hand definitions be

first things
and through

one ought to

prompt about principles and to

have learned through

by

heart

one's

premisses.22

Dialectic
of

is,

as

the word

gumnasia

the

palestra.

Dialectic is, however,

already suggests, instinct with the sweat palestral in another sense, for it is also

instinct

with

the modified and channelled competition of athletes.

Those practicing dialectic cannot uphold an argument competitive edge. (Top. Theta 14 164b 14- 15)

without

showing

Notwithstanding
petition.

The

point

this, the structured disputation does not emerge as a com is to see the implications of the argument, and not to win;
used

the structured disputation is

for the

sake of

testing 14,

and

inquiry. Moreover,
15). But
practice

because it is dialectic only

made of perfects

not a

competition,

students are warned against the careless use of

164b8

with

those not prepared for it (Top. Theta

the ability. The ends of this ability must lie in the other uses to be

it.
enjoins care as

Aristotle in

to the persons

with whom

may

engage

in dialectical
occurs

disputation. But he
connection with

also

finds that the

second

important

use of

dialectic

(enteuxeis) everyday ordinary peo ple, for it is dialectical ability that permits us to work out in detail the convic tions ordinary people have just as much as those of scholars and philosophers.
guarded encounters
with

The resulting understanding is useful in deciding how to talk to ordinary people (Top. A2 101a31 35). In this way dialectic helps one to prepare for the every day social intercourse. The wise man proceeds in such intercourse on the basis
of the

beliefs

and convictions of the others

(ek ton

oikeion

dogmaton)

rather

than from
allotrion).

what must appear

to those others

as an alien point of view

(ek ton

150

Interpretation
of

Dialectic is the basis

discriminating
any

in

guarded encounters

between the

kinds

of statements

to

be

made to

particular

person,

since one

has to

make

that judgment based on an understanding of the beliefs of the

other.

Aristotle

appropriate

then explicitly goes on to say that dialectic in this way permits one to make an judgment about how far one can correct the errors of one's audi

ence, that

is,

an

understanding

of

dialectic helps Socrates

one

to gauge the amount of

freedom

with which one can speak

(Top. A2 101a33-34).
says

Aristotle here

agrees with what

in the Phaedrus 266B-D

and

273D-274A. What dialectic does is to

gard

permit speech to
ek

be formed
all'

with a re

for the beliefs

of others as such

(ouk

ton allotrion

ek ton oikeion

dogmaton) (Top. A2 101a33). Thus, dialectic is

art

the basis on which rhetorical

is erected, for it is dialectic that

provides

the basis for the distinction be

speech

tween exoteric and esoteric speech.

encounter and
others.

The former is

that

is

grounded

in
of

takes into consideration the

point at which

beliefs,
as

abilities and

disposition

This is the

rhetoric,

the scion or offshoot of

dialectic,

is inserted into The third

or grafted on

the mainstem of dialectic.

order of

use of

dialectic, in
in
This

description, in

this often cited passage

is that dialectic is

useful

service of

the

philosophical sciences

(tas kata

phi-

losophian dialectic's

epistemai).

philosophic use of

propaideutic task pp.

Aubenque,
this
out
sense

249-52),

that

(Ross, pp. is, assistance in

dialectic is usually identified with 20-23; Moraux [1951], pp. 174-76;

the progress
of science.

It is in

that Aristotle's remarks here are often quoted. This theme is brought

in the translation
useful

by
in

E.S Forster in the Loeb Edition:

basis
of each

[Dialectic] is
science

connection with the ultimate

science; for it is to the

impossible to discuss
in question,
and

them at all on the

basis

of the principles peculiar relation to

everything else, it is necessary to deal with them through the generally accepted opinions on each point. This process belongs peculiarly, or most appropriately to dialectic; for,

since the principles are

primary in

being

of the nature of an

m\zs\\ga.\\on(exetastike),ly

principles of all methods of

it lies along the inquiry. (Top. A2 101a37-101b4)

example as a

path

to the

Professor John Evans, for

(see e.g.,
of skill

p.

23),

understands the role of elaboration of theories.

of progress

dialectic in this
Evans
of

regard

simply
a

kind

in the

connects this

theory-making function
later
point

to the discussion

in the

sciences

in An.Pr. A30. At
as

dialectic

that of

being

the unique

in his book, Evans describes the role preparative for induction; and he links
the

with

this reading

what

Aristotle

says elsewhere about

development

of set

tled experience and, through experience, progress to the

inductive

act and the

resulting firmer establishment of the science (Evans, pp. 33-41). But theory-making in the sense of a modern philosophy of science cannot be the whole story in dialectic, for when Aristotle speaks of dialectical skills he adds to theory-making the different function of critique, division and dissolu
tion.24

Moreover,

although

Aristotle does believe that the

value of

dialectic is to

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

a

151

large degree based

To
attempt

on

its

operation as

the handmaiden

of

the philosophical this claim.

sciences, one must carefully assess what

Aristotle
were a

means

by

to treat dialectic
would give

as

if it

modern

sense

understate

the

importance

philosophy of science in the of dialectic to Aristotle: it

of this article

would

fail to

adequate

consideration

to what Aristotle calls peirastic that

(peirastike). This last is

peirastic

no small use of

omission, for it is the thesis

me

is the highest
where

dialectic. Let
up

begin

with

the passage in the

Metaphysics

Aristotle
of

sums

and contrasts the exclusive ways of names

deal
and

ing

with

the

totality

the cosmos. There he

dialectic, sophistry
he
mentions of

philosophic science.

But the

word or aspect under which

dialectic
and

is that it is
uses

peirastic

(1004b26-28). Aristotle's description

dialectic

its

is

not complete without an

understanding

of peirastic.

Peirastic Dialectic

and

Sophistry
philosopher suggests.

The
the

relation of

dialectic to the
make

is

closer and more are not

intimate

than

cool appreciation of

Topics A2

There

two passages in Book

Theta that together

tic

that point. Dialectic

does

in the way it works up its theories and objections is immediately propaideutic to philosophy (Theta 14, A2 101a35-37; S.E. 16 175a5-17).
It is
at

differ from philosophy (Theta 1, 155b3 17). Dialec

163b9

18,

cf.

Top.

least

as

important to

understand

that dialectic is
and
eristic.25

also

intimately

asso

ciated with, and

of

inseparable from, sophistic dialectic living side by side in the same

(S.E. 34 183b3). When
as

Aristotle

even speaks
with so

neighborhood

(geitniasis)
The

phistic and eristic context of

one considers even closer.

the relation in the

main weapon of

dialectic

peirastic, the
and

relation

is

the

pretensions of

sophistry

eristic, that

which makes possible

their false

knowledge, arises at the same moment as does peirastic argument (S.E. 8 169b20-25; 34 183b 1-9). The intimate relations of dialectic, philosophy and sophistry are summed up in the passage in the Metaphysics where Aristotle says that dialectic, sophistic
claims of

philosophy alone deal cisively different ways.

and

with

the wholly universal, although each

in de

In coming to

understand of

Aristotle's We

peirastic

doctrine

we are

simultaneously
that

undertaking
to

the task

the Eleatic Stranger in Plato's

must

Sophist,
as

is,

we are

seeking identify sophistry come together in order to distinguish, so far from peirastic and from dialectical uses in general.
the
sophist.

study the point at which peirastic and

possible, sophistry
to

Consideration

of

the doctrine

of

peirastic,

finally,

needs

be

prefaced

by

noting the way in which the term appears in Aristotle's text. First, the word itself appears to be an Aristotelian invention. A search of the Theasauras
strange

Linguae Graecae

shows

that the term originates

with

Aristotle, is

used

by

him

152

Interpretation
and

in the Sophistical Refutations

Metaphysics. Thereafter it
tors.

in the

passage,-

already quoted, from the

commenta

appears

only in Aristotle's later Greek

is,
of

As already noted, the term does not appear early in the text of the Topics. It as I have pointed out, carefully avoided in the discussion of the usefulness dialectic in Topics A2. In Theta 5 Aristotle does twice
as refer

to

dialectic

disputation

testing (peira),

the

noun

from

which peirastic

is formed. In the
term

first

of

these references, Aristotle couples

peira with yet another

for inves

tigation (skepsis).

When Aristotle
of

finally

introduces the term be

peirastike

in the

second chapter

the Sophistical

Refutations, however, he paradoxically

able

seems
skill

to assert

that,
the

in retrospect,

we should

to see that the peirastic

has been

at

center of our attention all

Topics. In this

passage

along as the subject of discussion throughout the Aristotle defines four kinds of discourse (didactic, dia logoi). Once he has laid down the

lectic,

peirastic and eristic

definitions, how
an-

ever, he remarks that only eristic speeches have not yet been thematically treated. Didactic speeches, he tells us, were treated in the Analytics (wis alutikois) and both peirastic and dialectical speeches were treated "in the other
places"

other

(en wis allois) (S.E. 2 165b9-ll). We are left to conclude that these places in which dialectic in general and peirastic in particular have been
of

concurrently treated are, in both cases, the totality Topics. Peirastic is always at issue in dialectic.

the preceding pages of the

Peirastike is the art, skill or capacity that corresponds to the Greek adjective peirastikos. This means: to be tentative or experimental, but also to be capable
of

testing

or

assaying, attempt,

of

tempting
peira,

or attempting. a

It is

related

to peiro, I try,

undertake or

and

trial or experience and thus both to the

ordinary word for experienced (empeiros) and to that for inexperienced (apeiros). Thence, there are available as puns a group of words related to
peiras or

peras,

limit, bound,
implies

end.

Thus
to

peirastike

a skill

in

or

unclear and

having

exposed or made clear.

capacity for both being uncertain or For this reason it has seemed better

me simply to transliterate the Greek word as peirastic rather than to alternate between and or to use a clumsy and paradoxical phrase that contains both of the contrasting pair. Indeed, if a translation were to be
"testing" "tentative"

attempted

it

would seem

that

"elenctic"

"maieutic"

"Socratic,"

or

or would

words

in

English
a

directly

referring to

Socrates'

ways,

be best

and most correct as

translation of the term.

Peirastic is Stranger there

tes. The
maieutics,27

most calls

like the "noble

claims are

sophistic"

in Plato's Sophist

which

the

paideia26

and which

the Stranger

implicitly

assigns

to Socra

Stranger's
and we

different from those Socrates

that Aristotle teaches that
with

makes about

his
and

have
than

shown

dialectic is
quite

produc

tive

of paideia rather

identical

it. The

extent to which the

Topics

Sophistical Refutations

echo

Plato's Sophist is

nevertheless

really

remark-

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

able.

153

The Topics
the

as a work evokes

the

Sophist, for instance, by its

the
method of

mention of

the

same character

types adumbrated in the early part of the Sophist as the

repeated applications of

results of

Stranger's

division. In both
emerge as re and

Plato lated

and
and

Aristotle, the differentiated;

sophist, the eristic

the philosopher

and

the dialectician

is

not

explicitly found in either;

in

both there is be

a concern with paideia.

The four types in the Sophist

understood

are

the

guises of

the sophist which are only to

in light
of

of

the problem of nonbeing. As

Stanley

Rosen

suggests

in his treatment
second part of
web of speech

the Sophist the multiple guises of the sophist

lead in

us

into the
the

the dialogue through the need for grasping the ways

which

is dissociated from reality

with

the result that human creativity

same

and fraud are simultaneously made Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations.

possible.

The

issues

are at work

in

Even
of

after

way cal fallacies

illustrative

Aristotle has explicitly introduced peirastic dialectic, it is only by asides to the treatment of fallacies in general and of sophisti in
particular28

and refutations

that Aristotle gives

us

its thematic

treatment. At
which

has

grounded

first we know only that peirastic is the kind of discourse (logos) double source; insofar as it is a speech made to a respondent, it is in opinion and insofar as that respondent is someone who has claimed
a grounded

to have
who

knowledge, it is
possession

in

what

is necessarily implied to
ton
anankaion
eidenai

someone

is in

of

knowledge (ek

toi

pros-

poioumenoi echein

ten epistemen)

ises to itself.

expand on either the

implicit knowledge
gives

(S.E. 2 165b4-7). Aristotle vaguely prom claims involved or peirastike

the

It is only
dialectic"

when

Aristotle

an explication of

ways

in

which

the

characteristic arguments of eristics and

of matic way.

sophistry involve "the

that peirastic

universal

topics
a

(koinoi) (S.E. 170a35-37)

says

finally

emerges

in

the

Aristotle

that the characteristic

arguments of peirastic also are

those using the koinoi.

Aristotle identifies
three

one

kind

of

fallacy

as

ment of peirastic as well as of

sophistry,

so

presenting the characteristic that Aristotle's treatment

within

argu of all

(sophistry,

eristic and

peirastic) is found

his

analysis of a particular
chapter

fallacy

in Sophistical Refutations. This

fallacies
which

treatment

begins in
valid

with a

consideration of those

in fact employ

syllogisms, but take

which

advantage of the respondent's appropriate

ignorance

by

using

arguments

are not

(oikeion)

to the subject

matter under consideration.

This latter form

of

fallacy

is the
that

sophistical

fallacy

par excellence and

is, in

is typically employed in peirastic (S.E. 7 169b23-25). The primary difference between the sophistical and the peirastic uses of the same syllogism is that in peirastic the point is to make it clear where

turn, the

same argumentation

wrong (deiknuntes agnountas), while neither sophist for any such clarification (ou poiousi delon ei agnoei) looking (S.E. 8 169b24-29). Aristotle then drives his point home with comparisons of

it

was

the

respondent went

nor eristic

is

154

Interpretation
procedure as against

Socratic

the eristic or sophistic

procedure.

The latter deal

with a respondent not

by

asking him

questions which go

to the point of

his

fallacious assumption, but

makes

by having

him

implicitly

assume

it;

the

Socratic

the

assumption

explicit, elicits agreement and then shows the conse

quences. all of

The

one relies on explicit concession, the other on

will

implicit. Some

or

these arguments, in either case,

involve

misrepresentations (pseu-

deis) (S.E.
In any
whether

169b31-35).

case all such are

lines

of

reasoning

are ad

hominem,
(S.E 8

without regard

to
all

they

in form

arguments or refutations

170al2

13). What

these lines of reasoning also have in

versal dialectical terms (dia ton

common

is their

employment of

the uni

koinon)
(Met.

terms such as

other,

like

and

unlike,

unequal

Gamma 2

being, unity, same, 1003b36, 1004al8-21,

motion and

1005al6

18; Father Owens

part and

adds

to this list contrariety,

posterior,

rest, genus

and

species,

whole,

prior and

[Owens, 1978,

pp.

275-79].)

Almost

as

sophistry
the

and

if in apology for the sudden introduction of a consideration of peirastic in the midst of a discussion of fallacy, Aristotle reminds

reader

that it

is

part of

dialectical

art

to deal

with such an analysis

because

the dialectical art is

inclusive

and must give an account of the

lectical

and

the peirastic, in

addition

to

an account of

dialectic

apparently dia proper (S.E. 9

170a8-ll). Aristotle
sophistical

starts again and

argument

introduces his dialectical

of

account of peirastic and

with a consideration

the distinction that people are

reaching for when they attempt to draw a line between verbal and conceptual arguments. Aristotle attempts to show that that distinction ultimately has its
roots

in the distinction between the kind

on

of

teaching

effected

by

the

methods of

dialectic,
jects

didactic teaching on the other hand (S.E 10 171a28-171b3). The didactic method or lecture is appropriate for teaching sub
the one

hand,

and

of which

there is

demonstration,

such as mathematics.

It

proceeds

from

certain

first

principles which

elicit them
noetic

from the
of a

auditor.

it is up to the auditor to reach for; it does not first If the student does not already have a pre-existent

grasp

the principles, didactic

of

teaching

proceeds on of

the basis

of pre

supposing

trustful acceptance

the teacher on the part

the student (S.E.

165b2-3) who obtains thus a first knowledge of science as a kind of dogma. Dialectic, on the other hand, and its highest form, peirastic, can only pro

by way of eliciting responses from the auditor; dialectic is necessarily ad hominem. The fact that fallacies are similarly ad hominem is relevant. Both in fallacies and in dialectic the respondent has to find his own way out of the
ceed

difficulties
is

and cannot

rely

on

the questioner. That

is why
reverse

question-and-answer

appropriate

to peirastic,

and

lecturing
in

is

not.

The

is the

case

if

we are

proceeding from

certain principles as

actual mathematical

demonstration.
Universal

Fallacy,

again, is both like

can

and unlike a mistake

in

mathematics.

dialectical terms
occurs when a

be

used within
so

their proper sphere, and actual dialectic

to pragma theoron ta

dialectician does

(ho kata

koina). The

Aristotle'

Dialectical Purposes
thing;
and

155

sophist

tries to give the appearance of

uses
on

doing
of

the

same

the

peirastikos

dialectician who, if he people who have some hold

is

fallacy, is bent

not on

blunting
with

the work of

not

truth, but know but think they know. So in a

we are

dealing

instead

those who

do

sense when we speak of sophists or

eristics,

talking
a

about people who

anyone who

draws

misleading

mathematical

misapply dialectic in just the way that diagram is attempting, but fail

ing

in

an effort

to do mathematics while in some sense making use of mathema

tics (S.E. 11

171M-8, 35-38).
sophistry
and eristic and

In the

case of
we are

in

case of the abuse of

a settled

dialectic,
with what

however,

dealing

not with a a use of

blunder in

science, but
realm of a

is only, in the best case,

speech and reality:

logos. Speech in the

of

the universal

dialectical terms lacks the discipline

reality, for there is

gap between

Now dialectical terms do

explicate nothing, nor are

not

deal
of

with some

determinate
in

subject

matter,

they

toioutbs oios

they ho katholou), for

and

the same nature as the

truly
one

universal

(oude

all things

do

not stand

level

universal class as

(en heni tini genet)

make

if

some sort of

everything

stand under one set

universality is possible, it is not such of principles. (S.E. 1 1 172al2 14)

to

The difference between

those

procedures

involving

self-evident
us

principles

and

involving

universal

dialectical terms brings communicating in

opposed

back

once more

to the

characteristic methods of

the dialectical conversation as totle continues

in dialectic, that is, to to the apodictive demonstration. Aris

science and

by

saying:

The

result

is that

no art which can explicate some particular

thing (tina
was a

phusiri) is

interrogative. It

cannot

indifferently
by

proceed with

its first

principles affirmed or

denied

and still

be demonstrative. Dialectic is interrogative. If it

questioning,
or at

kind

of

explication, it

would not proceed

least

would raise questions

only

about

the less important items. Without concessions to begin with, dialectic

can make no

headway

with

its

objections.

It is the

same with peirastic.

(S.E. 1 1

172al4-21)
Socratic
conversation

does

Socrates'

not presuppose

knowing

something, for

he insists he does
who

not

know. Instead it involves the

test anyone who

undeniable power of one

lacks knowledge to
respondent

does

claim

to know in terms of the

172a21 28).

necessary
under

consequences of

the

supposed

knowledge (S.E. 11

In

that way the

auditor

may

not come

to knowledge of the subject

discussion, but he may come, first, to wonder and then to knowledge of himself, the knowledge that he, like Socrates, can know that he does not know. This, in turn, is just the Socratic refinement of ordinary, everyday conversa
tion. What

is

refined

is the

consciousness of one's own use of conversation

the universal

dialectical terms (which ordinary

hardly

reaches).29

156

Interpretation
peirastic

Thus

is

capable of a

kind
of

of universal

knowledge in the

sense

that

it
of of

may be

applicable of

in

discussion

subjects, but

self; it is a

any subject; but it is a knowledge, not knowledge, not of eide, but like a knowledge
the

exclusions and negations

work of

(apophaneis) (S.E. 11 172a39). This is

a new

root and

others

Socratic argument, (S.E. 11 172b 1-2).

kind

of art or

science, very different from all

Sophists, Eristics

and

Socratics

Sophistry makes use of dialectic, but goes beyond it in a sense. In the open ing passages of the Topics (101al8 21) Aristotle says that investigation and
maintaining
art arguments are and

the characteristic human activities that the dialectical to the same

exploits;

he

says close

thing

at

the

beginning

of

Rhetorical

Art. Aristotle distinguishes the activity of investigating arguments from that of sustaining them, however, when he comes, at the end of Sophistical Refuta tions, to
cations said make a

final summing
sullogistiken).

up.

The

proper an

(kath

hauten) dialectical
and see

and

peirastic effective operation

(ergon) is simply

ability to seek
of arguments

impli

(dunamin

The sustaining

is

set apart and

183a37-

to arise from dialectic's near

see

identity

with

sophistry (S.E. 34

183b7;
be
seen

Rhet. A4 1359b8-12).

as a way of upholding argument, Aristotle says, can most clearly in the fact that the sophist asserts not only the ability to seek and see implications as a dialectician should (ou monon dialektikos), but asserts also the

Dialectic

power of

doing

this

as

if this

were all there were to

knowledge (alia kai hos but it is the

eidos) (S.E. 34

183b2-4).30
Socrates'

Aristotle
specific

contrasts of

modesty

with

this sophistic claim;

Socratic basis
of

that modesty that gives the clue to the

implications for

Aristotle
says:

the sophist's

taking

opinion as no

different from the truth. Aristotle

This is the
conceded

reason that not

Socrates

asked

questions, but did

not answer them.

For he

he did

know. (S.E. 34 187b7-8)

What Aristotle

characterizes as

sophistry (and

with

Plato

gives

that term its

enduring demonstration

pejorative
while

meaning)

exploits

that possibility of speech

which mimics

itself empty (S.E. 1 165a22-24; 11 171b28-30). It is this negative characterization of dialectic that lends credence to Pierre Aubenque's conclusion that the ultimate formulation of Aristotle's dia lectic is as a purely formal and negative activity, for Aristotle clearly says that

being

Socrates'

Socratic

peirastic

is the

speech of one who other places

does

not

have knowledge

and makes

remarks of similar

import in

in his

work.

Aubenque

concludes that

Universality,

critical

activity,

formality

in character,

openness to the totality: such

. .

finally

are

the traits which Aristotle recognizes in a [dialectic].

One

sees well

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

enough

157

in

what sense that conception of

[dialectic]

constitutes a rehabilitation of

sophistry

and of rhetoric as against

the Platonic attacks on them.

(Aubenque,

pp.

252, 285)
As I have already suggested, my opinion is that if the emphasis in this reading is on the formal in the sense of the empty character of dialectic, it misstates the role of dialectical negativity and turns it into a quasi-Kantian
emptiness of
thought.31

Instead in

order

to show an alternative

for Aubenque's

reading, I return to Aristotle's claim that sophists act as if speech and opinion
were all

there were to

knowledge. knowledge has

if opinion
and a

Saying
meaning.

that opinion is all there is to

double

and opposed are

To

accuse sophists of

acting

as

knowledge

identical setting

can

mean, of course, that a sophist

of

improperly

offers an argument as

forth the truth

things. It can suggest dogmatism. But such an accusation

sort.

equally well may mean skepticism of a specifically sophistical the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition sophistic skepticism with its
revulsion

At least in

consequence of

hatred for discussion (misology), (Phaedo 89C-90D; cf. Sophist 234C-E), is the more dangerous form of skepticism because it amounts to the denial, at least with respect to the whole, of any
of

from argument, that is,

knowledge human

which

is distinct from
skepticism

opinion.

Sophistic
opinion and

skepticism

is the denial

that there

is knowledge

as opposed

to

opinion.

Such

teaches that to attempt to distinguish between

knowledge is simply illusory. In its most radical and elegant form, it is the assertion of the Protagorean argument as set forth in Plato's Theaetetus
(152D-168D). There is
no ultimate

truth available to men;

what

there is

falls
is

into two
and

classes and

there are only individual perceptions, there

which are

incorrigible
of

private,

is

speech.

Knowledge is

an

illusion,

and wisdom

edge

understanding this. Aristotle is identifying sophistry in its two forms of dogmatism and skepticism. In the Theaetetus Socrates
on refutes

with

the illusion

knowl

Protagoras,
and

at

least to
error

Theaetetus'

satis

faction, by insisting finding agreement there between Socrates

1.183). At the
now same

the possibility of mistake,

and

ignorance

and

time it is a

redefinition of

Theaetetus (Benardete [1984], p. wisdom, for wisdom will not

and eristic and peirastic

be

an art of

overcoming

all other men.

an

For Aristotle
are all uses of

although

dialectic is Such

art, sophistry eristic,

dialectic. To be
a

a sophist or

as well as

to be a peirastic, is
moral choice.

to

use an art

for

human

end.

a use always also

involves

There is The

a motive

for the

sophist's adoption of

fallacious

claims of

knowledge.

sophist

is

out

to gain a reputation, and the paradigmatic motive for gaining

make

a reputation

is to

money (S.E. 1 165a23; 11

and

171b27 28).

Plato's Socra
and

tes also attacked the sophist's

the

rhetor's unlimited

seeking for fees, lack

Aristotle

agrees with that characterization.

this is to be dismissed

as a class-based scorn

For many for the

modern

commentators,
of indepen-

sophists'

158
dent
that

Interpretation
means

(Stone,

p.

42; Kerferd,
be taxed

pp.

25-26; Guthrie,
how

pp.

35-40). But Aris

totle ought not simply

with a partisan political act.

philosophers need external

goods and

heavy

He is very clear burden is placed on

philosophy

by

the fact that philosophy, the highest human

Socrates'

happiness,

must

presuppose external pendence on

goods,

reasonable

means;

and

his friends

was proverbial.

Aristotle has

poverty further point and

to

and

de

argu

ment about

this claim of

sophistical motivation which needs

be
a

explicated.

The

point of

enterprise

fee-taking
is
perhaps sophists

moneymaking the fact that lies elsewhere, although was a socially distasteful way of making a living. For this reason, it important to put aside the question of the position of the historical it may begin
with or exploit order

Aristotle's

insisting

that sophistry is essentially

in

to understand the moral

defects that Aristotle

and eristic

uses

the term to

impute. There is
a

double-sidedness to sophistry
and eristics

in Aristotle. On the
of which

one

few if any vices, hand, sophistry wouldbe philosophers do not show traces. On the other hand, the term is a loose way of referring to an identifiable group of individual thinkers. In this latter sense sophists emerge and re-emerge in history in various guises, for
are the philosophic
whom

the principle
are

is the insistence that

opinion and

knowledge

are

identical.

They

Gorgias

and

Protagoras,
or

splendid

fellows
or

with splendid and serious

insights,

and perhaps

Nietzsche

Heidegger

John

Dewey

or

Richard Rorty,

fellows, but denying in the name of knowledge the possibility equally of knowledge. One wants both to embrace the fellow philosophers in such
splendid persons
which vices.

or, alternatively, to
present

project onto

them the struggle against that

our

with

they

us,
and

i.e.,

an

invitation to indulge in in
partisan

favorite
when

philosophic gave a

If Aristotle

Plato

engaged

activity

they

permanent pejorative

flavor to those
were

who called more

themselves sophists, then the to have been the party

of of

party
the

on whose

behalf they

acting is

likely

Socratics, deeply
as

persuaded of
of not

the moral and than to

intellectual importance have been

Plato
nor

philosophy dominant Athenian any

sign of ever congeners of

the

knowledge

knowing,

conservatives.

In any

case neither

party Aristotle shows

or

the

of

the

forgetting

that sophists are the

indistinguishable,
Gorgian
and

the

philosopher.

Moreover they

read

and the

nearly so, Protagorean

texts very carefully, just as

we

gratefully

read

them

the texts of

Nietzsche, ideas,
of

Heidegger

and

Dewey.
that Aristotle's partisanship is
says
a

If

we can accept

partisanship

of

ways of

life,

as

stand

the

claim

in the Gorgias, then we will be able to under that the sophist develops and uses dialectic for self-aggrandize Socrates
narrowest possible sense

ment and gain

in the is

for

want of

any

other

motive,

and

fee-taking

emblematic of that narrow sense of self-aggrandizement.

There is something feckless about such a use of the most important and highest There is even something deeply comic about the sophist of the analytic
arts.32

who claims

to

have the

key

to empire and power

(Gorgias 452D), but

offers to

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

teach

159

it to

others at

only

a small

fee. He turns for

sale

out

to
a

be

someone who small

"makes
(Sophist

[all things] quickly 234A).

and offers them

for

sum"

very

On the any
art'

other

of of

the

hand, the sophist claims his art is more important than that of others, because, as Stanley Rosen says, "[t]he purpose of the 'focal
enable us to persuade others to
of sophistical speeches

satisfy our desires [while is the law, written and un written, of the (Rosen, pp. 165-66, 160-61). Comic sophistry is too close to philosophy for comfort. Rosen elsewhere says:
overtly] the primary theme
city"

sophistry is to

Sophistry
of

is

the whole city. This claim

rival to philosophy because it claims to deal with the welfare of is based upon the sophist's putting opinion in the place
thesis
not
of

knowledge. In

other words, the crucial

sophistry is that
His
point

opinion

is

higher than knowledge. The Sophist does

deny

that there is technical

knowledge,
is
no

whether of some

shoemaking

or geometry.

is

rather

that there

technical knowledge of opinions about the good;

of

instead,

there is technical

knowledge

how to

persuade others to accept our opinion of the good.

(Rosen,

p.

160)
This drive to

bring

others over

to one's side fits in easily and

of

directly

with

the sophist's moneymaking time both persuasion and

make a

teaching

the art

which claims

to be at the same

wisdom.

At the

same

time the sophistic desire to

money from teaching is, in the Socratic tradition, only a derivative from different kind of gain-seeking. This second understanding of the meaning of

sophistic we

have

seen

gain-seeking shows a fiercer side of the fictive drive to persuade than before. The motives and skills of the sophists would not be fully

elucidated
as

by
in

they

are

considering the sophists as teachers. They must also be elucidated a passage in Seth Benardete's Commentary on the Theaetetus:
and wisdom are not

Knowledge

the same [for Protagoras].

of
. .

Knowledge,

which

Protagoras horizon
of a of

only once, is ineradicable illusion.

mentions
. . . .

the Heraclitean

flux;

wisdom works within

the

The

wise

...

are effective

only if they leave

patient's opinion

this ground alone.

The doctor
. . .

changes

by

means of are

drugs the

food's bitterness. food?

...

The

sophist's

drugs

speeches; what, then, is the

soul's

A city that
soul.

can resist

its

own assimilation to another

healthy
same

city, and the city in the best

condition can

feed it

on

every

other city.

city is a The
to

holds for the

. .

The

soul

is

healthy

when

assimilates other souls

itself. his

Wisdom is

power.

He is

wise who can make someone or

something into

own

image. (Benardete [1984],

pp.

1. 121-1.

122)
tyrant.33

The

sophist so elucidated

becomes have
a

type of the

Socrates
public

says

in the

Republic

that though sophists

power

handbook for

handling

opinion, it

really coopt the young into the ways of public thinking (Rep. VI 492A-493C). It is the statesmen who have power, then, who are the true sophists. If we are talking of assimilation that is overwhelming, the

is those in

in the city

who

160

Interpretation
art

sophists'

(Statesman

distant copy of the tyrant's use of social pressures 303B-C; see Benardete [1984], pp. III.138-UI.139).
is
a

(nomos)

Both philosophy
the
neediness of characterizes

sophistry presuppose a neediness and a capacity. But the sophist has a different character from the neediness that
and
and so

Socratic eros,

does the

sophistic capacity.

The

sophist

has

turned away
nizes

from Socratic neediness, and the neediness that the in himself and in others drives him to seek unlimited
of neediness stand

sophist

gain.34

recog The two

kinds

to

each

other as

the

first

and

the second

Socratic

speeches

in the Phaedrus.

Lysias'

love,

says

Socrates, is

assimilative and can

nibalistic, "just as the

wolf

loves the

lamb"

(Phaedrus 24 ID).
an endless pursuit of

The

sophist responds

to his neediness

by
are

wealth, an

endless assimilation of others through views of

the creation and imposition of persuasive

the world,
wisdom

all of which roots

Sophistic

has its

equally true, false or indifferent. in the skepticism that believes that each of us, as in
speech

he thinks

incorrigibly
ultimate
of

private,

reaches out to others

only

on

the

basis
the

of an

illusion. The belief that illusion is for the making

those

ultimate

is

coupled with

denial

the distinction between opinion and knowledge. The two provide the under
motivation

pinning here

of

moral choices

that

lead, in
whom

the worst

case, to a
gives

person's

becoming

that corrupt and burntout case to

Aristotle
too often

the name of sophist. The sophistic character results

search

from

perverting the

for knowledge into the

pursuit of wealth and power.

[S]ophists draw
.
. .

on

themselves the appearance of the philosopher

grapples with the same class of objects as

...

by

the sophist's choice of a way of life.

for sophistry does philosophy, but differs from it Sophistic does not seek reality,
... . .

but is

satisfied with appearance.

1355bl7

18:

"Sophistry lies

not

(Met. Gamma 4, 1004bl8-27; see in a skill, but in a moral choice.")

also

Rhet. Al

Dialectic, Philosophy

and

Philosophic Sciences

pursue

The philosopher, however, makes a different choice, that is, the choice to knowledge believing that is right.35 It is a choice that is made possible
the

by

knowledge
of

knowledge
use of

ignorance (peirastic), but it is ignorance. One who engages in peirastic is

of one's such a person also must

not also

identical
making

with

the

human
will

dialectic;

have

motive, and that motive

of

display
one's

a moral character.
whether

The

motive

is something like that

doing

good

for

is

friends, right, in the

reason p.

the respondent or the audience or

which

both.36

If Father Fortin
some

short

study from

I have already quoted, that there is

Socrates'

deeper

for

education through peirastic to start with

the relatively young

(Fortin,
a

259),

then

we must correct

words

in the Republic (Rep.

and record

537D-539D) by
lover
peirastic

Socrates'

practice

throughout the dialogues

him

as

of philosophic

young

men.

There is

one more aspect of the motive

for

(which is the

motive of the teacher).

friendly

motive

is

charac-

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

terized

-161

by

selfless

action, that
also

is, for
the

action

for the

sake of

the

other

(N.E. 18

1 163b2-5). But Aristotle

such

insists there is

self-interest

self-interest, grown

within

soul of good

in any friendship, and persons into the love of the

noble, is good (N.E. 18 1169b2-3). Aristotle separates philosophy from both peirastic and dialectic, although he seems to admit the intimate association of all three. In the culminating passage
of

the

Metaphysics
and

where

Aristotle both

compares and

philosophy, he says that where sophistry is openness to achieving knowledge (gnoristike) (Met. Gamma 2 1004b26-27). Earlier in the same passage in the Metaphysics Aristotle has said that what

distinguishes dialectic, dialectic is peirastic, philosophy

dialectic from philosophy is because dialectic has nothing to say

separates

not

the subject matter of

about the

priority

of substance

dialectic, but (ousia)

(Met. Gamma 2 1004b5-10). We

now

have the

resources

to understand these claims. The sophist ulti

mately denies the possibility of knowledge of the whole, but that is, in effect, to deny ignorance of the whole. To admit one's ignorance, however, is to
admit that

the

distinction between

appearance and

reality is

applicable to under

standing the whole; it is a turn to seeking the essence of things (ousia) and a denial that all knowledge is basically and radically contingent (Met. E2 1026b3-22). On the contrary, to speak of knowledge of the radically contin in the Posterior Analytics, to claim that knowledge is knowledge of accidents, (An. Post. A2 71b9 10) and that claim is, as he ar gues in the Metaphysics, an attempt to do without the principle of noncontra
gent

is,

as

Aristotle

says

diction (Met. Gamma 4 1007a21-1007bl8). Thus, philosophy is the attempt to turn from the investigation of opinions considered as such (which is what dia
edge of the
an attempt

lectic undertakes) (Top. Al 100a30-100bl; Met. BI 99521-26) toward knowl beings, that is, an attempt to move beyond wonder. Moreover, it is
to
make such a move with an awareness of

the weakness of speech

(to

logon asthenes) (Seventh Epistle 343al). Even Aristotle proposes philosophic sciences
ton

only,

and

the

adjective

knowl primarily edge, not knowing. In Met. Zl 1028b3-7 Aristotle says, "What is being, that is, what is ousial This is what was, is and will be sought and always be hedged
gnoristike which
uses passage means openness

he

in this

to

puzzles."

with

Thus dialectic in its highest

seem that peirastic

use

is inseparable from

peirastic,37

but it

would

does

not go

limits

of the proper use of

beyond dialectic, that is, it stays within the speech (S.E. 11 171b7 8). In doing so it pushes limit
the
without

speech and opinions to their

breaking

that

limit.38

The break between

the cave,
serve

peirastic and

to

underline

radical conversion

philosophy may, like the Socratic image of from normal civic life that
role of

philosophic paideia

demands

and

the

the conversion in the completed

cycle of
which

the

cave.

For it is necessary to

make the

first

turn to self-knowledge
and
conven-

is the knowledge that

we are governed

by

opinions, endoxa

162

Interpretation

tions only, and the trace of the truth and that these are the ineradicable ground of our shared understanding. But the conversion is not only this turn, but it is
also wonder and not

bitter

cynicism

sensing that the light is primary

alone

and not

the fires

on

the wall

which must

result, for that

leads away to the light

of the true sun, the

must always

way that leads away towards philosophy which, however, turn back to dialectic to test itself. The cave is first and last, and it

is lit only

with remembered

light.

NOTES

was eclipsed by the rhetorical exercise, the declamatio, in the Roman world, 201-5, 286-89; Kennedy, pp. 316-22), but it was reborn in the medieval univer sities. See Green-Pedersen, p. 338; Murphy, pp. 200-211, 198-230; Ong (1983), pp. 36-37, 152-56; Ong (1981), p. 139.

1. The disputation
pp.

(Marrou,

2. "LeBlond
to dialectic

E. Weil

and

G.E.L. Owen

have

stressed

the importance
thought"

which pp.

Aristotle

assigns

[which

is] firmly
when

in the

centre of the mature

Aristotie's
of

(Evans,

2-3, 5).

3. Aristotle does
p.

not use

the expression

logike, logic,
pp.

any discipline

whatsoever

154).

Moreover,

Aristotle does
"dialectical"

use

the related words logikos and

(P. Hadot, logikos, he probably

does

so with

the meaning of
unproblematic and

(Evans,

29-30).

4. For the

seizing

on

the formal aspect of the syllogism, see

would

Lukasiewicz,
write a

pp.

12-19; Kneale
series.

Kneale,

pp.

1, 33, 178. "Aristotle, it

seem,

was

the first to

logic

He was, it must be conceded, unaware of the (McMullin, p. v). 5. The concept of formality is a difficult one in any case, and many different meanings have of been assigned to it. Aubenque seems to be thinking of testing through the "formal
arguments which

fact"

validity"

lead

thesis into self-contradiction. It

is the test

of

formal validity

alone

that the

questioner provides while

the theses, the matter of the argument, are provided

by

the

respondent

Aubenque may be overstating the formal character of dialectic since, it will be argued, it is difficult to say the effect of dialectic for Aristotle is empty, formal and negative although each of these adjectives is, in a sense, true of the questioner's role in dialogue. Aubenque
and not the proponent.

has

reason

to emphasize the
conclusion

formal

nature of

highlights his

that the reality of

first philosophy is nothing but

dialectic to the highest degree, for such emphasis such a dialectic (pp. 300the distinction in question as
seems a one which

301;

compare

Owens [1978],
of
"matter"

pp. xvi-xxvi).

6. Alexander
relates

to the

Aphrodisias, pp. 2-5. Reference to (hule) of the two syllogism types

grasping

of a specific

emergence of

the contrast between the

intellectual content, for that content form in relation to the

use of

very strange way to refer to the would itself be a form. The sudden
matter and

the

form in
run

relation

to the the

content suggests
problems that

that the Commentator's

the term already has

implicitly

into

some of

follow from formalization.

7. An. Post. B19 100al5-100b4; de An. Gamma 8 431b20-432al4; N.E. Z3 1139b30-31 and Z7. Aristotle, it is important to bear in mind, does not purport to give a full account of the process. The description of induction remains, as H.G. Gadamer has said in a slightly different context
vague."

"conspicuously
experience
mechanical summing.

to access to the

See Gadamer, p. 314. The questions at stake, the movement from raw forms, do not permit treating this process as if it were a manner of

8. Living knowledge is that known in its first causes, for other knowledge is accidental (An. Post. A2 71b9-10). It is knowledge "which has a (N.E. Z7 1 141al9). Aristotle several times
head"

mentions

the

sophistic

byplay

that equates

knowledge

with some unactivated

"possession

of

knowl

edge"

knowledge just as a man clothing lying in a closet when he is, in fact, standing naked. See Theaetetus 197 A-E; Euthydemus 277B-278E. It is not possible, for Aristotle, to conceive of knowledge in this way; such knowledge is possessed only in an accidental sense.
and pretends that one can possess
"possesses"

(An. Post. A6

74b22-24),

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

9. "This him have
.

163

serves
. .

the

great and

awe-inspiring
p.

world as a whole.

Aristotle

undertook to

attempt"

made such an aids

(Klein,

goal of giving a nearly complete account of the satisfy that demand once and for all. Only a few after 187).

in the seeking of those sciences which philosophy seeks (tas kata philosophian epistemas) (Top. A2 101a28). Dialectic is peirastike, tentative, but philosophy is gnoristike, aiming at knowledge (Met. Gamma 2, 1004b26-28). The latter adjective, however, is
expressive of

10. It is dialectic that

the

potential

for

rather

argument about

the degree to

which

than the actuality of knowledge; Aristotle does not forestall the knowledge is in us merely tentative. See Benardete [1978], pp.

2,4.

(dihoti)

movement from the indeterminate (hoti) to the determinate grasp in Owens [1978], pp. 287-98, 159-63. 12. According to Aubenque, Plato found the proto-dialectic was being thought of as a way to make knowledge useful for men. For example, Kleinais says in the Euthydemus that hunters and p. of a subject as explained

11. Wieland,

135. Cf. the

fishers fruits
have

must

turn their

catch over

to the cooks if it is

ever

to be useful; and as cookery

is to the

of

the

hunt, dialectic is

to the regional sciences.

a

The

cooks

(opsopoioi), (Euthydemus 290B),

Gorgias Socrates
in 1).
Socrates'

a skill

(opsopoiike). It is
Socrates'

skill, Aubenque lets us remember, which in the

p.

calls a scandalous sham-art

(Aubenque,
"second

252

n.

and p.

253

n.

13. The

sailing"

echo of

is

not absent p.

from

criticism of paideia

the Rival Lovers (Rival Lovers

tic

is

14. Aubenque, pp. not an isolated affirmation, but 15. I. Hadot,

pp.
written

132D; Bruell, 249-52. For Aubenque, moreover,

see an essential concludes

93).

the

identification
of

of paideia and

dialec

building block

18-24. I. Hadot

his understanding of Aristotle. (p. 24) that the Rival Lovers is an attack on the

Peripatos

by

a cynic. another case of

some sense

16. The copy is not just inferior to it. 17. Green-Pedersen,

pp.

the original, but

being

like the original, it

still

is in

13-14. Proponents

of

the other view, under which the work continues the

to

be treated

as

separate, believe the tradition in

vision which would vision

question reflects

fact that "Aristotle

came

only
and

late to the unitary

be described [in

chapter

34

of

Sophistical Refutations

by]

accepting that of his

tions to the
surprise

undertaking"

impossible that Aristotle has noticeably changed the original sense (Brunschwig, pp. xix-xx). I am strongly inclined to join the Sophistical Refuta it is
not

originary

scope of

the

teaching

of

dialectic, but if

we

do so,

we need express no

that sophistry does

of

18. Book Alpha

vides a

through definitions and

easily with more straightforward aspects of dialectical reasoning. the Topics contains introductory matter orienting the activity of dialectic a preliminary discussion of the function of dialectic. The book also pro
not sit

description
and a

of the constitutive elements of

induction,
formulated

a statement of the principles on which the subjects

dialectical method, including syllogism for disputation (pro or con)

and
are

(organa) of dialectic (A13 105a21-26). The instruments of dialectic are (i) the provision of propositions, (ii) being able to review how many senses a term has, (iii) finding distinctions and (iv) seeking similarities.
description
of

the

four

"instruments"

19. The

actual

te terms:

accident

topics, or beginning points of argument, are organized around the four predica (Books Beta, Gamma), genus (Book Delta), proper attribute (Book Epsilon) and
of

definition (Books Zeta, Eta). 20. The peirastic character

tions

emerges in Book Theta, and Sophistical Refuta for separating dialectic from sophistry. The most impor tant loci are S.E. 1 165a38-165bl0; 7-9; 11 171b3-172b4; 16 175a5-31; 34 183a37-184b9. 21. Top. Theta 14 164bl-8; Phaedrus 266B-C; Sophist 253D-253E. This passage expands on Aristotle's earlier remark that through the use of dialectic "we are the more easily able to deal with

dialectic first

(Book

Iota) becomes

the touchstone

(Top. A2 101a30 31). 22. Top. Theta 14 163a29-163b29. See also Top. A13-18 and S.E. 16. Book Theta closely connects dialectic as a kind of strenuous practice in argument to the developed and regulated disputation, which thus is a kind of culmination for dialectic. See Top. Theta 1 1 161al7-161bl8.

any

subject set

before

us"

For descriptions

of

the Aristotelian disputation and discussions of its nature, see the

also at

various studies

in Owen (1968), e.g., Moraux (1968), Solmsen, Ryle; and see 23. The fact that Aristotle fails to use the work peirastike

Owen (1986), 221-35, 238. this point will take on a deeper

164

Interpretation
uncover

of

meaning as we dialectic.

how important

peirastic

is to become in the
different kind
to the

course of

Aristotle's treatment

24.
sciences

Recently

there have been discussions

about a

of

dialectic

about

the

underpin

nings of science.

These discussions
of

are closer

in

spirit

connection

between dialectic

and

the
of on as

in Aristotelian terms. I have in Human Sciences

at

mind exercises such as

the books

in the

University

Wisconsin Rhetoric
the

series

(e.g., McCloskey)
of

and the

N.E.H. -funded Project describe themselves

Rhetoric

of

Inquiry (POROI)
usage gives

the

University

Iowa. These

projects

rhetorical.

25. Aristotle's
motive

the eristic and the

sophist

differing

motives,

but in

each case

the

victory for its own sake; the mere appearance of prevailing is what he needs. The sophist intends to use that appearance, the appearance of wisdom, in order to get a reputation and gain wealth and fame. From time to time Aristotle

is

an evil or vicious one.

The

eristic aims at

includes the

eristic

(whose

motives are as

narrowly

self-interested as

those of the sophist) with the

sophist under

the

name of

the latter.
notes

26. In these
teachings
and

and the

following
peirastic.

Aristotelian
on

The

subject

I try to suggest some differences between the Stranger's is a difficult one. The noble sophistic is introduced

in the Sophist
and

the basis of a distinction

cathartics

between the Stranger's

the

nonevaluative worse).

division (like from

like) II. 97-99, 11.97

his diacritical
n.

(separating

better from the

42)

points out three crucial

deforming
the

aspects of

Benardete ([1984], pp. that introduction. The first

the noble sophistic,

deforming

aspect so on

is

relevant

here. The Stranger

Theaetetus'

accepts paideia as word.

the

name of

but he does

the heels

of

suggestion of

Theaetetus (Sophist

229D2) has

contrasted paideia

only

with craft arts

(demiourgike). Since the

contrast

is jarring, it is
points

likely

that,

in

totally frustrating
purifying

way, Theaetetus
and

has

missed

the

point of

the noble sophistic as a refutational

and

learning

taken

it

as a

kind

of mathematics.

As Benardete

out, the contrast

Socrates'

echoes with as opposed

usage

to craft arts.

in Theaetetus, 145A, This is "a far reaching

where paideia means education

in the

"sciences"

mistake"

despite

Socrates'

maieutics, Theaetetus has "reverted in less than

Theaetetus'

in Theaetetus (Benardete) and shows that, a day to his very first definition of

knowledge (Ibid.). Nevertheless, however askew understanding is, the Stranger goes on to describe another and more Socratic kind of paideia (Sophist 230A-D). 27. Theaetetus, 149A-151D. The chief difference seems to be that account is fo
Socrates'

cused on

the subject

matter of

the

discussion does

and not, as

is the Stranger's,

on

the reflexive effect on

the coparticipant, that tic

movement

is,

maieutics

not attempt to

dissociate the

philosophical

from the
use of

peiras

in the

activity.

28. There is 29. The

off

no reason

to believe either that eristics times

or

and sophists are

limited to

the eristic

or sophistic arguments at all same passage

that

as "even though they seem to speak very far arguably could (S.E. 11 172a33-34; see generally S.E. 11 172a29-172b4). 30. Alia kai hos eidos can also be understood as "pretending that they also have

only eristics be translated

and sophists use such arguments.

the

point"

knowledge."

31. Aristotle inquiry. This

merely
modern

seems to

"regularly uses the term imply that the Platonic

'empty'

formal,

and emptied of real content.

describe the dialectical or Platonic method of is to speak in a more recent fashion Aristotle does not contrast and in this
to
method
'formal'
'real'

(Owens [1978], p. 199). 32. The eristic is an even more feckless type. Such
and

manner"

a one wants

the sense of

having

won

the

argument,

nothing

more

(S.E. 11 171b24-25).

Sophistry

and eristic relate

to

one another as

desire

and spiritedness.

33. Perhaps there is a notion of the sophist attempting to metamorphose into the tyrant. If there is such a notion, it helps to explain the progression of persons in the Gorgias from the rhetor

Gorgias through the lover/hater of tyranny, Polus, to the one who would himself become tyrant (Callicles), but may lack the courage (or brutality) to do so. 34. The term moneymaker implies that money-making has become an end in itself, precisely because it is unlimited in scope. See the treatment of the chrematistike in Pol. A9-10.
35. "Philosophers
the
tyrant"

(Strauss,

philosophic views of

could not possibly identify the life according to nature with the life of 115). See the discussion of sophists, philosophers and the vulgar and convention at pp. 1 14-18.
.

p.

Aristotle's Dialectical Purposes

165

36. Socrates expressly claims to be acting from goodwill (eunoia) (Theaetetus, 15 ID). 37. The Stranger in the Sophist seems to agree that separation of dialectic and peirastic is
ultimately impossible (Benardete

[1984],

p.

11.93).
which

38. Aristotle insists

the

on

the distinction

between dialectic

deals

with opinions as

such, and

knowledge. That insistence may account for his refusal to use the term dialectic for the philosophic effort. There is a passage in Metaphysics (M4 1078bl7 30) in which Aristotle seems to be saying that Socrates did not understand that it was possible to make such a sharp differentiation between dialectic and philosophy. On the other hand, insistence on the barrenness of the maieutic function suggests something like the same
purified student's effort

to move toward

Socrates'

distinction.

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imilian Wallies. Berlin: George Reimer, 1891. Aquinas, St. Thomas. Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. Trans. F. R. Larcher. Albany: Magi Books, 1960.

Aubenque, Pierre. Le
aristotelicienne
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Barnes, Jonathan. "Aristotle's Theory of Schofield and Richard Sorabji, eds., Articles
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Aristotle, 1. London: Gerald Duck

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Clarendon Aristotle Series. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 (b). Benardete, Seth. The Being of the Beautiful: Plato's Theaetetus, Sophist Chicago: Chicago Press, 1984. University The City and "Review of Leo
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Edel, Abraham. Aristotle and His Philosophy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Evans, John D. G. Aristotle's Concept of Dialectic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Ferrari, G. R. F. Listening to the Cicadas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987.
Topica."

Forster, E. S.
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"Introduction to the
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E. S. Forster. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge:

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Fortin, Ernest. "The Paradoxes

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Gadamer, Hans-Georg. "Amicus Plato Magis Arnica

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Crossroad Publishing, 1982. First published 1960. Green-Pedersen, Niels. The Tradition of the Topics in the Middle Ages: The Commen taries on Aristotle's and Boethius's Topics. Analytica Series. Munich: Philosophia

Verlag, 1984. Guthrie, W. K. The Sophists. Vol. 2, Part 1 of A History of Greek Philosophy. Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. First published 1969. Hadot, Ilsetraut. Arts liberaux et philosophie dans la pensee antique. Paris: Etudes
Augustiniennes, 1984. Hadot, Pierre. "Philosophie, Dialectique, Rhetorique dans
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Studia

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de la philosophie) 39(1980): 139-66. George. The Art Rhetoric in the Roman World: 300 B.C. -A.D. 300. Kennedy, of Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
(annuaire de la
societe Suisse

Kerford, G. B. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. In The Lectures and Essays of Jacob Klein. Klein, Jacob. "Aristotle, an
Introduction."

Ed. Robert B. Williamson

and

Elliott Zuckerman. Annapolis: St. John's College

Press, 1985. Kneale, William, and Martha Kneale. The Development of Logic. Corr. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. First published 1962. Lukasiewicz, Jan. Aristotle's Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957. First published 1951. Marrou, Henri I. A History of Education in Antiquity. Trans. George Lamb. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. McCloskey, Donald N. The Rhetoric of Economics. University of Wisconsin Rhetoric of Human Sciences Series. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. In Otto Bird, Syllogistic and Its Extensions. Funda McMullin, Ernan. "Editor's mentals of Logic Series. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964. In G. E. L. Moraux, Paul. "La joute dialectique apres le huitieme livre des Owen, ed. Aristotle on Dialectics: The Topics, Papers of the Third Symp. Aristotelicum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. Pp. 227-311.
Note."
Topiques."

Les listes

anciennes

des

ouvrages

dAristote. Louvain: Editions Universitaire

and the
Nightingale."

de Louvain, 1951. Murphy, James J. "Rhetoric

and

Dialectic in The Owl

of

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Murphy,

ed., Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the

Theory

and

Practice of Medieval

Rhetoric. Berkeley:

University
and

California Press, 1978.

Nelson, John S., Allen Megill

Donald N. McCluskey, eds. The Rhetoric of Human Sciences. University of Wisconsin Rhetoric of Human Sciences Series. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. Ong, Walter J. Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality and Consciousness. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press,
Press, 1958;

1981.
and the

Ramus: Method

Decay

of Dialogue. Cambridge: Harvard

University

paperback

1983.

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Owen, G. E. L.,
ed.

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Aristotle

on

Aristotelicum. Oxford: Oxford

University Press,

Dialectics: The Topics, Papers of the Third Symp. 1968.

of the
Forms."

"Dialectic

and and

Eristic in the Treatment

In G. E. L. Owen,

Logic, Science,

Dialectic: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy. Ed. Martha Craven Nussbaum. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 221-38. In Aristotle: The Col lected Papers of Joseph Owens. Ed. John R. Catan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Pp. 23-34.
of

Owens, Joseph. "The Aristotelian Conception

the

Sciences."

The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics. 3d rev. ed. Toronto: of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. First published 1951. Rosen, Stanley. Plato's Sophist: The Drama of Original and Image. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
Pontifical Institute

Ross, W. David. Aristotle. 5th ed. London: Methuen, 1949. First published 1923. In G. E. L. Owen, ed., Aristotle on Dialec Ryle, Gilbert. "Dialectic in the tics: The Topics, Papers of the Third Symp. Aristotelicum. Oxford: Oxford Univer sity Press, 1968. Pp. 69-79. In G. E. L. Owen, ed., Aristotle on Solmsen, Friedrich. "Dialectic without Dialectics: The Topics, Papers of the Third Symp. Aristotelicum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. Pp. 49-68. Stone, I. F. The Trial of Socrates. Boston: Little Brown, 1988. Strauss, Leo. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Academy." Forms."

First

published

1950.

Stump, Eleonore. De topiciis differentiis. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978. Dialectic and Its Place in the Development of Medieval Logic. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press,

1989.
Thought."

Weil, E. "The Place of Logic in Aristotle's Barnes. In Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield

Trans. Jonathan

and

Jennifer

Richard Sorabji, eds., Articles on Aristotle, I. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1975. Pp. 88-112. Trans. Wieland, W. "Aristotle's Physics and the Problem of Inquiry into
and
Principles."

Malcolm Schofield. In Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield

eds., Articles
on

and

Richard Sorabji,

Aristotle, I. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1975. Pp. 127-40.

Zabarella, Joseph, de natura logicae 1.3 in opera logica (1549). Quoted in Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics. 3d ed. Toronto: Pon tifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978. P. 129 n. 95. The St. John's Review 35(1984):32 47. Zuckerkandl, Victor. "On
Mimesis."

Rousseau Under Surveillance:

Thoughts
on a

New Edition

and

Translation

of

Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues

Mary L. Bellhouse
Providence College

Remember that piercing

eyes are

incessantly

watching

you.

(Rousseau,

Dialogues,

p.

72)
matter

What does it
essence of

to me if men want to see me other than as I am? Is the

p.

my

being

in their looks? (Rousseau, Dialogues,

and

252)
second major auto

An important

new edition

translation

of

Rousseau's

biography,
D. Masters

entitled
and

Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, edited by Roger Christopher Kelly, and translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher

Kelly,
eral,
of

and

Roger D.

the first translation

and

Masters, has recently been to appear in English; it is a superb

There
are

published.1

Long

needed, this

is

translation

accurate, lit

highly

readable.

three (or perhaps

four)
and

complete manuscripts

Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues

Dialogue."

and an additional manuscript of

the part called the "First

based
text.2

on

the text

in Volume 1

of

The Bush, Kelly, the Pleiade Oeuvres

and now

Masters translation is

completes

(1958),

the first

complete edition to appear

in French

the standard

for the

original

French

The Pleiade

edition relies on

the third

by

Rousseau to the Genevan The

new

minister

latest manuscript, the Paul Moultou in 1778.

and

one given

Masters

and

Kelly
serve

edition of a

Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques:

reference avail and

Dialogues
able

will no

doubt

for

long

time as the standard

in English. It includes
of

a superior

introduction
notes,

by Kelly

Masters,

Rousseau's life, chronology are not intended to be as detailed Pleiade edition,

tive. This
yet

excellent

and a useful

index. The

notes

as

those found in the

critical apparatus of

the
on

they

are ample other

in number, extremely helpful, especially

writings,
and often

connections with

Rousseau's

philosophically
of seven

sugges a

authoritative

English

edition appears as

the first

volumes,

planned series of translations of the

Collected Writings of Rousseau that

prom

ises to be
I
would

highly

influential.

consider the

like to thank my students Anne M. Lee and Alexander S. Brough III for helping me to meaning of Rousseau's Dialogues. The Providence College Committee to Aid Faculty
provided

Research has

financial

assistance.

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

170

Interpretation
work

is usually called) has been undeservedly ne wrote it. As glected and widely misunderstood virtually since the Genevan read of Rous Kelly and Masters point out, "this book has surely been the least The Dialogues (as the
seau's

important

works"

(p.

xiii).

The

new

accessibility
of

of

the Dialogues to
commentaries.

English-speaking
The Dialogues
situated

readers should prompt an

after

outpouring

lively

is,

all, a remarkably
edition of the

provocative

book,
us

and our age

is

well

politically Masters and Kelly's important

and

philosophically to interpret it.

Dialogues invites
to
rethink a number complex use of

of

aspects of

Rousseau's philosophy,

including his

autobiography.

In considering the Dialogues

and

Rousseau's last work, The

Reveries of the Solitary Walker, the question arises, Why did Rousseau write not one, but three major autobiographies? These three works were composed
over a

twelve-year period: the Confessions

was written

between 1766

and

1770,

the Dialogues between 1772 and

years of

1776,

and and

the Reveries

during
an

the

last two

Rousseau's

life, between 1776

problematic:

1778. The

status of

these writings

as autobiographies and each

is

Each is

much more

than

autobiography,

is in

some ways

deliberately

fictive. As

Kelly

and

Masters suggest,

the distinction that is often drawn between Rousseau's autobiographical writ

his obviously theoretical writings is in some ways did Rousseau persist beyond the Confessions in his project ings
and

questionable.3

Why

creating Are the Dialogues, as Michel Foucault claims, "anti-Confessions"? (Foucault is exceptional in that he treats the Dialogues as a serious work of philosophy;
some

of

a self?

thirty

years ago

he

prepared a

French

edition of

the Dialogues

and wrote

a substantial

essay

on

simply
mation

restatements.

Surely, Rousseau's three autobiographies are not On the contrary, as I will try to show, there is a transfor

it.)4

but

also

in Rousseau's thought, not only from the Confessions to the Dialogues, from the Dialogues to the Reveries.
the central theme of my argument at the outset: In the Dia
adopts

Let

me state

logues Rousseau
himself into
an object

the extraordinary

device
order

of

disassociating

or

dividing
about

several characters or voices and at

in

to resist disempowerment as

"under

surveillance,"

the same time to teach his readers

such objectification.

While wary

of an anachronistic an

interpretation, I

will claim

throughout this essay that there is

and some aspects of the

affinity between Rousseau's Dialogues

Foucault.5

late

writings of

My

thoughts on a

possible

connection or resemblance
cault are not

between some of the ideas of Rousseau and Fou final conclusions, but offered instead as a set of questions for future readers of the Dialogues. The Dialogues can be usefully read, first of
all,
as a grand refusal

comply with what Foucault later names disciplinary power. Rousseau reconstitutes his selfhood and presents himself as both subject and object in the Dialogues in order to confront and resist being transformed
to

into

versions of

himself

produced
a

by

his
and

enemies.

Secondly,
p.

rather than the

useless ravings of a madman

paranoiac, according to the standard inter

pretation of the

Dialogues (see

Kelly

Masters,

xiii), this

little-known

Rousseau Under Surveillance

book
contains some of

-171

Rousseau's
on

most valuable

teachings for late

modernity.

In sum, the Dialogues focuses

the twin issues

of self-explanation and misun

derstanding,
object,
and

and on

the

relationship between the

technologies

self as subject, the self as

the

workings of modern

of power.

The three

and each part whole.

Rousseau form a theoretical triptych, be understood more may clearly if viewed in relation to the Rousseau claims that the Confessions is addressed to everyone: he ex
major autobiographies of audience as

plicitly defines his

self-proclaimed closure.

"the

numberless

legion

of

my fellow

men."6

His

method

in the Confessions is
the self through

complete openness,
words.

total dis
subject

He defines

and reveals

This discursive

established external

in the Confessions is carefully and deliberately presented before the gaze of the other. The Confessions and the Dialogues resemble each
a

other

in

fundamental

way:

in

each case

in constituting himself. As Huck Gutman Rousseau's Confessions,

seau, uses

division is the primary explains in

move an

Rous
on

essay

The first,

and essential, move

above

in the

constitution of

the

self

is division. And it is

division,
...

all, that we discover in Rousseau. Division is the primary move in

the countless analyses he provides as the explanation of the course of his existence.

In

dividing

a subject of

knowledge

himself from the world, he creates a self, he constitutes himself as and examination. He will explore, in the Confessions, the boundaries he has had and, out of those experiences, he will trace the of his own, particular, consciousness. The modem

particular experiences

development
secular sins

and

confessional, as invented
is.7

by Rousseau,
every

involves

not

but the

enumeration of each and

experience that

merely the recital of has made one what and

who one

Thus, division is essential to the project of self-presentation transparency of the soul which characterize the Confessions.
In the Dialogues Rousseau
addresses

and

the goal of

the

problem of

having
set

his

subjective

agency

appropriated

including by his

control over

the meaning of

his

character and

his texts

adversaries.8

This

appropriation

is

in

motion

by

the

circulation of earlier texts and accelerated

by

his

construction and private read

ings

of

the Confessions. Rousseau gives the Royal Prince

of

several readings

at

M. du Pezay's,

at

Dorat's, in front of ing to Foucault, Rousseau hopes

a space will then open

Sweden,

and at the

Egmonts'. Accord

that:

for the spoken word, light, faithful, indefinitely transmissible, where belief and truth communicate without obstacle, the space of the immediate voice, probably, where the Savoyard vicar, listening, had in the past
placed

his

profession of

faith. (P. vii)

the effects that Rousseau wants:
a major theme of

But the

readings

do

not produce

his

voice

falls

amid silence, and silence then

becomes

the Dialogues.

172

Interpretation
writes the

Rousseau
ure.

Dialogues in

recognition that

the Confessions
note that

is

fail

A failure in

what sense?

Kelly

and

Masters correctly

because

some readers of

the Confessions
manual

misunderstood

that work, the Dialogues

is

intended
comment

as a

training

for future

readers of

Rousseau's

writings.

They

judges
this

as

further that, well as his It is

not

"By

confessors"

Rousseau made them his confessing to his readers, place more emphasis on to want (p. xvii). I

point.

fession

as such

Confessions. Con simply a matter of misunderstanding the has increased Rousseau's vulnerability. Embedded in the Dia
a claim

logues, in inchoate form, is

Foucault: The leged
through their
"listeners,"

fully

articulated

two centuries

later

by

confessional mode who claim possession of

disempowers the

subject and empowers privi

"truth"

to be able to extract the

of confessions

the

keys to

interpretation.9

Rousseau's first

auto

biography
confession proved nizes

has

prompted countless others contributed

to produce their own secular confes

sions; moreover, it has

produces

to widespread acceptance of the

since

belief that

"truth."

Ironically,

Rousseau's Confessions has

in which Rousseau recog enormously influential and the Dialogues how confession effects a loss of power for the one who confesses has
the sum effect of these two autobiographies has been to advance
power.

been

ignored,

modern

disciplinary
opponents,

As the discursive
sophical

self of

the spoken Confessions threatens Rousseau's philo

they

produce

hostile interpretations

of

him,

and

they

at

tempt to silence him. Their efforts are so effective that Rousseau

on the

begins

work

Dialogues

with a

sions, a voice

now

very different usage of voice than that of the Confes choked and locked in "a terrifying and terrible
strategic

silenc

(Dialogues,
mies'

p.

4). The

focus

of

the Dialogues is to discredit his ene

appropriation of of

any

such

his discursive self, while addressing the larger problem appropriation. After this task is accomplished, Rousseau will turn
project:

to a different
which

Near the
to the

Writing,"

end of the

"History
and

of

the

Preceding

forms

a postscript

Dialogues,

throughout The Reveries of the

Solitary
fringes
his

Walker, Rousseau
society (see,

assigns a peaceful as

considers the positive of

side, the privileges,

e.g.,

meaning to his existence, as he it were, of his solitary life on the

multiple

Dialogues,
and

p.

253).

In the Dialogues Rousseau

own versions of

re-presents

himself in

forms, including

his subjectivity by his enemies. JeanJacques Rousseau in his unity is present only in the preliminary section a work as on the a called "On the Subject whole, and of this Form commentary
those produced
Writing"

most

and the concluding materials, not in the dialogues themselves. The important division in the Dialogues is between the two personae named
"Jean-Jacques."

"Rousseau"

and

by

the splitting of Rousseau's own name,

narrative.10

This extraordinary disassociation, conveyed is at the center of the work's structure

Dialogues'

With this move, the strangeness, and its uniqueness Rousseau's writings, is immediately established. The reader is startled among and in some cases driven away. Rousseau claims explicitly in the Dialogues
and

Rousseau Under Surveillance

that too many readers enjoyed

173

Subject

and

Form

of this

Writing,"

his Confessions simply for pleasure. In "On the Rousseau explains that he deliberately made
order

this second

autobiography difficult in
minds":

to

repel

superficial readers who

lack "good

After all, I have

said

just

about

everything I had to

say.

It is drowned in

a chaos of

disorder
those

and

repetitions, but it is there. Good minds will be able to find it. As for

who want only some agreeable rapid reading, who sought and found only that in my Confessions, and who cannot tolerate a little fatigue or maintain their attention in the interest of justice and truth, they will do well to spare themselves

the boredom of reading this. It is not to them I wished to speak.

pp.

(Dialogues,

6-7)
part

Thus, in
changes

because he

seeks a more

thoughtful audience, Rousseau radically

writing:

the style and structure of

his

He

replaces

the linear

form

and

chronological

ordering of the Confessions with the more challenging dialogue form centering on contestation over subjectivity and the objectified of the Dialogues is Rousseau as he would be if he had read but
self."

"Rousseau"

not written

his books

and

ful

and unprejudiced

reader,

had only recently arrived in France. He is a thought a foreigner who is unfamiliar with Rousseau's
Rousseau's
writings

reputation

and who

has

read all of

several

times. This

"Rousseau"-as-reader
effect on

avers

that he has

benefitted from the

reading:
more

"the total

than I

was

my soul has always been to make me more humane, before. I have never turned to these books without
on

just, better
for
virtue"

profit

(p. 29).
seau's

"Jean-Jacques,"

the other

hand, is defined
no

as

the Author

of

Rous
absent

writings.

"Jean-Jacques"-as-Author has
and made an object
Writing,"

direct voice; he is
refer

from the discussion

and

in the Dialogues. In "On the Subject

to myself as a third
me"

Form

of

this

Rousseau remarks, "I

split

party, using my Christian

crimes"

name

to which the public chose to reduce

(p. 5).
the

This "Jean-Jacques"-as-Author is further

and

between the "Author

there

of

"the Author

of

the

books."

Finally,

is

an

important

character

named

simply the

"Frenchman,"

a man who

knows Rousseau's

monstrous pub

lic reputation, and who, as a result, has never read Rousseau's writings. The two interlocuters, the rather philosophic "Rousseau"-as-reader and
"Frenchman,"

the

in

a series of

first completely dependent on public opinion, three dialogues about the Author, the Author's writings,
who

is

at

engage and the

readers of those writings.

The first dialogue

the

states

the questions to be ad
and

dressed;
logue

the

second

investigates the
contents of
"Frenchman"

character of
writings

the

Author;

the third dia

read

concerns
and

the
the

and correct ways resolve and

to

them.

"Rousseau"

attempt

to

the enormous

discrepancy
character of

between the low

the Author

public reputation of
"Rousseau"

the Author

the

favorable

which charges

claims

is implied

by

the Emile and

Julie,

ou

La

Nouvelle Heloise. The

by

one:

Is this Author

a plagiarizer?

circulating in public opinion are articulated one hypocritical? duplicitous? evil? an enemy

174
of

Interpretation
race?

the human
syphilis?'2

dissolute?
the

vile?

decadent? debauched? depraved?

rotted

with

As

"Rousseau"

"Frenchman"

and

consider

the relationship between the

against

Author's reputation, his character, the conspiracy stance of his writings, they attempt to judge
"the Dialogues stroying the
the
Jacques,"

him,

and

the sub

"Jean-Jacques."

As Foucault notes,
consequently de

are aimed at

finding

the

author of

books

and

crimes"

("Introduction,"

author of numerous

p. xiii).
"Rousseau"

At the

end of

first dialogue,
and

the

interlocutors
of

resolve

that

will

visit "Jean-

the

"Frenchman"

will read

"Jean-Jacques'"s
reputation

writings.

The

char

"Rousseau"

acter

tion

of

"Frenchman,"

necessary his understanding of the texts. For the majority of readers, including the hostile views of the Author need to be corrected before the
"Rousseau"

's ignorance

the Author's

is

condi

meaning of the texts can be understood. and, in effect, the reader of the Dialogues: "Don't
read, any bias ence the impressions it will
you and without reader of either

counsels the

"Frenchman"

even think of the

Author
and

as

in favor
(p. 31).

or

against, let
the

your soul experi

receive"

Thus,
into

"Frenchman"

the

the Dialogues

are

to be transformed

reliable

readers.'3

How is their interpretation to be

the Author's personality, but

grounded?

Ultimately,

not

by

reference

to

by

the texts themselves. The

Dialogues, in

mak

ing

problematic the

theoretical

phenomenon an

relationship between text and author, known as "the death of the

speaks to the recent

author."

Foucault in his
make

essay "What Is who is have

Author?"

(1969) has

asked, "What difference does it

speaking?"14

challenged

Critics like Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida textual interpretations which understand the individualized au for

thor as a creator whose subjectivity offers a set of principles

discovering

the

underlying unity
ence

of a great

text.15

Foucault

suggests

that the

authorial pres

the particular

individuality
other

late

modern

period; in

will disappear in the the writing subject words, the writing subject's individual characteris

of

tics will be effaced

by

what she or

he

writes.

On the

other

hand,

the

extraordin

ary biographical context supplied by Rousseau's Confessions (and the Dia logues, too, especially to the extent that it has been read as evidence of the Author's mental illness) has encouraged valorization of the individualized au
thor as "the meaning
of

text,

a personal autobiographical personage who

has

"true
p.

self

that

can

be

embodied

relatively transparently in

language"

(Walker,
the the
canon prob

562). Moreover, once Rousseau's writings were adopted as part he became a privileged writer guaranteed "authorship." The roots lem
"authenticity,"

of of

of match

desirable

favored term for what it between the Author's character construed

our culture's and class and

presumes to

be

gender, race, ethnicity,

the substance of

recently to include his or her writings,

"true"

valorization of

may be traced back to Rousseau. What is typically forgotten in the modern authenticity is the way in which Rousseau understands his
to be a

self

discursive

self.

Indeed, his
some

pretation and reputation

bear

kinship

suggestions about the problems of inter to what Foucault calls "the author

Rousseau Under Surveillance

function."

175

Foucault
"a

states

that the author's

name

is

a particular

type of proper

name with

paradoxical singularity":

the author's name serves to characterize a certain mode of

being

of

discourse. The

The

author's name manifests status of

the appearance of a certain discursive set and

within a

indicates the

this discourse

society

and a culture.

author

function is therefore

characteristic of the mode of

existence, circulation, and

Author,"

functioning
Foucault based his

of certain

discourses

within a society.

("What Is

an

pp.

106-7)

wants

to draw attention to "the modes of circulation, valorization,

discourses,"

attribution,
on

and appropriation of modes of

that

is,

to the reception of texts

the

distribution
p.

established

by

power relations
concern about

("What Is
the

an

Author,
of

p.

117,
texts

and

Walker,

552). Rousseau's

reception

own

leads him to
on

call attention

to these same themes. In the Dia

logues he focuses
cle

personality because it has become an extraordinary obsta to communication; the effacement of the Author's character would be wel

come, but

it is

not

to

be

expected or relied on

in the foreseeable future. The

writings

"Frenchman"

can of

be

open

to the meaning of the

only

after

the

question

the character of the Author

has been

resolved

in the

second

dialogue.

Rousseau demonstrates the dangers

siders

of objectification

by

others as

he

con

how he has been how

placed under surveillance.

The

"Frenchman"

explains
withheld as

"Rousseau"

to
public

surveillance

is instituted

and

judgment is

the

deals

with "Jean- Jacques":

see that the

basis

of

the system

they follow

with regard to

him is the

duty they

him thoroughly, to make him well known to all and yet never make any explanation to him, to deprive him of any knowledge of his accusers, and of any clear enlightenment about the things of which he is accused. This
assumed

to

unmask

double necessity is based would be too scandalous,

on

the nature of the crimes, whose public declaration

and which

does he

not allow

that he be convicted
public

without

being
him

punished.

...

All that

can therefore

be done for

safety is first to
without

keep

under such good surveillance that

can undertake

nothing

their

knowing it,
(P.

rest to alert everyone to the

that he carry out nothing of importance unless they wish it, and for the danger of listening to and frequenting such a scoundrel.

50)
'surveillance'

Rousseau

uses

the term
maintains prejudice
. . .

several times

in the Dialogues. He
sees what one

argues

that surveillance

because "one

believes
and

and

not what one sees.

One

strives

to find hateful what one

hates,

if it is

true that the biased

man sees what

passionate man sees what never

he

desires"

he believes, it is even more true that the (p. 64). The gaze of the surveillant is
of

impartial
more

or

disinterested. Moreover, this partiality

reader.

the surveillant ex

tends

or less to the

Rousseau's

analysis of surveillance

is

charged with an

incipient

notion of

"panoptic

power."16

Rousseau becomes

paradigmatic of

the prisoner

in the

Pan-

176

Interpretation
own

opticon, when, according to his

total,"

account, his

surveillance

becomes "con
"Frenchman"

stant, unending, plinary,

and

and

and

the new
and

power over

him is "continuous, disci

anonymous"

(Dreyfus
under

reports on

how Rousseau is

Rabinow, p. 189). The surveillance in Paris,

are opened.
. .

I don't
who

need to tell you that all not

his letters

No

one approaches

him

has

must use

the tone he already learned his lesson about what he must say and in talking to him. A record is kept of all those who ask to see him.
.

If he him.

enters a public place,

he is

viewed and treated

like

someone with

the plague: to

everyone surrounds
...

him

and

stares, but

keeping

distance
point

and not

talking

In the

public

garden, great

care

is taken to
pointed

him

out to

those around

him,
him

and always to place

without

by

his

side a guard or a sergeant who speaks

loudly

about

saying
all the
...

anything.

He has been

everywhere to

Theaters, in
booksellers.

deliverymen, Clerks, guards, spies, cafes, to the barbers, the merchants,

described, recommended Chimney-sweeps, at all the

out,
the peddlers, the

By

multiplying
under

small

in this immense city

the eyes of

they have successfully kept him the rabble, who view him with horror. (Pp.
attentions,

41-42)
Foucault is particularly interested in this part of Rousseau's text, quoting his commentary, too, at some length:
A
whole world

and

it is

worth

is established, the

silent world of
.

Surveillance

and

Sign. From

everywhere, J. -J. is

being

watched.

him. But this

language. he
goes

speechless surveillance

The walls, the floors have eyes that follow is never directly transformed into accusing
.
.

Only

signs, but none

enters

of

these are words: he is walking, one spits when

by; he
silent,

the theatre,

one

keeps away from him or,

at

on

the contrary,

one surrounds

him

with outstretched

fists, threatening

canes; one

speaks of

him,

him but obliquely from one to the other around his worried ears, so that he feels himself brought into question, but not questioned. One throws stones at him in Motiers, and in Paris, under his but in
a

icy language,

not

directed

windows, one bums a

would

straw mannequin that

looks like him: double

sign

that one

like to bum him, but one will only bum him derisively, because he would have the right to speak if one decided to condemn him. But he is condemned to
this world of signs that do not let him speak.
("Introduction,"

pp.

xviii-xix)

Silence is the fundamental

experience of

the Dialogues: it makes the writing of the book

the Dialogues necessary; it serves as proof of the plot against

underlies the organization and
tion,"

inner dialectic

of

Rousseau; and it (Foucault, "Introduc

p. xv).

Rousseau demonstrates resistance to this concerted web of power in the Dia logues and Reveries. First, he recognizes that confession encourages surveil lance as it places one at any moment under the disciplinary gaze of the other.

Next, Rousseau begins

phatically:

to suggest another point that

Foucault later

makes em

If the

person under surveillance

is

not

vigilantly self-conscious, he

Rousseau Under Surveillance

or she

177

is

likely

to

internalize the

seau avoids such and

internalization in

disciplinary power of the external gaze. Rous part by the activity of writing the Dialogues

latter work recalls his ultimate and perhaps unique for resisting panopticism, namely, his rare capacity to withdraw into himself and experience reverie. (He partially transforms an older discourse by
method

the Reveries. The

naming his
xxiv-xxv.)

exceptional characteristics

"natural."

Cf. Masters

and

Kelly,

pp.

tactics of his adversaries.

compliantly his discourses, they spy on him, new versions of create but his psyche and intellect remain intact, him, they resistant to their disciplinary regime. He never becomes his own panoptic

Rousseau, then, does

not

succumb to the

controlling

They

appropriate

"guard."

In his essay
ends

on

the

Dialogues, Foucault
and

observes

that Rousseau forces

p. xix).

clo

sure on surveillance

by forcing judgment

("Introduction,"

Surveillance

because the

"Frenchmen"

"Rousseau"

are

led to judge

and exonerate
now con

"Jean-Jacques."

the objectified
stitute another version of

Rousseau, in his

concrete

unity, may

the self in the third panel of his autobiographical

triptych, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker. In the final autobiography Rous seau presents a discursive self who can enjoy solitude precisely because the twin problems of surveillance and objectification have been resolved in the Dialogues. In the Reveries Rousseau inverts the meaning of his solitariness: Isolation becomes wholeness, separation is redefined as completeness. Of course, Rousseau does ary
cal not

gaze as

politically

useful

entirely reject surveillance and the disciplin methods. Power in itself is neutral. In a move

alarming to

liberals, Rousseau radically devalues privacy in the virtuous politi community; instead, what matters is public and communal. Even in the
remarks

Dialogues Rosseau

that "our sweetest existence

us"

is

relative and collec

tive,
eye.

and our

true self
writings

is

not

entirely

within

(p. 118). Rousseau continually

returns

in his

to the theme of

unmediated

Thus, for
on

example, in

Julie,

ou

seeing and the controlling La Nouvelle Heloise the servants at

Clarens spy
with

their masters not with open

of
surveillants.'7

hearts

and

transparent souls, but

and

the secret gazes

In the innovative

influential Confes

sions, Rousseau volunteers the most intimate details about himself. Liberalism

has traditionally failed to voluntary lance

and

recognize

how

private

life may be threatened

modern

by

such

self-exposure, that

is, how

confession often contributes to

the suc
surveil

cessful operation of

disciplinary
myth

power.

Within

liberal society

the

ubiquitous confessional mode powerful

function together to
sanctity,

undermine or

destabilize the
olability,

of

the

political

the cherished invi

Rousseau's understanding of the meaning of the public and private is profoundly different from the liberal view: He recognizes that modernity brings not only new constructions of the meaning of private life, but
of privacy.

also new threats

to it. To

reveal oneself

before the

public gaze produces sur

veillance and

but

policing of the self, desirable turn of events within the Rousseauean

unfortunate

for Rousseau among his enemies,

virtuous

community

of

178
"true"

Interpretation
citizens,
where

love

of

fellow

citizens

is based

on

"the

sweet

habit

of

seeing

and

knowing

one

another."18

Rousseau
placed at
non

opens the

Dialogues
of

with

the same

epigraph

from Ovid that he

ego sum, quia

the

beginning
illis"

his First Discourse: "Barbarus hie

am

intelligor

(Here I
this

the barbarian because to begin the

signals

no one understands me).

Why
sions

does he is
a

repeat

epigraph

work written

immediately
which

after

his Confessions'? As

suggested

above, it

the

sense

in

the

Confes
Rous

failure (in the hands

of unphilosophic or untrained

readers)

and

seau's self of

interest in addressing this problem the Confessions has been appropriated

the Dialogues
an
creates

in the Dialogues. Since the discursive

by

choked voice of
of

his

own

in the his enemies, Rousseau internal audience in the form

"Frenchman,"

the

nonreader

exemplary audience that he converts from prejudiced to sympathetic reader. While Foucault's characterization of the Dia

logues
eries

"anti-confessions"

as

is in

a sense

accurate, it does

not

to which the two works are complementary and

how,

together

convey the extent with The Rev

of the

Solitary Walker, they

form

a whole.

NOTES

1.

Jean-

Christopher Kelly, over, NH: University Press

ters and to as the

Jacques Rousseau, Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, ed. Roger D. Mas trans. Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, and Roger D. Masters (Han
of
quotations not otherwise

Dialogues;

New England, 1990). All editions of this book identified are from this edition.

are

hereafter

referred

2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres Completes (Paris: Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, 1958-) 1: 657-992. 3. I strongly
agree
with

Kelly

and

Masters that Rousseau's

autobiographical

writings

have

in Dialogues, p. xiii. 4. Michel Foucault, in Rousseau, Juge de Jean Jaques: Dialogues, ed. Michel Foucault (Paris: Armand Colin, 1962), pp. vii-xxiv. This spelling of Jaques without the letter c is by Rousseau. All translations from this essay given here are by Jacqueline Grenez Brovender. Kelly
philosophical significance.
"Introduction,"

See

"Introduction,"

and

Masters
5.

cite the
and

Foucault

edition of

the Dialogues in their

introductory

essay, p. xvii and n. 6.

Kelly

Masters do

not make this claim

in their

edition of

the Dialogues.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1953), p. 17. The Confessions was first published in 1781. Self: A Seminar
(Amherst: MA:

7. Huck Gutman, "Rousseau's Confessions: A Technology of the in Technologies of the with Michel Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton

Self,"

University
second

of

physical or embodied self has been visually appropriated and misrepresented in several famous portraits, including paintings by Maurice Quentin de la Tour and Allan Ramsay. See my forthcoming book Visions of Power, on power and visual art in eighteenth-century France, for commentary on Rousseau's understanding of
visual representation and unmediated seeing.

8.

Early

in the

Massachusetts Press, 1988), p. 107. dialogue, Rousseau considers how his

9. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: vol. 1 An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1980) and Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983),
,

especially

chap.

8,

pp.

173-78.
went

10. Rousseau
wrote

by

the pseudonym

Jean-Joseph Renou from 1767

own name.

to

1770.

the

Dialogues, he

By

the time he

resumed use of

his

Foucault,

"Introduction,"

p. xii.

Rousseau Under Surveillance

11
.

179
of

Foucault

calls the

writing

of

the Dialogues
pp. xi

"vertical"

as opposed

to the linear

form

the

Confessions. See
the Dialogues

Foucault, 12. Dialogues, pp. 22-23. Rousseau's

is in
some ways

"Introduction,"

ff.
of

treatment

the problem of audience and

reputation

in

like that
of

of

Socrates in
citizens

the Apology.

Both

philosophers

directly

face

the problem of the

dangerous

prejudices against

them accepted

Condemnation
separate

by

the majority

their

fellow

by many of their contemporaries. leads Rousseau and Socrates, respectively, to

(in
Socrates'

the small number of "true

judges"

among

contemporaries

case, those

at

his

for his acquittal), from those who are unremittingly prejudiced, and to reserve certain teachings for the former group, the true judges. Kelly and Masters state that "the Dialogues is
trial who vote
concerned with

author's name or

trilogy

of

of a philosophic teaching and its dependence on See, too, their remarks on Rousseau's Dialogues in relation to Platonic dialogues Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, pp. xix, xiv.

the effective communication

the the

reputation."

13. The

"Frenchman''

later

"Jean-Jacques"

reads

's books

numerous times with special care.

suggests

Although he

grasps

the

basic

principles of the writings,

the third dialogue

p. xxiii.

that a perfect

reading is a practical impossibility. See 14. Michel Foucault, "What Is an

Kelly

and

Masters,

Author?,"

trans. Josue V.

Harari, in The Foucault Reader,

ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 120. For a summary of this debate and recent feminist criticism of it, see, e.g., Cheryl Walker, "Feminist Literary Criticism and the
Author,"

Critical

Inquiry 16,

No. 3

(Spring

1990): 551-71.
Author,"

15. See Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), pp. 142-48; Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology trans. Gayatri
,

Chakravorty

Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1976); Jacques Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play trans. Alan Bass, in Critical Theory Since 1965, ed. in the Discourse of the Human
Sciences,"

Hazard Adams
and

and

Leroy

Searle (Tallahassee: Florida State

University Press, 1986),

pp.

83-94;
political

Jacques Derrida, Limited, Inc (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1988). 16. Panoptic power, a concept gaining currency among some postmodern and feminist
associated with
about

theorists, is
em

Foucault's

sively theorized
technologies

panopticism, and

Bentham's Panopticon. Foucault, who exten his followers have made explicit the implications for mod
analysis of

of power of

this punitive system

and

inaugurated in the

eighteenth century.

See

espe

cially Michel Foucault, Discipline York: Vintage, 1979).

17. See Marshall Berman's

Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New

unsympathetic

commentary in The Politics of Authenticity (New

the Origin
and

York: Atheneum, 1970), p. 248. 18. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Discourse

Men,"

on

Foundations

of

Inequality
and

Second Discourses, ed. Roger D. Masters, trans. Roger D. Masters (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), p. 79. Italics added. in The First
and

among Judith R.

Tocqueville

on

Socialism

and

History

Peter Augustine Lawler

Berry

College

My
may
than
since

purpose

here is to
case while

consider

Tocqueville's understanding

of socialism.

It

well

be the

that the authority of Tocqueville has the authority of socialism

never

been

stronger

it is today,
also

is

weaker now

than

it has been
social

the time of Tocqueville. As a political actor, Tocqueville opposed

ism. He
ness and cause of name of

did

so as a political

the theoretical strength

theorist, but with an appreciation of its great of its challenge. He suggested, in fact, that the
in the
absence of

human

liberty

would suffer

that

challenge.

In the

Tocqueville, liberals

ought

to

reflect upon

the case for

socialism more

seriously than they characteristically do. It reveals how cult the defense of human liberty is in our time. From
veals a

problematic and

diffi

theoretical perspective, Tocqueville's understanding of socialism re

most

his

fundamental debt to Rousseau. Tocqueville's indebtedness to

been recognized,
although

Rousseau has
of

often

their political solutions to the problems of

often

mostly in terms of the similarity democracy.' This practical debt

has

been

overstated.

Tocqueville, for
will.2

duce

religion

to civil religion. Nor

example, emphatically did not re did he attempt to reduce the particularity of

modern

individuality
of

to the general
or of

But Tocqueville did

understand

the

history humanity in essentially the same way as Rousseau described it in his Discourse on Inequality. It is in light of that history's ac
count of

the West

the movement away from natural order and goodness, toward human
and

disorder

misery that Tocqueville accounted for socialist revolution. Tocqueville's understanding of socialism, and especially the relationship be tween socialism and bourgeois liberalism, is found mostly in his Souvenirs.

There he
essential
of

writes

that socialism was the

of

"philosophy,"

theory

or also says

or

"the

most

feature,"

the

Revolution

of

1848. He

that "[i]t

is

no part

the

plan of

these

Souvenirs to inquire into

But then he
asserts

gave"

what

the revolution
revolution

"this
not

character."

socialist

that socialist

"should
why.3

have

surprised the world as much as out that

it

did,"

and goes on

to explain

It turns is

almost everyone essential to

explaining why the revolution occurred, to the surprise of but Tocqueville, and why it was, necessarily, a socialist one,
purpose
pleasure,"

the Souvenirs. Tocqueville's

to give himself a
judging"

"solitary
and

one

that

comes

in writing them, he says, is from "understanding and

pleasure comes

human, particularly
"true

political,

affairs.

This

partly from

picture,"

seeing

partly from

knowing

that one's understanding and

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

182

Interpretation
says that one purpose of

judging

is truly superior (S, p. 4). Tocqueville recollections is to show himself the superiority

his

of

his

political

science, of

his

affairs"

"understanding

and

judging

of

human, particularly

political,

(S,

p. 4).

TOCQUEVILLE'S PREDICTION

Tocqueville
venirs

provides

two

pieces of evidence

in the first

chapter of

the

Sou bour

that

he,

alone, predicted the coming of revolution tranquility. He was able to

in the

midst of

geois enervation and

do so, in part, because he had

no

interest in the
of

perpetuation of

that middle-class regime. He was

contemp
and

tuous

its

efforts

to reduce public

life to

an

"ingenious

mecha

"gently
pp.

to drown revolutionary passion in the love of material

pleasure"

(S,
exclusive.
was

11-12).
or middle-class regime was
"Haves,"

The bourgeois
was
ruled

by

the

those

with

property.

openly and selfishly Their purpose

wealth"

It

to

have
class

more.

The
that

result was

"a

rapid growth

in
a

public

created

by

a govern

ment

became indistinguishable from

for its
with

company."

"trading
and

The ruling

exploited government

economic or no

interest, ignoring
property,

the interest

of

both
and

"the

people,"

or

those

little

the aristocrats,

who re

mained

devoted to

virtue and political

life for their

own sake.

Political life

"political

passion"

virtually disappeared, because they had

even

no outlet

(S,
his

pp.5,

12-14, 73).
Tocqueville's contempt,

hatred, for

that regime came from

parti

sanship on behalf of greatness, a political or aristocratic perspective. He knew he needed political life to live well. So strong was this need that his contempt did not cause him to withdraw from the bourgeois political stage. But he could
not

take

its

"petty"

distinctions

or

interests seriously

enough

to act

well.

He

became doubtful His

mind was

and

indecisive,

and anxious and

lacking

in

self-confidence.

pained

extremely disordered in the bourgeois world, and he says it him to remember it. His condition became miserable or hateful to him
moderated

self.

What

his doubtful anxiety, he says,

was political

passion, and
passion

no political
pp.77-85).

issue

was

interesting

"great"

or

enough

to arouse

his

(S,

Bourgeois life
able.

"greatness"

makes aristocrats or partisans of political cannot

miser

Their desires

be

reduced

to "the peaceful, regular movements of a

machine."

Tocqueville's

miserable aristocratic

detachment

allowed

him to

see

that the contempt the

"people,"

aristocrats

felt for bourgeois

His
"visible

selfishness was also shared

by

the

the industrial

workers.

personal

disorder

allowed

him to
pene

that, despite the trated far into men's

perceive

absence of

disorder,"

"disorder had

minds"

(S,

pp.

11-13).

To

some

extent, the cause of this

disorder

was

the exclusion of the people

from

property.

Had they, like the

rural

peasants, been included among the

Tocqueville
"fraternity"

on

Socialism

and

History

183

could

of property owners, perhaps their minds or opinions and passions have been much more readily regulated (S, pp.87, 95). The extremity of
rulers'

the

bourgeois them,

selfish
not root

exclusivity
revolution

was

stupid and

self-destructive.

But

Tocqueville does
not see as

the

simply in the

people's poverty.
were reduced

He did

Marx did,

as revolutionaries once

they

to noth

ing

economically.

HUMAN PROGRESS AND REVOLUTION

Tocqueville
"that for
a

says

the revolution was surprising

because

no one

had

noticed

long

time the people had

and

proving their condition,

were all

been continually gaining ground and im that their importance, education, desires and power
"growing"

growing."

are

They were constantly human. Tocqueville also distinctively

not as

in

all

those

qualities which

says

that their prosperity

increased,
more

but

quickly as their desires expanded (S, p. 75). As the people become more distinctively human, their This
mental restlessness mixes with and
desires."

minds

become

"restless."

inevitably
new

causes

"ferment

in their
pendent

This

mixture makes expands

desire

and mental restlessness and

interde
abil

(S,

p.76).

Restlessness
of

desire,

the

desire

arouses more

restlessness.

The desires

human beings

expand more

rapidly than their

to satisfy them. The people become better off, objectively or quantitatively, but they experience themselves as more discontented or miserable. This paradox that improvement in conditions produces discontent accounts

ity

for Tocqueville's
revolution of

most celebrated contribution expectation.

to political science, the

and the

so-called

rising

He

says

in the Old Regime

Revolution

that "popular
tions

discontent"

increases is
most

when conditions

improve,
p.

and when condi

improve but

revolution

likely. He

acknowledges

that "[fjhis may seem

illogical

history

is full

paradoxes"

of such

(OR,

176).

DISORDER AND HISTORY

"illogical"

History
human sistency
or

is

because it is

the record of human

distinctiveness,
or

of

the

movement

away from the

more

natural standards of

logic

impersonal

con

as the mind

regularity becomes

and contentment.

It becomes,
and

over

disordered

restless,

and as

time, more illogical, human action be

"feverish"

comes more extreme or

p. 536 with

in

response

to growing discontent (cf.

DA,

S, p. 11). History is full of paradoxes Tocqueville calls, in Democracy in America, the brute with the angel in him (DA, p. 546). The human condition is the incoherent mixture of brutish and angelic qualities. History is the record of human beings becoming progressively more aware of and dissatisfied with this disordered or diseased condition. The
what

because it is the

record of

184

Interpretation

condition

itself,

as a result of

this growth in self-consciousness, becomes says, is caused

more

disordered.

Revolution, Tocqueville
become too
of

by

this

"malady

of men's

minds"

having

extreme

(S,

p. 35). or

verish"

This understanding disorder is an

account of

human distinctiveness It is
present

history
as

as an

old one.

in Plato's Republic,

essentially "fe perhaps the

toward the

first

the

mind or soul's

growing disorder
tyranny.4

it

moves

chaotic

individualism

of

democracy,

a movement that produces the

disorder

of

relativism, then apathy, and

finally

It is

also present

in Rousseau's

Discourse

on

Inequality,
human.5

where

human

beings,

over

time,

move

away from

natural order and

toward their self-created disorder

by

making themselves prog

ressively

more

ness, restlessness,
count of the

and

History, for Rousseau, is the growth of self-conscious i).6 Tocqueville's ac misery (Discourse, especially n.

paradoxical

history history

of

the

restless mind and

its discontents is

most

fundamentally
The
to calculation,
weakness ment what

indebted to Rousseau.
the
of

movement of

the

West, for Tocqueville, is from instinct

selfishness,
material

sublime

illusion to
what

realistic

poverty

and

to prosperity and power, political oppression to

liberty,
given

and content

to misery. It is from

human beings have been

movement

by

nature to

they have

made

for themselves. This

democracy
beliefs that
Human
scious and

through the
support

mind's skeptical or

from aristocracy to doubtful destruction of the prideful

also

is

human distinctiveness.
over

beings,
less

time, become

more

human

or

historical

or self-con

natural

or subordinated

to instinct or merely brutish desire.

Passion leads the imagination to

ness

produce prideful

belief to limit
that

self-conscious

in the

service of

the

natural

desire for happiness

or contentment.

time, the mind's restlessness 87). Human existence, eventually, becomes unendurable, and human beings self-destruct. History is the emergence, growth, and self-destruction of human
even most of

frees itself from

But, over (DA, pp. 482-

ity. Tocqueville
structive
mon

thought

he lived in

revolutionary
with

or

spectacularly 157).

self-de

time,

one

in

which extreme restlessness and madness were more com

than ever before (cf.

DA,

pp.535, 538

OR,

p.

Popular

History
gives

Tocqueville
of

his

most

detailed
on

and most

human

progress

in his "Memoir

Pauperism."

clearly Rousseauean account In feudal times, he begins,

everyone was

had

comfort.

relatively content because no one, by contemporary standards, The people, in their slavish condition, were particularly content:
assured; the interest of the master Limited in their desires as well as their present or future that was not theirs to choose,
as

Their

means of subsistence was almost always

coincided with

their own on this point.

powers,

without

they

enjoyed a

anxiety about a kind of vegetative happiness. It is it is to

difficult for

civilized man to

understand

its

charms as

deny

its

existence.6

Tocqueville
The
people's minds were not restless.

on

Socialism

and

History

185

tures. Their simple

with mental

lacked anxiety about their fu desires were easily satisfied, because they were not mixed restlessness or anxiety. They were weak and oppressed, but they

They

had
with

no reason

to mind.

They

lacked the

qualities

that Tocqueville
almost

associated vege

human

liberty

or greatness.

They

were, in his mind,

literally
It

tables.7

Their happiness

or contentment was natural or subhuman.

goes with

out

saying that had the people in

would not

feudal times been

goes

exposed

to socialist doctrine

they

have been

aroused.
thought"

"Each

century,"

Tocqueville

on, "extends the

range of

and

"increases the desires

civilization

("Memoir," man"

and powers of

p. 7).

As

history
from

or

progresses, human beings become

more powerful and

knowledge
a

able, more anxious and restless,

and more miserable.

They become,

human perspective, more free. But their existence also becomes, because it is more free from natural order, more contingent or subject to chance.
"[C]ivilized
man,"

Tocqueville observes, is far from

"brute" "natural"

being

satisfied

by

what

is readily available,

by

or

satisfactions alone.

Hence he is
man."

"infinitely
cause

more exposed
expanded
fortune."

to the vicissitudes of
the range of

destiny

than savage

Be

"[h]e has
of

his

needs,"

he "leaves himself
or

open

to

the hazards

Tocqueville

makes

the Marxian observation that the

more civilization extreme man

progresses, the

more common goes

poverty
more

the

perception of

deprivation becomes. He
("Memoir,"

further

and observes

that the more hu

subject

beings become

powerful or conquer
pp.7-

nature, the

they become

to chance

10).

The "industrial
civilization,"

class,"

the people created

by

this "irresistible
and

movement of

Both "the
ments,"

poor and

becomes especially the rich

. . .

subject to chance
conceive of a certain

to impoverishment.

new"

or unprecedented

"enjoy

which

become

"needs."

At

point, these human

needs cannot

be
the

met

by

"cultivation

of

the

agrarian population must

alone. To meet them, a growing portion of be diverted to industry. Those men who "left the

soil"

plow

for the
. . .

hammer"

shuttle and
were

and

"moved from the thatched

which govern

cottage

to the

factory
ings,"

obeying the

immutable laws
on

the

growth of

society."

organized

They, properly
existence of

speaking, "speculate

the secondary needs

of

human be for

not on subsistence

but

comfort and

luxury. The

satisfaction and even

needs"

"secondary
lead the

depend
to

upon society's

prosperity

or good

tune, but
would

economic reversals

do

occur.

cumstances can

population

The coming of such "unfortunate cir deny itself certain pleasures to which it
which are not

ordinarily be industrial worker's control but toward

upon

attracted."

Such circumstances,

far beyond the

out of work

or

comprehension, throw him

only

"misery

death."

and

Displaced from the land, he

("Memoir,"

cannot
pp.7-

fall back

his primary or subsistence needs existence is particularly The industrial

meet
workers'

it to

10).

contingent or unsupported

and so restless and anxious.

Tocqueville

attempts

to

ennoble their plight

by

186

Interpretation
entrepreneur

comparing it, implicitly, to the restless daring of the American describes in Democracy in America: "I consider the industrial
received

he

class as

having
entre

from God the

of others

special and

dangerous
dangers"

mission of

securing the material

p. 9).

well-being
preneur,

by

its risks

("Memoir,"

and

But the

of

course,
wealth

chooses

through the
chances

his risks

might

his risks, and he aims bring. The industrial

to distinguish himself
worker must

take his

in the

service of

the enrichment of others, and

he

hardly

finds them

choiceworthy.

NATURAL GOODNESS VERSUS SOCIALIST GREATNESS

Tocqueville

also

suggests,

however,

that there

is

greatness

in the

worker's

misery because it is distinctively human. It has made his mind extremely rest less, opening it to socialist arousal. It has caused him to perceive, with growing
clarity, the
unadorned

truth about the

arbitrary

or accidental existence of

the

brute

with

the

angel

in him. His

circumstances

have

caused

him to feel his

contingency or isolated dependence on nothing but chance. His earthly misery, as well as his earthly hopes, increase as he ceases to view the world as gov
erned

by

God's providence,

or

by

the providence of aristocrats

(S,

pp.63, 75).

The is
as a

popular view of socialist

"lottery"

their condition

revolution, Tocqueville says in the Souvenirs, (S, p. 136). The people, in their restlessness, see no reason why might be radically altered, and, who knows, maybe radically
seem

improved.
on

They

to believe the socialist indictment

of

the

injustice

or

arbitrariness of

the present more than the socialist promise to control the

future

their behalf.

They

want, above all, to be liberated from their

their individuality.
revolution not

restless

misery,
radical

from their

radical perception of

They

embrace as

the

social transformation promised

by

because,
they

they have been

man

reduced

to a subhuman condition, but because

nature affirm

Marx contends, they are so hu in the hope that

or such a great

distance from

that

experience almost noth

ing

good about

their existence.

They

the socialist

lottery

their

lives

come of escape

will be something other than that which is determined by the out lotteries. Socialist revolution is "a powerful effort of the workers to
condition"

from the

necessities of

their

(S,

p.

137).
or

Tocqueville
acter of

shows

the

unnatural or

extremely human

late-historical

char

the

mental restlessness

that produces socialist arousal

by

comparing his

drunken porter, a particularly repulsive socialist braggart who threatened his life, with his exemplary servant Eugene, "assuredly no socialist either by the Eugene seems at first, the finer human being ory or by far. But his goodness, it becomes clear, comes from the fact that he is barely human at
all.
temperament."

It

is, in

Rousseau's sense,

natural goodness

(S,

p.

157).

The
passion

blindly

greedy inflamed by mental

and otherwise

restlessness.

mentally disordered porter is full of the His discontent causes him, but not

Tocqueville

on

Socialism

and

History
worse

187

Eugene,

to imagine replacing Tocqueville

mind and

as master.

If he is the

being, it

is because his
class

his desires

are more

human.

other human beings of his in his revolutionary time by his contentment. He is satisfied as a servant. He "generally desired nothing beyond his and he "was always pleased

Eugene, Tocqueville

says, is distinguished from

reach,"

He was free from anxiety about his future. His desires are sim because they are unmixed with much self-consciousness. His freedom, Toc queville says, is "from that most usual sickness of our time, the restless
with

himself."

ple

mind.

This

freedom, "a

repose,"

peaceful

Tocqueville

goes

on, Eugene "enjoyed as a

nature."

gift of

Eugene's freedom from discontentment is

times.
or

what people enjoyed

in feudal

mind, had passed History, humanity him by. Eugene was, in many senses, remarkably unaffected by time. Even in a much earlier time, Tocqueville remarks, his lack of restlessness would have
the progress of
and the restless

been

considered extreme reports a

(S,

p.

157).
repose"

Tocqueville

that

he felt "a

sense of
which

when

he

saw

Eugene's

face. But it
being. It did
with

was

momentary experience, one his

not
mental

did

not

transform

his

not cure

restlessness,

and

he did

not spend much

time

Eugene. He did

and

worthy

of

manifestations

find Eugene, as he found socialist arousal, interesting serious study. What Tocqueville recognizes is human liberty, or of the restless mind (S, pp.157, 76, 82).
of

Tocqueville's description
theoretical statement about

Eugene's

natural gift

is

part of an

human

condition.

He

says that

uncommonly Eugene "uncon

sciously followed the precepts inculcated by philosophers, but seldom observed by them, and enjoyed as a gift of nature the happy balance between powers and wants that alone brings the happiness promised (S, by the
p.

philoso

157). The

moderation. ness.

say that human beings should consciously cultivate That moderation, the life according to nature, brings human happi
philosophers antidote to the

It is the human
seems

feverish misery
are

of

the restless

mind. not

But it

to Tocqueville that the philosophers themselves do

promise.

the happiness

they

They

enjoy rarely moderate, because they do not

balance."

experience their powers and wants

sophic
not

in

"happy

Philosophy
can

or philo

inculcations

are not effective antidotes to the restless mind, and

philosophers
achieved

they do

lead to human happiness. What the

cultivation can

hold

be

achieved

through conscious
ural gift.

only be

unconsciously, through nat

In human
some

beings,

to the
give

extent gift.

they

are

distinctively human,
is that
primarily
mental

nature,

for
a

reason, fails to

her

The

result

wants exceed powers

by

progressively greater amount, increases. To be human is to

and restlessness,
experience

restlessness,

the discontent

of this

imbalance

or

disorder,
ence that
of

and

hence to be immoderate. Tocqueville knew from

condition

personal experi

it is the human but

not

to

wish

"for
a

peace of mind and moderation

desires,"

to have them. He

saw

kinship

between his

own

and

188

Interpretation
dissatisfaction in the bourgeois regime, and he saw them both as a truthful reflection of the human condition than the doctrine of the philoso
more

popular more

phers.8

The

human

or

historical

human

being becomes, by

the more the natural

and

balance that
great a

produces the response of contentment enjoy.

is disturbed,

the

less
too

human beings is the

should

Revolution is

caused

human beings

who exist at

distance from Eugene's

Eugene's

contentment.

Their

conclusion about

their

lives

opposite of

about

his.

They

hold that their

present condition

be radically transformed. The theoretical intention of socialism,

restless

as a product of and attractive

to

ex

tremely
tion, to

minds, is to through

return

humanity

to

Eugene's he

create

history

or revolution what

enjoys

barely by

human

condi

nature.

The

purpose of

the historical act of socialist revolution, in other words,

is to

bring

history

or

described

humanity to an end, to return human by Rousseau. One reason Eugene is

beings to the
no socialist

natural goodness

is that he already

possesses what socialism promises.

THE ATTACK ON PROPERTY

Tocqueville defines lege

of

socialism

by

its

radical opposition

to the

right

or privi

social order.

property which has heretofore seemed to have been the foundation of It is an attack by the restless mind on the one inegalitarian distinc

tion that

has,

so

historical

acts of

far, been leveling,

from characteristically the restless destruction of order.

exempted

modern or late-

Merely

political

leveling
made

the egalitarian perfection of the form of government

people more miserable and restless

had, in fact,

the

(S,

pp.

13-15, 75). Their desires

had

expanded more
as

tence,
what

Marx

also explains

rapidly than their conditions had improved. Their exis in "On the Jewish seemed more whim
Question,"

sical and atomistic and

miserably isolated than

"heaven"

ever

Marx

calls political

the egalitarian

before. The coming of or universal and homoge

or
hellish.9

neous state

had

made social existence more

individualistic

Human

misery had become more intense or distinctively human. Such extreme experiences of one's unsupported individuality
the
revolution

come

because

is incomplete. The
of
revolution not

social

foundation

of

this miserable
eradicated.

and arbi

trary
aims

experience

individual distinctiveness

must

be

Socialism

merely prehensively human (S, p. 75). Socialism is based on the awareness that
radical

to make the

political or

limited but

social or com

political change cannot produce the

expanding desires point. Liberation discontent requires, it seems, the transformation of what Tocqueville itself." calls "the unalterable laws that constitute society It requires, Toc queville often says, what is obviously impossible. But at one point he muses
which

liberation to

the people's

from

this

Tocqueville
that

on

Socialism

and

History

1 89

that these laws are unalterable is merely a prejudice in favor of existing order, one that cannot sustain itself against popular restlessness. His
view

his

imagination is
pp.66,

constrained

by

the

fact that his

mind

is

not

simply

restless

(S,

75-76, 98, 136-37).

prejudice against socialism,
of

Tocqueville's
law"

He defends the right

or

property,

not

he acknowledges, is for bourgeois reasons, but

the

aristocratic.

as

"ancient

"sacred

right,"

which, along

with

flourishing
is

of civilization or

human

greatness or excellence.

family, is indispensable for the Property, for him,

an aristocratic remnant

to be perpetuated to

keep

open

aristocratic

possi

bilities. But it is

inevitable, he

says, that the

the
right"

people would come

abolish

to

ask whether

they do
reason,

not

have "the
argument

power and

"enjoyment."

their own
no

or

The people, in a incentive, for preserving anything

property in the interest of bourgeois regime, have been given no

to
aristocratic

(S,

pp.75, 105).

Socialist
tences to

arousal occurs not

be

accidental or arbitrary.

only because the people feel their own exis The distinctions that constitute bourgeois
world."

society

seem

last

remnant of a a

equally so. In the bourgeois regime, "the right to property is the destroyed aristocratic It appears as "an isolated privi
society"

lege in

leveled

(S,

pp.

12-13). The right

or privilege makes no sense

alone, but only as part of a world that had been destroyed or leveled. The right to property was easy to defend "[w]hen it was merely the basis
rights"

of

many

other on

(S,

p.

12). These rights, Tocqueville

to

says

elsewhere,

were

those based

the aristocratic claim that a particular class needs freedom from

material concerns

in

order

be

cultivated

to rule for the common good and

aristocratic

preserve the queville

liberty

of all

(CN,
much

p. 206).

But this

claim,

which

Toc

believes to have
Both
those
agree

merit, seems to have been discredited

rulers

by

egali

tarian

revolution.

The bourgeois
that

believe it

no more than

their socialist
of

challengers.
"Haves,"

bourgeois

rule aims

simply to be for the benefit

or

with property.

The right to property, appearing in the bourgeois world unveiled as the only foundation of social order, is unprecedently indefensible as a right. The distinc
tion between the Haves
and

the

Have-nots, appearing

never seemed more arbitrary or unjust. its arbitrariness, Tocqueville partly agrees with Marx, is partly in the service of the truth. Aristocrats have always, with some self-consciousness, veiled their

quantitative,
of

merely economic or This historical revelation

as

selfishness with arguments and

illusions.'0

Tocqueville himself

sees some

truth
also

in the
the

arguments and some

human benefit to the illusions. Nevertheless, he

acknowledges that
of restless

they

are now

largely

ineffective. Revolution,
longer generally
makes men on

or

the

progress

mind, has
quotes

made them no

persuasive or credible.

Tocqueville "that the

real

himself saying in the assembly

effective
it"

the eve of
power

revolution

cause, the
to

one, that

lose

is that they
the

become unworthy

exercise

(S,

p.

14). He, the

aristocratic partisan of

integrity

of political

life,

agrees with

the people,

and even socialist

theorists,

190

Interpretation

that the bourgeois rulers are unworthy to rule. He says that

cared

they
and

ought

to

have
greed

for the

common

good, and

moderated

their

own

popular

through

devotion to

religion and country.

He is particularly
to

candid about

the

fact any ruling

class must cultivate mores and opinions

perpetuate

its

power

by

curbing

popular restlessness.

not see the

beauty
useful.

of virtue.

The bourgeois rulers, he notes, not only They were also blind to its utility (S, p. 6).
that it
not even

could

But the
as

effectiveness of virtue requires

be

viewed

by

rulers

merely
the

Tocqueville

affirms
and

the

central aristocratic opinion

that one

must

really

see virtue's

beauty,

and

common

good, to rule

hence really be devoted to political liberty most effectively. The open moral and political
reliance on unstable.

skepticism of

bourgeois rule, despite the resulting

ingenious institu
It
makes

tional or mechanical solutions, makes

cialist challenge

it

inherently

the so

inevitable
of

and at

least

somewhat

Tocqueville adds,
cratic

however,
the

that bourgeois skepticism

legitimate (S, pp.7, 14, 41). is the result of demo

to

revolution,
oppression.

restless mind's reduction of order

rulers'

illusion

or arbi

trary

The bourgeois
their

candid selfishness

is

a product of

their
or

enlightenment,
restlessly,

of

intellectual liberation from illusion.

their reduction
of

Incoherently

they

regarded

human to

mechanical motivation as

a point of pride

(S,

pp.11, 62). It

would seem

that their postrevolutionary

historical

situation made

their self-defense

impossible.
whole

partnership that

was that, despite the life's project, he could not foresee political life returning in his time, except momentarily. One of his memories was yet another failed attempt to institutionalize or constitutionalize

Tocqueville's

own candid conclusion

in his Souvenirs

was

the foundation

of

his

it. The

had simply become too restless to sustain ordered or political liberty. The history of his time, he acknowledged, is the history of revolution.
mind

THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIALIST THEORY

The

socialist challenge

is inevitable
reversal of

and radical.

It

means

to be the culmina

tion of the revolution, the

show what and

the growth of

human

misery.

It

means

to

been shown, that history's movement away from nature toward democratic equality is genuinely good for human beings. Its opposi
not yet practical and

has

tion to property is partly

partly theoretical. It
the

aims to cure
of

"that

disease It

called work which

has

afflicted man since

beginning
political
science"

exist

also seeks

to eradicate mental restlessness

speculation with a

and

theoretical

replacing true "social simply

by

life, religion, (S, pp.71, 74).

to
rest. which pro

The

acknowledgement of

that science's truth would

bring

the

mind

Socialism

connects the

disorder

of mental restlessness with

that

duces
This

work.

It holds that they have the

same material and

hence

historically
work.

transformable cause. The eradication of

cure would

property

would mean

the end of

extend, somehow, to mental restlessness.

Socialist theorists

Tocqueville
may, characteristically, be

on

Socialism

and

History
history

191

unclear on whether work causes mental restlessness

or mental restlessness causes work.

But their interdependence in

sees.

Toc

queville

himself, following Rousseau,

History is opposed to nature, that which is governed to impersonal neces History is the work of human beings to overcome the contingency of their existence, which they, inexplicably, come to experience through their self-con sciousness. By working, they increase their distance from nature and hence their dependence on chance. They become, and experience themselves as,
sity.

progressively more contingent or accidental or disordered. The resulting rest lessness causes them to work all the harder. They do so to meet the needs they have created through the mixture of brutish desire with anxious self-conscious
ness, but

they

end

up

also

producing
goes,

new

needs, harder to
more

satisfy.

Human

beings,

the historical

paradox

make

themselves

miserably

restless

in

response

to their restless
aims

misery.

Socialism
paradox.

to eliminate the

incoherence

or

disorder

which produces

this

It

works

to

bring

both

restlessness and work

to an end. The mind uses

all

imagination to discover
ence

socialism's

possibility

against

human

experi

in

response

to the perception that that experience has been no good.

aims to replace anxiousness and misery with truth and contentment. Because everything human is to some extent disordered, its "social can only become wholly true if human distinctiveness or liberty disappears.

Socialism

science"

The individual

must

lose his

or

her

self-consciousness

in the

social

whole.

Tocqueville
opposes,
the

always

identified

socialism with extreme

centralization, because it
that causes

most

radically, the
separate

"decentralizing"

passion or willfulness social

whole."

individual to
with

himself from the

Science brute

or comprehensive

the angel

knowledge is only possible in a world without the in him. But that seemingly logical conclusion is really a

particularly incoherent or restless or human one. Brutes, of course, cannot pos sess such knowledge. God, Tocqueville says, sees human beings in their partic

He, in his wisdom, can comprehend each brute with the angel in him. Tocqueville, in affirming the superiority of and in pursuing divine wisdom,
ularity. shows

the

inadequacy

and

hence the disordered

pretentiousness of

merely hu

man or systematic

rationalism.12

SYSTEMATIC THEORY

Tocqueville

understands socialism as a systematic

theory,

as an attempt

to

give a comprehensive,

deterministic

account of

human

and social change.

radically different from but merely a radicalization of also attempts to understand human existence systematically which geois theory, or mechanically. Both theories share a moral and political skepticism, a denial or goodness of human liberty, which made them both hateful of the

in that respect,

not

It is, bour

possibility

192

Interpretation

to Tocqueville (cf.

S,

pp.6-7,

62,

with

DA, 542-43). He
untrue.13

said,

in fact, that

"pernicious"

they

certainly Systematic theories give

were more

than

coherent or consistent accounts of

exactness,"

existence, ones
or

men"

that achieve "mathematical

ence of mental restlessness

by "banish[ing]

the

incoher

(S,

p. 62).

divinize themselves

by brutalizing

others

Such theorists vainly claim, in effect, to (DA, p. 543). They deny or attempt to
angel

destroy

the existence of the brute

with

the

in him.

They

claim

to eradicate

the uncertainty and incoherence that characterizes merely

human existence, in

cluding human thought, through thought.

theorists, in truth, banish themselves. They do so because they find their extreme mental restlessness, their intense aware ness of the contingency of the human condition, hateful. They experience noth

By banishing

men,

systematic

ing
or

good

in

being

misanthropy,

a product of

human. Systematic theory is, at bottom, willful self-denial or human misery rather than devotion either to wisdom
perspective of
on

human liberty. It is hateful from the

which opposed systematic

Tocqueville's

partisan

ship,

consistency

behalf

of

human liberty.

SOCIALIST THEORISTS: INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

The misery of extreme historical origin, motivates

aroused

mental

restlessness,
theorists

of a similar although

distinct

socialist

as much as
with

the

people who are

by

their theory. These intellectuals ally

the people against the

aristocrats and

bourgeois

or middle

class,

who come

together

in

response

to the the

socialist challenge

in their

attachment to

existing

order.

The theorists

use

doctrine
the

of

socialism,

a product of

their

minds and use

people's material and

desires

and

hopes.
so

desires hopes.

hence their

restlessness

They further by
aroused,

imaginations, to appeal to it, in fact, to expand their

They hope that the people, systematic theory true (S, p. 137).
Tocqueville
tion of
connects systematic most

will

radicalizing and be the "brute

focusing
force"

their
make

to

the extreme restlessness of theorists

with

the origina

theory clearly in his uncompleted second volume on the revolution. There, he notes that the literary-political theorists of the eighteenth century had an "unnatural contempt for the time in which they lived and the
belonged."

society to

which

they

They

love,
own

or almost

involuntary

respect

strangely deficient "in instinctual felt usually by men in all countries for their
were

institutions,

their traditional customs, or the wisdom and virtues of their

were so uprooted

fathers."

Because they

from

the natural and particular attach

ments

authority in all far from nature, that they they historical beings (CN, pp.153, 157).
place of

ordinarily should "take the

established

by

instinct

and

passion,

they

asserted that

"reason"

things."

Their detachment is

evidence or late-

that

existed

were

extremely human

These
was not

partisans of reason were

extremely

aware that their present existence

reasonable, but arbitrary

and contingent.

They hated

the

incoherence

Tocqueville
that characterizes the mixture of their restless misery,

on

Socialism

and

History

193

brute

and angel which

change"

is human life. They, in

153-54).

(CN, Reason, they held, should rule without restraint or exception. In their pride, they did not see clearly that the simple rule of reason would be the end of humanity. But, with Rousseau, they could not but ask "whether the simplicity
radical
p.

imagined

of savages was not worth more

stincts

than
.

all our
.

riches
p.

and

arts,

whether

their in

are

better than

our virtues

(CN,

156).

They

could not

help

doubting

even

the goodness of their pride in their intellectual

of

liberty,
their

which

freed them from the blindness

instinct. Their misery,

goodness or

mixed with

desire

for consistency, made them doubt the tinctively human.

Tocqueville
theorists
ment more accounts

reality

of

everything dis

restless misery of the eighteenth-century French in The Old Regime, as the product of their detach particularly from the pleasures and responsibility of political life. In that century, he men of

for the

observes, French
gland. of

letters

were not

in

political

life,

as

they

were

in En
world"

Nor did they "turn their backs on and enter a "separate "pure as they did in Germany. The French writers were
philosophy,"

politics"

not

in

politics, but

they

were

interested in
were

political reform

(OR,

p.

158).

The English writers, like Tocqueville, found ical

responsibility. on made them

satisfaction or pleasure aristocrats.

in

polit

They
of

still,

decisively,

They

wrote

like

"statesmen"

behalf

human liberty. If anything, their

was

political

involvement
minds

too

unappreciative of

the partial truth of general or systematic the

ory,

as a

Tocqueville believed Burke

theoretical perspective, not

(OR,

pp.2, 153).

'4

Their

were, the

from
truth.

detached

or restless enough to perceive

The German writers, in effect, attempted to divert themselves from their knowledge of the limitations of the political world by trying to live somewhere
else.

The French

writers neither affirmed

through

involvement

nor were able

to

divert themselves from the imaginatively. These

and

political world.

They

wrote

to criticize and perfect it

politics"

proponents of an

"abstract, literary
affairs

thought

they had

the time

distance from

practical

to

better,

the unnaturalness

of political

radically life. From their cosmopolitan

reflect

about the

nature, or,
or universal
p.

perspective,

they

criticized all patriotism and particularism

(CN,

165). But

truth, was a reflection of the unnaturalness of their detach For Tocqueville, any view from a distance is bound to be a distortion. These writers, and the aristocratic audience they formed according to their tastes and opinions, had privileges but not political power. They had all that
their criticism, in
ment.

was required

to

exercise

intellectual

tachment made them miserably anxious,

what

liberty, but not bored, and

in the

political
restless.

liberty. Their de

They

experienced

Tocqueville did denied him

a

as an uprooted aristocrat

political

bourgeois

regime

which

weighty

role.

Their theorizing,

which produced an

indis

criminate passion
understood

for

rationalistic or systematic

innovation,

was,

whether

they

it

or

not,

a reflection of their restless misery.

political or

They

concluded

that

human life, because it is

somewhat incoher-

194
ent, is

Interpretation
absurd.

Tocqueville
aristocrats,

concludes

that their situation, as disempowered

but

still privileged

fensible,
cal

which

liberty.15

was absurd. Privilege without is why Tocqueville holds that human liberty depends on politi The eighteenth-century theorists, with their aristocratic taste for

responsibility is inde

immaterial

principle and

less blind than

their
privileges.

were

for merely material advantages, were the bourgeois rulers of 1848 about the indefensibility of
their contempt
agreed

moral or political

But both they and the bourgeois rulers justification for their situation.
theorists'

that there was no

From Tocqueville's perspective, the exclusion from political life. Reflection

conclusion

on

misery was caused by their its basis should not produce the

that, because
abolished.

political

life is

somewhat restless or
although

disordered, it
hu

ought
man

to be

Political

involvement,

itself

a product of

restlessness,

moderates

or makes endurable

that restlessness. It caused

Tocqueville, despite his propensity for

anxiety, to avoid misanthropy.

theoretical

detachment

and

doubtful

But the
political

theorists'

rationalistic says

imagination

always pointed

to the abolition of

life. Tocqueville
reason, the

that the most practical of the

"Economists,"

"Physiocrats"

partisans of

or

eighteenth-century actually considered in

anticipated

some

detail how the

eventually
all

world was

to be reformed.

They
they
said,

many

and

perhaps

the results of revolution, and

were

the true origina

tors

of socialist

theory.

They hated, Tocqueville

their partisanship
on

"any

kind

of

diversity

whatsoever."

They
mity to "fanatical
trol
of all

carried

lengths."

They

were

behalf of consistency or unifor extremely restless or disordered oppo "absolute equality, State
con

nents of restlessness or
activities

disorder.
of

They

aimed at

individuals,

despotic

legislation,

and

the

total

submerging 59).

of each citizen's

individuality

into the group

mind"

(OR,

pp.158

All human particularity or individuality is to be subjected to the rule of reason. All individual activity that would offend the mind is to be eliminated. The intellect is to
regards as unjust. paradoxical
freedom"

conquer merely human reality, to eradicate everything it It opposes, as Tocqueville says, the "human the mixture of brute and angel. Socialism is the "confiscation of human
"schoolmaster"

condition,"

by

or theoretical or social scientific

leadership.16

THE PROBLEM OF THE SOCIALIST CHALLENGE

The
of

effectiveness of socialism workers.

depends human

upon the convergence of the

interests

the theorists and

restless

Both

intensely

experience and want

liberation

from the

mind, from the

more.

condition experienced as radical con

tingency

and

nothing

Theorists

seek rational control.

rity

and contentment.

The

convergence

only

comes

Workers want secu if human beings are content

and can

live according to reason,

or with

the unconscious moderation of Eu-

Tocqueville
gene.

on

Socialism

and

History

195

Contentment is
and

natural and subhuman.

Discontent is

distinctively

human

or

historical, Human beings,

in the

it

grows over time.

the theorists conclude,

must

overcome

or surrender

their
exis

humanity
tence
rooted

service of reason and contentment.

Distinctively

human

is in

a miserable

accident,

and

it

produces

absurd

behavior. Socialism,
to its pro

this conclusion, means to

bring

the

egalitarian revolution

jected
and

or rational conclusion. of this

Tocqueville,

understanding the theoretical force

an opponent of reason and content

misanthropy

conclusion, became
the

ment,

and a partisan of

willful affirmation of

human

liberty

in

spite of

its

misery, to the extent necessary to perpetuate human liberty.

Tocqueville
triumph.

acknowledges

that he did

not

know

whether socialism would

That uncertainty gave nobility to his political writing and action. He did not consider himself a reactionary, defending a cause that history had defi nitely made futile or obsolete, although he was well aware that it might have done
so. opposition

His

to socialism also did not make to

him

Machiavellian,
cannot.17

prefer

ring
icate
the

what succeeds

imaginary
in

Utopias

that certainly

He

could see

the strength of the socialist challenge. The

restless

bourgeois

regime

had
or

aimed

to erad

misery,

but,

fact, had intensified it. If history

the experience of extreme

the growth of

intensity

and commonness of

mental restlessness

has

ceed on

eventually suc bourgeois distinctions. indefensibility merely In the last several years, the socialist challenge has come to seem, perhaps
the basis of
of

made political

life impossible, then

perhaps socialism will

for the first time

rather

since

1848,

no

longer

credible.

The demise

of

socialism,

its triumph, now seems to some to be the end of history.'8 But history, arguably, has not come to an end. The restless mind is still particularly restless, and religion, philosophic speculation, and even political life have not
than

been completely
an

replaced

by

simply true
to say

social science.

If

history
or

is to have
the return
natural

end,

perhaps

it

still makes sense

it

would

be socialism,

to existence
goodness of
geois

without

property

or

individuality,
of

to something close to the

the Rousseauean state

nature.19

The

socialist criticism of

bour

life

still

has

great

weight, and

perhaps socialism still

has

future.

The disappearance

of socialism

Tocqueville

would not regard as an unmixed

blessing. He
socialist

understood

conscious and passionate

selfwhy so many, who have been and are particularly in bourgeois regimes, have lost themselves in the

imagination.
is the only
of

They believe,

mistakenly, that devotion to the coming of

socialism

credible or egalitarian passion

apolitical

the only way

escaping from the

were mistaken

left in the world, and hence anxiety of bourgeois life. But

remained world

Tocqueville held they

only because he
to
return

devoted to the
our

integrity

of political

life,

which seems

to the

in

time,

as

it

did in his, only in extraordinary Some contemporary

socialists

moments.

Tocqueville's devotion
his.20

remains as

problematic to our restless minds as

it did to

have turned to Tocqueville's

antibourgeois

196

Interpretation
for inspiration
that
or at

analysis

least

vindication.

William Sullivan, for one,

sees

Tocqueville's
clusion queville

anti-individualism as

informed
was

by

"Rousseau's
with

pessimistic con
virtue."

modern

civil

society

incompatible

civic

Toc

is best

understood as

giving "a

new version of

the

republican argument

for

the intrinsic good of active

or

citizenship."

Only
"negative"

cultivation of such citizen

ship,

"positive
that

freedom,"

can provide effective resistance to

or antipolitical

the

"atomized
of

despotism"

is the

product of a

understanding

liberty.21
liberty"

But, despite his anti-individualism and his affirmation of "positive against bourgeois liberalism, Sullivan recognizes that Tocqueville was no so cialist. Unlike Marx, "he did not seek, and does seem to have imagined under
modern

circumstances, a social

organization of production would

based

upon an ethic

of participation and

responsibility that
not share

substantially
vision of

replace

the

market"

(Sullivan,
rooted was

p. 7).

He did

the socialist

"citizenly

fellowship"

in

egalitarian

"moral

culture"

(Sullivan,
would

pp. 220- 25).

Because his

vision

limited

by

an

antisocialist, liberal prejudice, Tocqueville did

not see

that

socialism, properly understood,

moral and political

be the perfection, producing the

not

the eradication, of

life.
see socialism as
saw

Sullivan tends to

comprehensive

politiciza-

tion of society. Tocqueville

cal

life,

a world where

it as, necessarily, producing the end of politi human beings would be without political passion or
particular

passionate concern

for their

existences,

where

they

would no

longer

desire to
but
queville.

rule over

themselves or others. It would be a

would

world

full

of

Eugenes,
like Toc
Marx's

without

Eugene's dignity, because there

view of socialism seems

be

no masters

Tocqueville's
than Sullivan's.
says

to

be

closer

to the

spirit of of

Marx, in his description

the

of communism or

the end

history,

nothing

about

fellowship

of citizens.

He

writes of

the spontaneous,
existence.22

passionless

satisfaction of personal of

whims, a weightless, amoral

The fulfillment

the dream of socialism is not the overcoming of selfishness

a world

by

civic

virtue, but

in

which virtue or self-restraint

has become

unnec

essary

or obsolete.

It

would

be

possible

only

with

the

disappearance

of most

distinctively

human
and

experience or

liberty.
socialism not as completes most radi angel

Tocqueville

Marx

oppose

Sullivan, finally, by viewing

the overcoming but the radicalization of bourgeois materialism. It the egalitarian revolution against human order, which is revealed as, cally, disorder. Socialism the brute.
restores

society to

order

by

purging the

from

share a hatred of the bourgeois world. Marx identified human self-consciousness, which Tocqueville did not. Toc queville held that its miserable anxiety can be genuinely moderated by the pleasures and responsibility of political life, of ruling oneself and others. Sul seems to agree with Tocqueville about polivan, in his "civic

Marx

and

Tocqueville
with

the bourgeois

republicanism,"

Tocqueville
litical life
mation of

on

Socialism

and

History

197
affir

as an antidote to

individualism, but he
and

holds that Tocqueville's

Political
movement can

it is inegalitarian

hence

reactionary.

only

be toward

a more comprehensive egalitarianism.

Sullivan's

restless

anxiety,
political

from Tocqueville's perspective, produces a movements to bring political life to an end.

Tocqueville
could not
of

paradoxical

devotion to devotion

but

recognize that this paradoxical

was evi

dence

not

product

only misanthropy but the greatness of socialism. It was the of distinctively human passion, a human response to extremely restless
the
party"

It was, he says, the foundation of a "great (S, p. 12). Socialism, he agrees with Sullivan, is a political movement, even if it is one that aims to
anxiety.

bring

political

life to

an end.

It

was

the

cause of

the

return of political

life, if

only for

moment, in 1848. The challenge inspirited the bourgeois regime,

bringing

aristocrats

back to the

political stage and even

causing the bourgeois

the center of the po

rulers to experience a nobler conception of

liberty.
near

Socialism,
litical
stage. anxiety.

more

particularly, brought Tocqueville

It

aroused

his

political

passion, and

hence

suppressed

his doubtful

It

gave

him his

weighty

political role.

consciousness of

greatness

gave
pp.

or The resulting self-confidence him distinctly human pleasure and mod

erated

his

personal

anxiety (S,

3-5, 231-32). The fact

that the

political

life

brought into
the

existence

by

the revolution turned out to be an effective antidote to

crucial argument against social who

apolitical against

ism,

anxiety of doubtful isolation is a the intentions of revolutionaries

fight to

make subsequent

revolution and political

tions are

no

life impossible. But, in this respect, bourgeois inten different. When in power, bourgeois rulers also aim to create
Their

systematic or apolitical order.

of

failure,

as much as or more

than the

failure

socialism,

made

Tocqueville happy.

Tocqueville

spent most of

his

political career

in

futile

and misery-produc makes

ing

attempt to elevate or politicize

the bourgeois

world.

The Souvenirs

clear

that he

would

have been
his

miserable

in the America he described in Democ

an

racy, although it was, in many respects,

cratic reality.

idealization

or

ennobling

of

demo

It

was not

own political

efforts, but the

challenge of social

ism,

that

rescued

him from his

miserable condition

(S,

pp. 84-85).

Tocqueville

agrees with

Nietzsche that the

despotism.23

challenge of

socialism,

by

politi

cizing bourgeois life

against

coming of gentle, peaceful is the noblest product of the West in

that may
or
emerge

its inclinations, fends The response

recent

off the end of

history,

the

to that challenge certainly

world

order"

decades. The "new

in the

absence of socialism

full

of

indistinguishable liberal

bourgeois democracies
life
respects almost

and

based

on

the

complete replacement of political

with economic

may be, Tocqueville

disordered

would

human

indistinguishable from
to live

socialism.24

have feared, in the crucial or But we can hope that

world order

the human

mind will remain

enough with

to make

impossi

ble,

that human beings

will continue

their restless misery

and resist

nature's standards of reason and contentment.

198

Interpretation

NOTES
Komost comprehensive attempt to view Tocqueville in light of Rousseau is John Carolina NC: Academic and the New Politics Alexis de Tocqueville Science (Durham, ritansky, of Press, 1987). Another very sweeping and instructive attempt is Wilhelm Hennis, 'Tocqueville's

1. The

Perspective,"

Interpretation 16 (1988): 61-86. Also

and

York: Simon

Schuster, 1990),
the

pp.

see Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs (New 202-3, 231-32, 312-13. Roger Boesche makes some
antibourgeois character of

suggestive comments about

distinctively

Tocqueville's liberalism in

The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville (Ithaca: Cornell

the Social
support

University Press, 1987).

2. Koritansky's analysis, which reduces Tocqueville's political and religious teaching to that of Contract, does not even attempt to do justice to Tocqueville's analysis of religion as a
to individual greatness

(Democracy

in America, trans. G.
and

Lawrence,

ed.

J. P. Mayer [New
sacrificed the

York: Doubleday, 1969], pp. 542-45). Lamberti distinguishes well between Rousseau individual to the
philosophy:
citizen.

Tocqueville: "Rousseau
posed
citizen"

Better than

anyone

else, Tocqueville

the central problem of modem

(Tocqueville and the Two preserving the Democracies, trans. A. Goldhammer [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989], p. 188).
respect while

how to

the individual

3. Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848,

ed.

J. P. Mayer,

trans.

G. Lawrence (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1987), p. 75. This source (Tocqueville's Souvenirs) is hereafter referred to as S. Tocqueville's other books are referred to as follows: De
mocracy in America is DA. The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. S. Gilbert (New York: Anchor Books, 1955) is OR. "Chapters and Notes for His Unfinished Book on the French
Revolution,''

The Two Tocquevilles,

ed. and trans.

R.R. Palmer (Princeton: Princeton

in the tradition

University
Plato
and

Press, 1987), is CN.

4. See Hennis,
p.

83: "Tocqueville is
or, if you will,

a political scientist
an analyst of

of

Rousseau
soul

a moral age of

historian,

the order and disorder of the human

in the

democracy."

his title

5. Rousseau's theoretical intentions are, of course, revealed in the quotation from Aristotle on page (Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality The First
and

Among Men,

Second Discourses,

ed.

R. Masters, trans. R.

and

J. Masters [New

York: St. Martin's Press, 1964]), p. 77. The quotation, given in Latin, is translated by Masters as follows: "Not in corrupt things, but in those well ordered in accordance with nature, should one
consider what

is

natural."

history. Nature
nature's

gives

order; human

For Rousseau, contrary to Aristotle, what is beings make themselves human

natural

is

what exists prior

to

and

hence disordered. From

perspective, to be human

is to be disordered
also

or

diseased.

Pascal, because Rousseau's history depends on Pas cal's psychology. For Tocqueville's debt to Pascal, see my The Restless Mind: Alexis de Toc queville on the Origin and Perpetration of Human Liberty (Lanhan, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
to

Tocqueville's debt to Rousseau is

1993). This

article contains much of chapter

of

that book.

6. Alexis de Tocqueville, "Memoir on Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Re form, ed. S. Drescher (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 6. 7. Alexis de Tocqueville, Letter to Louis de Kergorlay (21 September 1834), Selected Letters Politics and Society, ed. R. Boesche, trans. J. Toupin and R. Boesche (Berkeley: University California Press, 1987), p. 93. 8. Tocqueville, Letter to Edouard de Tocqueville (2 November 1840), in Selected Letters, 143.
on of

Pauperism,"

p.

Norton, 1972),

9. Karl Marx, "On the Jewish pp. 24-25.

10. Compare S,
p.

Question,"

The Marx-Engels Reader,

p.

ed.

R. Tucker (New York:

of

75,

with

Tocqueville, DA,

525,

the time "[w]hen the world was under the control of a

on "the official doctrine few rich and powerful

morali

at

men."

11. See Tocqueville, "Speech on the Right to Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform, pp. 199-200. See also Tocqueville, Letter to Nassau William Senior (10 April 1848), Selected Letters, p. 206.

Work,"

Tocqueville
12. On divine wisdom, ideas" "general 13. See DA,
p.

on

Socialism

and

History

199

see

DA,

p.

437,

where

it is described to

show

the merely human

weakness of

or systematic

thinking.

543,

and

ed., The European

Press, 1959),
science, see

p.

Revolution 227.

letter to Arthur de Gobineau (20 December 1843) in John Lukacs, and Correspondence with Gobineau (Westport, CT: Greenwood
part of
and

14. On Tocqueville's

University

criticism of Burke as James Ceaser, Liberal Democracy Press, 1990), pp. 153-54.

the theoretical foundation

of

his

political

Political Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

History,"

15. See Delba Winthrop, "Tocqueville's Old Regime: Political (1981): 88-111.
Work,"

Review of Politics 43

pp. 183, 199-200. For an analysis of Toc 16. Tocqueville, "Speech on the Right to queville's defense of liberty that centers on this speech, see Daniel Mahoney, 'Tocqueville and s Defense of Human Liberty.
Socialism," Tocqueville'

17. For Tocqueville's

criticism of

the

superficiality

and

human

unworthiness of

Machiavellia

nism, see my 'Tocqueville on Metaphysics and Human

Liberty,"

Teaching

Political Science 14

(1987): 92. End 18. Consider the controversy fueled by the instantly famous essay by Francis Fukuyama, 'The The National Interest, No. 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3-18. Fukuyama says that of
History?"

bourgeois liberalism is the

end of

history. All

preliberal alternatives

political and religious

have
sage

history. Socialism, understood as a failed. That Fukuyama's essay has a Nietzschean ending been discredited
nor a

by

radicalization of

liberalism,
neither a

was

tried and

suggests that

he is

Hegelian

brute. This essay, in any case, made him a great bourgeois success story. His book-length version, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992), has already made him a millionaire.

Reading

what is really suggested by Fukuyama's mentor, Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction to of Hegel, trans. J. Nichols, ed. A. Bloom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), pp. 159-62, "Note to the Second 20. L. E. Shiner goes so far as to suggest that Tocqueville's defense of the greatness of politi
Edition."

19. That is

cal

life in the Souvenirs is

and

insanity. His devotion to the truth

failure. Despite his intentions, he shows that it is nothing but inanity overwhelms his devotion to human liberty or greatness (The
in
Tocqueville' "Recollections''

Secret Mirror:

Literary Form and History Reconstructing

[Ithaca: Cornell Univer

sity Press, 1988]). 21. William Sullivan,

Public

Philosophy
of

(Berkeley:

Press, 1982),

pp.

203-6. Sullivan is

one of

the authors

Robert Bellah

et al.'s

University of California best-selling Habits

of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). His book shows better than Habits how Bellah's project for reform is rooted in and is a criticism of Tocqueville.

22. See Marx, The German Ideology in The Marx-Engels Reader p. 124. 23. See Roger Boesche, "Hedonism and Nihilism: the Predictions of Tocqueville and The Tocqueville Review 8 (1986/7): 178. Boesche quotes The Will to Power: "Social ism will be able to be something useful and therapeutic: it delays "peace on and total mol
Nietzsche."
earth'

lification

of

the democratic herd animal; it forces the European to

claims

spirit"

retain
order

(p. 125).

24. Fukuyama

to describe

definitively

the emergence of this

in his book.

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political:

Theology, Decisionism,
Maurice Auerbach
St. Francis College
and

the Concept

of

the

Enemy

Carl Schmitt
War I
and

was

the most influential German

political

theorist

after

World Until

for

time

(1933-36)

leading

jurist in the Nazi

regime.

recently Schmitt's work has been largely ignored outside of Germany because of his association with Nazism. His work, particularly The Concept of the Po

litical, is
since

and among leftists again in vogue, however his death in 1985 (see Telos 72 [Summer 1987]).
end of

no

less

especially

Perhaps the
and

the Cold War and the recent transformation of Central

given

Eastern Europe have

Schmitt's teachings
on

a new

lease

on

life.

Schmitt's influence depended

that the

tion of the European state system

events shown
problems

his penetrating insights into the transforma as a result of World War I. Have not recent
were never resolved?

that emerged in 1918

The
of

nuclear stalemate and

the bipolar

superpower system of

the United

States

America
math of

Soviet Union, the unique situation resulting from the after World War II, merely concealed the perennial political conflicts which
and

the

remained the concern of

Schmitt

until

his death. Consider the failure

empire and

of world

communism, the collapse of the

Soviet

the disintegration of the

Soviet Union itself, the resulting revival of nationalism, the re-emergence of ethnic strife in the Balkans, and the reunification of Germany. Perhaps the
unique

issues

of

the recent past and the present are

best

understood

from

some

broader

perspective than that of

of

the
the

world after

1945. The
the
of

chief question would such a per

be, Does Schmitt's "concept

spective? require

political"

supply the basis for

philosophy

Does

not end

the full

comprehension of

concrete political situation rather

in the
of

the conceptual framework

than the

dogmas

ideology?

Schmitt found wanting the formalistic, legalistic study of politics common in the German academy at the time. Hans Kelsen reduced politics to legal norms
what was

termed "the pure

law."

theory
who

of

As

result, Schmitt came

of

under

the

influence

of political

sociology,

such as

the studies

Max Weber,
of

defined the
decides

state as

the institution possessing

the

the monopoly

the

use of

force. For Schmitt the

Such decision

person who represents

sovereign power of the state alone

the state of emergency, the excep

unfettered

tional
mines

or extreme situation.

by

legal

niceties

deter

the

sovereignty.'

essence of

>

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

202

Interpretation
realism

affairs strong influence on the study of international possible (for example, the work of Hans Morgenthau). But one may ask if it is to combine Schmitt's realism in foreign policy with Kelsen's liberal legalism in domestic policy. Such was the position of those who considered themselves

Schmitt's

had

liberals. What if society is on the verge of civil war or revolution, however? Under these circumstances legal norms do not suffice to preserve the
pragmatic state.

Schmitt's

conception of

sovereignty

applies

to both domestic and

foreign

policy.

combination of a pragmatic

liberalism in domestic

politics and a moderate

realism

in foreign

principle

the right

may be the reasonable policy. But what is the political which may direct this dual policy? According to classical liberalism, to self-preservation is both the source of individual freedom and the
affairs

sanction of political power.

Schmitt did
of

not consider

the principle of classical

liberalism
praised

as an adequate

basis

his

conception of the with whom

state, however. He
the conception

the

founder

of

liberalism, Hobbes,
But the
presented

he

shared

of absolute sovereignty.

motivation of

ferent from Hobbes's. Schmitt

alism
of

himself

Schmitt's theory was quite dif as the implacable foe of liber in his
the

individualism.
opposition

Schmitt's

to liberalism

was rooted of

adaptation of

Catholic
Al

theology
from the

to the analysis of the development

nation-state system. not view

though of traditional Catholic upbringing,

Schmitt did

the state solely

perspective of the teachings of the

what one

Church. In his Political

Theology
Catholic

Schmitt developed
in fact
secularized

may term

a sociological conception of

theology. He maintained that the concepts of the theological concepts. theistic

theory

of

the

modern state are

By

adaptation of

theology,

the omnipotent sovereign

is

analogous

to

the omnipotent God.

Likewise, the exception, limits of the law, is analogous to the ordinary

the Enlightenment the
were

the

political

decision
that

outside the

miracle.

But the
so

philosophers of

deists

who rationalized

theology

God,

as

first cause,
of

was understood

basically

as

ruling the

cosmic order at a

merely distance

in terms

fundamental

regularities personal

or scientific

principles.

They

ruled out

politicalanalogy in the social sphere, the monarch had to govern according to natural law and the principles of the constitution, which seemed to eliminate the decision as to the exception. But in politics the need for the concrete decision independent of

miracles and

generally God's

intervention.

By

the generality
ered

of as

the law arises from time to time.

Hobbes

"the

representative"

classical

of

Accordingly, Schmitt consid decisionism (Political Theol

ogy, p.

33) because he

argued, despite his modern rationalism, that the decisio-

nist character of

sovereignty is
politics.

intrinsically

connected to personal authority.

Schmitt thus
greater

suggested

that theistic, rather than

deistic, theology

offered the

Like God according to monotheism, so the sover eign according to decisionism creates out of nothing. Schmitt claimed that his methodology offers the basis for a sociology of concepts that will explain the

insight into

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

character of

203

the

state

in

a certain epoch.

The

structure of

theological and meta

physical concepts corresponds

to the structure of political concepts (p. 45).

an

Schmitt found inspiration in the reactionary Catholic thinkers who mounted attack on modern rationalism and in particular the doctrines and conse
the French

quences of

Revolution (p. 53).

In the

nineteenth

tes)

revived

theism as the

century these thinkers (e.g., de Maistre and Donoso Cor basis for restoring sovereignty, a decisionist mon
world

archy.

By

contrast

the conceptual

had become bereft

of even

the

abstract

deistic

God

liberalism,

anarchism,

and socialism

laid the foundation for the

total rejection of transcended civil

any legitimate form of sovereign rule because no authority meta society. All governing principles were now immanent
In
order

physical and political. ment of

to supply the

condition

for the decisionist

ele

government, it would be necessary to resort to

dictatorship because
polytheism.

the

legal

system

(at least in the

West)

no

longer

recognized

the exception. The

theological counterpart to

divided

or pluralistic

authority is
rejected

The counterrevolutionary Catholic thinkers

totelian elements of Thomistic
order of

the rationalistic, Aris

of natural

theology

and

the doctrine

law. The

society depends on the personal authority of the monarch, as the order of the family depends on the personal authority of the father. The form of personalism is grounded on the supreme will of God. The infallibility of the
pope

has its

counterpart

State there is the final, formulated it near the end

in the sovereignty infallible decision

of

of

the king. In
moral

both Church

and

the

decision. As Schmitt

[is]
thus

the exacting moral

not

decision"

Political Theology, "the core of the political idea (p. 65). The decision as to the exception is

simply a matter of power but of morality, of determining the just and the unjust. The moral responsibility of each member of society depends on the
principle of sovereignty.

For Schmitt every

the nature
corrupted
of man

political

idea is derived from

basic

presupposition as to

(p. 56). The theological tradition

sin, although

maintained

that man

is

by
of

original

capable of redemption through

faith

and

by

the grace

gard man's

God. Political theology must focus on man's depravity and disre capacity for moral choice. Human evil necessitates sovereign au
unjust

thority. The sovereign decision that distinguished the just from the thus conditioned
to contain

is

by

original sin.

The
to

sovereign establish

human wickedness,
as such a

not

authority has only the capacity goodness. Modern political doc

claim

trines, e.g., liberalism, democracy,

thus oppose

and

socialism,

that

man

is

good and

juridical
politics

sovereign authority.

Theological-metaphysical
presupposition

principles are
as

linked to

by

way

of

anthropology, or the

to human

nature.

Schmitt

suggested

that the very idea of politics as such

is

rooted

in

man's evilness.

The doctrine

of man's

inherent

goodness

is essentially
reactionary
as

unpolitical and therefore antithetical to the

justification
certain

of the state.

Notwithstanding

Schmitt's

agreement

with

features
of

of

Catholic thought, he

accepted

only the formal

structure

theology

the

204

Interpretation
a

framework for
an

sociology

of

the

state.

In part, he

emptied theological concepts

of religious and moral content.

indefinite

concept of

the ultimate directive of

For example, while Schmitt apparently retained divine providence, it is not clear how divine right as political right is a central factor in his
theory.7

Schmitt's formalistic and, to an extent, positivistic conception clearly emerges in his most influential work, The Concept of the
Rather than
transmuted

of politics
Political.3

being

the exacting
antithesis

moral

decision the

core of

the

political

idea

was

into the
Did he he
of

between friend

and enemy.

The

question neces

sarily arises, Is Schmitt's decisionism sufficient to

of politics? offer normativism that
rejected? association with

encompass

the

the real alternative to the

narrowness

of

complexity the legal

to
con

Because
clude

Schmitt's

the Nazi regime, it is

usual

that The Concept of the Political exhibits theoretical support for extrem that form the basis for Nazi ideology.

ist,

rightist views

While

perhaps

it is

warranted

to consider the possible ideological consequences of Schmitt's teach

a

ing, in discussing
guish error of most ogy.

theorist of

Schmitt's
critics

stature
of

I think it is

essential

to distin

the polemical and theoretical strands

the

argument.

liberal
of

and

leftist
of

Because

the

failure

Marxism

is precisely to confuse and the insufficiencies

As expected, the theory and ideol

of

the Frankfort

School, however,
political

some

leftist

theorists are

increasingly turning
broader

to

Schmitt for
than

insight (see Telos 72 [Summer 1987]).

The Concept of the Political
offers a view of politics

In

a sense

the earlier work, Political Theology. While the

substantive conception of political
veloped a more content.

latter developed

a narrow

but

decisionism

and

sovereignty, the

former de
of of

encompassing conception of politics but somewhat devoid As Schmitt moved from his preoccupation with the theological basis
of

the sovereignty

the state to a general concept of politics,

of political

he

came

increas from be

ingly
the

under

the

influence

sociology

and as a result abstracted

moral content of politics.

Schmitt

concluded of

that the state presupposes the political.

rather

The

state must

defined in terms
of

politics,

than the reverse. The political

state

is the be

sphere
poli

human life in terms

which

includes the

that most expresses the nature of

and experience must

tics. For Schmitt

stood

each sphere of

human thought

under antith

of a specific

distinction. The

criterion of

morality is the

esis of good and

evil, that
the

of aesthetics
antithesis of

the antithesis of the

beautiful

and

ugly,

and

that

of economics

the profitable and unprofitable. In poli

and enemy.

tics the specific

distinction is that between friend

reduction of politics war

Schmitt's

extrem

ism
of

consists

in the

to the condition of conflict, to the state

emergency, thus to the possibility of

political

if

not war

itself. The

criterion of

the

the ground

essentially determines the of the sovereign decision.

or

exceptional or extreme situation

it is

The

connotations of

the concept, enemy, may suggest an

ideological
enemy

predis

position

to,

affinity

for, Nazism. Schmitt

characterized the

as

the

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

other, the stranger,
who

205

in

an

threatening situation,
ening
the

conflict or war
mind

intense way is alien, and thus in an extreme or is possible (Concept, pp. 27 f.). This
the enemy

definition possibly brings to

race or nation which
view of

as any hated or supposedly threat exterminated. And, of course, in be justifiably may Nazism the Jewish people became such an enemy. Thus, for some or racism

critics,

anti-Semitism,

generally,

is the logical

consequence

of

Schmitt's theory. Schmitt's

reductionist conceptualization replaced

But

more

to the point, Schmitt

power"

may contribute to "the pure theory of

extremist politics. with

law"

"the

pure and

theory

of political

which

is

constructed upon a

formal definition

thus empty of content.

Schmitt's theory of politics is the result of a misplaced abstraction. Schmitt lucidly distinguishes the political enemy from any other kind of adversary, e.g., religious or economic (Concept, sees. 3 and 4). The political enemy need
not

be morally

evil or

aesthetically

ugly.

"An enemy

exists

only when,

at

least

collec

potentially, one

(sec. 3). Normally, the

fighting collectivity fighting collectivities

can

of people confronts a similar are sovereign states.

Any
conflict
point

nonpolitical social

to qualify as a

become strong enough in a situation of entity political entity, however (Concept, pp. 37 f.). At this

antithesis pushes aside any other antithesis by which a determined. For any grouping which is constituted by the "most is entity extreme of battle or war is "the decisive human "the

the

friend/enemy

social

possibility,"

grouping,"

entity."

political states

Thus Schmitt's formulation

covers not

only

conflict

between

but

also civil wars and revolutions which are

the results of

social groups

powerful enough

to challenge and oppose sovereign states and consequently to

create political situations. munities

which

For example,
political

religious wars entities

involve

religious com

have become
simply
sense

according to the criterion of

friend/enemy
struggle

and not

groupings

determined
and the

by

the distinction of the

class

chosen and the unchosen or the

believers
not

infidels. Likewise the but

a

in the Marxist

is

simply

an economic conflict

battle
the

between
enemy

political entities.

If the

proletarian class succeeds

in taking

over

state, then it becomes the

antithesis covers a

source of sovereignty. In conclusion, the friend/ broader scope of politics than the concept of deci

sionism and supplies the ground

for decisionism. The

But
what

real

substantive purpose or goal of political conflict?

It is

clear

issue is, What is the that the enemy is

public, not

a private adversary.

is the

substance of concrete political

reality of which the friend/enemy antithesis is a Schmitt prided himself on his attention to the

major component? concrete and existential mean

ing

of political concepts
expressions of

(Concept,

sec.

3).

They

are not symbols or psycho

logical

individualistic feelings and,

moralistic or spiritualistic antitheses.

finally, they do not refer to For Schmitt, liberalism is the political

confusion

ideology that has been

one

responsible

for the

in

political

thought.

On the

hand,

liberalism has

reduced

the enemy to the competitor

in the

economic

206

Interpretation
and on

domain,

the other hand to the

debating
as

adversary in the domain

the
negation

of

morals or

intellect. Insofar
as
well

as political concepts contain a polemical

character,

theoretically
of

as

politically, liberalism

of politics

is

Schmitt's enemy (sec. 8). Schmitt considered liberalism as a consistent system thought which has resulted in the project to depoliticize society by neutraliz ing the political character of the most controversial issues. There is the impera
tive to
at avoid conflict and war at all costs
of an

(although

often without

success), even

the expense

honest

acknowledgement of political reality. modern

Notwithstand
concealed.

ing

the impact of liberalism on

perspective

society,

politics

remains, if

From this
politics.

liberalism

reveals

itself

as

the most deceptive

form

of

After World War I Schmitt parliamentary democracy from the ruins of monarchy Schmitt
associated with

undertook

in

Europe.4

a probing analysis The liberal democracies exhibited

of

the crisis of

which emerged

and empire

the major disorders that

the faith in rationalism, the denial of man's inherent to

sovereign

wickedness, the
pacifism and

opposition

authority,

and

the Utopian appeal of to

govern

internationalism. Liberal
which masked

parliaments sought

in terms

of

ideological formulas

the real conflicts that

finally

surfaced,

and

in many cases brutal dictatorships replaced parliamentary governments. The Bolshevik and Fascist revolutions seemed to confirm Schmitt's basic thesis.
the

Although Schmitt originally opposed first three years of Hitler's rule.

Nazism, he

made

his

peace with

it

during

Schmitt
as

presented

parliamentary

government not as a worthwhile

ideal but liberalism

the unfortunate coming together of two contradictory principles

and

democracy. The
in the

view of politics as

basically

the

debate

and exchange of

opinions

parliament as

is the

essence of

liberalism. The final decision is

and

delayed
the

indefinitely

the different proposals are considered

discussed.

The parliament,
popular will

which

ostensibly is
end

elected

by

the people,

does

not represent

but the

constellation of

coalition of parties.

In the

interests that form the majority party or parliament is ruled by an elite supported by
a

publicists and

intellectuals. Government is
opinion of

debating
in the

society that

rules

by

at

tempting

to manipulate the

the

public

name of rationality.

The

publicity of parliamentary discussion in search of the policy is only a facade for the cabals of the party leaders. Democracy is grounded on a different principle. Schmitt viewed democracy in its radical form as the result of the formation of a popular will or general
will.

"rational"

Unlike in

liberalism, democracy is
to

shaped
and

by definitive decisions
of

of

the gov

ernment

order

satisfy the needs

and when

desires

the people, to reinforce the

social and moral

bonds,

to advance the conditions of equality.

norms

Hence, in

extreme

with de fail, dictatorship may be determined by acclamation rather than by votes. On this basis Schmitt compared Bolshevism and Fascism with the Jacob inism of the French Revolution. The crisis of modern has been the

situations,

legal

is identified

mocracy, for the

popular will

democracy

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

tension

207
has

between liberalism

and

democracy,

and

the

failure

of

this system

led to totalitarian dictatorship. Schmitt ture, the

the
was

totalitarianism

(Concept,
to the

among the very first to point to the unique phenomenon of sec. 1). Inasmuch as politics is rooted in human na

reaction

liberal

negation of politics unleashes with a vengeance

affirmation of politics.

Schmitt

considered

through the nineteenth

between the
of

political

that in the eighteenth century and in some instances into the twentieth, the right relationship was established and the nonpolitical, between the state and the other areas
was not antithetical

human

activity.

Society
Hegel.

to the state, and the state as

a

sumed

the status above society as the source

of order

relationship developed

philosophically

Culture, by independently of the state, but the state could still intervene to preserve the political order. Any area of life could acquire political significance under specific, concrete situations. But beginning in the nineteenth century lib eralism became increasingly the enemy of the political, of the state, as the
religion and

the economy developed as dis

tinctive spheres

instrument

of repression.

As

a result

the distinction

of

the state and society led

areas of

to the depoliticization and neutralization of significant

life, particularly
(Concept,
pp.

the economy,

and

the enlargement of the rights of the individual. Liberalism

thus has moved between the two poles of ethics and economics

71 f.). From the

supreme principle

pole of

ethics, the freedom

of

the individual becomes the

the state must supply the conditions

for,

and eliminate

the

infringements on, freedom. The liberal enemy is

From the
worker,
pole of

the opponent

in

discussion.
the state.

economics, the

role of producer or

consumer,

of employer or

attains greater significance

than that of citizen

state as the

or subject of

The economy apparently replaces the The enemy is thus the competitor for

ordering

principle of society.

economic power.

Morally,

the

self-sacri

fice

of

the

individual in defense
struggle with

of the state

is depreciated in favor

of a radical

individualism,
life-and-death
serted

the assertion of rights in opposition to the state. For

Schmitt,

the

the enemy determines the very essence of politics.

as not

In the twentieth century, the democratic element in liberal society has itself and demanded a greater role for the state. But the state is authority that
the
stands above society.

regarded as the

Schmitt
of

understood

democ

racy

as

governed. social.

identity essentially Social matters have become

and of

of state and

society,

the government and the

political as affairs of state one another.

have become
the radical
of soci

State

society interpenetrate

Consequently,
neutral

development

the

tendency

to politicize the

formerly

domains

ety has resulted in the total state. Society constitutes the state which embraces all facets of life. Any and every opponent or adversary may become the enemy.

Thus, for Schmitt, totalitarianism arises out of the instability and inadequacy the depoliticization of society is followed by the total of liberal democracy
politicization of collapse of

life. Of course, the defeat Bolshevism have removed the

of

Nazism in

war and

the

internal
The
di-

worst

totalitarian

systems.

208

Interpretation
and

lemmas
the

issues indicated

by

Schmitt

continue

to

plague

liberal democracy,
individualism in bureaucratic insti

however. In the
moral-social

modern welfare state

the

laws

support radical

sphere,

while a

tutions and programs

foster

in many areas a vast array form of collectivism in the

working
classes

of

name of equality.

In

addition, many in the

with

middle and

have become disenchanted beliefs

and

liberal

policies that challenge

traditional
elites

virtues and

thus

lack

moral

consensus.

As

result, liberal

in the United States bypass the

and appeal

political

process, and thus the general electorate,

support of their policies

to the

judicial

system

for

controversial political

issues

are presented

as matters of

constitutionality that are immune to the judgment of the majority.

revealed what

Schmitt further denial

of

is

perhaps

the

most

insidious

outcome of the

the

friend/enemy

antithesis and

thus of the political

the appeal to

some nebulous universalism nations

that opposes the legitimate division of peoples and

into limited
the

political entities

(Concept,

pp.

53-57). In this

regard

he

anticipated

political which

teaching
state.5

of

Alexandre Kojeve
politics,

the proclamation of the

end of

history,

is the

end of

i.e.,

the establishment of the uni

versal and

homogeneous
point

According
nomics

to Schmitt the two poles of

liberal

ideology

ethics and eco

both

to a universal society without politics. From the ethical

of

side, liberalism
which,
of

conceives

the individual

course, is

true. But

as essentially part of humanity, for liberalism the individual is devoid of any

specific social or political

humanity

in former times

identity and thereby basically supplied

law)
and
of

any

obligations.

The

concept of

the criterion for man's highest

fulfillment (such

as natural

thus the basis

for the judgment

of polities

and civilization and

for the formation

the

the

character of

the individual. Such a

view acknowledged permanent

existence of a

diversity

of societies and cultures as a

the need for specific at reality given the limits of human nature man tachments. In short, must be satisfied with the possibility that the universal
goals of

human

aspiration are

in

part

fulfilled in

particular societies at particular

times.

By

contrast

liberalism

conceives of

entity the development

moded

of which

is

obstructed

traditions and beliefs and the lack

and conflicts.

humanity as potentially a concrete by irrational attachments to out of good faith fostered by political

dissensions in the full From the

realization of universal economic

closer

To many liberals the United Nations is the first step humanity.

modern nations

side, liberals point to the fact that

have

been brought

together as a result of

involvement in international

markets

for exchanging industrial

needs of ments and of

in order to satisfy the in the benefits of technological develop people, sharing which transcend national boundaries and overcome political differences.
products and natural resources

the

One

say that even nuclear power, which created the fear of worldwide annihilation, has further contributed to the unification of mankind as a social
could

entity, especially
economics
are

after

the

Cold War. Humanitarianism

of politics. such a world came

and

trade

ethics and

joined in the destruction in 1932 that if

Schmitt

speculated

into being, the reality

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

of

209

the enemy

would

disappear

as mankind would

become

an

association of

producers and consumers.

worldwide

The bureaucratic
system

structures required to operate this

would

technological-economic
and

bring

forth

an

awesome

power

to control

direct it, however. Such

a power would

be

greater

than

in the ordinary sense of the word. any Schmitt pointed to the totalitarian implications
state
versal

of

the liberal

appeal

to

uni

humanity. The

struggle to achieve the universal order

involves
the

political

activity and thus the designation of the enemy. In the interim liberal foreign policy utilizes

economics

as

weapon

boycotts,
war

sanctions,

and war

reparations,

which could

harm

civilians more

than
pp.

itself. For Schmitt this

represents a could

kind

of moral

hypocrisy (Concept,

78-79).

Strictly,
be

no

human

be

an

enemy
of

must

nonhuman or subhuman.

enemy of humanity. Consequently, the The war to end all wars, the war to
the concrete enemy to the level the enemy, he must
or weaken

establish a world without

enemies,

must reduce

the

subhuman.

It is

not sufficient

to

defeat

be

annihilated

in the

name of

humanity. In

order

to actualize the radical

politicized

implica

tions

of

universalism, totalitarian

ideologies have

the liberal idea of

humanity. For example, if humanity is identified with the proletariat, then the bourgeoisie is not only the enemy but is either demonized or dehumanized. This
explains

the

extreme

cruelty
the

of

Communist

dictatorship.6

For Schmitt the

cal entities not require

concept of

political

enemy is

self-limiting.

Finite

politi

fight

concrete enemies

for

specific reasons.

War in this

context

does

the extreme policy of general annihilation or destruction. The ideo the present, like religious
of
wars of

logical

wars of

the past, have obscured the

political

understanding While Schmitt did not

the enemy

and

its human dimensions.

philosophical

political concept of

the enemy, he
perhaps

fully develop the definitely

implications

of

the

was

striving for

a comprehensive

theory

of politics

losophy.
stricted
of a

Notwithstanding

unintentionally for the restoration of political phi his devastating critique of liberalism and his original
concrete political

and perceptive

insights into

reality, Schmitt's

work

is

con

by his methodology and formalism. He did not define politics in terms distinctive goal. Any human activity may become the substance of poli
the
subject of

is an empty formula. Schmitt's truly philosophic critic, Leo Strauss. Strauss, in his famous commentary on The Concept of the Political (pp. 81-105), offered a penetrating insight into the major limitations
tics the

friend/enemy

antithesis,

which

To

substantiate

this

criticism one must

turn to

of

Schmitt's thought. Years later he in his

maintained

that this

critique corresponded

Whereas he originally thought that a to a change of orientation return to premodern philosophy is impossible, he came to the conclusion that
the
self-destruction of reason was

thinking.7

the

consequence of modern

rationalism, and

that it was both necessary and possible to return to the premodern rationalism Jewish-medieval rationalism and its foundation in the classical philosophy

of

Plato

and

Aristotle.
as a

Already Strauss,

young Jew,

saw

the

need

to face "the

theolog-

210

Interpretation
predicament"

ico-political
Germany.
In

in the

unstable

democracy

of

post-

World War I

general

the political situation has always been

most acute

for Jews

and

especially for Judaism in Christian Europe. According teuch is the Law of God revealed to the Jews through Moses. The covenant established not only a community of believers but a civil order. Hence the Jews distinct community in Christian nations. A particular Christian society is composed of believers in the universal faith of human salvation as revealed by God through Jesus, God's son who announced the fulfillment of

to tradition the

Penta

have formed

the Old Law. The faithful are governed

spiritual

by
is

a particular state and comprise a

community, the church,

state.

which

separate

from, but morally higher

for
religion.

than, the
with

But the

state

had to supply the

conditions

Only
liberal

the

advancement of

the secularization of the state (a

basically

objective) did the Jews

acquire
alike.

for Jews

and

Christians

full citizenship, which presented dilemmas Religious Jews have remained aware of their
society. or civil

distinctiveness, their estrangement even in a liberalized Christian Likewise, traditional Christians have not accepted fully the political
neutralization of

Christianity

in

modern society.
view of

Even liberal Jews

and

liberal
are

Christians
still

remain

distinct in their

liberalism

nonreligious not of

Jews

Liberal society has Jew ished the differences between and non-Jew. The rise
an ethnic standpoint.
of

Jews from

completely Nazism out of the

abol

failures

liberal

democracy
of of

confirmed

this truth. For this reason, Strauss re

jected the teaching

with

Spinoza,

the philosophic source of

liberal Judaism and,

Hobbes, along ideology While he was committed to Zionism, Strauss concluded that the state of Israel cannot resolve the dilemma for the modern Jew. Zionism is a secular
general.

the liberal

in

idea, but because

Strauss
of politics

of

the Jewish tradition Israel cannot be like other nations. that the theologico-political problem exhibits the essence

maintained

itself

politics

has its

roots

in the sacred, in

what

is commonly
as essen

known

as religion.

Strauss's

reconsideration of classical

philosophy,

tial to the revival of rationalism in a troubled age, led to the realization that
classical political

philosophy

grew out of

the confrontation of the

philosophic

life

with

the life of political virtue sanctioned

to the classics, the
of

by

the gods of the polity, or

by

piety.

According

highest life is that devoted to the

pursuit of

wisdom, the love

wisdom,

or philosophy.

Knowledge is

attained through the

unassisted exercise of reason.

For the

nonphilosophic citizens, the good

life is
of the

that devoted to the exercise

conventional

of

the moral virtues in

of

fulfillment

of the

laws

order, the realm

the sacred supervised

cal order offers

needful

the context for the philosophical

by the gods. The politi inquiry into what is most

of

the nature of the good

life

and

thus the questioning

the traditional

gods

by

appealing to the order

of nature.

between philosophy and politics which the development of political philosophy

Such questioning created the tension led to the execution of Socrates and to

by

his successors, Plato

and

Aristotle.

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

The
standard of political right conventions

21 1

had to be based

on

reason,

not

simply
an

on arbi

trary

based

on nature or what conforms

to the fulfillment of the

human soul, discerned the

politics.

of man as model of

both

a rational and political

being. Such

inquiry

the best regime, the rule of wisdom, as the

of natural right was of classical
established.8

measure of

And thus the doctrine but

with a

For Strauss the introduction

thought into Judaism raised

similar

difficulties
constituted

by

the

Pentateuch,
created

fundamental difference. The Jewish community was or Torah, the law revealed by the Creator-God.
arrive at

Revelation
reality that

challenged

the view that unassisted reason could the world; the

order of nature

the

high

est wisdom.

God

is

not a self-subsistent
wisdom re

can

be

fully
to the

known

by

reason alone.
will of

Thus the highest

quires submission

inscrutable

the

Creator,

who reveals the truth

according to his discretion. The Law of God prescribes known in order to gain salvation. All truths both practical
encompassed sponse

fully

what must

be

and speculative are reason.

by

it. Revelation followers

of

offered

the greatest challenge to

In

re

the Jewish

the classical philosophers

so

followed

an esoteric

method of

interpreting Scriptures,
preserve of

that

they

could give philosophic support

to the Law and

was

the freedom of philosophical speculation. the

Philosophy
associ

justified in terms

Law,

so that political

philosophy became

ated with prophecy.

Strauss demonstrated that the theologico-political

ination
of

problem required an exam

rationalism and

the distinction between classical and

and politics

modern

the
and

tension between philosophy

religion.

ultimately between philosophy

The

real core of

the problem

is the tension between

and

reason and revelation as

political aspiration.

the fundamental

sources of appeal

Western thought

thus of

Ironically, in his
Strauss
that
of

closer to a part of the

to classical philosophy and natural law, Strauss is Catholic tradition, that of Aquinas, than is Schmitt. the theologico-political
problem

offered an alternative conception of

to

Schmitt,
his

who adopted

ment of

concept of

Christian theology as a model for the develop decisionism. Strauss specifically endeavored to restore
which could alone make sense of

classical political political problem

philosophy,

the

theologico-

from the

side of

reason, however.

By
He

contrast, Schmitt

char as

acterized political truth as what

is disclosed
the

by

the

extreme situation. presented

It is

if

the extreme

situation

is

an

instance
of

of revelation. political

his

political and

theology

with

the

admixture

philosophy

of

Hobbes

the
of

Strauss's commentary thought of later years. In contrasting Schmitt with Hobbes (his favorite philosopher) opposing views of the relation of the individual to society, Strauss
sociology.9

methodology of his own distinctive

suggests the

beginnings
as put

to their

in bold
pp.

relief

the real theoretical issue

the

presented

by

modern

liberalism (Concept,
the

94
of

f.). For friends

friend/enemy

antithesis

presupposes

intense

association

and

the intense dissociation of enemies. The possibility of self-sacrifice

212
is

Interpretation
defense
of

essential to the

the state. For

Hobbes, however,
as

the right of

self-

preservation

is the

ground of civil

society

it is

of

the

state of nature

no

collectivity able for the security of the right to self-preservation which is the ultimate goal. Whereas Schmitt's affirmation of the political and thus of conflict justifies the sacrifice of the individual for the defense of society, the Hobbesian and liberal
relinquishment of negation of

can

demand the

that right. Peace

is

most

desir

the political in

favor

of peace supports a radical

individualism.

Schmitt's
an

polemical attack on
of

liberalism is
of of

not so much a glorification of war as which

unmasking
For

the true character

the human condition,

quo.
wished

is

obscured

by

the comforts and security

the peaceful status

Strauss, by affirming
life
and

the political Schmitt

morality.

to demonstrate the

seriousness of

the foundation of

For

without politics moral

thing

else

becomes

entertainment.

It

would appear of

that Schmitt's
political

every impera

tive is

inseparable from the

condition

affirmation wished

the

of

the

dangerous

human
the

that Hobbes

to

overcome.

According

to

Strauss, how
of

ever, Schmitt
spell of

abstracted politics

from morality because he

the political
was p.

still remained under

liberalism

he

conceived of no other affirmation of

morality but that

liberal
other

humanitarianism. Schmitt's
than "liberalism preceded

minus-sign"

by

(Concept,

really nothing 102).

Unlike his
earlier

acceptance of the theological concept of moral

depravity

in his

writings, in The Concept of the Political Schmitt specifically adopted the morally neutral concept of man's dangerous nature as developed in the thought
of

human
pp.

Hobbes. Further, Schmitt suggested that the pessimistic presupposition of nature in political thought is a methodological determination (Concept, 64 f). Thus the
question

arises whether

Schmitt did

not undermine

his

original substantive anthropology.

In the end, Schmitt did ism. Schmitt's

critique of

not

totally

transcend the conceptual limits of liberal

was

liberalism

determined

by

the presuppositions of
of

Hobbes,
tradition
ral

who

founded liberalism. Strauss transcended the limits

of

the liberal
of natu

by

appealing to classical political philosophy, to the Aristotle's Schmitt's decisionism

as well as

teaching
right

right. His interpretation

conception of natural

implicitly

presented a criticism of

liberal humanitarian deci

ism (Natural Right

According
sions rather

to

and History, pp. 159-61). Strauss, Aristotelian natural right

consists of concrete

than general propositions, in contradistinction to

exists the

Thomistic

natural

law. "In every human conflict there based on full consideration of all
the common good of

circumstances."

possibility of a just decision While in normal situations

law"

society demands compliance with the general rules of in extreme situations "the public safety is the highest justice, which per mits deviations from ordinary principles of justice. Thus natural right must be
mutable

in

order

to cope with the wicked

inventiveness
of

of

dangerous

enemies.

The discrimination between ultimately depend

on

a normal situation and an extreme situation must

the prudential

judgment

the statesman, not on general

Carl Schmitt's Quest for the Political

prescriptions
valid

-213

for

action

decided in
not on
"realism"

advance.

Natural right
and

rests on

"a universally

hierarchy

ends,"

of

"universally
of

action."

valid rules of

This doc

trine satisfies both the

view politics as

Schmitt

the

"idealism"

of

those who

the realization

of moral virtue.

In light

of

the

foregoing, I

think it is appropriate to discuss

briefly

Strauss's

differences
mocracy.

with

Schmitt regarding the

positive aspects of modern

liberal de

Strauss

referred
of

to the doctrine of the Declaration of

and

Independence in his liberalism

of

denunciation

the moral relativism

hence

nihilism of modern

(Natural Right

and

History, "Introduction"). While

the

Founders

the Ameri

can regime were

inspired
of

by

a modification of

the modern principle of natural

right, the

teaching

inalienable rights

endowed

by
is

the Creator

harkened back
The
end
self-

to the double tradition of classical natural

of

right

and

Biblical
not

revelation.

the Declaration

refers

to sacred honor. There to

preservation condition

but the

duty

form

a government which

only the right to preserves freedom

to this

the

for the fulfillment

of man's

highest

aims.

Contrary
not

the

radical

individuality
of

of modern

liberalism does

tradition, discriminate between

praised the virtues of who contributed

true freedom and license.

Because

the classical element in

democracy, Strauss

the great democratic statesmen such as Lincoln and to the

preservation of modern

Churchill

freedom
may

and

justice in the face

of extreme situations.
which com

Thus,

democracy

engender

those concrete decisions

pose natural

right.
of p.

To be fair to Schmitt, it is necessary to consider his own qualified defense the American constitutional order (The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, 45). The
tive
conception of

the separation of powers,

which

designates the legisla

power as characterized
of

by

rational

discussion

and

the executive power as

which reflects

the source of unity

decision,

embodies a moderate

liberalism

the influence of deism. For Schmitt the

preferable to the
of

presidential system of

democracy

is

decisive

action

parliamentary system, for it gives the executive the authority in times of emergency. In light of this conception of democ
reforms

racy, Schmitt

suggested

to

strengthen

the

presidential

office

in the
of of

Weimar Republic. In conclusion, Strauss's

the philosophy
natural of
reconsideration of natural who

right began
the

as a

Hobbes,
claim of

was the

founder

of

modern

study doctrine

right

the

the individual to the right of

self-preservation.

This

doctrine takes its bearings from the extreme situation of a prepolitical state of nature which engenders the fear of violent death as the root of the creation
of society. of natural

While Schmitt

agreed with
law,10

right

or of natural

Hobbes in rejecting the and in deriving the truth of

to the Hobbesian

premodern view politics

from the

extreme situation,

he did
the

not subscribe

conception of natural

right. Strauss
classical

sought

to overcome the deficiencies of

alternative

Schmitt

by

recovering the

teaching

as

to that of Hobbes.

214

Interpretation

NOTES
1. Schmitt, Political Theology, trans. George Schwab (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 5. 2. The fact that the Christian concept of Providence is not specifically political may explain Schmitt's ambiguity. Schmitt did not show how sovereignty is limited by any transcendent princi ple. Perhaps as a believing Catholic he subscribed to the general teachings of the Catholic Church
as to

the limits of the

p.

state.

But he did

reject

the doctrine of natural

law (see The Concept of the

on

Political,

67).

Possibly
is
und

he

thought that

God's direct intervention imposes limits

the state, and

such an occurrence

not comprehensible

Schmitt, Leo Strauss handlung, 1988).

Der

Begriff

but only by faith. See Heinrich Meier, Carl des Politischen (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuch-

by

reason

3. The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (New Brunswick: Rutgers

University
MA: MIT

Press, 1976).
4. The Crisis of

Parliamentary Democracy,

trans.

Ellen

Kennedy (Cambridge,
Tyranny
innate

Press, 1985).
5. Alexandre Kojeve, "Tyranny and Press, 1963), pp. 43-88. Kojeve drew a
the fulfillment of man's
completion of
Wisdom,"

in Leo Strauss, On
the

(New York: Free

of all and

parallel

between the

realization of

the universal state as

historical

struggle

for

mutual recognition of

dignity

the

the philosophical pursuit of

wisdom

the end of politics and the end of philosophy.

In his
sake of

critique of

defending

freedom

Kojeve, Strauss follows Schmitt in affirming politics, but specifically for the and what is intrinsically human, which is ultimately the philosophical
be the
end of

life. The
6.
mann

end of politics would

philosophy ("Restatement

on

Xenophon's
pp.

Hiero,"

pp.

189-226).

Harry Neumann,
claims

Liberalism (Durham: Carolina Academic

Press, 1991),

138-48. Neu

that liberalism

denies any

moral truth and

thus undermines the very

foundation

of

politics.

Liberalism
of

creates nihilism, an emptiness, that

"politicized"

is filled

by

fanatical

politics

hence the

development
and

totalitarianism. The

liberal is

susceptible

to the ideologies of Hitler

Stalin.

7.

"Preface,"

Books, 1965),

pp.

Spinoza's Critique of Religion, trans. E.M. Sinclair (New York: Schocken 1-31. This study on Spinoza is an early work (1930) to which Strauss attached
which outlines

his intellectual autobiography, "theologico-political 8. Natural Right

and

the

development his
of

of

his thought

and

its

roots

in the 4.

predicament."

He

also reassessed

views of

Spinoza.

History

(Chicago:

University

Chicago Press, 1953),

chaps.

and

9. Ibid., chap. 2, especially pp. 74 f. Weber's doctrine of the distinction between facts and values is compared to the tension between reason and revelation. Weber claims that reason can determine the true relationships of facts or phenomena, which comprise science, but there cannot be
a science of values.

The

choice of one value over another

is

not

dependent
into

on reason

but

on

will.

The

good

is

not an object of view of

knowledge but only

the

of

belief.
question even the

For Strauss, Weber's

value of science

noncognitive status of values called

of

the

pursuit of

knowledge. All

values took on

the

aura of religious

beliefs.

This is for

comparable

to the fact that philosophy as unassisted reason cannot refute the that perhaps philosophy
rests on

claims of

revelation.

It

would appear

faith,

which would confirm

the

need

revelation

from

some greater mind

than that of man

from God. Schmitt's

use of social science

in explicating his political theology may thus not be so strange after all. 10. The Concept of the Political, p. 67. Here Schmitt appealed to Hobbes in outlining the usual positivistic argument against natural law, or higher law: law implies some authority to enforce it.
There is
a

Christian tradition that

would

claim

that the

higher law is the law

of

God, partly
law
not

communicated

by

the teachings of the Church and ultimately

reason or prudence.

by

acts of

Providence

dependent bias

on

human

For Neumann (Liberalism, p. 93), Schmitt's Christian faith ultimately shares with liberalism a against politics, because he cannot affirm politics as a positive good but as a necessity for
rejection of

controlling evil, which may explain the dangerous condition of human life. Also
specific regime of a political society.

traditional natural law.

appeals

Politics discloses
order of

the the

Christianity

to the universal

faith,

not

Discussion

The End

of

History?

Victor Gourevitch
Wesleyan

University

The thesis
simple and

Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man1 is bold: modern liberal democracy, democracy as it has developed in
of

the

West, especially in

the past two centuries, marks the end of

stage and

sense of

being

both its final

its final

cause.

The

"democracy,"

as

he

uses

that

feature

of

"political
rights

liberalism"

term, is popular sovereignty is the formal guarantee and

history in the defining feature of (p. 43). The defining

protection of

basic has

individual
attained

(p. 42). With liberal

democracy

so

understood,

humanity
that is

the goals of its

and

millennial struggle

for the

political order

just,

satisfying
reduce

stable;

and

because it is, it tends to

unite

mankind, or at least to

the conflicts caused

by

geographical,

national and religious

differences.
wide world

There is therefore every reason to expect that it will be adopted the over within the foreseeable future. Its superiority to the "historical
us"

alternatives

available to

is,

at

feel

compelled

to

call

least in principle, universally acknowledged: even tyrants their rule With the collapse of Soviet Com
"democratic."

munism

it faces

no serious external

threat. The most urgent

question now

is

whether

it is equally safe from internal threats. What are its problems and its prospects? Fukuyama's argument is as bold as his thesis: Nature, and in particular hu man nature, is the standard of political action and judgment. Modern liberal

democracy

conforms

to human nature as closely as

and

a political order can con

form to it; it is therefore just, satisfying completion and the fulfillment of history. The two guiding the just city
true (p.
premises of
which

stable;

and therefore

it is the
the soul
essen
of

this

argument are:

that the account

of

and of

Plato has Socrates

of

present

in the Republic is is the

tially

337);

and

that the whole

of

human

history

history

the

actualization and of the

and modification

this Platonic understanding of the soul

corresponding just
the gradual
remained

political order

history
perhaps

as

actualization of

(p. 138). In his view, the Idea of man's humanity was first sketched by

Kant, but it

for Hegel to
as an effort

work

it

out

fully. His

project

is therefore
of

best described

to

reconcile

Plato's understanding

the

wish

to thank Professors Mark Lilla and Donald Moon for helpful comments on earlier ver

sions of

this paper.

interpretation, Winter 1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

216

Interpretation
the just city
with

soul and of

tion of man's
eral

humanity,

Hegel's understanding of culminating in "the modern

most

history

as

the actualiza

state"

Fukuyama's "lib

democracy."

What is
or

distinctive

about

his

enterprise attempt

is, then,
reconcile

not

either

his

"Platonism"

his

"Hegelianism,"

but his

to

the

teachings

of

Plato

and of

Hegel.
as well as

Fukuyama understanding
measure

fully
of

acknowledges, in his text

and of

Plato

the

history
of

of political

in his notes, that his philosophy is in very large

more

mediated

by

the

teaching

Leo Strauss (and

particularly

of

his students and students), and that his understanding of Hegel is in very large measure mediated by the teaching of Alexandre Kojeve. He could not have chosen better guides. Strauss and Kojeve are the most out
some of

students'

standing
on

influential contemporary thinkers to have modeled their thinking the thinking of Plato and of Hegel respectively. Their classical debate, os
and about

tensibly
phy
and

tyranny but in fact

serves as echoes

about

the

irreconcilable differences between for his

reflections.2

the teachings of Plato and of Hegel regarding the relationship between philoso

politics,

the immediate background

Even

the title of
end of

his book

that debate: on the one hand Kojeve's vision of "the

other

history,"

and on vision and

the

Strauss's

charge

that there

is

no

difference
man."

between that

Nietzsche's

harrowing

evocation of

the "last

In the Republic, Socrates

initially

distinguishes three
and reason

parts of the soul:

desire

(epithymia),

spiritedness

(thymos),

(logistikon)
Its first

Desire

manifests

itself primarily

as appetite and acquisitiveness.

movement

is to affirm,
as

to approach, to appropriate.

Spiritedness

manifests

itself primarily
as reject.

anger,

indignation,
cruelty. end and

self-assertion,
movement

pride and

shame, but also

vanity, vindictiveness,

Its first

is to deny, to recoil, to

Reason is both the

the means of rule over the other two parts. The

said

primary

object of and

desire may be
possessions;

to be the care and concern

for

bodily

goods, security

for independence. When desire and spiritedness so understood are compared, desire appears calculative, petty, slavish; and spir itedness passionate, grand, noble. Dominance of one or another part of the soul will make for a corresponding human type or political regime: Achilles and Oedipus are embodiments of spiritedness, as are the Thracians, Scythians and
and

the primary object of spiritedness, the care and concern

and

nonbodily goods, honor

northern peoples

generally.4

On this

account of the

soul,

being

just is to have

each part of one's soul

doing

its job

well with a view

to their common good; a

just city is
of

the soul,

and

city that provides suitable scope for the exercise of all three parts in which their corresponding human types do their jobs well
nature"

Such a soul and such a city would be just because they conformed to what interlocutors in a dialogue devoted to justice agreed is the nature of the soul. A moment's reflection suggests that this must be a provisional account of the soul, dictated
with a view

to their common good.

"according to

Socrates'

by

specifically

and

narrowly

political

considerations.5

The End of History?

It is in terms
organizes

-217

of a simplified version of

this simple schema that Fukuyama

"mechanisms,"

his is

argument and set and

his

account of

history.
to use the term
desire,"

History
which

kept in

motion

by

two

he

adapts

from Kant (p. 71

and

et

passim):6

the "mechanism

of

and other

the "mechanism of words, the

of

recognition"

(pp. 144, 174-80, 189, 198,

parts of

204f.); in

desiring

the spirited
claims

the

soul are

the moving principles

history. Although he

to take the whole of

attention

history

for his province,

Fukuyama devotes
...

most of

his

to modern times. For

it is precisely if
of history,

we

look

not

just

at the past

fifteen years, but

at

the whole

scope

democracy begins to occupy a special kind of place. While there have been cycles in the worldwide fortunes of democracy, there has
also

that liberal

been

a pronounced secular trend

in the democratic direction.

with

growth of

liberal democracy, together

its companion,

economic

Indeed, the liberalism, has

.

been the
years.

most remarkable macropolitical phenomenon of the

last four hundred

(Pp.

47f.)
or so

The

past

four

hundred
come

years

is

also

the period

during

which

the "mecha

desire"

nism of

has

to assume unprecedented dominance. It owes that to the

power placed at

dominance in large
natural science. comparable

measure

its disposal
in the

by
of

modern

Modern

science marks a

turning

point

history

the race

only to the transition from the life of nomadic hunter-gatherers to

the life

of

sedentary farmers.
course,
men

Modernity

is irreversible (pp. 72f.).

It

is,

of

not so much modern

science, "the

discovery

of the scientific

method

by

centuries"

teenth

like Descartes, Bacon, and Spinoza in the sixteenth and seven (pp. 72, 56f.), that has transformed every aspect of human
enlist science

life,

as

it is the decision to
science and

in the

relief of man's station and

estate, in short,

between
reason

technology (p. 131). Fukuyama virtually ignores the difference technology throughout most of his argument. Perhaps one
chooses

why he

to

ignore it is

that

he

wants

to

keep

his discussion

political. Indeed, regardless of what may be the status of science in itself, it plays a role in modern political society primarily in the form of technology (pp. 80f.). In particular, modern society decisively depends on technology for military security (pp. 73-76, 127) and for the economic benefits

resolutely
and of

that
on so

accrue

to

it from the

conquest of nature

(pp. 76-80). In short, it depends

well-being.

technology for survival and for material to speak, forced to submit to "the logic
which, in turn, forces them to
to the dominant view,
adopt at adopt

Nations

are

of modern advanced
liberalism"

therefore, industrializa
later forces
and

tion"

"economic
"political

or capitalism. sooner or

According
"rational"

economic

liberalism

them also to

least

a measure of

liberalism"; by

by

the

structures and practices of economic and political

religious

liberalism

weaken

national,

and cultural

divisions,

and

gradually but

inexorably

eco

nomic and political rejects this

desire"

liberalism becomes
account of

a worldwide phenomenon.

Fukuyama
politi-

familiar

the rise of liberal democracy. The "mechanism

or

of

and

the "economic

choice" rationality"

"rational

models of

218

Interpretation
that are based
on

cal conduct and

it fail to

account even

for

capitalism

(pp.

223-

34), they fail utterly to account for conduct and choices that are not strictly speaking economic, but political in nature (p. 135). He goes to considerable
lengths to
political
show

that economic
and

liberalism is perfectly
decision to

compatible with

illiberal
eco
or

structures,

that therefore the

political

considerations other

than

strictly

nomic ones must guide other

establish

democracy,

any

properly speaking Fukuyama holds Hobbes

political and

decisions.

Locke, "the founders

responsible
of

liberalism"

of modern reduce

(pp. 185f, 153,

political choices rationality.

154, 157, 159), directly

and conduct
and

for the tendency to

desire"

to the "mechanism
are

or

to economic

Hobbes

Locke

the

founders
of

of modern

liberalism in that

they
play
than

made equal natural

rights the basis death to

the political

association.

Fukuyama

adopts

the interpretation of their natural the fear

of of violent

on

scare spiritedness

rights teaching according to which they into settling for mere

on

equality
an

rights. On this interpretation, their teaching is based appeal to "man's lowest common denominator

little

more

self-preservation"

(p.

denigrates the nobility of the modern lib eral project: to secure every human being's inherent dignity, and to provide a political bulwark against man's inhumanity to man (consider p. 261). It deni 157). This interpretation

deliberately

grates

it

by

systematically conflating the

even

motives

to

which

Hobbes

appeals

in

his he

effort

to persuade

the meanest capacity to do the right

regards as

the right reason for

doing

the

right

thing.7

thing, with what The device is transpar

ent.

not surprising to find critics of liberal democracy resort to it. It is surprising to find Fukuyama adopt it. For he proclaims himself a champion of liberal democracy "the best possible solution to the human (p.

It is

problem"

338)
could

and

he
as

nowhere so much as

hints

at

how he thinks liberal

and

democracy
teach

have

arisen

independently
He

of

Hobbes's
that the

Locke's
of

natural-rights

ing. Be that
ism"

it

may.

concludes

founders

"Anglo-Saxon liberal

decisively
and

tilted the

balance between the

part

the soul in favor of the

soul

desiring

(p.

desiring and the spirited parts of 185). They deliberately denatured the
entirely
new

its

master

passions,

and constructed an

human type,

economic man or

the

bourgeois.8

man with

Fukuyama has nothing but contempt for the bourgeois. The bourgeois is his spiritedness eviscerated, and rendered incapable of the passions,

the needs, the aspirations and the deeds that reach

beyond

material goods.

The

man of

desire, Economic Man,

analysis"

the true

bourgeois,
him

will perform an

internal
of

"cost-benefit
system."

which will always give

reason

to

work

"within the

It is only thymotic
and of

[spirited]
of

man, the man of anger who is

man who

jealous

his

own

dignity
is

the

dignity

his fellow citizens, the

feels that his

worth

constituted

by

up his

physical existence

something more than the complex set of desires that make it is this man alone who is willing to walk in front of a

tank or confront a line of soldiers. (P.

180;

cp. pp.

145, 160f.)

The End of History?

But there is
no

219

turning back. Primitive forms

satisfying"

of

life

"may

in

certain respects

be

more

humanly

(p.

77),9

but the
and

changes which modern science

and

technology have

wrought

in

our

lives

in

our expectations are

irrevers

ible,

if only because they have

placed at our

disposal riches beyond the dreams

of avarice.

few
of

of those comfortable residents of progress

developed democracies

who scoff at

the
a

idea

be willing to make their lives in backward, Third World country that represents, in effect, an earlier age of 85)' mankind. (P. 130; cp. p.
abstract would

historical

in the

The

happy

few

who might

be willing to

make

their lives in

an earlier age of

mankind would not affect winter

the course

of events.

Even

a nuclear war or a nuclear also spare at

that spares any part of mankind, must

of modern science and of

inevitably

least the

memory
And

the

promises of modern

technology.

as

long

as a stake

is

not

driven through that

vampire's

heart, it

will

reconstitute within

itself

with all of

the space of a

its social, economic, few generations. (P 127; cp.

and political concomitants pp.

71f., 82-88, 336)

The outburst, with its comparison of modern science and technology to a vam pire, is uncharacteristic of Fukuyama. As a rule he models his attitude toward

liberal

democracy
of

on

that

of

Tocqueville
after

and of

Kojeve (pp. 310,

311)

or, for

that matter,

Hegel who,
judgment"

all, borrowed the line "world

history

is the

world court of

which

he

made so

famous, from
he
saw as

a poem entitled

Resignation (p. 137).

By

contrast, Nietzsche

"rages"

(p. 31

1)

at what

the

dehumanizing

effects of

liberalism

and of

the swelling tide of democracy. If early Anglo-

Saxon liberalism may be said to favor desire to the virtual neglect of spirited ness and of all but a strictly instrumental reason, Nietzsche may be said to go to
the
other

extreme,

and

to favor spiritedness to the

virtual neglect of of

desire

and

of reason.

He

sweeps aside
good.

the

claims of

the

body,

equality,

of

rights

and of

Although Fukuyama's thinking is Nietzsche's criticism of modernity, he rejects, "for

the
common

deeply

influenced

by

now,"

Nietzsche's "hatred

of

liberal

democracy"

(p. 314).
political

He turns instead to Hegel's

teaching.

It

provides

the sober

mean

between the

Anglo-Saxons'

bourgeois
the

and

Nietzsche's

over-man. of

Hegel's teach
and

ing, but especially

tion the

that

teaching
of

viewed

in the light
to

Kojeve's brilliant
struggle

influential interpretation
(Anerkennung),"

"Master-Slave"

renowned restore

for

recogni

can

be

seen as an attempt

the balance between

without

ing

the soul by returning spiritedness to its rightful place thus provides a desire its full due. Hegel-Kojeve's
parts of
teaching12

deny
and a

"deeper"

(pp. 145, 199f.) psychology Fukuyama's view, Hegel-Kojeve's liberalism. In Anglo-Saxon of psychology
moral-political

"nobler"

than the moral-political

220

Interpretation
recognition"

"struggle for
that he
sim).

so uses

closely

corresponds

to Socrates's

"spiritedness"

frequently

the two expressions

interchangeably

(pp.

165f.,

et pas

In the

struggle

for

recognition men assert and

choice"

objectify their

freedom,
final
(pp.

their

"capacity

for

moral

and respect

self-legislation, but also, in the

HH-determined

analysis, their

being

in every

"radically

by

nature"

146,
to
to

freedom, and have others freely recognize it, is constitutive of being human (p. 152), and be denied recognition, to be an Invisible Man (p. 176), is to be denied one's
need and
assert and

149-52). The

desire to

to objectify our

humanity. We
also need and

need and

desire

not

only security

and material

gratification,

we

desire to

assert our sense of our

worth, and to

have it
desire

recognized
spur us

and confirmed

by

others

(pp. 164-66, 167). That

need and

to

our greatest efforts and achievements. considerations of narrow self-interest.

They

override economic and all other

Fukuyama vividly conveys Hegel-Kojeve's insistence that one is not prop erly human unless one risks one's life or is at least prepared to risk it, and that
to

try

to save life and property at all costs is slavish. He repeatedly singles out

for

particular emphasis

Kojeve's
as

remark

that the struggle for recognition is

prestige"

struggle

idea or, 155). To risk 148, 152,

an
with

for

he

puts

it, "for
or at with

pure

(pp. xvi,

143, 147,

one's

life for
more

pure prestige

is to

assert oneself and to

seek recognition as clusive concern

something
one's

body,

least as something other than ex avoiding death and gratifying one's

much of

appetites.

Kojeve's

account of
moved

the struggle for recognition owes

its

power

to

the fact that he

it squarely to the
every

center of political

life. He holds that

to preserve

the struggle for recognition is the principle of all properly political choices and
actions.

It is

re-enacted with

serious attempt to negate

or

a given state of

does

not

name of

be regarded as serious if it affairs, involve at least the readiness to risk bloody battle and death in the an idea (or ideology), Kojeve's "pure Fukuyama adopts
and no such attempt can
prestige." recognition" recognition"

Kojeve's thesis: "the

mechanism of is the mainspring of history. In particular, "the mechanism of accounts for the choice of equal rights, that is to say of political as distinguished from economic liberalism, in other words of liberal democracy properly so called.

Kojeve's in
a more
"now,"

account of

the struggle for recognition was

transparently

political

immediate

sense as well.

He left

no

doubt in his

audience's mind that

in the mid-thirties when he was delivering his famous lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology, the man who most fully embodied humanity by risk ing his life for an idea was the revolutionary fighting for what he, Kojeve,
called

the

"universal

and

homogeneous
"universal
and

state."

Regardless,
homogeneous

now,

how he

conceived of this

state,'"3

precisely he thought its

of

imminent. And with its actualization history would end. The uni versal and homogeneous state would mark the end of history precisely because it would be everyone recognizing everyone, and hence everyone
actualization
"universal,"

The End of History?

221

being, and being recognized as free; and less, and hence everyone being, and being
practical

"homogeneous,"

that is to say class

recognized as also equal.

For

all

is purposes, "everyone's recognizing everyone as free and rights." equivalent to the recognition of men's "natural Fukuyama is therefore surely right to maintain that, at least on this decisive point, "Anglo-Saxon liber
equal" alism"

and

Hegel-Kojeve's

political
'4

teaching

may, for

all practical

purposes, be
to the that

said

to agree

(pp. 199-204).
and

For Hegel, term,

refers

for Kojeve,

"history,"

in the strong

sense

they

attach

to the millennial struggle to achieve political

modes and orders

secure everyone's recognition as

free

and equal.

Once

such modes and orders

have been instituted, history proper ends. There would be no political obstacles left to negate. And hence no more ideas (or ideologies) worth dying or liv famous Note to the second, 1960, edition of his Introduction, Kojeve described post-historical life as the global victory of consumerism in other words of Fukuyama's "economic

ing

for. Everyone

would

be

"satisfied."

In

man"

"bourgeois"

"ennobled"

or nials of

"pure

prestige"

conceivably he now calls it

by

such

strictly formal
as

ceremo

"snobbishness"

tea-ceremonies perish,

and

ritual

suicides."

For Kojeve

history
threats

ends as
or of

Hegel had

said societies

for

want of significant external

internal

contradictions

to be over

come, in

from complacency and boredom.'6 Fukuyama had argued that modern liberal democracy is best
short ennobled

understood as

Anglo-Saxon liberalism

German Idealism had

recent revival of even

claimed

German Idealism. That is, of course, what for itself, and it is what accounts for much of the

by

interest in the for

moral-political

teachings of

Kant, Hegel

and

Fichte

and

Schelling. He had

"struggle for
readiness to
siders

recognition"

strive, to risk

and

particularly turned to Hegel-Kojeve's in restoring a passionate, public-spirited help to sacrifice, as a counterpoise to what he con
most pusillanimous self-seeking.
of

Anglo-Saxon liberalism's
appears

Yet

as

his

account short

unfolds, it
of what

that the outcome

the Hegel-Kojeve reform

to Kojeve and,

falls far

he had

expected of

it.

According
as

in Fukuyama's
Locke's
not at

judg

ment, according to Hegel

embourgeoisement at

as as

well, the struggle

for

recognition ends or

with an

least

dreary

that in Hobbes's
that outcome

civil state.

Fukuyama does
be due to
not ask

not ask

himself

some

flaw in his
whether

himself

part may Hegel/spiritedness. He does Hobbes/desire, the affinities between Hobbes's teaching and Hegel's
whether

least in

schema:

may Hegel-Kojeve's

not reach

much

deeper than their differences. Although he death for

recognition

notes

that

struggle unto

is

a generalized version of

Hobbes's fails to

state of nature as a state of war of all against all

(pp. 146f., 154), he

"recognition"

note

that the

resolution of

by

all, is

a generalized version

Hegel-Kojeve's struggle, of the resolution of Hobbes's

the
grounds
prestige"

of all
war of all against
consensus.17

all, the

social contract:

both

seek

for intersubjective
really is
nobler

And

even

assuming that Kojeve's "pure

"vainglory,"

than Hobbes's
liberal-

"vanity"

or

and

that

Hegel's,

and perhaps even

Kojeve's

222

Interpretation
ennoble

ism really does

poses
it.18

Anglo-Saxon
contrast

liberalism,

the fact

remains

that

Fukuyama's sharp

between Hobbes

and

Hegel,

and with

it presup it
self-

his

entire synoptic effort

is

threatened

by

what might

be

called

the Trojan Horse

Effect:

one throws open

the gates to to find

some

few sparkling

and

apparently

contained armed

insights, only

oneself

surrounded

by

one's enemy's

fully

host.
view of

Kojeve's bleak
ment

the end

in the

sense of

the final

cause and

fulfill

0f

history, led Strauss

to

challenge

him to

explain

how it differs from

and

Nietzsche's chilling
blinked.'"9

evocation of

the "last
challenge.

man"

who

"invented happiness
announces

Kojeve declined the

Fukuyama
to

title of

his book that he takes it

up.

He

proposes

show

in the very both that Kojeve is

right in asserting that we are at the end of history, and that he may be wrong in his bleak vision of it, that liberal democracy is the last stage of history, and that does not entail it can be its fulfillment. It can be its fulfillment only if "the it. For vir entail to have does not the neglect and atrophy of spiritedness. It
end"

tually
be

the

only

ambition

liberal

democracy

does

not

tolerate

is the

ambition

to

tyrant (p.

320),

and while

Anglo-Saxon liberalism

enervates

spiritedness, the An
"natural,"

Hegelian liberalism

can energize

it. Fukuyama believes that for

while on

glo-Saxons'

account,
on the
said

rights and respect

account of

dignity

are

Hegel-Kojeve
earned

them, rights

and respect

simply given, for dignity

might

be

to be

(e.g.,

pp.

174, 294,
be

205).20

The Hegel-Kojeve for does

account of

earned recognition might

therefore

said

to

allow

universal equal

rights

and unequal recognition of

Saxons'

the spirited few more readily than thus

the Anglo-

teaching.

It

might

be

said

to

remain more

faithful to the distinc

recognition which

tion between different human types and the different kinds of

they

glossing the old not a hero, saying that no man is a hero to his valet, "not because the hero is judgment in Fukuyama's seem that would It valet is a the but because is that it perhaps the greatest merit attaching to Hegel-Kojeve's
seek and

deserve. Hegel

once

illustrated that difference

by

valet."

"recognition"

do justice to the morality recognition in proportion to desert.

can also

"heroes,"

of

the

to their quest for

earned

In
tion

order

to distinguish between the two kinds of recognition, Fukuyama

quest and

adopts of

the Greek terms isothymia for the equality,

and megalothymia

the claim to equal recogni

for the

quest and

the

claim

to unequal rec

ognition of earned

inequalities. When he

criticizes

Anglo-Saxon liberalism, he

is criticizing what he regards as an excessive emphasis on "isothymia"; and what he calls for a restoration of spiritedness to public life, he is calling for
greater scope and rewards

for

"megalothymia,"

for fuller
and

recognition

that

it is
both

both be

noble and useful claims of

to strive to be a

"hero,"

to

be

recognized as one.

Since the
How

the two forms

of spiritedness cannot

and ought not

satisfied
well

fully,
liberal

the balance between them

is

always and

necessarily

unstable.

that balance

is

maintained will

stability

of

democracy

ultimately determine the strength and (pp. 292f.). Fukuyama's book is dedicated to the

The End of History?

proposition

223

that nothing

is

more urgent

than the effort to preserve or to restore

that balance. For

if that

effort

succeeds, liberal

democracy
and

will prove

to be
or

not

only the
tzsche's

last

stage of

history

but

also

its fulfillment,

Strauss's

Nie

challenge will gravest present and

have been is

met.

The

threat to maintaining a

"isothymia"

"megalothymia"

"relativism,"

tion of human nature, or the outright

possible or

satisfactory balance between the lack of a shared concep denial that such a shared conception is commonly justified

desirable. Relativism is

most

by

appeals

to his

tory,

to the changes in our ways and our conceptions of ourselves from time to
place.

time and place to

suasiveness nature

Fukuyama

argues

that such appeals owe

what per

they may possess to the failure to understand that history is human actualizing itself, that its full actualization is modern liberal democracy,
other

that, in
end of

words, liberal

democracy

is "the
so

history,"

end of

and

that "the
nature as

history"

clearly

puts an end to

(historical)
it

relativism,

leaving

the sole,
to the

universal standard

(p. 338). Or

would seem.

prevailing view, the distinctive

other

excellence of

After all, according liberal democracy is that it,

atti of

better than any

tudes and
and

regime,

accommodates

the endless variety of ways,

beliefs,

that this variety, and hence relativism, is

virtue

its very essence,

that its

defining

is

tolerance.

According

to this view, the appeal to

limits to tolerance, and would there human fore be undemocratic. Fukuyama easily shows the incoherence of this view. Regardless of how tolerant a liberal democracy may be, it necessarily rests on
nature threatens at principle some

least in

form

"recognition,"

of mutual a partner
means

and

hence

on some shared conception of

who properly qualifies as disagreement about what it

in

recognition.

Beyond

a certain

point,
most

to be a human

being

threatens even the

liberal human

of

democracies (p. 332).

human
nature

Still,

a political society's shared conception of

is

one

thing;

nature

may be something

else entirely.

The

appeal

to

(human)

nature, the attempt to restore

and conduct

standard

for

political

judgment

(human) nature as the (pp. 137-39, 288f.), is without a

the most

doubt the
stand

most

distinctive,
claim

the most

ambitious and

difficult to

under

feature

of

Fukuyama's

argument.

The

most

startling form
actualizes

which

that

attempt takes

is the

that modern liberal

as as

democracy
be

in deed

in deed, Socrates's 337, 338) fully because it best to nature is just that pattern "in of the city according conforms to the nature of the human soul (p. 337). The claim is most imme diately startling because one would not expect Socrates or Plato to rank modern "in
reality"

(pp.

it

can

actualized

speech"

liberal

democracy high,

let

alone

highest in the

hierarchy of regimes.

Nor is it

regime which anyone

has ever deduced from Most generally, in Socrates's just city the citizens are wise or virtuous; in instiwisdom and virtue is replaced by modern liberal democracy the
their premises and principles.
citizens'

224

Interpretation
make

tutions designed to

for

wise and

for

virtuous outcomes

(e.g.

p.

317).
to

Fukuyama form
of

fully

recognizes

this shift, and he might argue that

his

efforts

rouse spiritedness

to strive for earned recognition,

honor

and at

least

a civic

virtue, are guided

really conform Merit implies standards discovered

spiritedness ought

Socrates's just city (pp. 304-7). How far do they to it? Earned recognition is recognition in proportion to merit.

by

or set

by

reason; or,

to be subordinated to

reason

(pp.

puts it, 164, 337). Fukuyama's as

Socrates
be

effort to reanimate spiritedness might therefore appear also to restore reason to a more authoritative
reason

an effort

to

to a ruling position. Nor

or set

ruling does he have

position.

But he does

not restore

spiritedness conform to standards

discovered
not

by

reason.

On the

contrary.

reason, that sets the standards. Spiritedness "invests objects with

cp. pp.
162f.).21

He holds that it is spiritedness, (p.

value"

165;

In

other

words, he goes far beyond

"values"

simply

insisting
only

on

the need for noble lies. He regards spiritedness as the cause not
"values,"

of pas

sionate attachment and not

to

but

of

the

themselves.

Spiritedness,

reason, determines the rank of beings, goods and goals. If that really is his settled view, then his efforts on behalf of spiritedness can only serve to
promote

the relativism and nihilism

reason

which

it is his

stated aim to combat.

Indeed,
of

proper,

noetic

reason,

plays no role

in Fukuyama's

account

the soul or of the city. He considers only two of the three parts of the
Socrates'

Socratic soul, and he nowhere discusses their order or hierarchy. In what sense, then, does account of the soul and of the just city serve as Fukuyama's standard? Very near the end of the book, after briefly

summarizing
serves:

what

Socrates

says about

the just soul and the

just city, he

ob

By

this standard,

when compared

to the historical alternatives available to us, it

gives

would seem that soul].

liberal

democracy

fullest

scope to all

three parts [of the

(P.

337)
us"

The "historical

alternatives available to

appears to

be

a silent reference

to the position adopted

by

Strauss:
show that

It

would not

be difficult to

liberal

or constitutional

democracy

comes
age.22

closer

to

what

the classics demanded than any alternative that is viable in our

Fukuyama's
Two

entire

book is designed to later he

refute that position.

short

paragraphs

states

his own, definitive

view

without

qualifications:

liberal

democracy
338)

in reality

constitutes the

best

possible solution to the

human

problem."

(P.

The blunt "in reality

constitutes"

has

replaced the open-ended

seem."

"the historical

alternatives available to us,

it

would

When

the two statements are set

The End of History?

side

225

by

side, it is striking how categorically Fukuyama rejects the possibility

that there might ever have existed in the past, or that there might ever exist

in

the future

closely to the Socratic-Platonic stan his own, than does modern liberal or constitutional democracy. He gives no reasons for this sweeping judgment. One is therefore left to speculate about what they might be. The form in which he casts his
a regime

that corresponds more

dard

which

he

claims as

entire argument would suggest

approximation

that he

rules out

the possibility that

a closer

to the

Socratic-Platonic

model might

have

existed at some

time

in the

past

could not

because, before the introduction of technology, desire or appetition be fully satisfied; and that he rules out any closer approximation to
will

the Socratic-Platonic model in the

introduced,

forever

remain

an

future because technology, once it has been uneliminable given (pp. 226f.). In other
minimizes

words, virtue

tue, even The categorical

. . .

is ineffective. But then, technology if it does not altogether eliminate it.

the

need

for

vir

liberal

democracy
338)

in reality

constitutes the

best

possible solution to the

human

problem.

(P.

is
a

striking for its single "best

also

unqualified assertion

that

"the human

problem"

admits of
solution

possible"

solution,

and

that that best possible

assertion could

is

a politi

cal solution.

It is hard to in the

conceive

how that
the

be

reconciled with
quest

the Republic's analogy of the cave, or, for that matter, the "rose of
reason

with

Hegel's

for

present."

cross of

As Fukuyama

frequently
rights
or

notes, modern

liberal he

democracy

stands or

falls

with universal equal

recognition,

what

calls and

isothymia. Even
recognition, his
spiritedness

grant
mega

ing

that the

quest

for outstanding

achievement

lothymia,
what

somehow corresponds

to what Socrates calls

recognition of equal

(thymos),
due
"ends in
the

does the liberal democratic

rights (or the

respect

to the

inherent

dignity

of

human beings

qua

human beings

or qua

themselves")

correspond

to in Socrates's account of the soul and

of

just

city? The very fact that Fukuyama felt compelled to introduce such a cumber some un-Platonic term as isothymia indicates the problem clearly enough. And as he himself points out, neither the Anglo-Saxon liberals nor Hegel thought

that Socrates-Plato
freedom.23

had

allowed

for

what

they
In

called

rights

and

(subjective)
both the
as

Now, Fukuyama,
Socrates-Plato failed
that

characteristically,
position.

wants to

maintain

Hegelian
serts that
ness,"

and

the Socratic-Platonic

agreement with

Hegel, he
understand

fully

to

understand what

they

called

"spirited

and and

it

remained

for Rousseau
name,

and

German Idealism to
or, in
some of

it,

to call

it

by

its

"freedom"

correct

its

manifestations,
asserts

"history"

(pp.

337, 149f., 152). In

and

agreement with

Socrates-Plato, he
understand

that Rousseau
called
of

the German Idealists failed

some of

fully

to

that

what

they

"freedom"

or, in

(human)

nature

its manifestations, (p. 207). In other words, he claims to

"history,"

is really

an aspect

understand Socrates-

226
Plato
poses

Interpretation
and

Hegel-Kojeve better than they

understood themselves.
"nature" "freedom"

What he
or

pro

to do

is

"history,"

clear enough:

to reconcile

and
proposes

"Socrates-Plato"

"Hegel-Kojeve."

and clear.

How he

to do so

is

rather

less

He

comes closest

to stating his argument in the

following

brief

and obscure

passage.

The

mere

fact that human

nature
time"

is

not created

"once

and

for

all"

but

creates

itself
end-

"in the

course of

historical

does

not spare us the need to speak of

human

nature, either as a structure within which man's self-creation occurs, or as an

point or telos toward which

human historical development

appears

to be

moving.

(P. 138,

cp. p.

207)
in this
passage are not

The two
view of

unidentified quotations

drawn from Kojeve's

re

Strauss's On Tyranny. Kojeve does

nature."

speak, there or anywhere else,

about man

"human

He speaks, rather,

about a somewhat amorphous escape an at

"hu least

reality."24

tacit appeal to

Still, Fukuyama charges, he simply cannot a determinate, enduring human nature.

claimed

While Kojeve

he had

no trans-historical standard
recognition

by

which

to measure the

adequacy
standard.

human institutions, the desire for Thymos [spiritedness] was in the end for Kojeve
of

in fact

constituted such a

a permanent part of

human have

nature.

The

struggle

for

recognition

arising

out of thymos or

[spiritedness] may

required an

historical

march of ten

thousand years

more, it was no less a

constitutive part of

the soul for Hegel than for Plato. (P.

207)
recognition of all

Kojeve
all needs
mutual

rejects

that argument. The only criterion which

by

to satisfy

is the strictly formal

criterion of noncontradiction.

Universal
crite

recognition

fully

satisfies that

internal

"trans-historical"

not also equal recognition.

rion. Universal "the

mutual recognition

is necessarily
can

Kojeve

therefore speaks of his end-state as

universal and

universal and

homogeneous

state,"

be

homogeneous. His formula, understood as a variant of Kant

ian

universalization.

be similarly universalized,
criterion; any
more

Unequal recognition, Fukuyama's megalothymia, cannot and hence cannot be reduced to a strictly formal
and

than

for the

same reason that

can

the justice of Plato's

universalized.

Republic,
of

or

any

other

form

of

distributive justice
Be that
as

be

That

is,

course, why Kojeve's end-state is

so vulnerable

to the charge that

it is

peopled

by

Nietzschean "last
argument

men."

it

may.

Fukuyama

never

directly
contra

considers
dictions."

Kojeve's

for

strictly formal
argues that

resolution of

"internal

Instead, he consistently
to transhistorical

"the-end-of-history"

necessarily A
given political order

entails an appeal

may plausibly be said to mark the end of history if (1) we cannot think of an essen tially different and better political order; (2) the given political order is free of

human

nature:

The End of History?

essential

227

resolve of

internal contradictions, that is to say of contradictions which it cannot on its own terms; (3) it conforms to human nature and satisfies all parts

it (pp. 46, 70; 136f., 290ff.). He

think of a

fully

recognizes that
political

we cannot at
best;25

fundamentally
can

better

his first criterion, that alternative, is inconclusive

of

and

he believes that the

second

criterion, the absence

fundamental

internal contradictions,

only be

satisfied

by
is

reference to the third criterion:

the question whether a given state of affairs

or

is

not rent

by

a contradiction and of

between,

"megalothymia,"

equality and of freedom or of can only be answered by reference to "non-historicist" "human (pp. 136-39, 290).
say, the
claims of
nature"

"isothymia"

"trans-historical"

How,

precisely, does
"nature,"

he

understand

these

expressions?

For the

most part

he

holds that

without

qualifications, is

what modern natural science says

it is (pp. 72, "... nature is

HIV
to

352f.)

although

he

also

makes

the extraordinary
"Human"

claim

that

fully

capable of

biting

back in the form

that as it
most

of nuclear weapons or

viruses"

(pp.

317, 324f, 298). Be

without

may.

nature,

by

"nature"

contrast

qualifications,

ern natural science says

tions, let alone which it gives rise,

"human
of recognition. nature

it is (pp. 296-98, et discusses his equivocal use of

problems which

emphatically is not what passim). Fukuyama never

"nature"

mod

men

and the problems

to

led Kojeve to

eschew

all references to

nature"

instead, a strictly formal solution to the problem He does, however, on one occasion offer a characterization of
and

to seek,

that eludes these difficulties:

"nature"

is the

standard

by

which we

de

cide what

does is

and what

does
a as

"history"

not count as

(p. 138). On this

"nature"

view of

it,

"nature"

"trans-historical"

by definition;

and

immediately

adds,

it is

"variable"

standard.26

only by definition. For, as he But if is a variable for

standard, then it is just

political order marks cannot

inconclusive

a criterion as

deciding

that a
and

given

the end of

history

is the fact that we, here

now,

think of an essentially better

alternative.

Indeed, both

criteria are

incon

clusive

for the

same reason.
tacitly

By

and

by

Fukuyama

but

none

the less clearly

concedes as much.

In his very last nature in favor

able"

paragraphs

he

abandons

his

appeal

to transhistorical human

"provisional"

of

consensus

strictly cishistorical, about human He

nature.27

the

earlier

"vari

is,

as

it were, forced to
with

abandon

it

by

his

equation of

Socrates-Plato's

"spiritedness"

Hegel-Kojeve's
version of

"recog
the
end-

nition"

(consider

note

17 below). Yet

by

abandoning

it, his

of-history argument and hence his refutation of historicism simply col lapses. He had sought to overcome historicism by, as it were, capping history
with

transhistorical

(human)

nature.

But

"trans-historical

nature"

(human)

that

proves to be no more than a provisional consensus cannot be invoked to resolve disagreements between competing provisionally plausible accounts, for exam conception ple between his own conception of human nature and the of it (pp. 137f.) or, for that matter, between Anglo-Saxon liberalism's
feminists'

concep-

228
tion

Interpretation
of

it

and

Hegel-Kojeve's. It
history."

can therefore also not

be invoked to dispose

of

historical relativism;
marks

or to settle the question of

which, if any, state

of affairs

"the

end of

critical points of really be surprising to find strains at various traced to his effort to can be of them Most Fukuyama's theoretical construction. and reconcile positions which, once again, prove to be irreconcilable,

It

should not

"nature"

"history,"

"Plato"

"Hegel."

and

What is surprising is that he

such an

should

have

thought
place.

it necessary to
not evident
"desire,"

elaborate

ambitious construction order

in the first
theoretical

It is

that

he

needs

it in

to

make

his

main

point, that

from

"spiritedness"

or
needs

especially in the form of acquisitiveness, differs in nature the quest for honor and for recognition. Nor is it evident
to
explore

that he

it in

order

his primary

political concerns:

how best to

balance the competing claims of equality and liberty; and how to shift the emphasis from the dominant, Anglo-Saxon understanding of liberal democracy to his own, qualified Hegelian-Kojevian understanding of it, in order to ener
gize the public spiritedness which

liberal

democracy

requires

but for

which

it

can, in his view,

not make a

Saxon
ever,

model

(pp.

215; 148,
discipline
"the

sufficiently rousing case on the dominant 222, 316, 329, 332-34). His effort does, how
and
and

Anglo-

most

impressively
called

illustrate

lectual

and moral

embody the public-spiritedness, the intel breadth which Hegel attributed to the public
class"

servants

he

universal

because

of their

devotion to the

com

mon good.

NOTES

1. New York: The Free Press, 1992. All

present are

otherwise unidentified page references throughout

the

essay 2. Leo Strauss, On Tyranny: Including the Strauss-Kojeve Correspondence, Revised and Ex panded, ed. Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth (New York: The Free Press, 1991), pp. 88-94 (and see especially p. 125, n.59), pp. 158-63, 189-92, 196-99.
3. Plato, Republic IV, 439D-441C; see also Timaeus, 69D-73A, Laws IX, 863B-869E, XI, 935A-936B; contrast Phaedrus, 246A-B. 4. Plato, Republic, IV, 435E; cf. Aristotle, Politics, VII.7, 1327b 23-1328a 7.
ness, see
and

to this edition.

5. For Fukuyama's reading of Plato's political psychology, and most particularly of spirited Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1964), pp. 1 10-12; and,
of subsequent studies of

among the growing number "On Plato's Timaeus and

Strauss'
tes'

spiritedness, see especially

Seth Benardete,

Interpretation, 2(1971):21-63, pp. 55f., "Leo The City and The Political Science Reviewer, 8(1978): 1-20, pp. 9-11, and Socra Second Sailing (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 55-58, 94, 98-102; Thomas Pangle in his edition of Plato's Laws (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 452-57; see also Steward Umphrey, "Eros and Interpretation, 10(1982): 353-422; and Laurence Interpretation, Berns, "Spiritedness in Ethics and Politics: a Study in Aristotelian 12(1984): 335-48. Fukuyama most frequently refers to essays in Catherine H. Zuckert, ed., Un
Science
Man,"
Thymos,"

Timaeus'

Fiction,"

Psychology,"

derstanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates ven: Yale University Press, 1988).

to

Nietzsche (New Ha

The End of History?

229

6. "The means [das Mittet] nature uses to achieve the development of all of its potentialities men's asocial sociability [ungesellige Geselligkeit] (Idea For A Universal [Anlagen] is History From A Cosmopolitan Point Of View, Proposition Four; see also Proposition Seven). In this
.
.

connection, also consider the

ment

role

Hegel

assigns to self-interest and passion

"realization"

in historical

develop
e.g.

in particular, and, more generally, in what he Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte,
on the

called
vol.

(Verwirklichung);

Meiner, 1930), pp. 59-66 (Lectures Publications, 1956], pp. 20-26).

7. To take but
one

1; Georg Lasson ed. (Miinchen: Felix Philosophy of History, Sibree trans. [New York: Dover
random:

example, quite

at

According
for the The

to

Fukuyama, "Fundamental

to

Hobbes's

social contract

is

an agreement

that in

return

preservation of their physical exis side of man that seeks to show

tences, men will give up their unjust pride and himself superior to other men, to dominate them
who struggles against
pride"

vanity.
on

the basis of

superior

virtue, the

noble character

his 'human

all

too

human'

limitations, is
of

to

be

persuaded of
.

the

folly

of

his

(pp. 156f).

According to Hobbes,
Covenants;
are either a

"[t]he force in
of

Words

being

too

weak

to hold men to

the performance of their

strengthen

there are

mans

nature, but two imaginable helps to

it. And those

not

Feare

the

consequence of

Pride in appearing
presumed
greatest part of

to need to breake it. This latter is a

pursuers of

breaking their word; or a Glory, or Generosity too rarely found to be

or sensual

on, especially in the

Wealth, Command,
reckoned

Pleasure;

which are

the

Mankind. The Passion to be

again:

upon, is

Fear"

(Leviathan, 14,
relish of

end, Penguin
a certain

ed.,

p.

200). Or
or

"That

which gives

to humane Actions the

Jutice, is

Nobleness

Gallantness

of courage

(rarely found,) by

which a man scorns

to be

beholding

for the is
207).
or

contentment of

meant, where

his life, to fraud, or breach of promise. This Justice of the Manners, is that Justice is called a Vertue; and Injustice a (chap. 15, Penguin ed.,
Vice"

which p.

Hobbes
"folly,''

nowhere concludes

that,

since

of courage and

justice

are encountered

righteous glory or pride, generosity, nobleness or but rarely, they represent "unjust pride and

gallantness
vanity"

and should

be

overridden when and where

they

are encountered.

8. "The bourgeois
social

pp.

was an entirely deliberate creation of early modern thought, an effort at engineering that sought to create social peace by changing human nature itself (p. 185; cp. 153-61, 184-86,222). observation

9. "Locke's laborer in
sense of

that a

king

in America 'feeds, lodges,

and

is

clad worse

than a daya

England'

neglects thymos and thus misses the point entirely.

The

king

in America has

missing entirely from the English day-laborer, a dignity that is born of his free dom, self-sufficiency, and the respect and recognition he receives from the community around (p. 174; Locke, Second Treatise of sec. 41).

dignity

him"

Government"

10. See, for example, Leo Strauss to Karl Lowith, August 20, 1945, in "Correspondence transcribed and translated by Susanne Klein and George Elliott Tucker, Concerning
Modernity,"

Independent Journal of Philosophy, 41 (1983): 113. 1 1 Introduction a la lecture de Hegel (Paris: Gallimard, 1947); Introduction to Hegel, A. Bloom ed., J. H. Nichols, Jr., trans. (New York: Basic Books, 1969).
.

the

Reading

of

12. ".
144).

for the

purposes of

the present argument we are

interested

not

in Hegel

per se

but in
(p.

Hegel-as-interpreted-by-Kojeve,
13. See On Tyranny, 14. E. g.: "A human

Hegel-Kojeve"

or perhaps a new, synthetic philosopher named

Editors'

Introduction,

pp. xvif.

being

counts as such

because he is

human being,

not

because he is

(Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, German, Italian, Allan W. Wood, ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], sec. 209; see also sec. 66. However, "[Ijiberalism [of the variety which Fukuyama calls "Anglo-Saxon liberalism"], not con
tent with rational rights, with
various civil

etc."

freedom

of person and of property, with a political structure and

its

institutions

each of which performs a

distinct function, it
would

and with

having

the

competent

[die Verstdndigen]
name of

exercise

influence

over

the

people and

the principle of atomism, of

particular wills:

enjoy their trust, opposes all this in the have everything be done by the
established.

people's express power, and with their express consent.

With this formal freedom [Formellen der

Freiheit],

the

people prevent

any

stable structures

from getting

Specific

government

actions are

immediately

opposed on

the grounds that

they

are acts of particular

wills, and

hence

230

Interpretation
The
will of

arbitrary.
assumes

the

Many

topples the government, and

what

had been the Opposition

now

Government, it is again opposed by the Many. As a result, agitation and unrest are perpetuated. This collision, this knot, this problem is the juncture at which (Hegel, history currently finds itself, and which it will have to resolve in the times to Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, vol. 4, pp. 932f; for Sibree's translation; see Lectures on the Philosophy of History (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), p. 452. 15. Introduction a la lecture de Hegel, 2d ed. (Paris: Gallimard, I960), pp. 436f.; Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, pp. 1 50f ; see also Kojeve's lecture "Marx est Dieu; Henry Ford est son Commentaire (Printemps 1980), pp. 131-35. 16. Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, Einleitung: Die Vernunft in der Ges chichte, pp. 45f; Sibree trans, pp. 74f. 17. Yet he appears fully to accept Kojeve's utterly anthropologized Hegel, his understanding of recognition as intersubjectivity, and of intersubjectivity as for all intents and purposes replacing reason and (human) nature: in quoting a passage in which Hegel speaks of [Geist],
power; but
now

that it is the

come''

Prophete,"

"Spirit"

Fukuyama
itedness"

glosses:

"i.e.

collective

human

consciousness"

acknowledgment and apparent

and

dismissal

of

the decisive

his difference between Socrates-Plato's "spir

consider also

(p. 60). In this context,

Hegel-Kojeve's

"recognition"

(pp. 165f.),

and the related

discussion in

endnote

7,

p.

364; regarding Hobbes,

'return'

to

De Cive II. 1, Annotation. 18. "Hegel undoubtedly takes Hobbes as his point of departure to the Ancients that is to say by way of
consider
('dialectically,'

'Hobbes')"

Hegel consciously wants (Kojeve to Strauss,

and

November 2, 1936, On Tyranny, p. 231). Or, anticipate many of Hegel's assumptions

. .

as
.

Fukuyama
(p. 153).

would

have it, Hobbes

Locke

dated August 22, 1948, 208.

20.
"
.

19. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Zarathustra's Prologue, sec. 5; see Strauss's letters to Kojeve and September 11, 1957, On Tyranny, pp. 239, 291; p.
"Restatement,"

individuals have duties towards the

state

in

proportion as

they have

rights"

(Hegel,

Elements of the Philosophy of Right, sec. 261, cp. sec. 155). 21. Cp. "Thymos or the desire for recognition is thus the seat for
'values'"

what

the social scientists call

(p. 213). Elsewhere he

an

says that

virtue"

(p. 183). It is

not clear what

according to Socrates thymos is "an innately political that means: is thymos a virtue; where does Socrates speak of it
speak of of

innate virtue; again, where does Socrates there in the teaching of Socrates or of Plato for "innate
as
might

such; is it

it

as

such;
"

and what

basis is

"innately

political"

mean?

On
.

another occasion
"
.

any kind? Alternatively, what Fukuyama asserts that Plato argued that
.

virtue"

thymos was the basis of the virtues

(p. 337). Where does Plato

of moderation; and how is Platonic justice or even courage Even granting that the virtue Aristotle calls megalopsychia greatness of soul or "proper is he simply does not rank it as "the central human (p. 370 n.3); it is one of the two complete moral not virtues, and for all of his praise of it, Aristotle does not go beyond saying that it seems to be a kind of crown of the virtues (Nichomachean Ethics 1 124a If;

wisdom,

that; of what virtues: of intelligible without those two?

argue
pride"

"thymotic,"

virtue"

"human"

and consider

pp.

22. On Tyranny, 306f.

Posterior Analytics II, 13, 97b 15-25). p. 194; cf. What Is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1989),

23. E.g. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Preface, p. 20, and sees. 124, 185, 260 Additions to them, as well as sec. 279, Addition /'./. "Whether any text that has come down to us from the Greco-Roman world (or any Biblical text) ever mentions what can
together with the
natural or 'the rights of properly be translated as 'human is (Thomas Pangle, "The Classical Challenge to the American Chicago-Kent Law Re view, 66[1990]: 145-76, p. 153; id. Thomas Pangle, The Ennobling of Democracy [Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992], p. 97).
rights,' man,'

rights,'

doubtful"

Constitution,"

24. The immediate

context

phy and politics. "The for the philosopher who,

given once and

'cloistered'

is Kojeve's sharp criticism of Strauss's distinction between philoso life, while dangerous on any hypothesis, is strictly unacceptable

with

Hegel,

acknowledges that

for all, but creates itself in the course time). For if that is the case, then the members of the

of time

reality (at least human reality), is not (at least in the course of historical

'cloister,'

isolated from the

rest of

the

world

The End of History?

and not

-231

really taking
and

part

in

public

events.'

taken

by

Indeed,

even what at one

'cloister'

'prejudice,'

only the

life in its historical evolution, will, sooner or later, be 'over time was can later become change into a will fail to notice what has ("Tyranny and
'true,' 'false,'

happened"

Wisdom,"

his letter to Strauss

in Strauss, On Tyranny, p. 155). Kojeve states his objection to human of October 29, 1953, pp. 161f. Instead, he suggests, I'homme comme une erreur qui se maintient dans I'existence, qui dure dans la tion a la lecture de Hegel, p. 461; cp. p. 432).
"

"nature"

most

on pourrait

succinctly in definir
(Introduc

realite"

25. ful
the
and

"
.

Europe

on

the eve of the

French Revolution looked to many

or

observers

like

a success

1980s"

satisfying social order, as did that in Iran in the 1970s, (pp. 137, 287-96).
would appear

the

countries of

Eastern Europe in
to
a

26. "In the end, it

merely based
a catalogue of

impossible to talk i.e.

'history'

about

without reference

permanent, trans-historical standard,

without reference

to nature. For

history

is

not a

given,

not

which we separate

everything that happened in the past, but a deliberate effort of abstraction in important from unimportant events. The standards on which this abstraction are But
reference see also

are variable.

[no] historian
Kant's
regulative

can evade the choice

between important
of

and

unimportant, and

hence

to a standard that exists somewhere

'outside'

history

"
.

(pp.

138f.;
for
a

cp. pp.

130, 189);

"Idea

man"

of

in the Second Thesis

cultures and

of

the Idea

Universal History.
.

27. ".
similar

if,

over

time,

more and more societies with

diverse

histories

exhibit of as

long

term patterns of

development; if

there

institutions governing
a result of economic
now"

most advanced

societies; and

continuing convergence in the types if the homogenization of mankind continues

a

is

development,
after

then the idea

of relativism

may

seem much stranger

than it does
.

(p. 338). And,

comparing

history

to a

long

wagon-train,

he

"

concludes:

despite the
wander whether

recent world-wide

ing

must remain

liberal revolution, the evidence concerning the direction of the provisionally inconclusive. Nor can we, in the final analysis know looked
around a

wagons'

the occupants,
and set

having

bit

at

their new surroundings, will not

journey"

find

them

inadequate

their eyes on a

new and more

distant

(p. 339).

Book Reviews

Charles L. Yale

Griswold, Jr., Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus (New Haven: University Press, 1986), xii + 315 pp., $29.50.

Will Morrisey

"The Phaedrus
unravelled

presents

the appearance of a

tapestry

into

tangled skein of themes and

images"

this appearance Professor Griswold weaving, to glimpse the intention

helps the

reader

partially (p. 1). In working through to see Plato's statesmanlike

that

that has

come

In

keeping
of

with

judgment governing the artistry. this attentiveness to Plato's art, Griswold argues
and

"the

form
genre

the

dialogue is

as

intrinsic to its meaning

content"

as

the

(p. 2). The

Socrates'

Plato selects, the

written

dialogue,

contrasts

noticeably

with

writing contained therein. This establishes a certain distance between Plato and his characters, including his protagonist. The distance leaves
strictures against

for irony, as may be "Know is a written

room
thyself,"

seen

in the fact that

Socrates'

favorite maxim,

command at

the temple of Delphi (p. 7). In con

tent the dialogue's unifying theme

of

the

"morally

right

life"

(p. 3). There

is self-knowledge, associated with the issue are at least two ways to attempt to
in
order

understand

the soul

which must

be

understood

to establish the nature of to the soul's striving

the morally right life:

metaphysically, that
or

is, in

relation

for the divine;

chology that

and

technically
the the

methodologically, entailing a teachable

psy
con

analyzes

soul's natural written

divisions.
contribute

How does the

form,

dialogue,

to the dialogue's

tent, the
with an

quest

for

self-knowledge

(and

vice versa)?

"The Phaedrus

presents us

extremely odd, but very rich, description of how eros and logos are connected to each other in the desire to give a discursive description of oneself,
self-knowledge"

that

is,

to

(p. 5). What

ourselves

we

desire

relates

to how

we

talk about

ourselves.

We talk

about

not

always

out

of

self-knowledge

but
are

through
never
tes'

opinions.

Our

opinions point

to the truth about

ourselves.

Opinions

entirely for self-knowledge follows his mentor to a place outside the Athens. The Phaedrus is the only Platonic dialogue set 'in
quest

separate

from the

truth. Plato's account of this

incident in Socra
walls of
nature,'

a nature

"rife

gods,"

with reminders of the

divinized

nature

(p. 9). Central to Gris

nature"

wold's

introduction is his

Socrates'

observation of

"return to

(p. 8),

Socrates'

walking away from the city, from

accompanied

convention.

But the walking is

not

solitary; it is

by

a companion,

by

dialogue:

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

234
Is

Interpretation
self-knowledge

in

Socrates'

some sense suprapolitical?

subsequent

joining
9)

of

self-knowledge with

divine

erotic madness points to an affirmative

answer, whereas

his

commitment to

dialogue

inevitably

involves him

with

the political. (P.

Socrates, then,

sometimes presents

himself

as a political

philosopher, some

times not. How are these apparently contradictory aspects of Socrates related?

Why
tes'

should a philosopher

be

political at

all, in any

sense?

chapter takes up these questions, first by considering Socra Socrates' relationship to his interlocutor, Phaedrus. Why should a man of intelligence pay any more than the most cursory attention to such a mediocrity? Phaedrus is an unusually tedious specimen of the all-too-familiar type, the liter

Griswold's first

ary intellectual. No rhetorician himself, only an "eternal student and (p. 21), Phaedrus enjoys speeches more for their form than for any truth they might convey. He is neither political, nor businesslike, nor especially erotic; he
'appreciates,'

disciple"

he is

'connoisseur.'

a of a sense of

He has

no

strong
and

or serious passions.

He

loves

others

only "out
and

utility"

(p.

23)

inclines to

fashionable
mate

materialism and anti traditional ism.

He is "a

cultured

dabbler in rhetoric,
effete snobs of

rialistic physics, Spiro T. Agnew

antiquity.

medicine"

(p. 25). Former United States Vice President

would

have

classed

him among the

"Phaedrus'

Greek
him

Socrates bothers
an

with

him because No

very
of
. . .

shortcomings make

ideal

character

for the development

one

the central theme of the

more conspicuously.

dia

logue"

(p.

18),

self-knowledge.

lacks it

By showing what it means to lack self-knowledge, Plato is able to show us both why the philosophic life is superior to the Phaedran and what would be required to achieve it. Plato chose to say something about self-knowledge by constructing
. . .

dialogue between
someone who

someone who possesses a

knowledge

of

his

own

ignorance

and

is ignorant

of even

his

own

ignorance. (P. 18)

Moreover,
with

nature serves as an appropriate

nature's silence
Phaedrus'

setting for

discussion

of

Phaedrus because
of

"is

dangerously

conducive to

writing Phaedran
to his

thoughtlessness"

(p. 24).
of

lack

of self-knowledge corresponds

business interest, and his tendency to drift into surroundings. He does not know himself in part because he does not understand others, his need for others. Socrates, no frivolous tionalist "understands that he needs the polis and what it can teach him about himself (p. 25). Phaedrus wants to get Socrates into the coun
any
political or
'country'

lack

eros, his lack

antitradi-

'intellectual,'

try

as

a captive

audience

for

speech-reading.

Socrates

wants

to learn about

by conversing with his inferior. Not incidentally, Socrates will also use the cal purpose. Properly educated, Phaedrus can
tween

himself

'utilitarian'

Phaedrus for
an

a politi

serve

"as (p.

Socrates
a

intermediary

be

and

the 'opinion
Phaedrus'

makers'

city"

of

the

27),

specifically, be

tween Socrates and

faces

difficult

problem

in

rhetorician friend Lysias. Philosophic rhetoric democracy. Such rhetoric "is effective only when

Book Reviews
the
speaker can

235

know the

soul of

his

interlocutors),

an

impossibility
conveyed)"

when a

large group is being addressed (at least if the truth is to be (p. 27). To defend philosophy before the bar of democratic opinion, therefore, the phi losopher must persuade the persuaders. Phaedrus may be able to put in a good word for Socrates with the persuader, Lysias. To do so Phaedrus must be edu cated, brought to some sort of self-knowledge, however partial. For this pur
pose

Socrates "enters into

comedy

of

imitation

and

deception"

(p.

29)

with

him,

a complex sequence of

matically the intellectual arable in the context of

'political'

process of

role-playing and role reversals that imitates dra dialectic. Dialectic and rhetoric "are insep
(p.

self-knowledge"

32)

both
or

Phaedrus'

and

Socra

tes'. Self-knowledge has "an

irremediably

'social'

character"

(p.

32) for

nonphilosophers and
philosophers.

for

(in the broadest sense) philosophers. This is

not

merely
the

a matter of

utility for

"[T]he

soul cannot

know itself
at a

soul"

without

mirrorlike presence of another of eros

(p. 32).

"[B]y looking

degraded image
the nature of

Socrates

can challenge

himself to think through

a

again

eros"

(p.

33)

as well as contribute

to his own self-protection

by

letting
The

Phaedrus

get

to know

him,

and

himself,

little better.

country is just that only a day trip. Transcendence of the city is possible but temporary. The conspicuously urbane Socrates evidently has been here before and "is remarkably sensitive to the beauty of the (p.
excursion

to the

spot"

34). Phaedrus is
whereas

not.

He "walks

outside the

city, but his

soul

is

owned

by

it,"

nor

the city in

Socrates is "in, not of, the (p. 35). Neither nature in its silence its chatter alone suffices for self-knowledge. Dialogue requires
soul's recollection of a natural order and other

polis"

both "the
sured

human
and

beings"

(p.

35);

self-knowledge requires

dialogue in
other

order

to unify

theory
or

eros, "love mea

by

nature,

not

just

speeches,

books,
are,"

the applause of one's ad

mirers"

(p. 36). The direct

experience of nature will not suffice

because

opin
of

ion,

"the

prescientific sense of what we

prescientific or
we are

does "contain something

a world

the

truth"

(p. 38). This

the

"everyday"

version of self-knowledge
who

in

cludes mated

feeling

that

"beings

live in

in

some sense ani

by

incorporeal

beings"

or souls

(p. 38). When Socrates

goes

to the

coun

try he

speaks of

'naturalistic'

or materialist

(and to) the gods, refusing terms but instead translating

so

to reduce myths

or nature

to

myths and nature

into
in

psychic terms. monster

In

doing
who

he finds in his

soul at

least two beings: the

of eros

mythic

Typhon,
with

"represents the

absolute

tyranny

deprived

of

telligence";

and a zoion or natural

animal, a moderate creature that can "live in

of

harmony

the

divine"

(p. 41). "Neither

with

these alternatives alone

madness

describes
rea

Socrates,"

the philosopher,

his

erotic

and

law-abiding
lives"

sonableness.

The tensions between the

"self-knowledge is
not

wild monster and as

the mild animal are

manifold,

so

terminable
order

long

as one

(p. 43).
best"

Socrates desires to know himself "in

(p. 43). To do
so

he

must continue

he may lead the life that is to deepen his understanding of eros

that

and

moderation, discourse

and nondiscursive
on

vision, rhetoric and truth.

Phaedrus has

a written speech

love

by

the

rhetorician

Lysias. In the

236

Interpretation
Lysias
poses as a nonlover who nonetheless would seduce a
odd"

speech

young boy.

The

speech

should
speech
love"

because "the nonlover argues that the boy "singularly (p. 45). The him because he does not love the gratify sexually "no features rhetoric of "reads like a very sober legal brief (p. 45) and
is
boy"

(p. 46); it is impersonal, not individualized. Emotionally absurd and mor its appeal nonetheless should not be underestimated, "As the debased, ally
point might

be

put

today, liberation from

moral constraints

is justified in the

preferences"

name of controlled satisfaction of subjective

(p.

46)

an

ideology

(so to speak) of hedonism, utilitarianism, and technicism governed by the prin ciples (so to speak) of calculation, frankness, privacy, selfishness, and freedom
'lifestyle.'

of choice or
rality'

The

speech's

"debasing

dialectic"

pushes

toward

'mo

of

"enlightened

self-interest"

(p.

47), i.e.,

satisfaction of physical

needs,

pleasure,
eros

minimalization of

pain,

preservation of reputation. wants

Lysias "negates

for attaining mastered eros, in fact he remains its slave, for the satisfaction of (p. 47). His

has

acquired

only in the different

specific sense: means

he

the identical goals the lover

them"

does, but
he has

(p. 47).
reason

Imagining

that

desire"

lover'

Lysias is really The Lysian

"concealed does
not

lover"

is only "an instrument reason is a techne, only. The 'non (p. 48), a none-too-convincing liar.
as

his

'nonlover'

"assumes that his

another

self-knowledge

does

know himself, but believes he does. He not require the discursive mediation of
rather

person"

(p. 50). Self-satisfied

than self-knowing, he assumes

an

he
of

has nothing to learn from the boy, whom he would reduce to physical pleasure. Despite his baseness and folly the

instrument

'nonlover'

is better than

he knows. "However base his intentions, the nonlover must conceal himself as a lover and so transcend in his own rhetoric the level of his (pp. 5051). Eros edified in spite of, even by means of, the hypocrisy of the speaker. A
intentions"

"glimmer "[T]alk
and

anamnesis,"

of

of

about what

it

means

to

nonforgetting the beautiful, remains (p. 51). be is "implicit in the language of

human"

love"

in its
not

apparent

opposite, the studied language

Lysias'

of nonlove spoken

by

concealed

lover (p. 51).

Lysias'

'self-interest'

is

not self-knowledge and

there

fore

truly

self-interested.

But it does tell the

about truth.

assumptions are not

"simply

desire collide": "reason and is to be satisfied"; a philosopher does need to be detached from desire, if not from eros as such (p. 48).
which reason and son

listener something false": "there is a level at desire must collaborate if a per

skeptical
sexual

Socrates begins his

cal

response

by

appealing to

Phaedrus'

admiration of techni

competence, criticizing

Lysias'

speech as a work of rhetoric.

Lysias'

Socrates then

delivers his
pulls

own speech as a replacement of

speech.

Before

ironic gesture of shame. This is appropriate, Griswold argues, because "shame is a kind of self-consciousness, mediated by one's consciousness of how someone else would evaluate one's a
cloak over
an
deeds"

his

doing

so

he

his head in

"paradigm"

of

"the

complex reflexive nature of

self-knowledge"

(p. 56). In this

that Lysias is

speech

Socrates

shows that

Lysias

should

be

ashamed of

himself,

Book Reviews
a

237
is

lying

lover

not a

frank,

'enlightened'

nonlover.

However,

Socrates'

speech

itself

somewhat
speech.

shameless, mimicking the impersonal

or abstract character of

Lysias'

This

shamelessness

is

needed to advance

the argument,

as

"we
(in (pp.

need a

theoretical account of

how to is if

proceed

the

present

case)

of what eros

we are

in understanding to find constancy in

as

ourselves and
our

actions"

58-59). Yet
rhetoricians

a good

theory is hard
with

to

find,

it is

all

too easy to confuse (as

do) knowledge
speech

opinion, truth

with convention.

How to distin (p.

guish

"between intelligent
Socrates'

argument"

and unfounded

(p. 60)?
power"

In
the

"eros is the tyrannical desire for

62), "the

narcissistic effort

to annihilate

its

object

by

master/lover"

(p. 63). Such

own

eros contradicts

working it to death in the service of itself, destroying its own be

loved. "Nature left to its

required

devices
if
not

cancels

itself

out"

(p. 63). Reason is here

for

self-preservation

in the
lover'

pleasure"

pursuit of

self-gratification, for technical "efficiency (p. 63). We are left with a circle. Lysias the 'non
the
'lover'

is

a concealed

lover; Socrates
from
as

is
(p.

a concealed nonlover who

detaches himself
"formulate
tes'

somewhat

eros

in

order to

satisfy

eros.

Socrates if he is

must not

better

conception of

human

nature"

64)

than this
spite of

to

fall into Lysianism. Still, just

motion."

Lysias'

speech edified

in

itself, Socra
a "selfwhich

shameful shamelessness also points

to a truth. Erotic

dialectic has

"[T]he desire for

satisfaction

leads to the

acquisition of

theory,

in turn
our
uals"

expands our we

desire

have

to

vocabulary and conception of eros"; "in order to understand do more than think about ourselves as particular individ
understand others. we

(p. 66). We have to

We have to
and

consider

social,

even

political matters.
as eros and

What is more,
attraction and

begin to

see

that such apparent dichotomies

logic,

detachment, desire

moderation, desire
reason

and or

reason,
eros

are not so

is

rational"

easily (p. 67).

separable.

"[A]t the highest level

is erotic,

cannot just let our desires run away with us; they need to be made reflective in way that allows them to be measured by an answer about what it means to be human. The measures cannot themselves be further desires or other discourses

We
a

about

desires. (P.
speech

68)
Lysias'
shameful"

Socrates'

like

Lysias'

animals

speech is "superior but in reply to because, lover and nonlover alike as "intelligent wolves, speech, it portrays (p. 69). Neither speech "gives us an whose appetite is
enlightened"

account of eros that explains the willingness of

Phaedrus

and

Socrates to listen

to and
rupts

deliver those very his own speech and

detachment
Phaedrus'

speeches"

(pp. 68-69). Socrates (unlike Lysias) inter threatens to leave, inducing Phaedrus to drop his pose

of urbane

and act as a

lover, imploring Socrates

a

to stay. Socrates

desire, is, a set of moral considerations the prophetic dai mon, his respect for divine Eros, the opinion of an imagined gentleman who overheard the speeches, the feeling of shame after blaspheming, and so on
accedes to urges

claiming (as

nonlover) that

his inner daimon

him to

stay.

That

238

Interpretation

Socrates to stay and to attempt to go beyond the level of reductionist naturalism. Moral considerations are needed in order "to articulate the ascent of
compels
knowledge"

(p. 72). This

ascent will next take a mythic

turn,

with some of

the

most

tional"

striking imagery in Plato's writings. The palinode consists of two sections, the first a discussion of three "tradi forms of madness (p. 74), the second an exposition defending a fourth
of madness.

form

Once

again

Socrates

conceals

the role of the

rather
"traditional"

poet

Stesichorus,

a celebrator of

himself, this time by playing noble love, to Phaedrus, cast

(p. 74). The three
cures
"telistic"

optimistically in the role of the "potential forms of madness are prophetic,

philosop

(involving
of cure

for

sicknesses through catharses and

gods"

rites),

and poetic.

Each

these is "sent

by

the

(p. 75). Religion is

to

perhaps

nearly indispensable to

the

soul of

the all-too-human, techno-materialist conception of nature that grips

Phaedrus.
of on

Shame, sensitivity
the
religious

beauty,
(p.

the experience of eros, and an

"understanding
closer

premise"

77)

that

is,

of

human dependence
archaic"

higher
to the

powers
arche

form the bridge to philosophy, "a

'Modern'

more

conception of nature. soul with

techno-materialism

destroys wonder,

fills the
into

conceit,
call

what we now soul

spoils potentially philosophic souls by making them intellectuals. Religion promotes wonder if not awe, cosmos and

humbles the

before the

the gods, provides the antidote to

certain presumptions.

The fourth form

of madness

is

"unconventional"

(p.

75), internal

to the

individual (as is
terpart). Divine
whose

Socrates'

cautionary

daimon,
to light

which

may be its

needed coun

erotic madness comes

two salient characteristics are

in examining the human soul, self-motion and immortality. Self-motion deterministic

conceptions of or as

(eros
soul

and

thought)

contradicts materialistic and

the

that portray the soul as

('autonomously'

being
The

buffeted
soul

by

external not

forces,
'freely'

being

composed of mindless particles.

man'

directs itself,

in the 'Ger

sense

in the

sense

that the soul

but or 'creatively') the soul's desires are given has the ability to choose among the desires. Immor

tality for Socrates does

not mean personal

immortality,
some

a permanent

joining

of

body

and soul

in

future life.
not

thesis that every human soul has

Immortality by nature
inhabit

rather serves as

"a

component of of the

the

Truth"

understanding
an escape

(p. 85). "Intelligence does

ples of

an absurd of which

world; there are

eternal princi
finitude"

intelligibility
soul

the
not

understanding necessarily
Ideas"

is

from

our

(p. 85). The

a natural

is

able to exist without

the

body, but "there is

fit between
with

soul and

(p. 87).

strategy here, Socrates describes the soul in scientifically or in terms of epistemic knowledge. The soul is not unchanging; there is no eternal Idea of the soul as there is of, say, Justice. "Human souls are not intelligible as images
antitechnical
not

In

keeping

his

terms of myth. The soul is

to be described

of an original principle of

Soul,

and the world

no

is populated

not

Soul but

by

souls"

by

images
(p.

of

(p. 89). There is

"immutable

essence of

man"

89),

Book Reviews
but
man

239

does have

and stable
approached

self-moving nature, limits. Self-knowledge is not

through myths.
myth of

Took,'

an

articulation,
'gnostic,'

certain given and must

epistemic

but

be

Here Socrates introduces the The

the charioteer

and

the winged horses.

white

The black horse represents sexual desire, the horse spiritedness, sensitivity to honor and shame. All have wings, repre senting eros. The human soul, then, is a complex entity of interdependent but
charioteer represents reason.

often as

conflicting

elements whose
with

hierarchical,

as well unity is "functional and the charioteer rightfully in control (p. 93). At the same

teleological"

time the

unnatural, even monstrous, "a seemingly impossible grafting together of the human, the equine, and the (p. 95). It is not in itself good or evil, being good only if rightly ordered. Eros sets the
soul also appears somewhat
avian"

soul on

its

quest

for its "true

secret

self

(p. 98). "To be

a part of a

oneself one must

know

oneself.

This is the

the

understands"

philosopher

(p. 98). And to know

elements of
them"

ourselves we must see ourselves

which

"as

larger Whole,

(p. 98). The naturally attract and fulfill us when we understand Whole helps us fulfill the eros of the well-governed soul. Virtue is no teachable
method,
no

techne or skill, but "knowledge of the true ends

gods ascend

desire"

of

(p. 98).

Virtue is difficult for human beings. The

of

to the
no

divine banquet
black horse to

the Ideas

with ease.

They

need no erotic

madness, have

overcome.

They

do

not assist a

the human souls, this "anarchic mob striving

for

self-preservation,"

for

taste of divine

food, in

"state

nature"

of origins of

that

for them
nature

is "a
are

all"

war of all against

(p. 99). For Socrates "the

good"

human

prepolitical"

natural"

ously
fate"

but "not unambiguously (p. 101), the result of a

soul

(p. 99). The

soul

is "ambigu

"murky"

and

(p. 100). But the

is

natural

relationship between "choice in the sense that it is not "to be

development"

understood

historically
or no

as a process of social-political

(p. 101).

There is little
"Man is to be

'progress'

to

be

seen

in the human

species as a whole.

understood

human

souls pursue

primarily in terms of his the same ends, at least immediately

of elements within
will not see

ends"

(p. 101). Not

all

and

for the

most part.

There is
soul

hierarchy
category
gods

the

individual
same

soul.

This

means

that "a

in

one

things

in the

light

as a soul

in

different
do
noth as

category,"

and rhetoric

(also

government

generally?) is necessary (p. 103).

Socratic

do

not rule

men, do
at

not care

for them. Socratic

gods

ing
is"

but look

'feasting'

when

the divine banquet.

"Being

appears to them neither

it

(p. 104); they

need no self-knowledge

because their
to

'selves'

impede is
not

nor struggle

to obtain

knowledge

of

the Ideas. "[T]he mind's perfection

to master, shape, make,

sense eros

or alter what
death,"

is but

rather

be formed

by it";

"in this

the suppression of (p. 104). is the yearning for Human beings are not pure mind. To forget this one would need to be subhu man or superhuman. To be fully human is to be perpetually dissatisfied yet
somehow our own

'subjectivity'

"satisfied

with our

(or

ignorance,

in) this state incompleteness,

dissatisfaction,"

of perpetual

to know

to desire to overcome

it,

and yet

to

240

Interpretation
such

know that "in this life

chapter on

the palinode

(thus self-moving, literally "cannot in principle arrive despite the dialogue's

substitute

(p. 106). Central to his overcoming is of the acknowledgment is Griswold's of the Phaedrus that dialectic disquieting?)
impossible"
"disquieting"

teaching

reality,"

...

at a comprehensive
rhetoric"

understanding of

"edifying
Good"

Beauty

for the

(p.

266,

(p. 106). "The Phaedrus seems to n. 47). Whereas "the highest form of

Episteme is
pure

intellectual intuition, not speech, "there is no intellectual intuition for human (pp. 106-7). Nor is there any
noetic,"

a matter of

beings"

"noesis
Kantian

nous"

of

or self-consciousness with respect to the

activity

'metaintuition'

(p. 108). Therefore "the

problem of

intuition, a knowing whether

of

and when one

important'

knows something truly is and in the sense of skeptical

dangerous"
others"

critical"

both in the

sense of

'extremely
acceptance
at

or questioning:

"uncritical
to

of one's

insights is
so

(p. 108). The human

soul needs

look

itself

"through the 108).

ual

eyes of

and also through

can move closer

By

doing

it

retrospectively (p. to the "objective truth the human individ

own eyes

its

needs

for his "subjective

the soul.
or recollection

happiness"

(p. 109),

closer

to the

Being

that

nourishes

Anamnesis
the

is the capacity that

enables

the soul to go

beyond

many

sense perceptions

to "a one gathered together

reasoning"

by
is "both

(p. 111).

The

myth of

the

divine banquet illustrates that

both
"theoretical"

anamnesis
and

a rational and

unification,"

"existential"

an ontological

(pp. 112-13).
in

In

anamnesis we are

both

recalled to a sense of our primordial status, our place

the cosmos as a whole, and brought

by

means of

lengthy

questioning to

rational

insight into the form

soul;
and

of things. These forms, we're told, nourish the wings and the in remembering the forms we become again what we were. In this sense insight into the Beings is the same as becoming oneself, one's true or whole self. But the insight is always partial, as the myth also makes clear. Recognition of that of

fact is knowledge

ignorance. (P. 1 14)

what we of

Anamnesis
"The
nesis

shows us

desire,
to

where

we

are

in the

cosmos.

It

also

shows us our

limits. All

these insights together amount to

self-knowledge.

philosopher must
eidos"

be

able

lead

opinions

to

rational

insight into
is "a
the
soul"

(p. 115). Anamnesis is

Socrates'

not a religious
time,"

unity through conversion. Anam

not a

process that takes place through erotic art

"an activity,

state, of
uses

(p. 115).

is "the dialectical
partial,

rhetoric that

the

questioning"

power of cism sees the

to

lead the

soul to

insight (pp. 1 15-16). Socratic

of an

eroti

beloved

as an

image, however

intelligible beauty.

(p. 121). Socrates is Freud in "Stated very crudely, instead of explaining the desire for philosophy as a modification of sexual desire, Socrates explains sexual desire as a low mani festation of the desire for (p. 121).
return to the

Socratic

speech

intends "a

arche"

reverse:

wisdom"

Self-knowledge is
matter of a person's

not

exclusively theoretical
a certain

or even verbal. of

acting in

manner,

living

It is also "a his life in a certain

Book Reviews
way,"

241
(p.

the

"living
a

life"

out of a philosophical

that is "never quite

fulfilled"

122). As
the truth.

kind

of

lover,

the philosopher uses eros to move

his

mind

toward

The lover loses himself in

taken a
crucial

order

to find himself at a deeper level. The lover

whom

unconsciously transfers his own character-ideal to the beloved to

he has

fancy,
here.

and

then sees himself in the beloved. The role of the imagination is

...

(P.

126)

The

philosopher and

nature,

knowledge"

divinizing the beloved, mythologizing externalizing himself, thereby "creating for himself a route to self(p. 126). True friendship benefits both friends and recollects the
not a crea unique each

does this consciously,

Beings. This is
ture of

Christian agape, the unmerited love of a person as God regardless of individual qualities, nor is this the love of a
or

individual 'for better

other so as
other

for

worse.'

"Socrates'

lover

and

beloved love

to

love themselves,
widening the
guard

not

in

a selfish

to

love himself
should

qua whole and

fulfilling

way, but in a way that helps the his (p. 129).

nature"

Why
subjects

'subjectivity'

scope of

by including

other

flawed
not.

necessarily "[Distinguishing between the truth

suaded of remains a grave

the philosopher from self-deception? It does

about oneself and what one

has been

per

difficulty"

(p. 131). "[T]he

. . .

palinode

teaches that that

case"

in

thinking
"what

we cannot

safely distinguish theory

what we

production,"

and

is,

we see

to be the case and

(falsely)
not

make

to be the

(p. 132).

Still,
city

the philosopher

finds

safety,'

greater

'noetic

so

to speak, in the talkative

than in the silent country. He

of

does him

find

greater physical

city; many lection "seems inseparable from

place

his fellow-citizens
of

call

mad and

perception"

sense

safety in the kill him. Because recol may and therefore "cannot take

independently
There is
as political
where

the

body"

safety.

also a considerable
doctrine,"

"double

14-15), this, too, is a threat to noetic danger in making philosophic madness debasing move indeed for all concerned (p.
(pp. 1
comes

133). This is

sophrosyne, moderation,
of

in. True

sophrosyne results

from the "recollection

restraint are

suprapolitical"

noetically (p. 134) but

is

presented

truth"; "the
the
other

sources of

true

self-

not without ethical and political ram

desires"

ifications. "[T]he desire

is the
sense

of reason can control

(p. 134). This

in

which virtue

knowledge, "an understanding

the Whole (p.
end of

of what

is

good

for the
man

whole,"

soul as a

within

135). Taken literally,

Socrates'

philo

sophic asceticism would result

in the

the human species,

could all

hu

beings become
the
point

philosophers.

As this is unlikely to be

intention,

"possibly
ral';

is

that

251al,

254b 1)
myths

and sex

only pederastic sexual relations (which are 'unnatu indulged in for pleasure alone are to be rejected

completely"

(p. 135).
exemplify philosophic logos. Their interpretation in order to be
account or a more

Platonic

"symbolically

expressed

understood"

meaning may be a factual

requires

(p. 139). A logos

not

directly

rational

argument, but it is

242

Interpretation
conveys a a

absolutely distinguishable from a myth, inasmuch as the myth also truth. (Similarly, opinion is not absolutely distinguishable from

rational

logos,

'through'

else one could not reach the truth

of

opinions).

The

myth of

the

immortality

the soul means "the capacity

'punishment'

of a mind that exists

in time to

think what is eternal"; "the

nonphilosophic

a person undergoes a

for

having

lived
of

happiness,

life is simply the quality of that one life (p. 145). Mythic language satisfaction,
love"

life devoid

true

well expresses

"our

experience of

desire

love,"

and

regardless of reductionist materialism, and also

expresses our recognition of who we means of

"might become "the

soul,"

at

[our]
in

best"

(p. 147).

By

imagery,

metaphor,

and symbols

world revealed

by

the senses is

transposed to the inner

world of

the

transposed

a personal myth

abstract propositions and arguments cannot match

what we are us

(p. 148). The

way that "tells us

by telling

us what we are

like

rather

than

by dissolving or reducing
perhaps unsurpassed

into

principles"

sub-

or suprahuman

(p. 148). Myth is

in

describing

the experience of

love
soul

and

insight,
no

central

to the

life

of philoso myth can

phers.

And because the human

the soul's motion,
soul

'has'

Idea corresponding to
of

it,

express

its gaining
generated.

and

losing

unity,

without

suggesting

that the

is

historically
half
the
of the

The

advantages of

Platonic

myth resem

ble the
The
erotic

advantages of good rhetoric. second of

Phaedrus

concerns rhetoric.

"[T]he

enthusiastic and
idiom"

idiom

first half

seems replaced

by

detached

and analytic

(p. 157). Dialogue

theme. After the
ing"

replaces monologue.

Self-knowledge

remains
...

the underlying

enthusiasm of

the palinode "we need

to talk about talk

in

"sober
uses

uninspired"

and
Phaedrus'

Socrates

passion

way (p. 163). for rhetoric "to

seduce

Phaedrus into listen

speeches"

ing

to some more philosophical, and so more

to seduce requires
rhetorician

beautiful,
art of

(p. 158).

"[T]he desire
words"

rhetoric,"

"the

leading
an

the

soul

through
of

(p. 159). The

is both lover
free"

and nonlover.

The techne

rhetoric cedure

is,

in

modern

involving a elements by means

language, "value determinate number of

(p.

160)

intellectual

pro

steps

that operates on complexes of

of division and collection as a means to some end. A techne is teachable. However, rhetoric is not only a techne. Philosophic dialogue, "the perfection of is "not equivalent to technical (pp. 160-61). This may be seen in the myth of the cicadas who report to the Muses on the
rhetoric,"

discourse"

songs and speeches of men.

point of the

Socrates relates this myth day. For Phaedrus "pure pleasure is

no sense of
labor"

at

high noon, the

the easy,

mid

freedom,"

sleepy

listening
of

to

beautiful speeches; he has

philosophic
mind"

the benefits

of wakefulness,

(p. 165). The myth warns Phaedrus "about the drugged the cicadas were so enamored of speeches they forgot to eat and died and also "turns our attention from the political goal of Muses" the cultivation of honor among men to that of pleasing the (p. 165). Without the self-consciousness dialogue can bring, the soul degenerates into a whirring cicada; sufficiently disunited, the human soul can become subhuman.

"painful

dangers

of a

Book Reviews

243

This vulnerability is exploited by the wrongful use of value-free rhetorical tech nique. "Regardless of what the crowd is persuaded of, someone who rides a (p. 169), as donkey instead of a horse into battle is going to pay a heavy
price"

is the
truth

soul

that mistakes evil

avoid

for

good.

"[T]he

artful rhetorician must

know the

if he is himself to
possible

being

deceived"

(p. 170). To

avoid self-deception

as much as

the philosopher "creates

a climate of

disagreement for
Dialogue

himself (p.

172)

with

his

questioning.

Better

gadfly than
as

a cicada.

is the best form

a philosopher

of rhetoric

for

a philosopher's
only"

purposes,

"it is dangerous for

to talk to himself
of

(p.

173),

although a philosopher and

does talk
be "re its

to himself. The results

absorbed

the technician's collecting

philosophizing"

dividing

must

into the dialectic

of
with

(p. 176). "Opinion

unravels

intuitions unreflectively; techne grapples dialegesthai forces reflection on them by

operations

them and imposes an order; and

questions

means of

(p. 176). Mental say

or

to see

the capacity to how to analyze it, and to see

on

"depend

see what

it is

we wish to

analyze,

when

the analysis is finished

and com

pleted"

(p. 176). Analytical technique

alone
of

does

not

"resolve the intuition

critical prob

lem

of

distinguishing
even

between intuition

Beings

and

governed

by

opinion,

problem"

solving the (p. 185); it misses the soul, it misses life (p. 181). The art of rhetoric, including dialectic, "is an episteme
nature"

if the techne is helpful in training the mind to make some steps in (p. 176). Analytical technique cannot "grasp the whole of
comparable

to the
arts

tragedy"

arts of

medicine, music,

and

the

composition of

(p. 187). All the

which

have their techniques that

perfected

must

be

guided

only

by

experience"

(p. 187).

by "sound Learning the

judgment,"

"can be

rules

is

one

thing, but

there are

no rules

telling

you

dence. A

similar observation

how to apply the rules. For that you need pru should be made with respect to the study of na
sequence of actions and reactions of single

ture. As "the orderly and intelligible

monads,"

and clustered

nature contains parts that can

be

analyzed with respect

to their capacity
understand

for

action and

for

being

acted upon

(pp. 191-92). But to

how

a complex natural phenomenon acts and

is

acted upon as a

whole one needs recourse

to teleology. Under the influence

of certain rhetori what

cians, Phaedrus
counts

supposes

that "in matters concerning the good and the just pithanos), not
what

is the

probable

(eikos,
the

is

true"

(p.

196) because
if he does

seductive presentation of the probable

is

all

that is needed to persuade the many

what

(p. 196). But how

will

rhetorician

know

he

manipulates

not

"successful'

know the truth

cians cian

of

the
what

matter?

Or

don't know

they're

talking

conceding that many "to what end about human

or

rhetori

ought the rhetori

bother persuading indispensable. Rhetoric One

others?"

(p. 199). Once again,

of

self-knowledge

becomes

or

the

education, etymologically

a sort of

leading leading
is
as

souls with words

out.

leads itself to Socrates

so

drawing

conspicuous technique of rhetoric and of education

is

writing.

does

not much

like it.

giving the

appearance

Writing of a finality it

fixed
does

as an

Idea but

not and

nearly

true,
dog-

not

really have

nourishing

244

Interpretation
instead
of questioning. of

matism

The

reader

becomes mentally lazy,

are sophists,

unthoughtful, ignorant
the realm of what
book"

his

own

ignorance. Books
than
truth"

forgetful, "dwelling in
self-

seems

rather

of

(p. 206).
engage

They
a

impede

knowledge because "it does

a

not seem possible

to

in

live dialogue
soul.

with

(p. 208).

Writing

on a page replaces much can a

writing in the
who

The human

soul should

love wisdom; too

How
make

now possesses wisdom. and

reading dialectician his

encourages

the soul to

imagine it
to
pick

"knows

what soul

how to

it

dialectical"

exercise

good

judgment in writing for

an

audience that will select

him!

Plato's mastery
critique of writing.

of

the written dialogue enables him to refute the

more

Socratic
or

No

than Socrates does he believe

it "possible

desir

able to
speak

try
can

to transform

everyone

into

philosopher"

(p. 221). His dialogues

philosophers"

both to

philosophers and nonphilosophers. potential philosophers and rather

logues

"locate

transform them
us"

More important, Plato's dia into

that philosophy

(p. 222). The dialogues "show

questioning a it; it depends (p. 223). To
ence
quest on

than tell
can

is

search,
of

(p. 223). "Dialectic

be learned only

by

the practice

something like

phronesis rather than rule-governed

methods"

understand

the activity of coming to an

insight
to the

one must experi

it;

the

dialogues

provide opportunities

for that
the

experience.

They

"recant

their

discourse"

authority (p. 225).

as written

in

order

to

return

reader

life

of ensouled

"Recognizing

that the unexamined

life is

not worth

living,

one searches out oneself

(p. 241).

Mary

P.

Nichols, Citizens

age, MD: Rowman

Study of & Littlefield Publishers, 1992), ix

and

Statesmen: A

Aristotle'

Politics (Sav

+ 233 pp., $19.95.

Leslie G. Rubin

Society for

Greek Political Thought

Mary
sound,
and

Nichols has
as a

written a concise yet comprehensive

interpretation Strange
as

of

Ar

istotle's Politics
such an

book

defining

and

defending
common.

politics.
Nichols'

it may

interpretation is far from

or

primary premise,
to define
political

I believe

a correct

one, is that the Politics is

an attempt
Nichols'

rule as

distinct from tyrannical how this issue

despotic
in

rule.

thorough interpreta
work

tion

shows

appears

various

forms throughout the

suggest
rule of a

not of

only in the more obvious places where Aristotle may the institution of slavery, for instance, or criticize the

the injustice

thoroughgoing
one or of

tyrant, but also in the places where he calls into question the rule of the few virtuous over those inferior in virtue. Through careful development istotle's
concepts of citizen and even

Ar

statesman, Nichols

can

demonstrate
and

convinc

ingly
I

that

the so-called ideal or

not

best

regime of

Books VII

VIII falls

short of

perfection, though that I

came

in the way it is

sometimes criticized.

confess

to this book

exposition

and argument

for

which

expecting the clarity and distinctness of Professor Nichols is justly well known.
to defend
and political

Already
class

convinced that
against

Aristotle

means

life

and

the

middle-

polity injustice of
I
came
with a

both
or

conventional

tyranny

the paternalism and political

kingship

aristocracy to the

extent possible

in

an

imperfect world, defense

even

away from this encounter with deeper insight into the character
of

Nichols'

keen

observations and analysis

and seriousness of

this

in

the face

the alternative of the private contemplative life.

previous scholar

Professor Nichols sensitively incorporates the insights of ship while carefully distinguishing her argument from most
schools of thought on

of

the prominent the

Aristotle. She

establishes not an

entirely

new view of

Politics, for
angle on a

is probably both unnecessary and impossible, but a refreshing book that "everyone as a collection of insightful notes on a
that
knows"

wide range of political

issues,

and

The

argument of

Citizens

and

few take seriously as a coherent text. Statesmen develops very much like the plot

of

a novel.

Nichols finds the

various quirks gimes

in Politics I through III, develops their through the complexities of Aristotle's advice to existing re
and

"characters"

in Books IV through VI,

an analysis of

brings the story to

an

unsettling

conclusion

through

the place of philosophy and the

status of politics

in the

regime of

Books VII

and

VIII.

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

246

Interpretation
the
"characters,"

By

mean

the

crucial

duced in the early books. The organizing sity versus human deliberation and choice,
the

dualities Nichols discovers intro principle of these dualities is neces

and

it

appears

in many

guises:

e.g.,

body

versus

the soul, the many versus the

one

best man,

and

the village

versus

the city. Most

interestingly, Nichols

sees

this

duality

evident also

in the

double
created

beginning
in

and

the double end of the city.

As Book I argues,
cannot

cities are

some sense

by

natural

necessity, but
to Book

they

actually be insti

tuted

without

the deliberate action of a human founder. The

city's

beginning

is

both
some

natural and artificial.

According

II,

the best

founders have

given

thought not only to the physical necessities, but to the purpose of the

human
Aris

community.

(Of course, the thoughtful founders totle discusses have been wrong as to the ends
proposals would

and philosophers whom of

polis

their

simplistic

actually have been destructive

of political

community

but

the Politics is meant to show that a theoretical yet practical approach can rem

edy those flaws.) Therefore, although the city's initial end, perpetuating mere life, is dictated by necessity, it continues to exist for the sake of the choicewor

thy, the good life. It is in the pursuit of the latter end without importance of the former that Aristotle hopes to be helpful.
The
creates

ignoring

the

between the necessary the arena in which politics, the

byplay

and

the

chosen aspects of

human life
works.

story's

only individual

when one or

the

other side of

the

primary protagonist, dichotomy is denied, when

It is

a tyrannical or when a

or multitude

denies the

soul

for the

sake of

the

body

philosophic purist stifled and

denies the

body

for the

sake of

the

-soul,

that

political

life is

ishes,
ries

despotism becomes the only the duality appears in the form of

sided, but
the
mixed:

alternative.

When

political

life flour
catego

citizens and statesmen.

These

are not one

the citizens are the

properly

ordered

body

possessing

a soul and

statesmen of

the prudently deliberative soul of the city

cognizance of

acknowledging the importance

strengths and contributions.

body. Each takes

the

other's

view

On the way to a conclusion many may find startling, that Aristotle does not the isolated contemplative life as superior to a thoughtful life that includes

participation

in

political

controversy, Nichols lays

long

Book I's

observation

that the city

communal.

life is
view city.

not

isolated but

himself

as above and

is necessary to the good The best ruler, we learn in Book III, does not wholly distinct from every other inhabitant of his

trail, beginning with life. The best human

Rather, the city is an amalgamation of the many and the one neither can exist or perfect itself without the other. Hence, the analysis of citizenship and
the defense
of

the many, followed

which

basileia,
political

the situation in

the

by a king

critique of overall

kingship

or

pam-

is the only
the
rest of

citizen and the potential

friendship

and political virtues of

the kingdom are ignored.

controversial

With due moderation, Nichols

of

argues that
of

Aristotle's

defense

the virtues and political capacities

the many is to
a potential

though not without qualification. There is

be taken seriously, for bestial qualities to be

Book Reviews

247

fostered in the multitude, particularly by those demagogues and extreme demo crats who offer freedom based only on its lowest definition, to do as one likes, rally the multitude by appealing to brute strength. Nichols teases out Aristotle's
and who

their

counterarguments

superiority in numbers and for the higher,

life.

human

contributions most people can make to political

According

to the
or

citizenship discussion (III, 1-4),

unlimited)
cratic office or acts nor

no one who claims perpetual

(indefinite

wholly
are

at

will,

neither

the many who populate demo

juries

the

one virtuous citizen who

holds

an overall

kingship, is
with not

political ruler.

Not only

there limits to

what political

life

can

achieve, there

are
as

limits

political actors must set upon

themselves,

beginning
in

if

one were

immortal. These limits

of politics as

are summarized
ruled

acting in Aristotle's definition

turn."

(or

delimitation)

to exceed these limits

try

to

"ruling and being deny that human

collective

Those

who

try

beings
which

are political

animals,

requiring both
not

opportunities

for

action,

the

pambasileia

does

provide,

and a

healthy

sense of

fallibility

to restrain them from excess,

which

demagogues

and zealous

democrats discourage.

Nichols'

argument"

subtlety of interpretation is well exemplified in laying out the "user for the capacities and judgment of the multitude. On the one hand,
with

she

acknowledges,
of

Aristotle,

that those

who

live in

house

can

be better

judges

its excellence than any architect, at least as to its practical qualities. If is like architecture, then every political animal may have the wisdom to judge his political rulers and their actions. On the other hand, she distinguishes,
politics with

Aristotle,
of

the household

manager

from

all

the

other

inhabitants

as the

best
take

judge
the

the house's practical qualities: the one whose task to organize life

is

not

only to live in
the whole,

house, but
account

for the benefit

of all

the rest, the

and who must good of

into

the needs of the diverse

of

members as well as

capacity to judge and his contribution must be taken into account, each may not be equally contributions. Without overstating capable of coordinating all the
each some
members'

is the best judge

the house's excellence. Even

if

has

Aristotle's foster it.

view of

the

potential virtue of

the ordinary citizen,

Nichols'

inter

pretation shows the existence of such potential and the need of the statesman to

In Books IV through VI, these principles are developed in the course of recommending some form of polity, or political rule strictly speaking, to every
only to democracies and oligarchies of which it is a mixture, but to tyrannies as well. The polity favors neither virtue nor material wealth, neither numbers nor strength, but mixes all of these principles into its

imperfect

regime

not

type of virtue, according to preserves both sides of the but it type, body/soul duality in treating military virtue as both necessary and noble. Ac cording to the longer discussion of polity in Book IV, this regime emphasizes a
and
as emphasizes one

laws

institutions. Insofar

it

Book Ill's definition it is

the military

cluster of virtues that

in

action that gives

Nichols boils down to moderation, the sort of all sides their due and leads to friendship across

moderation

class

lines.

248

Interpretation
at

Though

times it seems that Aristotle's highest

to

praise

for the

middle-class

its stability, Nichols rightly sees that this stability is not mere polity repression, but derives from the regime's justice to the various parts of the city, especially to the rich and the poor, but also to the politically ambitious (pp.
refers

119-20).

The

statesmen who exercise moderate and

the greatest authority in the polity are the pru

prudent products of a

dently
vastly

moderately

middling

class

back
of or

ground.

They

know

and relearn

constantly that
rule.

they
the

are not

independent

superior

to the citizens

they

interdependent,
well as

the former supplying the

Rather, bodies,

citizens and statesmen are material

the

necessities, as
and of

the cooperation the latter need, the latter supplying the

forethought

public-spiritedness the

former

need.

From this

argument

follows the defense

ruled

the naturalness of

political

forms. is

According

to

rule, i.e., ruling being Nichols, taking turns implies not only
and various

in turn, in many
offices
rulers'

that political

should rotate

among

citizens, but also that the human

authority

shared with

the necessities of nature and the contingencies of human ac

tion

sometimes nature

rules,

sometimes

the demands of the populace limit the

power of

the statesman (pp. 121-23).

such

From

considerations, Nichols defends her

ruler who sees

argument

that the

pam-

basileia,

the human

himself in

as a god

among men,
similar

subject to no

merely human law, but

contemplative

law

unto

himself, is, however

are

to the godlike
more com

philosopher,
all

lacking

crucial self-knowledge.

As is

monly observed, if
olent-but-absolute

human beings

by

nature political

animals, the benev

king

unjustly denies his

subjects the

opportunity to does

develop

their political capacities

by treating

them as perpetual children. Nichols fothe

pambasileia

cusses upon an even more serious charge: stand

not even under

worth and capacities. Describing himself as a lion among "where are their claws and teeth?" demonstrates the absolute asking king's failure to see both his own physical vulnerability after all the multitude

his

own

hares

do have claws, in some sense and his of his contributions to defense

subjects'

need

for

public support

in the form
of

and other

necessary functions
on

the

kingdom.

Having

disposed

of

the pambasileia, Nichols sets to work

the

rulers of an

the best regime described in Politics VII and VIII. She treats these books as
extended examination of

the

questions raised and

in the first

chapters of

VII

what

for a city? Unlike many interpreters of assuming that Aristotle advocates the apo litical philosophic life as simply the best for an individual, so that when Aris totle shows that isolation is not necessarily the best life for a city, his argument produces no obvious dissonances. The purely contemplative philosopher, the
an

is the best life for

individual

these passages, she carefully

avoids

pambasileia, and the tyrant

choice

all avoid political

life,

the

life

of

deliberation

and

among people who respect each other's freedom and capacity for action. Aristotle grants that the happy life is the life of theoretical activity, but it must

Book Reviews
include lead
a political

249
must

theory. The best regime, if it is to

and political

parallel

this

best life,

thoughtful

life. Aristotle, like

can

another

thoughtful man, the

educational re

Athenian Stranger
quirements of a

of

the

Laws,

identify

the physical and

isolated and attentive to its internal per purely virtuous city fection. He does not, however, adopt all of these characteristics as the require ments of his own best city. Aristotle's city tries to confront rather than avoid political problems, such as the dilemmas of international relations. This attempt
to

be political is precisely the regime's strength, according to Nichols. The isolated way of life is not a regime or political order, strictly speaking: it does not engage in ruling and being ruled. It does not allow itself the challenges of
social

life,

so

that

in
is

an

important

attains a virtue that

not

fully

sense it takes the easy way to virtue, but human. To demonstrate human individual vir

tue,

one must practice and

justice toward

other

humans, however

uncooperative

they may be
Justice
cities,
must

however difficult it may be to determine the perfectly just act. also be a constituent of a city's virtue, which means the city must
not

create a

just relationship,

always

treading

only with the individuals within it, but with other thin, but perceptible, line between submission and
to
various

despotic hegemony. With

thin lines that must
Nichols'

regard

issues, Nichols

points to analogous

be traced

by

the good statesman.

Despite its practically hopeful signs, this line of argument culminates in critique of the city built in Books VII and VIII. In this part of the
necessity/choice

Politics the Nichols

duality

appears

in the form
and

of

the conflict between

the requirements
and

for the

regime's survival

its best

aspirations

sees some of

Aristotle's

choices as unsatisfactory.

for excellence, If the education

that a large
that the
of

and perfection of the virtue of the citizens of the

population of

regime require

farmers be
the
'best'

enslaved and the

defense

of

the city

requires

multitude who man the warships

be enslaved,
ironic"

then "Aristotle's

designation

that
that

regime as
unnatural

is surely
not

(p. 145). Nichols identifies

a reason

merely a practical problem but a fatal flaw in the regime that aims primarily for virtue in its citizens: the need for slaves demon strates the lack of self-knowledge in the only regime Aristotle associates, how

slavery is

ever

loosely,
the

with philosophy.

The necessity for employing

to

whole classes of

slaves shows

that the

citizens themselves are enslaved

circumstances which

make

perfection of

their virtue impossible.

requires complete
with

leisure,

the

citizens are

If the ruling class's excellence forced into a despotic relationship

suffer

the

subordinate

inhabitants. The

enslaved

injustice, but

the en
rule

slavers also suffer the

of slaves

decay
argue,

of

their virtue.

is baser than the

would

rule of

free

men

As Aristotle clearly argues, the (Politics, 1.7, III. 4).

that
an

Although I
terms to have

contra

Nichols,
on

it is

possible on

Aristotle's between
a

just slavery relationship

agree with

individual

level,

demonstrably
out external

superior master and a servant who cannot care

for himself

with

direction, I

her that

no

just

political order can

such relationships on a wholesale

level. The

conclusion

would

rely on draw is not

250

Interpretation
rather that

that this regime is not the best regime, but

strict sense much as

it is

not a regime
not

in the
so

that also excludes

a

tyranny
of

and

kingship. Aristotle is
not strive

ironic,

he is articulating
politeia and

way
an

life that does

a political

for

political

justice.
with

The term
of

(regime) implies

order,

and

"the best

politeia"

Books VII

VIII is

apolitical order.
order

It is

not

its

compromise

political

necessity that condemns the best

the

Aristotle

can construct

for the intrigu

not a

production of virtuous citizens.

Nichols defends the

regime's

mixture of

high-minded

ethics and practical considerations at

heart in

a novel and

ing

way

this

mixture of motives

in the founder's

choices represents

necessary but distasteful compromise of philosophical political order, but an improvement upon the purely

integrity

for the

sake of

philosophic

life through

involvement deliberation

with

political,

i.e., human,

problems.

The

struggles of careful
nature and

and choice amid

the complexities created

by

by

the

existence of various

types of people are the

essential to

proving

ground of a city's excel

lence. Such involvement is

edge, but the that the
rulers

rulers'

the

acquisition of self-knowl

ultimate reliance of

this regime on despotic arrangements proves

do

not achieve a crucial aspect of self-knowledge

subjects'

they do

not

understand either point

their own

weakness or

their

strengths.

is the

impossibility
is

of

nurturing

virtue on a

broad

middle class

much more

satisfying As Nichols shows, the polity based on the suitable to achieving political justice. I would add
scale.

the

demands

of political

The sticking justice while

that it grants
well.

more people more

freedom to

achieve

individual

excellence as

Throughout the

book, Nichols

points

to moments in the Politics at which

Aristotle is clearly exercising deliberation and choice, acting the statesman, insofar as he can do so, by weighing the practicability and desirability, the
advantage and
others.

justice, of Aristotle, in other

various alternatives and

words, practices what

recommending some over he brings his he preaches

problems and

philosophic speculations to

bear

upon actual

human

in the

pro

cess contributes to the good of communities

(at least to those

that
of

who might

listen

to his advice) and to

his

own self-knowledge and

his

students as

human

beings
of

and citizens. veins of

These

Nichols'

book. No true
view

Aristotle's statesmanship flow into a conclusion at the heart statesman can be a tragedian. Nichols takes on admi
that

rably the tempting

necessary
or

to a good human existence, as

Aristotle, like Plato, views political life, however tragically flawed, doomed to injustice
she

permanent
of

instability. Although
and

takes

due

account

of

the

perennial

threats
middle

both injustice

instability, Nichols

shows

that Aristotle sees a real

ground, a habitable area in which statesmen and free citizens work together to maintain justice and stability (pp. 42, 81-84, 110-14, 143-44).

That

ground

is

more

likely

to appear and be
of

fertile, if

you

will,

in

polity, a
upon

regime

mixing the principles middling fortune

the most common regimes and

calling

the

citizens of

and

middling

virtue to take the greatest

respon-

Book Reviews
sibility for its
an

25 1

cultivation.

If the human He

being

is

by

nature

political, it is

neither

sensible nor useful to overemphasize

politics'

potential

to

fail,

and

Aristotle is
pitfalls

eminently

sensible man.

enumerates and as

describes in detail the

unlike

to

which political

life is
those

prone

but,

Nichols shows,

does

not make

pitfalls

seem

choices people can make to alleviate

Plato's Socrates, he ubiquitous. Rather, Aristotle stresses the the dangers and strive for improvement by
was sur

moving toward the practicable and just political regime, the polity. Given hardnosed attitude toward tyranny in any form, I
Nichols'

prised

by
a

her

argument

that a tyrant can

be

reformed

by

the habit
not

of

pretending
and

to

be

statesman, pretending to have

virtues

he does

have

is

not

interested in acquiring (pp. 108-10). The Nichomachean Ethics does stress the importance of habit to the development of virtue but, though it is plausible that
the tyrant becomes less
of a

tyrant

by following

Aristotle's

advice on preserv

ing

his power,
after

we should not expect

He has,
would

all,

received a

him to become positively a virtuous man. flawed training in virtue during his youth and
good

the good

merely be going through the motions of life, but simply to hold predominance
this subordinate point aside,
Nichols'

deeds
we

not

for the

sake of

over a whole people.

Leaving
Statesmen
of

however,
a

have in Citizens
virtue.

and

an example of

the practice of political/theoretical

In imitation

Aristotle's Politics, consistency and depth

not

book demonstrates

judicious balance between

the one

of

theoretical argument

on

hand

and

states

manlike attention to the

thorny dilemmas

of political

life

on

the

other

that could
thought.

be

attained without the author's practice of excellence

in

political

Introduction

Daniel J. Mahoney, The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron: A Critical (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992), xiv + 187 pp.,

$14.95.
John S. Waggoner The American

University

of Paris

Daniel J.

Mahoney'

met with critical rope. pant

The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron has acclaim from diverse reviewers in the United States and Eu
s analysis of

It is

brilliant

"one

of

the most

important thinkers

and partici

observers"

Mahoney
Aron but
on

in this century and deserves a wide audience. is forthright in acknowledging his deep sympathy for Raymond it is born
and
of

stresses that

"a

study"

sustained

and

"critical

medi

his thought. His first

"instant
and

contact with

Aron

came as an

undergraduate,

and

the

strong."

attraction was

As

a graduate
works works

student, his study of Aron

"exciting,"

broadened
contrast

deepened. But Aron's

always remained

in

to the usual menu of academic

of

found in international relations,

the

field

study in

which

Aron is very

often pigeonholed.

apolitical,"

Mahoney generally found the literature of international relations "strangely that en largely disconnected from the "burning issues of the
day"

gage

thoughtful citizens and statesmen (and appeal to university students of

and

finer instincts

better

capacities).

Such literature is

more often than not

appreciation

insufficiently
cal thinkers.

informed

by

historical knowledge, any

or

deep

for the
politi

character of political

regimes,

any

serious confrontation with

the great

Aron's
nated

writings

"suffered

none of of

these

deficiencies."

His

works

largely

contributed to

the weakening
of

the "Hegelio-Marxist

consensus"

that domi

the intellectual life

and

the European continent

of

from the 1930's to the it

was

1970's laid the

kept

alive

tradition

humane liberalism. "If Solzhenitsyn

gauchist

sounded the trumpet that

groundwork

blew down the

Jericho,

...

Aron

who

for the final triumphant

trenchant commentators

assault,"

Mahoney
on rank who

writes. of

Aron

was one of

the

most

the tragic events

this cen

tury. But

he

was also a

theoretician of the first that can

laid the

groundwork
reconstruct

for "a

science"

genuine political

help

provide

"guidance in

ing a humane understanding Mahoney insists that

Aron

phenomena."

of social and political

was not a narrow or soulless specialist. embodied

His

works transcend academic

distinctions. He

the

ancient perspective of

the

political scientist as

the

interpretation, Winter

1993-94, Vol. 21, No. 2

254

Interpretation
human
political

rational architectonic analyst, evaluator, and guide of

life. He

was

simultaneously

an

historian,

philosopher, political
relations.

theorist,

student of comparative

politics and theoretician of

international

(Preface,

p.

x)

As

Final Note to Mahoney's text

that can
history"

indicates, Aron is
choices we

a thinker of

"Permanent
of uni or

Contemporaneity"

illuminate the

face

at the

"dawn

versal

from the

point of view of

the

irreducible tensions

"antin

omies"

that characterize political life.

political science of

Mahoney's Critical Introduction to the

Raymond Aron is

divided into
the

six chapters.

Chapter 1

analyzes

Aron's is

complex

the thought of Max Weber.

Academically, Aron
whose shadow

practiced

sociology,

relationship to and it is
Max

towering figure
science and was

of

Max Weber
century.

cast across

the whole field

of social

in this

Aron
to

considered

himself

a student of

Weber

particularly

attracted

his

critique of

historical determinism. Weber

would

But Aron
thought

also sensed

that the unchallenged

influence

of

degrade

and

debase
sees

political practice.

Mahoney

the distinction

Aron as challenging Weber on two fundamental grounds he drew between facts and values and his doctrine of the "inex
gods."

piable conflict of no genuine

the

Contrary

to

Weber, Aron

argued

that there can

values are

be

understanding

of social phenomena

if the fact that

built

into facts is denied. Facts in the human

value

sciences remain unintelligible without

judgements. The reality

of

of modern

be
the

appreciated outside of a moral

totalitarianisms, for example, cannot dimension. Moreover, if we begin by denying

the possibility of a science

search

man, we end

by

undermining any incentive for

for the

most

important truths.
the limitations of
reason.

Aron involves
negative

acknowledges

conflict and painful consequences.

tradeoffs,
the

and

The future is opaque, choice it can bring forth unanticipated

the limits of reason is a
adoption of nihilism or social scientist re

Indeed,

recognition of

requirement of reason

itself. But it does

not entail

the

irrationalism, in
mains scientific

the manner of Nietzsche or Weber. The

"not

by

humanly

impossible

and

theoretically

undesirable

neutrality but through fair description and evaluation of social a balanced analysis of social phenomena, the responsible social
mediate
social

phenomena.

In

scientist can

conflict

and

bring

to politics the necessary

study"

moderation

that

Weberian

social science and

discounts.
the "heart of the
and

Chapters 2
tory,"

represent

together provide a

detailed textual
the
core

analysis of

text of

Aron's 1960 essay "The Dawn of Universal His the Aronian corpus, according to Mahoney. A careful
reader
a

examination of this

throughout

all of

essay introduces the Aron's work. Herein is

to the themes that resonate

response

"self-conscious
and

to both

Marxist

and existentialist understandings of

freedom

necessity."

Following

Aron's essay, Mahoney powerfully reveals in successive chapters the two foci of the Aronian perspective. On the one hand, Aron sees and articulates the

Book Reviews
undeniably crucial influence of modernity fairs what makes this century essentially
political and scientific unique.

255

He

also

society on human af discerns in this new

of political choice

landscape the ultimately determinative importance

regime

and

the political

in

helping
they
of

to shape the events of our time.

The two foci

time
as

merge when

turn to the historical interpretation

of our

in his understanding
of

the

"Thirty

Years'

War"

that dominated the

beginning
richness. "new
and

this century to

to

present a picture of unrivalled

power, clarity
reveal

and

According

Aron,

the events of this

process"

revolutionary
and

character of

the century ultimately brought about by the forces of

usual,"

science, technology,

and

industry

and

the

persistence of

"history

as

its drama

tragic choices,

rival ideas

and

individuals, in
is did
not

the perennial human

context of conflict and war.

Contrary
always at

to historical

determinists,
reflecting

what

have
to

to

be. The future is

"situation"

is

not a

least partially "free

might

open.

But contrary to the existentialists,

a commitment reason.

our
which neces
"process"

construction,"

"values"

sarily
and

remain unredeemed

by

While the

relative weight of agrees with

"drama"

be

changed

in

modern

times, Aron

Tocqueville,
leaves to
of

of whom

he is

a self-proclaimed space

"latter

day

descendant,"

that

history

human freedom the

liberty"
history"

in

which

to act. The task is to

use such

"margins

phy
of

of

responsibly and reasonably. Aron articulates a "probabilistic philoso (determinisme aleatoire) that frees modern man from the hold

debilitating
Aron's

fatalism

as well as

from

mindless

fanaticism.

uation of
which

science, like Tocqueville's before him, is an equitable eval the fundamental choices that man faces politically in the century in
political

tion
and

faced

he finds himself. Clearly, the critical choice which Aron and his genera was the choice between the liberal politics of Western democracies
totalitarianism. This

ideocratic

century

witnessed

the

rise

of a new

form

of

despotism, more ambitious in its goals and more violent in its means than the tutelary despotism imagined by Tocqueville. It was Raymond Aron who first
coined the phrase

"secular

religion"

to describe this wholly new

Freedom,"

phenomenon.

In Chapter 4,
poses

entitled

"The Liberal Definition

alternatives with order.

of

Mahoney juxta
both the

this

century's

historic

Aron's

reflections on

strengths and weaknesses of choice was not a

the liberal

At the time Aron wrote, the

to

attract

foregone conclusion, and the totalitarian temptation continued Western intellectuals long after it had been repudiated by those living
experience of such regimes.

through the

erary"

In the Opium of the Intellectuals, Aron defends prudential political judge or "lit ment, based on empirical sociological investigation, from the perspective. Here Mahoney deserves extended citation (in part, to better
"abstract"

appreciate

the

power and

lucidity

of

his

prose).

The

leading

lights

of

European intelligence,

including
to

Aron's

philosopher-friends
"left,"

from youth, Sartre

and

Merleau-Ponty,

appealed

abstractions such as

the

256
the

Interpretation
"revolution"

and

the

"proletariat"

to judge concrete issues of

political

economy

which could

only be

addressed through empirical

investigation

of the choices
societies

facing
the

European society

of our

time. Intellectuals often judged Western

by

"socialism"

abstract criteria of

but judged

socialist practice

by

a semi-mythical

theory
with a

and not

by

detailed

or

philosophy of history Marxist-Leninist regimes, this

constitutional pluralistic

penetrating investigation of its practice. Together which was used to justify heinous practices of

literary

approach condemned

relatively decent

constitutional regimes without

specifying that the regimes of the West was

real alternative to the

socialist practices.

(P

13)

If Aron

was alarmed and appalled

by
in

the posture of his youthful

friends, he

was also exasperated

by

political

analysts,

including

the typical university pro

fessor,

whose attempts

to be empirical

their approach to politics caused them

to miss the

truly important
other

questions of

the times.

Among
Aron's

things, Chapter 4 is distinguished

to

by

fine treatment
In the

of

complex relation

Marx, Tocqueville,
liberties"

and others.

manner of

Tocqueville, Aron defends

the "formal

and

"due

process"

that anchor

liberty

in the liberal He further But he is

order against sides with

the critique

by

Marx in "On the Jewish Marx in recognizing the

Question."

Tocqueville

against

prosperity
mocracies.

and opportunities available

more

to the working class in bourgeois de like Constant than Tocqueville in de-emphasizing

the

importance

of political participation and

emphasizing

private over public

liberties"

liberties. Aron, however, accepts the Marxist claim that "real As distinguished from Friedrich Hayek, and in a spirit entirely free

matter. of the

doc
to

trinaire, he came to the "pristine

ernment
"Promethian"

support a moderate of a

form

of

the

welfare state.
and

Contrary
spirit of

liberalism"

Locke

or a

Montesquieu

their elaborate gov

machinery to
society.

hedge in power, Aron in

need to

part accepts

the

the to

Marx in recognizing the

never

"empower
of

Power"

as a means

transform
"prey"

The ideocratic totalitarianism

tired

the Marxist state was a

represented a and

that Aron said "he

in

stalking."

Yet Marx

fund

of

knowledge for Aron in his

was one of

effort to conceptualize

modernity,

he
of

claimed

that Marx

"his favorite

authors."

In Chapter 5,
tional
relations. criticized

Mahoney
Although

examines

Aron's writing

on

the

theory

interna

often characterized as a partisan of power politics,

Aron

the

realist school

for
not

largely ignoring

the differences between

political regimes and

ideologies,
and

to mention the role of powerful

individ
of
school

uals, political parties,

public opinion and

the pressure of minority groups on the

policy.

formation

foreign
with

He

was

equally

critical of

the

idealist

that confuses "hopes

possibilities,"

the Is with the

undermine

tional politics to standards that

espouse.

effectively

Ought, holding interna the ultimate goals they

He

recommended a

morality
the

of prudence

that rejected both the power

politics that

denies

our common and

that

deny

human

diversity

humanity as well as the cosmopolitan doctrines inevitably conflictual character of interna

within

tional relations. He thought it necessary to remain

the horizon

of

the

Book Reviews
statesman and to protect
alist)"

257
(ide

it from the "geometric

to

(realist)"

and the

"literary
its

approaches that

distort international
individuals in

affairs and undermine public authority,

practice.

As

a responsible counselor

it

was

his

task to

them (in a phrase borrowed from Tocqueville) see "not differently but further than the Chapter 6 of Mahoney's study concludes the preceding with an outline of Aron's liberal political science, and an appendatory chapter fixes the latter in

help

parties."

relation to

the political

science of

Aristotle.
range and versatility.

Mahoney's ability from the

to

strengths

lie in his

He demonstrates his
gathered

distill
whole

and comment upon

the

essentials of

Aronian thought,

Aronian texts. He
confronted

Aronian corpus, as well as his capacity as an exegete says he appreciated Aron as a political theorist for
modernity.

key having
of

His commentary on this confronta tion illumines the thought of Aron, of course, but it also sheds valuable light on such figures as Comte, Weber, Constant, Montesquieu, Sartre, Tocqueville,
the great thinkers of
and

others,
and

who stand

in

comparison. concludes

This holds true for the fine discussion

and which allows of

of

Aron

Aristotle that

Mahoney's study

him to
oldest

assess the whole

Aronian

enterprise against the

backdrop

the West's

tradition of political science. Unlike that of many academic studies,

prose

Mahoney's

is strong

and crisp.

matic statement that summarizes an

His commentary is often punctuated with an epigram important point while provoking further

thought

and rumination.

Mahoney
honey's
Aron

often speaks of

Aron's

"affinity"

for

one

thinker

or another.

Ma

obvious

affinity for the

"thought,"

"spirit,"

"voice"

and

of

Raymond

speaks well of

the author of The Liberal Political Science of Raymond

always remained
"exciting"

Aron. As Aron's texts

for Daniel Mahoney,

so

does Mahoney's study

remain

for the

reader.

INTERPRETATION
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Republic Revisited

Olivia Delgado de Torres

Reflections

on

Patriarchy

and

the Rebellion of

Daughters in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Othello

Alfred Mollin

On Hamlet's

Mousetrap
of a

Joseph Alulis David Lowenthal Glenn W. Olson

The Education

Prince in

King

Lear

King

Lear
the Flight from Authority: The
as an

John Rawls

and

Quest for
Book Reviews Will

Equality

Exercise in

Primitivism

Morrisey

The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, edited by Thomas L. Pangle

John C.

Koritansky

Interpreting
America,

Tocqueville's
"

"Democracy

in

edited

by

Ken Masugi

ISSN 0020-9635

Interpretation, Inc.
Queens College

Flushing

N.Y. 11367-1597

U.S.A.

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