“This is highly intelligent, original, and sophisticated work; it deserves to be widely read.”–Rachel Barney, University of Toronto

Heda Segvic (1957-2003) was associate professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

From Protagoras to Aristotle

ESSAYS IN ANCIENT MORAL PHILOSOPHYBy Heda Segvic

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2009 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-13123-8

Contents

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………viiIntroduction-Charles Brittain………………………………………………………….ixOne Protagoras’ Political Art…………………………………………………………3Two Homer in Plato’s Protagoras……………………………………………………….28Three No One Errs Willingly: The Meaning of Socratic Intellectualism………………………47Four Aristotle on the Varieties of Goodness…………………………………………….89Five Aristotle’s Metaphysics of Action…………………………………………………111Six Deliberation and Choice in Aristotle……………………………………………….144Seven Review of Roger Crisp, Translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics…………………175Eight Two or Three Things We Know about Socrates………………………………………..181Indices……………………………………………………………………………..187

Chapter One

Protagoras’ Political Art

Protagoras’ Art of Living

In a number of Plato’s dialogues Socrates is shown eager to create the impression that he is not in the same business as the Sophists. Yet there are some striking overlaps. Socrates goes around Athens discussing the nature of virtue and the question of how best to live one’s life, while the Sophists—most notably, Protagoras—go all over Greece discussing, among other things, the same topics. In Plato’s Protagoras Protagoras makes a point of saying that he does not, like the other Sophists, burden his student with subjects such as arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, or music. He will teach Hippocrates precisely what he has come to learn, how to deliberate well in both his private and his public life (Prot. 318d 7–319a 2). It is practical matters concerning the conduct of life that Protagoras focuses upon—much like Socrates.

When Protagoras says that those who associate themselves with him will become better (Prot. 316c 9–d 1, 318a 6–9), this is really another way of saying that his concern is with virtue, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. Apart from the focus on human virtue, Socrates and Protagoras seem to share the following, more specific, views. To begin with, they both appear to assume that there is such a thing as doing well or ill in life, and that humans generally want to do well in life. As far as Socrates is concerned, see for instance his words at Prot. 313a 6–9: ‘… but when it comes to something you value more than your body, namely your soul, and when everything concerning whether you do well or ill in your life depends on whether this becomes worthy or worthless….’. ‘Doing well’ translates [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. To do well in life is the same thing as to attain [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]—, rendered usually as ‘happiness’ or ‘the good life’. Protagoras for his part acknowledges, for instance at 351b 3–4, in response to Socrates, that some people live badly and others well. It seems to go without saying that he thinks that they all want to live well. (The discussion that follows upon 351b presupposes this.) Socrates and Protagoras are thus in agreement that there is such a thing as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], and that humans in general want to attain it. Further, they agree that having [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] leads to doing well in life. Given how far-ranging the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is, this second claim is more open-ended than it might at first sight appear to be. If one can hit upon the good life by one’s own effort, it is some combination of admirable qualities called ‘virtue’, whatever this may turn out to be, that enables one to do so.

In addition, Socrates and Protagoras both use the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] in order to throw light on the connection they envisage between virtue and the good life. The role played by Socrates’ frequent references to [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] in the early dialogues is the following. A particular art or craft leads to success in some specific domain of practice: for instance, the knowledge of medicine enables this particular person, a doctor, to be reliably successful in curing people. Now if it is possible to achieve success, or some measure of success, in restricted domains of practice—in curing people, sailing, building houses or tables—by employing a relevant body of practical knowledge, might it not be possible to achieve success, or some measure of success, in living one’s life by employing an appropriate body of practical knowledge? The question thus is whether there exists a counterpart to the established arts and crafts (carpentry, architecture, medicine, navigation) which, if one had it, would enable one to live well. This art, if it existed or if it could be developed, would appropriately be called an art of living.

A [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is practical knowledge or expertise. For Plato, as for Aristotle (EN VI. 3 1139b 14–7, 1140a 23) and Greek philosophers generally, this is in the first place a set of capacities a person has. It is something that belongs to the person’s soul; only secondarily is it a set of abstract rules, or a set of established practices that constitute the exercise of a profession. The human soul is what makes us live; if the soul had the art of living, it would be in good shape and well-equipped to make us live well.

As we shall see shortly, when Protagoras comes to formulate his own [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], teaching, his words on the face of it suggest that such an art is possible. Under one reading of his formulation at any rate, what he professes to teach is, precisely, an art that enables his students to lead a good life. After he has given his formulation, he will agree with Socrates that it is ‘political art’ or ‘civic art’, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], that he professes to teach. When he speaks of political virtue, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], he treats it as identical with political art. Virtue and art are not obviously identical, since virtue need not be thought of as an expertise of the sort I have just described. However, Socrates appears to identify the two, and he is not alone in this. Protagoras appears to do pretty much the same. (I say ‘pretty much’, because part of what Protagoras has in mind when he claims that he has the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is that he can make other people have virtue. He need not take virtue in every variety to be a [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]. His view, judging from the speech he makes as a whole, might be that virtue in its highest form, as possessed by a teacher of virtue, is a [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.].) Socrates will question Protagoras’ claim to be a teacher of virtue. Against Protagoras, he will argue—at any rate, to begin with—that virtue is not teachable, or more generally that it cannot be deliberately and reliably transmitted through any human practice.

Keeping this general framework in mind, let us look at the issues more closely. What is it exactly that Protagoras professes to teach? When he says that his students will be improved by their studies with him, what kind of virtue does he have in mind? Does this correspond to virtue as Socrates understands it?

Prodded by Socrates (318d 5 ff.), Protagoras becomes more specific about his teaching. At 318e 5–319a 2, he offers the following:

What I teach ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) is sound deliberation (or good judgement: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), both in domestic matters ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), so as to best manage one’s household, and in the affairs of the polis ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), so as to become most capable (or most competent, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) in word and deed in such affairs.

Two readings immediately suggest themselves of the characterization Protagoras gives here of his own teaching. First, one can think of a ‘pragmatic’ reading of his words, according to which he teaches how to manage best one’s household affairs—handling things like household finances, slaves, etc.—and also how to speak well in public, and how to be conventionally speaking successful in politics or public life. On the second reading, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] or domestic affairs include one’s own affairs in a broader sense. The relevant questions here are how one should treat the members of one’s family or household, how one should deal with whatever problems arise in one’s household, and more generally, how one should arrange one’s own affairs so as to live one’s life in the best way. As for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], the affairs of the polis, these would cover issues such as how to be a good citizen, how to participate well in public life both in speech and in action, and perhaps also how best to run the city. In the context of the second reading, political or civic art should be construed broadly: the art of being a good [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], citizen, can be seen as including the art of being a good husband, good father, good head of household, and in general a good human being. For in response to Protagoras’ characterization of his teaching, Socrates says that this seems to him to be the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], political art, or the art of making people good citizens (319a 3–5), and Protagoras agrees. Socrates thus includes the running of one’s own affairs in the art of politics, and Protagoras goes along with it.

If the virtue that Protagoras professes to teach is understood in the second way, the virtue that he aims at imparting to his students looks a lot like the sort of virtue which Socrates, according for instance to the account we find in Plato’s Apology, spends his days debating with his fellow citizens. On this reading, the convergence between Socrates and Protagoras is great, but may still not be complete, since Socrates as presented by Plato never professed to have an art of this sort, or to teach virtue. As Socrates stresses in the Apology, he has never been anyone’s teacher. Leaving this difference aside for a moment, let us focus upon the virtue which Protagoras professes to teach.

Socrates appears to think that the virtue Protagoras believes himself capable of imparting is not the same as that virtue the nature of which he himself is at such pains to discover in all his conversations. He imputes, in his habitually indirect way, something far more pragmatic to Protagoras—something much more along the lines of the first reading of Protagoras’ teaching outlined above. In order to find out about this, he proceeds with his inquiry. As a way of challenging Protagoras, he claims that the virtue the Sophist professes to teach cannot be taught, or transmitted to others through a reliable human practice.

Socrates argues, at 319a 8–320c 1, that what Protagoras professes to teach is not—on the face of it at least—teachable or learnable. He brings up two observations about his fellow Athenians. (i) Whereas in technical matters people seek advice from specialists, in public affairs (political affairs, affairs of the polis) everybody deliberates, makes decisions, and gives counsel to others; (ii) in private, the wisest and best citizens, such as the statesman Pericles—a striking example of someone of remarkable political virtue—fail to impart their virtue to their sons and others around them. So they either try to teach virtue and fail, or they do not even try, knowing that this cannot be done. The two observations suggest, according to Socrates, that Athenians do not think that virtue can be taught. Socrates is offering them in support of his own view (as professed here) that the virtue in question cannot be taught.

In this argument, Socrates assumes that the beliefs underlying the Athenian practices of deliberating political issues in the assembly are true—otherwise (i) would not support the conclusion he is arguing for here, that virtue is not teachable. The assumption is deliberate. He makes it explicit by declaring at the outset that in his own opinion and that of the rest of the Greek world Athenians are wise (319b 3–4). But why is he assuming this? He appears to think that Protagoras will take as true what the majority of Athenians take to be true of themselves. Protagoras might do so because of his own democratic leanings, or because he tends to side with the opinion of the majority, or in order to ingratiate himself with those whose city he is currently visiting. Or, Protagoras could be taking as true what the majority of Athenians think to be true because of his own view that what appears to a person or a community is so for that person or that community. The relativist tenet that Plato attributes to Protagoras in the Cratylus and Theaetetus is not explicitly mentioned in the Protagoras, but the possibility that it lies behind some of the arguments must be borne in mind.

The belief that Socrates imputes to the Athenians—namely, that virtue is not teachable—is presented by him as something that justifies Athenian democratic political practices, such as their willingness to keep the floor open during discussions and deliberations in the assembly. If the belief in question plays this role, a supporter of democracy would find it hard to disagree with. But Protagoras’ own credibility as a teacher of political virtue demands that he disagree with this opinion. Socrates appears to have set up a test, and possibly a trap, for Protagoras. As he has constructed the argument, either the reputation of the Athenians as wise has to go, or Protagoras’ own reputation as a teacher of virtue has to go. Protagoras is free to step out of the trap. Whatever he does, Socrates’ two prima facie arguments are set up so as to test the man himself—his sincerity as a supporter of democracy, his integrity as a self-styled teacher of virtue—and not merely his professed beliefs. Protagoras’ standing as a teacher of virtue is at stake here, but no less so is the thing he wishes to impart to others—his own virtue.

Protagoras’ Anthropogonic Myth

Protagoras gives his answer to Socrates’ challenge in a long speech (320c 8–328d 2). I shall look in this section at the first part of his speech, in which Protagoras tells a myth about the creation by gods of mortal races, and their endowment upon the creation (320c 8–322d 5). It is the endowment of human beings that the myth is focused upon.

Protagoras’ myth can be read as a story about human [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]—the capacities, powers or competences that human beings possess. These capacities fall into three different categories. The myth conjoins this difference in kind between the capacities with their temporal accession: upon creation by gods, human beings are first given a bunch of capacities, then another bunch, and at the end yet another. Epimetheus, The One Who Thinks After The Fact, prevailing upon his brother Prometheus, The One Who Has Foresight, to let him distribute capacities to mortal races, is said to have ‘used up’ all the powers and abilities he had at his disposal on the non-reasoning animals (321c 1), leaving the human race ‘naked, unshod, unbedded and unarmed’ (c 5–6). The powers that Epimetheus set out to distribute were all of a certain sort, and there was nothing more left of that sort. When Prometheus afterwards gives human beings fire, he gives them something different in kind from the powers that non-human animals had received.

Desperate to find a means of survival for the human race after Epimetheus’ blunder, Prometheus steals fire on behalf of humans, taking it from the house where Athena and Hephaestus, the patrons of arts and crafts, practice their arts. Prometheus’ gift to humans is, however, not just fire, but something larger: a whole set of practical abilities that make humans go about things in a way that is different from the way non-reasoning animals go about things. As Protagoras puts it at 321d 1, together with fire humans receive from Prometheus [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]—technical wisdom, or wisdom in the arts or crafts. (Later, at 321e 1–2, the theft is described as that of ‘the art of fire’, which belongs to Hephaestus, and another, Athena’s, art.) As a result of this gift, humans go on and—by themselves—invent houses, clothes, blankets, etc., develop articulated speech, and start founding cities (322a–b).

The last part of the myth (322a 3–d 5) describes humans being destroyed by wild beasts, and attributes this to human beings not having the art of war, which is part of the political art. They try to band together and form cities, but not being able to abstain from attacking one another, they have to disband, falling prey again to wild animals. Zeus, fearing that the human race might be all wiped out, sends his messenger Hermes to give humans [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]—shame and justice—so that they may live peacefully together under bonds of friendship ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], 322c 3) in the cities they had started to form. He decides that, unlike the particular arts or crafts they had already received, shame and justice will be distributed not just to some human beings, but to all. He lays down the law that those who cannot partake of shame and justice should be killed as a ‘disease ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]) to the city’.

By receiving technical wisdom along with fire, human beings receive an ability to make for themselves precisely the sort of things Epimetheus forgot to give them. It is in virtue of a certain use of reason—the kind of reason that finds its use in arts and crafts—that humans can now do things for themselves, namely, take care of themselves by themselves. In acquiring reason—the technical sort of reason—humans do not just acquire some one extra thing, unrelated to the endowments they had received before, but a capacity that changes the way in which they use their basic, animal-type, capacities.

There is a symbolism in the hierarchical choice of the gift-givers, which matches the hierarchy of the endowments that are bestowed upon human beings. The first gift-giver, Epimetheus, the one who thinks after the fact, is succeeded by Prometheus, the one who has forethought. The capacities Epimetheus bestowed are for the most part used after the fact. When attacked, one runs, or uses bodily strength to counter the attack. Prometheus’ gift is of the abilities that embody and exercise foresight. Anticipating their future needs and the situations that may arise, human beings use technical arts to provide for their needs in the anticipated situations. The highest and most valuable gift is bestowed upon human beings by the most powerful among the gods, Zeus, who acts through his messenger Hermes. Zeus is the god that governs the whole realm of mortals and immortals, and the gift he gives to human beings enables them to govern their mutual intercourse, and themselves. The precise role of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] is not specified, but [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] or justice is the component that primarily governs mutual intercourse among human beings, enabling them to live peacefully together; [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] or shame the component that enables each to govern himself in his conduct toward other human beings. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] are treated as belonging together, as if forming a unity. When present, they jointly ensure the right attitude of humans toward gods.

(Continues…)

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