As
I have shown in my last post, the investigation of ’what beauty is’ ended in a
vicious circle. When Socrates pointed it out to Hippias, the latter responded with
his exit speech, declaring that all Socrates’ investigation were just ‘scrapings and shavings of argument,
cut up into little bits’: ‘What is both beautiful and most precious is the
ability to produce an eloquent and beautiful speech to a law-court or a
council-meeting or any other official body whom you are addressing, to convince
your audience, and to depart with the greatest of all prizes, your own
salvation and that of your friends and property. These then are the things to
which a man should hold fast, abandoning these pettifogging arguments of yours,
unless he wishes to be accounted a complete fool because he occupies himself
with trumpery nonsense.’ (304a4-b6, translation from the Hippias Major is B. Jowett’s)
Socrates’
closing entry begins as a response to Hippias: ‘You, my dear Hippias, are
blissfully fortunate because you know what way of life a man ought to follow,
and moreover have followed it with success – so you tell me.’
But then it turns into a sort of mini autobiography: ‘I,
however, am subject to what appears to be some supernatural ill fortune
(daimonia tis tuchȇ ‘some supernatural fortune’; Socrates was
anything but unhappy with the fortune he saw as divinely appointed to him,
which his closing word will clearly indicate). I wander about in unending
perplexity, and when I lay my perplexity before you wise men, you turn on me
and batter me with abuse as soon as I have explained my plight. You all say
just what you, Hippias, are now saying, how foolish and petty and worthless are
the matters with which I occupy myself; but when in turn I am convinced by you
and repeat exactly what you tell me, that the height of excellence is the
ability to produce an eloquent and beautiful speech and win the day in a
lawcourt or any other assembly, I am called every kind of bad name by some of
the audience, including especially that man who is always cross-questioning me.
He is a very close relative of mine and lives in the same house, and when I go
home and he hears me give utterance to these opinions he asks me whether I am
not ashamed of my audacity in talking about a beautiful way of life, when
questioning makes it evident (phanerȏs
exelenchomenos) that I do not even know the meaning of the word “beauty” (peri tou kalou hoti oud’ auto touto hoti
pote estin oida ‘that concerning the beautiful I do not even know what it
is’; Socrates does not investigate what to
kalon “the beautiful” means; he wants to know what it is). “And yet,” he goes on, “how can you know whose speech is
beautiful or the reverse – and this applies to any action whatsoever – when you
have no knowledge of beauty (to kalon
agnoȏn)? And so long as you are what you are, don’t you think that you
might as well be dead (oiei soi kreitton
einai zȇn mallon ȇ tethnanai ‘do you think it is better for you to live
rather than be dead’)?”
The question of Socrates’ critical self implies that it would
be better for Socrates to be dead rather than living. It might seem that his
wandering in perplexity and the abuse he incurs because of it makes his life so
difficult that he thinks of taking his own life. But his last words speak
clearly against it: ‘It is my lot, you
see, to be reviled and abused alike by you gentlemen, and by him. However, I
suppose all this must be endured; I may get some good from it – stranger things
have happened (ouden gar atopon ei
ȏpheloimȇn ‘it would be nothing strange if I benefitted from it’). And
indeed, Hippias, I do think I have got some good out of my conversation with
the two of you; I think now I appreciate the true meaning of the proverb, “All
that is beautiful is difficult”.’ Socrates finds his life beautiful, and
looking back on his discussion with Hippias, he clearly has enjoyed every
minute of it.
On
what basis, then, does Socrates think that being dead might be better for him
than being alive? The Phaedo may help
us to find the answer. On the dating I have proposed for the Hippias Major, the situation in these
two dialogues is comparable; for when Plato wrote the Hippias Major Socrates expected to be seized and executed at any
moment by men of the Thirty, in the Phaedo
he must drink hemlock in the evening. The introductory discussion in the latter
illuminates the closing discussion in the former. In the Phaedo, Socrates’ friends, assembled in prison to spend with him
his last hours, found him radiating happiness (eudaimȏn ephaineto, 58e3). They asked him to explain why he took
his leaving them so lightly; he said that ‘a man who has truly spent his life
in philosophy feels confident when about to die, and is hopeful that, when he
has died, he will win very great benefits in the other world’ (63e9-64a2). For
‘as long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated by such an evil,
we’ll surely never adequately gain what we desire – and that, we say, is truth.
Because the body affords us countless distractions (66b5-7) … if we’re ever going to know anything purely,
we must be rid of it, and must view the objects themselves with the soul by
itself; it’s then, apparently, that the things we desire and whose lovers we
claim to be, wisdom, will be ours – when we have died, as the argument
indicates, though not while we live.’ (66d8-e4, translation David Gallop)
In
return, the Hippias Major can help us
understand Socrates in the Phaedo. In
the autobiographic digression in the latter Socrates says that in his youth he
was keen on natural science, trying to understand ‘the reason for each thing (tas aitias hekastou), why each thing
comes to be, why it perishes, and why it exists’ (96a). When he found himself
incapable of finding the causes of things in natural science, he thought he
should ‘take refuge in theories (eis tous
logous kataphugonta) and study in them the truth of the things that are (en ekeinois skopein tȏn ontȏn tȇn alȇtheian,
99e5-6). What Socrates means by ‘taking refuge in theories’ is the following:
‘If anyone gives me as the reason why a given thing is beautiful either its
having a blooming colour, or its shape, or something else like that, I dismiss
those other things – because all those others confuse me – but in a plain (haplȏs), artless (atechnȏs), and possibly simpleminded way (kai isȏs euȇthȏs), I hold this close to myself: nothing else makes
it beautiful except that beautiful itself, whether by its presence or communion
or whatever the manner and nature of the relation may be; as I don’t go as far
as to affirm that, but only that it is by the beautiful that all beautiful
things are beautiful (all’ hoti tȏi kalȏi
panta ta kala kala). Because that seems to be the safest answer to give
both to myself and to another, and if I hang on to this, I believe I’ll never
fall: it’s safe to answer both to myself and to anyone else that it is by the
beautiful that beautiful things are beautiful (hoti tȏi kalȏi panta ta kala kala).’ (100c9-e3)
What
we don’t learn in the Phaedo is how,
and whether at all, this ‘safe search for causes’ is related to the question
‘what is the beauty by which all beautiful things are beautiful’, i.e. how, or
whether at all, Socrates’ search for causes is related to his search for
definitions. To this problem the Hippias
Major can help us find the answer.
Socrates
asks Hippias: ‘Are not all beautiful things (ta
kala panta) beautiful by beauty (tȏi kalȏi esti kala)?’ – Hippias: ‘Yes (Nai), by beauty (tȏi kalȏi).’ – Socrates: ‘Which has a real existence (Onti ge tini toutȏi;)?’ – Hippias: ‘Yes (Onti), what else do you think?’ –
Socrates: “Then tell me, what is (ti esti)
this thing (touto), beauty (to kalon)”?’ (287b5-d3) As can be seen,
it is only after Hippias accepted Socrates’ suggestion that beauty (to kalon) is the cause of the beauty of
all things that are beautiful, and that this beauty is something that exists,
that he asks what this beauty is. Socrates’ first suggestion is that they should consider
appropriateness (to prepon), ‘whether
it might not be beauty (to kalon)’
(293d-e). When Hippias agrees, Socrates asks: ‘Do we define appropriate as that
which by its presence causes the things in which it becomes present to appear
beautiful (ho paragenomenon poiei hekasta
phainesthai kala), or causes them to be beautiful (ȇ ho einai poiei),
or neither (ȇ oudetera toutȏn;)?’ When Hippias
answers that in his opinion it causes things to appear beautiful (293e11-294a5),
Socrates argues that ‘it can’t be what we are seeking’, for ‘we ask about
beauty (to kalon), by which all
beautiful things are beautiful (hȏi kala panta estin) whether they appear so or not – what can that be (ti an eiȇ)?’ (294b4-6) – As can be seen, by attempting to see whether
appropriateness (to prepon) might be
the definition of beauty, Socrates in fact asks whether it could show us how beauty
causes beautiful things to be beautiful.
Next,
Socrates attempts to define
beautiful as that whatever is useful (chrȇsimon): ‘We do
not say that eyes are beautiful when they appear to be without a faculty of
sight; we do when they have that faculty and so are useful for seeing … Similarly
we say that the whole body is beautifully made, sometimes for running,
sometimes for wrestling; and we speak in the same way of all animals. A
beautiful horse, or cock, or quail, and all utensils, and means of transport
both on land and on sea, merchant vessels and ships of war, and all instruments
of music and of the arts generally, and, if you like, practices and laws – we
apply the word “beautiful” to practically all these in the same manner; in each
case we take as our criterion the
natural constitution or the workmanship or the form of enactment, and whatever
is useful we call beautiful, and beautiful in that respect in which it is
useful and for the purpose for which and at the time at which it is useful … And
that which has the power (to dunaton)
to achieve its specific purpose is useful for the purpose which it has the
power to achieve, and that which is without that power is useless … Then power
(dunamis) is the beautiful thing, and
the lack of it (adunamia) is ugly’ (295c-e).
This definition was found unacceptable, for ‘evil is done much more abundantly
than good by all men from childhood upwards’ and ‘things useful for working
some evil are far from being beautiful’ (296c-d)
In the next attempt at definition – beauty is ‘the
beneficial’ (to ȏphelimon) – Socrates
explicitly identifies that which ‘makes things to be’ (ho einai poiei) with the cause (to
aition): ’beauty is that which is both useful and powerful for some good
purpose,’ which is ‘equivalent to ‘beneficial’ (ȏphelimon)’ … the beneficial is that which produces
good (tou agathou ara aition estin to
kalon) … that which produces (to
poioun) is identical with the cause (estin
ouk allo ti ȇ to aition) … Then the beneficial is the cause
of the good (tou agathou ara aition estin
to kalon) … the cause (to aition)
and that of which it is the cause (kai
hou an aition ȇi to aition) are different … If then beauty (ei ara to kalon) is the cause of the
good (estin aition agathou), then the
good (to agathon) would be brought
into existence by beauty (gignoit’ an
hupo tou kalou) … the cause is not that which it brings into existence (oude ge to aition gignomenon estin), nor
vice versa (oude to gignomenon au aition)’.
But this means that on the definition of beauty as ‘the beneficial’ (to ȏphelimon) ‘beauty is not good nor the good
beautiful’, which both Socrates and Hippias find unacceptable. (296d-297d)
The last definition of beauty as ‘whatever we enjoy through
our senses of hearing and sight’ (297e5-7) is ‘one out’ on Jowett’s
translation, but not in the original; for Jowett’s ‘whatever we enjoy’ stands
for Socrates’ ho an chairein hȇmas poiȇi, which means ‘what makes us
enjoy [whatever we enjoy through our senses of hearing and sight], which Socrates
explicitly identified with the cause.
As can be seen, in searching for definitions Socrates searches
for causes. He is certain that beauty by which all beautiful people, animals
and things are beautiful is something, something existing; he wants to find out
what it is; it would show in what way it makes beautiful all that is beautiful,
but in spite of all his efforts he can’t find a satisfactory answer to his ‘what
is’ question. Socrates’ closing entry in the Hippias Major – ‘when you
have no knowledge of beauty (to kalon
agnoȏn), do you think it is better for you to live rather than be dead’ (oiei soi kreitton einai zȇn mallon ȇ
tethnanai)?” – indicates,
what the Phaedo clearly shows:
Socrates was convinced that if we’re
ever going to know these entities purely, we must view them with the soul by
itself, when we get rid of our body, when we die, in afterlife.
I’ve
argued that Plato wrote the dialogue in an effort to prevent Socrates’ death in
the hands of the Thirty, and I believe that this effort culminates with his
giving expression to Socrates’ conviction that it is better for him to be dead
than alive. Didn’t Plato in this way address Critias and the Thirty with the
question: ‘Do you want to become a laughing stock of Athens by becoming known
as Socrates’ benefactors?’ But if in doing so Plato did his best to stop the
Thirty from executing Socrates, does it not imply that he did not share
Socrates’ conviction that by dying the world of truth would become open to him?
I believe that we can find the answer
to this question if we attend to Socrates’ final address to Hippias: ‘You, my dear Hippias, are blissfully
fortunate (su man makarios ei ) because
you know (hoti te oistha) what way of
life a man ought to follow (ha chrȇ epitȇdeuain anthrȏpon), and
moreover have followed it with success (kai
epitetȇdeukas hikanȏs) – so you tell me (hȏs phȇis).’
Socrates’ su man makarios ei simply
means ‘you are blessed’; there is no place for Jowett’s ‘fortunate’ in ‘knowing
what way of life a man ought to follow’. Similarly, in Jowett’s ‘and moreover
have followed it with success’ – where ‘with success’ stands for hikanȏs, which means ‘adequately’, ‘sufficiently’
– an unwarranted element of being fortunate is involved; Socrates’ kai epitetȇdeukas hikanȏs, means ‘and
you pursued it adequately’.
Socrates
qualifies his praise of Hippias with the words ‘so you tell me’ (hȏs phȇis ‘as you
say’); it thus refers to Hippias’ boast that on his recent visit to Sparta he
‘gained much credit setting forth in detail the honourable and beautiful
practices (peri ge epitȇdeumatȏn kalȏn) to which a
young man ought to devote himself (ha chrȇ ton neon epitȇdeuein, 286a3-4). But Hippias did not use
the term makarios (‘blessed’) when he
was speaking about ‘the way of life a man ought to follow’ (ha chrȇ epitȇdeuein anthrȏpon).
A man who
knows ‘what way of life a man ought to follow and follows it adequately’ is blessed (makarios) in Plato’s view. In the Phaedrus, in the Palinode, Plato uses the term when he asserts that
the days of those who live ‘in the ordered rule of the philosophic life’ (eis tetagmenȇn te diaitan kai
philosophian), ‘will
be blessed with happiness and concord’ (makarion
men kai homonoȇtikon ton enthade bion
diagousin, 256a7-b1,
tr. R. Hackforth).’ It is to this passage that Socrates gestures with the term makarios. The reader is invited to judge
Hippias’ performance in the dialogue against the background of a life truly
lived in philosophy.
We obtain the answer to the question whether Plato shared Socrates’ conviction that by dying the
world of truth would become open to a true philosopher if we consider the
after-life rewards allotted
to those who live ‘in the ordered rule of the philosophic life’: ‘And when they
die they become winged and light, and have won the first of their submissions
in these, the truly Olympic games (256b3-5).’ What are the other two submissions
that are yet to be won? To this question we find the answer in an earlier
passage In which Plato speaks about the fate of the souls that ‘lost their
wings’, i.e. lost their capacity to see the Forms: ‘Each soul only returns to
the place from which it has come after ten thousand years; for it does not
become winged before then, except for that of the man who has lived the
philosophic life without guile or who has united his love for his boy with
philosophy; and these souls, with the third circuit of a thousand years, if
they choose this life three times in a succession, on that condition become
winged and depart, in the three-thousandth year’ (248e5-249a5). Clearly, during
each thousand-year posthumous after-life the souls of philosophers enjoy the
rewards of their life on earth, but they don’t make any progress towards
recovering their pristine condition and returning to the place from which they
have come. The place in which the philosophers’ souls make progress towards
this goal is their life here on earth. Comparing the soul to a charioteer with
two horses, in the case of a philosopher lover Plato describes the essential
steps on this road to the final goal: ‘Now they come close to the beloved and
see the flashing of his face. As the charioteer sees it, his memory is carried
back to the nature of beauty (pros tȇn tou kallous phusin), and again sees it (kai palin
eiden autȇn) standing together with self-control
(meta sȏphrosunȇs) on a holy
pedestal’ (254b3-7, translation C.J. Rowe).
If we are to understand the profound difference between
Socrates and Plato which this indicates, we must consider Aristotle’s account
of Plato’s conception of the Forms. He says that Plato in his youth became
familiar (sunȇthȇs genomenos) with the Heraclitean doctrines –
‘that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux (hȏs hapantȏn tȏn aisthȇtȏn aei reontȏn) and there is no knowledge about
them (epistȇmȇs peri autȏn ouk ousȇs)’. When Socrates was preoccupied
with ethical matters, ‘seeking in these the universal (en mentoi toutois to katholou zȇtountos) and fixing his thought on
definitions (peri horismȏn epistȇsanto tȇn dianoian ‘bringing his thought to a standstill
on definitions’), having accepted him (ekeinon
apodexamenos), because of this (dia
to toiouton) he assumed (hupelaben)
that this was taking place concerning other entities (hȏs peri heterȏn touto gignomenon) and not sensible things (kai ou tȏn aisthȇtȏn) … These
kind of entities (ta men toiauta tȏn ontȏn) he called Forms (ideas prosȇgoreuse).’ (Metaphysics 987a33-b8)
The reference point of Aristotle’s ‘because of this’ is
Socrates’ ‘bringing his thought to a standstill on definitions’ seen against
the background of the Heraclitean doctrine that in the world of sensible things
there was nothing on which the thought could be brought to standstill. Aware of
Socrates’ fixing his thought on definitions, he realised that entities on which
thought could be fixed did not belong to the sensible world. He called them Ideas – which is derived from idein ‘to see’ – for he could see these
entities with his mind’s eye. Socrates fixed his thought on these entities considering
them as causes – ‘by beauty all beautiful things are beautiful’. In his
attempts to define them and trying to find out what they were – ‘what was
beauty’ that it made all beautiful things beautiful – he was of necessity led
astray: ‘Is beauty ‘the appropriate’ (to
prepon), is it ‘the useful’ (to chrȇsimon), is it
‘the beneficial’ (to ȏphelimon), is
it ‘the pleasant’ (to hȇdy) that we enjoy
‘through the senses of hearing and sight’ (to
di’ akoȇs te kai di’ opseȏs)? These attempts at defining beauty
cannot give a satisfactory answer to the question ‘what beauty is’, but all these
attempts at answering this question point towards beauty as such, engendering Socrates’
desire to find the truth about it, which he can satisfy only when he gets rid
of his body, after his death, as he believes.
Let me end this post by noting that when Aristotle says that
Socrates was ‘seeking the universal’ (to
katholou zȇtountos) in ethical matters, he imposes on him
his own terminology. He thus misrepresents Socrates in this respect, and the Hippias Major makes this misrepresentation
palpable: ‘Is it not by justice that the just are just?’ – ‘By justice.’ –
‘Then justice is something?’ – ‘Certainly.’
- ‘Again, it is by wisdom that the wise are wise, and by the good (tȏi agathȏi) that all
good things are good?’ – ‘Undoubtedly.’ – ‘Which are something really existing
(Ousi ge tisi toutois); for surely
not by non-existing things (ou gar dȇpou mȇ ousi ge).’ – ‘Existing for sure’ (Ousi mentoi) – ‘Then are not all
beautiful things (Ar’ oun ou kai ta kala
panta) beautiful by beauty (tȏi kalȏi esti kala;)?’ – ‘Yes (Nai), by beauty (tȏi kalȏi).’ – ‘Which is something existing’ (Onti ge tini toutȏi;) – ‘Existing’ (Onti). – ‘So tell me (Eipe dȇ),
what is this beauty (ti esti touto to
kalon). (See 287c-d) – Aristotle’s universal (to katholou) is not 'something existing’ (on ti) and it has no causal power.
