CALLICLES. His, and our, radical inability to harmonize or “rationalize” our deeply held, contradictory beliefs about justice.

Swearing by the dog, the god of the Egyptians (Anubis, god of death), Socrates says the proof of this is our inability to refute his extreme thesis in favor of justice (482b-c). This divides life into two fundamental alternatives: the political way of life, which is the world of Plato’s Cave—of continued darkness and confusion over justice, or mere shadows of justice (if that, Rep. 517d) —and the life of philosophy, of those who, in the language of Plato’s Republic, know the idea of justice—which one does not learn in the assembly or from the many, 455a, 459a. (The philosophers live outside the city, in the “Isles of the Blessed,” 526c.)

Week Four

CALLICLES. Moderation and Hedonism.

March 19, 7 PM -8:30 pm

Does Callicles’ defense of an unlimited pursuit of pleasure, or a “shameless” hedonism, demonstrate his freedom from morality and justice, or instead a kind of “liberation theology”? How does Socrates finally succeed in getting Callicles to give up his defense of hedonism (“some pleasures are better, others worse,” 499b, cf. 495a)? Is it, like his prior success over Polus, a victory won by appealing to morality? Do Callicles’ nihilistic or cynical doubts about ordinary self-restraint and decency bend to some deeper if twisted belief in virtue and justice? (Is Callicles at war — with himself?) Socrates sets aside the lack of clarity Callicles has over who exactly the superior are supposed to be and what makes them superior (—might, or intelligence, or courage?). Taking advantage of Callicles’ “patriotic” admiration of political intelligence and rule over the cities (491c-d), Socrates turns the question in a radically unpolitical direction and (one would think) away from justice: he asks Callicles, not about rule over others, but what each man, ruling himself, has “more of” in relation to himself (491d). In other words, what does the moderate man, ruling his desires, have “more of.” Callicles explodes at this bourgeois moderation—he rebels against the limitations of even self-rule, and argues that the “noble and just by nature” is for a man to let his desires be as great as possible and not chasten them, and that this is “happiness and virtue” (492d-e). What does Callicles’ pride in shamelessness and outspokenness, which Socrates emphasizes (492d, 494c), imply about his understanding of virtue and justice? Does Callicles believe that virtue is only a means to attain pleasure, or instead that the pursuit of unlimited pleasure is rather a means to the end of testing his virtue (daring, or cleverness, or shamelessness)? Why do you suppose that Callicles drops his defense of radical hedonism only when challenged if the courageous and intelligent, when they feel as much pleasure as (or even less than), or as much pain as (or even more than), the cowardly and foolish, become as bad as or worse than them (498e-499b)?

Reading: p. 83-96, 491d-500a

(The translation we are using is by James H. Nichols (Agora Editions, Cornell Univ. Press, 1998).)