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 Five

CALLICLES. Two Ways of Life: Philosophy or Politics (OR IS IT THE PURSUIT OF GOOD VS. THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE?). Callicles’ Attachment to Politics and Conventional Justice (“the Most Infuriating Thing”). The Need to Imitate the Unjust and Powerful to Avoid Suffering Injustice.

March 26, 7 PM -8:30 pm

Though Callicles has given up his hedonist thesis (prompted by some concern for the noble and shameful, e.g. his general admiration of manliness (courage) (497e); “are you not ashamed” at 494e is followed by his initial wavering on hedonism at 495a-b)—he has not abandoned what he calls “natural justice,” that is, his rebellion against conventional morality. Or does Callicles’ rapid embrace of a radical or ascetic disjunction between pleasure and the good reveal his underlying attraction to some moral standard, some Ought (“must” at 499e, cf. “do” at 468b)? (Does Callicles go from one extreme to another, because these extremes share or offer him some common protection from reality?) By asking if the lives of politics and of philosophy are different, Socrates may be raising a doubt whether the pursuit of pleasure and the pursuit of the good are in fact different, the premise of the discussion and yet the very next thing he questions (500d-500e, cf. the suggestion in the Greek at 501a that the “good art” of medicine also pursues pleasure, though not solely or artlessly). Socrates had earlier suggested that philosophy is good and pleasant (458a)—is the ascetism that Socrates now presents as the core of philosophy the truth, or rather rhetoric, an image of a moral life to test or to move Callicles (—only now, after his renunciation of hedonism)?

         When Socrates turns to examining politics, and whether any of the orators make the citizens as good as possible, Callicles swears by Zeus that none of the current ones do, but he reveals that he admires those statesmen of old through whose speaking Athenians became better (503b-c): Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and even the recently dead Pericles himself. It is they whom he calls “good men” (503c). (What does Callicles share with ordinary patriots? Does his extreme politics arise in part from disgust at real moral and political decay in Athens? Should we understand him in part as a reaction to a corrupt political milieu?) While Socrates emphasizes most the distinction between gratifying desires and seeking to be good, Callicles emphasizes and praises men who are concerned with others (503a). How can his admiration of public-spirited statesmen square with his praise of selfish, hedonistic tyrants? Why is Socrates, in contrast, silent about whose good “true virtue” seeks (503c)? Regarding one’s own good, Callicles refuses to answer when Socrates asks him to name what arises from the arrangement and order of one’s soul (as “health” arises, in one’s body) (504b-c). Callicles does not answer “happiness,” which he had brought up when describing a tyrant whose virtue is extreme and unrestrained hedonism, 492b-c. While Callicles has moved away from hedonism, it seems that he cannot bring himself to associate happiness with law — that is, conventional justice and moderation, within ordinary restraints and limitations (504d). (His responses to Socrates are hostile or at least grudging, 504c-505c). And Callicles is most of all angered at the claim that being punished is better than intemperance (505b-c)—why? In contrast, he is most of all pleased when Socrates says that one must oneself rule in the city, even as a tyrant, or else be a comrade of the regime, in order to suffer no injustice, or as little as possible (510a). Is there a position of such absolute power that a human being need fear no injustice, and are tyrants really safest (“your argument,” i.e. not Socrates’, at 510e)? Does the focus on protection from injustice make one forget other vulnerabilities, or even promise one a general invulnerability?

         Socrates observes that if, as Callicles concedes, the man who protects himself from suffering injustice by imitating the unjust ruler (and holding great power) will have to commit injustice with impunity, like his master — then the greatest evil will befall him, for his soul will become degenerate and maimed (510e-511a). Callicles explodes at Socrates’ seeming naïveté or piety: “Don’t you know the man who imitates (the unjust ruler) will kill the man who does not imitate?” (Socrates later suggests that one might pretend to imitate the rulers without truly imitating them (513b). Is this his solution for himself? Does the philosopher only pretend to imitate the rulers and flatter their “justice” (522c)? Does he need “genuine friendship” with the people? Do even political leaders?) Socrates responds that he hears this “many times” from Callicles and Polus and “almost all others in the city”—and Socrates admits, “he will kill, if he wishes, but it will be a base man killing a noble and good one.” Callicles shoots back, “Isn’t this exactly the infuriating thing?” What does this remark suggest about Callicles’ belief in (even conventional) justice? And what does this reveal about his distrust in justice? Does ardent indignation at injustice, when combined with sharp awareness of the vulnerability of justice or distrust in its strength (in a decadent or atheistic or corrupt country), lead to imitation of injustice and tyranny as the best way to protect against injustice? Does Callicles reflect the need to hope for an invulnerable or unmixed or transcendent good (even more than his preservation, 511c-d, 512d-e, 513c) combined with actual inability (perhaps due to a corrupt political environment or upbringing) to hope for or have real faith in such a good?

Reading: p. 96-112, 500a-513d

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