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 Six

Callicles’ Love of the People. Socrates’ Criticism of Politics. The Myth of Callicles: Does the Defense of Justice Require God and the Afterlife?

april 2, 7 PM -8:30 pm

Callicles had expressed, in his praise of the “natural justice” of tyranny, a desire to exploit the people, and he now indicates some dissatisfaction with a political life devoted to imitating and swaying the people to preserve oneself — though he is not “altogether persuaded” (512d, 513c). (Socrates doubts that Callicles will ever be persuaded away from a political life (“perhaps,” at 513d).) But surprisingly, Socrates says that the reason that Callicles is not persuaded is his “love (eros)” for the people” (513c, 481d-e). How should we understand this? Callicles, as shown by his attraction to tyrants and statesmen, longs for political power (481d-e), and the supreme power in a democracy such as Athens is that of the people. He loves its power, more than he looks down on its vices (cf. his praise of luxury and freedom, 492c). (Unlike the young Plato, Callicles appears to be on the Periclean or anti-oligarchic side of politics, as his jibe at the “men with broken ears” (Spartanizers) suggests, 515e.) Not self-rule or mastery over himself (491d), but mastery over the people and wielding their power, promises him an inchoate happiness that feels unbounded, whether as (imagination of) unrestrained satisfaction of his desires, or as exaltation into a divine power and impunity, or as absolute protection from injustice and perhaps all evils. Is this a realistic account of any actual political power — or is this more like an erotic transport to something beyond any worldly power? The hard-headed reality of having “raw” power (e.g. to kill whomever one pleases), rather than pious talk in a corrupt and faithless age, excites an imagination of invulnerability to any evil (even the penalty for injustice)—but can this fantasy arise without also some (unacknowledged, and so unexamined) need to believe in justice and the hope of earning the love of an ultimate being or Power?

         As Socrates had presented a rhetorical image of philosophy as ascetic, so now he presents all actual politics as low and corrupt, by holding it to the impossibly high standards of the ascetic. He denies that any one has ever become a good man in politics (517a). He blames statesmen for the ingratitude and injustice they receive at the hands of the people, on the grounds that the statesmen are responsible for failing to make them just (cf. 457b). This depends on an analogy of statesmen with trainers of animals (516a-b), but (besides implying he holds a less noble view of politics, a “city of pigs”) doesn’t this also ignore the recalcitrance of human beings (esp. as a political group) to education and virtue? (Socrates had before suggested it is impossible to teach justice to a crowd, 455a.) Is Socrates himself to blame for the injustice of his execution by the public (522b-c)? On the other hand, despite the extreme rhetoric, is there not some truth to the condemnation: Did the great statesmen, in making Athens wealthy (517c), politically powerful, and above all an empire, make the citizens good, or did they undermine moderation and justice (519a)? The decadence and corruption of the late empire might have been caused by much earlier leaders—those whom people “extol” but who are nonetheless “the ones responsible for its evils” (518e-519a). (Socrates mentions Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles, but leaves out Miltiades, the only one who had no hand in Athens’ subjugation of other Greek cities, 519a, cf. 516d-e.) Might Socrates’ extreme or ascetic rhetoric for justice serve not only as a protection for philosophy, but also as encouragement for young men to judge politics by the highest standard—and so for them either to slow down the natural degeneration of politics or else seek a “true art of rhetoric” (517a) that looks for true, rather than political, virtue? (Socrates suggests no one would reasonably care for the city without the hope of making other citizens “good” in the political sense of wanting to be “treated well” in return (520e)—but he has just made such an achievement appear to be rare or even unprecedented!—and isn’t justice thought to demand we do good for others without a return?)

         Socrates closes the dialogue with the hope of a divine reward for justice, in the afterlife (523a). “They say” it is a “very noble speech” (or “reasoned account,” logos) but Socrates considers it only a “speech” (or reasoned account). He does not here say that it is true, only that he is going to tell it to Callicles as being true. He says that Callicles will consider it a myth. At the end, Socrates will call it “your [Callicles’] speech (or reasoning)” (527c, unamended reading of the manuscripts). Could that mean it is the speech that follows from and would fulfill Callicles’ more deeply held desire for the vindication of justice (to be able to believe “getting away” with injustice is the utmost evil—a thesis he is never able to refute, 527a-b, 482b) — or what Callicles would have to believe to be true (and not a myth) in order to attain some measure of harmony in himself — or at least “not be ridiculous” (509a, cf. 482b). Doesn’t a complete defense of justice require god(s) who support justice with an afterlife? Or is there any other way of responding to the greatest, and surely most obvious, objection to Socrates’ claim that doing injustice is worse than suffering it: Death? Doesn’t doubt about the afterlife lead to reasonable doubts that suffering injustice is really worse than doing it, given that the injustice one suffers could include being killed, while the harm to one’s soul of doing injustice falls short of the complete end of life (body and soul). And doesn’t such doubt about justice then fuel the demand for worldly power, perhaps an endless pursuit of it, both to protect against injustice and punish the unjust, to shore up the belief that justice rules even in this world? (And note the role of retributive punishment in the afterlife  as well (523b, 525c, but cf. the “curable,” 525b).)

In this account, Prometheus has been told to stop man’s foreknowledge of death (523d-e). In Aeschylus, Prometheus prevents man’s foreknowledge of death, by giving man “blind hopes,” but he is punished by Zeus for it — as benefitting mortals against the gods. Do the blind hopes that arise from a form of ignorance of death make us hubristic, or more pious, or both? Socrates presents the philosopher as the most pious and just man, one who looks to “his own” (i.e., not the city’s) business and is truly loved and rewarded by the gods (526c). Would this not suggest also the philosopher’s prudence (523c-d)?

Reading: p. 112-129, 513d-527e

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