Extracts of Text for ONLINE Meetup Talk on Plutarch - Weds 3rd March - 8 pm Greek Time

 Time will be limited to read text together at the talk, and so we will use only use points v, viii, and ix of the extracts below at our meetup talk on March 3rd 2021.

How Can We Measure Our Progress In Virtue (Morals) & Philosophy?’

From Plutarch’s book of essays: Moralia.

(Extracts Translated to English by Arthur Richard Shilleto, M.A.)

EXTRACTS 

§ v. …………………… …….. ‘Similarly they relate of Diogenes of Sinope, when he began to be a philosopher, that the Athenians were celebrating a festival, and there were public banquets and shows and mutual festivities, and drinking and revelling all night, and he, coiled up in a corner of the market-place intending to sleep, fell into a train of thought likely seriously to turn him from his purpose and shake his resolution, for he reflected that he had adopted without any necessity a toilsome and unusual kind of life, and by his own fault sat there debarred of all the good things. At that moment, however, they say a mouse stole up and began to munch some of the crumbs of his barley-cake, and he plucked up his courage and said to himself, in a railing and chiding fashion, "What say you, Diogenes? Do your leavings give this mouse a sumptuous meal, while you, the gentleman, wail and lament because you are not getting drunk yonder and reclining on soft and luxurious couches?" Whenever such depressions of mind are not frequent, and the mind when they take place quickly recovers from them, after having put them to flight as it were, and when such annoyance and distraction is easily got rid of, then one may consider one's progress in virtue as a certainty.

§ vi. And since not only the things that in themselves shake and turn them in the opposite direction are more powerful in the case of weak philosophers, but also the serious advice of friends, and the playful and jeering objections of adversaries bend and soften people, and have ere now shaken some out of philosophy altogether, it will be no slight indication of one's progress in virtue if one takes all this very calmly, and is neither disturbed nor aggravated by people who tell us and mention to us that some of our former comrades are flourishing in kings' courts, or have married wives with dowries, or are attended by a crowd of friends when they come down to the forum to solicit some office or advocateship. He that is not moved or affected by all this is already plainly one upon whom philosophy has got a right hold; for it is impossible that we should cease to be envious of what most people admire, unless the admiration of virtue was strongly implanted in us. For over-confidence may be generated in some by anger and folly, but to despise what men admire is not possible without a true and steady elevation of mind. And so people in such a condition of mind, comparing it with that of others, pride themselves on it, and say with Solon, "We would not change virtue for wealth, for while virtue abides, wealth changes hands, and now one man, now another, has it."

 

And Diogenes compared his shifting about from Corinth to Athens, and again from Thebes to Corinth, to the different residences of the King of Persia, as his spring residence at Susa, his winter residence at Babylon, and his summer residence in Media. And Agesilaus said of the great king, "How is he better than me, if he is not more upright?" And Aristotle, writing to Antipater about Alexander, said, "that he ought not to think highly of himself because he had many subjects, for anyone who had right notions about the gods was entitled to think quite as highly of himself." And Zeno, observing that Theophrastus was admired for the number of his pupils,  said, "His choir is, I admit, larger than mine, but mine is more harmonious."

§ vii. Whenever then, by thus comparing the advantages of virtue with external things, you get rid of envies and jealousies and those things which fret and depress the minds of many who are novices in philosophy, this also is a great indication of your progress in virtue. Another and no slight indication is a change in the style of your discourses. For generally speaking all novices in philosophy adopt most such as tend to their own glorification; some, like birds, in their levity and ambition soaring to the height and brightness of physical things; others like young puppies, as Plato says, rejoicing in tearing and biting, betake themselves to strifes and questions and sophisms; but most plunging themselves into dialectics immediately store themselves for sophistry; and some collect sentences and histories and go about (as Anacharsis said he saw the Greeks used money for no other purpose but to count it up), merely piling up and comparing them, but making no practical use of them.

 

Applicable here is that saying of Antiphanes, which someone applied to Plato's pupils. Antiphanes said playfully that in a certain city words were frozen directly they were spoken, owing to the great cold, and were thawed again in the summer, so that one could then hear what had been said in the winter. So he said of the words which were spoken by Plato to young men, that most of them only understood them late in life when they were become old men. And this is the condition people are in in respect to all philosophy, until the judgement gets into a sound and healthy state, and begins to adapt itself to those things which can produce character and greatness of mind, and to seek discourses whose footsteps turn inwards rather than outwards, to borrow the language of Æsop.  For as Sophocles said he had first toned down the pompous style of Æschylus, then his harsh and over-artificial method, and had in the third place changed his manner of diction, a most important point and one that is most intimately connected with the character, so those who go in for philosophy, when they have passed from flattering and artificial discourses to such as deal with character and emotion, are beginning to make genuine and modest progress in virtue.

§ viii. Furthermore, take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful. And also, in studying poems or history, let nothing escape you of what is said to the point, which is likely either to correct the character or to calm the passions. For as Simonides says the bee hovers among the flowers "making the yellow honey," while others value and pluck flowers only for their beauty and fragrance, so of all that read poems for pleasure and amusement he alone that finds and gathers what is valuable seems capable of knowledge from his acquaintance with and friendship for what is noble and good.  For those who study Plato and Xenophon only for their style, and cull out only what is pure and Attic, and as it were the dew and the bloom, do they not resemble people who love drugs for their smell and colour, but care not for them as anodynes or purges, and are not aware of those properties? Whereas those who have more proficiency can derive benefit not from discourses only, but from sights and actions, and cull what is good and useful, as is recorded of Æschylus and other similar kind of men. As to Æschylus, when he was watching a contest in boxing at the Isthmus, and the whole theatre cried out upon one of the boxers being beaten, he nudged with his elbow Ion of Chios, and said, "Do you observe the power of training? The beaten man holds his peace, while the spectators cry out." And Brasidas having caught hold of a mouse among some figs, being bitten by it let it go, and said to himself, "Hercules, there is no creature so small or weak that it will not fight for its life!"

And Diogenes, seeing a lad drinking water out of the palm of his hand, threw away the cup which he kept in his wallet. So much does attention and assiduous practice make people perceptive and receptive of what contributes to virtue from any source. And this is the case still more with those who mix discourses with actions, who not only, to use the language of Thucydides, "exercise themselves in the presence of danger," but also in regard to pleasures and strifes, and judgements, and advocateships, and magistrateships make a display of their opinions, or rather form their opinions by their practice. For we can no more think those philosophers who are ever learning and busy and investigating what they have got from philosophy, and then straightway publish it in the market-place or in the haunt of young men, or at a royal supper-party, any more than we give the name of physicians to those who sell drugs and mixtures. Nay rather such a sophist differs very little at all from the bird described in Homer,  offering his scholars like it whatever he has got, and as it feeds its callow young from its own mouth, "though it goes ill with itself," so he gets no advantage or food from what he has got for himself.

§ ix. We must therefore see to it that our discourse be serviceable to ourselves, and that it may not appear to others to be vain-glorious or ambitious, and we must show that we are as willing to listen as to teach, and especially must we lay aside all disputatiousness and love of strife in controversy, and cease bandying fierce words with one another as if we were contending with one another at boxing, and leave off rejoicing more in smiting and knocking down one another than in learning and teaching. For in such cases moderation and mildness, and to commence arguing without quarrelsomeness and to finish without getting into a rage, and neither to be insolent if you come off best in the argument, nor dejected if you come off worst, is a sufficient sign of progress in virtue. Aristippus was an excellent example of this, when overcome in argument by the sophistry of a man, who had plenty of assurance, but was generally speaking mad or half-witted. Observing that he was in great joy and very puffed up at his victory, he said, "I who have been vanquished in the argument shall have a better night's rest than my victor."

 

We can also test ourselves in regard to public speaking, if we are not timid and do not shrink from speaking when a large audience has unexpectedly been got together, nor dejected when we have only a small one to harangue to, and if we do not, when we have to speak to the people or before some magistrate, miss the opportunity through want of proper preparation; for these things are recorded both of Demosthenes and Alcibiades. As for Alcibiades, though he possessed a most excellent understanding, yet from want of confidence in speaking he often broke down, and in trying to recall a word or thought that slipped his memory had to stop short. And Homer did not deny that his first line was unmetrical,  though he had sufficient confidence to follow it up by so many other lines, so great was his genius. Much more then ought those who aim at virtue and what is noble to lose no opportunity of public speaking, paying very little attention to either uproar or applause at their speeches.

§ x. And not,,,,,,,,,,,,

                                                                                 x x x x x x x x x x

The full text of Plutarch's essay and others in his Moralia is available as follows:

Available free in English on Amazon (Kindle):

 https://www.amazon.com/Plutarchs-Morals-Plutarch-ebook/dp/B0082W83DO

(Full Plutarch essay available for free and easily printable from:

https://jameslongerstuff.blogspot.com/2016/06/this-down-to-earth-essay-by-plutarch.html

Also, there is a more contemporary translation by Robin Waterfield at:

https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Penguin-Classics-Plutarch/dp/0140445641

 

For Greek readers - This essay is available in ancient+modern Greek from the delightful Kaktos bookshop – (temporarily selling online rather than in Panepistimeo) – see Book 2 of Plutarch’s Ethics at:

https://www.kaktos.gr/el/authors/archaioi-suggrafeis/ploutarchos/ploutarhos-ithika-2-978-960-352-346-8.html

(Pages 171 to 221 …. odd pages only - is the essay I will be talking about in ‘modern’ Greek. The ‘even’ pages are Ancient Greek.)

 

Text for Meetup Group Members For the Talk on Plato's Cave

 

Extracts of Plato’s Cave:

(Plato’s Book Republic – 514a to 517a)

Translated by:  Waterfield, Robin. Republic (Oxford World's Classics) OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

(Socrates is recounting a discussion he has had previously with his friend Glaucon - regarding the education of the young - and the future leaders of the Athenian state.)

The Prisoner Ascends from the Cave   (Plato’s Republic – 514a to 517a)

514a ‘Next,’ I said, ‘here’s a situation which you can use as an analogy for the human condition—for our education or lack of it. Imagine people living in a cavernous cell down under the ground; at the far end of the cave, a long way off, there’s an entrance open to the outside world. They’ve been there since childhood, with their legs and necks tied up in a way which keeps them in one place and allows them to look only straight ahead, but not to turn their heads. There’s firelight burning a long way further up the cave behind them, and up the slope between the fire and the prisoners there’s a road, beside which you should imagine a low wall has been built—like the partition which conjurors place between themselves and their audience and above which they show their tricks.’ b

‘All right,’ he said.

‘Imagine also that there are people on the other side of this wall who are carrying all sorts of artefacts. These artefacts, human statuettes, and animal models carved in stone and wood and all kinds of materials stick out over the wall; and as you’d expect, some of the people talk as they carry these objects along, while others are silent.’ c

This is a strange picture you’re painting,’ he said, ‘with strange prisoners.’    515a   

‘They’re no different from us,’ I said. ‘I mean, in the first place, do you think they’d see anything of themselves and one another except the shadows cast by the fire on to the cave wall directly opposite them?’

‘Of course not,’ he said.

 ‘They’re forced to spend their lives without moving their heads.’ ‘And what about the objects which were being carried along? Won’t they only see their shadows as well?’ b

‘Naturally.’

 ‘Now, suppose they were able to talk to one another: don’t you think they’d assume that their words applied to what they saw passing by in front of them?

‘They couldn’t think otherwise.’

“And what if sound echoed off the prison wall opposite them? When any of the passers-by spoke, don’t you think they’d be bound to assume that the sound came from a passing shadow?’

‘I’m absolutely certain of it,’ he said.

‘All in all, then,’ I said, ‘the shadows of artefacts would constitute the only reality people in this situation would recognize.’ c

‘That’s absolutely inevitable,’ he agreed. d

‘What do you think would happen, then,’ I asked, ‘if they were set free from their bonds and cured of their inanity? What would it be like if they found that happening to them? Imagine that one of them has been set free and is suddenly made to stand up, to turn his head and walk, and to look towards the firelight. It hurts him to do all this and he’s too dazzled to be capable of making out the objects whose shadows he’d formerly been looking at. And suppose someone tells him that what he’s been seeing all this time has no substance, and that he’s now closer to reality and is seeing more accurately, because of the greater reality of the things in front of his eyes—what do you imagine his reaction would be? And what do you think he’d say if he were shown any of the passing objects and had to respond to being asked what it was? Don’t you think he’d be bewildered and would think that there was more reality in what he’d been seeing before than in what he was being shown now?’

‘Far more,’ he said.

‘And if he were forced to look at the actual firelight, don’t you think it would hurt his eyes? Don’t you think he’d turn away and run back to the things he could make out, and would take the truth of the matter to be that these things are clearer than what he was being shown?’ e

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘And imagine him being dragged forcibly away from there up the rough, steep slope,’ I went on, ‘without being released until he’s been pulled out into the sunlight. Wouldn’t this treatment cause him pain and distress? And once he’s reached the sunlight, he wouldn’t be able to see a single one of the things which are currently taken to be real, would he, because his eyes would be overwhelmed by the sun’s beams?’

‘No, he wouldn’t,’ he answered, ‘not straight away.’516a

‘He wouldn’t be able to see things up on the surface of the earth, I suppose, until he’d got used to his situation. At first, it would be shadows that he could most easily make out, then he’d move on to the reflections of people and so on in water, and later he’d be able to see the actual things themselves. Next, he’d feast his eyes on the heavenly bodies and the heavens themselves, which would be easier at night: he’d look at the light of the stars and the moon, rather than at the sun and sunlight during the daytime.’ b

‘Of course.’

And imagine, he’d be able to discern and feast his eyes on the sun—not the displaced image of the sun in water or elsewhere, but the sun on its own, in its proper place.’

‘Yes, he’d inevitably come to that,’ he said.

‘After that, he’d start to think about the sun and he’d deduce that it is the source of the seasons and the yearly cycle, that the whole of the visible realm is its domain, and that in a sense everything which he and his peers used to see is its responsibility.’ c

‘Yes, that would obviously be the next point he’d come to,’ he agreed.

‘Now, if he recalled the cell where he’d originally lived and what passed for knowledge there and his former fellow prisoners, don’t you think he’d feel happy about his own altered circumstances, and sorry for them?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Suppose that the prisoners used to assign prestige and credit to one another, in the sense that they rewarded speed at recognizing the shadows as they passed, and the ability to remember which ones normally come earlier and later and at the same time as which other ones, and expertise at using this as a basis for guessing which ones would arrive next. Do you think our former prisoner would covet these honours and would envy the people who had status and power there, or would he much prefer, as Homer describes it, “being a slave labouring for someone else—someone without property”, and would put up with anything at all, in fact, rather than share their beliefs and their life?’ d

‘Yes, I think he’d go through anything rather than live that way,’ he said. e

‘Here’s something else I’d like your opinion about,’ I said. ‘If he went back underground and sat down again in the same spot, wouldn’t the sudden transition from the sunlight mean that his eyes would be overwhelmed by darkness?’

 ‘Certainly,’ he replied.

‘Now, the process of adjustment would be quite long this time, and suppose that before his eyes had settled down and while he wasn’t seeing well, he had once again to compete against those same old prisoners at identifying those shadows. Wouldn’t he make a fool of himself? Wouldn’t they say that he’d come back from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it wasn’t even worth trying to go up there? And wouldn’t they—if they could—grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there, and kill him?’

‘They certainly would,’ he said.   517a

The Escaped Prisoner Must Go Down Into The Darkness Again To Help The Others

(Republic-519c/d to 520e):

 

‘Our job as founders, then,’ I said, ‘is to make sure that the best people come to that fundamental field of study (as we called it earlier): we must have them make the ascent we’ve been talking about and see goodness. And afterwards, once they’ve been up there and had a good look, we mustn’t let them get away with what they do at the moment.’  e

‘Which is what?’

 ‘Staying there,’ I replied, ‘and refusing to come back down again to those prisoners, to share their work and their rewards, no matter whether those rewards are trivial or significant.’

‘But in that case,’ he protested, ‘we’ll be wronging them: we’ll be making the quality of their lives worse and denying them the better life they could be living, won’t we?’

‘You’re again forgetting, my friend,’ I said, ‘that the point of legislation is not to make one section of a community better off than the rest, but to engineer this for the community as a whole. Legislators should persuade or compel the members of a community to mesh together, should make every individual share with his fellows the benefit which he is capable of contributing to the common welfare, and should ensure that the community does contain people with this capacity; and the purpose of all this is not for legislators to leave people to choose their own directions, but for them to use people to bind the community together.’ e

520a

‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said. ‘I was forgetting.’ b

 ‘I think you’ll also find, Glaucon,’ I said, ‘that we won’t be wronging any philosophers who arise in our community. Our remarks, as we force them to take care of their fellow citizens and be their guardians, will be perfectly fair. We’ll tell them that it’s reasonable for philosophers who happen to occur in other communities not to share the work of those communities, since their occurrence was spontaneous, rather than planned by the political system of any of the communities in question, and it’s fair for anything which arises spontaneously and doesn’t owe its nurture to anyone or anything to have no interest in repaying anyone for having provided its nourishment. “We’ve bred you, however,” we’ll say, “to act, as it were, as the hive’s leaders and kings, for your own good as well as that of the rest of the community…..

You’ve received a better and more thorough education than those other philosophers, and you’re more capable of playing a part in both spheres. So each of you must, when your time comes, descend to where the rest of the community lives, and get used to looking at things in the dark. The point is that once you become acclimatized, you’ll see infinitely better than the others there; your experience of genuine right, morality, and goodness will enable you to identify every one of the images and recognize what it is an image of.

And then the administration of our community—ours as well as yours—will be in the hands of people who are awake, as distinct from the norm nowadays of communities being governed by people who shadow-box and fall out with one another in their dreams over who should rule, as if that were a highly desirable thing to do. No, the truth of the matter is this: the less keen the would-be rulers of a community are to rule, the better and less divided the administration of that community is bound to be, but where the rulers feel the opposite, the administration is bound to be the opposite.”’ c d

end

Plato's Other World of the FORMS - and Understanding The Myth of the Cave Better

Plato's Other World - and Starting to Understand ‘The Myth of the Cave’ Better; and why this might be connected to living sustainably – and in a happier and more preferable way generally….

... Very basically, Plato believed that there was another world all around us that we cannot usually see with our eyes, but it is actually there; and that in some ways this is the ‘real’ world - in the sense of it being more important than the world we see all around us and that we interact with using our human bodily senses. This ‘invisible’ world, to put it simply, we can only interact with by using our mind and intellect, hence; it has come to be known as the ‘intelligible’ world amongst people who discuss Plato, as oppose to the ‘sensible’ world which we interact with using our human senses. This is a very basic and simple outline of this area.

Socrates also keeps it simple, as usual, and says most of us are like frogs living around a pond. We do not realise that there is another bigger and far more important world just on the other side of the motor way. Of course, he did not actually say motorway…. but you get the idea. Socrates also uses the famous ‘Myth of the Cave’ (Republic-514a) in part to explain that we do not see how it ‘really’ is, but only see a tiny part of what the world and universe is all about. It is a notable coincidence that modern physicists and cosmologists on the cutting edge of science today predict that we are only seeing a small part of what the universe is made of and how it really is. For example, the ‘many worlds’ approach to answer some questions in quantum physics is a respected theory – although as yet far from proven. Although the ideas of modern physics to be found in Plato might make an interesting essay for another book, it is not under the remit of this introductory essay, and so let us now go down into the darkness of Plato’s important Myth of the Cave.

In the Myth of the Cave, Socrates talks allegorically about prisoners who have been kept underground since birth in special chairs with their heads fixed facing a wall. There is an odd arrangement of a wood fire and a path through the cave behind them, which means that they have only ever seen the reflections of objects on a wall in front of them as the objects pass along the path behind them. The prisoners have never seen the objects or other people that go along the path for real, but only the reflections on the wall in front of them. To amuse themselves as the years pass by, the prisoners give the reflections on the wall names, and have competitions on who can guess what object (or rather reflections) they will see next. Of course, the unfortunate prisoners think that what they see is the real thing. They have no idea that what they are seeing is just a reflection or shadow of the real object.

Now one of the prisoners is set free from his chair, and is ‘dragged’ slowly up the bumpy tunnel from the dark underground cave to the surface and to the ‘light’. It hurts his eyes at first as he slowly makes his way up the tunnel because he has always been used to the darkness of the cave. It takes time for his eyes and mind to adjust as he gets higher up the tunnel and nearer the light at the entrance of the cave. Finally, he reaches the surface and steps into the bright sunlight; and after his eyes have had more time to adjust, he is able to see things as they really are for the first time, and not just as mere reflections on the dimly lit wall of the cave. This is a good moment for all new seekers of wisdom and enlightenment to pause and ask themselves what Plato means by this myth – and why does the prisoner need to be ‘dragged’ up the tunnel to the light? (Note: More about The Cave soon…. and why many people in the modern world do not want to leave it….)

(Piece above taken from Life Choices – New Edition 2019 p/s 44-46)

ENVIRONMENT - Having the Option To Refill Plastic Water Bottles

About Having The Option to Refill Plastic Water Bottles for say 30 cents - rather than always needing to buy a new one for 60 cents....

(A 'practical philosophy' project in 2019)

As a regular walker and ‘litter picker’ I am constantly collecting plastic water bottles from along the paths of the beautiful locations where I walk. I know people talk about re-cycling and putting stuff in the right box for the garbage man – but surely the problem is we are using far too many plastic bottles and other packaging to start with. The Mediterranean alone must use tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of these little plastic drinking bottles each year. Globally the number must be mind boggling

I just want people to be at least have the option to take their empty bottles into a supermarket or fast food outlet and be able to get a refill for their plastic bottles if they wish - at a lower price than if they buy their water in a new plastic bottle. Clearly, some kind of vending machine (office water cooler perhaps with re-usable bigger containers) could easily be adapted to make this possible and indeed some water vending machines already exist - and are readily available at modest cost.

Bottled water is big business for companies like Evian, but with water vending machines they could still make a profit – and be brought onside to support the idea of saving on disposable plastic. Indeed, with the growing public opposition to using disposable plastics, and creeping legislation, their successful business model to date may not tenable 10 to 15 years from now. The water companies therefore might be interested in suggestions for adapting their business model sooner rather than later if this case. Certainly, the big water bottle companies have the right people with the right skills, and the right distribution networks to get the job done; that is to encourage people to refill their water bottles rather than 'automatically' buy water in a new plastic bottle. Giving people the choice on how they buy their water is important.

So how can we encourage the refilling of water bottles among the thirsty public; and encourage bottled water companies to offer refill vending?  

Avoiding 'Double Ignorance' & With Practical Philosophy Action Must Follow Investigation

In order to make up our own minds on various issues we must of course first ‘wonder’ about these things in the first place, but then secondly, we must have sufficient curiosity to find out why things are the way they are. Only if we really know what fairness, honesty, and goodness actually are can we make an informed decision about them.  Of course, we will not find out about these and other things if we already think we know all the answers to everything; we will remain what Socrates describes as ‘doubly ignorant’; that is; not knowing something – but thinking that we do and therefore not bothering to find out what something really is, or what are the correct answers in a particular situation.

Traditional Socratic (+ Platonic and Aristotelian) philosophy is also very much a practical subject and not just an intellectual pursuit. It is certainly not the sole preserve of university academics and their students. Philosophy is much too important to be left in just a few hands - it is something that we all need to be engaged with. For example, Aristotle (the student of Plato who was the student of Socrates) asks what would be the point of us just being wiser intellectually if it was not going to improve our lives (as individuals or various communities) and make us happier and better people on a practical level in the real world. A simple modern example is the Board or management meetings that many commercial companies and other organisations have regularly to discuss things like what went well in the previous months, and what could be done better in the months ahead. Well there is absolutely no point in having such meetings unless some of the ideas on how to improve things in the months ahead are implemented after the meeting – or at least efforts are made to implement them whether successful or not. There would be absolutely no point in having a Board or management meeting otherwise.

Socratic philosophy is concerned with many practical areas of our daily lives but three main areas of philosophic discussion or investigation can usually be identified. Firstly, there is the consideration of what ‘the good life’ actually is and how to lead it on a personal level. Metaphorically speaking this can be thought of as looking inwards at ourselves.  Secondly, there is the investigation of good politics and society for the best life possible of our communities and societies, almost looking outwards towards other people and society at large. Thirdly, there is the investigation of the divine and spiritual (metaphysical) areas that many people often associate with philosophy; how did I get here, and where I am going; is there a God or a heaven? We can think of these types of questions and investigations as looking ‘upwards’…….

From the introduction of James’ new paper version of his book ‘Life Choice – Important Tips From Socrates, Plato and Aristotle’ (p.8)

Thrasymachus calls Socrates a fool in Plato’s Republic - Is He Right ?

Thrasymachus calls Socrates a fool in Plato’s Republic for not approving of corrupt politicians] Is Thrasymachus right? Comments welcome below…..

Near the beginning of The Republic around lines 343 b / c   Thrasymachus says:

     ‘You fool, Socrates, don’t you see? In any and every situation, a moral person is worse off than an immoral one. Suppose, for instance, that they’re doing some business together, which involves one of them entering into association with the other: by the time the association is dissolved, you’ll never find the moral person up on the immoral one— he’ll be worse off. Or again, in civic matters, if there’s a tax on property,* then a moral person pays more tax than an immoral one even when they’re both equally well off; and if there’s a hand-out, then the one gets nothing, while the other makes a lot. And when each of them holds political office,* even if a moral person loses out financially in no other way, his personal affairs deteriorate through neglect, while his morality stops him making any profit from public funds, and moreover his family and friends fall out with him over his refusal to help them out in unfair ways; in all these respects, however, an immoral person’s experience is the opposite.

344a ‘I’m talking about the person I described a short while ago, the one with the power to secure huge advantages for himself. This is the person you should consider, if you want to assess the extent to which immorality rather than morality is personally advantageous— and this is something you’ll appreciate most easily if you look at immorality in its most perfect form and see how it enhances a wrongdoer’s life beyond measure, but ruins the lives of his victims, who haven’t the stomach for crime, to the same degree. It’s dictatorship I mean, because whether it takes stealth or overt violence, a dictator steals what doesn’t belong to him— consecrated and unconsecrated objects, private possessions, and public property— and does so not on a small scale, but comprehensively.

Anyone who is caught committing the merest fraction of these crimes is not only punished, but thoroughly stigmatized as well: small-scale criminals who commit these kinds of crimes are called temple-robbers,* kidnappers, burglars, thieves, and robbers. On the other hand, when someone appropriates the assets of the citizen body and then goes on to rob them of their very freedom and enslave them, then denigration gives way to congratulation, and it isn’t only his fellow citizens who call him happy, but anyone else who hears about his consummate wrongdoing does so as well. The point is that immorality has a bad name because people are afraid of being at the receiving end of it, not of doing it. 

(344 b c)   ‘So you see, Socrates, immorality— if practised on a large enough scale— has more power, licence, and authority than morality. And as I said at the beginning, morality is really the advantage of the stronger party, while immorality is profitable and advantageous to oneself. '

Diotima on Love - Extracts

From Plato’s book; The Symposium (The Drinking Party)

Several speakers give a short speech saying what they think love is; and then finally Socrates says what he thinks love is. His speech includes the speech of the mysterious wise woman Diotima who instructs Socrates in love when he was a young man. Below is an extract from Diotima’s wise words.

Then Diotima says to Socrates:

'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only—out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere.

To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention: 'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)—a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

This, my dear Socrates,' said the stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible—you only want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty—the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life—thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble life?'