Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Xenophon, "Memorabilia" (Against Paid "Professors" of Virtue aka "Sophists")

...Returning to the charge at another time, this same Antiphon engaged Socrates in conversation thus.

Ant. - "Socrates, for my part, I believe you to be a good and upright man; but for your wisdom I cannot say much. I fancy you would hardly dispute the verdict yourself, since, as I remark, you do not ask a money payment for your society; and yet if it were your cloak now, or your house, or any other of your possessions, you would set some value upon it, and never dream, I will not say of parting with it gratis, but of exchanging it for less than its worth. A plain proof, to my mind, that if you thought your society worth anything, you would ask for it not less than its equivalent in gold. Hence the conclusion to which I have come, as already stated: good and upright you may be, since you do not cheat people from pure selfishness; but wise you cannot be, since your knowledge is not worth a cent."

To this onslaught Socrates replied: "Antiphon, it is a tenet which we cling to that beauty and wisdom have this in common, that there is a fair way and a foul way in which to dispose of them. The vendor of beauty purchases an evil name, but supposing the same person have discerned a soul of beauty in his lover and makes that man his friend, we regard his choice as sensible. So is it with wisdom; he who sells it for money to the first bidder we name a sophist, as though one should say a man who prostitutes his wisdom; but if the same man, discerning the noble nature of another, shall teach that other every good thing, and make him his friend, of such a one we say he does that which it is the duty of every good citizen of gentle soul to do. In accordance with this theory, I too, Antiphon, having my tastes, even as another finds pleasure in his horse and his hounds, and another in his fighting cocks, so I too take my pleasure in good friends; and if I have any good thing myself I teach it them, or I commend them to others by whom I think they will be helped forwards on the path of virtue. The treasures also of the wise of old, written and bequeathed in their books, I unfold and peruse in common with my friends. If our eye light upon any good thing we cull it eagerly, and regard it as great gain if we may but grow in friendship with one another."

As I listened to this talk I could not but reflect that he, the master, was a person to be envied, and that we, his hearers, were being led by him to beauty and nobility of soul.

Again on some occasion the same Antiphon asked Socrates how he expected to make politicians of others when, even if he had the knowledge, he did not engage in politics himself.

Socrates replied: "I will put to you a question, Antiphon: Which were the more statesmanlike proceeding, to practise politics myself single- handed, or to devote myself to making as many others as possible fit to engage in that pursuit?"

77 comments:

  1. 'Corrupter' of souls, in short... ;-)

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  2. Socrates was the worst!

    But at least Athens wasn't stupid enough to pay him to do it. ;)

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  3. You think so...? I would say they paid him with their souls ... there may have been, as such, something 'diabolical' about Socrates.

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  4. He was certainly "guilty" of all charges. And yes, the diabolical aspect of him was his absolute dedication to his own 1st principle, "It's better to suffer an injustice than commit one."

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  5. ...another titanomachy... another novus ordo seclorum

    That Socrates had a close relationship to Euripides’ attitude did not escape their contemporaries in ancient times, and the clearest illustration of this happy intuition is that rumour running around Athens that Socrates was in the habit of helping Euripides with his poetry. Both names were linked by the supporters of the “good old days” when it was time to list the present popular leaders whose influence had brought about a situation in which the old sturdy fitness in mind and body manifested at the Battle of Marathon was being increasingly sacrificed for a dubious way of explaining things, in a continuing erosion of the physical and mental powers. This was the tone, half indignation, half contempt, in which Aristophanic comedy habitually talked of those men, to the horror of the newer generations, who, although happy enough to betray Euripides, could not contain their surprise that Socrates appeared in Aristophanes as the first and most important sophist, as the mirror and essence of all sophistic ambitions.

    (BoT)

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  6. lol! That's where Arisophanes got it wrong. Socrates wasn't a "sophist". He was the first "philo-soph". His was an act of love (aka self-love), not money.

    Aristophanes "class instinct" was right... but it misfired a bit as Aristophanes hadn't "thunk it" completely through.

    Socrates wit pierced the veil of the "ruling mystique" and exposed all that was "common" within it.

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  7. I love Socrates' banter with the polemarchs in Plato's "Laches"(on Courage)... especially in the "fighting while flying" analogy...

    LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I see no difficulty in answering; he is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy; there can be no mistake about that.

    SOCRATES: Very good, Laches; and yet I fear that I did not express myself clearly; and therefore you have answered not the question which I intended to ask, but another.

    LACHES: What do you mean, Socrates?

    SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain; you would call a man courageous who remains at his post, and fights with the enemy?

    LACHES: Certainly I should.

    SOCRATES: And so should I; but what would you say of another man, who fights flying, instead of remaining?

    LACHES: How flying?

    SOCRATES: Why, as the Scythians are said to fight, flying as well as pursuing; and as Homer says in praise of the horses of Aeneas, that they knew 'how to pursue, and fly quickly hither and thither'; and he passes an encomium on Aeneas himself, as having a knowledge of fear or flight, and calls him 'an author of fear or flight.'

    LACHES: Yes, Socrates, and there Homer is right: for he was speaking of chariots, as you were speaking of the Scythian cavalry, who have that way of fighting; but the heavy-armed Greek fights, as I say, remaining in his rank.

    SOCRATES: And yet, Laches, you must except the Lacedaemonians at Plataea, who, when they came upon the light shields of the Persians, are said not to have been willing to stand and fight, and to have fled; but when the ranks of the Persians were broken, they turned upon them like cavalry, and won the battle of Plataea.

    LACHES: That is true.

    SOCRATES: That was my meaning when I said that I was to blame in having put my question badly, and that this was the reason of your answering badly. For I meant to ask you not only about the courage of heavy-armed soldiers, but about the courage of cavalry and every other style of soldier; and not only who are courageous in war, but who are courageous in perils by sea, and who in disease, or in poverty, or again in politics, are courageous; and not only who are courageous against pain or fear, but mighty to contend against desires and pleasures, either fixed in their rank or turning upon their enemy. There is this sort of courage—is there not, Laches?

    LACHES: Certainly, Socrates.

    SOCRATES: And all these are courageous, but some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions, as I should imagine.

    LACHES: Very true.


    Laches being a general of the "old" school. ;)

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  8. Familiarity breeds contempt... for who will work diligently pursuing something one already possesses?

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  9. Love motivates much better than money...

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  10. Now, if we could only restore the timocracy. ;)

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  11. Join the hoi agathoi... where all value the same "good" (their own).

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  12. Socrates freedom to tear into all "lesser lights" made even the idea of timocracy untennable. And so Plato banned the poets, actors, and "musical innovators".

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  13. ...Plato's cave became a "happy" one.

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  14. ...and the nocturnal council eliminated all forms of dissent.

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  15. Si I guess we're stuck w/a democracy (not a Republic).

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  16. The quote was from BoT as you must know...

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  17. ...Plato's cave became a "happy" one.

    Au contraire. It is Socrates who is a purveyor of happiness: of optimism.

    ...Is scientific scholarship perhaps only a fear and an excuse in the face of pessimism? A delicate self-defence against—the Truth? And speaking morally, something like cowardice and falsehood? Speaking unmorally, a clever trick? O Socrates, Socrates, was that perhaps your secret? O you secretive ironist, was that perhaps your—irony?—

    He is more Sisyphean than Sisyphus himself: The diabolical in him goes back to the days when devil was a snake.

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  18. Catch-22. You can never go back... so you just spin and spin in the everlasting vortex.

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  19. Yes, I recognized the passage.

    All Socrates recognized was that the cave had an exit. He didn't invent a "better cave". He just made the atmosphere in every cave, stink.

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  20. Stink of Cecrops and/or other Chthonic serpents/ dragon's dens.

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  21. Actually, all it boils down to is this: Is knowledge unlike any other ware? Socrates, by refusing to take any payment for it (in money), seems to imply that it is. One of the ways he created the mystique of knowledge.

    I wonder if he only wanted to pull the veil on our eyes, or also the wool...

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  22. cave/outside

    Is there any difference for the blind? Metaphorically blind...

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  23. Socratic optimism has ill-equipped us to deal with the world: the abyss.

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  24. Keeping the water of your soul clear/pure.

    By 'churning' it, as Socrates seems to think? No, mon ami. Unless you want to create a race of frogs. (Leto's curse)

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  25. Socratic optimism has ill-equipped us to deal with the world: the abyss.

    As his ascetic message of "moderation" and not to push the "limits" of experience to their extreme steers one clear of the abyss and into the calmer waters between Charbydis and Scylla.

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  26. Socrates was the frog in the pond, so to speak. The turning point for Athenian culture... the beginning decadence.

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  27. What may have worked well for Socrates (who prescribed water for his wine) does NOT work well for those "untrained" in moderation and avoidance of extremes.

    In Plato's "Laws", the reason for the downfall of the Spartans and Cretans is evident in their "training" to conquer plains, but NOT pleasures.

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  28. Socrates was the frog in the pond, so to speak. The turning point for Athenian culture... the beginning decadence.

    yes. And the precursor of modern man, i.e. me.

    What may have worked well for Socrates (who prescribed water for his wine) does NOT work well for those "untrained" in moderation and avoidance of extremes.

    Like 'faith moving mountains'? Since mountain never moves, one can't but blame one's faith to be insufficient.

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  29. In Plato's Republic, the leaders were "wise", guardians "courageous" and people "temperate"...

    ...but their's was a luxurious (sick/ fevered) temperance... the luxury of the guardians "cured" by communism and abolition of personal property.

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  30. ...the strict "breeding" pogrom of the guardians kept the people dumb/temperate.

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  31. Incessant Socratic questioning destroys it.

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  32. Noble lies and charms induce tmeperance.

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  33. Unleashing each individuals "Will to Power" (which may or may not join in collective "faith moving mountain" initiatives.).

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  34. But will the "Will to Power" prescribe a "truth" or a "charm" as remedy? For both are means available for achieving results.

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  35. Abyss must have been a fact of life once. And people must have learnt to navigate it, in spite of it. But Socrates by claiming to teach the ways to circumvent it (knowledge) has handicapped us forever. It is he who thus started the decadence.

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  36. ...of temperance

    The old man of the sea seems to have very little regard for her...

    Call you Captain Ahab perhaps. ;-)

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  37. Sublimating instincts to serve the dominant drive. What other purpose would "knowledge" serve? ;)

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  38. Or perhaps sophists were right. Perhaps truth is really nothing else but an industry.

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  39. It is everywhere. And, think, perhaps it owes more to Socrates than anyone else. For he 'established' the brand as no other sophist could do. So perhaps Nietzsche and Aristophanes were right. He really was the first and most important sophist.

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  40. A lover of wisdom, not a wise guy. ;-)

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  41. As in Vulcan greeting: May you live long and may the waters remain calm as long as you do. Otherwise, you may find out to your chagrin how inadequate knowledge is as a means of navigation...

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  42. ...that what functions pain and pleasure serve, to "extend" the limits of knowledge and human memory/reminiscence. ;-)

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  43. A lover of wisdom, not a wise guy. ;-)

    A trickster, a purveyor of false hopes.

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  44. ...that what functions pain and pleasure serve, to "extend" the limits of knowledge and human memory/reminiscence. ;-)


    Only Aesop would say that, as far as knowledge (lesson) part is concerned...

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  45. Speaking of Aesop:

    Adventavit asinus
    Pulcher et fortissimus.

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  46. An opportunist, ready to RUN towards the Exit sign at the first whiff of "smoke".

    THIS way to the great egress.... -->

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  47. Navigating the Neutral Zone between pain/pleasure is the subject of the next post. Whether ascetism is a virtue, as Plato believed or a vice, as Nietzsche believed, I leave to you to decide. Will you sit with Plato and the gods in the Neutral Zone, or with Nietzsche and his "last" men (one in the abyss, the other standing near its' precipice)?

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  48. An opportunist, ready to RUN towards the Exit sign at the first whiff of "smoke".

    THIS way to the great egress.... -->


    I thought anybody could tell that I am blind. I don't see any exit.

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  49. Neither Nietzsche nor Plato. They both leave me cold. I prefer this.

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  50. I don't see any exit.

    Neither does Isabel, my dog, but she's not fighting for a spot in the "rankings" of notable human achievements, either. Immortality is not one of her current pursuits. Getting her belly rubbed, is.

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  51. The real question, Nicrap, is "Why do you write?"

    Because you must?

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  52. The real question, Nicrap, is "Why do you write?"

    I think that's it more or less.

    The line is missing today.

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  53. Did you tweak with it? It was perfect as it was. Yes, you have. The umbrella was miss-spelt.

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  54. The 'miss-spelt' was mis-spelt. ;-) ciao.

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  55. ...was a comment that the original translator of the poem had left, not spoken in the original video.

    But at the time of my first reading of it, I too, very much liked it. ;)

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  56. (cont.)

    SOCRATES: True, Phaedrus. But nobler far is the serious pursuit of the dialectician, who, finding a congenial soul, by the help of science sows and plants therein words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them, and are not unfruitful, but have in them a seed which others brought up in different soils render immortal, making the possessors of it happy to the utmost extent of human happiness.

    PHAEDRUS: Far nobler, certainly.

    SOCRATES: And now, Phaedrus, having agreed upon the premises we may decide about the conclusion.

    PHAEDRUS: About what conclusion?

    SOCRATES: About Lysias, whom we censured, and his art of writing, and his discourses, and the rhetorical skill or want of skill which was shown in them—these are the questions which we sought to determine, and they brought us to this point. And I think that we are now pretty well informed about the nature of art and its opposite.

    PHAEDRUS: Yes, I think with you; but I wish that you would repeat what was said.

    SOCRATES: Until a man knows the truth of the several particulars of which he is writing or speaking, and is able to define them as they are, and having defined them again to divide them until they can be no longer divided, and until in like manner he is able to discern the nature of the soul, and discover the different modes of discourse which are adapted to different natures, and to arrange and dispose them in such a way that the simple form of speech may be addressed to the simpler nature, and the complex and composite to the more complex nature—until he has accomplished all this, he will be unable to handle arguments according to rules of art, as far as their nature allows them to be subjected to art, either for the purpose of teaching or persuading;—such is the view which is implied in the whole preceding argument.

    PHAEDRUS: Yes, that was our view, certainly.

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  57. ...but I like this a bit more. Plato, "Phaedrus"

    SOCRATES: I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

    PHAEDRUS: That again is most true.

    SOCRATES: Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power—a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten?

    PHAEDRUS: Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?

    SOCRATES: I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent.

    PHAEDRUS: You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which the written word is properly no more than an image?

    SOCRATES: Yes, of course that is what I mean. And now may I be allowed to ask you a question: Would a husbandman, who is a man of sense, take the seeds, which he values and which he wishes to bear fruit, and in sober seriousness plant them during the heat of summer, in some garden of Adonis, that he may rejoice when he sees them in eight days appearing in beauty? at least he would do so, if at all, only for the sake of amusement and pastime. But when he is in earnest he sows in fitting soil, and practises husbandry, and is satisfied if in eight months the seeds which he has sown arrive at perfection?

    PHAEDRUS: Yes, Socrates, that will be his way when he is in earnest; he will do the other, as you say, only in play.

    SOCRATES: And can we suppose that he who knows the just and good and honourable has less understanding, than the husbandman, about his own seeds?

    PHAEDRUS: Certainly not.

    SOCRATES: Then he will not seriously incline to 'write' his thoughts 'in water' with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?

    PHAEDRUS: No, that is not likely.

    SOCRATES: No, that is not likely—in the garden of letters he will sow and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement; he will write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age, by himself, or by any other old man who is treading the same path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth; and while others are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be the pastime in which his days are spent.

    PHAEDRUS: A pastime, Socrates, as noble as the other is ignoble, the pastime of a man who can be amused by serious talk, and can discourse merrily about justice and the like.

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  58. ...A 'metaphysics' of literature.

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  59. Btw, even 'pulp' finds its defenders in this world...

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  60. ...only what kind of life have their creations been given?

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  61. ...only what kind of life have their creations been given?

    hyperreality

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  62. You too can join the ranks of the limbic candymen... ;)

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  63. certainly. I would prefer that to joining the ranks of mystic masseurs.

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  64. ...if only the words could massage, as Plato seems to believe. ;-)

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  65. Music is the best mental massage. Of course, you've got to leave in just a "touch" of the Dionysian elements...

    Your "emotive calibration" tones are pending...

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