Tag Archives: politics

Fear and Trembling in Hades

Posted on by

As Socrates transitions from the proper praise for both men and gods, he then also introduces some guidance for how poetic depictions in his ideal city are to represent the afterlife, with particular consideration for how this will affect the guardian class. 

“And what if the men are to be courageous? So then should not one say such things so to make them fear death least of all?  Or do you think that someone with this fear in him would ever become courageous?”

“By Zeus,” he said, “I do not.”

“What, then?  Do you think anyone who believes in Hades and that it is terrible would be without fear and during battle would choose death before defeat and slavery?”

“Not at all.”
(Republic, 386a6-b7).

The problem Socrates identifies is that we understandably want to have courageous guardians.  Yet the tales traditionally told of Hades (the afterlife), at least some of them, tell us that the dead are gibbering, incorporeal wisps of humanity, mere shades who, even at their best, are worse than the worst estate of any living human.  If this is the case, there are few, if any, guardians who, although preserving the city by their own death, would willingly sacrifice themselves for a dismal and horrid afterlife.  Socrates’ solution is to ban poetry which relates this type of undesirable afterlife from his republic. 

On the other hand, if the poets only rhapsodized about the delights of the paradise yet to come, the guardians would not only be willing to die for their city, but they would positively jump at the opportunity to die in battle and consequently enter into heavenly bliss. 

There are some intriguing considerations that this scenario raises. It is obviously jarring that Socrates is not interested here in whether the tales these poets are raising are true, in either a literal or metaphorical sense.  It may be the case that there really is a hell, to use our term, and that some actually go there.(2)  But Socrates’ concern is more calculatingly practical, fixating on the overarching political need to have soldiers whose courage will not be blunted by a fearful avoidance of death.   

Furthermore there appears to be a tension between the incentives of good citizens and those good guardian-soldiers.  It seemed that in the first book of the Republic the worries of being unjust and base prompt one to behave in a just way, lest one die, be judged and depart into the hopeless abyss of Hades.  In the case of the guardians, however, the edifying influence of the fear of Hades is banished, at least by poets and poetry. 

REFERENCES:

(1)
Τί δὲ δὴ εἰ μέλλουσιν εἶναι ἀνδρεῖοι; ἆρα οὐ ταῦτά τε
λεκτέον καὶ οἷα αὐτοὺς ποιῆσαι ἥκιστα τὸν θάνατον δεδιέναι;
(b.) ἢ ἡγῇ τινά ποτ’ ἂν γενέσθαι ἀνδρεῖον ἔχοντα ἐν αὑτῷ τοῦτο
τὸ δεῖμα;
Μὰ Δία, ἦ δ’ ὅς, οὐκ ἔγωγε.
Τί δέ; τἀν Ἅιδου ἡγούμενον εἶναί τε καὶ δεινὰ εἶναι οἴει
τινὰ θανάτου ἀδεῆ ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἐν ταῖς μάχαις αἱρήσεσθαι
πρὸ ἥττης τε καὶ δουλείας θάνατον;
Οὐδαμῶς.

(2)
Contrast this with the myth of Er at the end of the Republic, which indeed does posit a hellish afterlife for the wicked.

   

Banishing “Laughter Loving” from the Republic

Posted on by

Near the beginning of Book 3 of the Republic, Plato, through Socrates, tells us that the guardians, the soldier-police force of his ideal state, should not be lovers of laughter (φιλογέλως).  Why should this be?

First we must get a sense of what this term means, since some might mistakenly take laughter-loving to be, quite loosely, engaging in laughter at all.  But this is clearly an extreme construal of the term; rather, it is clarified by similar terms used in Book 6 where Socrates invokes “lover,” “wine-lover,” and “honor-lover” and others to hone in on what we mean by “love” in such words (474e-475b).  Socrates explains that the “love” in common between these uses of the term mean that,

whatever we say someone loves, it is necessary to say of him, if this is said correctly, that it is not the case he loves one part of it and does not love another part, but he loves all of it”  (Republic, 474c9-11) (1)

This is to say that the true lover of X does not love discriminately. As he later says of a lover of learning, he is not “annoyed at learning” (475b11). (2)  The lover of X is neither finicky nor does he refuse any appearance of X, but he cannot get enough of it, as we might say.  This lover of learning, the true philosopher, tastes of all learning and learns with delight (475c6-8). 

So we learn from this that a “lover” of X, pursues X to the extreme, has a mania for it, a certifiable obsession for finding and cherishing, say, wine, in all its forms.  This is one reason, then, why we do not want our military force of guardians to be lovers of laughter.  We do not want them to be pursuing laughter at the expense of the bodily and mental training necessary for a disciplined military.

But there is another reason to be wary of letting our soldiers indulge in loving laughter.  Mimesis is an overarching theme in Book 3 and it touches on laughter here as well.  At 395b-c Socrates says that we want our guardians to attend to one thing, the freedom of the city.  To this end they should be educated to imitate men who are, “courageous, moderate, pious, free and all such traits” (395c4-5). (3)  Not explicitly mentioned here, but obviously in mind, are the comedic plays of authors such as Aristophanes.  The characters in these plays are crude and buffoonish. As Aristotle characterizes comedy, these people are perceived to be beneath our station in life.  We have also been told that we need poets to compose characters who are worthy of emulation, unlike the sordid tales of adultery among the gods or unmoderated rage we find in Homer, for example.  Combining the above ideas, we do not want our guardians to have the disposition of laughter-loving, nor do we want to provide material which would encourage and develop the baser elements of character, which would distract guardians from their singular goal of ensuring the safety of the city.  We do not wish of our guardians buffoons, nor do we wish our city to be a haven of fools. 

REFERENCES:

(1)
ὃν ἂν φῶμεν φιλεῖν τι, δεῖ φανῆναι αὐτόν, ἐὰν ὀρθῶς
λέγηται, οὐ τὸ μὲν φιλοῦντα ἐκείνου, τὸ δὲ μή, ἀλλὰ πᾶν
στέργοντα

(2)
περὶ τὰ μαθήματα δυσχεραίνοντα 

(3)
ἀνδρείους, σώφρονας, ὁσίους, ἐλευθέρους, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πάντα

Does Aristotle’s Nature have One or Many Uses?

Posted on by

In one of the many memorable passages in the first book of the Politics Aristotle is making the case for what we might call a division of labor.  Aristotle says that men and women are disposed such that men are the natural leaders while women are naturally subservient, similar to the relationship between master and slave.  On his understanding one must rule and another must be subject, the former belonging to intellect and the master while the body and the slave represent the subservient element.

Additionally, as part of promoting this argument, Aristotle says that things are made by nature so as to be distinct (and presumably complementary).

Therefore the feminine and the slavish are distinguished (for Nature makes no such thing as the blacksmiths make the Delphic knife, in need of something, but Nature makes one thing for one thing.  For in this way each tool will turn out most splendidly, not serving many functions but one) (1252b1-5).1)οὖν διώρισται τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ δοῦλον (οὐθὲν γὰρ ἡ φύσιςποιεῖ τοιοῦτον οἷον οἱ χαλκοτύποι τὴν Δελφικὴν μάχαιραν,πενιχρῶς, ἀλλ’ ἓν πρὸς ἕν· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἀποτελοῖτο κάλλιστα τῶν ὀργάνων ἕκαστον, μὴ πολλοῖς ἔργοις ἀλλ’ ἑνὶ δουλεῦον.

Now unfortunately, we do not know the exact utility or makeup of this “Delphic knife,” so we have to make some guesses as to its exact use.  Walter Burkert notes, “the Delphic knives were made in a special form which we are unable to construct with certainty in spite of numerous ironical allusions.”2)Homo Necans, 1984, pg. 119  There is also the proverbial saying that, “When you sacrifice at Delphi, you will have to bring extra meat for yourself.”3)Com.adesp. 460; Plut. Q. conv. 709a  This may imply that not only does the knife cut, but, as a second function, it takes away the meat.

So, with one line of interpretation, we might say that the Delphic knife is like that uniquely American contraption, the spork, half-spoon, half-fork, serving as both that which cuts the sacrificial victim and that which serves this meat as a kind of spatula.  (It matters little which two particular roles the knife is serving in this scenario, as long as we ascribe to it more than one).  Now keep in mind, on analogy with either the man/woman or master/slave dynamic, in those relations the man is retaining a single role in that as both husband and master he is the ruling element, in virtue of his intellect.  In the case of the Delphic knife, it tries to do too much, and, incurs the contempt of Aristotle just as much as a Swiss Army knife would.

There is another passage in the Parts of Animals however, which, in enumerating the uses of tails, makes this statement:

There are many differences of tails, and nature makes use of it in the following ways, not only as a protection and covering of the bottom, but also as a help and use for those possessing it (690a1-4).4)No Greek as the TLG does not yet have this text!

Previously Aristotle had also mentioned the various functions of the Elephant’s trunk.

Therefore the elephant has for breathing a nostril [i.e. trunk], just as each of the other animals having a lung, but because he spends his time in water and his torpid egress from water the nostril is lengthened and able to wrap around things.  And with his [fore]feet being deprived of their use, Nature, as we said, uses the nostril as a help toward that help which the feet normally supplies (659a30-37).5)No Greek as the TLG does not yet have this text!

So in these two passages from the Parts of Animals we see that Aristotle does not have a problem in granting that different parts of animals, at least, can and do have multiple functions.

Where does this leave us with regard to the statement above in the Politics, that “Nature makes one thing for one thing.  For in this way each tool will turn out most splendidly, not serving many functions but one?”  Does Nature make one thing for one thing or many things?  Is the elephant not “splendid” because its trunk is used for many purposes instead of just one?  But doesn’t Nature also make the elephant?

Perhaps the overarching purpose of an organism is what Aristotle means when he talks about Nature making one thing for one thing.  That is, nature makes men to rule (even though their hands, or eyebrows, etc serve many ends) and elephants to serve X role (even though their trunks can be used both to breathe and as hands).

Or is Aristotle just changing his mind on the subject, or inconsistent, or most frustrating of all, is he just being brilliantly opaque, as he so often can be?

References   [ + ]

1. ↑ οὖν διώρισται τὸ θῆλυ καὶ τὸ δοῦλον (οὐθὲν γὰρ ἡ φύσιςποιεῖ τοιοῦτον οἷον οἱ χαλκοτύποι τὴν Δελφικὴν μάχαιραν,πενιχρῶς, ἀλλ’ ἓν πρὸς ἕν· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἀποτελοῖτο κάλλιστα τῶν ὀργάνων ἕκαστον, μὴ πολλοῖς ἔργοις ἀλλ’ ἑνὶ δουλεῦον.
2. ↑ Homo Necans, 1984, pg. 119
3. ↑ Com.adesp. 460; Plut. Q. conv. 709a
4. ↑ No Greek as the TLG does not yet have this text!
5. ↑ No Greek as the TLG does not yet have this text!