Reexamining Socrates in the Apology

by John Russon (Editor), Patricia Fagan (Editor)

Overview

An oracle was reported to have said, "No one is wiser than Socrates." And in fact it was Socrates’ life’s work to interpret these words, which demanded and defined the practice of philosophy. Each of these original essays attends carefully to the specifics of the Apology, looking to its dramatic details, its philosophic teaching, and its complexity as a work of writing to bring into focus the "Socrates" of the Apology.

Overall, the contributors, distinguished scholars of ancient philosophy, share a belief in the unity of the letter and the spirit of Platonic philosophy: the conviction that the Platonic text cannot be reached except through reading and cannot be read except through thinking. In this way, the readings in this volume mirror Socrates’ own hermeneutical practice of uniting the demands of the mind and the demands of the text—the Socratic "examination." The result, true to the Socratic injunction that the unexamined life is not worth living, continues that practice of examination, here offering a reexamination of Socrates in the Apology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810125872
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	07/21/2009
Series:	Topics In Historical Philosophy
Edition description:	1
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Patricia Fagan is an assistant professor of languages, literatures, and cultures at the University of Windsor.

John Russon is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph.

Read an Excerpt

REEXAMINING SOCRATES IN THE APOLOGY

---

Northwestern University Press

Copyright © 2009 Northwestern University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8101-2587-2

---

Chapter One

"Oracles and Dreams" Commanding Socrates: Reflections on Apology 33c

Bernard Freydberg

In one of the more curious passages in the Platonic dialogues, Socrates tells his judges that his public questioning of the putatively wise occurred in response to a command (prostetaktai) which was delivered to him by the god in many ways, among them "oracles and dreams" (Apology 33c5–6) as well as in every other way that divine moira shows itself to men. Such a command, one imposed by oracles and dreams, imposes itself upon Socrates alone. In this chapter I will explore the nature of this peculiar command, and show how dreams and oracles themselves bring measure to Socratic activity.

Oracles functioned in many ways for both individuals and states (poleis) for the Greeks, as did dreams. But they did not command. Oracles advised individuals on such personal matters as whether a wife would conceive, whether it was acceptable to alter a cult practice, or whether a certain sacrifice would be received with favor, and in general "whether to marry or sail or land." States generally approached oracles for divine sanction of political decisions that had already been reached. But those oracles that commanded Socrates did not provide such advice. They are more closely akin to the image of "the soul of every lover" given by the poet Aristophanes in the Symposium: "like an oracle it has a sense for what it wants, and like an oracle it riddles" (192d1–2). But unlike the case of unriddling spoken of in the Symposium, namely the solution that He phaestus would perform for the lovers by bonding them into one being, Socrates is commanded to remain within the riddling.

The case with dreams is somewhat similar, although the function of dreams was not nearly so directive. In general, although some dreams were regarded as insignificant, others were taken as symbolic or prophetic, issuing from a divine source much as did the oracle at Delphi. Like oracles, dreams can present themselves cryptically, and so require interpretation. In Homer and the tragedians various soothsayers perform this role, which is informative rather than directive. It is up to the receiver of the divine source to act upon the findings, and there is no command to act in any particular way. But Socrates functions as his own soothsayer, and for him a dream can be at least as binding as any law can be. While oracles issue in a bond to riddling for Socrates (contrary to general practice), dreams can direct not only particular actions but the course of his life at crucial junctures (again, this is not their usual function).

Thus, major strains of both Anglo-American and Continental interpretations of Socratic activity fail to account for a crucial dimension of the founding image of the philosopher, namely the commanding function of dreams and oracles. Clearly, those Anglo-American accounts which interpret Socrates as the first employer of reason and which place the Socratic elenchus as the high point of his philosophical contribution make no effort to account for the frequently proclaimed importance of oracles and dreams to him. Some major Continental thinkers also bypass this importance as well. Hegel, for instance, regards oracles as a not-yet-rational external source which indicates that the Greeks had not achieved the stage of inward freedom and independence.

But Nietzsche who, in The Birth of Tragedy, unearthed the pregnant possibility of the music-practicing Socrates, saw that the hold a dream exercised upon him on his last day delivered Socrates back into a realm where his image can serve as the locus for philosophical rebirth. But it remains for us to further the realm opened up by this image, for even Nietzsche did not see how radically his insight altered Plato interpretation and with it, philosophizing itself. He discusses the famous dream in which Socrates found himself enjoined to "practice music." The verb, again, is a variant of prostasso, which here again has the force of a command. 8 At first, Socrates interpreted this command as mere encouragement to continue philosophizing as he had. But just in case the dream referred instead to "popular, common music," he proceeds "to practice this music for which he has but little respect in order to thoroughly unburden his conscience. And in this mood he writes a prelude to Apollo, and turns a few Aesopian fables into verse." For Nietzsche, "the voice of the Socratic dream vision is the only sign of any misgivings about the limits of logic."

At this point and in light of the latter scruple, I reinterpret Nietzsche's insight that the figure of Socrates represents a certain reversal of instinct and logic. I maintain that the genuine reversal consists precisely in Socrates' treatment (a) of oracles as commanding him to riddling and (b) of dreams as decisively directive. Both take place within the nonrational (instinctive) activity of divination. What Nietzsche calls "logic" is always held within the thrall of nonrationally generated images issuing from oracles and dreams.

Thus, Socrates reports a dream in which he was visited by a "beautiful and well-formed [eueides!] woman clothed in a white garment" (Crito 44a10–b1). The woman tells him, "On the third day thereafter you will reach fertile Phthia." This dream and that beautiful image set the context for his "logical" arguments which led to his refusal to escape prison. Another dream reported in the Crito, in which Socrates recalls the Homeric embassy scene from book 9 of the Iliad, has a similar philosophical function. Just as Achilles dismisses Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax and entreats the favor of Poseidon for his journey home, Socrates dismisses the arguments of his friends and of hoi polloi and seeks a return to his "home," namely logos. Serving again as his own interpreter, Socrates then reasons to the conclusion that it was good that he was not awakened before this dream, which foretold the sailing of the ship whose arrival would determine the day of his death, and that it was therefore necessary (dei) for him to honor the death sentence, a necessity which was exhibited in the logoi concerning his obligations to the state and the laws.

But this is no mere deathbed scruple, nor is it a genuine reversal of usual Socratic philosophic practice. First of all, as he proclaims in the Apology, dreams and oracles have always appealed to Socrates, not only urging him on but commanding him. As a case in point, he hears the oracle proclaiming that no one is wiser than he, cited at Apology 21a4–8, as a command to search for a wiser one since he knows he is not wise in the least. But in like manner, the Delphic oracle at Phaedrus 229e5–230a1 binds Socrates to a pursuit of self-knowledge and away from another course that would hinder this pursuit. That is, the oracle stops him from rationally explaining away the traditional myths in a rational fashion, as it commands him to respect their nonrational source. Other unmistakable examples of this respect and of the philosophical yield from this respect shall be explored in the middle section of this chapter.

For Socrates, there also seemed to be a class of dreams between those that provoked philosophical self-reflection and those that lacked such significance entirely. In Socrates' account of the transition from the democratic to the tyrannic man in book 9 of the Republic, dreams more or less directly disclose an ugly, unruly eros in human beings. In this context, he claims that it surely becomes plain in dreams that "some terrible, savage and lawless eidos of desires is in every man, even in some of us who seem ever so measured [metriois]" (572b4–6). In the absence of "the opinions accounted just" (574d6–7), the tyrannic man actually becomes the constant beast in action that he had once only occasionally been in dreams. These unruly, beastly dreams do not issue from a god, but from human overindulgence in unnecessary pleasures and desires which, though present in everyone, are "hostile to law" and so require the check of law and better desire "with the help of logos" (571c). Unlike the dreams of the Crito and Phaedo, these dreams require no interpretation. Unmediated by either logos or inspiration, they contain neither direct claims to truth or wisdom nor mythical content for examination. However, the presence of such unruly dreams even in the ones who seem most measured discloses the kinship of dreaming and measure. This kinship is disclosed through the mythic substructure of the Charmides, and is also explored in the Timaeus through Timaeus's discussion of divination's somatic site, the liver.

Given their placement in the Platonic life of Socrates, the express role of the nonrational sources of his activity may seem especially pronounced in the Apology. However, the power of dreams, oracles, and other such sources to inspire and direct philosophical activity is easy to locate and worthwhile to ponder in other dialogues. One example: as the discussion in the Charmides on moderation reaches a turning point at 174a, Socrates entreats Critias to consider a certain scruple by means of Homeric imagery: "Listen then, I said, to my dream, to see whether it comes through horn or through ivory." How does this image of "dream through horn / dream through ivory" function in the dialogue?

In the Odyssey, "circumspect Penelope" draws this distinction to which Socrates refers. As a test of the returning Odysseus, she relates a dream of twenty sycophantic geese and of a returning eagle that would break the necks of all of them and kill them. Odysseus interprets the dream at once: "The geese are the suitors and I the eagle, have been a bird of portent, but now I am your own husband, come home, and I shall inflict shameless destruction on all the suitors" (19.1.548–50). Penelope gives a skeptical response, acknowledging the unreliability both of dreams and of their interpretations. She declares the aforementioned two gates as their passageways, saying:

Those of the dreams which issue through the gates of sawn ivory, these are deceptive dreams, their message is never accomplished. But those that come into the open through the gates of the polished horn accomplish the truth for any mortal who sees them. I do not think that this strange dream that I had came to me through this [latter] gate. My son and I would be glad if it did so. (19.1.564–69)

There are two aspects of this exchange worthy of philosophical consideration. One is the teasing nature of the dream, or in more technical (but no more rigorous) language its provocation of the soul of Odysseus, who responds to it right away. This teasing nature of the dream works itself out in the indeterminate nature of its interpretation. Sometimes a dream provokes no interpretation whatsoever, sometimes these interpretations lead astray or lead nowhere. Thus, it is neither the activity of dreaming itself nor of interpreting dreams that determines their disclosure of truth, their worth. Nevertheless, some dreams, like this one and like certain dreams of Socrates, disclose truth in some way and so prove worthy.

Equally important, however, is the criterion whereby the worth of the dream is determined, so that its original passageway can be discerned. In the Platonic dialogues, the "correct" interpretation is not the one which best accords with the details of the dream or which gives clues as to the psychological underpinnings of the dreamer, but rather the one which issues in the appropriate deed (ergon) for which the dream ultimately calls. In the Odyssey, the deed is the "actual" stringing of the bow and the slaying of the suitors. In the Charmides, it is philosophy's appropriate counterpart of Odysseus's deed.

What exactly is Socrates' dream in the Charmides? I suggest that it has two elements. The first occurs almost in passing, in the context of his general refutation of temperance defined as "the science [episteme] of itself and the other sciences" (168a7–8). There, he tells Charmides: "I divine [manteuomai] that temperance is something beneficial and good" (169b4–5; emphasis mine). The second introduces his "strange" conclusion that he and Critias were wrong in agreeing that "it would be a great good to men if each of us were to do [prattoien] the things he knows and to hand over what he does not know to others who do" (172d7–10). This latter insubstantial supposition shows itself to enter through "the gate of sawn ivory," since Socrates persuades Critias that even the seer (ton mantin) does not require any science of science and nonscience in order to be beneficial (ophelimos) and happy (the sciences by which one knows checker-playing and calculation would clearly not suffice). Rather, a science of good and evil is needed. Thus, Socrates' dream of sophrosune remains dreamlike, something divined but otherwise without contour.

But fragments of the dream hang on, seeping into the deed of the philosopher. Although Socrates refutes Charmides' and Critias's arguments on the nature of temperance, he provides three results from the discussion: (a) he uses Homeric (poetic) modesty offered as counsel to the ragged Odysseus (which can be either good or bad) as the refutation of Charmides' definition of temperance as "always good" modesty (161a4); (b) he lets stand Critias's remark on the Delphic oracle's character as a counsel from the gods rather than a greeting (165a5–6); and (c) he calls the dialogue with Critias hubristikos (insolent), insofar as it proceeded carelessly and to a useless result.

In other words, just as it is the task of Odysseus to slay the suitors and, as its king, so restore the proper order and proportion in his own house, it is the task of the philosopher to restore order and proportion into his own soul by expelling bad logoi from the soul and leaving the worthy ones, whatever their source, in its service and in their proper order. In the sense that the Socrates of the elenchus is always at once the Socrates bound to dreams, and in particular Homeric ones, Nietzsche was correct when he said that "one could designate the dreaming Greeks as Homer, and Homer as a dreaming Greek," but was mistaken when he excluded Socrates from this circle until the end. The considerations of hubris, aidos (shame), and the proper measure for a human being within them are the Homeric markings within which Socratic questioning always occurred.

Another example: almost in passing, Timaeus ascribes two key human functions to the liver, a supposedly minor organ of the body fashioned in accord with the soul's trough between the midriff and the boundary toward the navel, whereby its appetites for food, drink, and the like occur. These appetites either ignore or resist logos, with the soul being led by eidolon and phantasmaton. When the thoughts of the intellect (dianoematon he ek tou nou; Timaeus 71b3) travel downward, they are stamped upon the liver (hepatos) "as a mirror that receives the stamps and returns visible images [eidola]." Bitter thoughts beget bitter images and the shriveling of the liver, sweet thoughts beget sweetness, which at night in sleep makes itself manifest in "proper measure" (metrion), practicing "divination by dreams, since it had no part in reason and understanding" (71d4).

The Greeks who attended the Dionysiads knew that the liver functions prominently in the mythical image of Prometheus, whom Zeus punished for his hubris in giving fire and other gifts (including prophecy and dream-interpretation) to man, including not only many arts but also nous itself. In Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, "Zeus's winged hound" eternally tears Prometheus's liver, feasting upon it until it is "bloodied to blackness." In Hesiod's Theogony, a "long-winged eagle" devours his "immortal liver by day," only to have it grow back again at night to be eaten again, until Heracles kills the bird and releases Prometheus. The liver, then, is the site at which the hubris of Prometheus, the one whose gifts made possible the hubris of man, is most painfully punished. Thus, in a mythical sense, the liver is associated with proper measure, at the very least in the sense that it is assaulted when proper measure is transgressed.

For Timaeus, the liver shrinks upon the threat of severe command (chalepe prosenegchtheisa apeile; 71b6–7). He sees liver-begotten dreams as a gift that can remedy a human lack of good sense (aphrosune; 71e2), when interpreted by another who is a skilled dream-interpreter and who is "in his normal senses" (emphronos). The liver, then, discloses the human soul in its bond to images and their interpretation in proper measure with respect to dreams. Even this discourse on the liver (and the spleen, which serves it), which concludes his topic of "our questions concerning the soul," cannot be affirmed as "truth" given the absence of divine confirmation (theou sumphesantos; 72d6). That is, one cannot securely say the extent to which "the soul is mortal and to which extent it is divine; where its parts are situated, with what organs they are associated, and why they are situated apart from one another" (72d4–5). Rather, such an account must be "risked." The appropriate word for such an account is "likely" (eikos; 72d7–8), in light of the image-bound nature of both the soul and the discourse concerning the soul.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from REEXAMINING SOCRATES IN THE APOLOGY Copyright © 2009 by Northwestern University Press. Excerpted by permission of Northwestern University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments....................xi
Introduction: Socrates Examined Patricia Fagan and John Russon....................xiii
1 "Oracles and Dreams" Commanding Socrates: Reflections on Apology 33c Bernard Freydberg....................5
2 Just Speaking, Just Listening: Performance and Contradiction in Socrates' Apology Maria L. Talero....................16
3 Of Socrates, Aristophanes, and Rumors George Gregory....................35
4 Socrates and Achilles Robert Metcalf....................62
5 Plato's Oedipus: Myth and Philosophy in the Apology Patricia Fagan....................85
6 Inventing Socrates: Truth, Jest, and Care in Plato's Apology James Crooks....................102
7 Caring and Conversing About Virtue Every Day: Human Piety and Goodness in Plato's Apology Francisco J. Gonzalez....................117
8 Citizen Socrates Gregory Recco....................168
9 The (Childish) Nature of the Soul in Plato's Apology John Russon....................191
10 Becoming Socrates Catherine H. Zuckert....................209
11 An Apology in the Cave Light Ömer Aygün....................250
12 The "Inconceivable Happiness" of "Men and Women": Visions of an Other World in Plato's Apology of Socrates Claudia Baracchi....................273
Index of Passages in the Apology....................291
Index of Topics....................295
Contributors....................299

Editorial Reviews

"This fine collection . . . has a tenacious loyalty to details, reading them with utmost care and sensitivity to the dialogue as a whole, other dialogues, athenian history as well as its literary scene (especially aristophanes and his play The Clouds), and the subtleties of the Greek language. The result is as astonishing as it is illuminating: the Apology is given back to us in its complexity and its profundity."—Jason Wirth, Penn state University

From the Publisher