WPES: December 4, 2009
[For High-Resolution photos, click the picture]
[For High-Resolution photos, click the picture]
Today at the Political Theory Workshop Christina Tarnopolsky of McGill University presented a paper entitled "Plato's Mimetic Republic: A Preliminary Treatment of Plato's Preliminary Treatment of the Gennaion Pseudos." This was the final workshop for the fall semester, so let me start by congratulating Dr. Frank Lovett on finishing his first semester as director of the Political Theory Workshop. The semester has been a terrific one.
Tarnopolsky (center) argued that Plato is not
The respondent for Tarnopolsky's paper was Eric Brown of WUSTL Philosophy. In a presentation that was undoubtedly among the best in the history of the Political Theory Workshop, Brown staunchly (and quite humorously) defended the anti-democratic interpretation of Plato's views.
Eric Brown's response was a tour de force.
This week on the WPES blog we have a special treat for the political theory community. Brown and Tarnopolsky have offered to share their follow up emails to each other with the whole workshop group. Both are well worth reflecting on at length, and they give a fantastic insight to both presenters' ongoing thought process.-Greg Allen
Eric Brown's Post-Workshop Email to Christina Tarnopolsky:
Christina,
Since you asked about the way I ended my remarks, I realize that I probably put my point too glibly. Since I have accused you of wishful thinking, I wanted to acknowledge that I am working with some wishful thinking, too. But I think we are wishing for very different things. You are wishing for a democratic Plato. Your wish is fulfilled if Plato's dialogues point to the endorsement of a particular (set of) claim(s). I am wishing for a philosophically rich Plato. My wish is fulfilled if Plato's dialogues offer some powerful arguments for stimulating conclusions (and I find more stimulation in conclusions that I *disagree* with). That's the point of wishing for a Plato whose Socrates occasionally outrages us: I want him to be committed to claims I reject so that I can consider his reasons for those commitments. To my mind, a Plato who writes every so cleverly to shroud his view that it would be nice to have a democracy of critically reflective citizens is much less interesting than a Plato who cleverly argues for views that I find repellent. But de gustibus non disputandum est, probably.
I also wanted to follow up on a few points from the discussion, and I've cc'ed Andrew, Frank, and Ian in case they want to jump in. I hope you'll forgive my bluntness. I've long been intrigued by esoteric readings of Plato--I took classes from Bloom and Cropsey as an undergraduate, and have read more than a few esoteric interpretations--and I've long been frustrated by how little actual dialogue there is between those scholars who are more fond of esoteric readings and those who are less so. Please read this as a clumsy attempt to build a dialogue of that sort.
First, three small points about the details of the noble lie.
- I think that the concern about the words pseudos and apate is a red herring. A pseudos is a falsehood, and a pseudos told by someone who knows that it is a falsehood as if it were true is a lie. The founders of the sketched city are to tell a falsehood that they know is a falsehood as if it were a truth. That is, they are to tell a lie.
- I take it that the citizens are supposed to believe the whole lying story--that they were born of the earth and that a god mixed different metals in different citizens' souls. You might have suggested that they are supposed to see through the obviously false bits here and to accept the upshot, and you might have supported this thought by saying that *of course* no one could be expected to believe that they were born in the earth and divinely injected with metal. This went by fast, and I am not sure I heard you right. But if I did, I disagree heartily. The supporting thought is plainly false. People are ludicrously credulous. Right now, millions believe in transubstantiation, and a staggering number of Americans believe that Obama was born in Kenya. In Plato's time, many Greeks believed that their grandfather's grandfather's grandfather or so was the son of Zeus. Indeed, in ancient times, as Socrates suggests, there were groups of people who believed that they were born of the earth. It is surely possible to imagine a society in which everyone believes that they are born of the earth and divinely injected with metals. I agree that it would not be easy to get a group of people who currently do not believe this to believe it. But that is exactly what Socrates and Glaucon say, and the difficulty they highlight is an excellent reason for thinking that the point is to persuade the citizens to swallow the whole story and not just the inner normative truths of the story.
- I think that the question of whether the rulers lie to the citizens is more complicated than you make it seem. Socrates is clear that the founders of the city are initially to tell the whole city the lying story. But the story will be repeated to future generations after the founders have died. Who will repeat it? I presume the rulers. Now, will these rulers believe the story, or will they tell a story they know to be false as if it were true (that is, will they lie)? There is some reason to think that at least some of the rulers will be in the latter category, since Socrates and Glaucon are clear that the rulers will be especially difficult to persuade. Maybe the future rulers who repeat the story will believe the story hook-line-and-sinker. But there's no evidence to warrant this conclusion, and thus no evidence that the rulers who repeat the story are not lying. Indeed, the hints tell the other way.
But those details are trifling next to the dialogue I really want to have. Let me return to the central, broad dispute between us. You want to say that Plato favors some sort of democracy. That is consistent, as you rightly say, with him criticizing other sorts of democracy or dysfunctional instantiations of a favored sort of democracy. But the question is, why do we think that Plato favors some sort of democracy? I mean, why do we think that Plato wants some significant political decisions to be given to all the members of a reasonably broad (for the time and place) citizenry?
That he favors critical thinking is no reason to think that he favors democracy. (This I discussed in my comments.) That he thinks that the masses can be persuaded that they don't have knowledge, that the philosophers do have knowledge, and that the philosophers should rule--in sum, that the masses can be made gentle toward the philosophers--is also no reason to think that he favors democracy. (There is a huge difference between recognizing the need to secure the tacit consent of a group of people--something even a Stalin shows concern for--and turning over some significant political decision to that group--the bare minimum to expect of democracy.) So why should we think that Plato favors democracy? This is the question to which I would like to read an answer, and I don't recall an answer in the discussion earlier today.
Once we get an answer to that question, we would need to weigh its probative value against that of the reasons one can give to conclude that Plato does *not* favor democracy. I gave two such reasons in my comments. On the one hand, Aristotle treats him as an opponent of democracy and takes Socrates' sketch at face value, as something Plato endorsed. I think you wanted to give an esoteric reading of Aristotle to devalue this evidence. But what about my second point, the mass of evidence in Plato's dialogues that political decisions should be made by the wise and that most people are incapable of wisdom? Is *all* of this evidence to be set aside? Plato's characters don't mean what they say when they say these things?
I will now add, for good measure, a third general consideration in favor of thinking that Plato opposes democracy. It seems to me that his psychology in The Republic explains why one should think that most people are incapable of wisdom and that democracy is necessarily doomed to flattery and corruption (so that the criticisms of Book Eight are supposed not just to apply to dysfunctional instantiations but to uncover the intrinsic weakness of all democracy). In a nutshell, he thinks that most people are ruled by appetite, and he thinks that appetite cannot grasp anything but appearances.
To put all those considerations together, it seems to me that your reading requires you to "go esoteric" about Aristotle's treatment of Plato, about either a thesis about political power (that it should rest with the wise) or a thesis about the many (that they cannot be wise), both of which theses are repeatedly endorsed throughout the Platonic corpus, and about a very broad range of declarations in The Republic. What reason could one have for doing all that?
That he favors critical thinking is no reason to think that he favors democracy. (This I discussed in my comments.) That he thinks that the masses can be persuaded that they don't have knowledge, that the philosophers do have knowledge, and that the philosophers should rule--in sum, that the masses can be made gentle toward the philosophers--is also no reason to think that he favors democracy. (There is a huge difference between recognizing the need to secure the tacit consent of a group of people--something even a Stalin shows concern for--and turning over some significant political decision to that group--the bare minimum to expect of democracy.) So why should we think that Plato favors democracy? This is the question to which I would like to read an answer, and I don't recall an answer in the discussion earlier today.
Once we get an answer to that question, we would need to weigh its probative value against that of the reasons one can give to conclude that Plato does *not* favor democracy. I gave two such reasons in my comments. On the one hand, Aristotle treats him as an opponent of democracy and takes Socrates' sketch at face value, as something Plato endorsed. I think you wanted to give an esoteric reading of Aristotle to devalue this evidence. But what about my second point, the mass of evidence in Plato's dialogues that political decisions should be made by the wise and that most people are incapable of wisdom? Is *all* of this evidence to be set aside? Plato's characters don't mean what they say when they say these things?
I will now add, for good measure, a third general consideration in favor of thinking that Plato opposes democracy. It seems to me that his psychology in The Republic explains why one should think that most people are incapable of wisdom and that democracy is necessarily doomed to flattery and corruption (so that the criticisms of Book Eight are supposed not just to apply to dysfunctional instantiations but to uncover the intrinsic weakness of all democracy). In a nutshell, he thinks that most people are ruled by appetite, and he thinks that appetite cannot grasp anything but appearances.
To put all those considerations together, it seems to me that your reading requires you to "go esoteric" about Aristotle's treatment of Plato, about either a thesis about political power (that it should rest with the wise) or a thesis about the many (that they cannot be wise), both of which theses are repeatedly endorsed throughout the Platonic corpus, and about a very broad range of declarations in The Republic. What reason could one have for doing all that?
One reason would be that reading accepting all this evidence straightforwardly is untenable. If so, we would have to search for esoteric alternatives. But today at least you did not try to show that more direct readings of Plato and democracy are untenable, and indeed one of my frustrations with the esoteric interpretations with which I am familiar is that they do not try to show that more direct readings of Plato and democracy are untenable. This is one place--not the only place, but one place--where the dialogue fails to get off the ground. Another reason for "going esoteric" on all of those matters would be that we have evidence of Plato's favor for democracy that is so strong that we should
look beyond the surface meaning of huge swaths of his work and of Aristotle's. But I don't think that we have such evidence, and I did not hear you present any.
A final query. On your view, Plato hides his commitment to democracy. Why? He lives in a democracy. Is he worried that the oligarchs will kill him as a traitor to his class? Or is he just committed to communicating his preference for democracy to a select elite who can extract from his
dialogues the hidden message? The first of these seems fanciful, the latter something close to self-refuting. I would have thought that esoteric readings require some plausible story about why the author would hide his or her views. What's yours in this case?
Thanks again for an unusually rich provocation. I look forward to continuing our dialogue, and to reading your Gorgias book.
- Eric
look beyond the surface meaning of huge swaths of his work and of Aristotle's. But I don't think that we have such evidence, and I did not hear you present any.
A final query. On your view, Plato hides his commitment to democracy. Why? He lives in a democracy. Is he worried that the oligarchs will kill him as a traitor to his class? Or is he just committed to communicating his preference for democracy to a select elite who can extract from his
dialogues the hidden message? The first of these seems fanciful, the latter something close to self-refuting. I would have thought that esoteric readings require some plausible story about why the author would hide his or her views. What's yours in this case?
Thanks again for an unusually rich provocation. I look forward to continuing our dialogue, and to reading your Gorgias book.
- Eric
Both Brown and Tarnopolsky had immensely enjoyable presentations
Thanks to the whole WPES community
for a fantastic fall semester.
for a fantastic fall semester.
