SOURCE: "Is There a Socratic Moral Philosophy?," in The Foundations of Socratic Ethics, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994, pp. 3-44.

[Here, Gomez-Lobo contends that Socrates's own admission of ignorance does not undermine what has long been recognized as the philosopher's significant contribution to the field of ethics. Gomez-Lobo concludes that by disavowing moral knowledge, Socrates does not refer to a complete lack of knowledge, but rather asserts his willingness to constantly reexamine his beliefs.]

Socrates, as he appears in the Platonic dialogues, is a living paradox. He has become impoverished, but he nevertheless interacts with rich aristocrats such as Critias and the relatives of Plato. He implicitly criticizes Athenian democracy and yet fulfills his basic civic and military duties faithfully. He opposes an illegal measure under the democratic regime; he also disobeys orders issued by the tyrannic government of the Thirty. He is physically ugly but his beauty of soul is highly praised. He does not long for political power and yet manages to attract some of the most ambitious politicians of the day. He extols his homoerotic inclinations but refuses to engage in homosexual sex.

These apparent contradictions also extend to his philosophizing. He seems to hold that knowledge of a virtue is a necessary and sufficient condition for virtuous behavior, while denying that he has that knowledge. When he looks for the definition of a virtue, he relies on instances of that virtue which, so it seems, could only be identified by someone who already knew the definition; Socrates claims he does not know it. Moreover, we attribute to him a decisive influence on the development of Greek thought, whereas he would perhaps be ready to deny it. In fact, many people who have heard about Socrates only remember his claim to know nothing.

Hence, the first difficulty we must confront is whether it makes sense to attribute a body of moral philosophy to someone who seems flatly to deny any claim to knowledge. Is this just another aspect of the Socratic paradox, or is it an outright misinterpretation?

The difference between a contradiction and a paradox, in the sense I shall be using these terms, is that a paradox admits of resolution whereas a contradiction does not. If there is a way of showing that there is no ultimate inconsistency between Socrates the ironist and Socrates the constructive moral philosopher, the paradox will stand explained.

In what follows, I shall attempt to show that Socrates' admission of ignorance does not preclude the possibility of a substantial Socratic contribution to the field of ethics.

Let us first examine the concept of irony and the textual evidence for Socrates' disavowal of knowledge.

Three Interpretations of Disavowals of Knowledge

In several early Platonic dialogues there is a search for the definition of moral excellence. Socrates questions an interlocutor who puts forward successive replies which Socrates then rejects by way of a procedure called the elenchus, or "elenctic refutation." This normally consists in getting the interlocutor to accept one or more propositions which logically entail the denial of a definition he has formulated.¹¹ Since Socrates applies the same destructive strategy to any fresh definition submitted, and does not offer a definition of his own, the conversation ends without any accepted definition.

Socrates' method must have caused exasperation and resentment. In Book I of the Republic, Plato presents Thrasymachus, one of Socrates' most vigorous antagonists, who reacts in the following manner:

(SI) Having heard this he [SC. Thrasymachus] gave a big sardonic laugh and said: By Heracies, this is the usual dissembling [eironeia] of Socrates. I knew it and had warned these people that you would not be willing to reply but would dissemble [eironeu-soio] and would do anything rather than give an answer if someone asked you something.¹²

Thrasymachus believes that Socratic irony of the usual sort consists in the conjunction of two alleged facts: (a) that Socrates habitually refuses to give an answer and to state his own conviction with regard to the question he is putting to others, but (b) that Socrates does in fact have an answer and a conviction. Socrates is thus perceived as a dissembler, as someone who hides under a false pretense of ignorance and hence induces deceit. Irony here is the equivalent of dissimulation.

But the term "irony" … has also come to signify something rather different.¹³ We say that our utterance is ironic if we use the words to mean the opposite of what they normally mean, but without intending to deceive. It would be ironic to say that the weather is fine if it is right now raining cats and dogs, or that J. S. Bach was an unimaginative composer while the Goldberg Variations are being performed. Given the appropriate context, and perhaps a certain tone of voice, no deception should occur, unless special conditions obtain.

Alcibiades alludes to this form of irony in a passage in Plato's Symposium where he gives an account of his past experience with Socrates:

(S2) He listened to me, and then, most ironically [eironikos] and in his extremely typical and usual manner, he said: "My dear Alcibiades, I'm afraid you are not really a worthless fellow, if what you say about me happens to be true: that there is in me a power that could make you a better man. You must have seen within me an inconceivable beauty which is totally different from your good looks. If, having seen it, you are trying to strike a bargain and exchange beauty for beauty, you intend to get much more than your fair share out of me: you are trying to get true beauty in return for seeming beauty. You aim in fact to exchange 'gold for brass'."¹⁴

The irony that Alcibiades attributes to Socrates in this humorous passage appears at different levels. There is mocking irony in Socrates' praise of the young man ("not a worthless fellow," "not stupid," …), because it is reasonably clear that it would be an illusion to think that he can get away with the sort of bargain he is trying to strike. But there is also irony in Socrates' concession, made in jest, that there is an inconceivable beauty within himself. If the first sort of irony could deceive someone blinded by his own self-conceit, the second one clearly would not, given what Socrates is reported to have said immediately afterward:

(S2) But, my fortunate friend, take a closer look lest it has escaped you that I am nothing.¹⁵

The implication, of course, is that Socrates is far from wanting to deceive Alcibiades into thinking that he was serious in mentioning a beauty of his own far superior to Alcibiades' physical bloom. He is warning Alcibiades, precisely, not to take his claim seriously.

This in turn generates a third level of irony. Socrates suggests that someone who looks twice into his soul may not find anything there, a comment almost certainly interpreted as ironic by Alcibiades, who openly claims to have already seen "the statues within" Socrates' soul, which appeared to be "divine and golden, most beautiful and admirable."¹⁶ The inner beauty is there. Socrates disavows it, but his interlocutor is not deceived.

The exchange between Alcibiades and Socrates in the Symposium, then, leads to a second interpretation of Socratic irony. According to the first one, (A) Socrates has knowledge, denies it, and thereby deceives people. This was Thrasymachus' view. According to the second, (B) Socrates has knowledge, denies it, but does not intend deception. It is true that some of his interlocutors may be deceived, but others will not be misled. On the other hand, it is unclear what kind of knowledge is attributed to Socrates by those who do not assume that he is dissembling.

There is a third interpretation to consider. If (A) implies lack of sincerity and (B) implies a certain form of playfulness and oftentimes mockery, nothing prevents us from assuming that perhaps Socrates is being sincere. This third interpretation may be characterized as follows: (C) Socrates denies that he has knowledge, and this may be strictly true; he is simply being honest about it.

If we were to take these three possible interpretations of Socratic irony as mutually exclusive, we would be guilty of oversimplification. It could certainly be the case that for different forms of knowledge (or for the knowledge of different sorts of items), the Socratic confession of ignorance has a different import. The correct reply, then, to the question of whether Socrates is insincere, simply playful, or straightforwardly sincere is a function of the sort of knowledge Socrates happens to be disclaiming on a given occasion.

What kinds of knowledge does Socrates disavow?

Disavowal of Knowledge in the Apology

The attempt to answer this important question should begin with a careful examination of the Apology. If this work was intended to serve as a minimally effective defense of the memory of Socrates, we may reasonably expect it to reflect to some extent what Socrates actually said in front of the jury. Had Plato composed a speech that was radically different from the one delivered by Socrates during the actual proceedings, he would have severely weakened the case for Socrates, since many Athenians who were present at the trial would have been alive and active in politics at the time the Apology started to circulate.

There is a second reason to begin with the Apology, if indeed we can rely on its being a Platonic recreation of what went on during the trial. In it we get a picture of Socrates attempting to justify his life as a whole. Hence, his disavowal of knowledge is set in a broader context than in the early dialogues. He is trying to present his claim of ignorance as both central to his philosophical mission to Athens, and a clear indication that the accusations raised against him are false.

In fact, during the trial, Socrates had to face charges that were officially formulated in these terms:

(S3) Socrates does wrong [… does something unjust, commits a crime] [a] by corrupting the young and [b] by not acknowledging the gods that the city acknowledges, [c] but rather other new divinities.¹⁷

According to Socrates, these charges reflect "the first accusations," the charges derived from the false image of Socrates created earlier by Athenian comedians, particularly by Aristophanes. These are given a fictitious official wording by Socrates:

(S4) Socrates does wrong … and busies himself [d] searching things under the earth and in the sky, and [e] making the worse argument the stronger, and [f] teaching others these same things.¹⁸

The direct implication of charge [d]—which represents the background for charges [b] and [c] in the official accusations—is that Socrates is a "natural philosopher"; i.e., that he belongs to that group of philosophers which Aristotle later called "the physicists" (physikoi).

Natural philosophy attempts to explain events in the world by recourse to the unalterable and involuntary behavior of the ultimate constituents of things. It is the innermost nature of things and not external divine intervention that accounts for their properties and for certain occurrences.

To study "things below the earth and in the sky" (in a parallel passage the latter are called ta meteora, "things aloft")¹⁹ should be understood as the attempt to give naturalistic explanations of geological phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, on the one hand, and of meteorological phenomena (broadly conceived) such as rain, thunder or eclipses on the other. This way of specifying the domain of natural philosophy is highly significant, because it covers precisely the phenomena which had been traditionally taken to reveal the will of the gods. Soothsayers and prophets who were expected to provide members of the community with religious interpretations of those events were thus likely to regard the new physics as a threat to their craft and, if adopted on a larger scale, as a threat to the religion of the state.²⁰ Socrates, as an alleged advocate of the novel approach to nature, would, on such a view, be guilty of atheism.

Associating Socrates with the Sophistic movement—[e], above—would have been particularly damaging to him given the negative sentiment toward teachers of rhetoric current at the time. The leaders of the democratic restoration in Athens viewed the sophists as the teachers of the young oligarchs who destroyed the democratic constitution in 411 B.C. and who went on to participate in the dictatorship of the Thirty after 404.²¹

Even someone like Socrates' younger friend Alcibiades, a radical democrat often suspected of aiming at tyranny, was probably perceived as a product of the education provided by the sophists.²² Such utter disregard for the constitutional order is, of course, a form of corruption, and anyone suspected of having led the young in this direction could be labeled a corruptor of youth. We should therefore assume a close association between charge [e] and charges [a] and It is [f].²³

It is important to observe that Socrates denies the charges and does so by appealing to the testimony of those present at the trial.²⁴ In doing so, he unmistakenly disavows knowledge within two domains:

1. The science of nature,²⁵ and
2. the art of rhetoric, and, in general, the field of education.²⁶

Since many of those attending the proceedings could bear witness to the fact that they had never heard Socrates talking about natural philosophy, nor seen him become wealthy as a teacher of excellence, the accusers do not seem to have sufficient evidence to show the jury that Socrates was indeed a physicist and a sophist. But we do know that the accusers were politically able men who would not lightheartedly risk failure. What were they relying on when they brought forth legal action on those specific charges? What had Aristophanes had in mind many years earlier when he hoped the public would laugh if he put Socrates on stage as a representative of the new intellectuals?

We must assume, I think, that there was something about Socrates' public image that made both the caricature in the Clouds and the indictment effective.

According to Plato, Socrates saw the problem and faced it squarely by posing an imaginary objection:

(S5) Perhaps one of you might retort: "But, Socrates, what is your own pursuit? Whence did these slanders arise? For surely if you had not been busying your-self with something out of the common, all this talk and gossip would not have arisen, unless you were doing something different from most people. Tell us what it is, so that we won't improvise in speaking about you." It seems to me that whoever says this is making a fair request, and I will try to show you what it is that has generated this reputation and slander."²⁷

The main thrust of his reply to the hypothetical question is to connect his own pursuit with a divine source, viz. Apollo, the god of Delphi:

(S6) Well, at one time he [= Chairephon, a friend of Socrates, now dead, who had fought for the restoration of democracy] went to Delphi and was bold enough to ask the oracle—as I said before, gentlemen, please remain silent—he asked in fact whether there was anyone wiser than 1. The Pythia [= the priestess through which the god spoke and whose words were then interpreted by the priests of the sanctuary] replied that no one was wiser."²⁸

Socrates' reaction to this pronouncement was marked by initial puzzlement, a natural reaction on the part of someone who is aware of his own ignorance:

(S7) I am conscious of not being wise in anything great or small.²⁹

Anyone seriously convinced of this would be naturally inclined to think that Apollo's pronouncement must be false. It is reasonable to expect that there will be someone wiser than a person who is not wise at all. But this, according to Socrates, is intolerable:

(S8) For he [= the god] surely does not lie; it is not right… for him to do so.³⁰

Hence, if the statement

"Socrates is wise"

is known by Socrates himself to be false, but the god affirms something which implies that it is true (and his truthfulness cannot be doubted), then the only way out for Socrates is to suppose that the god is speaking in riddles, a not uncommon expectation on the part of those consulting the oracle.³¹

Accordingly, Socrates sets out to inquire into the meaning of the pronouncement, not into its truth.³² And yet, at least formally, his inquiry seems to aim at refuting the oracle by showing that the claim that no one is wiser than Socrates is false. Socrates' inquiry takes on the task of trying to find someone who surpasses him in wisdom. Finding such an individual would amount to providing a decisive counterexample to the pronouncement of the oracle.

Socrates proceeds to question individuals classified as politicians, poets and craftsmen; i.e., individuals who are expected to be superior to him in their respective domains and who therefore would qualify as being wiser.

Among representatives of the first group, Socrates detects the appearance of wisdom (especially in their own eyes) but no true knowledge. Socrates infers that he is slightly wiser than they are because neither he nor they "know anything fine and good" …; but he, at least, does not think he knows what he does not know.³³ The expression ouden kalon kagathon, used here without the article, does not stand for "the fine and the good";³⁴ i.e., for the primary object of moral knowledge. Rather it suggests that what politicians claim to have, and do not, is the general kind of evaluative knowledge needed to manage the affairs of the state on a day-to-day basis. Socrates is not disavowing moral knowledge.

The poets, in turn, say many fine things "by some inborn nature and from inspiration" and hence, strictly speaking, "do not understand anything they say."³⁵ This in itself is not to be regarded as a particularly negative trait of poetry. What seems intolerable to Socrates is that

(S9) because of their poetry they thought they were the wisest of men in other subjects in which they were not [sc. wise].³⁶

The poets, then, seem to make two different claims: to know how to compose poetry (but they actually do not know because they are driven by the nonrational force of inspiration) and to know about matters outside the domain of poetry (and again in this area they turn out to be ignorant).³⁷

In the craftsmen, Socrates also detected a step beyond the boundaries of their fields of competence. Members of this group are here called … "handcrafters," i.e., "people who work with their hands." They include carpenters, shoemakers, builders, etc., and also those we would call sculptors, painters, architects, etc., and even physicians. Common to all of them is the fact that they generate a product or work.… This product may or may not be a tangible object. A musical performer is also a craftsman of a sort, as is a doctor, though health, the goal of the doctor, is not an object in the normal sense of the word. Socrates admits that

(S10) … they knew things I did not know and in this respect they were wiser than 1. And yet, Athe-nians, our good craftsmen also seemed to me to have exactly the same shortcoming as the poets: because of the fine exercise of his craft each of them claimed… to be very wise also in other most important matters, and this excess of theirs over-clouded the wisdom they had.³⁸

The craftsmen, then, while knowledgeable … having episteme or "science") in their own craft (… techne), are also said to claim knowledge of "the greatest things" … an expression which the jurors doubtless understood as a reference to the domain of politics.³⁹ Within the context of the relatively small Greek city-state, the most important decisions were indeed the political ones. Frequently, not only the welfare but even the life of the citizens was a function of the wisdom of certain policies or of particular decrees. But the sharpest among the jurors must have also perceived a veiled criticism of democracy, a system that allows craftsmen to attend the meetings of the Assembly and make decisions about matters that lie beyond their field of competence. Hence, when he claims that he is "neither wise in their wisdom nor ignorant in their ignorance," Socrates is disavowing craft knowledge and political expertise.⁴⁰ He is not disavowing moral knowledge.

Note that Socrates takes craft-knowledge to be a genuine form of knowledge while denying that alleged forms of knowledge which cannot be construed as a peculiar craft or skill, such as the insight of the politician or the inspiration of the poet, have any value at all. The Socratic claim of ignorance has now been extended to three new areas:

• (3) politics,
• (4) poetry,
• (5) craft-knowledge.

If we pause for a moment and ask how we should understand Socrates' disavowals in these areas, we will arrive at relatively unproblematic answers for items (1) natural philosophy, (4) poetry, and (5) the crafts.

In the Phaedo there is a well-known autobiographical passage where Socrates describes his initial interest in, and ultimate disappointment with, inquiries of the sort earlier philosophers engaged in.⁴¹ Hence, we can readily explain the reference in the Apology to Anaxagoras and his doctrines,⁴² but it is clear that Socrates is in no way committed to the truth of these or other explanations of natural phenomena. Socrates had long given up such pursuits, as those present could attest. Moreover, it is also reasonably clear that Socrates was neither a poet nor a craftsman.⁴³

If we consider (3), i.e., Socrates' claim of ignorance in political matters, a contradiction seems to arise because of Socrates' claim in the Gorgias that he is "the only one among [his] contemporaries who engages in politics."⁴⁴ This startling piece of self-interpretation, however, appears in a dialogue written later which develops the view that the improvement of the citizens is not a peculiar duty of a philosopher functioning in a private capacity, but a primary duty of the state as such. Hence the qualification "the true political craft' included in the wording of this alleged Socratic claim. It is easy to see, of course, that we are here only one step away from the specifically Platonic thesis that philosophers should wield political power because they are the only ones who have adequate knowledge of the eternal and unchanging Forms.⁴⁵"

By contrast, Socrates' reluctance to participate in the deliberations of the Athenian Assembly or of the Council (though he is willing to do so when strictly required by law)—that is, his unwillingness to engage in the day-to-day managing of the state; i.e., in politics in the ordinary sense of that word⁴⁶—is consistent with his having no special insight into the best way to conduct contingent public affairs. It is safe, therefore, to assume that Socrates is being sincere when he professes to be as ignorant as Athens' practicing politicians.

Finally, Socrates' avowal of ignorance with regard to (2), the teaching of rhetoric, leads him to deny that he attempts to educate young men. To be able to educate in the sense in which the sophists profess to educate, one would have to have knowledge of "political" excellence, i.e., of the excellence that makes for successful politicians.⁴⁷ There is, therefore, a close connection between disavowing knowledge in domain (2), the specific area of sophistic expertise, and in (3), the alleged area of competence of Athens' practicing politicians. We must emphasize once more that when Socrates disavows knowledge in areas in which sophists and politicians claim it, he is not claiming moral ignorance.

If these reflections are correct, Socrates' disavowal of knowledge in areas (1) through (5) can be interpreted as instances of (C): Socrates is simply being honest in admitting his lack of expertise in fields in which he genuinely has none.

Another, rather specific instance of the Socratic avowal of ignorance must be examined. Given the penalty assessed by his accusers, Socrates is confronted with the prospect of death. In reply to a new hypothetical objection that fear of death should have made him feel ashamed of his "occupation," he says:

(SI 11)…to fear death, gentlemen, is nothing but to think that one is wise when one is not, for it is to think that one knows what one doesn't know. No one, in fact, knows death nor whether it happens to be the greatest of all goods for a man, and yet people are afraid of it as if they knew very well that it was the greatest of evils. And isn't this the most blameworthy ignorance, to think one knows what one doesn't know? By this much and in this respect too, gentlemen, I am perhaps different from most people; and if I were-to say that I am wiser than someone in some respect, it would be in this: that having no ade-quate knowledge about things in Hades [= the underworld, the realm of the dead], I likewise do not think I have it.⁴⁸

We must therefore add to our list of those things encompassed by the Socratic disavowal of knowledge the following:

(6) death.

What Socrates claims not to know about death is not so much what kind of event it is, but rather what its correct evaluation should be: whether it is the best thing that can happen to someone or the worst thing. In his denial of possessing this evaluative knowledge, Socrates is not being insincere or ironic. His disavowal is, again, of type (C): he denies knowing something which could only be accessible to someone who has experienced the state that follows death. Neither he nor anyone else, of course, knows what that state is like.⁴⁹

If we look at the early dialogues which have at their center the search for the definition of a moral excellence, we find one more item to add to the list of things Socrates claims not to know:

(7) the excellences or virtues, virtue in general, and their respective definitions.

The inclusion of this class of objects among the things Socrates claims not to know generates a difficulty that did not arise with the previous items on our list. We here seem to be confronted with a specific disavowal of moral knowledge.

Before facing this new difficulty, it is important to call attention to the fact that there are numerous passages in which Socrates affirms that he does know something. Socratic irony is not equivalent to a form of radical skepticism.

Socratic Claims to Knowledge

Some Socratic claims to knowledge are based on everyday experience and commonsense reflection on it:

(S12) And yet I know … well enough that these words make me unpopular, which also proves that I am telling the truth.⁵⁰"

(S13) For I know very well … that wherever I go and speak, the young wili listen to me as they do here."⁵¹

We should also recall those passages in which the object of knowledge is immediately present to Socrates' consciousness:

(S14) = (S7) I am conscious…of not being wise in anything great or small.⁵²

(S15) For I was conscious … of knowing nothing, so to speak.⁵³

Of greater interest for the present inquiry are the lines that immediately follow (S15), the statement of uncertainty about the evaluation of death:

(S16) That to do what's unjust and to disobey one's superior, be he god or man, is bad … and shameful…, that I do know … the position of the verb is emphatic]. Hence, I shall never fear or flee from things of which I do not know whether they even happen to be good [in this case, death] instead of from bad things which I know to be bad [in this case, injustice and disobedience].⁵⁴

In this passage, the only one of its kind in the early dialogues, Socrates declares that he possesses evaluative knowledge of two types of acts: acts of injustice and acts of disobedience. He claims to know (i) that each of them is shameful. The Greek predicate makes clear in this instance that the evaluation is moral. To say that what someone has done is aischron is to label it as ugly and dishonorable, as blameworthy from the moral point of view. But Socrates also claims to know (ii) that each of them is bad.

Since kakon in Greek (and "bad" in English) can be used in both a moral and a nonmoral sense, it is not clear how we should understand Socrates' second claim. An action such as lying to a friend can be said to be bad because it is blameworthy, but something can also be bad without moral implications, such as being mistaken. We are worse off if we make a mistake about a certain state of affairs than we would be if we had got it right, but being mistaken does not make us wicked.

The subsequent contrast, however, between things known to be bad, and death, which may turn out to be good, strongly suggests that the occurrence of "bad" here is an instance of the nonmoral use. The goodness or badness of death can only be the nonmoral quality of that mysterious event.⁵⁵ We shall return to this point shortly.

Setting aside disobedience as a particular case of injustice, we can recapitulate Socrates' claim in (S16) as follows:

(a) I know that injustice is shameful and bad.

We can readily assume that this statement implies a symmetrical statement:

(b) I know that justice is fine and good.⁵⁶

An Avowal of Moral Ignorance

Let us note that Book I of the Republic ends with the following words:

(S17) For, so long as I do not know what the just [= justice] is, I will hardly know whether it happens to be an excellence or not, and whether he who possesses it is unhappy or happy.⁵⁷

In this context, to say that something designated by the neuter adjective or the abstract noun is an excellence (arete, "virtue") implies that the corresponding predicate can be used to commend someone from the moral point of view. If justice is a virtue, then to say that someone is just is to morally praise him for that noble and praiseworthy attribute. On the other hand, "to be happy" is first and foremost a nonmoral attribute, since happiness (… flourishing) is understood as the possession of an abundance of those things which make us better off, and normally people take these to be the nonmoral goods.⁵⁸ Hence, mutatis mutandis it is fair to say that (S17) entails that Socrates is claiming:

(c) I do not know whether justice is fine and good.

It seems obvious that (b) and (c) are contradictory statements.

If we accepted (c) as a genuine Socratic belief and rejected (b), we would have to admit that there is no Socratic moral philosophy, since it is natural to assume that a system of philosophical ethics would include evaluations such as the one expressed by the subordinate clause of (c). Socrates, however, claims not to know whether it is true or false.

In order to show that the conjunction of (b) and (c) does not constitute a contradiction but rather a paradox, it is useful to ask how an Athenian would have reacted to someone's claim not to know whether justice is or is not an arete, i.e., a noble and praiseworthy quality.

The early dialogues provide us with an interesting clue. On two similar occasions, Socrates asks an interlocutor whether courage and self-control, respectively, are among the (very, …) fine (admirable, noble) things. In each case, not only does the person respond with great, positive assurance, but in one instance he even adds an emphatic comment on Socrates' conviction regarding such clear matters: "You really know well that it is one of the noblest."⁵⁹

Since, like "courageous" and "self-controlled," the predicate equivalent to "just" was used in ordinary Greek for moral commendation,⁶⁰ Socrates' claim not to know whether justice is an excellence can hardly have been taken seriously by his audience, because doubting such an obvious truth was an oddity. Its truth is pellucid because of the very meaning of the terms "justice" and "virtue." Hence, they probably understood him as expressing irony of type (B), i.e., possessing the knowledge he disclaimed, but playfully denying it.

Socrates' plea of ignorance as to whether or not justice produces happiness is not as simple to interpret. As I shall try to show in chapter III, it is a substantive moral question and not a self-evident truth readily available to members of the community by virtue of the language they speak.

At the end of Republic Book I the connections between happiness and justice are not clarified because no satisfactory definition of the latter is found. This failure is realized in the midst of an impassioned and at times tense conversation. Yet the discussion itself was a free and open-ended exchange, proceeding with no urgency to make any specific, practical decision. A practical notion is subject to scrutiny, but the dramatic setting makes it clear that the connection with actual choice and action is remote. Socrates has gone down to the Piraeus to attend a religious festival and is invited to the house of Cephalus. Upon hearing the host's reflections on the prospect of dying while still owing sacrifices to a good, or money to a man—i.e., having failed to redress instances of injustice—Socrates takes the occasion to ask, in general, what justice is. There is, however, no urgency to resolve any particular instance of injustice.

Strictly speaking, Socrates' final admission of ignorance in Book I of the Republic, whether or not it is good to fulfill the requirements of justice, would, if in earnest, cast him as someone who has drastically abandoned any sensible rule for morally correct action. "Just" can be taken in many contexts as a predicate that characterize all action that is morally right and praiseworthy. "Good," in turn, stands for an attribute that provides the ultimate reason for doing something. Hence, it is doubtful that Socrates' friends would have been led to think that he had adopted a radical moral agnosticism that would have left him without any rational justification to behave in a morally upright man-ner. It seems more likely that this part of his closing remarks should also be understood as ironic in sense (B), i.e., as implying the contrary of what he said, without thereby intending to deceive.

If these conjectures are correct, we must hold that Socrates does indeed know that justice is praiseworthy and worth having; i.e., that it is something fine and good, as stated in (b). But how are we to explain his denial in Republic 1, and his affirmation in the Apology, of those very same convictions?

The trial, of course, is not by any means the appropriate setting for what I have called a "free and open-ended discussion." The way Socrates chooses to conduct his defense makes it even more removed from a free form of exchange. Socrates describes his predicament as his being forced to choose between obeying Apollo, even at the risk of his own life, and preserving his life at the cost of disobeying the divine injunction. In the face of such a dramatic choice, Socrates declares that choosing the second option follows from the belief that one knows that death is something bad, whereas choosing the first option is a consequence of believing that disobedience and injustice are bad. Socra-tes asserts that he does not know whether the former of these two beliefs is true or not, but he does claim to know that the latter is true. The inescapable need to choose between life and death (and to justify his choice) leads Socrates openly and firmly to avow, at least once, that he knows something of considerable moral import.

I have argued that Socrates' sincere disavowals of knowledge in politics, poetry, and the crafts do not imply sincere disavowals of moral knowledge. The domain, beyond their skills, to which the craftsmen extended their claims—and within which Socrates also declared himself incompetent—was the domain of contingent political matters, not the field of moral philosophy.

In contrast, as I mentioned above, Socrates does disavow moral knowledge in some of the early aporetic dialogues. However, those denials should not be understood either as sincere or as insincere and hence as misleading disavowals. But if Socrates is not being insincere, why does he not abandon the ironic stance and declare that he knows what the corresponding moral excellence is?

A brief examination of some aspects of the Euthyphro may be helpful at this point.

Euthyphro's Claim to Knowledge

During a conversation with Socrates at the Portico of the Archon-King in the Athenian agora, Euthyphro declares that he is prosecuting his father for murder in a rather obscure case involving the death of a laborer who had killed a slave and who was neglected while the father awaited official instructions as to what he should do with the man. Since the popular notion of piety involves respect for the gods and for one's parents, Euthyphro seems to be doing something which most men would hesitate to do.

Most men would not seek punishment for their fathers because they would not know whether they were doing the right thing or not.⁶¹ Hence Socrates' question:

(S18) Soc.: By Zeus, Euthyphro, do you think your knowledge of divine matters, and of pious and impious things, is so accurate … that even if things happened as you say, you are not afraid of doing something impious yourself in prosecuting your father?

Euth.: I would be worthless, Socrates, and Euthyphro would be no different from the com-mon run of men, if I did not know all such things accurately.…⁶²

Here the emphasis clearly falls on the self-assurance with which Euthyphro claims to have strict knowledge (the opposite would be to know … "roughly," "in broad outline")⁶³ about things divine and the right and wrong ways to relate to them. Only someone who has such exact knowledge would run the moral risk Euthy-phro is assuming by taking his father to court. A very fine line separates Euthyphro's action, if it is indeed a requirement of piety to prosecute a wrongdoer even if it is your father,⁶⁴ from an impious undertaking.

As the dialogue proceeds, Socrates offers his assessment of the kind of precise knowledge that the circumstances require: one would have to know the character or trait (… "aspect," "form") that is common to all pious actions and in virtue of which they are pious.⁶⁵ Once that is identified, one should look upon it and use it as a model or standard (… "paradigm") to decide whether a particular event is or is not an instance of piety.⁶⁶ It is a further Socratic assumption that the definition of a moral term is expected to capture such a character or trait.

In the remainder of the dialogue, Socrates' strategy consists in an attempt to undermine Euthyphro's self-assurance by showing him that he does not know how to define piety. Every definition proposed or accepted by Euthyphro is rejected once it is subjected to a Socra-tic counterargument. The outcome is that Euthyphro is shown not to have a clear view of the standard that would allow him to judge with confidence whether or not he is doing the right thing.

If we reflect on the whole dialogue, we will feel compelled to say that any witness to the conversation (or a modern reader, for that matter) would walk away convinced that Socrates' requests to become Euthy-phro's pupil, because of the former's own ignorance in divine affairs, are made in jest.⁶⁷ The firm direction in which he guides the conversation suggests that Socrates is by no means in the dark with regard to the topic under scrutiny. It is Socrates who introduces the notion of establishing justice as the generic concept under which piety may be subsumed,⁶⁸ and it is also under his initiative that "service [or the art of serving, … to the gods" is substituted for the misleading expression "care … of the gods."⁶⁹ The latter suggests, inappropriately (like "therapy," the English term derived from it), that the object of our care may be improved. The former is an expression which Socrates can earnestly apply to his own obedience to the oracle: "I believe no greater good has come to you in the city than this service of mine to the god."⁷⁰ Finally, Socrates does not hesitate to indicate in the Euthyphro that he does have views about the gods: he finds stories about immoral behavior on their part hard to accept. In the Apology, we saw this conviction surface as one of the key assumptions in his interpretation of the oracle given to Chairephon: Apollo, the god of Delphi, cannot lie.

Euthyphro's initial claim can be accounted for as follows:

When an individual claims to know, (i) he states that he has true beliefs within a given domain, and (ii) he is confident that his beliefs are unshakably true and, hence, not open to revision.

Ignorance on the part of an individual who claims to know will then obtain if his beliefs are false and therefore his confidence turns out to be unfounded.

Socratic Wisdom

In light of the proposed analysis of Euthyphro's claim, we can understand Socrates' disavowal of knowledge as a denial that he has true beliefs or as a denial that his beliefs are definitely settled.

As we have seen, Socrates does admit lack of true beliefs in certain domains: cases (1) through (6), i.e., in physics, rhetoric, politics, poetry, the crafts, and death.

With respect to his denial of knowledge of items in (7), viz. the moral virtues, it seems reasonable to assume that Socrates recognizes that he does not totally lack true opinions or convictions (otherwise, as we saw, he would be a man without a moral rudder, something hard to extract from our sources). In all likelihood he wishes to deny that he has firm and unshakable knowledge of the moral virtues, and thus that he remains open to a reexamination of his beliefs.

With regard to many of Socrates' convictions, such scrutiny has often taken place, but this does not lead him to give up, in principle, the possibility of further revision of his views, as is suggested by the wording of the following passage from the Crito:

(S19) Soc.: But, my admirable friend, this argument … we have gone through still seems to me to be the same as it did before. Examine in turn the following one [to see] if it still holds good for us or not, namely that it is not to live that should be deemed most important, but to live well.

Crito: It holds good.

Soc.: And that to live well and finely and justly are the same, does this hold good or does it not hold good?

Crito: It does hold good.⁷¹

The repeated expression "hold good" translates a Greek word … which conveys the idea of something remaining as it was, standing fast even though it could have changed or given way. This suggests that the two friends have agreed in the past on the truth of the statements, and that Socrates wants to know whether Crito still abides by these convictions or has had reason to change his mind about them. The possibility of reopening the discussion is not precluded in principle, but in this circumstance they move on.⁷²

In the privacy of his cell, Socrates can remind Crito of past conversations and resulting agreements. He can gently inquire whether Crito wants to revise them or not. This he cannot do in the confrontation with his judges. Hence the dogmatic tone Socrates employs in (S16) where, without hesitation, he claims -to know that something is true: that injustice and disobedience are bad and shameful. His confidence, we may suppose, is derived from the fact that he has often considered the point and found no reason to believe it false. It is conceivable that in a different setting Socrates might have been willing to reopen a discussion of even this fundamental piece of moral knowledge.

In the context of the Apology and the Crito, we find no indication of what would count as settled true belief, and therefore of what would constitute stable, definitive knowledge.⁷³ We are offered instead two passages that may confirm the suggestion that in those cases where Socratic irony seems to be insincere, it amounts, in fact, to Socrates' willingness to revise his own moral convictions:

(S20) For 1, gentlemen of Athens, have acquired this reputation from nothing but a certain wisdom. What sort of wisdom is this? The one which is perhaps human wisdom, for in fact it may be I am wise in this sense. Those men, the ones I just mentioned [= the sophists], are perhaps wise in a wisdom more than human. Otherwise I do not know what to call it, for I in fact do not possess it. Whoever says I do is lying and speaks to slander me.⁷⁴

And further on:

(S21) I'm afraid, gentlemen, that in fact the god [= Apollo] is wise and that by means of the oracle he is saying that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. He seems to mention this man Socrates, using my name and proposing me as an example, as if he said: "He is the wisest among you, who, like Socrates, recognizes that he is truly worth nothing with respect to wisdom."⁷⁵

Socrates' suggestion in (S20) that there is a form of sophistic wisdom that is more than human is certainly ironic. We are not deceived. The distinction that these passages make is a distinction between the divine wisdom of Apollo and the human wisdom of Socrates. It is not a bold guess that the former fully satisfies the conditions that make the claim to knowledge definitive: divine wisdom embraces true beliefs and the unshakable conviction that they are indeed true. Socratic wisdom, on the other hand, is either a sincere admission of not possessing true beliefs about certain matters, or an openness to the reexamination of beliefs previously accepted as true.

If this is correct, we have failed to discover any instance of insincere Socratic disavowals of knowledge. To do so would require identifying matters which Socrates, in principle, refuses to submit to reexamination, and of which he also denies knowledge. Thrasy-machus' accusations, we can now affirm, amount to a deep misunderstanding of the fundamental Socratic attitude toward knowledge.

The alleged contradiction that arises when Apollo affirms, and Socrates denies, the assertion

Socrates is wise

has now been resolved by reinterpreting the predicate.

At the outset, Socrates takes the word "wise" to mean "a person who knows and who is justifiably confident that he does indeed know." After his search for someone wiser than he, Socrates realizes that what Apollo meant was "a person who makes no claim to know with full confidence."

If this is correct, the path of inquiry into Socratic ethics has cleared a major obstacle. Socrates' disavowal of moral knowledge should not be taken to imply Socrates' strict lack of knowledge, but rather his consistent willingness to reexamine his convictions. This suggests that Socrates views his moral philosophy not as divine wisdom, i.e., as a definitive and unshakable system, but rather as a body of ideas he is willing to modify or even to abandon, should he be offered persuasive objections.

We may conclude, then, that there is no ultimate inconsistency between Socrates the ironist and Socrates the constructive moral philosopher.

Notes

¹¹ On the structure of the Socratic elenchus, cf. Vlastos (1983a) with comments by Kraut (1983). See also Stemmer (1992), esp. pp. 96-127.

¹²Republic 1, 337a 3-7. At Apology 23a 3-5 Socrates admits that people consistently perceived him as "wise" in those subjects in which they saw him refuting someone. For all quotations from Plato I have used Burnet (1900-1907) as my main source. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. In the renderings I have aimed almost exclusively at accuracy, even at the price of neglecting the elegance and flexibility of Plato's style. Readers are encouraged to consult the main sources in excellent translations by Grube (1981) and Zeyl (1987).

¹³ Vlastos (1991), pp. 21-30, conjectures that the modern sense of the term "irony," which in Western rhetorical theory goes back to Cicero and Quintilian, is ultimately due to Socrates. Before him the meaning of eroniea and its cognates almost always implied an intention to deceive.

¹⁴Symp. 218d 6-219a 1. Cf. Vlastos (1991), p. 36.

¹⁵Symp. 219a 1-2.

¹⁶Symp. 216e 6-217a 1.

¹⁷Apol. 24b 8-c 1. I have added bracketed letters to make references more expedient. The evidence for this being virtually the official wording of the indictment is a statement in Diogenes Laertius (2. 40) which claims that Favorinus, a Roman rhetorician of the second century A.D., reported that it was still preserved in the sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods in Athens. On the meaning of the accusations, see Brickhouse and Smith (1989), pp. 30-37, and Reeve (1989), pp. 74-79.

¹⁸Apol. 19b 4-c 1.

¹⁹Apol. 18b 7. Cf. Burnet (1924), ad loc.

²⁰ Cf. Cornford (1952), pp. 127-142.

²¹ Thuc. 8. 65. 2. Cf. Meno 89e-95a. For a lively account of the general historical background (and of Alcibiades in particular), cf. Burn (1966), pp. 193-304.

²² On the assumed influence of Gorgias of Leontini on Alcibiades, cf. Guthrie (1971b), p. 274.

²³ The label "corruptor of youth" has moral connotations both in Greek and in English. It singles out the person who leads the young from moral virtue to vice. Xenophon stresses this aspect of the accusations: Xen. Apol. 19 and Mem. 1. 2. 1-5. Cf. Mem. 1. 5. 1-6.

²⁴Apol. 19d.

²⁵Apol. 19c 4-8.

²⁶Apol. 19d 8-20c 3.

²⁷Apol. 20c 4-d 4.

²⁸Apol. 21a 4-7.

²⁹Apol. 21b 4-5.

³⁰Apol. 21b 6-7. The claim that the god is subject to a superior moral order represented by themis, the divine order of the universe, is quite strong. Cf. Hirzel (1907) and Ehrenberg (1921).

³¹ Cf. Heraclitus Frg. B93 (Diels-Kranz): "The Lord to whom the oracle that is in Delphi belongs neither speaks out plainly nor conceals, but gives hints." On some of the famous ambiguous replies given by the oracle, cf. Fontenrose (1978).

³²Apol. 21b 3-4: "What is the god saying? What is his riddle?" Cf. 21e 6.

³³Apol. 21c d.

³⁴Pace Lesher (1987), p. 281. Cf. 22d 2 where the craftsmen are said to know many fine things (kala). The implication is surely that they possess not moral knowledge but the kind of knowledge required for the successful exercise of their crafts.

³⁵Apol. 22a 8-c 3.

³⁶Apol. 22c 5-6.

³⁷ On specific claims to knowledge extrapolated from poetic inspiration, cf. Plato's Ion and Flashar (1958).

³⁸Apol. 22d 3-e 1.

³⁹ On this point I side with Burnet (1924), p. 96, and against Brickhouse and Smith (1989), p. 97, and Reeve (1989), p. 33. 1 find it hard to believe that Socrates is here implying that, e.g., good carpenters walk around the agora claiming to know the definition of a handful of moral virtues. The expression "the greatest things" should be understood here from the perspective of those who allegedly make the claim. The average Athenian citizen surely felt that political issues were the most important ones and that he was competent to deal with them.

⁴⁰ For the close linkage of the two, cf. Apol. 23d 5-24a 1.

⁴¹ Cf. Phaedo 96a-102a. The correct historical interpretation of this "autobiography" is still one of the most vexing problems for Platonic scholars who raise the Socratic question.

⁴²Apol. 26d 6-e 1. Socrates appears to be familiar with some doctrines of Anaxagoras, a philosopher from Asia Minor who was a friend of Pericles, but in the same passage he makes it known that such information was readily available to anyone, for Anaxagoras' book could be purchased for a modest price at the agora.

⁴³ Burnet (1924), pp. 50-51, argues against taking Euthyphro J I b as proof that Socrates (and/or his father) was a stonemason. The earliest reference to Socrates as a stonecutter goes back to Timon of Phlius, a skeptic philosopher who lived in the third century B.C.

⁴⁴ Cf. Gorgias 521d 6-8. Cf. Dodds's comment ad loc.: "One may doubt, however, whether the historical Socrates would have made any such claim."

⁴⁵ Cf. Rep. 473 c-d; 484b.

⁴⁶ "Politics" should be understood in this sense at Gorgias 473e 6 where Socrates denies being a politician. This claim and the opposite one made at 521d (quoted above) do not contradict each other.

⁴⁷ Cf. Apol. 20b 4-5. Cf. Protagoras 318e 5-319a 5; Meno 73c 6-9.

⁴⁸Apol. 29a 6-b 6.

⁴⁹ At the end of the Apology (40c ff.), Socrates conjectures that there is hope (elpis) that death is something good, for it is either like a dreamless night or, if (religious) tales are true, like a migration to a better place. Expressing such hope is not tantamount to claiming knowledge.

⁵⁰Apol. 24a 6-8.

⁵¹Apol. 37d 6-7.

⁵²Apol. 21b 4-5.

⁵³Apol. 22b 9-d 1. I owe this reference and the four preceding ones to Lesher (1987), p. 280.

⁵⁴Apol. 29b 6-9.

⁵⁵ When the claim that wrongdoing is bad and shameful is repeated in the Crito (49b 4), the qualification "for the wrongdoer" is introduced immediately before the term "bad." This seems to count in favor of the interpretation defended above. Moral predicates are true or false without qualification. Nonmoral benefit usually requires specification: what is good for me may be bad for you (e.g., my getting a job for which both of us have applied). To hold that doing wrong is bad for the one who does it, is, of course, paradoxical.

⁵⁶ 1 am assuming that, with normal Greek usage, … ("fine," "admirable," "noble," "beautiful") is the opposite of aiskron and can be used to convey moral commendation.

⁵⁷Rep. 1. 354c 1-3. Some nineteenth-century scholars argued on the basis of stylistic evidence that Book I of the Republic was an independent dialogue written during Plato's earlier years that was later used as the opening section of a more mature work that includes Books II-X. Vlastos has argued that independently of the truth or falsehood of this thesis, the Socrates of Book I in fact shares most of his traits with the Socrates of the early dialogues. Cf. Vlastos (1991), chapter 2, passim and pp. 248-251. The separate composition of Book I has been vigorously contested by Kahn (1993).

⁵⁸ Cf. Euthydemus 279a 1-3; 280b 5-6; Symp. 204e 1-7.

⁵⁹Laches 192c 5-7; Charmides 159c 1-2.

⁶⁰ At Gorgias 492a-c, Callicles, a strong opponent of Socrates, makes an effort to explain why in everyday life "the many" (hoi polloi, 492a 3) praise justice. This habit is due, in his opinion, to sheer cowardice. But the need of an explanation simply confirms the view that categorizing justice as a virtue was commonplace for fifth- and fourth-century Greeks.

⁶¹ Cf. Euth. 4a 11-12.

⁶²Euth. 4e 4-5a 2.

⁶³ Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 2. 1104a 1-2.

⁶⁴Euth. 5d 8-e 2.

⁶⁵Euth. 5d 1-5; 6d 9-e 1.

⁶⁶Euth. 6e 3-6.

⁶⁷Euth. 5a 3-b 7; 5c 4-5; 15e 5-16a 4.

⁶⁸Euth. l e I 4-12 e 8.

⁶⁹Euth. 12e 5-8; 13d 4.

⁷⁰Apol. 30a 5-7 (trans. Vlastos). Cf. Vlastos (1991), p. 175.

⁷¹Crito 48b 3-10.

⁷² Cf. Crito 46b 6-c 6.

⁷³ This silence probably reflects a lack of interest in strictly epistemological questions on the part of the historical Socrates. The first attempts to deal with this problem are found in Gorgias 454c ff. and in the transition dialogues. Cf. Meno 98a.

⁷⁴Apol. 20d 6-e 3.

⁷⁵Apol. 23a 5-b 4.