Theodorus' judgement and the art of measure

I mentioned earlier that we can see a tension between Socrates and Theodorus in the dialogues of the trilogy. Socrates and Theodorus, despite superficially friendly relations, seem to be fundamentally at odds, with Theodorus in expressing or implying doubts about Socrates' philosophical proficiency at several points (e.g. Theaetetus 169a6-b4). I also indicated that if we take this tension seriously we might read the dialogues in part as a critique of the limitations of certain mathematical modes of thinking. Here's a small example of what this could mean.

When Socrates expresses the fear that Theodorus might have brought a refuting god who has come to punish them to their gathering, rather than a mere "stranger," Theodorus ambiguously reassures him: this is not the way of the Stranger; he is more "measured" than those who take disputation too seriously. There is a more than a hint that Theodorus includes Socrates among the latter, i.e., somebody who takes disputation too seriously (Theaetetus 169a6-b4). As Seth Benardete (1984, p. II.70) puts it:

Theodorus, ... [w]ith his usual rudeness, tacitly agrees that Socrates is poor in speeches ... The Stranger is not another Socrates, whose “love of naked exercise in speeches” lets no one get away from him without first rendering an account of himself.

Now, when Theodorus says that the stranger is "more measured" than somebody like Socrates, he uses the word μετριώτερος, which evokes the notion of measure, τὸ μέτριον, discussed much later in the Statesman (beginning at 283c). There, the Stranger distinguishes between two arts of measure: one kind that measures things in relation merely to each other (as bigger or smaller than each other), and another kind that measures them in relation to a mean (as too much or too little in relation to it). The Stranger puts all the arts of measure that have to do with number, length, depth, and surface, i.e., the mathematical arts, among the arts of measure that do not measure "against the mean" and hence cannot find the proper measure (the neither too much nor too little) of things (284e4; for a fuller argument on this point, see my paper here). Mathematicians, in other words, are not qualified by virtue of their mathematical art to say whether someone is "too preoccupied" with disputation. But that is precisely what Theodorus is claiming by saying that the Stranger is "more measured" than somebody like Socrates; he is trying to measure against the mean.

Thus, to the extent that we can refer forwards to the discussion of measure in the Statesman when thinking about Theodorus' subtle put-down of Socrates, we can see that Socrates has the last laugh: Theodorus is not qualified, according to the implication of the Stranger's argument, to judge whether the Stranger is more or less measured than Socrates in the matter of disputation, except in the purely mathematical sense that the Stranger engages in less disputation than Socrates. Whether the Stranger engages in the right level of disputation is something that Theodorus cannot judge.

To be sure, all of this is somewhat speculative. Others see less of a tension between Socrates and Theodorus (e.g., Miller 1980, pp. 11-12), and most see no tension at all (most agree with Campbell 1867, note to 216a5, who long ago argued that Theodorus' reassurance merely shows that Socrates expressed an “ironical fear” of having the “Zenonian negative dialectic to bear on his own (i.e. Plato’s) mode of reasoning”). The point, however, is that if we take seriously both Theodorus' status as a mathematician and the apparent downgrading of a purely mathematical art of measure in the Statesman, then Theodorus' judgment about the Stranger and Socrates is put into question: he cannot tell us that the Stranger is a better philosopher than Socrates by engaging in a less disputatious form of philosophy.

The Charge Against Socrates

I mentioned earlier that the Sophist and the Statesman can be understood as a sort of philosophical trial of Socrates. But what is the charge against Socrates in this philosophic trial?

The only plausible charge is an accusation of sophistry. This charge is not so different from the actual charge leveled against him by Meletus, namely, that he introduced new gods into the city and corrupted the young; both Aristophanes in the Clouds and the Platonic Socrates in his defense in the Apology (18b) understand the accusation to be that he is somebody who makes the weaker argument appear stronger and thereby corrupts the young, an activity associated with the sophists. The Sophist, with its concern for the correct definition of the sophist, can then be understood as a methodical attempt to figure out whether there is anything to the charge.

To be sure, the Eleatic Stranger never makes this accusation. He and Theaetetus simply develop various definitions of the sophist, never explicitly connecting them with Socrates. The fifth definition of sophistry, however, beginning at 226a and ending at 231b8, is, as scholars have long recognized, alarmingly close to Socrates' own practice as described in the "Socratic" dialogues. The sophist that the Stranger and Theaetetus describe engage in the refutation of the ignorance that does not know it is ignorance, as a form of education, which certainly seems to be much like what Socrates does in many "early" Platonic dialogues. Here's the Stranger's final summary of their definition (231b, Fowler translation in Perseus):

... let it be agreed that part of the discriminating art is purification, and as part of purification let that which is concerned with the soul be separated off, and as part of this, instruction, and as part of instruction, education; and let us agree that the cross-questioning of empty conceit of wisdom, which has come to light in our present discussion, is nothing else than the true-born art of sophistry.

Is the Stranger indicting Socrates by this definition of sophistry? Though Theaetetus is ready to describe the master of the cathartic art as a sophist, the Stranger seems uncertain (230e-231b):

Stranger
Well then, who are those who practise this art?
[231a] I am afraid to say the sophists.

Theaetetus
Why so?

Stranger
Lest we grant them too high a meed of honor.

Theaetetus
But the description you have just given is very like someone of that sort.

Stranger
Yes, and a wolf is very like a dog, the wildest like the tamest of animals. But the cautious man must be especially on his guard in the matter of resemblances, for they are very slippery things. However, let us agree that they are the sophists; for I think the strife will not be about petty discriminations [231b] when people are sufficiently on their guard.

It is not clear here whether the sophist they have described (and hence Socratic practice) is the wolf or the dog in this analogy, and hence whether the Stranger is indicting or absolving Socrates.

Scholars disagree as well: some feel compelled to deny that the image of the “cathartic” sophist really applies to Socrates at all (Bluck 1975, pp. 40-46; Diès 1925, p. 272; Kerferd 1954), even if the similarities must be acknowledged as part of the philosophic “trial” of Socrates (Friedländer 1964, p. III.237); others argue that Plato himself is in doubt (Campbell 1867, p. li); yet others deny that the Stranger “disvalues” this sort of sophistry, though they acknowledge that it is a sort of sophistry that needs to be superseded, perhaps by by the positive method of the latter Plato (Cornford 1935; Dorter 1994, pp. 131-134; Heidegger 1997/1924-2, p. 263; Kerferd 1954), pp. 85-97); some see here a kind of (ambiguous) indictment of Socrates (Benardete 1984, p. II.99; Howland 1998, pp. 203-206; Notomi 1999, section 2.3, pp. 64-68); finally others see here an association between Socrates and sophistry, but think that this implies that sophistry is necessary and universal, and so see no real "indictment" of Socrates (Wolff 1991, esp. p. 51). The very variety of scholarly reactions to the question testifies to the ambiguity of the passage and the stakes of the issue: scholars feel compelled to take sides on the matter, to decide whether Socrates should be indicted as a sophist or not, and if not, why not.

If Socrates appears as a sophist, it should be noted that the Eleatic Stranger does not escape suspicion either (Lassègue 1991, in a weak sense; Scodel 1987; Tejera 1999, chapters 10 and 11). As Notomi (1999, p. 72) notes, it is only Theodorus “who introduced and regarded him as a philosopher;” and certain features of the definitions of the sophist (primarily the second, the itinerant merchant of learning, and the last, the human producer of distorted images of wisdom [such as the Statesman’s myth] in an intelligible medium, ironically, in private with short speeches that can produce contradiction) seem applicable to the Stranger even more than to Socrates. One could also add that at one point the Stranger does imitate a sophist fairly explicitly (239e1-240c3), a passage commented on by Campbell (1867, p. xxii): “The Eleatic Stranger is like the Sophist he describes, whose “sense is shut” to everything but the dry light of reason.”

This confusion of appearances is simply a restatement of the problem posed by Socrates at the very beginning of the dialogue (216c-d): the philosopher sometimes appears as a statesman, sometimes as a sophist, sometimes as a madman, and are therefore hard to make out clearly. Plato seems to leave it as an exercise for the reader to distinguish Socrates from the sophist or else to indict him and find a new philosophical path; we are invited to take sides. It is never absolutely clear whether Socrates is a sophist; at any rate, he is perilously similar to the sophist, like a dog to a wolf, and pinpointing the essential difference is not easy from a distance.

In order to see the difference between them we have to understand images - what they are and how they work; and so the dialogue moves on to a thorough consideration of images. More on images this week...

Socrates' trial and the Eleatic Stranger

The Sophist and the Statesman seem to present themselves as a kind of philosophical trial of Socrates (see Cropsey 1995; Friedländer 1964, chapters III.26 and 27; Howland 1998; Miller Jr. 1980; Voegelin 1987/1956, chapter III.4). Plato placed both dialogues in continuity with the Theaetetus, which ends (210d2-4) when Socrates must go to the King-Archon in order to answer Meletus' indictment, and, though they do not overtly remind us of this fact, they do explicitly refer to the agreement to meet again with which Socrates concluded the conversation, and allude to the issues of the trial (cf. Statesman 299b2ff). We thus seem to be justified in suspecting that the dialogues represent a certain evaluation, if not necessarily an indictment, of Socrates' philosophic practice, though the verdict, if any, is not quite evident.

This point has been denied, even by people who take seriously the dramatic character of the dialogues. Blondell (2002, pp. 386-389), for example, argues that Plato doesn’t sufficiently indicate dramatically the connection to the trial to make it the central issue, an argument all the more curious given that her general views -she claims that the introduction of the Eleatic Stranger is Plato’s way of “silencing” Socrates- actually lend themselves to a trial-focused interpretation. Lane (1998, p. 154 note 37) instead suggests that the allusion to Socrates’ trial at Statesman 299b2-e10 is flawed, though she does not suggest that it is not an allusion to Socrates. Regardless of the merits of these arguments, the allusion to Socrates' trial invites the reader to think of the Eleatic Stranger as Socrates' potential judge, a rival in the practice of philosophy in comparison with whom Socrates may (or may not) be found wanting.

There are at least two ways in which the allusions to the trial of Socrates could matter, however. We could consider the Stranger to be fundamentally friendly to Socrates, a judge who will exonerate him where the Athenian people did not; or we could consider him a rival to Socrates, someone who will (wholly or in part) convict him for being a bad citizen, a bad philosopher, or both, and thus someone whom we – the readers – will need to correct if we believe the Socratic project to be fundamentally correct (cf. Howland 1998; Scodel 1987; Zuckert 2000).

Our view of the “philosophic” trial – and thus of who is properly a philosopher in the Platonic universe – will be significantly altered depending on whether we locate the main tension of the dialogue between Socrates and the Stranger or between philosophers (like Socrates and the Stranger) and non-philosophic others, including the mathematicians Theodorus and Theatetus.

I take it that Plato presents a substantive (though not personal) tension between Socrates and Theodorus and Theaetetus, who represent certain mathematical forms of thought (cf. Miller 1980, pp. 3-10). Despite their warm treatment of Socrates, they do not seem clearly convinced that he is not a vulgar sophist. For example, Theaetetus seems to agree that Socrates (or somebody who is much like Socrates) is a sophist at Sophist 231a4-5, even though he seems unaware of the consequences of his agreement; and Theodorus at various points seems to suggest that Socrates is not measured enough to be a philosopher (Theaetetus 169a6-b4, Sophist 216b7-c1). Theodorus in particular, like the Athenian demos, does not seem to understand the Socratic project of refutation as philosophical.

If the main tension in these dialogues is between the Eleatic and Socrates on the one hand and Theodorus and the mathematicians on the other, then the Eleatic dialogues can be read in part as meditations on the limits of mathematical knowledge, as we shall see.