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Socrates on the Moral Mischief of Misology

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Abstract

In Plato’s dialogues, the Phaedo, Laches, and Republic, Socrates warns his interlocutors about the dangers of misology. Misology is explained by analogy with misanthropy, not as the hatred of other human beings, but as the hatred of the logos or reasonable discourse. According to Socrates, misology arises when a person alternates between believing an argument to be correct, and then refuting it as false. If Socrates is right, then misanthropy is sometimes instilled when a person goes from trusting people to learning that others sometimes betray our reliance and expectations, and finally not to placing any confidence whatsoever in other people, or, in the case of misology, in the correctness or trustworthiness of arguments. A cynical indifference to the soundness of arguments generally is sometimes associated with Socrates’ polemical targets, the Sophists, at least as Plato represents Socrates’ reaction to these itinerant teachers of rhetoric, public speaking and the fashioning of arguments suitable to any occasion. Socrates’ injunctions against misology are largely moral, pronouncing it ‘shameful’ and ‘very wicked’, and something that without further justification we must ‘guard against’, maintaining that we will be less excellent persons if we come to despise argument as lacking the potential of leading to the truth. I examine Socrates’ moral objections to misology which I show to be inconclusive. I consider instead the problem of logical coherence in the motivations supposedly underlying misology, and conclude that misology as Socrates intends the concept is an emotional reaction to argumentation on the part of persons who have not acquired the logical dialectical skills or will to sort out good from bad arguments. We cannot dismiss argument as directed toward the truth unless we have a strong reason for doing so, and any such argument must itself presuppose that at least some reasoning can be justified in discovering and justifying belief in interesting truths. The relevant passages from Socrates’ discussion of the soul’s immortality in the Phaedo are discussed in detail, and set in scholarly background against Socrates’ philosophy more generally, as represented by Plato’s dialogues. I conclude by offering a suggestive list of practical remedies to avoid the alienation from argument in dialectic with which Socrates is concerned.

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Notes

  1. Plato (1981, 1991), Phaedo 89d–91c; Republic 411c4–e3; Laches 188c.

  2. For present purposes I assume a relatively conventional popular interpretation of Socrates’ philosophical vocation. See Stokes (1992, 26–55). Seeskind (1987), Gonzalez (1998), Santas (1979), Irwin (1977, 1995). Scott (2004) challenges many of the standard readings of Plato’s dialogues. Vlastos (1983). Socrates’ ‘mission’ is usually historically or apocryphally related to the oracle at Delphi’s positive reply to Socrates’ friend Chaerophon’s question as to whether Socrates was the wisest man in Athens. As generally with the Pythia’s pronouncements, there is enormous latitude for exact interpretation, which did not necessitate Socrates’ pursuit of the elenchus and maieutic among his fellow Athenians. Socrates recounts the episode as part of his defense at his trial in Plato, Apologia 20e3–21a.

  3. Plato, Protagoras 349d–351c. Vlastos (1972, 415–458), Freejohn (1982), Devereux (1992), Brickhouse and Smith (1997).

  4. The responsibility to help young thinkers avoid misology is a corollary of Socrates’ commitment to the care of the soul through the two-part method of elenchus and maieutic, the last step of the elenchus constituting the first step of the maieutic. The maieutic in turn is the philosophical midwifery whereby Socrates leads the elenchus-chastened soul to arête, virtue or moral excellence. Misologues will be excluded from Socrates’ two-part program for the care of the soul because they have already renounced any interest in argument.

  5. See Brickhouse and Smith (2002). An interesting and well-researched account of the political background to the events surrounding Socrates’ trial and the aftermath for his followers is offered by Stone (1989).

  6. Socrates’ abstruse argument for the soul’s immortality appears in Plato’s Phaedo 84d2–107a1, with warnings about misology sandwiched in between. The underlying idea is that the soul as essentially living is deathless in the sense that as an entity (eidos) the living considered in itself does not admit but is incompatible with death. Socrates supports the conclusion on the general conceptual grounds that no principle accepts its opposite, and that whatever is deathless is indestructible. See, among other insightful expositions in an expansive secondary literature, Frede (1978).

  7. The threat of violence as a substitute for rational persuasion by means of dialectic among musical thinkers is a pervasive theme in Plato’s Republic. Plato sets the stage for an ongoing discussion about the conflict of reason and force in the individual soul and the ideal city-state in the dialogue’s opening dramatic margin, when Socrates and Polemarchus, son of the wealthy Cephalus have the following exchange as Socrates and Glaucon, Plato’s brother, are walking back to Athens from the Piraeus, Republic 327c2–8: ‘Polemarchus said, “Socrates, I guess you two [Socrates and Glaucon, Plato’s brother] are hurrying to get away to town.” “That’s not a bad guess,” [Socrates] said. “Well,” he said, “do you see how many of us there are?” “Of course.” “Well, then,” he said, “either prove stronger than these men or stay here.” “Isn’t there still one other possibility…” [Socrates] said, “our persuading you that you must let us go?” “Could you really persuade,” [Polemarchus] said, “if we don’t listen?” “There’s no way,” said Glaucon.’

  8. Holmes (1961 [1883]), 24.

  9. The concept of reflective equilibrium originated with Goodman in his (Goodman (1983 [1955]). The term ‘reflective equilibrium’ and its applications specifically to moral theory and intuition was popularized by Harvard colleague Rawls, in his [1999 (1971)]. See Daniels (1979); reprinted in Daniels (1996). See also van der Burg and van Willigenburg (1998), Schroeter (2004).

  10. There are lively controversies surrounding the exact interpretation of the ad baculum, whether it ought to be considered a genuine fallacy, what effect including such arguments as fallacies can have on our concept of what means to be a fallacy. The question, as a recurrent theme in Plato’s Republic, is whether to let our reasoning be affected by the threat of violence, whether it is sound argumentation to accept the conclusion of an argument that depends primarily on the assumption that we will suffer harm if we do not accept the conclusion. See among other useful references, these recent sources: Jason (1987), Walton (1987, 2000), Brinton (1992), Woods (1995, 2004). Levi (1999) criticizes Wreen’s ‘neo-traditionalist’ classification of the ad baculum as a logical fallacy. Wreen (1988a, b, 1989, 1995). Plato, despite his opposition to the Sophists, is considered as making use of fallacies in certain of the dialogues. See Sprague (1962).

  11. A version of this essay was presented at the Seventh International Conference on Argumentation, International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 29 June–2 July, 2010. And at Socratica III: A Conference on Socrates, the Socratics, and the Ancient Socratic Literature, Università degli Studi di Trento, International Plato Society, Trento, Italy, 23–25 February 2012.

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Jacquette, D. Socrates on the Moral Mischief of Misology. Argumentation 28, 1–17 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-013-9298-7

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