Socrates and Emerson on Areté

Abstract

Socrates’ early dialogues end in aporia. Interlocutors walk away perplexed or ashamed of what the dialogue has brought to daylight, that is, their ignorance about their basic beliefs. But Socrates was after something far more fundamental. He saw aporia as a prelude to a search for areté, commonly translated as “virtue” or “excellence.” There are at least two narratives on the impacts of the Socratic method on his interlocutors. The first group argues that aporia is a precondition for realizing the urgency of the care for the self by searching for true knowledge. Advocates of the second narrative are concerned that embracing philosophia requires more than just an acknowledgment of aporia. For even if the interlocutor admits that she is unable to defend her position or sees that her account is untenable, the move toward philosophia is not guaranteed. Embracing philosophical life or desire for wisdom requires something else besides or beyond the acknowledgment of inconsistency in one’s argument or aporia. If the arguments of the second group withstand scrutiny, then I suggest that the Socratic project can be supplemented with what I call the Emersonian method of enquiry, one that aims at a fundamental areté, which is as important a precondition as Socratic aporia for the life of philosophy.

“And how am I to persuade you, if you aren’t persuaded by what I said just now? What more can I do? Am I to take the argumentand pour it into your soul?”

The Republic, 345b