76 The Grreeks :
Anthropological
Period.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
A society of Heracliteans which maintained itself in Ephesus appears soon to have fallen away into the pursuits of the Sophists, as in the case of Cratylus.
'
From the Atomistic School came Protagoras of Abdera (about 480-410). He was one of the first, and rightly the most renowned, of these wandering teachers. Active at various times in Athens, he is said to have been convicted of impiety in that city, to have fled because of this, and to have met his death in flight. Of his numerous treatises, grammatical, logical, ethical, political, and religious in their character, very little has been preserved.
1 In Plato ( TheaX. 181 A) they are called ol friorrti : cf. Arist. Met. IV. 5. 1010 a 13.
'■at. 2. 1 The Anthropological Period. 71
n~|t" of Leontini (483-375) was in Athens in 427 as an envoy from his zMtire city, and there gained great literary influence. In old age he lived in ;. u-Ma in Thessaly. He came from the Sicilian school of orators, with which Laprdorles also had been connected. 1
■ooo-ming Hippiaa of Klin, with the exception of some opinions (among T*uch are those criticised in the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major), it is known s! \ that he made great parade of his "much knowledge. " Of Prodicus of
-». a town on the island of Ceos, the familiar allegory " Hercules at the Cross- -•U" U preserved by Xenophon, Mtmor. II. 1,21. The remaining Sophists, i» n for the most part through Plato, are without intrinsic importance. We kaow only that this or that characteristic affirmation is put in the mouth of one Tio-jther.
la forming a conception of the Sophistic doctrine we have to contend with the cnVahy that we are made acquainted with them almost exclusively through •act victorious opponents, Plato and Aristotle. The first has given in the Pro- ■•rrroM a graceful, lively delineation of a Sophist congress, redolent with line
ret. in the Gorgia* a more earnest, in the Theaetetvs a sharper criticism, and r the Cratylua and Euthydemus supercilious satire of the Sophists' methods of nsrsisis; I" the dialogue the Sophist, to which Plato's name is attached, an 'in—wily malicious definition of the theories of the Sophists is attempted, and Aristotle reaches the same result in the book on the fallacies of the Sophists
<V L 106 a 21).
The history of philosophy for a long time repeated the depreciatory judg-
r«-nt of opponents of the Sophists, and allowed the word ao4>utriit (which irant only a '• learned man," or, if you will, a "professor") to bear the dis- :«raring meaning which they had given it. Hegel rehabilitated the Sophists, and then-upon it followed, as often happens, that they were for a time over- •*simau-d. a* by Grote.
X. Schanz. Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867).
Bocratast of Athens (469-390) makes an epoch in the history of philosophy, «r*n by hi* external characteristics, by his original personality, and his new «yle of philosophising. He was neither savant nor wandering teacher, be-
«irr<l 10 no school and adhered to none. He was a simple man of the people, ta* wm of a sculptor, and at first busied himself with the chisel. In his ardent for knowledge he absorbed the new doctrines with which the streets of 1 mauve city re-echoed, but did not allow himself to be dazzled by these brill- is', rbetoriral efforts, nor did he find himself much advanced by them. His
1thought took note of their contradictions, and his moral earnestness was -te-jArd by the superficiality and frivolity of this constant effort after culture. H* t»ld it to be his duty to enlighten himself and his fellow-citizens concerning --k» emptiness of this pretended knowledge, and, through earnest investigation, ta follow after truth. So, a philosopher of this opportunity and of daily life, he » rfc*"i unremittingly among his fellow-citizens, until misunderstanding and per- • -ea: intrigue brought him before the court which condemned him to the death •-as: was to become his greatest glory.
Th* accounts concerning him give a clear and trustworthy picture of his per- ■r«a>:tr. In these accounts Plato's finer and Xenophon'* coarser portrayal •c7f^~mn>t each other most happily. The first in almost all his writings brings
~zz \i»r honoured teacher with dramatic vividness. Of the second we have to i«»4*r the Memorabilia CAroM<"H>o**tf/**Ta XunpArevi) and the Symposium. A* retards his teaching, the case is more difficult, for here the presentations of v Oi X»nophon and Plato are partisan writings, each laying claim to the famous
for his own doctrine (in the case of Xenophon a mild Cynicism). The rats of Aristotle are authoritative on all essential points, because of the ■historical separation and the freer point of view.
E. Alberti. Sokratet (Gottingen, 1869) ; A. Labriola, La Dottrina di Socrate v»tcr*. 1871) : A. Foulllee, La Philosophic de Socrate (Paris, 1873).
*t-rrtt of Megara founded his school soon after the death of Socrates. The two Eristics (see below), Eubulides of Miletus, Alexinus of Kli*. Diodonu CrassM of Carta (died 307), and Stilpo (380-300), are to be mentioned as
1 In regard to these relationships cf. H. Diets, Berichte der Bert Akademi*. :•*. pp 343 ff.
T2 The Greek* : Anthropological Period. [Part L
belonging to this school, which had only a brief existence, and later became incorporated with the Cynics and Stoics. The same is true of the society which Pheedo, the favourite pupil of Socrates, founded in his home at Elis, and which Menedemus soon after transplanted to Eretria. Cf. E. Mailet, Histoire de Vieole de Megare et des icoles d'Elis et d'ErHrie (Paris, 1845).
The founder of the Cynic School (named after the gymnasium Cynosar- ges) was Antisthenes of Athens, who, like Euclid, was an older friend of Socrates. The singular Diogenes of Sinope is rather a characteristic by- figure in the history of civilisation than a man of science. In this connection Crates of Thebes may also be mentioned. Later this school was blended with that of the Stoics.
F. DUmmler, Antisthenica (Halle, 1882) ; K. W. Gottling, Diogenes der Kyniker, oder die Philosophie des griechischen Proletariats (Ges. Abhandl.
I. 261 ff. ).
Arlatippua of Cyrene, a Sophist and wandering teacher, somewhat younger
than Euclid and Antisthenes, and united only for a little time with the Socratic circle, founded his school in old age, and seems to have left to his grandson the systematic development of thoughts, which, for himself, were rather a practical principle of lift. The above-named successors (Theodoras, etc. ) extend into the third century, and form the transition to the Epicurean School, which took up the remnants of the Hedonistic into itself.
A. Wendt, De Philosophia Cyrenaica (Gottingen, 1841).
§ 7. The Problem of Morality.
The reflections of the Gnomic poets and the sentences of the so-called seven wise men had already, as their central point, the admonition to observe moderation. In like manner the pessimistic complaints which we meet among poets, philosophers, and moralists of the fifth century are directed for the most part against the unbridled license of men, their lack of discipline and of obedience to law. The more serious minds discerned the danger which the passionate seething and foaming of public life brought with and the political experience that party strife was ethically endurable only where left the order of the laws untouched, made subjection to law appear as the supreme duty. Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans expressed this with complete clearness, and knew how to attach
to the fundamental conceptions of their metaphysical theories. 1
We meet here with two assumptions which even among these thinkers appear as self-evident presuppositions. The first the
validity of laws. The naive consciousness obeys the command without asking whence com^s or by what justified. Laws have actual existence, those of morals as well as those of the courts they are here once for all, and the individual has to follow them. No one in the pre-Sophistic period thought of examining the law and asking in what its claim to valid authority consists. The sec ond assumption conviction which fundamental in the moralis ing of all peoples and all times viz. that obedience to the law brings advantage, disregard of disadvantage. As the result
Cf. above, p. 63, note
1
it
6.
it, :
is
is a
of ;
it
it is
is
it,
it
Cmat. 2, i 7. ] Problem of Morality : the Sophist*. 73
this thought admonition takes on the character of persuasive coun sel,1 which is directed to the shrewdness of the one admonished as well as to the desires slumbering within him.
With the Greek Enlightenment confidence in both of these pre suppositions began to waver, and accordingly morality became for it a problem.
1. The impulse to this came from the experiences of public life. The frequent and sudden change of constitutions was indeed adapted to undermine the authority of law. It not only took away the halo of unconditional, unquestioned validity from the individual law, act it accustomed the citizen of the democratic republic especially to reflect and decide upon the ground and validity of laws as he "umulted and voted. Political law became a subject for discussion, ud the individual set himself with his judgment above it. If, now, besides noting this mutation in time, attention is also given to the variety exhibited not only in the political laws, but also in the usages prescribed by customary morality in the different states tad among different peoples, the consequence is that the worth of
universal validity for all men can no longer be attributed to laws*. At least this holds good in the first place for all laws made by man; in any case, therefore, for political laws.
In the face of these experiences the question arose whether there a anything whatever that is valid everywhere and always, any law that is independent of the difference between peoples, states, and tunes, and therefore authoritative for all. Greek ethics began thus nth a problem tchich was completely parallel to the initial problem of fAjnes. The essence of things which, remains ever the same and
Kirrives all changes, the philosophers of the first period had called Xatore (+i*n) : * it is now asked whether there is also determined Ly this unchanging Nature (<f>vou) a law that is exalted above all change and all differences, and in contrast with this it is pointed u>t that all existing prescriptions valid only for a time, and within i hunted territory, are given and established by human institution or
statute (6*au. or ro/up).
This contrast between Nature and institution or statute is the
characteristic work of the Greek Enlightenment in the forma-
1 A typical example of this is the allegory of Prodicus, in which the choosing Htreoles ia promised golden mountains by Virtue as well as by Vice, in case he »ii intrust himself to her guidance.
1 Hipptas In Xen. Mem. IV. 4, 14 ff.
1 IW> #*#<«« is the title borne by the writings of all the older philosophers. 1: » u> be emphasised that the constitutive mark of the concept 4>Aen was ryallj that of remaining ever like itself. The contrary of this is then the
, that which occurs a single time.
74 The Greek* : Anthropological Period. [Part I.
tion of conceptious. It dominates the entire philosophy of the period, and has from the beginning not only the meaning of a prin
ciple of genetic explanation, but the significance of a norm, or stan dard for the estimation of woHh. If there is anything universally valid, it is that which is valid " by Nature " for all men without distinction of people and time ; what has been established by man in the course of history has only historical worth, worth for a single occasion. That only is justly authorised which Nature determines, but human institution goes beyond this. The " law " (vo/xo«) tyr annises over man and forces him to much that is contrary to Nature. 1 Philosophy formulated in its conceptions that opposition between a natural, " divine " law and the written law, which formed the theme of the Antigone of Sophocles.
Out of this antithesis came the problems, on the one hand, to establish in what this law of Nature, everywhere the same, consists ; on the other, to understand how, in addition to this, the institutions of historical law arise.
The first problem Protagoras did not avoid. In the mythical presentation of his thought which Plato has preserved,* he taught that the gods gave to all men in equal measure a sense ofjustice, and of ethical respect or reverence (Six*; and atSuJs), in order that in the struggle of life they might be able to form permanent unions for mutual preservation. He found, therefore, the <£«ris of practical life in primary ethical feelings which impel man to union in society and in the state. The carrying out of this thought in its details and the definition of the boundary between this which is valid by Nature
(4>v(ru) and the positive determinations of historical institution are unfortunately not preserved to us.
There are, however, many indications that the theory of the Sophists proceeded from such fundamental conceptions to a wide- reaching criticism of existing conditions, and to the demand for pro found revolutions in social and political life. The thought was already at that time forcing its way forward, that all distinctions between men before the law rest only upon institution, and that Nature demands equal right for all. Lycophron desired to do away with the nobility. Alcidamas* and others4 combated slavery from this point of view. Phaleas demanded equality of property as well as of education for all citizens, and Hippodamus was the first to
» Hippiaa in Plat. Prot. 337 C.
» Plat. Prot. 320 ff. Cf. A. Harpff, Die Ethik ties Protagoras (Heidelberg,
1884).
> Ariat. Ithet. I. 13, 1373 b 18. Cf. also Orat. Attic, (eu. Bekker) II. 164.
♦ Arist. Pol. I. 3, 1263 b 20.
Ckap. 2, $ 7. ] Problem of Morality : the Sophists. 75
project the outlines of an ideal state, constituted according to reason. Even the thought of a political equality of women with »en came to the surface in this connection. 1
If now positive legislation deviates from these demands of Nature, its rationale is to be sought only in the interests of those who make the laws. Whether this takes the form assumed in the opinion of Thrasymachus * of Chalcedon, who held that it is those in power who by means of the law force the subjects to do what is for their
rtbe masters') advantage, or whether it wears the contrary form as •ieTeloped by Callicles,' that laws have been erected by the great ouss of the weak as a bulwark against the power of strong person alities which would be superior to the individual, and that according to the view of Lycophron4 all those who do no harm to others thus mutually assure for themselves life and property, —in all these eases the ground of the laws lies in the interests of those who make them.
2. If personal interest is therefore the ground for setting up laws, * is also the sole motive for obeying them. Even the moralist wishes v> ronvince man that it is for his interest to accommodate himself so the law. From this it follows, however, that obedience to the aw is under obligation to extend only so far as it is the indi- •vinrtTs interest. And there are cases where the two do not coincide. It is not true that only subordination to law makes a man happy ; there are great criminals, so Polus works out the thought,' who
bare attained the happiest results by the most frightful misdeeds.
contradicts the claim that only right doing leads to happiness ; it shows rather that a shrewd conduct of life, restrained by no regard for right and law, is the best guaranty of good for tune. *
Through such considerations the scepticism which had originally, m it seems,' been directed only toward the validity of political la«. gradually attacked that of the moral laws as well. What Polos, Callicles, and Thrasymachus propound in the Platonic dia- jthto**, the Oorgias and the Republic, with regard to the concep tions of the just and unjust (StMuov and a&xov) has reference in «j3il measure to the moral and to the political law. This double f*f»renee is effected through the middle ground of the characteristics
Experience
1 The prrmifla? * in the Ecetesiasusce of Aristophanes can refer only to this. « PUt. Rrp. 338 C.
» Plat G. trg. 483 B.
• Arwi. Pot. III. 0. 1280 b 11.
» In Flit, f^/rj. 471.
1 (~i the praiae of ituct* by Thrasymachus in PUt. Rtp. 344 A.
" i Is especially true of Protagoras, perhaps also of Hippias.
76 The Grreeks : Anthropological Period. [Part I
of penal justice, and proves that the law of Nature is set over against, not only the civil law, but also the requirements of morals.
In both respects the naturalism and radicalism of the younger Sophists pushed on to the extreme consequences. The weak may subject himself to the law ; he is, though, but the stupid man, serv ing the uses of others by so doing; ' the strong, however, who is at the same time the wise, does not allow himself to be led astray by the law ; he follows solely the impulse of his own nature. And this is the right, if not according to human law, yet according to the higher law of Nature. She shows in all living beings that the stronger should rule the weaker ; only for the slave is it becoming to recognise a command above himself. The free man should not bridle his desires, but let them have full development; according to human law it may be a disgrace to do injustice, according to the dictates of Nature it is a disgrace to suffer injustice. *
In such forms the individual's natural disposition, the constitution of his impulses, was proclaimed as law of Nature, and exalted to be the supreme law of action ; and Archelaus, a disciple of Anaxagoras, belonging to the Sophistic period, proclaimed that the predicates good and . bad, "just" and "shameful" (8/kcuoi< —al<rxp6v), spring not from Nature, but from Institution. All ethical judging is con ventional. *
3. Religious ideas were also involved in this overthrow as a mat ter of course, and all the more since after their theoretical value had been taken away, at least in educated circles, bv the cosmologi- cal philosophy typified by Xenophanes, they had retained recogni tion only as allegorical methods of presenting ethical conceptions. In this latter line of thought the school of Anaxagoras had been active for a time, especially a certain Metrodorus of Lampsaous. It was only a consequence of the ethical relativism of the Sophists when Prodicus taught that men had made to themselves gods out of all that brought them blessing, and when Critias declared belief in the gods to be an invention of shrewd statecraft. 4 If such claims still excited indignation among the masses and the powers of the official priesthood,4 it was easy for Protagoras in the presence of these questions to wrap himself in the mantle of his scepticism. *
4. The position of Socrates with reference to this whole move ment presents two sides : on the one hand, he brought the priuciple
1 Thrasymachus in Plat. Rep. 343 C.
2 Callicles in Plat. Gorg. 483 A and 491 E.
' Diog. Laert. II. lfi.
* Sext. Emp. Adv. Hath. IX. 51-54.
* As is shown by the condemnation of Diagoras of Melos (Aristoph. Av. 1078). * Diog. Laert. IX. 51.
Cnar. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Socrates. 77
underlying the movement to its clearest and most comprehensive expression ; on the other hand, he set himself in the most vigorous atanner against its outcome, and both these sides of his activity, contrary as they seem to be and much as this external opposition
iiad to do with the tragic fate of the man, stand, nevertheless, in the most exact and rigidly consistent connection ; for just by grasping the principle of the Enlightenment in all its depth, and formulating it in its full force, did Socrates succeed in developing from it a
positive result of wide-reaching power.
For him, also, the time for following traditional customs without
question is past. Independent judgment of individuals, has taken the place of authority. But while the Sophists gave their attention to the analysis of the feelings and impulses which lie at the basis of the actual decisions of individuals, and ultimately saw themselves
forced to adjudge to all these motives the equal right of an unfold ing in accordance with the necessity of Nature, Socrates, on the contrary, reflected upfbn precisely that element which was the deci sive factor in the culture of his time : namely, the practical, polit ical, and social significance which knowledge arid science had achieved. Just through the process in which individuals had achieved independence, through the unfettering of personal passions, rt had become evident that in all fields man's ability rests upon his
In this Socrates found that objective standard for the esti- of men and their actions which the Sophists had sought in
vain in the machinery of feelings and desires.
Ability, then, or excellence (Tiichtigkeit, iptTij) is insight. He
who acts according to feelings, according to presuppositions that arc not clear, according to customs that have been handed down, stay indeed occasionally hit the right thing, but he does not know st. he is not sure of the issue ; he who is entirely involved in delusion sad error as to the matter in hand is certain to make mistakes ; he only will be able to act right who has the right knowledge of things uA of himself. 1 Scientific knowledge (ijrumffn;) is therefore the basis of all qualities which make man able and useful, of all single
This insight consists, on the one hand, in an exact knowledge of the tlkimgs to which the action is to relate. Man should understand his business ; as we find the able man . in every business to be the one vho has learned it thoroughly and knows the objects with which he iu to work, so should it be also in civil and political life ; here, too,
1 These fundamental thoughts of Socrates are reproduced by Xenophon and ttato tn countless turns and variations. In Xeiiophun the passage, Mem. 111. ok. •. is most important for comparison; in Plato, the dialogue l>r»higur<u.
78 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part I.
only insight should be trusted. 1 The individual excellences differ entiate themselves accordingly with reference to the objects which the knowledge concerns in the individual case;1 common to all, however, is not only knowledge in general, but also self-knowledge. Hence Socrates declared it to be his principal vocation to educate himself and his fellow-citizens to earnest self-examination ; the yvu>0i (Tiavrov was the watch-word of his teaching. 3
5. These considerations, which Socrates developed out of the principles by which practical ability or excellence is determined, became transferred by the aid of the ambiguity in the word Apery* to ethical excellence also, or virtue, and so led to the fundamental doctrine that virtue consists in knowledge of the good. * So far the course of thought followed by Socrates is clear and free from doubt. The sources become less clear when we ask what the man who was so strenuous to reach clearly defined conceptions intended by the good. According to Xenophon's exposition, the good (AyaOw) must have coincided everywhere, for his master, with the profitable or useful (w<p(\tfi. ov). Virtue would then be the knowledge of what was suited to tfie end in view, or useful, in each particular instance. This interpretation is the easiest to attach to that analogy between moral virtue and the various kinds of excellence shown in daily life, which Socrates really taught, and the presentation given in the earliest Platonic dialogues, in particular the Protagoras attributes to Socrates this standpoint of individual advantage. Insight or dis cernment (here called prudence, <j>p6vrj(n<:) is a measuring art, which weighs exactly the benefit and the harm that will result from the action, and so chooses what is most to the purpose. In further agree ment with this view is the fact that in exact contrast with the Sophists, who demanded a free and uncramped development of the passions, Socrates emphasised no virtue so much, and exhibited none so fully in his own life, as that of self-control
(o-to^oo-wi;).
But according to this interpretation the Socratic conception of the good would be indefinite in its content ; decision must be made
from case to case as to what suits the end in view, or is useful, and
1 Hence, too, the anti-democratic position, so fatal for his personal destiny, taken by Socrates, who demanded expressly that the most difficult and most responsible art, that of governing, should be practised only by those of the most complete discernment, and who on this account absolutely rejected the appoint ment of state officials by lot or popular choice.
3 Socrates did not attempt a system of the individual excellences ; on the other hand, he did give by way of example definitions of courage (cf. the Platonic Laches), piety (Plat. Euthyphro, Xen. Mem. IV. 6, 3), justice {Mem. IV. 6, 6), etc.
* As defined by his theoretical philosophy; see § 8.
* The same ambiguity which has given occasion to countless difficulties lies in the Latin virtu* ; so, too, in dya$6r, bunum, good.
Cbaf. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Socratet. 79
instead of the good we should again always have what is grood for rjmething. 1 It may be regarded as certain that Socrates strove to transcend this relativism, and also that by reason of the anthropo logical basis of his thinking he did not get beyond this position in •J»e formulation of his conceptions. His doctrine that it is better to mffer wrong than to do wrong, his strict conformity to law, in accordance with which he scorned to avoid the execution of an
ttajost sentence and preserve himself by flight for further life and activity, his admonition that the true meaning of life consists in mpm&a, in continual right-doing, in man's ceaseless labour for ethical
in the participation in all that is good and beautiful imXjoKiyadia), especially, however, his erotic, i. e. his doctrine that friendship and the relation of attachment between teacher and uagbt should consist only in a mutual striving to become good or
constantly better through their life in common and their mutual furtherance of each other's aims, — all this goes far beyond the con ception presented by Xenophon. It can be united with the stand point of ntility only if we attribute to Socrates the distinction aetween the true welfare of the soul, on the one hand, and earthly tain, on the other, which Plato makes him set forth in the Phcedo,
bat of which we elsewhere find but slight traces, since the historic >orrates. even according to Plato's Apology, maintained a completely tceptical position with regard to personal immortality, and did not know the sharp Platonic separation between immateriality and cor poreality. Socrates teaches, indeed, even according to Xenophon, '. hat man's true fortune is to be sought, not in outward goods nor in . usurious life, but in virtue alone: however, this virtue to consist only in the capacity to recognise the truly useful and act accordingly, the doctrine moves in a circle as soon as maintains mat this truly useful just virtue itself. In this circle Socrates remained fast; the objective determination of the conception of the pood which he sought he did not find.
However indefinite the answer to the question as to what »tould properly form the content of that knowledge of the good vtueh constitutes virtue, Socrates was at all events convinced — and this proved much more important — that thin knowledge
m itattf MvjfUnent to catme one to do the good, and no bring happi- *em. This proposition, which may serve as type of a rationalis ts conception of life, contains two pregnant presuppositions, one
improvement,
viz. pronounced intellectualism, the other ethical, viz. pronounced eudcemonixm.
ptydkologieal,
Xen. Mem. IIL
»
is
8, 5.
if,
a
i»
6.
it
is
80 The Greeks: Anthropological Period. [Part L
The fundamental assumption which Socrates thus makes is indeed the expression of his own reflective, judicious nature. Every man, he says, acts in the manner that he considers best suited for his end, most beneficial and most useful ; no one does that which he knows to be unfit for the end in view, or even fit in a lesser degree. If, then, virtue is knowledge of what is to the purpose, it follows immediately that the virtuous man acts in accordance with his knowledge, therefore to the purpose, rightly, in the way that is beneficial to him. No one does wrong knowingly and purposely : he only does not act rightly who has not right insight. If it sometimes seems as if some one acted wrongly in the face of better insight — "against his better judgment" — it must be that he was not clearly and surely in possession of this better knowledge, for otherwise he would have purposely injured himself, which is absurd.
In this a fundamental difference between Socrates and the Sophists becomes evident: the latter maintained the originality of the will, and on that account its warrant from Nature ; for Socrates, to will a thing and to regard a thing as good, profitable, and useful are the same thing. Knowledge determines the will without opposition ; man does what he holds to be best. True as it may be that Socrates was in error in this opinion, and that the truth lies in the mean between him and the Sophists, this his intellectualistic conception of the will came to exercise a decisive influence over all ancient ethics.
Sin is, then, error. He who does a bad act does it from a mistaken judgment, regarding the bad, i. e. the injurious, as the good ; for every one believes that he is doing the good, i. e. the advantageous. Only because the case stands thus is there any meaning in instructing men ethically ; only for this reason is virtue capable of being taught. For all teaching addresses itself to man's knowledge. Because man can be taught what the good therefore — and by this means alone — he can be brought to the stage of right action. Were virtue not knowledge, would not be capable of being taught.
From this standpoint Socrates raised the customary
taught by the popular moralising to scientific plane. All his keenness, his subtlety, and dialectical dexterity were employed to prove against the Sophists that not only the surest, but even the only sure way of attaining to permanent happiness, lies in obeying ethical prescriptions under all circumstances, in subordination to law and morals. So he gives back to Authority her right. The prin-
Compare in Plato the refutation of Thrasymachus in the first book of the Republic, which may be regarded as Socratic in its principles, but which in part
very weakly supported, both in form and in matter.
morality
is
1
'
a
it
is,
2, § ". ] Problem of Morality : Socrates. 81
eiple of the Enlightenment tolerates no unquestioning subjection to the existing state of things and requires examination of the laws ; but these laws sustain the examination, they evince themselves to be requirements' made by- insight into what is for the best; and because it has now been recognised that it is the right course to obey them,
unconditional obedience must be rendered. 1 Far from being in con flict with the institutions of law and morals, Socrates is rather the one who undertook to prove their reasonableness and thereby their daim to universal validity. *
F. Wildauer, Socrates' Lehre torn Willen. Innsbruck, 1877.
St. Heinae, Der Eudamonismu* in der griechischen Philosophie. Leips. 1883.
7. In addition to the psychologico-ethical presuppositions that the will is always directed toward what is recognised as good, and that therefore virtue, as knowledge of the good, draws after it of itself the appropriate action, we find in the argumentations of Socrates the further opinion that this appropriate action of the virtuous man actually attains its end and makes him happy. Happi
ness or tctll-being (<v&u/jovui) is the necessary result of virtue. The intelligent man knows, and hence does, what is good for him ; he most then, through his doing, become happy also. This assump tion applies, however, only to a perfect intelligence which would be absolutely certain of the effects that an intended action would have in the connected series of the world's events.
' In detail*, as might be expected from the nature of the cane, this rehabilita- tro of the popular morals falls into trivial moralising, especially as Xenophon portrays it. But while Socrates hoped precisely by this means to render the mil arrrice to his people, it proved to be just the point where lie came to the errand between two stools : with the Sophists and their adherents, lie passed for a reactionary ; on the other hand, the men who, like Aristophanes, saw pre cisely in the questioning of the authority of law and morals in general, the dan-
iwm cancer of the time, without investigation classed hitn who wished to fiaer this authority on a basis of reason, among those who were undermining B. So it *u that it could come about that Socrates appeared in the Clouds of A»t/>phanes aa the type of Sophistic teaching which he combated.
' It ia hence quite alieji to the principles of Socrates to demand or even to *"lr,r fur every (ndiridnal art a special examination of the ground* of the polit ical or ethical command If, for example, it has once been recognised a» right to obey the ordinances of the government under all circumstances, this obedience sin then be rendered, even if the ordinance evidently commands the un reason - tS> and the unjust ; cf . Plato's Crito. If, as was true of Socrates himself, a man a ruoTtnced that bis life is under divine guidance, and that where his insight if** not suffice, a higher voice warns him through his feeling, — at least, warns \xm away from what is wrong, — then he must obey this voice. Cf. on the Imm,, a 8. The essentia! thing always is that a man give an account to him- •rff ot hat doing, but the grounds on which he acts in so doing may even consist
lima aa exclude an examination in individual cases.
82 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part L
The transmitted expressions of Socrates, in fact, make the impres sion that he was convinced that man could possess that insight which by its operation upon his action and its consequences is adapted to bring about happiness, and that he might gain this insight through philosophy : that is, through unremitting earnest examination of himself, of others, and of the relations of human life. Investigations as to how far the world's course, which man cannot foresee, may cross and destroy the operation even of the best planned and most intelligent conduct of life, are not to be pointed out in the teaching of Socrates. When we consider the slight degree of confidence which he otherwise had in human knowledge, as soon as this attempted to venture beyond establishing ethical conceptions and practical requirements, we can explain the above conviction only on the following basis — he did not fear that the
providential guidance, which was for him indeed an object not of knowledge, but of faith, would frustrate the beneficial consequences of right action.
8. Socrates had defined virtue, the fundamental ethical concep tion, as insight, and this in turn as knowledge of the good, but had given to the concept of the good no universal content, and in a cer tain respect had left it open. This made it possible for the most diverse conceptions of life to introduce their views of the ultimate end (rtXof) of human existence into this open place in the Socratic concept ; and so this first incomplete work in the formation of ethi cal conceptions at once afforded the material for a number of partic ular structures. 1 The most important of these are the Cynic and the Cyrenaic. Both present the attempt to define the true intrinsic worth of the life of the individual in a universal manner. Both wish to show in what man's true happiness consists, how man must be constituted and how he must act in order to attain this with cer tainty ; both call this constitution or disposition through which participation in happiness is gained, virtue. The eudaemonistic side of the Socratic ethics is here developed in an entirely one-sided manner, and though universal validity is vindicated for the concep tion proposed, the point of view of the individuafs happiness forms so exclusively the standard that the worth of all relations of public life even is estimated by it. In Cynicism, as in Hedonism, the Greek spirit is proceeding to appropriate the fruit which the conditions
1 So indeed in the case of Xenophon and Machines ; the philosophising cob bler Simon, loo, seems to have have been thus dependent on Socrates. What the Megarian and the Elean-Eretrian schools accomplished in this respect is too indefinitely transmitted to us, and is too closely in contact with Cynicism, to deserve separate mention.
Chat. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Antisthenes. 88
of life brought about by civilisation yield for the fortune of the individual. The criticism of the social conditions and authorities, begun by the Sophists, has won a fixed standard through the medi ating aid of the Socratic conception of virtue.
The doctrine of virtue taught by Antisthenes ' takes at the begin ning a high and specious turn at the point where the doctrine finds itself hopelessly entangled in the Socratic circle. He declines to define more closely the contents of the concept of the good, and declares virtue itself to be not only the highest, but the only good, understanding, however, by virtue essentially only the intelligent con- d»ci of life. This alone makes happy, not indeed through the conse quences which it brings about, but through itself. The contentment that dwells within the right life itself is accordingly completely
independent of the world's course : virtue is itself sufficient for happiness ; the wise man stands free in the presence of fate and fortune.
But this Cynic conception of virtue as sufficient in itself is, as is shown by its further development, in nowise to be interpreted as meaning that the virtuous man should find his fortune in doing good for its own sake amid all the whims of fate. Cynicism did not rise to this height, however much it may sound like it when
nrtue is celebrated as the only sure possession in the vicissitudes of life, when it is designated as the only thing to be striven for, and baseness, on the contrary, as the only thing to be avoided. This doctrine is a postulate derived with great logical consistency from the Socratic principle that virtue necessarily makes happy (cf.
above, 7), and from this postulate Antisthenes sought in turn to define the real contents of the concept of virtue.
If, namely, virtue is to make happy with certainty and under all rirrumstances, it must be that conduct of life which makes man as imiUpendent as possible of the course of events. Now every want and every desire is a bond which makes man dependent upon fortune, is to far as his happiness or unhappiness is made to consist in
whether a given wish is fulfilled or not by the course of life. We have no power over the outer world, but we have power over our desires. We expose ourselves the more to alien powers, the more »> desire, hope, or fear from them ; every desire makes us slaves of the outer world. Virtue, then, which makes man independent, can consist only in suppression of desires, and restriction of wants to the smallest conceivable measure. Virtue is freedom from
— from the standpoint of eudsemonism certainly the most Principally preserved in Ding. Laert. VI. Xen. Symp. 34 fl.
1
i,'
*
4.
84 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part L
consistent conclusion, and one that must have appealed especially to men of a humble position in life such as we find the Cynics to be in
part.
By carrying out this thought in a radical manner the Oynics came
to occupy a purely negative attitude toward civilisation. By aiming to reduce the measure of the virtuous wise man's wants to what was absolutely inevitable, and to regard all other strivings as pernicious or indifferent, they rejected all the goods of civilisation and attained the ideal of a state of Xature, — an ideal stripped of all higher worth. Taking up earlier Sophisti; theories and developing them farther, they taught that the wise man accommodates himself only to what
Nature peremptorily demands, but despises all that appears desir able or worthy of obedience merely as the result of human opinion or institution. Wealth and refinement, fame ar. d honour, seemed to them just as superfluous as those enjoyments of the senses which went beyond the satisfaction of the most elementary wants of hunger and love. Art and science, family and native land, were to them indifferent, and Diogenes owed his paradoxical popularity to the ostentatious jest of attempting to live in civilised Greece as if in a state of Nature, solely <£iW.
From the Atomistic School came Protagoras of Abdera (about 480-410). He was one of the first, and rightly the most renowned, of these wandering teachers. Active at various times in Athens, he is said to have been convicted of impiety in that city, to have fled because of this, and to have met his death in flight. Of his numerous treatises, grammatical, logical, ethical, political, and religious in their character, very little has been preserved.
1 In Plato ( TheaX. 181 A) they are called ol friorrti : cf. Arist. Met. IV. 5. 1010 a 13.
'■at. 2. 1 The Anthropological Period. 71
n~|t" of Leontini (483-375) was in Athens in 427 as an envoy from his zMtire city, and there gained great literary influence. In old age he lived in ;. u-Ma in Thessaly. He came from the Sicilian school of orators, with which Laprdorles also had been connected. 1
■ooo-ming Hippiaa of Klin, with the exception of some opinions (among T*uch are those criticised in the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major), it is known s! \ that he made great parade of his "much knowledge. " Of Prodicus of
-». a town on the island of Ceos, the familiar allegory " Hercules at the Cross- -•U" U preserved by Xenophon, Mtmor. II. 1,21. The remaining Sophists, i» n for the most part through Plato, are without intrinsic importance. We kaow only that this or that characteristic affirmation is put in the mouth of one Tio-jther.
la forming a conception of the Sophistic doctrine we have to contend with the cnVahy that we are made acquainted with them almost exclusively through •act victorious opponents, Plato and Aristotle. The first has given in the Pro- ■•rrroM a graceful, lively delineation of a Sophist congress, redolent with line
ret. in the Gorgia* a more earnest, in the Theaetetvs a sharper criticism, and r the Cratylua and Euthydemus supercilious satire of the Sophists' methods of nsrsisis; I" the dialogue the Sophist, to which Plato's name is attached, an 'in—wily malicious definition of the theories of the Sophists is attempted, and Aristotle reaches the same result in the book on the fallacies of the Sophists
<V L 106 a 21).
The history of philosophy for a long time repeated the depreciatory judg-
r«-nt of opponents of the Sophists, and allowed the word ao4>utriit (which irant only a '• learned man," or, if you will, a "professor") to bear the dis- :«raring meaning which they had given it. Hegel rehabilitated the Sophists, and then-upon it followed, as often happens, that they were for a time over- •*simau-d. a* by Grote.
X. Schanz. Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867).
Bocratast of Athens (469-390) makes an epoch in the history of philosophy, «r*n by hi* external characteristics, by his original personality, and his new «yle of philosophising. He was neither savant nor wandering teacher, be-
«irr<l 10 no school and adhered to none. He was a simple man of the people, ta* wm of a sculptor, and at first busied himself with the chisel. In his ardent for knowledge he absorbed the new doctrines with which the streets of 1 mauve city re-echoed, but did not allow himself to be dazzled by these brill- is', rbetoriral efforts, nor did he find himself much advanced by them. His
1thought took note of their contradictions, and his moral earnestness was -te-jArd by the superficiality and frivolity of this constant effort after culture. H* t»ld it to be his duty to enlighten himself and his fellow-citizens concerning --k» emptiness of this pretended knowledge, and, through earnest investigation, ta follow after truth. So, a philosopher of this opportunity and of daily life, he » rfc*"i unremittingly among his fellow-citizens, until misunderstanding and per- • -ea: intrigue brought him before the court which condemned him to the death •-as: was to become his greatest glory.
Th* accounts concerning him give a clear and trustworthy picture of his per- ■r«a>:tr. In these accounts Plato's finer and Xenophon'* coarser portrayal •c7f^~mn>t each other most happily. The first in almost all his writings brings
~zz \i»r honoured teacher with dramatic vividness. Of the second we have to i«»4*r the Memorabilia CAroM<"H>o**tf/**Ta XunpArevi) and the Symposium. A* retards his teaching, the case is more difficult, for here the presentations of v Oi X»nophon and Plato are partisan writings, each laying claim to the famous
for his own doctrine (in the case of Xenophon a mild Cynicism). The rats of Aristotle are authoritative on all essential points, because of the ■historical separation and the freer point of view.
E. Alberti. Sokratet (Gottingen, 1869) ; A. Labriola, La Dottrina di Socrate v»tcr*. 1871) : A. Foulllee, La Philosophic de Socrate (Paris, 1873).
*t-rrtt of Megara founded his school soon after the death of Socrates. The two Eristics (see below), Eubulides of Miletus, Alexinus of Kli*. Diodonu CrassM of Carta (died 307), and Stilpo (380-300), are to be mentioned as
1 In regard to these relationships cf. H. Diets, Berichte der Bert Akademi*. :•*. pp 343 ff.
T2 The Greek* : Anthropological Period. [Part L
belonging to this school, which had only a brief existence, and later became incorporated with the Cynics and Stoics. The same is true of the society which Pheedo, the favourite pupil of Socrates, founded in his home at Elis, and which Menedemus soon after transplanted to Eretria. Cf. E. Mailet, Histoire de Vieole de Megare et des icoles d'Elis et d'ErHrie (Paris, 1845).
The founder of the Cynic School (named after the gymnasium Cynosar- ges) was Antisthenes of Athens, who, like Euclid, was an older friend of Socrates. The singular Diogenes of Sinope is rather a characteristic by- figure in the history of civilisation than a man of science. In this connection Crates of Thebes may also be mentioned. Later this school was blended with that of the Stoics.
F. DUmmler, Antisthenica (Halle, 1882) ; K. W. Gottling, Diogenes der Kyniker, oder die Philosophie des griechischen Proletariats (Ges. Abhandl.
I. 261 ff. ).
Arlatippua of Cyrene, a Sophist and wandering teacher, somewhat younger
than Euclid and Antisthenes, and united only for a little time with the Socratic circle, founded his school in old age, and seems to have left to his grandson the systematic development of thoughts, which, for himself, were rather a practical principle of lift. The above-named successors (Theodoras, etc. ) extend into the third century, and form the transition to the Epicurean School, which took up the remnants of the Hedonistic into itself.
A. Wendt, De Philosophia Cyrenaica (Gottingen, 1841).
§ 7. The Problem of Morality.
The reflections of the Gnomic poets and the sentences of the so-called seven wise men had already, as their central point, the admonition to observe moderation. In like manner the pessimistic complaints which we meet among poets, philosophers, and moralists of the fifth century are directed for the most part against the unbridled license of men, their lack of discipline and of obedience to law. The more serious minds discerned the danger which the passionate seething and foaming of public life brought with and the political experience that party strife was ethically endurable only where left the order of the laws untouched, made subjection to law appear as the supreme duty. Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans expressed this with complete clearness, and knew how to attach
to the fundamental conceptions of their metaphysical theories. 1
We meet here with two assumptions which even among these thinkers appear as self-evident presuppositions. The first the
validity of laws. The naive consciousness obeys the command without asking whence com^s or by what justified. Laws have actual existence, those of morals as well as those of the courts they are here once for all, and the individual has to follow them. No one in the pre-Sophistic period thought of examining the law and asking in what its claim to valid authority consists. The sec ond assumption conviction which fundamental in the moralis ing of all peoples and all times viz. that obedience to the law brings advantage, disregard of disadvantage. As the result
Cf. above, p. 63, note
1
it
6.
it, :
is
is a
of ;
it
it is
is
it,
it
Cmat. 2, i 7. ] Problem of Morality : the Sophist*. 73
this thought admonition takes on the character of persuasive coun sel,1 which is directed to the shrewdness of the one admonished as well as to the desires slumbering within him.
With the Greek Enlightenment confidence in both of these pre suppositions began to waver, and accordingly morality became for it a problem.
1. The impulse to this came from the experiences of public life. The frequent and sudden change of constitutions was indeed adapted to undermine the authority of law. It not only took away the halo of unconditional, unquestioned validity from the individual law, act it accustomed the citizen of the democratic republic especially to reflect and decide upon the ground and validity of laws as he "umulted and voted. Political law became a subject for discussion, ud the individual set himself with his judgment above it. If, now, besides noting this mutation in time, attention is also given to the variety exhibited not only in the political laws, but also in the usages prescribed by customary morality in the different states tad among different peoples, the consequence is that the worth of
universal validity for all men can no longer be attributed to laws*. At least this holds good in the first place for all laws made by man; in any case, therefore, for political laws.
In the face of these experiences the question arose whether there a anything whatever that is valid everywhere and always, any law that is independent of the difference between peoples, states, and tunes, and therefore authoritative for all. Greek ethics began thus nth a problem tchich was completely parallel to the initial problem of fAjnes. The essence of things which, remains ever the same and
Kirrives all changes, the philosophers of the first period had called Xatore (+i*n) : * it is now asked whether there is also determined Ly this unchanging Nature (<f>vou) a law that is exalted above all change and all differences, and in contrast with this it is pointed u>t that all existing prescriptions valid only for a time, and within i hunted territory, are given and established by human institution or
statute (6*au. or ro/up).
This contrast between Nature and institution or statute is the
characteristic work of the Greek Enlightenment in the forma-
1 A typical example of this is the allegory of Prodicus, in which the choosing Htreoles ia promised golden mountains by Virtue as well as by Vice, in case he »ii intrust himself to her guidance.
1 Hipptas In Xen. Mem. IV. 4, 14 ff.
1 IW> #*#<«« is the title borne by the writings of all the older philosophers. 1: » u> be emphasised that the constitutive mark of the concept 4>Aen was ryallj that of remaining ever like itself. The contrary of this is then the
, that which occurs a single time.
74 The Greek* : Anthropological Period. [Part I.
tion of conceptious. It dominates the entire philosophy of the period, and has from the beginning not only the meaning of a prin
ciple of genetic explanation, but the significance of a norm, or stan dard for the estimation of woHh. If there is anything universally valid, it is that which is valid " by Nature " for all men without distinction of people and time ; what has been established by man in the course of history has only historical worth, worth for a single occasion. That only is justly authorised which Nature determines, but human institution goes beyond this. The " law " (vo/xo«) tyr annises over man and forces him to much that is contrary to Nature. 1 Philosophy formulated in its conceptions that opposition between a natural, " divine " law and the written law, which formed the theme of the Antigone of Sophocles.
Out of this antithesis came the problems, on the one hand, to establish in what this law of Nature, everywhere the same, consists ; on the other, to understand how, in addition to this, the institutions of historical law arise.
The first problem Protagoras did not avoid. In the mythical presentation of his thought which Plato has preserved,* he taught that the gods gave to all men in equal measure a sense ofjustice, and of ethical respect or reverence (Six*; and atSuJs), in order that in the struggle of life they might be able to form permanent unions for mutual preservation. He found, therefore, the <£«ris of practical life in primary ethical feelings which impel man to union in society and in the state. The carrying out of this thought in its details and the definition of the boundary between this which is valid by Nature
(4>v(ru) and the positive determinations of historical institution are unfortunately not preserved to us.
There are, however, many indications that the theory of the Sophists proceeded from such fundamental conceptions to a wide- reaching criticism of existing conditions, and to the demand for pro found revolutions in social and political life. The thought was already at that time forcing its way forward, that all distinctions between men before the law rest only upon institution, and that Nature demands equal right for all. Lycophron desired to do away with the nobility. Alcidamas* and others4 combated slavery from this point of view. Phaleas demanded equality of property as well as of education for all citizens, and Hippodamus was the first to
» Hippiaa in Plat. Prot. 337 C.
» Plat. Prot. 320 ff. Cf. A. Harpff, Die Ethik ties Protagoras (Heidelberg,
1884).
> Ariat. Ithet. I. 13, 1373 b 18. Cf. also Orat. Attic, (eu. Bekker) II. 164.
♦ Arist. Pol. I. 3, 1263 b 20.
Ckap. 2, $ 7. ] Problem of Morality : the Sophists. 75
project the outlines of an ideal state, constituted according to reason. Even the thought of a political equality of women with »en came to the surface in this connection. 1
If now positive legislation deviates from these demands of Nature, its rationale is to be sought only in the interests of those who make the laws. Whether this takes the form assumed in the opinion of Thrasymachus * of Chalcedon, who held that it is those in power who by means of the law force the subjects to do what is for their
rtbe masters') advantage, or whether it wears the contrary form as •ieTeloped by Callicles,' that laws have been erected by the great ouss of the weak as a bulwark against the power of strong person alities which would be superior to the individual, and that according to the view of Lycophron4 all those who do no harm to others thus mutually assure for themselves life and property, —in all these eases the ground of the laws lies in the interests of those who make them.
2. If personal interest is therefore the ground for setting up laws, * is also the sole motive for obeying them. Even the moralist wishes v> ronvince man that it is for his interest to accommodate himself so the law. From this it follows, however, that obedience to the aw is under obligation to extend only so far as it is the indi- •vinrtTs interest. And there are cases where the two do not coincide. It is not true that only subordination to law makes a man happy ; there are great criminals, so Polus works out the thought,' who
bare attained the happiest results by the most frightful misdeeds.
contradicts the claim that only right doing leads to happiness ; it shows rather that a shrewd conduct of life, restrained by no regard for right and law, is the best guaranty of good for tune. *
Through such considerations the scepticism which had originally, m it seems,' been directed only toward the validity of political la«. gradually attacked that of the moral laws as well. What Polos, Callicles, and Thrasymachus propound in the Platonic dia- jthto**, the Oorgias and the Republic, with regard to the concep tions of the just and unjust (StMuov and a&xov) has reference in «j3il measure to the moral and to the political law. This double f*f»renee is effected through the middle ground of the characteristics
Experience
1 The prrmifla? * in the Ecetesiasusce of Aristophanes can refer only to this. « PUt. Rrp. 338 C.
» Plat G. trg. 483 B.
• Arwi. Pot. III. 0. 1280 b 11.
» In Flit, f^/rj. 471.
1 (~i the praiae of ituct* by Thrasymachus in PUt. Rtp. 344 A.
" i Is especially true of Protagoras, perhaps also of Hippias.
76 The Grreeks : Anthropological Period. [Part I
of penal justice, and proves that the law of Nature is set over against, not only the civil law, but also the requirements of morals.
In both respects the naturalism and radicalism of the younger Sophists pushed on to the extreme consequences. The weak may subject himself to the law ; he is, though, but the stupid man, serv ing the uses of others by so doing; ' the strong, however, who is at the same time the wise, does not allow himself to be led astray by the law ; he follows solely the impulse of his own nature. And this is the right, if not according to human law, yet according to the higher law of Nature. She shows in all living beings that the stronger should rule the weaker ; only for the slave is it becoming to recognise a command above himself. The free man should not bridle his desires, but let them have full development; according to human law it may be a disgrace to do injustice, according to the dictates of Nature it is a disgrace to suffer injustice. *
In such forms the individual's natural disposition, the constitution of his impulses, was proclaimed as law of Nature, and exalted to be the supreme law of action ; and Archelaus, a disciple of Anaxagoras, belonging to the Sophistic period, proclaimed that the predicates good and . bad, "just" and "shameful" (8/kcuoi< —al<rxp6v), spring not from Nature, but from Institution. All ethical judging is con ventional. *
3. Religious ideas were also involved in this overthrow as a mat ter of course, and all the more since after their theoretical value had been taken away, at least in educated circles, bv the cosmologi- cal philosophy typified by Xenophanes, they had retained recogni tion only as allegorical methods of presenting ethical conceptions. In this latter line of thought the school of Anaxagoras had been active for a time, especially a certain Metrodorus of Lampsaous. It was only a consequence of the ethical relativism of the Sophists when Prodicus taught that men had made to themselves gods out of all that brought them blessing, and when Critias declared belief in the gods to be an invention of shrewd statecraft. 4 If such claims still excited indignation among the masses and the powers of the official priesthood,4 it was easy for Protagoras in the presence of these questions to wrap himself in the mantle of his scepticism. *
4. The position of Socrates with reference to this whole move ment presents two sides : on the one hand, he brought the priuciple
1 Thrasymachus in Plat. Rep. 343 C.
2 Callicles in Plat. Gorg. 483 A and 491 E.
' Diog. Laert. II. lfi.
* Sext. Emp. Adv. Hath. IX. 51-54.
* As is shown by the condemnation of Diagoras of Melos (Aristoph. Av. 1078). * Diog. Laert. IX. 51.
Cnar. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Socrates. 77
underlying the movement to its clearest and most comprehensive expression ; on the other hand, he set himself in the most vigorous atanner against its outcome, and both these sides of his activity, contrary as they seem to be and much as this external opposition
iiad to do with the tragic fate of the man, stand, nevertheless, in the most exact and rigidly consistent connection ; for just by grasping the principle of the Enlightenment in all its depth, and formulating it in its full force, did Socrates succeed in developing from it a
positive result of wide-reaching power.
For him, also, the time for following traditional customs without
question is past. Independent judgment of individuals, has taken the place of authority. But while the Sophists gave their attention to the analysis of the feelings and impulses which lie at the basis of the actual decisions of individuals, and ultimately saw themselves
forced to adjudge to all these motives the equal right of an unfold ing in accordance with the necessity of Nature, Socrates, on the contrary, reflected upfbn precisely that element which was the deci sive factor in the culture of his time : namely, the practical, polit ical, and social significance which knowledge arid science had achieved. Just through the process in which individuals had achieved independence, through the unfettering of personal passions, rt had become evident that in all fields man's ability rests upon his
In this Socrates found that objective standard for the esti- of men and their actions which the Sophists had sought in
vain in the machinery of feelings and desires.
Ability, then, or excellence (Tiichtigkeit, iptTij) is insight. He
who acts according to feelings, according to presuppositions that arc not clear, according to customs that have been handed down, stay indeed occasionally hit the right thing, but he does not know st. he is not sure of the issue ; he who is entirely involved in delusion sad error as to the matter in hand is certain to make mistakes ; he only will be able to act right who has the right knowledge of things uA of himself. 1 Scientific knowledge (ijrumffn;) is therefore the basis of all qualities which make man able and useful, of all single
This insight consists, on the one hand, in an exact knowledge of the tlkimgs to which the action is to relate. Man should understand his business ; as we find the able man . in every business to be the one vho has learned it thoroughly and knows the objects with which he iu to work, so should it be also in civil and political life ; here, too,
1 These fundamental thoughts of Socrates are reproduced by Xenophon and ttato tn countless turns and variations. In Xeiiophun the passage, Mem. 111. ok. •. is most important for comparison; in Plato, the dialogue l>r»higur<u.
78 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part I.
only insight should be trusted. 1 The individual excellences differ entiate themselves accordingly with reference to the objects which the knowledge concerns in the individual case;1 common to all, however, is not only knowledge in general, but also self-knowledge. Hence Socrates declared it to be his principal vocation to educate himself and his fellow-citizens to earnest self-examination ; the yvu>0i (Tiavrov was the watch-word of his teaching. 3
5. These considerations, which Socrates developed out of the principles by which practical ability or excellence is determined, became transferred by the aid of the ambiguity in the word Apery* to ethical excellence also, or virtue, and so led to the fundamental doctrine that virtue consists in knowledge of the good. * So far the course of thought followed by Socrates is clear and free from doubt. The sources become less clear when we ask what the man who was so strenuous to reach clearly defined conceptions intended by the good. According to Xenophon's exposition, the good (AyaOw) must have coincided everywhere, for his master, with the profitable or useful (w<p(\tfi. ov). Virtue would then be the knowledge of what was suited to tfie end in view, or useful, in each particular instance. This interpretation is the easiest to attach to that analogy between moral virtue and the various kinds of excellence shown in daily life, which Socrates really taught, and the presentation given in the earliest Platonic dialogues, in particular the Protagoras attributes to Socrates this standpoint of individual advantage. Insight or dis cernment (here called prudence, <j>p6vrj(n<:) is a measuring art, which weighs exactly the benefit and the harm that will result from the action, and so chooses what is most to the purpose. In further agree ment with this view is the fact that in exact contrast with the Sophists, who demanded a free and uncramped development of the passions, Socrates emphasised no virtue so much, and exhibited none so fully in his own life, as that of self-control
(o-to^oo-wi;).
But according to this interpretation the Socratic conception of the good would be indefinite in its content ; decision must be made
from case to case as to what suits the end in view, or is useful, and
1 Hence, too, the anti-democratic position, so fatal for his personal destiny, taken by Socrates, who demanded expressly that the most difficult and most responsible art, that of governing, should be practised only by those of the most complete discernment, and who on this account absolutely rejected the appoint ment of state officials by lot or popular choice.
3 Socrates did not attempt a system of the individual excellences ; on the other hand, he did give by way of example definitions of courage (cf. the Platonic Laches), piety (Plat. Euthyphro, Xen. Mem. IV. 6, 3), justice {Mem. IV. 6, 6), etc.
* As defined by his theoretical philosophy; see § 8.
* The same ambiguity which has given occasion to countless difficulties lies in the Latin virtu* ; so, too, in dya$6r, bunum, good.
Cbaf. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Socratet. 79
instead of the good we should again always have what is grood for rjmething. 1 It may be regarded as certain that Socrates strove to transcend this relativism, and also that by reason of the anthropo logical basis of his thinking he did not get beyond this position in •J»e formulation of his conceptions. His doctrine that it is better to mffer wrong than to do wrong, his strict conformity to law, in accordance with which he scorned to avoid the execution of an
ttajost sentence and preserve himself by flight for further life and activity, his admonition that the true meaning of life consists in mpm&a, in continual right-doing, in man's ceaseless labour for ethical
in the participation in all that is good and beautiful imXjoKiyadia), especially, however, his erotic, i. e. his doctrine that friendship and the relation of attachment between teacher and uagbt should consist only in a mutual striving to become good or
constantly better through their life in common and their mutual furtherance of each other's aims, — all this goes far beyond the con ception presented by Xenophon. It can be united with the stand point of ntility only if we attribute to Socrates the distinction aetween the true welfare of the soul, on the one hand, and earthly tain, on the other, which Plato makes him set forth in the Phcedo,
bat of which we elsewhere find but slight traces, since the historic >orrates. even according to Plato's Apology, maintained a completely tceptical position with regard to personal immortality, and did not know the sharp Platonic separation between immateriality and cor poreality. Socrates teaches, indeed, even according to Xenophon, '. hat man's true fortune is to be sought, not in outward goods nor in . usurious life, but in virtue alone: however, this virtue to consist only in the capacity to recognise the truly useful and act accordingly, the doctrine moves in a circle as soon as maintains mat this truly useful just virtue itself. In this circle Socrates remained fast; the objective determination of the conception of the pood which he sought he did not find.
However indefinite the answer to the question as to what »tould properly form the content of that knowledge of the good vtueh constitutes virtue, Socrates was at all events convinced — and this proved much more important — that thin knowledge
m itattf MvjfUnent to catme one to do the good, and no bring happi- *em. This proposition, which may serve as type of a rationalis ts conception of life, contains two pregnant presuppositions, one
improvement,
viz. pronounced intellectualism, the other ethical, viz. pronounced eudcemonixm.
ptydkologieal,
Xen. Mem. IIL
»
is
8, 5.
if,
a
i»
6.
it
is
80 The Greeks: Anthropological Period. [Part L
The fundamental assumption which Socrates thus makes is indeed the expression of his own reflective, judicious nature. Every man, he says, acts in the manner that he considers best suited for his end, most beneficial and most useful ; no one does that which he knows to be unfit for the end in view, or even fit in a lesser degree. If, then, virtue is knowledge of what is to the purpose, it follows immediately that the virtuous man acts in accordance with his knowledge, therefore to the purpose, rightly, in the way that is beneficial to him. No one does wrong knowingly and purposely : he only does not act rightly who has not right insight. If it sometimes seems as if some one acted wrongly in the face of better insight — "against his better judgment" — it must be that he was not clearly and surely in possession of this better knowledge, for otherwise he would have purposely injured himself, which is absurd.
In this a fundamental difference between Socrates and the Sophists becomes evident: the latter maintained the originality of the will, and on that account its warrant from Nature ; for Socrates, to will a thing and to regard a thing as good, profitable, and useful are the same thing. Knowledge determines the will without opposition ; man does what he holds to be best. True as it may be that Socrates was in error in this opinion, and that the truth lies in the mean between him and the Sophists, this his intellectualistic conception of the will came to exercise a decisive influence over all ancient ethics.
Sin is, then, error. He who does a bad act does it from a mistaken judgment, regarding the bad, i. e. the injurious, as the good ; for every one believes that he is doing the good, i. e. the advantageous. Only because the case stands thus is there any meaning in instructing men ethically ; only for this reason is virtue capable of being taught. For all teaching addresses itself to man's knowledge. Because man can be taught what the good therefore — and by this means alone — he can be brought to the stage of right action. Were virtue not knowledge, would not be capable of being taught.
From this standpoint Socrates raised the customary
taught by the popular moralising to scientific plane. All his keenness, his subtlety, and dialectical dexterity were employed to prove against the Sophists that not only the surest, but even the only sure way of attaining to permanent happiness, lies in obeying ethical prescriptions under all circumstances, in subordination to law and morals. So he gives back to Authority her right. The prin-
Compare in Plato the refutation of Thrasymachus in the first book of the Republic, which may be regarded as Socratic in its principles, but which in part
very weakly supported, both in form and in matter.
morality
is
1
'
a
it
is,
2, § ". ] Problem of Morality : Socrates. 81
eiple of the Enlightenment tolerates no unquestioning subjection to the existing state of things and requires examination of the laws ; but these laws sustain the examination, they evince themselves to be requirements' made by- insight into what is for the best; and because it has now been recognised that it is the right course to obey them,
unconditional obedience must be rendered. 1 Far from being in con flict with the institutions of law and morals, Socrates is rather the one who undertook to prove their reasonableness and thereby their daim to universal validity. *
F. Wildauer, Socrates' Lehre torn Willen. Innsbruck, 1877.
St. Heinae, Der Eudamonismu* in der griechischen Philosophie. Leips. 1883.
7. In addition to the psychologico-ethical presuppositions that the will is always directed toward what is recognised as good, and that therefore virtue, as knowledge of the good, draws after it of itself the appropriate action, we find in the argumentations of Socrates the further opinion that this appropriate action of the virtuous man actually attains its end and makes him happy. Happi
ness or tctll-being (<v&u/jovui) is the necessary result of virtue. The intelligent man knows, and hence does, what is good for him ; he most then, through his doing, become happy also. This assump tion applies, however, only to a perfect intelligence which would be absolutely certain of the effects that an intended action would have in the connected series of the world's events.
' In detail*, as might be expected from the nature of the cane, this rehabilita- tro of the popular morals falls into trivial moralising, especially as Xenophon portrays it. But while Socrates hoped precisely by this means to render the mil arrrice to his people, it proved to be just the point where lie came to the errand between two stools : with the Sophists and their adherents, lie passed for a reactionary ; on the other hand, the men who, like Aristophanes, saw pre cisely in the questioning of the authority of law and morals in general, the dan-
iwm cancer of the time, without investigation classed hitn who wished to fiaer this authority on a basis of reason, among those who were undermining B. So it *u that it could come about that Socrates appeared in the Clouds of A»t/>phanes aa the type of Sophistic teaching which he combated.
' It ia hence quite alieji to the principles of Socrates to demand or even to *"lr,r fur every (ndiridnal art a special examination of the ground* of the polit ical or ethical command If, for example, it has once been recognised a» right to obey the ordinances of the government under all circumstances, this obedience sin then be rendered, even if the ordinance evidently commands the un reason - tS> and the unjust ; cf . Plato's Crito. If, as was true of Socrates himself, a man a ruoTtnced that bis life is under divine guidance, and that where his insight if** not suffice, a higher voice warns him through his feeling, — at least, warns \xm away from what is wrong, — then he must obey this voice. Cf. on the Imm,, a 8. The essentia! thing always is that a man give an account to him- •rff ot hat doing, but the grounds on which he acts in so doing may even consist
lima aa exclude an examination in individual cases.
82 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part L
The transmitted expressions of Socrates, in fact, make the impres sion that he was convinced that man could possess that insight which by its operation upon his action and its consequences is adapted to bring about happiness, and that he might gain this insight through philosophy : that is, through unremitting earnest examination of himself, of others, and of the relations of human life. Investigations as to how far the world's course, which man cannot foresee, may cross and destroy the operation even of the best planned and most intelligent conduct of life, are not to be pointed out in the teaching of Socrates. When we consider the slight degree of confidence which he otherwise had in human knowledge, as soon as this attempted to venture beyond establishing ethical conceptions and practical requirements, we can explain the above conviction only on the following basis — he did not fear that the
providential guidance, which was for him indeed an object not of knowledge, but of faith, would frustrate the beneficial consequences of right action.
8. Socrates had defined virtue, the fundamental ethical concep tion, as insight, and this in turn as knowledge of the good, but had given to the concept of the good no universal content, and in a cer tain respect had left it open. This made it possible for the most diverse conceptions of life to introduce their views of the ultimate end (rtXof) of human existence into this open place in the Socratic concept ; and so this first incomplete work in the formation of ethi cal conceptions at once afforded the material for a number of partic ular structures. 1 The most important of these are the Cynic and the Cyrenaic. Both present the attempt to define the true intrinsic worth of the life of the individual in a universal manner. Both wish to show in what man's true happiness consists, how man must be constituted and how he must act in order to attain this with cer tainty ; both call this constitution or disposition through which participation in happiness is gained, virtue. The eudaemonistic side of the Socratic ethics is here developed in an entirely one-sided manner, and though universal validity is vindicated for the concep tion proposed, the point of view of the individuafs happiness forms so exclusively the standard that the worth of all relations of public life even is estimated by it. In Cynicism, as in Hedonism, the Greek spirit is proceeding to appropriate the fruit which the conditions
1 So indeed in the case of Xenophon and Machines ; the philosophising cob bler Simon, loo, seems to have have been thus dependent on Socrates. What the Megarian and the Elean-Eretrian schools accomplished in this respect is too indefinitely transmitted to us, and is too closely in contact with Cynicism, to deserve separate mention.
Chat. 2, § 7. ] Problem of Morality : Antisthenes. 88
of life brought about by civilisation yield for the fortune of the individual. The criticism of the social conditions and authorities, begun by the Sophists, has won a fixed standard through the medi ating aid of the Socratic conception of virtue.
The doctrine of virtue taught by Antisthenes ' takes at the begin ning a high and specious turn at the point where the doctrine finds itself hopelessly entangled in the Socratic circle. He declines to define more closely the contents of the concept of the good, and declares virtue itself to be not only the highest, but the only good, understanding, however, by virtue essentially only the intelligent con- d»ci of life. This alone makes happy, not indeed through the conse quences which it brings about, but through itself. The contentment that dwells within the right life itself is accordingly completely
independent of the world's course : virtue is itself sufficient for happiness ; the wise man stands free in the presence of fate and fortune.
But this Cynic conception of virtue as sufficient in itself is, as is shown by its further development, in nowise to be interpreted as meaning that the virtuous man should find his fortune in doing good for its own sake amid all the whims of fate. Cynicism did not rise to this height, however much it may sound like it when
nrtue is celebrated as the only sure possession in the vicissitudes of life, when it is designated as the only thing to be striven for, and baseness, on the contrary, as the only thing to be avoided. This doctrine is a postulate derived with great logical consistency from the Socratic principle that virtue necessarily makes happy (cf.
above, 7), and from this postulate Antisthenes sought in turn to define the real contents of the concept of virtue.
If, namely, virtue is to make happy with certainty and under all rirrumstances, it must be that conduct of life which makes man as imiUpendent as possible of the course of events. Now every want and every desire is a bond which makes man dependent upon fortune, is to far as his happiness or unhappiness is made to consist in
whether a given wish is fulfilled or not by the course of life. We have no power over the outer world, but we have power over our desires. We expose ourselves the more to alien powers, the more »> desire, hope, or fear from them ; every desire makes us slaves of the outer world. Virtue, then, which makes man independent, can consist only in suppression of desires, and restriction of wants to the smallest conceivable measure. Virtue is freedom from
— from the standpoint of eudsemonism certainly the most Principally preserved in Ding. Laert. VI. Xen. Symp. 34 fl.
1
i,'
*
4.
84 The Greeks : Anthropological Period. [Part L
consistent conclusion, and one that must have appealed especially to men of a humble position in life such as we find the Cynics to be in
part.
By carrying out this thought in a radical manner the Oynics came
to occupy a purely negative attitude toward civilisation. By aiming to reduce the measure of the virtuous wise man's wants to what was absolutely inevitable, and to regard all other strivings as pernicious or indifferent, they rejected all the goods of civilisation and attained the ideal of a state of Xature, — an ideal stripped of all higher worth. Taking up earlier Sophisti; theories and developing them farther, they taught that the wise man accommodates himself only to what
Nature peremptorily demands, but despises all that appears desir able or worthy of obedience merely as the result of human opinion or institution. Wealth and refinement, fame ar. d honour, seemed to them just as superfluous as those enjoyments of the senses which went beyond the satisfaction of the most elementary wants of hunger and love. Art and science, family and native land, were to them indifferent, and Diogenes owed his paradoxical popularity to the ostentatious jest of attempting to live in civilised Greece as if in a state of Nature, solely <£iW.
