The Dialectic of Givenness in the Myth of Er

The Myth of Er has been subject to numerous interpretations.  In this essay, I argue for an interpretation which I call the dialectic of givenness.  In this dialectic, the Myth of Er holds two concepts in tension.  One the one hand, there exists a givenness to each of our embodied lives.  This is represented by the soul’s journey after the River of Unheeding, where it inherits the life circumstances that have already been chosen.  I argue that we may interpret Socrates as exhorting us to recognize how the given particulars of our lives impact who we are, as a corrective to some interpretations of Plato’s body/soul dualism.  On the other hand, the recognition of this givenness leads to recognize that there are some things still under our control, and choices regarding these things affect who we become.  Thus, inasmuch as we do have the power to choose our external conditions, we must do so with the utmost care.  This is represented by the choice one makes at Lachesis for the kind of life one will enter into next.   Because of this second principle, I argue that Socrates shows us how moral transformation cannot be achieved simply through exposure to philosophy or attention to the forms.  The practical choices that affect one’s everyday life and circumstances will ultimately affect the moral formation of the soul.  I conclude by showing how this understanding of the Myth can produce an ongoing dialectic in the life of one who attends to its exhortation.  This dialectic may produce a cyclical structure of moral transformation in an agent, utilizing the resources of philosophy while respecting its limits.  

Love & Temporality

I found strange, and unsatisfactory, the Socratic argument that one cannot love what one already possesses.  This argument makes me suspicious about Socrates’ theory of love. His argument goes something like this. 

Love is desire for what is loved. 

It is necessary that desire is always of something of which one is in need.

If one has something, it is no longer in need of it

Therefore, one cannot love something that one already possesses

Socrates says that (given the previous argument) if one thinks one desires something already possessed, this is a kind of illusion that must be given a temporal explanation.  Socrates says that if you are already in possession of something, what you want “is to possess these things in time to come, since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them.”  (200d) Therefore, it is more appropriate to say, “I want the things I have now to be mine in the future as well” (200d).  According to this theory, there seems to be a kind of odd temporal dimension to love.  For the things we do not possess, we can desire now, but for things we do possess, what we desire is really some future state.  This temporal effect also seems to have an impact on the metaphysics of what is loved.  The referent of what is loved switches from something actual to something possible, from an actuality to a potentiality. 

There does seem to be something intuitive to the claim that Love desires to possess what is loved through time.  It would hardly be worth arguing that love desires what love possesses now also in the future.  But what seems unacceptable is the notion that one cannot love what one possesses now, in this very moment.  If this is a result of the “love is desire” thesis, then the worse for that thesis.  If anyone has ever been in love, one knows that the fullest joy of love is the very moment of loving and being loved in return.  In this moment, one does possess what one loves, the beloved.  Perhaps we need to augment Socrates theory with something like “enjoyment”.  That Love is the desire and enjoyment of what is loved.  Perhaps I’m way off base here.  I would be interested in discussing this in class.

Republic X

In the first part of Republic 10, Socrates takes up a sustained attack on poetic “imitators,” using Homer as his case example.  He challenges the assumption many people have about writers and poets: that because “a good poet produces fine poetry, he must have knowledge of the things he writes about” (598e).  Socrates first asks a series of questions.  (1) If someone has both the ability to make a thing itself and an image of a thing, would he really bother about making images and “put this at the forefront of his life as the best thing to do?” (599b). The obvious answer here seems to be no.  He would make real things, not images and stories.  Also, (2) wouldn’t someone with such skill be more serious about actual life deeds rather than writing about such deeds, so that he could be “the subject of a eulogy [rather] than the author of one?” (599b) (3) When Homer was alive, Socrates asks whether or not he had a following of people?  Were there people who were compelled to live with him and learn from him? Apparently there were no such reports of Homer, unlike other famous philosophical figures such as Pythagoras. 

Socrates point seems to be that if one truly has the skill of virtue, great deeds, or the good life, one would not busy themselves with simply writing about it, but doing it.  He does allow for an exception: that of a teacher.  A teacher may busy herself with communicating her knowledge to students.  But the proof that one’s teaching is worthwhile can and should be seen in the lives and the communities of those who are following.  If one is a knowledgeable teacher, and not just an imitator, then there should be followers, and these should be affected in a tangible way by one’s teaching.

Socrates attack continues; this time on a slightly different front.  In his first examples and questions, his panegyric was directed at the life of a person with skill – the craftsman – as being informed by knowledge, rather than the imitator.  But now Socrates shows that even the craftsman is not the one who has true knowledge.  The person with true knowledge is the one who uses what the craftsman builds.  The cobbler and the flute-maker take instructions from those who actually ride and play – the horseman and the flute-player (601d-e).  These are the people with true knowledge who tell others what makes a thing good and bad (e.g. good and bad bridals, good and bad flutes).

While I think Socrates criticisms of imitative poetry in Republic X is certainly aimed at the discipline of poetry itself, I think it may be doing more than that.  The obvious point is that we should recognize our love and enjoyment of poetry can be detrimental to living a healthy life of moderation (see 605b).  But I think he also shows us that philosopher can and should turn this same attack on herself, asking the same questions.  “Am I, as a philosopher, only busying myself with words?  What sorts of life deeds am I producing as the product of my philosophy?  How have the lives of those I’ve taught been impacted?”  In Socrates view, the heart of philosophy is about finding the good life for oneself and developing it in others.  This was a Socratic characteristic that Kierkegaard would later pick up on and admire.  Kierkegaard saw acutely the necessity for a connection between one’s lived experience and one’s ideas.  He thought it ludicrous to build up a philosophical “world-system” that one could not oneself inhabit.  I think both Socrates and Kierkegaard are right about this, and it is a challenge to all of us as future teacher and scholars.