Sep

14

On Plato’s Cleitophon

Filed Under philosophy, plato 

for David Ring

The essay by Clifford Orwin that this polemic tangentially engages is entitled “On the Cleitophon,” and found in “The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues,” ed. Thomas Pangle.

Cleitophon is a character in the Republic who agrees with Thrasymachus’ assertion that justice is the interest of the stronger. When this assertion is challenged with the notion that perhaps the stronger does not know what is in his best interest, Thrasymachus and Cleitophon diverge. Thrasymachus asserts that he who is truly strong must know what is best; Cleitophon solves the problem by saying that justice is merely following the will of the stronger in all cases.

Cleitophon is a positivist of the lowest sort - he’s the kind of idiot who can say Nazi law is law, because a governing authority instantiated it. I want to discuss the short dialogue which bears his name, a dialogue that serves as a counter-Apology of sorts, in order to make this opinion I have stand, as well as explore a deeper question: If Cleitophon, who actually did rule, represents the thinking that must underlie the political if it is to be efficacious, then does philosophy have anything to teach us about political life? Is political philosophy actually possible when all is said and done?

Let us summarize the dialogue quickly: Socrates begins by telling Cleitophon he heard that Cleitophon himself said time spent with Thrasymachus was better than time spent with Socrates. Cleitophon immediately counters this, saying he could argue in order to show Socrates’ lack of esteem for him was a misjudgement. Socrates says that he will accept the argument’s good points as they will inform him how to live.

Cleitophon then recites an exhortation Socrates himself gave, in which Socrates said Athens does not take virtue or justice or concord for the sake of peace seriously. Instead, Athens “educates” with a view to making as much money as possible. Socrates states that injustice might be a product of ignorance, and if it is involuntary, it should be addressed with the same concern marking Athenian excellence in their other endeavors.

Right away, Cleitophon takes this exhortation to mean that Socrates said that justice is an art, like gymnastics, and that the point about an art is that one who has it becomes an authority. Hence, if you can’t use your eyes or ears well, don’t use them; if you can’t do a craft well, don’t even try it; and if you can’t rule yourself, well, you need someone else to rule you. Cleitophon concludes this part of his thought with the idea that it is a Socratic teaching that statesmanship is the primary art concerned with justice.

Cleitophon then goes on to discuss his Socratic moment, where he asked questions of Socratic disciples in a Socratic style. The thrust of the questioning was roughly this: “Each art has two purposes, to create people who practice the art, and to create things associated with the art. Medicine creates doctors and healthy bodies, then. But justice only creates just men, so what do just men do?”

I don’t think I need to explain how utterly contemptuous I find this question to be, and that the Socratic disciples answer it without dismissing the artificial trick lying at the heart of it - and it is a literally artificial trick, for the division between practitioners and the result of an art suggests human effort only creates, that a natural unity between artisan and craft is just crazy talk - really aggravates me. Still, one disciple answers Cleitophon, saying that friendship among the cities is the goal of justice, and that this friendship is one among equals, and oneness of mind is what justice produces to create this genuine friendship.

Cleitophon and friends note that every art creates a oneness of mind, so there is nothing special about justice. Therefore, based on the least charitable or thoughtful interpretation of a possible Socratic thought, Cleitophon concludes that all Socrates can do is exhort people to justice, but cannot teach what it results in, and thus can’t really teach justice itself, and Thrasymachus is far better to follow concerning these matters.

That’s the summary. I owe it to you now to explain why I have the right to attack Cleitophon for an attitude that is never described in the text explicitly. My argument is very simple: based on the very opening of the dialogue, it is clear that Cleitophon believes the purpose of arguing is not Truth, or how we should live, but rather establishing reputation or authority. This lack of a theoretical perspective is inherently beneath humanity. You can’t be human and wholly practical; the assumption one can also leads to political reasoning that treats the governance of men as if they were beasts or herds.

But the political philosophers that establish such a tradition do so for security and order against people like Cleitophon, who are only concerned with their own honor, the common good be damned. They concede to Cleitophons because they know the danger posed - Cleitophon is, after all, part of the circle that condemns Socrates, the driving force that will kill wisdom in order to preserve itself.

I want to fault Clifford Orwin in his essay on the Cleitophon for dancing around this issue. Looking for a formal criterion to condemn Cleitophon’s argumentation does not do justice to the fact we are reading a part of a larger drama. We need to observe the psychology of Cleitophon, and that means making a value judgement from the beginning. We should be furious while reading this dialogue, given that Cleitophon’s arguments are indistinguishable from the majority of men today, and that the possibility of deliberation is a very clouded one, therefore.

Lacking the theoretical, Cleitophon denies that people do any good independent of explicit and comprehensive rule. His denial of sense, faculties and our ability to rule ourselves is the truest tyranny. He’s saying most of us don’t know how to be human, not ever. The whole argument I’m using against Cleitophon is that he is below the human because he purposefully denies something integral to human life for trivial and base reasons. Cleitophon’s own argument relies on the idiotic notion that people can’t use their eyes or ears. He takes the “involuntary” part of Socrates’ allusion to “virtue is knowledge” and distorts it to mean anything involuntary is bad. That means if Nature is a guide - a guide which we never assented to fully, perhaps never can assent to fully - it is meaningless.

Cleitophon’s Socratic moment is a mockery of the Socratic notion of the soul in the Republic. Cleitophon asserts that there is exhortation about justice, which Socrates, he says, does well. He also asserts there is a teaching about justice, which creates just men, and there must be a direct result of justice, just like potters make pots. The exhortation/teaching/result triad is what I want to focus on. If we make this parallel with the movement of the Republic, we move from the spirited to the rational to the appetitive. The thumotic has upset the rational, and the desire to rule, which is underlying the thumotic, collapses with the use of knowledge into the mere satisfaction of appetites.

There is a large question about the Socratic disciple, and where he goes astray, if he goes astray. I don’t think there’s any doubt he goes astray in accepting Cleitophon’s question as is, as if it is a genuine inquiry into the nature of the soul, as opposed to a loaded line of questioning meant to tear him apart. Friendship and oneness of mind are worthy goals, and it isn’t clear that knowing arts well creates oneness of mind. Knowing and practicing virtue is a different story, but the disciple is not allowed that answer because of the way the question was set up.

There is far more to this dialogue. Orwin’s essay is clever, but does not get at the fact that this dialogue really is an exhortation. Cleitophon is scum, there’s no way around it, and to treat him with distance, and say “this is the mark of the academy, to consider carefully” is to miss what’s really at stake, that we’re tyrants too, missing the virtue underlying our best faculties for the sake of the value of our activities. Only when we can agree that purely formal positions lack the psychological insight needed in order to see who is truly serious about philosophy and justice can we begin political philosophy. We need to address, through questions that examine the political, who is serious first, and then embark on our quest.

Comments

4 Responses to “On Plato’s Cleitophon”

  1. David Sullivan on December 15th, 2008 3:23 pm

    Sounds like a Fledgling President…

  2. ashok on December 15th, 2008 3:44 pm

    @ David - Cleitophon is definitely concerned with power for power’s sake. What’s amazing is how sophisticated his argumentation gets, even having such an awful premise: his primary concern, “power at all costs,” means that the means to power (arts) give the exact same goods justice does, and therefore justice isn’t really a concern.

    It’s such a slick argument we make it every day and don’t realize what we’re doing.

  3. machinepolitick on December 15th, 2008 8:55 pm

    It looks to me like Cleitophon is an idiot or a very evil man. He has contributed much to the current political mindset, apparently.
    I know his use of the word art doesn’t apply in the obvious way, but it is fitting as such. In alot of ways, the art community is just as slimy and manipulative as the political arena.
    Thanks for another great explanation. I wouldn’t know where to find half this stuff.

  4. ashok on December 15th, 2008 9:03 pm

    @ machinepolitick - It looks like Cleitophon hates freedom, but that’s where things get tricky.

    He insists that people should be rewarded for knowing and acting effectively. “Interest of the stronger” here, given that Cleitophon is a democrat, puts him in the position of being anyone today.

    The only way around the tyranny is to take seriously what is useless, and that has a whole line of traps associated with it - we know how cultish that can get. But it cuts off Cleitophon’s ability to ask what a just man produces.

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