An Imaginary Dialog: Socrates meets a Skeptic

Socrates and Skepticus meet in Piraeus at Polemarchus’s house, where Socrates had just a few weeks ago had the discussions that are detailed in Book One of Plato’s Republic. The group has just had dinner and is settling down to an evening of discussion. As a newcomer to the group, Skepticus asks the first question.

Skepticus: Tell me, Socrates, what is the most important thing to learn about?

Socrates[1]: The form of the good is the most important thing to learn about, and that it is by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial. You know that even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us, any more than if we acquire any possession without the good[2].

Skepticus: We haven’t understood what is good as yet, so how can we begin to decipher its pattern? You must explain.

Socrates: The masses believe pleasure to be the good, while the more refined believe it to be knowledge. But they cannot show us what sort of knowledge it is, but in the end are forced to say that it is knowledge of the good[3] -- as if we understood what they mean when they utter the word “good”[4].

Skepticus: That sort of circular reasoning does not lead us to a conclusion. I have heard it said that good has three meanings. In one of its meanings, good, they say, is that by which utility may be gained, this being the most principal good and virtue; in another meaning, good is that of which utility is an accidental result, like virtue and virtuous actions; and thirdly, it is that which is capable of being useful; and such is virtue and virtuous action and the good man and the friend, and gods and good demons. But in describing as good what is useful or what is choiceworthy for its own sake or what is contributory to happiness, one is not exhibiting the essence of the good but stating one of its properties[5].

Socrates: What about those who define the good as pleasure? Are they any less full of confusion than the others? Or aren’t even they forced to admit that there are bad pleasures? I suppose it follows, doesn’t it, that they have to admit that the same things are both good and bad?[6]
Skepticus: The properties that indicate something is good belong either to the good only, or to other things as well. But if they belong to other things as well, they are not, when thus extended, characteristic marks of the good. On the other hand, if they belong only to the good, it is not possible to derive from them a notion of the good[7]. This would lead to circular reasoning.
Socrates: Isn’t it clear, then, that there are lots of serious disagreements about the good? Yet this is what every soul pursues, and for its sake does everything. The soul has a hunch that the good is something, but it is puzzled and cannot adequately grasp just what it is or acquire the sort of stable belief about it that it has about other things[8].

Skepticus: If we closely examine any of our opinions, not just about the good, we can find contradictions of equal weight in the views expressed by various thinkers. Hence the only stable position is to suspend judgment and come to a state of quietude in respect to matters of opinion. The man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is forever disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good, he believes himself to be tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good. On the other hand the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed[9].

Socrates: Must we remain thus in the dark about something of this kind and importance[10]?

Skepticus: This lack of understanding is not just about the good, but is equally true about the notion of evil. This is because nothing is by nature either good, or evil or indifferent. By indifferent I mean “that which contributes neither to happiness nor to unhappiness”. Things that move by their very nature, move all men alike. But as we are not all moved alike by the so-called goods, there is nothing good by nature. In fact it is impossible to believe either all the views now set forth, because of their conflicting character, or any of them. As there does not exist any agreed criterion or proof, I am reduced to suspending judgment, and consequently I am unable to affirm positively what the good by nature is[11].

Socrates has been unable to shake off Skepticus’s argument that deciding whether something is good or bad is impossible if we consider all the opinions expressed on it by various people. Socrates has himself admitted that some things that are thought to be good, can also be bad. Skepticus has won the first round and declared himself indifferent to the good. Socrates now moves the argument from the good, to the form of the good, hoping that the abstraction will be easier to deal with, compared to the concrete.

Socrates: Let’s set aside what the good itself is for the time being. Instead, let me tell you about what seems to be an offspring of the good. We say that there are many beautiful, many good, and many other such things, thereby distinguishing them in words. We also say that there is a beautiful itself and a good itself, and posit a single form or pattern belonging to each. We say that one class of things is visible but not intelligible, while the forms are intelligible, but not visible[12].

Skepticus: I also distinguish between appearances, which are affective sense impressions, and the reality of the underlying objects. So while some things may appear to be good, we need to judge whether they are really good, and if we are unable to do so, we must suspend judgment and declare that we do not have an opinion whether they are really good. Tell me more about the form of the good, as understanding that may help in judging whether something is good or not.

Socrates: That what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good. Just like the colors of things seen in the light of the sun are more clearly visible than when they are illuminated by the lights of the night, when the soul focuses on something that is illuminated both by truth and what is, it understands, knows and manifestly possesses understanding. Knowledge and truth are goodlike, but the state of the good is yet more honored. Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their existence and being are also due to it; although the good is not being, but something yet beyond being, superior to it in rank and power[13].

Skepticus: Where does this form of the good reside and how is it used by the soul? How do we use this to pass judgment on appearances and determine reality?

Socrates: There are these two kinds of things, the sensible, which you call appearances or the objects of sense perception, and the intelligible, also called the objects of thought. The sensible can be further subdivided into images starting with shadows, then reflections in bodies of water, and the originals of these images—that is, the animals around us, every plant, and the whole class of manufactured things. The intelligible can also be divided into a section where the soul, using the images we have described, is forced to base its inquiry on hypotheses, and proceeding to a conclusion. In the other subsection it makes its way to an unhypothetical first principle, proceeding from a hypothesis, but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigation through them. This is what reason itself grasps by the power of dialectical discussion, treating its hypotheses, not as first principles, but as genuine hypotheses in order to arrive at what is unhypothetical and the first principle of everything. Thus the four subsections correspond to four conditions in the soul: understanding, thought, belief and imagination[14].

Imagination is used to convert the images that are in the visible realm to objects in the mind that preserve their essential properties, but can be willfully changed by the mind. Beliefs are conclusions that are arrived at without reasoning. Those who start from hypotheses and use forms to come to a conclusion, like mathematicians, are engaged in thought. When someone reviews these hypotheses very closely and distills a genuine first principle and then uses it, and only forms but not images, to argue using the power of dialectical discussion to a conclusion, it is called understanding[15].

Skepticus: Thus the form of the good, as well all other forms, is in our imagination, and we use these forms, not images, along with hypotheses to engage in thoughts that lead to conclusions. But as the initial hypotheses cannot be proved, the conclusion we arrive at is on shaky ground. However, I admit that I am still intrigued by your concept of the form of the good and want you to explain what you mean by it.

Socrates expounds on his metaphor of the cave[16], which has most humans strapped into a fixed position able to look only at shadows of real objects created by a fire, and able to only indirectly associate the sounds and smells with these shadows. It is only when they are freed and taken out of the cave into the sunlight that they are able to appreciate reality, and understand the forms including the form of the good. Skepticus doesn’t dispute that humans have a difficult time consistently converting the sense impressions into opinions that everyone agrees on, and instead of assuming that there is a tunnel out of the cave, prefers to suspend judgment.

Socrates: The realm revealed through sight should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the sun’s power. If you think of the journey upward out of the cave as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of the good, and it is seen only with toil and trouble. Once one has seen it, however, one must infer that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that in the visible realm it produces both light and its source, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding; and that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it[17].

Skepticus: While you have constructed an elaborate metaphor that explains why the form of the good is important and how it influences not just the good, but also truth and understanding, you have not described the form itself. It appears to me that we are both shackled in the cave, peering at shadows.

Socrates: This is exactly what I am trying to explain. Those who have not been led out of the cave into the light cannot comprehend the forms, but they remain enamored of the shadows they have seen all their lives. Only those who have been outside can make the judgments about reality while others see only the appearances, the shadows, and cannot apprehend reality. Their souls need to be made receptive to reality through a proper education.

Skepticus: This assumes that the soul is apprehensible, but that seems to be in dispute, with some asserting that the soul has no existence, others that it has existence and the rest have suspended judgment. If we are to make a decision regarding these conflicting claims, and we decide that the soul doesn’t exist, then it is inapprehensible. On the other hand, if we decide that the soul does indeed exist, with what instrument do we so decide? If it is by the intellect, which is the least evident part of the soul – as is shown by those who agree about the real existence of the soul, though differing about the intellect—then that is absurd as they will be proposing to decide and establish the less questionable matter by the more questionable. Thus there is no way to decide if the soul is apprehensible[18].

Even if the apprehensibility of the soul were to be granted, we cannot decide whether the soul has the ability to apprehend the form of the good. In order to prove that the soul of man can apprehend the form of the good, we need the corroboration from the soul of another animal. But why should we believe that other animal, so we would need a further corroboration, and so on ad infinitum[19].

Socrates: But then you can believe nothing!

Skepticus: The skeptic sets out to pass judgment on the sense appearances and ascertain which are true and which false, but finds contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them, suspends judgment. This leads to a state of quietude with respect to matters of opinion[20].

This dialog between Socrates and Skepticus illustrates the difficulty of defining the good as well as the form of the good to the satisfaction of a skeptic. Socrates starts by trying to define good, but after getting stuck in contradictions of his own making, as well as Skepticus’s, he attempts to raise the level of abstraction. However, Socrates’s exposition on the form of the good focuses more on its properties and why it is not evident to humans (as most live in the cave), but not so much on what it is. By contrast, Socrates does a better job describing the form of good poetry[21]with concrete examples of what it should and should not include.

The skeptic not only challenges Socrates in terms of arguments, but eventually the foundation of his thinking. Skepticus believes that by suspending judgment, and accepting the quietude of the inability to know reality, man is happier. Plato believes in knowledge, rather than the willful acceptance of ignorance, as the source of happiness. This fundamental difference of opinion on what makes us truly happy that separates Plato and Sextus Empiricus (and their proxies, Socrates and Skepticus) is all the more relevant today as the explosion of knowledge and data has dimmed our understanding. Accepting that we cannot form an opinion on all that is non-evident leads to mental peace, now more than ever before.

Works Cited
Empiricus, Sextus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Trans. R. G. Bury. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1990.
Plato. Republic. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004.

Animesh Mukherjee
Chris Bobonich
MLA 209: Reason & Reality
Final Paper
March 24, 2007

Notes

[1] Many of Socrates dialogues here are copied verbatim from Plato’s Republic, Trans. Reeve. Quotation marks are not used in order to leave the flow uninterrupted, but every quotation is footnoted with the source. Similarly, some of the arguments given by Skepticus use the text from Sextus Empiricus, Trans. Bury verbatim. The original work in the paper is the juxtaposition of these dialogues to attempt to form a conversation that never happened, as well as a commentary on the arguments.
[2] Plato 505a
[3] Plato 505b5
[4] Plato 505c1
[5] Empiricus III, 171-174
[6] Plato 505c6-c11
[7] Empiricus III, 173
[8] Plato 505d-e
[9] Empiricus I, 26-28.
[10] Plato 506a
[11] Empiricus III, 182.
[12] Plato 507b10
[13] Plato 508e thru 509b9
[14] Plato 509d6 thru 511e5
[15] This interpretation of understanding is based on a conversation with Chris Bobonich
[16] Plato 514a thru 517a6
[17] Plato 517b thru 517c5
[18] Empiricus II, 31-33.
[19] Empiricus II, 36.
[20] Empiricus I, 26-28.
[21] Plato 377e