Plato's Pragmatism mounts a defence of a pragmatist reading of Plato, attempting to illustrate that Plato is more of a pragmatist than an aletheist. The authors claim that Plato's ultimate goal is ‘not truth and knowledge but rather living well and maintaining psychological harmony’ (p. 6) and that, where there is a conflict between the epistemic and the practical, the latter has priority. This is difficult ground, given the inextricable unity of practical and theoretical reason; the impossibility of a conflict between epistemic and practical norms is indicative of Plato's aletheism.
The book's coda states that ‘Our primary aim has been to present a plausible case for the view that Plato's general normative outlook is more pragmatic than alethic’ (p. 197). My hope for the project is commensurate with the authors: ‘we hope that the preceding chapters will open new avenues within Plato scholarship and encourage interpreters to reconsider some of their long-held assumptions, even if only to eventually defend them with renewed vigor’ (p. 197). The authors’ evidence and arguments may not meet with their hopes, and our vigour is ok. The claim that ‘the primary reason for studying philosophers such as Plato is to facilitate the development of one's own answers to vital philosophical questions’ (p. 198) engenders the worry that a ‘long-dead philosopher’, incapable of defending himself due to his condition, will be co-opted into supporting his antithesis. The ad hominem point, ‘that some might be hesitant to accept all of [our] conclusions … is understandable; as Socrates says, the beliefs that we hold at an early age are very hard to erase. Most of us were taught some version of the Alethic Interpretation when first introduced to Plato’ (p. 39), suggests that people are incapable of revising their views when presented with convincing argument. It may simply be that one's failure to extract a palinode from another is more likely to be explained by weak argument.
In order to advance the pragmatist reading of Plato, three essential elements of an alethic reading of Plato are challenged, namely: (a) truth is always preferable to falsehood; (b) beliefs should not be formed in the absence of strong evidence; (c) a philosopher can never benefit from false belief or epistemic risk. To these claims the authors counter respectively: (a) falsehoods are sometimes necessary for the health of the soul; (b) sometimes the demands of living well require beliefs in the absence of strong evidence; (c) philosophers benefit from falsehoods, just as non-philosophers do. The book has three parts, each addressing one of the three claims.
Chapter 1 employs the Republic to argue that falsehood is sometimes preferable to truth, as in cases where a falsehood is more effective than truth at producing true ethical commitments. Chapter 2 employs the Laws to corroborate the defence of useful falsehoods derived from the Republic. However, the argument establishes not that falsehood is preferable to truth, but rather that falsehood is necessary in certain circumstances. That the myths employed in the Laws’ preludes are necessary for those who cannot engage in deep philosophical reasoning does not establish that falsehoods are preferable. The claim that ‘it would seem that truth isn't always preferable to falsehood since it would make sense to endorse an insignificant falsehood for the sake of producing and sustaining a more significant truth’ (p. 60) shows only that a falsehood is a minor pragmatic move that is subservient to a higher truth. This seems to undermine the main thrust of the position that Plato is more pragmatic than alethic.
Chapter 3 argues that ‘Plato's chief concern is ethical commitments … and that acts and outcomes are of secondary importance’ (p. 67). Are what the authors identify as pragmatism rather myths bearing truth or emotional protreptic? If so, the summum bonum of such ‘pragmatic’ activity is the truth that grounds correct ethical commitments. The question becomes not whether Plato was a pragmatist, but whether employing falsehoods in the service of correct ethical commitments amounts to pragmatism, since I find it hard to deny that there are onto-ethical truths or true ethical commitments towards which Plato intends to orient us.
Chapter 4 challenges the ‘Epistemic Caution Claim’, the principle that we ought never to form beliefs without strong evidence, since, in the Phaedo, Socrates is willing to embrace a belief in an afterlife without strong evidence. This is not a refutation of the Epistemic Caution Claim, but an exception to it, the exceptional case of impending death, since even then Socrates exhorts Simmias and Cebes not to violate the principle.
Chapter 5 argues that it is not only the extreme case of facing death that justifies abandoning the Epistemic Caution Claim, since in the Meno too, belief in the possibility of knowledge lacks evidence. However, the Meno resembles the Phaedo in attempting to counter misology. If the Socratic claim that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ leads to the idea that misology thus renders life worthless, then it is not the case that Plato rejects the Epistemic Caution Claim as a norm, but merely that he does so in certain exceptional circumstances. I suspect that what the authors call risk is really protreptic, a vital concept that is all but ignored in the book.
The foray into the Euthydemus in Chapter 6 would also benefit from an analysis of the protreptic benefits of eristic. The two sophists misrepresent philosophy; failure to move beyond the protreptic effects of eristic is sophistry, which is why Isocrates, often identified as the anonymous critic in the dialogue, refused to engage in protreptic, much as Gorgias’ teacher refused to teach virtue. Such contextualisation would benefit the analysis offered in the book. It is difficult to see how the interesting and insightful ‘dichotomy of circumspection principle’ lines up with the mocking of the two brothers in the Euthydemus. As the authors define the principle, ‘The more believable an interlocutor or idea appears, the more caution is needed, while the more ridiculous an interlocutor or idea appears, the less caution is needed’ (p. 137). It would be more consistent to say, even independently of the principle, and certainly in line with it, that Socrates’ praise of the Chians is ironic and that less caution is needed with them than with Protagoras.
Chapter 7 explores whether falsehood and epistemic risk are beneficial for the philosopher as well as the layperson, answering affirmatively: ‘philosophers believe the falsehoods of the noble lie in the non-reasoning part of their souls, and that these false beliefs have positive ethical value because the non-reasoning part is too unsophisticated to grasp the complete truth’ (p. 158). However, once the philosophers have completed their full education, they would have passed eikastic and pistic understanding, through hypothesis and on to understanding what is true and what is false in the noble lie. I do not see the logic of discussing this in the context of the philosopher.
Chapter 8 discusses Plato's position that, unlike mortals, the gods have no need to lie. This is hardly puzzling; the gods have no need of lying whereas we do, because we are not gods. It does not mean that we find lying preferable, a strange assumption that permeates the book.
Do the authors intuitively believe in an aletheist reading of Plato, where lies are exceptions? Consider the following statement that Socrates lying about the gods telling lies is implausible: ‘While Socrates endorses the use of deception in certain contexts … the fact that this interpretation makes Socrates a liar and Plato a misleading writer is a significant strike against it’ (p. 181). To address the difficulties, one must engage in what the authors avoid, taking a stand on issues like Socratic ignorance and irony, prosopography and indeed the purpose and aims of the Republic. Supplanting a coherent intellectualist reading of Plato with a pragmatist reading based on selective text extracts read in isolation from the Platonic corpus as a whole seems overly optimistic.
