INTRODUCTION
Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations (= Soph. el.) seeks to uncover the workings of apparent deductive reasoning, and is thereby largely devoted to the caricature of dialectic that the ancients called eristic (ἐριστική), the art of quarrelling. Unlike antilogy (ἀντιλογία), which refers to a type of argumentation where two arguments are pitted against each other in a contradictory manner, eristic takes on in Aristotle an exclusively pejorative meaning, as is made clear, for example, by this passage from Soph. el.: ‘For just as unfairness in a contest is a definite type of fault, and is a kind of foul fighting, so the art of contentious reasoning is foul fighting in disputation.’Footnote 1
If we are to believe Kerferd's influential work, The Sophistic Movement, the situation is hardly different in the works of Aristotle's teacher. Going against a long tradition tending to treat eristic and antilogic as more or less equivalent, Kerferd maintained that, even though Plato uses these two terms in order to refer to the same procedure or to the same people, they never have the same meaning, for they are not distinguished from dialectic in the same way.Footnote 2 Eristic, Kerferd claims, is condemned by Plato, but not antilogic, which he may consider a possible method of argumentation, or even a possible step on the road to dialectic. Eristic is therefore a term that Plato, like Aristotle after him, uses to describe a perversion of dialectic, not a method of argumentation, while antilogic could refer to a specific form of argumentation,Footnote 3 the ancestor of what was later known as the disputatio in utramque partem.
Can this important distinction identified by Kerferd in Plato's treatment of eristic and antilogy stand up to an examination of the few passages from the Platonic dialogues where eristic and antilogy are mentioned together? While Plato uses the vocabulary of contradiction (ἀντιλέγειν, ἀντιλογία, ἐναντία λέγειν, ἐναντίωσις) relatively frequently, his use of the vocabulary of eristic is quite rare.Footnote 4 So there are merely three passages where these two terms (or terms related to them) are used in conjunction: 1) the Euthydemus as a whole—although this dialogue only mentions eristic once, when Socrates notes that the two brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, have recently been trained in the art of quarreling: Euthyd. 272b10; 2) the fifth definition of the sophist proposed by the Visitor in the Sophist (225a–226a), which connects eristic to antilogy, understood as the art of private adversarial disputation, by making the former a species of the latter; 3) lastly, a short passage in the fifth book of the Republic (453b–454c), where eristic and antilogy occur in a somewhat surprising context. It is this last passage that I have chosen to examine in detail in this paper.
There are two reasons for this choice. First, in comparison with the two other passages mentioned above, the Republic passage has been insufficiently studied and its importance has been undervalued.Footnote 5 Second, the analysis of this passage—such at least is one of my main claims—not only sheds light on how Plato conceives the relationship between eristic and antilogy, and their difference from dialectic, but also helps understand why the contrast between these argumentative modes is a crucial issue in the broader context of the long central digression launched by Book 5 of the Republic.
After locating Resp. 5.453b–454c in the wider context of the ‘triple wave’ (τρικυμία) literary motif, Section 1 concentrates on the terminological and argumentative peculiarities of the passage, and raises the central question addressed in this paper: why does Socrates refer to antilogy and eristic in the very context of the first wave concerned with the issue of the equal disposition of men and women? Section 2 considers a possible answer to this question by examining the evidence available on the relation between the Republic and Protagoras, and the possible Protagorean background of Resp. 5.453b–454c. This examination turns out to be inconclusive. Section 3 then attempts to restore the original polemical context of the passage by considering some textual evidence on the Socratic discussion of the virtue of men and women.
1. ANALYSIS OF RESP. 5.453B–454C
The first wave: the equal aptitude of men and women to guard the city
Our Republic passage occurs at the beginning of the long central digression that makes up Books 5 to 7 of the Republic. These books form a sequence at the very heart of the dialogue, unified by a philosophical question that links them to each other and to the overall argument of the Republic. In the beginning of Book 5, at 449a–451b, Socrates is about to launch the argument that will take up most of Books 8 and 9. But his interlocutors interrupt him, for they intend to force him to explain how the common possession of women and children, to which he alluded a few pages earlier (in Book 4, 423e–424a), would be set up in practice (Resp. 5.450c6–d2):
‘You're lucky’, I said, ‘that it isn't you that has to try to explain it, because there's a lot that's hard to believe (πολλὰς γὰρ ἀπιστίας ἔχει), even more than with what we were talking about before. Not only might one not believe my proposals possible (ὡς δυνατά); even if they were entirely possible, there'll still be doubts as to whether they're for the best (καὶ εἰ ὅτι μάλιστα γένοιτο, ὡς ἄριστ’ ἂν εἴη ταῦτα). That's why one hesitates to get involved with it all, in case it looks like mere wishful thinking (εὐχή), my dear friends.’ (transl. Rowe)Footnote 6
One finds in this passage the two questions that unify the whole of the argument to come: are Socrates’ proposals desirable? Are they practicable? These questions indeed give rise to the famous literary motif that unifies in turn the whole of Book 5 and a large part of Book 6: the triple wave (τρικυμία).Footnote 7 Each of the three waves represents the violent reaction of popular opinion that is prompted by the three radical political changes, which, Socrates argues, are conditions of possibility of Kallipolis. Because these three conditions are so contrary to popular opinion, each of them needs to be proved both desirable (which is considered easy by Socrates) and practicable (which he recognizes as fairly complicated). The distinct use Socrates makes of this metaphor of the triple wave therefore helps him emphasize not only that he and his interlocutors are lost at sea with the arguments but also that they need to swim against the tide.Footnote 8
The passage examined in this paper focusses on the first of Socrates’ three proposals: the equal education of men and women because of their equal aptitude to be guards of the city. Just as for the other two proposals, it is the question of practicability that is problematic and requires a more detailed examination, as Plato makes clear by having Socrates devote four Stephanus pages (452e–456c) to whether his first measure is possible, but only a single page to whether it is desirable (456c–457c).Footnote 9 This uneven treatment is explained at bottom by the resistance of opinion that Socrates brings up on several occasions by mentioning the ridicule that his proposals will surely arouse. The crashing force of each wave of the τρικυμία is designed to illustrate the strength of δόξα, against which Socrates opposes his arguments. The first condition for achieving the ideal city—the equal education of men and women—indeed runs the risk of looking ridiculous because the proposed measures are so contrary to custom and current practice. This is exactly the reaction Socrates describes when he announces that henceforth he will be exploring the ‘female drama’ (451c2 τὸ γυναικεῖον [δρᾶμα]), after having explored the male drama in Book 3. This reference to the ‘female drama’ as well as the repeated mentions at 452a–e of the adjective γελοῖον and the allusion to ‘the jibes the wags would make’ (452b7 τὰ τῶν χαριέντων σκώμματα) have often been interpreted as barely veiled allusions to Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen. Footnote 10 I will refrain from reopening this debate.Footnote 11 What I consider to be more important here is that, in order to question the true viability of the first condition of the ideal city, Socrates insists that one should solely consider the force of arguments, while dismissing the evidence of the senses and, more generally, of opinion, which jokers use in order to jeer and mock.Footnote 12
Nature and competence: the objection and Socrates’ response
Once Socrates states his first proposal, he examines its feasibility, reformulating the question thus at 453a: is female human nature capable of sharing all the tasks of male human nature, none of these tasks, or at least some of them, including the art of war that the guards are trained to master?
Answering this question brings about an objection, which, in turn, leads Socrates to mention eristic and antilogy. Socrates and his interlocutors have indeed so far supported the validity of the principle of specialization, stipulating that it is in keeping with nature that each individual perform a task in accordance with his nature.Footnote 13 Yet, according to Socrates, the nature of women differs from the nature of men. It is therefore contrary to nature to assign them the same tasks. Glaucon is unable to respond to this objection, and asks Socrates, who had formulated it, to defend the ‘argument on our side’ (453c8 τὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν λόγον).
Socrates’ answer consists in demonstrating that, despite the obvious biological characteristics differentiating men and women,Footnote 14 these differences are not pertinent to the administration of the city and in no way affect the ability of women to be guards. More precisely still, Socrates develops an argument in two distinct steps.Footnote 15 The first (453e–455a) is broad in scope and comes down to demonstrating the necessity of distinguishing between ‘identical nature and different nature, in the absolute sense’ (454c8 πάντως τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ τὴν ἑτέραν φύσιν) and ‘that form of differentiation and assimilation that concerns the performance of the tasks in question’ (454c9–d1 ἐκεῖνο τὸ εἶδος τῆς ἀλλοιώσεώς τε καὶ ὁμοιώσεως […] τὸ πρὸς αὐτὰ τεῖνον τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα). The second step of the argument (455a–456c) consists in asking if there are tasks relative to the administration of the city and peculiar to women. Socrates begins by recalling what it means to be naturally well suited for something and shows that no task relative to the administration of the city falls to a woman simply because she is a woman, but only because she is capable of performing it.Footnote 16
Such is the content of Socrates’ argument in response to the objection he says was made to him. Let us now consider the very form and precise wording of this objection.
Eristic, antilogy, dialectic
At 453e, Socrates reformulates the objection his first measure was confronted with, and then offers the following comment (Resp. 5.453e2–454b9):
‘Come on, then,’ I said, ‘and let's see if we can somehow find a way out. Here goes. We agree that different natures must be assigned different pursuits, and that a man's nature and a woman's are different; now we're saying that these two different natures must share the same pursuits. That's what we're accused of?’
‘Exactly that.’
‘What a noble power it is, Glaucon,’ I said, ‘that antilogic has!’
‘How so?’
‘Because a lot of people seem to me to fall into it unintentionally, and think they're having a discussion when they're really only point-scoring. It's because they lack the ability to analyse what's being said by distinguishing different kinds of thing; they set their sights on contradicting what's been said, in a purely verbal way, thus engaging in competition with one another rather than in dialectic.’
‘Yes, that certainly does happen to many people,’ he said, ‘but surely your description doesn't apply to us, and what we're doing now?’
‘Yes, it certainly does,’ I said, ‘the first part, at any rate—we really are in danger of engaging in antilogic, unintentionally.’
‘How?’
‘We're overly keen to score a point by insisting on the idea that the same natureFootnote 17 should not be assigned to the same pursuits, on a purely verbal basis, without having paused even for a moment to think about what kind of difference and sameness in nature we had in mind when we proposed to assign different pursuits to a nature that was different, and the same ones to one that was the same—difference and sameness with reference to what?’
The sudden appearance of technical terminology is a distinctive feature of this passage. For one cannot fail to notice the massive presence of the vocabulary of antilogy,Footnote 18 nor the mentions of eristic,Footnote 19 and even less so the presence of certain technical terms specific to dialectic which occur for the first time in the Republic.Footnote 20 Note also, in the lines preceding this passage, the frequent mentions of controversy (ἀμφισβήτησις),Footnote 21 whose relationship with antilogy is illuminated by a passage from the Sophist (225a–226a) where ἀμφισβήτησις is defined as a species of the art of combat (μαχητική) that uses arguments, as opposed to one that uses the body (called βιαστική). The genus of ἀμφισβητική is in turn split in two: on the one hand, we have δικανική, the macrological art of public controversy, on the other hand, ἀντιλογική, or antilogic, the art of private controversy through questions and answers.
The terminological peculiarity of the passage echoes its distinct argumentative mode. Instead of dealing directly with the difficulty in question, Socrates proceeds by way of questions and answers, by putting himself in the shoes of his anonymous detractors. He thus asks Glaucon: ‘“So,” I said, “do you want us to have the dispute among ourselves, on behalf of the other side (βούλει οὖν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ἡμεῖς πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐτοὺς ὑπὲρ τῶν ἄλλων ἀμφισβητήσωμεν), so that their claims won't be left undefended against our assault?” (ἵνα μὴ ἔρημα τὰ τοῦ ἑτέρου λόγου πολιορκῆται;)’ (453a7–9). This makes clear that it is not only the terms Socrates usesFootnote 22 but also the means of examination itself which refer to a particular discursive practice that would be difficult, in view of this textual evidence, not to identify with antilogy, whose particular power Socrates ironically, but quite naturally, salutes at 454a1–2.
As noted at the beginning of this paper, this passage from Republic Book 5 is, without a doubt, one of the most detailed Platonic passages on the relationship between antilogy and eristic. This is not to deny that this passage also recalls elements present in other dialogues, such as, for example, the opposition between dialogue and disputation (Meno 75c–e, Phil. 17a), or the idea that dialectic is interested in real distinctions, and eristic in words only. Yet, one of the specific interests of this passage, for present purposes, is that it seems to treat antilogy and eristic in exactly the same disparaging way. For it turns out that the power specific to the art of antilogy is merely to give those who devote themselves to it the appearance of discussing something, although they are in reality only quarrelling. According to Socrates, the reason why this situation occurs frequently is that most people are unable to meet the standards of real discussion: few are indeed able to acquire the dialectician's skills, which, notably, consist in dividing according to the true nature of things (454a6 τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι κατ’ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι) and many are those who seek contradiction merely on the verbal level (a7–8 κατ’ αὐτὸ τὸ ὄνομα διώκειν τοῦ λεχθέντος τὴν ἐναντίωσιν). According to Socrates, who voices here the views of his opponent, trying and making his interlocutor contradict himself by focussing on words only is exactly what his detractor is doing. For he contents himself with objecting that it had been accepted that the same nature must have the same task, without ever seeking to distinguish which similarities and differences are pertinent with respect to the question being examined.
At the end of the passage, Socrates recognizes that by being his opponent's spokesperson he has been indulging in antilogy (454b2 ἀντιλογίας). This as well as the overtly critical tone of the passage make it very hard to believe that antilogy is here considered a specific method of argumentation to which dialectic could resort if needed: in this passage, antilogy and eristic are treated as both inextricably linked and condemned with the same vigour.Footnote 23 In that respect, Kerferd's argument according to which Plato considers antilogy and eristic very differently—the former as a kind of value-neutral technique and the latter as irremediably corrupt—does not account for the letter of this Republic Book 5 passage.
It is now high time to raise the most difficult question: why does Socrates proceed in this manner? Why such a technical digression on everything that pits antilogy and eristic against dialectic, at this exact moment of the dialogue, where the question of the equal aptitude of men and women to be guards of the city is addressed? This question appears all the more puzzling in that it is fairly obvious that Socrates could have moved faster and more straightforwardly. First, the objection raised by the anonymous objector is not very strong, for nothing in the preceding pages of the Republic excludes the possibility that women be guards. Quite the contrary: since the construction of the ideal city has been launched, the natural differences that were considered relevant to the present enquiry have been merely those that distinguish each of the three functional groups from the two others. It is therefore unlikely that Socrates, despite what his opponent asserts at 453c, has literally contradicted himself. Second, it is worth noting that the analogy with watchdogs, to which Socrates returns at 451d, would by itself constitute a sufficient indication that women could be guards, for the fact that female dogs give birth to puppies does not prevent them from guarding the flock as well as their fellow male dogs. Yet, Socrates does not summon this analogy a second time. Against all expectations, he prefers to give voice to an opponent, whom he will show to be seeking controversy and not the truth. Why such a surprising move?
2. PROTAGORAS AND THE REPUBLIC
In all likelihood, Plato's decision to bring up the opposition between dialectic, on the one hand, and antilogy and eristic, on the other, while addressing the question of the different natures of men and women, indicates a polemical context. Several targets have been proposed in the scholarly literature to account for Socrates’ abrupt introduction of eristic and antilogy in this passage. James Adam, for instance, writes: ‘Here Plato probably has in view some of the “Sophists” […] as well as the Megarian school, whose well-known puzzles […] are excellent examples of verbal fallacies.’Footnote 24 Adam rightly emphasizes the reference Socrates makes to eristic and antilogy (which he understands in a very broad sense, covering the argumentative practice of the Megarian Socratic school as well as the school of the Sophists), but unfortunately says nothing of the particular context where this reference is made. In this section, I wish to examine the evidence available on another—allegedly more promising—target, namely Protagoras. For the sophist of Abdera is not only credited with the discovery of antilogical (and perhaps even eristic) arguments: he is also sometimes thought to have shown that there are always two sides to every question by using contrasting customs from different cultures. In his lost work, the Antilogies, Protagoras may then have used the kind of material that is found, for example, in the anonymous Dissoi Logoi, where notably the varying roles of men and women in different cities or nations illustrate the relativity of cultural practices.Footnote 25 Is the appeal to a Protagorean background sufficient to explain why Socrates, when he addresses the issue of the equal disposition of men and women, refers to antilogy and eristic?
Consider first Diogenes Laertius’ testimony on Protagoras and antilogical argument (Diog. Laert. 9.51 = DK 80 B6a = D26 Laks–Most):
He was the first person to say that, concerning every subject, there are two arguments opposed to one another, and this is also the way he formulated questions, which he was the first person to do in this way (καὶ πρῶτος ἔφη δύο λόγους εἶναι περὶ παντὸς πράγματος ἀντικειμένους ἀλλήλοις⋅ οἷς καὶ συνηρώτα, πρῶτος τοῦτο πράξας).
Several lines after this passage, in the catalogue of Protagoras’ works, Diogenes Laertius also mentions the Antilogika, in two books. Interestingly, even though the exact content and structure of this work remain mysterious,Footnote 26 the other two passages in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives that mention Protagoras’ Antilogika refer to yet another text, none other than Plato's Republic, whose borrowing from Protagoras is said to be quite considerable:
[…] the Republic, which, Aristoxenus says, was almost entirely written in Protagoras’ Opposing Arguments ([…] ἣν Πολιτείαν Ἀριστόξενός φησι [Wehrli II, fr. 67] πᾶσαν σχεδὸν ἐν τοῖς Πρωταγόρου γεγράφθαι Ἀντιλογικοῖς). (Diog. Laert. 3.38 = R1a Laks–Most)
[…] which [sc. the Republic], Favorinus says in the second book of his Miscellaneous History, is found almost as a whole in Protagoras, in his Opposing Arguments ([…] ἣν καὶ εὑρίσκεσθαι σχεδὸν ὅλην παρὰ Πρωταγόρᾳ ἐν τοῖς Ἀντιλογικοῖς φησι Φαβωρῖνος ἐν Παντοδαπῆς ἱστορίας δευτέρῳ). (Diog. Laert. 3.57 = R1b Laks-Most)
The second passage shows that Diogenes Laertius or his source found this information in Favorinus. It is likely that Favorinus himself found it in Aristoxenus’ Life of Plato. Caution is called for, however, in gauging the degree of historical accuracy in such an accusation, which we know to have been common among ancient authors.Footnote 27 It is clear that Aristoxenus, if he is indeed the source of this anecdote, intended to diminish Plato's merits, and that one must therefore take this information with a grain of salt. However, does the fact that Favorinus—whom one knows not to have been driven by a simplistic form of anti-Platonism—repeats this anecdote not indicate that there is more to it than mere calumny?
The primary interest of this anecdote is to establish a direct link between the Republic and the renowned sophist of Abdera. Socrates makes an explicit mention of Protagoras only once in the dialogue, alongside Prodicus,Footnote 28 but it is relatively well documented that Protagoras played an important role in the early reflections on politeia which form the background of Plato's own endeavour on the subject.Footnote 29 Indeed, Diogenes Laertius reports Heraclides of Pontus’ account in his treatise On Laws,Footnote 30 according to which the laws of the Panhellenic colony of Thourioi, founded c.433 on the Tarentine Gulf, were established by Protagoras.Footnote 31 In addition, the list of Protagoras’ works in Diogenes Laertius includes a Περὶ πολιτείας (9.55), of which we unfortunately know nothing.
Another interest of the anecdote Diogenes found in Favorinus lies in the fact that it is not the Περὶ πολιτείας that Aristoxenus mentions but Protagoras’ Antilogies.Footnote 32 How is one to understand this curious reference? It has been argued that Aristoxenus mentions Protagoras’ Antilogies because he considers Protagoras to be the source of the communist feminist utopia which one finds in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and to which Plato implicitly refers in Book 5 of the Republic.Footnote 33 So, when Aristoxenus claims that ‘nearly all’ of the Republic could already be found in the Antilogies, he is thinking of one of the most distinctive features of the dialogue, the community of wives and children.
The Antilogica was probably a series of ‘twin arguments’ (dissoi logoi), as such exercises were called, demonstrating that there are two sides to every question. Many later examples of this sort of thing have come down to us. Often they make use of the contrasting customs of various nations, especially their sexual customs, to illustrate the relativity of all beliefs and values. Did Protagoras use such material also? In one of these exercises, did he introduce the example of barbarian sexual communism to suggest that some barbarians had found a better way than Greeks to achieve concord? Though Protagoras could probably have produced arguments for any form of constitution, he is portrayed by Plato as a friend of democracy, and therefore this egalitarian example may have appealed to him. If so, then Protagoras himself could have been the source of Herodotus' unexpected belief that certain barbarians on the northern steppes were advanced political philosophers. And perhaps this is why Aristoxenus could claim that Plato had plagiarized the best-known idea in his Republic, communism in goods and women, from Protagoras’ Antilogica. Footnote 34
Is it possible to claim, even as cautiously as Dawson does in this passage, that Aristoxenus is thinking of the common ownership of goods, women and children described in Book 5 of the Republic, when he says that the Republic is ‘almost entirely’ (Diog. Laert. 3.38 πᾶσαν σχεδόν, 3.57 σχεδὸν ὅλην) in the Antilogies?Footnote 35 This has indeed the advantage of having Protagoras belong to the line of utopian thinkers that interest Dawson. Yet, the argument that makes Protagoras a utopian thinker ahead of his time is somewhat problematic, for had Protagoras been such a thinker, it is unlikely that Aristotle would have failed to mention him at the beginning of Book 2 of his Politics. Footnote 36
Alternative accounts of Aristoxenus’ remark are available, but it would be out of place to review them all in this paper, all the more so because Italo Lana, in his 1950 monograph on Protagoras, had already examined the most salient of them, before proposing his own.Footnote 37 There is yet another account that has not been considered either by Lana or by the authors he cites: Aristoxenus may have simply indicated, with an obvious disparagement of Plato's philosophical creativity, that the Republic as a whole, like Protagoras’ Antilogies, consists in several series of opposing arguments on justice.Footnote 38 This view has notably the merit of doing a slightly better job in explaining Aristoxenus’ curious quantitative remark that the Republic is ‘almost entirely’ in the Antilogies.
The Republic, or at least significant parts of it, could indeed be understood as using a broader antilogical approach, inasmuch as it has Socrates answer successively a series of arguments against justice and the just life: first, Thrasymachus’ arguments against justice conceived as a good that one must choose for oneself, and then the additional arguments of Glaucon and Adeimantus, when they act as devil's advocates in Book 2. Following the same path, consider how Adeimantus presents his own contribution to the challenge issued to Socrates by his half-brother (Resp. 2.362e1–4):
‘You're talking nonsense,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I've got some new points; hear me out. What I'm thinking is that we need to rehearse the arguments opposing (τοὺς ἐναντίους λόγους) the ones “our friend here” put—arguments praising justice and denigrating injustice; that is, if we're to get clearer about what I think Glaucon wants to say.’
According to Adeimantus himself, one should examine the ἐναντίοι λόγοι, the arguments that are contrary to Glaucon's, because they praise justice and criticize injustice, while Glaucon's arguments do the opposite.Footnote 39 This examination will make clear that the traditional arguments in favour of justice (including reward) as well as the common opinions expressed on the subject are not sufficient to defend the choice of living a life of justice, and that, as such, the defenders of justice do not have better arguments than its denigrators. The structure of Glaucon and Adeimantus’ examination could therefore be understood as corresponding broadly to an antilogy, where arguments in favour of an unjust and a just life are defended in succession.
Yet, while it might be claimed that the Republic approaches justice and the just life in Books 1–2 by examining successively opposed arguments on the subject, some defending the life of justice, others criticizing it, this approach is not sufficient to count against the very critical view of antilogy defended by Socrates at Resp. 453e–454b, which we have no reason to doubt was Plato's own. What's more, Socrates, as early as Book 1, explicitly turns his back on the antilogical approach. Before examining Thrasymachus’ argument that the life of the unjust is superior to the life of the just, he points out that, rather than fighting Thrasymachus ‘argument against argument’ (348a8 λόγον παρὰ λόγον) and having to call on judges to decide the case, it is better to investigate the question ‘by seeking agreement with each other’ (348b3 ἀνομολογούμενοι πρὸς ἀλλήλους). It is hard not to understand this passage as contrasting constructive dialogue and philosophical enquiry with the sterile opposition of arguments characteristic of antilogy.
Another, perhaps simpler, hypothesis to account for the possible relationship between the Antilogies and the Republic might finally be to suggest that Protagoras’ Antilogies certainly included arguments in favour of and against justice and that Plato could not but take them into consideration in the Republic. Attractive as it may seem, this view is merely speculative. In addition, for the present purpose, it does not in the least help shed light on why Socrates mentions eristic, antilogy and dialectic while addressing the issue of male and female virtue. Admittedly, Diogenes Laertius mentions not only the Antilogies but also an Art of Eristic in the (very likely incomplete) list in which he reports Protagoras’ works.Footnote 40 But neither in Diogenes Laertius nor in anything that has come down to us by and on Protagoras does one find an allusion to the difference in nature between men and women. On the contrary, it could even be argued, albeit speculatively, that Protagoras’ Great Speech in the Protagoras refers to political virtue as belonging to women as well as to men (Prt. 325a), and that Protagoras thus stands on Socrates’ side, despite their major disagreement on the nature of political virtue.
I therefore suggest that one should seek elsewhere the polemical reasons which prompted Plato to mention antilogy and eristic in this precise context.
3. THE POLEMICAL CONTEXT: THE SOCRATIC DISCUSSION ON THE VIRTUE OF MEN AND WOMEN
The similarity between Republic Book 5 453b–454c and other passages in the Platonic dialogues has already been noted. Among these parallel passages stands Meno 75d–e, where one finds a clear opposition between two modes of discussion, one typical of eristic, the other of dialectic.
After several unsuccessful attempts to define moral excellence, Socrates tries and gives Meno a model of definition, and proposes the following definition of shape (σχῆμα): shape, he claims, is that which always accompanies colour. Obscurum per obscurius, Meno replies in substance, castigating Socrates’ naïveté in using in his definition a term (‘colour’) of which his interlocutor could very well be ignorant. This is Socrates’ reaction to Meno's rebuttal (Meno 75c5–d7):
[…] if my questioner was one of those clever and disputatious debaters (τῶν σοφῶν τις […] καὶ ἐριστικῶν τε καὶ ἀγωνιστικῶν), I would say to him: ‘I have given my answer; if it is wrong, it is your job to refute it.’ (σὸν ἔργον λαμβάνειν λόγον καὶ ἐλέγχειν) Then, if they are friends as you and I are, and want to discuss with each other (ἀλλήλοις διαλέγεσθαι), they must answer in a manner more gentle and more proper to discussion (δεῖ δὴ πρᾳότερόν πως καὶ διαλεκτικώτερον ἀποκρίνεσθαι). By this I mean that the answers must not only be true (τὸ διαλεκτικώτερον μὴ μόνον τἀληθῆ ἀποκρίνεσθαι), but in terms admittedly known to the one questioned (ἀλλὰ καὶ δι’ ἐκείνων ὧν ἂν προσομολογῇ εἰδέναι ὁ ἐρωτώμενος). (transl. Grube, slightly modified)
Just like in the Republic Book 5 passage examined in this paper, quarrelsome refutation is pitted against the art of discussion, that is, dialectic. The two passages offer the same contrast between hostile debate and the desire to win the argument by all possible argumentative means, on the one hand, and a friendly climate and the commitment to truth, on the other hand.
The contexts of the two passages are also very similar. Socrates’ methodological lesson to the young Thessalian arose from the difficulties posed by his first answer to the question what moral excellence is. In this first answer (Meno 71d–72a), a self-assured Meno repeats lessons he has learned from Gorgias, and argues that men and women, children and old men, free men and slaves have each a specific form of moral excellence. For a man, it is of course ‘being able to manage public affairs and, in so doing, to benefit his friends and harm his enemies’ (Meno 71e3–4 ἱκανὸν εἶναι τὰ τῆς πόλεως πράττειν, καὶ πράττοντα τοὺς μὲν φίλους εὖ ποιεῖν, τοὺς δ’ ἐχθροὺς κακῶς), while the moral excellence specific to a woman is to ‘manage her home well, preserve its possessions, and be submissive to her husband’ (Meno 71e6–7 τὴν οἰκίαν εὖ οἰκεῖν, σῴζουσάν τε τὰ ἔνδον καὶ κατήκοον οὖσαν τοῦ ἀνδρός).
Although Meno attributes such a conception of virtue to Gorgias,Footnote 41 it was doubtlessly a popular and widely shared idea, for it presupposes, first, the classic distinction between the ‘public’ and typically masculine sphere of the polis and the ‘private’ sphere of the oikos (the women's domain) and, second, the traditional idea of women's unconditional natural obedience to men.Footnote 42 Yet, the fact that sophists such as Gorgias could accept, even encourage, such a conception of men's ἀρετή is not surprising, as it justifies the importance of learning rhetoric for the political careers of wealthy young men, and therefore emphasizes the importance and usefulness of the sophists’ teachings.Footnote 43
In a passage from his Politics (1.13), inspired by the beginning of the Meno, Aristotle sheds light on the discussion between Socrates and Meno, showing that it is but one aspect of a much wider debate (1.13, 1260a20–4):
It is evident, then, that all those mentioned [sc. ruler, ruled, master, slave, husband, wife, child] have virtue of character, and that temperance, courage, and justice of a man are not the same as those of a woman, as Socrates supposed: the one courage is that of a ruler, the other that of an assistant, and similarly in the case of the other virtues too. (transl. Reeve)
In the lines immediately following this passage, Aristotle does not hesitate to take Gorgias’ side, claiming that ‘it is far better to enumerate the virtues, as Gorgias does, than to define them in this way [that is, as Socrates does]’ (Pol. 1.13.1260a27–8 πολὺ γὰρ ἄμεινον λέγουσιν οἱ ἐξαριθμοῦντες τὰς ἀρετάς, ὥσπερ Γοργίας, τῶν οὕτως ὁριζομένων).
It is then safe to assume that the beginning of the Meno and this passage from Aristotle's Politics echo a debate whose Socratic background should not be overlooked. In all likelihood, the aforementioned passage from the Politics is heavily dependent upon the Meno. Yet, the Meno is far from being the only passage in Socratic literature that mentions this issue. Other testimonies are available from other Socratics, such as, for example, Xenophon, who in his Symposium has Socrates say that ‘women's nature is not found to be in any way inferior to men's, but lacks strength and vigour’ (Symp. 2.9.3–5 ἡ γυναικεία φύσις οὐδὲν χείρων τῆς τοῦ ἀνδρὸς οὖσα τυγχάνει, ῥώμης δὲ καὶ ἰσχύος δεῖται). Diogenes Laertius also reports the comments of Antisthenes, Socrates’ loyal student: ‘to man and woman, the same virtue’ (Diog. Laert. 6.12.8 ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς ἡ αὐτὴ ἀρετή).Footnote 44 To these testimonies should be added the much later evidence found in Aspasius’ commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Dwelling on the difficulties raised by Aristotle's discussion of friendship between unequals at Eth. Nic. 1158b11, Aspasius writes: ‘but some deny that there is one virtue for a father and another for a son, or one for a husband and another for a wife’ (In Eth. Nic. 176.30–177.2 Heylbut, transl. Konstan: οὔ φασι δή τινες ἄλλην ἀρετὴν εἶναι πατρὸς καὶ ἄλλην υἱοῦ οὐδὲ ἄλλην ἀνδρὸς γυναικὸς δὲ ἑτέραν). Aspasius then focusses on the case of husband and wife, adding that those who hold the view that there is the same virtue for husband and wife are, ‘above all, the Socratics’ (177.3 μάλιστα οἱ Σωκρατικοί). It is, of course, hard to tell whom exactly Aspasius has in mind: he could be alluding specifically to Antisthenes,Footnote 45 or to a much wider circle including Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes and others (hence the plural Σωκρατικοί). Interestingly, the argument Aspasius reports as being that of the Socratics amounts to showing that concerning each and every virtue husband and wife are in the same ethical situation, and that therefore there is no reason why a man should be just or temperate but a woman not. Although they share the same conclusion, this argument clearly differs from the arguments put forward by Socrates in the Meno (72c–73d), where it is shown that there should be a single definition of virtue accounting for all instances of virtue (male, female, etc.), or from the argument in the Republic Book 5 passage examined in this paper, which hinges on the likeness in φύσις between men and women. This indicates that, although the thesis according to which the virtue of men and women is identical seems to have been widely shared in Socratic circles, different arguments were still opposed to the alternative ‘differentialist’ conception of virtue accepted by the Sophists (and by Aristotle).
It is this very discussion, and not Protagoras’ Antilogies or, for all we know, some discussion from the Megarian Socratic school, that makes up the background of Republic Book 5 453b–454c. Without this specific background in mind, Socrates’ otherwise curious mention of eristic and antilogy remains at best mysterious and at worse unjustified. Once this Socratic background is restored, the mention of eristic and antilogy becomes, I think, much more natural.
CONCLUSION: POWER VS POWER
Restoring the Socratic background of Resp. 5.453b–454c, however, only partly explains why Plato, in the overall context of the central digression of the Republic, thinks he needs to devote so much effort to contrasting Socrates’ view on this issue with the Sophistic approach illustrated by Gorgias.
I noted previously that one distinctive feature of Resp. 5.453b–454c is to stage the first appearance of dialectic in the dialogue. I should now add that this is no timid or trivial appearance, for it cannot be denied that Socrates mentions here certain essential attributes of the dialectician in terms that are the exact same as those used to characterize dialectic in Book 7 of the Republic and in other dialogues.Footnote 46 The opposition of the two verbs διαλέγεσθαι and ἐρίζειν that structures the whole of 454a–b indicates that Socrates’ goal is indeed to set power against power: the power of antilogy, which is explicitly mentioned, against that other power due to appear with the Divided Line in Book 6 of the Republic, the power of διαλέγεσθαι.Footnote 47
A distinctive effect of this very power of dialectic is elucidated when Socrates opposes dialectical reasoning to antilogy and eristic. Dialectical reasoning indeed prompts the respondent (and the reader) to examine the divisions he thinks familiar and takes for granted because they are the standard divisions carried by δόξα. For only those divisions which stand up to a truly dialectical examination are worth accepting as firm and valuable. In Resp. 5.453b–454c, Socrates’ anonymous interlocutors are led by custom and habit to consider that the man–woman division is not only biologically relevant (which is true, according to Plt. 262d) but also politically relevant, because the virtues of men and women differ in that respect. But dialectical reasoning shows that nothing is further from the truth, for the only understanding of φύσις that is valid regarding the management of the city is the one that makes a thing or a being's nature its capability (or skill) in performing a task.
It might be objected that such a reading confers too much weight upon this passage. Yet, one should bear in mind that Socrates’ first measure, which deals with the common possession of women and children, is just as much as his second conditional on another proposal, namely that it is possible for philosopher-dialecticians to be kings or kings philosophers. Now, this third condition itself depends on the success of an ambitious and crucial undertaking that Socrates begins at the end of Book 5, when he paints the portrait of the philosopher's specific nature as an antithesis of the φιλόδοξος. In this respect, I propose that Resp. 5.453b–454c on antilogy and eristic be read as the first milestone in this radical enterprise of redefining φιλοσοφία (and the philosopher) as equivalent to dialectic (and the dialectician).Footnote 48 This undertaking notably consists in fighting against the image of the philosopher fostered by popular opinion—an image that makes him an eristic, a contradictor and perhaps even a professional sophist—by offering a very different picture, that of a disinterested truth-loving human being who is keen to engage in discussion and avoid mere quarrels. That is fundamentally why Socrates, in this strange passage from Book 5, with respect to a question that does not seem to require it, borrows at length the methodology, and speaks the language, of quarrelsome antilogic.
APPENDIX: ANALYTICAL SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT IN RESP. 5.451C–457C
1. Argument (451b–452e): The same education and tasks should be given to male and female guards. Two questions will be examined.
2. The first question (452e–456c): Is this practicable? (452e5 εἰ δυνατὰ ἢ οὔ)
2.1. Detailed reformulation (453a): Is female human nature able to share all the tasks of male nature, none of them or some of them (and in particular the art of war that concerns the guards)?
2.2. Objection (453a–c): Socrates and Glaucon provide the objection to their argument: this measure contradicts the principle of specialization, which is coextensive with justice.
– ‘Didn't you yourselves agree, when you started founding this city of yours, that every single individual must fulfil the single function that belongs to them by nature?’ (453b4–5 αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς κατοικίσεως, ἣν ᾠκίζετε πόλιν ὡμολογεῖτε δεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἕκαστον ἕνα ἓν τὸ αὑτοῦ πράττειν)
– ‘Well, can there fail to be a world of difference between a woman's nature and a man's?’ (453b7–8 ἔστιν οὖν ὅπως οὐ πάμπολυ διαφέρει γυνὴ ἀνδρὸς τὴν φύσιν;)
– ‘Shouldn't the function we assign to them also be different, then—the one that accords with their nature?’ (453b10–c1 oὐκοῦν ἄλλο καὶ ἔργον ἑκατέρῳ προσήκει προστάττειν τὸ κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν;)
2.3. (453c–e) Socrates had foreseen such objections, and this explains his past reluctance to examine the means of establishing the community of guards in detail (see 449b–450b and 424a). It is necessary to respond to this argument and swim through to reach the shore.
2.4. Response (453e–456c)
2.4.1. Summary of the objection (453e)
2.4.2. Antilogy, eristic and dialectic (454a–b)
2.4.3. Absolute and relative identity and difference (454c–e)
2.4.4. Reformulation of the problem (454e–456b): ‘for which craft, or which pursuit, among all those that go to make up a city’ (455a1–2 πρὸς τίνα τέχνην ἢ τί ἐπιτήδευμα τῶν περὶ πόλεως κατασκευήν) are the natures of men and women different? Answer: it is in accordance with nature that there is no occupation peculiar to men or women relative to the administration of the city.
2.4.5. Conclusion (456b–c): It is valid to infer possibility from accordance with nature. Answer to the first question: the measure is practicable.
3. The second question (456c–457c): Is it desirable? (456c9 ὅτι δὲ δὴ βέλτιστα, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο δεῖ διομολογηθῆναι;)
