50 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 51

Transcription

1 50 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 51 Hans-Georg Gadamer's "Socratic Knowing and Not- Knowing" appeared in his book The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy from pages 33 to 62. It was published by Yale University Press in In the Protagoras, in contrast, Plato displays the falsity of sophistic pseudo-knowledge and of the claim to teach it by confronting this "knowledge" and claim with Socrates' claim to know. And the conclusion with which the dialogue ends says a great deal: Socrates forces the sophist to agree that arete is knowledge, but for his part he disputes that it can be taught. But if Socrates really took arete to be knowledge similar in character to the knowledge of techne, he would have to maintain that it can be taught. What sort of knowledge, then, is this knowledge that he has in mind that is evidently unteachable? The reader is meant to put this question to himself. In any event, he has to see clearly that the knowledge and justification for it that Socrates seeks has nothing to do with sophistic techne thinking. That it does not is obvious from the start. The doubt about the teachability of arete dominates the discussion from beginning to end. Even in the opening scene it lurks in the background. Thus the logical point of the comedy-like ending that Plato invents for the Protagoras dialogue is most of all this: knowledge in arete can have the character of neither knowledge in techne nor the knowledge of this new paideia, which boasts of being techne. The whole series of the Socratic discussions whose conclusions are negative could be advanced to demonstrate the inadequacy of the techne concept for attaining a clear concept of knowledge of the good and of the nature of arete. The Meno is particularly crucial in this regard, for the exposition here is advanced one step further. At first the dialogue deals with the same problem as the Protagoras, namely, teachability. And in essence it reiterates the paradox in which the claim that arete can be given justification gets caught: if it can be given justification, then it can also be taught. Once again, the claim that arete is knowledge founders on the facts of our moral and political experience. The sons of great men, who have had the best education and upbringing thinkable, are often grave disappointments. Hence something other than knowledge must play the decisive role here, something that Plato calls theia moira-- divine dispensation. And now we have arrived at a truly crucial test for the traditional interpretation of Plato. Socrates' own demand that justification be given, which he pursues relentlessly, seems weakened when Plato substitutes "divine dispensation" the latter appears to provide only half an answer to the problem. Subtle interpreters of Plato see in this divine dispensation an indication that Socrates himself is the only true teacher of arete. It is certainly correct to say that the end of the failed discussion with Meno points to Socrates as the actual and only teacher. But one has already forfeited the truth of this insight if, at the same time, one misses the general point implied here. Plato's concern is not to sanctify this charismatic Socrates, even if in Plato's eyes he certainly was charismatic. Rather, he is much more concerned with overcoming the false conception of learning and knowing that prevails in the young Meno, as it does in his teacher Gorgias. It is to this end that he adverts to divine dispensation." The whole discussion with Meno is devoted to this task. One 17. The allusion to divine dispensation at Republic 492e is also aimed polemically against sophistic paideia.

2 52 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 53 need only ask oneself Plato's question: Who was this Socrates and what was his knowledge? After all, he had declared that precisely knowing that one does not know is the real human wisdom. His teaching could never be different from what it always is, namely, demonstrating that his partner does not know, and by doing that, making it urgent that one know and give justification. For someone who has come to seek and question on his own, the pretentious assumptions that Meno, for example, has learned from the likes of Gorgias and advances himself are empty. And emptier still is a sophistry that would argue someone out of seeking and questioning altogether such a sophistry, that is, as Meno produces with blind acuity. The significance of the Meno is that here Plato expressly thematizes the aporia (perplexity) in which the other Socratic dialogues tend to end. Like these other dialogues, the Meno begins with a series of failed attempts to define arete that disclose sometimes more, sometimes less, clearly that the sole reality behind moral conventions is the pursuit of power. The last answer that Meno ventures virtually says as much. He appropriates the poet's line: charein to kaloisi kai dynasthai (to delight in the beautiful and have power) in such a way that arete would mean nothing else but having the power to acquire the beautiful thing that one desires (77b). But Plato takes a new step here. He shows that reaching the aporia in which Meno's attempts to determine the nature of arete end is the precondition for raising the question of arete in the first place. But here, raising the question means questioning oneself. The knowledge in question can only be called forth. All cognition is re-cognition. And in this sense it is remembrance of something familiar and known. The conversation with Meno makes this fact clear e contrario. Meno appears on the scene as one who wants to acquire the new wisdom as cheaply as possibly, and he bolts when he is about to be forced to place himself in question. Thus he is just the right foil for allowing us to see what knowing and recognizing actually are. The doctrine of anamnesis (recollection) brings out the true sense of the Socratic question. As one who himself only "reminds," Socrates is a teacher. And in portraying Socrates' deeds, Plato at the same time reminds us that knowledge is recollection, knowing again. The idea of recollection is introduced here as a myth, which is to say, apparently not as an argument per se but as a sort of religious truth. But one has to view the myth of anamnesis in the light of the question we are raising. Is it a myth at all? Certainly this doctrine is introduced in the Meno like a myth with references to verses from Pindar and the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls. But the authorities upon whom Socrates relies already sound odd. For here we find priests and priestesses who are able to give justification! In the context of Greek religion there is something absurd about that. For Greek religion was not a religion of scripture and orthodoxy but of individual awe and piety and of regular public honoring of the divine. Moreover, the thesis that seeking and learning is recollection is then demonstrated quite soberly with no reference at all to religion. The famous lesson that Socrates gives Meno's slave is far removed from a proof of the religious doctrine of the preexistence of souls. Of course, in every step of this lesson Socrates carefully adheres to the premise that the slave is not taught anything but instead grasps each of the steps himself, the negative ones as well as the positive. In other words, the slave displays a kind of knowledge without ever having "learned" mathematics. But given the lengths to which Socrates goes it is all the more striking that the conclusion drawn at the end is not viewed as validly proved the conclusion, namely, that there was a time before human beings existed at which the soul already knew

3 54 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 55 things, and that the soul is consequently immortal. On the contrary, any such claim that it has been proved is explicitly retracted (86b). The only thing accepted is the practical certainty that we are better off holding firmly to the belief that one can indeed seek the truth, and that one should not allow oneself to be misled in this search by sophistic objections. And it is accepted logoi kai ergoi (in word and deed) (86c). Hence the mythical horizons within which Plato places this certainty and not without ironic ceremoniousness serve essentially only to display and explicate the capacity of the human mind to place things in question. The Phaedo demonstrates fully and convincingly that we are not dealing with a religious truth here. There the anamnesis theme is taken up anew, and once again it is explicated quite unmythologically. The way in which the doctrine of preexistence is "proved" here by the "prior knowledge" that underlies all knowledge even has a comical side to it. To be sure, it is made clear here that as religious heritage what this preexistence proof demonstrates with its pseudo-stringency, is worthy of solemn respect. But this comical aspect of the argument makes clear that what is 'proved' hardly lends itself to a rational legitimation in a style such as this. In particular, the sharpening of the argument after Simmias's objection that knowledge could, after all, be given to one at birth makes the discrepancy between the mythical claim and the logical concepts with which the argument proceeds especially palpable. Obviously it is with this discrepancy in mind that Plato has Socrates now venture the following argument (Phaedo 76d): since knowledge cannot be attained after birth, it must derive from a "previous" life unless, that is, it is acquired at the moment of birth. But after all, as the initial ignorance of the newborn shows, it is not present at birth. So at one and the same time, it would be acquired and lost a pretty piece of nonsense, it would appear. And with that Simmias's objection seems to have been disposed of. Or, in the final analysis, is this a hint that we should examine in earnest the concomitance of knowing and not-knowing? For if we do, we might perceive in this concomitance an intrinsic interweaving of cognition and recognition that splits apart into a mythical prior life and a subsequent recollection only in mythological thinking." Whatever the case may be, we must abstract from Plato's mythical mode of presentation if we want to understand what he is getting at. And that requirement holds in regard to the Meno as well as the Phaedo. Let us, then, attempt to conceptualize some of the things he has in mind. After he has put the false solutions behind him, the slave in the Meno recognizes that a square constructed on the diagonal has the double area he seeks. That he does so implies that he already knows what "double" means he must know Greek (82b) and that he keeps his attention focused on doubling and what is double. Accordingly, we have a real seeking here. The slave has enough of an idea of what is sought to recognize that his first at- 18. One of the essential tenets of Gadamer's thought underlies this interpretation, namely, that human beings never have insights that are fully clear and distinct, but only partial insights within persistent obscurity. Thus any aletheia, or truth, that they know is embedded in lethe, or forgetfulness. This concomitance of knowing and not-knowing (which Heidegger would call, Gleichurspriinglichkeit) has far-reaching consequences. For one thing, it renders the project of Cartesian methodology incapable of execution: since there is no certain starting point, no certain conclusions can be drawn. For another, it makes systematic unity and conclusiveness unachievable: we always find ourselves in media resunder way in the middle of things whose beginning and end are beyond the horizons of our knowing. Gadamer finds this principle of human finitude throughout Plato and, in particular, in his doctrine of ideal numbers, the one (unit) and the indeterminate two. For Plato, Gadamer maintains, any unitary thing we know is given to us within the indeterminacy that surrounds it. Consequently, our inquiry will remain inconclusive (unabschliessbar). See "Plato's Unwritten Dialectic." TRANSLATOR.

4 56 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 57 tempts to solve the problem by doubling are wrong and to recognize the true solution when it is presented to him. As we know, he does not find it on his own. Socrates has to show it to him (85e). That fact is of no concern, however. The point is that he himself recognizes it as the solution he seeks. It should be noted that we are dealing with a mathematical insight here, that is, not with a result of empirical generalization. The slave already knows enough of mathematics to accept without question that the problem put to him is eidetic-universal and to grasp it as such without giving it a second thought. The entire path along which the slave is guided to his eidetic insight proceeds through eidetic terrain. Even his first mistaken attempts at solving the problem are meant to be eidetic. They are wrong only mathematically. For him, unlike his master, the insight that his proposals are false is not anything that might cripple him. Instead, it actually makes the right insight possible an insight that would require only sufficient repetition of the exercise to be stabilized in him as genuine mathematical knowledge (85c ff.). Here, however, this mathematical example stands for everything that Plato would call real knowledge or insight. One always has aletheis doxai (true beliefs) in oneself concerning what ones does not know (Meno 85c). Indeed, just this fact emerged in the mathematical lesson: the refutation of false assumptions is needed in order for these to be recognized as false, but that entails that one always already 19 has some idea of what the true as- 19. Immer schon. This common turn of speech has special importance in Heidegger's work and also in Gadamer's. It underscores the fact that I actually never was, and never will be, in the state of unprejudiced objectivity which the Enlightenment considers prerequisite for valid knowing. Put another way, I am never in an "original position" (Rawls); rather, I can understand what I encounter within my world only because of the pre-knowledge that I "always already" have. Implied here is Heidegger's and Gadamer's theory of the circularity of understanding. Gadamer extends Heidegger's line of thought in arguing for the insumption is. Thus, what is displayed here is the nature of seeking and learning (zetein, manthanein) (81d). Seeking and learning presuppose that one knows what one does not know, and to learn that, one must be refuted. Knowing what one does not know is not simply ignorance. It always implies a prior knowledge which guides all one's seeking and questioning. Cognition is always re-cognition. Plainly that holds especially in regard to areté. And though the Meno too does not say so explicitly either, Meno's renewed evasion of the issue at 86c makes clear even so that the question of what areté is would necessarily lead us to knowledge of the good (see Meno 87 b d). Knowledge of the good is always with us in our practical life. Whenever we choose one thing in preference to another, we believe ourselves capable of justifying our choice, and hence knowledge of the good is always already involved. Socrates' recapitulation of the doctrine of anamnësis in the Phaedo is no less instructive. In a masterful analysis he unfolds the argument that shows why all knowing is recollection, and leads us through it step by step. He begins with clear instances of our being reminded of something. A lyre reminds us of a beloved friend. A friend reminds us of his friend. Even the picture of a friend also reminds us of the other friend. And, yes, the picture of a friend also reminds us of the friend himself. We are being led along very artfully here, and the final step is astonishing. In this last case we would not say that we are reminded of the friend, but instead that we recognize him in the picture. Exactly because recognition emerges here as a kind of recollection, or being redispensability of tradition and authority for any understanding of our human world. His point is that the "condition of the possibility" (Kant) of my understanding my world is not so much consciousness's interpretive acts or performances as it is consciousness of and recollection of, what is always already pregiven in the traditional authority of language and customs (Sitten). TRANSLATOR.

5 58 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 59 minded of something, Socrates succeeds in establishing what he set out to demonstrate. In this way recognition is set apart from all learning. It could be important that this example is not a genuine instance of being reminded. After all, seeing the lyre of his friend does not remind the lover of someone he had forgotten! The friend, in fact, is so close and present that the lover is made to think of him by all sorts of things. It is as if he sees all things and hence the lyre in the light of his passion. That is significant. The assimilation of this being reminded to being reminded of something forgotten is completely contrived. This fact is made clear negatively by the insertion of malista mentoi (better yet) at 73e. In truth, what we have here is far more a matter of mneme (remembering) than of anamnesis (recollecting, being reminded of something)." And properly speaking, knowing, or cognition, too, is not being reminded of something forgotten. Rather, it is a new revelation about something already known. When I recognize something as something, I view something I know in the light of what I take it to be. I interpret it in regard to something which, for its part, is also known to me and present to mind, "tes physeos hapases syggenos ouses" (since the whole of nature of akin) (Meno 81d). We can see that this phenomenon of prior understanding applies above all to our self-understanding in areté and to the question about the good. After all Meno wanted to evade just this supposition [that we already know the good] and by trying to evade it, he induced Socrates to advance the theory of anamnesis. But there can be no doubt that even in the Meno Plato intends anamnesis to have a much broader sense which should 20. With regard to the relationships here, compare the extensive excursus in J. Klein, A Commentary on Plato's Meno (Chapel Hill, 1965), pp Klein is right in bringing in the Philebus. hold for every sort of real knowing. The dialectical art of making distinctions allows us to distinguish the good from the bad or, as we might say with moral reserve, to distinguish the right thing to do from everything which would not be right. But in its full extent this art has to be applicable to knowing anything worth knowing. In the end, the structure of anamnesis proves to be coextensive with all possible questioning. Questioning is seeking, and as such it is governed by what is sought. One can only seek when one knows what one is looking for. Only then, only with what is known in view, can one exclude the irrelevant, narrow the inquiry down, and recognize anything. That is what the Meno teaches us. Another illustration, albeit negative, of what Plato has in mind is the failure of Socrates' sophist interlocutors when they want to do the questioning themselves. The questioner seems to them to,play a superior role, to which, accordingly, one should aspire. But questioning is not a technique of role playing. The questioner is always one who simultaneously questions himself. The question is posed for him just as it is for the other person. What we have here is the dialectic of dialogue, and its logical structure is simultaneous synopsis (seeing things as together one) and dihairesis (division, or differentiation). Both recognition of what one knows oneself to be that is, recognition of how one understands oneself and recognition of everything one knows are always at one and the same time synoran eis hen eidos (seeing together as one form) and kata gene dihairesthai (separating according to species), which is to say, differentiation. We always find ourselves in dialectical tension with the prejudices which take us in and parade themselves as knowledge but which really mistake the particularity and partiality of a given view for the whole truth. That holds for both the person asked and the person asking. Plato's most abstract way of expressing this phenom-