Long on Plato

Long on Plato - VI
by Fred Seddon

CRATYLUS

Plato: Certainly. To see what is wrong with Long’s use of my Cratylus, one has only to restore the context from with the quotation was, may I say, ripped.

Seddon: Proceed.

P: Before I do, let me remind you what Long is trying to prove by quoting the dialogue.

S: And that is?

P: On p. 10 he tells us that in my so-called Middle Dialogues, (note the capitals) I stopped worrying about ethical questions and began to reflect on the Socratic method of cross-examination itself. How can we get knowledge by that method if what we start with the common opinions of Socrates’ interlocutors, who “are not absolutely certain.” The best we can hope for is coherence. Long asks, “How can we be sure that we have not achieved coherence by throwing out true belief and keeping false ones?” (10) He then reproduces the following from Cratylus 436c-e.

For if the positer went astray at the beginning, and then forced the other things into agreement with this and necessitated them to harmonise (sic) with himself, it would not be at all strange--just as in diagrams sometimes, that through a slight and inconspicuous falsity arise at the start, still the vast train of consequences all cohere with each other. Truly, it is about the starting-point of any matter that every man must focus his primary discussion and primary investigation, as to whether or not it has been laid down correctly (and one that has been sufficiently examined, whether the rest appear to follow therefrom).

S: Seems pretty clear to me. The positer must make sure he gets the correct starting point. What’s the context. Are you trying to say something about the hypothetical-deductive method.

P: No, believe it or not, Socrates and Cratylus, not I, are talking about name giving. Let me restore just a bit of the context by giving Cratylus’ lead in and Socrates’ complete reply, not Long redacted response.

S: It doesn’t even read like a response, but rather a paragraph from an essay.

P: Thank you. Anyway, here it is from 436b to 436e.

CRATYLUS: But, Socrates, am I not right in thinking that he must surely have known, or else, as I was saying, his names would not be names at all? And you have a clear proof that he has not missed the truth, and the proof is--that he is perfectly consistent. Did you ever observe in speaking that all the words which you utter have a common character and purpose?

SOCRATES: But that, friend Cratylus, is no answer. For if the name giver did begin in error, he may have forced the remainder into agreement with the original error and with himself; there would be nothing strange in this, any more than in geometric diagrams, which have often a slight and invisible flaw in the first part of the process, and are consistently mistaken in the long deductions which follow. And this is the reason why every man should expend his chief thought and attention on the consideration of his first principles--are they or are they not rightly laid down? And when he has duly sifted them, all the rest will follow. Now I should be astonished to find that names are really consistent. And here let us revert to our former discussion. Were we not saying that all things are in motion and progress and flux, and that this idea of motion is expressed by names? Do you not conceive that to be the meaning of them?

S: Whoa, does that make a difference. Socrates is not talking about cross-examination at all, but rather how things get their names.

P: Yes, and notice that neither Socrates nor Cratylus are talking about “Our initial unreflective beliefs” (11) but rather about names.

S: But Socrates does seem to generalize this to “all first principles.”

P: But that has more relevance to the hypothetical deductive method than to the Socratic method of question and answer. In fact, if Long got his way, the Socratic method would be useless. If we start with certainty, there are no questions to ask. Socrates makes a point of this in the Republic about the fingers.

S: Oh, yes, I vaguely remember. If you just look at one finger, no problem is presented to reason. But if you look at three fingers, one being bigger than one neighbor and smaller than another neighbor, one is lead to ask of the middle size finger Is it big or small? and such a question lead to philosophical examination of things, properties, relations etc. The Socratic method needs a problem to start it going, not axioms or whatever.

P: Just as in your modern law courts, cross-examination is supposed to reveal inconsistencies and contradictions, not give a science like geometry. If we had an absolutely sure, Cartesian starting point, what one wants is deduction, not cross-examination. But that is not what Socrates is about when he uses that method. Not deduction, but clarification and critical examination.

S: But surely Long is correct about the inadequacies of that method.

P: Sure he is, that is why in, for example, in the Phaedo, I have Socrates switch to the HD method in the proof subsequent to Cebes’s second objection.

S: Lines please.

P: From about 96a onward to about 107b.

S: So what are the strengths and weaknesses of these two very different methods?

P: Please don’t ask me to spoil the fun. Read the dialogues.

S: Ok. But I see our time is running out and you haven’t said anything about the charge of mysticism that Long’s put in his very title of the section we have been examining, nor for that matter, the 7th Letter.

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