1 Harvard University Political Theory Colloquium For 11 March 2010 ...

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  16  themselves think, but rather a doctrine they are advancing in the first person. Socrates makes this clear a few lines later: you [Protagoras] know that the many (hoi polloi tôn anthrôpôn) will not be persuaded by me and by you, but they say that most people (pollous) are unwilling (ouk ethelein) to do what is best, even though they know (gignôskontas) what it is and are able to do it, but act otherwise’ (352d4-7, my trans. modifying Lombardo and Bell) It is easy to elide hoi polloi and pollous here: easy, but mistaken. <strong>For</strong> it is significant that ‘the many’ (hoi polloi, as agents in the nominative case) do not assert that they themselves act akratically. Rather they assert that ‘most people’ (pollous, as objects in the accusative case: I will continue to distinguish the two groups as hoi polloi and pollous even when having to use these Greek terms ungrammatically) do so. Even if one holds that the extensions of hoi polloi and pollous must logically overlap (since both refer to a majority), so that the many may indeed be speaking about themselves (as is borne out when Socrates enjoins them to visit the sophists for instruction (357e: a passage flagged earlier and to be discussed later), it is crucial that hoi polloi are not avowing akrasia but rather describing it. They are speaking not in the first-person but in the third. Indeed there is a double distancing here. Protagoras (who is the real focus of the discussion) is not made himself to avow akrasia, but is rather shown its refutation via the refutation of the many; and the many themselves are not made to avow it but are rather made only to describe it in the putative actions of those they describe as pollous. The double distancing of akrasia bears out Moran’s contention discussed above, that it is impossible to avow akrasia when speaking as a responsible practical agent. 16 One can describe and even predict one’s own akratic actions, but one does so in a theoretical mode which fails to affect the sense in which as a practical agent one cannot intend to act akratically. This is why, as Moran explains, Sartre calls such predictions ‘bad faith’. 17 Akrasia is in this perspective – a perspective which the double distancing in the Protagoras reveals to be Platonic as well as that of the practical turn in the modern philosophy of self-knowledge – is not a failure of the will to dominate agency but a
  17  failure to exert integrative agency altogether. <strong>For</strong> Plato, such self-integration comes from the executive rule of knowledge manifested in the virtues; for Moran, it comes from rational deliberation; for McGeer, it comes from exercising forms of self-control which are akin to virtues. Moran and McGeer speak of the special status of self-knowledge; Plato speaks of knowledge simpliciter, but treats it as an executive form of practical agency which functions similarly to this modern conception of self-knowledge, or so I am arguing. The core passage: is the measure doctrine Socratic gospel? The many deny that knowledge is inherently executive, taking its rule to be contingent on not being overthrown by a rival passion or desire. Socrates too in the ‘measure doctrine’ ignores the executive role of knowledge. Instead he articulates the measure doctrine in simple terms of possession of knowledge or its lack, which is ignorance. Thus he contends that the many are making a simple mistake of measurement, a bad exchange: by ‘being overcome’ they must, Socrates imagines telling them, mean that in exchange for less of the good things they take more of the bad things (355e). In other words, what the many call ‘being overcome by power’ is actually ignorance of the art of measurement (357d). Now, because Protagoras was first of all in the inner frame enrolled with Socrates on the side of knowledge as all-powerful in human activity, he must accept this conclusion. But the many believe that ‘being overcome by pleasure’ is not ignorance, but something else, and so, thinking it not to be teachable (ou didaktou, 357e), do not go to sophists or send their children for instruction. The last sentence of this peroration is crucial in calling the validity of the measure doctrine into question, as was highlighted earlier: for the implication which Socrates draws from the measure doctrine is that he should join Protagoras in admonishing the many that they should be sending themselves and their children to study with sophists. To recall the outrageous formulation he uses: ‘By worrying about your money and not giving it to them, you all do badly in both private and public life’ (357e). Given this red flag, how should we assess the art of measurement and the part it plays in the refutation of the many? The art of measurement has done its job of moving
Page 1 and 2:   1  Harvard University Politic
Page 3 and 4:   3  (Pettit 2004: 68). Plato
Page 5 and 6:   5  self-knowledge understood
Page 7 and 8:   7  achieved through self-inte
Page 9 and 10:   9  means of the art of measur
Page 11 and 12:   11  ruling. On this basis, we
Page 13 and 14:   13  exercises his virtue by -
Page 15:   15  ‘inner frame’ for the
Page 19 and 20:   19  resolution to the aporia,
Page 21 and 22:   21  but to reject altogether
Page 23 and 24:   23  who is believed to be jus
Page 25 and 26:   25  that reason’s rule is i
Page 27 and 28:   27  agreement at 480e: ‘I t
Page 29 and 30:   29  Moran, Richard (2001). Au
Page 31 and 32:   31          
Page 33 and 34:   33          
Page 35 and 36:   35          

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