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

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  2  the virtues in the Protagoras does not reduce the other virtues to knowledge: it rather expands knowledge to be understood as inherently executive and as exercising rule through the virtues. Second, my argument draws on and further develops a trend in the modern philosophy of self-knowledge, advanced by Victoria McGeer and Richard Moran, to interpret akratic action not merely as a failure of knowledge but specifically as a failure of self-knowledge understood as first-person authority in practical action. I develop this line of thought in Plato to identify the rule of knowledge as a form of deliberative self-knowledge exercised through the virtues, with akrasia as a case of failure of such exercise of knowledge to deploy the virtues to achieve sufficient selfintegration. Another way to put this is to say that akrasia is seen by Plato as a ‘constitutional disorder’ (Pettit 2004:69) of the soul on any and all accounts of the structure of the soul that he entertains. Motivation for my thesis may be found in two observations: first, that Plato does not label any of his locus classicus discussions of these matters as akrasia, 1 which should prompt us to investigate his own terminology for them more closely; second, that his actual discussions are not well interpreted in terms of ‘weakness of will’, since even the Republic’s tripartite scheme lacks a concept of the will, as the next section will discuss. 2 In contrast, the link between knowledge, self-knowledge, and self-control which I will develop was one which was widely recognized in ancient Greek thought. Helen North’s magisterial account of sôphrosunê identifies its core sense as ‘soundness of mind’ or ‘the state of having one’s intellect unimpaired’ (1966: 3; cited to this purpose in Annas 1985): the virtue of sôphrosunê embodies the maintenance of the integrity of the intellect and so the condition of knowing one’s own mind. Thus the link between self-control and selfknowledge made by the modern literature is one which was not only available but favored in Greek, and it is one on which Plato drew. 3 Notwithstanding these linguistic and conceptual points, I will continue to use the familiar ‘akrasia’ and ‘akratic’ as rigid designators to identify the phenomenon which I wish to redescribe. 4 Modern accounts of that phenomenon tend to offer an inclusive definition of it, for example that it involves any set of ‘intentional states in the light of which [a person] sees that a certain response is required’, yet that person ‘fails to act in the required manner’, in favorable conditions in which such action would be feasible
  3  (Pettit 2004: 68). Plato’s approach differs, on the one hand, in focusing on the case where an agent’s condition would seem to be characterized not by any intentional states but specifically by knowledge; but, on the other hand, in implying that knowledge which is not executively effective in preventing akrasia is not truly knowledge at all. II. The conventional reading of akrasia as weakness of will and its lack of fit with Plato The designation of ‘weakness of will’ as an equivalent to akrasia has a long pedigree which is captured well in Donald Davidson’s classic analysis, consideration of which reveals its maladaptedness as an interpretation of Plato. Davidson contrasts two images, the first lacking any notion of the will, the second appealing to it. The first depicts incontinence (akrasia) as ‘a battle or struggle between two contestants’: Each contestant is armed with his argument or principle. One side may be labeled ‘passion’ and the other ‘reason’; they fight; one side wins, the wrong side, the side called ‘passion’ (or ‘lust’ or ‘pleasure’). (Davidson 2001 [1980]): 35) Although Davidson does not remark it (attributing it rather to Aristotle, Aquinas and Hare), this is the view attributed by ‘the many’ to ‘most people’ in the Protagoras. Pleasure, pain, anger, and other emotions and desires are said to be viewed by ‘most people’ as the sorts of things that can simply overcome reason in a fair fight, with the contenders on all fours. This is the view against which the purported Socratic intellectualism of the Protagoras squares off. Reason vs a purportedly autonomous and equal set of passions and desires: there is no evidence of ‘will’ on either side of this contest. It might be thought that the Republic introduces the role of the will in its account of the divided embodied soul. So thought Davidson in attributing his second image to Plato (presumably in the Republic), Butler, and Dante. Davidson explains the second image thus:
Page 1:   1  Harvard University Politic
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 and 16:   15  ‘inner frame’ for the
Page 17 and 18:   17  failure to exert integrat
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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