Asian-Arab philosophical dialogues on globalization, democracy ...

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Asia-<strong>Arab</strong> Philosophical Dialogues on Globalization, Democracy and Human Rights
the world. Eager to find an account of what was best for each thing and good for all, he was sorely
disappointed. For he had thought that if the mind produces order and is the universal cause, then the
“mind in producing order sets everything in order and arranges each individual thing in the way that is
best for it”. So that “there was only one thing for a man to consider with regard both to himself and to
everything else, namely the best and highest good”. 47 Socrates soon discovered that Anaxagoras’ use of
mind served simply as a first cause of order, and that it was otherwise dispensed with; that Anaxagoras’
explanations made no reference to what is best, but proceeded according to material principles. This
disappointment is telling. Socrates may have begun with a passion for inquiry into nature, but what he
hoped to discover was a moral order. It was the moral rather than the material blueprint of the world
that interested Socrates. His was a quest after the good.
As Xenophon puts it, Socrates “was always conversing about human things—examining what is pious,
what is impious, what is noble, what is shameful, what is just, what is unjust, what is moderation, what is
madness, what is courage, what is cowardice, what is a city, what is a statesman, what is rule over human
beings, what is a skilled ruler over human beings, as well as about other things, knowledge of which he
believed makes one a gentleman (noble and good) while those who are ignorant of them would justly
be called slavish”. 48
In Plato’s early <strong>dialogues</strong>, Socrates assumes that an inquiry into the nature of such things as virtue and
justice should seek to reveal what all things rightly judged to be virtuous or just must have in common.
This is why we find Socrates insisting over and over again that he is not interested merely in examples of
the thing in question—examples of knowledge, virtue or courage. He is only interested in “that character
in respect of which they [the various examples] don’t differ at all, but are all the same,” in their “common
quality,” or “what the thing itself is”. 49
Yet in Plato we find that Socrates and his interlocutors fail to meet this demand in one dialogue after
another, no matter how hard they try. Some unsatisfactory ideas are discarded, that is true, and the
discussants have learnt to find their way in inquiry a little better than before; but they haven’t acquired
knowledge of the kind that they sought. In a moment I will offer a diagnosis for this failure.
Several features arise from this quick sketch that all speak in one way or another of the Athenian milieu
at this high point of classical antiquity:
(1) Socrates is concerned with how we are to live. His concerns are practical and moral and not just
intellectual. However, his approach to such questions is an intellectually inquiring one, not one based
on established convention, authority or revelation. It stands in marked contrast to the traditional
sources of value. From where did this appeal to reason spring? I believe that part of the explanation
may be found in the fact that Socrates is applying to the social and moral domain an attitude of
enlightenment that fuelled Ionian science in the pre-Socratic period. This attitude was in the air.
(2) While the inquiry purports to be universal, to seek general definitions and to go to the essence
of things, the discussions are those between a philosopher and his fellows living in an ancient
metropolis, where religious observance, reputation, the duties of civil defence, and the demands of
statecraft express upper-class concerns with the good life. That is to say, the <strong>philosophical</strong> interests
of Socrates and his interlocutors are clearly moulded by the social and historical context.
(3) Socrates is a gregarious philosopher, to be found out and about town engaging his peers in dialogue.
This is not incidental. Socrates does not claim to be the bearer of wisdom; he does not proclaim
from on high, but goes into the market place and offers his services as a midwife of “the soul which
is in travail of birth,” assisting in the delivery of the other’s “embryo thoughts”. 50 That Socrates does
not set himself up as a moral authority, but seeks wisdom through collaborative inquiry, where the
teacher is also a learner and the learner a teacher, is very much emblematic of the democratic ideals
of ancient Athens.
47 Phaedo, 97d.
48 Memorabilia, I.1.16.
49 Theaetetus, 146; Meno, 71d-72d; Laches, 190e-192b.
50 Theaetetus, 150 c and 210 c.