Sete Cidades, Sao Miguel, Azores

Death Valley Scotty

In the northeast corner of Death Valley, California, is "Scotty´s Castle," a magnificent mansion in the absolute middle of nowhere. "Death Valley Scotty" was a local character who convinced a rich Chicago business tycoon to erect this "castle" in the desert. Scotty is buried on the property. On his tomb are these words: "I got four things to live by: Don´t say nothing that will hurt anybody. Don´t give advice. Nobody will take it anyway. Don´t complain. Don´t explain." We visited the castle in 1997.

Bar Kukis, Alcantera, 2007

"Encontro das Aguas," Amazonas, Brazil

This is where the Rio Negro meets the Rio Salimoes, near Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. They flow parallel--the dark water gradually mixing with the the light brownish water--for miles. Once united, they flow to the Atlantic at Belém.

Superparadise Beach, Myconos, July, 1990

Donde comenzó todo!

House, West Island, Massachusetts

House in Alcantera de Xuquer, Valencia

Camping in Maine, 2006

Blanca Motera

Jerusalem, 1989

José Luis Rodriguez and his wife Pamela

Trip South on La Blavita, Summer, 2007

Petra, Jordan, 1999

Bangkok, 1987

Hume's Tomb, Edinburgh

Crossing the Gulf of Aqaba to Nuweiba, Egypt

Marlin, Quepos, Costa Rica, 1989

Review of Zeitlin's NIETZSCHE: A RE-EXAMINATION

{The following appeared in Volume 96, Number 2 (Spring 1997) of the APA Newsletters.}

Irving Zeitlin. Nietzsche: A Re-Examination, Polity Press, 1994, 178pp. Reviewed by: Rick Hogan, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

     The resurgence of interest in Nietzsche during the last thirty years has resulted in a veritable Zauberberg of literature that is at the disposal of instructors who teach courses on him or that include him. In addition to a number of first-rate monographs and some excellent collections of articles (2), there is virtually an unlimited number of other, usually more specialized, books on Nietzsche. And there is no lack of presentations of his thought that are accessible to undergraduates.(3) Therefore in order to merit serious attention from Nietzsche teachers, new materials must be of very high quality.
     Irving Zeitlin is a sociologist, whose book discusses a number of the central themes in Nietzsche's philosophy. The cover says that the book "will be essential reading for second-year students and above, plus professionals in the areas of philosophy, social theory, and political thought." Regrettably, the claim on the cover is wrong. Prof. Zeitlin's book is an extremely poor introduction to Nietzsche for students, and it makes no important contribution to scholarship on Nietzsche.
     The book's defects are numerous. First, Zeitlin's avowedly critical aim takes the form of presenting a number of hackneyed criticisms of Nietzsche (e.g., that he rejects any notion of truth, reason, or knowledge (4), that he committed the "genetic fallacy," that he endorses grossly immoral actions, that he presents no support for his views, that his position is "just a matter of taste" etc.).
     Zeitlin thinks it is quite obvious that these criticisms are correct; so he offers little defense of them himself. He seems to suppose that merely presenting the criticism is enough to deliver a knock-out blow. He is apparently completely unaware of the post Kaufmann/Hollingdale scholarship on Nietzsche (the book contains no bibliography), which, if anything, has shown that the issues are much more complicated than many previous writers on Nietzsche allowed. He makes no attempt to consider what a sympathetic reader might see in Nietzsche and the ways in which such more dispassionate critics have tried to defend him from the usual charges.
     In sum, Zeitlin's presentation of Nietzsche is extremely crude, unsympathetic, philosophically naive, and ignorant of current scholarship.
    Another rather strange feature of Zeitlin's book is his inclination to provide summaries of marginally relevant material: on the relation between the ancient Hebrews and Egypt; on Alcibiades; on Archaic and Classical Greek history; on the Hebrew prophets. Zeitlin makes little detailed attempt to integrate these discussions directly into his account of Nietzsche other than simply pointing out that his material furnishes examples of points that Nietzsche makes. This approach reminds one of an undergraduate anxious to fill up space.
    The book's claims to originality do not pass muster. For example, Zeitlin's comparison between Nietzsche and the "immoralist" antagonists of Socrates (Callicles in the Gorgias, Thrasymachus in Republic I) was the subject of the well known appendix to E.R. Dodds' edition of the Gorgias.(6). The discussion of Darwin, in addition to containing a number of mistakes, repeats points made many times in the recent literature. The chapters on Stirner and Dostoyevsky contain virtually no analysis that would justify including them in a book on Nietzsche. The material on the Greeks and the Hebrews provides additional examples of phenomena ("master" and "slave" morality) already sufficiently illustrated by Nietzsche's own texts.
     Finally, Zeitlin's presentation consists in large measure of paraphrases, but often amounts to almost verbatim reproduction of Nietzsche's text, without indication that this is what is occurring. Sometimes Zeitlin does not tell the reader which translation he is using. Occasionally he introduces his own infelicities, e.g., when he imports "superman" into Kaufmann's translation of Zarathustra.
    Zeitlin also plagiarizes from Hollingdale's Nietzsche. Although he has a footnote (p.16) informing the reader that he "rel[ies] on Hollingdale's splendid study for these details about Nietzsche's childhood and his intellectual development," he doesn't let the reader know when he appropriates Hollingdale's diction, sentence structure, and judgements. Although there are several, properly footnoted quotations, other specific borrowings remain unacknowledged according to standard scholarly conventions. I was surprised and dismayed to find that such a book could be published in the mid-1990s.

Notes:

 1. E.g., Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985); Maudmarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); John Wilcox, Truth and Value in Nietzsche (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1974).
2. E.g., R. Solomon, ed. Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980); R. Solomon and K. Higgins, eds. , Reading Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); R. Schacht, ed., Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). 3. E.g. Michael Tanner's "Past Masters" Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
 4. One of the most important issues in contemporary scholarship on Nietzsche is his views on truth, knowledge, and objectivity. These are, to say the least, complicated. But he has recently had some able defenders, who claim that the mature Nietzsche retains a commitment to truth and the possibility of knowledge. See, e.g., Clark: "The Nietzschean ideal of affirmation does not require us to abandon logic, argument, or the commitment to truth," p.23. See also Schacht, Nietzsche; B. Leiter, "Perspectivism in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals," in R. Schacht, ed. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality. Zeitlin shows no awareness of any of the scholarship on this issue.
5. Nietzsche is defended against the charge of "genetic fallacy," by, inter alia, R. Schacht, Nietzsche; R. Solomon, "One Hundred Years of Ressentiment," in R. Schacht, ed. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality.
6. E.R. Dodds, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), Appendix, "Socrates, Callicles, and Nietzsche," 387ff. Zeitlin is apparently unaware of this essay.

Review of T. Irwin, PLATO'S MORAL THEORY

Terence Irwin. Plato's Moral Theory: The Early and Middle Dialogues. Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1977. Pp. 376 + xvii. $21.00.

Irwin's book is an extremely important contribution to the literature on Plato. It painstakingly reconstructs a systematic picture of the moral positions of Socrates and Plato as they emerge from the early and middle dialogues. Irwin considers these positions philosophically important and at least partially worthy of defense. He will have nothing to do with facile refutations and offhand dismissals; he insists that we take Plato seriously. In the execution of this project, Irwin displays sensitivity to problems of classical scholarship combined with a high degree of philosophical sophistication. The result is worthy of extended study.

Although the main exposition, interpretation, and evaluation is to be found in the text (where all Greek is either translated or transliterated), another extremely valuable part of the book is the fifty-eight pages of notes, which contain interesting discussions in support of particular interpreta­tions and a consideration of recent scholarship. There is a bibliography that lists 278 items, a general index, and an index locorum.

One feature of Irwin's approach calls for comment. While he is definitely claiming to interpret Plato, he does not hesitate to "read into" the text certain consequences or implications or to suggest a line of argumentation that does not have explicit textual support (p. 3). Part of the reason for this is Irwin's feeling that "the character of a Platonic dialogue itself leaves us unsatisfied" (p. 3). Irwin also admits that he is often "charitable" to Plato in that he minimizes certain "flaws and obscurities" (p. 3). While this approach will not recommend itself to everyone, it certainly seems justified in that it enables us to take Plato seriously as a philosopher, rather than merely as an intellectual museum piece.

The main line of interpretation that Irwin advances runs as follows. Socrates and Plato both hold certain paradoxical theses in moral philosophy, such as the unity-of-virtue doctrine and the claim that virtue must be in the agent's interest. In addition, Socrates holds that virtue is craft knowledge only. Like any craft, its value for a rational practitioner lies in the production of an independently desirable product. For Socrates, presumably, both virtuous and nonvirtuous persons agree on what this desirable end is, so that it could be defined in undisputed terms; the virtuous person would differ from the nonvirtuous only with respect to the means of achieving it. Thus, for Socrates, the virtues are of instrumental value only. Irwin admits (e.g., p. 7) that the Socratic dialogues offer no satisfactory account of this final good that is taken to be the product of virtue, although in the Protagoras it is definitely specified as the agent's pleasure. Furthermore, the Socratic denial of akrasia relies upon the assumption that the end product or final good is some­thing we all want and that therefore we will never fail to exercise our virtue-craft. Thus, virture requires only a cognitive component; no affective component is necessary.

The claim that virtue is a craft knowledge only and the denial of akrasia are rejected by Plato, although he substitutes equally paradoxical doctrines in their place, for example, the thesis that virtue must be good in itself and that the virtuous person must have knowledge of the Forms. Plato begins to reject Socratic claims in the Gorgias and Meno; he rejects them even more deci­sively in the Phaedo and Republic. His espousal of the doctrine of recollection and of the theory Forms is important in that it involves a rejection of the craft analogy (CA). Plato now sees that there can be no definition of the good in undisputed terms, as demanded by the CA. Since moral properties are not definable in terms of nonmoral ones, as Socrates had thought, morality cannot be merely a craft. Therefore, morality "can be learnt only through the elenchos. by the method of recollection" (p. 7). In theory, for Socrates, the final good should be discoverable independently of the elenchos. But "Plato denies that the elenchos can be replaced by a craft: he allows moral knowledge only through mutual support and coherence of beliefs about the virtues and about the good, with no appeal to an external standard, indentifiable without disputed moral terms, prom­ised by the CA" (p. 9).

In addition to rejecting Socrates' view of moral knowledge, Plato also rejects the denial of akrasia (Gorgias, Phaedo, Republic IV); this results from Plato's recognition of good-independent desires.

The abandonment of these central Socratic doctrines creates certain difficulties for Plato. In the first place, the CA had provided an excellent account of how morality is rational: it is a craft that produces a desired product. Now that Plato rejects this view he needs to supply an alternative justification for morality. In place of Socrates' claim that virtue is an instrumental good, Plato holds that virtue is a good in itself and benefits the agent. This raises the question of whether the commonly recognized virtues (especially justice) are in fact beneficial to the agent (a claim Soc­rates had defended with respect to temperance and courage). In the Republic Plato takes on the task of defending justice independently of Socratic assumptions about moral knowledge. He tries in Republic I-IV to defend his view that justice in the sense of psychic harmony is beneficial to the agent. The problem of how psychic harmony would involve concern for others Plato attempts to solve with his theory of rational desire and love (Symposium, Phaedrus). "He claims that the development of rational desire results in love for the Form of Justice and other moral properties, and in the desire to propagate them in other people. Since it will be in someone else's interest to become just, the just man will be concerned with other people's interests" (pp. 10- I I).

Irwin spends the final chapter (8) giving a critical examination of Plato's position. He discusses criticisms based upon Plato's ethical egoism and upon his teleology. He argues that whatever there is of importance in the criticism of egoism ultimately reduces to problems with teleology. He argues, furthermore, that these criticisms are not obviously decisive, although Plato's position does involve him in certain unacceptable positions with regard to human rights and freedom.

Detailed critical discussion of Irwin's main theses is impossible within the space available here. However, let me briefly isolate several of the most controversial and debatable of his claims.

Irwin's view that Socratic knowledge is craft knowledge only (p. 72, p. 84, et passim) is potentially misleading in that it underemphasizes the apparent fact that Socrates is looking for the account of a universal and an essential cause (Euthyphro 5d. 6d-e: cf. Hippias Major 287c-d, 289d), something with an objective existence independent of human cognition about it. The knowledge of such an eidos or idea seems to be just as "theoretical" and independent of the production of a product as the knowledge that twice two is four. although admittedly this latter proposition can be employed within the context of a craft. It should be noted that Irwin rejects (p. 296, n. 28) Gould's view that Socratic knowledge is only a "knowing how," so that he need not think that craft knowledge lacks the "bit of theory."

Irwin holds that the hedonism in the Protagoras is genuinely Socratic (p. 10.3) . rather than simply part of an ad hominem strategy. He thinks that the hedonism is necessary for the cogency of Socrates' argument and is completely consistent with and in fact demanded by other features of Socrates' theory, especially the CA. He seems to underestimate, however, the problem of the absence of hedonism from the other early dialogues. If hedonism is such a natural answer to Socrates' problems, why do we hear of it only in the Protagoras? There is not so much as a hint of it in other early dialogues (as Irwin seems to admit, p. 103), and one might surely argue that their general spirit is incompatible with hedonism (cf. Apology 30a-b, 38a, 41e; Crito 49b, et passim).

Irwin suggests that when Plato rejects Socrates' CA in the middle dialogues. he accepts the implication that since there is no final good that is specifiable in non disputed terms, there is no external standard for correctness of views about morality. "Plato rejects the external standard; moral beliefs cannot be tested for correctness except by the procedure of the elenchos, which may yield a systematic, coherent account of moral judgments, but may not link them to any external standard. When Plato rejects Socrates' guarantee of objectivity for moral beliefs, and offers no substitute, he rejects the demand for such a guarantee as illegitimate" (pp. 159-60). Irwin also claims that there is no reason to ascribe to Plato the view that Forms are intended as "absolute standards," the cognition of which (perhaps by some sort of direct acquaintance) issues in height­ened moral certainty (p. 321, n. 47). But surely the talk of the unhypothetical first principle (Republic 510b, 511b, 533c-d), and the need for it in order to convert hypotheses into knowl­edge, shows that Plato would not have been satisfied with mere consistency. unanchored to an external standard (see Cratylus 436c-d). And does not the whole theme of Books VI-VIII, the need for the philosopher kings to reach an apprehension of the Good (conceived of as an indepen­dently existing standard), clearly illustrate Plato's view that the direct apprehension of Forms does indeed issue in heightened moral certainty (see Republic 520c)? To abandon this yiew is, one might argue, to abandon the very core of Platonism.

Irwin holds that "the Good is not some further being besides the Forms; when we have correctly defined them, connected in a teleological system, we have specified the Good, which just is the system" (p. 225). But the "logic" of the of the Sun simile (as revealed e.g. by 508b-e. 509b) seems to tell against this interpretation; 507b5-7 seems direcectly to imply that the Form of the Good is one among the other Forms.

There are other places where Irwin offers provocative interpretations, such as his analysis of the Symposium's "ascent" passage (pp.209ff.) and its relevance to the problem of connecting Platonic justice with concern for the interests of others.

As Irwin says in his preface, he has "not tried to play safe" (p. viii). The result is an exciting book that challenges a number of orthodoxies in the interpretation of Plato's moral philosophy. Defenders of these received views will find that Irwin gives them much to think about.

RICHARD HOGAN

Review: Grube's Plato Translations

[Note: The publication of this review led to a relationship with Jay Hullett, of Hackett Publishing, which turned out to be one of the most satisfying aspects of my professional life. For a happy ending to the story of the Grube translations, see my review of Plato: Complete Works, posted below.]

Published in TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 2, No.3-4 (1977-8), pp.386-7.

G. M. A. GRUBE. The Trial and Death of Socrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1975, 58 pp. $1.25, pbk. G. M. A. GRUBE. Plato's Meno. In­dianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com­pany, 1976, 33 pp. $.95, pbk. G. M. A. GRUBE. Plato's Phaedo. In­dianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com­pany, 1977, 67 pp. $1.45, pbk.

     Grube's The Trial and Death of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and the "death scene" from the Phaedo), Meno and Phaedo continue the project of translation begun with the Republic (see the review in TP 1 :2). These editions are quite inexpensive and are intended to recommend themselves for use by stu­dents.

     Grube aims at a high degree of literalness in his renditions, but unfor­tunately, this is very often bought at the price of extreme awkwardness in the English. We are frequently given English with Greek syntax, long sentences which are not broken up, and deviant punctua­tion. All this creates a general impression of clumsiness. Some examples are the following:

Euthyphro 5D7 (p. 7). "Tell me then, what is the pious, and what the impious, do you say?"

Euthyphro 15C5-6 (p. 19). "Do you then not realize that when you say now that that what is dear to the gods is the pious?"

Crito 49B2-5 (p. 49). "Above all, is the truth such as we used to say it was, whether the majority agree or not, whether we must still suffer worse things than we do now, or will be treated more gently, nonetheless, wrongdoing is in every way harmful [sic: kakon] and shameful to the wrongdoer." (Two misprints corrected.)

Meno 96A-B3 (p. 28). "Can you men­tion any other subject of which those who claim to be teachers are not, such as the teachers of other subjects, recognized as such, but not to have knowledge of it themselves, and are thought to be poor in the very matter which they profess to teach, or any other subject of which those who are recognized as worthy men at one time say it can be taught and at other times that it cannot?"

Phaedo 76D7-E4 (p. 27). "If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all our sense perceptions to them, and we discover that it existed before and we had knowledge of it, and we compare our perceptions with it, then, just as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are born."

Phaedo 80C2-7 (p. 31). "You realize, he said, that when a man dies, the visible part, the body, which exists in the visible world, which we call the corpse, for which it would be natural to dissolve, fall apart and be blown away, does not immediately suffer any of these things but remains for a fair time, in fact, quite a long time if the man dies with his body in a suitable condi­tion and at a favourable season?"

Phaedo (88A1-B3 (p. 38). "For if one were to concede to a man using that argu­ment even more than you do, if one were to grant him not only that the soul exists in the time before we are born, but that there is no reason why the soul of some should not exist and continue to exist after our death, and thus frequently be born and die in turn, if one were to grant him that the soul's nature is so strong that it can survive many bodies, but if, having granted all this, one does not further agree that the soul is not damaged by its many births and is not, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths, he might say that no one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this."

     Presumably, the primary benefit of such literalness is the achievement of ac­curacy. But Grube often fails on this score as well. There is a plethora of annoying mistakes and mistranslations, of which the following are representative.

Euthyphro 6E3 (p. 8). "Tell me then what form itself is ... " leaves out a very important "this." Perhaps this is a misprint. Euthyphro 7 A8 (p. 9). The superlative enantiotaton is translated simply as "op­posite."

Euthyphro 8A10 (p. 10), 0 thaumasie is translated as "you surprising man," which fails to capture the irony of the Greek. At 8011 (p. 11), the same phrase is not translated at all.

 Apology 17A1 (p. 22). et passim. Grube translates andres Athenaioi as "gentlemen of the jury," which it ob­viously does not mean. The translation obscures the fact that Socrates deliberate­ly refrains from employing the most customary mode of address to a jury, and renders pointless his emphatic change of address (to andres dikastai) at 40A2, after he has determined who among the jury are true judges.

 Apology 37A5 (p. 39). The translation has" I am convinced that no man willing­ly does wrong," which makes the reader perk up at an explicit mention of the famous Socratic paradox. But this is a mistranslation; the medena at 37A5 is clearly accusative and the line means that Socrates has never willingly done anyone an injustice.

 Crito 53A3-5 (p. 53). Aneu nomon at 53A5 means "without laws," and not, as Grube has it, "if its laws do not."

Meno 87B2-C3 (p. 21). "So we can say about virtue also, since we do not know either what it is or what qualities it possesses, let us investigate whether it is teachable by means of a hypothesis, and say this: if among the things existing in the soul virtue has a certain quality, would it be teachable or not? Or, as we were saying just now, can it be recol­lected? First then, if it is other than knowledge-for let it make no difference to us whichever term we use-but can it be taught?"

   In addition to being extreme­ly awkward and ungrammatical, this translation involves a transposition of lines at B6-8, giving a totally different turn to the meaning.

Phaedo 650 (p. 14). Grube capitalizes the names of the Forms of the Just, the Beautiful and the Good. Yet at 65E, we find "size, health, strength," without capitalization, although these latter are surely Forms also, as the remaining part of the line makes clear.

Phaedo 100A4 (p. 50). "Theory" for logon is overly specific.

   Other inaccuracies occur at Euthyphro 3C, 50, 5E, 8C9, 9Cl, l1E2, 14C3-4: Crito 43B3-4, 54C7; Meno 71B4, 7608-9, 76E3, 88A6, 98A7; Phaedo 61A8-Bl, 65A9-Bl, 74E, 101D7.

   Moreover, Grube's remarks in his brief Introductions and notes are at times misleading and inaccurate. Often difficult points in the text which call for comment or explanation are ignored.
   There are a number of misprints in these books and the lopsided, hand-drawn diagrams illustrating the "slave boy" episode in the Meno do not help matters any. Perhaps they are intended to remind us of the imperfection of sensible par­ticulars.

   On the whole these editions are marred by a considerable number of infelicities. It is to be sincerely hoped that the publisher will see fit to revise and correct them, especially in view of the need for inexpen­sive versions of these dialogues for use in the classroom. However, until such a revi­sion is made, I cannot recommend them for use by students.

Richard Hogan
SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS UNIVERSITY