Chapter XLII: Appendix: BB

ON PLATO'S NOTION OF DIALECTIC.

(_Cam. Phil. Soc._ MAY 7, 1855.)

The survey of the sciences, arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy and harmonics--which is contained in the seventh Book of the Republic (§ 6-12), and which has been discussed in the preceding paper, represents them as instruments in an education, of which the end is something much higher--as steps in a progression which is to go further. "Do you not know," says Socrates (§ 12), "that all this is merely a prelude to the strain which we have to learn?" And what that strain is, he forthwith proceeds to indicate. "That these sciences do not suffice, you must be aware: for--those who are masters of such sciences--do they seem to you to be good in dialectic? δεινοὶ διαλεκτικοὶ εἷναι;"

"In truth, says Glaucon, they are not, with very few exceptions, so far as I have fallen in with them."

"And yet, said I, if persons cannot give and receive a reason, they cannot attain that knowledge which, as we have said, men ought to have."

Here it is evident that "to give and to receive a reason," is a phrase employed as coinciding, in a general way at least, with being "good in dialectic;" and accordingly, this is soon after asserted in another form, the verb being now used instead of the adjective. "It is dialectic discussion τὸ διαλέγεσθαι, which executes the strain which we have been preparing." It is further said that it is a progress to clear intellectual light, which corresponds to the progress of bodily vision in proceeding from the darkened cave described in the beginning of the Book to the light of day. This progress, it is added, of course you call _Dialectic_ διαλεκτικήν.

Plato further says, that other sciences cannot properly be called sciences. They begin from certain assumptions, and give us only the consequences which follow from reasoning on such assumptions. But these assumptions they cannot prove. To do so is not in the province of each science. It belongs to a higher science: to the science of Real Existences. You call the man Dialectical, who requires a reason of the essence of each thing[339].

And as Dialectic gives an account of other real existences, so does it of that most important reality, the true guide of Life and of Philosophy, the Real Good. He who cannot follow this through all the windings of the battle of Life, knows nothing to any purpose. And thus Dialectic is the pinnacle, the top stone of the edifice of the sciences[340].

Dialectic is here defined or described by Plato according to the _subject_ with which it treats, and the _object_ with which it is to be pursued: but in other parts of the Platonic Dialogues, Dialectic appears rather to imply a certain _method_ of investigation;--to describe the _form_ rather than the _matter_ of discussion; and it will perhaps be worth while to compare these different accounts of Dialectic.

(_Phædrus._) One of the cardinal passages on this Point is in the Phædrus, and may be briefly quoted. Phædrus, in the Dialogue which bears his name, appears at first as an admirer of Lysias, a celebrated writer of orations, the contemporary of Plato. In order to expose this writer's style of composition as frigid and shallow, a specimen of it is given, and Socrates not only criticises this, but delivers, as rival compositions, two discourses on the same subject. Of these discourses, given as the inspiration of the moment, the first is animated and vigorous; the second goes still further, and clothes its meaning in a gorgeous dress of poetical and mythical images. Phædrus acknowledges that his favourite is outshone; and Socrates then proceeds to point out that the real superiority of his own discourse consists in its having a dialectical structure, beneath its outward aspect of imagery and enthusiasm. He says: (§ 109, Bekker. It is to be remembered that the subject of all the discourses was _Love_, under certain supposed conditions.)

"The rest of the performance may be taken as play: but there were, in what was thus thrown out by a random impulse, two features, of which, if any one could reduce the effect to an art, it would be a very agreeable and useful task.

"What are they? Phædrus asks.

"In the first place, Socrates replies, the taking a connected view of the scattered elements of a subject, so as to bring them into one Idea; and thus to give a definition of the subject, so as to make it clear what we are speaking of; as was then done in regard to _Love_. A definition was given of it, what it is: whether the definition was good or bad, at any rate there was a definition. And hence, in what followed, we were able to say what was clear and consistent with itself.

"And what, Phædrus asks, was the other feature?

"The dividing the subject into kinds or elements, according to the nature of the thing itself:--not breaking its natural members, like a bad carver who cannot hit the joint. So the two discourses which we have delivered, took the irrational part of the mind, as their common subject; and as the body has two different sides, the right and the left, with the same names for its parts; so the two discourses took the irrational portion of man; and the one took the left-hand portion, and divided this again, and again subdivided it, till, among the subdivisions, it found a left-handed kind of Love, of which nothing but ill was to be said. While the discourse that followed out the right-hand side of phrenzy, (the irrational portion of man's nature,) was led to something which bore the name of _Love_ like the other, but which is divine, and was praised as the source of the greatest blessing."

"Now I," Socrates goes on to say, "am a great admirer of these processes of division and comprehension, by which I endeavour to speak and to think correctly. And if I can find any one who is able to see clearly what is by nature reducible to one and manifested in many elements, I follow his footsteps as a divine guide. Those who can do this, I call--whether rightly or not, God knows--but I have hitherto been in the habit of calling them _dialectical_ men."

It is of no consequence to our present purpose whether either of the discourses of Socrates in the Phædrus, or the two together, as is here assumed, do contain a just division and subdivision of that part of the human soul which is distinguishable from Reason, and do thus exhibit, in its true relations, the affection of Love. It is evident that division and subdivision of this kind is here presented as, in Plato's opinion, a most valuable method; and those who could successfully practise this method are those whom he admires as dialectical men. This is here his _Dialectic_.

(_Sophistes._) We are naturally led to ask whether this method of dividing a subject as the best way of examining it, be in any other part of the Platonic Dialogues more fully explained than it is in the Phædrus; or whether any rules are given for this kind of Dialectic.

To this we may reply, that in the Dialogue entitled _The Sophist_, a method of dividing a subject, in order to examine it, is explained and exemplified with extraordinary copiousness and ingenuity. The object proposed in that Dialogue is, to define what a Sophist is; and with that view, the principal speaker, (who is represented as an Eleatic stranger,) begins by first exemplifying what is his method of framing a definition, and by applying it to define an _Angler_. The course followed, though it now reads like a burlesque of philosophical methods, appears to have been at that time a _bona fide_ attempt to be philosophical and methodical. It proceeds thus:

"We have to inquire concerning _Angling_. Is it an Art? It is. Now what kind of art? All art is an art of making or an art of getting: (_Poietic_ or _Ktetic_.) It is Ktetic. Now the art of getting, is the art of getting by exchange or by capture: (_Metabletic_ or _Chirotic_.) Getting by capture is by contest or by chase: (_Agonistic_ or _Thereutic_.) Getting by chase is a chase of lifeless or of living things: (the first has no name, the second is _Zootheric_.) The chase of living things is the chase of land animals or of water animals: (_Pezotheric_ or _Enygrotheric_.) Chase of water animals is of birds or of fish: (_Ornithothereutic_ and _Halieutic_.) Chase of fish is by inclosing or by striking them: (_Hercotheric_ or _Plectic_.) We strike them by day with pointed instruments, or by night, using torches: (hence the division _Ankistreutic_ and _Pyreutic_.) Of Ankistreutic, one kind consists in spearing the fish downwards from above, the other in twitching them upwards from below: (these two arts are _Triodontic_ and _Aspalieutic_.) And thus we have, what we sought, the notion and the description of angling: namely that it is a Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic, Zootheric, Enygrotheric, Halieutic, Plectic, Ankistreutic, Aspalieutic Art."

Several other examples are given of this ingenious mode of definition, but they are all introduced with reference to the definition of the Sophist. And it will further illustrate this method to show how, according to it, the Sophist is related to the Angler.

The Sophistical Art is an art of getting, by capture, living things, namely men. It is thus a Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic art, and so far agrees with that of the Angler. But here the two arts diverge, since that of the Sophist is Pezotheric, that of the Angler Enygrotheric. To determine the Sophist still more exactly, observe that the chase of land animals is either of tame animals (including man) or of wild animals: (_Hemerotheric_ and _Agriotheric_.) The chase of tame animals is either by violence, (as kidnapping, tyranny, and war in general,) or by persuasion, (as by the arts of speech;) that is, it is _Biaiotheric_ or _Pithanurgic_. The art of persuasion is a private or a public proceeding: (_Idiothereutic_ or _Demosiothereutic_.) The art of private persuasion is accompanied with the giving of presents, (as lovers do,) or with the receiving of pay: (thus it is _Dorophoric_ or _Mistharneutic_.) To receive pay as the result of persuasion, is the course, either of those who merely earn their bread by supplying pleasure, namely flatterers, whose art is _Hedyntic_; or of those who profess for pay to teach virtue. And who are they? Plainly the Sophists. And thus _Sophistic_ is that kind of Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic, Zootheric, Pezotheric, Hemerotheric, Pithanurgic, Idiothereutic, Mistharneutic art, which professes to teach virtue, and takes money on that account.

The same process is pursued along several other lines of inquiry: and at the end of each of them the Sophist is detected, involved in a number of somewhat obnoxious characteristics. This process of division it will be observed, is at every step bifurcate, or as it is called, _dichotomous_. Applied as it is in these examples, it is rather the vehicle of satire than of philosophy. Yet, I have no doubt that this bifurcate method was admired by some of the philosophers of Plato's time, as a clever and effective philosophical invention. We may the more readily believe this, inasmuch as one of the most acute persons of our own time, who has come nearer than any other to the ancient heads of sects in the submission with which his followers have accepted his doctrines, has taken up this Dichotomous Method, and praised it as the only philosophical mode of dividing a subject. I refer to Mr. Jeremy Bentham's _Chrestomathia_ (published originally in 1816), in which this exhaustive bifurcate method, as he calls it, was applied to classify sciences and arts, with a view to a scheme of education. How exactly the method, as recommended by him, agrees with the method illustrated in the _Sophist_, an examination of any of his examples will show. Thus to take Mineralogy as an example: according to Bentham, Ontology is Cœnoscopic or Idioscopic: the Idioscopic is Somatoscopic or Pneumatoscopic; the Somatoscopic is Pososcopic or Poioscopic: Poioscopic is Physiurgoscopic or Anthropurgoscopic: Physiurgoscopic is Uranoscopic or Epigeoscopic: Epigeoscopic is Abioscopic or Embioscopic. And thus Mineralogy is the Science Idioscopic, Somatoscopic, Poioscopic, Physiurgoscopic, Epigeoscopic, Abioscopic: inasmuch as it is the science which regards bodies, with reference to their qualities,--bodies, namely, the works of nature, terrestrial, lifeless.

I conceive that this bifurcate method is not really philosophical or valuable: but that is not our business here. What we have to consider is whether this is what Plato meant by the term _Dialectic_.

The general description of Dialectic in the _Sophistes_ agrees very closely with that quoted from the _Phædrus_, that it is the separation of a subject according to its natural divisions.

Thus, see in the Sophist the passage § 83: "To divide a subject according to the kinds of things, so as neither to make the same kind different nor different kinds identical, is the office of the Dialectical Science." And this is illustrated by observing that it is the office of the science of Grammar to determine what letters may be combined and what may not; it is the office of the science of Music to determine what sounds differing as acute and grave, may be combined, and what may not: and in like manner it is the office of the science of Dialectic to determine what _kinds_ may be combined in one subject and what may not. And the proof is still further explained.

In many of the Platonic Dialogues, the Dialectic which Socrates is thus represented as approving, appears to include the form of Dialogue, as well as the subdivision of the subject into its various branches. Socrates is presented as attaching so much importance to this form, that in the Protagoras (§ 65) he rises to depart, because his opponent will not conform to this practice. And generally in Plato, Dialectic is opposed to Rhetoric, as a string of short questions and answers to a continuous dissertation.

Xenophon also seems to imply (_Mem._ IV. 5, 11) that Socrates included in his notion of Dialectic the form of Dialogue as well as the division of the subject.

But that the method of close Dialogue was not called _Dialectic_ by the author of the _Sophist_, we have good evidence in the work itself. Among other notions which are analysed by the bifurcate division here exhibited, is that of getting by contest (_Agonistic_, previously given as a division of _Ktetic_). Now getting by contest may be by peaceful trial of superiority, or by fight: (_Hamilletic_ or _Machelic_). The fight may be of body against body, or of words against words: these may be called _Biastic_ and _Amphisbetic_. The fight of words about right and wrong, may be by long discourses opposed to each other, as in judicial cases; or by short questions and answers: the former may be called _Dicanic_, the latter _Antilogic_. Of these colloquies, about right and wrong, some are natural and spontaneous, others artificial and studied: the former need no special name; the latter are commonly called _Eristic_. Of Eristic colloquies, some are a source of expense to those who hold them, some of gain: that is, they are _Chrematophthoric_ or _Chrematistic_: the former, the occupation of those who talk for pleasure's and for company's sake, is _Adoleschic_, wasteful garrulity; the latter, that of those who talk for the sake of gain, is _Sophistic_. And thus Sophistic is an art Eristic, which is part of Antilogic, which is part of Amphisbetic, which is part of Agonistic, which is part of Chirotic, which is a part of Ktetic. (§ 23.)

We may notice here an indication that satire rather than exact reason directs these analyses; in that Sophistic, which was before a part of the _thereutic_ branch of _chirotic_ and _ktetic_, is here a part of the other branch, _agonistic_.

But the remark which I especially wish to make here is, that the art of discussing points of right and wrong by short questions and answers, being here brought into view, is not called _Dialectic_, which we might have expected; but _Antilogic_. It would seem therefore that the Author of the Sophist did not understand by _Dialectic_ such a process as Socrates describes in Xenophon; (_Mem._ IV. 5, 11, 12;) where he says it was called _Dialectic_, because it was followed by persons _dividing things into their kinds in conversation_: (κοινῇ βουλεύεσθαι διαλέγοντας:)or such as the Socrates of Plato insisted upon in the Protagoras and the Gorgias. Of the two elements which the Dialectical Process of Socrates implied, Division of the subject and Dialogue, the author of the _Sophistes_ does not claim the name of _Dialectic_ for either, and seems to reject it for the second.

But without insisting upon the name, are we to suppose that the Dichotomous Method of the _Sophistes_ Dialogue, (I may add of the _Politicus_, for the method is the same in this Dialogue also,) is the method of division of a subject according to its natural members, of which Plato speaks in the _Phædrus_?

If the _Sophistes_ be the work of Plato, the answer is difficult either way. If this method be Plato's _Dialectic_, how came he to omit to say so there? how came he even to seem to deny it? But on the other hand, if this dichotomous division be a different process from the division called _Dialectic_ in the Phædrus, had Plato two methods of division of a subject? and yet has he never spoken of them as two, or marked their distinction?

This difficulty would be removed if we were to adopt the opinion, to which others, on other grounds, have been led, that the Sophistes, though of Plato's time, is not Plato's work. The grounds of this opinion are,--that the doctrines of the Sophistes are not Platonic: (the doctrine of Ideas is strongly impugned and weakly defended:) Socrates is not the principal speaker, but an Eleatic stranger: and there is, in the Dialogue, none of the dramatic character which we generally have in Plato. The Dialogue seems to be the work of some Eleatic opponent of Plato, rather than his.

(_Rep._ B. VII.) But we can have no doubt that the _Phædrus_ contains Plato's real view of the nature of Dialectic, as to its form; let us see how this agrees with the view of Dialectic, as to its matter and object, given in the seventh Book of the _Republic_.

According to Plato, Real Existences are the objects of the exact sciences (as number and figure, of Arithmetic and Geometry). The things which are the objects of sense transitory phenomena, which have no reality, because no permanence. Dialectic deals with Realities in a more general manner. This doctrine is everywhere inculcated by Plato, and particularly in this part of the _Republic_. He does not tell us how we are to obtain a view of the higher realities, which are the objects of Dialectic: only he here assumes that it will result from the education which he enjoins. He says (§ 13) that the Dialectic Process (ἡ διαλεκτικὴ μέθοδος) alone leads to true science: it makes no assumptions, but goes to First Principles, that its doctrines may be firmly grounded: and thus it purges the eye of the soul, which was immersed in barbaric mud, and turns it upward; using for this purpose the aid of the sciences which have been mentioned. But when Glaucon inquires about the details of this Dialectic, Socrates says he will not then answer the inquiry. We may venture to say, that it does not appear that he had any answer ready.

Let us consider for a moment what is said about a philosophy rendering a reason for the First Principles of each Science, which the Science itself cannot do. That there is room for such a branch of philosophy in some sciences, we easily see. Geometry, for instance, proceeds from Axioms, Definitions and Postulates; but by the very nature of these terms, does not prove these First Principles. These--the Axioms, Definitions and Postulates,--are, I conceive, what Plato here calls the _Hypotheses_ upon which Geometry proceeds, and for which it is not the business of Geometry to render a reason. According to him, it is the business of "Dialectic" to give a just account of these "Hypotheses." What then is _Dialectic?_

(_Aristotle._) It is, I think, well worthy of remark, that Aristotle, giving an account in many respects different from that of Plato, of the nature of Dialectic, is still led in the same manner to consider Dialectic as the branch of philosophy which renders a reason for First Principles. In the _Topics_, we have a distinction drawn between reasoning demonstrative, and reasoning dialectical: and the distinction is this:--(_Top_. I. 1) that demonstration is by syllogisms from true first principles, or from true deductions from such principles; and that the Dialectical Syllogism is that which syllogizes from probable propositions (ἠξ ἠνδόξων). And he adds that probable propositions are those which are accepted by all, or by the greatest part, or by the wise. In the next chapter, he speaks of the uses of Dialectic, which, he says, are three, mental discipline, debates, and philosophical science. And he adds (_Top_. I. 2, 6) that it is also useful with reference to the First Principles in each Science: for from the appropriate Principles of each science we cannot deduce anything concerning First Principles, since these principles are the beginning of reasoning. But from the probable principles in each province of science we must reason concerning First Principles: and this is either the peculiar office of Dialectic, or the office most appropriate to it; for it is a process of investigation, and must lead to the Principles of all methods.

That a demonstrative science, as such, does not explain the origin of its own First Principles, is undoubtedly true. Geometry does not undertake to give a reason for the Axioms, Definitions, and Postulates. This has been attempted, both in ancient and in modern times, by the Metaphysicians. But the Metaphysics employed on such subjects has not commonly been called Dialectic. The term has certainly been usually employed rather as describing a Method, than as determining the subject of investigation. Of the Faculty which apprehends First Principles, both according to Plato and to Aristotle, I will hereafter say a few words.

The object of the dichotomous process pursued in the Sophistes, and its result in each case, is a Definition. Definition also was one of the main features of the inquiries pursued by Socrates, Induction being the other; and indeed in many cases Induction was a series of steps which ended in Definition. And Aristotle also taught a peculiar method, the object and result of which was the construction of Definitions:--namely his _Categories_. This method is one of division, but very different from the divisions of the Sophistes. His method begins by dividing the whole subject of possible inquiry into ten heads or _Categories_--Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Position, Habit, Action, Passion. These again are subdivided: thus Quality is Habit or Disposition, Power, Affection, Form. And we have an example of the application of this method to the construction of a Definition in the Ethics; where he determines Virtue to be a Habit with certain additional limitations.

Thus the Induction of Socrates, the Dichotomy of the Eleatics, the Categories of Aristotle, may all be considered as methods by which we proceed to the construction of Definitions. If, by any method, Plato could proceed to the construction of a Definition, or rather of an Idea, of the Absolute Realities on which First Principles depend, such a method would correspond with the notion of Dialectic in the _Republic_. And if it was a method of division like the Eleatic or Aristotelic, it would correspond with the notion of Dialectic in the _Phædrus_.

That Plato's notion, however, cannot have been exactly either of these is, I think, plain. The colloquial method of stimulating and testing the progress of the student in Dialectic is implied, in the sequel of this discussion of the effect of scientific study. And the method of Dialogue, as the instrument of instruction, being thus supposed, the continuation of the account in the _Republic_, implies that Plato expected persons to be made dialectical by the study of the exact sciences in a comprehensive spirit. After insisting on Geometry and other sciences, he says (_Rep._ VII. § 16): "The synoptical man is dialectical; and he who is not the one, is not the other."

But, we may ask, does a knowledge of sciences lead naturally to a knowledge of Ideas, as absolute realities from which First Principles flow? And supposing this to be true, as the Platonic Philosophy supposes, is the Idea of the Good, as the source of moral truths, to be thus attained to? That it is, is the teaching of Plato, here and elsewhere; but have the speculations of subsequent philosophers in the same direction given any confirmation of this lofty assumption?

In reply to this inquiry, I should venture to say, that this assumption appears to be a remnant of the Socratic doctrine from which Plato began his speculations, that Virtue is a kind of knowledge; and that all attempts to verify the assumption have failed. What Plato added to the Socratic notion was, that the inquiry after The Good, the Supreme Good, was to be aided by the analogy or suggestions of those sciences which deal with necessary and eternal truths; the supreme good being of the nature of those necessary and eternal truths. This notion is a striking one, as a suggestion, but it has always failed, I think, in the attempts to work it out. Those who in modern times, as Cudworth and Samuel Clarke, have supposed an analogy between the necessary truths of Geometry and the truths of Morality, though they have used the like expressions concerning the one and the other class of truths, have failed to convey clear doctrines and steady convictions to their readers; and have now, I believe, few or no followers.

The result of our investigation appears to be, that though Plato added much to the matter by means of which the mind was to be improved and disciplined in its research after Principles and Definitions, he did not establish any form of Method according to which the inquiry must be conducted, and by which it might be aided. The most definite notion of Dialectic still remained the same with the original informal view which Socrates had taken of it, as Xenophon tells us, (_Mem._ IV. 5, 11) when he says: "He said that Dialectic (τὸ διαλέγεσθαι) was so called because it is an inquiry pursued by persons who take counsel together, separating the subjects considered according to their kinds (διαλέγοντας). He held accordingly that men should try to be well prepared for such a process, and should pursue it with diligence: by this means, he thought, they would become good men, fitted for responsible offices of command, and truly dialectical" (διαλέκτικωτάτους). And this is, I conceive, the answer to Mr. Grote's interrogatory exclamation (Vol. VIII. p. 577): "Surely the Etymology here given by Xenophon or Socrates of the word (διαλέγεσθαι) cannot be considered as satisfactory." The two notions, of investigatory Dialogue, and Distribution of notions according to their kinds, which are thus asserted to be connected in etymology, were, among the followers of Socrates, connected in fact; the dialectic dialogue was supposed to involve of course the dialectic division of the subject.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 339: Η καὶ διαλεκτικὸν καλεῖς τὸν λόγον ἐκάστου λαμβάνοντα τῆς οὐσίας; (§ 14).]

[Footnote 340: ὥσπερ θριγγὸς τοῖς μαθήμασιν ἡ διαλεκτικὴ ἦμιν ἐπάνω κεῖσθαι. (§ 14).]