THE PROPER EDUCATION FOR PHILOSOPHIC NATURES

If Homer’s education of the Greeks is a philosophic education, if it seeks to enlighten them concerning the role of the divine in human affairs and concerning the nature of human excellence, why would the philosopher Plato attack it? If both Plato and Homer agree that the contemplative life of the mind is the best way of life, in what ways do they disagree?¹ What is Plato’s philosophic critique of Homer’s philosophic education?

But first, one might wonder, how is it even possible to determine with confidence what Plato’s true view of Homer is, given that, unlike Homer, Plato conveys that view primarily through a dialogue, the Republic, in which, apart from the title, he never speaks directly to us?² Within the dialogue, we only see Socrates offer his view, his critical view, of Homer.

¹ Consider Bolotin’s contention that “[t]he appearance, then, of a radical controversy between Plato or Socrates and Homer is a false one, at least as it concerns their views of human life” (1995, 93).

² See Strauss 1964, 55-56.

132 with communicating the truth.^[308] What general conclusion can one draw from the Republic, then, about Plato’s genuine understanding of Homer?

While it is admittedly difficult to determine what such a reserved figure as Plato thought, there are reasons for believing that one can uncover Plato’s true view of Homer from Socrates’ critique in the Republic.

The critique of Homer takes place in a discussion at the home of Cephalus’s son Polemarchus among Socrates, Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Plato’s brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus.^[315] The critique arises in the following way.

At first glance, there would seem to be a certain affinity between Socrates’ treatment of the question of justice and Homer’s treatment of that question. Socrates proposes to investigate whether it is better to be just than unjust by founding an imaginary just city, a just city in speech.

Just before turning to discuss the proper education of those who will guard the city and to critique Homer’s education of the Greeks as a whole, Socrates introduces the question of what ought to be the natures of those who will guard the city and therewith explicitly introduces into the discussion the theme of philosophy (374a4-376c6). He asserts that, while one who is simply spirited by nature will be cruel toward one and all, one who is both spirited and philosophic will be cruel to enemies but gentle to fellow citizens.

Socrates' remark here that the guardians will have philosophic natures is extremely important for his discussion of education, his critique of Homer, and indeed, the entire discussion that follows. For at almost the very beginning of his founding of the imaginary just city, Socrates had suggested that the human beings in it will be allowed to excel and flourish according to their nature: Each will “mind his own business for himself” and “each of these things [the activities of the citizens] becomes more plentiful and nobler and easier when one practices them in accordance with one's nature and in the critical moment” (369e2-370c5). A just city, then, Socrates suggests, is one whose citizens will somehow devote them­selves to the community - and hence be just in the sense of serving someone else's good - while also fulfilling their own natures - and hence achieve their own good.^[325] Therefore, if the guardians of the just city are to have philosophic natures, they must be allowed to cultivate and fulfill their natures as well as protecting the city from harm.^[326] In this way, Socrates prefaces his discussion of education with the suggestion that a principal goal of that education is to perfect philosophic natures.

Socrates has not defined what he means by philosophy in the dialogue thus far, beyond identifying it as the love of learning (376b8-9). However, in the light of witnessing Socrates in the discussion thus far, we may tentatively infer that, insofar as Socrates himself is a philoso- pher,^[327] philosophy entails pursuing wisdom by asking and investigating such questions as, what is justice, is it always just to benefit one's loved ones, even if they are bad, and is it better to be just or unjust?^[328] Accordingly, we may provisionally surmise, Socrates means to suggest that the noble and good guardian will have a questioning as well as spirited nature, one that is capable of examination and reflection as well as courage and fighting.

Socrates now considers the proper education for such guardians, and here too, at this point in the dialogue, one might think that he would view Homer favorably for offering the best education for philosophic, spirited, swift, and strong natures. In the first place, Socrates appears here to take his bearings from tradition in thinking about education: “What, then, is the education? Or is it hard to discover a better one than that which has been discovered by much time?” (376e2-3). But in Greece, at least, it is Homer who is the principal educator, and he has evidently been one for much time (606eι-607a5). Moreover, as we have noted, by approaching the question of the goodness of justice within the context of a city guarded by warriors who must sacrifice for their fellow citizens, Socrates seems to approach this question in a way reminiscent of Homer, whose heroic warrior Achilles raises quite specifically the question of whether it is good for him to make continuous sacrifices for his fellows:

He still goes down to death, the man who has done no deeds, and the one who has done many. Nothing more is laid up for me, once I suffered pains in my spirit, always risking my life by fighting. As a bird brings morsels to her young who cannot fly, wherever she may take them, but for her there is evil, so I have lain for many sleepless nights and passed through bloody days in fighting, struggling with men for the sake of their wives. (Iliad 9.320-327)

Finally, Achilles himself might seem, in his nature, most similar to the guardians Socrates describes, since Achilles is superlatively swift and strong,^[329] and he is certainly spirited but also capable of great friendship for at least a number of his fellows.^[330] And insofar as Achilles stands out, at least among the heroes of Homer, for voicing and wrestling with such questions as, is it always just to be loyal to one’s friends, even if they are bad, and is it better to sacrifice one’s own good for others than to pursue one’s own good even at the expense of others, Achilles would seem to be philosophic.^[331] If Socrates here wishes to show how one with a philo­sophic as well as spirited nature may be educated to become most excellent, at once thoughtful and devoted to others, why should he not follow the Homeric education?

socrates’ critique of the HOMERIC education i: the gods

Socrates begins his discussion of the education of the philosophic and spirited guardians by stating that they must be educated in both true and false speeches “but first in the false ones” (376eιι-377a2). Adeimantus is puzzled, and understandably so, since it would seem that those who are by nature lovers of wisdom and learning would be encouraged to pursue the truth they seek rather than be deceived by false speeches.^[332] Socrates explains himself by first invoking common practice: “We” tell false tales when rearing children, presumably because their childish minds cannot yet comprehend the truth (377a4-6). But then, after stressing how malle­able the natures of children are and hence how impressionable they are, he asks, “[t]hen will we so easily permit the children to hear the tales that happen to be molded by ones who happen to do so and to take into their souls those opinions that are, for the most part, opposite to the ones we suppose they must have when they are mature?” (377b5-9). Adeimantus agrees emphatically they must not permit it. In this way, Socrates suggests that even the mature guardians must hold certain opinions, inherited from their childhood, which they must not question. Yet, it might seem that philosophers must be willing at least to question all opinions, as Socrates seems in the opening section of the dialogue to be willing to question all opinions.²⁹ In what sense, then, one wonders, are these guardians to be philosophic?

Socrates suggests here that there is a twofold tension between truth and the education of the philosophic guardians. In the first place, there is, he suggests, a tension between knowing the truth and becoming effective guardians or protectors of the political community. But furthermore, there is, Socrates suggests, a tension between knowing the truth and perfecting one’s philosophic nature. Falsehoods, he suggests, are a neces­sary part of the education of both public-spirited citizens and philoso­phers even, it seems, when those citizens and philosophers are mature. But how can falsehoods play any role in the cultivation of philosophic souls who pursue the truth?

Having established that the education of the guardians should be based, first, in falsehoods, Socrates now inaugurates his harsh and far- reaching attack on the Homeric education. He asserts that “the many” of the false tales now told by mothers and nurses to children “must be thrown out” and he explains this assertion by blaming Hesiod, Homer, and the other “poets” - all of whom he explicitly considers as entirely human poets who compose their poems rather than divinely inspired singers^[333] - for composing false tales “for the human beings” and “espe­cially” for not lying “nobly.”^[334] Socrates then criticizes the poets for making claims that, “even if they were true,” should not be told to the young or even, as he later indicates, to the citizens as a whole, “younger or older.”^[335] Indeed, Socrates here foreshadows his later revelation that the imaginary just city he is founding will be based on a noble lie, a lie that is apparently to be believed by all members of the city.^[336] In this way, Socrates indicates a major, substantive disagreement with Homer as an educator: Homer is in certain respects too truthful. Even though he is not completely open, even though he may in certain respects teach covertly and speak enigmatically,^[337] Homer is excessively open in revealing the truth to his audience, that is, in raising reasonable but troubling questions about religious and political authority.³⁵ Homer is, Socrates suggests, insufficiently attentive to the tension between truth and the proper educa­tion of both citizens and philosophers. In his opening critique of Homer, Socrates signals his apparent intention to bring to an end the Homeric enlightenment.

By stressing, at the very beginning of his critique of Homer, the importance of educating philosophic natures in falsehoods from early childhood, Socrates suggests that the Homeric education posits a natural robustness to human reason. Homer assumes, not that reason naturally rules over human beings, but that humans have a certain natural openness to reason and a certain general capacity to develop it, especially through experiencing, as Achilles does, the tragic but instructive conflicts of polit­ical and military life and pondering the painful questions those conflicts give rise to. But Socrates suggests that reason always has a precarious position in the human soul of even philosophic natures (376c4-5), that even such human souls do not possess a nature that simply supports reason, and that the passions in particular always threaten to overwhelm and dominate reason.^[338] Therefore, for Socrates, the proper nurture of even philosophic natures is crucial in order to strengthen their reason and that nurture must begin from early childhood. For humans’ souls can be molded in radically different ways. As Socrates remarks, “[d]on’t you know that the beginning is the greatest part of every work, especially with whatever is young and tender? For at that time it is especially molded and takes on the impression that someone might wish to stamp on each” (377aι2-b3). Philosophy - the love of wisdom - does not naturally tend to rise to lead the soul as a result of challenging, thought-provoking experiences in politics and war, as Homer suggests. Philosophy requires a soul that has been properly educated, properly prepared and molded by appropriate tales - by salutary lies - in order to predominate in the soul.

Socrates proceeds to attack Homer and also Hesiod for their presenta­tion of “the greatest things,” the gods, as beings who are at war with one another, even and especially if they belong to the same family.^[339] Now, in order to understand the significance of Socrates’ critique here, let us recall briefly why Homer presents the gods in conflict with one another. Both Homer and Hesiod present conflict among the gods, but the most serious forms of such conflict took place in the past,^[340] and for both poets, Zeus maintains a more or less stable peace among the gods at present: For both Homer and Hesiod, Zeus is a more or less effective “Father of Gods and Men.”^[341] As we have seen,^[342] Homer has two purposes in highlighting conflict among the gods. First, he seeks to show that the power of the gods is limited, in the first place by one another - Zeus must accommodate Hera, Athena, and Poseidon lest they overthrow him - but ultimately by a natural order that prevents the immortal gods from altering either the mortal nature of human beings or their own immortal nature. Secondly, Homer’s purpose in highlighting conflict among the gods is to highlight the gulf that exists between those immortal beings and mortal humans. As Homer emphasizes over and over again, while human conflicts lead to death and sorrow, divine conflicts result in petty bickering, capricious quarreling, and easy reconciliation. As Homer stresses in Book I of the Iliad, for example, while the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon results in “countless woes for the Achaians,” the conflict between Zeus and Hera results in “unquenchable... laughter” and good cheer (1.1-7, 1.573-611). By virtue of the immortality that is essential to their nature, the gods simply are incapable of suffering as mortal beings do, of under­standing the sufferings of mortals, or of caring about those sufferings.^[343] Homer’s principal goal in presenting the immortal gods in conflict, then, as well as in presenting the gods as such whimsical and capricious beings, is to teach humans not to trust in the providence of such beings whose nature inevitably renders them both fundamentally different and funda­mentally indifferent beings, but rather to provide for themselves, apart from the gods, as Achilles does in comforting Priam and granting him and his people a 12-day truce to bury their beloved Hector in peace.^[344] Moreover, to the extent that certain human rulers themselves derive their authority from the gods, Homer’s presentation of the gods as bickering and capricious beings encourages his audience to question those rulers, as Achilles questions the authority of the Zeus-backed Agamemnon.^[345] Finally, and most simply, by presenting conflicts among both gods and humans, and by focusing his principal poem on a most violent conflict - the Trojan War - and a conflict within that conflict - between Achilles and his king Agamemnon - Homer teaches his audience that the world is less orderly than they might hope - and conventionally believe - it would be and that its divine and human rulers are more questionable than his audience might hope - and conventionally believe - they would be, and thereby teaches his audience the importance of reasoning for themselves about the world and about their rulers. Homer’s goal in his education concerning the gods, humans, and the world as a whole, then, is to promote religious skepticism, independence from divine authority, and human self-governance.

Socrates, however, criticizes the portrayal of the warring gods by Homer and Hesiod for its harmful effects on humans, both politically and intellectually. If a youth hears that Uranus devoured his children, and his son Cronus took vengeance on him, and then Cronus’s son Zeus punished his father, he will conclude that “in doing the extremes of injustice he would do nothing at all wondrous, nor again in punishing his father in every way for doing injustice, but he would be doing only what the first and greatest of the gods did” (378b2-5). Similarly, since the guardians must believe that “no citizen ever incurs the hatred of another nor is this pious,” they must never be told by the poets, even when adults, that the gods make war on one another (378b8-d5). Socrates contends here that humans will inevitably imitate the gods. He acknowledges that Homer may well not intend that they do so - that he may intend to teach, beneath the surface, that the immortal gods are fundamentally different, inimitable beings to whom we humans should not look for assistance but must rather rely on ourselves (378d3-e3). Socrates himself refers to the comical aspect of the conflicts between the immortals in Homer’s account, the aspect that highlights the chasm between the carefree gods and the all- too-vulnerable humans.^[346] But Socrates suggests that Homer’s teaching about the gods is simply too difficult for human beings to grasp given the weakness of human reason. Humans are generally incapable of under­standing how fundamentally different immortal beings are, or would be, from themselves.^[347] Humans instinctively overlook the gulf between divine and human nature and instinctively view gods as humans writ large and hence as models for human behavior. Moreover, and more importantly, humans will naturally be driven by their passions to interpret stories of the gods in a self-serving and self-indulgent manner. If they believe that the gods are angry with one another, humans will feel liberated to indulge their own anger.^[348] Similarly, as Socrates later suggests, if they believe that the gods are overcome with sorrow or erotic passion or jealousy, humans will feel license to allow themselves to be overcome as well.⁴⁷ Therefore, if, for example, humans believe that gods use force against their kin, so will humans, and if humans believe that gods make war with their fellows, so will humans. Socrates suggests here that Homer’s effort to promote religious skepticism and human self-governance is misguided because it overestimates the power of human reason and underestimates the power of human passions. Accordingly, in his attempt to liberate humans from the sway of conventional piety and conventional deference to authority by depicting the gods as warring and capricious beings and by focusing on thought-provoking divine and human conflicts in his poems, Homer runs the great risk of simply encouraging conflict and turmoil within society and even within the family.

Furthermore, Socrates suggests that Homer’s presentation of the gods and heroes threatens to call into question the opinions that the guardians must evidently hold from their childhood up through their maturity: that it is always unjust to harm or punish a family member or fellow citizen, that it is unjust to punish one’s father even for injustice, and that it is impious ever to incur the hatred of a fellow citizen.^[349] Now, a defender of Homer might object that these opinions are indeed questionable. Is it, for example, unjust for Achilles to induce Agamemnon to return Chryseis to her father and thereby save the Achaians from Apollo’s deadly wrath, even at the risk of incurring the hatred of his king?^[350] Is it unjust for Hector to rebuke his brother Paris for causing the Trojan War and to wish that the Trojans would punish him?⁵⁰ Indeed, Socrates himself seems at least implicitly to question these opinions in his earlier discussions with Cephalus and Polemarchus. For there he argues that it may be just to lie to or steal from a madman, that one’s loved ones may be unjust, and that it may be unjust to benefit one’s loved ones who are unjust.⁵¹ But then, might it not be just to use force against a loved one who has gone mad or is unjust, even, for example, against one’s father? Socrates reveals here that a just city requires guardians who will follow unquestioningly a moral code of loyalty to one’s family and one’s fellow citizens. This code is clearly questionable, but Socrates suggests that, given the power of such passions as anger, a stable and decent society requires such a code. To raise questions about such loyalty, as Homer does in his poems, and as Socrates does early on in this dialogue, risks unleashing passions and thereby undermining society.

Socrates criticizes Homer here, then, not precisely for being philo­sophic, but for being too openly philosophic, for not recognizing the fragility of human reason and the power of human passions and hence for not recognizing the tension between reason, which questions all things, and society, which requires unquestioned moral and religious beliefs. There must be a certain separation, Socrates suggests here, between a decent and stable political society and philosophy. Accordingly, Socrates stops speaking explicitly of philosophy once he begins discussing the actual education of the guardians. Instead, he stresses that the guardians must be “god-revering and divine” (383c4). Near the end of his discussion of the education of the guardians, Socrates does return to suggesting that the guardians will be philosophic.^[351] But he then almost immediately affirms that everyone in the city the guardians protect, including the guardians themselves, must believe in a noble lie.^[352] Later on, Socrates does, of course, reveal that a just city must be ruled by philosophers.^[353] But he also reveals that the philosophers are anti-political, that they will abhor ruling and must be compelled to rule, and he even hints therefore that their rule is impossible.^[354] Socrates suggests, then, that there must be a sharp separation between politics and the questioning spirit of philosophy. Homer is to be banished from the just city for being in a sense too openly philosophic, that is, for encouraging too openly and widely a questioning of religious and political authority, and hence, in this sense, for failing to separate philosophy from politics.^[355]

Socrates' critique of Homer for advocating a generally enlightened politics is of far-reaching political significance. The Greek city that followed Homer most by seeking to combine the questioning spirit of philosophy with politics is Athens, with its long-standing attachment to Homer's poems;^[356] its statesmen who were at least familiar with philoso­phy, such as Pericles and Alcibiades;^[357] and its at times theoretically far- reaching political speeches and debates.^[358] As the Spartan Megillus says in Plato's Laws, Homer portrays “a way of life that is not Laconian but rather in a certain sense Ionian” (68oc6-dι).^[359] But insofar as Socrates here favors a separation between the questioning spirit of philosophy and politics, he appears to favor here a less Athenian and more Spartan model of politics.⁶¹

And yet, even though the education of the guardians that Socrates proposes does seem to limit or suppress their philosophic nature insofar as the education consists of falsehoods and moral opinions that may not be questioned, in other ways that education cultivates their philosophic nature by nurturing a marked independence from reliance on divine providence. For while the education that Socrates proposes appeals to the guardians’ reverence for the gods, it also weakens their belief in powerful, active gods who intervene in human affairs and thereby, indir­ectly, liberates their minds in some measure from hope for divine assist­ance and fear of divine wrath. As Socrates states at the formal conclusion of his account of the education of the guardians concerning the gods, “our guardians are to become as god-revering and as divine as it is possible for a human being” (383c3-5). The guardians are to revere the gods as peaceful, morally perfect beings and to strive as much as possible to imitate them. But they are to rely less on the gods for rewards and to fear less, if at all, their punishments.⁶²

After his general critique of the presentation of the gods by Homer and Hesiod, Socrates sets forth a positive teaching concerning the gods, in the form of two “laws” that will govern how poets, and citizens, will speak of the gods in the just city. The first law states that it must be said in the city that “the god” is good and is the cause of only good things and never of evil things. Therefore, Socrates stresses, since the things that are good for human beings are “far fewer” than the things that are evil, “the god, since he is good, would not be responsible for all things, as the many say, but responsible for a few things for human beings, and not responsible for most” (379c2-5). Socrates’ reform here, as he indicates, marks a sharp departure from the conventionally pious belief in gods who are our rulers and who therefore govern all of our lives, the belief that Homer invokes in the beginning of the Iliad - by, for example, appealing to the divine Muse, and presenting the prayers of Chryses and Achilles⁶³ - and then proceeds to challenge. Socrates emphasizes here that the gods are responsible for

Athenian of Spartans (Thucydides 4.116, 5.10.1-2), may have modeled himself on Achilles.

⁶¹ Consider Republic 544c 1-7, 545a2-b1.

⁶² Consider Benardete’s formulation: “Socrates thus desanctifies the city in the name of the sanctity of the gods” (1989, 65). See also Bolotin 1995, 84.

⁶³ Iliad 1.1-17, 1.35-52, 1.393-412.

only a small part of our lives; the majority of our lives is either the result of natural forces beyond the gods’ control or the result of our own choices. The effect of Socrates’ theological doctrine here drastically limiting the power of the gods is to instruct humans - from the very beginning, from childhood on - to rely less on divine providence and more on human efforts and human reason. In this way, like Homer, Socrates seeks to lead humans away from a conventionally pious reliance on the gods, away from hope in them but also fear of them, and toward an enlightened self-reliance.

Yet the enlightenment Socrates proposes here differs from that of Homer in two respects. First, while Homer supposes that the belief in divine providence is the inevitable, even natural, beginning point for human understanding - perhaps because the belief in a god, such as Zeus, who is “Father of Gods and Men,” is rooted in the experience of children relying on their human fathers^[360] - Socrates suggests here that, through a properly constructed and implemented education, it is possible even for children to be largely, if not entirely, free from the belief in powerful and caring gods. For Homer, liberation from the belief in divine providence is the fruit of mature and painful questioning of one’s long- cherished pious hopes, as Achilles comes to question his hopes in Zeus. Socrates, however, suggests here that, by shaping the malleable souls of children through a reformation of the accounts of the gods told by mothers to their children,^[361] it is possible, in considerable measure, to bypass both religious hopes and the painful questioning of those hopes and hence to achieve a much earlier and more effective enlightenment, at least for those with philosophic natures.

Secondly, the enlightenment Socrates proposes here is far more respect­ful of piety than that which Homer offers. For while Homer encourages humans to question their belief in the goodness of the gods and therefore not to rely on them, Socrates’ education encourages humans not to rely on the gods precisely because the gods are so perfectly good.^[362] Homer confronts and challenges his audience’s belief in the goodness of the gods; Socrates appeals to the citizens’ belief in the goodness of the gods. Homer shows his pious audience that there is a profound gulf between the immortal gods and such beings as ourselves, that, by virtue of their immortality the gods are essentially indifferent to us, and hence that we must fend for ourselves as best as we can. Socrates, on the other hand, portrays the gods as perfectly good beings who would apparently wish to benefit us but who are limited in their capacity to do so, apparently by our nature and their nature. Because of the nature of the gods, they can only cause good things, and, because of our human nature, “the things that are good for us are far fewer than those that are bad” (379c4-5). In contrast to Homer, Socrates does encourage a measure of hope in and reliance on the gods, for they apparently wish to benefit us and are even capable, in some measure, of benefitting us. Moreover, Socrates does suggest that his citizens may even believe that the gods punish human beings as long as they also believe that the gods benefit human beings by doing so.^[363] Finally, by identifying goodness rather than immortality as the primary characteristic of the gods, Socrates, in contrast to Homer, encourages considerable reverence for the gods, as benign beings, albeit of limited power. The enlightenment that Socrates aims at, then, is a gentler, more limited, more moderate enlightenment than the one Homer aims at.

One might think that Socrates' education with respect to the gods is more moderate than that of Homer solely for political reasons. Since, according to Socrates, humans naturally imitate the gods, he depicts the gods as benign beings in order to encourage humans to act in a benign manner toward their fellow citizens. But Socrates indicates that the edu­cation he proposes with respect to the gods is not only more politically and morally salutary than that of Homer but also more effective in leading human beings to a genuine, philosophic enlightenment.

After setting forth his teaching that the gods should be spoken of in the city as benign beings of limited power, Socrates explains why Homer's depiction of the gods as beings who cause evils must be forbidden. Socrates proceeds to pinpoint what are, as we have seen, key moments in Homer's education concerning the gods: Zeus's inept deception of Agamemnon in Book II of the Iliad, a decision that calls into question the wisdom and the truthfulness of the supposed “Father of Gods and Men”; Zeus's treacherous decision in Book IV to renew the Trojan War by sending Athena to induce Pandarus to violate the truce sworn with sacred oaths, by the Trojans and the Achaians - a truce to allow a duel between Menelaus and Paris to end the Trojan War once and for all - a decision that calls into question the justice and the benevolence of the gods; and the interview between Achilles and Priam in Book XXIV, in which Achilles stresses to Priam the gulf between gods and humans, urges him not to look to divine providence, and then proceeds to act independ­ently of the gods by freely granting to Priam and the Trojans a 12-day truce during which they may bury their beloved Hector in peace.^[364] As we have seen, through these key episodes, Homer challenges his audience’s belief in wise and caring gods and leads them away from the pious belief in divine providence and toward an enlightened and humane self-reli- ance.^[365] Socrates, however, refers to these critical stages of the Homeric education in the gods in reverse order!^[366] Socrates begins with the end, with the culmination of the education, rather than with the beginning, and criticizes most sharply the Achilles of Book XXIV, the hero who, at this moment in the poem, seems the most enlightened of all of Homer’s heroes concerning the gods. In this way, Socrates suggests that Homer’s education regarding the gods is ineffective.

Socrates says that “Homer... foolishly” errs concerning the gods by “saying” that Zeus causes evil as well as good things for humans (379c9- e2). Socrates’ remark here is puzzling for two reasons. First, it is not Homer but Achilles who affirms, in his conversation with Priam in Book XXIV, that Zeus causes evil as well as good things for humans. Furthermore, Achilles here is much more independent of the gods than he had been throughout the poem. Achilles had prayed to Zeus to punish the Achaians and he had prayed to Zeus to save Patroclus.^[367] But now, especially after he has seen that Zeus allowed the virtuous Patroclus to die, and after reflecting on the unjust sufferings of his father Peleus and of the Trojan king Priam, Achilles argues to Priam that humans should not look to the gods for assistance but rather to themselves.⁷² And Achilles acts on this argument by granting, independently of the gods, a 12-day truce to Priam.⁷³ If Socrates’ teaching concerning the gods is aimed at encouraging human independence from the gods and self-reliance, why should he criticize Homer’s Achilles for being foolish at the very moment when he is at his most independent from the gods? Why not, for example, criticize him earlier for praying to Zeus to kill the Achaians or for expressing the wish that “Father Zeus,” together with Athena and Apollo, would kill all of the Trojans and all of the Achaians except for himself and Patroclus?⁷⁴

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Socrates' point in criticizing the Achilles of Book XXIV seems to be precisely to point out that, even when Achilles is at his most enlightened, even when he is at his most independent of the gods, he still affirms the power of the gods and even expresses a certain hope that the gods may confer benefits. For immediately after Achilles has stressed to Priam the gulf that separates the gods from humans and hence the need for humans to care for themselves rather than rely on the carefree gods, Achilles remarks to Priam that Zeus bestows good as well as evil fortune and thereby seems to hold out the hope, for Priam and for himself, that Zeus may indeed provide for them.^[368] As Socrates suggests by adding here, as if it were from this passage in Book XXIV from the Iliad, a line he himself apparently invents, Achilles persists in believing that “Zeus ‘is' a dispen­ser for us ‘of good and evil things.'”^[369] The Achilles Homer presents in Book XXIV is the hero who is most free of reliance of the gods, but even he is not truly free. He has gone very far in questioning his pious hopes and fears but he is still in the grip of those passions. More broadly, the Achilles of Book XXIV is still in the grip of his passions of anger, grief, and hope that death may somehow be overcome, still punishing the corpse of Hector as though he were alive, still speaking to the dead Patroclus as though he were alive, and still warning Priam, almost to the very end, against stirring his own simmering wrath.^[370] The Achilles of Book XXIV is the most enlightened character Homer ever presents in his poems, but he is far from fully enlightened. Therefore, the character whom Homer offers as a model of human excellence, as one who goes furthest down the path of enlightenment, is a radically imperfect model.

A defender of Homer might say that Achilles points beyond himself to Homer himself, the true model of human enlightenment. But Socrates seems to suggest, by simply identifying Homer with Achilles here, that the enlightened Homer is too hidden to constitute a truly effective model of enlightenment. Homer's audience will naturally be dazzled by the figure of the still deeply passionate Achilles, will naturally see him as the model for them to imitate, and will consequently have before them only a very imperfect model of human enlightenment.^[371]

Socrates suggests that a more effective path to enlightenment than the one presented by Homer is his own proposed education regarding the gods. While Homer sharply challenges the pious belief of his audience in provident gods by presenting capricious, indifferent, and even foolish gods, Socrates gently tempers the pious beliefs of his guardians by pre­senting them with perfectly peaceful and good gods who are limited in their power to do good. Indeed, the cumulative effect of Socrates' two proposed laws is to weaken any belief in divine providence at all. For while the first law Socrates proposes does allow for the possibility that the gods intervene in human affairs, to a limited extent, to reward the just and punish the just - never to harm them but only for their own good (380a5- b6) - the second law he proposes seems to erase altogether the possibility of any divine intervention. Socrates lays down as his second law that, since the gods are perfectly good and since things in the best condition are least altered, the gods must not be presented as changing their forms or as deceiving humans by appearing to change their forms (380dι-383c7). Yet, as Homer shows, the belief that the gods may appear in the guise of humans plays a crucial role in the belief that the gods assist human beings. In Homer's poems, the gods repeatedly don human form - in the Iliad, Poseidon 5 times,⁷⁹ Apollo 4 times,⁸⁰ Athena 3 times,⁸¹ Ares once,⁸² Hera once,⁸³ and Hermes once⁸⁴ and in the Odyssey Athena 14 times⁸⁵ and Hermes⁸⁶ once - in order to rally, aid, and guide those humans whom they favor. But the effect of Socrates' law is to remove humans' hope for such divine assistance.

Socrates himself clarifies the import of this law by citing a passage that must be prohibited, a passage from Homer's Odyssey (17.485-486) in which an anonymous suitor warns his wicked leader Antinoos that he should fear divine punishment, just after he has wantonly struck Odysseus, who is disguised as a beggar. Socrates declares, “let no one of the poets say to us ‘Gods, resembling strangers from another land,

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Iliad 13.43-125, 13.206-239, 13.345-357, 14.135-152, 21.284-297.

16.715-730,17.319-343, 17.582-593, 20.79-ιιι. Apollo appears once in the guise of a human to deceive Achilles, and thereby help the Trojans - 21.595-607.

2.278-282, 17.553-573, 21.284-297. At two critical moments in the Iliad, Athena appears in the guise of a human to deceive Trojans - 4.85-104, 22.225-296.

5.4^60-47⁰.

1.105-319, 2.267-298, 2.383-392, 2.399-3.370, 4.795-841,

8.193-200,

²4.5^o2-54⁸.

10.275-508.

⁸³ 5.7⁸4^-79². ^{84 2}4.339^-4⁶⁸.

6.³3-46, 7.³8-8³,

13.221-286, 13.287-440, 16.156-177, 20.30-55, 22.205-238,

becoming all sorts, range at large through the cities’” (381d1-4). Now, Socrates seems to stress here only that it would be unworthy of the perfection of the gods to appear in disguise among humans. But by referring specifically to this passage in the Odyssey, Socrates indicates that the law prohibits belief in divine providence at all. For the line after the one Socrates cites states: “looking upon the hubris and the lawfulness of human beings” (17.487). Accordingly, Socrates’ law forbids the belief in gods who first spy on humans to determine who is just and who is unjust and then reward the just and punish the unjust (see also ²4.35^1-35²).

Now, Socrates does not state this shocking implication openly. He does not directly challenge the religious passions of hope and fear lest he stir them up, but rather calms them with a soothing account of perfect but passive divine beings. In this way he imitates the gentle, indirect strategy toward weakening piety exhibited by the law itself. Socrates’ teaching to his guardians has the same aim as Homer’s teaching to his audience with respect to divine providence. But Socrates’ teaching is far gentler, for it loudly celebrates the perfection of the gods and stresses that the guardians in particular must revere them and imitate them; but at the same time, that teaching quietly but clearly indicates that the gods are so perfect that they cannot be relied upon to intervene in human affairs and hence that humans must provide for themselves.

A defender of Homer might wonder how effective such an implicit enlightenment can be. Can humans truly liberate themselves from pious hopes and pious fears without explicitly confronting those passions and examining the beliefs that those passions are based on, as his Achilles does, to some extent, in the poem? But Socrates suggests that the religious passions of hope and fear must be defused rather than confronted - defused from earliest childhood - lest they dominate one’s mind so completely that they never relax their grip entirely. For Achilles himself, Socrates points out, clings to his hope for divine providence even at the climax of his questioning of it.

The critique of Achilles Socrates initiates here crystallizes his critique of Homer’s account of the relation between politics and enlightenment. Homer suggests that enlightenment naturally emerges out of political life. Achilles enters political life to excel in speeches and in deeds, to live out a virtuous, honorable, and pious life of duty, in the assembly and on the battlefield. But Achilles’ experiences lead him to question the life of duty, the reasonableness of sacrificing for others and of seeking their honor, and also to doubt that the gods are even capable of rewarding virtue.

In this way, he comes to achieve a certain distance from political life, a certain measure of enlightenment, and offers us a model of a thoughtful human on the path to enlightenment. But Socrates argues that Achilles is an improper model, for his example as a questioning citizen undermines the stability necessary for political life and his example as a questioning human being falls well short of genuine enlightenment. He is neither a good citizen nor a good philosopher. He falls between two stools. Politics and philosophy, it seems, should be sharply divided, and to link them, as Homer does, is to corrupt each, to destabilize politics with questioning and to weaken reason through the passions that naturally arise and thrive in political life. In order to understand Socrates' view of the danger posed by the passions to reason in particular, let us turn to Socrates' critique of Homer's education in human excellence in Books III and X of the Republic.

socrates' critique of the HOMERIC education 2: heroes and human excellence

Socrates' critique of Homer's education in human excellence takes the form of a ferocious attack on Achilles, the hero Homer identifies as the greatest by far, but whom Socrates criticizes each of the five times he names him.^[372] Socrates explicitly attacks Achilles by name for wailing and grieving like an unserious woman and for possessing the “diseases” of “illiberality together with a love of money” and “arrogance toward gods and human beings.”^[373] And when citing Achilles' words without mention­ing his name, Socrates implicitly attacks him for a lack of courage in the face of death, and a lack of moderation inasmuch as he is disobedient toward his ruler Agamemnon.^[374] What renders these attacks on Achilles especially scathing is their singular and unremitting character.^[375] No other hero is criticized as severely or as comprehensively as is Achilles. Socrates criticizes Priam, Achilles' tutor Phoenix, Theseus, and Perithous by name, but only once each.^[376] Socrates praises Diomedes by name for his moderation insofar as he enthusiastically obeys his ruler Agamemnon and never criticizes him.^[377] And while Socrates implicitly criticizes Odysseus for immoderately praising food and drink, he also implicitly praises him for being “the wisest man” and for his endurance.^[378] But Socrates never praises Achilles at all, explicitly or implicitly.^[379] He criticizes Achilles more than any other hero for a lack of courage in the face of death and for lamenting the death of a loved one, and he criticizes Achilles and Achilles alone, among all the heroes, for immoderate disobedience to his ruler, love of money, and arrogance toward gods and humans.

Socrates' attack on Achilles is clearly polemical, an evident attempt to dethrone Achilles as the model of human excellence for the Greeks. Socrates singles out Achilles for a lack of courage, even though he is by far more courageous, on and off the battlefield, than any other Homeric hero.^[380] Socrates singles out Achilles for immoderate disobedience to Agamemnon, even though Diomedes, Nestor, and - as Megillus points out in the Laws (706d4-7) - Odysseus also rebuke Agamemnon, even though Agamemnon later rebukes himself, and even though Achilles saves the Achaians from disaster by taking it upon himself to defy Agamemnon.^[381] Socrates singles out Achilles for loving money, even though he refuses the extravagant treasures Agamemnon offers to him and even though other Achaians, most notably Odysseus, love money more.^[382] Socrates condemns Achilles for slaughtering (12) captured pris­oners and praises Odysseus for his endurance, even though Odysseus practices endurance specifically so that he may later slaughter 12 captured maidservants as well as 8 male servants, all 108 of the largely unarmed suitors of his wife - including Leiodes who rightly protests his innocence - and, Odysseus hopes, “all” of the dead suitors’ relatives.^[383] At the end of the Republic, Socrates suggests that Odysseus is the Homeric hero who comes closes to questioning the value of honor, even though Socrates himself cites in Book III one of the passages that indicates that it is Achilles, and Achilles alone, among Homeric heroes, who questions the value of honor.^[384] Perhaps most remarkably, Socrates never praises Achilles at all, for example, for his hatred of lying, even though Socrates declares that the citizens should not lie to their rulers and even though, as Socrates himself notes in the Hippias Minor, Achilles, in contrast to the frequently mendacious Odysseus, denounces lying most emphatically.^[385] Homer himself criticizes Achilles sharply in the course of the poem, but he also praises his hero.^[386] Socrates, however, has nothing but criticism for the best of the Achaians.

Socrates does, however, offer a serious, nonrhetorical criticism of Achilles as well, one that forms the basis of and justifies the desire to dislodge him from his position as the hero of the Greeks. In Socrates’ view, Achilles is not only a flawed character, as Homer himself acknow­ledges, but one whose example risks harming those who model them­selves on him.^[387] And even though Homer may intend that admirers of Achilles be led, upon reflection, to recognize the superiority of the con­templative life to the life of the dutiful warrior, Socrates suggests that Homer presents Achilles as such a dazzling, if flawed, hero, that he inevitably overshadows the enigmatic figure of the wise, humane singer who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. To understand Socrates’ serious critique of Achilles as a model of human excellence, let us consider his criticisms of Achilles, and through him of Homer, more carefully.

The broad focus of Socrates' criticism of Achilles concerns his passion­ate character: his fear of death,^[388] his weeping over the death of his beloved friend,^[389] his anger,^[390] his (alleged) love of money,^[391] and his love of honor.^[392] Now, a consideration of the passionate character of Achilles helps to clarify, in a general way, both Homer's understanding of the relation between the passions and reason and Socrates' critique of that understanding. For Achilles is the most passionate character in the Iliad - the angriest and also the one who weeps the most^[393] - and also the most thoughtful character - the one who questions most the dutiful life of the warrior and the providence of the gods and the one who comes closest to accepting the finality of death.^[394] Moreover, in Homer's account, Achilles is thoughtful not despite his passionate character but, in some measure, because of it. It is Achilles' intense anger at Agamemnon and the Achaians that leads him to question the life of the dutiful warrior that he has led for nine years and it is his intense grief over the death of his beloved Patroclus that leads him to contemplate the finality of death and to call into question the providence of the gods.^[395] Through the example of Achilles, Homer suggests that it is the passions that give humans the motive and also the strength to question their most cherished convictions and their deepest hopes. But Socrates suggests - especially by highlighting the degree to which Achilles remains in the grip of sorrow and anger even at the end of the Iliad^[396] - that Achilles does not pursue the questions he raises further because the very passions that inspire his questions over­whelm his reason and therefore arrest his questioning. Socrates might concede that Achilles has moments of genuine questioning, moments - in conversation with his friends in Book IX and with Priam in Book XXIV - in which he appears to transcend his passions and achieve a considerable measure of clarity concerning the problem of the life of duty, the gulf between humans and gods, and the finality of death. But Socrates suggests that each of Achilles' moments of lucidity is overwhelmed by his unbridled passions of grief, anger, and hope.^[397] Homer's overall presen­tation of Achilles as a model of human excellence, then, vividly reflects Homer's dangerous underestimation of the power of the passions and of their abiding opposition to reason.

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The specific focus of Socrates' criticism of Achilles concerns his posture toward death: his fear of death, his lamentation in the face of the death of his beloved companion, and his refusal to accept the finality of death, as his treatment of the corpses of Patroclus and Hector as though they were alive reveals.^[398] Socrates also criticizes Achilles for disobeying his ruler and the gods and for loving money,^[399] and, without mentioning or referring to Achilles, he warns against the dangers of excessive laughter, lying, sensual desire, and sexual jealousy.^[400] But the focus of Socrates' criticism of Achilles, and therefore the focus of Socrates' criticism of Homer's education concerning human excellence, is on Achilles' stance toward death.^[401]

Socrates begins his critique of Achilles as a model of human excellence by arguing, first, that the poets must praise death in order to inspire the guardians to be “courageous” (386a6), that is, to “fear death least” (386a7) or even to be “fearless toward death” (386b5). He then proceeds to give seven examples of passages that must be forbidden from the city,^[402] all of which are from Homer, four of which are spoken directly by Homer, one by Circe (in Odysseus's account), and two by Achilles (one in Odysseus's account).^[403] The four spoken by Homer recount episodes in which Achilles figures prominently: the battle in which Zeus fears Achilles will conquer Troy by himself and therefore allows the gods to intervene both for and against Achilles; the death of Achilles' beloved friend Patroclus; Achilles' attempt to embrace the phantom of the dead Patroclus; and the arrival into Hades of the souls of the suitors slain by Odysseus, who encounter there the soul of Achilles.^[404] Achilles, then, is the subject or the speaker of six of the seven passages from Homer banned by Socrates, and therefore constitutes the focus of Socrates' critique of the Homeric account of death and courage.

Both statements by Achilles - the first and third of the seven passages cited by Socrates - describe the condition of humans in the afterlife as worse than that of this life: “I would wish to be a hired laborer, serving another, a man without a portion of land, for whom there is not much life, than to rule over all the dead who have perished” (Odyssey 11.489-491); “Alas, there is also a certain soul and phantom in the house of Hades, but there is no mind within at all” (Iliad 23.103-104). Socrates suggests that those who embrace Achilles' view of death and Hades as bad will fear death more than slavery and that they will be “hotter and softer than they ought” (387c4-5). Yet, as Socrates certainly knew, Achilles evidently did not fear death more than slavery, for he continued to fight bravely at Troy up through his death, and he did so even though, unlike all the other warriors, he knew that his death at Troy was certain if he remained there to fight.^[405] What then is Socrates' serious criticism of Homer's Achilles with respect to courage?

Homer suggests that true courage entails the recognition that death is an evil and the willingness to face it nonetheless. The Achaians are more courageous than the Trojans because, while the latter must whip them­selves into a frenzy and hence suppress their reason in order to go into battle - like screaming birds and cranes and bleating sheep, says Homer - the Achaians “went in silence, breathing spirit” and hence do not simply suppress their rational awareness of the evil of death that they are facing.^[406] Now, Achilles is the most courageous of the Achaians, not only because he is always at the forefront of every battle, but also because, while all the other warriors know that they risk death at Troy, he alone knows with certainty that he will die at Troy should he remain and fight.¹²² Moreover, Achilles alone has the courage to stand up to the mighty Agamemnon when that king foolishly and selfishly imperils the survival of all the Achaians by defying the priest of Apollo.^[407] To be sure, Achilles fears death and wrestles with that fear throughout, and he even wonders whether a long quiet life of peace is not superior to a short life as a dutiful warrior.^[408] Nevertheless, the fact that Achilles persists in fighting on, even though burdened with such anguish and such (reasonable) doubts, demonstrates, in Homer’s account, the superior quality, the strength and reasonableness, of his courage.

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Now, in the context of his critique of Homer, Socrates does not simply dispute the truth of the opinion that death is an evil. He does assert that, in reviling rather than praising death and Hades, the poets “say what is neither true nor beneficial for the ones who are to be fighters” (386b8- cι). But Socrates omits here any argument whatsoever that death and Hades are in truth good and praiseworthy but focuses instead on explain­ing why it is harmful for poets to portray death as an evil for the spirited and philosophic guardians, that is, for men who are to be “both warrior and philosopher” (529b8-9):^[409] “If they are to be courageous, must one not tell them these things and of a sort that will make them fear death least? Or do you believe that anyone will ever come to be courageous having this terror in him?” (386a6-b2); “Do you suppose that anyone who believes the things in Hades exist and are terrible will be fearless toward and death and will choose death in battles before defeat and slavery?” (386b4-6); “so much less must they [these passages from Homer] be heard by boys and men who must be free, having feared slavery more than death” (387b4-6 - emphases added). Socrates evi­dently does not argue here that death is not truly an evil or that the fear of death is unreasonable. He argues, instead, that, if one believes, even reasonably, that death is an evil, one will be enslaved to one’s fear of death. And such enslavement to the fear of death, Socrates suggests, is harmful in two respects. First, as Socrates stresses, it is harmful because it leads humans to sacrifice the freedom of their political community, their political freedom, in order to stay alive at all costs. But secondly, as Socrates indicates, such enslavement to the fear of death is harmful to human reason because it precludes the freedom from the sway of the passions necessary to think clearly and soundly. Accordingly, as Socrates later suggests, one who has a “philosophic nature” “will believe that death is not something terrible” (486a1-b5).

Now, reason would seem to suggest that death is indeed evil, for, as a wise woman, Diotima, reportedly taught Socrates, we humans naturally long to possess the good “always,”^[410] and, insofar as it marks the term of our existence, death necessarily thwarts that longing. On the other hand, since death is inevitable to human beings, it would seem to be unreason­able to devote one’s life to fleeing it in the hope that one can fully escape it.^[411] Reason, then, would seem to counsel at once a recognition that death is evil and an acceptance of its inevitability. But what Socrates suggests in the Republic is that, even though the fear of death may well be reasonable inasmuch as death is evil, the fear of death is so powerful that it threatens to overwhelm both the love of freedom and reason itself and hence threatens to undermine the courage either to risk one’s life or to accept the inevitability and finality of one’s death. Paradoxically, the rational fear of death undermines reason. Therefore, Socrates argues, the fear of death can only be properly controlled by instilling in human beings, from childhood, the firm conviction that death is not evil but good and hence that it is unreasonable to fear death (see also 387d6). In this way, the menacing fear of death can be, as Socrates puts it in the Phaedo, “charmed away” (77e8-9) by the soothing belief in the goodness of death, and the human mind can be freed to contemplate with balance and calm. Even if, then, it is false to believe that death is good, Socrates suggests that this falsehood is necessary for the empowerment of reason.

Here again, Socrates points to a fundamental theoretical disagreement with Homer, a disagreement over the relative strength of human reason. Just as Homer believes that humans as a whole can grasp with their minds the gulf that separates the immortal gods from mortal humans and thereby free themselves from the hope that the carefree gods will care for them, so does he believe that humans as a whole can recognize the evil of death without being enslaved to the fear of death. But, Socrates contends, human reason is weak. It is vulnerable to the passions, perhaps especially to the fear of death, that always threaten to overwhelm and enslave it. Therefore, in order for reason to prevail in its struggle with the always potentially enslaving passions, reason is in need of lies, a body­guard of lies, that, from childhood on, protect reason from the passions by calming the passions.

In order to understand Socrates' contention in the Republic concerning the enslaving power of the passions and the relative weakness of reason, it is helpful to consider the opinions and the example of the character in whose son's home the dialogue takes place, Cephalus. The “very old” (328b9) Cephalus virtually opens the conversation by affirming the enslaving power of the passions but he then suggests that what liberates reason and virtue from such tyranny is not education but old age: “ [A]s the other pleasures connected to the body waste away, so do the desires and pleasures concerning speeches increase” (328d2-4); “For in every way, there comes to be much peace and freedom from such things in old age. Once the desires cease to strain and become slack... it is possible to be released from very many mad masters” (329c5-dι). When Socrates invokes Homer (for the first time in the dialogue) - citing the phrase spoken twice by Priam on the evils of old age - to suggest that the time of life when one approaches death may be “hard,” Cephalus emphatically denies the suggestion.^[412] And yet, under Socrates' questioning, Cephalus quickly acknowledges that

when someone is near to supposing that he will come to an end, fear and care enter him... for the tales told about the things in Hades, that the one who has done injustice here must pay a penalty there, which were laughed at until then, at that time twist his soul lest they be true... then he comes to be full of suspicion and terror... frequently waking up from sleep, just as children do, he is terrified and lives with evil expectation. (330d5-331aι)

In Cephalus's account the fear of death, triggered not simply by old age but by the awareness that one is to reach the end of one's life, dominates one's mind, awake and asleep, and hence dominates one's very soul, completely. Cephalus does suggest, through his speeches and through his example, that the passions as a whole always tend to dominate reason: The young tend to be dominated by their sexual desire and the old tend to be dominated by their fear of death. But in his account the domination of the fear of death is more complete, for it alone fills the soul, rules it day and night, and torments it. It is true that Cephalus speaks in the third person when speaking of the old man who, mindful of past misdeeds, wakes up in a fright from sleep. But the facts that Cephalus speaks of having been dominated by his passions when young - by “very many masters” who are “mad”;^[413] that he speaks on his own authority when describing the old man troubled by his past misdeeds - as though he speaks from personal experience - but cites the authority of Pindar in describing the one “conscious in himself of nothing unjust”;^[414] and that he devotes himself so assiduously and eagerly to making sacrifices to the gods, as he suggests the fearful unjust man would,^[415] all indicate that Cephalus is himself the man he describes who is frightened of death and the hereafter. Through the example of Cephalus, Plato illustrates the enslaving power of the fear of death and also suggests that poets such as Homer, with their frightening tales of Hades,^[416] intensify the despotic hold that the fear of death may come to have on a man like Cephalus, who has evidently heard such tales from youth.

But what about the example of Achilles, who is clearly courageous, clearly capable of risking death and even, at times, of recognizing and seeming to accept the finality of death,^[417] while still believing that death is an evil? Is he not, as Socrates says the courageous guardians must be, “free” (387b5), that is, free from the tyranny of the passions? Socrates suggests in two ways that Achilles is not truly free from the sway of passions. First, as his third and sixth quotation from Homer - both of which refer to Achilles' dream of Patroclus - indicate, Achilles continues to be frightened of death, of what death might hold in store for his friend but also for himself, and this fear haunts his dreams, as the fear of death evidently haunts the dreams of Cephalus.^[418] Secondly, Socrates seems to have Achilles in mind when he suggests that those who believe that death and Hades are evil will be overwhelmed by fear and as a result of such fear, they will be “hotter and softer than they ought” (387c4-5). For Socrates suggests here, not only that a powerful fear of death may lead humans to be “soft” in the sense of being cowardly, but that it may lead humans to be “hot” in the sense of giving themselves to passion, perhaps especially the passion of anger, to overcome their fear of death.^[419] As we have noted,^[420] Homer portrays the Trojans as embracing such anger in order to steel themselves for battle, but Socrates suggests that the Achaians and Achilles also enlist the passions in order to face death. Later in Book III, Socrates conflates two lines in Homer: “[T]he Achaians went, breathing spirit, in silence, being afraid of their command- ers.”^[421] Here, he suggests that the silent Achaians too require a certain measure of passion, of fear of their commanders, in order to overcome their fear of death. And of course, as Homer himself highlights in the first line of the Iliad, Achilles himself is possessed by wrath, and is especially moved by wrath when risking his life on the battlefield.^{[422] [423] Moreover, as Socrates later notes, Achilles continues to speak to Patroclus, and of him, as though he were alive, even though he is dead, and continues to punish Hector even though he is dead, and thereby indicates that he does not truly face death and accept its finality, notwithstanding his battlefield}

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Socrates suggests, then, that, the principal defect of the Homeric edu­cation is that, in the first place, insofar as it instructs humans to follow the example of Achilles, it does not truly liberate humans from the sway of the passions but attempts to counteract the power of the fear of death with the power of anger and other passions, and, in the second place, it does not overcome the enslaving power of that fear in an effective and lasting way. Socrates suggests that the wiser way to free humans from the enslaving power of the fear of death is to defuse that fear from childhood by instilling the calming and reassuring, albeit false, opinion that death is not to be feared. For in this way, humans can fight to defend their freedom from conquest by others but can also free their minds from the enslaving fear of death. By rearing humans to be calm and collected, by stilling their fear of death, Socrates hopes to free reason from the rule of the passions, and habituate humans to think calmly and clearly. In his view, reason is such a fragile flower that it requires untruth. The truth, especially about death, threatens reason; the freedom of the rational mind therefore requires the aid of lies, especially about death, to protect it from the enslaving passions that the truth will inevitably stir up.

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A defender of the Homeric education might question the soundness of an education that purportedly frees human reason while suppressing the rational recognition of the evil of death. Will not the beneficiaries of Socratic education eventually encounter the harsh truth that death is an evil to be feared?^[424] Unless they are to flee rational inquiry into the question of whether or not there is an afterlife, as Cephalus flees the discussion concerning justice, will they not at that point have to wrestle with their fear of death, as does Achilles?^[425] Moreover, while a defender of the Homeric education would certainly acknowledge the passionate and imperfect character of Achilles' posture toward death, such a defender would argue that there is one character who truly does face death and accept its finality calmly and clearly, namely Homer himself. For as his lucid and clinical but also humane accounts of death show throughout the poem, Homer somehow comes to free himself from the enslaving fear of death even while recognizing its evil.¹⁴² Homer, then, is the true model of excellence offered in the poems of courage. But, again, Socrates here suggests that Homer is an overly hidden model. As Socrates' silence on Homer's own accounts of death and focus on Achilles suggest, the most obvious model of human excellence in the poem is Achilles. And Achilles' courage is not free from the sway of the passions.

After criticizing Achilles, without naming him, for his abiding fear of death, Socrates next criticizes Achilles, for the first time by name, as well as Priam, for their lamentations and piteous wailings over their dead loved ones (387dι-388eι). Now, it might seem that Socrates here is only criticizing Homer's characters for openly showing their grief over the deaths of their loved ones. Socrates might seem to be arguing that Achilles and Priam are inappropriate models for courageous and philo­sophic guardians who must be capable of controlling their grief over dead loved ones in the midst of battle so that they may fight effectively (see 386c1) and also so that they might reason clearly in the wake of such a loss. In this way, Socrates might seem to follow the example of Priam himself, who, earlier in the Iliad and in contrast with Agamemnon, forbids his soldiers from crying out as they gather their dead,¹⁴³ and of Priam’s son Hector, who, in contrast with Achilles,^[426] Odysseus,^[427] Agamemnon,^[428] Ajax,^[429] Diomedes,^[430] Patroclus,^[431] Antilochus,^[432] Phoenix,^[433] Eumelus,^[434] and the Achaian warriors as a whole,^[435] never weeps.^[436] However, Socrates indicates here that the goal of the education he proposes is not simply to produce human beings who bear sorrow with a stiff upper lip but rather to produce human beings who feel little^[437] or no sorrow^[438] when their loved ones die. But how is that possible?

Socrates first explains that “the decent man will believe that, for the decent one who is also his companion, being dead is not terrible” (387d5-6). Now, again, Socrates does not offer any argument here in support of the claim that being dead is not terrible for the decent. Nor does he specify here why being dead is not terrible for the decent: whether it is because there is an afterlife in which the decent fare wellⁱ⁵⁷ or because, as he suggests in the Apology, for example, the dead feel nothing as one feels nothing during a dreamless sleep (40cι-4). What is import­ant, according to Socrates, is that the properly educated philosophic guardian believe that death is not terrible for his decent companion.ⁱ⁵⁸ For if he believes that death is terrible for his companion, he will believe that death will be terrible for himself, his fear of death will consequently well up, and it will threaten to overwhelm his reason and hence his ability to recognize and accept that death is final. Once you believe that your loved one is suffering a terrible thing by dying, as will you, you may be led by your fear of death to deny that death is final, to speak of the dead, to address the dead, and to punish the dead, as though they were still alive, as Socrates later criticizes Achilles for doing (391b2-6). For the sake of calming their fear of death, lest it overpower their reason, the guardians must believe that death is not a terrible thing for the decent.

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ⁱ57

But even if one believes that being dead is not a terrible thing for one’s loved one, is it not a terrible thing for oneself? Won’t the bereaved companion grieve for himself, as Achilles does, because he has been deprived by death of the companionship of his beloved friend? As Homer stresses in the very passage Socrates cites, the death of Patroclus causes Achilles to grieve above all for his own loss:

The contest broke up and the people scattered, each to go to the swift ships. They thought of their meal and to delight in sweet sleep. But Achilles wept, remember­ing his beloved companion, nor did sleep, which subdues all, seize him, but he turned himself here and there, longing for the manliness and good spirit of Patroclus, and as many things he had achieved with him and the woes he had suffered, passing through wars of men and woeful waves. Remembering these things, he shed swelling tears, at times lying on his sides, at other times on his back, at other times on his face.^[439]

A primary cause of Achilles’ grief is not the belief that Patroclus is suffering in Hades but simply his own longing for his friend and for continuing to share his life with his friend. Achilles declares that he loves Patroclus as much as his own life because in large measure he identifies the very happiness of his life with his friendship.^[440] How, then, can he not lament the death of his friend?^[441]

Socrates explains that a decent man “is especially self-sufficient unto himself for living well and, in contrast with the others, he has least need of another” (387d11-e1). Socrates emphasizes here especially that the goal of the education he sets forth is to produce humans who will not only guard the city but “live well.” And since, given our mortal nature, death is a misfortune that can always come and will inevitably come, Socrates suggests that a crucial ingredient of human well-being is an acceptance of the finality of death, one’s own death and the deaths of one’s loved ones, without fear and without grief. But since the loss of a loved one would seem inevitably to produce grief, human well-being evidently requires that one not love others. Just as fear of one’s own death threatens to over­whelm one’s reason, so the love of another and therewith the fear of the death of one’s loved one, threatens to overwhelm one’s reason. The goal of Socrates’ education of those with philosophic natures, then, is to produce a human being who is not only fearless but also loveless. Therefore “ [l]east terrible is it for him to be deprived of a son or brother or money or any such things” and “[l]east, then, does he lament, and he bears it as gently as possible, when some such misfortune overtakes him” (387e3-4, 387e6-7). Socrates does acknowledge here that even the decent man will feel a degree of sorrow at the death of a loved one.^[442] But he emphasizes that the goal of the education he is proposing for the just city is to produce human beings who are as self-sufficient as possible and therefore who love other human beings as little as possible. Accordingly, Socrates goes so far as to suggest to Adeimantus that, if their education is successful, “our young” must “laugh” at the laments of an Achilles for his dead friend or Priam for his dead son. For if they do not deem such laments unworthy of themselves, Socrates contends, they would lament over “small sufferings” and therefore, it seems, spend their lives in lam­entation (388d2-7).

Now, Socrates does not offer any argument here that a decent human is most of all self-sufficient. Nevertheless, he suggests, the belief, possibly illusory, in one’s self-sufficiency, and the effort to become as self-sufficient as one can be, are essential if one is to live well and to follow reason rather than one’s passions. Accordingly, humans should not look up to models of human excellence who love others deeply, as Achilles loves Patroclus and Priam Hector, and therefore lament their demise, nor should they believe in gods, such as Thetis and Zeus, who feel affection for humans and lament their demise (388a5-dι). Human excellence, the full cultiva­tion of philosophic natures, requires as great a freedom as possible from the fear of death and therefore also from love for another.

Yet, Homer too teaches a certain resignation before the deaths of one’s loved ones and one’s own death, in the first place through the example of Achilles, and ultimately through his own example; however, the quality of that resignation and the path to that resignation differ from that recom­mended by Socrates. At the end of the Iliad, the grieving father Priam comes to Achilles to induce him to return the corpse of his Hector by inspiring his compassion.^[443] Achilles, moved by Priam’s speech and also by the nobility of the old king who risks his dignity and life in order to recover the body of his beloved son, weeps for his dead friend Patroclus and his still living father Peleus, while Priam weeps for his son.¹⁶⁴ Homer then recounts:

Once divine Achilles delighted himself with wailing, and longing went from his mind and his limbs, at once he arose from his throne, and stood the old man up by the hand, and speaking, he addressed winged words to him: “Miserable one, surely you have endured many evils in your spirit. How did you endure to go to the ships of Achaians alone, and before the eyes of a man, who stripped the armor of many noble sons of yours? Your heart is iron. But come, sit on the throne, we will let our woes even so lie in our spirit, although we are grieving. For there is nothing to be accomplished from chilling lamentation. For such is the way the gods spun for mortals, that we live in grief, but they themselves have no sorrows.... Endure, and do not mourn unceasingly in your spirit. For you will accomplish nothing at all, grieving for your son. You will not resurrect him; before that, you will suffer also another evil.” (24.513-551)

Achilles here counsels resignation to the grieving Priam and exhibits resignation himself by doing so, since Achilles too has been grieving. Like Socrates, Achilles criticizes lamentation, but his criticism arises in a very different way. Most evidently, rather than avoid the experience of loving someone with all one’s heart and then grieving over his loss, as Socrates recommends, Achilles has that experience to the fullest. No one weeps as much in the Iliad as does Achilles, even though only Achilles argues against lamentation.^[444] But how might weeping and lamentation lead to achieving resignation in the face of death? In the first place, the experience of loving another and of grieving over his death entails a full recognition, with both one’s mind and one’s heart, that humans are not self-sufficient, that as mortal beings we stand in need of one another and therefore are always vulnerable to losing those we need. Through the example of Achilles, Homer suggests that rather than imitate self-sufficient beings, rather than imitate gods, it is only by recognizing our essentially human need for others, and reflecting on that need, that we may come to face the truth of our mortality and accept it. Indeed, insofar as the full experience of sorrow may deepen our understanding of our mortality, it may also deepen our understanding of the gulf that separates us from immortal beings, and hence our recognition that we cannot reasonably look to the gods to understand and relieve our sorrows.

To be sure, the experience of lamentation may prevent one from facing the truth of one’s mortality, because it entails in some measure refusing to accept the finality of death. Hence the grieving Achilles embraces the body of Patroclus and speaks to it as though it were still alive, and punishes the body of Hector as though it were still alive. Lamentation may go beyond sadness over one’s loss to raging at that loss, hoping against hope that that loss is not final, and pleading to the gods somehow to reverse that loss. Yet the example of Achilles suggests that the full experience of sorrow eventually exhausts one’s sorrow and thereby, in some measure, liberates one from it.

In the second place, the experience of sorrow may lead one to under­stand the sorrows of one’s fellow mortals and hence may teach one compassion. Achilles urges Priam to desist from lamenting over the death of his son because it is futile: “You will not resurrect him.”^[445] Achilles, like Socrates, recognizes here both that lamentation signifies an unwilling­ness to accept the finality of death and that it is therefore unreasonable. But, in apparent contrast with Socrates, Achilles nonetheless sympathizes with Priam’s impulse to lament. Accordingly, after again urging Priam to desist from lamentation so that he may eat, Achilles tells him, “then you may mourn your beloved son, taking him into Ilion. Many tears will be shed for him” (24.619-620). And Achilles proceeds to make it possible for Priam and all the Trojans to mourn Hector in peace by vowing to hold back the Achaians for 12 days (24.656-670, 24.778-781). Achilles rec­ognizes the unreasonableness of lamentation, but also recognizes the inevitability, given the natural need and love humans have of others, of lamenting the deaths of one’s loved ones and he humanely sympathizes with such lamentation. Thus the most sorrowful character in the Iliad proves to be the one who criticizes lamentation, is most resigned before his mortality, and is most compassionate toward others. Through his combination of reason with humanity, Achilles most resembles Homer himself.

It is true that Achilles is not fully resigned before his mortality, as is indicated by his continued addresses to the corpse of Patroclus, or fully compassionate, as is indicated by his warning to Priam not to provoke his anger.¹⁶⁷ But precisely insofar as the poem leads us to admire Achilles for his resignation before death and for his compassion and also to recognize the limits of both his resignation and his compassion, it invites us to ask, is there any character in the poem who is more fully resigned and more completely compassionate? And the answer the poem offers, quietly but unmistakably, is Homer himself. Perhaps the most memorable image of the finality of death in the Iliad is to be found in the speech of the Trojan ally Glaucus: “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of men. The wind scatters the leaves onto the ground, but the forest flourishes and naturally grows, as the season of spring returns. Such is the generation of men: one naturally grows but the other comes to an end” (6.146-149; see also 21.462-466). But, as we have seen,^[446] throughout the Iliad, it is Homer himself who evinces a remarkably austere acceptance of human mortality through his vivid, precise, and calm descriptions of the moment of death. In this quiet way, Homer seems to offer himself as a model of clarity and calm in the face of death. Moreover, as we have also seen, through his accounts of death, and especially of the consequences of death for the bereaved, we also become increasingly aware of Homer’s tremendous compassion for the victims of this war.¹⁶⁹ In these ways, the poems point to Homer as the character who combines a clear-sighted understanding of our mortality with a humane sympathy for suffering mortals.

Like Socrates, Homer too teaches the importance of resignation before our mortality and the mortality of our loved ones. His greatest hero is the one who comes closest to such a resignation. And he achieves that resignation in part by grasping with his mind the insight that, once a man dies, “for the soul of a man to come back, this cannot be taken by plunder or seized, once it has crossed the barrier of the teeth” (9.408-409). However, that abstract insight fades in the light of the actual experience of the death of his beloved Patroclus, and the overwhelming feelings of grief over that death and of pious hope that it is not final which that experience gives rise to. The example of Achilles suggests that it is only by plumbing the depths of that experience of grief, of facing and feeling in one’s bones the ills of our mortality, exhausting one’s feelings of grief, recognizing sympathetically the similar sufferings of one’s fellow mortals, and finally reflecting that the immortal gods cannot feel or comprehend or remedy such ills, that one can come to achieve genuine resignation in the face of mortality. One must learn such resignation through experience and in some sense through one’s passions rather than simply through one’s reason. And even though Achilles does not achieve a complete resignation, his example suggests that it is by following his path that one can achieve the complete resignation of Homer.

Now, Socrates’ critique of this Homeric education in resignation before death is quite precise. He warns that there is a great danger that, once unleashed, the experience of grief will simply overwhelm our reason. Precisely insofar as grief entails a refusal to accept the finality of death and hence a hope that death is not final, it may be extremely difficult for humans to exhaust their grief: for the pleasures of hope are virtually irresistible. Socrates stresses in Book X, when he returns to his critique of Homer, the joy we humans feel, not only in hearing the Homeric heroes lament, but when we ourselves lament: “For the best ones of us, listening to Homer, or someone else of the tragic poets, as he imitates one of the heroes in mourning and making a long, extended speech in lamentation, or ones who are singing and beating themselves - you know that we rejoice and, surrendering ourselves, we follow them, sympathizing with them and taking them seriously” (605cι0-d4). We take a certain pleasure in witnessing and sympathizing with characters in poetry who, through lamentation, refuse to accept the finality of death, because their example appeals to our own, natural, longing to refuse to accept the finality of death: “If you ponder that what is then held down by force in its own misfortunes and has hungered for shedding tears and sufficient lamenta­tion and satisfying oneself, it being by nature such as to desire these things, is what is satisfied by the poets and it rejoices” (606a3-7). Furthermore, so powerful is this natural longing to grieve that, in the absence of a proper education that weakens that longing, it overwhelms our reason:

But what is by nature best in us, because it has not been adequately educated by reason or habit, releases the guard over this lamentation because it observes the things of someone else and there is nothing at all shameful for oneself, if another man, saying that he is good, mourns out of season, to praise and pity this one. But he believes that it gains the pleasure and would not be deprived of it by despising the whole poem. For I suppose that it is possible for a certain few to calculate that to enjoy the things of others necessarily extends to one’s own. For the pitying part, having nourished among those ones and become strong, is not easily held down in one’s own sufferings. (606a3-b8)

By stressing the pleasure of lamentation here, Socrates challenges Homer for teaching, especially through Achilles’ encounter with Priam, that the experience of lamentation can exhaust itself and thereby allow reason to regain control over passion and that compassion for the lamentations of others enables one to understand and accept one’s own mortality. For, Socrates maintains, compassion for others tends to lead to compassion for oneself. Achilles, Socrates might say, feels sympathy for Priam’s refusal to accept the finality of his son’s death because Achilles himself refuses to accept the finality of his friend’s, or his own, death. Here too we see that Socrates suggests that Homer overestimates the power of reason and underestimates the power of passion, especially the fear of death. Rather than lead us to accept our mortality, the experience of lamentation over the deaths of our loved ones and of feeling sympathy for the similar lamentations of others only indulges our passionate refusal to accept the finality of death and strengthens our passionate hope that we may some­how be rescued from our mortality. Compassion, then, is not an ally of understanding, as it appears to be in Homer, but an adversary. And therefore, Socrates argues, a true reconciliation to our mortality entails eschewing lamentation oneself and sympathy for the lamentations of others, eschewing those attachments to other humans that render us especially vulnerable to such lamentation, and hence freeing our minds to grasp our mortal condition dispassionately. To produce or approxi­mate such a dispassionately rational human being is the goal of the Socratic education of philosophic natures.

A defender of Homer might argue that such a dispassionate figure cannot be a proper goal of education, since such a figure would no longer be human. Even Socrates acknowledges in Book X that humans will tend to feel considerable attachment to others, more than he had previously acknowledged, and therefore considerable sorrow at their passing.^[447] According to Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates' philosophic companions them­selves break down and weep at the moment of their beloved companion’s death (117c3-d6). And yet, a defender of Socrates might contend that educating philosophic natures through striving, however imperfectly, for dispassionate self-sufficiency, is sounder than educating them through the experience of love and lamentation and the potentially addictive pleasures and hopes that result from that experience.¹⁷¹ Indeed, at least one of Socrates’ philosophic companions may have gone out of his way, on the day of Socrates’ death, to minimize his exposure to that experience and to those pleasures (59b10).

A defender of Homer might argue that Homer himself exhibits a calm, rational, philosophic acceptance of the finality of death, one that is rendered far more impressive than that of Socrates by its rootedness in the vivid experience of suffering and the humane sympathy for the suffer­ings of mortals. But, again, Socrates suggests that Homer is too hidden to offer a clear model. And to the extent that Homer points to Achilles as the model, he risks glamorizing grief, and flattering our all-too-human taste for grief and the hope that grief entails. In order to understand this point - that we have already mentioned more than once - more clearly and fully, let us turn to Socrates' critique of Homer's presentation of himself, or rather of his failure to present himself, in his poems.

socrates' critique of the HOMERIC education 3: homer's self-presentation

A perplexing feature of Socrates' critique of the Homeric education concerning the gods and human excellence is his failure to take into account the model of human excellence to be found in Homer himself. As we have suggested, a defender of Socrates might argue that Homer is himself a hidden figure - a characteristically enigmatic poet (332b9-cι) - inevitably overshadowed by his characters, especially the dazzling char­acter of Achilles. Yet, as we have shown in our discussion of Homer,^[448] Homer is far from being a simply hidden figure in his poems. He speaks directly to his audience in over two-fifths of both his poems taken together, and in a majority of the Iliad. He is therefore, one might argue, far less hidden than, for example, Plato, who only addresses his readers directly through the titles of his works.^[449] Moreover, as we have seen in the Iliad in particular, through his explicit judgments - concerning, for example, the folly of trusting the gods and the flaws of Achilles - through his 134 detailed, analytical, and humane accounts of death, and through the 309 similes he presents in his own name - similes that encompass a vast array of beings and pinpoint common properties shared by seemingly different perceptible beings - Homer presents a self-portrait as an enlight­ened, lucid, humane, philosophic thinker.

In his critique of Homer's presentation of the gods and the heroes, Socrates, however, never discusses this self-portrait. Socrates never dis­cusses Homer's judgments in his own name, the accounts of death that he gives in his own name, or any of the similes he gives in his own name. Even though Homer speaks directly to the audience in roughly 45 percent of his poems taken together,^[450] in this section of the dialogue (376e2-392c5), Socrates cites Homer's own words addressed to his audi­ence only 9^[451] of the 25 times he quotes from Homer. More remarkably, rather than consider here how Homer is distinct from his characters, Socrates seems carelessly to confuse Homer with his characters. Socrates cites Homer’s own words 9 times and the words of Homer’s characters 16 times - Achilles 6 times (one in Odysseus’s account),¹⁷⁶ Zeus¹⁷⁷ and Odysseus twice,¹⁷⁸ and an anonymous suitor of Penelope,¹⁷⁹ Circe (in Odysseus’s account),¹⁸⁰ Thetis,¹⁸¹ Eumaeus,¹⁸² Diomede,¹⁸³ and Eurylochus (in Odysseus’s account)¹⁸⁴ once each - but Socrates does not clearly distinguish Homer’s words from those of his characters. For example, in his very first citation from Homer in this section of the dialogue, Socrates first declares, “one must not accept this error concern­ing the gods from Homer or any other poet, foolishly erring and saying” and then goes on to cite words spoken by Achilles, as though they were spoken directly by Homer.¹⁸⁵ Similarly, Socrates describes Zeus, when his erotic passion for his wife Hera overpowers him, as “saying that he was not so possessed by desire even when they first went unto one another ‘having escaped the notice of their beloved parents,’” as though these cited words were spoken by Zeus, when they are in truth spoken directly by Homer.¹⁸⁶ Of course, Homer does compose the words of all his characters, as Socrates notes when he remarks that Homer “makes [ποιειν] ” the gods Thetis and Zeus and the heroes Achilles and Odysseus “speak [λεγoνταs].^,,i87 But, throughout his critique of Homer’s account of the gods and the heroes, Socrates makes no evident effort to distinguish Homer’s presentation of his characters from his presentation of himself and hence to distinguish the philosophic model of excellence that Homer represents from that of his admittedly flawed heroes. How, then, a

Iliad 24.10-12; Republic 388b6-7, Iliad 22.414-415; Republic 389a5-6, Iliad ³.599-600; Republic 389e8-9, Iliad 3.8, 4.431; Republic 390c5-6, Iliad 14.296.

¹⁷⁶ Republic 379c9-d8, Iliad 24.527-532; Republic 386c5-7, Odyssey 11.489-491 (Achilles’ words are spoken in Odysseus’s account to the Phaiacians); Republic 386d4-5, Iliad 23.103-104; Republic 389eι3, Iliad 1.225; Republic 391a6-7, Iliad 22.15, 22.20; Republic 391b3-4, Iliad 23.151.

¹⁷⁷ Republic 388c4-5, Iliad 22.168-169; Republic 388c7-dι, Iliad 16.433-434.

¹⁷⁸ Republic 39oaιo-b2, Odyssey 9.8-10; Republic 390d4-5, Odyssey 20.17-18.

¹⁷⁹ Republic 381d3-4, Odyssey 17.485.

¹⁸⁰ Republic 386d7, Odyssey 10.495. Circe’s words are spoken in Odysseus’s account to the Phaiacians.

¹⁸¹ Republic 388c³, Iliad 18.54. ¹⁸² Republic 389d2-3, Odyssey 17.383-384.

¹⁸³ Republic 389e6, Iliad 4.412.

¹⁸⁴ Republic 390b5, Odyssey 12.342. Eurylochus’s words are spoken in Odysseus’s account to the Phaiacians.

¹⁸⁵ Republic 379c9-d8; Iliad 24.527-532. ¹⁸⁶ Republic 390b6-c6, Iliad 14.296.

¹⁸⁷ Republic 388a5-6, 388b8-9, 390a8-9.

defender of Homer might ask, can one take seriously a discussion of Homer that fails to distinguish him from his characters, including espe­cially Achilles, any more than one could take seriously a discussion of, for example, Plato that fails to distinguish him from his characters, including especially Socrates?

In order to understand Socrates' response to this question, let us consider the discussion of Homer that follows his critique of Homer's account of the gods and heroes, a discussion that concludes his critique of Homer in Books II-III. There Socrates turns from discussing the content of the poets' speeches (λoyων - 392c6) about gods and heroes that should be told to the philosophic guardians they are educating to discussing the style or manner of such speeches (λεξsωbut the priest, an old man.”^[452] Socrates goes on to note that Homer “has composed in this way pretty nearly all the rest of the narrative about the experiences^[453] in Ilium and about the ones in Ithaca and the whole Odyssey” (393b2-5). Now, Socrates explains here, for the first and only time in the dialogue, how Homer composed both the Iliad and the Odyssey, namely, through “simple” speech that directly addresses us and through “imitation” whereby he speaks to us in the guise of his characters. And by describing Homer's simple speech as one that “does not attempt to turn our thought [διανοια] elsewhere,” Socrates suggests that that manner of speech in particular engages our thought and addresses our intelligence, without deception or misdirection, and hence is superior to Homer's speech through imitation, where the poet deceptively pretends to be someone he is not - the priest Chryses, for example - and hence does not attempt to engage our thought but to turn it elsewhere. And this suggestion would indeed seem to be true of Homer's poems, as we have seen in the Iliad in particular.¹⁹⁰ We might therefore expect Socrates to discuss, at last, in a careful and extensive way, the major portion of Homer’s poetry in the Iliad in which Homer speaks directly to his audience and in which he presents himself as a model of human excellence.

But Socrates turns instead to discuss the general question of whether the poets who educate the philosophic guardians in the city should present their works wholly “through imitation,” as the tragic and comic poets do, or “through the report of the poet himself,” as the dithyrambic poets do, or partially through imitation and partially through the direct speech of the poet, as Homer does (394b8-dιo). Socrates prefaces this discussion with a lengthy account of how Homer’s narration of the beginning of the Iliad would proceed - starting with Chryses bringing ransom for his captured daughter - “if the poet nowhere hid himself” and “his whole poetic making [∙∏∙οiησiς] and narrative would have come into being without imitation.”^[454] Now, by introducing his discussion of imi­tation by equating poetic imitation with poetic self-concealment, Socrates seems to suggest here - as he had suggested earlier with his claim that, when imitating, the poet pretends to be someone that he is not - that he is critical of poetic imitation for being deceptive. However, in what follows, Socrates apparently shifts from criticizing poetic imitation for being a deceptive manner of speech to criticizing it insofar as the objects of imitation are inappropriate: for example, men or women who revile one another, quarrel with the gods, boast, mourn, are in love, are in labor, become drunk, and become insane (395d5-396b9). Nevertheless, taken as a whole, Socrates appears to be generally critical of imitation in this discussion (consider 396e4-8).

But Socrates is not simply critical of imitation here.^[455] Indeed, he indicates here that imitation plays an important, even a vital role in the education of the philosophic guardians. For Socrates explains that it is not only the poet who “imitates” by speaking as though he were his charac­ters; it is also the poet’s auditor or student who “imitates” the characters, created and presented by the poet, by, in the first place, reciting their speeches but, more importantly, modeling themselves on those characters (394d1-e7). The experience of listening to or reading dramatic poetry is to imagine oneself as the dramatic character and, in some sense, to become that character. Imitation, then, of a character worthy of imitation is beneficial. Indeed, Socrates suggests here, continuous, habitual imitation “from childhood on,” of the proper models presented in poetry, that is, of the “courageous, moderate, pious, free, and all such things,” plays a central role in cultivating and perfecting the philosophic natures he seeks to educate (395b8-c5). As Socrates remarks to Adeimantus, “Or have you not perceived that imitations, if they are practiced from youth onwards, establish themselves in habits and in nature, both with regard to body and voice and with regard to thought [biavotav]?” (395dι-3). Imitation of those who deserve to be models of human excellence forms or molds one’s very “nature,” one’s body but above all one’s thought or intelligence.^[456] Such imitation, in Socrates’ account here, may help to cultivate one’s philosophic nature by helping the mind to reason. To be sure, imitation of proper models does not simply appeal to reason, for it begins “from childhood,” before reason has taken hold, and it operates through “habits” rather than argument. But such imitation evidently allows reason to take hold over one’s nature by inculcating habits that prepare one both to reason and to follow reason.^[457] Socrates goes on to argue that the poetry that will form the core of the education combines simple speech with imitation, as Homer does (392e2-394c5), but, most importantly, that it will imitate, and will encourage the audience to imitate, only the best model, “a good man,” as, according to Socrates’ earlier discussion, Homer does not.^[458]

Now, if we ask, in the light of his discussion of imitation, why Socrates does not recognize and discuss Homer’s presentation of himself as a model of excellence through his own simple speech, where he addresses us directly, without imitation and hence without self-concealment, we may, on the basis of this discussion, uncover Socrates’ response. For Socrates suggests here that Homer always effectively hides himself, not only when his narration proceeds by imitation but even when, ostensibly, his narration does not. As Socrates indicates by recounting “the first things” of the Iliad in a way that “the poet nowhere hid himself,” Homer hides himself from the very beginning of the Iliad (and also the Odyssey). For in Socrates' account, that eschews all self-concealment, of “the first things of the Iliad,” Socrates omits the first line of the poem, namely, Homer's invocation of the goddess - “Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Peleus's son, Achilles” - an invocation of one or more of the Muses, who “know all things,” that Homer repeats five other times in the poem.^[459] Socrates omits from his retelling of the Iliad in a manner that “the poet nowhere hid himself” the opening and repeated claim of Homer that he is not at all the “poet” or maker of the Iliad but merely a divinely inspired singer or, more precisely, a mouthpiece through whom the divine Muse or Muses themselves sing.^[460] Socrates suggests here, then, that Homer conceals himself from the very beginning of the poem and throughout the Iliad (and also the Odyssey) by introducing himself and repeatedly identifying himself as a mere medium of gods who reveal their wisdom through him, rather than as the poet, the poetic maker - even one possessing his own human “wisdom” - that he is, and Socrates repeatedly identifies - or exposes - him as being.^[461] It would seem to be for this reason that, after first identifying Homer as an epic poet who, in contra­distinction to the tragic poets, combines simple speech that directly addresses us with imitation, Socrates proceeds to imply that Homer is simply an imitative poet and later explicitly identifies him entirely with the tragic poets, who hide themselves entirely by producing poetry wholly by imitation.^[462] For insofar as he identifies himself - falsely - throughout as a mere singer and mouthpiece of the Muses, Homer never directly addresses us and therefore is as hidden from us as the tragic poets are in their works.

A defender of Homer would object that Homer does, through his poems, offer a portrait of himself. In the first place, while Homer begins his poems with a sympathetic and reassuring invocation of conventional piety, he repeatedly challenges that piety quite sharply over the course of the poem and thereby emerges out from the shadow of the divine Muses.^[463] In the second place, Homer's most obvious models of excellence, his heroes, who lead political lives, who strive to excel in speeches and deeds, in the assembly and on the battlefield, prove to be flawed, admittedly flawed, and through their flaws point beyond them­selves to the figure of wise and humane poet.^[464] Finally, through his judgments, his accounts of death, and his similes in the Iliad, and through his accounts of singers in the Odyssey, Homer reveals to us his stern clarity, his humane compassion, and his activity as an independent obser­ver and a thinker.^[465] In all these ways, the philosophic Homer comes to sight as the true model of human excellence in his poems.

Socrates, however, suggests that this crucial, culminating aspect of the Homeric education suffers from a paradoxical defect: It is insufficiently poetic. For it does not operate at all through imitation. Homer’s heroes, above all Achilles, are grand but flawed heroes, tragic heroes, and as such they point beyond themselves. But the figure these vivid heroes point to, the figure of the wise, humane “singer,” is not only hidden behind the Muses but remarkably abstract, not graspable by our imagination and hence imperceptible, one might say, to our mind’s eye. The figure of Homer in the poems lacks flesh and blood, lacks human details, lacks even a name. We know Homer only through his mind. We have to think our way, through his gods and heroes, through his judgments, his descrip­tions of death, his similes, and his depictions of singers, to Homer himself. But, Socrates suggests, that, again, in this critical aspect of his education, Homer overestimates the strength of reason. Homer does not recognize that reason requires, as Socrates has noted, the support of habituation, a habitual practice in the virtues, and in the freedom from the passions, that are necessary to live a life guided by reason. But such habitual practice must be inspired and informed by the desire to imitate an exem­plary human being, “the good man,” who vividly displays in his own person such virtues and such freedom, who indeed embodies the life of reason.^[466] Socrates contends, then, that Homer does not recognize that poetry, a poetry that brings the philosopher to the fore as a hero to be imitated, is needed to strengthen and support philosophy. Homer does not recognize the need for an imitative, philosophic poetry such as Plato’s.²⁰⁴

It is true that, in his final discussion of Homer, in Book X, Socrates does appear to condemn all imitative poetry without qualification. He tells Glaucon that they were correct in banning from the imaginary city they founded “as much as is imitative” (595a1-b1) and declares that “all” that “the poets of tragedy and all the other imitators” produce “seems to be a mutilation... of the thought [διανοιαs] of the ones who hear them and does not possess the remedy of knowing what sort the things themselves happen to be” (595b3-6). Socrates goes on to attack imitative poets for their ignorance of the proper objects of knowledge - the separate Ideas or Forms - and, indeed, their ignorance of anything “worth mentioning [or worthy of reason - αξιον λoyoυ]" concerning what they imitate^[467] - and for strengthening the passions of our soul - “for it [poetic imitation] nourishes them, watering what ought to be parched, and establishes in us as ruling what ought to be ruled” (606d4-5) - at the expense of reason.^[468]

But this seemingly blanket condemnation of all imitative poetry is in part polemical - a continuation of Socrates' overall rhetorical goal of dethroning the principal example of an imitative poet here, Homer, as the educator of Greece^[469] - and also proves to be only a qualified attack on imitative poetry. Socrates asserts, without argument, that imitative poets do not understand what they imitate and that they follow in their imita­tions, not those who do understand, but “the many and the ones who know nothing.”^[470] Socrates also identifies imitative poets here with Homer and the other tragic poets, whom he has already argued all fail to provide proper models of excellence through their character. But why might certain poets not imitate, and inspire others to imitate, those who are truly virtuous and free from passions, as Socrates had earlier sug- gested?^[471] Socrates asserts that imitative poets use their “power” over the passions to strengthen them at the expense of reason.^[472] But why might not certain imitative poets use their power over the passions to calm them and train them to follow reason?^[473] Socrates himself points to this possi­bility, in the course of his overall attack on imitative poets, by remarking: “Surely, then, the irritable character affords much and varied imitation, but the wise [φρoνιμoν] and quiet character, which is always nearly equal to itself, is neither easily imitated nor, when imitated, easily understood, especially for a festive assembly where all sorts of human beings are gathered in a theater” (604eι-5). Socrates allows here for the possibility that a poet may indeed imitate the wise and calm character, albeit not “easily,” and that the audience of the poet may indeed understand that character, albeit not “easily,” especially if the audience is small and listens to, or reads, the imitative poetry, not in a theater, but in private.^[474] As Socrates goes on to remark, he holds out the possibility for a truly “beneficial” imitative poetry (607c3-e2). In these ways, Plato’s Socrates allows for the possibility that a Plato may compose dialogues that effect­ively imitate, and inspire other philosophic natures to imitate, the philosophic life.

The focus of Socrates’s attack on the imitative poets in Book X is his attack on Homer. Socrates suggests that Homer purports to possess a comprehensive wisdom, encompassing “earth and heaven and gods and all the things in heaven and all the things in Hades beneath the earth” (596c7-9); “all the human things concerning virtue and vice and the divine things” (598eι-2); as well as “the greatest and noblest things that Homer attempts to speak about, about wars and commands of armies and governances of cities and about the education of a human being” (599c6-dι). And while Socrates might seem to dismiss the thought that Homer is wise, by proceeding to compare Homer to such theoretical figures as Thales, Pythagoras, Protagoras, and Prodicus, Socrates does indirectly suggest that the thought is a plausible one (600a4-d4). Socrates nevertheless contends that if Homer were truly wise, he “would attempt to leave many noble deeds behind as memorials to himself and would be eager to be the one extolled rather than the one extolling” (599b5-7) and if he truly knew what human excellence was, he would have made other human beings more excellent (599b9-600e2).

A defender of Homer might respond that Homer did make other human beings excellent through the education his own poems provide: He is the teacher of all the tragic poets and the educator of Greece. But Socrates' specific criticism of Homer here is more personal, focused on Homer the man rather than on his poems. Indeed, in Book X, Homer's name or words derived from his name are mentioned i8 times, far more than in any other book of the dialogue, but lines from his poems are never cited.^[475] Socrates imagines a dialogue with Homer, and asks “my friend Homer,” which cities are better governed “because of you,” as an indi­vidual, and offer thanks to “you,” as an individual (599c6-e4)? Then, switching to the third person, Socrates asks the following three questions:

Well, is any war in Homer's time remembered that was fought well on account of that one's ruling or advising? (600aι-2)

Well, with respect to such deeds as are proper to a wise man, are many well contrived devices for the arts or any other practices spoken of, as are about Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian? (600a4-7)

Well, then, if not in public, is it said that Homer, while he was himself alive, became, in private, a leader in education for certain ones who loved that one for his intercourse and, to those who came after, did he give a certain Homeric way of life, just as Pythagoras himself was exceptionally cherished for this, and the ones who came after still even now give Pythagoras's name to a way of life and seem in some way to be manifest to the others? (600a9-b5)

Now, these questions do not demonstrate that Homer as a man did not, while he lived, benefit cities or offer advice to commanders or perform deeds as are proper to a wise man or even impart a certain Homeric way of life to his companions. What these questions do demonstrate is that we do not know whether Homer did any of these things because he deliberately hid himself in his poems. Homer does not answer Socrates' questions about his life as a flesh and blood human being because, while he left behind his poems, he did not leave within his poems himself as a vivid, flesh and blood, character - as a member of a political community, doer of deeds, and companion. Homer may well have led a Homeric way of life, a wise or philosophic way of life as Thales or Pythagoras did, but, by hiding himself, he did not allow others to imitate that way of life by leaving a memorial of that life in his poems.

Socrates proceeds to underscore the fact that Homer deliberately hid himself by referring to Protagoras. In the spirit of his preceding questions, Socrates asks, But Glaucon, if Homer were really able to educate human beings and make them better, because concerning these things he was capable not of imitating but of knowing, do you suppose that he would not have made many companions and been honored and cherished by them? But Protagoras, then, the Abderite, and Prodicus the Cean, and very many others are capable of impressing the ones of their own time, being with them in private, that they will be able to govern neither their own household nor their own city unless they themselves oversee their education and they are so intensely loved for this wisdom that their companions do everything but carry them around on their heads. (600c2-d4)

Again, Socrates contrasts here our knowledge of the bold and colorful sophists with our ignorance of the enigmatic Homer. But Socrates' refer­ence to Protagoras in the context of criticizing Homer points us to Plato's Protagoras's own criticism of Homer in the Protagoras:

I assert that the sophistic art is ancient and that those of the ancient men who handled it, fearing the hostility toward it, made a disguise for themselves and covered themselves with it, for some, poetry - for example, Homer and Hesiod and Simonides.... All these, as I say, being afraid of envy, made use of these arts as a screen. But I do not concur with any of these ones in this. (316d3-317aι)

Protagoras maintains that Homer deliberately concealed his way of life, mistakenly, since he should have unveiled it, as Protagoras himself has, even at the risk of incurring hostility. On this particular point, at least, Socrates, and Plato, seem to agree with Protagoras.^[476]