Paideia:Educating for Wisdom in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy
Dr. Martha C. Beck
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle sets out a model of all of the powers of soulthat a person with practical wisdom (phronesis) actively exercises throughout life. This paper will argue that the members of the Chorus in Aeschylus’ play, Agamemnon and the character of Socrates in Plato’s dialogues are images in people of who possess practical wisdom. While the other characters are making serious mistakes, we watch these characterschoosing to do what is noble because it is noble. We come to know that their ability to respond appropriately at the moments portrayed in the play, or in the dialogues, is only one aspect of their overall way of life. Their choices arise from having firm and established characters. They are dedicated to the love of wisdom. In what follows, I will describe Aristotle’s powers of soul and explain how the members of the Chorus and Socrates exercise those powers in the play and in the dialogues.
Aristotle defines courage as the ability to do what is noble in the face of situations involving fear.Both the members of the Chorus and Socrates exhibit rational courage in situations related to the fear of loss of reputation. They have the courage of their convictions: they speak out against corrupt rulers even when they risk public censure, persecution, or even death. They alsohave the courage to admit when they are ignorant at the risk of losing social respect.
Temperance is the virtue in relation to the experience of physical pleasure. The members of the Chorus and Socrates exercise moderation in relation to eating, drinking, sex and their standard of living. They do not desire or have unnecessary material goods. Their temperance enables them to make good judgments about how to relate to their fellow citizens and how to relate to other cities because they are not blinded by greed or envy.
Aristotle defines liberality as the virtue of giving money away, but these people do not have much money to give away. Because they prefer a simple lifestyle, they would be more likely to have some money to give. More importantly, they take time out from other aspects of their lives—making a living and running a household—in order to come to the public square and discuss social and political issues.They give their lives to thinking about and doing what is necessary to preserve the highest quality of life in their cities and in the world. They do an excellent job of caring for their families but demand that their families also care about the common good.
The members of the Chorus and Socrates express rational anger: they get angry for the right reason, in the right way, at the right time, etc. They avoid self-righteous indignation because it leads to delusions about the relative superiority of their societies. The other characters oversimplify the struggle between good and evil by idealizing their own city and demonizing their enemies. This leads to seriously flawed choices such as declaring war too soon and treating enemies brutally.
The members of the Chorus and Socrates expose the denial and delusion. First, they recognize their own capacity for evil. Next, they admit their own ignorance, especially their ignorance about the most serious questions in life: good and evil, justice and injustice and what the gods really think is best. These are the issues human beings disagree about and everyone claims to know when really no one knows for sure. When they are confused about what is just or best, they step back and take time out to engage in reflection or prayer. They possess much greater insight about the human condition in general and about what to do in a particular situation because they admit they do not know. They possess the virtue valued highly by the priests at the Oracle of Delphi: self-knowledge.
The members of the Chorus are forced to admit the complexity of the struggle between good and evil. At the beginning of the play, they seem to live examined lives, certainly more so than the other characters. This power gives them the ability to see through the denial and delusions of others. When Agamemnon returns from Troy, he brings with him his concubine, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, the king ofTroy. Because of herearlier relationship with Apollo, Cassandra possesses the gift of being able to see into the future but the curse of being ignored. While still in Troy, she tells the Trojans that if they let Helen into the city, they would eventually be completely destroyed. The Trojans ignore her. By contrast, the members of the Chorus choose to listen to Cassandra. She tells them all she knows about the deep, dark secrets of the House of Atreus. At first, the Chorus does not want to hear it. Socially, she is the lowest of the low: a Trojan, a woman and a slave. How could she know such things? Yet they have to admit she knows the facts about the past. They choose to follow reason, to admit she knows the truth.
After she shows she knows the Greek past, she predicts the future: Clytemnestra will brutally kill both Agamemnon and her and there is nothing she can do about it. The Chorus is awed at her insight; they believe she can, indeed, see into the future. The Chorus breaks the curse. The Chorus demonstrates that the love of wisdom demands listening to anyone who knows the truth, rejecting biases based on sex, race, power or wealth.
Socrates also talks to anyone and everyone about how to live well. He has a reputation for self-knowledge. The Delphic Oracle proclaims that Socrates, a mere stonecutter, is the wisest person. Socrates is surprised and sets out to interview those Athenians with power and reputations for excellence in various sectors of the society. He asks them to explain what they have to know in order to be able to exercise their power justly. To his surprise, they are unable to answer him. Instead of admitting their ignorance they get angry with Socrates. In the end, Socrates is killed for “not believing in the city’s gods” because he is not blindly obedient to whatever the authorities said is the will of the gods. He is accused of “corrupting the youth” because he exposes the ignorance and delusion of powerful leaders in front of young people, leading them to question the legitimacy of their authority figures.
Both the members of the Chorus and Socrates exercise rational judgment in relation to the distribution of social and political goods, particularly the distribution of political power. They recognize that they possess greater wisdom than those who exercise power, but they do not thereby try to overthrow those in power or even to work toward gaining more status or power. They do not underestimate their own good judgment, however, by remaining silent. Instead, they believe they can be most effective by becoming honest and wise advisors to those in power. They tell powerful people what they think, even when it is not flattering and is not what they want to hear. They are falsely accused of undermining authority simply because they expose the corruption and ignorance of those in charge.
Even when falsely accused, the members of the Chorus and Socrates make good judgments about how to rectify the wrong done because they refuse to take revenge. Taking revenge never solves problems and only makes them much worse. Even though Crito gave Socrates the opportunity to escape, Socrates does not run away; he drinks the hemlock and dies. Clytemnestra accuses the Chorus of cowardice because they do not take revenge and kill Agamemnon when he callously kills their daughter. The play shows that this killing Agamemnon would not have solved anything. Instead, it would have left Athens with no legitimate ruler. The Chorus is right to refrain.
Socrates and the members of the Chorus recognize that human beings need social and political institutions and should not do anything to undermine social order unnecessarily. They question particular authorities and their particular decisions because they recognize the natural need for authority and for that authority to be exercised justly. They speak out against corruption in government and other sectors of society in order to make the society stronger and to prevent social chaos, not to create it. A continual examination of oneself and one’s rulers in all sectors of society is necessary in order to maintain social order. Without this continual examination process, authorities can do whatever they want, leading to rebellion by the ruled and to social chaos. Societies fall apart both from too little authority and from the abuse of authority. The only way to avoid these extremes is to make sure authority is exercised justly, for the well-being of the city as a whole. The only way to keep powerful people just is to continually examine them. The only legitimate examiner must also live an examined life.
The members of the Chorus and Socrates are high-minded. Aristotle has a word, “spoudaios” for a person with an “eye of the soul” that can separate what is serious from what is trivial in life. Such people take serious issues seriously and themselves lightly. They keep their lives in perspective. They know how to set their priorities so that their thoughts, emotions and actions are dedicated to achieving the highest good they are able to achieve, given their natural abilities and opportunities. This quality is difficult, since what is most immediate is least important overall and what is most important and best requires a vision about one’s life as a whole. Further, the ultimate vision would be to create the best possible environment for future generations. Although this is certainly difficult to predict, the play and the dialogues show that people have the power to act in ways that create a chaotic and hopeless future or an ordered and hopeful future for those they love and their fellow human beings.
This model of the serious person implies that living well is an art, not a science. In Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between the power of soul he calls episteme, the ability to gain scientific knowledge, and wisdom. Someone can be very knowledgeable in the sense of having scientific knowledge and also be emotionally immature and even wicked. Both the play and Plato’s dialogues include these kinds of characters. Clytemnestra gives lots of reasons, even complex ones, for killing her husband. She is so good at arguing that the Chorus is at first stunned and confused. Eventually, however, after reflecting upon the situation, they can give her good reasons for why her arguments are not good enough. The play itself shows many reasons why killing Agamemnon has made life much worse for everyone, no matter how just the cause might appear to be. In Plato’s dialogues, many characters are smart but corrupt. The sophists have a fine-tuned art of teaching people how to gain power for themselves. Alcibiades is notorious for being brilliant but the most corrupt kind of tyrannical soul as described in Republic IX.
In relation to the moral virtues, some people achieve virtue to some extent but not complete practical wisdom. The Herald in the play and Laches in Plato’s dialogues both possess the virtue of a citizen soldier. Both Herald and Laches are willing to fight bravely in war but unable or unwilling to question the rulers’ judgment about whether a war is just. The play exposes how such citizens’ good intentions and personal sacrifices are abused in the hands of corrupt leaders who use the will of the gods as justification for the pursuit of power. Aeschylus wants the formally uneducated members of the audience to reflect on their own blind obedience to rulers and to become more reflective about themselves, their leaders and what the gods really want. Socrates treats Laches in the same way. Plato shows how the elite class in Athens exploites the patriotism and good intentions of those unable to recognize the truth. I think that Plato’s dialogues are written for his students at the Academy, those with natural intelligence and opportunity. He shows them that irrational goals and choices lead to self-destruction and the exploitation of those with less natural ability and opportunity.
Traditional liberal arts institutions are filled with young people like Plato’s and Aristotle’s students: those with natural intelligence and the opportunity for a high-quality education. These students come to college with various degrees of the moral virtues, following the customs of their own authority figures. In college they are required to take a number of classes in diverse disciplines. Besides academic training, the original “Greek” system of fraternities is designed to give them opportunities to exercise authority, to practice ruling and being ruled in turn. Together, these are the first steps in an education for citizenship through theoretical study and actual practice. Students learn to formulate laws and policies that apply to people they do not know personally but with whom they are bound under a common set of laws.
Aristotle’s model is one way to reflect upon how these different powers of the intellectual part of the soul, the different kinds of knowledge, one should relate to emotions and behaviors so as to lead to the life of the mind, to the continual exercise of practical and theoretical wisdom. The tragedies and dialogues show the responsibility that those with more privilege and ability have toward those with lessprivilege and ability.
The members of the Chorus and Socrates are able to do what Aristotle describes as “the mark” of a person of practical wisdom: to make the practical truth, what is best, incarnate in the world through their way of life. Aristotle says that most people would rather talk about virtue than actually perform virtuous actions. Wisdom is a way of life (ergon), a way of choosing and acting. This is never easy, as the play and the dialogues show. In order to hit the mark, the members of the Chorus get confused sometimes; both they and Socrates engage in serious and heated conversations about what should be done and why.
The play opens at a critical moment: after ten years, the Greeks are returning from Troy, victorious. The Greeks think they deserved to win the war. Their victory is the gods’ just punishment for the Trojans’ pride, their excess love of wealth. The Chorus explains the pattern: cities whose rulers are dedicated to wealth will eventually self-destruct. Those with power will raise their children surrounded by wealth. These children will grow up to become monsters, with no concern for the common good. When tempted by pleasure, especially the pleasures of sex, they will ignore bonds of trust between city-states and do what they like, even when it leads to unjust suffering for many innocent people.
As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that the Greeks’ self-righteousness about the Trojans’ excess in relation to wealth leads to their inability to recognize their own greatest weakness: their obsession with power and control. Athens is desperate. The Queen, Clytemnestra, has violated her own marriage vow and is living with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin. Before leaving for Troy, the goddess Artemis demands the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s oldest child. The Chorus describes the heartless way Agamemnon performs the deed. Clytemnestra believes someone should kill Agamemnon in revenge for his brutal act of killing Iphigenia. Clytemnestra is bitter and has a grudge. Therefore, in the name of avenging her daughter, she will kill the only person who has any power to regain order in the city.
Clytemnestra is living in the palace with Aegisthus who has taken over power. Aegisthus’ father, Thyseus, and Agamemnon’s father, Atreus, are brothers and sworn enemies. When Thyseus tries to overthrow Atreus, Atreus kills Thyseus’ children and serves them to him for dinner. Aegisthus, also, still carries a grudge from the evil committed by Atreus a generation earlier. In the name of avenging his father, he takes over power by force. The Chorus tells Aegisthus the truth: Athenians will never accept the rule of Aegisthus. He has done exactly what his father, Thyseus, tried to do: overthrow the legitimate ruler of Athens. He is a coward because he did not go to Troy and becausehe allowed Clytemnestra, a woman, to do the dirty work of killing Agamemnon. If he thought this would avenge the way his father was treated, he has to kill Agamemnon himself. Aegisthus’ power is illegitimate. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus have not defeated the evils of the past; they have created many more evils in the present and future.