Professor's Note:

    Like all papers, this essay needs to be read critically.  In it, Steve Snyder argues that Socrates' commitment to universal definitions leads to an authoritarian political stance.  Steve comes up with an interesting thesis and argues for it well.   I was impressed by his philosophical thinking.  I am appreciative that he gave his permission to have the essay posted.
    Has Steve made his case?  If not, what further questions need to be asked? What further distinctions need to be made?
                                                                                    John G. Sullivan 

I guess it wouldn’t make for much a paper simply to say that Socrates was anti-democratic. And, judging from the lack of critical sources on just this subject, scholars seem to consider it a pretty open and shut case, as if I. F. Stone said everything there was to say. At least there seems to be a lack of anything new or interesting on the subject, except for the occasional author who, in a grand sophistic turn of her/his own, attempts to argue Socrates as a proponent of democracy. Yet, our usual easy explanations of Socrates’ position, that he despised the corruption inherent in the democratic system, that he did not believe in the correctness of the untrained and ignorant having a say in ruling, while certainly correct, are not the entire picture. In order to completely understand Socrates’ position we need to understand his inability to separate collective interest and individual interest, an inability stemming directly from his search for objective "absolute" definitions.

First we can explore the surface level arguments. The most basic reason for distrust in self-government is Socrates’ strong belief in experts. Socrates is always making arguments by analogy to various arts and various experts in those arts. There is the example of the horse trainer in The Apology that is particularly damning when read in the context of self-governing. (Apology, 25-26) Socrates asks if it is the few or the many who are responsible for the training of a horse. Do only few have the ability, or do many? The answer, of course, is the few. Socrates sees the in the world a wide variety of arts and only select people in each art. Just as we are not all born knowing how to paint the Mona Lisa (or ever grow to learn for that matter) so do we all not have the inherent ability to rule, in which case we would have no right intruding into the area of government.

Democracy, however, does not necessarily work in this fashion, where everyone, qualified or not, participates in government. As I. F. Stone points out, in a book that seems to start as a defense of free speech, but turns into a defense of Athenian democracy instead; we acknowledge the need for qualified rulers and democracy is simply the process in which we elect these supposed "experts" to power. (Stone, 16) But Socrates argues that, in such a system, persuasion becomes more important than truth. (Gorgias, 501a) He creates the analogy between rhetoric as an art and cooking. Cooking is simply the dressing up of the food and is not concerned about the health of the body. It makes appealing foods that are good for you as well as those that are bad. A better art is that of medicine because, while medicine will often taste bad, its aim is always to improve the body.

Another such analogy is presented in the Phaedrus. Socrates likens the process of the assembly to attempting to convince someone that an ass is a horse. Here the analogy is much more pointed toward democracy.

One of the first times we see this universalizing of terms at work is in The Apology, where Socrates states he could not have been intentionally corrupting the youth because he would be corrupting the place where he himself lives. (Apology, 25a-26a) Socrates needs a special, universalized definition of the word "corruption" to pull this off. Corrupting as in simply turning against the state is not good enough for Socrates. Socrates universalizes the term to mean, in all cases, "make bad" and he does it casually enough for us not to even notice. It’s as if he assumes the universalized definition to be inherent in the word and he need not qualify between other possible definitions. So, for example, once the term "bad" has been universalized no criminal in his right mind would do it. "Bad" would be equally bad for him as for everybody else.

Author Allan Bloom shows again how this process works and tends to encourage strong authoritarian forms of government in his interpretation of The Hipparchus. In this dialogue Socrates takes on his usual mission to define "what is x." Here x is profit. In the normal turn of events, Socrates universalizes profit as a positive. Profit cannot simply be an increase in money (as we would define it) because then someone could make lots of money, but in the process destroy her/his health and this would not be "profitable" in the universalized sense of the word.

There are two ways in which this line of universalizing can lead to political results. If we follow the logic further than Socrates chooses to we see that always to do what is profitable is to do what is good. Therefore, the knowledgeable ruler, by doing what is profitable for him also does what is good and therefore just. But Bloom points out an even subtler conclusion:

Thus authoritarianism is the only form of government that makes sense. It is implied once we accept the universal definition. Submission to authority is demanded. It is the duty of the ruler to serve the people and the duty of the ruled to obey. In authoritarianism, only the ignorant ruler will not serve the people and, logically, the ignorant will fail. But in democracy the ignorant are encouraged to participate in ruling, and this, for Socrates, is disastrous. For Socrates the ruling should be done by "the one who knows" (Stone, 86). Yet, the stakes seem higher somehow when ruling is your art. The typical artist is never afforded near so much power.

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