THE IDENTITY OF THE CITIZEN

Aristotle's consideration of the dispute over rule is preceded and made necessary by the problem with which he introduces Book III and presents first as a practical and legal matter: the problem of the city's identity (Pol. 1274b32–4). He indicates that he will proceed by dividing the city, a composite whole, into its component parts (Pol. 1274b38–41; cf. 1252a17–20). This is formally the procedure he employed at the beginning of the Politics when he divided the political community into the natural associations that form for the sake of some good and then established the city as the natural whole that completes the human quest for the good. In Book III, by contrast, Aristotle begins from a part of the city whose identity is an object of dispute: the citizen. By Book III, the question of the political community has become a part of a larger investigation of the regime, and Aristotle is considering the city not as a natural whole but first and foremost as an arrangement of offices having an authoritative ruling element and directed toward the end established by that element (Pol. 1274b36–8, 1279a25–7, 1289a15–18). In this context, the city acquires its identity, as does the citizen, through the institution of a particular regime, and the identity of the city becomes most obviously a question when it must be constituted – when it is founded or undergoes a revolution.

The current debate about liberal citizenship is marked by a pervasive doubt about such fundamental liberal principles as the primacy of the individual, the neutrality of the contractual state, and the priority and universality of rights. To be sure, there have been past disputes about the political and legal terms of citizenship. In the American case, for example, disputes have ranged from the arguments concerning naturalization at the Constitutional Convention to the battle over voting rights to more recent discussions of immigration. But these past disagreements also reflected a more fundamental consensus that “the first mark of American citizenship,” and of liberal citizenship in general, is the “political equality of rights,” and that defining citizenship largely entailed working out the full meaning of these terms. Since the current debate follows from critiques of liberal thought itself, however, we now confront fundamental questions concerning the very ideals and principles that have traditionally undergirded discussions of citizenship.

In providing an overview of these critiques and the ways in which scholars have subsequently sought to reconceive liberal citizenship, I seek not to recapitulate this ongoing debate but to describe the general context within which it has arisen and to draw out problems that provide a bridge to Aristotle's thought. I begin from two developments. First, in the last decades of the twentieth century, a growing perception that liberal thought, and the Enlightenment project in general, failed to make good on its promise to ground morality in a rational and nonteleological framework raised serious doubts about liberalism's capacity to defend its own moral and political principles.

Understanding the complexity of moral virtue and the perspective that informs it requires attention to the substance and order of Aristotle's discussion of the particular virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. It is necessary, before turning to this discussion, to address a couple of objections to this claim, objections represented by the strong statement of Sir David Ross and largely responsible for a general neglect of the virtues:

Such a view would supply a good reason for the neglect of the particular virtues, and while students of Aristotle rarely subscribe to the whole of Ross's view, many assume the validity of some part of it. The full case against this position requires the substantive examination of the virtues (cf. NE 1107b14–16, 20–1, 1108a1–2), yet it is possible to address the main propositions in a prefatory way by speaking first to the question of the organization and order of the list and then to the connection of the virtues to Greek convention.

Leading up to his account of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses three virtues that pertain to “our associations” and “the speeches and deeds of our common relations”: friendliness (philia, lit. “friendship”), truthfulness, and wittiness (NE 1126b11–12). His account of these virtues is prepared by his treatment of the nameless characteristic pertaining to anger, which he chooses to call “gentleness” (praotēs). Generally speaking, the person who possesses this virtue becomes angry “in the circumstances and at whom he ought, and further in the manner, when, and for as much time as he ought” (NE 1125b31–2). In choosing to name the virtue “gentleness,” Aristotle associates it with its also nameless deficiency, and the gentle person in fact tends toward a deficiency of anger. The gentle person, who “wishes to be calm and led not by passion but as reason would command,” is more disposed to forgive than, as is more common, to seek revenge and punishment (NE 1125b33–1126a4, 1126a30). Indeed, this disposition toward forgiveness sometimes makes the gentle human being an object of blame rather than praise: He is thought to be a fool and slavish, for he appears to endure foul abuse and to overlook his own affairs (NE 1126a4–8). Moreover, in certain circumstances, not gentleness but harshness, the excess of anger identified as most opposed to the mean, is praised: Harsh human beings “are sometimes praised as manly on the grounds that they are able to rule” (NE 1126a36–b2).

Gorgias must be impressed by Socrates' success in at least taming Polus and by what Socrates has shown about Polus' concerns. Yet doubts might reasonably linger about whether Socrates' success with Polus, even as limited as it is, could be duplicated with a more demanding interlocutor. And Gorgias also might wonder whether the attachment to justice that Socrates has revealed in Polus is really a sign of a deep concern in the human soul rather than a reflection of Polus' susceptibility to bouts of shame. If these are Gorgias' thoughts at this stage of the dialogue, he will welcome the entry of Callicles. As soon as Callicles enters the conversation, the tone becomes more serious and demanding. This change can be felt from the moment Callicles speaks up to ask whether Socrates is really being serious in defending the position he has been defending, and then exclaims: “For if you are being serious and these things that you are saying are really true, wouldn't that mean that our lives as human beings are now turnedupside down, and that everything we do is the opposite of what we should do?” (481c1–4). Unlike Polus, who displayed a willingness half-heartedly to follow arguments wherever they might lead, Callicles has a much sharper sense of the gravity of the conclusions of Socrates' arguments. In this respect at least, he first comes to sight as the most impressive of Socrates' interlocutors.

The Gorgias is divided into three main sections of unequal length. The shortest of the three sections is Socrates' opening conversation with Gorgias, which is followed by a longer conversation with Polus, and then by Socrates' much longer confrontation with Callicles. This movement from briefer to lengthier conversations would seem to mirror the dialogue's ascent in intensity. That is, the dramatic tension is greater and the themes are more profound in the Polus section than in the Gorgias section, and the Polus section is surpassed in turn by the Callicles section. Yet the impression conveyed by this movement, as I stressed in the introduction, should not lead us to overlook the crucial question of the unity of the dialogue: What ties the three sections together? Nor should we overlook the fact that the dialogue is called Gorgias, a title that may be intended to call attention to the special importance of the opening section of the dialogue as somehow holding the key to its unity.

A more obvious reason that the dialogue is named after Gorgias is that he is the person to whom Socrates has come to speak as the dialogue opens (447a1–c4). He is also by far the most eminent of Socrates' three interlocutors. A man who in his own time and for several generations afterwards would need no introduction, Gorgias was one of the ancient world's most famous rhetoricians and teachers of rhetoric.

Let me restate the suggestion with which I concluded the last chapter and say a further word about how it can help us understand the unity of the Gorgias. I have suggested that Socrates is interested in Gorgias as a potential ally. The reference at the beginning of the dialogue to Socrates' lingering in the agora can help us begin to understand Socrates' need for such an ally; later passages, especially in the Callicles section, will help us expand and deepen our understanding. But even if Socrates is in need of an ally with outstanding rhetorical abilities, Gorgias would seem to have proven to be a disappointing candidate. For the result of Socrates' conversation with Gorgias is an impressive Socratic victory that serves not only to impress Gorgias but also to bring out Gorgias' lack of wisdom on a crucial issue. To repeat, Gorgias' boasts about rhetoric and his (genuine) view of the prerequisites of the rhetorical art reveal that he takes justice too lightly. Yet, as I observed, Socrates does not abandon the discussion after Gorgias' defeat, even though he no longer continues to speak with him directly. And I suggested that the continuation of the dialogue may be a continuation of Socrates' conversation with Gorgias, henceforth to be conducted indirectly but nonetheless intended to remedy the flaws in Gorgias' understanding and to continue to lay the foundation for an alliance. In other words, Socrates may not have given up hope in Gorgias.

Few philosophers have endured more criticism and abuse in modern times than Plato. As one of the great figures of the classical tradition, Plato was subjected to powerful attacks by the founders of modern philosophy and their followers, who set out to succeed where they thought the naïve and utopian ancients had failed. And the attacks on Plato continue unabated today, as postmodernists look back to his works to find the source of the faith in reason that they want to root out of the West. Yet, for all that, Plato has not lost his power to attract and enchant. Those who first sought to overthrow the intellectual authority of classical philosophy, men such as Machiavelli and Hobbes, would be amazed to learn that their foe continues to attract partisans and even devotees. And more recent critics, such as Derrida and Rorty, are similarly dismayed that their efforts finally to put Plato to rest have not succeeded. Is it not a strange feature of our late modern or postmodern age that there still remains serious interest in Plato?

Yet perhaps the very difference between Plato and his critics, from the early moderns to those of our time, can help us to understand why his works have not lost their appeal. For one of the most powerful things drawing readers back to Plato today is their sense that his works contain a richer and truer account of human life, of the soul and its deepest concerns, than one can find even in the greatest works of modern philosophy.

Especially if it is right to have doubts that Socrates himself is genuinely convinced of the truth of the account of the afterlife that he presents to Callicles, his presentation of that account may be regarded as an example of noble rhetoric. Certainly, one of the virtues of the account is that it portrays the philosophic life in a light that, were the account to be believed, would lessen people's anger toward that life and win it respect. But how believable is Socrates' account? Socrates himself says that he is not very optimistic that Callicles will believe it. And he may not have had high hopes that Callicles would believe even his claim that he believes it himself (consider again 523a1–3, 527a5–9). If Callicles' silence at the end of the dialogue reflects this likely skepticism, he would not be unlike many readers of the Gorgias, who do not hesitate to refer to Socrates' account as a myth, despite his insistence that it should be regarded as a logos. Socrates' account, I would suggest, is not meant to be – at least not in any simple or direct way – the primary model of the kind of noble rhetoric to which Socrates is pointing in the Gorgias. But if the account at the end of the dialogue is not the primary model of noble rhetoric, and yet Socrates is nonetheless calling for a new kind of rhetoric, what would be the character of such rhetoric?

The Gorgias reveals much about Callicles. It gives us a view into the soul of a young man who Socrates thinks could never truly join him in his search for the truth, and who is willing to be an outspoken critic of the philosophic life. It would seem fitting that the dialogue should also reveal much about Socrates, that we should see a presentation or defense of Socrates' philosophic life in response to Callicles' attack on it. And Socrates does return, on the heels of his critique of hedonism, to the question that he earlier let fade into the background. He reminds Callicles that the most important question at issue in their conversation is the most important of all human questions – “How ought one to live?” – and he returns to Callicles' exhortation of him to abandon philosophy and to turn to a more political life (500c1–8). Yet, although Socrates returns to the question of whether his life is truly choiceworthy, he seems to raise this question only to let it fade again into the background. It takes quite some time in the remainder of the dialogue before Socrates speaks directly about his own life; and when he does, his statements are quite brief (see 521a2–522e6; cf. 508c4–513c3). Also dampening our expectations that Socrates will be particularly open about his own life in the last part of the dialogue is his return, in the same section that immediately follows his critique of Callicles' hedonism, to the issue of rhetoric.

RECOLLECTION AS METAPHOR?

Socrates rounds off this whole passage (80–6) on a note of caution, followed by a strong exhortation:

The first few words suggest a disclaimer of some sort; but we should be careful about what we take them to imply. In saying that he would not insist on the argument too strongly, he is acknowledging that it needs further support. We have noted at various points how the Phaedo attempts to do this, in regard to both recollection and immortality. But Socrates' words cannot be used as evidence that he only proposed recollection as a metaphor for something else. Of course, many modern readers may feel a deep unease with the whole recollection episode. On the one hand they might admire Plato's insights into the nature of learning and see his theory as a landmark in the theory of knowledge to which later theorists have, to a greater or lesser extent, been returning ever since.