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On the Theological Interpretation of Plato's Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Jason Xenakis
Jason Xenakis
Affiliation:
Chapel Hill, N. C.
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Extract

There are several well known commentators who hold that Plato “identifies” God with good, or goodness, or the good, or the Idea of the good. And there are several others who come very close to saying this. I should like to show not only that this interpretation is wrong, but also the weaker or perhaps more plausible one that Plato holds that the ground of value or obligation is what God approves or commands.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 1957 , pp. 67 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1957

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References

1 Part of my doctoral thesis, Widener Library, Harvard, 1952. I am indebted to Professors R. Demos, H. Bugbee, W. Jaeger and J. Wild for advice given in the course of writing the dissertation; also to Professors D. C. Williams, H. D. Aiken, P. Rhinelander, C. Cavarnos, A. Stampolis, T. C. Lockard, Mr. C. H. Donohoe and Miss J. L. Cook; and to Sir David Ross for some of my references to Plato's text.

2 See e.g., Adam, J., The Religious Teachers of Greece (1908), pp. 442 ff.Google ScholarDiès, A., Autour de Platon (1927), II, esp. 555 ff.Google Scholar, 575. Jaeger, W., Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development (tr. R. Robinson, 2nd ed., 1948), p. 88Google Scholar, cf. pp. 242 f. Ritter, C., The Essence of Plato's Philosophy (tr. A. Alles, 1933), esp. pp. 374Google Scholar, 387. L. Robin, Platon (1935). pp. 249 ff., 322. Festugière, A. J., Contemplation et Vie Contemplative Selon Platon (1936), pp. 204 f.Google Scholar, 264 ff., 476 ff.

3 E.g., Bury, R. C., The Philebus of Plato (1897), pp. 207, 213Google Scholar. F. Paulsen, A System of Ethics (tr. F. Thilly, 1900), p. 43. W. Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (tr. G. Highet, 1944), II, 284–286; The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1948), p. 251, n. 67. Mueller, G. E., “Plato and the Gods” (The Philosophical Review, XLV (1936), 457–472CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Cf. Collingwood, R. G., An Essay on Philosophical Method (1933), p. 127Google Scholar.

4 In Euthyphro 11e4–12e8, Socrates discusses the (logical) relation between hosion and dikaion, and concludes that the former is “part” (morion, meros) of the latter (11e4, 12d3, 12d5–6). Cf. Gorgias 523a7–b1. (My references are to J. Burnet's Platonis Opera, 1901–1907.)

5 Euthyphro 10d6–7. See also ibid., 10d12–b3.

6 Ibid., 6e10–7a1, repeated in 9e1–3 and 15c, in somewhat modified forms.

7 Cf. A. E. Taylor, Plato: the Man and His Work (6th ed., 1949), p. 151.

8 Or moderation, etc., Philebus 20d1–4, 65a ff., and elsewhere; see my dissertation ch. viii.

9 Cf. e.g. Timaeus 87C4–90d7. For a rough statement of Plato's standard of value and related matters, see my “Plato on Ethical Disagreement” (Phronesis, vol. I, no. 1).

10 See R. Demos, The Philosophy of Plato (1939), pp. 6 ff., ch. iii; “The Fundamental Conceptions of Plato's Metaphysics” (The Journal of Philosophy, XXXII (1935), 564 ff.Google Scholar). Also: Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology (1937), pp. 34 ff.Google Scholar, 41 ; Ross, W. D., Plato's Theory of Ideas (1950), pp. 42 ff.Google Scholar, 78 ff., 235 ff.; Wild, J., “Plato and Christianity: A Philosophical Comparison” (The Journal of Bible and Religion, XVII (1949), 9)Google Scholar; J. Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Part I (1914), pp. 169n, 337 ff.; Taylor, op. cit., pp. 232, 288; however, in ibid., p. 289, Taylor asserts that “the Form of Good is what Christian philosophy has meant by God, and nothing else.”

11 Timaeus 3033, 32b5, passim. See on this Cornford, op. cit., p. 37.

12 There is a similarity between my critique of the theological view of Plato's ethics and A. E. Taylor's critique of the view which makes Plato identify what is true with what God thinks (A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (1928), pp. 81–82). Nevertheless there are important dissimilarities between these two types of argument, which, however, cannot be discussed here. Also, I noticed Taylor's argument after I developed mine.

13 See further Timaeus 29e1–3, 30a3–b6, 30C3–31a1, 41a7–b2.

14 See e.g. Ritter's reasoning, op. cit., pp. 388–389.

15 Timaeus 29e1 ff.; “God being good…”, etc. Cf. A. C. Ewing's discussion of the theological view of ethics (The Definition of Good, 1947).

16 For my latest views on the relation between divinity and goodness see my “God = Worshiped” forthcoming in The Christian Scholar, but especially my “Deity-Value” forthcoming in The Hibbert Journal where I also bring in Plato and the soul.