engleski

Irony and the Care fo the Soul in Plato's Early Dialogues

The primary aim of my paper is to demonstrate that it is especially today, in the age of all-pervading ethical relativism and scepticism vis-à -vis the issue of the grounding of moral norms, when the utilitarian outlook services the flows of global capital, that the Socratic question of how to achieve a good and happy life (eu zen ; eu prattein) may serve as a paradigm for reorientation. Did the historical Socrates, in concentrating his elenctic discussions of ethical values and the soul primarily on the central question of practical philosophy: how to achieve a good and happy life, equate the soul with individual personality (Apol. 36c ; Krit. 47e ; Gorg. 486e)? In the Apology we find a crystallisation of Socrates' ethical position according to which it is necessary to "convince young and old alike that they need not concern themselves anxiously for the body and possessions, but first and foremost for the soul, that they should become as good as possible” (Apol. 30f.). Socrates' ethical imperative to care for one's own soul can be understood in a modern sense as care for one's own personality (ca. Apol 28b ; Gorg. 512e). The fundamental motif of Socrates' philosophizing, how to become as good and honourable a person as possible ( 36c5), recurs in all the aporetic dialogs. Socrates reflected intensively on this question and fervently discussed with his partners in the dialogues the genuine values of human existence, emphasising that the "unexamined life" was not worth living (Apol. 38a). Nevertheless, to know exactly what conditions guarantee a good and happy life, surpasses his ability. One of the most controversial questions of Plato's aporetic dialogs is how to connect Socrates' ironic admission of his own ignorance with the resolute demand for concern for the good life (eu\ zh'n). The key difficulty implied by the effort to achieve the good life is thus how the individual is to achieve phronesis or insight into the good itself which enables him to achieve the good for him. The examination of self and knowledge of oneself prescribed by the Delphic oracle Gnwvqi saujtovn, thus, necessarily implies the concern for the constitution of one's own personality, the realisation of one's own true arete, the good in relation to one's self. It is telling that Socrates, for example, in the Criton (47a) asserts that with respect to the question of how to achieve the good life that one need not take into account the opinion of the majority, but first of all that of those individuals who are reasonable and insightful (frovnimoi). In the concrete example of whether it is imperative to attempt to escape from prison, or to accept the sentence of death, Socrates shows that it is imperative that he decide himself on the basis of prudent and reasonable reflection: "Because not only now, but always I adhered to the arguments which have shown themselves under reasoned reflection to be the best" (46 b). The mere fact that human beings possess phronesis, is thus the condition, but not the sufficient cause, for achieving a happy and satisfying life. Moreover, Socrates' "logizomai" presupposes the application of a permanent moral reflection and analysis to one's own life's choices.

Irony; Soul; phronesis; dialogue; consciousness

nije evidentirano