The third defense of withdrawing from politics accepts wholeheartedly the dominant ideology’s claim that the good for a human being is activity that must be shared with other human beings, but it rejects the thought that this activity can be found in ordinary politics. Its sponsor is Socrates, at least as he appears in Plato’s Socratic dialogues.9
Socrates uses paradox to characterize his attitude toward the political life: ‘‘It might perhaps seem strange that I go around giving advice and minding others’ business privately but do not dare to go into your assembly and advise the city publicly’’ (Pl. Ap. 31c4-7). This is paradoxical because Socrates considers himself both a busybody (polupragmon) and yet outside traditional politics. But he fully explains the paradox.
On the one hand, Socrates explains his rejection of traditional politics. He acknowledges that he gave Athens conventional political service on each of the three or four occasions when his city called upon him: he fought in battles at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and Delium (Pl. Ap. 28de; cf. La. 181b); he was at least once - but not more than twice (Arist. Ath. Pol. 62.3) - a member of the Council of Five Hundred (Pl. Ap. 32b1); and when the Thirty summoned Socrates to carry out an order, he answered the call, though he refused to carry out the order (Ap. 32c4 - d7). But the divine voice has told him to keep away from engaging in politics (Ap. 31d2-5), and Socrates believes that it is entirely right to do so (Ap. 31d5-6). He explains,
For know well, men of Athens, that if I had long ago tried to engage in political affairs, I would have long ago perished and would have benefited neither you nor myself. Do not be angry with me when I speak the truth, for no one at all will survive if he genuinely opposes either you or any other assembly and prevents many injustices and illegalities from occurring in the city. Rather, anyone who really fights on behalf of the just, if he is going to survive for even a short time, must live privately, and not publicly. (Ap. 31d6-32a3)
In order to benefit himself and the Athenians, Socrates believes that he had to withdraw from the traditional political life. So Socrates lived a philosophical life that ‘‘minds its own business’’ (cf. Pl. Grg. 526c).
Yet, on the other hand, Socrates did not live a life of quiet contemplation (cf. Pl. Ap. 36b), and he did not withdraw from the business of helping the general public, for he believed that his examinations provide the greatest benefit to Athens that anyone could provide (Ap. 36c). This explains why he also characterizes himself as a ‘‘busybody’’ (Ap. 31c, quoted above), and it explains why he insists, in Plato’s Gorgias, that he is the only Athenian of his time even to try to engage in true politics, which is to say, he is the only one who tries to improve others’ lives instead of trying merely to make them feel better (Grg. 521d).
Socrates, then, is a special case, and his argument for withdrawing from ordinary politics depends upon rethinking what politics should be. He rejects thoroughly the values of contemporary Athenians, their love of honor and wealth (Ap. 36b and passim), and he argues instead that no one should engage in the affairs of the city before straightening out the affairs of his own soul (cf. Pl. Symp. 216a). Socrates in a way inherits a traditional aristocratic rejection of democratic politics. But instead of offering reactionary proposals, he radically rethinks what politics should be. He opposes not just the values of the Athenian democrats but also those of their oligarchic rivals. That is why Callicles is right to draw on Zethus’ critique of Amphion when he wants to cast Socrates as someone who neglects traditional political values and activities (Pl. Grg. 485e-486d).
How special Plato’s Socrates is can be seen by looking at Isocrates, who offers a rival conception of how to transform politics through a life that minds its own business. Isocrates is Plato’s chief rival for students who wish to study what both call ‘‘philosophy.’’ But whereas Plato’s students learn to study and contemplate the nature of the world, and to reshape their lives in accordance with what they discover, Isocrates promises a more narrow revision of traditional rhetorical training, revamped to suit more aristocratic aims than those served by other fourth century orators. Accordingly, he stays closer to the traditional aristocratic ideal of‘‘minding one’s own business.’’ He attacks earlier and rival rhetoricians for teaching ‘‘busybodiness’’ (polupragmosunl) (C. soph. 20 and Antid. 48, 230, 237). He cultivates instead being unbusied ( apragmosunl) (Antid. 4, 151, 227), and he defends himself against the charge of having taught busybodies (polupragmosune) (Antid. 98). Isocrates uses his writings to try to change Greek politics, but his aims are far less radical than Socrates’. He yearns for a return to past glory that attracted Greek allies to Athens’ leadership and kept the barbarians at bay (see e. g. Aerop. 79-81).
So Socrates’ life was unusual, both because it simultaneously minded its own business and meddled and because it thoroughly critiqued traditional political values. But it is not easy to see what the concrete political implications of Socratic politics are. How would a polis be arranged if all the citizens successfully examined themselves and each other? Socrates, like some other prominent political theorists - Marx leaps to mind - is clearer about what is wrong with the status quo than he is about how things would be if they were set right.
Perhaps because he was so unusual and perhaps because his vision of an alternative future was indeterminate, Socrates attracted a wide range of followers. In a way, Plato’s and Aristotle’s thoughts about how a city ought to be governed respond to Socrates’ call for reform, as they insist that rulers should be the most virtuous people, but Aristotle, especially, shows how the Socratic conception of virtue can be tamed to accommodate traditional Athenian values. Other so-called ‘‘Socratic’’ followers stay closer to the radical challenge that Socrates presents to business as usual, although they differ widely in their interpretation of how to reform politics and realize the aim of benefiting others.
The Cyrenaics and Cynics both go further than Socrates in removing themselves from traditional politics. Like Socrates, they avoided the Assembly and the courts and thereby rejected the traditional political life. But Socrates, despite his philanthropic (Pl. Eu. 3d) desire to examine and benefit ‘‘anyone, whether fellow citizen or foreigner, whom I think is wise’’ (Pl. Ap. 32b, cf. 30a), stayed in Athens. He need not have thought that he was obligated to benefit the Athenians especially. He might simply have thought that Athens, with its free speech, best suited his controversial way of life (Pl. Grg. 461e; cf. Ap. 37c-e and Meno 80b). Nonetheless, he did not renounce his ties to Athens. The Cyrenaics and Cynics, by contrast, noisily rebuked local attachments. Aristippus the Elder, who is in some sense the founder of the Cyrenaic sect, says, ‘‘I do not shut myself up in a political community but am a stranger everywhere’’ (Xen. Mem. 2.1.13; cf. Plut. an virt. doc. possit 2, 439e). The later Cyrenaic Theodorus names the cosmos his father-city (patris) (Diog. Laert. 2.99). And, most noisily of all, Diogenes the Cynic declares himself a ‘‘citizen of the world’’ (Diog. Laert. 6.63) and embraces his existence ‘‘citiless, homeless, deprived of a fatherland’’ (6.38). These cosmopolitan Socratics spread sharply contrasting visions of the good human life, but both Cyrenaics and Cynics were clearly inspired by Socrates’ conception of politics outside the traditional bounds.1
The Stoics, whose founder apparently studied with the Cynic Crates and in the Academy (Diog. Laert. 7.2), offer a more nuanced response to Socrates’ example. On the one hand, they partly rehabilitate traditional political engagement and the dominant ideology. At least by the time of Chrysippus, Stoics believe that one should engage in politics if the circumstances permit (Diog. Laert. 7.121), and Chrysippus even allows that a Stoic might speak in public as though wealth and health were good even though Stoicism holds that only virtue is, strictly speaking, good (Plut. De Stoic, rep. 1034b; cf. 1048a). There seems to have been no fixed political program in the Stoa, as different circumstances would call for different regimes and laws to achieve the aims of politics, which are to restrain vice and promote virtue. But the Stoics attempt to join Socrates’ uncompromising views about value with traditional political action.
On the other hand, the Stoics also insist, with Socrates and against the dominant ideology, that a good human life does not require traditional political engagement. It requires, instead, agreeing with nature, and this demands sensitivity to the particular circumstances in which one finds oneself. So one person might do best by engaging in politics, and another as a private farmer, and a third as a philosophical teacher. Here the Stoics resemble the other philosophers in seeking to divorce the notions of excellent activity and traditional politics, but like Socrates - and unlike the advocates of contemplative activity or pleasant withdrawal - the Stoics do this by transforming the notion of politics and by yoking all excellent activity to the inherently political project of seeking a common good with other human beings. For them, even the private life of philosophical teaching is the life of a political animal, and its excellent activity aims at a common good with other humans just as surely as the traditional political life does (see E. Brown forthcoming c: ch. 7). So the Stoics remain true to the Socratic revolution in rethinking the aims and means of politics even though they encourage traditional forms of political action to realize this revolution.
With time, the contrast between the Cynic and the Stoic responses to Socrates became more pronounced. Especially once Stoicism settled in Rome, Stoic ideas drifted further from their radical roots, and they were frequently joined to conventional Roman ideals. But interestingly, philosophers in the Roman world who often espouse Stoic-Roman ideals that are opposed to the radical proposals of Socrates and the early Socratics continue to make a special exception for Socrates and his immediate followers. So, for example, Cicero declares, ‘‘No one should be led into this error, that if Socrates or Aristippus did or said something contrary to custom or political practice, this same thing should be permitted to him. For those men acquired such freedom by their great and divine goods. But the whole theory or approach ofthe Cynics must be rejected’’ (Off. 1.148). Seneca goes one step further, and finds room to praise Diogenes the Cynic. He says, ‘‘In benefits, I am necessarily defeated by Socrates, necessarily defeated by Diogenes, who marched naked through the middle of the Macedonians’ treasures, treading upon the wealth of a king’’ (Ben. 5.4.3). These accommodations suggest that the Socratic challenges to the dominant ideology are allowable only as exceptional provocations to virtue. Broader allegiance to the Socratic program, such as one finds in the vogue for Cynicism in first and second century (ce) Rome, would have to be tamer (see Billerbeck 1996).
World History
