Plato and Aristotle do not reject the dominant ideology, but their attraction to the ideal of minding one’s own business leads them to plead for exceptions. They are in a difficult spot, wanting to motivate the ideal of minding one’s own business without rejecting the dominant ideology. At first glance, it might seem that Plato succeeds in doing this by transforming what it means to mind one’s own business. But in the end, the transformation is not enough. Plato is still drawn to the ideal of minding one’s own business as traditionally understood, as the quiet life. He and Aristotle both argue that an elite few can live the best possible human life by withdrawing from politics, and their case for this introduces tension into their ethics and puts pressure on the dominant ideology.
Plato transforms the idea of minding one’s own business in the Republic when he makes ‘‘minding one’s own business’’ essential to justice, the paradigmatic excellence of the political life.6 He maintains that the just person is one in whose soul each part minds its own business (Resp. 441d-e, 443c-d), and a just city is one in which each class of citizens minds its own business (Resp. 434c). This is a transformation because ‘‘minding one’s own business’’ now has little to do with avoiding the business of the polis. Indeed, on Plato’s scheme, the ruling class of the ideal city ‘‘minds its own business’’ (that is, it does its own job) by ruling the city! So it would appear that this transformation allows Plato to stand by the dominant ideology’s rejection of withdrawal while co-opting the quiet life’s ideal of‘‘minding one’s own business.’’
But his support for the dominant ideology is uneasy, for two reasons. First, Plato’s transformed ideal of‘‘minding one’s own business’’ is highly restrictive. In his view, the just soul is ruled by its rational part (Resp. 441e), which must have knowledge (441e with 442c), and knowledge requires grasping the Forms, the nonsensible properties that explain the way things seem (Resp. 476a-479e with books 6 and 7). But only philosophers grasp the Forms (Resp. 476a-479e), and so only philosophers are, strictly speaking, just. On Plato’s view, too, the just city is ruled by its rational part, which must have knowledge. So the just city must be ruled by philosophers (Resp. 473c-e). According to these standards, very few people and even fewer cities are just.
What is more, Plato holds that those who are just and who perfectly manifest the transformed ideal of ‘‘minding their own business’’ - that is, the philosophers - also want to mind their own business in the traditional sense ofwithdrawing from politics.7 According to the Republic, a philosopher who has grasped the knowable reality that underlies and explains the world of perceptual experience wants nothing so much as to continue to contemplate this reality, and so she disdains politics. That is why, in the Republic, the founders of the ideal city have to compel the philosophers to rule (see E. Brown 2000a, 2004). These philosophers will ‘‘mind their own business’’ in the transformed sense and engage in politics only if they are compelled to, and those who willingly engage in politics must, according to Plato, fail to ‘‘mind their own business’’ in the transformed sense. So it would seem that the transformation of‘‘minding one’s own business’’ fails to save Plato’s attachment to the dominant ideology.
In fact, Plato expounds upon the gulf between the best, philosophical life and political activity in several dialogues. When the Republic addresses how philosophers should live in ordinary cities, it is clear that they should and will justifiably indulge their love for wisdom, far from politics (520a-b; cf. 496c-497a and 592a). In the Phaedo, Socrates insists that philosophers are completely different from anyone else, including regular citizens, for the philosophers are lovers of wisdom while everyone else is a lover of body (68b-c). And in his digression in the Theaetetus, he asserts that these utterly different interests involve incompatible skills: philosophers are ignorant and incapable in law courts and political proceedings (173c-d) while politicians are ignorant and incapable when it comes to philosophical discussions of justice (175b-d). In these works, Plato urges withdrawing from politics to live the best life a human being can live, the life of contemplative philosophy.
Plato’s ideal of the quiet life of contemplation is not exactly Amphion’s. Amphion defends intellectual activity in part because it brings him maximal pleasure and in part because it will enable him to give political advice. Plato’s contemplators are not interested in giving political advice, and while they believe that contemplation is the most pleasant activity, pleasure is not their reason for contemplating. They are attracted to contemplative activity for its own sake, on account of their love of wisdom.
The contemplative ideal might be Plato’s invention. Plato himself and the later tradition attribute the contemplative ideal to some Presocratic philosophers, but it is not clear if the attribution is correct.8 It is clear, however, that Aristotle retains the contemplative ideal. This is clearest in the Nicomachean Ethics (but see also Pol. 7.2-3 and Eth. Eud. 1.4-5). In book 1, chapter 5, Aristotle distinguishes four sorts of lives that people lead, and he dismisses two of them, the money-making life and the ‘‘apolaustic’’ life devoted to bodily pleasure. But he postpones the comparison of the political and philosophical lives. When he returns to the subject, in book 10, chapters 7 and 8, he argues that it is better to act always for the sake of philosophical contemplation than to act always for the central activities of the political life.
Plato and Aristotle do not give all the same reasons for living a contemplative life, but they agree on two important claims. First, contemplative activity is intrinsically superior to political activity. That is why Plato’s philosophers prefer it, and why Aristotle favors the philosophical over the political life. Second, the philosophical life involves transcending human nature to become as much like god as possible (Pl., Resp. 613a-b, Tht. 176b, Tim. 90a-d, and Arist. Eth. Nic. 1177b31-4; cf. Depew, this volume, chapter 26).
These claims, in fact, introduce a tension into the ethics of Plato and Aristotle. On the one hand, both want to say that the best human life perfects human nature (see esp. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1098a7-18). But on the other hand, they acknowledge that philosophical contemplation involves acting like a god and not a human. This tension left room for disagreement. If contemplation is more than human and the best life is truly human, then perhaps the best life is political, after all. Aristotle’s pupils Dicaearchus and Theophrastus disagreed about whether the philosophical life is really better than the political life (see Cic. Att. 2.16.3).
The tension lurks because Plato and Aristotle agree that the contemplative ideal is exceptional. In their view, at best a few people have the ability to transcend human nature and contemplate like the gods. In other words, Plato and Aristotle want to leave the dominant ideology largely intact: for most human beings, in their view, it is best to engage in politics (see also Depew, chapter 26). But their passion for the contemplative ideal calls the ideology into question, nonetheless, in three ways.
First, Plato and Aristotle threaten the dominant ideology’s conception of certain fundamental values to explain why the contemplative life is best. According to the dominant ideology, excellence expresses itself in action, and action is political (see, e. g., Pl., Meno 71e and Xen. Mem. 4.2.11). But this makes it impossible to say that a contemplative philosopher who minds his own business has excellence. So Plato and Aristotle have to reject the ideology’s conception of excellence and activity. Plato does it one way: when he says that the contemplative philosopher is unwilling to engage in politics, he says that she is unwilling to act (Resp. 517c), and so he rejects the connection between excellence and activity. Aristotle does it another: when he says that the contemplative philosopher is unwilling to engage in politics, he insists, nevertheless, that he is acting (Pol. 1325b14-32), and so he rejects the connection between activity and politics.
Sometimes, too, the contemplative ideal makes problems for the dominant ideology not by overturning its values but by making explicit tensions that were already there. So, for example, according to the dominant ideology, the best humans and poleis display self-sufficiency, but it is not entirely fixed whether self-sufficiency requires independence or is compatible with extensive alliances. Aristotle exploits this. He builds up the picture of self-sufficiency as interdependency to accommodate the political life that is the best most could hope for, and he argues that for the few, contemplation realizes the selfsufficiency of independence, which surpasses what befits human beings as political animals (Eth. Nic. 1097b6-16 and 1177a27-b1 with E. Brown forthcoming a).
Finally, the contemplative ideal hints at alternative politics. Consider, for example, the Academy or Lyceum as a community of people who mind their own business and share a contemplative life. Such a community offers a concrete example of a community apart from the dominant ideology’s polis. Nor does the threat of an alternative community depend upon face-to-face interactions. Plato and Aristotle wrote works to exhort others to take up the philosophical life, and these writings might be viewed as tools for building dispersed philosophical communities. At least, that is the way the Roman Stoic Seneca saw the early Stoics’ philosophical work when he was justifying his retirement from politics (Dial. 8.6.4). In two ways, then, those who live as contemplative philosophers, minding their own business, can see themselves as citizens of a community outside the bounds of the traditional polis.
Plato and Aristotle do not pursue these implications of the contemplative ideal, probably because they do not want to threaten the dominant ideology. And in fact, their contemplative ideal poses no immediate threat to politics unless it becomes widely available. But Christianity, in a way, made the contemplative ideal widely available and fostered a community, not always face-to-face, that stood as an alternative to traditional politics. That is why Augustine’s City of God must toil to defend the Christians. It also helps to explain why philosophers who embrace the dominant ideology rejected that contemplative ideal: they recognized the threat posed by that ideal to traditional political work. The great third century Stoic Chrysippus, for example, rejected the life of leisure both for those who openly avow their pursuit of pleasure (Epicureans) and for those who pursue pleasure cryptically (Academics and Peripatetics) (Plut. De Stoic. rep. 1033cd). He and his Stoic followers - Seneca’s On Leisure notwithstanding - agreed that ‘‘the sage will participate in politics, if nothing prevents him’’ (Diog. Laert. 7.121).
So, when Cicero, who wholeheartedly embraces the dominant ideology, tries to defend his beloved Plato, he gives no support to the contemplative ideal. Rather, he claims that Plato taught Dion of Syracuse tobeabettercitizen( Off. 1.155). Cicero, in other words, defends Plato the man against Plato the theorist. It is not hard to imagine that Plato, Aristotle, and their immediate followers would have done the same. After all, they respected the dominant ideology despite the special exceptions, and in both schools, there were in fact several philosophers who advised politicians. So perhaps, in practice, and despite the contemplative ideal, Plato and Aristotle would have defended the quiet life by citing Amphion’s third reason, that it facilitates wiser political advice.
Still, by proposing a way of life greater than politics, Plato and Aristotle call into question the dominant ideology, and their evaluative demotion of the political life had long-term consequences.
World History
