[41] It is this distinction between the subjective and the objective which is implied in the language of Epiktêtus, when he proceeds to answer the objection cited from Theopompus ([note 1 p. 451]): Τίς γὰρ σοι λέγει, Θεόπομπε, ὅτι ἐννοίας οὐκ εἶχομεν ἑκάστου τούτων φυσικάς καὶ προλήψεις; Ἀλλ’ οὐχ οἷον τε ἐφαρμόζειν τὰς προλήψεις ταῖς καταλλήλοις οὐσίαις, μὴ διαρθρώσαντα αὐτάς, καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο σκεψάμενον, ποίαν τινὰ ἑκάστῃ αὐτῶν οὐσίαν ὑποτακτέον.
To the same purpose Epiktêtus, in another passage, i. 22, 4-9: Αὐτὴ ἐστιν ἡ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, καὶ Σύρων, καὶ Αἰγυπτίων, καὶ Ῥωμαίων μάχη· οὐ περὶ τοῦ, ὅτι τὸ ὅσιον πάντων προτιμητέον, καὶ ἐν παντὶ μεταδιωκτέον — ἀλλὰ πότερόν ἐστιν ὅσιον τοῦτο, τὸ χοιρείου φαγεῖν, ἢ ἀνόσιον.
Again, Origen also, in a striking passage of his reply to Celsus (v. p. 263, ed. Spencer; i. p. 614 ed. Delarue), observes that the name Justice is the same among all Greeks (he means, the name with the emotional associations inseparable from it), but that the thing designated was very different, according to those who pronounced it:—λεκτέον, ὅτι τὸ τῆς δικαιοσύνης ὄνομα ταὐτον μὲν ἔστιν παρὰ πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν· ἤδη δὲ ἀποδείκνυται ἄλλη μὲν ἡ κατ’ Ἐπίκουρον δικαιοσύνη, ἄλλη δὲ ἡ κατὰ τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, ἀρνουμένων τὸ τριμερὲς τῆς ψυχῆς, ἄλλη δὲ κατὰ τοὺς ἀπὸ Πλάτωνος, ἰδιοπραγίαν τῶν μερῶν τῆς ψυχῆς φάσκοντας εἶναι τὴν δικαιοσύνην. Οὕτω δὲ καὶ ἄλλη μὲν ἡ Ἐπικούρου ἀνδρία, &c.
“Je n’aime point les mots nouveaux” (said Saint Just, in his Institutions, composed during the sitting of the French Convention, 1793), “je ne connais que le juste et l’injuste: ces mots sont entendus par toutes les consciences. Il faut ramener toutes les définitions à la conscience: l’esprit est un sophiste qui conduit les vertus à l’échafaud.” (Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, t. xxxv. p. 277.) This is very much the language which honest and vehement ἰδιῶται of Athens would hold towards Sokrates and Plato.
Cross-examination brought to bear upon this mental condition by Sokrates — position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to it.
As the Platonic Sokrates here puts it in the Euthyphron — all men agree that the person who acts unjustly must be punished; but they dispute very much who it is that acts unjustly — which of his actions are unjust — or under what circumstances they are so. The emotion in each man’s mind, as well as the word by which it is expressed, is the same:[42] but the person, or the acts, to which it is applied by each, although partly the same, are often so different, and sometimes so opposite, as to occasion violent dispute. There is subjective agreement, with objective disagreement. It is upon this disconformity that the Sokratic cross-examination is brought to bear, making his hearers feel its existence, for the first time, and dispelling their fancy of supposed knowledge as well as of supposed unanimity. Sokrates required them to define the general word — to assign some common objective characteristic, corresponding in all cases to the common subjective feeling represented by the word. But no man could comply with his requirement, nor could he himself comply with it, any more than his respondents. So far Sokrates proceeded, and no farther, according to Aristotle. He never altogether lost his hold on particulars: he assumed that there must be something common to them all, if you could but find out what it was, constituting the objective meaning of the general term. Plato made a step beyond him, though under the name of Sokrates as spokesman. Not being able (any more than Sokrates) to discover or specify any real objective characteristic, common to all the particulars — he objectivised[43] the word itself: that is, he assumed or imagined a new objective Ens of his own, the Platonic Idea, corresponding to the general word: an idea not common to the particulars, but existing apart from them in a sphere of its own — yet nevertheless lending itself in some inexplicable way to be participated by all the particulars. It was only in this way that Plato could explain to himself how knowledge was possible: this universal Ens being the only object of knowledge: particulars being an indefinite variety of fleeting appearances, and as such in themselves unknowable. The imagination of Plato created a new world of Forms, Ideas, Concepts, or objects corresponding to general terms: which he represents as the only objects of knowledge, and as the only realities.
[42] Plato, Euthyphron, p. 8, C-D, Euripides, Phœnissæ, 499 —
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εἰ πᾶσι ταὐτὸ καλὸν ἔφυ, σοφόν θ’ ἄμα, οὐκ ἦν ἂν ἀμφιλεκτὸς ἀνθρώποις ἔρις· νῦν δ’ οὐθ’ ὅμοιον οὐδὲν οὔτ’ ἴσον βρότοις, πλὴν ὀνομάσαι· τὸ δ’ ἔργον οὐκ ἔστιν τόδε. |
Hobbes expresses, in the following terms, this fact of subjective similarity co-existent with great objective dissimilarity among mankind.
“For the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whoever looketh into himself and considereth what he does when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, &c., and upon what grounds, he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of passions, which are the same in all men, desire, fear, hope, &c., not the similitude of the objects of the passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, &c., for these the constitution individual, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man’s heart, blotted and confounded as they are with lying, dissembling, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts.” Introduction to Leviathan.