Ancient Philosophy and Modern

Ideology: Introduction
Charlotte Witt

How should we read ancient texts? What use should we make of them?
The ancient philosophy community has always displayed some tension
on these questions. Some ancient philosophers are strongly committed
to the idea that the Greeks have something to say to us today: if they did
not, they would not be worth studying. This line of thought leads to the
idea that even in such areas as science, philosophy of science, and
philosophy of mathematics, there is something valuable to be gained by
studying, for example, the Pythagoreans, the Hippocratics, Plato, and
Aristotle. Others believe that the value of ancient texts has nothing to do
with their contemporary relevance. Plato's Timaeus and Aristotle's Gen-
eration of Animals are worth studying for the internal complexity of the
ideas they express, the relationship to evidence, the light they throw on
ancient intellectual goals, and so on.
Nowhere is this tension more evident than in the study of ancient
ethics and politics. In this area, it is much more plausible than in science
or mathematics that the ancients might have had insights that have
escaped us today. This puts pressure on both lines of thought mentioned
above. For those who think that the ancients can be treated as partici-
pants in our own debates, the challenge is to say why their acceptance
of repugnant institutions like slavery and conquest should not simply
rule them out of court. For those who think that ancient thought has no
contemporary relevance, the problem is to show how Greek theories of
virtue and of the state have been rendered obsolete by contemporary
treatments of the same subject, and no longer have relevance.
This volume was inspired by the trend in recent years of overt political
criticisms, interpretations, assessments and co-options of classical philo-

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274 Charlotte Witt

sophical texts both within and outside the academy. To mention just one
highly publicized example, consider how Plato's thought on erotic rela-
tionships between men was deemed relevant to legal arguments over an
anti-gay rights ordinance in Colorado. This ordinance was challenged in
court on the grounds that, since it incorporated local religious antipathy
against gays, it should be regarded as unconstitutional. The defence
claimed that anti-gay values were universal, not local. The plaintiffs
claimed that, on the contrary, homosexuality was well regarded during
certain periods of world history, specifically in ancient Athens. Disagree-
ments ensued about the exact attitude of ancient philosophers. The
scholars brought in as expert witnesses disagreed sharply over just what
Plato thought on the matter. However that may be, we find it even more
interesting how and why Plato's thought might have been deemed
relevant at all.1 After all, Plato countenanced slavery. Why then should
his views on homosexuality be given any credence? And beyond the
legal question of the relevance of Plato's thought lie important and
interesting questions of interpretation and methodology in the history
of philosophy. How ought we to approach the interpretation of a text?
Is it possible or desirable to read classical texts as historical artifacts
rather than in relation to philosophical (or cultural) questions of our day?
And if we do read the ancients in relation to our own concerns, is what
results mere ideological appropriation? And if, as scholars, we want to
avoid blatant ideological readings of classical texts, what methods of
interpretation should we employ? Questions like these lie at the heart of
the papers in this collection.
Outside the academy, recent uses of ancient philosophy have been
largely polemical, and directed against those who would criticize a
traditional conception of western civilization and culture and, explicitly
or implicitly, its origins in ancient Greek thought.2 The creative co-option

For a discussion of Martha Nussbaum's expert testimony see her "Platonic Love
and Colorado Law: The Relevance of Ancient Greek Norms to Modem Sexual
Controversies" in Sex and Social Justice (Oxford 1999).
The controversy over the origins of Western thought and civilization , because of
its ideological and political aspects, was never simply a scholarly debate within the
academy. For two opposing views see Martin Bemal's Black Athena: the Afroasiatic
Roots of Classical Civilization (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 1987
(Vol. I), 1991 (Vol.D) and Mary Lefkowitz, Not Out of Africa: how Afrocentrism became
the excuse to teach myth as history (New York: Basic Books 1996).
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 Introduction 275

of Greek philosophy by political conservatives also formed part of a

debate over the philosophical canon, both within the academy and in the
broader culture, about how to structure the humanities curriculum, and
the place of women's studies and multicultural studies within it.3 Within
the academy, the debate ranges from largely critical evaluations of
ancient Greek thought by feminist scholars, and others on the left, to
those who argue that ancient philosophy has resources for contemporary
philosophical problems.4 And, unsurprisingly, there is a wide range of
dispute among scholars and political theorists over the question of just
what the important legacy of Greek political and ethical thought really
is.5
Given this situation, and in particular, the arguments within the
academy, it is remarkable that scholars of ancient philosophy have given
little direct attention to the important questions of methodology and
interpretation that naturally arise from its ideological appropriation.
Indeed, it is all the more striking since, as two contributors to this volume
make clear, the recent political appropriations of the ancients, have both
immediate and more remote antecedents. In "I.F. Stone and Gregory
Vlastos on Socrates and Democracy", Malcolm Schofield compares the
overtly political investigation of Socrates' fate at the hands of Athenian
democracy by political journalist turned classical private-eye I.F. Stone
with the more subtle political motivation that shaped Gregory Vlastos'
interpretation of Socrates, which has influenced scholars in the field
more than any other in the twentieth century. In "Politics in Plato's
Republic: His and Ours" Julia Annas discusses the appropriation of
Plato's thought in the Republic through different historical periods as part

3 Alan Bloom's conservative and polemical The Closing of the American Mind (New
York: Simon and Schuster 1988) was very influential in shaping the canon debate.
4 The range of feminist assessments of ancient philosophy can be sampled in the
recent collections edited by Cynthia Freeland, Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle
(Perm State University Press 1998), and by Nancy Tuana, Feminist Interpretations of
Plato (Perm State University Press 1994).
5 Some scholars, like Martha Nussbaum, find in Aristotelian ethics and moral psy-
chology much that is straightforwardly useful for contemporary ethical and moral
theory. See the discussion in Angela Curran's contribution to this volume. Others,
like John Cooper, stress the differences between ancient Greek ethical thought and
our own. See his Introduction to Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychol-
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276 Charlotte Witt

of her argument that it is a mis-reading of the work to understand it as

primarily a piece of political philosophy. Annas notes that the ancient
tradition largely interpreted the Republic as containing Plato's moral
theory, and she further explains that the primarily political reading
originates in the first half of the nineteenth century. The politicizing of
the Republic resulted from the confluence of an interest in Athenian
democracy on the part of political liberals, and a revival of interest in
Plato as a systematic philosopher.
Each of these papers in its careful diagnosis of the relationship among
political and philosophical context, text and resulting interpretation,
enriches the question of how ancient thought ought to be read in relation
to the political or philosophical concerns of a different era. For this
problem, as it turns out, is not simply one of guarding against obvious
ideological readings of ancient texts that do not even pretend to rise to
the level of serious scholarship. Rather, it is a difficult question of
interpretation and method that arises even in the work of some of the
finest scholars of ancient thought in the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
tury. As Schofield explains, I.F. Stone's work on the trial and execution
of Socrates began with an overtly political interest on Stone's part in
Athenian democracy, and, although Stone immersed himself in ancient
Greek thought and language, he did not purport to be a scholar. Stone's
motivation was to discover a justification for the democratic Athenian
polis' action in condemning and executing Socrates. The justification, in
Stone's view, was Socratic quietism in the face of tyranny, an indefensi-
ble moral attitude, and one which Stone rejected in his own career as a
left-wing political muckraker. Vlastos, in contrast, sought to understand
Socrates as a "street corner" philosopher, debating with all comers, and
not, in principle, hostile to democracy or to anti-authoritarian activity
like civil disobedience. As Schofield explains, Vlastos' image of Socrates
led to some tortured interpretations of Plato's text, and to his stalwart
advocacy of Plato's early dialogues as the only authoritative source for
information about the historical Socrates. Behind each of these interpre-
tations of Socrates, and informing them in complex ways, lies American
political culture, riven by the Vietnam War and civil rights struggles. It
would be an oversimplification, therefore, to think that ideological read-
ings of texts are simply a matter of overt political motivation paired with
scholarly limitations, a charge that one might make of Stone, but not
Vlastos. Also, as Schofield points out, Vlastos' work on Socrates has
inspired a new generation of scholars and re-invigorated the field.
Julia Annas' "Politics in Plato's Republic: His and Ours" contributes
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 Introduction 277

political context and interpretation of texts by pointing out the historical

variation in reception of Plato's Republic. In the course of recommending
an ethical reading of the dialogue as opposed to a political one, Annas
surveys the scholarly tradition, and argues that the reading of the
Republic as primarily about political theory dates to the early nineteenth
century. It is important to note that both the earlier and later under-
standings of the Republic are part of the scholarly tradition of commen-
tary. Her point, therefore, is not that the Republic was highjacked by
overtly ideological interpreters in the nineteenth century, but rather that
reading it as primarily a dialogue about political theory is not a simply
a matter of the dialogue's content, but the social and political context
within which it is read. And Annas also usefully explains that the
political reading cannot even be recognized as merely one perspective
on the dialogue today because of the work's canonical status within the
academic curriculum as containing Plato's political theory and summing
up his thought. Annas' paper demonstrates how both our understanding
of the philosophical content of the Republic, and its elevation as the
canonical Platonic dialogue, were influenced by the philosophical and
political concerns of the nineteenth century. Her purpose is to promote
an ethical reading of the Republic, but her historical argument also raises
the question of whether it is possible to interpret a historical philosophi-
cal text internally, or independently of a set of either philosophical or
political concerns brought to the text.
Angela Curran's "Form as Norm: Aristotelian Essentialism as Ideol-
ogy (Critique)" directly addresses the problem of reading Aristotle's
theory of essences in relation to current philosophical and political
concerns. In her paper, Curran surveys feminist and postmodern criti-
cisms of Aristotelian essentialism as an ideology that legitimates social
oppression. And she also describes the neo-Aristotelian political phi-
losophy of Martha Nussbaum, who uses Aristotle's capacity-based view
of human nature to argue for a thick, but vague concept of the good.
Nussbaum believes that a thick concept of human good is needed in
order to address real human needs, but that the concept must be vague
enough to allow for differing local specifications of the good within
different traditions and cultures. She also defends Aristotelian essential-
ism as a necessary tool for political criticisms of oppressive local tradi-
tions, and as a response to moral relativism.
Curran's complex argument has several targets. First, she wants to
show that both those who condemn Aristotelian essentialism as ideo-
logically suspect, and those, like Nussbaum, who find his thought
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278 Charlotte Witt

important ways. Curran's point is not, however, that it is illegitimate to

interpret Aristotle's thought through the lens of contemporary philo-
sophical concerns. Indeed, she believes that an accurate interpretation of
Aristotelian essentialism has much to offer feminist political theorists
and others. Since Curran does not advocate the "historical artifact"
approach to interpreting ancient texts, and indeed advocates bringing
contemporary concerns to these texts in search of useful ideas or theories,
we are left wondering whether there are any methods of interpretation,
or clear criteria for assessing the accuracy of an interpretation. Curran
thinks that the misreadings she describes are perhaps inevitable, but it
is unclear how her own "fresh reading" of Aristotelian essentialism itself
resists that inevitability. Are all contemporary readings of ancient phi-
losophy, both those that are openly mis-reading an ancient in relation to
contemporary issues, and those whose appropriation is tacit, engaged in
projects of creative mis-reading? Is the only alternative to approach the
texts of ancient philosophy as historical artifacts with no clear or direct
bearing on our philosophical questions and concerns? And is even this
approach to the text devoid of ideological implications?
In "Feminism and Ideology in Ancient Philosophy", Cynthia
Freeland uses feminist work on Ancient Philosophy to raise basic ques-
tions concerning the methodology and the value of work on the history
of philosophy. She proposes that feminism is a method of approaching
the history of philosophy, and the disciplinary practices and principles
that govern those who interpret historical texts. In her paper Freeland
raises questions about the ideological presuppositions of the discipline
of the history of philosophy itself, as well as considering whether it is
possible to avoid ideology in our historical interpretations. Her central
focus, therefore, is not the covert or explicit ideology in the texts of
ancient philosophers, but rather the adequacy of the standard methods
of interpretation, which would forbid, for example, bringing feminist
concerns to an ancient text.
Freeland discusses two standard ways of thinking of the study of the
history of philosophy: as"exegetical" history and as"philosophical" his-
tory. Exegetical history of philosophy, or what Michael Frede has
called"true" history of philosophy, is concerned primarily, and indeed
exclusively, with stating accurately what a philosopher thought, and the
reason why he thought it. True history of philosophy is not concerned
with the truth or plausibility of the views studied or whether they have
any continuing philosophical interest. Philosophical history, in contrast,
is primarily motivated by philosophical considerations, including the
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 Introduction 279

philosophical scene. In relation to this division, feminist work in the

history of philosophy would seem to fall on the side of philosophical
history of philosophy in that it brings clearly anachronistic questions to
ancient texts, and sometimes also mines them for useful ideas.
Interestingly, however, Freeland does not advocate for philosophical
history of philosophy. Rather, she argues that the assumptions and
methods of both philosophical history of philosophy and true, or exe-
getical, history of philosophy are seriously flawed. To summarize her
complex argument, philosophical history of philosophy'Overestimates
and misconceives" the value of the past for present issues. And true
history of philosophy uses an implausible notion of truth and disallows
certain kinds of evaluations of the past, like feminist ones. These latter
two failings amount to a kind of ideological blindness. Freeland advo-
cates a pragmatist version of philosophical history of philosophy, which
sees philosophy and its history in terms of problem solving and not truth
seeking. The history of philosophy can indeed be mined for insight into
solutions for contemporary philosophical issues, including, of course,
those faced by feminist philosophers, but it serves more as an inspiration
than as a sermon.
Taken together these papers provide a valuable context within which
to think about the relationship between philosophy and its history. They
show both the powerful claim that ancient Greek thought has on con-
temporary culture, and that this connection has historical antecendents.
Once we understand that both the ideological interpretations of ancient
philosophy, and philosophical borrowings from the ancients are not a
recent phenomena, and not symptoms of inferior scholarship, the real
methodological questions can emerge. Is it possible to interpret ancient
philosophy entirely independently from all contemporary ideological or
philosophical concerns? And if, as an inductive argument might suggest,
it is probably not possible to achieve this goal, is it nonetheless the ideal
target for a historian of philosophy? Or, alternatively, if we accept that
all historical interpretations will, to some extent, reflect either current
philosophical concerns or political ideologies, then how do we discrimi-
nate between better and worse interpretations that connect present
concerns with past thought?

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