Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge: Themes

from the Work of Gail Fine and Terence

Irwin David O. Brink
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/virtue-happiness-knowledge-themes-from-the-work-of
-gail-fine-and-terence-irwin-david-o-brink/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

The Oxford Handbook Of Plato 2nd Edition Edition Gail

Fine

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-plato-2nd-
edition-edition-gail-fine/

Essays in Ancient Epistemology 1st Edition Gail Fine

https://ebookmass.com/product/essays-in-ancient-epistemology-1st-
edition-gail-fine/

Being Necessary: Themes of Ontology and Modality from

the Work of Bob Hale Ivette Fred-Rivera

https://ebookmass.com/product/being-necessary-themes-of-ontology-
and-modality-from-the-work-of-bob-hale-ivette-fred-rivera/

Oneness: East Asian Conceptions of Virtue, Happiness,

and How We Are All Connected 1st Edition, (Ebook PDF)

https://ebookmass.com/product/oneness-east-asian-conceptions-of-
virtue-happiness-and-how-we-are-all-connected-1st-edition-ebook-
pdf/
Put Happiness to Work 1st Edition Eric Karpinski

https://ebookmass.com/product/put-happiness-to-work-1st-edition-
eric-karpinski/

Ontology, Modality, and Mind: Themes from the

Metaphysics of E. J. Lowe Alexander Carruth

https://ebookmass.com/product/ontology-modality-and-mind-themes-
from-the-metaphysics-of-e-j-lowe-alexander-carruth/

Normativity and Agency: Themes from the Philosophy of

Christine M. Korsgaard Tamar Schapiro (Editor)

https://ebookmass.com/product/normativity-and-agency-themes-from-
the-philosophy-of-christine-m-korsgaard-tamar-schapiro-editor/

Morality and Agency: Themes from Bernard Williams

Andras Szigeti

https://ebookmass.com/product/morality-and-agency-themes-from-
bernard-williams-andras-szigeti/

The Practice of Lending Terence M. Yhip

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-practice-of-lending-terence-m-
yhip/
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

Virtue, Happiness,
Knowledge
Themes from the Work of
Gail Fine and Terence Irwin

edited by
David O. Brink, Susan Sauvé Meyer,
and Christopher Shields

1
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2018
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2018
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964292
ISBN 978–0–19–881727–7
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/07/2018, SPi

Contents

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction1
1. Rethinking Agreement in Plato 18
Lesley Brown
2. Plato’s Theory of Knowledge 33
Ralph Wedgwood
3. Justice and Persuasion in the Republic57
Dominic Scott
4. Plato against Democracy: A Defense 77
Richard Kraut
5. Self-Mastery and Self-Rule in Plato’s Laws97
Susan Sauvé Meyer
6. Plato’s Philebus and the Value of Idle Pleasure 110
Verity Harte
7. A Series of Goods 129
Christopher Shields
8. Practical Truth: An Interpretation of Parts of NE VI 149
David Charles
9. Aristotelian Feelings in the Rhetoric169
Paula Gottlieb
10. ‘Ought’ in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics184
Julia Annas
11. Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics197
Karen Margrethe Nielsen
12. The Freedom Required for Moral Responsibility 216
John Martin Fischer
13. Virtue: Aristotle and Kant 234
Allen W. Wood
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

vi Contents

14. Richard Price on Virtue 253

Roger Crisp
15. Eudaimonism and Cosmopolitan Concern 270
David O. Brink

Bibliographies of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin 293

Index Locorum 305
General Index 315
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

Notes on Contributors

Julia Annas is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

She holds a B.A. (Hons) from Oxford, a Ph.D. from Harvard (1972), and an Honorary
Doctorate from the University of Uppsala. Her research interests have ranged over a
wide field of ancient philosophy, but for some years have focused on ancient ethics,
and she has also worked in the field of contemporary virtue ethics. Her publications
in ancient philosophy include An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (1981), The Morality
of Happiness (1993), Platonic Ethics Old and New (1999), and Virtue and Law in Plato
and Beyond (2018). She has also published Intelligent Virtue (2011) and is working on
a book on virtue ethics.
David O. Brink is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of
California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1985, where
he studied with Gail Fine and was supervised by Terry Irwin. His research interests
are in ethical theory, history of ethics, moral psychology, and jurisprudence. He is the
author of Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge University Press,
1989), Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T.H. Green
(Clarendon Press, 2003), and Mill’s Progressive Principles (Clarendon Press, 2013).
Lesley Brown is Fellow in Philosophy emeritus at Somerville College, Oxford and
a member of the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Oxford. She has published
extensively on Plato, particularly on Plato’s Sophist, and on Aristotle, including
‘Why is Aristotle’s Virtue of Character a Mean?’ in the Cambridge Companion to the
Nicomachean Ethics (2014).
David Charles is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of
Aristotle’s Philosophy of Action (Duckworth, 1984) and Aristotle on Meaning and
Essence (Clarendon Press, 2000) and edited Definition in Greek Philosophy (Clarendon
Press, 2010).
Roger Crisp is Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford,
and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is author of Mill
on Utilitarianism (Routledge, 1997), Reasons and the Good (Clarendon Press, 2006),
and The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics (Clarendon Press, 2015).
He has translated Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics for Cambridge University Press
(2000) and edited the Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (2013).
John Martin Fischer received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell University
in 1982. He was fortunate to study with both Gail Fine and Terry Irwin during his time
at Cornell. His primary research interests are in free will and moral responsibility.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

viii notes on contributors

He is the author of The Metaphysics of Free Will: An Essay on Control and (with Mark
Ravizza) Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility. Oxford University
Press has published four collections of his essays: My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility;
Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will; Deep Control: Essays on Free Will and
Value; and Our Fate: Essays on God and Free Will. He is Distinguished Professor of
Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside.

Paula Gottlieb is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Classical and

Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her
B.Phil. at Oxford and studied for the Ph.D. with Terry Irwin and Gail Fine at Cornell.
She specializes in Aristotle’s ethics and metaphysics. She is the author of The Virtue
of Aristotle’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and ‘Aristotle on Non-
Contradiction’ for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. She is presently writing a
book, tentatively titled Aristotle on Reason and Feeling, for Cambridge University Press.

Verity Harte is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Yale University. She

received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1994. Her research interests are in
ancient philosophy, especially the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, with a particular
focus on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical and moral psychology.
She is the author of Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure (Oxford,
2002) and of numerous articles on Greek philosophy.

Richard Kraut is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in the Humanities, in

the Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University. His interests include con-
temporary moral and political philosophy and the ethics and political thought of
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Among his publications are Against Absolute Goodness
(Oxford, 2011), What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being (Harvard, 2007),
Aristotle: Political Philosophy (Oxford, 2002), Aristotle, Politics Books VII and VIII:
Translated with a Commentary (Clarendon Aristotle Series, 1997), Aristotle on the
Human Good (Princeton, 1989), and Socrates and the State (Princeton, 1984). He is a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Susan Sauvé Meyer is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trained at the University of Toronto (B.A. 1982) and Cornell University (Ph.D. 1987),
she taught at Harvard University before joining the faculty at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1994. A specialist in Classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy with
special interest in the ethical tradition, her publications include Aristotle on Moral
Responsibility (1993; reissued in 2011), Ancient Ethics (2008), and Plato: Laws 1 and 2
in the Clarendon Plato Series (2015). She is currently an editor of the journal Archiv
für Geschichte der Philosophie.
Karen Margrethe Nielsen is Tutorial Fellow at Somerville College and Associate
Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford. Her publications include
‘Spicy Food as Cause of Death: Coincidence and Necessity in Metaphysics E 3’, Oxford
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/04/2018, SPi

notes on contributors ix

Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2017), ‘Vice in the Nicomachean Ethics’, Phronesis

(2017), ‘The Will: Origins of the Notion in Aristotle’s Thought’, Antiquorum Philosophia
(2013), and ‘Deliberation as Inquiry’, Philosophical Review (2011). She received her
Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2006, on a dissertation supervised by Terry Irwin
and co-supervised by Gail Fine, on Aristotle’s theory of decision (prohairesis). The
topic has held her attention ever since.
Dominic Scott is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford and a fel-
low of Lady Margaret Hall. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge
and taught in the Philosophy Department there from 1989 to 2007. He was professor
of philosophy at the University of Virginia from 2007 to 2014. He is the author of
Recollection and Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Plato’s Meno
(Cambridge University Press, 2006), and Levels of Argument: A Comparative Study of
Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2015).
He co-authored The Humanities World Report 2015 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and
edited Maieusis: Studies in Honour of M. F. Burnyeat (Oxford University Press, 2007)
as well as The Pseudo-Platonic Seventh Letter: A Seminar by Myles Burnyeat and
Michael Frede (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Christopher Shields is Shuster Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre
Dame. Previously he taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Colorado
at Boulder. He has held visiting posts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the
University of St. Louis, the Humboldt University of Berlin, Cornell University, Stanford
University, Yale University, and the University of Arizona. He is the author of Order
in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle (Oxford University Press,
1999), Classical Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2003), Aristotle
(Routledge, 2007), Ancient Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2011),
with Robert Pasnau, The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Westview, 2003; 2nd rev. ed.
Oxford University Press, 2015), and Aristotle’s De Anima, Translated with Introduction
and Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is the editor of The Blackwell
Guide to Ancient Philosophy (Blackwell, 2002) and The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle
(Oxford University Press, 2012).
Ralph Wedgwood is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern
California. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1994, where he studied
with Gail Fine and was supervised by Terry Irwin. Later, he was their colleague at the
University of Oxford, where until 2012 he was a member of the Faculty of Philosophy
and a Fellow of Merton College. His principal research interests are in ethics, epis-
temology, and the theory of practical reason and rational choice, with a subsidiary
interest in the history of those subjects. He is the author of The Nature of Normativity
(Clarendon Press, 2007) and of The Normativity of Rationality (Clarendon Press,
forthcoming).
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 06/07/2018, SPi

x notes on contributors

Allen W. Wood is Ruth Norman Halls Professor at Indiana University and Ward
W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He was born in
Seattle, received his B.A. from Reed College in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Yale University
in 1968. His interests are in the history of philosophy, especially German philosophy
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in ethics, social and political philosophy,
and philosophy of religion. He is the author of a dozen books and editor or translator
of about a dozen others. His most recent books are Fichte’s Ethical Thought (Oxford
University Press, 2016), Formulas of the Moral Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017),
and a second (revised) edition of his translation of Kant’s Groundwork for the Meta­
physics of Morals (Yale University Press, 2018). Forthcoming in Spring, 2018 is a
second (revised) edition of his translation of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics
of Morals (Yale University Press).
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

Introduction

Through their writing, their teaching, their mentoring, and their broader scholarly
output, Gail Fine and Terry Irwin have reshaped the character of ancient philosophy
as an academic discipline. Their contributions to the discipline do not, however, end
there. On the contrary, their wide-ranging achievements extend into all periods of the
history of philosophy and indeed into several areas more systematic than historical.
Or perhaps one should say, rather, that their work defies any ready classification as
being either historical or systematic, because whatever its primary focus on a given
occasion, what they write cannot be pigeonholed as either exclusively scholarly or
thematic; for they practice an unremittingly philosophical form of history of philosophy,
or, judged from another angle, a historically enriched form of systematic philosophy.
That is, as they pursue it, philosophy engages the discipline’s history in a manner
animated by its current and perennial concerns, but it does so while remaining fully
sensitive to the original context of its production. Their work combines the highest
level of scholarly rigor and rich philosophical insight. Animated by a purely philosophical
spirit, it is never narrowly antiquarian in orientation. Although alert to matters of text
and transmission reflecting painstaking philological care and exceptionally broad
scholarly erudition, their work never loses sight of a simple question: should we too
believe this?
Their students, their colleagues, and the broader philosophical public have been the
beneficiaries of their sustained and remarkable activity. In an effort to express their
admiration and gratitude to Terry and Gail, the contributors to this Festschrift have
offered these essays to mark the occasion of their retirements from the University of
Oxford and Cornell University, where both have held permanent posts in their long
and distinguished careers. They have between them educated several generations of
philosophers, many of whom have in their turn begun the process of passing along
to their own students the legacy of excellence originating in the careers of Terry and
Gail. Most of the essays in the present volume made their first appearance at a con-
ference held at Cornell University in September of 2013, dedicated to Terry and Gail,
who kindly presided over the proceedings. The speakers at the conference found
themselves, in typical fashion, challenged, encouraged, and schooled by Terry and
Gail, and indeed by the assembled audience of their past and current students, their
colleagues, and those whose work they have influenced. Since then, the editors have
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

2 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

carried the spirit of the conference forward, commenting upon each of the chapters,
engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges with their authors, and working to produce
a volume worthy of its two honorees. We offer it to Gail and Terry with admiration and
continuing gratitude.
Prefatory to the chapters which follow, we have undertaken to offer brief overviews
of the careers and contributions of Gail and Terry. Although they share a common
method and a dominant period of focus, their individual contributions head in dis-
tinctively different directions, often arriving at instructively divergent points of view,
at times complementary and other times at variance with one another. Accordingly, we
begin by recounting their philosophical careers individually, before returning briefly
to their shared influence and legacy.

Gail Fine
Gail’s contributions to ancient philosophy center on Plato and Aristotle, but extend to
Hellenistic philosophy as well, where she has done seminal work on Academic
Scepticism. Her work is characterized by a lively, minute form of textual engagement
motivated by broader philosophical considerations: she wants to know what the
philosophers she studies maintain, to ascertain why they maintain what they do, and
then to determine whether we ourselves should agree with them, and, if we do, whether
we should do so on the basis they advance for holding the views they espouse. We find,
then, careful exegesis and philosophical assessment in equal measure.
It should not be inferred, however, that these activities parcel into discrete compo-
nents in her work, beginning with neutral exegesis where positions are discerned
and dispassionately characterized, followed by argument reconstruction, and then
rounded off by critical appraisal. On the contrary, it is a hallmark of Gail’s methodology
that each of these activities informs the others in a symbiotic, mutually enhancing way.
Generally speaking, on her approach it counts as a good reason to discount an inter-
pretation of Plato, or Aristotle, or Sextus that it ascribes without compulsion a view
that is transparently implausible or simply false. Accordingly, Gail’s approach to
ancient texts is guided by the thought that we are better served by reading a supporting
argument as enthymematic than by concluding that it is transparently invalid or
unsound, unless, again, we are faced with an unanswerable reason for doing so. This is
not because ancient authors never say false things or give bad arguments for their
views, whether true or false. Rather, Gail’s approach commends the thought that if we
read a text understanding our first hermeneutical impressions to be unassailable,
then we do our authors a disservice: we are apt to miss their deeper meanings and
motivations. By the same token, if on a first reading we find a philosophical position
alien to the point of being unintelligible, that, Gail thinks, is as likely our fault as it is
the fault of the author being studied. In consequence, we should in every instance
strive to understand and assess the philosophers of antiquity in terms we ourselves can
readily understand and articulate in our own vocabulary.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

introduction 3

This last point has induced some of her readers to suspect Gail of courting anachron-
ism: we should, such scholars advise, grapple with philosophers of earlier periods in
their own terms, not in the terms we happen to find congenial, and we should avoid
allowing our independent assessments of the plausibility of their positions to colour—
or, or as they would have it, to discolour—our judgment as to the accuracy of an
ascription. Gail, they may rightly point out, is happy to recruit both Chomsky and
Damascius when elucidating a single Platonic text (2014, 154 n. 51, 165); yet Chomsky
writes in a place and time far removed from Plato and in an idiom utterly alien to that
of Damascius. Put in its most unsympathetic terms, this sort of reaction calls into
question the unflinchingly logocentric method Gail characteristically employs.
Does this charge have any traction? Each time she encounters an ancient text Gail’s
method involves posing a pair of questions: (i) what are the possible meanings of this
text? and (ii) which among them is most plausibly supported by the argument it offers?
When we know the argument, we have a handle on the position, but not before. It is
rarely if ever the case that we can simply light upon the correct interpretation of an
ancient philosophical text as a matter beyond question or controversy from a reading
which avoids assessing its author’s philosophical motivations and objectives, no matter
how thorough our reading may otherwise be. Competing interpretations of varying
degrees of plausibility will invariably present themselves; we are then asked to choose
among them. Gail’s way of choosing begins by determining, with all due charity and
intellectual humility, which of the alternatives is best supported by the argument the
author of the text promulgates. Where no immediate argument is given, one may equally
determine, as her approach suggests, which among the positions most readily comports
with claims motivated by argument elsewhere. We may then, adapting a metaphor
deployed in Plato’s Republic (434e), rub the passages together to see which interpretation
emerges from the process, as fire emerges from the sparks of fire sticks when rubbed
together. If we proceed in this way, our governing impulse will be primarily logocentric,
in the sense that it will enjoin us to ferret out the argumentative underpinnings of a claim
as our first and most secure—if not our sole—guide to its likely meaning.
At any rate, Gail’s governing practice seems to reflect some such approach; she does
not spend a great deal of time overtly defending or even describing her philosophical
method. Still, the same method structures her work in virtually every period of her
long and productive career. She deals primarily with non-value areas of philosophy,
concentrating especially on issues in metaphysics and epistemology, and their inter-
section, as they crop up in the philosophers of special concern to her, taken both indi-
vidually and in concert.
This last point bears emphasis because one core area of Gail’s research has concerned
the philosophical interaction of Plato and Aristotle. In the early twentieth century, the
pioneering German scholar Werner Jaeger advanced a striking set of views about
Aristotle’s development, focussed centrally upon his evolving attitudes towards Plato.
Jaeger thus kicked off a long and fruitful scholarly dialectic to which Gail has made
lasting contributions.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

4 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

In general terms, Jaeger (1923) took the view that Aristotle began life as a dutiful
Platonist who gradually grew critical of his teacher, developing into his own master as
he matured and forged a system of philosophy markedly incompatible with Plato’s,
rejecting most conspicuously the cornerstone of Plato’s thought, his theory of Forms.
Jaeger’s view won many adherents but also some partial detractors as well; it was not,
however, frontally assaulted with any success until 1965 with the publication by G. E. L.
Owen (Gail’s doctoral advisor) of a British Academy lecture entitled ‘The Platonism of
Aristotle’. In this work, Owen attempted to turn the tables completely by arguing that
only as he matured did Aristotle come to appreciate the profounder dimensions of
Plato’s thought, with the result that, far from beginning as a dutiful Platonist who
emerged incrementally as an autonomous thinker and harsh critic, Aristotle actually
began life as an impetuous critic who came to adjust his own thinking with an increas-
ingly appreciative eye on delicate problems acknowledged by Plato himself in some
admirably self-critical moments. One such moment, a crux of sorts, is the so-called
Third Man Argument directed against Plato’s theory of Forms, introduced by Plato in
his Parmenides, according to some scholars merely maieutically and heuristically, in
an effort to clarify and defend his conception of Forms, but according to others as a
candid negative assessment of his own system intended to present an unanswerable
criticism of his signal contribution.
This Third Man Argument came to play a significant role in Gail’s intellectual devel-
opment. She investigates the argument in several articles, and then returns to it along
with various other Aristotelian assaults on the theory of Forms in her magisterial On
Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticisms of Plato’s Theory of Forms (1995). This work is a study of an
uncommonly rich text of Aristotle’s, the Peri Ideôn (On Ideas), sections of which were
preserved by Alexander of Aphrodisias. In the fragment recorded by Alexander,
Aristotle assails Plato’s theory of Forms by means of a series of complex arguments,
including a version of the Third Man Argument. Gail’s treatment of these arguments
represents the pinnacle of an argument-focused assessment of Aristotle’s relationship
to Plato and his theory of Forms. The picture that emerges is—as a philosophical as
opposed to a doxagraphical matter—far more detailed and philosophically nuanced
than anything produced by either Jaeger or Owen. It is, and will remain for many years
to come, an indispensable resource for philosophical scholars investigating Aristotle’s
relationship to Plato in metaphysical matters.
This work is, however, but one of Gail’s signal achievements in ancient philosophy.
Judged by their impact and the amount of discussion they have generated, Gail’s
contributions in four areas merit special note. First is the issue already introduced,
Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato, including, but not limited to, those pertaining to the
theory of Forms; second is her widely influential, early account of knowledge and
belief in the middle books of Plato’s Republic; third is her career-spanning interest in
the paradox of inquiry, as it was formulated originally in Plato, but then also as it
appears subsequently in various guises in post-Platonic ancient philosophers; and fourth
is her engagement with Plato’s epistemology more broadly, which already occupied her
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

introduction 5

in her Harvard doctoral thesis, ‘Plato and Acquaintance’ (1975). Her concern with
Plato’s epistemology surfaces over and over again throughout her more than 50 schol-
arly articles, critical discussions, and scholarly monographs.
Her great body of work comprises many publications not mentioned in this short
discussion, including several important contributions on the nature of substances and
universals, most but not all of which take Plato and Aristotle as their focus, as well as
assays into scepticism, subjectivity, perception, causation, and determinism. (A full
bibliography of Gail’s scholarly publications can be found at the end of the volume.)
Without any attempt at being comprehensive, then, we may characterize some of
Gail’s most prominent publications, in an effort to provide an indication of her lasting
contributions to the field and to reflect at least briefly on her distinctive philosophical
methodology.
Beginning with the last recurrent theme mentioned, we may focus first on Gail’s
approach to Plato’s epistemology. In an earlier, much discussed work, ‘Knowledge and
Belief in Republic V’ (1978), later reprised, refined, and expanded as ‘Knowledge
and Belief in Republic V–VII’ (1989b), Gail articulates a deep problem in Plato’s epis-
temology and proceeds to offer a startling solution to it—startling, at any rate, to a
certain sensibility, one characteristic of an older generation of scholars who had
understood Plato’s metaphysical epistemology in such a way that the problem Gail
articulates with such clarity and force barely comes into focus. The problem is this. In
the middle books of the Republic, Plato offers an account of knowledge which seems
first to bifurcate the world into the knowable and the unknowable and then to suggest
that knowledge (epistēmē) is, reasonably enough, restricted to those sorts of objects
which are knowable, namely Forms. Forms are, on this picture, suitable objects of
knowledge because they are stable, precise, context-invariant, and incapable of slip-
ping away, as Plato puts it in the Meno, in the manner of the statues of Daedalus. These
seem at first to be fixed in place, like other statues, but then prove so lifelike that when
left unshackled, they scamper away, leaving those who possessed them empty-handed.
What value they have to those whose they are, then, lasts only so long as they are
secured. Evidently, beliefs are like that: they are fine as far as they go, but unless tied
down, they slip away when unobserved, and so prove of no lasting value. To be secured,
however, beliefs must be bound with the chains of reason, tethered by an account
(logos) or reasoned explanation (aitios logismos); then, and only then, do beliefs give
way to knowledge. In this way, an item of genuine knowledge is superior to any given
belief, because in addition to being true, as a belief may (or may not) be, it is supported
in the right way by an anchoring account.
Now, if all knowledge qualifies as knowledge only if it is accompanied by an account,
then—on the assumption that an account is also something that has to be known by
the knower whose belief it anchors—knowledge will require prior knowledge if it is to
qualify as knowledge at all. If that is so, however, knowledge will be impossible. For
each attempt at a knowledge claim will require a prior, more fundamental justifying
knowledge claim. One may counter, as many scholars take Plato to counter, that some
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

6 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

kinds of knowledge escape this regress: some knowledge is privileged, qualifying as a

first principle, as something known simply and immediately, without any need for
further justification. An older generation of scholars accepted this second outcome,
taking a cue from Plato himself, who introduces the Form of the Good as the ‘unhy-
pothethical first principle of all’ (Rep. 510b7, 511b6). The suggestion thus lies near that
knowledge of this Form, the Form of the Good, is foundational for all other know-
ledge, and that Plato’s solution to the regress problem is thus a version of epistemic
foundationalism.
This near-lying suggestion is also, however, as Gail presses, deeply problematic.
Indeed, its manner of being problematic nicely illustrates Gail’s general approach to
interpreting Plato. To begin, the notion of a first epistemic principle, an ungrounded
ground accessed directly by an unnamed faculty of mind via some manner of immedi-
ate apprehension, strikes many as inherently, intractably mysterious. Still, one may
aver, this is Plato’s view and we are left to make such sense of it as we can.
Is it, though, Plato’s view? To many it seems so. Is this not, after all, the immediate
purport of Plato’s commitment to the Form of the Good as an unhypothetical first
principle? Indeed, the entire analogy of the sun in Republic VI supports this view. After
all, as the Form of the Good is to the intelligible realm, so the Sun is to the visible realm.
As the Sun illuminates other things but is visible itself by its own nature, so the Form of
the Good renders other things intelligible but is itself intelligible in virtue of itself, by
its own nature, and so needs nothing beyond itself to vouchsafe its grounding role in
Plato’s foundationalist epistemology. This seems very close to a straightforward state-
ment of epistemic foundationalism on Plato’s part.
As Gail is quick to point out, however, and as we have already seen, Plato maintains
precisely the opposite regarding objects of knowledge as a class: he distinguishes
knowledge (epistēmē) from mere belief (doxa) by demanding that knowledge be accom-
panied by an account or reasoned explanation; the foundationalist model mooted
precisely abjures that requirement. When a cognizer becomes acquainted with a Form,
or at least the Form of the Good, there is no further justification needed or wanted;
indeed, the very possibility of providing a justifying account seems ruled out by the
unhypothetical character of the experience. How, if this is so, is knowledge (epistēmē)
to be distinguished from mere belief (doxa)? There seems to be little wriggle room here,
since Plato’s contention that knowledge (epistēmē) requires something more than mere
belief (doxa) is not a singular or even rare in his writings. On the contrary, he asserts
it repeatedly (e.g. Rep. 510c, 531e, 533b–c; Phaedo 76b; Symp. 202a; Tht. 202c; Laws
966b, 967e). More to the point, it figures centrally in his brief in Republic V for the
claim that only philosophers can rule: they, and they alone, can differentiate Forms
from one another by reason and by giving an account of what each is (by providing a
logos), including, as Plato acknowledges, the Form of the Good (Rep. 534b–c). Are we,
then, left with a simple contradiction?
Gail thinks not. All knowledge, including knowledge of the Form of the Good,
requires, just as Plato says, some accompanying justification or account (logos) to
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

introduction 7

secure it. It does not follow, however, that the justificatory chains of our claims to
knowledge must be linearly ordered, with each justification appealing to a justifying
principle prior to it in a justificatory order. Indeed, it does not even follow that the
‘chains’ of justification be chains. Individual justifications might rather fit into a web,
deriving justification one from the other and all in concert from the totality which
comprises them, conferring justification holistically rather than atomistically. Plato
might, after all, be an epistemic coherentist rather than a foundationalist. Such, at any
rate, is Gail’s contention.
Gail’s contribution to this debate has occasioned a great deal of discussion, including
a good deal of dissent. This is, however, only because it is novel, provocative, philo-
sophically alert, and uncommonly creative. It also turns out to be motivated not by
some anachronism, but by a looming contradiction internal to Plato’s writings which
others have failed to acknowledge. Philosophically minded readers of Plato have
rightly taken note.
The same again holds of her career-spanning interest in the paradox of inquiry
(1992b, 2004a, 2007, 2010a, 2010b, 2013, 2014). Like her work on the middle books of
the Republic, Gail’s engagement with the paradox of inquiry reflects her deep and abid-
ing interest in both epistemology and metaphysics—in this case beginning already in
her undergraduate days, when, as she reports, she read the Meno and was ‘immediately
enchanted’ (2014, vii). It is easy to see why she should find this dialogue so captivating.
Its core paradox raises deep questions about Plato’s aims and objectives, and thereby
also about the aims and objectives of a broader sort of philosophical mission.
Readers of the Meno will recall that a problem about the goals of Socratic inquiry is
first interjected into the dialogue by a frustrated Meno on the occasion of his having
been refuted by Socrates. Meno’s frustration results in part from his failure to answer a
general sort of question posed by Socrates, a so-called ‘What is F-ness?’, where ‘F’
stands in for some virtue term: ‘What is courage?’, ‘What is piety?’ and so forth. Meno
grows indignant, asserting that the Socratic ‘What is F-ness?’ question is unanswerable,
insinuating that in posing it Socrates is setting up his interlocutors for failure. Socrates
rejoins with what he purports to be a precisification of Meno’s complaint. In so doing,
Socrates presents what has come to be known as ‘Meno’s Paradox’: for all x, inquiry
into x is impossible, since either one knows x, in which case there can be no occasion
for coming to know it by inquiry, or one does not know x, in which case one will fail to
recognize it even if one stumbles upon it in the course of inquiring after it, rendering
any attempt to inquire into what one does not know futile. Socrates’ response to the
paradox as he himself formulates it is perplexing: he first dismisses it as a debater’s trick
(Meno 80e), yet then proceeds to counter it by means of an elaborate, even extravagant
response involving his remarkable doctrine of recollection, according to which all
learning is actually recollection, coupled with a commitment to the prenatal existence
of the human soul. As Socrates shows by cross-questioning a slave about a simple
geometrical problem, the slave already has the answer he professes not to know some-
how, so to speak, lurking unrecognized in his soul. If this is correct, the process of
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

8 Virtue, Happiness, Knowledge

‘learning’ is shown to be not the acquisition of something from without, but really
rather a dredging up of what one already knows. This in turn implies, Socrates con-
tends, that the soul is immortal, since it shows itself able upon examination to recollect
things never learned in this lifetime. Looked at from one angle, then, Socrates’ response
may appear concessive to a fault, implicitly allowing that the debater’s argument, no
matter how slippery, actually has a true conclusion: inquiry into what one does not
already know is impossible.
This appearance is, however, misleading at best. The situation proves far more
complicated, in ways Gail, more than any other scholar, has painstakingly made clear.
Indeed, all of the ingredients for the sort of philosophical problem which excites Gail’s
interest are present in this exchange. There is an epistemic dimension: what can be
known and how? What standards are appropriately employed in determining that
someone has and can demonstrate having genuine knowledge, as opposed to convic-
tion or earnest, even true belief? There is a metaphysical component as well: what
kinds of things can be known? Propositions? Abstract entities? Only what is assertoric
and truth-evaluable? Sensible individuals, in addition to the abstract objects of know-
ledge? These questions play out against the backdrop of the worry Meno rightly presses
in his initial outburst: what does Socrates want to achieve in posing his ‘What is F-ness?’
question? What form will a successful response take? Are there perhaps different kinds
of knowledge for different kinds of objects? That is, does knowledge (or virtue, or piety,
and so on for any of the various values of ‘F’ in the ‘What is F-ness?’ question) admit of
a univocal analysis, as Socrates so often seems to assume? Finally, there is a multi-tiered
set of textual questions about Plato’s presentation of these issues. Is he speaking in
propria persona using Socrates as a dramatic character or representing the historical
Socrates he knew? Are we to take Socrates’ presentation of the doctrine of recollection at
face value, or as going proxy for some milder doctrine, about the possibility of innate or
perhaps a priori knowledge? In sum, in Meno’s Paradox we have a complex and multit-
iered nexus of textual, exegetical, epistemological, metaphysical, and methodological
questions, each of which impacts the other in appreciable ways: plainly grist for Gail’s mill.
Scholars have responded in all manner of ways to this situation, some even main-
taining that Socrates cannot be in earnest in offering his doctrine of recollection in
response to Meno’s Paradox, that he is sparring, sporting, or otherwise spoofing.
Gail, by contrast, sees a genuine problem met with an earnestly proposed solution.
According to Gail, Plato responds by showing that though perfectly valid, Meno’s
paradox is unsound. Its premise is false: the claim that if one does not know x, then one
cannot inquire into x. On the contrary, one can, just as Socrates’ exchange with the
slave illustrates, begin in belief, even false belief, and steer one’s way to knowledge.
Since we can in fact move from belief (doxa) to knowledge (epistēmē), not least through
the instrument of a shrewdly deployed Socratic elenchus, it is simply false that inquiry
is impossible for those lacking knowledge.
When we confront Plato’s Meno, we are asked to determine how deep the paradox of
inquiry runs. The discussions inaugurated by Gail provide ample reason to believe that
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 05/30/2018, SPi

introduction 9

no simple quick fix suffices. We see this same result in another way as well, a way made
clear in Gail’s latest work on this topic, a book-length study of the paradox of inquiry
as it appears not only in Plato but also in the philosophers influenced by him. For, as
she shows, the paradox of inquiry has a long afterlife in antiquity, captivating a full
spectrum of top-tier philosophical minds, including Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics,
and the Sceptics. Their nuanced attention to aspects of the problems it poses gives us
further reason to conclude that Meno’s paradox cannot be dissolved simply by disarm-
ing it as a debater’s equivocation. Gail’s career-long interest in this topic thus eventu-
ates in another lasting contribution to the field, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s
Paradox from Socrates to Sextus (2014).
Yet another agenda-setting thesis emerges in a different early work of Gail’s (1978),
one offering an especially clear illustration of her hermeneutical methodology. It also
shows how Gail’s work on Plato crosses readily over from epistemology into metaphys-
ics. On one natural reading of the middle books of Plato’s Republic, we find him
committed to an epistemically driven bifurcation of reality. Given their invariability
and context-insensitivity, Plato suggests, Forms are uniquely suited to serve as objects
of knowledge (epistēmē); by contrast, sense particulars, given their ceaseless variability
and context-dependence, are suitable objects of belief (doxa) but never of knowledge.
Can we know, for instance, that an elephant is large? Well, fairly plainly, in the class of
mammals, elephants are indeed large. Still, in comparison with Mt. Everest or the
Milky Way, an elephant is puny. So, is an elephant large? Well, suggests Plato: yes and
no. By contrast, largeness itself, taken by itself, is never anything but large: it does not
rely on a context of appraisal for being what it is. One Platonic way of thinking, then,
differentiates Largeness, the Form, a transcendent, abstract entity, from sensible large
things, which can never escape their context sensitivity. As a result, the Form Largeness
itself is not reducible to large sensibles, taken either individually or corporately. The
requisites of knowledge thus imply that the objects of knowledge are supra-sensible,
demarcated by their very natures from anything we might perceive by the senses.
This doctrine, again congenial to an older generation of scholars, is sometimes
dubbed the ‘Two-Worlds Theory’. According to the Two-Worlds Theory, Plato divides
reality into two mutually exclusive domains, a domain of sense perceptibles which
serve as objects of belief and a domain of abstract entities which serve as objects of
knowledge. No object of belief can be known; no object of knowledge can serve as an
object of belief. To revert to the earlier illustration of the Meno, if we think that we
know what largeness is because we know that Jumbo the elephant is large, then we
have truncated vision: we will find the predicate ‘. . . is large’ scurrying away as we shift
Jumbo from one context of appraisal to another. When we know something, we know
it stably and securely; so, our attitudes towards largeness vis-à-vis Jumbo do not
amount to knowledge of largeness. Large things are perceived and not known; known
things are grasped by the mind and not perceived.
It must be said that Plato does much to encourage the Two-Worlds Theory. In
Republic V, for instance, he individuates our mental capacities by what they are ‘over’ or
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
el engaño y la malicia hacen siervos de hombres libres. Otras veces,
emisarios infames de esa innoble industria que no sabe prosperar sin
esclavizar, han ido á la India y á la China, han hecho cómplices suyos
á Inglaterra, á la Unión Americana, á España, al Perú; han
convertido en encubridores de su inicua trata á los representantes
consulares de esas naciones en el Extremo Oriente, han engañado
con viles promesas á los pobres coolíes y á los labradores del Quan-
Tung, y esclavizándolos á dolorosos contratos, los han traído á mal
morir en las sentinas de los barcos en que los hacinaban ó en la
horrible existencia de las colonias inglesas, de Filipinas, de Cuba, del
Perú, de California, horrible existencia de parias, de verdaderos
parias, de hombres que dan asco, de sombras que horripilan, hasta
que un día, como en Jamaica, los fusilan en tropel por celebrar
ceremonias del culto budista, y otro día, como en California y en los
campos del Perú, los persiguen por competencias económicas.
Sin duda que en una industria así manchada con crímenes tan
oprobiosos no tiene ante la moral sencilla el esplendor con que se
presenta á los ojos deslumbrados del epicúreo; pero aún ha hecho
más para hacer más abominable el satánico jesuitismo con que
sacrifica los medios á los fines. Ha hecho más. Ha convertido
naciones ilustres en la historia de la civilización, como Inglaterra, en
impositora de un vicio horrendo á una sociedad de cuatrocientos
millones de seres humanos, ó como España, en impositora de un
privilegio enervante é incivilizador en favor de sus hijos territoriales
contra sus hijos coloniales.
La guerra del opio, una guerra mortífera, inicua y vergonzosa,
exclusivamente hecha por Inglaterra contra China para imponerle el
consumo del opio que un emperador digno de eterna loa quiso á toda
costa impedir que siguiera labrando la vida y la moral de sus
súbditos, es la tercera forma, no más aterradora que las otras, pero
tan inicua como las otras dos, que ha tomado en nuestros tiempos la
inmoralidad industrial.
Muchos errores y muchos delitos ha cometido Inglaterra por
favorecer su industria; pero tan horrendo como la guerra del opio,
tan infame como la mortal narcotización de todo un pueblo para
ganar así unos cuantos millones de libras esterlinas, ninguno. ¡Y
pensar que ese es el pueblo del siglo XVII!
 La guerra sorda, continua, sin cuartel, que á principios del siglo
estalló en todo el Continente, desde Méjico hasta el virreinato de
Buenos Aires, dando al fin por bendecido fruto la abolición del
principio industrial obtenido por los españoles de territorio contra
los españoles de origen y derecho, ha continuado y continúa en Cuba,
en Puerto Rico, en Filipinas, sociedades cuya potente vitalidad, cuya
fuerza económica, cuyos beneficios industriales explotan á mansalva
los españoles que usufructúan su privilegio contra los insulares que
sienten ligados sus movimientos por ese privilegio.
En el fondo, no es la política, no es un plan político, es la industria,
es un plan industrial el que esclaviza á esas islas malogradas para la
libertad, para la civilización, para el mundo y para España misma.
El día en que estallen, la moral industrial habrá dado en ellas un
gran paso. Si España quiere que no estallen, haga á la Moral el bien
de no supeditar la libertad de tres sociedades al beneficio industrial
de pocos y no los mejores de sus hijos.
 CAPÍTULO XXXVIII

LA MORAL Y EL TIEMPO

El tiempo, para el trabajo, es aire; para el ocio plomo.

Como plomo, pesa en pequeñas cantidades lo que en grandes
cantidades el trabajo, y es natural que de continuo busquemos el
modo de descargarnos de la carga fatigosa.
En el modo de descargarse está gran parte del arte de la vida, y en
combinar el pasatiempo con el tiempo empleado en el trabajo está la
superioridad ó la inferioridad de una civilización. En la civilización
más adelantada, que ha de ser la más moral, está ingeniado el
pasatiempo con propósito de bien, para evitar el mal de que la
ociosidad es consejera. En la civilización menos desarrollada, que es,
por menos racional, menos moral, el pasatiempo es violenta
supresión de tiempo. La civilización moral ha de llevar el orden al
descanso del trabajo. La civilización inmoral altera el orden ó
continúa el desorden en las horas del reposo y del solaz. La una sabe
distraerse, traer su atención de una ocupación de tiempo que la
absorbe á otra ocupación de tiempo que la encanta. La civilización
inferior no sabe más que divertirse; verter á raudales en nonadas
peligrosas el tiempo que pesa sobre individuos, grupos y sociedad
entera. La vitalidad de todas las formas religiosas está íntimamente
relacionada con este serio problema sociológico del empleo del
tiempo sobrante. La enérgica resistencia de las diversiones más
inmorales á argumentos de razón y de experiencia se explica por la
necesidad en que pueblos é individuos están de deshacerse de la
carga del tiempo sobrante.
Los vicios más rebeldes, que son los de sensualidad, contra todo
remedio se rebelan y resisten, por el vergonzoso poder que tienen de
absorber fuera del tiempo los sentidos.
Los vicios más cobardes, la difamación, la maledicencia, la
calumnia, porque matan el tiempo, sobreviven.
El culto, en las religiones positivas, es la raíz más profunda de la fe.
Cuanto ésta es más irracional, tanto el culto es más teatral. Lo que no
se puede obtener por devoción se obtiene por diversión. De ahí, en el
fondo histórico de todas las religiones monoteístas, el germen de
politeísmo que se ven forzadas á cultivar con esmero para
entretenimiento de las multitudes. Cuanto mayor el número de
atributos de la divinidad, y más numerosas sus manifestaciones y
personalizaciones, tanto más frecuente el culto, tanto más fecundo
en pasatiempo. Las innumerables legiones del brahmanismo y del
budismo, el arte de brahmines y bonzos en divertirlas con sus cultos
respectivos deben la disminución de carga, que es para ellas el
tiempo y la flemática fidelidad con que resisten, á la propaganda y al
espectáculo del protestantismo en la India. Son, entre indus,
tibetianos y chinos, deduciendo confucianos, mahometanos, parsis,
nanakianos, panteístas, indiferentes y librepensadores, unos
seiscientos millones de seres humanos, sobre los cuales pesa el
tiempo con la abrumadora pesadumbre con que pesa en aquellos
campos de batalla del trabajo en que la competencia biológica no ha
podido moderarse ni por la ejemplar sobriedad del combatiente, ni
por la fecundidad de recursos naturales en el suelo del combate, ni
por la portentosa laboriosidad y la industria secular del mejor
mantenedor de ese combate, el chino.
¿Qué sería de ese hormiguero de racionales si sus religiones no le
hicieran soportable el tiempo? ¿Qué de los doscientos cincuenta
millones de católicos que generalmente pululan en las sociedades
menos industriosas de Europa y América, si el culto de su Iglesia no
los divirtiera casi todos los días del tiempo que casi continuamente
les sobra?
Cierto que el tiempo empleado en el culto es una resta formidable
y está lejos de ser un empleo útil; pero, al menos, en esa disipación
entra de algún modo la idea del deber en cuanto el religionario está
obligado por su religión al culto.
Infinitamente, de todos modos, menos inmoral es ese abuso del
tiempo que el favorecido por las cien instituciones del vicio que se
levantan en el seno de la civilización á acusarla de su incapacidad
para aprovechar en distracciones civilizadoras y moralizadoras el
tiempo social que sobra cada día después de las faenas de las
industrias mecánicas y racionales.
El teatro, que es una institución de esa buena especie, pasatiempo
educador como ninguno por ser más accesible que otro alguno á la
receptividad mental y sensitiva del pueblo, en ninguna parte es una
institución popular ni nacional; no popular, porque no alcanza
sistemáticamente al pueblo; no nacional, porque reduce su acción á
las grandes capitales, y pocas veces llega á las pequeñas, y nunca á la
población rural. La escuela nocturna, que debiera ser en todas partes
un atractivo irresistible para la falange industrial que conduce á las
naciones, no se ha extendido bastante á villas, burgos, villorrios y
aldeas, y en parte alguna tiene fuerza de atracción bastante para
disputar su presa á los centros de depravación.
Las conferencias literarias, científicas, religiosas, políticas,
económicas, son privilegio de los grandes centros.
De ellos también, como si sólo en ellos indujera la sobra de tiempo
á excesos criminales, es privilegio exclusivo la benéfica propaganda
de las asociaciones establecidas contra la intemperancia.
La patinación artificial, los gimnasios, las salas de armas, las de
tiro, los ejercicios de bomberos, las sociedades de tiro al blanco, las
excursiones fluviales y marítimas con propósito de educación
placentera, son instituciones privativas de un cortísimo número de
individuos en el cortísimo número de ciudades norte-americanas,
suizas, inglesas y alemanas en que existen.
Los ateneos, liceos, academias, casinos, instituciones dos veces
preciosas porque convierten el estudio en placer, y porque al placer
del estudio facilitado por la palabra viviente del propagandista
agregan los amables solaces de la sociabilidad, son mucho menos
generales de lo que debieran, y en parte alguna alcanzan con su
fructífero pasatiempo al fondo de la masa social.
Los conciertos populares, que usurpan su apellido, porque casi
nunca se ponen al alcance del mínimo ahorro que puede hacer el
llamado hombre del pueblo, debieran ser una verdadera institución
nacional en todos los países, y alcanzar con su benéfica acción á la
población aldeana y rural. Los orfeones, las sociedades corales, las
asociaciones filarmónicas, debieran dondequiera corresponder al
hondo intento de educación popular y nacional que tienen en
Alemania, y sorprender, como allí, al trabajador en su taller y al
labrador en su labranza.
El estúpido militarismo que hace omnipotentes en Europa á los
inmorales que explotan la necedad y la ignorancia de la turba, podría
convertirse en un semillero de instituciones culturales y de útil,
honesto y fecundo pasatiempo, si se convirtiera la atención popular
hacia los ejercicios gimnásticos, militares y estratégicos en que es
educada toda la porción de europeos que el ejército permanente roba
á la Industria, al Arte y á la Ciencia.
Los paseos públicos, que en vez de exhibiciones del lujo insolente y
de la vanidad triunfante debieran ser, en lo posible, remedos
placenteros é instructivos de la Naturaleza; los jardines botánicos;
los museos zoológicos, pictóricos y antropológicos, que debieran,
como las bibliotecas, hacerse instituciones campestres como
urbanas, para empeñar á la muchedumbre en la dulce tarea de ver
cada vez mejor el mundo que nos rodea, la cadena biológica de que
somos eslabón, el movimiento del Arte en tiempo y países diferentes,
el proceso de la vida humana desde la edad remota de la tierra, al
través de todas las edades de la civilización, son hoy instituciones
exclusivas de las que se llaman aristocracias del privilegio, de la
fortuna ó del saber, en sólo las grandes capitales de naciones ya
robustas.
Mientras la civilización no sepa emplear el tiempo que le sobra
después del trabajo de cada día, no será una verdadera civilización,
porque no sabrá emplear la primera riqueza y la más transcendental.
Esto es interés de todo el mundo. Á nadie, por laboriosa que su
vida se deslice, le falta un momento de ocio en que sentirse
abrumado de fastidio, porque necesita un solaz social y no lo
encuentra, ó tiene que aceptar como tal, en la mayor parte de las
residencias de este mundo, alguno de los pasatiempos que repugna la
razón.
Á la mayor parte de los hombres sobra tiempo, aunque sólo sea el
cada día deducido del trabajo cotidiano, para aburrirse de sí mismo y
de los otros y para verse expuesto á optar entre fastidiarse á solas ó
corromperse acompañado. Tanto ha conocido la lírica del día esa
doble faz del problema del tiempo, que, cantando el tedio, ha
divinizado crímenes, vicios y monstruosidades hijos del fastidio de sí
mismo, y que el fastidio de sí mismo ha acogido como inmortales
protestas de la justicia y del dolor contra el infame orden del mundo
en que el tiempo es plomo que pesa sobre todo el que no tiene
dignidad bastante para emplearlo en el trabajo. Las noches de las
grandes ciudades son probablemente superiores, en los pueblos más
prósperos de la civilización actual, á la vida nocturna de Atenas; pero
las instituciones atenienses, ó, más históricamente, las costumbres
de los atenienses, que tenían por objeto el empleo popular del tiempo
que sobraba cada día, serán perpetuo motivo de generosa envidia
para todos los que puedan seguir con los ojos de la mente el
movimiento de la ciudad por excelencia, en las palestras, en las
plazas públicas, en el Pórtico, en la Academia, en los alrededores,
ejercitándose en ejercicios del cuerpo, de la mente y del ánimo, y
siguiendo material y mentalmente las huellas de Sócrates, de Zenón,
de Platón, de Aristóteles y de los cien sofistas que enseñaban á mal
razonar, pero que enseñaban también á emplear el tiempo sobrante
en hacer menos mal del que es capaz de hacer un ocioso que tiene
hambre de placer ó que está agobiado por el peso de las horas.

FIN
 ÍNDICE

Páginas.
EUGENIO MARÍA DE HOSTOS

(1839–1903)

I.— Hostos, figura representativa VII

II.— Hostos rompe con España IX
III.— Hostos comienza su odisea benefactora XI
IV.— Hostos, maestro XIII
V.— Hostos, literato XVII
VI.— Á propósito de Hostos, literato, el tupé de los europeos XXX
VII.— Hostos, filósofo moralista XXXV
VIII.— Hostos, sociólogo XL
IX.— Hostos, tratadista de Derecho constitucional L
X.— Hostos, hombre de ideales y hombre de hogar LIII

Prólogo de la primera edición 1

Introducción 5
 PRIMERA PARTE

RELACIONES Y DEBERES

Capítulo I.—La Sociedad y sus órganos.—Definición de Sociedad.—

Órganos del organismo social.—Descripción de los órganos sociales: El
individuo. La familia. El municipio. La región. La nación. La familia de
naciones 25
Capítulo II.—Objeto de la moral social.—En qué se funda 30
Capítulo III.—Exposición de las relaciones 34
Capítulo IV.—Clasificación de relaciones 37
Capítulo V.—Análisis de las relaciones del hombre con la sociedad.—
Relación de necesidad 41
Capítulo VI.—Segunda relación.—Relación de gratitud 44
Capítulo VII.—Tercera relación.—Relación de utilidad 46
Capítulo VIII.—Cuarta relación.—Relación de derecho 48
Capítulo IX.—Quinta relación.—Relación de deber 51
Capítulo X.—Del deber y su función en la economía moral del mundo 54
Capítulo XI.—En qué se fundan los deberes sociales 58
Capítulo XII.—Deberes derivados de nuestras relaciones con la Sociedad 63
Capítulo XIII.—El deber del trabajo.—Sus modificaciones en los diversos
grupos sociales 72
Capítulo XIV.—Deber de obediencia y sus modificaciones 78
Capítulo XV.—Por qué no se da su nombre á los deberes derivados de la
relación de utilidad 80
Capítulo XVI.—Continuación del anterior.—Cooperación.—Unión.—
Abnegación.—Conciliación 88
Capítulo XVII.—Deberes deducidos de la relación de derecho 92
Capítulo XVIII.—El derecho armado.—Deberes que impone 97
Capítulo XIX.—El deber de los deberes 103
Capítulo XX.—Los conflictos del deber.—La regla de los conflictos 107
Capítulo XXI.—Deberes del hombre para con la Humanidad.—
Confraternidad.—Filantropía.—Cosmopolitismo.—Civilización 114
Capítulo XXII.—Deberes complementarios.—Sinopsis de los deberes
sociales primarios y secundarios.—Sinopsis de las virtudes sociales,
políticas y económicas 123
Capítulo XXIII.—Deberes complementarios.—Continuación 132
 SEGUNDA PARTE

LA MORAL Y LAS ACTIVIDADES DE LA VIDA

Capítulo XXIV.—Enlace de la Moral con el Derecho positivo 145

Capítulo XXV.—Enlace de la Moral con la Política 150
Capítulo XXVI.—La moral social y las profesiones 155
Capítulo XXVII.—La Moral y la Escuela 163
Capítulo XXVIII.—La Moral y la Iglesia católica 168
Capítulo XXIX.—La Moral y el protestantismo 176
Capítulo XXX.—La Moral y las religiones filosóficas 183
Capítulo XXXI.—La Moral y la Ciencia 189
Capítulo XXXII.—La Moral y el Arte 197
Capítulo XXXIII.—La Moral y la Literatura.—La novela 204
Capítulo XXXIV.—La Moral y la Literatura.—La dramática 213
Capítulo XXXV.—La Moral y la Historia 223
Capítulo XXXVI.—La Moral y el periodismo 229
Capítulo XXXVII.—La Moral y la Industria 240
Capítulo XXXVIII.—La Moral y el tiempo 250
 BIBLIOTECA AYACUCHO
BAJO LA DIRECCIÓN DE DON RUFINO BLANCO-FOMBONA

OBRAS PUBLICADAS.

I–II.—Memorias del general O’Leary:

Bolívar y la emancipación de Sur-América.
Dos lujosos volúmenes de 700 á 800 páginas en 4.º
Se venden separadamente al precio de 7,50 pesetas
cada uno.
III.—Memorias de O’Connor.
sobre la Independencia Americana.
La obra en 4.º, en papel pluma. Precio: 5 pesetas.
IV.—Memorias del general José Antonio Páez.
Un volumen muy bien impreso, en 4.º Precio: 7,50
pesetas.
V.—Memorias de un oficial del ejército español.
Por el Capitán Rafael Sevilla.
Un volumen en 4.º, 5 pesetas.
VI–VII.—Memorias del general García Camba.
Para la historia de las armas españolas en el Perú.
Dos magníficos y gruesos volúmenes en 4.º, á todo
lujo. Precio: 7,50 pesetas cada uno.
VIII.—Memorias de un oficial de la legión británica.
Campañas y Cruceros durante la guerra de
emancipación hispano-americana.
Un volumen en 4.º, 4 pesetas.
IX.—Memorias del general O’leary:
Ultimos años de la vida pública de Bolívar.
Este libro, desconocido hasta ahora, complementa
los dos volúmenes sobre Bolívar y la emancipación;
es una joya de historia americana por sus
 revelaciones, á las cuales debió el que se le hubiera
ocultado por tantos años.
En 4.º á todo lujo. Precio: 7,50 pesetas.
X.—Diario de María Graham.
San Martín.—Cochrane.—O’Higgins.
En 4.º á todo lujo. Precio: 7,50 pesetas.
XI.—Memorias del Regente Heredia.
Monteverde.—Bolívar.—Boves.—Morillo.
Precio: 4,50 pesetas.
XII.—Memorias del general Rafael Urdaneta.
General en jefe y Encargado del gobierno de la
Gran Colombia, 7,50.
XIII.—Memorias de Lord Cochrane.
Precio: 6 pesetas.
XIV.—Memorias de Urquinaona.
Comisionado de la Regencia española al Nuevo
reino de Granada.
Precio: 7 pesetas.
XV.—Memorias de William Bennet Stevenson.
Sobre las campañas de San Martín y Cochrane en
el Perú.
Precio: 5,50 pesetas.
XVI.—Memorias póstumas del general José María Paz.
Precio: 8 pesetas.
NOTAS DEL TRANSCRIPTOR
Página Cambiado de Cambiaron a
BIBLIOTECA DE BIBLIOTECA DE
CIENCIAS CIENCIAS
POLITICAS Y POLÍTICAS Y
Título SOCIALES SOCIALES
EUGENIO MARIA EUGENIO MARÍA DE
DE HOSTOS HOSTOS

Alejandro Alvarez Alejandro Álvarez

(Venezuela y (Venezuela y
IV Colombia.)—4 Colombia.)—Precio:
pesetas 4 pesetas
Angel César Rivas Ángel César Rivas

BIBLIOTECA DE BIBLIOTECA DE
CIENCIAS CIENCIAS
POLITICAS Y POLÍTICAS Y
V SOCIALES SOCIALES
EUGENIO MARIA EUGENIO MARÍA DE
DE HOSTOS HOSTOS

Partiendo del Partiendo del

principio principio boliviano
XI
boliviano de que de que América
America
más perdurable, que más perdurable, que
XVI
la del ríoplatense la del rioplatense
esta cinica herejía no esta cínica herejía no
XXV
piensa piensa
Haber visto lo que Haber visto lo que he
XXVI he visto para ver visto para ver lo que
lo que ves veo
Sir Herbert reconoce Sir Herbert reconoce
XXVIII también que rasgo también qué rasgo
principal principal
sino que puede sino que puede
decirse sin decirse sin
XXXII
temeridad que fue temeridad que fué
de los primeros de los primeros
XXXIII Lo encontró después Lo encontró después
 un series en series
monorrimas monorrimas
mas general é más general é
importante: la de importante: la de la
XXXIII la manifiesta manifiesta
influencia de la influencia de la
epopeya epopeya
apostóles apóstoles
contemporáneos contemporáneos de
XXXV de moral social y moral social y de
de moral moral individual
ndividual
en que se presente á en que se presente á
activar nuestros activar nuestros
XXXVIII
impulsos ó a impulsos ó á
despertar despertar
este número son Die este número son Die
Vorgesehichte der Vorgeschichte der
XLIII Ethnologie Ethnologie (1880),
(1880), Grundzüge
Grundzüge
por que entre tantas porque entre tantas
sociedades sociedades
XLVII infantiles ni una infantiles ni una
sola nació con sola nació con salud
salud
jurídicas que pueden jurídicas que pueden
sufrir las sufrir las sociedades
XLVIII
sociedadas humanas
humanas
una harmonía una armonía
preexistente entre preexistente entre
XLIX los fenómenos los fenómenos
cósmicos y los cósmicos y los
fenómenos fenómenos
en Africa, en en África, en América
11 América y en y en Oceanía
Oceanía
11 Gama declara Gama declara
portuguesa una portuguesa una
población de más población de más
de doscientos de doscientos
millones de hindús
 millones de
hindus
Organos del Órganos del
27
organismo social organismo social
como individuo en la como individuo en la
34
familía familia
por ella tenemos la por ella tenemos la
muerte; muerte;
44
muribundos, á ella moribundos, á ella
volvemos volvemos
á la cual debe á la cual debe siempre
45 siempre beneficios beneficios que
que agradece agradecer
La influencia que La influencia que
47 tiene el instinto y tienen el instinto y
el sentimiento el sentimiento
sociales, haciendo sociales, haciendo
57 cada vez más uno cada vez más uno al
al ser social sér social
conocimiento íntimo conocimiento íntimo
59 del ser por el ser del sér por el sér
mismo. Nada mismo. Nada
podrá jamás podrá jamás justificar
justificar á á Pisístrato, á
60
Pisistrato, á Pericles
Pericles
segundo relación es segunda relación es
66 tan natural como tan natural como el
el primero primero
providencial, pues es provincial, pues es
75 claro que si el claro que si el
trabajo individual trabajo individua
esta relación esta relación compele
compela al al individuo en el
80
individuo en el grupo de la
grupo de la
Util, para el vulgo, es Útil, para el vulgo, es
81 todo aquello de todo aquello de que
que el el
de relaciones que de relaciones que
92 ligan á cada ser ligan á cada sér con
con la sociedad la sociedad
96 Así es como, cuanto Así es como, cuanta
más fuerza tenga más fuerza tenga en
en nosotros nosotros
concreto de deber concreto de deber
agotaría nuestra agotaría nuestra
103
actividad conscia actividad de
conciencia
su objetivo la Moral, su objetivo la Moral,
105 es el á que se es el al que se
llegará llegará
Su ejemplo es por sí Su ejemplo es por sí
109 sólo una solo una influencia
influencia social social
resulta de la fuerza resulta de la fuerza
113 conscia que conscia que
desplega en despliega en
Veámos ahora qué Veamos ahora qué
115 nombres toma nombres toma cada
cada uno de uno de
para cuanto dice para cuanto hace
referencia á las referencia á las
127
necesidades necesidades
materiales materiales
y sus familias, á y sus familias, á
130 quienes reunen, quienes reúnen,
exhortan, distraen exhortan, distraen
consejos, estímulos, consejos, estímulos,
131 ejemplos, cuna, ejemplos, cuna,
tálamo, ataud tálamo, ataúd
que tiene la que tiene la
tolerancia, tolerancia,
136
impuesta y impuesta y
cumplida com cumplida como
del vivir social, del del vivir social, del
151 continuo ludir de continuo lidiar de
poderes con poderes con
más poderoso la más poderoso la
160 desplegan: la despliegan: la
pasión del dinero pasión del dinero
160 de principios de principios
religiosos; en religiosos; en dónde
ociosidad más
 donde ociosidad
más
deductivamente al deductivamente la
invariabilidad del invariabilidad del
174 procedimiento procedimiento
seguido por la seguido por la
Humanidad Humanidad
en que se desplega en que se despliega
189 mayor fuerza mayor fuerza
conscia y en conscia y en
caracteriza por un caracteriza por un
apetito apetito
205
desarreglado de desarreglado de
sensaciodes sensaciones
uso de ella dos uso de ella dos
disipaciones, disipaciones,
209
perniciosímas las perniciosísimas las
dos dos
lo contrarío de lo lo contrario de lo que
214 que conoce que es conoce que es su
su deber deber
deux ex machina de deus ex machina de
215 todos sus efectos, todos sus efectos,
de toda su de toda su
ciudades ciudades
necesarimente necesariamente
217
crapulosas, en crapulosas, en
donde la donde la
centros populosos y centros populosos y
217 caprulosos expone crapulosos expone á
á la familia la familia
y de interés social y de interés social que
que privativamente
235
privativamente despliega
desplega
Estados cierran sus Estados cierran sus
242 puertos, ni puertos, ni cohíben
cohiben con leyes con leyes
y continúa en Cuba, y continúa en Cuba,
249 en Puerto Rico, en en Puerto Rico, en
Filipina Filipinas
1. Se corrigieron silenciosamente errores tipográficos
obvios y variaciones ortográficas.
2. Se mantuvo la ortografía arcaica, no estándar e incierta
tal como se imprimió.
3. Notas al pie reindexadas usando números.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORAL
SOCIAL ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions

will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright
in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and without
paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General
Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if
you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the
trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the
Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such
as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and
printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in
the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright
law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially
commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE