Quote

(...)

SOCRATES: It seems to me that you have been asking questions about me - what is in front of me, what I can easily see, whether I am sure, and so on. But I seek fundamental truths, of which I estimate that not a single one is predominantly about me. So let me stress again: I am not sure what is in front of my eyes - ever - with my eyes open or closed, asleep or awake. Nor can I be sure what is probably in front of my eyes, for how could I estimate the probability that I am dreaming when I think I am awake? Or that my whole previous life has been but a dream in which it has pleased one of you immortals to imprison me?

HERMES: Indeed.

SOCRATES: I might even be a victim of a mundane deception, such as those of conjurers. We know that a conjurer is deceiving us because he shows us something that cannot be - and then asks for money! But if he were to forgo his fee and show me something that can be but is not, how could I ever know? Perhaps this entire vision of you is not a dream after all but some cunning conjurer’s trick. On the other hand, perhaps you really are here in person and I am awake after all. None of this can I ever be sure is so, or not so. I can, however, conceive of knowing some of it.

HERMES: Precisely. And is the same true of your moral knowledge? In regard to what is right and wrong, could you be mistaken, or misled, by the equivalent of mirages or tricks?

SOCRATES: That seems harder to imagine. For in regard to moral knowledge I need my senses very little: it is mainly just my own thoughts. I reason about what is right and wrong, or what makes a person virtuous or wicked. I can be mistaken, of course, in these mental deliberations, but not so easily deceived by outside tricks or illusions, for they affect only our senses and not our reason.

HERMES: How, then, do you account for the fact that you Athenians are constantly squabbling among yourselves about what qualities constitute virtue or vice, and what actions are right or wrong?

SOCRATES: Why is that puzzling? We disagree because it is easy to be mistaken. Yet, despite that, we also agree about many such issues.

From this I speculate that, where we have so far failed to agree, it is not because anything is actively deceiving us, but simply because some issues are hard to reason about - just as there are many truths in geometry that even Pythagoras did not know but which future geometers may discover. As that other ‘wise mortal’ Xenophanes wrote:

The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,

All things to us; but in the course of time,

Through seeking we may learn and know things better.*

That is what we Athenians have done in regard to moral knowledge. Through seeking we have learned, and agreed upon, the easy things. And in future, by the same means - namely by refusing to hold any of our ideas immune from criticism - we may learn some matters not so light.

HERMES: There is much truth in what you say. So, take it a little further: if it is so hard to be systematically deceived on moral issues, how is it that the Spartans disagree with you about some of those issues on which nearly all Athenians agree - the ones that you have just said are the easy ones?

SOCRATES: Because the Spartans learn many mistaken beliefs and values in early childhood.

HERMES: Whereas Athenians begin their flawless education at what age?

SOCRATES: Again, you catch me in an error. Yes of course we too teach our values to our young, and those must include our most serious misconceptions as well as our deepest wisdom. Yet our values include being open to suggestions, tolerant of dissent, and critical of both dissent and received opinion. So I suppose that the real difference between the Spartans and us is that their moral education enjoins them to hold their most important ideas immune from criticism. Not to be open to suggestions. Not to criticize certain ideas such as their traditions or their conceptions of the gods; not to seek the truth, because they claim that they already have it.

Hence they do not believe that ‘in the course of time they may learn and know things better.’ They agree among themselves because their laws and customs enforce conformity. We agree among ourselves (to the extent that we do) because, through our tradition of endless critical debate, we have discovered some genuine knowledge. Since there is only one truth of any given matter, as we discover ideas closer to the truth our ideas become closer to each other’s, so we agree more. People who converge upon the truth converge with each other.

HERMES: Indeed.

SOCRATES: Moreover, since the Spartans never seek improvement, it is not surprising that they never find it. We, in contrast, have sought it - by constantly criticizing and debating and trying to correct our ideas and behaviour. And thereby we are well placed to learn more in the future.

HERMES: It follows, then, that it is wrong of the Spartans to educate their children to hold their city’s ideas, laws and customs immune from criticism.

SOCRATES: I thought you weren’t going to reveal moral truths!

HERMES: I can’t help it if it follows logically from epistemology. But, anyway, you already know this one.

SOCRATES: Yes, I do. And I see what you are getting at. You are showing me that there are such things as mirages and tricks in regard to moral knowledge. Some of them are embedded in the Spartans’ traditional moral choices. Their whole way of life misleads and traps them - because one of their mistaken beliefs is that they must take no steps to prevent their way of life from misleading and trapping them!

HERMES: Yes.

SOCRATES: Are there such traps embedded in our way of life? [Frowns.] Of course, I think there aren’t - but I would think that, wouldn’t I? As Xenophanes also wrote, it’s all too easy to attribute universal truth to mere local appearances:

The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black

While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.

Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw

And could sculpture like men, then the horses would draw their gods

Like horses, and cattle like cattle …

HERMES: So now you are imagining some Spartan Socrates who considers their ways virtuous and yours decadent -

SOCRATES: And who considers us to be stuck in a trap, since we shall never willingly ‘correct’ ourselves by adopting Spartan ways. Yes.

HERMES: But does this Spartan Socrates, if he exists, worry that the Athenian Socrates may be right, and he wrong? Was there a Spartan Xenophanes who suspected that the gods might not be as the Greeks think they are?

SOCRATES: Most certainly not!

HERMES: So, since one of their ‘ways’ is to preserve all their ways unchanged, then if he were right, and you wrong -

SOCRATES: Then the Spartans must also have been right ever since they embarked on their present way of life. The gods must have revealed the perfect way of life to them at the outset. So - did you?

HERMES: [Raises his eyebrows.]

SOCRATES: Of course you didn’t. Now I see that the difference between our ways and theirs is not merely a matter of perspective, nor just a matter of degree.* Let me restate it:

If the Spartan Socrates is right that Athens is trapped in falsehoods but Sparta is not, then Sparta, being unchanging, must already be perfect, and hence right about everything else too. Yet in fact they know almost nothing. One thing that they clearly don’t know is how to persuade other cities that Sparta is perfect, even cities that have a policy of listening to arguments and criticism …

HERMES: Well, logically it could be that the ‘perfect way of life’ involves having few accomplishments and being wrong about most things. But, yes, you are glimpsing something important here -

SOCRATES: Whereas if I am right that Athens is not in such a trap, that implies nothing about whether we are right or wrong about any other matter. Indeed, our very idea that improvement is possible implies that there must be errors and inadequacies in our current ideas.

(...)