Socrates’ Homer: Retaining the Poetic Past and Preparing for the Philosophic Future (Part I)

Homer is acknowledged by Socrates as the educator of Hellas, “the most poetic of the poets and the first of tragedians” who provides the model around which the Hellenes order their lives (Rep 607a).[i] The first references to Homer in the Republic confirm the poet’s commanding civilizational influence on the Hellenes when both Socrates and Adeimantus speak of Homer in the context of what people have learned from him. In his refutation of Polemarchus’ definition of justice, “helping your friends, harming your enemies,” Socrates points out that this definition of justice makes a just man a kind of thief, something which Polemarchus must have learned from the Odyssey where Homer admires Odysseus’ grandfather, Autolycus, for excelling all men “in thievery and perjury” (Rep 334a-b; Odyssey 19: 395-96).

Polemarchus is not to be blamed for this misconception of justice, for, as Adeimantus recounts, the poets teach the Hellenes that justice is praised only for its beneficial consequences. Adeimantus cites the Odyssey as evidence of this teaching:

Even as when a good king who rules in a god-fearing way,

Upholds justice, and the black earth produces

Wheat and barley, and his trees are laden with fruit

His flock increases and the sea teems with fish

(Rep 363b-c; Odyssey 19.109-13).

People should be just for the rewards and reputations it brings and not for its own sake – the challenge that Glaucon and Adeimantus propose to Socrates to prove.

Socrates’ proof that one should be just for its own sake is contrary to what Homer teaches. For instance, Homer shows the gods granting misfortune and evil to just people and their opposites a contrary life and mendicant priests and soothsayers swindling the rich with their claims that they can expiate their family’s misdeeds and harm their enemies with spells and enhancements (364b-c). These things are all possible because, as Homer states, the gods can be easily manipulated:

The gods themselves may be swayed with sacrificial

Feasts and soft prayers, libations and incense

When men have gone too far and done wrong

(Rep 364d-e; Iliad 9.497-501).

Thus, Homer teaches the Hellenes that a person should be just not for its own sake but for the rewards it brings; a just person can suffer from misfortune while an unjust one can be blessed; and the gods, the dead, and the living can be influenced by magic, sacrifices, and prayers. As Glaucon’s story of Gyges ring illustrates (Rep 359d-360b), and as Adeimantus highlights, the “main point” is for Socrates to show why the just life is worthy for its own sake and superior to a life where one “seems”” just while actually living unjustly (Rep 362d-363a).

Socrates’ challenge is immense, as Homer appears to teach the Hellenes exactly the opposite: one should seem to be just to reap the rewards that a just reputation brings but in fact live an unjust life for the benefits that such a life offers. With the Hellenes raised in these values, what stratagem, Adeimantus asks Socrates, could be devised “to persuade a man with birth, wealth, or strength of body or soul that he ought to respect justice and not snicker at the very word?” (Rep 366c). For Homer’s influence on the Hellenes is more than cultural, social, or political: it is foundational.[ii] Homer’s poetry is the mythical, cultural, and existential fabric that make the Hellenes a people.[iii] Without these stories, there are no Hellenes. Given this, how can Socratic philosophy succeed in showing the just life is superior to the unjust one?

This “ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry” seems to place an insurmountable burden on philosophy to prove its preeminence over poetry (Rep 607b).[iv] One option for Socrates is to eradicate Homeric poetry completely in the civic education of the guardians and leave only philosophy.[v] However, such a strategy would not only deprive the Hellenes the civilizational fabric that makes them a people, but it also may not be effective in civic education, especially in the teaching of children who are not entirely receptive to reason.[vi] Another approach is to leave Homeric poetry alone and prepare only a few for philosophy: philosophers would provide lip-service to the public about their beliefs in Homeric teaching while in private pursue a life of reason.[vii] A final possibility is to create a rival myth that combines philosophy and poetry together in order to supplant Homer’s place as the educator of all Hellas.[viii] Socrates’ Myth of Er in Book X, and the dialogue the Republic itself, would be the types of philosophical myths that re-found the Hellenes as a people with a new set of values and way of life.

In these essays I argue that Socrates seeks to rehabilitate Homeric poetry as much as philosophy will permit by his selecting those passages that support his philosophical aims and censoring or modifying those excerpts that are contrary to it.[ix] Instead of repudiating Homer’s poetry altogether, Socrates recognizes that the foundational role his stories have for the Hellenes and therefore knows that they cannot be eradicated entirely; otherwise, they would not exist as a people. Philosophy consequently must accommodate Homer’s poetry but only under its supervision in order for citizens to become just. By retaining the passages of Homer’s poetry that are compatible with his philosophy, Socrates is able the preserve the foundational role that Homer plays for the Hellenes, while, at the same time, prepare them for a more philosophic future.

This reading of the Republic is compatible with previous scholarship on this question: Socrates does eliminate Homer’s poetry from the city but not all of his poetry; Socrates expects only a few to be able to study philosophy but leaves poetry for the many; and Socrates’ own poetry, like the myth of Er and the Republic itself, are a new type of philosophical myths but still anchored in the foundational fabric of Homer’s poetry. According to this reading, Socrates is neither a philosophical radical nor a political revolutionist but a pragmatic reformer who works within the cultural milieu of his civilization to make it more receptive to a life of philosophy. Although he had failed in his own time, Socrates’ attempt provides a blueprint for us today as we wrestle with the questions like national identity and civic education in our own country.[x]

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Notes

[i] All in text citations are my translation of the Greek text in the Loeb editions. Plato’s Republic is Rep (Plato 1930, 1935) and Ion is Ion (Plato 1925); Homer’s Iliad is Iliad (Homer 1924, 1925) and Odyssey is Odyssey (Homer 1919); Aristotle’s Politics is Politics (Aristotle 1932).

[ii] Jaeger 1939; Burkert 1983; Veyne 1983; Voegelin 2000; Ahrensdorf 2010. For more about Homeric values, refer to Adkins 1972; Gagarin 1987; Holway 1994; Hammer 1998; Ahrensdorf 2014; for more about foundational myths, refer to Haarmann 2015 and Sweeney 2015.

[iii] For more about the role of how a people’s identity centers around myth, refer to Gadamer 1980, 43; Burkert 1983, 119-25; Veyne, Voegelin 2000, 93-107.

[iv] Murdoch 1977; Elias 1984; Annas 1981; Nichols 1987.

[v] Partee 1970; Annas 1982, 11; Danto 1986, 6, 9, 194; Edmundson 1995, 7; Ferrari 1989; Morgan 1990, 156; Burnyeat 1997, 255; Nehamas 1999, 251-78.

[vi] Brisson 2000, 75; Zuckert 2009, 475-76; Avgousti 2012, 21-41.

[vii] Strauss 1964, 61; Bloom 1991; Most 2012; Burns 2015. Burns interprets Homer as engaging in the same task as the philosopher with an exoteric teaching for the many and an esoteric one for the few.

[viii] Brisson 2000; Naddaff 2002; Tanner 2010; Collobert 2012; Destreé 2012; Kastely 2015; also refer to Destreé and Herrmann 2011.

[ix] Halliwell (2000) and Mitscherling (2005) adopt a similar approach as mine. However, Halliwell looks at several dialogues without detailed analysis, while Mitscherling seeks only to demonstrate that Socrates does intentionally misquote Homer, with no explanation as to why. Altman (2012) employs a different type of reading, comparing Homer and Socrates but as being confronted with similar philosophical choices. For more about Socrates’ relationship to Homer and the gods, refer to Burns 1996; Planinc 2003; Lutz 2006; Riel 2013; Ahrensdorf 2014.

[x] For more about Hellenic civic education, refer to Nightingale 2001; Ober 2001.

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