The Socratic Turn. Dustin Sebell

the characteristics and powers of each thing may admit of being otherwise than they are or appear to be. Inasmuch as this is so, they may not be fixed or necessary (cf. 97e2, 99b1–6). And what is not necessary is not truly knowable.³⁹ If what “everyone” is already, prescientifically aware of concerning human beings cannot be grounded on knowledge of some underlying material, the prescientific awareness of them cannot necessarily be relied on. At any rate, there would not be anything barring human beings from being otherwise than the way they are: a human being could conceivably grow without eating, to say nothing of even more incredible possibilities.

      Granted, then, that the assumption in question may well be indispensable to science, it has consequences that even at first blush force one to wonder whether it is not also somehow incompatible with science. By leaving his account of human growth unfinished, Socrates has drawn our attention to these consequences. For natural science relies on nature or some first material necessity. This much we have seen. As we have also seen, however, it appeals to that material both from and for the sake of accounting for what is disclosed by the prescientific awareness of things. And while it appeals to the materials or elements of which each thing consists, and finally to the fundamental material, to account for what (as each thing’s being what, or the way, it is) is disclosed by that awareness, that appeal leads in the end to a decisive break with the prescientific awareness of things. For the necessary consequence of the attempt to understand the way of being of each thing in terms of its materials or elements is a refusal to recognize fully (what “everyone” is aware of) that such perishable things are or are genuine wholes. Likewise, it follows from this assumption that the fundamental material alone can be said to be or to be a genuine whole. In attempting to discover the cause of what is disclosed by the prescientific awareness of things, natural science is therefore led to make an assumption, that the way of being of each thing can be understood in terms of the process leading up to it, which leads in turn to “monism”—that is, to a striking inability to recognize fully the way of being of each thing, the very thing that natural science sought to account for in the first place.

      Yet by allowing his account of human growth to remain unfinished Socrates does not make what follows from that assumption explicit. In this way, he stresses the continuity between natural science and the prescientific awareness of things. At the same time, however, precisely because he stresses the continuity between natural science and what “everyone” is already, prescientifically aware of, Socrates ensures that the decisive break with the prescientific awareness of things that natural science culminates in is felt in its full force by those who complete on their own the account that he cut short. And as this break comes to sight, one must wonder whether natural science is even capable of repairing it, as indeed it must if it is not going to fall short of its own overarching goal: to grasp the cause of each thing’s being just the way—or what—it is.

      In his first statement about the sort of knowledge he supposed he possessed when he was young Socrates has first of all clarified the need that drives science or philosophy to understand the being of each thing in terms of the process leading up to it, a need to which he vigorously responded in his youth. On the other hand, his statement has, in the second place, forced us to wonder whether that need, however indispensable to science it may be, can be satisfied. For the need natural science has to reduce the way of being of each thing to its materials or elements coexists, uneasily it seems, with the need it also has to reconstitute that same way of being out of them again. There was evidently a time when the young Socrates was not yet disappointed by this situation. But what was the source of his confidence, and why was it not well placed, if indeed it was not? The possibility of reconstituting the way of being (of each thing) out of matter is the very issue raised by Socrates’ second statement about what he supposed, at least, he knew in his youth.

      Chapter 3

      The Prospects for Matter in Motion

      The Setting

      Socrates’ first statement (96c8–d7) has shown, to repeat, that when he was young he attempted to understand the way of being of each thing in terms of the process leading up to it. In pointing also to his reasons for making this attempt, it has indicated something of the connection between the basic premise of science and the need for a descent from the surface of things to their bottommost roots. But it has not yet made clear how exactly the young Socrates carried out that attempt or how he went about ascending, in thought, from the roots to the surface of things. We should not be surprised, then, to find him shedding light on this side or aspect of his former approach now, in his second statement (96d8–e4).

      Nor should it come as a surprise if in the course of his second statement Socrates points to difficulties with natural science at the same time as he indicates that, as a young natural scientist, he had failed to appreciate them sufficiently. After all, his second statement, taken as a whole, is intended to convey “what [he] supposed [he] knew before this” (96c6–7), when he was young, but in fact did not. And it so happens that through the four examples he gives here we do at last catch a glimpse of the difficulties in view of which he became disappointed with natural science or unlearned “what [he] supposed [he] knew before.” For what looks at first glance like a collection of “strange”¹ examples of what Socrates supposed he knew in his youth reveals itself on closer inspection to be the bare bones or outline of a comprehensive reflection, remarkable for its unobtrusiveness as well as its precision, concerning what an element or material is. And after being fleshed out, that reflection serves to call into question the two central (corresponding) beliefs that are held, unavoidably, by all natural scientists—that “an Atlas” can in fact be discovered or known, and that the way of being of each thing can be understood adequately in terms of the motion of its materials or elements, or the whole process of becoming leading up to it. For this reason, by shedding light on how exactly he attempted to ascend (in the manner of natural science) from the roots to the surface of things, Socrates’ second statement also affords us, inasmuch as that attempt was not free from difficulties, a glimpse into what made him turn away from natural science.

      Still, it is only a glimpse. Making matters worse, it is as much as we ever see first hand of Socrates’ disappointment with natural science. For the “sufficient proof” of Socrates’ incapacity for natural science that we were promised by him—the “proof” to which both his first and second statements are merely preliminary contributions—is not in fact forthcoming. After his second statement, he is interrupted by Cebes (96e5). And, strangely enough, when he has at last concluded the digression that Cebes’ interruption compelled him to undertake (96e6–97b7), he does not, as one would expect, return to the point in his “proof” at which he had left off. Instead, he goes on to report the next stage of his intellectual autobiography, as if he were not in so doing neglecting or refusing to share with his listeners the “sufficient proof” he had just promised them. There is, then, a lacuna at the decisive moment in Socrates’ intellectual autobiography, and Plato has arranged matters in such a way as to draw our attention to this. (Plato’s own motive for being reticent, to the extent that it is not simply the same as the one we have already attributed Socrates, becomes clearer when one observes that prior to being interrupted, Socrates had been about to lay bare the difficulty responsible for his disappointment with natural science. It is true that, had he done so, on perhaps the most memorable day of his life no less, Socrates would have left posterity with the false and misleading impression that he dishonored this kind of inquiry [Apology 19c6–d1, cf. Symposium 210c6–d6], a kind of inquiry that is inseparable from, even if not identical to, the kind characteristic of his maturity. Socrates was not unwilling to court this danger later on, however [98b7–99c6]. It is more plausible, then, that Plato’s reticence must be traced especially to the reasons he has given elsewhere for refusing to write down such things [Second Letter 314b7–c4, Seventh Letter 341c4–342a1].) But does this lacuna leave us at a complete loss?

      After wrapping up the digression he was compelled to undertake in response to Cebes’ interruption, Socrates unexpectedly turns to the next stage