T. K. Seung - Plato Rediscovered: Human Value and Social Order (1996)

Plato Rediscovered: Human Value and Social Order (1996)

Seung’s Plato book is distinctive for several reasons – most notably, it is his only substantial work on an ancient or pre-Christian philosopher. But it is not difficult to discern how it fits into his greater corpus. Indeed, Plato Rediscovered marks a high point in the development of Seung’s methodological and substantive interests. Methodologically, he employs his cultural thematics to construct a comprehensive reading of a philosopher central to the entire Western tradition. That is, he seeks out the most pressing questions of Plato’s time and tries to understand how Plato responded to them. Substantively, the book addresses the question of eternal or transcendent norms (or “Platonism”) versus what he calls “positive norms”.

Seung’s study of Plato is the third volume of his trilogy on normative philosophy, which began in 1993 with his Intuition and Construction (Yale University Press). Seung’s concern there was to identify the normative foundations for John Rawls’s theory of justice. He found two Rawlses – roughly correlating to the early and later works. The early Rawls of A Theory of Justice presented his normative philosophy as transcendentally true of all cultures. But the later Rawls of the Dewey Lectures and Political Liberalism backed off from this lofty perspective and took the modest position that his theory of justice was based on the values embedded in his own culture (viz., liberty and equality). The problem with the latter approach on which Rawls eventually settles is that it is wide open to charges of moral or cultural relativism – charges that continued to trouble Rawls throughout his career. In his personal reply to Seung's critique on this point, Rawls confided his frustration in finding a satisfactory foundation for his theory of justice.

For his earlier transcendental perspective, Rawls claims to have drawn his inspiration from Immanuel Kant, but openly disdains his formalistic ethics for its vacuity. In his own Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness, Rawls notes that Kant's formalistic ethics advocates no more than the generality and universality of moral principles, the formal requirement for any moral theory. In his view, no substantive theory of justice can be constructed on such a slender basis. He goes on to say, "The real force of his view lies elsewhere." But he does not specify the indefinite expression "elsewhere". This became an enigma in Rawls scholarship. Seung tries to solve this enigma by investigating Kant's entire works in normative philosophy. His efforts have appeared in two books, Kant’s Platonic Revolution in Moral and Political Philosophy (Johns Hopkins, 1994), and Kant: A Guide for the Perplexed (Continuum, 2007).

According to Seung's meticulous investigation, it has been the most grievous long-standing mistake in the study of Kant's ethics to assume that he has espoused no other moral theory than his formalistic ethics and that the Groundwork is his most important work in ethics. Prior to the Groundwork, according to Seung, Kant had embraced Platonic Ideas as the foundation of his ethics in his Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 and reaffirmed his Platonic allegiance in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). In his Groundwork, Kant had to abandon his Platonic ethics because he designed his ethical formalism as a Copernican revolution in ethics. In distinction from this new position, Seung labels Kant's Platonic ethics his ethical Platonism. This version of his ethics had never been recognized until it was uncovered by Seung. He has further shown that Kant did not sustain his ethical formalism very long after the Groundwork. In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant may appear to retain his formalistic framework, but he injects Platonic content into this framework. That was only three years later than the Groundwork.

In Metaphysics of Morals, which is supposed to be his crowning work in ethics, Kant does not even retain this formalistic framework and reverts to the traditional substantive ethics. He divides this work into two Parts: (1) the theory of justice and (2) the theory of virtue. Neither of these two topics was even mentioned in the Groundwork. This is the checkered career of Kant's ethical theory from the Inaugural Dissertation through the first two Critiques and the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. Seung does not only trace this checkered career, but also clearly exposes the vacuity of Kant's ethical formalism, thereby vindicating Ralws's dismissal of it. Seung concludes his study of Kant's ethical works by declaring that Rawls's theory of justice was inspired not by Groundwork, but by the theory of justice in the Metaphysics of Morals. He further explains that this theory in turn had been inspired by the Platonic Idea of Justice. So he calls it Kant's Platonic Revolution.

These works on Rawls and Kant eventually led Seung to Plato, the first political philosopher of the West. He opens the preface of his Plato book by saying, "Political philosophy is one of the great inventions by Plato's genius." But this invention took a long intellectual journey, and Seung reconstructs the itinerary of this journey by thematically connecting twenty-two of Plato's dialogues. The point of departure for this journey was the Gorgias, and the Republic and the Laws turned out to be its two destinations. Through the mouth of Callicles, the Gorgias presents the challenge of power politics, as it was practiced in Athenian imperialism and as it was depicted in Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian War. In the domain of power politics, power is the ultimate foundation of all normative principles because it alone dictates and sustains all positive norms and refuses to recognize any other normative standards. Callicles maintains that only power should rule because that is the law of nature and that all constraints on power are the chains cunningly devised by the weak to control the strong. In this dialogue, Plato's Socrates tries to prove that Callicles's theory of power politics is wrong, but cannot deliver a knockout argument. Hence the dialogue ends without a decisive resolution. From then on, Seung holds, Plato took upon himself the task of finding an effective response to Callecles's political philosophy of power. This task became his lifelong mission and his philosophical journey.

It is Seung's thesis that Plato set out to overcome Callicles's challenge by formulating his own political philosophy on the basis of eternal normative standards. Without appealing to such eternal norms, it was impossible to talk about the justice or injustice of any positive norms because every positive norm is just by its own standard. But it is not easy to recognize such eternal norms, nor is it any easier to use them in constructing a political institution. Hence Plato had to write a long series of dialogues, which paved his way to the Republic, where he constructed his ideal state, the Kallipolis. This was the first half of his long journey. But he soon recognized two fatal defects in the Republic. First, the standard for being a philosopher-ruler for this ideal state was too high because the ruler was supposed to be absolutely intelligent and totally incorruptible. It was a superhuman standard well beyond all mortals. In formulating this superhuman ideal, Plato had completely ignored the empirical human nature. He had made the same mistake in advocating that the members of the governing class should be allowed to have neither their own families and children, nor their own properties. This was to free them from the chain of private interests in order to make them perfect public servants. Plato came to realize that such a drastic measure went against the most basic human nature.

The second fatal defect of the Republic was Plato's conception of knowledge and intelligence. This was an important topic because the Kallipolis was to be governed by the philosopher-ruler's intelligence and knowledge. The Republic had emphatically demarcated knowledge (or wisdom) from opinion (or conjecture). Although this demarcation sounds commonplace, it is based on Plato's metaphysical demarcation between the eternal realm of Forms and the temporal realm of phenomena. Knowledge is infallible; opinion is fallible. The scope of knowledge is restricted to the domain of eternal Forms or Platonic Ideas because only they are truly intelligible. One can become a philosopher by gaining the knowledge of eternal Forms. But the temporal phenomena can never be the objects of knowledge because they are ever mutable and unintelligible. They can be only the objects of opinion or fallible conjecture even for philosophers. But the knowledge of Forms is insufficient for governing the Kallipolis. Because it is situated in the phenomenal world, its proper government requires the knowledge of phenomena. Since the philosopher-rulers have no knowledge of phenomena, they have to govern by their opinion. This surely undermines Plato's ideal of government by knowledge and wisdom.

The importance of understanding phenomena is indirectly acknowledged at least once in the Republic. When Socrates begins to recount the degeneration of the Kallipolis at the beginning of Book 8, he says that its deterioration is most likely to be caused by its leaders' mistakes in handling the eugenics of future rulers by sense perception and calculation. Without the knowledge of phenomena, it would indeed be impossible to avoid mistakes in breeding because eugenics takes place in the phenomenal world. The understanding of phenomena is even more critical for the construction of the Kallipolis because it is based on the tripartite theory of the soul. The three classes of the Kallipolis are modeled after the three parts of the soul. Since there is no Form of the soul, the tripartite theory can never be knowledge, but only an opinion. Thus Plato's ideal state is built on opinion rather than on knowledge. This is the second fatal defect of the Republic. The Kallipolis turned out to be a product of opinion although it was presented as a product of philosophical wisdom.

Plato had to mend these two fatal defects of the Kallipolis and reconstruct his political philosophy. Thus began the second half of Plato's long journey, according to Seung, and it was finally concluded in the Laws, where he constructed a constitution for the city of Magnesia. In this reconstruction, Plato eliminates the first fatal defect—the superhuman ruler—by replacing the rule of man by the rule of law. Magnesia is a legal state, whose function does not totally depend on the perfect wisdom and virtue of rulers. All citizens of Magnesia participate in the governance of their state through an intricate system of councils on many different levels. Unlike the Kallipolis, Magnasia does not demand the total dedication of citizens and their rulers to the well-being of the state. They are allowed to have their own families and even private properties although the state sets the upper and lower limits to private possessions. This is Plato's acceptance of human nature in the phenomenal world.

The 'Statesman' presents the myth of two ages: the age of Kronos and the age of Zeus. In the first age, the world rolls forward; in the second age, the world reverses its motion and rolls backward. In the age of Kronos, the divine rulers govern the world by their wisdom. In the age of Zeus, the human rulers govern their social order by laws. This myth has been interpreted as Plato's philosophy of history or his metaphysical cosmology. But Seung interprets it as Plato's explanation for his shift from the government by virtues in the Republic to the government by laws in the Laws. By the myth of two ages, Seung says, Plato expresses his realization that the Kallipois is unfit for our age because we are living in the age of Zeus rather than in the age of Kronos.

Plato cannot eliminate the second fatal defect of the Kallipolis by institutional reforms. He tries to overcome it by devising a scientific way of understanding phenomena. He begins this project in Theaetetus by introducing two elements of perceptual knowledge: (1) knowing the sameness and (2) knowing the difference. Plato now believes that these two methods of perception can deliver the knowledge of phenomena. He substantiates this possibility by defining the sophist in Sophist and the statesman in Statesman. Since the objects of these definitions belong to the domain of phenomena, Seung points out, they are entirely different from the definitions of Forms. They are the descriptions of phenomena that can deliver knowledge if they are rigorous enough. To be sure, they cannot be as rigorous as the definition of mathematical Forms. The difference of these two types of definition is like the difference between the square root of a square number such as 4 or 9 and that of an oblong number such as 2 or 3. The former is a rational number; the latter is an irrational number. Unlike the former, the computation of the latter can never be completed. Although it is only an approximation of its true value, it is qualitatively different from a mere guess or opinion. Since its method of approximation is scientific, it should be regarded as knowledge rather than as opinion. Likewise, our definition (or description) of phenomena such as sophists and statesman can never be completed, but it can ever approximate the ultimate nature of phenomena closer and closer. This is Plato's revised view of how we can gain the knowledge of phenomena, according to Seung's interpretation of his later dialogues.

Plato's revised view of knowledge goes together with his revised view of Forms. There has been a long series of discussions on the question whether or not Plato retained his theory of Forms in his late dialogues. But Seung is the only scholar to advocate the thesis that Plato revised his theory of Forms. He explains this revision by distinguishing between simple and complex Forms. Complex Forms are definable; simple Forms are indefinable. Although Plato was obsessed with definition for a long time, Seung holds, he eventually realized that only complex Forms can be defined and that simple Forms are required for their definitions. Simple Forms can also be called primitive or ultimate Forms (or arche in Greek). They cannot be known by definition; they can be known only by direct intuition. The indefinable primitive Forms are already encountered in the Republic, for example, the Form of the Good. Socrates admits its indefinability and explains its nature by the analogy of the sun. In the second part of Parmenides, Seung says, Plato examines eight possible systems of primitive Forms as eight hypotheses. In Sophist, he joins Hypotheses 5 and 7 into his final system of ultimate Forms. He counts Being, Identity, Difference, Motion, and Rest as the most important ones. In his late dialogues, Seung holds, Plato retains only the simple Forms. This is his revised theory of Forms. In his original theory of Forms, he had never clearly recognized the distinction between simple and complex Forms. Hence Platonic Heaven contained all Forms, simple or complex.

Seung has labeled Plato's old theory of Forms as the Skyscraper version and his new theory as the Bedrock version. The eidetic population of Platonic Heaven has changed from the fully loaded Skyscraper version to the sparsely loaded Bedrock version. In the Skyscraper version, Forms are conceived as fully determinate, and they are the objects of definition. In the Bedrock version, they are conceived as highly indeterminate, and they are the basic elements for the construction of complex Forms. For this reason, Seung says, Plato changed his conception of definition. In the Skyscraper version, definition was the art of describing the nature of eternal Forms. In the Bedrock version, definition became the art of constructing complex Forms by using primitive Forms, as demonstrated in the definitions of sophist and statesman. Seung regards the construction of the Kallipolis as the watershed of this change because it can be seen as the construction of a new Form or as the description of an eternal Form. Although it is obviously a product of construction by Socrates and his interlocutors, he says that it is a model laid in heaven for anyone to see (Rep, 592b). If so, he was only describing it. So the Kallipolis can be viewed in two ways.

The art of construction is the most continuous theme in Plato's late dialogues, according to Seung. In Sophist, it is called the art of weaving Forms into a proposition. In Philebus, it is called a gift of the gods to human beings or the divine method. Socrates illustrates it by the art of dividing vocal sounds into vowels and consonants for the construction of language and by the art of dividing musical sounds and organizing them into a system of intervals and harmonic scales. Seung calls this divine art the art of Pythagorean construction because it is based on Pythagoreanism. By using this art, Plato constructs Magnesia as a rational state in the Laws and then the entire universe as a rational cosmos in Timaeus. By locating a rational state in a rational cosmos, Seung holds, Plato finally perfected his response to Callicles. In Gorgias, Callicles had maintained that only power had the right to rule because it was the law of nature and that any other kind of social order was a futile struggle against the power of natural order. Plato now can say that the natural order is not beastly but rational and that a rational state is a natural extension of the cosmic order. Thus he has concluded his lifelong mission and his epic journey.

This is Seung's outline of Plato's epic journey. For this outline, Seung has devised a new way of reading Plato's dialogues. The traditional method is to read each of them as a self-contained work, but Seung's unique way is to find their thematic interconnections and read them as a continuing series. He says that his connectionist approach was inspired by Plato's peculiar way of naming his dialogues. Except for the Republic and the Laws, none of them bear the titles that indicate their subject matters. Sophist and Statesman may appear exceptions. But the real topics of these two dialogues are not the sophist and the statesman, but the problems in the art of defining them. Why are only the Republic and the Laws named after their topics? Moreover, only these two works are extended dialogues. The former is divided into ten Books and the latter into twelve Books. None of the other dialogues are long enough to require such a division. On the basis of these bibliographical data, Seung has formed the hypothesis that the two long dialogues were the two destinations for Plato's epic journey and that all other dialogues were his stepping stones leading up to those end points. Every dialogue Plato writes usually generates new problems, and he writes another dialogue to take up those new problems. So Seung says that the dialogues themselves generate their own thematic interconnections. By articulating these interconnections, Seung has revealed the complex itinerary of Plato's philosophical journey.

Seung's book has been received well in reviews, notably being identified by Thomas J. Lewis of McMaster University as a "scholarly tour de force". The renowned scholar of Plato's political theory, George Klosko (University of Virginia), called Seung's radical new interpretation a "dazzling synthesis", marked by its "glittering intellectuality." More informally but just as enthusiastically, an anonymous reviewer at Amazon.com raved that it is:

"Simply the best book ever written on Plato. I realize that will strike many as hyperbole, but this is all I have in my power to persuade others to read this extraordinary account of how Plato arrived at the invention of political philosophy. The book is wildly original in its approach. Seung is guided by no fashions or masters other than Plato himself. He uncovers the centrality of the problems of metaphysics to Plato's program of politics in a manner that no one, to my knowledge, has ever conceived. If you ever plan on seriously grappling with the big picture in Plato's corpus, this is quite clearly the place to start. Seung answers all the big questions in Plato's work (such as the function of the characters in each dialogue and the relationship of each dialogue to one another). Plato Rediscovered is ambitious and successful on every possible level." —Anonymous, Amazon.com

Seung's interpretation of Plato has proved influential in the work of J.M. Balkin and David Lay Williams, who have made much of the Bedrock theory of the Forms in modern and contemporary political philosophy.