The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World (39 page)

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:

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.

I thank you, generous Apollo, for this ‘glimpse’ into that important difference.

HERMES
: Yet there is even more of a difference than you think. Bear
in mind that the Spartans and Athenians alike are but fallible men and are subject to misconceptions and errors in all their thinking –

SOCRATES
: Wait! We are fallible in
all
our thinking? Is there literally no idea that we may safely hold immune from criticism?

HERMES
: Like what?

SOCRATES
: [
Ponders for a while. Then:
] What about the truths of arithmetic, like two plus two equals four? Or the fact that Delphi exists? What about the geometrical fact that the angles of a triangle sum to two right angles?

HERMES
: Revealing no facts, I cannot confirm that all three of those propositions are even true! But more important is this: how did you come to choose those particular propositions as candidates for immunity from criticism? Why Delphi and not Athens? Why two plus two and not three plus four? Why not the theorem of Pythagoras? Was it because you decided that the propositions you chose would best make your point because they were the most obviously, unambiguously true of all the propositions you considered using?

SOCRATES
: Yes.

HERMES
: But then how did you determine how obviously and unambiguously true each of those candidate propositions was, compared with the others? Did you not criticize them? Did you not quickly attempt to think of ways or reasons that they might conceivably be false?

SOCRATES
: Yes, I did. I see. Had I held them immune from criticism, I would have had no way of arriving at that conclusion.

HERMES
: So you are, after all, a thoroughgoing fallibilist – though you mistakenly believed you were not.

SOCRATES
: I merely doubted it.

HERMES
: You doubted
and
criticized fallibilism itself, as a true fallibilist should.

SOCRATES
: That is so. Moreover, had I not criticized it, I could not have come to understand why it is true. My doubt
improved
my knowledge of an important truth – as knowledge held immune from criticism never can be improved!

HERMES
: This too you already knew. For it is why you always encourage everyone to criticize even that which seems most obvious to you –

SOCRATES
: And why I set an example by doing it to them!

HERMES
: Perhaps. Now consider: what would happen if the fallible Athenian voters made a mistake and enacted a law that was very unwise and unjust –

SOCRATES
: Which, alas, they often do –

HERMES
: Imagine a specific case, for the sake of argument. Suppose that they were somehow firmly persuaded that
thieving
is a high virtue from which many practical benefits flow, and that they abolished all laws forbidding it. What would happen?

SOCRATES
: Everyone would start thieving. Very soon those who were best at thieving (and at living among thieves) would become the wealthiest citizens. But most people would no longer be secure in their property (even most thieves), and all the farmers and artisans and traders would soon find it impossible to continue to produce anything worth stealing. So disaster and starvation would follow, while the promised benefits would not, and they would all realize that they had been mistaken.

HERMES
: Would they? Let me remind you again of the fallibility of human nature, Socrates. Given that they were firmly persuaded that thievery was beneficial, wouldn’t their first reaction to those setbacks be that there was
not enough
thievery going on? Wouldn’t they enact laws to encourage it still further?

SOCRATES
: Alas, yes – at first. Yet, no matter how firmly they were persuaded, these setbacks would be
problems
in their lives, which they would want to solve. A few among them would eventually begin to suspect that increased thievery might not be the solution after all. So they would think about it more. They would have been convinced of the benefits of thievery by some explanation or other. Now they would try to explain why the supposed solution didn’t seem to be working. Eventually they would find an explanation that seemed better. So gradually they would persuade others of that – and so on until a majority again opposed thievery.

HERMES
: Aha! So salvation would come about through persuasion.

SOCRATES
: If you like. Thought, explanation and persuasion. And now they would understand better
why
thievery is harmful, through their new explanations.
*

HERMES
: By the way, the little story we have just imagined is exactly how Athens really does look, from my point of view.

SOCRATES
: [
somewhat resentfully
] How you must laugh at us!

HERMES
: Not at all, Athenian. As I said, I honour you. Now, let us consider what would happen if, instead of legalizing thievery, their error had been to
ban debate
. And to ban philosophy and politics and elections and that whole constellation of activities, and to consider them shameful.

SOCRATES
: I see. That would have the effect of banning
persuasion
. And hence it would block off that path to salvation that we have discussed. This is a rare and deadly sort of error: it prevents itself from being undone.

HERMES
: Or at least it makes salvation immensely more difficult, yes. This is what
Sparta
looks like, to me.

SOCRATES
: I see. And to me too, now that you point it out. In the past I have often pondered the many differences between our two cities, for I must confess that there was – and still is – much that I admire about the Spartans. But I had never realized before now that those differences are all superficial. Beneath their evident virtues and vices, beneath even the fact that they are bitter enemies of Athens, Sparta is the victim – and the servant – of a profound evil. This is a momentous revelation, noble Apollo, better than a thousand declarations of the Oracle, and I cannot adequately express my gratitude.

HERMES
: [
Nods in acknowledgement.
]

SOCRATES
: I also see why you urge me always to bear human fallibility in mind. In fact, since you mentioned that
some
moral truths follow logically from epistemological considerations, I am now wondering whether they
all
do. Could it be that the moral imperative
not to destroy the means of correcting mistakes
is the only moral imperative? That all other moral truths follow from it?

HERMES
: [
Is silent.
]

SOCRATES
: As you wish. Now, in regard to Athens, and to what you were saying about epistemology: if our prospects for discovering new knowledge are so good, why were you stressing the unreliability of the senses?

HERMES
: I was correcting your description of the quest for knowledge as striving to ‘see beyond what is easy to see’.

SOCRATES
: I meant that metaphorically: ‘see’ in the sense of ‘understand’.

HERMES
: Yes. Nevertheless, you have conceded that even those things that you thought were the easiest to see
literally
are in fact not easy to see at all without prior knowledge about them. In fact
nothing
is easy to see without prior knowledge. All knowledge of the world is hard to come by. Moreover –

SOCRATES
: Moreover, it follows that we do not come by it through
seeing
. It does not flow into us through our senses.

HERMES
: Exactly.

SOCRATES
: Yet you say that objective knowledge is attainable. So, if it does not come to us through the senses, where it does come from?

HERMES
: Suppose I were to tell you that all knowledge comes from
persuasion
.

SOCRATES
: Persuasion again! Well, I would reply – with all due respect – that that makes no sense. Whoever persuades me of something must first have discovered it himself, so in such a case the relevant issue is where
his
knowledge came from –

HERMES
: Quite right, unless –

SOCRATES
: And, in any case, when I learn something through persuasion, it
is
coming to me via my senses.

HERMES
: No, there you are mistaken. It only seems that way to you.

SOCRATES
:
What?

HERMES
: Well, you are learning things from me now, aren’t you? Are they coming to you through your senses?

SOCRATES
: Yes, of course they are. Oh – no they’re not. But that is only because you, a supernatural being, are bypassing my senses and sending me knowledge in a dream.

HERMES
: Am I?

SOCRATES
: I thought you said you’re not here to play debating tricks! Are you denying your own existence now? When sophists do that, I usually take them at their word and stop arguing with them.

HERMES
: A policy that again bespeaks your wisdom, Socrates. But I have not denied my existence. I was only questioning
what difference it makes
whether I am real or not. Would it make you change your mind about anything that you have learned about epistemology during this conversation?