Sunday, March 13, 2011

Day 41: Theaetetus 172d-178a (p. 192-196)

Again, nothing profound today, just a confusion:

176a-177a: In this piece of text, Socrates seems to slide between two different conceptions of good and bad.

(1) "It is not possible, Theodorus, that evil should be destroyed - for there must always be something opposed to the good" (176a).

(2) "There are two patterns set up in reality. One is divine and supremely happy; the other has nothing of God in it ... This truth the evildoer does not see; blinded by folly and utter lack of understanding, he fails to perceive that the effect of his unjust practices is to make him grow more and more like the one, and less and less like the other" (176e-177a).

(1) appears to claim that badness is the positive opposite of the good, and this is why badness cannot be destroyed: where there is good, there will always also be badness. (2), however, suggests strongly that badness is a lack of goodness, of knowledge, of divinity. In this latter case, badness is not the actual opposite of goodness, and there is no reason why badness should always accompany goodness (i.e., goodness need not always bring with it a lack of goodness).

I don't have a diagnosis of the slide between these two views; I just wanted to point it out as we move into talking about relativism about goodness and badness. One of these two views might have more to offer a relativist than the other.

Happy reading!

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