The Beginning of Infinity

by David Deutsch

  SOCRATES: At one stage, Hermes made me aware of the fundamental distinction between the Athenian approach to life and the Spartan. It is that –

  PLATO: Wait! Let’s all guess! This sounds fascinating.

  I’ll start – because this is basically what my poem was about. Well, the Spartan half of the riddle is easy: Sparta glories in war. And she values all the associated virtues such as courage, endurance and so on.

  [The other COMPANIONS of Socrates murmur their assent.] We, on the other hand – well, we value everything, don’t we! Everything good, that is.

  COMPANION NO. 1: Everything good? That seems a bit circular, Plato, unless you’re going to define ‘good’ in some way that’s independent of ‘what we Athenians value’. I think I can put it more elegantly: fighting, versus having something to fight for.

  COMPANION NO. 2: Nice. But that’s basically ‘War versus Philosophy’, isn’t it?

  PLATO: [taking mock offence] And poetry.

  COMPANION NO. 3: Could it be that Athens, whose patron deity is female, represents the creative spirit in the world, while Sparta favours Ares, the god of bloodlust and slaughter, whom Athena defeated and humbled –

  PLATO: No, no, they’re actually not that keen on Ares. They prefer Artemis. And, strangely enough, they also revere Athena. Did you know that?

  CHAEREPHON: Speaking as an Athenian who is older than all of you and who has seen plenty of war, may I just say that it seems to me that Athens, despite all its glorious martial achievements, would be just as happy to lead a quiet life and be friends with all the Greeks, and not least with the Spartans. But unfortunately the Spartans like nothing better than to annoy us whenever they possibly can. Though I must admit that in that respect they are not especially worse than anyone else. Including our allies!

  SOCRATES: Those are very interesting conjectures, all of which I think do capture aspects of the differences between the cities. And yet I suspect – and I may of course be mistaken –

  PLATO: A Spartan Socrates wouldn’t be modest. Is that the difference?

  SOCRATES: No. (By the way, I think that if anything, he would be.)

  I suspect that we have all been labouring under a misconception about Sparta. Could it be that the Spartans do not seek war, as such, at all? At least, not since they conquered their neighbours, centuries ago, and made them helots. Perhaps, since then, they have acquired an entirely different concern that is of overriding importance to them; and perhaps they fight only when that concern is under threat.

  COMPANION NO. 2: What is it? Keeping the helots down?

  SOCRATES: No, that would be only a means, not the end in itself. I think that the god told me what their overarching concern is. And he also told me what ours is – though alas we also fight for all sorts of other reasons, of which we often repent.

  Those two overarching concerns are these: we Athenians are concerned above all with improvement; the Spartans seek only – stasis. Two opposite objectives. If you think about it, I believe you’ll soon agree that this is the single source of all the myriad differences between the two cities.

  PLATO: I never thought of it that way before, but I think I do agree. Let me try out the theory. Here’s one difference between the cities: Sparta has no philosophers. That’s because the job of a philosopher is to understand things better, which is a form of change, so they don’t want it. Another difference: they don’t honour living poets, only dead ones. Why? Because dead poets don’t write anything new, but live ones do. A third difference: their education system is insanely harsh; ours is famously lax. Why? Because they don’t want their kids to dare to question anything, so that they won’t ever think of changing anything. How am I doing?

  SOCRATES: You are quick on the uptake as usual, Aristocles. However –

  CHAEREPHON: Socrates, I think I know plenty of Athenians who do not seek improvement! We have many politicians who think they’re perfect. And many sophists who think they know everything.

  SOCRATES: But what, specifically, do those politicians believe to be perfect? Their own grandiose plans for how to improve the city. Similarly, each sophist believes that everyone should adopt his ideas, which he sees as an improvement over everything that has been believed before. The laws and customs of Athens are set up to accommodate all these many rival ideas of perfection (as well as more modest proposals for improvement), to subject them to criticism, to winnow out from them what may be the few tiny seeds of truth, and to test out those that seem the most promising. Thus those myriad individuals who can conceive of no improvement of themselves nevertheless add up to a city that relentlessly seeks nothing else for itself, day and night.

  CHAEREPHON: Yes, I see.

  SOCRATES: In Sparta there are no such politicians, and no such sophists. And no gadflies such as me, because any Spartan who did doubt or disapprove of the way things have always been done would keep it to himself. What few new ideas they have are intended to sustain the city more securely in its current state. As for war, I know that there are Spartans who glory in war, and would love to conquer and enslave the whole world, just as they once set out to conquer their neighbours. Yet the institutions of their city, and the deep assumptions that are built into the minds of even the hotheads, embody a visceral fear of any such step into the unknown. Perhaps it is significant that the statue of Ares that stands outside Sparta represents him chained, so that he will always be there to protect the city. Is that not the same as preventing the god of violence from breaking discipline? From being loosed upon the world to cause random mayhem, with its terrifying risk of change?

  CHAEREPHON: Perhaps it is. In any case, I understand now, Socrates, how a city can have ‘overarching concerns’ that are not shared by all its citizens. However, I’m afraid I still don’t see how your theory accounts for the enmity between our cities. First of all, I cannot recall the Spartans ever objecting to our propensity to improve ourselves. Instead, they cite all sorts of specific grievances about how we are allegedly violating treaties, undermining their allies, plotting to build an empire on the mainland and so on. Second – not that I want to criticize the god, of course! –

  SOCRATES: It is not impious to criticize the gods, Chaerephon, but rational. Hermes thinks so too, for what it’s worth . . .

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘It is not impious to criticize gods.’]

  CHAEREPHON: Well, even if the god is right about those two ‘overarching concerns’ of stasis and improvement, each city holds its respective concern only for itself. It has no ambition to impose it on anyone else. So, although Athens chooses to race forwards while Sparta chooses to tie itself down, and although these choices may logically be ‘opposite’, how can they possibly be a source of enmity?

  SOCRATES: My guess is this. The very existence of Athens, however peaceful, is a deadly threat to Sparta’s stasis. And therefore, in the long run, the condition for the continued stasis of Sparta (which means its continued existence, as they see it) is the destruction of progress in Athens (which from our perspective would constitute the destruction of Athens).

  CHAEREPHON: I still do not see specifically what the threat is.

  SOCRATES: Well, suppose that in future both cities were to continue to succeed with their overarching concerns. The Spartans would stay exactly as they are now. But we Athenians are already the envy of other Greeks with our wealth and diverse achievements. What will happen when we improve further, and begin to outshine everyone in the world at everything? Spartans seldom travel or interact with foreigners, but they cannot keep themselves entirely in ignorance of developments elsewhere. Even going to war gives them some inkling of what life is like in other cities that are wealthier, and freer, than they. One day, some Spartan youths visiting Delphi will find that it is the Athenians who have the better ‘moves’ and the greater skill. And what if, in a generation or two, Athenian warriors have developed some better ‘moves’ on the battlefield?

  PLATO: But, Socrates, even if this is true, the Spartans are unaware of it!
So how can they fear it?

  SOCRATES: They need no prescience. Do you think that a Spartan messenger, on reaching Athens, does not gasp in admiration like everyone else when he sees what stands on our Acropolis?* And, however much he may mutter (perhaps justly) about our hubris and irresponsibility, do you think that he does not reflect, on his way home, that his city can never and will never attract that sort of admiration from anyone? Do you think that the Spartan elders are not at this very moment worrying about the growing reputation of democracy in many cities, including some of their allies?

  By the way, we ourselves should be at least as wary of democracy as I think the Spartans are of bloodlust and battle rage, for it is intrinsically as dangerous. We could not do without our democracy any more than the Spartans could do without their military training. And, just as they have moderated the destructiveness of bloodlust through their traditions of discipline and caution, we have moderated the destructiveness of democracy through our traditions of virtue, tolerance and liberty. We are utterly dependent on those traditions to keep our monster under control and on our side, just as the Spartans are dependent on their traditions to keep their monster from devouring them along with everyone else in sight. We might do well to put up a statue of democracy chained, to symbolize the fundamental safeguard of our city.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Democracy is a monster, dangerous if not chained.’]

  SOCRATES: The Spartans – and many others who do not understand us – must also be wondering every day how we Athenians can possibly be holding our own against them at the one thing in the world at which they are the best, namely warfare. This despite the fact that at the same time we are excelling more than ever at philosophy and poetry and drama and mathematics and architecture and all those other fields of human endeavour that the Spartans seldom if ever bother with.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Spartans are world’s best at warfare but suck at everything else.’]

  SOCRATES: They need not know the reason if they can see the fact. But the reason is: we can improve because we are constantly striving to; they hardly ever improve, because they are trying not to! That is the Achilles’ heel of Sparta.

  PLATO: [Scribbles,‘Sparta’s Achilles’ heel is that they don’t improve.’] So all they need is philosophers. With philosophers, they’d be invincible!

  SOCRATES: [Chuckles.] In a sense, that is the case, Aristocles. But –

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Socrates says that, with philosophers, Sparta would be invincible.’]

  CHAEREPHON: [Worried.] Then should we really be discussing this here at a public inn? What if someone overhears and tells them the secret?

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Note to self: Don’t tell them!’]

  SOCRATES: Don’t worry, old friend. If the Spartans in general were capable of understanding that ‘secret’, they’d have implemented it long ago – and there’d be no war between our cities. If some individual Spartan tried to advocate new philosophical ideas, he would soon find himself on trial for heresy or any number of other crimes.

  PLATO: Unless . . .

  SOCRATES: Unless what?

  PLATO: Unless the one who had taken up philosophy was a king.

  SOCRATES: Trust you to find the logical loophole, Aristocles. Theoretically you’re right, but in Sparta, even the kings are not allowed to change anything important. If one were to try, he would be deposed by the ephors.

  PLATO: Well, they have two kings, five ephors and twenty-eight senators. So mathematics tells us that if only fifteen senators, three ephors and one king were to take up philosophy –

  SOCRATES: [Laughs.] Yes, Aristocles. I concede. If the rulers of Sparta were to take up our style of philosophy, and were then seriously to embark upon criticizing and reforming their traditions –

  PLATO: [Slightly distracted, scribbles, ‘Theorem: a king who’s a philosopher is the same as a philosopher who’s a king. So, what if a philosopher became king?’] Or perhaps it’s more likely that one benevolent king would have seized power –

  SOCRATES: Whatever. If they succeeded in such reforms, then their city might indeed evolve into something truly great. But don’t hold your breath.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Socrates says a city with a philosopher king would be truly great.’] I won’t hold my breath. But, in the long run, how shall we teach philosophy to kings, Socrates? [Scribbles, ‘Is the role of philosophers to educate kings?’]

  SOCRATES: I’m not sure that philosophy should be the first step in the education of a leader. One must have something to philosophize about. He should know history, and literature, and arithmetic – and, perhaps above all, he should be familiar with the deepest knowledge we have, namely geometry.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Let no one unversed in geometry enter here!’]

  CHAEREPHON: Well, I judge a city by how it treats its philosophers.

  SOCRATES: [Smiles.] An excellent criterion, Chaerephon, with which I had better not quibble! By the way, Aristocles, I am not in the least modest. And, to prove it, I can tell you that Hermes persuaded me that I am wise after all – at least in one respect that he especially values, namely that I am aware that justified belief is impossible and useless and undesirable.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘Socrates is the wisest man in the world because he is the only one who knows he has no knowledge, because genuine knowledge is impossible!’] Wait! Justified belief is impossible? Really? Are you sure?

  SOCRATES: [Laughs loudly, while the OTHERS look on, puzzled.] Sorry, but it’s a somewhat perverse question, Aristocles.

  PLATO: Oh! I see.

  [Smiles ruefully, as do the OTHERS when they realize that Plato has just asked for a justification of the belief that one cannot justify beliefs.]

  SOCRATES: No, I am not sure of anything. I never have been. But the god explained to me why that must be so, starting with the fallibility of the human mind and the unreliability of sensory experience.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘It’s only knowledge of the material world that’s impossible, useless and undesirable.’]

  SOCRATES: He gave me a marvellous perspective on how we perceive the world. Each of your eyes is like a dark little cave, one on whose rear wall some stray shadows fall from outside. You spend your whole life at the back of that cave, able to see nothing but that rear wall, so you cannot see reality directly at all.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘It is as if we were prisoners, chained inside a cave and permitted to look only at the rear wall. We can never know the reality outside because we see only fleeting, distorted shadows of it.’]

  [Note: Socrates is slightly improving on Hermes, and Plato has been increasingly misinterpreting Socrates.]

  SOCRATES: He then went on to explain to me that objective knowledge is indeed possible: it comes from within! It begins as conjecture, and is then corrected by repeated cycles of criticism, including comparison with the evidence on our ‘wall’.

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘The only true knowledge is that which comes from within. (How? Remembered from a previous life?)’]

  SOCRATES: In this way, we frail and fallible humans can come to know objective reality – provided we use philosophically sound methods as I have described (which most people do not).

  PLATO: [Scribbles, ‘We can come to know the true world beyond the illusory world of experience. But only by pursuing the kingly art of philosophy.’]

  CHAEREPHON: Socrates, I think it was the god speaking to you, for I strongly feel that I have glimpsed a divine truth through you today. It will take me a long time to reorganize my ideas to take account of this new epistemology that he revealed to you. It seems a tremendously far-reaching, and important, subject.

  SOCRATES: Indeed. I have some reorganizing to do myself.

  PLATO: Socrates, you really ought to write all this down – together with all your other wisdom – for the benefit of the whole world, and posterity.

  SOCRATES: No need, Aristocles. Posterity is right here, listening. Posterity is all of you, my friends. What is the point of
writing down things that are going to be endlessly tinkered with and improved? Rather than make a permanent record of all my misconceptions as they are at a particular instant, I would rather offer them to others in two-way debate. That way I benefit from criticism and may even make improvements myself. Whatever is valuable will survive such debates and be passed on without any effort from me. Whatever is not valuable would only make me look a fool to future generations.

  PLATO: If you say so, Master.

  Since Socrates left us no writings, historians of ideas can only guess at what he really thought and taught, using the indirect evidence of his portrayal by Plato and a few others who were there at the time and whose accounts have survived. This is known as the ‘Socratic problem’, and is the source of much controversy. One common view is that the young Plato conveyed Socrates’ philosophy fairly faithfully, but that later he used the character of Socrates more as a vehicle for conveying his own views; that he did not even intend his dialogues to represent the real Socrates, but used them only as convenient ways of expressing arguments that have a to-and-fro form.

  Perhaps I had better stress – in case it is not already obvious – that I am doing the same. I do not intend the above dialogue accurately to represent the philosophical opinions of the historical Socrates and Plato. I have set it at that moment in history, with those participants, because Socrates and his circle were among the foremost contributors to the ‘Golden Age of Athens’, which should have become a beginning of infinity but did not. And also because one thing that we do know about the ancient Greeks is that the philosophical problems they considered important have dominated Western philosophy ever since: How is knowledge obtained? How can we distinguish between true and false, right and wrong, reason and unreason? Which sorts of knowledge (moral, empirical, theological, mathematical, justified . . .) are possible, and which are mere chimeras? And so on. And therefore, although the theory of knowledge presented in the dialogue is largely that of the twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper, together with some addenda of my own, I guess that Socrates would have understood and liked it. In some universes that were very like ours at the time, he thought of it himself.