tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/greek-philosophers-35800/articlesGreek philosophers – The Conversation2023-05-17T12:40:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2005202023-05-17T12:40:28Z2023-05-17T12:40:28ZThree lessons from Aristotle on friendship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526269/original/file-20230515-18888-w9tcrh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C5152%2C3445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aristotle (center), wearing a blue robe, seen in a discourse with Plato in a 16th century fresco, 'The School of Athens' by Raphael.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-school-of-athens-detail-of-a-mural-by-raphael-royalty-free-image/538198840">Pascal Deloche/Stone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While most love songs are inspired by the joys and heartaches of romantic relationships, love between friends can be just as intense and complicated. Many people struggle to make and maintain friendships, and a falling-out with a close friend can be as painful as a breakup with a partner.</p>
<p>Despite these potential pitfalls, human beings have always prized friendship. As the 4th century B.C.E. philosopher Aristotle wrote: “<a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker%20page%3D1155a%3Abekker%20line%3D3">no one would choose to live without friends</a>,” even if they could have all other good things instead. </p>
<p><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/">Aristotle is mostly known</a> for his influence on science, politics and aesthetics; he is less well known for his writing on friendship. I am <a href="https://michiganstate.academia.edu/EmilyKatz">a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy</a>, and when I cover this material with my undergraduates, they are astonished that an ancient Greek thinker sheds so much light on their own relationships. But maybe this should not be surprising: There have been human friendships as long as there have been human beings. </p>
<p>Here, then, are three lessons about friendship that Aristotle can still teach us.</p>
<h2>1. Friendship is reciprocal and recognized</h2>
<p>The first lesson comes from Aristotle’s definition of friendship: reciprocal, recognized goodwill. In contrast to parenthood or siblinghood, friendship exists only if it is acknowledged by both parties. It is not enough to wish someone well; they have to wish you well in return, and you must both recognize this mutual goodwill. As Aristotle <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3Dpos%3D370%3Asection%3D4">puts it</a>:
“To be friends … [the parties] must feel goodwill for each other, that is, wish each other’s good, and be aware of each other’s goodwill.”</p>
<p>Aristotle illustrates this point with an early example of a <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100305809;jsessionid=0AFA8CDD9156B5EA9F049311EEB54E42">parasocial relationship</a> – a one-sided kind of relationship in which someone develops friendly feelings for, and even feels that they know, a public figure they have never met. Aristotle offers this example: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D2">A fan may wish an athlete well</a> and feel emotionally invested in his success. But because the athlete does not reciprocate or recognize this goodwill, they are not friends. </p>
<p>This is as true today as it was in Aristotle’s time. Consider that you cannot even be Facebook friends with someone unless they accept your friend request. By contrast, you can be someone’s social media follower without their acknowledgment. </p>
<p>Still, it is perhaps more difficult today to distinguish friendships from parasocial relationships. When content creators share details about their personal lives, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221085812">their followers may develop a one-sided sense of intimacy</a>. They know things about the creator that, before the arrival of social media, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2022.jul.07">would have been known by only a close friend</a>. </p>
<p>The creator may feel goodwill toward her followers, but that is not friendship. Goodwill is not genuinely reciprocal if one party feels it toward an individual while the other feels it toward a group. In this way, Aristotle’s definition of friendship lends clarity to a uniquely modern situation.</p>
<h2>2. Three kinds of friendship</h2>
<p>Consider next Aristotle’s distinction between three kinds of friendship: utility-based, pleasure-based and character-based friendships. Each arises from <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D3%3Asection%3D1">what is valued</a> in the friend: <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D3%3Asection%3D1">their usefulness, the pleasure of their company</a> or their <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3Dpos%3D376%3Asection%3D6">good character</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young women talking while spending time together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526279/original/file-20230515-25302-mjrwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aristotle saying friendships needs to be nurtured and maintained through activities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-friends-spending-leisure-time-while-talking-royalty-free-image/1406476113?phrase=friends&adppopup=true">The Good Brigade/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While character-based friendship is the highest form, you can have only <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3Dpos%3D378%3Asection%3D8">a few such intimate friends</a>. It takes a long time to get to know someone’s character, and you have to spend a lot of <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D3">time together</a> to maintain such a friendship. Since time is a limited resource, most friendships will be based on pleasure or utility.</p>
<p>Sometimes my students protest that utility relationships are not really friendships. How can two people be friends if they are using one another? However, when both parties understand their utility friendship in the same way, they are not exploiting but rather mutually benefiting one another. As <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D3%3Asection%3D1">Aristotle explains</a>: “Differences between friends most frequently arise when the nature of their friendship is not what they think it is.”</p>
<p>If your study partner believes you hang out because you enjoy her company, while you actually hang out because she is good at explaining calculus, hurt feelings can follow. But if you both understand that you are hanging out so that you may improve your calculus grade and she her writing grade, you can develop mutual goodwill and respect for each other’s strengths.</p>
<p>Indeed, the limited nature of a utility friendship can be just what makes it beneficial. Consider a contemporary form of utility friendship: the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.06.011">peer support group</a>. Since you can have only a small number of character-based friends, many people dealing with trauma or struggling with chronic illness do not have close friends working through these experiences.</p>
<p>Support group members are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ecc.13700">uniquely positioned to help one another</a>, even if they have very different personal values and beliefs. These differences may mean that the friendships never become character-based; yet the group members may feel deep goodwill toward one another.</p>
<p>In short, Aristotle’s second lesson is that there is a place for each kind of friendship, and that a friendship works when there is a shared understanding of its basis.</p>
<h2>3. Friendship is like fitness</h2>
<p>Finally, Aristotle has something valuable to say about what makes friendships last. He claims that a friendship, like fitness, is a state or disposition that must be maintained by activity: As fitness is maintained by regular exercise, so friendship is maintained by doing things together. What happens, then, when you and your friend cannot engage in friendship activities? <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D1">Aristotle writes</a>:</p>
<p>“Friends who are … parted are not actively friendly, yet have the disposition to be so. For separation does not destroy friendship absolutely, though it prevents its active exercise. If however the absence be prolonged, it seems to cause the friendly feeling itself to be forgotten.” </p>
<p>Contemporary research backs this up: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2022.2145327">The state of friendship can persist</a> even without friendship activities, but if this goes on long enough, the friendship will fade. It might seem that Aristotle’s point has become less relevant, as communication technologies – from postal service to FaceTime – have made it possible to maintain friendships across great distances. </p>
<p>But while physical separation no longer spells the end of a friendship, Aristotle’s lesson remains true. Research shows that, despite having access to communication technologies, people who decreased their friendship activities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2022.2145327">experienced a corresponding decrease</a> in the quality of their friendships. </p>
<p>Today, as in ancient Athens, friendships have to be maintained by engaging in friendship activities.</p>
<p>Aristotle could not have imagined today’s communication technologies, the advent of online support groups or the kinds of parasocial relationships made possible by social media. Yet for all the ways in which the world has changed, Aristotle’s writing on friendship continues to resonate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Katz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of ancient Greek philosophy writes about Aristotle’s timeless advice on how to nurture and keep friendships.Emily Katz, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Philosophy, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1973292023-01-24T19:51:02Z2023-01-24T19:51:02ZChatGPT: Chatbots can help us rediscover the rich history of dialogue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505987/original/file-20230123-23-b1gbk3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C18%2C1005%2C1004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An AI-generated image of two philosophers in dialogue. Today’s AI-driven chatbots follow a rich history of dialogue that goes back to the philosophers of ancient Greece.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/chatgpt--chatbots-can-help-us-rediscover-the-rich-history-of-dialogue" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>It is time to take human-AI dialogue seriously again. With the release of sophisticated chatbots like <a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/">OpenAI’s ChatGPT</a>, effective human-AI dialogue has become interesting and accessible to everyone. Even to students writing essays, which has led to some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/04/ai-bot-chatgpt-stuns-academics-with-essay-writing-skills-and-usability">academic concerns</a>. </p>
<p>How will we know if what we read was written by an AI and why is that important? Who are we responding to when we comment on an essay or article? By looking to the philosophical history of dialogue, we can reframe the question to ask how we might use these new chatbots in our learning.</p>
<h2>More capable AIs</h2>
<p>AI’s connection with dialogue has a history. In 1950 English mathematician <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433">Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game”</a> where a judge entered into a typed dialogue with an AI pretending to be human as a way of testing if the AI was intelligent. </p>
<p>So what would today’s AI chatbots have to say about such dialogue? <a href="https://lex.page">Lex.page</a> is an AI-enabled writing tool that can generate text or answer questions. Here is what the AI built into Lex.page said when I asked it about AI and dialogue: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>AI is related to dialogue in a variety of ways. These can be used to create natural, human-like conversations and interactions with users, enabling computers and other devices to understand and respond appropriately to user inputs. It can also be used to analyze and interpret conversation data, helping to improve customer service, detect fraud and more. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The appeal of the Turing Test was that it avoids formally defining intelligence and that it draws on one of the most quintessentially human of interactions, conversation. As the Lex.page AI described it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this so-called “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/">Turing Test</a>,” a human would converse with two entities, one of them being a machine, without knowing which one is the machine. If the human cannot tell the difference between the machine and the other entity, then the AI has passed the Turing Test.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smartphone displaying a chat screen with a message bubble that reads: Hi how can I help?" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504095/original/file-20230111-14-7cgja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As chatbots become more sophisticated they open new opportunities for human-AI dialogue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For decades human-computer dialogue took the form of a command line where you could boss around an operating system. Examples included <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168">Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA</a> which responded like a therapist, asking you what you thought about whatever you mentioned.</p>
<p>What’s changed now is the development of <a href="https://chatbotslife.com/what-are-large-language-models-7b3c4c15e567">Large Language Models (LLMs)</a> that are trained on billions of pages scraped mostly from the web. These are far more literate and capable of holding a conversation or even generating short essays on topics.</p>
<p>The Turing Test was a great way to see if an AI-driven machine is able to fool humans by impersonating them. In 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIa4JJLfzI0">unveiled Duplex</a>, a voice assistant, that was able to book a hair appointment without identifying as an AI.</p>
<p>It is not surprising therefore that it was a <a href="https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917">dialogue with the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA)</a> that convinced Google engineer Blake Lemoine that the AI <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/">might be sentient</a> and therefore worthy of ethical consideration. </p>
<p>As Lemoine said, “If I didn’t know exactly what it was…I’d think it was a 7-year-old, 8-year-old kid that happens to know physics.” When he took the transcripts to higher-ups they dismissed the evidence and when Lemoine went public with his ethical concerns he was placed on paid leave. </p>
<p>So what next? Perhaps we can look back at how dialogue has been discussed in philosophy.</p>
<h2>Dialogue in philosophy</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504099/original/file-20230111-47022-1pqg45.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phaedrus by Plato.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Penguin Random House)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is a long tradition in philosophy of thinking through difficult topics with dialogue. Dialogue is a paradigm for teaching, inquiry and a genre of writing that can represent enlightened conversation. </p>
<p>In the dialogues of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/">Plato</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xenophon">Xenophon</a>, Socrates is presented as doing philosophy through dialogue. Questioning and reflecting back on questions allowed Plato and Xenophon to both explain the uses of dialogue and present models that we still learn from 2000 years later.</p>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/defining-dialogue-from-socrates-to-the-internet/oclc/49711643"><em>Defining Dialogue</em></a>, I document how dialogue is a genre of writing whose popularity waxes and wanes as the culture of inquiry changes. It is also a form of engagement that has been theorized, more recently by scholars like <a href="http://www.europhd.net/sites/europhd/files/images/onda_2/07/27th_lab/scientific_materials/jesuino/bakhtin_1981.pdf">Mikhail Bakhtin</a>. </p>
<p>In Plato and Xenophon’s time, dialogue was a preferred form of philosophical writing. In later periods, works like David Hume’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4583/4583-h/4583-h.htm">Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion</a> (1779) were the exception. They written to handle delicate subjects where an author might want to avoid taking a clear position.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html">Phaedrus</a>, Plato contrasts set speeches with passages of dialogue. He shows Socrates as the master of speeches arguing then for the superiority of dialogue. A speech, like written essays, can’t adapt to a listener or reader. Dialogue, on the other hand, engages listeners in a way AI chatbots might also be adapted to do.</p>
<p>And as Lex.page explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Xenophon’s portrayal, Socrates would ask a series of questions to draw out the ideas of his interlocutor, often turning the conversation around to bring out an opposite point of view in order to examine the argument more fully. He would also engage in <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialectic">dialectic</a>, the practice of seeking truth through the exchange of ideas.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smartphone displaying a chat between a human and AI." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504096/original/file-20230111-21-rb1th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An AI chatbot responds to a question about computers and creativity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Thinking-through dialogue with machines</h2>
<p>Now, with the rise of chatbots, dialogue’s time has come around again. I suggest that we can make a virtue of the availability of these chattering machines. </p>
<p>For example, you can engage with the <a href="https://theoreti.ca/?p=8163">ethics professor</a> I created using <a href="http://character.ai/">Character.AI</a>. Character.AI is a service where you create a fictional character that you and others can then engage in conversation. </p>
<p>Users can question the professor (or other characters) so as to record a dialogue; something they couldn’t do with any old textbook. However, they shouldn’t trust everything the professor says. As the Character.AI site notes, everything the characters say is made up. Perhaps you can get it to admit it isn’t ethical to try to fool us by pretending to be human, something I couldn’t. </p>
<p>In my teaching I ask students to try using these different chatbots to generate dialogues. That raises questions about what a dialogue is supposed to do and how it can be used to convey ideas. It raises questions about how you script an effective dialogue and how to assess it. Students now have reason to reread ancient dialogues to see how they work dramatically. </p>
<p>If we’re worried about <a href="https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-is-getting-better-at-writing-and-universities-should-worry-about-plagiarism-160481">plagiarism</a> why not train students to work with AI writing assistants and learn to think through the dialogue? We could teach them to use chatbots to get ideas, to generate alternative approaches to a topic, to research questions and to edit what they get into a coherent whole. </p>
<p>At the same time, we also have to teach our students to be careful and think critically about engaging with AIs and assessing the credibility of what they say. </p>
<p>By thinking through dialogue we could all rediscover the rich history and potential of this form of engagement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey M Rockwell receives funding from the University of Alberta, the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>The rise of AI chatbots provides an opportunity to expand the ways we do philosophy and research, and how we engage in intellectual discourse.Geoffrey M Rockwell, Professor of Philosophy and Digital Humanities, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893122022-09-20T05:53:27Z2022-09-20T05:53:27ZExplainer: Socrates and the life worth living<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483382/original/file-20220908-9663-euhx78.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C1020%2C771&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Socrates Address – Louis Joseph Lebrun (1867).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Socrates was notoriously annoying. He was likened to a gadfly buzzing around while one is trying to sleep. The Oracle of Delphi declared him the wisest of all human beings. His life and death would go on to shape the history of Western thought.</p>
<p>And yet he proclaimed to know nothing. The genius of Socrates lay in his professed ignorance of what it means to be human.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483383/original/file-20220908-9695-yt97vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Roman copy of a Greek sculpture of Pericles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Socrates (469-399 BCE) grew up in Athens over two and half thousand years ago. At the time, the Athenians were recovering from a devastating war with the Persians. As they rebuilt, the military general and politician, Pericles, championed democracy as the form of government to bring Greece into its Golden Age.</p>
<p>The Athenians practised a direct (as opposed to representative) form of democracy. Any male over the age of 20 was obligated to take part. The officials of the assembly were randomly selected through a lottery process and could make executive pronouncements, such as deciding to go to war or banishing Athenian citizens.</p>
<p>The Athens of Pericles flourished. Bustling crowds of traders from around the Mediterranean gathered at the port of Piraeus. In the Athenian agoras – the central marketplaces and assembly areas – the active social and political lives of the Athenian citizens would inspire the mind of Socrates.</p>
<h2>Socrates at war</h2>
<p>Alcibiades, who would go on to become a prominent Athenian statesman and general, recounts a story of what might be a pivotal moment in the development of Socrates’ thinking.</p>
<p>One morning during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Potidaea">campaign of Potidaea</a>, Socrates became transfixed by a problem that he could not seem to solve. An entire day passed and Socrates had still not moved. In awe, and probably curious to see how long he could keep it up, his fellow soldiers moved their beds outside to watch him during the night. It was not until dawn the next morning that Socrates said a prayer to the new day and walked away.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482176/original/file-20220901-12-i9nlx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alcibades being taught by Socrates – François-André Vincent (1776).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jonathan Lear argues in his <a href="https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_resources/documents/a-to-z/l/Lear%20To%20Become%20Human.pdf">Tanner Lectures</a> that Socrates is not just standing still because he is lost in thought; he is standing still because he cannot walk. He is standing “not knowing what his next step should be”. Socrates wants to move in the right direction, but does not know what direction that is.</p>
<p>We will never know what Socrates was thinking about. But after standing still and thinking, he appears to have become invigorated. Alcibiades tells us that in the battle that followed Socrates saved his life. For the remainder of the campaign, Socrates fought with a fierceness and bravery that exemplified true courage.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-love-in-pop-culture-love-is-often-depicted-as-a-willingness-to-sacrifice-but-ancient-philosophers-took-a-different-view-187159">What is love? In pop culture, love is often depicted as a willingness to sacrifice, but ancient philosophers took a different view</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Socrates the gadfly</h2>
<p>Socrates never wrote anything down. He hungered for the lively exchange of ideas and believed that writing only served to imprison a thought in letters. He argued that the written word shared a strange quality with paintings. Both appear to us “like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence”. </p>
<p>Much of what we know of Socrates’ activities and conversations, and his death, was recorded by his devoted student Plato. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/#SocProWhoWasSocRea">Scholarly debate continues</a> about just how much of Plato’s written record of Socrates’ interrogations we can attribute to Socrates himself. At some point in the Platonic corpus, Socrates becomes a mouthpiece for Plato’s own ideas, but no one can agree precisely when.</p>
<p>Socrates was unsure of what to make of being called the wisest of all human beings. He dedicated his time to questioning fellow Athenians about the nature of things, interrogating ideas such as friendship, love, justice and piety. He was searching for what he believed to be the highest good: knowledge.</p>
<p>The gadfly could show up anywhere. In Plato’s <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0170%3atext%3dEuthyph.">Euthyphro</a>, for example, Socrates bumps into Euthyphro, who is on his way to court about to prosecute his father:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What strange thing has happened, Socrates, that you have left your accustomed haunts in the Lyceum and are now haunting the portico where the king archon sits? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Socrates is intrigued by Euthyphro’s legal case, and so begins his inquiry:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>do you think your knowledge about divine laws and holiness […] is so exact that […] you are not afraid of doing something unholy yourself in prosecuting your father for murder?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Almost every Socratic dialogue is centred around Socrates’ recognition of his own ignorance. In Euthyphro, the subject he interrogates is piety. What follows adheres to a structure shared by most of the other dialogues, which is known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method">elenchus</a> or the Socratic method.</p>
<p>Its basic form is as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Socrates engages an interlocutor who appears to possess knowledge about an idea</p></li>
<li><p>the interlocutor makes an attempt to define the idea in question</p></li>
<li><p>Socrates asks a series of questions which test and unravel the interlocutor’s definition</p></li>
<li><p>the interlocutor tries to reassemble their definition, but Socrates repeats step three</p></li>
<li><p>both parties arrive at a state of perplexity, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aporia">aporia</a>, in which neither can any further define the idea in question.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We can gain a sense of the frustration that this caused some of Socrates’ unwilling victims. Take the final lines of his encounter with Euthyphro as an example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Socrates</strong>: Then don’t you see that now you say that what is precious to the gods is holy? And is not this what is dear to the gods?</p>
<p><strong>Euthyphro</strong>: Certainly.</p>
<p><strong>Socrates</strong>: Then either our agreement a while ago was wrong, or if that was right, we are wrong now.</p>
<p><strong>Euthyphro</strong>: So it seems.</p>
<p><strong>Socrates</strong>: Then we must begin again at the beginning and ask what holiness is. Since I shall not willingly give up until I learn. […]</p>
<p><strong>Euthyphro</strong>: Some other time, Socrates. Now I am in a hurry and it is time for me to go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno">Meno</a>, another of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates likens the sting of aporia to that of an electric stingray:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I find you are merely bewitching me with your spells and incantations, which have reduced me to utter perplexity. And if I am indeed to have my jest, I consider that both in your appearance and in other respects you are extremely like the flat torpedo sea-fish; for it benumbs anyone who approaches and touches it, and something of the sort is what I find you have done to me now. For in truth I feel my soul and my tongue quite benumbed, and I am at a loss what answer to give you. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Throughout the dialogues, Socrates demonstrates the disruptive and disorientating experience of aporia, which emerges from philosophical activity. Reflecting upon the declaration of the Oracle of Delphi, we learn that Socrates was wise because, unlike his interlocutors, he did not proclaim to know what he was ignorant of.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/leaders-as-healers-ancient-greek-ideas-on-the-health-of-the-body-politic-135028">Leaders as healers: Ancient Greek ideas on the health of the body politic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Corrupting the youth and replacing the gods</h2>
<p>In the early days of democracy and in a society which was rapidly expanding, one would think that a revolutionary thinker like Socrates would be a highly prized instrument of intellectual progress. But not everyone appreciated the disorientating sting of the gadfly’s thinking.</p>
<p>Plato would later comment on how the Athenians – and perhaps societies in general – react when faced with the disruptive force of critical reflection.</p>
<p>His famous allegory of the cave, which forms part of his <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/republic/">Republic</a>, is in many ways the story of a philosopher – the story of his great teacher, Socrates.</p>
<p>The allegory begins with prisoners locked in a cave. All the prisoners can see are the shadows of the passing guards reflected on the wall, and the echoes of the world behind them. This is the condition of a society content with the mere illusions of knowledge, a society that is unreflective and stagnant.</p>
<p>One prisoner manages to escape. Turned towards the entry of the cave, he first notices the brightness of the light – like knowledge, the light is uncomfortable and disruptive after years of contentment with shadows.</p>
<p>Escaping the cave, the prisoner </p>
<blockquote>
<p>can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Only after he is able to look straight at the “sun itself” – i.e. knowledge of what is good – “is he able to reason about it” and what it is. The freed prisoner, argues Plato, would realise that life outside is far superior to being inside the cave. He would return and encourage the prisoners to free themselves and look around. But the comfort of their belief in the world of shadows and echoes is a strong force to overcome.</p>
<p>Plato says that the prisoners, fearing what awaits outside of the cave, would react violently towards the freed prisoner – even killing him in order to keep the peace. </p>
<p>This was Socrates’ fate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C65%2C3886%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C65%2C3886%2C2562&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481923/original/file-20220830-33206-esc4pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Death of Socrates – Jacques-Louis David (1787)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When the citizens of Athens had finally had enough of Socrates’ pestering questions, they banded together and accused him of corrupting the youth and attempting to replace the old gods.</p>
<p>He was imprisoned. His followers planned an escape, but he refused. Socrates questioned what was to be gained by escaping. Life itself is not ultimately valuable – surely, he says, it is a good and just life that we ultimately value. If he were to escape, he would only be tarnishing his good life with an act of vengeance against the misinformed Athenian citizens. He had nothing to gain by escaping. He could only preserve the harmony of his own soul by accepting his fate.</p>
<p>In his final stand in front of the Athenian judges, Socrates denies all charges. His only crime was forcing Athenians to think:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If again I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you will believe me still less. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you are to put me to death, warns Socrates, you will not easily find another like me. Striking dead the gadfly of Athens is easy, but “then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless the god in his care of you gives you another gadfly”.</p>
<p>But the judges had made up their minds. The majority voted that Socrates would be executed by drinking hemlock.</p>
<p>Socrates teaches us that philosophical contemplation prepares us for the good life. The experience of aporia – in all of its discomfort and disruption – is the very catalyst of wonder. The philosopher, the lover of wisdom, is anyone who dares to escape the cave and look upon the sun, anyone who lives for the values Socrates died for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oscar Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The great lesson of the ancient philosopher Socrates is that philosophical contemplation itself prepares us for the good life.Oscar Davis, Lecturer in Philosophy and History, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689402021-11-02T19:06:04Z2021-11-02T19:06:04ZPhilosophy and sex work: how courtesans in Ancient Greece crossed the mind/body divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426858/original/file-20211018-21-o7bnis.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4234%2C3301&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attributed to Onesimos (Greek (Attic), active 500 - 480 B.C.) Attic Red-Figure Kylix, about 490 B.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the philosopher and historian Xenophon <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D11%3Asection%3D1">tells the story</a>, Socrates and his friends gathered around a classy sex worker, watching her as if she were a tableau, using her beautiful body to talk about other things that they care more about: desire, love, philosophy.</p>
<p>Then suddenly, the woman they are analysing joins the conversation. Theodote, a rich and beautiful courtesan, asks Socrates a question. Socrates gamely engages her in a witty conversation about the best way to increase desire. Socrates claims he wants to learn the skills of a courtesan in order to attract young men to join his life of philosophy. </p>
<p>While exchanging sexy philosophical chat with Theodote, Socrates had at least one wife of his own at home (possibly <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D5">two at once</a>). But his biographers never show him engaging his wives Xanthippe or Myrto in conversation. Instead, we see Xanthippe encumbered by a baby boy on her knee, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Asection%3D60a">sent away</a> from Socrates’ deathbed in order for the philosophising to begin in earnest among the men.</p>
<p>Socrates can talk philosophically to Theodote and not to Xanthippe because the two women filled very different cultural roles in ancient Greece. Xanthippe’s respectable marriage – even to the controversial vagabond Socrates – placed her in a web of social obligations that prioritised her public silence and her physical obligations of caring for the family’s children and material wealth. </p>
<p>Theodote, on the other hand, made a living by being seductive, through her persuasive rhetoric and her adroitness at caring for her clients. </p>
<p>Her life, and those of women like her, depended on persuasion.</p>
<h2>Participants in the world of thought</h2>
<p>Sex workers in Ancient Greece divided into two somewhat overlapping types. The most common were those who lived in brothels, often enslaved sex workers providing a sanctioned service to the men of the ancient Greek city. The word for this role was <em>porne</em>, from where we get the English word pornography. </p>
<p>Not only did these women lack freedom, but their profession could also be dangerous. Women consigned to this life had no leisure and no expectation of education. </p>
<p>But there was another kind of sex worker who gripped the imagination of writers in the ancient world. These women did not live in brothels, but in their own homes. They granted favours, rather than being bought for a fee, and participated in the language of aristocratic exchange of goods. </p>
<p>They were called “friends”, <em>hetairai</em> in Greek, or, as they came to be known in English, courtesans. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-neaera-the-athenian-child-slave-raised-to-be-a-courtesan-126840">Hidden women of history: Neaera, the Athenian child slave raised to be a courtesan</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These women were seen as having captivating minds, not just captivating bodies. They could be conversation partners and were allowed unprecedented freedom in the ancient world. </p>
<p>Theodote was one of these women. When Socrates sees her, she is sitting next to her “mother”: it was common for courtesans to form female social clusters using the language of family even when the relationship was not biological.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426860/original/file-20211018-15-1wnjwjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These women were seen as having captivating minds, not just captivating bodies, as in this painting of a gathering of Agathon’s friends.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Symposium (Second Version) by Anselm Feuerbach. Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their public status made many of these women notorious. We know a disproportionate amount about women like <a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-neaera-the-athenian-child-slave-raised-to-be-a-courtesan-126840">Neaera</a>, one of several young girls raised to be sex workers by a madam named Nicarete, who called them all her “daughters”; <a href="https://theconversation.com/wise-women-6-ancient-female-philosophers-you-should-know-about-156033">Aspasia</a>, the most famous and controversial courtesan of Classical Greece, whom Aristophanes claims <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0240%3Acard%3D496">ran a brothel</a>; and the plethora of named (albeit fictional) courtesans in <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/motc/motc03.htm">Lucian’s Dialogues of the Prostitutes</a>, including the widow Crobyle who persuades her young daughter Corinna to begin a life of high-class sex work in order to support the family.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wise-women-6-ancient-female-philosophers-you-should-know-about-156033">Wise women: 6 ancient female philosophers you should know about</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A story told by men</h2>
<p>Stories about philosophical courtesans formed part of elite male fantasy. Athenaeus of Naucratis, in the thirteenth book of his <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0008,001:13">Deipnosophistae</a>, preserves a long speech in praise of such high-class sex workers, put in the mouth of the character Myrtilus. </p>
<p>Myrtilus is in turn relying on an ancient book of witticisms, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41809504">Chreiae of Machon</a> written around 250 BCE, which gathered together the clever sayings of many different courtesans. Educated men thought it worthwhile to record and recollect the witty sayings of such women, who (unlike their wives) led a very public life, often as companions of politicians and philosophers.</p>
<p>Of course, in the ancient world, those who preserved and consumed such tales of witty courtesans were men. Women were excluded from the production of their own portrayal.</p>
<p>The connection between sex work and philosophy had a long life in the western tradition. In the 16th century, Tullia d'Aragona <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3251075">featured as a character</a> in Sperone Speroni’s On Love, is given the role of mouthpiece for the carnal, physical side of love. Like Theodote, the male author of the dialogue used the voice of a female sex worker as an expert on the body and its desire. </p>
<p>However, for the first time in the history of the genre of the philosophical dialogue, the woman who was written into a dialogue replied with her own literary work. Tullia soon wrote her own dialogue, <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3636437.html">On the Infinity of Love</a>, in which she critiques Speroni’s stereotypical portrayal of her. </p>
<p>Renaissance women had means of responding to their portrayal in literature in a way unimaginable to their ancient Grecian sisters.</p>
<p>Ancient male writers fantasised alternatives to their wives: sexy philosophers with sharp tongues. But in the ancient world, such women were just as restricted by their stereotypes as the wives with whom they were contrasted.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-and-the-sisterhood-how-prostitution-worked-for-women-in-19th-century-melbourne-89858">Sex and the sisterhood: how prostitution worked for women in 19th-century Melbourne</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dawn LaValle Norman receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Discovery Early Career Research Award (2022-2024) DE220100854.
</span></em></p>Wives were not a part of intellectual life – but sex workers were often seen as having captivating minds, as well as captivating bodies.Dawn LaValle Norman, Research Fellow and ARC DECRA Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318762020-02-20T12:18:09Z2020-02-20T12:18:09ZWhy Trump’s post-impeachment actions are about vengeance, not retribution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316259/original/file-20200219-10991-160q9rw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=61%2C115%2C2509%2C1484&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump fired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for testifying in his impeachment trial. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Vindman/b62383f4da5e4192a08ea73ce861416b/1/0">AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the end of his Senate impeachment trial, President Donald Trump has carried out a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-brings-in-loyalists-and-attacks-enemies-as-post-impeachment-drama-escalates/2020/02/13/f88afb58-4e7f-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html">concerted campaign</a> against <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/26/trump-tweet-adam-schiff/4581430002/">his Democratic political opponents</a> as well as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/07/donald-trump-pressure-impeachment-witness-alexander-vindman-111997">members of his administration</a> who cooperated with them. </p>
<p>A White House <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-109/">statement</a> released immediately after the president’s acquittal seemed to foretell this campaign when it ominously asked, “Will there be no retribution?” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-ousts-vindman-and-sondland-punishing-key-impeachment-witnesses-in-post-acquittal-campaign-of-retribution/2020/02/07/dafbdb90-49be-11ea-bdbf-1dfb23249293_story.html">Reporters</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/02/12/kth-trump-retribution-impeachment-trial-cooper-vpx.cnn">commentators</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/8/21129189/trump-dismissal-vindman-fire-sondland-democrats-outrage">Democratic politicians</a> have all been using the language of retribution to describe Trump’s post-impeachment actions. </p>
<p>On Feb. 8 Adam Schiff, one of the House of Representatives’ impeachment managers, said, “President Trump is exacting his retribution, removing those who complied with subpoenas, came forward and testified about his misconduct.” </p>
<p>I am a scholar who <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691102610/when-the-state-kills">studies the meaning of retribution and its role in punishment</a>. and such descriptions do not seem quite right to me. President Trump’s actions are vengeful, to be sure, but they are not truly retributive. </p>
<h2>What is retribution?</h2>
<p>Many contemporary philosophers distinguish retribution from revenge and argue that retribution is the only <a href="https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1487&context=law_faculty_scholarship">legitimate basis of punishment</a>. </p>
<p>To take one example, political philosopher <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/24/us/robert-nozick-harvard-political-philosopher-dies-at-63.html">Robert Nozick</a> explains the essential features of retribution and the way it differs from revenge in his 1983 book “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674664791">Philosophical Explanations</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316229/original/file-20200219-11023-co8egr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Retribution is not revenge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hand-writing-revenge-marker-concept-background-565315588">dizain/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his view, retribution is a response to a “wrong,” while revenge “may be done for an injury or harm or slight and need not be for a wrong.” </p>
<p>The wrong to which Nozick refers, like the murder of an innocent person, always involves an unjust or immoral action. </p>
<p>Without such injustice or immorality, injuries, harms or slights cannot be called wrongs. The impeachment testimony of members of his administration might have injured the president, but injuries, harms or slights do not provide the basis for genuinely retributive punishment. </p>
<p>Nozick additionally notes that while retribution “sets an internal limit to the amount of punishment, according to the seriousness of the wrong … revenge internally need set no limit to what is inflicted.” </p>
<p>Others, such as the legal theorist <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-life-of-h-l-a-hart-9780199202775?cc=us&lang=en&">H.L.A Hart</a>, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/punishment-and-responsibility-9780199534784?cc=us&lang=en&">concur</a> that retributive punishment must be proportional to the wrong committed. In their view, retribution is inextricably bound up with <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Doing_Deserving.html?id=EEl4KgAACAAJ">the desire to do justice</a>. </p>
<p>Retribution also must be done <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2026803?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">impersonally and rationally</a> with a guiding concern to give offenders what they deserve. </p>
<p>Revenge, in contrast, is personal, passionate and often excessive. Because of these qualities, vengeance, as Nozick puts it, “involves a particular tone, pleasure, in the suffering of another…” Likewise, political theorist <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1992/9/18/judith-shklar-professor-and-noted-theorist/">Judith Shklar</a> <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300045994/faces-injustice">contends</a> that revenge is “uniquely subjective, not measurable, and probably an unquenchable urge of the provoked heart.” She too argues that “it is the very opposite of justice.” </p>
<p>In a study published in 2008, psychologist Kevin Carlsmith and his colleagues <a href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/%7Etdw/carlsmith.wilson.gilbert.jpsp.2008.pdf">tried to explain</a> the excessive quality of revenge. They found that the pleasure in the suffering of another, about which Nozick writes, is ephemeral, leading to recurring efforts to derive satisfaction by ratcheting up the pain inflicted or making others suffer. </p>
<h2>The history of retribution theories</h2>
<p>Efforts to distinguish retribution from revenge can be traced back to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-retributive/">Greek philosophers</a>. Over time retribution became more popular, moving from a position of doubt among the ancients to full embrace by the end of the 18th century. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27798516.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4d049a600df56301bb6e2b6d3f203e7c">Socrates</a> treated retribution as “ignoble and irrational: It piles harm upon harm without accomplishing anything good.” Plato <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/14154/Ladikos_Plato%27s%282005%29.pdf?sequence=">thought</a> retribution was too primitive a motive to justify punishment. Aristotle, in contrast, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IjZfoRd9s8kC&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=greeks+on+retribution+aristotle&source=bl&ots=wmbyrdr-h4&sig=ACfU3U3Y71_JJJd1YbvMrSIJ-0gKx3HFVQ&hl=en&ppis=_c&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7iIGui9znAhXZlXIEHecECUYQ6AEwC3oECA0QAQ#v=onepage&q=greeks%20on%20retribution%20aristotle&f=false">saw a place for it in a just society</a>.</p>
<p>Just before the dawn of the Enlightenment, thinkers also embraced retribution as a form of justice that would civilize and tame the human quest for vengeance. </p>
<p>The English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon, writing in 1625, <a href="https://www.bartleby.com/3/1/4.html">argued</a> that “Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.” Bacon <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ncsUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=Francis+Bacon+retribution&source=bl&ots=nmmgH7WVij&sig=ACfU3U3B0T04MOFQY2rKaeATKGkhcwOHkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjT3LiN09PnAhXStVkKHTb5D-QQ6AEwEHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=retribution&f=false">associated retribution with divine justice</a> and extolled its “magnificence.” </p>
<p>Eighteenth-century philosophers Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel are well known for their embrace of <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajj/article-abstract/39/1/97/120928">retributive punishment and their critiques of vengeance</a>. </p>
<p>“Only the Law of retribution,” Kant <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Metaphysical_Elements_of_Justice.html?id=OhNR-xIkSVoC">wrote</a>, “can determine exactly the kind and degree of punishment; it must be well understood, however, that this determination must be made in the chambers of a court of justice and not in your private judgment.” </p>
<h2>Trump’s revenge</h2>
<p>Distinguishing retribution from revenge helps clarify Trump’s post-impeachment actions, such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/07/803904417/lt-col-alexander-vindman-escorted-out-of-the-white-house-his-lawyer-says">abruptly ending the National Security Council</a> assignment of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/alexander-vindman-gordon-sondland-fired.html">recalling</a> European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316219/original/file-20200219-10995-1b9db8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since his impeachment acquittal, President Trump has been punishing many of those he perceives as foes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Senate-Georgia/c85a5c066206478fa6eef94545e1bb6b/5/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump is striking out at his perceived enemies because of their <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/06/donald-trump-loyalty-staff-217227">disloyalty to him</a>, not because they did anything unjust or immoral. </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-trump-administrations-war-on-the-government-is-an-autocratic-attempt">condemn Trump’s kind of politics</a> and bemoan the damage it does. But calling his actions retributive is not accurate. From my perspective, they are simply vengeful and should be described as such. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s firing of witnesses who testified during his impeachment trial has been described as ‘retribution.’ But these actions are actually revenge, a political scientist says.Austin Sarat, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177952019-06-10T12:59:40Z2019-06-10T12:59:40ZThe struggle to find silence in the ancient monastic world – and now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278539/original/file-20190607-52776-1ajd5j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Monasticism developed, in part, because people were seeking silence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/religious-733253/">Mario Mifsud</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In our contemporary world, noise pollution has reached dangerous levels. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/noise">World Health Organization</a> has argued that “excessive noise” is a serious threat to human health. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24311120">Studies</a> have shown that <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/13/is-noise-pollution-the-next-big-public-health-crisis">excessive exposure</a> to <a href="http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2000;volume=2;issue=7;spage=59;epage=63;aulast=Spreng">noise</a> not only causes hearing loss but also leads to heart disease, poor sleep and hypertension.</p>
<p>In some parts of the world, a mysterious <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/mysterious-hum-driving-people-crazy-around-world-6C10760872">“droning sound,”</a> similar to a “a diesel engine idling nearby,” has been described as “torture” for the small percent of the population that can hear it. </p>
<p>I’m a scholar of early Christianity and my <a href="https://kimhaineseitzen.wordpress.com/">research</a> shows that monasticism developed in part because people were seeking the solace of quiet places.</p>
<p>But for them, like us, it was a struggle.</p>
<h2>Ancient philosophers on noise</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278542/original/file-20190607-52758-5ev6es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seneca.jpg">Peter Paul Rubens</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers frequently regarded noise as a serious <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/discord-9780199600687?cc=us&lang=en&">distraction</a>, one that challenged their ability to concentrate. </p>
<p>To give just one example: The Stoic philosopher <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-greatest-empire-9780190939533?cc=us&lang=en&">Seneca</a> described in great detail the noises coming from a bathhouse just below the room where he was writing, expressing his irritation at the distracting <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/317438/letters-from-a-stoic-by-seneca-translated-by-robin-campbell/9780141395852/">“babel”</a> all around him. At the end of his letter, he says he has decided to withdraw to the country for quiet. </p>
<h2>Noise and Christian monasticism</h2>
<p>There were many reasons why Christian <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/desert-christians-9780195162233?cc=us&lang=en&">monasticism</a> developed. </p>
<p>Ancient Christian writers, like <a href="http://www.paulistpress.com/Products/0484-9/57-john-cassian.aspx">John Cassian</a>, claimed that the origins of monasticism lay in the examples set by the apostles of Jesus, who gave up everything to follow him. </p>
<p>Some modern scholars have argued that monasticism was a natural development following the early history of <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/article/930/the-monastic-movement-origins--purposes/">persecution</a> of Christians, which shaped a view of suffering as a key way to show one’s dedication to the faith. </p>
<p>While the origins of monasticism are not entirely clear, scholars do know that Christian monks drew upon philosophical views about noise and distraction and, in some cases, chose to leave the cacophony of urban life for the wilderness. Even when they stayed in cities or villages, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/virgins-of-god-9780198150442?cc=us&lang=en&">writings</a> from this time period show that they were seeking a life free from the distractions and burdens of society.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the story of <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3008.htm">Paul</a>, a young Christian in third-century Egypt, identified by his biographer, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Jerome/Rebenich/p/book/9780415199063">Jerome</a>, as “the first hermit.” </p>
<p>Jerome says that Paul “amid thunders of persecution retired to a house at a considerable distance and in a more secluded spot.” </p>
<p>The story of Antony, a contemporary of Paul’s, is written by the Alexandrian bishop <a href="https://www.routledge.com/product/isbn/9780415202039?source=igodigital">Athanasius</a>, who describes how <a href="https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS202/The-Life-of-Antony-The-Coptic-Life-and-The-Greek-Life">Antony</a> was left burdened by caring for his sister after the death of his parents. Distracted by the crowds of neighbors demanding access to his parents’ wealth and property he chose to leave his village and embark on a life as a hermit. </p>
<h2>Noise in the desert</h2>
<p>Noise came in many forms. In “<a href="https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS202/The-Life-of-Antony-The-Coptic-Life-and-The-Greek-Life">The Life of Antony</a>,” for example, demons thunder, crash and hiss. Although the descriptions of such sounds might seem to be <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/auditory-hallucination">auditory hallucinations</a>, the texts do regard them as real, not fictional. </p>
<p>Monastic <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/172182/the-rule-of-saint-benedict-by-st-benedict/9780375700170/">rules</a> and <a href="https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS059/the-sayings-of-the-desert-fathers.aspx">sayings</a> instruct monks about the dangers of human speech, laughter, and even the noise of children in monasteries. </p>
<p>These texts emphasize the importance of silence in two forms: a quiet environment in which monks can concentrate and also refrain from too much speaking. Many of the sayings urge monks to <a href="https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS240P/The-Book-of-the-Elders">“keep silent.”</a> </p>
<h2>Seeking silence</h2>
<p>But even as these stories suggest that Christian monks were choosing solitude by going into the desert, the same stories show that silence was not to be found even in the remotest desert wilds. </p>
<p>As the reputation of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/ascetics-society-and-the-desert-9781563382697/">Antony</a> and other monks from Egypt spread around the Mediterranean, the stories of Antony complain that “the desert has become a city.” </p>
<p>Too many people, it seems, sought the wisdom of the hermits and created a distraction akin to city life by taking pilgrimages to see them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278541/original/file-20190607-52741-9f89xt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The quest for silence has been an eternal one.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/icrontic/3711628437">Brian Ambrozy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The challenges of noise and distraction were, in fact, always part of the monastic life. </p>
<p>And so it remains to this day. One of the ways that monks and nuns have dealt with this challenge is by cultivating a sense of inner <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1202835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">silence</a> and inner stillness through practices like meditation, prayer and sitting in solitude. </p>
<p>In Greek, the language of the earliest Christian monastic texts, the word “<a href="https://cistercianpublications.org/Products/CS059/the-sayings-of-the-desert-fathers.aspx">hesychia</a>” is used to describe the “interior stillness … that brings forth all the virtues” and over time it comes to be a central goal of Christian monasticism. </p>
<p>The ancient quest for silence can perhaps teach us how to respond to the challenges of our increasingly loud world and find our own silence. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Haines-Eitzen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Monasticism developed in part because people were seeking the solace of quiet places But finding solitude was a struggle. And many realized that true silence could be found only within.Kim Haines-Eitzen, Professor of Early Christianity, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1042932018-10-18T22:59:45Z2018-10-18T22:59:45ZWhat the world can learn from Greece’s passion for the arts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241342/original/file-20181018-67185-1owi817.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite its economic crises, Greece did not falter in its mission to support arts and culture. Rhodes, pictured here, has become a role model when it comes to promoting a visionary cultural policy and supporting a vibrant arts and culture community.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Serhat Beyazkaya/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout the ages, Greece has created an inspiring legacy in the arts and culture. Renowned Greek philosophers, architects, sculptors, poets and playwrights like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Herodotus, Sophocles, Euripedes and Aeschylus have made remarkable contributions over the centuries to the arts and culture and have <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/greece/">left an indelible foundation for future generations.</a></p>
<p>The Greek model of supporting the arts is both old and ongoing; it embraces difference and internationalism and believes art is the cornerstone to civil society. We should learn from that model. </p>
<p>At the core of the Greek approach to culture is the idea of <em>philoxenia</em>. <em>Philoxenia</em> is a Greek word that has its roots in ancient Greek phraseology; it does not have an equivalent in any of the western languages. The literal translation of <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/philoxenia"><em>philoxenia</em> is “welcoming of foreigners.”</a></p>
<h2>Philoxenia</h2>
<p>But <em>philoxenia</em> has a deeper and broader cultural connotation. It embraces an ethos, a concept and a mindset. It denotes a global outreach, a comfort level with diversity and a cultural ethos of embracing universality.</p>
<p><em>Philoxenia</em> projects a comfort level with engaging the rest of the world. It encourages seeking out of global contexts instead of limiting society to its local environment. It suggests good will towards international cultural outreach. It’s an incubator for a diversity of perspectives and ideas. </p>
<p>This ethos of supporting the arts is not just in the past. As a visiting professor at the <a href="http://www.writerscenter.gr/">International Writers and Translators Centre of Rhodes</a> in the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to witness first-hand the continuing Greek passion for incubating, nurturing and promoting arts and culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241344/original/file-20181018-67179-1qsjh28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greece has a long history of supporting the arts. Here is the Acropolis in Athens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cristina Gottardi/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This foundational and unwavering cultural ethos is their basic philosophy for the arts. The principal belief is that supporting the arts and culture is not a luxury but an investment in human progress. It is the necessary scaffolding for building and sustaining civil society. It is the cornerstone for human growth and development. </p>
<p>Canadian municipalities could stand to learn a lot from this concept of <em>philoxenia</em>. </p>
<h2>The cornerstone to cities</h2>
<p>Inherent in this governance model is the recognition that supporting and funding <a href="https://theconversation.com/creative-canada-reunites-art-and-technology-for-a-brighter-future-86993">arts and culture is not an expense but an investment</a> in the aesthetic development and the progress of civilization and humanity. </p>
<p>Canadian municipalities are the foundational stepping stone for supporting, nurturing and promoting the arts and culture; they are the cornerstone for their cities’ cultural panorama and artistic expression. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-jobs-are-why-a-national-cultural-policy-matters-3430">Municipalities hold the key</a> for turning civil society’s cultural aspirations into a pragmatic reality. What is missing from our Canadian municipal cultural policies is the spirit of <em>philoxenia</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241345/original/file-20181018-67164-1pbd31f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canada could learn from the Greek philosophy of philoxenia that arts - as the cornerstone for civil society - should embrace all. Here the Waterloo Region Museum, Kitchener, Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scott Webb/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Incorporating a form of Canadian philoxenia will allow our cities to embrace a global mindset and an international mission. More importantly, it will require that municipalities acknowledge that their cultural budget is not a frivolous expense but an investment that will deliver cultural dividends in the future.</p>
<h2>A role model for cultural policies</h2>
<p>Greece has been resolute in achieving the ambitious objectives of its cultural policy. Despite wars, natural disasters and economic crises, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/greek-artists-defy-economic-crisis/a-17767080">Greece did not falter in its mission to support, nurture and promote arts and culture</a>. For example, during the heights of the recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/international/greece-debt-crisis-euro.html">economic crisis from 2010-2013</a>, Greece was bankrolling the cost of instructors to teach modern Greek studies at some Canadian universities, including my own at the University of New Brunswick. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.transartists.org/air/international-writers-translators-centre-rhodes">The International Writers and Translators Centre of Rhodes</a> where I was a visiting professor is a beacon for implementing the local cultural policy.</p>
<p>A handful of dedicated professionals administer its programs, supported by the community. Their annual cultural and artistic events includes writers’ workshops, music recitals, school outreach programs, book launches and translation workshops. <a href="http://www.writerscenter.gr/">They support an international talented and creative group of individuals who are shaping the modern face of arts and culture.</a></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.visitgreece.gr/en/greek_islands/rhodes">island of Rhodes</a> is one of the larger Greek islands nestled in the Aegean Sea. The capital city, also called Rhodes, is home to the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/493">UNESCO world heritage site of the medieval city</a>, which is the only European medieval city in continuous habitation. Rhodes is a city where natural beauty, a rich history, a vibrant society and a flourishing cultural scene merge to create a powerful synergy of cultural and artistic expression. </p>
<p>Rhodes has become a role model when it comes to promoting a visionary cultural policy and supporting a vibrant arts and culture community. The cultural centre in Rhodes is serving as an incubator for the next wave of significant contributions to the arts and culture worldwide. </p>
<p>In my opinion, Canadian municipalities are duty-bound to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of its residents. To that government support, artists and cultural producers can add a dash of vision and experimentation while embracing an international and multicultural context.</p>
<p>The financial support plus creative vision can help the arts and culture flourish as a tribute to the enduring value of civil society’s aesthetic elegance and as a monument to the everlasting glory of contemporary civilization.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Constantine Passaris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Greek model of supporting the arts is both old and ongoing; it embraces difference and internationalism and believes art is the cornerstone to civil society. We should learn from that model.Constantine Passaris, Professor of Economics, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1004442018-08-07T10:40:52Z2018-08-07T10:40:52ZWhat philosophers have to say about eating meat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230287/original/file-20180801-136667-pgo0qd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it ethical to eat meat?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/55935853@N00/5652623969/in/photolist-3j8urm-osfk-4Zfi6h-VakeW2-e7rHSr-5HFQNT-JjTSPp-98xU34-apeJrG-bs9jkt-28JiN7q-nc1mDo-fQt7am-7214Cu-o7HxQc-8vXe2G-9BvbaX-8L5MA8-ih11BV-fAfjv-W9N2JQ-o9uvSC-R999iJ-c1C2z7-eJL2hq-SFGVeK-9vF6x-4D5uB7-L57aJ-eh6H7U-bek6oK-ihf3fr-nPEhaM-8zmib1-VAhtnm-FhQk5J-eEDjbv-HrRTAJ-oU2V9F-L57aN-ek8Wpc-a4gLWD-DZ7dpP-cFqbYs-4Jutdo-4LkE78-851Ava-e7QJxq-5GDTBj-2EKpn5">Ewan Munro</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>WeWork, a co-working and office space company, made a company policy last year <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetarian.html">not to serve or reimburse meals</a> that include meat. </p>
<p>WeWork’s co-founder and chief culture officer, Miguel McKelvey, said in an email that it was the company’s attempt at reducing its carbon footprint. His moral arguments are based on the devastating <a href="https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/20_july_2018/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1411113&app=false#articleId1411113">environmental effects</a> of meat consumption. Research has shown that meat and dairy production <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6399/eaam5324">are among the worst culprits</a> when it comes to the production of greenhouse gases and the loss of biodiversity. WeWork estimates the policy will save 445.1 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions by 2023, 16.6 billion gallons of water and 15,507,103 animals.</p>
<p>Indeed, for centuries philosophers have argued against consuming animals. </p>
<h2>Why hurting animals is immoral</h2>
<p>Ancient Greek philosophers made their arguments based on the moral status of animals themselves. Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras made the case against eating animals on grounds of their <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/pythagoras">having souls like humans.</a> </p>
<p>Philosopher Plato, in Book 2 of the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html">“The Republic</a>,” thought of meat as a luxury that would lead to an unsustainable society, filled with strife and inequality, requiring more land and wars to acquire it. </p>
<p>Two thousand years later, in 1789, Jeremy Bentham, father of the theory of utilitarianism, pointed to the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=MtkQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=principles+of+morals+and+legislation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMhObQ4L_cAhUBJ3wKHU_lD_oQ6AEIKTAA%23v=onepage&q=principles%20of%20morals%20and%20legislation&f=false%20">animal suffering</a> as morally concerning and therefore implicated meat consumption. </p>
<p>He asked, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? … The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes … ”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/">doctrine of utilitarianism</a> states that actions that bring about the most good and reduce the suffering in the world are the right ones. Utilitarians focus on reducing suffering and maximizing pleasure or happiness. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230289/original/file-20180801-136646-k2adba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek philosophers thought that hurting animals was immoral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mercyforanimals/3725098320/in/photolist-7xdCHP-6rJvay-7xdCSp-bzMPw3-52fWFe-Sic5tP-6Fb6X7-6aiCRa-asKmTN-5Sb2Ej-6csnWv-DonQJ-9EVLGd-bpzgjE-dGR7x1-X4eNTZ-7wh3Kd-4P9p9n-4Qt9nG-7PcE5C-4PdL3o-7E98FC-4P9jGM-7nkqLS-cZEch9-9ScWGc-627m2E-8E1As6-5TymGg-asGSJx-jLMXq-8E4JN7-7sRdYS-82tw45-7SSHZN-q4bnnJ-CqJwc8-4ZreVT-7dUUHb-kBXbX-y2b4of-26Jkejd-5em3tz-CvRDeA-ujx2gy-b3bFDn-tyuUXc-uvm7oD-y63AU-5rjKPA">Mercy For Animals MFA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Modern-day utilitarian <a href="http://www.petersinger.info/">Peter Singer</a> <a href="https://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html">thus asks</a> whether we are justified in considering our pleasure and pain as more important than that of animals. In being willing to subject animals to the suffering of industrial farming for meat production, he questions whether we are just being “speciesists.” Much like racists, he argues, speciesists favor the interest of their own species. </p>
<p>Other philosophers reject the attention to just the suffering of animals and argue that it is simply wrong to treat animals as our resources whether or not it involves suffering. Just as it would be wrong to treat humans as resources for harvesting organs, it is immoral to raise animals for meat. </p>
<p>Animal rights philosopher <a href="https://www.cultureandanimals.org/about/tom-regan/">Tom Regan</a>, for example, argued that animals are <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/44nee3km9780252074165.html">“the subject of a life,”</a> just as humans are. What he meant was that they too – like humans – are beings who have rights, with their own preferences, wants and expectations.</p>
<p>Making factory farming more humane misses the point of immorality and injustice of the use of animals as resources.</p>
<h2>Human exceptionalism</h2>
<p>Indeed, there are those philosophers who believed that animals do not have moral status equal to humans. </p>
<p>Human exceptionalism is based on the premise that humans have superior abilities compared to other animals. For example, humans can have social relationships, in particular family relationships; they also have the ability to use language; they can reason and feel pain. </p>
<p>Sixteenth-century French philosopher <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/">Rene Descartes</a>, known for his dictum, “I think, therefore, I am,” thought that animals were not conscious, did not have minds and, consequently, did not experience pain. They were, according to Descartes, “automata,” just complex machines. Indeed, his views were later used to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4495509/">justify the practice of vivisection on animals</a> for many centuries. </p>
<p>German philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral">Immanuel Kant</a> argued that it was personhood that distinguished humans from animals. For Kant, humans set their own moral rules based on reason and act upon them. This is something that animals cannot do. </p>
<h2>The moral case against meat</h2>
<p>More astute observations and scientific studies, however, have shown that <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/animals-science-medical-pain/">animals do experience pain</a> analogous to humans and have feelings. For example, elephants have complex emotional lives, including <a href="https://people.com/pets/orca-mother-carries-dead-baby-days">grieving for loved ones</a>, and complex social and family relationships. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0J1plpUfzTk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A mourning orca carries her baby.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/langmind/animalreasoning.pdf">Animals can reason</a>, communicate with one another, <a href="https://ed.ted.com/lessons/do-animals-have-language-michele-bishop">possibly use language in some cases</a> and <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo6407651.html">behave morally</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, excluding animals from moral consideration and eating animals cannot be justified because they lack these characteristics.</p>
<p>Even Kant’s idea that it is the rational autonomy of humans that makes them superior does not work. Infants, Alzheimer’s patients, the developmentally disabled and some others might also be considered lacking in rational autonomy. And personhood, in any case, is not the defining criterion for being treated as an object of moral consideration. In my view, the question to be considered is whether Kant is just being a speciesist, as Singer has charged. </p>
<p>Finally, there are those philosophers who object to eating meat not based on whether animals have rights or whether their suffering should be included in the calculus for assessing moral actions. They focus on the virtues or vices of eating meat.</p>
<p>Virtue theorist <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10362469">Rosalind Hursthouse</a> argues that <a href="http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780199247998.html">eating meat shows one to be</a> “greedy,” “selfish,” “childish.” Other virtue theorists argue that the <a href="https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1204&context=ny_pubs">virtuous person would refrain from eating meat</a> or too much meat out of compassion and caring for animals’ welfare. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230291/original/file-20180801-136679-hw88w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vegetarian meal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/18378305@N00/21016695574/in/photolist-7xdCHP-6rJvay-7xdCSp-bzMPw3-52fWFe-Sic5tP-6Fb6X7-6aiCRa-asKmTN-5Sb2Ej-6csnWv-DonQJ-9EVLGd-bpzgjE-dGR7x1-X4eNTZ-7wh3Kd-4P9p9n-4Qt9nG-7PcE5C-4PdL3o-7E98FC-4P9jGM-7nkqLS-cZEch9-9ScWGc-627m2E-8E1As6-5TymGg-asGSJx-jLMXq-8E4JN7-7sRdYS-82tw45-7SSHZN-q4bnnJ-CqJwc8-4ZreVT-7dUUHb-kBXbX-y2b4of-26Jkejd-5em3tz-CvRDeA-ujx2gy-b3bFDn-tyuUXc-uvm7oD-y63AU-5rjKPA">Can Pac Swire</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1tthUq0AAAAJ&hl=en">moral philosopher</a>, I too believe the suffering of animals in the production of meat, particularly modern industrial meat production, cannot be morally justified. </p>
<p>Thus, in my view, WeWork’s position has a moral basis and powerful philosophical allies.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This piece is part of our series on ethical questions arising from everyday life. We would welcome your suggestions. Please email us at <a href="mailto:ethical.questions@theconversation.com">ethical.questions@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joan McGregor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The coworking company, WeWork, has banned meat, citing an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint. For centuries, philosophers have made a moral case against meat-eating.Joan McGregor, Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812202017-07-20T01:47:26Z2017-07-20T01:47:26ZWhy the US doesn’t understand Chinese thought – and must<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178694/original/file-20170718-2912-196tw9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plato, Confucius and Aristotle. Ancient Greek philosophy is widely taught in American universities, but classes in Chinese philosophy are few and far between.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/china-stature-figure-sculpture-1703288/">Public domain</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The need for the U.S. to understand China is obvious. The Chinese economy is on track to <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/study-china-will-overtake-the-u-s-as-worlds-largest-economy-before-2030/">become the largest in the world by 2030</a>, Chinese leadership may be the key to <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/does-china-have-a-secret-solution-for-north-korea/">resolving the nuclear crisis with North Korea</a> and China has military and economic ambitions in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38729207">the South China Sea</a> and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/china-ready-war-india-open-fire-border-638300">India</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/asia/trump-taiwan-and-china-the-controversy-explained.html">Trump administration has shown</a> (<a href="http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2017/07/10/499312/the-white.htm">repeatedly</a>) that it’s not even clear on the difference between the People’s Republic of China (the authoritarian state that occupies the mainland and that recently <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-winnie-the-pooh-xi-jinping-president-sina-wibo-gifs-wechat-state-censor-communist-congress-a7845671.html">blacklisted Winnie the Pooh</a>) and the Republic of China (the <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/how-contagious-taiwans-democracy">democratic state</a> that occupies the island of Taiwan and that numerous U.S. presidents have defended against <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/aircraft-carriers-in-the-taiwan-strait/">mainland Chinese shows of force</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178700/original/file-20170718-20386-ed77ku.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the G20 conference in Hamburg, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/China-White-House-Gaffe/6c5dca6f7952497c8bd6ee1e9cbc57d1/1/0">Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Part of what U.S. diplomats and informed citizens need to know is the <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/5-colossal-events-changed-china-forever-13046">basic historical background</a> to contemporary China. However, as a <a href="http://www.bryanvannorden.com/">scholar of Chinese philosophy</a>, I believe it’s at least as important to understand how China thinks.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, very few universities in the United States teach traditional Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism or Daoism. Why not? And why should we care?</p>
<h2>Why study Chinese philosophy?</h2>
<p>There are at least three reasons that the lack of Chinese philosophy instruction in U.S. universities is problematic.</p>
<p>First, <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-steps-up-as-us-steps-back-from-global-leadership-70962">China is an increasingly important world power</a>, both economically and geopolitically – and traditional philosophy is of continuing relevance in China. President Xi Jinping <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/xismoments/2017-05/12/content_29324341.htm">has repeatedly praised Confucius</a>, the influential Chinese philosopher who lived around 500 B.C.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"886684878162599936"}"></div></p>
<p>Like the Buddha, Jesus and Socrates, Confucius has been variously interpreted – sometimes idolized and other times demonized. At the beginning of the 20th century, some Chinese modernizers claimed that <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520068377">Confucianism was authoritarian and dogmatic</a> at its core. Other thinkers have suggested that <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9838.html">Confucianism provides a meritocratic alternative</a> that is arguably superior to Western liberal democracy.</p>
<p>Second, Chinese philosophy has much to offer simply as philosophy. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia expressed a common misconception about Chinese philosophy, dismissing it as the “<a href="http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/confucius-on-gay-marriage/">mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie</a>.” In reality, Chinese philosophy is rich in persuasive argumentation and careful analysis. </p>
<p>For example, Georgetown professor <a href="http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/emc89/">Erin Cline</a> has shown how Confucian ethics can provide a deeper understanding of <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/families-of-virtue/9780231171557">ethical issues regarding the family</a> and can even inform policy recommendations. Confucians emphasize both the role of parents in nurturing children and the responsibility of government to create environments in which families can flourish. Cline demonstrates that practical initiatives like the <a href="http://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/about">Nurse-Family Partnership</a> help to realize both goals.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178698/original/file-20170718-10320-1ib05v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chinese philosophers like Confucius have much to teach us. So why are they being ignored in many American universities?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bibbit/2700170983/">Bridget Coila</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The third reason that it’s important to add Chinese philosophy to the curriculum has to do with the need for cultural diversity. As two philosophers <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0306-schwitzgebel-cherry-philosophy-so-white-20160306-story.html">pointed out</a> in a Los Angeles Times op-ed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…academic philosophy in the United States has a diversity problem. …Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents receiving philosophy Ph.D.’s in this country, 86 percent are non-Hispanic white. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both my own experience and that of many of my colleagues suggest that part of the reason for this is that students of color are confronted with a curriculum that appears to be a temple to the achievements of white men. We need to expand the philosophical curriculum to include not only Chinese philosophy, but also the other <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/taking-back-philosophy/9780231184373">less commonly taught philosophies</a>, including Africana, feminist, indigenous American, Islamic, Latin American and South Asian philosophies.</p>
<h2>Just how bad is the situation?</h2>
<p>Most philosophy departments <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/opinion/if-philosophy-wont-diversify-lets-call-it-what-it-really-is.html">seem unwilling to admit</a> there’s philosophy outside of the European tradition that’s worth studying.</p>
<p>Among the <a href="http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp">top 50 philosophy departments in the U.S.</a> that grant a Ph.D., only six (by my reckoning) have a member of their regular faculty who teaches Chinese philosophy: <a href="https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Doctoral-Programs/Philosophy/Faculty-Bios/Hagop-Sarkissian">CUNY Graduate Center</a>, <a href="http://philosophy.duke.edu/people/david-b-wong">Duke University</a>, <a href="https://philosophy.berkeley.edu/people/detail/336">University of California at Berkeley</a>, <a href="http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/%7Eeschwitz/">University of California at Riverside</a>, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/alexusmcleod013/home">University of Connecticut</a> and <a href="http://warpweftandway.com/sonya-hired-michigan/">University of Michigan</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178697/original/file-20170718-5965-aoczbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parmenides (center) and Heraclitus (right) are relatively obscure Greek philosophers, but their disagreement on the changing nature of the universe is still widely taught in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/14770157081">Raphael via Steven Zuker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, every one of the top 50 schools has at least one regular member of the philosophy department who can lecture competently on <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides/#WayCon">Parmenides</a>, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. His only surviving work is a poem filled with cryptic utterances like: “for not to be said and not to be thought / is it that it is not.” Is this really more profound than the sum total of Chinese philosophy?</p>
<p>I was recently part of <a href="http://www.apaonline.org/?page=E2016_Invited">a panel at a major academic conference</a> that was specifically advertised as an opportunity for nonspecialists to learn about Chinese philosophy. While other sessions at the conference had packed rooms, we lectured to an audience of fewer than a dozen people.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115673/original/image-20160319-4446-1et00s5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Empty room at the start of an American Philosophical Association panel on Chinese philosophy on Jan. 6, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bryan W. Van Norden</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, at Chinese universities, both Western and traditional Chinese philosophy are routinely taught. China is also heavily investing in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-chinas-education-strategy-fits-into-its-quest-for-global-influence-50864">higher education</a>, while the Trump administration <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-trumps-harsh-education-cuts-undermine-his-economic-growth-goals-78297">hopes to slash funding for education</a>. I expect that China understands the U.S. better than we understand it.</p>
<h2>What does the future hold?</h2>
<p>At the beginning of this article, I cited some reasons that China is increasingly important on the world stage. Here’s one more: China is currently starting upon one of the most ambitious building projects in all of human history, the <a href="http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/reviving-the-ancient-silk-road-whats-the-big-deal-about-chinas-one-belt-one-road">One Belt, One Road</a> initiative. A modern version of the ancient <a href="http://en.unesco.org/silkroad/about-silk-road">Silk Road</a>, it will expand and solidify Chinese economic and political power across all of Eurasia. </p>
<p>Can the U.S. really afford not to understand this country? As <a href="http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&id=1117#s10019891">Confucius said,</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Do not worry that others fail to understand you; worry that you fail to understand others.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>This draws on material previously published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-philosophy-is-missing-from-u-s-philosophy-departments-should-we-care-56550">this article</a> from May 18, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan W. Van Norden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s more important than ever that the U.S. understand China. So why don’t our universities teach Chinese thought?Bryan W. Van Norden, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor, Yale-NUS CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/727152017-02-13T14:26:23Z2017-02-13T14:26:23ZWhat Plato can teach you about finding a soulmate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156392/original/image-20170210-23350-1mxd5rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In the beginning, humans were androgynous. So says Aristophanes in his fantastical account of the origins of love in Plato’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VV2wFhaVDBsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Symposium.</a></p>
<p>Not only did early humans have both sets of sexual organs, Aristophanes reports, but they were outfitted with two faces, four hands, and four legs. These monstrosities were very fast – moving by way of cartwheels – and they were also quite powerful. So powerful, in fact, that the gods were nervous for their dominion.</p>
<p>Wanting to weaken the humans, Zeus, Greek king of Gods, decided to cut each in two, and commanded his son Apollo “to turn its face…towards the wound so that each person would see that he’d been cut and keep better order.” If, however, the humans continued to pose a threat, Zeus <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VV2wFhaVDBsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=hopping&f=false">promised</a> to cut them again – “and they’ll have to make their way on one leg, hopping!”</p>
<p>The severed humans were a miserable lot, Aristophanes <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VV2wFhaVDBsC&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=longed&f=false">says</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[Each] one longed for its other half, and so they would throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally, Zeus, moved by pity, decided to turn their sexual organs to the front, so they might achieve some satisfaction in embracing.</p>
<p>Apparently, he initially neglected to do so, and, Aristophanes <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VV2wFhaVDBsC&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=cicadas&f=false">explains</a>, the severed humans had “cast seed and made children, not in one another, but in the ground, like cicadas.” (a family of insects)</p>
<p>So goes Aristophanes’ contribution to the Symposium, where Plato’s characters take turns composing speeches about love – interspersed with heavy drinking.</p>
<p>It is no mistake that Plato gives Aristophanes the most outlandish of speeches. He was the famous comic playwright of Athens, responsible for bawdy fare like <a href="http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Lysistrata.htm">Lysistrata</a>, where the women of Greece “go on strike” and refuse sex to their husbands until they stop warring.</p>
<p>What does Aristophanes’ speech have to do with love?</p>
<h2>Is love a cure for our “wound?”</h2>
<p>Aristophanes says his speech explains “the source of our desire to love each other.” He <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VV2wFhaVDBsC&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=tries%20to%20make%20one%20out%20of%20two%20and%20heal%20the%20wound%20of%20human%20nature&f=false">says</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature. Each of us, then, is a ‘matching half’ of a human whole…and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This diagnosis should sound familiar to our ears. It’s the notion of love engrained deep in the American consciousness, inspiring Hallmark writers and Hollywood producers alike – imparted with each Romantic Comedy on offer.</p>
<p>Love is the discovery of one’s soulmate, we like to say; it is to find your other half – the person who completes me, as <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-towering-narcissism-of-jerry-maguire">Jerry Maguire</a>, Tom Cruise’s smitten sports agent, so famously put it.</p>
<p>As a philosopher, I am always amazed how Plato’s account here, uttered by Aristophanes, uncannily evokes our very modern view of love. It is a profoundly moving, beautiful, and wistful account. </p>
<p>As Aristophanes depicts it, we may see love as the cure for our wound, or the “wound of human nature.” So, what is this wound? On one hand, of course, Aristophanes means something quite literal: the wound perpetrated by Zeus. But for philosophers, talk of a “wound of human nature” suggests so much more.</p>
<h2>Why do we seek love?</h2>
<p>Humans are inherently wounded, the Greek philosophers agreed. At the very least, they concluded, we are prone to fatal habits, seemingly engrained in our nature.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156396/original/image-20170210-23337-1qkxr89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek Goddess of Love, Aphrodite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?src=gMIiM5p57KbIUNYvKKiSgw-1-33">Aphrodite image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Humans insist on looking for satisfaction in things that cannot provide real or lasting fulfillment. These false lures include material goods, also power, and fame, Aristotle <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html">explained</a>. A life devoted to any of these goals becomes quite miserable and empty.</p>
<p>Christian philosophers, led by Augustine, accepted this diagnosis, and <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm">added</a> a theological twist. Pursuit of material goods is evidence of the Fall, and symptomatic of our sinful nature. Thus, we are like aliens here in this world – or as the Medievals would put it, pilgrims, on the way to a supernatural destination.</p>
<p>Humans seek to satisfy desire in worldly things, Augustine <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm">says</a>, but are doomed, because we bear a kernel of the infinite within us. Thus, finite things cannot fulfill. We are made in the image of God, and our infinite desire can only be satisfied by the infinite nature of God.</p>
<p>In the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18269/18269-h/18269-h.htm">offered</a> an account of the wound of our nature more in tune with secular sensibilities. He claimed that the source of our sins and vices lay in our inability to sit still, be alone with ourselves, and ponder the unknowable.</p>
<p>We seek out troublesome diversions like war, inebriation or gambling to preoccupy the mind and block out distressing thoughts that seep in: perhaps we are alone in the universe – perhaps we are adrift on this tiny rock, in an infinite expanse of space and time, with no friendly forces looking down on us.</p>
<p>The wound of our nature is the existential condition, Pascal suggests: thanks to the utter uncertainty of our situation, which no science can answer or resolve, we perpetually teeter on the brink of anxiety – or despair.</p>
<h2>Is love an answer to life’s problems?</h2>
<p>Returning to Plato’s proposition, issued through Aristophanes: how many view romantic love as the answer to life’s problems? How many expect or hope that love will heal the “wound” of our nature and give meaning to life?</p>
<p>I suspect many do: our culture practically decrees it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156397/original/image-20170210-23361-kk2eee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is romantic love an answer to life’s problems?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnylcy/8522901355/in/photolist-dZ96D6-PAJsY-3f9uAJ-d1D8rL-aoJVAg-4mP5Zo-9mcakh-9fTvLD-64pY5E-nDSPHj-c6yJ1s-ddtcfy-3oYpMW-HjCjC-asuKVc-8M91YC-9HVwAr-N23oZ-64sSdo-a2QrC8-6mrQB7-bo96ni-9mca9Q-38Y23J-aqRUju-7xwhqp-76DFrq-dMAWYZ-9zLxe-n9uF9o-kY2SX-arGAJn-9vpW1g-6Z84yk-4kqXga-7Lukut-5L2kwM-fuzerY-8hWM3c-2Qwvso-emWdnu-hnnUvt-7LyBV9-8M91N5-8Ck3qM-7LyiPS-ajWo2i-imaoJP-qCTDuM-3f7Ws7">Johnny Lai</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Your soulmate, Hollywood says, may take a surprising, unexpected form – she may seem your opposite, but you are inexplicably attracted nonetheless. Alternately, your beloved may appear to be initially boorish or aloof. But you find him to be secretly sweet.</p>
<p>Hollywood films typically ends once the romantic heroes find their soulmates, offering no glimpse of life post-wedding bliss, when kids and work close in – the real test of love.</p>
<p>Aristophanes places demands and expectations on love that are quite extreme.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[When] a person meets the half that is his very own,” he exclaims, “something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment. These are people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sounds miraculous and alluring, but Plato doesn’t believe it. Which is why he couches it in Aristophanes’ satirical story. In short: it’s all quite mythical.</p>
<h2>Does true love exist?</h2>
<p>The notion of “soulmate,” implies that there is but one person in the universe who is your match, one person in creation who completes you – whom you will recognize in a flash of lightening. </p>
<p>What if in your search for true love, you cast about waiting or expecting to be star-struck – in vain? What if there isn’t a perfect partner that you’re waiting for? </p>
<p>Is this one reason why, as the Pew Research Center <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/record-share-of-americans-have-never-married/">reports</a>, we see a record number of unmarried Americans?</p>
<p>Alternately, what if you dive into a relationship, marriage even, expecting the luster and satiation to endure, but it does not, and gives way to…ordinary life, where the ordinary questions and doubts and dissatisfactions of life reemerge and linger?</p>
<p>In his book <a href="http://thepenguinpress.com/book/modern-romance/">Modern Romance</a>, actor and comedian <a href="http://azizansari.com/">Aziz Ansari</a> tells of a wedding he attended that could have been staged by Aristophanes himself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The vows…were powerful. They were saying the most remarkable things about each other. Things like ‘You are a prism that takes the light of life and turns it into a rainbow’…” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The vows, Ansari explains, were so exultant, so lofty and transcendent, that “four different couples broke up, supposedly because they didn’t feel they had the love that was expressed in those vows.”</p>
<h2>Enduring love is more mundane</h2>
<p>Love is not the solution to life’s problems, as anyone who has been in love can attest. Romance is often the start of many headaches and heartaches. And why put such a burden on another person in the first place?</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156422/original/image-20170210-23347-dbeqzx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">True love is more mundane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/556423318?src=4HvJd4XDMU2SfB-va30bQg-2-54&size=huge_jpg">Couple image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It seems unfair. Why look to your partner to heal an existential wound – to heal your soul? This is an immense responsibility no mere mortal can address. </p>
<p>I accept the backhanded critique Plato offers here through Aristophanes. Though I am hardly an expert on the matter, I have found his message quite accurate in this respect: true love is far more mundane.</p>
<p>I should specify: true love is mundane in its origins, if not in its conclusion. That is to say, true love is not discovered all of a sudden, at first sight, but rather, it’s the product of immense work, constant attention, and sacrifice.</p>
<p>Love is not the solution to life’s problems, but it certainly makes them more bearable, and the entire process more enjoyable. If soulmates exist, they are made and fashioned, after a lifetime partnership, a lifetime shared dealing with common duties, enduring pain, and of course, knowing joy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Firmin DeBrabander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Romantic love is seen as the answer to life’s problems, when it could often be the start of many headaches and heartaches. So, what is true love?Firmin DeBrabander, Professor of Philosophy, Maryland Institute College of ArtLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.