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Show Chapter I. General Introduction to the Project: The Enterprise of Socratic Metaethics 4 reason in all that he encountered. And if you are not yet Socrates, yet you ought to live as one who would wish to be a Socrates.1 Think of these injunctions as conjointly constitutive of the Socratic ideal. As the product of biographical fact, Epictetus' loyalty to the Socratic ideal, and in particular his injunctions to "transgress in nothing the clear pronouncement of reason," and to "atten[d] to nothing but reason in all that [we] encounte[r]" are an expression of wisdom borne of the personal experience of enslavement. They attest to the valuation and cultivation of transpersonal rationality as the weapon of choice for the unempowered to use on their own behalf. They both underwrite Nietzsche's analysis of reason and the spirit as central values of a "slave morality," and demonstrate how that "slave morality" may have a kind of dignity that übermenschlichen views lack. For if a person's freedom and power to gratify his impulses is greater, then he may well find the egocentric indulgence of emotion, spontaneity, instinct, and the manipulation of power more attractive; and development of the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality correspondingly less necessary, interesting, or valuable. After all, such individuals have at hand other reserves - of wealth, status, influence and coercion - on which to draw to achieve their ends. The unique quality of ends that the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality themselves inspire therefore may be accorded correspondingly less importance, if they are noticed in the first place. For such individuals, the Socratic ideal is no ideal at all; and perfunctory lip service to the value of rational decision-making is merely one dispensable strategy among others for facilitating the ongoing indulgence of impulse. Philosophy as an intellectual discipline is fundamentally defined and distinguished from other intellectual disciplines by its de facto loyalty to the character dispositions of transpersonal rationality, and so to the Socratic ideal. Anglo-American analytic philosophy is committed to these values with a particularly high degree of self-consciousness. Whatever the content of the philosophical view in question, the norms of transpersonal rationality define its standards of philosophical exposition: clarity, structure, coherence, consistency, subtlety of intellectual discrimination. And as a professional and pedagogical practice, philosophy is ideally defined by its adherence to the norms of rational discourse and criticism. In philosophy the appeal is to the other's rationality, irrespective of her personal, emotional or professional investments, with the purpose of convincing her of the veracity of one's own Epictetus, Enchiridion LI. I have consulted two translations: P.E. Matheson (Oxford: Clarendon Press), reprinted in Jason L. Saunders, Ed. Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle (New York: The Free Press, 1966), 147; and George Long (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1956), 202-203. 1 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
