J: 'Was Polus Refuted?' Essay

Was Polus refuted?

In the Gorgias there are several issues of contention that cannot be discussed in full, yet nonetheless can affect greatly whatever conclusions are made in this essay. For instance distinguishing what Socrates thought from what the Platonic Socrates thought is difficult, but this seems more fitting for the study of classics. There is dispute regarding translations too, definitions make or break arguments and it is not always crystal clear the English term is what was meant. In this essay I have used the World Classics translation as a base¹, but much of the quotation comes from an article by Gregory Vlastos. The Platonic Socrates will be simply called Socrates, for the sake of brevity.

In Plato's Gorgias,the discussion between Socrates and Gorgias comes to an end when Polus interrupts and accuses Socrates of putting Gorgias in a position where he felt too ashamed to say what he really thought. They continue along the issue of rhetoric, which Polus initially advocates the teaching and use of, while Socrates disagrees. The discussion moves from rhetoric to power, where Polus sets out his position that wronging another is better than suffering wrong, while admitting that wronging another is 'uglier' than suffering wrong. The introduction of the term 'ugly' is exploited by Socrates, and in the text, it is clear he thinks he has refuted Polus and asserted his own position. Gregory Vlastos was the first to dispute this in his article of the same name as the essay, writing “[Plato] thought Socrates' dialectic had refuted Polus' doctrine, when all it had done was to refute the man.”² This is the line I will take in answering “was Polus refuted?”. Polus was certainly inconsistent in what he said, or was lead to say, and so 'lost' the argument, but I do not think his central premises about suffering and committing wrong were shown to be contradictory in themselves, as Socrates claims. I agree with Vlastos' answer that Polus the man was refuted, but the doctrine of Polus was not.

The doctrine of Polus can be considered a pair of premises, which Socrates thinks are contradictory:

Doing wrong to another is better than having wrong done to you.

And

 Doing wrong to another is more ugly than having wrong done to you.

This doctrine has a intuitive feeling to it. Premise 1 is particularly survival-based, it is not strictly advocating doing wrong, just that it is preferable given the alternative of suffering it. Premise 2 contains the ambiguity Socrates exploits, whether intentionally or not is hard to say, though if he is to be believed, he thinks he is proving Polus wrong with the truth, and brags“the truth can never be proved wrong”³. The ambiguity is to whom doing wrong is more ugly to. Does Polus mean:

'Doing wrong to another is more ugly to the wrongdoer'

or

'Doing wrong to another is more ugly to the audience'

Where 'audience' could mean the sufferer, the public in general, or someone present at the time of wrong-doing. The exact meaning of audience is not all that important, almost any interpretation of 'audience' as long as it is understood as not the wrongdoer, would get Polus out of the contradiction Socrates claims is contained in premise 1 and 2. 

After Polus' premises are made, Socrates starts by asking him of beauty; “In the case of all beautiful things-such as bodies, colours, figures, sounds, practices - don't you call them "beautiful" with an eye to something?”⁴ before stating examples of the listed beautiful things. It is very clear from this statement however that things are considered beautiful by the beholder or viewer with an eye to something, that is, a standard of the beholders creation, that is used to decide if it is beautiful or not. The objective conclusion Socrates reaches cannot at all be considered to be present in this first statement.

In the first example the standards of beauty one compares bodies to is “...either on account of their usefulness for some particular purpose or because of a certain pleasure, if they delight their beholder in beholding them”.⁴

The qualification “...if they delight their beholder in beholding them” is meant to carry over to examples 2 and 3, in which Socrates shortens the sentences, which begin with “So too in the case of...”⁴ and “And likewise in the case of...”⁴ This manner of considering examples is clearly intended to keep the same qualification even though it is omitted after example 1.

Example 4: “And further in the case of laws and practices: does not their beauty fall within the scope of usefulness or pleasure or of both?”⁴

the use of “and further in the case of...” makes it seem that this example has the same form as the previous ones which all had the qualification of 1: “...if they delight their beholder in beholding them” but Socrates is not asking this at all, it is now a question of usefulness or pleasure of both, the importance of how things seem to the beholder is gone, and peerless Polus does not notice it.

Socrates uses this to conclude “So when one of two beautiful things is the more beautiful, it must be so by surpassing the other in one or the other or both of these two respects: pleasurableness, usefulness, or both...”⁴ if the examples were supposed to be consistent with the statement and first premises qualification of beauty, this conclusion does not follow, and no doubt Polus would be confused as to how he had hidden this peculiar opinion in his very bare premises.

All the quotations thus far have come from Vlastos' 'Was Polus Refuted?', but here it is not helpful to use the translation he used for Socrates' definition of ugly “...And when one of two ugly things is the uglier, it must be so by surpassing the other in painfulness or in evil”⁴ where Vlastos says in substituting 'evil' for 'harmfulness' and 'good' for 'usefulness' there is no skulduggery. If we keep in mind that the respects that they have agreed on are usefulness for a purpose, and pleasure, we can re-word it in a way that doesn't introduce new synonyms 'And when one of two ugly things is the uglier, it must be so by surpassing the other in unpleasantness or in harmfulness' where harmfulness is meant as harmful to a purpose, in this way it is the opposite of usefulness to a purpose. This is almost exactly the form that is found in the Oxford World Classics translation:

“And when one of a pair of contemptible things is more contemptible than the other, this is because it exceeds the other either in unpleasantness or in harmfulness.”⁵

More simply one could say:

'when one of two ugly things is the uglier, it must be so by being more harmful or more unpleasant.'

Polus accepts this formulation, and now the stage is set for Socrates' decisive argument, or so he thinks.

The dialogue Socrates uses, while rather straight forward, masks the ambiguity we identified at the start of this essay in Polus' second premise regarding to whom doing wrong is ugly to. Therefore I will present the few pages of dialogue in premises and conclusion form that was given in the relevant lectures, using the above formulation of 'more ugly'.

1. Doing wrong to another is more ugly than having wrong done to you.
2. This must be because doing wrong to another is either:
   a) more harmful than having wrong done to you.
   Or
   b) more unpleasant than having wrong done to you.
3. One could find doing wrong pleasant.
4. Therefore, 2-b is not the case.
5. Therefore, 2-a is the case: Doing wrong to another is more harmful than having wrong done to you.

Socrates concludes Polus' premise 'Doing wrong to another is better than having wrong done to you' is inconsistent with 5. Since 5 follows from 1 (Polus' other premise) Polus' doctrine is refuted. This is not necessarily the case. Remember the ambiguity of 'more ugly to whom', and we can reformulate Socrates' argument as

1. Doing wrong to another is more ugly than having wrong done to you.
2. This must be because doing wrong to another is either:
   a) more harmful to the wrong-doer than having wrong done to you.
   b) more harmful for the audience than having wrong done to you.
   c) more unpleasant to the wrong-doer than having wrong done to you.
   d) more unpleasant for the audience than having wrong done to you.
3. The wrong-doer could find doing wrong pleasant.
4. Therefore, 2-c is not the case.
5. Therefore, 2-a is the case: Doing wrong to another is more harmful to the wrong-doer than having wrong done to you.

In this argument 5 clearly does not follow from 1-4. 2-b is trivial, as the audience would be not be harmed by you doing wrong or suffering wrong. But there is nothing to stop 2-d being the case, in fact it seems this is the sense in which Polus meant his premise to be read. It seems to be the case that the audience would find your actions more unpleasant when you do wrong. The audience would have to be pretty unsympathetic to find you suffering wrong more unpleasant than you doing wrong.

To recognise that this argument does not lead to the internal contradiction of Polus' premises 'Doing wrong to another is better than having wrong done to you' and 'Doing wrong to another is more ugly than having wrong done to you' Is to recognise Socrates did not refute Polus entirely. Polus was certainly defeated by first failing to see the essential difference between pleasure and pleasure to the beholder, and secondly letting Socrates change the meaning of his second premise through the ambiguity of 'ugly to whom'. Of course it could be said that Polus really meant 'ugly to the wrong-doer' but this makes the two premises so obviously contradictory it seems no-one would bother to think of them as a doctrine. Terrence Irwin suggests had Polus not denied that 'doing wrong is worse for the wrong-doer than suffering wrong' in the objective sense of 'wrong', whether or not he realised it, denied himself an avenue of escape by suggesting 'suffering wrong is worse for me than some shameful actions'.⁶

Additionally, Polus could have meant ugly in that sense but retain the qualification of 'to the beholder' and so avoid Socrates' strict objective dichotomy of harmful and unpleasant. For these reasons, it was not the doctrine of Polus that was shown to be inconsistent by Socrates, and hence refuted, but merely the man.

Bibliography

1Robin Waterfield, The World Classics Plato Gorgias, Oxford University Press 1994

2 Gregory Vlastos, “Was Polus Refuted?” The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4, (Oct., 1967), pp. 454-460. The Johns Hopkins University Press, page 459

3 Robin Waterfield, The World Classics Plato Gorgias, section 473b page 47

4 Gregory Vlastos, “Was Polus Refuted?” The American Journal of Philology, page 455

4 Gregory Vlastos, “Was Polus Refuted?” The American Journal of Philology, page 455

5 Robin Waterfield, The World Classics Plato Gorgias, section 475b page 50

6Terence Irwin, Plato's Ethics, Oxford University Press Inc. (1995) page 100

I was kinda wrong.

My theory is a form of probabilism, woops. 

I would like to point out however that in my post "what up with probabilism" i explain what i thought probabilism was:

"Probabilism just isn't explanatory and doesn’t really justify its probabilistic prediction. Why would dividing observed cases by possible cases produce a percentage which is reliable? Fuck knows, I don’t even think they know. Do you know?"

No one corrected me or infact commented at all.

Secondly, I commented on jonos FIRST response that my theory relys on a probabilistic principle.

"yes a probabilistic principle is assumed in both predictions. This principle is the argument stated at the top of my last post... "

The response to which should have been "sam, you silly goose, any theory which relys on a probabilistic principle is probabilism."

This kind of point could have saved us alot of time. Anyway let’s move forward :)

Jonos objection seems to be the contradiction of the following two claims:

1.       'denying probability can be assigned concerning POTENTIAL occurance'

2.       Just because the ACTUAL probabilities are unknown, that does not rule out using probability to pick the option with more possibilities as you say.

By “denying that probability can be assigned to potential occurances” I only mean that the actual probabilities are unknown.

By “using probability to pick the option with more probability” I only mean that my theory applies the probabilistic argument stated initially

I can apply my probabilistic argument to such cases where the actual probabilities are unknown. No contradiction occurs.

I would like to bring your attention to “J: response to S’s rigged die scenario”

You say “All I know is, guessing that it will land on a number higher than 1 contains 5 out of the 6 possible outcomes, while guessing 1 contains 1 out of 6 possible outcomes. Therefore it is more reasonable (you say reasonable, but whether it be reasonable probable, i dont care, take your pick)”

By the same logic can you not say “it is more reasonable to guess that the pattern will continue at least once, than it is reasonable to guess that the pattern will cease”

If so, then the theory works does it not.

J: Why I don't accept your solution to Induction

You wrote in a comment:

"Just because the ACTUAL probabilities are unknown, that does not rule out using probability to pick the option with more possibilities as you say."
ah, yup. cant disagree with that. infact thats about the crux of my argument.
"if all values are equal, choose the option with the most possibilities over those with less possibilities"
i dice example the values (i assume you mean probabistic value) are not equal, their unknown.
"Therefore I think you may as well say 'not 1' is more probable, given the circumstances"
your saying “not one” is more probable? i agree.
and of corse to pick the option which is "more probable" is going to be "more reasonable" which is why i use both terms interchangably.

You agreed with me that one can use probability despite not knowing the actual outcomes.

The actual outcomes of the scenario are (Pr)=1 it will land on the rigged number, and (Pr)=0 it will land on the other 5 numbers. in other words, the dice always lands on the rigged number, and never lands on the non-rigged numbers.

In this I concede your second point that the probabilistic value of numbers 1-6 are not equal, but unknown.

BUT, this is only their actual values. I was talking about the values the guesser assigns to the numbers 1-6, given that they know one number is rigged, but do not know which. In this case, the guesser assigns each number the equal probabilistic value of 1/6 chance of coming up.

Are you suggesting this cannot be done? Are you saying this is an illegitimate use of probability simply because I do not know the actual outcomes? I submit that this is how probability works.

For instance, a coin toss is said to be 50/50. In reality, it is not. The hieght one flips it, which side it was rested on the thumb, the possibility of landing on the edge and not a face, etc etc are all tiny factors. But we ignore them because on the whole, the coin lands equally on heads and tails. The actual probability has nothing to do with saying this. 

What factors into assigning probabilistic value is what is known. Therefore the values of 1-6 as the guesser knows it, are equal, for he cannot consider that one of them is rigged as useful infomation as his guess as to which number is rigged would also be equally spread amoungst the numbers. The scenario to the guesser is the same as one in which he knows the dice is fair.

It is confusing to me that you agree that "more reasonable" is interchangable with "more probable". Why bother to avoid the term 'probable' then? It seems to be mere avoidance so you can say your theory is not probabilism.

I think it is, you are just applying it in a second-order manner, not directly to the dice values, but to guessing groups of values, as you say:

"the pattern continues at least once"...is reasonable to choose over "the pattern doesn't continue"

I think you have in your head a very specific idea of what probabilism is, but if you do a little googling, you will find when it comes to philosophy, as it always does, there is a fucktonne of different theories and aspects to probability and probabilism.

But, regardless, my claim is that your theory cannot contribute a new way of looking at induction when your conculsion of a 'more reasonable' option can be reduced to 'more probable', as you yourself said they are interchangable. This is a telling sign that your theory is an application of probability, not a new solution.

Finally, I remind you of your own argument:

"If all the possible future variations concerning a particular state of affairs are known,

And if no probability can be assigned concerning the potential occurrence to those states of affairs,

And a similarity is present among the majority of the possible states of affairs,

Then it is reasonable to believe that an outcome will occur in which the similarity is present."

 

You have contradicted yourself in admitting the interchangability of reasonable and probable.

You cannot have it both ways, in 'denying probability can be assigned concerning POTENTIAL occurance', you have specified you are not talking about ACTUAL probability here.

Then you say:

 

""Just because the ACTUAL probabilities are unknown, that does not rule out using probability to pick the option with more possibilities as you say."
ah, yup. cant disagree with that. infact thats about the crux of my argument."

 

This is blatant contradiction of one of the key premises of your orginal argument. You cannot have both your key premise and you supposed 'crux'. And this problem cannot be avoided by calling it a 'probabilistic principle', this is again, avoidance. What do you mean when you agreed with me that:

 

"yes a probabilistic principle is assumed in both predictions."

 

Your account of your theory has far too many ambiguities and contradictions to be considered a solution to the problem of induction. I would like to hear what you meant each time you first denied using probability, then said you were using a principle, then claimed the crux of your argument was non-actual probability, and finally said reasonable and probable were interchangible.