A Noble Pity. ἔλεος in Plato’s Philosophy

Santiago Eslava - Bejarano

Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Columbia , Colombia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3079-2462


Abstract

This article examines Plato’s remarks on compassion to show that his apparent rejection of this emotion is, in fact, a rejection of a kind of ill-founded compassion. In the first section, I argue that his criticisms in the Apology and the Republic are not directed to compassion per se, but to instances in which this emotion betrays false beliefs and is felt in improper contexts. Thus, Plato’s criticisms leave room for an appropriate type of pity that should be grounded on true beliefs about harm, virtue, and justice. In the second section, I address Plato’s remarks on compassion in the Gorgias and the Laws, where he asserts that it should be felt towards the unpunished wrongdoer. I argue that such a disposition to feel compassion appropriately - which I have called a “noble compassion”, akin to the “noble anger” (θυμός γενναῖος) present in the Laws – is an important feature of the character of an ideal citizen. Thus, for Plato, compassion could contribute to psychological well-being and social order. By inspecting the cognitive and contextual conditions that enable a noble compassion in Platonic philosophy, this article aims to contribute to the study of a crucial emotion both in Greek and Christian philosophy.

Keywords:

Compassion, Anger, Belief, Plato

Aristoteles, Ethica Nicomachea, ed. I. Bywater, SCh 224, Oxford 1962, tr. W.D. Ross, The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York 2001.

Aristoteles, Rhetorica, ed. W.D. Ross, SCh 191, Oxford 1970, tr. W. Rhys Roberts, The Basic Works of Aristotle, New York 2001.

Demosthenes, Against Timocrates in Demosthenis Orationes, ed. S.H. Butcher – W. Rennie, Oxford 1921, tr. A.T. Murray, Demosthenes Orations, London 1984.

Plato, Apologia, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, v. 1, Oxford 1967, tr. G.M.A. Grube, Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis 1997.

Plato, Gorgias, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, v. 3, Oxford 1968, tr. D. Zeyl, Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis 1997.

Plato, Leges, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, v. 5, Oxford 1967, tr. T.J. Saunders, Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis 1997.

Plato, Protagoras, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, v. 3, Oxford 1968, tr. S. Lombardo – K. Bell, Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis 1997.

Plato, Respublica, ed. J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, v. 4, Oxford 1968, tr. G.M.A. Grube, Plato, Complete Works, Indianapolis 1997.

Allen D., The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens, Princeton 2000.

Barney R., Notes on Plato on the Kalon and the Good, “Classical Philology” 105 (2010) p. 363-380. (Crossref)

Belfiore E., Plato’s Greatest Accusation against Poetry, “Canadian Journal of Philosophy” 13 (1983) p. 39-62. (Crossref)

Brickhouse T. – Smith N., Socrates on How Wrongdoing Damages the Soul, “The Journal of Ethics” 11 (2007) p. 337-356. (Crossref)

Cairns D., Ψυχή, Θυμός, and Metaphor in Homer and Plato, “Études platoniciennes” 11 (2014), in: http://journals.openedition.org/etudesplatoniciennes/566 (access: 15.03.2022). (Crossref)

Crisp R., Prudential and Moral Reasons, in: The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, ed. D. Star, Oxford 2018, p. 801-819. (Crossref)

Dorion L.A., Enkrateia and the partition of the soul in the Gorgias, Plato and the Divided Self, Cambridge 2012. (Crossref)

Ganson T.S., The Rational/Non-Rational Distinction in Plato’s Republic, “Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy” 36 (2009) p. 179-197.

Griswold C.L., Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford 2020.

Jimenez M., Plato on the Role of Anger in Our Intellectual and Moral Development, in Emotions in Plato, ed. L. Candiotto – O. Renaut, Boston 2020, p. 285-301. (Crossref)

Kamtekar R., Plato’s Moral Psychology: Intellectualism, the Divided Soul, and the Desire for Good, Oxford 2017. (Crossref)

Kamtekar R., Platonic Pity, or Why Compassion Is Not a Platonic Virtue Emotions in Plato, Boston 2020.

Konstan D., Pity Transformed, London 2001. (Crossref)

Konstan D., The Emotions of Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature, Toronto 2006. (Crossref)

Mackenzie M., Plato on Punishment, Los Angeles 1984.

Moss J., Appearances and Calculations: Plato’s Division of the Soul, in: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. D. Sedley, New York 2008, p. 35-68.

Moss J., Plato’s Appearance-Assent Account of Belief, “Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society” 114 (2014) p. 213-238. (Crossref)

Nehamas A., Plato on Imitation and Poetry in Republic 10 in Plato on Beauty, Wisdom, and the Arts, New Jersey 1982.

Nussbaum M., Aristotle on Emotions and Rational Persuasion in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Los Angeles 1996.

Price A.W., Emotions in Plato and Aristotle in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford 2009. (Crossref)

Saadi R., Pity and Disgust in Plato’s Republic: The Case of Leontius, “Classical Philology” 108 (2013) p. 179-201. (Crossref)

Sandridge N., Felling Vulnerable but Not Too Vulnerable: Pity in Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus, Ajax and Philoctetes, “The Classical Journal” 103 (2008) p. 433-448. (Crossref)

Tarnopolsky C., Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato’s Gorgias and the Politics of Shame, Princeton 2010. (Crossref)

Vlastos G., Was Polus Refuted?, “The American Journal of Philology” 88 (1967) p. 454‑460. (Crossref)

Download

Published
2022-06-15


Eslava - Bejarano, S. (2022). A Noble Pity. ἔλεος in Plato’s Philosophy. Vox Patrum, 82, 7–30. https://doi.org/10.31743/vp.12854

Santiago Eslava - Bejarano  s.eslava10@uniandes.edu.co
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Columbia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3079-2462



License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Papers published in Vox Patrum are covered by the Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) licence. Authors and users can use published works licensed under the CC-BY-ND since 2018. For earlier publications, copyrights are available under fair use rights in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 on copyrights and related rights.