The author attempts to compare classical and modern philosophers on various ethical issues, analyzing the worth of ancient moral standards in the new context. He begins the discussion on understanding ourselves as given by Socrates and Plato and then also draws upon views of an American philosopher William James. In Socrates' opinion human knowledge is purely hypothetical. He defends the practice of employing the hypothesis in conceptual enquiry while James defends the practice of employing a hypothesis in perceptual inquiry. The author intends to show that the ancient and the contemporary concepts of knowledge, despite dissimilarities, have some noticeable similarities. He shows how the contemporary concept of knowledge resembles most of all the ancient concept of opinion.

In another context, the author again compares the two different streams. James is of the view that there is a medium concerned with opinion and its objects. He argues that our experience provides us with an intellectual medium. James refers to this medium as 'knowing'. Knowing, he explains is one part of experience that connects parts of experience with one another. The parts it connects are a subject who knows and an object that is known. He also argues that empirical knowledge would be identical with its objects. On his account, our experience yields an entity that is at once epistemological and ontological. Empirical knowledge can be identical to its object. The author argues that James and Plato advance epistemologies and ontologies with an incredibly similar structure. We may draw an analogy between good and its function and human experience and its function. As the good provisions us with an ideal medium for knowledge in the ancient sense, so human experience provides an empirical medium for knowledge in contemporary sense. And both the mediums, of ideal or empirical types, cannot enable us to know anything in an absolute sense.

The author also brings out the advantages of experimental method in moral decisions. He demonstrates that the experimental method is the same as a rhetorical argument. Both the techniques have the same structure and the same ontology. These techniques are arguments that proceed from particulars through generalities to other particulars, and they concern objects that are contingent. Rhetoric can give us objective foundations for ethics. This gives us temporal truths about our day today life i.e. practical knowledge. Socrates had discussed the significance of rhetoric but the author enhances his argument by discussing how we can effectively use rhetoric for our ethical decisions in a more constructive way. For this, he begins showing the direct link between knowledge, and opinion and the way rhetoric can express a true opinion. A rhetorician needs opinion to practice his art. Even a rhetorician can hope to attain an ultimate truth which would be non-hypothetical. A rhetorical argument by example can better enable us to understand who the knower is and what a known object is. We ourselves may be the both the subject and object of our own rhetorical experience.

Working further on the concept of love the author ventures the hypothesis that love is a spirit ho enables us to hypothesize. Socrates maintains that we cannot possess any eternal knowledge, nor can we perform any action truly immortal, and we can never possess our happiness truly. Socrates would argue that we must use dialectic to form our hypothesis about conceptual knowledge, and that our conceptual knowledge can provide a paradigm for grasping our impressions and flimsy objects. But the author argues rather that we ought to use rhetoric with its examples to form hypotheses about perceptual knowledge, and that our perceptual knowledge can better in form us of our flickering impressions and their fickle objects. We may agree with Socrates that we cannot possess any eternal knowledge, nor can we perform any action truly immortal. We may grasp only tentative concept and engage in a tenuous deed. Consequently, we can never really and truly possess what appears to be our happiness. The author compares the Greek concept of happiness with the American concept. He addresses the question whether we ought to advance the ancient objective concept of our goodness or the contemporary subjective concept. That is, ought we to seek our happiness in an activity valued for its own diamonic self or in an activity valued for its hedonic effect. He suggests that a moral theory combining a pragmatic method with a diamonic end will avail us of the advantages of American and Greek ethics both. We would be able to enjoy the resourcefulness and refinements of an empirical methodology together with the fulfillments and finalities of a moral teleology. He suggests that we turn to a paradigmatic pragmatist to see whether the ancient hypothesis can prevail. For example James advances an ethics containing a rather astonishing concept of human nature. His concept bears the salient similarity to that of the Greeks. James argues that our intellectual faculty has a function that, he explicitly asserts, is "teleological". The mind in its capacity for conceiving or theorizing functions exclusively for the sake of ends. James advances a teleology that rests on an organic concept of our psychological faculties. He suggests this is because our intellectual faculty appears only as one element in an organic mental whole. This whole includes, besides our cognitive ability, our emotional responses to external things of practical interest. Plato advocates a teleology that is intellectual. James prefers an end that is passional. One gives precedence to our mental powers, the other to our emotional powers.

James also argues that human goodness is happiness. Here happiness is satisfaction of desires. By demand he means nothing other than the demands of desires reinforced by a physiological reflex. Happiness for Greek is a reflective action, and for Americans is a reflex action, the author sums up. In brief, the book discusses at length, an original, pragmatic moral theory that revives the classical Greek concept of happiness. It also includes in-depth discussions of our freedoms, our obligations, and our virtues, as well as adroit comparisons with the moral theories of Kant and Hume. Paul Schollmeier explains that the Greeks define happiness as an activity that we may perform for its own sake. Obvious examples might include telling stories, making music, or dancing. He then demonstrates that we may use the pragmatic method to discover and to define innumerable activities of this kind. Schollmeier's demonstration rests on the modest assumption that our happiness takes not one ideal form, but many empirical forms. The book provides a fairly good discussion on hoe the classical concepts could be understood in the light modern background. The book would be beneficial for those working on applied ethics.

© 2007 Richa Yadav

Richa Yadav recently completed her PhD in philosophy of mind from IIT, Kanpur, India. Her dissertation is on individuation of mental states, with especial reference to the individualist and the non-individualist debate. Her research interest lies in philosophical issues in cognitive science, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, translation studies and metaphors. She is also a creative writer.  

Categories: Ethics, Philosophical