Blaze Marpet (Northwestern)
In the Euthydemus, Plato’s Socrates offers a protreptic argument to the effect that we ought to pursue knowledge on the grounds that it is helpful for making our way in the world. In his commentary (ṭīkā) to Dharmakīrti’s Nyāya-bindu, Dharmottara develops an argument much to the same effect. However, Socrates’ and Dharmottara’s arguments differ substantially in the details. The aim of this paper is to read the two arguments in concert. My thesis is that Socrates’s argument is far more compelling because it establishes its conclusion without requiring that knowledge be necessary for happiness.
Dharmakīrti begins the Nyāya-bindu with the claim “All successful human action is preceded by right knowledge” (1.1). Dharmottara’s task as commentator is to explain why this claim is true and why it enjoins us to pursue knowledge (as adumbrated in Dharmakīrti’s work). Dharmottara reads Dharmakīrti as maintaining that knowledge is necessary for successful action (the “necessity thesis”). To defend the necessity thesis, Dharmottara argues that all apparent successful actions without knowledge are in fact merely illusorily successful. For example, when we are moving along a river and we reach a tree that is in fact stationary but which we mistakenly take to be moving, we are not really successful. The reason for this, Dharmottara says, is that we did not attain the object as we cognized it, and to be successful, we need not only to attain our objects, but to attain them as we cognize them. Defending the necessity thesis is crucial for Dharmottara, for he contends that if knowledge weren’t necessary for successful action, we would not have reason to pursue it. The audience of a protreptic is someone antecedently interested in success but not antecedently interested acquiring knowledge. If knowledge is not necessary for success, then success can be had some other way than by acquiring knowledge, and the audience should opt for that other way.
The core of Socrates’ protreptic argument in the Euthydemus is “Since knowledge is the source of rightness and good fortune, it seems to be necessary that every man should prepare himself by every means to become as wise as possible” (282a). I argue that Socrates endorses neither the view that wisdom is sufficient for happiness (the “sufficiency thesis”), nor the view that wisdom is necessary for happiness (again, the “necessity thesis”). Instructively, his argument succeeds irrespective of these two theses. The essence of his argument is that wisdom provides our only good chance of obtaining happiness, and it’s not worth wishing to get lucky without wisdom, for that course of action is likely to end in great detriment. Central to the success of his argument 2
is his contention that “there is more harm done if someone uses a thing wrongly than if he lets it alone” (280e–281a). Because the harm that is expected from using good things without wisdom is more damaging than simply leaving things alone, hoping for happiness without wisdom is inadvisably risky. There is simply too great a probability of meeting with too great a harm and too slim a chance for benefit.
There are two upshots to putting Dharmottara and Socrates in conversation with one another. First, it is often thought that Socrates maintains the necessity thesis. By contrasting his argument with Dharmottara’s, we can appreciate that Socrates in fact avoids committing to it. Second, one might be inclined to think, along with Dharmottara, that the necessity thesis must be true for a protreptic argument to work. However, appreciating that Socrates’ argument succeeds without such a commitment offers new avenues for thinking about the role and value of knowledge.