Christopher Utter

Most scholars of Aristotle see him as disagreeing fundamentally with Plato on the character of philosophy and what philosophy can and should achieve. Some see Plato as an idealist and Aristotle as a realist; others see philosophy for Plato as essentially knowledge of ignorance, whereas for Aristotle philosophy is a system whereby we achieve systematic knowledge of the world. Recently, however, many have suggested that Aristotle and Plato agree more than they disagree—in particular, they agree that philosophy is a continuous search rather than a systematic construction. Political philosophy, as the search for the best regime, is not programmatic, therefore, but critical insofar as it shows us the flaws in any regime. The existence of the Metaphysics threatens this interpretation of Aristotle, however, because it seems to be an account of being—it implies, therefore, that Aristotle thinks we can attain wisdom, and not merely seek it. I argue, on the contrary, that Aristotle primarily intends in the Metaphysics to provoke his audience to question their intentions in pursuing the knowledge of causes the work purports to demonstrate. In asking why philosophy is a worthwhile pursuit, his audience is led back to the questions that animate the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics: what is the best life for a human being? What is it we desire most of all? Is a life devoted to political action the best life, or one devoted to contemplation—or is there a kind of philosophic life that is active? I conclude that the Metaphysics is a work of zetetic philosophy, much like that illustrated by Plato’s Socrates, the end of which is self-examination and a search for knowledge of causes that necessarily begins with an attempt to know oneself. Aristotle characterizes the study of politics as the study of what human beings hold to be noble and just—and why they hold them to be so. Insofar as the Metaphysics forces us to ask why the pursuit of philosophy is noble and just it adds to our understanding of the core political questions.

One of the most puzzling aspects of Xenophon’s short dialogue Hiero, or On the Skilled Tyrant is his choice of Simonides, the poet, as the conversation partner for Hiero, the tyrant. Why does Xenophon choose a poet in general and Simonides in particular? Why not a philosopher? The Eleatic philosopher Xenophanes is known to have lived at Hiero’s court.  It seems likely that Simonides’s status as a poet is significant. Furthermore, from Xenophon’s Socratic writings we have reason to believe that part of his purpose in writing is to respond to the “quarrel between philosophy and poetry.”  Putting these two observations together, I suggest that we may be able to understand Xenophon’s choice of Simonides in the Hiero as, in part, a response to this “quarrel.”

In the third book of Plato’s Republic, Socrates famously suggests that a “noble lie” will be necessary in the newly purged city in speech to make the citizens “care more for the city and one another” (414d) —in other words, to persuade the citizens that the city’s advantage is the same as their own. Although there is a wealth of scholarship examining the noble lie, relatively little attention has been paid to the fact that the word Socrates uses to describe the lie is not kalon, the word usually translated as “noble,” but gennaion, which means noble in the sense of well-born, well-bred, or “true to one’s birth,” rather than beautiful.  In what sense is this lie gennaion? I propose that Socrates chooses this word because “good breeding” is, in a sense, the core aim of the city in speech and any other city as such. The city attempts to co-opt all forms of erotic breeding or generation, whether this means childbirth or philosophy, and turn these private attempts at noble transcendence toward the city’s advantage. The birth or lineage of the lie thus intimates the essential tension between the individual good and the common good.

Most scholars of Aristotle see him as disagreeing fundamentally with Plato on the character of philosophy and what philosophy can and should achieve.  Some see Plato as an idealist and Aristotle as a realist; others see philosophy for Plato as essentially knowledge of ignorance, whereas for Aristotle philosophy is a system whereby we achieve systematic knowledge of the world.  Recently, however, many have suggested that Aristotle and Plato agree more than they disagree—in particular, they agree that philosophy is a continuous search rather than a systematic construction.  Political philosophy, as the search for the best regime, is not programmatic, therefore, but critical insofar as it shows us the flaws in any regime.  The existence of the Metaphysics threatens this interpretation of Aristotle, however, because it seems to be an account of being—it implies, therefore, that Aristotle thinks we can attain wisdom, and not merely seek it. 
I argue, on the contrary, that Aristotle primarily intends in the Metaphysics to provoke his audience to question their intentions in pursuing the knowledge of causes the work purports to demonstrate.  In asking why philosophy is a worthwhile pursuit, his audience is led back to the questions that animate the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics: what is the best life for a human being? What is it we desire most of all? Is a life devoted to political action the best life, or one devoted to contemplation—or is there a kind of philosophic life that is active? I conclude that the Metaphysics is a work of zetetic philosophy, much like that illustrated by Plato’s Socrates, the end of which is self-examination and a search for knowledge of causes that necessarily begins with an attempt to know oneself.  Aristotle characterizes the study of politics as the study of what human beings hold to be noble and just—and why they hold them to be so.  Insofar as the Metaphysics forces us to ask why the pursuit of philosophy is noble and just it adds to our understanding of the core political questions.