Socrates, Plato, Aristotle -- and Grice, on: "ελευθερos"

by J. L. Speranza
--- for the Grice Club.

THIS IS MEANT AS COMMENTARY TO commentary by L. K. Helm´s post on "liberator and liberated". For some reason I was unable to paste this in the commentary thread.

It is an analysis of "free" in Greek and Latin, as it pertains to various analogical or paronymical collocations, with a view to understanding why, when Grice was asked to elucidate the concept of "free" he would focus on "alcohol-free"!

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Oddly, Stone thought Socrates and Plato did not value ελευθερία (eleutheria) either, nor did Socrates apparently. (And my tutor in ethics would frequently point to Aristotle´s wicked notions on slaves as a big drawback of his allegedly universalistic ethics!).

From wiki entry for "eleutheria":

"I.F. Stone, who taught himself Greek in his old age, wrote a book, "The Trial of Socrates," pointing out that Socrates and Plato do not value 'eleutheria', freedom, instead were Sparta-lovers, wanting a monarch, an oligarchy, instead of a democracy, a republic."

The wiki entry adds:

"Michel Foucault, in lectures given at Berkeley and Boulder, made the same argument for Socrates' failure to invoke 'parrhesia', freedom of speech, the obligation to speak the truth for the common good at personal risk, in his own defense at his trial, preferring to die in obedience to law as above men."

"Athenians held that they democratically shaped law, seeing Socrates' stance as treason."

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Oddly, too, when Grice wanted to lecture on "free" he would look for ordinary uses of the word "free" in things like "alcohol free"! (archival material cited by Chapman in her biography of Grice).

Wiki also informs us that "eleutheria" is a French play by Beckett dated 1947!

"The plot concerns the efforts of a young man, Victor Krap, to cut himself off from society and his own family; the title reflects this: eleutheria (ελευθερία) is Greek for "liberty"."

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But liberation is NOT quite liberty, is it?

The online Oxford Short-Lewis Latin dictionary has:

līber (old form, loebesum et loebertatem antiqui dicebant liberum et libertatem. Ita Graeci λοιβeν et λείβειν, Paul. ex Fest. p. 121 Müll.; cf. 2. Liber), adj. Gr. root λιφ-, λίπτω, to desire; cf. Sanscr. lub-dhas, desirous; Lat. libet, libido,

Definition:

"that acts according to his own will and pleasure, is his own master; free, unrestricted, unrestrained, unimpeded, unshackled; independent, frank, open, bold (opp. servus, servilis)."

There is something "negative" about "free" in that it may well one of those words that "wear the trousers" as Austin and Grice called them: i.e. "to be free" only gains "meaning" in opposition with "slave".

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Can´t copy or paste from the Greek online Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) but this from

http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/4375/freedom-in-ancient-world.html

(excerpted) sounded interesting:

"The distinction free–unfree is attested in the earliest Greek and Roman texts (Linear B, Homer, Twelve Tables)."

"Freedmen were enfranchised in Rome but not in Greece."

"Loss of freedom was frequent, both for individuals (war, piracy, debt bondage), and communities (tyranny). Nevertheless, freedom was articulated politically only when Lydian and esp. Persian expansion to the Aegean for the first time subjected Greek poleis to foreign rule, often supporting local tyrants."

"Earliest allusions to political freedom and the emergence of an abstract noun (eleutheria; from adj. eleutheros) date to the Persian Wars of 480/79 and their aftermath."

"Freedom quickly deteriorated into a political slogan. In the Peloponnesian War, Sparta proclaimed the LIBERATION of Hellas from Athens as tyrant city."

"Domestically, freedom initially meant ‘absence of tyranny’. Constitutional development was dominated first by ‘good order’ (the eunomia of Sparta's traditional founder, Lycurgus), then by political equality (isonomia), which, in democracy, eventually included all citizens."

"Eleutheria was claimed by democracy when democracy and oligarchy were perceived as mutually exclusive, partisan forms of rule, so that the demos could be free only by controlling power itself."

"Similarly, a new term for ‘freedom of speech’, i.e. ‘frankness’ (parrhēsia) supplemented ‘equality of speech’ (isēgoria)."

"Rejecting the extension of full rights to all citizens, oligarchs accepted as ‘free citizens’ only those rich enough to engage in ‘liberal’ (eleutherios) arts and occupations, and public service."

"When eleutherios was set against eleutheros, the concept of the ‘free citizen’ was divided ideologically."

"In the 4th cent. Sparta, Athens, and Thebes claimed to promote the liberty of those subjected by others."

"To end continuous internecine warfare, Isocrates called for a panhellenic crusade against Persia to LIBERATE the Hellenes—a programme realized by Alexander (2) the Great only after Greek liberty was crushed at Chaeronea (338)."