Reading Derrida with magisme

[magisme]

Socrates' argument for why he should remain in prison and accept his sentence follows two steps:

1. That one should never do harm to others, and that returning harm or retaliation falls under that rule.

2. That one should honor ones agreements (this is where social contract theory comes in).

Basically he's saying that to flee would do harm to Athens in retaliation for the wrong that Athens has done to him, and since he has explicitly or implicitly agreed to live by Athenian law by remaining a citizen, he would be breaking an agreement he had made as well. To flee would be doubly wrong.

[magisme]

Here Socrates becomes the mouthpiece for the state, placing the words of the social contract in the imagined mouth of a state representative:

“Socrates: ....You were not on an equal footing with your father as regards the right, nor with your master if you [51] had one, so as to retaliate for anything they did to you, to revile them if they reviled you, to beat them if they beat you, and so with many other things. Do you think you have this right to retaliation against your country and its laws? That if we undertake to destroy you and think it right to do so, you can undertake to destroy us, as far as you can, in return? And will you say that you are right to do so, you who truly care for virtue? Is your wisdom such as not to realize that your country is to be honored more than your mother, your father, and all your ancestors, that it is more to be revered and more sacred, and that it counts for more among the gods and sensible men, that you must worship it, yield to it and placate its anger more than your father’s? You must either persuade it or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure, whether blows or bonds, and if it leads you into war to be wounded or killed, you must obey. To do so is right, and one must not give way or retreat or leave one’s post, but both in war and in courts and everywhere else, one must obey the commands of one’s city and country, or persuade it as to [c] the nature of justice. It is impious to bring violence to bear against your mother or father; it is much more so to use it against your country.” What shall we say in reply, Crito, that the laws speak the truth, or not?

CRITO: I think they do.”

Excerpt From: Plato, Cooper, John M., Hutchinson, D. S. “Complete Works.” iBooks.

and (not even a state representative really, is it? It is the law itself that speaks):

“SOCRATES: “Reflect now, Socrates,” the laws might say, “that if what we say is true, you are not treating us rightly by planning to do what you are planning. We have given you birth, nurtured you, educated you; we have given you and all other citizens a share of all the good things we [d] could. Even so, by giving every Athenian the opportunity, once arrived at voting age and having observed the affairs of the city and us the laws, we proclaim that if we do not please him, he can take his possessions and go wherever he pleases. Not one of our laws raises any obstacle or forbids him, if he is not satisfied with us or the city, if one of you wants to go and live in a colony or wants to go anywhere else, and keep his property. [e] We say, however, that whoever of you remains, when he sees how we conduct our trials and manage the city in other ways, has in fact come to an agreement with us to obey our instructions.”

Excerpt From: Plato, Cooper, John M., Hutchinson, D. S. “Complete Works.” iBooks.

Edited February 1, 2015 by magisme

[magisme]

OK, back to Derrida for a quick second, and then on to Plato's Laws Book 10 for a bit. This is continued right from where we left off on page 1 of the thread:

“To return for a moment to Socrates and Plato and to the fundamentally religious character of the charge, the complaint, the incrimination, the criminalization, the inculpation taken up by the state, I refer you to Plato’s Laws that justifies the death penalty in cases of impiety (asebeia), of stubborn impiety, of repeated offenses of impiety. I leave you to read closely these long and riveting pages in Laws (907d–909d). The city, the polis must proclaim to all that the impious must make amends and be converted to a pious life and that if they do not do so, if they show impiety (asebeia) in words or deeds, the first to witness this must denounce them to the magistrate who will call them before the appropriate tribunal. There follows the description of the types of impiety (including, and I note this because of the subject of our seminar, irreverence with regard to oaths [horkous]) and then the taxonomy of three types of prisons or houses of correction; I leave you to read this on your own, then. But in this long and rich passage, I note merely two or three indications.”

Excerpt From: Jacques Derrida. “The Death Penalty, Volume I (The Seminars of Jacques Derrida).” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=687FCDFB408AE335CC8C15CE3A431065

....

He then goes right into those "indications", so I'm gonna read Laws 907d-909d first and then come back to the indications. I posted the link to Laws on the previous page for anyone who wants it.

Quick note: One of Derrida's tricks is to show thinkers committing the very act that they have elsewhere claimed to be the very worst thing to do. So I'd imagine part of this is examining how in Laws Plato acts exactly as Athens did when it sentenced Socrates to death. It won't be that plain and simple, though. Derrida never is.

[magisme]

There's so much going on in this section of Laws. Holy shit.

“Now since impiety has three causes, which we’ve already described, and each is divided into two kinds, there will be six categories of religious offenders worth distinguishing; and the punishment imposed on each should vary in kind and degree. Consider first a complete atheist: he may have a naturally just character and be the sort of person who hates scoundrels, and because of his loathing of injustice is not tempted to commit it; he may flee the unjust and feel fondness for the just. Alternatively, [c] besides believing that all things are ‘empty of’ gods, he may be a prey to an uncontrollable urge to experience pleasure and avoid pain, and he may have a retentive memory and be capable of shrewd insights. Both these people suffer from a common failing, atheism, but in terms of the harm they do to others the former is much less dangerous than the latter. The former will talk with a complete lack of inhibition about gods and sacrifices and oaths, and by poking fun at other people will probably, if he continues unpunished, make converts to his own views. The latter holds the same opinions but has what are called ‘natural gifts’: full of cunning [d] and guile, he’s the sort of fellow who’ll make a diviner and go in for all sorts of legerdemain; sometimes he’ll turn into a dictator or a demagogue or a general, or a plotter in secret rites; and he’s the man who invents the tricks of the so-called ‘sophists’. So there can be many different types of atheist, but for the purpose of legislation they need to be divided into two [e] groups. The dissembling atheist deserves to die for his sins not just once or twice but many times, whereas the other kind needs simply admonition combined with incarceration. The idea that gods take no notice of the world similarly produces two more categories, and the belief that they can be squared another two. So much for our distinctions.

59. (a) Those who have simply fallen victim to foolishness and who do not have a bad character and disposition should be sent to the reform center by the judge in accordance with the [909] law for a term of not less than five years, and during this period no citizen must come into contact with them except the members of the Nocturnal Council, who should pay visits to admonish them and ensure their spiritual salvation.

(b) When his imprisonment is over, a prisoner who appears to be enjoying mental health should go and live with sensible people; but if appearances turn out to have been deceptive, and he is reconvicted on a similar charge, he should be punished by death.

There are others, however, who in addition to not recognizing the existence of gods, or believing they are unconcerned about the world or can be bought off, become subhuman. They take everybody for fools, and many a man they delude during his life; and then by saying after his death that they can conjure up his spirit, and by promising to influence the gods through the alleged magic powers of sacrifices and prayers and charms, they try to wreck completely whole homes and states for filthy lucre.

60. If one of these people is found guilty, the court must sentence him to imprisonment as prescribed by law in the prison in the center of the country; no free man is to visit him at [c] any time, and slaves must hand him his ration of food fixed by the Guardians of the Laws. When he dies the body must be cast out over the borders of the state unburied.

61. If any free man lends a hand in burying him, he must be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone who cares to prosecute. If the prisoner leaves children suitable for citizenship, the guardians of orphans must look after them too, from the day of their father’s conviction, no less than ordinary orphans. [d]”

Excerpt From: Plato, Cooper, John M., Hutchinson, D. S. “Complete Works.” iBooks.

Edited February 1, 2015 by magisme

[magisme]

And we go back to Derrida. Picking up where we left off.

“1. First indication: To persist with this moment of dawn, I note that in the description of the punishments, it is said that the prisoner will receive no visit from citizens, with the exception of members of a certain nocturnal council. So, if you wish to know what this nocturnal council is (which I point to, then, because of dawn and religion, and soon the dawning of religions, if not the twilight of the gods), go to the place where the said nocturnal council is first defined by Plato, that is, not Laws (907–9), which I have just quoted and where the nocturnal council is certainly named, merely named, but further on, in Laws (951d–e), where the Athenian describes this nocturnal council, this nighttime syllogos as a place of gathering, an assembly where the young are mingled with the old but that, I quote, “shall be required to [30] hold daily sessions from daybreak until after sunrise” (951d).8 This syllogos is neither a synagogue (explain)9 nor a sanhedrin. This supreme council of the nation that was also a high court of justice (the one that sentenced Jesus and that we will speak of again), but10 a syllogos (comment) will be comprised of priests and, among the priests (tōn hiereōn; this is literally a hierarchy, a sacred order or authority of priests who are in command), those who have received the highest distinctions and then, among the guardians of the law (tōn nomophulakōn), the ten oldest, then finally any minister of education, whoever has charge of the education of the youth (tēs paideias pasēs epimelētēs), whether he be currently in office or whether he has been in the past. (Imagine the equivalent of the nocturnal council in France today: Lustiger, the Head Rabbi, the Head Mufti, Allègre, his predecessors and company.)11 So, this great syllogos, this great pedagogico-confessional council meets at dawn. And it alone is entitled to visit the prisoner. First indication.

2. Second indication: The council, the syllogos, receives visitors, consultants, observers, experts returning from abroad where they went to study the customs and laws of other countries. Well, if one of them comes back spoiled or corrupted, if he continues to make a display of his false wisdom, to refer willy-nilly to foreign models and if he does not obey the magistrate, “he shall have sentence of death (tethnatō) . . . if the court convicts him of illicit interference in any matter of education or legislation (peri tēn paideian kai tous nomous)” (Laws 952d).12 Once the court of justice has proved that he is intervening wrongly, on behalf of the foreigner, in the formation of the youth and the formation of the laws, he is punished with death. [31] So there is the definition and the theatrical scene of this nocturnal council that can decide life and death and that alone can visit prisoners. If now we leave book 12 of the Laws, where the status, the composition, and the jurisdictions of this dawn council are defined, and go back to book 10 with which I started, one finds the legitimation of the death penalty in the listing of all the punishments, all the modes and places of incarceration. When someone has made licentious comments about the gods, the sacrifices, or oaths, for example, or encouraged belief in corruptible gods and thus been guilty of a crime of impiety, irreligiosity, he is locked up in a house of correction, in a sōphronistērion, a sophronistery, literally, a place of wising up [d’assagissement], a house of correction or reformatory as a place of wising up, a place where one is supposed to acquire or recover sōphrosunē, wisdom, wisdom in the more precise sense of moderation, temperance, self-control, health of mind or heart. The point is to be put under surveillance so as to become “wise” once again, with that wisdom or sagesse (sōphrosunē) that has the sense given in French to the word sage, of the child who is sage, that is, not unruly, disciplined. The sophronistery is a disciplinary institution. One is locked up there for at least five years. There, during this time, no citizen can visit the guilty one, with the exception precisely of the members of the nocturnal council (tou nukterinou syllogou) who will come to see him to admonish him and—here is the most important point—to save his soul, for the salvation of his soul (tēs psychēs sōtēria homilountes). This soteriological function is essential: one must first attempt to amend, save, rehabilitate the soul of the condemned one, and this soteriological mission, this work of saving or salvation is confided, assigned, by statute, to the nocturnal council, to those who alone have visiting rights, in the sophronistery, in the house of correction, in the wising-up institution. Now, if (and here we come already upon our theme of forgiveness and repentance) after this soteriological attempt, the condemned one saves himself, if he repents, if he comes to see the error of his ways and wises up again, if he rehabilitates himself, then he will have the right to live among virtuous people; if not, if he incurs the same sentence a second time, if he commits the offense again and does not repent, he will [32] be punished by death (thanatōi zēmiousthō). If he does not repent and mend his ways, then he is unforgivable and the sanction for the unforgivable, for the inexpiable, is the death penalty. Expiation of the inexpiable. But what I wish to underscore already, because this will become an organizing theme of our reflection, is that the death penalty, that is, the legal and legitimate sentencing, is distinct from murder or from putting to death outside the law, from assassination in some sense, in that it treats the condemned one as a subject of rights, a subject of the law, as human being, with the dignity that this still supposes. Here, in a logic that we will continue to find up to Kant and many others, but in Kant par excellence, access to the death penalty is an access to the dignity of human reason, and to the dignity of a man who, unlike beasts, is a subject of the law who raises himself above natural life. That is why, in this logic, in the logos of this syllogos, the death penalty marks the access to what is proper to man and to the dignity of reason or of human logos and nomos. All of this, death included, supposedly testifies to the rationality of laws (logos and nomos) and not to natural or bestial savagery, with the consequence that even if the one condemned to death is deprived of life or of the right to life, he or she has the right to rights and, thus, in a certain way to honor and to a burial place. For, in this logic, in this obscure syllogistics, in the syllogism of this council or of this nocturnal Syllogos, there is something worse than the death sentence. This is the case of those guilty ones who are like beasts, who are no longer men and no longer have even the right to be condemned to death, no longer the right to a burial place, and no longer a right to visits by the nocturnal council. Here it is better to be content with reading an extraordinary passage from Laws (909b–d). It follows immediately the reference to the death penalty, the penalty deserved by those who do not repent, the penalty destined, assigned to those who are not rehabilitated, the penalty set aside for those who thus remain as incorrigible as they are unforgivable. In the passage I am going to read, you will discover that there is something worse than the death penalty: there is a punishment more terrifying still because more inhuman, more ahuman than the death penalty, which remains a thing of reason and the law, a thing [33] worthy of reason and the law (logos and nomos). The criterion of the distinction between the death penalty and what is supposedly still worse than the death penalty, this line of demarcation between the bad and the worst, is not determined by what precedes death, nor is it in the instant of death; it is not in the present of the event of death itself; it is not in death but in the corpse; it is in what follows death and happens to the corpse. For here it is the right to burial that marks the difference between man and beast, between the man condemned to death who still has a right to burial, to men’s honor, and the one who no longer deserves even the name of man and who therefore does not deserve even the death penalty. I underscore this point heavily because later we are going to come upon the idea again that the death penalty is a sign of the access to the dignity of man, something that is proper to man who must, through his law, be able to raise himself above life (which beasts cannot do), this idea of the death penalty as condition of human law and of human dignity, one might almost say of the nobility of man, in particular in Kant’s argument when he justifies the death penalty, and more than that, when he sees in it even the ultimate justification of the jus, of justice and of law. There would be no human jus, no law, and no justice in a system that excluded the death penalty. (Read Laws 909b–d)”

Excerpt From: Jacques Derrida. “The Death Penalty, Volume I (The Seminars of Jacques Derrida).” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=687FCDFB408AE335CC8C15CE3A431065

....

Derrida then reads to the seminar the section of Laws I posted above. We'll pick up with him right after he's done reading. I'd suggest going back and reading what I posted from Laws, though. He wanted to recite the text after he gave his "indications" from the text. He does that a lot. It's an intentional maneuver. He emphasizes certain words or ideas, gets them floating around in your head, and then he gives you the text, which you then can't help but see his hands all over.

Edited February 1, 2015 by magisme

[magisme]

Jesus Christ, there's so much to tease out and interpret from these two indications. Just to give anyone who cares an indication of how I tend to read Derrida, whenever he includes the Greek or Latin or whatever language in parentheses after his French, or in our case English, translation, my antennae go up and I go searching for wherever else in the history of philosophy those words came up. I also head for all the dictionaries I can find. Etymology is extremely important to Derrida. It's key to his word play. So when he speaks about the syllogos in relation to the synagogue, it's all about the prefix which means come together. But it's not all about the prefix because his associations have a decidedly Jewish slant. He was a Jew, but I'm pretty sure it's a reference to the ton hiereon, the priestly order (or something like that) discussed in Hebrews from the Bible, later taken up by Calvin. I have no doubt Derrida has all of this in mind. That's how he rolls. That's why he mentions the sanderhin as well, which I'm sure he'll come back to later.

Anyway, Plato's Nocturnal Council is creepy as fuck.

[Len Cnut]

This is about the most fascinating thread I've ever seen on this forum. I don't pretend to even come close to getting it just yet, to be honest with you i lose him midway but it always feels like I'm on the verge of understanding something really important or like...untying this massive knot of complications. Wish this thread had been before i started studying again cuz i REALLY wanna read his shit now.

[magisme]

He's not going anywhere.

I'm gonna keep this going too. Busy few days.'Hope to spend a couple hours on it tomorrow.