This is a link to a delightful article by Megan Foley
PEITHO AND BIA: THE FORCE OF LANGUAGE
When the great Greek general Themistocles
the hero of Salamis, who, immediately after winning that battle, sailed to Andros to demand they pay Athens the tribute which the Persians had previously extorted from them.
Sadly, as if by the contagion of the stain of the Alcmaeonidae, intrigue laid him low. He first took refuge in Andros, but driven from there and elsewhere, ultimately had to take service with the Persians who rewarded him munificently.
landed on the shores of Andros, he told the Andrians that he came escorting two gods: Peitho and Bia.
Themistocles, who was humbly born, first made his mark as an advocate in the Courts. Peitho- persuasion- was certainly his tutelary deity. His greatest martial exploit, however, relied more on subterfuge. Bia was never his. Then, Peitho too deserted him- the hoi polloi, whom he had taken trouble to ingratiate himself with, felt he had grown arrogant. The Spartans, denied domination of Athens by the tactical, Alcmaeonid, embrace of Democracy, deceitfully implicated him in some plot of their own. He found refuge amongst the 'truth loving Persians'.
Peitho was the divine personification of persuasion, seduction, and eloquent speech;
But, it may be, it was also the Mother of Socrates' maieutics. Sadly, the less Logic is productive, the more it proves seductive.
Bia personified force, compulsion, and physical strength.
By which Bios, Life, is defended. But things might work out the other way.
Faced with these two magnificent divinities, Themistocles told the Andrians that they must surely hand over a tribute to the Athenians. But the clever Andrians replied that their island was inhabited by two irresistible gods of their own—Penia and Aporia, lack and impossibility—that prohibited them from giving in and paying up. “The power of Athens,” they said, “can never be stronger than our inability” (Plutarch 1916, 21.1; Herodotus, 1944, 8.111.1).
Unless Athens enslaves the population, sells them on foreign markets, and settles its own people on that island.
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes bia as a mode of external compulsion: “An act is biaion when its origin [archē] is from outside, the person compelled contributing nothing to it”.
Save in so far as they are a person and seek to remain so.
Bia designates a mode of generating action that is imposed from without.
As in the acceptance of a duty or, more generally, the 'appropriation' involved in the conatus of oikeiosis.
Bia denotes the exterior origin that animates action in a passive body. For Aristotle, bia is the archē of involuntary action, unlike voluntary acts that are “archē en autōi,”self-generating, self-originating (1114a).
We think of breathing and farting as involuntary. Indeed, our habits appear to us to be an exogenous constraint. We may pay good money to rid ourselves of bad habits.
He writes, “When the origin of an action is in oneself, it is in one’s own power to do it or not” (3.1.6). In contrast, the person affected by bia does not have power over his or her own action.
This begs the question of whether we have free will or whether a mysterious Destiny shapes our actions against our own will. Who would have thought that Themistocles, who did so much to frustrate Persian imperialism, would end up having to serve them?
If 'persuasion' can alter outcomes, might not physical force be used to prevent it from doing so? It seems that these two powerful Gods may be at war with each other. Indeed, they may cancel each other out. A country may have great strength but fail to use it because contrary arguments appear equally persuasive.
It seems to me that ancient Greek cogitation on Peitho and Bia was rendered infructuous once Athens declined and Macedon rose up. What had been persuasive was the seeming success of Athenian democracy. When that success turned to failure, smooth tongued Persuasion became the tool of the slave seeking to ingratiate himself with his Roman master.
Rhetoric is persuasive if it explains why the speaker has gained power. The inducement to fall in with his argument is to gain a like power. Indeed, it is not necessary to follow the argument. It is enough that the successful person is taken as an oracle.
Consider Newcombe's paradox in Decision theory. Wikipedia summarizes it thus
There is a reliable predictor, a player, and two boxes designated A and B. The player is given a choice between taking only box B or taking both boxes A and B. The player knows the following: Box A is transparent and always contains a visible $1,000.
Box B is opaque, and its content has already been set by the predictor: If the predictor has predicted that the player will take both boxes A and B, then box B contains nothing.
If the predictor has predicted that the player will take only box B, then box B contains $1,000,000.
The player does not know what the predictor predicted or what box B contains while making the choice.
The 'reliable predictor' may know something we don't but he may not know that we don't have that knowledge. Suppose, if you take both boxes, your children are killed. If you knew this you would not take both boxes. You would only take B. The predictor may have predicted that you would take B because he assumed you knew that your children might be killed if you took A as well. This possibility has now insinuated itself into your mind. You may 'minimize regret' by choosing only B. You know for sure that your loss will be limited to 1000 dollars. But it might be much greater than that if taking A entails the killing of your kids. In practice, whatever decision you make, your intention in making it is relevant from the point of view of, not utility, but 'regret'. Having a noble intention for doing something may alleviate the badness of the outcome. The opposite is also true. This is better seen in 'Kavka's toxin', where having an intention is unrelated to actually going through with it.
An eccentric billionaire places before you a vial of toxin that, if you drink it, will make you painfully ill for a day, but will not threaten your life or have any lasting effects. The billionaire will pay you one million dollars tomorrow morning if, at midnight tonight, you intend to drink the toxin tomorrow afternoon. He emphasizes that you need not drink the toxin to receive the money; in fact, the money will already be in your bank account hours before the time for drinking it arrives, if you succeed. All you have to do is ... intend at midnight tonight to drink the stuff tomorrow afternoon. You are perfectly free to change your mind after receiving the money and not drink the toxin.
Persuasion succeeds when you form an intention on that basis. However, the reward for the intention may be wholly unconnected with actually taking the intended action. Moreover, if intentions change, there may be a better Aumann correlated equilibrium such that everybody is better off. One might say, a collective 'leap of faith' (whether based on the promise of a billionaire or the pronouncement of an oracle- which serve as 'public signals') can lead to a good outcome which everybody will have an incentive to sustain even if it was based on the promise of a hobo or the oracular pronouncement of an utter dunce.
Consider a 'Noble Lie'. On the one hand the thing seems an oxymoron. Lying is not Noble. It is ignoble. Fortunately, it isn't actually necessary to tell any Lie. It is enough for intentions to change on the basis of something unstated which can't possibly be true (i.e. compossible with the world as we know it) for a better outcome, which is self-sustaining, to come about.
Aristotle explains that rhetoric is concerned with “phainomenōn endekesthai”
i.e. what appears to be possible. This may be the case for a lawyer's rhetoric or that of a Senator. However, even there, one may appeal to things which are unseen and which undergird phenomenal reality.
because “no one debates things incapable of being different (adunatōn) either in past or future or present…for there is nothing more to say”.
This is nonsense. We debate things like the nature of Time and Space even though we don't think they can be different from what they are. But then debate is often about intentions or perceptions, considered as causally unconnected to the actions they, arguably, entail.
Rhetoric is concerned with the endekhomenon
i.e. contingent possibilities. This arises from Aristotle's definition- “Let rhetoric be the ability to see in each case the available means of persuasion”. I suppose the meaning is that when addressing a law court or public assembly, some ways of speaking are authorized and some are disapproved of. But, it is never the case that 'all available means' are known. Otherwise there would be no innovation in the field. Socrates emphasized the importance of the palinode- i.e. changing direction 'mid flight' while in the full flow of your speech. In this way, you grasp an Ariadne's thread and escape the deadly labyrinth. But when and where to engage in palinode is not algorithmically given. There is 'Knightian Uncertainty' in Rhetoric which is what gives the thing suspense and narrative tension.
because no one debates things that are adunatōn, incapable of change.
We are welcome to debate God or the Big Bang or the theory of Evolution. Feeling differently about such things may be helpful to us.
So although Aristotle began by linking dunamis
potential or force
—which is always dunamis adunamiai—
in other words, it is contingent or even self-contingent- i.e. could be different from what it is.
with endekhomenon,
because the undergirding hypokeimenon is unknown or inaccessible. Moreover, that which undergirds our Reality may itself be 'ontologically dysphoric'- i.e. not at home in this world.
here he opposes phainomenōn endekesthai with adunatōn. This counterposition shows that dunamis and adunamiai are not symmetrical terms.
They are relative to what appears to be the case. But appearance is not reality.
Dunamis always contains an element of adunamiai,
because we don't know what it is a function of. This is because the deeper undergirding of reality is not known to us.
which is what makes it endekhomenon, capable of admitting multiple possibilities and capable of variation.
Apparent variation. The Reality may be that the thing is a mirage.
Adunamiai, however, need not always contain an element of dunamis.
Lack of capacity- as I know from bitter experience- is not dynamic at all.
Potentiality necessarily entails impotentiality, but impotentiality can exist all on its own.
This is why, when I lecture on Socioproctology, I am all alone. The neighbour's cat used to drop by. Then it died. Sad.
The possible requires an element of the impossible to separate it from actualization;
i.e. there is an 'Exclusion Principle' such that you can't have your cake and eat it to.
however, the impossible neither requires nor admits possibility.
The fact that I don't admit I am mortal and think it impossible that I will drop dead doesn't change shit.
The adunatōn—things thoroughly impossible—are opposed to the multiple possibilities of the endekhomenon.
If matter is eternal- okay. But if there is Creation from Nothing, then such is not the case. Aristotle was taken over by Jewish and Christian and Islamic theologians who believed in God the Creator.
Rhetoric’s domain ends at the barrier of adunatōn’s unbendable necessity, beyond which persuasion, the endekhomenon pithanon, loses its capacity to admit multiple possibilities.
No. It is at that point where Rhetoric rises to the Heavens and the Logos itself puts on flesh and blood so as to work our salvation.
So while adunamiai is immanent within the rhetorical dunamis, and accounts for its force, the adunatōn also marks the exterior limit of rhetoric: the frontier of impossibility that renders peitho’s force impotent.
There is no such frontier. We may think of mathematics as a species of Peitho. Its horizons keep shifting ever outward as its potency grows.
This “possibility of the impossible” thus appears both within rhetoric as a constitutive condition of its dunamis or force, and beyond rhetoric as the limit of its endekhomenon domain.
In the opinion of a pedant who lived long ago.
Aristotle writes, “to gar biaion anagkaion legetai” (1933, 5.1015a). That is, bia, violence or compulsion, is called necessary.
It may have been in an ignorant age where a savant might end up a galley slave.
He goes on to say that compulsion is necessity: “Hē bia anagkē tis” (5.1015a). Here, bia is renamed necessity, and necessity’s name is anagkē: the alpha privative an- joined with -agkē, a bend or a joint. Necessity then, is unbendable, “opposed to motion,” immovable, and unswayable.
Christ ended its reign. The Gospels are very persuasive on that point. What can't be denied is that even if there is nothing alethic in Scripture (a reasonable view which puts an end to scholastic disputes), still it has imperative force. Christ quaffed Kafka's toxin once and for all so that we can have that same intention without ever having to go through with it.
Accordingly, anagkē is the very antithesis of possibility and persuasion.
My teachers may well have thought so. It really wasn't possible for me to learn Math no matter how persuasive my teachers were. But lots of people aren't like me at all.
Aristotle defines the anagkaion as “to mē endekhomenon”—the non-endekhomenon (1933, 5.1015a).
Thankfully, by the doctrine of hypostatic union, Christ is the hypokeimenon which is nothing less than infinite Mercy, infinite Love.
Moreover, he uses the word “ametapeiston” to describe anagkē: it is incapable of being moved by peitho; it is not open to persuasion (5.1015a).
Oscar Wilde said that the tears of a repentant sinner can do what not even the God of Agathon could not- viz. change the past.
The compulsory necessity of bia is thus outside the boundaries of rhetoric’s domain, outside the endekhomenon pithanon.
What is within its domain is using 'public signals' (e.g. Scripture) to promote better uncorrelated equilibria which are also non-coercive solutions in repeated games. This is the 'folk theorem' which suggests that anything which can be achieved by force can be as efficiently and effectively achieved without force of any kind.
The relation between rhetoric and violence is an aporia,
aporia is a puzzlement which might be feigned.
a point of inflection and intersection where the impotential force of bia
surely bia is potent?
and the rhetorical dunamis bend and blend together, moving toward the immovable and unbendable limit of necessity.
We know of no necessary truths. What appears necessary today is proven to be foolish tomorrow.
But the virtue of rhetoric is that—unlike violence—it will always exert force in the deprived state of penia,
The author is American. Had she grown up listening to the rhetoric of India's politicians, she might tak the opposite view.
lacking the full force of necessity and thus opening the possibility of change. The forces of bia and peitho do not differ in kind, but only in degree—and rhetoric’s relative weakness is its ultimate strength.
What is certain is that the great achievements of the Western World are undergirded by not Aristotle but Lord Jesus Christ. The hour is late. If we don't admit this now, what will be our fate?
No comments:
Post a Comment