Antiphon

« Antiphon (late 5th century BC) Antiphon was a Greek Sophist.

His most famous work, On Truth, partially survives in two substantial papyrus fragments, plus a number of purported quotations.

It sets up a bold antithesis between the claims of physis (nature) and nomos (law/convention), arguing that it is more advantageous to follow nature when one can do so without detection.

The antithesis suggests several important questions about the meaning of 'nature' and its role in ethics, the origin of social laws and their authority and the meaning and value of justice.

It is disputed whether he is to be identified with the orator Antiphon of Rhamnus.

1 Life and works Nothing is known of Antiphon's life.

Doubts over his identity with Antiphon the Orator rest on the apparent tension between the conservative views of the Orator's Tetralogies, in which obedience to law is highly praised, and the seemingly radical arguments of On Truth.

For similar reasons some have doubted whether the same man could have written On Truth and the conventional gnomic utterances of On Concord.

In defence of a single identity it has been urged that: (1) On Truth is not as radical as it appears, but simply a plea for legal reform; (2) its doctrines, although radical, are not endorsed by Antiphon himself; and (3) Antiphon changed his mind.

Antiphon is also credited - although this too is disputed - with a Politicus (Statesman) and On the Interpretation of Dreams, but these attributions too are disputed.

2 On Truth In On Truth Antiphon argues that 'justice' consists of not transgressing the laws and customs (the nomoi) of the state in which you are a citizen.

Consequently, to treat justice in the way that is most advantageous to yourself you should respect the nomoi in the presence of witnesses, but follow the claims of nature when witnesses are absent.

Disobedience to nature will always harm you; disobedience to the nomoi will harm you only if you are detected.

Furthermore, most nomoi are hostile to nature and act as shackles, whereas those things laid down by nature as advantageous promote freedom and pleasure.

Nor can the law provide the protection it promises: it cannot prevent aggression, nor guarantee that aggressors will be found guilty.

Laws and customs are also based on false distinctions of class and race: we all possess the same intrinsic needs and faculties. Finally, the nomoi that we call 'justice' are internally contradictory: they require an individual not to harm anyone except in retaliation, yet if called upon as witness a person is required to give potentially harmful evidence in court against someone who has never harmed them. Giving such testimony may also prove dangerous: the witness may have made an enemy for life.

3 The claims of nature What precisely is meant by 'nature'? Internal evidence suggests Antiphon means ‘human nature', but the opposition he draws between this and culture prompts the fundamental question whether such a thing as 'raw' unsocialized human nature exists, and how we could know about it even if it did.

Even if we grant that Antiphon's stark distinction between nature and culture is sustainable, why does he rank the claims of nature above those of society? His first argument appeals to the automaticity of nature's reprisals if flouted, as opposed to the uncertain outcome of a flouted law or convention.

Antiphon is ascribing to nature the inevitability which Greek thought had traditionally ascribed to the anthropomorphic deities or fate; in this he may have been influenced by the mechanical physical systems of Leucippus and Democritus. The inevitability of nature's workings would nevertheless be irrelevant without Antiphon's further claim of a systematic hostility between nomos and nature, with an individual's advantage tied to following the latter.

In Greek 'advantageous' has medical connotations, and apparently Antiphon is primarily arguing that only by following the claims of nature can we safeguard our physical wellbeing, and indeed survival.

His examples of social constraints, however, suggest that he is thinking not only in physiological terms but also of desiresatisfaction in general.

What are these constraints on our natural inclinations? Antiphon certainly holds (1) that the nomoi discourage us from attacking a potential aggressor, and encourage us to honour our parents, even if they have maltreated us: in both instances our natural tendency towards self-protection is thwarted.

He may, however, also be claiming (2) that society restrains us from aggressive behaviour in general, and from satisfying whatever desires we happen to have.

If this is his position (the text is too fragmentary to allow certainty), then underlying his argument is a view of 'raw' human nature as comprised of fierce egoistic drives antithetical to social harmony.

This choice between readings substantially affects the tenability of Antiphon's position.

On reading (1) it seems reasonable for him to argue that social conventions which hinder our ability to defend ourselves are injurious to the individual.

On reading (2), however, one may question whether social restrictions on aggressive behaviour in general are in fact ultimately to the individual's disadvantage. Clearly such constraints aim to frustrate the immediate desire, but one may argue that in the long run all individuals are better served if certain aggressive and egoistic aspects of human nature are curbed wholesale: what Antiphon regards as fetters could also be regarded as the bonds which keep society together.

One might have expected Antiphon's own words to prompt him in this direction.

He does after all admit that death is natural yet disadvantageous; why then does he not concede that a considerable number of the nomoi are aimed at protecting the individual from premature death? It is true that he nowhere recommends discarding the nomoi altogether, but he still does not consider the general undermining effect on security that repeated disregard for the nomoi might have.

Possibly his argument is intended only to apply to those who can take care of themselves in all eventualities.

Furthermore, if the nomoi are generally disadvantageous, how did they come to exist at all? Antiphon gestures towards a social contract theory: there are opaque references to the nomoi being 'agreed' and to 'those who made the agreement' (it is unclear whether this is intended to represent a historical event).

This supposed agreement is used by Antiphon as a reason for disobeying the nomoi - 'agreed' is interpreted as 'artificial' - but it is equally possible to reach the opposite conclusion: the nomoi were agreed because they were perceived to be beneficial and this is a good reason for obeying them.

Protagoras (§2) maintained precisely such a position, and it may be that On Truth is partly directed against him.

Again, the question is raised whether Antiphon's argument is intended to apply to everyone or only to those who think they have sufficient resources to ignore the benefits of a social contract.

Antiphon's attack on the nomoi continues by claiming that they give unmerited preferential treatment to the high-born and Greeks (and given that most Greeks justified their practice of enslaving other races by appeal to the racial superiority which they claimed, he is probably criticizing the institution of slavery as well).

Such criticisms suggest a reason why Antiphon called his work On Truth: he wishes to oppose the false ontological divisions of nomos to the true divisions of physis.

In a separate fragment he also deplores the ambiguity of language; his criticisms in the papyrus fragments of the internal contradictions in the notion of 'justice' may be an example of this ( Caizzi 1989).

4 Practical implications and influence What, if anything, is Antiphon proposing that we actually do? On one view he is not recommending any course of action: he is not speaking in propria persona but simply setting up a debate.

That would still leave the question whether the words in the text, even if not endorsed by Antiphon, are saying that we ought to follow nature when witnesses are absent; and if they are, whether this is an example of the ‘naturalistic fallacy', the (allegedly) illegitimate inference of a prescription for action from a simple description of how things are (see Naturalism in ethics §3).

The most plausible interpretation is that the text commends following nature as advantageous, but does not set it up as a moral imperative; it certainly does not propose an alternative description of 'justice'.

Another possibility is that Antiphon's real concern is with legal reform: he wishes to remodel the nomoi to harmonize with nature.

The key issue here is again Antiphon's underlying view of humanity: if he thinks our natural inclinations tend towards unprovoked aggression rather than mere self-defence, then it is unclear how the nomoi could be remodelled accordingly yet still retain their social character.

Nevertheless, his criticisms unquestionably force us to reconsider the origin and purpose of our own laws and customs and the nature and function of legal punishment.

Perhaps Antiphon's most important contribution to philosophy is his insistence that human physiology and psychology be included in ethical and political thought: our basic needs and desires cannot be ignored.

The tensions he perceived between these natural desires and the claims of society were taken up in Plato's Republic, he was thus the first to lay down what Plato saw as the fundamental ethical challenge.. »