The subject of the dialogue is education of the young to be courageous, which it proves that none of the men present can do: at the end they must all admit that they don't know what courage even is. After Aristotle's EN, you know why: Socrates was treating the virtues as a species of knowledge, and this gives rise to puzzles about why then they don't always admit of precise definitions and can't always be taught, as knowledge should be capable of being. We can't always even teach our sons the virtues no matter how much we wish to do so -- and that, how to teach your sons to be courageous, is the subject of the discussion.
Plato uses his dramatis personae to highlight the problem in several ways. Lysimachus was the son of a very good general (strategos, obviously a cognate of 'strategy'), Aristides, who commanded at the Battle of Plataea. This is a clear example of a son who should have had the right kind of education if his father could teach the virtue. The second is another famous son, Melesias the son of the powerful and successful Thucydides (the political leader, not the historian). This Thucydides had reorganized Athens into a powerful naval power that dominated its era, striving against the famous Pericles for leadership. Nicias was a prominent general in his own right during the Peloponnesian War. He had noted victories and arranged a statesman-like peace with Sparta (which bears his name, so much was he the author of it). Laches was another general commanding during the Peloponnesian War: both he and Nicias would die in it. Socrates, as readers of this blog know, was a noted war hero himself -- his respect was high enough among these men that they ask his opinion on the topic of how to educate their sons to be courageous men.
After the jump, I'll go through the arguments, but I want to give my own opinion on why the dialogue ends in aporia, the state of admitting that you don't really know. I think this was often Socrates' goal, because it is only when you get to that point that you really begin to think. Thinking is hard work and expensive calorically, so for the most part we use heuristics, resort to familiar paths or old sayings or stories that we think have a relevant moral. It's only when you exhaust all this that you really start to struggle with a problem.
Aporia, then, should often be the goal of a serious inquiry. Here you can see how, though Socrates nor Plato ever succeeded in figuring out that the error lay in assuming that virtue was a species of knowledge, the challenge eventually prompted Aristotle's alternative. That was satisfying enough for two thousand years: but if the challenge had not been so severely pressed by Socrates, over and over, it might never have provoked the insight.
The dialogue opens with a discussion many of us have also had: whether or not training in a martial art improves courage and fighting ability, or if it is a sort of showmanship that leads to false courage (the latter is at least sometimes the case: we often mock this kind of martial art as 'bullshido'). Here the martial artists have been putting on an exhibition of fighting in armor.
Lys. You have seen the exhibition of the man fighting in armour, Nicias and Laches, but we did not tell you at the time the reason why my friend Melesias and I asked you to go with us and see him. I think that we may as well confess what this was, for we certainly ought not to have any reserve with you. The reason was, that we were intending to ask your advice. Some laugh at the very notion of advising others, and when they are asked will not say what they think. They guess at the wishes of the person who asks them, and answer according to his, and not according to their own, opinion. But as we know that you are good judges, and will say exactly what you think, we have taken you into our counsels. The matter about which I am making all this preface is as follows: Melesias and I have two sons; that is his son, and he is named Thucydides, after his grandfather; and this is mine, who is also called after his grandfather, Aristides. Now, we are resolved to take the greatest care of the youths, and not to let them run about as they like, which is too often the way with the young, when they are no longer children, but to begin at once and do the utmost that we can for them. And knowing you to have sons of your own, we thought that you were most likely to have attended to their training and improvement, and, if perchance you have not attended to them, we may remind you that you ought to have done so, and would invite you to assist us in the fulfillment of a common duty. I will tell you, Nicias and Laches, even at the risk of being tedious, how we came to think of this. Melesias and I live together, and our sons live with us; and now, as I was saying at first, we are going to confess to you. Both of us often talk to the lads about the many noble deeds which our own fathers did in war and peace-in the management of the allies, and in the administration of the city; but neither of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. The truth is that we are ashamed of this contrast being seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us be spoiled in the days of our youth, while they were occupied with the concerns of others; and we urge all this upon the lads, pointing out to them that they will not grow up to honour if they are rebellious and take no pains about themselves; but that if they take pains they may, perhaps, become worthy of the names which they bear. They, on their part, promise to comply with our wishes; and our care is to discover what studies or pursuits are likely to be most improving to them. Some one commended to us the art of fighting in armour, which he thought an excellent accomplishment for a young man to learn; and he praised the man whose exhibition you have seen, and told us to go and see him. And we determined that we would go, and get you to accompany us; and we were intending at the same time, if you did not object, to take counsel with you about the education of our sons. That is the matter which we wanted to talk over with you; and we hope that you will give us your opinion about this art of fighting in armour, and about any other studies or pursuits which may or may not be desirable for a young man to learn. Please to say whether you agree to our proposal.Nic. As far as I am concerned, Lysimachus and Melesias, I applaud your purpose, and will gladly assist you; and I believe that you, Laches, will be equally glad.La. Certainly, Nicias; and I quite approve of the remark which Lysimachus made about his own father and the father of Melesias, and which is applicable, not only to them, but to us, and to every one who is occupied with public affairs. As he says, such persons are too apt to be negligent and careless of their own children and their private concerns. There is much truth in that remark of yours, Lysimachus. But why, instead of consulting us, do you not consult our friend Socrates about the education of the youths? He is of the same deme with you, and is always passing his time in places where the youth have any noble study or pursuit, such as you are enquiring after.Lys. Why, Laches, has Socrates ever attended to matters of this sort?La. Certainly, Lysimachus.Nic. That I have the means of knowing as well as Laches; for quite lately he supplied me with a teacher of music for my sons,-Damon, the disciple of Agathocles, who is a most accomplished man in every way, as well as a musician, and a companion of inestimable value for young men at their age.Lys. Those who have reached my time of life, Socrates and Nicias and Laches, fall out of acquaintance with the young, because they are generally detained at home by old age; but you, O son of Sophroniscus, should let your fellow demesman have the benefits of any advice which you are able to give. Moreover I have a claim upon you as an old friend of your father; for I and he were always companions and friends, and to the hour of his death there never was a difference between us; and now it comes back to me, at the mention of your name, that I have heard these lads talking to one another at home, and often speaking of Socrates in terms of the highest praise; but I have never thought to ask them whether the son of Sophroniscus was the person whom they meant. Tell me, my boys, whether this is the Socrates of whom you have often spoken?Son. Certainly, father, this is he.Lys. I am delighted to hear, Socrates, that you maintain the name of your father, who was a most excellent man; and I further rejoice at the prospect of our family ties being renewed.La. Indeed, Lysimachus, you ought not to give him up; for I can assure you that I have seen him maintaining, not only his father's, but also his country's name. He was my companion in the retreat from Delium, and I can tell you that if others had only been like him, the honour of our country would have been upheld, and the great defeat would never have occurred.
So this sets up the problem, and by the way provides a nice answer to another problem that Socrates often raises elsewhere: why great men of famous virtue fail to raise virtuous sons. On this account, it is assumed that they would have done so except they were too busy with public matters. These men intend to spend the necessary time on it, and are trying to figure out how to succeed. Socrates is introduced and his qualities affirmed.
Note the parallel with Aristotle's later account: the telling of tales to the youth about what virtue looks like, and of honoring the great deeds of their ancestors in the hope they will be guided by this upbringing.
Soc. I will endeavour to advise you, Lysimachus, as far as I can in this matter, and also in every way will comply with your wishes; but as I am younger and not so experienced, I think that I ought certainly to hear first what my elders have to say, and to learn of them, and if I have anything to add, then I may venture to give my opinion to them as well as to you. Suppose, Nicias, that one or other of you begin.
This answer also comports with Aristotle's advice for those wishing to understand virtue better: to take care to listen to the older and more experienced who have demonstrated the virtue. Also with my own thinking, which is that in order to train young men towards the virtues older men must themselves be impressive enough to command the respect that would make the young willing to listen.
Nic. I have no objection, Socrates; and my opinion is that the acquirement of this art is in many ways useful to young men. It is an advantage to them that among the favourite amusements of their leisure hours they should have one which tends to improve and not to injure their bodily health. No gymnastics could be better or harder exercise; and this, and the art of riding, are of all arts most befitting to a freeman; for they only who are thus trained in the use of arms are the athletes of our military profession, trained in that on which the conflict turns. Moreover in actual battle, when you have to fight in a line with a number of others, such an acquirement will be of some use, and will be of the greatest whenever the ranks are broken and you have to fight singly, either in pursuit, when you are attacking some one who is defending himself, or in flight, when you have to defend yourself against an assailant. Certainly he who possessed the art could not meet with any harm at the hands of a single person, or perhaps of several; and in any case he would have a great advantage. Further, this sort of skill inclines a man to the love of other noble lessons; for every man who has learned how to fight in armour will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson: and when he has learned this, and his ambition is once fired, he will go on to learn the complete art of the general. There is no difficulty in seeing that the knowledge and practice of other military arts will be honourable and valuable to a man; and this lesson may be the beginning of them. Let me add a further advantage, which is by no means a slight one,-that this science will make any man a great deal more valiant and self-possessed in the field. And I will not disdain to mention, what by some may he thought to be a small matter;-he will make a better appearance at the right time; that is to say, at the time when his appearance will strike terror into his enemies. My opinion then, Lysimachus, is, as I say, that the youths should be instructed in this art, and for the reasons which I have given. But Laches may take a different view; and I shall be very glad to hear what he has to say.
Nicias' answer actually comes close to Aristotle's account in several ways. For one thing, he names both this art and horseback riding -- an art I have also praised many times as one that habituates courage and other virtues. You are getting exposure to some danger and are learning to overcome your fear by practice (I believe it was cowboy poet Baxter Black who said, 'Courage ripens in the bucking chute.').
However, recall that Aristotle thought that true courage didn't come just from having more experience and confidence. His account is that the courageous man maintains a rational fear of terrible things, but does them anyway as honor requires. A professional with a great deal more experience may simply have confidence in his skill, rather than what he takes to be the authentic virtue. (Socrates comes in for a mention here by name, Aristotle explaining that this experience-creating-confidence could be one reason that Socrates had mistaken courage for a form of skill or knowledge, things also often gained by practice, when it is really a habituated character that can perform honorably in danger.)
La. I should not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good: and if, as Nicias and as the teachers of the art affirm, this use of arms is really a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned; but if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers only; or if it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, then what is the use of learning it?
Laches now fields a pretty solid empirical argument against the martial arts of the day: if this 'martial arts' stuff really worked, the Spartans would be all over it, but in fact the teachers of these exhibitions tend to stay pretty far away from the Spartan homeland of Lacedaemonia.
I say this, because I think that if it had been really valuable, the Lacedaemonians, whose whole life is passed in finding out and practising the arts which give them an advantage over other nations in war, would have discovered this one. And even if they had not, still these professors of the art would certainly not have failed to discover that of all the Hellenes the Lacedaemonians have the greatest interest in such matters, and that a master of the art who was honoured among them would be sure to make his fortune among other nations, just as a tragic poet would who is honoured among ourselves; which is the reason why he who fancies that he can write a tragedy does not go about itinerating in the neighbouring states, but rushes straight, and exhibits at Athens; and this is natural. Whereas I perceive that these fighters in armour regard Lacedaemon as a sacred inviolable territory, which they do not touch with the point of their foot; but they make a circuit of the neighbouring states, and would rather exhibit to any others than to the Spartans; and particularly to those who would themselves acknowledge that they are by no means first-rate in the arts of war. Further, Lysimachus, I have encountered a good many of these gentlemen in actual service, and have taken their measure, which I can give you at once; for none of these masters of fence have ever been distinguished in war,-there has been a sort of fatality about them; while in all other arts the men of note have been always those who have practised the art, they appear to be a most unfortunate exception. For example, this very Stesilaus, whom you and I have just witnessed exhibiting in all that crowd and making such great professions of his powers, I have seen at another time making, in sober truth, an involuntary exhibition of himself, which was a far better spectacle. He was a marine on board a ship which struck a transport vessel, and was armed with a weapon, half spear half scythe; the singularity of this weapon was worthy of the singularity of the man. To make a long story short, I will only tell you what happened to this notable invention of the scythe-spear. He was fighting, and the scythe was caught in the rigging of the other ship, and stuck fast; and he tugged, but was unable to get his weapon free. The two ships were passing one another. He first ran along his own ship holding on to the spear; but as the other ship passed by and drew him after as he was holding on, he let the spear slip through his hand until he retained only the end of the handle. The people in the transport clapped their hands, and laughed at his ridiculous figure; and when some one threw a stone, which fell on the deck at his feet, and he quitted of the scythe-spear, the crew of his own trireme also burst out laughing; they could not refrain when they beheld the weapon waving in the air, suspended from the transport. Now I do not deny that there may be something in such an art, as Nicias asserts, but I tell you my experience; and, as I said at first, whether this be an art of which the advantage is so slight, or not an art at all, but only an imposition, in either case such an acquirement is not worth having. For my opinion is, that if the professor of this art be a coward, he will be likely to become rash, and his character will be only more notorious; or if he be brave, and fail ever so little, other men will be on the watch, and he will be greatly traduced; for there is a jealousy of such pretenders; and unless a man be preeminent in valour, he cannot help being ridiculous, if he says that he has this sort of skill. Such is my judgment, Lysimachus, of the desirableness of this art; but, as I said at first, ask Socrates, and do not let him go until he has given you his opinion of the matter.
This amusing story of the spear-scythe also lines up nicely with Aristotle's account of false courage from professional confidence that can become overconfidence: "Professional soldiers turn cowards, however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they are inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts, as in fact happened at the temple of Hermes. For to the latter flight is disgraceful and death is preferable to safety on those terms; while the former from the very beginning faced the danger on the assumption that they were stronger, and when they know the facts they fly, fearing death more than disgrace; but the brave man is not that sort of person."
Socrates is now asked his opinion. I will omit some of the back and forth in the interest of brevity; but he points out that, if we want to teach courage, we should first identify who the best teacher was. In order to answer that question, you had to answer a prior question: what precisely did you want to teach?
Note that the debate has turned slightly: Socrates is now asking about teachers of courage, rather than courageous men. He is not presuming that a brave man can teach you bravery; we had after all begun with regrets from the elders that their own noble fathers had failed to do this for them. Since the object is to teach the sons, we need to find the best teachers, not the bravest men. This roots the discussion now very firmly on the idea that courage is a sort of knowledge.
Nicias, who knows Socrates very well, now gives fair warning to the other men about what kind of debate they are about to be drawn into: "[Y]ou seem not to be aware that any one who has an intellectual affinity to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument; and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life; and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him."
Fairly warned, however, the men agree to partake.
Socrates returns them to his preferred subject, identifying exactly what the virtue is that is to be taught so they can then identify the best teachers of that (by identifying those these teachers have taught well to be brave). He then begins pressing Laches on the point. Laches offers an example of courage, rather than a definition of it: standing at one's post in deadly danger. Socrates asks an insightful question about the Scythians' courage: Athenians tend to think of courage as standing at one's post even to death, but the Scythians fight with maneuver. Is that not also brave?
Laches tries to admit that courage could mean that too, but that isn't how Greek hoplites fight. Yet Socrates has another ready example, from the Battle of Plataea, where Lysimachus' father had commanded the Athenian compliment; the Spartans had fled but then, when the Persians broke ranks to pursue them, had turned and defeated the Persians. (This is somewhat similar to the tactic we were just discussing from the Battle of Cowpens.)
So now Socrates can press Laches, not for examples of courage of this-or-that kind of force, but an actual definition of courage itself.
Laches attempts this: "Courage is a sort of endurance of the soul." Not bad, but as Socrates points out, we can endure in things that are foolish or hurtful; but courage was meant to be a virtue, and those bad things would each be a species of vice.
Laches tries again: Only the wise endurance is courage, he ventures. Once again Socrates has an answer for that: "Again, take the case of one who endures in war, and is willing to fight, and wisely calculates and knows that others will help him, and that there will be fewer and inferior men against him than there are with him; and suppose that he has also advantages of position; would you say of such a one who endures with all this wisdom and preparation, that he, or some man in the opposing army who is in the opposite circumstances to these and yet endures and remains at his post, is the braver?"
Of course the braver man is the latter, the one who faces his duty with all the disadvantages rather than all the advantages. Laches is foiled again.
Socrates returns to the question of skill. Wouldn't it be braver to endure a fearsome horse as a rider in battle without the skill to do it, as opposed to a skilled horseman for whom it is no feat? Yet that is another example of something foolish or rash, not virtuous.
Socrates gives Laches a rest and tries Nicias.
Nic. I have often heard you say that "Every man is good in that in which he is wise, and bad in that in which he is unwise."Soc. That is certainly true, Nicias.Nic. And therefore if the brave man is good, he is also wise.Soc. Do you hear him, Laches?La. Yes, I hear him, but I do not very well understand him.Soc. I think that I understand him; and he appears to me to mean that courage is a sort of wisdom.
Ah, but this now means that courage is just every sort of wisdom: the wisdom of how to play a flute, as Socrates points out.
Also, by turning courage into a sort of wisdom, it seems to be a quality that animals might not have. There's no way of knowing exactly what goes through the head of a pig, but they do seem like intelligent animals; so Socrates asks if there can be brave pigs. That sounds a little absurd to the group, but a consequence of denying that animals can have wisdom is then to deny that they are courageous: and many animals, such as lions and stags, are symbols of courage that are referenced by poets and found to be motivational and powerful by the audiences. Rhetorically, at least, the Athenians are committed to the idea that some animals are courageous beasts; but philosophically, they seem to have talked themselves out of that.
What about the field of courage? If it isn't just any kind of good, perhaps it is being wise about terrible things. Socrates mentions that what is terrible is surely terrible at all times, in the past for the brave as in the present for ourselves or the future for the sons we're trying to raise. That seems reasonable to everyone; but it is only future events that really produce the fears that courage is associated with overcoming. Who is fearful of what happened a thousand years ago, or brave about it?
In any case, this widening of the scale to all goods, or knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful in all times had now produced attempted definitions that are clearly much too broad. Whatever courage is, it isn't what they were describing.
The dialogue ends up with the men laughing at themselves and all admitting, including Socrates, that they don't know what they are talking about. As a result, they can't really expect to teach the young anything, because they don't have the knowledge themselves to convey. They all promise to think about it some more and see if they come up with anything better.
The reader knows that these were all brave men, all of whom served courageously in war, two of whom died doing so. Yet they weren't looking for brave men, but for teachers of bravery: and they have to admit that none of them seem to actually have the knowledge they want to convey.
Again, as we did Aristotle's EN first, you know how this story turns out. Courage isn't really a sort of knowledge at all; they were hunting in the wrong forest, as it were. Yet there remains something positive in the seeking of aporia itself, searching fearlessly until you reach the point that you have to abandon all your old answers and begin to think seriously anew. There remain also some interesting problems even about the military arts separate from the virtue of courage. For example, you do want to train professional soldiers with skills that will allow them advantages on the field: how then to avoid the pitfalls to which they are subject? How to retain the true virtue without forgoing the advantages of professionalism and training?
I hope you have found the Laches worth working through. If you have made it this far, you probably have.
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