The ‘epistemic’ mode of thinking about what is good

The person who fully inhabits the epistemic frame of mind with regard to the activity of living a human life will form and revise his beliefs about what is good with a view to knowing what is good. Yet when he asks himself how exactly to go about doing this, he may realize that in addition to being no expert when it comes to living a human life, he is also not an expert when it comes to making progress in revising his beliefs about what is good. As he searches for clues, he may wonder: “Being rigorous in a field like mathematics or geometry is one thing, but what counts as being rigorous in such a delicate matter as thinking about what is good?” Although he may wrestle with this question without ever finding the answer, he will in the meantime have settled into ‘epistemic’ habits of belief-formation. He will attempt to reconcile and organize his beliefs about what is good, juxtaposing beliefs that would otherwise remain segregated, asking how well they cohere, and trying to impart greater integrity to his system of beliefs. He will be a relentless editor of his beliefs about what is good, ever on the lookout for mistakes and making

1 _{Cf. Republic 492b-d [Socrates speaking to Adeimantus]: “‘[Is it] not rather the very men who talk in this strain} who are the chief sophists and educate most effectively and mould to their own heart’s desire young and old, men and women?’ ‘When?’ said he. ‘Why, when,’ I said, ‘the multitude are seated together in assemblies or in court- rooms or theatres or camps or any other public gathering of a crowd, and with loud uproar censure some of the things that are said and done and approve others, both in excess, with full-throated clamour and clapping of hands, and thereto the rocks and the region round about re-echoing redouble the din of the censure and the praise. In such case how do you think the young man’s heart . . . is moved within him? What private teaching do you think will hold out and not rather be swept away by the torrent of censure and applause, and borne off on its current, so that he will affirm the same things that they do to be honourable and base (phêsein te ta auta toutois kala kai aischra einai), and will do as they do (kai epitêdeusein haper an houtoi), and be even such as they (kai esesthai toiouton)?’ ‘That is quite inevitable (pollê . . . anangkê), Socrates,’ he said.”

corrections where needed, even as he also questions the trustworthiness of his own editorial judgment. He will also try not to be fooled by people who seem to know what is best. When he meets such people, he will test their seeming knowledge by the best tests he knows, checking at the very least for consistency. He will clearly distinguish the question “Do the people I respect approve of this?” from the question “Is this good?” He will also try to be on guard against according undue weight to the pleasure or pain that something brings. While remaining open to the possibility that the good is the pleasant, he will clearly distinguish the questions “Is this pleasant?” and “Is this good?”

As for the relation between his beliefs and his actions, the defining characteristic of the person who fully inhabits the epistemic frame of mind is complete trust in the guidance of

knowledge, accompanied by a more or less radical mistrust of every other form of guidance.

Accordingly, this person will not, so far as is in his power, act otherwise than as knowledge dictates. If knowledge is unavailable, he will try to follow, albeit somewhat warily, that form of available guidance which in his opinion comes closest to knowledge. Yet the further removed he is from the guidance of knowledge, the muddier the relationship between his beliefs and actions gets. Like the ‘manly’ person, he may not know quite what he believes; he may have ‘half- hearted’ beliefs; he may simply not have an opinion. Nevertheless, to the extent that he has a clear belief about how best to proceed, and to the extent that he considers this to be the closest thing he has to knowledge, to that extent he can be counted on to act in accordance with this belief.

2.2.3.4. The ‘semi-organized hodgepodge’ mode of thinking about what is good

The person who inhabits the abovementioned ‘semi-organized hodgepodge’ frame of mind with regard to his life as a whole will think about what is good in a partly coherent combination of ‘animal’, ‘manly’, and (to a lesser degree) ‘epistemic’ ways, no one approach being the ‘ruling’ approach. It would be wrong to think of this person as forming his beliefs about what is good now in an ‘animal’ manner, now in a ‘manly’ manner, now in an ‘epistemic’ manner, occupying distinctly different modes from situation to situation. It would also be wrong to think of him as consistently forming his beliefs about what is good in a single ‘blended’ mode. This person’s ‘hodgepodge’ mode of thinking about what is good falls somewhere between these extremes, as does the relation between his beliefs and his actions.

2.2.4. A fuller formulation of my account

I said in chapter 1 that the akratic fails to inhabit the epistemic frame of mind with regard to the activities of living a human life and of thinking about what is good. I did not, however, say which frame of mind he does inhabit. In this chapter I have described a ‘semi-organized hodgepodge’ frame of mind in which no one approach is the ‘ruling’ approach and which borrows more from the animal and manly frames of mind than from the epistemic. Having described this hybrid frame of mind, I may now present a fuller formulation of my account:

There are many different kinds of akratic behavior, and different factors are responsible for different kinds, but what is chiefly responsible for typical instances of akratic behavior is that the akratic inhabits the abovementioned ‘semi-organized hodgepodge’ frame of mind, rather than the epistemic frame of mind, with regard to the activity of living a human life generally and, in particular, with regard to the activity of thinking about what is good. Moreover, what keeps the typical akratic stuck in his rut is his ignorance of the fact that the psychic resistance he encounters during episodes of