The uses of lexica.

Nussbaum, Martha C.

To the Editors:

I am grateful for Roger Kimball's attention to nay book, but I write to correct the misleading account he gives of nay testimony in the Colorado trial of Evans v. Romer. He is not the first to circulate this inaccurate report. My argument about the disputed Plato passage was not based on the lexicon (although I did mention the lexicon as one example of scholarly interpretation). No decent scholar's argument would be based on the lexicon, since lexica are simply records of scholars' interpretations of text, and the best scholars are not likely to be the ones who write lexica.

My actual argument was based on a study of all the uses of the disputed terms in Plato's writings and other related texts of the period. It is a good argument. It has convinced leading scholars, including Sir Kenneth Dover and Anthony Price, who have published statements to that effect. My argument, their statements, and a co-authored statement by me and Dover about the text and the issues can all be found in the Virginia Law Review 80 (1994), 1515-1651. When Kimball has studied nay actual argument, I welcome a substantive discussion.

Martha Nussbaum

Chicago, Illinois

Roger Kimball replies:

I did read Professor Nussbaum's 137-page Virginia Law Review article. I also read her sworn affidavit for the case of Evans v. Romer and a great deal of the other commentary surrounding that case. The issue is not which scholars support Professor Nussbaum. The issue is the truthfulness of her testimony in Evans v. Romer. One point of contention was the meaning of the Greek word tolmema. The word, which can mean "deed of daring" is in the context of Plato's Laws 636c generally rendered as "crime" "shameless act" or some other morally opprobrious term. Professor Nussbaum claimed this was an unreasonable rendering. In an affidavit filed with the court, Professor Nussbaum cited the "Liddle [sic], Scott Lexicon of the Ancient Greek Language, the authoritative dictionary relied on by all scholars in this area" to support her claim. The blank is where Professor Nussbaum whited out "& Jones," the name of the scholar who revised the Liddell, Scott lexicon. Asked why she did this, she replied, "I use the edition without the supplementation by Jones, since it is more reliable on authors of the classical period." Neither part of this statement is true. The philosopher Robert George provided a devastating analysis of Professor Nussbaum's testimony in "'Shameless Acts' Revisited: Some Questions for Martha Nussbaum" (Academic Questions, Winter 1995-96). "No decent scholar," I believe, can read Professor George's article without concluding, as did John Finnis, that Professor Nussbaum's testimony was "a wholesale abuse of her scholarly authority and achievements."