Plato

Plato (424/3 – 348/7 BC) – THE REPUBLIC

“Injustice is ignorance”. (Socrates)

-       Plato’s biography     

o   Born in a well-to do family (oligarchy), Plato was connected with many of the Thirty Tyrants (the ones that took over Athens after the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War with Sparta). However, he did not get involved in politics, arguing that he is too young for such endeavors.

o   Glaucon and Ademaintus (literary characters in the Republic where they present Socrates with the real challenge) were his brothers.

o   Studied with Socrates and was among his favorite disciples. He witnessed the trial and the death of Socrates – something that, as he confessed later, has marked his entire life: What is the relationship between philosophy and politics? Is a just regime ever possible? [In most of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates is the main character.]

o   Founded the Academy, an institution that lasted until 529 AD ! – tremendously influential in the Western world. No Plato, no Tulane!

o   As in the trial of Socrates the main question boils down to education: Who should educate, what, and how? (In the Republic, men and women are educated in the same place, eating in common mess halls, exercising and studying far from the oversights of their parents. Sounds familiar? )

o   Entangled with politics in the city-state (polis) of Syracuse. Called by Dion of Syracuse, the brother of the city-ruler, Dionysus, to serve as an adviser, he got Dionysus angered and was sold in slavery. He became a free man once again only after a friend ‘bought’ him back. The second time, during the reign of Dionysus the Second, Plato tried once more to serve as an adviser. This didn’t end well either, making Plato highly suspicious about a successful ‘marriage’ between politics and philosophy

-       Plato’s philosophy

o   The Theory of Forms/archetypes/ Universals as exposed, for example, in the allegory of the cave, probably the most famous allegory ever. [Note: We will discuss more when we get to Books VI and VII.]     

o   The unwritten doctrine (esoteric v. exoteric interpretation):

§  “Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing”.

§  “I can certainly declare concerning all these writers who claim to know the subjects that I seriously study … there does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith”. (The Seventh Letter)

o   The challenge - considering all of the above + the fact that Plato never wrote ‘treatises’, only dialogues, how one should read them? [FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What is the connection between writing ‘dialogues’ and the dialectical method? What role(s) play different characters? What about the entire structure of the dialogue?]

o   The dialectical method (see Hegel: thesis, antithesis, synthesis; synthesis in turn will become a thesis to be refuted, and so on) – Book One!

o   The Good and the Beautiful (kalokagathon) – ideas are beautiful!

-       OVERVIEW OF THE REPUBLIC

o   Main topic: Justice. Is it such a thing as justice – for the individual and for the city-state? [Note: Keep in mind that the Republic was written in a time when Greece had to confront the ‘clash’ between tradition and modernity. In terms of justice, between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists (the Sophists), hence the challenge: Can one defend justice not with arguments pertaining to tradition, gods, etc., but on a rational basis?]

o   Possible interpretations: [Note: Please feel free to come up with your own.]

§  The Republic is in effect Plato’s attempt to philosophically ‘avenge’ Socrates’s death, since in the end the philosopher becomes ‘the philosopher-king’.

§  The Republic is the classic example of a totalitarian society (to be distinguished from a dictatorial regime), opposed to the concept of an open society (Karl Popper).

§  The Republic is, as a matter of fact, the exact opposite of what it seems to be. Since the role of the philosopher is to act as a ‘gadfly that awakes the sleepy horse’, and the Republic is but a dream (as Socrates put it repeatedly), what type of dream awakes the ‘dreamer’? A nightmare!

o   Overview of Book I: [It is said that Martin Heidegger never passed the first couple of pages in his interpretation of The Republic.]

§  “We went down …” – Where?

§  The Thracians, Bendis, the new goddess

§  It is the only “book” in the Republic where one can see the Socratic method (elenchus) at work.

§  Socrates is held ‘hostage’ by the ‘power of the many’. Since he cannot use force, he will have to persuade them, and for doing so he will have to make them listen to him. Glaucon: “Of course we’ll wait”. So what is the “proper” relationship between philosophy and democracy? Force and persuasion?

§  The dialogue happens during the night, while they are waiting for the ceremony of passing the torches!

§  Who are Socrates interlocutors? What do they represent?

§  CEPHALUS – The definition of justice according to the older generation (wealth, sex, piety). Exponent of the tradition he leaves the scene as fast as he got in, after starting the conversation between two sacrifices to the gods. Exponent of the conventional – what kind of “conventional”? The conventional of yesterday is not the same with the conventional of today.

§  POLEMARCHUS  = War Lord  (oligarchy? “it is a saying of…  some wealthy man who thought he had great power” p. 81) – The second ‘common –sense’ definition of justice, after the first one was refuted (the madman and the sword). “Helping friends and hurting you enemies” is a definition that is easily refuted by Socrates. How? (Think sororities, fraternities, go Saints! )

·      Justice as useful for contracts – p. 78

·      Is justice just (sic) useful or good as well?

·      One has to know who the real friend is and who the real enemy. Need for wisdom.

·      Justice is useful when used (not to prevent, but to create – see the keeping of a shield and of a lyre – p. 79)

·      Someone who is good at guarding is good at stealing as well.

·      Polemarchus is confused: “But I do not know anymore what I meant” (p. 79) – the result of elenchus! He woke up.

·      To be believed to be good (the appearance of justice – see the sophists ) is not enough. You have to be good.

·      “Can just people use justice to make people unjust?” (p. 80) What is just is to never harm anyone.

§  THRASYMACHUS – The third definition of justice has the same fate, only here the debate is more ‘heated’.  T. as the Sophist and/or the tyrant. [FOOD FOR THOUGHT; Why is Thrasymachus so angry? Why does he say: “I do not think it, by Zeus, I know it”?(345d)  How is he ‘tamed’ by Socrates and he ‘blushes’ in the end? Is he convinced that “injustice is ignorance? (351a)]

§  “Do not be so hard on us, Thrasymachus  … If Polemarchus and I made an error in our investigation…” Socratic irony (p. 81)

§  P. 82: What penalty should I deserve? To be taught properly! – [Note: remember the Apology!]

§  Third definition: “Justice is nothing but the advantage of the strongest” – in all regimes. S: Really? 

§  To do what is in your own advantage, you have to know what is in your best advantage (i.e., to do evil, you have to know what good is). Otherwise you may end up doing justice to others “by accident”.

§  A physician is a physician to the extent he cares for his patient, a horse breeder for his horse – what about the ruler? (T. agrees reluctantly  but comes up with the sheep – shepherd metaphor; easily destroyed by S.: one is not a shepherd (or a physician, or a captain) because one makes money, but because one cares for sheep, patients, the ship, etc.

§  Money-makers: a good ruler will fight for not having to rule (see later the philosopher-king).

§  Is complete injustice more profitable than complete justice?

·      Complete injustice requires wisdom – cannot be done ‘by accident’.

·      The unjust person will try to do better than both the just person and the unjust person(notice how the definition of the just has changed!). Yet even a band of robbers needs some rules, i.e., justice in order not to be self-destroying. (The movie Heat or Godfather ). Yet only an ignorant would want to do better than both the wise and the ignorant. Hence, the unjust person is an ignorant. “Injustice is ignorance” (p. 91)

·      S. is victorious – he has tamed “the beast” – yet now he is going for the kill  - p. 90

·      Injustice will make the person act against himself.

·      Telos – (see later Aristotle): Everything is for something. Thus, determining ‘for what’ is essential (eyes are for seeing, soul is for taking care of things, ruling, deliberating, etc. – brief, for living well). Being just is being happy. Check mate? Not yet!

·      “Hence the result of the discussion, so far as I am concerned, is that I know nothing” (Remember the Oracle of Delphi).

-       General Question: Can The Republic be taken at face value or is it more here than meets the eye? (Remember that if the role of the philosopher is to wake-up the city, and the Republic is “but a dream”, the only dreams that wakes up is … the nightmare.)

-       If Book I is a good exemplification of the Socratic Method (elenchus), the pace of the dialogue will change starting with Book II. Glaucon (timocracy?) and Adeimantus bring forward what can be called “the challenge of modernity”: Is Justice more than a social convention? More than the result of a social contract? Is Justice a good in itself (not for the sake of other goods, such as reputation, a good afterlife, etc.)?

-       The ring of Gyges – would you still be just if you would know for sure that no one can ever “catch” you on the act?

-       Contrasting the perfectly just man with the reputation of being an evil person with the perfectly unjust man who enjoys the reputation of being a perfectly just one – who lives a happier life?

-       Socrates moves from the individual to the city (the organic vision) – and this is how the discussion about the perfectly just city, i.e., the Republic, begins.

-       “We are not all born alike” (p. 101) – in the organic vision, we share in membership yet perform different roles.

o   Distinction between ‘roles’ and ‘functions’ (a social worker can perform the function of a father, but the role of father is unique and irreplaceable).

-       The city of needs/ the city of pigs is a healthy city, but it is before ‘good’ and ‘evil’, i.e., before politics and before justice (“where are justice and injustice to be found in it?” p. 102) . Furthermore, one cannot stop here, for the borders between ‘needs’ and ‘desires’ are blurry for human beings.

-       The luxurious city, thus, is almost a necessity. Yet the luxurious city presents a problem: war or the threat of war, hence the need for warriors, i.e., the guardians. (“The next step will be war” – p. 103)

o   Parallels between the individual and the state (a perfect example of the organic vision of the state: the state is but a larger vision of the individual.)

§  The appetitive part of the soul – The class of producers

§  The spirited part – the warriors/guardians

§  The rational part of the soul – the philosopher-king

o   As long as these three parts fulfill their functions properly and are balanced, the soul of the individual is just, and the city-state is just. [FOOD FOR THOUGHT: To what extent the parallel is sustainable? Arguments for and against.]

o   Eventually, in the end (see Book VIIII), even the ‘ideal city-state’ (the ‘dreamy’ state) will be corrupted and the cycle of ‘revolutions’ (in the classical sense) will begin:

§  From timocracy (based on honor) to oligarchy; from oligarchy to democracy; from democracy to anarchy; from here to kingship, that will degenerate into tyranny, etc.

-       The guardians ought to be both ‘spirited’ and ‘gentle’, i.e., they should share to opposite features (p. 104). [Food for thought: Think about the philosopher also appears to combine passion (love/phylia) with ‘coolness’/ wisdom. Also, see the discussion in Book VII, about how the opposites summon thought and may spark understanding.]

-       Censorship starts with a revealing warning: “We begin by telling stories to the children” (p. 105). In order to educate them one uses fables that contain ‘some truth’ in them but are, as a whole, lies. Is it possible that the entire dialogue is nothing but an elaborate lie “with some truth in it” meant to educate the reader?

-       Poets are to be censored, for they teach lies (a god is altogether simple, true, it does not change, etc. – pp.108-110).

o   Yet poets are used from the very beginning of the republic, and the Republic itself is based upon the “noble lie”!

-       Book III-V – the myth of the metals (yet another allegory). Men can have a soul of gold (the guardians from which the philosopher-king will eventually emerge), of silver (the warriors), or of bronze and iron (the producers). The totalitarian state comes into being.

-       For the guardians there is no private property, community of wives and children, etc. Genetic engineering? Who can persuade and/or compelled people to accept such a life-style? The ‘true’ philosopher, the one who knows/contemplates the Forms, i.e., the true reality.

-       The DIALECTICAL LINE AND THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE [Note: For obvious reasons, I cannot post on these notes my drawings. If you need more ‘graphic’ material, please do not hesitate to contact me.]

-       Questions: Who ‘frees’ the first philosopher and ‘drags’ him out of the cave? Why would he return? How believable would he be? Is such a scenario even thinkable, let alone doable? Why Socrates brings in the discussion, right after this allegory, the idea of “summoners of thought”, meant to puzzle, to shock, to wake up understanding?

-       Book VIII – Everything that comes-to-be is subjected to corruption, including the ideal Republic.

-       The transitions from TIMOCRACY-OLIGARCHY-DEMOCRACY-TYRANNY (both as regimes and as individual types).

-       How close is the tyrant from philosopher-king?

-       QUESTIONS:           What Socrates has to say about democracy? Why is it beautiful? What makes democracy (and the democratic man) beautiful and attractive? Why is it different from any other constitution? Why is a constitution such as the Republic possible only in a democracy? Why it remains highly corruptible? (see especially pp. 211-212 CMPT)

-       SUMMING UP: Plato’s Republic remains a very frustrating yet a very rewarding reading at the same time. It is frustrating because the important question – Is Justice possible? – remains basically unanswered, both at the level of the individual and at the level of the city-state. Yet is rewarding for precisely the same reasons: it is puzzling, opened to interpretation and re-interpretation. Some 2400 years later, it still summons thought.

-       Food for thought:

o   We start educating children by telling them stories – why? Why stories are better to educate than straightforward concepts? Because they don’t explain, they indicate; they point toward without giving definitions; they show you something, without spelling out what that something is. In other words, they make you think for yourself. A good story does not present you with a definition or an explanation; not with the proper answer but with the proper question.

o   The Republic is a story.

o   We start by telling them stories which are false as a whole but have some truth in it. Enough truth to make them, the children, to think for themselves, to capture their attention, to wake them up.

o   The Republic is a story.

o   Yet a story is also an image – it has flesh and blood, it reaches a larger audience, it persuades many people in different ways (think about the Genesis or about Jesus’s parables – aren’t they stories?)

o   But we know from the allegory of the cave that images are but shadows, pertaining to the realm of the visible and we also know from the end of book two, that we are to be careful with what types of stories we are telling to the kids, especially stories about gods. For there are “base lies” and “noble lies”. In other words, there are stories/shadows that can keep you chained or shadows that can free you!!! So, after all, there is no need for someone to come and free the first prisoner! The ‘right shadow’ may perform the same function.

o   But the shadow needs a fire and a puppeteer. Thus, one still needs a puppeteer, one properly trained by the philosopher. But maybe then the philosopher won’t have to descend all the way down into the cave – just enough to train the proper puppeteer.

o   One more thing: In Book Two, the challenge that Socrates has to face is to prove that justice is a good in itself not only in this life, but putting between parentheses the gods and the afterlife.  Yet Book Ten, the last one, ends up with yet another myth, about reincarnation. Thus, it appears that Strauss was right when he claimed that the theologico-politcal problem lies at the core of the Western civilization and it is a problem that cannot be solved.