Class
Supplement Introducing Plato's Republic
Copyright (c)
2025 Bruce W. Hauptli
Platos
Republic was written in approximately 380 B.C.E. about five years
after he founded his Academy in 385. It is
intended to advance his view as to how we ought to liveâboth as individuals and in society. For him, the most important thing will be for
us to be just, and, thus, he must tell us what justice is! As I have noted in lectures already, for
Plato values arenât âseparate from the world.â As Christine Korsgaard notes, in her
âExcellence and Obligation: A Very
Concise History of Western Metaphysics 387 BC to 1887 AD:â
Plato
and Aristotle came to believe that value was more real than experienced fact,
indeed that the real world is, in a way, value itself. They came to see the world we experience as
being, in its very essence, a world of things that are trying to be much better
than they are, and that really are much better than they seem....Plato believed
that the essence of a thing is the form in which it participates. A thingâs true nature and its perfect
nature are one and the same. Form, which
is value, is more real than the things which appear to us to participate in but
fall short of it. Aristotle believed
that the actuality of a thing is its
form, which makes it possible for the thing to do what it does and therefore to
be what it is....For Plato and Aristotle, being guided by value is a matter of
being guided by the way things ultimately are.
In ethics, this way of viewing the
world leads to what we might call the idea of excellence. Being guided by the way things really are is,
in this case, being guided by the way you
really are. The form of a thing is its
perfection, but it is also what enables the thing to be what it is. So the endeavor to realize perfection is just
the endeavor to be what you areâto be good at being what you are. And so the ancients thought of human virtue
as a kind of excelling, of excellence.[1]
We are no longer at all puzzled about why the world, being
good, is yet not good. Because for us,
the world is no longer first and foremost form. It is matter. This is what I mean when I say that there has
been a revolution, and that the world has been turned inside out. The real is no longer the good. For us, reality is something hard, something which resists reason and
value, something which is recalcitrant to form.[2]
So
Plato wants to show us how to actualize the true value which is to be guided
by the way we really are. His pursuit
of knowledge here is not to provide us with power over the world, but,
rather, over ourselves as Michael Williams notes in his Problems of Knowledge: A Critical
Introduction to Epistemology:
for both ancients and moderns, knowledge is power. But whereas for the moderns this means power
over the world, for the ancients it means power over oneself.[3]
Of course, Plato does not believe that
society as it was constituted promotes such excellence (or arete). In her Cultivating
Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform In Liberal Education, Martha
Nussbaum points out that:
...the reader knows what the characters [in the Republic]
do not know :that some years after the peaceful scene of philosophical
discussion depicted here, they will be embroiled on opposing sides in a violent
political conflict that will result in death for three of them and risk of life
for them all. A group of oligarchs known
as the Thirty Tyrants will seize power in Athens, lead by members of Platos
own family. Using slogans appealing to
the notion of justice (we must cleanse the city of the unjust), they will set
about enriching themselves in any way they can, arranging political charges
against wealthy citizens in order to seize their property. Plato intends his reader to recall a famous
speech by the orator Lysias (a silent character in the Republic, brother of the prominent character Polemarchus) in which
he describes the brutal murder of his brother and his own narrow escape. So great was the greed of the new
antidemocratic rulers, he exclaims, that they dragged Polemarchus wife out
into the courtyard and ripped the gold earrings out of her ears. And all the while they said that their motive
was justice.[4]
But
while Plato believes that individuals and states were almost wholly
inappropriately organized for the production of arete, he believed we have no
choice but to endeavor to change both together so as to instantiate the
ideal. His strategy was to provide an
argument for, and characterization of, this ideal for us. This is no small task. Effectively Plato is going to try and tell
you that his view of the ideal state and individual identify what is, in fact, intrinsically
valuable.[5] Since it is unlikely many did, have,
or will value what he values, he clearly has an uphill battle! This is what makes his effort so
intellectually interesting!
Before we can talk about his argument, we need
to have a clearer initial understanding of the outlines of his
orientation. Toward this end, I will
offer a racing car metaphor harmony
and parts in the right order. Parts of the soul [psycheâclarify
âsoulâ] and parts of the state.
-Parts?
-Harmony?
-Health and disease a "psychoanalytic" metaphor.
In
the background his view involves at least the following as central linchpins:
-an acceptance of a Tyranny of Reason:
-self-mastery vs.
slavery.
-types of men--think of John Steinbeckâs Of Mice and Men (Lenny and George).[6]
-a moral, yet
paternalistic, conception of the state.
Sailing ship metaphor and the choice of captain--once we have found such
a captain, would we ever choose to over-ride his/her orders?
-a commitment to
censorship--should he be in favor of it?
--In his The Reason Why Not, Stuart Hampshire maintains that:
in The Republic,
Plato suggested that the need for justice arises from an individuals
experience of inner conflict and that morality enters as a negative force which
prohibits unworthy desires. With their
domain extended to social conflicts, justice and morality retain their
essential negative character; they act, according to Plato, as a shield against
the disruption and chaos of uncontrolled conflicts in the city. For the tyranny of Plato philosophic wisdom
we should substitute the fairness in public argument which always hears both
sides in adversary reasoning, before deciding between them. In all concerns about what we owe to others
it is just and reasonable to be open to both sides in a conflict and to balance
conflicting moral claims against each other.[7]
--In his Wheels in the
Head: Educational Philosophies of Authority, Freedom, and Culture from Socrates
to Human Rights, Joel Spring draws out what he takes to be the core
authoritarian character of Platos educational process, and he critiques
Platos rejection of democracy:
using education to train individuals to sacrifice for the
common good is premised on the belief that the common good can be defined by
some element of the state. In Platos Republic, philosopher-kings define the
common good, while in Makarenkos Soviet state the role is given to the
Communist party.[8] Of course, people must be taught to believe
that the ruling group has the ability and authority to know the common
good. This type of education is aided by
the use of patriotic exercises and the development of martial spirit, both of
which are designed to link personal emotions to a belief in the ability of the
state to proclaim the common good. In
other words, people learn to love to sacrifice their self-interest for the
common good as defined by the state.
Of course, the flaw in this argument is the belief that
particular individuals or groups have the ability and authority to know what is
good for the rest of the population. In
most cases, what is defined as the common good is really what is good for the
group making the definition.[9]
Two
Interpretations of the Republic:
In
discussing the Republic, I will present two divergent readings of the text, and you should decide whether one or the other is the more plausible:
The Aristocratic reading: paternalism, the
authoritarian state, and the social correlate of âself-mastery.â
The Democratic reading: the Republic as an
owners manual for the psyche--everyone is capable of self-mastery.
A specific view of the role of education:
Go
to Midcoast Senior College Webpage
I greatly appreciate comments and corrections--typos and infelicities are all too common and the cuse of "auto-correct" plagues me!
File revised on 09/28/25
[1] Christine Korsgaard,
âExcellence and Obligation: A Very Concise History of Western Metaphysics
387 BC to 1887 AD, in The Sources of
Normativity, ed. Onora ONeill (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1996), pp. 1-5,
pp. 2-3. Emphasis added to the passage
(bold and highlight).
[2] Ibid., pp. 4-5.
[3] Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology, Michael
Williams (N.Y.: Oxford U.P., 2001), p. 9.
[4] Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating
Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform In Liberal Education (Cambridge:
Harvard U.P., 1997), pp 22-23.
[5] An intrinsically valuable
goal, or activity, is one that is pursued for its own sake. Such values are contrasted with extrinsic values--here the goal or
activity is valued for what it will allow one to achieve. Health, for example, might be intrinsically
valuable (good-in-itself), while wealth is usually conceived of as
extrinsically valuable (good-for-what-it-can-get-us).
[6] Cf., John Steinbeck, Of Mice
and Men (N.Y.: Covici-Friede, 1937).
[7] Stuart Hampshire, The
Reason Why Not, New York Review of Books
v. 46 (April 22, 1999), pp. 21-23, p. 22.
[8] Anton Makarenko was the leading Soviet theoretician of education under
Joseph Stalin's rule, and was, perhaps, the most famous of Soviet educators. He developed and advanced a pedagogy meant to
promote a self-governing child employing educational collectives for street
children and children who were orphans because of the Russian revolution. He argued there should be integration between
the activities of the many educational institutions (schools, families,
productive collectives, and both public and private organizations. In its article on him Wikipedia
maintains that: among his key ideas were as much exigence towards the person as possible and as
much respect for him as possible, the use of positive peer pressure on the
individual by the collective; and institutionalized self-government and
self-management of that collective. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Makarenko
accessed 01/28/15). The article goes
on to note that: âlike most things Soviet, Makarenko's ideas came under heavy
criticism after the fall of communism. His system has been accused of many of
the same supposed faults as Soviet Communism in general, such as giving the
child collective too much power over the individual child.â
[8] Joel Spring, Wheels in the Head: Educational Philosophies of Authority, Freedom, and Culture from Socrates to Human Rights (second edition) (N.Y.: McGraw-Hill, 1999), p. 12. Anton Makarenko was the leading Soviet theoretician of education under Joseph Stalin's rule.