On Plato’s ‘Republic’ — Philosopher Kings
‘The temporal and transitory certainly exists, and may cause us trouble enough, but in spite of that it is no true reality, any more than the particularity of the subject, his wishes and inclinations, are so’.
‘In connection with this observation, the distinction is to be called to mind which was drawn when we were speaking of … Plato’s Philosophy of Nature : the eternal world, as God holy in Himself, is reality, not a world above us or beyond, but the present world looked at in its truth, and not as it meets the senses of those who hear, see, &c. When we thus study the content of the Platonic Idea, it will become clear that Plato has, in fact, represented Greek morality according to its substantial mode, for it is the Greek state-life which constitutes the true content of the Platonic Republic. Plato is not the man to dabble in abstract theories and principles; his truth-loving mind has recognized and represented the truth, and this could not be anything else than the truth of the world he lived in, the truth of the one spirit which lived in him as well as in Greece. No man can overleap his time, the spirit of his time is his spirit also; but the point at issue is, to recognize that spirit by its content’.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831), ‘Lectures in the History of Philosophy.
The concepts of nature and politics have been closely intertwined in philosophy from its very beginnings, for politics in itself has been taken to be the corollary of the distinctive nature of humans that come to the world needy and vulnerable, like all natural beings humans are not self-sufficient but need many things, and in Plato’s, (428/427 or 424/423–348/347 BC), ‘Republic’ politics is intimately connected to human beings as natural beings with needs and vulnerabilities. The development and, in effect, re-invention of this multitudinous concept of nature can be traced in political thought from Plato through to Hegel, and Plato can be credited with occupying a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of political theory, for he not only altered radically our understanding of what it means to live in political communities but furthermore did so in pursuit of a politics that would be in accord with nature. Nature in the ‘Republic’ feature as the inescapable field of vision for political practices and proposed institutions, delivering justification for those and ensuring their plausibility, indeed the very origin of political association is imputed in that dialogue to the fact that humans are not self-sufficient, but have many needs, which cannot be satisfied in isolation, but require a getting together in the context of a city-state or polis. The subsequent development of this polis in the dialogue leads to a political constitution whose basic structure mirrors the nature of the human psyche and Plato is regarded by many as foregrounding the close connection between nature and politics, and as providing a formula for a constitutional framework in accord with what, or so he thought, were the basic tenets of human nature. As for the results, Karl Popper, (1902–1994), took Plato to be a utopian social engineer of totalitarian intent, his envisioned state advocating for a government constituted merely of a distinct hereditary ruling class, with the working class, who Popper argues Plato regarded as human cattle, given no role in decision making. Plato has no interest in what are commonly regarded as the problems of justice, Popper contends, the resolution of disputes between individuals, in virtue of the fact that Plato has redefined justice as knowing one’s place and keeping to it, and indication of the kind of pitfalls one is prone to falling into upon constructing a political theory upon the foundations of a particular understanding of human nature.
Hegel, who Popper also attacked as being an influential authoritarian thinker, took a more considered and respectful view of Platonic theories of state and ethics, more so than early modern philosophers whose theories proceeded from a mythical state of nature, (see my article On Plato’ ‘Crito’s — Truth in Action), defined by humanity’s natural needs, desires and freedom. For Hegel this amounted to a contradiction, for nature and the individual are contradictory and the freedoms that define individuality as such entered late upon the stage of history, and hence these philosophers unwittingly projected a person as an individual in modern society onto a primordial state of nature. Plato however had managed to take hold of the ideas specific to his time and Plato’s ‘Republic’ is no abstract theory or ideal which is too good for the real nature of man, maybe rather not ideal enough or not matching up to the ideals already inherent or germinating in the reality of his age, an age when Greece was entering into decline, indeed one particular incipient idea was on the verge of stamping upon the Greek way of life, modern freedoms, or Christian freedoms as Hegel’s saw it, such as the individual’s choice of his or her social class, or of what property to pursue, or which career to follow, such individual freedoms being excluded from Plato’s republic.
But Plato certainly posed the question of the relation between nature and politics with great seriousness and ingenuity. for he recognized and was caught up in the spirit of his age, and brought it forward in a more definite way in that he wished to make this new principle an impossibility in his Republic. Greece being at a turning point, Plato’s new constitution in the ‘Republic’ was an endeavour to preserve Greece, a reactionary response to the new freedoms of private property and such like that were eventually given legal form through Rome. Accordingly, in ethical life, it was an endeavour to introduce a religion that elevated each individual not as an owner of property, but as the possessor of an immortal soul and the answers to political problems were looked for in terms of natural rights, a peculiar understanding of them, and the ‘Republic’ is perhaps the finest single treatise written upon political philosophy and has influenced to a great extent the thinking of Western humanity concerning issues of justice, rule, obedience, and the good life. And this is the case whether one agrees with Plato’s answers or, if dissatisfied, searches for a different solution. The work is also a great introduction to Plato’s philosophy in general, for not only does it contain his ideas on the state and man, but also his theory of Forms, his theory of knowledge, and his views of the role of music and poetry in society. Nor does he assume a position of condescension in this introduction, rather presenting on each of the aforementioned philosophical issues a penetrating analysis that calls for careful study on the part of the reader. And Socrates, (c. 470–399 BC), together with his eminent student Plato, compel one by their dialectical technique of question and answer, of definition and exception, to take an active part in the philosophical adventure.
The following are the main ideas presented in the ‘Republic’. The question of what justice is arises, and after some answers are rejected, Thrasymachus suggests that justice is whatever benefits the stronger party, since they create and enforce the laws. However, Socrates argues that rulers sometimes make mistakes, and that the art of government, like any other art, should always be directed towards the interests of the people it affects. Socrates believes that a just person, as long as they possess knowledge, can govern themselves and others. Furthermore, such a person is not only concerned with their own interests, but also those of others. To explain the concept of justice and demonstrate its value, Socrates constructs the idea of an ideal state, one which embodies justice. He does this by leading a discussion about justice in the state. . Every state requires three classes: guardians or rulers, auxiliaries or soldiers, and workers. Each class should carry out its proper duties without interfering with the others. Similarly, a just person is someone whose three elements of nature — the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive — are in harmony. The ideal republic is one in which the classes are carefully constructed through controlled breeding, education, and selection. Society is communized to eliminate conflicts over personal property. The guardians of the state should be educated as philosophers. They should undergo training in music and gymnastics.
The ‘Republic’ is divided into ten books, or chapters, composed as a dialogue with Socrates as the principle character, displaying a literary and philosophical panache and containing passages of much beauty and force. The opening book is concerned with the question, ‘What is justice?’ Invited by Polemarchus, (5th century — 404 BC), to the home of his father Cephalus, (5th century BC), Socrates and others (among them Glaucon, (445 BC — 4th century BC), Adeimantus, (c. 432 BC — 382 BC), and Thrasymachus, (c. 459 — c. 400 BC), begin in an effortless manner to look for an answer, whereupon a general but vague definition is defended, first by Cephalus and then by his son, Polemarchus, to the effect that justice consists in restoring what one has received from another. Socrates inquires if this definition would apply in a situation in which weapons borrowed from a friend were demanded by him when quite obviously he was no longer of sound mind,a plain and simple example of the kind that Socrates was fond of presenting, and, typically, when examined, it raises important considerations, for justice, among other things, involves not only property but also conditions, such as a sound mind, which cannot be simply assumed.
The next attempt is forwarded is that justice is doing good to friends and harm to enemies, but knowledge is required in order to be able to judge who our friends and enemies are so the definition is then modified, do good to the just and harm to the unjust. Socrates brings up a point in objection which is a central feature of many of his discussions of the good life, that is to say, he argues that doing harm to the unjust makes them worse than they are. He contends that it can never be just to make a man worse than he is by doing harm to him, and the most serious discussion of the work and one which sets the tone for the remainder of the ‘Republic’ occurs next. Thrasymachus, who had been sitting by listening to the argument with ill-concealed distaste, impetuously breaks in and takes it up, presenting a position that has since been stated many times, that is, justice is that which is to the advantage or interest of the stronger party, the reason being that the stronger party makes the laws. Socrates begins to attack this definition, for instance, he points out that a man does not always know what his interest is or wherein it lies, and when the stronger errs in his judgment, then what? Thrasymachus responds that the ruler is not a ruler when he errs, and take note that in conceding this much Thrasymachus has already moved away from his original position and toward that of Socrates that might alone does not make right, for it is might together with some kind of knowledge capable of preventing errors that makes right. Socrates then presses his advantage further, whenever we consider an art and its practice, be it medicine, piloting a ship, or ruling, it is done so not for the sake of the art or for its practitioner but for those who are to receive its benefits, be they patients, passengers, or the ruled.
Thrasymachus angrily declares that anyone but a philosopher could see that society honours the man of power over the powerless. Corrupt men with impunity dissolve contracts, and pay no taxes, and people may in private proclaim the virtues of justice but publicly the opposite prevails, and people are admired and respected for daring to practice that which is ordinarily frowned upon. In fact, Thrasymachus claims, the tyrant is the happiest of men. And here Socrates points out that Thrasymachus has challenged the whole conduct of living, and he reiterates the point that an art is practiced for the benefit of those for whom its services are intended and not for the benefit of the practitioner. Any payment received for practicing an art is independent of the aim of the art, and in ruling the benefit is for the ruled, not the ruler, for no one rules willingly, they accept the responsibility only because they are afraid of being ruled by a worse person. Thrasymachus responds that ideal justice is a virtue that a person of intelligence cannot afford, whereas that which is called injustice is in reality only good prudence. Subjected to questioning, Thrasymachus concedes that the just person does not try to get the better of other just people, but rather of unjust people who are his or her opposites in character. Getting the better of seems to imply taking advantage of, in the widest possible sense, and even to instruct someone is somehow to take advantage of them. In a vein much like the one taken above, Socrates argues that in every form of knowledge and ignorance, every art or its lack, the person who knows tries to benefit those who do not know, not those who know. And when the ignorant are in control, not knowing the art, they do not know in what way to practice it or on whom, hence, they try to get the better of all, be they wise or ignorant. For Socrates, knowing one’s art and for whom it is intended is an indication of virtue, and virtue seems to mean the proper function of anything, what the proper function of a thing is, however, demands appropriate study and knowledge, and as we saw those who are just try to get the better of only those who are unjust and of no others, whereas the unjust try to get the better of all. The latter, then, are the ignorant and the ineffectual, the former, the intelligent, and hence the wise and the good, and the soul’s virtue is discovered in proper rule of the individual. The just person with knowledge can rule both him or herself and others, whereas the unjust person, factitious, disrupted, and not knowing what to do and what not to do, can rule neither him or herself nor others. The first book ends as Socrates reminds his disputants that they have been getting ahead of themselves, it is rather foolish to talk about justice, a virtue, when they have not yet defined it.
In Book II, Glaucon and Adeimantus press Socrates to prove that the just life is worth living, and Glaucon illustrates his wish by means of the legend of Gyges’s ring. An unnamed ancestor of Gyges king of Lydia, so the story goes, a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia, after an earthquake discovers a cave revealed in a mountainside where he was feeding his flock, and upon entering the cave he discovers that it was in fact a tomb with a bronze horse containing a corpse, larger than that of a man, who wore a golden ring, which he helped himself to, and subsequently he discovered that the ring gave him the power to become invisible by adjusting it. and so, doing what any of us would do having acquired the power of invisibility he devoted his life to fighting crime … no he didn’t really, he then arranged to be chosen as one of the messengers who reported to the king as to the status of the flocks, and upon arriving at the palace he used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help he murdered the king, and became king of Lydia himself. The lowly shepherd, so the story goes, having gained possession of a ring which when turned made its wearer invisible, upon having this advantage was able to practice evil with impunity. Socrates is asked to consider an individual with the advantage of this shepherd and contrast him with one who in life is his opposite. It is his task to demonstrate that the life of the just person, no matter what indignities he or she suffers, is worth living, nay, more, that it is preferable to that of this shepherd. He is to demonstrate that virtue is its own reward no matter what the consequences, and Socrates, albeit with misgivings, takes on the task. He suggests, inasmuch as they are searching for something not readily discoverable, justice, that they turn to a subject which will most readily exhibit it, for the state is analogous to the individual, and justice, once discovered in the state, will apply also to its counterpart, the individual.
Socrates starts off on his quest by a sort of pseudo-historical analysis of the state, whereby people are not self-sufficient and thus cannot supply themselves with all the necessities of life, but by pooling their resources, and by having each person do what he or she is best suited to do, they will provide food, shelter, and clothing for themselves. The city thus started engages in exporting and importing, sets up markets, and steadily advances from its simple beginnings, though it should be pointed out that the states in ancient Greece bore a strong resemblance to the cities of today, both in size and population, but were independent units. From simple needs, the people pass increasingly to luxurious wants, and given that the necessities of life are no longer sufficient, the people turn to warfare to accumulate booty, and so armies are required and a new professional is bom, the soldier, with appropriate characteristics. The soldiers must be as watchdogs, gentle to their friends and fierce to their enemies, though note that in discussing the characteristics of the soldiers, a spirited group that forms only a part of the state, and analogously, a spirited part of the individual, Socrates suggests a feature formerly given as a possible definition of justice. The soldier must know his friends, the citizenry, and his enemies, the barbarians, and be good to the one and harm the other. And Socrates illustrates the point with a comparison to the dog whereby he presents an argument, one of the few of his which no right minded person would dispute, that the dog is the most philosophical of animals.
The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties, and there will be some warlike natures who have this aptitude, dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit, but these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another, the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer, for dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers, for your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing, and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness, and so the human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education?
Such may be an aspect of justice, but it is not the complete definition, the state also needs rulers, or guardians who are to be carefully selected and trained. Plato holds that music and gymnastics to be a significant part of the guardian training, and he concludes Book II and takes up much of Book III with arguments for censorship of the tales of Hesiod, (750–650 BC), and Homer, (c. 8th cent. BC), particularly any wherein the gods, who ought to be examples of noble, virtuous beings, are presented as deceitful, lustful, brutal, and petty. He believed that Greek society was in the decline, that moral behavior was no longer understood or practiced by the Athenians, and that, to a large degree, the degrading tales of the gods were responsible, doubtless mistaking symptom for a cause, for the moral decline of a people involves many things of which tawdry literature (which I rather like as it happens the more tawdry the better) is merely a sign, the desire for such things cannot be cured by censorship, indeed the principle involved in censorship has other consequences which are as bad as the social evils that Plato hoped to cure. Plato seemed to think, as many do today, that the young imitate in their behavior the activities they see in the imitative arts. If they read stories in which the supposed heroes are immoral, if they see plays in which the protagonists are effeminate and slavish, then they will tend to act similarly,and Plato contends that the guardians may know of such people, but to act as they do will bring about bad habits. And furthermore, to imitate means to do or be more than one thing, that is to say, to be both that which one imitates and also one’s own self, and in this society it is enough to do or be one thing and that well. In order to convince the inhabitants of this state that people are fit for one and only one job, to be either guardians (rulers), auxiliaries (soldiers), or workers, the rulers will institute a noble lie. This lie or myth will be to the effect that people are moulded by the gods to be one of the three types noted. Plato likens these classes to gold, silver, and bronze and holds that the people are to look upon themselves as having these metals in their makeup from birth, whereby there will be some mobility between classes if ability is discovered, but generally they will remain static.
In Book IV Socrates holds that the city should be neither too wealthy nor too poor, neither too large nor too small, neither too populous nor too few, one in which men and women have equal opportunity and in which each does that task for which he is best suited. Such a city will be wise and brave, temperate and just, and these are the cardinal virtues, and so we are well on our way toward finding in the city those virtues that we had hoped to see in the individual. In the city, wisdom is found in the rule of the guardian, in the individual, in the rule of intelligence, and to function properly, as we saw, is to be virtuous, for this, to Plato, is the essence of wisdom, particularly since acting virtuously takes knowledge. Courage is a way of preserving the values of the city through education, and knowing what to fear and what not to fear, a knowledge gained through law, characterizes courage. Temperance is a kind of order, the naturally better part of the soul controls the worst part, as in the city the naturally superior part governs the inferior. Hence, the intelligence of the few controls the passions of the many, as a person’s intelligence governs his or her appetites through his will. Justice, lastly, is found in the truth that each one must practice the one thing for which his or her nature is best suited, for to do one’s business and not to meddle with others, to have and to do that which is one’s own, that is justice. Although within the class of artisans there may be some mixing of tasks, the carpenter may perform some other craft, there cannot be mixing of the classes of gold, silver, or bronze.
In Book V, Plato discusses his three waves that are required if the ideal state is to be possible. From those who demonstrate the proper aptitude the rulers are to be selected, women as well as men. This is the first wave. The second wave is that communal life must be shared by the ruling class, marriage and children will be held in common, all within a certain age group are to be designated parents, a younger group, children and brothers and sisters, and so on. Plato contends that family loyalty is an asset which, when practiced on a public scale, will retain its value, whereas the deficits of private family life, such as the factiousness between families, will have been eliminated. Mine and not mine now will apply to the same things. The ruler will arrange communal marriages by lot, unknown to the betrothed, however, the lottery will be fraudulently arranged for reasons of eugenics. Yet another myth or lie is told for the benefit of the state. The third wave, and most difficult to bring about, is that philosophers must be kings, or kings, philosophers. If this can occur, then political power and intellectual wisdom will be combined so that justice may prevail.Recall Socrates’ discussion with Thrasymachus, only when knowledge and power are joined in the ruler can true advantage or benefit befall the ruled, and it is now Plato’s task to characterize the philosopher and define the kind of knowledge needed.
In Books VI and VII, he presents three analogies to explain his meaning, but first his complicated theory of Forms should be mentioned. Plato believed that those features which objects of a certain kind have in common, for example, the features common to varied art objects, all beautiful, are all related to a single perfect Ideal, or Form, which he called the feature itself, in this case beauty itself. This is an intellectual reality properly seen by the rational element of the soul, just as the many instances are perceived by sight or by means of the other senses. The Good itself, the highest of all Forms, is the proper object of the philosopher’s quest. In his first analogy, Plato likens the Good to the sun, whereby just as the sun provides light so that we may see physical objects, the Good provides light so that the soul may perceive intellectual forms. Plato’s second analogy also emphasizes the distinction between the senses and the rational element of the soul as sources of knowing. We are to imagine a line whose length has been divided into two unequal parts, and furthermore, these parts are then to be divided in the same proportion as the first division. If we label the line AE, the first point of division C and the other two points of the subdivisions B and D, then the following proportions hold:
CE …… DE …… BC
____ =….__….=___
AC ….. CD …… AB
and hence BC = CD. So what do these segments represent?
The first segment of the original line with its two segments Plato styles the world of opinion, and he calls the first of its segments conjecture (AB) and the second belief (BC). As noted, we gain information of this world through our senses. We pass from creatures who let the world come to us with little or no thought, only conjecture, a world of shadows and reflections, to persons who have beliefs as to what the shadows represent, a world of physical objects such as trees, hammers, houses. The second segment of the original line is titled the world of knowledge, and its sections understanding and thinking respectively, this is the world of Forms mentioned in the analogy of the sun. Plato considers mathematics the mental activity most characteristic of understanding by the use of images, for in geometry we discover, among other things, an endeavour to define precisely the various mathematical figures,circle, triangle, square, and so forth. Unlike the world of physical objects, which is mutable, these definitions, which state the formal properties of these objects, are unchanging. In thinking we find the highest form of mental activity, dialectical thought, or thinking by the use of Ideas. From contemplating the unchanging Forms or Ideas of physical things, the mind progresses to the reality of perfect Beauty, Justice, and Goodness. The process of education in the perceptual world moves from bare opinion through belief, a practical rather than a theoretical understanding of the truths of the world of things seen, to understanding and thinking, wherein the eternal truths of the world of things thought are known.
Plato’s third analogy is that of the cave, whereby we are to imagine prisoners chained in a cave in a way that all they can see is a wall in front of them, and on the wall, shadows appear cast from a parapet behind them where a fire burns and where bearers carry all sorts of objects. This is, of course, analogous to the world of shadows, sense experience, represented by the segment AB of the divided line. Miraculously, a prisoner frees himself and sees the cause of the images and the light that casts them, he is in the world of belief, and noticing an opening which leads out of the cave, he crawls into the sunlight, the world of Forms, and is so dazzled that he is blinded. But gradually he adjusts to the light, sees the true reality, the realm of Ideas, and is tempted to remain forever, but he is compelled by a sense of obligation to return to the cave and to instruct the chained, who disbelieve, given that all they know is the world of gloom and shadows, and they would jeer him, or worse, tear him to pieces; but he persists and re-dedicates his life to their instruction. Hence the philosopher, having the world of Forms for his contemplation, must return to be king, to rule by a sense of duty, if there is to be justice. Plato outlines an educational program for the philosopher-king which continues from the music and gymnastics taught the guardians. For ten years he studies arithmetic, geometry, solid geometry, and astronomy. He is in the realm of understanding, and the point of his mathematical training is to prepare him for study of and grasp of ideal forms. For five years he studies dialectical thought so that the ultimate principle of reason, the Form of Good, shall be known to him, and then, at the age of thirty-five, he begins his period of practical application of these principles, and, after fifteen years he ascends the throne at fifty.
In Book VIII, Plato, after having brought us to a glimpse of the form of the state, discusses its decline. The decline of the state is paralleled by the decline of the individuals who make it up, the state is analogous to the individual. From the rational state we move to the spirited one, the guardians, the chief virtue of which is honour, when the spirited element is again dominated by appetites, then wealth is sought and the oligarchy born. From wealth we go to the government of the many who, overthrowing the few, proclaim the virtues of the group. Appealing to the mob, the demagogue takes over and the full decline of the ideal state and man has occurred. There is a strange similarity, from love of reason to insatiable lust, the state and the individual have degenerated, there is the rule of one in both cases, but we have gone from one who knows what to do and what not to do to one who knows nothing and whose every impulse is his master. The person of intelligence uses his or her reason to direct his or her will and thus to control his or her appetites, but the tyrant controls nothing. He or she is controlled by his appetites, a person who is slave to his appetites is master of nothing, the person who is master of nothing is the most miserable of people, perpetually in pain. Thus Book IX closes, with the passage from true pleasure to pain, from the just man to the unjust. Socrates has demonstrated to Glaucon and Adeimantus what the happy life, the just life, is.
Book X contains the famous Myth of Er, a legend that concludes the ‘Republic’ that includes an account of the cosmos and the afterlife and that greatly influenced religious, philosophical, and scientific thought for many centuries. The story begins as a man named Er, son of Armenios, of Pamphylia dies in battle, and when the bodies of those who died in the battle are collected, ten days after his death, Er remains undecomposed. Two days later he revives on his funeral-pyre and tells others of his journey in the afterlife, including an account of reincarnation and the celestial spheres of the astral plane, a tale that includes the idea that moral people are rewarded and immoral people punished after death. Although called the Myth of Er, the word myth means word, speech, account, rather than the contemporary meaning, the word is used at the end when Socrates explains that because Er did not drink the waters of Lethe, the account (mythos in Greek) was preserved for us, an account that touches somewhat upon what Plato means by Idea or Form and on the danger of Art in the state. According to this analysis to each class of particulars that have something in common, Plato holds there is a Form or Idea in which these particulars participate and which gives them their common quality, the quality is a reflection of the Idea, so a bed painted by an artist has as its model a physical bed which has in common with other beds the Idea of Bedness itself. (Beds frequently appear in Ancient texts as examples to illustrate something or other, there may be a subject for a thesis there). There can be but one Idea-Form of beds, for if there were another, the two Forms would have a third in which they would participate, and so on, ad infinitum. Plato’s criticism of Art as imitation was based upon the contention that Art is three steps removed from reality,since works of art are copies of the aspects of things, and things are themselves copies of the Ideas. The ‘Republic’ closes with an argument for the immortality of the soul. The soul’s only illness is injustice, yet injustice is not fatal, and by loving justice, by harmonizing reason, spirit, and appetite, a person can keep his or her soul healthy, and the soul will prosper forever.
David Sachs, (1921–1992), distinguished two conceptions of justice that are evident in the ‘Republic’, the first of which he designated the vulgar conception and the other the Platonic conception. The vulgar conception of justice is shared by all of Socrates’ interlocutors, Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Justice, according to this conception, consists of not performing certain acts, while injustice consists of performing them, such acts as theft, betrayal, failing to keep promises or agreements, adultery, and neglecting one’s parents or the service one owes to the gods. Glaucon’s tale of the ring of Gyges ring perfectly exemplifies this conception of justice, the unjust person is represented as one who commits seduction and adultery, murder, and treason. The Platonic view, on the other hand, begins with Socrates’ observation that justice is both intrinsically and instrumentally good, that is, that it is desired both for its own sake and for the good effects that it brings about, or so it would appear from the traditional translations though there is the perennial problem in translating a philosophical text, conveying the philosophical ideas as expressed in a different language whereby there may be no direct or precise correspondence between one word and its counterpart in the other language. Sachs observes that Plato had been accused by some of his critics of not really responding to the question he set for himself, since it would appear that most, if not all, of his answer is designed to respond to the demand for proof that justice has good effects, whereas it does not seem to respond at all to the demand that he prove that justice is intrinsically good. Sachs explained that Glaucon’s classification of goods is more accurately rendered in this way, that those which by themselves, or on their own, produce good and nothing else, that those which by themselves are productive of good and, in conjunction with other things, have other good effects, and that those which by themselves have bad effects and good ones, the latter outweighing the former. In this rendering, then, there is no demand that Socrates prove that justice is intrinsically good, but merely that he demonstrate that it produces good and nothing else and that it has no bad effects.
Sachs contends that simply proving that justice by itself cannot but be good for the soul of its possessor, and that injustice is evil, is not a sufficient response to the challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus. Socrates must also demonstrate that justice is the soul’s greatest good, and injustice its greatest evil, and furthermore he needs to demonstrate that the just person’s life is happier than that of the unjust person, even such people as those described in Glaucon’s striking image of the just person who appears to be unjust and is treated accordingly, and the unjust man who appears to be just and is treated accordingly. Moreover it must be remembered also that it is part of Plato’s doctrine that to the extent that any person’s soul is infected by injustice, he or she is less happy than the person who is perfectly just, despite the fact that there may be other goods which, one would ordinarily suppose, would contribute to his happiness. Hence, it would appear that Socrates is required to demonstrate that a person who is ever so slightly unjust is more miserable than the perfectly just person so vividly described by Glaucon, that is, the one who is rotting in prison with theis eyes gouged out.
In order for Plato’s project to succeed, it is of course essential that he establish that the just person in Plato’s sense, that is, the one whose soul is ordered as Socrates describes it, will not behave unjustly in the vulgar sense: that is, he or she will not commit immoral or criminal acts as those are ordinarily conceived. Moreover, he or she must prove that those who are just in the vulgar conception are also just in his or hers, since short of this he will not have proved that it is impossible for people to be just in the vulgar sense and still be less happy than those who are not. Sachs argues that Plato did not meet either of these requirements, and that Plato frequently says that the Platonically just person is least likely of all people to commit immoral acts and most likely to possess the vulgar moral virtues, but he never proves that this is so. It is true, of course, that Plato prescribes the minimal conditions for one’s being just, namely, that he or she possess wisdom or intelligence, courage, and self-control or temperance, but he insists that these virtues are not sufficient for justice in the vulgar sense. The most that can be said, he contends, is that a Platonically just person would not commit crimes in a foolish, unintelligent, cowardly, or uncontrolled way. Plato simply has Socrates assert what he was supposed to have demonstrated without ever bothering to prove it. As for the second requirement, that Plato demonstrate that the ordinarily just man be shown also to be Platonically just, Sachs alleges that Plato not only failed to prove it, but that he also never even considered it. And furthermore, Sachs suggests that such a claim is rather implausible in any case, since it makes perfectly good sense to say that vulgarly just people, such as Cephalus, are not just in the Platonic sense, and he therefore concludes that the principal goal toward which the Republic was directed was not fulfilled and that the entire dialogue is infected with a quite serious fallacy.
John Daniel Wild, (1902–1972), responded to Karl Popper’s accusation that Plato was an irrational dogmatist, a ‘pseudo-rationalist’, an authoritarian, indeed, a totalitarian, and also a racist who evinced ‘nothing but hostility toward the humanitarian ideas of a unity of mankind which transcends race and class’. Popper forwarded the charge that the ideal society described in the Republic was strictly regimented with a purely negativistic view of human freedom. Among his many accusations against the ‘Republic’, Popper alleged that it rested upon an educational monopoly of the ruling class with strict censorship, and in this respect it was fundamentally opposed to the egalitarian, individualistic philosophy of the historical Socrates. In responding to this last charge, Wild argued that nothing in the ‘Republic’ provides a legitimate basis for the thesis that free expression of certain opinions is to be suppressed, albeit he concedes that Plato went too far in advocating the censorship of artistic expressions that might have a corrupting influence upon the youth. But nowhere, he says, is it suggested that the non-guardians are to be kept artificially ignorant or deprived of the freedom to express their dissenting opinions, and without the freedom to express one’s opinions the whole concept of Platonic argument and education would be absurd.
As for Plato’s alleged dogmatism. Wild responds that Plato was no more dogmatic than anyone who defends his basic philosophical convictions. If it is dogmatic to assert that uncriticised opinion and prejudice are inimical to freedom, then Socrates too was a dogmatist. Nor, according to Wild, was Plato a racist, for the rulers of his ideal state, whom Popper called the ruling class, the master race, and ‘herders of human cattle’, were not a hereditary caste selected on racial grounds, nor were they arbitrary rulers. Rather, they were guardians of the law of nature, which they did not decree by arbitrary fiat, but which they discovered through their philosophical explorations. Shifting to the attack, Wild denounces Popper’s ‘open society’, which Popper had offered as a suitable alternative to Plato’s ‘totalitarian’ state, as being either a form of diluted anarchism or as a form of unjustifiable arbitrary rule by the majority, a form of mass tyranny, which Wild considers to be the most dangerous form of repression. (Good point there, Popper’s open society ‘in which individual is confronted with personal decisions’ as opposed to a ‘magical or tribal or collectivist society’ sounds all well and good, an open society that ‘sets free the critical powers of man’ (and women too we presume) ..great, except in practice it would be anything but open, anytime someone comes up with a new idea it is shouted down in a barrage of criticism and we know full well how some shout much louder than others, the sound of their voice amplified in the market place of ideas well beyond what it merits). Furthermore, Wild contends, Plato should not be attacked for not having been a moral relativist. He was not because he believed that people share a common rational nature and that co-operation is necessary if human life is to be lived satisfactorily. Plato’s guardians are guardians of the law, who must first understand it and then apply it for the benefit of the whole community, including themselves, they are not selected because they belong to an aristocratic class or family, but because of their innate abilities. And furthermore, there is a sense in which they are not properly characterized as a class at all, in virtue of the fact that they are more like public servants or civil servants. They certainly had no special privileges, since they lived arduous lives, were deprived of all material goods other than those that were needed for their bare subsistence, and were utterly devoted to the common good.
Nor were the non-rulers slaves in Plato’s society, for a slave properly so called is one whose natural rights are disregarded and violated, whereas the artisans in the ‘Republic’ were performing productive functions for which they were naturally fitted and were given the same education as all other citizens of Plato’s commonwealth. They had all the material goods they needed and indeed enjoyed a higher material standard of living than their supposed masters, the guardians. Popper’s allegations that Plato’s noble lie was comparable to the activities of the Nazi Propaganda Bureau are grossly exaggerated, since Plato’s noble lie was not as bad as Popper made it out to be, according to Wild. Some lies, for instance the one discussed at the beginning of the ‘Republic’ with Cephalus lying to a person who has gone mad and is seeking a weapon, (is that a noble lie or just being sensible?) are reasonable, and a society needs a sense of unity and devotion to the common welfare of all if it is to survive in a healthy state. Some people are not fully capable of understanding the necessity for all the laws and institutions that are necessary for the orderly functioning of a state, hence it is not unreasonable for the guardians to simplify the complex doctrines which lie at the philosophical base of the society’s foundations and to clothe them in a patriotic myth. Such myths, Wild asserts, have been developed in all human communities, and Plato’s noble lie does convey a kernel of truth, that all people are kindred and that some people are endowed with superior intelligence. It is intended to induce a sense of brotherhood (or sisterhood) and loyalty to the community, and to that extent, at least, it is morally sound. Wild does explore and provide well-documented exposition of many of Plato’s most important ideas, including some that are frequently omitted from other expositions of Plato’s philosophy, and Wild, who is clearly quite sympathetic to Plato, does a reasonable job of synthesizing Plato’s doctrines and relating them to ideas that were more elaborately developed by later philosophers.
And yet it is little more than skating over the surface, time to go in deeper. Contemporary political theories differ from ancient ones chiefly through making freedom however defined the ground, end, and limit of the state, howsoever much such theories differ in accordance with the variety of meanings that can be loaded upon such a slippery word as freedom, these differences assuming relative unimportance when they are seen to be differences only in the interpretation of a principle which all have in common and in virtue of which they may all be contrasted with the ancient theories that the state is natural. Hegel focused upon this difference in his critique of Plato, albeit he expressed it in a variety of ways, that is, what is discernibly missing in the polis reflected in the political theory of it is its failure to respect the rights of the individual, or the freedom of the individual, or the right to satisfaction of the particularity of the subject, but the term most frequently employed in this connection by Hegel is subjectivity. It is characteristic of the State, in contrast with the polis, that it allows play to the subjective element, indeed subjective freedom is the principle of the modern world. And how are we to understand subjectivity? For Aristotle, (384–322 BC), by subject was meant a subject of predicates and the essence of anything is exhausted in its predicates, but there is always in any particular subject a residual element which is not exhausted in any predicate or number of predicates, a material as opposed to formal element, accidental as opposed to essential, passive as opposed to active, individual as opposed to general, this is the subjective element. For Plato the virtue that constitutes the virtue of a person in the capacity of citizen is dikaiosune, justice, righteousness, fulfillment of the law, and being a formal element this is of necessity also general and can be identical in any number of particular subjects, and the particularity of the subject in which it is realized is accidental to it, which is to say, the subjective element is excluded from its essence. To the extent that it is regarded as the essence of a particular soul to be just, its essence is placed, like that of natural objects, in something to which the individuality of the particular subject is indifferent.
However, the subjective element is not excluded in the same way from the virtue of sophia, wisdom, cleverness, ability, a notion anticipating a more contemporary sense of freedom, nor is it excluded from that activity of the appetitive part that Plato condemns under the name of eleutheria, liberty, and which corresponds to the second of the contemporary senses of freedom. Dikaiosune is the presence of logos, active reason, in the soul, it is the information of a given matter by a certain form whereby the form is the threefold relation of the parts of the soul, the matter is those parts considered apart from the relation, to logistikon, the thinking part of the soul which loves the truth and seeks to learn it, to thumoeides, the spirited part of the soul by which we are angry or get into a temper, to epithumetikon, located in the stomach, is related to one’s desires. The form is general and essential while the subject is the material element and the activity to which the information is due must be attributed to the form and not to the matter, to the logos and not to the subjective elements whether it be to logistikon, to thumoeides, or to epithumetikon. But with sophia the case is different for this activity also is an information of the subject by logos, but it is an information in which the spring of activity lies not in the informing logos, but in the subject to be informed, in that very subjective element which is designated to logistikon. That is to say, the subjective element which is the individual element, is not accidental, it is not merely material capable of being informed, or a passive potency, but is an active power to realize form in itself and is thus not accidental but essential to the realization.
The difference between dikaiosune and sophia is the difference between that information which is presence of form and that information which is knowledge of form, whereby in the former it is the form which is active, while the subject is not more than the passive material upon which this activity is exercised, but in the latter it is the subject itself which is active, it informs itself by an activity of knowing, of which the form is no more than the passive object. This difference may be illustrated further by the different meanings of the English term to realize, as to make real and to become conscious of. Both dikaiosune and sophia are realization of form, but each in a different sense. In the former the form is realized or made real in the subject, and the spring of the activity of realization lies, whether or not in the form itself, at any rate outside the subject. In the latter, when the subject becomes conscious of the form, the form is realized not only in but by the subject, and the spring of this activity lies in the subject itself. The subject becomes thereby a subject in a further sense, for it is no longer merely the subject in which predicates inhere, subject as opposed to predicate, but is subject of an activity, subject as opposed to object. Hence of sophia not the form, the general, is the essence, but the appropriation of the form by the subject, the individual, and thus there is thus included in the Platonic virtue of sophia that which Hegel designates the element of subjectivity.
But this virtue is not, according to Plato, proper to a person in the condition of being a member or citizen of a polis, but only in the condition of being a ruler or guardian of it, and the subjective freedom that it ensures is not co-extensive with justice, in virtue of the fact that all members of the city are equally just, but with the activity of imposing or maintaining justice, that is reserved for the few. The only virtue open to those members of the city who are not guardians appears to be dikasiosune, and the subjective element in the soul of the citizen has no part in the realization of this virtue. The members of the subject class stand to the rulers in the relation of material to craftsman, a conclusion which is indeed little more than the converse of the doctrine that ruling is a techne, an art or craft. Their souls are passive material for the reception of an active form, but are the source of no responsive activity. If, then, we give attention to the activity of the subjective element in the virtue of sophia, it is apparent that we cannot say that the scheme of the Platonic polis is based upon the entire exclusion of subjective freedom, since it essentially demands such freedom in the rulers. But Hegel’s criticism still stands in the critically important sense that the constitution of Plato’s polis implies the exclusion of all who are not rulers from participation in this freedom, though the subjective freedom which Hegel asserts to be lacking in the polis and which is to be identified with the manifestation of it in sophia is not its only manifestation, for the third part of the soul has an equal right with the first to the title of the subjective element, and the satisfaction of appetite in the economic activity of money-making, or chrematistike, for the art of acquiring money is also a kind of subjective freedom and one of which I am personally lacking in.
Hegel’s critique of Plato takes on a different aspect if we understand the terms in this sense, identifying his subjective element with Plato’s third part and his subjective freedom with freedom to satisfy desire. Plato’s attitude to this subjective activity is quite different from his attitude to the subjective activity of reason, and indeed this activity is itself different in an important respect from the former, for the activity of the subject in sophia is directed upon a Form or universal and is wholly determined by it, whereas desire is directed upon a particular object. It is therefore quite incompatible with that self-surrender to direction by the universal which is the essence of just rule for Plato, it is apparent enough that Plato must exclude such an element from the souls of his rulers, just as he excludes all economic differentiation, which is the machinery of chrematistike, from the organization of their class. Is this element excluded by Plato also from the souls of the subject class? And is it true, therefore, that this freedom is entirely absent from the Platonic polis?
The central political thesis of the ‘Republic’ is that it is for the good of the subject class to be governed. The activity of the ruling class being the imposition of form, the thesis must hang upon the assumption that it is the nature of the subject class to be wholly lacking in form, and thus to depend for its very being, because there is no being but is constituted by both matter and form, upon that which the ruling class has to supply. From this assumption, Plato’s conclusion will follow, that the unity of the city is the closest of all unities, given that its elements are bound together by a tie which is analogous to no physical relationship of individual things with one another but only to the metaphysical relation of matter to form within the constitution of an individual thing. This political doctrine is clearly inconsistent with the ascription to the third class of an order of its own, generated simply by its economic activities, and independent of the political order imposed by the rulers.
The two Platonic theses were to be contradicted in the ethical and political theory of English empiricism when it was first proclaimed in the empiricist ethics that the gratification of the senses affords a positive satisfaction not accessible to reason, and not included in any realization of the good by reason, so that the immediate enjoyment of sensuous experience is not merely sufficient evidence for the judgement this is good, but is the only possible evidence. This empiricist doctrine of the autonomy of sense within the soul has its counterpart in the empiricist doctrine of the autonomy of the economic sphere within society, for the economic operations of people in society are not susceptible of political control, and furthermore that, lacking this control, they do not remain unorganized and chaotic, are not simply material awaiting a form, but that they naturally and without conscious direction generate a law and order of their own. The laws of this economic sphere they then made the object of a science distinct from political philosophy, that is to say, political economy, thereby making possible the distinction between the economic and the political orders, which Plato either confused or identified, albeit the early empiricists were inclined in their theories of ethics and of society to overlook the distinction between claiming autonomy and claiming autocracy for the third element, whether of the soul or of the state.
Therefore, albeit the inferences must be drawn from Plato that a subjective element of the soul finds in chrematistike a satisfaction that is to be found neither in ruling nor in being ruled and that the subject class within the state exhibits an order which is identical neither with the order of the guardian class nor with the political order by which class is united to class, Plato himself is barred from drawing them by the political and ethical doctrines of dikaiosune, indeed the doctrine of dikaiosune justifies Hegel’s criticism that Plato excludes this subjective freedom from the souls of the citizens, and any field for its exercise from the constitution of his state, albeit here Hegel merely develops against Plato a doctrine that may be discovered to be implicit in Plato. Hegel expresses his criticism by saying that the Platonic polis allows no scope for subjective economic sphere within society and can maintain itself only by suppression of the subjective element, but it has been necessary to introduce some qualifications into this statement in inquiring how far it is true, for in the first place there is some subjective activity admitted by Plato, the virtue of sophia, that is characteristic of the Platonic polis, necessarily presupposes an activity of the subjective element. However, this virtue, and the subjective freedom which it involves, is confined to the ruling class within the state, there is no corresponding freedom allowed to those who are members of the state only as subjects of it, there is subjective freedom in the imposition of form, but not in the submission to it. If, on the other hand, we determine the subjective element to mean, not either of the first two parts of the soul, but the third or appetitive part, then it is true that this element is excluded from Plato’s polis, and that there is no such freedom either in ruler or in subject..
Hegel furthermore points out that this defect, reflected in the Platonic theory, was characteristic also of the historical states of antiquity, and the collapse of the ancient world was due to the irresistible outburst of the subjective principle, (see my article On Plato’s ‘Apology’ — the Subjective Principle) which he claims became the great principle of the Christian religion), when it could be suppressed no longer. One must contrast this defect of the polis with the strength of the modern State that allows a scope within itself for the exercise of subjective freedom, thereby not only rendering itself immune from the eruption of this principle but drawing vitality to itself from its activity. Furthermore, we can compare the operation of stasis in the ancient polis with the operation of a party in the modern state for stasis is the characteristic eruption of the subjective element, for Plato it is the the simple opposite of dikaiosune that prevailed in a polis, and law ceases. But the party is not incompatible with the maintenance of law in a modern state, indeed party politics is the very process by which law is brought into being. Such a significant difference between the two subjective activities, between that which Plato confines to the rulers and that which he excludes from the polis, for the former is the realization of the form, or universal, whereas the latter is the direction of the soul upon a particular. Indeed, they are not only different, but incompatible, and the possibility of achieving the former depends upon the renunciation of the latter.
As the analogy of the cave demonstrates a person can be taught to see the universal only by turning his back upon the illusions of sense perception, and he can be taught to will it only by abjuring the satisfactions of sensuous desire, and that is why the rulers have to renounce the private affections of family life, the possession of private property, and, above all, participation in money-making or chrematistike. The entire education of the guardians is a training in such renunciation, its end is the exercise of one subjective freedom, but its means is the surrender of the other. Hegel in fact in charging Plato with excluding the subjective element brings forth not one criticism against the Platonic theory but two different ones, in the first place the subject has no share in the freedom which the ruler achieves in sophia, in the second place there is no scope in the polis for the exercise of the freedom which the ruler him or herself must renounce. And consequently in claiming for the State of his own theory that it avoids the defects of the polis by being grounded upon subjective freedom it may be objected that Hegel is claiming for the subject of the state two different and seemingly almost incompatible freedoms, the freedom that consists in so willing the universal that the action is determined not simply by law, but by the concept of law, and the freedom that consists in willing the particular, and of which it is the condition that the action shall be beyond the determination of any concept of law. Such freedoms are not the same freedom, nor are the arguments for the introduction of the one adequate to justify the introduction of the other. The law is not imposed upon the subject of the state, as the nomos is imposed upon the artisans of Plato’s polis by the activity of the ruler and without their active assent. The subject of the state must be free, and can be so only when he understands what he or she has to obey, and in so far as his or her understanding is the ground of his or her obedience.
It makes a difference, Hegel says, ‘whether I do a thing from habituation and custom or whether I do it from a whole-hearted conviction of its truth’. It makes, in fact, all the difference between an act which is based upon the subjective activity of my own reason and one which is not, that is, between an act which is free and one which is not. The subject’s right to freedom is thus the same as his ‘right of insight’. ‘The right of the subjective will is that what it is to recognize as valid, shall approve itself to its insight as good.’ ‘The prin- ciple of the modern world demands that whatever a man is to recognize must exhibit to him its title to recognition.’ Hegel thereby enunciates a grand principle of the Enlightenment by which the individual judgement is set free from dependence upon the authority whether of a priest or of a prince. To express with precision what that principle involves and to avoid the usual bloated babbling characteristic of typical talk of freedom is habitually clothed we may assume the concepts whose meaning has been determined by the doctrine of the ‘Republic’. The citizen of a state is free when his or her obedience to the law depends upon an activity of the reasoning element in him or her identical with that which Plato perceived to be necessary in the ruler who administered it. This is a freedom in obeying, not a freedom to disobey, though it necessarily involves the possibility of disobedience, and the Hegelian subject is determined in his or her actions by a universal order no less than the Platonic artisan, and he or she has to subdue his or her passions to this order no less than the Platonic auxiliary, only this order is one which can determine his actions only in so far as he or she knows it, and to which he or she can subdue his or her passions only in so far as he or she understands it. Every subject of the Hegelian state must possess the virtue of sophia, which Plato could conceive as being exercised only at the moment in which its possessor ceased to be subject and became a ruler.
The subject’s right to freedom is thus the same as his or her ‘right of insight’. ‘The right of the subjective will is that what it is to recognize as valid, shall approve itself to its insight as good.’ ‘The principle of the modern world demands that whatever a man is to recognize must exhibit to him its title to recognition’. Since the subject in the state has to do what only the ruler need do in the polis, namely to ascend to the conception of the universal and to will it in virtue of his knowledge, he or she has to undergo a training no less arduous than that which Plato thought was necessary to fit a person to be a ruler. The will for the universal can be attained only by a discipline in the renunciation of all particular desires, and this discipline takes for Hegel the form of moral education, but remember the distinction Hegel makes between morality and Ethical Life, (see my article On Plato’s ‘Euthyphro: A Dilemma) we must not think of the task of morality as Kant has conceived it, a person freeing him or herself from all particular desires and elevating him or herself to the capacity of willing the universal of duty, for the universal moral law as Kant conceived it is empty and hence inadequate to serve as the standard of any action whatever, and that the only truly moral action is that which is devoted to the realization of the law of an actual state, whereby the subject must first have attained to the moral standpoint and that he or she can only then will that realization, because the law of an actual state is itself universal, and the fulfilment of it something different from the satisfaction of any particular desire.
As Hegel wrote:
‘… the Platonic Republic … has as its essential the suppression of the principle of individuality; and it would appear as though the Idea demanded this) and as if this were the very point on which Philosophy is opposed to the ordinary way of looking at things, which gives importance to the individual, and thus in the state, as also in actualized mind, looks on the rights of property, and the protection of persons and their possessions, as the basis of everything that is. Therein, however, lies the very limit of the Platonic Idea — to emerge only as abstract idea. But, in fact, the true Idea is nothing else than this, that every moment should perfectly realize and embody itself, and make itself independent, while at the same time, in its independence, it is for mind a thing sublated. In conformity with this Idea, individuality must fully realize itself, must have its sphere and domain in the state, and yet be resolved in it’.
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The ground-root folly of this piteous philanthropy
is thinking to distribute indivisibles,
and make equality in things incommensurable:
forged under such delusions, all Utopias
are castles in the air or counsels of despair.
- Robert Bridges, (1844–1930), ‘The Testament of Beauty’
