Plato’s Republic
Plato’s Republic has served as rich instructive material upon which philosophers have reflected for centuries. Written in the 4th century B.C.E., Plato drew up his inspiration from the great philosopher Socrates. Though we do not have any writings from Socrates directly, he serves as the narrator in Republic. As the speaker of the phrase “the unexamined life is not worth living,” the character of Socrates engages in an extensive dialogue regarding justice, politics, and ethics. Among the men whom Socates engages with are Plato’s brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, the home owner of the home where the dialogue takes place, Polemarchus and his father, Cephalus, as well as the rhetorician Thrasymachus and the Athenian politician Cleitophon. Each character plays an important role in fulfilling the wide array of perspectives on the issues at hand. The Republic is “not only [an] advertisements for the Socratic method of inquiry, but also a vehicle for a complex agenda that is at once ethical and intellectual, cultural and political.”
Athens served as the cultural center of Greece, and it is here where this dialogue takes place. An array of divinities were worshipped and the Greeks did not have a strong mindset regarding moral issues. Because the political system of the day was based on the moral psychology of the day, this is one of the first discussion points that Socrates engages in with Thrasymachus. “The center of Plato's Republic is a contribution to ethics: a discussion of what the virtue justice is and why a person should be just.” “The challenges of defining justice and understanding its effects on long-term happiness, fulfillment, and well-being… lead to the discussion of the ideal city-state”
Socrates “offers up a striking blueprint for an ideal city-state.”
The dialogue will be examined below, in an attempt to draw out applications for the contemporary philosopher. The issues of circular reasoning and the question of whether Plato was writing this piece as a reductio ad absurdum will also be addressed.
The Republic
Socrates begins the discussion with regards to repayments of debts, which eventually leads to a discussion on justice. His main interlocutor is this section is Thrasymachus, who shows pretty quickly his annoyance when Socrates shows the inconsistence with his theory. This is how the remainder of Republic plays out: Dialogues progress through Socrates’ use of questions, and theories then serves as hypotheses of which the most practical serves as the conclusion.
As most philosophers are all too aware, a discussion on justice can only continue for so long before the concept of absolute truth and goodness surfaces, for justice must appeal to what is binding on both the enforcer of justice and the so-called unjust. “Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good [by appeals to absolute truth], you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good.” Just as justice is a slippery slope to speaking of absolute truth, so is morality a slippery slope to speaking of God.
Though it was not titled so at the time, the problem of evil is referenced. “Then God, if he is good, is not the author of all things…the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere.” The men also agree on the immutability of God, advising that “it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and forever in his own form.” (One wishes to debate with these men on the singularity of God, but alas, our only option is to learn how we can better debate with others regarding this issue). They also affirm that “God [is] perfectly simple and true both in word and deed; he changes not; he deceived not, either by sign or word, by dream or walking vision.”
After laying a foundation with justice and virtue, the men began discussing how and where these characteristics should manifest themselves. They begin by demanding that those responsible for ruling the city (the guardians) and educators must possess virtuous characteristics, alluding to anybody in authority in the ideal city-state. In combining this with the need to control potentials for unjust action, Socrates and the rest of the men also insist that everything should be in common. We find a summary of their argument at the beginning of Book 8,
Wives and children are to be in common; and all education and the pursuits of war and peace are also to be common, and the best philosophers and the bravest warriors are to be their kings… [houses] are common to all…no one was to have any of the ordinary possessions of mankind; they were to be warrior athletes and guardians.
In response to this summary, Socrates comments on four types of government in an effort to find which one could reflect this. He begins with (what he calls) timocracy, that is, a state that is ruled by the more simple-minded. The discussion then leads then to oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny, all the while showing that one leads to the other. “Does not tyranny spring from democracy in the same manner as democracy from oligarchy…the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty.” We see a certain dilemma begin presenting itself, for though tyranny seems the best option, as the logical conclusion of the succession of the dialogue, it is in fact a government with citizens “always either the masters or servants and never friends of anybody; the tyrant never tastes of true freedom or friendship… [It is] the most miserable of states.”
Application
In her introduction to Republic, Elizabeth Watson Scharffenberger questions “whether Plato actually thought this theoretical model for a political community was practicable.” I share in her questioning, wondering if Plato was giving a type of reductio ad absurdum, showing that the conclusion of preferring a tyrannical government is absurd, yet this is where the discussion ends up. Is he perhaps trying to show that there must be more to the discussion at hand?
“Socrates takes a long way around, sketching an account of a good city on the grounds that a good city would be just and that defining justice as a virtue of a city would help to define justice as a virtue of a human being.” However, does this ring of circularity? In book 4, we read that “good practices lead to virtue, and evil practices to vice,” but haven’t virtue and vice been defined in terms of justice and justice in terms of what is good? How are the dilemmas (the lack of criteria for good and evil as well as the seemingly circular argument form) to be handled? If by focusing on the unchanging natures of goodness and human tendencies (most often unjust), Plato has come to the conclusion that tyranny is the best option for the much needed enforcement of justice, should not these men, and ourselves in addition, be in agreement of this conclusion? However, what we see an argument that undercuts itself: The happiest of citizens will be the citizens of the most just system, the most just system is a tyrannical one, but citizens of a tyrannical system are the most miserable.
What are we to make of this dilemma? Elizabeth gives us her opinion, advising that we acknowledge Plato’s circumstances and simply let his Republic prompt our own reflections and further study into these matters.
Socrates and his companions make innumerable assumptions and countless leaps of logic… We may raise any number of questions about the insights the dialogue might offer us into our world…Much of Republic, especially its political philosophy and argument for censorship, is at odds with modern ideals; [however] its critique of ancient Athenian society opens the door to meaningful question about contemporary cultural practices and priorities…The questions it raises and the approaches it takes to dealing with these questions are not wholly unique to Plato or even to ancient Athens. The spirit of Socratic – and Platonic – inquiry thus bids each of us to ask our own questions of Republic and let it help us, in turn, examine ourselves and our world.
Examining cultural, religious, and political practices takes commitment and humility, two virtues unfortunately not commonly held by most. However, a community desire for a just society and an individual desire for a virtuous self should overshadow and propel us into further study.
Bibliography
Plato. Republic. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2004.
Brown, Eric. "Plato's Ethics and Politics in The Republic", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2011 Edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/plato-ethics-politics/.
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