I
Recall that THE REPUBLIC begins in the manner of an early dialogue:
Definition (1) ; counter-example;
definition (2) ; counter-example;
Then Thrasymachus turns everything on its head.
Socrates appeals to objective, intersubjective criteria in the nature of the enterprise (ruling) and the qualities needed to achieve the in-built goods of the enterprise. He
1) links justice with metron and intelligence
2) argues that justice is needed for effective action
3) argues that there is an particular work (becoming a human being)
and justice is
needed to do that. By doing that, a person will know properly
human
flourishing (eudaemonia)
But Book I ends inconclusively.
Socrates has "defeated" the challenge of Thrasymachus. His "might makes right" is shown to be flawed. Yet the thesis: "injustice is better than justice" has not been proven. Socrates can still maintain his claim that justice is always better than injustice. Yet he has not given an account of what justice is. How strange -- justice is so important and we are ignorant of its true nature. On this note, Book I ends.
II
Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato’s brothers, challenge "Socrates" to really show that
Here in Book II, we feel that we have left the field of the historical Socrates. From here on out, we hear more and more of PlatoJustice is always preferable to Injustice.
Glaucon outline four classes of
things: GS = things Good in themSelves;
GC = things Good in their Consequences
The tilde "-" functions as a negation sign
Category 1: GS & GC Things good in themselves and good in their consequences
Category 2: GS & -GC Things good in themselves and NOT good in their consequences
Category 3: -GS but GC Things NOT good in themselves but good in their consequences
Category 4: -GS & -GC
Things NOT good in themselves and NOT good in their
consequences
However, things in Category 4 would not be good in any sense so we can cross out this category, which leaves us with Categories 1, 2 & 3.
Socrates places justice in category 1 -- he holds it is good in itself and also good in its consequences.
Glaucon says most people place justice in category 3 -- like going to the dentist. Not good in itself but only good in its consequences. He argues that most people act justly only reluctantly and gives the "ring of Gyges" example as a kind of proof that what the MANY say might be true.
Adeimantus makes the case still
more difficult -- his "thought experiment"
on TO BE vs. TO SEEM (or TO BE SEEN)):
Consider two persons
A B
is just but
is unjust but
seems to all
seems to all
to be unjust
to be just
Let, counterfactually, even the gods be deceived!
Thus the just person will receive all the bad consequences in this world and in the next that usually accrue to unjust persons.
And the unjust man will receive all the good consequences in this world and in the next that usually accrue to just persons .
NOW, SHOW US THAT IT IS BETTER TO BE "PERSON A" THAN "PERSON B."
III
Socrates now must "fight" with one hand tied behind his back. Remember that he believes that justice is good in itself AND in its consequences. However, to answer Glaucon and Adeimantus, he is forbidden to appeal to external consequences of any kind.
Plato realizes that to respond to the challenge he must come up with a model which has INTERNAL COMPLEXITY, i.e. it must be made up of parts.
Here is where the analogy between the small and the larger writing enters.
It may be difficult to describe justice within an individual -- i.e. without any reference to that individual’s external actions.
However, suppose that the POLIS (City-state) was the PERSON writ large.
By Book IV Plato will argueParts of Person Virtues Parts of Polis
[Values]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reasoning Wisdom Guardian
Part [To discern the true Class
nature of things;
to know the True or Real,
the Good, the Beautiful]Energetic Courage Military
Part [Honor/Glory/Fame] ClassAppetites Temperance Producer/ Consumer
Part [Goods of Appetite] Class
R
E A
E is an ordered psyche.
R and R are disordered psyches.
A
A E
Likewise in the city, cities ruled by the military class or by the producer/consumer class are disordered cities.
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The ultimate purpose of the education of the Guardians is insight into the harmonious order of the cosmos and the polis and the person. In the old wisdom traditions, the principle is "As above, so below." . As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm. This is why it did not seem odd to our ancestors to see analogues between the Body Cosmic, the Body Politic, and the Body Personal. We have already seen the analogy:
Parts of psyche (person)
Virtues
Highest Values Parts of
the polis (city-state)
(Excellences at .. )
Reasoning part Wisdom Truth, Goodness, Beauty Guardian class
Energetic part Courage Glory, honor, fame Military class
Appetites
Temperance
Possessing, Consuming,
Producer/ Consumer class
Enjoying
Justice here is correct order of the parts of the soul (personality)
and correct order of the parts of the Polis (city-state).
************************************************************************************************************************
After 55,
retirement of sorts
Age 50-55
Actively rule as one of Guardians
Age 35-50
Experience in Cave World
Age 30 -35
Philosophy: Grasp of Forms
Age: 20-30
Higher education (move to 3rd level on divided line)
Arithmetic, Geometry, Solid Geometry, Astronomy, Harmonics
Age 18-20
Supervised experience in military service (courage)
Age: childhood up to c. 18
Music (including literature and arts) and Gymnastics
************************************************************************************************************************
PART FOUR:
THE ANALOGY OF THE DIVIDED LINE
Mode of Knowing What is Known
Way of Understanding
What is Understood
and Responding
and Valued
************************************************************************************************************************
4th & highest level (2nd above line)
Dialectical, almost mystical
The FORMS (or KINDS)
Ecological Knowing
The True, Good, Beautiful;
the True Nature of Things in them-
selves and in their interrelationships
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd level (1st above line)
Mathematical
Mathematicals
(we might today add scientific)
(numbers & idealized patterns)
Knowing
more generally
Intellectual Knowing
the intelligibility of things
(beyond "example thinking")
(+ ability to give true explanations)
the Line _________________________________________________________________
2nd level (below line)
Sense Perceiving + ordinary
Sense Objects + Convent-
common sense/nonsense
tional Meaning & Value
Opining/ Believing Opinions/ Beliefs
Can reach true opinion but cannot give adequate explanation of why
things are as they are (pre-scientific/ unable to handle moral argument
beyond reward/punishment; praise/blame stages)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st level (below line)
Imagining
Images
(as in day dreams, night dreams, hallucinations, etc.)
ACT I:
from the CAVE (= A) TO "OUR WORLD" (= B) and Return
In the A:B segment, "Our World" = B is seen as Real World
at least in relation to the Cave.
Here the journey is a physical one. The prisoners are bound and have
blinders on so that they can only see the Cave Wall. From behind and above
them, on a kind of catwalk, are puppeteers who hold up puppets of people
and ships and houses etc. A fire on a ledge above the prisoners casts light
which projects the shadow of the puppets on the "screen." This is all they
know. They are doubly ignorant -- they don’t know what is real and they
don’t know they don’t know. One prisoner goes to "our world" and realizes
he has been living in an unreal world. Yet when he goes back to tell his
or her comrades, they threaten to kill the messenger who disturbs them.
This is a parable. In ACT II, we come to see WE are in the CAVE!
ACT II
from OUR WORLD (= B) to the DIMENSION OF THE FORMS (= C) and Return
In the B:C segment, "Our WURT-WORLD" = (=B) -- becomes the Unreal World,
the WURT-WORLD of the FORMs, or KINDS, or TRUE NATURE OF THINGS (= C) becomes THE REAL WORLD.
The movement here is a journey a deep, wise, fullThis is a journey of successive WURTs --
of the mind understanding and
from the shadowy, changing -- compassionate
culturally conditioned -- world to responding to the
of sense perception and True Nature of Things
conditioned sense + nonsense in themselves and in
their interrelationships
See the higher education of the Guardians from age 20 to age 35. Then the testing in the "Cave World" from age 35 to age 50. They rule from age 50-55 and then retire or take over the training of the new "guardians-in-training."
In the B:C segment of the analogy, as noted
OUR WURT-WORLD is the CAVE!!!!!!!
Consider a particular Culture's Approach to ------------------->
That Culture's Sense of
Meaning and Value
what is meaningful and valuable
then the COLLECTIVE CULTURAL
UNDERSTANDING OF
WHAT IS MEANINGFUL AND VALUABLE
IS THE CAVE.
For example, our late 20th century commercial (modified capitalism)
and
entertainment-driven view of ourselves and others and the natural
world
where money and fame and power are the measuring rods of worth.
Plato is pointing out that
1) all known cultures are partial and biased and use their own measuring
rods
to define "the real world,"
to define what is collectively meaningful and valuable.
2) each known culture (and the so-called "real world" it creates)
is a collective illusion
full of half-truths and flawed values.
AND THOUGH WE ARE IN THE CAVE, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT WE ARE!
WE ARE IN DOUBLE IGNORANCE -- WE DON'T KNOW AND
WE DON'T KNOW WE DON'T KNOW
Somehow we need to escape from this WURT-WORLD by
learning to take on a WURT(f/s) by which we see
the forms -- or natures of things
in the sensibles
such a Wisdom Approach to ------------generates -------->
A Wisdom Sense of
Meaning and Value
what is meaningful and valuable
The WORLD or DIMENSION of the FORMS or TRUE NATURE OF THINGS
Some Trans-Cultural Depth Criteria
for what it means to be human
and to live humanely in the human-natural world
In Plato's way of putting it, in the Republic and elsewhere, the
sensibles participate in the FORMS.
************************************************************************
PART SIX: THE DESCENT -- FROM
THE BEST TO THE WORST
NAME
VALUE STRUCTURE
EMBODIMENT
Aristocracy
Good and Just
a) Philosopher-Guardian
Rule of the Best
b) Seed of Decline:
(Meritocracy)
an excellent father in
an ill-governed state,
R
as result of detachment,
E
is taken advantage of.
A1
(A1 = necessary &
lawful appetites)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timocracy
High Service with
a) Courageous, honorable
(Rule of Honor)
or without wealth
person - possibly
(Competition and
military type in best sense.
ambition enter)
E
R
b) Sign of Decline: father holds
A1
office as result service;
property enters
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plutocracy
Having wealth
a) Self-made man -- aim: to
(Rule based
(Blind Wealth
become rich as possible
on Wealth)
leads the dance)
yet focuses on necessary
appetites.
A1
b) Sign of Decline: Son wants
R
freedom to enjoy.
E
(A1= necessary and lawful appetites)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Democracy
Liberty and
a) Self-Control vanishes
(Rule of Demos Equality
--
Rulers caters to what
"the many")
unnecessary and
people want (appetites)
spendthrift
b) Sign of Decline: Authority
A2
appetites catered to
weakened; qualifications
R
disregarded; state cannot
E)
provide basic order.
(A2 = unnecessary but lawful appetites)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Tyranny
Complete License
a) Tyrant Enters as
(Rule of the
Unnecessary pleasures
reformer; Provokes wars; Worst)
and desires -- lawful
becomes Slavemaster to
and unlawful given
people. (Is in fact
A3
full reign
slave himself)
R
E
(A3 = unnecessary and unlawful appetites)
In other words, unrestrained appetites rule; reason and honor trampled underfoot. "Throughout life, the despotic character has not a friend in the world; he is sometimes master, sometimes slave, but never knows true friendship or freedom. There is no faithfulness in him." Stephanus 575-576
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now we are in a position to compare the Best with the Worst -- the True Philosopher-Guardian with the Tyrant and see which is better in regard to a) tests of well-being, b) pleasantness, and c) the ability to distinguish true from illusory pleasures. Plato's "Socrates" can now show Justice to be better than Injustice both in itself and in its consequences -- which is where he classed justice in Book II before Glaucon and Adeimantus tightened the argument and "tied one of Socrates' hand behind him," as it were.
************************************************************************************************************************
At the Top: The Guardian -- true
rule of the best (aristoi) -- the fully just person
then starts the decline
SOCIAL
INDIVIDUAL TRANSITION IN STATE
TRANSITION IN PERSON
ARRANGEMENT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three waves:
lacks avarice; Aristocracy
A-father is
education
possesses thought- upward pull
upward pull
no property
ful, cultivated mind; *Timocracy *
* T-son*
merit/knowledge
has integrity; will downward
pull
downward pull
not do injustice Plutocracy
P-Companions
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guardians can
seeks power but Timocracy
T-father is
have property;
still approves
upward pull
upward pull
less concern ed.
excellence yet * Plutocracy*
* P-son*
suspicion of
eager to make $ downward pull
downward pull
intellectuals
as means; not yet Democracy
D-companions
$ as end in itself
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Property quali-
values wealth
Plutocracy
P-father is
fications entry
above all else
upward pull
upward pull
requirement for
Has been poor; *Democracy*
*Restrained D-son*
office; gap
keeps wants simple downward pull
downward pull
between rich and
toward miserliness Tyranny
unrestrained democratic
poor increases;
yet tempted to bend
companions
$ is new value.
laws (stingy and uncultivated)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberty and
shame is subdued Democracy
D-father
Equality prized;
thriftiness is
restrained
is
no self-control
exiled; free reign
by laws
upward pull
or care for
to unnecessary and upward pull
*Unrestrained D-son* common good; no harmful
pleasures; *Democracy*
downward pull
qualifications;
spends as much time downward pull
ever more
no restraints.
and $ on superfluous Tyranny
evil & insane
pleasures as
suggestions
on necessary ones. ______________________________________________________________________________
Finally at the bottom, we meet the
Tyrant and Tyranny -- the totally unjust person
______________________________________________________________________________
Think of the Analogy (c Republic 588) of the Model of a Person magnified to great size.
Within that great person are three parts:
To say (falsely) that injustice is profitable to the completely unjust manthe Humanthe Lion
the Many-Headed Beast
Plato has by now answered the challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus to show that the just life is better than the unjust life apart from consequences. He has done this by skillfully choosing something with internal complexity -- a polis with its social classes. Next, he makes a brilliant analogy:
the parts of the polis are analogous
to the parts of the person (or the psyche = soul or the
person’s character).
Having done this, he proceeds to a focus on the well-ordered polis or city-state.
1) Plato constructs a state in the
best of order (where merit and virtue and wisdom rule -- a
true rule of the best - the lovers of wisdom -- the Guardians).
2) He then goes on to illustrate
progressive states of disorder --
the intermediate types are Timocracy, Plutocracy, Democracy.
3) Finally, he outlines the worst
state of affairs -- Tyranny
and he show us the tyrant in his or her true nature.
So we are in a position to compare"Throughout life the despotic character has not a friend in the world; he is sometimes master, sometimes slave, but never knows true friendship or freedom. There is no faithfulness in him." (575-576)[In Epistle 7, Plato write: there is no surer sign of moral character than lack of trustworthy friends.]
the totally just person
the totally unjust person
(the
true ruler who is ruler over
(one who behaves in waking life
himself or herself)
as people do in nightmares where
there is no restraint, no metron)
Plato’s Socrates now asks that his hand be untied (so to speak) and that he be permitted to argue that the just person will not only be better off internally but also will be happier than the unjust-- looking to external consequences as well as internal order.
Recall that Plato’s Socrates held justice to be BOTH good in itself AND good in its consequences. Here is where he argues that the consequences of justice are better than the consequences of injustice.
A) Political Argument: the city under the tyrant is worst off than the city under the just ruler. This we have seen as we went along. The city well ruled has freedom, wealth, security from fear, etc. The state under a despot is not free but enslaved. The parallel holds of the soul.
B) Psychological Argument: There
are 3 types of pleasantness: (1) the gain or pleasure-loving
life
(2) the honor or fame-loving life
(3) the virtue or wisdom-loving life
Above the "line-of-the-ordinary" might be values akin to self-actualization, to knowing the real, to understanding the true nature of things. But only the true lover of wisdom ("philo-sophos") knows pleasures such as these, whose basis is a coming to understand the nature of things, the forms which never change.
____________________________________ the line of ordinary bodily satisfaction
Consider once more of the picture of a human who has inside a Human, a Lion, and a Many-Headed Beast. To say wrongdoing pays = to say it pays to feed the beast and starve the human. To say justice pays is to say that it pays to feed the human and put this part of us in charge. Can it truly profit a person to take money (or other things) unjustly if that person thereby enslaves the best part of himself or herself to the worst? It would be, says Plato, like selling one’s beloved son or daughter into slavery to a cruel and evil man. What good is wealth or power if you become a worse person with it?
Think of Socrates’ prayer in the Phaedrus:
Beloved Pan and all ye gods who haunt this place
Give me beauty in the inward soul.
And may the outward and the inward person be at one.
May I reckon the wise to be wealthy
And may I have a quantity of gold
But only so much as a temperate person can carry.
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