Plato’s Republic

Books 3 - 9

I. Overview

I. RecapThe Dialectic

The City in Speech

The Division of Labor & the Critique of Democracy

The Noble Lie

II. The Three Parts of the Good III. Does the City Exist According to

Nature?

The Dialectic

Position 1 Position 2 Position 3

Questioning Questioning Questioning

Note, this is the only way to proceed that requires us to submit to nothing besides the rules of logic

Nature vs. Convention: Virtue

Four Basic Human Virtues:

Wisdom

Moderation

Courage

Justice

The City in Speech

Easier to see things writ large, so Plato draws an analogy between justice in individual person and just city

The City in Speech

What would a just city look like? Division of Labor

– 1. more efficient.– 2. better able to fulfill economic needs of city

The City in Speech

Implications:– Surplus– Luxuries– Need for order need for police/army– who is best able to govern? – need specialization in politics (II, 374a)

The City in Speech

Guardians

Auxiliaries

Craftsmen

The Noble Lie

Explain class position through the noble lie (III, 414c-d)

How to get others to believe the tale?“I cannot see any way, he [Glaucon] said, to make them believe it themselves, but the sons and later generations might, both theirs and those of other men” (III, 414d)

The Noble Lie

In what sense a “Noble” lie?

“Our rulers will probably have to make considerable use of lies and deceit for the good of their subjects. We said that all such things are useful as a kind of drug” (V, 459d).

The City in Speech

What are the implications of Socrates’ argument for democracy?

Would Socrates’ views support democracy?

The City in Speech

Anti-democratic since– democracy is view that politics is too important to

be left to professionals and everyone should take part

– No specialization, no division of labor– Therefore inefficient way to do things– Plato argues for the need to be good at one thing

since diversification implies incompetence

The City in Speech

Life in the classes (Book IV): Guardians – communal, no private life (V, 460)

– Sexual Equality/Inequality (V, 457a)– Community of Women

“If by being well educated they become sensible men, they’ll easily see to all this and everything else we are now leaving out– that the possession of women, marriage, and procreation of children must as far as possible be arranged according to the proverb that friends have all things in common” (Book V, 424a)

The City in Speech:Community of Women

Common Life – Education, gymnastics, eating, living– Breeding program (V, 459d)– Infanticide (V, 461)– Anonymous parenting (V,460)

Critique of Democracy

Tension between virtues of private life and public life private virtues responsibility to narrow/parochial interests (family, e.g.) love overrides moral value

Critique of Democracy

Democracy is irrational since virtues of private life conflict with virtues of public life– Citizen vs. family– Respect vs. love

Critique of Democracy

Love: feeling for someone who stands in special relation to you

love the person, not the properties of the person

Respect: not who you are, but what you have done (i.e., respect the properties not necessarily the person).

here, can replace the person

The City in Speech

The result:

“… in establishing our city, we are not aiming to make any one group outstandingly happy, but to make the whole city so, as far as possible…we think we are fashioning the happy city not by separating a few people and making them happy, but by making the whole city so” (IV, 420b).

Critique of Democracy

In Plato’s City– the guardians will love the city – the lower classes have no public life

How does this help? What is the point of this mode of living?

The City in Speech

To create a ruling class of philosophers – recall earlier account of philosopher as one who pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge

Rulers will be philosopher kings

The City in Speech

“Cities will have no respite from evil, my dear Glaucon, nor will the human race, I think, unless philosophers rule as kings in the cities, or those whom we now call kings and rulers genuinely and adequately study philosophy, until, that is, political power and philosophy coalesce, and the various natures of those who now pursue the one to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from doing so.” (V, 472d).

The Virtues of the City

Wisdom

Moderation

Courage

Justice

Where do we find the 4 Human Virtues in the City?

The Virtues of the City

Wisdom?

Guardians Courage?

Auxiliaries Moderation?

Throughout the whole city

The Virtues of the City

Justice?

“In some way then possession of one’s own and the performance of one’s own task could be agreed to be justice” (IV, 432b)

The Virtues of the City

And Injustice?

“The meddling and exchange between the three established orders does very great harm to the city and would most correctly be called wickedness…And you would call the greatest wickedness worked against one’s own city injustice?”

II. The Three Parts of the Good

Recall, from previous discussion the tripartite division of the city and the soul:

The Three Parts of the Good

Guardians

Auxiliaries

Craftsmen

Reason

Spirit

Desire

Classes of City Classes of the Soul

The Three Parts of the Good

All desires are subject to tripartite classification:

The Three Parts of the Good:Appetitive

Appetitive -- – instinctual (natural) desires -- sleep, eat, procreate

The Three Parts of the Good:Spirited

Spirited– first part that is distinctively human– stand back and reflect on ourselves as creatures

having desires contrast with animals? desire to be experienced in a certain way, have others

think of us in a certain way

– desire to exercise power of various sorts

The Three Parts of the Good:Spirited

– source of all our social desires e.g., glory, honor, envy, love

The Three Parts of the Good:Rational

Rational– idle curiosity– desire for knowledge

with no ulterior motive than to have knowledge.

III. Is the City Natural?

Recall acorn analogy Come into the world with potentiality (telos) Need to fulfill our nature Good then determined by extent to which we fulfill that potential Can always ask whether something (“X”) exists by convention

or by nature What is nature -- end -- of man? Value of the city is that it allows for the full development of

individual potentialities -- not that it secures some “common good” but rather without it, none of us could reach our full human potential

III. Is the City Natural?

Best city is one which allows capacities to develop

Must reconcile good of whole city with good of each person, and this is the only way to do that

Let rational part rule soul If person lets appetite or spirited part rule,

need to have external source of rational rule

III. Is the City Natural?

We need to take seriously the distinction between right and wrong

Note…Problem of dual responsibilities of philosopher king

IV. The Philosopher and the City

Recall significance of Division of Labor Note that the philosopher has two jobs Philosopher may be the perfect guy to be on

top, since he/she is most self-governing due to philosophy, BUT…

IV. The Philosopher and the City

Socrates’ city does not allow the philosopher to specialize, as the Philosopher-King has 2 jobs (i.e., philosopher and ruler)

In other words, best city for a philosopher may be a morally indifferent one like Athens

Everybody except the philosopher needs Socrates’ city in order to be all that they can be

Evolution of the City