Plato wrote The Republic in 380 b.c.

Book 1

The first book of Plato’s Republic is concerned with justice:What is justice and
why should one behave justly?

1st Definition of Justice is proposed by Cephalus -old wise and wealthy man. He
provides tremendeous insight about old age: he says that as one grows older,
passions relax and one feels as if he has escaped from a mad and furious
monster and that one experiences the sense of calm and freedom. He also
asserts that the greatest benefit his wealth has offered him is that he never
needed to intentionally or unintentionally deceive another man. For when a
man nears the end of his life, he begins to fear the potential punishment that he
would suffer in the after life. Cephalus concludes that justice is pain, debts and
telling the truth. Socrates refuses Cephalus’s definition of justice by positing
several instances in which it is not just to tell the truth or to pay one’s debts. For
example, it is not just to return weapons entrusted to your care to a friend who
is not in his right senses. Furthermore, if a friend who is not in his right senses
approaches you and inquires where another man is, so that he may kill him,
then it is not just to tell him the truth.

Cephalus’s son, Polemarchus proposes the second definition for justice. He

asserts that justice is doing good to friends and evil to enemies. Socrates refutes
this definition by asserting that the just man never does evil – even to his
enemies. He states that when sth inflicts harm upon a horse, the horse
deteriorates. Similarly, when sth injures a man, the man deteriorates. A JUST
MAN BY JUSTICE CANNOT MAKE A MAN UNJUST. Only unjust men injure other
men. To do evil is never just.

Thrasymachus proposes 3rd definition: justice is the interest of the stronger –

diff types of govt- each govt makes laws according to their interests and these
laws are the justice which they deliver to their citizens, anyone who breaks the
laws is unjust. Because the govt has the power to make the laws it is the
stronger and therefore justice is the interest of the stronger. Socrates refutes
this definition by demonstrating that rulers pass laws that are not in their
interest – some laws command citizens to behave contrary to the interest of the
stronger. Thrasymachus says that when rulers pass laws contrary to their
interest, then they are not the stronger at that point in time. He uses the
analogy of a mathematician : when a math. Makes a mistake in the calculation ,
he is not a mathematician in that point in time. Socrates proceeds to explain
that every art has an interest, medicine- pacient, no physician considers his own
good in what he prescribes, but only the good of the patient. Thus, a ruler
makes rules in the interest of the ruled.

Th. asserts that the unjust man is happier than the just man. The just man is,in
fact, miserable. Therefore,injustice is more advantageous than justice. Socrates
proves that justice is virtue and wisdom while injustice is ignorance and vice by
using an analogy of mathematicians concluding that unjust men desires more
than both the just and unjust. He also notes that the unjust are incapable of
common action: a group of thieves must behave justly with one another if they
wish to conspire; ifthey are truly unjust, they will inflict evil upon one another
and will not be able to work toward a common cause.

Injustice is even more fatal: renders an individual incapable of any action

because of his internal disorder. Finally, Socrates concludes that everything has
an end and an excellence. The end of the eye Is sight; the end of the ear is
hearing and the end of the soul is happiness. If a particular excellence
deteriorates, it will not be capable of achieving its particular end. Accordingly, if
the soul’s excellence, which is justice, deteriorates, then it will not be capable of
attaining its end which is happiness

Book 2

Glaucon 3 categories of goods: 1- goods which are desirable for the sake of
themselves and not for any reward or consequence arising from possession of
those goods: pleasures, delights

2: desirable for their own sake and for the sake of the result: knowledge, sight,
health.
3: desirable for the sake of their consequences but not desirable in themselves:
ways of making money

Glaucon asks Socrates to which category justice belongs. Socrates replies that
justice belongs to the highest category: desirable in itself and for the rewards.
Glaucon asserts that the majority of people consider it as desirable for the sake
of the results but not desirable in itself.

Glaucon decides to argue on the behalf of people who criticize justice so that
Socrates can definitively refute their argument. G’s 3 arguments: 1.
Demonstrate the nature and origin of justice; 2. Prove that men behave
according to justice against their will 3. Unjust life better than the just life

Glaucon describes that when men have done evil and suffered evil they agreed
among themselves to have neither. The laws which are agreed upon are
deemed just and lawful. The origin of justice is the experience of doing and
suffering evil and an agreement to have neither. The nature of justice is a mean
between the best and worst: the best-doing evil with impunity and the worst -
suffer evil without the power of retaliation. Therefore justice is regarded as a
lesser evil.

Proceeding to the 2nd argument, Glaucon argues that given the power to behave
however they wish, the just and unjust man will follow the same path of
behavior, which is the most advantageous to their happiness. He also states
that men are guided to the path of justice by the force of laws. He inforces this
idea by the story of Gyges – he asserts that if men possessed the power of
Gyges ,they would behave in a similarly unjust manner. If a man with this power
did refrain from the justice people would regard him as a fool, though publicly
they would praise him because of the fear of suffering evil. For when a man
does possess the power to be unjust with impunity, he immediately becomes
unjust.

Glaucon’s 3rd argument is that the unjust life is better than the unjust
life.Parents teach children to be for the sake of the rewards. Thus, they are
advising their children to maintain an appearance of justice.
He concludes that It is better to be unjust and appear just because a man gains
both the reward of justice and injustice.

Socrates is unsure if to refute this strong argument. He first states that justice is
to be found in the individual, as well as the state, and because the state is larger
than the individual, they will first search for justice in the state and proceed to
the individual.

Book 3

In Book III of Plato’s Republic, Socrates continues his discussion of poetry. He

asserts that poetry ought to dispel the fear of death, not encourage it. For
example, he criticizes Homer’s portrayal of Achilles in the underworld. In
Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus meets Achilles in the underworld. Achilles tells
Odysseus that he “would rather be a serf on the land of a poor man than rule
over all the dead.” Socrates argues that this type of attitude will cultivate a fear
of death in the minds of young men who read Homer’s Odyssey. This
development of cowardice is contrary to Socrates’ goal of training men to
“choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery.” Next, Socrates turns his
attention to the poets’ portrayal of the gods. Again, Socrates finds fault with
Homer. Homer depicts the gods’ behavior as capricious, cruel, and petty.
Socrates contends that men will find justification for their wickedness in these
types of portrayals. If the gods behave in such an unvirtuous manner, then men
will not feel ashamed about their own shortcomings and will not pursue a
virtuous life. Socrates requires that poets present the gods as models of virtue –
models that men desire to imitate; for “imitations, beginning in early youth and
continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second
nature.”Like poetry, Socrates regards music as a means by which the State can
train its citizens to behave nobly. He believes that only the Phrygian and Dorian
harmonies ought to be allowed in the State. These harmonies, or modes, are
very similar to the modern natural minor scale. Socrates selects these two
harmonies because he considers them conducive to the development of
courage in times of war and temperance in times of peace. After discussing
poetry and music, the conversation naturally turns to art. Socrates’ speech
about art rises to sublime levels; and therefore, I will simply let him speak. “We
would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in
some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb
and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass
of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to
discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell
in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in
everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and
ear, like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul
from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.”

While poetry, music, and art strengthen the mind, physical training strengthens
the body. Socrates approves of the adage – “healthy mind, healthy body.” He
recognizes that the mind cannot perform properly when the body is sick, and
that regular physical exercise wards off many illnesses and enables the body to
recover quickly when it suffers an illness. He recommends moderation in
exercise, fearing that excessive care for the body at the expense of the
cultivation of the mind leads to boorish, coarse, and uncivil behavior. But
Socrates reserves his harshest words for those who care nothing for the body.
He argues that doctors should not treat those who are indolent and
intemperate, but rather allow them to die. “Asclepius is right in that he did not
want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or to have weak fathers begetting
weaker sons; if a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no
business to cure him; for such a cure would have been of no use either to
himself, or to the State.” This is a jarring notion for those who have been raised
in a Judeo-Christian culture, which believes in the sanctity of all human life.
However, the ancient Greeks had a moral code vastly different from the Judeo-
Christian moral code. The ancient Greek city-state of Sparta routinely practiced
infanticide, exposing infants who were deemed unfit. Thus, Socrates’ approval
of eugenics is not as radical within an ancient Greek context as a modern reader
might expect.

Socrates concludes Book III with what many academics now call ‘the myth of the
metals’, or ‘the noble lie’. In order to render citizens happy about their position
within the State as a laborer, warrior, or ruler, and to inspire feelings of
brotherhood and patriotism, Socrates believes that a myth is required. Socrates’
myth runs thus: “The rulers will teach children that they were formed and fed in
the womb of the earth… and so, their country being their mother and also their
nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks,
and to regard her citizens as children of the earth and their own brothers.
Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed
you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the
composition of these he has mingled gold; others he has made of silver, to be
warriors; others again who are to be laborers he has composed of brass and
iron.”Socrates’ myth functions as a religion. It explains the origin of life; it
bestows meaning upon the lives of believers by convincing them that they have
been made to perform a certain role within the world; and it inspires feelings of
fellowship. Despite the truthfulness or falsehood of myths and religions,
Socrates clearly believes that societies benefit from a unifying belief system.
Whether a society’s belief system is true or false is irrelevant. His attitude is
surprising considering that he proclaims to value Truth above all else. In the
case of the noble lie, at least, Socrates values the health and security of the
State over Truth. Perhaps he realizes that without a stable society, the pursuit
of Truth is impossible.

Book 5

In Book V of Plato’s Republic, Socrates asserts that men and women ought to
receive the same education and ought to fulfill the same roles within society. In
the context of Ancient Greece, where women are prohibited from receiving an
education and participating in business and politics, this is a radical notion.
Socrates admits that men and women have different natures, and that different
natures ought to have different pursuits. Nevertheless, he concludes that the
difference between men and women – primarily physical strength – does not
restrict women from participating in society as guardians, laborers, or even
soldiers. Furthermore, it is in the best interest of the State for both the men and
the women to be as good as possible; and therefore, both the men and the
women must be educated.

Socrates next moves to the topics of marriage and childbearing. He proposes

the following law: “The wives of our guardians are to be common, and their
children are to be common, and no parent is to know his own child, nor any
child his parent.” To accomplish this, the State should arrange orgiastic festivals
throughout the year. At these festivals, anonymous partners will engage in
sexual intercourse with each other. When a woman gives birth, she will not
know who the father is. Furthermore, nurses will immediately take the baby
away from the mother and place the baby among other newborns so that the
mother will not know which baby is hers.

The result of this process, according to Socrates, is that everyone will regard the
other citizens within the State as their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers,
daughters, and sons. This is desirable because people are less inclined to
commit wrongs against their family members than against strangers and more
inclined to care about their family members’ well-being than the well-being of
strangers. An individual within such a State as Socrates describes will apply
these beneficial feelings of kinship to all citizens rather than to a few. Thus, the
strong bonds of kinship will be used to unite all citizens toward a common end –
the attainment of the greatest good for the entire State.

In addition to his advice that men should hold wives and children in common,
Socrates also stipulates that only specific types of men and women ought to
procreate. Just as men take care for the breeding of their dogs and horses, so
too should men take care for the breeding of men lest the quality of men
deteriorate. “The best of either sex should be united with the best as often as
possible, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom as possible, if the flock is to
be maintained in first-rate condition.”
Socrates realizes that some people will rebel against these eugenic plans; and
therefore, he recommends that the rulers contrive means by which the citizens
will be ignorant of the selective breeding practices. “We shall have to invent
some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw on each occasion of
the orgiastic festivals, and then they will accuse their own ill-luck and not the
rulers.”

The course of actions that Socrates lays out seems impracticable. Although
some cultures practice polygamy, the majority does not. Western literature is
rife with stories of violent, sexual jealousies, and one can imagine such violent
passions frequently arising in Socrates’ ideal State. Furthermore, mothers are
unlikely to willingly part with their newborns immediately after birth, despite
the benefits of universal kinship that Socrates highlights.

Nevertheless, Socrates’ theory is not bad simply because it is unattainable. Like

a painting of a perfectly proportioned and beautiful person who can never exist,
Socrates’ theory gives us an ideal towards which we can strive. Socrates,
however, is adamant about one thing – “Until philosophers are kings, and
political greatness and wisdom meet in one individual, cities will never have rest
from their evils.”

Book 6

In Book VI of Plato’s Republic, Socrates explains why people reproach

philosophers as useless and evil. He draws an analogy between a ship with a
mutinous crew and a society with rebellious citizens. The mutinous crew
members of a ship violently struggle with one another to become captain, but
not one of them possesses knowledge of navigation. The crew considers the
captain, who does possess such wisdom, a “star-gazer” because the crew does
not realize that the constellations provide an excellent guide to navigate the
ocean. Just as the crew’s ignorance of navigation causes them to unjustly
mutiny against the captain, so too does the citizens’ ignorance of statesmanship
cause them to rebel against true philosophers.
Next, Socrates explains why there are no philosopher-kings. He argues that
societies are not conducive to the development of philosophers. Public opinion
corrupts the majority of citizens. For example, when family and friends
recognize the unique intellectual talents of an individual, they persuade him to
pursue an occupation that is financially profitable. Whether the occupation
leads to the acquirement of virtue is irrelevant. Because public opinion is very
persuasive, Socrates advises that potential philosopher-kings ought to endure a
rigorous physical and intellectual education, which consummates in the
understanding of the Form of the Good.

To clarify the concept of the “Form of the Good,” Socrates uses a simile, which is
now known in academia as the Simile of the Line. In the Simile of the Line,
Socrates divides reality into two realms – the physical realm and the intelligible
realm. In the physical realm, there are objects and there are images of those
objects. For example, a tree is an object within the physical realm, and the
reflection of that tree in a lake is an image within the physical realm. Just as two
orders of ideas exist in the physical realm, so too do two orders of ideas exist in
the intelligible realm. The lower order of ideas in the intelligible realm is
composed of definitions of the Forms. For example, the definitions of Beauty,
Courage, and Justice belong to this category. The higher order of the intelligible
realm is composed of the Forms themselves – i.e. Beauty itself, Courage itself,
Justice itself, etc.

In the physical realm, the sun holds a notable position. It shines its light on all
objects, and thus enables people and other creatures to see these objects. It
also gives existence to all things. Plants and animals could not exist without the
sun. In the intelligible realm, the Form of the Good acts like the sun. It renders
the definitions of the Forms and the Forms themselves intelligible, and it also
gives them existence.

Socrates divides reality into the physical realm and the intelligible realm
because he believes that abstract concepts exist independently of physical
phenomena. Because abstract concepts do not exist in the physical realm (we
do not see the number two hanging from a tree), they must exist in an
intelligible realm. But other philosophers have challenged Socrates’ assumption
that abstract concepts exist independently form physical phenomena. For
example, the empiricist philosophers – such as John Locke and David Hume –
believe that individuals derive abstract concepts from physical phenomena.
They argue that individuals observe several different trees and abstract
particular characteristics from those trees until only the shared qualities of the
several trees remain. These shared qualities form the abstract idea of a tree.
Without the several physical instances of trees, the abstract concept of a tree
would not exist. Who is right – Socrates or the Empiricists?

Book 7

Book VII of Plato’s Republic contains the most famous metaphor of philosophy –
the Allegory of the Cave. Socrates requests that his audience imagine a group of
prisoners chained since birth to the bottom of a cave. The prisoners can only see
the wall in front of them. They cannot turn their heads to either side. Behind
the prisoners, puppeteers move statues in front of a fire. The statues cast
shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners speak of these
shadows as we speak of our world. They call the shadows – horses, dogs, men,
etc.

Suppose a prisoner breaks free from his chains and turns around. His eyes,
unaccustomed to the light of the fire, are unable to discern the statues. But
after a period of time, his eyes adjust to the light, and he sees that the statues
and the fire are more real than the shadows. The existence of the shadows
depends upon the existence of the statues, not vice versa.

Now imagine that the prisoner ascends from the cave to the upper world. His
eyes, unaccustomed to the light of the sun, are unable to look upon the objects
of the world. But, in time, he gradually acquires the ability to see. He looks first
upon shadows, then upon reflections in water, then upon the objects
themselves, and finally upon the sun itself. He concludes that the sun is the
reason why he can see the objects of the world, and also concludes that the sun
is the source of all existence.

The Allegory of the Cave is a more elaborate and beautiful metaphor than the
Simile of the Line, but the subject matter is the same. Plato uses both
metaphors to illustrate his conception of reality and the different stages of
knowledge. The cave represents the physical realm, the realm of becoming. The
shadows symbolize images of physical objects, the statues symbolize the
physical objects themselves, and the fire symbolizes the sun. The prisoners
within the cave who are ignorant of the upper world are men who only possess
knowledge of the physical realm.

The upper world represents the intelligible realm, the realm of being. The
shadows symbolize the definitions of Beauty, Justice, Courage, etc.; the physical
objects symbolize Beauty itself, Justice itself, Courage itself, etc.; and the sun
symbolizes the Good. The prisoner who breaks free from his chains and ascends
to the upper world is the philosopher who transcends the mundane world to
contemplate the Forms of the intelligible realm and acquire true wisdom. Like
the ascent from the bottom of the cave to the upper world, the journey of the
philosopher from ignorance to knowledge is arduous and painful.

To acquire true wisdom, one must study mathematics. Mathematics directs the
mind toward abstract truths because numbers exist in the intelligible realm, the
realm of being. “The true use of math is simply to draw the soul toward being.
We must endeavor to persuade those who are to be the principal men of our
State to learn arithmetic because this will be the easiest way for her to pass
from becoming to truth and being.” The more one practices mathematics, the
better one will become at contemplating abstract truths.

Book 8
In Book VIII of Plato’s Republic, Socrates moves from the discussion of the ideal
State of aristocracy to a discussion of the four unjust types of States –
timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Because the natures of States
resemble the natures of the men that comprise them, an examination of unjust
States will illuminate the natures of unjust men. We can then compare the
happiness of the just man to the happiness of the unjust man. “And we shall
know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or to
prefer justice.”

Socrates first considers a timocracy. A timocracy is “a form of government in

which the rulers are motivated by ambition or a love of honor.” Socrates admits
that a timocracy will naturally arise from his ideal State of aristocracy. He
foresees that the guardians will not be able to prevent the mixture of classes;
and therefore, the quality of citizens will decline. This degradation will foster a
toxic environment in which children will receive an undesirable education. The
public will teach children to abandon their rational principles and cultivate their
passionate and appetitive aspects, resulting in a population of arrogant and
ambitious citizens, who will seek wars against their neighbors and even against
one another because of their ambition and love of glory.

Next, Socrates discusses an oligarchy. An oligarchy is “a government resting on a

valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is
deprived of it.” There is a natural transition from a timocracy to an oligarchy. In
a timocracy, the citizens are ambitious and proud. When they see their fellow
citizens amass wealth, they seek to rival them. “And thus the great mass of the
citizens become lovers of money. And so they grow richer and richer, and the
more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue.”

Besides the citizens’ disregard for virtue, the problems of vagrants and criminals
also develop in an oligarchy. Socrates compares vagrants and criminals with
drones in a bee hive. Some drones have stings, others do not. “Of the stingless
class are those who in their old age end as paupers; of the stingers come all the
criminal class. Clearly then, whenever you see paupers in a State, somewhere in
that neighborhood there are hidden away thieves, and cut-purses and robbers
of temples, and all sorts of malefactors. The existence of such persons is to be
attributed to want of education, ill-training, and an evil constitution of the
State.”

Socrates now moves the conversation to the topic of democracy. A democracy is

“a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of
a state.” A democracy, according to Socrates, naturally arises from an oligarchy.
The rulers of an oligarchy do not check the luxurious spending of their subjects
because the rulers gain by their subjects’ ruin. This reckless spending reduces
men to poverty. “They hate and conspire against those who have got their
property, and against everybody else, and are eager for revolution. On the other
hand, the men of business pretend to not even see those whom they have
already ruined.”

This type of situation is ripe for bloody revolution, and Socrates concludes that
“democracy comes into being after the poor have conquered their opponents,
slaughtering some and banishing some, while to the remainder they give an
equal share of freedom and power.” The violent French and American
revolutions, which replaced an oligarchical government with a democratic
government, are two excellent examples that support Socrates’ conclusion.

Upon first glance, democracy seems to be a just and desirable form of

government. The citizens are free and may order their lives as they please. But
this same freedom is the downfall of democracy. Once men have tasted
freedom, they will gradually be unable to tolerate any type of authority. “In
such a state of society the teacher fears and flatters his scholars, and the
scholars despise their teachers; the young man is on a level with the old, and is
ready to compete with him in word or deed; the father grows accustomed to
descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with
his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents. And
above all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the
least touch of authority, and at length they cease to care even for the laws,
written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.”
Finally, Socrates examines tyranny. Tyranny is “rule by one who has absolute
power.” A tyranny emerges from a democracy when a clever demagogue
exploits the citizens’ fear of an oligarchy. A tyrant assumes power by promising
the citizens of a democracy that he will evenly distribute wealth and land to
everyone. Society will be classless, and everyone will enjoy the abundant goods
of life. However, once a tyrant gains rule of the population, he consolidates his
position by eliminating all citizens who pose a threat to him. In the majority of
cases, the citizens who pose a threat to a tyrant are the most intelligent,
virtuous, and politically savvy citizens within the State. Thus, a tyrant rids the
State of its best elements, and preserves the worst elements.

Book 9

In Book IX of Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes the character of a tyrant. All

men, Socrates admits, have a lawless and beastly nature. This darker nature
displays itself during dreams while the rational part is sleeping. “Then the wild
beast within us, gorged with meat or drink, goes forth to satisfy his desires; and
there is no conceivable folly or crime a man may not be ready to commit.” The
difference between tyrants and other men is that tyrants do not reign in the
wild beast when they awaken, but rather encourage it.

The tyrant becomes a slave to his own desires, especially erotic lust, which
Socrates identifies as the most dangerous of all desires. Having spent all that he
owns, the tyrant resorts to deceit and force to acquire what he wants. “He must
have money, no matter how, if he is to escape the horrid pains of insatiable
desire.” A tyrant must also deal with a persistent fear of all those whom he has
wronged in his pursuit of irrational pleasures. “He lives in his hole like a woman
hidden in the house,” fearful of retaliation for his past wickedness. Thus, the
lives of tyrants are full of misery, pain, and fear because tyrants allow their
irrational parts to rule over the other parts of their souls.

Besides the clear distinction that Socrates draws between the happy life of the
just man and the unhappy life of the unjust man, Socrates offers another
demonstration that proves justice is more desirable than injustice. He argues
that there are three types of men in the world – lovers of wisdom, lovers of
honor, and lovers of gain. Men will assert that the class to which they belong is
the best. “The money-maker will emphasize the vanity of honour or of learning
if they bring no money with the solid advantages of gold and silver. The lover of
honor will think that the pleasure of riches is vulgar, while the pleasure of
learning, if it brings no distinction, is all smoke and nonsense. And the lover of
wisdom will set other pleasures at nothing compared to the pleasures of
learning and knowing the truth.” How are we to determine which class is
correct? Which class truly represents the best life?

Socrates argues that there is no better judge than experience. For example, a
man who has tasted pizza from Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s will be a
better judge as to the quality of each company’s pizza than a man who has
never tasted pizza. Similarly, the man who has the greatest experience of the
pleasures of wisdom, honor, and gain will be the best judge as to which of the
three classes of life is best. Socrates concludes that the best judge of the three
classes is the philosopher; “for he has of necessity always known the taste of
the other pleasures from his childhood upwards. But the delight which is to be
found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only.”

Rather than merely rely on the word of philosophers, Socrates resolves to prove
that the pleasures of the rational part of the soul are more pleasant than those
of the other two. First, he asserts that the pleasures of the appetitive and
spirited parts of the soul are not really pleasures at all, but rather cessations of
pain. For example, when a man is hungry, he feels pain. When he eats, he
eliminates the pain of hunger. But this, according to Socrates, is not true
pleasure. “Men, not knowing true pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the
absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of with white.”

Furthermore, the false pleasures of the appetitive and spirited parts of the soul
are transitory and less real than the pleasures of the rational part. Food, drink,
and honors provide temporary relief from the pains of hunger, thirst, and
vanity. Such pleasures exist within the realm of becoming and are necessarily
less real than those that exist in the realm of being. Truth, wisdom, and
knowledge – being concerned with and derived from the realm of being –
provide true, constant, and everlasting pleasure.

Finally, Socrates presents one more metaphor to solidify his notion of the
tripartite soul in his audience. He describes man as part human, part lion, and
part multi-headed beast. To be noble means that the human part of man
subjects the beastly parts to its command; to be ignoble means that the beastly
parts of man subject the human part to their commands. “Then how would a
man profit if he received gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave
the noblest part of him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his
son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands
of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however large might be the sum
which he received? And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who
remorselessly sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and
detestable?”

Book 10

In Book X of Plato’s Republic, Socrates banishes all artists from his ideal State.
He argues that the creations of art are farthest removed from truth; and
therefore, art turns the mind of the spectator away from truth and toward the
realm of becoming. For example, there are several instances of tables in the
world, but only one idea of a table. A table-maker can make a table, but he
cannot make the idea of a table. Even farther removed from the true idea of a
table than the table of a table-maker is the painting of a table. “Tables, then,
are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the
maker of the table, and the painter.”

In addition to artists, Socrates intends to banish poets, too. Like artists, poets
only imitate imitations of the truth. They are twice removed from the realm of
being, and they corrupt all those who read and listen to their works. A poet,
such as Homer, might present the courage of Achilles, but Homer does not know
Courage itself. In other words, he does not know how to be courageous or how
to teach others to be courageous. “If Homer had really been able to educate and
improve mankind — if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere
imitator — he would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and,
instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of
them.”

I disagree with Socrates in regards to Homer’s ability to educate and improve

mankind. Homer’s depiction of the Trojan War and of Odysseus’ return home
has inspired many generations. Men have admired the warrior virtues of
Achilles and sought to emulate him on the battlefield. Women have revered
Odysseus’ wife Penelope as the epitome of marital fidelity. Socrates’ assertion
that Homer did not teach virtue is nonsense. Modern academics name the
virtues of the heroes in the Iliad and the Odyssey after Homer. The virtues of
power, strength, bravery, and cleverness are “Homeric virtues.”

Despite this slight objection, Socrates makes a compelling argument that

“poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them
rule, although they ought to be controlled if mankind is ever to increase in
happiness and virtue.” For example, when we watch a troop of actors perform a
tragedy on the stage, “we delight in giving way to sympathy.” The more we cry
over the miseries of the actors, the more we enjoy the performance. Yet, when
any tragedy befalls us, we take pride in the very opposite response. “We would
fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other, which delighted
us in the tragic performance, is now deemed to be the part of a woman.”

Thus, Socrates argues that watching tragedy renders us unable to deal with
misfortune when it befalls us because tragedy trains us to become excessively
emotional. This argument is interesting because it directly contradicts Aristotle’s
argument in the Poetics that tragedy purges the audience of fear and pity rather
than strengthens these emotions. I agree with Aristotle – the more one
experiences and observes tragedy, the more one becomes desensitized to it.

After banishing the artists and poets from his ideal State, Socrates moves the
conversation to the topic of the afterlife. He argues that the soul is immortal
because neither good nor evil can destroy it. To elaborate, there are good things
and evil things in the world. Good things save and improve, bad things corrupt
and destroy. Moderate consumption of food and water is good in relation to the
body because it preserves and improves the body, disease and injury are evil in
relation to the body because it corrupts and destroys the body. In relation to
the soul, virtue is good, and vice is evil. But no soul has ever died from vice; and
therefore, Socrates concludes that the soul is immortal.

If the soul is immortal, where does it go after the death of the body? Socrates
answers this question by telling a story about a man who died, traveled to the
underworld, and returned to life. The story is very similar to Dante’s Divine
Comedy. The man in the story sees a judge condemning wicked souls to a hell-
like underworld and permitting just souls to enter a heavenly paradise. After
spending 1,000 years in either Heaven or Hell, the souls choose another earthly
body to inhabit. Some unwisely choose the lives of tyrants, others choose the
lives of animals because they experienced much misery at the hands of their
fellow men and now they detest human nature. But the wisest souls choose
lives of moderation that are free from cares, luxuries, and wickedness.

Thus, Socrates always returns to the consideration of how one ought to live. His
discussions regarding forms of government, art, poetry, music, etc. serve to
illuminate the best way of life. At the end of Plato’s Republic, he concludes that
the just life is the best life. “This must be our notion of the just man, that even
when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things
will in the end work together for good to him in life and death: for the gods
have a care of any one whose desire is to become just and to be like God by the
pursuit of virtue.” This concludes our presentation of Plato’s Republic.

Hannah Arendt – Socrates

One exemplification Arendt’s insight to bring together an Aristotelian concern

with particulars in “practical matters” with a “principled, universalist”
standpoint arises in her essay on ‘Socrates’. Yet, in reading this essay one
quickly realizes that Arendt is neither advancing an ‘anti-modernist’ nor
‘modernist’ political tale. Rather, her interest is to (de)construct how Socrates’
life has falsely been misused to erect and maintain the “truth” paradigms
central to both. Unlike prevailing interpretations of Socrates, however, Arendt’s
interest lies with the (existential) man, Socrates, and his friend, Plato. Here she
is interested in the divisions between politics and philosophy and her main goal
is to reclaim the moral political meaning of Socrates’ life and his death. In this
case, Arendt’s rereading of the ancient Greeks – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – does
not set out to offer a ‘theory’ disseminating the truth as it pertains to their lives
or their legacies. Rather, Arendt stands anew; her words take witness to testify
to the meaning of their words and deeds; and her act of giving her own logos,
taking her own account to narrate how this prejudice has intellectually
saturated an entire historical tradition. As it pertains to the life of Socrates, I
think Arendt’s narration aspires to touch not only the particular and concrete
existence of Socrates but also to conflict with, and testify to, the dominate
interpretation of its principle. The lesson of Socrates’ death has been willfully
lost, according to Arendt. Like the life of Jesus, Socrates’ life impressed upon
followers particular “truths” about his meaning. Not only was his life sacrificed
to dissuade others from the philosophical way of life but, according to Arendt,
so too was the meaning of his existence sacrificed once Plato determined to
expunge all moral political significance from it. This is important for two
reasons. First, along Arendtian lines, Socrates death inspired Plato’s ‘tyranny of
truth’ and the subsequent prejudice favoring truth, in contradistinction to
meaning, ever since. Here, Arendt squarely faults Plato. Second, by purging the
meaning of Socrates’ life, Plato sacrificed him a second time.

Arendt’s works can help us think about truthfulness in politics. To begin with,
Arendt demands of political actors an absolute respect for factual truths and a
commitment to not distorting them. Her point is that without recognising and
acknowledging the facts of the past, there can be no common ground upon
which political actors can start new beginnings, no common world for them to
share with contemporaries and future generations. Yet, for Arendt, truthfulness
in relation to the political realm represents more than just a willingness to
recognise and respect facts, since political speech is always more than the mere
reporting of facts.

In this essay, she transports the reader to ancient Athens, creating her own
portraits of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato. She demonstrates that
there is a radical difference between how they each understood truth in relation
to philosophy and politics. For Plato, as Arendt represents him in “Socrates,” the
role of the philosopher is to employ the absolute Truth — which, as a
philosopher, only he possesses — to rule over the polis. Socrates, she contends,
also saw himself as playing a very important political role, but his intention was
not to relay the philosophical Truth to his fellow citizens. Instead, he wanted to
act as the “midwife” of the polis — someone who “delivers” the truths that
inhere in the citizens’ own opinions. Socrates termed the method of making the
city more truthful maieutics, or the art of midwifery, a method that consisted in
engaging as many citizens as possible in dialogues in the agora with the sole
purpose of talking through their opinions. Arendt sympathetically notes that
Socrates’ maieutics was informed by the following insight:

“Absolute truth, which would be the same for all men and therefore unrelated,
independent of each man’s existence, cannot exist for mortals. For mortals the
important thing is to make doxa truthful, to see in every doxa truth and to
speak in such a way that the truth of one’s opinion reveals itself to oneself and
to others” (19).

What does this passage tell us about truth and truthfulness in relation to the
political? Firstly, politics is not about establishing absolute truth or attempting
to reach absolute consensus: it is about articulating diverse doxai, a Greek word
for “opinion.”

A demand that Arendt’s Socrates puts on humans is to “make their doxai

truthful” — implying that an opinion is not truthful by default. As Arendt
represents it, Socrates believed that “nobody can know by himself and without
further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion” (15). Nothing could be
further from what Arendt’s Socrates thought about opinions — that an
individual can constitute a truthful opinion only if she is prepared to put
additional “effort” into it, and this effort is not about solipsistic contemplation
but about engagement with others.

This effort required from an individual who wants to constitute her opinion in
its truthfulness consists, firstly, in “seeing in every doxa truth,” that is, in
learning to appreciate every doxa, every opinion — whether it agrees with her
own opinion or not — and recognise all doxai as equally meaningful. Note that
this is different from the imperative to achieve a rational consensus from
various opinions, since the practice of endowing all doxai with significance does
not mean erasing differences between them. For Arendt, the very beauty of the
political realm lies in the interplay of diverse, diverging and often conflicting
opinions. “Seeing in every doxa truth” means celebrating this turbulent plurality
of opinions and finding the inspiration to attend to opinions that are in
opposition with our own and even confronting to us.

Also, the demand “to see in every doxa truth” requires more than merely a
willingness to tolerate different opinions: it requires that an individual be
willing to actively seek out others — including people with whom she agrees and
disagrees alike — listen to them and genuinely attempt to understand what
meanings they seek to construct of the world. This in turn can be possible only if
an individual approaches others without assuming that she already knows
where her fellows stand in the world and what their opinions are (or should be).
Arendt derives this insight from Socrates’ famous wisdom “I know that I don’t
know,” which she interprets as follows: “I know that I do not have the truth for
everybody; I cannot know the other fellow’s truth except by asking him and
thereby learning his doxa, which reveals itself to him in distinction from all
others” (19).

But how does Arendt justify the notion that in every opinion potentially lies its
own particular truth? In “Socrates,” Arendt puts great emphasis on the fact that
a Greek word for opinion — doxa — means “comprehension of the world as ‘it
opens itself to me’” (14). The world is not understood here as a thing that exists
out there but as that which “appears” to humans from a plurality of distinct
perspectives. Since every individual occupies a particular standpoint in the
world, a single, absolute, true perspective on the world is not possible for
humans. Rather, every individual has a unique opening to the world and can
constitute her own doxa — a distinct understanding of how the world appears to
her. Doxa thus corresponds to the domain of meaning and significance, not
knowledge. Therefore, there can be no right or wrong doxa — or, to be more
precise, there can be no pre-given absolute standard that can be applied to
evaluating doxai. Every doxa is potentially truthful, but only potentially: a doxa
can become truthful only if an individual is willing to constitute it in relation to
other doxai.

Socrates, as Arendt portrays him, saw his role in the polis precisely as
facilitating the relational activity that would allow his fellow citizens to
constitute truthful opinions. By inviting his fellow citizens to take part in
dialogues in the agora, he saw himself as encouraging them to voice what they
think in the presence of others, as well as helping them to bring their diverse
and often opposing and conflicting perspectives into relation and see how they
cWhat was at stake, for Arendt’s Socrates, in fulfilling this role of midwife of the
polis was a sense of a common world. As Arendt highlights it, life in ancient
Athens represented “an intense and uninterrupted contest of all against all”
(16). The problem was that “because the commonness of the political world was
constituted only by the walls of the city and the boundaries of its laws, it was
not seen or experienced in the relationships between the citizens” (16). The
common world which Socrates wanted his fellow citizens to collectively build is
not achieved through arriving at some kind of rational consensus and
overlooking differences and disagreements. Rather, through taking part in
dialogues about doxai, citizens can develop a reciprocal understanding of what
the world means for themselves and others. They can endow the phenomena of
the world — built environment, facts, art works, actions, events, and so on, —
 with meaning and significance and constitute a framework of shared meanings
between them. What they can come to realise in this process is that “the same
world opens up to everyone and that despite all differences between men and
their positions in the world — and consequently their doxai (opinions) — ‘both
you and I are human’” (14). The process of constituting the meaning of one’s
opinion and engaging with others in their own search for meaning is
simultaneously a process of learning how to share the world with others and be
equal partners in this world.

Speech is of crucial significance in this process. For Arendt’s Socrates, it is

important that everyone can “speak in such a way that the truth of one’s
opinion reveals itself to oneself and to others” (19). This means first and
foremost that every citizen needs to be accorded a voice and invited to speak
with others about her doxa. But it also means that truthfulness involves the
willingness to speak in a way that is meaningful not only for those whom we
expect to naturally agree with us but also those whom we expect to have a very
different perspective on the world. This does not mean sugarcoating things and
making speech palatable for everyone but rather ensuring that others are not
discouraged from engaging with our perspectives on the world — which so often
happens when people deliberately wield speech as a weapon and a tool of
insult. If we deliberately frame our speech in a way that is repugnant to others,
this will weaken — rather than strengthen — the possibility of a common world
since this will preclude others from being willing to launch into meaningful
conversation with us and see truth in our doxa. As a result, we can miss out on
the opportunity to relate our doxa to the doxai of others, and thus on being
able to draw out the truth inherent in our opinion and demonstrate it to our
opponents and our supporters alike.

Building on Arendt’s insights in “Socrates,” we can understand truthfulness as

the orientation to the world that is needed for a political actor to be able to
constitute a truthful opinion. This truthfulness has three aspects to it. Firstly, a
truthful individual is one who is willing to appear to others and constitute the
meaning of her opinion through dialogue with them, thereby engaging with as
many diverse doxai as possible, including those that are in opposition with her
own and originating from different socio-economic classes, cultural and
religious backgrounds, geographical areas, and so on. Secondly, a truthful
individual is one who does not assume that she knows where others stand in
the world and is genuinely committed to finding out how the world appears to
them and what meanings they constitute of the world. Finally, a truthful
individual is one who speaks about her doxa in a way that does not avoid
tensions and disputes, but at the same time does not short-circuit potential
dialogue with any human being. Truthfulness thus understood is essential for
grounding a common world and ethics in a post-traditional society or, shall I
say, post-truth society.

Karl Popper
 Popper sees totalitarianism of all stripes as essentially tribal, as a “closed
society,” a rebellion against the “strain of civilization.” He assaults it by using
his philosophy of science (which greatly emphasizes “falsification,” i.e., the
refutation of statements and theories) to criticize the doctrines of those whom
Popper takes to be behind modern totalitarianism, namely, Plato, Aristotle,
Hegel, and Marx. In The Open Society, he seeks to “examine the application of
the critical and rational methods of science to the problems of the open society.
[He] analyzes the principles of democratic social reconstruction, the principles
of … ‘piecemeal social engineering’ in opposition to ‘Utopian social
engineering.’”

Summing up, we can say that Plato’s theory of justice, as presented in the
Republic and later works, is a conscious attempt to get the better of the
equalitarian, individualistic, and protectionist tendencies of his time, and to re-
establish the claims of tribalism by developing a totalitarian moral theory. At
the same time, he was strongly impressed by the new humanitarian morality;
but instead of combating equalitarianism with arguments, he avoided even
discussing it. And he successfully enlisted the humanitarian sentiments, whose
strength he knew so well, in the cause of the totalitarian class rule of a naturally
superior master race.
These class prerogatives, he claimed, are necessary for upholding the
stability of the state. They constitute therefore the essence of justice. Ultimately,
this claim is based upon the argument that justice is useful to the might, health,
and stability of the state; an argument which is only too similar to the modern
totalitarian definition: right is whatever is useful to the might of my nation, or
my class, or my party.