Platonic Dialectic and Spiritual Liberation: Outline for a Reader's Guide

Victor Wolfenstein

Alpha. Introduction

I. Marking the Way

I keep six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest. (Rudyard Kipling, Just-So Stories)
The seventh servant: silence and receptivity

II. Greek Values

• The Homeric epics as cultural canon

•• The Olympian dieties
• Ananke (Telic Necessity -- Fate) versus Tyche (chance or luck -- fortune, as in the Latin fortuna – cf. Machiavelli, virtu vs. fortuna))
• Dike (justice; limits) versus hubris (overweening pride)
• Achilleus (Iliad) and Odysseus (Odyssey) as exemplars, the former the ideal warrior, the latter the incarnation of practical wisdom
Note: the popular suspicion of wisdom: Odysseus was a master of deceit; is all wisdom deceitful? Socrates inherits this popular mistrust of intellect
• Zeus and guest friendship versus Polyphemus' cave

III. Athenian History (War and Class Conflict)

A. Elements of social organization -- of the polis (polity)

• oikos (household)
• agora (marketplace)
• boulê (deliberation); acropolis

B. Leaders:
• Solon 594 (the archetypal wise man as political leader)
• Peisistratus 560-510
• Kleisthenes
• Pericles
• Kleon

C. Wars:
• Persian: 490 (Darius), 480 (Xerxes)
• Delian league (Athenian power and hubris)
• Peloponnesian (Athens versus Sparta) -- 431-404
Notes: 1) the war involved class conflict within city-states and between them. Athens was democratic and Sparta was oligarchic. So democracies tended to line up with the one
and oligarchies with the other. Further, active conflict between democrats and oligarchs broke out within Athens itself.
" 2) "... you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only a question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what
they must" (The Athenian envoys to Melos, in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War).

• 429 Plague and death of Pericles (this is the fictive date of the Republic)
• Truce 421-15
• Revolt of Oligarchs 409
• 30 Tyrants 404 (Spartan victory)
• Democracy restored 403
• Death of Socrates 399

IV. Pre- Socratic Philosophers (Being versus Becoming)

• the 4 elements: air, earth, water, fire
• Anaximander 565: "And into [the Boundless,] that from which things take their rise, they pass away once more, 'as is meet; for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their
injustice according to the ordering of time' " (In Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 52).

• Pythagoras 500 (mathematics [the teraktys]; music [harmony, the octave// 12 : 8 : 6, where 12 : 6 = octave; 12 : 8 = 5th ; 8 : 6 = 4th ] and mysticism [universe as inhaling and exhaling,
transmigration of souls, rituals of purification, oral transmission/ no written doctrine]

• Herakleitos 500 (flux, becoming, interpenetration of opposites)

• Parmenides 500 (permanence, being, mutual exclusivity of opposites, Burnet p. 172 ff); Zeno (cf. Burnet p. 316 ff)

Note: The world of human experience is one of changes and transformations. The Olympians and the Greek myths mirror this mutability. Herakleitos conceptualizes it: his Logos is one of
paradox, opposites interpenetrating and turning into each other, order as precisely these transformative processes.
By contrast, there is an emergent notion of divinity as altogether perfect and unchanging -- blessed. Parmenides articulates divinity in philosophical terms: It is, and it cannot, not be.
That which is, which has always been, can be thought and known. That which is not, cannot be uttered and cannot be known. But all becomings partake of negation, involve a moment of non-
being. Therefore all becomings are unthinkable.
What, then, to do with the fact that we appear to live in a world of becomings? Answer: prove that this is mere appearance, illusion; and Zeno does this by purporting to show that all
reasoning involving transformation is self-contradictory.
The upshot is that the Logos of Becoming and the Logos of Being are utterly divorced. Subsequent pre-Socratic philosophy aims at their unification. Plato claims to have accomplished
this, in part by placing a Pythagorean ladder between the one realm and the other, in part by rethinking Being as a life-force (as self-moving and therefore capable of moving others), and in
part through the theory of Forms or Ideas (conceptual realities that partake of ultimate reality, that can be defined and therefore known, and which, just so, are channels, doorways, conduits
through which mortals may participate in the divine).

• Empedokles 480 (Burnet pp. 307-08)

• Anaxagoras 480 (Burnet p. 259 ff)

• sophists and rhetors -- teaching argument, rhetoric, and oratory -- e.g., Gorgias

• during the Ionian renaissance and after: the mystery cults (Eleusian and Dionysian mysteries; Orphism)

V. Socrates
• b. 470; in early life, student of Anaxagoras (cosmology)
• mental crisis in 431 -- Delphic oracle proclaims him wisest of men
• elenchos (socratic dialectic) -- testing the oracle by questioning politicians, poets, craftsmen
•Socratic wisdom: “what I do not know I don’t think I do” (in Rouse, ed., Great Dialogues of Plato, p. 427) or “human wisdom is worth little or nothing” and Socrates knows this (p.
429)
• but also his inner, spiritual or prophetic voice
• The gadfly of the state (p. 436)
• and his dedication to philosophical inquiry: “life without enquiry is not worth living” (p. 443)
• these quotes from Apology (see below): Socrates brought up on trial in 399 for corrupting the youth (sophistry) and not believing in the gods of the state (cosmology); he argues that
the charges are without foundation; nonetheless condemned to death by drinking hemlock.
• last words: “Criton, we owe a cock to Asclepios; pay it without fail” (Phaedo, in Rouse, p. 521); death as healing and liberation
• Thus the problem: Athens, a democratic polity, put Socrates on trial; Socrates, the philosopher, put Athens on trial. Plato seeks to resolve the antagonism between polity and
philosophy two ways: by imagining a polity in which philosophers are kings (Republic) -- and, short of that, by advising those who are philosophical to avoid political involvement (Gorgias,
Republic).

VI. Plato
Born 428/27. Father = Aristo. Mother = Perictione (descended from Dropides, relative of Solon; sister of Charmides and cousin of Critias, who were members of the 30 tyrants -- 404-
03). Elder brothers = Adeimantus and Glaucon. Aristo died when Plato a boy, mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes, had son Antiphon.
See 7th Epistle on his interest in politics and retreat from political involvement.
After death of Socrates, presumably went to Megara with Eucleides (age about 28). Returned to Athens c. 395.
Earlier dialogues: Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Hippias Major(?), Hippias Minor, Ion, Lysis
388, age 40: first visit to Sicily/Syracuse (additional exposure to Pythagorean philosophy) Gorgias written just before or just after this visit. The other "transitional dialogues" =
Protagoras, Meno.
[experience of enlightenment, whether sudden or cumulative]
387 +/-: founds the Academy. Middle period dialogues including Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus (the last = transition to the later dialogues)
367, age 60: second visit to Sicily/Syracuse
361, age 66: third visit to Sicily/Syracuse
[357: Dion attacks and conquers Syracuse, seeking to reclaim his lands, etc.; he is murdered in 354 -- the 7th Epistle is written to his surviving friends]
The later dialogues, including Theatatus, Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, Timaeus, Laws -- some but not necessarily all after his later visits to Sicily/Syracuse
Death: 347, age 80.

Beta. The Dialogues

The dialogues we study fall into three groups. The Seventh Epistle, Apology, Gorgias, and Republic concern the relationship between philosophy and politics. Symposium and Phaedrus
concern the relationship between philosophy and love. Phaedo concerns the relationship between philosophy and death.

The Seventh Epistle

The question of its authenticity. A structural argument in favor of same: its structure is isomorphic with the other politically oriented dialogues of that period: a political problem stated;
a philosophical position articulated that is relevant to that problem; the political problem solved, or the reasons why it could not be solved elucidated. (Perhaps this argument is stronger than
one based on philosophical content alone, because the philosophical content might be more obvious to a would-be forger.)
A. Plato's early life, his political disappointments and his emergent view that political troubles can only be remedied by a philosophical ruler. Along with his friendship with Dion, the
possibility of joining philosophy to politics induces him to visit Sicily. Recommendations for living justly and providing an example for others. The character of Dionysius and Sicilian life, the
futility of this mission, etc.
B. Dionysius claimed to know Plato's philosophy. Plato is at pains to differentiate his own teachings from the impostor's. Hence 340 - 344. Here philosophical writing is treated, as in
Phaedrus, as the body but not the soul of philosophy. True philosophizing is a matter of verbal exchange, in which the spark of wisdom is transmitted from teacher to student. Only in this way
can philosophical truths be adequately defended, The written word is the victim of the malicious intent or intellectual opacity of any chance person who reads it.
C. The political tale continued and concluded, and the corrupt character of Dionysius made plain, in the light of philosophical principle.

Apology
Note: Anaxagoras was tried for impiety, convicted, sentenced to death but, as a result of intervention by Pericles, was banished instead (450 BC ?). [It may be that Pericles simply arranged for
him to escape, thus establishing an historical example for Crito's suggestion to Socrates along the same lines in Crito.] Protagoras, too, was put on trial, convicted, his books burned, and
banished (415 BC?). Thus the charges against Socrates had a precedent. (And there was one corrupted youth with whom Socrates was associated in the public mind -- Alcibiades.) We should
also keep in mind that the Athenians were generally contentious and inclined to litigation -- and that litigation was used as an instrument of political competition. It may be, indeed, that the
charges against Anaxagoras were in part a political attack on Pericles, who was an intellectual and consorted with the philosopher.
a) Begins by claiming there are earlier and later accusers; earlier accusers interpreted him as cosmologist (skylore) and sophist (making the weaker argument the stronger). S. claims this
= case of mistaken identity.
b) What, then, does he do and why the later accusations?
• p. 427: Chaerephon and the Delphic oracle
• questioning the statesman who thought he was wise but wasn’t (and who was annoyed at S)
• S’s ignorance: “neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know what he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do.”
• the poets as inspired but unable to give an account of their knowledge, the craftsman as understanding practical matters but not knowing their limits.
c) Questioning Meletos
• corrupting the youth: on S as corrupter and all others as teachers of virtue, contra all other crafts in which a few can teach virtue and the many cannot but rather ruin and
corrupt things
• Meletos claims S is intentionally making people bad, when to make people bad is to endanger oneself
• not believing in the gods of the state: Meletos cannot differentiate between atheism and unorthodox belief
d) p. 434: S as philosopher obeys God just as S as soldier obeyed superior officers; will not abandon his post (i.e., he will not promise to stop philosophizing)
e) p. 436: if the Athenians kill him, they will be held accountable and will be the losers -- Socrates as gadfly
f) his daemon; duty overrides fear of death -- disagreed with the democratic faction over trying the ten generals and disobeyed the oligarchs who wanted Leon of Salamis arrested. Fears
to do wrong, not to die
g) refuses to beg -- guilty (281 to 220)
h) proposes only a mild penalty -- condemned to death 361 to 140
i) p. 444: his prophecy for those who condemned him
j) and for those who voted for him -- his daemon as not nay-saying him in court -- and death as endless sleep or continued inquiry

Moral of the story

• Socrates exemplifies the union of morality and rationality. His daemon -- the voice of conscience -- sanctions his prudential choices.
• In the minds of the demos, he is not distinguishable from sophists and cosmologists; but he claims, in opposition to them, to be interested only in the truth, and only insofar as it bears
on how to live the just life.
• Yet it is not clear that his moral/rational vocation is compatible with the well-being of the polity. Reason is critical and corrosive of unquestioning belief -- and especially so Socrates’
inquiries, which are negating of belief and which put nothing in the place of the arguments he overturns.

Gorgias
The Gorgias is usually placed at the end of Plato's earlier dialogues -- and therefore as leading into the middle period dialogues. It was probably written around the time of his first
Sicilian voyage. It is unusually combative in tone, as if Plato was "working through" the issue of politics -- justifying his own limited participation, Socrates' non-participation, and (as in the
Apology and Crito) the death of the philosopher Socrates by at the hands of the Athenian demos. Callicles is figured as just the kind of person who would have condemned Socrates, for reasons
that are compatible with the actual accusations against him but which go deeper, namely, an antipathy to philosophy, as undermining the warrior ethos of the polity. Thus we have a kind of
trial by dialectic, philosophy versus power politics. The former aims at truth, the latter at victory and (in this dialogue), the former aims at pleasure, the latter at virtue and goodness.
Oratory or rhetoric is the form that goes with the content of power politics, just as reasoned discourse is the form that goes with the content of philosophy. (It is argued inter alia that
true politics would be philosophical -- aimed at virtue and not just at gratification.) But the two forms of speech have more than a little in common. Hence the ease with which Socrates could
be confused with those who teach argument as a combative skill (sophists, rhetors, orators). The techniques of argument are very similar. Plato is therefore doing his best to differentiate them.
He claims rhetoric is merely a knack, aimed at pleasure and victory. Acting unjustly and getting away with it is one of its principal uses. Philosophy by contrast is a craft, which aims at
knowledge and virtue. It repels injustice; and its practitioner would rather be punished for unjust words and deeds (thus to be cured of an illness) than to escape rectification. S/he would also
rather suffer being treated unjustly than to act unjustly. Contrary to popular opinion, s/he sees no shame in this instance; rather unjustly punishing someone is shameful. One again, therefore,
Socrates' conduct in his life and at his trial is vindicated, and his judges are condemned.
The dialogue goes from bad to worse as it proceeds through its three interlocutors. At the same time, the basic principles underlying power politics -- the stimulation and gratification of
increasingly insatiable appetites and venal desires -- are brought forth with increasing clarity, so that they can be engaged and negated, i.e., so that the foundational beliefs of power politics can
be overturned and replaced with philosophical knowledge and values.
The text is structured with political/philosophical wings and a philosophical center or arch. That is, the discussion in the first part leads into an analysis of the relationship between
pleasure and virtue (the grounding principles of politics and philosophy respectively), and then out or down from those principles to conclusions about how to live one's life. If, however, Plato
had developed or experienced the idea of the Good, it is not revealed. And this is one reason for seeing it as earlier than the fully enlightened middle period dialogues.
Note: Socrates introduces, ostensibly just for purposes of illustration, the examples of mathematics and medicine early on. The former anticipates the Pythagorean notions that emerge
later, the latter the issue of healthy and diseased souls.
___________________________________________________

[Preface, 447a - 448 c/d: Callicles' opening line is about war (arriving after the battle), Socrates' is about a feast; the former is combative, the latter amicable.]

I. Gorgias (What is rhetoric, and what are its powers?)

A. Exposition, or defining rhetoric:
1) Rhetoric is about speeches (449e), that concern mental function more than physical (450b), and that involve persuasion (452e). Restated by Socrates: rhetoric is the craftsman
of persuasion and (further narrowed) especially concerned with public oratory on matters of justice (454b). Its application results in belief rather than knowledge (455a).
2) It might be assumed, from the line of argument thus far, that rhetoric and justice are necessarily linked -- I say assumed, because Gorgias has not actually asserted such a link.
Be that as it may, he is finally given the chance to spell out the powers of rhetoric, beginning at (456b). Rhetoric now emerges as a competitive skill which, like all such skills, can be used
justly and unjustly. Think, by way of analogy, of martial arts training.
There is then a contradiction in the definition of rhetoric -- if, and only if, Gorgias (when given a chance) maintains a necessary link between rhetoric and justice.
B. Critique, problems with the definition
1) (457d ff): Is Gorgias like Socrates, interested in truth and therefore in being refuted, if one is in error? [First statement of the main theme in the second section of the
dialogue.]
2) (459c ff): It is granted that rhetors are persuasive to those who don't have knowledge of a subject matter (these are the ones who can be made to believe, just because they do
not know), but Gorgias -- not content with this -- is led to claim that he teaches knowledge of the just and unjust (teaches virtue) along with the technical skills of rhetoric. On this assumption,
it is then granted that rhetoric would not be used unjustly, while previously Gorgias had allowed for its misuse.
Note a: On the one hand, Socrates gives Gorgias the chance to back away from the claim that rhetoric and virtues are necessarily linked. On the other, he (Gorgias) would be aligning
himself with dishonorable conduct if he availed himself of that opportunity. This is what Polus correctly asserts in 461 b/c, and to which Socrates responds by reasserting (if sarcastically) the
willingness to be corrected if he is in error.
Note b: Polus will attempt to separate shame/honor from bad/ good, in order to make the argument that, to see the way of the world clearly, one must disabuse oneself of idealistic
illusions. Callicles will push this argument further, claiming that all values (honor, goodness, etc.) can be defined conventionally or according to nature. The aim, in living well, is to overthrow
convention. Both positions might be given a Freudian turn: Polus and Callicles see conventional values as repressive and aim at a return of the repressed. Or, borrowing from Nietzsche, they
could be seen as claiming that Socrates is an advocate of slave morality, while they affirm the noble values of the "blond beasts" we encounter in On the Genealogy of Morals.

[transition, 457c - 458b: Rhetoric further defined, as a knack or habit, based in experience, rather than an art or craft, of which it is possible to give a reasoned account. Rhetoric aims at
pleasure and is a form of flattery; crafts aim at what is good and are forms of truth and health. Rhetoric : justice :: sophistry: legislation :: pastery-making: medicine :: cosmetics: gymnastics.
(Another way of saying this is that rhetoric and its kindred are appearances, while the crafts consort with reality.)
However, an argument can be made that practical "knowledge," of which rhetoric is an instance, is more craft-like than Plato's true knowledge. Think, for example, of Locke, who links
experience and reason, and is suspicious of ideas that cannot be tested in everyday life. If the criterion is reliability in the guiding of action, maybe technique outweighs virtue. And maybe
that's one of the basic dilemmas with which we moderns contend: our practical techniques immeasurably outstrip wisdom and virtue in their application.]

II. Polus (Which is better, which is worse: to act unjustly or be unjustly acted upon?)
A. Exposition (466a - 474b). After the transition, Polus (ignoring Socrates' argument -- refusing to listen, as did the Athenian jurors) claims that rhetoric is powerful (466b). It is aligned
with the power of tyrants.
1) Socrates argues that it may grant individuals the power to do what they think is best, but not what they "wish" -- meaning, not what is actually to their advantage. (The
underlying idea here is that no one would intentionally or knowingly act to his/her disadvantage.) [466d]
2) Socrates then adds a distinction between means and ends: actions taken, which may or may not be desirable in themselves, and the intended aim of the action, which is
desirable. [467c ff] This permits him to reduce the actions Polus commends to means, not ends -- hence to isolate the question of the ends of action. These, he claims, can only be beneficial if
they, and the means to acquire them, are just. The central issue (is acting unjustly or being unjustly acted upon the greater evil) is now joined. [469b]
3) Polus brings forward the example of Archelaus, and this is followed by clarifying the issues at hand.
B. Refutation (474c - 481b)
1) Acting unjustly versus being unjustly acted upon.
a) Socrates distinguishes between two pairs of values: that which is admirable and its opposite, shameful; that which is good or beneficial and its opposite, bad or evil.
Polus claims that acting unjustly is better than being unjustly acted upon, but also more shameful, while being unjustly acted upon is worse but less shameful.
b) He further distinguishes between attributes of actions and things, as to whether they are pleasurable (or unpleasurable, painful), beneficial (or not harmful) .
c) An unjust action, already granted to be shameful, is not painful -- pain is not what makes it shameful; therefore it must be bad. Hence doing injustice worse than
suffering it (475c), the first point at issue between Socrates and Polus.
2) Is it better to be punished for an unjust action, or to escape punishment?
a) Injustice is shameful, therefore evil or bad, akin to an illness. The soul is benefited if it is cured of the illness, even if the cure (punishment or being disciplined) is
painful.
b) Cf. summary, 479.
C. Rhetoric is only useful for purposes of self-accusation, so as to persuade judges to punish one for evil actions. And if one has enemies and there is some circumstance in which one
might legitimately wish them ill, then one should hope they get away with their unjust actions, for then they will live with the illness of being wicked. [480 - 481b]

III. Callicles (Is it better to live an undisciplined life - a life aimed at pleasure, the gratification of desire - or a disciplined life - a life aimed aimed at or guided by virtue?)
Note: Socrates claimed that rhetoric is a knack, a kind of flattery, that is oriented toward pleasure. In the argument with Polus, pleasure has been differentiated from virtue (excellence,
that which is good or beneficial). But that distinction is merely hypothetical: it's been posited but not argued. What, then, is the relationship between them? Are they identical, antithetical, or
indifferently related?
Callicles is encouraged to engage Socrates, as Socrates was earlier encouraged to engage Gorgias; the roles have switched and Socrates must now defend a position. He (C) claims that
Socrates' position turns the world upside down (inverts its values) -- as indeed it does. Socrates rejoins this is the view of philosophy, his constant beloved, while Callicles is made inconstant
his inconstant beloved, the demos. Callicles puts forward an argument, to further the one initiated by Gorgias and Polus and to refute Socrates.
A. Exposition, Callicles' Position (482c - 486d).
1) Conventional values invert natural ones, and Socrates shifts between the two, in order to defeat his interlocutors. It is just by nature for the powerful to (paraphrasing
Thucydides) take what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.
2) Philosophy is for the young, public oratory for the mature. For grown men to practice philosophy is shameful and leaves one defenseless against possible enemies and
accusers (reference: the trial of Socrates).
B. Refutation
1) Re A,1: The many are stronger by nature than any one man, and they establish the conventions of justice against which Callicles protests. Therefore nature and convention are
not opposed.
2) This gambit (A,1) is now put aside, in order to treat the main issue: who is powerful, and how should powerful individuals conduct themselves? Clarification: The powerful
are intelligent, brave, etc. -- the natural rulers of cities. Should they rule themselves (be self-disciplined -- 491d)? Callicles argues for unrestrained gratification of appetite -- pleasure über
alles -- and is not persuaded by Socrates' Orphic and Pythagorean myths. The good and the pleasant are now identified with each other. [491d - 495a]
a) 495c/d - 499b: Pleasure and pain interpenetrate, good and bad are true opposites. Pleasures and pains end together, good and bad each begins where the other ends.
b) Good and bad men experience pleasure and pain similarly. Either, therefore, pleasure cannot be identified with good (because it is equally experienced by the bad) or
there is no difference between good and bad men. Le jeu sont fait: the game is played, Callicles has lost. He will be forced to differentiate between higher and lower pleasures and virtue will be
the measure.
3) 499b - 505b. (At issue the philosophical and political lives -- 500b - c)
a) Given that pleasures and pains can be good or bad, and that one aims at what is good (to one's advantage or beneficial), pleasures and pains are means to ends.
b) It requires a craftsman to distinguish between good and bad ends. Rhetoric is not a craft in this sense, but a form of flattery aiming at pleasure. Socrates can envision a
proper political use of rhetoric, but can find no examples of this kind. Rather, Athenian politicians have catered to the pleasures of the demos, when they should have attended to its well-being
and betterment. Polis, body and soul are alike in being healthy when well-regulated and lawful. If they aren't healthy, they should be healed -- this means being disciplined, punished for
injustices and the like.
4) Here Callicles has been driven into the same corner as was Polus earlier, the very one that prompted him to enter the fray. The loop of argument from the earlier point to this
one was required to ground the remainder of the dialogue in first principles, established by giving a rational account of the differences between and relationship of pleasure and virtue. Callicles
begs off continuing, signifying to us the readers his defeat. Socrates continues on his own, which also permits Plato to state the foundational principles that have been established is straight-
forward deductive form (506c - 508c): The good ≠ the pleasant, the pleasant is done for the sake of the good. Good is made present in the soul by the excellence appropriate to it, and by craft
and right organization. The soul is then well-ordered and self-disciplined. (Callicles would have recognized these principles, if he had seriously studied geometry, i.e., the wisdom of the
Pythagoreans.) Such a person is a friend to men and gods, and accepts discipline as necessary for the maintenance of internal order.
5) Consequences of the now-established premises.
a) It is better to suffer injustice than to be unjust and, if one can only defend oneself from unjust treatment by being akin to those who would act unjustly, then it is better
not to avail oneself of such a defense. (Vindication of Socrates, who will not defend himself from injustice by becoming unjust, and condemnation of Callicles, whose love of the demos and
desire to please it leads him to mold himself in its image.)
b) One may indeed be killed for abjuring such defenses, but life itself is of little value if not lived well.
(Transition, 513c/d: Callicles accepts the logic of Socrates argument but is not persuaded. Socrates claims this is because his love of the demos opposes his understanding
and adds: "if we investigate these same things often and better, perhaps you will be persuaded." Here we think of Socrates at his trial, who observes he will not have time to convince the jurors
of his innocence.)
c) Those who enter political life should aim at the improvement of the polity and would have proved their capacity in private life first. But those who have in fact led it
tended only to its pleasures and left it worse off than when they found it, as is suggested by the accusations the demos brought against them (519d, parallel to a sophist who claims to be
unjustly treated by one of his students).
Note: Not taken up here is the possibility that these leaders were unjustly accused by the demos, as was Socrates himself.
d) Socrates recognizes that if he is brought to trial, he will not be persuasive with the demos, because he has not provided them with pleasures -- but rather will be like a
doctor who has administered bitter medicine when compared (by those who only believe but do not know) to a pastery-chef (521e). But this is also to say that he will be punished for actually
practicing the political craft, when others have merely had a knack for pleasing the people.
C. Judgment after death: the ultimate vindication of living the just life (523a - 527e)
Comment: Earlier I noted that having a knack for something -- good intuitions sharpened by experience might, at least in some circumstances, be superior to knowledge based on rational
argument, or a necessary complement to such knowledge. When we come to the central issue of the dialogue, the relationship between pleasure and virtue, a parallel question can be raised.
Plato would have reason as his guide and all appetites to be guided by it. In like fashion, the soul is to guide the body. At the limit, he rejects the body and bodily pleasures altogether. But short
of this, it is the proper relationship or balance that he seeks; and this consists in reason > desire. We might wonder, however, if the desires should be allowed to express themselves, and be
tended to, before reason is brought in as guide. Then again, would this more corporeal approach to knowledge get in the way of knowing the Good?

Republic
I. Problematics of the Republic
A. The central issue is personal or psychological: Why should one live justly rather than unjustly?
1. This is question posed by death of Socrates -- a just man (and type of man -- philosopher) -- accused of acting unjustly (violating the laws of the state) and put to death. Why,
then, live justly, if so doing leads to condemnation while those who are unjust escape punishment?
2. Answering the question requires definition of justice (dike) but bracketing that issue, here’s Plato’s basic argument:
To be happy, one must participate in the Good;
To participate in the Good, one must be just;
To be happy, one must be just.
The Good is the middle term of a syllogism linking happiness and justice; living justly is a necessary condition for participating in the Good and participating in the Good is a necessary
condition for human happiness.

B. The same relationship between the Good and human happiness underlies Plato's solution to reconciling philosophy and polity:
1) Human happiness = the good life
2) Knowledge of the Good is necessary for living the good life
3) Philosophers and only philosophers know the Good
4) Therefore only if philosophers rule will the polis be led toward the good life and human happiness

C. Further, the divided line (Cornford, pp. 221-223) is the framework for solving the problem of class conflict (rich versus poor) and philosophical conflict (being versus becoming), by
placing each part of the polity, the soul, and knowledge in its proper location. This structure or framework coheres -- is organic rather than mechanical, necessitated rather than arbitrary --
because it descends ontologically from the Good (Onto/epistemologically: from the Good through the Forms to hypotheses, and then from hypotheses through beliefs/perceptions to images and
fantasies).
• The organization of the text is also based upon the divided line. And this organization conforms to Plato's general model for the middle period political dialogues: a political as well as
individual problem posed and developed (Books 1 - 4); philosophical principles relevant to the problem articulated (Books 5 - 7); and these principles applied to the problem (Books 8 - 10).

Book 1
Book I is a classic “Socratic” dialogue. Socrates possesses the art of testing definitions for their validity, but seemingly lacks an adequate definition of justice himself (although he
hedges his claims of ignorance a bit). The object of his criticism is the doctrine that might makes right, here articulated by Thrasymachus as justice = the advantage of the stronger. This,
Socrates argues, is an illusory definition of justice (hence one fittingly assigned to the lowest level of the divided line). The illusion must be dispelled, so that room is made for putting forward
a true, or more nearly true, definition of justice.
Further, in Part I antagonistic interests, passions, and imbalanced power relations are presupposed. Stated in social or political terms, this is the world of class conflict which played
itself out in the Pelopponesian Wars. Thrasymachus is at home in that world and speaks its wisdom.
Beginning in Book II, Socrates becomes more clearly a spokesman for Plato’s own views. Justice emerges first as a principle of the appropriate division of both political and
psychological labor. In Part III it gains the added meaning, at least hypothetically, of being a form of the Good. Then, in the remainder of the text, it is the Way or guiding principle of human
happiness.
At the same time, in Part II et. seq. Socrates regrounds the empirical part of the argument, by assuming an initial mutuality of interests and passions. He then shows how this mutuality
is lost and how it might, conceivably, be regained. But he doesn’t place all of his bets on political possibilities. Indeed, his ultimate position is that, if the polis cannot be reformed and the
world we live in is the one we found ourselves inhabiting in Book I, then saving our souls means abstaining from political participation.
Note: Socrates’ basic strategy is to utilize the categories of craft or art (techne) and virtue (arete) to undermine his opponents definitions. A craft is a practice which is governed by or
aims at a virtue; a virtue is a good or excellence, also an active principle, as in the expression, “it is by virtue of q that r is properly performed.”
The supposed definition (here justice = the advantage of the stronger) has the general form, subject x = predicate y. Socrates asks, if x is an art or craft, is it compatible with predicate y?
Likewise if x is a virtue, is it compatible with predicate y? In each instance he shows that the definition of craft or virtue is incompatible with the predicate and so the supposed definition must
be given up.

• Setting: Piraeus, Festival of Bendis (429), house of Cephalus

Note: 429 is the year of the plague that struck Athens at the outset of the Peloponnesian wars. It was commonly interpreted as punishment for Athenian hubris. Plato's description of
existing polities as ill, diseased, or "in high fever" reflect in part this historical situation.
A. Cephalus: man of good character; justice (righteousness) = telling the truth and repayment of debt (p. 7); exits to worship the gods, in advance of argument.
Note: This notion of righteousness or justice is never overturned -- but it can be interpreted sophistically or philosophically. In remainder of Book 1 its sophistical implications are taken
up.
B. Polemarchus (from Simonides): justice = doing good between friends and harm between enemies. Socrates first demonstrates that as an art or craft justice either seems powerless or
indistinguishable from injustice (the art of robbing as well as of safe-keeping -- pp. 9-10) and then argues that it is never just or virtuous to harm another -- justice necessarily involves making
people better, not worse.
Note: Polemarchus is influenced by sophists but is not a sophist, believes in democratic values (his father's values are oligarchic) but is not a tyrant.
C. Enter Thrasymachus, who is a sophist, who lauds tyranny, and is presented as bestial (therefore as misusing reason for ends of power). In my terms, he argues that in a world of mutually
exclusive interests, self-interest dictates the covert exploitation of others. Justice is the cover up of this exploitation -- in political terms, it is the advantage of the stronger.
• Clarification: Stronger ≠ physically stronger, but rather the stronger (ruling) party in polities. The stronger party makes laws in its own interest; justice = obedience to these laws.
1. First refutation: rulers make mistakes, enact laws that are not in their own interest -- but it is still just to obey them (p. 19).
Note Cleitophon, p. 20: Thrasymachus could make an argument about rulers intentions, apart from the unintended consequences of their enactments. But Thrasymachus refuses this
option.
2. Reformulation: justice is an art; the true craftsman, the craftsman as such, makes no mistakes and enacts laws only in his own interest (pp. 20-21).
Second refutation: all crafts aim at the interest of the object or subject matter of the craft, not at the interest of the craftsman (except, we might add, insofar as s/he takes pleasure in the
proper exercise of the craft). One cannot maintain that justice is a craft and that it aims at the well-being of the craftsman at the same time (pp. 22-24).
3. Reformulation: injustice is a virtue. A virtue is whatever is to one's own benefit or makes one happy; to be virtuous in this sense one must be unjust, appear to be just, and convince
others to actually be just. The perfectly unjust man is the perfectly happy man -- e.g., the tyrant (see conclusion, p. 26).
Refutation: Thrasymachus is conflating the wage-earning art with the art of rulership or justice. But now a new issue (p. 32): is injustice a virtue? No, because all virtue aims at a
measure or limit. Further, without some justice not even a band of thieves or an individual soul could maintain order; and given that justice is a virtue of the soul, one cannot imagine the soul
to be functioning properly if it is not virtuous, nor happy if not functioning properly.
But justice remains undefined and Thrasymachus has been refuted only as a result of the argumentative strategies he selected.

Summary, Principal Arguments

1. (Thrasymachus) Justice = art or craft of competitive advantage (self-interest); (Socrates) Art or craft = interest or advantage of the other or object -- therefore justice cannot be art of self-
interest.
2. (Thrasymachus) Injustice = the virtue of gaining advantage over all others; (Socrates) Virtue = gaining advantage only over the less virtuous, not over all others -- therefore injustice cannot
be a virtue (an excellence of the soul)

Books II-IV
(As noted above, in this section Plato reconstructs society on the basis of shared rather than mutually exclusive interests. Social justice is only possible on this supposition. He also deprives the
ruling class of private property and familial loyalties, because he views these as the corrupting elements that lead rulers to substitute their own interests for the well-being of the community.
And each social class is placed in its proper position, with its appropriate tasks and rewards. In this way -- hypothetically -- the problem of class conflict is solved.)
A. The problem restated: to prove that justice is a good thing, in itself and for its consequences.
1. Glaucon: praise of injustice
a) justice originates by convention, in a compact in which one surrenders the greatest good (the power to do wrong) in exchange for escaping the greatest evil (the suffering of
wrong);
b) this is suggested by the story of Gyges: anyone would do wrong if they could do so with impunity.
c) imagine a just man who appears unjust and an unjust man who appears just: who would prosper and who would suffer? (p. 47: the unjust man portrayed here =
Thrasymachus' perfectly unjust ruler)
2. Adeimantus: praise of justice -- but as something difficult and not necessary because "outward seeming ... overpowers the truth" (p. 50) -- only appearances count with both men and
gods.
B. Socrates response: from psyche to polis; the simple polis or village having economic but not cultural, political or military functions; the negation of the healthy village = the feverish city;
negation of the negation: purification of the feverish city; from which emerges the good city; and in the good city we will find the virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice in city;
these virtues can then also be found in the soul.
1. the state is founded because people are not self-sufficient; it functions best when there is a division of labor (1 man, 1 work) and the exchange of the products of labor; minimal
market functions are also necessary. Thus oikos + agora (pp. 55-58).
Note: Socrates asserts/assumes that individuals are by nature best suited to do one thing, and that they are happiest when they are thus engaged.
2. Glaucon's objection, p. 60: the simple oikos = a community of pigs; the healthy town becomes a feverish city (p. 61), the feverish city is greedy; the origins of war, and therefore need
to train a military class.
3. Note p. 87: through reform of culture and education, the commonwealth is “purged” of "luxurious excess.” This purification of the city = restoration of health at higher cultural level.
a) natural predisposition of guardians: wisdom and courage.
b) reformation of music (pp. 66-92):
1. the content of myths -- gods as the source of good things, gods as unchangeable and not deceptive, teach citizens not to fear death and heroes to be stoic;
2. narrative forms: reduction of tragedy, epic and drama to exemplary recitation;
3. styles and music proper: controlled rather than affectively expressive;
4. the aim of these reforms: harmonious character (p. 90).
c) reform of gymnastic (moderation)
d) (b) + (c) = the temperate self -- gymnastic for spirited part and music for philosophical parts of the soul (pp. 101-102).
e) division of ruling class into guardians and auxiliaries; the myth of the metals (pp. 106-107), the way of life of the guardians (life on the acropolis, pp. 107- 111). Note also the
regulation of property.
4. The virtues: wisdom of the rulers, courage of the auxiliaries; temperance in the relationship of rulers, auxiliaries and citizens; justice as 1 man (or class of men), 1 function, 1 reward
(pp. 120-128)
In parallel fashion, 3 parts of the soul (reason, spirit, desire) and the same virtues; wisdom as the function of reason, courage of the spirited part of the soul; temperance as self-control
(harmony + reason > desire, through mediation of spirit); justice as the proper function of each element. Thus the just man, pp. 141-42, who is plainly superior to the unjust man.
Note: wisdom and courage are substantive virtues, i.e., properties of classes of the city or faculties of the soul. Temperance is a relationship among the parts, the proper proportion of the
one to the other, like the strings on a guitar tuned to the proper pitch so that, when played together, the result is harmonious. Justice is the principle that dictates or determines that each class of
the city or function of the soul does the one thing it is supposed to do -- that it stays within its limits. Again the musical analogy: justice is the principle that dictates that each string plays the
one note that it is designed to play.

Books 5-7
The just state and individual having been defined, comparison with various less just states and individuals is possible. But Plato needs to define further the ruling class and the
philosophical life -- that much is intrinsic to his political project -- and to introduce the Good, the controlling principle of the whole investigation and the vital link between living justly and
being happy. Or -- thinking back to the basic set of problems with which we began -- he has solved (in principle) the political problem of class struggle by the appropriate division of social
labor combined with education. He has yet to solve the problem of overcoming the antagonism between philosophy and polity, and the contradiction between the logics of Being and
Becoming. The latter two problems are solved in this section.

A. The way of life of the ruling class:

1) No private property (pp. 108-09);
2) Equality of women and men (Chapter XV);
3) Abolition of private families (Chapter XVI).
The aim of these measures is to eliminate private interests for the ruling class, so that its members have no reason to use their office to their own advantage. More generally, Socrates claims
that the state now has been constituted on the basis of a common interest, as if it were one family (pp. 163 ff).

B. How might such a polis come into being? If philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers (p. 179).
1. Socrates at his trial was misrepresented as being a sophist -- someone like Thrasymachus. Plato now (Chapter XIX) introduces a distinction between knowledge and opinion (belief)
that will permit him to distinguish between philosophers as lovers of knowledge (who recognize and seek to know essences -- Ideas, the Forms – cf. p. 187) and sophists as mere opiners
(interested in existence but not essence) -- between philosophers and philodoxers.
2. The natural nobility of those with the potential for philosophy (Chapter XX); why then are philosophers not seen as fit to rule?
a) The parable of the good pilot (pp. 195-96): don't blame philosophy if the people reject it.
b) The corruption of potential philosophers in corrupt polities (pp. 198 ff). Note: this is Plato's response to the accusers of Socrates, namely, you the people have corrupted the
youth, included the best of them.
• In corrupt polities, those with philosophical capabilities should lead private lives (p. 204).
c) The possibility of overcoming (a) and (b), by persuasion and education (Chapter XXII).
C. How are potential philosopher-kings to be educated, I: The objects of knowledge.
Note: The Good is the ultimate object of knowledge, but cannot be defined in this context. The auditors must settle for a knowledge of knowledge, one of its forms, can (p. 217).]
1. The analogy of the sun (pp. 218-220)>> eye : soul :: object of sight : object of knowledge :: sight : knowing :: light : knowledge :: the sun : the Good. {frame of reference: things of
the material world}
2. The divided line (Chapter XXIV, diagram p. 222). {frame of reference: mathematics, the level of understanding}
Note: the fit between the classes of society and the faculties of the soul and the categories of the divided line; also, again, the fit between the divided line and the structure of The
Republic.
Note the definition of hypotheses, p. 226.
3. The allegory of the cave (Chapter XXV). {frame of reference: reason and the Good, but merely as allegory}
a) the vision of the Good, p. 231
b) temporary blindness re-entering the cave, p. 232
c) why philosophers in the ideal polis must descend again into the cave, and why they alone are fit to truly rule (pp. 234-35).
• Can everyman be a philosopher? p. 232.
D. How potential philosopher-kings are to be educated, II: The course of study: mathematics, geometry, solid geometry, astronomy and harmonics, dialectic and the aim of philosophical
discipline (pp. 254-55).
Coda: The Platonic Path to Spiritual Liberation. Plato has more in mind here than the education of philosopher kings and queens. Rather, he is marking out the course of philosophical
discipline and study of the Academy -- the path that ends in enlightenment.
This path is neo-pythagorean in the first instance. A mathematical and musical ladder is to be climbed, elevating the soul from the world of Becoming to that of Being and beyond.
Here, too, one uses hypotheses, in mathematical fashion, as springboards. (This is the level of understanding.) Once this ladder has been climbed, then dialectic, the exercise of pure reason
with pure objects of reason, carries the soul to the more distant heights.
The foundation or starting point is sound character, created through the proper primary acculturation. Education or conditioning via music and gymnastic creates in the soul a
characteristic predisposition toward virtue. There are then five rungs to the ladder.
1) As noted, the soul must be turned from the world of Becoming, where no true knowledge is possible, to the world of Being. This is done first by the contemplation of physical
phenomena which provoke thought -- those in which opposition is intrinsic, such as relations of hot and cold, hard and soft, big and little (cf. Rouse, 322-23, approx 524 A-D). Such
relationships of opposition are best grasped conceptually in simple mathematics, calculation -- i.e., in trying to understand the nature of number (cf. Rouse, 324, approx. 525A). Numbers, we
would add, are only apparently physical. Physical things can be counted, but numbers themselves are mental, thought-entities. In contemplating them, the soul detaches itself from the illusion
that all realities are material.
2) Geometry takes the study of numbers one step further. The relationships it brings to light clearly have the attribute of permanence (cf. Rouse, 326 -- "geometrical knowledge is of
that which always is").
3) Geometry deals with surfaces, solid geometry -- which deals with solids -- should come next; but Plato acknowledges that its study is thus far not well advanced.
4) Next comes astronomy and harmony, the queen sciences of the Pythagoreans -- not to be understood as the study of visible and audible phenomena, but rather as the mathematical
principles determining these appearances.
5) Only after individuals are sufficiently mature and have ascended through the mathematical forms of the level of understanding are they ready for dialectical reasoning, the science
taught by Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates (Cf. Rouse p. 331, 532B, and p. 333, approx. 532D). Dialectic, patiently and ardently pursued, leads to a knowledge of the Good.
Note: The corresponding section in Cornford = Chapters XXVI - XXVIII. (Cornford observes that the mathematics program is adapted from Archytas, a Pythagorean.)

Books 8-10
Equipped with the hypothesis of the Good and with justice as a Form of the Good, we are now in a stronger position than at the end of Part II, to compare just and unjust polities, just
and unjust lives. The aim is to complete the refutation of Thrasymachus' claim that tyrants and those who, in private life, resemble tyrants, are the happiest of mortals.

A. Classification of types of polity and ways of life, arranged from most to least just:
1. The ideal polity minus reason as central value = timocracy, where honor is in control. (loss of wisdom as determining principle)
2. Timocracy minus honor as central value = oligarchy, where necessary desires are in control. (loss of courage as determining principle)
3. Oligarchy minus necessary desires as central value = democracy, where unnecessary desires are in control. (loss of temperance as determining principle)
4. Democracy minus unnecessary desires as central value = tyranny, where unlawful desires are in control. (loss of justice as determining principle)
Note: tyrannical desires described, p. 296

B. The concluding arguments: Is the just life superior to the unjust life?
1) Chapter XXXIII: Justice superior to injustice with respect security, etc. (the polis and the individual citizen of the polis as the criterion of judgment)
2) Who is to judge the best way of life? The 3 types of individuals (philosophers, the ambitious, the gain-loving) and superiority of philosophers on the basis of both reason and
experience. (the faculties of the soul and access to their pleasures as criterion of judgment)
3) The nature of happiness: pleasures of intelligence as pure, unmixed with pain (unlike all other pleasures).
• Will the just man participate in politics? only in the ideal city, not in a corrupt one -- pp. 319-20.
C. Part V: Why philosophy must regulate or even exile poetry; the immortality of the soul; the myth of Er: choosing one’s path in life by the light of the Good.
1) Judgment
2) The light of the Good, p. 353
3) The choice, p. 355, and its implications, p. 356
4) Odysseus, p. 358
5) Benediction, p. 359

Critique of the Republic

I. Critique of the Idea of the Good

A. Socrates provides two basic types of argument to support the idea that the life of justice is superior to the life of injustice. The first arguments are developed in and conclude at the end of
Part II (see Chapter XIV). They are psychological and political in nature. The second set of arguments are derived from the idea of the Good: once it is introduced, albeit hypothetically, in Part
III, all the subsequent arguments depend upon and descend from it.
Note: The idea of the Good is linked, in Plato’s mind, to the claim that (1) the soul is immortal and (2) it pays the penalty for unjust conduct after death. This idea further buttresses the
arguments developed in the body of the text.
Thus when the just and unjust lives are compared in Chapter XXXII, the superiority of the former to the latter is doubly secured: it rests on the arguments in Part II as well as the later
ones derived from the Good.

B. Recall my formulation of the core argument of the Republic:

To be happy, one must participate in the Good

To participate in the Good, one must be just
Therefore, to be happy, one must be just

The Good is the middle term that determines that happiness necessarily depends upon being just. One can, to be sure, contend that the major and minor premises are flat out wrong: that
happiness does not depend upon participation in the Good and/or that one can participate in the Good without being just. But those contentions take us into complicated territory and outside the
text. If we grant Plato the basic framing of his argument, its vital and vulnerable point is the Good itself. If it exists, and can be demonstrated to exist, then he has been successful in meeting
the challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus. If not, then he must fall back to the arguments in Part II. In the latter arguments, the link between happiness and justice is psychological, not
ontological. They depend on real-world claims about the human psyche -- and hence they are subject to the contingencies of real-world circumstances.

C. Plato’s Socratic problem: the Good can be experienced but not defined.
1. Socrates as mystic: access to [the Good] in his trances, inability to articulate (define it) -- this is the essence of his famous ignorance.
2. Plato can link the Being of Parmenides to the Becoming of Heraclitus through Pythagoras’s theory of music and number, but the link is secured by the Good: the upper and lower
realms of the divided line are united through participation in the cosmic life-force of the Good.
3. Socrates begs off discussing the Good itself in the context of his audience in the Republic, so in a sense the question is removed from scrutiny.
4. But by his own account, knowledge is a form or derivative of the Good; it is less than the Good; it falls short of the Good itself. This means that the Good transcends (at least
demonstrative or exoteric) knowledge.
5. Proof of #4: the Good cannot be defined. There is no predicate adequate to the Good as subject: The Good is ________.
6. Hence, from the standpoint of the rules of the philosophical game -- the dialectical game of being able to adequately define concepts, the game at which Socrates defeats
Thrasymachus -- the Good is not a valid concept, and Plato may not rely on it to prove his argument. (He is entitled to use it hypothetically: if the Good exists, then.....)
Note: By contrast, immortality of the soul can be defined; but here the problem is empirical: immortality cannot be demonstrated to be a fact.

D. The consequence: Plato must recur to the arguments in Part II and those arguments in Parts IV and V which do not depend upon knowledge of the Good. These may be challenged in one of
two ways: as intrinsically flawed, or as incomplete. The former would take us outside the text, so we limit ourselves to the latter.
1. Because the ideal polis is, by Plato’s own account, extremely unlikely to exist, we must assume the world of fifth and fourth century Athens, which he views as corrupt -- i.e., as
Thrasymachus’ or Glaucon’s world of antagonistic interests and passions.
2. One might grant that, if one can escape from these conflicts, it would be better to be just than unjust (the value of peace of mind, etc.)
3. But practically, prudence might dictate being just when possible and unjust when necessary. One might even believe the best defense is a good offense and so learn to practice the art
of being rationally evil.

E. In short, deprived of the concept of the Good, Plato can at best demonstrate the psychological benefits of just conduct. But these benefits are contingent on real world circumstances, in
which a reasonable degree of happiness might require varying admixtures of injustice.

II. Assuming the Good to Exist, Is Knowledge of the Good Politically Relevant?

A. Let's approach political and practical matters from another angle. Assume that the Good exists and can be demonstrated to exist, and that philosophers (and philosophers alone) can truly
have a knowledge of the Good. Then we have the other opening argument:
1) Human happiness = the good life;
2) Knowledge of the Good is necessary for living the good life;
3) Philosophers and only philosophers know the Good;
4) Therefore only if philosophers rule will the polis be led toward the good life and human happiness.

B. Is this argument valid? We might extend the "rational evil" argument this way: Politics is a matter of competitive interests and, for both individuals and polities, happiness depends upon
mastering the art of self-interest. That art, the one true political art, requires compromise of values, the use of force and fraud, the inflicting of injury on one's enemies, etc. -- precisely the
abandonment of Goodness and virtue as criteria of action. Indeed, if you attempt to live a life guided by the Good, as did Socrates, you end up like Socrates -- defenseless against those who
view you as an enemy. Guiding your conduct by the light of the Good disarms you. Philosophy must be abandoned at the gateway into the political world. Or: when you descend into the cave,
anything you have learned from being outside it becomes irrelevant. Having been blinded by the light, you must recover your earthly, pragmatic vision as quickly as possible.

C. But is knowledge of the Good really politically irrelevant? We could adapt two of Socrates' arguments to suggest its relevance. (These are not arguments that Socrates himself would
accept):
a) In Book I, we have the argument that at least some justice must be in the soul and in the polis, if any action whatsoever is to be possible. Even if, this position implies, you
are practicing the wage-earning art (i.e., the art of self-interest), you cannot practice it with perfect injustice. This is the honor among thieves argument.
b) Then, in Parts IV-V -- having contended that justice and wisdom are forms of the Good (derivatives of the Good, particular versions of the Good) -- Socrates can be
interpreted as arguing that the less just and wise you are, the less goodness and happiness there will be in your life. Or the less just and wise the conduct of political affairs, the less goodness
and happiness for the polis.
Put another way, we might temper Socrates' moral absolutism and limit his argument to the position that we should live as wisely and justly as is humanly possible. Even if we view him
as grossly unrealistic and likewise believe a truly philosophical life is incompatible with politics, that doesn't mean the Good is irrelevant. For even if you abandon the purely philosophical life
and reject the ideal state in which philosophy rules, it still follows that the more you possess knowledge of the Good and its derivative virtues, the more you will prosper, and the more a state
will prosper (when the state is guided by people with this knowledge.)

D. Then again, can the Good be compromised in the fashion just suggested? If it is present in you, can you be rationally evil? If not, then philosophy and politics cannot be reconciled and we
are left with a dire choice: live a Socratic life, guided by the Good, and accept the practical consequences; or abandon the Good entirely and follow the path of rational evil recommended by
Thrasymachus.
Here we have horns of a dilemma on which we ourselves might be gored.

Added argument: To act, politically or privately, one cannot be completely without justice and the other virtues; justice and the other virtues are Forms or derivatives of the Good; therefore one
cannot act, politically or privately, without some participation in the Good.

Symposium
According to the allegory of the cave, politics takes place within the cave and the native home of philosophy is outside and above it. We might see Symposium as located in a
transitional space between the two. It takes place after a public festival and it is brought to an end by the intrusion of the politically notorious Alcibiades, prime example of corrupted youth. But
the speeches are given soberly and, in themselves, form a ladder from the love of beautiful young men to the love of beauty and truth themselves. Throughout we are concerned with the
relationship of lover and beloved. The steps, once Phaedrus initiates the discussion, are from sophistry (Pausanias, and the differentiation between corporeal and spiritual love -- as well as the
concern for love matters in general as well as individual), to medicine (Eryximachus -- love = healing as the joining and harmonizing of physical and spiritual love), to the comic arts
(Aristophanes -- love = healing as the joining of two parts of the self), to the tragic arts (Agathon -- love = the most beautiful of the gods, who imparts the gifts of amiability, etc., to
humankind) -- to philosophy, to Socrates' speech, in which Diotima imparts knowledge to him. This places Socrates in the position of lover and Diotima of beloved -- he desires to know about
love and she imparts the knowledge. He lacks what she possesses. This parallels his critique of the earlier speeches, all of which position love as the beloved instead of the lover. But love is
desire for something. It is therefore lacking, which no god can be. This does not mean it is merely human. Rather, it is a spiritual mediation, the child of plenty (the divine) and poverty (the
human), the impulse which, when properly cultivated, draws us upwards toward the beautiful and the good.
• Socrates and Alcibiades: Socrates should be the lover and Alcibiades the beloved; but the relationship becomes reversed. Alcibiades is filled with desire, but is captive to sensual love
and so cannot properly embrace Socrates as beloved -- i.e., cannot properly embrace philosophy.
• The order of the speeches is the same as the order of the steps toward enlightenment -- cf. pp. 104-06, 209D - 211C.
• Note the ambiguous notion of male pregnancy, which closely resembles the pressure of male sexual desire -- the model is planting a seed in another, not being the one in whom a seed
is planted and grows.
• Love is here defined as active striving. It is in the lover. But it is plain that the roles need not be so asymetrical: each party might be lover and beloved. And one would think that love
would have to be in each of them, if it is adequately to join them. Thus there is something more to be said about love, and so we have the Phaedrus.
Phaedrus
The Phaedrus is set outside the walls of Athens, therefore apart from the hurly burly of political affairs. As we've seen, the Symposium takes place in a private home, in the aftermath of
an artistic event (the festival of Dionysus), and is focused on the love of beauty. It, too, is de-politicized. But the entry of Alcibiades carries with it echoes of Socrates' trial; and the festival of
Dionysus is a public affair. Here, by contrast, we are placed altogether outside the cave and in (more or less) direct touch with the immortals. This proximity to the divine is suggested
repeatedly. The spot where the conversation takes place is sacred to the river god Achelaus (230) and Socrates' first speech is inspired, as if he had been filled "by some external source, like a
jar from a spring" (235) and later says the nymphs are driving him mad (beside himself -- 241/42). The bridge to the analytical discussion of speech is formed by the hum of the cicadas and the
Muses to whom they are akin. Thus the location of the dialogue is isomorphic with the topology of Socrates' second speech, with its division between this-wordly affairs and the Beyond of
Gods and spirits.
At one level, the dialogue is about the right ordering of thought and speech -- the proper collection of concepts and phenomena under definitions and categories, the proper division of
categories from each other, and of instances within categories. These two modalities, collection and division, are presented as the constitutive elements of dialectic. This specification of
dialectic is not necessarily at odds with dialectic as a discursive ladder of ascent to the Good, or as the upper rungs of that ladder. And like all Platonic reasoning, it depends on the relationship
between affirmation and negation that is given in Parmenides' doctrine of ontological definition. Simply put: every act of predication that establishes the meaning of a subject at the same time
excludes all predicates which are incompatible with the one that has been posited. Or: if we say that X is an instance of either A or Not-A, then what X is established simultaneously with what
X is not. Still, despite this continuity, it is perhaps significant that the ascent [from a perverse (left hand) form of love badly presented, to the perverse (left hand) form of love rationally
presented, to the divine (right hand) form of love approached with appropriate inspiration and reason] is separated from the discussion of the principles of dialectical reasoning. Contrariwise,
we might grant that Plato has two aims in the dialogue: to say something more than he did in the Symposium about the nature of love, and to use the occasion to make explicit the laws of
dialectical reasoning which he now understood.
Be that as it may, the most general term or concept, the principle of collection, is philosophy or (if one wishes to be one step more specific) philosophical speech. Philosophy is the love
of knowledge or wisdom, a composite therefore of two primary elements. The dialogue is then appropriately divided into two principal sections, one on love (not only eros, but also philo-: love
of) and the other on wisdom (sophia). Or with equal justice we could say the first part is about love, the second about speeches -- thus conjointly about the love of speeches; but with the unity
of the dialogue established by the principles of philosophical discourse. Further, the two sides are united by a relationship between the madness of love (common to all three speeches) and the
rational understanding and control of that madness. Thus the first half is hot, hot with the mid-day sun; the second half is coolly rational or logical, as noontime heat turns into late afternoon
mildness. The second half contains the first half, parallel to the way the charioteer and the white horse contain and restrain the unruly black horse.
Note. One might say there are two topographies or topographical dimensions at work in Phaedrus. There is, so to speak, a horizontal dimension – division – specifically the division of
perverse from pure forms of love, figured as the black and white horses in Socrates’ second speech. But there is also a vision of cosmological ascent – rising above earth to the heavens, and
from heavens to the realm of pure Being, and correspondingly the fall back toward earth. Further, as noted above, the three speeches themselves are arranged as an ascent, and in this way
parallel the ascending line in Symposium.

I. On Love
A. Lysias' speech. The core of Lysias' argument is that the non-lover as sane, the lover as insane. Sanity is to be preferred to insanity, hence one should accept the entreaties of the non-
lover. The love referenced here is corporeal merely. [Lysias is to be criticized on two counts: despite his claims to rhetorical prowess, his speech has no discernible organization or logic; he not
only devalues the lover, but love itself -- by limiting it to its venal form.]
B. Socrates' first speech. Socrates claims to be speaking from inspiration. The form of his speech is rhetorically or philosophically appropriate. He begins by defining love as madness
and then derives consequences from this definition in an orderly fashion. But he, too, limits himself to sensual passion and for this reason covers himself as he speaks. Further, his praise of the
non-lover is at best in comparison to the madness of sensual love. Although he asserts the superiority of reason and acquired conviction to pleasure-seeking, he does not really praise the non-
lover except by default, i.e., as against a pleasure-seeking lover. (Note Phaedrus' comment that Socrates stops half-way and does not praise the non-lover. And Socrates really denied the
relevance of the non-lover, when he began by treating the claim to not be in love as a ruse or disguise.)
C. Socrates' second speech
1. Divine madness differentiated from the madness of sensual passion; forms of divine madness (divination; prophecy and purification; the Muses).
2. The madness of love, whether divine or mundane, acts upon the soul; therefore knowledge of the nature of the soul is required.
a) Soul (individual or cosmic) is immortal. Proof: it is self-moving, while things mortal are moved from without; not being moved from without, it did not come into
being and therefore does not cease to be. This is its nature in general. [dialectical function: collection]
b) The parts of the soul [dialectical function: division]
i) the winged [divinely animated] charioteer = reason
ii) the noble horse = the spirited, courageous faculty
iii) the ignoble horse = corporeal desire
c) Further division: types of souls according to dominant divine quality -- twelve types (twelve signs of zodiac?] plus Hestia as matrix (?).
• Divine souls rise above the cosmos we occupy and see it from the standpoint of absolute reality.
d) Further division, as it were vertical: souls that are most nearly divine and catch a good glimpse of reality; souls where divinity and corporeality mix and struggle; souls
where corporeality wins.
g) Souls that lose their wings fall to earth and must regrow them. They are impelled toward this by their recollection of divine reality. Thus we have a fourth kind of
madness, the love of or desire for divine Beauty; and it leads on to seeing in an other the longed-for divinity. This fourth kind of madness is love, and brings with it the relationship between
lover and beloved.
3. The soul's experience of love.
a) The lover sees Beauty in the beloved and his wings are nourished from within by the flooding feelings of desire. The conduits are opened when in the presence of his
beloved, closed and painful in his absence. Further (by-passing the issue of types of lover, defined by the twelve divine models) the lover seeks to mold his beloved in conformity with the god
whose Beauty he dimly remembers. Thus the beloved benefits, by being uplifted in this fashion.
b) The beloved then sees himself in or through the love of his lover. He comes to love the lover, without realizing that so doing is an act of self-recognition. But in truth,
both lover and beloved are united by the recollection of the divine, for which each longs. They become winged together.
c) How the relationship plays out depends on the play of forces within the soul.
If the charioteer is the true guide and, along with the white horse, he remains in control, the love relationship will be purely spiritual. This is a philosophical relationship, one driven by
wisdom.
If the relationship is centered in the spirited part of the soul -- if the emphasis is shifted toward the white horse -- then the demands of the black horse will be gratified, but in relative
moderation. Corporeal desire will not be the dominant aspect so long as the charioteer and the white horse are not utterly overthrown.
Note. Although appropriate given the homoerotic relationships that Plato aims at spiritualizing, love is figured in exclusively masculine terms. Perhaps or in part for this reason, it has the
quality of striving we associate with desire – albeit a striving for perfect beauty and enlightenment. So it might be claimed that it is an imbalanced conception of love: more masculine than
feminine, more penetrative than receptive, more striving after than at-one with, more yang than yin.

II. On Speeches and Wisdom

Phaedrus introduces the idea that writing speeches is less admirable than speaking them. Socrates initially by-passes the question of writing and speech, in order to distinguish between
what is good and bad in each instance. Critical to making these judgment is knowledge of the soul – and the soul thus constitutes a substantive link between the two parts of the dialogue. (Note
361b: “Isn’t the art of rhetoric, taken as a whole, a certain guiding of souls through words...” See also 270d.)
A. Socrates re-enters arguments similar to those in Gorgias, that genuinely persuasive speech requires knowledge and not mere opinion, truth not probability. Thus there are two kinds
of rhetoric. Lysias' speech is brought forward as an example of arguments improperly made, both formally and substantively.
B. Valid argument in both form and content depends upon beginning from general definitions and, on that basis, being able to collect together thoughts that belong together, and divide
from each other thoughts that differ. Thus, using Socrates' speeches as examples, we have love as divine madness (genus, general definition), then corporeal love (left hand, the first speech and
the black horse in the second speech) and spiritual or divine love (right hand, the second speech and the white horse of the second speech).
C. There is then a review of rhetorical technique, with the aim of de-throning the knowledge-claims made for it. Technique without knowledge consorts with probability as the mere
left-hand of persuasive speech.
D. Finally, words written and spoken, the former as playful, or as aid to recollection, the latter as the true vehicle of knowledge.

The philosophical reflection on the forms of knowledge, containing and restraining the divine madness of love -- parallel perhaps to the charioteer who reins in the right hand (white
horse) and left hand (black horse) forms of love -- having been completed, the coolness of thought now replaces the heat of passion. Phaedrus and Socrates exit.

Phaedo
Preface, pp. 460 - 462: Phaedo and Echecrates
• The delay in S’s execution; the ship to Delos; Theseus saving the 14 from the Minotaur (=death); the 14 attending S; saving this 14 from the fear of death; replacing the mythic hero
with the philosopher.
• exit Xanthippe,
• S on pleasure and pain (the bodily); on composing the hymn to Apollo and setting Aesop into verses; transition to ->
Comments. The dialogue is bathed in an Apollonian light. Apollo is the god of both music and enlightenment, the god whose oracle is at Delphi and who therefore is the deity Socrates
served in his search for the truth. Hence the prelude to Apollo that he composes, Further, the sacred period during which Theseus' saving of the fourteen is celebrated fulfills a vow to Apollo.
And Asclepius, the god of healing, is Apollo's son.
The dialogue is set in Phlius, home of Echecrates (a late member of the Pythagorean school), through which Phaido is passing on his way back to Athens. Phaido himself was a devoted
follower of Socrates and a philosopher in his own right.
Why is the dialogue set here, outside of Athens? In this instance, the theme of being outside of the polis does not seem compelling, because the dialogue itself takes place in the
Athenian prison. But perhaps Plato needs to distance himself from the events themselves. An hypothesis along these lines might be formed using two pieces of textual evidence: Plato is
reported to have been ill and therefore not in attendance; the dialogue is about healing, at least in the sense that Socrates treats his own death as a liberation from the disease or illness of
physical existence. What if it is Plato himself who is in need of healing -- whose soul requires a cure for the pain of the loss of his beloved friend? What, indeed, if his illness had been that he
could not bear to be there, to witness Socrates' death? Then the distance in time and space from the event would be defensive, or (put less pejoratively) the creation of a space in which the
feelings of loss could be experienced philosophically .
Read this way, Phaedo is a testament to the human, all-too-human experience of love and grief in Plato, as well as a eulogy for Socrates and a meditation on the nature of philosophy
(focusing on the situationally appropriate question of the mortality or immortality of the soul).

I. 462 - 472: Philosophy defined as the practice of dying (bottom 470)

A. Body versus soul; truth obtained in absence of body (468)
B. The objects of knowledge (beauty, etc) not knowable through the senses (468) -- read bottom 469.
C. Philosophy as purification (470)

II. 472 - 489: On the immortality of the soul

(Validity of [I] depends upon the immortality of the soul; therefore: hypotheses concerning immortality of the soul)
A. The argument from opposites or becomings (473 - 476)
B. The argument from recollection (476 - 481)
1. allusion to Meno, p. 476
2. the inadequacy of empirics to pure concepts (equal itself); if these do not arise from experience, they must pre-exist experience -- hence originate in our pre-existence
C. [A + B] “prove” soul exists both before birth and after death; but S & C are uncertain of the latter; S tries to calm their childish fears (bottom 481); the soul’s kinship to things
invisible, indivisible and therefore indestructible --482 - 485 [the soul is in the class or category of things divine, or nearly so]
Therefore entitled to claim philosophy = practice of dying (485 - 489); read from 487, 488)
Note. The three arguments constitute an ascending line. The first is based in the world of becoming. The second links the world of becoming to the world of being: the Forms exist in
the former, our recollection of them brings them into the latter. The third specifies the nature of the soul, as akin to things divine, and therefore as transcending the world of becoming.

[Socrates' silence; his silent communion with the divine?]

III. Possible negations of II, and the negation of these negations

• the statements by Simmias -- soul and body as harmony -- and Cebes -- tailor and cloak -- followed by Phaedo emphasizing the mood of doubt, etc., they provoked, 490 - 93
• 495, on misology

A. Refutation of Simmias: soul and body as harmony (496 - 499)

1. If still affirm recollection, cannot say soul comes into existence along with the body -- or after it, in the manner of harmonizing the strings of a pre-existing harp
2. Harmony cannot be partake of disharmony (its vice) -- but the soul can be either virtuous or vicious (in other words, harmony can be an attribute of soul but not its definition)
(Simmias’s objection overturned on the basis of prior arguments, no new principles introduced)
B. Refutation of Cebes: tailor and cloak argument
• new principle of causality introduced, because objection cannot be overturned on basis of prior arguments (cf. p. 505 on how to approach arguments)
• Socrates on his experiments with causality, 500 - 504
1) interest in natural philosophy, 500
2) Anaxagoras, 501-02
3) second voyage, 503
4) the cause of something = participation in the form of that thing (assuming, as formerly, the forms (504), 503 - 506, when P and E mark the break)

The argument:
1) 506 big never becomes small nor small big
• 506-07 -- anonymous objection -- becomings in II above
response: those = practical opposites, not the opposite qualities themselves
2) 507 -09: not only do opposites exclude each other, things that are not opposites exclude each other if each is necessarily associated with proper opposites. The basic idea is of
intervening variables or proximate causes: an essence enters an existent through a mediating cause (as heat enters body through fire) 509: thus soul, which is not itself life, brings life to the
body; life and death are true opposites, although the soul is not the opposite of death; therefore the soul excludes death

• myth of the afterlife, concluded 518

• death of S, 518 et. Seq.

Concluding Comment on the Soul. The inquiry takes as given the aim of spiritual liberation and the validity of dialectics as one of the ways of achieving it. Immortality of the soul, likewise the