History of Political Though: New Understanding of Plato and of the Republic

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History of Political Though: New Understanding of Plato and of the Republic

History of Political Though

‘It looks to me as though the investigation we are undertaking is no ordinary thing, but one for a man who sees sharply. Since we’re not clever men, [&] we should make this kind of investigation of it: if someone had, for example, ordered men who don’t see very sharply to read little letters from afar and then someone had the thought that the same letters are somewhere else also, but bigger and in a bigger place, I suppose it would look like a godsend to be able to consider the littler ones after having read these first, if, of course, they do happen to be the same. [&] We say, dont we, that there is a justice that belongs to a single man, and also one that belongs to a whole city? [&] Perhaps, then, there will be more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to discern.

Introduction

The passage considered comes from the second book of Platos Republic. The latter is composed of ten books in which Plato, using Socrates as a speaking figure, defines what justice is and what makes a good state. The way in which the whole work is formed is through dialogues between Socrates and other Athenians. What is important here is the role of the city-soul analogy, which paves the floor for the entire discussion made in the ten books and in this paper. Plato uses the analogy to support his idea of justice, good state, and individual, but we shall see to that later. The parallel has led to many interpretations and criticisms and because of it Plato has been considered many things: a communist, a utilitarian, a totalitarian, and even an incoherent utopian. Not all of them are so believable, but they have some foundation in the text. Therefore, it should be kept to mind that such a complex work, which gave rise to several contrasting opinions, is not a straightforward one, even though Platos writing style and choice of dialogues may make it seem like that.

This paper aims at providing an explanation of the analogy and address, at least partially, some of the interpretations mentioned above.

Context

With the cited passage, Plato opens the way for the parallel between the just state and the just man. He does that in order to justify the answer he provided to Glaucons question (Glaucon was Platos older brother and one of the main characters of the Republic). The latter had indeed divided goods into three different types: goods that we desire only for their own sake, such as joy; goods that we desire both for their own sake and for their consequences, such as knowledge; goods that we desire only for their consequences, such as physical training. He then asked Socrates where he would place justice, who put it in the second type. Consequently, Socrates aim is to prove that justice is not only desirable but that it belongs to the highest class of desirable things: those desired both for their own sake and their consequences. This is indeed the concept behind his words in cited passage: ’It looks to me as though the investigation we are undertaking&. The investigation here refers to the explanation Socrates has to provide in order to fully persuade Glaucon and he will do that through the use of the analogy.

The ideal city

We say, dont we, that there is a justice that belongs to a single man, and also one that belongs to a whole city? Plato is convinced that there are two types of justice: one political and one individual. Because it is easier to discover justice in a big setting, as it is easier to read big letters rather than little ones, Socrates will start by explaining what constitutes a just city. However, there is no existing example of a completely just city and therefore, he begins to describe his ideal one.

Plato believed that individuals are not self-sufficient. The only way in which they can fulfill their needs -in the best possible method- is by joining together and forming a city. Important to specify is that people must carry out the task that they were naturally born to do. The principle of specialization was in this way introduced. Plato indeed was convinced that we are not all alike, but rather people differ from one another, one being suited for one job, one for another. This principle is not to be understood as a mere Fordist division of labour, but as a natural way to have the most tailored job assigned to each individual. This rule must always be followed, even in the case in which a person dislikes the job for which he or she is naturally suited. Secondly, as the city expands, more professions are created, more wealth is generated and more territory is needed. This will inevitably lead to the creation of an army, which, still according to the specialization principle, must be formed by specialized people. Those forming the army are called guardians and they are trained on the basis of platonic education, which has the task of forming good people with a disdain for evil. Guardians should be violent to people who try to trespass, but gentle with respect to citizens within the city. The formation process is extremely important since the best guardians -those more suited- will be chosen to be philosophers, namely rulers and organizers of the city (the so-called philosopher kings). The training, even though physical and cognitive in nature, has the main objective of developing the guardians character so that they can become the wisest individuals in the city in taking decisions and making judgments. More clearly, the group which until now has been called guardians is divided in two. The greatest from this group will be selected as rulers, and only they will now be called guardians, whereas the rest will remain as soldiers and will be labeled as auxiliaries, because their task is to aid rulers by fulfilling and enforcing their decisions. These two connotations are important since they form two of three classes that, according to Plato, compose the ideal state. The third are the ruled or just the rest of the citizenry. In addition to that, as we are talking about the ideal state, Socrates says that the city, in order to be just, must have three virtues: wisdom, courage, and temperance.

Wisdom belongs only to a few guardians and it is related to their education. It is only them indeed who have the ability to make fair judgments without favoring themselves or any of the other two classes and know how the city should be run. The courage of the city instead lies with the auxiliaries, considering that they have to defend the city from external attacks. The virtue of temperance resides in all three classes and refers to the agreement between people over who shall be in charge of the city. Two elements of this virtue must now be analyzed: self-knowledge and deference. Self-knowledge is when all citizenry agrees that those most suited individuals are ruling; more simply, the rulers know that they are the right people for the job, and the ruled know that they are not the right people for the job. Deference instead refers to the fact that the rulers impose their demands in accordance to justice and the ruled accept this imposition of desires and see it as fixed and given.

The virtue of justice can now be seen as encompassing all the other virtues. It is indeed fully accomplished only when each citizen recognizes his/her role in the city and starts acting according to his/her virtue. Only in this way, the state can be said to be united and just.

The just individual

I suppose it would look like a godsend to be able to consider the littler ones after having read these first, if, of course, they do happen to be the same[footnoteRef:5]. As initially envisaged by Socrates, once having analyzed the bigger picture, we should do the same but with the small one, namely the person, since now it will be easier. We are now turning to the previously cited individual justice and naturally, for the parallel to work, Socrates must find a similar tripartition of the individual to the one expressed with the ideal state. Should not this be the case However, the soul, differently from the state, is not a complete unity. More precisely, an individuals behavior originates from a different source of desires -i.e. motivational sources-. These desires conflict with one another (one may want to drink, but control this temptation), so it is the form in which the person lives and acts that indicates how these sources of behavior are related. Having said this, this time we will not have three classes, but rather three aspects of the soul: reason, spirit, and desire. The reason is the rational aspect, the one that allows the individual to reason critically and to dominate his/her passions. It is composed of two main functions: one is to look for the truth and increase ones knowledge; the reason is indeed the only part of the soul that desires to extend our knowledge of truths to all the other parts and finds pleasure in it. The second function is that of ruling the soul, its other parts, and all the impulses we naturally have. It is of extreme importance that the second function is carried out by reason. That is because it is the source of practical judgment about what is best for the person as a whole, meaning that reason is the only part of the soul that cares for the interest of the whole and not just for itself, differently from desire and spirit.

The latter is by nature an auxiliary to the calculating part -i.e. reason. Spirit is the part that provides the motivational background necessary to reason and that gets what one can be proud of, namely what the individual believes to be right. It may seem similar to reason, as it involves the rejection of desires which are not recognized by the person. Also, Socrates admits this by saying: it sets its arms on the side of the calculating part. However, there is an important difference: spirit must be understood as something educable and malleable, while reason is something fixed and given which cannot be changed. Finally, we have a desire, which lusts for every natural instinct, such as drinking, eating, or sexual pleasure. Important to say is that desire is blind to any thoughtful consideration beyond those of fulfilling what it wants.

All three aspects have a sort of cognitive power that allows them to recognize each other and to conflict in order to pursue their own interest. As we addressed before, it is a reason that should rule over the others, but ultimately the ideal model of the just person requires an agreement of the three aspects. Each of them should doing its own -i.e. act in accordance to their function. The individual is just if reason rules, spirit provides the motivational background, and desire is controlled. In this way, also individual justice has been defined.

The analogy

In order to conclude the investigation, Socrates must now trace the parallelism between political justice and individual justice. The tripartition of the citys classes and its virtues is obviously linked to the tripartition of the soul of the individual. Guardians are those guided by reason and possess the virtue of wisdom; those which instead are guided by spirit are the auxiliaries and possess the virtue of courage; those in which desire prevails are the ruled, which only have the virtue of temperance.

Plato does not care if all individuals are not just. Indeed, only guardians can be said to be strictly speaking just, since it is only them who are dominated by reason. Fundamental is that guardians impose justice on the other classes and counterbalance the unjust tendencies brought about by the other aspects of the soul.

To conclude, we can say that ones membership to a certain class depends on the dominating part of its soul. Plato links the separation of the city in three classes with one of the individuals, bringing a sort of natural justification to the hierarchy created.

Critical analysis and objections

Incoherence?

One of the most important criticisms of the city-soul analogy is the one given by Bernard Williams. He indeed investigated two implicit assumptions of the parallel: (i) a city is F if and only if its people are F (where F stands for just), and (ii) the explanation of a citys being F is the same as the explanation of a persons being F. Williams argued that according to (ii) and as we saw above, the just city and the just soul have the same structure, meaning that each contains a rational, spirited, and appetitive/desire element. Consequently, the rational element in the city is made up of individuals who are ruled by reason (guardians), the spirited element is made up of individuals ruled by a spirit (auxiliaries), and the appetitive element is comprised of individuals ruled by desire (the ruled). But then the just city is made of individuals who are ruled by spirit and appetite, and this conflicts with (i) since Socrates does not think that an individual who is ruled by spirit or appetite is completely just. However, according to many, this interpretation results erroneously. When describing the ideal city, Plato did not imply that all individuals had to be just in the same way. Having a just city does not mean that all citizens within it should be just. Plato is interested in the justice of the city, but not in the justice of its constituent parts -i.e. individuals. That can be understood when Socrates introduced the Myth of Metals, whereby assigning a different type of metals to each social class, he aimed at reaching the citys happiness and justice and not that of the single individual. Indeed, the only necessary condition for the city to be just is that each class performs its function correctly. This explanation provides an effective counterargument to (i).

Authoritarian

Many have also criticized how the state structure envisaged by Plato had some anti-egalitarian and authoritarian features. Above all, these can be found in the class system; one born in a class will remain in it from birth to death, leaving no space for social mobility. Distinctions are innate and fixed. On this regard, particularly influential has been Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies. Popper considered Plato a real totalitarian. He accused him of having designed a city in which only the ruling class is allowed to rule, carry arms, and to receive a proper education. Amongst the several claims raised by Popper, two are of real importance. First, he criticized Platos belief of an ideal city without any sort of social and political change, going in countertrend to the principles of individualism and egalitarianism that were typical of Athens in that period. As Popper puts it: The idealist formula is: Arrest all political change! Change is evil, rest divine. Secondly, he disagreed with Platos undemocratic view that a just city requires individuals to sacrifice their needs to the interests of the state. This according to Popper (and to the majority of people living in accordance with western values) is one of the most significant characteristics of totalitarianism, either ancient o modern. Nazism, for example, underlined the needs of the Aryan race to excuse their cruel policies, while communists in the Soviet Union were interested in class aims and interests as the motor of history to which the individual must be subject. Popper saw Plato as the first enemy of the open society and although many other writers have counterargued these claims, his work introduced a new understanding of Plato and of the Republic.

Utilitarianism

For the second claim just raised that regarding individuals sacrificing their interests for the sake of the state- totalitarianism has not been the only political doctrine associated with the Republic. There are many who linked it to Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, in its simplest formulation, claims that the morally right policy is that which produces the greatest happiness for the members of society[footnoteRef:9]. On this account, according to Robin Barrow, Plato is quite explicit that the aim of the arrangements of the republic is to ensure the greatest happiness of the city as a whole. We see then how both Plato and the utilitarianists are interested only in the benefit of the city (or of the whole) rather than that of the individual. Another similarity regards the role of the guardians. We know that Plato puts at the command of the city those individuals dominated by reason because it is them who can take decisions for the sake of the entire city. In other words, Plato allows a small elite to be in charge. Analogously, with utilitarianism, we find something similar with the so-called government house utilitarianism. This sub-doctrine was born as a solution needed to overcome the self-defeat of utilitarianism, for which society would do better in terms of utility by employing a non-utilitarian decision-making procedure. According to this view, a small elite would know that utilitarianism was the right moral theory, and they would employ utilitarian decision procedures to design utility-maximizing rules or institutions. The vast bulk of the population, however, would not be taught to believe in utilitarianism. They would be taught to view social rules and conventions as intrinsically justified. Both elites (the one of Plato and the one of the government house utilitarianism) take decisions in the interest of all population, one because is dominated by reason, one because knows what utilitarianism is. Besides, in both scenarios, the rest of the population sees rules and institutions as fixed and given.

This being said, it would be risky to call Plato a utilitarian. The term utility never shows in Platos works and he had, as all other ancient Greeks, a different conception of the good. Even though similarities can be found, Plato can be considered, if anything, only a great grandfather of utilitarianism.

Communism

Others instead have related the Republic to communism, up to the extent that some has talked even about Platonic communism. The main analogies are to be found in guardians and auxiliaries and their relationship with private property. These indeed are not allowed to have any property of their own beyond what is absolutely necessary to survive. They will not possess a private house, any land, or gold and silver (wealth). Their needs will be taken care by the ruled under the form of taxes. Since it only applies to only a minor part of the population, Platonic communism has been defined by Ernest Barker as Half communism: It affects less than half of the persons and much less than half of the goods of the society to which it belongs. However, once again, we should be cautious in talking about platonic communism at all. It is true that in this regard Plato and Marx share a common point, but that is mainly all. Indeed, while Marxists claims for the abolition of private property are mainly economic and social (which aim at the socialization of the means of production), those used by Plato are of moral and political nature. Lastly, there is a big difference that cannot pass unobserved: Marx wants a classless society; Plato wants to preserve the virtues of the ruling class in a highly hierarchical society.

Conclusion

To sum up, it is clear how relevant the city-soul analogy is in the whole Republic. It envelops all the most important arguments and gives credibility to Platos argument. It is through the analogy that we know how the ideal state is structured, when a just individual is so and how justice is related to them.

Ultimately, even though it has been highly criticized for its controversial and incoherent characteristics, we see how Plato had already come up with a theory including numerous elements of many of the most influential theories of the last centuries.

Bibliography

Bloom, Allan. 1968. The Republic Of Plato. 2nd ed. basic books.
Sparknotes: The Republic: Book II, Page 2′. 2019. Sparknotes.Com. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/republic/section2/page/2/.
Kymlicka, Will. 2002. Contemporary Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Creed, J. L. ‘Is It Wrong to Call Plato a Utilitarian?’ The Classical Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1978): 349-65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/638685.
Barker, Ernest. 2013. Greek Political Theory. Routledge.
Popper, Karl. 1945. The Open Society and Its Enemies. 1st ed. London: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
Annas, Julia. 1981. An Introduction To Plato’s Republic. New York: Clarendon Press.

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