Tuesday 9/24

Tuesday 9/24

Republic, Book VI

Readings

Texts

Essay III Question

This is just the last discussion question we had last Thursday. Please note that it is not due until Tuesday, 10/1. Here it is in full:

Third Question on Book IV: The Virtues of the City

After a brief discussion of the Guardians' primary obligation, which is to the education of the citizens of the city, Socrates suggests (427e and following) that we have sketched out enough of the city to be able to identify within it the four virtues:

  1. Wisdom
  2. Courage
  3. Moderation
  4. Justice

What are the four virtues as they are each in turn identified in the City?

Note that this third essay question is largely exegesis. We are not here concerned with your arguments or counter-arguments, as the case may be, so much as how well you can explain each of virtues as they emerge in the discussion of the text. Bear in mind also that I'm instituting a blanket ban on quotes from the test. Finally, since so many submitted the roughest of drafts, I'll be paying special attention to catch the kinds of gaffs which indicate a lack of proofreading. To that end, please turn off grammar checkers and spell checkers. They are more likely to mislead you into a sense of complacency than not.

Discussion Questions

Fourth Question on Book IV: The City of Vice

In Book IV of Republic, Socrates proposes to have discovered the virtues of courage, wisdom, temperance, and, finally, justice in the city. Using these accounts as given, let us characterize what we may call the 'anti-republic': Far from being the ideal state, the anti-republic is cowardly, unwise, intemperate, and unjust. While it is possible, given his accounts (and perhaps even necessary) for the virtuous republic to be virtuous in all the ways it can be at once, is it possible for a state to, say, lack courage, but be wise nonetheless? Intemperate but just? In other words, what is the relationship between the vices which are counterparts to the platonic virtues?

Fifth Question on Book IV: Justice in the City

Plato finally explains his account of justice starting at 433a:

[433] Then listen and see whether there’s anything in what I say. Justice, I think, is exactly what we said must be established throughout the city when we were founding it—either that or some form of it. We stated, and often repeated, if you remember, that everyone must practice one of the occupations in the city for which he is naturally best suited.

Yes, we did keep saying that.

Moreover, we’ve heard many people say and have often said ourselves that justice is doing one’s own work and not meddling with what isn’t [b] one’s own.

Yes, we have.

Then, it turns out that this doing one’s own work—provided that it comes to be in a certain way—is justice. And do you know what I take as evidence of this?

No, tell me.

I think that this is what was left over in the city when moderation, courage, and wisdom have been found. It is the power that makes it possible for them to grow in the city and that preserves them when they’ve grown for as long as it remains there itself. And of course we said that [c] justice would be what was left over when we had found the other three.

Yes, that must be so.

And surely, if we had to decide which of the four will make the city good by its presence, it would be a hard decision. Is it the agreement in belief between the rulers and the ruled? Or the preservation among the soldiers of the law-inspired belief about what is to be feared and what isn’t? Or the wisdom and guardianship of the rulers? Or is it, above all, [d] the fact that every child, woman, slave, freeman, craftsman, ruler, and ruled each does his own work and doesn’t meddle with what is other people’s?

How could this fail to be a hard decision?

It seems, then, that the power that consists in everyone’s doing his own work rivals wisdom, moderation, and courage in its contribution to the virtue of the city. [e]

It certainly does.

And wouldn’t you call this rival to the others in its contribution to the city’s virtue justice?

Absolutely.

Look at it this way if you want to be convinced. Won’t you order your rulers to act as judges in the city’s courts?

Of course.

And won’t their sole aim in delivering judgments be that no citizen should have what belongs to another or be deprived of what is his own?

They’ll have no aim but that.

Because that is just?

Yes.

Therefore, from this point of view also, the having and doing of one’s own would be accepted as justice. [434]

That’s right.

Consider, then, and see whether you agree with me about this. If a carpenter attempts to do the work of a cobbler, or a cobbler that of a carpenter, or they exchange their tools or honors with one another, or if the same person tries to do both jobs, and all other such exchanges are made, do you think that does any great harm to the city?

Not much.

But I suppose that when someone, who is by nature a craftsman or some other kind of money-maker, is puffed up by wealth, or by having a majority of votes, or by his own strength, or by some other such thing, and attempts [b] to enter the class of soldiers, or one of the unworthy soldiers tries to enter that of the judges and guardians, and these exchange their tools and honors, or when the same person tries to do all these things at once, then I think you’ll agree that these exchanges and this sort of meddling bring the city to ruin.

Absolutely.

Meddling and exchange between these three classes, then, is the greatest harm that can happen to the city and would rightly be called the worst [c] thing someone could do to it.

Exactly.

And wouldn’t you say that the worst thing that someone could do to his city is injustice?

Of course.

Then, that exchange and meddling is injustice. Or to put it the other way around: For the money-making, auxiliary, and guardian classes each to do its own work in the city, is the opposite. That’s justice, isn’t it, and makes the city just?

[d] I agree. Justice is that and nothing else.

Plato's account of justice contrasts strongly with the account John Rawls develops in “A Theory of Justice”, wherein justice is taken to be fairness in policy from the standpoint of a perfectly indifferent, ideally situated observer. Contrast Plato's account with Rawls'. Does one entail the other, or are they conceptually and logically distinct accounts? Either way, and developing careful arguments, which do you conclude is the better account?

Sixth Question on Book IV: The City and the Soul

At 435e Socrates presses on to try to discern in the Soul the virtues as they were identified in the City, which involves (necessarily, it seems) partitioning the Soul. How is that partitioning defended, precisely? What is the proper ordering of the Soul? How is justice to be understood in the Soul, and how does this account respond to Glaucon's Challenge?

First Question on Book V: Women and Children in the Republic

At the start of Book V, Polemarchus and Adeimantus distract Socrates from concluding his argument on the nature of the City (and the ways in which it can go wrong) and the nature of the Soul (and the ways in which it too, by analogy, can go wrong), wondering at some of the off-hand comments he'd previously made regarding how women and children are to be treated in the City. Socrates protests,

What a thing you’ve done, I said, in stopping me! What an argument you’ve started up again from the very beginning, as it were, about the constitution! I was delighted to think that it had already been described and was content to have these things accepted as they were stated before. You don’t realize what a swarm of arguments you’ve stirred up by calling [b] me to account now. I saw the swarm and passed the topic by in order to save us a lot of trouble.

What is the swarm of arguments to which he refers? Why, indeed, is this particular digression&emdash;as it seems to be in light of the argument at hand&emdash;so prominently placed in the dialogue? That is to ask, what do you think Plato is inviting us to consider here? After all, the emphasis is unmistakable. Socrates himself casts the ensuing discussion thusly,

Your encouragement would be fine, if I could be sure I was speaking with knowledge, for one can feel both secure and confident when one knows the truth about the dearest and most important things and speaks about them among those who are themselves [e] wise and dear friends. But to speak, as I’m doing, at a time when one is unsure of oneself and searching for the truth, is a frightening and [451] insecure thing to do. I’m not afraid of being laughed at—that would be childish indeed. But I am afraid that, if I slip from the truth, just where it’s most important not to, I’ll not only fall myself but drag my friends down as well. So I bow to Adrastea4 for what I’m going to say, for I suspect that it’s a lesser crime to kill someone involuntarily than to mislead people about fine, good, and just institutions. Since it’s better to run this risk among enemies than among friends, you’ve well and truly encouraged me! [b]

Second Question on Book V: The Philosopher King

Glaucon, as so often he does, redirects Socrates somewhat forcefully to focus on whether the City as they've been constructing it in theory could ever exist in reality. Thus,

I think, Socrates, that if we let you go on speaking about this subject, you’ll never remember the one you set aside in order to say all this, namely, whether it’s possible for this constitution to come into being and in what way it could be brought about. I agree that, if it existed, all the things we’ve mentioned would be good for the city in which they occurred. And I’ll add some that you’ve left out. The guardians would be excellent fighters against an enemy because they’d be least likely to desert each other, since they know each other as brothers, fathers, and [d] sons, and call each other by those names. Moreover, if their women joined their campaigns, either in the same ranks or positioned in the rear to frighten the enemy and in case their help should ever be needed, I know that this would make them quite unbeatable. And I also see all the good things that they’d have at home that you’ve omitted. Take it that I agree [e] that all these things would happen, as well as innumerable others, if this kind of constitution came into being, and say no more on that subject. But rather let’s now try to convince ourselves that it is possible and how it is possible, and let the rest go.

This is a sudden attack that you’ve made on my argument, and you [472] show no sympathy for my delay. Perhaps you don’t realize that, just as I’ve barely escaped from the first two waves of objections, you’re bringing the third—the biggest and most difficult one—down upon me. When you see and hear it, you’ll surely be completely sympathetic, and recognize that it was, after all, appropriate for me to hesitate and be afraid to state and look into so paradoxical a view.

The more you speak like that, the less we’ll let you off from telling us how it’s possible for this constitution to come into being. So speak instead of wasting time. [b]

Socrates' response is understandably met with disbelief and perhaps no small amount of derision (or, at least, that has tended to be the historical response to Plato's proposal.) Socrates asserts that,

Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political [d] power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils, Glaucon, nor, I think, will the human race. And, until this happens, the constitution we’ve been describing in [e] theory will never be born to the fullest extent possible or see the light of the sun. It’s because I saw how very paradoxical this statement would be that I hesitated to make it for so long, for it’s hard to face up to the fact that there can be no happiness, either public or private, in any other city.

This is at 473d/e. In the ensuing discussion, we learn a great deal about the Plato's understanding of the nature of philosophy and its pursuit. What is philosophy, and how do we pursue it? In particular, what is the distinction Socrates draws between knowledge (epistēmē, Ancient Greek 'ἐπιστήμη') on the one hand, and mere belief (doxa, Ancient Greek 'δόξα', translated here as 'opinion'), and what points does he make in drawing it?