Plato’s Republic Banishment of poetry and the rewards of justice 陳斐婷 清華大學哲學研究所專任助理教授 ftchen@mx.nthu.edu.tw

Acropolis

Theater of Dionysus, Athens

Ancient Greek Theater

Masks for tragedy (τραγῳδία) and comedy (κωμῳδία)

Greek tragedy Aeschylus (525-456 BCE): Agamemnon. Introducing a second actor. Sophocles (496-406 BCE): Oedipus Tyrannus, Antigone. Introducing a third actor. Euripides (486-406 BCE): Medea, Bacchae. An Introduction to Greek Theatre https://youtu.be/aSRLK7SogvE

Imitation (μίμησις) μίμησις (imitation): the literal copying of one visual aspect of a particular thing (598a): like holding a mirror to reflect things (596d-e). Form, Particular, Painting (596d-601b) A craftsman copies a Form to produce a bed; the painter only copies the way the bed appears. User, Maker, Imitator (601c-602b) The user has knowledge; the craftsman has true beliefs; the painter has beliefs.

Why should poets be banished? (1) Scene-painting relies on various kinds of optical illusion; flat surfaces can be made to appear three-dimensional, just as straight sticks can look bent in water. (2) One part of the soul accepts the appearance at face value, but the reasoning part of the soul does not. So we find two parts of the soul in conflict. (3) Therefore, poetry appeals to the lower, desiring part of the soul, which is apt to resist reason. It encourages us to give in to our immediate feelings and emotions when reason would forbid their gratification because it is useless or harmful if she considers her life as a whole.

Why should poets be banished? (1) “It [sc. poetry] is able to corrupt even good men, with very few exceptions, and…is a terribly dangerous thing” (605c). (2) The part of us that takes pleasure in watching actors lament is the part that longs to indulge our own grieves; taking pleasure in laughing at comedies tends to make us cynical and unserious in real life. The effect of poetry is to encourage the desires that ought to be suppressed in the virtuous life. (3) Therefore, Plato concludes, poetry is so dangerous, and so attractive, that it must be banished entirely from the ideally just state. Should poetry be censored (Book 3) or expelled (Book 10)?

The Ending of the Republic

The proof of the soul’s immortality (608c-612a) The just man’s rewards in this life (612a-614a) The just man’s rewards in the afterlife (614a-621d) 608c-612a If the soul has internal complexity, how can it be immortal? Plato’s reply here is that the soul’s true nature is immortal, and that our notion of it as being composite and liable to internal conflict is not a true view. 612a-614a Why does Plato now insist on adding the artificial consequences that everyone agreed were no guide to the truth?

The proof of the soul’s immortality (608c-612a) Nothing can be destroyed except by its own natural peculiar evil (e.g., rust is bad for metal). The soul’s natural peculiar evil is injustice. But injustice does not destroy the soul. So the soul is indestructible. So there always exists the same number of immortal souls. There cannot come to be any less souls, otherwise some souls would not be immortal. But that is not the case. Nor can there be any more souls, otherwise everything would eventually become immortal. But that is not the case.

The Myth of Er “The Myth of Er is a painful shock; its vulgarity seems to pull us right down to the level of Cephalus, where you take justice seriously when you start thinking about hell-fire… If we take it seriously, it seems to offer us an entirely consequentialist reason for being just, thus undermining Plato’s sustained effort to show that justice is worth having for the agent in a non-consequentialist way.” (Annas, 349) “It is always hard to know what Plato intends to convey by using a myth. A common view is that he uses myth to express higher religious truths which are above the scope of arguments. Reason abdicates to the mystical vision. This view encourages us to read the myths on an aesthetical level.” (Annas, 350)

One common interpretation and its problems “One common way of regarding it as an attempt to stress the eternity of the soul’s existence (608c). So far we have only looked at the lives of individuals and their institutions… The myth puts the human race in a wider setting. Justice is guaranteed by the cosmic order; the universe is such that overall justice is rewarded and evil punished.” (Annas, 350) If this line of interpretation is correct, it aggravates the problem just mentioned, that the myth is a lapse from the level of the main argument. If justice is part of a cosmic pattern, it is not a very encouraging pattern. The soul’s rewards and punishments do not provide an inspiring balance or outweighing of what happens on earth.

One common interpretation and its problems “Plato’s underworld is a sadistic hell, not a purgatory. More surprisingly, the myth is pessimistic about the heavenly rewards, which turn out to be two-edged; most of the souls who return from heaven to be incarnated make bad choices of life as a result of having got used to heavenly joys (619c-d). The Myth of Er shows us something that cannot be interpreted in terms of a Last Judgment at all. Its ideas come closer to a kind of fatalism… The individual is likely to be depressed rather than inspired or frightened by such a vision.” (Annas, 351)

Alternative interpretation “He [Plato] is talking about the choices that we make. This suggests that the whole apparatus of reincarnation…serves merely to dramatize what is at stake in one’s choices now… The choices we make determine the kind of person we are…” (Annas, 351-352) “Justice is worth having because the just person will be the person with the insight into the results of various ways of living, and the balance and internal harmony, that enable him or her to make wise and balanced choices. Injustice is to be avoided because it will lead one to make ill-advised decisions that will leave one an ill-balanced and fragmented character…The message of the myth, on this reading, is not basically different from the main argument.” (Annas, 352)

The texts “…between them judges sat.” (614c) “…with signs of all their deeds (ἔπραξαν)…” (614c) “But if they had done good deeds (εὐεργεσίας)…” (615b) “…unholy deeds…” (615c) “And the concord of the eight notes [sc. of the Sirens] produced a single harmony. And there were three other beings…These were the Fates, the daughters of Necessity: Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos...” (617b)

614b-c

616b-c

617b-d

Three Fates

617d-e

618a

619b

619b-d

620b Heroes in the Trojan War: Ajax and Agamemnon

620c-d Heroes in the Trojan War: Odysseus

620d-621a

621a-b

618c-d

618d-619a

The End of The Republic: 621c-d