1. Plato’s Republic: part II
6. Communism in the Republic (416a-417b & 457d-461)
Limited to 2 classes
No private property; live in barracks
No private families
Meals in common
Temporary marriages arranged by a fixed lottery
The workers have a tradional family-based way of life. They engage in manufacture & trade, earn money, own property, marry and educate their children (415c3-5).
Guardians, by contrast, live in a military camp (415d8-9, 416e3-3). See C.D.C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings (Princeton UP, 1988), p. 184.
- do not have traditional family units -- “These women shall all be common to all these men, and none shall live privately with a man, and the children too shall be common, and no parent shall know its own offspring nor any child its parent” (457c10-d13).
- do not choose their own sexual partners -- rather this is governed by a eugenics program (459d7-460a10)
- are forbidden private property (416d4-6)
- no accumulation of goods is permitted
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2. Plato - The Republic - slide 2
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Children taken from parents
A eugenics program
Justification for this scheme
Principal justification: The common good
Secondary justifications:
Population control
Implementing the eugenics program
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Adeimantes’ objecton (419a-420a): Won’t the rulers & military be unhappy living this ascetic lifestyle?
Socrates’ reply
Avoid squabbles over property (464d-e)
Avoid “difficulties and hardships” of raising a family (465c)
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Avoid debts
Can spend their leisure on gymnastics, hunting, and horse-riding contests (412b)
Rewards of military heroism
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7. The philosopher-kings
Glaucon’s query: Can this state really exist? (471c)
Socrates’ answers
First answer: model & modeled (472c-e); theory & practice (473a-b).
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Second answer (a very famous passage): “Unless either philosophers become kings “ (473c-e)
Philosopher-kings
But who is the philosopher?
lover of wisdom (475b)
searcher for the truth
one who has knowledge of the Forms or Ideas (476c, 479a, 480a)
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are few in number (496a-c)
Note that there is no constitution in the Republic. Plato trusts the wise ruler, the philosopher-king.
Cf. the Laws
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8. The theory of Ideas or Forms
The position that there is another realm beyond the physical which is made up of permanent, unchanging, universal absolutes, which are independent of both the physical world and the human mind.
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Ideas are perfect models or exemplars of things and actions in the physical world.
Things and actions in the physical world are second-best, imperfect copies.
The souls of human belong to the realm of Ideas.
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Connection of the theory of Ideas to Plato’s dualistic position on human nature
The souls of human belong to the realm of Ideas.
In this life, human souls are alienated, distracted, unable to be fulfilled.
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The Phaedo: Philosophy is the practice of dying! (Phaedo 63e-68b)
Explanation of this strange saying.
Connection to Plato’s strong soul-body dualism and to his dualistic metaphysics
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dualistic metaphysics dualistic human nature
World of Ideas soul - akin to the Ideas
Physical world body
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9. The allegory of the cave (beginning of Bk VII, )
Some suggested levels of the allegory
metaphysical
epistemological
political
Why philosopher-kings rule for the common good & not out of self-interest?
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10. The five forms of government
Presented as stages in the decline of the perfect state
Why does Plato describe the possible decline of his perfect state?
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The five forms
(1) Aristocracy (547c) - Plato’s preferred form
An aristocracy of philosopher-kings
How might this decline?
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(2) Timocracy (545b, 547)
Rule by the military
Its possible decline
class divisions
ruling class accumulates private property
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(3) Oligarchy (550c)
Rule by the rich
How might it decline?
“Spendthrifts” stir up the masses against the rich
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(4) Democracy
The city resounds with “freedom and freedom of speech” (557b).
“Each person can arrange his own life within the city in whatever way pleases him” (557b).
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“You’d expect it [democracy] to be an enjoyable kind of regime--anarchic, colourful, and granting equality of a sort to equals and unequals alike.” [Cf. Grube trans.: “It looks as though it’s [democracy] an enjoyable, lax, and variegated kind of political system, which treats everyone as equal, whether or not they are” (558c).
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A thoroughly unjust society; the antithesis of justice
The decline of democracy
(5) Tyranny (562a)
Rule by persons who rule for power and wealth
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11. Art in the Republic (595a-607d)
The imitative arts are to be banished from the Republic
Aside on the mimetic theory & art in ancient Greece
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Plato’s reasons for banning the imitative arts
(1) Imitative works of art are three-times removed from the real (597e) [Waterfield translation: “two generations away from reality.”]
Distracts from pursuit of the truth
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(2) The imitative arts appeal to the passions (606d)
Thereby they distort the proper ordering of the parts of the soul-- reason ought to be in control
Plato’s charming challenge: Give me an argument to restore the imitative arts to the Republic (607c-d)
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