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| Plato: The Republic | ||
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Introduction Plato (c. 429-347 b.c.e.) an Athenian aristocrat and disciple of Socrates, based his philosophy on Socrates' teaching. The rise of demagogues, the violent conflicts between oligarchs and democrats, and the execution of Socrates convinced Plato that Athenian democracy was a failure. Excerpts from The Republic follow. Ideas to Consider:
[Socrates] Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together…. there can be no rest from troubles, my dear Glaucon, for states, nor yet, as I believe, for all mankind…. There is no other way of happiness either for the state or for the individual.... Now…. we must, I think, define. . . whom we mean by these lovers of wisdom who, we have dared to assert, ought to be our rulers. Once we have a clear view of their character, we shall be able to defend our position by pointing to some who are naturally fitted to combine philosophic study with political leadership, while the rest of the world should accept their guidance and let philosophy alone. [Glaucon] Yes, this is the moment for a definition…. [Socrates] . . . One trait of the philosophic nature we may take as already granted: a constant passion for any knowledge that will reveal to them something of that reality which endures for ever and is not always passing into and out of existence. And, we may add, their desire is to know the whole of that reality; they will not willingly renounce any part of it as relatively small and insignificant, as we said before when we compared them to the lover and to the man who covets honour. [Glaucon] True. [Socrates] Is there not another trait which the nature we are seeking cannot fail to possess- truthfulness, a love of truth and a hatred for falsehood that will not tolerate untruth in any form? [Glaucon] Yes, it is natural to expect that. [Socrates] It is not merely natural, but entirely necessary that an instinctive passion for any object should extend to all that is closely akin to it; and there is nothing more closely akin to wisdom than truth. So the same nature cannot love wisdom and falsehood; the genuine lover of knowledge cannot foil, from his youth up, to strive after the whole of truth. [Glaucon] I perfectly agree. [Socrates] Now we surely know that when a man's desires set strongly in one direction, in every other channel they flow more feebly, like a stream diverted into another bed. So when the current has set towards knowledge and all that goes with it, desire will abandon those pleasures of which the body is the instrument and be concerned only with the pleasure which the soul enjoys independently-if, that is to say, the love of wisdom is more than a mere pretence. Accordingly, such a one will be temperate and no lover of money; for he will be the last person to care about the things for the sake of which money is eagerly sought and lavishly spent. [Glaucon] That is true. [Socrates] Again, in seeking to distinguish the philosophic nature, you
must not overlook the least touch of meanness. Nothing could be more contrary
than pettiness to a mind constantly bent on grasping the whole of things,
both divine and human. [Socrates] And do you suppose that one who is so high-minded and whose thought can contemplate all time and all existence will count this life of man a matter of much concern? [Glaucon] No, he could not. [Socrates] So for such a man death will have no terrors. [Glaucon] None. [Socrates] A mean and cowardly nature, then, can have no part in the genuine pursuit of wisdom. [Glaucon] I think not. [Socrates] And if a man is temperate and free from the love of money, meanness, pretentiousness, and cowardice, be will not be hard to deal with or dishonest. So, as another indication of the philosophic temper, you will observe whether, from youth up, he is fair-minded, gentle, and sociable. [Glaucon] Certainly. [Socrates] Also you will not fail to notice whether he is quick or slow to learn. No one can be expected to take a reasonable delight in a task in which much painful effort makes little headway. And if he cannot retain what he learns, his forgetfulness will leave no room in his head for knowledge; and so, having all his toil for nothing, he can only end by hating himself as well as his fruitless occupation. We must not, then, count a forgetful mind as competent to pursue wisdom; we must require a good memory. [Glaucon] By all means. [Socrates] Further, there is in some natures a crudity and awkwardness that can only tend to a lack of measure and proportion; and there is a close affinity between proportion and truth. Hence, besides our other requirements, we shall look for a mind endowed with measure and grace, which will be instinctively drawn to see every reality in its true light. [Glaucon] Yes. [Socrates] Well then, now that we have enumerated the qualities of a mind destined to take its full part in the apprehension of reality, have you any doubt about their being indispensable and all necessarily going together? [Glaucon] None whatever. [Socrates] Then have you any fault to find with a pursuit which none can worthily follow who is not by nature quick to learn and to remember, magnanimous and gracious, the friend and kinsman of truth, justice, courage, temperance?
[Socrates] Next, said I, here is a parable to illustrate the degrees in which our nature may be enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine the condition of men living in a sort of cavernous chamber underground, with an entrance open to the light and a long passage all down the cave. Here they have been from childhood, chained by the leg and also by the neck, so that they cannot move and can see only what is in front of them, because the chains will not let them turn their heads. At some distance higher up is the light of a fire burning behind them; and between the prisoners and the fire is a track with a parapet built along it, like the screen at a puppet-show, which hides the performers while they show their puppets over the top. [Glaucon] I see, said he. [Socrates] Now behind this parapet imagine persons carrying along various artificial objects, including figures of men and animals in wood or stone or other materials, which project above the parapet. Naturally, some of these persons will be talking, others silent. [Glaucon] It is a strange picture, he said, and a strange sort of prisoners. [Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; for in the first place prisoners so confined would have seen nothing of themselves or of one another, except the shadows thrown by the fire-light on the wall of the Cave facing them, would they? [Glaucon] Not if all their lives they had been prevented from moving
their heads. [Glaucon] Of course. [Socrates] Now, if they could talk to one another, would they not suppose that their words referred only to those passing shadows which they saw? [Glaucon] Necessarily. [Socrates] And suppose their prison had an echo from the wall facing them? When one of the people crossing behind them spoke, they could only suppose that the sound came from the shadow passing before their eyes. [Glaucon] No doubt. [Socrates] in every way, then, such prisoners would recognize at reality nothing but the shadows of those artificial objects. [Glaucon] inevitably....
The philosophers who ascend to the higher world of Forms possess true knowledge; everyone else possesses mere opinions, deceptive beliefs, and illusions. The philosophers have a duty to guide the ignorant. [Socrates] Now consider what would happen if their release from the chains and the healing of their unwisdom should come about in this way. Suppose one of them were set free and forced suddenly to stand u~, turn his head, and walk with eyes lifted to the light; all these movements would be painful, and he would be too dazzled to unite out the objects whose shadows he had been used to see. What do you think he would say, if someone told him that what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusion, but now, being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towards more real objects, he was getting a truer view? Suppose further that he were shown the various objects being carried by and were made to say, in reply to questions, what each of them was. Would he not be perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be not so real as what he formerly saw? [Glaucon] Yes, not nearly so real. [Socrates] And if he were forced to look at the firelight itself, would not his eyes ache, so that he would try to escape and turn back to the things which he could see distinctly, convinced that they really were clearer than these other objects now being shown to him? [Glaucon] Yes. [Socrates] And suppose someone were to drag him away forcibly up the steep and rugged ascent and not let him go until he had hauled him out into the sunlight, would he not suffer pain and vexation at such treatment, and, when he had come out into the light, find his eyes so full of its radiance that he could not see a single one of the things that he was now told were real? [Glaucon] Certainly he would not see them all at once. [Socrates] He would need, then, to grow accustomed before he could see things in that upper world. At first it would be easiest to make out shadows, and then the images of men and things reflected in water, and later on the things themselves. After that, it would be easier to watch the heavenly bodies and the sky itself by night, looking at the light of the moon and stars rather than the Sun and the Sun's light in the day time. [Glaucon] Yes, surely. [Socrates] Last of all, he would be able to look at the Sun and contemplate its nature, not as it appears when reflected in water or any alien medium, but as it is in itself in its own domain. [Glaucon] No doubt. [Socrates] And now he would begin to draw the conclusion that it is the Sun that produces the seasons and the course of the year and controls everything in the visible world, and moreover is in a way the cause of all that be and his companions used to see. [Glaucon] Clearly he would come at last to that conclusion. [Socrates] Then if he called to mind his fellow prisoners and what passed for wisdom in his former dwelling place, he would surely think himself happy in the change and be sorry for them. They may have had a practice of honouring and commending one another, with prizes for the man who had the keenest eye for the passing shadows and the best memory for the order in which they followed or accompanied one another, so that be could make a good guess as to which 'was going to come next. Would our released prisoner be likely to covet those prizes or to envy the men exalted to honour and power in the Cave? Would he not feel like Homer's Achilles, that he would fir sooner "be on earth as a hired servant in the house of a landless man" or endure anything tether than go back to his old beliefs and live in the old way? [Glaucon] Yes, be would prefer. any fire to such a life. [Socrates] Now imagine what would happen if he went down again to take his former seat in the Cave. Coming suddenly out of the sunlight, his eyes would be filled with darkness. He might be required once more to deliver his opinion on those shadows, in competition with the prisoners who had never been released, while his eyesight was still dim and unsteady; and it might take some time to become used to the darkness. They would laugh at him and say that he had gone up only to come beck with his sight ruined; it was worth no one's while even to attempt the ascent. If they could lay hands on the man who was trying to set them free and lead them up, they would kill him. [Glaucon] Yes, they would. [Socrates] Every feature in this parable, my dear Glaucon, is meant to fit out earlier analysis. The prison dwelling corresponds to the region revealed to us through the sense of sight, and the firelight within it to the power of the Sun. The ascent to see the things in the upper world you may take as standing for the upward journey of the soul into the region of the intelligible; then you will be in possession of what I surmise, since that is what you wish to be told. Heaven knows whether it is true; but this, at any rate, is how it appears to me. In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of whatever is tight and good; in the visible world it gives birth to light and to the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of intelligence and truth. Without having had a vision of this Form no one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or in matters of state…. ____________________________________ Here Plato introduces his view that democracy is flawed because most people lack the ability to deal intelligently with matters of state. In the end, said Plato, the democratic state degenerates into anarchy, and the way is prepared for a tyrant. Plato viewed the tyrant as the most despicable of persons. A slave to his own passions the tyrant is like a lunatic who "dreams that he can lord it over all mankind and heaven besides." The character of the philosopher is the very opposite of the sick soul of the tyrant. In the following passage, Plato discusses what he regards as democracy's weaknesses. [Socrates] And when the poor win, the result is a democracy. They kill some of the opposite party, banish others, and grant the rest an equal share in civil rights and government, officials being usually appointed by lot. [Glaucon] Yes, that is bow a democracy comes to be established, whether by force of arms or because the other party is terrorized into giving way. [Socrates] Now what is the character of this new régime? Obviously the way they govern themselves will throw light on the democratic type of man. [G] No doubt. [Socrates] First of all, they are free. Liberty and free speech are rife everywhere; anyone is allowed to do what he likes. [Glaucon] Yes, so we are told. [Socrates] That being so, every man will arrange his own manner of life to suit his pleasure. The result will be a greater variety of individuals than under any other constitution. So it may be the finest of all, with its variegated pattern of all sorts of characters. Many people may think it the best, just as women and children might admire a mixture of colours of every shade in the pattern of a dress. At any rate if we ate in search of a constitution, here is a good place to look for one. A democracy is so free that it contains a sample of every kind; and perhaps anyone who intends to found a state, as we have been doing, ought first to visit this emporium of constitutions and choose the model he likes best. [G] He will find plenty to choose from. [Socrates] Here, too, you are not obliged to be in authority, however competent you may be, or to submit to authority, if you do not like it; you need not fight when your fellow citizens are at war, not remain at peace when they do, unless you want peace; and though you may have no legal tight to hold office or sit on juries, you will do so all the same if the fancy takes you.... ... When he (the democrat] is told that some pleasures should be sought and valued as arising from desires of a higher order, others chastised and enslaved because the desires are base, he will shut the gates of the citadel against the messengers of truth, shaking his head and declaring that one appetite is as good as another and all must have their equal rights. So be spends his days indulging the pleasure of the moment, mow intoxicated with wine and music, and then taking to a spore diet and drinking nothing but water, one day in hard training, the next doing nothing at all, the third apparently immersed in study. Every now and then he takes a pert in politics, leaping to his feet to say or do whatever comes into his head. ... His life is subject to no order or restraint, and he has no wish to change an existence which he calls pleasant, free, and happy. That well describes the life of one whose motto is liberty and equality…. In a democratic country you will be told that liberty is its noblest possession, which makes it the only fit place fir a free spirit to live in. [Glaucon] True; that is often said. [Socrates] Well then, as I was saying, perhaps the insatiable desire for this good to the neglect of everything else may transform a democracy and lead to a demand for despotism. A democratic state may fall under the influence of unprincipled leaders, ready to minister to its thirst for liberty with too deep draughts of this heady wine; and then, if its rulers are not complaisant enough to give it unstinted freedom, they will be arraigned as accursed oligarchs and punished. Law-abiding citizens will be insulted as nonentities who hug their chains;, and all praise and honour will be bestowed, both publicly and in private, on rulers who behave like subjects and subjects who behave like rulers. In such a state the spirit of liberty is bound to go to all lengths.... ... The parent falls into the habit of behaving like the child, and the child like the parent: the father is afraid of his sans, and they show no fear or respect for their parents, in order to assert their freedom. ... To descend to smaller matters, the schoolmaster timidly flatters his pupils, and the pupils make light of their masters as well as of their attendants. Generally speaking, the young copy their elders, argue with them, and will not do as they are told; while the old, anxious not to be thought disagreeable tyrants, imitate the young and condescend to enter into their jokes and amusements…. Putting all these items together, you can see the result: the citizens become so sensitive that they resent the slightest application of control as intolerable tyranny, and in their resolve to have no master by disregarding even the law, written or unwritten. [Glaucon] Yes, I know that only too well. [Socrates] Such then, I should say, is the seed, so full of fair promise,
from which springs despotism.
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