Transcript Document

Lecture Twenty-Five
Plato, Republic
Lecturer: Wu Shiyu
Outline
I. This lecture continues the theme of
government and justice, especially the moral
values that are essential to a good government.
The model of Socrates, who insisted that terms
be defined, can guide us through the great
books. What do we really mean about the
nobility of dying for one’s country? How can
nobility be defined?
A. Socrates, through Plato, would say that
nobility is related to justice and to defining the
concept of justice. Justice is one of a number of
essential qualities, or virtues, that every
individual should have. Socrates explored these
qualities in his discussion of the immortal soul in
the Phaedo.
B. These qualities are found in a variety of
cultures and are reflected in such diverse
literature as the Bhagavad Gita and in
Confucius.
C. These qualities include wisdom, justice,
courage, and moderation.
1. Courage is, of course, essential for those
who go to war.
2. An individual must have the wisdom to
understand the difference between courage
exercised in a just war and courage exercised
in an unjust war. Without the wisdom to
understand that a nation is fighting for justice,
courage is nothing more than brutality.
3. Moderation links the virtues. When any quality—
even courage—is carried too far, it becomes
unjust.
4. Courage, moderation, and wisdom—working
together—produce true justice. That is the
theme of Plato’s Republic.
II. Plato’s Republic, which is a magisterial
discussion of what makes a good state, was
probably composed during the 380s B.C.
A. Plato was a pupil of Socrates and paid his
teacher the greatest of compliments by putting
all his own ideas into the mouth of Socrates,
thereby indicating that none of his thinking
would have existed without Socrates.
B. Although Plato is called a philosopher, he
was an intellectual. Philosophers, such as
Confucius and Socrates, live their wisdom;
intellectuals talk about ideas and try, from time
to time, to put them into action.
1. Plato, for example, went to Sicily and tried to
help educate the young tyrant Dionysius. This
attempt was a failure.
2. Plato’s contribution, in addition to his writings,
was to create in Athens a university where
lectures were held and young people were
trained. Through this university, the ideas of
Socrates were institutionalized.
C. Alfred North Whitehead said, “All philosophy
is but a series of footnotes to Plato.”
III. The greatest of Plato’s works is the Republic.
A. Like The Divine Comedy, Plato’s Republic is
a difficult book to read.
B. Like The Divine Comedy, it summarizes the
values of a civilization at its apex. That
civilization is the world of the polis, the city-state
of classical Greece.
IV. Plato’s Republic is concerned with how to
create a constitution that ensures justice for all
citizens. Plato puts this discussion into the form
of dialogues.
A. When the Republic begins, Socrates is
returning from a religious festival in honor of the
goddess Artemis. He stops to visit his friend
Cephalus, who wonders about the afterlife,
whether he has an immortal soul, what will
happen to his soul, and whether good and bad
behavior will have consequences. The two then
begin to discuss justice.
B. The discussion starts with the conventional
definition of justice, that is, rewarding friends
and punishing enemies. Socrates, in the
dialogues of Plato, often begins with a
statement that everyone can accept.
C. Socrates then asks how a just man can do
unjust things, even to his enemies. Socrates
shows that the original definition is wrong. No
good man would do harm to another.
D. One of the participants in the dialogue is
Thrasymachus, a Sophist.
1. The true Sophist in Athens educated their
students to argue either side of an issue.
2. To argue either side of a case successfully,
an individual must be believe that the position is
true. Therefore, the Sophist does not believe in
absolute values.
3. For the Sophist, unlike for Socrates, truth is
whatever is expedient at the moment.
E. Thrasymachus argues that justice is power.
Justice is what the powerful can get away with,
and laws are what the powerful put in place to
serve their own interests; thus, no such quality
as justice can exist.
1. This idea was accepted in Athens.
Athenian foreign policy during the war with
Sparta rested on the belief that might makes
right.
2. For example, in 416 B.C., Athens had
demanded that the neutral nation of Melos join
the Athenian coalition. When Melos refused,
Athens launched a preemptive attack, captured
it, put its men to death, and sold its women and
children into slavery. Athenians justified the
destruction of Melos by claiming that Athens
had power and that Melos could choose to join
Athens and live or resist and die. When Melos
appealed to the Athenian idea of justice, the
Athenians said that justice did not exist.
F. Socrates attempts to help Thrasymachus
understand that if justice is whatever the strong
can do, unjust acts will make weaker people
hate them. Eventually, the weaker groups will
band together and overthrow those in power.
Therefore, it is expedient for those in positions
of power to act justly.
G. Socrates says that to define justice, the idea
should be examined in a larger unit, such as the
state, or polis.
1. Machiavelli was the first to use the term
“state” (il stato) in its modern sense as a
political unit separate from the people.
2. As a true democracy, the Athenian
government cannot be separated from the idea
of the people.
H. Socrates said that the city is a collection of
individuals, each of whom has certain qualities
that reflect absolute values. In the transcendent
world, absolute wisdom, courage, and
moderation exist. These qualities, working
together, will create true justice.
I. Socrates next asks how to bring these qualities
together in the proper blend to make the polis just.
1. Each person has a characteristic virtue, such as
courage, moderation, or wisdom.
2. A community in which every individual is able to
exercise his or her characteristic virtue intelligently in
the service of the polis will be a just polis that exists for
the good of all.
3. The state exists to serve the people, but the people
must understand how the right kind of service is
rendered.
J. Education is the means to bring about
morality and to achieve the ideal government.
Children must be examined at the earliest
possible age to determine the qualities that they
possess. They can then be educated. True
education brings forth and cultivates the
appropriate virtue of each citizen, educating
each to suitable work in life.
1. The strongest quality that most people possess
is moderation. Those who possess moderation
will form the basis of a community. They should
be taught reading and writing, and they must
understand that they should do whatever they
do best and not aspire to other roles.
2. The people who are warriors at heart should be
soldiers. They must be taught poetry to awaken
the soul and gymnastics to train their bodies.
3. A few people have the ability to lead. These
guardians should have a long and elaborate
education. Mathematics is an essential subject
for these leaders, because they must keep their
eyes fixed on absolute truth and justice.
Numbers and geometry are ways to perfection.
K. Thus, the ideal republic rests on absolute
values: absolute truth and absolute right and
wrong. Absolute wisdom and absolute
ignorance exist, as do absolute justice and
injustice, absolute courage and cowardice,
absolute moderation and intemperance.
L. Plato concludes his magnificent work on justice with
the myth of Er, who could be Everyman.
1. Er was killed in battle but was found alive 10 days
later.
2. He explained that his soul had left his body and
gone to heaven, where he saw the afterlife and the
souls of those who had done evil cast into the deepest
pit, from which they would never be free. He saw others
who could be redeemed. After paying their penalties,
these souls came before the Fates, received a new life,
drank from the River of Forgetfulness, and returned to
this world.
3. These souls made a choice through their free
will about how to live their lives.
4. Socrates ends his treatment of a just city with
the belief in the immortality of the soul as the
foundation of everything.
谢 谢！