from Latin: Res publica means "public
matters" or "the state"
In Greek,
the title was the Politeia, which means the Constitution
a familiar kind of Socratic dialogue about
justice; concerning on
the definition of justice and the order and character of the just city and the
just man
Justice
VS Injustice/Just Against Unjust
v Thrasymachus
says, "I declare justice is nothing
but the advantage of the stronger"
v Robbery
and violence are normally called "injustice," but when they are
practiced wholesale by rulers, they are justice
v the
rulers do not obey the principles they impose on the citizens, they are in
those terms "unjust”
o
Tyranny is not a matter of minor theft
and violence, but of wholesale plunder, sacred and profane, private or public.
If you are caught committing such crimes in detail you are punished and
disgraced; sacrilege, kidnapping, burglary, fraud, theft are the names we give
to such petty forms of wrongdoing. But when a man succeeds in robbing the whole
body of citizens and reducing them to slavery, they forget these ugly names and
call him happy and fortunate, as do all others who hear of his unmitigated
wrongdoing.
v
the tyrant is happy and fortunate, and he is so
precisely because he breaks the rules ("justice") that he imposes on
the weak. What the weak call "justice"
is really slavery, and no one truly strong would act that way
o
The
vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our vanity” (Friedrich
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil).
v anyone
would be unjust, given the opportunity, once he had found a ring that made him
invisible, because everyone believes that injustice leads to happiness, if only
one can get away with it
o Plato wants to prove “that it is better to
be just than to be unjust even if the unjust man is praised, celebrated, and
rewarded and the just man is reviled, punished, and rejected”
o (Or)we
should be just because of our own best interest, either to be happy (the main
argument) or to avoid the punishment of the gods
Theory
of the Soul
“it is difficult to distinguish what is
going on in the soul, but it is easier to see what is going on in the state.
Thus the state will be examined by
analogy to the soul”
v
the state is the macrocosm (makros,
"large," kosmos, "universe")
v
the soul is the microcosm (mikros,
"small"), the small scale analogue
The soul, on this view, has three parts, which
correspond to three different kinds of interests
SOUL INTEREST CLASS VIRTUE
reason knowledge philosophers wisdom/ justice
spirit honor warriors courage
desire pleasures commoners temperance
of virtues, three kinds of personalities –
SOUL INTEREST CLASS VIRTUE
reason knowledge philosophers wisdom/ justice
spirit honor warriors courage
desire pleasures commoners temperance
Justice does
not appear in the list of virtues. The answer is that justice applies to them
all in the sense of their organization. Reason (and the philosophers) should be
in control, with the help of spirit (and the warriors). The philosophers and
the warriors are thus the "Guardians" of Plato's ideal state. This does not seem like a familiar sort of definition
for justice, but the result, Plato says, is that each interest is satisfied to
the proper extent, or, in society, everyone has what is theirs. The
philosophers have the knowledge they want; the warriors have the honors they
want; and the commoners have the goods and pleasures they want, in the proper
moderation maintained by the philosophers and warriors.
Depending on
which part of the soul is dominant -- and so, properly, to three kinds of
social classes that should be based on the three personalities, interests, and
virtues.
The three
parts of the soul also correspond to places in the body: reason to the head,
spirit to the heart, and desire to the organs of desire, mostly in the abdomen.
v
"Spirit" is in the sense of a
"spirited" horse; this is the energy that drives the soul and may be
used to reason to keep desire in line.
v
Temperance, or moderation, will mean the
limitation of desires. it came to mean abstention from alcohol, etc., which
brought about Prohibition
The root of
all trouble, as far as Plato is concerned, is always unlimited desire. John
E.E.D. Acton, or Lord Acton (1834-1902) famously said, "Power tends to
corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
Thus
Plato proposes a set of rules for his Guardians that would render their
position undesirable to the commoners: The Guardians must live in poverty, with
any possessions they do have held in common. The very things, then, that mean
the most to the commoners will be denied to the rulers (today, HERE, we
practice the opposite).
Of all the serious criticisms that can be made against
Plato's ideal state, a couple of the most telling are that his theory involves
two serious internal contradictions:
That, although Plato, like Socrates, had always defined
philosophers as those who know they are
ignorant, he always talks about the philosopher Guardians as though they
will actually be wise. But if a philosopher is not wise, then he may not make
any better a ruler than someone who is virtuous because of correct belief
Plato's theory, therefore, really depends on philosophy actually be able to
produce wise people.
In two thousand years, that has clearly not happened.
It is fairly obvious that philosophy professors are, on the whole, no wiser as
persons than anyone else; and in academic philosophy departments most
professors are not even trying to pursue wisdom in any ordinary meaning of the
word.
“Imperfect" States
v
"aristocracy" (aristos,
"best," and krateîn, "to rule"), the rule of the best
o
The principle of this state is the reason of the
philosophers
§ The danger to this state is that
Guardian parents might not wish to give up children who do not belong among
them. If they do not give up the children to become commoners, then some other
interest will come to operate among the philosophers. They will cease to be
philosophers and so will not be respected by the warriors or commoners.
v
a "timocracy" (timê,
"honor"), the rule of honor.
o
The principle of this state is the spirit of the
warriors
o
the monopoly of force
o
kind of feudal military society
§
nobility
felt superior to the desire for wealth (although they didn't always live in
poverty) and tended to fight each other over issues of honor. This kind of
state will decay, however, when the children of the warriors fall to the
temptation to use their military power to obtain wealth
v
"oligarchy" (oligos, "few,"
and archê, "beginning," "power" "sovereignty"),
the rule of the few
o
Rich rulers; the desire of the rich; but it is
still a very disciplined desire, for no one can become or stay rich if they
simply indulge themselves in pleasure and spending.
o
A more appropriate term, however, might be one
that we use, "plutocracy" (ploutôn, "wealth," and so the
god of the underworld, Pluto), the rule of wealth
§ The plutocratic kind of state will
decay when the children of the rich decide simply to enjoy themselves and
dissipate their wealth, or when the poor decide to take advantage of their
numbers by overthrowing the rich.
v
"democracy" (dêmokratia; dêmos,
"people"), the rule of the people; the desire of the many
o
Plato pays grudging
respect to democracy as the "fairest" (kallistê, "most
beautiful") of constitutions
o "democratic"
in the sense that all desires are equally good, which means anything goes.
o
Because
the desires and possessions of some inevitably interfere with the desires and
acquisitiveness of others, Plato thinks that democracies will become increasing
undisciplined and chaotic. In the end, people will want someone to institute
law and order and quiet things down.
v
tyranny (tyrannis, "tyranny," from
tyrannos, "tyrant")
o
The principle of this state is still desire, but
now it is just the desire of the tyrant himself (Tyrannies tended to
precede, not follow, democracies).
o
It is clearly the most unhappy kind of state
§
All
that matters is whether the tyrant himself is happy or unhappy. Plato's answer
to that is to identify the nature of the "tyrannical personality":
since the tyrant is subject to completely unlimited desire, he can never be satisfied
with anything he has. He will always want more. That is the tyrannical
personality.
Recent economists in
the area of Public Choice theory [e.g. James M. Buchanan and the Virginia
School of Public Choice], have described how the politicization of economic
goods inevitably creates increased public conflict as the sense grows that
wealth is something to be seized and distributed through state action. As
everyone comes to believe that their prosperity depends on political success
and consequent government largess(lofty gift giving), such a dynamic will tend
to destabilize democracy, since in politics there are always losers and they
begin to think that they are victims of the regime and have no stake in it.
Capitalism is often disparaged as a system with "winners and losers,"
but the losers in capitalism are just the unsuccessful businesses, while the
winners do win by providing what is most agreeable to consumers. In politics,
the "winners and losers" are both consumers, and the losers are those
who are then legally robbed to pay off the winners, who have the power of the
state to take what they want (if you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can at least
get Paul to vote for you).
The Republic thus ends rather lamely with
the argument that we better be good or the gods will punish us. In the end,
probably the most enduring image of the entire Republic, as an expression of
Plato's view of life and the world, is the Allegory (or Simile) of the Cave.
Allegory
(or Simile) of the Cave
Plato
says that we are all like prisoners chained up on the floor of a cave. We are
so restricted that we can only look in one direction, and there we see shadows
on the wall that seem to talk and move around. We and our fellow prisoners
observe, discuss, and remember what these shadows do or say.
But,
what happens if we happen to be released from our chains?
We
stand up and look around, and we see a fire burning at the back of the cave. In
front of the fire is a low wall, and on the wall puppets are manipulated, which
cast the shadows that are all we have ever seen. So suddenly we realize that
all the things we have ever known all our lives were not the true reality at
all, but just shadows.
But there is more. There is an exit from the
cave, which leads up to the surface.
There
we are at first blinded, but then begin to see trees, animals, etc. which in
the cave were only represented by puppets. Eventually we notice that all those
things exist and are knowable because of the sun. Returning to the cave, we
would at first be blinded by the darkness, and our fellow prisoners would have
no idea what we were doing or saying -- they would probably regard us as insane
-- but we could not, of course, take them seriously for an instant.
v
The freed prisoner is, of course, the
philosopher.
v
The cave
itself represents the world of Becoming and its fire the physical sun in the
sky.
v
The world on the surface outside of the cave
represents the world of Being, where the individual objects are the Forms.
o
Two
peculiarities of the Allegory of the Cave, however, are the status of the
shadows, as opposed to the puppets, and the nature of the sun. If the puppets
are the actual objects in the world of Becoming, then the shadows must be
people's opinions. We do mostly go through life paying attention to people's
opinions rather than to the things themselves, so that is suitable.
v Plato,
of course, thinks that even the things themselves are like shadows of the
Forms. The sun, in turn, is a unique kind of Form: the Form of the Good- that
the good is to knowledge and truth what the sun is to light and sight.
v
what gives the objects of knowledge their truth
and the mind the power of knowing is the Form of the Good
v
The Good therefore may be said to be the source
not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also of their
existence and reality; yet it is not itself identical with reality, but is
beyond reality, and superior to it in dignity and power
The Allegory of the Cave
- Plato
realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc.,
without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms.
- The
allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this.
- In
the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to
prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see
is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire
and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The
puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast
shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these
puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see
and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. Here
is an illustration of Plato’s Cave:
From Great Dialogues of Plato
(Warmington and Rouse, eds.) New York, Signet Classics: 1999. p. 316.
- Such
prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the
things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know
nothing of the real causes of the shadows.
- So
when the prisoners talk, what are they talking about? If an object (a
book, let us say) is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on
the wall, and a prisoner says “I see a book,” what is he talking about?
He thinks he is talking about a
book, but he is really talking about a shadow. But he uses the word “book.”
What does that refer to?
- Plato
gives his answer at line (515b2). The text here has puzzled many editors,
and it has been frequently emended. The translation in Grube/Reeve gets
the point correctly:
“And if they could talk to one
another, don’t you think they’d suppose that the names they used applied to the
things they see passing before them?”
- Plato’s
point is that the prisoners would be mistaken. For they would be taking
the terms in their language to refer to the shadows that pass
before their eyes, rather than (as is correct, in Plato’s view) to the
real things that cast the shadows.
If a prisoner says “That’s a book”
he thinks that the word “book” refers to the very thing he is looking at. But
he would be wrong. He’s only looking at a shadow. The real referent of the word
“book” he cannot see. To see it, he would have to turn his head around.
- Plato’s
point: the general terms of our language are not “names” of the physical
objects that we can see. They are actually names of things that we cannot
see, things that we can only grasp with the mind.
- When
the prisoners are released, they can turn their heads and see the real
objects. Then they realize their error. What can we do that is
analogous to turning our heads and seeing the causes of the shadows? We
can come to grasp the Forms with our minds.
- Plato’s
aim in the Republic is to describe what is necessary for us to
achieve this reflective understanding. But even without it, it remains
true that our very ability to think and to speak depends on the Forms. For
the terms of the language we use get their meaning by “naming” the Forms
that the objects we perceive participate in.
- The
prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows
of books. But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word “book”
refers to something that any of them has ever seen.
Likewise, we may acquire concepts by
our perceptual experience of physical objects. But we would be mistaken if we
thought that the concepts that we grasp were on the same level as the things we
perceive.
No comments:
Post a Comment