by Plato
The conversation in Republic begins simply enough. Socrates, who has plainly been on familiar terms with Polemarchus’ family for a long time, forthrightly asks Cephalus about old age. His response, that aging is not as difficult as it is often reported to be, prompts Socrates to wonder out loud whether Cephalus’ easygoing attitude is in part facilitated by his wealth. The old man’s response is affirmative. The wealthy, he asserts, face death without fear; their resources enable them to satisfy their debts to gods and men and also to avoid lying and cheating, and thus they can die with the confidence that they will not be punished in the afterlife. These remarks are what precipitate the discussion of just behavior and moral conduct, which Socrates introduces as he asks his elderly friend whether “justice” (dikaiosynê) simply consists of paying debts and telling the truth. Cephalus politely bows out of the conversation, leaving his son Polemarchus to argue that justice—meaning “right behavior” in general—does indeed consist of paying debts and giving “what is due,” as poets such as Simonides claim. Socrates, however, quickly leads Polemarchus to realize that there are serious logical problems with this traditional conception of justice, in which “what is due” is defined in terms of “help” to “friends” and “harm” to “enemies,” and the young man is left perplexed.
At this point, Thrasymachus leaps into the discussion, asserting that justice is simply “the advantage of the stronger,” by which he clearly means that “justice” is relative—that is, “right behavior” is whatever those in power determine it to be. With a series of questions that recall those he just posed to Polemarchus, Socrates uncovers logical problems in Thrasymachus’ definition as well. Thrasymachus, however, does not give up. Exploding in frustration at Socrates’ naive assumptions about the responsibilities that the powerful bear to those who are under their control, he reformu lates his ideas with a bold new emphasis evocative of Antiphon’s thinking in “On Truth.” “Justice”—that is, the circumspect avoidance of doing “wrong” to others and obedience to social rules—is doing what is advantageous to another, who is stronger and more powerful than oneself. “Injustice,” on the other hand, is doing what is to one’s own advantage by taking what one wants regardless of social rules and by aggrandizing oneself at the expense of others. It is what leads to “happiness,” provided that one is not penalized for one’s exploitations. Tyrants who kill and confiscate and rape at will, according to Thrasymachus, are the happiest men of all.
Although Socrates is able to poke holes through the logic of this new formulation with questions that hark back once again to those he has already posed, Thrasymachus’ sulky concessions leave him unconvinced that he has made an effective case for the connection between justice, which through all has not been adequately defined, and “happiness.” Nor are Glaucon and Adeimantus convinced, and it is their persistence at the beginning of book 2 that launches the more systematic and extensive inquiry into the nature of justice and its relationship to happiness that occupies the rest of Republic. In particular, the brothers ask Socrates to explain how justice is in itself the source of happiness, regardless of whether it is recognized and rewarded, and how the just man can be happy, regardless of his material circumstances.
The challenges of defining justice and understanding its effects on long-term happiness, fulfillment, and well-being-all of which are conveyed by the Greek word eudaimonia—lead to the discussion of the ideal city-state, which is posited as a large-scale vehicle for apprehending the operations of justice in the individual. Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus spend a good deal of time and energy discussing how the ideal state will be organized, and how its classes of warriors and leaders will be selected, educated, and provided for; they are especially concerned in books 2 and 3 with the training and acculturation of guardian children, whose exposure to poetry (Iliad and Odyssey in particular) is to be severely curtailed lest they learn harmful values and patterns of behavior.
Yet the three never lose sight of the goals of their examination. By the end of book 4, they arrive at a working (and, in several regards, striking) definition of justice as the condition, or state of being, in which each person in the community—and each element of the individual human soul (psyche)—minds his/her/its own business and does his/her/its own “work.” Since it has been determined that there is in the human soul, as in human society, a natural ruling element, justice is thus equated with the unencumbered rule of these elements: the “gold” class of guardians in the ideal state, which holds sway over the silver and bronze/iron classes, and, in the individual, the rational part of the soul that ought to be master of both “spirit” and appetites.
The demonstration of how the rule of the superior element generates happiness in community and individual alike, however, is postponed until books 8 and 9. At the beginning of book 5, the brothers join Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and the others in pressing Socrates to explain some of the extraordinary provisions he has stipulated for the lifestyle of the ideal state’s guardian classes. The group is most keenly interested in the proposed abolition of individual families. Socrates’ explanation of the “community” of wives and children among the guardians leads to exploration of a series of related topics: (1) the near-equality of female guardians, who would be warriors and leaders; (2) the abolition of private property in the guardian classes; and (3) the overall possibility of the ideal state as it has been heretofore envisioned.
In response to Glaucon’s query about this last issue, Socrates presents his bold thesis: The ideal state will come into being when “philosophers are kings, [and] the kings and philosophers of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy...” (5.473d-e). This statement drives the rest of the discussion in books 5-7, in which Socrates seeks with Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ help to define philosophers, delineate the ultimate goal of their practice of philosophy as well as its utility, and outline the educational curriculum that would prepare philosophers, who are identified with the gold class of the ideal state, for their political responsibilities. In the course of this discussion, Socrates introduces the concept of metaphysical entities possessing true “being”; he calls them “ideas” (ideai and also eidê in Greek, terms that are sometimes translated as “forms”), and he presumes Plato’s brothers know something about them. He also argues, using the image of the “divided line,” that there are four distinct cognitive faculties whereby different types of objects are apprehended, ranging from the ideas themselves to entities in the phenomenal world to mere “reflections” and “imitations.”
To facilitate his audience’s appreciation of these abstract concepts, he develops two more striking images: the simile of the sun, which conveys the supreme importance of the idea of the good, and the allegory of the cave, which describes the difficult path of enlightenment undertaken by the philosopher. As the allegory explains, the ultimate goal of philosophy is in fact apprehension of the idea of the good, which is the source of “goodness” in all other things. Yet philosophy’s arduous “upward” journey to the apprehension of “true being” is not for everyone. Only those few with the talent, training, and discipline that permit “knowledge” of the idea of the good will correctly estimate what is good in the phenomenal world. They alone, according to Socrates, should be allowed to have political power.
The alternatives to the rule of philosophers are four dysfunctional constitutions, which Socrates describes and ranks in book 8, moving from the least problematic (“timarchy,” oligarchy) to the most defective (democracy, tyranny). These constitutions supply bases for identifying and analyzing the personalities of four types of individuals, who yield to the lesser elements in the soul. Their yielding to the inferior elements is contrasted with the rule of reason in the soul of the “kingly” or “aristocratic” just man, and is accordingly found to be the source of psychic dysfunction and misery. Thus Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus not only establish the inviolable happiness of the just man, who is all but explicitly identified with the philosopher, but they also brin
g into full view (in book 9) the utterly wretched and enslaved condition of the tyrant, whose freedom and happiness Thrasymachus had celebrated in book 1. Moreover, the close association of democracy with tyranny at the end of book 8 caps the dialogue’s exposé of democracy’s errors and inadequacies.
With Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ challenge thus met, Socrates reaffirms in book 10 the propriety of the ideal state’s careful censorship of poetic texts and, adding to the arguments presented in books 2 and 3, he suggests that adults as well as children should be shielded from poetry’s seductive yet dangerous charms. As Glaucon and Adeimantus rescind the cynical vision they had conjured for the sake of argument at the beginning of book 2, Socrates details how justice does in fact bear rewards in life. He thereupon draws the discussion to a close by relating a myth that describes the even greater rewards for the just—and the extreme punishments of the unjust—in the afterlife. The myth also reasserts the abiding importance of reason and philosophy for souls who, after a thousand-year absence, are about to choose their next lives in this world.
Republic covers many topics, as Socrates concedes at the beginning of book 6, (6.484a), and its exploration of justice’s relationship to happiness takes a circuitous route. The dialogue’s composition, however, is hardly haphazard. The preliminary conversation in book 1, though unsatisfactory, not only raises the issues that will be addressed in the rest of the work, but it also anticipates, through a variety of means, key formulations and points that Socrates will make in later books. Indeed, almost every detail in book 1 looks ahead to later developments; let us note here just a few examples of how this is so.
In his exchanges with Polemarchus and Thrasymachus, Socrates repeatedly compares the just individual/ruler to professionals with technical expertise and knowledge, such as doctors, musicians, and ships’ pilots. These analogies may strike readers as bizarre if not nonsensical; they pave the way, however, for the definition of justice as the rule of the soul’s rational element, and thus for the crucial associations of justice with expert knowledge—and of the philosopher with the just man. So, too, does the simple observation that each thing has a particular function (1.352e-353a) presage the definition of justice as “doing one’s own work.”
In addition, Socrates ultimately affirms that it is fair to conceive of justice as “giving what is due” and also as “the interest (or advantage) of the stronger,” although he does so by assigning meanings to these phrases that are wholly different from those intended by Polemarchus at 1.332a-c and Thrasymachus at 1.338c. On the other hand, Thrasymachus’ assumption that happiness resides in the satisfaction of appetites and desires (for example, in 1.344a-c) is completely overturned, insofar as justice is equated with the submission of the appetitive element of the soul to reason, its natural ruler. His corollary assumption that rulers willingly hold power (1.345e) is challenged in equally forceful terms by the allegory of the cave in book 7.
The ignorance in Cephalus’ declaration that wealth and property are facilitators of just behavior and moral excellence ( 1.331a-b) is likewise exposed during the analysis of degenerate constitutions in books 8 and 9, which posits private property as the principal catalyst for personal interests that will conflict with those of the community. Cephalus’ concerns for rewards and punishments in the afterlife are borne out, though, by the Myth of Er in book 10. The fact that Polemarchus immediately relies on the authority of the poet Simonides to support his problematic definition of justice (1.331d) sets the stage for Socrates’ arguments in books 2, 3, and 10 concerning the need to censor poetry.
Even the small details concerning Socrates’ and Glaucon’s visit to Piraeus—they are spectators who wish to view (theâsthai) the festival of Bendis—foreshadow the emphases placed in books 5-7 on philosophical contemplation (theôria) of “that which is” and in book 10 on Er’s vision (thea) of the afterlife (Nightingale, “On Wandering...,” pp. 33-39). The very first word of the dialogue, katebên (“I went down”), arguably looks ahead to the obligation that the ideal state would impose upon philosophers, who must descend (katabainein) from the sunlit world of “being” into the cave-prison of phenomenal experience, where they are to serve as unwilling rulers (7.519d; 7.539e).
The fact that book 10, which is something of a coda to the rest of the text, explores in depth topics of concern at the very beginning of book 1—that is, poetry’s “truthfulness” and pretense to moral authority, and the afterlife’s rewards for justice and punishment of wrongdoing—suggests that Republic’s “narrative” is structured in an almost circular pattern. This circular pattern is complex, but it has important symmetries. Most basically, the dialogue’s two main concerns (defining justice and ascertaining its relationship to happiness) are treated in two corresponding sections (books 2-4 and books 8-9) that are interrupted by what is nominally a series of digressions in books 5-7.
These nominal digressions, however, create the dialogue’s cen terpiece, a tour de force exposition of philosophical concepts that happens to be, at the same time, a literary masterwork. The definition of the philosopher offered in books 5-7, in conjunction with the metaphysical and epistemological concepts it introduces, provides the foundation not only for the “proofs” of the just man’s happiness and the tyrant’s misery in book 9, but also for the renewed critique of poetic mimesis in book 10.
Moreover, the passage makes a vivid and compelling case for what were arguably Plato’s own conceptions of how philosophy should be defined and pursued, and of how it could be used. The sustained distinction made in books 5-7 between the philosopher and mere “lovers of sights” (philotheamones), culminating in the allegory of the cave, seems fundamental to Plato’s work as a whole and to the political, ethical, and cultural agenda advanced in his dialogues. As such, it is appropriately showcased at the very center of Republic, which is one of his most ambitiously comprehensive texts.
The complex “circular” structure of Republic has the additional virtue of evoking the narrative patterns of epic poems such as Iliad and Odyssey. Critics as far back as Friedrich Nietzsche have commented on Plato’s rivalry with “Homer,” whose works attract particular scrutiny throughout Republic, and we might join Jacob Howland (The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy, pp. 30-31) and others in viewing the dialogue as a “philosophical epic.” Republic’s aim, then, is perhaps not only to critique the Homeric epics and the entire poetic tradition they head, but also to provide a fitting alternative to them, as it reworks their narrative patterns while revising their themes and concerns.
Republic derives coherence from its thematic focuses as well as its “plot” development. As is natural in a conversation about justice and “right conduct,” the concern for human excellence (aretê) pervades the text. Its treatment of aretê plainly responds to works like Iliad and Odyssey and the general values of Hellenic culture. Against their “lessons,” it seeks to redefine and limit what is meant by aretê, so as to exclude from its definition all notions of material success and identify it solely with what we would call “moral excellence” or “virtue.”
Like many other Platonic texts, Republic advances its argument about aretê by scrutinizing the role that the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain play in determining the attitudes and values that most people entertain about “virtue.” This is not to say, as the discussion of book 9 makes plain, that the philosopher has no regard nor desire for pleasure. Rather, the philosopher’s estimation of what constitutes the greatest pleasure differs radically from common views, and this is why he (or she) lives more happily than the majority of people. Like many other Platonic texts (notably Symposium and Phaedrus ), Republic is profoundly concerned with eros—that is, “erotic” desire that can find purely spiritual and intellectual as well as physical outlets. Book 9, by no accident, represents the tyrant as overwhelmed and enslaved by sexual desire more than any other appetite, and it thus positions him as polar opposite to the philosopher who, as a “lover of the vision of truth” (5.475e), achieves liberation to
the fullest extent.
As the opposition of the tyrant and the philosopher indicates, servitude and enslavement, freedom and liberation also figure prominently in Republic’s nexus of thematic concerns. Thrasymachus’ initial conception of the tyrant as supremely free and happy, for all its arresting frankness, in fact reflects what most people think—at least if we trust Glaucon and Adeimantus in book 2—but the discussion in book 9 betrays the egregious error of this view. Much of Republic’s energies, then, are directed at challenging common understandings of “slavery,” “enslavement,” and “freedom,” as well as “justice” and “excellence,” and at reconfiguring what these terms mean. At the same time, the dialogue aims to demonstrate how the seemingly outrageous, “amoral” opinions espoused by a sophist like Thrasymachus do little more than reflect the thinking of the many.
The characterizations of the interlocutors are also crucial to the sense of unity and coherence in Republic, and they reinforce its key concerns and themes in subtle yet significant ways. Plato’s representations of Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, Cephalus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus doubtless combine fact with dramatic expedience, and they are as vivid and pointed as those in any other dialogue. Readers interested in detailed and sophisticated analysis of Republic’s handling of “character” should consult Ruby Blondell’s The Play of Character in Plato’s Dialogues (pp. 165-250).
