Hughlings Himwich

Plato's Republic: The Education of Glaucon

Plato's Republic: The Education of Glaucon

My task today is to focus on Books 8 and 9 of The Republic where Socrates takes up the description of unjust cities and individuals that was interrupted at the beginning of Book 5 by the demand that he talk first about women, then about how the just city could actually come into existence and lastly about the education of the philosopher, on whom the actual existence of the just city depends. Socrates describes in Books 8 & 9 how the just city or aristocracy he and the boys have been building in speech will inevitably fail and become first a timocracy, a city built on honor, then an oligarchy, a city built on the wealth of a few, third a democracy, and finally a tyranny.  Each of these cities, mixing bronze and iron, gold and silver in new and unhealthy ways, serves as an image of the soul of an individual man, revealing progressive disharmony within the tripartite soul, caused primarily by eros and greed rising to dominance by enlisting the aid of the spirited part.  There is a rough but definite correspondence between these unjust cities described in 8 & 9 and the previous just cities described in Books 2-4:

   Ideal (Books 2-4)                                        Real (Books 8-9)                      Human Form & Metal

City of Metals – Guardians                           Aristocracy: Ancestral City         The Just Man: Gold

City of Noble Hounds: Warriors                   Timocracy: Honor                       The Timocratic Man: Silver

City of Luxury: Traders                                 Oligarchy: Wealth                       Oligarchic Man: Bronze

City of Pigs: Craftsman                                 Democracy: Equality/Freedom   Democratic Man: Iron

Glaucon’s City: the Perfectly Unjust Man    Tyranny: Love    /Eros                 The Tyrant:

There is yet another city, surmounting both the ideal and real cities of this chart: the philosopher’s city, built in the intervening b=Books of 6 & 7 about which we shall have more to say. The Ideal Cities, as charted here, are in ascent & are thrust into an indefinite future but the Real Cities & the Human Forms are in descent with the best city cast back into an indefinite past.  The lesson of this odd chronology, I would suggest, is that the just city has never and will never come into existence.  We note also the lowly place of democracy, a city that Socrates strangely says is the most resplendent and beautiful of cities. It is the stepping-stone to tyranny.  Note that the ideal city corresponding to democracy is the city whose citizens Adeimantus charged Socrates with fattening like pigs in a sty. There may have been more meaning in that word “fattening” than we could have realized back in Book 2.  It seems democracy becomes the slaughterhouse of the tyrant. Despite democracy’s position as the entry way to tyranny, it is clear that Socrates feels most at home in this city.  He says, for instance, that democracy is the best possible place to shop for regimes:

     because it’s permissive and has every kind, so that anyone who wants to construct a city, as we just did,
     ought to shop in a democracy as in a regime bazaar. . . .(557d)

A democracy may not be the healthiest city, it may not be Ronald Reagan’s shining city on the hill, but it appears to be the one best suited for philosophy.  I can hardly resist the temptation to suggest that Socrates is playing an image-making Charlotte to a radiant, democratic pig.

As Socrates describes the devolution from aristocracy to tyranny, from the just man to the tyrant, from health to ill health, it is important to point out that whereas the just city exists only in words or in a far distant Golden Age, the other kinds of cities actually do exist among the ancient Greeks. For instance, Sparta is a timocracy and Athens is a democracy. The ancestral aristocratic city fails because the oracle, briefly mentioned in Book III (415c6) as part of the noble lie, -- “that the city will be ruined if it ever has an iron or a bronze guardian” --, has strangely enough come true.  You may well wonder how such a thing could have occurred in Plato’s tightly supervised city.  And after all, it was a lie. For those of us who admire great champions of freedom, I am sorry to say the oracle is fulfilled only because an incredibly complicated mating formula has been misapplied.  This is what Socrates says happened:

       Even though they are wise, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city will, by using rational
       calculatio combined with sense-perception, nonetheless fail to ascertain the periods of good fertility and
       of infertility for you species. Instead, these will escape them, and so they will sometimes beget children
       whenthey should not. (546b)

I will now read you the fertility formula whose application ultimately escapes the guardians: For the birth of human beings, there is a cycle comprehended by:    

        the first number in which are found increases involving both roots and powers, comprehending three
        intervals and four terms of factors that cause likeness and unlikeness, cause increase and decrease,
        and make all things mutually agreeable and rational in their relations to one another. Of these factors,
        the base ones – four in relation to three, together with five – give two harmonies when thrice increased.
        One is a square, so many times a hundred. The other is of equal length one-way, but oblong. One of it 
        sides is 100 squares of the rational diameter of five each diminished by one, or alternatively 100 squares
        of the irrational diameter each  diminished by two. The other side is 100 cubes of three. TThis whole       
        geometrical number controls better and worse births. (546c)

What are we to think of a city whose continued existence is dependent on the correct application of such a formula? Or more importantly, whose potential existence is dependent on such a formula? And even if we can figure out the geometrical number, which appears to be 12, 960,000, how it is to be applied is a mystery. Glaucon, who insisted in Book 5 -- against Socrates’ own inclination -- to be given an account of how their city in words could actually come into existence, remains unfazed by these mathematical difficulties, the applied math involved or the lie within the lie.  It will not be until Socrates makes clear the tangled degradation of the soul that occurs in cities that actually exist, especially that of the tyrant, that Glaucon -- brother of Plato, son of Ariston, a close relative of the infamous tyrant Critias, and perhaps the beloved of Socrates – finally yields and grants the argument: if it requires a philosopher to bring the just city into existence, the just city can not and will not ever exist for the simple reason that to engage in politics is abhorrent to the soul of the philosopher. Socrates by a marvelous sleight of hand has introduced the philosopher in Book 5 as the necessary condition for the actual existence of the just city only to undermine that very possibility by demonstrating that a philosopher who is properly raised to rule a city, who has his eyes on The Good, will never in fact be willing to rule.   At the end of Book 9, having got a good look at the self-enslaved soul of the tyrant, a self-devouring monster whose only humanity is his outward form, Glaucon acknowledges the philosopher “won’t be willing to take part in politics,” to which Socrates replies:

        Yes, by the dog, in his own city, he certainly will. But he may not be willing to do so in his fatherland,    
        unless some divine good luck chances to be his.

Glaucon responds:

        I understand. You mean in the city we have just been founding and describing: the one that exists in
        words, since I do not think it exists anywhere on earth.

Socrates consoles Glaucon:

        But there may perhaps be a model of it in the heavens for anyone who wishes to look at it and to found
        himself on the basis of what he sees. It makes no difference at all whether it exists anywhere or ever
        will. You see, he would take part in the politics of it alone, and of no other.” (592a5-b5)

Socrates like some Heracles rescuing Theseus from the Underworld is rescuing Glaucon from the darkness of his own lust for power.  Or again, to use the language of the Cave Allegory, Socrates is turning Glaucon around  -- in this instance, by the dog – to use Socrates’ own exclamation  -- by hauling a three-headed Cerberus up from the Underworld (sometimes known as Fluffy) and revealing to Glaucon thereby the snarling heads of the tyrant’s tripartite soul. The power that Glaucon would exercise over others, he is now ready to exercise over himself. Socrates has accomplished that “turning around of the soul” that is the object of education and lifts a man out of the cave of himself.  Socrates has demonstrated to Glaucon that the life of a just man is not only desirable in itself and for itself but that it is more desirable than that of the perfectly unjust man, the tyrant.  It remains for him to show in Book X through the Myth of Er that the just life is also more desirable with respect to its consequences for the individual soul. There Socrates draws a picture of the soul of a tyrant named Ardiaius whose eternal punishment in the afterlife surely inspired Dante’s Inferno and makes clear how each of us becomes responsible for his or her own life.

In the Crito, a dialogue that dramatically follows the Apology, Socrates provides an example of what it means to construct the just city within one’s soul.  In this dialogue, Crito comes to Socrates with a sure plan for his escape and so avoid his death sentence.  Socrates, however, forestalls these plans by telling Crito that they must consider in their usual way whether such an escape would be just.  And so a dialogue ensues whose conclusions both Crito and Socrates agree to abide by.  In this dialogue, Socrates himself speaks for The Laws of Athens who acknowledge that an injustice has been done to him, but that his planned escape would be an even greater injustice to the city and, most significantly, to himself.  The Laws of Athens speak philosophically in Socrates’ own voice and person as the historical city of Athens could never have done. Socrates does accept the judgment of the Laws – that is the judgment of the Politeia within himself -- that escape would entail the greater injustice and accepts the death sentence issued by the historical city, calmly drinking the hemlock and dying in a simple, dignified manner.

It is a Greek proverb that no man’s life should be considered blessed until it is known how that man’s life ends.  Plato surely judged Socrates’ life as truly blessed for his soul remained free of injustice to the very last.  It is this most blessed man who is the heavenly paradigm envisioned at the end of Book 9 on which Plato would have his brother Glaucon found the true Politeia.                  

Pause for Questions

    There is, however, another, very different account of The Republic given by those who read the book as essentially a political treatise and charge others as having fallen under Plato’s spell and giving him a pass on what can only be called a totalitarian or fascist program.  They will point out as evidence that even the translation of the title of the book, Politeia, meaning regime, has been softened into The Republic, surely a strange term for a system of government that endorses a rigid caste system and that everywhere justifies repulsive means in the name of the greater good.  In addition, they point out that Socrates, whom Plato employs as the architect of his city, could not himself have come about in Plato’s city or practice his uncompromising brand of philosophy. Indeed, if justice is defined as minding one’s own business, Socrates is most noteworthy as a busybody who minds everyone else’s.  It seems either Socrates is a hypocrite or that Plato is abusing Socrates’ legacy by using it to put forth his own agenda. These critics point also to the totalitarian legacy of would-be Plato’s ,Glaucon’s, and Adeimantus’s like Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin.

These charges against Plato are serious and difficult to turn aside and amount to putting philosophy on trial a second time.  At the first trial, Socrates failed to persuade the jurors that his activity was not subversive but actually a service to the city.  On this occasion, philosophy is on trial for seeking to impose a new, transparently totalitarian regime.  We are even told at the end of Book 7 how such an imposition will come about:

        Everyone in the city who is over ten years old they will send into the country. They will take over the
        children, and far removed from current habits, which their parents possess, they will bring them up in
        their own ways and laws, which are the ones we described before. And with the city and constitution
        we were discussing thus established in the quickest and easiest way, it will itself be happy and bring 
        the greatest benefit to the people among whom it comes to be. (Book 7, 541a)

Finally, if Plato is arguing that philosophers must be rulers so that the just city can become a reality, then philosophy has lost its role as the outsider and is no longer in a position to objectively question the city and its priorities.

I hope what I have already said will go a long way to answering these charges. But more is needed. No philosopher, who has his eye upon the Good, would ever involve himself in the kind of cleansing of the city pictured at the end of Book 7. It would require the soul of a tyrant.  It is because Glaucon was not repulsed at this possibility that Socrates must make clear to him the soul of the tyrant in Books 8 & 9. And if Plato is envisioning a totalitarian society, it is certainly the strangest one we are likely to see: it is an upside down society where the rulers are the impoverished class while their subjects enjoy the material pleasures of life.  Further, if Plato is held responsible for the likes of Marx, Trotsky and Lenin, then we must also give him credit for what has come to be known as a liberal arts education, founded as it is on the curriculum Plato devised for philosophers in Books 6 and 7; we must give him credit for the very kind of seminars our Humanities program seeks to provide, where ideas are tested in conversation and not inculcated by the might of authority, whether that be the teacher’s or even Plato’s. The heart and soul of a liberal education is the cave allegory and the turning around of the soul that is depicted there.  And finally, we must say that to see Plato’s program for the just city as something other than a reflection of the soul of the individual is to mistake the image for what the image represents and to fail to realize that justice for Plato is primarily the arête of the human soul and not an attribute of a city.  For Plato, this mistake is the gravest one of all – for not mistaking the image for what the image represents is critical to the soul’s ascent to what Plato calls the Good. 

I suggest to you that Glaucon and Adeimantus are being tested, as Socrates says philosophers must be, as young philosophers  such as yourselves must be. You are supposed to find fault with Socrates’ image of the just city.  As young philosophers you recognized the various versions of the just city as severely lacking, they are robotic and soulless; you were offended at the lies and the patent condescension in every aspect of the just city’s construction; and as young philosophers, you noticed that the conversations and dialogue were but shallow imitations of real philosophical discussions.    It is as if we all were doing time in the lower reaches of the divided line, up against the wall of the cave, as if it were a debate by, for and of shadows. 

Pause

You may have also noticed, however, that starting with Book 5, the discussion becomes more truly reflective of philosophical conversation and that the eros and eris of the participants become aroused: first in the discussion about women, then in the demand for bringing the city of words into actual existence, followed by the bold assertion at the very numerical center of The Republic that unless philosophers become rulers, the just city cannot come to pass. Then, Socrates surprises us by announcing that the most important element of the soul has been left out, something that is more important than wisdom, temperance, courage and even justice itself – what has been missing is the desire that exists in every soul for the Good. After Socrates’ irritated dismissal of Adeimantus who wants only to argue for the sake of argument, Socrates discloses to Glaucon, as though to him alone, a world of incredible beauty through the analogy of the sun, the divided line and the allegory of the cave. The conversation has turned truly philosophical  and provides an image at least of the one to one dialectic that moves freely to and from the idea of the Good. In Book 7, Socrates turns directly to Glaucon to ask if he wishes to continue their conversation for his own sake or for the sake of one or another eristic group:

        So decide right now which group you are engaging in discussion. Or is it neither of them, and are you
        making your arguments mostly for you own sake – though you do not begrudge anyone else whatever
        profit he can get from them? (528a)

Glaucon answers:

        That’s what I prefer -- to speak, question, and answer mostly for my own sake. (528a4-5)

Here we are at the very heart of the matter. Glaucon’s very soul is at stake.   The conversation could not be more real. He is somewhat blinded by the brilliance of what Socrates has disclosed to him.  Socrates has been striving like some philosophical Orpheus, attempting to turn Glaucon’s soul around with his most beautiful music and to tame those like Thrasymachus who would threaten his beloved. Socrates tells us at the very beginning of The Republic that he has gone down to the Peiraeus, the place beyond the river, to offer his prayers to the goddess of dead. You should know that at the dramatic time of the dialogue, Cephalus was already dead and by the composition date of The Republic Polemarchus had been executed by the agents of the Thirty Tyrants and Socrates had been put to death for what his fellow Athenians believed to be his association with these very same tyrants. That Glaucon disappears in history, apparently having resisted his own dark tyrannic desires, suggests that Socrates in his sojourn in the Underworld, perhaps among the souls to be reborn, has been successful where Orpheus was not.

                        

End of Story   

My task today is to focus on Books 8 and 9 of The Republic where Socrates takes up the description of unjust cities and individuals that was interrupted at the beginning of Book 5 by the demand that he talk first about women, then about how the just city could actually come into existence and lastly about the education of the philosopher, on whom the actual existence of the just city depends. Socrates describes in Books 8 & 9 how the just city or aristocracy he and the boys have been building in speech will inevitably fail and become first a timocracy, a city built on honor, then an oligarchy, a city built on the wealth of a few, third a democracy, and finally a tyranny.  Each of these cities, mixing bronze and iron, gold and silver in new and unhealthy ways, serves as an image of the soul of an individual man, revealing progressive disharmony within the tripartite soul, caused primarily by eros and greed rising to dominance by enlisting the aid of the spirited part.  There is a rough but definite correspondence between these unjust cities described in 8 & 9 and the previous just cities described in Books 2-4:

   Ideal (Books 2-4)                                        Real (Books 8-9)                      Human Form & Metal

City of Metals – Guardians                           Aristocracy: Ancestral City         The Just Man: Gold

City of Noble Hounds: Warriors                   Timocracy: Honor                       The Timocratic Man: Silver

City of Luxury: Traders                                 Oligarchy: Wealth                       Oligarchic Man: Bronze

City of Pigs: Craftsman                                 Democracy: Equality/Freedom   Democratic Man: Iron

Glaucon’s City: the Perfectly Unjust Man    Tyranny: Love    /Eros                 The Tyrant:

There is yet another city, surmounting both the ideal and real cities of this chart: the philosopher’s city, built in the intervening b=Books of 6 & 7 about which we shall have more to say. The Ideal Cities, as charted here, are in ascent & are thrust into an indefinite future but the Real Cities & the Human Forms are in descent with the best city cast back into an indefinite past.  The lesson of this odd chronology, I would suggest, is that the just city has never and will never come into existence.  We note also the lowly place of democracy, a city that Socrates strangely says is the most resplendent and beautiful of cities. It is the stepping-stone to tyranny.  Note that the ideal city corresponding to democracy is the city whose citizens Adeimantus charged Socrates with fattening like pigs in a sty. There may have been more meaning in that word “fattening” than we could have realized back in Book 2.  It seems democracy becomes the slaughterhouse of the tyrant. Despite democracy’s position as the entry way to tyranny, it is clear that Socrates feels most at home in this city.  He says, for instance, that democracy is the best possible place to shop for regimes:

     because it’s permissive and has every kind, so that anyone who wants to construct a city, as we just did,
     ought to shop in a democracy as in a regime bazaar. . . .(557d)

A democracy may not be the healthiest city, it may not be Ronald Reagan’s shining city on the hill, but it appears to be the one best suited for philosophy.  I can hardly resist the temptation to suggest that Socrates is playing an image-making Charlotte to a radiant, democratic pig.

As Socrates describes the devolution from aristocracy to tyranny, from the just man to the tyrant, from health to ill health, it is important to point out that whereas the just city exists only in words or in a far distant Golden Age, the other kinds of cities actually do exist among the ancient Greeks. For instance, Sparta is a timocracy and Athens is a democracy. The ancestral aristocratic city fails because the oracle, briefly mentioned in Book III (415c6) as part of the noble lie, -- “that the city will be ruined if it ever has an iron or a bronze guardian” --, has strangely enough come true.  You may well wonder how such a thing could have occurred in Plato’s tightly supervised city.  And after all, it was a lie. For those of us who admire great champions of freedom, I am sorry to say the oracle is fulfilled only because an incredibly complicated mating formula has been misapplied.  This is what Socrates says happened:

       Even though they are wise, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city will, by using rational
       calculatio combined with sense-perception, nonetheless fail to ascertain the periods of good fertility and
       of infertility for you species. Instead, these will escape them, and so they will sometimes beget children
       whenthey should not. (546b)

I will now read you the fertility formula whose application ultimately escapes the guardians: For the birth of human beings, there is a cycle comprehended by:    

        the first number in which are found increases involving both roots and powers, comprehending three
        intervals and four terms of factors that cause likeness and unlikeness, cause increase and decrease,
        and make all things mutually agreeable and rational in their relations to one another. Of these factors,
        the base ones – four in relation to three, together with five – give two harmonies when thrice increased.
        One is a square, so many times a hundred. The other is of equal length one-way, but oblong. One of it 
        sides is 100 squares of the rational diameter of five each diminished by one, or alternatively 100 squares
        of the irrational diameter each  diminished by two. The other side is 100 cubes of three. TThis whole       
        geometrical number controls better and worse births. (546c)

What are we to think of a city whose continued existence is dependent on the correct application of such a formula? Or more importantly, whose potential existence is dependent on such a formula? And even if we can figure out the geometrical number, which appears to be 12, 960,000, how it is to be applied is a mystery. Glaucon, who insisted in Book 5 -- against Socrates’ own inclination -- to be given an account of how their city in words could actually come into existence, remains unfazed by these mathematical difficulties, the applied math involved or the lie within the lie.  It will not be until Socrates makes clear the tangled degradation of the soul that occurs in cities that actually exist, especially that of the tyrant, that Glaucon -- brother of Plato, son of Ariston, a close relative of the infamous tyrant Critias, and perhaps the beloved of Socrates – finally yields and grants the argument: if it requires a philosopher to bring the just city into existence, the just city can not and will not ever exist for the simple reason that to engage in politics is abhorrent to the soul of the philosopher. Socrates by a marvelous sleight of hand has introduced the philosopher in Book 5 as the necessary condition for the actual existence of the just city only to undermine that very possibility by demonstrating that a philosopher who is properly raised to rule a city, who has his eyes on The Good, will never in fact be willing to rule.   At the end of Book 9, having got a good look at the self-enslaved soul of the tyrant, a self-devouring monster whose only humanity is his outward form, Glaucon acknowledges the philosopher “won’t be willing to take part in politics,” to which Socrates replies:

        Yes, by the dog, in his own city, he certainly will. But he may not be willing to do so in his fatherland,    
        unless some divine good luck chances to be his.

Glaucon responds:

        I understand. You mean in the city we have just been founding and describing: the one that exists in
        words, since I do not think it exists anywhere on earth.

Socrates consoles Glaucon:

        But there may perhaps be a model of it in the heavens for anyone who wishes to look at it and to found
        himself on the basis of what he sees. It makes no difference at all whether it exists anywhere or ever
        will. You see, he would take part in the politics of it alone, and of no other.” (592a5-b5)

Socrates like some Heracles rescuing Theseus from the Underworld is rescuing Glaucon from the darkness of his own lust for power.  Or again, to use the language of the Cave Allegory, Socrates is turning Glaucon around  -- in this instance, by the dog – to use Socrates’ own exclamation  -- by hauling a three-headed Cerberus up from the Underworld (sometimes known as Fluffy) and revealing to Glaucon thereby the snarling heads of the tyrant’s tripartite soul. The power that Glaucon would exercise over others, he is now ready to exercise over himself. Socrates has accomplished that “turning around of the soul” that is the object of education and lifts a man out of the cave of himself.  Socrates has demonstrated to Glaucon that the life of a just man is not only desirable in itself and for itself but that it is more desirable than that of the perfectly unjust man, the tyrant.  It remains for him to show in Book X through the Myth of Er that the just life is also more desirable with respect to its consequences for the individual soul. There Socrates draws a picture of the soul of a tyrant named Ardiaius whose eternal punishment in the afterlife surely inspired Dante’s Inferno and makes clear how each of us becomes responsible for his or her own life.

In the Crito, a dialogue that dramatically follows the Apology, Socrates provides an example of what it means to construct the just city within one’s soul.  In this dialogue, Crito comes to Socrates with a sure plan for his escape and so avoid his death sentence.  Socrates, however, forestalls these plans by telling Crito that they must consider in their usual way whether such an escape would be just.  And so a dialogue ensues whose conclusions both Crito and Socrates agree to abide by.  In this dialogue, Socrates himself speaks for The Laws of Athens who acknowledge that an injustice has been done to him, but that his planned escape would be an even greater injustice to the city and, most significantly, to himself.  The Laws of Athens speak philosophically in Socrates’ own voice and person as the historical city of Athens could never have done. Socrates does accept the judgment of the Laws – that is the judgment of the Politeia within himself -- that escape would entail the greater injustice and accepts the death sentence issued by the historical city, calmly drinking the hemlock and dying in a simple, dignified manner.

It is a Greek proverb that no man’s life should be considered blessed until it is known how that man’s life ends.  Plato surely judged Socrates’ life as truly blessed for his soul remained free of injustice to the very last.  It is this most blessed man who is the heavenly paradigm envisioned at the end of Book 9 on which Plato would have his brother Glaucon found the true Politeia.                  

Pause for Questions

    There is, however, another, very different account of The Republic given by those who read the book as essentially a political treatise and charge others as having fallen under Plato’s spell and giving him a pass on what can only be called a totalitarian or fascist program.  They will point out as evidence that even the translation of the title of the book, Politeia, meaning regime, has been softened into The Republic, surely a strange term for a system of government that endorses a rigid caste system and that everywhere justifies repulsive means in the name of the greater good.  In addition, they point out that Socrates, whom Plato employs as the architect of his city, could not himself have come about in Plato’s city or practice his uncompromising brand of philosophy. Indeed, if justice is defined as minding one’s own business, Socrates is most noteworthy as a busybody who minds everyone else’s.  It seems either Socrates is a hypocrite or that Plato is abusing Socrates’ legacy by using it to put forth his own agenda. These critics point also to the totalitarian legacy of would-be Plato’s ,Glaucon’s, and Adeimantus’s like Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin.

These charges against Plato are serious and difficult to turn aside and amount to putting philosophy on trial a second time.  At the first trial, Socrates failed to persuade the jurors that his activity was not subversive but actually a service to the city.  On this occasion, philosophy is on trial for seeking to impose a new, transparently totalitarian regime.  We are even told at the end of Book 7 how such an imposition will come about:

        Everyone in the city who is over ten years old they will send into the country. They will take over the
        children, and far removed from current habits, which their parents possess, they will bring them up in
        their own ways and laws, which are the ones we described before. And with the city and constitution
        we were discussing thus established in the quickest and easiest way, it will itself be happy and bring 
        the greatest benefit to the people among whom it comes to be. (Book 7, 541a)

Finally, if Plato is arguing that philosophers must be rulers so that the just city can become a reality, then philosophy has lost its role as the outsider and is no longer in a position to objectively question the city and its priorities.

I hope what I have already said will go a long way to answering these charges. But more is needed. No philosopher, who has his eye upon the Good, would ever involve himself in the kind of cleansing of the city pictured at the end of Book 7. It would require the soul of a tyrant.  It is because Glaucon was not repulsed at this possibility that Socrates must make clear to him the soul of the tyrant in Books 8 & 9. And if Plato is envisioning a totalitarian society, it is certainly the strangest one we are likely to see: it is an upside down society where the rulers are the impoverished class while their subjects enjoy the material pleasures of life.  Further, if Plato is held responsible for the likes of Marx, Trotsky and Lenin, then we must also give him credit for what has come to be known as a liberal arts education, founded as it is on the curriculum Plato devised for philosophers in Books 6 and 7; we must give him credit for the very kind of seminars our Humanities program seeks to provide, where ideas are tested in conversation and not inculcated by the might of authority, whether that be the teacher’s or even Plato’s. The heart and soul of a liberal education is the cave allegory and the turning around of the soul that is depicted there.  And finally, we must say that to see Plato’s program for the just city as something other than a reflection of the soul of the individual is to mistake the image for what the image represents and to fail to realize that justice for Plato is primarily the arête of the human soul and not an attribute of a city.  For Plato, this mistake is the gravest one of all – for not mistaking the image for what the image represents is critical to the soul’s ascent to what Plato calls the Good. 

I suggest to you that Glaucon and Adeimantus are being tested, as Socrates says philosophers must be, as young philosophers  such as yourselves must be. You are supposed to find fault with Socrates’ image of the just city.  As young philosophers you recognized the various versions of the just city as severely lacking, they are robotic and soulless; you were offended at the lies and the patent condescension in every aspect of the just city’s construction; and as young philosophers, you noticed that the conversations and dialogue were but shallow imitations of real philosophical discussions.    It is as if we all were doing time in the lower reaches of the divided line, up against the wall of the cave, as if it were a debate by, for and of shadows. 

Pause

You may have also noticed, however, that starting with Book 5, the discussion becomes more truly reflective of philosophical conversation and that the eros and eris of the participants become aroused: first in the discussion about women, then in the demand for bringing the city of words into actual existence, followed by the bold assertion at the very numerical center of The Republic that unless philosophers become rulers, the just city cannot come to pass. Then, Socrates surprises us by announcing that the most important element of the soul has been left out, something that is more important than wisdom, temperance, courage and even justice itself – what has been missing is the desire that exists in every soul for the Good. After Socrates’ irritated dismissal of Adeimantus who wants only to argue for the sake of argument, Socrates discloses to Glaucon, as though to him alone, a world of incredible beauty through the analogy of the sun, the divided line and the allegory of the cave. The conversation has turned truly philosophical  and provides an image at least of the one to one dialectic that moves freely to and from the idea of the Good. In Book 7, Socrates turns directly to Glaucon to ask if he wishes to continue their conversation for his own sake or for the sake of one or another eristic group:

        So decide right now which group you are engaging in discussion. Or is it neither of them, and are you
        making your arguments mostly for you own sake – though you do not begrudge anyone else whatever
        profit he can get from them? (528a)

Glaucon answers:

        That’s what I prefer -- to speak, question, and answer mostly for my own sake. (528a4-5)

Here we are at the very heart of the matter. Glaucon’s very soul is at stake.   The conversation could not be more real. He is somewhat blinded by the brilliance of what Socrates has disclosed to him.  Socrates has been striving like some philosophical Orpheus, attempting to turn Glaucon’s soul around with his most beautiful music and to tame those like Thrasymachus who would threaten his beloved. Socrates tells us at the very beginning of The Republic that he has gone down to the Peiraeus, the place beyond the river, to offer his prayers to the goddess of dead. You should know that at the dramatic time of the dialogue, Cephalus was already dead and by the composition date of The Republic Polemarchus had been executed by the agents of the Thirty Tyrants and Socrates had been put to death for what his fellow Athenians believed to be his association with these very same tyrants. That Glaucon disappears in history, apparently having resisted his own dark tyrannic desires, suggests that Socrates in his sojourn in the Underworld, perhaps among the souls to be reborn, has been successful where Orpheus was not.

                        

End of Story   

Pythagorean implications of the Slave-boy episode in Plato's Meno

If the slave-boy had some inkling of Pythagorean doctrine, it may be that he could not only have learned to make a square double the area of an original square of 4, i.e. a square of 8, but he could also have glimpsed the Pythagorean theorem itself, for it turns out that the square built upon the diagonal of the original square of 4, i.e. the hypotenuse of the isosceles right triangles formed by that diagonal, is the side of the desired square that is twice the area of the original. The square of each of the other two sides of the isosceles triangle added together are 8, the same as the square built upon the hypotenuse, i.e. the diagonal. A more knowledgeable witness might have made a connection here between this unspoken reference to Pythagoras and the theory of the transmigration of souls and the theory of recollection that Socrates is supposedly demonstrating.  That the length of the diagonal turns out to be 2 x square root of 2 suggests that Socrates is additionally hinting at an esoteric Pythagorean discovery, the existence of an irrational number, i.e. the square of 2, a real number that cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers. This perhaps relates by analogy to Meno's paradox and the difference between true opinion and actual knowledge that is discussed in the remainder of the Meno. 

See related posts: Meno's Paradox and A Classroom Version of the Slave Boy Scene in Plato's A classroom version of the slave boy scene in Plato's Meno

 

Conversation on Justice: Hugh Himwich and Jordan Fleischer

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Hugh Himwich: Justice exists from the moment we search for it and while we never arrive at an objective account, still it is justice that catches us as though by surprise, from behind, and winds itself through our existence. Or in less poetic terms, the search for justice changes neural arrangements. We seek justice and thereby become just. Originally, there was only the desire to know.

Jordan Fleischer: I am having a bit of trouble following this. You are saying that by searching for justice, we create it? If we never arrive at any sort of conclusion, how is it possible to act justly?   "We seek justice and thereby become just." What if our search leads us in the wrong direction, and we do the wrong thing? Or is there perhaps no wrong direction? This would seem to imply that justice is subjective. I think this is what I tend to believe, that we create our own definition of justice, whether it be through our own journey or through the teachings of our mentors. Either way, justice is defined by the individual. You say that "we never arrive at an objective account," but what I am more curious about is whether an objective account of justice exists. Forgive me if some of what I have said doesn't make sense, I'm still struggling through this one!

Hugh Himwich: The key thing is that we remain open about a possible objective basis of justice. This active openness with respect to a matter of ultimate importance shapes and molds us in the very image of the thing we seek. This is an understanding that transcends subjective and objective.

Jordan Fleischer: How do you conclude that being open shapes us into what we seek? I think if you could provide some sort of example it might help me understand. I'm not sure how being open guides us in the right direction. If this is the case, how do we know that we are doing the just thing?

Hugh Himwich: First, being open is a kind of non-action whereby I take care to do no harm. Second, being open allows for my natural desire to understand to emerge unattached to any notion of any specific notion of what justice is. The result is I am tolerant where another might be judgmental. I grow gentle, kind, and generous towards others. I think we would all agree that this is what it is to be a good person, and it does not come simply from parents or anyone else telling us what justice or goodness is -- rather it results from the search for justice itself. I do not claim this is an objective concept of justice, but it is not subjective either in the sense that it is whatever I want it to be. Rather, it is something that happens to an individual without the individual intending it to happen. That's why I say it transcends objective and subjective concepts. You are yourself proof of its validity. Yes, you are!!

Jordan Fleischer: It seems to me that rather than searching for justice you are simply accepting that there is no justice. You do not claim to know what it is, but do you claim that it exists? I had a long discussion with my mother about this and some very interesting things were said. I argued that our notion of justice is based upon what has been taught to us, either through experience or from mentors, but one way or another we have learned it. So, as you suggested, knowing that it has all been taught to me, perhaps I can set it all aside and now think for myself as to what justice is. Now I wonder, forgetting all of the things I have been previously taught, how can I try to determine what is just? I would now look at myself almost as an animal, acting according to instinct and nature.   Now, if I were not part of society, I would likely do what is best for me. For example, stealing would seem perfectly acceptable. This can be seen in animals; for example, a dog taking another dog's bone. This would certainly be viewed as unjust in today's society, yet it is entirely natural. This brought me to the realization that justice (or what we consider to be justice) is NOT natural. Think of the countless acts of injustice that occur each day around the world. To me, that seems to prove the idea that we create justice. One of the questions I wished I could have asked David Eagleman when he came to our class is if acting justly is one of those instinctual parts of the brain, similar to sexual attraction. I am almost certain it is not. I feel that the society as a whole creates a justice in order to preserve itself. So for me to act justly is really to act in accordance to what society requires. If you are outside of society, I'm not sure there is a justice. For example, would someone living in solitude even consider justice? I don't think so. Therefore, justice only exists when there is more than one person involved (also known as society). Now of course the question comes to mind what if you do not agree with what society considers just? In this case, you have your own opinion of what is just within society. Yet, it still depends upon the existence of society.

I'm not exactly sure how to conclude this idea. To connect my ideas to yours, it seems as if the "non-action" you speak of, is essentially the act of removing oneself from society. Following from my ideas, one who lives outside of society has no need of justice.

Hugh Himwich: I would argue that our sense of justice is not simply natural but the very ground of our being. The notion of the lone one, the self, is not our original experience of the world. Our first human relationship is our bond with our mothers and all that this bond biologically and psychologically implies, and we come equipped with mirror neurons and the capacity for language, suggesting that the very design of our brains binds us to others. We come into the world by, for and with others. I suggest that our yearning for justice expresses this deep bond we feel emotionally from the maternal-child bond and from the very design of our brains. We seek to be at one with each other and with the universe itself. It is also true that we are different from each other and from the universe, and so the journey -- the hero's journey, I would suggest -- is to know ourselves at once as separate and at one with our fellow man. Life makes this journey inevitable and necessary. When we say that justice is just subjective, we are making a judgment on one set of facts alone. It is true that we can choose not to acknowledge our bond with others, even though by nature it plainly exists. We do so at the cost of our humanity.

Jordan Fleischer: Certainly one's bond with their mother does naturally exist. However, I find this bond to be very different than the relationships one has with other people. Regardless, being part of society is natural, because the majority of people are part of society. You claim that our sense of justice is natural. If so, how do you explain all of the injustice that exists in our world? This question obviously can only be asked assuming society’s definition of justice is true. Notice that what most people consider justice has only taken place in certain parts of the world for a very short period of time. These undeniable facts prove that there is no sense of justice that comes to us by nature. Additionally, it seems to me that your argument has now contradicted itself. You previously stated that we must search for justice in order to become just, yet now you say that our sense of justice is natural. If a natural sense of justice exists, there would be no need to search for it; we would simply know by nature what is just. That both you and I do not claim to know what justice is proves that there is no natural sense of justice. We may search for what justice is... yet, we do not know what it is we are searching for. Our last resort is to define justice in the way that we BELIEVE is what is best for society. In my opinion, this is how justice comes about. It for this reason that when you tell me to set aside what society has taught me, and think for myself, I conclude there is no justice.

Hugh Himwich: I will do my best to respond to all your challenges. When I say that our sense of justice is natural, I do not thereby mean that this sense compels our actions. We are so designed so as not just to know what it is like to be “me” but also to understand what it is like to be someone else. Indeed, we intuitively and spontaneously experience a fundamental equality with others. Justice is trying to work out the implications of that intuition. There is no natural imperative that requires us to act in any particular way – thus, it is possible that we could see others as a threat. What the mother-child relationship establishes within us is a profound and positive experience of reciprocity. Sadly, for some this experience does not occur or does so only briefly. Ultimately, as we grow in our experience of the world, we have to make a choice about how we are going to respond to the reality of others. Our upbringing surely influences this choice, but it is not determinative. Our choice is also based on our rational understanding of how it is best for all of us to live together. But it is a choice and by that choice we fundamentally shape the world in which we live. So justice presents itself as a choice -- that it does so is the result of our biological design and the mother-child relationship. Our two positions are not that far apart. What I do claim is that there is an intuitive sense of the fundamental equality among all human beings. When I tell you to set aside what society has taught you, I am telling you to base your understanding of justice on this intuitive sense and on your rational understanding (thinking for yourself!). Society may very well seek to contradict the intuitive sense and urge you to consider some other human beings as inferior. Remaining open (re: my previous comments) allows for the full exercise of that intuitive sense and keeps the contradictory counsels of society at bay.

Jordan Fleischer: As for the “fundamental equality” you speak of... I think that is debatable. After all, look at the nature and history of human beings. Self-preservation is the central goal of humans. Ultimately, our natural instinct is to put ourselves first. Equality seems to be a relatively new idea to humans, and appears to be something that we must be taught. That being said, I think where we differ in how we look at our rational thinking. When someone applies reason to something, they are using their previous knowledge and experiences. Now, if we "think for ourselves," there is no way to know if whatever conclusion we come to is right unless we compare it to what we have previously learned. It is in that way that our past influences how we think. If "thinking for ourselves" is what we call justice, and therefore we make decisions regardless of what we have learned, then justice would not be defined as any action, but rather the thought before an action. Consequently, any action could be just, provided that one applied reason before acting. Now I would suppose you would suggest that this idea is correct, only to act justly we most reason in conformity with those natural ideas of equality in mind. Perhaps this is where our differences lay. You say there is no imperative that requires us to act a certain way, but do you claim just actions are those that strive to preserve the equality you speak of? In that case, your definition of justice would emerge. You seem to have a definition of justice in mind. Please elaborate. Bear in mind, however, that if your definition depends on equality being a natural instinct then we may have much more to discuss.

Hugh Himwich: I don't know that I can answer all your concerns and questions in a single response. I think you and I have somehow left out the most important element: choice, whereby we create the very justice we seek. I would agree that there are competing motives within every human soul (I use that word with some trepidation): self-preservation being among them -- but it remains for us to chose among those competing motives and decide for ourselves what self we find most worthy of preservation. We certainly have aggressive and narrowly selfish motives, but there is also our intuitive knowledge of the reality of other people and of our fundamental equality and there is also our reason, which causes us to judge the consequences of our actions both with respect to others and ourselves. Out of this mix, we make a choice for which we are solely responsible and thereby create our world. You may respond: then justice is a completely arbitrary choice. I would respond that the choice is not made in a vacuum -- we make choices given the relationships and experiences we necessarily have, our generous and narrowly selfish impulses, and our reason. It is true that these given conditions will vary with individual experience and so will our choices. But what remains the same is that we understand ourselves as responsible for the world our choices create. We can, of course, choose to ignore all of this and just flip a coin or act completely in accordance with our narrowly selfish impulses -- but if we do so, we lose our humanity and thereby will an inhuman world. I repeat: everything depends upon the self we choose to preserve. Let me ask you directly: What is the self you choose to preserve? I ask this not to be argumentative, but because I believe that it is not just choice that has been missing from our discussion, but "your choice." There is, of course, another discussion to be had concerning whether this choice I am speaking of is illusory. It may very well be so, but what remains true is that we cannot dispel that illusion by any act of will. Any such act of will would itself experience itself as free and so confirm the very thing it seeks to deny. We are not free not to experience ourselves as not free. And so we have moved into existentialism.

Jordan Fleischer: It surprised me to hear you say, “We create the very justice we seek.” I am confused as to how this coincides with your idea of justice being natural. However, you seem to be speaking of a personal justice. Suppose your previously presented idea is true. We have all these things weighing upon us when we have to make a decision. Now, how can one tell if you made the right decision? I do not see how being responsible for a decision correlates to making a just decision. Yes, one is responsible for whatever choices they make; yet, I do not see how one can be considered right or wrong. I think the reason why this debate is so difficult is because we have been unable to set a definition of what justice is. At the beginning of our conversation, neither of us claimed to know what justice was. Do you feel that you can now give it a definition? If so, please put it in as explicit terms as you can. Or possibly you could explain how making choices creates justice. Are you saying that making a choice using reason makes the decision just? This makes me think of the discussion in class today of the artist. How does the artist know the meaning of his work? If you say that “he just knows” or “he sees it,” I’m sorry but that is not enough of an explanation for me to be convinced that it is true. It is the same when it comes to creating morals. I do not understand how one could know that they are right.

Hugh Himwich: This is an excellent response, Jordan Fleischer.  Good, straightforward questions.  I think we may soon be able to come to some agreement.  I think we agree that there is no standard by which we can know that what we choose is right.  Justice is a choice.  Speaking for myself, Justice is the fundamental right of all human beings to have the same opportunity to lead a fulfilling life.  This right does not exist in nature.  It exists only by the creative act of my choice.  It is natural justice in the sense that it is not created ex nihilo, but based upon all that it is to be human.   Once again, you are free to choose against this, but only at the cost of your humanity.  It is never a question of knowing whether your choice is right -- it is a question only of what kind of world you choose to live in.  So again, Jordan Fleischer, tell me what kind of world do you choose to live in.  You make choices everyday that create a world of fair play, truthfulness and compassion.  You cannot help but make choices.  Even if you define justice differently, it will still partake of values that are inherent in the one I offered.  Of course, you can choose to live in accordance with your narrow self-interest.  Is that your choice?  Is that the world you want to create?  Or do you choose to act upon that which is just as natural -- your compassion?  That we can so choose against our own deepest feelings only argues our freedom; that there are a few who appear to have no conscience at all argues for validity of the general rule. Finally, your choices create a world by the simple fact that they take place within a community who are witness to and affected by your choices.

Jordan Fleischer: I am trying to grasp this idea. Let me start with what we agree on. There is no way to know if what we do is right. Now, you clearly define what justice is in your opinion. Can we conclude that you do not know that acting in accordance with this standard is right? I sense a contradiction here. How can we define justice if we know that we cannot be sure that we are right? I see how our choices create justice; yet, the fact that we are creating it makes it seem very unreal. You have mentioned several times now what our humanity is, and what it means to be human. It seems to be a large part of your argument. I wonder if you could go a bit further into this discussion. I will now answer your question about the world I choose to live in. I too choose to live in the world as you do. I value others and equality. I strive for truthfulness and compassion. Where we seem to differ is in our motives. I do not believe that the characteristics of the world you and I create are inherent to humanity. I agree that there are many sides of us, for example the compassionate side and the self-preserving side. I think those facets can be seen in nature. If someone or something does not pose a threat to us, we naturally respond with a sort of peace. However, if we do feel threatened, we naturally do whatever it takes to preserve ourselves. It seems to me that both of these sides have a reason for existing, and thus neither one is just or unjust. In my personal experiences, I think my upbringing has guided me towards the compassionate side. In other words, I feel that I have been taught that one side is just, and the other is not. The reason behind being taught this goes back to preservation of society. Without this education, I cannot say I would know which side was the right one. I sense that you recognize that the compassionate side is the right one, by means other than education. Yet, you have stated that we can't know. This is where my confusion lays. After writing this response, I have realized that we have approached this question beginning with something that we do not know. Perhaps we need to start with something we know to be true? This is a difficult question for me. What is there that we can truly be certain of? Perhaps that method will allow me to know that justice exists.

Hugh Himwich: I am reluctant at this time to go off on another tack (What, if anything, we can know for certain?) since I believe we are close to agreement. Let's wait and see. You say that you see how our choices create justice, but that fact makes it seem unreal. I agree -- that is all there is. Your argument, however, goes further -- you want to say that your choices are really determined by your upbringing, etc. I would argue, however, that you have chosen to allow your upbringing, education, etc. to so determine your choices. There is prior, fundamental choice that one makes about how one is going to live in this world and that choice involves accepting, rejecting or otherwise revising what you have been taught. It may seem to you that you have never made such a choice, but I would argue that it seems that way because life has not yet directly challenged you in a way that requires you to make that choice explicit. Or it may have . . . . but that choice may be experienced as something so internal that you didn't recognize it because its nature is so different from the usual choices we make.

Jordan Fleischer: We often hear that someone is "too young or naive to make choices for themselves." Is it possible that this is the case when it comes to choosing to allow society to impact the choices we make? Perhaps as a child, I did not have the capability to make my own choices. I had no option to do anything other than what society required of me. As a result, that became the norm for me. Knowing this, I have the ability, as you say, to accept, reject, or revise everything that I have been taught. I recognize that whichever I choose to do, I will be responsible for that action. However, I see no way of determining if my choice is just or not. Given that we do not know what justice is, how could we possibly know if our decision was just, other than by defining justice by the action we choose? Suppose you decide you want to live in a kind and peaceful world. Consequently, kind and peaceful actions would seem just. However, those actions only seem just because of the way you defined justice. Perhaps we need to discuss how you decide the type of world you want to live in. If the world of equality is an innate desire for you, that may be your justice. Yet, if someone's nature promotes violence and a desire to dominate others, would that not be their justice? It seems that justice only exists as we define it.

Hugh Himwich: I thought that we had agreed that there is no objective standard by which one can decide whether any action or choice can be said to be just. It is a choice, as I have said repeatedly. My definition of justice is a choice based upon experience, rational thought, intuition, desire, and most importantly on the recognition that others exist for themselves as I do for myself. It is not correct to say simply that "justice only exists as we define it." You need to add: and we stake our entire lives on that definition. That others choose otherwise relieves me not one whit from the responsibility for my own choices. My life is a witness to that responsibility.

Jordan Fleischer: Yes, we have agreed that there is no objective standard by which one can decide whether any action or choice can be said to be just, which is exactly why it seems foolish of us to go ahead and define justice as we have. It is essential to remember that justice itself is only an experience. If someone makes a choice based on the parameters you have provided, they will indeed experience an act as if it is just. However, when it comes to determining if there is any truth behind that experience, there is simply no way to know. It reminds me of the phenomenon of color; it exists in our consciousness as something undeniably real, yet, the truth is that color is simply created by our brain and truly only exists as waves of light. No one can say what the truth is about justice. Yet, I think we can agree that living as if justice existed is the best way to live a fulfilling life. We must not forget that our guidelines for justice will create a different justice for everyone. As you stated, "we stake our entire lives on that decision." For that reason, we must rely on our individual experience to discover what justice is.

A classroom version of the slave boy scene in Plato's Meno

Socrates: Boy, you see this square, 2 ft by 2 ft.

Boy: Yes.

Socrates: Do you know its area?

Boy:  It is a 4 ft. square, Socrates.

Socrates: Very good.  Can you draw the side of a square that would be double the area of this one?

Boy: Yes.

    (Boy draws out one side of the square so that it is 4 ft. long.)

Socrates: I see you have made your side double the side of the original square.  Now draw the new square that can be constructed on the side you have drawn.

    (Boy draws a square that is 4 ft. by 4 ft.)

Socrates: What is the area of this square?

Boy: 16 ft. square.

Socrates: That’s four times the area of the first square, not double. We need a square that is half of this one. Let’s go back to the original 2 foot square and try again. (Socrates erases the 16 ft. square and redraws the original one.)

    (Boy thinks for a moment and then draws a length that is 3 feet)

Socrates: The side of your square is now 3ft?

Boy: Yes, Socrates.

Socrates: Now draw a square on this new side and tell me the area of the new square.

Boy: It is 9 ft. square, Socrates.  Still too big.

Socrates: Well, let’s go back to the original square and try yet again. (Socrates erases the 9 ft. square and redraws the original one.) What will be side of a square that is double in area of this one?

Boy: (looking puzzled, hesitates, scratches his head, etc and says in bewilderment): I don’t know, Socrates.

Socrates: We can at least say that you are better off than before when you thought that you knew the answer, but now at least you know that you don’t.

Boy: Yes, Socrates. You are right.  I am better off.

 Socrates: Let’s go back to your 16 ft. square and think.  

    (Socrates draws the 16 ft. square and divides the square into fourths.)

Socrates: We want a square that is half the area of 16 ft. square and equal to the sum of two of these inner squares.

Boy: Yes.

Socrates: Well, what should we do?

Boy: (he thinks, puzzled, and says) I told you, Socrates, I don’t know.

Socrates: I think you do. Draw the diagonal of one of the inner squares, Boy, and see if you see anything.

Boy: Like this?

Socrates: Yes. What do you see?

    (Boy looks, deep in thought, thinks and then with a rush of pleasure and delight says)

Boy: O Socrates, I know, I know.  (And he draws the other three diagonals.)

Socrates: Explain, Boy!

Boy: Yes.  (With some excitement) The diagonals must all be the same length because the squares are the same and each diagonal cuts its own square in half, so the resulting square must be half the size the of the 16 ft. square and therefore is that very 8 ft. square we have been searching for.

Socrates: Well done!