Republic by Plato

First transcribed:Politeia, 388–366 b.c.e. (English translation, 1701)

Type of work: Philosophy

Time of plot: Fifth century b.c.e.

Locale: Piraeus, Greece

Principal Personages

• Socrates, the Athenian philosopher
• Cephalus, an old man
• Polemarchus, his son
• Thrasymachus, a Sophist
• Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato’s brothers

The Work

Republic is the first in a long line of works that are generally classified as utopian literature. Although Plato is primarily interested in political issues, he is less concerned with mapping out a practical strategy for revamping practices in the Greek city-states of his day than he is in explaining the optimal ways in which people should be governed. Subscribing to what some commentators have described as an unashamedly elitist viewpoint, Plato makes it clear that some people are destined to rule, others to be ruled. Essentially antidemocratic, he concentrates on describing ways those who have the capacity to lead should be educated for their positions of great responsibility. Such an attitude no doubt seems alien and even threatening to modern readers, especially those in Western societies, where democracy in some form or other has been in favor for more than two hundred years. Republic may grate on the nerves of some who dislike Plato’s concepts of social engineering and his distaste for artists. Others may feel his disdain for the masses links him with that most maligned of all political philosophers, Niccolò Machiavelli, whose advice is based on the notion that retaining power is the primary duty of those who rule.

One must remember, however, that Plato is at heart a philosopher. In Republic, he is interested in identifying the qualities of justice that should determine the governance of society. Undeterred by any popular sentiments for or against any particular political practice—Athens was a democracy during the years when Plato was writing his dialogues and teaching—the philosopher focuses on the ethical dimensions of leadership. He asks crucial questions: How ought one to govern, and how ought one be educated to serve in this significant social role? He is the first of the great political philosophers of the West.

Republic presents a fascinating defense of the author’s conception of the ideal state and gives the most sustained and convincing portrait of his mentor, Socrates, as a critical and creative philosopher ever presented. Other dialogues featuring Socrates may be superior as studies of his personality and character, but the Republic is unexcelled as an exhibition of the famed Socratic method being brought to bear on such questions as, “What is justice?” and, “What kind of state would be most just?”

Although the constructive arguments of this dialogue come from the mouth of Socrates, it is safe to assume that much of the philosophy is Plato’s. As a rough reading rule, one may say that the method is Socratic, but the content is provided by Plato himself. Among the ideas that are presented and defended in the Republic are the Platonic theory of ideas (the formal prototypes of all things, objective or intellectual), the Platonic conception of the nature and obligations of the philosopher, and the Platonic theory and criticism of poetry. The central concern of the author is with the idea of justice in the state.

The dialogue is a discussion between Socrates and various friends while they are in Piraeus for a festival. The discussion of justice is provoked by a remark made by an old man, Cephalus, to the effect that the principal advantage of being wealthy is that a man near death is able to repay what he owes to the gods and to people, and is thereby able to be just in the hope of achieving a happy afterlife. Socrates objects to this conception of justice, maintaining that whether persons should return what they have received depends on the circumstances. For example, a man who has received dangerous weapons from his friend while the friend was sane should not, if he is just, return those weapons if the friend, while mad, demands them.

Cephalus's son, Polemarchus, amends the idea and declares that it is just to help one’s friends and return to them what they are due, provided they are good and worthy of receiving the good. Enemies, on the other hand, should have harm done to them, for, as bad, that is what they are due. Socrates compels Polemarchus to admit that injuring anyone, even a wicked man, makes that person worse; and since no just person would ever sanction making others worse, justice must be something other than giving good to the good and bad to the bad.

Another character, Thrasymachus, then proposes the theory that justice is whatever is to the interest of the stronger party. His idea is that justice is relative to the law, and the law is made by the stronger party according to his interests. In rebuttal, Socrates maneuvers Thrasymachus into saying that sometimes rulers make mistakes. If this is so, then sometimes the law is against their interests; when the law is against the interests of the stronger party, it is right to do what is not to the interest of the stronger party.

The secret of the Socratic method is evident from analysis of this argument. The term “interest” or “to the interest of” is ambiguous, sometimes meaning what one is interested in, what one wants, and at other times meaning what one would want if one were not in error. Examples in everyday life of such ambiguity are found in statements such as the following: “Although you want it, it is not really to your interest to have it.” Socrates adroitly shifts from one sense of the expression to the other so that Thrasymachus apparently contradicts himself. In this indirect way Socrates makes it clear both to the “victim” and to the onlookers that the proponent of the claim—in this case, Thrasymachus—has not cleared it of all possibility of misinterpretation.

Socrates then goes on to say that justice must be relative to the needs of those who are served, not to the desires of those who serve them. The physician, for example, as physician, must make the health of the patient the primary concern if the physician is to be just. Socrates suggests that they might clarify their understanding of justice by considering a concrete case, such as the state: If by discussion they can come to understand what a state must be in order to be just, it might be possible for them to generalize and arrive at an idea of justice itself.

Beginning with an account of what a state would have to be in order to fulfill its functions as a state, Socrates then proceeds to develop the notion of an ideal state by asking what the relations of the various groups of citizens to each other should be. Every state needs three classes of citizens: the Guardians, who rule and advise the rest; the Auxiliaries, who provide military protection for the state; and the Workers, the providers of food, clothing, and other useful materials. In a just state these three classes of citizens function together, each class doing its own proper business without interfering with the tasks of the other classes.

Applying this idea to the individual, Socrates decides that just persons are those who give to each of their individual capacities its proper task, relating the tasks to one another in a harmonious way. Just as the state has three distinct elements (the governing, the defending, and the producing bodies), so the individual person has three corresponding elements: the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive. By the “spirited” element, Plato means the passionate aspect of one’s nature, one’s propensity for anger or other irrational emotions. His use of the term “anger” allows for what might be called righteous indignation, the passionate defense of reason against desire. The rational element is the discerning and calculating side of one’s nature; it is what enables one to be wise and judicious. One’s appetitive side is one’s inclination to desire some things in preference to others.

A just person, then, is one who keeps all of these three elements doing their proper work, with the rational element in command. One is brave, says Socrates in the dialogue, if one’s spirited element remains always in the service of reason. One is wise if one is governed by reason, for reason takes into account the welfare of the entire person, and one is temperate if the spirit and appetite work harmoniously under the guidance of reason.

In order to discover those citizens best suited to be Guardians, Socrates proposes that the ideal state educate all its citizens in music and gymnastics, continually observing them to decide upon the sort of occupation for which each would best be fitted. He also argues that the Guardians and Auxiliaries should have no private property, and that the members of each class should share a community of wives and children. These communal features of the ideal state have led many critics to dismiss Plato’s construction as unacceptable. However, it is well to remember that in the dialogue Socrates tells his listeners that he is not concerned about the practicality of his state; the conception of the state is constructed merely to bring out the nature of justice.

In considering the education of the Guardians, Socrates builds the conception of the philosopher as the true aristocrat or rational thinker, the ideal ruler for the ideal state. The philosopher is a lover of wisdom, and the philosopher alone manages to keep appetite and spirit in harmony with reason. Consequently, the Guardians of the state should be educated as philosophers, supplementing their training in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music with training in the philosophic skills of dialectic. The prospective Guardians should not be allowed to undertake philosophic education until they are old enough to take it seriously; such education should not be mere amusement. After his philosophic training, the prospective Guardian should take part in the active life of his times, so that at fifty he can assume political power with some knowledge of the actual matters with which he shall be concerned.

In connection with his discussion of the philosopher, Socrates introduces his famous story of the cave. People are like prisoners in a cave, facing away from the light. Unable to see themselves or anyone else because they are shackled, they observe only the shadows of things on the wall in front of them, not realizing that the reality is something quite different from the shadows. The philosopher is like one who leaves the cave, comes to know things as they really are, and returns reluctantly to help the shackled ones, who think that shadows make up the true world.

The philosopher comes to know reality through a study of the ideas or forms of particular things. The world of experience is like the world of shadows, but the world of ideas is the true reality. For every class of objects there is an idea, a form shared by all particular items in that class of objects. Socrates uses the example of beds: There is an idea-bed, a form shared by all particular beds. One who studies only the individual beds made by carpenters, or only the pictures of beds made by artists, knows only copies of reality (and, in the case of the imitative artist, only copies of copies), but the philosopher, making the effort to learn the idea itself, comes closer to reality.

Socrates objects to poetry and art whenever they are imitative, which they usually are. Although he admits that some poetry can be inspiring in the patriotic training of the Guardians, he stresses the point that imitative art is corrupting because it is misleading. It represents physical things, which in turn are merely copies of the forms or ideas. Works of art are copies of physical things; hence, works of art are at least two steps removed from reality. Furthermore, the artist paints only a single aspect of a thing; hence, strictly speaking, art is three steps removed from reality. It is on this account, as well as because of the immoral effect of the poetic style of all but the most noble poets, that Socrates recommends that imitative poets be banned from the state.

The Republic closes with Socrates’ reaffirmation of his conviction that only the just person is truly happy, for only one who is just harmonizes reason, appetite, and spirit by loving wisdom and the form of the good. The soul is immortal, he argues, because the soul’s illness is injustice, and injustice does not destroy a soul. Since the soul cannot be destroyed by any illness other than its own, and its own cannot destroy it, it must be immortal. Socrates concludes by using a myth about life after death to show that the just and wise ones will prosper in this life and “during the journey of a thousand years.”

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