A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Irvin S. Cobb - "Cobb's Anatomy"

Clarence Johnson - "THE LIFE OF ME, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY"

Kenneth Grahame - "Dream Days"

Christopher Marlowe - "Dr. Faustus"

The Republic

P >> Plato, translated by B. Jowett >> The Republic




When Thrasymachus has been silenced, the two principal respondents, Glaucon
and Adeimantus, appear on the scene: here, as in Greek tragedy (cp.
Introd. to Phaedo), three actors are introduced. At first sight the two
sons of Ariston may seem to wear a family likeness, like the two friends
Simmias and Cebes in the Phaedo. But on a nearer examination of them the
similarity vanishes, and they are seen to be distinct characters. Glaucon
is the impetuous youth who can 'just never have enough of fechting' (cp.
the character of him in Xen. Mem. iii. 6); the man of pleasure who is
acquainted with the mysteries of love; the 'juvenis qui gaudet canibus,'
and who improves the breed of animals; the lover of art and music who has
all the experiences of youthful life. He is full of quickness and
penetration, piercing easily below the clumsy platitudes of Thrasymachus to
the real difficulty; he turns out to the light the seamy side of human
life, and yet does not lose faith in the just and true. It is Glaucon who
seizes what may be termed the ludicrous relation of the philosopher to the
world, to whom a state of simplicity is 'a city of pigs,' who is always
prepared with a jest when the argument offers him an opportunity, and who
is ever ready to second the humour of Socrates and to appreciate the
ridiculous, whether in the connoisseurs of music, or in the lovers of
theatricals, or in the fantastic behaviour of the citizens of democracy.
His weaknesses are several times alluded to by Socrates, who, however, will
not allow him to be attacked by his brother Adeimantus. He is a soldier,
and, like Adeimantus, has been distinguished at the battle of Megara (anno
456?)...The character of Adeimantus is deeper and graver, and the
profounder objections are commonly put into his mouth. Glaucon is more
demonstrative, and generally opens the game. Adeimantus pursues the
argument further. Glaucon has more of the liveliness and quick sympathy of
youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world.
In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall
be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks that
they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their
consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the beginning
of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens happy, and is
answered that happiness is not the first but the second thing, not the
direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good government of a State.
In the discussion about religion and mythology, Adeimantus is the
respondent, but Glaucon breaks in with a slight jest, and carries on the
conversation in a lighter tone about music and gymnastic to the end of the
book. It is Adeimantus again who volunteers the criticism of common sense
on the Socratic method of argument, and who refuses to let Socrates pass
lightly over the question of women and children. It is Adeimantus who is
the respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and
more imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the
greater part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy
and the conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus.
Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty
in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false hits
in the course of the discussion. Once more Adeimantus returns with the
allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he compares to the contentious State;
in the next book he is again superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end.

Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages
of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who
is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by
proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the Sophists,
and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who know the
sophistical arguments but will not be convinced by them, and desire to go
deeper into the nature of things. These too, like Cephalus, Polemarchus,
Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one another. Neither in the
Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a single character
repeated.

The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In
the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in
the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the
Apology. He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the
Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue
seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates;
he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the
corrupters of the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive,
passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas
of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that
the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in
philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the
notions of other men. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or
the conception of a perfect state were comprehended in the Socratic
teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of
final causes (cp. Xen. Mem.; Phaedo); and a deep thinker like him, in his
thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch
on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive
evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem.) The Socratic method is nominally
retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the
respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But
any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows
wearisome as the work advances. The method of enquiry has passed into a
method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is
looked at from various points of view. The nature of the process is truly
characterized by Glaucon, when he describes himself as a companion who is
not good for much in an investigation, but can see what he is shown, and
may, perhaps, give the answer to a question more fluently than another.

Neither can we be absolutely certain that Socrates himself taught the
immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the
Republic (cp. Apol.); nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths
or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he
would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His
favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonium,
or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar
to himself. A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent
in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of
example and illustration (Greek): 'Let us apply the test of common
instances.' 'You,' says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, 'are so
unaccustomed to speak in images.' And this use of examples or images,
though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into
the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has
been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus
the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of
knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of
the parts of the soul. The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot
in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers
in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog, or
the marriage of the portionless maiden, or the drones and wasps in the
eighth and ninth books, also form links of connexion in long passages, or
are used to recall previous discussions.

Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as
'not of this world.' And with this representation of him the ideal state
and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though
they cannot be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to
other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked
upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil. The
common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only
partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgement
of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men
in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with
the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for
they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only
acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth--
words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to
measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature. But they
are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well
with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a
Hydra's head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the
most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the
different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and
amid the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains
the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth,
without which he would have ceased to be Socrates.

Leaving the characters we may now analyse the contents of the Republic, and
then proceed to consider (1) The general aspects of this Hellenic ideal of
the State, (2) The modern lights in which the thoughts of Plato may be
read.

BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene--a festival in honour
of the goddess Bendis which is held in the Piraeus; to this is added the
promise of an equestrian torch-race in the evening. The whole work is
supposed to be recited by Socrates on the day after the festival to a small
party, consisting of Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and another; this we
learn from the first words of the Timaeus.

When the rhetorical advantage of reciting the Dialogue has been gained, the
attention is not distracted by any reference to the audience; nor is the
reader further reminded of the extraordinary length of the narrative. Of
the numerous company, three only take any serious part in the discussion;
nor are we informed whether in the evening they went to the torch-race, or
talked, as in the Symposium, through the night. The manner in which the
conversation has arisen is described as follows:--Socrates and his
companion Glaucon are about to leave the festival when they are detained by
a message from Polemarchus, who speedily appears accompanied by Adeimantus,
the brother of Glaucon, and with playful violence compels them to remain,
promising them not only the torch-race, but the pleasure of conversation
with the young, which to Socrates is a far greater attraction. They return
to the house of Cephalus, Polemarchus' father, now in extreme old age, who
is found sitting upon a cushioned seat crowned for a sacrifice. 'You
should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at
my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for
conversation.' Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old
man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed
to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny
of the passions is no longer felt. Yes, replies Socrates, but the world
will say, Cephalus, that you are happy in old age because you are rich.
'And there is something in what they say, Socrates, but not so much as they
imagine--as Themistocles replied to the Seriphian, "Neither you, if you had
been an Athenian, nor I, if I had been a Seriphian, would ever have been
famous," I might in like manner reply to you, Neither a good poor man can
be happy in age, nor yet a bad rich man.' Socrates remarks that Cephalus
appears not to care about riches, a quality which he ascribes to his having
inherited, not acquired them, and would like to know what he considers to
be the chief advantage of them. Cephalus answers that when you are old the
belief in the world below grows upon you, and then to have done justice and
never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to
have deceived anyone, are felt to be unspeakable blessings. Socrates, who
is evidently preparing for an argument, next asks, What is the meaning of
the word justice? To tell the truth and pay your debts? No more than
this? Or must we admit exceptions? Ought I, for example, to put back into
the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him
when he was in his right mind? 'There must be exceptions.' 'And yet,'
says Polemarchus, 'the definition which has been given has the authority of
Simonides.' Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and
bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument
to his heir, Polemarchus...

The description of old age is finished, and Plato, as his manner is, has
touched the key-note of the whole work in asking for the definition of
justice, first suggesting the question which Glaucon afterwards pursues
respecting external goods, and preparing for the concluding mythus of the
world below in the slight allusion of Cephalus. The portrait of the just
man is a natural frontispiece or introduction to the long discourse which
follows, and may perhaps imply that in all our perplexity about the nature
of justice, there is no difficulty in discerning 'who is a just man.' The
first explanation has been supported by a saying of Simonides; and now
Socrates has a mind to show that the resolution of justice into two
unconnected precepts, which have no common principle, fails to satisfy the
demands of dialectic.

...He proceeds: What did Simonides mean by this saying of his? Did he
mean that I was to give back arms to a madman? 'No, not in that case, not
if the parties are friends, and evil would result. He meant that you were
to do what was proper, good to friends and harm to enemies.' Every act
does something to somebody; and following this analogy, Socrates asks, What
is this due and proper thing which justice does, and to whom? He is
answered that justice does good to friends and harm to enemies. But in
what way good or harm? 'In making alliances with the one, and going to war
with the other.' Then in time of peace what is the good of justice? The
answer is that justice is of use in contracts, and contracts are money
partnerships. Yes; but how in such partnerships is the just man of more
use than any other man? 'When you want to have money safely kept and not
used.' Then justice will be useful when money is useless. And there is
another difficulty: justice, like the art of war or any other art, must be
of opposites, good at attack as well as at defence, at stealing as well as
at guarding. But then justice is a thief, though a hero notwithstanding,
like Autolycus, the Homeric hero, who was 'excellent above all men in theft
and perjury'--to such a pass have you and Homer and Simonides brought us;
though I do not forget that the thieving must be for the good of friends
and the harm of enemies. And still there arises another question: Are
friends to be interpreted as real or seeming; enemies as real or seeming?
And are our friends to be only the good, and our enemies to be the evil?
The answer is, that we must do good to our seeming and real good friends,
and evil to our seeming and real evil enemies--good to the good, evil to
the evil. But ought we to render evil for evil at all, when to do so will
only make men more evil? Can justice produce injustice any more than the
art of horsemanship can make bad horsemen, or heat produce cold? The final
conclusion is, that no sage or poet ever said that the just return evil for
evil; this was a maxim of some rich and mighty man, Periander, Perdiccas,
or Ismenias the Theban (about B.C. 398-381)...

Thus the first stage of aphoristic or unconscious morality is shown to be
inadequate to the wants of the age; the authority of the poets is set
aside, and through the winding mazes of dialectic we make an approach to
the Christian precept of forgiveness of injuries. Similar words are
applied by the Persian mystic poet to the Divine being when the questioning
spirit is stirred within him:--'If because I do evil, Thou punishest me by
evil, what is the difference between Thee and me?' In this both Plato and
Kheyam rise above the level of many Christian (?) theologians. The first
definition of justice easily passes into the second; for the simple words
'to speak the truth and pay your debts' is substituted the more abstract
'to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Either of these
explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both
fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the
antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of
established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to
attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions
of morality. The 'interrogation' of moral ideas; the appeal to the
authority of Homer; the conclusion that the maxim, 'Do good to your friends
and harm to your enemies,' being erroneous, could not have been the word of
any great man, are all of them very characteristic of the Platonic
Socrates.

...Here Thrasymachus, who has made several attempts to interrupt, but has
hitherto been kept in order by the company, takes advantage of a pause and
rushes into the arena, beginning, like a savage animal, with a roar.
'Socrates,' he says, 'what folly is this?--Why do you agree to be
vanquished by one another in a pretended argument?' He then prohibits all
the ordinary definitions of justice; to which Socrates replies that he
cannot tell how many twelve is, if he is forbidden to say 2 x 6, or 3 x 4,
or 6 x 2, or 4 x 3. At first Thrasymachus is reluctant to argue; but at
length, with a promise of payment on the part of the company and of praise
from Socrates, he is induced to open the game. 'Listen,' he says, 'my
answer is that might is right, justice the interest of the stronger: now
praise me.' Let me understand you first. Do you mean that because
Polydamas the wrestler, who is stronger than we are, finds the eating of
beef for his interest, the eating of beef is also for our interest, who are
not so strong? Thrasymachus is indignant at the illustration, and in
pompous words, apparently intended to restore dignity to the argument, he
explains his meaning to be that the rulers make laws for their own
interests. But suppose, says Socrates, that the ruler or stronger makes a
mistake--then the interest of the stronger is not his interest.
Thrasymachus is saved from this speedy downfall by his disciple Cleitophon,
who introduces the word 'thinks;'--not the actual interest of the ruler,
but what he thinks or what seems to be his interest, is justice. The
contradiction is escaped by the unmeaning evasion: for though his real and
apparent interests may differ, what the ruler thinks to be his interest
will always remain what he thinks to be his interest.

Of course this was not the original assertion, nor is the new
interpretation accepted by Thrasymachus himself. But Socrates is not
disposed to quarrel about words, if, as he significantly insinuates, his
adversary has changed his mind. In what follows Thrasymachus does in fact
withdraw his admission that the ruler may make a mistake, for he affirms
that the ruler as a ruler is infallible. Socrates is quite ready to accept
the new position, which he equally turns against Thrasymachus by the help
of the analogy of the arts. Every art or science has an interest, but this
interest is to be distinguished from the accidental interest of the artist,
and is only concerned with the good of the things or persons which come
under the art. And justice has an interest which is the interest not of
the ruler or judge, but of those who come under his sway.

Thrasymachus is on the brink of the inevitable conclusion, when he makes a
bold diversion. 'Tell me, Socrates,' he says, 'have you a nurse?' What a
question! Why do you ask? 'Because, if you have, she neglects you and
lets you go about drivelling, and has not even taught you to know the
shepherd from the sheep. For you fancy that shepherds and rulers never
think of their own interest, but only of their sheep or subjects, whereas
the truth is that they fatten them for their use, sheep and subjects alike.
And experience proves that in every relation of life the just man is the
loser and the unjust the gainer, especially where injustice is on the grand
scale, which is quite another thing from the petty rogueries of swindlers
and burglars and robbers of temples. The language of men proves this--our
'gracious' and 'blessed' tyrant and the like--all which tends to show (1)
that justice is the interest of the stronger; and (2) that injustice is
more profitable and also stronger than justice.'

Thrasymachus, who is better at a speech than at a close argument, having
deluged the company with words, has a mind to escape. But the others will
not let him go, and Socrates adds a humble but earnest request that he will
not desert them at such a crisis of their fate. 'And what can I do more
for you?' he says; 'would you have me put the words bodily into your
souls?' God forbid! replies Socrates; but we want you to be consistent in
the use of terms, and not to employ 'physician' in an exact sense, and then
again 'shepherd' or 'ruler' in an inexact,--if the words are strictly
taken, the ruler and the shepherd look only to the good of their people or
flocks and not to their own: whereas you insist that rulers are solely
actuated by love of office. 'No doubt about it,' replies Thrasymachus.
Then why are they paid? Is not the reason, that their interest is not
comprehended in their art, and is therefore the concern of another art, the
art of pay, which is common to the arts in general, and therefore not
identical with any one of them? Nor would any man be a ruler unless he
were induced by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment;--the reward
is money or honour, the punishment is the necessity of being ruled by a man
worse than himself. And if a State (or Church) were composed entirely of
good men, they would be affected by the last motive only; and there would
be as much 'nolo episcopari' as there is at present of the opposite...

The satire on existing governments is heightened by the simple and
apparently incidental manner in which the last remark is introduced. There
is a similar irony in the argument that the governors of mankind do not
like being in office, and that therefore they demand pay.

...Enough of this: the other assertion of Thrasymachus is far more
important--that the unjust life is more gainful than the just. Now, as you
and I, Glaucon, are not convinced by him, we must reply to him; but if we
try to compare their respective gains we shall want a judge to decide for
us; we had better therefore proceed by making mutual admissions of the
truth to one another.

Thrasymachus had asserted that perfect injustice was more gainful than
perfect justice, and after a little hesitation he is induced by Socrates to
admit the still greater paradox that injustice is virtue and justice vice.
Socrates praises his frankness, and assumes the attitude of one whose only
wish is to understand the meaning of his opponents. At the same time he is
weaving a net in which Thrasymachus is finally enclosed. The admission is
elicited from him that the just man seeks to gain an advantage over the
unjust only, but not over the just, while the unjust would gain an
advantage over either. Socrates, in order to test this statement, employs
once more the favourite analogy of the arts. The musician, doctor, skilled
artist of any sort, does not seek to gain more than the skilled, but only
more than the unskilled (that is to say, he works up to a rule, standard,
law, and does not exceed it), whereas the unskilled makes random efforts at
excess. Thus the skilled falls on the side of the good, and the unskilled
on the side of the evil, and the just is the skilled, and the unjust is the
unskilled.

There was great difficulty in bringing Thrasymachus to the point; the day
was hot and he was streaming with perspiration, and for the first time in
his life he was seen to blush. But his other thesis that injustice was
stronger than justice has not yet been refuted, and Socrates now proceeds
to the consideration of this, which, with the assistance of Thrasymachus,
he hopes to clear up; the latter is at first churlish, but in the judicious
hands of Socrates is soon restored to good-humour: Is there not honour
among thieves? Is not the strength of injustice only a remnant of justice?
Is not absolute injustice absolute weakness also? A house that is divided
against itself cannot stand; two men who quarrel detract from one another's
strength, and he who is at war with himself is the enemy of himself and the
gods. Not wickedness therefore, but semi-wickedness flourishes in states,
--a remnant of good is needed in order to make union in action possible,--
there is no kingdom of evil in this world.

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.