Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Republic Books V, VI, & VII
I had forgotten just how crammed full of rich, dense, complex, and important philosophical concepts are in Books V-VII of the Republic. In Book V Plato addresses the "three waves": (1)his claim about the basic equality between men and women; (2) his claim that "women are to belong in common to all the men, that none are to live privately with any man, and that the children, too, are to be possessed in common, so that no parent will know his own offspring or any child his parent"(457cff); and (3) his claim that the city will remain deeply flawed (to put it mildly) until it has a King who is a philosopher. In Book VI Plato details the qualities and strengths of a philosopher that make him well suited to be a king. In so doing he puts several misconceptions of philosophers to rest. Yet he also highlights the extremely fragile nature of philosophers. Plato then moves into a discussion of the Good, and ends Book VI with the famous "divided line" illustration and begins Book VII with the famous analogy of the cave. Book VII continues with a detailed discussion of the training and education of the philosopher so that he can rule over the city.
Having provided a brief sketch of these three books, I want to spend the remainder of this post discussing a few features and a question that I have. First an observation. I never realized just how difficult it is on Plato's account for someone to become a mature philosopher. In particular, I some how failed to notice how easy Plato seems to think it is for the members of a city to utterly corrupt a perspective philosopher. Not only are very few equipped with a nature that is suitable for philosophy, but the those who are face the daunting task of avoiding the myriad impediments that life in the polis provides (intentionally and unintentionally) to stop good moral/philosophical development.
The last sentence points to my second observation: it seems that moral development and philosophical development are extremely similar, at least in Plato's discussion of the philosopher. This makes me wonder about just how rare Plato thinks virtuous people are. That is to say, Plato explicitly states that it is extremely rare to find a philosopher. If the philosopher is also the truly virtuous man, and thus the morally well developed person, than those who do not have his level of moral development are, at least in some sense, immoral. I think that this point becomes even more poignant when you get to the end of Book VI and the beginning of Book VII. There it seems that it is the philosopher who gets a true understanding of the Good, and thus reaches a necessary step for complete moral development. Yet one perhaps may also so that once the philosopher has seen the Good, the philosopher recognizes just how far he has to go to become a good person in light of his encounter, as it were, of the Good. Thus, even though the philosopher already had to possess a certain level of proper moral formation to see the Good, and very few people ever attain that, he still comes to realize that this level of development is but rudimentary. So much the worse, I suppose, for the average Greek (we dare not speak about the Barbarian) who continues to play the "name that shadow" game.
My third observation is that the cave analogy seems to imply that moral development is extremely difficult and violent. The word "drag" comes up multiple times in Plato's discussion of the hike out of the cave. Is it appropriate to say that this imagery reflects how rigorous and coercive moral formation is? If so, how do we square this with how Socrates interacts with his questioners throughout this and many other dialogues. I must say that Socrates, if he is supposed to serve as an example of someone who tries to lead others out of the cave, does not seem to interact in a particularly aggressive or violent way. This leads me to wonder if I am pushing the cave analogy too far.
Finally, my question. Could we please take time to unpack the section on the divided line? I find it quite a challenge to follow Socrates's line of reasoning through that passage. I honestly think that most of my understanding of that passage comes from how Socrates relates it to the cave analogy.
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I was also struck by the difficulties which Socrates describes for anyone to become a mature philosopher. I’d like to expand on your observations and perhaps nuance them a bit. First, you said that Socrates highlights “the extremely fragile nature of philosophers.” If you had said, “the extremely fragile nature of the human condition”, then I surely would have agreed right away. But I thought it was very interesting how Socrates notices that, for someone to be a good philosopher, they need intelligence, good memory, quick wits, a natural love for learning, and so forth. Socrates seems to be describe not a fragile nature, but character traits that make the very strongest of men. It is the fact that these highly desirable traits are also good for succeeding in the marketplace, excelling in the medical arts, gaining power, etc., that such a gifted individual is led away from philosophy to other pursuits. And, as you rightly notice, this distractibility is not just something inherent to one’s nature but is in large part due to one’s exposure to the mob mentality of the polis. We find Socrates once again taking pot shots at the mob, and how hard it is for a young person to resist the pressure of the mob or the crowd: “if anyone is saved and becomes what he ought to be under our present constitutions, he has been saved – you might rightly say – by a divine dispensation.” (492e) The “great compulsion” of the mob is therefore hard to resist, and so the mob forms a kind of generational reduplication of itself, because young people are trained and influenced by it, instead of having philosopher kings who know the good and properly educate and train. This takes me to your second observation: you notice that moral development and philosophical development are extremely similar, and it made you wonder about how rare virtuous people are. I think this is a great point, but I would like to further distinguish what, at least on my reading, Socrates is saying. I don’t think he’s saying that you have to be a philosopher to be virtuous. Surely in his construction of the ideal city he believes that farmers, cobblers, and so forth can be virtuous people. But they must be taught to be virtuous through the right upbringing, etc. If Socrates didn’t think that other people in the Polis, not just the very few philosophers, could become virtuous, then it seems to be a reductio on his entire argument. The problem is, without these philosopher kings to instill virtue and correct upbringing in young people, how will people in lower classes become virtuous? There I’m not sure he provides an answer and so your suspicions may be right. Another question I have is, can someone become virtuous without direct knowledge of the good? In my previous statement I implied this would be possible. But how? Perhaps the good is very hard to find, but once found, can be known by others who are “less” than philosophers?
ReplyDeletegreat post and response exactly the sort of exchange I have in mind for blogging. I think one can be virtuous and not be a philosopher for Plato but not at the highest level or differently put philosopher reduces the fragility of the moral life. This point will come up in the Myth of Er where the virtuous non philosopher makes an unfortunate choice for his next life.
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