Republic: The Theatre of the Mind

Plato's The Republic is one of the more widely read works of philosophy of all time. It is a complex work, one that rambles due to the nature of it being a dialogue rather than a pure expository piece, but one with some interesting and applicable ideas within it nonetheless.

The core argument that Plato makes, through using Socrates as the voice of reason, seems to link up to the idea of the creation of a better Republic - hence the title - or a kind of Utopia. He argues that in the end the things that most people pursue in life - wealth, fame, power etc. - are not as important as philosophy - or in other words the knowledge of what to do with wealth, fame and power. He, therefore, upholds justice and rationality over such things.

One of Plato's biggest claims is that a true king should be a Philosopher (or if I remember I think he even mention poet, given that he seems to argue that philosophy and poetry are not dissimilar) King. A King who does not crave leadership for its own merit, but for the good that he can do for others. But it wasn't the big claims that stuck with me as much as a pointed little side-comment that attacking smaller issues is like attacking a hydra.

The reason this comment stuck with me is because of my friends. I have plenty of friends who like to think that they are doing some good (myself included) by attacking every little small issue that comes along to do with injustice or animal cruelty or whatever. I'm not disagreeing that these are important issues, I merely agree with Plato that concentrating on one smaller issue is like cutting the head from a hydra - another related head grows back alongside the same head. The point is not to attack the smaller head, but to attack the bigger issue - the core issue (if it is a negative issue) and see what can be done to change things truly.

As for who should read a work like this? I believe that everyone should read at least snippets or a summary in the course of their lifetime. It may not agree with your own worldview, but there are ideas that you can take away nonetheless. I for one agree with his points about what is truly important is not the physical things, but the merits and uses of such physical things.

Plato's kinda annoying. Sure, he formulated a number of great ideas. In fact these ideas may have revolutionized philosophy back in his time. But these fallacy-ridden arguments don't really sit well. His perception of the perfect state and the perfect man, the just and the unjust man, is so flawed and so out of reach from reality. Despite these, I did learn something, especially about a good deal of ethics, which I think was the only aspect that I liked from this book.

What a beautiful book this is; not only for its philosophical content, but for its form and design! When one reads and basks in the glow of its beauty and reflects that Plato (as did all the writers of the classical age) wrote so well using only ink and papyrus, relying on an alphabet of capital letters alone, without the benefits of our system of punctuation, or even of that convention, taken for granted today, by which we distinguish each word by placing a space between them; when you consider that the dialogue unfolds over the course of 300 pages, and reflect that it has been crafted without the benefit of a word-processor, and that the books of Plato’s day were not codices with numbered pages, but voluminous rolls in which Hercules might be tasked to find a reference; when and if, you stop to reflect on all of this in noticing the care and detail in which everything in the dialogue has been crafted, you should be rightly stunned. Plato is one of the world’s great geniuses, and this work, The Republic, is the most influential book in the history of western Philosophy.

The dialogue as an objet d’art, the artistic product of our writing philosopher, is in magnificence what the Parthenon is to architect and builder. And the Greeks have left us their landmarks not only upon the Acropolis, or in the remnants of the Temple of Apollo on the hillside at Delphi, but in their literary monuments. These latter are more faithful temples of the spirit of Ancient Greece than the ruins of stone can be. Though both display their beauty through elegance of proportion and order, the stones are silent; one must have a careful ear and know how to listen there to hear the ghosts of ancient times. In the dialogues of Plato, however, the voices spring to life, and the reader becomes, as it were, the ghost of which the Dramatis Personae are unaware, and sitting unseen among them listens in wonder to their conversation.

For me, the reading was both difficult and wonderful for three reasons: (1) χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά ‘Beautiful things are difficult,’ and The Republic is not only a beautiful, but a difficult book. Plato does not offer the reader answers in the manner that Aristotle will, but invites the reader to discover truth for himself as he listens to the conversation, follows the arguments, and works them out for himself; there is no other true learning. (2) I was reading it this time as part of an intensive course, and the pace was much faster than I should have liked, because some of the passages are so illuminating and beautiful that one really must put the book down and bask in the splendour of its glow. In this sense, I found that the book has an ennobling quality. It focussed me on noble things; it made me want to be a better man, pursuing justice, temperance, courage, wisdom (the four cardinal virtues). (3) It was my third time reading it, and I felt among old friends who are no longer here, and I was plunged into a spirit of nostalgia, enhanced by ancient Greek music playing in the background as I read, in rebellious modes that were violations of law within the ideal city, the voice of the singers of the Odes of Anacreon, reminding me of the voices of those who had loved me as a child.

When I sat down to write this review I typed out nearly five-thousand words across seven pages. I shall try to distill my earlier thoughts later into a more concise form to expand this review, but for now I should wish only to leave one last comment for those who have read the book and dislike it: all of the objections that may be brought against the concept of the ideal city presented in this book vanish, when it is taken for what it is, namely, a city established in speech in order to help us to see within the soul of man, and to help us discover justice.

I realize now that The Republic is one of those books I really should be reading again every year, at least until I should have that beautiful city, Καλλίπολις, constructed and well founded in my soul. Recommended to all who have a love of ancient things and are on the quest for Truth, Beauty, & Goodness.

My re-reading of this for my university course has led me to the same conclusions I found when I first read it a couple of years back, except this time I am fortunate enough to have understood it better than last time. My conclusions being that Plato, and through him Socrates, was very intelligent, believed he was more intelligent than everyone else (no matter how many times he declared himself unwise) and very much loved to talk. Socrates, in particular, must have been very fond of the sound of his own voice.

You can't give a book that revolutionised philosophy any less than 3 stars, even if about 70% of it features many generalisations, jumping to bizarre conclusions, and claims without good reason. And yes, Plato and Socrates had some brilliant ideas - all the more brilliant because they came up with them first - but they don't measure up to today's version of "rational thinking". Good, but outdated. I suppose the best thing about their ideas was that they laid the foundations for the next 2000 years of Western philosophy and politics.

Gender Equality?

And, though hardly feminists, Socrates and Plato were some of the first to publicly suggest that education should be equal to both genders (apart from military training) and that women should have as large a political role as men, seeing as they make up half of society. Go early Greek gender equality!! Though I suppose the line "whining and crying as if they were but women" (or something to that effect) kind of pisses on that feminist bonfire. Oh well...

Justice?

So here's some of the reasons why The Republic fails. Firstly, Socrates (the character) assumes that because one example demonstrates a certain type of relationship, then this idea can be applied to all. When he is arguing with Thrasymachus about justice, Thrasymachus says that justice is whatever the rulers decide it to be and that they use this power for their own good and the weaker (i.e. the subjects) get screwed over. Socrates then uses the example of a physician who is stronger than his patients but his agenda is only to help them. Well:

1) Even if a physician selflessly helps his patients, this does not prove that rulers have the best interests of their citizens in mind. There is not a naturally occurring relationship between the two.

2) As Thrasymachus goes on to point out, the physician is doing it for his own benefit because he is paid to do the job.

Stupidity & Contradictions

So then Socrates starts with the bullshit that doesn't get refuted because the author is on his side, of course. He says that the physician is divided into two roles: that of physician and that of moneymaker (yep). So, basically the two are separate and have nothing to do with each other... um, I beg to differ. You see? Some of the arguments are ridiculous. He also goes on to contradict himself later by stating that rulers do get a reward for ruling: money! If he had maintained his previous argument, then they should have done it anyway for the simple benefit of their subjects and moneymaking should be a separate thing entirely.

Agent vs. Act Virtue

Plato and Socrates talked a great deal about justice being an agent virtue and not just an act virtue. They believed that it wasn't good enough to act justly, you had to have a good soul as well. Makes sense until you get to where you judge people based on them having a good soul or not - and just how do you do that?

Person A: do you have a just soul?

Person B: oh yes.

Person A: Phew, let's be friends.

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And they have a very warped view of what makes a person good/just. "A just man values wisdom above all else"... does he? I imagine a person who likes to make friends with the super-smart individuals and disregard the rest to be a bit of an ass. Don't you?

I finished reading The Republic on my birthday and now am both older and wiser. The Republic is in essence one long argument why a person should lead a just life verses choosing a life of pleasure, riches, ambition, or power. It is deeply concerned with the nature of the human soul and how to prepare one's soul for eternity. Socrates/Plato uses a plethora of logical examples for this argument, although it is the logic of 400 B.C. Greek culture, which seems somewhat fractured to us today. The Republic has been many things to many people; proof of God’s work in ancient societies as seen by later Christian and Muslim theologians, a font of ideas for every political philosopher from Locke to Marx, a Great Grandfather to the Enlightenment. All in all The Republic is a strange but excellent little book that is well worth the read. Now it’s time to read World War Z!

بخشی از چیزهایی که در موردِ جمهور به نظرم مهم‌ هستند:

منظورِ افلاطون از «جمهور» در عنوانِ کتاب نوعِ حکومتِ جمهوری نیست. منظور تأسیسِ شهر، حکومت یا جامعه است.

افلاطون جمهور را از زبانِ سقراط نقل می‌کند. موضوعِ اصلی عدالت است. عدالت نه به معنای امروزی آن، بلکه به مثابهِ چتری که زیر آن همه‌ی فضایلی قرار می‌گیرد که معمولاً همگان نیک می‌‌دانند. عدالت از منظرِ ذاتی و کارکرد در تقابل با ظلم بررسی می‌شود. افلاطون می‌کوشد ثابت کند عدالت فضیلتی است که هم برای شخصِ عادل و هم برای جامعه نفعِ بیشتری از ظلم دارد.

آرمانشهر، شهری است که افلاطون آن را بهترینِ شهرها می‌خواند و اجرایِ عدالت را لازمه‌ی آن می‌داند. با جزئیات آن را توصیف می‌کند و برای ساخت و حفظش با وسواس دستورالعمل‌هایی را صادر می‌کند. همه‌ی ارکانِ شهر را با جزئیات توصیف می‌کند، از طبقات اجتماعی گرفته تا صنایع، آموزش و پروش، اقتصاد، فرهنگ و ... . فلسفه و فلاسفه در آرمانشهرِ افلاطون رکنِ اصلی هستند.

افلاطون در جمهور نظریه‌ی مُثُل را شرح می‌دهد. او معتقد است از هر چه در جهان وجود دارد، ایده‌‌ و مثالی در کامل‌ترین حالتِ ممکن در جایِ دیگری قرار داد، نسخه‌ای معقول و نامتغیر.

آنچه دیالکتیک یا جدل می‌خوانیم، به اعتباری همین روشِ افلاطون است در جمهور. گفتگو در جمهور سوار بر رشته‌ای از پرسش و پاسخ‌ به سمت حقیقت حرکت می‌کند و به مرور تصویری کامل‌تر و دقیق‌تر از حقیقت نمایان می‌شود.

This book was presented as a dialogue between Cocrates and the author as well as three other consorts. They are discussing such matters as "What is goodness? and what is knowledge?"
It is a good read yet not an easy one. It requires a lot of thought and introspection.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond

Quite gripping – especially for a text so old. It almost seems that the Prussian State and the Third Reich used this as a blueprint. Moreover, the regress from aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy and finally to tyranny – along with their typical men - does not sound very promising for the current democracies that want to “progress” into something else. This is also the typical project and call for political action that got Plato and other “philosopher kings” into all kinds of trouble since then.

The theory of truth – along with the cave allegory - is a masterpiece. Truth for Plato goes hand in hand with being – and does not have much in common with what we call (propositional) truth these days. The philosopher – as opposed to the sophist, the common people, and the rest – is the only one who gets a glimpse of the truth; while truth in turn is connected with Being, Good, God, immortality, eternal soul, reincarnation, ideas, essences, and so on. And while talking of the ideas – God created them and, for example, the carpenter follows the idea of bed to create beds; while the painter who paints beds should be kicked out of the state - and similar for the poets and other imitation arts.