Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion - Plato, The Republic
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The Republic - Book 9
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Everyman wrote: "I'm hoping that I'll be able to set aside some serious time later this week to dig into the later books of the Republic.Meanwhile, those who are ready to move forward, here's the thread to get ..."
Plato writes “in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep”. (Jowett translation 9.572b)
Does that mean that living even good dreams is not possible? Is this a proper question to ask?
This is a very interesting turn, isn't it? Socrates wants to talk about the nature of desires that are uncontrollable, like those in dreams. But he seems to suggest that even dreams are to some extent under the control of reason. Are they? Can the Dionysian impulse be completely subordinated to reason? Can the tyrant Love be tamed?
Thomas wrote: "This is a very interesting turn, isn't it? Socrates wants to talk about the nature of desires that are uncontrollable, like those in dreams. But he seems to suggest that even dreams are to some ext..."Socrates is probably mainly concerned with the tyrant who is overcome by “old love” (eros) and is a slave to lust, sexual passion. This is metaphorically associated with lust for political power. And it’s what makes a tyrant’s life most miserable and a philosopher king’s life 729 times more happy than a tyrant’s.
Galicius wrote: "Socrates is probably mainly concerned with the tyrant who is overcome by “old love” (eros) and is a slave to lust, sexual passion. This is metaphorically associated with lust for political power."This seems right to me. The "lawless wild-beast nature" that emerges in the democratic man's dreams becomes the tyrant's reality. Eros is part of human nature, but it must be subjected to the rule of reason. When it is allowed to rule the soul the result is Bacchic frenzy; when allowed to rule the state, it is tyranny. But it can't be totally suppressed. The city cannot function without its farmers and carpenters and blacksmiths, nor can the soul function without desire. All the parts must work selflessly for the sake of the whole, directed by reason alone. The problem, of course, is that they frequently don't want to.
Thomas wrote: "All the parts must work selflessly for the sake of the whole, directed by reason alone. The problem, of course, is that they frequently don't want to....""Reason alone"? Do you totally discount the knowledge that is attained via passion, emotions, feelings? (E.g., the concepts of Goldman's Emotional Intelligence.) Or, are you simply saying that all those needs be processed by "reasoning"?
Lily wrote: ""Reason alone"? Do you totally discount the knowledge that is attained via passion, emotions, feelings? (E.g., the concepts of Goldman's Emotional Intelligence.)"I don't know about Goldman, but it seems to be what Plato is saying. Feelings and emotions are transitory, conditional, and relative. Knowledge, at least in the Platonic sense, is not.
The message you took from Goldman is somewhat different than the one I did (both are probably present). Mine was that feelings and emotions provide knowledge that may be as valid and insightful as careful analysis. (I may have said before, I had always resisted that view and valued the rational, the empirical analysis, et al, over what our human systems sometimes use to cut to the quick of a matter more rapidly than the cerebral cortex.)
I just had an image of Socrates placing marshmallows in front of Thrasymachus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Adeimantus has the moderation to abstain, Thrasymachus fights to get them all for himself, and Glaucon crams as many as he can into his mouth and loves every minute of it. Reason, spirit, and desire.
Thomas wrote: "I just had an image of Socrates placing marshmallows in front of Thrasymachus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Adeimantus has the moderation to abstain, Thrasymachus fights to get them all for himself, an..."
Fabulous. Perhaps, since he was intetested in the finer things in life, ie, sauces, Glaucon might have topped his with chocolate.
Fabulous. Perhaps, since he was intetested in the finer things in life, ie, sauces, Glaucon might have topped his with chocolate.
My take was that, yes, Glaucon did want a city better (what a subjective term. And didn't Socrates hold that that first city, the one Glaucon disparaged, was a more "just" city...but most people, and certainly people like Glaucon wouldn't want to live there?)...Glaucon wanted a city "better" than the "city of pigs," but what he meant by that was that those people in that city were like pigs because they were much like animals....just eating and sleeping and doing grunt-work. Remember Glaucon wanted the couches to sit on and he wanted relishes for the food (the pig people had no relishes, none of the extras, in their city of pigs polis). Glaucon wanted more from his city, he wanted more from life. (he wanted, perhaps, even more marshmellows???).
Adelle wrote: "....just eating and sleeping and doing grunt-work. "Ha! Good one, Adelle.
I guess we moderns have a different perspective on the character of swine. I spent some time working on a hog farm in my youth, from which I conclude that the Athenians probably had the more accurate point of view. (And from which I also conclude that Glaucon had a point.)
Book 9 is in some ways the final book of the Republic. Socrates and Glaucon come to some final conclusions.The political conclusion is that the Aristocratic regime is the best and most just of all, and that the Aristocratic person, who is "kingliest and king of himself" is the happiest. At the other end of the spectrum, the Tyrannical regime is the worst, and the Tyrant is the most miserable, unhappy, and unlucky person. (580)
Is this a sound conclusion? It certainly seems like the right conclusion, after all this, but is his argument watertight?
At 577 Socrates talks about the man who is fit to judge the happiness of the tyrant, a man "who is able with his thought to creep into a man's disposition and see through it," and then he asks Glaucon if he wants "us to pretend that we are among" such men who can judge the tyrant. Is this a sound argument? Pretending?
He then turns to an argument based on the city-soul analogy, reasoning from the conditions of the tyrranic city to the state of the tyrants soul. He has used this method of argument throughout the Republic, and I'm still suspicious of it.
Thomas wrote: "Book 9 is in some ways the final book of the Republic. Socrates and Glaucon come to some final conclusions.
The political conclusion is that the Aristocratic regime is the best and most just of all..."
I found Book IX to be most intriguing. I had questions...I didn't understand that whole middle section at 572a......
at 573a, I don't get WHY the "wicked wizards [...] want to make him a tyrant"??? Why? What's in it for them if the young man becomes a tyrant? I wonder this because I would think that a tyrant would work for his own ends [or his own tyranical passions]...how, I wonder, does this advantage those who WANT him to be a tyrant?
For Plato's purposes of demonstration, I can understand why in all four instances, there is decay in society (democracy to tyranny, etc.) Even the beautiful city decayed. Is Plato saying that all societies decay? That no societies [baring Plato's draconian re-making of society from scratch] ever improves itself to the the next highest level??? And if this is so, then isn't Plato in effect saying --- since the city is but man writ large --- that man can not improve himself? Or where am I off in my reasoning?
Thomas wrote: The political conclusion is that the Aristocratic regime is the best and most just of all"...
And yes, towards the end that does seem to be the conculsion Socrates puts forward. Yet, at back in Book 8, Part 8, Tyranny, Plato has Socrates say, "We've still ot the most splendid society and individual of all to describe" (562a).
mmm...unless Socrates is using the word "splendid," not in a postive-approval sense, but in the sense of being over-the-top...far beyond the norm...
Was Socrates a tyrant, do you suppose? At 563c he says, "You must have heard it said that this is the greatest merit of a democratic society [liberty], and that for that reason it's the only society fit for a man of free spirit to live in......and, an excessive desire for liberty at the expense of everythin else is what undermines democracy and leads to the demand for tyranny."
On some level, isn't that what has happened to Socrates? He pushes and pushes and pushes with his inquiries, button-holing his fellow citizens, "stinging" them with his incessant questioning of the premises of their lives. Beyonds the bounds of societal decency, he persists. In going as far as he did, was Socrates acting tyrannically? Was this questioning passion driving his life? Had his need to know enslaved him? (Something comparable to the sex drive Socrates speaks of in Book IX enslaving some young men?)
Mmmm..."stinging". Could Socrates be thought of as a drone...not gainfully employed....stinging the productive worker bees?
Thomas wrote: "At 577 Socrates talks about the man who is fit to judge the happiness of the tyrant, a man "who is able with his thought to creep into a man's disposition and see through it," and then he asks Glaucon if he wants "us to pretend that we are among" such men who can judge the tyrant. Is this a sound argument? Pretending?"
mmmm...well...I'm on shaky ground here...It seems to me that that part right there...that section where Socrates suggests that he and Glaucon "creep into a man's disposition and see through it" undermines the entire arguement on which the Republic was constructed. Or so it seems to me.
Because...Socrates "built" the city because he said that they could then "see" the individual better. The city is the individual writ large and all that.
Yet...when we "see" the beautiful city....we see nothing but the externals. And thus it is with a man. Any man. Even a tyrannical man. What we "see" are the externals...the actions. And from the actions we have to try to judge the internal processes of the man. The "why did he do that?" and the "does that make him happy?" questions.
And there is NO way to judge the internal from viewing the external. Our only barrometer is to check our own internals, right? How would I feel if...?
So really, when Socrates says to Glaucon, let us "to pretend that we are among" them...isn't he kinda scrapping the whole Let-us-look-at-the-City argument?
If Socrates and Glaucon are going to try to determine the internals of the tyrannt...by going inside...If Socrates is now saying that we can't tell whether the tyrannt is happy or unhappy by simply looking at him and observing his actions, that we must "creep in"...well, it just seems to me that they could have done that at the beginning.
The political conclusion is that the Aristocratic regime is the best and most just of all..."
I found Book IX to be most intriguing. I had questions...I didn't understand that whole middle section at 572a......
at 573a, I don't get WHY the "wicked wizards [...] want to make him a tyrant"??? Why? What's in it for them if the young man becomes a tyrant? I wonder this because I would think that a tyrant would work for his own ends [or his own tyranical passions]...how, I wonder, does this advantage those who WANT him to be a tyrant?
For Plato's purposes of demonstration, I can understand why in all four instances, there is decay in society (democracy to tyranny, etc.) Even the beautiful city decayed. Is Plato saying that all societies decay? That no societies [baring Plato's draconian re-making of society from scratch] ever improves itself to the the next highest level??? And if this is so, then isn't Plato in effect saying --- since the city is but man writ large --- that man can not improve himself? Or where am I off in my reasoning?
Thomas wrote: The political conclusion is that the Aristocratic regime is the best and most just of all"...
And yes, towards the end that does seem to be the conculsion Socrates puts forward. Yet, at back in Book 8, Part 8, Tyranny, Plato has Socrates say, "We've still ot the most splendid society and individual of all to describe" (562a).
mmm...unless Socrates is using the word "splendid," not in a postive-approval sense, but in the sense of being over-the-top...far beyond the norm...
Was Socrates a tyrant, do you suppose? At 563c he says, "You must have heard it said that this is the greatest merit of a democratic society [liberty], and that for that reason it's the only society fit for a man of free spirit to live in......and, an excessive desire for liberty at the expense of everythin else is what undermines democracy and leads to the demand for tyranny."
On some level, isn't that what has happened to Socrates? He pushes and pushes and pushes with his inquiries, button-holing his fellow citizens, "stinging" them with his incessant questioning of the premises of their lives. Beyonds the bounds of societal decency, he persists. In going as far as he did, was Socrates acting tyrannically? Was this questioning passion driving his life? Had his need to know enslaved him? (Something comparable to the sex drive Socrates speaks of in Book IX enslaving some young men?)
Mmmm..."stinging". Could Socrates be thought of as a drone...not gainfully employed....stinging the productive worker bees?
Thomas wrote: "At 577 Socrates talks about the man who is fit to judge the happiness of the tyrant, a man "who is able with his thought to creep into a man's disposition and see through it," and then he asks Glaucon if he wants "us to pretend that we are among" such men who can judge the tyrant. Is this a sound argument? Pretending?"
mmmm...well...I'm on shaky ground here...It seems to me that that part right there...that section where Socrates suggests that he and Glaucon "creep into a man's disposition and see through it" undermines the entire arguement on which the Republic was constructed. Or so it seems to me.
Because...Socrates "built" the city because he said that they could then "see" the individual better. The city is the individual writ large and all that.
Yet...when we "see" the beautiful city....we see nothing but the externals. And thus it is with a man. Any man. Even a tyrannical man. What we "see" are the externals...the actions. And from the actions we have to try to judge the internal processes of the man. The "why did he do that?" and the "does that make him happy?" questions.
And there is NO way to judge the internal from viewing the external. Our only barrometer is to check our own internals, right? How would I feel if...?
So really, when Socrates says to Glaucon, let us "to pretend that we are among" them...isn't he kinda scrapping the whole Let-us-look-at-the-City argument?
If Socrates and Glaucon are going to try to determine the internals of the tyrannt...by going inside...If Socrates is now saying that we can't tell whether the tyrannt is happy or unhappy by simply looking at him and observing his actions, that we must "creep in"...well, it just seems to me that they could have done that at the beginning.
Adelle wrote: "I found Book IX to be most intriguing. I had questions...I didn't understand that whole middle section at 572a...... "This is a puzzling section, I agree. The political and psychological distinctions get blurred.
My take is that Socrates is showing how the basest parts of the soul gain control of the person. Even the subconscious gains control over the man and he acts according to his dreams. Reason is subjugated to desire. The political part of it comes out at 575b -- those who have succumbed to this Dionysian life tend to band together, and as their numbers grow they generate a leader, the tyrant, who of course has the most tyrannical soul of all.
Do all societies degenerate? It seems to be a natural process -- all things decay. Unless there is something to stop it, that is. Without education, the soul degenerates, and without laws (and enforcement of the laws) so do societies.
Adelle:mmm...unless Socrates is using the word "splendid," not in a postive-approval sense, but in the sense of being over-the-top...far beyond the norm...
I think he's being a bit of a smart alec here. We know he doesn't think this is "splendid" at all. (The Greek is καλλίστη, "most beautiful," so "splendid" is an accurate translation.)
Adelle: Mmmm..."stinging". Could Socrates be thought of as a drone...not gainfully employed....stinging the productive worker bees?
He actually describes himself this way in the Phaedo. I'll see if I can find the passage later.
More later... lots to think about here!
Thomas, first, thank you for your take on that 572...
I found that section so difficult to follow clearly...Regarding the last part of the paragraph at 572a, I was willing to hazard a guess and say that the truth coming to the dreamer while he slept might be like Jungian references to dreamers finding the truth while they slept. But that center section: "his desires he has neither starved nor indulged, so that they sink to rest and don't plague the highest part of him with their joys and sorrows" There I'm lost. A plea for moderation in one's life??? But what if the desires are base? Should base desires, too, be neither starved nor induled, lest they bother us in our dream state?
I admit it's been a challenge for me to keep making the transition between "this is the State"/"this is the individual." Maybe if I re-read the Republic in 5 years of so it would be easier.
But look, if we go to 575, (the state/the political view...lol...and that makes as much sense to me as anything I could come up with), than, to keep the analogy, in order to keep the criminals to "only a few characters of this kind" (at 575b) (like the healthy man wished to keep the two non-reason parts of him quieted as he slept (572a), is Socrates suggesting, too, that the minor criminal elements in society be "neither starved nor indulged"??? Is he saying that a society must find a balance...and learn to live with a certain amount of minor criminality?? Don't over-punish minor criminals, lest they become worse criminals???? I don't know. Well, nevermind about that.
Thomas wrote: "Do all societies degenerate? It seems to be a natural process -- all things decay. Unless there is something to stop it, that is. Without education, the soul degenerates, and without laws (and enforcement of the laws) so do societies. "
I like your explanation here. That perhaps education and good practices and proper laws can help maintain society...and individuals. I like that there is SOME small hope for us, because obviously we're not going to exile all the adults and start fresh with 10-year-olds. I like that even starting where we are {alas, the only place we CAN start from) that we can slow the deterioration process, possibly reverse it, become better human beings.
[Ach! So hard to get back into The Republic after having been away!}
I found that section so difficult to follow clearly...Regarding the last part of the paragraph at 572a, I was willing to hazard a guess and say that the truth coming to the dreamer while he slept might be like Jungian references to dreamers finding the truth while they slept. But that center section: "his desires he has neither starved nor indulged, so that they sink to rest and don't plague the highest part of him with their joys and sorrows" There I'm lost. A plea for moderation in one's life??? But what if the desires are base? Should base desires, too, be neither starved nor induled, lest they bother us in our dream state?
I admit it's been a challenge for me to keep making the transition between "this is the State"/"this is the individual." Maybe if I re-read the Republic in 5 years of so it would be easier.
But look, if we go to 575, (the state/the political view...lol...and that makes as much sense to me as anything I could come up with), than, to keep the analogy, in order to keep the criminals to "only a few characters of this kind" (at 575b) (like the healthy man wished to keep the two non-reason parts of him quieted as he slept (572a), is Socrates suggesting, too, that the minor criminal elements in society be "neither starved nor indulged"??? Is he saying that a society must find a balance...and learn to live with a certain amount of minor criminality?? Don't over-punish minor criminals, lest they become worse criminals???? I don't know. Well, nevermind about that.
Thomas wrote: "Do all societies degenerate? It seems to be a natural process -- all things decay. Unless there is something to stop it, that is. Without education, the soul degenerates, and without laws (and enforcement of the laws) so do societies. "
I like your explanation here. That perhaps education and good practices and proper laws can help maintain society...and individuals. I like that there is SOME small hope for us, because obviously we're not going to exile all the adults and start fresh with 10-year-olds. I like that even starting where we are {alas, the only place we CAN start from) that we can slow the deterioration process, possibly reverse it, become better human beings.
[Ach! So hard to get back into The Republic after having been away!}
Adelle wrote: "Yet...when we "see" the beautiful city....we see nothing but the externals. And thus it is with a man. Any man. Even a tyrannical man. What we "see" are the externals...the actions. And from the actions we have to try to judge the internal processes of the man. The "why did he do that?" and the "does that make him happy?" questions."
Hasn't Plato taken away our subjectivity? Human emotions and intuition have no place in the city, or in the philosopher's soul, so how do we judge happiness on a personal level? Is this possible without "pretending"? The root of the Greek word for pretending -- prospoeio -- is the word for poetry. (It literally means to make something up, or to acquire something for oneself that isn't one's own.) In some sense we have to "make it up" when we feel for another person, whether it's an attempt to understand a person or to share an emotion with another. There is no way to judge feelings in an ideal way.
Does this mean that the emotions and intuitions we feel for others are not true? If so, why does Socrates resort to "making it up" at this critical point? Socrates, of all people!
Could it be that poetry still serves it purpose?
Thomas wrote: "In some sense we have to 'make it up' when we feel for another person, whether it's an attempt to understand a person or to share an emotion with another...."Profound. I'm going to have to ponder this one, Thomas.
Does this mean that the emotions and intuitions we feel for others are not true?
Well, they do "belong" to us and not necessarily to anyone else. ("Guessing" the emotions and feelings of another is not the same as "knowing" them, i.e., self-revelation of the other and listening by the self (or vice versa) become very crucial to "knowing".)
At 590d Socrates claims it is "best" that one acquires "divine intelligence" for oneself. If, however, one is unwilling to take this "within himself," then it will be "set over him from without." Socrates calls this setting from without "law" and compares such rule to the raising of children. What kind of force is needed to set a law against those who have failed to take this intellegence "within" and how could Plato justify this force as just?
Rachel wrote: "At 590d Socrates claims it is "best" that one acquires "divine intelligence" for oneself. If, however, one is unwilling to take this "within himself," then it will be "set over him from without." S..."I think the force of law here is similar to the role of the guardians in the city. The soul that is unwilling to acquire "divine intelligence" is completely at the whim of the passions, the basest instincts. In the analogy of the city, the workers or craftsmen who run riot in the street and won't follow the laws of the rulers will have to be controlled by the guardians. This "force" is per se just -- simply put, the rulers know best, just as parents do, and the rulers must discipline their citizens via the guardians (and perhaps the laws) just as parents must discipline their children.
I hope that addresses your question. If not, let me know. It's nice to think about the Republic again!
Meanwhile, those who are ready to move forward, here's the thread to get the discussion of Book 9 underway.