Philosophy 224
Plato’s Vision of the Human
Plato (428-347 BCE)
Plato was from an old
aristocratic family in Athens.
Many of the important people of
his time appear as characters in
his dialogues.
• As a young man, Plato was greatly
interested in philosophy and
politics. He was a friend and
companion of Socrates. After the
death of Socrates, he fled Athens.
• Upon returning to Athens around
385 BCE, he founded his school,
the Academy, which many people
call the first university. It lasted
until 529 ACE. He taught at the
academy, with a few
interruptions, until his death.
•
Plato’s Work
Plato’s philosophical project is available to us
primarily through a series of dialogues.
• The dialogues pose us a particular problem of
interpretation.
•
• They are very tightly constructed dramatic
presentations of various philosophical issues.
• Though the philosophical content is at the heart
of these dialogues, it is not a simple matter to
separate the dramatic elements from the
philosophical.
• Actually, we might not even want to, as Plato
himself seems to suggest that the dramatic form
is important to the content.
Socrates (470-399 BC)
•
Like many other characters
in Plato’s dialogues,
Socrates was a real person.
We know some things
about him, because he was
a relatively prominent
Athenian. He came from a
middle class background.
He was usually described
as a robust, though
unattractive man. He was
born at the time of the
peak of Athenian power
and was an adult at the
time of the Peloponnesian
war, in which he served
with distinction.
The Republic
The Republic is generally regarded as Plato’s
masterwork.
• It’s a dialogue devoted to the question: What is
Dikaiosune?
•
• Dikaiosune is a complicated Greek word. It is usually
translated as ‘justice,’ but probably means something closer
to ‘the proper way to live one’s life.’
•
In the dialogue, Socrates’s two main interlocutors
(Glaucon and Adiemantus) ask Socrates to
accomplish two things:
• Provide an account of human nature which makes clear
why Dikaiosune suits us;
• Explain how we can create a person of Dikaiosune
(education) and demonstrate that their life is the best life.
Book I

In the text, we have just the first of the ten books which comprise
the Republic.
◦ Though it basically just sets the stage for the discussion to come, it does
establish some important negative points, particularly in the debate with
Thrasymachus.

Read the first 2 sentences. Help set the context.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Mythic element to the setting. Pireaus, the port city of Athens,
literally means ‘beyond land’—land beyond the river. Pireaus has a
unique position—the long walls place it both in and out of the polis.
Bendis is a goddess of the underworld.
All of these things point to an identification of the progress of the
book with a trip to Hades (the underworld). Hades is the land
beyond the river Lethe (forgetfulness). Cephalus is the first person
he talks to (described as being on the threshold between life and
death).
As in Hades, Socrates confronts three judges (Cephalus, Polemarchus
and Thrasymachus).
There is also an identification of Thrasymachus with Cerebus, “He
coiled himself up like a wild beast…” (31).
Cephalus and Polemarchus
Let’s pick up the dialogue when Socrates is taken by Polemarchus to the
house of his father, Cephalus.
 When Socrates goes to pay his respects to Cephalus, they engage in
conversation about the problems of old age. This conversation quickly
turns to question of just action and thus the topic of the dialogue is
announced: What is Justice? (Dikaiosune).
 Cephalus gets out of the conversation quickly, but his role is taken up by
his son (his heir) who offers a series of definitions all of which are quickly
refuted by Socrates:

◦ D1: Justice is to give to each what they are owed. This clearly can’t be right—
example of a mad friend.
 NB: 26, justice is defined as a craft (techne).
◦ D2: Justice is to benefit one’s friends and to harm one’s enemies.
 This is the traditional Greek understanding of justice and Socrates goes to some lengths
to disprove this notion.
 He starts by nit-picking a little bit but eventually advances two arguments which have
real impact: D2a: many people mistake who is their friend and who is their enemy
(epistemological problem); D2b: a truly just person would never harm anyone (harming
people makes them bad, justice can’t make people bad, ergo, 335d, D2 can’t be right
(30)).
Thrasymachus Part 1
Thrasymachus enters the conversation, initially to
mess with Socrates, but eventually offers his own
definition of Dikaiosune.
 D3: Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the
stronger (33), where stronger means ruler.
 S’s initial response is to offer an epistemological
objection akin to the one offered against D2—Rulers
aren’t infallible, so they will occasionally make laws
that are not to their advantage, therefore, T’s
definition would seem to suggest that sometimes
what is Just would be to the disadvantage of the ruler

◦ Notice that D3 amounts to a form of conventionalism—
justice is whatever the ruler says it is.
Thrasymachus, Part II
T responds by purifying the notion of ruler (a ruler is only a
ruler when they make laws to their advantage).
 S then shifts ground and gets T to acknowledge that the
excellence in a craft (including ruling) comes not in what the
practice of the craft does for the practitioner, but in what it
does for the object of the practice (37).
 T counters with the example of the shepherd. Cares for the
sheep, but not for the sheep’s sake, but for his own. He then
goes on to expand on his account of Justice (38-9):

1.
2.
3.
4.
A just man (in the conventional sense) always gets less than
an unjust one (in the conventional sense).
A person of power always outdoes everyone else.
The greatest injustice (one which is not mixed/limited with
justice) has the greatest rewards.
People avoid injustice not because it is bad, but because they
are afraid of punishment.
Socrates’s Response

1.
2.
The rest of book I is concerned with S’s refutation of
these claims.
Shepherd analogy: S points out that the fact that all practitioners of a
craft demand pay for their work shows that they are not themselves
benefitted by the practice (41).
S then concerns himself with refuting the claim that the life of an unjust
person is better than that of a just one.
◦ He begins by getting T to admit that his suggestion amounts to the claim that
injustice is not just more profitable, but rather is the choice of the virtuous and
the wise.
◦ S then concentrates on this notion of outdoing and connects it to the notion of
virtue (excellence). A person who lacks excellence wants to outdo both those
like him and those unlike himself, while a person with virtue only those unlike
himself (ex., musician). So, justice is virtue and wisdom and injustice is vice and
ignorance.
3.
The focus then turns to the effects of justice and injustice, and in
particular, which one is more powerful. What S points out is that any
expression of power necessitates a unified purpose, but injustice
interrupts this unity. So any expression of power necessitates justice.
Is a life of Dikaiosune best?
As a last point, S acknowledges that it still hasn’t been proven
that a just life is better and happier than an unjust one.
 Tries to respond to this with the function argument. His first
attempt is with what is known as the Function Argument.

◦ P1 The function of a thing is that which the thing alone can do
or what it does better than anything else (eyes for seeing)
◦ P2 Having a function implies having a virtue—lacking this virtue
amounts to lacking the capacity to perform the function.
◦ P3 The Soul’s function is to rule, think and live.
 corollary: virtue of the soul makes possible ruling wisely, living well.
◦ P4 Justice is the virtue of the soul (agreed to by T earlier in the
discussion).
________________________
◦ Conclusion. The just soul will rule wisely, live well and be happy
and the unjust one won’t.
We still need to talk about human Nature
The account is, if anything, more complex than the
account we get of justice.
 Book I doesn’t give us much to work with, but the
rest of the Republic does. In particular a section called
the Allegory of the Cave.
 The Allegory is part of Plato’s response to
metaphysical and epistemological issue concerning
universals like dikaiosune: namely, what sort of things
are they and what sort of knowledge is it that we
have of them?
 Plato offers three different analogies or allegories to
help us understand his answers to these questions.
The Allegory of the Cave is the final (and unifying) of
these.

Platonic Metaphysics
Because of the limitations of the material covered in
the text, it’s difficult to discern Plato’s account of the
nature of reality there.
 Actually, it’s a challenge in its own right, and there are
important disagreements that continue to this day
about this issue.
 We can say a few things that are generally accepted.

◦ Plato was a metaphysical dualist. Reality is composed of
two different metaphysical orders.
◦ The most fundamental order is formal, not physical. The
forms are universal aspects of reality.
◦ Particular things get their being from the forms. The world
of experience is a metaphysically dependent world.
The Analogy of the Line
The Cave
The Prisoners



All that a person like those described as
being chained in front of the wall could see
of themselves, other people, and the puppets
would be shadows on the wall.
All that they could have any sensory
experience of would be mediated by the wall
(hearing=echo).
The implication is clear: we are like
prisoners in the cave (for the most part,
humans live on the bottom part of the line),
but there is a way out.
The Escapee

What if a prisoner were released? What would her
experience be like?
◦ She would be disoriented, her senses painfully struggling to deal
with the increase in illumination/change in object, and her
consciousness struggling to process the new experience.
◦ If someone asked her, she’d likely insist that the familiar shadows
were more real than the blurring/buzzing confusion she was
currently experiencing.
Eventually she would orient to her new context and she
would grasp the nature of the illusion that she had lived in.
Her senses would be capable of distinguishing the faint light
of the exit of the cave, and she would likely enough explore
it and find her way into the full light of the sun.
 What would her experience be like at this stage? Probably
much like when she was first freed (though with more
confidence). Eventually she would discover that the sun
(Good) is the truth of the whole.

The Philosopher
What do you think the mood of this lucky person
would be? How would she evaluate her situation
relative to the situation of the people still in the cave?
In the face of the gap between the situations, she
might be motivated to return to the cave. Why?
 What would the experience of the return be like?
She would once again be blind, but this time by
darkness (ignorance) rather than light (access to
knowledge).

◦ Her former colleagues would doubtless be tempted to
blame her blindness and lack of fit on what she know
knows, and thus stigmatize her accomplishment.
◦ If she kept trying to convince people to accept what she
knows to be true, they’d likely end up killing her (like
Socrates).
Human Nature
So, what does the cave analogy suggest about Plato’s
understanding of human nature?
 Reason gives us the capacity to bridge the ontological
gap between the formal and material dimensions of
reality (the intelligible and visible worlds).
 We are bodies, caught up in the visible world and
thus susceptible (like the prisoners) to the trap of
recognizing only that which the limited understanding
of Doxa makes available.
 But, if we order our soul correctly (if Diakosune rules
it) we can be philosophers, and thus recognize the
truth of the formal, intelligible world.
