Plato’s Republic: part II
 6. Communism in the Republic (416a-417b
& 457d-461)
• Limited to 2 classes
• No private property; live in barracks
• No private families
• Meals in common
• Temporary marriages arranged by a
fixed lottery
Plato - The Republic - slide 1
Plato’s Republic
• Children taken from parents
• A eugenics program
 Justification for this scheme
• Principal justification: The common
good
• Secondary justifications:
– Population control
– Implementing the eugenics
program
Plato - The Republic - slide 2
Plato’s Republic
 Adeimantes’ objecton (419a-420a):
Won’t the rulers & military be unhappy
living this ascetic lifestyle?
• Socrates’ reply
– Avoid squabbles over property
(464d-e)
– Avoid “difficulties and hardships”
of raising a family (465c)
Plato - The Republic - slide 3
Plato’s Republic
– Avoid debts
– Can spend their leisure on
gymnastics, hunting, and horseriding contests (412b)
– Rewards of military heroism
Plato - The Republic - slide 4
Plato’s Republic
 7. The philosopher-kings
 Glaucon’s query: Can this state really
exist? (471c)
 Socrates’ answers
• First answer: model & modeled
(472c-e); theory & practice (473ab).
Plato - The Republic - slide 5
Plato’s Republic
• Second answer (a very famous
passage): “Unless either
philosophers become kings . . . “
(473c-e)
– Philosopher-kings
 But who is the philosopher?
• lover of wisdom (475b)
• searcher for the truth
• one who has knowledge of the Forms
or Ideas (476c, 479a, 480a)
Plato - The Republic - slide 6
Plato’s Republic
• are few in number (496a-c)
 Note that there is no constitution in
the Republic. Plato trusts the wise
ruler, the philosopher-king.
• Cf. the Laws
Plato - The Republic - slide 7
Plato’s Republic
 8. The theory of Ideas or Forms
• The position that there is another
realm beyond the physical which is
made up of permanent, unchanging,
universal absolutes, which are
independent of both the physical
world and the human mind.
Plato - The Republic - slide 8
Plato’s Republic
• Ideas are perfect models or
exemplars of things and actions in
the physical world.
• Things and actions in the physical
world are second-best, imperfect
copies.
• The souls of human belong to the
realm of Ideas.
Plato - The Republic - slide 9
Plato’s Republic
 Connection of the theory of Ideas to
Plato’s dualistic position on human
nature
• The souls of human belong to the
realm of Ideas.
• In this life, human souls are
alienated, distracted, unable to be
fulfilled.
Plato - The Republic - slide 10
Plato’s Republic
• The Phaedo: Philosophy is the
practice of dying! (Phaedo 63e-68b)
– Explanation of this strange saying.
 Connection to Plato’s strong
soul-body dualism and to his
dualistic metaphysics
Plato - The Republic - slide 11
Plato’s Republic
dualistic metaphysics
dualistic human nature
World of Ideas
soul - akin to the Ideas
Physical world
body
Plato - The Republic - slide 12
Plato’s Republic
 9. The allegory of the cave (beginning of
Bk VII, 514-519)
 Some suggested levels of the allegory
• metaphysical
• epistemological
• political
 Why philosopher-kings rule for the
common good & not out of selfinterest?
Plato - The Republic - slide 13
Plato’s Republic
 10. The five forms of government
• Presented as stages in the decline of
the perfect state
• Why does Plato describe the possible
decline of his perfect state?
Plato - The Republic - slide 14
Plato’s Republic
• The five forms
• (1) Aristocracy (547c) - Plato’s
preferred form
– An aristocracy of philosopherkings
– How might this decline?
Plato - The Republic - slide 15
Plato’s Republic
• (2) Timocracy (545b, 547)
– Rule by the military
– Its possible decline
 class divisions
 ruling class accumulates
private property
Plato - The Republic - slide 16
Plato’s Republic
• (3) Oligarchy (550c)
– Rule by the rich
– How might it decline?
 “Spendthrifts” stir up the
masses against the rich
Plato - The Republic - slide 17
Plato’s Republic
• (4) Democracy
– The city resounds with “freedom
and freedom of speech” (557b).
– “Each person can arrange his own
life within the city in whatever
way pleases him” (557b).
Plato - The Republic - slide 18
Plato’s Republic
– “You’d expect it [democracy] to be
an enjoyable kind of regime-anarchic, colourful, and granting
equality of a sort to equals and
unequals alike.” [Cf. Grube trans.:
“It looks as though it’s [democracy] an
enjoyable, lax, and variegated kind of
political system, which treats everyone
as equal, whether or not they are”
(558c).
Plato - The Republic - slide 19
Plato’s Republic
– A thoroughly unjust society; the
antithesis of justice
– The decline of democracy
• (5) Tyranny (562a)
– Rule by persons who rule for power
and wealth
Plato - The Republic - slide 20
Plato’s Republic
 11. Art in the Republic (595a-607d)
 The imitative arts are to be banished
from the Republic
 Aside on the mimetic theory & art in
ancient Greece
Plato - The Republic - slide 21
Plato’s Republic
• Plato’s reasons for banning the
imitative arts
– (1) Imitative works of art are
three-times removed from the
real (597e) [Waterfield
translation: “two generations away
from reality.”]
 Distracts from pursuit of the
truth
Plato - The Republic - slide 22
Plato’s Republic
– (2) The imitative arts appeal to
the passions (606d)
 Thereby they distort the
proper ordering of the parts
of the soul-- reason ought to
be in control
– Plato’s charming challenge: Give
me an argument to restore the
imitative arts to the Republic
(607c-d)
Plato - The Republic - slide 23