Books 3 - 9

I. Overview
I. Recap
The Dialectic
The City in Speech
The Division of Labor & the Critique of Democracy
The Noble Lie
 II. The Three Parts of the Good
 III. Does the City Exist According to
Nature?

The Dialectic
Position 1
Questioning
Position 2
Questioning
Position 3
Questioning
Note, this is the only way to proceed that requires us to submit to nothing besides the rules of logic

Four Basic Human Virtues:
Wisdom
Moderation
Courage
Justice

The City in Speech
 Easier to see things writ large, so Plato draws an analogy between justice in individual person and just city

The City in Speech
 What would a just city look like?
 Division of Labor
– 1.
more efficient.
– 2.
better able to fulfill economic needs of city

The City in Speech
 Implications:
– Surplus
–
–
–
Luxuries
Need for order need for police/army who is best able to govern?
– need specialization in politics ( II, 374a )

The City in Speech
Guardians
Auxiliaries
Craftsmen

The Noble Lie
 Explain class position through the noble lie
( III, 414c-d )
 How to get others to believe the tale?
“I cannot see any way, he [Glaucon] said, to make them believe it themselves, but the sons and later generations might, both theirs and those of other men” ( III, 414d )

The Noble Lie

In what sense a “Noble” lie?
“Our rulers will probably have to make considerable use of lies and deceit for the good of their subjects. We said that all such things are useful as a kind of drug” ( V, 459d ).

The City in Speech


What are the implications of Socrates’ argument for democracy?
Would Socrates’ views support democracy?

The City in Speech
 Anti-democratic since
– democracy is view that politics is too important to be left to professionals and everyone should take part
– No specialization, no division of labor
– Therefore inefficient way to do things
– Plato argues for the need to be good at one thing since diversification implies incompetence

The City in Speech


Life in the classes (Book IV):
Guardians – communal, no private life (V, 460)
– Sexual Equality/Inequality ( V, 457a )
– Community of Women
“If by being well educated they become sensible men, they’ll easily see to all this and everything else we are now leaving out – that the possession of women, marriage, and procreation of children must as far as possible be arranged according to the proverb that friends have all things in common” ( Book V, 424a )

 Common Life
– Education, gymnastics, eating, living
–
–
Breeding program ( V, 459d )
Infanticide ( V, 461 )
– Anonymous parenting ( V,460 )

Critique of Democracy
 Tension between virtues of private life and public life private virtues responsibility to narrow/parochial interests (family, e.g.) love overrides moral value

Critique of Democracy
 Democracy is irrational since virtues of private life conflict with virtues of public life
– Citizen vs . family
– Respect vs . love

Critique of Democracy
 Love : feeling for someone who stands in special relation to you
 love the person, not the properties of the person
 Respect : not who you are, but what you have done (i.e., respect the properties not necessarily the person).
 here, can replace the person

The City in Speech
 The result:
“… in establishing our city, we are not aiming to make any one group outstandingly happy, but to make the whole city so, as far as possible…we think we are fashioning the happy city not by separating a few people and making them happy, but by making the whole city so” ( IV, 420b ).

Critique of Democracy

In Plato’s City
– the guardians will love the city
– the lower classes have no public life
 How does this help?
 What is the point of this mode of living?

The City in Speech
 To create a ruling class of philosophers – recall earlier account of philosopher as one who pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge
 Rulers will be philosopher kings

The City in Speech
“Cities will have no respite from evil, my dear
Glaucon, nor will the human race, I think, unless philosophers rule as kings in the cities, or those whom we now call kings and rulers genuinely and adequately study philosophy, until, that is, political power and philosophy coalesce, and the various natures of those who now pursue the one to the exclusion of the other are forcibly debarred from doing so.” (V, 472d).

The Virtues of the City
Where do we find the 4 Human Virtues in the City?
Wisdom
Moderation
Courage
Justice

The Virtues of the City
 Wisdom?
Guardians
 Courage?
Auxiliaries
 Moderation?
Throughout the whole city

The Virtues of the City
 Justice?
“In some way then possession of one’s own and the performance of one’s own task could be agreed to be justice” ( IV, 432b )

The Virtues of the City
And Injustice?
“The meddling and exchange between the three established orders does very great harm to the city and would most correctly be called wickedness…And you would call the greatest wickedness worked against one’s own city injustice?”

II. The Three Parts of the Good
 Recall, from previous discussion the tripartite division of the city and the soul:

The Three Parts of the Good
Guardians
Auxiliaries
Craftsmen
Classes of City
Reason
Spirit
Desire
Classes of the Soul

The Three Parts of the Good
 All desires are subject to tripartite classification:

 Appetitive --
– instinctual (natural) desires -- sleep, eat, procreate

 Spirited
– first part that is distinctively human
–
– stand back and reflect on ourselves as creatures having desires
 contrast with animals?
 desire to be experienced in a certain way, have others think of us in a certain way desire to exercise power of various sorts

– source of all our social desires
 e.g., glory, honor, envy, love

 Rational
– idle curiosity
– desire for knowledge with no ulterior motive than to have knowledge.

III. Is the City Natural?







Recall acorn analogy
Come into the world with potentiality (telos)
Need to fulfill our nature
Good then determined by extent to which we fulfill that potential
Can always ask whether something (“X”) exists by convention or by nature
What is nature -- end -- of man?
Value of the city is that it allows for the full development of individual potentialities -not that it secures some “common good” but rather without it, none of us could reach our full human potential

III. Is the City Natural?
 Best city is one which allows capacities to develop
 Must reconcile good of whole city with good of each person, and this is the only way to do that
 Let rational part rule soul
 If person lets appetite or spirited part rule, need to have external source of rational rule

III. Is the City Natural?


We need to take seriously the distinction between right and wrong
Note…Problem of dual responsibilities of philosopher king

 Recall significance of Division of Labor
 Note that the philosopher has two jobs
 Philosopher may be the perfect guy to be on top, since he/she is most self-governing due to philosophy, BUT…


Socrates’ city does not allow the philosopher to specialize, as the Philosopher-King has 2 jobs (i.e., philosopher and ruler)
 In other words, best city for a philosopher may be a morally indifferent one like Athens
 Everybody except the philosopher needs
Socrates’ city in order to be all that they can be
Evolution of the City