The Republic of Plato

306 Pages·1906·14.722 MB·English

by  Plato

THE REPUBLIC OF
PLATO
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PLATO
Plato was born about the year 428 b.c. By birth he be-
longed to a distinguished Athenian family. On his mother's
side he could trace his pedigree as far back as Solon, the great
lavgiver of Athens and among the men of his genera-
;
—
tion he counted as connections t\vO of some note Critias, who
vas prominent among the members of the oligarchical clique
Avhich ruled for a time in 404<; and Antiphon, who had been
one of the leaders in the revolution which temporarily sub-
verted Athenian democracy in 411. Belonging to a family of
anti-democratic tendencies, he naturally became a member,
somewhere about 407, of the circle which had gathered round
Socrates. Here too democracy vas out of favour. The
Socratic principle, that life vas an art, and that the proper
conduct of life therefore depended on knowledge, had its
political application. Politics vas treated as an art the
:
proper conduct of political affairs was shown to depend on
—
knowledge a knowledge Avhich neither the democratic
assembly itself, nor the officials whom it appointed by the
chance of the lot, could be said to possess. The aristocratic
prejudices Avhich Plato inherited would here receive a philo-
sophical justification; at the same time they Avould be
modified, in so far as the right of numbers vas rejected by
Socrates, not in favour of birth, but in favour of \visdom.
When democracy took its revenge upon Socrates in 399, and
PLATO
vi
Athens executed her greatest son, Plato might well feel his
anti-democratic feelings completely justified. Henceforth he
made it his work to defend the fame, and to continue the
teaching, of his dead master. For nearly fifty years his pen
was busy with those dialogues whose literar}^ form itself
seems reminiscent of the conversations and discussions of the
Socratic circle, and whose matter is an expounding, and ex-
panding, of Socratic views. Of these the Apohgy for
Socrates is naturally the first, the Laics the last ; midway
between the two, as the summit of Plato's art and thought,
stands the Republic. Other influences than that of Socrates
had gone to the making of Plato's thought before the yeai's in
which he wrote the Republic, or rather they had united with
that of Socrates to produce the peculiar doctrines of Plato.
From a passage in the Metaphysics of Aristotle we learn that
Plato had been conversant from his youth with the doctrine of
Heraclitus, that all sensible things are in a state of perpetual
flux, and cannot be objects of knoAvledge. But from the
Italic school he had also learned that there is a miity
behind the phenomena of sense, which is discernible by
reason; and he had learned a similar lesson from Socrates.
Socrates, believing that the proper study of mankind vas man,
and neglecting the physical universe to which the Italic school
devoted its attention, had conceived that the knowledge which
was so greatly to be desired in human aff^airs might be to some
extent attained, if onlygeneral definitions of the qualities and
actions of men could by some means be formed. In this way
would Aristotle explain the genesis of Plato's theory of Ideas,
in which the Republic, starting primarily from the purely
Socratic idea of politics as an art, may be ultimately said to
—
culminate. But whatever be the advance of Plato's theory
upon that of Socrates (if one may speak of a Socratic
—
" theory") in one cardinal respect Plato always remained
entirely true to the mind of his master. He never lost that
INTRODUCTION
vii
bent towards a practical reform ofman, and of human society,
which is the distinguishing work of Socrates. It would be
entirely a mistake to regard Socrates, and it would be largely
a mistake to regard Plato, as a pure philosopher. They are
—
prophets and preachers, rather than philosophers trumpets
to summon a wayward people to righteousness, rather than
still small voices of solitude. The Republic is as much meant
to prove, and is earnest in proving, that the eternal laws of
morality cannot be shaken by the sceptic, as are the writings
of the Hebrew prophets to show that God's arm is not
shortened by the disbelief of His people. In life, as well as
in thought, Plato showed the same practical bent. Not only
did he, like Socrates, gather a circle round him, and publicly
teach his views in the "Academy,"^ but he is also said to
have attempted to carry his philosophy into active life (as,
according to the Republic, every philosopher should), and to
have twice visited Sicily with that end in view. On an early
visit in 387, we are told, he came into contact with Dionysius,
the tyrant of Syracuse, and expounded to him so vividly
arguments similar to those of the Republic (the composition
of which may have been already begun), that Dionysius,
annoyed by his denunciation of injustice and depreciation of
tyranny, caused him to be sold into slavery. But Plato did
not leave Syracuse without having deeply influenced the mind
of Dion, the brother of Dionysius' wife ; and on the death of
Dionysius, and the accession of his son, Dionysius the
younger, Dion endeavoured to permeate the mind of his
nephew with Platonic ideas. The State of the RepvJ)lic might
seem likely to be realised in Syracuse, if Dionysius could once
be made philosopher-king instead of tyrant ; and Dion invited.
^A gymnasium about three-quarters of a mile from Athens. G>Tnnasia
covered awide area, and contained open spaces like a modern park. Around
the open running-ground were porticoes, furnished with seats, in which phil-
osophersorrhetoriciansmight discourse.
PLATO
viii
and induced his nephew to concur in inviting, the master
himself, now long released from his slavery, to visit Syracuse
once more. Plato came not only once, but twice (368 and
361); but he failed to make Dionysius a philosopher (having
apparently required that Dionysius should undergo the severe
training sketched in the Republic)^ and only succeeded in
bringing about the expulsion of Dion from Syracuse. If all
these things happened as they are narrated in Plutarch and
the (so-called) letters of Plato, the issue may well have con-
vinced Plato that the Republic (which he had written, perhaps,
betAveen 387 and 368, and attempted to realise between 368
and 361) was indeed a pattern laid up in heaven, but hardly
to be copied on earth. Disillusionised, it may be, he retired
for a time upon the problems of abstract thought discussed in
dialogues like the Sophist. But the old practical bent was not
extinguished: in extreme old age, in a spirit of kindly toler-
ance and half-humorous sadness (as when he speaks of men as
"merelyplaythingsforthegods"),he Avrote the Lazas. Inthis
dialogue (which is almost entirely a monologue, and which
shows something of the garrulity of age) he sketches the idea,
destined to a long history in Greek speculation, of a mixed
constitution, and Avhile still adhering firmly to the ideal of
the Republic, attempts to construct a State on a lower but
more practicable level. And so he died, about 347, at the age
of81, still occupied in the service of man, still hoping for new
things to come, still striving his best to help their coming.
II
The Repiihlic, which was composed in the maturity of
Plato's life, between his fortieth and his sixtieth year, and
which, better than any other dialogue, represents the —fulness
ofhis thought, has come down to us with a double title "the
State" (in Latin, respublica ; hence the name by which it
generally goes), "o?• concerning Justice." In spite of these
INTRODUCTION
ix
two titles, it must not be assumed that it is a treatise either
on political science or on jurisprudence. It is both, and it is
yet more than both. It is an attempt at a complete phil-
osophy of man. It deals as it were with the physiology and
pathology of the human soul in its environment. Primarily,
it is concerned with man in action, and occupied therefore
with the problems of moral and political life. But man is a
whole: his action cannot be understood apart from his
thinking. Socrates had even thought that right action ab-
solutely depended upon right knowledge. And therefore the
Republic is also a philosophy of man in thought, and of the
laws of his thinking. Viewed in this way, as a complete
philosophy of man, the Republic forms a single and organic
whole. Viewed in its divisions, it would almost seem to fall
into fom• treatises, each occupied with its separate subject.
There is a treatise on metaphysics, which exhibits the unity
ofall things in the Idea of the Good. There is a treatise on
moral philosophy, which investigates the virtues ofthe human
soul, and shows their union and perfection in justice. There
is a treatise on education: "the Republic,^'' said Rousseau,
" is not a work upon politics, but the finest treatise on edu-
cation that ever ^va& written." Finally, there is a treatise on
political science, which sketches the proper government, and
the proper laws, (especially in respect of property and
marriage), which should regulate an ideal State. But all
these treatises are woven into one, because all these subjects
as yet were one. There was no rigorous differentiation of
knowledge, such as Aristotle after>vards suggested, rather than
himself made.^ The philosophy of man stood as one subject,
confronting as equal or superior the other subject of the
philosophy ofnature. The question which Plato sets himself
to answer is simply this : Vhat is a good man, and how is a
^Hewrotetwotreatises, theEthicsandthe Politics; butpoliticalscienceand
moralphilosophyareinhiseyesoneandindivisible.
PLATO
good man made? Such a question might seem to belong to
moral philosophy, and to moral philosophy alone. But to
the Greek it was obvious (and if it is not so obvious to-day,
it is still true) that a good man must be a member of a State,
and could only be made good through membership of a State.
Upon the first question, therefore, a second naturally followed:
What is the good State, and how is the good State made?
Moral philosophy ascends (or descends) into political science.
And further,-to a follower of Socrates it \vas plain that a
good man must be possessed of knowledge. A third question
therefore arose: What is the ultimate knowledge of Avhich a
good man must be possessed in order to be good ? It is for
metaphysics to answer ; and when metaphysics has given its
answer, a fourth and final question emerges. By what
methods will the good State lead its citizens towards the
ultimate knowledge which is the condition of virtue? To
answer this question, a theory of education was necessary for
;
education, it must always be remembered, was to the Greeks
(what it still is, if again less obviously) a training of character
and a making of manners, rather than a sharpening of in-
tellect or accumulating of facts.
Such in brief is the scheme of the Republic. Before we
discuss the matter, a vord Avith regard to the form. It
was not any predilection for a particular form of literary
expression which made Plato choose the dialogue for expound-
ing his philosophy. It Avas not even a simple reminiscence of
the Socratic circle. It was the desire to show thought at
work,and to avoid the mere exposition ofits finished products.
Like every genuine teacher, Plato wished to awaken thought
rather than to impart knowledge; and he felt that thought
would best be awakened in his readers, if they were made to
follow the processes of the vriter"'s mind. Now a subject is
discussed inside the individual mind in much the same \vay in
which it is disputed in a circle of talkers. One view is set up,
INTRODUCTION
xi
only to be demolished by another, until some final residuum is
attained. The dialogue is the process of the individual mind
made concrete, Anth its stages translated into persons. It is a
higher and more artistic expression ofthe same tendency which
appears even in the conciselecture-notesof Aristotle,and which
had made Socrates an asker ofquestions and a lover oftalk.
And nowto turn to the matter ofthe Republic. We have
first to notice that much of its eloquence and its zeal springs
from a spirit of indignation alike with contemporary teaching
and contemporary practice, both in the sphere of ethics and
in the sphere of politics. Indignation makes the Republic
\
and have to ask Avhat Avere the grounds ofthis indignation.
Briefly it may be answered, a spirit of excessive individualism
seemed to Plato to have invaded Greece. The Greeks had,
in truth, reached that stage of their development at vhich, no
longer content to accept unquestioningly the laws ofmorality
or the obligations of poHtical life, they had begun to ask the
why and vherefore of these things. Such questioning is at
firstdestructive and there vere apparently manythinkers \vho
;
had come to dispute the existence of any positive morality.
Justice or righteousness, theym"ged, was in reality merely this,
that a man should take what he could get, and the strong man
should take more than the veak. Thus had the feeling of
self, in opposition to an external morality, issued in selfish
individualism. Naturally, the same sense ofindi\ddualism had
infected political theory. The State had come to be regarded
as at best a partnership of individuals and some had even
;
held, that the proper condition of this partnership was its
domination by the strongest individual in his own interest.
These Avere the views which we have learned from Plato to
associate with the Sophists, and Avhich are represented in the
Republic by Thrasymachus. They were views which Plato
felt it necessary to combat at all costs. For the Sophists were
not a school of philosophical thinkers, but the itinerant
PLATO
xii
teachers ofGreece: they were halfprofessors, it has been said,
thinking their way to new ideas; half journalists, occupied
with the dissemination of those ideas. They acquired a hold
on the young, whom they trained for a political life not only
inrhetoricbutalsoinwhatwe shouldcallethicsandpolitics. If
Greece was not to follow in the path they indicated, their
hold on the young must be destroyed and their teaching
exposed. And therefore Plato is concerned to refute the
—
gospel of individualism to restore the eternal laws of
morality. It is his mission to prove that these laws are no
mere "conventions," which must be destroyed to make way for
a regime of "nature," but that theyare on the contraryrooted
beyond all possibility of overthrow in the nature ofthe human
soul and in the system of the universe. That is why a
psychology ofman and a metaphysics of the world enter into
the plan of the Republic. Nor was it enough to rehabilitate
"righteousness." Ifthat were to be done, a true conception
of the State must be attained. It must be shown to be no
mere partnership of individuals, but a moral communion of
souls pursuing the same end in unison. Its rulers must be
proved to be no selfish tyrants, but unselfish philosophers who,
knoAving the nature of the soul and the purpose ofthe Avorld.
inculcate on each and every citizen the ways oflife. To speak
ofthe State in connection with morality was as natural to the
Greek as it is for us to speak of the Church. For the State,
as it has often been said, was to the Greek a Church as well as
a State and wherewe naturallyexpect the Church toreinforce
;
the dictates of morality by the sanction ofreligion, the Greek
expected his State to use political sanctions (which were yet
more than political) for the same high purpose.
But the actual States of Greece seemed to Plato to have
lost their true character and to have forgotten their true aim.
Thinking principally of the Athenian democracy in which he
lived, he found in them two great flaws. One of these, and