Sunday, September 17, 2006

Republic, Ch. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11

(Originally written September 17, 2006 in Book 10)

Plato's Republic
Ch. 6 continued...

This morality so far has been applied only to the community as a whole, not to individuals.

A moral individual will resemble a moral society.

"A community was moral when each of the three natural classes that exist within it did its own job, and also other states and conditions of the same three classes made it self-disciplined and courageous and wise" (Pojman, 145).

Humans resemble the society they live in because the society springs from their nature.

There is a category of the human mind which contains desires, the most prevalent of which are thirst and hunger.

There is a category of the human mind which possesses rationality.

There is a category of the human mind which possess passions.

The Rationality of the mind seeks higher goals (akin to the Guardians).

The Passions seek desire (akin to the Auxiliaries)

The Animal instinct, that which seeks food, drink and sex (akin to the Workers)

Individual morality consists of harmony between the three distinct parts of the mind. Individual immorality is the result of inner conflict or civil war of the mind.

Each part of the mind must properly perform its job and not overstep its bound for their to be a moral individual.

The rational part of the mind must be educated and stretched to reach its full potential. The passions part of the mind must be inculcated with music to soothe and relax it. Once these two parts have been properly trained they will be able to control the larger part: desire.

Desire is the insatiable and greed for tis objects of desire.

The rational part will devise plans to stop unwelcome invasions from outside sources and the passion part will defend it with courage.

The rational part of the mind is the ruler of the mind, the source of wisdom.

The passions part of the mind is the auxiliaries; it is courage.

Self-discipline is the rational part being the rule and the other two parts being willing subjects.

Immorality is any part of the mind overstepping its bounds and intruding on another's rules. It is indiscipline, cowardice and stupidity, any form of badness.

Goodness springs from morality because morality is in accordance with proper nature. Morality is mental health; immorality is mental disease and the source of badness.

Goodness is a consequent of good conduct and badness a consequent of bad conduct.

The community of Plato can be either a kingship (monarchy) or aristocracy. Either way the rulers will be educated properly and the outcome the same.

Chapter 7: Women, Children and Welfare

Plato calls his community good and right (and thus the people individually are good and right). There are four other types of communities which are bad and flawed and corrupt the nature of their inhabitants.

Glaucon, Adeimantus, and Thrasymachus demand an explanation of Socrates' idea of "sharing wives and children"

Socrates admits that he purposefully omitted a detailed discussion because of its enormity. He is also nervous about the plausibility of the topic in being put into action and doesn't want to be accused of wishful thinking. He doesn't want to lead anyone astray because he has not fully formulated his theory.

He starts with equality among male and female guardians. He maintains that convention must be ignored because it may be wrong. (Men and women were not equal in Greece).

The guardians are to be shepherds, the auxiliaries are to be sheepdogs and the workers to be the flock.

Men and women guardians must be educated in exactly the same way.

Men and women auxiliaries must be trained in the same way.

Socrates admits the impractical nature of his proposal. One major, obvious instance is the training in the gymnasium (all gymnasium training was done in the nude). He reminds them though that it used to be mocked for men to train nude, so time could make it reasonable for women to do the same.

Because of the nature of men and women being different they are suited for different tasks. In this system they cannot have the same jobs because it would contradict the system of one nature = one job. Socrates dismisses this criticism as pure rhetoric. It is a verbal distinction masked as a pure critique. He compares it to distinguishing the nature of haired men and bald men.

The nature of men and women can differ vastly but a woman with a medical mind and a man with a medical mind have a nature similar enough to make them both suitable doctors. "If the only difference turns out to be that females bear offspring while males mount females... we'll continue to think that our guardians and their women should have the same occupations" (Pojman, 156).

While females are the weaker sex they can possess the aptitude to be guardians.

Men and women are separate classes. Men are compared to men; women compared to women. The best men are guardians because they are better than other men. The best women are guardians because they are better than all other women. (If a worker man is better than a guardian woman it makes no difference, though this is unlikely because women guardians will have a fine education and the worker man only a skill).

There is no private marriage in the guardian class. All women are to be shared with all men. All children are to be likewise shared. No child is to know who he/she is the child of. No mother or father is to know who he/she is the parent of. The guardians are to be one big incestuous family.

The rulers must employ a bit of deceit to make people believe that sex should only occur between two people of similar standing. That way the best will be procreated and rampant, undisciplined sexual conquests will be minimized.

The rulers will need to employ a fake, but seemingly real, lottery system to have sex. That way the rulers can choose the best mating pairs and the inferior men/women will blame chance for not getting picked and not the rulers.

Women and men should procreate in their prime. Men 25-55; Women 20-40

The act of sex will be performed on fabricated holidays. That way the public will believe that children born out of this time have been blessed and children born out of some other time are not. This will deter too many sexual encounters.

When men and women have passed their prime they are free to have sex whenever, with whomever, but the child must be aborted.

Fathers cannot have sex with daughters and mothers cannot have sex with sons, but these are merely generations  because obviously no one knows their true kin.

The regulations of the guardian class are aimed at eradicating possessions and a feeling of possessiveness.

The best thing for a community is anything that unifies it. The word thing for any community is that which splits it.

This system of community wives/husbands/children is best because it brings unity.

Fear and respect will keep the younger guardians in line.

Men and women will fight alongside one another in war and take children to learn.  The soldiers will know all there is to know about warfare and bring the children to learn only when it is as safe as it can be.

Children will also be on horseback in case the danger becomes too great.

Anyone who fights like a coward or deserts will be demoted to the worker class. Anyone who is brave in battle is to be commended and given free reign to be kissed and kiss anyone he chooses. This is also an incentive for bravery.

Those who die bravely in battle will be crowned deities and their tombs will become worship sites. (Those who are brave in battle and die of old age will receive the same treatment)

If their enemies are non-Greeks then they can enslave them. But Greeks ought not fight other Greeks and definitely not enslave them.

Good soldiers ought not to defile corpses because it is wrong and because it can promote cowardice.

They should not destroy other Greek's homes and crops, but only take the year's harvest in victory.

Conflict between Greeks ought to be called conflict because it is internal. A war is between Greek and non-Greek states.

By not completely devastating another Greek community and only taking one year's crop the two communities can escape perpetual warfare and move towards reconciliation; a goal al Greeks ought to aspire to.

This way conflicts (Greek vs. Greek) are disciplinary actions, not actions motivated by hatred.

Chapter 8: Philosopher Kings

The feasibility of this community is that it can only come to fruition when philosophers become kings or when kings become philosophers.

Socrates starts by pointing out that this community is theoretical and if one were to become actual it would be less perfect than the theoretical community.

Until philosophers become kings or kings practice philosophy with integrity all political systems will be flawed and bad. Political power and philosophy must coincide.

What is a philosopher?

A lover of something must love/desire the whole of it, not an aspect or part. (This is a truly disturbing passage, ca 474d-475b, but pedophilic homosexuality was custom in Greece)

A philosopher is a lover of knowledge. A philosopher's hunger for knowledge of all sorts must be insatiable.

People who enjoy one type of knowledge/expertise with an insatiable appetite for that singular particular branch are not philosophers, but resemble them.

Philosophers seek out things in and of themselves, not things that resemble it. (i.e. a painting is beautiful, but it is not itself beauty. It is a particular manifestation of beauty). Philosophers would seek knowledge of beauty, not knowledge of a particular thing which is beautiful.

Beauty (and things like it) are more real than beautiful things. Thus, anyone seeking more real things seeks truth, which is knowledge; whereas those seeking particular things obtain opinions and beliefs.

Particular things fall between reality and non-reality. Anything that has reality is knowable. Anything that has non-reality is unknowable. Those things that fall between reality and non-reality therefore is somewhere between knowable and unknowable. We cannot call it knowledge because knowledge is reserved for absolute reality. We can't call it unknowable because that is reserved for non-reality. Thus, it must be opinion/belief.

Faculties are those things that give human beings their abilities, i.e. sight, hearing, etc.

Knowledge is the strongest faculty. Opinion/belief is likewise a faculty. Every faculty has its own domain. Therefore knowledge and opinion/belief must have different domains.

The domain of knowledge is reality. Thus belief is not accessible to reality.

Belief cannot be knowledge, nor can it be incomprehension. It is an intermediate between the two.

Philosophers are lovers of knowledge, thus lovers of reality. This is a virtue which would do well for a ruler. Reality is permanent and undying.

Philosophers are as good as any other man in practical aspects and have an advantage because they have a sense for reality.

Philosophers are tenacious and unwavering in their pursuit of the whole./

Philosophers are honest. They are incapable of tolerating falsehood/.

They are self-disciplined. He is not caught up in petty details. He is not small-minded. He will not fear death. He is unswayed by money. He is moral. He is a quick learner, not anti-social, well-angered, and not uncouth. He is not forgetful. His mind must have a knack for proportion and elegance. He is to be cultured. All of these qualities are noticeable at a young age and moldable through proper education.

A true philosopher then, is fit to rule a community.

The common perception of philosophers is that stye are either useless or bad.

Philosophers appear to be useless because the public is so narrow minded that they cannot see anything beyond their immediate gratification.

A true philosopher is a rare human nature.

If an exceptional mind is subjected to bad education it will become exceptionally bad.

Goodness cannot be taught. A person is naturally good or bad. But, when they are swayed by threat or praise all minds are susceptible to falling in with the masses.

The masses are swayed by whims; but philosophers are not swayed. If the masses' opinion changes to something against the philosopher than the philosopher will be regarded as wrong.

Socrates claims there isn't a single political structure in existence that is favorable to philosophy.

Chapter Nine: The Supremacy of the Good

Normally men who learn quickly are carried off into every which way, but philosophers must be quick to learn and remain steadfast in their love of country.

Goodness is the most fundamental quality of a guardian. It is what gives morality its benefit and value.

Some people call pleasure the good and some high browed individuals call knowledge the good. Both are mistaken.

Goodness is the goal of all activities of all men/women.

Socrates admits he cannot give a proper definition of goodness, but can explain it through a simile somewhat. Light is the thing that makes it possible for us to see. Our sight depends on an outside source for it to work. Each of our eyes resembles this light giver, which is the sun. Sight is not granted by the Sun, but it is enabled by the sun.  Goodness is like the sun. It enables us to have knowledge, but does not provide it itself.

When goodness is gone or dim (as with a light) knowledge is unattainable and all one can have is murky beliefs.

Goodness gives things its truth and the possibility of knowledge to us. Knowledge and truth resemble goodness, but neither are goodness.

The Analogy of the Cave

All men are trapped in the cave. There is a fire in the back that causes shadows of the men to move along the wall. All men in the cave can only see the shadows. They believe that those shadows are the true reality. But one man escapes from the cave. He cannot see clearly right away because his eyes are not used to the sunlight. Slowly but surely he begins to see and comprehend the world outside of the cave. He is now contemplating and comprehending the goodness. Understanding the goodness compels him to return to the cave and free all of his fellow prisoners. But his eyes cannot adjust back to the darkness and all who hear his story believe he is mad. But knowing the goodness he is compelled to enlighten everyone.

Education is the cultivation of person's potentials.

The guardians must come to know the good but mustn't be allowed to stay up there. They must educate all their fellow prisoners. This way the rulers will know that no material goods can substitute for the good and won't be tempted to acquire private wealth and guide the whole community toward the good.

Chapter 11 Warped Minds, Warped Societies

There are five political systems. The community they founded is the only good and right one.

What are the other four?

1. The Cretan & Spartan system
2. Oligarch
3. Democracy
4. Noble Dictatorship (The ultimate political disease)

With five political systems there are five natures of people.

Aristocracy is their system and the person within this system has been proved to be moral.

The person of the Cretan/Spartan system is competitive and ambitions. Socrates calls this system a timocracy. A timocracy is an aristocracy gone bad by the passions ruling and corruption of money. The timocracy falls between the system it grew out of (aristocracy) and oligarchy. The timocracy will be ruled by money hungry politicians, but because they want to appear as an aristocracy they will do it ins secret and become mean-spirited. They will stress physical training, but neglect philosophy, culture are reason. The persons of this society will be ambitious, eager to submit to authority, but wanting power. They will be obstinate. They will grow into mercenaries.

An oligarchy is a system in which a wealthy few rule. They love money over goodness. The oligarchy lacks unity and individuals are valued over society as the whole. Envy corrupts the oligarchical community. Wealth is admired and goodness is despised. There becomes a rigid two class-system: the extremely poor and the lavishly wealthy. They will despise one another and plot against each other. They will fail in war. Their rulers will be pseudo-rulers and fail in their duties. Crime will rise out of the utter poverty. It is caused by a poor political system, bad upbringing and poor education. They will use property value for ruling criterion, which inevitably leads to bad ruling.

A timocratic person will devolve into an oligarchic person at the loss of wealth. He will abandon ambition and take to hoarding money and became a mercenary.

An oligarch will put the highest value on money. He will become ascetic. He will attempt to make profit out of every situation. But he will be unwilling to spend it. He will be uneducated and stupid.
They will be criminals as guardians and beggars elsewhere. They will be quick to spend other people's money to fulfill their drone desires.

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