David Antonini Master s Student; Southern Illinois Carbondale December 26, 2011 Overcoming Attempts to Dichotomize the Republic Abstract: In this paper, I argue that attempts to dichotomize the Republic fail because the moral and political projects that modern scholars attempt to divide it into are based on a modern conception of citizen and individual. I rely on key passages in the Republic itself and secondary literature to elucidate the point that the so called city-soul analogy is much more than an analogy. By coming to recognize the Republic as more than a work concerned only with justice in the individual soul, we gain an insight into the Greek conception of individual as citizen, thus collapsing the dichotomy that modernity has given to us. Near the end of the discussion, it is recognized that Plato saw the role of the philosopher as an individual who overcomes either/or distinctions, and the irony emerges that Plato provided us with a solution to the very problem we were dealing with.
As with many Platonic dialogues, a varying range of interpretations exist and the Republic certainly does not escape this fate. One of the main disagreements is if we should take the work to be one of political or moral philosophy. Does Plato divide the city into three classes of citizens just so that we may see more clearly the way the individual soul is divided into three parts? Is this simply a move on Plato s part to magnify for us the way the he sees the individual soul as being structured? If we answer affirmatively to these questions, then we can see the Republic as being a work of moral philosophy. If, however, we ask a different set of questions, we of course end up with a different set of answers. What if, instead, we were to ask: Is the ideal city analogized to the soul not simply to make Plato s conception of the soul clearer, but rather to suggest that the soul should resemble the structure of the ideal city? If we give this normative question a normative answer, this would seem to imply that the Republic is a work of both moral and political philosophy and, in fact, this is the position I wish to take. I find it wrongheaded in the first place to attempt to dichotomize the Republic, and for Plato and later Aristotle, such a distinction need not be made because the moral and political were to be understood in terms of one another, not in opposition to the other. The citizen and the individual were not mutually exclusive terms as we might think today. In what follows, I will defend this interpretation by relying on the text of the Republic in order to clarify the position. I will further suggest if we can utilize and adopt the ancient conception of person and citizen being one in the same, we can make significant progress in our own troubled political climate today. To begin, I would like to look at the case to be made that the Republic is not simply a work of moral philosophy dealing only with the individual, but rather, in order to understand justice in the individual soul, an examination of justice in the city is necessary. This is not to say
that we only need the city as a model that can be discarded once we have been able to analogize it to the individual soul. One of the main objections to the model theory is that Plato explores the structure and functioning of the ideal city in ways that indicate he is interested in its use as more than a model. In Book V, for example, Plato discusses what role women should play in the city and it would be difficult to define exactly how this fits neatly into the analogy of city and soul. Something like discussing the roles and opportunities for women is something that is political by its very nature, and it would be quite difficult to fit this into a framework that is purely analogical. When discussing the use of models in his Note on Plato s Republic, Raphael Demos writes No feature-we have said-must be found in the model unless it is paralleled by something else in the original (306). Granted, this is a very restricted view on the use of the concept of modeling generally; however, Demos point is well taken. If the role of the model is to serve as a guide to examining what something else will look like, Plato would not feel the need to invest time in exploring details of the city which will bear no resemblance to the individual. Demos suggests this very interpretation when he writes that Plato provides a very elaborate picture of the ideal city with features which are in no way comparable to anything in the picture of the ideal man (307). It is important to note that I am not denying that Plato is using the larger picture of the city to serve as a model for what the individual soul will look like because Socrates says this explicitly in Book IV when discussing the possibility of being able to see justice in the individual by examining the city. Socrates says, if we should attempt to see justice first in some bigger thing that possessed it, we would more easily catch sight of what it is like in one man (IV, 434d/e). The point however is not to deny that Plato is using an argument by analogy because
that would simply be false, but the question to ask is: does this suggest that the object or concept s significance that is doing the modeling is diminished simply by virtue of it being a model? I think the answer to this question is no and in the case of the Republic, it is undeniably not true. The very fact that Plato chose to use the ideal city to model for his readers what the ideal soul would look like is indicative of the importance Plato thought could be found in this concept. The individual person resides in the larger community around him; he/she does not live in isolation. The city and its surrounding culture provide the soul and psyche with the proper education. In setting up his ideal city, Plato places much emphasis on the proper education that the youth should receive because it is at this point that a person is most impressionable and will internalize, as Jonathan Lear puts it, what they are taught. In Inside and Outside the Republic, Lear writes: By now it should be clear that, for Plato, satisfying the human need for culture is a process of taking cultural influences into the psyche. Let us call this process, whatever it is precisely, internalization. (189). In this work, Lear is concerned with precisely the problem I am in this paper, and he suggests that the relationship between the moral, or as he calls it psychological and the political is one characterized by interdependence. For him, it is an absurdity to even try and separate the Republic into separate moral and political projects; understanding of one is integral to an understanding of the other. If we attempt to separate the two, the Republic may appear disjointed and not come across as a coherent work. However, if we understand the interdependence that Lear proposes is present in Plato s philosophy, then the Republic can be saved from any charges of incoherence or disjointedness. As Lear puts it, What holds the Republic together is Plato s understanding of what holds people and polis together (185). If we can, then, view the psyche
as internalizing the external culture, then it is quite clear how the one side of the relationship works. What about the other side of the relationship? How is the polis affected by the psyche? As Lear says, instead of internalizing culture like the psyche does, the process is reversed and he calls it externalization. Lear writes, Then, for Plato, the polis is formed by a process of externalization of structures within the psyches of those who shape it (192). In order to understand the entirety of the project in the Republic, we must consider both of these processes as ongoing and dependent upon each other, and not giving more weight to either one. Another objection that can be made against those who charge that the Republic is a work of moral and not political philosophy is the fact that Plato indeed thought that the character we often ascribe to certain nations is simply a reflection of the character of the individual citizens of those nations. It would be foolish to describe a nation or a country as being a certain way if the citizens themselves did not also possess those same characteristics. Malcolm Schofield in Plato: Political Philosophy agrees: The claim is that the only reason for ascribing such traits to these nations is that the human beings populating them are like that (256). This is the key premise in setting up the city-soul analogy in Book IV where it is first introduced. This premise would take the form of a conditional statement and it would look something like this: If one is ascribe character X to City A, then the citizens of City A possess character X as well. If we accept this premise initially, then we can tentatively grant Plato his city-soul analogy, notwithstanding the logic of setting up the equivalence of the three parts of the soul to the three parts of the city. While an examination of this might be worthwhile, as I stated near the beginning, I do not see that as being fruitful for this particular discussion.
Again, the point is that Plato is not merely putting this forward as an analogy, but that he thinks one can look at historical examples of the above premise. Socrates questions Glaucon: Isn t it quite necessary for us to agree that the very same forms and dispositions as are in the city are in each of us? I said. Surely they haven t come from any other place. It would be ridiculous if someone should think that the spiritedness didn t come into the cities from those private men who are just the ones imputed with having this character (IV, 435e). Socrates then goes on to discuss different countries and their corresponding character traits. On the surface, this does not seem to be a controversial point and we can again grant it to Plato without much trouble. This entire discussion relates to a point I made near the beginning which is that the distinction of citizen and individual is not a relevant or even real distinction that Greeks made in the first place. If this distinction was not an important one for the Greeks and more specifically for Plato, how are we to understand the Republic as being a work of only moral philosophy? The individual can only attain to the right kind of soul and develop the proper virtues in the city that promotes these ideals. In Books VIII and IX, this point becomes even more apparent with the discussion of the degeneration of cities and the corresponding types of souls that characterize this degeneration. What is the significance of Plato taking the time to show how a city can deteriorate into the types of cities he describes as examples of which not to model his ideal city on? Initially, if we are to examine this question within the context of the present discussion, we can say that Plato goes into this in order to highlight further his belief that the just city will only arise if the soul of the individual constituted in a just way. In these other types of cities he describes, the city and individuals are not able to flourish because the character within each is inadequately constituted. If the character of the individuals in these cities is lacking in some respect, the city
as a whole will lack this requisite character. This should not be especially strange as it is the same premise I introduced above in order for Plato s city-soul analogy to get off the ground in the first place in Book IV. In Book VIII, referencing the same argument, Socrates asks his interlocutors: Do you know, I said, that it is necessary that there also be as many forms of human characters as there are forms of regimes? (VIII, 544d). Plato introduces this same premise again because the entirety of his project depends upon it. The city itself cannot flourish unless the citizens that compose it are educated properly and trained in the right way to prosper within each of their respective classes. If the ideal city of the Republic is to be realized, and Plato certainly never claims it can or should be, then the individual s soul must resemble that of the city at large. With this said, I cannot readily see how any type of neat distinction can be made between the importance of justice in the city and justice in the individual because one needs the other as much as the other needs it. Julia Annas, a Plato scholar, posits that the Republic is a work concerned primarily with morality more than politics and that the political aspects of the work are merely secondary in nature. Annas argues that the ideal state is set up in order to illuminate what virtue in the individual will look like and that this is the only function of the city. The way she makes her argument is to allude to sections of the Republic in which Socrates says the virtuous person can be happy even in the worst of circumstances. Her conclusion based on this is that the virtuous person does not need the ideal conditions of the state in order to be happy. She sees the main argument of the Republic as a moral one because Socrates is able to show his challengers that a well ordered soul is all that is needed to be happy, and she refers to this as the sufficiency thesis. That is, no matter the external conditions of the state in which one resides, an individual can still be happy because a well ordered soul is sufficient in order to accomplish this. Annas writes,
So, if the main moral argument shows that virtue is indeed sufficient for happiness, then the account of the ideal state not only does not form part of the main argument, it cannot (311). Annas simply misses the point of the Republic in assuming that the ideal state only exists for analogical purposes, and beyond that Plato s goal in the Republic is not necessarily to say that an individual will be happiest in his ideal state. Rather, the goal can be stated better as illustrating the conditions under which the soul can properly develop itself, and if the psyche is to attain such a condition, it is most possible in a city which is most like the soul itself. Socrates might say that the an individual can be still happy regardless of the external conditions, but it is a separate question of what conditions provide the possibility for that happiness in the first place. That is, how did the individual get to the point where she could be happy in absence of favorable external conditions? In order for the soul to be in a justly ordered state with each part of the soul performing its proper function; it had to go through a process in order to arrive at its present condition just as the city does. The soul itself is affected by the external conditions of the city as it changes into a well ordered structure, which implies much more than a mere analogical relationship. Plato takes very seriously in Book II the notion of what he calls the feverish city because he sees it a necessary step along the way to the healthy city. The feverish city necessitates the need for change in the natural growth of the healthy city. Socrates says, For in considering such a city, too, we would probably see in what way justice and injustice naturally grow in cities (II, 372e). With the growth of the city and the larger it becomes, presumably, more desires are created that need to be satisfied. The appetitive part of the soul is never satisfied as it continues to want more; desire begets a new desire, and every time a desire is satisfied, the need arises to satisfy a new one. As a result of this, certain individuals come
forward as guardians because they are the only ones who are successfully able to control their desires by use of the rational part of the soul, which is for Plato, what should be the part of the soul which controls or keeps in check the other two. The guardians, educated in a programmatic way, guard the city and against their own desires, and ultimately, a select few of these guardians will be the ones who rule the city as philosopher-kings. The general idea is that in order to even arrive at the point where the city becomes healthy, it must go through this phase as it allows for the rational part of the soul to emerge and also illuminates those who can best control their desires. Because Plato sees this as part of the natural growth along the way in both the individual and in the city, there is a very realistic consideration at work, not an ideal. The natural condition of the citizens desiring more is a very real problem cities face and this is not something that Plato merely creates or imagines in order to set up his city. What does all this suggest? Again, the answer is that Plato was not simply analogizing because the conditions of the citizens in the city necessitate change in order to attempt to make the city healthy again. The individuals desire more things, whether they are material or bodily, and the city wants to acquire more land. The processes are intertwined in an intimate way that makes it difficult to distinguish them and to attempt any project of separating the moral from the political in the first place. At this point, it appears peculiar why and how a modern thinker would want to dichotomize the Republic given all the reasons that have been outlined. As is often the case, we turn to the argument that we are simply a product of our times. The turn in modern philosophy which conceives of the individual as an autonomous and free entity is, I suspect, the motive for such an attempt to divide the Republic into separate projects. Specifically in political philosophy, a concept of human nature emerged that viewed the individual as non-social and as a consequence of this, the human being needed to enter into a social contract. Social contract
theorists had different views of human nature, but all agreed that individuals needed to enter into a social condition because their natural condition necessitated such an action. Put more clearly, the natural condition of human beings is not characterized as being social or political, but that these conditions are products of a state of nature. The modern conception of human nature itself set up the opposition between the moral and political. The suggestion is not that morality did not exist prior to the social condition, but that it existed in a different form. There wasn t a need to codify morality in the natural condition because humans understood it intuitively to a limited extent. The need to codify morality arose with the creation of a social contract which establishes the rights we possess and duties we have towards others. In his analysis of the modern social contract, Charles Mills writes that the political contract simply codifies a morality that already exists, writing it down and filling in the details, so that we don t have to rely on divinely implanted moral sense, or conscience (15). What is law other than the establishment of a set or norms that govern the way individuals should behave regarding their own behavior and towards others in a society? It may sound like an equivocation is being made between law and morality. That is, we may often be taught to think of law and morality as separate domains because law is written down or codified and morality is something we are able to figure out on our own. But if the reason we have to enter a social contract is either to give up rights to a sovereign (Hobbes) or to have our property protected (Locke), there seems to be some doubt about our ability to figure out morality for ourselves. Therefore, what is required is a contractual agreement between individuals in order to accomplish such things, and another dichotomy is thus created by modern political philosophy, between law and morality. To review, we now have the following distinctions from modernity: law and morality, public and private morality/sphere, citizen and individual, natural and social
condition. The suggestion is that the need to have these particular dichotomous relationships in these forms is a product of the modern period, and indeed, we still think in these terms today (Rawls). The type of thinking in the modern period is characterized by a dependence on and tendency to divide concepts. It is my contention that deeply embedded in the conceptual framework of modern thinkers, perhaps existing latently in the subconscious, are these dichotomous relationships which inform the worldview and prevent the possibility of collapsing the relationships into a unity. Ironically enough, Plato offers us a solution to such a problem as he saw the role of the philosopher as one who could mediate between either/or relationships. It was not the job of the philosopher to make distinctions, but rather to find ways move beyond these simplistic distinctions. For example, in the Symposium during the speech Socrates gives on love when he recollects what Diotima had told him, eros is a spirit and exhibits intermediary qualities. Eros is not mortal, but he is also not a god; eros is the son of Poros (poor) and Penia (plenty); eros also lies between wisdom and ignorance. Another example occurs in the Sophist when Plato gives this very definition of a philosopher. The Eliatic visitor, when responding to Theaetetus, is trying to solve the problem of being that arose in the Parmenides. The question Plato is trying to reconcile is whether something can both be and not be; whether something can change and be at rest. The move on Plato s part is to suggest we not accept a dichotomous relationship and the visitor says the following about the role of the philosopher: He has to be like a child begging for both, and say that which is everything is both unchanging and that which changes (249d). The philosopher must not settle for the either/or which could be granted as a natural part of mental processes, but it is the philosopher s task to become aware of mental tendencies and
overcome them. If Plato sees this as the true role of the philosopher, at least in the context of these particular dialogues, then it seems as though Plato has provided us with a solution to the very problem we are engaging in this discussion. Is it this simple? We just collapse the dichotomy of moral and political and we uncover the true meaning of the Republic? That is not quite what I have in mind because, certainly, attempting to change an entire mental framework that has shaped and informed the way we view the world is certainly no small task. While it may sound easy, a large difference exists between what we say and our epistemological understanding of the world. How can an epistemic shift begin to occur? It would require nothing short of the education program that Plato puts into place in his ideal city. Works Cited
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