Plato’s The Republic
In the history of man very few writings stand the test of time without becoming dated and losing their meaning. Among those that have stood the test of time is
Plato’s Republic. For 2,500 years we have struggled to answer the questions he puts forward in it. Since it was first written we have seen the rising and fall of great empires, and revolution after
revolution as we have searched for the
ideal state.
Life in Athens
The year Plato was born, 429 B.C.E. was among the most heartbreaking years in the history of Athens. The Athens was a city under
siege, not by a great army, that would come soon enough, but by a virus (According to current research by the CDC it was probably
Ebola) that killed thousands. Among the dead was the great Athenian king,
Pericles. It was under the rule of Pericles that Athens grew into a great center of art, learning, and democracy. Pericles using funds from Delian League treasury began building his new vision of a new Athens, which included the
Parthenon. Athens at the time was teeming with artists and craftsmen. Among the scores of craftsmen working in Athens at the time was a stonemason, Socrates, who would in time change young Plato’s way of thinking and even the course of his life.
Socrates would stand around on street corners asking people, those questions that today, we are still trying to answer today. What is Justice? What is a good man? What is a good ruler? This manner of questioning and debating with his students became know as the Socratic method. While he was tolerated a for a while the defeat of Athens in the
Peloponnesian War (431BCE-404BCE) led to a time of uncertainty and period when it was not permissible to question the authority of the state. It was in this Athens that Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed for corrupting the youth of Athens in 399 BCE. Plato a student of Socrates for twenty years, who had been planning a career in politics, was moved by the execution of Socrates to become a teacher of his wisdom.
The questions Socrates raised lie at the heart of Plato’s Republic. No writing of Socrates has come down to us through history, many of Plato’s writings have. He largest is the Republic. It attempts to answer among other things what is the good life.
The Republic
Without a doubt the importance of The Republic cannot be understated, for it begins a twenty-five century quest that is still on going. Aristotle, Locke, and Marx have all wrestled with its issues.
The Republic is divided into ten parts or books. Each of these books is a lesson thought in the Socratic method by Socrates himself. The main goal of the work is describe the ideal state. Plato argues that the main purpose of a state is to teach its citizens to be just. He also argues that a man should work in the line of work that he is best suited. He also divides society into three classes rulers, warriors, and workers. It is this ideal state, this oligarchy where each man knows; his job, his place, and is just.
In Book I he agues that a ‘good’ man should do that for which he is best suited. In his conversations about justice he leads his student to series of questions designed to point this out:
“…You would admitted that one man is a musician and another is not a musician… And the musician is wise, and he who is not a musician is unwise… And he is good in as far as he is wise, and bad in as gar as he is unwise… And do, you thing… that a musician when he adjusts he lyre would desire or claim to exceed or have the advantage of a musicians in the tightening and loosening the strings… But he would claim to exceed the non-musician.”
Here we see that Plato and Socrates believe that a good man knows his job and therefore is wise and good.
Now that Socrates or really Plato, our author, has proven that a wise man knows his job he proceeds in Book III to explain his ‘royal lie’.
“Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the of command, and these he has composed of gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honor; others of sliver, to be auxiliaries; other again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has made of brass and iron. But as you are of the same original family a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son.”
The purpose of this lie is to show rulers are different, yet we see at the end Plato’s ‘royal lie’ that there are those who will fall short of their parents’ station and those who will exceed it. Thus in the end he leaves open the possibility to move up or down the strict class structure of his ideal state.
In the end we learn that a just man is happier than an unjust man, and if they a not able to guide their own lives it is the job of the ruler to do so. In his ideal state the ruler who is wise indeed guides his craftsmen, just as Pericles guided the building of Athens.
Plato’s Place in History
Among the greatest achievements of Plato was the founding of the Academy in 387 BCE it is considered by many to be the forerunner to today’s modern university. For nearly a thousand years Plato’s Academy turn out scholars who traveled the classic world teaching its philosophies. Among the students who attended the lectures of Plato was Aristotle. Aristotle studied under Plato for nineteen years, and while he did not agree with Plato on some fundamental points, his work Politics in which he examines 158 governments is a continuance of Plato’s work. After Aristotle left the Academy he ended up as tutor to young Alexander the Great.
The work of Socrates and his students opened up a whole new way of thinking, but it was the written works of Plato that saved them for the ages. His Republic provides a starting point from which the modern notions of philosophy and government both spring forth.