🕓 8 min✏️ Published on March 23, 2024

The Republic

by Plato

🏆 Rated: 4/10

Question of Justice against injustice
Building up the perfect state from first principles:
Everybody within the state should do one thing and one thing only - a farmer should spend all his time farming, a warrior all his time preparing for or waging wars, a baker baking bread all his life.
This would lead to the best outcomes for everybody because if one does only one thing one can become really good at doing so and certainly better than if doing more than one thing. By focusing on one thing the products they produce will become better.
When everybody focuses only on one thing only a shoemaker will not do - because what does he eat? And where do his cloth come from? His house? And if goods have to be gotten from somewhere there also need to be merchants and traders that go in between cities of a state and trade the goods around.
Because one place does not have all that is needed for all the inhabitants living there. And since there is this need for a drawn out net of society it needs to be protected and governed by people - people that have the purest of qualities because they have to wield power without becoming corrupted.
Those people are called guardians and need to have the same qualities as dogs - they have to be perfectly friendly to people they know - ie. Their city - and perfectly hostile to others - and like dogs they have to be philosophers because they base this judgement solely on their own knowledge - knowing if somebody is good or bad.
Also in a state like this there is no luxury allowed - only whatever is necessary should be provided. Because if there exists indulgence and the idea of getting more than what is necessary for pure pleasure than the state will have to expand to accomodate the ever growing needs of its population and therefore while expanding has to attack and swallow neighboring states - leading to growth and to an eventual splintering and demise. Allowing for luxury therefore destroys the state - hence a perfect state can not allow luxury of any sort.
Following that there are certain arts not allowed. The image of Gods heroes and man should be perfect - an ideal to live up to and hence all the stories of them being bad and morally corrupt should be abolished. Also art in general - if not used to educate the guardians should be forbidden. That includes music, painters and sculptors, bards and poets and such.
The same is true for music of certain sorts that make the guardians of a city squeamish and not hold up to the ideals. Music though is an important part of forming the soul - a perfect guardian needs it to be fit for the soft matters of the state. Also the guardians should practice gymnastics because a healthy mind takes care of its body and therefore the guardians which need the healthiest minds of all need to exercise.
Also the balance of music - which softens the spirit and gymnastics which strengthen it - are needed to achieve the perfect mix of spirit in guardians.
Also acting should be forbidden, since to act out somebody else one needs to know about their actions and that would distract from the actual purpose. The only acting allowed is that of qualities that one needs to learn to excel at their job but not yet has.
A state has to have clear cut hierarchies - coming from birthright that are undoubtable. However - the birthright is not given by family but by seeing who is best suited for which roles based on their souls and spirit.
Woman have same rights as man - even though weaker they are of fundamentally the same nature and therefore have the same roles as everybody else, depending on their spirits. Some of them will be guardians, some shoemakers, some bakers etc.
Women and men should be matched together based on the best fit of their natures. And then this Bond of marriage between them should be sacred and of most importance. They should be brought to do gymnastics and music together and therefore have forced intercourse. Only the best should breed with the best and the children they bear should be common good and assigned by the guardians to their best spots and families. Love and passion are things that the clean souls of guardians of all people should not have because they corrupt - they should be above their passions and therefore know true love - towards the state and it's citizens as the highest good.
The guardians will be known as rulers and should pick who mates with whom and this has to be kept secret somehow because otherwise the lesser people would revolt.
The people who are most courageous and spiritiful should get to mate more often, the children should be brought up by nurses and the mothers should not know which one is which and they should not be suckled too long. Children should only be gotten between the ages of 20-40 in women and 25-55 in men. If somebody gets children outside of these laws the children will be killed, for the "good" of the flock.
A state where everybody is happy at the same time and grieves at the same time is better than a state where chaos ensues. This difference comes about because of the categories of mine/not mine - which if all agree on them lead to them being happy/grieving at the same time. I.e. when everybody has the same belongings they will all be happy when gaining something and grieving when losing something.
Analogous to the body, a big family or - a bee state.
Guardians should honor and enact the law - they should be an almost physical representation of it. Guardians are to be paid in food and in food only, they should not own anything and work for the common good freely. Dissolving the boundaries of families, uniting everything into one family, one notion of mine and therefore getting rid of those personal quarrels and power struggles.
When going to war - the children should be taking into the war as well - so as to learn from the craft of their parents. And when in danger they should ride away on horseback so as to not be captured or killed. Also - within the army everybody should be the same and they should follow certain rules - deserting is a harsh crime - so as stealing the enemies armor or goods, they should not fight over temples and religious sites and when conquering something not burn it down and also do not take and plunder everything but only so and so much of the yearly produce. Also they ask the fights to be quarrels not wars - that they occur between people who are fundamentally friends and want to be in peace.
True philosophers are lovers of the vision of truth. And the only way the state described before can come about is if those people - the philosophers become the rulers. The kings and princes of the states.
A state like this would be the perfect state.
People who do not love truth - instead love opinions. Absolute beauty is truth. Somebody who does not seek to love truth does not want knowledge but instead opinion and is therefore called a lover of opinion and shall never know true beauty.
Guardians should have this vision of truth - they should be philosophers - since without that vision they are effectually blind to the problems within the state and can not guard or guide it to the morally right direction.
The lover of truth forgets about other pleasures since they pale in comparison to the love to truth and the joy true truth brings. They also can not lie - because the love of truth forbids that they will let falseness onto their minds. This love of truth derives a lot more personality traits - philosophers are not mean, will not boast, have courage, are not cowards, do not fear death and are just and gentle. They should further be quick learners and have a good memory. Because otherwise they can not retain truth.
Philosophers are good for nothing in a state - asks Adeimantus. Socrates answers in parable: ship under mutiny - the people taking over the ship do not know how to steer it properly to get where they want - but one person on the ship - the philosopher studied the stars etc. and knows what to do - it is not the fault of the philosopher that he is useless - but of the surrounding not asking for their advice.
Some philosophical natures spoil over time - the forces of themselves and their surrounding distract them from the vision of absolute truth. The ordinary goods of life - wealth, beauty, rank, strength and social ties.
Philosophers when within the wrong environment corrupt more - hence the philosophers turned up badly because of his environment is particularly nasty.
Social environment imprints knowledge onto people - social pressure conveys an opinion of what is good or bad - making the philosopher stray from the actual pursuit of truth - which lies somewhere different than on the opinion of the many
=> This reminds me of the ideas from Atomic habits and 0-1 - both of which describe that it is necessary to identify things for oneself and do not rely on "common" sense. Hence I think that being a philosopher sometimes entails having opinions contrary to the public opinion that is accepted. Which comes with the social extrication.
Sophists are getting their knowledge like somebody who is tending to a beast and learns how this beast behaves, what to feed it, when not to go close to it and what makes this beast happy - and then call their notions wisdom and the things making the beast happy they call good and the things which make it unhappy they call evil without knowing what they mean or having an abstract idea of those concepts. This leads to artists producing "good" art which means art that is liked by this beast which is the multitude of people.
Somebody with the mind of a philosopher will rise within the city and with that - power and ties to people increase and breed within his mind some sort of pride which distracts him from the pursuit of knowing truth. The public also wants to use his mind for their benefit and therefore when it goes the way towards philosophy they will try to keep it from going there, because they would lose their advantage if that happens.
If one can have a true philosopher though and get them interested in the idea of the state and into a position of power - the perfect state would come to be. Because people would not just obey but like the philosopher king. And therefore be glad to make the changes necessary to go for the perfect state.
The 4 virtues are not the real knowledge, one needs more - one has to have a picture of what is good. The guardians need to know that.
"And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind?" There are many true's and many beautiful's but all of them can be combined under one central idea - one absolute. The many are seen but not known and the ideas of the absolute are known but not seen.
From this they deduce that they eye and sight is special because seeing needs another thing except eyes - namely the sun and that therefore the sun is the father of sight. Next they argue that sight on things is like the soul perceiving truth. The more light there is the clearer the picture. The more good and being a soul sees the more alive and intelligent it feels. The more it thinks of perishing the less it becomes. Then it only has opinion and changes it quickly. It does not know clearly
Then there are 4 qualities that can be found