FLG has read Plato's Republic three times all the way through, and if you put together all the sections he's read, you could probably tack on a fourth time. So, he's read it far more times than most people who don't possess PhDs in Political Science or Classics.
He doesn't find it odd when laypeople, for lack of a better word although FLG is one, misunderstand, misinterpret, or misuse the idea of a philosopher king. Quite frankly, FLG assumes they're using the term second or third hand anyway. But...he finds it shocking when people who should know better treat philosopher kings as the literal embodiment of leaders Plato's ideal city.
The Republic is simultaneously Utopian and Dystopian. It becomes clear, upon a second reading if you are looking for it, that the way to resolve this paradox is that the book is, in fact, both Utopian and Dystopian, but speaking about different things. The ordering of the Good City is an allegory for the right ordering of an individual's soul. It is also a cautionary tale not to try to social engineer the right ordering of individual souls through external, authoritarian means.
Plato's writing is complex and rich, so FLG realizes this is all open to debate. Nevertheless, after reading the damn thing four times now it is so clear that FLG has a hard time thinking well of somebody who disagrees and should know better. Well, that's not exactly it. FLG would be okay with disagreement regarding the Good City as some sort of allegory for something else, but if a person, again, who should know better, thinks that the Good City is literal, then he does think poorly of them. And he has even less patience for somebody who boils down Plato's entire argument to wise, good people should run things.
Friday, September 11, 2009
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14 comments:
OK, I'll bite ... do you think Plato didn't mean that simplest interpretation at all?
It's complicated. Yes and no.
Yes, in that the philosopher king has a responsibility to return to the cave and help the rest. This applies more to our use of reason perceiving and understanding the truth and then instructing and controlling our appetites. But it also is true in the broad case that the person with the right ordered soul should help the populous, so the philosopher king should rule.
No, in the sense the Plato clearly believes that people will either get it or not. So, while the right ordering of the individual soul is the most important part, not everybody will be able to regardless of what is done to help them. Therefore, we're never going to perfect the world.
Consequently, the Utopian society would be a society where all the individuals possess right ordered souls -- that we are all philosopher kings -- but that's impossible. So, the philosopher kings should rule, but realize, and if they are true philosopher kings would realize, that some individuals are just beyond help and we shouldn't try to perfect the world. Because in a very real sense we must destroy the world to save it, or alternatively the creation of perfect justice requires perfect injustice to manifest from the outside.
The take away, at least for me, is that we should all work on right ordering our own souls and not worry so much about perfecting other people's. But Plato certainly didn't mean that simply wise, good people should rule.
I think this might have gotten lost, but I did want to add that many people wrongly interpret the idea that if we could have philosopher kings that we would usher in a political Utopia. When Plato clearly thought no such thing.
Assuming you aren't reading it in Greek, who's translation are you using? Very curious.
Maximum Leader:
I actually own three editions.
http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Plato-Second/dp/0465069347
http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Complete-Works/dp/0872203492
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/9780195003642
I immediately agree with you that people oversimplify the "philosopher king" idea. I also agree that the connection between the ideal city and the ideal soul should be taken more seriously than it usually is.
I have more trouble with the belief that the Republic contains a dystopia or an argument against social engineering. Partly my hesitation is based on Plato's other works -- the Laws, for example -- where he seems genuinely interested in the best constitution of states and societies and where he certainly doesn't seem to be a libertarian or to have a tragic vision of politics.
I take Plato to be saying that we should construct society so that people who can't be philosopher kings nevertheless have a useful place. But I *think* he's clear that the wisest should rule -- just like he thinks reason should rule in the soul, though other parts are indispensable for the proper functioning of the whole.
Alpheus:
The Laws contains what I assume to be Plato's real thoughts on how to order a city. And if I my comments implied that he was a Libertarian, I most certainly didn't intended that. However, I wouldn't call it a tragic view of politics exactly, but Plato, while he felt that politics could improve people's lives and give them a useful place, as you put it, is pretty clear, IMO, that you can't create perfect justice without perfect injustice.
For example, there's the way in which the Guardians would 1) be duped into pairings ideal for reproduction and 2) wouldn't know which children are theirs. Yet, you can find other arguments about how the importance of parents, etc. Perfect justice requires the perfect injustice of breaking up a family and duping people such that they have no free will.
But, yes, I agree that Plato thinks the wisest should rule, but too often people boil his entire theory to that, which is wrong. Moreover, they take Plato's argument literally as the way to organize a city, which it most certainly isn't. It is the correct way in which to order a soul.
It should probably be a source of shame to me that you have read the Republic more than I, a professional, have. In fact, I'm not even sure I've ever read it all the way through. Just the racy bits.
arethusa:
You should be ashamed because I'm functionally illiterate.
Plato...is pretty clear, IMO, that you can't create perfect justice without perfect injustice.
This idea is interesting... I'll have to try to look at the Republic again sometime. I admit I'm still hesitant: it's so hard, especially with the dialogue form, to tell just what Plato means sometimes. Is an apparent tension deliberate, or just an inconsistency in an intellectual structure that hasn't been fully worked out?
"I did want to add that many people wrongly interpret the idea that if we could have philosopher kings that we would usher in a political Utopia. When Plato clearly thought no such thing."
"Many people" would seem to include a very large number of philosophers and students of philosophy down through the century; and, if a misreading, is an enormously influential one. I am leery of dismissing this as entirely a misintepretation.
Withywindle: I know what you mean, but let me try this argument on you: Plato may have been the most utopian-minded of Classical Greeks, but he was still a Classical Greek, and their intellectual tradition was quite hostile to any idea of utopianism as we understand it. Even the idea of progress was still sort of new and shiny when Plato came on the scene. And the later Academic tradition was certainly not utopian.
I think this is the reason why I find FLG's theory intriguing: I've been troubled by the notion that Plato believed a perfect city might really exist. (Then again, he believed in lots of other crazy stuff so the conventional view might be right, as you say.)
I think his conception of what is better is more to the point than whether the best is achievable. Even if utopianism is a later add-on, it's an add-on built on his system of preferences.
I might have to blog through the Republic book by book.
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