Another great chapter. I'm surprised how much The Republic works as a self help or a personal moral ethics book, it's not what I expected going in and it's what stood out to me in the arguments about justice in the first chapter.
It's amazing how little I got from watching 10-20 minute videos about The Republic over the years, the book really is a lot more than it's summary or most famous ideas.
I could easily see The Republic being an entire college-level course. In fact, I'm trying to figure out what to do next after reading finishing this -- perhaps finding other critical responses to the text and weighing their views, or simply exploring other Plato works. I'd be curious to hear your recommendations.
Yes, even an hour-long video is scratching the surface. It's a limitation of the medium.
There's a good Routledge series on various philosophers; I have but haven't read the Plato volume yet. But I think the best thing you could do is read more Plato and then return to this later.
Several lines in here about relying on Reason for self-governance really brought it all together for me. Reason is the only way to make sense of our own sensory pleasures. It takes us from "stomach hurt, stomach need food, put food in mouth, stomach happy now" to well-structured and planned meals with goals in mind. Reason is what can create medium- and long-term goals in the first place. Floating along with each fleeting sensory desire (or the fleeting interests of the mob, were this to be a city) is just that - floating and entirely undeliberate without any intention to speak of. It is a life of response, not one of calling.
It's the only way by which we have systems of any kind. There is a previous book wherein Socrates discusses that we don't study astronomy simply to say "wow look at pretty shiny stars in sky how nice" but rather to identify the systems of the universe. What is orbit, gravity, etc? Everything leads us to the forms, which are of course only identifiable via Reason, contemplation, whatever you want to call it.
My favorite passage from Chapter IX is found at the very end:
Glaucon said: “You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and describing, the one that exists in theory, for I don’t think it exists anywhere on earth.”
And Socrates replied: “But perhaps . . . there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other.”
I believe Plato is suggesting here that if we want to take care of our soul we must, each of us, develop a moral vision that gives our life meaning, nobility, and permanence, regardless of whether it is likely to come into existence.
Though I disagree with the nature and substance of Plato’s moral vision, I agree wholeheartedly with his insistence of its necessity.
Thank you for addressing my struggles, Jared. I am trying to be brief here.
1. We are in agreement that education would be needed to reverse the direction of the entropy. It has to be a kind of education that convinces people to give up some of their power, position, status and comfort that they have under the current form of government so that there will be a benefit for the greater numbers of people. From where this comes, I do not know, but I don't think it's ever been voluntarily given.
This is looking at the text as if it is a political text. With the premise that the city-state is an analogy for the human soul, I would say the education actually exists but we have to choose to act on it. We have to commit to give up some comfort in order to achieve a better soul. But this is not Plato saying this, this me, and I was hoping Plato'd say more. In this regard, I embody a timocratic soul, and trying to ascertain what it means to be my own philosopher-king.
2. Thank you, Book IX was more digestible. If I may, allow me to explain my struggle with the text, with the example of "a tyrannical mind." It's easier to understand how Plato's description fits with a tyrant of the city-state -- I can picture the suffering of the tyrant over his loss of control, and I can picture the suffering the entire city-state. But as I'm trying to read it with the idea that it's the analogy for the human soul, I found I had to keep reminding that my soul is the tyrant, presiding over a body of conflicting impulses, desires and goals. As a read something new, I had to keep going back to reread and it saying to myself "Now, with my soul as the governor, what is Plato saying?"
So yes, this chapter was easier for me because Plato spent more time on what the quality of life was for the tyrant. I'm curious how I feel about this struglle when I reread the book.
On the issue of why the various forms of government must decay, I think it helps to recall that Kallipolis, the Beautiful City, is at the start a "fevered" state or "warring" state. It reflects a departure from the peaceful community, or what's known as the "city of pigs", that Socrates initially proposes. Glaucon rejects this acorn-eating life, and that's when the Beautiful City begins. The Beautiful City reflects the world of becoming—the world we live in. And in this world, our world, everything is moving towards death. I forget where, but Plato says something like, "Everything that comes into being must decay." He evokes this as a natural universal law, which you could say is similar to entropy.
In other words, this is a fall story, and Glaucon's rejection of the simple commune is like being expelled from the garden of Eden. This expulsion is necessary to explain why we have desires at all, while also explaining the Good at the apex of the divided line as the object of all desire.
Another great chapter. I'm surprised how much The Republic works as a self help or a personal moral ethics book, it's not what I expected going in and it's what stood out to me in the arguments about justice in the first chapter.
It's amazing how little I got from watching 10-20 minute videos about The Republic over the years, the book really is a lot more than it's summary or most famous ideas.
I’m working on a video about it and I think it has to be at least an hour to make sense of it. And that will still be superficial!
I could easily see The Republic being an entire college-level course. In fact, I'm trying to figure out what to do next after reading finishing this -- perhaps finding other critical responses to the text and weighing their views, or simply exploring other Plato works. I'd be curious to hear your recommendations.
Yes, even an hour-long video is scratching the surface. It's a limitation of the medium.
There's a good Routledge series on various philosophers; I have but haven't read the Plato volume yet. But I think the best thing you could do is read more Plato and then return to this later.
Several lines in here about relying on Reason for self-governance really brought it all together for me. Reason is the only way to make sense of our own sensory pleasures. It takes us from "stomach hurt, stomach need food, put food in mouth, stomach happy now" to well-structured and planned meals with goals in mind. Reason is what can create medium- and long-term goals in the first place. Floating along with each fleeting sensory desire (or the fleeting interests of the mob, were this to be a city) is just that - floating and entirely undeliberate without any intention to speak of. It is a life of response, not one of calling.
It's the only way by which we have systems of any kind. There is a previous book wherein Socrates discusses that we don't study astronomy simply to say "wow look at pretty shiny stars in sky how nice" but rather to identify the systems of the universe. What is orbit, gravity, etc? Everything leads us to the forms, which are of course only identifiable via Reason, contemplation, whatever you want to call it.
My favorite passage from Chapter IX is found at the very end:
Glaucon said: “You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and describing, the one that exists in theory, for I don’t think it exists anywhere on earth.”
And Socrates replied: “But perhaps . . . there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other.”
I believe Plato is suggesting here that if we want to take care of our soul we must, each of us, develop a moral vision that gives our life meaning, nobility, and permanence, regardless of whether it is likely to come into existence.
Though I disagree with the nature and substance of Plato’s moral vision, I agree wholeheartedly with his insistence of its necessity.
Thank you for addressing my struggles, Jared. I am trying to be brief here.
1. We are in agreement that education would be needed to reverse the direction of the entropy. It has to be a kind of education that convinces people to give up some of their power, position, status and comfort that they have under the current form of government so that there will be a benefit for the greater numbers of people. From where this comes, I do not know, but I don't think it's ever been voluntarily given.
This is looking at the text as if it is a political text. With the premise that the city-state is an analogy for the human soul, I would say the education actually exists but we have to choose to act on it. We have to commit to give up some comfort in order to achieve a better soul. But this is not Plato saying this, this me, and I was hoping Plato'd say more. In this regard, I embody a timocratic soul, and trying to ascertain what it means to be my own philosopher-king.
2. Thank you, Book IX was more digestible. If I may, allow me to explain my struggle with the text, with the example of "a tyrannical mind." It's easier to understand how Plato's description fits with a tyrant of the city-state -- I can picture the suffering of the tyrant over his loss of control, and I can picture the suffering the entire city-state. But as I'm trying to read it with the idea that it's the analogy for the human soul, I found I had to keep reminding that my soul is the tyrant, presiding over a body of conflicting impulses, desires and goals. As a read something new, I had to keep going back to reread and it saying to myself "Now, with my soul as the governor, what is Plato saying?"
So yes, this chapter was easier for me because Plato spent more time on what the quality of life was for the tyrant. I'm curious how I feel about this struglle when I reread the book.
On the issue of why the various forms of government must decay, I think it helps to recall that Kallipolis, the Beautiful City, is at the start a "fevered" state or "warring" state. It reflects a departure from the peaceful community, or what's known as the "city of pigs", that Socrates initially proposes. Glaucon rejects this acorn-eating life, and that's when the Beautiful City begins. The Beautiful City reflects the world of becoming—the world we live in. And in this world, our world, everything is moving towards death. I forget where, but Plato says something like, "Everything that comes into being must decay." He evokes this as a natural universal law, which you could say is similar to entropy.
In other words, this is a fall story, and Glaucon's rejection of the simple commune is like being expelled from the garden of Eden. This expulsion is necessary to explain why we have desires at all, while also explaining the Good at the apex of the divided line as the object of all desire.