short essay #2

Taylor Carter

3/15/2016

PHI 360

Plato’s Criticism

            Plato’s The Republic can be read as political discussion revolving around forms of government. Plato explores both the city and the soul in The Republic through which one can see his development of a city that reflects the ideas of virtue as well as political formations. The city, and soul, that is developed in The Republic can specifically be seen as a criticism of Athenian democracy. Athenian democracy has been perceived as one of the most democratic models to exist in the history of civilization. In The Republic, it becomes clear that Plato believes there to be a better form of the city government. I believe Plato to be right for his criticism of Athenian democracy as he explains the connection of the city and soul to other political forms of government that would be more beneficial to the city and the individuals who live in the city.

 In The Republic, Plato established three key elements to the city and the soul. The highest members of Plato’s cities would be Guardians; guided by their knowledge and from birth raised on the path to be a guardian. The guardian was a holistic individual that understood moderation but was also courageous and wise. This can be seen as an elevated version of the officers in the Athenian democracy. Athenian officers were intended to know a little bit of everything and be well-rounded to be able to fill whichever office was given to them through the lot. The next class was the auxiliaries that followed the guardian training but did not succeed to their level of expectation, thus they become the guardian’s aid. Auxiliaries exemplified loyalty and courage in their position but were guided by the guardians. This relates to rest of the voting body in Athenian democracy for they may not be officers but follow the words of those who are and still fight for what they believed to be the best bills and legislation. The last key feature of Plato’s city is the working class or laborers that represented the desires felt in the soul. This class kept the city running, and until luxury or vices are introduced to the city, they would be okay doing their job without guardians overlooking them. Of course this represents everyone else in the Athenian democracy that did not have a vote but worked to keep the city running with food and water. These three elements represent both the city and the soul of individuals to which Plato believed to be the makings of a just city.

            The three elements are key to Plato’s critique of Athenian democracy for they offer insight into the makings of a just city, one better than Athenian democracy, as well as a just and virtuous soul. This insight into the making of a new city, a just city, instead of the Athenian democracy can be described as Plato’s attempt to say that a more central and just figure would be more beneficial than the workings of democracy when it goes astray. With an attitude like this it becomes clear why he built the city the way he did to improve the souls of the citizens of his new clean city and charge the population to take notice of his criticism compared to the current Athenian democracy. The guardians were the leaders for their ability and responsibility to, “guard over enemies from without and friends from within—so that the ones will not wish to do harm and the others will be unable to,” (414 b). Plato here criticizes those who lead democracy for they often miss the enemies from within or become one themselves in Athenian democracy. In The Republic, Plato gives the noble lie to the people of his city stating that:

but the god, in fashioning those of you who are competent to rule, mixed gold in at their birth; this is why they are most honored; in auxiliaries, silver / and iron and bronze in the farmers and the other craftsmen, (415 a).

This noble lie was charged with purpose of keeping everyone in his or her place in Plato’s city. That no one would dare to rise above their ranks due to desire, but treat everyone as brothers and accept their place in the city. This noble lie can be seen as the solution toward the greed and desire seen in democracy of those of improper training still striving to reach new heights in the city by means that would be deemed unjust.

            Book VIII of The Republic can be seen as one of the most important political philosophy texts and the primary focus of this paper. In this book, Plato gives his accounts of the different forms of government and how each decays into the lower form. In this book, we clearly see that Athenian democracy is not high on Plato’s forms of government in his city, but rather one step away from decaying into tyranny. Plato makes two large claims that can be seen as direct criticisms of Athenian democracy. The first claim that will be addressed in Plato’s critique being that democracy fosters ignorant leaders and the second being that democracy panders to the low desires. The first claim that democracy fosters ignorant leaders can be seen in two ways in Book VIII. The first in the natural decay of governments that start with the highest form according to Plato with a monarchy where either one or a few rules for the sake of the whole and works down toward democracy. Plato calls a democracy the “fairest regime” but even while being the “fairest regime” the decay into what democracy truly is shows how it fosters ignorant leaders (556 c). Plato states, “how magnificently it tramples all this underfoot and doesn’t care at all from what kinds of practices a man goes to political action, but honors him if only he says he’s well disposed toward the multitude,” (558 c).  Plato saw that democracy allows those underprepared, or those who falsely claim to be prepared, as able to climb into power because of its fairness, (558 c&d). Plato saw democracy as falling into tyranny once, “a democratic city, once it’s thirsted for freedom gets bad winebearers as its leaders and gets more drunk than it should on this unmixed draught, then, unless the rulers are very gentle and provide a great deal of freedom, it punishes them, charging them with being polluted and oligarchs,” (562 d).

            Plato’s belief that democracies foster ignorant leaders, and let the uneducated claim power until it becomes a democracy, can be exemplified in Book VI of The Republic. Book VI and Book VII can be read as preludes to the primary source of Plato’s political criticism in Book VIII. Plato believed that philosophers were meant to be the best leaders. However, it was debated in Book VI that philosophers were useless and vicious. Socrates then uses the imagery of a ship of sailors and a true pilot to represent the philosopher, “don’t you believe that the true pilot will really be called a stargazer, a prater and useless to them by those who sail on ships run like this?” (489 a). Here we see that the sailors see the true pilot, the one who studies the time of the season and years and looks to the stars for guidance while sailing as useless. This is directly related to the Athenian democracy fostering ignorant leaders; “you’ll make no mistake in imagining the statesmen now ruling to be the sailors we were just now speaking of, and those who are said by them to be useless and gossipers about what’s above to be the true pilots,” (489 c). Plato draws the direct comparison of how Athenian democracy fosters ignorant leaders because they believe that one could not study and practice the skills to be leaders and see those that could be true leaders as useless.

            The second large claim about democracy pandering to the lowest desires can be seen in Book IX of The Republic. Book IX parallels some of the ideas presented in Book VI surrounding the good. This questions can be answered by one of the largest metaphors in The Republic for its criticism of Athenian democracy is the animal metaphor to which can be found in Book IX. This metaphor comes from the structure to which Plato believed was the best to rule his city.  This exemplifies that democracy panders to the lowest desire. The guardian at the top because of the knowledge and wisdom represented the head as a person. The auxiliaries in the middle because of their spirit and courage represented the chest in his metaphor as a lion. Lastly the working class was below the belt in his animal metaphor because of their representation of the desires as a multi-headed serpent. If kept in order then the wisest will lead followed by the loyal but strong keeping the desires in check feeding good desires and starving bad desires. The wisest can be seen as the Guardian for their calculating force to lead the city to the realm of good looking outward as well as inward. I believe that the realm of good is the entire premise of this new just city that Plato is establishing as if the Athenian democracy was wiped out and a clean slate was given to him. This is a direct representation of the city model built earlier in The Republic illustrates what happens when democracy takes power in the city. The wisest do not always lead but rather there is an exclusion of fit rulers and pandering to low desires occur when everyone tries to get whatever they want. The multi-headed monster grows out of control and consumes the city which is representative of Plato’s critique of Athenian democracy growing out of control feeding bad desires too often.

            Plato’s criticism of Athenian democracy suggests a more elitist society in which a few select individuals lead the city with the best interest in mind. In Book VIII of Plato’s Republic he offers up the suggestion that Aristocracy is the highest form of government to which the rest decays from there. Plato saw the man that resembled the aristocracy to be, “the man who is like the aristocracy, a man of whom we rightly assert that he is both good and just,” (545 a). With an elitist form of government in mind it makes sense to why Plato wrote Book VII as a prelude to Book VIII because it revolves around the exploration of the education necessary to bring philosophers out of the cave into the new world. The Allegory of the Cave provides the educational resource to show the Philosophers how to look past the shadows and imitators to form a leader among their peers. This seems to be the suggestion of a leader in Plato’s new form of government instead of the majority ruling the educated few that remains just and good.

            The Republic can be seen as a direct criticism of Athenian democracy as it references the current democracy throughout the book. With Socrates death following The Republic, and Plato’s writing on Socrates’ Apology, we are able to see that Plato felt that the Athenian democracy was not in fact the best form of government that it received praise for being. Plato illustrated that Athenian democracy preferred a virtuous city because it fosters ignorant leaders and panders to the low desires in the city. Athenian democracy ignores or sees those fit to lead for the betterment of the whole as useless allowing selfish leaders to rule the city. I believe Plato to be right for his criticism of Athenian democracy for it lead to new approaches of governmental structure and questioning what comprises a proper leader of a city.