Taylor Carter
5/05/2016
PHI 360
Plato’s Royal Decree
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.
Before we can dive fully
into The Republic, an understanding of what made up Athenian democracy
is necessary to understand the ways in which Plato critiqued it and showed how
it represented the soul in his writings. Athenian democracy differs from the
modern democracy in that everyone that fit the proper criteria was able to vote
directly on all legislation and bills. The criteria required to vote was to be
a male above the age of eighteen and a citizen of the city. This did not
represent the entire community. However, it gave a much larger voting body that
could directly impact pieces of legislation than a modern democracy. The
Assembly was an opportunity provided by Athenian democracy for all males that
were eligible to vote to have the opportunity to speak their mind. This remains
clear as others such as A.H.M Jones wrote,
The Athenians also attached great importance to the equality of
all citizens in formulating and deciding public policy, This was secured by the
right of every citizen to speak and vote in the assembly, and by composition of
the council of Five Hundred, which prepared the agenda of the assembly; this
body was annually chosen by lot, (Jones 5)
Jones brings into account a broader term that represents the
attempts for Athenian democracy, equality. Athenian democracy believed that,
once individuals nominated themselves, lots to which a random process was used
should give offices. This was with the thinking that revolved around the idea
of if officer did not know what job they would be assigned that they would be
more likely to be well-rounded and know how everything works rather than
focusing on one area. The Athenian democracy was driven by equality and hearing
the majority and as Jones points out in his writings, “the Athenian
Constitution takes the form of an ironical appreciation of its efficiency in
promoting the interests of ‘the bad’ (the poor) at the expense of ‘the good’
(the rich),” (Jones 11). These ironic positions in Athenian democracy
concerning the two primary features that will serve key to remember in
understanding Plato’s critique in The Republic, are why Athenian
democracy remains praised by some and opposed by others.
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 the idea of moderation but was also courageous and wise. Plato’s
Socrates demonstrated that these individuals would become holistic through
their training. The path of training for the guardians was one of intense
gymnastics, otherwise known as intense physical training, and education through
music. Music was necessary for these guardians to be able to recognize the
relationships from the parts to the whole. These particular members of the city
soul analogy 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 that 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. C. J. Rowe can describe Plato’s
attitude toward democracy throughout The
Republic in his journal article for claiming that Plato’s attitude “seems
to be exactly the one that he represents (at least most of the time?) through
the Socrates of the Republic, that the only real way forward, the only route
which would give us a city realty to be proud of, according to the most ascetic
view, would be to wipe the slate clean and start again.” (Rowe 67). 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 can 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 is that democracy fosters ignorant leaders and the second claim
is that democracy panders to the low desires. The first claim is 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 for 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 that democracy was 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 can 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 when it comes to 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 that Plato makes is about democracy pandering to the lowest desires. This
claim can be seen in Book IX of The Republic. Book IX parallels some of the ideas presented in Book VI
surrounding the good. This parallel can be seen with the aid of Arlene W.
Saxonhouse in her publication Democracy, Equality, and Eide: A Radical View
from Book 8 of Plato’s Republic in which she poses the question, ”How can
calculation move us in the direction of intellection and the perception of
being itself, that realm in which the Good lies?” (Saxonhouse 275). With
Saxonhouse’s aid these 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 are in the middle because of their spirit and courage
which 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
and into the metaphorical good seen as the sunlight in the Allegory of the Cave
(Saxonhouse 275). 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.
Christopher Rowe in his article entitled The Place of the Republic in Plato’s
Political Thought, points out that the dialogues introduced in the Republic
specifically Book I of The Republic are meant to analyze and explore the
political/ruling authorities of existing regimes saying, “all of these
dialogues are strongly critical of existing politicians, and have nothing
positive to say about their ‘achievements’” (Rowe 31). Rowe believed that Plato
was attempting to offer a model or new regime that contained the just ruler and
just society that was needed to fix these current regimes. Rowe also offers up
the idea that Plato concerns himself with showing what the nature of the ideal
individual in this new regime would look like. This ideal citizen, or
politician, should be knowledgeable, wise, and overall well rounded or holistic.
This idea is much like the underlying theme in the education system proposed in
The Republic, seen in great detail in the guardian training, with the
purpose of being able to respond to most any situation instead of only specific
ones. Rowe furthers this explanation that the politicians “cannot be everywhere
at once, prescribing individually for everyone…he must do it by setting down
general prescriptions” (Rowe 32). Rowe progresses to explain how justice or law
in a political regime will help build Plato’s criticism of The Republic through that
it is law that helps fulfills the political and citizen’s role in a society. Plato
criticized the engagement of citizens and the laws that governed them is what
Rowe is hinting toward. Plato believed that the law in societies keeps
individuals just and wise even if they are not just and wise naturally in
society or individually (Rowe 33-34). Plato offers up a different regime, a
different type of politician, and a different type of citizen in order to
suggest ways in which the current existing regime could be bettered.
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 rather sees those fit to lead for the betterment
of the whole as useless. This idea allows 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 to the questioning of what
comprises a proper leader of a city.
Works Cited
Bloom, Allan. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. New York:
Basic, 1991. Print.
Jones, A. H. M.. “The Athenian Democracy and
Its Critics”. The Cambridge Historical Journal 11.1 (1953):
1–26. Web...
C. J. Rowe. “Killing Socrates: Plato's Later
Thoughts on Democracy”. The Journal of
Hellenic
Studies 121 (2001): 63–76.
Web...
Saxonhouse, Arlene W.. “Democracy, Equality,
and Eidê: A Radical View from Book 8
of Plato's Republic”. The American
Political Science Review 92.2 (1998): 273–283. Web...
Ferrari,
G. R. F and Christoper Rowe. The Cambridge Companion To Plato's Republic.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
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