Seminar Paper 03/02 Taylor Carter

Taylor Carter

Seminar Paper

2/24/16

The Beginning of the Philosopher King

            Book I has been discussed as the starting point in the Republic from where the major themes of the Republic come to be anticipated from Plato’s work in Book I. This can be seen clearly through Book I’s relation to Plato’s political philosophy from Plato. Plato discusses forms of government and justice being portrayed as superior to injustice. Book I offers the foreshadowing that readers see as they read the rest of the Republic. Plato’s major themes seem to have a foreshadowing or reference found in Book I through Plato’s Socrates initial conversations in Book I with the interlocutors surrounding justice and injustice. This foreshadowing can best be demonstrated through the Philosopher king of Plato’s book V of the Republic. Book I begins Plato’s construction of the Philosopher king from the allusions and foreshadowing which Plato never explicitly discusses the philosopher king until Book V. This is evident in the fact that majority or even possible all major themes of the Republic are already being alluded to or foreshadowed by the dialogues in Book I.

One of the central ideas in the political philosophy of Plato’s Socrates comes in Book V in the third wave of political reform that develops why philosophers should rule. This seemed to be a ground breaking claim for Plato’s Socrates, yet there is evidence in the dialogues of Book I. Book I offers several pieces of evidence in which Plato’s Socrates alludes to his position on political philosophy early on that philosophers or the just/best man should rule. He remains constant throughout the Republic on his position that philosophers should rule as it first becomes evident in Book I then through Book X. Book I alludes to or explicitly makes claims toward a good majority of the political philosophic claims of Plato’s throughout the Republic that is used later by Plato to strengthen his claims of why Philosopher kings would be the best rulers. The supplemental positions that help build the Philosopher king can be seen alluded to or mentioned in Book I as the forms of government, who the philosopher king is, the willingness of individuals to rule, and the importance of justice over injustice. These points are all alluded to in Book I that shows the construction and path on which Plato will take later in the Republic for the Philosopher King.

The forms of government are first mentioned in book one around line 338 d. This line already alludes to Book VII and Book IX of Plato’s political theories of the Republic that discusses the forms of government. The state of justice in the forms of government is discussed as, “This, best of men, is what I mean: in every city the same thing is just, the advantage of the established ruling body,” (339 a). This can be seen as an inversion of the discussion of the different forms of government in which the decaying process discussed in Book VII begins as the best man becomes less and less just. This inversion can be seen as building toward what would be the true just government or the form that allows for a ruler. Plato creates the path in Book I to portray that the Philosopher king would be the better ruler for everyone rather than the non-philosophic leader,

Wasn’t it agreed that the rulers, when they command the ruled to do something, sometimes completely mistake what is best for themselves, while it is just for the ruled to do whatever the rulers command? (339 d)

Plato begins with the forms of government that everyone knows in Book I and shows how they are flawed or lead to injustice for those who follow them. The purpose of doing this is to give presence to his political theories or a suggestion toward the best form of government that comes with a Philosophy king.

The Philosopher king makes its famous splash in the Republic in Book V during the third wave of political philosophy in which Plato claims that Philosopher kings would prove to be the best rulers. Book I hints at this in several different ways from the parallels of the true pilot seen later in Book VI to getting the philosopher king to rule it can all be seen first in Book I. Plato uses the forms of government in Book I to show that a change in political reality needs to occur to allow for justice and the best rule to exist. The true pilot or stargazer of book six of the Republic that alludes to Book VI’s story can be seen in Book I from Plato’s Socrates conversations with Thrasymachus, “For it isn’t because of sailing that he is called a pilot but because of his art and his rule over sailors,” (341 c). The true pilot in Book VI is seen as a story to resemble the Philosopher king in two ways. The first way being his journey to rule and secondly he states the reasons why the Philosopher king should rule. In Book I Plato’s Socrates gives that very answer, stating that it is his ‘art and rule over sailors’ that makes him the true pilot even Plato’s Socrates adds later in the conversation, “then such a pilot and ruler will consider or command the benefit not of the pilot, but of the man who is a sailor and is ruled,” (342 e). The Philosopher king posses a form of art and command over the citizens that make him stand out as the ruler for his completeness of knowledge of the position and world surrounding him as he thinks of others not himself is what Plato hints at and later proves to be true. This allusion in Book I shows Plato began constructing the philosopher king with the story of the true pilot and hints toward characteristics to why the philosopher king should rule.

Plato makes way for the form of government in which a Philosopher king would rule. Plato also establishes why a Philosopher king would be the best ruler over non-philosophers, yet their willingness to rule is left as a question posed in Book I that Plato’s Socrates answers. Socrates poses the question to Thrasymachus, “Don’t you notice that no one whishes to rule voluntarily, but they demand wages as though the benefit from ruling were not from them but for those who ruled?” (346 a). This poses a very important question from which he works through in Book I that Plato reiterates later in the Republic, why should the Philosopher kings be willing to rule? Socrates first proves to Thrasymachus that, “it is plain by now that no art of kind of rule provides for its own benefit,” so there must be something more or different to convince the philosopher kings to rule (346 e). The compulsion or threat of penalty is all that compels philosopher kings to rule. Socrates, in Book I, refers to the philosopher kings as the best man or the good for he says, “the good aren’t willing to rule for the sake of money or honor…Hence, necessity and a penalty must be there in addition for them, if they are going to be willing to rule,” (347 c). This directly foreshadows what is to come in the Republic especially concerning the willingness of Philosopher kings to rule as book one states first that, “the greatest of penalties is being ruled by a worse man if one is not willing to rule oneself,” (347 c). This directly foreshadows the conversations that come later surrounding the willingness of the Philosopher kings to rule. If they do not rule, they will be subjected to an inferior’s rule this threat or compulsion makes the philosopher king willing to rule.

After establishing the form of government that would allow for a Philosopher king as the superior form of government and showing why the philosopher king would be the best ruler for everyone, Plato’s Socrates sets out to prove why the just soul is superior to the unjust soul. Proving that justice is superior to injustice is the ultimate goal of Plato’s Socrates throughout the Republic. In Book I he proves this to be the case. This serves the Philosopher king in the manner of establishing why the just soul leads to the best man. The Philosopher king exemplifies the just soul maintaining balance between the different parts and ruling for others instead of the unjust soul seen as a vice. The unjust man, according to Plato’s Socrates would, “first it will make him unable to act, because he is at faction and is not of one mind with himself, and, second, an enemy both to himself and to just men,”(352 a). Vice or injustice causes faction among the different parts of the soul which leads to unbalance and the individual leading or ruling for themselves. Socrates furthers this point in relation to rulers by stating, “Then the just soul and the just man will have a good life, and the unjust man a bad one,” (353 e). The just soul is the soul of a good leader one such as the philosopher king as Plato later establishes the Philosopher king would be an extremely just individual. Socrates places an importance on the way we should live our lives in Book I reminding the reader that, “for the argument is not about just any question, but about the way we should live our lives,” (352 d). By reminding the audience of this in Book I, Socrates makes sure this remains a foundation from which the matter of justice should be remembered. In building the Philosopher king, Plato built the ideal individual that maintains balance between all parts of the soul ruled for others rather than themselves and loves the pursuit of wisdom above all else. The Philosopher king seems to be the model of the perfect individual’s life in terms of what the just soul can provide over the unjust soul.

Book I of the Republic foreshadows the entire journey of the Philosopher king that is illustrated from Books V- VII and even hints toward Book VII and Book IX of the Republic. Plato even shows in Book I the foreshadowing of the problem that might come with the Philosopher kings as stating,

For it is likely that if a city of good men came to be, there would be a fight over not ruling, just as there is now over ruling; and there it would become manifest that a true ruler really does not naturally consider his own advantage but rather that of the one who is ruled. (347 d)

The Philosopher kings would fight over not ruling in the just city that Plato is to create through Books II-IV for they would want to pursue knowledge and intellectual aims. A system would have to be created to solve for this problem but that these men where the men truly built to be the best leaders for they thought of others before themselves when making rules.

            Book I gives the short and vague messages across between Socrates, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon surrounding justice and political philosophy. In many ways, Book I serves as an outline or an introduction upon the ideas that will serve as the detailed points that Plato gets across for the rest of his work. The entirety of the Philosopher king’s story from books five through seven can first be found vaguely discussed in Book I. Book I prepares the reader for the ideas that are to come without explicitly stating them. The construction of the Philosopher king really begins in Book I as it makes explicit foreshadowing of what is to come in the later construction of the Philosopher king through Books V-VII. The ultimate goal of proving that justice is superior to injustice is accomplished in Book I which supplements the evidence that Book I is the basis for the Republic from which the rest of the books are alluded to and become more detailed stories or dialogues to convey the themes made in Book I.