Seminar Paper V

              

                Book V of the Republic signals a change in the conversation when Polymarchus draws in the cloak of Adeimantus and forces Socrates to re-examine his argument. It is a clear parallel to Book I where it is Polymarchus arresting Socrates by ordering his slave to physically grab Socrates’ cloak. Or is there more to it? This in a nut-shell is how I feel about Book V. Where on the surface, it seems this is where the similarities between the cloak references in I and V ends, I believe Plato takes it a step further. In light of the search for these deeper connection in book V, I argue that Socrates ignored the argument of women and children because of the first two waves, not because of the third. But let us return to our example before addressing my main concern. In Book I, after arresting Socrates and Glaucon, Polymarchus asserts his strength in numbers, asking them, “’Could you really persuade,’ he said, ‘if we don’t listen?’” (327c). The answer obviously is no; they couldn’t persuade them. In Book V, after arresting Socrates, it is clear that they are listening. I believe Plato is saying, ok you didn’t have to listen but now you are, and now that you are listening let’s take it back to the cloak conversation, “Then the women guardians must strip, since they’ll clothe themselves in virtue instead of robes,” and then ridicules the man who laughs at this (457a-b). The cloak conversation is not merely a new beginning, it is a challenge to the interlocutors based on what they’ve retained so far, asking them if they’ll scoff at a women guardian or if they’ll let her do what she by nature was born to do.

                Before addressing the first wave, it is necessary to see Socrates’ hesitation. He first argues that he doesn’t know the truth or the dangers accompanying this, but that there are obvious dangers, and even if the interlocutors weren’t to hold him guilty, he would be like an “involuntary murder[er]” (451a-b). But an involuntary murderer is still a murderer and is not held guiltless by the gods, unless absolved by the victim or a family member of the victim – which Socrates is. But it’s still a fine line and not the most encouraging start to his argument. I believe this hesitation in essence is the reason he is reluctant before the second wave too: it complicates the parts of the soul.

                On the surface, the first wave is about the education of the women in the City in Speech. It is not surprising that Socrates comes to the conclusion that they should be educated for what they’re going to be, as we’ve seen before that the guardians are educated to be guardians, a shoe maker is educated to become a shoemaker etc. It starts to get interesting after he’s made the argument that men and women are not different by nature and therefore must be educated together, “One education won’t produce men for us and another women, will it, especially since it is dealing with the same nature?” (456c-d) No, they are the same by nature so they must be educated together. We can assert from this that since a man can be a guardian, auxiliary or worker, so can a woman, “Therefore, my friend, there is no practice of a city’s governors which belongs to woman because she’s woman, or to man because he’s man; but the natures are scattered alike among both animals; and woman participates according to nature in all practices, and man in all, but in all of them woman is weaker than man” (455d-e).

The conversation of weakness on the surface feels odd and sexist, but it proves to be richer than this. Although being weak has a negative connotation and implies subordination, I don’t think that’s Socrates’ point. The point is that although women in Athenian society had less rights than men and were undoubtable weaker in a political sense, they were judged by their own standard. This can be seen in 456d-e, when Socrates makes the comparison of (male) guardians being the best among citizens (male) and women being judged on their own scale. Socrates is establishing the limit for women while at the same time encouraging the one-man one-art concept, that one hones in on what they’re good at. In doing so, he acknowledges that the female guardians have different roles than the male guardians when he describes the role of the woman guardian in the supervision of nursing (460d).

This is where I believe this is where the city-soul analogy gets complex. If women are the same in nature as men and fill the same roles, then we don’t need new parts of the soul for the addition of women to our city. But it seems clear that although they are the same by nature, women are different in some way because they have different strengths and weaknesses which lead them to play different roles in the city. I read this as a divergence of the three parts of the soul. Although a woman guardian is still a guardian, she supervises over something a male guardian doesn’t. In light of the analogy, it would appear then that the calculating, spirited and desiring parts of the soul can be further divided. In one individual, there would be multiple calculating parts calculating. Although I see the practicality in women playing different roles than men, I’m not sure if Socrates wishes to add this element to the soul, which could be the reason he is reluctant to approach this topic.

The second wave also complicates the city- soul analogy but in a much different way. Socrates does not hesitate to define the second wave, but immediately after doing so Glaucon questions the possibility and beneficialness. Although Socrates believes that it is only the former that should be questioned, but never-the-less “submit[s] to the penalty,” and asks if he can “take a holiday like the idle men who are accustomed to feast their minds for themselves when they walk along” (458a). First, it is interesting that Plato uses the word feast. This could be a reference to the dinner-date Socrates was promised, of which he has now realized he won’t be in attendance. But it is interesting too that Socrates deflects here, saying that possibility isn’t important for us to consider now but we can do it later. But as we know, he only half-heartedly addresses this concern later when he claims it’s contingent on the third wave. It’s weird, and like the first wave, I read it as a clunky beginning to the argument because of its implications on the city soul analogy. Where he is resistant to the first wave, here he is admitting the limitations of this wave.

The second wave is about the holding in common of women and children. Because of the way Socrates sets up this argument, as seen above, it is necessary for him just to jump straight into it and argue for the benefit of women and children being held in common in the city. The first concern here is of sexual mixing, which is to be controlled by the rulers. It is interesting here, because the quotation, “And the most beneficial marriages would be sacred” (458e), is a direct reference to Zeus and Hera, a brother and sister. While Socrates is somewhat clear about the prohibition of such an act, I believe it could be a reference to the guardians and auxiliaries needing to be married together, or in agreement. The argument for these two parts of the city soul analogy being in harmony can be seen all throughout The Republic, but it is here in Book V that the auxiliaries and guardians are shown as more similar than different. For example, in 464a-b, in discussing what is the cause of holding things in common and the greatest good of the pain and pleasure of the whole city, he gives credit to both the community of women and children among the guardians as well as the auxiliaries. I also would argue that 468c, which references soldiers in battle and then going back to who can have kids, is saying that the auxiliaries are also included in who can have children.  

It is later in this wave that two big implications on the soul arise through the auxiliaries. The first I will call the second test. The first test comes in Book III where all of the auxiliaries and guardians who have been reared and educated are tested to see if they are worthy of being a guardian. Although most scholars see this not as a changing of modes, per say, but as a distinction and refining of the guardians, I challenge this with a conversation in the second wave of Book V: “’Now what about the business of war?’ I said. ‘How must your soldiers behave toward one another and the enemies? … If one of them’ I said, ‘leaves the ranks or throws away his arms, or does anything of the sort because of cowardice, mustn’t he be demoted to craftsman or farmer?’” (468a). This is the second test. The rearing and education of the youth are tested in Book III and only those who stick true to their education become guardians. In Book V it is a testing of the auxiliaries on the field of battle, and they are no longer youth. Both cases to me suggest movement. While I acknowledge that the test in Book III is less clear about whether it is a changing of modes or just a refinement, here it is clearer to me. The example uses a grown auxiliary in battle, and if he fails, he will no longer be an auxiliary but a worker. He has been trained for battle just as the guardians and auxiliaries had been trained for the first one in Book III, but by the auxiliary being full grown here, it implies he has been trained in everything essential to being a soldier, and fails not due to youth but because of his own lack of virtue (non-courageous). The way I read this in light of the analogy, is that if the spirited part of your soul is not being courageous, he is giving into desires and no longer doing his job. But here, it appears when the spirited part loses its virtue of courage, that part of the soul is not only giving in, but it is changing forms.

The second implication of the soul in the second wave is the outside consideration of the soul. When describing how the soldiers ought to act in war, he spends a good deal of time delineating between Greeks and barbarians. By claiming that our city is Greek automatically groups it as a city in a country. But not only that, the Greece of this time is a nation of city states. So what does it mean that they’ll “be a lover of the Greeks? Won’t they consider Greece their own and hold common holy places along with the other Greeks?” (470e). It’s a city within a country, but the country acts like a city itself. They hold things in common externally – just like the city does internally – and love each other, just as the leaders of the city love wisdom. The language is all the same as describing the city. There can even be faction among Greeks, while faction is only something that can happen to one’s own. But it’s not enough for cities to work together to form a country, “Then they’ll correct their opponents in a kindly way...” (471a). The word here for correct actually means “to make moderate,” implying that the correcting is happening in respect city soul analogy. They are literally educating their opponents of war on how to become just, and in doing so they’ll be like the just Greek cities. I believe the implications here on the soul are the beginnings of the argument for the external use of justice. A just soul can align itself with other just souls who have similar loves and things in common as well as an obligation of the soul to educate those they come into contact with.

The interlude between the second and third waves is odd in that Socrates addresses the notion of possibility, which I alluded to above, by only saying it relies on the third wave. There are clear practical limits to a philosopher king, especially the paradox in the argument of needing a philosopher king to create a just city. But really, if the interlocutors have been interpreting Socrates via the city-soul analogy through the first two waves, the third is something he has essentially already taught us. The notion of a part of the city being more powerful and better discerning than the rest is clearly seen in the guardians; essentially all he’s doing here is clarifying what a guardian is. Don not be deceived by the difficulty of selling the argument that a philosopher should rule the city, as well as the already apparent argument of whether it is possible to cultivate such a man. But still see that he has already established their need, he just had not labeled the guardians as philosophers yet. For these reasons, I think the ideas brought forward in the first two waves are much more controversial than the third wave in the light of the soul.

Seminar Paper Book 4- Kennedy Blose

The City and The Soul

The entire city in speech was created as an analogy to the soul in order to find justice in an individual. Many argue that the city in speech, even though it’s used by Socrates as an analogy to the individual’s soul, has political implications. This argument has a logical basis, since the fact that Socrates used a city as the “bigger picture” of justice in a soul means Plato’s Socrates believed there are some intrinsic factors in the inner workings of cities that are paralleled to those found in the soul. In this respect, the interactions of the parts of both the city and a soul should also be analogous. I argue that the city in speech is indeed an ideal political structure that Plato proposes, but the city in speech is only possible if each individual within it is just. The city in speech, then, is a proposed method in which to educate and raise just individuals, who could in turn create just political regimes.

Socrates deems that the type of political regime of the city in speech “would be the one we’ve described, but it could be named in two ways…if one exceptional man arose among the rulers, it would be called a kingship, if more, an aristocracy” (445d). The king, or aristocratic leaders, of the city in speech are the guardians. According to Socrates, “there isn’t ever anyone who holds any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, who considers or commands his own advantage rather than that of what is ruled and of which he himself is the craftsman; and it is looking to this and what is advantageous and fitting for it that he says everything he says and does everything he does” (342e). A good ruler, therefore, is well educated in the art of ruling, and would rule in accordance with the advantage of the whole. This is crucial because the ruler will have to be someone disciplined enough not to abuse the power contained in the ruling of the city.

The guardians were chosen as the leaders of this regime because “from the smallest group and part of itself and the knowledge in it, from the supervising and ruling part…a city founded according to nature would be wise as a whole” (429a). The guardians, by nature and education, are the calculating, wise part of the soul. This implies that in order to be a good – real – leader, one must have the following qualities: be just, he must be most naturally inclined to be a ruler, be well educated in the art of ruling, and be wise. Socrates even clarifies that it is “proper for the calculating part to rule, since it is wise and has forethought about all of the soul” (441e). This further stresses the importance of education for the real-life ruler, because by analogy to that, the ruler must have forethought about all of the city and its functions. However, this type of person could only grow up in a regime where education is highly regarded and even warranted. In the city in speech, as can be seen in Book 3, the education of the calculating and spirited parts of the soul is highly regulated, and this can be seen as a suggestion from Plato’s Socrates that education of the youth must primarily focus on strengthening these virtues.

               The guardians, even though the ruling class, do not execute the laws and advice they have for the city; this duty lies with the auxiliaries. The auxiliaries, representing the spirited part of the soul, ensure the guardians’ rule by the “preserving of the opinion produced by law through education about what – and what sort of thing – is terrible” namely, by preserving the laws the guardians set forth (429c). The guardians provide wisdom and knowledge about ruling, and how the city should run, but it is the auxiliaries who carry out these legislations, and who conquer the desire part of the soul. The auxiliaries could be viewed as a mix between police and an army. On an individual level, in the soul, the auxiliaries conquer desire; they ensure that the individual follows the calculating part of their soul, making the wisest choices. This concept’s implications in analogy to a city would mean that the city’s defenders would have to have internal defenses ensuring that all the citizens abided by the laws set forth by the ruler/ruling class – a strong police force.

The auxiliaries also deal with guarding the city in speech against other cities, executing the art of war. This could be analogous to the individual, where the spirited part of their soul protects them from doing injustices because of the situation an individual finds themselves in, as can be seen when Socrates questions “And what about when a man believes he’s being done injustice? Doesn’t his spirit in this case boil and become harsh and form an alliance for battle with what seems just; and, even if it suffers in hunger, cold and everything of the sort, doesn’t it stand firm and conquer, and not cease from its noble efforts before it has succeeded, or death intervenes, or before it becomes gentle, having been called in by the speech within him like a dog by a herdsman?” (440c-d). Here, Socrates is merely clarifying that the auxiliaries not only carry out the orders of the guardians, but they would also defend the whole of the soul against injustices. The spirited part of the soul, then, must be strong in order to overpower injustices and maintain moderation and justice in the soul. In a real city, this would mean a strong internal and external defense system which would be completely loyal to the king or aristocratic leaders.

In the city soul analogy, Socrates claims that there is a third virtue – moderation. This virtue is defined by Socrates as “a certain kind of order and mastery of certain kinds of pleasures and desires, as men say when they use – I don’t know in what way – the phrase ‘stronger than himself’…this speech looks to me as if it wants to say that, concerning the soul, in the same human being there is something better and something worse… the phrase ‘stronger than himself’ is used when that which is better by nature is master over that which is worse” (431a-b). This means that according to Socrates, there is a hierarchy in the order of virtues in the soul, and that in order to be moderate, the virtue which is best must rule over the other virtues. This implies that Plato’s Socrates values wisdom the most out of all the virtues, because he handed over responsibility of the entire city, analogous to the entire soul, to the calculating part of the soul which embodies the virtue of wisdom.

Moderation in the city, however, seems to have a voluntary aspect of all the parts being ruled by the guardians. Socrates questions “Isn’t he moderate because of the friendship and accord of these parts – when the ruling part and the two ruled parts are of the single opinion that the calculating part ought to rule and don’t raise faction against it?” (442c-d). In the city in speech, Socrates implies that all the parts are of unified belief that a wise ruler is the best for the city. Taking this fuller idea of moderation as analogous to a real-life city, all the members of the city must recognize that whatever king or aristocratic leaders that rule the city are the best fit for the city, because they’re wise and naturally inclined to rule. The most plausible way of making a unified belief for the acceptance of a wide ruler would be either propaganda, or educating people of this need for a proper ruler and moderation from youth. The plausibility of either of these things happening, however, could still be called into question.

The last, and ultimately most important, parallel between the city and soul lies in the virtue of justice. Justice in the city “after all [is] a kind of phantom of justice…the fact that the shoemaker by nature rightly practices shoemaking and does nothing else, and the carpenter practices carpentry, and so on for the rest” (443c). Justice in a city, even though it is only a phantom of justice in the soul (whatever that means, thanks for the clarification Socrates), is each man doing the art they were meant to do by nature. Justice seems to be the most straightforward of the virtues when it comes to the city, each citizen must practice that which they’re naturally inclined to do – in other words, what they do best. This would keep common workers out of political life, while ensuring that only the best rulers in the city would rule.

While this seems like the most straightforward virtue to be found in a city, the practicality of this type of justice in a city can be called into question. How would such a city raise each child into an individual who does what they’re naturally inclined to do best? How would the education of such a city be structured so that it would properly educate the calculating and spirited aspects of the soul, while finding out which individual does what best by nature? Book 5 delves into deeper questions regarding education and the incorporation of women and children, however my focus remains on the final city in speech constructed in Book 4.

With the final city comes justice in the individual’s soul and the analogous city. Since justice was found within this analogous political regime, and the political regime mirrors that of a monarchy or aristocracy, it is logical to deduce that one can learn about justice in a political regime via Plato’s Socrates’ city in speech. In the city in speech, the ruling class consists of the guardians who embody virtue. The defensive class consists of the auxiliaries who embody courage. There is moderation, in which the ruling class is better by nature than those being ruled (i.e. wisdom rules over spirit and desire), and there is justice. Justice consists of each man doing what he’s naturally inclined to do.

In a real-life city, by analogy, there must be a ruling class who is wise, a defensive class who excels in courage, the ruling class must be by nature better fit to rule – and rule over all other classes in harmony – and each person must be just. In order for each person to be just, however, they must be raised with the proper education and rearing. Therefore, since Socrates’ city in speech could be (and should be to some extent) viewed as a just political regime, it must ultimately be used in order to help individuals find justice in the soul; for without justice in the soul, in all individuals, justice could not arise in a city.

Short Essay #2

The Potential of Youth

               In my first short essay, I looked at the role of education and its implications on the city by investigating Socrates’ teaching before the three waves in Book V. Book V takes education and rearing on a seemingly communistic and ethically questionable joy-ride; I will save my analysis on such a topic for its own place. In an effort to piece together Socrates’ fullest teaching on education and rearing, I will look to specific examples from Books VI, VII, and VII that highlight the role that education plays, how to educate, and how it can be corrupted.

                Book VI shows the nature of the true philosopher in the effort to demonstrate why it is necessary to have a philosopher in charge of the city. Such a man will be “one whose nature grows by itself in such a way as to make it easily led to the idea of each thing that is,” (486d). These men also must be “by nature a rememberer, a good learner, magnificent, charming, and a friend and kinsman of truth, justice, courage, and moderation.” (487a). And finally, before Adeimantus can voice the concern of the critics, he agrees with Socrates that “such men… are perfected by education and age” (487a). This passage shows that even in the best individuals, it is education that has the potential to transform a great man into a perfect one.

It also seems to imply that a man can intrinsically contain all of these virtues without education when Socrates says “by nature,” as well as when he says that the nature can grow on its own. But look at the list of those virtues! A remember and good learner both directly tie to education; if you remember, you have to first know something and if you are a good learner, you have learned, and if you’ve learned you’ve been educated. Before getting to the last four – which should look the most familiar to the reader, and incidentally one doesn’t have to possess but rather has to be close with – he needs to be magnificent and charming. Magnificence is often related to royalty and grandeur, so it could imply that a philosopher king still has to have some degree of regality, as well as being charming or pleasing: essentially, a generally good person. Lastly, they must be a friend and kinsman to truth – which, because he is a philosopher, is already his ambition – as well as the three virtues of a three-part soul. Now, what kind of person can this be? To find any person with all of these attributes would surely be a great ruler as well as any other profession due to their super-human awesomeness. But it is education (and age) that perfects such a person. At the surface it looks like Socrates could be saying that education is what takes these people from great to perfect, but it would be impossible to cultivate all of these virtues without education in the first place, as will be shown below.

Book VII showcases the method of education. The most famous image from this great book is the allegory of the cave, which depicts prisoners restricted to see only one wall of the cave and know nothing of the world just beyond their reach. It isn’t until one leaves the cave and sees the form of the shadow in the light that he more correctly starts to know the nature of the object. It is the process here that I wish to focus on. The journey is clearly not an easy one, “Take a man who is released and suddenly compelled to stand up, to turn his neck around, to walk and look up toward the light; and who, moreover, in doing all this is in pain and, because he is dazzled, is unable to make out those things whose shadows he saw before” (515c-d). But luckily he has someone to drag him out. For if this man was brought discomfort and pain from turning and looking, he has much harder obstacles to overcome if he wishes to make it to the real world.

It is a process. First, the man knows the shadows; he has viewed them his whole life. When he is freed, “he’d most easily make out the shadows; and after that the phantoms of human beings and the other things in water; and later, the things themselves. And from there he could turn to beholding the things in heaven and heaven itself” (516a). After doing this, the man returns to the cave to help the others reach the same nirvana. As I stated above, this is a model for the method of education: one must start with the most basic things (images) and build-up from this until they have reached the ultimate goal (knowledge of the good). In this way, education is a tool that instructs one how to find knowledge themselves, it isn’t “as though they were putting sight into a blind eye” (518c) or that education in itself gives a new knowledge, but that education gives us the blueprint on how to find the truth in anything. In the process, one naturally exhibits and refines their virtues.

This may seem arbitrary or basic to some that we need to start with things that we can know (or to go along with images, that we can see). But contrast it with a Rationalist like Descartes who says if you can’t be certain of something it must be disregarded. For Plato, an image is a basic building block that we refine and refine until we can see the truth, but for Descartes images are useless.

In Book VIII we see education play an interesting role in the degradation of justice. When describing the five types of government, he uses a youth in each regime to epitomize the soul. However, a curious thing happens: the youth is corrupted. To this point in the book, every instance of youth references purity, a blank slate from which one can become educated and reared to exemplify all their potential virtues. It is a caution to the reader; just as one must struggle through education in search of truth, a youth can also become corrupted, certainly never accessing his potential virtues. It isn’t directly through his education that this happens, but through his rearing: “’When,’ I said, ‘in the first place, he listens to his mother complaining’” (449c) and “When his [a King] son is born and at first emulates his father and follows in his footsteps, and then sees him blunder against the city… [the king] underwent death, exile, or dishonor… And the son, my friend, seeing and suffering this and having lost his substance, is frightened,” which leads him to desire (553a-c). It is through his parents that he sees these injustices which cause him to form corrupt opinions, ultimately leading to the deterioration of the soul of the youth. The poor child! He was born into this situation and acted out of response to his rearing. This just goes to show the importance of a good upbringing and education of an individual in reaching their true potential.

Short Essay #2

Kennedy Blose

Short Essay #2

Throughout The Republic, Plato seems to be advocating for the benefits of philosophy in both the self and society. Plato’s Socrates uses many different images, allegories, and more in order to show how philosophy is both not harmful, and even beneficial, to the individual and society. In his arguments for why philosophers are beneficial for society, Plato also addresses why it is that philosophy has been shed in such an unfortunate light to the many. In doing so, Plato attempts to rid philosophy of its useless reputation all the while still showing how it is actually beneficial.

A powerful image that Plato’s Socrates uses in explaining the appearance of philosophers to the many is the ship of state. In this analogy, Socrates uses a ship instead of a traditional political regime in order to show the virtues of the soul, yet the parts remain the same: the three parts of the ship include a shipowner who signifies the spirited part of the soul, seamen who represent desire, and a stargazer who represents the calculating part of the soul (488). Since the shipowner cannot pilot the ship, the seamen are constantly “quarreling with one another about the piloting, each supposing he ought to pilot, although he has never learned the art… and they are always crowded around the shipowner himself, begging and doing everything so that he’ll turn the rudder over to them” (488b-c). The seamen are constantly being driven by desire to rule even though they don’t have the proper knowledge to do so; the seamen even have the potential to “either kill the others or throw them out of the ship” if they fail to take the piloting reigns for themselves (488c).

This is crucial because it is showcasing the disposition of desire, and how a lack of moderation can have consequences. Since the shipowner is preoccupied with the sailors, and the sailors are preoccupied with their want of rule, no one is piloting the ship; even more, all those who are fighting to sail the ship cannot even do so. Between the seamen and the shipowner, there is no one with the proper knowledge of how to sail; if it were left up to the shipowner and the seamen to sail the ship, it would be lost at sea unless someone or something assisted them.

There is a ‘someone’ that could help the shipowner and sailors, and that is a person already aboard the ship who does have the means to pilot the ship; this is the stargazer. The stargazer is able to pilot the ship due to the fact that “for the true pilot it is necessary to pay careful attention to year, seasons, heaven, stars, winds, and everything that’s proper to the art, if he is really going to be skilled at ruling a ship” (488d). In this way, the stargazer can be seen as philosophic in the nature of sailing, since he is gathering all of the information necessary for that art. Knowledge is not something inherent – it must be sought out – and it only comes from sources outside of the self. No lay person will wake up with the knowledge of how to sail a ship on their own, or chart directions; they have to go out, explore the ship and its pieces, explore the stars and figure out which can be used for guidance and which lead the ship in different directions.

There are many other things one must do in order to learn how to sail a ship, with the main point being that it takes time, studying, and practice before one can pilot. The sailors’ only desire to pilot as a means of ruling the ship, they have no interest in knowledge and even “claim it [the art of sailing the ship] isn’t eve teachable and are ready to cut to pieces the man who says it is teachable…and they don’t suppose it’s possible to acquire the art and practice of how one can get hold of the helm whether the others wish it or not, and at the same time acquire the pilot’s skill” (488b-d). The sailors’ desire for piloting is so strong that they would take the helm without knowledge of what they were doing, and they would overlook the one person who could navigate the ship – the stargazer.

Taking the sailors’ actions into consideration, “with such things happening on the ships, don’t you believe that the true pilot will really be called a stargazer, a prater and useless to them by those who sale on ships run like this?” (488e-489a). The sailors believe that gaining power is the most important thing to do, and since the stargazer only observes nature and gathers knowledge, the sailors disregard him as useless. It seems like Plato’s Socrates is implying that only with a philosophic nature ruling the soul – the want of acquiring knowledge for one’s art – could a person properly pilot the ship or navigate themselves. When left up to the desiring or spirited parts of the ship, neither part had the means to pilot and the ship couldn’t properly function. However, with the knowledge and leadership of the stargazer, the ship could have successfully charted a course anywhere it needed to go.

In the ship of state, it is easy to see how philosophy can be beneficial for the self and for society. The stargazer, with his knowledge, can navigate the ship; if the desiring (sailors) or spirited (shipowner) aspects of the soul piloted the ship, there would be little or no progress made in navigation and sailing. It is only with the proper guidance of the stargazer that the ship can be piloted. However, since the desire of the sailors to rule far outweighs their knowledge of piloting (and their want of knowledge), they disregard the stargazer as useless (due to his lack of want for ruling). Even though Socrates uses this analogy to demonstrate aspects of the soul, it can still be applied to a broader sense of how the many view philosophy. Since the many don’t have the same knowledge as philosophers, it can be easy for them to overlook philosophers, or view them as useless. If a pilot just sits looking at the stars all night, to people who don’t know he’s charting a path for navigation, he might look like he’s simply passing time, doing nothing of importance. The ship of state analogy shows how philosophy is both useful and regarded as useless.