Lucas Slotsema
Dr. Thomas
PHI 360
9 May 2016
To Clothe the City of Athens
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. But I argue that Plato uses cloaks as
benchmarks along the way of his argument intentionally. They prove to be more
than just good introductions to arguments, but symbolize something greater. This
is how Book V must be read. By examining the use of the cloaks and analyzing
the three waves of Book V, I will show that the first two waves were more
controversial, and ultimately what Plato is asking of his Athenian readers.
Let us return to
the first instance of a cloak appearing in The Republic. After having his slave
grab Socrates’ cloak, Polymarchus asserts his strength in numbers, asking him,
“’Could you really persuade,’ he said, ‘if we don’t listen?’” (327c). The
answer obviously is no; Socrates 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.
Information
made available by Bruce Rosenstock, shows that cloaks and clothes were an
integral part in Grecian, specifically Athenian, religious ceremonies, as well
symbolic of mankind. Rosenstock cites anthropologist Annette Weiner, who quotes
the Tongo people of Polynesia for saying “Human kind is like a matt being woven.”
(Rosenstock, 363). As Weiner clarifies, this belief - also held by the Grecians
during Plato’s time – is not only metaphorical of social relations, but appeals
to something universal, a connection to the world. Rosenstock ties this back
directly to the Athenian festival of Panathenia. Panathenia celebrates the “collective
identity as the city nurtured by Athena” (ibid., 364). Every fourth year, this commemoration
was enlarged, including Panhellenic features such as the Olympic games, but
more intriguingly, a massive cloak called the pelpos was gifted to Athena. “The
gift of the peplos reestablished the relationship of reciprocity between the
goddess and the city; the city "clothes" Athena (i.e., her cult
statue or xoanon) and requests that she in turn preserve her citizens by
renewing the bonds of political and biological solidarity which have hitherto
connected them.” (ibid, 364). It appears that there is a direct connection
between the biggest religious feast in Athens and cloaks.
Athens
is directly referenced only once in The Republic; Athena is referenced once as
well. It’s not entirely surprising because this work is so universal,
discussing ideals more than modern politics; but where it occurs is
interesting. In 379e Athena appears with Zeus. Here, Socrates ridicules Homer
for portraying the gods and goddess as both good and bad, and banishes such poetry
from the ideal city. This is not a banishing of the gods, but of those who misinterpret
them. It isn’t that there is a problem with the gods, but the poets who contradict
the god’s personalities force us to question if the writer had knowledge of the
gods. Furthermore, the real issue is brought up by J. Tate, who said, “The mere
imitator, whether poet or painter, produces what is thrice removed from
truth-an imitation (picture or poem) of an imitation (the object as perceived
by the senses, not as perceived by the rational part of the soul) of reality
(the idea). The object, whether a bed or a man, is not perfectly real (597a); on
one side it is real, in so far as it partakes in, or imitates, the real; on the
other side it belongs to the world of multiplicity and change and therefore
partakes in non- being” (Tate, 20). I argue that this concept of obtaining
knowledge through reason rather than sensory experience is a fundament theorem
for understanding The Republic. Here it provides a blueprint to fix our view of
the gods, as well as the demand for a new way to express the actual essence of
the gods.
I
think that this is the first function of the cloak interlude. The reference to
Athena and Zeus in Book III clearly shows that the way ceremonies were conducted
needed to be changed for the guardians to have an ideal education. The
reappearance of a cloak reference in V not only supports this by alluding to
the Athenian ceremony, but he corrects it. As I quoted previously, Socrates
clothes the women guardians’ in cloaks of virtue. In a way, he is replacing
Athena with all of the women guardians, clothing them in garments of virtue
rather than a ceremonial cloth that took 8 months to weave. As will be further
explored, I think there is an important connection between women and the cloaks.
But if this first interpretation is to be believed, replacing the literal
guardian of the Athenians with women clothed in virtue substitutes a human
being for a goddess, indicating that the problem is with the gods, not the
poets. Even if Socrates meant to be critical of Athenian living, which I don’t
doubt that he was, replacing a god with a non-god shows that the issue isn’t
with the interpretations of the gods, but with the actual gods. If the problem
with interpreting the gods isn’t the poet’s fault, I conclude one of two things:
either the gods don’t exist or the gods are impossible to know through any
means other than experience, which is problematic as seen through Tate’s interpretation
of imitation above. Either way, it significantly conflicts with what Plato has
previously said about the gods, and suggests that guardians should take over
the role of preserver of the city.
With
this new view of religion in mind, Book V looks a bit different. Before
addressing the first wave, it is necessary to see Socrates’ hesitation. In Book
IV he glossed over the topic of women and children. The interlocutors did this
intentionally, assuming Socrates would expound upon it, but he never does. This
is not an oversite of his, but rather our first clue that he’s treading in deep
water. 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. Socrates is absolved by Glaucon, but he would still have
the blood on his hands of destroying his friend’s soul. Socrates jests about
this ironically, yet it’s a fine line to walk 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. However, Plato’s proposition of how to educate the guardians in
the ideal city prior to Book V is too extreme for some scholars such as Victour
Boutros. Boutros argues that restrictions on the guardians’ education will make
them “mind-less” (Boutros). Consequently, Boutros argues that the allegory of
the cave is the correct format to educate the populace. I don’t disagree that
the cave is the model of education, but I am much more sympathetic to the likes
of Tate, who claims that an education in “Poetry, like all other forms of art,
must train the young to love and resemble the beauty of truth (410d), so that
when reason develops, they will recognize it as an old friend (402).” (Tate,
16). The cave may be how we are educated in the real world, but the filter
surrounding the youthful guardians is necessary through their adolescence.
Being around things that are pre-determined to be good for the guardians does
not ensure that they will recognize “the beauty of truth,” but I agree that
being surrounded by what is good has the best chance of creating good
guardians.
Assuming that we’re
on board with how to educate guardians before the issue of gender arises, the
argument proposing equal education for men and women gets interesting. Socrates
makes 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 than men. Occasionally, this leads them to
play different roles in the city. Initially, 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. One could view this, in
light of the analogy, that the calculating, spirited and desiring parts of the
soul can be further divided. In one individual, there would be multiple
calculating parts calculating. I think this is correct, to an extent. Consider
a guardian: his responsibility is to be the leader of the city. But as the
leader of the city, he would have to supervise the markets, be knowledgeable of
the art that is being allowed into the city, organize the education of all of
the citizens, structure the commonality of the women and children, and any
other overseeing role demanded of him by the city. In this way, the parts of
one’s soul have multiple abilities. A female guardian may be better at
something than a male guardian, but it could be argued that they both have the
capacity to be a “guardian-nurse” but the women are better at it. This is
surely true of humans. It’s apparent that we are all endowed with reason,
others simply are better at applying it. Every individual has these three parts
in their soul, but no one uses each part to its fullest. It is the same when
dividing the pieces down; men and women have the same parts of their souls, but
those parts have many abilities, of which certain individuals have a higher
capacity.
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. It could also be another
reference to the readers of this time to think of Athens. The festival was for
Bendis, a goddess, just as the Panathenia was to a goddess. The only direct
reference to Athens is less clear in Bloom’s translation, as he calls the
Athenian delicacy “Attic cakes” (Attic, referring to the region of Greece that
contained Athens) rather than, “Athenian confectionry” (404d). Although in this
passage, Athens isn’t the only city mentioned as consuming sweets, it seems
characteristic of the city. I say it is characteristic of the city because in
Book VIII Socrates critiques democracy, the rich are rich, living lavishly,
while the poor are poor, striving to meet their physical needs. Rosenstock
calls Athens, “the outstanding example of the democratic city… unshackled
appetites for a multitude of different and often contrary objects have been
given free reign to express themselves” (Rosenstock, 369). A city like this
would be full of feasts and relishes, which Athens truly was.
But to the seconds wave: it is interesting too
that Socrates deflects here, saying that the possibility of women and children
being held in common isn’t important for us to consider now but we may address
it later. As we know, he only half-heartedly addresses this concern when he
does consider it, claiming it’s contingent on the third wave. So where in Book
IV he tries to avoid women and children completely, here he is still very much
avoiding something, of which I’m not entirely sure. It could be a way of him
showing the practical limitations of the three waves in an actual city, implying
that the only concern in Book V is of the soul. But it isn’t clear, 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 the implications on the soul arise through the auxiliaries,
coming from what 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.
While the two
waves ask questions about the city-soul analogy, I am confident that Plato
truly believed what is proposed in the first wave, that is, that the nature of
man and woman is the same. Rosenstock even goes so far to point out how the
second wave strives to separate childbearing from parenthood: “The result of
this commonality of children is that in the ideal city father and mother
designate members of the generational group above one's own and are not kinship
terms” (Rosenstock, 371). I think this idea goes all the way back to the cloak
argument. One of the few jobs the ancient Athenian women had was weaving. These
two jobs, childbirth and weaving, seem to be two of the only obligations of
women during ancient Athens, and there’s something intrinsically related
between the two. One of the most well-known Psalms is Psalm 139, where David
praises God for being knit together in his mother’s womb. But at this point in
the argument, it appears that Plato, arguing for society to take away genders has
brought us right back to where we started.
The interlude
between the second and third waves is odd because 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. But at the beginning of
Book V, he’s argued that a woman guardian must take the place of Athena as the
preserver of the city. However, he has just spent all this time equating the nature
of man and women. I believe he has done this to show that men and women both
inherently have the ability to become philosopher kings, specifically for the
City of Athens, but women are limited by the times.
Do 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 I truly believe this is what Plato wanted of Athens. The
problem with Athens was with the education of the masses: “In other words,
Plato believed, as did the founders of our national government, that to have
democracy you must have a careful education for all citizens” (Lange, 843). Who
better to lead the lost than a philosopher-king, who has been carefully
educated and of whose abilities including the supervision of proper education.
This is the potential he sees in Athens, when saying of democracy, “’It is
probably the fairest of the regimes,’ I said. ‘Just like a many-colored cloak
decorated in all hues…” (557c).
Citations
Lange, Stella. "Plato and
Democracy." The Classical Journal 34.8 (1939): 480-86. Web. 8 May 2016.
Rosenstock,
Bruce. “Athena’s Cloak: Plato’s Critique of the Democratic City in the
Republic.” Political Theory 22.3 (1994): 363–390. Print.
Tate, J. "'Imitation' In Plato's
Republic." The Quarterly Journal 22.1 (1928): 16-23. Web. 9 May 2016.
“20th
WCP: Spelunking with Socrates: A Study of Socratic Pedagogy in Plato’s
Republic.” N.p.,
n.d.
Web. 9 May 2016.
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