Sunday, May 8, 2016

Final Research Paper

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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