Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy

brought to you by Ron Yezzi

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

Minnesota State University, Mankato

© Copyright 2003, 2015, 2020 by Ron Yezzi

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Plato 1 - Introduction, Plato and Socrates, Reading Plato, Savory Info

Plato 2 - Plato's System, Phaedo, Republic, Theaetetus

Topics

Plato's System

A. The Importance of Method

B. Self-realization and External Direction in the Acquisition of Knowledge

C. Ultimate Truths and the Limitations of Written Works

D. The Movement of Philosophy: From Diversity to Unity

E. Knowledge

The Divided Line

Allegory of the Cave

F. The Theory of Forms (Ideas)

G. Basic Cosmology

H. Human Nature and the Psyche

I. Human Nature and the Organization of States

Plato's Classes within the Ideal State

Types of States

J. Why Justice Is Better Than Injustice

Phaedo

What to Look For

Study Guide

Republic

What to Look For

Study Guide

Theaetetus

What to Look For

Outline-Summary

Plato's System

A. The Importance of Method

For Plato, the method produces the message. Make use of an inferior method; and you get an inferior message. Make use of the right method; and you are much more likely to get a correct message.

The dialogues can be looked upon as experiments in method.

The primary method of Plato is dialectical—that is, a search for more encompassing principles through a clash of ideas in question-and-answer discourse. The method applies within particular dialogues, most often through Socrates’ discussions with others. But the method also applies to all the dialogues taken as a whole. If we want to understand Plato's “unwritten philosophy,” we need to consider the totality of the dialogues as a giant dialectical machine for constructing it.

B. Self-realization and External Direction in the Acquisition of Knowledge

Acquiring of knowledge is not a “pouring-in” or lecturing process. Nothing is really known until you are both ready to grasp it and it becomes a genuine element of your own thought processes. Accordingly, from Plato’s point of view, there is not much point to lecturing on his philosophy (which poses an interesting problem for those of you hoping to gain some understanding of Plato’s philosophy by reading the material here).

The Platonic way of understanding Plato is best served by digging into the dialogues as a way of continually increasing your ability to reach higher levels of understanding. For a wonderful introduction to different levels of understanding and to the progression toward higher levels, follow the discussion of The Divided Line and the Allegory of the Cave in Books VI and VII of the Republic.

The Doctrine of Recollection, already discussed with respect to Socrates―whereby we recall what we knew in a past life―may just be a way emphasizing the way in which knowledge must be drawn out of ourselves in a process of internal self-realization rather than being given to us in a past life.

The need for a process of internal self-realization however does not mean that we acquire knowledge simply by looking within ourselves. We must experience the self-realization within ourselves; but we normally require the right kind of external direction to aid us in the quest. And the lower our level of understanding, the greater our need for external guidance. The best model for this external guidance comes from Plato’s dialogues themselves―in showing a wise, active speaker participating in question-and-answer discourse and in offering the written discourses of the dialogues as a guide.

C. Ultimate Truths and the Limitations of Written Works

As we have seen (Amazing and Not-So-Amazing Hints for Reading Plato), Plato’s ultimate truths do not appear as a document in a particular place because (a) he denies having written down his own philosophy and (b) he points out a basic problem with respect to written works.

We should not conclude however that Plato is a mystic or that his philosophy is an unfathomable mystery. Instead we should expect a need for greater subtlety in understanding Plato. He may not have written down his philosophy in a straightforward way, but he left us the dialogues as plentiful tracks to follow. The tracks pointing toward a Theory of Forms as the basic reality are clear enough. The needs for reasoning and ordered (organized) preparation are clear―even if the Ultimate Truth occurs finally through an intuition.

Some of the more intriguing (and really puzzling) tracks occur in the guise of analogies and myths, where Plato attacks problems indirectly.

D. The Movement of Philosophy: From Diversity to Unity

Plato’s dialectical method searches for a higher unity by seeking ever more encompassing principles. In its simplest manifestation, the search for the definition of term by beginning with a diversity of examples and then seeking the common element exemplifies this movement. Likewise, the explanation of the existence of a diverse set of objects in the sensory world as the exemplification of a Form―for example, beautiful objects being what they are through the imposition of the Form of Beauty―brings diversity under a higher unity. Finally, and most importantly, the Form of the Good as the ultimate unity ruling the diversity of existence represents the culmination of the movement from diversity to unity.

Reason with its capacity for abstraction―allowing the thinker to (a) set aside many properties of sensory objects, (b) derive the logical implications of a hypothesis, and (3) analyze abstract ideas―

E. Knowledge

For Plato, Forms constitute the highest level of understanding and therefore are the goal of the search for knowledge. Before considering his Theory of Forms though, we had better begin with his account of various levels of understanding and the progression upward through these levels. Plato lays out the progression very effectively in his presentation of The Divided Line (Republic, 509d-511d) and the Allegory of the Cave (Republic, 514a-520e).

The lowest level of The Divided Line deals with our simplest, least considered speculations or hunches about our experience. It may also include teachings and sayings (that is, what are to us mere reflections of what someone else said) passed on to us without any careful analysis to establish their truth. For example, "Honesty is the best policy."

On the next level, we encounter beliefs based upon much clearer, direct perceptions in our experience. For example, persons observe directly that they do not like pain and then regard it as bad. Or they perceive the ordinary objects of sensory experience―dogs, tables, trees, etc.

On these two lower levels, experience in the sensory world is the basis for awareness; on the two higher levels however, reason is the foundation. As we move to the higher levels then, we cross The Great Platonic Divide―from the sensory realm to the intelligible realm, from the realm of what is changing to the realm of the unchanging.

On the third level, we encounter the rational implications of various hypotheses. Plato prefers to discuss this level in terms of mathematics, for example, where we study the rational implications of the definitions, axioms, and postulates of geometry—taking them as hypotheses without certifying their truth.

On the fourth level, reason goes beyond hypotheses to the certified truth of the Forms, culminating ultimately in an apprehension of the Form of The Good. Rationally analyzing concepts such as courage, temperance, pleasure, and pain—trying out possible definitions, clarifying meanings, considering various possible objections—leads us to the Forms. Of the highest type of thinking, Plato says,

And so with dialectic; when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute, by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until by pure intelligence he arrives at perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible. (Republic, Book VII, 532)

Dialectical reasoning, as already noted, is the primary method of Plato’s dialogues―question-and-answer discourse by which we rationally clarify concepts until we reach first principles that are certified truths.

Allegory of the Cave

The Allegory of the Cave exemplifies the levels of The Divided Line in a splendid tale about prisoners in a cave who have been so chained and fettered that they have spent their entire lives seeing only shadows cast on the back wall, not knowing that these shadows are merely projections of objects being moved in front of a fire behind them. Moreover, the cave has an echo whereby any sounds from the objects or movers resound from the shadows on the wall. Given the only experience they have, the prisoners will take the shadows to be reality.

And if one of the prisoners were released and turned toward the light of the fire, the first reaction would be a blinding discomfort that leads the prisoner to try to turn back and remain in the more familiar world of shadows. Once accustomed to seeing objects by the light of the fire, the prisoner is then brought out of the cave (crossing The Great Platonic Divide) to view objects by the light of the moon and stars. Then the prisoner is allowed to view objects by the light of the sun and eventually to look directly at the sun (which represents the Form of the Good).

If the now enlightened prisoner returns to the cave, moving from brightness to darkness, there will be problems readjusting to the old environment and the other prisoners will be highly skeptical of any accounts of a reality beyond their own world of shadows.

The Allegory offers Plato’s brilliant counterpoint to those who doubt the existence of Forms: They are like the prisoners in the cave.

(Note: Although we must transcend sensory experience to arrive at truth, according to Plato, we do not remain within this realm of pure reason however. Having attained an awareness of The Good, we must gain practical experience in applying It in the world, so as to make sound moral judgments. That is, we must return to the cave and readjust to its environment, with the added enlightenment of our new knowledge. Thus, in the training of philosopher-rulers, fifteen years of rigorous training in the use of reason, culminating in an awareness of The Good, is followed by fifteen years of experience in various governmental offices before individuals are allowed to assume leadership of the state.)

F. The Theory of Forms (Ideas)

Forms constitute the fundamental structure of reality for Plato. (The Phaedo and Republic are the best sources for an introduction to the Forms.)

The Theory of Forms can be regarded as an attempt to resolve the problem of Being (Parmenides) and Becoming (Heraclitus). For Parmenides, change did not make sense rationally; and, for Heraclitus, our observations show that everything is changing. Plato resolves the opposition in these positions by borrowing from both and then offering a higher synthesis. With Parmenides, Plato agrees that the demands of reason must be satisfied; but he relies upon Reason for stability and infallible knowledge without going to the Parmenidean extreme of denying the existence of all change. With Heraclitus, he agrees that the fact of change must be recognized; but he focuses more attention upon what directs this world of change. The result is a Theory of Forms, whereby purely intellectual entities, existing in their own non-sensory world, give order to everchanging world of sensory experience.

Consider a Chair: It is in a state of process or change, since it can come into or go out of existence, just as every other chair. But there is a Form of a chair that still exists, regardless of any process affecting the existence or non-existence of particular chairs. So the Form of Chairness does not require physical objects for its existence. A sensory object like a chair conforms to the Form of a chair; that is, it is a chair and not something else because it exemplifies and is dependent upon the Form of Chairness. So sensory objects require Forms to exist; but Forms do not require sense objects.

Hence what truly exists, as a permanently existing and unchanging reality, are Forms; and the sensory (sensible) world merely copies or imitates Forms existing in a non-physical reality. Accordingly, Forms represent Being for Plato, and sense objects represent Becoming.

Since these Forms constitute a non-physical reality, we need to grasp them rationally rather than through sensory observation. Sensory observations are, at best, rough indicators of the intelligible realm of the Forms themselves.

The Form of Chairness provides a convenient illustration. But we should recognize that some Forms are much more significant than others. The Form of Justice or of The Ideal State is more important than the Form of Rockness. And the highest Form of all, the Form of the Good, unifies The Good, The True, and The Beautiful.

G. Basic Cosmology

The fullest presentation of Plato’s cosmology occurs in the Timaeus, a dialogue where Socrates is present but has a secondary role to Timaeus, a fictional character purported to have considerable scientific knowledge.

After granting the existence of an unchanging reality (Being) represented by the Forms, they turn to the changing world of sensory things (Becoming)―about which they can provide, at best, a likely account.

The sensory world comes about because of three fundamental elements: the Forms, a Demiurge, and Necessity.

The Forms exist in the unchanging, purely intelligible realm of Being; but they also can provide the structure or model for entities existing in the sensory world. In ultimate contrast to the Forms is the realm of Necessity, or Chaos, an indiscriminate (or formless) existence. Sensory objects come about through the imposition of the Forms on Chaos. That is, Necessity is altered by copying or imitating the Forms so that we encounter the sensory objects within the changing process of Nature.

The process of bringing about the imposition of Forms on Chaos in the best possible (though imperfect) way is the task of the Demiurge. The Demiurge definitely is a divinity, or god, and acts with good intentions in constructing the sensory world. But the Demiurge is not the all-powerful creator of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: Forms and Chaos exist independently of the Demiurge and thus have properties of their own. Accordingly, the Demiurge is not the creator of the world and must work with, rather than fully control, them

Beyond the three basis elements, there are others that have a role in the structure of the senory world. For example, Time is the moving image of eternity and Space is an empty container in which the process of change occurs.

H. Human Nature and the Psyche

The three agencies of action within the psyche (human nature), for Plato, are appetite, spirit, and reason. The three primary appetitive drives, or irrational desires, are hunger, thirst, and sexual passion. The appetitive drive is “associated with pleasure in the replenishment of certain wants.” It is a blind craving rather than a complex desire arising from some combination of all three agencies of action within the psyche. Thus, for example, when someone is drinking something, we cannot always give a complete account by simply saying, “That's the appetitive drive of thirst showing itself,” because a complex desire may be present.

Spirit is a combination of enthusiasm, perseverance, and determination. It usually does not function independently within the pysche but rather allies itself with either reason or appetite. Accordingly, we are capable of showing great spirit in acting wisely or lustfully.

Reason is the agency of reflection and judgment, the source of wisdom, within the psyche.

Plato's Agencies of Action within the Psyche

Given these three agencies of action comprising the psyche, or human nature in effect, Plato offers the following moral prescription:

And it will be the business of reason to rule with wisdom and forethought on behalf of the entire soul; while the spirited element ought to act as its subordinate and ally. The two will be brought into accord, as we said earlier, by that combination of mental and bodily training which will tune up one string of the instrument and relax the other, nourishing the reasoning part on the study of noble literature and allaying the other's wildness by harmony and rhythm. When both have been thus nurtured and trained to know their own true functions, they must be set in command over the appetites, which form the greater part of each man's soul and are by nature insatiably covetous. They must keep watch lest this part, by battening on the pleasures that are called bodily, should grow so great and powerful that it will no longer keep to its own work, but will try to enslave the others and usurp a dominion to which it has no right, thus turning the whole of life upside down. At the same time, those two together will be the best of guardians for the entire soul and for the body against all enemies from without: the one will take counsel, while the other will do battle, following its ruler's commands and by its own bravery giving effect to the ruler's designs. (Republic, Bk. IV, 441)

Note that reason allied with spirit can control the appetitive drives; but the latter still constitute the greater part of the psyche. So their control requires self-mastery and discipline.

Using these three agencies of action, Plato is then able to explain the demands of personal morality in terms of his four primary virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Wisdom resides with the rational element in the psyche, courage with the spirited element. Temperance consists in the control of appetites through the rule of reason with spirit. And justice consists in each agency of action performing its proper function without encroaching upon the proper boundary of another. Plato says,

The just man does not allow the several elements in his soul to usurp one another's functions; he is indeed one who sets his house in order, by self-mastery and discipline coming to be at peace with himself, and bringing into tune those three parts, like the terms in the proportion of a musical scale, the highest and lowest notes and the mean between them, with all the intermediate intervals. Only when he has linked these parts together in well-tempered harmony and has made himself one man instead of many, will he be ready to go about whatever he may have to do, whether it be making money and satisfying bodily wants, or business transactions, or the affairs of state. In all these fields when he speaks of just and honourable conduct, he will mean the behaviour that helps to produce and to preserve this habit of mind; and by wisdom he will mean the knowledge which presides over such conduct. Any action which tends to break down this habit will be for him unjust; and the notions governing it he will call ignorance and folly. (Republic, Bk. IV, 443)

While Plato clearly calls for the rule of reason in moral action, we should also note carefully that he calls for control not the suppression, of appetitive pleasures. So we should not tag Plato with an extreme asceticism that condemns and denigrates the satisfaction of all bodily wants.

In practical terms, Plato's insistence upon the need for restraint of appetitive drives such as those leading to drunkenness, drug-use, gluttony, and sexual promiscuity is fairly obvious. The need for restraint to prevent usurpation by the spirited element of the psyche, however, is less obvious. Spirit, as noted earlier. is a combination of enthusiasm, perseverance, and determination. It is often fostered through physical training such as might occur in athletics or dancing. Nevertheless persons can exhibit an excess of enthusiasm, perseverance, and determination. More particularly, persons can be overly competitive or overly aggressive in playing games, pursuing careers, or in making money. To avoid such excesses, they need reason as the primary directing force within the psyche.

I. Human Nature and the Organization of States

The overall plan of Plato’s masterpiece the Republic, taking up Books II-IX, focuses upon two basic problems associated with justice: (1) what justice is; and (2) why justice is better than injustice. Dealing with these two problems though involves an elaborate, interconnected treatment of more specific issues such as knowledge and education, human nature, and the organization of states. More particularly, for our purposes here, Plato’s analysis of human nature (already presented) has a direct bearing on the organization of states, both in the form of an analogy and in the character of different states.

Just as Plato attributes three agencies of action to an individual's psyche that are then associated with four virtues, he attributes three classes to an ideal state, also associated with four virtues. (Indeed, in the Republic, this association of classes with virtues forms the model for determining the psychic agencies and virtues of the individual person.)

The three classes of persons within the ideal state are the productive workers, the auxiliaries, and the rulers. The productive workers, constituting the greater mass of the populace, include farmers, skilled and unskilled laborers, businesspeople, artists, performers, providers of personal services, and professional persons. The auxiliaries include military and law enforcement personnel. The rulers, a relatively small class, consists of those persons best qualified to rule by reason of their knowledge, dedication, and integrity in serving and protecting the best interests of the state.

Presuming that an ideal state is also a virtuous one, Plato then considers the three classes with respect to wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Wisdom resides with the rulers, who use their knowledge to prudently direct the affairs of the state. Courage resides with the auxiliaries who, with spirit and determination, carry out the directives of the rulers and protect the state. Temperance exists in the ideal state when all classes exhibit the discipline necessary for proper submission to rule by the best. And Justice consists in each class performing its own proper function in the best interests of the state. Accordingly, injustice occurs when members naturally suited to the functions of one class try to take over functions appropriate to another class or when, in personal matters, individuals try to possess or concern themselves with what does not properly belong to them. For example, if persons naturally suited to growing peanuts or movie acting would try to rule the state, Plato would regard their attempts as instances of injustice.

Having arrived at the meaning of justice in the Republic, Plato proceeds to specify in greater detail the education, discipline, and lifestyle appropriate to the rulers and auxiliaries who are guardians of the state. Of special importance, Plato describes the thirty‑year training program for rulers, "philosopher‑kings," in the ideal state, including fifteen years of training in abstract reasoning (at the two higher levels of The Divided Line). For our purposes here, however, we will not take up details of this training program. Instead, we will concentrate upon Plato's analysis of various types of government.

Relative to the ideal state, Plato regards all other types of government as seriously deficient. On the other hand, he does not offer any great hope that his ideal state will ever actually exist. So we are most likely to live in these lesser states.

Types of States

Below you will find a summary presenting the major differences among the various types with respect to: Basis for Organization, Origin, Foremost Representative Person, Character of the Foremost Representative Person, and Life in the State. After the virtue, unity, and harmony of the rulers and other classes of the ideal state, there is a degeneration to timocracy, then to oligarchy, to democracy, and finally to tyranny. In each successive state of degeneration, increasing loss of control over the appetites or passions is evident. For Plato, this increasing loss of control, whether applied to the individual or the society, is a process of enslavement. Thus, although a democracy is supposedly based on freedom, its citizens are not truly free.

Notes on Plato's Five Types of Government

1) Since organization of a society is more complex than Plato's descriptions of the forms of government, we should interpret his account as a description of general types and tendencies rather than as an exact description of the entire structural organization of any existing society.

2) Plato's account of the origin of various types of government should be taken as a reasoned projection of degeneration, for which there might well be some historical support. It should not be taken as an actual historical account of what has happened, since he never claims that the ideal state ever existed in the first place.

3) For the wealthy person, the democratic person, and also the tyrant, appetite turns out to be the dominant psychic agency, although in different ways. Aside from the appetite for wealth, the wealthy person's miserliness tends to curb unnecessary appetites such as lust and luxurious living, at least during the early stages of an oligarchy. The democratic person exhibits less control over the appetites but is still not wholly dissolute. The latter state, where none or little self‑control over the appetites is evident, is reserved for the tyrant.

4) The strongest possible opposition is found between the ideal state and tyranny, as shown in the personal qualities attributed to the philosopher‑ruler and the tyrant and in the basis for organization of the two types of government. If we take the opposition seriously, then we should conclude that people in the ideal state are, in some sense, the most free, because people in a tyranny are the most enslaved.

In democracy, the absence of self‑control produces twisted judgments. So the inability to make discriminating judgments between better and worse becomes "tolerance;" insolence becomes "good breeding;" anarchy becomes "freedom;" wastefulness become"munificence;" and shamelessness becomes "courage." The result is a life directed according to whatever whim captures one's fancy at a particular time. Plato says,

In his life thenceforward he spends as much time and pains and money on his superfluous pleasures as on the necessary ones. If he is lucky enough not to be carried beyond all bounds, the tumult may begin to subside as he grows older. Then perhaps he may recall some of the banished virtues and cease to give himself up entirely to the passions which ousted them; and now he will set all his pleasures on a footing of equality, denying to none its equal rights and maintenance, and allowing each in turn, as it presents itself, to succeed, as if by the chance of the lot, to the government of his soul until it is satisfied. When he is told that some pleasures should be sought and valued as arising from desires of a higher order, others chastised and enslaved because the desires are base, he will shut the gates of the citadel against the messengers of truth, shaking his head and declaring that one appetite is good as another and all must have their equal rights. So he spends his days indulging the pleasure of the moment, now intoxicated with wine and music, and then taking to a spare diet and drinking nothing but water; one day in hard training, the next doing nothing at all, the third apparently immersed in study. Every now and then he takes part in politics, leaping to his feet to say or do whatever comes into his head. Or he will set out to rival someone he admires, a soldier it may be, or, if the fancy takes him, a man of business. His life is subject to no order or restraint, and he has no wish to change an existence which he calls pleasant, free, and happy. (Republic, 561a-d, Cornford translation)

This spirit of anarchy affects everyone:

. . . the father grows accustomed to descend to the level of his sons and to fear them, and the son is on a level with his father, he having no respect or reverence for either of his parents; and this is his freedom, and the metic [resident alien] is equal with the citizen and the citizen with the metic, and the stranger [from abroad] is quite as good as either.

Yes, he said, that is the way.

. . . In such a state of society the master [teacher] fears and flatters his scholars [pupils], and the scholars despise their masters and tutors; young and old are all alike; and the young man is on a level with the old, and is ready to compete with him in word or deed; and the old men condescend to the young and are full of pleasantry and gaiety; they are loth to be thought morose and authoritative, and therefore they adopt the manners of the young.

Quite true, he said.

The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other. (Republic, 562e-563b, Jowett translation)

Although democracy falls far short of the ideal state, we should remember that timocracy and oligarchy are not much better and tyranny is worse. Also, Plato grants that there is an attractive variety of individuals and lifestyles in a democracy. Moreover, because of this variety, we encounter “samples” of all the other types of government and character within a democracy. So we are likely to encounter persons very similar to the tyrant, the oligarch, the timocrat, and even the philosopher‑ruler―although the democrat is still the foremost representative person.

Since Plato thinks of the individual and society as existing in an organic unity, the conditions of one are essentially related to the other. Thus, for example, when oligarchy triumphs, the oligarchic character is soon evident in the foremost representative persons; and when the foremost representative persons exhibit an oligarchic character, the triumph of oligarchy is pretty well assured. Because of this essential relationship between the character of persons and states, Plato stresses the importance of environmental conditions in a society. Wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice are not likely to thrive in an environment where an appetite for wealth or for an indiscriminate freedom and equality or for lust are dominant. Hence, in an ideal state, Plato insists upon rigid control over the educational, cultural, and religious influences upon people.

J. Why Justice Is Better Than Injustice

Before turning away from Plato's political thought, we still have to deal with one more issue raised initially in the Republic, namely, why justice is better than injustice. At first, this issue may seem rather silly, since we ordinarily presume that justice is better. Early in the Republic however, this presumption is seriously challenged.

It is alleged that: (1) people actually prefer injustice but they accept justice out of fear, either the fear of being the victim of someone else's injustice or the fear of being caught in acts of injustice; (2) people do not view justice as good in itself but merely as a tool for assuring social respectability; (3) people view a just life as “difficult and irksome, whereas vice and injustice are pleasant and very easily to be had;”3 (4) they show respect for, and regard as happy, the unjust person who becomes wealthy and powerful; and finally, (5) they think that the unjust person has more resources with which to appease the gods. Moreover, given these allegations and the expectation that an unjust person benefits more in mutual transactions with just persons, it seems that the ideal life consists in living unjustly while giving the appearance of being just.

This is no trivial assault on justice; and Plato does not marshal his refutations until the latter stages of the Republic after he has considered the ideal state, human nature, the training of philosopher‑rulers, the nature of true knowledge, and the different types of government.

Plato proceeds by trying to show that an unjust life is the source of the greatest unhappiness. The most unjust person, namely, the tyrant, is also the unhappiest:

Is not that a picture of the prison to which the despot is confined? His nature is such as we have described, infested with all manner of fears and lusts . . . . You spoke just now of the despotic character, ill governed in his own soul, as the most miserable of men; but these disadvantages I have mentioned add to his wretchedness when he is driven by ill luck out of his private station to become an actual despot and undertake to rule others when he is not his own master. You might as well force a paralytic to leave the sheltered life of an invalid and spend his days in fighting or in trials of physical strength. Quite true, Socrates; that is a fair comparison.

He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real slave, and is obliged to practise the greatest adulation and servility, and to be the flatterer of the vilest of mankind. He has desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor, if you know how to inspect the whole soul of him: all his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions, and distractions, even as the State which he resembles; and surely the resemblance holds?

Very true, he said.

Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself. (Republic, 379d-380a, Jowett translation)

It follows that the opposite of the tyrant, namely, the philosopher‑ruler is the most just and also the happiest person.

Moreover, the judgment of what constitutes the happiest life should be made by the most qualified person; and this happens to be the philosopher, the wisest person by reason of training and ability, who judges the just life to be happier than an unjust one.

Finally, the tyrant, overcome by appetites and not directed by reason, is furthest removed from the knowledge of the Forms that constitute the truest and greatest pleasure attainable in life. Plato concludes his case by asserting that injustice can only make a person worse, because it is a triumph of appetite over reason. The worst part of us rules the best part. And anything that makes us worse can neither be good‑in‑itself nor profitable to us.

For those who find his arguments weak and unconvincing, Plato would issue a reminder: the superiority of justice to injustice requires prior knowledge of all those other issues that take up the discussion in the Republic.

Phaedo

The Phaedo deals with arguments for the immortality of the soul―a discussion that takes on special relevance because it purportedly occurs immediately prior to Socrates’ taking the potion of poisoned hemlock, in obedience to the Athenian court that condemned him to death. (To distance himself from any need to maintain historical accuracy in the dialogue, Plato describes himself as being absent from the discussion because of illness. Scholars generally agree that the Phaedo belongs to Plato’s Middle Period and that he presents some concepts (the Forms) and arguments that go beyond the philosophy of Socrates.)

There is explicit reference to the Phaedo as a second trial of Socrates (63b and 69e). Accordingly, the Apology (with its historical accuracy) recounts the first trial of Socrates―one before friends, acquaintances, enemies, and perhaps strangers that determines the disposition of Socrates’ body. And the Phaedo (with far less claim to historical accuracy) recounts the second trial of Socrates―one before friends that will determine the disposition of Socrates’ soul.

We know that he failed to convince a majority of the jurors in the first trial. But here his jury is a collection of friends. So we might expect a better result.

In this second trial, there are three points to establish: (1) The life of the soul is worthier and more important than the life of the body; (2) The soul is immortal; and (3) Socrates is going to a better place. There is no jury vote at the end. So the jurors’ judgment must be determined by their reaction to the arguments or to his taking the hemlock at the end of the dialogue. How would you describe their verdict?

What to Look For in the Phaedo

(1) In keeping with the dialogue’s context, namely, what will happen to Socrates’ soul, the Phaedo offers a much sharper separation of the soul from the body than is present elsewhere in Plato’s dialogues. For example, whereas the discussion of human nature in the Republic calls for the control of bodily (appetitive) drives, the discussion in the Phaedo stresses the philosopher’s rejection or suppression of bodily pleasures. And whereas Plato usually portrays Socrates in the dialogues as a person who can enjoy bodily pleasures without being enslaved or even strongly affected by them, the goal in the Phaedo is escape from the body.

(2) Simmias and Cebes, Socrates’ primary respondents in the dialogue, are persons of superior intellectual ability, as their responses show. Accordingly, the dialogue provides more intellectual challenges and progress than we can expect with less capable participants.

(3) The first major issue of the dialogue is the true philosopher’s desire for death (64a), Plato’s odd but contextually appropriate way of praising the character of philosophers. Unlike most other people, they recognize (a) that the body is a hindrance to the pursuit of knowledge (the Forms), (b) that bodily desires are the source of the evils of life, and (c) that true virtue follows from wisdom rather than the pursuit of pleasure as a goal. Accordingly, since death is the separation of the soul from the body and the body is a hindrance to the advancement of the soul, the philosopher does not fear death.

(4) Death however loses its luster, unless the soul is immortal. So the discussion turns to the main issue of the Phaedo, proofs for the immortality of the soul. There are four proofs, each one superior to the one before it.

(a) The first proof (70c-72d), representing the lower levels of The Divided Line, relies on an ancient theory (secondhand knowledge) about the generation of opposites in the physical world.

(b) The second proof (72e-78a) based upon knowledge as recollection is a bit more intellectually sophisticated; but it still relies on secondhand knowledge (being introduced as a “favorite” or “accustomed” doctrine of Socrates and quickly related to the discussion of the doctrine in the Meno) and the physical world. It is argued that we do not encounter true Equality in the physical world: we only encounter approximations that remind us of a Form of Equality known previously to our birth.

(c) The third proof (78b-84b) also relies on the physical world, but by way of contrast. The body, as part of the physical (visible) world, is composite, changing, and subject to dissolution. As such, it does not appear to be like the Forms in the non-visible realm that are indivisible, unchanging, and immortal. The soul however is like the Forms and therefore also takes on the property of being immortal.

(d) The fourth proof (100a-107d) takes us beyond the physical world and exemplifies the third level of The Divided Line: Socrates takes the existence of Forms as an hypothesis and then proceeds to show through purely abstract reasoning that the soul cannot be associated with mortality.

(5) In keeping with the intellectually significant movement from the physical to the purely intelligible realm (crossing The Great Platonic Divide) with the fourth proof, Plato introduces a rather lengthy transitionary stage into the discussion (84c-100a). (a) Socrates must explain why the soul is not like a harmony that disappears when a musical instrument like a lyre is broken (objection from Simmias); and he must explain why the soul is not like a weaver who lives longer than any woven cloak, except the last (objection from Cebes). The objections are strong enough to throw most of the company into a panic―so much so that Socrates warns them not to become “misologists,” haters of arguments and reasoning, and attributes the occurrence of unsatisfactory conclusions to our own shortcomings rather than to reasoning itself. (b) Socrates recounts his own experience with the study of questions in natural science. (c) Finally and most importantly, he introduces the hypothetical method he wants to employ in providing the fourth proof for the immortality of the soul.

(6) Although you cannot take the detailed arguments in the Phaedo as an accurate historical account of what transpired at the death of Socrates, you can read the dialogue as Plato’s tribute to the character of Socrates.

Outline-Summary of Plato's Phaedo

Republic

Why is Plato’s Republic so widely read after all these years (more than 2300)? It is a long work; no one canonizes it with a claim to divine authority; surely a lot of new and powerful ideas have surfaced since the fourth century, B.C.E.; and most people today do not worship the past.

The answer is twofold. First, Plato introduced challenging, basic issues that resonate with people of any age. His views on education, family life, human nature, justice, democracy, the ruling of states, knowledge, and censorship are imaginatively provocative. Secondly, he presented the issues in a way that does not require any great technical mastery or background in philosophy. Understanding Plato thoroughly may well require subtle interpretation of the Republic; but readers find a wealth of worthwhile issues to explore even without any special requirements for a finely accurate rendering of Plato’s own philosophy.

What to Look For in the Republic

(1) Looking for Something to Omit: You may want to omit Books I and X.

Book I seems to be a Socratic dialogue written long before the rest of the work; and the real substance of the Republic commences in Book II. On the other hand, Book I does present the initial context for the discussion; and it does contain a delightful discussion with Socrates refuting Thrasymachus’ theory of justice, namely, that might makes right.

Book X seems to be unnecessary, following after the substantial problems in the Republic have been solved. However it does contain some interesting discussion of poetry as imitation, an argument for the immortality of the soul, and an elaborate myth, the Myth of Er.

(2) Glaucon and Adeimantus, the respondents to Socrates in Books II-X, are Plato’s brothers; they offer some powerful arguments, particularly at the beginning of Book II. So the dialogue serves as a tribute to their intellectual abilities.

(3) The variety of basic, provocative issues covered in the Republic should not block out the overall structure that unifies the development of these issues. This structure is set at the beginning of Book II when Socrates takes on the task of showing that justice is both good in itself and good for its consequences. Everything that follows, all the way to the end of Book IX, relates to fulfilling this task.

(4) This tourists’ guide to Plato covers many issues in the Republic: censorship; lying; the community of husbands, wives, and children; the status of women; infanticide; human nature and the psyche; mathematics; knowledge; the theory of forms; dialectical method; human nature and the organization of states; types of states; and the nature of justice. So you can get a basic introduction to these issues by following the appropriate links. Remember though that the best source for these issues is the text of the Republic itself.

(5) Plato offers some intriguing imagery in the Republic. Foremost are the analogy of the Sun with the Form of the Good (last part of Book VI) and the Allegory of the Cave (beginning of Book VII). The analogy likens the role of the Form of the Good in the intellectual world to the role of the Sun in the physical world. The Allegory is an imaginative construct for visualizing problems associated with acquiring knowledge. There also is the Ring of Gyges (359b – 360d), which gives the wearer a power of invisibility by which a person can commit injustice with impunity. Then there is the audacious “noble lie,” or “noble fiction,” (414b – 415e) by which rulers use the notion of inborn gold, silver, iron, or bronze natures to convince citizens to accept proper stations in life for themselves and their children. Finally, Book X includes the elaborate Myth of Er dealing with the transmigration of souls.

Study Guide to Plato's Republic

Theaetetus

The Theaetetus is an exploration of the nature of knowledge. Several definitions of knowledge are tested, none of which proves adequate. In the dialogue, Plato portrays Socrates in the image of a midwife of the soul, that is, as one who is incapable of delivering knowledge himself but who is very capable in bringing forth and testing the offspring of other persons.

What to Look For in the Theaetetus

(1) Three significant definitions of knowledge are tested: (1) Knowledge is [sense] perception (151e – 186e); (2) Knowledge is true belief (187b – 201c); and (3) Knowledge is true belief plus logos (201d – 208c). In terms of the power of the arguments, the discussion of knowledge as perception is the most impressive. Plato does a fine job of showing problems with the attempted reduction of knowledge to sense perception. The discussion of knowledge as true belief, for the most part, gets sidetracked into the issue of how false beliefs occur―although some interesting notions arise. The discussion of knowledge as true belief plus logos (an account, definition, description, explanation, formula, or argument) probably has the least satisfying arguments―although, strangely enough, this definition is closest to many contemporary philosophical discussions of knowledge as justified true belief.

(2) For the first definition, knowledge as perception, note in particular: (a) the problems with Protagoras’ subjectivity in claiming that knowledge is whatever appears some way to the individual person (168c – 179a), (b) the instability problem that arises in Heraclitus’ view that everything is changing all of the time (179b – 183); and (c) the ways in which knowledge goes beyond sense perception (184b – 186e).

(3) For the second definition, knowledge as true belief, focus in particular on the two image analogies for false judgment presented―namely, the block of wax (191b – 196c) and the wild bird aviary (196c – 200d). The fundamental problem with the second definition comes up at 201b-c.

(4) For the third definition, knowledge as true belief plus logos, focus in particular on the three possible meanings for logos (206d – 208c). Unless you especially like intellectual exercises, I recommend skimming over the discussion of the third definition in terms of syllables and letters (202d-206c).

(5) Note that Plato’s theory of Forms never appears in the Theaetetus―an excellent way of explaining why the dialogue does not end with a satisfactory definition of knowledge.

Outline-Summary of Plato's Theaetetus:

Some of My Sources

Classes of Prof. G.K. Plochmann at Southern Illinois University, 1961-1965

B. Jowett, tr., The Dialogues of Plato (New York: Random House, 1937), 2 vols.

Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Pantheon Books, 1961).

George Kimball Plochmann, Plato (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1973).

Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Greece & Rome (New York: Image Books, 1962), Pts. I & II.

Newton P. Stallknecht and Robert S. Brumbaugh, The Spirit of Western Philosophy (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1950).

W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), Vols. IV & V.

A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Works (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1961).

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