The Republic

the Republic ( Perished Politeias , or Politeia , Government or Constitution) is a dialog of Plato relating mainly to justice in the individual and the City. It is about the most known work and most famous of Plato because, inter alia, of the Community model of life exposed and the Théorie of the Ideas that Plato defends there.

History of the editions of the Republic

It is one of the widest works of Plato. In the classification of Thrasylle, it occupies the second place of the eighth tetralogy. The book is divided into ten parts; this division, which does not follow the natural course of work, is perhaps due to criticisms of Alexandria.

According to FLK Cicéron ( the Laws , II, 6), the République is the first book of Greek political philosophy. But Plato was shown by Aristoxène to have copied the Antilogikoi or the Peri politeias of Protagoras (Diogène Laërce, III, 37).

Aulu-Cold ( Nights Attics , XIV, 3) reports that the first two books were initially published only and that Xénophon opposed to it its Cyropédie . These elements would show that the various books of the République were written at different times. It seems thus that the first and the tenth books did not belong to the primitive plan of work. But the unit of the unit seems to contradict this thesis.

Dramatic framework

Characters of the dialog

Socrate, Glaucon, Polémarque, Thrasymaque, Adimante, Céphale.

Place

The dialog takes place in the house of Céphale.

Work analyzes

Deliver I

It is thought that this book was written before with the others, but that it did not satisfy Plato, deciding it to look further into its reflection on justice, thus giving the day to the other books of the Republic.

Socrat evokes a discussion who took place the day before at Polémarque, wire of Céphale, between him, Glaucon, Thrasymaque, Adimante and their two hosts. The Céphale old man is questioned by Socrate on the way in which it supports old age. Céphale answers that old age is bearable and soft if one lived following the Justice, while being honest and sincere, and while giving to each one what is owe him. Polémarque then replaces his/her father in the conversation and affirms that justice consists in returning to each one what is owe him: with his/her friends the good and its enemies evil. But if we consider the friends, objects Socrate, one sees that this definition is not satisfactory. It then will refute Polémarque by means of an authentic reduction with the absurdity. If a friend entrusts to us and that it loses then the mental health, would it be arms “right” to return them to him? According to the definition of the justice of Polémarque that would be “right”. However, it is quite as obvious that one would not return to him what returns to him, namely the good by doing that. The definition of the justice of Polémarque is thus contradictory.

But Thrasymaque stops the dialog abruptly: natural justice is what is most advantageous with most extremely; and strongest is that which is not mistaken in comprehension of what is advantageous for him.

Socrat answers: any art has an object; this object is different and lower than this art which is useful for him. But it must be thus of political art: the politician, who has the capacity, works with the advantage of the citizens.

But Thrasymaque denies that it is as follows: the goal of all the Homme S, which makes really happy, it is to put the power at the services of the Passion S and the interests of that which has it. The injustice is Sage and virtuous.

The unjust one, answers Socrate, while seeking to dominate everyone, proves that it has neither the Science nor the Vertu: it is ignorant. On the contrary, it is the justice which is science and virtue, it is thus more powerful than the injustice, because there is nothing more powerful than science. And it is this justice, which is a virtue, i.e a natural development of the functions of a being, which makes happy. The Bonheur of the heart is attached to justice, to perfection of its actions.

Socrat notices that, in this discussion, one did not start by defining justice; one sought if justice were science and virtue, if it were useful. But it is necessary to start by seeking to determine the gasoline justice.

Deliver II

This book is essential because Plato puts in the mouth of his brothers Adimante and Glaucon the same argumentation as that of Thrasymaque. Plato wants by giving the maximum of force there and expressing with the most possible clearness with the positions of the sophist. All the Republic can even be understood as an answer to the argumentation that develop the brothers of Plato and as a refutation of the thesis according to which the injustice is preferable with justice. Indeed, the brothers distinguish three kinds of good: that which one likes for what it is, that which one likes only for his consequences, and that which one likes for what it is and for its consequences.

However according to the public opinion, justice would belong to the second group. In fact the honors are required. To develop that, they show that each being tends to becoming unjust, and that the man invented justice only because some are unable to be unjust and the misdeeds of the injustice of the others without being able undergo to profit from it from the pleasures.

Deliver III

This book constitutes the beginning of the definition of justice in the Republic of Plato. Socrat starts from two ideas. Initially it is necessary to include/understand what is justice in the City before including/understanding what it is in the individual. It will thus be necessary for that to expose the nature and the characteristics of justice in the City or to show more exactly than is justice in the polishes. Socrat moreover will expose the birth of the City right during what he is agreed to call the “poléogenèse” (of the Greek “polished”, quoted and “genesis” birth). During this talk Socrate treats education to be given to the future guards of the ideal City that, in this dialog, Plato tries to establish. It is first of all question of the censure of poetry. The traditional representation of Hadès as a place of sufferings must be avoided at all costs, because it is not " neither truth nor useful to futures guerriers" (386b). It is known as on this subject which the poets will be requested " to find bad only us to them effacions" (387a). More generally, death must be indifferent to the man who must live free and consequently fear more than all slavery. Thus, the passages of Iliade for example, exposing the lamentations of Achilles, must be censured, because they show the heroes in postures unworthy of the courageous man whom the City must create.

The lie must be prohibited in the City, and reserved with the only chiefs - in the intention to make the good, obviously. Moreover, temperance being one of the essential virtues, one cannot let the warriors like the richnesses, food or the wine - and it is necessary thus, here still, to have recourse to the censure.

It is with final formally the interdict to show any weakness of the gods or of the heroes, who must be models for the men. In the same way, one cannot tolerate those which claim in their writings that the unjust ones are happy contrary to the right ones.

Then an examination comes from the form of the poetic speeches, which can be either entirely fictitious, or realistic, or to mix these two kinds. However, in the City, each man has a single role, determined well, to play, thus one cannot let the guards have to accustom himself with forms of imitations, or even with mixtures with realism (" because there is not on our premises of double man nor multiple" , 397e). Only the honest man must be represented, in a form as austere as possible, because in this City, one " aim to the utilité" (398b).

The study comes then from the manner of singing the poetic text, and from the manner of accompanying it. To remain coherent with the preceding choices, one can accept neither a plaintive harmony, nor soft; and consequently, the only useful instruments - and thus accepted - in the City will be the quadrant and the zither, and with the fields, the syrinx. With these provisions, " we have, without us to see of it, purified the city that, presently, we say devoted to the mollesse" (399d). It remains however to continue in this direction by the study of the rates/rhythms, which must be favourable with the regulated and courageous life. Such a censure is extended to all the artistic fields and even to the craft industry; in the City only those should thus be allowed which will create beautiful things, because they necessarily come from the Good, and are thus the only worthy ones.

Is then tackled briefly (around 403a) the problem of the love, which must, in order to be true, to move away as long as possible from the sensual love.

Socrat discusses also much medicine and of the doctor in this book…

Deliver IV

Book IV has a very particular significance because it treats nature of justice in the individual.

According to Adimante, the guards cannot be happy according to what precedes. Contrary to the other individuals, they cannot have any personal profit. According to Socrate, “happiness must belong to the more high degree at the entire state”. Is a state right a happy state? It is a question of making possible the “share of happiness which corresponds to each class”. Richness and poverty are both vermin. The happy medium should be found.

Return with Glaucon to the problem of justice. (427 c) Stating of the four cardinal virtues of the City: A City is perfectly good if it wise, courageous, is moderated and right. Wisdom is based on knowledge and the good councils. “It is by what holds the head and orders, that a state founded according to nature owes, as a whole, wise being. ” Courage concerns the soldiers: “It is by part of itself that a state is courageous, for the reason that in this part, it has a virtue suitable to safeguard in a constant way the judgment on the things to fear and on their nature, things and nature of the things which are what with issued the legislator during education”. The respect of the laws must allow “the safeguard of the opinion creates by the law, by means of education, concerning the same things which are to be feared and their nature”. Temperance is “a kind of ordered arrangement. It is a control with regard to certain pleasures and desires”. It acts, in a certain manner, to be stronger than oneself. Note: It is for the State as for the heart: the best part must have authority on the weakest part. Thus the small number, dominated by the thought must guide the great number, which is dominated by the desires. Temperance is harmony: it is spread on the entire State… so that there is “identity of opinion between those which order and those which are ordered about to know which are those to which it command must belong. ”  temperance must bind wisdom and courage. Justice “it is what confers on temperance, courage and wisdom, the capacity to occur and guarantees the safeguard of their existence”. Justice in the individual is comparable with justice in a State: “between a man right and a state right, there will be no difference by-report/ratio with the form itself of justice…”

Justice in the individual (433); analyzes desire (437) “Each desire is desire only of each thing of which it is naturally the desire; but that the object has some such or such other quality, they are added again circumstances there. ”

Conflicts of the heart: One can consider two functions of the heart: one reasoning, the other wishing (unreasoned). The reasoning function must order with the impetuous part. The mediating function, or temperance, must support the party of the reason… The injustice is presented like a disease of the heart: it is a dissension which rises in the three functions… One cannot say that it is more advantageous to make the injustice. The five modes of political constitution present the five possible modes of the heart…

In this book, one also speaks about a lie which the city could make accept the people so that the perfection of the city is not lost. It would be told with the people that they come from the Earth, and that it must protect it as if it were their mother. Moreover, as each one comes from the Earth, it would have a bronze or money, gold heart, (Gold: Guard of the city, Money: Trading or craftsman, Bronzes, Cultivateur). And it is stated that if a money or copper kid were to be born from a guard, it should be returned at his, and conversely if a gold or money kid were born in a farmer, he was to be sent in the guards.

Deliver V

It acts initially for the interlocutors, to examine the nature of this community of the children and the women intended for the guards, of the community of the care for those which belong to the intermediate age between the birth and education (up to approximately six years.)

The preceding speeches established that these men were to some extent the “guards of a herd”. Same manner that the females of the watchdogs in common make with them as far as their forces which are weaker, the women of the guards will have to behave in the same way. Since the city will have indifferently recourse to the men and the women for the same functions, same education should be given them: music and gymnastics and formation with the warlike practices. In this direction, being opposed to the designs in force, Socrate affirms that the women must involve themselves naked with the gymnasium, the horsemanship and the port of the weapons. It is then a question of determining so by nature, the men and the women can practice the same activities. It was defined higher, than in the city each one should exert the tasks which were appropriate to him according to its nature. However it seems obvious that the nature of the woman does not merge with that of the man. If the assumption must be maintained of a difference in nature between the men and the women, it cannot be only because of a difference in functions. If the difference must be posed absolutely, it should be founded absolutely, but up to now this difference in nature remains relative and can thus be given only compared to one specific function. Is the difference in nature between the men and the women based only on the natural gifts? Plato wonders then about the natural talent; the natural gift is associated with the gift to learn and retain. At that which is gifted the exercise of the thought dominates the forces of the body. There is no actually occupation relating to the administration of the city which belongs to a woman or a man because of his sex, the natural gifts are distributed in a similar way in the two kinds. Simply in these activities, the woman is a being weaker than the man. There thus exist women endowed to carry on the activity of guard who should be chosen to live in community with men of the same kind. To institute such a law is not unrealizable since it is in conformity with nature. Moreover, this legislation is truly the best for a city, since it is met with the capacity the men and the women the best. “It is the beneficial one which is beautiful and the vermin which is ugly”. It is necessary in addition, that these women are common to all these men, and that it is the same for the children, so that no one does not know which is of its descent and which is not it. They will have in common their residences, the meals, and will not have anything which is not also with all; together they will mix in the gymnasia what under the terms of a natural need, will push them to be linked. Nevertheless it is not a question to institute impious practices, it is thus necessary to give to the marriage the possible character more crowned. These marriages will take place between best as between poorest, but it is unthinkable to couple poor and the best. Indeed, the reproduction between these first-rate persons aim at ensuring an offspring ready to perpetuate the excellence of their parents. Does one have for considering as much that it is here question only of one simple theory eugenist? It is allowed to suppose that the coupling of excellent parents is not directly the cause of the excellence of their descent. If one connects this fact to the theory of the metempsychosis expressed in the er myth Pamphylien, it would be righter of speaking about “Platonic predestination”. Indeed, of the hearts having already practiced a virtuous life during their last existences will tend necessarily to choose a new existence of which medium satisfied their practices of excellence. To create the conditions of reproduction of this elite, it is necessary to resort in the interest of the people for the lies and the frauds. So that the best men and the best women link themselves between them it will be necessary to be based on a system of drawing lots (in which one can see like echo of the distribution of the fates to the hearts of the er myth) faked “so that the poor man, after each union, the fate makes responsible from there, and not the leaders”. The children of those which are excellent will be led near nurses in a reserved place of the city. They must be generated by those which reached maturity (between twenty and forty years for the women, thirty and fifty-five years for the men). After this period, the men and the women will be left free couple itself with whom they want, with condition “never of not showing light of day, with only one fruit of the pregnancy, so of adventure it had been designed”, nevertheless they will not be able to be linked, nor with their daughter or wire, father or mother, grandchildren. These terms recover a very broad direction, since in this city where it is impossible to know which is child of who, as from the day when one two becomes the promised husband, all the newborns in the ten following months are known as son and girls, and their children, grandson and grand-daughter.

After this talk, it acts for Plato through the mouth of Socrate, to show that this constitution is well the best of very for the city: For a city, the largest evil is that which tears it and parcels out it, the good largest that which ensures the unit to him. However the individual expression of the pleasure and the sorrow is what parcels out the city, when some find reasons to be delighted by the fact that others reject. On the contrary the common expression of the pleasure and the sorrow binds all the citizens together. Plato develops a comparison between the individual and the city, both presented like unified, prone organizations of pleasures and common sufferings. It acts according to G.Vlastos of a homology of structure which rests on the capacity of the reason to order with the other parts, i.e. with the heart and the body. Such a city has necessarily good laws. What the citizens will have most jointly, it is what they will indicate as “what is with me”, and it is because they will have jointly that they will have a perfect community of sorrow and pleasure. Owing to the fact that they will not have anything into private, they will be of discord and all the dissensions which affect an ordinary human life.

The warlike education of the children occupies an important place. The vigorous children will be taken along in the campaigns which are likely all to be victorious, so that they can by the observation be familiarized with the things of the war and be instigated by the examples of bravery and courage that the troop rewards by a series for distinctions: initially crowns, then the safety of the warrior of the right hand, then an erotic reward of order, the kiss, intended to make the warriors more energetic. Although the model of the community implies the women, the evoked report/ratio is of a homosexual nature. Within the framework of the military countryside, the sexual relation seems authorized, the verb philêsai implying as well the kiss as the sexual union as it is interdict to refuse with the victorious man who wishes it. Deaths will be honoured with great regards, stated to belong to the “gold race” which, in the ideology founder, appoints the guard-leaders, their memory will piously be venerated. In addition, in its design of the war, Plato fraudulently registered with the habits of his time: the Greeks must not have Greek slaves, enemies deaths will not have to be stripped, it will be interdict to devastate the ground and to set fire to the houses. Only the plundering of harvest will be tolerated. Indeed, it is a question of distinguishing the war and the dissension. The war is a conflict between foreigners, the dissension a hostility between close relations. However the Greeks are close relations, and it is unthinkable to behave towards close relations as towards barbarians.

The last part of the book seeks to determine this political constitution how can come from there to exist. Plato starts by distinguishing the concrete application (prâxin) from the theoretical speech (léxeos) more capable to seize the truth than the practice, a position that Socrate acknowledges from the start contestable being. Actually, it is about a research by approximation, the ideal by its gasoline even, can be carried out only in a one approximate way; to seek how one can approach the model is the surest means to carry it out. Only one thing would have besides to be changed: to succeed in making coincide political power and philosophy. The institution of this new royalty, which is not the government of only one but is plural, is in complete rupture with the royal governments of the Greek time. The royalty of the king-philosophers will be the royalty of the reason and will be exerted as well in the heart as in the city. Socrat and Glaucon will endeavor to define the philosophers. This definition opens by the evocation of the erotic character of the philosophical temperament, which aims at highlighting the desire and the love which chair both the philosophical activity, had philosopher the “of the desire of wisdom likes the spectacle of the truth”. Socrat then explains what he understands by this last expression. The beautiful one being the opposite of ugly, they are two different things which are each one one. Of all the forms one can say the same thing, each one appears multiple because it expresses everywhere in community with the actions and the bodies. In this direction it is necessary to distinguish those which appreciate the beautiful things and those which taste the beautiful one in oneself, the latter being rare. That which thinks that the beautiful one in oneself is something of reality, that one lives with the waking state. Its thought is knowledge because she is thought somebody who knows. Knowledge is established on what is and not-knowledge on what is not. The opinion is attached to a thing which is different from that of the knowledge. The capacities constitute a certain kind to be to which we can ourselves what we can. A capacity which is attached to the same object and which carries out the same result I it call the same capacity. Knowledge and the opinion are different capacities because what is infallible is not identical to what is not it. If it is what is which is known, then what is opiné is other than what is. However what is opiné does not confuse with what is not which refers to ignorance. The opinion is then between ignorance and knowledge. Those which has affection for things without knowing them in oneself are thus of people subjects for opinion, those which even have of “the affection for that which in each thing is, it should be called friends of wisdom, philosophers. ”.

Deliver VI

Introduction: Situation: Socrat and Glaucon finish a maintenance having had for object the distinction of the philosopher of that which is not it. With a which aim? Goal: The philosopher appears as that which is ready to take care on the laws of the city, in other words, with being the guard of the city. Complement of preceding maintenance: Philosophical naturalness or 4 virtues of the philosopher

the intervention of Adimante: I) The objection of Adimante: - expression of the embarrassment tested by those which discuss with Socrate, each time they realize that the opinion mislaid them; - exposure of the problem in what occupies:

1°) the opinion: the philosophers whose Socrate praises the virtues are rare, since they become either perverse, or useless;

2°) the problem: how an useless philosopher in the city can be useful for the city? the response of Socrate to the problem of the uselessness of the philosopher by the image of the ship: - Socrate justifies the use of this process as being the only one with being able to defend the wise ones which undergoes the hardest treatments by the State; - The image of the ship allows a comparison: The State functions in a way similar to operation of the ship; - Ignorance, the vacuum of knowing, excludes from the start the knowledge since the ignoramus does not know that the knowledge exists: under this angle, the knowledge is useless. " of this uselessness those which do not employ the wise ones are the cause, and not wise them-mêmes" the response of Socrate to the problem of the perversity of the philosophers: - Principle of degradations of the virtues:

1°) Starting point: philosophical naturalness or virtues of " the noble man and bon" ;

2°) Principle: the virtues develop according to the medium in which the philosopher is immersed;

3°) the corruption of the virtues is correlative of this principle. - Cause of the corruption of the virtues: 1°) the people is not philosophical: he does not like the truth and corrupts wisdom; " it is necessary that the philosophers are blamed by peuple" " the elements which compose the philosophical naturalness, when they are spoiled by a bad education, make it déchoir its vocation" to some extent; 2°) the cause of corruption is not philosophy, but the education of that which has the virtues of the naturalness philosophe" Failure of the objection of Adimante: - Socrate answers the problem arising from Adimante, by holding a reasoning to which, once again, " nobody would know anything opposer" - At the end of maintenance, the opinion reported by Adimante appears " like a large error, any opposite so that one had granted to the début" : indeed, Socrate holds the opinion for true, reasons on this basis and leads Adimante to admit the range of the philosophical naturalness in the city. - By " fear of objections" , a point was not developed. Now that Adimante was reconciled with the thought of Socrate, Socrate will be able to approach this point.

II) The philosopher, guard of the city: - Situation today (at the time of Socrate): The philosophers are young people not having continued their studies beyond the dialectical one; - how Socrate considers what it would be necessary that it is: to prepare the young people with " to serve the philosophie" ; - how to convince the people: the opinion can change by the councils lavished by the legislator (in fact here, Adimante)

III) Studies and exercises: training of the guards - Prerequisite: love of the city; - The philosophers have experience of the pleasures and the pains and can continue their search of immutable and the truth; - In this part of the dialog, Socrate analyzes the premises of maintenance.

IV) Conclusion: the comparison with the Sun - Comparison between the eye and the sun, taking into consideration object sensitive like heart with the idea of the good in comparison with the truth. - The idea of the good is the principle of science and the truth, as the sun is the principle of the recognizable one. - it is in this part of the dialog that is exposed the divided line, like the classification of the orders of the knowledge, of visible with understandable, the darkness to the sun by the rise in the heart towards the idea of the good.

Deliver VII

It is in this book that is the Allégorie of the cave. In this allegory, it presents the teaching which must be exempted to the philosopher and the difficulty which exists in the relations between learning and teaching.

Représente way that here the state of our nature relative to the instruction and ignorance .

It makes lead by Socrate, with like interlocutor Glaucon, a reflection on:

- what each one believes it - relation with the beliefs, the values, the certainty and convictions - the difficulty in changing in manner of designing the things - the relation with the discovery - resistance to change from point of view - what each one knows that it knows - what each one knows that it does not know - what each one does not know that it knows - what each one does not know that it does not know, that it believes it or not

The intervention of the philosopher, expert of the Maieutic , is not in this case not without risk when it must face the whole of a city, since the reaction of the groups in this fields is to be closed with the ideas démystificatrices (position of the prisoners in a cave who consider that of them which would return with a better knowledge of the real-world would be reached of madness and if it managed to sow the disorder as for reality, would be exposed to the risk to be killed… if they could hold it in their hands, that do you believe that they would make?

The Allégorie of the cave is certainly a heritage of teaching Pythagoricien aiming at releasing the people of the beliefs which were inculcated since decades, even millenia of credulity in all the fields which could be approximate in a scientific way.

Deliver VIII

Socrat and Adimante now will make the examination of the various types of political regime. In addition to the ideal mode that they describe, named aristocracy, it there with the timocratie or timarchie (mode of Crete and Lacédémone), oligarchy, the democracy and tyranny. They will analyze each mode in particular, and will show how one passes from the one to the other.

First of all, the timarchie. Socrat provides that, naturally, its aristocracy will end up being corrupted, to degrade himself, to lose of his unit. Then, the “bronze and iron races”, the craftsmen, will seek the richness, which goes ammener the creation of the private property. This political operating process differs from the aristocracy by the fact that the capacity will not be given to the wise ones. Moreover, the citizens will be incited with guerroyer, and they seek the profit. This constitution is “a complete mixture of good and evil” (548c). The citizen will be more arrogant, brutal towards the slaves and soft towards the free men. This mode becomes oligarchical when, because of an unrestrained research of the profit, a small portion of the population becomes very rich whereas the other is reduced to poverty radically. Since the inhabitants of the city decide that only richest will be able to take part in the public affairs, there is oligarchy (of the Greek ολιγος, little). Of course, the rich person establish their constitution by the force. In addition to richest are regarded wrongly as most skilful controlling, the principal defect of this quoted is its internal division: “a city of the rich person, a city of the poor, living in the same place and constantly conspiring the ones against the others. ” (551d). The citizen, as for him, presents himself under one day sizeable, but he seeks at the bottom only the richness.

The poor notice well quickly which the rich person it are “only because of cowardice of the poor” (556d). He thus decide to drive out them or to strip them, and build a democratic regime. This mode supports freedom and the equality, “the capacity to do all that one wants” (557b). There is no obligation: that which is skilful to control makes it only if he wants it, the war and peace is concluded only according to the opinion from the citizens. Socrat speaks even about criminals who would not be continued and would walk in all freedom in the city (558c). No matter who can do anything, it does not have there more no specialization. The citizen occupies himself to satisfy his pleasures nonnecessary, it launches out from time to time in the policy when the desire takes some to him. He is with the image of the city: he does what he it likes, which amuses it.

Freedom and the equality involve disorders, the children do not respect more their parents (562d). One attends a division of the city in three classes: the lazy ones which spends their times dealing with the public affairs, those which knew to benefit from freedom to trade and grew rich, and the workers who do not deal with the political matters. This last group is most numerous. In the middle of the anarchy which settles, the tyrant will appear, being presented first of all in the form of a guard. Feeling supported by the mass, and the capacity going up to him to the head, it makes sure the support of the middle-classes while promising to redistribute the wealths of their favor. Helped by the people, he asks him bodyguards. “It clamp as he is not a tyrant, he is spread in promises, as well into private as in public, he releases people of their debts, and he redistributes the ground with the people and those of his entourage, and with all he is pleasant and full with softness. ” (566e). Then, it causes wars, so that the citizens need a chief. In these wars, it is arranged so that those which die are those which nourish more of the ideas of freedom. It is only then that he will be recognized like tyrant. But fear of dying and the money calm those which could reverse it.

Deliver IX

It is now necessary to examine the character of the tyrannical man itself. He is discharged, he unceasingly seeks the pleasures of all kinds, with the detriment of his parents and his children if it is needed. He is subjected to the “tyranny of Eros”. It is also most miserable of the men. Paradoxically, it is not free, but slave of its passions.

Socrate then decides to recapitulate. The men will be happiest in aristocracy, a little less in timocratie, even less in oligarchy, and so on with the democracy and tyranny.

According to him, there are three parts in the heart: the rational part or intellect (νους), the part which seeks bravery and the honors (θυμος), and the lower part (επιτυμια), who seeks only the pleasure. It is as if the man were a creature formed of a man, a lion, and a polymorphic dreadful creature (polymorphic because the man has several desires, often contradictory). The wise one knew to affirm the superiority of the man, while making in kind deaden the other parts. It is the man of the ideal city the citizens of the other modes, on the contrary, woke up the animal parts. He are thus a disordered life, and will not be happy.

Socrate still insists on a point: the philosopher is best placed to judge what makes really happy. Indeed, “the reasoning is the instrument par excellence of the philosopher” (582d): he is the best to judge. Moreover, all the men are subjected to the desires necessary of the animal parts, they must all satisfy them. Then, the philosopher has experience of what the pleasure coming from the animal parts can bring. On the other hand, the other men never tried to reflect, they thus do not have any idea of the satisfaction which the contemplation of the truth can bring. Only the philosopher is ready to compare the various kinds of pleasures, since he all knew them. It is him best placed to know how to be happy.

But, will this city occur one day? “There are some can be a model in the sky for that which wishes to contemplate it and, according to this contemplation, to give to itself foundations. That this city exists some share, or that it is still to come, that does not make any difference besides, because this man would realize only what belongs to this city, and null other. ” (592b). While finishing Book VIII on a tone which can seem optimistic, Socrate lets be profiled through its speech the theory of the ειδος, the theory of the Platonic Forms.

Deliver X

the banishment of poetry

Imitative poetry must be rejected absolutely because they deform the spirit of the audience. There exist many objects, but there exists only one form per object. The object is imitation of the form. The craftsman does not produce the being but something which resembles the being. The object manufactured is obscure compared to the truth which is the form. The natural creator produces the form, the craftsman produces an object while taking as a starting point the form, the painter imitates the object such as it appears. Painting is thus an imitation of appearance and not of the truth. The art of the imitation is extremely far away from truth, for this reason it can work all things, it reaches only one small portion who is itself a show. One hears people claim that the tragic poets know all arts, all the human things which refer to the virtue and the defect. Is this true? If somebody could produce the object to be imitated and the show, it would not devote its life to the show. However the poets, Homère initially are unable to produce the object (Homère forever be legislator nor war leader), they are thus only imitateurs who do not reach with the truth. The charm of poetry results from ornaments of words, which aim at imitating the object chosen for subject. The imitator does not have the knowledge of the things which he imitates, he will imitate what seems beautiful with the great number. The imitation is only one puerile activity deprived of serious. Art is based on the vulnerability of our nature which pushes us to let to us deceive by optical illusions. It is the principle of the reason which lies in the heart which governs the true judgment. What carries the judgment in the heart without being concerned with measurement could not be identical to what is concerned with measurement. The principle which is based on measurement is best heart. Any art of imitation thus maintains a relation with what there is of less valid in us. The poet imitator is not naturally carried towards the rational principle of the heart, it aims at the character excitable and multi-coloured which is easier to imitate. It flatters the part of the human heart which is private of reflection, introduces a bad political constitution --> must be banished city. But the most important objection is the evil which poetry can cause with people of value. By listening to Homère singing misfortunes of the heroes, they test pleasure of it and start to share their suffering, whereas in real situation they endure without word to say like wants it their statute of men. By exerting the heart with pity, the poets soften it. The same argument is to be employed with the comic one. While listening with the theater and while laughing at a tomfoolery which it would have shame to say the man weakens his dignity in real situation at the point not to realize that he becomes a forger of jokes. The anthems with the gods, the praises of virtuous people will be only allowed poetry in the city. Lyric and epic poetry will be banished in order to preserve the reign of the reason unless they cannot produce evidence of their utility.

the Immortality of the heart

There is something which one calls well (safe and is advantageous), and something that one calls badly (destroyed and corrupts all things). There are a good and an evil for each thing. It is thus the natural evil of each being which destroys it and anything else is not able to corrupt it. All defects of the heart (injustice, indiscipline, cowardice, ignorance etc…) make bad but they do not destroy it. And it would be paradoxical to affirm that the defect of another being can destroy something whereas its own defect cannot it. When a being perishes neither under the effect of an evil which is foreign for him, nor under his clean, it is obvious that it is immortal. The heart is thus immortal. The heart is not heterogeneous. It should not be considered in the state of forfeiture which results from its union with the body which makes it similar to Protée with the multiple faces, but in its purest state, i.e. carried towards its love of wisdom. Only this state allows us to know if it is one or made up of multiple parts.

the er myth Pamphylien

The tenth book of the Republic is completed by the myth of er, intended to maintain among listeners the faith in immortality the heart, in order to save them forfeiture by connecting them to the Philosophie.

Er was originating in Pamphylie and had as a Arménios father. It was found died after a battle but returned to the life on roughing-hew it funerary because it received the order of the supreme judges to be the " messenger of with-delà". Thus, er reappears to tell its experiment of the other world to alive in their making a description of the voyage of the hearts. It gives the means of measuring the hearts according to their actions and offers in example the fate which had to undergo Ardiée the Large one, precipitate with the Tartar for its faults. After having received their had during thousand years (the Juste will deserve a treatment right and unjust some thousand years passage to the Tartar), the travellers have to walk in the plain of Léthé during twelve days. At the end of this pilgrimage, they lead in front of the celestial light and to the spindle of Need. From there, the hearts could contemplate the light jaillante. This spindle rested on the knees of its owner. Beside it, rest the moires, these three women sat on thrones, Lachésis, Clôthô and Atropos, and which sings times (past, present, future) and touched the spindle. The hearts had to be placed on line to choose their existence. They were to choose in a multitude of options, as much human than animal. Er describes the dreadful mania of the hearts to choose conditions " pitiful, ridiculous and étranges". These people become tyrants. The latter, being regarded as incurable in their cruelty, undergo torture with the Tartar during eternity. Lachésis gives then to each one a demon (in this book the demons are not regarded as malicious; it is in fact of the guards of our heart). This demon helps us to achieve our lifestyle choice. The last stage before réincarner is of going to the Amélès river, to drink its water of it. This causes to remove the memory of people. Thus, with the birth, nobody suspects what occurred in high-beyond. Plato concluded by affirming that the fact of teaching this Myth and of believing it makes it possible whoever to want to make the justice in all the manners with the help of the reason. And thus we will find happiness and success in our life.

See too

External bonds

the integral Greek in remote loading

Simple: The Republic

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