Philosophers in the "Republic": Plato's Two Paradigms

Introduction: Two Paradigms

Introduction Two Paradigms The modest aim of this book is to show that Plato’s Republic contains two distinct and irreconcilable portrayals of the philosopher.1 That this is so is something of which I am deeply confident.2 I am less sure, however, of why this is so: it is one thing to read a text, quite another to read the mind of its author. As I understand Plato’s dialogues, particularly those in which there is animated interaction between Socrates and his interlocutors, their aim 1. I will of necessity pay scant attention to the Republic’s metaphysics—Forms, the Good, and the divided line—and to several of its central concerns: degenerate regimes, education, censorship , poetry, and the detailed workings of Callipolis and its origins in the “healthy” “city of sows.” Two issues that are accorded somewhat more thorough consideration are the nature of justice and the city-soul analogy. I avoid entirely the question of whether the Republic is best understood as political or as psychological/moral. The books I emphasize are 6 and 7, where the two paradigms are developed. 2. The first of these two portrayals begins at 5.473c, continues on to 6.490d, and is revived and completed at 6.496a-502c; the second starts at 6.502c, runs through all of Book 7, and is summarized in the opening passage of Book 8 at 543a-c. 2 Philosophers in the Republic is to put the philosophic life on display. The characters in them, though fictionalized, are real enough: there were—are—such types. And within their respective types, the characters are each unique—as real people are. Socrates tailors his therapeutic method to the needs of his varied interlocutors , making the necessary concessions to their moral and intellectual limitations. By presenting images of philosophy in action, Plato’s dialogues speak to us, his readers. One might say that they contain two messages: one, Socrates’; the other, Plato’s. Socrates’ message is in the first instance for his interlocutors—not for us. It is driven by his interlocutors’ moral character and by the quirks of their personalities, by their good intentions and bad, by their interests, by their desires, by the level of their understanding, and by their willingness or reluctance to inquire further. But Plato’s message is for us; he invariably finds a way to remind us—by inserting some glaring peculiarity in the text3 —that we are not Socrates’ interlocutors but his.4 It is, after all, oddities that give pause and spur thinking: in the Phaedo (100e101c ), what is said to rattle complacency are such puzzles as how the taller man and the shorter are taller and shorter by the very same thing (“by a head”), or how the taller man is taller by something small (a head), or how both addition and division can be the cause of two; in the Republic (7.523a525a ), what is said to “summon or awaken the activity of intellect” are such questions as how a finger can be simultaneously large and small, hard and soft.5 Inconsistencies in a Platonic dialogue are therefore not to be papered over and domesticated, but acknowledged and confronted. Plato counts on his readers to disentangle Socrates’ exchange with his interlocutors from 3. See Strauss (1952, 36), who lists the following as examples of “obtrusively enigmatic features ” that serve as guides to the hidden truths of a text: “obscurity of the plan, contradictions, pseudonyms, inexact repetitions of earlier statements, strange expressions, etc.” 4. It is occasionally objected to such a view that Plato’s dialogues were not intended to be read, and hence certainly were not meant to be scrutinized for hints or clues. I am not convinced that this is so: philosophers before Plato wrote books that were read and studied. It is furthermore fairly evident that Aristotle read Plato’s dialogues. Plato was meticulous in the attention he paid to detail; could he really not have intended or expected his work to be read? 5. Translated passages from the Republic follow Bloom’s translation (1968), with occasional modifications. Translated passages from all other works by Plato rely on the translations cited in the bibliography, modified as needed. Unless otherwise noted, emphasis in quoted passages is mine. Introduction 3 his own address to us.6 Although there is surely overlap between the two, there is never complete identity. We are to draw the lesson Plato intends for us by watching the interplay between Socrates and...