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COMMENTARY ON BOOK I OF MORE'S UTOPIA A number of commentators have noted similarities between the begin­ ning of Utopia and the setting of the Republic. Besides the dialogue form, "which is an obvious Platonic contribution to the Utopia," Surtz notes that "The interlocutors in both the Republic and the Utopia repair to a private residence after a religious ceremony in a seaport."1 The similarity goes very much deeper. In the Republic the religious festival being held in the Piraeus was concerned with the introduction of the cult of a foreign goddess, Bendis, from semi­barbarous Thrace.2 Plato does this to suggest the setting in which the problem of the first book had arisen. Its question "What is justice?" had become pressing through Athens' assimilation—partly because of its sea­faring orientation—of a whole variety of foreign gods and alien ideas. These, by their comparison with the established order, had raised questions and shaken the old assumptions—issuing in the Sophistic movement. This was as attractive to the young as it was dangerous to the city—both of which Plato illustrates in the discussion which follows. In this, the old order is represented by Cephalus whose opinions are entirely traditional. He assumes the existence of an objective and divine order revealed to the poets to whose authority he defers in every word. He first quotes, with approval, the saying of Sophocles that old age is a blessing because it frees us from the passions of youth as "from a raging and savage beast of a master" (329c). This shows his philosophical spirit in that—unlike the other old men of his circle who merely bemoan the loss of vigour as if it were the whole good (329a)—he sets the passing of his natural forces, along with the rest of his life, in relation to an absolute Reference notes to the Commentary appear on pp. 74­89. 19 20 THE NEW REPUBLIC: A COMMENTARY divine order represented by Hades.3 For Cephalus old age is therefore a kind of inducement to philosophy, leading us to wonder if we are in a right relation to the demands of the gods below who may soon judge us by their standard. He approves Pindar's words concerning the consola­ tions of hope in a just and pious life (331a,b) but proves unable to state what justice is in every case. His definition, which Socrates actually formulates—"to tell the truth and return what one has received" (33Id)—is, in the end of Plato's argument, shown to be true when taken in the sense of a harmony between the parts of a whole in which each gets its due (see 443d,e as the conclusion ofthe argument in Books I­IV) and then, further, when it has been shorn of every externality through the discovery of the intelligible Forms (Book V and following). But here, held in the manner Cephalus holds it—as a true opinion—it has become personal and divisive. He is not troubled by the inadequacy of his definition, even though he agrees with Socrates that it would not be right to return a weapon to a man who has gone mad (331c,d), but is content to hand over the argument to his son Polemarchus so that he can go off and do the just thing by attending the sacrifices (33Id). However true his opinion may be it is clear that he holds it as if it had reference to himself alone (i.e., in the justice he can afford through the pious use of his wealth), and as if it entailed no responsibility to anyone else— neither to the members ofhis family nor to the wider community—since he neither urges them to the sacrifices nor tries to resolve the difficulty suggested by Socrates. Thus Plato shows a division in the city between the old men like Cephalus who suppose they know what justice is, and try to do it, but who see no need to argue about it even while they allow the inadequacy oftheir view in certain cases4 and, on the other hand, the younger men who see no reason to attend the sacrifices like their fathers—whose views are not taken as authoritative because there are many exceptions and many competing definitions—but who are attracted by an argument about justice in which they hope to shine. To this point everything is still friendly and good­natured but the dangerous...

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