In The Republic, Plato attempts to translate the Sacred Order of transcendent Being into the Social Order of the Polis. In a philosophical soul, the higher reason will rule over the lower instincts by applying what it apprehends of the divine and eternal Forms to behavior; similarly, a philosophical state will support the spiritual development of certain individuals whose mandates, also drawn from the Forms, will guide the behavior of the rest of the community. Lucky us.
He makes these distinctions because Plato recognizes differences in the character of behavior within a community and even within each individual, and attributes these differences to the higher and lower parts of the soul. He actually divides the soul into three parts:
Reason: Philosophical. Rules the other two. Seeks truth.
Spirit/Will: Enforces the mandates of reason. Seeks honor.
Appetite: Instinctual drives. Food, Sex, Rock’n’roll.
Freudians might recognize this as Id (appetite), Ego (will), and Super-ego (Reason). Like Freud, Plato wants to explain why we seem to have mixed feelings so often; torn between our higher and lower instincts, he suggests we are of two souls, or three. There is also a direct correspondence to the divisions of his ideal society: Guardians/Philosopher Kings (Reason); Auxiliaries/Soldiers (Will); and Workers (Appetite).
As the individual (Guardian) develops spiritually, the Reason comes to dominate, and the soul ascends a ladder of perception; Socrates uses the “Divided Line” to further explain the division between the Intelligible (mental) world of Being and the Sensible (physical) world of Becoming. Here’s my attempt at diagramming it:
At the lowest level of perception, we are experiencing the images of things: reflections, shadows, paintings, and such, and are thus only able to form fleeting, superficial opinions (eikasia). Imagine someone in their living room yelling at the television set, and it’s about as close as we get to Plato’s myth of the cave! This explains his problems with mimetic art as misleading, although I think we can say that there is art that moves our thoughts upward, and art that directs our thoughts downward; admittedly, people don’t like to hear this about their favorite artworks!
As our thoughts become more elevated, we form beliefs about sensible things. This is the everyday sort of perception of life in the physical world. But it can also teach us about higher things. Perception of beauty, however misleading it can be, is also a step on the ladder to higher thoughts. Note how erotic attraction serves a pedagogical purpose in several of Plato’s dialogues.
The Intelligible world is purely mental/spiritual. Socrates divides this world into discursive thoughts about hypotheses, particularly mathematical, which are still thoughts about things, if mental things; and then there is the highest perception, noesis. This is the direct and intuitive apprehension of the most pure and abstract Ideas, such as Beauty, Order, and the very highest, the Form of the Good, which seems akin to the Godhead.
Because Socrates sees the highest realm of divine noesis as the most true, his society facilitates the spiritual development of certain individuals, the Guardians, who will have the clearest apprehension of these truths, and then rule by mandating behavior in line with these true Forms. Someone who apprehends the pure form of Justice and of the Good, for instance, can translate that into laws and institutions that shape good and just behavior in everyone. Wise rule is a bit like divination.
The state Socrates describes is not totalitarian. Nevertheless, what strikes us as undemocratic about it is the elitism: certain individuals will be raised, from birth, to be more spiritually enlightened than the rest of us. A potter can’t ever become a philosopher. We should note, though, that the career path to becoming a philosophically enlightened ruler is open to women, which it is certainly not in most early spiritual communities. Also, I think the elitism derives from what I’d call Plato’s pathos of distance– he feels the gulf between higher and lower thought in a way that seems almost painful. Like most writers who feel this pathos of distance, his ideal society is a spiritual aristocracy; not a democracy.
So, I understand why this vision has appealed to intellectuals over the years. But, personally, it’s hard not to imagine that I’d be born into the latrine-cleaning group, while others got to sit around apprehending beauty!
Endnotes:
1. Whew! I need a break from Socrates and philosophy. So, I’m going to read some Euripides next. Maybe the Bacchae would be a nice change of pace.
Hmm… maybe I should read the Republic. I’ve always thought about it, and these posts may have inspired me to actually do it. Sounds like it would be quite the undertaking, though.
Side note: I didn’t know anyone still wrote in cursiveReport
@Aaron, Glad to hear it. It’s actually more amusing than I’ve made it sound. Remember it’s really just about a group of men hanging around and jawboning about what sort of city they’d like to live in. My advice is to just read through and not worry too much about the nuances. The problem I have with some of the interpretations of the Republic is that they tend towards decoding secret messages that most of us can’t actually spot.
It’s funny you mention the cursive. I actually tend to write these posts out in cursive before typing them up here. I’ve considered, as a joke, taking a picture of the writing and putting that up as a post.Report
I think the correspondence between guardians/soldiers/workers and reason/will/appetite is a pretty good argument for the idea mentioned earlier that the Republic is a metaphor for the ideal soul, as opposed to the ideal state — especially since each class (I think) embodies its corresponding division of the soul more than it harmonizes all three.
Plus it makes the censorship stuff a little easier to swallow (although it means the guardians miss out on their sexual free-for-all).Report
@Paul B, I think it does work that way. One thing I’ve wondered about is that the system seems designed to progressively elevate the character of all of the citizens. But wouldn’t that mean you’d eventually have workers who should really be guardians?Report
@Rufus F., Well the classes are non-hereditary, so children of workers who show sufficient promise would be educated to become guardians (and vice versa). But I think once you’re on the vocational or college-prep track, so to speak, you’re pretty much stuck with it.
It’s probably worth noting that in the city of the Laws Plato keeps slaves around to do the dirty work. And I think he has good words in general for the Spartan system of citizens and Helots.Report
@Paul B, I suspect that Sparta figures into the life of the Guardians, which is very Spartan, so to speak.
At some point, I’ve got to read the Laws again. Unfortunately, I seem to no longer have a copy here.Report
Rufus, I’ve greatly enjoyed these posts. Some thoughts on your latest.
Regarding the city/soul analogy–which comes first? To understand the just man we must write the soul large in terms of the city. In the city we first see the city of pigs extending into the feverish city requiring a differentiation between workers and guardians. The emergence of guardians thereby requires an education differentiating guardians from auxiliaries–an education that has in view the kingship of the philosophers. During this description of the different elements as they emerge in the different cities, the argument backtracks to a discussion of the different parts of the soul. As you note, these parts are analogous to the parts of the city. However, which is prior to the other–does the city or soul come first?
Later on in the dialogue, we see the city in speech as something that becomes the standard foundation for the well ordered soul. So the dialogue seems to be all about the soul. Consequently, we get the Myth of Er at the end which regards awards and punishments of the soul’s afterlife.
In so doing, it seems as if the whole analogy of city and soul breaks down.Report
@John, Thanks for the kind words.
It seems to me that the dialogue really is about the soul and that the city is somewhat incidental. Like you say, the analogy sort of breaks down at the end. Interestingly enough, Socrates also uses the analogy of the community as a body in basically the same way as St. Paul does. I think another good argument for seeing the dialogue as being really about the soul is that it’s a lot clearer how to apply what he’s saying to your own spiritual/psychological life than to building a city. The actual city he details seems like it would have all sorts of problems and be somewhat miserable to live in.Report
@John, I totally forgot about the Myth of Er!
That might be worth a post of its own, Rufus, unless you’re itching to get on to the Bacchae…Report
@Paul B, Wow, I guess I forgot it too, because I was planning to discuss it and didn’t. I’ll have to go re-read it and see if I have anything interesting to say about it. It certainly is important, especially because it’s quite an advance on the ‘shades’ in Hades that we read about in Homer.Report
@Rufus F., All I really about it is that amid all the talk of Pythagorean reincarnation there were a few images which Dante recycled for his Paradise, which I thought was pretty cool.Report
@Paul B, I’ve heard it was a very influential passage, and I’d actually be very interested in what the Catholics made of it in the Middle Ages.
Incidentally, where’s Bob Cheeks? I’d imagine all this talk of noesis and the afterlife would be up his alley.Report