Summary: Republic
The Republic is a dialogue by Plato that presents an original vision of social life within an ideal city.
According to Cicero, it was the first work of Greek political philosophy.
Plato asserts the existence of an intelligible realm beyond the world of sensory experience—the world of Ideas. The dialogue also contains the famous Allegory of the Cave.
Other works: Symposium
Book I
This introductory book simply sets the scene for Socrates' meeting with his various interlocutors, including Glaucon and Adeimantus.
Book II
Glaucon argues that we are never moral out of a desire for justice, but merely out of fear of punishment.
He illustrates this with the famous myth of Gyges' ring: Gyges, having found a ring that makes him invisible, is able to commit any wrongdoing he wishes without fear of being caught.
This suggests that those who act justly do so only because they lack the power to commit injustice
1, or that no one is just voluntarily, but only under compulsion
2.
In response to this challenge, Socrates must come to the defence of justice
3 and establish its legitimacy.
Rather than examining justice in the individual, Socrates proposes to study it in the city, on the principle that large letters are easier to read than small ones.
Men come together to form a city out of necessity, since no one can meet all their needs alone.
This is where Plato introduces the principle of the division of labour, which would later be famously articulated by Adam Smith:
All things are produced more abundantly, better, and more easily, when every man, according to his abilities, and within the proper time, engages in one work, being dispensed from all others 4.
From this, specialisation emerges, giving rise to a whole range of new trades: carpenters, blacksmiths, shepherds, and many others.
In the corrupted city, trades that serve pleasure rather than necessity begin to appear—musicians, artists and the like. As a result, the city must expand, and to do so, it must wage war. Hence the need for soldiers.
Socrates defines the ideal character of the Guardians: they must be both gentle towards the city's inhabitants and fierce towards its enemies. Their education must exclude music and poetry, and Socrates takes the opportunity to condemn, in passing, fables that depict immoral gods.
Book III
Plato even goes so far as to expel the poet from the city—more precisely, the "corrupting" poet, the one who knows how to imitate everything, including the vile:
We would send him to another city, after pouring myrrh on his head and crowning him with garlands 5.
By contrast, the "moralising" poet is allowed to remain in the city: the more austere and less entertaining one, who will imitate for us the tone of the virtuous man
6.
The education of the Guardians must incorporate both music and gymnastics, which complement each other: if music softens, gymnastics toughens—an ideal balance for the Guardian, who must be both gentle and fierce.
Power must rest with the eldest, who are the wisest. The people, however, are not to be told the truth; instead, the legitimacy of power is to be founded on a myth: the gods have formed those who rule from gold, and those who obey from iron and bronze. An oracle foretells the city's downfall when it is guarded by iron or bronze
7.
Since the Guardians belong to the golden race, they must own nothing—nothing must be privately theirs, lest they begin plotting to accumulate wealth.
The city is now fully established and described in all its complexity.
Book IV
In the fourth book of The Republic, Socrates returns to the original question: what is justice, and what grounds its legitimacy in the city?
Justice is one of the city's four cardinal virtues—virtues that are essential to its health and proper functioning.
The four cardinal virtues are: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
- Wisdom: The city's rulers and Guardians deliberate in order to reach political decisions, and in doing so they exercise prudence—itself a form of knowledge.
- Courage: Once again, it is the Guardians who embody this virtue.
- Temperance (or self-control): Just as in every individual there is a higher part that must govern the lower part in order to achieve self-mastery, so too is the city master of itself when the superior social class governs the inferior, if the desires of the multitude, made up of men of lesser virtue, are restrained by the wisdom of the virtuous few
8.
- Justice: Justice consists in possessing only what rightfully belongs to us and in performing only our own designated function
9.
The mixing of social classes—when a craftsman aspires to become a Guardian, for instance—is the greatest harm that can befall the city: an injustice.
1 Republic, 359a-360b
2 360b-361c
3 367b-368b
4 370b-371a
5 397b-398b
6 Ibid.
7 415a-416a
8 431a-431e
9 433d-434c