Summary: Republic (page 2)
In the same way, these three qualities are found in the soul of the individual: temperance, courage and wisdom.
What has just been read in large type in the City must be able to be read in small type in the soul of the individual.
While our soul is one, through the agreement of the various elements that make it up, it is not, however, absolutely simple. These three parts of the soul correspond to the three classes of the City.
These three parts of the soul are:
- that by which the soul reasons: the rational element
- that by which it loves, is hungry or thirsty, and flies incessantly around other desires: the irrational and concupiscible element
- the irascible element, through which we get angry
Anger must be distinguished from other desires, because it can sometimes be on the side of reason. For example in the case where we feel anger at being treated unfairly.
In this case, the irascible element is not attached to the concupiscible element, but to the rational element, because we get legitimately angry.
However, anger is indeed to be distinguished from reason, for wild beasts and children are irascible, but do not share reason.
Thus, there are in the City and in the individual's soul parts corresponding and equal in number
1.
The individual is courageous, wise or just in the same way and by the same element as the City. Now the City is just when each of the three classes takes care of its own task. So each of us is just when the three parts of his soul keep their place and perform their own task. Namely: reason must command, seconded by anger, the concupiscible element.
We have thus identified both the just City and the just individual in the same movement. Just as health is ensured when there are good relations of dominion between the various elements of the body, virtue consists in the establishment of good relations of dominion between the various parts of the soul.
It could be that there are as many species of souls as there are species of political constitutions: five species of constitution and five species of souls.
Book V
What for Plato is the best constitution, corresponding to the good soul?
This is monarchy, when one man remarkably surpasses others. It may also be called an aristocracy, when several men surpass the others.
I call such a constitution good and upright, either in the City or in man
2.
Four other constitutions, bad and deviated, can be identified.
However, before going into the details of these, Socrates is pressed to explain his idea of a community of women and children, thus described:
The wives of our warriors shall be common all to all: none of them shall dwell in private with any of them; likewise the children shall be common, and parents shall not know their children, nor these their parents 3.
In the Republic, eugenics is applied in all its rigour: deformed children will be discarded, and very frequent intercourse between elite men and women must be favoured; these must be very rare on the contrary between inferior subjects, - so that the herd reaches the highest perfection
4.
The community of women and children is just one example of the more general community of goods that Plato calls for.
How would this benefit the City?
Plato shows that the greatest evil for a city is that which divides it and makes it multiple instead of one; and the greatest good, that which unites it and makes it one.
The best organised city, then, is one in which most citizens say about the same things: this concerns me, this does not concern me
5.
With this in mind, the community of women and children participates in this unity. It is therefore a mode of operation that needs to be established, and to do so, the family would have to be abolished as the social basis of the City. This is one of the most surprising ideas developed in the Republic.
1 440e-441e
2 448a-449d
3 457b-458b
4 459b-460a
5 462a-462e