Teaching Plato in Translation
by Susan Gorman, Boston University
Original text © 2004 Susan Gorman
The Republic
What is the function of Book 1?
In teaching the beginning of the Republic, I highlight the function of the first two books so that the students are better equipped to understand the problem that is being set forth for discussion. We talk mostly about what justice is and how a person can be deemed just or not. Once we all realize that there are no easy answers, we are ready to see how other people, such as those participating in the discussion in the Republic, discuss justice.
Firstly, Book 1 of the Republic sets the scene for the rest of the philosophical discussions to follow. Primarily, this discussion between Socrates, his host and their friends makes the discussion about justice that follows organic from the earlier comments. We, the readers, are prepared to move into a more intellectual discussion after this first conception of justice is introduced in Book 1.
Book 1 offers a different view of morality than what will be discussed for the following books. For Cephalus, right and wrong is a performance of certain actions (i.e. paying debts). The ‘kind’ of person, the 'type' of soul that you have, does not matter. Importantly, in this conception of justice, morality is external.
There are some problems with external justice:
- This way of thinking about justice, that it is based on performance rather than internal order, may lead to complacency
- Secondly, this external conception does not lead to much thought
- Finally, external justice is too plausibly filled with scepticism
What does it mean to say that morality is external? Basically, morality is in what you do. If someone does something just but doesn't believe in what (s)he is doing, he or she is still just. Acting justly, even if one does not think justly, is key. Socrates is not satisfied with this conception of justice and instead wants to explore the idea of internal justice. If people are internally just, he believes, all of their actions will be just because they cannot act any other way. That idea then leads to the question of how one can become internally just.
Thus, basically, Book 1 of The Republic sets up the problem that the rest of the work seeks to answer: what is justice? What does it mean to be internally just?
