Teaching Plato in Translation
by Susan Gorman, Boston University
Original text © 2004 Susan Gorman
The Republic
The Evolution of Governments and the Analogous Soul Types
The changes between the governments listed in The Republic can be tricky. So, when I discuss them with students, I summarize and put them on the board. Once we all know the different types of governments and souls, we can talk more easily about them. I organized the different governments according to three main questions:
- How does one government transition into another?
- What type of government is used in this government?
- What kind of soul is analogous to this government?
Below I list the summaries I created for these governments along with pertinent quotes and page citations.
ARISTOCRACY
Government of the good, analogous to the good soul
TIMOCRACY
Constitution embodies the love of honor
How does aristocracy yield to timocracy?
The young will not pay attention to their education, and therefore they will not be able to distinguish between the gold/silver/bronze people. There will be intermixing of the classes that will lead to factions. (what the “Muses” would offer to explain; 546 -547a)
The iron and bronze mixture want money, the gold and silver want to keep virtue and the status quo. They compromise that land and houses should be privately owned and create a lower class of serfs and domestics. ȁSo they kept themselves busy by coercing the subjects they once protected and by making war” (547 b,c)
How will the timocratic city be governed?
The people will still want to honor their ruler but they will not want to let clever men hold office because they have changed (“become equivocators instead of being simple and straightforward” 547e). so they will have SOLDIERS be rulers.
These soldiers will desire wealth, but cannot have it openly. So they will horde it secretly but be stingy in public. They will spend the money of others.
“This is the behavior that results from neglect of the true Muse of discourse and philosophy and from the preference for gymnastic over music.” (548c)
Too much of the “highspirited”. most conspicuous feature: LOVE OF HONOR AND VICTORY
Timocractic Soul
Self-willed but not cultivated. abusive of slaves, lover of honor, excels at war, passion for gymnastic. in youth disdainful of wealth, but after growing older, a lover of wealth. 𠇋reft of the best guardian [a rational and cultivated mind] his virtue will not remain unsullied and pure” (549b)
“His father will foster the rational part of his soul; the others will stimulate his appetites and passions. The son is not a bad man, but he has fallen in with bad company. Subject to two contradictory influences, he chooses the intermediate ground. He surrenders his soul to the rule of ambition and high spirit and becomes a man arrogant in manner and hungry for honors.” (550b)
OLIGARCHY
“A regime based on property ownership in which only the rich hold office and the poor have no share in government” (550d)
How does timocracy yield to oligarchy?
Private people accumulate more and more wealth and they ignore laws against this. eventually, as they grow more and more wealthy, they think less about honor and virtue but rather they honor riches. then they legislate the limits of political participation and bring it about that no one can hold office who doesn’t have a certain amount of property/wealth.
How will the oligarchical city be governed?
Problem 1: skill not heeded/required, only qualification is wealth. (551c)
Problem 2: the city is divided into the city of the rich and the city of the poor who are constantly plotting against each other (551 d)
*Because of this, the rich will be reluctant to arm the poor in times of war fearing that the multitude will rise up against them and they won’t want to fund a war
Oligarchies allow some people to sell all their belongings and become paupers. there also comes about the class of drones, consumers, who may either simply become beggars (stingless) or villains (with stings). this then leads to crime. drones are the product of “bad education, a corrupt culture, and unjust political arrangements” (552e)
RULE BY VIRTUE OF THE PROPERTY THEY POSSESS
If a son sees his father ruined by the state, he may turn to money-making, becoming stingy and greedy. he’ll turn from being a lover of honor to being a lover of money (553d).
Oligarchic soul:
Hardworking, thrifty, gratifying necessary appetites, always looking for profit, hoarding, does not value education
“Owing to his want of education, the cravings of the drone assert themselves, some marking the idler and some the criminal. Nonetheless, he holds them forcibly in check by dint of his own vigilance and self-control” (554c)
He appears a just man because of FEAR (of losing property) (554d)
In a sense he would be two men. however his better characteristics would general win over the worse (554e)
No harmony!
DEMOCRACY
How does oligarchy yield to democracy?
“Is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy provoked by that insatiate greed for what oligarchy calls the greater good, to become as rich as possible?” (555b)
Certain men, who love wealth are in control, and act only to accumulate wealth and do not care about the poor. when the poor and the rich come into contact, the poor will realize that they are actually physically stronger then the rich and they will cause a revolution. (556a) (“the city is sick and will wage war against itself” 557a)
“When the poor are victorious, I suppose, a democracy emerges” (557a)
What will the regime be like?
The people are free, each will choose a life to suit himself, diverse; there is a lack of compulsion, tolerates all kinds. the city would not force people to govern. obedience to authority is not required, no one is forced to go to war not to keep peace. there is leniency to criminals. the society is very permissive.
“In its diversity and disorder it proceeds to dispense a sort of equality to equal and unequals alike” (558c)
[Sidenote: oligarchs governed by necessary desires; drones obsessed with unnecessary desires]
The son of a strict oligarch father, once having experienced the unnecessary desires of the drones, joins with them. the oligarchs and the drones fight against each other for him (example of “internal strife” of the man). his order for oligarchy is restored by shame but his desire for unnecessary things still exists covertly. since he doesn’t have a good education, he is unable to fight against his desire for them. thereupon he goes and stays with the drones (“Lotus Eaters” 560d) the drones call shame “naivete”, temperance “cowardice” etc.
Anarchy = liberty; improvidence = grandeur, shamelessness = courage (561a)
His life LACKS ORDER but he claims that is a life of pleasure (561 d)
“He is a kaleidoscopic man, a man of many different humors, fair and colorful as the city itself.” (561e)
TYRANNY
How does democracy yield to tyranny?
Through an EXCESS OF LIBERTY
Leads to anarchy
“Democracy is undone by the same vice that ruins oligarchy. But because democracy has embraced anarchy, the damage is more general and far worse, and its subjugation more complete. The truth is, a common rule holds for the seasons, for all the plants and the animals, and particularly for political societies: excess in one direction tends to provoke excess in the contrary direction” (564)
“So an excess of liberty - in the state or in the individual - seems destined to end up in slavery” (564)
3 Classes of People in Democracy
1. DRONES: the dominant class, outspoken. the class that decides everything (564 e)
2. MONEY-MAKERS: “the drones’ playground” because they make all the money that the drones use
3. MULTITUDE: the largest group. the drones, after taking the richs’ money, gives a small part of it to the multitude
The money making class, after being robbed, speak out against the drones who call them “oligarchs” and there is a lot of litigation on both sides. the people then promote one man who is seen as their “protector and champion” (565d)
“Then we have located the tyrant’s point of entry into the society. The root and foundation of his power in his initial role as protector” (565d)
Given so much power by the people, the tyrant begins to misuse that power in order to get rid of his enemies. eventually he fights against the money-makers, and, if he wins, he will become a paradigmatic tyrant. early on, he’s generous and good to the people. then he searches for a war, wages taxes on the people to fund it, gets rid of all dissidents and enemies.
The tyrant seeks to remove the best and leave the worse (567 c)
Tyrannical soul
“One who by nature or habit - or both - has turned into a creature of drunkenness, lust, and madness” (574 c), feasting and excess constantly, looking to gain anything from anywhere, deceptive, thieving
“The passion that rules within drives him to the extremes of anarchy and lawlessness. Controlling the man like a tyrant controls a city, it will urge him on to every kind of audacity in order to produce sustenance for himself and his clamorous companions.” (575a)
** Never learn friendship or freedom, men without honor, ENTIRELY UNJUST (576 b)
“A man’s soul, wholly enslaved by its inner tyrant, will be least able to do what it wants. Instead it will be maddened by disorder and frenzy and full of remorse.” (577e)
Why is the tyrannical soul so miserable?
“Not only is he ill governed within himself, but once misfortune removes him from private life and establishes him in the tyrant’s place, he must try to control others when he cannot control himself. He is like a sick man who is unable to exercise self-restraint yet is not permitted to pass his days in cloistered privacy; instead, he is obliged to engage adversaries in never-ending rivalry and discord.” (579 d)
