The Republic is Plato’s second most extensive dialogue (428-347 BC), composed of ten parts (ten books) and addresses several topics such as: politics, education, immortality of the soul, etc. However, the main theme and guiding axis of the dialogue is justice.
In the text, Socrates (469-399 BC) is the main character, narrates in first person and is responsible for the development of ideas. This is Plato’s main and most complex work, where the main foundations of his philosophy are present.
The Republic ( Politeia ) idealized by the philosopher refers to an ideal city, called Kallipolis (in Greek, “beautiful city”). In it, a new type of aristocracy should be adopted. Unlike the traditional aristocracy, based on goods and tradition, the philosopher’s proposal is that knowledge should be used as a criterion.
Kallipolis would be divided into knowledge-based social strata and would be governed by the “philosopher-king”. The magistrates, responsible for the government of the city, would be those who had a natural aptitude for knowledge, and, only after a long period of formation, would be prepared to occupy the necessary positions.
This system of government is called sophocracy, which comes from the Greek words sophrós (sage) and kratia (power) and is represented as “the government of the sages”.
The Death of Socrates and The Republic
It is important to realize that Socrates’ death was very important for the continuation of Platonic philosophy. It partly motivated him to propose an ideal city and his criticism of democracy , present in the work.
Socrates was sentenced to death, accused of heresy and corruption of Athenian youth. He was tried in a democratic court in which the citizens of Athens participated.
For the philosopher, democracy is unfair because it allows an ignorant person to have the same value as a sage, within political deliberations.
In this way, injustices are committed. For him, the criterion of the majority, the basis of democracy, has no validity since, in many cases, like Socrates’, the majority may be wrong and democratically unjust.
It is in The Republic that the famous Myth of the Cave, proposed by Plato , presents a metaphor about the life of Socrates and the role of philosophy.
Justice, the Main Theme of The Republic
Justice is the main concept developed in The Republic . The entire text develops around the attempt to define this concept by Socrates and his interlocutors.
Plato believes that justice is the greatest of all virtues and understands that, in order to practice it, it is necessary to define it. The first two books are dedicated to the theme and show the difficulty of defining a concept as important and complex as justice.
Book I
The first of the ten books of the work A República , which consists of a Socratic dialogue created by Plato, begins with Socrates’ visit to Céfalo’s house.
There, Socrates, inspired by the Olympic games that were taking place, seeks to define what justice is. Unsuccessfully, his interlocutors try to find the best definition that fits the concept.
Céfalo, an old merchant “on the verge of old age”, who lived comfortably in Athens, is the host of the meeting. When questioned, he affirms that justice is telling the truth and restoring what belongs to the other .
Socrates refutes this definition. Céfalo withdraws and leaves the debate with his son, Polemarco. This, after some debate, defines justice as the act of giving benefits to friends and losses to enemies .
Again, the definition is refuted by Socrates, who says that evil will never be an act of justice. Therefore, prejudice is not a positive act as justice requires.
After this debate, Trasímaco, one of the sophists, accuses Socrates of not wanting to find any definition and just playing with words and disagreeing without offering solutions.
Trasímaco says he has a good answer and affirms that justice is what is advantageous for the strongest . In this case, the government.
Socrates, again, disagrees and shows that the whole debate has been distorted out of the way about the nature of justice. He says that the discussions were about what is advantageous: justice or injustice and that he remains without knowing anything about the topic.
Book I of The Republic ends with this statement.
Book II
The second book of The Republic begins with the same attempt to establish the nature of justice. One of the interlocutors, Glauco, makes an apology for injustice, citing the Myth of the Ring of Giges.
With him, Glauco shows that people suffer from the injustices practiced against them, but benefit from the practice of injustice and corruption. In this way, all people who have the opportunity to become corrupt and practice injustice for their own benefit.
In the Myth of the Ring of Giges, a shepherd in the storm finds a corpse wearing a ring. He takes this ring for himself and when he returns to the city, he realizes that this ring gives him the gift of invisibility.
Giges, the shepherd, enters the palace, seduces the queen and conspires with her the death of the king. After the king’s murder, he takes his place and rules tyrannically.
Based on the narrated myth, Glauco hopes to have convinced Socrates that justice is not in itself a virtue, but that it seems to be just, since all are corruptible.
However, the refutation of this argument, this time, does not come from Socrates, but from Glauco’s brother, Adimanto. He says that one can think differently than the brother thinks, that justice is a virtue (not in itself, but in the effects it generates), and that, finally, the righteous are rewarded, either by the gods or for the recognition of those who remain after his death.
Socrates praises young people, but does not believe that there is a solution to the problem of justice until they have abandoned thinking about specific issues and thinking more broadly, giving an account of the whole of justice in order to understand what it is in the soul.
Both agree that the justice is preferable to injustice and, therefore, need to create an ordinance so that justice is possible. The philosopher directs the conversation towards the idealization of a perfect city.
Only in Book IV, Socrates seems to arrive at a definition of justice as being the balance and harmony between the parts of the city.
Plato’s Ideal City
In the next books of The Republic , guided by the idea of justice, the three (Socrates, Glauco and Adimanto) seek to define the ideal city.
For this, they define that the city should be divided into three parts, and that perfection would be in the harmonious integration between them.
The simplest first class of citizens would be dedicated to the most trivial actions related to the city’s livelihood, such as land cultivation, handicrafts and commerce. Those responsible for these activities would be those who had in the constitution of their soul, the hay, the iron and the bronze.
Second-class citizens, according to Plato, would be a little more adept at having silver in the mix of their souls. These, called warriors, would protect the city and constitute the army and its auxiliaries in public administration.
The third class of citizens, more noble, would study for fifty years, dedicate themselves to reason and knowledge, and constitute the class of magistrates. These were responsible for governing the city, since only they would have all the wisdom that the art of politics requires.
Justice understood as a virtue could only be practiced by the holder of the knowledge dedicated to reason. He could control his emotions and impulses and govern the city in a fair way.
Citizens are divided into groups according to their performance and the level of knowledge necessary to carry out their activities. Only acting in accordance with the natural determination of the soul can bring balance and harmony between the parties.
The Soul in the Republic
The composition of the human soul could contain bronze, silver or gold and this would determine to which of the three classes of the republic each person would belong.
The Platonic soul, like the society of the republic, is also divided into three parts:
| Soul Part | Body Location | Occupation |
|---|---|---|
| Rational | Head | Reason, search for knowledge and wisdom. Controls the rest of the soul |
| Irascible | Heart | Emotions and feelings. Develops courage and impetuosity |
| Appetizing | Underbelly | Sexual desires and appetites. Develops prudence and moderation |
For Plato, the rational part of the soul is the part most developed by the philosophers, who from it, control the others.
In another text, Plato makes an allusion that states that reason is like the reins responsible for controlling two horses in a carriage.
For this reason, philosophers should be responsible for the city government, as they are not susceptible to emotions and desires.
Plato affirms that the soul, like the city, obtains its fullness through the harmonic relationship between the parts that integrate the whole.
In the book, Plato develops the idea of the immortality of the soul and its relation to knowledge, continuing the theory of Socratic reminiscence.
The philosopher claims that the soul, being immortal and eternal, belongs to the world of ideas and there it can apprehend all existing ideas and thus has all possible knowledge.
At the moment of the union of the soul with the body, the soul would forget this knowledge. It is only through the search for knowledge that the soul is able to remember what it has already known.
Thus, in Book IV of The Republic , Plato seeks to reconcile the opposite philosophies of Heraclitus (c.540-470 BC) and Parmenides (530-460 BC).
Heraclitus stated that the universe was in a constant movement of change (becoming). Plato associates this constant transformation with the sensitive world, where everything undergoes the action of time and has a duration: it is born, grows, dies and renews itself.
From Parmenides , he extracted the idea of permanence and associated it with his world of ideas, where everything is eternal and immutable (permanent).
These are the foundations of Platonic dualism and its distinction between the body (sensitive world) and the soul (world of ideas).
Education in the Republic
In the republic, education would be the responsibility of the state and families would have no participation in the creation. The State would be responsible for educating individuals and directing them to the activities most appropriate to their type of soul (bronze, silver or gold).
It is at this moment that Plato criticizes Greek education, especially poetics. For him, poetry would distort individuals from the idea that the gods would have human characteristics such as: compassion, predilection, envy, resentment, etc.
These gods, humanized by poetics, would serve as a model of corruption to individuals. Humanization would cause the gods to question their role within society and aim for social transformation.
Plato proposes that all individuals receive a general education based on the values of the city. This education would shape the character of each of its students, making them aware of their role within society.
After a period of twenty years, the first individuals formed would be those who have hay, iron and bronze in the constitution of their souls. They would be responsible for the manufacture of artifacts, food production and trade.
The warriors would receive another ten years of training and after that period, they would be able to defend the city and to auxiliary positions in the public administration. The silver mixed in their souls determines their aptitude for this type of action.
With fifty years of training and various tests, the owners of souls with gold, dedicated to studies and reason, would assume the positions of magistrates and be responsible for the government of the city.
Plato shows that only the most enlightened can govern justly, based on reason.
Cave myth
It is also in The Republic that Plato writes one of his most famous passages; The Cave Myth.
In the passage, Plato narrates the trajectory of a prisoner in a cave, who is dissatisfied with his condition, breaks the chains and leaves the place for the first time in his life.
This prisoner, now free, after contemplating the world outside the cave, feels compassion for the other prisoners and decides to return to try to free them.
When trying to communicate with the other prisoners, he is discredited, considered to be mad and finally killed by his fellow prisoners.
With this metaphor, Plato sought to demonstrate the role of knowledge, which for him would be responsible for freeing individuals from the prison imposed by prejudice and mere opinion.
Leaving the cave represents the search for knowledge, and the philosopher is one who, even after freeing himself from the bonds and reaching knowledge, is not satisfied.
Thus, he feels the need to free others from the prison of ignorance, even if it may cause his death (as happened in the case of the allegory prisoner and Socrates, Plato’s master).