And here we go. The first of the three this year was a total slog, and…well, you’ll see why. It’s not only because the last five weeks have been downright hectic.
Philosophy
Title: Republic
Author: Plato (tr. Sir Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee)
Genre: Philosophy/Political Science
Year: c. 360 BC
Consider essentially the founding document of political thought in general, Plato’s Republic has been considered a classic for centuries, and it is now the oldest book I’ve read. (I never actually finished anything of Homer, and even the Old Testament technically wasn’t written down until around the 2nd century BC.) Although it’s not on the official "Great Books" list, most people would probably assume it was. I did.
This is, in a way, the origin story of a lot of philosophy we simply see as background noise today. The allegory of the cave, which has become popularized in meme format the past few years, derives from Plato, and specifically Book VIII of this work. Many of the concepts of the Platonic ideal also find their genesis in Republic, or they are simply spelled out best here.
That’s really all there is to the work as a whole. It’s crafted as a conversation between Socrates and some of his pupils, patrons, and general audience members, with the idea that the master philosopher is, in effect, debating Thrasymachus, who serves as a kind of foil to get the action started. The subject of the debate? Who has the better life: a just man or an unjust one.
Simply looking at the world around us would lead us to assume that Thrasymachus has a point when he says that the unjust man is richer and more well-off. Name a billionaire whose money isn’t at least a little dirty.
Socrates, serving as the author’s insert—prose wasn’t as fully developed 2400 years ago—counters by saying that, while the unjust man may seem to have it all, he’s actually poorer in his spirit, and thus he will never truly be happy. From there commences a long and sometimes tedious dive into philosophy as Socrates converses with Adeimantus and Glaucon, two of his host’s sons; their purpose is sycophantic for the most part, offering little in the way of argument but much mumbled agreement with their illustrious guest.
You might be thinking, "Isn’t this book called the Republic? So where does the republic part come in?"
Well, I wondered the same thing. Part of the roundabout course Socrates takes to make his point is a digression into the forms of government, and a thought experiment of making a "perfect" state. His—rather, Plato’s—ideal is a monarchy run by a philosopher king. (You’ve probably heard that phrase bandied about lately, too.) In the Platonic ideal of State, everyone knows his place, no one is grasping or cheating, and it’s a very communal atmosphere.
It’s also joyless, as Plato explicitly ejects any worldly pleasures from his state, all the way down to the simple joy of familial love. In a way, Plato depicts a dystopia, then tries to sell it as a utopia.
That should be enough to disgust you, but bear with me. The part that people, including a lot of modern philosophers, don’t get is that it’s an allegory, the same as the cave. The ideal state represents the Platonic man. Not a system of government, but conceptualization of the perfect man. It’s at odds with the Aristotelian ideal of eudaemonia, and it’s very…call it proto-Stoic, because I see a lot of parallels from when I read Meditations a few years ago. There’s that same emphasis on eschewing the worldly for some nebulous "perfect" source of wisdom.
I can get behind that part a little bit, to be honest. But the language it’s couched in is opaque at best, and it shows how underdeveloped philosophy was in those early days. Plato has first-mover advantage, and that’s why his works are given a higher dose of respect than we would probably allow if they were more modern.
I’m not saying Republic isn’t worth reading. It is, if only because it’s a justifiable classic. You’ll learn from it, because you’ll see where so many concepts we almost take for granted originally came from. The Allegory of the Cave, after all, is the ultimate source work of everything from the Gospel of Thomas to The Matrix. The Myth of Er, which rounds out the book, served as inspiration for Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost, among many others.
Republic is not, however, political science. It doesn’t describe how to achieve a perfect state, but a state of perfection. While that’s as unattainable as any Platonic ideal, it won’t stop us from trying.