Needless to say, the skimming is conducted in English, not in the original Ancient Greek, though I always dream of doing so.
I think it is such a dark topic to the extent that I couldn’t help but write it in English. The rationale in behind is that as far as blog like Amebo is concerned, no one (to my own good faith) would have the intention to write anything as dark as this one so as to intimidate the ignorant reader badly. It also serves as a sign for readers to consider that if you have positive disposition, please try your best not to read this articles. Otherwise, there should be nothing to prevent you from reading except my exceptionally bad style English（汗）
First of all, such a poor guy, who is happened to be called by people of his time and by us Plato, was not of my interest in anyway. The only ancient Greek man I am interested in is Socrates, for his notorious paradox, namely, “The only thing of which I have knowledge is my ignorance.” People have extraordinarily great hatred of paradox, as this kind of statement disguises in its grant form while telling you nothing besides ambiguity, precisely, contradiction. You probably try hard to understand it only to give it up, relegate its value in every way and finally, forget it for the very reason that it keeps annoying your spirit, even spoiling the integrity of the soul! You would like to beat me relentlessly when I say to you: “I would like to tell you something interesting about Kana Nishino by not telling you.” Do you understand what I mean? Or your fist just gets ready for you to punch me. So am I. This Socrates, telling us he knows everything by knowing nothing, took the drugs and escaped into his hell without leaving elaboration on his claim. How dare I was born late over 2000 years which grants me no chance to have my fist on him! (But on the other hand Socrates is also a strong man physically such that it seems that it is not easy for me to do so, how luckily am I!) O! My dear Socrates, please just tell me what the hell you mean or I will let you be reborn to the world! This is where Plato comes, as a student and best friend of Socrates, he should have exhausting information on Socrates, especially his thought and saying, and indeed it seems so. Socrates himself leaves no writings. All we can say about him is to quote what Plato had said and nothing else. Xenophon and Aristophanes also portray traits of Socrates in their works, but Plato’s one is considered to be the authority.
I have no intention to give a detail introduction on Plato, as it is inappropriate to do so here and the MOST significant reason is that I am incapable of it. You will forgive anyone who himself is inability, don’t you?
Having that said, I should quote a brief introduction on him written by other skilled author, C. D. C. REEVE from his book “Plato Republic”.
“…Plato was familiar with Athenian politics from childhood and was expected to enter it (politics) himself. Horrified by actual political events, however, including the execution of his mentor and teacher Socrates in 399 BCE, he turned instead to philosophy, thinking that only it (philosophy) could bring true justice to human beings and put an end to civil war and political upheaval”
So you may see why I call Plato the poor guy, in a way that he could have exploited his own social advantages so as to give a nice revenge to those who put Socrates to death. Anyway, he chose not to do so, rather, dedicate his whole life in the studying and teaching of philosophy at Athens, also through travelling oversee to Sicily for the same purpose in failure. The books he wrote, as you may have perceived, not in the form of treatise stating overwhelmingly full of his dogma of philosophy one is compelled to obey, are in form of dialogues, with Socrates performing as the main character who conducts coherent arguments with his interlocutors, that Plato himself has no position in the dialogues (i.e. you see neither dialogue articulated by Plato, nor narrations made through his mouth), as if Socrates were the author of those books. Personally I like this setting very much. It gives you free rein to the extent that I even find myself take part in the argument! So not to be bias! Keep your mind open as soon as possible! They are not the kind of philosophical book that says: “Hey you stupid guy, just shut up and listen to me, the king of wisdom, who should have the appropriate authority to do so and be praised with the name of “Philosopher”, the one who knows truth of the world.”
Despite the seriousness of the book’s title “Republic”, the starting of it is quite friendly! It triggers a kind of sentiment that is similar to reading a novel; let’s call it prose of novel; it goes like a novel that hurry one up for the flow of conversations without those superfluous decorations of phrases typically found in novel.
For the sake of clarity, let me quote a couple of dialogues from the book I have mentioned.
Slave: Polemarchus wants you to wait.
(Narration) I (the first personal pronoun here always refers to Socrates) turned around and asked where he was.
Slave: He is coming up behind you; please wait for him.
Glaucon: All right, we will.
(Narration) Shortly after that, Polemarchus caught up with us. Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, was with him, and so were Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and some others, all of whom were apparently on their way from the procession.
Polemarchus: It looks to me, Socrates, as if you two are hurrying to get away to town.
Socrates: That isn’t a bad guess.
Polemarchus: But do you see how many we are?
Socrates: Certainly.
Polemarchus: Well, then, either you must prove yourselves stronger than all these people or you will have to stay here.
Socrates: Isn’t there another alternative still: that we persuade you that you should let us go?
Polemarchus: But could you persuade us, if we won’t listen?
Glaucon: There is no way we could.
Polemarchus: Well, we won’t listen; you had better make up your mind to that.
I think it is better to stop the quotation here. As you can see, the dialogue goes on just like performing drama on a stage. The main topic traversing over book I and II is what justice and injustice are, how the masses grasp these two concepts and how Socrates defends justice against those who prefer injustice over justice.
When it comes to topic on moral like this kind, it probably sounds ad nauseam to one’s ears insofar as it causes one to lose their temper quickly. For that it won’t tell you anything beauty besides dogmas for people to follow despite the fact that no one would be persuaded whatsoever and ironically people perform themselves just the opposite. To put it in Socrates like paradox, one can say: “Moral is something that people will obey it by violating it!”
Well then, how this Plato presents such a kind of ironical topic is in a way that surprises me quite a lot. He is not going to state what justice is good for and how bad injustice is that it compels people to denigrate those who practice injustice. After reading through book I and II, one would find, as most of commentaries on Plato’s works go; you won’t find definite answer to the topic, he simply demonstrates how one should be persuaded by examining the topic rationally, not by taking it for granted or because being said by authoritative person. He reasonably shows the general public, which is portrayed as other interlocutors other than Socrates, would think about practicing injustice is much more profitable and beneficial and therefore, lives will become easy and happy by injustice. But a chain of elenchus (a series of questions asked to examine how one is ignorant of the topic being asked), Socrates manages to proof that the arguments of his interlocutors finally come to a contradiction, showing their ignorance of the topic and urging them to abandon their old believes.
For example, one of his strong interlocutors, Thrasymachus, he totally rejects what Socrates says justice should be more preferable to injustice by his one strong argument:
Justice is advantageous to the stronger (in the context the ruler) and at the same time, Injustice is advantageous to the stronger himself.
The statement should be interpreted as follow:
Through the practicing of injustice by the ruler, the stronger manages to force those who are weaker and hence, under his rule, to practice justice, which is harmful to the weaker themselves (please bear in mind that Thrasymachus suggests that justice is harmful) and in turn, benefit to the stronger, the ruler.
By hearing this, you may want to claim that if this kind of tyrant is going to rule, he have no choice but eventually being overthrown by his people who suffered under the ruling power. Thrasymachus had also taken well notice to this point, so he said to Socrates, it is the true ruler he means, in precise sense, not the tyrant who practices injustice “unwillingly”. It sounds odd at the beginning but one may also notices the fact that at the very moment the ruler fails, would you still call them “ruler”? At the very moment they failed, they are just like a thief or robber, who is incapable of doing injustice, finally is caught by others and sent to punishment. They are not of worth mentioning at all, for they are just inept at practicing injustice “willingly”.
Facing tough argument imposed by Thrasymachus, Socrates argues that the person who practices justice, should be considered as those who practice any kind of crafts, be they doctor, medicine, shepherds, captain and the likes. These craftsmen, as we may call them, use their craftsmanship to benefit others, irrespective of whether they are rewarded by wages or reputation that should be the consequences of practicing craft, not the craft itself, will not be put under consideration when justice itself is concerned. Wages or reputation should be considered separately, namely, the craft of earning wages, the craft of gaining reputation and so on. Therefore the same goes for justice, as doctors do the best for their patient, just people performs justice so to benefit others except themselves, for that it is meaningless for a doctor to perform medical treatment benefit himself exclusively that no one should call him doctor, the same is also true for performing justice.
You may here imagine that Socrates succeeds in persuading the stubborn Thrasymachus. Quite the contrary, although he confesses that his argument may seem weaker than the Socrates’s one, he tries to undermine the effect of elenchus by answering Socrates’s questions with Socrates’s favorite answers in disguise, so as to “please” Socrates for that he thought Socrates is a man who always insults others by asking his interlocutors question, never accepting what they have answered and at the same time, avoiding the answering to the very question himself.
When I think the discussion is about to be deadlock and wonder how it should be conducted in order to reach a new understanding of justice, another interlocutor interrupts the conversation, which sheds new light and pave the way for continuation of the dialogue. This man named Glaucon, is another wise young man who longs for hearing someone’s great argument on justices, how justices really do help people have their lives happily. The argument by Glaucon is actually not of his origin, but quotes of the general public, is wisely concluded through his mouth. To this, the following anecdotal of justice/injustice is worth its mentioning
The term “justice” and “injustice”, is in itself the most injustice, the most devil one, for that their “appearances” shows that they are in the situation of mutually exclusive, indeed complement each other! What origin from where justice arises is the most fascinating claim, intriguing in a way that justice, doesn’t perform itself as the opposite of injustice, but is something in between the best practice of injustice and the worst suffering of injustice. What an amazing said! Rationale goes like this. First to consider the best practice of injustice, that is, performing injustice in a perfect sense such that one can harm anyone to any extent while remaining impunity (i.e. free of punishment). On the other hand, suffering from injustice the worst is the situation that one could only accept every injustice from others without the ability to revenge (i.e. keeping on suffering without compensation) People realizes the fact that one cannot always perform injustice without being caught, and good for doing injustice is far outweighed by suffering from injustice. Therefore, people try to compromise each other by formulating what we call law or contract, to regulate people to the extent that both the extreme cases of injustice wouldn’t appear. And the execution of law is equivalent to what people call justice. It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Actually Glaucon is capable of stating the reality of justice and injustice through three steps, First is what I have just mention the origin of justice. Next, he demonstrates that people are only unwilling to perform justice in a sense that they consider justice as necessity rather than it is beautiful in nature. Thirdly, he is going to tell Socrates that why people perform injustice as they are. Indeed, I would really like to quote his argument in entirety only it is too long to allow me to do so.
Following what Glaucon had said, his brother, named Adeimantus, spoke out claiming that his brother had yet to touch the most significant point, namely, the reason for those who praise justice and disparage injustice. The main argument made by Adeimantus is that, as people do not want to be caught by others due to injustice, they pretend to be justice in public so as to win reputations while keeping themselves injustice in private, in order to maximize his own wealth. Or if they are in power, they can ever “correct” the failure (i.e. to justify their own injustice) by their skill of word of by forcing people to accept the failure as if it were correct in the first place. So how about god? How a human being can lie to god, when god is considered to be far more versatile, powerful and perfect in every aspect over human? His answer is if people don’t believe in god, they will simply ignore the god altogether. Only people do matter in this case. On the contrary, they can hire skilled prayer or through sophisticated sacrifice and proper ritual in order to “please” the god, swaying god into thinking that they are just, or let’s say, believed to be just. He ends his argument by posting a strong question to Socrates that I would like to quote it here, as it would be exactly the same as what I want to ask Socrates, if I were to be possible to do so.
“…So do not merely demonstrate to us by argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but tell us what each one itself does, because of itself, to someone who possesses it, that makes the one bad and the other good. Follow Glaucon’s advice and do not take reputations into account……..whether it (justice or injustice) remains hidden from gods and human beings or not.”
Having constrained strictly by Adeimantus, Socrates finally agreed to answer, by an analogy that it is more easily to see big characters in wide area than the same character but smaller both in size and are, so that the same goes for looking into justice. He first evaluates what kind of justice should a just city contain, and these similar properties should then also be found in within its citizens and hence, justice of individual. The story around building of city from a health but rudimentary one to a luxurious and wealthy one is sophisticatedly and coherently carried out by Socrates, though it is complex enough for me to lose track of the original topic, is still fascinating. It is not a good idea to quote such a tedious conversation except those of how Socrates comments on the qualities of Guardian of city.
Socrates: But surely they must be gentle to their own people and harsh to their enemies. Otherwise, they will not wait around for others to destroy them, but will do it themselves first.
Glaucon: That’s true.
Socrates: What are we to do, then? Where are we to find a character that is both gentle and high-spirited at the same time? For, of course, a gentle nature is the opposite of the spirited kind.
Glaucon: Apparently.
Socrates: But surely if someone lacks either of these qualities, he cannot be a good guardian. Yet the combination of them seems to be impossible. And so it follows, then, that a good guardian is impossible.
How surprised it is! You may have never thought that nature of animal, in anyway has their position in philosophy, but Plato, he seems to me that he has no hesitation to contrast the quality between beast and human. Therefore, Socrates continues to say:
Socrates: You can see the combination in other animals, too, but especially in the one to which we compared the guardian. For you know, of course, that noble hounds naturally have a character of that sort. They are as gentle as can be to those they are familiar with and know, but the opposite to those they do not know.
By then, it provides Socrates with turning point to start the more significant talk – how one should be raised “philosophically” so that one grows up with both gentle and courageous characters that suit oneself as a guardian of city.
There is much more to say about how education should be conducted in order to train up infant philosophically but they are just too long for me to do so and interested reader should find it easy reading by themselves. The methodology suggested by Socrates, at least to my own ears, sounds a bit harsh when human being is concerned. The feasibility of it is in doubt. Though I must admit that the idea itself, is strictly logically.
Despite this long blog, it covers only a small part of the dialogue of the first two volumes of Republic. At this stage I could not but just let my mind totally “hijacked” by the conversation due to its persuasive power and its logical structure. I am sure that they aren’t dogmas, rather, it sheds light on how a difficult and controversial topic can be untangled through reasoning, and how one can subdue monolithic value born by the society through the application of logic.