igeneyie® <5 Deg hh@h®, 2 2POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY o~ The Essential Texts THIRD EDITION Edited by Steven M. Cahn The Gty University of New York Graduate Center New York — Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESSsess is a department of the University of Oxford. objective of excellence in research, lishing worldwide. Oxford University Press 1s it furthers the University scholarship, and education by Pu Oxford New York . Richland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in . Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece aenaia Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2015, 2011. 2005 by Oxford University Press | For titles covered by Section 112 of the US Higher Education Opportunity Act, please visit www.oup.com/us/he for the | {atest information about pricing and alternate formats. 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JATI.P6225 2014 OM —423 2014032996 BIBLIOTECA-FLACSO-EC A Donacion.....---PLATO ~ INTRODUCTION RICHARD KRAUT Plato (427-347 pce) was . an i Rigen ones ates vere ito anlar isoorati and wealthy Athenian family, and during Many of the plays of Sophecies ints ae and political ferment of his time and place. quarter of the fifth century, and the aber’ and Aristophanes were written during the last fellow Athenians became his mobrene ral and political conflicts they dramatized for their eloponneviint War taal AONE evel Plato's youth also roughly coincided with the SE Sparta WAntReTeIne en ietonae ete in the defeat of democratic Athens at the hands (called “Thirty Tyrants” by lever Sparta installed in Athens a government of thirty rulers Same Geto dec rane mes sian eels selected for their antidemocratic co ieee Charine aed eet eernena Be jem, Critias, was the cousin of Plato's mother; ase . Both appear as interlocutors in some of Plato's Like man: fe c anes peste ey ani ace ne ey oe | f ly preserved in Plato's Apology. Socrates wrote nothing and professed ignorance, but his suspicion that no one possesses moral knowledge, and his conviction that we must spend our lives searching for it, inspired many eb follona Plato among them, to abandon their worldly ambitions and to live a philo- ical life The Thirty who had been installed by Sparta were overthrown and democracy was re- stored in 403; but a few years later, in 399, Socrates was brought to trial and found guilty of not belicving in the city’s gods, of introducing new gods, and of corrupting the young. Some scholars believe that the prosecution of Socrates was motivated partly by the perception that he was a danger to the restored democracy. It is noteworthy that Plato's account of the speech Socrates gave in his own defense, the Apology (apologia means “defense”), contains both 32) and a reminder that Socrates disobeyed the Thirty (32). Evi- ly be classified as a democrat or an antidemocrat. Similarly, in the Crito, Socrates is described as a man so satisfied with the Athenian legal system that he has hardly left the city’s walls (52-53), and yet he insists that one should follow the commands of an expert and pay no attention to the opinions of the many (47). But were not the laws of democratic Athens an expression of the opinion of the many? Socrates does not explain the basis for his high regard for Athenian law. Still more perplexing is an apparent inconsistency between the willingness Socrates ex- presses in the Apology to engage in various forms of disobedience and the arguments he ecepts in the Crito for obeying one’s city and its laws. He tells the jury that he will obey the god who has commanded him to philosophize rather than any orders they give him (29), and antipopulist elements (31 dently, he could not easWe are told by anci t ent sources that after the de: and spent time in Sicii ly, North Africa, and E, scared with cae ane Of the thinkers he visited were ce a hae Pythagoras) who held that i odies after death. They were als ical relationships (for example, in musical scales) th As Plato moved beyond such early works as the Apology and Crito, both of these Pythag ean ideas—the transformation ofthe soul in its many lives and the mathematical nate ot reality—came to the fore in his writings. When he returned to Athens in 387, he established a school (called the “Academy,” after the grove beyond the city walls that was sacred to the hero Academos) devoted to the study of philosophical and scientific problems. Ancient writers describe two further visits of Plato to Sicily, in 367 and 361, undertaken to influence the course of Syracusan politics, both ending in failure, He remained the head of the Acad- emy until his death in 347. Although Socrates insists in the Apology that we cannot know what comes after death, in the Phaedo (a dialogue in which he holds his final conversation, before drinking a poison and dying) he presents a series of arguments for the immortality of the soul. One of the most striking components of this dialogue and others that were written during this period is their affirmation of the existence of a new kind of objective reality, which Socrates calls a “form” or “idea.” (Capital letters—“Form,” “Idea"—are sometimes used to name these objects, al- though this is not Plato’s practice.) For example, the form of equality (Plato is thinking of the mathematical relationship) is not something that can be observed by the senses, but it exists nonetheless. It is an eternal and changeless object that can be known only by means of reason. The equal objects we observe are in some way defective copies of the perfect form; they are called equal because they somehow share in or participate in the form of equality, Plato does not attempt to give a complete list of the forms, but he believes that many of the words we use in mathematics (“triangl line,” “two”) and in evaluative discourse (“jus- tice,” “beauty,” “good”) are really names of these abstract objects. Whenever we speak, we are referring to forms, though most people assume that they are merely talking about a visible and perishable world. They are, Plato thinks, living in a dream world: they fail to realize that the human soul is reborn into other }0 intensely interested in the mathemat- at underlie many physical phenomenaINTRODUCTION what they observe is a mere appearance z ae aateniad heseres ce ee and that a greater reality—the world of the forms— in The Republic (composed 2 Reetmnieeattne ear Sige a ea cae ae rae coe neee ae i a death. Although Socrates was a man of the ity of a jury of 501 fellow citizens ae o dangerous to his community that the major- ete ena er ear ned him to die. Since just action sometimes leads not cast arene ere eee eee as injustice, does that a ee ta ato's guiding assumption, which he inherits Rr aaa e made in answering this question until we come to lerstanding of what justice is. (The Greek word is dikaiosi its meaning is broader than that of out “justice” and encompa See aloe ian of others.) Book I of The Republic portrays a a See nae tice. Socrates here plays the role of ys a series of unsuccessful attempts to define jus- peciene eee a someone who lacks knowledge and whose mission it is Peer nar comet aes equally ignorant. Although Thrasymachus, the most formi- aera i es faces, is eventually defeated in argument, he plays a crucial role a : any attempt to vindicate the life ofa just person must address itself to the yynicism and immorality that Thrasymachus represents. Plato seems to be saying, in effect, that there isa ‘Thrasymachus in all of us and that we can exorcise him only by means ofa philosophical inquiry as wide ranging as The Republic. Starting with Book Il, Socrates sheds his role as an jgnorant inquirer who merely poses problems for others. For the remainder of the dialogue, he becomes a systematic philosopher who puts forward a grand theory about the nature of human beings, the ideal state, the soul, mathematics, knowledge, and the highest realities. His main interlocutors (Glaucon and ‘Adeimantus-—Plato’s brothers) occasionally interact with him, but they play a role far differ- ent from the ones assigned to Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus in Book I. The strategy pursued throughout the remainder of The Republic is to exploit the fact that it is not merely individuals who can be Characterized as just or unjust, We also use these terms to praise or discredit certain forms of governmen Perhaps, then, we can grasp the nature of justice by asl litical community and what the justice icing what leads to the existence of a po ee guch a community consists in. This attempt to consist political and individual justice as the same property eventually leads to the proposal that justice consists in each part of a thing doing its own activity. Ina just city oF sale teach position i filled by a person who is quali- fied to contribute to the good of the whole community. Similarly, in a just human being, each part of the soul operates in a Way that best serves the whole human being. By the end of Book IV, Socrates seems to be on the verge ‘of completing his demonstra- tion of the great value ‘of justice—but, in a sense, his argument has only begun. The institu: tions of the ideal city—particularly “potition of the traditional family among rulers and eugenic sharing of sexual pariners—have not yet been fully discussed. Plato's aim is to foster the greatest possible unity in the city, and he is willing to go tothe greatest lengths 0 guarantee that his citizens owe heir strongest allegiance to each other rater than lod Felatives. But the topic that looms Targest in Books V, Vi, and VIE isthe propos) is ate rtical community is one that gives omplete authority to rigorously tained! ane MOF Lee ae speaking, the only real philosophers are those whose vss philosophers. Strictly h ’ a ae fi of ie is based on their study of the foems, and in particular the form of the understePLat is to be defined, and in this sense the entire he seems to be suggesting that goodness “good.” Socrates refrains from saying how good tant that philosophers first be trained as project of The Republic is adically incomplete. aa has a mathematical nature: that is why Is Se Liab ea a efore they undertake the study oF the NIEHS! for he ot " + reaches its culminating point with its depiction 0 p opher, Tea Hea Cie ‘earch for the value of “justice” has led to the i i erfect justice. The s she is the human being of perfect just u i conclusion that this virtue is most fully present in those who understand the nature ore Justice is the greatest good because the best sort of life is one in which ir ss e's e and understanding of the most valuable te act of ne and 1X rund ot Pa’ argument by portraying the diseased politcal structures and fragmented psychologies that arse when worldly values—the love of honor, domination, wealth, and sexual pleasure—ta e priority aoa others, In Book X, the peripheral and external rewards of justice, having been dis- missed in Book II, are allowed to return and provide the finishing touches on Socrates’ portrait of justice. Since the soul (or at least the rational part of it) does not perish, the good br justice does not come to an end when the body perishes. By postponing the question of posthumous existence tothe end of The Republic, Socrates leads us to see that a life of jus- tice would be worth living even if there were no afterlife: Essays on many aspects of Plato's thought can be found in Richard Kraut, The Cam- bridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), and in Gail Fine’s two volumes, Plato | and Plato 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Full dis- cussions of the Apology are provided by Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Socrates on Trial (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), and C. D. C. Reeve, Socrates in the Apology (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989). Detailed analysis of the Crito is pre- sented by Richard Kraut, Socrates and the State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), and Roslyn Weiss, Socrates Dissatisfied (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), For studies of The Republic, see Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxlord: Clarendon Press, 1981), Nicholas P. White, A Companion to Plato's Republic (In- inna Hackett, 1979), C. D. C. Reeve, Philosopher-Kings (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton cae seen Richard Kraut, Plato's Republic: Critical Essays (Lanham, c a Littlefi 7 a 7 aught seied ty Guat ag cena History of Greek and Roman Political jalcolm Schofield, in association with Simon Harrison and Melissa Lane (Cambri i imbridge: i chapters on Plato's polities, ige: Cambridge University Press, 2000), contains seven highest