Gabriele Cornelli - Francisco L. Lisi (eds.

)
Plato and the City

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 Collegium Politicum
Contributions to Classical Political Thought

Edited by Francisco L. Lisi

Advisory Board:
Lucio Bertelli
Jean-Marie Bertrand
Luc Brisson
Slobodan Dusanic
Silvia Gastaldi
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Mario Vegetti

Volume 4

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Gabriele Cornelli - Francisco L. Lisi (eds.)

Plato and the City

Academia Verlag A’A Sankt Augustin

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 Iustration on the cover:
Volute Krater of the Underworld Painter, Inv. 3296
© Staatliche Antikensammlung und Glyptothek, Miinchen
Photograph by Koppermann

Edited in Cooperation with the Grupo Archai: as origens do pensamento

ocidental — Departamento de Filosofia — Universidade de Brasilia.

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Contents

Francisco L. Lisi, Gabriele Cornelli

The philosopher who governs the city and the city

which governs man 11
Anastdcio Borges de Araujo Jinior
Private and public in Plato’s Republic ...........ocoreveurevcrecncecncnncns 21
Francisco L. Lisi
Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? ....... 33
Franco Trabattoni
Plato’s political passion: on philosophical walls
and their permeability ..........ooreerrnencsciierre
s 47
Gabriele Cornelli
Plato’s kallipolis: Between non being and having to be .............. 59
Giovanni Casertano
Democracy in Plato: Brasilia, poets and founders of cities ......... 67
Hector Benoit

The language, the philosopher and the city .........ccoeccninrnennnnnee, 73

Marcelo Carvalho
The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality .............. 81
Marcelo D. Boeri
A City Without Poets: the metaphysical implications
of the Platonic conception of poetic art .... 97
Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro
10. Platonopolis: the case of Plotinus’ thinking ..........ccoocoeiiinnunnnee 105
Mauricio Pagotto Marsola
11. The nature and possibility of the best city:
Plato’s Republic in its historical contexts ............ccoeeueerererercrcnenas 113
Noburu Notomi

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BibLIOZIaphy .vovcvciiiiiiiiiiiinieninsseiissssssssessssssesesesssesssssenens 125

Index Of SUBJECES ......covvivieirerr e 133

Index of names .. 135
INAEX LOCOTUIM ...t
aea e se s b s esene 137

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Preface
Plato’s ambiguous relationship to the city
Francisco L. Lisi, Gabriele Cornelli

Plato’s political philosophy is one of the most controversial facets of his

thought. It is unnecessary to point to its wide influence on the political thought
of the last century. Popper’s accusation against Plato as the ancestral father of
contemporaneous totalitarianism and the long debate since then is generally too
well known to provide a detailed account here. In any case, Plato’s relationship
to the city or, better, to the cities, was an entangled one. On the theoretical level,
different tendencies and attitudes coexist in his work. Together with a clear inten-
tion of political engagement, there are numerous passages in which he states with
the same commitment that under the present circumstances such an engagement
is impossible, and it is not impossible simply because of certain external and con-
tingent circumstances, but because of the very nature of contemporary men. He
also outlines what he considers to be the best form of political organization, but
at the same time declares that the realization of this ideal is nowadays impossible,
even if this statement, too, remains ambiguous, because he always maintains that
a coup de fortune could make it possible.
Because of this, most of Plato’s ideas are still under debate and he is seen,
as it is the case with Popper, either as the origin of totalitarian movements or as
the predecessor of the current rule of law and the father of western democracy.
At the same time, he is regarded as both the first thinker to formulate the notion
of natural law and as the defender of substantial racial differences that make dif-
ferent laws for different peoples necessary. His laws have been considered to be
both the expression of rationality and the enforcement of irrationality and politi-
cal manipulation. The communism of his best state was rejected as an aberration
and was strongly criticized, even by his pupil Aristotle. On the other hand many
interpreters have admired it because they have seen in it a forerunner of socialism
and the very expression of the human aspiration to absolute justice. His abolition
of the family can be seen as a revolutionary weapon to attain a new society or, on
the contrary, as the expression of the most totalitarian ideal of control of everyone
that shares in the community.
If the evaluation of Plato’s different political proposals has been the object of
contradictory interpretations, his own appreciation of the existing political sys-
tems is not devoid of apparent incoherence either. Sometimes he does not refrain
from attacking the democratic regime or even every existing political system, as
in the Book VIII of the Republic. Nevertheless, he praises democracy and monar-

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6 Francisco L. Lisi, Gabriele Cornelli

chy as the mothers of all other political organizations, and considers Athens to be
the highest expression of the former.!
If Plato’s relationship to the city was theoretically entangled, his rapport to
the concrete existing city-states was no less difficult. His writings show a clear
rejection of the Athenian democratic regime as it existed in the fifth century
BC, but his own attitude is one of an unequivocal Athenian patriotism, and he
even considers democracy to be the system that corresponds to the Athenian
nature (cf. Menexenus 238c5-239a4).? Nevertheless, the historical realization
of his ideal state in primordial times, when Athens saved Europe and Egypt
from the western menace arising from Atlantis, was not democracy, but the
monarchic aristocracy that characterizes Callipolis, i.c. the rotation in the rule
of the city of the philosophers who periodically exerted absolute power one by
one. He admires the organization of Sparta, especially their mixed constitution,
but he also criticizes their exclusive promotion of courage as the fundamental
virtue of the state, the Spartan custom of pederasty, the freedom of Dorian
women and the Spartans’ greed for wealth. These are only some of the many
problems that the interpretation of Plato’s relationship to the city still presents
to the hermeneutics of his dialogues and have made it so fruitful for political
theory up to the present.
We have reunited in the present volume a collection of papers that treat dif-
ferent aspects of Plato’s conflicting relationship to the city-state. Even if the Re-
public is the main dialogue to which the majority of the papers in this volume
are devoted, the treatment of it does not exhaust the problems approached here.
Based on new epigraphic evidence, Noburu Notomi in his contribution proposes
a new date for the dramatic setting of the dialogue, 412 BC, a year before the oli-
garchic coup of 411 and a very critical period. Notomi maintains that the dialogue
constitutes an actual political proposal, intended to found the ideal state at the
moment of its writing, ca. 370 BC. In the opening paper of the collection Anas-
tacio Borges de Aratijo Jr. compares the Republic to the Laws, focusing precisely
on the change from the rule of the philosopher-king to the rule of law. Borges de
Aratjo defends the view that this signals a displacement of Plato’s main interest
from the city to the individual. While in the Republic the link between individual
and society is so strong that man’s destiny is indissolubly attached to the city, so
much so that just people have to isolate themselves from the decadent city and
secure their own salvation, the description of the emergence of the state in the
third book of the Laws offers a different view, in which the birth of legislation
represents the triumph of reason over desire and indicates the rule of justice in

1 Leges III 693d2-6: “There are two mother-forms of constitution, so to call them, from which,
one may truly say all the rest are derived. Of these the on is properly termed monarchy, the other
democracy, the extreme case of the former being the Persian polity, and of the latter the Athenian;
the rest are practically all, as I said, modifications of these two” (translation Bury).
2 On Plato’s ambiguous relationship to democracy, cf. Monoson (2000).

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Preface 7

the city. According to Borges de Aratijo, the Laws do not pretend to form the wise
man, but to structure a communitarian life, which allows the common citizens to
attain their fulfilment.
Four papers of the collection try to answer different criticisms of the dia-
logue. If for Borges de Araiijo the Laws are a reformulation of the Republic from
anew perspective, Franco Trabattoni considers that the latter is a rewriting of the
Gorgias concerning the Socratic principle that it is better to suffer injustice than
to commit it. For Trabattoni the transition from the Gorgias to the Republic repre-
sents the change from morality to ethics. He maintains that for Plato the Republic
only contains a model, an absolute criterion formulated only to clarify what a
Just state actually is like, but that Plato’s intention was not to provide a practical
political program. Plato only wanted to show that it is necessary to have a theory
that goes beyond the merely practical problems. According to Trabattoni, it is
precisely this subordination of praxis to theory, which, contrary to the criticism of
this work, makes it highly interesting for our times. In his contribution, Giovanni
Casertano also defends Plato against modern criticism. In his analysis of Books
II-V of the Republic, Casertano examines in detail the metaphor of the three
waves and Plato’s conception of communism. He argues that Plato inverts the
usual way of thinking of his time, because for him individual happiness depends
on the happiness of the community and not inversely. Casertano affirms that this
approach reinforces the unity of the city, without implying the dissolution of the
individual, but rather the attainment of just measure in the individual and in the
city. Just measure therefore becomes the element that unites the different parts of
the city. Also Hector Benoit in his paper rejects the accusations aimed at Plato.
For him, the Athenian philosopher is not an enemy of democracy. In a quick re-
view, Benoit presents Plato’s political projects and verifies an evolving approach
to democracy in his work, to which he relates the Greek inspiration of Brasilia’s
foundation. He also denies that Plato was an enemy of poetry. In her analysis of
Plato’s attitude to poetry Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro in turn observes
some ambiguity in Plato’s treatment of the topic. She states that his attitude was
much more positive than his criticism could lead one to believe.
In a paper that studies the pre-history of the terms plenexia and philopolis,
especially in Thucydides and Aristophanes, Gabriele Cornelli notes the contra-
dictory relationship Plato had to Athens and analyzes how Socrates in the Repub-
lic justifies the philosopher’s detachment from politics in the present-day city-
state. Usually politicians are victims of their pleonexia and represent the opposite
of the actual philopolis, the just man. For Cornelli the Republic is a proposal for
the way to obtain politicians who really and truly love the city and the common
good. Francisco Lisi's paper also approaches his subject from a comprehensive
point of view. It seeks to determine the specificity of Plato’s treatment of the pub-
lic and private spheres as well as property in relation to his contemporaries. The
characteristic of Plato’s thought consists not so much in the priority he attributes
to the public sphere, a characteristic that he shares with the Greek tradition, as in

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8 Francisco L. Lisi, Gabriele Cornelli

the radical tone of his proposal, since he pretends to extirpate the private sphere
and individuality in the most intimate areas of life. However, the result is that his
doctrine assimilates the city to the individual and conceives the common realm
as a radical form of the private sphere.
Another important passage in Plato’s work is the famous excursus in the
Theaetetus (173¢6-177c5), where Socrates describes the attitude of the philoso-
pher to his city. However, the significance of the dialogue for a good understand-
ing of Plato’s political theory has in general been overlooked, in particular the
refutation of Protagoras, due to the political implications of his doctrine.> Mar-
celo Carvalho devotes his paper to showing that the excursus plays a central role
in the refutation of Protagoras’ thesis and in the discussion of Plato’s new notions
of wisdom and philosophy. The philosopher is presented as a figure completely
separated from his city. Only his body lives in it, but not his soul. Contrary to
the pre-Socratic tradition, Plato offers for the first time a clear division between
theoretical and practical thinking and a pessimistic vision of the effectiveness
of truth in politics.
Plato’s relationship to the city as a political structure not only determined his
political philosophy, but also had a long-lasting reception in the history of western
political thought, including in this category the Islamic reception of the Athenian
thinker. Two papers approach problems concerning the reception of the Platonic
view by Stoicism and neo-Platonism. For Marcelo D. Boeri, there is a clear conti-
nuity between classical and Stoic political philosophy. Stoic cosmopolitism does
not derive from the disappearance of the city-state after Alexander the Great. It
is rather the result of the systematic necessity of the Stoic system, which inaugu-
rated a new conception of universal rationality, unknown to classical philosophy,
viz. the idea of a universe completely impregnated by the cosmic mind. In such
an understanding, every phenomenon is a manifestation of this cosmic mind,
especially in the case of human beings, which occupy a special place in the cos-
mic order due to their rational capacity. Boeri denies that Stoic philosophy was
limited to mere practical interests, and instead maintains that the classical union
of ethics and politics is also present in the Stoic systems. In his Life of Plotinus
(12, 1-9), Porphyry relates that the emperor Galienus offered to Plotinus the pos-
sibility of re-founding a philosopher-city called Platonopolis. Mauricio Pagotto
Marsola analyzes this project, which according to the testimony of Porphyry
supposedly was based on Plato’s Laws. He remarks the apparent contradiction
between Plotinus’ theory of the self-sufficiency of the wise, who has to attain hap-
piness through solitude and the union with the foundation of all reality, the One,
and this supposed political project. Pagotto Marsola arrives at the conclusion that
this contradiction is only apparent and that Platonopolis was not a political project
sensu stricto, but a plan for the master and his close circle of friends.

3 Cf. Lisi (2008b).

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Preface 9

The papers contained in this volume do not exhaust the wide-ranging theme
of Plato’s complicated and entangled relationship to the city; nevertheless they
reveal some of its most interesting aspects. The volume has been made possible
by the support of the Grupo Archai (www.archai.unb.br), the Department of Phi-
losophy of the University of Brasilia and the University of Brasilia.
There are many people without whose kindness this book would never had
been published. We would like to thank Carl O'Brien, Alberto Bellanti, Sandra L. -
Rocha, Emmanuele Vimercati, Delfim Le3o, Marcelo Carvalho, José Otévio G.
Guimardes, Fernando L. Aquino, Mariana L. Belchior, Talita Lobo Vianna and
Jonatas R. Alvares for their unstinting support.

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Anastécio Borges de Aratjo Junior

The philosopher who governs the city

and the city which governs man

1 Introduction
According to what Stobaeus tells us:
Diogenes asked Plato if he had written the Laws.
— He said he had.
— What? Didn’t you write the Republic?
—Of course I did.
— So what’s this? Didn’t the Republic contain Laws?
-Itdid.
— Why, then, was it necessary to re-write the Laws?'
Apart from the irony of Diogenes, the Cynic, the sequence of questions shows
insight. Either these two works deal with the same theme and are repetitive, with
one of them being unnecessary; or there are significant differences between them
that underscore a need that required Plato once more to take up the theme of the
city in the Laws. That is to say, if Plato had already dedicated a work, or rather,
a great work like the Republic to the construction of the beautiful city in words,
what could have led the philosopher to write, in the last years of his life, another
great work, the Laws, which aims to conceive the city as something excellent?
Of course we do not share the view that the dialogue of the Laws is a reit-
eration of the Republic. On the contrary, we believe that, in general, there are
significant differences between the dialogues of his mature years and those of his
final phase. However, the differences between these two great dialogues of Plato
are great. This examination of the Republic and Laws will focus specifically on a
single development: the replacement of the rule of the philosopher-king with that
of law. Our paper will therefore aim to show that, by replacing the government
of the philosopher with the sovereignty of the laws, Plato was to shift the center
of his philosophical concerns from man to the city. If this interpretation is to be
regarded as reasonable, we will have, in the end, to suppose that what led Plato to
bring about this change which, in parallel, inverted his philosophical outlook on
the man-city relationship.

! Eclogae 111, 13, 45 2-5: Avoyéwng fipeto TTAGwva el vopovg ypager."O 8¢ &¢n. Ti Sai; moAtteiay
Eypayag; [davu pév odv. Ti olv, 1 Rohrteia vopovs obx elyev; Elxev. Ti odv £5e1 oe raAv vépoug
ypageLv;

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12 Anastacio Borges de Araujo Junior

2 Man and the city

It can be said that, generally speaking, man and the city are not separable re-
alities in the Republic and the Laws. There is a relationship of such closeness be-
tween man and the city that the city reflects man’s way of being of man, and man
bears within himself and expresses the marks that he acquired by living alongside
other men in the city. The path of man and the path of the city are related to each
other in a natural and necessary way. Happiness (ebdaipovia) is the aim of hu-
man life and the city is the place where man may be able to pursue it.2 If the city is
excellent, through its organization or its laws, man will find it an appropriate and
conducive place for achieving this; otherwise the city will become an obstacle to
his perfecting himself. However, the city will have longevity if it can satisfy, at
least in theory, all men within it. The unity of the city is formed by its many men
and it is this that will ensure its survival. Man and the city should be ordered, as
the cosmos is, so as to ensure, for both, excellence and unity. In this sense there is
a fundamental analogy between man and the city in the works of Plato.
In the Republic Socrates, in accepting the proposal to examine the happiness
of the just man, resorts to an examination of the city, to see on a large scale the
manner in which justice emerges and what its nature and effects are. The city
springs up, in that dialogue, as the result of human need (xpeia). The community is
formed because man “is not self-sufficient, but lacking many things” (369b5-b7). It
is only following the investigation that Socrates makes discoveries about the city,
founded on arguments pertaining to man’s soul. So we can assert that the analogy
between man and the city is what structures the dialogue of the Republic.
In the dialogue of the Laws, this fundamental analogy between man and the
city remains. For example, in the very first book (626 c6 et ss), upon examining
whether the laws are created with war in mind, the Athenian shifts the investiga-
tion from the city (mdA15) to the village (x@un), from the village to the home (ol
x0¢), and, finally, from the home to man (&v1ip). The Athenian takes the argument
about the city back to that which is its principle (Gpyn): man.}
In Platonic thought there is conformity, at each level, between city, village,
home, and man. It is from this fundamental analogy between man and the city,
much the same as two species of cosmos — one smaller and the other larger — that
it is possible to understand, at the end of the first book of the Laws (650 b6-b9),
the definition of politics as the art of taking care of the soul. That said, we should
briefly examine the role of the philosopher in the beautiful city constructed in the

2 On happiness as the aim of life in the city, see Respublica 361d3; 421c5-c6; 472 c8. The quota-
tions from the work will, generally, be made from the Portuguese translation made by A.L. Amaral
del Almeida Prado (Plat3o, 2006). See also Leges 631b5. The quotations from the work will be made
from the French translation made by L. Brisson and J.-F. Pradeau (Platon, 2006a; 2006b), which, when
necessary, will be translated into English.
3 Clinias acknowledges that the Athenian regressed the argument of the city to its beginning, that
is, to man. Cf. Leges 626d5.

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The philosopher who governs the city and the city which governs man 13

Republic and thereafter, the function of laws in the life of man in the dialogue
of the Laws, in order to finally characterize how the change of substituting the
philosopher-king with the sovereignty of the laws occured.

3 The philosopher who governs the city

Let us briefly review how the theme of the philosopher-king arises in the
fifth book of the Republic. After defining in Book IV (443c9 et ss.) justice as
something that belongs to the internal dominion of man, that it is man’s way of
organizing himself, thereby establishing the natural activities that belong to the
three elements of the soul, and also after affirming that, conversely, injustice
consists of a kind of disorder in the soul, a disharmony of the whole. In order to
partially benefit some element to the detriment of the whole, Socrates proposes
examining the four major degenerated forms of cities and their respective types
of men. However, this investigation will only be undertaken in Book VIII, as a
result of an intervention by Polemarchus who demands, along with others, that
the issue of the community of women and children be dealt with. Socrates then
makes some digressions on these themes. Faced with such bizarre real proposals,
the parties are left to face the so-called “third wave”,* thus casting doubt on the
meaning of that construction: is it possible that this just city, conceived by ratio-
nal arguments, is achievable?
Socrates ponders the entire investigation of the dialogue up to that point: its aim
was to examine what is a just man and what is his relationship to happiness. In other
words, a paradigm (ropadeiypatog, 472c4) was created to answer what justice and
injustice would be both in the city and in men. The model serves as a parameter for
man to act (ethically and politically) in an effective way. If men do not know what
the target of their action is, then human tasks are wasteful. From this perspective,
there would be no reason to demonstrate “how it would be possible for this con-
stitution to come into existence (duvath yiyveoBai, 472bl)”. However, curiously,
Socrates accepts the challenge put forward by his interlocutors and shows what
would be the only, albeit controversial, condition necessary for the city constructed
in words to come into being: fo transform philosophers into kings (ol ¢rAdc0poL
Baciietowory, 473 cll). He will therefore start, in the fifth book, a second and far
longer digression, that forms the central books of the Republic; these will elucidate
who the philosopher is and what type of knowledge he has.
The condition for rendering the city possible is to make philosophers into
rulers, or to transform current rulers into devotees of philosophy. Without this
change, Socrates affirms, there can be no truce for the evil in cities or humankind.
But Socrates knows how “totally paradoxical” this proposal is (roAd napd 86Eav,

* The three issues which are also superseded in Book V (449a-473¢) are the education of women,
the communism of the generation of children and, lastly, the possibility of this city, created in words,
coming into being. See the question of the possibility of the just city existing in 471 c6 et ss.
14 Anastacio Borges de Araljo Junior

473e4), because it contradicts the opinion of the majority of the philosophers.

Glaucon warns that, to counter the scandal of such a proposal, it is necessary to
“defend oneself with rational arguments” (Guovn @ Adyw, 474a3). We can see
here the double register of the Platonic text for, according to the analogy drawn
between man and the city, that which is being examined within the scope of the
city also applies to man. Thus, the proposal for the philosopher to transform him-
self into king in the city has, as its corollary in man’s soul, the deliverance of
oneself to the intelligent aspect of the soul. The crucial point for our investigation
is not the defense of the philosopher-king argument, but rather, if such an argu-
ment is the sine qua non for the existence of the beautiful city as constructed in
the Republic. That is to say, Plato devotes nearly three books of the Republic to
characterizing who the philosopher is and the nature of his knowledge, for the
philosopher as an achievement of human knowledge is the cornerstone on which
the just city can be built. The philosopher is one who loves the truth and explores
the reality of being and, therefore, has epistemic knowledge, the critical condi-
tion, according to Plato, for being leader of the city. The realization of philosophi-
cal knowledge, defended in the central books of the Republic, demonstrates at a
single stroke the reasonableness of the intelligible hypothesis and the plausibility
of the just city ruled by the philosopher.
If it is not possible for the philosopher to defend justice when faced with the
degenerate city, then he must protect himself and calmly deal with his own pri-
vate affairs. If he cannot defend the interests of the city, he must dedicate himself,
in particular, to perfecting himself (496all et ss.). Thus, in the famous passage
from the end of Book IX (591c¢1 et ss.), Socrates reaches the point of setting aside
the achievement of the external city and shows that the ultimate aim of the whole
dialogue is man’s political action in the task of self-ordering, an ethical purpose.
By establishing the paradigm of human action in the Republic, Plato leaves no
doubt that even the city’s founder, man, in his private environment, can escape
from this misfortune, thus salvaging his interests and dedicating himself to excel-
lence. It seems to us that in the dialogue of the Republic, Plato suggests that, in the
face of tension between the just man and the decadent city, the philosopher has
the duty to save himself.* Let us now examine how Plato develops the man-city
relationship in his last dialogue: the Laws.

4 The city which governs man

In the third book of the Laws, the Athenian investigates the origin of cities
and the function of laws. From the long human process of birth and corruption of
cities, the Athenian assumes, based on ancient traditions, that there were many

5 Might it be that we could signal here a difference that Plato has with regard to Socrates who
prefers to die on account of the city, while it is decadent?

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The philosopher who govemns the city and the city which governs man 15

cataclysms and catastrophes. After these disasters, a small number of men re-
mained sheltered in the mountains, segregated and living in terrible loneliness.
The city sprouts from such terrifying solitude. Men who have experienced such
loneliness therefore demonstrate that they are disposed towards, and look kindly
on, community life. They gradually go about reinventing tools, developing the
arts, and taking up again everything that they lost in the catastrophe. They live
balanced between wealth and poverty, according to the customs and the “law of
the ancestors” (ratpioig vépotg, 680a6-a7). Contact between different clans gen-
erates the need to establish laws, and they choose the best ones from among the
assorted customs and rules adopted by the various clans.®
Laws represent, therefore, a victory of thought and reason over desire. In this
sense, the laws and customs of an excellent city do not focus on war, but rather
on the peace that comes from living an excellent and friendly life. Excellence is
a kind of harmonization of the soul, a dynamic equilibrium between reason and
desire, those aspects of the soul that are opposed when faced with pleasurable
and painful affects. Wisdom is the greatest of virtues, the knowledge that pre-
sides over such harmonization. Evil in this sense is nothing other than ignorance
(apabia) and foolishness (dvora), aspects associated with the inability to resist
(axpaoia) and which represent the true roots of man’s and the city’s misfortunes
(688b2 et ss.). The greatest proof of ignorance is the mismatch between thought
and desire when desire loves what thought judges to be evil or hates that which
thought considers good. The law should serve as a faithful companion of human
action, thus supporting men to position themselves against harmful pleasures and
pains. The need for law is imperious:
It is decidedly indispensable for men to give themselves laws and to live according
to these laws, under the penalty of them in no way whatsoever differentiating them-
selves, over all aspects, from the most completely savage beasts (874e8-875a1).”
The ordering of man, of the home and of the city according to thought, is
called law. The law is necessary to order human activity, and it should target the
interest of the totality of man, the home and the city. Men who have the capacity
to obey the laws should occupy the highest positions in the management of the
city. In this sense, the Athenian considers the leaders of the city as “servants of
the law” (brnpérag Toig voporg, 715¢6-c7), for
if the law in a city is subject to another authority and it is not its own master, destruc-
tion in this city is near at hand (715¢6-d4).8

6 Benveniste (1995) indicates that the terms themis and dike are used in the field of law for the in-
tra- and inter- clan customs, respectively. We can find in this a correspondence between the change in
the language which accompanied the appearance of the law based on the meeting of different clans.
7] est décidément indispensable aux hommes de se donner des lois et de vivre conformément & ces
lois, sous peine de ne différer en rien, & tous égards, des bétes le plus sauvages sous tous les rapports™.
8 «Or, si jai appelé ‘serviteurs des lois’ ceux que I'on appele aujourd’hui ‘gouvernants’ [...] En

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16 Anastécio Borges de Aratjo Junior

However, the law does not only represent a normative authority, it also pos-
sesses an inexorable educational dimension. The preambles (720a et ss.) which
comprise the Platonic laws are famous and their function is to persuade man of
the rationality of the law. The law possesses an aspect which forms the disposi-
tions of man. The legislator, just like the doctor of free men, should inform and
convince man of the sense and reasonableness of the law. The ultimate purpose
of the law is to lead man to become excellent and prepare himself for community
life, so the law should provide for the well-being of everyone in the city.
In any case, in the city of the Laws we are very distant from the political en-
vironment of the Republic with the figure of the philosopher-king in which laws
are virtually unnecessary.” While in the Laws, man is governed by the norms of
the city that reflect rationality, in the Republic, the philosopher-king mirrors and
embodies the exemplary rationality that characterizes the wise man. Thus let us
take up our original question again: what led Plato to replace the sovereign phi-
losopher of the Republic with the normocracy of the Laws? We must now seek in
these dialogues some clues that may elucidate the initial question.

5 The passage from philosopher-king to the sovereignty of the laws

It is true that if we observe the figure of the philosopher-king contrasted with
the normocracy, we will see that the philosopher-king seems a much more primi-
tive conception in the historical review that the Athenian makes of the origin of
cities. The philosopher-king seems to be, within this perspective, much closer to
the community leader who is based on ancient customs and the law as a natural
development that surpasses the figure of the wise leader. The law, in this sense,
would be a much more complex reality, accessible to all, and should be able to
represent that which different types of singular men have in common. However,
we will not look retrospectively at the Republic based on the Laws. We would
rather, on the one hand, examine the Republic itself and see how it harbors pro-
found problems if we would wish to apply that model to realizing a concrete city,
and, on the other hand, we would like to return to the Laws to address the anthro-
pological pessimism that marks Plato’s resumption of the theme of the city.
From the outset, our attention is drawn to how paradoxical the figure of the
philosopher king is. The philosophical knowledge that supposedly legitimizes the
power of the philosopher-king is completely alien to most men. In the sixth book

effet, si dans une cité la loi est soumise 4 une autre autorité et qu'elle n’est pas son propre maitre, je
vois pour une telle cité sa perte toute proche.”
? Respublica 425b7 et ss. Socrates observes that customs are sufficient to impose habit, and says:
“I believed that laws and a constitution of such a kind, whether in a badly governed city, or a well
governed one, would not deserve the attention of a true legislator”. This is a glaring difference from
the environment of the Laws, in which these are fundamental and everything must undergo evalu-
ation by the legislators.

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The philosopher who governs the city and the city which governs man 17

of the Republic, Socrates himself says that, given the inability of most to search
for intelligibility, “it is impossible that the multitude is a philosopher”.!* How can
most men submit themselves to the power of the philosopher who possesses a
knowledge that is substantially inaccessible to all others?
On the other hand, philosophical knowledge and the government of the city
do not seem to be converging activities.!! Knowing and managing are not com-
plementary undertakings, but knowledge pulls the philosopher from the shadows
of the sensible in such a way that upon returning to the cave, he cannot even com-
municate with his companions. How can the philosopher command a majority
of men who ridicule what he has to say?'? Moreover, the nature of philosophical
knowledge is such that the only way the philosopher has to share it is by stimulat-
ing another man to achieve it, and when this man does so, why would he need the
philosopher to contribute in his internal government?
Even if “a divine inspiration” (#x Tivog Beiag émunvoiac, 499cl) were to in-
fluence the governing or their children, and to awaken in them “a true love for
true philosophy” (499b7-c2) so that they were to dedicate themselves to organiz-
ing the city from their philosophical knowledge, such a city, besides depending
entirely on the philosopher, would still be destined for decadence. In other words,
because of the natural movement of corruption of all sensible things, a move-
ment that Plato recognizes in his intelligible hypothesis, the city is doomed to
degenerate and to fall into ruin. That is, if in the investigation of the Republic, we
approach the essence of the city and the politician, how can we demand that this
essence be fully realized when transposed to the world of men?'?
It is possible that some of these difficulties had been observed, little by little,
by Plato himself. For example, in the Republic, the character of Socrates observed
that nature determined that words had greater adherence to truth than actions
(473al-a3). That is, Plato already knew that what was achieved by thought and
rendered in dialogue could not be undertaken to the same degree through con-
crete human actions. However, these difficulties should be analyzed if we intend
to imitate a city from the model formed in the Republic. We should now mention
three brief passages from the Laws that suggest what could have motivated Plato
to revisit, at the end of his life, the theme of the city in such a vastly different
way.
The first is the famous passage in Book V of the Laws (739a et ss.), in which
the Athenian will describe the best constitutions. He begins with the best city
which is one that fulfills the old saying “really everything is common between
friends™ (8¢ g 6vtog €0t KOLVE T iV, 739¢2-c3). Such a city, similar to what
is described in the Republic, is akin to a single organism, able to see, hear and act

10 See Rogue (2006, 44 f).

" Ibidem.
2 Ibidem.
3 Ibid., 59.

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18 Anastécio Borges de Araujo Junior

together. It is this city, inhabited by gods or the sons of gods, that should serve
as the model for what would become, in second place, the city of the Laws. That
is, Plato maintains the model of the city of the Republic intact, while simultane-
ously admitting the superiority of the former in relation to the model city that
will be developed in the Laws. If this is so, Plato would be deliberately looking,
in the Laws, for a city of the second order that would be feasible for mankind. In
this sense, replacing the philosopher-king with the sovereignty of the laws is a
realistic adjustment on Plato’s part, since he wished, at the end of his life, to give
men a superior city that would be concretely plausible. However, it is important to
emphasize that the city of the Laws does not aim to form the wise man, but rather
to structure a community life that promotes the fulfillment of the common man.
The second excerpt is a brief passage at the beginning of Book X, among
many others, that discusses the punishment of temple thieves, in which the Athe-
nian says,
mainly because of them [the temple thieves], but also because I suspect the weakness
(GoBéverav) of human nature that I shall formulate a law (853d10-854al).
The law comes from the encounter with human frailty and imperfection. It is
due to the imperfect and corruptible nature of humans that laws exist. The entire
formulation of the vopot is not intended for the man who is capable of governing
himself, but is instead meant for those imperfect men who are incapable of keep-
ing themselves in order.
And finally, the third and last passage, is that in which after saying that it is
essential for men to constitute laws, the Athenian states the motif:
no man is born with a natural ability to learn what is advantageous for human life in
the city and even if he does know, no one is able always to do and want the best (875
al-ad).
It appears blatantly obvious to us that Plato, in the Laws, was completely
convinced of humans’ inability to govern themselves. These three quick passages
demonstrate, in our view, what would have led Plato to revisit the issue of the ex-
cellent city. The first model, that of the Republic, seemed unattainable to men in
Plato’s time. He had to rewrite his proposal in a second model that was closer to
the imperfect reality of the men of his epoch. This anthropological pessimism (or
realism?) that dominated Plato’s last dialogue seems to be the biggest motivation
for replacing the philosopher-king with the sovereignty of the laws.

6 Conclusion
In the second model of the city in the Laws, a model of a town close to plau-
sible, Plato incorporates music, finds an educational function for wine, and for-
mulates a constitution between monarchy and democracy; in short, he modifies
his first model for the Republic in order to adapt it to the man of his period. Thus,
we can say that while the Republic guaranteed the fulfillment of the philosopher

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The philosopher who governs the city and the city which governs man 19

in his quest for the perfection of knowledge, the city of the Laws signifies Plato’s
last effort, before he died, to leave a valuable legacy for the common man. If our
interpretation makes sense, we can say that, while in the Republic Plato fixes the
intelligible model of the city in words, in order to facilitate the crossing of man;
in the Laws, Plato fixes in words the moral norms to ensure the crossing of the
city, the center where men of his time lived together. His concern would have
been to move from man to the city, even though, as we have already said before,
these issues of man and the city are inseparable. And thus, we would like to close
with an image that suggests what would be the path of man in the Laws of Plato:
on reading this great dialogue it seemed to us that we human beings, in our short
life, are lost in a labyrinth, between the walls of pain and pleasure, and, in this
labyrinth, law, as proposed by Plato, is the fragile thread of Ariadne that can lead
us on the only path left to us: the ceaseless quest for excellence. Here, then, for
us, lies the reason for the trek that three experienced elders took on the long road
between Cnossos and the temple of Zeus.

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igi Original from
S Google INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Francisco L. Lisi

Private and public in Plato’s Republic*

During the past century, Plato’s political writings have been at the center of
a debate that in some sense prolonged the revulsion that his vision of a society
based on what Marx called the consumption-communism, particularly the shar-
ing of women, provoked in the narrow Puritan morality of nineteenth century
Anglo-Saxon liberalism. The admiration that fascism in general and German Na-
zism in particular had demonstrated for Plato’s political thought contributed to an
increasing rejection, whose most well-known expression is Karl Popper’s book
The Open Society and its Enemies. For an adequate understanding of the theoreti-
cal and especially the political significance of this polemic, we should remember
that the German National-Socialist Party declared in its program (underlined):
Der Wille zur Form, der Wille, das Chaos zu entwirren, die aus den Fugen gegangene
Welt wieder in Ordnung zu bringen und als Wichter (in hdchstem platonischen Sinn)
der Ordnung zu walten — das ist die ungeheure Aufgabe, die sich der Nationalsozia-
lismus gestellt hat.!
It is very surprising indeed that in this debate about the totalitarian or demo-
cratic character of Plato’s thought the relationship between private (idion) and
public (koinon, demosion) did not generally attract scholarly attention. On this
subject, it was again Popper who most clearly pointed out the significance of both
concepts for Plato’s political vision. Nevertheless according to his methodology,
which is contrary to historicism, he characterized it as the opposition between in-
dividualism and collectivism and made the same mistake for which he criticized
Plato, i.e., he changed the meaning that both words usually have, because it is
hard to see how the communism of the guardians of the Republic could be identi-
fied with collectivism. On the other hand, collectivism is not necessarily opposed
to individualism and does not necessarily imply the disappearance of every form
of private property. Even if there is no consensus about the definition of collectiv-
ism and its extent, since some include even modern Social Democracy as a col-
lectivist political movement, it is obvious that it is a modern notion, which mainly
applies to the public property of the means of production. It is evident as well that
it has little or no relationship to the social order described in Plato’s Republic.

* This paper has been written in the frame of a research project financed by the Ministerio de
Ciencia ¢ Innovacién of Spain (HUM2007-62750).
! Feder (1935, 19).

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22 Francisco L. Lisi

According to Popper, Plato identifies individualism with egoism and col-

lectivism with altruism, so that he could better defend his reactionary position
against the new humanitarian outlook that was just taking root in Athens.?
Even if this should sound too difficult and somehow simplistic for individuals
accustomed to the fine explanations of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, I am convinced
that one of the most serious problems with the interpretation of ancient texts con-
tinues to be the attribution of intentions and ideas, identical to our own, to authors
who lived in a time and in a society that is very different from ours. However, 1
do not pretend to refute Popper’s interpretation here — an activity that the defend-
ers of the divine Plato like very much — but, rather, I would like to hint at the fact
that the Austrian philosopher has remarked on a very important aspect not only
of Plato’s political thought, but also of Aristotelian politics. In this paper [ will try
to determine Plato’s originality in relation to his contemporaries, and, later, I will
attempt to briefly outline Aristotle’s reception of the problem.

1 The private-public opposition in Greek political thought

Plato did not invent the opposition between private interest and common
good. Contrary to Popper’s conviction, the Greeks considered serving individual
interest contrary to the common good of society and state. Thucydides, who re-
flects the illuminist thought of the fifth century BC, accused tyrants of exclusive-
ly seeking out their own benefit (10 &¢ €avtdv pdvov npoopwpevor, I 17), their
bodily well-being, the improvement of their own house (&g 1€ 10 odpa xai &g
10v id10v oixov adeiv) and a lack of interest in the unity of Greek civilization.
He also criticized the reluctance of the Lacedaemonians to put their properties at
the disposal of public interest (I 141, 3, 4, 7). Pericles, whose militant defense of
democracy is well known, precisely underscores the complementary relationship
between private and public in the Athenian political regime. The good citizen
is always ready to sacrifice his individuality for the good of public interest (cf. I
43, 1-2; 61, 4; cf. xouviig €Anidog in II 43, 6). The accepted submission of private
interest to the general one is the main point in Pericles’ ideological propaganda as
it is expressed in the funeral oration. However, in Thucydides’ text, the contradic-
tion between ideology and reality is undoubtedly noticeable, and a clear tension
between both aspects can actually be detected. As a matter of fact, a negative
appraisal of the Greek tendency towards individualism (cf. e.g. I 15, 2; 17, 1; VI
36),% is opposed to the great deeds of the war against the Persians, when the unity
of common interest allowed the victory (cf. 125, 4).*
Lysias, an even stronger representative of the democratic ideology, also prais-

2pgpper (1945, 101).

3 Cf. Monoson (1994), Monoson — Loriaux (1998, 287).
4On Thucydides’ estimation of human nature, cf. Reeve (1999).

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Private and public in Plato’s Republic 23

es the pursuit of the common good by individuals in democratic Athens. In his

Epitaph a similar complimentariness between private interest and public good can
be observed. This harmony is just what characterized the strength of the Athenian
democracy and helped the Greeks under the leadership of Athens to overcome the
Persian army. In the sea battle of Salamis the Athenians won the common freedom
of all Greece through the individual virtue of their warriors (tf} i5ig dpertij kowviv
v gievbepiav xal 10l dAloig éxticavto, 44, 2-3). In the whole Epitaph the
democratic ideology insists on the submission of the individual sphere to the com-
mon interest in the city and in the Pan-Hellenic policy (cf. 9, 18, 62).
Xenophon, who, contrary to Thucydides and Lysias, represents a rather con-
servative and oligarchic position, shares this view as well. The positive assess-
ment of renouncement for the common interest of the city or even the self-sacri-
fice for a friend, is one of the core ideas of Xenophon's Socrates (cf. Memorabilia,
11 iv 6).° He also sees in dissent a negative characteristic contrary to friendship
and concord between public affairs and individual aspirations (II vi 18). It seems
to have been a trait of Socrates’ thought to put the search for one’s own profit at
the basis of injustice and to determine their devotion to the common interest as
an essential quality of the kaloi kagathoi (II vi 21-23, 26). Nevertheless, the care
of private interest differs for him only quantitatively from the concern with the
common good, and those who know how to care for the common interest can
also provide for their individual concern (III iv 12-13). According to Xenophon,
Socrates sought to establish a kind of harmony between public and private goods:
the custody of public affairs does not necessarily imply giving less importance to
private goods, but to care better for them (cf. III xii 5). According to Xenophon'’s
picture, Socrates was especially concerned with the importance of common in-
terest and refused the search for private benefit (cf. the scene about the food at
III xiv 13 and also IV iii 12). As in Thucydides, a certain tension between public
and private affairs coexists for Socrates with their complementariness. The pub-
lic sphere does not exhaust the field of the common interests of citizens. It has a
proper, more specific realm, but it is also one of the manifestations of common
interests in a society that conceives of itself as united through the friendship of
its members. It is from this point of view that Xenophon’s Socrates underlines the
role of the koinon in comparison with the idion, which cannot be rightly cared for
without the observance of the former.
The necessity of submitting private benefit to public goals is proclaimed
everywhere in the literature of the fourth and fifth centuries BC. With the same

5 Xenophon also underlines in other works the importance of harmonizing the interest of the
group and the individual in his Anabasis, when he narrates, especially in Book IV, his attempts to
subordinate the private appetite of the tens of thousands to the achievement of the common goal
(Howland, 2000). The well-governed Persian empire under Cyrus encourages self-sacrifice and pub-
lic spirit and forbids the pursuit of any strictly private or individual aims (Cyropaedia 1ii 3). On the
importance of the common good in the Persian regime according to Xenophon, cf. Nadon (1996).

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24 Francisco L. Lisi

intensity it is also possible to verify the tension between both poles and the cen-
sure of individualistic attitudes, especially among the orators. The success of
the city is much more important than the destiny of the individual; Demosthenes
reproaches Aeschines (De corona 255), because the seeking out of individual
interests harms the city (295). Demosthenes does not limit his vindication of
the common interest to the relationship of the individual to the state. Even when
cities subordinate their own interest to the higher goals of the general Greek
goods, they can attain a private gain, as the case of Athens in the Persian wars
shows (De Tributis [14] 40).5 It is remarkable that in the three important politi-
cal discourses of Isocrates, Busiris, Areopagiticus and Panathenaicus, the word
demosion appears only twice: once, in an politically irrelevant context (Pana-
thenaicus [21], 10), and secondly, as synonymous with keinon and also in some
conflict with idion, since he implicitly opposes the attitude of ancient Athenians
to the current politicians who only seek their own profit (4reopagiticus [8], 24).
In the idealized picture of ancient Athens offered by Isocrates the spheres of
private interest and of public good were harmoniously arranged, because “they
not only agreed about the public affairs, but in their private life as well they had
that degree of mutual consideration, which those who are right minded and have
a common fatherland must have™ (31). At that time the poorest of the citizens did
not envy or hate the richer ones.
If I may summarize this very reduced panorama of the ideological context,
I believe I can make the following statement: it is evident that a clearly negative
appraisal of the pursuit of individual interest was general. I do not know any de-
fense of individual interest as the driving force of common welfare, and still less
as a goal of the political order. The pursuit of one’s own profit has always been
considered a negative factor in the sense that the tendency of the individual is nar-
urally opposed to the common good. When some authors talk about the comple-
mentariness between common good and private interest, they actually mean that
individuals can benefit only if they submit to the higher interest of the polis. It is
worth noting that this opposition is valid first and foremost in the material sphere
of property: there is a clear reluctance with regards to the pursuit of individual
profit, a suspicion that to become rich damages the common good. Even in cases
in which the personal benefit is highly appraised, its defense is done in opposition
to the common good, as harmful to the polis — I think in some sophistic theories
such as those of Plato’s Callicles or Thrasymachus.

S Cf. Dunkel (1938, 294). In any case, Demosthenes always put the particular interests of Athens
over the common interests of the Greeks, and he defended the latter only for practical reasons, as
Dunkel has shown.

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Private and public in Plato’s Republic 25

2 Public and private in Plato’s political philosophy

Unfortunately I cannot here follow all the implications of Plato’s defense of
the common good and criticism of the pursuit of private interests, because the
argument is too complex for the length of this paper. Furthermore, I have already
addressed it in detail before. As usual, Plato has deepened the argument and has
integrated it to his general doctrine of Being. His defense of the common good
against private benefit is based on his interpretation of the polis as an image of the
principle of all reality: the Good-One.’
In a very well-known passage in the fifth book of the Laws (739a-€) the Athe-
nian stranger clearly defines what he considers the best relationship between
public good (koinon) and private benefit (idion) in the different areas of human
society. He proposes to eradicate by all means the idion from human life and, as
much as possible, to make common what is by nature particular. What is com-
mon (10 xotvov) to all citizens represents the unity of the polis, which is opposed
to the multiplicity of individuality. The common features have to be imposed
on all spheres of human activity: material possessions, i.e. property and family
(xowvag pev yuvdikog, xowvobg & elvan tovg naidag, kowva 8& xpripata oup-
navia, c4-5), body (Sppata kai dro kai xgipag, ¢8) and soul (Soxelv, c8; npdr-
TEWV, EMOLVELY, WEYELY, d; Xaipovrag xal Auroupévoug, d2-3). In other words,
the imposition of the common in all the spheres of social reality, even in what for
normal Greeks was the most private part of their lives, the family, is the basic
characteristic of the best political order.
The peculiarity of Plato’s thought does not consist so much in the fact that
the opposition between idion and koinon is resolved in favor of the second term;
but rather, in the radicalism of his proposal, which is the utter abolition of indi-
viduality from life: kol ndog pnyavi 10 Aeyopevov idlov maviaxdBev €k 100
Biov dmav €Enpntat, ¢5-6). It is true that the Athenian immediately excludes the
possibility that this ideal could be achieved in the present period of the cosmos
(740al-2), but in its radicalism, this ideal is surprising even to those who have
read the Republic. This passage of the Laws unfortunately lacks one essential
issue for determining the nature of the society he describes: that is, the issue of
power, and who must exert it and under which conditions he should make use of
it. At the beginning of the section, the Athenian stranger had declared that the
legislative project for Magnesia could appear strange, because the legislator is not
the ruler (a5-6). However, this distinction refers only to the fact that the choice
of the political system is not the responsibility of the philosopher-statesman, but
that his job is only to propose the different possibilities (a6-bl) that the Athenian
limits to three models, among which the state of the Laws is the second best. The
third best form of political regime is not described.

7 For the foundation of his doctrine of Being, cf. Lisi (1985) and for the relationship between the
the Republic and the the Laws regarding this aspect, cf. Lisi (1999).

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26 Francisco L. Lisi

The passage of the Laws offers three pairs of criteria for determining the
correction of a political system: unity-multiplicity, common-own and friendship-
dispute. In his radical affirmation of the positive column (unity, public, friend-
ship), Plato does not so much pretend to abolish the realm of individual freedom
as he does to assimilate the city to the individual, i.e. he conceives the koinon as
if it were an idion.
The Republic develops the principles outlined in the passage of the Laws.
From a semantic point of view, the opposition between idion and demosion re-
mains in usual margins, in the sense that the relationship between public and pri-
vate spheres can be contradictory (cf. I 343e, 344a: Thrasymachus’ intervention;
II 362b-c: Glaucon’s story; 364a-b: Adeimantus’ exposition; etc.) or represented as
a totality in which both areas are complementary and harmoniously ordered (VI
494d-e: plotting in private against the true philosopher and taking him in public to
the courts; the human customs in public and private affairs; 500d). The Platonic
transposition can be verified in his theory of justice. In the Republic he consciously
opposes his justice-theory to all others, but especially to the core idea in Thrasy-
machus’ argument: justice is not a good for oneself, but for someone else (I 343¢),
a person who is conceived as an individual seeking his own profit at the detriment
of general interests. In the arguments about the different positions on justice until
the middle of the second book it is possible to perceive a conceptual progression,
but also an ethically continuous degradation of the existing conceptions of justice,
all external and apparent. Independently of the question of Cephalus’ probable
Orphism, his notion of justice corresponds to the traditional conception of it, not
only because it is based on awe of the gods, but also because of his idea of justice
as individual salvation. His traditional nature also appears clearly in the fact that it
is founded on contract between the individual and the divinity.
Polemarchus, his son, already introduces the social dimension of justice,
since it is understood as helping friends and hurting enemies, a traditional Greek
interpretation of justice as well, which is the logical consequence of Cephalus’
position. His definition of justice is also completely exterior, like that of his father,
because both conceive justice as an action without regarding the internal disposi-
tion of the acting subject.
However both conceptions of justice are pre-political: individuals act as in-
dividuals without consideration of the common good or the social dimension of
the problem. The actual change to the political level takes place with Thrasyma-
chus’ intervention. The orator defines justice as “what is fitting for the stronger”
and abandons the traditional order by introducing the relativist position of some
Sophistic tendencies. Plato clearly marks in the text that Thrasymachus’ inter-
vention takes the discourse to a superior level that asks for a more thoughtful
examination of the question®. The sophist makes the implications of an argument

% On Thrasymachus’ character in the first book of the Republic, cf. Vegetti's analysis (1998).

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Private and public in Plato’s Republic 27

that until this point was only considered evident at the ethical level. He exposes a
thesis that probably summarizes positions of Athenian intellectual circles, which
contested the traditional view of justice and assessed the relativity of a concept
that changes according to the faction that rules the state.
The theory of justice exposed by Glaucon is clearly sophistic as well. In it,
justice appears as a means between the benefit of committing injustice and the
harm of suffering it. Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ positions cannot be identified
with those of Thrasymachus. They are more radical because they represent a
hypocritical morality: appearance of justice with internal injustice in politics (in-
tellectuals, sophists) or in religion (traditional beliefs). The theories they exposed
are a key step on the path to the internalization of justice that Plato will propose.
The theory of justice exposed by Glaucon is closer to the sophist Antiphon than
to Thrasymachus, as the story of Gyges makes evident. Socrates’ task consists in
demonstrating that the appearance of justice does not suffice and that just actions
are determined by an internal state of the soul and have an actually just inten-
tionality. The distinction between the externality of action and the internality of
virtue was not present in Thrasymachus’ position. What Adeimantus narrates
proceeds in the deflection not only because it accepts the necessity of an interior
disposition in order to be just and the existence of an unjust state of the soul, but
also because it foresees the possibility of corrupting the gods for attaining the
same rewards as just people do. The idea that gods are corruptible implies the
possibility of regaining divine favor with presents obtained through injustice, and
therefore the entrance of hypocritical morals in the divine sphere. For Plato, this
way of undermining justice is even more dangerous, because even if it accepts the
traditional ideology, it annihilates its foundation: the gods. At the end of the road,
not only man and society remain divided by their contradictory and particular in-
terests, but also the divine world, which has become changeable and corruptible.
The definition of justice as an order that reflects the immutable hierarchy of
the Forms attempts to recover lost unity. The analogy between individual and
society is not a mere metaphor. The just state of the Republic is a reflection of the
order existing in the cosmos and also implanted in the individual. This concep-
tion of justice cannot remain in the exteriority of the action, but the individual has
to become an imitation of universal order. One of the most important contribu-
tions of the Platonic theory of justice is its internalization. Justice is no more the
quality of an action, but rather a virtue, a state of the soul. The analogy between
man, city and cosmos takes the traditional conception of justice as respect for the
established order to its ultimate conclusion and gives it a philosophical base.
Beyond this comment, which is already very well known, I would like to
underscore the fact that the internalization of justice also implies in the ideologi-
cal unity of all citizens, their adjustment to what the philosopher-king defines as
the true order of Being. The power of the philosopher emanates from his direct
intuition of the Good and from the order of the Ideal World (IV 500-501al). His
intellect is stamped and ordered by this direct vision:

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28 Francisco L. Lisi

Then, when they are fifty, those who have come safely through and proved the best at
all points in action and in study must be brought at last to the goal. They must lift up
the eye of the soul to gaze on that which sheds light on all things; and when thy have
seen the Good itself, take it as a pattern for the right ordering of the state and of the
individual, themselves included. For the rest of their lives, most of their time will be
spent in study, but they will all take their turn at the troublesome duties of public life
and act as Rulers for their country’s sake... (VII 540a-b)’
The impression of the model in the philosopher’s soul allows him to impress
on other citizens the order in which justice consists (cf. kal oltwg GAAoug det
raldevoaviag T0100t0vg, b5-6). Order means above all unity and unity in a
whole composed by individuals can be founded only on what is common to all,
because, according to Plato, individuality marks difference, contradiction and
division. Difference can exist only in the service of the whole. In the passage
from the Laws that we have considered above, the Athenian asked for the elimi-
nation as far as possible of individuality in all spheres of life. Nevertheless, the
system of property in Callipolis seems to be different from the model proposed
in the Laws. In the latter, communism covers all areas of human life in a radical
way (xatd naoav tiv oA, taviaxéBev, V 739c¢). In Callipolis, on the con-
trary, it is patent that the guardians live in a system in which private property
has been abolished (Respublica V 463b-c, 464b-c), but Socrates never touches
on the problem of property existing in the rest of the city.' Nonetheless, even if
we presuppose a system without private property for the third class, it should be
different from the communism of the other two, because the collective property
of women and children does not exist among them and, as a class, they have ac-
cess to a different part of the city. Furthermore, familiar and ideological unity
is stated only for both classes, of guardians and of philosophers (V 464c-d). In
the model of the Laws, the unity of sentiments and ideas extends through the
whole city. On the basis of these reflections, R. P6hlmann considered the best
city of the Laws a more radical version of the communism of the Republic and
formulated the hypothesis of a change in Plato’s political thought." However, a
passage from the same Republic shows, I think, that his interpretation is wrong.
Socrates says:
So far, then, Glaucon, we agree that in a state destined to reach the height of good
government wives and children must be held in common; men and women must have
the same education throughout and share all pursuits, warlike or peaceful, and those
who have proved themselves the best both in philosophy and in war are to be kings
among them (VIII 543a)."?

9 Plato (1941, 261).

10 The passage at the beginning of the fourth book (4192-420a) does not refer to the third class, but
it is a comparison with the rulers of other cities.
! pshimann (1893-1901, 1, 538).
12 plato (1941, 266).

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Private and public in Plato's Republic 29

It is manifest that Plato refers here to the class of the guardians, which he
identifies with the totality of the city, as it happens in the passage of the Laws.
Even if Socrates on several occasions speaks of the third class as citizens, only
the class of the guardians and the philosophers constitutes in a strong sense the
city, as is the case in the soul of the individual, where only the nous is classified
as soul in a proper sense. Nevertheless, the relationship of this passage with the
one of the Laws is still more interesting because both are a summary of Plato’s
vision of the best state and propose the abolition of private affairs and individu-
ality on three levels: material goods, family and ideology. The eradication of
private property and of family is only a secondary aspect, as it were, a way of
reassuring the significance of the most important characteristic: the ideological
unity of the rulers and, through them, the whole of society. Justice, first and fore-
most, includes the ideclogical unity that permeates the harmony of the structure
of society with the cosmic order and lets it become a reflex of that justice that
rules the universe. The basic principle of this political structure is the rule of the
best, i.e. the philosophers, as Plato expresses in the central book of the Republic
(V 473c¢-3). Justice is order because the Ideal World is ordered according to pre-
cise hierarchical principles, which are reflected in the cosmic order, especially
in the order of the heaven and the stars. It is primarily an order that proceeds
from interiority to exteriority and from top to bottom, both in the individual
and in the whole society. Only the superior element can correctly determine the
common interest that is best for the inferior components of the whole as well.
“Common” means, therefore, fusion, unity, while private, individual, refers to
division, particularity.
These principles allow us to understand the importance of two basic elements
of the common in Platonic thought, as well as its substantial difference from
the modern collectivist ideologies and, especially, from the Marxist ones: public
education and the rule of law, even if both these principles do not have the same
meanings as the modern ones." For Plato, education in the hands of the state is
not an instrument for developing personal individuality, but for guaranteeing the
coherence of the whole, above all the ruling caste. Law is also an educative ele-
ment, which does not regulate the relationships between individuals, but instead
serves as a norm that molds their behavior and punishes the defectors, because
they are a danger to the coherent survival of society, not because they were an
infraction of the rights of other members of it. In other words, the law does not
assure rights, but educates for the fulfillment of duties. This is, I think, the most
important aspect of the relationship between public and private in Plato’s thought
and explains the criticism against the poets in the different dialogues, especially
in the Republic. His main preoccupation was to mold the soul of the individual in
a coherent way, not only his convictions, but even his feelings. On this point, the

13 Cf. Lisi (2008a).

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30 Francisco L. Lisi

criticism that Socrates makes of the poets in the second and third books, the goal
of which is clearly formulated by Socrates, is important:
Then shall we simply allow our children to listen to any stories that anyone happens
to make up, and so receive into their minds ideas often the very opposite of those we
shall think they ought to have when they are grown up? (I1 377b).
Socrates proposes not only to control the main myths, but also the small
stories in order to utterly assure ideological coherence (377c-d). The criticism
is directed against the image given of gods and heroes, who are models for the
behavior of the inhabitants of the polis. They have to act according to the same
norms applied to the ideal of citizen and always put the common interest over the
individual one. Disputes cannot exist in their community, nor can wars or con-
spiracies (377e-378¢). They are only principles of goodness, like the good citizen
(378e-380c). They are unchangeable and they do not manifest themselves in dif-
ferent forms (380d-382¢). They are simple and truthful (382¢).
Similar values are settled on for heroes and kings (III 386-392c). Socrates’
considerations are restricted to attributing basic values to them, for instance some
characteristics of a courageous character (not fearing death 386a-387c; accept-
ing one’s own destiny without lamentations, 387c-388d), self-control (388e-391c),
etc., which correspond to the ethical principles that have to be transmitted to the
guardians at the beginning. Ideological coherence is also guaranteed by the philo-
sophical education described in the central books. The final criticism of poetry in
the tenth book reinforces these principles and shows the significance which the
ideological coherence of the city had for Plato.
The weight of education as instrument for imposing the common interest
over the private one led Plato to propose the paideia as the central task of the
community, in order to assure the permanence of the political regime, a concept
very similar to the Spartan agoge. Nevertheless, Plato’s idea of education is even
more radical, because it does not limit itself to physical education, but includes
also the ethical and even theoretical Bildung. This aspect has been known for a
long time, but I have only tried to underscore its relationship with the commu-
nism proposed in the Republic. In the Laws the property relations change, but the
emphasis is put on both education and rule of law, which is also a way of guaran-
teeing the educational effect. It is an integral conception of education that goes
from the cradle to the coffin. It is a continuous process that always guarantees the
predominance of the common interest and public affairs over particular benefit
and individual life.
I have already stated that Plato insists so much on the koinon against the idion
that at the end he conceives of the common sphere as a gigantic version of the
private one. This is just the Aristotelian criticism in the second book of the Poli-
tics, but it is very worthy of note that Aristotle, who criticized the communism
of property and family, shared with Plato the preoccupation towards education
in the family, i.e. the possible contradiction between the social values and those

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Private and public in Plato’s Repubiic 31

honored inside the family. At the beginning of the eighth book of the Politics he
states:
That the legislator must, therefore, make the education of the young his object above
all would be disputed by no one. Where this does not happen in cities it hurts the
regimes. One should educate with a view to each sort, for the character that is proper
to each sort of regime, both customarily safeguards the regime and establishes it at
the beginning the democratic character a democracy, for example, or the oligarchic
an oligarchy (1337al1-16).'
Plato’s and Aristotle’s political philosophy is the attempt to overcome this
contradiction between the individual sphere and the common interest, a problem
that is also at the basis of the educational difficulties in Europe today.

14 Aristotle (1984, 229).

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 o
Digitized by Google Original from
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Franco Trabattoni

Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis

still of topical interest?

1
Of all the texts handed down to us from antiquity, two that are undoubt-
edly particularly interesting and influential on the subject of the “Ancient City”
are Plato’s dialogues the Republic and Laws. In this paper, however, I intend to
concern myself with only the first of the two. The Republic is without doubt an
extremely complex text and, as such, has lent and continues to lend itself to many
different interpretations.
The first important matter to be settled is whether the Republic can and ought
to be studied as a text on political philosophy, or if it should instead be taken as
an essay on ethics. If we stick to the formal data provided by the text itself, it
would seem more logical to prefer the second option (which enjoys a certain fa-
vour today, especially in studies in English-speaking countries, partly due to the
influence of Julia Annas).! It is true that, as stressed in the first book, the theme
of the dialogue is the nature of justice, but that does not automatically validate the
“political” option because, while rejecting the assumption that it may have origi-
nally been a separate dialogue, the first book acts as a kind of prologue to all the
others. The central problem, which the Republic deals with, is introduced at the
beginning of the second book, where Glaucon asks Socrates if he claims to have
truly persuaded the onlookers that “in any case it is better to be just than unjust”
(357b). Henceforth the new theme of the dialogue becomes exactly this: to prove
that a life lived in the light of justice is preferable to one lived in vice. As one can
easily see, it is basically the same argument found in the Gorgias, or at least in
that part of the Gorgias in which Socrates attempts to demonstrate to Callicles
that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it.
From this point of view the Republic can be seen as a reviewed and amended
rewriting of the Gorgias, in order to establish the truth of the principle stressed
therein upon more suitable philosophical arguments. But, it is true, it would then
seem evident that the subject-matter in the Republic is of an ethical and not po-

! See for instance Annas (1997).

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34 Franco Trabattoni

litical character. Such an impression is reinforced by the way in which Socrates

introduces, in Book II, the theme of the ideal city. Since justice “regards only
a man on the one hand, but on the other the whole city in some way”, it will be
easier to understand the issue at stake, if examined within the context of the city
(368e-369a). So an analysis of the city seems to be a kind of thought experiment
that is useful to understanding what justice is in the individual. This conclusion,
on the other hand, tallies rather well with the description of various human types,
each one linked with a related political constitution as expounded by Socrates in
Book IX. The life of the just and good man recounted at the end of this (588a) and
identified with the king (587d-e), is the avowed diametrical antithesis, in terms of
pleasure (namely, happiness) to that of the tyrant; and the presumed happiness of
the tyrant was exactly the point of contention in the discussion between Socrates
and Callicles in the Gorgias.
Formally speaking, then, the construction of the kallipolis in the Republic
seems to be merely a major excursus, functional for dealing with a different sub-
ject, namely the justice/happiness link within each individual. It does not seem
appropriate, however, to attribute a crucial significance to the formal structure.
In effect, one cannot say that the thought experiment of establishing a relation
between the state and the individual entails, albeit in an unspoken manner, a
parallelism also in terms of content. So much so that, on the strength of the thesis
quoted above, one might perhaps suspect that the overture to the political theme is
precisely the principal reason why, in Plato’s eyes, the Republic should be capable
of amending the unsatisfactory conclusion of Gorgias with stronger arguments.
That such a conclusion is unsatisfactory, however, can be drawn from more than
one clue. In the first place, the arguments with which Socrates confutes Cal-
licles appear rather formal and not fully persuasive in terms of values and real
content. In the second place, Callicles is defeated but not persuaded. Finally, the
happiness-virtue bond is supported in Gorgias in quite a heavy-going manner by
the immortality of the soul and the final eschatological myth, while in Book X of
the Republic these topics have neither the same significance nor the same range:
only after having affirmed that there is nothing more gratifying than justice, does
Socrates mention the otherworldly rewards (608b-c). But this means that the ar-
gument would have been accomplished without them. Such an outcome is not
undermined by the myth of Er either, as its purpose is founding the free will (and
contextually rejecting every influence which is decisive to one’s destiny) rather
than promoting the happiness of the just man.
By adapting a well-known Hegelian scheme, we could say that the passage
from Gorgias to the Republic in some way prefigures the passage from morality
to ethics. It prefigures the passage from a morality centred on the individual, and
therefore to a large degree formal and devoid of real and proper concrete content,
to a comprehensive morality of community structures in which the ethical life
develops and fulfils all the potentialities inherent in its conception. It is even more
pertinent, however, to recall the extremely close bond that in the Greek mentality,

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? 35

in the classical era at least, runs between morality and politics; a bond that in the
period of history between Humanism and Enlightenment has been progressively
lost. The great Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, in a letter written in 1828 to his
friend Pietro Giordani, lamented the futility of Political and Legislative Studies
with the following words: “I humbly wonder whether the happiness of peoples
may be granted without the happiness of individuals who are condemned to un-
happiness by Nature, and not by men nor by chance”. Leopardi had originally
modelled his ethical and political conceptions on the example of Greek and Latin
virtue (arete, virtus), but he was in reality a son of individualism and enlightened
naturalism by which the passage from the individual to the community, even only
in the purely methodological sense propounded by Socrates in Book II of the Re-
public, would not for him have been able to furnish any further element, either at
the level of knowledge or of content. For Leopardi, in fact, the collapse of the an-
cient civilisations also signaled the end of the illusion that the drama of existence
might in some way be surrogated or compensated on a social level, namely that
community relations may grant human beings a decisive contribution in terms of
happiness (in the sense of “the beautiful ethical life” of which Hegel would later
speak). But if one wishes to fully comprehend the mentality of the ancients, the
most significant position is probably that of Aristotle (even more so than that of
Plato). For Aristotle, architectural science is the politics, which comprises ethics
as an integral part of its whole, based on the principle whereby only beasts and
gods can truly attain a good life outside the community (Politica I, 1253a27-29).

2
If these are the premises inherent in classical ethical and political thought, it
cannot be denied that Plato’s Republic is a political work; and therefore that the
ideal city prefigured therein must have a rather precise validity (which for the
time being still remains to be clarified) on the political level. That means that in
the Republic a certain manner of community living is outlined, which the author
of the dialogue apparently seeks to propose as an archetype and model. But what
manner is it? What exactly is the political content of the Republic? What kind
of life is lived in the kallipolis? And what are the conditions, or parameters, by
which this kind of life could be considered good, attractive and satisfying? Here
the centuries old “history of effects” has had its way in formulating the most
varied and bizarre interpretations, analogies, and also operative suggestions. In
2001 a book by Melissa Lane was published in Great Britain with a particularly
intriguing title: Plato’s progeny: how Plato and Socrates still captivate the mod-
ern mind* Even more significant is the title dedicated to political thought: “The
Political Plato: the First Totalitarian, the First Communist, and the First Idealist?”.

2 Lane (2001).

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36 Franco Trabattoni

What is more, these three options — the totalitarian, communist or idealist Plato
- by no means exhaust the entertaining review of interpretations and appropria-
tions, which Ms. Lane summarily lists and discusses in her work.
For reasons of space, we must limit ourselves to just a few examples. The
English philosopher, Benjamin Jowett, who taught at Oxford during the second
half of the nineteenth century, crafted an educational project based on Plato’s
Republic, described by one historian as the “conscious creation of Platonic
guardians for Great Britain and Her Empire™.? In other cases, Plato’s Republic
has been used to simply condemn democracy and even equality of the sexes,
which, instead, is expressly laid out (thus stated by an American author).* In
mid-nineteenth century France, Plato was sometimes considered a sort of repub-
lican and revolutionary Jacobin, to the extent that Victor Cousin, who in 1840
completed the translation of all Plato’s works, left only the Republic without
any comment, precisely because of its political dangerousness.’ But one could
continue further. On a pedagogical level we have seen Plato the Educator in the
Weimar Republic (Jaeger and Stenzel), the inspirer of the Boy Scout Movement,
and of the Young Pioneers in the Soviet Union, of the German Hitler Youth, and
so on. All this goes to show — as proven by a wealth of material on the topic —
that Popper’s totalitarian Plato has been adopted as much by the Communists as
by the Nazis. Let us remember finally — and here the list could truly go on — the
vaguely mystical Plato of Stefan George Kreis, from which sprung the ironic
and esoteric Plato of Leo Strauss and his disciples, extremely influential in the
postwar era (almost as much as Popper’s totalitarian one): according to this line
of interpretation, the Republic would aim to demonstrate the exact opposite of
what it says, namely, that the planning of political life based on an ideal model is
not only unfeasible, but also undesirable.
I advise whoever wishes to gain a broader outlook on these proposals, foolish
to a greater or lesser degree, to read the above-mentioned book by Melissa Lane.
I will stop at this point. I feel that such a vast number of interpretations, so widely
different as to sometimes appear diametrically opposed to each other, indicates a
fundamental defect in the method.

3 1bid., 101
4 1bid., 104.
5 Ibid., 107.
© Strauss’ main work on this topic is “On Plato’s Republic” (1964a). It is not worth addressing here
in detail (with the enormous literature on the problem) whether according to Plato the kallipolis out-
lined in the Republic was or was not feasible, desirable, or both. A good and rich overview of it can
be found in Vegetti (2001). Here can be added some works in the Straussian wake (stressing Plato’s
pretended consciousness that the kallipolis is not really desirable): Rosen (2005a; 2005b), Rooch-
nik (2003). Roughly close to the same line is Ferrari (2005), who maintains the actual asymmetry
between soul and city as the mark of the basic inconsistency between political and philosophical
life: though kallipolis is ““the most beautiful human artifact [...] a man is something more, and more
beautiful, than a city” (107).

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? 37

I do not dispute that the classical texts can and must be read first and fore-
most with the purpose of reviving, at a general theoretical level, interesting
ideas and concepts, or that they are somehow tied into our legitimate attempts
to get our bearings in the present world. But this objective may only be achieved
provided that a certain methodical caution is exercised; and not simply by ap-
plying overlapping theoretical approaches, developed as a result of profoundly
different times, fashions and situations. To understand what the Platonic idea
of the city may offer us today, we shall therefore try to follow a different ap-
proach.

3
For now let us not talk about the political content of the Republic, or assess
whether and to what degree it is appealing or not. Let us try instead to understand
why Plato felt it necessary, not only in the Republic but also in the Laws, to speak
about politics and, above all, construct an exclusively theoretical state model. It
deals, in fact, with a procedure that is anything but obvious, and not particularly
common. On the contrary, one might note that a political theory ought to indicate,
in general terms and varying according to the nature of the intervention, a series
of concrete projects or provisions to improve people’s social and economic lives.
It might include, for example, plans to cut unemployment, to raise the standard
of living of the poor or to guarantee the citizens’ safety, etc. Are these not things
that a political project worthy of its name ought to concern itself with? Why waste
time fantasizing about highly unfeasible maximalist projects, which, seemingly
at least, are of barely any use at all? Incidentally, this kind of criticism is most
often leveled by liberals (and liberalists) against totalizing and broadly communi-
tarian political projects. The straightforward principle underlying such criticism
is that the excellent is the enemy of the good. For instance I have heard that no-
body would repair shattered windows in the Soviet Union because the commit-
ment to building a Socialist society would mean that, on the one hand, one ought
not waste time on such minutiae, and, on the other hand, a perfect situation would
have ensued in which problems both big and small would have been definitely
resolved. Is this kind of criticism pertinent? My view is that we are dealing witha
pure and simple optical illusion. To explain what I mean, I shall let Plato himself
speak on my behalf.
In the course of Book V, shortly after Socrates has explained what he in-
tended by establishing the community of women (the so-called “second wave™),
and had dwelt on describing a series of provisions linked to this issue, Glaucon
interrupts his speech to ask a fundamental question:
let us by all means lay it down that we're satisfied both with these arrangements and
with our earlier ones. The fact is, Socrates, if you're allowed to go on talking about
this kind of thing, I don’t think you’ll ever come back to the question you originally
postponed in order to go into all these details, the question whether it is possible —

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38 Franco Trabattoni

and just how it is possible — for political arrangements of this kind to be introduced
@71¢3-7).7
The problem is clear. As Glaucon says, let us then leave aside the fact that the
enacted prescriptions may be good or not so good. Are they achievable, though?
And would it not be worthwhile to establish this immediately, rather than launch-
ing into a task which could turn out to be futile, regardless of the possible validity
of the ideas suggested? As can be clearly seen, we are dealing with the very same
“liberal” criticism of which we spoke above. Socrates’ reply, however much it
may be articulated in more than one passage, is quite clear cut. He observes, first
and foremost, that the objective of the discourse developed so far was to establish
the nature of justice and injustice (472b). It is a fundamental premise. In a similar
way Socrates causes us to note that the purpose of the inquiry was not to set up
an effectively just state. But does this mean then that we are suddenly thrown
back to an ethical interpretation? Or that all the work put into the dialogue has
stood up to the demand to resolve a purely theoretical question, posed in Book
1, namely to seek, on account of mere thirst for knowledge, what justice is (and
perhaps to find a definition thereof)? Can one deem the Republic to have served
its purpose, when it is established that justice, in the state and in the soul alike,
consists of oikeiopragia (doing one’s own thing)? The following will demonstrate
that neither of these assumptions is correct.
When Glaucon asks Socrates how it is that he has brought up the purpose of
the enquiry again, the latter answers as follows (472b7-c2):
If we do discover what sort of thing justice is, are we then going to decide that the
just man must be in no way different from justice itself, nut in every case like justice?
Or will we be content (dyamijoopev) if he comes as close to it as possible, and has a
larger measure of it than anyone else (xai TA€iota 1@v GAAwv Exeivn petéxn)?
Having obtained Glaucon’s assent, Socrates goes on (472c4-d2):
So, when we asked what sort of thing justice was by itself (a6 1€ Sikaloouvny oldv
éom), and looked for the perfectly just man (teAéwg dikaiov), if he existed, and asked
what he would be like if he did exist, what we were looking for was a model (rapa-
Seiypatog dpa évexa). The same applies to injustice and the unjust man. We wanted
to look at the perfectly just and unjust man (eig éxeivoug aroprénovteg), see how we
thought they were placed in respect of happiness and its opposite (e08apoviag te né-
pt kai tod £vavtiov), and be compelled to agree, for ourselves as well, that whoever
came closer (opototatog) to those examples would have a share of happiness which
came closer (Opototdtv) to theirs. It wasn’t our aim to demonstrate that these things
were possible (& Suvatd tadta yiyveodar).?
He then, immediately afterwards, gives the example of the painter, who cer-
tainly cannot be reproached for painting a perfectly handsome man who does not

7 Plato (2000, 173).

8 Ibid., 174.

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? 39

exist in real life. In the same way, the model of the city on which Socrates and his
interlocutors have agreed becomes no less attractive should they fail to demon-
strate its feasibility.
This is a crucial point in the problem which we are facing. By recalling that
the purpose of the inquiry was to establish the nature of justice, Socrates does not
want to say that the enterprise heralded in Book II was only theoretical. On the
contrary, he wants to say that the problem of realizing the model (and of establish-
ing to what extent it can be put into practice) can only be posed after the theo-
retical inquiry has been carried out in full and perfect freedom, touching on the
ultimate limits of its development. The need to find a perfect model by reasoning
on a purely theoretical level, without considering possible practical hurdles, does
not hinge on any disregard of the practice, but on the fact that only knowledge
of a truly perfect model reveals the extent to which possible imitations resemble
it or differ from it — thus establishing in what measure they are relatively good
and bad. If the motive urging Plato to establish the nature of justice in itself, and
hence to grasp the nature of the perfectly just man and just state, were to claim
that both man and state can only be just if they refiect that perfect model in full,
then Glaucon would have every reason from the very beginning to raise the issue
of feasibility. He could reasonably observe, in this case, that it useless to waste
time constructing models which are too pretentious, because one already knows
beforehand, even without delving into the subject, that such projects are unfea-
sible. To make a comparison with modern times, one could likewise say that it is
idle to construct social and political theories prefiguring a society devoid of either
drugs or weapons, because we already know a priori that such a society can never
be achieved.
It is for exactly this reason that Plato clearly states the true purpose of the
research: only once we have established what justice itself is, will we possess
a criterion to evaluate the diverse forms of man and society, and consequently
establish which are more just and which are less so. In this sense, liberal criticism
of a political utopia (or rather, if one does not wish to speak of utopia, of purely
theoretical models of a perfect state and society) resoundingly misses the target,
precisely because it errs regarding the true objective of such a research.
This criticism would hit the mark if the Utopian were ill-satisfied by anything
less than the full realisation of the model he has drawn up and this full realisation
were the only true purpose of his undertaking. Otherwise, as manifest from the
above quoted passages of the Republic, if the purpose of the research is to pin-
point a paradigm to be used as a criterion of evaluation, then this research is not
in the least bit idle, but actually indispensable for setting any ethical and political
projection in motion.

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40 Franco Trabattoni

4
In a nutshell, Plato’s thesis is that one can establish in what measure a thing
is more or less good only in the light of a notion of what is intrinsically good, or
is so in an absolute sense. To be persuaded of the overall validity of this principle,
one just needs to run a countercheck. On a more or less daily basis, people make a
great deal of ethical evaluations of various kinds. For instance, when faced with a
certain kind of behaviour, a legal regulation, or social practice, we decide whether
it is just or unjust. Well, all these judgements are supported by the implicit pre-
sumption that we possess a certain idea, albeit confused, of what justice is in
general; otherwise we would have no means for determining the particular case.
For instance, if this being before my eyes is a dog, I can only say it on the basis of
my general notion of what a dog is, which I already have at the time of seeing the
being in question, and which I apply to that particular case. The statement “this is
a dog” matches perfectly the statement “this being is a particular case which falls
within the universal notion of a dog”. Likewise, the statement “this action is just”
matches perfectly the statement “this action is a particular case which falls within
the universal notion of justice”.
From this state of things, Plato extracts some very interesting ethical and
political consequences. Anyone, whether an individual or a whole community,
acts on the basis of what he thinks he knows, namely those universal principles
to which he implicitly or explicitly refers when assessing situations and deciding
accordingly how to behave. Now, the fundamental point of this whole discourse is
that individuals and communities will achieve through their actions the objective
which they have set for themselves — which is the same for all and which is identi-
fied with happiness — exactly to the extent that the universal criterion to which
they refer, and which they apply in practice, is right or not. It is important to note
that this applies also to those individuals (doubtless a majority) who have never
truly reflected upon the universal principles which implicitly guide their actions,
and are hence unaware of them. It is in fact exactly on this circumstance that
Plato, in his early dialogues, constructs the Socratic elenchus. Speaking with the
priest Euthyphro, who is about to carry out an action he deems pious (accuse his
own father of murder), Socrates forces him to clarify the nature of his idea of pi-
ety; similarly, speaking with the general Laches who deems himself courageous,
Socrates forces him to say what he holds to be the general notion of courage. And
if their respective beliefs turn out to be obscure, contradictory or misguided, as
indeed they are, it will obviously be very difficult for the actions regulated by
those criteria to obtain the desired effect.
From this stems the core of the project of political reform set in motion by
Plato. As may be read in an important page of Letter VII after the tragic events
which struck Athens in the period from the last years of the Peloponnesian War
to the death of Socrates, Plato is sure that no political project can be constructed
unless on the “upright philosophy, like that from whence alone comes the capac-

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipoiis still of topical interest? 41

ity to discern what is right (ta te moATixa Sikora kel o 1@V iSwtdv Tavta
xandeiv) in public and in private life” (326a5-6).° These words can easily be
seen to clearly state the same program illustrated in the abovementioned passage
of Book IV of the Republic. It is totally unproductive to undertake any political
initiative, be it of a theoretical programme or of practical action, without having
first reflected by philosophical means on the real nature of justice in itself. There-
fore, as we have already seen above, philosophical research into justice in itself is
not a pure theoretical exercise assumed to distract political thoughts from practi-
cal urgencies; instead, it is the unavoidable condition necessary to establish (in-
sofar as any polity may be able to achieve, and in whatever measure) the desired
effect. The objective of any ethical and political projection, either in private (t&
Sixaia tdv idiwtdv) or in public life (ta oAtk Sixaia), consists in creating
happiness (ebSaipovia) or living well (eb mpdrterv). The purpose of the Repub-
lic, starting at least with the questions posed by Glaucon and Adeimantus in Book
11, is to establish whether the best means for achieving the good life consists in
the practice of justice (and hence of virtue), or in differently oriented behaviours
(as Plato’s two brothers provocatively suggest). It is quite clear, though, that such
a task can only be absolved if one attains a notion of justice in itself, namely ab-
solute justice, because it would not otherwise be possible to attain a unanimous
criterion to evaluate different projects and behaviours.
The core of Plato’s ethical and political doctrine consists in not equating mor-
al and political disarray to a supposed “ill will”, ascribable to single individuals
and to communities that practice warped behaviors. On the contrary, in the wake
of Socratic intellectualism, he points an accusatory finger at the motive of igno-
rance. In his view the frequent internecine conflicts (staseis) that were sparked in
Athens between the end of the fifth and the early fourth centuries were not due
to certain individuals or groups deliberately violating the laws of justice. Rather,
they occurred because each one had his own concept of justice, clearly wrong for
it clashed with concurrent definitions, while the true nature of justice can be one
only. That such were the roots of conflict can be easily inferred in the same Book
I of the Republic, where Plato submits a variety of stances on justice, and shows
Socrates refute every one of them, bringing so clearly to light the scenario which,
based on what we have read in Letter VII, makes a philosophical reflection on the
nature of justice in itself quite indispensable. For Plato, the moral customs and the
political practices in his time are thus ineffective, because they were enforced and

? As rightly pointed out by Vegetti (2001, 114, n. 17), Annas’ idea, according to which one should
read the Republic not as a political work but as an inquiry about the individual morality, involves the
inauthenticity of the Lerter VII, where the political aim of the Republic is confirmed (see in particular
326b, where the hope that politicians become philosophers or vice versa is expounded in the very
same terms as in 473c-d). Such a rebuttal has recently been shared by Schofield (2006, 13-19), though
he is far from denying the political character of the Republic. I have dealt with the political features
of the Letter VII in Trabattoni (2007).

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42 Franco Trabattoni

put into practice without any preventive reflection on their values in themselves:
if the purpose of any kind of practice is to attain a good life, first of all one must
know what “good” is, without worrying too much whether this good is entirely
feasible or not.

5
In the light of what has been said, one of the most disputed questions con-
cerning the Republic, namely, establishing whether the author deemed the ideal
state described therein as feasible or not, becomes much less problematic. If we
stick to the data supplied by the text, we have elements supporting both positions.
Playing in favour of its feasibility, for example, is a passage in Book V, where
Socrates claims the state could transform with one change only, namely that phi-
losophers become rulers or vice versa (473b-e): he says, in fact, that while such
a change would be neither small nor easy, it would indeed be possible (473c3-4).
Weighing in an opposite sense, instead, are both the passage we have analysed
above (472b-d, where Socrates says that the purpose of the inquiry was not the
full realisation of the model), and the last page of Book IX, where Socrates says
that the state previously outlined exists perhaps in Heaven, but certainly nowhere
on earth (592a-b). The principle of the “paradigm”, intended as a criterion of
relative evaluation, stated in 472b-d, allows us to solve this problem quite eas-
ily. The totally and utterly unrealizable projects are those for which no model
is available. As for those which can count on a model, feasibility is possible in
terms of imitation; but it will always be partial and approximate, for the copy or
imitation would otherwise be identical to the original, and in this case the very
notion of the “model” would lose all its consistency and worth. Therefore, the
state described in the Republic is unrealisable if one expects it to match the model
in every possible way. But, as we have seen, Plato himself denies this assumption.
It is however realisable insofar as the model may be the object of imitation, even if
this imitation will obviously be in some way approximate.' We can call upon two
simple examples for help. The plan to build a society without weapons or wars is
likewise as unrealisable, in concrete terms, as the hypothesis of constructing a
Euclidian triangle in which the sum of the inner corners is not 180°. But there is
one essential difference: in the first case, one can somehow try to get close to the
objective (rather, in Platonic terms, to imitate the model), but not in the second
case. Plato’s theoretical proposal is supported by the fact that the partial feasibil-
ity of the model is conditioned by its correct identification at an ideal level.
On the other hand, this holds true for any type of realisation, because one
cannot act efficiently without a model. Notwithstanding all possible appearances,
I believe the Platonic proposal here touches closely the worldwide problems of

10 See Schofield (2006, 240).

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? 43

present-day concern. In the international courts there is frequently a clash of two

opposing views of development: the environmentalist, demanding waste reduc-
tion and conservation of resources, and the technological whose main objective is
raising material wellbeing and is willing to pay for it in terms of environmental
damage. It is, therefore, a matter of conflict between two opposing concepts of
“good life”. The Platonic solution would consist in seeking to establish the ingre-
dients of a perfectly good and happy life at the purely theoretical level and, on this
basis, evaluate the relative merits (i.e. the relative proximity to or distance from
the model) of the two competing options. In this sense, I maintain that the Pla-
tonic proposal is still of great interest today. A considerable number of social and
political conflicts are rooted in the fact that different and even opposing concepts
of good — mostly implicit, not deliberated or poorly motivated — are arraigned
against each other. I feel that what Socrates in Gorgias imputed to great Athe-
nian politicians like Themistocles or Pericles is still valid today. Socrates readily
admits that they even bestowed power and riches upon Athenians. But they did
so without possessing any model of what is good in general (namely, what it is
that really makes a good life), for which they were utterly bereft of any criterion
to assess whether what they were doing was the right thing or not. The dramatic
outcome of the Peloponnesian War was a clear demonstration for Plato that they
had moved in the wrong direction. The apocalyptic winds now blowing from
every corner of the world today lead us to suspect that the same diagnosis might
befit our current situation.

6
By reasoning in more general terms, we can say the real qualifying point of
Plato’s political proposal is to show the need for theory always to exceed prac-
tice. Aristotle writes at the beginning of the Nichomachean Ethics that “every art
and every inquiry, just as every action and choice, seems to pursue some good”
(1094al-2). This means every choice and every action, starting from the state
of things just as they are, then determines the state in which things ought to be,
and then puts into effect the appropriate means for bringing about the desired
change. Now, Plato’s idea consists in saying that it is possible to identify how
things should be only on the basis of a purely theoretical reflection, currently free
from any bond of practical feasibility, with regard to what is good, justice, happi-
ness, virtue, etc. In other words, it is a matter of identifying a model. Implicit in
the Platonic proposal is the condition whereby this model can never be traced by
working within what has already been shown, namely, leaving to theory the sole
task of selecting and putting current practice in order. In this case, theory would
not exceed practice, and “what should be” would wholly conform to “that which
is” (or at least a part thereof). But in this way the very concept of what should be
(which, in Plato, is identical to the notion of good) would disappear. The good
which the action is aimed at wholly coincides with what ought to be, but yet is

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44 Franco Trabattoni

not. It follows that theory must necessarily exceed practice, because theory has
the task of identifying what ought to be, but is not yet.
The interesting side of this Platonic position may be assessed if confronted
with the opposite orientation. If the model is simply picked from a reasonably
careful choice of current practice, one necessarily ends up by sanctioning as good
in itself all that which has succeeded in asserting itself in reality as the strongest
and, in a certain sense, the most real. In this way, that critical and stimulating
effect fails completely. The same effect is not only exclusive of the theory, but
can be developed only providing it is left to work purely and simply as a theory
(at the cost of appearing merely ideal or utopian), without ever hindering it with
objections, such as the one formulated by Glaucon in the passage of the Republic
at the outset. The result we finally come to, if one follows this course, is clearly
visible in the ethics and politics of Aristotle. He too is in search of what the
done good for man is, and therefore is also in search of a model. But in his final
analysis, he finds nothing better than to identify this model in the phronimos, the
worthy and distinguished citizen typical of civilizations of the time, of which
Pericles is the most shining example. In this way, it quite clear that the politics
of what ought to be, of advancing towards an end, of striving for good, remains
firmly anchored to the specific and transitory conditions of the outset. As we
have anticipated above, what is sanctioned as good is what has manifested itself
in historical terms as the strongest (following a drift which stretches not only to
Hegel, but also the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century). What is truly
grotesque in this whole argument is that in the last century Plato himself should
be accused of totalitarianism, when the irreducible excess of theory over practice
renders his political thought totally impervious to these issues. On the contrary,
what has been underestimated is the peril of political proposals that are anything
but utopian and deeply entrenched in practice, and that are dangerous precisely
because of this deep involvement. In fact they are always at risk of levelling the
good to the existing reality, of trading what ought to be for what is, and exchang-
ing value for power.!!

7
We can now try to answer the question with which I entitled my paper: is the
Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? If we stop to evaluate the
single provisions, individual laws and the real conditions of the citizens of the
kallipolis in general, the conclusion we would likely have to draw is that the truly
interesting material is too scanty. But this kind of content is the most short-lived
part of any theory, not only political ones. I believe Plato was aware of this, and
so he sketched a double reading plan throughout his works: on the one hand, the

! See Vegetti (2002).

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Is the Platonic ideal of the kallipolis still of topical interest? 45

specific contents, necessarily tethered to the standards of knowledge of the time

and to the development of society and custom; on the other hand, a series of theo-
retical mechanisms which could maintain their functionality in relation to any
kind of content. As we have sought to demonstrate, these mechanisms include
the theory of the model, the superiority of theory over practice, the necessity to
subordinate practice to an accurate theoretical search into the objectives and fun-
damentals of our political and ethical behaviour. I believe that on these subjects
Platonic teaching not just affirms its own general validity, but is also particularly
appropriate for a thorough understanding and interpretation of the problems of
our times.

Go 81@ NDIANA UNIVERSIT

 B
Digitized by Google Original from
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Gabriele Cornelli

Plato’s political passion:

on philosophical walls and their permeability

Introduction
The idea for this essay came to me from the recent reading of an already clas-
sic thesis by Nicole Loraux, which appears in her book L’invention d'Athénes' and
according to which the politeiai writers from the fifth-fourth centuries (Isocrates,
Thucydides, but the same applies — as we will see - to others as well) since they
find themselves unable to act in the political sphere, are forced to use words as
a political strategy.? We will, therefore, talk about words that express a political,
albeit impossible, passion.
While searching for this passion amongst the books on my table, engaged in
fifth-fourth century Athens — Aristophanes, Thucydides, Euripides, Gorgias and,
obviously, Plato himself — I noticed a term that turns up often and that somehow
reveals that all of these writers are engaged in defining this passion. It is the term
$1A6moALG: a term in my opinion reducibly translated within the lexicon of patrio-
tism. But before we think about philopolitics, one has to consider the historical
context in which this literature is produced.

The tragic soul and the anthropologies of pleonexia

The cultural climate of all these authors is clearly the one that Vegetti, with
a fortunate expression, calls anthropology of pleonexia, which has at the same
time an ethical and a political meaning, in a solution of continuity typical of the
Platonic thought, in which I find myself — as it were — “at home”.
From the dramatic production of the tragedies, throughout the fifth century,
there clearly comes a new concept of the soul, i.e. the individual, which can be
called “tragic™, i.e. intimately lacerated, torn between desires and wishes, be-
tween thymos and boulemata, as it appears at the end of Medea’s famous mono-

! Loraux (1981).
2 1 am thankful to the contributions from the friends and esteemed colleagues Giovanni Caser-
tano, José Otdvio N. Guimarfies and André L. Chevitarese, for agreeing to discuss some important
aspects of this essay with me. Obviously, the responsibility for the ideas expressed herein is exclu-
sively mine.

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48 Gabriele Cornelli

logue in Euripides’ homonymous tragedy (1078-1080): an individual unable to

live according to what he knows is right.
This tragic soul in intimate perennial conflict is developed in apparent con-
troversy, with both typically Socratic moral intellectualism, as well as with the
pretension of a monolithic soul, “alone in itself” (pévnv ka®’ avmv) — as it is said
in Phaedo (67d) — of Orphic and perhaps Pythagorean traditions, which intended
to save the soul, restoring it to its original purity.® Indeed, the contradictions
of the polis, manifest in the literature of the period with terms like stasis, eris,
hybris and pleonexia, in addition to other social evils, are deeply rooted in the
individual soul, so much so that it turns out to be irremediably “double”, divided,
fragmented within the expressions of its multiple desires.
So, at the end of the fifth century, the individual’s tragic conflictuality is
perceived — through the intellectual and political debate — in the interior of what
we call anthropologies of pleonexia. By anthropology of pleonexia we mean the
comprehension of the human being as a helpless victim of its lust for prevarica-
tion, of oppression upon the other. The pleonectic drive is the unlimited desire
for “having more’: more power, more riches, and more social recognition. Thus
Vegetti defines pleonexia:
The pleonexia law applies itself to the relationships between groups and individuals
within each citizen community and to the relationships among the poleis, between
the cities themselves. The historic context in which this anthropological thought is
developed can be defined with precision: on the one hand, the Athenian imperialism,
which, under the mask of a democratic company, reveals the nature of the state as one
of polis tyrannos, according to the expression that Thucydides (11 62) attributes to its
biggest Jeader, Pericles himself; on the other hand, the internal conflicts among rival
oligarchic and democratic groups, the staseis that break the citizenship pact upon
which the historic experience of the polis was built.*
Pleonexia is — at heart — that which the violent master (Biaiog 18doxaioc,
IIT 82, 3), the Peloponnesian War, in Thucydides’ own expression, had taught the
Greeks. The result of this teaching we find, always in Thucydides, in the beauti-
ful fiction of the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians, which, due to
constraints of space, we cannot comment on here. So, Thucydides seems to con-
clude theoretically, the human being has a ¢ho1g Gvaykaia (V 105, 2) that leads
him to practice the pleonectic violence against the laws of the city (III 82, 2; 6),
because of philotimia, of a lust for power and social recognition (III 82, 8). And
this nature is shared by men and the gods, for whom the same principle applies.
Independently of right and reason: dv kpartij dpyetv (V 105, 2), the one who has
the strength has the command.
The “violent master” that is war creates almost conceptual characters (were

? The Socrates controversy seems actually more evident in Hippolytos: “the wise men, actually,
even unwillingly, but equally love evil (kakdv épdo)” (358).
# Vegetti (2003, 17).

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Plato's political passion 49

they not real and historic) like Alcibiades: an extremely worrisome and omnipres-
ent figure both in Thucydides’ and Plato’s reflections, a paradigmatic symbol of
pleonexia and of the lust that places the polis in check.
Thucydides refers to this, in a discourse attributed to Alcibiades (VI 16) in
response to Nicias considering the opportunity of another military expedition
against Syracuse. Nicias had warned the people against Alcibiades, by the fact
that the latter had
urged you to leave, thinking only of his private interest (10 £avtod), even more that
he is too young for commanding, wishing to be admired by his horse breeding and
by the large expenses he makes, with intent to gain some advantages out of his post
[of commander] (V1 12, 2).
The answer that Thucydides puts in Alcibiades’ mouth cannot be more re-
vealing:
It is not unfair that someone, having high regard of oneself, refuses to be on equal
terms with the others, because even those who find themselves in disgrace cannot
find someone willing to take part in their misfortune on equal terms. It is the oppo-
site, in the same manner that in disgrace one cannot receive a greeting, one cannot
find meanness in the fact that successful men look down on the others (those who
want equality should level with us) (VI 16, 4).
There is, in Alcibiades’ discourse, a defense of pleonexia, a justification of
the search for personal interest: the assertion of the wish to have more pleonectic
as an anthropological hallmark, the attempt of public legitimation of private inter-
est. Thucydides does not hide his dissatisfaction with this.
Uselessly, Nicias once more warns the Athenians that “scarce are the ad-
vantages obtained by desire (ériBupuiq), vast are those obtained with prudence
(rpovora)” (VI 13,1).
Historically, the desire-Alcibiades wins. And this seems to be a leitmotif for
the whole war when seen from the Athenian’s reactions. I have collected these
references only from the War’s Book II: youth full of lust for war (II 8,1); the
Athenians’ wrath in the face of improvised attack (II 11, 7); angry Athenians ar-
guing in the face of invasion (II 21, 2); Pericles admits difficulty, in his mournful
discourse after the first year of war, in convincing his listeners of the heroics of
those who had died, because his eulogies would cause envy in others and, con-
sequently, suspicions about their truthfulness (II 35, 2). Furthermore, the most
tragic reference: the triumph of the search for pleasure during the plague that
ravages Athens: “All that was immediately pleasurable and that — whence-so-
ever — was useful to get such pleasure from, had become beautiful and useful
(xpfiowovy” (II 53, 3).

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50 Gabriele Comnelli

The debate on philopolitics in Athens’ fifth and fourth centuries

Within the reflections on pleonexia found in the writings of these fifth and
fourth centuries’ authors, there is a term that opposes itself to the former and
which emerges among others: it is the term ¢grAdmoArg.
In Thucydides’ work. this term appears four times: once referring to Pericles
and, meaningfully, the other three in the context of a criticism towards Alcibi-
ades. Pericles, in the Assembly discourse, after the second Spartan invasion of
the Peloponnesus, defines himself as “lover of the city and superior to money”
(pLAomoAig Te kOl xpnuatwv kpeioowv, 11 60, 5), whereas in the mournful dis-
course after the first year of war, he had similarly exhorted the Athenians to be-
come épaotai, “lovers of the city” (Epaotag y1yvopévoug avtiig, II 43, 1).
The term reappears three times in the Book VI of War, precisely from the
mouth of the traitor Alcibiades, who, in his discourse to the Spartans, attempting
to extricate himself from the bad impression caused by his betrayal of his own
city, declares:
1 do not want someone to judge me worse from the fact that I am, at this moment,
together with your arch-enemies, going against the city [Athens] with all my strength,
1 who once seemed to be its lover (¢1Admodig note Soxdv eivar) (VI 92, 2).
Alcibiades declares himself, immediately afterwards, an expatriate (¢uydc,
92, 3) in his own city, which he loves, and justifies his hostile acts towards Athens
like this:
Love towards the city (16 te g1AdmoA1) I do not have when I have been unjustly treated
[by it] (oUk &v @ GSikoTpar), but it is when I am able to safely practice my citizenship
(GodaAdG EmoiitevBnv). At this moment, I would not be sent against it (ratpida) but
the opposite, [ intend to reconquer the one that is already not (tiv otk oloav). For it
is, properly, lover of the city (¢1A6noAtg 6pBdc), one that would not be sent against
it after having undeservedly lost it (48ixwg droAécag piy £niy), but the one who so
longs for it (5ud 10 £émBupeiv) that he would try to take it back (V1 92, 3-4).
The semantic scope of Alcibiades’ discourse is very clear: it shifts, with-
in the context of exile, the sense of love towards the city (16 1€ ¢rAonoAr), of
philopolitics, so much that it results not in an ethical attitude of the individual,
but rather the safety that the same city can offer the citizen (dodaldg £moAi-
tevBnv): since it is Athens that expels him (at least from his point of view) is no
longer his ratpida. Citizenship and the love towards the city are consequences
of the place one occupies in it and the treatment one receives from it. In a game
of great rhetoric and political skill, Alcibiades inverts his ethical position: from
attacker he becomes victim, from enemy to friend of the state, prtAémoirg. But all
that at the cost of redefining the term citizenship and love towards the city, i.e.
public ethics, to the detriment of advantage, of personal interest. There echoes
here the criticisms he had previously received from Nicias, according to which
Alcibiades wanted to command the Athenian army in the Syracusan expedi-
tion “thinking only of his private interests” (10 £avtod pévov ckondv, VI 12,

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Plato’s political passion 51

2). Both concepts — 10 ¢rAdmoAL and 10 £ovtod — cannot go together in Nicias’

public ethics, contrary to what Alcibiades may seem to think. The term ¢1Aémo-
Aig also appears significantly in Aristophanes four times: three in Plutus (726,
900, 901) and once in Lysistrata (544). The semantic scope and dramatic context
of these occurrences are practically the same in Thucydides: a fierce criticism,
which Aristophanes stages, in a passionate treatment, on the verge of turning
the comic tone into tragedy.’ In Plutus ¢rhémolrg is rather Asclepius (726), in
the words of Chremylus’s wife, for the god laughs while applying ointment to
Pluto’s eyes “to put an end to the plots hatched at the assemblies” (725); a clear
reference to the propagation of pleonectic practices inside the official courts of
Athenian politics during the end of the fifth century, a period when that comedy
was probably written (although it was only presented in 388, perhaps in a second
edition): “how clever and lover of the city is this god!” (¢1AdmoArg 0 daipwv xal
00¢0¢) — comments the wife. In lines 900 and 901, likewise, the term reappears
ironically in the mouth of a sycophant, who passes himself for a man of good
deeds and lover of the city (xpnotog kol drAdmoArg, 900), to the astonishment of
Justus, who repeats in disbelief the sycophant’s self-definition in the following
line: xpnotog kol dradmodig!? (901).
In Lysistrata the term appears in the Choir of Old Women (545-547), a eulogy
to the virtues of Athenian women, in whom “there is no lack of character, nor
grace, nor courage, nor intelligence, nor even wise virtue and lover of the city
(¢1hdmodrg apeth opovipog)”. In this case it is their virtue which is prhomodrg,
and, by metonymy, they themselves. The context, it is well known, is again of
Athenian military crisis and of Alcibiades’ plots: performed at the Dionysia from
411, Lysistrata is Aristophanes’ outcry, at the same time desperate and fantasti-
cally utopian.
But it is in Knights that the image of ¢thémoAig appears in more precisely
comic form, although we do not find the term itself in the verses of the com-
edy. The comedy starts at the character Demos’ house, the People’s allegory, in-
troduced by one of his servants, all masked as Demosthenes and Nicias, as “a
short-tempered, broad bean eater and irritable boss” (Seondtng Gyporxog opynv,
KuapoTpE, dxpdyolrog, 40-41), just like the democratic people. The reason for
referring to the broad beans is the large amounts in which they were used owing
to the frequent campaigns for election. This allegory is revealed in the next lines
right after (42-43), again referring to Demos, the boss, called: “Demos supreme
(Afipog TTuxvitng, literally, frequenter of the Pnyx, a hill where the meetings took
place), a stubborn and deaf old man (§boxolov yepdvtiov Unéxwpov)”.
In the comedy, Demos, the Peoples’ allegory, His People, therefore, is fawned
upon by a servant named Paphlagonion, a tanner by profession, allegory of the

5 It is the case of the strong lyricism in the construction of the image of Lysistrata, or of the chorus
of Knights.

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52 Gabriele Cornelli

demagogue: “immoral and deceiver as he is, he knows right away his owner’s
nature” (46), lit. his tpdnot. The other servants, indignant, steal the sacred oracle
that Paphlagonion keeps under lock and key, and discover that it holds prophecies
about who will rule the city: first an oakum salesman, followed by a cattle trader
and ultimately by a sausage seller (GAAavtonding, 143). Behind the evident Aris-
tophanic controversy against the rise of the trade bourgeoisie, the sausage seller’s
definition is the comic inversion of the picture of the g1tAdroAc: facing the won-
der of the sausage seller, who claims he is not up to the responsibility, the servant
declares: “It seems to me you must have something positive on your curriculum:
are you not by chance a good man’s son? (£x kaAdv €l kéyabdv, 184). By Zeus,
no! — answers indignantly the sausage seller — I am rabble (gi pfj *x Tovnpav v’,
186). Then he asks later on: “and how am [ supposed to rule the people?”. The
servants answer in a sarcastic one:
It is the easiest thing in the world (¢avidtatov Epyov): do as you always have done.
Blend it, wrap up the odds and ends, always fawn on the people (Get npoomoiov),
soothe them with gourmet-like phrases (UmoyAvkaivev prpatiolg payepixois). You
already have the virtues of a demagogue: bestial voice, low descent (¢pwvi) prapd,
yéyovag kakdg). After all, you have all it takes for politics (&ravta mpog noArteiav
& Sev) (213-219).
With the comically-inverted image of ¢1AomoArg in Aristophanes, the feeling
of the city’s ethical defeat is extremely revealing, permeated by the sensation that
the world of politics is “upside down”. Behind Knights there is, clearly, an im-
mediate criticism against Cleon (never nominated) and against Athenian politics
in general, for some years now involved in the roughness of the Peloponnesian
War. But Aristophanes seems intent to go beyond this, and sketches ideal types
of political figures. Though these representations are certainly satirical, they are
also simultaneously political statements. Anyway, what we find in Aristophanes
is the same motif of politics so deeply corrupted by pleonexia so that it is possible
(as the proverb is it) to corrupt the all Assembly with a single coin: “with a coin of
onion, [to] put in the pocket all of the Boule” (tiv BovAilv SAnv 6Borod kopiav-
voig dvarapav, 681-682).

Plato’s philopolitics
We have finally come to Plato. It is not necessary to remember here the deep
ethical-political preoccupation that both his work and biography show. It is enough
for me to remark here, given the scope of this essay, that Plato also uses the term
dAomohig four times. Two allusions are generic and appear in contexts of little
theoretical value: in Apologia 24b, where Socrates calls Meletus, with sarcastic
irony, someone who “calls himself a good man and lover of the city” (1ov ayadov
kol gradmoly, g onor); in Leges 111 694c, where King Cyrus is called “good
general and lover of the city” (otpatmy6v 1€ dyabov elvar kai ¢rAdmoALY).

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The other two allusions are — as one would have expected — in the Republic.
In Book V, in the context of the criticism of the otdoug, it says that neither side in
internal conflict deserves the nickname ¢1AdmoAig:
that when anything of this sort occurs in faction, and a city is divided against itself
(Sraoti) moALg) if either party devastates the land and burns the houses (tépvoowy
aypois xal oikiag épmpunpdorv) of the other, the otdong is thought to be an accursed
thing (GAimprddng) and neither party to be true lovers of the city (drhondirdes).
Otherwise, they would never have endured thus to outrage their nurse and mother.
(i TpodéV Te Xai pntépa) (470d).
This is a strong metaphor: it alludes to motherly love and to the atavistic im-
age of the bosom betrayed by its creation. Love towards the city is envisaged as
motherly love.
But, out of them all, the fourth allusion is perhaps the one that demonstrates
greater theoretical abundance. It deals with an essential step from Book VI,
where, after solving “the matter of children begetting and of women’s owner-
ship”, Socrates remarks that, regarding the institution of rulers for the city:
it will be necessary to begin once again almost from the starting point. (Gonep ۤ
apyiic). We were saying, if you recollect, that they must reveal themselves to be
lovers of the city (¢r1AomdAddc te paivesBar), when tested in pleasures and pains
(Bacavifopévoug év fidovaig e kal Avmaig), and make it apparent that they do not
abandon (uetapoAr) this fidelity (36ypa) under stress of labors or fears or any other
vicissitude (503a).
This starting point is exactly what had been presented in Book III, 412d and
in the following pages. There we find the definition of an ethical proof of love
towards the city, by which the future rulers should be selected. The first sign of
aptitude for ruling is exactly the zeal towards the city (xndepdvag tiig TOAEWG).
The concept used, xndepovia, means zeal, in the sense of “looking after”, as
well as matrimony itself. Not by chance, in the successive line Socrates states
that “one would be most likely to be careful with that which he loved (6 (1A&Vv)”,
thus introducing the ¢1Aia towards the city as a fundamental ethical attitude for
the identification of the future ruler. The description of this love takes a very
romantic slant and extraordinarily condenses the experience of inter-personal
love:
And just what one loves the most (udAiota g1Aol): what one considers to merit ben-
efiting from (oupdéperv) the same things as you, and — when everything goes well
[with the other] — you may think yourself as well to be happy; and if not, the contrary
would apply. Thus should be picked, out from the other guardians, such men as to
our observation appear most inclined through the entire course of their lives to be
zealous (cupdéperv) with the city, and who would be least likely to consent to do the
opposite (111 412 d-e).
The philopolitical — as it were — proof of love is summed up in the ability of
matching the individual interest with that of the city, the private with the public,
to use more contemporary terminology. Up to now, the educative proposal of

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54 Gabriele Comelli

the ruler is extremely idealistic, and Plato is “accused” of this idealism by much
contemporary philosophy. Some commentators, though — in my opinion —, have
not noticed that Plato’s proposal is not finished here: one must go on with the
argument.
Plato, indeed, introduces a realistic touch immediately afterwards, as it is
revealed that this love towards the city is continuously subject to perils, and that,
therefore, the keeping of ¢tAon6A1dag rulers is a result of constant care:
1 think, then, we shall have to observe them at every period of life, to see if they are
capable of keeping this fidelity and never risk, never by sorcery nor by force (yon-
tevopevol pite fralopevor) to abandon it, letting it be forgotten, that is, this convic-
tion that one must do what is best for the city (tfj noAeL péiniota) (111 412¢).
The subject of abandoning a belief becomes the occasion of some brief re-
marks on the voluntariness or less of this abandonment of a true belief (III 412e-
413a). In the end, Socrates states that it is impossible for someone to voluntarily
abandon a true conviction — such as doing what is best for the city —and therefore,
this can happen only with someone who is a “victim of either a robbery, a sor-
cery or force” (xAomévteg fi yontevbévreg 1j Pracbéveg, 111 413a), repeating the
above admonition about the precautions with the possibility of the rulers aban-
doning their love towards the city.
It is impossible not to remember, in the consequent arguments reasonably
pointed out as reasons for the involuntary abandonment of the true conviction,
that is always wanting what is best for the city, the parallel articulation of reasons
that appears in the Eulogy to Helen by Gorgias. Helen is said to have been “taken
by force” (Biq dpracHeioat, 20), “persuaded by a discourse that builds an illu-
sion” (Aéyog 0 meicog kal v yuynv aratoac, 8, 1) and dragged “by force of
a sorcery” (§uvapig tiig énwdfic, 8, 10) which “penetrates the conviction of soul”
(ti 86En Tic yuxfg, 8, 10), thanks to “the double arts of sorcery and magic”
(yonreiog 8¢ xal payeiag Siooal éyvat, 8, 10).
Obviously, this Platonic use of Gorgian texts deserves detailed treatment. I
restrict myself to citing it as another sign of the intense debate about the moral
autonomy of the individual that was part of the intellectual tradition at the end of
the fifth century.
Not by chance, immediately afterwards, Socrates, almost apologizing to the
reader for bringing up a thorny subject, states: “I am afraid [ am speaking in
‘tragic style’” (tpayikdg kivduvetm A€yetv, 413b), the style of the writers of trag-
edy. That is, the way tragedy deals with these matters relating to the autonomy of
decision and its restraints: the one we call tragic soul, so he specifies:
By ‘stolen’ I mean those who are persuaded in changing their opinion and those who
forget it because it is subtracted, without their being aware, to some by time, to oth-
ers by speech. By those who are constrained or forced, I understand those who are
induced to change their minds under pain or pleasure (&v 650vn Tg i GAyndav pueta-
Sotdoan mofon); victims of sorcery — I would say — are those who alter their opinions
under the spell of pleasure (7Soviic) or terrified by some fear (¢6Bov) (11 413b).

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It is the picture of a tragic soul, torn, always in danger of defection in its

decision (86ypna) to do what is best for the city, potential victim of discourse, of
oblivion by time, of pleasure and pain and all the other spells, which are “every-
thing that deceive” (navta doa aratd, 413e).
We find the solution if we return to Book VI. Here Socrates reveals, not be-
fore showing his customary hesitation (6xvog) in talking about this, that “as the
most perfect guardians we must establish philosophers™ (Gxpipectdtoug ¢vAa-
xag drioadpoug Sel xabrotavar, VI 503b).
The solution, therefore, is once again philosophy. But it is an extremely idea-
lised solution: and — this time — not because Plato is an impenitent dreamer, but,
on the contrary, owing to a quite concrete problem: there are no more philoso-
phers in the state!®
And there are none — as Socrates says in Book VI of the Republic — because
“every seed and growth, whether vegetable or animal, that cannot receive the nec-
essary food, season and place that suits it, the more vigorous it is the more it needs
nourishment” (491d). The fact that there are no more philosophers in the city is
at the same time the cause and the consequence of its corruption: the cause, for
only with the philosophers the city could be orderly and just; as a consequence,
without a just city there is no necessary soil for the growth of philosophers.
A vicious circle is set. The philosophy plant must be sought, by consequence,
on non-poleis soil, outside the city. This might be the meaning of the typified list
of the few philosophers left from 496b-c. Nothing authorizes us, in my opinion,
to see it as ironic, @ la Strauss, as some suggest: the severity of the situation
described, in tones of abandon and disaster, the existential implication that the
list must mean historical Plato, do not seem to me to admit lighter readings. The
sarcastic controversy itself that follows in the previous footsteps, against those
who, despite being educated in philosophy, give in to the adulations of political
success, and are compared to the tragicomical image of the “little bald-headed
tinker” parvenu (VI 495¢), does not seem to me to leave any doubts. Socrates
calls them avBpariokot (“ominicchi” as the great Sciascia would say), little men
in a derogatory sense.
On the other hand, “very few are those who consort worthily with philoso-
phy” (xat dEiav oputiovviov driocodia, 496b), in the sense of being familiarized
with it, or busying themselves with it. The list is significantly open to those who
are outside the city, by the philosopher in exile, as if to mark the impossibility of
philosophy in the more corrupt city. Next to be considered are those who, having
a great soul (LEYdAn yuyxt), live in a little town (opikp@ moAen), and are therefore
removed from public businesses. The big city is the problem: that is, Athens is
what Plato is thinking of. The third kind is represented by “those, well-born, who

6 We will dedicate, due to the restrictions of this essay, a smaller space for the solution, because
it appears in several ways in Plato’s work and life and is, somehow, less important than the way in
which presents the problem.

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56 Gabriele Cornelli

disregard their technai, which they justly disdain; and devote themselves to it
[philosophy]”, a probable reference to sophists such as Theaetetus. In the example
of the latter kind a name is cited, Theages, who, being sick, and thus searching for
vocotpoodia, for the cure of his body, is thus exempt from politics (VI 496¢). No-
cotpodia becomes, paradoxically, an advantage, another chance of escaping the
city in order to practice philosophy. We leave aside, by Socrates’ own suggestion,
a fifth kind: those who received the demon sign (Soaipéviov onueiov), because
“just him [Socrates] received it”.
The foreignness of the city to these few (0Aiyot) surviving philosophers, it
bears saying, is marked by an image that I meant to use as the title for my article:
the philosopher hidden behind a wall (tevyiov) as a shelter from the storm.
Indeed, by way of concluding the list, Socrates invites Adeimantus to note
that, owing to the fact that “no-one does anything sound in favor of the public
businesses” (008elg 0VOEV VYLEG MEPL TG TAV ROAEWV TPGTTEL, 496C), the philoso-
pher has fallen among wild beasts, unwilling to share their misdeeds, but running
the risk of dying and becoming worthless (GvwgeAric) to himself or others, before
he could do something good for the benefit of his friends or the city. Having re-
flected about this, he remains quiet (icvyiav) and minds his own affair (t& ahtoD
npdrtwv), as if he stood under a storm, under shelter of a wall (Umo TeLyiov), of
dust and rain brought by the winds; and seeing others filled with lawlessness, is
content to live his life free from iniquity and unholy deeds (VI 496d).
The key to reading the list of philosophers that are not in the city and the for-
eignness itself of the philosopher to that city “of wild beasts” seems to me to rest
here: he ponders and stands off, but lest he become useless to it (and to himself):
that is, the seclusion, the philosopher’s self-exile also aims, somehow, towards
the usefulness of the city. For the philosopher who finds himselfin a city like this
ends up minding his own affairs because of the impossibility of looking after the
city, or better still, exactly as a form of looking after it.
And this is also Plato in the Letter VII: Plato observes (cxomobvt, 325c) the
political vicissitudes of otaoeLg, that is
the men engaged in public affairs, the laws and the customs, the more closely I ex-
amined them and the farther I advanced in life, the more difficult it seemed to me to
handle public affairs aright (6p8ax). [...] Regarding the written laws and the customs,
they were being altered for the worse very rapidly, so much that I, even though desir-
ous of occupying myself with public affairs (0ppufig £l 10 tpdrteLv T kowvi), seeing
(BAénovta) all being ruined, ended up lost (teAevtdvia iAtyyiav). And, although I
observed (oxoneiv) if there was any likelihood of improvement in general, and spe-
cially regarding the city’s government, I looked for a suitable opportunity to act (tod
8¢ mpdrtery ad nepuévery del karpoic) (325 c-e).
In the aforementioned page there are three different allusions to a Plato who
observes behind the wall — one feels like saying — and waits a xoipdg 100 npdr-
T€LV, suitable opportunity to act.
And behind the wall there is, evidently, the Academy: the tei1yiov which is

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the opposite of a telxog, the walls of the town: the private rather than the public.
A place from where to observe, to think the city, and be useful somehow. But the
Academy is neither the city nor a substitute for it: it is rather a point of view over
the higher walls.
Why, in the same page of Book VI, in response to Adeimantus’ consent re-
garding this exiled philosopher and his contribution to the city (“really, it is not
little that he could have achieved before leaving”, 497e) Socrates concludes
it is not the maximum, since he did not receive a suitable city (o08¢ ye ta péyiota,
ui tuxdv noArteiag mpoonkolong); because in an adequate one he would have been
successful and would have preserved both his and the common good (petd t@v i8iwv
10 Kowvad oooer) (VI 497e).
That is, maximum is something else. It is binding the common good with
the personal interest: this is the philopolitical dogma. The ruler’s fidelity is to be
first defended from attacks against voluntariness itself, against the tragic drama
of ethical life, in which the pleonexia is always lurking (as we have seen on page
III 503a).
Unfortunately, though, philosophy — Socrates will say in the successive lines
— is, in this city, as a foreign seed (Eevixov onéppa), sown in an alien soil (VI
497b). It is exactly why the formation of the ruler will take place necessarily — in
a storm and blast of pleonectic dust — under shelter of a wall: where there is a
garden, or better still a srove - to give it a botanical image, often present in these
pages — an in vitro culture, separated from the city, yes, but existing while it is
in relationship with the city, never in its place. A wall, therefore, always perme-
able.
Perhaps this is the meaning of the experience at the Academy, which in fact
shows, as Isnardi Parente has pointed out, unmistakable signs of political involve-
ment, and the Syracusan voyages, which Plato undertakes —" as he confesses in
the Letter VII, “not to seem even to myself altogether nothing but words” (uf
S6Eaipt mote €pautd navidnact Adyog pdvov drexvag elvan tic, 328¢). Plato
doesn’t sit on the fence, then.

Conclusion
I believe that the matter of Plato’s political passion and its modalities are
solved essentially in one detail: right timing, of kaipdg to act, mentioned above in
the Letter VII (325 d-e). Indeed, a strong sense of this kaipdg touches the Platonic
pages lightly.
In the same page of the Letter VII, for instance, it appears in the words of
Dion by which he invites Plato to step down from the fence to come to the philo-
sophical-political project of Syracuse:

7 Isnardi Parente (1979, 274-305).

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58 Gabriele Comnelli

What better moment more promising than that which is at this moment offered us by
a sort of luck with a divine touch? (tivag yap xaipoie peifoug nepipevoipev 1dv viv
napayeyovétwv Beiq v Toxy;) (327¢)
Behind terms such as xatpdg, viv, Ty there is a whole lexicon of combina-
tion of circumstances in this Platonic page. It is the tension of he who waits af-
fectionately, and not without slightly suffering, for the occasion to look after the
city, to be its lover, prAdmoALg.
It is the hope that Socrates states, indeed, immediately afterwards, in the
same page of Book VI of the Republic, that we had been reading:
that neither city nor polity nor man either will ever be perfected before the few phi-
losophers, who now bear the stigma not of evil but of uselessness, by some necessary
fate (Gvayxm Tig €x Tox1C), take charge of the city’s healing, whether they wish it or
not (gite Povhovtan €ite pii, noAewg Enuendijvan) (VI 499b).
And there is an evident tragic sense, in the above page, when investing the
philosopher as ruler, both from the reference to the necessary fate, and a certain
constriction of his wish: whether they wish it or not, will be invested in healing
the city.
Nevertheless, the references to the observation, the wait for the promising
moment, a certain suffering and tragic sense of the fatal necessity for the philoso-
phers to take over the government, point to — as far as I am concerned — the fact
that Platonic philosophy and the Academy do not represent a disdainful removal
from politics, but rather, somehow, a real preparation (which passes through ple-
onexia’s ethical strainer) that intends to return to it later on, as in the return of the
philosopher to the cave in the celebrated allegory. These are words of a political
passion — Plato’s — which, if it is momentarily hidden behind the Academy wall,
flutters and waits impatiently for the moment when “everything that now seems
impossible finally happens” (ndvt €éniteiéoar ta viv driotovpeva, 502b).

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Giovanni Casertano

Plato’s kallipolis:
between non being and having to be

The “beautiful city” drawn by Plato in the Republic has often been accused
of being utopian, one of the most fantastic, or fanatic, and “unnatural” utopias
ever envisaged by Plato’s “idealism™ from Aristotle on, objections to the political
project of a new city can be said to have repeated, sometimes wearily, sometimes
vehemently, issues that have very often been marked by the ideological notions
of the critics rather than by a hermeneutic effort towards the explanation of the
sense and meaning of Plato’s project. Such a project is instead embedded in a
theoretical and reasoning texture that is highly thorough and consistent, with few
parallels in other Platonic demonstrations, even those related to critical theses
and doctrines, like the theory of Forms or that of the soul. Of course, as in any
other Platonic epideixis, the demonstrative thoroughness does not rule out the use
of metaphors, metonymies and most of all images, in that original mix of logical
issues and creative imagination, making Plato’s discourse a unicum in our whole
philosophical literature.
Shifting the discussion about justice from the individual to the social and
political framework had led to the drafting of a real economic and social history
of human groups in Books II and III: necessity, chreia, is the power driving men
to associate in groups and build more and more complex communities to satisfy
life’s basic needs. The move from this first “simple” city to the “swollen” city
(tryphe), marked through an increasing demand of goods and luxury, necessarily
leads to war with the other cities, thus to the development of social classes such as
the one of warriors, the phylakes, from which the class of rulers will be sorted out,
the archontes. A plan for a new education suited to these two groups is outlined,
based on the “communistic” renunciation of the ownership of private goods, a
plan that will be fully developed in the following books.
Book IV begins precisely with a question Adeimantus, one of the two main
participants in the dialogue, asks Socrates: what will you reply to the objection
that you are not making these men happy (ebdaipovag, 419a2) at all? They are the
real owners of the city but do not get any profit from it. Socrates’ reply is to set out
the framework in which his subsequent reasoning will be developed: a hierarchy
of two levels of interpretation, actually based on the opposition between today
and tomorrow. An initial reading displays the positive observation of a real situa-
tion with all its features, but also contains the call for a competing reality. Within

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60 Giovanni Casertano

the framework of this opposition, the common way of thinking is revolutionarily

reversed — today now stands precisely for what “seems”, while tomorrow is said
to be the “being”. As a matter of fact Socrates admits that the characters of the
rulers he has drafted, those of tomorrow, hold nothing of what foday those who
seem happy have (ot eb8aipoveg Soxodvieg, 420a6). At the same time though he
takes on Adeimantus’ challenge, declaring on one hand that a full reply can only
be accomplished at the end of a long discussion (we will find the answer as we
proceed, 420b), and including on the other the perspective his addressee opened,
precisely that of “happiness”, in his reasoning. This perspective, though, is set in
the framework of “having to be” too, that is, of a reality that is not that of today.
It would be no wonder, Socrates argues, if even renouncing private possessions
the guardians could be happy, since — and herein lies precisely the reversal of
the approach considering just what exists as a measure of being — we “build our
city not in order for only one class (€v... €Bvog, 420b6-7) to enjoy a special hap-
piness, but for the whole city (6An 1) moA1g, 420b8) to enjoy the highest possible
happiness, not making some few individuals happy in the city but rather making
the whole city (GAX 6Anv, 420c3-4) happy”.
Plato here is clearly reversing a common way of thinking in his times (and not
only his), understanding the progressive extension of some possibilities, like that
of satisfying one’s needs and this way reaching happiness, in terms of transfer-
ring (“progressively” of course and without a fixed schedule!) those possibilities
from the individual, or few groups of individuals, to the whole city. Whereas,
from Plato’s point of view, only the opposite holds true: it is impossible to proceed
from the individual to the community, while the features of individual lives are
only determined by the organization of the whole city. Happiness as Plato means
it here is, of course, not just the simple satisfaction of primary natural needs but
rather something including the meaning of the very being of individuals in the
community, summed up by Plato in the principle of ta heautou prattein. As the
next lines make clear: we, Socrates argues, also know how to make some potters
happy, letting them eat and drink and telling them to only work when they feel
like it, and the same holds for anyone else, and so we can think we have made
the whole city happy (6An 1) moAig, 420€7; see also 421b6). And if our objec-
tor, he goes on, makes some farmers and banqueters happy, he is talking about
something different from a city, i.e. from that city where each class can take part
in happiness to the extent nature allows it (6nwg éxdotolg 10ig €Bvesty 1) duoLg
anodidwot, 421c4-5).
Within such a perspective, today is in fact marked through the “absence” of
the real city. Plato singles out the two basic evils in today’s city with clear real-
ism: what makes the citizens bad (xaxovg, 421d2) are wealth and poverty (rho-
10¢ kai nevia, 421d4). The former causes luxury (tpudnjv, 422al), the latter lack
of freedom (GvelevBepiav, 422a2-3) and bad deeds (xakoepyiav, 422a3): both
cause social instability (vewtepiopdv, 422a3). In fact today we do not have just
one city (Plato is of course talking about the polis, the city, but we can reasonably

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Plato’s kallipolis: between non being and having to be 61

think of his city as a metaphor of the whole human community), but rather two
cities, enemies to one another: the city of the poor and the city of the rich, and
within each of them there are many others as well (422a-423a).
We know that starting from the Book IV of the Republic Plato sets out that
parallel between the human individual and the city that is strictly functional to
his theory, the misunderstanding of which has been the source of charges of “un-
naturality” or “totalitarianism” and thus marking, from Aristotle down to Popper
and onwards, a whole trend of anti-platonism — but rather than a misunderstand-
ing we should maybe talk about a real ideological rejection. Such parallel is actu-
ally all based on a correct and difficult, but not impossible, coupling of unity and
plurality. Everyone is made up of needs, impulses, desires, anxieties, thoughts,
all different from one another and often opposite to one another. The individual
educational process tries to let everyone develop into one and not many (uf) moh-
Aot GAX el yiywntan, 423d6): just like the whole city has to become unitary, not
manifold (cOpnaca f oA pia dvmtal GAAG pf ToAhai, 423d6). Nevertheless,
such reduction to unity does not imply the sacrifice of some components to oth-
ers, but rather, both in the individual and in the city, the attainment of a “right
measure” (see 423¢6: uétpror Gvdpeg). The merrion is precisely that balance be-
tween the many and different components making one up, that can be attained,
through education, so that each and every side is built into a harmonious unity
that does not sacrifice any of them, but assigns to each the right place and value.
1t is precisely because of this parallel that the question of justice is given a new
sense: now Plato goes on demonstrating extensively and in parallel how justice
in the city (II 368¢-IV 434c) and justice in mankind (IV 434d-445c) can be sum-
marized in the above stated principle of performing one’s own duties (16 & avto
npdrterv, 433b4). If inside each one of us there are (Eveotiv, 435¢2) the same
aspects (gi8n, 435e2) and qualities (f{fm, 435¢2) that can be found in the city, then
the rational quality of the former and the latter will have to rule, i.e. to obtain
the above mentioned harmony: only this quality will be able to achieve the con-
cordance (6pudvolav, 432a7) and the natural agreement (xatd pbo1v cupdmviay,
432a8) of the worst and best qualities on which of the two has the right to rule in
the city, just as in each individual. And if justice was the rule of everyone doing
the things they naturally tend to do, both in mankind and in the city, only the
rational quality succeeds in carrying out an action really involving one’s own
personality and nature (g GAn8dg nepi £autov kol té £avtod, 443d1), setting
a real order (1@ 6vti... xoounoavta, 443d3-4) in one’s own innermost part, and
turning into one’s own master and one’s own friend. This way only one can har-
monize the three parts (yévn, 443d3) of one’s own soul, and after having tied them
all together and “having turned into one from many” (€va... €x moAl@v, 443el),
can act with justice. The same holds for the city. This passage in the Book IV
is fundamental, since it shows us the tight link between knowledge, ethics and
politics, in the framework of an “organic”, “natural” notion of man and mankind,
“friends” with themselves.

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62 Giovanni Casertano

Book V, after having significantly recalled the principle according to which

the things of friends are shared (xoiva ¢ t@v ¢ihwv, 449¢5) — maybe a principle
of Pythagorean origin, but acquiring a range of psychological, ethical and politi-
cal connotations in Plato — also begins with a question, this time by Glaucon. All
the things that have been said can surely sound beautiful, he argues, but there are
many grounds for disbelief (dmiotiag, 450b7): will it ever be possible to realize
this beautiful city? Socrates’ answer will be long and well-constructed and will
practically fill three books from V to VII. I will only underline those aspects re-
lated to the nature of this paper.
Socrates’” answer, built on arguments that look like real “waves” (xiua,
457b7) breaking against common opinions, and not just in his own times (or,
if you like, waves flowing upon the one proposing these novelties), is divided,
as we all know, in three points: proving the need for equal education and duties
for men and women,; proving the need for community between men and women;
proving the need for philosophers to rule the city. All arguments are developed
on a double track that could be called goodness and of possibility, according to a
consistent pattern, that will be used each time to prove that the proposed solution
is simultaneously preferable and feasible.!
The first wave is based on the assumption that women have, compared to
men, equal birth and can thus have equal education (yéveoiv xai tpodtyv, 451d2;
avtiv Tpodnv t€ kai noudeiav, 451e4). One first objection, drawing upon the
ridicule attached to this solution by common opinion, i.e. that the show of naked
women training in a gymnasium together with men is ridiculous, is quickly dis-
missed by Socrates with the statement that we do not have to fear the mocking of
the wits (yapiévtov oxodppata, 452b7): let’s ask them to get serious. Those who
think ridicule is anything other than evil (pdratog dg yeAolov dAlo T fryeltan
fi 10 xax6v, 452d7-8) and those attempting to be funny by attacking some show
other than the display of stupidity and evil (Gdpovog 1€ kol xaxod, 452d8-el) are
superficial. Plato knows too well he is talking against tradition and common us-
age (mapa 10 €60g, 452a7), and goes on to face an objection that seems to be more
critical and significant. The structure of this objection, claiming, by the way, that
the reasoning developed up to this point contradicts itself, is the following: you,
Socrates and Glaucon, agreed that 1) everyone has to only perform their own du-

! Here’s the pattern of the three waves:

1. same duties and education for men and women:
— feasibility: 451d-456c
— goodness: 456¢-457b
1I. community:
- goodness: 457c-466d
(break: 466e-473a)
— feasibility: corresponds to the third wave
I1I. power to philosophers:
— feasibility and goodness: V 473b-VI1I 541b.

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Plato's kallipolis: between non being and having to be 63

ties according to nature (8€iv xatd ¢phorv £xactov éva Ev 10 avtod npdrreLy,
453b5); 2) there is a huge natural difference between man and woman (rapunéiov
Sragéper yuvi) avdpdg tv duoLy, 453b7); 3) it is advisable to also assign to each
of the two a different activity (£pyov, 453b10), i.e. the one corresponding to their
own respective nature (10 xatd v ovtod ¢voty, 453cl); 4) how is it possible
then that you are not mistaken (Gpoptdvere, 453c3) and are not in contradiction
of yourself (tdvavria... Aéyete, 453c3-4), when you claim that men and women
have to perform the same duties, if their natures are different? At first sight it
looks like a serious and legitimate objection, but Socrates ascribes it to the com-
petence of a purely anti-logic technique (§Ovapig tfi dvtihoyikij téyvy, 454al-2),
peculiar to those who think they can discuss (SiaAéyecbat, 454a5), whereas they
only operate eristically (épileiv, 454a5), reducing questions to pure terminol-
ogy (xat atvtd td dvopa, 454a7). Eristic actually consists in not being able to
distinguish the discussed question in its aspects (xot €idn Siaipovpuevor, 454a6)
and to examine it in detail, but rather in trying to contradict playing precisely
on names. The relevant side of what Plato is stating here, and exactly from a
methodological point of view, is that we need to distinguish the word, the name
“nature”, in the different semantic fields in which it is used. We need to clearly
distinguish the identity and the difference of natures (thv abmv xol thv £tépav
dOorv, 454c8). If we are discussing the “different nature” of man and woman
meaning that the female gives birth (tixteiv, 454d10) and the male mounts (0-
XEVELV, 454el), Socrates states brutally enough, then we mean “nature” in a given
sense, we could say a morphological and physiological one; but when we talk
about the “identical nature” of man and woman we refer to something else, that is
to the field of occupations, of the social and political position within the city. So
in the administration of the city there is no difference between man and woman:
there is no occupation that is proper to a woman as @ woman nor to a man as @
man - natural attitudes (ai ¢voeLg, 455d8) are similarly (Opoicwg, 455d8) scattered
between the two sexes. Thus one woman may be a doctor (yovi| iatpixt, 455e6)
and another may not; one woman may be a musician and another may not. There
may be a woman who loves knowledge and one who hates it: from this point of
view man and woman exhibit the same nature (| abt) ¢vorg, 456a10), and to
identical natures (talg avtaig gvoeLg, 456b5-6) identical occupations have to be
assigned. Thus the rules we were setting, Socrates concludes, were neither im-
possible nor similar to utopias (00l Gpora, 456b12; cfr. 450d1), but rather in
accordance with nature (kata ¢vowv, 456¢l): it looks like today, instead, things
happen against nature (1a viv... Tapa ¢vowv, 456¢l-2).
Here again, as we can see, the opposition between today and tomorrow
is found, played out this time, in full agreement with his enemy Antiphon, on
the paradigm of the opposition between nature and culture, ¢boirg £€680g, where,
though, the ethos of today is the one against nature and nature is waiting for its
own realization in a new ethos tomorrow.

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64 Giovanni Casertano

Having solved the question of the possibility of men and women having iden-
tical education and duties, Socrates goes on to demonstrate simply enough the
goodness of this proposal: it is obvious that in the new city the best men and
women will be rulers and in the same way, in the other classes of citizens, men
and women will have to perform duties which their “human nature” and not their
physiological one makes them suited for.
The next wave is bigger than the previous one, though: let these new women
of these new men be all held in common (xowvd, 457d1) and no woman live pri-
vately (i8ig, 457d1) with any man. And let the children too be held in common,
and let the parents not know (ei8évat, 457d2) their children nor the children their
parents. Pages 457c-473a are devoted to the demonstration of the goodness and
feasibility of this solution, but, unlike the demonstrations of the first wave, they
are carried out in parallel, and in tight connection with the demonstration of the
third wave, the one related to philosophers in power — the reason being that they
do depend upon the change already implemented in the city. Only once the po-
litical change is carried out in the city will it be possible to ascertain the actual
goodness of the proposed solutions and they will consequently be feasible, that
is, it will be positively possible to realize them. Given the nature of my paper I
will not address here all the implications of Plato’s reasoning, but I would just like
to recall the way Socrates’ demonstrations bring a complete reversal with them,
reversing not just the being of present, but also the common frame of mind that
expresses its awareness — and this happens consistently with Plato’s methodology
in these books, i.e. always considering the level of the individual and of the com-
munity simultaneously. As we can see, just to mention a single example, on pages
46le-462e, where the interaction and interdependence between the one and the
many, or rather between the part and the whole (be it the individual or the com-
munity), are illustrated in the wonderful example of the man with an aching finger
and in that of the city suffering when just one of its citizens is suffering. Even the
question of the very usage of language that will undergo a complete transforma-
tion due to the transformation of the political and social reality is tackled: the very
words, for instance “mine” and “not mine”, have completely different meanings
in today’s and in tomorrow’s city. More instances and more vivid Platonic images
could be recalled, like those of the ship, of education through noise, of the big
beast, of the little men jumping into philosophy, of human colour and so on, but
we cannot linger on them now.
‘We then come to pages 504-505, where the idea of good emerges. It seems to
be symbolically set in a framework of questions and answers, though, building
up, in a kind of “movie-like” cut, a range of flash-forwards rather than flashbacks,
i.e. a series of oppositions, not between today and yesterday but between today
and tomorrow. The answer to the question of which of today’s constitutions suits
the nature of philosophy (¢1Aocopov dpucewmg, 497b2) is: none, only ours — that
is, the non existing one, tomorrow’s, the one we have only built through our dis-
course for the moment. And which way must the city handle philosophy, in order

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Plato's kallipolis: between non being and having to be 65

not to perish (497d8-9)? Today indeed, the youngsters begin to be “educated” in

philosophy but then, after they have come close to its “most difficult part” (@
xaAemawtato, 498a2), they leave it: and it is exactly these who end up being re-
garded as the greatest philosophers (o1 ¢tAocoddrtator, 498a2-3). The “most dif-
ficult part” of philosophy is of course dialectics (Aéyw 3¢ yalerdratov 10 mepi
ToUg Adyoucg, 498a3), which is considered just a pastime (napepyov, 498a6) roday.
While romorrow, in our city, youngsters will receive an education and have a
philosophy (raideiav xai grhocodiav, 498b4) suited to their youth, and this will
consist in taking a lot of care of their bodies, thus effectively helping (bnnpeoiav,
498b6) philosophy, with no duties other than in the shape of pastimes (rdpepyov,
498c2), if they have to live happily. As it is clear, the counterpoint between today
and tomorrow is accurate and the note sounding “off-key” in one mode, such as,
for instance, the parergon, becomes perfect in the other, and vice versa.
Today, it is no surprise our words cannot persuade the majority of people,
since they have never seen a man ruling a city like ours. Since today the real
philosopher truly turns his thought to the realm of Being (aGAn8dx npog toig ob
o1 Suavoiav €xovrt, 500b8-9) and has no free time to look down to the things of
men (gig avBponwv npaypateiag, 499b9-cl). Tomorrow though, when he will
be forced to translate in human letters (gig avBpanwv 1in, 500d5) the objects of
his visions, he will not be restrained to just shape himself, but will be creating
moderation, justice and all other virtues for all. We see the reversal goes on: what
looks like a negative feature today, will be a positive one tomorrow; what looks
like positive today, will at most be a parergon compared to what really counts.
We cannot ignore the firm and revolutionary Platonic belief underlying this whole
“sonata and variations”: only a solid mastery of good theory yields good praxis,
private and public, and the opposite does not hold true, since the latter is not pos-
sible without the former.
Here comes a new image, the one of the activity producing images par excel-
lence: drawing (Siaypadn, S01al) — how do we draw tomorrow’s city? Once we
have taken the city and human qualities as if they were a board (rivaxa, 501a2),
1) first it will have to be made pure (xaBapdv, 501a3); 2) then they will lay out
the scheme of the constitution; 3) then, by mixing and toning colours down, they
will create the human colour (10 dv8peixelov, 501b5)? from the different occu-
pations, that will have divine appearance and will be similar to gods; 4) and they
will erase and paint again until they have created human qualities (1ién, 501cl) as
beloved by the gods as possible. This new “chromatic finding” presented here by
Plato correctly shows the action pattern of philosophers, not really “disengaged”
and with their head in the clouds. It is a metaphor of the real revolutionary politi-
cal action: first purify the city, once the power is taken, from the wickedness and
mischievous, then lay out the scheme of the new constitution and then, through

2 From eixelog (Eorxa), similar; w0 av8peixelov implying ypdua = colour of flesh.

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66 Giovanni Casertano

many efforts of negotiation and political action, draft the future mankind that has
to begin living in the new city (the metonymy of “human colour” is so beauti-
ful!); finally, trying again and again, never stop until the restraints and persua-
sions® they have exerted on citizens have led to the building up of human qualities
“naturally” able to live in the city beloved by the gods.
Persuasion of words, persuasion of painting: if men are not completely fool-
ish (501c9), they will not be able to object that philosophers do not love truth
(dAnBeiog épaotdg, 501d1-2), that their nature is not akin to what is the best. And
they will not get angry anymore when we state that citizens will not get rid of
evils before the stock of philosophers takes possession of the city (cfr. 473d, 499b)
and before the constitution we define as a myth in our discourse will be fully real-
ized () moArteia fiv puboioyoiuev Aéyw épyw téhog AMyetar, 501e4-5). Then, if
aruler orders (see 502b7: dpyovrog... TLBévTog) those laws we described, it is not
impossible that citizens agree on obeying them: thus we can say our rules are ex-
cellent, if feasible, difficult but not impossible. But how will the defenders of the
city be educated? This question, as Socrates explicitly states, forces one to treat
the issue related to rulers “almost as a leader” (donep £ apyfic peterBeiv 3€i,
502e2): they need to be tested among pleasures and pains and not to get caught
rejecting their own belief (10 86ypa, 503a2). Those coming out of these tests like
gold tasted by fire, will be made men of government. This we were saying earlier
with stealthy and disguised words (RopegLovTog kol napaxaluntouévov Adyou,
503a8-bl), while we now dare state openly that the most conscientious guardians
have to be philosophers. They need to be tested like gold to see whether their na-
ture is able to face the highest disciplines (pabfpata péyiota, 504a3) and most
of all, the highest discipline and its object (6 péyiotov pdénpa xai nepi 61 avrd
Aéyerg, 504e4-5): the highest discipline is precisely the Form of the Good (f 100
dyaBot idéa, 505a2).

(Translated by Silvia Casertano)

3 Think of the harmonization of citizens through persuasion and force in Book VII (ouvappot-
T0v... nE1B01 1€ Xal dvaykn, 519¢3-4).

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Hector Benoit

Democracy in Plato
Brasilia, poets and founders of cities

This lecture is meant to show, or at least indicate (within our constraints of

space), the unfairness, to a great extent, of two of the most celebrated accusa-
tions against Plato, two accusations that are widely disclosed by the long western
interpretative tradition. Firstly, that Plato was an enemy of poets and secondly,
that Plato was an enemy of democracy. The axes of our discussion, as seen from
the title and the summary above, is the founding of cities, the evaluation of de-
mocracy, and the poets’ role in these two elements: the cities’ foundation and de-
mocracy. It seems to us that, in the face of this subject matter, we must not forget
Brasilia, a poetically founded city.
Let us begin with the following question: is Plato an enemy of democracy and
poets? “Yes, certainly, Plato was an enemy of democracy and poets™ would be the
immediate answer from an almost two and a half thousand-year-old dominant
tradition.
However, should we read the “Dialogues” as dialogues (and not as mono-
logues or monographies), we find that it becomes rather difficult to sustain that
position. Indeed, in the Republic, several passages show the character of Socrates
criticizing the then standing Athenian democracy, the then existing poets. We
would like to limit ourselves particularly to this cited passage that begins in Book
I1, 378e8 from the Republic. In this passage, Adeimantus, in the face of Socrates’
criticisms of the poets and even of Homer, asks in detail about what myths should
be told to children. Socrates then answers, precisely: “You and I, Adeimantus, at
this moment are not poets, but founders of a State (oixiotal TéAewS)”.
Earlier in Book II Socrates initiates the project of the hypothetical construc-
tion of a State. Since 369b5 Socrates affirms that the State, the polis, does not
owe its birth to men’s autarchy: one needs another to survive and so the State
or polis arises, precisely, out of the needs of mankind, as man needs others to
survive,
The Republic’s unfolding is well-known: in order to solve the fifth century
Athenian State’s contradictions, one does not look into the future; on the con-
trary, one dreams of a restoration! The restoration of a glorious past of the State
of Athens is sought, a project that is well described in the Timaeus and Critias,
presented as occurring on the day after the Republic and having Critias as one of
its main characters, the tyrant-to-be. According to the Timaeus 17 a-b, it is clear

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68 Hector Benoit

that the Republic was narrated on the previous day to Critias, Timaeus and Her-
mocrates. As we know it, the government of the so-called “Thirty Tyrants”, which
toppled democracy and harshly ruled Athens between 404-403, was governed by
Critias and Charmides, both of whom were Plato’s relatives and Socrates’ dis-
ciples. They were also, to a certain extent, accessories to the Republic’s political
project, a project to restore a semi-Asian past to Greece and, mainly, a virtuous
proto-historic Athens, which may have existed millions of years ago. According
to Timaeus 20c-27b, see the Critias’ fascination with the project of the Republic
and his identification of such a project with the distant past of Athens. Similarly,
in the dialogue Critias, this character recounts in detail the hypothetical Athens
from the past and the fantastic lost civilization of Atlantis.
‘Well, would this theory of the Republic be the last political theory manifested
in the dialogues? We do not believe that! The western interpretative tradition,
nonetheless, has “frozen” and consecrated the political theory in the Republic as
being Plato’s ultimate political theory. We do not think that this is in accordance
with the Dialogues texts.
According to the Letter VII, Plato himself, despite having been called to take
part in the Thirty Tyrants’ government, refused it, and even Socrates did not sub-
mit to Critias’ orders, which caused him to be threatened with the death penalty
even at that time.
However, before Socrates’ death in 399, new characters in appeared in the
Dialogues: distinguished among them is the Eleatic Stranger (in the Sophist and
the Statesman). After the bitter experiences in 304-303 and further debate, the
Dialogues go off on a new track.
Undoubtedly, the introduction of the notion of the “non-being” in the Sophist
dialogue is also related to a reformulation and reconsideration of the still Par-
menidean Socratic project, which is associated with the idea of absolute identity.
In this dialogue, a split in the concept of identity — at least a relative one — is intro-
duced, opening the road to rethinking alterity and, thus, democracy itself. In the
Statesman, the Eleatic Stranger clearly initiates a recovery of the notion of alterity
in the political sense as well: to acknowledge the importance of the other is to
acknowledge that democracy — within imperfect governments where no political
science has been found — may be the best or the most bearable of governments,
the way to live.
Finally, in Laws, considered to be Plato’s last dialogue, we see the exten-
sive return of democracy. The leading character, called the ‘Athenian’, does not
propose a cast of wise guardians to rule the government. Instead, he proposes a
clear superior recovery of the Greek democracy itself as the project for the future
polis.
We shall, in fact, found new cities, the Athenian affirms, but his politi-
cal plan is all based on a society of councils elected directly in assemblies by
raised hands. Thus, in this direct form, the captains of light troops, or archers,
or any other division of the army would be appointed — all soldiers would

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Democracy in Plato Brasilia, poets and founders of cities 69

appoint their own captains by raised hands. Evidently, only this form of con-
stituting the military command would alter the correlation of political power
itself. In addition, similar democratic processes are suggested for the State’s
main ruling offices.
Curiously — contrary to Nietzsche's celebrated view that accuses not only So-
crates, but also Plato of Dionysus’ death — Books I and II of the Laws are precisely
dedicated to Dionysus, praising this god and his Bacchian rite associated with
wine. Detailed preparations for the feasts and Dionysus’ choir are to be found in
the following books of this dialogue as essential elements of the constitution of
the council’s democracy.
Well, all of these non-Socratic assertions that arise from the reading of the
Sophist, Statesman and Laws demand reflection! Against what is said in the
prevailing western tradition, we find in Plato’s dialogues — including Laws — a
theorization of an imminent power that emerges from the processes of direct
democracy; we also find a long defense of Dionysus and his feasts, in which the
whole city comes out into the streets of the polis, proving its unity and concrete
universality.
As for these elements, could we not begin to ponder and question: to what
extent are there elements that point to the end of the so-called “western metaphys-
ics” in Plato’s dialogues, read and understood as dialogues? Or still: could Plato
really be the founder of such metaphysics? Or yet, conversely: could Plato not
have been the start of the end of metaphysics, still at its beginning?
All of these intuitions may arise, undoubtedly, from the Dialogues them-
selves when read as dialogues. But, in this sense, Plato would not be the perse-
cutor of poets and Dionysus, not the enemy of democracy, but, on the contrary,
he who takes Socrates’ saying of “You and I [...] are not poets, but founders of a
State” most seriously.
‘We return, thus, to our main enunciation: “You and I [...] are not poets, but
founders of a State”.
The Dialogues — when read as dialogues — unveil works in which poetry and
the logos are not only words, but eminent textures inseparable from the lives of
men in cities.
But, upon saying that, we can undoubtedly also ask: would Socrates him-
self not have intended to be more of a poet than Homer and Hesiod? Would the
founder of a city not be more of a poet than the poet himself, a mere versifier? As
we know it, both Solon and even Critias, in addition to being founders of cities,
were also poets.
Would it not be the case of inverting the expression? That is, would not the
true poets be precisely those who found cities?
When Socrates said “You and I [...] are not poets, but founders of a State”, he
was actually raising poetry to an act far beyond the tracing or uttering of words.
For him it was not about pronouncing or putting beautiful words together, but
rather about accomplishing beautiful and glorious acts that restored the Greeks’

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70 Hector Benoit

original epic, which then had already been lost and were only nostalgically re-
membered by Homer’s verses. In this sense, Socrates already intended to get be-
yond Homer and Hesiod: to found cities that were verses themselves!
Would this not be the real “inversion” of metaphysics? Or, as Deleuze put
it, the “renversement” of metaphysics? In Logigue du sens, after having studied
passages of the Sophist dialogue, Deleuze asks himself if Plato was not the one
who initiated the “renversement” of metaphysics. Some evidence in the same di-
rection may be found in Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and even
in the Science of Logic, in which Hegel acknowledges Plato as being the father of
dialectics and states that his form of dialectics have rambled unnoticed for over
two thousand years.
But let us get back to our main question of poets and founders of cities. In the
face of what we have previously affirmed, how could we fail to remind ourselves
of Lucio Costa, Niemeyer, and Le Corbusier? Le Corbusier, the great master of
modern architecture, not coincidentally, wrote a manifesto (in 1933) titled the
Athens Charter. He was in Brazil in the 30’s when he met Oscar Niemeyer, who
was still young and a pupil of Lucio Costa, a then renowned architect and follower
of Le Corbusier.
Undoubtedly, Brasilia is a planned city and in this sense is reminiscent of the
notion of the planned polis that courses through Cleisthenes’ projects — at the end of
the sixth century BC —, Socrates’ projects in the Republic, and those of the Athenian
in the Laws. Brasilia is a city inspired — as it was throughout the whole modernist
movement — by the Greek polis and indirectly by the Republic and the Laws.
It is crucial to remember Le Corbusier’s discussion with Russian architects
during the 1930’s. In the face of the Soviet project of erasing the difference be-
tween country and city, the modernist master warned: beware, do not intend to
de-urbanize. Do not dream of a return to the country for itself. Without the cities,
without urban agglomerations, there would be no conversations, dialogues, there
would be no Plato or Socrates, nor would Dialogues or Philosophy exist.
Brasilia is — or was originally - a planned city, a polis founded in the middle
of South America’s backlands, a city which, in a way, is Platonic.
There is Plato inside Brasilia, we can say, in a parody of the poet Fernando
Pessoa who said “there is Plato inside the machines”. However, there is high and
great poetry in planned cities since the Republic, the Laws and Brasilia.
With Le Corbusier in mind, Lucio Costa, Niemeyer and, above all, remem-
bering Plato — who is at least partially guilty of all this superior poetry — we think
that we should invert Socrates’” expression — “You and I [...] are not poets, but
founders of a State”. On the contrary, we may say: the founders of cities are the
true poets and creators.
In this sense, I allow myself to recall some verses by poets about Brasilia’s
founders, Niemeyer and Lucio Costa. These are some excerpts from Sinfonia
da Alvorada — O Homem (Alvorada’s Symphony — The Man), by Antonio Carlos
Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes:

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Democracy in Plato Brasilia, poets and founders of cities 71

...como uma flor naquela terra agreste e solitdria...

...like a flower in that rough and solitary land...
Uma cidade erguida em plena soliddo do descampado.
A city raised in the plain solitude of the open field.
...COMo uma mensagem permanente de graga e poesia...
... like a permanent message of grace and poetry...
...Uma cidade que ao sol vestisse um vestido de noivado.
...A city that under the Sun would dress in a wedding gown.
...em que a arquitetura se destacasse branca, como que flutuando na imensa escu-
riddo do planalto...
...in which architecture sticks out white, as if floating on the immense darkness of
the plateau...
...Uma cidade que de dia trabalhasse alegremente... numa atmosfera de digna
monumentalidade...
...a city in which by day one would work happily... in a monumentally worthy at-
mosphere...
E d noite, nas horas do langor e da saudade... numa luminagdo feérica e dramdti-
ca... dormisse no Paldcio da Alvorada!
And at night, in the hours of languor and nostalgia... under a fairylike and dramatic
lighting. .. would sleep the Alvorada Palace!
Uma cidade de homens felizes, homens que sintam a vida em toda a sua plenitude,
em toda a sua fragilidade; homens que compreendam o valor das coisas puras...
A city of happy men, of men who feel life in all its plenitude, in all its frailty; men
who understand the value of pure things...
E que fosse como a imagem do Cruzeiro. No coragdo da pdtria derramada.
And which was like the image of the cross. Right in the heart of the poured land.
Now, to conclude our tribute to the poet-creators of Brasilia, founders of a
city, it is appropriate to remember Lucio Costa, who elaborated the pilot plan for
the polis: “it was born of the primary gesture of one who marks or takes pos-
session of a place: two axes crossing at right-angles; the very sign of the cross”
(Picture 1).
Some writers, such as Malraux, have even compared the columns of the Al-
vorada Palace to the Greek columns. Afraid of what the military dictatorship
could turn Brasilia into, Le Corbusier heard from Malraux: “beautiful ruins they
will be” (Picture 2).
The city of Brasilia may have been built before its time, but it paves the way
to the future. As true poets, Niemeyer and Lucio Costa prophetized a possible
future.
Brasilia is a poetic and Platonic work. Its poetry, though in ruins, though
filled with favelas (shanty towns), elucidates that sentence in the Dialogues: “You
and I [...] are not poets, but founders of a polis™.

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72 Hector Benoit

Picture 1
Original line by Lucio Costa, the urbanist in charge of Brasilia’s city plan.

Picture 2
Niemeyer’s sketches. In this drawing, the architect who projected the main
public office buildings of Brasilia demonstrates the universal character of the
Alvorada palace (the third one from left to right) comparing its columns to those
of other eras of western civilization.
The design of the city is structured upon two crossing axes that form the sign
of the cross.

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Marcelo Carvalho

The language, the philosopher and the city

The conception of truth as a relationship between /ogos and being presup-

poses an arduous process of construction, in particular in its supposition that
language presents itself as an image of the world, in which it may or may not
be represented in an adequate form. This process of construction has its central
moment in the later dialogues of Plato and it is already fully elaborated in the
Sophist, from which will unfold the Aristotelian logic and its conception of truth
as correspondence between language and the world that it represents.
Thus, in the context that precedes the Sophist (this is particularly relevant in
the case of the Cratylus) and, in a broader view, in the context prior to Platonism,
we find the truth conceived in terms that are very different from those of Aris-
totle. On the one hand, the use of the concept appears to be associated with an
ontological content (and it is possible, then, to speak of “truer” and “less true” as
something associated with “degrees of reality”). On the other hand, when it deals
with the relation between truth and Jogos, this is presented closer to the concept
of effectiveness than of correspondence, which is, in fact, more pertinent in a
context marked by orality, as is the case in pre-Socratic Greece. The rupture with
these uses of the concept of truth presupposes the constitution of an ontology and
of a conception of logos that would only be concluded in the context of Platonic
philosophy.
Thus Platonism presents itself as a fight for the establishment of a new concept
of truth (the one explained in the Sophist) where the orality of the previous con-
text and its relation to the effectiveness of speech is dissociated from the concept
of truth, to which, inversely, it becomes the opposite. The truth of speech would
not be evinced by its acceptance, but, rather, it is presented as a relation between
language and being, something that the common man would find difficult to un-
derstand and accept. Philosophy’s and the philosopher’s new identity established
by the Platonism plays a central role in this presupposition. Part of this exercise
and this debate is addressed in the context of the Theaetetus (amid the Platonic
movement of constituting a new concept of truth), by means of its curious charac-
terization of wisdom and philosophy, as well as its relation to the city.
In the Theaetetus, during the debate of the Protagorean thesis of the man
measure, Socrates proposes a digression to Theodorus and, in the middle of this,
presents an anecdote in which Thales is looking at the sky, and observing the
stars while walking, falls in a hole.

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74 Marcelo Carvalho

Some pert minx of a Thracian slave-girl mocked him for it: “he’s so keen to
know what is in the heavens,” she said, “that he has no idea what is at his feet right
in front of him” (174a).
The same narrative appears in Aesop, in a version that cites an astronomer
instead of a philosopher, which is possibly previous to Plato’s version,' and which
also appears in Diogenes Laertius. Aesop’s version is presented as a criticism of
those who “glorify themselves of its particularity but are not capable of carry-
ing through not even what is common to men”; therefore, it is a criticism to the
distracted astronomer. The version presented in the Theaetetus does not have this
view. The anecdote narrated by Socrates characterizes the philosopher in oppo-
sition to the questions of practical life, from which even the Thracian slave can
laugh at him, a laugh that subverts the hierarchy of knowledge and that presents
the philosopher as a fool in front of the enslaved girl. Thus, those wise and versed
in the most elevated questions appear ridiculous when confronted with the prob-
lems of daily life.
The narrative does not present, however, a specific non-adjustment of Thales;
it is the expression of an incongruency between the wise (and, with it, all the
knowledge and, therefore, all of philosophy) and daily life of the polis. In fact, in
the context where it is placed, the anecdote is part of the long exercise of charac-
terizing the philosopher and its non-adjustment to public spaces that define the
identity of the city: the court, the square, the market. In the middle of this descrip-
tion Socrates comments on the ridicule expressed in the narrative about Thales.
The same mockery extends to all those who spend their time on philosophy.
It is perfectly true that a philosophical man has no awareness of the next man, or
of his neighbor. He is oblivious not only of what that neighbor does, but almost
of whether he was raised as a human being or some other sort of animal. The
philosophical man’s interest and strenuous inquiry is rather directed toward the
essence of being human, and toward asking about the active and passive charac-
teristics of human nature, as distinct from other natures (174a).
Already at the beginning of the digression, Socrates affirms that the philo-
sophical man has never known the way to the market-place, or the court of law or
the council chamber, or any other of the civic assemblies. The philosophical man
does not attend the debating of bills and resolutions (173c).
The reference to Thales in this context is intriguing. He would seem the last
candidate for this characterization. Herodotus says that Thales had advised the
Ionians on the organization of its deliberative assembly and on the structure of
the relations between the diverse cities and, further still, that he is thought to have
diverted the course of the Halys river for the passage of an army.? Aristotle af-
firms that Thales foresaw a large olive crop by means of his astronomical studies,

! Cf. Lima (2004, 47 f).

2 Cf. Kirk — Raven — Schofield (1983, 66 f.).

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The language, the philosopher and the city 75

consequently leased lands in Chios and Miletus at a low price and later could sub-
let them at a significant profit, “demonstrating that it is easy for the philosophers
to be rich, if they wish™? In contrast to the image of the philosopher presented
in the digression, foreign to the city or in opposition to it, these references show
their full importance to the city. More than this, his affirmation as a wise man
has a central characteristic. It would be difficult to conceive of a wise man such
as Thales opening himself up to ridicule by dealing with the subjects of the city.
We have here, then, even in the Aristotelian narrative, subsequent to the Theaete-
tus’, echoes of a type of characterization of the wise man that seems common to
the pre-Socratic context, where aptitude and knowledge brings social influence
and recognition, or rather, and this is the point, where there is no contradiction
between knowledge and its public recognition.
In a similar way, Diogenes Laertius reports that Pythagoras immigrated to
Italy and there legislated for the Italians and attained a reputation, having his
pupils in the administration of the state. Even Parmenides, “father” of the Pla-
tonic conception of logos, despite having died in the “parricide” announced in
the Sophist, according to Laertius, created admirable laws to which the citizens
annually swore allegiance and whose interventions helped Zeno, the city of Elea,
be well governed.* Similar characterizations could be presented about many other
pre-Socratics, enabling us to say that in this context the recognition of wisdom by
the city would not constitute an exception. There are, certainly, exceptions, and
Anaxagoras is the principal among them, beyond the particularity that character-
izes the eccentricity associated with Heraclitus. However, the characterization
of the wise man in the pre-Socratic context seems to be established in distinct
terms.’
What can one laugh at, then, in the anecdote presented in the Theaetetus, in
which a slave laughs at the great wise man? Why the reference to Thales, which
seems so inadequate, and which is the link between this subject and the refutation
of Protagoras, which occurs in the middle of the dialogue? And how to reconcile
this characterization of the philosopher with the conception presented in the Re-
public? In contrast to what is said by many of the commentators of the Theaete-
tus, such as J. McDowell, who affirms that the digression on the philosopher and
the city exerts the role that would fit in a footnote in a modern text, the hypothesis
presented here, on the relation of the philosopher to the city, is that the digression
plays a central role in the debate on Protagoras’s thesis and in the discussion about
the novelty presented by the Platonic conception of wisdom and philosophy.
The digression presents a basic step in the argument of the Theaetetus. In
it, we find the nucleus of the construction of a new conception of wisdom and a
new characterization of the wise man, which will make it possible for Socrates

3 Cf. ibid., 75.

4 Cf. ibid,, 340 f.
5 Cf. Detienne (1967, chap. 1).

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76 Marcelo Carvalho

to present the Truth of Protagoras as an appearance of knowledge, but not true

knowledge, rather than its recognition as such by the city.
This new conception of wisdom is established in opposition to the long tradi-
tion that precedes Plato, and, through it, the image of the philosopher will be dis-
tanced from the image of the sophist, as well as from the poets and other images
of wisdom present in the ancient Greek tradition. The perspective of a rupture
is identified exactly in a certain “inefficacy™ of philosophical discourse, as con-
ceived by Plato, when placed in the context of the debates that occur in court and
similar places, whose identity lays in the immediate purpose of the actions and in
the measured time of the speech, and which, in this context, has as the extreme
opposite, the effectiveness of sophistic speech.
In fact, the Theatetus is presented as a dialogue on knowledge even before the
first debate on the definition of knowledge. The thesis that “knowledge is percep-
tion” is linked to the doctrines of both Protagoras and Heraclitus and contextual-
izes the dialogue as a work on wisdom and knowledge (145d-¢)°
Soc. Isn’t learning getting wiser about whatever it is you learn?
Theaet. Yes, of course.
Soc. And it is by wisdom, I think, that the wise are wise
Theaet. Yes.
Soc. And does this differ in any way from knowledge?
Theaet. Does what differ?
Soc. Wisdom. Aren’t people wise about the same things as they are knowledgeable
about?
Theaet. Of course.
Soc. Then, knowledge and wisdom are the same thing?
Theaet. Yes.
In this way, the debate about knowledge that determines the structure of the
Theaetetus, is also a debate about wisdom and about who would be wise man. The
treatment of the conception of Protagoras, initiated after that, has as one of its
nuclei precisely the characterization of the wise man and the value of his speech.
Protagoras is continuously called very wise (152b-c), but this is done to prepare
the main objection of Socrates: the self-contradiction in which Protagoras possibly
gets involved (and which he refuses) when he affirms himself as wise and, at the
same time, affirms man as the measure. Socrates’ objection, which after a long
passage will be, finally, responsible for Protagoras’ refutation, is the following:
Suppose we agree that whatever opinion anyone forms on the basis of perception
is true for him. Then no one will be a better judge of someone else’s experience the
experiencer himself, and no one will be better qualified to judge whatever anyone’s
opinion is correct or false than the holder of that opinion. Instead, as we keep saying,
each person will be the sole judge of his judgments. And each person will judge that
his own judgments are all correct and true. In each case, my friend, how on earth can
Protagoras be wise? If “every person is the measure of his own wisdom”, how can it
be right to say that Protagoras is so wise that he can teach others for huge fees? Or
that we are less wise, and need to go to him for lessons? (161d)

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The language, the philosopher and the city 77

Protagoras’ reply associates wisdom with the discourse that acts on people
and that transforms them, that changes their perception and the nature of what
they see. Therefore, wisdom cannot be dissociated from the public context where
this effect proceeds. To make a parody of a modern argument, this could perhaps
be said about the impossibility, in Protagoras’ perspective, of a “private knowl-
edge” and of a “private wisdom”. In the words of Plato, Protagoras’s defense
is equivalent to the reaffirmation of the distinction between being and seeming
good and true:
I am very far from saying that wisdom and the wise man do not exist. Rather, I say
that the wise man is the one who can transform one of us to whom bad things are and
appear, so that good things are and appear to him (166d).
The wise man is the one who can bring about that what is and appears just and honor-
able to each such city, is [really] beneficial to them, not really harmful (167c).
The contrary position that is thus drawn — between knowing and the appear-
ance of knowledge — has its foundation, therefore, in the concept of knowledge
that defines itself by reference to the truth (conceived as a relation of adequacy
between speech and being) and another that defines itself by its effectiveness and
persuasion in the context of city life.
We do not intend here to make an inquiry into the intricate and skillful strat-
egy adopted by Plato in his contrary stance to the “relativism” of Protagoras,
which proceeds by the construction of successive situations where Protagoras,
through a game of masks, is led to contradict himself in “action”, to disapprove
his own procedures and, finally, to refuse his own conceptions. After all, as
Aristotle will say in Book IV of Metaphysics (1009a), it would not be possible to
prove the principle of contradiction and, in Protagoras’ case, situated between
those that argue only for the love of argument, persuasion is not enough: in this
case it is necessary compulsion, it is necessary to refute them in speech and
words.
But it must be observed that, in this context, the proper invitation to the di-
gression, made by Socrates and accepted by Theodorus, is part of the movement
of affirmating their distance from the sophistic procedures. In fact, the free time,
the schole, presupposed for this exercise, is exactly the characteristic element of
the philosophy, in opposition to the speech in a measured time, characteristic of
the controversies of the courts.
In the description of the philosopher presented in the digression, the possible
existence of schole is the element that more distinctively defines the identity of
the different kinds of discourses proposed. The philosopher is the one who has
“free time (schole) to talk in peace”.
Philosophical men are just like us. If they are more interested in a subsequent argu-
ment than an earlier one, they pursue it. They do not care about the length or brevity
of the argument, provided only that, through it, they hit on what is (Gv pévov Toxwor
oD 6vrog) (172d).

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78 Marcelo Carvalho

Their only purpose is the truth and the form of the speech is adjusted to this aim.
In opposition to this we have the speech of the court, whose purpose is imme-
diate persuasion and which is regulated by the procedures of the context in which
it is placed: they speak in a measured time.
The man of rhetoric’s discourse is always about another slave, and always addressed
to a Slave Master, which sits over them while a specific case is in hand. The issues
that the man of rhetoric contests are always personalized: the issue is always himself,
indeed often his very life is the prize for which he runs. All these factors leave the
man fine-tuned to a sharp-witness that knows how to flatter the Slave Master with
words and win his favor with deeds (172e-173a).
The reference to the truth unfolds in the requirement of schole and the incom-
patibility of the philosophical discourse with the court, the agora, the spaces of
public debate, and, thus, in the dissociation between knowledge and its recogni-
tion, the wise and the public personality, the orator: the philosophical discourse
is ineffective. Or rather: wisdom no longer is related to the effectiveness of the
speeches, but to their relation to the truth, as theory.
The opposition between free time and the measured time of the courts un-
folds in another inversion, also related to the narrative about Thales, according to
which those who speak with measured time are identified with slaves. Some are
brought up in true freedom and leisure [schole]: the one you call a philosopher.
The others receive “education of slaves” and do not know
how to strike the right note as a free spirit should, still less how to play his part in the
harmony of arguments, so as to give due praise to the true life of deities and humans
(175d).
By means of this new set of associations, Plato breaks with the previous im-
age of the wise man. The reference to Thales is strategic: it proposes to identify
in this traditional figure of the wise man what it presents as essential, namely,
according to Plato, the search for a truth that distances itself from the roles of
daily life — this looking to the stars, perhaps to the clouds —, which causes him
to be ridiculed by the slave girl solely for being distinguished for the mere ap-
pearance of knowledge that could be present in the market. The anecdote plays a
central role in this dispute of characterizing the identity of the wise man and for
the consequent refusal of the presumption of wisdom attributed to Protagoras.
Perhaps we have here, associated with Socrates’ figure and with the inefficacy of
his speech in the context of the city — from the ridicule displayed in the Clouds
to his condemnation for impiety —, the central moment in the construction of a
certain philosophical conception that supports itself on the rupture between truth
and practice or action.
The position presented in the Theaetetus’ digression, briefly sketched here, is
established from a curious inversion: it is in the limited time that efficient speech
occurs. The scarcity results in the force of persuasion, and not in its weakness.
After all, the strategies that lead to the construction of the appearance of knowl-

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The language, the philosopher and the city 79

edge would have a place only in the context in which the long arduous search
for truth could not occur. But this stance, in the radically dichotomous form in
which it is presented to us, is possible only because speech, as it is carried out in
the limited time as preparatory or preambular to the truth, is not conceivable. Do
not conceive of it as an incompleteness (as it would be in the interpretation of the
narrative by Aesop), but as the inverse of the truth. It is not about asking for more
time: the truth is essentially ineffective in the space of the city. What we find in
the court is not an incomplete exercise of inquiry, as opposed to a complete one,
conducted by the philosopher. They are discourses of a distinct nature, the result
of a position between the immediate objectives and followed by each of them: the
search for the truth in opposition to the transformation of how we see the world.
Again, as in all the passages considered here, we glimpsed that which is the
novelty behind the conception of wisdom presented in the digression of the The-
aetetus — and that places the wise man apart from the figure of the poet, the legis-
lator, the orator and any another individual present in the city: a new conception
of logos that unfolds within this new characterization of knowledge, and which
moves away from the soil of human actions and presents itself as a view from
high above the world.
The difficulties here are numerous, because we cannot forget that our vocabu-
lary on this subject is deeply marked by Platonic heritage: more than to present a
characterization of the efficacy or inefficacy of the discourse in the context of the
city, it seems more adequate to speak of a /ogos conceived as action in the context
of the city, and of other conception of /ogos, elaborated by Plato, which has no re-
lation to the context of the actions — one that proposes itself as a representation of
the world, as it is said in the Cratylus, and that, as such, puts itself above the world,
measuring it from outside and intervening in it only indirectly:
The truth is that only his body is positioned and stationed in the city. His understand-
ing thinks that things like those just mentioned are petty nothings and he condemns
them. In Pindar’s phrase, his understanding is “in all directions born”, “even under
the earth” — and on it, when he is doing geometry; and “beyond the utmost heaven”
in astronomy. For the philosophical man investigates the whole nature of each single
thing that exists in every respect; and yet he never condescends to what is in front of
him (173¢).
We have here a new conception of discourse, difficult to apprehend in its
radical novelty in the context where it is placed, which is no longer considered a
relation between people, but rather a correspondence with what is considered a
true or false representation.
This conception of logos has as its counterpart, therefore, the characteriza-
tion of the truth as an adequate image of the world, as a property of the discourse,
as it is established in the Sophist and, later, in the Prior Analytics of Aristotle, so
that the dispute of the concept of wisdom is also a dispute about the character-
ization of language and the concept of truth. In this new context established by
Plato, truth will not have an immediate relationship to practical life. Knowledge

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80 Marcelo Carvalho

and the appearance of knowledge are opposed, but, more than this, truth is pre-
sented as something hidden and distant, known only to a few and even to those,
only after arduous exercise. As a result, it will not be recognized by men of the
courts, the non-philosophers, when they are placed before it — and in this regard
they would not be differentiated from the Thracian slave. The slave and the city
who laugh at the philosopher only affirm their lack of knowledge and freedom,
since they let themselves are led by the appearances. The truth is not recognized
as truth, the good is not recognized as good, the philosopher is not recognized
as wise, and this situation, in the end, cannot be eliminated (cf. 176a) the reason
being, according to Socrates, that it is necessary to run towards the higher things
as soon as possible.
Only the separation between discourse and action, between thinking and
practical life, makes this new picture presented here possible, i.e., of an ineffec-
tive truth in the context of the city’s public relations.

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Marcelo D. Boerl

The cosmic city

and the Stoic conception of rationality *

1
It is sometimes suggested that Stoic cosmopolitanism was the philosophical
translation of the existing state of affairs after the collapse of the classic Greek
polis. According to this approach, with the arrival of the Macedonian Empire,
the polis definitely ends up transforming itself into a kosmopolis, and individuals
stop being politai and become kosmopolitai. The Hellenistic philosophers would
have been in a particularly hard situation due to the external circumstances, espe-
cially because of the loss of political self-determination produced by the advance
of the Macedonians first, as well as the kingships of Alexander’s successors later
on. In this view, philosophy would have accompanied this process by moving
from purely theoretical interests (typical during the classic period) to practical
interests, and yielding in this change a sort of divorce between ethics and politics.
In this contrasting view between the classical period — exemplified by Plato and
Aristotle— and the Hellenistic period — by Epicureanism and Stoicism~ it is sug-
gested that the Platonic and Aristotelian political theories were the first genuine
political theories of antiquity and also the last one.! This kind of assessment, I
submit, in spite of having been maintained by distinguished historians both of
Greek philosophy and of antiquity in general, is part of the commonplace that, as
every generalization, can contain a core of truth. However, if analysed in more
detail in the texts of the philosophers who gave life to the new philosophical ideas
of Hellenism, these views can reveal themselves to be not entirely true or at least
highly doubtful in several points. It is quite obvious that the first genuine political
thinkers of antiquity and, according to Finley’s devastating judgement, “also the
last” ones, are not describing the Greek society of their age; when Plato concludes
that all the evils of mankind will not cease until kings are philosophers or phi-
losophers are kings, he makes that statement on the ground that “all the existing
cities are badly ruled” (xaxd¢ cupnaoa Tolitevovtal; see Plato, Epistulae VII

* This piece was written with the financial support of Fondecyt project 1085103 (Chile).
! Zeller (1852, v. 3, 1-15, 19 £); Finley (1983, 124) apud Schofield (1999a, 739).

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82 Marcelo D. Boeri

326a2-b4; cf. Respublica 473¢c-d; 501e-502c). The radical reform of politics that
Plato has in mind consists in attaining a sort of identification between political
power (&0Ovapig moAitixn) and philosophy (Respublica 473d2-3). The Platonic
model of a sound society, then, proposes a radical change in identifying the “true
politicians” with philosophers and, in this vein, it is not descriptive of the exist-
ing state of affairs, but rather prescriptive of what such a state of affairs should
be (see Respublica 472c4-5; 592b2-5). Plato clearly establishes that the fact that it
is impossible to put in practice what has been described in discourse (Adyog), as
has been stated, does not invalidate the model. On the contrary, a model is a real
model because it is not possible to put it in practice. As I hope to show in what
follows, there are reasons to think that even Stoic philosophers present a model of
a just society as well, and that they do not limit themselves to describing the ex-
isting state of affairs. Stoic political theory can be questionable in many different
points; what I think is at least doubtful is that it is not a political theory at all.
In this paper, I argue that it is untrue that Early Stoic philosophy has ac-
companied the elimination process of the self-determination of Greek cities in a
movement going from more purely theoretical to practical interests. I also intend
to show that the theory underlying the idea of rational unity gathering all human
beings (an idea which in the domain of political theory gives way to Stoic cosmo-
politanism) does not have its ground in political conjuncture nor can it be derived
from it. Rather, it can be explained from certain systematic aspects related to a
philosophical approach based on a new conception of rationality. Besides, it is not
true that, at least in Stoic political theory, a divorce has been produced between
ethics and politics. As a matter of fact, in their model of a just society, the Stoics
propose that citizens should be wise, i.e., virtuous people.?

2
After Alexander’s death (323 BC) the Macedonian Empire extended from
Alexandria (in Egypt) towards Antioch (in Syria); it reached Persia and India,
going through Greece. In 322 the Macedonian general Antipater was appointed
as a regent of the Macedonian Empire. Although he ruled Greece by cooperating
with the League of Corinth, he was quite unpopular, as he supported oligarchic
governments. Five years later Demetrius of Phaleron was appointed governor of
Athens by Cassander, a Macedonian general; Demetrius governed for ten years
and when the democracy was restored (in 307 BC), he escaped to Thebes and
later to Egypt. After Demetrius, several governments (between 307 and 260 BC)
followed one another. Both Epicurus and Zeno arrived in Athens about 310-312
BC, during Demetrius’ government.’ Almost forty years before the Athenian

2 On this debated issue, see the detailed discussion by Vogt (2007, 72-86).
3 For a detailed discussion of the historical background in which Stoicism appears, see, Scholz

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 83

Demosthenes claimed that when he pronounced his justly celebrated Philippics

the Macedonian Empire already ruled as a master, so the Greek polis, with its
political and economical self-sufficiency, had already disappeared or was about
to. Demosthenes’ testimony is relevant since he is realizing that at that moment
(about 344 BC, six years before the battle of Chaeronea, when Phillip the Second
of Macedon starts his hegemony in Greece) the classic Greek idea of polis is
already collapsing. In fact, to be ruled by a despot is the same as being a slave.
Demosthenes’ remark that “every king and tyrant is an enemy of freedom and is
contrary to the laws” (Philippicae I1 25) is based on the classic ideal according to
which no man is above the law: the Greeks are not slaves or subject to anyone (Ae-
schylus, Persae 241-242). In other words, the transition from the classic state-city
to the condition of subject city was slow and gradual. These sorts of expressions
are repeated again and again in several important authors of the fifth-fourth cen-
turies BC (Herodotus VII 104; Euripides, Bacchae 429-432; Plato, Menexenus
238e-239a and Respublica 463a-b. For the distinction between “barbarians”, who
like to be ruled by a master because of having a servile nature, and Greeks, who
just accept to be ruled by law, which cannot be confused with the will of a master,
see Aristotle, Politica 1285a20; 1286a-b; 1287a15-30; 1287b-1288a).
Zeller’s and, more recently, Finley’s views on the Hellenistic period give a
rather static picture of the Greek intellectual world. According to their approach-
es, the Hellenistic philosophers were at best attending the back room of the classic
period “philosophical banquet” to take the crumbs without daring to put forward
new theories. Nevertheless, thanks to Cicero’s testimony in his Academica, we
can figure out how active philosophical debate was during the Hellenistic period,
not only among the members of a single school, but also among rival schools.
For instance, Cicero expounds the fundamentals of Stoic epistemology, and he
observes that Zeno the Stoic introduced many changes in the third part of phi-
losophy (i.e., logic or dialectic), and that on sense-perceptions (aicBficeirg) he
made “some new statements” (Cicero, Academica 1 40; SVF 1 55; LS 40B, 41B).*
This comment, apparently trivial, is relevant since Cicero, when presenting Ze-
no’s theory in the background to earlier philosophers (such as Plato, Speusippus,
Xenocrates, and Polemo), notices that what Zeno argues about sense-perceptions
is a view which had not been presented this way by the philosophers belonging
to the classic period. Cicero also presents Zeno “correcting” the doctrines of the
Academic Polemo, of whom he was a disciple (Cicero, Academica I 35). Accord-

(1998, 318-326), who conveniently illustrates the connections among some Stoics, such as Zeno and
Sphaerus, and the kings of the age. See especially the relation pointed out by Scholz between Zeno of
Citium and Antigonus Gonatas, for whom Zeno would have written a treatise On the kingship.
4 Where appropriate, in the quotation of the Stoic passages I shall indicate the section and text
number of the cited passage in Long — Sedley (1987), abbreviated LS, and in von Arnim (1903-1905),
abbreviated SVF, followed by the volume and text number. Sometimes I also refer to Hitlser (1987-
1988), abbreviated FDS followed by the text number.

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84 Marcelo D. Boeri

ing to Cicero’s report, Zeno would have maintained that sense-perception follows
from a sort of impulse provided from outside (impulsio oblata extrinsecus), which
Zeno used to call pavtacia and that Cicero proposes to render by visum (Aca-
demica 1 40; as pointed out by Salles, in other passages of Cicero himself, such as
De fato 43, the matter is a little more controversial for he seems to employ species
for parvtacia and visum for pavtactdy, i.e., the external object that appears).® To
the presentations which, so to speak, have been accepted by the senses Zeno adds
the assent (adsensio) of the soul, which is voluntary and up to us. Cicero makes
it clear that Zeno did not trust all the presentations (¢avtacian), but only those
which had obviousness (declaratio) of some sort, this obviousness being peculiar
of the represented things. Zeno used to call this type of presentation “cognitive”
(comprehendibile), a term that in Cicero’s view constituted an appropriate render-
ing of the Greek xaraAnntnixdv (Cicero, Academica 1 40-41; SVF 1 55; 60-61; LS
40B; 41B). This Ciceronian testimony coincides with that of Sextus Empiricus,
who in addition reports that the Academic Arcesilaus questioned several points in
Zeno’s stance. According to Cicero’s report, Zeno had maintained that one gives
his assent to a presentation; the same view is informed by Sextus but, as Arcesi-
laus objects (cited by Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos VII 154; SVF 11
90; LS 41C; FDS 370), it cannot be possible for one to give his assent to a presen-
tation, but to a proposition. In fact, if a presentation (¢avtacia) is a physical shift
or affection (raBoc) in one’s soul, how would it be possible to give assent to such
athing? Assent is a mental act that usually is given to a proposition, i.e., a mental
act through which one somehow refers to a determined propositional content,
taking it to be true (for assent as the act of approval of a propositional content and
as a faculty depending on the agent, cf. Cicero, De fato 39-44; [SVF 11 974] and
Academica 11 37-38; LS 400; FDS 363). If I give my assent to the proposition “it
is day™, it is because I believe that it is day; if I assent to the proposition “I ought
to do F™, this F being a certain kind of action, I act according to F since I take it
to be true to do F. Every impulse comes from assent but not every assent yields
an impulse. When you give your assent to a descriptive proposition, no impulse is
necessarily followed. What activates impulse is the impulsive appearance, whose
propositional content can be “I ought to do F” (Stobaeus, Eclogae physicae et
ethicae 1I 88, 2-6; LS 331).5 Thus, strictly speaking, assent is given to a propo-
sitional formula, not to a presentation. However, the Stoics were willing to state
that a presentation is a proposition (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos
VII 242-243 [SVF 11 65; LS 39G; FDS 273, where examples of pavraciar are
“it is day”, “I am conversing”. Even Marcus Aurelius continues to think that a
presentation is a proposition; see V 16, where an argument is a good example of a

5 Salles (20058, 44, n. 35). For a critical assessment of Salles’ solution to the Ciceronian expres-
sion visum obiectum, refer to Boeri (2007).
® For further discussion see Inwood (1985, 60 ), Ioppolo (1995, 27 £), Sorabji (2000, 43), and
Boeri (2005, 390-405).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 85

¢davraoia), so Arcesilaus’ objection probably did not cause a real problem to the
Stoics: although they assert that a presentation is a physical change or an affec-
tion in one’s soul, its intentional content is already propositional. When the Stoics
argue that a presentation is a pathos, what they are really doing is to emphasize
the physiological aspect of presentation.
But in addition to the disputes among schools, there were also inner disputes
within the same school. With regard to the issue of ¢avtaocia, we know that the
Stoics were keen to discuss its real nature: although all the Stoics of the first gener-
ation (i.e. Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus) seem to have agreed that a ¢avracia
is an “impression in the soul” (Tomwotg €v yuxT), they did not agree on how such
an impression should be understood. While Cleanthes took it to be a “depression
and elevation, such as the impression made in wax by signet-rings”, Chrysippus
regarded this approach absurd, since it would require that when our mind has ¢av-
taocion of a triangle, a square, and a circle, the same body should have in itself dif-
ferent figures at once (triangular, square, or even circular), which is absurd (Sextus
Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos VII 227-229; SVF 1I 56; FDS 259). Besides,
Chrysippus interpreted Zeno’s assertion that ¢avraocia is an impression (tonwotg)
arguing that Zeno had said “impression” instead of “alteration” (¢tepoiwoig), so
the correct definition would be “¢pavtacia is an alteration in the soul”, since in
that case it was not absurd anymore that the same body at one and the same time
receives many alterations. Others maintained that not even the corrected defini-
tion of Chrysippus was sound, since if a ¢avtaoia exists, it is an impression and
alteration of the soul. And if there is an impression of the soul, it is not in all cases
a pavtooio, for if a knock happens to the finger, or a scratch occurs in the hand,
an impression and an alteration of the soul happens, but not a ¢avtacia, since this
does not occur in any part of the soul, but just in the mind (8iGvoia). As a response
to this objection, the Stoics replied that by “an impression of the soul” they mean
“insofar as it is in the soul”, so that the complete definition should be the follow-
ing: “a ¢pavtaoia is an impression in the soul insofar as it is in the soul” (Sextus
Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos V11 232-233; SVF 11 56; FDS 259). Again, this
kind of debate is a significant example showing that in the Hellenistic age philoso-
phers still continued to keep a critical attitude towards the previous doctrines and
the same spirit of discussion (even within the same school).
When the Stoics appear in the Greek philosophical scene, the Academy and
the Lyceum were still active. It is not hard to figure out how complicated being an
original philosopher must have been after Plato and Aristotle. I have no doubts that
the epistemological discussion I just summarized proves that the Stoics achieved
certain originality, and that their philosophy was not limited to purely practical
interests. There is at least a Stoic passage, though, that appears to give reason to
Zeller when he contends that the Hellenistic philosophies were more interested in
practice than in theory. When Chrysippus argues that those who maintain that a
life of study (oxoAaotixog Biog; Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 1033C-D)
particularly cares to philosophers make a mistake, he seems to be attacking the

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86 Marcelo D. Boeri

ideal of philosophical life as it is described by Aristotle in Ethica Nichomachea

X 10 (like Bénatouil, I think that Plutarch has in mind Aristotle and probably
Theophrastus).” But this does not mean that the Stoics were not interested in theo-
1y, since, in Chrysippus’ view, the basic reason to exercise philosophical theory is
to understand nature, in accordance with which one should live (a practical activ-
ity); hence there must be a sort of conflation between theory and practice. Among
the three styles of life (Biot) distinguished by the Older Stoics (theoretical, practi-
cal, and rational), the best one is the rational, and this is so because the rational ani-
mal was made by nature for theory and praxis (Diogenes Laertius VII 130: npog
Bewpiav xal mpagiv). So this makes it clear that the rational way of life would
encompass both theoretical and practical aspects, and what a human being should
do in order to have a good quality human life is to be able to combine properly
theoretical as well as practical ingredients, so that his life is a truly human life, that
is, a really rational life. Besides the evidence accounting for intra-school polemic,
it is pretty easy to corroborate the fact that the Stoics were not limited to repeating
their illustrious predecessors, but they did put forward some original theses and
produced arguments — some of them quite sophisticated — to defend them. Obvi-
ously, one can see in several Stoic theses and arguments an implicit dialogue with
Plato and Aristotle; but that is not weird at all. It is what philosophers usually do.
In order to corroborate once again that it is untrue that Hellenistic philosophy
is characterized by its practical interests rather than by its theoretical ones, and in
order to illustrate the high and sophisticated level of philosophical theory among
the Stoics, I shall briefly discuss an aspect of the corporeal-incorporeal distinc-
tion, a specially relevant subject matter as it introduces a key distinction which
is present neither in Plato nor in Aristotle. The Stoics defended the thesis that the
corporeal is the essential hallmark of the real; something is truly real if it pos-
sesses a bodily nature (see Plutarch, De communibus notitiis 1073E; SVF 11 525;
Plotinus VI 1, 28; SVF II 319; Alexander of Aphrodisias, In Aristotelis Topica,
301, 22-3 ed. Wallies; SVF II 329; LS 27B). Thus they did leave aside the Platonic
and Aristotelian ontology, which gave the intelligible the highest place in the
hierarchy of beings, and they did so by maintaining that only what is corporeal is
capable of acting or of being acted on. For the sake of brevity I would like to men-
tion the Stoic distinction between “happiness” (ebdawpovia), which is the goal
(oxondg), and “attaining happiness™ (tuy€iv thv evdaiuoviav), which is the end
(téhog; see Stobaeus, Eclogae 11 77, 1-5; 25-27 ed. Wachsmuth). Chrysippus and
his followers held happiness to be a goal or a target, while the end to be “attaining
happiness”, which actually is the same as “being happy”. Like Aristotle, the Sto-
ics used to hold that there was an end (“an ultimate object of desire™) for the sake
of which the other things should be done: “being happy”. The “happiness-being
happy” distinction shows that the Stoic psychology of action also works at the

7 Bénatouil (2007, 2 f).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 87

general level, which is concerned with the overall rational plan of the agent’s own
life. While the object of assent is the complete proposition saying that to perform
F (F being a kind of action) is appropriate, the object of impulse is not a proposi-
tion but rather an action, which is expressed by a predicate. What the Stoics are
willing to argue is that a real end (t€iog) cannot be a body (which corresponds
to what they call oxondc) for “being happy”, an activity (which ontologically
belongs to the kind of item that the Stoics call “predicates”, i.e., incorporeals), is
what we really desire. As Clement says (citing a Stoic view; Clement, Stromata
VI 38, 2-3; for a similar view see also, Stobaeus, Eclogae 11 97, 22-98, 3), “no one
desires the drink, but drinking the drink” (a significant advance of this approach
can be seen in Plato, Respublica 439a9-b2); so too, at the general level of the ra-
tional plan of one’s life, what a rational agent desires is not food or money as his
ultimate end, but “being happy”, understood in terms of a certain permanence the
agent has arrived at in his effective action.
This kind of discussion shows, once again, that it is untrue that Hellenistic
philosophy has departed from the theoretical interests and has turned to issues
practical in character. It is pretty obvious that they did not neglect the practical
interests, either; but the Older Stoics were not willing to leave aside the specula-
tive exercise as a relevant way to understand reality, and on the grounds of their
distinctions they produced some quite sophisticated arguments to tackle, from a
different underlying ontology, the examination of the same matters that had at-
tracted the attention of philosophers of the classical period.

3
In this section, I return to the Stoic ideal of cosmopolitanism and to my ini-
tial suggestion that such an ideal should not be sought in the existing political
situation, but it is related to a new way of rationality. The Stoic thesis of cosmo-
politanism and, associated with it, that of the existence of a natural law which is
a pattern of moral and political action, has its origin in the Cynics, of whom the
Early Stoics were direct debtors.® A reason to suspect that Stoic cosmopolitanism
is not due exclusively to political conjuncture is the fact that the true law is not,
according to the Stoics, the positive law, but the universal law of nature, and the
Macedonian law, along with all its institutions, must have been considered by the
Stoics as an expression of conventional law. Although it is a strong temptation to
assimilate the universal law of nature that the Stoics talk about to the Macedo-
nian Empire law, transforming the polis into kosmopolis, it should be resisted.
The thesis that justice is by nature (¢0o€t), not by convention (6€oer; Diogenes
Laertius VII 128-129), indicates that the law ruling over the oixouvpévn of Empire

& For the Cynic influence on the Stoics see the texts recorded by Giannantoni (1985, v. 2, V A, texts
135-140). Cf. also Schofield (1999b, 141-145) and the passages discussed there.

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88 Marcelo D. Boeri

must have been regarded by the Stoics as a conventional law, and not as a natural
one. Moreover, the explicit recommendation of the Stoic Zeno to abolish the law
courts, temples, gymnasia, and even coinage (Diogenes Laertius VII 33; cf. SVF
I 264; 267-268) suggests that the law he has in mind cannot coincide with the
Macedonian law. I ignore whether or not Zeno’s suggestion of abolishing the law
courts and other institutions was known by the governments settled in Athens
between 312 and 260 BC, but if it was, one would have reasons to suspect that his
suggestion might have been considered dangerous, as it was straightforwardly
against the established formal authorities.
The Stoic account regarding the origin of justice out of the principle of self-
preservation of the living being (that later can be extended towards the other
members of the species, the so-called oixeiwaig; see Diogenes Laertius VII 85-6,
Cicero, De finibus III 16-17 and the passages quoted below) displays a relevant
theoretical elaboration which does not necessarily take into account the political
conjuncture. This assumingly “solidarity” with or “altruism” towards the other
members of the species appears as a decisive link of the general Stoic account
concerning the origin of human associations, insofar as such solidarity is, in ac-
cordance with the Stoics, something inherent to human nature (on oixeiwoig as
the principle of justice, see Porphyry, De abstinentia 111 19-20; SVF I 197).° The
self-recognition of the living being is not the result of a rational analysis; in fact,
as observed by the Stoic Hierocles, as soon as the animal is born, it perceives
itself, and in doing so it not only perceives its own parts, but also for what pur-
pose it has them (cf. I 1-4; I 31-11 9; I, 31-11, 9; II 18-23; IIT 20-27; III 46-52, ed.
Bastianini-Long; cf. LS 57C, Seneca, Epistulae CXXI 23-24).1° We start interact-
ing with the environment at the very moment of our birth and the first impulse is
always towards self-preservation. The living being is aware of itself and, given
that it has been endowed with a familiarity (oixeiwoig) with regard to itself, it
pursues what benefits itself and refuses what harms it. Through this process the
living being starts distinguishing what is proper or familiar (oix€lov) from what
is alien (GALOTP1OV) to itself. In searching for the goal of self-preservation the liv-
ing being’s affinity to what is naturally familiar to itself plays a decisive role, and
it is able to refuse what harms it, and it goes towards what benefits it. That this
process requires no conceptual or rational analysis is clear from the fact that it
applies both to humans — when they have not developed their rational abilities yet
— and irrational animals. In the case of human beings, when they have acquired a
complete development of reason, the primary impulse towards self-preservation
can shift its object and prompt the agent to direct his impulse towards the more
immediate congeners (parents, brothers, friends) and non-immediate ones (the
other members of community), so it is oriented in terms of familiarity towards

9 Cf. Schofield (1995, 195-204).

10 Cf. Bastianini — Long (1992, 368-370, and especially 381-390).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 89

the others. The Stoic thesis is that, since the human being has reason, familiar-
ity with himself can be developed through familiarity or “affiliation™!! for the
other members of the species (for the so-called “social familiarity” see Plutarch,
De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1038B-C; SVF III 179; LS 57E; Plutarch, De amore
prolis 495B-C). And this is so because the rational living being is capable of rec-
ognizing in the others the same reason appearing as a proper feature of himself,
which makes him develop an attachment for the others as his congeners. Actually,
the Stoics think that such a process occurs at a much more basic level in the iden-
tification that parents have with their own offspring, even though in the human
being the process transcends the purely instinctive domain when the subject no-
tices that he or she ought fo behave in a certain way (with justice and impartiality)
regarding others (Cicero, De finibus III 62-66).
Stoic cosmopolitanism is well summarized in two passages that are worth
quoting in full:
T1: Law (vopog) is king of all human and divine. Law must preside over what
is honourable and base, as ruler and as guide, and thus be the standard of just and
unjust deeds (dixara kai @dixa), prescribing to animals whose nature is political
(& pvoeL moArtixa {@a) what they should do, and prohibiting them from what
they should not do (Marcian, Institutiones 1, citing Chrisyppus’ treatise On law;
SVF 111 314; this passage can be paralleled with Cicero, De re publica 111 33).12
T2: The much admired Republic of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, is
aimed at this one main point, that our household arrangements should not be based
on cities (ToAeLc) or parishes (8fjior), each one marked out by its own legal system
(181015 dikaioig), but we should regard all men as our fellow-citizens and local
residents (dnuoétog xat tolitag), and there should be one way of life and order (glg
Biog fiv xal x6op0g), like that of the herd grazing together and nurtured by a com-
mon law (xowvog vopog). Zeno wrote this, picturing as it were a dream or image
of a philosopher’s well-regulated society (Plutarch, De Alexandri fortuna 392A-B;
SVF 1 262, apparently citing a passage taken from Zeno’s Republic.'® The rel-
evance of this testimony has been recently questioned by Schofield,'* who argues
that the assertion Plutarch attributes to Chrysippus, according to which our way
of life should not be based on cities, seems to be incompatible with his concern for
“the safety of city” [Athenaeus 56lc], and his provision that in cities there should
be no temples, law courts or gymnasia [Diogenes Laertius VII 33]. The plural “cit-
ies” suggests that precisely because there are temples, law courts, and gymnasia,
there is no a single city ruled by the universal law yet."*

" Inwood (1999, 678).

12 Translation Long-Sedley (1987), slighty modified.
13 Translation Long-Sedley (1987).
' Schofield (1999b, 104-111).
15 For the respectability of taking this Plutarch passage as reporting Zeno's views, see Vogt (2007,
86-90).

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90 Marcelo D. Boeri

T2 makes clear Zeno’s suggestion of abolishing the law courts: if we should

not live in cities ruled by their own legal systems, but following only one way of
life as well as a single order, no conventional institution, which collaborates with
the legal system of each city, can be worthy. Furthermore, Zeno’s explicit recom-
mendation of abolishing institutions suggests, pretty explicitly, that the law the
Stoics speak of cannot be a law in the sense we understand a civil norm. As we
know from other passages (Diogenes Laertius VII 87-88), in Chrysippus’ formula
the end is living according to nature, which means living both in accordance
with the nature of oneself and that of the whole, engaging in no activity wont to
be forbidden by the universal law (0 vépog 0 xowvdg), which is the right reason
pervading everything. If the law of which T1 talks about is the same universal
law Chrysippus refers to in this Diogenes Laertius passage, it describes, rather
than a legal code or a fundamental law within a code, a certain dispositional state
insofar as it regulates what is noble and shameful in action. Therefore, it must be
the perfect rational disposition proper of the virtuous person, who constitutes an
instance of right reason. The Stoic universal law prescribes how one’s disposition
of character should be, so such a person is a virtuous one. This, to my judgment,
accounts again for why Zeno so strongly emphasizes the fact that coinage and law
courts should be abolished: in a society constituted by people truly virtuous these
things would not be necessary, for everyone would live in “the way we ought
to live”, i.e., according to the natural law, without committing injustice against
the others. Given the reciprocal implication of virtues (Plutarch, De Stoicorum
repugnantiis 1046E-1047A; Diogenes Laertius VII 125-126), who has one virtue
also has the other virtues, with all that such a stance implies for the correct func-
tioning of a society where, because of the nonexistence of conflicts of interest or
injustices, one could lack law courts and other conventional institutions.'¢
T2 also introduces the idea that there must be only one way or style of life
(that which is proper of a rational being), since all humans are nurtured by a
single reason (the universal law) and strictly we are microcosmic expressions of
the universal reason (Diogenes Laertius VII 88-89). A city in the strict sense is
that in which its citizens are wise (Clement, Stromata IV 26, 172), and they are
so not only because of having a virtuous character, but also because of living
under the law. In this view, living under the universal law does not constitute a
hindrance for virtuous people’s vital goals. If this is right, the common law can-
not be regarded as being an external requirement, as if it were something alien to
the agent. Some scholars think that the issue should be differently understood; P.
Mitsis, for instance, even admitting that the tradition of natural law lately became
a theory exclusively centred on following a set of externally imposed orders, con-
tends that dealing with the Early Stoic view as purely internalist (i.. as centred

16 For a recent defence of the “dispositional approach” to Stoic law, see Vogt (2007, 16, 22, 131,
162-164, 186-187). This approach had been already advanced by me in Boeri (2004, 167-169).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 91

on the agent’s internal dispositional states) would be a mistake since “it is quite
clear that for them the laws of nature derive from divine reason, and for that they
are externally imposed”.'” In a previous paper, though, Mitsis had adopted a more
nuanced position (between a purely internalist approach and another one purely
externalist), which I take to be more persuasive.’ In fact, if human beings are
parts of the universal reason, there is no need to take human reason to be a sub-
stantially different item from universal reason. If this is so, it cannot be said that
the common law is a requirement imposed as an external standard on the basis
of virtue itself.!” To some extent, this advances the Stoic idea of State as a com-
munity of friends and wise people who would share a single way of life and order.
This thesis introduces the problem regarding how practicable the model of State
proposed by Zeno would be (actually, this is suggested by Plutarch at the final line
of T2, implying that Zeno’s State is an unrealizable utopia).
Now, if what I have just indicated on the value of the Stoic universal law is
sound, it should be admitted that the view stating that Stoic cosmopolitanism was
the philosophical translation of the existent state of affairs after the collapse of the
classic Greek city should be revised. What the Stoics really did was to introduce
a new idea of rationality based on the thesis, alien to the classical thinkers, that
the whole universe is so pervaded by reason that there is nothing which cannot
be regarded as an instance of the universal reason pervading all reality. In this
rationality proper of the cosmic system, the humans are especially privileged
parts, insofar as they may generate reflective processes and, in this way, they are
able to understand the structure of the world. The common principle in which all
humans take part teaches us that the only thing that places us at a superior level
with regard to our fellow human beings is having a better disposition of character
(Seneca, De beneficiis 111 28, 1; SVF 111 349).

4
The model of rationality allegedly introduced by the Stoics is sometimes as-
sociated with another Stoic view which is alien to the classic philosophers as well:
the thesis of a cosmological ethics. Even though there is a significant advance of
this view in Plato (Timaeus 90bl-d7; Philebus 29b-31a), such a stance was sys-
tematized and developed by the Stoics. It is a fascinating view presupposing that
universal nature and our own natures have something in common, that cosmic
nature has a rational structure, and our natures — which, according to Chrysippus,
are microcosmic instances of universal nature insofar as our natures are parts of
it (Diogenes Laertius VII 87-88) — have such a structure as well. This view also

17 Mitsis (2003, 39).

18 Mitsis (1999, 164 £).
19 Annas (1993, 160 £, Annas (2007, 69 f).

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92 Marcelo D. Boeri

assumes that our practical life has something to do with universal nature, as long
as universal nature can have a normative character that works as a criterion for
moral action, and that human reason, in being an instance of universal reason
and thereby akin to it, is able to know universal reason and consider events from
the viewpoint of universal reason. At this point my concern is to argue that, even
though the relevance of cosmic nature is frequently related to late Stoicism (Epic-
tetus and Marcus Aurelius), its presence in Early Stoicism is also quite clear. Let
me quote in full one of the most relevant texts supporting this view:
T3. But since animals have the additional faculty of impulse, through the use of which
they go in search of what is appropriate (1& oixeia) to them, what is natural for them
is to be administered in accordance to their impulse. And since reason, by way of a
more perfect management, has been bestowed on rational beings, to live correctly in
accordance with reason comes to be natural for them. For reason supervenes as the
craftsman of impulse. Therefore Zeno in his book On the nature of man was the first
to say that living in agreement with nature is the end, which is living in accordance
with virtue. For nature leads us towards virtue. Similarly Cleanthes [...], Posidonius
and Hecaton. Further, living in accordance with virtue is equivalent to living in ac-
cordance with experience of what happens by nature, as Chrysippus says in On ends
Book I: for our natures are parts of the nature of the whole. Therefore, living in
agreement with nature comes to be the end, which is in accordance with the nature
of oneself and that of the whole, engaging in no activity wont to be forbidden by the
universal law (0 vopog 0 xowvég), which is the right reason pervading everything
and identical to Zeus, who is this director of the administration of existing things.
And the virtue of the happy man and his good flow of life are just this: always do-
ing everything on the basis of the concordance (cup¢wvia) of each man’s guardian
spirit (Saipwv) with the will (BovAnoig) of the administrator of the whole. [...] The
nature consequential upon which one ought to live is taken by Chrysippus to be both
the common and, particularly, the human. But Cleanthes admits only the common
nature, as that which one ought to follow, and no longer also the particular (Diogenes
Laertius VII 86-89; LS 57A and 63C).2°
One might reasonably assume that interpretations in which the claims about
cosmic nature play a significant role for ethics depend upon T3. The strong sug-
gestion on the need of looking into physics in order to have a reasonable practical
life cannot be overemphasized. Physics is important in order to know the manner
in which nature works; but theology is also relevant as long as the agent must
make an effort to understand the will of Zeus, in accordance with which his own
daemon should be in order to have a “smooth flow of life”. T3 also highlights the
issue of inner consistency and agreement with nature, since virtue is the soul so
made as to produce the agreement of one’s whole life (Diogenes Laertius VII 89-
90; Stobaeus, Eclogae 11 60, 7-8 ed. Wachsmuth). There are several points in T3
that must be noted. (i) If for irrational animals what is according to nature is what
is according to impulse, and for humans what is according to nature is what is

20 Translation Long-Sedley (1987).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 93

rational, it follows that human beings, in order to have a real human life, ought ro
live rationally, since this is a way to fulfill their inner nature. (i) Given that our
human nature coincides with reason, and living is a practical activity, it seems
plausible that, for humans, living according to nature is living according to vir-
tue. (#if) We, like the rest of living beings, have a sort of tendency to accomplish
our own nature; that is why nature leads us to virtue, because being a virtuous
agent is to realize one’s own nature. (iv) If living according to nature means living
according to both one’s own nature and the nature of the whole, and if our actions
must be performed following what universal law indicates should be done, then
the universal law, by saying what should be done and what should not be done,
becomes a practical criterion of our actions. Interpretations where cosmic nature
does not play a role establish that the idea that we are simple parts of a larger
whole properly belongs to the late Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.?!
But, as becomes clear from passage T3, the emphasis on the view that we are
parts of a larger whole is already present in Chrysippus and, if Galen is to be
believed, it was also present in Posidonius (Frag. 187 EK) a long time before the
later Stoics. It sounds more natural to consider Marcus Aurelius’ and Epictetus’
continuous remarks with regard to us being “parts of a whole” as developments
inspired by Chrysippus’ doctrine (T3 is quoted and commented on by Annas.2?
She does not make, though, a commentary on Chrysippus’ assertion that our na-
tures are parts of the nature of the whole, but says that this thesis is common
to later Stoicism. T3, part of the content of which can reasonably be attributed
to Chrysippus, seems to prove the opposite). (v) Finally, if virtue and happiness
consist in performing everything in accordance with each one’s daemon and with
the will of the administrator of the universe, and if we effectively can reach that
concordance, the Stoics seem to be contending that human beings have the pos-
sibility to share the perfect rationality and happiness of god (Stobaeus, Eclogae
11 98, 19-99, 2 ed. Wachsmuth). If that is the case, it would also be natural to at-
tain the understanding of all events from a cosmic viewpoint, a thesis manifestly
present in later Stoicism (Marcus Aurelius VIII 46; V 8), but also significantly
advanced by some early Stoics. Chrysippus would have claimed that some appar-
ent evils, if more closely examined, can be seen as goods. So, when cities are too
populous, people are moved to the colonies or a war against someone is initiated;
so Chrysippus seems to have maintained that “god gives occasions for destruc-
tion to begin” (Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1049B); such a destruction,
however, is contemplated in the “economy” of the whole and involves a beneficial
result. What one should do, then, is to move from the perspective of the part to the
perspective of the whole; this is exactly what understanding the administration of
the universe means and, as T3 shows, involves bringing one’s own daemon (i.e.,

2! Annas (1993, 162). Cf. Annas (2007, 67).

22 Annas (1993, 160).
2 Translation by H. Cherniss (Plutarch, 1976).

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94 Marcelo D. Boeri

each one’s own reason) into agreement with the will of the manager of the uni-
verse. This view is certainly present in Epictetus (Dissertationes 19, 4;1 12, 16; in
a similar vein, see also Marcus Aurelius V 8; II 17), but the issue of turning to the
perspective of the whole goes back to Cleanthes as well (Hymnus ad Iovem 11-22),
proving that this recommendation was a tenet originally conceived of in Early
Stoicism, and developed by Late Stoicism. Finally, T3 also shows why in the Stoic
view there is not a significant difference between our natures and the universal
nature; this is also the reason why I think that the Stoics took the universal law
to be not something alien to us (as Annas contends).* Reason, which is added to
us “as craftsman of impulse”, can be understood as the possibility humans have
to moderate their impulses and retard the satisfaction of some appetite. Indeed,
this is to act rationally, because reason in us is, like the cosmos, a mark of order,
and for a human being to delay the satisfaction of a desire or even to remove some
irrational desire are clear marks of rationality.

5
T2 has become vital evidence in maintaining that the Stoics proposed a uni-
versal State. It is pretty hard, though, to reconcile this view with other passages
where Zeno clearly restricts citizenship to the wise. On this point textual evidence
is quite explicit: only virtuous people are citizens, for the base ones are hostile,
enemies, slaves, and alien to each other (Diogenes Laertius VII 32-33; SVF I
226. Diogenes Laertius VII 121-122, Stobaeus, Eclogae 11 99, 3-12). Zeno also
maintained that in his State there should be community of women and children,
and that that is only possible among the wise (Diogenes Laertius VII 33; 131).
Although the Stoics permit incest (Diogenes Laertius VII 188; SVF 111 744; Sex-
tus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos XI 192; SVF III 745), they do not tolerate
adultery since “for a rational living being lying with a woman legally married to
another one, and destroying another one’s family is against society (xotvavikdv)
and is contrary to nature” (Origen, Contra Celsum VII 63, 12-18; SVF III 729).
Adultery would destroy concord (pdvora), which is supposed to exist in the Stoic
State. But if Stoic sages have community of women (Diogenes Laertius VII 131;
SVF 111 728), how could some of them commit adultery? From this and similar
texts it turns out to be quite evident that the possession of an excellent character
is indispensable in order to be part of the Stoic city. As a matter of fact, if the sage
person is the only one who does everything he does well (Stobaeus, Eclogae 11
66, 14-15), and the common law is identified with the right reason, it follows that
only sages are allowed to be members of the Stoic city (see Panaetius’ efforts to
attempt to humanize the Stoic sage’s picture; Cicero, De officiis I 16).
If one should answer the question “is the Stoic State realizable?”, one might

24 Ibid,, 160-162. For a more sympathetic view, see Cooper (2004a, 212 f).

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The cosmic city and the Stoic conception of rationality 95

answer, in one sense, “yes”, and in another one “no”. In a sense we should answer
“yes” since all the human beings share the same rational nature. So all of them
are at least able to develop their rationality in the correct way and hence become
a sage. From a political viewpoint this means that, even though one is not a Stoic
sage, de facto he can exercise political activity, but he will exercise such activity
de iure if and only if he is a sage. And this is so because this is the only manner he
never will make a practical mistake and thereby he will not commit injustice. In
a different sense the answer must be negative since, even though people are in the
habit of developing their rationality, not all people develop it according to “right
reason”. If a Stoic sage’s participation in politics is limited to exercising it in ac-
cordance with a preferential reason, and if he is the only one who can be a money-
maker (ypnuationkog; Stobaeus, Eclogae 11 95, 9-23), it seems that the sage,
after all, will be in need of living his life within a society where not everyone is a
sage and where he eventually will be devoted to the task of making money. This
being so, Zeno’s suggestion that coinage and law courts should be abolished ap-
pears to be at least unlikely. But the Stoic theses, no matter how counterintuitive
they look, can be the result of a legitimate confidence in “right reason”, a reason
that, as other philosophers after the Stoics thought, would be able to guarantee an
increasing moral progress which, ultimately, would end by abolishing permanent
armies and war, as well as securing the possibility of a “world citizenship”, where
there would not be National States, but a World State. This is the translation that
the Enlightenment made of the cosmopolitanism and rational naturalism of the
Stoics®*. Nothing of what in fact has happened in the last century or of what is
happening in the present one would probably make us think that the Stoic ideal of
cosmopolitanism and government by reason is possible. But a Stoic philosopher
might argue that what in fact is going on does not prevent him from thinking
of what should happen. A Stoic would also state that human beings continue to
behave like irrationals with respect to their other fellow men precisely because
they refuse to accept that, because of our being members of the same community
of rational beings, we are able to train our characters properly and that, once our
characters have been trained, we are also able to recognize in each of ourselves
the features that characteristically describe our humanity and that of others (Mar-
cus Aurelius VIT 9).
Within the domain of their practical philosophy, the Stoics elaborated a high-
ly sophisticated moral doctrine as well as a politics that was not divorced from
ethics. If what I have argued is plausible, I think that there are reasons to believe
that their political theory was not descriptive of the state of affairs and, therefore,
it did not constitute the philosophical translation of the existing state of affairs
after the collapse of the classic Greek city.

25 See Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace (1978, v. 8, 365).

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 o
Digitized by GO()gle Original from
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro

A city without poets

The metaphysical implications of the Platonic
conception of poetic art*

The metaphysical dimension of the Platonic conception of poetic art, more

fully explored and made canonic by the rationalistic tradition, is just one that
declassifies poetry in the face of philosophy in virtue of its mimetic character —
that is, a falsifier of reality attributed to the poetry. This tradition of reading is
based, mainly, on the treatment granted to the themes of books II, Il and X of the
Republic, in which one can find the character Socrates proposing to Glaucon the
banishment of the poet from the ideal city, so long as poetry, as well as painting,
are both imitations of reality and therefore,
produce work that is far from the truth, namely, that imitation really consorts with a
part of us that is far from reason, and the result of their being friends and companions
is neither sound nor true (603a).
Hence, the thesis which claims that poetic art is something both harmful to
the soul and to the ideal city seems to adjust perfectly well to the metaphysical
conceptions exposed in the Republic. According to them, the ultimate reality, the
essential nature of all things is comprised of eternal Ideas, pure forms that are
immutable, from which the plan of sensible things, and consequently the change-
able is, in its turn, constituted. Thus, if sensible things are already taken as cop-
ies of reality, the imitation of their states for the arts in general and for poetry in
particular is nothing more than a copy of a copy and, for this reason, finds itself
three degrees removed from the truth. Under such a condition, all that is pro-
duced as poetic art is a falsification of reality, from which one concludes that the
knowledge usually attributed to poets is false. In other words, from an ontological
falsehood necessarily emerges an epistemological falsehood. In such a case, the
poet is one who only appears to know everything, so that his ability of talking
about all subjects is also apparent. Therefore, the plurality of his expertise is the
very sign of his fallaciousness:

* This paper is a partial result of a research which has received financial support from CAPES
and CNPg.

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98 Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro

we hear some people say that poets know all crafts, all human affairs concerned
with virtue and vice, and all about the gods as well. They say that if a good poet
produces fine poetry, he must have knowledge of the things he writes about, or else
he wouldn’t be able to produce it all. Hence, we have to look to see whether those
who tell us this have encountered these imitators and have been so deceived by them
that they don’t realize that their work are at the third remove from that which is and
is easily produced without knowledge of the truth (since they are only images, not
things that are) or whether there is something in what these people say, and good
poets really do have knowledge of the things most people think they write so well
about (598e-599a).
By the comparison between poetry and painting, the conclusion could not be
other than
that imitator has no worthwhile knowledge of things he imitates, that imitation is a
kind of game and not something to be taken seriously, and that all the tragic poets,
whether they write in iambics or hexameters, are as imitative as it is possible to be
(6020).
The reckless nature of poetic art regarding ethical, political and pedagogic
aspects still lies in a conception of psyche exposed in Book 1V of the Republic,
by means of which the soul is tripartite, as well as the ideal city is supposed to be.
Justice, therefore, is only reached when the governance of the three parts of the
soul, taken by each inhabitant him/herself goes concomitantly to the plan of the
government of the three parts of the city. That is, when the irascible and concu-
piscent parts of the soul are governed by the rational part, as well as on the plan
of the city, when each inhabitant fills his/her own functional slot for which his/
her soul has greater natural tendency. That’s why Homer’s art, which served as
an inspiring source to all tragic poets (595b-c) and was for a long time, a model
of Hellade’s (606¢) education and administration, should give way to philosophy,
since it is only by means of it that justice can be obtained. According to this
dialogue, justice is a virtue that results from the knowledge of the truth and only
philosophy is capable of leading the individual to the awareness of the first and
major truth one must discover if one really intends to pursue knowledge: that he/
she knows nothing. That is to say, one must admit that all one learned by means
of poetry and also from the sophists was based on a realm of images (sensible
world) and not on reality, which is reached on the plan of Ideas. In this sense, the
philosopher emerges as the lover of the truth contained in eternal Ideas, and the
more he pursues them, the more he becomes capable of maintaining reason in the
mastery of the irrational part of the soul. Consequently, a legitimate model for the
education of the only kind of person who is entirely able to govern the city fairly
is to be carefully erected: the one who has a philosopher’s soul and who may
become a philosopher-king.
This is, in general lines, the conception of poetic art predominantly attributed
to Plato for one tradition which ends up by identifying, in the theory of Ideas, the
metaphysical basis of a true Platonic doctrine. Thus, even Plato explicitly men-

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A city without poets 99

tions, through a comment uttered by Socrates, that the rivalry between poetry and
philosophy was in fact an ancient quarrel, so that he should not be “charged with a
certain harshness and lack of sophistication”? because the ideal city has no place
for the poet, the event of his banishment from the city became, as Benedito Nunes
well emphasizes, the symbol of that “polemic confrontation, whose development
integrates a considerable part of Western cultural history™.
It is not my purpose to examine here in what measure the thesis according to
which Plato’s main legacy was a metaphysical doctrine seems plausible, once go-
ing deep into this discussion as such would transcend the breath of this brief pa-
per. All in all, the major problem I identify in such an approach is that it privileges
metaphysics to the detriment of the ostensibly pragmatic component in Plato’s
work. In other words, it regards metaphysics as an end in itself, instead of seeing
it as a means for the foundation of a pragmatic philosophical enterprise. That
may be why it treats Plato’s philosophical conceptions as if they were quite obvi-
ous, neglecting the fact that he deliberately did not write philosophical treatises,
where the reader could easily find precise and unambiguous definitions. Indeed,
it was the very opposite: Plato opted to write dialogues, in which he did not speak
in the first person, since he does not appear as one of the characters. Furthermore,
his dialogues try to exhibit philosophy much less as a corpus of doctrines, than as
a live activity, by means of which conceptions are to be discussed and submitted
to a critical examination, even those which are developed by his main character,
Socrates.® At the end, we may not be led to a final conclusion, or even to a precise
definition, but to an aporia. As readers, since there is no ready-made definition to
be taken as the ultimate one, we are somehow invited to take part in the dialogue,
as if we became one of the participants of the discussion, remaking by our own
turn the hard work of searching for the very nature of the issue under debate. In
this sense, we become able to update it, keeping it active, alive. This is, in other
words, the job of what seems to be Plato’s dialectics, which undergoes, according

2 “Then let this be our defense — now that we've returned to the topic of poetry — that, in view of
its nature, we had reason to banish it from the city earlier, for our argument compelled us to do so.
But in case we are charged with a certain harshness and lack of sophistication, let’s also tell poetry
that there is an ancient quarrel between it and philosophy” (607b).
3 Nunes (1993, 190).
4 In this respect, Nussbaum (1986, 87) points out that “we do not always so clearly see what choice
‘Plato’ wants us to make. This makes it dangerous, in such case, to speak of ‘Plato’s’ views’”. Never-
theless, she maintains that “it would be a mistake to abandon this way of speaking”, since Plato’s stu-
dents, “Aristotle included, had no doubt that he was defending views in works such as Repwblic and
Phaedo. They did not hesitate in ascribing to Plato, on the basis of these dialogues, a certain view
of the soul, of the best individual and political life. These works are, not coincidentally, dialogues in
which there is no deep ongoing opposition to the positions developed by Socrates™. We personally
do not disagree that the thesis developed by Socrates in the dialogues were particularly important
for Plato, but our point is that they are all submitted to an exam so that many times we also can see
those theses being criticized by Socrates himself. This shows what Nussbaum means by calling Plato
a courageously self-critical philosopher.

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100 Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro

to Monique Dixsaut, some metamorphoses throughout the different phases of his

work, although keeping the task of searching, by an asking-answering procedure,
for a possible (and not warranted) definition.
Considering the above mentioned aspects and the consequent complexity of
the dialogues’ different sets, strategies and styles, it is amazing how that tradition
neglects the flagrant ambiguity present in Plato’s writings, with special regard to
the relationship between philosophy and poetry. Perhaps it is because Plato’s criti-
cism of poetry fits perfectly with the interest of taking his philosophy mainstream
as a metaphysical doctrine. Nevertheless, such an ambiguity is not represented
only by the polyphony of the various characters in the dialogues, which increases
the reader’s difficulty in grasping Plato’s own thought, but by means of a certain
oscillation in the positions of the same character — in this case, of Socrates, the
central character of the dialogues more intimately linked with that theme. His
acclaimed irony seems to reveal something beyond the mere disqualification of
poetic art, since he, by ridiculing the fool Ion, for example, ends up by personify-
ing himself the role of rhapsode and reciting, by heart, passages from Homeric
poems.
In addition to that ambiguity, there is still another which transcends the in-
ternal limits of the dialogue and addresses the Platonic writing itself. As is well
emphasized by Jay Farness, one identifies in the Republic itself, an ample differ-
ence between what is said and what is done by Plato himself.® Indeed, he openly
uses imitation, the feature of poetry’s compositional style which he especially
criticizes, not only in writing the Republic, but all his other dialogues, since, as
we said before, he never speaks in the first person, but imitates other people. Thus
we have a sort of performative contradiction. Thus, how is it possible to consider
only an opposition to poetic art strongly expressed in that dialogue, as well as in
Ion, without taking into account the poetic style itself frankly adopted by Plato
in the choice for the dialogic genre — not to mention the recurrent use of myth —
from which he portrays, among other questions, the conflict between poetry and
philosophy? What strange doctrine would be that one which would hinder itself
right after proclaiming itself?
In order to dismiss this flagrant nonsense, which appears to result from a
doctrinaire approach, we have to consider some aspects that may help us. On the
one hand, as Martha Nussbaum pointed out, Plato did not usually criticize an
author or a position which he found self-evidently worthless.” It means that he

5 «g%il est vrai que toute définition rassemble des éléments disséminés en de multiples lieux, la
différence est que pour un discours rhétorique cette opération doit étre initiale, alors qu’elle s’effec-
tue fout au long d'une recherche dialectique et, dans le meilleur des cas, ne rassemble les elements
dans une definition qu'a la fin (puisque c’est elle alors qui achéve le discours, qui sinon reste en
suspens et se termine sans véritablement s’achever)” (Dixsaut, 2001, 123 f)).
© Farness (1991).
7 Nussbaum (1986).

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A city without poets 101

would not have spent time in disqualifying poetry, if he did not see any threat in
it. On the other hand, we cannot neglect the above mentioned ambiguities, as well
as the fact that Plato’s dialogues are also replete with quotations of poetry, from
Homer and many other poets. In this case, it seems reasonable to infer that in
spite of his strong criticism towards poetry mainly demonstrated in the Republic
and Jon, such a disavowal was less directed either to poetry or to imitation itself,
but to the kind of use it could be made of them. So, it may be that Plato tries to
demonstrate, by performing in contradiction of what is said in those dialogues,
that all the pernicious effects of poetry could disappear since it were to be used
for the sake of philosophy.
On top of that, we cannot forget that there is a considerable change regard-
ing Plato’s treatment towards poetry in the Phaedrus. According to Nussbaum,
much of those changes could be thought of as features of a courageous self-
criticism by Plato as a philosopher.® Characteristics, let us say, quite uncommon
to a doctrinaire style. In the Phaedrus, Socrates appears defending positions
quite distinct from the ones he held in the Jon and in the Republic about poetic
art. Indeed, in that particular dialogue, Socrates assumes, in quite a poetic way,
that “madness (mania) from a god is finer than self-control of human origin”
(244d), besides suggesting the loss of power of the philosopher’s self-control
before beauty (250b).
We should remember that in Jon, Socrates intends to demonstrate that the
knowledge of the rhapsode is not the product of art (fechne), but of a divine pos-
session which leaves him in a state of total delirium. By means of the myth of
Heracles’s magnetic rock, he joins the poet and rhapsode as links of the same
chain between which circulates the same divine power that originates from the
Muse (o 533 d-e). Thus, while Socrates ironically and gradually discredited the
knowledge claimed by the rhapsode, by showing that it was false and even in-
ferior to a slave’s knowledge, this stigmatization grew through that chain until
reaching the poet’s expertise. Thus, such a position is in harmony with Socrates’
in the Republic that, according to what has been stated above, sees in poetry the
danger of the appeal to the irrational part of the soul:
the part of the soul that is forcibly controlled in our private misfortunes and that hun-
gers for the satisfaction of weeping and wailing, because it desires these things by na-
ture, is the very part that receives satisfaction and enjoyments from poets (Republic
606a).
Thus, to attribute to the poet, at the same time, a non-admitted ignorance
and ascribing it to a state of madness, represents, in the context of Jon and the
Republic, atotal disqualification of poetry as a form of knowledge and as a means
to acquire a virtuous education. At the end of Jon, Socrates corners the rhapsode

8 Ibidem.

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102 Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro

and makes him admit, in order to not to be regarded as undeserving and as a liar
that he (the rhapsode and consequently, the poet) is a divine man.
However, in Phaedrus, it is the philosopher who is compared to a divine
being, since “he stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine;
ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is
possessed by god” (249d).
According to Nussbaum, such a formidable change of posture regarding the
relationship between philosophy and poetry would still imply the thought of Plato
himself emerging from his self-critical work.” However, the author emphasizes
that such self-criticism would not go as far as to the point of rehabilitating old po-
etry as a new apprehension of philosophy which would reinterpret the distinction
between philosophy and poetry:
It is unlikely that those changes would lead to a rehabilitation of the poets whose
works Plato knew. Philosophical activity still seems to be necessary for the highest
sort of understanding, It is also necessary [...] for the highest sort of love.'?
Consequently, she assumes that both philosophy and poetry would be thought
of by Plato in a manner that would not have been possible previously, that is, as
being compatible in such a way that in its highest achievements, one would imply
the other. In this sense, Plato would not have softened his criticisms of the non-
philosophical poet, and yet would have recognized the inspired, maniac and lov-
ing character of the muse concerning philosophic activity.!
Jill Gordon, in her work entitled Turning toward Philosophy, while exploring
just literary resources and the dramatic structure of Plato’s dialogues, advocates,
contrary to Nussbaum, the thesis that Plato can indeed be thought of as a poet."?
Her thesis is based on the work of Diogenes Laertius, Lives and opinions of emi-
nent philosophers, according to which the Athenian philosopher can be inserted
into a tradition originated from poetry. This is because Diogenes Laertius relates
to Plato the influence of two Sicilian comic poets of the fifth century, Epicarmus
and Sofron, to whose theme and style Plato’s dialogues would be closer than to
the philosophers of his time.'* Furthermore, Diogenes Laertius ascribes to Ar-
istotle the insertion of Socratic dialogues at halfway between poetry and prose.
Although the author demonstrates that such an assertion is not found amongst
known Aristotle’s works, she thinks page 1447b9-13 of Poetics, in which the Sta-
girite embodies the Socratic dialogues among other styles of a nameless art, could
have served as its own source.!* All in all, the author claims, Plato’s works are
referred to by Aristotle as a kind of mimesis and, for this reason, can be thought

9 Ibidem.
10 1bid., 226.
" Ibidem.
12 Gordon (1999).
13 rbidem.
" Ibid., 65.

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A city without poets 103

of as a specific form of poetic art. Thus, it makes use of an Aristotelian defini-

tion and classification of tragedy, and identifies, in the Platonic dialogues, all six
components attributed to it in Poetics: plot, show, character, thought, elocution
and singsong:
Socrates’s dialogue is an imitation of the philosophic activity that, by means of lan-
guage, represents the dialogue whose aim is the change of direction for philosophical
life. Its mimetic objective is the philosophical conversation; its means is language; its
form is the dialogue; and its effect is to promote the change of course in philosophi-
cal life. The necessary elements of such poetry would be: thought, character, plot,
elocution and scene.'’
From Gordon’s perspective, the peculiarity of Platonic poetry would reside in
the emphasis conferred by Plato on character and thought. Aristotle in the Poet-
ics, by contrast, overvalues with regard to tragedy the part relative to the action
it engenders. More precisely, the plot is overvalued to the detriment of the char-
acters and thought. In other words, such a difference leads necessarily to distinct
metaphysical conceptions of two of the most outstanding Greek philosophers.
While Aristotle thinks of human life in terms of action, since a man’s virtue
should be unselfish regarding his conduct, being capable to be reached through
the practice of virtuous deeds, Plato presupposes that beautiful life emerges from
beliefs and ideas that reside in a beautiful soul. Instead of actions proper, it is the
exercise of dialectics that promotes a deep examination of the soul by itself and
offers the possibility of building in it a beautiful and fair form.!¢
However, the author admits that there is also an important part imputed to the
action in Platonic dialogues — which may coincide to what we have been calling
a pragmatic dimension in Plato’s writings. This active part can also be thought
of both as what internally happens in the dialogues as well as what happens out-
side them, that is, in the dialogue-reader relationship. While on the internal plan
the action would focus on different forms of appeal on the part of the character
Socrates to make the interlocutor change his/her position regarding his miscon-
ceptions on justice, virtue, love, etc., there would also be an attempt to launch an
action in readers of Plato’s works. Such a change, similar to the one Socrates pro-
poses, not always directly, is precisely a reader’s change in the direction toward
a way of life devoted to philosophy. For that reason, Gordon assumes that Plato’s
work should not be thought of as a doctrine, because it would limit, an adequate
action of the reader of the dialogues. Rather, it would be precisely an interpre-
tive effort that they would require; a hesitation about knowing which position on
the part of Plato himself regarding a number of questions that he portrays in the
dialogues would sufficiently serve as a means to introduce the reader into philo-
sophic activity, If Plato had wanted us to know his personal position concerning

'S 1bid., 77 £..

% Ibid., 79.

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104 Maria Aparecida de Paiva Montenegro

the different philosophical issues about which he makes his characters debate, if
he found that such information about his own thoughts was actually important,
perhaps he would have left us another genre of philosophical prose, instead of
dialogues, in which he is no character and is all of them at the same time.
Finally, if in this brief paper it was not possible to treat exhaustively the
question of whether Plato’s dialogues have as its main goal the exposition of a
metaphysical doctrine, it also seems impossible to remove mimesis as well as a
pragmatic appeal from his metaphysical questions.

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Mauricio Pagotto Marsola

Platonopolis: the case of Plotinus’ thinking

1
In Vita Plotini, Porphyry recounts the following episode about his master:
The emperor Galienus and his wife Salonine honored and revered Plotinus immense-
ly. Thus he, using this friendship, asked them to re-establish a city of philosophers
that had existed — it is said — in Campania, but which was now in ruins, and to award
him the city with its neighboring terrain. Its future inhabitants would follow Plato’s
laws and the city would be named Platonopolis. He himself would commit to re-
treating there with his disciples. And our philosopher’s wish would have been easily
granted, if some courtiers of the king had not prevented it, out of envy or feeling of-
fended, or because of some other evil reason (12,1).
This Platonopolis reminds us of the organization of certain philosophical-
religious communities, such as the Pythagoreans and Essenians, referring at the
same time to the tradition of ancient schools, which extends from the Platonic
Academy to the garden of Epicurus. In any case, it is difficult to precisely define
what would be the Plotinian project in this case. And there is no way to prove that
his intention represented, in fact, an attempt at implementing Plato’s Republic or
to live according to the legislation contained in the Laws.
On this subject, it is worth noting another account of events described at Vita,
7, 19-22, in which it is said, about a disciple for whom Plotinus showed great af-
fection, “But because he followed a political career, had political ambitions and
political inclinations, Plotinus tried to divert him,” which leads us to think that
political life would represent an inexhaustible source of disturbance. Plotinus’
Platonopolis would only be a withdrawn community made up of a group of dis-
ciples who would adopt a Platonic way of life.
The reader who goes through the variety of Enneads’ treaties will find vari-
ous images and metaphors from the political world: for instance the proximity
with the war and with the agitated Roman world of his times, not to mention
the occasion during which Plotinus accompanied Gordian III on an expedition
against the Persians, or the various public figures who attended his circle. From
this contact, Plotinus drew elements that reappear in the metaphor of the kingship,
the general, the war, the sovereignty, images that refer, for instance, to the relation
between the One and the Intellect, or between the realities which play the role of

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106 Mauricio Pagotto Marsola

Principles. These images elaborate a transposition to the level of the hypostases,

tripartite structure of the Plotinian universe, and make up a real meta-politics.

2
However, the research concerning the political activity (ta politika), which
pertains to the scope of the relation to the other, to the category of “otherness,”
cannot be done without difficulty, if we consider the Plotinian image of the wise
man, spoudaios. As we know, such questioning must be done within the frame-
work of an ethics in which the ultimate goal of life is the unification with the First
Principle, the One, ultimate norm for the wise man.! His goal is to assimilate
himself to the divine (homoiosis theoi) and “escape in solitude to the solitary”
(duyh pévou mpodg povov, VI 9 [9], 11, 51). Therefore, it is necessary to identify
what would constitute the “political” perspective, here understood as what con-
cerns the category of the “otherness,” that is, the relation of the wise to other men
and to his own identity. In this context, we will examine a few specific questions:
a) whether it is possible to imagine a Plotinian representation of the return of the
philosopher to the depth of the cave; b) a way to respond to this question could be
found through the analysis of the meaning of the image of Minos, which appears
in chapter 7 of treatise 9; c) From this point, we will be able to draw a number of
considerations about the treaty On virtues (1 2 [49]), by considering the meaning
of what the philosopher calls “political virtues” in these treatise.
The image of king Minos, “the familiar friend of Zeus™ is that of the figure
of the mythical legislator, mentioned in the Odyssey,’ who would have elaborated
his laws under the inspiration he got from a contact he had with the divine.* In the
context of treatise 9, 7, in which this Homeric image is noted, Plotinus comments
on the itinerary of the wise bound for unification with the divine, employing the
image of a vision to refer to the contact with the divine. Close to the One, the wise
man maintains a “trade” with Him, and, says Plotinus, it so happens that he has
to go back to announce to the others what is such trade. As we read in VI 9 [9],
7,21-28:
Perhaps it was because he was said that Minos had known trade with the highness
that we say that he was ‘familiar to Zeus’ and that, remembering such a contact, he
had elaborated his laws to reflect this contact, having been fertilized with this legisla-
tion by the divine touch— unless he considered political occupations unworthy of him,
preferring to remain always at the height (Gei £8éAel péverv dvo), and this could be
the condition of ‘the one who has seen much’”.’

! Cf. Beierwaltes (2002).

2 Translation like Armstrong (Plotinus, 1966).
3¢t Odyssea X1X, 179; Pseudo-Plato, Minos 319d-e; Plato, Leges 624a.
4 Cf. Hadot (1997, 167-170), O'Meara (2005, 74 £), Ousager (2004, 232-236).
% Cf. Phaedrus 248d2.

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Platonopolis: the case of Plotinus’ thinking 107

There is a great deal of discussion about the problematic character of whom

the terms “he is fond of” and “he prefers” (€8éAeL, 7, 27) refer to, which means,
whether political activity is considered worthless by Minos himself or by the wise
man who contemplated the deity, since this character is mentioned in the previous
lines. P. Hadot,’ for instance, retracting from a previous position,’ says that it is
preferable to think that it is the one who is united to the Principle who considers
political occupations unworthy of himself.
Now, this is an essential point if we want to consider Minos as an image
of the perfect legislator, which would lead us to conclude that there are politi-
cal consequences to the contact with the Principle. If Minos was the one who
united himself with the divine and had an urge to legislate that was born from this
contact, then such an image would be close to that of the Platonic philosopher,
who returns to the cave after having contemplated the Idea of Good, exercising
a political role. This way, we could identify with greater clarity the “political”
intention of this extract.

3
In the excerpt immediately preceding this passage (cf. 7, 16-20), it was said
that the soul, withdrawn or separated (a¢epévnv) from the outside world, had
turned around completely towards the inner-self, in a movement of conversion
similar to the one of epistrophe realized by the look of the prisoner of the Pla-
tonic cave, which returned to the light. It is a question of conversion to the
inner-self required from all who intend to practice philosophy about the One
(cf. VI 9 [9], 3, 11-13). The soul cannot lean towards each of the things that are
encountered on the outside, but in the “not knowing everything” (dyvorjcavta,
7, 18) and the non-knowledge of the soul herself, is owned by the One in the
vision.
The character of Minos will be compared to the soul found in such a state
of vision. At 7, 22, Plotinus uses the expression “having had a dialogue” (OpiAs-
oavta) in reference to the soul. And in line 24, Minos is qualified as “familiar”
(6aprotg) to Zeus. In this context, the erotic metaphors proliferate, significant
of the unifying movement,® such as, in the context of 7, 20-26, “exchange” or
“contact” (cuvousiav, 7, 23); “to touch” (éradf, 7, 25); “fertilized” (rhepovpue-
vog, 7, 26). Still in this context, the use of the rhetoric of olov is essential, tracing
the limits of literal speech, since it is not literally a “conversation,” but rath-

6 Cf. Hadot (1997, 169, n. 3).

7 Hadot says in his translation of the treatise 9 that Minos is the subject of £6éAex (Plotin, 1994,
98 f).
8 About the difficulties of the Plotinian mystical union, cf. Brisson (2007). He insists on the intel-
lectualist character of the union with First Principle (cf,, particularly, 465 f).

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108 Mauricio Pagotto Marsola

er a union.® Separating everything (G¢ehe ndvta, V 3 [49]) denotes a logic of

aphairesis, a double process, intellectual and moral, towards which the wise man
converts.

4
The “political activity”, or the “political matters” (tG moAitikd), are, in VI
9, 7, 26, considered unworthy of he who forms a union with the Principle. In this
context, the mention of the character of Minos introduces a challenge. Minos is
the one who legislates after such a union, but the difficulty which arises concerns
the status of the “political activity,” which can refer to the contemplative soul or
to Minos himself, as a legislator who left the divine, but later preferred to remain
united with him.
Meijer noted that 16 moArtikd refers to Minos and not to the clairvoyant in
lines 20-22.1° Minos receives the name “familiar to Zeus” not because he leg-
islated, but because, in the end, he renounced politics to remain with Zeus. For
Plotinus, Minos “saw a lot” (7, 28) and whoever saw a lot wants to remain in the
union. Hadot notes the reference 7, 21 to the Republic 519, alluding to the phi-
losopher who, after having seen enough (ixavdc) wants to remain at the height.
However, it remains to be seen whether we can relate the subject of the vision to
the political activity of the philosophers of the Platonic Republic'' and whether
we should conclude, like Meijer, that it is because he renounced political activity
that Minos received such a name."?
Analyzing the same text, J.-F. Balaudé noted that the fact that Minos leg-
islates after his union with Zeus implies that such a union with Zeus does not
represent a union with the One, but with the Intellect, so that there is a difference
between Zeus and the wise man who mates with the First Principle, referring to
chapter 9, 11-21, of the same treatise. A. Ousager and D. O’Meara clearly refer
to the figure of Minos as one of the determining figures of Neoplatonic political
activity, in some way already present in Plotinus.!* Here, O’Meara understands
politics as the realization of a double aspect of homoiosis theoi, the divinization
of men, and the divinization of the city, insisting on the similarity of the image
of Minos to the philosopher-king, who imitates the divine in his activity (cf. Res-
publica 500c5, €3-501b7; 519¢-520a).!
In any case, what appears central in the image of Minos is the exemplarity

9 Cf. Plotin (1994, 98, n. 143).

10 Cf. Meijer (1992, 225).
11 . Plotin (1994, 181).
12 Cf. ibidem, 99, n. 145. Cf. supra, note 136.
13 Qusager (2004, 232), 0’ Meara (2005, 74).
' Ibidem. And after he comment the implications of the relations between theoria and praxis
relating to the image of Minos (75 f.).

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Platonopalis: the case of Plotinus’ thinking 109

of his attitude in the search for a divine union, for the reason that is quoted in the
framework of the commentary of the unifying process in chapter 7 of treatise 9.
This way, either referring to Minos, or referring to the contemplative mentioned
before the presentation of the character of Minos, t& moAitika is considered in-
ferior to the theoria of a contemplative life. It is possible in this passage to see
something that is not noted by the commentators who analyzed this extract: that
it refers not only to the Republic, but also to Ethica Nichomachea X, 7-8, which
touches on the perfect happiness from the point of view of the bios theoretikos.
Without getting into detail about what is said about the significance of this
passage in the general context of the Nicomachean Ethics, it is worth noting that
it is the fopos of the excellence of theoria over the praxis, widely explored by
Plotinus, and which seems to be revisited in the text of treatise 9. The Plotin-
ian emphasis is precisely on this aspect, which establishes a distinction with the
subsequent Platonic tradition, with regards to political thought. If the character of
Minos, on the one hand, reminds us of the philosopher-king of the Republic, the
contemplative, on the other hand, brings us back to the passage of Ethica Nicho-
machea X, 7, 1177a 27-1177b 5, in which Aristotle comments on the autarchy and
the plenitude of a life dedicated to rheoria, which appears to be the only one that
is revered by him.'

It is worth noting, still according to the context of chapter 7, that this analysis
of the idea of a return to the inner-self concerns separation from the otherness,
as far as possible (kata to dynaton). After having had a vision of the One the
wise man can say, indirectly, what is the Principle, and announce (dyyé\\ovrta)
to other men what he saw (7, 22). The same thing will be said in V 8 [31], 12, 1,
in which we find the relation between the vision and the announcement (Gray-
yéArer). Considering again the image of Minos, the clairvoyant announces what
he saw and Minos, on the other hand, having maintained a contact with Zeus,
elaborates the laws as an image of this union. The contemplative announces to
the others what the vision is, but prefers to remain at the height, because he judges
10 noArtikd unworthy of him. This announcement of his vision to the other can
hardly be characterized as a political activity per se. Now, it is necessary to un-
derstand the political situation of the Plotinian wise man; in other words, what
type of relation to the other is established through this model of ethical life. It is
in this sense that we come across the perspective present in treatise I 2 [19], On
Virtues, and in treatise I 4 [49], On Happiness, concerning the function of what is
referred to as “political virtues”.
The scale of virtues represents a progressive process of ascension which

15 Cf. Ethica Nichomachea X 7, 1177a 4-18.

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110 Mauricio Pagotto Marsola

starts with roArtikt) apet (cf. 12 [19), 16-17; cf. Phaedrus 82al-bl). They repre-
sent the cardinal virtues of the Republic (wisdom, courage, temperance, and jus-
tice). Such virtues are relative to the appropriate mode of operation of the diverse
parts of the soul, particularly in relation to the role that the reason exercises on the
“irrational” parts of the soul, coordinating the inadequate desires that can render
the soul powerless (cf. I 2 [19], 1, 23-26). But they represent only the first degree
in the scale of virtues, which is overcome by the performance of the “purifying
virtues” that emancipate the soul from the cares that make her prisoner to the
sensitive multiplicity, steering her in the direction of the divine life (7, 10-12; cf.
Phaedrus 69c¢1-3).'6

We have already noted that the practice of political virtues is a necessary step
towards the homoiosis theoi, which is already announced at the beginning of the
treaty (cf. 1, 1-5; Theaetetus 176a-b). But the “political virtues” are not charac-
teristic of the gods, so that Plotinus has to distinguish between two types of as-
similation. This last model of rapid assimilation expresses the continuity and the
difference between life according to “political virtues” and godly life. So, what
constitutes the virtuosity of political life is that it sets in motion and expresses the
divine, so that the fundamental element of such a similarity with the divine is the
establishment of an order and a measure in the relation between the soul and the
body, in the field of praxis. These measures are what make the soul similar to the
transcendental measure. Remembering the famous passage in treatise 19:
[the virtues] are similar to the measure of there (1@ £x€l pétpw) and have a trace in
them of the best there. That which is altogether dissimilar is matter, and so altogether
unlike, but Good, which is formless. Things which are near participate more (I 2,
18-24).17
In such a trajectory of assimilation to the divine, the Plotinian image of the
wise is identified with life lived according to the Intellect. Here we meet again not
only the character of Minos but also that of the contemplative, present in treatise
9, where we started. Now, in the treatise about ebdapovia (I 4 [46)), Plotinus
insists:
Happiness belongs to whoever lives with the most elevated privacy [...]. Now, a com-
plete life, a true life, that can truly be called a life, is found in the Intellect [...]. The
other forms of life are imperfect, and being only images of life, they are neither of a
perfect mode, nor of a pure mode [...]. The happy man is the man who effectively, in
the act, is the life of the Intellect, who identifies with her.'

16 For a discussion about the purifying virtues and about the alleged dualism on the plan the trea-
tise 19, cf. Bréhier (1955a).
'7 Amstrong’s translation modified.
Bef14 [46), 3, 24; 1 4, 23, and Hadot’s commentary (1997, 172 f)).

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Platonopolis: the case of Plotinus’ thinking 111

7
From these elementary observations, we can consider the following conclud-
ing observations: if the political thought of late Platonism can be identified in
different matrixes, as D. O’Meara has brilliantly shown, it seems like there is an
exception in the case of Plotinus. The difficulty encountered in the texts that have
been examined leads us to identify this uniqueness concerning Plotinian thought
about the significance of the situation of the wise in relation to his solitude in
direction towards the One, while it is not absent from the educational function
and from the implicit model of friendship in it. The friendship of the wise man
is that of the interior man, as he shares with the others the intellect (cf. I 4 [46],
15, 23-25). His being, thus, is not unpleasant (G¢thog) or insensitive (Gyvopmv).
The practice of political virtue relates to the otherness (cf. I 4 [46], 15, 22 seq).”
The ideal of a life devoted to contemplation and represented by Platonopolis is
abundantly illustrated by even a cursory reading of the Vita Plotini, especially in
Porphyry’s description of the relationship between the master and his circle.
On the other hand, the image of the solitary philosopher emerges frequently
from the texts about the ethic of life and happiness, which are located in the
framework of the divinization of man. This allows us to identify a significant
moment in the long tradition that extends from Petrarch, through Ficino, to Des-
cartes and many others.
The divinization of the city is a counterpart to this first divinization. It is
recounted in the framework of the tradition that extends from the commentaries
of the Republic of Proclus® to the civitas popularis of Boethius and will present
models that the following political traditions will never stop referring to it. How-
ever, it is worth remembering one more time the saying of Plotinus, in 14 [19], 4,
23, about the one who lives the life of the divine Intellect. This man already owns
what is best.

19 Cf. Schniewind (2003), 154-159.

20 Cf. Vegetti — Abbate (1999), particularly Abbate (1999) and Romano (1999).

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i Original from
s GOOSle INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Noburu Notomi

The nature and possibility of the best city:

Plato’s Republic in its historical contexts

Plato’s dialogue, the Republic (Politeia), is normally regarded as a purely the-

oretical work that presents an ideal, unrealizable, city, in contrast with the Laws,
which contains much practical advice on to how to organize a city. Scholars read
the Republic as Plato’s philosophical argument irrelevant to the actual situation
of Athens. Contrary to this common view, I propose two arguments. First, the
fictional dialogue of Socrates and his interlocutors is set in the critical moment of
Athenian history, i.e. the early summer of 412 BC, one year before the oligarchic
revolution of the Four Hundred. Using this dramatic setting, Plato reflected on
the possibilities of political constitution (politeia) retrospectively in the 370s BC.
Second, when Glaucon raises a serious question on the notion of justice, his chal-
lenge reflects common views of the Athenians, represented by Antiphon’s radical
argument based on the antithesis of nomos and physis. In reply to the challenge,
Socrates places nature (physis) as the leading principle for constructing a city in
discourse (logos). Thus, the conversation, seen in its historical context, is directed
at the possibility of creating the ideal city, despite its appearance. In this paper
1 will show both sides of the Republic, namely the serious concern of the actual
political situations and the theoretical consideration which keeps distance from
them. Plato’s ideal city is presented in this tension.

1 Dialogue set in 412 BC

First, I would like to examine the dramatic date of the Republic.! As is well
known, some of Plato’s dialogues have dramatic settings that are clearly identifi-
able: for example, the Protagoras and Charmides around 432 BC, the Symposium
in January to February of 416 BC, the Meno around 402 BC, and a series of
dialogues, the Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and
Phaedo, in 399 BC (the year of Socrates’ trial and death). By contrast, in the
Republic, scholars’ views have been diverse and reached no consensus yet. The
suggestions range from pre-430 to 407 BC: “throughout the Peloponnesian war”.?

! [ have published, together with M. Sakurai, the Japanese article “The dramatic date of Plato’s
Republic” (Sakurai — Notomi, 2006). I summarize our conclusions here.
2 Nails (2002, 324).

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114 Noburu Notomi

Among them, two dates are most popular: 411-410 BC and 422-420 BC. The for-
mer date was first proposed by August Boeckh (1838-1840), followed by Jowett
& Campbell (1894), Adam (1902), Shorey (1930), Bloom (1968), and others.? This
dating is mainly based on the return of Polemarchus and Lysias from South Italy.
A_.E. Taylor (1926) severely criticised this view, and suggested instead a peaceful
period around 422 BC.* Taylor’s suggestion is accepted by Allan (1940), Cross &
Woozley (1964), Guthrie (1975), Howland (1993), Waterfield (1993), and others.
In the recent full examination, Debra Nails, The people of Plato, classifies the
Republic among “dialogues with problematic dramatic dates”, and suggests that
Plato composed different parts of the dialogue in different times.5
Scholars often criticize Plato for neglect or imprecision of dramatic details,
but Guthrie correctly describes our situation: “The introduction of the Bendideia,
if its date were known, would of course be decisive™.’ Since Plato is exception-
ally conscious of historical reality in composing dialogues, I believe that the Re-
public, so rich in dramatic personae and various references, must also be keeping
historical accuracy.
The missing link to fix the date is, as Guthrie points out, the official in-
troduction of the Thracian goddess, Bendis, into Athens, which is vividly de-
scribed in the opening scene of the dialogue (327a-328b) and mentioned again
by Thrasymachus near the end of Book I (354a). However, the very date of the
Bendideia festival has been controversial among historians, according to differ-
ent evidence concerning Bendis. The name of this foreign goddess was already
mentioned by a comic writer, Cratinus, in as early as the 440s BC (PCG IV No.
85); it also appears in the inscriptions dated to 429/428 BC (IG I° 383= IG I?,
line 208) and 423/422 BC (IG I* 369= IG 12 324). These pieces of evidence show
that the goddess was officially accepted and already worshipped before 429 BC,
which confuses Plato’s readers and leads them to pessimism about dating. On
the other hand, three fragments of a single stele were discovered in the 1930s,
at Piraeus near the place where Xenophon describes the temple of Bendis was

3 Boeckh (2005, 437-470, 474-492); Jowett — Campbell (Plato, 1894, v. 3, 2-3); Adam (Plato, 1902);
Shorey (Plato, 1930, viii); Bloom (Plato, 1968, 440).
“#Taylor (1929, 263): “It should be clear that Athens is supposed to be still, to all appearance at any
rate, at the height of her imperial splendour and strength. No reference is made to military opera-
tions; though the company consists mainly of young men of military age, no explanation of their
presence at home is offered”. This impression, however, lacks any firm ground.
$ Ibid., 263 £; Allan (Plato, 1940, 19-21); Cross — Woozley (1964, xi); Guthrie (1975, 437 f.); How-
land (1993, xii); Waterfield (1993, 327); Lee (1955, 60).
S Nails (2002, 324-326), other suggestions are: before 430 (Fujisawa in Plato, 1976), 429 (Morgan,
1992, 228; Planeaux, 2001), 425 (Gigon, 1976, 23; Vegetti, 1998, 22 f), 424 (Rankin, 1964, 120),
421-415 (Dover, 1968, 53), 409-408 (Zeller, 1876), 407 (White, 1995, 324-326). On the other hand,
Tucker, Cornford, Diés, Friedldnder, and N.P. White do not suggest any dramatic date.
7 Guthrie (1975, 438, n.1): however, he also makes a disappointing comment: “the Republic can be
appreciated without a precise knowledge of the year or years [...] or when he imagined his fictitious
conversation to have taken place — a matter about which he was by no means always particular”.

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The nature and possibility of the best city 115

built (cf. Hellenica 11 4, 10-11). Its descriptions of the Bendideia festival, albeit
fragmentary, contain striking correspondences to the opening scene of the Re-
public, but this inscription, numbered /G I’ 136, is dated to 413/412 BC.% The
problem is how to reconcile the early and the late dates of the references to
Bendis. Scholars were perplexed by these conflicting dates, and nearly gave
up using the introduction of Bendis as indication of the dramatic date of the
Republic.
Mariko Sakurai, former professor in ancient history at the University of To-
kyo, re-examined those inscriptions to suggest a new solution.’ She distinguishes
two stages of introduction of the Thracian goddess, Bendis, into Athens; first
before 429 BC, she came to Athens, paired with another goddess, Adrasteia, and
second, independently of that, in 413/412 BC, the official festival of Bendis was
introduced probably with some political intentions. This argument was not paid
due attention to by Platonic scholars, but I discussed this idea with Sakurai in re-
lation to the dramatic setting of the Republic; we reached the conclusion that the
decision of the council and assembly was made in 413 BC, following which the
festival was held in the month of Thargelion of 412 BC. It is extremely important
to fix the dramatic setting at one year before the abortive revolution of the Four
Hundred in the month of Thargelion of 411 BC. For the political situation was
crucial, though usually neglected by Platonic scholars.
Based on this hypothesis, Sakurai and I examined all the characters and ref-
erences appearing in the Republic, and found that they fit this date.'” The only
uncertainly (or possible counter-evidence) is Cephalus’ survival at this time, but
the problem remains even if we date the dialogue to 420 BC.!!

2 Political possibilities in 412 BC

We know that the political and social situation of Athens was critical around
412 BC:'? the Athenian democracy was facing a possible change of constitution
into oligarchy, or maybe even into tyranny, if people would have welcomed Alcib-
iades back to Athens. No doubt ancient readers must have remembered this situ-

8 Consilio et Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Berolinensis et Brandenburgensis (1981, 149 £).

% Sakurai (1996).
1 Apart from the Bendideia festival, the following persons, events, and references fit our dating:
the return of Cephalus’ family; the ages of Socrates, Adeimantus, and Glaucon; Thrasymachus’
visit to Athens (cf. I.C. Storey, Phoenix 42, 1988); the presence of Clitophon, Charmantides, and
Niceratus; the references to Perdiccas and Ismenias (336a), to Pulydamas (338¢), to Damon (400b-
c), to Theages (496b-c), and to Protagoras and Prodicus (600c-d); and the citation from Euripides,
Troades (415 BC) 1169, at 568b.
! ps-Plutarch, Vitae decem oratorum, B35E, reports that Cephalus died in 443 BC, but the evi-
dence is not reliable. On the other hand, if he was dead in 412 BC, we should see his presence as
Plato’s fiction.
12 For the critical situation from 413-411 BC, see Thucydides, Book VIII.

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116 Noburu Notomi

ation when they read the opening scene of the dialogue. In the lifetime of Plato,
who was then around 15 years old, this was one of the two crucial moments of
possible change of Athenian constitutions: the other came in 404-403 BC, when
the Thirty gained the oligarchic power. Of the two, the first attempt of the Four
Hundred, though abortive, was open to many political choices. In the autumn of
413 BC, the Athenians were shocked to hear the incredible news of the total defeat
of the Sicilian expedition, with the general Nicias executed (remember that his
son, Niceratus, is present in Cephalus’ house listening to Socrates’ argument);'?
many cities in South Italy and Sicily (and in the Aegean Sea) turned against
Athens, and this anti-Athenian atmosphere seems to have caused Cephalus’ fam-
ily, who had been residing in Thurii, to move to Athens.!* At this time, both
the international relations and the domestic politics of Athens were at stake; the
Athenians were seeking various possibilities to improve the bad situation: some
wished Alcibiades back to Athens; some tried to establish “aristocracy” (oligar-
chy) in the hope of getting Persian support; others strove to preserve democracy.
Out of this situation, a group of citizens rose up united in orderto change the con-
stitution into a more oligarchic form, though not as radically as the later Thirty.
However, the attempted revolution soon failed, and Antiphon was executed as one
of its manipulators. It is known that Clitophon was one of the active politicians
of the Four Hundred; he seems to have taken a moderate position among the oli-
garchs, but obviously played an important role by proposing a motion for the Four
Hundred government, according to Aristotle, Respublica Atheniensum XXIX 3
(cf. XXXIV 3)."* The dramatic setting and dramatis personae of the Republic
strongly remind the readers of this critical time.
On the other hand, the next oligarchic revolution of the Thirty in 404-403 BC,
which brought disaster for the brothers Polemarchus and Lysias, was somehow an
inevitable result of the defeat of the Peloponnesian war; Athens was then facing
the danger of total destruction and enslavement. Therefore, it must have been the
only possibility of survival and independence of Athens to introduce an oligar-
chic and pro-Spartan government. By contrast, the political situation of 411 BC,
though as critical, was more open to diverse possibilities. Athenian citizens hotly
discussed such possibilities and made various attempts to change the constitution.
Such examinations of different types of political constitution as Socrates gives in

13 Like Polemarchus, a victim of the later oligarchy of 404-403 BC, Niceratus was also killed by
the Thirty.
4 However as merchants they must have been keeping their houses in Athens and Piraeus and
visited there often while living in Thurii.
'S In the Republic and the Cleitophon he seems a close associate of Thrasymachus. Cleitophon
once interrupts the argument between Socrates and Thrasymachus (340b-c), and suggests a sup-
posed improvement of Thrasymachus’ view: that justice is what seems the advantage of the stronger,
but Thrasymachus flatly rejects this suggestion. It is interesting for our consideration that Cleitophon
the Athenian tries to save Thrasymachus’ position by appealing to doxa.

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The nature and possibility of the best city 17

the Republic must bear a significant meaning at this moment. This was probably
the only period in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC for the Athenians to
seek an actual change of political constitutions. Interestingly, at Cephalus’ house,
people of diverse backgrounds gather: Athenian citizens, metics, and a foreigner;
young and senior; oligarchs and democrats. The Bendideia festival itself may be
a symbol of this unstable situation. Sakurai suggests an interpretation that the
Athenian assembly decided to introduce an official festival of the foreign goddess
in order to attract the Thracians’ support in the war. If it was the case, however,
this strategy might have caused a strong reaction from the anti-democratic party.
The atmosphere of the festival was a portent of the dark future.
Here we must also bear in mind that Plato wrote this dialogue probably in
the 370s BC, when the Athenian democracy was firmly re-established and left no
room for any change of constitutions. We know from the Lerter VII that Plato was
keeping his distance from the actual politics of Athens, and instead engaged in
political philosophy at the Academy. If we view Plato as consciously setting the
dialogue in this critical moment, then he appeals to our imagination about various
political possibilities. The Republic shows the tension between the hope of real-
izing the best possible city in the time of Socrates (412 BC) and the difficulty of
changing the severe reality in Plato’s maturity (the 370s BC).

3 Athenians in Glaucon’s challenge

The dialogue starts at the house of Cephalus in Piraeus: Socrates converses
first with the old Cephalus, second with his son Polemarchus, and third, with
Thrasymachus, the rhetor and sophist from Chalcedon, a small city on the Bos-
porus.!S The three main interlocutors of Socrates in Book I are non-Athenians,
i.e. metics and a foreigner. This exotic atmosphere of Book 1 is clearly governed
by the initial scene of the new festival for the Thracian goddess. By contrast,
the conversation of the rest of the dialogue, after Book II, looks more familiar
and homely/domestic, since the new interlocutors, Glaucon and Adeimantus, are
Athenian citizens and belong to the young who spend much time with Socrates.
I suggest that, corresponding to the change of the interlocutors, the perspectives
and focuses of the dialogue shift from outside to inside Athens. Glaucon, in
the beginning of Book II, takes over Thrasymachus’ radical argument against
justice and adjusts it to the Athenian reality. His challenge renews the previous
argument with two new factors: the opinion of the many and the nomos-physis
antithesis.
Glaucon starts his argument against Socrates’ notion of justice by present-
ing the way people say justice arises. He introduces the idea of social contract,

16 Thrasymachus may be staying in Athens for some diplomatic mission; see White (1995). His
home city Chalcedon soon departed from the Athenian empire (around 409 BC), and may already
have been revolted around 411-410 BC.

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118 Noburu Notomi

based on the nomos-physis antithesis, as the beginning of law and justice (358e-
359b). His serious argument is based on both Thrasymachus and the many; he
repeatedly mentions what people say, or would say,'’ whereas Thrasymachus
did not mention “the many” in Book L.'® “The many” (o1 moA\oi) usually means
common people, but in Athens it also indicates “the people” (8fjpog), who hold
the political power in a democracy.'® In referring to the many, Glaucon, being
a son of the prestigious Athenian family and a man of ordinary political ambi-
tion and reputation, may be implying a political and social contempt for that
class.?
The presentation of the opinion of the many reminds us of the political debate
in Athens, highlighted particularly in 411 BC, as to who should govern, the many
or the few (democracy or oligarchy). By contrast, for Thrasymachus, democracy
is only one of the political forms: some city-states are under tyranny, some are
governed by aristocrats, and some democratically (338d-¢). Insisting that in any
case the ruler imposes justice on the ruled for his own advantage, Thrasymachus
ignores the difference between these political forms, though it turns out later
that he has mainly a tyrant in mind as the ultimate injustice, i.e. the greatest
and strongest man (344a). Thrasymachus was a traveling sophist around many
different cities in Greece, whose theory should be so general as to cover all the
political forms. However, in a democratic city like Athens, it is not clear who “the
stronger” are; for democracy allows the majority to share the political power. The
stronger people who gain the advantage of ruling must be the many, but those
who obey the law and are exploited must be the same many. Then, why do they
obey the law and justice, and for whom? Thrasymachus’ general theory of the
advantage of the stronger does not answer this particular question, concerning
democracy.?!
On the other hand, Glaucon presents the opinion of the many, that, while
people believe that doing injustice is better, they deliberately choose to obey

17 Glaucon, 358c, e, 359b, 360b-d, 361e, 362a, c; Socrates, 358a, cf. c-d.
18 His notion of justice may contain some contempt for the majority. According to Thrasymachus,
those who are ruled must obey the law put by the stronger, and do justice. We are not informed of
how much awareness those people have of their own situation. But he calls this justice “simple-mind-
edness in birth” (348c), and therefore, it seems more likely that they are ignorant or simple-mindedly
deceived, when they produce the advantage of another, namely, the ruler.
19 In the famous funeral speech, Pericles says: “Our constitution is called the name of democracy,
because it is governed in the interest not of the few, but of the many (rheiovag)” (Thucydides II 37,
1). See also Leges 111 689b, cf. 684c and Politicus 304d1. Ferrari (2003, 15-16) sees Glaucon’s con-
tempt for “the common run” (358a), which is “to suggest familiar complaint against the have-nots
of Athens”.
20 Ferrari (2003, 12-15) characterises him as “quietist”, i.c. someone who deliberately keeps dis-
tance from political activities. Vegetti (Platone, 1998-2007, v. 2, Commento [A]) describes Glaucon
as a potential tyrant, but Caizzi (2003) rejects his view, and insists that Glaucon is talking on behalf
of others.
21 For the strength of collective agents, see Williams (20064, 98 £).

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The nature and possibility of the best city 119

the law and to do justice; for since they are incompetent, they think it better
to make a social contract than to suffer injustice without being able to take re-
venge.?? This is why they unwillingly do justice. They are aware that justice is
not for their own immediate advantage. But in a democratic society like Athens,
there is no “real man” (359b), who lives beyond the social contract. Glaucon’s
social contract model, in which everyone obeys justice and the law, in order that
they neither do nor suffer injustice, explains democratic society more than any
other. For if, as he puts it, a real man appears and posits justice and law for his
advantage, there is no reason for others to keep the social contract only to be
exploited. But democratic society is a peculiar case in which this kind of social
contract works because the rulers and the ruled largely coincide. This notion
of social contract is based on the distinction and contrast between physis and
nomos, for which Antiphon was a prominent theorist. The many hold a nega-
tive view that the social agreement only constrains people from exercising their
“natural” power.
Glaucon’s position represents the complaint and frustration of the many, os-
tensibly the ruling class in democratic Athens who, however, are actually obeying
the law and justice unwillingly. It is interesting to see that the opinion of the many
treats the respect for equality as enforced by law (359c¢), while political equality
(isotes, isonomia) was a catchword for democracy. This indicates that some of
them are looking for any chance which takes them beyond such social constraints,
to pursue injustice freely. They want to get out of the society of observing and
checking each other. The ideal of their “real man” is a tyrant.
We see Glaucon’s argument as based on the sharp contrast between nomos
and physis.”* The many consider that the origin of justice lies in the social con-
tract, which takes people out of the power conflict of physis into the justice of
nomos. Also, in introducing the story of Gyges’ Ring, Glaucon suggests that both
just people and unjust people are led to the same result, because of the desire to get
more (pleonexia), and says: “This is what all nature (¢0o15) naturally pursues as
good, but is perverted forcefully by law for the respect for equality” (359c).2* The
contrast of nomos with physis, which allows one to get more, implies that, if laws

22 For the social contract theory in ancient Greece, see Kahn (1981), according to our scanty evi-
dence, the idea of social contract originally had a neutral or positive role in explaining the birth and
progress of human civilisation. But in Athens in the last quarter of the fifth century BC, it came to
be used to attack the conventionality of the law and justice in human society.
3 Thrasymachus initially mentions the laws (vépot), which each political constitution posits as
justice, whether it is aristocracy, democracy, or tyranny (338e-339a). But this reference bears little
significance in the subsequent argument, and Thrasymachus does not use the word vépot in the
technical contrast with ¢hoig, as Glaucon’s challenge does. He never mentions it again.
24 The interpretation of 359c3-6 varies, but I take the precedent of the relative pronoun § in ¢5
(neutral) to be theovekia (feminine), as Jowett — Campbell (1894) suggest; the latter half of the rela-
tive clause has § its subject, so the grammatical construction changes in the clause.

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120 Noburu Notomi

are abolished, there will be no justice in nature (for everyone will do injustice).?
On this view, the many place justice in the third category of the goods, i.e. some-
thing good not for its own sake, but for its results and profits.
The antithesis, on which Glaucon’s argument heavily depends, seems fash-
ionable in the late fifth century BC, and is often associated with the sophists in-
discriminately, and Thrasymachus is sometimes included in those who hold this
view. However, no fragment or testimony of Thrasymachus, though not much is
left, provides any support for this assumption.26 Moreover, his argument in Book
1is clearly independent of the antithesis.?’

4 A shadow of Antiphon
Athenian people were obviously not satisfied with their own situation, as the
ruling part of the democratic society. Instead, they regarded themselves as suf-
fering some disadvantage by obeying the law and justice. Here one elaborate
theory provides a plausible explanation as to how justice was imposed on people:
namely, Antiphon’s view of justice as social contract, on the basis of the nomos-
physis antithesis.
If the dramatic setting is identified as I discussed, we can more clearly ob-
serve a shadow of Antiphon, a leader of the Four Hundred, in the dialogue. Anti-
phon, who had probably not been an active politician before the revolution, sud-
denly appeared on the central stage of Athenian politics in 411 BC. He played an
important role in introducing the oligarchic government, and was executed after
its collapse. We do not know much about his political views, but if he is the soph-
ist author of On Truth, as is now widely accepted, it is natural for contemporary
readers of Plato’s dialogues to detect the connection between the critical situation
around 412 BC, and the radical view of justice given by Glaucon. Antiphon may
be a hidden character of the dialogue, standing behind Glaucon.
The few fragments of Antiphon’s treatise On Truth are preserved by pure luck
in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (DK 87B44 (a), (b), (¢)),?® but many similar ideas were
used in Euripides, Aristophanes, and other authors in Athens. From those we
know that the nomos-physis antithesis was popular in Athens to explain the social
structure. Yet, it is Antiphon who fits Glaucon’s challenge most. Many scholars
see clear similarities or close correspondences between these two: the crucial

25 In this respect, the notion of “natural justice” claimed by Callicles in the Gorgias is different
from Glaucon’s idea.
26 This is confirmed by the classic monograph of Heinimann (1945) which contains no reference
to Thrasymachus.
7 1t is sometimes suggested that Thrasymachus shares the views of Antiphon: cf. Furley (1981, 81
f) and Barney (2006, 59, n. 1). But that is simply ungrounded or confused (cf. Pendrick in Antiphon,
2002, 63).
28 For the nomos-physis antithesis, see B44 (b) col. L-1V, () col. I-IV ed. Corpus dei papiri filo-
sofici greci e latini (1988).

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The nature and possibility of the best city 121

point is that, although the nomos-physis antithesis was used in many ways, the
severe attack on justice based on that antithesis may be original to Antiphon.? He
uses the social contract theory for explaining the origin of justice.>
A closer examination reveals the correspondence between Glaucon’s and An-
tiphon’s arguments.*! For example, Antiphon emphasizes that people obey the
law and justice when their actions are watched by others, while they ignore them
when free from any penalty or shame.*? This point corresponds to invisibility in
the story of Gyges’ Ring, and to the hypothetical condition of the ultimate unjust
person. The shadow of Antiphon seems to cover the entire challenge of Glaucon.
When Glaucon presents the many’s opinion in support of injustice, he says that
the really unjust person does things based on the truth, and lives not for reputa-
tion (86&a, 362a). This expression reminds the reader of Antiphon’s On Truth,of
a similar passage, which explains the result of someone’s violating physis: “For
he is harmed not through reputation but by truth” (B44 (a) col. II, 21-23). Also,
for Antiphon, truth is equivalent to nature. I think it difficult to read Glaucon’s
statement in 362a without assuming this equivalence: “For things that are advan-
tageous in fruth must not harm, but help” (B44 (a) col. 1V, 18-22).
It has been debated for a long time whether this (if single) Antiphon (the
Athenian rhetorician, who started the profession of logographer and composed
the Tetralogies, and the politician) was identical with the sophist and writer of
our treatise, On Truth. I myself believe they are the same Antiphon, and on this
assumption we can find many interesting hints for Plato’s intention in the Repub-
lic.® If the opinion of the many is based on Antiphon (the oligarchic leader of
the Four Hundred revolution in 411 BC), then we can find Plato’s indication that
the common people (demos) and the oligarchs share the same view on justice.
Glaucon twists Antiphon’s oligarchic attack on justice into the complaint of the
many against it. Both parties are based on the same (wrong) conception of justice.

2% When Antiphon discusses the disadvantage of practising justice, he refers to the forensic pro-
cedure. This is a peculiar feature of democratic Athens, if not exclusively so.
30 For the social contract, see the reconstruction of B44 (b), col. IV, 8-9; (b) col. I (justice) and (c),
esp. 5. Justice is characterized as not doing any injustice while suffering no injustice (B44 (¢) col. I,
12-15; or “if suffering no injustice”, taking the reading of M. Gagarin).
3 pendrick (Plato, 2002, 63-65) lists the similarities between the two arguments, although he
holds an extremely separationist view on Antiphon. He points out the following similarities between
Antiphon's and Glaucon’s arguments: (1) to frame the argument of justice, based on the nomos-
physis antithesis; (2) to use the appearance-reality antithesis; (3) to identify justice with nomos; (4)
to value injustice more than justice, which is obeyed under compulsion.
32 See B44 (a) col. I, 16-23, col. I, 3-10, 14-20.
3 The name of Antiphon is mentioned by Plato only once in Menexenus 236a, as a poor teacher
of the art of rhetoric. However, Antiphon is a problematic character for Plato, since he is an Athenian
citizen, oligarchic politician, rhetor and sophist, executed for political reasons before Socrates; the
definition of the sophist as traveling teacher seems to exclude Antiphon the Athenian. It is likely that
Plato was aware of the influence of Antiphon, while he avoids mentioning him, like Antisthenes,
Democritus, Xenophon and [socrates.

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122 Noburu Notomi

He may be challenging Socrates on behalf of Athenians with different political

views, by presenting the basic idea of justice common to democrats, oligarchs,
and potential tyrants.

5 The city as realization of nature

Facing Glaucon’s challenge, Socrates has to prove that justice is good in it-
self and for its consequences. For this he tries to destroy the theoretical basis of
the challenge, namely the Antiphonian antithesis of #nomos and physis. Thus, to
re-unite nomos with physis becomes a main project of the rest of the dialogue.
Socrates and his interlocutors construct a city in /ogos based on human nature
(physis), but it is not such a brute nature as Antiphon suggests, but nature to be
actualized through education. “Nature” becomes a key term in the Republic.
The city depicted in Jogos accords with nature (428¢); through the argument,
the leading principle of nature, that each person engages in his or her own work,
turns out to be justice itself.> In constructing a city, from among young people,
suitable natures are selected and educated to be good guardians. The proper se-
lection and education of the good nature can accomplish the unity of a person,
and consequently the natural unity of the whole city (423d). The developments of
good nature and good education are interrelated and promote each other (424a).
In this way, the argument of the ideal city repudiates the discrepancy between
nature and society. Nature forms a nomos of the good city.
A person, whose good nature is accomplished through a good education, en-
tertains a proper desire (431c). This clearly disproves the assumption in Glaucon’s
challenge that human beings have a nature to desire and seek more (pleonexia).
Although such greediness is seen in the appetitive part of the soul (442a), the
nature of the soul as a whole consists in balance and justice. Nature leads us to
do our own jobs, that is, to realize justice in the city, while injustice and vice are
states contra nature like diseases (444b-e). In a well-governed city, each class of
people enjoys natural happiness (421c).
Nature as leading principle plays a greater role in Book V, where the equal-
ity of work between men and women and the new idea of community are intro-
duced. With these surprising proposals, the possibility and superiority of the ideal
city are guaranteed in accordance with nature.’®> Men and women are different
in strength, but are the same in nature with respect to their suitability for work.
The nomos given by the lawgivers (Socrates and his interlocutors) accords with
nature, and therefore is not impossible (456c). But here a serious question arises
whether the ideal city is possible in the sense that it can be realised in this world.

34 Cf. 433a, 443c, 453b-454b.

3 This strategy, on the other hand, leaves “nature” at the level of animals, so that eugenic thought
is problematically expressed.

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The nature and possibility of the best city 123

To seek for a slightest possibility of realization, Socrates dares to propose the

idea of philosopher-rulers (473c-¢): the philosopher who knows the true nature of
things (i.e. forms) should rule a city. In Books VI and VII the nature and educa-
tion of philosophers are carefully examined in order to realize true philosophy in
a person and in a city. The simile of the cave is then introduced to illustrate “our
nature” (514a); for only those who truly grasp the nature of human beings and of
reality can actualize and flourish in their own nature, and properly rule the best
city.
The Republic, dramatically set in the critical moment of fifth century Athens,
does not offer any immediate prescriptions for the actual situation or any practi-
cal suggestions for the change of political constitutions. Plato was far more pes-
simistic than to try this. However, he observed and carefully examined, from the
temporal distance, the root of failures in various political attempts of the previous
century, both of democrats and of oligarchs: the latter brought about a larger di-
saster several years later in 404-403 BC.% Plato’s analysis discloses the truth that
oligarchs and democrats shared the wrong conceptions of justice and nature. The
philosophical considerations of the Republic reach further to establish the natures
of human beings and of the city as the more fundamental and universal basis. To
realize a good city based on nature, the education of philosophers is most impor-
tant, which became a program of the Academy, where Plato was doing research
with his colleagues in the 370s BC while writing this dialogue.*’

36 For Plato’s attitude to and analysis of the politics of the Thirty, see Notomi (2000) and No-
tomi (2004).
37 [ thank Debra Nails for valuable snggestions on style and argument, some of which I must
consider further in another paper.

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i Original from
s Google INDIANA UNIVERSITY
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 o
Digitized by GOOgIG Original from
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Index of subjects
Academy: 56, 58, 85, 117, 123.
Adikia: see Injustice.
Andreia: see Courage.
Arete: 35, 110.
Aristocracy: 116, 119.
Ascholia: see Occupation.
Autarchy: 67, 109.
Callipolis: 28.
Citizen: 22-25, 27-30, 37, 44, 48, 50, 60,
64, 66, 75, 82, 89, 90, 94, 95, 116,
117.
City: 11-19, 23, 24, 26-30, 33-39, 41, 48,
50-66, 67, 69-81, 83, 85, 87-90, 93-103,
105, 108, 111, 113, 115, 117-122.
Communism: 21, 28, 30, 31.
Common: 17-19, 22-26, 28-31, 37, 57, 60,
62-64, 73-75, 81, 89, 91-94, 101, 113,
118, 122.
Contemplation: 111.
Courage: 23, 30, 40, 51, 99, 101, 104.
Democracy: 18, 21-23, 31, 36, 67-69, 71,
72, 82, 116-119.
Dialectic: 65, 70, 83, 99, 103.
Dikaiosyne: see Justice.
Education: 13n, 28-31, 59, 51, 62, 62n, 64,
65, 78,98, 101, 111, 122, 123.
Eleutheria: see Freedom.
Eudaimonia: see Happiness.
Form: see Idea.
Freedom: 23, 26, 39, 60, 78, 79, 83.
Friendship. 23, 26, 105, 111.
God: 51, 69, 93, 97, 101.
Good: 15, 22-27, 30, 34-44, 51-53, 56, 64,
66, 77, 79, 85, 86, 92, 97, 98, 107, 105,
119, 120, 122, 123.
Google
Happiness: 12, 12n, 13, 34, 35, 38, 40, 41,
43, 86, 87, 93, 109, 110, 111, 122,
Hedone: see Pleasure.
Idea: 26, 27, 30, 37, 40, 41n, 43, 47, 65, 66,
68, 74, 82, 83, 90, 91, 93, 107, 109, 115,
118, 119n, 120n, 122, 123.
Image 19, 25, 30, 51-57, 65, 71, 73, 75, 76,
78,79, 89, 106-111.
Individual: 22-24, 26-31, 34, 35, 40, 41n,
44, 47, 48, 50, 54, 59-61, 64, 79, 98,
99n.
Injustice 13, 23, 27, 33, 38, 95, 118-122.
Justice: 12-14, 26-29, 33, 34, 38-41, 43, 59,
61, 62, 65, 88, 89, 98, 103, 110, 113,
116mn, 118-123.
Law: 15-19, 29, 30, 48, 74, 83, 87-95, 118-
121.
Logos: see Reason.
Lype: see Pain.
Magnesia: 25.
Mean: 24, 37, 38, 48, 55, 63, 85, 86.
Mind: 12, 35, 54, 64,71, 81, 85, 86, 88, 117.
Monarchy: 18.
Nature: 12, 14, 17-19, 22n, 25, 26, 33, 35,
37-41, 48, 52, 60-66, 74, 77, 79, 80, 83,
85-95, 97-99, 101, 113, 115, 117-123.
Nomos: see Law.
Nous: see mind.
Occupation: 63.
Oligarchy: 31, 116, 116n, 118.
Orators. 24.
Paideia: see Education
Pain: 19, 25, 55.
Passion: 38, 45, 49, 50, 56 n, 123.
Pathos: see Passion.
134
Persuasion: 66, 66n, 77, 78, 79.
Philosopher, Philosopher-king: 11, 13, 16-
19,27, 98, 108, 109.
Philosophia: see Philosophy.
Philosophy: 13, 17, 25, 29, 31, 33, 40, 54-58,
64, 65, 70, 73, 74, 76, 78, 81, 82, 83, 85-
87,95, 97-102, 107, 117, 123.
Phronesis: see Wisdom.
Physis: see Nature.
Pleasure: 19, 34, 49, 54, 55.
Pleonexia 47-50, 52, 57, 119, 120n, 122,
Poetry: 30, 69-72, 97-103; criticism of p. :
25, 30, 38, 39, 67, 74, 100.
Polis: see City.
Politeia: 47, 113.
Polites: see Citizen.
Private: 15, 21-31, 41, 49, 51, 54, 57, 59,
60, 64, 65,77, 101.
Prudence: 49.
Psyche: see Soul.
Reason: 14, 15, 19, 34, 39, 48, 51, 64, 79, 85-
95,97, 98, 102, 103, 105, 109, 110, 119.
Google
Index of subjects
Society: 21-23, 25, 27, 29, 37, 39, 42, 45,
69, 81, 82, 89, 90, 94, 95, 119, 119n,
120, 122.
Sophia: see Wisdom.
Sophrosyne: see Prudence.
Soul: 12, 14, 15, 25, 27, 28-30, 34, 36n,
38, 47, 48, 54-56, 59, 61, 84, 85, 92,
97, 98, 99n, 101, 103, 107, 108, 110,
122.
Sophists: 27, 56, 98, 120.
State: 22, 24, 25, 27-29, 34, 37-43, 48, 50,
55, 66-71, 81, 82, 84, 90, 91, 94, 95,
101, 107.
Stoicism: 81, 82n, 92-94.
Theos: see God.
Tyranny: 116, 118, 119n.
Utopia: 39, 91.
Virtue: 23, 27, 35, 41, 51, 52, 90-93, 97, 98,
103, 111.
Wisdom: 15, 73, 75-80, 110, 119.
Women:13,13n,, 21, 28, 37, 51, 53, 62-64,
94,122, 123.
Index of names

Adeimantus: 41, 56, 57, 59, 60, 67, 117. Euripides: 48, 120.
Aeschines: 24, Ficino, M.: 111.
Alcibiades: 49, 50, 115. Furley, D.J.: 120n.
Annas, J.: 33, 93, 93n, 94, 94n. Giordani, P.: 35.
Antiphon: 71, 119, 120, 120n, 121, 121n,122. Glaucon: 14, 28, 38, 39, 41, 44, 62, 117-122,
Antisthenes: 121n. Gordon, J.: 102n, 103, 103n.
Arcesilaus: 84, 85. Gorgias: 33, 34, 54.
Aristophanes: 120. Guthrie, WK.C.: 114,
Aristotle: 30, 35, 66, 75, 77n, 85, 86, 103, Hegel, G.W.F.: 70.
107, 116. Heinimann, F.: 120n.
Balaudé, J.-F.: 108. Hermocrates: 68.
Barney, R.: 120n. Hesiod: 69.
Bloom, A.: 114, Hierocles: 88.
Boecius: 111. Homer: 69, 98.
Boeckh, A.: 114, 114n. Howland, J.: 114,
Bréhier, E. 110n. Isnardi Parente, M.: 57n.
Callicles: 34, 120n. Isocrates: 24, 121n.
Campbell, L.: 114. Jaeger, W.: 36.
Cherniss, H.: 93. Jowett, B.: 114,
Chrysippus: 85, 86, 89-93. Kahn, C.: 119n.
Cicero: 83, 84, 94. Popper, K.: 21, 22, 36.
Cleanthes: 92, 94. Kirk, G.S.: 74n.
Clitophon: 116. Le Corbusier: 70, 71.
Costa, L.: 70, 71. Leopardi, G.: 35.
Cratinus: 114. Lysias: 23, 116.
Critias: 67. Marx, K.: 21.
Cynic: 87. Niemeyer, O.: 71, 72.
Democritus: 121n. Nietzsche, F.: 69.
Demosthenes: 83. Nussbaum, M.: 99n, 101n, 102n.
Descartes, R.: 111. O’Meara, D.J.: 108, 108n, 111.
Detienne, M.: 75n. Panaetius: 94.
Diogenes: 11. Pendrick, G.: 120n, 121n.
Dionysus: 69. Pericles: 43, 48, 50, 118n.
Dixaut, M.: 100. Petrarca, F.: 111.
Epictetus: 94. Plato 11, 14, 15, 17-19, 21, 22, 24-31, 33-
136 Index of names

36, 36n, 38n, 39-43, 45, 47, 52, 55-63, Strauss, L.: 36n.
74, 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, 92, 98-103, 105, Taylor, A.E.: 114, 114n.
113, 114, 114n, 115n, 117, 120-123. Thales: 74, 78.
Plotinus: 105, 105n, 107-111. Theodorus: 73, 77.
Polemarchus: 13, 26, 116. Themistocles: 43.
Polemon: 83. Thrasymachus: 24, 26, 27, 114, 114n, 117-
Protagoras: 76, 77, 113. 120.
Raven, J.E.: 74n. Thucydides: 22, 48-51, 115n.
Schofield, M.: 74n, 82n, 88n, 89n. Vegetti, M.: 26, 118n.
Socrates: 12-14, 17, 30, 33-35, 37-40, 42- Vogt, K.M.: 82n.
43, 48n, 52, 55-60, 62, 64, 67-74, 79, Xenocrates: 83.
99, 101, 103, 113, 116, 117, 118n, Xenophon: 121n.
121n, 122. Zeller, E.: 82n, 83.
Speusippus: 83. Zeno: 83, 85, 88, 89, 89n, 91, 94, 95.

Google
Index locorum

AESCHYLUS Ethica Nichomachea

Persae 11094al-2 43
241-242 83 X7-8 109
X 71177a27-1177b5 109
ANTIPHON
Methaphysica
Fragmenta
IV v 1009a 77
B44 (a) col. I, 16-23 121
B44 (a) col. I1, 3-10 121
Poetica
B44 (a) col. II, 14-20 121
1447b 102
B44 (a) col. I1, 21-23 121
B44 (a) col. IV, 18-22 121
Politica
DK 87B44 (a), (b), (c) 120
11253a27-29 35
ARISTOPHANES III 1285220 83
III 1286a - b 83
Equites
III 1287a15-30 83
40-41 51
II11 1287b-1288a 83
42-43 52
VIII 1337al1-16 31
46 52
143 52
CicEro
184-186 52
Academica
213-218 52
681-682 52 1137-38 84
140 83
Lysistrata 155 83
135
544-547 51
140-41
ey

155
Plutus
725 51 De Fato
726, 900, 901 51
39-44 84
ARISTOTLE
De finibus
Atheniensium respublica I 16-17 88
XXIX 3 116 III 62-66 89

Go
138 Index locorum

De republica GORalAS
1133 89 Helenae encomium
8,1 54
De officiis 8,10 54
I16 94
HeroboTus
DEMOSTHENES Historige
Philippicae VII 104 83
1125 77
HoMmer
Di0GENES LAERTIUS Odyssea
Vitae philosophorum XIX 179 106
V1 86-89 92
V1125-126 90 Lysias
VII 32-33 94 Epitaphios
VII 33 88, 89, 94 9 23
VII 85-86 88 18 23
VII 86-89 92 44,2-3 23
VII 87-88 90, 91 62 23
VII 88-89 90
VII 89-90 92 MARCIAN
VH 121 -122 94 Institutiones
VI1 128-129 87 111314 89
VII 130 86

VI 131 94 MARCUS AURELIUS

EFICTETUS Ad se ipsum

Dissertationes 7 M
V 8 (93, 94)
19,4 94 VIII 46 93
112,16 94

ORIGEN
) Euvririoes Contra Celsum
Hippolytus VIL 63, 12-18 94
358 48
PLaTO
Bacchae Apologia Socratis
429-432 83 24b 52
Io
533d-e 101

Go gle
Index locorum 139

Leges Menexenus
1624a 106 236a 121
1626c6 13 238e-239a 83
1626d5 12
1631b5 12 Respublica
1650b6-9 12 1327a-328b 114
111 680a6-7 15 1338d-e 118
111 688b2 15 1338e-339a 119
111 694¢ 52 1340b-c 116
1V 715¢6-7 15 1343¢ 26
1V 715¢6-d4 15 1343e 26
1V 720a 16 1344a 26,118
V 739 17 1348¢ 118
V 739a-¢ 25 11 357b 33
V 739 28 11 358a 114
V 739¢2-3 17 11 358¢-d 118
V 739c4-5 25 1I 358e-359b 118
V 739¢5-6 25 11 359¢3-6 118
V 739¢8 25 11 359b 118
V 739d1 25 11 359b-c 119
V 739d2-3 25 11 360b-d 118
V 740a1-2 25 11361d3 12
V 740a5-6 25 11 361e 118
V 740a6-b1 25 11 362a 121
IX 853d10-854al 18 11 362a-c 118
1X 853d10-854al 18 11 362b-c 26
1X 874¢8-875 15 11 364a-b 26
IX 875al-4 18 11 368¢ 61
11 368e-369a 34
Phaedo 11 369b5-b7 12
67d 48 11377b 30
69cl1-3 110 11377c-d 30
82al-bl 110 11 377e-378e 30
244d 101 11 378e-380c 30
248d2 106 11 380d-382¢ 30
249d 102 111 386-392¢ 30
250b 101 111 386a-387c 30
111 387¢-388d 30
Philebus 111 388¢-391¢ 30
20b-31a 91 111 412d-e 53
111 412¢-413a 54
111 413b 54,44

Google
140 Index locorum

11413e 55 V 451d-456¢ 62
1V 419a-420a 28 V 452a7 62
1V 419a2 59 V 452d8-el 62
1V 420a6 60 V 453b-454b 122
1V 420b 60 V 453b5 63
1V 420b6-7 60 V 453b7 63
1V 42008 60 V 453b10 63
1V 420c3-4 60 V453cl 63
1V 420e7 60 V 453c3-4 63
V42lc 122 V 454al-2 63
1V 421c4-5 60 V 454a5-7 63
1V 421c5-6 12 V 454¢8 63
1V 421d2 60 V 454d10 63
IV 421d4 60 V 454¢l 63
1V 422al 60 V 455d8 63
1V 422a2-3 60 V 455e6 63
1V 422a3 60 V 456al10 63
1V 423d 122 V 456b5-6 63
1V 423d6 61 V 456b12 63
1V 423e6 61 V 456¢ 122
1V 424a 122 V 456c1 63
1V 425b7 16 V 456¢-457b 62
1V 428e 122 V 457b7 62
IV43lc 122 V 457c-466d 62
1V 432a7 61 V 457c-473a
1V 432a8 61 V 457d1 64
1V 433a-443¢c 122 V 457d2
1V 434-445¢ 61 V 463a-b 83
1V 434b4 61 V 463b-c 28
1V 434¢ 61 V 464b-c 28
IV 435¢2 61 V 464c-d 28
IV 439a-b2 87 V 466e-473a 62
1V 442a 122 Vv 470d 53
1V 443¢9 13 V471¢3-7 38
1V 443d3-4 61 V471 ¢6 13
1V 443el 61 vV 472b 38
1V 444b-e 122 V 472b-d 42
V 4492-473 13 V 472b1 13
V 449¢5 62 V 472b7-c2 38
V 450b7 62 V 472c4 13
V 450c1-2 64 V 472c4-d2 38
V 450d1 63 V 472¢4-5 82

Go SIL’ INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Index locorum 141

V 472c8 12 VI 500e3-501b7 108

V 472c8 12 VI50lcl 65
V 473al-a3 17 VI501c9 66
V 473b-e 42 VI501d1-2 66
V 473b-VII 541b 62 VI 501e4-5 66
V473c-e 123 VI 501e-502¢ 82
V 473¢c-d 82 VI 502¢2 66
V 473¢3 29 VI 503a2 66
V473¢cll 13 VI 503a8-bl 66
V473¢-d 41 VI 504a3 66
V 473¢c3-4 42 VI 504e4-5 66
V473d 66 VI 505a2 66
V 473d2-3 82 VII514a 123
V 473e4 14 VII 519¢-520a 108
V 474a3 14 VII 519¢3-4 66
V1491 55 VII 540a-b 28
VI 494d-¢ 26 VII 540b5-6 28
V1495¢ 55 VIII 543a 28
V1496all 14 IX 587d-e 34
V1 496b-¢ 55 IX 588a 34
V1 496b-d 55 IX 591cl 14
V1497 57 1X 592a-b 42
V1497b2 64 1X 592b2-5 82
V1497d8-9 65 X 595b-c 98
V1497e 57 X 598e-599a 98
V1498a2 -3 65 X 602c 98
V1498a6 65 X 603a 97
V1498b4 65 X 606a 101
V1498b6 65 X 607b 99
V1498c2 65 X 608b-c 34
V1499 66
V1499 58 Epistula VII
VI499b7-c2 17 325¢ 56
V1499cl 17 325c-¢ 56
VI 500d 26 325d-e 57
VI 500-501al 27 326a2-b4 82
VI 502b 58 326a5-6 41
VI 503a 53 326b 41
VI 503b 55 327e 57
VI 500al-a3 65 328¢ 57
VI 500b5 65
VI 500c5 108

Google
142 Index locorum

Timaeus PLUTARCH
17a-b 67 De amore prolis
90b1-d7 91 495B.C 2

Theaetetus De communibus notitiis

145d-e 76 1073E 86
152b-c 76

161d 76 De Stoicorum repugnantiis

1664 7 1033C-D 85
167¢ 77 1038B-C 89

1724 ” 1046E-1047A 90
172e-173a 78 10498 93
173e 79

:;i: ;: De Alexandri fortuna

175d 78 392A-B 89
176a 80
176a-b 110 PORPHYRY
De abstinentia
ProTinus 1119-20 88
Enneades
11(53],1-5 110 Vita Plotini
110 VII 19-22 105
11[53],23-26
12[49], 106 X1 8, 105
12[19], 109
12[19], 16-17 110 Pseupo-PLaTO
14 [49] 109 Minos
14 [46] 110 319d-e 106
14 [46],3, 24 110
14 [46), 4,23 110, 111 PsEUDO-PLUTARCH
: : Efi%’ ;; 25 ::: Vitae decem oratorum
" 110 835E 115
17,10-12
V3 [49] 108
V831, 12,1 109 _ SexeCA
VI 1[42], 28 86 Epistulae
VI9[9],3,11-13 107 121,23-24 88
VI9([9],7,20-26 107
VI9([9],7,21-28 106 De beneficiis
VvI9([9],7,27 107 m2g,1 91
VI9[9],7, 16-20 107
VL9 [9], 11, 51 106

GO gle II.L‘\AI.Al|‘H',-“'U‘-‘wll'|
Index locorum 143

SexTUs EMPIRICUS 35,2 49

Adversus Mathematicos 37,1 118
43,6 22
VII 154 84
1153,3 49
VII 232-233 85
il 49
VII 227-229 85
43,1 50

VII 242-243 84
1160, 5 50
1182, 3 39

STOBAEUS
I 82, 3 39,48
1M, 82, 2, 6 48
Eclogae phisicae et ethicae 111, 82, 6 48
1160, 7-8 92 1182, 8 48
11 66, 14-15 94 V 105, 2 48
177,1-5 86 VI12,2 49
1177, 25-27 86 VI12,2 51
II 88, 2-6 84 VI 16,4 49
I195,9-23 95 VI3, 1 49
1197,22-98,3 87 VI36 52
1198, 19-99, 2 93 VI, 92,2 50
1199, 3-12 94 VI92,3-4 50
I 13,452-5 11 VIII 115

XENOPHON
THUCYDIDES Cyropaedia
Historiae lii3 23
115,2 22 Mivé 23
117 22 Ivilg 23
125,4 22 1Ivi21-23 23
143,1-2 22 1Ivi2l,26 23
161,4 22 I xii 5 23
1141,3 22 liv12-13 23
1141,4 22 I xiv 13 23
1141,7 22 IViii 12 23
18,1 49
mi,7 49 Hellenica
m21,2 49 1I4,10-11 115

Google
s Francisco L. Lisi (ed.)

The Ascent to the Good

2007. 272 pp. 32,50 EUR. Hardcover. 15,5 x 23 cm. ISBN: 978-3-89665-426-2

(Collegium Politicum - Confributions to Classical Political Thought - Vol. 1)

= 3 Praised and condemned by totalitarians and democrats, liberals, fascists

: and communists, progressives and conservatives, Plato‘s Republic is one of
&= the most influential writings in the history of political ideas. In its central
o . books the philosopher puts in the mouth of Socrates the principles of its
. challenging political construction. His defense of the philosophical govern-
ment reveals the necessity of distinguishing true philosophers from false
ones. This issue leads to the central question of the Good, the principle
that constitutes the foundation of philosophical knowledge and of political
activity. Once this principle has been introduced, the subsequent question
turns on the education of the philosophers, which occupies Book VII. The
present volume contains contributions to the main issues developed in Books
V-VII of the Republic, on which the attention of scholarship in the past 100
years has focused, practical philosophy, metaphysics,
dialectics, and the question of the Good.

Francisco L. Lisi is professor of Greek Philology and

director of the Instituto de Estudios Cldsicos ,, Lucio An-
neo Séneca" (Universidad Carlos Ill de Madrid). He
has published more than 100 contributions on ancient
philosophy, especially Plato, Aristotle and the history of
Th e Asce nt . Platonism.
to the Good

Sk Acodemin Vedag + BohnsiraBe 7 & 53757 Soak A

W Tel 492241 345210 s Fax +49 2241 34531
: - EMail: i miaverlag.de © Inlernel: www.q

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 Federico Zuolo

Platone e l'efficacia
Realizzabilita della teoria normativa
2009. 165 p. 19,50 EUR. 15,5 x 21,5 cm. ISBN: 978-3-89665-4656

[Collegium Politicum - Contributions to Classical Political Thought - Vol. 2)

11 pensiero politico di Platone ha dato origine a diversi concetti e problemi

che hanno accompagnato la tradizione teorica occidentale, tra i quali I’idea di
teoria normativa, la fondazione filosofica della politica, i filosofi-re, il canone
utopico. Il contributo di questo libro & quello di individuare un altro elemento
teorico nato con il pensiero platonico: il concetto di efficacia di una teoria
normativa, ovvero il modo in cui la teoria presume e raffigura la sua possibi-
le realizzazione pratica. Se nella Repubblica la questione della realizzabilita
risulta particolarmente problematica, nelle Leggi, invece, diviene 1’asse por-
tante della riformulazione teorica. Partendo dalla definizione del concetto di
efficacia e attraverso 1’analisi delle pill importanti opere platoniche, questo
lavoro intende delineare una nuova immagine del-
la teoria politica platonica: né utopia, né immediato
programma pratico, bensi teoria normativa con una
congruente teoria dell’efficacia.
Federico Zuol

Federico Zuolo & attualmente assegnista di ricerca presso

il Dipartimento di Filosofia dell’Universita di Pavia. Ha
Platone e |'efficacia pubblicato diversi articoli in riviste italiane e internazio-
nali (Rivista di filosofia, Teoria politica, Filosofia politi-
Realizzabilita della teoria normativa ca, Utopia and Utopianism)..

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 Silvia Gastaldi - Jean-Frangois Pradeau (eds.)

Le philosophe, le roi, le tyran

Etudes sur les figures royale et tyrannique dans la
pensée politique grecque et sa postérité
2009. 231 p. 26,00 EUR. 15,3 x 21,5 cm. ISBN: 978-3-89665467-0
(Collegium Politicum - Contributions to Classical Political Thought - Vol. 3)

Les études du présent volume sont le fruit des travaux que le Collegium Poli-
ticum, réseau de recherche européen, consacre a la pensée politique ancienne
et a son influence. Les réflexions anciennes sur la royauté et la tyrannie sont
examinées ici de fagon 2 montrer combien elles ont nourri les théories poli-
tiques grecques et romaines, et combien les débats qu’elles ont suscités ont
eu d’influence sur la pensée politique renaissante et moderne. Elles mettent
plus particulierement I’accent sur I’importance de la figure du roi et du tyran
dans la recherche sur la constitution et sur le pouvoir, telle qu’elle se forme
deésle IVeémes. av. J.-C., 3 Athénes, et elles cherchent
a rendre raison de ce qui se joue, entre condamna-
tion des excés tyrannique et veeu d’une royauté aussi
puissante que savante, dans les textes philosophiques
Silviz aldi - Jean-Francois Pradeau (eds.) grecs ol nait la pensée politique européenne.

Le philosophe, Madame Silvia Gastaldi est Professeur de Philosophie

antique a I’ Université de Pavie, en Italie ; M. Jean-Fran-
le roi, le tyran ¢ois Pradeau est Professeur de Philosophie antique a
annique dans U'Université de Lyon-IlI, en France.
la pensée politique grecqu

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1|
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. Original from 13
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