The Sorcerer’s City

Truth and Disguise in Plato’s Republic

Supervisor: Dr. Gerd Van Riel A thesis presented in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of Master of Philosophy (MA)

By Cornelis Stok

Leuven, August 2011

INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHYKARDINAAL MERCIERPLEIN 2BE-3000 LEUVEN

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT

LEUVEN

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Table of Contents

Introduction.................................................................................................................................3

1. Confusion in Athens: The Need for Dialectics.......................................................................4

2. A Twofold Expansion: Need and Desire..............................................................................10

3. The Question of Truth: Education in Piety...........................................................................15

4. Imitation and Formation: Speaking the Lie in Love.............................................................21

5. Theft, Compulsion and Magic: The Sorcerer Strikes...........................................................29

6. The Sorcerer’s Cave: Grasping Shadows..............................................................................36

7. The Poet’s Lies: Images of Images.......................................................................................46

8. The Theological Turn: Whether God is a Sorcerer...............................................................52

Conclusion................................................................................................................................56

Bibliography..............................................................................................................................57

Abstract.....................................................................................................................................59

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Introduction

Sorcerers come in many shapes and sizes. Like sophistry, sorcery is not easily classified

in the hierarchy of arts; indeed, different sorcerers seem to possess different arts. Some are

provincial conjurors of cheap tricks, capable of providing brief pleasure to an audience in a

specific time and place; others, of wider ambition and ambit, wander the world with their

purposes hidden beneath their cloaks, perpetually old but surprisingly vigorous. Such a grey

pilgrim is Republic.

Over the years, this stray figure with its oddly patched garment has been subjected to

many kinds of scrutiny; interpretations of Plato’s work vary widely. This thesis, inspired by a

tendency in scholarship of recent decades, seeks to pay especial attention to the dialogic

context in which remarks are dropped and theories constructed. The primary speaker,

Socrates, is known both for his irony and his desire for knowledge of the truth. These two

might seem to be in tension with each other, for truth is associated with honesty, honesty with

straightforwardness. In this thesis I analyze Plato’s Republic and explore Socrates’

understanding of truth, in a way that accounts for his irony and incidentally contributes to a

truce in the ancient quarrel between philosophers and poets.

The main theme of Republic is justice, not truth. Nevertheless, I have chosen this

dialogue not only because it contains more insights than most others, but also because it

discusses and recommends the controversial ‘noble lie’. This would suggest that justice and

truth are enemies; I defend that Socrates thought the opposite, both in history and as a

character in Republic. The ‘noble lie’ turns out to be, like Socrates’ irony and Plato’s

dialogues, truth in disguise.

For the realization of this thesis, I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Van Riel, my

promotor, whose constructive criticism has been most helpful; to Dr. Fendt, who has clarified

some complicated academic questions along the way; to the people of the Arenberg residence,

who provided a quiet environment that made working easier; and, last but not least, my

parents, for supporting me and letting me work even in unlikely places.

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1. Confusion in Athens: The Need for Dialectics

The god attached Socrates to the city, he claims, “as upon a great and noble horse which

was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly.”1

As we know from the rest of the Apology, this brought mortal danger to the gadfly itself.

What could have been Socrates’ purpose in stinging his city so insistently, and what could

have been Plato’s purpose in recording the dialogic practice of his teacher?

The Socratic dialogues (as edited by Plato, one generation later) must be situated in an

environment threatened by the internal frictions of different groups of people existing

alongside each other. Traditions are no longer experienced as sufficient for the stability of the

social order and teachers come from foreign places: the Sophists with whom Socrates has so

many disagreements. Their very presence is an attack on common sense – in the literal

meaning of sensus communis, a shared way of life and structure of thought.

This in turn leads to a more explicit reflection on the myths or narratives that have

hitherto shaped the common sense; as McNeill puts it, it leads to “the ‘rationalization’ of

myth and the attempt to bring to consciousness the implicit narratives through which

members of the culture had experienced their lives as ‘justified’.”2 This is what the Sophists

do, but also what Socrates does. He sets up a new ideal: the conscious search for self-

knowledge beyond the skepticism that underlies many Sophistic accounts of value.

“I went down to the Piraeus” (Republic 327a) – that is how Socrates as narrator sets the

stage for the rest of the book, Plato’s Republic. The Piraeus is Athens’ main port; Socrates is

going down there to say a prayer to the goddess Bendis, whose cult has been imported from

Thracia into Athens. The variety extends further than custom and cult: it also applies to the

social position of Socrates’ interlocutors. While Glaucon and Adeimantus are native

Athenians, Thrasymachus is from Chalcedon and Cephalus is a resident alien or metic from

Syracuse.3 Against this diverse background, the question of universal justice is discussed.

In Book I of the Republic, Plato shows what is wrong with Athens and why it needs the

dialectic cure that Socrates has to offer. McNeill reads this part as a dramatic demonstration

of “the kinds of misunderstandings about human excellence [then prevalent in Athens] and

1 Apology 30e.2 McNeill 12.3 Blondell 165-166.

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the strategies of self-deception it engendered.”4 Cephalus, his son Polemarchus, and

Thrasymachus together indicate where Athens is morally and philosophically.

Cephalus is a pater familias busy with sacrifices to the gods. As his other desires fade

away, his desire for conversations grows. He calls those other desires “many mad masters”

(329d), after Sophocles, although the poet was wise enough to distinguish between metaphor

and reality. Besides, the poet spoke of only one master (erōs), whereas Cephalus speaks of

many. Nor does he seem to consider himself culpable for his enslavement; to him, it was only

a fact of life.5

That does not mean that he feels no guilt at all: as death approaches, the old stories

about Hades “twist his soul this way and that for fear they’re true” (330d-e). It seems that his

self-examination about his past injustices has made him eager to placate the gods. Is he self-

complacent? To a degree, yes; he trusts that his wealth will save him from dying in debt to the

gods or the neighbors, or accumulating extra debt by having to cheat someone (331b).

However, he shows a marked zeal for tending to sacrifices; his religion stirs and soothes his

conscience at the same time. Benardete remarks, “Poetry terrifies and consoles; but it can

console only those it has thoroughly terrified.”6 A different kind of poetic consolation will be

elaborated in these pages.

Blondell sees Cephalus as a man of “unthinking, rule-bound virtue.”7 McNeill is not so

charitable; he thinks that Cephalus can add up quite a number of past injustices.8 Either way,

he is not a true philosopher: his serenity is not based on reason’s rule, but the gradual

withering of the passions. He did not choose this; it happened to him. Furthermore, he thinks

that wealth can buy justice, hope and peace; the absence of money makes old age necessarily

unbearable. Lastly, he does not pay close attention to what is said by others or even by

himself, as is evident from his immediate acceptance of Socrates’ drastic reformulation of his

words (331b-c).9

In sum, Cephalus is either incapable of engaging in rational discussion or unwilling to

do so; he prefers to rely on poetic authority instead. Hence, Socrates removes him from the

conversation as quickly as he can. Cephalus does serve a significant purpose, however: he

represents a dying tradition that must be deconstructed (to use a postmodern term) before

constructive discussion can take place, since people within the tradition falsely believe that

4 McNeill 17.5 Cf. McNeill 26 and Blondell 173 6 Benardete 15.7 Blondell 173.8 McNeill 30.9 Cf. McNeill 28.

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the answers to all the important questions about the good are both possessed and understood.

At the same time, while Cephalus hardly speaks of justice (mostly limiting himself to

injustice), his words provide Socrates with an occasion to start his discussion on justice with

the younger men. The philosopher hijacks and continues the conversation which tradition

started. However, once the old order is out of sight, it may be replaced with a violent and

dangerous negation of all its conventional pieties. We see this in Thrasymachus, to whom

nothing is sacred, including the old poets.

Some authors believe that Plato also looked down on the poets. For instance, Havelock

argues that Plato’s age oral transmission of authoritative texts became less important in

Plato’s age due to increased literary skills. Consequently, people came to rely less on memory

in the transmission process. According to Havelock, the memorization of a great amount of

poetry requires “total personal involvement and therefore of emotional identification with the

substance of the poetised statement that you are required to retain.”10 That is, the old

rhapsodists who had to memorize everything did not reflect on the content of the poetry, but

simply identified with every scene in succession; hence Plato criticizes them for not having a

stable character.

While this is an interesting reflection on how technology influences mental exercise, the

overall thesis seems to be too strict. It is indeed true that memorization invites identification,

but it is untrue that what has been memorized cannot be pondered afterwards, especially when

the poem invites this. Take Agamemnon, for instance, a tragedy written by Aeschylus, who

died before Socrates was born. In one great speech at the opening of the drama, the chorus of

Argive elders say contradictory things: the history “moves to fulfilment at its destined end”

(68) and no sacrifice can stop it; the gods sacrifice victims to their anger; sacrifices cause

hope in the human heart; Artemis pities the sacrifice; Artemis demands human sacrifice;

Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter was unholy because he “donned the yoke of

Necessity” (218), i.e. he acted from his belief that what was destined would be done.

Aeschylus probably did not compose this speech as a “tribal encyclopedia,”11 throwing

in an odd assortment of bits of conventional wisdom. It would be disrespectful to say he was

so carried away by the familiar phrases that he failed to notice their incongruity with each

other.12 More likely, Aeschylus wanted to navigate the difficulties of the problem, not in

10 Havelock 44.11 Havelock 175.12 Someone I know memorized a long narrative poem and discovered recurring themes or images

which he had not noticed before. This made him think about the similarities and differences between the uses of the same image: memorization stimulated reflection rather than inhibiting it. Did such reflection not occur in pre-literate.societies?

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abstract thought or dialogue, but in a dramatic situation that invites spectators to suffer along

and thus become wiser through suffering. There is no other way of becoming wise, sings the

chorus, for Zeus has established this “as a fixed law” (177-178). The argument of this thesis is

that Plato respects poetry for precisely this reason: it allows us to become wise through being

moved by the characters represented.

Still, Havelock is right that Plato offers a different response to traditional wisdom: his

drama is not an old myth retold, but an explicit and contemporary philosophical discussion.

While there are still dramatic aspects to the Platonic dialogues, the struggle is between ideas;

these ideas are no longer offered tangentially as justifications of actions, but placed in the

spotlights.

Moreover, from Socrates’ discussion with Polemarchus we may infer that Plato wished

his readers to reflect on the poets rather than merely quote them as authorities. Polemarchus

has not reflected adequately, for he cannot explain what Simonides meant by “it is just to give

to each what is owed to him” (331e). Polemarchus agrees that a mad friend should not have

dangerous possessions restored to him, for one should do good to one’s friends (rather than

placing them in harm’s way). To one’s enemies, however, one owes something bad.

Polemarchus’ answer may reflect the common Athenian understanding of what one owes to

others, but not necessarily Simonides’ meaning, nor the truth.

If justice is simply a matter of producing certain effects in certain kinds of people

(benefit in friends, harm in enemies), it is only a skill or craft to be mastered, a technē, like

medicine, cooking or carpentry. The connotations which technē had in Plato’s time are

described as follows by Roochnik: “it must have a determinate subject matter, a restricted

field in which it can be exercised, and it should be recognizably useful within the confines of

that field.”13 Polemarchus confines benefit and harm to the field of basic security: the crafter

of justice is most useful in “wars and alliances” (332e). When asked if the just man is useless

in peacetime, Polemarchus concedes that he is also useful for mercantile contracts (333a),

presumably because these provide financial security.

However, since justice does not produce anything that can be sold, the question arises

what role the just man has on the market. Polemarchus cannot conceive of any other role than

keeping safe the products of the other craftsmen. Also, he thinks that the crafter of justice

would simply have superior knowledge about how to keep things safe; he does not refer to an

inner motivation to do so. If justice means mere knowledge of how things are kept safe,

however, the just man is also a clever thief (334a). The baffled Polemarchus finally can do no

13 Roochnik 134-135.

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better than to define justice as “to benefit one’s friends and harm one’s enemies” (334b),

leaving out the description of justice as technē.

While this is an improvement, the remainder of Socrates’ discussion with Polemarchus

brings out two problems that still afflict this definition. Firstly, the identification of friends

and enemies is often difficult. If justice is determined purely by the appearance of friendship

and enmity rather than its reality, justice would sometimes require harming good men and

benefiting bad men. Secondly, it is not always clear what constitutes harm. Are benefit and

harm solely to be judged in terms of safety and economics? Socrates does not address this

directly, but by defending that virtue never harms men: harm is defined as a decrease of

virtue, and virtue cannot make other people less virtuous. Polemarchus agrees to this. If he

abides by this conclusion, he should soon enough discover that men do not always become

more morally just by being physically protected and financially benefited; therefore, harm and

benefit might be concerned with other things as well. If so, harm on the economic or physical

level might be conducive to benefit on a higher level.

Socrates has attempted to change Polemarchus’ unreflective approach to tradition and to

life; also, by arguing for a view on justice which taken superficially is unsustainable, he has

opened a door for Polemarchus to realize that justice is more elusive than a field of technical

knowledge (like law). However, Socrates still casts it in terms of a war against those who

accuse the poets (335e), suggesting that the discussion about justice has been merely a

negotiation in the clash between traditional ‘Athenianism’ and novel influences. If justice is

merely the protection of one’s own cultural canon, a manual of rhetoric and political strategy

will serve us better than an obscure dialogue, though justice would demand a rebuke for

writing this out loud.

It is instructive to see how Plato dramatizes this option in the person of Thrasymachus,

who defines justice not through philosophical reasoning but political reality. He initially

identifies justice with the status quo or the laws of the ruling regime, whether it be

democracy, tyranny, or something else; subsequently he argues that those laws are bad which

are disadvantageous to the ruling regime. In other words: if a tyrant maintains his power by

arbitrary and cruel decrees, these laws are just; if he orders something for the common good

which gives people a chance to rebel, the law is unjust.

Like Polemarchus, Thrasymachus wants to describe justice as a technē: not as the art of

security, but that of lawmaking. Knowing this, Socrates easily turns the tables and ‘proves’

that the technē of lawmaking is for the advantage of the weak rather than the strong. When

Socrates has argued that the just man is both a pacifist (to Polemarchus) and an entirely

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selfless ruler (to Thrasymachus), the latter grows exasperated and shows his true colors by

redefining justice one last time: “justice is really the good of another” (343c), namely the

stronger, and it neither benefits the just nor makes them happy. The servile are just, the rulers

are unjust; the servile languish, the rulers prosper. Justice is merely “high-minded simplicity”,

while injustice is “good judgment” (348c-d). If the happy life is marked by injustice, which is

another name for power or ‘outdoing’ others (343e), then justice is irrelevant. Considering

Socrates’ firm belief that virtue is linked to happiness, he cannot allow this teaching free rein

in Athens; Thrasymachus might persuade people, who would then walk the road to misery.

Socrates’ dialogic attack is two-pronged. First, by taking ‘outdoing’ in the abstract, he

gets Thrasymachus to agree that only the ignorant or unskilled try to outdo everyone

indiscriminately; the true craftsmen in every craft only try to outdo the unskilled, not other

true craftsmen. Thus, it seems that those who practice ‘outdoing’ most are like the ignorant

and unskilled. Second, by connecting ‘outdoing’ to a specific tyrannical purpose, Socrates

argues that injustice causes dissension and thus makes the unjust incapable of achieving their

purposes. Particularly the first argument, which puts Thrasymachus in the class of the

unskilled, shames and upsets him. It even effectively silences him, since he continues by

voicing agreement to Socrates’ words, however insincerely.

Thus, Book I can be read as a response to different ways of thought (or lack thereof) in

Socrates’ Athens. The results are not very satisfying (withdrawal, interruption and shamed

insincerity), which suggests that the reformation of the city is a slow task. Slow, but

necessary, for a city that follows a false wisdom is headed towards unhappiness and war: such

is the argument of Republic. This thesis will seek to show that Socrates presents this truth in a

disguise which will make it desirable even for those attached to falsehood, and that this is

Plato’s reason for writing the dialogues.

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2. A Twofold Expansion: Need and Desire

In Book I, everyone assumes that justice is not a matter of character but of actions:

telling the truth and paying debts (Cephalus), making sure friends are comfortable and

enemies miserable (Polemarchus), making the kind of laws that will perpetuate the current

regime, or outdoing everyone else (Thrasymachus). There is no intrinsic value to any of these.

The two Athenian brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus are convinced that justice is intrinsically

valuable, so they take up the cause of injustice as a challenge to Socrates to give a more

perfect account of justice. They themselves are not yet able to give an adequate response to

Thrasymachus, because they do not know what justice is. Hence Glaucon demands to know

“what justice and injustice are and what power each itself has when it’s by itself in the soul”

(358b). In the course of the conversation, Socrates will expand the account twice: once to

accommodate reason in its search, once to accommodate Glaucon’s desire.

Glaucon posits two men: one really unjust but apparently just, the other really just but

apparently unjust. The first is honored and rewarded, the second is universally despised.

Glaucon demands to go beyond appearances to what someone truly is inside. This would not

make sense if justice were a mere technē: to find out if someone is really a cobbler or a

captain, it suffices to observe his professional actions. Even if the cobbler destroys shoes in

his spare time, he is still a cobbler. On the other hand, if a man of good repute, who is often

seen performing just actions, secretly embezzles money from the city’s treasury, his justice

would be exposed as a mere sham.

These thoughts about justice have a profundity lacking in the earlier views, but there is

still something Thrasymachean in Glaucon’s account. Thrasymachus had defined the just and

the unjust in terms of power: the unjust were the tyrants who ruled, while the just were the

simple folk who suffered under the tyrant’s whims. Justice thus becomes entirely dependent

on the existence of a law beneath which one can bend; it does not exist in its own right as

something positive. Similarly, Glaucon can imagine what actions go with injustice: “he could

take whatever he wanted from the marketplace with impunity, go into people’s houses and

have sex with anyone he wished, kill or release from prison anyone he wished” (360b-c). On

the other hand, he cannot imagine the actions of justice, for his just man never does anything

but suffer: “a just person in such circumstances will be whipped, stretched on a rack, chained,

blinded with fire, and, at the end, when he has suffered every kind of evil, he’ll be impaled,

and will realize then that one shouldn’t want to be just but to be believed to be just” (361e).

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Glaucon’s just man is like Nietzsche’s Christ: too good to be any good, carried on

towards a death in which he will finally realize his mistake. Nor can Glaucon currently think

why it would not be a mistake. The same goes for Adeimantus, who believes that no one is

just willingly, unless he has an intuitive hatred of injustice or some special knowledge.

Socrates admits he does not see clearly what justice looks like, but suggests to read the

answer where it is written in larger letters, namely in a city rather than a person. Since a city

is larger than a single man, it may contain more justice, which is therefore more easily seen;

therefore, if we could watch the origin of a city, we would also see its justice arise. This is the

first expansion, which comes out of the need for a positive account of justice itself.

This reference to letters seems odd, as if justice were a thing of a certain magnitude

which can be increased or decreased, like one word written across a forehead and a front gate.

A brief excursion into Theaetetus, in which letters play a prominent role, may shed light on

Socrates’ use of the analogy here. On the surface, Theaetetus deals with the question ‘what is

knowledge?’. Letters are introduced into the discussion by Socrates in response to the theory

that the basic and indivisible elements of a thing cannot be known, while their combinations

can be (202d). The example is given that the first syllable of Socrates’ name, SO, can be

defined in terms of S and O, but these letters cannot be further defined in terms of something

more basic (203a-b). But the whole, Socrates argues, is the sum of the parts: if the parts are

unknown, the whole is also (which is taken to the ridiculous conclusion that the perfect

arithmetician knows all numbers: 198b). What remains unsaid, though Theaetetus almost says

it, is that SO is meaningless in isolation; it only contributes to understanding when taken in

the context of a word, such as ‘Socrates’.1

Indeed, individual letters cannot meaningfully be defined or broken down into elements.

If Glaucon’s request for a definition of justice is not meaningless, it must be more like a

combination of letters, as Socrates suggests. But justice also turns out to be an element of a

city or a person, not an independently existing thing. If that is the case, ‘justice’ is like the

syllable SO: the question “what justice and injustice are” is intrinsically in need of reference

to the context of the whole person (city), as the syllable is in need of the context of the word.2

1 This becomes even clearer when spelling mistakes are discussed. The names of Theaetetus and Theodorus both begin with Θε−, which is similar in sound to Τε−.The question ‘what is the spelling of the sound te?’ is thus ambiguous without reference to a complete word which is already known. Even a writer with some experience could write Τεοδωρος for Θεοδωρος if he had never seen the word before and simply transliterated the sounds.

2 In Laches, Socrates suggests that it is problematic to think of virtue as something that can be broken down into parts, like a typical technē with areas of specialization (cf. Roochnik 104).

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Glaucon, however, does not have a good idea of what the just person is. In terms of the

analogy, he does not know the word necessary for knowledge of its individual syllables. The

various interlocutors of Book I, who constitute the cultural milieu in which the sons of

Ariston have grown up, all describe justice as a way of dealing with a given situation. You tell

the truth when interrogated; you pay your creditors after incurring debt; you benefit and harm

those who happen to be your friends and enemies; you perpetuate the existing regime; you

suffer injustice patiently. Socrates’ idea to start from scratch, to create a human environment

in cooperation with Glaucon and Adeimantus, is a stroke of psychological genius, since it

makes them think about justice as action rather than reaction.

Socrates says, “I think a city comes to be because none of us is self-sufficient” (369b).

The original expansion from person to city was based on the needs of the investigators,

because they were lacking in knowledge;3 analogously, the lack of the solitary human requires

the expansion into a city based on the vital needs of all the citizens: food, shelter, clothes,

medicine. Specialization flourishes and some use is found for every inhabitant.

The city is now complete and Socrates asks where justice can be found in it. Pursuing

the letter analogy (though Socrates does not do so), we can say that the word has been spelled

out, which means that its syllables should be known. Clearly the analogy does not hold, for

Adeimantus says, “I’ve no idea, Socrates, unless [justice] was somewhere in some need that

these people have of one another” (372a).4 Need is not an inhabitant or place within the city;

rather, it is its origin and sustaining ground. If that is the place where justice can be found,

justice must be more than a syllable of the word ‘city’. From the beginning the city was

kneaded with the need that gave rise to the expansion; it must be part of the city’s very

structure, holding the various elements together. It is more like the grammar that governs the

construction of a sentence than like a syllable in a word.

Rather than outlining the limits of the analogy, Glaucon protests. His objection to the

just city is far from philosophical: he complains that the way of life and the diet is too simple.

Arcadia is not Utopia if it means eating figs, olives, and bread with cheese. We are confronted

with a mind-body problem besides which the Cartesian version pales in comparison: no

matter how boldly the mind is willing to criticize traditional accounts in a relentless search for

true justice as it is by itself in the soul, it still explicitly requests its body to be fed “in the

conventional way”, with all the “delicacies and desserts that people have nowadays” (372d).

3 Or wisdom. Theaetetus agrees with the suggestion that wisdom and knowledge are the same (145a), but this initial pliability might well be the reason for the ultimate aporia.

4 Cf. Roochnik 104: “If arete cannot be broken down into parts, if it is not like the alphabet, then virtue as knowledge is not like orthography.”

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Though Socrates calls this a “city with a fever” (372e), he procures for the citizens

furniture, scents, prostitutes, and pastries, while Glaucon cheers him on. This is the second

expansion, which goes beyond the necessities to include many objects of desire. These no

longer serve the original purpose of the city, which was to provide for people’s needs; they

merely serve Glaucon’s purposes. Many commentators have attempted to paint this expansion

with a veneer of nobility. Grube, for example, thinks that the passage is ‘explained’ in Book

VIII, in which the oligarch is called a “somewhat squalid fellow” because he “satisfies only

his necessary appetites” (554a). By implication, the citizens of Socrates’ original city are

squalid fellows and Glaucon ennobles them.

Grube would be right if squalidness had nothing to do with character, but consisted only

in satisfying no more physical appetites than is necessary (which falls under the technē of

medicine). On the contrary, the oligarch is squalid because of his motivation, namely the

greedy desire for the security that money brings; Socrates’ healthy citizens are not ruled by

financial concerns and are quite capable of enjoying leisurely familial celebrations (372b).

Indeed, oligarchy or “the endless acquisition of money” only becomes a possibility after

people “have overstepped the limit of their necessities” (373d).

Socrates tells Glaucon that his expansion will lead to war: indulging appetites exposes

the city to danger. The city swells to bursting with hunters, beauticians, performance artists,

parent substitutes and the like, all of whom need to be fed, housed, clothed and shod at the

expense of neighboring cities. War introduces into the city a new class of specialists, namely

the guardians or soldiers, whose whole life must be devoted to warding off danger from the

city. War will be a perpetual reality for the city: even when there are no skirmishes, the

guardians will have to prepare for the next occasion of bloodshed. Fighting is something one

has to keep doing from early youth in order to be any good at it, like playing checkers or dice

(374c; the odd comparison suggests that a life in the service of war is an almost comic waste).

On the other hand, trained guardians present a danger to the very city they are supposed to

protect: since they only exist to fight, they might practice their skill to its devastating

conclusion and destroy the city from within.

Disharmony has found its way into the belly of the city through the secret canal of the

esophagus, which is notoriously impervious to argument. The dramatic situation of Republic

shows that Plato is aware of something more basic than the conflict between conventional

thought and philosophical thought, something more important: that humans are capable of

absorbing quite an amount of abstract wisdom without linking it to real life and loving it

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there.5 We see this in the sons of Ariston, who wish to be committed to justice but cannot yet

live for it and love it: they are not ready to sacrifice their ‘modern liberties’ for its sake. The

truth about one’s personality is not so easily fed to people as desserts and delicacies, as Plato

reminds us many times;6 besides, there is a difference between telling someone the truth and

making him see it. In the next chapters, we will discuss the complicated relationship between

truth and falsehood in the education of the children of the city: that is, those who are being

educated to live justly.

5 As demonstrated in Theaetetus by Theodorus’ approving assent to Socrates’ speech about the philosopher (wisdom-lover), and by thousands of Facebook quotes in our day and age.

6 See e.g. Republic 331c, 426a-c, 476d-e, 494d, 517a; Phaedrus 233a-b.

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3. The Question of Truth: Education in Piety

From the very beginning, the pursuit of justice has been linked with the pursuit of truth.

This is already the case at the outset of the dialogue in Book I, in which Socrates suggests to

Cephalus a definition of justice as “speaking the truth and paying whatever debts one has

incurred” (331c). There is a certain ambiguity, however, in Socrates’ use of the word ‘truth’:

he uses it with multiple shades of meaning without drawing attention to the difference

between them. I will explore the interplay between them chiefly by analyzing the education

proposed for the city’s guardians.

In the conversation with Cephalus, truth is implicitly assumed to be mere factuality. To

give the facts is to be just; not to give the facts (through concealment, distortion or

contradiction) is to be unjust. This definition of justice proves indefensible in the face of

madness: one should not give weapons to the mad or even tell them why the weapons are

withheld. Polemarchus’ solution (subconscious as it may be) is to omit any mention of truth in

the discussion of justice, but this disconnection is not the way Socrates prefers, judging from

the importance of truth in the following books of Republic.

What remains unclear in Republic is the scope of madness. Other dialogues (such as

Phaedrus) suggest that different forms of madness are much more universally present than

generally assumed. In fact, some insidious form of madness might already have worked its

way into Glaucon’s city: people seem to be touchy about being told that the spice of life is not

its daily bread, leading to a multiplication of weapons in the city. How can the founders of the

city ensure that these arms do not end up in the hands of the mad, while they themselves

encourage a form of madness? To address this problem, Socrates proposes a certain type of

education for the armed, one that will keep them pure from madness and requires a different

approach to truth.

Truth is initially identified with factuality. Before children start their physical exercises,

they will hear music, poetry, stories. Of stories there are two kinds, namely true and false; the

future guardians must be educated in both, “but first in false ones” (377a). They will hear the

kinds of stories told to children, which are “false, on the whole, though they have some truth

in them” (ibid.). The meaning of truth has shifted imperceptibly; Socrates could be talking

about embellished legends with a factual core, but it is more likely that he means something

else, something we often call ‘the moral of the story’.

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This is confirmed by Socrates’ accusation of the major Greek poets such as Homer and

Hesiod, whom he chides for telling false stories. These do not simply contain inaccuracies;

rather, they present “a bad image of what the gods and heroes are like” (377d-e), and the

badness of the image is invariably connected with gross moral defects. Such transgressors

cannot serve as moral exemplars for the city; poets who pretend otherwise tell falsehoods.

Socrates even says they tell “the greatest falsehood about the most important things” (377e)

and adds, “even if it were true, it should be passed over in silence, not told to foolish young

people” (378a). This holds true especially “if the falsehood isn’t well told” (377d). The

remarks quoted here raise a number of questions. 1) If factually false stories may and should

be told to children, but morally false stories may on no account be told, does factual truth

matter at all? 2) If morally false actions are narrated in a story, is the storyteller necessarily

promoting their imitation? 3) What does it mean to tell a (moral) falsehood well?

Socrates argues that stories about disunity among the gods should not be told, not only

because they are not true, but because they run counter to the moral messages which the

educators must convey to the children. Even disunity among the citizens is an improper

subject for rumors: “If we’re to persuade our people that no citizen has ever hated another and

that it’s impious to do so, then that’s what should be told to children from the beginning”

(378c). That no citizen has ever hated another is certainly a factual falsehood. The underlying

moral truth is that citizens should not hate each other, but in fact there is a distinction between

what should be done and what is actually done. Of all people, those charged with the

protection of the city especially need to be aware of this. Yet Adeimantus believes that

morality is best protected by the lie that only desirable things are done, or at least that the

gods do only good things. He therefore agrees that no stories should be told in which the gods

do bad things.

Socrates then argues that deception cannot be ascribed to the gods either: “Do you think

that a god is a sorcerer, able to appear in different forms at different times, sometimes

changing himself from his own form into many shapes, sometimes deceiving us by making us

think that he has done it?” (380c-d). While this is announced as a “second law” about

storytelling, it is phrased as a question, which suggests that it is a questionable law.

The argument for the non-deceptiveness of the gods is that the best things change the

least: if a body has a good constitution, it remains unchanged by food, drink, and labor (380e).

This serves as example for the soul, which should not be disturbed or altered “by any outside

affection” (381a), lest it fail in courage and rationality. There is something strange about the

comparison, however. If outside affections (like stories and music) are to the soul what food,

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drink and labor are to a body, their effects are not nearly as negative as Socrates presents

them. The image, unlike its elaboration, suggests that the soul acquires and retains its stability

precisely through its interaction with the outside world. This is not the case for inanimate

artifacts, which are even less liable to change than plants, but their dead durability does not

make them better than plants – or souls.1

One could argue that a god is not like a human soul in this regard, for a god is in need of

nothing. Thus, he cannot be forced to change, does not admit of improvement, and would not

deliberately make himself worse: he always retains his own shape. Socrates therefore

prohibits stories in which gods are presented as humans, but his rationale is more ethical than

theological: he claims that such stories “blaspheme the gods and, at the same time, make

children more cowardly” (381e). Yet the examples he quotes do not support this conclusion:

one presents Hera as a priestess collecting alms, while the context of another has gods

safeguarding hospitality by investigating men’s pride and their obedience to the laws.2 If a

god were to change shape, he might do so for the same reasons as why we tell fictional stories

to children (which Socrates encourages): to shape souls rightly. It would not be blasphemous

to say that the gods, like the guardians, are so interested in our souls that they will go to great

lengths to refashion them; nor would such a conviction inspire cowardice in virtuous children.

Possibly a god might walk in disguise, covering himself with another shape rather than

changing his own. Adeimantus thinks so, even when Socrates asks pointedly, “What? Would

a god be willing to be false, either in word or deed, by presenting an illusion?” (382a). A

possible answer to this Socratic conundrum is that falsity is of two kinds: moral and factual.

Saying something factually false, as in storytelling, might not always be morally unsound.

The converse also holds true: arguably, only a false person could communicate certain true

facts to an unready mind. For this reason, Socrates presents a distinction between a “true

falsehood” or “ignorance in the soul” on the one hand, and “falsehood in words” on the other

hand (382b-c). Verbal falsehoods imitate ignorance in the soul, but these imitations may be

uttered by a knowing soul because he finds them useful against his enemies and the mad or

1 Baracchi perceptively notes that Socrates presents a class of people who are unmoved by outside affections, but they are imprisoned in a cave (24-25). On the other hand, Socrates adapts to circumstances like Polemarchus’ orders (42); this does not make him less courageous or rational. It should also be considered that labor is not an outside affection: it is something a body does, not something it undergoes.

2 Socrates’ first words in Sophist are: “Is he not rather a god, Theodorus, who comes to us in the disguise of a stranger? For Homer says that all the gods, and especially the god of strangers, are companions of the meek and just, and visit the good and evil among men” (216a-b).

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ignorant. These verbal falsehoods are also useful when we do not know the facts; in that case

we make “a falsehood as much like the truth as we can” (382d).3

Still, a god does not have needs like humans do. We might need to tell falsehoods, while

a god would have no use for them. After all, a god would not be ignorant of past events; he

would have no enemies to fear and no unready souls to accommodate, at least according to

Adeimantus, who proclaims that “No one who is ignorant or mad is a friend of the gods”

(382e).4 If all this is true, the god is utterly simple and could not possibly do anything through

which anyone might be deceived.

Let it be remembered that this excursion into theology was prompted by a reflection on

the education of the guardians, who should be free from all moral evils that cause war in the

city. The gods have been presented as examples of morality because the guardians must

believe “that no citizen has ever hated another and that it’s impious to do so” (378c). Socrates

also presents the gods as examples of truthfulness, perhaps to persuade the guardians that no

citizen has ever been false to another and that it’s impious to be so. Yet the ambiguity of what

it means to “be false” remains: is it to tell factual untruths or to foster hate within the city?

Adeimantus has difficulty drawing the distinction. He will not believe that gods or

heroes have in fact been hateful, greedy or arrogant (391a-e), simply because they ought not

to have been: moral falsehood must be factually false. In consequence, he relinquishes the

idea that the gods have in fact been deceptive or even disguised, because gods tainted with

ambiguity would terrify children: it must be morally false to deviate in any way from plain

truth and honesty. Good examples must be clear and simple. Yet it seems that those good

examples must be far removed from the praxis of education: they cannot be friends with the

ignorant, nor can they descend to their level, for instance by telling them false stories that

contain true morals. That task falls to human educators, who are implied to be less than

exemplary.

The educators must tell the guardians stories in which the just are presented as happy

and the unjust as wretched. On the surface, this demand implies that these states of happiness

and wretchedness should be recognizable as such, even to childlike souls with an immature

understanding of happiness. In the real world, however, it is factually false that the just are

recognizably happy. The educators of the just city could thus be accused of impiety for telling

lies with the unintended effect of undermining justice. This charge was leveled by Glaucon

3 In the dialogue named after him, Timaeus presents his account of the origin and constitution of the cosmos as an account “no less likely than any”; we ought to be content with this, he says, because “both I, the speaker, and you, the judges, are only human” (29c-d).

4 This conclusion is doubtful; cf. Chapter 8 of this thesis.

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and Adeimantus against their educators, who always presented justice as including material

and social rewards.

From the above, we may conclude that factual truth is given an ambiguous status in the

formation of the guardians. Two intuitions underlie Socrates’ conversation with Adeimantus:

first, it is good to tell the truth (both factual and moral); second, it is wrong to present unjust

people in such a way that people might be tempted to imitate them. The reconciliation

achieved is rather uneasy: facts are assumed to follow the pattern of morality, so that the gods

are just and the world is fair. It works in theory, but not anywhere else.

For a more satisfying solution, other questions would need to be addressed, such as the

second question posed in this chapter, regarding the relationship between narration and

imitation. If one tells a story about hatred, is one imitating hatred and thereby promoting it?

The answer Socrates gives in Book III is complicated and goes through a lot of shifts. Initially

Socrates argues that being an imitator (like a storyteller) is an inferior occupation and

incompatible with the task of guarding. But he does not seem too keen to preserve this

argument at all costs, for he adds: “If [the guardians] do imitate, they must imitate from

childhood what is appropriate for them, namely, people who are courageous, self-controlled,

pious, and free” (395c).

Socrates even leaves open the possibility, with the permission of his author Plato, that

these good examples might not always be equally virtuous or happy; the good man might

suffer circumstantial misfortunes or moral lapses, in which case the moderate guardian will

imitate him “less, and with more reluctance” (396d). However, he needs not desist from

imitation altogether. What’s more, a moderate man may willingly imitate an inferior character

“for a brief period in which he’s doing something good” or “in play” (396d-e). Sometimes it

is good (or wise) to play at being bad (or ignorant); otherwise, Socratic irony would be off

limits. Fendt and Rozema add, “Let us take note that it is only the moderate man who can

play at this; the immoderate man is merely being himself”.5

According to Baracchi, the real issue concerns the proper distance in imitation. One can

criticize poetry either for being too close to what it imitates or too distant from it. Socrates

does both at different points: “Whereas the discourse in Book III problematizes the imitative

pretense of the poet who speaks as if he were someone else (the imitator as too close to the

imitated), according to the argument in Book X the imitator is a liar because he is ‘at the third

5 Fendt & Rozema 53.

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generation from nature,’ and ‘this will also apply to the maker of tragedy, if he is an

imitator.’”6

We have seen that indirect reporting is not a complete solution to the problem of

inappropriate closeness, since imitation is the road not only to vice, but also to virtue; the

moderate guardian is not only permitted, but required to imitate the good man in some

fashion, otherwise he will never become a good man himself. Direct, close imitation can serve

moral truth as well as falsity.

Nor is distance in itself the problem, as Book X suggests; like closeness, it has a double

function. Socrates has already suggested that the moderate man can imitate an inferior man if

he’s doing something good, in which case he will be superior to what he imitates. This

superiority also becomes apparent when Socrates asks Adeimantus whether the guardians

may imitate natural sounds such as thunder or horses neighing. Adeimantus responds, “They

are forbidden to be mad or to imitate mad people” (396b): to imitate thunder is to imitate a

madman. Yet Adeimantus’ phrasing draws attention to the distinction between being mad and

imitating a madman; one might do the latter for entirely rational reasons, like Odysseus who

pretended to be mad to avoid going to war. Distance from what he imitated enabled Odysseus

to preserve wisdom in his soul.

That also answers the last question, whether it is possible to tell a falsehood well.

Factual falsehoods: yes, one may make up stories, even about nonexistent cities, “like men

telling tales in a tale,”7 when the context indicates to the right listener that the story’s

factuality is doubtful or perhaps irrelevant. Moral falsehoods: yes, one may imitate unworthy

men, with awareness of what one is doing, for a good purpose and/or in play.

In short, while Socrates may sometimes speak as if all imitation is dangerous to

personal integrity and the development of the soul, there are clear clues in the text that this is

a pretense, leaving aside the fact that Republic itself consists mostly of directly reported

speech by characters of varied worth. Perhaps some form of music and poetry is necessary,

not only to save us from madness and injustice, but also to preserve and increase our sanity

and mindfulness. In that case, poetry would be to the soul what food, drink and labor are to

the body. However, in a city of sick people, a true philosopher is required to administer the

right kinds of poetry in the right doses. In doing so, he will have a proper respect for factual

truth and will avoid contradicting it, but he will be even more concerned with establishing

true moral knowledge in the interlocutor’s soul.

6 Baracchi 104.7 Baracchi 106, quoting Rep. 376d.

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4. Imitation and Formation: Speaking the Lie in Love

Socrates has alerted Glaucon and Adeimantus to dangers inherent in the mindless

reception (or performance) of poetry, ironically critiquing imitation while subverting that very

critique. The subsequent discussion of musical modes has the purpose of making the brothers

aware of external influences on our formation, for good or ill. Moreover, the conversation

forms a desire in the brothers to live in a graceful city and to protect it, even at personal cost.

Once the pursuit of the city’s advantage is strongly wished for, the question of truth is brought

back in. Socrates makes his interlocutors more aware that truth is not simply a matter of

straightforward facts: the power of deception is too strong for that. For this reason, the

guardians must prove that they are strong enough to adhere to the truth.

Before the truth can be adhered to, it must be communicated. An intellectualist would

say that truth cannot be conveyed before a child can understand verbal instruction; according

to Socrates, on the other hand, even a young infant can be positively influenced and made

resistant against deception by the power of music. The Greek word for music is mousikē

(related to Mousa, ‘Muse’); it also covers poetry and drama. Even more than rhetoric, music

is something which everyone can appreciate. No technical knowledge is required to recognize

its beauty or ugliness, for we can feel the way music stimulates us: to excesses and

deficiencies, or to moderation and courage. This principle is applied to all products of art,

including static arts like architecture: nothing graceless, harsh and discordant may be put on

display in the City, for it threatens self-government. Socrates supposes that graceful works of

art will let the children live “in harmony and friendship with beauty and reason, coming

finally to resemble them” (401d): good art communicates, at least subconsciously, a sense of

right proportion or ratio.

Socrates draws a comparison with the way we first learnt to read: by learning letters,

after which we were able to read letters reflected in a mirror. This is presumably analogous to

being exposed to different varieties of gracefulness, after which we will be able to recognize

their reflections in the human character. Music is thus responsible for our initial recognition

of (and friendship with) moral truth.

The process of recognition also works the other way (mirrored, as it were), for Socrates

says we cannot be true musicians “until we know the different forms of moderation, courage,

frankness, high-mindedness, and all their kindred” (402c). We come to welcome and practice

the virtues because of our education in music, and we welcome and produce certain kinds of

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music because we are aware of the virtues. The virtues inform and transcend works of art;

children know too little to give an account of them, but educators should be able to. Not all

innocence is unknowing.

Not only the observable world forms the soul in accordance with virtue; physical

exercise does as well. Socrates thus includes gymnastics in the curriculum, so that a guardian

may “arouse the spirited element in his nature” (410b). Since music also affects the spirited

element (411a-b), both music and gymnastics are aimed at the formation of a true guardian’s

character, gentle but spirited. In this way, gymnastics can be subsumed under the study of

harmony as a necessary part of the whole.

Though Glaucon has only participated in a conversation, rather than undergone a full

formation program, he has also been transformed to some extent. During the discussion of the

guardians’ formation in music, in which the dangerously Dionysian kinds of music are done

away with, Socrates declares, “we’ve been purifying the city we recently said was luxurious”

(399e). It was called luxurious when Glaucon called for conveniences such as desserts and

delicacies. After the purification, however, Socrates reminds Glaucon that soldiers need to be

able to survive on a sparse and simple diet; Homer’s authority supports that. Quickly,

Glaucon agrees that the guardians of the city stay away from sweet desserts, Syracusan

cuisine, Sicilian-style dishes, Corinthian girlfriends and Attic pastries (404c-d); he does so

apparently without any hesitation.

We may well wonder how Socrates’ words changed him so much. The conversation has

not taken away Glaucon’s appetite, but it has given him a new one: an appetite to become like

the intelligent and strong guardian of the city in speech, who declines certain satisfactions

because his care for the city requires it. Benardete points out that the desserts were not meant

to satisfy Glaucon’s palate in the first place, but those of men in a tale. Rather than asking for

immediate personal gratification, Glaucon’s request expressed “his contempt for these men

and his refusal to be one of them.”1 The desire for couches and tables goes hand in hand with

a spirited desire for honor; thus, Glaucon’s transformation is due to the fact that he initially

thought ascetic men simple-minded and dishonorable, but that he no longer does so after

being captivated by Socrates’ portrayal of the guardians.

What, in the end, is honor? It is esteem by others, which can be based on real merit or

not, but in either case is related to others’ perception: it has to do with doxa or appearance.

McNeill makes a compelling case that in Republic, Socrates presupposes that character is

formed through the “internalisation of image-like representations of paradigmatic human

1 Benardete 53.

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lives”:2 one blindly strives to make oneself like the image. This is even the case for the image

of reason, the philosopher-king. He is the man everyone wants to be but no one knows how to

be; that is why the just man of Book II (361e), the freed prisoner of Book VII (516a-b) and

the wise father of Book IX (549c-d) are inactive. In the absence of divine madness, erōs is

governed by human aspirations to honor.3

The emphasis on honor is borne out by the discussion that follows, in which the word

“shameful” occurs many times to reaffirm the value of self-government of body and soul.

Socrates gives further detail to the image of the self-sufficient guardian by suggesting that it is

shameful especially for free men if they need to rely on others (doctors and lawyers) in order

to “make use of a justice imposed by others” (405b). Yet something still worse might be

imagined, namely living an unjust life while manipulating the judicial system. A person who

does this may think he is superior to the crowd and even to the judges, but he is not self-

sufficient, since he needs to rely on the inadequacy of the judge: this too is shameful.

The upshot of this discussion is that a free man (or guardian) should strive to be his own

judge and doctor, rather than relying on others. To be a good judge, one should know the truth

about justice (or goodness of character), which requires a long process of growth in the

favorable climate described earlier; as Socrates says, a guardian must “have no experience of

bad character while he’s young” (409a). If children are surrounded by (images of) vice,

Socrates argues, they will grow up degenerate and never acquire harmonious judgment of the

good and the bad. It seems that children are not yet capable of being their own judge,

whatever their upbringing, since they are not yet sufficiently resistant against deception. Only

late in life can a person be confronted with injustice and recognize it “not as something at

home in his own soul, but as something alien and present in others” (409b). (No exception is

made for the imitation of unjust acts by good people, but perhaps we should add one: few

children have suffered from mother’s reading about the Big Bad Wolf, and it was argued

earlier that Socrates allows for imitation of inferior characters for a good purpose or in play.)

2 McNeill 267.3 McNeill argues that Republic (a city in speech) is characterised by an absence of divine madness

and hence a view of poetry as a human artifact entirely under one’s control, whereas Phaedrus (just outside the city) approaches poetry as something divinely inspired and revelatory. Symposium (a gathering within the city) sees poetry as both human and divine, which both hides and reveals the intelligible. Hence the characterisation of Eros as respectively a tyrant, a god, and a daimon. This argument is confirmed by Socrates’ words close to the end of Republic, dissimilar to the rest of the dialogue: “We must realize what [the soul] grasps and longs to have intercourse with, because it is akin to the divine and immortal and what always is, and we must realize what it would become if it followed this longing with its whole being, and if the resulting effort lifted it out of the sea in which it now dwells […] But we’ve already given a decent account, I think, of what its condition is and what parts it has when it is immersed in human life” (611e-612a).

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Socrates’ purpose in Republic, as it seems to me, is to establish a favorable climate

through discussion, exhortation, the creation of stories and images, and so on, even if he

cannot take care of people’s entire formation.4 In creating a city in speech and fighting its

impurities (present in all speakers) he is taking part in the politics of his own kind of city, the

one that seeks not to outdo others but to establish a right condition of soul in its citizens, and

which cannot be destroyed because its model is in heaven (cf. 592a-b).

This implies that Socrates is not looking for a definition of justice, but for Justice Itself;

where he finds it lacking, he attempts to establish it. Such a reading might seem implausible at

first sight, but there are indications in the text to support it. When Socrates pretends to be

looking for a definition, he weaves an elaborate image of a hunt, in which justice is hardly to

be seen one moment, and in plain sight the next (432b-e); it is suspiciously reminiscent of

Sophist, in which a stranger leads young Theaetetus on a dialectical wild goose chase in

search of the sophist. Moreover, when the agreement on the definition of justice is finally

reached, Socrates says, “Let’s not take that as secure just yet” (434d), and warns afterwards,

“we will never get a precise answer using our present methods of argument” (435c).

Suppose, on the contrary, that Plato thought people were most aided in their pursuit of

justice by knowing (i.e. being able to verbalize) what justice is. In that case, he either knew

the definition or did not. If he did know it, it would have been unjust of him to withhold it; it

should have been at the climax of the dialogue or clearly expressed in some treatise. If he did

not know it, he should either have refrained from writing a dialogue about justice (as a man of

integrity) or left out any indication that the dialogue was insufficient (as a man without

integrity). As it is, Plato did write the dialogue and admitted its inevitable insufficiency.

Moreover, a workable definition of justice is given by Polemarchus, namely “to give to each

what is owed to him” (331e); this is not the climax of the book, but its beginning.5

In Book III, Socrates has managed to show Glaucon the ideal of being one’s own judge

and doctor (i.e. of ruling oneself) by associating the opposite with shame. Judging requires

excellence, however; it is not the ability to impose tyrannical whims on others. As Glaucon

recognizes, a true ruler must at least have the conviction that he “must eagerly pursue what is

4 He says that true philosophers refuse to form any city or person “unless they receive a clean slate or are allowed to clean it themselves” (501a). This could be read a license to “eradicate the existing institutions and traditions,” to “purify, purge, expel, banish, and kill” (Popper 176), but the cleaning seems more gradual: “They’d erase one thing, I suppose, and draw in another until they’d made characters for human beings that the gods would love as much as possible” (501b).

5 St. Thomas Aquinas has a similar definition of justice: “the perpetual and constant will to render to each one his right” (Summa Theologica IIa-IIae Q. 58 A. 1). Similar, but not identical; the additional words make all the difference, even in Plato’s dialogue.

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advantageous to the city” (412d), and that a disadvantage to the city will be a disadvantage to

him. If this is true, soul and city are inseparable: judging well about oneself means judging

well about the city’s advantage. Consequently, one’s own honor as a guardian depends on the

adequacy of one’s judgment about the city.

There are requirements besides zeal which Glaucon is slower to recognize, such as age,

excellence, skill at guarding, knowledge and capacity. Glaucon’s responses bear a certain

similarity to Polemarchus’ unreflective approach to benefit and harm. What he guards is not

simply the city, but a conviction regarding the city, perhaps promulgated by a lawgiver. The

word dogma suggests this, for it can mean both “opinion” and “public agreement or law.”6

Whether Glaucon understands all the implications of this dogma, as a judge should, is

doubtful; he might turn to other dogmata for guidance about the detailed application of the

principal dogma, but these other opinions and agreements might come to be under more

imperfect constitutions. In the end, dogma is subject to logos; that is why Socrates alters his

definition of courage from the preservation of the law-inculcated belief about what is to be

feared (430b) to the preservation of the declarations of reason about the same, whatever the

appetites might say in response to pain or pleasure (442c).

The importance of beliefs (or even knowledge) in accordance with reason is paramount.

Therefore, Socrates warns the eager Glaucon against the enemies of truth which may obscure

the guardians’ belief that they must do what is best for the city: “theft, magic spells, and

compulsion” (413b). By this, as Socrates explains, he means argument or forgetfulness,

pleasure or fear, and pain or suffering. This scope is so broad that no guardian could hope to

escape the ambushes of these insidious enemies; the many speeches, opportunities and shocks

of life will expose everyone to this combat.

Socrates maintains that loss of true opinion is involuntary, because no one would

willingly let go of true opinion; one only discards an opinion voluntarily on learning that it is

false. In agreeing, Glaucon breezes past the difference between an apparent falsehood and a

real falsehood, as Polemarchus did not fully realize the difficulty of distinguishing an

apparent enemy from a real enemy. Glaucon thinks real falsehoods are consciously rejected,

while real truths are involuntarily discarded. However, it is arguable that real truths are also

rejected willingly, when they appear as falsehoods through deceit or lack of reflection

(because of the mind’s absorption in its own pleasure, fear or pain). More optimistically, it is

also possible that the real truthfulness of merely apparent falsehoods is revealed to people,

6 Tarnopolsky 24, referring to Allan Bloom’s interpretive essay in his translation of Republic.

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even without their awareness that this is happening. Glaucon does not take all this into

account, but it is shown in the entirety of Socrates’ account known as Republic.

The most important truth is moral: the city must not be harmed. This truth is handed

down by the guardians during the formation process; the guardians-in-training (now called

auxiliaries) have only to cling to it. The guardians in charge miraculously receive the truth

(the guiding and unarguable dogma) from Socrates and Glaucon themselves. Strangely

enough, Socrates suggests mixing this truth with a useful falsehood, the foundational myth of

the metals.

As has been said, such falsehoods are useful against the hostile, the mad, and the

ignorant. The purpose of this falsehood is to fortify the basic conviction of the warriors; if that

true opinion would be lost, ignorance of the central dogma would create space for

increasingly mad passions, culminating in hostility. Thus, an auxiliary in danger of

degeneration might be ignorant, mad and hostile simultaneously, in which case he would be

triply in need of a useful falsehood.7

When the topic first came up for discussion, Socrates said that we made falsehoods

useful by making them “as much like the truth as we can” (382d). The myth of the metals

(which involves the denial of education, men springing formed and armed from the same

motherland, and gods placing different kinds of metal in souls) does not resemble the facts at

all; even the fictional city cannot yet be made credulous enough to believe it. Its very

implausibility, however, reinforces its message: that education is a sort of dream to which a

critical distance should be taken; the stories and laws with which one is raised are of

considerably less importance than taking care of the citizens and accurately weighing their

souls.8

The purpose of the myth is not to enshrine division between people of different metals,9

but to maintain unity in the city by motivating the adherents of its dogma to sacrifice their

own comforts, if need be, for the sake of the brethren. Those who aspire to be gold or silver

must give up their private property and live for the city alone, because, having gold in their

souls, they have “no further need of human gold” (416e). Their thumos is bridled and directed

to a nobler goal. Not only the guardians of the city in speech, but even certain inhabitants of

7 When Glaucon expresses his belief that an auxiliary could not be in danger of becoming savage, considering the education he has already had, Socrates responds with a pun: “Perhaps we shouldn’t assert this dogmatically, Glaucon” (416b).

8 Cf. Tarnopolsky 30: only children raised with this foundational myth will take it seriously, but it teaches them precisely to distance themselves from all other foundational myths they hear.

9 The myth makes the distinction between guardians (gold) and auxiliaries (silver) seem fixed, but the distinction was initially based on youth (414b), a notoriously impermanent attribute.

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other cities who listen to this myth will aspire to be gold or silver rather than iron or bronze,

even when they are too dogmatic to recognize the degree of their contentment with lower

things. In this way, the myth is like the truth not only in what it tells, but in what it effects.

Whereas Glaucon’s sense of honor was stirred by the ode to the golden guardians, the

more cautious Adeimantus requires additional treatment. He is put off by the ascetic life of

the people he considers to be the owners of the city. Responding to him, Socrates puts a lot of

emphasis on balance, harmony and order. He reminds the young man that “we aren’t aiming

to make any one group outstandingly happy but to make the whole city so, as far as possible”

(420b). The city cannot be a city of decadent leisure, a mere festival; that would lead to its

destruction, especially if the most important men (the guardians) rebelled against the order.

Instead of the golden guardian, Adeimantus is lured by the golden mean. This gives

Socrates the opportunity to elaborate on what truly serves the city’s advantage. To preserve

peace in the harmonious city, the laws must be kept intact, especially those about music and

poetry, where deviation is easy and subtle; laws, however, are not an end in themselves and

should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Adeimantus believes that a proper musical

education will ensure a naturally disciplined and virtuous society, so that laws beyond the

basic will not be needed; Socrates, despite his earlier words about what music could

accomplish, is more pessimistic than Adeimantus on this point and believes that virtue will

only be preserved in the city through the agency of a god (425e). This correction is similar to

the one Socrates gave to Glaucon, who believed that nothing could corrupt a well-educated

auxiliary. Clearly, the brothers’ confidence that a good education necessarily bears good fruit

is misplaced. This should chastise their self-confidence as well: while no one could have had

a better education than the sons of Ariston, not all lessons fall on good soil.

Indeed, the inhabitants of the just city may well deviate from the reasonable order; the

discussion with Glaucon had already revealed that possibility. In the conversation with

Adeimantus, another important point is implicitly made clear: the enemies of truth are

tenacious. People may be deprived of the truth involuntarily, in a certain restricted sense;

however, they do not welcome it back like a lost and cherished possession. Indulging in

pleasure or fear (for instance) in opposition to the truth takes away one’s willingness to listen

to reason; the victims of magic may seem passive, but they will work energetically to

maintain the delusionary spell under which they labor, to sustain the unsustainable as long as

possible.

Socrates compares this frenetic activity to a man who falls ill through decadence and

searches for medicine rather than moderation: he would rather continue his decline than hear

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the unpleasant truth. Badly governed cities love the truth no better: they “warn their citizens

not to disturb the city’s whole political establishment on pain of death” (426b). This severity

does not only raise practical problems for the philosopher, but it also endangers the happiness

of the citizens. When the city demands on the one hand that the citizens sincerely seek its

advantage, and on the other hand that the citizens support a constitution which is really

disadvantageous to the city, their dogmata conflict with each other and cannot both be

obeyed. In the last analysis, such a city will not let itself be served. The willingness and

eagerness of a citizen to put his power and influence at the service of the city is admirable, but

it can only be fulfilled in the right kind of city; the person who merely maintains a corrupt city

is not a true statesman, even if he is praised as one.

We might wish for a list of criteria to distinguish a good city from a bad one; Socrates

does not give it. He does exhort his interlocutors to aim for truth in their judgment about cities

and their leaders. The creation of the guardian in speech is not a frivolous distraction from

this; rather, it gives Glaucon and Adeimantus an ideal to which they can aspire and to which

they can compare other leaders. Thus, the image of the guardian in pursuit of harmony may

help to guard the truth in their souls that the city should not be harmed, and spur them on to

continue to seek what is truly to the city’s advantage.

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5. Theft, Compulsion and Magic: The Sorcerer Strikes

When Socrates wants to descend into the cave, explaining how the right kind of political

constitution can degenerate to four inferior kinds, it turns out that the listeners have never

made it past the fire. At a whisper from Polemarchus, all souls present turn to look at a

particularly spectacular procession of shadows: shared wives and children. Book V, in which

this procession occurs, is probably the part of Republic that has attracted the most

misunderstanding from those who read Republic as Plato’s political propaganda. Those who

think that a good man is always divinely simple and can never mimic a bad man (even in play

or when he’s doing something good), and/or those who do not consider Plato a good man,

interpret him as an apologist for the worst kind of communism. The most famous proponent

of this view is Popper, who claims (in a chapter titled ‘Totalitarian Justice’) that Plato intends

to forge political unity by “rigid rules for breeding and educating this [ruling] class, and the

strict supervision and collectivization of the interests of its members.”1

Worse, Plato is charged with making his beloved teacher a puppet character voicing not

his own but Plato’s ideas, since Socrates, like Protagoras,2 can no longer defend himself

against false presentations of his views. Popper sounds scandalized by this act of Plato:

“Plato, his most gifted disciple, was soon to prove the least faithful. He betrayed Socrates …

Plato tried to implicate Socrates in his grandiose attempt to construct the theory of the

arrested society; and he had no difficulty in succeeding, for Socrates was dead.”3 It seems to

me that this reading skips over the irony in Book V, so I will try to show that these well-

intentioned people take the ‘communist Socrates’ more seriously than Plato takes him;

Socrates’ apparent support of communism is feigned and transformed, just like his earlier

accommodation to the concerns of Glaucon and Adeimantus.

Earlier in the discussion, Socrates had casually remarked that “marriage, the having of

wives, and the procreation of children must be governed as far as possible by the old proverb:

Friends possess everything in common” (423e-424a). This seems to have stuck in

Polemarchus’ memory, except for the clause “as far as possible”.4 When he brings it up, all

the others show interest as well. In response, Socrates draws a very elaborate outline of a city

in which everything is shared, including wives and children. Despite the apparent seriousness

1 Popper 92.2 Cf. Theaetetus 168c.3 Popper 208.4 Cf. Fendt & Rozema 68-69.

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with which these suggestions are made, there are textual indications that the whole passage

should be read as ironic. Firstly, there is the hesitation at the beginning; secondly, the

guardians are treated more contemptuously; thirdly, the city of Book V contradicts ideals

previously discussed.

Hesitation is obvious in Socrates’ words at 450a-451b, in contrast with his usual

eagerness to speak in defense of justice. Socrates says that he would speak confidently if he

knew the truth about the most important things and spoke among wise and dear friends, but

now he is unsure and searching for the truth (450d-e); he omits mention of the wisdom of the

friends. Also, he makes a bow to Adrasteia, the punisher of proud words, which recalls

Adeimantus’ contempt for the unjust who try to placate the gods.5 No one interrupts Socrates,

however; the magic of pleasure (even mimetic pleasure) is too strong. Unintended irony can

also be read in Thrasymachus’ persuasion of Socrates to speak on the new topic: “are we here

to search for gold or to listen to an argument?” (450b), where searching for gold means

neglecting one’s task for a fruitless chase.

Another indication that Socrates is not voicing his own (or Plato’s) opinions, but rather

trying to engage the young men, is the way he speaks about the guardians: he reverts to

animalistic language, calling them “guardian watchdogs” and their children “puppies” (451d).

He also did this after the first interruption (375c-376c), but started treating the guardians as

human after embarking on his argument about education. From just man to useful herdsdog is

quite a demotion for a guardian. Lastly, the preoccupation with war returns in the dialogue;

this topic had faded into the background when the education and the virtues of the guardians

were discussed.

Within this context, the interlocutors insist that everything must be in common and that

women must receive the exact same education as men. The difference between the two sexes

is put on the same level as the difference between long-haired and bald people. Women and

men have the same souls, it is argued, even if a doctor and a carpenter have completely

different souls (454d). Between women and men, the only difference is a minor one with

regard to procreation, which is abstract and has nothing to do with ways of life.

What happens when men and women do everything together, including “co-ed naked

aerobics”?6 Socrates predicts that they will be “driven by innate necessity to have sex with

one another”, and Glaucon agrees, though he qualifies it insofar as this necessity is “not

geometrical but erotic” (458d). This does not help much, however, because the erotic

5 Cf. 364b-365a, 365d-366c.6 Fendt & Rozema 65.

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necessities are more persuasive, as Glaucon confesses. To use a modern metaphor: the blood

drives the brain, not the other way around.

Socrates responds to this confession (and the limited view of Eros it implies) by

reinforcing the animal imagery applied to the guardians. They are now to be bred like dogs

and birds and called “our herd of guardians” (459e), who “guard together and hunt together

like dogs” (466c). They are chosen for pure stamina: the best feminine rewards shall go to the

most virile young men, a measure supposedly intended to curtail promiscuity and to make

marriage as sacred as possible (458e). That sounds as if the sacredness of sex is based on the

quality of the genes that are transferred, which does not seem too Socratic.

This ruthless view of sacrality is rather depressing for those phlegmatic and melancholic

types whom Nature has made less energetic (call them the poor in spirit). Socrates sees that

frustrations on the part of these people could drive them to introduce discontent into the heart

of the city. For this, he suggests the useful falsehood as medicine. The less well-endowed

must be made to believe that their unpleasant lives are entirely caused by tough luck (bad

karma, call it what you will) and not at all orchestrated by a class of rulers in charge of a herd.

The answer to grumbling sophists must consist of blander lies: “when drugs are needed, we

know that a bolder doctor is required” (459c).

What if a doctor came to believe that not medicine but moderation was needed? It

would be clearly inadvisable for him directly to suggest a change to the city’s entire way of

life: this might endanger his own health and his usefulness with it. In Republic, Socrates

walks the road between imprudent bluntness and spineless flattery.7 When your healing work

is ruined by a sorcerer who steals away your ideal city in speech, charms your patients with a

spell, and compels them to attack any upfront doctor, the best response is Socratic: you suffer

it (patience), you enter into the patients’ sufferings (compassion) and you cure them through

becoming one with them (acting). More on this will be said in the next chapter.

How badly a cure is needed may be deduced from the extent to which the city of Book

V deviates from the more moderate judgments in earlier parts of the book. A survey of

discrepancies might help to realize the irony with which Socrates speaks. For instance, the

rulers of Book V must determine the number of marriages in order to “keep the number of

males as stable as they can … so that the city will, as far as possible, become neither too big

nor too small” (460a). In the conversation with Adeimantus, the correct number of inhabitants

7 As well as a number of other non-virtuous ways, such as resentful withdrawal, meditative isolation, suicide bombing, disseminating Thrasymachean doctrines, seducing queens to usurp tyrants’ thrones, etc.

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was determined with reference to quality rather than quantity: “As long as it is willing to

remain one city, it can continue to grow” (423b).

Also, the suggestion that “the best men must have sex with the best women as

frequently as possible” (459d) is far removed from the ideal of the tough warrior who

concedes that excessive pleasure is incompatible with moderation because it breeds violence

and licentiousness (402e-403a). In Book V, licentiousness creates a web of tangled legislation

to prevent immediate family members from having sexual intercourse with each other; the

marriage of brothers and sisters cannot be prevented. Violence is present in the infanticide

practiced on defective and illegitimate children.

Since families no longer exist, kinship terms are taken from their natural context and

applied initially to all potential relatives and later to all guardians. This is reminiscent of the

myth of the metals, which declared everyone to be born from the same mother (414d-e); the

parallel suggests that a more feverish myth is being told here. The conviction that all

guardians make up one family is “closely followed by the having of pains and pleasures in

common” (464a), Socrates says, because the city will be bound together insofar as everyone

feels pleasure at the same things. This is dissonant with what was said earlier: that the unity of

the city is found in the agreement between the people of many desires and the people of

measured desires that the latter should rule (432a).

Irrepressible tensions arise even while Socrates argues that there will be no dissension

because there is no possession: in other words, those who attempt legal persecution will have

nothing to appeal to. Jealousy (e.g. about the allotment of pretty women) might still seek more

direct ways of expressing itself; this also will not be a problem, because fighting on the street

is not at all reprehensible but rather to be encouraged. Self-defense (and attack?) against peers

is “fine and just” for people, because “this will compel them to stay in good physical shape”

(464e).8 Does a fit body by its own virtue make the soul good? Socrates and Glaucon agreed

earlier that the opposite was true (403d).

To prevent skirmishes from escalating, the younger must be ruled by the older. They

will not strike their elders, not because they are virtuous, but because shame and fear will

suffice to keep them in line (465a). Socrates does not make clear how the elders will treat

each other; perhaps they will be ruled by their elders in turn, in a chain of generations whose

highest link consists of toothless men glaring at each other in nursing homes. This concord

8 Another reason is given as well: “If a spirited person vents his anger in this way, it will be less likely to lead him into more serious disputes (meizous staseis)” (465a). The English translation tempts one to think that Socrates might ironically be referring to philosophical disputes, but usually stasis refers to civil war rather than a discussion.

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and peace, which is supposed to take away the danger of civil war in the city, is very far

removed from the earlier idea of harmony of soul.

Arguably, Socrates constructs this city not because he thinks it is the finest possible, but

because he wants to cure the disease and madness of his friends’ passions. These passions

have caused the transformation of the guardian who lives soberly in total dedication to the

city into a warrior who seeks honor and rewards. Compared to the Olympian victor, the

guardian can lay claim to an “upkeep from public funds more complete” (465d). At this point,

Glaucon and Adeimantus interpret this completeness as abundance, for Glaucon refers to “the

good things that [the guardians would] have at home that you’ve omitted” (471d) and

Adeimantus no longer sees a need to compare the guardians’ life with that of the craftsmen

(466a-b). Socrates’ response provides evidence that he is trying to cure their passions, for he

tries to shame them: “If a guardian seeks happiness in such a way that he’s no longer a

guardian and isn’t satisfied with a life that’s moderate, stable, and – as we say – best, but a

silly, adolescent idea of happiness seizes him and incites him to use his power to take

everything in the city for himself, he’ll come to know the true wisdom of Hesiod’s saying that

somehow ‘the half is worth more than the whole’” (466b-c).

The clearest sign that the city of Book V is not to be taken seriously can be found in the

new education of the children, with which Socrates took such great pains earlier. He then

argued for a gentle formation full of music, poetry and graceful works that foster growth, so

that the children would learn to recognize harmony of soul and body. Young ones would “live

in a healthy place and be benefited from all sides”, with the city’s art “like a breeze that

brings health from a good place, leading them unwittingly, from childhood on, to

resemblance, friendship, and harmony with the beauty of reason” (401c-d). Now, in order to

learn how adults act, these children are taken to the chaos of the battlefield.

War and victory, not virtue and truth, are the central themes in Glaucon’s guardian’s

life; it is war for which the children must be prepared, war which the children must observe as

much as possible. This may increase their strategic skills, but what it will do to their character

is a theme left untouched. The more important thing is that children have their uses: they

make the men fight more courageously, partly from the primitive instinct to protect the young,

partly because anyone who distinguishes himself shall be crowned, honored and even kissed

by the children (468b). The limits set before, that the warrior will kiss the boy “as a father

would a son, for the sake of what is fine and beautiful” (403b), are not reiterated and probably

forgotten.

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Eros the sorcerer has been quite deft in accomplishing his theft, magic and compulsion.

What will salt the tasteless salt and who will guard the guardians? The bright standards of the

Socratic band of warriors have faded; the philosopher-dogs, which were showing such

promising signs of humanity earlier, are in danger of turning upon the city at the scent of

shared bitches without care for puppies.9 If it is true that Socrates seeks to cure passions by

means of images, we should expect either a new education of the guardian or a more

revolutionary image, which is indeed introduced: the philosopher-king.

The characteristics of this king, as Socrates paints him to Glaucon, are as follows.

Instead of being concerned with ‘opinion’, with the things that come to be and pass away, he

has his eyes fixed on beauty itself, justice itself, wisdom itself, and so on. In fact, only such a

king could be appointed as guardian of the city (484b-d). He is eager for all sorts of learning,

hates falsehood and loves truth (485c).10 He has a well-formed moral character, is “high-

minded enough to study all time and all being” (486a), which according to Glaucon implies

that he has a healthy contempt for human affairs and a Stoic indifference to death. Socrates

does not dispute these implications, but his own strong interest in human affairs (from a

certain point of view) suggests that Glaucon misses something here, something which is also

left out of the philosophical education program (as I will argue in Chapter 6).

To Adeimantus, who complains that most philosophers are useless or vicious, Socrates

emphasizes the deficiency of society’s judgment and the way in which the assembly’s praise

and blame corrupt souls with potential. To escape this kind of pressure, Socrates suggests, no

less than divine intervention is necessary. The crowd complains that private teachers corrupt

the young, but they themselves are “the greatest sophists of all” (492a), because they do not

see the extent to which the public ‘teaching’ of society corrupts the young.

If the crowd consists of sophists, then every single member of the crowd seeks to

increase his influence over it. While he wants to compel the crowd to think and live a certain

way, he is equally under compulsion to confirm the crowd’s prejudices. The beast the sophist

tries to tame (to which he is shackled, of which he forms a part) is dangerous and unreliable.

In response, the sophist adopts a functionalist approach to justice: whatever works to quiet the

beast is fine, for the sophist “hasn’t seen and cannot show anyone else how much compulsion

and goodness really differ” (493c).

9 Note that “tutors, wet nurses, nannies” (373c) were introduced when fever first entered the city.10 Glaucon seems a bit reluctant to assent to this, but Socrates persuades him of its necessity by

reference to erotic necessities, which, after all, are probably better than the others at persuading and compelling the majority of people: “It’s necessary for a man who is erotically inclined by nature to love everything akin to or belonging to the boy he loves … And could you find anything that belongs more to wisdom than truth does?” (485c)

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Socrates, too, is under a certain kind of compulsion to confirm his interlocutors’

prejudices, or at least to avoid offending them. What truly persuades and compels people are

erotic necessities, as Glaucon recognized; to make people change direction means to change

their erōs, which is possible but difficult and always threatened by the vagaries of chance.

Even the best doctor cannot keep all his patients in perfect health: the body naturally decays,

contagious illnesses and unforeseeable accidents occur, the doctor himself has a limited

availability, and remedies curing one person kill another.11 Likewise, the philosopher has to

work against the natural sloth of the mind, to inoculate himself and others against destructive

ideas (expressed, perhaps, only in a chance remark) and inordinate passions; his diagnoses are

difficult because all the diseases in his field are internal and invisible, and the various natures

of souls call for various kinds of healing words and speeches.12 Working with such delicate

material, the philosopher cannot afford to ignore people’s prejudices.

Nevertheless, the purpose of the philosopher’s work is to move erōs towards the good.

Socrates does not make explicit wherein goodness and compulsion differ, but it seems to be

this: compulsion as such can take the most destructive forms, depending on how the person

who compels is himself compelled by erōs; goodness cannot exist without that form of erōs

which drives us to seek the true advantage of every person and the city in general.

11 In describing philosophy, Socrates often plays on the ambiguity of the word pharmakon, which can mean ‘medicine’ or ‘poison’. In Republic, the lie is a pharmakon (382c, 459d); in Phaedrus, writing is a pharmakon for memory and wisdom (274e).

12 Cf. Phaedrus 271a-b, 277b-c.

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6. The Sorcerer’s Cave: Grasping Shadows

How does one see goodness? Whence comes our discontent with the idea that the reality

of goodness extends no further than compliance with peer pressure, hard-wired in our bodies

through millennia of evolution? Did Socrates, acting as secret sophist, pour that argument into

our soul? Or does education have nothing to do with the idea of goodness and does it emerge

golden in the mind, like the earthborn in the myth of the metals? Let us explore these

suggestions.

Even if the idea of goodness can be shown to be an artifact of Socrates’ making,

designed to mould minds after his image, it is still powerful enough to unleash a passion for

justice (or a darker passion for authority over minds) that could be detrimental to Socrates in

the end: subjects can kill tyrants, either to liberate the republic or to usurp the throne. For a

tyrant, even the most skillfully spun cloak of falsehood is not safe from the moth of suspicion.

Though he seems trustworthy by warning us that the people who warn us against him may

have an agenda of their own (492a), it requires only a small stretch of the imagination to start

wondering about the agenda of the person who warns us against the people who warn us

against him. Thus do shadows lengthen on the wall of the cave.

However, the suggestion that all of us (or at least some of us, the golden race) are born

with an innate, luminous idea of goodness, on which education has no influence, is too

mythical to be believed. If it would be true, the concern for proper models of imitation would

be entirely superfluous. Of course one could still argue that education can obscure our idea of

goodness without being able to form it, but in that case, why not dispense with education

entirely? It might be argued that we need the community for practical purposes of survival,1

and regretfully, education is inseparable from communal life. Granted, but can we not limit

education to the practical side of things – the technai – without touching the idea of

goodness? If everyone had a clear, distinct and glorious idea of goodness imprinted on their

soul, that might work, although it is questionable whether (and why) good people would want

to be silent about goodness. As it is, a purely technical education would make people think in

terms of technē, such that even justice would be treated as a skill: we would be back in the

Athens of Book I. Our city-in-speech would have attained the level of reality, and that without

any effort on our part!

1 Not excluding the manufacture of couches and desserts.

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Yet the realist philosophy of the technical city suffers from internal contradictions,

exposed in Book I. The question of justice (dikaiosunē, the right order of things) always plays

in the background, chasing the old to their sacrifices and drawing their sons to the battlefield.

Knowledge of how to wield swords is not yet knowledge of how to handle souls; for that a

subtler sense is required, one that understands harmony, resonance, imitation. The best

argument for the just city, says Socrates, would be “a man or a number of men who

themselves rhymed with virtue, were assimilated to it as far as possible, and ruled in a city of

the same type” (498e). Rhyme itself is based on a certain order and assimilation; like all art, it

can be trivialized,2 but it retains its potential to hint at higher things. The same goes for all

human technai that aim at harmony, like all music in the broadest (Greek) sense of the word.

Harmony itself can never be the direct object of a skill, but pervades all of them, and the

products of human skill are inseparable from human life.

This connection runs so deep that we can even evaluate our lives in terms of metal

(shaped by humans from pre-existing raw ore), which formed the mythical basis of the first

class division within the city. The truth of the myth is in its highlighting of the proportionate

value of each type of character, in such a way that it shapes the passions. In the souls of the

listeners, it makes the belief come to life that the good of the city is worth striving for: it

disposes them to take an interest in the proper kind of education. It makes Glaucon ready to

contemplate giving up all civilized conveniences for a more sober and clear-headed life. Since

dispassionate argument withers away in the face of erotic sorcery, Socrates speaks in images

which act as countercharms.

One might object that it still goes too far to deceive an entire population with a myth

presented as literal truth. The idea of the ‘noble lie’ seems indefensible. Firstly, it reduces

whole crowds of people to madmen unable to hear the straightforward truth, which the

mythmaker is apparently capable of handling: whence this certain knowledge of superiority

over the masses? Secondly, the harmony of language and the world is impaired by

straightforward lies, even well-intentioned ones. Even if Republic is not a totalitarian

manifesto, can it be a good book if it defends the noble lie both verbally and dramatically?

I sympathize with these objectors and have three consolations to offer them. In Plato’s

Greek, ‘noble lie’ is gennaion pseudos. However, (1) gennaion does not quite mean ‘noble’;

(2) pseudos does not quite mean ‘lie’; (3) Plato’s Socrates never uses the phrase gennaion

pseudos. I will expand on these points.

2 Which Socrates ironically exhibits by talking about “a man that fits our plan”, or in Greek “genomenon to nun legomenon” (498d).

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(1) Tarnopolsky points out that Socrates did not use the word kalon to indicate

something good or beautiful, but gennaion, ‘well-born’, which was becoming ambiguous in a

time when even Athenian men of high birth were forced into trickery and deceit to ensure the

survival of their city.3 Even in Republic it is often “used sarcastically or to denote a kind of

high-minded simplicity.”4 There is nothing straightforwardly noble about the lie.

(2) There exists a dispute over whether pseudos should be translated as ‘lie’, ‘falsehood’

or ‘fiction’.5 Even ‘pretense’ might be allowable, judging by the way Heidegger describes the

meaning of the word. He stresses that pseudos is not the same as ‘untruth’: it does not indicate

a mere logical absence of truth, but a cover-up, a surface and something behind the surface.

While a pseudos seems transparent, it hides part of the full reality. “The fundamental meaning

of [pseudos] is to thus twist a thing, a relation, a saying or a showing: in short, distortion … it

is hiding precisely through showing and letting be seen.”6 For instance, drama as a whole

belongs in the category of pseudos: on stage, actors enact people different from themselves

and make things happen without making them happen. No wonder that many philosophers

and theologians have frowned on drama.

(3) Could there be a gennaion pseudos? Socrates does not use that phrase. This may be

startling, for in one translation he says: “How, then, could we devise one of those useful

falsehoods we were talking about a while ago, one noble falsehood …?” (414b-c). However, a

more literal translation would be: “How, then, (I said,) could there come to be by/for us7 a

contrivance of fictions which come to be at need, [fictions] of which we were just now

speaking, one well-bred thing …?”8 Not the pseudos is called gennaion, but the mēchanē, the

‘contrivance’, ‘instrument’ or ‘mechanism’ which carries the fictions.9 The fictions are many,

but the well-bred thing is one (gennaion ti hen) and contains them. A gathering of pseudo-

characters in a play or in a book might be such a contrivance: rather than just giving us the

falsehoods of Thrasymachus, it gives us the base Thrasymachus defeated by Socrates in a

dialogic battle which is only the beginning of a war for justice. Only the dialogue as a whole

may teach us how to interpret art and life in the light of the idea of the Good. If not that, at 3 Cf. Tarnopolsky 3-5, 13-15.4 Tarnopolsky 20.5 Cf. Tarnopolsky 15.6 Heidegger 98.7 Cf. Tarnopolsky 26: hēmin can be a dative of agency (‘by us’) or a dative of interest (‘for us’).8 The Greek text reads:

9 Another kind of mēchanē would bring gods to the stage from above or below; in Latin, this was called deus ex machina. Whether gods would lend themselves to appear on stage in such a contrived fashion is a question that will be discussed in Chapter 8.

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least it could give us the desire to be a golden guardian or a true philosopher-king, readying

himself in lonely contemplation of the Forms to save humanity from evil.

The fictions are said to arise at need (en deonti), which is a strong word to use. Socrates

refers to his earlier discussion, but there he called the fiction chrēsimon (382c), ‘useful,

serviceable, good for use’; this latter word is derived from chreia, the same ‘need’ that is also

at the origin of the city (369c). Deon, on the other hand, primarily means ‘needful, binding’; it

is related to deō, ‘to bind’.10 When Eros spreads his wings on the stage of our lives, as

happened in Book V, a well-bred contrivance of fictions is not just serviceable, but necessary

to redirect the passions to a higher goal.

‘Noble lie’ turns out to be a pseudo-translation, inspired by the way in which Socrates

markets his contrivance: as a drug to be used against enemies and confused friends (382c), as

a drug to be used by (or for) themselves to persuade everyone (414b), and finally as a drug to

be administered by the rulers to the ruled (459c). However, what Socrates intends is not a

blunt falsehood, but a medicinal pretense that could show its truth to those who see rightly

and could dispose others to start walking in the right direction. Truth is to be observed not

only like an image, but like a precept; this is shown by the blurring of the distinction between

factual and moral truth in the preceding books.

When discussion is hardly possible because interlocutors think and speak in very

different ways, when the legitimacy of dialogue itself is questioned, the truly philosophical

thing to do is administering the remedy of the simile. “The question you ask needs to be

answered by means of an image or simile,” says Socrates to Adeimantus who complains

about philosophers’ uselessness; this image functions as apologia (488a). The pleasure of the

image (or the pity and horror we feel towards it) may wean us from our resistance to the truth.

Mimetic pleasure and fear is a kind of magic, leading people to willingly discard falsehood.

The magician who puts on the show or tells the story is present in a self-effacing way;11 he

modulates his voice and demeanor in imitating many characters, like a changing sorcerer

(383a). But if he is noble and artful, he misleads no one, for he makes his pseudos “as much

like the truth as [he] can” (382d): his irony reveals the deceptiveness of the pseudos while his

nobility implies the truth of it, namely that it is desirable to be a true member of the just city.

Still it might be objected that such ambiguity endangers trust; straightforwardness is

necessary for social harmony. Such would be the argument of a true Athenian gentleman, at

10 Cf. Cratylus 418e: “After all, even though an obligation is a kind of good, ‘deon’ plainly signifies a shackle (desmos) and an obstacle to motion…”

11 Scholarship was needed to alert me to the fact that Socrates is not only a character in Republic, but its narrator.

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least before the war with Sparta started. Such might have been the suggestion of Socrates if

Polemarchus would have invited him instead of arresting him, or if the young men had not

insisted on having couches with shared wives in their ideal city. Given the fact that tensions

already exist in souls and cities, preserving harmony means restoring it; honesty as bluntness

leads to war and death.

For this reason, Socrates never specifies the content of philosophy or gives the

definition of justice. Simonides’ definition was not incorrect (331e), but Polemarchus gave a

restricted sense to his words, because Polemarchus lived in a restricted world. Inverting

Wittgenstein, we might say that the limits of my world mean the limits of my language; hence

the turning of the soul is more important than the search for definitions. The content of

philosophy (love of wisdom) cannot be specified, because love does not have a content but an

object. Love has an ambiguous relationship to language: the person who claims to be

dispassionate might hide a secret love,12 while the person who avows love for the highest

things might hide baser desires. This is what professional philosophers do, of whom “the

greatest number become cranks, not to say completely vicious” (487d). Who among them

truly love wisdom? Language alone does not suffice to answer that question: words decay

with lovelessness and “those who express a true opinion without understanding are [no]

different from blind people who happen to travel the right road” (506c).

For the wise man, the most important knowledge to have is “knowledge of the good”

(505b). Consonant with what has just been said, Socrates declines to discourse on the good

directly: the purpose of his speech is not to expound, but to turn. Instead he chooses to speak

of an image of the good, namely the sun. He warns his interlocutors that they should be

careful, lest he “deceive them unintentionally” (507a). Someone whose gennaion pseudos is

meant to blind people to real facts would be unlikely to give such a disclaimer.

The best and most famous illustration of the turning of the soul is given by Socrates

himself: the allegory of the cave. The prisoners shackled in this cave are immobile, captivated

by what they see and hear: shadows projected by artifact-carrying people, voices that seem to

come out of the walls but really belong to the prisoners and the carriers. As Benardete points

out, the prisoners also project their own shadows, but do not examine them because they are

distracted by the larger moving shadows which at best belong to images of men.13

What is the meaning of all this? The cave is intended as an image of “the effect of

education and the lack of it on our nature” (513e). Referring to the symbolic use of fire in the 12 Cf. Lysias’ speech in Phaedrus (231a-234c): Lysias tells Phaedrus that he should accept the rational

non-lover (i.e. Lysias), but he desires to seduce Phaedrus by means of the speech.13 Cf. Benardete 172.

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Protagoras, McNeill argues that the fire is a general representation of the power of human

artifice.14 This makes sense, because the fire is likened to the sun (517b), which governs the

visible world and is at the origin of all visible things (516b-c). If the sun has such a role in the

natural visible world, human artifice (i.e. imitation) would be its equivalent in the artificial

echo-filled world of the cave.

Close to the fire are the existent products of this power: the poems and speeches, the

laws, the temples and centers of government, the great gates or open squares designated as

places of deliberation and judgment, perhaps even “the concepts embedded in any natural

language.”15 The carriers are all those who built and perpetuated the society, either by design

or by silent cooperation; they are the ancestors of the prisoners.16 Old Cephalus’ father is

probably somewhere up there, carrying the statue of a sacrificial bull.

Occasionally a malcontent will try to drag people closer to the fire and force them to

become aware of the origin of the shadows. This is the work of sophist teachers like

Thrasymachus: they consider themselves superior because of the insight they have into the

process and effects of education (cultural indoctrination). However, they never make it out of

the cave, even if they might be in a position to place different artifacts in the hands of the

carriers. They might want to do this because it will give them an advantage in gaining the

“honors, praises, or prizes” (516c) awarded by the cave-dwellers to those most at home with

the shadows.17

If our human world is an artificial construct in which wisdom is measured only by

popular acclaim, forced or voluntary (i.e. if the cave is all we have) then how is it possible

that the statues represent “people and other animals” (514b)? McNeill points out this problem:

the sculptors must “have seen the intelligible realm, and have at least some ‘true’ mimetic

capacity (however that is to be conceived).”18 If they have not seen the world above, the only

thing they have seen besides the sculptures is the fire, an amorphous thing which assumes a

thousand arbitrary shapes in one minute. If the sculptors sculpt the fire and the fire represents

human artifice, then what happens in the cave is imitation imitating itself.

What is the solution? If one is to take the allegory straightforwardly, all would be set

right if we would leave behind all echoes of opinion in order to contemplate being itself.

There must be a compulsory ascent toward the real world, the intelligible world of the forms,

14 Cf. McNeill 194.15 McNeill 194.16 Cf. Benardete 172.17 Prizes: the quicker circulation of the shadowy metallic images of value in their purses.18 McNeill 194.

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ruled by the form of the Good. Benardete believes this represents a naïve way of thinking

about philosophy, one that disconnects being and language, “for which it is still possible to

look directly at the beings without any recourse to speeches”.19 Philosophy still seems to be a

matter of changing external conditions, of dragging and showing, rather than dialoguing. One

should not speak, but see.

This sight, however, is mysterious. It does not simply require a different light; it

requires a different life. There needs to be an interior movement, which can be described as

being dragged upwards or being turned around, which enables us to see the Good. Education

cannot put sight into our eyes or even really accomplish our movement for us; it is merely

occupied with “how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it” (518d). The

interplay between the passive and the active moods suggests that Socrates assigns a relative

value to education (and therefore to speech): it cannot cause sight of the Good, but it can help

us to turn towards it, i.e. come to love it. One should not see, but be. To be what one is not,

one must become, and the becoming is important because it will enable us to rule the city (the

image of the soul). What must one do in order to ascend?

First of all, one must start from the place where one is. For this reason Socrates tells

Glaucon that the study which draws us upward “mustn’t be useless to warlike men” (521d):

Glaucon would never want to be useless. To find out what is useful, Socrates reverts to the

education previously prescribed for the guardians. Their training had both physical and

musical components, both of which primarily benefited the soul (412a). Glaucon does not

remember this, because he does not correct Socrates when the latter assigns gymnastics to the

realm of becoming for the reason that “it oversees the growth and decay of the body” (521e).

Music and poetry Glaucon calls “just the counterpart of physical training”; they provide

“harmoniousness” and a “rhythmical quality” (522a). As such, they might be useful for war,

but cannot connect the soul to being.

If the argument of this thesis is correct, Glaucon makes a telling mistake here. His

forgetfulness of the connection between the guardians’ studies and the soul indicates not only

a lack of memory, but of understanding. In particular, Glaucon finds it difficult to understand

that which is hidden and immaterial; he conceives of the soul as a “quasi-material

substance”20 which can be directly turned, dragged, or put in the right position to observe the

Forms. Neither speech nor actions, however, have visible effects on the invisible; nothing in

our world could make the form of the Good directly manifest. In the cave, no parading

19 Benardete 172.20 McNeill 298.

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shadow or echoing voice makes the prisoner leap up or even rattle his chains; being unmoved,

he does not see his own shadow. In the real world, an educator can pour music and poetry into

our ears like a bath attendant (344d), but he cannot pour poetry’s argument directly into our

soul (345b).21 If all movement is simple and direct, including the movement of the soul, then

poetry is both harmless and useless. Republic demonstrates and thematizes that it is neither.

Glaucon’s misunderstanding of the soul and speech requires another detour, namely

through mathematics as the science of unchanging being. Socrates makes Glaucon more

enthusiastic about taking up this study by connecting it to the world of interacting physical

forces, i.e. the world of war: the one skilled at calculating will acquire technical skill in

ordering ranks (525b). Nevertheless, he leads Glaucon to consider the numbers themselves,

rather than “numbers attached to visible or tangible bodies” (525d). The strategy has little

success, for when Socrates moves to discuss the study of the two-dimensional surfaces of

geometry, Glaucon responds: “Insofar as it pertains to war, it’s obviously appropriate…”

(526d). Socrates corrects: “If geometry compels the soul to study being, it’s appropriate, but if

it compels it to study becoming, it’s inappropriate” (526e), though he later relents and makes

some allowance for the by-products. The most important purpose of geometry is still the sight

of the form of the Good.

After geometry, Socrates introduces astronomy as the third subject, which involves

motion and time. Once again, Glaucon finds it useful for the strategist, and Socrates mocks

him: “You amuse me: You’re like someone who is afraid that the majority will think he is

prescribing useless subjects” (527d). Then Socrates asks if Glaucon argues for the sake of

those who desire the truth, for those who do not, or primarily for his own sake. Glaucon says

he argues for himself: we might say his shadow stirs on the wall of the cave. Socrates then

introduces the forgotten dimension between space and time: depth.

McNeill makes much of the fact that wonder and divine mystery are nearly absent from

Republic, except for repeated mentions of Socrates’ mantikē technē, his ‘divination skill’

which always has to do with “thinking about what kinds of education are appropriate for

which kinds of souls”.22 This, says McNeill, is precisely what gets left out of the mathematical

education and the ascent out of the cave. Perhaps it is not an innocent mistake, then, that

Socrates initially skips over the third dimension, which consists of “cubes and of whatever

shares in depth” (528b), i.e. whatever is not a shadow cast by the mind or the body. The

human person would be an example of something that shares in depth, not merely physically 21 “For Plato, speech-acts are not only complex in their sending, but are complex in their reception and

digestion by the diverse characters who receive them.” (Tarnopolsky 19)22 McNeill 199-200.

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but metaphysically. To quote Benardete, if it is “in the arguments for mathematics rather than

in mathematics itself that the ascent of dialectics is to be found”,23 there might be a sublime

irony in Socrates’ remarks that no city values the study of depth, good teachers of it are hard

to find and good students even harder, and its current devotees cannot explain its usefulness

(528b-c). This sounds like something he might say about philosophy (496c-e) rather than

about solid mathematics; it may be read as a hint that what is lacking in a purely mathematical

education is a philosophical ‘depth dimension’, namely the dimension of the human soul,

which Glaucon is quite willing to leave to some other city to investigate.

I do not think this is a far-fetched interpretation, for at last Socrates gives the following

blunt response to Glaucon’s praise of astronomy: “I can’t conceive of any subject making the

soul look upward except one concerned with that which is, and that which is is invisible”

(529b). For Socrates, the heavens provide a merely visible image of intelligible, ‘true’

motions, which are “really fast or slow as measured in true numbers” (529d). This sounds

absurd, considering that fastness and slowness are relative terms, like long and short.

However, if we consider the human depth dimension which hides behind the mathematical

surface, there is a way to speak of the truly fast and the truly slow: in reference to human

action. Socrates himself provides an example in the course of the conversation, by saying “In

my haste to go through them all [i.e. all the subjects], I’ve only progressed more slowly”

(528d). The truly fast reveals itself as the truly slow. This kind of contrary perception

summons thought and understanding: philosophy.24

Ultimately, Socrates is looking for a reason that investigates consonance and harmony,

the intelligible images of the form of the Good. The asceticism of mathematical studies is

useful only in the search for the beautiful and the good, not for another purpose (531c); these

studies cannot turn the soul when detached from the good (but practiced because enjoyed or

commanded by Socrates). Therefore, all the mathematical subjects are “merely preludes to the

song itself that must also be learned” (531d). This song, Socrates explains, is the journey of

dialectic, which ends in the contemplation of the Good. Socrates cannot tell Glaucon how to

get there, “for you would no longer be seeing an image of what we’re describing, but the truth

itself” (533a).

How could the suggested studies help Glaucon to achieve this vision of the truth?

Partly, perhaps, because mathematics could help him to lose his fear of doing useless things

23 Benardete 182.24 “Some things summon thought, while others don’t. Those that strike the relevant sense at the same

time as their opposites I call summoners, those that don’t do this do not awaken understanding.” (524d)

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and to overcome his occasional laziness in pursuing an argument. Also, the orderly ratios

between numbers could lead Glaucon to look for order and measure in his studies and lastly in

the three-dimensional world, including the dimension of the invisible.25 Furthermore, the mere

discussion of the studies has taught Glaucon that there are more things between heaven and

earth than his rather materialistic vision could previously accommodate. This broadening of

the mind was not forced upon him, but he grew into it while inquiring about the philosopher-

king. “Nothing taught by force stays in the soul” (536e), but a playful Socratic discussion

(536b) can increase wisdom more truly fast than an earnest exhortation or a book-length

analysis of the Good.

25 Socrates suggests as much: the future rulers must bring their studies together “to form a unified vision of their kinship both with one another and with the nature of that which is” (537b-c). This leads to the vision of the good, “a rest from the road … and an end of journeying” (532e).

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7. The Poet’s Lies: Images of Images

Anyone who attempts to argue that Plato had a positive view on the role of poetry in

education, despite poetry’s ambiguous relationship to philosophical truth, must come to terms

with Book X of Republic. This book initially seems to be a formidable obstacle to those who

wish to discover an alliance between Plato and poetry, for it presents a straightforward

argument that all artistic imitation is bad. Even someone who agrees with the view put

forward in this thesis, namely that Plato intentionally writes poetry to incite a whole-hearted

love for true wisdom and justice in his reader, might conclude that Plato disavows his

Republic as Wittgenstein disavows his Tractatus: as a ladder to be thrown away after one has

climbed it. The entire play of characters in dialogue could be a mere movement of shadows,

whose purpose is to stimulate the reader’s ascent to the more laborious but more rewarding

studies of mathematics, dialectic and the study of the Forms. Republic might be a story told

“to small children before physical training begins”, and such stories are “false, on the whole,

though they have some truth to them” (377a). Why suffer the poetic mixture of truth and

falsehood when one has advanced sufficiently to gaze upon Truth unadulterate? Why remain

at a distance of three removes?

‘Poetry’ in our sense of the word is not a Platonic concept, as Havelock points out. The

word from which it is derived, poiēsis, refers to “both production and authorship”1 and is thus

the process of making, not the product made; the latter is included under mousikē, the arts of

the Muses. Mousikē coexists with mimesis or imitation, which has been criticized in Book II-

III and is criticized again in Book X. Thus, the target of the critique is not what we would call

poetry, but imitation as such.

As mentioned previously, the second critique is in a way contrary to the first: whereas

the imitator was earlier charged with failing to maintain the proper distance to the thing

imitated (especially the subhuman or the base human), the imitator is now blamed for being

too distant (especially from the truth). Book X also takes a different art as paradigmatic of

imitation: the first critique was about mousikē, whereas the second one is mainly about

graphikē or painting. The fact that both these forms of imitation are criticized proves that

Socrates is not merely critiquing the emotional involvement of audiences during the poetic

recitals of his day, as Havelock and others suggest.2 Instead, he covers the whole range of

1 Havelock 34.2 Fendt draws attention to this: “Socrates is using even painting as something which shapes the soul

to itself (or which fills the soul with its shape)” (17). Cf. 400e-401d from the first critique, which

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what we are now tempted to call ‘human creativity’, but which Socrates himself gives the

humbler name of imitation.

There is something odd about the investigation, however, which makes it likely that this

passage should be read ironically. It starts with a false initial premise, namely that all

imitative poetry had already been excluded from the city in speech; on the contrary, imitation

of decent characters had been encouraged. After introducing this premise, Socrates says to

Glaucon, “Could you tell me what imitation in general is? I don’t entirely understand what

sort of thing imitations are trying to be” (595c). Glaucon refuses to answer this question, at

which Socrates adopts his “usual procedure” of positing “a single form in connection with

each of the many things to which we apply the same name” (596a).3 If this is the case, then

since all imitations can be called by a single name, we should be investigating the form of

Imitation. Instead Socrates starts discussing the forms of Couch and Bed, which, he claims,

are made by the god; carpenters imitate these forms, and painters in turn imitate their

perception of the carpenters’ products.

There are more jarring details in the picture Socrates paints. For instance, one moment

the painter is painting an image of the bed, but the next he is suddenly painting the carpenter

himself (598b-c).4 Another example is Socrates’ claim that an imitator of all things is like a

man walking around with a mirror, who can create the appearance of everything: “the sun, the

things in the heavens … and everything else mentioned just now” (596d-e). Among the things

mentioned earlier, however, were “the gods, all the things in the heavens and in Hades

beneath the earth” (596c). It would be difficult to catch those in a mirror, so a mirror is no

accurate image of the human image-making power.5

The discussion becomes stranger as it proceeds: Socrates claims that mimetic poetry

specifically imitates “human beings acting voluntarily or under compulsion” (603c) with

certain judgments and passions. He asks Glaucon if poetry imitates anything else; the

response “Nothing” receives no further comments. This suggests that the real theme of poetry

refers to “fine works [that] will strike their eyes and ears like a breeze” and explicitly includes painting, weaving, embroidery and architecture. These are not ecstatic performances.

3 McNeill has his doubts: “However, on the basis of what we see elsewhere in Plato, this is not Socrates’ ‘customary method’ – it is, in fact, the most questionable account of the forms we ever see in the dialogues. And in any case, it is far from clear that Socrates has a ‘customary method’ or that there could be anything like a ‘customary method’ for an inquiry into the forms” (217).

4 Cf. McNeill 213.5 Cf. Benardete 216.

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is the human being; human image-making is not primarily intended to teach technai6 or

photographically represent nature and supernature.

A third odd feature of the discussion is Socrates’ critique of Homer. By this time

Socrates is willing to tolerate poets’ ignorance of the productive crafts, but not of the most

important things of which they speak, especially “what ways of life make people better in

private or in public” (599b-c). Homer is no lawgiver of cities, no general, no inventor in crafts

or sciences, no private teacher; most tellingly, people were not interested in receiving an

education in virtue from him personally (599d-600e).

Compare Republic: its theme is justice, but it does not give a clear account of this

virtue; it speaks of the rule of cities and the education of warriors, but its program has never

been fully implemented and its narrator Socrates never ruled or commanded; it furthers no art

or science; and while Plato had a school and transmitted a certain way of life, Socrates could

not boast of such a thing. If his critique of Homer is not ironic, he is either unwittingly or

maliciously projecting his own inadequacy onto Homer. Malice is not likely, for Socrates

gives Homer quite a bit of credit: he calls him “the first teacher and leader of all these fine

tragedians” (595b; cf. 598d) and “the most poetic of the tragedians and the first among them”

(607a); he also commends those who revere Homer as “the poet who educated Greece”

(606e).7 Malice towards Homer on Socrates’ part is therefore doubtful. Since we should also

be slow to ascribe unreflectiveness to the philosopher of the examined life, irony is the best

explanation.

According to Fendt, the different versions of Socrates’ argument are themselves

suggestive of irony.8 Socrates makes the argument against mimesis three times. He starts, so

to speak, at third remove from the truth, but gets progressively closer. The first version (596e-

597e) involves the god who makes the form of the bed, “wishing to be the real maker of the

truly real bed and not just a maker of a bed”; he is thus the “natural maker” (phutourgos,

which could also be translated ‘nature-maker’; 597c-d). The god appears to be driven by

thumos, love of honor, rather than by generosity or self-diffusive goodness.9 The human

6 Of course a poet can be “at once a storyteller and a tribal encyclopedist” (Havelock 83); poetry can include mnemonic aids for craftsmen, but it is neither sufficient nor necessary, nor even particularly useful, for teaching a craft. Therefore, teaching a craft cannot be its primary purpose.

7 Cf. McNeill 214 n. 16. A possible counterargument is that “first of tragedians” is no longer an honorific title after Socrates’ criticism, just like “prince of bandits” or “king of fools”. However, not only does Socrates seem very graceful and regretful while expelling the poets (more on this later), but he himself also speaks like a tragic poet on occasion (as at 413b)

8 Cf. Fendt 4.9 Cf. Benardete 216-217 and McNeill 211-212.

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couchmaker, unable to attain such uniqueness, is compelled to imitate the divinely crafted

form, while the painter makes an image of a partial view of the thing.

The second version of the argument (601c-d) involves the reins and bit that are used for

restraining horses. A painter may paint these, but a cobbler makes them, while the horseman

is qualified to give directions about how they should be made. After all, he is the one who

knows (or finds out) how a horse can best be restrained. Fendt points out that the god has

disappeared from this example: it “abrogates the metaphysical break, putting knower, maker

and imitator on the same level – human.”10

The third version of the argument (601d-602a) completely undercuts the surface critique

of mimesis. Here the horseman is replaced by a flute-player, giving orders to the flute-maker.

The flute-player knows, while the flute-maker opines; he has the right opinion insofar as he

follows the user’s directions. This all seems analogous to the horseman example, but there is a

significant difference: the user of the flute, skilled in mousikē, who has been exiled from the

city long ago (399d) but is now credited with the highest knowledge, is himself an imitator!

“What, then, is this flute player who knows?”11

Socrates is right when he says that the imitator “produces work that is inferior with

respect to truth” (605a), if by truth we mean facts (journalism). In the earlier critique,

however, it became clear that moral truth was more important in mimesis, which is aimed at

making people into committed members of the true city. Art is not meant to inform, but to

form. As Socrates says, it arouses and nourishes a part of the soul that is inferior to the

rational part; however, he goes too far in concluding that mimesis “destroys” rationality

(605b). In fact, the argument of Book III was that the right sort of mimesis helped the helpless

child to acquire a certain harmony with reason and, growing up, recognize reason easily

“because of its kinship with himself” (402a).12 An imitator could know how to shape human

nature in such a way that it becomes harmonious with reason. Pre-rational children as well as

the majority of people who have a “childish passion for poetry” (608a) could be formed by

the imitator who knows, who would be analogous not only to the horseman using an

instrument, but to the divine phutourgos or nature-maker:13 the three parts of his soul together

10 Fendt 5-6.11 Fendt 9.12 Cf. Fendt 12.13 Cf. Fendt 14. Also note that the philosopher-kings use a “divine model” to sketch the city, looking

from the natures of justice, beauty, and moderation to the natures which they try to put into human beings, blending and mixing both until the human becomes something which Homer calls divine (500e-501b).

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drive him to be the real maker of the real human being. Reason mixed with mousikē dwells

“within the person who possesses it as the lifelong preserver of his virtue” (549b).

The existence of a childish passion for poetry does not exclude a more mature and

reflective passion for mousikē, one that goes hand in hand with a passion for and

understanding of justice, yet knows how to imitate the wicked, the ignorant and the struggling

alongside the just man. This mixed style, said Socrates in Book III, is “by far the most

pleasing to children, their tutors, and the vast majority of people” (397d). The tutors are not

necessarily unphilosophical. Indeed, the Socratic tutor studies all kinds of passion: in another

dialogue, Socrates makes a claim that he knows “nothing other than the erotic things (ta

erōtika).”14 If the imitative artist shows different or even opposite kinds of passion, this does

not destroy rationality, but rather summons thought and awakens understanding (cf. 524d).

Even cautious rulers like Adeimantus do not seem quite convinced that the imitator is as

bad as the argument makes him appear, for he is willing to bestow great honor on the poet

before expelling him (397e-398a). The same hesitation occurs in Book X, where Socrates is

afraid of the charge of “a certain harshness and lack of sophistication” (607b), allows for

poetry to defend itself, and even says, “we’d certainly profit if poetry were shown to be not

only pleasant but also beneficial” (607d-e).

Music and poetry could be defended if they could help us in the pursuit of a full

communal human life. Despite his apparent lack of sophistication, Socrates seems to be

secretly convinced that they can, for he says that poetry can make (or be) its own apology and

thus show us the justice of its cause: “isn’t it just that such poetry should return from exile

when it has successfully defended itself, whether in lyric or any other meter?” (607d).15

Moreover, even when poetry presents a danger in one way, it may ward off the danger

in another way: if poetry cannot speak in its own defense, Socrates says the argument against

it must be put forward “like an incantation,” and “we’ll go on chanting that such poetry is not

to be taken seriously” (608a). Incantations and repetitive chants are forms of poetry: thus does

poetry itself provide the strength we need to bridle our unhealthy passions, including a base

kind of attraction to poetry.16 Someone who has received a proper education, however, will be

well-disposed to accept poetry as “the best and truest thing” (607e): truest because the moral

truth of someone’s soul is of a higher dignity than the verbal expression of factual truths.

14 Roochnik 239, quoting Symposium 177d.15 The Muses would argue that a neglect of mousikē starts the road to degeneration (546d).16 There is a connection to Phaedrus here, in which the dark horse needs to be tamed and shamed

before love can come to fruition. Fendt suggests that the ‘bit and reins’ in Book X, between the divine phutourgos and the flutist who knows, are a hint that the flutist must bridle the thumos and erōs in his soul; but the best bridle-maker is the experienced mimetic artist (16).

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It need not be surprising, then, that Book X (and Republic as a whole) culminates in the

famous Myth of Er, at the end of which Socrates says, “And so, Glaucon, his story wasn’t lost

but preserved, and it would save us, if we were persuaded by it, for we would then make a

good crossing of the River of Forgetfulness, and our souls wouldn’t be defiled” (621b-c). That

final tribute to poetry and storytelling cannot be ignored.

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8. The Theological Turn: Whether God is a Sorcerer

“Do you think that a god is a sorcerer, able to appear in different forms at different

times, sometimes changing himself from his own form into many shapes, sometimes

deceiving us by making us think that he has done it?” (380c-d) That is the question Socrates

asks Adeimantus, who hesitates long before denying that the god appears in different forms.

Convinced as he is that the god is simple and true, Adeimantus still cannot give a

straightforward answer to the question “Would a god be willing to be false, either in word or

deed, by presenting an illusion?” (382a). As an Athenian not devoid of piety, he is right to

hesitate: gods, like the Forms, are non-sensible, so the only way they can appear at all is

through a pseudos, something that conceals even while it reveals. To negate the pretense is in

practice to negate the god.

This is what is done in Republic, which is an attempt to create a city in logos, a city

bounded on all sides by human logos. In the end logos is allied with law or convention and

placed squarely opposite the madness of erōs (cf. 587a-b). All forms of madness, both the

dark madness of tyrannical vice committed without account(ability) and the bright madness of

souls following in the train of the gods, are mostly excluded from the dialogue.1 At the very

beginning the possibility of destructive madness is brought up, but though this kind of

madness surfaces several times in the course of the dialogue, it is not explicitly thematized

until the discussion of the degeneration of the regimes (for which the Muses are responsible,

cf. 545d-e).

The philosopher’s love is usually imagined as isolated contemplation free from

imperfection and irrationality, reminiscent of the just man’s life, which was as free from

injustice as it was from activity. Both the wise man and the just man are men made entirely of

speech, not driven by any energy; they are ideally beautiful and vigorously scoured, but

statues nonetheless (cf. 361d). Socrates attempts to divorce speech from the uncanny, the

mysterious, the wonderful; he separates logos from that which puts it in motion. Philosophy

(whatever it is) is the quiet hobby of the unlucky, those too decent to be unjust and too

deprived to be useful; if a god or daimon is involved, it is not worth mentioning (496a-e).

What does Athens have to do with Delphi or Eleusis?

1 A significant example: Socrates says that from the beginning of the Iliad to the first direct speech of Chryses, Homer “himself is speaking and doesn’t attempt to get us to think that the speaker is someone other than himself” (393a). However, this is not true; the Iliad starts with the invocation of the Muse, who is made responsible for the entire poem.

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Both theos and erōs exceed logos and are potentially threatening to the conventional

opinions of the city. Yet they cannot be kept out altogether. As we have seen, the erōs of the

interlocutors guides Socrates’ building of the city-in-speech. The god, too, is invoked by

Socrates once in a while, as a hidden power responsible for saving or preserving the city’s

constitution. Glaucon and Adeimantus, clinging to the love of justice despite the sophist’s

attack, must be “affected by the divine” (368a). Both music and physical training are gifts of a

god for the benefit of the human soul (411e). A god grants the preservation of the proper laws

(425e) as well as their initial discovery (443b-c). The virtuous man, growing up under

imperfect constitutions, has been saved “by a divine dispensation” (493a), and philosophers

become kings only by chance or when “a god inspires the present rulers and kings or their

offspring with a true erotic love for true philosophy” (499b). Here theos, erōs and logos are

brought together in a union that benefits the city.

The city itself must allow the god some involvement in its legislation. The oracle at

Delphi gives to the city the “greatest, finest, and first of laws” (427b), namely those that have

to do with the service of divine beings and with funerals. This recourse to the god in

connection with funerals occurs again at a later point in the dialogue (469a). Conventions

based merely on logos are apparently insufficient to deal with death.

Asking the god for instruction presupposes two things: firstly, trust in a person who

mediates the god’s message but whose connection to the god cannot be independently

verified; secondly, the willingness to confess one’s own ignorance to the god. However,

Adeimantus proclaims, “No one who is ignorant or mad is a friend of the gods” (382e). This

premise is crucial to the theology that disconnects the god from the city: this god will not

teach the ignorant, but he cannot teach the wise; he will not save the mad, but he cannot save

the sane. If the god cannot descend, then the human city cannot ascend, even when it needs to.

On the other hand, if the god must descend to a city in need of wisdom and sanity, and

if he does so because of his friendship with the city, many things will inevitably be lost in that

descent. In a city ignorant of divine things, the god could not appear divine at all, for no one

would know what divinity would look like or how it would speak. Thus the word of the god

might appear as merely human at best; it might even be perceived as deluded, dangerous, or

criminal. It would be unwise, perhaps even uncharitable, for a god to enter a city swarming

with maddening passions and reluctant to confess its ignorance, and then to speak the truth

straightforwardly and straightaway. Of course I am unable to divine how the god’s wisdom

would speak.

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In any case Socrates is willing to use suggestive questions, similes, irony and

subterfuge, not because he wishes to conceal the truth from his friends, but because logos

cannot demonstrate goodness and desirability (cannot turn erōs) in any other way. This is

even made clear in the education of the guardians, whose myths are false but whose souls are

true. Would it be impossible for a god (or a goddess like the Muse) to tell a myth? Socrates

argues that the god does not mislead others by “images, words, or signs” (382e), but leading

others rightly by means of them is not out of the question. Even if the god’s interlocutors

mistake myth for fact, telling the myth might still be allowable; after all, it is not wrong to tell

fictional stories to children who cannot yet conceive of the distinction between fact and

fiction.2

If the god’s divinity is compromised by such an action, then all false show and speech

must be off limits to humanity as well; we cannot put more restrictions on the god than on

ourselves. In that case the ‘just city’ is unjust, for it offers a false foundational myth to its

inhabitants, all the while hoping that they will accept the myth; Socrates is unjust, for he lets

himself be misinterpreted by his interlocutors, sometimes quite deliberately; Plato is unjust,

for he allows everyone to misinterpret Socrates.3

The gennaion pseudos, writes Tarnopolsky, is “also a test and a pharmakon

(poison/cure) for the ways in which the citizens (both rulers and ruled) relate to any

authoritative representation (mimēma), fiction (pseudos) or myth (muthos), which always

offers the beguiling and enticing mimetic pleasure of understanding just how reality is both

like and unlike this particular representation,” etc.4 Glaucon thinks everything that deceives

does so by casting a spell and agrees to the necessity of training future guardians to guard the

proper dogma (413c-d), for the spells of pleasure and fear are always all around us. If such

tests are necessary, Socrates can legitimately create one himself (while drawing attention to

the puzzling nature of the test and of mimesis in general). If Socrates can, so can Plato; and if

Plato can, so can the god. A good guardian would not refuse a test.

If the god can test us by means of an image, word or sign of questionable value, and if

the god is just, then the magic of imagery has a double effect. It has the risk of deceiving us

further, making us more ignorant or aggravating our madness, causing forgetfulness of the

truth. At the same time, it may stimulate our erōs for philosophy, wisdom and justice, causing

forgetfulness of falsehood, expanding the habitual restriction of our vision and chastening its

2 A particularly creative divinity might even confuse the distinction between myth and fact.3 What trouble might have been avoided if Plato could have written his own footnotes!4 Tarnopolsky 25.

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extravagancies. The god may lead us to the River of Forgetfulness, from which we all have to

drink; but a rightly formed reason will drink the right measure.

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Conclusion

As a verbal falsehood is only an imitation of ignorance in the soul, so a verbal truth is

only an imitation of knowledge in the soul. Of all kinds of knowledge, Socrates holds none

dearer than ethical knowledge, but he is aware of the difficulty of communicating truth about

the good life in such a way that it settles in the soul. Words, even if they accurately outline

reality, can be rejected, or received and immediately deprived of their full significance. Case

in point: the word ‘good’ is differently interpreted by different people.

In such a world, how can we communicate the truth? That is the question Socrates is

confronted with when Glaucon and Adeimantus challenge him to demonstrate that justice is

desirable in itself. Where there is no communion of desire whatsoever, we can put our desire

into words, but we cannot show the reality of the desirable. Between Socrates and the

brothers, however, much communion already exists, which he uses to show that justice is

lovable. By means of inspiring images and the activity of thinking about the well-being of a

city, Socrates attempts to fortify the erōs towards justice already present in the brothers; the

invisible, unimaginable reality must be presented in a symbolic disguise. Thus, the ‘noble lie’

is a contrivance of disguises which spurs us on towards excellence, especially towards

properly directed love.

As for Plato, he is the enemy of the poets only in appearance, not in reality. Like the

poets, he knows that truth about the most important things is most effectively communicated

through imitation; the form he chooses gives the lie to the content’s surface. Unfortunately,

imitation makes a strong impression both of true and false persuasions, so a certain wariness

and discipline of thought is required. This critical thinking is something Republic invites

through its many inconsistencies. Therefore, after two-and-a-half millennia, when many

younger.books gather only dust, Republic still gathers footnotes.

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Bibliography

Primary sources

Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Perseus Digital Library. [English translation: Herbert Weir Smyth,

Ph.D.] Accessed 9 August 2011.

Plato, Republic. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1992. [Original publication: c.

380 B.C.] [English translation: G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve]

Plato: Complete Works. John M. Cooper (ed.). Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company,

1997.

Secondary sources

Baracchi, Claudia. Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato’s Republic. Bloomington, Indiana UP,

2002.

Benardete, Seth. Socrates’ Second Sailing. On Plato’s Republic. Chicago, University of

Chicago Press, 1989.

Blondell, Ruby. The Play of Character in Plato’s Dialogues. Cambridge, Cambridge UP,

2002.

Fendt, Gene. “How to Play the Platonic Flute.” Unpublished essay.

Fendt, Gene, and David Rozema. Platonic Errors. Plato, a Kind of Poet. Westport

(Connecticut), Greenwood Press, (Contributions in Philosophy; 69), 1998.

Havelock, Eric A. Preface to Plato. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard UP, 1963.

Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Truth: On Plato’s Cave Allegory and Theaetetus. London,

Continuum, 2009. [English translation: Ted Sadler]

McNeill, David N. An Image of the Soul in Speech. Plato and the Problem of Socrates.

University Park (Pa.), Pennsylvania State UP, 2010.

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Popper, Karl Raimund. The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato. New York,

Routledge, 2002. [Original publication: 1945]

Roochnik, David. Of Art and Wisdom: Plato’s Understanding of Techne. University Park

(Pa.), Pennsylvania State UP, 1996.

Tarnopolsky, Christina H. “Plato’s Mimetic Republic: A Preliminary Treatment of Plato’s

Preliminary Treatment of the Gennaion Pseudos.” 2009. APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting

Paper. Accessed 23 June 2011.

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Abstract

Plato is known as the theorist of universal ideas, yet he writes dialogues about particular

situations; he is known as the philosopher who wishes to expel the poets, yet he writes

philosophical dramas; he is known as the seeker of unchanging truth, yet he seems to argue

for the appropriateness and necessity of the ‘noble lie’ in his greatest work, Republic. This

study is an attempt to harmonize the contradictions between these different portraits of Plato

through an analysis of the drama of Republic. The concept of truth is given special attention:

how it is defined and in what way Plato’s Socrates pursues it.

What emerges from the dialogue is a distinction between factual and moral truth; moral

truth, or truth in the soul, is less a matter of statements than of virtues. The ‘noble lie’ is not

only compatible with moral truth, but even encourages it; rather than being an instrument of

political control, it is a poetic device which Socrates uses to foster the love of justice in his

interlocutors against tyrannical passions. The arguments for the expulsion of the poets are

ironic and highly qualified; while they alert readers to the possible dangers of poetry, they

reach out towards a reconciliation of poets and philosophers. The account of children’s

education in Book II-III presents the arts as no less than indispensable.

Lastly, a brief response is given to a question raised in the dialogue: whether a god

would ever appear in a form other than divine, i.e. in disguise. This seems impossible when

the attributes of divinity are considered in isolation, but it is argued to be at least possible,

desirable and ethically irreproachable when the needs and follies of humanity are taken into

account.

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