Plato

by Roy Jackson

  What is most curious here is that Book X of Republic up until now has been an argument for the banning of all the arts, of how damaging, distracting and useless they are, and yet he now presents his own work of fiction! It does, however, in some ways, round off the whole book, for at the beginning of Book I we have Cephalus, who believes that he is a just person and he will be rewarded in the afterlife, and now we have Socrates presenting a myth which is also about the rewards for goodness in the afterlife.

  THE IMMORTAL SOUL

  Previous to presenting the Myth itself, however, Socrates argues for an immortal soul (608d–611a), and he does it in these stages:

  1 For every individual thing there is a bad (or evil) as well as a good. For example, the human eye has a good to it – being able to see – but also a bad – a disease such as, in Socrates’ example, ophthalmia (inflammation of the eye).

  2 Bad things are those that destroy and corrupt (e.g. disease) whereas good things preserve and benefit (e.g. our ability to see).

  3 However, if we find an object that is not destroyed by its own congenital badness, then by definition it must be immortal.

  4 As previously argued in Republic, the ‘bad’ in the soul is injustice, but whereas this makes the soul worse, it does not destroy it.

  5 Therefore the soul must be immortal.

  It an interesting, though perhaps not a convincing argument. Socrates points out that badness (evil) of the soul does seem different than other bad things. For example, the badness of the body, illness, will in time completely destroy the body to the extent it can no longer be referred to as a body. That is to say, the congenital bad of a thing causes that thing to cease to exist, whereas this is not the case with the soul. However, it does rest upon various unsubstantiated assumptions. For example, why we should agree that things are only destroyed by one single evil and that this is integral to the thing. The destruction of a thing could have many internal causes: the chair that I’m currently sitting on will decay with age (as will I!), but the causes of this are numerous: exposure to the air, to damp, to constant use, and so on. Further, its destruction could be caused by something external to it, such as a fire, an earthquake, a bomb, destructive children…

  This argument for the soul is, of course, a circular one: you have to buy into the idea that there is such a ‘thing’ as an immortal soul in the first place to accept that what is internal to it can’t destroy it because, well, it is an immortal soul.

  THE MYTH

  To end Republic, Socrates links what he has to say on the soul with the Myth of Er. Er was a warrior who was killed in battle but came back to life while on his funeral pyre and he recounts his journey in the afterlife. Given Plato’s dislike for poetry he nonetheless gives us a very poetic portrayal of what the next life contains. Er tells his astonished audience that when his soul left his body it travelled, together with many other souls, to a place of the dead that had four openings, or doors. Two of these doors led upwards to the sky, and two down into the ground. You can imagine thousands of souls, like some crowded railway station, waiting here to be judged as to which opening they will go for, for between these openings sat their judges.

  The judges instructed the good to take the openings on the right and up into the sky, whereas the bad had to go to the openings in the left and down into the ground (in Ancient Greece, right was good and left was bad). This journey would take a thousand years (with the exception of some especially bad people who remain in this hell forever, with special mention given to political tyrants), for after that period, they would exit once more from the other opening and recount their tales. In the case of those in the heavens, they came out ‘pure and clean… told of pleasures enjoyed and sights of unbelievable beauty’, whereas those from down below ‘parched with thirst and covered with dust… recalled all the terrible things they had suffered’ (614e–615a).

  All of this Er witnessed as he was instructed by the judges to remain behind and act as a messenger for mankind as to what occurred. After this thousand-year period, the souls of both good and bad are taken on a tour of the cosmos in which they saw the beauty and order that the cosmos possessed, including the Spindle of Necessity, which causes the planets to rotate. In other words, the cosmos is pictured like a massive spindle; the planets orbiting the centre, the shaft of the spindle, in a series of perfect circles like the whorl of the spindle. As they spun they emitted harmonious music.

  Once they have seen the cosmos, each soul is told they will return to Earth to live the next life – they are to be reincarnated. The souls are each given a lottery token and, according to the number on their token, each soul has to choose their next life. Once the choice is made there is no turning back and the souls are warned not to choose in haste. Presented before the souls is a montage of possible lives ‘far more than there were people present’ (618a) of every variety and, this is so crucial to the theme of the whole Republic, the soul is now being asked the question what life do you choose? It is an existential question: you have a whole life before you, you have seen what the universe consists of – how beautiful it is – and, it his hoped, you have learned from your past experiences.

  This latter hope can be somewhat forlorn, however, as Socrates demonstrates in this myth, of the person who gets to choose first in the lottery – a person who has just spent a thousand years in blissful heaven – immediately, through ‘stupidity and greed’ (619c), chooses the life of a tyrant. Some people, it seems, never learn. No doubt the life of a tyrant has its appeal, the power you have, the life of luxury, and so on, during that one life, but this soul seems to have forgotten the tales of those who have just spent a thousand years in damnation, especially the fact that tyrants suffer worse, for they experience eternal damnation. ‘When he took the time to look more closely, he beat himself and wailed about his choice’ (619c), but it was too late. The message here is that having spent so many years in bliss and comfort he had gone soft, stupefied and lacked caution, whereas those who had spent the time in hell were much more cautious in their choices. In other words, it is important to experience what is bad in order to know what is good.

  The very last in line was Odysseus, the legendary Greek hero of Homer’s epic poem Odyssey. In Greek literature, Odysseus was always portrayed as the cunning hero, the intelligent hero as opposed to, say, Achilles who, portrayed in Homer’s other great epic Iliad, is a bit of a thug. Odysseus, the great hero who was coveted and honoured, nonetheless now chooses for his next life one of obscurity, he wants to be a ‘man who minded his own business’ (620d). He chooses this because, despite all the glory and honour he had in his previous life, he also recalls the misery and suffering he experienced. Odysseus, therefore, represents the philosopher in heaven: sufficiently wisened to events and to learn from experiences so as to know the right life to choose.

  When every soul had made its choice they were taken to the plain of forgetfulness and drank from the River Careless. This caused them all to sleep and then to awaken newborn but devoid of any memories. The one exception was Er, who was prevented from drinking the water but, not recalling how, awakes upon the funeral pyre able to recall what he had experienced.

  There is a problem here presented to us of us in this myth, for it may occur to you that those who choose a good life will then be rewarded in heaven with a thousand years of bliss, but then will, like the first person in the lottery, be stupefied to the extent that he or she may choose to be a tyrant and, in consequence, will suffer eternal damnation. It logically follows that, eventually, everybody will end up being damned for eternity. It is interesting, however, that Odysseus chooses a life of obscurity for – despite what Plato says about the Philosopher-King – in Book IX he says that the perfect state is highly unlikely to ever exist and, indeed, if the philosopher’s soul is to truly flourish he would be better off by removing himself from society to avoid the danger of being corrupted by it. If Odysseus represents the philosopher, then he has escaped this danger of eternal damnation becau
se he has achieved a purity of soul and an inherent wisdom that remains with him, which leads Socrates to conclude with the following:

  ‘And that, Glaucon, is how the story was saved for us instead of coming to an untimely end; it will save us too, if we believe in it, and we shall cross the river of forgetfulness in good shape, with our souls undefiled.’

  Plato, Republic, 621b, c

  Key terms

  Poiein: Ancient Greek, usually translated as ‘poetry’, but refers to all kinds of artistic creation.

  Stoicism: Stoicism is a school of Ancient Greek philosophy which teaches self-control and fortitude against life’s misfortunes. The word ’stoic’ has entered the English vocabulary to refer to people who adopt such an attitude.

  Dig deeper

  Janaway, C. (1995), Images of Excellence: Plato’s Critique of the Arts. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  Lodge, R. C. (1953), Plato’s Theory of Art. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

  Fact check

  1 How many ‘Books’, or chapters, does Republic consist of?

  a Eight

  b Nine

  c Ten

  d Eleven

  2 What does the Greek word poiein usually translate as?

  a Poetry

  b Poignant

  c Tragedy

  d Poison

  3 Who is considered to be producing something that is ‘two removes from nature’?

  a The philosopher

  b The painter

  c The human craftsman

  d God

  4 Which one of the following describes the Stoic?

  a Someone who ‘wastes one’s time howling and clutching’

  b Someone who is ‘as calm as possible in misfortune’

  c Oedipus

  d The poet

  5 Why, in Book X of Republic, does Plato believe we have an immortal soul?

  a Because the bad within the soul does not destroy it

  b Because he has experienced heaven

  c Because he is a philosopher

  d Because God told him so

  6 What is the name of the myth that Socrates recounts?

  a The Myth of Her

  b The Myth of Hera

  c The Myth of Sisyphus

  d The Myth of Er

  7 What is the name of the Greek hero in this myth that represents the philosopher?

  a Achilles

  b Sisyphus

  c Homer

  d Odysseus

  8 What is the name of the Spindle which represents the cosmos?

  a The Spindle of Necessity

  b The Spindle of Harmony

  c The Spindle of Beauty

  d The Spindle of Delight

  9 How long do souls reside in the heavenly domain?

  a One hundred years

  b One thousand years

  c One million years

  d One billion years

  10 Which one of the following are given special mention that suffer eternal damnation?

  a Democrats

  b Bankers

  c Shopkeepers

  d Tyrants

  13

  Plato’s legacy

  In the last chapter we returned once more to Republic to consider what Plato had to say about the arts, and also we looked at his own fascinating story-telling through the Myth of Er. What we have seen in these previous chapters is a variety of views presented by Plato, which are sometimes contradictory, but only to be expected from any philosopher who writes over a period of time. We have not covered all of his works, of course, for that would require a much longer book than this; but it is hoped the reader now has sufficient interest to dig deeper. You could spend a lifetime reading Plato alone, but what you will also find is just how influential his thought has been on other people and ideas you may well encounter in your future reading.

  Plato died at the ripe old age of 81. He was buried in the grounds of the university that he founded, the Academy. His philosophy, however, continues to live and has proven to be a lasting influence on Western thought and thinkers. When Alfred North Whitehead said that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato he was not, of course, saying that all the philosophy that comes after Plato has nothing new to say, but what is meant here is that Plato established the foundations for philosophical thought: he raised the questions that we continue to ask today, even if these future philosophers may not reference Plato directly.

  Aristotle

  Plato’s most famous student was Aristotle (384–322 BC), who himself became a prominent philosopher. As a pupil of Plato for some 20 years it is hardly surprising that his teacher made a lasting impression. Like Plato, Aristotle emphasized the importance of determining the right way to live and, also like Plato, he looked for guidance by examining human nature in order to show that living a just life is also a happy life. Aristotle also believed that man is a political animal; that politics and ethics are related and that the state has an important part to play in acting as an agent of virtue.

  Aristotle studied in Plato’s Academy from 357 to 347 BC. His work Politics was hugely influential, especially in the Middle Ages, far more so than Plato’s political views, and in Book II of Politics he specifically criticizes Plato’s Republic. He argues that Socrates’ ideal city is too unified, that a city cannot be like a family in the way Plato portrays it in his Noble Lie (Chapter 6). Aristotle was less an idealist than Plato and frequently looked to the way the world is rather than how it could be; recall the Raphael painting The School of Athens where Aristotle’s hand points firmly towards the ground while Plato’s points to the heavens. For Aristotle, when he looks at the cities that existed – and he employed a team of researchers to study the cities of the Hellenic world – nothing even close to Plato’s city exists. Of course, Plato does stress that his ‘republic’ is an ideal, a ‘pattern in the heavens’, but the main point Aristotle makes is that it simply isn’t within the very nature of cities to behave in a familial way. In other words, there is neither any empirical evidence to show that cities can be so unified in the way a family might be (and, of course, a lot of families are somewhat dysfunctional) but that cities do not even function in that way. In addition, an extended family would result in the diffusion of duties and obligations. Fathers would not feel any sense of duty towards their sons.

  Another criticism that Aristotle presents is that private property is important because it is not possible to be generous, to be able to give, unless you have private possessions. Plato, in Republic, argues that the Guardians will not possess any private property for the city is their family, but Aristotle believes that people only care about things if they belong to them. This certainly has a modern ring to it, and many today argue against social housing and the like because, they say, those who live in them don’t look after the properties whereas if you own it and are therefore fully responsible for it, then you are more likely to take care of it. Essentially, Aristotle’s portrayal of human nature seems here to be more negative, or perhaps more realistic: if you take away responsibility from humans and hand it to the state, then people become apathetic. No doubt Plato’s response to this would be that, yes, when you look at the world around you – in this case the Hellenic world of the 5th century BC then humans do behave that way, but, Plato might say, this does not mean that they necessarily will behave that way given the right environment. I say it has a modern ring, because you can find similar debate which gets to the root of human nature in, for example, comparing the views of the socialist with that of the capitalist.

  Aristotle believes it is actually dangerous to be too idealistic, especially in the realm of politics. If you become too pre-occupied with theoretical political ideals you also become too divorced from the harsh realities of the real world. For this reason, having criticized Plato’s political philosophy, Aristotle in his work Politics then goes on to present his own vision of the best city, but with the stress on what he regards as a feasible city. Aristotle’s city, incidentally, combines what he considers to be the bes
t of democracy with that of an oligarchy. Like Plato, Aristotle is concerned that too much democracy results in a form of mob rule and that most citizens lack the necessary knowledge to be responsible for the decisions a state makes. Therefore, a degree of oligarchy, of rule by the few, is needed to act as a check against the ‘mob’. This, again, has a modern resonance for most democratic states today have a constitution of some kind that must be abided by, regardless of what the majority may think.

  A few other disagreements that Aristotle had with Plato include the following:

  • Aristotle derived his knowledge from observation of the world. If something cannot be observed then there is no reason to believe it. In the case of the Forms, therefore, these cannot be seen, touched, tasted, etc. Therefore, why believe in them? What do they tell us about the way people actually behave?

  • Ethical knowledge must be that which can guide our actions. How can the Forms, things that are eternal and unchanging, have bearing on the everyday world of changing situations and ethical dilemmas?

  • Aristotle believed the soul to have two, not three, elements: a ruling element and a ruled element. The ruling element should be rational, whereas the ruled element should be the irrational. Aristotle applied his theory of the soul to argue that these two elements, the ruled and ruling, exist everywhere. Therefore, he argued, women cannot be rulers because their souls are dominated by the irrational element rather than the rational. It is natural for women to be ruled by men. (He also argued that it is natural for there to be masters and slaves.)