by Plato
3 (9.573d) Love is the lord of the house within him, and orders all the concerns of his soul: The image of the tyrannical man as dominated by sexual appetite (eros) stands in contrast to the characterization developed in Reppublic and other dialogues of the philosopher who, though a “lover,” directs his erotic energy toward spiritual rather than physical pursuits and always prefers what is beneficial over what is gratifying. See note 16 on 3.402e. Socrates’ characterization of the tyrant/tyrannical man as a slave of eros also capitalizes on the fact that eros was metaphorically associated (especially in classical Athens) with “lust” for political power and prominence.
4 (9.574d) He first takes their property, and ... then he breaks into a house ... ; next he proceeds to clear a temple: The modus operandi of the tyrannical man, which includes the abuse of his parents and his reliance on an ever more powerful “bodyguard” (that is, of unruly appetites), mirrors that of the actual tyrant. See 8.566b and 8.568e-569c; also 9.575d.
5 (9.576d) There can be no mistake ... as to which is which, and therefore I will at once inquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery: Socrates’ assessment of the misery of the city-state ruled by a tyrant would have been very much in keeping with the judgment of most Athenians. It is his judgment of the tyrant’s personal misery that goes against the “common view,” as set forth by Thrasymachus in book 1 and again by Glaucon and Adeimantus in book 2.
6 (9.577a) I should have a judge whose mind can enter into and see through human nature? he must not be like a child who looks at the outside and is dazzled ... but let him be one who has a clear insight: Socrates similarly warns in book 10 against being “like children” and indulging in “childish love,” as he reminds Glaucon that emotions like grief ought to be restrained ( 10.604c), and that the poetry of Homer and “other tragedians” must be excluded from the ideal city-state (10.608a). Compare his insistence at 5.466b that the judgment of the best life ought not be clouded by “some youthful conceit of happiness.” Concerns about the “childishness” of (most) adults, who are readily taken in by appearances and more eager to obtain what is immediately gratifying than what is of lasting benefit, deeply inform Republic’s examination of justice and its formulations concerning the ideal state, and they go hand in hand with its concerns about the premium that most people put on pleasure. See note 2 on 3.391a; also Gorgias 521e-522a and Crito 49b.
7 (9.577b) where he may be seen stripped of his tragedy attire: See 8.568a-b for Socrates’ ironic commendation of tragedy’s glamorization of tyranny and tyrants.
8 (9.579b) he lives in his hole like a woman hidden in the house: The comparison of the tyrant to a woman “hidden in the house” aims to discredit in the most devastating terms the claims to freedom, “excellence,” and, by extension, manliness that Thrasymachus had made on behalf of the tyrant at 1.344a-c. In contrast to the “feminine” tyrant, the philosopher, whom many people might consider “unmanly” because of his failure to concern himself with material success (compare 8.549d), emerges as the true epitome of masculinity, in control of both himself and his life.
9 (9.580a-b) as the general umpire in theatrical contests proclaims the result: Participants in the dramatic competitions held in the Theater of Dionysus at Athens were awarded prizes by a panel of ten judges, one of whom was chosen to announce the results. The references in this passage to the judgment of and awarding of prizes to dramas in theatrical competitions, a process that presumably took into account public reactions to the performances, underscore how Glaucon’s assessments are influenced by neither showy exteriors nor the need to cater to popular sentiments. Compare, for example, 9.577b; also 7.527d-528a.
10 (9.580b) they are the royal: The word basilikon can also be translated as “kingly.” Socrates also calls the constitution of the ideal state and its corresponding individual “aristocratic” (for example, at 8.544e), since that which is “best” (aristos) rules in both. Compare 9.587c-d.
11 (9.580c-d) Then this, I said, will be our first proof; and there is another, which may also have some weight: Socrates actually offers three “proofs” of the tyrant’s misery and, conversely, of the happiness of the just man and philosopher. The second proof (9.580d-583a) argues that the pleasures experienced by “lovers of wisdom” are far superior to those of “lovers of gain,” and the third (9.583b-587c) argues that the “pleasures” valued by “lovers of gain” and “lovers of honor” are in fact not pleasures at all, but mere efforts to void pain.The number three, which signified completeness in a variety of situations and phenomena (for example, the number of rounds in wrestling matches and other competitions, the number of libations poured at religious rituals, etc.), figures prominently in Republic. There are three “proofs” of the philosopher and just man’s happiness in book 9, and there are three arguments discrediting poetry’s claims to political and practical utility in book 10. The final calculation of the tyrant’s misery and the philosopher’s happiness is based on squaring and cubing the number 3 because, as it is decided, the tyrant is three times removed from the oligarchical man, who is in turn three times removed from the just “aristocratic” man (9.587c-588a); at 10.597e and 10.601d-602a, poetic imitation is determined to be three times removed from the truth. At 5.472a, Socrates likens Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ challenges to his conception of the ideal state to three great waves. Most fundamentally, there are three classes in the ideal city-state and three corresponding parts of the soul.
Just as the definition of justice in book 4 harks back to Polemarchus’ initial effort to define justice as “giving what is due” (4.433a; compare 1.332a-c), the three proofs offered in book 9 of justice’s benefits return to but also reconfigure Thrasymachus’ definition of justice as “the advantage of the stronger” (or superior) (1.338c). Reason is the “strongest” (that is, best) element; the advantage that it pursues is for the benefit of the entire soul.
12 (9.582d) His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than anyone?: Socrates’ contention that the philosopher is the best judge of the relative merits of all pleasures may merit more scrutiny than Glaucon gives. It is consistent, nonetheless, with the presumptions about the philosopher’s competence that have been made throughout Republic. Compare also 9.577b, where Socrates and Glaucon assume that they are “able and experienced judges.”
13 (9.583b) Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict: The metaphor is from wrestling (compare 8.544b). To win a match, the victor had to throw and pin his opponent three times.
14 (9.584e) Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state[?]: The “un-philosophic” nature of most people has already been asserted at 6.494a, and the commonplace yet problematic identification of pleasure with “the good” is discussed at 6.505c; see also note 2 on 3.391a. This passage’s analysis of pleasure and pain as “motions” of the soul (9.583e) is ultimately aimed at discrediting the common identification of pleasure with bodily and emotional gratification. On Socrates’ argument, the apparent “pleasures” of eating, drinking, etc., are merely cessations of pain (that is, hunger, thirst, etc.) and are thus “states of rest” that, by definition, are not truly pleasant (9.583e). Moreover, the distinctions made by means of the divided line between phenomenal objects, which have a low “degree of truth” insofar as they are impermanent and subject to change, and intellectual objects that are permanent and unchanging (6.510a), permit Socrates to argue here that food, drink, and other “substances” provide satisfaction only in temporary and incomplete ways, since they are not in contact with “pure being,” whereas the substance of philosophical contemplation, “which is concerned with the invariable, the immortal” (9.585b-c), is able to supply something akin to genuine pleasure (9.587b). Compare Gorgias 491e-497a.
15 (9.586a) Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down
and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed: This powerful (and powerfully unflattering) image of the behavior of most people, who conduct themselves like animals, anticipates Socrates’ identification of justice as the aretê that humanizes human beings (9.588e-589c).
16 (9.586c) as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, in ignorance of the truth: The lyric poet Stesichorus (sixth century B.c.E.) composed a poem, often called his “palinode,” in which he asserted that the gods sent a phantom image of Helen to Troy, while Helen herself went to Egypt. Plato has Socrates quote the opening lines of the palinode at Phaedrus 243a-b.
17 (9.586d-e) Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honor, when they seek their pleasures under the guidance ... of reason and knowledge... will also have the truest pleasures in the highest degree which is attainable to them ... ?: Socrates’ statement seems to suggest that non-philosophers can, within limits, achieve some pleasure and satisfaction in life. His argument concerning justice as a whole, however, raises fascinating questions about whether he would admit that non-philosophers are truly capable of being “just” and therefore happy. Compare, for example, 10.619c-d.
18 (9.587c) and the measure of his inferiority can only be expressed in a figure: As in the calculation at 8.546b-c of the number governing human births, there may be Pythagorean influences in this geometric expression of the distance between the philosopher’s happiness and the tyrant’s misery. The figure ultimately arrived at is a square-sided cube of 729 units that symbolizes the completeness of the philosopher’s happiness on two levels; first, it is the cube of the square of 3. (See note 11 on 9.580c for the significance of the number 3 in Republic). Since, as Jowett notes, it is also (nearly) the number of days and nights in a year, it suggests that the philosopher has more pleasure than the tyrant every day and every night of every year.
19 (9.588b) Let us make an image of the soul, that he may have his own words presented before his eyes: By envisioning the soul as a composite creature, part human but mostly animal, Socrates develops another powerful image that enables him to discredit injustice’s claim to conferring benefit. On the bestializing effect of injustice (9.588e-589c), see also 9.571c.
20 (9.589c) Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error: For the Socratic “maxim” that no one does wrong willingly, see 2.360c, 2.366c, and 3.413a; also 1.336e.
21 (9.589e) Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money ... would be the gainer, however large might be the sum which he received?: Children, especially sons, represented continuity for the family; to sell one’s children into slavery constituted a violation of kinship ties and was also tantamount to destroying one’s family. Socrates’ analogy comparing the person who marginalizes his or her rational element to one who sells his children into slavery highlights how such marginalization leads only to short-term, inconsequential “gains” and long-term, permanent damage.
22 (9.590c) And why are mean employments and manual arts a reproach?: See note 14 on 2.371c.
23 (9.591a-b) What shall he profit, if his unjustice be undetected and unpunished ? He who is undetected only gets worse: Socrates makes an almost identical point in Gorgias 473b-479e.
Book 10
1 (10.595a-b) To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not be received; as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished: As Socrates eventually argues (10.602c-606d), poetic mimesis appeals to and strengthens the appetitive part of the soul; it “feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; [and] lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled” ( 10.606d). In addition, poetic mimesis and all other forms of imitation strengthen the faculty of eikasia, which the divided line distinguishes as the least important cognitive faculty (6.509d-511e). Poetry is thus the opposite of the mathematical disciplines discussed at length in book 7, which strengthen the soul’s rational element by drawing “the mind to the contemplation of true being” (7.525a) and spurring the development of the faculties of dianoia and, ultimately, noesis. This analysis of poetry’s deleterious psychological effects, which complements what has already been asserted in books 2 and 3 about the problematic behavioral models provided in poetic texts such as Iliad, is preceded by two examinations of its distance from “the truth.” The first examination relies upon the divided line’s distinctions among objects of perception (10.596a-598d). Imitators such as painters and poets, who create reflections of phenomenal objects that are themselves mere “copies” of intelligible objects, work with no knowledge of or concern for “what is” and therefore impart no useful information (10.598b-e). Their work as creators of objects in the least significant segment of the divided line is contrasted with the work of real craftsmen, who create phenomenal objects such as beds and tables, and with the work of the maker of the ideas, who is simply identified as god (theos) in 10.597b-d, and they are ultimately characterized as ignorant men who appeal to others who are equally ignorant (10.601a-b). The second examination contrasts the knowledge that an imitator has of a given object with that of its user and its maker (10.601b-602c). It reaches the same conclusions as the first: that is, that imitators such as poets have no useful information to impart, and that their imitations are three times removed from what is true and real (10.602b; compare 10.597e). In the first examination particularly, Socrates uses the visual medium of painting to criticize the “truth-value” of poetry, and he rather crudely exploits the obvious differences between a bed in a painting and a bed that one actually sleeps on to suggest that artistic imitations are generally not “useful.” However we may judge his arguments, his narrowly utilitarian criteria put him in a position to challenge long-standing assumptions about the ethical value of poetic texts such as Iliad and Odyssey and, as well, reverential conceptions of Homer and his fellow poets as knowledgeable teachers of “virtue” (10.598d-601b). Book 10’s critique of poetry, then, takes readers back not only to the arguments for censorship in books 2 and 3, but also to the very beginning of book 1, where Polemarchus cites the poet Simonides as an authority on justice (1.331d).
2 (10.595c) for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company: The conception of Homer as a “tragedian,” reiterated below at 10.598d, 10.605c, and 10.607a, is novel but it is anticipated by the discussion of the different forms of poetic mimesis (that is, simple narration, direct imitation, and the mixture of narration and direct imitation) at 3.392d. Epic poems fall into the “mixed” category because they directly present speeches by figures such as Achilles and Agamemnon, and thus they can be considered kindred to tragedy, which is purely imitative. Socrates’ characterization of Homer as a tragedian may also be intended to draw attention to the general influence of epic poetry on Athenian drama in the classical period.
3 (10.595c) Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know: Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge about the nature of “imitation” is noteworthy, given the detailed discussion of poetic mimesis in book 3. Nonetheless, it is consistent with his cautious professions of ignorance about the idea of the good and dialectic in books 6 and 7, and it is perhaps well motivated at this moment, since the theory of the ideas is about to become the basis for his argument against poetry’s ability to convey useful, “truthful” information.
4 (10.596b) But there are only two ideas or forms of them—one the idea of a bed, the other of a table: If all phenomenal objects owe their existence in the world of “becoming” to their “participation” in the ideas, which exist in the world of “being,” the positing of “ideas” of “bed” and “table” makes sense, and it plainly suits Socrates’ purposes at this point. It is debatable, however, whether Plato would have considered these ideas worthy of extended investigation, especially when compared with such ideas as those of justice, moderation, courage, and beauty, as well as the idea of the good.
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bsp; 5 ( 10.597a) At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth: Literally, “he would not seem [to say true things] to those who occupy themselves with arguments such as these.” Socrates apparently means that people who investigate “being” (that is, philosophers) would not admit that a physical bed made by a craftsman “exists,” since it is only part of the world of “becoming.”
6 (10.597e) And the tragic poet is an imitator, and, therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?: As at 9.587c-d, Socrates counts inclusively. “The king” in this sentence is god, the maker of the ideal bed. Compare 6.509d, where the idea of the good is said to be a “ruling power” (literally, “to be king”) over the realm of intelligible objects. Despite this coincidence in language, it is not safe to assume that the idea of the good is identifiable with “god.”
7 (10.598d-e) And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer ... know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice... we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion: Such knowledge of “all things human” is, in effect, what Polemarchus claims for Simonides at 1.331d. Compare Adeimantus’ liberal quotations from poetry at 2.363a-366a, and the purported claims of the “eulogists of Homer” at 10.606e.
8 (10.599b) Then ... we must put a question to Homer: The point that poets have no true knowledge of their subject matter is made, in somewhat different terms, in Ion 533e-535a, where Socrates suggests to the rhapsode Ion that divine inspiration, and not expert knowledge (technê), is what enables artists like Homer to create poetry.
9 (10.600a) But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or teacher of any?: In Gorgias 515a-b, Socrates poses an analogous question to the ambitious politician Callicles.