I've been enjoying Jamal's discussion and the discovery of 'literary easter eggs'. A different approach or angle to reading the Republic, Book 1. I'm in two minds about it. — Amity

I think the problem with applying the idea of literary Easter eggs is that it usually refers to something inessential, a bonus for certain readers. Symbolic name choices are an example. They're not centrally significant.

But the allusions or allegories in Book 1 of the Republic are woven in with the central themes of the work and contain everything that's to come in microcosm.

nebulous soon — fdrake

That's exactly when I'm going to read Hegel's Phenomenology.

The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore. — Jamal

8/10. A very good novel. Playful language of often Nabokovian precision and inventiveness. Tragic and fun, beautiful and disgusting, compelling and uncomfortable. I might read her other novel.

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Well, the Republic is full of such Easter eggs. They are hard for us to spot, but audiences in Plato’s day would have been able to. Just to give you one example, again on the very first page. When Polemarchus and Adeimantus and company run into Socrates and Glaucon, Polemarchus makes a joke. He says, “Hey Socrates, do you see how numerous we are compared to you two? You better do as we say and come to my house.”

In other words, he’s making a joke about factionalism. During times of social harmony, such jokes may be funny. But to Plato’s audiences, this is a very dark joke. Because his audience knew, as we discussed last time, that Polemarchus himself, would later become the victim of the kind of factionalism he now makes light of. Plato’s audience would also know that this road from the Piraeus back to Athens is where, decades later, the Thirty Tyrants would be overthrown in a battle (the Battle of Munychia in 403 BC) and their leaders killed.

In response to Polemarchus’ joke, Socrates says, “What if we persuade you to let us go?” To which Polemarchus jests again, saying, “Can you persuade someone who refuses to listen?”

Again, it’s easy to read past this stuff and not think much of it. But how brilliant is this setup? That one question alone, sums up the essence of factional division. How do you persuade someone who refuses to listen? Not only does this Easter egg build up a dark sense of irony, it also subtly broaches the topic of factionalism, which will figure prominently throughout the entire dialogue. There are little Easter eggs like this all over the Republic, and unfortunately we don’t have time to go through them — The Hunt for Justice - Plato's Republic I

Yeah this is good stuff. I didn't think primarily of factionalism so much as power vs persuasion, irrational vs rational, etc., but it's a good example.

In which case, maybe literary Easter eggs is the right concept after all.

I'm curious. Does that mean your focus has now turned away from the 'literary easter egg'? — Amity

I think so, because the idea of a literary Easter egg doesn't do justice (no pun intended) to the kind of subtlety that Plato is using. What we have now is literary subtlety in the service of a philosophical theme, rather than a hidden criticism.

I searched for 'literary easter egg' with regards to Plato. And found this podcast and transcript. — Amity

Cool. I'm not surprised that others have had the same idea.

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I've done some thinking and now I have a slightly different angle. I see that while I started out with a good intuition, it went a bit wrong on its way to conceptual crystallization. @Fooloso4's comments are more relevant than they seemed.

In a nutshell, I think Socrates is saying to Polemarchus something like, "when you repeat that saying, you might as well be quoting one of these bad guys." And that's even if it was in fact said by Simonides. Thus the emphasis is on an independent understanding of the saying rather than who said it, and Socrates is neutral about its factual origin.

This does still mean that his comments in praise of Simonides and the sages are ironic, but it's an irony that is more complex than I thought.

SOCRATES: Well, now, it is not easy to disagree with Simonides, since he is a wise and godlike man — 331e5

SOCRATES: You and I will fight as partners, then, against anyone who tells us that Simonides, Bias, Pittacus, or any of our other wise and blessedly happy men said this. — 335e7

If it's true that Socrates is neutral as to who originated the saying, that it's our understanding of the saying itself that matters, then of course he is open to the possibility that Simonides did in fact say it. This would make the above comments ironic, not exactly because he is sneakily associating Simonides with the injustice of tyrants while saying the opposite, but because he continues to praise Simonides, pretending to believe that he could not have been wrong, while in fact he is neutral as to the wisdom of the real Simonides. It's an exaggerated concession to his reputation, in other words, paying lip service. What matters is to question our reliance on all cultural authorities, including Simonides.

So the targets are people like Polemarchus who ascribe erroneous notions of justice to wise people, something Socrates gets across bluntly by ascribing them instead to bad guys; and generally those who rely on cultural authorities, whether these authorities are poets or sages, without having thought about them deeply.


I came across another interesting interpretation in a paper entitled "Socrates on Poetry and the Wisdom of Simonides." The idea is that Plato is not interested in Simonides as a historical figure but is rather making him stand as his ideal poet. This is in contrast to Homer, who by this point in the the conversation with Polemarchus has already been mentioned dismissively:

It seems, then, that a just person has turned out to be a kind of thief. You probably got that idea from Homer. — 334a9

But Homer is later replaced, as not deserving of Socrates' defence, while Simonides is elevated:

You and I will fight as partners, then, against anyone who tells us that Simonides, Bias, Pittacus, or any of our other wise and blessedly happy men said this. — 335e7

Again, the crucial thing is that the real Simonides is unimportant. The new element is that because of this he can function as a blank canvas onto which Plato can project his ideal poet, in contrast with Homer, who is problematic. This is quite compelling, and it's actually sort of compatible with the first interpretation, although it does bring the ascription of irony into question (or it would make it an even more complex kind of irony). It doesn't matter what the real Simonides might have said, but it does matter what Homer said, because Homer loomed so large in the culture, and comes in for direct criticism later in the Republic.


Notes
Futter, Dylan. (2021). SOCRATES ON POETRY AND THE WISDOM OF SIMONIDES. Akroterion. 65

This connection requires textual support. Again, I see the question of origination as secondary to how it is to be understood. The truth or falsity of what is said does not depend on who might have first said it. — Fooloso4

I agree with the second and third sentences here. I was attempting to identify a literary foreshadowing or a literary easter egg. I probably need to break that down, but to me it jumps off the page (if you look at it right).

The criticism that damages my interpretation the most is my own: Simonides is not the only wise man mentioned, and the others were not poets.

We cannot too quickly conclude that either Simonides is not wise or if wise did not say this. It may be our own wisdom or lack of wisdom that is being called into question. — Fooloso4

Your point is broadly good, but Socrates does on the surface mean to show that Simonides and other wise men could not have --- or at least probably did not --- say it. That this doesn't matter relative to how we are to understand Socrates in the way you explain is fine as far as it goes, but in the OP I took things in a different direction with a view to uncovering a possible covert criticism.

But it has been brought up! Cephalus opinions about such things as justice are shaped by the poets. Consider how frequently the poets are appealed to. — Fooloso4

Yes, Cephalus quotes Pindar. I just meant that poetry as a problem has not explicitly been brought up by Socrates. He does this later.

The other thing he cites is fear of punishment in death. Something that he never took seriously when he was younger. As far as I know we do not know anything about him prior to his old age. We do not know to what extent fear of death might have changed his behavior. — Fooloso4

It's not quite clear, but it's also possible that he is not confessing to his own fears, but is referring to those of the masses:

CEPHALUS: What I have to say probably would not persuade the masses. But you are well aware, Socrates, that when someone thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he did not fear before. It is then that the stories told about Hades, that a person who has been unjust here must pay the penalty there—stories he used to make fun of—twist his soul this way and that for fear they are true. And whether because of the weakness of old age, or because he is now closer to what happens in Hades and has a clearer view of it, or whatever it is, he is filled with foreboding and fear, and begins to calculate and consider whether he has been unjust to anyone. If he finds many injustices in his life, he often even awakes from sleep in terror, as children do, and lives in anticipation of evils to come. But someone who knows he has not been unjust has sweet good hope as his constant companion [...] — 330d

Cephalus might be suggesting here that unlike many of the masses, he is not "filled with foreboding and fear," because he has not found many injustices in his life. But either way is fine with me; it seems likely that he is familiar with such feelings. In any case there is little indication from the text that he has led an unjust life, and it doesn't matter; what matters is that even if he hasn't, he has not been just in the way that Socrates likes, i.e., able to account for it rationally. This makes him at the very least a useless example to set against Thrasymachus, or a useless partner in an argument against nihilism and cynicism.

He is, by all appearances, a gentleman. To the extent that he is just, he credits his wealth. — Fooloso4

And his good character. He says that wealth is not enough.

Sure, but even with all that there's the suggestion of complacency, especially when you take his son's conversation into account too. Thrasymachus is the antagonist; Cephalus & Son are merely too thoughtless to produce any defence against him — not that they're bad guys themselves.

:cool:

Who says that Cephalus is bad or contemptible? — Amity

Various commentators suggest that he is a somewhat contemptible figure (e.g., Annas), and @Fooloso4 is less than complimentary here (the source of my exchange with Srap). I don't disagree too much with them, but there's another side to it.

It is not the case that he leaves the debate the moment he gets a difficult question. He engages with Socrates up to the point where he agrees but then he must leave to attend to religious matters. — Amity

He leaves when Socrates shows that his view of justice is inadequate, even though the discussion is continuing. (I used "gets a difficult question" loosely, to mean the question as to the meaning of justice that Socrates brings up and shows to be harder than Cephalus might have realized).

Cephalus is perhaps haunted by any wrong doings or injustice at his hands and wants to make amends. — Amity

That's possible, but I don't think it's implied, and I don't personally think Plato is hinting at it, since I think he wants to portray Cephalus as ordinarily just, but complacent.

Context needs to be understood as to why Plato might wish to banish poets, even as he wrote in such a poetic and creative manner. — Amity

This is one of the fascinating tensions in Plato. Relatedly, he denigrates mere images but uses imagery all the time.

Do you intend to widen the focus beyond Book 1 ? — Amity

Well, everything in Book 1 is relevant to the rest of the work, so even though I'm focusing on a particular passage there, I'm not intending to restrict the conversation. My point was that my particular focus, even if it's a way into the wider themes, is not itself indispensable on the way to an understanding of the work --- there are other, perhaps better, things to focus on. It's probably an eccentric focus. It's a bit like a literary easter egg, (although in the Republic you could argue it's not quite so trivial or irrelevant as that).

EDIT: Another way of saying this is that my focus is more important from a literary than from a philosophical point of view.

Thank you for your contribution, which is informed and interesting. The point about inheritance is particularly good — I hadn't thought about that much.

Quite how your post relates to the OP, though, I am struggling to understand, because you don't actually say (except to suggest that the question of attribution is secondary, and the bit about P's appeal to authority).

A better way of using quotations is to illustrate an argument you make in your own words (an interpretive argument in this case). As it is, when you do proceed to use your own words, it's contextual exegesis that does not seem to produce any relevantly pointed conclusions or questions. I'm quite a good reader, but reading the great works of philosophy is hard enough without having to struggle to understand people you're discussing them with.

In Book 2, the trio begins sorting the poets into different baskets. — Paine

Great, I'd forgotten about that.

I don't know if it's relevant, but back then, there were no academic credentials to add weight to an idea. It was common for people to pass their own ideas off as the ideas of famous people in order to gain credibility. An elaborate example of it is the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. From the text, we can tell that this book was written much later than it purports to be. They used the name of Daniel because he was a folk-figure. He was supposed to have been a wise man, but there's no record of his existence.

Plato might have been sensitive to this issue because he himself was using Socrates as a mouthpiece. So it's possible that the exchange is the sort of thing we do when we argue over sources, but the whole issue was much more wide open. There might have also been some clever subtext to it as well. — frank

In those days, poets existed [made their living] through the patronage of the rich. They penned praises for their patrons. — L'éléphant

Excellent points. Thank you.

Still, as I recall, Socrates says he's interested in talking to him precisely because of his advanced age, and seems to hope it will be a more reflective time of life, when matters of the soul might loom larger than worldly affairs. And he crosses that interest with a question about his wealth, whether he can only spare his attention because of his financial security. (Maybe he doesn't specifically ask that, I don't remember, but he's interested in how much interest he has in money and why.) — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think we get an indication that Socrates hopes old age will be a more reflective time of life. The point is different. When Cephalus says that old age brings peace and freedom from the appetites, Socrates says

I imagine when you say that, Cephalus, the masses do not accept it. On the contrary, they think you bear old age more easily, not because of the way you live, but because you are wealthy. For the wealthy, they say, have many consolations. — 329e

And this is not just or primarily about how you live when you're old but about how you have lived throughout your life and what kind of character you have, a point that Cephalus has in fact already made. So Socrates approves of Cephalus to that extent.

Socrates next focuses on wealth and seems to drop his interest in old age. It's not clear how they relate to each other, but if old age is connected to power, as it was in prominent families of Athens, then the conversation leads quite naturally to Socrates' criticism of wealth and power in relation to the tyrants (Periander, or Perdiccas, and Xerxes, and Ismenias of Thebes). In other words, in the conversation with Cephalus it's not really about old age as such, but about traditional authority.

EDIT: I've realized that what I've said above is not a clear response to you. But I'll leave it and hope you can get something out of it.

To me, the idea of old age being naturally a philosophical period strikes me as quite reasonable and very Greek, if I may say so. At the other end, Socrates tries to get at the (noble) young before they're too caught up in responsibilities and cares. Also natural and reasonable, in the same way.

By "Greek" I mean that obsession with stages of growth and development, progression toward embodying your deepest nature, that stuff. — Srap Tasmaner

Good point. You can't be a philosopher king until you're 50. However, this is a final promotion following a life of preparation directed to the most noble way of serving the community, whereas Cephalus' turn to discussion in old age seems frivolous -- he has done the important work in his life already, and since he leaves the debate the moment he gets a difficult question, it looks like he's not so interested in discussion as he claims, or else he really just wants a chat.

But yes, Cephalus is not simply a bad or contemptible character. As is often the case in the Republic, Plato is dialectical in more than just the ancient Greek sense.

His age and circumstances allow him to be more interested in less worldly matters, like talking with Socrates, which won't make him or his family any richer. — Srap Tasmaner

Implying (unintentionally) that philosophy is only good when you're old and have nothing better to do, hardly something that would enamour him to Socrates.

But I agree that F's picture of him is a little one-sided.

Well, he does hold up Simonides as a man of wisdom, and he does (on the face of it) imply that Simonides could not have been wrong.

Yes. I look forward to hearing more. As yet, I don't understand enough to participate with any confidence. — Amity

It should be noted that what I'm interested in here is a side-issue. Many introductions and guides don't even mention it, so it's not important for reaching a basic understanding of the work.

EDIT: To be clear, the side-issue is what Socrates means in this passage from Book 1, not his views of poets and tyrants.

Thank you for starting this discussion. An exceptional OP with clear thoughts, quotes and sources. — Amity

Thank you.

My first attempt at reading Plato's Republic was some time ago. I think on the OnlinePhilosophyClub site. Even with help from Fooloso4 and an online course, I found it perplexing and gave up on it. — Amity

It is rather perplexing, yes, and only gets more perplexing the closer you look. The last time I read it, a long time ago now, I read it too shallowly. What's working for me this time is the Reeve translation and secondary literature such as An Introduction to Plato's Republic by Julia Annas, which is a pretty thorough analysis that's very good for encouraging you to read more closely than the text seems to demand at first.

I haven't watched the Yale videos but I did find a series of lectures that works as a reliable introductory guide (I've found many other videos, such as those by Michael Sugrue, to be engaging but unreliable and shallow).

I considered leading a reading group here but I have mixed feelings about them.

Maybe setting up a guilt by association? The wealthy pay the piper and he plays their tune. So the poet is just a tool. — Benkei

Guilt by association, yes, and several levels of it: (1) the definition is suspect because it came from these bad guys; (2) Polemarchus is ignorant or insuffiently virtuous for the same reason; and (3) is the weird one that I'm advancing, that the poets are bad too. The trouble with (3) is that Socrates explicitly says the opposite, and that's why I'm saying it's ironic.

Or undermining any claims to authority with respect to wealthy men and poets alike. — Benkei

Yep, that's part of what I'm getting at, I think.

Other than that, I've got nothing. — Benkei

No no, you did well.

Against that interpretation, it turns out (I should have checked before) that while Simonides was a poet, the other wise men mentioned — Bias and Pittacus — seem to have been sages or philosophers. I have a feeling that this doesn't entirely destroy my interpretation, but I'm not sure.

I always have to ask lots of "are you sure about x, because I thought it was y" kind of questions, whereupon it'll often say oh sorry, you're right — although sometimes it won't budge.

ChatGPT has provided me with a veritable flood of misinformation, and I don't even use it much.

'animals' seem to cover everthing other than insects and possibly some inverterbrates — Wayfarer

Quick note: invertebrates (including insects) are animals according to standard use. That's the use I'm most familiar with, though of course I'm aware of the fading usage you mention (mammals).

The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore.

I was actually wondering which of his works to read next, but English translations are not easy to find. Many of them seem to be out of print.

I read The Invention of Morel earlier this year. It's great, and surprising in a way I can't reveal without spoiling the story.

Very nice. I've added folk to the thread title.

:up:

If you're anything like me you never log out, in which case you'll never see it.

That made me wonder about the criteria for being accepted? I didn't have to go through that process and can't find information on 'how to join'... — Amity

The following message, visible if you're not logged in, is pinned to the top under the title Joining The Philosophy Forum:

The Philosophy Forum is now invitation-only, but anyone who wants to take part in philosophical discussions and who can follow the site guidelines is very welcome to join.

If you'd like us to send you an invitation, send an email to infoatthephilosophyforumdotcom telling us something about yourself, why you'd like to join, and what you're interested in.

Those emails go to me, and if they exhibit a genuine interest in philosophy and an ability to write reasonably well in English, I usually send an invitation.

Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges — javi2541997

Great book. I had some difficulty with it in the beginning: I read the first two or three stories in part one, The Garden of Forking Paths, and thought they were just mildly interesting thought experiments, written in a frustratingly terse manner, so I skipped over the rest and started part two, Artifices. I liked that much more, and when I finished it I went back to part one and for some reason I got on with it much better this time. I guess I had to get used to his writing.


I’ve just read the Republic by Plato, trans. C. D. C. Reeve. Now reading An Introduction to Plato’s Republic by Julia Annas. More than just an introduction, it’s a pretty thorough analysis of the whole work. Recommended.

And we're back. This time it was nothing to do with disk space. The data centre had a power outage.

No, mate. I don't participate in guiri things. — javi2541997

I once was aggressively called "Guiri" by a drunken Spanishman. Ironically, he was the one who was being uncouth; I was a perfect gentleman.

@BC @Amity @everyone

To clarify: if you don't join the Discord server you won't be left behind; the forum will always be at thephilosophyforum.com, and even if it did go down for an extended period, we'd bring it back as soon as possible.

So the Discord server will not replace this forum. It's somewhere to go in TPF emergencies, but also an optional social space for different kinds of interactions — we'll see if and how that develops.

I'll leave this discussion pinned for a few days so all frequently participating members can see it.

I don’t know if we’re safe and sound yet — Jamal

I wanted to say I didn’t know if we were out of the woods yet but I was worried that was just a Britishism that nobody else would understand. I was just referring to what seemed to be ongoing problems when I wrote the post.