Dagny,
You should read The Social Contract by Rousseau! It was eye opening and much more relevant than Plato's Republic. Plato's book seems to based in a hypothetical utopia. Rousseau's was much more practical and provides TONS of historical context that relates to modern day political theory, especially republican thought. I learned so much about why our government is set up the way it is. The social contract theory just blew my mind. Please read it and let me know what you think via PM, would love to discuss.

Justice is but an aspect of the "best polis" and in that respect but an aspect of the best person. — Benkei

Yes, that view is especially reflected in how the tyrannical soul is seen by itself and in the context of rule in the later books.

Your point is well taken regarding separating the ideal from the best.

Justice and beauty partake in the form of the good. The just city will be just to the extent that it partakes in the form of justice. So too with the just man.

The shadows on the wall of the cave are common opinion. One must turn away from the common opinion in order to see the world as it truly is (ie. behold the forms).

So people and cities do partake in the form of the good and the form of justice. It just takes a philosopher to recognize it. — vulcanlogician

So let's say that a just city is just, to the extent that it partakes in the true form of justice. And, a philosopher can recognize the true form of justice. But common opinion doesn't behold the true form of justice. Where is the philosopher supposed to find the true form of justice if it cannot be found in common opinion?

Plato's solution is for "Kings to become philosophers and philosophers to become kings." The general public's opinion on how the city ought to be run is irrelevant. Only the guardian class has decision making power in the polis. The rest of the citizens have no political power whatsoever. So the "common opinion" having no grasp of true justice is no problem at all. The city isn't run by common opinion in any way shape or form.

In some respects the Republic is a big "hell no" to the idea that the uninformed masses should steer politics.

How this relates to the soul is this: we have many powerful desires within us. We have blind lust, appetite for unhealthy food etc. We also have powerful emotions in us (such as anger). Like the city ruled by philosophers, our logical part should do ALL of the decision making in our lives. The analogy of the philosopher king represents the most reasonable part of our soul directing our lives. We should not give our desirous or emotional elements any decision making power. We should satisfy our desires and emotional impulses as logic dictates.

Sorry. Just realized I rambled without answering your question. Plato's answer is that the philosopher discovers the form of justice by turning away from the body and investigating truth itself via mathematics, dialectic, and good ol' book learnin'.

Yeah, feeling ways is hard. Everyone hates messy, unpredictable, burning passion. Everyone wants cold, still calmness. The even harder sell is that one hemisphere of the brain is responsible for positive effect states, and the other negative, and one cannot prefer positive emotions over negative ones without causing imbalances.

Also logic doesn't dictate how anything ought to be, or what any actions ought to be taken at all. That always begins in passion, but the heart isn't an appetite, it can be satiated, and it is always other directed. It loves everyone except you -- and it being everyone else and not you, you love it, and not yourself, also. Agape in a convoluted nutshell.

What it means when one believes themselves to be operating completely on logic, is that the passions that are truly calling the shuts just go subterranean.

I see where you're coming from. Plato is a bit of a hard-nosed prude.

But keep in mind, his goal is righteousness in the soul. And he repeats often that most are not cut out for his special brand of justice-in-living. Most people are jocks or regular joes just tryin' to get a nut. But some people (very few) are dispassionate by nature. And among those there are some (even fewer) who have strong moral integrity AND are ruled by logic. Plato says to put the wisest in this small group in charge.

I take ruled by logic to mean simply can just think, make proper logical connections, and what not. As in, they don't operate without critical analysis. As opposed to just operating on whimsy, or believing and thinking things due to preferences, fears, or desires, rather than properly rational connections.

Taken like that it is pretty difficult to dispute, it's basically just saying a sane vs an insane person.

Everyone talks about being dispassionate, that is pretty huge, but I think that because the passions elevate the heart, boil the blood, and constantly being in an elevated state will definitely strip the years off of your life span, and being calm and collected is superior to that, but what is superior still is the widest possible range. My resting heart rate is in the 50s, and I can maintain pretty good marathon paces for hours, I think that allowing for high levels of passion also makes higher levels of dispassion possible.

Sorry. Just realized I rambled without answering your question. — vulcanlogician

Yeah, I was thinking that, I guess great minds think alike.

Plato's answer is that the philosopher discovers the form of justice by turning away from the body and investigating truth itself via mathematics, dialectic, and good ol' book learnin'. — vulcanlogician

But we're talking about "justice" here. Surely Plato didn't suggest that a philosopher might find the true form of justice via mathematics. Didn't he say that we need to apprehend "the good", and the good is analogous to the sun? The good makes intelligible objects intelligible, just like the sun makes visible objects visible.

The others, in the cave, are not apprehending the good, therefore they do not even acknowledge the intelligible objects (ideas or forms), they just acknowledge existence of the shadows cast by the intelligible objects. These cave people live and exist in the realm of opinion. This is relevant to Dagny's question about censorship:

I didn't expect the Republic to be so interesting, I am up to the point where Socrates is getting weird and talking about how the rulers of state should censor books and fairy tales (???) but hopefully he has a deeper meaning. — Dagny

To Plato, these artists are involved in productions which reflect the realm of opinion (described above). These productions, and I've seen this translated as "narrative" before, are three times removed from the good. Starting from the good we have next, intelligible objects. Then the reflections or shadows of these intelligible objects, which are the visible, sensible objects. Then these artists produce a representation of the sensible existence. Since they are three times removed from the reality of the good, Plato believes they ought to be replaced by philosophical work which apprehends the good directly.

Yes until we can rid ourselves of 'cave mentality' the artists only help reinforce the allure of the cave.

Thank you Ron, I read the intro and it seems interesting, will read it !

relates to modern day political theory, especially republican thought. — ron

Could you elaborate on that one?

But we're talking about "justice" here. Surely Plato didn't suggest that a philosopher might find the true form of justice via mathematics. Didn't he say that we need to apprehend "the good", and the good is analogous to the sun? The good makes intelligible objects intelligible, just like the sun makes visible objects visible. — Metaphysician Undercover

To be honest, I'm probably due for a refresher on the divided line. I've read the Republic twice, scrutinized books IV, V, and VI, , and written several lengthy papers on it, but it's been over a year since I picked it up and gave it a reread.

What most resonated with me concerning the book was the tripartite soul metaphor and the commentary on how political society regards true knowledge/the knowledgeable. (There are plenty of ideas in the Republic that I don't like, but I've always thought Plato might have intentionally made a book that welcomes disagreement, which is one of the Republic's charms.) Add to that the fact that I'm smack in the middle of Phaedo, and I ended up tossing "turning away from the body" in there. Oops.

As for mathematics, my mentioning of it has to do with some contemplation I did recently after reading Meno for the first time. I gave some thought to what Plato was trying to get at with his theory of forms. I don't really grasp the forms too well... it is unclear to me what Plato is trying to say by postulating their existence. Since Meno contains a lengthy discussion of geometry, I had been considering the forms as "real" in the same way mathematical concepts are real. Anyway, it was just another half-baked, half-developed thought. I'm pretty good for those, unfortunately. But thankfully, I'm occasionally on point to balance things out.

I had been considering the forms as "real" in the same way mathematical concepts are real. — vulcanlogician

I also think that there is a physical side to the Forms.

Since Meno contains a lengthy discussion of geometry, I had been considering the forms as "real" in the same way mathematical concepts are real. Anyway, it was just another half-baked, half-developed thought. — vulcanlogician

That's a central idea in Platonism, Notice that you have to put "real" in quotes. When you do that, you're doing philosophy! In actual fact, one of the cardinal points of all forms of Platonism is that number (etc) is real but not material; it's a purely intelligible reality. And that is an idea our materialist age has a problem with.

Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects which aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences.[1] Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate.

Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics, SEP.

The Social Contract theory presented by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau created many revolutionary ideas that gave way to the foundations of modern political theory and government. Modern political theory as in post-Enlightenment that gave way to democratic republics after years of divine monarchies reigning based off of divine power. Republicanism as in classical republicanism, do not think present day "republicans". But republican and democratic origins are linked and can be seen in the videos below. Please read the actual book and let me know what you think. It will change your mindset and give you a solid background on the philosophical origins of the U.S. declaration of Independence, constitution, bill of rights, branches of government, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI1t0dY5zoc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkPrgZtwi3g&t=33s

^^ Thank you Ron, I started reading it and it is very good! I made a thread for it!

Socrates is getting weird and talking about how the rulers of state should censor books and fairy tales (???) but hopefully he has a deeper meaning. — Dagny

I mean, he does have his reasons, but generally Plato (and remember, we're only getting Socrates through Plato's eyes) was suspicious of literature. It wasn't real and he regarded it as propaganda.

However, he did have a soft spot for Homer :wink:

That's ludicrous, haha!

I really wouldn't want to live in Plato's/Socrates' republic!

You don't need to read Plato to learn about philosophy, or to be a veteran, whatever is meant by that. And no, there's no deeper meaning, these ancient men had as their primary objective to dominate the masses by forcing ignorance on them. They engineered super men from among the elite to oppress the ignorant masses, and they called it "education".

They were primitive, insatiable and sociopathic and held back human progress for centuries. As far as I'm concerned, every time someone mentions them it's an echo of the massive stumbling block they dropped in the path of our species.

I think that's still true today for totalitarian regimes, you control the masses, like you said, by forcing ignorance on them. And when people want to be willfully ignorant like it is the case for a lot of them, it makes it so much easier for the oppressors.

One of the ancient philosophers I really dislikes is Aristotle - he held back science for nearly 2000 years because he made up a bunch of nonsense and every scientist was afraid of discrediting him due to the danger as being viewed as "having no respect for the great men" and being shunned.

Ironically in "free" or "developed" nations today, it's those who cry "more freedom" who inspire the most extensive social and cultural damage, who speak and act most oppressively, who have a stranglehold on much of our legislation, media and education. If "freedom" got excessively drunk one night and had an intense hangover the next morning, that hangover would be far left politics.

And no, there's no deeper meaning, these ancient men had as their primary objective to dominate the masses by forcing ignorance on them. — whollyrolling

Oh boy.... It's pretty obvious you're the one with an agenda here.

Have you read the ancient Greeks? They admit to this openly in their writings, it's not my interpretation or my "agenda". They literally spell it out.

If I did have an agenda though, it would be to argue on behalf of honest and genuine "higher education" for all people regardless of their circumstances. Although I'm aware that in many cases this won't help on an individual level.

Have you read the ancient Greeks? They admit to this openly in their writings, it's not my interpretation or my "agenda". They literally spell it out. — whollyrolling

Yup, I have. And although they believed in slavery and the superiority of educated men, they had a lot more to say about literally everything else in the world that is not related to that issue, and so dismissing them on those grounds is just narrow-minded. They are the foundation of western philosophy, and if you want to disregard all,of western philosophy, fine, but that's just clearly based on a useless and futile agenda.

I'm not dismissing them from such a narrow view as you suggest.

Let's get out of the way that to claim that someone who has been given something is inherently superior to someone who has not is false, obviously. We're not talking about aptitude for learning here, we're talking about virtue of birthright.

Exclusivity resulted in "founding Western philosophy" on bad ideas. That they were the only ideas available in writing neither makes them sacred nor a solid foundation. The "foundation of Western philosophy" is a meticulous correction of ancient mistakes. Where did I say that I disregard all Western philosophy, please quote it.

You don't need to read Plato to learn about philosophy, or to be a veteran, whatever is meant by that. And no, there's no deeper meaning, these ancient men had as their primary objective to dominate the masses by forcing ignorance on them. They engineered super men from among the elite to oppress the ignorant masses, and they called it "education".

They were primitive, insatiable and sociopathic and held back human progress for centuries. As far as I'm concerned, every time someone mentions them it's an echo of the massive stumbling block they dropped in the path of our species. — whollyrolling

Right here you dismiss Plato on grounds of your very narrow reading.

I dismiss these cave men on the grounds of thousands of years of human history and on the grounds of rudimentary statistics and probability, on the grounds of their very narrow writing, not a narrow reading of it. I can assure you it's more reckless to argue on behalf of something you don't understand than to argue against something of which you have some understanding.

Are you going to demonstrate the fallacy of my criticism of exclusivity in education or just casually slough it off while ironically calling my view narrow?

Well, for one you seem to lack an understanding of history if you think the ancient Greeks were cave men.

In the Apology Socrates professes his ignorance. In the Republic, however, he tells stories of a transcendent reality. In trying to make sense of this contradiction what should not be overlooked is that in his talk of knowledge of the Forms he admits he has no such knowledge.

With regard to the divided line, we should not move up too quickly. Images and imagination are of central importance and at play on many levels in Plato's writings, including the image of the divided line itself.

The philosopher not only banishes the poets from the Republic, he takes their place. He creates his own images on the cave wall, a philosophical poesis, a philosophical poetry.

Socrates talks about the necessity of noble lies. Plato tells one that shaped the western world.

Good one, good argument, you got me. Touché. Thank you for bringing to my attention that ancient Greeks did not live in caves because I had meant it literally--that they literally lived in caves.