OUTLINE OF OUR DISCUSSION OF PLATO'S REPUBLIC
(This is the outline I have followed in previous semesters.)
1. Introduction
a. What events influenced Plato in his youth?
b. How did they lead him to philosophy?
c. In what did philosophy consist for Socrates?
d. What is Socratic or negative dialectic?
2. Four positions on justice opposed to Plato's
a. Cephalus: conventional justice
i. customary moral rules of thumb
ii. Socrates' critique
b. Polemarchus: tit for tat
i. how Polemarchus defines justice
ii. Po's view of human society--modern examples
iii. problems with Po's first definition
iv. how Po refines his view
v. is revenge permitted? required?
vi. the retributive theory of punishment;
how Po's view is like it; unlike it
vii. the New Testament critique of the retributive
theory of punishment
viii. why Socrates opposes Po's definition
c. Thrasymachus: justice is the other's good
i. T's first (misleading) statement about justice
ii. T's real definition of justice
iii. T's political sociology
a) tyrannies, oligarchies, democracies
b) what they have in common
iv. who is just and who is not
v. does T's theory apply only to a tyranny?
vi. the shepherd-[excellent] ruler analogy
a) Socrates' interpretation
b) T's interpretation
vii. who (for T) is happy? unhappy?
viii. happiness and justice
a) T's view
b) S's view
d. Glaucon and "the many": justice as a compromise
i. good things in general
a) three kinds
b) where S places justice
c) where most people put it
ii. the origin of justice
a) the best and the worst "by nature"
b) conventional justice as intermediate
c) why we normally choose justice
d) the story of Gyges
e) the "moral" of the story
iii. Adeimantus' challenge to S.
3. The Organic State/First Phases of Education
a. a fundamental analogy; why it is introduced
b. why cities originate
c. two reasons for the division of labor
d. the simple city
i. trades included
ii. population
iii. why Glaucon calls it "city of pigs"
e. the luxurious city
i. additional trades included
ii. population compared to simple city's
iii. why Soc. calls it "city with a fever"
iv. for what kind of city is Plato's
political philosophy intended?
f. the [warrior or auxiliary] guardians
i. why guardians are distinct from producers;
P's position on popular militias
ii. physical and psychological characteristics
g. early education of guardians in general
i. why education is important
ii. what is "musical" education
iii. critique of stories of gods and heroes
a) traditional Greek stories
b) argument against gods taking on different
physical shapes
c) the veracity of the gods
i) two kinds of falsehood
ii) when external falsehood is justified
iii) why the gods will never need it
iv. beauty in education
v. why study the arts
[The ladder of beauty from Plato's Symposium]
vi. what fully educated guardians can recognize;
the right kind of love
vi. balance between music and physical training
h. the new division among the guardians--
function and characteristics of the highest class
i. the allegory of the metals
i. the primary audience of the allegory
ii. how the metals correlate with the classes
iii. what an allegory is
iv. what the different metals represent
(i.iv is different from i.ii)
v. the function of the allegory here
j. how the guardians will live, and why
k. some miscellaneous points
4. The Virtues in the Ideal State
a. the four virtues
b. primary location of wisdom; of courage
c. definition of civic courage
[i.e., courage in the state]
d. do the soldiers have knowledge;
if not, what do they have instead?
e. preliminary sketch of "moderation"
f. problems with idea of "self-control"
g. primary location of moderation
h. civic moderation defined
i. civic justice defined
5. The Parts and Virtues of the Soul
a. why qualities of state must be also found in person
b. the lesson of the spinning top
c. how one person [soul] is many [has many parts]
i. three parts and their functions
ii. evidence that
a) rational and appetitive parts are distinct
b) rational and spirited parts are distinct
c) spirited and appetitive parts are distinct
d. what is courage in the soul?
e. when is a person wise?
f. what is moderation in the individual soul?
g. . . . justice . . . ?
h. . . . injustice . . . ?
i. why is injustice in itself bad for its possessor?
j. how does this refute Glaucon's "many" as well as Thrasmyachus?
(This is a good point to sum up the main argument of books ii-iv)
6. Philosophers as Kings
a. Glaucon's challenge
b. the greatest paradox
7. Knowledge and Reality--in search of the nature of philosophy
a. comparisons and contrasts: lover of wisdom and:
i. lover of honor
ii. lover of sights and sounds
b. knowledge vs. opinion
i. the unity of the forms
ii. analogy with wakefulness and sleeping
iii. what is vs. what is and is not
iv. opinion differs from knowledge and from ignorance
v. objects of opinion
vi. conventions concerning beauty, justice, etc.
c. qualities of the ruler guardians
i. attitude towards truth
ii. . . . towards pleasure
iii. other qualities
d. the Good
i. the importance of unity in Plato's thought
ii. in what ways the Forms are still many
iii. the role of the Good as Ultimate Unity
iv. two views on the nature of the Good
a) pleasure; critique of this view
b) knowledge; critique of this view
v. knowing the Good important for ruler-guardians
vi. the key analogy explaining the Good
a) perceptible vs. intelligible objects
b) how the number of factors in vision differs the number
of factors in hearing, tasting, etc.
c) analogy of the Good and the Sun;
knowledge and vision; etc.
vii. other claims S. makes about the Good
a) its position in his metaphysical hierarchy
b) its relation to reality
c) its operation as cause
e. the Divided Line (DL)
i. the two main division
ii. the four classes of mental activity
iii. what each of them investigates
iv. examples of the four groups in iii.
v. which is closest to truth? farthest?
vi. three distinctions between the two subdivisions of the intelligible
f. the Cave Allegory (CA)
i. once again, what is an allegory?
ii. the CA's surface meaning
iii. the CA as a psychological tale
iv. allegorical interpretation of the CA in terms
of the DL and the Good:
the cave, the upper world, the fire, the sun, the chained prisoner,
the released prisoner still in the cave, the person who can see things
by moonlight, the person who can see things by daylight, the
person who returns to the cave to try to liberate his fellows