{"id":3305,"date":"2023-03-13T21:28:07","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T21:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/?p=3305"},"modified":"2023-03-13T21:28:07","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T21:28:07","slug":"plato-5-justice-leadership-and-a-misguided-utopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gchristopherscruggs.com\/?p=3305","title":{"rendered":"Plato 5: Justice, Leadership, and a (Misguided) Utopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the Republic<\/u>, Plato spends a lot of time talking about the nature of a perfect Greek city-state (a \u201c<\/strong>Kallipolis<\/em><\/strong>\u201d in Greek) <\/strong>[1]<\/a> and the education and character of such perfect rulers for such a perfect city. In so doing, he sheds additional light upon his view of justice and sets himself up as a defender of a fundamentally aristocratic form of government. Some scholars view his position as supportive of tyranny. Plato\u2019s purpose in the Republic<\/u> was, however, not to promote tyranny but to develop an ideal form of government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plato came from an aristocratic family, a life situation that probably impacted his political views. [2]<\/a> On both his mother\u2019s and father\u2019s sides, he was descended from very prominent families with historical involvement in Athenian politics. The political instability young Plato observed, and the death of Socrates deeply impacted Plato during his youth and early adulthood. Plato experienced the end of one constitution, the emergence of a dictatorship (the dictatorship of the Thirty), and the subsequent democratic excesses that ended with the death of Socrates.<\/p>\n

During his travels and sojourns outside of Athens, he observed the limitations of other states in Italy and Sicily. He experienced the uncertainty and unfairness of much political life. Although attracted to politics, Plato ultimately preferred the philosophical life to the life of action and practical politics. Nevertheless, his early interest in politics never deserted him. His greatest work, the Republic<\/u>, is dominated by the search for a stable definition of justice and a means by which a completely just city-state might be created.<\/p>\n

Karl Popper, in his great work, The Open Society and its Enemies,<\/u> puts the issue this way:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plato lived in a period of wars and political strife, which was, for all we know, even more unsettled than that which had troubled Heraclitus. While he grew up, the breakdown of the tribal life of the Greeks had led in Athens, his native city, to a period of tyranny and later to the establishment of a democracy which tried to jealously guard itself against any attempts to reintroduce either a tyranny or an oligarchy, i.e. a rule of the leading aristocratic families. <\/strong>[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Popper and other thinkers believe that Plato was haunted by these experiences and by the philosophy of Heraclitus, with its emphasis on change. He never entirely escaped the instability of his youth and the challenge of Heraclitus, both of which were motiving factors for his attempt to create a model for a perfect society in the Republic. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Plato\u2019s Forms<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Republic,<\/u> Plato relates his famous \u201cAllegory of the Cave.\u201d <\/strong>[4]<\/a> According to Socrates, the human race is pictured as living imprisoned in a dimly lit cave in which only shadows of reality can be seen. The light is far above them. Most people live and think in the shadows. To reach the light, one must undertake a journey towards the light. Those who seek freedom from the shadows must endure both the journey and the pain of enlightenment, but those who escape the cave realize that the shadow realities to which they are accustomed are shadows.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Socrates explains the meaning of the allegory to Glaucon as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The visible realm should be like into the prison dwelling, and the light a fire inside it to the power of the sun. And if you interpret the upward journey and the study of things above as the inward journey of the soul, to the intelligible realm, you\u2019ll grasp what I hope to convey, since that is what you wanted to hear about. Whether it\u2019s true or not only the god knows. But this is how I see it: in the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct, and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light, and its source in the visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to ask sensibly in private or public, must see it.<\/strong> [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

The ascent of the soul from the cave of the shadows of ignorance to the light of wisdom is a journey from the darkness of the visible, material world into the ideal world of forms.<\/p>\n

For Plato, true knowledge and wisdom are found in an unchanging ideal world of ideas, which constitutes the form, pattern, essence, and ideal perfection of every actually existing thing. The form is a kind of plan or paradigm of the perfection of the material world of human experience. This includes the political world and our political experience. To comprehend this ideal, human beings must be educated and undergo the difficulties and challenges of leaving a state of ignorance and entering a state of true knowledge. This intelligible realm \u201ccontrols and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to ask sensibly in private or public, must see it.\u201d [6]<\/a> In other words, understanding the intelligible realm is necessary in public life and private affairs.<\/p>\n

The Kallipolis of Plato, his Ideal State, was an attempt to outline the form, the pattern, and the absolute ideal of what a Greek City-State might be like. It was what I call a \u201cTranscendental Ideal.\u201d [7]<\/a> While it is certain that Plato would have liked to see Athens approach this ideal, I believe he understood that it could not be achieved. In the Republic<\/u>, Plato sets out ideas that he believes, if implemented, would create a more stable Greek City-State. And avoid the conflict, revolution, violence, and injustice he had seen in his youth.<\/p>\n

His ideas have been criticized much, and I happen to agree with many of the criticisms. A deceptive, unwise, destructive idealism fuels the revolutionary idealism of Marxists, Leninists, Nazis, and others. We see much evidence of this in contemporary society. As Karl Popper shows in his The Open Society and its Enemies<\/u>, ideas have consequences, and ideas that are unrealistic and revolutionary are dangerous to human life, property, and the public good.<\/p>\n

The ideas of Plato, however, cannot be dismissed as simply dangerous. One cannot deny that modern ideals of justice and notions of a \u201cperfect society\u201d have been influenced by Plato, especially his idea of a perfect society. The progress of society needs Transcendental Ideals, which drive human beings to improve the condition of the poor, the outcast, the rejected, and the lost. Our notion of the best kind of political state continues to be influenced by his work, and our ideas of justice are deeply influenced by Plato and those who have extended his work.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, I think that the defect of the Republic<\/u> flow from Plato\u2019s notion of the forms, an ideal world that can be discerned only by pure reason. As we have reflected in these blogs, transcendental ideals are built on the foundation of human experience. We cannot reason or way to a perfect society; we can only work toward a more just and equitable society. The methodology of Plato was flawed from the beginning.<\/p>\n

Power and the Ideal State<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plato sees that an ideal state requires ideal rulers who will administer its political and governmental affairs. If these rulers are to be able to rule effectively, then the various social classes that make up any society must be harmonized. Otherwise, there cannot be anything like justice. Any society is made up of different classes of people. Plato was familiar with Greek societies and those of the surrounding area. In these societies, there were six fundamental groups.\u201d<\/p>\n