WESTERN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY;PLATO (UGC-NET JRF)

QUICK REVISION OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY
In The Republic, Plato, speaking through his teacher Socrates, sets out to answer two questions. What is justice? Why should we be just? Book I sets up these challenges. The interlocutors engage in a Socratic dialogue similar to that found in Plato’s earlier works. While among a group of both friends and enemies, Socrates poses the question, “What is justice?”
He proceeds to refute every suggestion offered, showing how each harbors hidden contradictions. Yet he offers no definition of his own, and the discussion ends in aporia—a deadlock, where no further progress is possible and the interlocutors feel less sure of their beliefs than they had at the start of the conversation. In Plato’s early dialogues,aporia usually spells the end. The Republic moves beyond this deadlock. Nine more books follow, and Socrates develops a rich and complex theory of justice.

When Book I opens, Socrates is returning home from a religious festival with his young friend Glaucon, one of Plato’s brothers. On the road, the three travelers are waylaid by Adeimantus, another brother of Plato, and the young nobleman Polemarchus, who convinces them to take a detour to his house. There they join Polemarchus’s aging father Cephalus, and others. Socrates and the elderly man begin a discussion on the merits of old age. This discussion quickly turns to the subject of justice.

Cephalus, a rich, well-respected elder of the city, and host to the group, is the first to offer a definition of justice. Cephalus acts as spokesman for the Greek tradition. His definition of justice is an attempt to articulate the basic Hesiodic conception: that justice means living up to your legal obligations and being honest. Socrates defeats this formulation with a counterexample: returning a weapon to a madman. You owe the madman his weapon in some sense if it belongs to him legally, and yet this would be an unjust act, since it would jeopardize the lives of others. So it cannot be the case that justice is nothing more than honoring legal obligations and being honest.

At this point, Cephalus excuses himself to see to some sacrifices, and his son Polemarchus takes over the argument for him. He lays out a new definition of justice: justice means that you owe friends help, and you owe enemies harm. Though this definition may seem different from that suggested by Cephalus, they are closely related. They share the underlying imperative of rendering to each what is due and of giving to each what is appropriate. This imperative will also be the foundation of Socrates’s principle of justice in the later books. Like his father’s view, Polemarchus’s take on justice represents a popular strand of thought—the attitude of the ambitious young politician—whereas Cephalus’s definition represented the attitude of the established, old businessman.

Socrates reveals many inconsistencies in this view. He points out that, because our judgment concerning friends and enemies is fallible, this credo will lead us to harm the good and help the bad. We are not always friends with the most virtuous individuals, nor are our enemies always the scum of society. Socrates points out that there is some incoherence in the idea of harming people through justice.

All this serves as an introduction to Thrasymachus, the Sophist. We have seen, through Socrates’s cross-examination of Polemarchus and Cephalus, that the popular thinking on justice is unsatisfactory. Thrasymachus shows us the nefarious result of this confusion: the Sophist’s campaign to do away with justice, and all moral standards, entirely. Thrasymachus, breaking angrily into the discussion, declares that he has a better definition of justice to offer. Justice, he says, is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger. Though Thrasymachus claims that this is his definition, it is not really meant as a definition of justice as much as it is a delegitimization of justice. He is saying that it does not pay to be just. Just behavior works to the advantage of other people, not to the person who behaves justly. Thrasymachus assumes here that justice is the unnatural restraint on our natural desire to have more. Justice is a convention imposed on us, and it does not benefit us to adhere to it. The rational thing to do is ignore justice entirely.

The burden of the discussion has now shifted. At first, the only challenge was to define justice; now justice must be defined and proven to be worthwhile. Socrates has three arguments to employ against Thrasymachus’ claim. First, he makes Thrasymachus admit that the view he is advancing promotes injustice as a virtue. In this view, life is seen as a continual competition to get more (more money, more power, etc.), and whoever is most successful in the competition has the greatest virtue. Socrates then launches into a long and complex chain of reasoning which leads him to conclude that injustice cannot be a virtue because it is contrary to wisdom, which is a virtue. Injustice is contrary to wisdom because the wise man, the man who is skilled in some art, never seeks to beat out those who possess the same art. The mathematician, for instance, is not in competition with other mathematicians.

Socrates then moves on to a new argument. Understanding justice now as the adherence to certain rules which enable a group to act in common, Socrates points out that in order to reach any of the goals Thrasymachus earlier praised as desirable one needs to be at least moderately just in the sense of adhering to this set of rules.

Finally, he argues that since it was agreed that justice is a virtue of the soul, and virtue of the soul means health of the soul, justice is desirable because it means health of the soul.

Thus ends Book I. Socrates and his interlocutors are no closer to a consensus on the definition of justice, and Socrates has only advanced weak arguments in favor of justice’s worth. But the terms of our challenge are set. Popular, traditional thinking on justice is in shambles and we need to start fresh in order to defeat the creeping moral skepticism of the Sophists.

Analysis

While The Republic is a book concerned with justice, it also addresses many other topics. Some scholars go so far as to say that the book is primarily about something other than justice. Critic Allan Bloom, for instance, reads the book first and foremost as a defense of philosophy—as Socrates’s second “apology.” Socrates was executed by the city of Athens for practicing philosophy. The leaders of Athens had decided that philosophy was dangerous and sought to expel it from their city. Socrates had called the old gods and the old laws into question. He challenged, and asked others to challenge, the fundamental beliefs upon which their society rested.

In The Republic, Bloom says, Plato is trying to defend the act for which his teacher was executed. His aim is to reveal why the philosopher is important, and what the philosopher’s relationship to the city should be. While a philosopher is potentially subversive to any existing regimes, according to Plato, he is crucial to the life of the just city. Plato wanted to show how philosophy can be vital to the city. Bloom calls The Republic the first work of political science because it invents a political philosophy grounded in the idea of building a city on principles of reason.

Bloom’s interpretation follows from an understanding of Plato’s ideas about justice and just cities in The Republic, which is how the book demands to be read at first. Looking at The Republic as a work on justice, we first need to ask why justice has to be defended. As Thrasymachus makes clear, justice is not universally assumed to be beneficial. For as long as there has been ethical thought, there have been immoralists, people who think that it is better to look out for your own interest than to follow rules of right and wrong.

Traditionally, the Greek conception of justice came from poets like Hesiod, who inWorks and Days presents justice as a certain set of acts that must be followed. The reason for being just, as presented by the traditional view, was consideration of reward and punishment: Zeus rewards those who are good and punishes those who are bad. In late fifth century Athens, this conception of divine reward and retribution had lost credibility. No one believed that the gods rewarded the just and punished the unjust. People could see that many unjust men flourished, and many of the just were left behind. In the sophisticated democracy that evolved in Athens, few were inclined to train their hopes on the afterlife. Justice became a matter of great controversy.

Leading the controversy were the Sophists, the general educators hired as tutors to the sons of the wealthy. The Sophists tended not to believe in objective truth, or objective standards of right and wrong. They regarded law and morality as conventions. The Sophist Antiphon, for example, openly declared that we ought to be unjust when being unjust is to our advantage.

Plato felt that he had to defend justice against these onslaughts. The Sophistic challenge is represented in The Republic by Thrasymachus, who declares that justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger. Since this statement motivates the entire defense that is to follow, it deserves analysis. What exactly does Thrasymachus mean by claiming that justice is the advantage of the stronger? Who are the stronger? What is their advantage?

On the first reading, Thrasymachus’s claim boils down to the basic Sophistic moral notion that the norms and mores we consider just are conventions that hamper those who adhere to them and benefit those who flout them. Those who behave unjustly naturally gain power and become rulers and strong people in society. When stupid, weak people behave in accordance with justice, they are disadvantaged, and the strong are at an advantage. An alternate reading of Thrasymachus’s bold statement makes his claim seem more subtle. On this reading, put forward by C.D.C. Reeve, Thrasymachus is not merely making the usual assertion that the norms and mores of justice are conventions; he is further claiming that these mores and norms are conventions put in place by rulers to promote their own interests and to keep their subjects in a state of oppression.

This second reading is interesting because it challenges not only our conception of right and wrong, but Socrates’s usual way of finding truth. Socrates’s method ofelenchus proceeds by building up knowledge out of people’s true beliefs. If Thrasymachus is right, then we do not have any true beliefs about justice. All we have are beliefs forced on us by rulers. In order to discover the truth about right and wrong, we must abandon the old method and start from scratch: building up knowledge without resting on traditional beliefs. In the next book, Plato abandons the method of elenchus. and begins the discussion from scratch.

Regardless of how we interpret Thrasymachus’s statement, the challenge to Socrates is the same: he must prove that justice is something good and desirable, that it is more than convention, that it is connected to objective standards of morality, and that it is in our interest to adhere to it.

Summary: Book II, 357a–368c

Socrates believes he has adequately responded to Thrasymachus and is through with the discussion of justice, but the others are not satisfied with the conclusion they have reached. Glaucon, one of Socrates’s young companions, explains what they would like him to do. Glaucon states that all goods can be divided into three classes: things that we desire only for their consequences, such as physical training and medical treatment; things that we desire only for their own sake, such as joy; and, the highest class, things we desire both for their own sake and for what we get from them, such as knowledge, sight, and health. What Glaucon and the rest would like Socrates to prove is that justice is not only desirable, but that it belongs to the highest class of desirable things: those desired both for their own sake and their consequences.

Glaucon points out that most people class justice among the first group. They view justice as a necessary evil, which we allow ourselves to suffer in order to avoid the greater evil that would befall us if we did away with it. Justice stems from human weakness and vulnerability. Since we can all suffer from each other’s injustices, we make a social contract agreeing to be just to one another. We only suffer under the burden of justice because we know we would suffer worse without it. Justice is not something practiced for its own sake but something one engages in out of fear and weakness.

To emphasize his point, Glaucon appeals to a thought experiment. Invoking the legend of the ring of Gyges, he asks us to imagine that a just man is given a ring which makes him invisible. Once in possession of this ring, the man can act unjustly with no fear of reprisal. No one can deny, Glaucon claims, that even the most just man would behave unjustly if he had this ring. He would indulge all of his materialistic, power-hungry, and erotically lustful urges. This tale proves that people are only just because they are afraid of punishment for injustice. No one is just because justice is desirable in itself.

Glaucon ends his speech with an attempt to demonstrate that not only do people prefer to be unjust rather than just, but that it is rational for them to do so. The perfectly unjust life, he argues, is more pleasant than the perfectly just life. In making this claim, he draws two detailed portraits of the just and unjust man. The completely unjust man, who indulges all his urges, is honored and rewarded with wealth. The completely just man, on the other hand, is scorned and wretched.

His brother, Adeimantus, breaks in and bolsters Glaucon’s arguments by claiming that no one praises justice for its own sake, but only for the rewards it allows you to reap in both this life and the afterlife. He reiterates Glaucon’s request that Socrates show justice to be desirable in the absence of any external rewards: that justice is desirable for its own sake, like joy, health, and knowledge.

Analysis: Book II, 357a–368c

Coming on the heels of Thrasymachus’ attack on justice in Book I, the points that Glaucon and Adeimantus raise—the social contract theory of justice and the idea of justice as a currency that buys rewards in the afterlife—bolster the challenge faced by Socrates to prove justice’s worth. With several ideas of justice already discredited, why does Plato further complicate the problem before Socrates has the chance to outline his own ideas about justice?

The first reason is methodological: it is always best to make sure that the position you are attacking is the strongest one available to your opponent. Plato does not want the immoralist to be able to come back and say, “but justice is only a social contract” after he has carefully taken apart the claim that it is the advantage of the stronger. He wants to make sure that in defending justice, he dismantles all the best arguments of the immoralists.

The accumulation of further ideas about justice might be intended to demonstrate his new approach to philosophy. In the early dialogues, Socrates often argues with Sophists, but Thrasymachus is the last Sophist we ever see Socrates arguing with. From now on, we never see Socrates arguing with people who have profoundly wrong values. There is a departure from the techniques ofelenchus and aporia, toward more constructive efforts at building up theory.

The Republic was written in a transitional phase in Plato’s own life. He had just founded the Academy, his school where those interested in learning could retreat from public life and immerse themselves in the study of philosophy. In his life, Plato was abandoning Socrates’s ideal of questioning every man in the street, and in his writing, he was abandoning the Sophist interlocutor and moving toward conversational partners who, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, are carefully chosen and prepared. In the dialogues, they are usually Socrates’s own students.

Plato had decided at this point that philosophy can only proceed if it becomes a cooperative and constructive endeavor. That is why in his own life he founded the Academy and his writings paired Socrates with partners of like mind, eager to learn. Glaucon and Adeimantus repeat the challenge because they are taking over the mantle as conversational partners. Discussion with the Sophist Thrasymachus can only lead to aporia. But conversation with Glaucon and Adeimantus has the potential to lead to positive conclusions.

This might seem like a betrayal of his teacher’s mission, but Plato probably had good reason for this radical shift. Confronting enemies has severe limits. If your viewpoint differs radically from that of your conversational partner, no real progress is possible. At most, you can undermine one another’s views, but you can never build up a positive theory together.

Summary: Book II, 368d-end

The result, then, is that more plentiful and better-quality goods are more easily produced if each person does one thing for which he is naturally suited, does it at the right time, and is released from having to do any of the others.

Socrates is reluctant to respond to the challenge that justice is desirable in and of itself, but the others compel him. He lays out his plan of attack. There are two kinds of political justice—the justice belonging to a city or state—and individual—the justice of a particular man. Since a city is bigger than a man, he will proceed upon the assumption that it is easier to first look for justice at the political level and later inquire as to whether there is any analogous virtue to be found in the individual. To locate political justice, he will build up a perfectly just city from scratch, and see where and when justice enters it. This project will occupy The Republic until Book IV.

Socrates introduces the foundational principle of human society: the principle of specialization. The principle of specialization states that each person must perform the role for which he is naturally best suited and that he must not meddle in any other business. The carpenter must only builds things, the farmer must only farm. Behind this principle is the notion that human beings have natural inclinations that should be fulfilled. Specialization demands not only the division of labor, but the most appropriate such division. Only in this way, Socrates is convinced, can everything be done at the highest level possible.

Having isolated the foundational principle of the city, Socrates is ready to begin building it. The first roles to fill are those that will provide for the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, health, and shelter. The just city is populated by craftsmen, farmers, and doctors who each do their own job and refrain from engaging in any other role. They are all members of what Socrates deems the “producing class,” because their role is to produce objects for use.

Socrates calls this city the “healthy city” because it is governed only by necessary desires. In the healthy city, there are only producers, and these producers only produce what is absolutely necessary for life. Glaucon looks less kindly on this city, calling it a “city of pigs.” He points out that such a city is impossible: people have unnecessary desires as well as these necessary ones. They yearn for rich food, luxurious surroundings, and art.

The next stage is to transform this city into the luxurious city, or the “city with a fever.” Once luxuries are in demand, positions like merchant, actor, poet, tutor, and beautician are created. All of this wealth will necessarily lead to wars, and so a class of warriors is needed to keep the peace within the city and to protect it from outside forces. The producers cannot act as our warriors because that would violate our principle of specialization.

Socrates spends the rest of this book, and most of the next, talking about the nature and education of these warriors, whom he calls “guardians.” It is crucial that guardians develop the right balance between gentleness and toughness. They must not be thugs, nor can they be wimpy and ineffective. Members of this class must be carefully selected—people with the correct nature or innate psychology. In particular, guardians should be spirited, or honor-loving, philosophical, or knowledge-loving, and physically strong and fast.

Nature is not sufficient to produce guardians. Nature must be protected and augmented with education. The education of guardians will involve physical training for the body, and music and poetry for the soul. Education of guardians is the most important aspect of the city. It is the process of purification through which the unhealthy, luxurious city can be purged and purified. Because the education of the guardians is so important, Socrates walks us through it in painstaking detail.

He begins by describing what sort of stories will be permitted in the city. The stories told to the young guardians-in-training, he warns, must be closely supervised, because it is chiefly stories that shape a child’s soul, just as the way parents handle an infant shapes his body. The remainder of Book II, therefore, is a discussion of permissible tales to tell about the gods. Socrates comes up with two laws to govern the telling of such stories. First, the gods must always be represented as wholly good and as responsible only for what is good in the world. If the gods are presented otherwise (as the warring, conniving, murderous characters that the traditional poetry depicts them to be), children will inevitably grow up believing that such behavior is permissible, even admirable. Second, the gods cannot be represented as sorcerers who change themselves into different forms or as liars. Otherwise, children will grow up without a proper reverence for truth and honesty.

Analysis: Book II, 368d-end

The basic principle of education, in Plato’s conception, is that the soul, like the body, can have both a healthy and unhealthy state. As with the body, this state is determined by what the soul consumes and by what it does. Education determines what images and ideas the soul consumes and what activities the soul can and cannot engage in. Since the soul is always consuming, the stimuli available in the city must be rigidly controlled. Plato compares souls to sheep, constantly grazing. If you place sheep in a field of poisoned grass, and they consume this grass little by little, they will eventually sicken and die. Similarly, if you surround a soul with unwholesome influences, then gradually the soul will take these in and sicken. For this reason, Plato does not limit himself to dictating the specific coursework that will be given to the guardians, but also dictates what will be allowed into the cultural life of the city as a whole. The guardians, like all others, are constantly absorbing images. Practically speaking, there is little difference between the official school curriculum and the cultural life of the city in general.

Plato prescribes severe dictates concerning the cultural life of the city. He rules out all poetry, with the exception of hymns to the gods and eulogies for the famous, and places restraints on painting and architecture. Though Plato expresses regret at these aesthetic sacrifices, he feels they must be made for the sake of education, which transforms the unhealthy luxurious city into a pure and just city. How does it do this? The answer will not become clear until we understand what political justice is.

We might also ask at this point whether it is only the education of the guardians that is so important. If education determines whether a soul is sick or healthy, do we not care about the souls of the other members of society? The answer, probably, is that we do care about educating all souls, but since we are currently focusing on the good of the city, we are only interested in what will effect the city as a whole. Because of the way our city is set up, with the producing class excluded from political life, their education is not as important to the good of the city as the education of the guardians. Although education is important for everyone, the education of the producers, which would focus on development of skills approriate to specialized vocation, is not as relevant to the good of the city as a whole. When the discussion turns to questions of the individual, Socrates will identify one of the main goals of the city as the education of the entire populace as far as they can be educated.

Justice as the Advantage of the Stronger

In Book I of The Republic, Thrasymachus sets up a challenge to justice. Thrasymachus is a Sophist, one of the teachers-for-hire who preached a creed of subjective morality to the wealthy sons of Athens. The Sophists did not believe in objective truth, including objective moral truth. They did not think, in other words, that anything was absolutely “right” or “wrong”; instead they viewed all actions as either advantageous or disadvantageous to the person performing them. If an action was advantageous then they thought you should engage in it, and if it was disadvantageous then they thought that you should refrain. Taking this belief to its logical conclusion, some of them went so far as to claim that law and morality are nothing but mere convention, and that one ought to try to get away with injustice and illegality whenever such action would be to one’s advantage. Plato meant to combat this attitude in The Republic.

Thrasymachus introduces the Sophist challenge by remarking that justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger. He does not mean to define justice with this statement, but to debunk it. His claim proceeds from the basic Sophistic moral notion: that the norms considered just are nothing more than conventions which hamper those who adhere to them, and benefit those who flout them. Those who behave unjustly naturally gain power and become the rulers, the strong people in society. Justice is the advantage of the stronger because when stupid, weak people behave in accordance with justice, they are disadvantaged, and the strong (those who behave unjustly) are advantaged.

An alternate reading of Thrasymachus’s bold statement makes his claim seem slightly more subtle. According to this reading (put forward by C.D.C. Reeve), Thrasymachus is not merely making the usual assertion that the norms of justice are conventions; he claims further that these mores and norms are conventions that were put in place by the rulers (the “stronger”) for the purpose of promoting their own interests. Conceptions of justice, in this reading, are the products of propaganda and tools of oppressors.

Regardless of the interpretation we give to Thrasymachus’ statement, the challenge to Socrates is the same: he must prove that justice is something good and desirable, that it is more than convention, that it is connected to objective standards of morality, and that it is in our interest to adhere to it. His attempt to meet this challenge occupies the rest of The Republic.

The Principle of Specialization

Before he can prove that justice is a good thing, Plato must first state what justice is. Instead of defining justice as a set of behavioral norms (as the traditional Greek thinkers did) Plato identifies justice as structural: political justice resides in the structure of the city; individual justice resides in the structure of the soul. The just structure of the city is summed up by the principle of specialization: each member of society must play the role for which his nature best suits him and not meddle in any other business. A man whose nature suits him to farming must farm and do nothing else; a man whose nature best suits him to building objects out of wood must be a carpenter and not bother with any other sort of work. Plato believes that this is the only way to ensure that each job is done as well as possible.

The principle of specialization keeps the farmer from carpentering, and the carpenter from farming. More important, it keeps both the farmer and the carpenter from becoming warriors and rulers. The principle of specialization separates society into three classes: the class of producers (including farmers, craftsmen, doctors, etc.), the class of warriors, and the class of rulers. Specialization ensures that these classes remain in a fixed relations of power and influence. Rulers control the city, establishing its laws and objectives. Warriors carry out the commands of rulers. Producers stay out of political affairs, only worrying themselves about the business of ruling insofar as they need to obey what the rulers say and the warriors enforce. A city set up in this way, Plato contends, is a just city.

Just as political justice consists in the structural relations among classes of society, Plato believes, individual justice consists in correct structural relations among parts of the soul. Paralleling the producers, warriors, and rulers in the city, Plato claims that each individual soul has three separate seats of desire and motivation: the appetitive part of our soul lusts after food, drink, sex, and so on (and after money most of all, since money is the means of satisfying the rest of these desires); the spirited part of the soul yearns for honor; the rational part of the soul desires truth and knowledge. In a just soul, these three parts stand in the correct power relations. The rational part must rule, the spirited part must enforce the rational part’s convictions, and the appetitive part must obey.

In the just soul, the desires of the rational, truth-loving part dictate the overall aims of the human being. All appetites and considerations of honor are put at the disposal of truth-loving goals. The just soul strives wholly toward truth. Plato identifies the philosopher (literally “truth lover”) as the most just individual, and sets him up as ruler of the just city.

The Sun, the Line, the Cave

Explaining his idea of a philosopher-king, Plato appeals to three successive analogies to spell out the metaphysical and epistemological theories that account for the philosopher’s irreplaceable role in politics. The analogy of the sun illuminates the notion of the Form of the Good, the philosopher-king’s ultimate object of desire. The line illustrates the four different grades of cognitive activity of which a human being is capable, the highest of which only the philosopher-kings ever reach. The allegory of the cave demonstrates the effects of education on the human soul, demonstrating how we move from one grade of cognitive activity to the next.

In the allegory of the cave, Plato asks us to imagine the following scenario: A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing any daylight at all. These people are bound in such a way that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, laying out of sight. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows on the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because this is all they can ever see, they believe that these shadows are the most real things in the world. When they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” “horses,” and so on, they refer only to these shadows.

Now he asks us to imagine that one of these prisoners is freed from his bonds, and is able to look at the fire and at the statues themselves. After initial pain and disbelief, he eventually realizes that all these things are more real than the shadows he has always believed to be the most real things; he grasps how the fire and the statues together caused the shadows, which are copies of the real things. He now takes the statues and fire as the most real things in the world.

Next this prisoner is dragged out of the cave into the world above. At first, he is so dazzled by the light in the open that he can only look at shadows, then he is able to look at reflections, then finally at the real objects—real trees, flowers, houses, and other physical objects. He sees that these are even more real than the statues were, and that those objects were only copies of these.

Finally, when the prisoner’s eyes have fully adjusted to the brightness, he lifts his sights toward the heavens and looks at the sun. He understands that the sun is the cause of everything he sees around him—of the light, of his capacity for sight, of the existence of flowers, trees, and all other objects.

The stages the prisoner passes through in the allegory of the cave correspond to the various levels on the line. The line, first of all, is broken into two equal halves: the visible realm (which we can grasp with our senses) and the intelligible realm (which we can only grasp with the mind). When the prisoner is in the cave he is in the visible realm. When he ascends into the daylight, he enters the intelligible.

The lowest rung on the cognitive line is imagination. In the cave, this is represented as the prisoner whose feet and head are bound, so that he can only see shadows. What he takes to be the most real things are not real at all; they are shadows, mere images. These shadows are meant to represent images from art. A man who is stuck in the imagination stage of development takes his truths from epic poetry and theater, or other fictions. He derives his conception of himself and his world from these art forms rather than from looking at the real world.

When the prisoner frees himself and looks at the statues he reaches the next stage in the line: belief. The statues are meant to correspond to the real objects of our sensation—real people, trees, flowers, and so on. The man in the cognitive stage of belief mistakenly takes these sensible particulars as the most real things.

When he ascends into the world above, though, he sees that there is something even more real: the Forms, of which the sensible particulars are imperfect copies. He is now at the stage of thought in his cognition. He can reason about Forms, but not in a purely abstract way. He uses images and unproven assumptions as crutches.

Finally, he turns his sights to the sun, which represents the ultimate Form, the Form of the Good. The Form of the Good is the cause of all other Forms, and is the source of all goodness, truth, and beauty in the world. It is the ultimate object of knowledge. Once the prisoner has grasped the Form of the Good, he has reached the highest stage of cognition: understanding. He no longer has any need for images or unproven assumptions to aid in his reasoning. By reaching the Form of the Good, he hits on the first principle of philosophy which explains everything without the need of any assumptions or images. He can now use this understanding derived from comprehending the Form of the Good to transform all his previous thought into understanding—he can understand all of the Forms. Only the philosopher can reach this stage, and that is why only he is fit to rule.

Plato is unable to provide direct detail about the Form of the Good, and instead illustrates his idea by comparing it to the sun. The Form of the Good is to the intelligible realm, he claims, as the sun is the visible realm. (In the metaphor, the fire in the cave represents the sun.) First of all, just as the sun provides light and visibility in the visible realm, the Form of the Good is the source of intelligibility. The sun makes sight possible, and, similarly, the Form of the Good is responsible for our capacity for knowledge. The sun causes things to come to be in the visible world; it regulates the seasons, makes flowers bloom, influences animals to give birth and so on. The Form of the Good is responsible for the existence of Forms, for their coming to be in the intelligible world.

Why It Pays to Be Just

One of Plato’s objectives in The Republic was to show that justice is worthwhile—that just action is a good in itself, and that one ought to engage in just activity even when it doesn’t seem to confer immediate advantage. Once he has completed his portrait of the most just man—the philosopher-king—he is in a position to fulfill this aim. In Book IX, Plato presents three arguments for the claim that it pays to be just. First, by sketching a psychological portrait of the tyrant, he attempts to prove that injustice takes such a wretched toll on a man’s psyche that it could not possibly be worth it (whereas a just soul is untroubled and calm). Next, he argues that, though each of the three main character types (money-loving, honor-loving, and truth-loving) have their own conceptions of pleasure and of the corresponding good life (each choosing his own life as the most pleasant sort), only the philosopher is in the position to judge since only he is capable of experiencing all three types of pleasure. Finally, he tries to demonstrate that only philosophical pleasure is really pleasure at all; all other pleasure is only cessation from pain.

In all likelihood, Plato did not consider any of these to be the primary source of justice’s worth. Plato’s goal was to prove that justice is worthwhile independent of the advantages it confers, so for him to argue that the worth of justice lies in the enormous pleasure it produces is beside his point. To say that we should be just because it will make our life more pleasant, after all, is just to say that we should be just because it is to our advantage to do so. Instead, we should expect to find him arguing that the worth of justice lies in some other source, preferably having something to do with objective goodness. This is why many philosophers, from Plato’s student Aristotle down to modern scholar Richard Kraut, believe that Plato’s real argument for the worth of justice takes place long before Book IX. They think, plausibly, that Plato locates the worth of justice in justice’s connection to the Forms, which he holds to be the most good things in the world. Justice is worthwhile, on this interpretation, not because of any advantage it confers, but because it involves grasping the Form of the Good and imitating it. The just man tries to imitate the Forms by making his own soul as orderly and harmonious as the Forms themselves.