Republic (Oxford World's Classics)

‘The Republic’ by Plato, one of the main foundations of western philosophical thought, a text considered by many as a stepping stone in everyone's personal search for knowledge, every learned man possesses a copy of this work in their house… I had to steal mine.

In my house, you could find books of almost any variety, yet a copy of ‘The Republic’ was nonexistent, so I did what any sane citizen would do in my precarious position and that is steal one. Ok, I did not exactly steal it, I took it from one of those “take a book from this public shelf and return it eventually” some years ago, and then covid hit and when I went back the shelf was no longer there, so now I've had a free 1960 hardcover edition of ‘The Republic’ ever since.

Now into the actual book. I had read the platonic dialogues and the symposium before jumping into this Socrates fanfic in 10 volumes but even that did not prepare me for the can of worms that is Plato’s Republic. In this work that begins with the discussion of what is justice we find ourselves being led into the development of a utopian society led by Guardians (or Philosopher Kings if you prefer that term) that through years and years of education and exposure to the political world have freed themselves from the chains of Plato’s Cave and laboriously grasped the form of the Good which is the provider of all knowledge.

I will now briefly attempt to talk about the structure of this Ideal State without making it sound like an 8 AM philosophy class with your cigarette-stench philosophy teacher that perhaps should have retired some years ago.

What is the structure of this ideal state you ask? Well of course it must also be tripartite just like the tripartite Platonic soul my dear reader! How could you not guess? Plato believed that the human soul was divided into 3 parts the Rational (knowledge), the Spirited (emotional), and the Appetitive (physical desires), and he also believed that in an ideal state there would be a division in what we can consider 3 different classes of people (not necessarily related to material goods rather related to their duties for the state) and said classes would be the Guardians (who govern the city and possess a deep understanding of philosophy), the Soldiers (who defend the state) and the rest of the population that would be composed of people whose area of work is specialized labor in different sects of production (shoemakers, farmers, etc…).

Even though Plato makes it quite clear to his reader that he adores and admires Truth he makes the basis of his theoretical ideal society an unfounded myth, aka a lie. The origin myth that should be told to the members of this ideal state (in order for them to accept their position in society submissively) is that they all came from the earth’s metals, and therefore there are Bronze, Iron, and Gold people, he also goes deep into explaining the different implications of intercourse between people of different “metal origins” but my brain turned off during that part.

At the beginning of the discussion of this ideal state Socrates, a character in the dialogue, compares the human race to dogs, in order to explain that independent of sex all dogs are trained in order to play their role correctly and therefore in this ideal state women, just like men, should also be exposed to the initial education that male citizens are (such as music, gymnastics, etc...), even though he makes it quite explicit that he still believes women have a more fragile nature than men.

Another factor that Plato is constantly calling into mind is the importance of specialization and not allowing people to experiment with too many different fields outside of their chosen area, in his eyes the individuals that constitute the state are like its organs and therefore they must conform to their assigned tasks for the functionality of this social organism. The main goal of every citizen must be to strive for the perfection of the state through the realization of the duties that have been assigned to them at a young age.

There are many other interesting characteristics of this ideal state but some of those that will probably cause some shock to the modern reader must be the concept of the abolition of the family and the obligatory material deprivation of the ruling class.
In this society, the concept of the family as we know it is abolished, and procreation is controlled and assigned accordingly through ‘Procreation Festivals’ that are secretly rigged to stop unknown incestuous relationships from taking place. Once a child is born it is taken from its mother and never made known again, that means that all the children that are born in an assigned time period are the children of every member of the state and therefore no one truly knows whose child is whose (the same situation for the parents, all the children consider themselves brothers and sisters and therefore have no idea of who are their true biological parents).
When it comes to the Guardians an interesting proposition is made by Plato and that is that they all must be deprived of the material goods and riches that we usually assimilate with rulers. Plato lived through a troubling and chaotic political time, he saw the fall of Athenian Democracy, the rise of the 30 Tyrants, the rise of Democracy again, and even the execution of his friend and teacher by the vote of the majority, so it is no surprise that he would be weary of allowing the ruling class to be corrupted by the access to material riches. One of the main questions that arise from this proposition is how could we stop the Guardians from living such a life without succumbing to negative emotions that would eventually lead to more problems? Well, Plato has the answer for you, and that is through Education.

You can say that “The Republic” is a work of philosophy about the definition of Justice or the structure of the Ideal Platonic State yet if I am completely honest I would say that it is mainly about the importance of Education and its crucial role in the spiritual and personal development of the individual. Throughout the whole text, Plato continually makes use of the education present early in one's life as a necessary tool for the organization and creation of this theoretically perfect society. One thing that is expressed a lot throughout the description of the educational system to which all children must be subjected is the censorship of poets like Homer and Hesiod, which surprised me quite a bit since their works were so prevalent in Plato’s times.
Plato believed that if children or even just citizens were exposed to histories and myths where the Gods are seen as acting in unruly and dishonorable manners, they too would soon mimic such behaviors and not see them as something they should abstain from, and therefore the most logical solution to this problem would be to censor any sort of story that portrays Gods or Heroes acting in disgraceful and shameful manners.

I do not agree with most of what Plato develops from here, to create this fabricated idea of a Good and Perfect God that is not susceptible to change and metamorphosis will inadvertently lead to many problems. I understand why this stability based on ignorance of the many would appeal to Plato but as someone who has been fascinated for years with the pantheon of Divinities prevalent in his era, I simply cannot see how one could choose such an abstract idea of God instead of Divinities modeled with human flaws, a true reflection of their worshippers, a system of belief that does not leave the harm and catastrophes of the world out of the will and actions of the Gods, leading to recognition to the fact that if any sort of divinity truly exists, our humanly flawed definition of perfection could never be fit for it.

If anyone actually read this then wow congratulations, thank you for enduring the hardship that is going through my grammatically incorrect rambles.
In this review, I only tackled some aspects of the structure of the ideal state, so if you found yourself interested in its contents I recommend you actually read Plato’s work. There are many important things I did not address such as the main allegories present in this text which are the allegory of The Sun, The Divided Line, Plato’s Cave, and The Ship of State. I did not address them or Plato’s views on different political systems since if did so this review would be unbearably long.