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The Republic
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Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Fundamentals of Inner Politics”
To assess the question of individual morality, Socrates looks at whole communities, starting with their origin. To him, the community arises out of collective material want. Human beings have multiple needs, but “find that they aren’t self-sufficient” (59). In other words, a person discovers that, by their own labour, they cannot make everything (for example, all the clothes, food, and shelter one needs). To meet these wants we interact with others, exchanging goods. Further, different people have different talents. Thus, it also makes sense for individuals to specialise in the area to which they are best suited. For example, one man is better at making shoes, another at farming, another at weaving. Each person then devotes himself exclusively to his specific task and exchanges the surplus produced with others to meet his needs.
Socrates then elaborates on the nature of this division of labour. This involves trade with other communities and hence ship builders and merchants. The way of life of this community would be simple and healthy. However, Glaucon is unimpressed and remarks that it would resemble “a community for pigs” (63). Spurred on by this comment, Socrates examines the needs of a more advanced community. This would include artists, poets, actors, dancers, and more manufacturing. Since all this would necessitate a greater population, it would entail the expansion of the community’s land to feed and house them all. This would result in conflict with other communities and hence the need for an army composed of specialist soldiers. These professional soldiers, or “guardians” (66), moreover, should be chosen according to three characteristics. First, they must be physically strong and dexterous. Second, they would need passion, to be courageous, but also gentleness, so that they do not attack their own citizens. To meet the ostensibly contradictory demands of gentleness and passion a third quality is needed. Namely, the guardian must also possess “a philosopher’s love of knowledge” (69). This is so that they are perceptive enough to distinguish between the community’s friends and enemies.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Primary Education for the Guardians”
Socrates now addresses the question of how the guardians ought to be educated. His answer focuses on the kind of stories they should be told growing up and the literature they should read. What he calls “grander” (71) literature, such as the poets Hesiod and Homer, must be censored. The reason for this is that, regarding the guardians, “the first stories they hear are best adapted for their moral improvement” (73). Since the poetry of Hesiod and Homer involves tales of the Gods killing or betraying one another it does not meet his standard. Nor is it conducive to community cohesion because they discuss discord amongst the Gods. Furthermore, says Socrates, their stories about the Gods must be untrue. This is the case since, on his view, Gods are perfect and good. They therefore do not harm humans, change into less than perfect shapes, or deceive others, all of which occurs in texts by Homer.
However, education for the guardians should not just avoid promoting immorality. Rather it should actively promote morality and socially useful behaviour. For example, stories about Hades, the Greek underworld, must deny that is terrifying. This is so that soldiers are not afraid of death, and do not prefer defeat and enslavement to falling in combat. Excessive sentimentality and lamentation over death should, for similar reasons, be discouraged. Likewise, literature depicting prominent humans or Gods laughing is to be banned. Self-discipline is to be nurtured by poetry that valorises self-restraint with regard to food, drink, and sex. Conversely, depictions of drinking, feasting, and sexual satisfaction are discouraged. For instance, stories referring to the sexual activities of Zeus should be censored.
Having looked at the content of literature in the ideal community, Socrates examines the form or style it should take. He distinguishes between two fundamental kinds of form. These are “pure narrative” and “representational narrative” (88). In the former, the voice of the poet and the narrative is given openly and directly. With the latter, the voice of the poet is heard only indirectly, via the voices of characters he “represents.” Greek tragic drama and comedy are archetypal examples of this mode of narrative. Socrates argues that while pure narrative should be tolerated, representational narrative should be banned because it encourages the guardians to imagine themselves in inappropriate roles, such as that of women, slaves, immoral people, and madmen. His argument rests on the claim that the more one represents or imagines a role, the more that thing becomes a part of one’s character (that said, he concedes that representational narrative is enjoyable as an art form).
These considerations of what is beneficial and harmful to the community ought also to be applied to all other forms of artistic expression. As such, the principles laid down should apply to what music, sculpture, painting, and architecture are allowed. As with literature, the measure is what will produce good and appropriate character in the guardians. In music and visual arts, the emphasis should be on order and harmony over dissonance. Harmonious visual arts, says Socrates, also have the virtue of promoting rationality.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
Socrates must now determine the effects of morality on the mind. This is to show that morality can exist and that there are grounds for pursuing it. For if morality benefits us in a way beyond external self-interests there will be a real motivation for moral action. How will he do this? Socrates explains the approach he will take by way of an analogy. As he says to Glaucon,
Suppose we were rather short-sighted and had been told to read small writing from a long way off, and then one of us noticed the same letters written elsewhere in a larger size and on a larger surface (58).
In that case, he goes on, they would examine the larger letters first. And this would allow them to understand the smaller ones better. The point of this is to justify his choice to address the problem of individual morality by looking at the make-up of the ideal community first. His reasoning rests on two assumptions. First, that there is a strong resemblance between what makes for a happy, functioning, community and what makes for a happy mind. Second, that it is easier to first examine this representation of the mind than the mind directly.
Readers may find issues with Socrates’ initial outline of this community, specifically with the guardians. The guardians are the specialised soldiers whose job is to protect the community. The need for them arises, allegedly, because in a more advanced culture the proliferation of desires, and therefore the demand for land and resources, would result in conflict with other communities. Yet it is not immediately clear that this is necessary. Why does the ideal community have to transition from the simple, rustic, life described at first to the complex, expanding society that requires guardians? This question is especially pointed if one considers the description of the former, and the things motivating its abandonment. Of the people in the rustic society, “they’ll enjoy having sex” (63). Also, “their life will pass in peace and good health” (63). On the other hand, Socrates describes the advanced state as “an indulgent community” (64). Their “people will have all sorts of furniture like couches and tables, and a wide selection of savouries, perfumes, incense, prostitutes, and pastries” (64).
Are these luxuries worth going to war for? A more defensible justification for this transition may be given further on. There, Socrates suggests that the advanced society would also have poets, musicians, dancers, and actors. Allowing human beings to understand, and creatively explore, their situation through art might legitimise moving to a more materialistic and hierarchical society. Or at least it would if the next move were not to immediately curtail that expression. Art, for the guardians, becomes subordinated to the demands of social utility. Homer’s poetry, and Greek tragic drama and comedy are banned. They are replaced only with bland art that allows guardians better to fulfil their role. Indeed, “the better poetry they are, the more they are to be kept from the ears of children and the men who are to be autonomous” (80-81). That is, the most imaginative art, which gives us the greatest pleasure and elevates our consciousness is also the most likely to be censored. For example, representational art, which engages the imagination, as opposed to “pure narrative”, is banned.
There is also is the question of who it is making these decisions. Whether art is beneficial or harmful could not be determined unless someone were to see it first. And this could not be the same people who were to consume it. Thus, some other higher caste would be needed to make this decision. This is why Socrates must next introduce a division in the guardians themselves, and then the “philosopher kings.” These castes would have to implicitly lie to the people they were supposed to be helping. That is, they would only allow them myths and stories which presented a specific, socially useful, view of reality. This creates the problem of endorsing lying to promote morality. It also makes society more hierarchical and authoritarian. These are tensions that recur throughout The Republic. They are at the root of many criticisms levelled at Plato, especially from a liberal viewpoint. Still, it is worth examining more of the substance of his ideal given subsequently before drawing any conclusions. For only then will it become clear if the ends justify the means. This is both in terms of the imagined perfect community, and the deeper goal of justifying morality.
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