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IV. Plato and Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
Plato is best regarded as having constructed an imaginary Pythagorean commune, hanging in the pure ether of hypothesis, in order to show how political life derives from the metaphysical Ultimates of the Universe, and how the same Unity which everywhere disciplines variety into excellence and limit and expresses itself in cosmic and individual life, soul and mind, is also expressed in the mutual regard that different individuals and different groups of individuals have for one another in an ordered social whole.
But this view is not tenable unless one is ready to regard all Western political thought as mistaken. For when Aquinas adapted the basic concepts of Aristotle’s Politics to medieval Christianity and to Christendom, he was taking over Plato’s thought, although in a reduced form. Findlay removes all real concern for human institutions from Plato. Moreover, Augustine’s conception of two cities, one of them heavenly, remained in Europe as a vision, to supplement what Aristotle had reduced and Aquinas had codified.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1976
References
Notes
1. A most interesting publication of recent years is a translation by Lerner, Ralph of a Hebrew copy of an Arabic original—the commentary of Averroes on the Republic (Ithaca, New York, 1974)Google Scholar. Averroes shows what in the Republic is acceptable to a devout Muslim and what is not.
2. There is a brief and balanced discussion of the controversy on this matter in Vlastos, , Platonic Studies, 140-6 (reprinted from CPh 63 [1968], 291-5Google Scholar). See also below.
3. On ‘open’ and ‘closed’ societies see the discussion above (pp. 27—8) on Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies.
4. Even here there is a qualification to make. Note Plato’s caution at Republic 509c τά έμοί δοκούντα πЄрί αϋτού (se. τού àyaôov)—my personal convictions concerning ‘The Good’; and 517b та б’ ουν έμοί фашоџеча ούτω (paiverat and the words preceding: ‘This is in fact my hope—God must know if it corresponds to ultimate reality.’
5. In Lustrum 1959/4, 18—20, Harold Cherniss names the principal books and articles in the controversy. Wild’s, J. Plato ‘s Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law (Chicago, 1933)Google Scholar, reviewed by Allan, D. J. in CR N.S. 5 (1955), 53-6Google Scholar, is the most constructive reply, because of its positive appraisal of Plato’s achievement. Levinson, R. B. in In Defense of Plato (Cambridge, Mass., 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is very thorough and detailed; but Vries, G. J. de, Antisthenes Redivivus: Popper’s attack on Plato (Amsterdam, 1952)Google Scholar, is an even better ‘chapter and verse’ challenge in brief, citing passages from Plato against Popper’s various contentions in his book. Faris’s, J. A. article in CQ 44 (1950), 38—43 Google Scholar, may also be mentioned; so may Ryle’s, Gilbert review of Popper in Mind 56 (1947), 167 Google Scholar—72, from a point of view more sympathetic to him, and duly appreciative of The Open Society as concerned with more than the Republic. There has been an interesting ‘cross-bench’ discussion recently in Ethics 75 and 77 between Wayne A. R. Leys and F. E. Sparshott, asking whether Plato was ‘non-political’ or ‘anti-political’. Of course it depends on the meaning given to ‘political’. Vlastos has reproduced both these essays in his second collected volume on Plato.
6. In a sense the discussion is carried back to Mabbott’s essay ‘Is Plato’s Republic Utilitarian?’. This was first published in Mind 46 (1937) but was recast for Vlastos’s collection of essays on Plato (vol. 2, 57—65). Mabbott, however, looks at Glaucon’s statement at the beginning of Republic 2 after the traditional manner of an Oxford moral philosopher, while Barrow writes with a knowledge of present-day thought on education and sees the actual society described by Plato as in the truest sense ‘utilitarian’. (He has been rather savagely reviewed, but the novelty of his approach may in part account for this.)
7. Morrison’s, J. S. article ‘The Origin of Plato’s Philosopher-statesman’, CQ N.S. 8 (1958), 198—218 Google Scholar, is relevant and goes a little further than I have gone. For the Gorgias, Dodds’s edition gives all the help one needs in introduction and notes.