HOPT Lecture 2 Plato Flashcards
you can be a methodological individualist without being a political individualist
you can be a methodological individualist without being a political individualist
plato and socrates views
we have innate differences
these differences points to a natural hierarchy. our innate inequality reflects a natural hieracyhy.
in the city of pigs this hierarchy is not respected (odd)
city of pigs recognizses differences in abillity but dont recognize the moreal political salliance.
(domuzlar şehri yeteneklerdeki farklılıkları kabul ediyor ancak ahlaki politik çıkarları kabul etmiyor.)
City of Pigs / Best city
hierarchy is relatively modest; not so in Feverish/luxerious city/kallipolis (very extreme but natural hiearchy acc. to socrates)
the very best political life insitutions and practices have to produce this identification of nature and goodness
Plato on hierarchy
The hierarchy is present in both sexes, but relatively symmetrical in them (return to this later).
best women are as best as the best man
worst woman is as worse as the worse man
Kalliapolis / lovely city
3 main classes:
- Gurardians (rulers)
- Auxiliarries (soldiers)
- workers (economy)
natural hierarchy for plato & kalliapolis
- needs to be ordered / unified from the top
- (natural hiearhcy purpose is to create flourishing, justice)
if there is a natural hierarchy in the city there must be one in us as well.
Soul (mind/psychology)
Triparte soul
- Rational part dominant in guardians
- spirited part dominant in auxillaries
- appetie/ desiring part dominant in workers (all skills)
Civic religion
rather than. a series of doctrines is the kind of thing that a collective thing would do —> creating harmony
- shared narratives, history, civic festivals
- In plato promotes conception of the good/ truth
- informs structure and content of societys many formal instituions
- plato thinks ordinary people are incapable of grasping real abstract truth that structures theoretical and practical life but they can be understood by using images and symbols.
in order to do that somebody who understands it has to mold them into one.
- plato thinks ordinary people are incapable of grasping real abstract truth that structures theoretical and practical life but they can be understood by using images and symbols.
Religion and censorship
socrates proposes to eliminate all the bad elements from the narratives that people get taught about the gods. because gods being represented bad is goes against what he beleives (undermining the very idea of good and bad)
socrates criticisez anthrophorphism in greek religion. he doesnt like that gods are portrayed as humans. he is a religious reformer (rationalizing prophet / reformer)
cencorship involves a banishment of poets but also regulation of children songs (those that talks about bad god stories. socrates is against that bc exposing it corrupts the young minds)
Noble Lies
state must use one noble lie (fictional / poetic / mythical story) to convince both the rulers and the citizens: point of the lie is that the guardians are willing to sacrifice their lives for others.
- not the use of propaganda of any purpose but to defend the survial of the state - in this case the noble lie is justified ( can be abused). without the continued existince of the polity and the state none of the things like justice is possible. so people should give their lives to defend this state (these people should also be fed propaganda)
- This commitment is a characteristic of political realism
Education
point of education in the polity is to perfect your nature so you can conserve the flourishing of the city
- regardless of class
- an education is perfection for ones nature
- a bad edcuation makes a person worse
- the education of the republic is not about content and info, more about chracter and psychological.
- education is turning humans natural desires to better desires
anything that forms character in a right way, will be a part of education not about school but about being a better person)
Laws
- Plato: law does not exist for a benefit of one class in the city. its aim is to generate and cultivate the benefit of the polity as a whole using persuasion and compulsion to bring citizens into harmony, making each class to share with the other. The laws intention is to bind the city together.
Analysis of the law
- in creating public benefit the law is not neutral. has to aim to genreate outcomes that will produce harmony and order.
- law benefits all
- for plato, law is a form of education and it educates through persuasion
- laws in his way are not “you have to obey” but “this why you have to obey and this is why this law exists” (Plato’s Law)
Socrates views on philosophers ruling
it is good to force the philospoher back into the cave such that he can be a philospoher. a true philosoppher doesnt wanna rule but to focus on his study.
- Firstly, good philosophers are born anywhere (doesnt matter if it is a good or bad state)
- Secondly, he thinks philospohy is a practice that puts the desire of political power/ part. away
- so socrates declined when he was given the oppurtuntiy of becoming a tyrant as a defense to an accusation of being interested in tyranny
Two part justification of why philosophers should become kings
(consequentialism)
1- consequentialist: permitted to compel a small class of citizens to sacrifice their happiness or benefits for the flourishing of the whole
limitation: when you force the philosophers to rule only it is if the city itself is well ordered. in badly ordered city conseqensialist argument has no force.
A note on justice
plato/socrates the law is aimed for substantive good
- justice is harmonizing and adapting citzens to each other and putting them functionally into a suitable, place
- so the laws of the kallipolis are supposed to produce a just society, that is functionally well ordered.
- organic methapors predominate the republic
Communism of The guardians/soldiers
communism = goods are owned in and common as needed (no priv. property)
- The political elites of this society will be kept poor. if they do have private property they will abuse their power - ordinary citizens have property
Communism of The guardians/soldiers
The soldiers/rulers in Sparta do eerything together (shared training and abstain from luxury)
Their communism is even extended to wives
- wives are free from marriagal duties, they can also be rulers / soldiers
- the ideal of fraternity was revived in the french revo.
Rather than money or property soldiers are honored with statues and festivals. every statue you see in the city motivates you to become a better person basically
Platonic Eugenism
Plato advocates an elaborate (positive) breeding program to produce and
maintain the right sort of soldiers and rulers with distinctive qualities
- Also involves the (negative) eugenics program of abortion and the letting
die of unwanted & weak/birth-defected children of all classes
Platonic Eugenism (continued)
The (positive) eugenics program (human enhancement) requires
deception (even on the ruling classes)
– Proposed a rigged lottery (with
“marriage number“) for mate selection
* Lotteries are thought to be fair
- But ensures that people will only breed with the right sort of mates
– Relies on an exact science of human nature & institutional deception
– Bacon, New Atlantis (founding text of modern science) revives this
ambition
Platonic Eugenism (continued
But Plato grants that (a) chance will make outcomes imperfect; and, more importantly, (b) that the guardians are unable to manage the breeding program; there are empirical limitations and, perhaps, even the rulers cannot be fully programmed to comply with the results of the
rigged lottery
* The best city is fundamentally unstable
* Good chunk of Republic is about decline of best
(aristocratic) city into worse cities (timocracy,
oligarchy, democracy, tyranny)
A note on the cave analogy by Plato in the republic
The science in the cave is correlational and predictive.
* But it is not a causal science in the cave
– It doesn’t grasp what connects the shadow images and the
ultimate origin of light (Sun)
* True science: grasps origins and causes Aristotle develops
this with system of four causes (will discuss in lecture on
Machiavelli) & Logic & Empirical observation 25
Platonic feminism (i)
Recall, it is assumed there are innate differences
– These are largely heritable (some chance)
– The division of labor should reflect these differences.
* These differences reflect a natural hierarchy.
* The hierarchy is present in both sexes, but relatively
symmetrical in them
* Best women are often (roughly)* as good as best men
– So, they are capable of being educated, soldiering, and
crucially ruling
* *Socrates seems to have thought that among the
rulers, the men excell the females (Republic 455c).
– Socrates makes plenty of sexist comments
Platonic Feminism (ii)
Platonic feminism (i) denies natural (and moral!) equality of human beings.
But, claims that (ii) any privileges and obligations you give to leading men
(based on some quality X) must also be offered to leading women (if/when
they possess quality X).
PF is a natural way to argue for women’s emancipation in
aristocratic/unequal/hierarchical societies.
– Gets displaced when equality becomes a leading moral and political
value again
– Anticipates lean-in feminism
* Platonic feminism is compatible with (a) sexist ideas; (b) thinking that in
actual societies women are made incapable of rule.
