Palto prt2 - Republic focused Flashcards
Kallipolis: characteristics of the city
- auxiliaries (soldiers), guardians (rulers, philosopher-kings) and workers (economy).
- Division of labour among the three classes and natural hierarchy =flourishing = justice.
Kallipolis: characteristics of the should/ mind
Plato believes there is a natural hierarchy in our soul too, not just in the city.
Divided in three: rational, spirit and desire.
City of pigs characteristics
- Based on supplying needs, division of labour and specialisation introduced (minimal state intervention)
- No luxury there = nothing valuable to steal, quite boring
- Free trade, famine free because if surplus, it will be used to make the population grow.
- Free of slaves
= (Libertarian utopia) - People are unified because they need to feed each others’ needs despite the absence of religion, luxury.
- No luxury but city based on needs? = gain the fortune for it through agriculture.
The two cities model (explanation)
- Why it was introduced: attempting to define justice and said that justice is easier to understand on a larger scale (city) and in an individual.
- Plato assumes that the qualities of a city is rooted and reflected by the characteristics of the people that live in it.
- Assumes that justice of the individual and justice of the state = same.
- Demonstration of which city is more just (Kallipolis)
Justice
Main statement: justice is a form or harmony found when people in society do their job and do not intervene with others’.
- Justice is found in the state: auxiliaries, workers and guardians.
- Justice is found in the soul: spirit, desire, rational.
Why introducing the 5 key aspects of a state?
Despite the natural hierarchy in the soul + in society, the 5 aspects should be embedded into the state to create a stable and moral just city.
Civic religion
Why? To create political and social order and unity.
- Shared habits, history, symbols etc.
Education
- To train for effective ruling, people should seek to be philosopher-kings.
- People should be educated to their full capacity regardless of their social class.
Censorship
- Socrates believed that God was bad, so we wanted to “cleanse” Greek religious thoughts to rationalise them (as they spread false things)
- Banish poets and regulating children’s’ songs
Noble lies
- Belief that nobles should lie to society to maintain social unity and order.
Lie = all citizens are born from the earth, making them literal brothers and therefore unify them more.
Purpose: ensure that the guardians (aka the soldiers) are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the city and its people.
Program of socialisation / education
purpose: shape the people as ideal citizens through strict education.
- censorship, physical + mental training, collective identity and no private families.
Platonic Eugenics
- a breeding program for soldiers.
- Positive breeding = a rigged lottery decides who mates for maintaining the “best” people.
- Negative breeding = weak, disabled babies are aborted or left to die.
- Goal = maintain strong ruling class.
Cave analogy (explanation)
- Prisoners stuck in a cage tight together, they have no light. One of them decides to look at what is on the other side (on the enlighten side) and discovers new things.
Cave analogy (assumptions from the analogy)
- Highlights the limitations of knowledge within the cave.
- Correlation vs causal science: Knowledge in the case is correlational- predictive (prisoners are able to identify the patterns behind the shadows but do not understand what is happening).
Causal science requires to know what is happening behind.
