Plato: The Kallipolis Flashcards
The Kallipolis
The perfectly good polis (a just city)
What drives us to form states or societies?
We can’t meet all our needs alone
The first city
A true and healthy city with only needs and not wants
The luxurious city
Plato allows us to imagine a city with needs and wants as he believes it will be easier to spot justice in this city
Once we let luxuries into our city we need
People to guard us and our space to make sure we stay intact
We imagine the Kallipolis because
It will help identify which feature of its constitutes its justice
The greatest threat to the Kallipolis and why
Internal conflict because a divided polis is not a polis at all
Big question
Who does what?
Big answer
Principle of specialisation
POS
Each individual should fulfil only one role in the polis for which they are naturally best suited
Claim concerning nature
Each individual naturally best suited to something
Claim concerning interests
Our shared interests will be fulfilled when everyone takes their roles
Producers
Make the stuff to satisfy needs and wants
2 types of guardians
Auxiliaries - against external threats
Rulers - against internal threats
Why is the POS important for the Kallipolis
It ensures that everyone’s needs are fulfilled and that the polis is guarded from external and internal threats to maintain justice
POS big worry
Individuals choice: shouldn’t this matter morally and prudentially?
3 responses from Plato
Force
Education
Art
Force
Force may have to be used to make people perform their task or leave the polis
This can’t be done a lot though, need most people fulfilling their roles
Education
Plato thinks it’s important
Training of mind, body, and spirit of a person to perform a task
Art
Major role in Plato’s theory of education
He believes that the arts form our character
To get people to accept their roles Plato thinks that we should
Get rid of morally or prudentially bad art, incl. all romanticised art
Allow and spread good art that furthers the collective interest of the polis
Myth of the metals
False narrative that God made us with different kinds of metals in our souls and so has fitted us with a particular purpose accordingly
What is it supposed to show
The moral of the story is that we should each fulfil our chosen role in the Kallipolis as God created us for this purpose
Why does Plato think it is a morally and prudentially good myth
Because it ensures that each member of the Kallipolis fulfils their purpose, does not interbreed with other ‘metals’, and thus maintains justice in the polis
