SUMMARY OF PLATO’S THE REPUBLIC

- nature of justice as its central problem

- first books represent the mundane through proverbial morality and traditional society
- middle books talk about pure philosophy
- examines the figure of the philosopher, metaphysics, and epistemology, an extended
investigation that culminates in the allegory of the vision, visibility, and the sun as
symbol of the good, or justice

IMPORTANT TERMS!!!!!!!!!
1. GUARDIAN – responsible for ruling the city
2. AUXILIARIES – responsible for defending the city from invaders and for keeping the
peace
3. PRODUCERS - focus exclusively on producing whatever it is that they are best suited to
produce
4. DIALECTIC – the Socratic technique of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth
– the Platonic investigation of the eternal ideas

BOOK ONE "Of Wealth, Justice, Moderation, and Their Opposites"

- takes place in Cephalus’s, father of Polemarchus, house
- Cephalus invites Socrates over to talk
- Cephalus and Socrates talk briefly about aging, where Cephalus criticizes those of age for
foolishly lamenting over the loss of youthful vigor
- Socrates questions as to why Cephalus acts this way and assumes it is about his wealth,
and Cephalus admits that wealth does present comfort to its possessor, but it offers true
peace only to those who are of good nature
- the topic shifts to justice but Cephalus leaves, leaving Socrates with Polemarchus
- Polemarchus thinks justice is giving a man what he deserves, but Socrates states that the
just man is a thief
- Thryasychamus argues that justice is the interest of the stronger, injustice benefits the
ruler absolutely
- Socrates refutes saying true rule is just rule as it is conducive to harmony, unity, and
strength
- the just man is happy, and the unjust is not
- Socrates’s method is in accord with the nature of inquiry and of intellectual exploration
itself
- the unjust man’s pride and ambition are shown to be weaknesses since he is incapable of
singular and common action
- just man is humble, wise, and strong

BOOK TWO "The Individual, the State, and Education"

- Glaucon takes a position that contradicts his own
- allegory of the shepherd: any man would act unjustly and seek power when freed of
legal/social responsibility
- Socrates believes guardians should be protected as much as possible from untruths they
cannot evaluate critically for themselves
 - evil appears only in the manifest
- “that God is not the author of all things, but of good only:”
- “he is one and the same immutably fixed in his own proper image”

BOOK THREE: “The Arts in Education”

- Socrates believes poetry and fiction are unsuitable for the early education for the
guardians of the state
- the only acceptable subjects for poetry and literature are strictly didactic (designed or
intended to teach)
- Socrates believes that the only acceptable subjects for poetry and literature are those that
teach the guardians four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance
-
- Socrates condones the systematic revision of great imaginative works in order to rectify
their moral content, presumably according to virtues, or behavioral manifestations of
justice
- it will be necessary to censor the artists and poets composing in the present so that what
has been eliminated in the past does not reoccur
- the GUARDIANS’ education appears excessively rigid and ascetic
- the GUARDIANS are the State’s most important citizens so no possible corruption can
be overlooked
- survival of the fittest mentality

BOOK FOUR: “Wealth, Poverty, and Virtue”

- continually reiterates the importance of education, of the harmonious balance between
music and gymnastics that will guide the citizens through life
- each man practice what he is best adapted to was one of the State's very basic provisions
- to define justice, Socrates constructed the perfect State and proceeded to examine an
individual citizen of the state
- justice for the individual is the realization of an internal harmony among his reason,
appetite, and spirit
- the State is the macrocosm (universe) of the individual, they share one anothers’
principles

BOOK FIVE: “On Matrimony and Philosophy”

- divided into matrimony and philosophy
- Socrates argues for a fundamental equality between the sexes, however despite the two
sexes sharing identical pursuits, males always quantitively surpass females in these
pursuits
- when everything is shared, there is unity: one citizen’s individual pain or pleasure is at
once collective
- the highest possibility for the realization of such a state (the ideal state) lies in
philosophers becoming kings or kings becoming philosophers
- knowledge is defined as the faculty enabling the philosopher to see his way to true,
undifferentiated being to absolute beauty and the immutable (not capable or susceptible
to change)
- opinion is the domain of the manifest and manifold of correlatives and opposites
 - the philosopher, by definition, seeks knowledge of true being above else
- in order to succeed, it would require a redistribution of property and wealth
- Plato’s epistemology is divided into non-being, manifest, and being
1. non-being – ignorant man
2. manifest – opinionated man
3. being – philosopher

BOOK SIX: “The Philosophy of Government”

- nature of the State’s rulers and the guardians as its primary subject
- truthfulness, valor, temperance, gentility, keenness of memory are some of the essential
qualities of the good and just ruler
- four facilities of the soul: reason, understanding, faith, and perception
- what is the opinion of most men is always not the opinion or knowledge of the
philosophers
- the true philosophers must hold to a minority truth or renounce their nature, they are
condemned to persecution of multitudes the very people that need the the most
- the four faculties of the soul correspond numerically to and are in balance with the four
virtues

BOOK SEVEN: “On Shadows and Realities in Education”

“The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not
misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upward to be the ascent of the soul into the
intellectual world" So, to be very clear on one point of possible confusion, the blinding sun of the
allegory is not the real sun, but a symbol for the good.”

- Allegory of the Cave (knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and
that, in order to have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning
- Socrates explains that the guardians owe the greater part of their illumination to the State
- education will raise man from darkness into the light
- despite the fact that they are self-taught, contemporary philosophers have no obligation to
serve their state

"As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is

science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows."

- the guardians must master dialectic and be able to employ it to grasp the good
- the long and arduous road to becoming a ruler of the state begins with informal
intellectual stimulation

BOOK EIGHT: “Four Forms of Government”

- the TIMOCRATIC state (government of honor) arises from the ideal when there is
discord
- the insatiable desire for freedom evolves democracy into tyranny
- OLIGARCHY is the tipping of the balance over into abject greed and materialism
 - class division between rich and poor immediately appear: this is negative and a sign of
injustice
- the rulers of a democracy tend toward extravagance and thus are softened physically and
mentally
- “DEMOCRACY theoretically stands for freedom, variety, individuality” is an equality of
unequals
- instead of believing that every man is innately good, Plato holds that every man has a
right to pursue the good
- freedom engenders TYRANNY and hinges on intrigue, deception, and misunderstanding
- a TYRANT must enter a race against his opponents, they must enter wars so that they
may have a reason to lead, they must tax, they must surround themselves with guardians,
and they must rob elders of the state, those who have conserved their money in the
oligarchic fashion
- the illusion of unlimited freedom in a democracy makes the slavish limitation of tyranny
possible

BOOK NINE: “On Wrong or Right Government, and the Pleasure of Each”
- the tyrant loses all reason, is overwhelmed by his appetites, and succumbs to a kind of
madness
- the tyrant is ruled by his appetites and is a slave to them
- the tyrant is condemned to the public life that in turn makes a slave of him
- the lover of knowledge, the philosopher, has access to both the pleasure of counterparts
and a pleasure to which they do not: wisdom
- pleasure and pain are correlative and disunified, are the only manifestiations of an
alternative, transcendent state
- the pleasures enjoyed by passionate man and the acquisitive man are by necessity bound
to pain
- the philosopher’s pleasure, knowledge, aspires for the immutable and is beyond pleasure
and pain both
- the Chimera (or of dual nature), then lion, and the man resembles a normal man
- he who allows the beast to rule is the unjust man and he how gives the man sovereignty,
just
- the man ruled by the beast inexorable degenerates and makes a serious error, betraying
the beast behind the man

BOOK TEN: “The Recompense of Life”

- poetic knowledge is of appearances only beause the poet would dedicate himself to
realities, limitations, or images
- the artist manipulates the passions of his audience
- there are three levels at which phenomena occur
1. the level of god who creates the bed as in idea
2. the carpenter who imitates God’s idea in making a particular bed
3. the poet or painter whose bed imitates the imitator’s
- “Hymn to the Gods and Praises to Famous Men”
- the human soul, fortified by the good, lives on eternally
- the soul cannot be purely known otherwise than through the faculty of reason
- the book closes with the tale of Er
- every man and woman arriving in the afterlife is held accountable and judged for his or
her actions
- a tyrant is condemned to hell for a thousand years
- the primarily righteous ascend to heaven where they are made to choose their next model
of life
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