Plato + Aristotle

Reading from Plato, Republic.html

Plato, Republic, Book IV (extract)

from the complete works of Plato, trans. Paul Shorey

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969)

Socrates is speaking.

[441c] . . . “Through these waters, then,” said I, “we have with difficulty made our way and we are fairly agreed that the same kinds equal in number are to be found in the state and in the soul of each one of us.”

Glaucon replies.

“That is so.”

Socrates

“Then does not the necessity of our former postulate immediately follow, that as and whereby the state was wise so and thereby is the individual wise?”

Glaucon

“Surely.”

Etc.

“And so whereby and as [441d] the individual is brave [or, courageous], thereby and so is the state brave [or, courageous], and that both should have all the other constituents of virtue in the same way?”

“Necessarily.”

“Just too, then, Glaucon, I presume we shall say a man is in the same way in which a city was just.”

“That too is quite inevitable.”

“But we surely cannot have forgotten this, that the state was just by reason of each of the three classes found in it fulfilling its own function.”

“I don't think we have forgotten,” he said.

“We must remember, then, that each of us also in whom the several parts within him [441e] perform each their own task—he will be a just man and one who minds his own affair.”

“We must indeed remember,” he said.

“Does it not belong to the rational part to rule, being wise and exercising forethought in behalf of the entire soul, and to the principle of high spirit to be subject to this and its ally?”

“Assuredly.”

“Then is it not, as we said, the blending of music and gymnastics that will render them concordant, intensifying [442a] and fostering the one with fair words and teachings and relaxing and soothing and making gentle the other by harmony and rhythm?”

“Quite so,” said he.

“And these two thus reared and having learned and been educated to do their own work in the true sense of the phrase, will preside over the appetitive part which is the mass of the soul in each of us and the most insatiate by nature of wealth. They will keep watch upon it, lest, by being filled and infected with the so-called pleasures associated with the body and so waxing big and strong, it may not keep to its own work [442b] but may undertake to enslave and rule over the classes which it is not fitting that it should, and so overturn the entire life of all.” “By all means,” he said.

“Would not these two, then, best keep guard against enemies from without also in behalf of the entire soul and body, the one taking counsel, the other giving battle, attending upon the ruler, and by its courage executing the ruler's designs?”

“That is so.”

“Brave [or, courageous], too, then, I take it, we call [442c] each individual by virtue of this part in him, when, namely, his high spirit preserves in the midst of pains and pleasures the rule handed down by the reason as to what is or is not to be feared.”

“Right,” he said.

“But wise by that small part that ruled in him and handed down these commands, by its possession in turn within it of the knowledge of what is beneficial for each and for the whole, the community composed of the three.”

“By all means.”

“And again, was he not sober [or, temperate] [442d] by reason of the friendship and concord of these same parts, when, namely, the ruling principle and its two subjects are at one in the belief that the reason ought to rule, and do not raise faction against it?”

“The virtue of soberness [or, temperance] certainly,” said he, “is nothing else than this, whether in a city or an individual.”

“But surely, now, a man is just by that which and in the way we have so often described.” “That is altogether necessary.”

“Well then,” said I, “has our idea of justice in any way lost the edge of its contour so as to look like anything else than precisely what it showed itself to be in the state?”

“I think not,” he said. 

[442e] “We might,” I said, “completely confirm your reply and our own conviction thus, if anything in our minds still disputes our definition—by applying commonplace and vulgar tests to it.”

“What are these?”

“For example, if an answer were demanded to the question concerning that city and the man whose birth and breeding was in harmony with it, whether we believe that such a man, entrusted with a deposit of gold or silver, would withhold it and embezzle it, who do you suppose would think that he would be more likely so to act [443a] than men of a different kind?”

“No one would,” he said.

“And would not he be far removed from sacrilege and theft and betrayal of comrades in private life or of the state in public?”

“He would.”

“And, moreover, he would not be in any way faithless either in the keeping of his oaths or in other agreements.”

“How could he?”

“Adultery, surely, and neglect of parents and of the due service of the gods would pertain to anyone rather than to such a man.”

“To anyone indeed,” [443b] he said.

“And is not the cause of this to be found in the fact that each of the principles within him does its own work in the matter of ruling and being ruled?”

“Yes, that and nothing else.”

“Do you still, then, look for justice to be anything else than this potency which provides men and cities of this sort?”

“No, by heaven,” he said, “I do not.”

“Finished, then, is our dream and perfected —the surmise we spoke of, that, by some Providence, at the very beginning of our foundation of the state, [443c] we chanced to hit upon the original principle and a sort of type of justice.”

“Most assuredly.”

“It really was, it seems, Glaucon, which is why it helps, a sort of adumbration of justice, this principle that it is right for the cobbler by nature to cobble and occupy himself with nothing else, and the carpenter to practice carpentry, and similarly all others. But the truth of the matter was, as it seems, [443d] that justice is indeed something of this kind, yet not in regard to the doing of one's own business externally, but with regard to that which is within and in the true sense concerns one's self, and the things of one's self—it means that a man must not suffer the principles in his soul to do each the work of some other and interfere and meddle with one another, but that he should dispose well of what in the true sense of the word is properly his own, and having first attained to self-mastery and beautiful order within himself, and having harmonized these three principles, the notes or intervals of three terms quite literally the lowest, the highest, and the mean, [443e] and all others there may be between them, and having linked and bound all three together and made of himself a unit, one man instead of many, self-controlled and in unison, he should then and then only turn to practice if he find aught to do either in the getting of wealth or the tendance of the body or it may be in political action or private business, in all such doings believing and naming the just and honorable action to be that which preserves and helps to produce this condition of soul, and wisdom the science [444a] that presides over such conduct; and believing and naming the unjust action to be that which ever tends to overthrow this spiritual constitution, and brutish ignorance, to be the opinion that in turn presides over this.”

“What you say is entirely true, Socrates.”

“Well,” said I, “if we should affirm that we had found the just man and state and what justice really is in them, I think we should not be much mistaken.”

“No indeed, we should not,” he said.

“Shall we affirm it, then?” “Let us so affirm.”

“So be it, then,” said I; “next after this, I take it, we must consider injustice.” “Obviously.”

[444b] “Must not this be a kind of civil war of these three principles, their meddlesomeness and interference with one another's functions, and the revolt of one part against the whole of the soul that it may hold therein a rule which does not belong to it, since its nature is such that it befits it to serve as a slave to the ruling principle? Something of this sort, I fancy, is what we shall say, and that the confusion of these principles and their straying from their proper course is injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and brutish ignorance and, in general, all turpitude.”

“Precisely this,” [444c] he replied.

“Then,” said I, “to act unjustly and be unjust and in turn to act justly the meaning of all these terms becomes at once plain and clear, since injustice and justice are so.”

“How so?”

“Because,” said I, “these are in the soul what the healthful and the diseaseful are in the body; there is no difference.”

“In what respect?” he said.

“Healthful things surely engender health and diseaseful disease.”

“Yes.”

“Then does not doing just acts engender justice [444d] and unjust injustice?”

“Of necessity.”

“But to produce health is to establish the elements in a body in the natural relation of dominating and being dominated by one another, while to cause disease is to bring it about that one rules or is ruled by the other contrary to nature.”

“Yes, that is so.”

“And is it not likewise the production of justice in the soul to establish its principles in the natural relation of controlling and being controlled by one another, while injustice is to cause the one to rule or be ruled by the other contrary to nature?”

“Exactly so,” he said. “Virtue, then, as it seems, would be a kind of health [444e] and beauty and good condition of the soul, and vice would be disease, ugliness, and weakness.”

“It is so.”

“Then is it not also true that beautiful and honorable pursuits tend to the winning of virtue and the ugly to vice?”

“Of necessity.”

 

This selection illustrates Plato’s four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, & justice.