Page 10 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes Socrates did not provide a theoretical exposition of the method, he established a clear-cut pattern
of dialectical reasoning for others to follow. He placed dialectics in the service of ethics, defining
virtue as a basis for rational and moral transformation. He used the method to secure answers
about human beings and society, and not nature. “Political philosophy emerged by way of an
ethical question which nature could never answer; the problems of men were not strictly
coterminous with the problems of nature” (Wolin 1960: 30).
The discussions in the Republic were conducted in a single room among Socrates, Cephalus and
his son Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon and Adeimantus. Cephalus, Polemarchus and
Thrasymachus appeared in Book I, while the discussion in the later books was carried on by
Socrates and Plato’s two brothers. In fact, Socrates was the main spokesman.
The Republic in Greek meant “justice”, and should not be understood in its Latin sense meaning
“the state or the polity”. It began with the quest of understanding the Idea of Good, and explained
how a perfect soul could be developed. Its core has been succinctly summarized as follows.
Philosophy meant to him what it meant to his master. The Socratic philosophy, analyzed
and formulated in the early dialogues, was not the study of nature or logic or
metaphysics; it was the pursuit of wisdom, and to achieve wisdom would be to achieve
human perfection, well being and happiness. This again meant not merely “caring for
one’s own soul” as an isolated individual, saving himself and leaving society to its
fate. Human excellence, as Plato and Aristotle after him always maintained, is the
excellence of an essentially social creature, a citizen. To produce this experience and
consequent well being is the true end of the “Royal Art” of statesmanship. Hence the
life of philosophy and the life of the active statesman ought not to be, as they appeared
to Callicles, alternative careers, but a single life in which all the highest powers of man
would find full expression. Society could be saved only by reuniting the two elements
which had been drifting apart.
The book explored the notion of justice and its realization within the individual and the state. It
sketched a detailed picture of the polity and social institutions, with a view to attaining human
excellence and perfection. It had an elaborate scheme of education, which led Rousseau to comment
that it was hardly a political work, but the finest treatise on education ever written. It contained a
detailed examination of the meaning of good life and outlined the means to achieve it.
In the repuhblic practically every side of Plato’s philosophy is touched upon or
developed, and its range of subject matter is such that it may be said to deal with the
whole of human life. It has to do with the good man and the good life, which for Plato
connoted life in a good state, and with the means for knowing what they are and for
attaining them. And to a problem so general no side of individual or social activity is
alien. Hence the Republic is not a treatise of any sort, nor does it belong to politics, or
ethics, or economics, or psychology, though it includes all these, and more, for art and
education and philosophy are not excluded.

The Republic is a book which defies classification. It fits into none of the categories either
of modern social studies or of modern social science.

1.3 Ideal State

In recent years, there have been doubts about Plato’s seriousness in implementing the Ideal State.
Strauss (1964) considered the Republic as the greatest critique of idealism ever written. It was a
satire written with the purpose of demonstrating the limits of what was politically feasible. This

4 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY