Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume IV (of 4)

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Title: Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume IV (of 4)

Author: George Grote

Release Date: August 7, 2012 [EBook #40438]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLATO, COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES, VOL IV ***

Produced by Ed Brandon as part of the on-line Grote Project

PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

PLATO,

and the

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

by

GEORGE GROTE,

author of the ‘history of greece’.

A NEW EDITION.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

Vol. IV.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1888.

The right of Translation is reserved.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXXV.

PLATONIC REPUBLIC — ABSTRACT.

The Republic is the longest of all the Platonic dialogues, except the dialogue De Legibus. It consists of ten books, each of them as long as any one of the dialogues which we have passed in review. Partly from its length — partly from its lofty pretensions as the great constructive work of Plato — I shall give little more than an abstract of it in the present chapter, and shall reserve remark and comment for the succeeding.

Declared theme of the Republic — Expansion and multiplication of the topics connected with it.

The professed subject is — What is Justice? Is the just man happy in or by reason of his justice? whatever consequences may befall him? Is the unjust man unhappy by reason of his injustice? But the ground actually travelled over by Sokrates, from whose mouth the exposition proceeds, is far more extensive than could have been anticipated from this announced problem. An immense variety of topics, belonging to man and society, is adverted to more or less fully. A theory of psychology or phrenology generally, is laid down and advocated: likewise a theory of the Intellect, distributed into its two branches: 1. Science, with the Platonic Forms or Ideas as Realities corresponding to it; 2. Opinion, with the fluctuating semi-realities or pseudo-realities, which form its object. A sovereign rule, exercised by philosophy, is asserted as indispensable to human happiness. The fundamental conditions of a good society, as Plato conceived it, are set forth at considerable length, and contrasted with the social corruptions of various existing forms of government. The outline of a perfect education, intellectual and emotional, is drawn up and prescribed for the ruling class: with many accompanying remarks on the objectionable tendencies of the popular and consecrated poems. The post-existence, as well as the pre-existence of the soul, is affirmed in the concluding books. As the result of the whole, Plato emphatically proclaims his conviction, that the just man is happy in and through his justice, quite apart from all consideration of consequences — yet that the consequences also will be such as to add to his happiness, both during life as well as after death: and the unjust man unhappy in and through his injustice.1

1 Plat. Repub. i. pp. 328 A, 350 D, 354 A.

Personages of the dialogue.

The dramatic introduction of the dialogue (which is described as held during the summer, immediately after the festival of the Bendideia in Peiræus), with the picture of the aged Kephalus and his views upon old age, is among the richest and most spirited in the Platonic works: but the discussion does not properly begin until Kephalus retires, leaving it to be carried on by Sokrates with Polemarchus, Glaukon, Adeimantus, and Thrasymachus.

Views of Kephalus about old age.

Old age has its advantages to reasonable men (says Kephalus). If I have lost the pleasures of youth, I have at the same time lost the violent desires which then overmastered me. I now enjoy tranquillity and peace. Without doubt, this is in part owing to my wealth. But the best that wealth does for me is, that it enables me to make compensation for deceptions and injustice, practised on other men in my younger days — and to fulfil all vows made to the Gods. An old man who is too poor to render such atonement for past falsehood and injustice, becomes uneasy in his mind as death approaches; he begins to fear that the stories about Hades, which he has heard and ridiculed in his youth, may perhaps prove true.2

2 Plato, Repub. i. pp. 330-331.

Compare the language of Cato, more rhetorical and exaggerated than that of Kephalus, in Cic. De Senect. c. 13-14.

Definition of Justice by Simonides — It consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him.

Is that your explanation of justice (asks Sokrates): that it consists in telling truth, and rendering to every one what you have had from him? The old man Kephalus here withdraws; Polemarchus and the others prosecute the discussion. The poet Simonides (says Polemarchus) gives an explanation like to that which you have stated — when he affirms, That just dealing consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him.

Objections to it by Sokrates — There are cases in which it is not right to restore what is owing, or to tell the truth.

I do not know what Simonides means, replies Sokrates. He cannot mean that it is always right to tell the truth, or always right to give back a deposit. If my friend, having deposited arms with me, afterwards goes mad, and in that state demands them back, it would not be right in me either to restore the arms, or to tell the truth, to a man in that condition. Therefore to say that justice consists in speaking truth and in giving back what we have received, cannot be a good definition.3

3 Plato, Repub. i. p. 331 C-D.

The historical Sokrates argues in the same manner (in the Memorabilia of Xenophon. See his conversation with Euthydemus, iv. 2; and Cicero, De Offic. iii. 25, 94-95).

Polemarchus here gives a peculiar meaning to the phrase of Simonides: a man owes good to his friends — evil to his enemies: and he ought to pay back both. Upon this Sokrates comments.4

4 Sokrates here remarks that the precepts — Speak truth; Restore what has been confided to you — ought not to be considered as universally binding. Sometimes justice, or those higher grounds upon which the rules of justice are founded, prescribe that we should disobey the precepts. Sokrates takes this for granted, as a matter which no one will dispute; and it is evident that what Plato had here in his mind was, the obvious consideration that to tell the truth or restore a weapon deposited, to one who had gone mad, would do no good to any one, and might do immense mischief: thus showing that general utility is both the foundation and the limiting principle of all precepts respecting just and unjust. That this is present to the mind of Plato appears evident from his assuming the position as a matter of course; it is moreover Sokratic, as we see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon.

But Plato, in another passage of the Republic, clothes this Sokratic doctrine in a language and hypothesis of his own. He sets up Forms or Ideas, per se. The Just, — The Unjust, — The Honourable, — The Base, &c. He distinguishes each of these from the many separate manifestations in which it is specialised. The Form, though one reality in itself, appears manifold when embodied and disguised in these diversified accompaniments. It remains One and Unchanged, the object of Science and universal infallible truth; but each of its separate manifestations is peculiar to itself, appears differently to different minds, and admits of no higher certainty than fallible opinion. Though the Form of Justice always remains the same, yet its subordinate embodiments ever fluctuate; there is no given act nor assemblage of acts which is always just. Every just act (see Republic, v. pp. 476 A-479 A) is liable under certain circumstances to become unjust; or to be invaded and overclouded by the Form of Injustice. The genuine philosopher will detect the Form of Justice wherever it is to be found, in the midst of accompaniments however discrepant and confused, over all which he will ascend to the region of universal truth and reality. The unphilosophical mind cannot accomplish this ascent, nor detect the pure Form, nor even recognise its real existence: but sees nothing beyond the multiplicity of diverse particular cases in which it is or appears to be embodied. Respecting these particular cases there is no constant or universal truth, no full science. They cannot be thrown into classes to which the superior Form constantly and unconditionally adheres. They are midway between reality and non-reality: they are matters of opinion more or less reasonable, but not of certain science or unconditional affirmation. Among mankind generally, who see nothing of true and absolute Form, the received rules and dogmas respecting the Just, the Beautiful, &c., are of this intermediate and ambiguous kind: they can neither be affirmed universally, nor denied universally; they are partly true, partly false, determinable only by opinion in each separate case. Plato, Repub. v. p. 479 C-D: οὔτ’ εἶναι οὔτε μὴ εἶναι οὐδὲν αὐτῶν δυνατὸν παγίως νοῆσαι, οὔτε ἀμφότερα οὔτε οὐδέτερον … Τὰ τῶν πολλῶν πολλὰ νόμιμα, καλοῦ τε πέρι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων, μεταξύ που κυλινδεῖται τοῦ τε μὴ ὄντος καὶ τοῦ ὄντος εἰλικρινῶς.

Of the distinction here drawn in general terms by Plato, between the pure unchangeable Form, and the subordinate classes of particulars in which that Form is or appears to be embodied, the reasoning above cited respecting truth-telling and giving back a deposit is an example.

Explanation by Polemarchus — Farther interrogations by Sokrates — Justice