can be happy, regardless of his material circumstances.
The challenges of defining justice and understanding its effects on long-term happiness, fulfillment, and well-being-all of which are conveyed by the Greek word eudaimonia— lead to the discussion of the ideal city-state, which is posited as a large-scale vehicle for apprehending the operations of justice in the individual. Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus spend a good deal of time and energy discussing how the ideal state will be organized, and how its classes of warriors and leaders will be selected, educated, and provided for; they are especially concerned in books 2 and 3 with the training and acculturation of guardian children, whose exposure to poetry (Iliad and Odyssey in particular) is to be severely curtailed lest they learn harmful values and patterns of behavior.
Yet the three never lose sight of the goals of their examination. By the end of book 4, they arrive at a working (and, in several regards, striking) definition of justice as the condition, or state of being, in which each person in the community—and each element of the individual human soul ( psyche ) — minds his/her/its own business and does his/her/its own “work.” Since it has been determined that there is in the human soul, as in human society, a natural ruling element, justice is thus equated with the unencumbered rule of these elements: the “gold” class of guardians in the ideal state, which holds sway over the silver and bronze/iron classes, and, in the individual, the rational part of the soul that ought to be master of both “spirit” and appetites.
The demonstration of how the rule of the superior element generates happiness in community and individual alike, however, is postponed until books 8 and 9. At the beginning of book 5, the brothers join Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and the others in pressing Socrates to explain some of the extraordinary provisions he has stipulated for the lifestyle of the ideal state’s guardian classes. The group is most keenly interested in the proposed abolition of individual families. Socrates’ explanation of the “community” of wives and children among the guardians leads to exploration of a series of related topics: (1) the near-equality of female guardians, who would be warriors and leaders; (2) the abolition of private property in the guardian classes; and (3) the overall possibility of the ideal state as it has been heretofore envisioned.
In response to Glaucon’s query about this last issue, Socrates presents his bold thesis: The ideal state will come into being when “philosophers are kings, [and] the kings and philosophers of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy...” (5.473d-e). This statement drives the rest of the discussion in books 5-7, in which Socrates seeks with Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ help to define philosophers, delineate the ultimate goal of their practice of philosophy as well as its utility, and outline the educational curriculum that would prepare philosophers, who are identified with the gold class of the ideal state, for their political responsibilities. In the course of this discussion, Socrates introduces the concept of metaphysical entities possessing true “being”; he calls them “ideas” (ideai and also eidê in Greek, terms that are sometimes translated as “forms”), and he presumes Plato’s brothers know something about them. He also argues, using the image of the “divided line,” that there are four distinct cognitive faculties whereby different types of objects are apprehended, ranging from the ideas themselves to entities in the phenomenal world to mere “reflections” and “imitations.”
To facilitate his audience’s appreciation of these abstract concepts, he develops two more striking images: the simile of the sun, which conveys the supreme importance of the idea of the good, and the allegory of the cave, which describes the difficult path of enlightenment
The challenges of defining justice and understanding its effects on long-term happiness, fulfillment, and well-being-all of which are conveyed by the Greek word eudaimonia— lead to the discussion of the ideal city-state, which is posited as a large-scale vehicle for apprehending the operations of justice in the individual. Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus spend a good deal of time and energy discussing how the ideal state will be organized, and how its classes of warriors and leaders will be selected, educated, and provided for; they are especially concerned in books 2 and 3 with the training and acculturation of guardian children, whose exposure to poetry (Iliad and Odyssey in particular) is to be severely curtailed lest they learn harmful values and patterns of behavior.
Yet the three never lose sight of the goals of their examination. By the end of book 4, they arrive at a working (and, in several regards, striking) definition of justice as the condition, or state of being, in which each person in the community—and each element of the individual human soul ( psyche ) — minds his/her/its own business and does his/her/its own “work.” Since it has been determined that there is in the human soul, as in human society, a natural ruling element, justice is thus equated with the unencumbered rule of these elements: the “gold” class of guardians in the ideal state, which holds sway over the silver and bronze/iron classes, and, in the individual, the rational part of the soul that ought to be master of both “spirit” and appetites.
The demonstration of how the rule of the superior element generates happiness in community and individual alike, however, is postponed until books 8 and 9. At the beginning of book 5, the brothers join Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and the others in pressing Socrates to explain some of the extraordinary provisions he has stipulated for the lifestyle of the ideal state’s guardian classes. The group is most keenly interested in the proposed abolition of individual families. Socrates’ explanation of the “community” of wives and children among the guardians leads to exploration of a series of related topics: (1) the near-equality of female guardians, who would be warriors and leaders; (2) the abolition of private property in the guardian classes; and (3) the overall possibility of the ideal state as it has been heretofore envisioned.
In response to Glaucon’s query about this last issue, Socrates presents his bold thesis: The ideal state will come into being when “philosophers are kings, [and] the kings and philosophers of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy...” (5.473d-e). This statement drives the rest of the discussion in books 5-7, in which Socrates seeks with Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ help to define philosophers, delineate the ultimate goal of their practice of philosophy as well as its utility, and outline the educational curriculum that would prepare philosophers, who are identified with the gold class of the ideal state, for their political responsibilities. In the course of this discussion, Socrates introduces the concept of metaphysical entities possessing true “being”; he calls them “ideas” (ideai and also eidê in Greek, terms that are sometimes translated as “forms”), and he presumes Plato’s brothers know something about them. He also argues, using the image of the “divided line,” that there are four distinct cognitive faculties whereby different types of objects are apprehended, ranging from the ideas themselves to entities in the phenomenal world to mere “reflections” and “imitations.”
To facilitate his audience’s appreciation of these abstract concepts, he develops two more striking images: the simile of the sun, which conveys the supreme importance of the idea of the good, and the allegory of the cave, which describes the difficult path of enlightenment
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