Plato Ideal State.

THE IDEAL STATE IN PLATO'S "REPUBLIC"
Author(s): Rex Martin

Source: History of Political Thought , Spring 1981, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 1-30
Published by: Imprint Academic Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26211766
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History of Political
Thought
This content downloaded from

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE IDEAL STATE IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC*
Rex Martin
The title of Plato's Politeia is traditionally given in Latin form as Republic.

If we were to translate Plato's own title it would be 'regime' or 'constitution'
or, more literally, 'the arrangement of the parts that compose the polis'. The
traditional subtitle of the work is usually rendered as 'concerning justice', or
'righteousness'. A more literal-minded rendering would be 'concerning
Tightness'. Plato's book, if we can judge by its title, is concerned with
Tightness in the arrangement of the parts of the polis.
What are these parts? In Republic Book II Socrates (who is, we will
presume, the spokesman of Plato in this dialogue)attempts to deal with the
problem of the nature and origin of justice1 by developing a simplified model
of the polis, arguing 'if we observed the birth of a city in theory, we would
also see its justice and injustice beginning to exist' ,2 The parts of the polis
emerge in this same account.
The State of the Guardians
Socrates' method here is first to construct an economically self-sufficient

city of a rather rudimentary sort. This city, based on the principle of division
of labour, would be a fairly small one — consisting initially of only four or
five people. 'One man obviously must be a farmer, another a builder, and
another a weaver. Or should we add a cobbler and some other craftsmen to
look after our physical needs?'.3 But the city rapidly becomes larger as a
* For quotations from the Republic I will use the translation by Grube. The pattern of citation in
the footnotes will be as follows: 11 means Book II of the Republic; 369.a refers to the canonical
pagination (and section of page) in the sixteenth-century Stephanus edition; p. 39 refers to p. 39
of Plato's Republic, translated by G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis, 1974, second printing). Where
other translations are quoted, I will identify the translator by name and supply the
bibliographical information. Finally, in cases where I refer to the Republic but do not quote
from it, I will give only the Book and Stephanus page numbers, e.g. (II, 369.a).
1II, 358.e.
2II, 369.a, p. 39.
3II, 369.d,p. 40.
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. II. No. 1. Spring. January 1981

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
R.MARTIN
variety of economic activities are seen to be necessary and, for e

activity, a class of practitioners is added to the population (e.g. me
shipbuilders, sailors). The resulting city, though economically self-s
and even prosperous, remains one dimensional. For all its ene
focused on physical well being — on health, on longevity, on the n
of living. Hence Glaucon calls it a 'city of pigs'.4
Socrates sees the point; the city-in-theory needs a touch of lux

must no longer provide them only with the necessities we mentioned a
horses and clothes and shoes, but we must call in painting and emb
we must acquire gold and silver and all such things'.5 A city of som
and refinement, such as this one, is still going to be an economic entity
is still conceived largely in terms of the provision of goods and service
But it begets land hunger, annexation, the need for defence. So a

class of guardians is called into being.6
The principle of division of labour, or specialization, remains cr

Socrates' account. 'We prevented the cobbler trying to be at the sam
farmer or a weaver or a builder, and we said that he must remain a cob
that the product of his craft [will] be good; so with the others, eac
have one trade for which he had a natural aptitude, stick to it for
keep away from other crafts so as not to miss the opportunities to pra
own craft well. [And] is it not of the greatest importance that matters
be well performed?'.7 So the warrior is not a part-time soldier (the rest
time being a cobbler, say); rather, he is like everyone else a speci
craft.
The parts of the polis are specialists in the various crafts, economic and
military. Or, if you will, the parts are the activities or craft-functions
themselves; and individuals enter the picture only as craftsmen, as specialists
each devoted to the doing well of his peculiar craft.
Herè-the ahcdunt in Book II of the Republic takes on a certain resonance

with points made in Book I in the dispute between Thrasymachus and
Socrates. For Thrasymachus had staked out a position which depended on
4 II, 372.d, p. 42.
5II, 373.a, p. 43.
6II, 374.
7II, 374.b, c, p. 44.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
THE IDEAL STATE IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC
the claim that 'no practitioner of a craft ever errs'.8 His point is
doctors, for example, never make mistakes but that the craft of
does not itself include the mistakes or failures of doctoring. Craft fai
no part of what a doctor properly does, for the standard of any craft
craft when done well. Thus a doctor who is acting characteristic
properly with respect to his craft is doing it well; he is not makin
mistakes. Socrates and Thrasymachus agree on this point.9
The just (or right) first appears, then, as what is correct or pro
craft, when that craft is being done well. Since a city is but a whole m
of a number of crafts, we can extrapolate this conclusion to cover
polis·, justice in a city, we can say provisionally, is the well doin
various crafts or functions that go to make it up. And well doing
learned, requires specialization.
Rulers too are craftsmen. By parity of reasoning, then, a ruler when

in character, or properly, is doing his craft well. And what is this cra
The rulers are first presented as overseers; they are guardi

preservers of the city as a whole.10 The principal end of their craft-f
to maintain the well doing of the various /jo/is-activities (econo
military) and, basic to that, the principle of craft-specialization. W
function is done well then the craft of ruling is itself done well.
The rulers are said to be recruited from among the guardian warrior
are to rule both over them and, through the guardian warriors,
economic classes. Indeed the non-ruling members of the guardian
become merely helpers or auxiliaries12 to the rulers. So their craft
described, broadly, as executive rather than as merely military.
In order to perform their proper and characteristic function well, t

overseeing and preserving the just city, rulers require a certain excelle
virtue); they require knowledge of 'the city as a whole, how best to m
8 1, 340.e, p. 14.
9 1, 342. b.
10II, 412. c.
11 Ibid.
12II, 414. b.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
R.MARTIN
good relations both internally and with other cities'.13 Such knowled
to guide the craft of rulership to its appointed ends, must itself be
must include knowledge of the various ends, the well doing of the c
crafts, and the correct ordering of those ends. And knowledge of th
imperfect short of knowledge of what makes any end good an
principle for ranking goods or excellences.14 At each point the
knowledge is theoretical in nature. And rulers must, in the end,
of the good and of the just; this last and highest stage of the
appropriate to their vocation is, when perfected, called wisdom
then, is the peculiar excellence or virtue that the ruler must ha
DroDer iob superlatively well.
The auxiliary to the ruler requires a somewhat different excellence in order

to perform his characteristic function well. His task is to assist the rulers,
largely in an executive role (which includes, of course, military service). His
craft, when done well, amounts to energetic and scrupulous executive
activity; and this requires a virtue described variously as spiritedness, as
vigour, or, especially when military service is in view, as courage.
The auxiliary will, of course, require knowledge appropriate to his

executive tasks. But such knowledge is different from that characteristic of
the rulers. The difference is significant not so much as regards ends of crafts
and their ordering but, rather, as regards first things — goods or excellences
per se and the principle of their ordering. Here the auxiliary must get by with
something less than scientific knowledge (which is what the rulers have),
requiring only correct opinion.15 The auxiliary has or gets these correct
opinions by attending to the rulers; he is, presumably, able to translate their
conclusions or edicts into sound policy (or sound administration) without, at
the same time, being able to follow their reasoning back all the way to its
base, to the very first things. Or, if the auxiliary can follow it, he is (unless a
future recruit to rulership)nonetheless unable to originate such reasoning on
his own. And, while staying in character as an auxiliary, he need not.
The members of the economic and productive classes have yet another
characteristic excellence. All of them are engaged in crafts which have as their
proper end the satisfaction of some physical need or of some creditable desire
13IV, 428. d, p.94.
14 VI, 506. a, b; VII, 540. a, b.
15IV, 430. b.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
for luxury, for refinement, for higher things. Since they are
things that satisfy appetites and desires, they must have their own
and desires under sufficient control so as to perform their charact
well. More important, these things must be under sufficient contr
different regimen, lying somewhere beyond the life that is devised
satisfy appetites, can be accepted. Moderation or self-control wi
the appetites, then, is the peculiar excellence required of farm
artisans. But, clearly, such moderation is expected of auxiliarie
too; the point is that it is the main thing expected of the economic
the ideal state. It is their saving virtue: for by moderating appetite
of these classes will be able to perform their tasks well and to
places, submitting to the rule of the others.
Again, the farmers and craftsmen do require knowledge app

performing well their craft-tasks. Such knowledge is know-ho
and, even were it put into words (as instruction, for example), it w
theoretical knowledge. It is not even right opinion in the area o
regards the knowledge characteristic of rulers the economic cl
neither that, let alone its perfection as wisdom, nor the corr
expected of auxiliaries. The economic classes follow the lead o
their own way, through habituation sponsored by good institu
and by obedience to their knowing and right believing superiors.16
The just polis or ideal state in Plato's Republic is, we said ear
which the various crafts that go to make it up are all of them well
this, we noted, requires specialization. We have since come to s
perfection requires not only specialization but also hierarchy
crafts and, hence, among their practitioners. This brings us back t
from which this paper started: that the justice discussed in the Rep
right order of the parts of the polis.
16 See IX, 590. b—d, for a fanciful version of this theme.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
R.MARTIN
A Chart of the Perfect City17
Excellence Required for

Order Craft-Function (Type)This Function to be Class Name
Done Well18
(1) Theoretical Knowing Wisdom Rulers

(2) Executive activity Spiritedness Auxiliaries
(3) Providing Goods Moderation: Economic
and services: classes
(a)to satisfy appetites
for things physically
needed of nutritive appetites, e.g. farmers
(b)to satisfy desires of desires e.g. some

for luxury, refinement artisans
17 G as ses (1) and (2) on the chart can be called the Guardians; the Guardians are the ruling
class(es). All three of the classes together comprise the citizens. There are probably slaves as well
(IV, 433.d; V, 471.a,b) but they do not figure as 'parts' of the perfect city and, hence, are not a
class in it.
11 The theory of class virtues (or excelleces) in Plato's Republic ultimately takes the form of an
inverted pyramid:
class name class excellence(s)
(1) rulers Τ C W (W = Wisdom)

(2) auxiliaries Τ C (C = courage or spiritedness)
(3) economic classes Τ (Τ = temperance or moderation)
It should be recalled that rulers are recruited from (2); hence they have the virtue C. And the
continue to require it (spiritedness, vigour, etc) in their own characteristic tasks.
It is difficult to find a definitive argument for the rule of the wise in the Republic. A
interesting one is suggested by the inverted pyramid: the title of that class to rule is given by
fact that it (and only it) is composed of persons who have all he excellences. (IX, 582 ff.) On t
reading wise people rule, not because wisdom is the chief or ruling virtue, but because
attaining wisdom they complete the set of virtues.
In IX, 582.d, it is further suggested that the wise have gained temperance (over the appetite
through experience and, indeed, it is their experience at each of three levels On each of th
kinds of lives) that counts. This is somewhat different from saying, simply, that it is knowled
that counts and quite different from saying, as Plato did earlier, that the knowledge of the w
excludes experience of the baser appetites and so on (III, 409). The problem of the relat
weight of experience over against (theoretical) knowledge is a deep one in Plato's doctrine
wisdom and is not fully resolved in the Republic. The decided tendency of the dialogue, thoug
is to treat theoretical knowledge as the very core of wisdom, including political wisdom. I sha
return to this point at the very end of the present paper.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
The view I have developed, and summarized in the chart, can profitab
contrasted with other accounts of platonic justice. Barker has advance
view that justice in the ideal state amounts simply to specialization.19
view is, I grant, faithful to a number of passages in the Republic itself: th
that 'everyone must pursue one occupation of those in the city, that for w
his nature best fitted him'20 is explicitly said to be justice or the just thin
But Barker's reading is, I think, too literal. For specialization is, after
only a necessary means to doing one's craft well. It is the achieving of pro
craft ends that counts and the whole set 'of those in the city' canno
achieved without a proper arrangement, a correct ordering of the constitu
crafts.
Indeed, the wise man cannot bring his knowledge to bear, or use h
wisdom, without being in charge. Nor can the executive class administe
best policies without serving the wise ruler and transmitting his charges t
other citizens. Thus the auxiliaries naturally take an intermediate pos
The crafts, one might say, sort themselves out — to form, ultimate
hierarchy.
Randall has abstracted this theme of order — of organization, efficiency

— and made it dominant.22 But justice is not order per se, just any order, or
efficiency at any price. Some arrangements may meet the criterion of order,
may be highly organized and even efficiently so, and still not be rightly
ordered. Only those that are can be called just, for the form of justice is right
order.
One cannot say, then, that justice is simply specialization or simply

organization and efficiency. Such accounts are one-sided and need to be
brought within a single focus. Thus, Socrates says, this emphasis on
specialization alone can give us but an 'image' of justice.23 Hence I have
19 See Ernest Barker, The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle (New York, 1959),pp.94,116
in particular.
20IV, 433.a, pp. 97—8.
21 And is also said at IV, 433.b,d,e, 434.C, 435.b.
22 See John Herman Randall, Jr., Plato: Dramatist of the Life of Reason (New York, 1970), pp.
161—3, 171, 178, 182, and esp. 165 (on organization, sometimes 'efficient organization') and p.
162 ('perfect efficiency').
29IV, 443.C, p. 107.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
R.MARTIN
argued that a somewhat more complex notion, the right arrangem

specializations (of crafts done excellently well), is the crux of justi
ideal city.
The right order of the parts of the polisis the one given in the chart
An ordering which put, not the scientists of the good, but the mili
first (as was the case in historic Sparta and was, Randall thinks, the cas
Plato's ideal state)24 is not correct. The state in which the militar
would be highly organized, perhaps superlatively so, but it would no
And it could be extremely efficient within its lights, everything
effectively serving the end of military supremacy in war. But right or
not been observed ; that city is imperfect.
For the main claim in Plato's Republic as regards his perfect city,
state of the guardians, is that the virtue which makes for excelle
theoretical matters is the same as that which makes for excellence in th
of ruling. The person perfect in theoretical knowledge is the best r
the activity proper to such knowing is identical with what the rule
with the knowledge he is following when he practises his craft fla
Now, it is well to note that the activity of knowing has a different end
that of ruling; and thus we should be reluctant to take absolutely litera
theme of specializing in but a single function. The point is, not that
activities are identical, but that a certain kind of theoretical know
ends of crafts and their proper ordering, of excellences or the good per
of the principle for ordering excellences ) is itself the eligible and appr
knowledge of which the craft of ruling, perfectly done, is an ap
Between the two concepts, of rulership and of theoretical knowing
an overlap but not a full identity.
The characteristic function of the ruler is to make the best rul

policies are the best. He does not have to be good at carrying them
that he relies on someone else, the perfect auxiliary.
With these two, the ruler and his auxiliary, we have the active elemen
the perfect city. The ruler is bound only by what he knows; nothing el
properly restrain him. Thus he can use laws or institutions but h
bound by them ; he can, if he decides to, set them aside altogether
wholly new ones. His rule is simply the rule of wisdom, of
untrammelled intelligent discretion. For the auxiliaries unhesitatin
24 '[T]he perfect city of the Republic [is one] where organization, efficiency, justice, is
sole aim of military power, and the efficient organization or justice of the city is to b
whether its institutions will be effective in war. The perfect city of the Republic ... is
— it is the Spartan ideal' (Randall, Plato, p. 183; see also pp. 171, 178).

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
unerringly carry out the ruler's dictates. And the economic classes take
rule without demur. The relationship of classes, like everything else in
ideal state, is perfect: it is, accordingly, a frictionless relationship. As W
said of the Republic, in regard to another of its aspects, we have here
Day in the Life of a perfectly round Ball, rolling down a perfectly sm
inclined Plane"'.25
Where the ideal of the frictionless rule of wisdom is the main theme in
Plato's state of the guardians, there are surrounding it a number of sub
themes the purpose of which is to maintain and preserve the basic scheme.
The most interesting of these sub-themes is the one immediately adduced, at
the end of Book III, the famous 'noble fiction'24 or 'noble lie', as it is often
called.
The fiction identifies four metals — gold, silver, iron, and bronze — and
claims that each person has one of the four metals in his soul. Gold, the most
honoured metal, is associated with the rulers,27 silver with the auxiliaries,
iron and bronze with those who are 'farmers and other workers'. Following
the principle that economic life is divided into two kinds of goods and
services, those which are necessary to life and those which are merely
commodious or luxurious, we can perhaps divide the metals further between
these two kinds. Thus, iron, a naturally occurring element (and, incidentally,
considered a precious metal by the Greeks), might be associated with the
farmers and other provisioners of the necessary; bronze (an alloy, hence a
fabricated and artificial metal) might then suitably be associated with the
provisioners of the non-necessities, that is, the commodious and luxurious
things.
There is a fairly obvious order to these metals (a point that will become
significant later), but in the story at hand the motif of ranking is not stressed.
Rather, the emphasis seems to be on the point that there is a single one of
these metals *in the soul' of each person. Presumably, then, our capacity for
membership in one of the classes of the ideal state is something we are born
with. Being gold, like being silver or iron or bronze, is innate; and care must
be taken, if the class structure of ideal city is to be preserved, to keep each
class true to its type and unmixed. And here the unmixedness of the metals,
of the classes, recalls the motif of specialization.
25 W.H. Walsh, An Introduction to Philosophy of History (London, 3rd edn., 1967), p. 177.
26 III, 414.C, p. 82.
27lII,415.a.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
10 R.MARTIN
Part of the story is that

golden offspring, must m
must be both golden men
rulers by nature). But like
from parents of a lower
those whose metal is infe
system of the metals is n
function not only to ident
among the guardians, to sh
Others of the well known sub-themes in the account of the state of

guardians have roughly the same purpose as the 'noble lie' ; they serve to
clarify points and details but mainly they serve to support and preserve the
rightly ordered class sytem of the ideal state. This system, depending as it
does on specialization and craft-perfection within the framework of a correct
class order, is thus firmed up through an elaborate system of education,
extending all the way from kindergarten up through an Institute for
Advanced Studies, and through other devices such as the equal class status of
men and women28 and the communal life of the guardian class in such
matters as property, sex partners, and children.29 In a variety of ways then
the ruling class is set on course, irrelevancies (such as gender) eliminated,
distractions (such as the cares of a private household and concern for the
careers of one's children) avoided, effective specialization educed, all to a
single end: that of the rule of wisdom.
The myth of the metals is not a lie (a falsehood); it is a fable or story

(something that is not literally true). To believe it is not to be deceived. Nor is
it merely the propaganda of the rulers, who are to perpetuate the story; for
they too are to come to believe it as much as anyone.30 The myth is part of the
civic religion of the ideal state; it gives a basis for consensus of belief among
the different classes. The story is a paradigmatic myth of the ideal state itself.
It says in the language of fable what the Republic elsewhere says scientifically
and explicitly.
21IV, 457.b,c esp.
25 Book IV.
30IV, 415.c,d.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
THE IDEAL STATE IN PLATO'S REPUBLIC 11
II
The Philosopher King
One of the most vexing features of the Republic is the role

philosopher king. Why does he appear at all? If the analysis of
by the guardians gives us the detail of the ideal state, the
king would appear redundant. What, if anything, does h
reluctant to believe Plato is merely padding the Republic
using it as catalogue copy for the Academy).31
I would suggest that the philosopher king motif answers

announced several times in the Republic·, it is intended to
possible for this city to exist and how it can be brought abou
philosopher king is brought in, not as part of explicating
theory (for this we have the state of the guardians), but r
discussion about whether such a state can be realized.
In this light, it is significant that the philosopher king is first introduced

immediately after the question of existence (the 'possibility' ) of the ideal state
has been raised three times in the space of a single page.33 But now we must
take care. For here the just man and, presumably, the just state are said to be
'models' and we cannot, Socrates notes, expect 'to prove that these could
exist'.34
It would be a philosophical mistake even to regard a model as eligible to

exist. In this respect models are like forms. They are 'separated' from things
and have their being in words or in discourse, or are 'laid up in heaven'.35
Models do not exist in the world, as a part of its furniture. They are not on
four feet with things.
31 But even so great an authority as Aristotle has said of the Republic that 'Plato has filled up the
dialogue with digressions extraneous to the main theme, and with a discussion of the proper
education of his guardians'. (Aristode, Politics II, 1264 b; trans. Ernest Barker (New York,
1946), pp. 56—7.) It is clear from the context that Aristotle regards the main theme to be the
state of the guardians.
32 V,471.c,p. 131.
33 V, 471.c,d, 472.b.
34 V,472.c,d.
33IX, 592.b, p. 238.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
12 R.MARTIN
So we cannot be looking
what we are looking for is
be the nearest practical a
that models can be said to be realized at all.
Nor can models ever be perfectly realized: that which can exist is never
quite up to what the model reveals, to the pattern it discloses. Existing things,
then, always fall short; they are at most approximations or, if you will,
imperfect exemplifications. The very best they can do is come as close as
possible. And only those that do can count as adequate instantiations. There
is, then, considerable point to Socrates' question: '[S]hall we be satisfied if
[the just man] comes as close to it [the model] as possible, and share in it far
more than others?'.36
It is in the same vein that I want to take Plato s notion of a philosopher

king. He is introduced in order to provide for that nearest practical
approximation to the ideal state of the guardians.37 The philosopher king,
thus, belongs to a different dimension from that of the guardians' state. The
latter reveals the perfect city and belongs to discourse or theory; the
philosopher king identifies a practical possibility and belongs to existence and
to practice.
Since practicality is of the very essence here, Plato next addresses the issue
of 'the smallest change which would enable a city to reach our type of
government'.38 The smallest (and, presumably, the most workable) change
would be for philosophers to become kings or for those already kings to
study and become philosophers.39 Philosophers we can understand; as wise
men (as true, erotic lovers of wisdom) they are approximations of the
scientists of the good. But why kings? I suppose it is because kingship is the
simplest form of government (as involving but a single ruler) and because
kingship (unlike tyranny) is a constitutional form of rule and, as such, it
would afford access to power on the ruler's part with a minimum of
unsettling changes and unsettled expectations on everybody else's.40
38 V,472.c,p. 132.
37 V, 473.a,b.
38 V,473.b,p. 133.
35 V, 473.d; see also VI, 499.b, 501 .e.
40 Woodbridge denies that there is a practical programme, of the sort I have described, in the
Republic at all. He relies on the idea that the so-called perfect city is not something to be looked

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
So, kings become philosophers or philosophers become

do it. Both of them simple.
But it is extremely unlikely that philosophers can beco

of those called philosophers has been the kind of man fitted
those who have an instinct for genuine philosophizing are r
before their gifts reach fruition. All this could be expl
remedied. The crucial point is that, were a person actuall
philosopher, no existing society would be ready to call h
would not seem to be of the right sort. So the true ph
actually fitted to rule, must go at things indirectly; he
society as to the character of philosophy, properly und
make his vocation of rulership feasible. Unfortunately, the
never will be philosophers; nor are they especially inclined
alone believe, what philosophers say.41 It does not a
education of a society in philosophy, or about philosophe
for a philospher to become a king. And the true philoso
stays away from politics and, metaphorically, 'takes re
wall'.42
Thus we must rely on kings becoming philosophers. A

'Will anyone dispute that the sons of kings and dynasts cou
philosophic nature?'.43
Suppose, next, that a person who had already gaine

through the usual accredited channels became through s
What would he do? How would he rule as a philosop
frictionless rule which characterized the state of the g
absent in a real society. Ordinary citizens would not have th
without question; even if they had habits of deference
would still lack other necessary traits. Their appetites wo
to moderation; the citizens would not have specialized
for but something to be looked at; its point is evaluation, not pr

Woodbridge, The Son of Apollo: Themes of Plato (Boston, 1929), ch
103.) If my reading is accepted, however, the implication that a program
contemplated — the implication that the Republic has a practical side
well.
41 VI, 493.e, 494.a, 499.e, 500.
42 As Socrates puts it, VI, 496.d, p. 153.
43 VI, 502.a, p. 157.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
14 R.MARTIN
hence, would not be up

perfecting of appointed
stick to his last.
But this says merely that kings-become-philosophers would have a hard

time ruling in the grand manner of guardians. It does not say that
philosopher kings could never come to power at all, anywhere.
The upshot, then, of Plato's lengthy discussion of the philosopher king

(which occupies a substantial part of Books V, VI, and VII in the Republic)is
that the rule of the scientists of the good is 'not altogether wishful thinking,
that these things are difficult, but somehow possible' .** Insofar then as the
Republic is intended as a programme for political action — and it is to the
extent that the rule of the philosopher king, regarded as the nearest practical
approximation to the ideal state of theory, is possible — then that
programme has sufficient viability to merit further discussion. In any event
the remainder of the Republic is written on the premise that the rule, or at
least the coming to power, of a philosopher king is possible.
There remains, though, the troubling problem whether the existing polis
can 'take' that rule. For the unlimited discretion of the wise is necessarily
paired with the ideal of frictionless rule; otherwise the intractability of those
who are ruled would effectively limit the reign of wisdom. And the
practicability of the Republic programme would be defeated, from the side of
the subjects, just as effectively as it would be if, from the side of the rulers, it
was determined there could be no philosopher kings.
Thus the other citizens must be able to take their lead from the rulers: the
auxiliaries through right opinion and the 'farmers and craftsmen' through
habit and obedience. And here the note struck by the Republic, at the very
end of the philosopher king discussion, is decidedly problematic.
If a philosopher king and his cohorts ever actually did attain power they
would have to use it to remake society. They would have to wipe the slate
clean and start anew.45 'All in the city . . . over ten years of age they will send
into the country. Then they will take the children in hand, away from their
parents' way of life, and bring them up in their own ways and by their own
44 VII, 540.d, p. 190; VI, 499.c,d,502.c.
«VI, 501.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
laws .... This is the quickest and easiest way to establish the city and
constitution we have discussed .. Λ46
Some have seen in this passage heavy irony. And they reason that if Plato
was thus ironical he did not take the philosopher king programme seriously,
that he was actually dismissing it.47
Now, it may be that Plato regarded education as a panacea. But I am more

inclined to think that the drastic measures involved in turning the state into a
schoolroom, and its rulers into schoolmasters, serves to underscore the
importance Plato attached to the condition of the ruled. If we take the
troubling passage at all literally, and thus take seriously Plato's concern with
the ideal state in practice, we must regard the 'parents' way of life' — the
relative incapacity of actual persons to participate, each after his own kind,
in the rule of wisdom — as a profound challenge to that ideal.
As we shall see, the remaining books of the Republic take up this

challenge. And we can view the work as a whole as a kind of assessment of
the ideal state in practice.
Ill
The Dissolution of the Ideal State
Now, if we grant that the state of the philosopher king is possible, a point
which the dialogue itself assumes from here on, we must consider what would
happen to it once it came to exist. Plato immediately turns to this issue
(Books VIII and IX). And the assessment is decidedly negative. The ideal
state would disintegrate: even if one was established, it wouldn't last.
There is, however, a philosophical problem posed by Socrates' story of the

dissolution of the city (through a series of degenerative stages). For it is not
clear which city it is that we are supposing to disintegrate. The obvious
answer would be that it is the ideal state of practice, the state of the
"VII, 541 .a, pp. 190—1.
47 Thus, Randall, Plato, p. 162. See also Allan Bloom, 'Interpretive Essay', Republic of Plato,
trans. Bloom (New York, 1968), pp. 409—11. Of course, the ultimate irony is that the proposal
for philosopher kings had been put forward by Socrates, a philosopher known for his avoidance
of political life and, as well, a self-acknowledged political incompetent — one who
conspicuously lacked the necessary political skills. (VI, 496.c; also Plato, Apology, esp.
Stephanusp. 31.)

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
16 R.MARTIN
philosopher king. Not only i

literary or thematic conti
philosophical point of vi
dissolution.
But it appears in Socrates' account to be the perfect city in theory, the ideal
state of the guardians, that undergoes this sad transformation. 'How then,
Glaucon, [Socrates] asked, will our city be changed? How will discord arise
among the auxiliaries and the guardians, both between the two and among
themselves?'.48
Suppose, then, it is the ideal state of theory that disintegrates. It would

follow from this that the account we have of the state of the guardians is not
an account of a platonic form. For forms cannot exist, cannot change,
cannot degenerate, cannot dissolve or disappear.49 And, since the account of
the philosopher king is clearly not an account of a form either On that it
presupposes the ideal state of theory as its model and, more important,
concerns something that could exist, something that comes into being and so
on), it would follow that there is no idea of the just state or form of the
perfect city in Plato's Republic.
I am perfectly prepared to accept this conclusion. Doing so, however,

might seem to pose a problem for my own interpretation. For one could say
that I have throughout stressed the point that there is an ontological
difference between the ideal state of theory and the ideal state of practice: the
one is perfect, the other is not; the one that is perfect cannot exist, but the
imperfect one, as nearest practical approximation, is not similarly ineligible.
So, my friendly critic continues, if we allow that the ideal state of theory is
not a form, then that would threaten the very basis I had for making these
distinctions in the first place. But, he pursues, if we insist that the ideal state
of the guardians is a form, we make a kind of nonsense of Socrates'
discussion of the disintegration of the ideal state in Books VIII and IX. It
seems, he concludes, the only way the distinction drawn in section 2 of the
paper can hold up is to assume something which, it turns out in section 3,
gives rise to nonsense.
I do not, however, see things as quite so desperate. Though no friend of the

forms, I have not denied that there are forms in the Republic,50 What I have
« VIII, 545.(1, p. 196; 543 and 544. a, b.
45 A point which Socrates makes clear at VI, 484.b and again at 485,b.
50 The dialogue does speak of several forms or ideas (from Eidos), specifically of the just and the
good (at V, 476.a)and again, notoriously, of the good (VI, 505 .a, 507 .a,b).

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
said is that there is no form of the state perse in this work; o

precisely, there is no basis, direct or otherwise, for asserting
propounds or argues for such a form.51
Rather, what we do find is a form (that of justice, Tightness

applied to the materials of the existing polis, with the re
perfected in discourse (or imagination, if you will). The idea
(literally 'of vision')is a model; as a model it does not exis
calls it himself, a 'city of words' ,52 It is not expected or supp
become a thing; it is not even a possible thing. It is not, becaus
and things, including possible things (things that could e
perfect. As Socrates asks at the very point of introducing
king, 'Is it possible to realize anything in practice as it can
words . . .? [If the answer is "no",] then do not compel me
things we have described in theory can exist precisely in p
able to discover how the administration of a city can com
theories, shall we say that we have found that those things are
you told us to prove so?'.53
So, the ideal state of theory is a model, a standard, a pattern

which is not to say that it is a form — and it differs crucially
states, including possible ones, in the ways just described. A
such as the ideal state of theory (the city of the guardian
semantic vehicle and it can take as its 'pro' value (analo
instantiated) that of approximate, though still imperfect, e
What would allow us to say that such a value is correctly a
existing or possibly existing state, one that is very like, or
like, the standard (or model) in the relevant respects in wh
alike. So long as Plato's state of the guardians and his
philosopher king each occupy a different semantic status
distinction between them can be maintained.
51 Cf. Socrates' doubt that there might be forms of "hair or mud or dirt or
undignified objects' or, for that matter, of complex and dignified entities
Parmenides, Stephanus p. 130.c). Some of the same reasons that caused
dialogue of that name, to resist the notion of a form of man would also
form of the state.
52IX, 592.a, p. 238.
53 V, 473.a,b, pp. 132—3; see also 472.
54 The main lines of analysis here, and the term semantical vehicle, are tak
See, in particular, his Analytical Philosophy of Knowledge (Cambridge,
What Philosophy Is (New York, 1968), pp. 18—19.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
18 R.MARTIN
But, while preserving the p

necessarily imperfect exempli
philosopher king can be like
respect. Indeed it must be so
practical approximation and
imperfect one) of the mod
philosopher king, once establ
olds and the younger ones grow
of the state of the guardians. I
of rulers/auxiliaries/economi
comprehensive programme of
Every handhold has been gra

up as it is ever going to get.
What would be the fate of th

we repeat Socrates' question, 'How then, Glaucon, will our city be
changed?'. And change it must. For, as the Muses reply in stately prologue,
'It is hard for a city composed in this way to change. But everything that is
born must perish. Not even a constitution such as this will last forever but it
must face dissolution, and its dissolution will be as follows'.56
None of this actually happens, of course. It couldn't. For the ideal state of
practice, where wisdom rules, does not exist and never has. If it were to exist,
however, this would happen: that city would suffer dissolution.
551 realize that my argument reinstates the possibility that the ideal state of theory constitutes a
platonic form, for I have argued in effect that the state which disintegrates is merely its nearest
practical approximation (i.e., the disintegrating state is the state of the philosopher king in its
matured form, a form which it attains by taking on all the relevant features of the ideal state of
theory, the state of the guardians). Of course, it is not my intention to argue that there is a form
of the perfect city in Plato's Republic; it is, rather, merely to solve the problem posed at the
beginning of the section (the problem of which city it is that disintegrates) and to meet the
remarks of my friendly critic there.
My argument also provides a reason why it is difficult to keep the philosopher king and the
guardian motifs wholly unintwined. The other main point at which this difficulty becomes
pronounced is the lengthy discussion of the educational programme, in Book VII; the discussion
ostensibly concerns the philosopher king but it is quite natural to read it (see, e.g. VII, 535.a)as a
continuation of the earlier discussion (found in Books III and IV) of the education of the
guardians.
56 VIII, 546.a, p. 196.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
But what about the other cities in Socrates' story? They are represe
of them, as existing now.57 They are, after the ideal state, the wisdo
state, which we can list as number (1), presented in the following
the timocratic state, the victory- or honour-loving state, (3) the o
or money-loving state, (4) the democratic or liberty-loving state, and
state of tyrants, of despotism. What does this order signify for thos
states?
One characteristic answer has been that the sequence (2) throug
natural, historical sequence. It is an order or sequence of change o
The sequence has even been given a name: the Greek political cy
Plato is said to be its originator.58
Whether the sequence is natural or not, there is certainly reason

that it did represent actual Greek historical experience (despite the
fascination of later Greek thinkers, such as Polybius, with such sequences).
For one thing, the sequence does not fit well known facts of Athenian
political history: (a) that the tyranny of Peisistratus followed timocracy
directly or (b) that democracy and oligarchy typically alternated with one
another. And, for a second, the tone of the story does not ring true. The
transitions, like the mock Homeric prologue, are somewhat fanciful. The
explicit framework is that of poetry59 and not of fact. Perhaps, then, we
should take the story of stages of disintegration as a story and not as a
history. In any case there is no cycle involved, no repeating of the first (the
ideal or aristocratic) or of the second (the timocratic) stage after the last and
most degenerate has run its course. The story sequence is strictly linear.
But it is not merely a story. There is a definite structure to it and that

structure is provided, as should be expected, by materials Plato had
assembled earlier in the dialogue. Just as the myth of the metals had in its
first employment afforded a paradigm of good order, so it could be called on
again, as it is here,60 to point the headings in a story of bad ordering, of
57 VIII, 544. b-d.
58 Such a characteristic answer is to be found in Peter Calvert, Revolution, Key Concepts in

Political Science series (London, 1970), pp. 32—3, 40, 134. Gilbert Ryle speaks somewhat more
cautiously of 'actual downfalls' and the 'inevitable culmination' in the 'horrors of tyranny' but
he makes clear that, following Aristotle, he regards Republic Books VIII and IX as 'factual
political diagnosis' (Ryle, Plato's Progress (Cambridge, 1966), p. 180). See also note 70 of the
present paper.
59 As reference to the races of Hesiod — in VIII, 546.e — attests.
60 VIII, 547.a.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
20 R.MARTIN
progressive disorder. In sh
the ideal state gradually co
then another, in its turn
brought the state of the g
this disintegration story an
The sequence of degenerat

traces principally an order
ranking moves in perfect
metals) in the ideal state,
guardians (as now fully mi
philosopher king state), wh
then going through succes
is ranked by the relative me
Thus the second class, that

yields the second ranking
kind of state one would fi
order, the two parts of the
— the one associated with
power, we would have olig
the economic classes — the o
— would give us, when in power, a democratic regime, an order
characterized by the rule of the lower classes and of the lower passions.65
We seem, however, to have run out of metals prematurely, for we have

none of the four left and one more stage to go, that of despotism. Worse, we
61 Thus, the initial listing of five forms of government, the first being the ideal state and others
called 'formsof vice' (IV, 445.c,d,p. 109), comes immediately after a passage in which justice is
said to be the establishment of 'the parts of the soul as ruler and ruled according to nature'(IV,
444.d, p. 108). At the beginning of Book VIII the theme of the five forms is taken up again
(VIII, 543.C—544.b), and the less than ideal states, four in number, are described there as being
'wrong' (544.a, p. 194), in 'error' (ibid.), 'diseased' (544.c, p. 195), and 'worse' (545.a, p. 195).
And at the conclusion of the disintegration story Socrates explicitly asks his hearers to rank, in
the order of happiness, the five types of states and corresponding types of men (IX, 580.a,b).
Thus the disintegration story is bracketed, on both sides, so to speak, by the notion of evaluative
ranking.
62 VIII, 544.c, 545.a, 545.b—550.c.
63 VIII, 544.C, 545.a.
M VIII, 544.C, 545.a, 550.c—557.a.
65 VIII, 544.C, 545.a, 557.a—565.e.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
seem to have fully exhausted the four-level psychological sc

underwrote the myth of the metals in the first place. For we
through reason (perfected as wisdom), spirit (perfected as c
appetites and desires (perfected as moderation and tempera
been further subdivided in the schematism into appetites
necessary things and desires for luxury and refinement.66
The final stage, tyranny or despotism, is the nadir of th

forms, the worst of all.67 The despot becomes ultimately
passion: the depths of unlimited desire combined with an
overwhelm him.68 He then stands revealed as wholly feckl
dissolute. Whatever metal there had been in his soul has be
entirely. He lacks mettle altogether and his rule lacks all princ
other states, even the deformed ones, had some grounding in t
of the soul, despotism has none. The other states represente
sanity (right order)and degrees of deviation from it; but tyran
insanity, a complete loosing of order in the soul. Despotism
inversion of right order; it is not disorder but the lac
whatsoever.69 Here the sequence of disintegration ends.
In saying that the degeneration story is intended primarily t

of merit, I do not want to deny that it could also yield an ord
state forms. The point, though, is that if a sequence of chan
follows the order of rank precisely. There is only one basic
story of constitutional disintegration: the order of chang
66 See IX, 580.d, ff. The three-part theory of the soul is treated, in the po
Republic, as exhibiting four main levels. Thus there are four soul metals
metals; though in the later mention of the four (in VIII, 547.a) copper h
bronze.
" VIII, 544.C, 545.a; VIII—IX, 566.a-580.a.
68 Seeesp. IX, 571 ,b, 573.a,b.
69 Randall advances the view that Plato's ideal state is to be identified with Sparta (see Plato, pp.
148—9 and 170); thus its rejection, if that is what the sequence of disintegration amounts to, is in
effect 'a magnificent defense of the Athenian ideal against the Spartan' and as such 'a sustained
piece of Plato's dramatic irony' (ibid., p. 171; see also p. 183).
This reading is doubly doubtful. First, because Sparta is clearly identified by Plato with the
second-ranking or timocratic state; second, because we are presumably expected to identify the
fourth-ranking or democratic state with Athens. That it is intended to be Athens is made clear
when one of Plato's brothers — Plato, Glaucon, and Adeimantus all being Athenians — after
hearing of the excess of liberty in a democratic state, even among the animals, says, 'You are
telling me what I know, ... for I often experience this when I walk in the country' (VIII, 563.d,
p. 211).

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
22 R.MARTIN
presupposes that of mer

extrapolate from the stor
have a ranking of five for
We are not free, howeve
even main point, a putat
Plato's account, graft so
merit ranking of forms of
The point I just made d

here. Were we to distingu
change, we could say tha
story. The point made at
of the five constitutions
endures and all pass away
become something worse
But the fact of change pr

to another. All are subje
nothing, contrary to wh
having a greater capacity
maintain stability. )The on
70 Other views, in which Plato

have been put forward. A good
W.H. Walsh, 'Plato and the P
History and Theory 2 (1962),
(Middletown, 1968), pp. 151—
One such view (e.g. Popper in

which change over time takes u
Marxist law of historical d
bourgeois/capitalist one and
developed by Walsh himself. In
changes so much as 'pure cas
simplified constitutional model
case, is shown to have tendenc
(Walsh, History and Theory, p
model — e.g. the democratic.
and Popper have in common th
social scientist of some sort, a
In my view the sequence of de

an attempt at theoretical (or em
historical change. Rather Plato
ranking order based on merit. A
ordered class structure of the i
on the normative psychological

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
states is the intrinsic merit of each. After all is said and

deathwardness of all things duly noted, the ideal state of prac
best, as determined by the 'model laid up in heaven',71 a
sought ; just as the good life is to be sought even though it en
in our common mortality.
Even so, the incapacity of the ideal state of practice to

interesting shadow on the argument of the Republic. Th
practically best state which were examined heretofore we
model in the standard platonic manner: each was an imperfect
exemplification of what was perfected — in discourse, in imagination — in
the ideal model. Thus, the wisdom of the philosopher king was an imperfect
wisdom and, hence, his rulership would be an imperfect one. It was nearly
perfect, as near as the closest practical approximation could get, but it was
still not perfect. The incapacity of the philosopher king state to endure,
however, was unlike the relevant traits in the ideal model. For the things
recounted in ideal models endure: they do not pass out of existence; they do
not change for the worse. But the practically best state, the city of the
philosopher king, does not endure. It passes out of existence; it changes into
something that is less than the best. This is not an imperfect likeness to the
ideal; it is an unlikeness. It is a defect.
Now, it might be replied that we already knew there was some unlikeness
between the ideal state of practice, the state of the philosopher king, and the
ideal state of theory, the state of the guardians. In particular, we knew that
the philosopher king state was generated: it came into existence ; indeed, that
was its point. So, if Plato allowed this unlikeness (generation) then he was
prepared to allow unlikeness — and this would include, presumably, the
incapacity to endure. For, after all, generation and mortality are paired
traits. Unlikenesses that are allowed, as Plato was apparently willing to allow
these, do not count as defects. Moreover, we should not let the difference
between models and things enter this discussion, for it has already been taken
into account. The difference we are considering is not the difference between
a thing (any thing, including the philosopher king state) and a model but,
rather, differences in the descriptive traits of the thing over against the traits
disclosed in its ideal model.72
71IX, 592.b, p. 238.
72 It might be useful as well to have in mind points in which models differ from forms. Models
come into being (and this is one way, clearly, in which they differ from forms). Models are
artifacts (another difference); indeed, we saw the model of the ideal state of theory itself being
generated in Books I and II of the Republic. There is an ontological difference as well. Forms are

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
24 R.MARTIN
Precisely. The issue is not

proper models, they endure
or conveys is itself somet
theory discloses the chara
character did in fact include
count as a detail differenc
state of theory. But the im
theory, as revealed in the m
polis (in that each constituent craft or function is conceived as done
superlatively well) and these parts are arranged in their proper order, in
accordance with their intrinsic merit. The rightly ordered polis, as a
construction of theoria, does not come apart. The perfect city endures; its
pattern is 'divine'.74 And this feature of enduringness is among its details,
that is, if it is a perfect city.
Were we, then, to assess the ideal state of practice over against the ideal
state of theory, the state of the philosopher king over against the 'model laid
up in heaven', we would have to conclude that the ideal state of practice is
flawed. It fails to endure; it cannot last and changes into something inferior.
The nearest practical approximation is not without substantial defect. This is
the judgment that the Republic passes, from the perspective of an ideal
standard, on the state of the philosopher king. It is one of the things we can
conclude from Socrates' story of the dissolution of the ideal state.
One could say, though, that the defect here is not in the ideal itself; it is,
rather, in the flawed human materials that the source of the defect is to be
found. Human nature is the reason why the nearest practical approximation
to the ideal cannot capture the feature of enduringness. Nonetheless, the
ideal of theory can still be regarded as an ideal of perfection and the state of
the philosopher king, not merely imperfect but also defective, continues to be
its nearest practical approximation. Despite the widening of the gulf between
intelligible entities; so are models, but models are merely words. They are not so much forms as
formulas; as such they try to formulate something about the empirical world — Plato's ideal city
is explicitly said to be a Greek polis (V, 470.e) — by reference to a form, in the case at hand, the
form of justice or rightness. Last of all, models do not necessarily have the trait which they are
depicting. A formula for red or for beauty or shortness is not necessarily itself red or beautiful or
short. The model for the just state is not itself a just state. Plato suggests that it is otherwise for
forms (see,e.g. Phaedo, Stephanus pp. 100—2esp. ff).
73 For, recall, we were invited at the outset to observe 'the birth of a city in theory', II, 369.a, p.
39.
74 VI, 500.e,p.l56.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
what is practical and what is ideal, the state of the philosoph

what we should aspire to. And the practical programme of
remains intact.
We can presume this to be Plato's view. For he has passed no judgment

against the ideal state of theory.
At this point, then, we are inclined to treat the failure of the ideal state of
practice to endure as a defect. The only way this non-enduringness could
avoid being a defect, over against its model, is for unenduringness similarly
to be a feature of the ideal state of theory itself. And this would be possible
only if, counter to our original hypothesis, that state was not a perfect one.
My argument up to now, like Plato's, depends on taking this perfection as a
fixed point, as a given. The assumption could, of course, be challenged ; and
this, then, would become an issue in its own right.
It is to this topic that we turn in Book X of the Republic. Is the model of

the perfect city adequate or does it require revision? Is the character of the
ideal state of theory perfect, so far as we can presently determine, in all its
details?
IV
The Myth of Er
At the very end of the Republic a myth or story is told. In fact this
perpetuates a pattern. After the state of the guardians is introduced and given
some detail, the myth of the metals75 had been brought in as a kind of
commentary (one designed to impress the account on the hearer, or reader, to
help him grasp its main details ).76 Similarly, after the state of the philosopher
king is introduced, a number of striking analogies and stories were produced
to clarify and fix details in the hearer's mind. The most notable of these, and
the one most germane to the philosopher king, is the story of the cave.77 And,
again, after the long and impressive account of the disintegration of the ideal
state through all its stages had been given, punctuation was provided by a
rather grotesque image 78 having to do with correct order among the parts of
75 III, 414.b—415-d.
76 'The function of myths in the dialogues is not expressive but impressive — it is not to express
truth, but to impress truth upon us, to impress the point of the story upon us' (Randall, Plato, p.
199).
77 VII, 514.a—519.d.
78IX, 588.b—590.c; see esp. pp. 235—6.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
26 R. MARTIN
the soul. This particular im

emphasis and for clarity bu
the soul that gave structu
turn, linked the dissolution
the guardians and, hence,
political themes.
In sum, at each of three m

the ideal polis a myth or st
us.79 It is, perhaps, not un
end of the entire book.80
clarifying remark, to pass so
Er, a soldier from Pamphy

ten days his body lay there.
the funeral pyre, he revive
yonder' ,82 For his soul, dur
He had many remarkable t

themes we have been discuss
79 The Republic presents these thr

as main topics within the spa
543.C—544.a). At the end of Book
191)of the ideal constitution and i
possibility is treated as a 'digress
the path where we were before t
constitution — the state of the gu
to embark on a discussion of the d
Some (e.g. Ryle in his Plato's Pro

VII and VIII, which suggests to the
different dates of composition. A
have been put forward. My read
reading, however, does not commi
Plato's brow and was not built up
that at some period the book was
work. And Ryle affirms that t
244—50); so our operating assump
80 X, 614.b — 621,d.
81 'The story [of Er] is the Repu

p. 99).
82 X, 614.b, p. 257.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
He recounts that he saw a band of dead souls assembled to se

lives. The scene is depicted as though a variety of lives were o
a little brochure, with the number of brochures spread ou
group far greater than the number of souls who were there t
day. Each booklet had a title and the selecting was done by
title alone.
There was a kind of pattern to the choices made. Each select

(and here is one case where a book had to be judged b
accordance with some outstanding characteristic of his pr
Atalanta selected The Life of an Athlete. Thersites, a kin
railer in Book II of the Iliad, chose to become a monkey. A
had had his fill of high ambitions and of 'gadding about', p
ordinary looking volume with the unprepossessing title of Th
Private Individual, presumably a happy choice for him.83
There was in the group one soul who interests us espec

first to choose and he grabbed up a gaudy, exciting lookin
title, The Mightiest Dictatorship. 'In his folly and greed he
careful look and did not notice that he was fated to devour his own children
and other evils, but when he examined his chosen life at leisure, he beat his
breast and bemoaned his choice, nor did he abide by the warning of the
interpreter for he did not blame himself for these evils, but fortune and the
gods, and everyone but himself'.84
Then Plato adds, significantly, 'He was one of those who had come down
from heaven [i.e., those whose previous life had been good or blameless]; he
had lived his previous life in a well-ordered city, and had been virtuous by
habit without philosophy. One might say that among those who were caught
that way the souls who had come down from heaven were not in a minority
because thev had no experience of evil' ,85
What judgment does the Myth of Er make on the Republic's political

theme? The man who selected the life of dictatorship was from a well-orderea
city, a just one. He had not been a ruler in the state of the philosopher king
but merely an ordinary citizen, a farmer or craftsman from one of the
83 X, 620.a—d.
84 X, 619.b,c, p.261.
85 X, 619.c,d, P· 261; see also X, 614.c, 615.a.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
28 R.MARTIN
economic classes. Havin

He was an innocent, knowing nothing of life in degenerate states and
certainly not of life in the most degenerate, the state of despotism. Wholly
naive about the political bad things, from lack of experience, and equally
naive about the good ones, from lack of knowledge, he had made a very
foolish choice.
We could, of course, chalk this unfortunate choice up to the defects of

human nature. But the matter here is not so simple. This man had lived,
blamelessly, the life proper to the ordinary citizen in an ideal state. He was
one of those farmers or artisans who stuck to his job, moderated his
appetites, performed his task really well, made a real contribution to the city,
and did what he was told by the rulers. He was not expected to understand
fully or even to have right opinions about constitutional matters or political
principles. He was one of the obedient ones, whose main virtue politically
was to follow orders unhesitatingly.
He had, Plato says, 'been virtuous by habit without philosophy'.86 Now

this, precisely, is the ideal of citizenship in the perfect city and, by extension,
in the ideal state of practice, the state of the philosopher king. The ordinary
citizen in the ideal state characteristically lacks understanding and right
opinion altogether. These are reserved for rulers and auxiliaries, respectively.
On matters of the state and its principles myths suffice for the ordinary
citizen. And it is these features of the ideal state that Plato is seemingly
calling into question.
We had already been told that wisdom cannot rule in a state if the rulers
are not wise. Nor could it rule if the auxiliaries did not have right opinions on
matters where the rulers have full knowledge. It is not enough, then, for
auxiliaries simply to obey, unthinkingly. Something similar is here being
suggested about ordinary citizens. Sheer obedience, habit, is not enough.
Wisdom cannot rule where the ordinary citizens do not have enough
understanding of what is at stake to be able to make correct decisions on at
least the important issues. (For Plato this would include decisions about the
forms of state, the point at which the ordinary citizen in Er's story had
proven woefully lacking; for us it might be something like a commitment,
and not a wholly unreflective one, to the Bill of Rights. )
Ordinary citizens cannot be expected to have right opinion, but they can be
expected to have sound ones. For they will have opinions; they are not
' X, 619.c,p. 261.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
robots. They are a part of the human material that must co

state in practice. And what must compose, or be taken account
state of practice must concern the ideal state of theory. For an
with respect to human practices must itself be practicable. The
the polis must be a perfection of constituent practices, acti
that can be done and ought to be done.
The ordinary citizen, since he is expected to have some op

have tolerably decent ones about the main political things. He t
way, must be a guardian of the ideal state.
If this is the sort of judgment the Republic passes on its own

ideal state, then we would have to conclude that the assessment
positive. The ideal state of practice does not, in fact, turn o
And this bespeaks, in its turn, a defect in its ideal model. The
not perfect. The account of it in the Republic conveys the wro
the virtue of the ordinary citizens. It gives a wrong accoun
wisdom. It misidentifies the extent of the guardian class. A
state of theory is not perfect then the model that reports it is
subject to revision.87
The second half of the Republic, concerned with the ideal sta
can be taken then not only as an application of the ideal of the
an assessment of that ideal and, ultimately, a reconsideratio
of second thoughts. A note of pessimism steadily deepens t
state of the philosopher king is difficult to establish, its re
unlikely. If it were to be founded, it would not endure; it
something worse. And even if it did endure, it would not m
kind of life for all its citizens qua citizens and, in the end, thi
against the city itself as a whole. At this point the ideal of
challenged directly.
87 Randall says of the ordinary citizens there merely that 'life lived in a
just city without philosophy" brings no education in moral excellence' (
particular judgment adds no weight to Randall's conclusion, already formed,
of the Republic is impossible of realization and, in any case, would be a mor
(see ibid., pp. 25, 28—9, 162—3). For Randall the platonic ideal state is a stat
leave it. Thus, one's conclusion that this ideal is impracticable or unattractive
'antidote to the Utopian spirit', a Vaccination against utopianism' (ibid., p. 1
The youthful idealism Plato manages to kill off is his own. There is n
analysis, then, for the claim that Plato might be inclined to think his origi
and therefore subject to revision.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00
30 R.MARTIN
The pessimistic assessmen

into the ideal state of theo
there is an intimation of r
One cannot say what Pla

But one can say that if
adequate model, as conve
city, then he would have f
finished with creative poli
But he wrote two more

revisionary spirit. Some
written. A bad experience
apprehension that he had
figured so prominently
thinking of the Republic's
itself.
Almost all will agree that the book is a brilliant study of the relationship of
theory to practice in politics, of the resistance of the human materials to the
ideal model which is to be imposed upon them. Few have thought, though,
that Plato had any instinct to side with practice or might incline to give the
human materials their peculiar due. On this reading the Republic is not so
much a body of doctrine — and certainly not dogma — as it is a work of
exploration. And its main political teachings, especially that of the rule of
wisdom, lead upon reflection, not to a solution, but to a problem.
Rex Martin UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
88 These are two of the reasons canvassed

Political Theory, revised by Thomas L. Thor
two, he is ultimately willing to countenance on
real effect on Plato's thinking.

106.213.170.158 on Mon, 18 Mar 2024 03:58:56 +00:00

Plato Ideal State.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Plato Ideal State.

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Plato Ideal State.

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE IDEAL STATE IN PLATO'S "REPUBLIC"

Author(s): Rex Martin

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26211766

This content downloaded from

The title of Plato's Politeia is traditionally given in Latin form as Republic.

The State of the Guardians

Socrates' method here is first to construct an economically self-sufficient

2II, 369.a, p. 39.

3II, 369.d,p. 40.

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. II. No. 1. Spring. January 1981

This content downloaded from

variety of economic activities are seen to be necessary and, for e

Socrates sees the point; the city-in-theory needs a touch of lux

But it begets land hunger, annexation, the need for defence. So a

The principle of division of labour, or specialization, remains cr

Herè-the ahcdunt in Book II of the Republic takes on a certain resonance

4 II, 372.d, p. 42.

5II, 373.a, p. 43.

7II, 374.b, c, p. 44.

This content downloaded from

Rulers too are craftsmen. By parity of reasoning, then, a ruler when

The rulers are first presented as overseers; they are guardi

In order to perform their proper and characteristic function well, t

This content downloaded from

The auxiliary to the ruler requires a somewhat different excellence in order

The auxiliary will, of course, require knowledge appropriate to his

13IV, 428. d, p.94.

14 VI, 506. a, b; VII, 540. a, b.

This content downloaded from

Again, the farmers and craftsmen do require knowledge app

16 See IX, 590. b—d, for a fanciful version of this theme.

This content downloaded from

A Chart of the Perfect City17

Excellence Required for

(1) Theoretical Knowing Wisdom Rulers

(b)to satisfy desires of desires e.g. some

class name class excellence(s)

(1) rulers Τ C W (W = Wisdom)

This content downloaded from

Randall has abstracted this theme of order — of organization, efficiency

One cannot say, then, that justice is simply specialization or simply

20IV, 433.a, pp. 97—8.

21 And is also said at IV, 433.b,d,e, 434.C, 435.b.

29IV, 443.C, p. 107.

This content downloaded from

argued that a somewhat more complex notion, the right arrangem

The characteristic function of the ruler is to make the best rul

This content downloaded from

26 III, 414.C, p. 82.

This content downloaded from

Part of the story is that

Others of the well known sub-themes in the account of the state of

The myth of the metals is not a lie (a falsehood); it is a fable or story

21IV, 457.b,c esp.

This content downloaded from

The Philosopher King

One of the most vexing features of the Republic is the role

I would suggest that the philosopher king motif answers

In this light, it is significant that the philosopher king is first introduced