Olivia Garard
Plato’s Republic is endlessly rich. Broadly, it begins when Socrates and his friend Glaucon are compelled to stay at Cephalus’ house in the Piraeus.[1] Remaining just outside Athens, the many—including Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Adeimantus, among others—debate questions of justice. When no satisfactory answers emerge, Socrates originates the great thought experiment—to construct a city in speech. Over the course of the dialogue, the imagined city undergoes numerous revisions as the founders identify and fulfill the imagined city’s needs. War, it turns out, is not a need, but a consequence. It is only after Glaucon’s “relishes” are admitted that Socrates finds cause for war. To what extent does war make the city possible?
After Glaucon and Adeimantus remain unpersuaded that justice is better than injustice, Socrates suggests that they “watch a city coming into being in speech.”[2] Socrates advises they look for justice in the city based on the explicit notion that it is easier to read bigger letters than smaller ones and the implicit supposition that a man can be considered a city writ large. Socrates and Adeimantus begin to construct the city.
A first, provisional city is set forth as the “city of utmost necessity,” which “would be made of four or five men.”[3] These individuals came together because each, independently, is insufficient, in that they are not self-sufficient and must rely on others. To satisfy all the basic provisions, however, Socrates revises the city, and more than four citizens are now required. The city becomes a “throng,” and in so doing, this city demands another.[4] The other city is created out of this city’s need for imports, which requires still more citizens, the creation of money, and even more citizens as sailors. Socrates continues to “fill out the city” until it is saturated and judged to be complete.[5] Life in the city is barely satiated—there is neither art nor education. All the citizens must do is regulate the city’s size, “keeping an eye out against poverty or war.”[6]
I am skeptical that this first city is possible because an eye towards war is insufficient to prepare for war, either to defend or to attack. Naturally, this city would only ever seek to defend itself, as it has no acquisitive designs beyond essential needs. But the fact of this city makes no claim to the disposition of the other cities. And yet, just as this city entails other cities for trade, this city requires that all other cities are like itself in need.[7]
All other cities must be without acquisitive desires. For if no city ever desires more, nor believes they were slighted for what they were owed, then dispositions for war are unnecessary. The city has no need for war, and no fear of attack. Without fear of attack, there is no need to prepare. Defense-as-preservation is a waste because the basic functioning of the city, inherent in “one man one art,” is, in itself, the basis of self-preservation.[8]
At this point, Glaucon interrupts Socrates, and in my mind rightly so, because this city entails “men [who] have their feast without relishes.”[9] Bare minimum self-preservation is insufficient; humans want a kind of flourishing, and not, as Glaucon objects, a “city of sows.”[10] They want, Socrates patronizingly clarifies, a “luxurious city.”[11]
Athens under Hadrian (National Geographic)
Once the luxurious city is introduced, war becomes inevitable. This new “feverish city” expands beyond the previous “postulate [of] the mere necessities.”[12] There is a trust of the other cities inherent in the “healthy city,” which is only reasonable provided that all other cities were equally disposed. That this is so, but not explicit, may be a function of dialectic. The three are creating a city in speech and, therefore, in time. All city elements cannot be present simultaneously but must manifest sequentially. They arrive in a somewhat haphazard order, based, chiefly, on the characteristics of the beginning, “the most important part of every work.”[13] Socrates began with mere necessity, but Glaucon demands a revision to include “relishes and desserts.”[14] Lives “[lived] in peace with health” are not considered to be lives worth living; Glaucon’s demands entail strife and beauty.
To reach for more, to reach beyond mere necessity, reveals a chasm to war and a way to philosophy.[15] “Nothing,” now “stands in the way.”[16] What satiates is fickle and a matter of taste. Art is “set in motion” and rare, expensive materials “must be obtained.”[17] To seek beyond swells the city in number and things. Teachers are required and land becomes a constraint. More people require more land, and now the previous city cultivated land is insufficient “for feeding the men.”[18] The luxurious city is incapable of satisfying a basic need, one of Socrates’ items of mere necessity, unless this city attacks and takes land from another city. This induced requirement does not emanate from scarcity, but from unnecessary needs, desires for ever more. The desires are unnecessary because the previous city would have satisfied this need.
Nevertheless, feeding one’s citizens is still a basic need. To seek beyond misprioritizes needs because it introduces and integrates other desires among the basic requirements. For “if they let themselves go to the unlimited acquisition of money, overstepping the boundary of the necessary” Socrates posits, the other city will seek more land, too.[19] War results from this interactive acquisitiveness. Socrates even goes so far to say this “origin” is found “in those things whose presence in cities most of all produces evils both private and public.”[20] What is it that produces these evils?[21]
The city grows bigger again. This is not, as Socrates declares, “by a small number but by a whole army.”[22] This army will be prepared to “go out and do battle with invaders” attacking “for all the wealth and all the things.”[23] Attack seeks to acquire wealth or land, while defending seeks to preserve one’s own station, land, and wealth.[24] Still, Glaucon wonders why the number of the citizens of the city must be increased by an army: why are the city’s citizens unable to provide for their own defense? Given that the “struggle for victory in war” is an art, it then falls under the demands of “one man, one art.”[25] In the healthy city, no one cared for war. In the luxurious city, no one would care for war, unless it was their art. “Isn’t it,” Socrates asks rhetorically, “of the greatest importance that what has to do with war be well done?”[26]
The art of war demands more than someone’s “spare time.”[27] It demands more than the possession of a “weapon or tool of war.”[28] The art of war demands “knowledge” and “adequate training,” and, like all other arts, “a nature fit for the pursuit.”[29] Unlike the other arts, however, this nature must be identified, handpicked, and tested—the dynamics of warfare demand it.
What kind of person makes a guardian? To successfully defend their constructed city, Glaucon and Socrates must identify what characteristics are required for those “fit for guarding the city.”[30] War invokes the guardian, just as it informs their comportment. Guardians must be spirited (thymos) and like a “noble puppy” they must be “gentle to their own and cruel to enemies.”[31] An enemy, now, however so conceived, exists.
Prior to this point in the city’s founding, there had been no mention of an enemy in or of the city.[32] War, again, demands it.[33] The emergence of enemies is tangled. For Socrates wonders how such a spirited soul and strapping body would “not be savage to one another and the rest of the citizens?”[34] What controls limit their animation? What direction coordinates their defense? Without such a rule, “they’ll not wait for others to destroy them, but they’ll do it themselves beforehand.”[35] The founders fear that their defenders, predisposed to warlike action, will not harness their spirit and strength towards the city’s defense. Instead, they would in-fight and undermine the city itself.[36] Socrates tosses this conundrum to Glaucon, who likewise concurs that “a good guardian is impossible.”[37] Warfare requires opposing tendencies.
Contradictory tendencies are resolved as one turns toward philosophy. Hence, Socrates, in a moment of narrative clarity, explains to us, “I too was at a loss, and, looking back over what had gone before,” he sees, after turning and reflecting, that the way out is through the “image” they had “abandoned.”[38] Dogs prove the natural possibility: “When it sees someone it doesn’t know, it’s angry, although it never had any bad experience with him. And when it sees someone it knows, it greets him warmly, even if it never had a good experience with him.”[39] Knowledge without experience corresponds to temperament and cultivation: the known is good and the unknown is bad, notwithstanding prior interaction. Such a dog, Socrates grants, is “truly philosophic” because “it distinguishes friendly from hostile looks by nothing other than having learned the one and being ignorant of the other.”[40] War drags in a kind of philosophy, more so an education, to determine “what’s its own and what’s alien.”[41] Provided a guardian can properly do so, they will not attack the city’s citizens, but only defend against, or attack, the other, the alien. Rearing, education, and knowledge must be controlled.
War in all its forms comes into being with the luxurious city. The possibility of war—either to attack or to defend – demands an army, spirited and strong, docile to the known, and hostile to the unknown. An elaborate educational system, balanced between music and gymnastics, follows.[42] Censorship is employed to maintain the guardian’s precarious disposition. Women may even become guardians. Children of the guardians should be “spectators of war.”[43] Warfare is a perpetual concern because war constitutes the central problem for the founders. The question of how the guardians should be educated is predicated on the dictates of war.
But what is war? Before we can answer this question, let’s return to the origin of war. Socrates explains that there is a set of “things whose presence in cities most of all produces evils both private and public.”[44] This “thing” originates war, but not exclusively so.[45] What is this element of which war is a subset?
Hold onto that thought as Socrates, amid the second wave, and, again in dialogue with Glaucon, commences a military campaign.[46] They discuss bringing children to war, the conduct of soldiers in combat, the erotics of comradery, honor and reputation, the treatment of captured enemies, and the problem of plunder. But then, Socrates reiterates a prior question: “What sort of thing will your soldiers do to the enemies?”[47] In lieu of a scorched earth policy against other Greeks, the army, he suggests, will “take away the year’s harvest” because of, Socrates digresses, the difference between war and faction.[48]
War is defined in parallel with and in contradistinction to faction. Given that two names exist, Socrates contends, “two things also exist and the names apply to differences in these two.”[49] The difference is between things identified as “what is one’s own and akin and what is alien, and foreign.”[50] On top of these two things, there are two kinds of hatred. War is “hatred of the alien,” while faction is “hatred of one’s own.”[51] Hatred must be that “thing” in cities that originates war, along with all other private and public evils.[52] But what is hatred?
There are two points following this disambiguation that we must notice. First, the city becomes Greek.[53] Second, Socrates seeks to ratchet down the violence of war such that fighting between the Greeks, including this city, is limited. As Glaucon reiterates, “toward the barbarians they must behave as the Greeks do now toward one another.”[54] Socrates wants the default orientation toward the other to be one of kinship, of love. Socrates reiterates, “it seems that the faction is a wicked thing and that the members of neither side are lovers of their city.”[55] Consequently, let us provisionally conclude that hatred is the opposite of love. We can recall Socrates’ principle of non-opposites.[56] Let us assume that love and hatred are many and yet operate on “the same part and in relation to the same thing.” If so, they must “perform opposed actions'' at different times.[57] While we have introduced love and hatred at the public level, to understand what hatred is, we must follow Socrates back to private discussions of the soul.
Socrates establishes three sets of opposites: desiring, willing, and wanting are contrasted with not-desiring, not-willing, and not-wanting.[58] The former pertains to actions whereby the soul “longs for” and “embraces that which it wants to become its own” while the latter concerns “the soul’s thrusting away from itself and driving out of itself.”[59] Desiring, willing, and wanting seek toward, while the opposites are thrust away. Love and hatred are just such opposites.
Socrates tells of Leontius who desired to look at corpses, “but at the same time he was disgusted and made himself turn away.”[60] Hatred compels, like disgust, a turning away, while love compels, a turning toward. Either turning may be violent, nevertheless it entails a rotational movement based on recognition. Hatred underlies faction and war because, in the former, one turns away from one’s own, while in the latter one turns away from what’s alien. A turning away creates distance, perhaps the distance necessary to harm others.
We can now understand Socrates’ attempt to pacify the Greeks. First, he establishes a recognition of what is one’s own and, second, a revolution towards one another as Greeks.[61] The problem of war for the Greeks becomes a problem of faction, a problem of hating and not loving. Yet, while factions may be defused, war still seems necessary. Enemies exist and remain threats to the city. It is still necessary to cultivate hatred of the other because war between Greeks and the barbarians is still possible.
As Socrates’ campaign comes to an end, Glaucon grants that “if it should come into being, everything would be good for the city in which it came into being.”[62] He further grants that the guardians “would be best fighting their enemies” because of morale, comradery, integration of women, mass, reserve, and shock. “I know that with all this,” he admits, “they would be unbeatable.”[63] But this belief is conditional: “Is it possible for this regime to come into being, and how is it ever possible?”[64] The city in speech is forged by and for war; yet, it does not seem possible. The question of possibility, “[a]ll of sudden,” Socrates protests, “assaulted my argument.”[65] Socrates’ work is attacked and to defend himself he must invoke “so paradoxical an argument.”[66] Socrates suggests “one change” whereby “the philosophers rule as kings or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize” such that “political power and philosophy coincide.”[67] Some philosopher dogs must become philosopher kings, which requires further refined education. How do the dogs and the kings know who is alien, who is the enemy?[68] Who deserves to be hated?
The philosopher dogs are to be educated with music and gymnastics. Their character must be such that they “choose death in battles above defeat and slavery.”[69] The purging of the poets is meant to forge such reactions. A balance between music and gymnastics harmonizes a balance between the philosophic tendencies and spiritedness.[70] Education and testing further selects for the “complete guardians,” or rulers, and separates them from the “auxiliaries and helpers of the rulers’ convictions.”[71]
Socrates refines the role of the guardians, as those who “guard over enemies from without and friends from within—so that the ones will not wish to do harm and the others will be unable to.”[72] The philosopher dogs, as auxiliaries, need not decide who or what counts as known or unknown, they need only execute the “ruler’s convictions.”[73] That innate barking has been inculcated from the beginning. The remaining poetry protects against wayward influence and the noble lie establishes and embellishes who is one’s own and who is alien. The first portion of the lie ensures that all have the plan to defend their land, their mother, “if anyone attacks.”[74] Who is other rests outside their land.
The other is established by the guardians as rulers. Yet, the other is also defined by the three founders, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus, in dialogue.[75] Foundational moments pepper the text, where intervention from beyond the rulers and guardians is necessary. Recall, Socrates invokes Glaucon’s response, and the city becomes Greek. From this moment, the city has delineated who is one’s own and who is alien. Such classification is philosophical; it is only possible for the city after the third wave and the invocation of the philosopher-king.[76] For the guardians to be philosopher kings, they must be drawn from war to philosophy, with the caveat that their studies cannot “be useless to warlike men.”[77] They must be reeducated by number, “of distinguishing the one, the two, and the three.”[78] This practice leads to “intellection,” and is “apt to draw men toward being.”[79] War cultivates the skills necessary to move from the thinking and understanding of mathematical and scientific objects and hypotheses to intellection of the forms. War is the last step before philosophy.
Yet if the guardian is going to fully turn to philosophy, she or he must leave war behind. This is not immediately evident. Number is necessary because it allows the warrior to understand “dispositions for the army,” while for the philosopher it helps to “rise up out of becoming and take hold of being,” as evinced by the three fingers image.[80] Geometry, too, is valuable for war and philosophy, Socrates concedes.[81] But after Glaucon adds that astronomy is valuable for “generalship,” Socrates demands the split between war and philosophy. He accuses Glaucon, “You are like a man who is afraid…not wanting to seem to command useless studies.”[82] War demands practicality. It will always prevent one from fully looking up, because warriors must always be on the lookout for the enemy. Yet, philosophy is the only way to decide who they are to look out at.[83] Socrates, speaking in the language of war, demands that Glaucon “retreat.”[84] Only by retreating from the practicality of the world, can the same activity be applied to philosophy instead of war.
The guardian’s education is now philosophic, without the tendrils of war. It continues adding solid geometry, harmony, and dialectic. And yet, the philosopher maintains a warlike tendency, “going through every test, as it were, in battle.”[85] War is levied against opinion and becoming, in defense of knowledge and being. Real philosophers hate lies, they have “[n]o taste for falsehood; that is, they are completely unwilling to admit what’s false but hate it, while cherishing the truth.”[86] That is they turn away from lies.[87] At one point, Socrates admits he overreacts. He explains, “as I was talking I looked at Philosophy and, seeing her undeservingly spattered with mud, I seem to have been vexed and said what I had to say too seriously as though my spiritedness were aroused against those who are responsible.”[88]
The Death of Socrates (Jacques Louis David/The Met)
Philosophy deserves defense and Socrates was called to action. His spirit, like a guardian, invoked hatred against the other, opinion. Eventually, the philosophical education grounds itself again in the realities of war and law.[89] The city in speech acquiesces to the demands of war, and, in a way, of philosophy. Nevertheless, real philosophy cannot fail to forget its bellicose turning origins.[90] War is the last step out of the cave. Lastly, the city in war needs philosophy, for without it, war serves not just as a necessary part of the city’s inception but as a catalyst of its degeneration.[91]
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