One Quote

Justice, therefore, we may say, is a principle of this kind; its real concern is not with external actions, but with a man's inward self, his true concern and interest. The just man will not allow the three elements which make up his inward self to trespass on each other's functions or interfere with each other, but, by keeping all three in tune, like notes of a scale (high, middle, and low, and any others there be), will in the truest sense set his house to rights, attain self-mastery and order, and live on good terms with himself. When he has bound these elements into a disciplined and harmonious whole, and so become fully one instead of many, he will be ready for action of any kind, whether it concerns his personal or financial welfare, whether it is political or private; and he will reckon and call any of these actions just and honorable if it contributes to and helps maintain this disposition of mind, and will call the knowledge which controls such action wisdom. Similarly, he will call unjust any action destructive of this disposition, and the opinions which control such action ignorance

Synopsis

In a dialog format, Plato portrays a fictional conversation between Socrates (his mentor), and several friends. They try to answer the questions of "what is a good man?", and "is it better to be wholly virtuous and good, yet despised unjustly... or wholly unjust and wicked, yet loved and admired?". Plato describes the types of community those men might live in, and describes the titular Republic where he believes harmony would exist naturally because of its castes and organization, and wherein conditions are conducive to virtue of the individual and the state. He describes what type of government, society, and education systems would be in place. He also defines and describes what a "philosopher king" would be like.

My Notes

Big Idea - Good People Disdain Authority

"No man will benefit from his profession, unless he is paid as well... no one really wants authority and with it the job of righting other people's wrongs, unless he is paid for it; because in the exercise of his professional skill, if he does his job properly, he never does or orders what is best for himself but only what is best for his subject... So good men will not consent to govern for cash or honors. They do not want to be called mercenary for exacting a cash payment for the work of government, or thieves for making money on the side; and they will not work for honors, for they aren't ambitious. We must therefore bring compulsion to bear and punish them if they refuse - perhaps that's why it's commonly considered improper to accept authority except with reluctance or under pressure; and the worst penalty for refusal is to be governed by someone worse than themselves. That is what, I believe, frightens honest men into accepting power, and they approach it not as if it were something desirable out of which they were going to do well, but as if it were something unavoidable, which they cannot find anyone better or equally qualified to undertake."

The paradox of leadership—that those best suited to lead are least likely to desire it. This is one of the big ideas that I took away.

Big Idea - Education

"we shall not be properly educated ourselves, nor will the Guardians whom we are training, until we can recognize the qualities of discipline, courage, generosity, greatness of mind, and others akin to them, as well as their opposites, in all their many manifestations."

"It is in education that disorder can most easily creep in unobserved,' he replied. 'Yes,' I agreed, 'because people treat it as child's-play, and think no harm can come of it.' 'It only does harm,' he said, 'because it gradually makes itself at home and quietly undermines morals and manners; from them it issues with greater force and invades business dealings generally, and then, Socrates, spreads into the laws and constitution with complete lack of restraint, until it has upset the whole of private and public life.'"

Plato envisions education as the mechanism for cultivating the philosopher-king, emphasizing the importance of a well-rounded education that develops reason, spirit, and appetite in harmony. When he talks about education, he wasn't talking about our modern society. Education was to educe. It was to draw out the information, and was more of an internal affair than a public one. Education meant to reason and contemplate, and inspect and judge, in an attempt to extract wisdom and knowledge from data and observations.

Big Idea - Virtues in a State

He talks about the 4 virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice as it relates to an entire state, but they also translate well to the individual level.

Wisdom

The smallest part, the Guardians, are charged with leadership, guidance, and military defense of the state. That part shows wisdom. "[knowledge] which is exercised not on behalf of any particular interest but on behalf of the city as a whole, in such a way as to benefit the state both in its internal and external relations... So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent part or class, which exercises authority over the rest. And it appears further that the naturally smallest class is the one which is endowed with that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom."

Courage

"That part retains in all circumstances the power to judge, on the basis laid down by our lawgiver in its education, what and what sort of things are to be feared... 'I say', I replied, 'that courage is a sort of safe-keeping... The sort that will safely keep the opinion inculcated by the established education about what things and what kind of things are to be feared. And by retaining it in all circumstances I meant retaining it safely, without losing it in pleasure or pain, desire or fear.'"

Self-Discipline

"'Self-discipline,' I said, 'is surely a kind of order, a control of certain desires and appetites. So people use "being master of oneself" (whatever that means) and similar phrases as indications of it... but "master of oneself" is an absurd phrase. For if you're master of yourself you're presumably also subject to yourself, and so both master and subject. For there is only one person in question throughout... What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the personality of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when (as a result of bad upbringing or bad company) the smaller forces of one's better element are overpowered by the numerical superiority of one's worse, then one is adversely criticized and said not to be master of oneself and to be in a state of indiscipline.'"

Justice

"justice consists in minding your own business and not interfering with other people... justice is keeping what is properly one's own and doing one's own job... the worst of evils for one's own community is injustice"

The four virtues of the individual are extensible to the virtues of the state, and the virtues of the state as Plato describes them are a macrocosm for the virtues of the individual. It's a bidirectional thing. This reminds me of a quote from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from his book Flow, "But no social change can come about until the consciousness of individuals is changed first. When a young man asked Carlyle how he should go about reforming the world, Carlyle answered, ‘Reform yourself. That way there will be one less rascal in the world.’ The advice is still valid. Those who try to make life better for everyone without having learned to control their own lives first usually end up making things worse all around.”

Big Idea - The Third Element of the Soul

Socrates talks about the constituent elements of the psyche. First we have the appetites. These are our animal tendencies to strive after food, sex, social status, and everything comfortable and advantageous, as well as every vice and passion. The appetites can drive you to anger and arousal and any misdeed. It urges you to have another cookie, to cheat on your spouse, and to bludgeon your competition over the head with a hammer. The appetites are like a wild untamed beast with no shame, one which operates on instinct only.

The second element of psyche is reason. Reason is the part of you which can tame and direct the wild beast. If appetite is the horse, then reason is the rider. Reason can think, determine the best course of action, and know intellectually and academically the proper course of action from a moral, ethical, and long-term standpoint. Reason should remain in control, and guide what we do.

At last we read about 'spirit' and how it's different from reason and appetite. If spirit is reason's auxiliary then you're in good shape. If the spirit is overcome by passion, then appetite will have its way. Spirit is contributed to by the character of a person, her discipline, and her self-image. Spirit is in alignment with enterprise and indignation, and can sometimes be at odds with the appetites. It can serve as a tie-breaker. Spirit can be corrupted by bad upbringing and bad education.

Socrates concludes that Reason ought to rule, and the spirit ought to obey reason and support it. "we call him self-disciplined when all these three elements are in friendly and harmonious agreement, when reason and its subordinates are all agreed that reason should rule and there is no civil war among them". Socrates argues that Justice is what produces men and states of this harmonious character. He says "Justice, therefore, we may say, is a principle of this kind; its real concern is not with external actions, but with a man's inward self, his true concern and interest. The just man will not allow the three elements which make up his inward self to trespass on each other's functions or interfere with each other, but, by keeping all three in tune, like notes of a scale (high, middle, and low, and any others there be), will in the truest sense set his house to rights, attain self-mastery and order, and live on good terms with himself. When he has bound these elements into a disciplined and harmonious whole, and so become fully one instead of many, he will be ready for action of any kind, whether it concerns his personal or financial welfare, whether it is political or private; and he will reckon and call any of these actions just and honorable if it contributes to and helps maintain this disposition of mind, and will call the knowledge which controls such action wisdom. Similarly, he will call unjust any action destructive of this disposition, and the opinions which control such action ignorance."  Socrates concludes later, that "excellence is a kind of mental health or beauty or fitness, and defect a kind of illness or deformity or weakness... And each is in turn the result of one's practice, good or bad".

Big Idea - Philosophers, Opinion, and Knowledge

Plato said that just as reason should rule our souls, so too should the philosopher control the state in politics. He defines a philosopher as 'those whose hearts are fixed on the true being of each thing are to be called philosophers and not lovers of opinion'. And that philosophy is 'an occupation for the proper pursuit of which a man must combine in his nature good memory, readiness to learn, breadth of vision and grace, and be a friend of truth, justice, courage, and self-control'.

Big Idea - Oligarchy Educes the Worst Defect of Society

An oligarchy s a society where the wealthy rule the masses. This is the first societal organization described in the book for which the worst defect of society is possible. Plato said it is "that a man can sell all he has to another and live on as a member of society without any real function; he's neither a businessman nor craftsman nor cavalryman nor infantryman, but merely one of the so-called indignant poor... and there is certainly nothing to prevent it in oligarchies otherwise you would not get the sharp division between the very rich and the very poor... There's another point. When our pauper was rich, did he perform any of the useful social functions we've just mentioned simply be spending his money? Though he may have appeared to belong to the ruling class, surely  in fact he was neither ruling, nor serving society in any other way; he was merely a consumer of goods... He grows up in his own home to be a plague to the community, just as a drone grows in its cell to be a plague to the hive... All winged drones have been created by god without stings, but that our two-footed ones vary, some having no stings and some very formidable ones; and that the stingless type end their days as beggars, the stinging type as what we call criminals... and the reason for their existence is lack of education, bad upbringing and a bad form of government.... money-makers, bent on their business, don't appear to notice them, but continue to inject their poisoned loans wherever they can find a victim, and to demand high rates of interest on the sum lent, with the result that the drones and beggars multiply... If contracts for a loan were, in general, made by law at the lender's risk, there would be a good deal less shameless money-making and a good deal less of the evils I have been describing."

Wow, that's a sobering damnation of our current society if I ever read one. We have all this today. It's almost like we have an oligarchy, and not a democracy. I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole. My vote matters, right? Oh well, I have credit cards to worry about...

Big Idea - Shamelessness in Democracy

Once the common people throw out the oligarchs, they demand to self-govern. By the people, for the people. 'We the People', and all that. Great! But what does this lead to? "They praise them all extravagantly and call insolence good breeding, license liberty, extravagance generosity, and shamelessness courage." Speaking of the democratic man - "If anyone tells him that some pleasures, because they spring from good desires, are to be encouraged and approved, and others, springing from evil desires, to be disciplined and repressed, he won't listen or open his citadel's doors to the truth, but shakes hi head and says all all pleasures are equal and should have equal rights... he lives from day to day, indulging in the pleasure of the moment. One day it's wine, women and song, the next water to drink and a strict diet; one day it's hard physical training, the next indolence and careless ease, and then a period of philosophic study. Often he takes to politics and keeps jumping to his feet and saying or doing whatever comes into his head. Sometimes all his ambitions and efforts are military, sometimes they are all directed to success in business. There's no order or restraint in his life, and he reckons his way of living is pleasant, free and happy, and sticks to it through thick and thin... The minds of the citizens become so sensitive that the least vestige of restraint is resented as intolerable, till finally, as you know, in their determination to have no master they disregard all laws, written or unwritten."

What Plato describes as the problems in Oligarchy and Democracy seem to ALL be present in modern western society. I wonder if what we actually have is some combination of democracy and oligarchy, which merits its own name separate from both? Olig-ocracy? Democra-garchy? I don't know.

Other notes

"Good men need no orders,' he said. 'They will find out easily enough what legislation is in general necessary.'"

The sun makes visible things that are seen, if and when an eye looks. It is not the object seen which does the job. In the same way, the good makes truth known if and when a mind thinks on it. The good is like the sun, the truth is like the visible object, and the mind is like the eye.

Knowledge, Visions, Opinion, and Intelligible things. Knowledge is consisting of intelligible things such as intelligence, mathematics and 'the forms'. Opinion is consisting of unintelligible things like belief, illusion, physical things, shadows, and the visible physical realm.

Truth and illusion are combined to finally arrive at opinion. I think of it like an electrical power triangle, where truth is like real power, illusion is like reactive power, and opinion is like apparent power.

Imagine a graph, which has an x-axis and y-axis. Along the x-axis is from left to right false to true. Along the y-axis is from bottom to top bad to good illusion. Quadrant 1 consists of true and good illusion, which leads to faith. Quadrant 2 consists of false and good illusion, which leads to delusion. Quadrant 3 consists of false and bad illusion, which leads to madness. Quadrant 4 consists of true and bad illusion, which leads to opinion. So the kinds of illusion are as follows: faith, opinion, delusion, and madness.

"Excellence knows no master; a man shall have more or less of her according to the value he sets on her. The fault lies not with God, but with the soul that makes the choice."

Summary

I really enjoyed this book. To me it helps sort out what each virtue is, and how it relates to the individual and the society. It also clearly articulates some of the societal problems that can arise when the leadership of the political / governing class is less than ideal.