In Plato's Republic, Socrates contends that philosophers make the best rulers because only they behold with their mind's eye the eternal and purely intelligible Forms of the Just, the Noble, and the Good. When, in addition, these men and women are endowed with a vast array of moral, intellectual, and personal virtues and are appropriately educated, surely no one could doubt the wisdom of entrusting to them the governance of cities. Although it is widely—and reasonably—assumed that all the Republic’s philosophers are the same, Roslyn Weiss argues in this boldly original book that the Republic actually contains two distinct and irreconcilable portrayals of the philosopher. According to Weiss, Plato’s two paradigms of the philosopher are the "philosopher by nature" and the "philosopher by design." Philosophers by design, as the allegory of the Cave vividly shows, must be forcibly dragged from the material world of pleasure to the sublime realm of the intellect, and from there back down again to the “Cave” to rule the beautiful city envisioned by Socrates and his interlocutors. Yet philosophers by nature, described earlier in the Republic, are distinguished by their natural yearning to encounter the transcendent realm of pure Forms, as well as by a willingness to serve others—at least under appropriate circumstances. In contrast to both sets of philosophers stands Socrates, who represents a third paradigm, one, however, that is no more than hinted at in the Republic. As a man who not only loves “what is” but is also utterly devoted to the justice of others—even at great personal cost—Socrates surpasses both the philosophers by design and the philosophers by nature. By shedding light on an aspect of the Republic that has escaped notice, Weiss’s new interpretation will challenge Plato scholars to revisit their assumptions about Plato’s moral and political philosophy.
[...]... acquiring power,36 and they think it impossible both to acquire power “whether the others wish it or not” and to master the piloting craft (488e).37 The sailors in the allegory represent the politicians (489c); the ship, the city; the shipowner, the people; the skilled pilots, the philosophers; the art of piloting, the art of ruling; and the astronomical, atmospheric, and meteorological matters, the. .. identified in the earlier discussion as distinguishing philosophers from others—namely, that they are always in love with the kind of learning that is related to being and, in loving indiscriminately all of what they love, are like honor-lovers and erotikoi—and ties the philosophers possession of the ¯ moral virtues to these defining features The moral virtues—justice, moderation, and courage—are found in. .. again only in Socrates’ explanation of the fifteen years the philosophers are made to spend in the Cave before their final ascent to the vision of the Good: “so that they won’t be behind the others in experience” (7.539e) 18 Philosophers in the Republic As Socrates proceeds, he considers whether it is possible that the same men “will be able to possess these two distinct sets of qualities” (kakeina kai... comparable doubt The way it seems to him, he says, is that these men are indeed “speaking the truth” (487d) Turning first to the charge that the decent philosophers are “useless,” Socrates affirms their uselessness but blames it on the circumstances in which they find themselves He defends the philosophers in two separate discussions, the first at 488a-489c (in the ship allegory) and the second at 496a-e,... whereas the pilot steers the ship but does not determine its destination, the effective ruler needs to determine the city’s ends (See Keyt 2006, 201; Bambrough 1956, 105; Walzer 1983, 285–89.) One way to strengthen the analogy is to take the pilot’s task to be to keep the ship on course, and the ruler’s to do the same for the city—though in the one case doing so does not include setting the end, and in the. .. each other for command of their ship and who are capable in their frenzy even of killing one another These sailors attempt to persuade the shipowner to put them in charge or, if need be, they coerce him (“enchaining the noble shipowner with mandrake, drink, or something else, they rule the ship”— 488c), as they “drink and feast” and “sail as such men would be thought likely to sail” (488c).32 They have... utter disdain not only for the man who is an expert at the art of piloting and whose attention is therefore focused 32 Keyt (2006, 196) thinks the “political analogue” of the sailors’ eating and feasting is the politicians’ “entertaining the people and feasting them with what they have an appetite for” in the Gorgias It would be more accurate, however, to see as analogous to the Gorgias scenario the sailors’... found in the Republic, the “philosophic” dogs of Book 2 12 Philosophers in the Republic and the guardians who resemble them; they are discussed in the addendum to the current chapter.) Of these four (or five), only the first, the one who is inclined by his nature to strive to grasp the highest realities, the one who is driven to “what is” by an innate desire for truth and love of wisdom and who remains... to the need for a man to see the Good if he is to act prudently in private or in public, Glaucon says: “I, too, join you in supposing that, at least in the way I can.” 6 Philosophers in the Republic II Engaging Glaucon and Adeimantus Socrates undertakes two formidable tasks in the Republic The first is imposed on him by Glaucon and Adeimantus: they ask him to establish for them the worth of justice The. .. philosophy in action, Plato’s dialogues speak to us, his readers One might say that they contain two messages: one, Socrates’; the other, Plato’s Socrates’ message is in the first instance for his interlocutors—not for us It is driven by his interlocutors’ moral character and by the quirks of their personalities, by their good intentions and bad, by their interests, by their desires, by the level of their . their good intentions and bad, by their interests, by their desires, by the level of their understanding, and by their willingness or reluctance to inquire. summa- rized in the opening passage of Book 8 at 543a-c. 2 Philosophers in the Republic is to put the philosophic life on display. The characters in them, though