Virtue and Knowledge by Prior William J

Author:Prior, William J. [William J. Prior]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781315522036
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

The philosopher-king

I noted above that Plato's account of the virtues is over-general, and in particular that it does not explain what makes the guardians wise. This is a topic that Plato returns to in Books V—VII of the Republic, in which the portrait of the ruling guardian is turned from a sketch into a fairly full picture. Though Plato describes this section of the Republic as a digression, it is far from an unessential one. One of the basic questions that arises from consideration of the political scheme of the dialogues is, what sort of wisdom must the guardians have in order to justify their political power? If the guardians differed only in degree from the auxiliaries and craftsmen, this would hardly justify placing absolute political control of the city into their hands. Their knowledge must be of a different kind from that possessed by ordinary mortals if it legitimatizes absolute power. Is such knowledge possible? How would the guardians come to possess it?

Though these questions are answered in the course of these three books, they do not arise at the outset. Instead, Socrates has been asked to answer certain questions about the social arrangements among the guardians and auxiliaries, in particular the community of women and children (449c—d). This question leads Socrates to argue for equality of opportunity for women (a radical idea in ancient Greece), and to explain the marital and child -rearing policies of the Republic as necessary to enable women to perform an equal role in the guardian class. After this rather striking anticipation of modern feminist views, he raises the question of the possibility of such a state's existence. It is not necessary to prove that the state he has described is possible, says Socrates, because "it was for the sake of an ideal standard that we searched for what justice itself is" (472c); just as a painter of an ideal human could not he faulted if a real-life model for the painting could not be found, neither should Socrates be blamed if the state is impossible to achieve. Practice always comes less close to truth than does theory (473a, a claim that jars our modern, empiricist sensibilities, but reveals Plato's own preference for the abstract over the concrete).

Nonetheless, the ideal can be approximated in practice. This can only happen, however, if philosophers become kings

"If the philosophers do not become kings in the cities," I said, "or those who are now called kings and rulers do not philosophize truly and adequately, and if political power and philosophy do not coincide ..., I think there will be no end of evils for cities, my dear Glaucon, or for the human race.... There is no other way for someone to be happy, either in private or in public life."

(473d—e)

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