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Plato,
2007c. The Republic [357 BC, Translated by Desmond
Lee], 2nd edition. England, London: Penguin
Contents
8 December 2011
Page 45: 360a
Socrates
discusses with Glaucon and Adeimantus the reasons for
justice and injustice. Glaucon made
the following statement before Socrates answered him with
reference to the formation of a society wherein different
people group together their individual attributes to have
a better combined living than a living a single person can
have when not part of a group.
" 'So much for
that. Finally, we come to the decision between the two
lives, and we shall only be able to make this decision if
we contrast extreme examples of just and unjust men. By that I mean
if we make each of them the perfect of his own line, and
do not in any way mitigate the injustice of the one or the
justice of the other. To begin with the unjust man. He
must operate like a skilled professional – for example, a
top-class pilot [There was no pilots at the time. The
editor is a pilot] or doctor, who know just what they can
or can't do, never attempt the impossible, and are able to
retrieve any errors they make. The unjust man must,
similarly, if he is to be thoroughly unjust, be able to
avoid detection in his wrongdoing;
for the man who is found out must be reckoned a poor
specimen, and the most accomplished form of injustice is
to seem just when you are not. So our perfectly unjust man
must be perfect in his wickedness; he must be able to
commit the greatest crimes perfectly and at the same time
get himself a reputation for the highest probity, while,
if he makes a mistake he must be able to retrieve it, and,
if any of his wrongdoing comes to light, be ready with a
convincing defence, or when force is needed be prepared to
use force, relying on his own courage and energy or making
use of his friends or his wealth.
'Beside our
picture of the unjust man let us set one of the just man, the man of
true simplicity of character who, as Aeschylus says, wants
"to be and not to seem good". We must, indeed, not allow
him to seem good, for if he does he will have all the
rewards and honours paid to the man who has a reputation
for justice, and we shall not be able to tell whether his
motive is love of justice or love of the rewards and
honours. No, we must strip him of everything except his
justice, and our picture of him must be drawn in a way
diametrically opposite to that of the unjust man. Our just
man must have the worst of reputations for wrongdoing
even though he has done no wrong, so that we can test his
justice and see if it weakens in the face of unpopularity
and all that goes with it; we shall give him an undeserved
and life-long reputation for wickedness, and make him
stick to his chosen course until death. In this way, when
we have pushed the life of justice and of injustice each
to its extreme, we shall [own
emphasis on shall] be able to judge which of the two is
the happier...And if the description is somewhat brutal,
remember that it's not I that am responsible for it,
Socrates, but those who praise injustice more highly than
justice. It is their account that I must now repeat.' "
20 December 2011
[Socrates]: "
'And so our properly good Guardian will have the
following characteristics: a philosophic disposition, high
spirits, speed, and strength.' "
Page 71: 378e
[Socrates]: " To
which I replied, 'My dear Adeimantus, you and I are not
engaged on writing stories but on founding a state. And
the founders of a state, though they must know the type of
story the poet must produce, and reject any that do not
conform to that type, need not write them themselves.'
[Adeimantus]:
'True but what are the lines on which our poets must work
when they deal with the gods? [own emphasis]
[Socrates]:
'Roughly as follows,' .. 'God must surely always be
represented as he really is, whether the poet is writing
epic, lyric, or tragedy.' ... 'And in reality of course
god is good, and he must be
so described.' "
Self
Socrates was
advising Adeimantus and Glaucon on how they could go about
to start a well arranged republic. Socrates
refers to god in the singular male and Adeimantus refers
to the gods. Socrates said earlier that the children of
the new state who will be the Guardians should not be told
stories about gods which do horrible things to their
fellow human beings. The Guardians were the highest class;
the rulers and defence force of Adeimantus' and Glaucon's
imaginary state.
Page 72: 379c
[Socrates]: "
'Then god, being good, cannot be responsible for
everything, as is commonly said, but only for a small part
of human life, for the greater part of which he has no
responsibility. For we have a far smaller share of good
than of evil, and while god must be held to be sole cause
of good, we must look for some factors other than god as
cause of the evil. ... So we cannot allow Homer or any
other poet to make such a stupid mistake about the gods,
as when he says that
"Zeus has two
jars standing on the floor of his palace, full of fates,
good in one and evil in the other;"
and that the man
to whom Zeus allots a mixture of both has
"varying
fortunes sometimes good and sometimes bad",
while the man to
whom he allots unmixed evil is
"chased by
ravening despair over the face of the earth"."
Self
Socrates
effectively excluded human beings from the definition of
God because according to him God is perfect; 100% truth;
the unchanging Forms of perfection.
Page 73: 381b
[Socrates]: "
'But god and the things of god are entirely perfect.'
...On this argument, then, god is not in the least likely
to take on many forms.'
[Adeimantus]:
Any change must be for the worse. For god's beauty and
goodness are perfect.
[Socrates]: 'You
are absolutely right,' .. 'And, that being so, do you
think that anyone, man or god, would deliberately, make
himself worse in any respect?'
[Adeimantus]:
'Impossible,'
[Socrates]:
'Then it must also be impossible,' ., 'for a god to wish
to change himself. Every god is perfect in beauty and
goodness, and remains in his own form without variation
for ever (sic).'
Self
Here it seems
Socrates did not have a fixed definition for God because
'Every god ..' implies plurality of the form of his
definition existed. Previously he referred to the singular
'..god..'
Page 81: 389a
[Socrates]: "
'And surely we must value truthfulness highly. For if we
were right when we said just now that falsehood is no use
to the gods and only useful to men as a kind of medicine, it's clearly a
kind of medicine that should be entrusted to doctors and
not to laymen. . . It will be for the rulers of our city,
then, if anyone, to use falsehood in dealing with
citizen or enemy for the good of the State; no one else
must do so. And if any
citizen lies to our rulers, we shall regard it as a still
graver offence than it is for a patient to lie to his
doctor, or for any athlete to lie to his trainer about his
physical condition, or for a sailor to misrepresent to his
captain any matter concerning the ship or crew, or the
state of himself or his fellow-sailors.' "
Self
Socrates here
gives the impression that perhaps the gods Adeimantus and
Glaucon refers to were a class above the rulers or
guardians of a state; the people who had the means to
create a republic after colonisation. Adeimantus and
Glaucon were the younger brothers of Socrates (Page xvii).
Socrates perceived God as an unchanging Form which did not
include humans. Socrates was instructed to commit suicide
in order to stop his influence on the youth of Athens and
because he was accused of introducing new gods (Page xix).
Apparently, during the time of Jesus, about 399 years
after Socrates' death the rulers in Israel were also not
impressed by the influence of Greek philosophy on the
youth of Israel.
Page 205: 485c
" 'Then if the
philosopher is to be as we described him, must he not have
a further characteristic?'
'What?'
'Truthfulness. He will never
willingly tolerate an untruth, but will hate it, just as
he loves truth.'
'That seems
likely enough.'
'It's not only
likely,' I [Socrates] replied, 'it is an absolutely
necessary characteristic of the lover that he should be
devoted to everything closely connected with the object of
his love.'
'True.'
'And is there
anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth?'
'No.' "
Self
In the Bible
wisdom as a result of fear of God is mentioned. See
Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 9:10 and Acts 17:11 [Google search:
' "Fear of God" Wisdom '; 20 December 2011]
Whether fear of
God or truth and trust in God is the source of wisdom is a
discussion which can only be fruitfully entered into after
consensus has been reached about a definition for God. The
place that honest people have or do not have in the
definition of 'Lord' or 'Here' is relevant. I suspect
despotism is also relevant.
That is despotism of honest persons who cracked and who
then became maniacs.
Page 231: 507a
|
Visible
World |
Intelligible
World |
|
The
Sun |
The
Good |
|
Source
of growth and light |
Source
of reality and truth, |
|
which
gives visibility to objects of sense and the
power of seeing to the eye. |
which
gives intelligibility to objects of thought and
the power of knowing to the
mind. |
|
The
faculty of sight. |
The
faculty of knowledge.' |
Page 266: 534a
[Socrates]: "
'Then let us be content with the terms we used earlier on
for the four divisions of our line –
calling them, in order, pure knowledge (A), reason [B],
belief [C], and illusion [D]. The last two we class
together as opinion, the first two
as knowledge (A + B), opinion being concerned with the
world of becoming, knowledge (A + B) with the world of
reality. Knowledge (A + B) stands to opinion as the world
of reality does to that of becoming, and pure
knowledge (A) stands to belief and reason to illusion as
knowledge (A + B) stands to opinion. The relation of the
realities corresponding to knowledge (A + B) and opinion
and the twofold divisions into which they fall we had
better omit if we're not to involve ourselves in an
argument even longer than we've already had' ... So you
agree in calling a man a dialectician who can take account
of the essential nature of each thing; and in saying that
anyone who is unable to give such an account of things
either to himself or to other people has to that extent
failed to understand them. ... Then doesn't the same apply
to the good? If a man can't define the form of the good
and distinguish it clearly in his account from everything
else, and then battle his way through all objections,
determined to give them refutation based on reality and
not opinion, and come through with his argument unshaken,
you wouldn't say he knew what the good in itself was, or indeed any
other good. Any shadowy notion such a man gets hold of is
the product of opinion rather than knowledge, and he's
living in a dream from which he will not awake on this
side of the other world, where he will finally sleep for
ever (sic). ... So you will lay it down that they must
devote themselves especially to this discipline [of a
dialectician], which will enable them to ask and answer
questions with the highest degree of understanding ...
Then you agree that dialectic is the coping-stone that
tops our educational system; it completes the course of
studies and there is no other study that can rightly be
placed above it.' "
Self
Dialectic
reasoning can take place between two persons. Their
individual dialogical definitions for the same words
become very relevant for clear understanding of their
opinions. When dialectic reasoning happens in one person's
mind the dialectical dependencies of definitions are less
relevant because words will mean the same in thesis and
antithesis. Definitions for words of definitions for words
ad infinitum could be good for talking or not.
Page 268: 535c
[Socrates]: "
'They must have good memories, determination
and a fondness for hard work. How, otherwise, will they be
ready to go through with such an elaborate course of study
on top of their physical training? . . Which explains what
is wrong with philosophy today and why it has a bad
reputation; as we said before, it is taken up by those
unworthy of it. Philosophy should be wooed by true men,
not bastards.' "
Self
Socrates'
definition of truth is problematic because he says rulers
may lie but they should also be philosophers who strive to
the greatest truth possible. How can a person strive to
the greatest truth possible if he corrupts his own mind
and memory with untruth? According to my theory deceit
will diminish the ability of a person, who deceives, to
think logically, because he will use additional memory to
remember the deceits. On page 231 Socrates attributed
truth to the 'Intelligible world' but maybe his truth did
not include being outwardly truthful. It seems he thought
that truth is only applicably inward; that is to know
truthful knowledge but not to portray it. He did not then
consider the probable effect that lies and honesties have
on memories and the ability to think clearly and to
distinguish fact and self created fiction. A question
exists in my mind whether a deceiver can properly
distinguish between fact and self created fiction in their
thought processes when attempting to use pre- existing
knowledge only to create new knowledge by combining
current knowledge (truths) and new facts.
Page 268: 535d
" 'We shall
regard as equally handicapped for the pursuit of truth a
mind which, while it detests deliberate lying, and will
not abide it in itself and is indignant to find it in
others, cheerfully acquiesces in conventional
misrepresentation and feels no indignation when its own
ignorance is shown up, but wallows in it like a pig in a
sty.' "
Self
It seems from
the notes of the book that Socrates referred to a person
who are easily swayed away in common misrepresentations
which deceive many people; also to a person who does not
feel remorse when he finds that self portrayed opinion as
knowledge. I think a person portrays opinion as fact if
that person deliberately deceives with a false reference
because when a writer states something it is obviously his
opinion unless it is vouched by a reference. Sometimes, in
my own writing, referenced opinions combine my opinion
with another's opinion to form a group opinion. When an
opinion can be referenced with many authors', surely it
strengthens the opinion. Facts are rare in non-statistical
research.
Page 274: 540b-d
[Socrates]: " 'And so, when
they have brought up successors like themselves to take
their place as Guardians, they will depart to the island
of the blest (34), and the state will set up a public
memorial to them and sacrifice to them, if the Pythian
Oracle approves, as divinities, or at any rate as blessed
and godlike.' "
'It's a fine
picture you have drawn of our Rulers, Socrates.'
[Socrates]: "
'And some of them will be women, all I have said about men
applies equally to women, if they have the requisite
natural capacities. . . The indispensable condition is
that political power should be in the hands of one or more
true philosophers.' "
(34) "The Greek
heaven."
Self
Up to this page
Plato through Socrates has used capital letters when
referring to Rulers or Guardians and a small g when he
referred to god. Maybe his definition of god was the same
as the definition by Egyptians for 'neter' (Egyptian book
of the dead). In my thoughts the Egyptians' belief in
'neter' corresponds to the Pan belief. Pan has goat hooves
and horns. If I recall correctly 'neter' was not spelled
with a capital n after being translated from hieroglyphs
in my Book of the dead. I do not have an impression that
neter is a name like Pan. In the above quote Socrates
refers to 'one or more true philosophers' and 'some of
them will be women'. I doubt thus again that humans could
have been included in his definition of god because of the
small g he used to write god and the capital R and G he
used for Ruler and Guardian. Again, I think, that Socrates
thought humans can only aspire to be 100% truthful but
could never reach it and therefore could approximate
'godlike' status. It feels illogical. My definition feels
better and is more logical. My definition will increase
truths and creativities because the one and only god who
is one person only will not be relevant. It could be
argued that capital Rs and Gs classify his rulers higher
than his god, but then he says the "Rulers" are "godlike".
To say Rulers are godlike, could be argued, makes no sense
because the capital R categorises ruler above god but the
word godlike categorise ruler below God.
Page 297: 560c
[Socrates]: "
'And back he goes to live with the Lotus-eaters.(16)' "
(16) " Odyssey,
IX, 82 ff. Proverbial of those who abandon home and family
ties. "
Page 306: 567d
[Socrates]: "
'In the dog's name!'(25)"
Note 69 Part
III: "Glaucon swears 'By Zeus', the chief Olympian god;
Socrates, who always avoided such oaths, swears the oath
traditionally ascribed to him, 'By the dog'. "
From
Wikipedia on 21 December 2011 at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynocephaly
"Ancient
Greece and Egypt
Cynocephaly
was familiar to the Ancient Greeks from
representations of the Egyptian gods Hapi (the son of Horus)
and Anubis (the Egyptian god of the
dead). The Greek word (Greek: κῠνοκέφᾰλοι) "dog-head" also
identified a sacred Egyptian
baboon with the face of a dog.[1]
Reports
of dog-headed races can also be traced back to Greek
antiquity. In the fifth century BC, the Greek physician Ctesias wrote a detailed report on
the existence of cynocephali in India.[2]
Similarly, the Greek traveller Megasthenes claimed to know
about dog-headed people in India who lived in the
mountains, communicated through barking, wore the skins of
wild animals and lived by hunting.[3"
Page 355: 608e
[Socrates]:" 'I
call anything that harms or destroys a thing evil, and
anything that preserves and benefits it good.' "
22 December 2011
Self
Good and evil
according to Socrates can only be determined in relation
to something else than the good itself. What is good for
one may be not good for another. The Forms he proposed as
the highest category; the unchanging goodness can only be
evaluated in relation to "a thing". A thing is one and if
it consists of different parts the good will become
relative if the thing divides into different parts,
because then again what is good for one part can be not
good for another part. Maybe it could be generalised if
something good can be found that preserves everything.
Everything would include evil things which would make
everything illogical because how can it be good to
preserve evil things. Even if an evil thing is changed
into a good thing the thing becomes a new thing and the
evil thing is destroyed. If argued that the evil thing
which became good is one thing, then the evil thing was
also preserved because evil behaviour destroys self. Once
the evil thing becomes good it will be preserved. It is
thus argued that the evil thing should first be changed
into a good thing. Before Socrates' good can be
generalised good things, to be preserved, or to be changed
into good from evil, good has to be identified. If good
actions depends on the existence of good things which are
preserved by way of good actions, then a good thing must
first be defined, according to Socrates' philosophy.
If truth
(searching for it and portraying it) is good, what are the
good things it preserves? The question does not start at
the good things but at the good actions. If it is argued
that the argument of goodness should start at the adverb
and the verb then it could be argued that everything that
good actions preserves are good things. Where does the
dialectic reasoning begin; at the verb or the noun? On
page 231 Socrates said Good is the source of truth. Good
in that sense is the portrayals of realities because
truths are a result of portrayals and communications.
He used the
verbs preserves and benefits in the singular. Maybe it
should rather have been preserve and benefit in the
plural. The next question then is what are the things that
should not be destroyed? It seems it could be everything
and that if a thing is not good it should be changed in
order to preserve it or it should just be left alone and
then it will change itself or be changed by the
metaphysical part of God.
On page 266
Socrates says, as I understand it, that the good in itself can only be
described as an opinion. It seems that he refers to good
as a noun, because only a part of a noun can be in the
noun itself The subject-object dichotomy is relevant. If
good is seen as an adverb; to communicate truth or to
preserve and benefit, what are the things to be preserved
on second thoughts? Probably the things that truthful
people create should be given priority when preservation
is considered. Who should own those things? ICrMA argues the people
who create the truths and the things as a result of the
truths should be given income rights or ownership rights
to their intellectual creations. Motivation to be truthful
will then be more common. More common truths will then
lead to a more successful economy. ICrMA has to happen
before identification of intellectual creations can take
place. The source of intellectual creations has been
identified partly as truths. The sources of truths; the
people who communicates truths, can perhaps be identified
by modern technology. After identification of the sources,
as close as possible to the truths, remunerations can be
adjusted on a scale to fit levels of honesties.
Page 355:608e
[Socrates]: "
'Then hasn't each individual thing its own particular good
and evil? So most things are subject to their own specific
form of evil or disease; for example, the eyes to
ophthalmia (sic) and the body generally to illness, grain
to mildew, timber to rot, bronze and iron to rust, and so
on. . . And is not their effect to flaw anything they
attack, and finally to disintegrate and destroy it
altogether? . . A thing's specific evil or flaw is
therefore what destroys it, and nothing else will do so.
For what is good is not destructive, nor what is neutral.
. . If, therefore, we find anything whose specific evil
can mar it, but cannot finally destroy it, we shall know
that it must by its very nature be indestructible.' "
Self
If destruction
always comes from part of a thing, destruction implies
that everything is one thing. That sounds like holism. How
can anything or person who are being destroyed by another
person, see that other person as part of himself. If
illnesses that are in persons destroy the persons, the
illnesses can be practically seen as part of those
persons. Holism however does not
make sense to me now. There has to be at least two parts
to the visible world. It implies that if something can be
seen and separated from the rest, that there has to be
something else in the world together with the separated
thing.
Page 356: 609e
[Socrates]: "
'For you know, of course, Glaucon, . , that it would not
be right to suppose that the death of the body was due to
the badness of its food, which might be old or rotten or
have any other characteristic defect; if any such defect
in the food set up a process of deterioration in the body,
we should say that the body had been killed by its own
particular evil, disease, of which the bad food was the
occasion. But we ought not ever to say that the body,
which is one kind of thing, has been killed by the badness
of its food, which is another kind of thing, unless the
bad food has produced the body's own specific kind of
evil.' "
Self
The above
statement can be read in context of Socrates' death by
drinking hemlock, after being sentenced to do so.
becoming, 5
despotism, 4
detection, 1
for the good of the State; no one
else must do so, 3
four divisions, 5
god is good, 2
gods?, 2
good in itself, 5, 9
good memories, 6
Guardian, 2
Holism, 9
ICrMA, 9
just and unjust men, 1
just man, 2
justice and injustice, 1
medicine, 3
opinion, 5
power of knowing, 5
professional, 1
reputations, 2
Truthfulness, 4
use falsehood, 3
use of his friends or his wealth,
2
well arranged republic, 2
wisdom, 4
wisdom as a result of fear of
God, 4