Disccussions of Plato's Republic: Kraut's Forms vs. Vlastos' Practices

Socrates is a great philosopher who has good ideas about what should be the main educational subjects for a city, or a state or a country and of the highest class of people whom he calls the "guardians", the soldiers and the citizens. However, I consider his ideas are too ideal and have a few flaws or discrepancies in them. For example, the education of wisdom is more applicable to the guardians than to the citizens and the soldiers, and the education of just which means "to do one's own". But, in his plan, Socrates affirms that he wants to use all of the four virtues such as wisdom, courage, moderation and just to educate the "whole city" which means the inclusion of every one from guardians to citizens. How can he accomplish such a plan while being just means "to do one's own" and being wise means "to know everything and to have the best knowledge of many things"? Certainly, I see that when one tailor knows how to make the best clothes, he or she won't be able to learn other subjects such as history, geology or philosophy, etc. Thus, when one does his own profession, he won't be able to be wise or to obtain wisdom as Socrates thinks he could. Therefore, Socrates' theory of the republic has flaws in it, and this is the reason why I believe that the discussion of philosophy in Republic, specifically in Books V,VI and VII is central to Kraut's article more than to Vlastos' article on the study of Republic. The following paragraphs will introduce Kraut and Vlastos and the main ideas in their articles and explain why Vlastos justifies Socrates' Republic more than Kraut.


Vlastos is in his article "Justice and Happiness in the Republic" says 2 special things about justice and the relationship between justice and wisdom: (1) that justice is not only to do one's own but to also have a just disposition, and (2) that wise and brave hardly apply to polis and person in the same way in all respects. Those ideas can be found in the following paragraph extracted from his article:


So the thesis is that one has more to gain in happiness from being a just
man than from any good one could obtain at the price of becoming unjust.
Now performing a single just act, or some odd assortment of just acts,
is by no means equivalent to being a just man or , in Plato's phrase, "having
justice in the soul." So in "justice pays" justice is a property not of actions
as such, but of agents; it stands for the active disposition to behave justly
towards one's fellows. (Vlastos, 113)


What Vlastos means is that if one only acts justly by not stealing or cheating, he may have do it because he is forced to do so; otherwise, he will be punished for stealing or cheating, but it is not because he knows in his soul that he should not steal or cheat. In the other case, he may think that it is not wrong to steal or cheat and if he has an opportunity to do those things without being put in jail or punished, he will do them.


Althouth Vlastos does not agree with Plato and Socrates that justice is all about the phrase "to do one's own", he still agrees that one should have just acts such as to do one's own; he thinks that one needs to have a genuine motivation of why he should do his own things or that he needs to have a righteous mentality in all actions that he does not only because he must do it because he is obliged to but he should do it because he wishes to do just acts by himself not by being compelled by laws or external forces. Furthermore, Vlastos adopts the following form of argument about justice:


Because each shall have one's own is what judge should aim for,
but each shall have one's own if each does one's own, and what
judges should aim for is justice; therefore, each shall have one's
own and that each shall do one's own is justice. (Vlastos, 121)


He then proceeds to argue that jusice is not only doing one's own but also having one's own things, but Plato and Socrates did not say much about the property rights:


Thus consider how he tackles the question of whether or not the rulers
of his state should have private property. Common morality supplies no
answer. It does say that depriving unlawfully another of his property
("stealing") is unjust. Who, if anyone, should own property it does not
say. Plato here applies his own criterion of "doing one's own": his guardians
would be "more excellent cratfmen of their own work" (421C1-2) without,
than with, private property. This settles the matter: real estate and chattels
are not to be "theirs". In the last analysis, all questions of what does, or
does not, "belong to one" would be adjudicated in this matter. (Vlastos, 122)


Another matter brought up by Vlastos is the discrepancies between the three elements of virtues: justice, courage and wisdom that he writes in the following paragraph:


Second, he is misled by the false analogy on which he relies in
generalizing from the cases of "wise" in (B) and "brave" in (C)
to all moral predicates in (D), including "just". (Vlastos, 132)


What Vlastos means is that a person cannot have all three virtues of wise, just and brave because processing them causes conflicts. For example, a person who specializes only on his profession as a dancer will not learn scientific subjects and therefore will not be wise although she or he is just since he or she only does what belongs to his/her own profession of dancing; neither will he or she be brave because he/she is an artist, not a soldier. Thus, through this example, we see that Vlastos deprecates Plato's and Socrates' ideas presented in Republic regarding the 4 main virtues that are taken as the primary elements for an excellent education for a city or a state. It is obviously that the discussion in Plato's Republic is not central and is subject to be criticized by Vlastos in his article.


On the other hand, the discussion of Plato's Republic is central and is not subject to be seriously criticized by Klaut in his article; the following paragraphs will talk about how Klaus interprets and defends the meanings of Plato's Republic:


First, Kraut does not consider that Republic is a theory that has conflicting ideas as Vlastos; he writes:


I will try to identify and explain the fundamental argument of Plato's
Republic for the astonishing thesis that justice is so great a good that
anyone who fully possesses if is better off... Plato's attempt to defend
this remarkable claim is of course the unifying thread of the dialogue,
but his argument ranges so widely over diverse topics that it is
difficult to see how it all fits together... (Kraut, 311)


As we can see in the above statement, Kraut thinks that Plato's theory is good and the proofs of it are unified in the whole book. He then lays out the four attempts that Plato make as the following:


1) First, at the end of Bood IV, we learn that justice is a certain harmonious arrangement of the parts of the soul.


2) Second, in Book IX, Plato compares the five types of people he has been protraying in the middle books -- the philosophical ruler, the timocrat, the oligarch, the democrat, and the tyrant -- and declares that the happiest of them is the philosopher, since he exercises kingly rule over himself.


3) Third, Book IX immediately proceeds to argue that the philosophical life has more pleasure than any other, since the philosopher is in the best position to compare the various pleasures available to different types of people and prefers philosophical pleasures to all others.


4) And fourth, the pleasures of the philosophical life are shown to be more real and therefore greater than the pleasures of any sort of life. (Kraut, 312)


So, Kraut tries to prove that Plato succeeds in establishing an ideal city in which the citizens and its rulers have things in common such as the same virtues and the development of the type of the rulers in this ideal society match with the development of an excellent soul in each individual. Kraut also says that the thesis Plato undertakes to prove is phrased in strongly connected various ways: "It is better (ameinon) to be just than unjust (357b1); justice must be welcomed for itself if one is to be blessed (makarios, 358a3); the common opinion that injustice is more profitable (lusitelein) must be refuted (360c8); we must decide whether the just man is happiest (eudaimonesteros) than the unjust (361d3); justice by itself benefits (ominanai) someone who possesses it whereas injustice harms (blaptein) him (367d3-4); we must determine the advantages (opheliai) of justice and injustice (368c6)" (Kraut, 313)


In addition to the above excellent points that praise Plato's theory of justice, Kraut also thinks that to approve Plato's theory as a good one is to reject Aristotle objections against Plato; he writes:


According to Aristotle, we can discover what kind of life we should
lead only by determining which good or goods we should ultimately
pursue. He considers competing conceptions of this highest good
and takes the Platonist's answer to be that it is not some humdrum
object of pursuit like pleasure or virtue but is rather the Form of the
Good. Aristotle of course rejects this answer... So interpreted, the
Platonist is not simply saying that the Form of the Good is an indispensable
means or determining which among other objects are good; it itself is
the chief good. (Vlastos, 320)


And Kraut gives example for this account by taking an excellent friendship as a self-sufficient good and anyone who possesses this form of goodness will become worthwhile because he or she is connected with such a valuable object. Kraut thinks that when one admires another friend or wants to be a friend to someone who has excellent virtues and intellectual life, he himself also becomes virtuous and intellectual individual like his friend. Kraut writes:

Even if one is not a close friend of such a person, one may have
great love and admiration for him, and one may take pleasure in
studying his life. That is the sort of relationship Plato thinks we
should have with Forms -- not on the grounds that loving and studying
are good activities, whatever their objects, but on the grounds that
the Forms are the preeminent good and therefore our lives are vastly
improved when we come to know, love and imitate them (Kraut, 321)

Next, Kraut thinks that Plato's Forms exhibit the highest kind of orderly arrangement. He writes:

Plato equates health, the good condition of the body, with a certain
harmony among its element; and he argues that justice, the good
condition of the soul, is also a certain kind of harmony among its
parts; and so the thought suggests itself that he takes the goodness
of anything of a certain kind to be the harmony or proportion that
is appropriate for things of that kind. According to this suggestion,
the goodness of Forms consists in the fact that they possess a kind
of harmony, balance, or proportion; and their superiority to all
other things consists in the fact that the kind of order they possess
gives them a higher degree or harmony than any other type of
object. (Kraut, 322)

Finally, Kraut interprets Plato's last point about why the life of a philosopher is the best life and bring the best benefits to himself and every one else. Kraut thinks that Plato succeeded in proving that the life of a philosopher who is a just person was the best by showing an example that the life of a tyrant who is an unjust person caused misery for himself and every one else. Kraut writes:

We should recall, however, that Plato promises to do more than
merely show that justice is a great good. He has to show that it
is a greater good than injustice, so much so that even if the normal
consequences of justice and injustice arereversed, it will nonetheless
be better to be just than unjust. The paradigm of justice must be
punished because he is thought to be unjust; and the paradigm of
injustice is to receive the honors and rewards because he appears
to be just. How can Plato show that even in this situation it is
better to be just?
The answer lies partly in the way he describes the situation
of the completely unjust person, that is the tyrant. (Kraut, 325)

Kraut says that tyrannical power inevitably gives rise to continual fear of reprisals and an absence of trust in one's associates (576a, 579a-c), and that the failure to impose any order on one's appetites makes one the victim of frequent and disorganized internal demands (573d). So, in order to achieve great power and intense sexual pleasure, the tyrant must lead a chaotic life filled with anguish, fear, and frustration. He writes further that:

Fear, frustration, and chaos are the price philosophers must
inevitably pay for having a love of the Forms and for giving
this passion dominant role in their lives. On the contrary,
those who are in the best position for studying forms will have
modes and therefore easily satisfied appetites, and will be
free of the competitive desire for power that typically sets
people at odds and destroys their tranquility. (Kraut, 326)

In conclusion, through the above presentations regarding Vlastos' and Kraut's main arguments on Plato's Republic, we see that Vlastos considers Plato's theory of vitues and an ideal polis is not very practical because it contains conflicts in practicing the virtues such as justice causes conflicts with wisdom and courage, and Vlastos' most arguable point is that justice is not only "doing one's own" but also "having a right disposition of the soul" and "having one's own". Unlike Vlastos, Kraut is more likely to agree with everything Plato presents in his Republic, and he gives out his four main supportive arguments to defend for Plato's theory: (1) first is the excellent comparison between the virtues of a polis with the virtues of an individual soul and the match in the development of these virtues that can cause an orderly established ideal city in which citizens and the rulers are having the same education and virtues; (2) the second is the appraisal of the Forms in Plato's theory against Aristotle's objection of these Forms; (3) the third is that the Forms are the highest kind of orderly arrangement; (4) and finally, the life of a philosopher of a just person is the best life. Thus, we see that Kraut agrees with all the main aspects in Plato's theory of the republic while Vlastos thinks that Plato's theory is lacking many important points and impractical.



References

Kraut, Richard. "The Defense of Justice in Plato's Republic". The Cambridge Comparison to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Vlastos, Gregory. "Justice and Happiness in the Republic". Platonic Studies. Princeton University Press, 1973.