Understanding Plato

We have come to the end of Plato's Republic and the end of the podcast. In the final episode, Socrates satisfies Glaucon's challenge to show that a just state is always preferable to an unjust state and being a just person is always better than being unjust. He has previously described the just and unjust governments (kingship and aristocracy) and corresponding souls. Socrates now contrasts them to each stage of the degradation of the city-state and soul, concluding with a discussion of Tyranny and the tyrannical soul. The conclusion is that kingship and aristocracy are always preferable to any other type of government or soul, especially tyrannical states and souls.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is one of the most famous thought experiments in the history of Western philosophy. An allegory is "a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one" (Oxford). The question asked by Plato scholars and repeated here is "What meaning is most consistent with the moral and political ideas promoted by Socrates in the preceding discussion about the form of the Good?"

This episode begin with Socrates' astounding claim that "only philosophers should be kings." However, he soon qualifies this with the remark that he does not mean philosopher in name only. He means philosophers who have a specific kind of knowledge that he calls "knowledge of the form Good." The remainder of this episode is a journey through the distinction between forms (concepts) and the particular things that participate in the forms, including forms that participate in other forms. What is the difference between beautiful things (works of art, music, sculpture) and the form Beauty itself? How does the form Beauty participate in the form Good?

This episode is a discussion of the concluding paragraphs of Republic, Book IV. It is about the question "Why do we need a theory to explain self-control?" Socrates would answer this by saying "Because we need to show how one and the same person can control his or her appetites or emotions." Socrates introduces the theory of a tripartite soul. We can control ourselves only if there is one part of the soul that does the controlling and the other parts that are controlled. But this account leads to the Humunculus Problem (if there are parts of the soul, then the parts must be directed to what they do by their own parts, and so on ad infinitum. This episode shows why a tripartite theory is unnecessary. The remainder of this episode discusses Socrates' theory of how justice and all the other virtues of the soul are tied either to tasks of the parts of the soul or to the "best relationships" between the parts of the soul.

Socrates takes the first steps toward discovering the meaning of justice in the city-state and the place in the city where it is most likely to be found. He puts forward two analogical arguments to prove that justice is found in the city only when there is an agreement between all classes of the city is founded on the principle of natural division of labor. Each person practices only one task in the city and that shall be the task for which he or she is naturally suited.

In the second part of Republic, Book 1, Socrates agrees with Thrasymachus that in the precise sense of the word "ruler," a ruler never makes mistakes. But he points out that in the precise sense, a ruler also rules for the benefit of others not for his own benefit. The argument shifts to the question whether it is more profitable to be unjust than just, with Thrasymachus defending the former and Socrates arguing for the latter. Although Socrates appears to win the argument, Thrasymachus leaves the room and Socrates admits that he knows no more about the concept of justice than he did at the beginning of the discussion.

This episode is about the death of Socrates. The reading is from the last pages of Phaedo, the final book in the Socratic dialogues, without commentary by the reader. The interlocutor is Phaedo, a friend of Socrates who is telling another man who was not there that day what Socrates said to his visitors during the final hours before he drank the poison.

Meno suggests that there will never be a solution to the question "What is virtue?" because one either knows what virtue is or one does not know this. If one knows what virtue is, then there is no point in raising the question. If one does not know what virtue is, then one will not know whether one has found the correct answer. Socrates solves the paradox by suggesting that all learning is a process of recollecting what we already know (but had forgotten) in a previous life. He proves this by asking an ignorant boy a series of questions about the properties of a geometrical shape. The boy answers the questions successfully without ever having been told the answer.

This 4 minute episode has a short summary of the previous episode, emphasizing Socrates' passionate claim that the duty to obey the law is always superior to individual desires. But this still leaves the listener or reader with questions about "moral knowledge." Is there such a thing as objective knowledge about what is and what is not "morally right"?

This episode is about the final speech of Socrates at his trial after he has been convicted and sentenced to death. He tells the jury that no one should fear death (because to fear death falsely implies that one knows what happens after death). Socrates also argues that it is not he but they (the jury) who will be made worse by his execution. The other themes to listen for are about Socrates claim that the unexamined life is not worth living, and the claim that he has served Athens well by being a "gadfly" who constantly insists that they back up their theories and ideas with reasoning and evidence.

Continuing the discussion of Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, emphasizing the implicit distinction Plato makes between philosophy and science. Listeners are invited to follow the discussion in chapter 2 of Laurence Houlgate's book Understanding Plato (go to www.houlgatebooks.com).