# Nitpick about Plato's Republic **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 12, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864 "2015-03-12T22:05:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/41 "2015-03-17T22:18:14Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I don’t know, it seems pretty plausible to me that the character Socrates is in that passage describing his own experience metaphorically–his own experience of understanding something, enjoying that understanding, trying to communicate it to others, and being punished for it. It’s hard to see how he could be wrong about what he himself experienced. > > His experience may not seem to you to have the significance it seemed to have to him, I suppose. Socrates’ experience seems not to me to have the objective, discovery-of-truth significance it seemed to have to **Plato.** See post #39. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/42 "2015-03-17T22:41:47Z")
Given Socrates’s predilection through much of Plato’s works to say he himself knows nothing (and even when in later works he starts expounding, he often (always?) hedges that these are his own, humble ideas and offers them up for refutation (though clearly Plato doesn’t allow for them to be actually refuted). On this basis, I’d claim that Socrates isn’t even claiming to have fully escaped from the cave anyway–at most he’s talking about what it’s like to approach that ideal, by describing the ideal. I’d say Socrates (the character in the works of Plato anyway) had a pretty blatantly superior understanding of certain important abstract concepts like knowledge, justice, the good, and so on, as compared to his interlocutors and as compared, in my experience, to most people. On that basis I’d defend the idea that philosophy got him somewhat out of the cave. Does science get us out of the cave? Well, what does science tell us about justice, knowledge, the good and so on? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/43 "2015-03-17T22:47:02Z")
BTW I should mention for full disclosure: I think it’s possible the actual, non-fictional Socrates was a conservative authoritarian reactionary who kept involving himself in insurrections he tried to wash his hands of (instigated by his students) and who may, just maybe, actually plausibly deserved to be executed. Not that I think anyone actually deserves execution, but I mean “deserved by the lights of the laws and mores of the time and place.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/44 "2015-03-17T23:22:07Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’d say Socrates (the character in the works of Plato anyway) had a pretty blatantly superior understanding of certain important abstract concepts like knowledge, justice, the good, and so on, as compared to his interlocutors and as compared, in my experience, to most people. Not, IME, than most people. E.g., apart from some bits of neural hardwiring and instincts, if such can be called “knowledge” at all, knowledge is entirely learned, not innate, and most people know it, whether they’ve read the _Meno_ or not. And no one who really understands “justice” or “the good” would see the Republic as embodying anything of the kind. > [@Frylock](#): > > Does science get us out of the cave? Well, what does science tell us about justice, knowledge, the good and so on? But, those are not the things of which models are made and the models’ shadows cast on the wall of the cave. The things that are, science can tell us about where philosophy cannot. And, yes, science can also tell us more about knowledge as such than philosophy can; see [cognitive science](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science), which is informed by philosophy, but mostly based on empirical science. As for justice, if you want an informed opinion, ask a lawyer (or a “Sophist,” as Plato would have said; they were the nearest equivalent to what we think of as lawyers now – they could not appear as advocates in court, but they trained their pupils to represent themselves), not a philosopher. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/45 "2015-03-17T23:54:58Z")
And, once again, I agree entirely with Bertrand Russell’s assessment of Socrates: > [@](#): > > “Of all the men of his time,” Phaedo concludes, "he was the wisest and justest and best. > > The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages. What are we to think of him ethically? (I am concerned only with the man as Plato portrays him.) His merits are obvious. He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humorous to the last moment, caring more for what he believes to be truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. There is something smug and unctuous about him, which reminds one of a bad type of cleric. His courage in the face of death would have been more remarkable if he had not believed he was going to enjoy eternal bliss in the company of the gods. Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking, but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/46 "2015-03-18T00:44:52Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not, IME, than most people. E.g., apart from some bits of neural hardwiring and instincts, if such can be called “knowledge” at all, knowledge is entirely learned, not innate, and most people know it, whether they’ve read the _Meno_ or not. To be clear, I didn’t say Socrates was right about what knowledge is, I said he understood it better than most people. He was able to zero in on it and eliminate bad accounts of it more readily than others generally are. Similar remarks apply to justice and goodness etc. The extent to which I’d defend the claim that he made some headway out of the cave is just the extent to which he was better than others at understanding the problems involved in grasping concepts like these. > [@](#): > > But, those are not the things of which models are made and the models’ shadows cast on the wall of the cave. You said science gets us out of the cave. I said that for Socrates, being out of the cave meant understanding (for example) knowledge, justice and goodness, which science doesn’t tell us about. So if we’re talking about Socrates’s cave, then we can conclude science doesn’t get us out of it. You replied by basically, repeating my claim that science doesn’t tell us about these things. So by all rights this should constitute a concession–you are conceding that when it comes to the cave as described by Socrates in the Republic, science doesn’t get us out of it. > [@](#): > > The things that are, science can tell us about where philosophy cannot. And, yes, science can also tell us more about knowledge as such than philosophy can; see [cognitive science](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science), which is informed by philosophy, but mostly based on empirical science. Cognitive science doesn’t tell us what knowledge is. I can’t say much more than that because I’m not sure why you think it does. > [@](#): > > As for justice, if you want an informed opinion, ask a lawyer (or a “Sophist,” as Plato would have said; they were the nearest equivalent to what we think of as lawyers now – they could not appear as advocates in court, but they trained their pupils to represent themselves), not a philosopher. Isn’t there a pretty big difference between the legal and the just? ETA: I actually basically agree with that Russel quote as well, btw, though I’ve had some interesting conversations (long ago that I don’t well remember) with historians of philosophy who don’t think Socrates was anti-science in the way he’s often been portrayed since Plato. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/47 "2015-03-18T00:50:54Z")
In the ETA above, “since” should be “after.” In other words, people read Plato and often think Socrates is in a sense “against” science, but I’ve had interesting conversations with people who think a close reading of Plato shows otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/48 "2015-03-18T01:38:18Z")
I think science as we understand it today wasn’t really a concept when Socrates and Plato were around. And that’s part of the problem with Bertram Russell’s book, and the problem with what you quoted. For all that Russell says he’s trying to contextualize the philosophers, he’s not. He’s judging them according to the extent that they fit his mid 20th century humanist and positivist world view. But Plato didn’t live in mid 20th century England, and there’s no reason to expect him to have those values, and the fact that he doesn’t isn’t a strike against him or a deficiency in his philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/49 "2015-03-18T10:46:23Z")
Well, even if a person isn’t familiar with a concept, it can still be fair to interpret what he says in light of its implications for that concept. Very broadly, the stereotype is that Plato thought we should figure out beforehand what the world must be like, then interpret our observations in light of that, while Aristotle thought we should gather lots of observations first, then decide what the world must be like on that basis. Perhaps neither Plato nor Aristotle had “our concept of science” but most people would find one of those two methodologies more conducive to science and the other less, and this isn’t implausible on its face. (I actually think science as we know it today is a synthesis of the two methodologies though in my experience most people, especially most scientists, emphasize the second methodology. And also, of course, the two broad stereotypes I just described are quite contentious among those who interpret Plato and Aristotle.) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/50 "2015-03-18T12:05:30Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Isn’t there a pretty big difference between the legal and the just? Many of the leading Sophists would have said “No.” The Sophist Thrasymarchus appears in Plato’s _ **Republic** _, and offers the opinion that justice itself is a meaningless term. Justice, in his opinion, is whatever the rulers of a society declare it to be. In a monarchy, it means one thing, in a democracy something else. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/51 "2015-03-18T12:41:23Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Many of the leading Sophists would have said “No.” The Sophist Thrasymarchus appears in Plato’s _ **Republic** _, and offers the opinion that justice itself is a meaningless term. Justice, in his opinion, is whatever the rulers of a society declare it to be. In a monarchy, it means one thing, in a democracy something else. Each of these sentences is true\*, but are they relevant? I was asking whether justice and legality are identical, but I wasn’t asking what some Sophists thought about this question. Are you meaning to endorse Thrasymachus’s view? \*ETA: Well, actually, it’s not true to say that Thrasymachus thought “justice” is a meaningless term. In his view, the meaning of the term is “the interest of the stronger party.” ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/52 "2015-03-18T14:19:53Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Each of these sentences is true\*, but are they relevant? I was asking whether justice and legality are identical, but I wasn’t asking what some Sophists thought about this question. > > Are you meaning to endorse Thrasymachus’s view? > > \*ETA: Well, actually, it’s not true to say that Thrasymachus thought “justice” is a meaningless term. In his view, the meaning of the term is “the interest of the stronger party.” I never endorsed that view- I was answering a question. It was asked whether justice and law are the same thing. To the sophists, the answer was, “Yes, pretty much. The law reflects what the elites want, hence ‘justice’ is whatever the elites want. Abstract notions of fairness are irrelevant.” ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/53 "2015-03-18T14:23:41Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I never endorsed that view- I was answering a question. > > It was asked whether justice and law are the same thing. To the sophists, the answer was, “Yes, pretty much. The law reflects what the elites want, hence ‘justice’ is whatever the elites want. Abstract notions of fairness are irrelevant.” Sorry to be dense, but I’m just not seeing how that’s an answer to the question. In general, as far as I can see, “To person X, Y is the case” is not an answer to the question of whether Y is the case, unless it’s understood that X’s view is being endorsed by the answerer. For example, if I ask whether there are a dozen cookies in the box, and you answer “Well, Bob thinks there are,” then I can’t interpret this as an answer to my question unless I understand you to be endorsing Bob’s view. If I don’t think you endorse Bob’s view, then I can’t see your response as an answer to my question. Do you see what I mean? ETA: Put more plainly–if you are answering the question “Is justice identical to legality,” then from your response I ought to be able to determine whether justice is identical to legality. If all you’ve said is “certain Sophists think so,” then I have no way of determining from that whether justice is identical to legality, hence, that response isn’t actually an answer to the question. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/54 "2015-03-18T18:48:13Z")
It’s a valid answer…under the unspoken context that nobody knows the “true” answer. Is nature “unitary” or “dual” in character? Well, these guys said “Nature is one,” and these other guys said “Nature is dual.” That’s the only kind of answer there can be. Most of us reject both conclusions, because they’re founded on gut feelings which are rationalized into the language of reason. They aren’t founded on evidence: they cannot be. If anyone came in here and said, “Yes, Justice is identical to Legality,” it would be trivial for us to demonstrate otherwise by any number of instances of laws that led to severe injustices. Dred Scott is an example. If anyone came in here and said, “No, Justice is completely distinct from Legality,” it would also be trivial for us to demonstrate otherwise, by pointing to the many instances in which judicial procedures solved actual problems, restored property that had been stolen, mediated real agreements between parties, prosecuted felons, and so on. Neither absolute is true…in the sense we speak of today. Absolute declarations are a figment of antiquity. And humans are featherless bipeds. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/55 "2015-03-18T19:05:58Z")
I am not sure whether what you mean by an absolute, but I’d say if there’s even one difference between justice and legality, then logically, they are not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/56 "2015-03-18T22:51:31Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > You said science gets us out of the cave. I said that for Socrates, being out of the cave meant understanding (for example) knowledge, justice and goodness, which science doesn’t tell us about. So if we’re talking about Socrates’s cave, then we can conclude science doesn’t get us out of it. You replied by basically, repeating my claim that science doesn’t tell us about these things. So by all rights this should constitute a concession–you are conceding that when it comes to the cave as described by Socrates in the Republic, science doesn’t get us out of it. My point was that goodness and justice don’t fit into the allegory. The material world does, but goodness and justice cannot even be analogized to shadows on a cave wall – and, do not seem to be what Socrates was talking about in that passage anyway. The actual model for the shadows is the world of the forms/ideas, but think the idea of “cat” rather than the idea of “justice.” But, I say Plato/Socrates never really got out of the cave, because **there is no world of the forms,** at least not as something that has greater/deeper reality than the material. The reality underlying perceived material reality is still material reality, and one can only come to know it better through science, not philosophy. > [@Frylock](#): > > Cognitive science doesn’t tell us what knowledge is. I can’t say much more than that because I’m not sure why you think it does. Cognitive science accurately tells us **how we acquire** knowledge; Socrates’/Plato’s philosophy does not. > [@Frylock](#): > > Isn’t there a pretty big difference between the legal and the just? Yes, but attorneys sometimes (when the law is not plainly and clearly on their side) have to argue in terms of justice (or sometimes in terms of “public policy”), which means they at least have to put some effort into thinking about the concept and, more importantly, applying it to cases in the real world. A professional with that training and experience knows more about justice than a philosopher who just thinks about it, period. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/57 "2015-03-18T23:01:52Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Many of the leading Sophists would have said “No.” The Sophist Thrasymarchus appears in Plato’s _ **Republic** _, and offers the opinion that justice itself is a meaningless term. Justice, in his opinion, is whatever the rulers of a society declare it to be. In a monarchy, it means one thing, in a democracy something else. But if he were a good (i.e., competent) Sophist, he would at least be capable of framing an appeal to justice if a case required it. You must not take Thrasymachus’ expressed opinion here as being typical of Sophists, either. The Sophists had no shared philosophical doctrine of any kind, their approach was more technical and results-oriented, they taught pupils how to **make use of** logic and rhetoric to succeed in the human social world, and they did it for money, yet. That’s what must have really annoyed passionate truth-seekers like Plato and Socrates – who had independent incomes, and no need to charge money for their lessons. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/58 "2015-03-19T00:06:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > My point was that goodness and justice don’t fit into the allegory. Hard to reconcile with the fact that justice is directly referred to in the setting forth of the allegory, for example: > [@Socrates in the Republic](#): > > And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner; if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the **images or the shadows of images of justice,** and is endeavouring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute justice? In the allegory, it’s easy to think the shadows represent matter only, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in light of passages like this one. In any case, it’s clear that whatever the shadows represent, getting out of the cave, for Socrates, involves coming to grasp concepts like justice, etc. So if it’s Socrates’s cave we’re talking about, and a methodology doesn’t lead to a grasp of such concepts, then by definition, that methodology doesn’t get us out of Socrates’s cave. > [@](#): > > Cognitive science accurately tells us **how we acquire** knowledge; Socrates’/Plato’s philosophy does not. Agreed. But what I was saying is that Socrates in Plato had a better understanding of what knowledge _is_ than most people, not that he has the right idea concerning how we get it. > [@](#): > > Yes, but attorneys sometimes (when the law is not plainly and clearly on their side) have to argue in terms of justice (or sometimes in terms of “public policy”), which means they at least have to put some effort into thinking about the concept and, more importantly, applying it to cases in the real world. A professional with that training and experience knows more about justice than a philosopher who just thinks about it, period. It might (“might”) be conceded that this professional has a knack for applying the concept within his particular realm of activity, but this is different from saying he has a better grasp of what justice is than anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/59 "2015-03-19T00:25:14Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If anyone came in here and said, “Yes, Justice is identical to Legality,” it would be trivial for us to demonstrate otherwise by any number of instances of laws that led to severe injustices. Dred Scott is an example. Is it? We think that Dred Scott is unjust because we think it’s unjust that one person can own another as a slave. But there were people who thought that it was just for one person to own another, and that Dred Scott was a just decision. It seems to me that justice is a meaningless term, because everybody decides for himself what’s “just”. So when you say, “Is X just?”, you have to really ask, “Is X just according to me?” or “Is X just according to so and so?” Justice doesn’t exist except in individual opinions. It’s a human concept, not a natural one. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864/60 "2015-03-19T00:57:13Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Justice doesn’t exist except in individual opinions. It’s a human concept, not a natural one. But so is legality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-about-platos-republic/714864.md?page=4)