When Philosophers Rule E-Book

Ficino Ficino

• Herausgeber: Shepheard Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 390

Beschreibung

'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, - no, nor the human race, as I believe, - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Republic, Book V, 473D With these words Plato expressed his ideal form of government. Often dismissed as unrealisable, they have appealed down the ages to men of goodwill. Having trans-lated all of the Dialogues from Greek into Latin, at the request of his Medici patrons, Ficino was asked to prepare summaries by Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto ruler of the republic of Florence, who aspired to be the kind of enlightened ruler Plato described. Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) was one of the most influential thinkers of the Renaissance. He put before society a new ideal of human nature, emphasising its divine potential. As head of the Platonic Academy in Florence, and as teacher and guide to a remark-able circle of men, he made a vital contribution to the changes that were taking place in European thought. With the collapse of the global economy calling the wisdom of our political leaders into question, When Philosophers Rule is a timely reminder of those principles which have formed the basis of good government and inspired statesmen down the ages. When complete, this four-volume series, including Gardens of Philosophy, 2006, Evermore Shall Be So 2007 and All Things Natural (9780856832581) in 2010, will contain all Ficino's commentaries not previously translated into English. As Carol Kaske of Cornell University wrote when reviewing Gardens of Philosophy in Renaissance Quarterly, these translations fill 'a need.

Leseprobe

Commentaries by Ficino on Plato’s Writingsa four-volume series

Gardens of Philosophy

Evermore Shall Be So

When Philosophers Rule

All Things Natural

© Arthur Farndell 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced in any form without the written permissionof the publisher, Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd

First published in 2009 byShepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd

15 Alder Road

London SW14 8ER

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record of this bookis available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-85683-257-4

Typeset by Alacrity,

Sandford, Somerset

Printed and bound through

s |s |media limited, Wallington, Surrey

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Translator’s Note

Foreword

PART ONE   The Commentary of Marsilio Ficino to Plato’s Republic

First Book

Second Book

Third Book

Fourth Book

Fifth Book

Sixth Book

Seventh Book

Eighth Book

Ninth Book

Tenth Book

PART TWO   The Commentary of Marsilio Ficino to Plato’s Laws

First Book

Second Book

Third Book

Fourth Book

Fifth Book

Sixth Book

Seventh Book

Eighth Book

Ninth Book

Tenth Book

Eleventh Book

Twelfth Book

PART THREE   The Commentary of Marsilio Ficino to Plato’s Epinomis

A Summary of Epinomis

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MY WIFE, Phyllis, again heads the list. She has been a constant presence throughout the development of this book, giving encouragement, asking questions, and making suggestions. When the time came to consider the title, the three words instantly leapt from her mouth. Could any author ask for a better wife?

John Meltzer has given unfailing support; Christophe Poncet has supplied source material; Nathan David has graciously allowed images of his sculptures to be used; Jean Desebrock has crafted the beautiful layout; and Anthony Werner, as publisher, has moulded the whole work with intelligence and sensitivity. It is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge these fine people and their respective skills.

Special thanks go to Ian Mason for his willingness to write a foreword to this work.

Arthur Farndell

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

AS PART OF his commentary to the Eighth Book of the Republic Ficino wrote an ‘Exposition on Nuptial Number’. His exposition is not included in this volume. The interested reader is directed to Professor Michael J.B. Allen’s Nuptial Arithmetic: Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on the Fatal Number in Book VIII of Plato’s Republic, published in 1994 by the University of California Press.

FOREWORD

FREEDOM, as the medieval English lawyer Sir John Fortescue once observed, is a thing with which the nature of man has been endowed by God. Therefore, he said, wherever it is oppressed it strives of its own energy always to return.

Living as we do in an age in which freedom seems relatively secure for many people in democratic states, it is easy to lose sight of the foundations upon which lasting freedom is built. Such foundations have long antecedents as this volume demonstrates, it being a translation of commentaries written more than five hundred years ago on works that were written over two thousand five hundred years ago. Yet Plato’s Republic and Laws, and these commentaries on them, remain as relevant today as they have ever been, examining as they do the necessary conditions for a successful society which offers civil freedom under the rule of law to all its citizens.

Central to Plato’s view of civil society is arete, justice or righteousness. Our own age is full of calls for justice in all social and civil spheres, but what is common to these calls is an apparent view that justice is something that is dispensed by the state, its institutions and courts of law to otherwise deprived citizens. Justice has become a commodity which purports to right wrongs and compensate victims who have nothing to do themselves but register their complaint with the appropriate authorities.

Plato’s view, endorsed by Ficino, is very different. For them justice is a state of the soul over which every man and woman has personal command. It is an orderly state of the inner being which is cultivated by good practice of other virtues: wisdom, temperance and courage, which combined in one person produce that state of being that is called just. There is nothing to be gained from looking for this from some external source.

The great value of Plato’s works and these commentaries on them is that they require us to look again at the basis of the freedoms we enjoy in modern democratic societies. They warn us that democratic freedoms are not attained, or maintained, without effort and that those efforts involve every citizen coming to an understanding of their own role in securing justice in the state to which they belong. It is clear from this view that the best form of government is self-government, and that such government involves the citizen in taking command of his or her own inner life, developing the personal strength to control, direct and restrain their own appetites while bringing their soul under the rule of wisdom or reason so that it becomes a thing of order and beauty reflecting the goodness of God and showing itself to be such in their conduct towards others and towards the state.

It was this idea of inner, personal government that lay behind the English common lawyers’ idea of the reasonable man, the free and lawful man of the English common law. Such a person was presumed to know the law because the law was nothing else but reason, and reasonable conduct was sufficient to keep the individual within the law. This conception, which still informs the many common law jurisdictions that followed the British around the globe, is the key to the successful development of free democratic states. The lessons reflected in the pages of this volume offer a guide for modern statesmen and citizens alike.

For Plato, democracy as described by him is a dangerous and delicate form of government amounting at its worst to little more than mob rule based on the primacy of the pleasure-loving appetites in the souls of the citizens. When this becomes dominant in the majority of citizens, the very foundations of participatory forms of government are destroyed as fewer and fewer people develop in themselves the virtues necessary for the government of themselves or of states. New laws are passed on a whim to demonstrate to electorates that their governors are dealing with the latest crisis, but without any real regard to the effect of such laws on the body politic. There is an inevitable tendency for citizens to become ever more dependent on the state for the regulation of every aspect of life; regulations multiply and the people, far from becoming free citizens, become instead ever more dependent on the ever-increasing bounty of the state to provide for every aspect of life. In the end this cannot be sustained because the state has to appropriate more and more of the wealth of its citizens in order to pay for the services which the citizens demand in exchange for their votes.

Plato sees descent into tyranny as the inevitable outcome of such a state of affairs. However, he also writes: ‘Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes amongst men have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will have no rest from their evils, or so I believe.’ This is the opening that offers hope that the otherwise inevitable descent of democratic societies first into ungovernableness and then into tyranny can be avoided. In a democratic age, the kings and princes amongst men are the people themselves. The turning to philosophy that avoids the descent into tyranny is a revolution in personal values and an acceptance of personal responsibility. The free and lawful person acts reasonably and governs him or her self, not only because it is necessary for the good of the state and their neighbours, but also because such self-command offers greater happiness and fulfilment to the individual. Understanding this and making it a practical reality is necessary to the establishment and continuance of democratic governance based on freedom under law.

When the governors of a state understand this, following Plato, they are more likely to direct their lawmaking powers to establishing and maintaining virtue in the souls of the citizens and the citizens will appreciate and applaud their efforts to do so.

This volume is the first translation into English of Ficino’s Commentaries on Plato’s two greatest works on this topic. The Commentaries are themselves full of additional insights which expand and elucidate Plato’s thought. They provide the modern reader with a route into an art and science of government which can offer both personal development and also the peace, freedom and stability to which modern democracies aspire. Perhaps the appearance of this translation at this time is a part of that volition described by Fortescue by which the real freedom of the human condition re-asserts itself from age to age.

Ian Mason

Principal, School of Economic Science

PART ONE

The Commentary of Marsilio Ficinoto Plato’s Republic

The Theme of theFirst Book of the Republic

AS THE EYE surpasses the hand, the head the feet, reason the senses, the soul the body, the end all that is directed towards the end, stillness movement, and eternity time, so the contemplative life is seen to surpass the active life. For contemplation is the beginning and end of action: it directs action as it wills and it brings action to a stop, commanding the lesser movements and external action to cease, so that the inner, steadfast and freer action may at length be controlled. Thus, from the very contemplation of God all the movements and actions of the heavens and of nature are guided as if from their inception to their end.

It is for this reason that our Plato surpasses all other founders of States and lawgivers in this respect at least, that while all the others, as human beings, have organised the State mainly for action, Plato, as if divine, guides the entire activity – both public and private – of the State mainly towards contemplation and establishes his State as the mistress of the world, not that it may be feared by many but rather that it may be reverenced by all peoples as the heavenly Jerusalem fully manifest on earth, a State from which all disputes concerning possession have been removed and all things are common to all in accordance with the law of nature. Abundance is universal, harmony is firmly established, the will of all is single, and thus the tranquillity needed for contemplation is always readily available.

Now he assembles the entire form of the ideal Republic within ten books, the number which is the most wholesome of all numbers, for it contains other numbers within itself and it reproduces other numbers endlessly from itself. And, as he frequently declares in these books, especially in the second, he prefers us to record the entire discussion as a discussion about justice rather than about a Republic, teaching thereby, as I judge, that every situation and every action, both public and private, should be related not to abundance, not to power, and not to victory, but to justice herself. For once all disturbances have been removed and all hindrances caused by disputes have been banished, justice herself renders the citizens fully prepared for the investigation of truth and the worship of God.

It is this kind of contemplation and worship that our Plato considers to be the specific aim of the Republic; so that, just as no one, whether living alone or in a community, can act without the law, in the same way many citizens, gathered together into the single body of the State by a common law, may fulfil this aim. Timaeus and Critias teach us, moreover, that before the great flooding of the lands Athens existed in a different form; and according to the Greeks and the Egyptians it was governed by laws similar to theirs.

It was the goddess Pallas who founded Athens, nurtured it and taught it and gave it the form of a Republic which Plato describes in his books. But in the books of the Laws he composes the State on the model of the government of Crete, Sparta, and the new Attica, and he begins the work with God, the author of all laws.

But let us return to what is in hand: he begins this State, too, with favourable auspices, the holy ceremonies of divine wisdom, the traditions and counsels of the elders, and the justice and holiness of religion. For after saying that to God should be rendered prayers and to every man his own, he begins with a discussion of private justice and will thus move, when it is appropriate, to public justice in its turn. Yet you are to remember that what is meant by Plato in these considerations is that without justice, divine and human, without the counsel of the elders, and without the grace of divine wisdom, no State can be happily established or, if established, be happily governed.

Next, touching on the theme of the first book, I shall select, from a host of weighty precepts, a few essential ones. Restrained youth makes for an easy old age, unrestrained youth for a difficult old age. He who complies with the lusts of the body is undoubtedly a slave to frenzied tyrants. In old age, now that the disturbances which youth brings in its train have abated, the soul, being separated from the body, looks more closely and more openly upon things divine. Blamelessness alone offers the soul the best hope for the future, the only solace of life. The man of sound mind will deem that money is useful for this above all, that he may discharge whatever he has vowed to God or promised to man or owes in any other way, and that he may not be led, on account of poverty, to lie to anyone or to be deceitful in any matter. For money should be related to justice, while justice should be related to the reward of another life.

But before we pursue the discussion about justice, my advice is to consider individual matters that are dealt with allegorically by Plato. Firstly, the old man Cephalus, the ‘head’, provides the starting-point for the discussion. Secondly, Polemarchus is the chief, which is what his name means: that is, he is the first to enter the fray in a restrained manner. Thirdly, Thrasymachus, the ‘fierce fighter’, acts harshly. Socrates, however, the ‘powerful saviour’, rescues everyone everywhere from error and from injustice.

But leaving allegory for the commentaries, let us now proceed to the definition of justice. Simonides, Pittacus, and Bias are reported to have said that justice is speaking the truth and rendering to each his due. Some interpret this to mean simply disclosing the truth to anyone and restoring what you have taken. But Socrates rejects this on the grounds that the full truth should not be revealed to a madman, or weapons returned to him which he had left in your keeping while he was of sound mind.

Others expound justice as giving to each what is meet for him: benefit to friends, but deprivation to enemies; assistance to the good, but harm to the wicked. Socrates rejects this definition, too, on the grounds that it is never right to harm anyone. For whoever harms anything makes it weaker and less fitting for its own work and detracts from its specific excellence, just as someone who harms a dog makes it unable to achieve canine excellence. But justice is the excellence of man, and so whoever harms a man makes him weaker in relation to justice. Yet justice never detracts from justice, just as music never destroys the work of music. This is why it is not just to harm anyone.

At this point Thrasymachus raises an objection against Socrates, as many others do at other times, because he will never answer but always wishes to ask. However, you cannot be unaware that there are many reasons why Socrates is always in the habit of asking questions rather than giving instruction.

The first reason is to remind the presumptuous that, whatever one’s age, it is better to learn than to teach.

The second reason is to show that, by divine inspiration, truth is immediately showered upon minds which through appropriate questioning have been detached from the body and from errors, a situation which meets with the full approval of Avicenna.

The third reason is to make it clear that the forms of things have been implanted in our souls, and it is through these forms that the truth of things always suffuses souls which are turned towards them through the process of questioning.

The fourth reason is to make it clear that human knowledge consists in negating what is false rather than in affirming what is true.

The next definition of justice to be brought forward, similar to that of Callicles in Gorgias, is the one given by Thrasymachus, that what is just is what is advantageous to the more powerful; for those who are more powerful always exercise sovereignty, bring in laws that are advantageous to themselves, and rule over those that are subject to them; indeed, their subjects act justly when they obey those laws which have been established for the advantage of the rulers. Socrates opposes Thrasymachus, for how can a leader, through ignorance, prescribe those laws which will be to his own detriment? If a subject keeps those laws he will be just because he is obeying his lord, but he will also be unjust because he is acting to the disadvantage of his lord.

He adds that when any art which is fully fledged and therefore without defect is dealing with objects or people it looks not to its own advantage but to the advantage of whatever has been entrusted to it, as can be seen with a tutor and his pupils, a doctor and those who are sick, or a helmsman and the sailors; and in the same way a rightful magistrate looks to the advantage of those who are subject. But if any art, such as the art of medicine, exacts a payment, it is not medicine (whose end is the healing of disease) insofar as it makes a profit, but it is entangled with gain and prostitution. The art of civil government, therefore, being the most complete of all the arts and thus suffering from no defect or meanness, undoubtedly governs without seeking any advantage for itself.

I pass over what Thrasymachus rashly, and with some inconsistency, brings forward against justice. But you should note that it is not right for anyone to seek leadership or to solicit the magistracy. Again, if a State of good men ever exists, they will vie for the position of not ruling, in the same way that men nowadays strive out of a desire to rule.

But there are three things to note now. The first is that evil men are not to be admitted to the magistracy. The second is that citizens who are not evil are not to be encouraged, by the inducement of some reward or honour, to shoulder the heavy burden of governing. The third is that upright men, who are not moved by greed or ambition, must not be summoned to the State merely at a time of danger or fear, lest they themselves be subjected to the unjust government of worse men.

The divine Plato understands that at any time the duty of governing the country must be undertaken voluntarily if it is to be just. But by the example of the most upright citizen he wishes to reprove the unjust arrogance of those who in any way seek the magistracy from ambition or go hunting for honours. But men become worthy of honours by having not the least care for them.

He therefore wishes such an office to be undertaken voluntarily and at the same time to be necessary, so that the most upright man will most willingly take the helm of State, but he will do so only when necessity demands, and in the meantime he will prefer contemplation to action. Yet whenever the situation is urgent he will, to suit the occasion, put action on behalf of the public good before his personal contemplation. All of this can be very clearly understood from Plato’s letter to Archytas of Tarentum.

After this comes the refutation of the tyrannical statement made by Thrasymachus, which allocates justice to the category of foolishness and evil, while allocating injustice to the category of wisdom and goodness. His statement is shown to be false on the grounds that every art is a sort of wisdom and that, in relation to those things concerning which it is wise, it is also good. However, a man who is skilled in any art does not seek more than another who is skilled in this art, but he seeks to obtain something equal or similar. Yet although he does not wish to rival the skilled man, he does wish to rise above the unskilled. But the unskilled man sometimes tries recklessly to arrogate to himself more than the skilled and the unskilled have together.

Very similar to the skilled man is the just man, who wishes to have nothing more than another just man, but something – namely, virtue - more than the unjust man. On the other hand, the unjust man, like the unskilled man, strives to have more than the just and the wicked have together.

The conclusion against Thrasymachus is that justice is to be referred to the category of wisdom and goodness, while injustice is to be referred to the category of folly and evil. Added to this is the fact that injustice is the cause of weakness for all people, since, in any society, injustice, begetting hatred and discord, completely undermines the society and finally destroys it.

A society can hold together only to the extent that some just distribution is maintained. It therefore stands by justice and is destroyed by injustice. Through justice it is a friend to itself and to others; through injustice it is an enemy to all. But the effects of justice and injustice upon a society are the same as their effects upon the soul: the just man is at harmony with himself, and he is a friend to himself, to all men, and to the gods; for the gods are most just, and thus it is not surprising that the just man is like them and is their friend. The unjust man, however, finds that his situation is the opposite in all respects.

Moreover, everything has its specific way of working and needs a specific talent or faculty which allows it to function at its best and without which it cannot be effective. Therefore, since the soul has something specific to care for and govern, and much more importantly to keep alive, she requires her own specific power to fulfil these functions most efficiently; and if this be removed, she struggles. Now the virtue of the soul is justice, and injustice is her vice. And so it is through justice that she gives perfect care and government, and that she lives, and lives happily. But if justice be taken away, the reverse is true.

Once these points have been stated, the first book concludes with a mild rebuke: although the definition and nature of justice should, of course, have been propounded earlier, what has happened so far is the opposite, as Socrates has followed those participating in the discussion and has, at the same time, while pursuing the debate according to well-known principles, taken into account the aptitude of those listening and has given due consideration to their capacity.

The Theme of theSecond Book of the Republic

THE SECOND BOOK begins with the threefold division of good things. The Good is unchanging and should be sought. Now we seek something for its own sake when we look for pleasures and happiness. We seek something for the sake of something else when we look for anything that is toilsome. We seek something for its own sake and for something other when we look for knowledge and good health.

Plato says that justice is to be sought for the sake of the others who benefit from it, and particularly for its own sake. But before a full definition of justice can be given, Glaucon pursues – at some length, with some fine distinctions, and with some restraint – those points which Thrasymachus passed over in his support of injustice. For he says – not because this is his view but because he wishes to spur Socrates into making a more vigorous defence of justice – that he is going to praise injustice. We find a similar situation in Gorgias.

Then Adeimantus speaks in support of justice, attributing to it benefits both human and divine. Here you will mark some of the sacred mysteries of the poets. Next he brings forward certain things as evidence to support injustice, referring to the persons of Socrates and Thrasymachus, and adding that he himself does not wish to vilify injustice but wishes to provoke Socrates somehow or other. However, he wishes to hear justice praised, not for her external trappings but for her intrinsic nature, in ways that others have not followed.

But you should take note that Plato has again put forward here many points relating to poets and priests; and not without good cause, for when he is mocking the superstitions of the people he shows that the licence to sin takes its rise frequently from poets and even more frequently from bad priests. Nor is it without some reason that Plato has introduced into these books, which are the dearest of all to him, the persons who are dearest to his heart: his brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and his father, Ariston.

Note, too, that throughout his life Socrates, setting aside external impressions, found nothing more worthy of contemplation than to inquire into the nature and activity of virtue and vice within the soul, as he will show, of his own accord and later when prompted, in relation to justice and injustice.

But I myself have now acted most unjustly in failing to mention that reward of justice which is deduced from the thoughts of Musaeus and which he calls a state of constant inebriation. Musaeus himself received the idea from Orpheus, who expressed it through the sacred rites of Dionysus. It reminds us of the words of the prophet: I shall be drunk ‘with the fatness of thy house’.

Drunkenness is thus of two kinds. The first kind is under the influence of the Moon and is caused by drinking the waters of Lethe, so that the mind, being put outside itself and beneath itself, forgets things divine and staggers about in the trammels of earthly things. The second kind is above the influence of the Moon and is caused by a draught of nectar, so that the mind, being put outside itself and above itself, forgets mortal infirmities and in absorbing matters divine is dazzled by their primal brilliance; or rather, by savouring their taste, is taken out of its old ways by some unfamiliar warmth. But soon the mind sees clearly, enjoys wholesome tastes, and is properly nourished.

Indeed, the divine Idea, by which the mind was made, penetrates the mind when it returns, as flavour penetrates taste. Its first action is to gently wash from the mind all that is foreign to it. Then it fills the mind completely, giving it greater delight by so doing. Its third action is to bring the mind back to itself, flooding it with inexpressible joy, when the mind first becomes intellect through the soul and finally becomes God through the intellect. And it no longer savours as it previously did, but it savours new things in a new way. And just as, in our experience, a strong imagination forms and moves the body, so in that realm the body together with its senses, being subject to the soul, is directly moved and shaped by the powerful action of the mind, so that body and senses are wondrously soothed by the ineffable sweetness of the mind.

But let us now revert to the subject of justice. Socrates hunts for justice in one thing after another as the end and object of his discussion, but because it is difficult to find it in the mind he looks for it first of all in the State, believing that it will be easier to see it there; and thus it is by reference to the State that he eventually defines, with clarity, the justice of the soul. Yet for him to be able to consider justice within the State, he formed the State at the outset, declaring at first the nature of its origin or corresponding need; then the nature of its substance or its necessary materials and arts; and finally its form or rule of life and its lawful government.

And we can see the praise he allots to the temperate life, the life that is healthy and adequate, and the scorn he reserves for the life of pleasure and self-indulgence, the life of unhealthiness and enormous want, which spawns war and makes the presence of soldiers a necessity in a State of this kind. This is why, when he comes to the careful arrangements for military service, he is meticulous in his provision of whatever is necessary for a vigorous soldier and guardian of the State.

But in all these matters remember that it is impossible for any one person to be born equipped for a variety of functions, and that, for this reason, no single person should practise divergent professions, especially since the work done by one person may be hindered by the work of another. Each person should rather practise a specific art from childhood and pursue it unceasingly throughout life. A soldier, furthermore, is born to be the guardian of his country, and he should be trained so that, like a dog, he is gentle towards those he knows, but towards those he does not know he is fierce, ever vigilant, and alert.

Socrates is thus stating that the beginning of any undertaking is of the utmost importance, especially for those of tender years, when both aspects are easily moulded. This is why he is right to shape the soldiers of the future from their infancy, training their minds through music and their bodies through gymnastic. Music includes those stories of the poets which he carefully prescribes for the ears of children and which alone will, like games, inspire and instruct them in the military art. And in a similar way he directs that others become familiar, from their childhood, with those stories which are most conducive to their future occupation. All other stories he keeps far away from them. This is his most important directive.

He then expresses his abhorrence of poetical impiety, which fabricates disgraceful stories about the gods, and he forbids tales of this type to be heard.

He adds two aspects of theology. The first is that God is good in all respects and is the cause of good things only and never the cause of anything evil. If God punishes anyone, it is for the sake of the Good. The second aspect is that God is totally unchanging, for He is the fullness of simplicity, power, excellence, and wisdom. And so he denies that God ever deceives anyone with untrue images, signs, or words. For God does not assume various forms, and since He does not change He does not feign change.

Let us conclude this book with some golden statements. A lie is the most hateful of all things in the eyes of gods and men. If falsehood in speech is hateful and is an expression of falsehood in the mind, it is undoubtedly true that falsehood in the mind is extremely hateful in the sight of gods and men. This kind of falsehood is ignorance, which causes the mind to deceive itself about the truth of things. But since truth looks upon that which is said to be, while untruth deviates towards non-being, it follows that the further a man of lies falls into falsehood, the further he slips into nothingness.

The Theme of theThird Book of the Republic

THE THIRD BOOK takes further the training of the guardians that was begun in the second book. And just as, in the second book, he forbade them to hear false or base things about the gods, so now he forbids them to hear words of tragedy about the inhabitants of the underworld, words which might make them somewhat apprehensive. He also forbids them to hear words of comedy which might provoke laughter on an immoderate scale; for the man who is frequently reduced to tears through excessive laughter becomes as soft as the man who is brought to tears through sorrow. But since the guardians are to be kept well away from cowardice as well as from intemperance, greed, and injustice, he also forbids them to hear poetical compositions which fabricate the lusts, ravages, and injustices allegedly perpetrated by gods, heroes, and great men.

Now this military training is the same in all respects for all the citizens.

Note here what he says about lying. Within a State lies are disastrous, when individuals lie to each other, and particularly when they lie to the magistrates. This is equivalent to lies told by the sick to their doctor or by sailors to the helmsman. However, in the interests of general safety, helmsmen themselves are allowed to be deceitful on occasions; and purely to prevent very serious harm from befalling someone, it is right for one individual to lie to another. It is also permissible to speak, with due measure, about ancient events whose truth is unknown and to portray through images those things of which we have no clear-cut conception.

He accordingly divides speech into three types: a simple account, a simple imitation, and a mixture of the two. But he condemns all talk which indiscriminately relates anything utterly worthless and throws a man into confusion. For anyone who industriously imitates something for a long time enters into its nature. This is why he directs the poet who gives harrowing portrayals of troubled souls, and who is thus harmful to the youth, to change his style and follow a pattern of steadiness, or else go far away from the city. He also says that the man who imitates or initiates a great number of things eventually falters in all of them, one by one, and becomes proficient in none of them.

Then he moves forward from the first kind of music, which is poetry, to the second kind, which he divides into three types: rhetoric, harmony, and rhythm. To begin with, he says that musicians give the name phthongus to that harmonious sound which is neither so low that the singer cannot go lower nor so high that the same singer cannot go higher. Then from such sounds he builds harmony, an agreeable measure achieved by an increase and decrease in the low notes, the high notes, and the intermediate notes.

There are four notes under consideration: the high note, the low note, the rising note, and the falling note. Again, there are four primary proportions: the double, which arises between two and one; the sesquialteral, between three and two; the sesquitertial, between four and three; and the sesquioctaval, between nine and eight. The harmony of the eighth note follows the double proportion; the harmony of the fifth note follows the sesquialteral; that of the fourth follows the sesquitertial; and finally the tone follows the sesquioctaval. But we have written more fully about these matters elsewhere.

In the third place comes rhythm, a particular order of movement and time, as can be seen from the second book of the Laws. For when you have reconciled the notes through a harmonious measure of increase and decrease brought about by tightening and loosening, there is a need for rhythm, by which you can measure the movements and times of the high notes, the low notes, and the intermediate notes, each by itself and each in relation to the others. I am referring to movements which are gentler or brisker, as well as to those which are intermediate, and to times which are longer, shorter, and equal, with intonations that are also long, short, and intermediate. Note that ‘base’ is a different word, which, according to its context, can mean foundation, seat, weight, development, or end.

Consideration should also be given to the nine most common levels of harmony and disharmony. The first level is in reason, which is opinion in harmony with the actual truth of the matter. Its opposite is false opinion, which is contrary to the truth. The second level is in imagination: its harmony is the orderly pursuit of reason, while its disharmony is the pursuit of externals. The third level is in the mode of operation, which either follows reason in a restrained way or follows imagination without restraint. The fourth level is in speech, which is noble when it follows the true path of reason, and ignoble when it follows the haphazard ways of the imagination. The fifth level is in song, whose harmony lies in imitating noble speech and whose disharmony lies in imitating ignoble speech. The sixth level is in sound, which can imitate either the first kind of song or the second kind. The seventh level is in the dainty step or the clumsy step related to dance. The eighth level is in the disposition of the limbs and of the whole body, a disposition which is as pleasing to look at as it is ready for gymnastic exercise. The ninth level is in those skilful operations of any art which accord with musical proportion.

These nine levels may remind you of the nine Muses. But remember that the finest harmony of all is the tempering of the mind, a harmony which is imitated by all those that follow and is enhanced when they are observed in their turn. This accounts for his directive that only those harmonies should be practised, heard, and observed which recall the steadfast condition of the mind which is not puffed up with pride, swept away by anger, softened and slackened by pleasure, broken by sorrow, or filled with complaints arising from affliction or want.

He thus approves of harmony that is deep and steady, and he disapproves of the extremes of vehemence and softness. He condemns complexity and praises simplicity before all else. He believes in particular that harmony exercises power over the soul, for the soul is a kind of divine harmony and is attuned, at times, to the celestial harmony, as Plato might say.

Again, the body consists of a kind of harmony, and it is by harmony that the spirit is given form. Moreover, the airy harmony of notes, which penetrates the airy spirit with its motion and conveys the emotion and soul of the singer, moves the emotion of the hearer by means of emotion, stirs the soul of the hearer by means of the soul, and is gradually instilled into his character.

In all these matters notice the very great care, both civil and religious, with which Plato provides instruction for his State, and, as he also shows in the Statesman, the way in which he always combines temperance with courage. Finally, he considers erotic pleasures to be base and inharmonious, and this is why he keeps them quite distinct from rightful love, which always yearns only for what is beautiful and harmonious.

He deals at length with music and gymnastic, for they are of the greatest importance: all men devote their energies to these two, and it is their duty to do so. For music wondrously strengthens and orders the mind and the spirit, while gymnastic does the same for the body in service of the mind. He adds that a good mind does not arise from a good body, but a good body is produced from a good mind.

He further adds that simple music enhances the health of the mind, while a simple diet promotes the health of the body; and, conversely, complex music and a complex diet are injurious to both. He says that when men lived temperate lives they had no need of physicians. He condemns narrow-minded ways of safeguarding the body as far as diet and treatments are concerned, and he says that if a State needs the painstaking care of doctors and judges this is a clear sign that it is badly organised.

He speaks of the functions of the doctor and the judge; and he chooses for a judge a good and sensible old man with experience of many types of people both good and evil. He describes depravity as a kind of deprivation which knows neither itself nor virtue; and he speaks of virtue as a way of life which knows itself through itself and which, when acquaintance with situations is added to it, makes judgements about vices.

It should always be remembered, however, that Plato confirms – not only in this dialogue but also in the Laws, the Statesman, and Protagoras – that there is nothing more needful to any man, especially to a public figure and a philosopher, than the bond which joins courage and temperance together as equal partners, so that, through courage the heights are sought, while through temperance the depths are not despised, and through the operation of them both you are never overbold or over-fearful.

Through courage, again, you will ward off injury both private and public, and through temperance you will yourself abstain from injury. Through courage you will be summoned to all that is honourable, and through temperance you will be restrained from all that is base.

This is why he relates gymnastic and music to these two virtues, so that through the first may be acquired courage, mental rather than physical. He orders them to be blended together, since gymnastic in isolation begets ferocity, while music in isolation produces softness, and both together give rise to courage and temperance.

Finally, from those who have received such training he selects the guardians, or magistrates, and the defenders, or soldiers. Those he wishes to be taken up for the magistracy are those who are elderly, well-balanced, and brave, lovers of the public weal, those who have proved themselves such in experience.

Again, he directs the young men to be tested in the midst of pleasures and pains, in order to see whether or not they are temperate and courageous and whether, through deceits or threats or enticements, they might at any time be persuaded to deviate from their view of preserving the public good.

Lastly, he says that the temperaments of men are like different metals, gold being fit to govern, silver ready to be a soldier, and iron and bronze suitable for craftsmanship and agriculture. He decrees that individual talents be directed to those functions for which they are fitted; and thus the sons of the helmsmen should at times be directed to what is baser, in accordance with their talents, and the sons of the lower ranks should, in turn, be likewise directed to nobler functions.

He also forbids the soldiers to have any private property: this is to ensure that they do not, through greed, change from guard-dogs into wolves.

The Theme of theFourth Book of the Republic

IN THE FOURTH BOOK we hear of the measure that is applied to ownership and to the State to ensure that there are no excessively rich citizens and no poor citizens. For he thinks that uprisings occur and the State is destroyed from excessive abundance as well as from scarcity. He considers, too, that there is no unity, but rather division, in a State where some are poor while others are rich; and, as usually happens, the rich despise the poor, and the poor feel envy and hatred for the rich. From here he moves cautiously to his secret teaching that all things are common: none has less than any other, and none has more, for the first situation breeds envy, lying, and theft, while the second spawns extravagance, haughtiness, and sloth. Furthermore, possessing too much or too little is an obstacle to good character and harmony, as well as to talent and the arts. He teaches that the State is protected and undertakes great enterprises, not on account of the rich but on account of virtue.

Again, no part of the State is to be organised in such a way that it seems to be completely self-contained, but it is to be organised so that it contributes to all the parts and so that it works for the common welfare of the whole State. If it were otherwise, neither the State itself nor any of its parts could stand.

He further puts a measure on the growth of the State, so that it remains a single State; for at the first sign that the unity is in danger of being lost the State must not be allowed to expand any further. He therefore decrees that the State should be neither tiny nor vast, but middling in size, well-balanced, and harmonious, so that its unity is protected.

But since the man who is careless at seed-time waits in vain for the harvest, Plato thinks that the whole focus of attention should be given to childhood and youth, as if sowing for a refined harvest; so that a careful reckoning is kept of all the words, games, and deeds of the boys and youths. If this stage of life is overlooked, all exertion in relation to everyday laws will be in vain, like the efforts to administer daily doses of drugs to someone who has no desire to observe any measure in moderating his life. At this point, remember that games gradually change into enthusiasms and ways of living.

Again, just as a man who is robust by nature, sensible, and restrained in his ways never needs medicines, so a State which has been really well established from its inception and has continued within that framework has no need of numerous laws at the beginning and no need of incessant decrees thereafter. But bad States busy themselves in their daily administration with the promulgation of new laws and never prosper. This is why Plato gives no heed to laws in this best of States, for he trusts that the level-headed good men will be the living laws.