(Continued from the City of Pigs discussion)
Once we move beyond the dialogue about the two cities (moderate and luxurious) in book 2, we immediately find ourselves plunged into a discussion about the education of the guardians. As was said above, the guardians are a kind of anchoring element in Plato’s construction of his republic, which stands as a mean between the extremes of the the initial moderate city and the luxurious city. It will now be seen more clearly how the education of the guardians coincides with this mediation.
1
Plato’s intention is that the guardians should save the city from deficiencies of either extreme through the application of their philosophical efforts. The education Plato designs for the guardians is a program for bringing about the realization of this particular kind of excellence. Along with physical training (gymnastike), Plato’s musike is a program for what we might call a liberal arts education keyed to developing a moderate character in the guardians that avoids either extreme simplicity or the tendency to feverish excess.
He assumes throughout his discussion that there will be a general inculcation of values through the stories of gods and heroes that are told to the guardians (see II.377b et seq.). This type of education was very common throughout the Ancient Greek poleis. As Jaeger has written, poetry, and the recitation of poetry was meant to have an educational aspect, to serve to form character and values, as well as to entertain.1 In the Republic, Plato is concerned that the young guardians should have models of virtue that truly reflect the kind of virtue he thinks will help to ensure that the city does not become feverish, lost in an appetitive flurry of activity that leads to injustice and war. This is especially important in the case of the guardians since it is they who will shape the character of the city by holding office and philosophizing:
[A]t the age of fifty those who have survived the tests and approved themselves altogether the best in every task and form of knowledge must be brought at last to the goal. We shall require them to turn upwards the vision of their souls and fix their gaze on that which sheds light on all, and when they have thus beheld the good itself they shall use it as a pattern for the right ordering of the state and the citizens and themselves
Republic, 540A (Shorey Translation)
The gods especially, he therefore thinks, should not provide examples of such behavior, and stories of war among the gods or of petty trifling among themselves. Instead, all such stories should follow the pattern set out by the founders of the city (see II.379A).2 Accordingly, God should be depicted as Good, unchanging (neither in need of more or less), and true in word and deed (II.379-382). Interestingly, there appears to be an allusion to the dilemma of Euthyphro and an example of how such stories can lead to injustice at 378B where Plato writes that anyone who punishes his father’s doings to the limit would at once be acting inappropriately and yet following the example of the gods themselves.
Such roles require the kind of independent, creative thinking that training in musike, essentially a liberal arts education, followed by training in dialectic, would promote. It is clear throughout Plato’s discussion of the education of the guardians that he does not intend them to be merely slavish imitators of current fashions, but philosophically minded persons who are motivated to search out the truth of things. But the foundation and true goal of musike is, as he says in III.403C, a love of the beautiful:
δεῖ δέ που τελευτᾶν τὰ μουσικὰ εἰς τὰ τοῦ καλοῦ ἐρωτικά.
Here can be glimpsed a sense in which Plato is advocating for a training of the senses, refining them to love what is harmonious and well-tuned, which may serve as a basis for a love of harmony in the soul and later for justice itself. Certainly, the passage parallels the initial stage on the upward path of love in Socrates’ speech in the Symposium.
2
In what follows, I would like to move beyond these stage-setting themes to consider the way in which Plato’s education in moderation or temperance stands as a foundational stage on a ladder of virtues such as courage, wisdom and justice. In Plato, one finds not only an education of the mind, but also one of the body, including the senses and the passions aroused through the senses. In what follows, the importance of these latter forms of education will be considered as parts of the larger “whole” of the truly philosophical character Plato has in mind, which will, in turn, point to a vision of how the epistemological and ethical sides of the Platonic dialogues fit together.
The Upward Path
The upward path on the ladder of virtue might be said to begin with an education of the senses. As such, it has a standing similar to the epistemological role that the objects of the senses play on the lower portion of the divided line; however, the education of the senses the guardians receive has more of an ethical focus. This “education” might be characterized by a kind of outside-inside movement or influence, whereby the things in the young guardian’s environment affect his soul through the senses. For example, at III.399A and following, it is decided that the young guardians will be exposed only the Dorian and Phrygian musical modes (essentially patterns of notes that have a particular kind of effect) which are meant to inculcate steadfastness, bravery, temperance, and moderation. Socrates and Glaucon expect that such musical modes will serve as models of virtuous sentiments that the guardians will later imitate in the actions.
Moreover, at III.399E, the overall strategy involved in doing so is made clear where Socrates says, “And by the dog, said I, we have all unawares purged the city which a little while ago we said was luxurious.” Of course, the purgation, intended as complete with respect to the modes in which music is to be played, affects only one aspect of the life of the city, as the ensuing discussion of what kinds of rhythms are to be admitted shows. It is worth noticing briefly that the word for “purge” used in this context, διακαθαίρω, which means “to purge thoroughly” has καθαίρω (to purge, cleanse, purify) as its stem, whose meaning is used in religious contexts as well as medical ones. As Socrates moves on to other aspects of city life, the purgation continues. The external modelling and influencing toward of inner virtues extends to items in the guardians’ environment such as woven products, embroidery and furthermore to architecture and “fine speech” (III.401a).
But the true “art” behind such crafts is the way that they “imitate” or copy or reproduce an instance of general patterns of harmony, grace, and rhythm and in the city as a whole. This becomes clear at III.401C-E where Socrates says:
[W]e must look for those craftsmen who by the happy gift of nature are capable of following the trail of true beauty and grace, that our young men, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, may receive benefit from all things about them, whence the influence that emanates from works of beauty may waft itself to eye or ear like a breeze that brings from wholesome places health, [401d] and so from earliest childhood insensibly guide them to likeness, to friendship, to harmony with beautiful reason.”
“Yes,” he said, “that would be far the best education for them.”
“And is it not for this reason, Glaucon,” said I, “that education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, [401e] and otherwise the contrary? And further, because omissions and the failure of beauty in things badly made or grown would be most quickly perceived by one who was properly educated in music, and so, feeling distaste rightly, he would praise [401a] beautiful things and take delight in them and receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good.”
In a way similar to what Aristotle expresses in the Nicomachean Ethics it is expected that the guardians will at first take on common opinions about what is virtuous unreflectively, but will later, when mature, be in a position to grasp the reason why some things praised while others are blamed:
The ugly he would rightly disapprove of and hate while still young and yet unable to apprehend the reason, but when reason came the man thus nurtured would be the first to give her welcome, for by this affinity he would know her.”
“I certainly think,” he said, “that such is the cause of education in music.”
In keeping with the stages of ascent on the divided line, the young guardians might be said to hold conjectures or beliefs or opinions concerning things they are only later able to more fully justify. Their souls are, as it were, given an initial orientation toward the kinds of virtues that Plato regards as beneficial for them both privately and for the good of the city as a whole. In this way, it appears, Plato intends to keep the city from degenerating into the luxurious city mentioned in Book II.
The Allegory of the Cave
This path parallels the one taken out of the cave by the prisoners of opinion and conjecture, but it does so by beginning with images of virtue that will lead them out of bondage, rather than merely a random mixture of images. The citizen “prisoners” of opinion and conjecture in a society are beholden to the images of virtue and vice their society holds up to their gaze. Those images reflect more general patterns, forms of virtue and vice, that begin to take hold in their soul as internal patterns. In the case of the guardians, it is the ethical side that first predominates, surrounded as they are by imitations of the kind of character necessary for an arduous ascent toward a vision of the patterns or forms or real virtue.
Persons who have already made an upward ascent and have developed beliefs about such things may serve as pathfinders for individuals who, in the spirit of truth-finding, must make the ascent themselves using dialectic as their guide. Perhaps, given this perspective, our contemporary epistemological concern with knowledge and how to certify it has been given too much emphasis in the context of reading Plato’s dialogues. If Plato’s concern was with the ascent, then it seems more reasonable to focus more upon the way to knowledge rather than with knowledge itself.
The emphasis upon culture and cultural development should not be overlooked as a factor in making one’s ascent. It is sometimes thought, perhaps owing somewhat to Augustine, that, in the Platonic tradition, all learning must arise “from within” and that therefore, teaching is something that arises within oneself, from a source that is itself pure and free from corruption. Notwithstanding the merits of such a view, Plato is unwilling to entrust the use of reason alone with such responsibility, but sees the need for it to be pointed in the right direction from a young age, especially as regards the character-virtues. A justification for the degree to which Plato goes in purging his city of bad influences, in a way that might well be considered paternalistic, may perhaps lie in the reflection that it appeared to him to be the best way to ensure that the “ship of state” is consistently pointed in the right direction.
The “Problem of the Meno”
Finally, the way the guardians are given their orientation owes everything to its founders, Socrates and Glaucon harkens back the problem of knowledge discussed in the Meno and later elaborated somewhat in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, I.1: If knowing is something like knowing the path to Larissa or any other place, how knowledge get started at all unless something is already known about it? Knowledge, it would seem must begin with presuppositions that require justification themselves. And how are any assumptions to be justified unless the goal, arriving at Larissa, has already been achieved?
Socrates and Glaucon do not begin with axioms and firmly established truths as established directions toward arriving at knowledge, but with assumptions in the form of generally framed ideas about character-virtues that, it is expected, will ultimately coalesce toward the kind of civic virtue that leads to the existence of real justice in the city. These do not begin with ideal patterns themselves as their guide, but with imitations and copies encountered in our experience that give the first clues to pathfinders about the way to justice if anything, it would seem, can lead them there. Progress might be hindered and “success” might truly be a gift of the gods, but one cannot begin without assumptions and Socrates and Glaucon, as founders of a city must begin somewhere, and do so with the illuminating light reason provides before them not as people who discovered the truth of justice, but as two people planning for an ascent.
3
To bring these insights back to the education of the senses, the guardians may be pictured as surrounded by stories and artifacts of all kinds about which they are taught to have discriminating opinions and tastes. If their education is successful, they will praise things that are praiseworthy and blame those things that are blameworthy. Moreover, they will become graceful as rhythm and harmony permeate their souls both through their exposure to harmonious and temperate music and through the kind of rhythm and harmony that is present in well crafted artifacts. All these factors contribute to developing a temperate nature that shares the virtues both of Socrates’ initial city of pigs and the refinements and support for philosophically sophisticated thinking that arise in the luxurious city. It is especially, in this latter case that Plato abandons the simple rusticity of his initial moderate city.
It might be noted at this point that Glaucon’s remark that Socrates’ initial city was a city of pigs is a fine example of Socratic irony. Glaucon labelled the inhabitants of Socrates’ simple city “pigs” because of their diet (which consisted of such things as boiled roots and acorns) and their uncultivated rusticity. But Glaucon’s luxurious city stands equally as a city of pigs for its voracious appetitiveness and desire for wealth (373d). The guardians provide a foundation for meeting both defects by introducing into the culture and character of Plato’s Republic a passion for true and simple beauty that begins at the level of the senses and later manifests itself in the flowering of guiding ideas.
Taking these points together with the parallels noted above with the allegory of the cave, divided line, and the problem of the Meno, it might be said that having achieved such guiding ideas that lead to the realization of harmony and beauty in the republic, the guardians add to their role as harmonizers, tuners, and healers that of teachers. It is in this role that one might see a foreshadowing, in books II-IV, of the notion that arises in books VI-VII: that of the necessity for an ascent to knowledge from belief and conjecture, so that a philosophical ruler may be in a position to lead others to a similar vision.
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References
- See Jaeger’s chapter on “The Philosophical Idealization of Sparta” in his Paideia (2nd ed.): The Ideals of Greek Culture, volume 1, translated by Gilbert Highet (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 77-87. His section on “Tyrtaeus’ Call to Arete” is also an excellent discussion of the role of poetry in relation to the concept of paideia (see pages 87-98).
- Here Plato may have in mind the models of such state-founding characters in Greek history as Solon and Lycurgus, who was reverently called “The Schoolmaster of Sparta.” The example of Lycurgus may be foremost in Plato’s mind as someone who set a pattern that, while followed, led to a cultural flourishing and a new ideal of citizenship based upon self-sacrifice and a willingness to place the interests of the city-state above one’s personal interests (See Jaeger, Paideia, 83-85).
