Thoughts on Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic
- bobjones1516
- Sep 13, 2020
- 3 min read
In the Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic, author CDC Reeve seeks to argue that, contrary to what I thought, the Republic is actually highly systematic and persuasive in achieving Plato’s goals. I bought this book specifically because I was looking for the counterpoint to my feelings about the Republic, although the more I let it percolate in my mind, the more I feel Plato’s political ideas should be taken much more seriously than modern audiences typically take them. In his introduction, Reeve tells us that he wrote primarily for other philosophers but that he tried to make it clear enough that dedicated laypersons could also follow the arguments.
Unfortunately for me, I wound up bouncing off of this one, although it was excellent for the 100 or so pages out of 273 that I read. It is well argued, well written, and CDC Reeve is clearly an extraordinarily intelligent guy. But it is also highly dense and challenging, and, at least for me, might even require a reread of the Republic to really understand. It’s not Reeve’s fault that it’s challenging—the Republic is a tough nut to crack. Since this is a supplementary text to the main canon I’m reading, and since I’m doing this for fun in my spare time, I just can’t work up the motivation to dig through it like I would if it was part of the primary canon. I’d like to that that I will return to this book at a later date, when I’m a little bit more philosophically seasoned. I gave up in Chapter 2, which discusses Plato’s metaphysics and the three famous analogies, and which Reeve does warn us is going to be the hardest chapter. I found that I was losing the thread at this part of the book.
I do want to set out a few things I enjoyed in what I finished. I liked the argument on page 9 that Plato’s huge focus on education is because what the Kallipolis (this is apparently what the ideal city is called) is set up to do is make sure that the ideal values of the Kallipolis are transmitted to the next generation, despite the fact that it’s a state run by a bunch of skeptics and philosophers who might be inclined to tear down tradition. Transmitting traditional values to the next generation is something that Western society, for better or worse, has utterly failed at over the last few generations in particular.
On page 15, he unpacks interlocutors Thrasymachus’ argument in Book 1 of the Republic that, essentially, justice is whatever the powerful say that justice is. As he puts it, “Thrasymachus’ entire argument is based on a daring and insightful theory of the polis as a kind of exploitation machine in which both social behavior and the standards by which it is evaluated are arranged by those who have the power to rule so as to benefit themselves.” Definitely an interesting argument to consider.
Reeve also persuasively argues that Book 1 of the Republic, where Socrates/Plato gives us the old craftsman analogy in trying to discuss what make a person moral, is weak not because it was written earlier than the rest of the book, but because Plato is using this as a literary technique. The Socratic method (which I discovered is called the elenchus) simply won’t work for this issue or these interlocutors, and it allows Plato to lead in to the positive theory of justice which he explores in the rest of the book. Frankly, this makes a heck of a lot more since than that chapter just being sort of stupid.
Finally, I really liked Reeve’s insight that the relationship between forms and the Good is that while the forms are immutable, if they could take shape in the real world then they would take the shape that would be best directed toward human happiness as ascertained through the Good (I’m sort of butchering this, but that’s the gist of it).
At any rate, I do recommend this book if you want to read something that really digs into the Republic, and if you go to UNC-Chapel Hill you should try to take one of his classes.
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