Boardman's Notes on Teaching Plato's Republic
Note: The following references to the Republic use the pagination of the Lee translation in Penguin's revised second edition of 1987. Stephanus numbers are given in square brackets.
Since the most important task for a reader of the Republic is seeing the overall structure of the work, I shall try to illuminate that. In what follows, I shall often use "rectitude" or "right conduct" for what is translated as "just" and its cognates.
Page 5 [St 329] Cephalus and Polemarchus
There are two main points of this skirmish. First, Plato is showing us something of what sort of "definition" of 'rectitude' ('justice') is wanted, and something of the method that is needed in order to discover that definition. Clearly, what is wanted is not a synonym or dictionary definition; the participants already understand how to use the word. Rather, Plato is looking for the systematic rationale which animates the way we talk about rectitude or moral uprightness—what makes it praiseworthy and prized. The search for that rationale is to be conducted by trying to find an element common to a variety of instances of rectitude, and then testing one's first approximation against further, different cases. This is what is known as Plato's dialectical method.
The second purpose of the skirmish is to introduce, with a slyness that is characteristic of the early Platonic dialogues, some of the main themes of the later discussion. To the question, "What is rectitude?" the first answer, that right conduct is giving each person his due, is discredited because it is interpreted as giving to each person what the conventional view of society says is his due. Notice that the answer would be closer to the mark if it were interpreted as giving to each what is really due to him. In the midst of the discussion, on page 9 [St 332d], Plato suddenly introduces an analogy between medical skills and rectitude; because the discussion is (wrongly) focused on rectitude in one actions rather than on the condition of one's soul, the analogy looks implausible. But if we make the substitution which Plato's later account requires, we then find that rectitude supplies harmony to the elements of the soul just as medical skill supplies health to the body. Here, as in other dialogues, it is clear that Plato takes seriously the analogy between bodily health and goodness of the soul.
Pages 17– [St 336b– ] Thrasymachus: right conduct is whatever is in the interest of the stronger party.
A new skirmish is begun with the entry of Thrasymachus. Once again, the argument is handled artificially in order to introduce some of the themes to be used later. Thrasymachus begins by claiming that (1) the notion of "right" or "justice" is a human—a legal—creation; and (2) since a legal system is controlled by the most powerful faction, its specification of "right" or "just" conduct will provide that that action is right which the powerful individuals selfishly pursue as beneficial to themselves. Thrasymachus' position founders on the distinction between what a powerful ruler may falsely suppose to be in his interest, and what really is in his interest. Socrates then suggests an analogy between a ruler of a state and a shepherd: the true ruler seeks to serve the interests of his citizens. While Socrates' refutation of Thrasymachus' views look artificial, as does the analogy, hindsight will show the reader that both of these anticipate crucial parts of the theory which is developed later. Note that the reason why the shepherd example does not entirely convince is that the shepherd and sheep do not actually have an identity of interests (it is amusing to think of Socrates' flock of superannuated sheep with their wool never having been shorn); but they do have a greater overlap of interests than Thrasymachus, in his enthusiasm, recognizes.1 (In Plato's view, since the true interests of everyone, ruler and common citizen alike, are intertwined in a political state, a ruler best serves his own true interests when he serves the true interests of the citizens of his state. In a state, there is no genuine opposition between the real interests of ruler and subject. Look ahead to page 119 [St 412d], where Plato speaks of "an identity of interests.") Ironically, then, Thrasymachus' answer will be true on Plato's theory, though not under Thrasymachus' interpretation of his own answer.
Thrasymachus, in confusion, now puts his thesis differently: what is universally recognized as upright behavior is foolish; deliberate injustice is what pays.2 Although Socrates' reply is not made convincingly here, Plato's response—which can be discerned through the logic-chopping—is this: Although acting wrongly or unjustly may seem to profit one, it does not give him what is truly in his interest. Plato will later return to this point and try to argue convincingly that it is in a person's genuine self-interest to be upright and just.
Pages 43– [St 357– ] Glaucon and Adeimantus: Is right conduct a good in itself, apart from the consequences of seeming to be upright? And is rectitude in one's self-interest only when one is weak?
With the introduction of Glaucon and Adeimantus, the skirmishes are over. The pair raise the question whether it is in a person's self-interest to be upright and just.
Glaucon presents the common view of justice as "painful" in itself, though pursued as a means to rewards and in the hope of a good reputation. He states, as the received opinion of justice, a kind of social contract theory, according to which people, out of self-interest, undertake to be just as the price they must pay to secure the like forbearance of others. The mutual agreements and laws so created define right and lawful. (p. 45 [St 359]) (Historically, philosophers have found this to be an attractive view.) The point of the Gyges' Ring example is to undermine this theory: self-interest will oblige one to follow such an agreement only when one is being observed; it is solely the appearance of rectitude which is in one's self-interest, not its actual practice at those times when no-one is in a position to verify its application.3
To sharpen their questions, Glaucon and Adeimantus remind us of the distinction between "appearance" and "reality": Socrates must show, they insist, not merely that the appearance of rectitude is in a person's interest, but that his actually being upright is in his interest. Eventually, in his reply, Socrates will also appeal to this distinction: he will argue that although being upright does not necessarily promote one's apparent or supposed interest, it does always promote his true interests.
Pages 57– [St 368e– ] The state is the individual writ large.
Plato now begins with the central analogy of his book. He delays giving the justification for the analogy until pages 149– 50 [Stephanus 434e– 435e], where he returns to the individual. That justification is central to Plato's philosophy: if a word is used univocally (in contrast to "equivocally") of two different things, then those things must share the common characteristic referred to by that word (despite being different in other, incidental, ways). Note that he is tentative in broaching the analogy: on p. 58 [Stephanus 369], he "proposes[s]" to begin with the community and then "see if we can find in the conformation of the smaller entity anything similar to what we have found in the larger." At p. 149 [St 434e], Socrates says "Let us therefore transfer our findings to the individual, and if they fit him, well and good; on the other hand, if we find justice in the individual is something different, we will return to the state and test our new definition. So by the friction of comparison we may strike a spark which will illuminate justice for us, and once we see it clearly we can fix it firmly in our own minds." On the next page, page 150 [St 435c– d], Socrates says "in my opinion we shall never find an exact answer by the method of argument we are using in our present discussion ... [but only one] that is satisfactory by the standards which we have so far used in our inquiry." On page 154 [St 438d– ], Socrates seems to suggest how one must do some winnowing in order to come up with a proper class characteristic. On page 282 [St 533a], Socrates concedes that from the account provided in the Republic, one must not claim certainty in the details. (It may be that we are to imagine that something like the Dialectic,4 whatever that is, is needed to know for certain what justice is.)
Plato proceeds to outline the essentials of a state: the executive class—the planning and deciding part; the subordinate military class—the part which carries out the orders of the executive class and helps to enforce order; the daily sustaining class—the part which supplies the bare essentials for all parts to exist. What we must notice, if we are to follow Plato's argument, is not only that each part has its proper, natural function (based on inherent abilities), but also that the parts are so interrelated that it is in the interest of each part that all parts perform their proper functions. (Recall Socrates' analogy to a healthy body: if the stomach does not function properly, the whole body deteriorates, including the brain; and if the brain does not function properly, the stomach will be unable to be supplied with the nourishment it requires.) It is worth noticing that Socrates distinguishes between the bare-bones of a state which provides for the essentials, and one which has luxuries: note the distinction between needs and desires which will figure importantly in later discussions. In a passage about the origin of war, p. 65 [St 374b], Socrates suggests that war—disharmony between states—is brought on by the pursuit of luxuries, the following of unnecessary desires. Later, at p. 316 [St 558d], Socrates distinguishes between "necessary desires"— "Desires which we cannot avoid, or whose satisfaction benefits us" from "unnecessary desires"— "which can be got rid of with practice ... and whose presence either does us no good or positive harm." And so, p. 319 [St 561b], it is false that desires are all equal.
In a perfect state, the rulers have only those prerogatives which are necessary to their doing the best job possible; and it is in the interests of all citizens equally that the rulers perform their job as well as possible. (It is worth noting that a contemporary, liberal philosopher, John Rawls, accepts a somewhat similar justification for—and limitation to—prerogatives.)
Similarly, it is in the interests of everyone equally that each person be assigned to that task which he can perform best. (Note later, at page 127 [St 421b], where Plato insists upon the goal of the state as "securing the happiness ... of the whole;" as well as page 119 [St 412d] where, as mentioned earlier, he speaks of an "identity of interests.")
Pages 70– [St 376c– ] Education.
(Because this is not a central part of the overall argument, I will simply note some things which are important to the overall argument or theory.)
Note, incidentally, that on pages 77– 8 [St 380e– 381c], Plato links change and impermanence with mere appearance and unreality. This fits with Plato's views on the nature of reality and his doctrine of the Forms.
On pages 78– 9 [St 382b], Plato distinguishes between "a real falsehood," a falsehood which is intended to be believed as literally true, from a mere "spoken falsehood," something which, though literally false, is spoken with the intention not that it be taken literally, but that it represent or suggest something which is indeed true. It is to this distinction that Plato appeals in justifying his myth of metals. Though this is sometimes translated as "noble lie," it is clear that Plato conceives of it as a myth, and not a lie. (Compare the myth of Er.) Notice, too, that Plato's complaint about the poets is not that they eschew literal prose, but that what they suggest and purport to represent is really false. Plato uses the words, "represent" and "representation" quite deliberately, justifying us in joining the passages about poets both with the later account about art as providing a representation at third remove, on page 370 [St 602c], and also with the shadows in the simile of the cave. Finally, notice the assumption which underlies Plato's recommendation of censorship: the censors have the ability to discern matters of moral truth with certainty (and so the "marketplace of ideas" of which the 19C John Stuart Mill speaks as required to discover moral truths would be unnecessary and irrational).
Pages 137– [St 427d– ] The Virtues—and the definition of rectitude.
Plato now parcels out the virtues—knowledge to the rulers, courage to the auxiliaries, and self-discipline to each part; and rectitude ("justice") in doing one's own job, to each of the parts. Here we have Plato's definition of rectitude. Although Plato appears to pull all of this out of a hat, at pages 138ff [St 427e– 434], the theory is not altogether implausible. Pages 149– 58 [St 435– 441e] give a characteristic Platonic argument for the theory: if what appears to be a single element has contradictory properties at the same time, then there must be two different elements involved.
I confess to being particularly troubled by two points:
i. It is hard for me to see any really interesting difference between the virtues of self-discipline and rectitude as Plato characterizes them.
ii. In a way that is typical of Greek accounts of ethics, Plato takes the notion of an upright person (or soul) as basic, defining upright behavior as those actions done by an upright person (see page 161 [St 443c– e]). (On Plato's organic model, behavior is elicited by an orderly, healthy mind in the way that symptoms of health are produced by a healthy body—in contrast to the fever symptomatic of an unhealthy body.)
Modern accounts of ethics (with which I am in sympathy) take the notion of upright actions as basic, defining an upright person as one who reliably performs upright acts. A part of the explanation of this striking difference may be that by "rectitude," the Greeks have something less legalistic in mind than do later philosophers; for the last several hundred years, a legalistic model of fulfilling one's moral duties characterizes the interpretation put on "rectitude;" whereas the Greeks take the fulfillment of duties as a relatively small and insignificant part of the stage on which morality is played.In the digression on Women and the Family, on pages 166– 99 [St 449– 471c], it is noteworthy that Plato shows himself to be no more "conservative" in Burke's sense than Bentham, the high-priest of Utilitarianism: Plato calls for using the legal system as an engine of radical, rational reconstruction of the existing social institutions. Evidently, the existing social instutitions—especially those of the nuclear family and private property—are thought to rest on the lesser instincts and desires of man to promote self-aggrandizement; Plato's philosophical vision calls for these to be swept away. After the digression, Plato says that to achieve the just state, society must depose those who worry about appearances and who pander to the lower elements of moods and wants (see his characterization of typical rulers at page 228 [St 493b]), and enthrone those who will guide the state by the knowledge of what is really best.
Remember that if you grant Plato his premises, then it will follow that a wise and powerful ruler will not take advantage of his power and trust. For if the ruler's well-being is utterly and directly dependent upon the welfare of the state and its several classes of citizens, and if the ruler knows this to be so, and if the ruler has himself under self-control and self-discipline, then of course he will not pursue his limited, short-term, apparent ambitions, knowing that doing so would frustrate his more important and longer-term interests of security and well-being. For the claims that the true self-interest of everyone is intertwined with that of every other citizen, see page 119 [Stephanus 412d] and pages 187– 9 [Stephanus 462b– 464].
Pages 206 [St 474b] Knowledge.
Since Plato is a rationalist (in the sense in which this is contrasted with empiricist), his account of what is required for a ruler to have such knowledge involves some considerable metaphysical machinery. Using the cognitive faculties of sight and hearing, Plato argues on analogy that since knowledge (which is infallible) and opinion (which is fallible) are different faculties, they must have different objects.5 Knowledge has as its objects reality: the objects of this faculty are the Forms. Opinion has as its objects what we might call semi-reality—that which is momentary, impermanent, changing, apparent, and fraught with self-contradiction, and so only partially comprehensible; these objects of opinion include the world as revealed by the senses. Notice that the Forms serve two distinct functions: (1) they are the properties—universals—which are shared by the various things described by the same common name; (2) they are the paradigms of these properties—the exemplars with which we must be acquainted to understand the concepts and the meanings of the common words. [This second function raises problems, as Plato comes to realize in later dialogues: is the Form of Bed something which one could sleep on? If the Form of Bed is a paradigm of beds, then it presumably must have something in common with them—evidently a Super-Form of Bed.]
In a metaphor which has fascinated C.S. Lewis among others, Plato thinks of the world of appearances as an imperfect reflection of the world of Forms (earlier, at page 104 [St 402b]): to the extent to which things can be said to exist in the world of appearances, they owe their existence to the Forms (and not vice versa); and to the extent that the world of appearances can be understood, it is only in terms of, and on account of its being an imperfect realization of, the world of Forms.
Since knowledge of this cannot, at this point anyway, be bestowed on the reader, the reader must be satisfied with a mere reflection of the true account of knowledge (page 241 [St 504b]): this is offered by means of the simile of the sun, the analogy of the divided line, and the simile of the cave.
Incidentally, in the simile of the cave, I suggest that the shadows on the cave wall include the world presented by the poets (the main point of the later discussion of the representations of art—which are at three removes from reality—at pages 363– 70 [St 598– 602c]), the reputations that men have, as well as sensory impressions of uncritical observations: these things which are commonly taken to be reality, are actually only distorted representations of the material world. (The animus with which Plato—in the later section devoted to the representations of art—disparages the poets, implies his belief that the poets were enormously successful in distorting how most people see the visible world. A political historian might make a similar complaint against our current print and television journalism.)
Pages 265– [St 521c– ] Education of the Philosopher.
In discussing the Education of the Philosopher, Plato sets out the distinctive (and typical) features of a rationalist's theory of knowledge:
1. The paradigm of a field of knowledge, or anyway the closest approximation you and I have to one, is the pure science of mathematics.
2. In characterizing knowledge, the perceptual analogy is pressed very hard: one sees—as it were—that 2+2=4, and sees that the forms are related to each other in certain ways. But unlike visual perception, the pure perception of the mind, of reason, does not use a physical organ or a physical medium which might distort one's perception; the eye of reason gets to the thing itself, not merely to an imperfect representation of the thing.
3. The senses can never yield knowledge. At best, they are useful in bodily survival and also perhaps as a necessary first faculty to master on the road to mastery of a different faculty altogether.Page 295 Imperfect States.
Plato now sketches a set of imperfect states, accompanying each with a sketch of the corresponding individual. In suggesting that a defective state is made up primarily of individuals with the corresponding defect, Plato muddies his analogy (by falling prey to something like the fallacy of composition—the fallacy of supposing that, e.g., a wealthy state must be composed of individuals who are wealthy). Nevertheless, the corresponding individuals are evidently and quite properly brought in for three reasons:
1. To help convince us that the doctrine of parts of the soul is plausible, because actually useful in explaining things.
2. To overthrow utterly Thrasymachus' earlier thesis by portraying (at pages 326– 41) the sort of man whom Thrasymachus admired: such a creature is sordid, and obviously not genuinely happy (no matter what such a creature might himself believe). It is clearly not a life that anyone would deliberately choose for himself (or, for his beloved children), since he would be (see page 338 [St 577d]) merely a slave to his passions.
3. To bring the discussion to bear on the question raised by Glaucon and Adiemantus.The main point to be made by looking at the defective states is this: in each one, the problem is that the state is not run so as to pursue the good of the whole; as a result, the state is unstable, ready to degenerate further, and so will not continue to fulfill even the ignorantly selfish (because short-sided) purposes of its rulers. The true purpose of a political state is, of course, to benefit everyone so much as he can be benefitted, by constructing and maintaining such a harmony of interests that to pursue the true interest of any one citizen is to pursue the true interests of all. For although we can temporarily seem to benefit one class at the expense of another, this must eventually harm even that class itself: for the fate of its members is inevitably tied to the fates of the members of the other classes.
Pages 342– [St 580d– ] Answering the question of Adeimantus and Glaucon.
The parallel of the state and the individual provides the key to answering the earlier questions: an individual is truly happy and healthy, so to speak, when the elements of his soul are perfectly in balance and harmony. And being upright, you will recall, is not chiefly a matter of deed, of behavior, but is essentially a matter of the condition of one's soul from which those deeds issue. Thus Plato draws his conclusion: being upright does serve an individual's real interests, and serves them better than not being upright but only seeming to be so. Notice that the argument utterly requires one to distinguish, as Plato does on page 351 [St 586d], between proper or genuine pleasures and false or seeming pleasures. Thus, even the strong will benefit from rectitude—it is not merely of benefit to the weak.
Notice, at page 356 [St 590d], that the person with wisdom and self-control voluntarily obeys the laws of a just state; the state employs sanctions to gain the compliance of those who are sufficiently unwise or without self-discipline that they might otherwise be tempted into disobedience.
After an excursion into a theory of art—whose actual purpose is to show the connection of the distinction between reality and appearance to his metaphysical theory of Forms, as well as to sketch grounds for his disparagement of the poets—Plato reminds us of two things:
1. The soul is immortal, and so the benefits of having a good, healthy, soul may well last beyond one's physical life.
2. Although for the sake of the argument (in replying to Adeimantus and Glaucon), Socrates had pretended that really being upright does not inherit the rewards of merely seeming to be upright, in fact, as he now observes, if one is upright one will also be recognized as being so, and will thereby enjoy the rewards of reputation and respect. Thus, rectitude is not only a good in itself; it is also a means to further goods.And finally, Plato presents the Myth of Er, which suggests that a person who has the good fortune to be a citizen of a good state might do what is upright because of the benign guidance of the state; but his goodness is not reliable or dependable, since it does not proceed from knowledge. Only that person who is good on account of his knowing why this is necessary will be reliably and dependably good; and that reliability is a kind of permanence, a piece of reality.
Students often are offended by the fact that there seems no room for individualism in Plato's republic: it is worth exploring what "individualism" would amount to in Plato's view. To the extent to which two persons are human beings, they share the form of humanity: although one may reflect this to a greater or lesser degree than does another, humanity is not something which will distinguish one from another. Evidently what would differentiate them are mere accidental, inessential characteristics—the sorts of features which a wise person would ignore; such distinguishing features would certainly play no role in determining how we should act toward one another or how we should plan our own lives. (It is worth pondering the implications of this view on the value of friendship; are dear friends simply representatives of types, wisely to be stripped of their "accidental, inessential characteristics"?)
—Boardman (1986; revised 1993, 1995, 2002, 2003)
Endnotes: 1 It is easy to see that a selfish but rational shepherd will expend much energy and time (against his narrow interests in the short-run) in order to protect his flock. If he is too lazy to stop the wolves, or refuses to lead his herd to protection in bad weather, the shepherd will suffer in the long run—having fewer sheep surviving for his eventual profit in cheese, wool, and mutton. On the other hand, his motives for caring for his herd in the long-run are concerned with the promotion of his own narrow interests, and to some extent I suppose they might run counter to the interests of the sheep (supposing that it is not in their interests to be shorn or slaughtered despite their receiving, in exchange, protection from hunger and predation). [That supposition is worth examining in connection with present-day assertions of Animal Rights theories.] Returning to the physician and his patient, it is not in the patient's interests to give money to the physician—except that if he did not, the physician would no longer treat him; and it is in the physician's interest to cure the patient solely because it is only in the expectation of his doing so that the patient will give him any money in the first place. Still, we (unlike Plato) suppose that there is some wiggle-room between what the physician will require as a condition of treating the patient and what the patient will pay in order to have his malady treated: you and I suppose that this wiggle-room is best negotiated through a mechanism called a "market" precisely because we suppose that the interests of the physician and the patient are not completely interdependent. So far as I can see, Plato does not concede such wiggle-room.
Of course, what the ruler—or the shepherd or the physician—manages to get by means of compensation might indeed be "at the expense of" his subjects, but it is not that which would determine whether he is doing a professional or competent job. The reasonableness of any compensation or profit surely depends on the trade-off between the benefits and the harms to the subjects. We should notice, however, that Thrasymachus vastly overstates his case: clearly a ruler who promotes his own happiness to the complete exclusion of that of his subjects is in for revolution or regicide or being conquered by an external enemy which seems no more alarming to his subjects than their present ruler; still, it is possible on occasion—for instance, if he were to have an untimely death—for the rapaciously unjust man to promote his happiness to the complete exclusion of that of his subjects, since in such a case, there would be only the short-run. (But perhaps that is an overly sanguine view: some recent dictators — think of North Korea's Kim Il Sung, for example — seem to have troops sufficiently brutal and loyal to allow their repaciousness to endure for a very long time. Whether such tryants are truly "happy" is a separate question.)
Plato's response is, eventually, going to run something like this: that the well-being of all people in a state are so intertwined that there is actually a complete accord of their interests, such that the ruler can benefit himself only by ruling to the benefit of his subjects—who in turn are benefited only by following the leadership of their rulers. (Curiously, Socrates sometimes seems willing to concede that the rulers must, in his republic, sacrifice some of the happiness which they might otherwise have gained; see pp. 126-7 [St 420b & 421b]). For Plato, the notions of "right" and "justice" indicate the natural rules which govern this concordance of interests. For my part, and I fancy for yours also, this Platonic claim of complete concordance of interests goes beyond what we can believe; nevertheless, against Thrasymachus we could argue that there is much more concordance of interests than he realizes. As Hobbes later recognized, a rational, prudent, narrowly self-interested ruler would not press his subjects to the wall, since his own interests would thereby be harmed or threatened. Just like the shepherd, the rational tyrant will want his flock to be sufficiently healthy and contented to give him the maximum of profit with the minimum of effort; a rational tyrant realizes that there are prudential limits to his abilities to tax, to bully, to exploit his subjects. Later philosophers, such as Hume, have tried to show that much of traditional morality grows from rational self-interest. And certainly, one learns from historical kings and queens that a light and benevolent royal hand, together with some royal effort to keep one's subjects from preying on each other by creating laws to which the subjects acquiesce, repays handsomely. (Think of the Normans' judicial bureaucracy in England.) [Return]2 Compare the claim made by Nietzsche that the traditional, Judeo-Christian code of ethics is really a propaganda tool of the weak, the powerless and exploited, calculated to gain the upper hand over the powerful and expressing their resentment of their inferior position—by insinuating limits on the powerful to get them to conform their conduct to the interests of the weak. [Return]
3 As I point out in my Forms in Plato's Republic, "With his example of Gyges' ring, Plato identifies a huge difficulty for this social contract view: as Adeimantus suggests, supposing that view is correct, it will then be rational for me to abide by our agreement only because if I don't, you will retaliate against me. But imagine that I could receive the benefits of your cooperation without having to restrain my own predatory inclinations; then I would surely have the best of both worlds. (This difficulty is an instance of what is nowadays called 'the free-rider problem': although it is in a person's rational self-interest to agree to cooperate, it is also in his rational self-interest to cheat when he can do so secretly—thus taking a 'free ride;' but since everybody will figure out that everyone will cheat when given the opportunity, no one will trust the agreement.)" [Return]
4 In the Republic, Plato speaks only briefly and sketchily about the procedure of the Dialectic. According to Bostock in his Plato's Theaetetus, Plato clarifies somewhat the procedure in dialogues which follow the Republic, especially in the Philebus and the Sophist, where he characterizes knowledge in an interconnected way—so that knowledge is primarily directed not at isolated items but at systems of interconnected items, such that one knows the system when one has grasped the interconnections, and such that a method of collection and division would allow one to begin with a single instance and then find both its species and its genus.
It is the philosopher who can practise the method of collection and division, and this we are told is "knowing how to distinguish, according to kind, in what way things can and cannot combine." (Sophist, St. 253d-e; see Plato's Theaetetus, Bostock, p. 246) There is also a method of hypothesis in the Phaedo: upon devising an hypothesis, one first checks to see that its consequences are consistent (with other plausible beliefs); then one looks to whether a higher hypothesis can be defended which subsumes this one. Plato supposes that this process will not employ the senses. But while this sounds something like the hypothetico-deductive model of contemporary "scientific method," the stricture against using sensory evidence would make the method seem hard to use; in his use of it Plato seems to rely on "'common sense' ... evidently relying on 'common observation.'" (Plato's Phaedo, Bostock, pp. 170-3, 176-7) It is interesting to compare this to an isolated passage in the Republic where Plato seems to write tentatively and to echo some of this language: p. 149 [St 434e] and p. 150 [St 435c-e]. [Return]5 By way of a critical comment, I think that one should be skeptical of the claim that knowledge and belief have different objects. In the way we commonly speak of "knowledge"—where a trained eye-witness, for example, will be said to know that it was Mr. Ralph who robbed the store (having recognized him) in contrast to another person who merely believed it (having inferred it from Mr. Ralph's spending unusally large amounts of money later that day)—one person can be said to know the very thing about which another has mere belief. Compare, for a moment, the faculties of sight and touch: when the physician examines the bump on the head of the robber's victim, doesn't he see with his eyes the very same bump which his finger feels? Must we say that there are two different wounds, one which is touched and another which is seen? And, taking Plato's example, doesn't one both hear and see the door slam shut?
In effect, Plato is here appropriating the familiar term, "knowledge," for an unfamiliar purpose—to refer to one's (putative) direct apprehension of the Forms. [Return]
See also my Forms in Plato's Republic