Solidifying the Context

There are two main ideas that we will discuss in this article. The first is how Plato thought about and justified his theory of forms. An example of this is the famous allegory of the cave. The second is the practical and political conclusions Plato draws from his theories, which are less than ideal.

The Allegory of the Cave

Plato had the concept of theory of forms, which practically looked like the following. All the contemporaries of Plato are looking at the material reality as the end all be all. They think it is the real deal and it sufficiently describes all of existence.

Specifically, Plato wanted there to be meaning and order, which the material world cannot give because the material world is constantly changing and eroding, chairs break and men get older. Moreover, to these contemporaries, Plato wanted to say that I through reason have brought you the truth of reality. The truth that stop relying on the material world as the source of knowledge and instead use reason and anamnesis to get to the forms that explain the material world as well as give it some purpose.

Therefore, Plato puts forward an allegory called the allegory of the cave in the dialogue The Republic.

The story is set like this. There is a cave and at its mouth is a fire. Inside the cave, first there is a lateral walkway. Whatever walks in the walkway has its shadow cast on the opposite wall of the cave. The cave then drops like a cliff and underneath there are prisoners bound to the ground. These prisoners can only see the shadows on the wall and nothing else; they were born here.

Plato says that the general population is like those prisoners in the cave staring at the wall and shadows.

The walkway is setup at such a height that people who walk on it do not cast a shadow on the cave wall, only the things that these people hold above their heads appear on the cave wall. The people who walk these walkways are puppeteers. They intentionally walk with puppets of real things over their head like animals and men and so on to create a false perception of reality.

The prisoners only see shadows of puppets that the puppeteers want them to see. For prisoners these shadows have real and independent existence. Suppose someone unshackles a prisoner, turns him around such that he faces the fire, the prisoner’s eyes will not be able to adjust to the light, he will be blinded and not able to see the puppets because the light would blind him at first. For that prisoner, the soft shadows on the wall will feel more real than this blinding light where he cannot see the objects casting the shadow. The prisoner would want to return to his original position where reality made sense. He might turn away from the fire and continue to look at the shadows because every time he turns to look at the light, he gets more blinded and confused.

Suppose, if you completely dragged the prisoner beyond the fire and into the open sun, the prisoner will be even more blinded and unable to see anything except the blinding sun. The prisoner would be angry with you and in pain because of this experience. However, if you keep the prisoner under the open sky, slowly his eyes will adjust, and slowly he will begin to see. With his head down, first the prisoner will begin to see reflections and shadows of real things, shadows from the sun and reflections from the water. Then the prisoner will be able to look at real things and not just their reflections. Finally, by the end of his awakening, he will be able to see the sun itself without being in pain.

If then you ask the prisoner to compare the cave with the outer world, the prisoner will affirm that the outer world with the sun is better than the inner world in the cave with the fire.

In all this, the puppeteers are manipulators who deceive people using false sources of knowledge such as the fire in the cave. The chains with which the prisoner is bound are the constraints of ignorance and bias. The journey out of the cave is the enlightenment and pursuit of truth. The sun is the Form of the Good as the actual source of knowledge, which after enlightenment the prisoner is able to grasp.

After grasping the Form of the Good, the prisoner would want to return to the cave to free the other prisoners. However, it will not be easy. Every prisoner will resist only later realize that the pain of going through the enlightenment was worth it.

Finally, the journey of enlightenment can only be gone through intellectually, through reason, introspection, seeing the order of the world, seeing the forms behind the material things; there is no other way.

Plato's Communism

In Plato's ideal city-state, the one with three classes of citizenry, Plato devised suggestions to make sure each class has the tools to perform their job in the best manner. Plato leaves the Producers class alone, they can do whatever they want; they are free to do as they please as long as they abide by the laws of the state.

However, the Ruling class and the Auxiliary class have limitations placed on them. The first limitation is the abolishment of private property for them. The state provides for them and fulfills all their needs. The rationale is that if these people do not have and cannot have material possessions, we solve some of the human problems. The Ruling class will not be motivated towards corruption and greed, they will be only concerned with performing their duties well because there are no houses and palaces to build, no slaves to own and command, no wealth to hoard. Moreover, the Auxiliaries will have no material attachments so that they willingly risk their lives in any war for the city-state, they do not yearn for comfortable homes and neither do they have to think what will happen to any property back in the city as they are warring. Soldiering will be the only thing in their mind.

Instead, the Ruling class and Auxiliaries will have their own communal spaces to live life.

Plato does not stop here. He suggested that traditional family structures with monogamy, marriages, and child rearing should be replaced. Firstly, the state should decide which couples are allowed to ensure that the offspring is healthy and strong. This way, 'weaker' bloodlines are weeded out. Any union like this would not be permanent either as monogamy creates attachments that neither the rulers nor auxiliaries should be distracted by.

Then since there is no family structure, the state takes all children away from the parents and raises them separately. The children do not know who their biological parents are. In this sense, all parents will be a role model to all the children since any of the children could be theirs. In return, all children will respect all the parents since any one of them could be their real parents.

Both of these ideas reek of eugenics.

Plato's Noble Lie

In The Republic dialogue, a problem comes up. The Producers would outnumber the higher classes. So how do you convince them to bend to the wisdom of the Rulers? If the rulers could convince them of the existence of forms and take them out of the cave and into the light, these producers are then the same as the rulers. The whole point of Plato was that these classes are different because of their forms. In some sense, the Producers are incapable of grasping the form of the good.

Therefore, Plato suggested that the state should adopt a believable lie that makes it so that the Producers and Auxiliaries bend to the will of the Guardians or the Ruling class. This lie should be called the Noble Lie because it is a lie but for a noble cause since it is necessary to ensure order.

The lie goes like this. The state should tell the people that all people have specific metals in their souls that determine their role in society. Some people are born with gold, some with silver, and others with iron and bronze. Those with gold in their soul are the only ones capable of higher reason and understanding and should be rulers. Those with silver are the only ones capable of defending the city as auxiliaries. Lastly, those with bronze and iron in their souls are hardy folks who work the earth as Producers.

Another element of the Noble Lie is that the state should claim that all children are born from the same earth. So all children of the Earth should live together in the same city regardless of their class but with different roles thus promoting unity.

The Irony of the Noble Lie

The noble lie creates one of the oldest cases of irony in philosophy. By creating the noble lie, Plato asks the ruling class to become the puppeteers that are creating misperceptions for the prisoners. Plato is saying that if others misrepresent reality to others, its wrong, but if the ruling class in the Republic does it, it is fine because they have good intentions.

Plato as an Advocate of Censorship

There is no doubt that Plato was authoritarian. Authoritarian because he was inclined to use authority to enforce laws on every little part of citizen's life for the sake of their betterment. For instance, Plato wanted to control the expression of arts.

Plato said that no form of art should depict immoral behavior, false gods, or negative role models. Essentially, this means two things, do not create fictional works, so no Harry Potter. Secondly, no work of art or theatre can have villains. Plato also disliked art that primarily appealed to emotions such as dramas and poetry and instead he wanted to enforce only that art which promoted rationality, order, and virtues.

However, it is to be noted that Plato was not in a position of power to implement any of this or was seeking power to implement such a state. All these are dialogues mainly from the Republic as a thought exercise. There is a strong claim here that, if you want to organize your society based on these forms, then you will reach these sort of authoritarian conclusions. This authoritarianism stems from teleology. If you really believe that you have divine purpose, then any method towards achieving that purpose is justified. If you think that order is ordained from the immaterial like Plato's Form of the Good, then in life you must take any step necessary to ensure that order is maintained and if that means abolishing private property, implementing eugenics, and mass censorship, then so be it.

Plato's Change of Heart

Plato's discussed his political science in two dialogues, the earlier one is The Republic and this is more idealistic. Most questionable items mentioned above are from this dialogue. Then, later came the dialogue The Laws. It was among the last of Plato's work where Plato is much more pragmatic and practical. Here the major changes of heart Plato had between these two works.

First, Plato went away from the idea of philosopher-kings that rule with reason alone to a system of established laws based on reason. So it removes the human element somewhat to reduce tyranny.

Second Plato also allowed private property and allowed back traditional family structures. Third, his stance on censorship also relaxed such as being more open to poetry but still defending censorships elsewhere.

Generally, it was more pragmatic and in some sense, the modern republics resemble The Laws. We have a system of laws in our constitutions that the ruling class through the legislature can amend. We have a military class, which is bound by the constitution to protect it. Lastly, we have the rest of the remaining citizenry in the Producers class. Not much has changed.

Conclusion

With this, we end Plato for now. This was a comprehensive summary and conclusions of Plato's main philosophies. We did not go into some of the discussions on morals such as the following problem. "Is an act good because God commanded it or did God command it because it was good? Which came first?"

We will discuss topics like that specifically in the ethics section later on. Once we are well established in philosophy, we can loop back to go into more details about these dialogues and directly read from the source. However, if you cannot wait, you are free to read Plato’s dialogues yourself right now. I do think it is better to have a general understanding of philosophy first from this course and then if you have time, directly read the major works of philosophers themselves.

Next up, Plato's great but not grateful student, Aristotle, also known as the First Teacher.