4/14/2007
Eric Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle,
chap. 3 – The Republic – pp. 46-81
Joanne Tetlow, J.D., Ph.D.
Download a PDF version of this document
In his rich and trenchant analysis of the organization and meaning of Plato’s Republic, Voegelin's depth is revealed. While recognizing
the central question of the Republic to be "what is justice?" Voegelin goes beyond conventional interpretations as Socrates goes beyond
conventional views of justice. He distinctly locates the main thrust of the Republic in the middle, Part II called the "embodiment of the
idea." Part I describing the just and right order has as its other bookend Part III describing the unjust and wrong order. The heart of
the Republic—the form and substance of a just political order—is supported by an analogous beginning and end; that is, the descent (or way down)
to Piraeus in the Prologue corresponds the symbolism of descent in the Epilogue of the descent to the underworld or Hades. In both cases, the
equality of men either going down to Piraeus as Socrates does at the beginning of the dialogue and Er descending to Hades at the end is a "descent" to
the depth of disorder, injustice, and corruption. There is a way out or way up from the descent, and Socrates is the wise philosopher who
represents the saviour-type of providing the episteme, or knowledge, of the Good—the Agathon—or the essence of justice.
In contrast to the declining, disordered Athens Socrates wants to establish a new community or philosophers who seek the good, the true, and
the beautiful as episteme not doxa. Whether or not his interlocutors representing the old (Cephalus), middle (Polemarchus), or
new (Glaucon and Adeimantus) generations will respond is a matter of free choice. As Voegelin notes, Hades is freedom without substance. People
end up where they want to be. The old generation of Cephalus has a notion of justice, but he lacks right being, his justice is based on tradition
and habit, and thus, he cannot help a man of the younger generation who is in crisis. The vacuous nature of Cephalus's sense of justice surfaces
in a crisis situation. Not any better is Polemarchus's view of the middle generation that justice is businesslike honesty. Perhaps the
sophist Thrasymachus is more helpful, at least his defunct view of injustice contains a zealous passion. In sum, as equality connotes the nature
of the Athenian disordered polis, it also denotes the "flat" conceptions of a just society. There are no dimensions or depth or real knowledge of
the essence of justice. It is merely giving a man is due. Of course, many thinkers including Aquinas believe justice has an egalitarian
dimension as relation to others and to the common good. What is the Platonic relation if not equality? It is the right order in relation to
capacity and function as he will articulate in the subsequent chapters. Plato's hierarchical and class society is not unjust, because it represents
the true nature of justice. The relation is not that of equality but virtue.
But, how is this realized? How can Socrates assist his interlocutors in finding the vision of the Good, leaving the shadows of the Cave,
lifting themselves out of the “equality” of Hades? He furnishes wisdom, episteme, and a true understanding of justice as the whole of
virtue represented by inherent capacities. According to Voegelin, the way up and way down are the same—the depth of the psyche can be found in
the depth of disorder. The soul has the capacity to seek the light by the apparent force of spirit. Voegelin is careful to point out that
Plato is operating within the compactness of a Dionysiac soul, and thus, cannot be talking about a mystical union with God or a neo-Platonic or Christian
conception the soul’s relation to God. Nevertheless, this experience foreshadows and similarly expresses how a Christian might describe salvation
or repentance.
Arete is free but wisdom is weak. Socrates seeks to impart wisdom on how the soul acquires knowledge of the good and just. According to
Voegelin, dialectically this is shown by pairs of concepts: (1) justice vs. injustice in the soul; (2) philosophos vs. philodoxos, and
(3) truth and falsehood. Refuting the common and fallacious notion that Plato's political theory is about abstract ideas, Voegelin uses the
pairing concepts to illustrate its concrete nature. The problem for moderns is that the pairing has been lost—that which is the opposite or the
negative has been dropped distorting the meaning of the original positive. For example, moderns refer to philodoxers as philosophers when in
Plato’s theory it is the philodoxers who represent opinion (doxa) because their knowledge of being is manifold. The sophist disorder
arises from the multiple actions rendering multiple opinions, and a lack of divine ground. By contrast, justice in the soul is single and unified
as those in the society perform their function according to capacity. A philosophos for Plato is one who understands the truth of a thing
"in itself." The philosopher knows Being as episteme, seeing the "one" in the "many." This is pluralism not bland
uniformity. Combining a Parmenidean "being" with an Xenophantic "god" results in an "idea" in itself that is knowledge of being. Only here
can true theology occur—only in true humanity can it be understood that God is the source of good only and is true. In opposition to this, the
injustice of the disordered soul tied to doxa and multiplicity has no bearing with the ground of being; and thus, occupies an intermediate
realm between being and non-being—the metaxy, a kind of listless and measureless wandering of confusion.
Thus, the disordered polis created by the going down to equality and conventionalism is the occasion for philosophy, for resistance to the
disordered polis and destruction of the soul. Society is the individual soul writ large, because a disordered society has as its predominant
element an individual with a disordered soul. The substance of society is the psyche—whether it is the philosopher or the sophist will determine
what kind of polity it is. Socrates or the philosopher-king through an act of salvation is the founder of a community of philosophers having the
wisdom to show others how to attain a vision of the Good—the Agathon, and through an act of judgment is the founder of political science having the
knowledge of how to create a just society.
Conventional ideas of justice, or doxa, must be disposed of by Socrates before he can lay the foundation of episteme. Opposing
Glaucon’s view of justice as that which is written in the law, or any pragmatic type of conception, or the motivation of men to do justice by necessity
not choice, or the notion that an unjust man is happier than the just man, or Thrasymachus's idea of the interest of the stronger, Socrates claims
knowledge of the essence of justice as the greatest good, as the truth, as freedom with substance, and as a way up out of the moral corruption of Athens
to a new community of virtue, internal and inward, spiritual and differentiated, yet "one." As such, Plato's Republic is a
republic—classically republican built upon virtue of the soul and recognized differences among its citizens.
|
