It is difficult to separate the soul and the state in Plato’s The Republic, as they are so intrinsic to understanding justice as it is embodied in both the individual and in the polis, or city state; the individual soul and the soul of the society it inhabits are so deeply entwined. Socrates asserts that “if something different is found in the case of the individual, we will go back to the city and test it there. And perhaps by examining them side by side and rubbing them together like fire-sticks, we can make justice blaze forth…” (Republic, 435a). Wise, courageous, temperate and just individuals will create happy and harmonious societies and, conversely, unwise, unjust and intemperate societies will create tyrants. Therefore, persons of proper virtue will perform just actions, contributing to a just city. In other words, ‘as does society, so does the individual’, and vice versa.

To illustrate this, Plato uses an analogy of seeing letters in the distance. A person with poor eyesight will have trouble seeing these letters, but, if the same letters were displayed much larger, a person with poor eyesight would be able to see the letters for what they are, and they would assist that person in better identifying the smaller letters.

This analogy distinguishes the individual (small letters) from the city (large letters), as it is easier to see and therefore understand justice as it exists in a whole city than it is to discern it in a single individual, because there is more of it to see. As Socrates says, “perhaps, then, there will be more justice in the larger thing, and it will be easier to discern.” (Republic, 369a).

With that in mind, Plato goes on to build through Socratic dialogue what he believes to be the most ordered and just type of city state. Adeimantus and Socrates begin with imaginings of the simplest society, requiring only farmers, carpenters, weavers and shoemakers to provide the most basic necessities. From there, Socrates prompts Adeimantus to develop the city further, with toolmakers to support the farmers and craftsmen, and of markets through which to trade. Glaucon, a wealthy merchant, adds luxury goods and services to the city’s needs so its citizens may ‘enjoy the feast with relishes’ (Republic, 372a).

It is through building these city foundations from scratch that Socrates begins to argue for the need of specialised craftsmen, who are naturally and inherently adept at the particular craft they are to master and make a living wage from, and then furthering this into a more complex class structure – from working classes to rulers – in an exploration of what constitutes the most just city, and how is it maintained and sustained.

This class structure utilises Plato’s “tripartite soul theory” to give name to the class divisions, assign virtues (aretē) to them, and to align the class and associated virtue (aretē) to parts of the soul. As the name suggests, this is divided into three: a well-ordered society, as Plato saw it, had a merchant class, a military class, and a philosopher class.
The merchants’ aretē is temperance (also known as moderation or self-control), and they were aligned with the appetitive aspect of the soul – food, drink, sex, money, and other earthy desires. The military class had the aretē of courage, and were aligned to spiritedness (also competitiveness and honour) in the soul. The highest class are the philosophers, whose aretē is wisdom, and soul alignment is reasoning and intellect.

Plato argues that the combined aretē of the three parts equate to justice (dikaiosynē), and that if the parts of the soul expressed through the aretē each class represents are in the proper order and proportion, then the city is a healthy and harmonious one that provides its citizens with a good life, and will most closely resemble Plato’s theory of the forms, which represents the highest ideals of truth, goodness and beauty.
This ordering of the tripartite soul of the state is isomorphic to the soul of an individual, in that the individual also embodies the three soul levels and their corresponding aretē if the individual is live as a truly just person. Plato goes so far as to say that, as with a just city, “a person can only be happy when these are in harmony”. (Haworth, 2012)

Inherent in Plato’s idea of a well-ordered tripartite city, and therefore also of his idea of a harmonious, happy and just individual, is his belief in the “noble lie” through the use of a “foundation myth” (Haworth, 2012) known as the Myth of the Metals, and of strict censorship in education and culture.

The Myth of the Metals was devised to keep the citizens loyal and controllable within their class structures by having them believe that their roles within the city were designed by birth, though this was not inescapable. The myth allowed for a child born of lower metal parentage (bronze or iron, for example, representing the working classes) to display qualities that elevate the child to a higher level within the social order, should the god see fit to imbue the child with a different metal than its parents. The opposite could also occur, and children could be demoted to lower ranks. Overall, though, this is not encouraged, as each class – and especially among the differing crafts of the working classes – individuals should “mind their own business” or, to put it in context, each person must do only that which they are destined and skilled to do.

Administrating this foundation myth, and indeed all aspects of the city, would fall to the highest class, known as Guardians or Philosopher Rulers. Plato also promotes a strict censorship to the education and cultural pursuits of this class, thereby furthering the “noble lie”. They were permitted to listen only to certain types of music, “Ionian and certain Lydian modes, commonly described as “languid” should be prohibited for the way they foster ‘drunkenness, softness [and] idleness’. The young guardians are only permitted to listen to music in the Dorian or Phrygian modes as these tend to foster military and civic virtue”. (Haworth, 2012)

The myths they should be told and the literature they should be exposed to would be carefully chosen to protect them from being misled or polluted by harmful beliefs and ideas. Only stories that extol the highest of both human and gods’ nature and deeds can be permitted. “Education, therefore, is in the service of the soul and the divine, and not, as for the Sophists, of the secular and human alone. Moreover, education is a process through which truth is not introduced into the mind from without, but is “led out” from within.” (Tarnas, 2010).

In other words, the guardians will be best suited to most justly rule with truth and wisdom, light and beauty, if their education is not littered “with false beliefs about the gods and

false ideals to live up to” (Annas, 2003). Even the poets did not escape his hostility, as he felt that “creativity and imagination are thoughtlessly put to trivial or damaging ends” (Annas, 2003).

Plato’s views regarding a proper education for the guardians are tyrannical by modern standards, but it can be argued that he is, in essence, attempting to purify soul and state at its highest level so it can attain its true eidos.  “[T]o achieve liberation from the unenlightened state requires extraordinarily sustained intellectual and moral effort, so that the intellect – considered by Plato the highest part of the soul – can rise above the merely sensible and physical to reattain the lost knowledge of the Ideas” (Tarnas, 2010).

To summarise, a just and properly ordered soul in alignment with its tripartite virtues or aretē, through correct education and active habituation, will create a happy and healthy psyche, a physically well body, and contribute to a just and harmonious city. “The central aspects of this are: reason rules, spirit supports that rule, and appetite obeys” (Vasiliou, 2008). That is to say that if individuals within a city are properly governed by their inner intellect, have the courage to calmly perform just actions according to the highest ideals, are able to keep their more basic appetites under control, are able to live fully within their class and within their profession, they will collectively contribute to the perfect city state. In turn, the city shall be governed by those individuals who fall into the wisest and highest class of guardian (Philosopher Rulers), and will be protected by the most spirited military class, who act as auxiliary to the guardians. The merchant and working classes shall be just in their dealings, skilled and single-minded in their work, and temperate in their desires and behaviours.

Such a city is, of course, an unattainable ideal. Not least because human nature is far more complex than Plato would have us believe here, and so it would take a divine being indeed to feel no envy, or harbour no improper desires or compulsions, even if they know that these compulsions will lead to chaos and disharmony within themselves, and will therefore foster unjust actions. To have an entire city of people being and behaving so virtuously and justly according to the Platonic view of the perfect city in The Republic would be, in human practice, impossible, and would ultimately lead to totalitarianism.
In conclusion, while it is easy to identify with Plato’s higher ideals of soul in its spiritual quest for justice and enlightenment, his ideal city is one that can only be attained through absolutism, dishonesty through censorship, and tyranny. In practice, Plato is “the systematic exponent of an authoritarian creed” (Crossman, 1959), and his “political program, far from being morally superior to totalitarianism, is fundamentally identical with it” (Popper, 1950).

Theoretically, soul and state are entwined – but should the theory be actuated and realised in any lasting physical sense, the soul and state will only separate and become far less than what Plato may have had in mind.

 

Works Cited

Annas, J. (2003). Plato: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Crossman, R. (1959). Plato Today. London, United Kingdom: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Haworth, A. (2012). Understanding the Political Philosophers From Ancient to Modern Times (2nd ed.). New York, USA: Routledge.

Popper, K. R. (1950). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton, USA: Princeton University Press.

Tarnas, R. (2010). The Passion of the Western Mind (Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View). London, United Kingdom: Pimlico.

Vasiliou, I. (2008). Aiming At Virtue In Plato. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.