Resiliency Rounds
Episode 48: Plato’s Republic Book X-1: The Forms
What if the moral compass of an entire society could be shaped by its art and education? Join us as we uncover Socrates' provocative stance on poetry in the ideal republic, as laid out in Book 10 of Plato's Republic. We start by navigating the philosophical terrain of justice versus injustice through the lens of the Republic, positing it as a macrocosm of the soul's rational, spiritual, and appetitive elements. With a detailed discussion of the divided line and cave analogies, we highlight the relentless pursuit of true knowledge and the good. The crucial role of early education in shaping philosopher kings is underscored, emphasizing why controlled exposure to ideas is vital for nurturing just and wise rulers.
Be prepared to question the authority of widely revered figures like Homer as we delve into Socrates' warnings about blindly following authoritative sources. We explore how misinterpretations of Homeric epics can lead to misguided moral decisions and how Socrates emphasizes the importance of examining the substance over the source. By dissecting how true understanding demands lived experience and genuine knowledge, this episode challenges the validity of teachings from those lacking firsthand expertise. Our conversation brings to light how individuals often miss deeper meanings without proper scholarly guidance, risking false interpretations.
Finally, we turn our attention to the concept of Plato's forms, using a painter creating a sneaker as an analogy to illustrate existence in the intelligible realm beyond physical reality. We consider the implications of mimesis in art, drawing parallels with modern-day advertising, and explore the Stoic roots within the Republic, focusing on emotional detachment in the face of misfortunes. As we wrap up our philosophical journey, we touch on the transition from justice to contemplating the immortal soul, offering profound insights into Plato's philosophical landscape.
What if the moral compass of an entire society could be shaped by its art and education? Join us as we uncover Socrates' provocative stance on poetry in the ideal republic, as laid out in Book 10 of Plato's Republic. We start by navigating the philosophical terrain of justice versus injustice through the lens of the Republic, positing it as a macrocosm of the soul's rational, spiritual, and appetitive elements. With a detailed discussion of the divided line and cave analogies, we highlight the relentless pursuit of true knowledge and the good. The crucial role of early education in shaping philosopher kings is underscored, emphasizing why controlled exposure to ideas is vital for nurturing just and wise rulers.
Be prepared to question the authority of widely revered figures like Homer as we delve into Socrates' warnings about blindly following authoritative sources. We explore how misinterpretations of Homeric epics can lead to misguided moral decisions and how Socrates emphasizes the importance of examining the substance over the source. By dissecting how true understanding demands lived experience and genuine knowledge, this episode challenges the validity of teachings from those lacking firsthand expertise. Our conversation brings to light how individuals often miss deeper meanings without proper scholarly guidance, risking false interpretations.
Finally, we turn our attention to the concept of Plato's forms, using a painter creating a sneaker as an analogy to illustrate existence in the intelligible realm beyond physical reality. We consider the implications of mimesis in art, drawing parallels with modern-day advertising, and explore the Stoic roots within the Republic, focusing on emotional detachment in the face of misfortunes. As we wrap up our philosophical journey, we touch on the transition from justice to contemplating the immortal soul, offering profound insights into Plato's philosophical landscape.
Okay, so we're going to start off with book 10. And just to catch the listeners up, we have reached a point in this discussion where we've effectively, through this thought experiment of building a republic of the mind, made a determination as to whether it is better to be unjust or just. Essentially, the verdict has been reached and Socrates has pointed out, using the analogy of the Republic, which, subsequent to this, leads to the framework of the soul, having the rational element, the spiritual element and the appetitive or the drive elements, and, using that framework, led to an interpretation of the reality of human behavior. You can think of it as it pertains to constitutions and as it also pertains to knowledge of the truth and having the wisdom to understand that the best truth to know, the best knowledge to pursue, is knowledge of the good. And through the arc of this entire discussion, through the arc of this entire discussion, there has been a careful grooming and elaborate construction of this republic. And what you and I have been pointing out through our discussion is the fact that many elements of the republic reflect directly human cognitive activity. You can think of it as, and so as it pertains to the type of opinions, the types of knowledge that exist that one can use to formulate decisions and use to inform action.
Speaker 1:It led to this discussion of the divided line, and that was used as an analogy to explain how it is that what we really are seeing and this converges with the cave analogy what we are really seeing from a thinking point of view, are appearances of elements that exist in a more pure form somewhere in the abstract. The conditions of the Republic early on that Socrates was talking about was a very strict control of the types of media I'll say media, but what he talks about is poetry directly that the guardians or the people that are going to populate this Republic are going to have access to. And now that the dust has settled from this, you know, answering the question as to why it is better to be just. Book 10 begins with Socrates sort of almost reminiscing about this one particular detail, which is that he is especially proud, he's especially interested in this idea of restricting poetry in the Republic. And so book 10 begins with him talking a little bit more about why, right, and so what he says is he?
Speaker 2:goes on. Before you launch into that, I like the way you started. You kind of took a wide-angle view of what we've done so far.
Speaker 1:I think you have to, because it's very easy to get lost in the details.
Speaker 2:The reason why he comes to poets is because of this question that was posed to him right About would a just man if he was just and had and no one, no one knew that he was just, you know would he still be happy, as opposed to somebody who's unjust and everybody believes this person to be just, you know, would that person be happier compared to the truly the just individual? And to answer that question, he, like you said, he said it's difficult to answer this from the standpoint of one individual.
Speaker 2:Let's look at it from let's blow it up and on a grand scale and then we'll find justice somewhere, because this is hard to find justice inside of a microcosm, we've got to find it in a macrocosm. Makes it easier. So he blows this individual into a republic and then the individual now is represented by the constitutions, and the just constitution that would be that of a philosopher, king and he describes how a philosopher king comes to be. What a philosopher king or a philosophical constitution. That is an aristocratic constitution where you have a
Speaker 2:philosopher king who's ruling? A philosopher king is rational and knows the difference between good and evil and is the wisest person in the land, and that's why this person is chosen to be the leader. And they're chosen out of a group of people who have the aptitude to develop this wisdom, out of the general population, and those are the guardians. And these, these folks who have the aptitude, have the gold metal inside of them, have to be trained, and part of their training is what they get exposed to, what they don't get exposed to. And there's music and there's physical education initially, before they get exposed to the dialogue or the philosophical discussion or discourse, and then they get to. Then, after that, after they have the physical and music training, they learn mathematics, they participate in philosophical discourse, then they participate in the world on mathematics, they participate in philosophical discourse, then they go out and participate in the world, and this part of the training pertains to what they can be exposed to in that really primordial stage of their education where they're being exposed to physical training.
Speaker 2:Music, then what kind of poetry? Because the problem that he's talking about is, if you don't listen to the right people, don't listen to the right kind of music, if you don't get the right kind of physical education, even if you have the bent, the aptitude to develop wisdom, you will be led astray. So it's extremely important that one is exposed to the right ideas from the get-go, and ideas that align with truth, with goodness and beauty. The knowledge of truth, goodness and beauty. Which, what is the truth not a truth? The truth, what is the good not a good? That is why that divide line, analogy, comes in. That is where all of this argument eventually lands, on this divided line. The philosopher king is someone who understands the unity of the good, the beauty, the one, the unity. He knows it, not understands it, knows it.
Speaker 2:Most people can, at best get an understanding of what that is, but very few people actually get that understanding. They form true opinions of what is the good, the truth, the beauty. They need to have the aptitude for it, they need not be led astray. Most of the people, even though they can understand it, choose either out of ignorance or because of the exposure to the, the lies and evil ignorance. They never get aligned with the truth, the good, the good, the beauty.
Speaker 2:And those folks have a belief of what it is, of what good is, of what beauty is, of what truth is, and that belief is multitudinous, multifarious. A lot of that is driven by emotion, instinct, as opposed to wisdom, knowledge. And so now, in order to understand or to find justice in the pure form of justice, the virtue of justice inside of an individual, one has to first answer the question of does this person understand what is good, understand what is the good, the truth, the beauty, or does he have a false belief of what is in fact these things? And a way to kind of parse that out is what does this person believe about the tales that this person hears about how gods and heroes would act when they are stressed or in times of war or crisis? How do they behave?
Speaker 2:And if they believe what the great poets have written about how heroes and gods behave, they would say oh well, it's absolutely okay for me to behave that way as well, because look at Achilles and look at Hector and look at all these people and look at you know Zeus, and how these people have behaved. You know Zeus and how these people have behaved. I can behave this way, as opposed to not understanding the, the truth, the good and the beauty of what in fact is being said, and so that's where he's talking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what Socrates is almost doing here is he's doing two things. I think at the superficial level, at the superficial read. He's doing two things. I think at the superficial level, at the superficial read, what he's doing is he's cautioning against reading the Homer and actors in the Iliad and the Odyssey as a means to rationalize decisions that you make. But I think deeper he's also saying that this idea of looking at gods just because we have a poet who has written about all of this stuff is problematic too. Socrates is trying to make the point that you should look at the substance of the material that you're reading and not the source. What he's attacking here is this fallacy of authority, because the other background point to make here is that Homer was highly regarded, homer as a poet, and this isn't sort of a diatribe against poetry per se. What this is is a caution against the information you get. So the poets and we should point out in Greek society at this point were really the people who were looked to for wisdom at the time.
Speaker 1:This is, you know, in the nascent phase of philosophy. People would look to the Homeric epics, for example, as to what they're seeing in terms of human behavior and how they should comport themselves with their fellow citizens. And so Socrates is saying just because Homer wrote this doesn't mean that you should follow it, and in fact that's what you often. What homer has written has really been designed to appeal to the spirited elements of your soul and not the rational element, and for something to appeal to the rational element, it should be something that is appealing to that element of the soul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are two arguments. I and I see what you mean, because this goes back to you know. If you, if one, were to say, why are you doing this? And I'm going to say, well, because homer wrote that this is how it should be done, as opposed to is that the right thing to do? Is that the good thing to do? You know?
Speaker 1:so you're ascribing agency to the government through society to homer right. Echoes of Euthyphro Correct Like why are you doing this? He's like well, because it's the pious thing to do, right?
Speaker 2:So that is one argument and he breaks that down as to why one shouldn't use that argument, saying I'm doing it because of Homer. But the other aspect is initially starts with that argument about the fact that it is in a book. It is in a book if, if everybody reads the book right, everybody has an ability to read the homeric epics and come to understand the, the nature of the truths, the, the good and the beauty and beauty through that book everybody has the has the ability to do it right everybody is going to do it.
Speaker 2:A lot of folks are going to be led away by the beautiful illustrations about the war itself or how these tactics were used. It's a beautiful story. Iliad is a beautiful story. Odyssey is a beautiful story.
Speaker 1:It's the prototypical hero's journey, correct and even before you realize the hero's journey, it's just an adventure book regarding an adventure.
Speaker 2:You may just read it and never come to understand the hidden meaning behind all of this. The hidden meaning takes a scholar to guide you through it.
Speaker 1:Now, who's that scholar, who's that person? Who's understood the deeper meaning? Who's going to guide?
Speaker 2:you through it. If that person himself doesn't have the understanding of the truth, then you have a false prophet. That person himself doesn't have the understanding of the truth, then you have a false prophet and and say you have no guide, and you just read homer and you come away from, from just understanding the very basic elements of the story. You would say, well, this is what I think is justice, this is what I think is the right thing to do. That you know a trojan horse is there's nothing wrong with that. You know, if you have to get is there's nothing wrong with that. You know, if you have to get home and there's a never ending war, you have to use a ruse.
Speaker 1:It's fine, it's written in the book Right, or or, if you come to get drafted to fight in a war, you should pretend that you're blind, or you. What did Ulysses do? He pretended, like he was crazy, I think. But anyway, achilles doesn't show up Right. Achilles participates because he chooses immortality over long life.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So I think these stories right. There is an interpretive aspect to them that require a lived experience and knowledge for you to derive. Meaning from these stories. Socrates is pointing that out and I think that's true. Meaning from these stories. Socrates is pointing that out and I think that's true.
Speaker 2:Well, you're saying Plato is pointing it out because you know Plato wrote the Republic. Now, if you ask me, you know how many people are going to walk. Take this long way through the Republic that we have done, as opposed to. I don't think there's a movie based on the Republic. Okay, right.
Speaker 1:This is what I was going to get at. Was this idea if you were going to deliver? So, assuming and you can make a critique about this, because assuming Homer knows a lot of the stuff that he's writing about? Because one of the issues that Socrates is pointing out with this fallacy of authority is that if you don't know what you're writing about, if you don't know what you've, if you're not familiar with the content, if you're't know what you're writing about, if you don't know what you've, if you're not familiar with the content, if you're not conversant with the elements that you're describing in your story, then the information that's being provided by such an author or poet should be that should be understood and, at the very least, taken with a grain of salt and maybe, more rationally, completely ignored, because he, as he points out, homer, never was never a general See.
Speaker 2:that is the second part of the argument. That's the second part of the argument but that's just as a preview.
Speaker 1:Um, but uh. So what Socrates is saying is that the, the lessons that could be derived from a story like this, uh, presuppose that you already have the understanding. And if Homer, for example let's make the assumption, work under the premise that he did know he was an expert in all of the things that he was writing about, if he was going to teach you about those things, delivering it to you in a completely rational way would be almost unpalatable for the unadopted mind. Right, so you have to. You need the epic.
Speaker 1:The epic introduces, layer by layer. First by using conceits, by using analogies, by using very. It's a story, isn't it? Yeah, it's a story you use a story, and that's the most effective way to teach. Keep attention Right. And what Socrates is pointing out is that. Well, the implications of what he's pointing out is that if you were going to appeal to the rational element only then, you would end up with something kind of like the republic correct that's right in some ways right you will end up with the right and it's because the uh.
Speaker 1:Well, here's why. It's because the poet spends their time thinking about what to write and the philosopher who happens to put words on the page, spends their time writing about what to think. And the second thing is way less appealing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, writing about what to think. I see there are very few epic poems that stand the test of time. Yoga, mesh, yeah well, I mean even the iliad odysseys, like that. Dante's, you know, paradesa went for the order like that. And then you know the in indian, um uh text there is the, the bhagavad g, which has this fantastic backstory Like epic upon epic.
Speaker 1:Correct, like within the epic, there's epics, there's epics inside the epics, with the Gita, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the richness of it. That's what keeps it going in the sub-thread of that civilization. If it's just dry conversations like this, it is hard to keep a young and restless mind engaged. We came to this book after going through some of life, some of experience.
Speaker 2:We came here seeking answers, but the Republic as it's being formed is being formed out of minds that are young, that have lots of energy, that are looking for other experiences, and so how do you attract them with this kind of conversation? One of the ways is you never permit this kind of conversation in your society at all. If one has never been exposed to Coca-Colaola, you're not going to crave coca-cola. I mean, if there's no advertisement right for iphones, oh, you're not going to crave it yeah, I thought you said create.
Speaker 1:I was like well then, you'll create it, you'll crave it.
Speaker 2:You won't crave it, yeah there were no ads for iphones. If you never knew iphones existed, you would never gosh.
Speaker 1:That's a great example that that's what advertising is. That's right, right. So he's cautioning against quote-unquote poetry that smacks of advertising Stuff that appeals. Actually, advertising is even worse because it appeals to the appetitive element, that's what has happened? Here Right. This is all and Homeric stuff can appeal to the spirited element, because you know they're talking about the courage of achilles.
Speaker 1:Well, bravery, I won't say courage necessarily of achilles, that sort of thing um, that's a good example, and what it's doing is it's uh, reinforcing the lower elements of the soul and socrates, cautions against that, because it leads down the path of the drones, it leads down the path of um the uh, the tyrannical and the oligarchic constitutions and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Well, not necessarily oligarchic, but probably at least the tyrannical right. Think about it If Michael Jordan, michael Jordan creates a sneaker, right, he and this would be a good thing to come to the forums next Like Michael Jordan, understands the sneaker and how it helps him.
Speaker 1:That's a good example.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we can take.
Speaker 1:this is a good one. Yeah, go ahead, We'll take it on and we'll go down with the forums.
Speaker 2:come back to Michael Jordan. But one buying Nike Jordans, air Jordans, just because Michael Jordan said that this is a good sneaker, is like advertising. If one didn't know, basketball starts with wearing sneakers, since the game was invented, right, and it took advertising to get people to talk about the sneaker. You see what I mean.
Speaker 1:It puts an idea inside your mind and you start with everyone.
Speaker 2:People crave it, people collect it. These are collector's items and everybody forgets the fact that there's a purpose to those shoes beyond just looking good or having them because there's an ad that says you should have them, or because a great sportsman said that this is what you should wear. Similarly, one would start behaving like Achilles, would start behaving like Ajax or Menelaus or Paris.
Speaker 1:You start doing those kind of things why?
Speaker 2:just because it's a Homeric epic? Homer said that this is done.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm going to do. That's a great analogy, because Socrates uses the idea of the couch but, we could do the sneaker because people buy. If you buy a sneaker, we could do the sneaker right Because people buy. If you buy a sneaker because Michael Jordan's wearing it, that's precisely the problem.
Speaker 2:No, we're not going to come to that.
Speaker 1:You're just buying the sneaker. But if you were to talk to Michael Jordan and you're the creator? Of the sneaker what are you trying to do when you make the sneaker? Right, right, uh. What do you? What are you trying to do when you make the sneaker? You're trying to achieve the most excellent version of sneaker-ness, or like what the right what the what?
Speaker 2:right god's sneaker.
Speaker 1:That's what you're trying to make right um, or the so the omnipotent sneaker, the omnipotence sneaker, okay, or something like that. That's what you strive for, and so you, as the craftsman of the sneaker, you're trying to build something. That's an ideal, because you have an idea of the form, and what Socrates is saying is that we can say that there was a natural creator who created the form of sneakerness essentially, and there's only one of that, there can only be one, because there's only one ideal form Every form.
Speaker 1:And this gets it. Now we're up to our necks in the form idea. Before we go there, let me introduce the forms, because we went from. Go ahead, because we should use this analogy. I think it would be good.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, because we should use this analogy. I think it would be good. Go ahead. So we were talking about Homer and why it's important to understand the source of what these materials are that can affect your mind, right? So it?
Speaker 2:comes back to what is the truth. What is the truth about these things? Is the truth? What is the truth about these things is it is it true that the way gods and humans behave in these epics is the is the way forward? If you want to establish a republic, an aristocratic republic, a philosophical, philosopher, king inside of your mind, is that the way to do it?
Speaker 1:and what he says in this book, the end of the Republic per se, as we're coming to the end of the Republic.
Speaker 2:What it says is that this perfect Republic, ordered Republic, where there is a philosopher king, wisdom is ruling, the honor is, or the spirited element is subservient to the ruler and it keeps in check the aptative element in a way that the dictates of the ruler are passed down to the aptative elements through the spirited element and it's not turned upside down like a tyrannical republic where the appetites are ruling and the philosopher king is trapped by the multitudinous masses and the spirited element and the appetitive elements join together and it's chaos. It says the ordered republic where there's a philosopher king, an aristocratic republic with the philosopher king leading and everything is in order.
Speaker 2:The biggest argument to that is show me where that exists. You've created this great story is show me where that exists. You've created this great story. Show me where that exists. And Socrates says that it exists in your mind. One can think about the perfect republic. There's only one such, the perfect republic. If there were two perfect republics, both of them would be copy of the perfect republic, right and that by necessity there can only be one aim and right, right so you have the perfect, but now it's the form of the perfect republic, and from there comes the idea of the forms.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to exist in reality whatever you create in it.
Speaker 1:When I say reality, this is gonna exist in reality, Whatever you create in it.
Speaker 2:when I say reality, this doesn't have to exist in the physical world.
Speaker 1:Once you create it.
Speaker 2:Even whatever you have created is a replica of the Republic.
Speaker 1:Right, it's from the intelligible realm the realm of aims, the realm of concepts, the realm of knowledge. It's on that line of knowledge and belief.
Speaker 2:It is on the rightmost end of that line going towards the truth. It's the foremost edge of that is the form of the Republic.
Speaker 1:And even if it doesn't exist in the physical world.
Speaker 2:It exists because of the form. Now, this form. Philosophy of Plato is widely discussed.
Speaker 2:This is a very well-known philosophy, but the problem is with the republic.
Speaker 2:Even I had the same problem.
Speaker 2:Was all of these allegories in the cave allegory, the line allegory, the allegory of the sun, the, the republic, uh, the, you know, the, the, the format, form philosophy, all of this stuff, if you read one, reads in isolation, one comes away with an opinion of what it is, and it may not be aligned with what plato was thinking and then taking, like what we've done the long way through the republic.
Speaker 2:The reason why the forms, philosophy of the forms exists is because there is this necessity for you and me to understand that the argument created thus far is is not null and void, because one cannot physically find an individual who is a philosopher king and one cannot individually form a physical republic that is in line with the aristocratic republic. The form exists. So now he's talking about how and what is the nature of this form. So he gives, gives a physical example of it, a much easier example. He says who is a poet? A poet is somebody who can create a physical representation of what that form could be, just like a painter would create a physical, a painting of Jordan Sneaker.
Speaker 1:You see Jordan jumping up in the air and you can think about a painter creating that and creating the sneaker.
Speaker 2:And what you're seeing is an impression of the sneaker that is made by the painter. Now the question essentially, is that impression of the sneaker. Is it? How does it compare to the sneaker?
Speaker 1:Not a sneaker the sneaker that exists as a form Right now.
Speaker 2:If this and I'm going to let you take it from here, because it looks like you and me are of a line now on this but the sneaker that doesn't exist on Jordan's foot, the sneaker that existed in his mind, him being the philosopher king of sneakerness of basketball sneakerness right. I mean, people are arguing about who's the number one greatest player, but that's not the point. The point is the number one greatest sneaker that exists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a whole other episode. Yeah, you say a whole other episode. Yeah, you say the Air.
Speaker 2:Jordans is the equivalency of, you know, of aristocracy, which is ridiculous, to say right the reason why no, but the analogy works.
Speaker 1:The analogy works.
Speaker 2:This is a very poor analogy, right. But my point is if that's the case, if his airness, the sneaker in his mind that he had created how that would be the form of the Republic. You see, yeah, so walk me through it.
Speaker 1:So basically, this all has to be looked at through the framework of the divided line and really what Socrates is doing with this analogy is essentially placing people who are potential sources of information on that line. Okay, so you have. We'll start with the form of sneakerness. Okay, you could argue where that form was created, but there's a form of sneakerness, right, and that is the pinnacle sneaker, that is the ideal sneaker.
Speaker 1:That is the sneaker that fulfills its purpose with excellence. Okay, so there's, there's that form and that's the naturally made form of sneaker. Then you have this craftsman who has knowledge of the sneaker because they've designed and built the sneaker, and to the so that designer, that the craftsman is doing two things they're looking at the ideal form of sneaker. They had a, they had a starting point, right, it's an iterative process with the forms. But there's a second person in this conversation which is the utilizer of the sneaker, and that's Michael Jordan. And you talk to Michael Jordan and say how does the sneaker feel? How can I make this better?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So the craftsman has deep knowledge of sneakerness because they have the idea of sneakerness as a form that they're aiming for, either implicitly or explicitly, and they're getting information from the actual user of the sneaker who's making use of it.
Speaker 2:In this case, though, I would also like to say that the user, like Michael Jordan in this case actually has the form in his mind, Like the sneaker exists in Michael Jordan's sneaker.
Speaker 1:They have a very deep grasp of what mind, like these sneaker, exists on michael jordan's right.
Speaker 2:They, they have a right. They have a very deep grasp of the what makes an excellent sneaker, so the craftsman never knew what a sneaker was if he met jordan right and he asked jordan, if there is something that we can make for you, what is it? And he says, okay, I have this idea right of a shoe. That's awkward. He talks about this.
Speaker 1:It's the users and the craftsmen that have. They're closer, closer to the truth.
Speaker 2:So who's the closest to the truth here? If you think about it, between the Jordan and Nike, who's closer to the truth?
Speaker 1:Well, in this, case, because the product and performance are separate. Then it would be the user yeah.
Speaker 2:So Jordan right, so Jordan the performer.
Speaker 1:But there are certain realms where product and performance are the same, but yeah, and some are just this are the same, but in this case, yeah. So then you have the craftsman, and then you have the advertiser who's making videos or making paintings about the sneaker. And so the question is whose advice are you going to take about buying the sneaker? So the advertiser is showing you, makes a painting of the Air Jordan and says this is it A photo Right?
Speaker 1:Shows you a photo and you said, all right, well, that's. And notice that the marketing has to invoke the user in order to get to make it more compelling. Because if all they did was gave you a two dimensional representation of the shoe, you don't know who's using it, you don't know who made it. You see, it all falls apart, and that's what Socrates is talking about about. So when you have mimesis, when you have an artist representation of a sneaker and you use that alone to base decisions off as to whether you use a sneaker or abandon it, you're using the least. You're using docs, right it's?
Speaker 2:a fantastic philodoxy.
Speaker 1:if you're using an opinion, you're getting information from somebody who has the smallest grasp of the truth, whereas if you have the craftsman telling you the features of the sneaker and you base your decision off that, okay, that's good. But let's say you're a student of the game and you're an amateur, or you're a lover of the game, you're somebody who's well-versed in the skill set of basketball, and Michael Jordan comes up to you and says these are the shoes I wear and this is why, and you make your decision off of that.
Speaker 1:well then, you've made a decision closer to the truth yeah uh, we're also ignoring the fact that he probably got paid millions of dollars, but who?
Speaker 1:but all that aside, this is a very conventional example of something that really works, but this is right, and so that's what the poets are doing, and that's what painters are doing when they're painting. The analogy they use here, uh, in this discussion, is of a horse's bridle, for example. A painter can paint it, but you wouldn't expect them to provide you any information about how well-crafted a bridle is. You'd need the horseman to tell the craftsman and the craftsman has to have a good idea of what the ideal situation is, what the conditions, features that point to excellence are, and you'd need information from the horseman to tell you all right, this is working, this is not working and an excellent horseman would have a pretty good grasp of what what excellence is in fact they're the ones that are giving the craftsman the feedback, to say this isn't working or this is good.
Speaker 1:We need to build on this correct.
Speaker 2:This is just so rich and there's so many ways to get that straight. I just want to simplify it by saying that if one wants to buy a saddle, one or one wants to one wants to buy a saddle, one wants to one is not going to go to the painter and ask them what's the best saddle for me to get.
Speaker 2:One is the best person to ask what's the best saddle to get is not also the craftsman who's actually making that saddle. It's the person who rides the horse, and that's why it's extremely important. Going back to the second argument of why Socrates or Plato says why we listen to Homer is because you don't want to just go to the craftsman.
Speaker 2:You don't want to go to the person who writes about the Republic. You want to go to the person who's created the Republic or understands, has knowledge of the form of the Republic and learn from that person directly. Actions, not words. Actions, not words. You've got to find the person who's done the action. Going back to what you said about Homer right, when has Homer ever led anybody in war? When has Homer ever led? A city-state when has Homer litigated anything or been called to give his judgment about good and evil.
Speaker 1:There are certain lines there he says when have you done that, homer?
Speaker 2:And if you haven't done these things, then why are we coming to you to ask you how we should build a republic? We need to find the people, give examples of people. These are the people who have actually done these things. Where's that line?
Speaker 1:give examples of people who. Well, there's the critique of Homer, which is pretty good, where he, after this whole exposition about what we call the fallacy of authority or looking at substance of resource, he talked, he in an imaginary way. He accosts homer and says it's in using socratic irony, my dear homer, if you're not third removed from the truth, okay, now again third removed.
Speaker 1:This is the idea of the sneaker right you got the the form of the sneaker, the craftsman of the sneaker, the user of the sneaker and then the person who's making advertisements about the sneaker. The craftsman of the sneaker, the user of the sneaker and then the person who's making advertisements about the sneaker. They're the one that's third, removed from the truth about virtue and are not the sort of craftsman of an image which is what we defined and imitated to be. But if you are even in second place and capable of knowing what practices make people better or worse in private or in public life, tell us which cities are better governed because of you, as the Lacedaemonians are because of lycurgus, and as many others, great and small, are because of many other men. What city gives you credit for having proved to be a good lawgiver who benefited it? Italy and sicily give it to, and we give it to solon. Who gives it to you? Will he be able to name one? So again, this idea of so, is there any?
Speaker 2:war in Homer's time that is remembered. Are there any ingenious inventions? Has he ever been a leader? Has he passed on this Homeric way of life? He says all of these things. He talks about pathogorists. Look at pathogorists. His way of life was led by many people. You know, so you one could then learn from people like this, as opposed to the, the, the advertiser or the, the writer or the. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:I like this analogy a lot because uh I think a lot of people read this chapter and think what socrates is doing is he's critiquing art, um and so and he's and I. That doesn't really ever resonate with me. I think what Socrates is doing is he's critiquing art and so and he's and I. That doesn't really ever resonate with me. I think what he's doing is critiquing things that are again when people take use source over substance, and I like the idea of advertising being very similar because, it's something like he says here, these forms of imitation that we talk about.
Speaker 1:He says the fundamental problem is a the imitator knows nothing worth mentioning about the things he imitates. Number one, number two imitation consorts was an element in us that is far from wisdom, correct. The spirited elements, the appetitive elements, and so in. So the conclusion imitation is an inferior thing that consorts is another inferior thing to produce inferior offspring.
Speaker 2:The way the poet, the advertiser, the painter they grab our attention is by using this trickery they're appealing to our emotional side, something that most people don't have control over.
Speaker 1:They don't appeal to the rational side, something that most people don't have control over.
Speaker 2:They don't appeal to the rational side. If one makes a rational argument, it is boring. There's no emotion attached to it. Whenever we listen to, you know you watch the movie Troy. What are the parts that you remember? You know the parts you remember when there is pure emotional pornography. Like you know, the Hector is being dragged around by Achilles after he's killed or his reaction to Patroclus right, which pales in comparison to what Homer wrote.
Speaker 1:I mean, he was Achilles, that's right. There is this the when you know Hector's father comes pleading to Achilles about this get Hector's body back.
Speaker 2:All of these things. There's the beauty of Helen of Troy and how Paris is debauchery, and all of that. These are the emotional things that grab you and one forgets the underlying meaning of all of this, of how, if you think about it as an allegory, these are all allegories. They're very powerful allegories but someone has to sit and explain that to you of of how Achilles, instead of choosing duty as a reason to fight for uh, agamemnon, chooses to only engage in the battle once he's been told that he will be immortal and will live forever his name will live forever.
Speaker 1:He will die he will die in this war he will achieve immortality and that's what drives him to do this.
Speaker 2:Otherwise he would die unknown and now greatness is not necessarily a character trait that is aligned with the good. You can be great for great many evils. You could be great for doing, you know, great injustice. It's not always good. Achilles is actually not a character that is considered to be a good character. He's great because he's remembered, yes, but for the deeds that he did. He did cruel deeds, terrible things. You don't want to be Achilles, the only reason why. Achilles got any renown was because, not because of his prowess, necessarily because he was dipped into a hate that made him impervious to blade, to any sharp object.
Speaker 2:He couldn't be killed, and he wasn't extremely hardworking, he wasn't extremely bright or smart. You know, the only person who actually comes close to being human in all of this is Odysseus. He was cunning. He was as human as you and me get and his story, the Odyssey, doesn't have that much to do with you know, one eyed.
Speaker 2:You know Cyclops and the sirens and things like that it's all got to do with how to deal with the midlife crisis. You know how you need to have a unifying purpose about love and connection, and that's what guides you through all of these problems that midlife crisis throws at you. Now, who's going to explain that to somebody right right now, if? Odysseus himself was to come down and say man, this is what was actually happening and I wasn't you know sailing in some sea you know I was dealing with these problems.
Speaker 1:I don't know what Homer is talking about no one read that story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so then? So there's a follow-on. We should touch on this before we end this episode. So there's a follow-on implication from this idea of mimesis, or really what we can call lower forms of art, appealing to the lower elements of our soul which could lead, which actually form a stoic root. It's one of the roots of stoicism. So, again, we were talking about this idea that Socrates is making that.
Speaker 1:I think he's saying that poetry sensitizes the individual. It sensitizes the individual to giving in to the irrational elements of our soul. By that I mean the spirited and, to some degree, the repetitive elements idea of, for example, tragic plays representing or really giving opportunities to the audience to give in to very sort of maudlin, self-pedying episodes where they're in tears, they're weeping in response to what they're seeing on the stage. And yet this is something he points out that they would freely do in private. They would freely do in private in response to actual catastrophic things that happen in real life. He points out this idea that people give in to their emotions in the privacy of their own solitude, but in the presence of others they're much less likely to do so. They muster the rational element in order to preserve discipline, dignity or decorum.
Speaker 2:Or even more spirited element right.
Speaker 1:Or even the honor element.
Speaker 2:You don't want to be seen as being led away by emotion.
Speaker 1:And so he's talking about this idea of there's a shame aspect to all of this that he says that would cause the individual who would otherwise be tempted to give in to their emotions. There's a countercurrent, that's reason and law that tell him to resist, and so his critique of mimesis is that it reinforces the irrational part, the part of you that has a tendency to give into emotion. Again, socrates, when he was talking about the constitutions, pointed out how important it was this idea of getting repeatedly exposed, almost practicing implicitly the habit of giving into your emotions, giving into your desires, how problematic that is.
Speaker 1:And he's saying the same thing about lower forms, lower forms of mimesis, um, and he then he says we should always accustom our souls to turn as quickly as possible to curing and raising up the part that has suffered a fall and is sick, so as to banish lamentation by means of medicine, and that resonates very much with the idea of stoic philosophy.
Speaker 2:So another way to look at it is that when one comes upon changes in fortune, one comes upon issues of when they're pressed up against fate and one is at a loss, something big, catastrophic happens. Usually in those situations, people will blame their fortune, they will blame fate, they'll blame God, they'll blame other men, or you know the circumstances as to what's going on with them. Sometimes these things are terrible your house catches fire or you lose a loved one or whatever right. And these are times when, depending upon in certain honor societies, there was no, there was an expectation that men would be stoic in this situation. They would not express their, this grief, knowing that this is, this is, they're just their share of misfortune, and you should be able to take it like a man, right?
Speaker 2:They say, you know, without any emotion now that doesn't necessarily mean that there's no turmoil going on inside. Just when you are in public, you are holding all your emotion in, and there was a there's there's a misunderstanding that, that is stoicism.
Speaker 2:But there's a turmoil inside of your mind. When your mind is, you know, it's just running amok. As to why this has happened to me. You know, woe is me. This is terrible, like you know. Why am I suffering this? And because you're attached, your operative elements attached. Your spirited element and operative element are attached to one another and you're thinking of all the harm and the pain that's going to happen and your rational mind is is imprisoned by the operative and the so and the spirited element.
Speaker 2:So you're holding holding all this in, but the minute you step away from the public light in your own private space, you're lamenting and you're cursing and you're distraught, absolutely when no one is seeing you. And one doesn't get to see that in those societies because most people are hidden behind their doors and they're doing this. But now you have someone like Homer, who writes writes about ajax, who writes about achilles, about how they rent near they. They tore their breastplate, they tore their hair and they were crying and they were doing all these things inside of their, their tents not in front of their men but inside their tent.
Speaker 2:You know, they, they, they. He talks about very beautiful poetry, about how they did these things.
Speaker 1:It gives people who read these lines a romanticized rationalization, right right, and this is probably what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah, I mean, that's what's that's what is the pinnacle of human achievement is that you just bite your your tongue and you just stand there in in front of other people, but inside you let your let the the chimer of of, uh, this beast of of appetite, and, you know, keep roaring and fighting and doing all that at the inside. You just don't show it on the outside. But when you are in your private space you can lament, you can curse and you can do all of those things that that is the truth as opposed to the rational element, understanding that fate and fortune is not in your control.
Speaker 2:If there is something that can happen to a good person and a bad person simultaneously. Equally. It is not a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing. And if that is the case, one should be able to rationalize oneself out of that deep depression and grief now I'm not saying in the acute state.
Speaker 2:In the acute state, you know if a rock falls on your foot and it hurts, you're expected to yell up and jump and you know, hold that foot and and nurse that foot. But if you spend the rest of your life caressing that foot and you know, not touching anything, not walking, always being worried about rocks, that is in fact a a uh, not a life well lived. You're not. You're not aligning your rational thinking to your life.
Speaker 1:this is a very simple example, but the one is yeah, but doesn't walk around worried about right it's. It's not about stoicism, is not about numbing yourself to emotion at all. In fact, a stoic would cry Right, but the Stoic would not use what is making them cry to found the decision about what their next step is going to be. And you could have somebody who's not Stoic, who doesn't shed a tear, but what they do is they use the resentment that they've built up in themselves as justification for whatever they're going to do next.
Speaker 2:That is not a stoic.
Speaker 1:That's correct. So stoicism is about basing your next step off of rational contemplation, understanding what's within your control and not within your control, and using that alone to guide your response to whatever it is that's happening around you alone to guide your response to whatever it is that's happening around you, and the non-stoic would use their emotional coloring of the event as justification for whatever it is that they do next.
Speaker 2:You cannot control whether the rock falls on your foot. All you can control is what you do later, and you cannot control the response to it as well.
Speaker 2:The pain is not something you can control. The shout or the yelp you cannot control. These are all. These are, you know, autonomic responses. They're not within your actual mind that this comes from, but you can control how you deal with this down the line. So you're right, what you can control, what you can't control. And the key here is that understanding does not come from reading some of these Homeric epics and stuff like that. You have to understand that these folks, the way they're dealing with, they're dealing with acute grief, but there is a way to come out of that, Like Achilles comes out of his grief and has a rational conversation with what is Hector's dad? What's the king of Troy? He has a cool name.
Speaker 1:But he has a conversation with him. He wasn't destined for immortality.
Speaker 2:He survived the war and he has a rational conversation. You see what I mean.
Speaker 1:And so my point is, that is the understanding that one needs to get from this.
Speaker 2:But, the roots of stoicism are in the Republic and there is this aspect that he says that there is nothing to be gained by taking these things that happen hard, nor is any aspect of human affairs worth getting very serious about. So you say no aspect of human affairs is worth getting serious about. Why? Because they're not in your control.
Speaker 1:It's a stunning quote when you, when you, when you arrive at this point of the republic, because what they've done is talk and contemplate ad nauseum about a structure system for the organization of human affairs. And here socrates, at the very end, makes this very stunning statement. And oh, by the way, yep, yeah it's it.
Speaker 2:It is best to keep as quiet as possible in misfortunes and not get irritated, since what is really good or bad in such things is not clear.
Speaker 1:One doesn't know, and so what's the point of really getting serious about it?
Speaker 2:It is. If one is struggling with a series of bad luck, the way to deal with it is you have the capacity to deliberate about what has happened and, as with the fall of the dice, to arrange our affairs, given what has befallen us, in whatever way. Reason determines what would be best. So you cast dice. You don't know where it's going to land, and now you have that information. Now you use your rational thought to use your next step forward, as opposed to sitting and stomping and cursing the fact that the dice didn't land the way you wanted it to land.
Speaker 2:The emotional character is easy to imitate. The noble character is difficult to imitate. This is very hard to do, and if one reads a text that says you know what you need to be detached from your misfortune, as opposed to you know you need to, this misfortune is cast on you. Now you have to kind of you know, respond to it. How did this thing happen? And now you have to kind of you know, respond to it. How did this thing happen? And now you have to respond to it.
Speaker 2:It's much easier for that, because we are designed for that, from an apperative perspective, we are designed to let these misfortunes guide us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's easier to read a story about resentment and revenge than it is about reason. That's right, and far more difficult.
Speaker 2:It's much easier to be resentful and revengeful than it is to be rational, right yeah, this would be a good spot to wrap it up, because we're going to finally end the republic with the next section of book 10, which is fascinating.
Speaker 1:We started off talking about the nature of justice and we're going to end up talking about the immortal soul. Uh, so we'll get into that on our next episode, wrap it up and then move to the next, the next book.