City and the Soul - Plato
How compelling is the city-soul analogy and to what extent does the picture of “Platonic justice” that emerges from it differ from conventional justice?
Much has been written about the inadequacy of the city-soul analogy in establishing what justice is, and further about how Plato fails to adequately connect his vision of justice to the conventional one and so is unable to address the original challenge. I mean to show that the city-soul analogy is in fact compelling, or at least that is it sufficiently adequate to allow us to move on to a discussion of how Platonic justice compares to conventional justice. At that point I will attempt to show that Platonic justice is relevant to the challenge posed to Socrates, and that despite objections to the contrary the Platonic and conventional views are sufficiently aligned to allow Socrates to conclude that he has shown that it is better to be just than unjust. Vlastos, and others, argue that describing the city as just is simply a generalization about its members, and so the city is not just in the same way that a person is just. I wish to argue, as Wilson does, that there are other grounds for Plato to attribute justice to the city. As Wilson puts it, “[Plato’s] central question is not the analytical philosopher’s question ‘What does ‘justice’ mean?’, but the substantial question ‘What is justice?’”. Thus, it is wrong to criticize the Republic as one would criticize a formal argument towards a definition, as Plato is actually searching for what justice actually is. Wilson’s doctor metaphor is helpful: Plato is investigating the nature of justice just like doctors inquire into the nature of a disease. Doctors notice a variety of systems and become convinced they are caused by a single underlying condition, to which they attribute a name. Eventually someone discovers this underlying condition and the initial assumption is justified. In this way, something like polio can be understood, not by investigating the
Much has been written about the inadequacy of the city-soul analogy in establishing what justice is, and further about how Plato fails to adequately connect his vision of justice to the conventional one and so is unable to address the original challenge. I mean to show that the city-soul analogy is in fact compelling, or at least that is it sufficiently adequate to allow us to move on to a discussion of how Platonic justice compares to conventional justice. At that point I will attempt to show that Platonic justice is relevant to the challenge posed to Socrates, and that despite objections to the contrary the Platonic and conventional views are sufficiently aligned to allow Socrates to conclude that he has shown that it is better to be just than unjust. Vlastos, and others, argue that describing the city as just is simply a generalization about its members, and so the city is not just in the same way that a person is just. I wish to argue, as Wilson does, that there are other grounds for Plato to attribute justice to the city. As Wilson puts it, “[Plato’s] central question is not the analytical philosopher’s question ‘What does ‘justice’ mean?’, but the substantial question ‘What is justice?’”. Thus, it is wrong to criticize the Republic as one would criticize a formal argument towards a definition, as Plato is actually searching for what justice actually is. Wilson’s doctor metaphor is helpful: Plato is investigating the nature of justice just like doctors inquire into the nature of a disease. Doctors notice a variety of systems and become convinced they are caused by a single underlying condition, to which they attribute a name. Eventually someone discovers this underlying condition and the initial assumption is justified. In this way, something like polio can be understood, not by investigating the