Socrates Noble Lie Is Propaganda Good for Society Written Assignment 2 This is a two page response on a reading of the book, “The Republic” and all the gui

Socrates Noble Lie Is Propaganda Good for Society Written Assignment 2 This is a two page response on a reading of the book, “The Republic” and all the guidelines are given attached and there is a rubric to follow. PLEASE DO NOT USE MORE THAN 1 OR 2 SOURCES IF USING SOURCES. I attached the reading as well to the files so everything is here. PHIL 3
Assignment 2: Is Propaganda Good for Society?
Due via Canvas on Tuesday 4/16 by 11:59pm
Address the following questions in your response:
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What is a “noble lie”? Give a real-world example
Why does Socrates argue that noble lies are necessary for preserving justice?
Explain why you agree or disagree?
o If you agree, explain a noble lie that’s necessary for preserving justice
Guidelines:
 Base your interpretation on class reading, outside sources are acceptable for examples
 Use MLA format (in-text citations + works cited page)
o http://library.csun.edu/egarcia/documents/mlacitation_quickguide.pdf
o Use line numbers for Plato—For example, (Plato 347a).
o I discourage citing the PowerPoint slides
A complete response is 2 pages long (3 pages maximum), double-spaced, 12-point font, times
new roman font, and 1 inch margins. Please style and cite using MLA format.
FILE FORMAT:
Canvas only accepts the following file formats: doc, docx, pdf, txt, and rtf (Google docs and
Pages files won’t work). Also, Canvas will not process file names that include special characters
or dashes. If Canvas doesn’t accept your file, then I can’t grade it.
ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: Submitting this assignment to Canvas will check for plagiarism
and originality through Turnitin.com. Don’t plagiarize or buy essays online—it’s not worth it. I
report all instances of plagiarism to the Honor Council.
If you’re struggling to complete the assignment, then please please please come to office hours
so we talk it over. We might clarify confusing things from class, make an outline to get you
started, and I’m also open to reasonable deadline extensions.
The Republic
By Plato
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Sumário
INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS
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BOOK I
177
BOOK II
211
BOOK III
239
BOOK IV
275
BOOK V
305
BOOK VI
343
BOOK VII
373
BOOK VIII
401
BOOK IX
431
BOOK X
457
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INTRODUCTION AND
ANALYSIS
The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws,
and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern
metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is
more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out
in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher
excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and
the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world,
or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of
one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater
wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his
writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect
politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp, especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the
Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method
of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline
or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with
an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other
ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The sciences of
logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to
after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles
of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means
and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into
the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires
into necessary and unnecessary–these and other great forms of thought are all
of them to be found in the Republic, and were probably first invented by Plato.
The greatest of all logical truths, and the one of which writers on philosophy are
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most apt to lose sight, the difference between words and things, has been most
strenuously insisted on by him (cp. Rep.; Polit.; Cratyl), although he has not
always avoided the confusion of them in his own writings (e.g. Rep.). But he
does not bind up truth in logical formulae,– logic is still veiled in metaphysics;
and the science which he imagines to ’contemplate all truth and all existence’ is
very unlike the doctrine of the syllogism which Aristotle claims to have discovered (Soph. Elenchi).
Neither must we forget that the Republic is but the third part of a still larger
design which was to have included an ideal history of Athens, as well as a political and physical philosophy. The fragment of the Critias has given birth to
a world-famous fiction, second only in importance to the tale of Troy and the
legend of Arthur; and is said as a fact to have inspired some of the early navigators of the sixteenth century. This mythical tale, of which the subject was a
history of the wars of the Athenians against the Island of Atlantis, is supposed
to be founded upon an unfinished poem of Solon, to which it would have stood
in the same relation as the writings of the logographers to the poems of Homer.
It would have told of a struggle for Liberty (cp. Tim.), intended to represent the
conflict of Persia and Hellas. We may judge from the noble commencement of
the Timaeus, from the fragment of the Critias itself, and from the third book of
the Laws, in what manner Plato would have treated this high argument. We
can only guess why the great design was abandoned; perhaps because Plato
became sensible of some incongruity in a fictitious history, or because he had
lost his interest in it, or because advancing years forbade the completion of it;
and we may please ourselves with the fancy that had this imaginary narrative
ever been finished, we should have found Plato himself sympathising with the
struggle for Hellenic independence (cp. Laws), singing a hymn of triumph over
Marathon and Salamis, perhaps making the reflection of Herodotus where he
contemplates the growth of the Athenian empire–’How brave a thing is freedom of speech, which has made the Athenians so far exceed every other state
of Hellas in greatness!’ or, more probably, attributing the victory to the ancient
good order of Athens and to the favor of Apollo and Athene (cp. Introd. to
Critias).
Again, Plato may be regarded as the ’captain’ (’arhchegoz’) or leader of a goodly band of followers; for in the Republic is to be found the original of Cicero’s
De Republica, of St. Augustine’s City of God, of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More,
and of the numerous other imaginary States which are framed upon the same
model. The extent to which Aristotle or the Aristotelian school were indebted
to him in the Politics has been little recognised, and the recognition is the more necessary because it is not made by Aristotle himself. The two philosophers
had more in common than they were conscious of; and probably some elements
of Plato remain still undetected in Aristotle. In English philosophy too, many
affinities may be traced, not only in the works of the Cambridge Platonists,
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but in great original writers like Berkeley or Coleridge, to Plato and his ideas.
That there is a truth higher than experience, of which the mind bears witness to
herself, is a conviction which in our own generation has been enthusiastically
asserted, and is perhaps gaining ground. Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence.
The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate
descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has a revelation of another life; like
Bacon, he is profoundly impressed with the unity of knowledge; in the early
Church he exercised a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. Even the fragments of his words when ’repeated at second-hand’
(Symp.) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in
them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and
statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of
the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.
The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice, the nature of which is
first hinted at by Cephalus, the just and blameless old man–then discussed on
the basis of proverbial morality by Socrates and Polemarchus– then caricatured
by Thrasymachus and partially explained by Socrates– reduced to an abstraction by Glaucon and Adeimantus, and having become invisible in the individual
reappears at length in the ideal State which is constructed by Socrates. The first
care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old
Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater
harmony of the individual and the State. We are thus led on to the conception of a higher State, in which ’no man calls anything his own,’ and in which
there is neither ’marrying nor giving in marriage,’ and ’kings are philosophers’
and ’philosophers are kings;’ and there is another and higher education, intellectual as well as moral and religious, of science as well as of art, and not of
youth only but of the whole of life. Such a State is hardly to be realized in this
world and quickly degenerates. To the perfect ideal succeeds the government
of the soldier and the lover of honour, this again declining into democracy, and
democracy into tyranny, in an imaginary but regular order having not much
resemblance to the actual facts. When ’the wheel has come full circle’ we do not
begin again with a new period of human life; but we have passed from the best
to the worst, and there we end. The subject is then changed and the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy which had been more lightly treated in the earlier
books of the Republic is now resumed and fought out to a conclusion. Poetry
is discovered to be an imitation thrice removed from the truth, and Homer, as
well as the dramatic poets, having been condemned as an imitator, is sent into
banishment along with them. And the idea of the State is supplemented by the
revelation of a future life.
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The division into books, like all similar divisions (Cp. Sir G.C. Lewis in the
Classical Museum.), is probably later than the age of Plato. The natural divisions are five in number;–(1) Book I and the first half of Book II down to the
paragraph beginning, ’I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus,’ which is introductory; the first book containing a refutation of the popular and sophistical notions of justice, and concluding, like some of the earlier
Dialogues, without arriving at any definite result. To this is appended a restatement of the nature of justice according to common opinion, and an answer
is demanded to the question–What is justice, stripped of appearances? The second division (2) includes the remainder of the second and the whole of the
third and fourth books, which are mainly occupied with the construction of the
first State and the first education. The third division (3) consists of the fifth,
sixth, and seventh books, in which philosophy rather than justice is the subject of enquiry, and the second State is constructed on principles of communism
and ruled by philosophers, and the contemplation of the idea of good takes the
place of the social and political virtues. In the eighth and ninth books (4) the
perversions of States and of the individuals who correspond to them are reviewed in succession; and the nature of pleasure and the principle of tyranny are
further analysed in the individual man. The tenth book (5) is the conclusion of
the whole, in which the relations of philosophy to poetry are finally determined, and the happiness of the citizens in this life, which has now been assured,
is crowned by the vision of another.
Or a more general division into two parts may be adopted; the first (Books I IV) containing the description of a State framed generally in accordance with
Hellenic notions of religion and morality, while in the second (Books V – X) the
Hellenic State is transformed into an ideal kingdom of philosophy, of which all
other governments are the perversions. These two points of view are really opposed, and the opposition is only veiled by the genius of Plato. The Republic,
like the Phaedrus (see Introduction to Phaedrus), is an imperfect whole; the
higher light of philosophy breaks through the regularity of the Hellenic temple,
which at last fades away into the heavens. Whether this imperfection of structure arises from an enlargement of the plan; or from the imperfect reconcilement
in the writer’s own mind of the struggling elements of thought which are now
first brought together by him; or, perhaps, from the composition of the work at
different times–are questions, like the similar question about the Iliad and the
Odyssey, which are worth asking, but which cannot have a distinct answer. In
the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would
have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only
to a few of his friends. There is no absurdity in supposing that he may have
laid his labours aside for a time, or turned from one work to another; and such
interruptions would be more likely to occur in the case of a long than of a short
writing. In all attempts to determine the chronological order of the Platonic
writings on internal evidence, this uncertainty about any single Dialogue being
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composed at one time is a disturbing element, which must be admitted to affect
longer works, such as the Republic and the Laws, more than shorter ones. But,
on the other hand, the seeming discrepancies of the Republic may only arise out
of the discordant elements which the philosopher has attempted to unite in a
single whole, perhaps without being himself able to recognise the inconsistency
which is obvious to us. For there is a judgment of after ages which few great
writers have ever been able to anticipate for themselves. They do not perceive
the want of connexion in their own writings, or the gaps in their systems which
are visible enough to those who come after them. In the beginnings of literature
and philosophy, amid the first efforts of thought and language, more inconsistencies occur than now, when the paths of speculation are well worn and the
meaning of words precisely defined. For consistency, too, is the growth of time; and some of the greatest creations of the human mind have been wanting
in unity. Tried by this test, several of the Platonic Dialogues, according to our
modern ideas, appear to be defective, but the deficiency is no proof that they
were composed at different times or by different hands. And the supposition
that the Republic was written uninterruptedly and by a continuous effort is in
some degree confirmed by the numerous references from one part of the work
to another.
The second title, ’Concerning Justice,’ is not the one by which the Republic is
quoted, either by Aristotle or generally in antiquity, and, like the other second
titles of the Platonic Dialogues, may therefore be assumed to be of later date.
Morgenstern and others have asked whether the definition of justice, which is
the professed aim, or the construction of the State is the principal argument of
the work. The answer is, that the two blend in one, and are two faces of the same
truth; for justice is the order of the State, and the State is the visible embodiment
of justice under the conditions of human society. The one is the soul and the
other is the body, and the Greek ideal of the State, as of the individual, is a fair
mind in a fair body. In Hegelian phraseology the state is the reality of which
justice is the idea. Or, described in Christian language, the kingdom of God
is within, and yet developes into a Church or external kingdom; ’the house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,’ is reduced to the proportions
of an earthly building. Or, to use a Platonic image, justice and the State are
the warp and the woof which run through the whole texture. And when the
constitution of the State is completed, the conception of justice is not dismissed,
but reappears under the same or different names throughout the work, both as
the inner law of the individual soul, and finally as the principle of rewards and
punishments in another life. The virtues are based on justice, of which common
honesty in buying and selling is the shadow, and justice is based on the idea of
good, which is the harmony of the world, and is reflected both in the institutions
of states and in motions of the heavenly bodies (cp. Tim.). The Timaeus, which
takes up the political rather than the ethical side of the Republic, and is chiefly
occupied with hypotheses concerning the outward world, yet contains many
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indications that the same law is supposed to reign over the State, over nature,
and over man.
Too much, however, has been made of this question both in ancient and modern
times. There is a stage of criticism in which all works, whether of nature or of
art, are referred to design. Now in ancient writings, and indeed in literature generally, there remains often a large element which was not comprehended in the
original design. For the plan grows under the author’s hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end
before he begins. The reader who seeks to find some one idea under which the
whole may be conceived, must necessarily seize on the vaguest and most general. Thus Stallbaum, who is dissatisfied with the ordinary explanations of the
argument of the Republic, imagines himself to have found the true argument ’in
the representation of human life in a State perfected by justice, and governed
according to the idea of good.’ There may be some use in such general descriptions, but they can hardly be said to express the design of the writer. The truth
is, that we may as well speak of many designs as of one; nor need anything be
excluded from the plan of a great work to which the mind is naturally led by
the association of ideas, and which does not interfere with the general purpose.
What kind or degree of unity is to be sought after in a building, in the plastic arts, in poetry, in prose, is a problem which has to be determined relatively
to the subject-matter. To Plato himself, the enquiry ’what was the intention of
the writer,’ or ’what was the principal argument of the Republic’ would have
been hardly intelligible, and therefore had better be at once dismissed (cp. the
Introduction to the Phaedrus).
Is not the Republic the vehicle of three or four great truths which, to Plato’s
own mind, are most naturally represented in the form of the State? Just as
in the Jewish prophets the reign of Messiah, or ’the day of the Lord,’ or the
suffering Servant or people of God, or the ’Sun of righteousness with healing in
his wings’ only convey, to us at least, their great spiritual ideals, so through the
Greek State Plato reveals to us his own thoughts about divine perfection, which
is the idea of good–like the sun in the visible world;–about human perf…
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