Class Notes From Irving Wasserman: Plato’s Republic

Class 1981/ 1983 GVSC

[In progress:]

Preface

Using Bloom’s Republic and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with brief modern contrasts at the conclusion, Wasserman furthered the project of Leo Strauss to recover ancient Socratic Political philosophy.

The torch of philosophy is being transferred in this from Germany to America, having come to Germany through France, Britain and Italy, from the Petrarchan recovery of the texts of Byzantium. The Hebrew American immigrants, having seen Germany seared, have yet been able to graft philosophy onto the native Americans, and we are seeing how this takes.

Class notes are difficult for a reader to decipher, and exclude much, including the note taker’s own participation and questions, during which he is not writing notes. I enjoy watching myself learn the importance of what is occurring here, gradually beginning to take study seriously in a new way, and what sort of statements penetrate.

Page 1 1981 Winter

Wednesday

Dramatic contrast of ancients/moderns

“I see my teaching of philosophy that way”- Irv

Explicit repudiation of the ancients- Machiavelli/Hobbes/Bacon/Descartes

Mathematics- Descartes wipe the slate clear- of truth.

Skepticism endemic- That all must be “proven.”

Certainty- clarity, or else there is no answer.

Political philosophy (as distinct from political science) (is) dead for all practical purposes.

Is Plato recoverable through modern eyes?

Dialogues.

Start with the ancients in order to see what we said “no” to.

History. But Plato didn’t have history.

Context, yes, but relative to time, no.

What is justice? / What is Plato’s justice?

Through Polemarchus to Thrasymachus.

Lecture Friday January 16th, 1981

All of the dialogue is intentional.

Philosophy and political [philosophy appear inseparable.

[Jean] That none is superfluous. Take it as a whole.

There is no Platonic doctrine as ordinarily understood. [Ken]

Bloom renders in translation.

Concreteness and participation.

ancient/modern. Wasserman: specific characters, questions, answers. Socrates can’t give the answers. We don’t know if there is an “answer.”

Nothing concrete is a what (For man?)

We may have said no to a Plato that is not Plato.

Lecture Jan 19th Monday

It is not clear that philosophy….

Apologos. Speech on behalf of

presuppose- defense of philosophy To break the law

To question. That something has a nature. There

The city does have a case.

? Really. Truly. Best. The ideal

Consent. No one agrees as to what’s best.

“There has not been a coherent discussion on the nature of education in 10 years.” -I. Wasserman

Presocratics/ natural philosophers- atheism

City and poets v. natural philosophers (pre-soc.)

What is human and what is rational seem to be at odds.

Christ the philosopher/poet king?

Poet gives the peculiarly human answer of the city. Convention

Socratic questions. Is rational, (therefore) human.

Athens USA

The poet the natural philosopher ballet dancer

Question: How is philosopjhy like the ballet dancer?

Consent involves always a dilution of wisdom. Compromise

-Our standards don’t involve compromise

“For the ancients, the political is second best,but the second best is very very high.” -Irv

It sounds like a doctrine or ideology rather than coming from the inside

…[And then our modern political philosopher says “she shows emotion in public, Plato would says that is not very rational.

Thrasymachus

realizable republic

saying/doing= meaning, therefore write dialogues.

talking/ showing= meaning. Therefore write dialogues.

a) Polemarchus forced conversation

b) Why are people at the Piraeus? New goddess. Torchrace.

An innovation is Socrates (introduces new divinities)

Socrates must effect the gentlemen who are not philosophers; compromise between wisdom and power.

Rhetoric- the art of teaching better way.

Between powerless wisdom and unwise power; the city necessitates dilution.

Consent. You first have to get the approval of consent. Introduces the problem of rhetoric.

To coincide public opinion

Relationship of tyranny and wisdom.

In dilution

People have their gods, their ideas of justice

Necessitates compromise Falsity not necessary Dilution of tyranny. Degrees? truth.

Question of necessary dilution of wisdom

[p. 4 top: Question: What positive (assertions) does Socrates say?]

Tyranny enters into being by appealing to the people. [margin: true that… is it true that]

Falsity, tyranny, is…may not be diluted

Truth wisdom question?

Is it a character of the falsity that it is not diluted i.e., worshiped?

Auth. city ordered to quest.

or quest to city auth [Is the authority of the city ordered to the question or is the question ordered to the citie’s authority]

answer, truth does not mean it does not endanger the city.

He wouldn’t leave Athens to save his life

He is a friend of the city. He expressed this in the apology.

Tomorrow- answer questions in a more responsible way., take the path of Socrates and Allan Bloom.

Thrasymachus: Isn’t that the answer to the question of justice that is most prevalent now? Isn’t that what cultural values/relativism teach us now? -Irv

The anthropologists way of putting it is much more superficial- Irv

Then they conclude because of relativism that we must be tolerant. Thrasymachus is much smarter than that. That (Ruth Benedict) doesn’t follow.

Cephalus/Polemarchus Book I: Conventional views.

All characters in book 1, each represents the city.

There is something about Socrates that is radically unpolitical.

Cephalus- conventional view. Paying one’s debts, honesty.

Polemarchus: Justice is harm to enemies and help to friends.

The just is the legal.

Cephalus is forced to leave by the emergence of argument. There is more to do than converse. Convention.

Justice not for itself, but for repayment in the afterlife.

Love of our own/of the good.

Attachment/detachment/de-attachment.

To make the good our own, or love ours that is not good in an according or beneficial way?

We must know what the good things are.

What is the end of the art of justice? Some architectonic art. Master art.

Harm. Making him a worse person. Was Socrates convinced that Life made him? Not more his virtue?

Conventional distinction between friends and enemies dissolves.

Not [ife] or necessity making him worse. advantage/interest. Do you mean by stronger…Justice is the advantage of those who can get their way. Variety, ruling group is master, laws for its own sake, by variety.

“This is just for the ruled,” the city states. The advantage.

[Margin: There is no city when the laws are not abided. Change-dogma. innovation. Law only as instruments, harm. Attitude of criticism?-Aristotle.

Is there only worship or disdain for the laws of the city?

[page 6]

The established ruling body. Democratic government-Democ. laws Variety relativism, therefore matter of convention, there is no truth.

Thrasymachus-art-reread Bloom.

Thrasymachus

The advantage of the established ruling body. It is al;so just to obey the rulers.

Mistakes. Appearance/ reality. [Margin: Jean: Polemarchus friends/ enemies. Mistake turns around.

The advantage of the established ruling body- precise sense.

Leads them to the forms, to reality.

Adv. of the stronger.

Could have said: what the ruler says, mistakes or no, is just to do.

But he said ruler in the precise sense.

Mistake involves knowledge of some kind; to avoid mistakes.

Mistake introduces the nature of an art; attain knowledge to avoid mistakes.

If this ruling that is to your advantage is an art.

It is not to your advantage, but the object of an art.

Legal positivism ignores reality/ appearance distinction.

Cleitophon gives Thrasymachus a way out. Why did Thrasymachus do that?

Cleitophon: opinion of advantage. What the stronger believes to be to his advantage.

If what seems to be advantage is in reality not, he is not the stronger while making mistakes.

[page 7]

perfect selfishness.

Is it so that what is really good for the individual is the common good.Ind-Soc: See justice writ large in the city.

Guardians.

Why does Thrasymachus insist on the strict definition of an art?

A mistaken ruler, according to Thrasymachus, would not know means to his ends.

Socrates focuses on the nature of an art.

Ought not is

Rulers should behave with strict selfishness.

-requiring rulers to be selfish with perfect knowledge.

Thrasymachus is a sophist, claims possession of this art of ruling.

Seeming-Sophists-knowing. Techno-ruler, means. The most important art for men.

Cleitophon- Ruler rules only by having office.

Intellectual- passions in service of something other than knowledge. Knowledge in the service of those passions.

Philosophers can effect the intellectuals.

Wage earner’s art. Zen and the art of.

Philosophy is the only solution between art and self interest.

Why is money inadequate as an architectonic art?

The only enterprise that asks “Is there a supreme art?”

Comprehensive vision. For it alone tries to know the whole. It demands total dedication to its objects while giving ample reward to its practitioner in the perfection of his nature and his greatest satisfaction. All other lives are essentially self contradictory.

[Page 8]

Rulers in the precise sense/ practitioner of an art.

Public. Soc.

Private Ind. One’s own good.

Succeeded in defining the problem of justice.

God can be found by the selection of contradiction.

Socrates does not say what it is.

Book I ends.

Justice is not: Cephalus : Divine punishment/ law

Polemarchus do good to friends/common good/ common good/selfishness.

Ceph/ Polem/ Thrasymachus.

Laws/ others/ adv. of stronger. Only some effects on others/ harm.

C+P: Justice is a means.

Summary of Book II, Glaucon/ Adeimantus

3 kinds of good things- exhaustive.

Where is justice? Which class is higher?

Glaucon- to the extreme. Perfect justice-total punishment.

Adeimantus supports Glaucon.

When justice is praised for the same reason; reward. That injustice is praised.

*Important to appear just while being unjust.

To see what kinds of consequence(s) not intrinsic) that are good in themselves.

Adeimantus wants Socrates to prove that justice is of #1, good in itself, while Socrates praises it as # good for itself and its consequences.

[Page 9. Top Good in itself- it just feels good- reproduction is for the sake of itself.]

“leave the consequences out.”

enjoyment of all the pleasures that leave no after effects. (impermanence)

[Mark Masic] Good in itself and avoidance of guilt as explanative of Adeimantus’ “pleasure.” (feeling good).

Q The play on Freudianism of Bloom, “sublimation.”

The fruits of justice will…

honor…

1 For itself it feels good.

2- for consequences

3 For itself and its consequences.

(3) The many think it is for consequences (wages, reputation- rewards) and is unpleasant in itself.

Glaucon’s points puts justice in #3.

[ I am in confusion between #1 and 3 presently

Eternity’s relation to life

-for itself argument in Bajema’s paper- though rejecting that we come to self knowledge for the sake of reproduction of ourselves.]

Lord. Justice is a compromise; al those who practice it do so unwillingly as necessary but not best.

Why is this not optimal?

St…away all convention, what is best for man by nature

Interest theories- conflict of interest

[Page 10 Biblical/Ancient/Modern]

Contract ideas of the emergeance of the state

Justice is not optimum. To get the better without punishment is.

Justice is done as a means- it is hard.

That this is fitting – the life of the unjust man is far better

The weaker who want justice.

Plea: What is good about it apart from it’s consequences?

Compromise. Nature. For the good of one.

Our problem of relevance is hokum. It is from a contrivance that needn’t and shouldn’t be.

[Page 11: Top are columns titled

Ceph-Pol/ Thrasy/ G+A/ Socrates

a-political/ Rhetorician/ Political gents/ Philosopher

Convention/ PreSocratic/ Religion/ Religion v. science

Church/ Science-exposition/ Soc[iety]

Page 11

357-367e

Socrates as a teacher.

Socrates does not allow the unjust speech to overcome the just one (Clouds).

G+A: Goals of statesmanship transcend the horizon of sensuality and money, (to) philosophy and honor.

“spiritual substance required for the sublimating experience of Socratic education.

Rhetoricians, pre-Socratic. No natural right: gods do not support justice.

Thrasymachus: Justice is mere convention and a matter of indifference to those who wish to live according to nature.

Th. and rhetoricians: the proper study of politics is of means, rhetoric, rather than ends-the laws or justice.

Socrates defends justice against the rhetorician not with convention, but a philosophic response to a philosophic challenge.

The confrontation with Thrasymachus was carried on for Glaucon’s benefit.

Conflict over G and A is between science and religion.

Reason and passion combine to tempt G & A toward Thrasymachus.

[margin] Socrates v. Thrasymachus for studentship of G & A.

Socrates appeals to their nobility and love of justice. He touches them. Thus begins their education.

Glaucon sees that Socrates has at best shown only the necessity of Justice.

Glaucon recognizes the power and reputation of justice.

G. is not involved in Thrasymachus’ contradiction of teaching injustice when justice is necessary.

[Notebook pp. 12-18 is notes from the essay of Allan Bloom on Republic.]

p. 19

Top margin Mark (Mesek) Socrates himself

No spirituality in concentration camps. Mind/body conflict- that one must be dissatisfied.

The desire for luxury is really a disguised desire to be a philosopher?

In what way is Glaucon’s desire ‘of the soul’?

Unsettled except in God” -Augustine

What is it that we really need?

hidden hand- harmony satisfies Individual/social needs. Spirit.

Homer

Evil never triumphs over virtue.

Editing the complexities and contradictions of reality.

-the view is unrealistic.

There is nothing neutral about any kind of art. Nothing is neutral.- Wasserman of Plato.

1. Censorship to meet this end

2. 2) Is it so that they are raised unaware of evil.

3. passages indicate the opposite (trials to test courage; the occasion to steal)

Education toward character.

our education system is so contrary to Plato. Knowledge/character

Let the doctor get sick.

So that they will respond to and welcome the beauty of reason.

What is Plato’s end? Our end?

The best city.

Their things have to be arranged to produce that.

[p. 20]

Top: Not every kind of music is present. Liberal education- the point was to make us free.

Ken Rafter. Education is restrictive, unrealistic. Tunnel vision to the good.

It is not beneficial to edit all the complexities.

What kind of creature we would like to see emerge if education were successful.

What is the education’s essential effect?: character.

Involves some definition of what is the right pt. of belief.

Best man (Not best society?)

Margin: To construct our education, we must have some idea of the best individual.

Does this city answer? The best man is the one who is right and good for the city.

Are the people the means, parts, to a good city?

The lie seems to be that the good of the city, its lies, lead to the most rational man.

Margin: Plato is trying to produce a certain kind of character.

The best city is presumably the one which has as its good the best individual (s).

If education is wholly ordered to the aim.

To what extent are the right means an end? Right means are right because they facilitate a certain end in truth.

Implication: that no one wants to know the good.

Is there (only) 1? My question cannot be answered until later books.

Nothing in Plato is morally neutral.

All is [atom symbol- interconnected]

Plato never wrote in his own name.

Same/different; All men’s virtue is same/different.

Same-curriculum

Different-individual

same/ different :: same/ different?]

The best education is not one.

Lecture on Play dough (Pluto)

Plato’s yes man Sophocles.

Purpose of education: To produce men who are as godlike as possible, as good as possible, as perfect as possible.

Goodness.

The aim.

Perfection. Changeless.

Why we begin with the gods. Lying. What do the gods have to do with human affairs.

Avoids separation of.

The realizability of the best city; Where the best man will be happy. Good of the individual and society coincide.

Where does the discrepancy appear? It may be best for some.

Book V: The three waves. Third: Necessity of the coincidence of philosophy and power, philosopher king.

Guardians. Control. The lie. Not the best,

spirit. Control. Justice is the advantage of the stronger/Morality is self control Wise king/wise person controlling

schiz; power over.

[Is control in morality prior to self becoming?

Is control in education prior to reasoning toward truth?]

[page 20] Lincoln Do as much good as you can while distubing the least amount of prejudice."

Democracy- based on consent-opinion-prejudice. self government.

The arrogance of modernity- revisionist hisoriography

of the true and the good

the best is not the city. Either individual interests or soc[ial] good

1. easy to deceive? Yet hard?

2. 2) soul/rythm

Belanger: "Is the analogy complete?

Wasserman:...bears on realizability of the best city.

tensions brought out in doing that.