The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

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96 Suffering, Philosophy, and the Choice of a Lifetime See 614a-621d. The dialogue ends as a monologue, but one dramatically placed, with Glaucon and Adeimantus, Polemarchus, Lysias, and Euthydemus, Niceratus, Charmantides, Cleitophon, and Thrasymachus listening to Socrates tell a story. It is about a man named Er who is given a look at the afterlife and is allowed to return to tell about it (similar to Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy). In this afterworld, some souls go off to be rewarded for being relatively just in their previous lives, while others are punished for being relatively unjust. After a time the rewarded souls come down to be readied for rebirth; and the punished souls – those that have been successfully cleansed of their injustice – come up, also to be reborn. The Fates explain that each soul gets the opportunity to choose the guardian spirit who will determine certain elements of that soul’s next embodied life. It is a little unclear what this means, but it appears that what one gets to choose are aspects of one’s life that normally are thought to be outside of one’s choice: matters of genetics, the nation of one’s birth, illnesses one will face, social opportunities, and so on. Here, Socrates thinks, in making the choice of a lifetime, the benefits of philosophy become especially evident: the person will “know what the good and bad effects of beauty are when it is mixed with wealth or poverty and this or that state of the soul; what the effects are of high and low birth, private lives and ruling offices, physical strength and weaknesses, ease and difficulties in learning, and all the things that are either naturally part of the soul or can be acquired by it, when they are mixed with one another. On the basis of all that he will be able, by considering the nature of the soul, to reason out which life is better and which worse and choose accordingly, calling worse the one that will lead the soul to become more unjust, and better the one that leads it to become more just. Everything else he will ignore.” The first soul who gets to choose – “one of those who had come down from heaven, having lived his previous life in an orderly constitution, sharing in virtue through habit but without philosophy” – blunders, and chooses the life of a tyrant. Interestingly, most of the people foolish enough to choose tyrannical situations are “souls who came from heaven, and so were
untrained in sufferings.” In contrast, the last soul to choose is that of Odysseus – “long-suffering Odysseus” as Homer frequently calls him – a timocratic soul in his last life. He looks and looks and then chooses, with relief, “the life of a private individual who did his own work” – not a proud sacker of cities, but a quiet man, who desires only to do his part in a just community. Socrates seems to be suggesting, along with the poet Aeschylus, that there is another way to gain some wisdom in life besides engaging in philosophy. There is suffering. Do you agree that there is wisdom to be found through suffering? If so, what sort of wisdom is it? How is it different from philosophical wisdom? Back
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The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guid
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19 Luxuries in the Just City 20 The
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Book IX 80 Lawless Desires 81 The R
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Book I
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Back Is it possible to persuade a
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3 Treasure for Heaven See 329d-331b
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5 The Craft of Justice See 332b-334
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6 Benefiting Friends and Harming En
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7 The Advantage of the Stronger See
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8 The Good Shepherd See 339a-348b.
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9 The Blushing Argument See 348b-35
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10 Function, Virtue, and the Soul S
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Book II
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12 The Social Contract Theory of Ju
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14 The Challenge See 360e-362c. Soc
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15 The Teaching of Justice See 362c
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16 Glaucon’s Lover See 368a. Not
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18 Making the Most of Differences S
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20 The Good Soldier See 374a-376e.
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22 Gods Causing Bad Things See 377d
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23 Gods in Disguise or Speaking Fal
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24 Fear and Grief See 386a-388e. So
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Back Can a distinction be made bet
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27 Narrative Style and Personal Int
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28 The Emotional Power of Tune and
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29 Love of the Fine and Beautiful S
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sexually attractive the lovers may
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31 Doctors and Judges See 405a-410a
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32 Harmony in the Soul See 410a-412
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33 Rulers See 412b-414b. It has bee
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35 Private Property, Private Intere
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36 The City as a Whole See 419a-423
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37 Lawfulness Internalized, Legisla
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38 Wisdom in the City See 427d-429a
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40 Temperance in the City See 430d-
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Back families you may be fortunate
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pleasures of the body, with sensual
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43 The Spirited Part of the Soul Se
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Back sufficient to prove that Socra
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Back appetitive part can be educate
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Book V
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47 The Natures of Men and Women See
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Back Consider school sports teams.
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Back
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50 The Waging of War See 466c-471e.
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51 Philosophers and Knowledge of th
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Back imagined on the other? If so,
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52 The Virtues of the Philosopher S
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Back Is the kind of understanding
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Back Do the people who would make
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Back provided to ordinary students?
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57 The Form of the Good See 504a-50
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58 Every Soul Pursues the Good See
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60 Degrees of Clarity (the Line) Se
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Book VII
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Back lead them out of the cave? Wh
Page 114 and 115: 63 The Craft of Education See 518b-
Page 116 and 117: 65 Numbers as Summoners See 521c-52
Page 118 and 119: 66 Further Mathematical Studies See
Page 120 and 121: 68 Selecting Students for Philosoph
Page 122 and 123: 70 Completing the Education of the
Page 124 and 125: Book VIII
Page 126 and 127: Back authority, or would it be harm
Page 128 and 129: (chivalry and bushido respectively)
Page 130 and 131: 75 The Oligarchic City See 550c-552
Page 132 and 133: 76 The Oligarchic Soul See 553a-555
Page 134 and 135: 77 The Democratic City See 555b-558
Page 136 and 137: 78 The Democratic Soul See 558c-562
Page 138 and 139: 79 The Tyrannical City See 562a-569
Page 140 and 141: Book IX
Page 142 and 143: 81 The Right Way to Fall Asleep See
Page 144 and 145: Back Imagine a person who is obses
Page 146 and 147: Back What about the democratic cit
Page 148 and 149: 85 The Third Proof: True Pleasures
Page 150 and 151: Back Socrates likens the people wh
Page 152 and 153: 87 An Emblem of the Soul See 588b-5
Page 154 and 155: 88 Will the Just Person Take Part i
Page 156 and 157: 89 Return to Poetry See 595a. In Bo
Page 158 and 159: truth are highly entertaining. Cons
Page 160 and 161: 92 A Call to Poetry’s Defenders S
Page 162 and 163: 94 The Soul Without Barnacles See 6
Page 166 and 167: INDEX Numbers are to the 96 section
Page 168 and 169: Definition, 4, 5, 6, 7, 17, 29, 38,
Page 170 and 171: 43, 74, 90, 96 Homosexuality, 16 Ho
Page 172 and 173: Painters and painting, 19, 29, 56,
Page 174 and 175: 79, 82, 83 Suffering, 6, 12, 14, 22
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The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

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