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

32 Harmony in the Soul
See 410a-412a. Socrates suggests that musical training and physical training are
crafts of divine origin for the strengthening and balancing of two distinct sources
of motivation in the human soul, one “philosophical” (wisdom-loving) and the
other “spirited.” He is going to be arguing explicitly for the existence of these
parts of the soul in Book IV. For now, what is noteworthy is the metaphor through
which he integrates the various elements of education they have considered so far.
It is as if each guardian-in-training were a lyre with strings in need of adjustment –
tightening here, loosening there – the goal being harmony in the soul. Education in
music and poetry stimulates and refines one aspect of the soul. Physical training
stimulates and refines another aspect. Both aspects matter. The result of an
education that carefully harmonizes both is a person who is courageous without
being savage, and sensitive to beauty without being enfeebled through overrefinement.
What are the chief arguments given nowadays in support of requiring
students to engage in physical training?
How does physical training benefit the soul? Socrates suggests in the
present passage that it can help a person become more courageous. Is he
right? If so, how does this work?
What virtues of the soul besides courage might physical training cultivate?
Consider the various East Asian martial arts and what they aim to achieve.
Is what Socrates is calling “the soul” the same thing that we nowadays call
“the mind”?
It is generally recognized that certain disturbances of the mind can cause
problems in the body (emotional distress can cause stomach ulcers, for
instance) just as certain disturbances of the body can cause problems in the
mind (brain tumors can cause hallucinations, for instance). And there are of
course even more obvious causal connections between mind and body, as
when you see a tasty morsel on the table, decide to eat it, reach for it, eat it,
and enjoy it. How should the relation between mind and body be