GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

PLATO'S POLITICAL THEORY Ai
belonging to." Our criticism is, then, that, wherea* the
State is quite obviously made for man, Plato is a little too
apt to regard man merely as an element in the good
of the State. Yet "good", it may be urged, is surely
something that only individuals can attain, and die State
is nothing apart from the individuals who compose it.
Philalcthes Speaks for the Modern Democrat. The
point of view from which this criticism springs is taken'
so much for granted by the modern world 1 that it is
unnecessary to develop it at any length. I propose, there-
fore, to restate it in a form more cogent and succinct
than I could hope to give to it. Not long before his death,
G. Lowes Dickinson, a lifelong admirer of Plato, who cast
many of his writings in the form of Plato's Dialogues,
published a Dialogue, After Two Thousand Tears, in which
a contemporary young man, Philalethes, visits Plato in
the Shades, and converses with him on the subject of
the contemporary world. Describing the life and lot of the
ordinary wage-earner, the man who, in Plato's State, would
belong to the third class, Philalethes criticizes Plato on the
score. of having made insufficient provision for his ethical
and political development. The criticism is as follows:
"PH. Well, all of those, you seem to have been content
to say, must be left to that kind of work, and need
not be considered at all, when there is any question
of what is really Good.
PL. I admit it. The true Goods I held could only be
attained
educated.
by those who were well born and well
PH. Yes, but even by them, how attained? For no
sooner had your philosophers, after long education
and training, caught some glimmer of these Goods,
than they were to be haled back remorselessly to
govern the community.
1 (Or, perhaf*I should say, by the world in which my generation
grew up. It is coining to be increasingly questioned by the post-war
world.)