Plato Republic 4.427

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 4.427 focus

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Ironically, I should not have supposed, but for the practice of our politicians.
2. εἶδος νόμων πέρι is here a mere periphrasis, though the true classification of laws was a topic of the day. Cf. Laws 630 E, Aristotle Politics 1267 b 37. Plato is not always careful to mark the distinction between the legislation which he rejects altogether and that which he leaves to the discretion of the citizens.
3. ἐκεῖ=in the other world. So often.
4. For the exegete as a special religious functionary at Athens . cf. L. and S. s. v. and Laws 759 C-D. Apollo in a higher sense is the interpreter of religion for all mankind. He is technically πατρῷος at Athens ( Euthydemus 302 D) but he is πάτριος for all Greeks and all men. Plato does not, as Thümser says (p. 301), confuse the Dorian and the Ionian Apollo, but rises above the distinction.
5. Plato prudently or piously leaves the deatils of ceremonial and institutional religion to Delphi . Cf. 540 B-C, Laws 759 C, 738 B-C, 828 A, 856 E, 865 B, 914 A, 947 D.
6. This navel stone, supposed to mark the center of the earth, has now been found. Cf. Poulsen’s Delphi , pp. 19, 29, 157, and Frazer on Pausanias x. 16.
7. Not the ἀναγκαιοτάτη πόλις of 369 E, nor the φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις of 372 E, but the purified city of 399 E has now been established and described. The search for justice that follows formulates for the first time the doctrine of the four cardinal virtues and defines each provisionally and sufficiently for the present purpose, and solves the problems dramatically presented in the minor dialogues, Charmides, Laches, etc. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 15-18, nn. 81-102, and the introduction to the second volume of this translation.
8. αὐτός τε καί: cf. 398 A.
9. See on 369 A. Matter-of-fact critics may object that there is no injustice in the perfectly good state. But we know the bad best by the canon of the good. Cf. on 409 A-B. The knowledge of opposites is the same. Injustice can be defined only in relation to its opposite (444 A-B), and in the final argument the most unjust man and state are set up as the extreme antitypes of the ideal (571-580). By the perfect state Plato does not mean a state in which no individual retains any human imperfections. It is idle then to speak of difficulties or contradictions or changes of plan in the composition of the Republic.
10. For ἐάν τε . . . ἐάν τε cf. 367 E.
11. Cf. 331 E. Emphatic as in 449 D-450 A, Phaedo 95 A, and Alc. I. 135 D.
12. Cf. 368 B-C.
13. Cf. 434 E, 449 A. This in a sense begs the original question in controversy with Thrasymachus, by the assumption that justice and the other moral virtues are goods. Cf. Gorgias 507 C. See The Idea of Good in Plato’s Republic, p. 205. For the cardinal virtues cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. p. 304, Pearson, Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, pp. 173 f., and commentators on Pindar, Nem. iii. 74, which seems to refer to four periods of human life, and Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 1-5, and iv. 6. 1-12. Plato recognizes other virtues even in the Republic (402 C ἐλευθεριότης and μεγαλοπρέπεια. Cf. 536 A), and would have been as ready to admit that the number four was a part of his literary machinery as Ruskin was to confess the arbitrariness of his Seven Lamps of Architecture.
14. It is pedantry to identify this with Mill’s method of residues and then comment on the primitive naïveté of such an application of logic to ethics. One might as well speak of Andocides’ employment of the method ( De myst. 109) or of its use by Gorgias in the disjunctive dilemma of the Palamedes 11 and passim, or say that the dog of the anecdote employs it when he sniffs up one trail and immediately runs up the other. Plato obviously employs it merely as a literary device for the presentation of his material under the figure of a search. He, in the infancy of philosophy, is quite as well aware as his censors can be in the senility of criticism that he is not proving anything by this method, but merely setting forth what he has assumed for other reasons.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

οὔτ) ‐‐ ᾤμην ἄν : ‘I should not have thought so’ were it not for these great authorities. Jowett misses the irony by neglecting the tense (‘I conceive that the true legislator will not trouble himself,’ etc.). τὸν ἀληθινὸν νομοθέτην and κἂν ὁστισοῦν εὕροι would strike home, if Isocrates is meant.

ἀνωφελῆ ‐‐ ἐπιτηδευμάτων . For ἀνωφελῆ Ξ has ἀνωφελές, an obvious ‘correction.’ The plural, as Schneider observes, is supported by τὰ μὲν αὐτῶν (where αὐτῶν is also neuter). ὅτι after τὰ δέ has been called in question by Stallbaum and Hartman. Taken strictly, it must depend on a verbal notion supplied out of πραγματεύεσθαι (Stallbaum) or κἂν ὁστισοῦν εὕροι; but in a halfadverbial phrase like τὰ δέ, we should not pry too closely into the grammatical construction. The effect is exactly like the English ‘because some of them, etc., in other cases, because,’ etc.

τί οὖν κτλ. With this section of the Republic we should compare V 461 E, 469 A, VII 540 C, and Laws 738 B ff. Plato would fain be no iconoclast: his object is to purify, rather than to abolish, the old religion. He tries, in short, to put new wine into old bottles. In particular, when he makes Apollo preside at the foundation of his city ( οἰκίζοντές τε πόλιν οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ πεισόμεθα), he is acting in accordance with the universal custom of the Greeks, who consulted the oracle at Delphi before planting colonies, and revered him as the universal ἀρχηγέτης and οἰκιστής (Preller Gr. Myth. p. 269). It is equally in harmony with Hellenic, and especially Athenian, usage to refer all matters of public worship to Apollo: see on 427 C. Delphi was the abiding centre of Greek religious and political unity; and it is therefore right that a Greek city (V 470 E), one of whose objects is to promote unity and comity among Greeks (ib. 469 B ff.), should attach itself to Apollo.

τῷ μέντοι Ἀπόλλωνι κτλ. Cf. Mem. I 3. 1 (of Socrates) φανερὸς ἦν καὶ ποιῶν καὶ λέγων, ᾗπερ ἡ Πυθία ἀποκρίνεται τοῖς ἐρωτῶσι, πῶς δεῖ ποιεῖν ἢ περὶ θυσίας ἢ περὶ προγόνων θεραπείας ἢ περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς τῶν τοιούτων. The answer of the priestess was ‘Serve the gods νόμῳ πόλεως’ (l.c. and IV 3. 16). The spirit in which we worship matters, rather than whom or how we worship. So large and tolerant a sentiment is worthy of the Delphic priesthood and of Plato.

τελευτησάντων τε . See cr. n. Asyndeton is indefensible here. We must either with all the editors (except J. and C.) read τε, or add καί after θεραπεῖαι.

ἐξηγητῇ ‐‐ πατρίῳ . πατρῴῳ instead of πατρίῳ is called for by Ast on slight MS authority. Ἀπόλλων was ancestor of the Ionians, being father of Ion ( Euthyd. 302 D ), and was worshipped by them as Ἀπόλλων πατρῷος (Preller Gr. Myth. p. 272). But (as Schneider observes) “Socrates hic non magis quam alibi in his libris tanquam Atheniensis loquitur, sed tanquam Graecus. Graecis autem omnibus πάτριος, hoc est, a maioribus traditus harum rerum arbiter et interpres erat Delphicus Apollo.” An allusion to the special connexion of Ionians with Apollo would be out of place, particularly as πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις follows. In Athens the ἐξηγηταί formed a college of three members, charged with religious duties. According to Schöll (in Hermes VI pp. 36 ff.) the members were partly chosen by Apollo in his capacity of πάτριος ἐξηγητής; apparently the Athenians chose nine, out of whom three were selected—one from each triad —by the representatives of the god: whence their designation πυθόχρηστοι. It is on this model that Plato perhaps frames his regulations in Laws 759 D.

πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις . Delphi is then a religious centre, not for Greeks only, but for all mankind. It was certainly the nearest approach to such a centre that antiquity provided, for it commanded the homage of barbarians as well as Greeks. See Middleton Journ. of Hell. Studies IX p. 308. Middleton cites Livy XXXVIII 48. 2 “commune humani generis oraculum,” Cicero pro Font. 30 “oraculum orbis terrae,” and gives examples of the offerings paid by foreigners at Apollo's shrine. Even now, perhaps, Plato would deny that the oracle is dumb, though—true to its own principle of worshipping νόμῳ πόλεως—it speaks through other voices, and of other gods. See also on V 470 C.

ἐν μέσῳ ‐‐ ἐξηγεῖται . Cf. Eur. Ion 5 , 6 ὀμφαλὸν | μέσον καθίζων Φοῖβος ὑμνῳδεῖ βροτοῖς. The ὀμφαλός was “a conical mass of ‘white marble or stone’” (Paus. X 16) in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, “said to mark the centre of the earth.” Two gold eagles stood at its sides, representing the eagles which, according to the legend, met there, having been despatched simultaneously by Zeus from the extreme East and West of the world (Strabo IX 3. 6). The ὀμφαλός is frequently represented as the seat of Apollo ( ἐπὶ τοῦ ὀμφαλοῦ καθήμενος), “especially upon coins, when he is represented in the character of the giver of oracles”: see for example ImhoofBlumner and P. Gardner in J. H. S. VIII p. 18, and Plate LXXIV vii. Middleton, on whose article “The Temple of Apollo at Delphi” (cited above) this note is chiefly based, thinks “the word ὀμφαλός was probably derived from ὀμφή, a voice, because the divine voice was heard there.” If this is true, the legends associating the shrine with the ‘navel’ or centre of the earth may be due to popular etymology. ὀμφαλός, ‘navel,’ is an Indo-Germanic word (Brugmann Grundriss II p. 187). Herwerden's excision of the words ἐν μέσῳ betrays ignorance of what the ὀμφαλός really was. See also Frazer on Paus. l.c.

αὐτός τε καὶ ‐‐ παρακάλει . For the idiom cf. (with Schneider) Phaedr. 253 B μιμούμενοι αὐτοί τε καὶ τὰ παιδικὰ πείθοντες.

ποῦ ἡ ἀδικία . If our city is τελέως ἀγαθή (427 E), it is useless to look for ἀδικία in it. On this difficulty see II 369 A note

πότερον . Herwerden's ποτέραν is quite unnecessary, as Hartman shews; cf. 428 A, 433 D, 434 C, 445 B, V 449 D.

ἐάν τε λανθάνῃ κτλ. recalls II 367 E.

ὡς οὐχ ὅσιον ‐‐ τρόρῳ : II 368 B, C.

σοφή ‐‐ δικαία . This is apparently the earliest passage in Greek literature where the doctrine of four cardinal virtues (if by cardinal virtues we mean those which make up the sum of perfect goodness) is expressly enunciated. The doctrine may of course be Pythagorean, but evidence is wanting, and it is doubtful whether Pindar's τέσσαρες ἀρεταί Nem. III 74 are to be interpreted as the cardinal virtues: see Bury ad loc. The nearest approach to the doctrine before Plato is in Xen. Mem. III 9. 1 —5 (as Krohn has pointed out Pl. St. p. 372), with which compare IV 6. 1—12, where Justice, Wisdom, and Courage are named, as well as other virtues, including εὐσέβεια. Cf. also Aesch. Sept. 610 σώφρων δίκαιος ἀγαθὸς εὐσεβὴς ἀνήρ. From other passages in Plato, none of which are so precise and technical as this, it would seem that ὁσιότης made a good fight for a fifth place: Prot. 329 C , Lach. 199 D , Men. 78 D , Gorg. 507 B . In Phaed. 69 C and Laws 631 C σωφροσύνη, δικαιοσύνη, ἀνδρεία and φρόνησις (not σοφία) are named together, without ὁσιότης, which in the Euthyphro (12 D ff.) is a subdivision of δικαιοσύνη. From Adimantus' ready assent (cf. V 476 A note), we may reasonably infer that the doctrine of four cardinal virtues was already a familiar tenet of the Platonic school. Schleiermacher thinks it may have been taken over “aus dem allgemeinen Gebrauch” ( Einleitung p. 26). There is however no evidence to shew that these four virtues and no others were regarded as the essential elements of a perfect character before Plato. If the theory was originated by Plato himself, it is possible enough that in restricting the number to four, Plato was not uninfluenced by the sacred character of the number four in Pythagoreanism, just as Aristotle has been supposed to have limited his categories to ten on similar grounds. An interesting conjecture is suggested by the remarks of Schleiermacher (l.c. p. 21). Our city is ex hypothesi perfectly virtuous. Its constituent elements are Rulers, Auxiliaries, Farmers and Artisans. Now the virtues which are exhibited in the lives and mutual relationship of these classes are, as Plato holds, Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice. Consequently these virtues are the component factors of moral perfection; in other words they are the cardinal virtues. We may admit that there is no petitio principii in such a method of investigation, which is, in fact, akin to the perfectly legitimate method described in Men. 86 E : cf. also V 458 A. If this suggestion is correct, the doctrine of four cardinal virtues will be directly descended from the arrangements of Plato's ideal city. But it is clear from what Plato himself says, both here and in 429 A, 430 D, 432 B, 433 B f., that the doctrine is already an accepted part of his ethical system, and not merely a provisional hypothesis which is intended to be confirmed by what follows. For the relative value and importance of the four cardinal virtues in Plato's way of thinking see Laws 630 D ff.

οὐκοῦν ‐‐ ηὑρημένον . Essentially the same method is used by Aristotle to reach his conclusion that virtue is a ἕξις ( Eth. Nic. II 4). Cf. also (with J. and C.) Lys. 216 D , E. Jowett observes that the true function of “this half-logical, halfmathematical method of residues” is in dealing with “abstract quantity” and “the laws of Nature.” It is undeniable that this method is much more likely to lead us astray in ethics than in mathematics or the natural sciences, owing to the nature of the subject; but it is valid if our analysis of the phenomena is exhaustive and exact. A similar method was frequently employed in the Eleatic school: see II 380 D note Plato not unfrequently extends the methods of mathematical reasoning beyond what we should consider their proper sphere: the whole of the preliminary studies, for example, in Book VII are to be pursued according to the methods of pure mathematics. See on VII 528 E ff. and the Appendix to Book VII “On the propaedeutic studies of the Republic.”