Plato’s Republic: Justice in Ancient Athens
Plato’s Republic: A Dialogue on Justice
Historical Context
Plato, a prominent Greek philosopher of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, penned the dialogue *Republic, or On Justice*. This comprehensive work encapsulates the major themes of Plato’s thought during this era. The historical backdrop is the Greek city-state of Athens, which had recently been defeated in the Peloponnesian War and subjected to the hegemony of aristocratic Sparta.
Two of Plato’s uncles were involved in the Spartan-backed government, initially leading Plato to feel sympathy for this regime. However, he was soon disenchanted with its inability to restore order and act justly. With the restoration of democracy, his teacher Socrates was condemned to death. Plato concluded that no existing state forms were acceptable and outlined a utopian aristocratic model in which those who truly understand justice and the good would rule. His successive trips to Syracuse were attempts to put this model into practice. The foundation of the Academy also had a political purpose: to educate future leaders.
Cultural Context
This period was a cultural golden age in all aspects. Major artists converged in Athens, making it the cultural capital of the Hellenic world. All talented individuals were drawn to this city. New artistic and cultural genres were created that are still in use today. This century was called “The Age of Pericles.” However, with the onset of the Peloponnesian War, Athens entered a period of crisis.
Science advanced dramatically with the systems of Plato and Aristotle and the work of their followers. Advances were made in astronomy, mathematics, biology, medicine, and other fields.
Philosophical Context
Plato criticized the Sophists, who were masters in the art of persuasion through words. He believed that in Greece, they had contributed to the destruction of the philosophical tradition as the search for truth and knowledge. Plato sought to find something permanent and unchangeable. He believed that the answer could only be found in science, in an immutable reality that constitutes the essence of all things that share it: the Idea.
The Idea cannot be seen with bodily eyes but with the soul, with intelligence. Thus, Plato elaborated his Theory of Ideas, which clearly shows the influence of several previous authors:
- The immobility of being from Parmenides is used to construct permanent and immutable Ideas, though multiple, unlike the unity of Parmenides’ being.
- The Platonic conception of the sensible world reflects the character of mobility, materiality, and change, characteristic of Heraclitus‘ thought. Plato came into contact with Heraclitus’ ideas in his youth through the Pythagorean Cratylus.
- From Pythagoreanism, Plato adopted the ideas of immortality and the transmigration of the soul, as well as the importance of mathematics in understanding reality. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here,” was inscribed at the entrance of the Academy.
- From Socrates, Plato adopted the universal character of Ideas. Although these now apply beyond ethics, the name “Idea of the Good” is reserved for the supreme Idea. Like Socrates, Plato shares a concern for virtue and moral intellectualism: knowledge of the Idea of the Good is the prerequisite for a happy life as individuals and for the just and righteous government of the city.
- Plato’s cosmology synthesizes the ideas of Anaxagoras and the Atomists in his conception of the Demiurge, who orders pre-existing matter using the model of the Ideas.