He'd never have got away with this rubbish on Usenet

[pm215]

I've been reading Plato's The Republic. Plato may be supposedly one of the philosophical giants of classical civilisation, but it's hard to take him seriously when he keeps coming out with staggeringly shaky logic like this:

[Context: Plato has been sketching out his ideal society, which he divides into three classes: Guardians, who are the ruling class; Auxiliaries, who are the 'executive arm', a sort of combination military, police and civil service; and everybody else (who Plato doesn't much care about). He's now attempting to show that his society is a just society. The major speaker here is Socrates, who is talking to one of the sock-puppets Plato provides to say "yes", "of course", and "how clever you are, Socrates".]

"Suppose a builder and a shoemaker tried to exchange jobs, each taking on the tools and the prestige of the other's trade, or suppose alternatively the same man tried to do both jobs, would this and other exchanges of the kind do great harm to the state?"
"Not much."
"But if someone who belongs by nature to the class of artisans and business men is puffed up by wealth or popular support or physical strength or any similar quality, and tries to do an Auxiliary's job; or if an Auxiliary who is not up to it tries to take on the functions and decisions of a Ruler and exchange tools and prestige with him; or if a single individual tries to do all these jobs at the same time -- well, I think you'll agree that this sort of mutual interchange and interference spells destruction to our state."
"Certainly."
"Interference by the three classes with each other's jobs, and interchange of jobs between them, therefore, does the greatest harm to our state, and we are entirely justified in calling it the worst of evils."
"Absolutely justified."
"But will you not agree that the worst of evils for a state is injustice?"
"Of course."
"Then that gives us a definition of injustice. And conversely, when each of our three classes (businessmen, Auxiliaries, and Guardians) does its own job and minds its own business, that, by contrast, is justice and makes our city just."

It's not just that he arrives at his conclusion through some rhetorical sleight-of-hand; it's that he does it so badly you can see the rabbit sticking its ears out of his coat-pocket...

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Plato may be supposedly one of the philosophical giants of classical civilisation

He was one of the philosophical giants - just as Aristotle was one of the scientific giants - classical civilisation having been grossly overrated sometime around the Renaissance and never properly dispatched since then. I guess it's what comes of basing the entire Western world on the values of an artistic movement.