Platonism, Beauty, Justice

Some have characterized Plato's Just Polis as a Kallipolis--a beautiful city.  But, regardless of whether or not Plato himself is among them, the characterization is problematic.  For, it suggests a kinship between Justice and Beauty, most likely that each is a kind of Hylomorphic Harmony.  But, Beauty is specifically a Harmony of some Sense-Experience, so to abstract from that dimension of it is to falsify it.  Beauty is a thorny problem for Platonism in general, since that Sensibility is abstracted from in the Intelligible Form of Beauty.  So, the concept of a Kallipolis complicates, not clarifies, the as is convoluted Republic.  More instructive is the formulation that Justice is Harmonious, constituted by the commensuration between needed Division of Labor and the natural abilities of the Citizenry.

Justice and Law

Strongly confirming the contention that Platonism is fundamentally Political Philosophy is the plain fact that by far his two longest works are the Republic and the Laws.  Now, he asserts that while the model of the former might be ideal, that of the latter is inferior but more practicable.  That inferiority can be gleaned from a contrast of Reason and Judgment--the former privileges the Universal over the Particular, while the latter aims to strike a balance between them. Thus, a Law can be Unjust to a Particular in some cases, but its generality is more wieldy than the particularity of Justice.  In any case, the thesis that Platonism is fundamentally Epistemology, Metaphysics, or Theology needs to explain the textual evidence that suggests otherwise.

The Good, the Dead, the Actual

Perhaps the defining moment of Plato's oeuvre is in book VII, of the Republic, when the escapee from the cave returns.  This signifies that the function in Platonism of the world of Forms is Political, not Ontological, i. e. that its status as a 'better' world befits it as a source of influencing the actual world, rather than as a permanent residence.  Accordingly, even though in the Phaedo, Socrates seems to be asserting that humans are better off dead, those words may just as likely be designed to console his grieving followers.  Instead, the reason for his refusing the exile option may be the simplest one--that he is too old for such a change.  Likewise, comparisons between Socrates and Christ, e. g. Kierkegaard's, tend, in their zeal for afterworldliness, to overlook the mundane fact of the vast age difference at the time of their deaths.  Platonism is fundamentally Political Philosophy, not Theology.

Platonism and Dialogue

With the banishment of Plato's Political writings to the Political Science Department, Platonism is typically presented in contemporary American academic Philosophy as fundamentally Epistemology, the central thesis of which being that Knowledge is Justified True Belief.  On that basis, Dialogue is an inessential style of presentation.  However, with the Republic, etc. included, the arc of Platonism is from the execution of the wisest man, to the Philosopher-King.  In that context, Epistemology functions to clarify the concept of Wisdom, and Dialogue is a continuation of the Apology, except with the wisest man now the prosecutor rather than the defendant.  And, even as himself an academic, Political Virtue remains for Plato a, if not the, focus of his concept of Philosophy, as is also the case with his star pupil.

Dialectic and Dialogic

As has been previously discussed, Plato and Marx share Political Materialism and property Communalism. But, a primary difference between them is not as absolute as it might seem.  What Marx rejects about Plato's Classism is the thesis that variations in ability are immutable, not that given the predominant Means of Production in a period, Economic hierarchy is unavoidable.  Likewise not absolutely opposed is Dialectical Materialism and Plato's Dialogic.  For, what the former is antithetical to is the Dialectical Idealism of Hegel and Kant, whereas, as the aporetic dialogues indicate, the pattern of that Dialogic is not as contrived and schematic as it is sometimes taken to be.  Accordingly, as an alternative to both Dialectical Materialism and Dialectical Idealism, attributable to Plato might be the thesis that it is concrete Language that is inherently Dialectical.  For, in his system, Dialectics is a property of neither Matter nor Ideas, the former being inert, the latter being changeless.

Polis and Need

As Plato enumerates the needs to the meeting of which a Polis is a means, he implicitly defines a Polis as an organization of labor.  That definition contrasts sharply with more recent alternatives such as: a means to stop humans from killing each other, part of the path towards the Salvation of a Person-Soul, and a medium for the pursuit of personal happiness.  The second might be especially astonishing to Plato, a grotesque extrapolation of the thesis, in which he occasionally dabbles, of a Soul-Body separation. So, regardless of the influence of Plato on Medievalists, via Augustine, his closest kin among his successors might be one of their staunchest opponents, Marx, for whom, regardless of its Classism, Plato's invention is the prototype of a Polis the Base of which is Economic relations.

Species and Mother of Invention

Over the centuries, the passage from Republic, 369C: "Let us create a city from the beginning. . . .Its real creator, as it appears, will be our needs" has been modalized as "Necessity is the mother of our invention", trivialized as "Necessity is the mother of invention", and, more recently, appropriated from for the name of a group of Dadaist musicians.  Accordingly, lost has been the uniqueness of the passage in the history of Political Philosophy.  For, while the foundation of the typical Modern contribution to the genre has been the Happiness-seeking individual person, Plato begins by positing the biological needs of the collective: food, shelter, clothing, etc.  Thus, at the beginning of Political Philosophy, but hardly repeated since, not even later in the Republic, the Species briefly appears as the progenitor of the enterprise.