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The Republic by Plato

1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in

338 words  |  Chapter 25

this respect contrasts with the later Platonists and the views which are attributed to them by Aristotle. He is not, like the Cynics, opposed to all pleasure, but rather desires that the several parts of the soul shall have their natural satisfaction; he even agrees with the Epicureans in describing pleasure as something more than the absence of pain. This is proved by the circumstance that there are pleasures which have no antecedent pains (as he also remarks in the Philebus), such as the pleasures of smell, and also the pleasures of hope and anticipation. In the previous book he had made the distinction between necessary and unnecessary pleasure, which is repeated by Aristotle, and he now observes that there are a further class of ‘wild beast’ pleasures, corresponding to Aristotle’s (Greek). He dwells upon the relative and unreal character of sensual pleasures and the illusion which arises out of the contrast of pleasure and pain, pointing out the superiority of the pleasures of reason, which are at rest, over the fleeting pleasures of sense and emotion. The pre-eminence of royal pleasure is shown by the fact that reason is able to form a judgment of the lower pleasures, while the two lower parts of the soul are incapable of judging the pleasures of reason. Thus, in his treatment of pleasure, as in many other subjects, the philosophy of Plato is ‘sawn up into quantities’ by Aristotle; the analysis which was originally made by him became in the next generation the foundation of further technical distinctions. Both in Plato and Aristotle we note the illusion under which the ancients fell of regarding the transience of pleasure as a proof of its unreality, and of confounding the permanence of the intellectual pleasures with the unchangeableness of the knowledge from which they are derived. Neither do we like to admit that the pleasures of knowledge, though more elevating, are not more lasting than other pleasures, and are almost equally dependent on the accidents of our bodily state (Introduction to Philebus).
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Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 3. INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 4. Introduction to the Phaedrus). 5. BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene—a festival in 6. BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on 7. BOOK III. There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to 8. 1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave 9. 2. ‘The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.’ 10. 3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a 11. 4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better 12. 5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek 13. 6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest 14. 7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked. 15. BOOK IV. Adeimantus said: ‘Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that 16. BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in 17. Book IV, which fall unperceived on the reader’s mind, as they are 18. BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true 19. 1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. 20. 2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist 21. 3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato’s divisions of knowledge 22. BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or 23. BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the 24. BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to 25. 1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in 26. 2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, 27. 3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more 28. BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was 29. 1. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State 30. 2. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of 31. introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, 32. 3. Plato’s views of education are in several respects remarkable; like 33. 4. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural 34. 5. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and 35. 6. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the 36. 7. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that 37. 8. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek 38. BOOK I. 39. part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not 40. BOOK II. 41. BOOK III. 42. BOOK IV. 43. BOOK V. 44. BOOK VI. 45. BOOK VII. 46. BOOK VIII. 47. Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square 48. BOOK IX. 49. BOOK X.

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