Latest / Mahon McCann / Plato's Republic, Book 3 | Education & The Noble Lie

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Plato's Republic, Book 3 | Education & The Noble Lie · Mahon McCann

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  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my name is Mahan.
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  I'm a philosophy PhD researcher and part-time lecturer in
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  philosophy and ethics.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is part three of a series of videos on Plato's Republic.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't seen the other videos,
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  SPEAKER_00: I recommend going back,
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  SPEAKER_00: checking out the introduction,
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  SPEAKER_00: book one,
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  SPEAKER_00: book two.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be on book three.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's jump in.
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  SPEAKER_00: Book three has five main parts.
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  It starts with the critique of Greek literature and drama,
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  which we ended chapter two with.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then goes on to talk about the educational program,
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  SPEAKER_00: which involves these two parts of music and physical training.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth part is the introduction of the rulers,
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  SPEAKER_00: which are an elite class that are going to come from this warrior class.
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  And this sets up the three different caste structures of the
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  city and finishes this
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  SPEAKER_00: chapter with the noble lie,
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  SPEAKER_00: also known as the myth of the metals.
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  which is a kind of caste system that Plato sets up for this
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  ideal city based on
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  SPEAKER_00: these three classes.
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  SPEAKER_00: For Plato, education is the number one political issue.
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  How you train people and what you think people should be really
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  defines what your city is.
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  He'd seen through his own city,
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  which was taught by Homer,
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  the educator of the Greeks,
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  SPEAKER_00: the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey,
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  SPEAKER_00: he'd seen them fail because of their training from Homer,
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  SPEAKER_00: basically.
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  SPEAKER_00: So in this chapter, he's going back to scratch.
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  He's really criticizing the Homeric myths that are the origins
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  of the Greek moral
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  SPEAKER_00: system and trying to reestablish it on different footing.
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  SPEAKER_00: In this education system,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's not something that's meant to be realized in the real world,
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  SPEAKER_00: like this whole city in speech.
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  but rather an ethical standard that can be used to measure
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  education and culture by.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what Plato is building here.
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  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it seems a bit strange,
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  SPEAKER_00: like why he's criticizing stories all the time,
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  SPEAKER_00: why he's talking so much about images and Homer and imitation.
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  But really what he's trying to set up is a moral standard by
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  which we can evaluate
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  SPEAKER_00: the culture and stories in this city they're building.
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  SPEAKER_00: He starts out by critiquing Homer,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he represents evil characters that prosper.
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  SPEAKER_00: For Plato in the Athenian democracy,
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  SPEAKER_00: he'd seen his society really destroyed by vices at the time.
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  SPEAKER_00: He blames the cultural world created by Homer.
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  One example he gives of this is that Homer depicts the
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  underworld as a terrifying
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  SPEAKER_00: and horrible place,
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  SPEAKER_00: which creates a fear of death for soldiers.
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  In his perfect city,
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  the underworld will be depicted as a great place where soldiers
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  who are
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  brave and honorable are rewarded after death so that they won't
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  be afraid to die in
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  SPEAKER_00: battle and motivate them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Slightly morally questionable,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  lying to your soldiers in order to get them to go out and get
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  themselves killed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ancient Greece was a pretty gnarly time.
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  A big part of Plato's critique of Homer and the critique of
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  images in general is
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  SPEAKER_00: that the old model for what a man should be,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is an ethical ideal really,
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  SPEAKER_00: was Achilles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Achilles is the perfect warrior.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's the guy that
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  SPEAKER_00: When the chips are down and the Trojans are winning,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Greeks go and they're like,
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  SPEAKER_00: oh man,
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  SPEAKER_00: we got to get Achilles.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's the Cristiano Ronaldo.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's the star player.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's going to come in and he's going to kill everybody, basically.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the problem with Achilles is that he's proud.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's hubristic.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's hotheaded.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's impulsive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Plato is really critiquing Achilles as the Homeric ideal.
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  SPEAKER_00: this kind of warrior king model,
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  SPEAKER_00: and replacing it with Socrates,
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  SPEAKER_00: who's going to be the philosopher king.
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  Socrates is not dissimilar in that way to Achilles in that he
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  wins all of the arguments.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's not killing people,
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  SPEAKER_00: but he's beating them with reason,
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  SPEAKER_00: with a love of truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: with careful thinking,
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  SPEAKER_00: with an unwavering commitment to the true,
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  SPEAKER_00: the good,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the beautiful,
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  SPEAKER_00: and even sacrificing his own life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Basically,
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  Plato's taking the Greek stories and he's reframing them based
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  on morality,
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  SPEAKER_00: what's called poetic justice.
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  SPEAKER_00: which is where in the stories,
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  virtue triumphs over vice and vice is punished usually in a
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  kind of ironic way
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  SPEAKER_00: relevant to the type of vice that's committed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whereas for Homer,
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  he would oftentimes reward stuff like Zeus would be really
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  lustful and go around
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  SPEAKER_00: and assault women and all these terrible things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then he's still the king of the gods.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like he's not a moral exemplar in that sense.
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  Plato is trying to curate the culture and the art based on the
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  morality of
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  Because he thinks that people's first training really is
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  through story and through imitation.
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  So in 393C,
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  he critiques imitation itself,
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  which is a really weird argument.
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  SPEAKER_00: He argues that if a poet is writing a poem,
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  SPEAKER_00: which would be like a story for us,
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  SPEAKER_00: they shouldn't pretend to be the character they're writing about.
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  SPEAKER_00: They should say, I'm a person writing about this.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a god or I'm not this character.
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  Which is really weird because Plato is literally imitating
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  Socrates in this passage
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  SPEAKER_00: when he's writing this critique of Menezes.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a really strange idea,
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  but I think behind it is this idea that we should only imitate
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  good things.
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  SPEAKER_00: Kurt Vonnegut,
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  SPEAKER_00: the American writer,
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  SPEAKER_00: said,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are what we pretend to be,
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  SPEAKER_00: so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think Plato is really picking up on this,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is that we don't just imitate people in real life.
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  SPEAKER_00: We imitate them in stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then if you write from the perspective of somebody,
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  you take on that perspective and then you pass that perspective
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  on to the people
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  SPEAKER_00: that inhabit that art as well.
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  So I don't think he's saying we shouldn't create art or we
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  shouldn't imitate at
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  SPEAKER_00: all,
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  SPEAKER_00: but rather we should only imitate the good.
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  Because if we imitate the bad,
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  in some sense,
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  we're scaling that for other people to do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Plato looks at this as the degradation of Greek society.
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  SPEAKER_00: that the more we imitate bad people, the worse it gets.
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  We have actually an interesting example of this in our own
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  society with social media.
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  SPEAKER_00: My own kind of social media conspiracy theory,
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  which is the algorithm creates people who are popular at the
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  top of social media.
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  SPEAKER_00: So people are good at hacking the algorithm,
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  SPEAKER_00: like Mr.
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  SPEAKER_00: Beast or something like that,
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  SPEAKER_00: become very popular and successful.
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  But then because of their popularity and success,
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  other people then imitate them below them.
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  SPEAKER_00: So you end up with this kind of mimetic...
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  process of imitation defined by the technology in a recent book
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  cognitive gadgets
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  oxford psychologist cecilia hayes writes that we imitate high
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  status people we
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  imitate those who are successful and above us in order to try
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  and become successful
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  SPEAKER_00: like they are human beings are much more imitative than our near cousins
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  chimpanzees and apes we really imitate in order to bootstrap
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  ourselves to next
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  SPEAKER_00: level so
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  SPEAKER_00: I think Plato is aware of this imitation problem.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying culturally,
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  we should be very careful of the people that we make successful
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  and high status
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  SPEAKER_00: because they're really going to define where the society is going.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jake Paul and I show speed are essentially defining the next generation,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
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  SPEAKER_00: pretty terrifying.
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  SPEAKER_00: So after we've dealt with the problem of stories and with imitation,
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  they've agreed that stories are only going to be told about
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  good people with
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  SPEAKER_00: virtues that you want to emulate.
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  We move on to a more detailed account of what this educational
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  program is going to
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  SPEAKER_00: look like for the Guardian class.
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  SPEAKER_00: Socrates thinks of character musically, which is very interesting.
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  It's like he thinks the training in music is going to lead to
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  harmonious living.
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  They look at excessive desires as like rhythms and harmonies
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  that you don't want in
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  SPEAKER_00: your life or disharmonies.
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  He uses the example of excessive sexual desire as getting you
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  out of alignment.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's like a note that's played too much in an orchestra.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so unbalances the whole unison of the orchestra harmonizing together,
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  which is obviously Plato has an account of a person as being
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  made of many parts.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so justice, which we'll discuss later,
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  SPEAKER_00: is a kind of inner harmony between all of these parts.
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  SPEAKER_00: So excessive desires,
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  SPEAKER_00: disordered desires,
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  SPEAKER_00: our emotions upset this inner harmony and rhythm and lead to vice,
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  SPEAKER_00: essentially,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the corruption of character.
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  SPEAKER_00: The point of musical education is to promote balance,
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  SPEAKER_00: harmony,
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  SPEAKER_00: self-discipline,
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  SPEAKER_00: and really living well.
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  SPEAKER_00: That to live well is to live musically.
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  The end of this training in music and poetry is that one ought
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  to love the fine and
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  SPEAKER_00: the beautiful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Excessive love of things like sexual desire,
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  SPEAKER_00: money,
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  SPEAKER_00: kinds of idolatry really,
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  SPEAKER_00: lead to a disordered way of living,
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  SPEAKER_00: disordered harmony.
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  SPEAKER_00: The training in music teaches you to love what's fine and beautiful,
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  SPEAKER_00: true and good,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that's the best way to live.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the other half of the educational program,
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  which is firstly train the mind with the music and then with
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  poetry and stories,
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  SPEAKER_00: is that the body has to be trained.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Plato is pretty clear here.
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  SPEAKER_00: He recommends a kind of Spartan training regime.
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  SPEAKER_00: He argues that we won't need medicines if you're fit and healthy.
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  People should be concerned with training physically and doing
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  physical labor and so
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  SPEAKER_00: that they won't become slovenly and
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  SPEAKER_00: disordered and that won't lead to vice and the collapse of the state.
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  He does argue against excessive care of the body that the
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  health overall of the
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  SPEAKER_00: soul is more important than the health of the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: You should prioritize your character over your body.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking again of a lot of Instagram people who want to just
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  look really good and once i look good that's enough even though
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  if you take
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  anabolic steroids and you become a terrible person and you're
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  angry and violent
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  it's like you might look physically really good but your
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  character is falling apart
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  play love saying that character is far more important than how
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  your body looks
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  SPEAKER_00: So by 410C,
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  SPEAKER_00: we really have an overview of this educational program,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is about a counterbalance.
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  It's a moral education meant to create harmony between
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  different parts of the person.
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  SPEAKER_00: He thinks too much physical training will make you savage.
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  SPEAKER_00: Too much music and poetry makes you soft.
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  So you need a mix of both warrior training and literary
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  artistic training to get a
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  SPEAKER_00: well-rounded person that they counterpoise each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: Music trains the mind, physical training shapes the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: The goal of the educational program is the overall shaping of the soul.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a moral education.
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  SPEAKER_00: that shapes the whole person.
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  And as Plato points out,
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  you can't have education without an account of what a person
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  should be.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is what the virtues are, really.
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  SPEAKER_00: In Plato's case, wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.
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  Those cardinal virtues form an ideal character,
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  which is what a person should be.
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  Plato really sees Socrates as embodying these virtues and hence
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  being the kind of
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  SPEAKER_00: ideal figure for people to aim to be,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is why he's the main character of his dialogues,
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  SPEAKER_00: because he's trying to make him the new Achilles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now that we have the educational program laid out for the guardian class,
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  SPEAKER_00: which are the warrior class,
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  SPEAKER_00: in this training,
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  SPEAKER_00: you'll identify the best of the best,
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  SPEAKER_00: the masters of music and poetry and physical training.
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  The best ones are going to be picked out and they're going to
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  become the rulers of the city.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be the highest class ones.
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  And Plato proposes a series of tests for them,
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  tests of strength,
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  tests of wit.
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  SPEAKER_00: These are going to be the people in charge of the city.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be the governors, the rulers.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's always this question of who watches the Watchmen.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you have dictators,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you have tyrants,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you have people in charge,
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  SPEAKER_00: who's in charge of them essentially?
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  SPEAKER_00: And Plato wants this educational program to be in charge of them.
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  SPEAKER_00: He thinks if you educate them properly,
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  they'll be subject to the values and truths they learn in their
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  education,
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  SPEAKER_00: the musical way of living.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that this will filter down,
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  SPEAKER_00: that they'll be the best,
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  the best of the best in the education and therefore the best
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  and the best in
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  SPEAKER_00: ruling.
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  He adds other constraints to them as well in that they're meant
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  to be aesthetics.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're not paid.
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  They can't own property because all of these things hold the
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  potential to corrupt
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  SPEAKER_00: the governors and the rulers into becoming oligarchs or tyrants.
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  And so Plato really wants to avoid that because he wants these
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  rulers to be philosopher kings.
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  which we'll really get into by chapter five is where we go into
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  detail in the
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  SPEAKER_00: Philosopher Kings.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're meant to know the truth,
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  SPEAKER_00: and they're really meant to be lovers of truth and lovers of wisdom,
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  which is a very interesting kind of aristocratic leader that
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  Plato proposes.
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  SPEAKER_00: But these rulers now,
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  SPEAKER_00: so we have three classes,
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  SPEAKER_00: the producer class at the bottom,
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  SPEAKER_00: the warrior class in the middle,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then we have this ruler class at the top.
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  SPEAKER_00: So three classes in this Platonic ideal society.
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  And with these three classes,
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  Plato proposes a founding mythology for the ideal city.
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  Basically that you're going to tell them a story and you're
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  going to tell them this
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  SPEAKER_00: story in order to bind them together.
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  And the story is that they're all born from the ground and
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  hence all related to one another.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they all have a shared origin, essentially.
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  And when they're born from the ground,
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  each has a bit of metal in their soul.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some have gold metal, some have silver, and some have bronze.
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  SPEAKER_00: The gold ones are going to be the rulers,
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  SPEAKER_00: the silver are going to be the warriors,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the bronze are going to be the producers.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to say, like, the Greeks don't believe in equality.
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  SPEAKER_00: Equality wasn't a Greek thing at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is why they invented the Olympics.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Greeks are all about the best, and...
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  SPEAKER_00: They assume a natural inequality.
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  SPEAKER_00: Probably Plato's biggest weakness,
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  SPEAKER_00: I would say,
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  SPEAKER_00: is his kind of assumed inequality of people,
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  SPEAKER_00: really.
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  He couldn't dream up the kind of Christian,
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  everybody being made in the image of God.
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  Although he does get closer than anybody else got,
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  I would say,
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  in his civilization.
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  SPEAKER_00: But for the Greeks, inequality is assumed.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's assumed some people are going to be slaves,
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  SPEAKER_00: some people are going to be masters,
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  SPEAKER_00: some people are going to be the best,
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  SPEAKER_00: some people aren't.
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  This would have made more sense in their society than to our
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  modern years.
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  So this is the founding mythology,
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  and you're going to raise them with this mythology.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is why it's called the noble lie,
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  SPEAKER_00: because it's like,
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  could you tell this lie in order to have this kind of absolute
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  societal order,
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  SPEAKER_00: basically?
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  SPEAKER_00: And he's proposing it as a very questionable thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of the thought experiment of the city itself.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so he's asking the question of, would this work?
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  SPEAKER_00: And he's hitting on something really important,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we'll see throughout the founding of the city,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is that a big problem for ancient Athens was tribalism,
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  SPEAKER_00: feuding families,
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  SPEAKER_00: feuding houses,
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  SPEAKER_00: feuding wealthy people.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so having this origin story of a shared origin together,
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  shared roles that you play in society that are essentially
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  fixed with some small,
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  he does allow for some movement between it in terms of you
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  could have a silver
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  SPEAKER_00: that's born to the bronze class,
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  SPEAKER_00: or you could have a gold that's born to a silver family,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then in which case they need to move up.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about it within the training,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: it's actually really rooted in their personality,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: in their character,
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: into what jobs they're actually suitable for.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then the caste system is imposed on top of that.
• 13:53
  But this is Plato's way of making sense of how to have an
• 13:56
  ordered society.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you remember what we said before,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: which is once you have a perfect society,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: any change is degeneration.
• 14:03
  So once you have perfection,
• 14:04
  if you change perfection,
• 14:06
  it only gets worse.
• 14:07
  Plato's trying to make,
• 14:08
  in his mind,
• 14:09
  the perfect society,
• 14:11
  this aristocratic thing.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't want it to change.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: He wants it to be solid.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Our idea of meritocracy, of people moving up and down,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: would be too chaotic, essentially.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: He wants this perfect, almost frozen society.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because, again, this isn't meant to be realized in reality.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is meant to be an image,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: a standard,
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: a normative measure which we can employ to understand the ideal.
• 14:34
  Some important features of the noble lie are that Plato demotes
• 14:37
  the Homeric heroes,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: like Achilles,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: to silver.
• 14:40
  and then moves the masters of education,
• 14:43
  the philosopher kings,
• 14:44
  the rulers to the top.
• 14:46
  So he's really done that move where he's putting Socrates above
• 14:49
  Achilles here.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: From this kind of three-tiered society structure later,
• 14:53
  Plato will define all of the other political structures that he
• 14:57
  pulls out.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Aristocracy, which is where gold rules silver, which rules bronze.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Timocracy, which is where silver rules above everybody else.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oligarchy, which is where bronze rules.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Democracy, which is where everybody's just on a flat plane.
• 15:13
  And then tyranny is the bronze,
• 15:15
  the person of desire who is just in charge of everything else.
• 15:19
  So this is really a very ingenious system that Plato lays out
• 15:22
  that will help us
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: understand not just the other political situations,
• 15:26
  but this is also where we get the tripartite psyche from that
• 15:29
  we're going to see in
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: chapter four.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So join us for the next one.