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The Philosopher and the Cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Dale Hall
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Extract

This Note is a supplement to J. C. Davies's discussion of the Republic's declaration that when the philosophers of the kallipolis have been trained in dialectic, they must be compelled to forsake pure contemplation of the forms and return to the Cave to rule (519 c–520d).

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , October 1978, pp. 169 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1978

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References

NOTES

1. ‘The Philosopher and the Cave’, G & R 24 (1977), 23–8.Google Scholar

2. Other passages also use the language of constraint and necessity (499 b–c, 550 d, 539 e, and 540 a) or refer to the philosophers' reluctance to rule (520 c–521 b and 540 b).

3. Cf. Davies, , loc. cit. 23–4.Google Scholar

4. e.g. see Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960), pp. 290–2Google Scholar, and Aronson, S. H., ‘The Happy Philosopher–A Counter Example to Plato's Proof’, JHPb 10 (1972), 383–98.Google Scholar

5. Strauss, L., The City and Man (Chicago, 1964)Google Scholar and Bloom, A., The ‘Republic’ of Plato, Translated with Notes and an Interpretative Essay (New York and London, 1968)Google Scholar. For another of the same school see: Rosen, S., ‘The Role of Eros in Plato's Republic’, Review of Metaphysics 18 (1964–1965), 452–75.Google Scholar

6. Strauss, , op. cit., p. 138Google Scholar, and Bloom, , op. cit., pp. 343, 408, and 410.Google Scholar

7. See especially 484 c–d, 500 d, and 501 b.

8. In particular, see: Wolin, S., Politics and Vision (Boston, 1960), ch. 2Google Scholar; Leys, W. A. R., ‘Was Plato Non-Political?’, Ethics 75 (1965), 272–6Google Scholar (reprinted in Vlastos, (ed.), Plato, ii, Ethics, Politics and Philosophy (London, 1972), pp. 166–73Google Scholar, with an ‘Afterthought’, pp. 184–6) ; and Sparshott, F. E., ‘Plato as an Anti-Political Thinker’, Ethics 77 (1967), 214–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar (also reprinted in Vlastos, (ed.), op. cit., pp. 174–83).Google Scholar

9. For, as we have just said, the psyche, like the polis, achieves unity and eudaimonia only through the direction of reason.

10. Tr. Bloom, op. cit.