9) Philosophers and their Relation to the Political Community

Political Philosophy
Course: An Introduction to Plato’s Republic
Class 9: Philosophers and their Relation to the Political Community
Professor: Jonathan Culp, Ph.D., Director of International Studies & Associate Professor, University of Dallas
Course Description:
The purpose of this class is to introduce students to Socratic-Platonic political philosophy through a careful study of Plato’s most comprehensive work, the Republic. Commonly known as a book outlining a political utopia, Plato’s Republic is in truth a comprehensive reflection on the nature of the human soul, its longing for justice, and its place within the whole. The Republic is also complex, elusive, and often outrageous. In the course of reading the Republic, we shall consider many of the crucial questions it presents to us: What is justice? Is it good to be just? What is the best form of government? the best education? the best way of life? What are the obstacles in the way of these things? What is truth and how do we find it? We will read the Republic slowly and carefully and contemplate Plato’s responses to these questions.
Class 9:
In this class, Dr. Culp investigates Socrates’ account of the nature of philosophers, and of the philosophic enterprise, and the relationship between philosophers and the political community. Philosophers are described as being wholly devoted to the pursuit of truth (as opposed to opinion), which turns out to mean they are devoted to attaining knowledge of the “Forms” or “Ideas” of things. Socrates provides a sketch of the Forms, emphasizing their eternal, unchanging, and immaterial character. Dr. Culp next discusses Socrates’ account of the superior virtue of philosophers (which entitles them to rule the political community), and Socrates’ response to Adeimantus’ claim that no philosophers would seem to have the kind of virtue Socrates describes. In the course of his defense of philosophers, Socrates delivers a number of stinging criticisms of ordinary political life and suggests that true philosophers wish to avoid public life altogether. Socrates then goes to assert that political communities could be persuaded to accept philosopher kings, but Dr. Culp suggests that Socrates knows this claim is not really true.