Some of the criteria for the "perfect state" that are presented in this book are quite disturbing. For example...

If you read all the way through to the metaphysics in the books V-VII, you get to the conclusion that the trust in the state to use all its power for good rests on (besides the properly educated guardians) a philosopher-king with an understanding of the form of the good.
Decide for yourself if there even is a form of the good, or whether it is percievable by anyone at all. The pain about Plato is that the possibility of his state all rests on a highly controversial metaphysical/epistemological question. Plato's answer is that to see the form of the good is possible but difficult - not something everyone can do.

Plato is all about the dialectic, not about forming concrete conclusions. Plato isn't trying to create a practical constitution for the state, but show how justice would look in to macrocosm (the state) in order to relate it to the microcosm (the man). So the philosopher king controlling the guardians who watch over the craftsmen is an allegory for the rational mind which guards the passions which rule the base desires. Even then, like in other dialogues (e.g. Euthyphro) Plato doesn't intend his answers to be final, but as a starting point for the continuation of the Socratic dialogue.

>The pain about Plato is that the possibility of his state all rests on a highly controversial metaphysical/epistemological question.

Which is...?

to be honest, this.

>sweety
Definitely a redditor

Why are they disturbing?

He literally said it in that post

Why do you think they're unjust? Emotional response isn't an argument

What did Plátōn think about Black Lives Matter?

He would've hated them. Would've probably been browsing /pol/ today if he were still alive

good job on taking the initiative

>killing deformed children
>this is somehow a bad thing

''In France, paternity tests are illegal.''

That's not good.

Consider the Socratic Method. Socrates never really truly refutes his opponent's claim, he simply points out inconsistencies between what they say and how they act, and also that they hold commonly held opinions and have not really thought about the question at hand (Hippias Major). From this we know that Plato wanted to make better men, virtuous men.

All of Plato's dialogues serve the moral purpose of making you think and engaging in philosophical reflexion. The dialogues form helps this.

As for The Republic, remember that it's one of his longest and it covers many things. It originally starts with the problem of defining Justice, and whether it's superior or not to Injustice. Plato defines the ideal state for its own purpose, but also to serve the definition of Justice for the individual man. (When he critiques the various forms of state, he critiques the states themselves but also the typical man that inhabits them)

It's true some aspects of his ideal state borders eugenics (the killing of deformed children, the controlling of who has sex with whom, not allowing children to know their real parents, et cetera), but also remember The Myth of Er, at the end. If virtuous souls are more likely to choose lives that suits their virtues, then it becomes a sort of Platonic predestination.

What this user said answers a good portion of your question I think.

>My question is: do you believe Plato truly thought these to be good ideas, or was he merely entertaining them to craft his hypothetical "ideal state"? I am asking because it seems like only a seriously ill mind can conceive of these ideas as being in any way just.

I think all the talk about philosopher kings in the Republic is for the sake of the initial argument, which was to discover what justice is, and is therefore only a thought experiment.

>the killing of deformed children
We call this abortion today

>some parts of it, at least
Scandinavia is exactly three countries, care to elaborate?

>I am asking because it seems like only a seriously ill mind can conceive of these ideas as being in any way just.
Not an ill mind, but any mind concerned with the ground of justice, which, at least with respect to the city (as opposed to justice in the individual where it's the well-ordered soul) injustice seems to be, which is a big part of his political point. You might find exceptions in history, but most cities and societies are founded on acts of injustice excused for some greater good, including, stupidly enough, justice.

Recall how the injustices related to the founding of the city begin. You have the first city, which Socrates calls the "city in truth", and it's very basic. The issue arises because Glaucon registers an indignant complaint, i.e., where are all of the relishes to make life good and enjoyable? Not just "treats" in the way of food (as Socrates playfully and knowningly amends to his city), but things like couches and tables? And further, matters such as honors or rewards or being distinguished as an individual? For those things, you need at least more resources, which means more land, which means taking the lands of a neighboring city, which means through an injustice such as war.

A big part of the argument is to offer a clear-eyed assessment of political idealism. Mind, a critique could always be said to be implied, but Plato is at the least saying that the perfectly just city requires initial acts of injustice in a number of ways, regardless of whether he's condemning or condoning political idealism.

What in the text indicates that the philosopher-king and his relation to the guardians and craftsmen is an allegory? If you're taking it to stand in for the tripartite soul, what do you do for those passages where Socrates says outright that the account of the soul is inadequate and that there's a "longer way" which seems to be different from what's presented?

Fuck. is painfully correct in that you have basically ignored every single commentary on Republic ever, because this question crops up for exactly the reasons you stated in every general secondary source on Republic. Read some essays on it.

This. A lot of difficulty understanding the Greeks (e.g., "why was Achilles being such an indignant shit") is cleared up when you stop projecting your own values onto people who lived 2500 years ago.

Great response, and totally accurate within the scope of Republic (and so this thread), but it's important if not immediately relevant to note that

>the possibility of his state all rests on a highly controversial metaphysical/epistemological question. Plato's answer is that to see the form of the good is possible but difficult

does not hold true after Republic. "Laws" repeatedly and explicitly reveals a different perspective on what man, constrained by human nature, is capable of; the city of "Laws" is the "second-best" city in place of the effectively unrealizable "best" city (i.e., that of Republic), and hence is instead based on legislation. The apparently lingering influence of the "philosopher king" role which sticks around in the Nocturnal Council is harshly diminished from what the philosopher-kings of Republic were tasked with, and, furthermore, the Council itself is caught in a catch-22 where a properly functioning Council can only be constituted by an existing properly functioning Council.

Yes and no. There's a whole spectrum between "Republic was only a psychological treatise" and "Republic was only a political treatise" and scholars have spent thousands of years occupying different parts of the spectrum and arguing their positions, and they continue to do that to this day. For example, some argue what you did: that the allegory is entirely an allegory; but some argue that political structures ARE being established, but that those structures are NOT the end in themselves, but are instead directed to (politically) creating a state whose true end is capability of philosophy.

pls read republic
pls read the post you quoted
fuck

>it becomes a sort of Platonic predestination.

Yes and no. Plato isn't quite that clear about "predestination," and if you think about it, "predestination" precludes the sort of personal agency of moral improvement which Socrates has aimed to encourage in his speaking partners. If you're interested, read Halliwell's essay "The life-and-death journey of the soul: myth of er" in the cambridge companion to the Republic. It's

>the killing of deformed children
Literally nothing wrong with this, especially before they could detect these deformities prior to birth and abort.

>That's not good.

Why not?

The insistence that one's children be one's genetic offspring is thoroughly tribal.

>Scandinavia is exactly three countries, care to elaborate?

Sweden, for one.

>"Laws" repeatedly and explicitly reveals a different perspective on what man, constrained by human nature, is capable of; the city of "Laws" is the "second-best" city in place of the effectively unrealizable "best" city (i.e., that of Republic), and hence is instead based on legislation.

Do people actually need this spelled out?

I thought it was common knowledge that the Republic is Plato's ideal/utopia, whereas Laws is essentially the reality.

>The insistence that one's children be one's genetic offspring is thoroughly tribal.
That's true, there's nothing wrong with raising children that aren't genetically your own, but you're not obligated to do so. Paternity tests save men from raising children they don't want to and aren't obligated to.

>Paternity tests save men from raising children they don't want

And why not?

Some sort of tribal/primitive insistence that the child be partly comprised of his own genetic material, perhaps?

It's funny that many who insist that genes have little-to-no effect upon how a child turns out, will nonetheless insist that their child be a carrier of their genes. They can't seem to decide of genes matter or not.

My point was that Republic was not written as a "mere utopia," i.e., a utopia which can never come to be, and that it shows a lot of evidence that Plato, when writing it, thought it realizable (hence the "difficult but not impossible" empowering of philosopher kings), and only when he changed his mind did he write Laws with a different twist.

Si it's not like the same Plato with the same beliefs decided to write about an impossible mere utopia, and then write something "realistic." In both republic and laws he establishes what he, when writing, believes to be the best POSSIBLE state.

>In both republic and laws he establishes what he, when writing, believes to be the best POSSIBLE state.
Is it not plausible that he wrote both works while containing the same beliefs, i.e., their differences are in part accountable by the difference between a regime and body of laws, and further, the differences between Socrates speaking with a group of politically ambitious young men, and speaking with very old Dorians?

>The longer way is the upbringing and education prescribed by Republic. By definition we are not capable of the longer way.
What indicates its impossibility to you?

there's still some aristotle you haven't read

do that instead

Socratic method time

>Killing of deformed children.

What gives you the right to determine the life or death of a sovereign individual. Do you follow Machiavellian ethics and believe that the only purpose of the individual is to serve the power of the state? If so, who determines that keeping deformed children alive is a detriment the state? Perhaps a society that enforces that you wlll be taken care of regardless of stature would be more significant? And in Platos ideal government, wouldn't all aristocracies eventually be perverted to oligarchies? What prevents oligarchies from only serving their best interest? How would you keep your oligarchy a meritocracy?

>The controlling of who has sex with whom

Do you believe in eugenics? Again, why is this the responsibility of the state? Is the only means of an individuals life to serve as a vassal for the state?

>Not allowing children to know their real parents

This is founded purely on the belief that the state knows better than the individual. This implies directly that families are not the core foundation of any state, which Aristotle disagreed heavily with.

>tl;dr

Plato was a fucking nerd that spent all day writing fanfics about Socrates which you can read clearly in the republic. The motivating factor behind much of his work was the trail and execution of socrates so he unapologetically spent a long time putting together half-baked ideas in which the execution of someone like socrates would never happen.

there's literally nothing wrong with any of those things.

cont...

Read a real philosophers works, like Aristotle. The only thing that i even slightly disagree with him about is his heavy stance on empiricism vs rationalism but only in the sense of the true nature of knowledge (see argument over the second degree of thermodynamics, for example.)

In respects to the first one, your projecting how or society works onto their society. 2400 years ago it was much harder to provide for deformed children than it is now.

>Socratic method time

Were you reading him upside down?

>real philosophers are who I agree with

That's true. But, if someone wanted to care for a deformed child and they had the capability, is it so wrong that they would?

I've read some analysis, not my original thoughts mind you, that a majority of the influence behind the republic was because of how Sparta operated as opposed to Athens where this book was written. Essentially, his thoughts were that is sparta could have a system of government that produced the best warriors the world had ever seen, why would he not create a government that create the greatest philosophers the world has ever seen?

tl;dr he was trying to find a way to force morality and virtue on people, which is impossible. see marcus arelius's son.

What?

They are "real" philosophers, just shit ones. Like nietzsche.

There was nothing Socratic about your method.

If you think the Socratic method is just asking questions ad nauseum, you have a lot to learn kid.

>you have a lot to learn kid.

Not an argument

pic related

>I've read some analysis, not my original thoughts mind you, that a majority of the influence behind the republic was because of how Sparta operated as opposed to Athens where this book was written. Essentially, his thoughts were that is sparta could have a system of government that produced the best warriors the world had ever seen, why would he not create a government that create the greatest philosophers the world has ever seen?
That analysis isn't wholly wrong, but it's very partial and assumes more than what the text says in taking Plato to be merely conjuring a work in support of Spartan institutions and the Spartan way of life, both of which are critiqued directly and indirectly at various points in the dialogue.

>Not an argument
Almost like how your use of "Socratic method" wasn't a use of Socratic method.

Aside from not letting kids know their parents at one time or another most of the shit in the Republic was practiced somewhere in the world known to the Greeks. Shit, killing sufficiently deformed infants was the practice in most of the ancient world, the Spartans were only infamous for it because they were more selective than most.

>socrates
>preventing half-baked ideas

please.

>investing resources to raise another man's child
We have a word around here for people like that

>It's funny that many who insist that genes have little-to-no effect upon how a child turns out, will nonetheless insist that their child be a carrier of their genes
nobody said a single thing about that.
As to why they wouldn't want to raise them, think about this. You marry a woman and the child comes out looking nothing like you. You have a test done and it turns out it's not your child. If you're ok with your partner lying and cheating then I guess it doesn't matter.

...

I don't understand why Plato establishes that the arts (with specific reference to medicine) are performed in the interest of the subject, and then suggests euthanasia. This seems like a contradiction, as he recommends this in the interest of the state. Can someone who actually knows what they are talking about explain?

Sorry, I said euthanasia, where I meant eugenics

>i'm a woman, i like to read!
You've got to stop, leave.

Something like justice is having your proper role in the state in the same way that your soul is in the proper order, and that this will ultimately lead to more good for the subject.

If you look at the deteriorating states they all follow the line of weaker generations giving in to their vices, and the only reason this happens is because the guardians fuck up and let an inferior person come to rule so they will give in to their vices and lead the state to ruin.

Eugenics only matters for the guardians since they are the ones who keep society in proper order. If you get shitty guardians through biology or through education, then your state will fail.

>They are "real" philosophers, just shit ones. Like nietzsche.

Yeah, very disturbing.

You might even call it "problematic" and "toxic".

babies can't feel pain

I suppose that the basic form of the argument might be the mutual benefits of the city and individual in functioning in harmony, with the greatest good for the individual being a well-ordered soul, and for the city being the proper functioning of its classes. If an individual is of such a nature that the city can't help them, nor they the city, then I suppose the argument might be that it is a greater good for them, with respect to their soul, to be put to death?

A question I have, if anyone could help with it. How does the myth at the end of the Republic work, both by itself, and with the other parts of the Republic, like the critiques of poetry?

Learn how to read Plato faggot