the order of the state by all three classes. Justice, dikaiosyne, is the principle that makes
this temperance possible; it is the extension of the principle of the division of labour
upon which society is based in the first place, the principle whereby each class fulfils
its own function without trespassing on the functions of the other two.
The nature of the state reflects the nature of the individual writ large. The
individual soul is made up of three parts, corresponding to the three classes in the
state: the rational part, the spirited part and the appetitive part. The wisdom of the
individual resides in the rational part, courage in the spirited part and temperance in
the harmonious relation between the three parts, specifically in the way in which the
lower parts consent to the rule of reason. A comparison may be made here with the
famous passage in the Phaedrus (253d–255) in which the division of the soul into three
parts is represented by a charioteer driving two horses, one noble, the other wanton,
each pulling in opposite directions. Justice in the individual, as in the state, is the
principle whereby each part of the soul fulfils its own function without interfering with
the functions of the other two. Justice is therefore the harmony and health of the soul.
Plato’s idealism in the Republic leads him to a very negative view of the existing
form of democracy. Indeed he has been seen as the enemy of liberal and humani-
tarian ideals and the prophet of totalitarianism. After he has established the philo-
sophic state based on the rule of reason, Socrates in Book Eight distinguishes four
kinds of unjust states, each representing a progressive decline, as the rule of reason
is usurped by the lower elements in the psyche. First comes timocracy, meaning the
rule of honour (the Spartan state is an example), in which the spirited element rules
without the tempering guidance of philosophy. Then comes oligarchy, the rule of the
few, in which honour has given way to the love of riches as the ruling principle. The
people rebel in the name of liberty and equality, but democracy inevitably degener-
ates into anarchy and licence where the lowest elements of the psyche predominate.
Democratic man becomes a prey to extravagant and unnecessary appetites, living
from day to day and satisfying every whim without any ruling principle. A faction-
ridden democracy easily degenerates into tyranny, where all are enslaved to the
ruling passions of a single man. In the allegory of the cave, the clear allusion to the
death of Socrates associates the democracy of his day with brutal ignorance from
which Plato recoiled, but which was also the spur that led him to conceive the Republic
and his other Socratic dialogues as a defence of all that Socrates had lived and died
for. The writing of these dialogues itself exemplifies the moral duty that Plato laid
upon the philosopher to descend again into the cave for the purpose of attempting
conversion of the ignorant rather than being content to cultivate his own garden or
rest assured within the walls of an enlightened Academy of his own making.
Equally notorious is Plato’s hostility to poetry, though he himself has always been
considered to be the most poetical of philosophers, a judgement arising from the
harmony and proportion of his prose style, which is enriched by the imaginative
PHILOSOPHY 201