An outstanding new book by Angie Hobbs, Why Plato Matters Now, shows the central importance of this thinker from almost two and half thousand years ago. Plato’s first lesson is how democracy can be subverted by demagogues, false facts and false logic to make disastrous decisions.
In the fifth century BC a single city in Greece left an extraordinary legacy to the world: great tragic and comic drama, architecture, realistic representation of the human body, history, philosophy and democracy. But it was because of the weakness of its democratic model that Athens lost the great Peloponnesian War to its rival Sparta.
It was also because of the weakness of its mass democratic jury system that the greatest moral thinker of the age, Socrates, was condemned to death by a witch hunt.
His pupil Plato writes early in the next century after these disasters, so his view of democracy is naturally somewhat tainted!
His work is pivotal in the transition from the worship of the many powerful but amoral Gods of Greek paganism to the notion of a single source of order and goodness in the cosmos. In other words the move to religious monotheism, expressed first as philosophy.
When Socrates in his prison cell is offered the chance to escape his death sentence, he refuses in order to preserve his integrity and respect for the law. This model of a good moral leader accepting his unjust fate influenced the later narrative around the death of Jesus Christ.
Why Plato Matters Now
Professor Hobbs’ brilliant and lucid analysis of Plato’s thought explores both the moral and political sides of his theories. Some of Plato’s ideas and dramatic images can seem a bit bonkers and they have often been denounced for promoting the worst kind of religious excesses, namely the idea that the Body and its desires are bad and the Spirit alone is good. This is reflected in the Catholic doctrine of original sin.
Professor Hobbs shows that Plato’s theory of human psychology is actually far more subtle and includes a vital component of erotic, physical love.
Our current world has been destabilised by the return to Might is Right ethics espoused by Donald Trump. He is an archetype of the kind of charismatic demagogue who can get elected by populist, emotive tactics and hate speech.
In Plato’s Republic there is a character Thrasymachus who challenges Socrates with the argument that to behave “justly” is a sign of stupidity. He claims that laws are only created to support the interests of the ruler or ruling oligarchy. It follows that there is no reason to obey the law, if you can get away with it! It’s every man for himself.
Socrates’ response is influenced by Greek advances in mathematics, geometry and the discovery that harmony in music and in architectural proportions has a mathematical basis. He concluded that we live in an orderly, logical universe and wise people should use their reason to align themselves with this cosmic order.
Plato proposes a triple structure of the human psyche or soul, paralleled by a triple class structure in his ideal state. This theory is used by Socrates, to defend the moral belief that to behave justly is really the wisest course. This is because behaving badly or cruelly does more harm to the psyche of the aggressor than to the victim.
The three parts of the human soul are said to be Reason, the Emotions with their desire for approval and prestige, and the Appetites – for physical pleasures and money. All three are necessary and required in life, but Reason needs to be in overall control to ensure that the three elements of human beings can work in harmony.
This triple framework later influenced Sigmund Freud in his theory of the Superego, the Ego and the Id. He recognised that it is precisely the suppression of awareness of the ID, and its sometimes dark and infantile fantasies, that can be the cause of mental illness.
Why Plato Matters Now
On the political level in his ideal city, Plato proposes a governing class of philosophers or wise experts who are not allowed to own property!
The second level of society are the Guardians, serving as the military and police to ensure the stability of the state.
The third element are the farmers and commercial trades people, each working at what they do best to supply the city’s needs.
To produce good citizens there is an elaborate system of education. Apart from maths, there is athletics, music and the arts, and this is available equally to men and women.
Elements of this utopian state could be described as fascist. But for Plato the worst outcome is tyranny, by one man or a group of self-seeking individuals. He explains how easily democracy can be subverted and become vulnerable to takeover by a ruthless demagogue (like Adolf Hitler.)
He has also been criticised for suggesting there should be censorship of the arts. This would apply where art works could corrupt the human spirit by glorifying immoral behaviour. Today’s parallel might be violent video games or toxic material and disinformation on social media.
Angie Hobbs suggests that Plato’s political theory in The Republic is best seen as a distant ideal to aspire to rather than an immediate practical proposition.
Again his aim is to establish a harmony between the three main social classes, so that they can work together. He is in favour of national solidarity and cooperation rather than a perpetual class conflict.
Why Plato Matters Now
Another vital element in Plato’s though is Eros, the divine spirit of love. This is seen as a key stepping stone to wisdom. In the famous Symposium dialogue, the priestess Diotima outlines a theory of the Ladder of Love.
On the lowest rung, the lover of another man or woman is inspired to express their feelings of awe and admiration in the face of beauty and their own physical desires.
Next they move on to appreciate the beauty of the psyche of their beloved – their character and emotions and inner life.
Finally, Diotima claims, the lover can progress to an appreciation of universal beauty and goodness, a transcendental state.
This may seem unrealistic to us. But the image of the ladder of love recognises that our physical appetites and emotions can provide the energy for our social actions and ideals and potential wisdom.
Again Freud was influenced to come up with the theory of sublimation of desires, energising people to work and achieve in new directions. Think how many artists have appealed to a lover as a muse, to inspire them to creation!
Plato offers a vision of morality based on the lifelong refinement of the human soul. He presents this as a philosophical system, not a religious narrative requiring blind faith. He shows that moral progress includes our emotions. It is linked to human love and our sense of what is fine and beautiful and desirable. This is an essential engine of improvement both for ourselves and our society.
Finally Plate argues that if we can achieve the poise of the charioteer, sustaining a balance and harmony between our reason, and the twin horses of the emotions and appetites, we can find a path to mental freedom. That means freedom from the tyranny of anxiety, anger and terror.
We cannot control the world, but we can gain greater control of our minds and emotions. We do this by honest interrogation of ourselves and understanding ourselves more deeply.
If we can achieve harmony in our psyche, we will be better able to deal with our human mortality, which means that eventually we will lose all the people and things we love and our own lives. Like Socrates we may learn to meet these crises with greater calmness and acceptance.
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One aspect of Plato’s thought that is little dealt with in the book is his myth of The Cave. This compares mankind to prisoners shackled in the back of a cavern. They see shadows on the wall created by people walking outside carrying emblems representing concepts like Truth and Justice. The prisoners mistake the shadows for the reality.
At first sight this is an extreme case of idealism, claiming that the objective everyday world is not real – only the world of the mind and spirit truly exists.
Another more interesting way to look at this myth is to compare it to Buddhist ideas, contemporary with Plato. Perhaps in our everyday lives, buffeted by addictions to coffee, alcohol, sex, our smart phones, popularity, money etc – perhaps we have to admit that we too are often divorced from the important realities of our existence?
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Why Plato Matters Now by Angie Hobbs, Bloomsbury £16.9
A thought-provoking article about what is clearly, for me, anyway, a must-read book. I have often thought that Christianity’s debt to Platonism has been down-played, possibly because of the dangerous flirtation with Gnosticism in the centuries when the “core theology” was being consolidated.
It’s very interesting to see Platonic ideas influencing Freud. Jung was similarly influenced, and perhaps that is every bit as important for current thought? I shall clearly have to read the book to find out if Jung features!
Thanks for alerting us to this very interesting set of ideas.
Being honest, Jung is barely mentioned in this book. I loved the clarity of Angie Hobbs’ analysis, and understanding for the first time why Plato linked individual human virtue with his ideal city. I was specially impressed with Socrates’ idea of the psyche, as a human soul (or character) having 3 dimensions, which need to be in harmony. And the insight that when you injure someone else deliberately, the damage to your own “soul” or psyche is likely to be greater than the damage to the victim.