What are your thoughts on Plato? Do you see him as Popper argues, as the “father of totalitarianism”? Or in a different light? I think it should be interesting to see other libertarian views on this, as my mind is for the most part not completley settled on the issue yet.
I don’t see any reason to judge Plato as Plato throughthe Enlightenmnet nonesense lense. If you want to judge how the West fumbled around with his ideas after rediscovering him, that’s fine, the results are not usually pretty.
Pretty much. The Republic is pretty much a boring totalitarianism. Without art and very predictable.
Of course, some posit that it is a parody. But who knows. The rest of Plato is pretty much just too fantastical to even garner a second mention: the whole forms thing and his belief that language came from the Egyptian God Thoth. Didn’t seem like he cared much for how stupid it all sounded.
On the other hand, some of the Socratic dialogues can be brilliant and fun reads. Usually when they don’t relate to government. Namely Socratic questioning and not taking things for granted as knowledge. But remember that Socrates was probably killed for being an authoritarian, since he trained Alcibiades who then enslaved Athens for about a year.
Pretty much.
And yet we get histories of people being called Tyrants (in a negative way) and mythologies of tyrants long before Plato came about.
I’ve always thought The Allegory of the Cave to be a pretty good representation of libertarianism. The effects of trusting authority when people attain too much power over someone’s life.
EDIT: Now that I think it over, I guess it is kind of how you read it. It surely could be that Plato had meant it to demonstrate how people need the state to hide things that are too scary, sad, realistic, etc.
Plato had a big role in squashing the sound value-subjectivism and physical mechanicalism of Democritus, whose philosophy, if embraced, would have put both the humanities and the natural sciences ahead by many hundreds of years. Neoplatonism in late antiquity and Christian neoplatonism in the early middle ages kept the brightest minds in the west lost in the other-worldly fog of conceptual realism for centuries, until the fog was lifted by the Aristoteleanism of Peter Abelard and Scholasticism, and then the “neo-Democritism” of early-modern mechanicalism in natural philosophy (Galileo, etc) and late-modern subjectivism in the humanities (Menger, Mises, etc).
I’m currently taking a philosophy class and my professor wants to portray Plato as a pragmatist like Aristotle rather than an idealist. The ideal polis in the Republic is an analogy of justice in the soul ‘writ large’. The city also changes and eventually decays like everything else in space and time.
A lot of the discussions are attempts to draw grains of wisdom from Plato’s Republic where there are none, at least for me. Much of it seems obsolete to me, but that maybe because libertarianism makes me think in terms of policy prescriptions too much. I don’t know. If anything, it’s good to read Plato if you want to know the mentality of people at those times.
“Plato had a big role in squashing the sound value-subjectivism and physical mechanicalism of Democritus, whose philosophy, if embraced, would have put both the humanities and the natural sciences ahead by many hundreds of years. Neoplatonism in late antiquity and Christian neoplatonism in the early middle ages kept the brightest minds in the west lost in the other-worldly fog of conceptual realism for centuries, until the fog was lifted by the Aristoteleanism of Peter Abelard and Scholasticism, and then the “neo-Democritism” of early-modern mechanicalism in natural philosophy (Galileo, etc) and late-modern subjectivism in the humanities (Menger, Mises, etc).”
Lilburne, what books would you recommend in reading for Classical History and Philosophy? I have read a small bit of Plato as well as Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. However, I am having a Greco-Roman history class next semester, and would like to get a clearer view of the time especially one that I could ground and synthesize with Austrianism.
A History of Philosophy, Volume 1: Greece and Rome by Frederick Copleston.
Starting with the original authors and the old mythologies is usually a good start, just try to have an archaeological and/or empathetic cultural history book/ companion that isn’t too politically tinged to help you with your readings. Also what helps isLearning basic classical Greek grammar structure and 1000 or so vocab words wouldn’t hurt either.
What book(s) is the class using?
Lilburne, what books would you recommend in reading for Classical History and Philosophy? I have read a small bit of Plato as well as Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. However, I am having a Greco-Roman history class next semester, and would like to get a clearer view of the time especially one that I could ground and synthesize with Austrianism.
Here are my recommendations if you want contemporary summaries that read briskly…
- For the history of Greek philosophy, while I don’t agree with much of its analysis, The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb is brilliantly written, and a joy to read.
- Also splendidly written is Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, which has a chapter each on Plato and Aristotle.
- Another joy to read is The Children of Aristotle. This book has an excellent analysis of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, although much of it covers medieval philosophy, which is fascinating, but outside of your class’s topic.
- Another popular classicist with praise-worthy prose is Edith Hamilton. Start with her “Mythology”.
- And Cyril Robinson’s histories of Ancient Greece and Rome are pretty good.
If you want to get into history and philosophy source texts, start with the following…
Ancient Greece
- The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius
- The Apology, Symposium, and Republic of Plato
- Aristotle’s Politics, Ethics, Physics Book 2, and On the Soul
- Books 6 through 9 of the Histories by Herodotus
- Books 1, 2, 6, and 8 of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides.
- Plutarch’s Life of Alexander
- Polybius: as much as you can
Ancient Rome
- Livy’s books 1-3 and 21
- The Civil Wars by Appian
- Plutarch’s Life of Cicero
- The Conspiracy of Catiline by Sallust
- As much of Tacitus as you can
- Cicero: On the Nature of the Gods
- Lucretius: On the Nature of Things
And besides books…
- It All Began, As Usual, With the Greeks by Rothbard
- David Gordon’s lecture on the political philosophy of Aristotle
- In Search of the Trojan War and In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, two excellent BBC documentaries by Michael Wood
And I have 4 articles covering ancient Greek poetry from a Misesian perspective
- The Iliad and the Misesian Notion of “Ideological Might”
- Cosmology as Teleology
- The Epistemology of Revelation
- A Prelude to Natural Philosophy
Hope this helps.
btw, regarding Plato as the “father of totalitarianism”, the city-state of Sparta put totalitarianism into practice long before Plato, who was deeply influenced by the constitution of Sparta, ever extolled it in writing.
Lilburne, no Tacitus?
Oh he’s in there: look under Sallust.
Looks like good recommendations guys. I would post what books are being used in the course, though the website is down at the moment. In regards to the Plato and totalitarianism link, I initially got to thinking more about it, as a discussion I had with someone who felt that Plato could have a pro-liberty reading.
Whoops, I see him now. For the record, he is one of my favorite historians. As far as Sparta is concerned, there was certainly a segment of Greek intellectuals who happened to worship the Spartan myth, which is odd.
Archilochus’ short poems are a fun read from a jaded anti-ideologue warrior, if you want to study Greek poetry. And anything by Aristophones is well worth the read if you want to read Greek theater. Both are fun to look though from a libertarianesque eye.
That sounds great, I have a copy of The Clouds and Ovid’s Metamorphoses I bought from a thrift store a few months ago though haven’t read yet. In addition to taking the history class, I am doing a latin class as well which I hope will feed into the Roman literature a little bit.
In my opinion, the Sparta worship seemed somewhat reminiscent of 20th century intellectual’s and the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes. Though I should probably become better read before pontificating.
It’d be a pretty big stretch to give someone who advocated the banning of almost all poetry (the literature of the time), mandated communism among the ruling caste, and absolute occupational rigidity a pro-liberty reading.
As I wrote in another thread about a year ago…
Plato’s conception of the relationship between the state and the individual can be seen most vividly in the following passage from Crito. In it Socrates argues that he must not attempt to escape his forthcoming execution because of the rightful claim the state of Athens has over him. He does so via engaging in a pretend dialogue between himself and the state. I have enlarged the most important bits for those who don’t have time to read the whole thing.
Soc. Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: “Tell us, Socrates,” they say; “what are you about? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us- the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals?” What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out; and we might reply, “Yes; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence.” Suppose I say that?
Cr. Very good, Socrates.
Soc. “And was that our agreement with you?” the law would say, “or were you to abide by the sentence of the State?” And if I were to expressastonishment at their saying this, the law would probably add: "Answer, Socrates, instead of opening your eyes: you are in the habit of asking and answering questions. Tell us what complaint you have to make against us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the State? In the first place did we not bring you into existence? Your father married your mother by our aid and begat you. Say whether you have any objection to urge against those of us who regulate marriage?" None, I should reply. “Or against those of us who regulate the system of nurture and education of children in which you were trained? Were not the laws, who have the charge of this, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?” Right, I should reply. “Well, then, since you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you? And if this is true you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you. Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to a father or to your master, if you had one, when you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?- you would not say this? And because we think right to destroy you, do you think that you have any right to destroy us in return, and your country as far as in you lies? And will you, O professor of true virtue, say that you are justified in this? Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor,and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding? also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and if not persuaded, obeyed? And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country.” What answer shall we make to this, Crito? Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
Cr. I think that they do.
Soc. Then the laws will say: “Consider, Socrates, if this is true, that in your present attempt you are going to do us wrong. For, after having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good that we had to give, we further proclaim and give the right to every Athenian, that if he does not like us when he has come of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases (Lilburne’s note: perhaps the earliest “love it or leave it” argument) and take his goods with him; and none of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him. Any of you who does not like us and the city, and who wants to go to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, and take his goods with him. But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him. And he who disobeys us is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer and he does neither. These are the sort of accusations to which, as we were saying, you, Socrates, will be exposed if you accomplish your intentions; you, above all other Athenians.” Suppose I ask, why is this? they will justly retort upon me that I above all other men have acknowledged the agreement. “There is clear proof,” they will say, “Socrates, that we and the city were not displeasing to you. Of all Athenians you have been the most constant resident in the city,which, as you never leave, you may be supposed to love. For you never went out of the city either to see the games, except once when you went to the Isthmus, or to any other place unless when you were on military service; nor did you travel as other men do. Nor had you any curiosity to know other States or their laws: your affections did not go beyond us and our State; we were your especial favorites, and you acquiesced in our government of you; and this is the State in which you begat your children, which is a proof of your satisfaction. Moreover, you might, if you had liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment in the course of the trial-the State which refuses to let you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you preferred death to exile, and that you were not grieved at death. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no respect to us, the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or not?” How shall we answer that, Crito? Must we not agree?
Cr. There is no help, Socrates.
Soc. Then will they not say: "You, Socrates, are breaking the covenants and agreements which you made with us at your leisure, not in any haste or under any compulsion or deception, but having had seventy years to think of them, during which time you were at liberty to leave the city, if we were not to your mind, or if our covenants appeared to you to be unfair. You had your choice, and might have gone either to Lacedaemon or Crete, which you often praise for their good government (Lilburne’s Note: “Lacedaemon” is Sparta. This is an indication of Plato’s high esteem of the Spartan constitution. The Crete reference is also telling, because the Spartan constitution is said to have been based on the Cretan), or to some other Hellenic or foreign State. Whereas you, above all other Athenians, seemed to be so fond of the State, or, in other words, of us her laws (for who would like a State that has no laws?), that you never stirred out of her: the halt, the blind, the maimed, were not more stationary in her than you were. And now you run away and forsake your agreements. Not so, Socrates, if you will take our advice; do not make yourself ridiculous by escaping out of the city.
Dondoolee,
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound is also fun to “look through from a libertarianesque eye”.
Ovid is awsome, one of my favorite authors, and easily my favorite Latin poet (for me he works best if you see him as a mock epic poet).
That may not be a bad way to look at Sparta from a modernist perspective. By the intellectuals own words trying to glorify Sparta, they would say things along the lines of, to look at the city you would not think it wealthy, etc. Sparta was a sham (and much of the image was mythology) that still gets glorified to this day. In a way it is somewhat of the 1st flavor of crazy idealism that would dominate the west milleniums later, all style and no substance.
The best “Spartan flavored” Historian I can think of is Xenophon, while not a Spartan, he seemed to have Spartan sympathies. He is a good and enganging writer non the less though. There is not much primary sources for Sparta that I am aware of though. which in and of itself is telling.