Posci 4 Study Guide 1 - Review material for the final PDF

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Review material for the final...

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POSCI 4: Study Guide 1

From the Republic: * Why did we say that it’s a utopian treatise? * Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus * What each represents * Their arguments regarding justice * How Socrates refutes their arguments * Glaucon and Adeimantis * Who are they? * What do they want from Socrates? * Why are they so important? * What does each suggest that a city needs? * Why does Socrates that they look for justice in a city? * The Allegory of the Metals (AKA the noble lie) * What are the parts of the allegory? * What is the point of the allegory? * The Ship Allegory * Who is the ship’s owner? * What is the condition of the ship owner? * Who is the crew? * How does the crew treat the ship’s owner? * The Tripartite Soul * What are the three parts? * How do the three parts reflect the three classes of people in the Callipolis? Values to be found in the city: * * How is courage connected to wisdom? * How is moderation the unifier of the city? * What does justice do? From the Defense of Socrates: * Know the context, and why it is so important. * What is Socrates charged with? * Know Delphic quest, what Socrates is trying to prove, and why it is significant. * Do you agree with the verdict? Why or why not? From our discussion on Aristotle and his Politics: * Differences between Aristotle and Plato * Our discussion on the keys to understanding Aristotle: * Teleology: What is it? Why is it so elemental to understanding Aristotle? * Relationship: How is it connected to teleology and Aristotle’s justification for slavery? * Hierarchy: How is this connected to teleology? * What is ‘man’s’ telos? What is the proof of this? * What is the city’s telos? * Know the steps that Aristotle goes through when showing the stages of the city?

* What are the just constitutions and the unjust constitutions that Aristotle discusses? Why are the unjust ones seen as unjust? Why are the just ones seen as just? In a ‘constitutional government’ what is the final sovereign? * * Terms: * Epistemology * Objective justice * Sophism * World of the forms * World of particular things * Universals * Callipolis * The 30 Tyrants * Tripartite soul * Moralistic fallacy

Passages: For complete answers, you’ll want to know the author, the reading, the context, what the author is communicating.

From the Republic: * (590d) ...we believe it to be better for everyone to be governed by a wise and divine power, which ought, if possible, to be seated in the man’s own heart, the only alternative being to impose it from without; in order that we may be all alike, as far as possible, and all mutual friends, due to the fact that we are steered by the same pilot... And this... is plainly the intention of law... which consists in withholding [the people’s] freedom, until the time when we have formed a constitution in them… * (346 e) ...no one will voluntarily take office, or assume the duty of correcting the disorders of others, but that all ask wages for the work, because one who is to prosper in his art never practices or prescribes what is best for himself, but only what is best for the subject, so long as he acts within the limits of his art; and on these grounds, apparently, wages must be given to make men willing to hold office, in the shape of money or honor, or of punishment, in case of refusal. * (351 e) Supposing...that injustice has taken up its residence in a single individual, will it lose its proper power...? ...And does not its power appear to be of such a nature as to make any subject in which it resides, whether it be a city, or family, or army, or anything else whatsoever, unable to act unitedly, because of the divisions and quarrels it excites; and moreover hostile both to itself and to everything that opposes it, and to the just? ...Then if it appears in an individual also, it will produce all these its natural results: in the first place it will make him unable to act because of inward strife and division; in the next place, it will make him an enemy to himself… * (413 e) …just as young horses are taken into the presence of noise and tumult, to see whether they are timid, so must we bring our men, while still young, into the midst of objects of terror, and soon transfer them to scenes of pleasure, testing them much more thoroughly than gold is tried in the fire… * (434b) ...when one whom nature has made a craftsman...is elated with wealth, or a large connection, or bodily strength, or any similar advantages, as to intrude himself into the class of the warriors; or when a warrior intrudes himself into the class of the…guardians, of which he is unworthy, and when these interchange their tools and their distinctions, or when one and the same

person attempts to discharge all these duties at once, then, I imagine, you will agree with me, that such change and meddling among these will be ruinous to the city. * (519 e) …law does not ask itself how…one part of a city is to live extraordinary well. On the contrary, it tries to bring about this result in the entire city — for which purpose it links the citizens together by persuasion and by constraint, makes them share with one another the benefit which each individual can contribute to the commonwealth, and does actually create men of this exalted character in the city, not letting them go each on his own way, but by using them to make a beginning towards binding the city together. The Defense of Socrates: * (17a) I don’t know how you...have been affected by my accusers, but...I felt myself almost transported by them, so persuasively did they speak. And yet hardly a word they have said is true. Among their many falsehoods, one especially astonished me: their warning that you must be careful not to be taken in by me because I am a cleaver speaker. It seemed to be the height of impudence on their part not to be embarrassed at being refuted straight away by the facts; once it became apparent that I was not a clever speaker at all -- unless...they call a ‘clever’ speaker one who speaks the truth. If that is what they mean, then I would admit to being an orator, although not on a par with them. * (29d) I have the greatest fondness and affection for you, fellow Athenians, but I will obey my god rather than you; and so long as I draw breath and am able, I shall never give up...philosophy, or...showing the way to any of you...by giving my usual sort of message. “Excellent friend,” I shall say; “You are an Athenian. Your city is the most important...for its wisdom and power; so are you not ashamed that, while you take care to acquire as much wealth as possible, with honor and glory as well, yet you take no care or thought for understanding or truth, or for the best possible state of your soul?” And should any of you dispute that, and claim that he does take such care, I will not let him go...but I will question and examine and put him to the test; and if I do not think he has acquired goodness... I shall say, “Shame on you, for setting the lowest value upon the most precious things, and for rating inferior ones more highly!” That I shall do for anyone I encounter… * (29e) At this point…fellow Athenians, so far from pleading on my own behalf, as might b supposed, I am pleading on yours, in case by condemning me you should mistreat the gift which God has bestowed upon you — because if you put me to death, you will not easily fin another like me. The fact is…I have been literally attached by God to our city, as if to a horse — a large thoroughbred, which is a bit sluggish because of its size, and needs to be aroused by some fort of gadfly. Yes, in me, I believe, God has attached to our city just such a creature — the kind which is constantly alighting everywhere on you, all day long, arousing, cajoling, or reproaching each and every one of you… I dare say though, that you will get angry, like people who are awakened from their doze… You could happily finish me off, and then spend the rest of your life asleep. From Politics: * (1253a25): The virtue of justice belongs to the city; for justice is an ordering of the political association, and the virtue of justice consists in the determination of what is just. * (1253a25): We...see that the city exists by nature and that it is prior to the individual. For if the individual is not self-sufficient when he is isolated he will stand in the same relation to the whole as other parts do to their wholes. The man who is isolated who is unable to share in the benefits of political association, or has no need to share because he is already self-sufficient, is no part of the city, and must be either a beast or a god…

* (1279a8)...Those constitutions which consider the common interest are right constitutions... Those...which consider only the personal interest of the rulers are wrong constitutions, or perversions of the right forms. Such perverted forms are despotic; whereas the city is an association of freemen. * (1281b21) ...a city with a body of disfranchised citizens who are numerous and poor must necessarily by a city which is full of enemies. The alternative left is to let them share in the deliberative and judicial functions. * (1282a41) Rightly constituted laws should be the final sovereign… The one clear fact is that laws must be laid down in accordance with constitutions; and if this is the case, it follows that laws which are in accordance with right constitutions must necessarily be just…...