Aristotle on Plato's Republic VIII-IX: Politics V. 12, 1316A1-B27

polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought 35 (2018) 374-400 brill.com/polis Aristotle on Plato’s Republic VIII-IX: Politics v. 12, 1316a1-b27 Mor Segev Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, FAO 226, Tampa, FL 33620, USA [email protected] Abstract Toward the end of Politics V. 12, Aristotle criticizes Plato’s discussion of political change in Republic VIII-IX. Scholars often reject Aristotle’s criticism, especially because it portrays Plato’s discussion, allegedly unfairly, as developing a historically testable theory. I argue that Aristotle’s criticism is adequate, and that the seriousness with which he considers Plato’s account of political change as an alternative to his own is both warranted and instructive. First, apart from criticizing Plato’s account for its historical inaccuracies, Aristotle also exposes theoretical insufficiencies and internal inconsistencies within it. Second, Aristotle’s criticisms of historical inaccuracies in Plato’s discussion of political change are not misdirected, since there are reasons to think that Plato does intend that discussion to accord with the historical facts. Keywords Aristotle – Politics – Plato – Republic – political change 1 Introduction Toward the end of Politics V. 12, Aristotle criticizes Plato’s discussion of political change in Republic VIII-IX. This criticism is often taken to be unjustified or misdirected on several points. In particular, it has been suggested that Aristotle unfairly portrays Plato’s discussion as developing a substantive and historically testable theory of political change, similarly to Aristotle’s (but inferior to it), © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/20512996-12340190Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 09:02:29PM via free access Aristotle on Plato’s Republic VIII-IX 375 whereas Plato’s purposes are in fact entirely different.1 Indeed, as I shall show in section 2 below, Plato makes it clear that his account of political change is intended to establish a fact not so much about politics at all, but rather about human psychology – it is intended to show that cultivating justice in one’s soul is preferable for the individual over the alternative. Political history seems to be beside the point. However, Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato’s account of political change should not be so readily dismissed, or so I shall argue (in sections 3-6 below). First, these criticisms do not merely challenge the historical accuracy of Plato’s account. Aristotle argues, further, that Plato’s account in Rep. VIII-IX suffers from both theoretical insufficiencies and internal inconsistencies. Second, Aristotle’s charge of Plato’s account of political change as being historically inaccurate should be taken seriously as well. Even though it is not Plato’s only or even primary concern to present a correct or complete account of political change, there are reasons to think that he would neverthe- less wish for his account to be historically accurate, and that failing to do so 1 W. L. Newman (comm.), The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887-1902), vol. 1, p. 519: ‘The Republic, we feel, has a great practical end in view – to recall the State and the individual to a right view of the importance and nature of Justice – and we can forgive it, if in its language on the subject of constitutional change it to a certain extent sacrifices historical accuracy. Aristotle, however, who is often a somewhat unsympathetic critic, loses sight of this, and bluntly enumerates the points in which Plato’s account of the subject falls short’; D. Keyt (trans. and comm.), Aristotle Politics Books V and VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), pp. 186-7: ‘This criticism [here, specifically Aristotle’s criticism in Pol. V. 12, 1316a17-39 of Plato’s proposed pattern of political change in Rep. VIII] seems misguided. For clearly Plato was not writing as an historian when he composed Book VIII of the Republic … In con- structing it [sc. his sequence of political change] Plato had his eye, not on the constitutional history of historical cities, but on various configurations of the parts of the soul’; R. Polansky, ‘Aristotle on Political Change’, in D. Keyt and F. D. Miller (eds.), A Companion to Aristotle’s Politics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pp. 323-345, p. 343: ‘The attack on Plato is really a defense of the scientific standing of Aristotle’s work. Aristotle merely uses Plato’s text as a foil (even straw man) for defending his own approach. He knows Plato’s intention in the Republic was not a comprehensive analysis of political change, but avails himself of this entertaining way to secure his own position’. See also J. Adam, The Republic of Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), ad VIII. 543a; R. L. Nettleship, Lectures on the Republic of Plato (London: Macmillan and Co., 1922), pp. 295-6; S. C. Skultety, ‘Delimiting Aristotle’s Conception of Stasis in the Politics’, Phronesis, 54 (2009), pp. 346-70, p. 363 (see below). P. L. P. Simpson adds that Aristotle could have himself recognized and appreciated Plato’s (psychological, or at any rate non-historical) purpose of proposing an account of political change, and that his criticism could be addressing ‘certain students of the Republic’ who adopt the problematic ‘empirical way of reading the Republic, whether it was the way Plato intended or not’ (P. L. P. Simpson, A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998], pp. 417-18). Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from35 (2018) Brill.com09/27/2021 374-400 09:02:29PM via free access 376 Segev would compromise his overall project in various ways. I survey Aristotle’s different types of criticism of Plato’s Republic VIII-IX, viz. charges of theoretical insufficiencies, detection of internal inconsistencies, and criticisms concerning historical inaccuracies. I show that these criticisms are adequate, and that, furthermore, the seriousness with which Aristotle considers Plato’s account of political change as an alternative to his own is both warranted and instructive. 2 The Plan of Plato’s Republic VIII-IX At the end of Republic IV (444e-445e), Socrates returns to the challenge put forth by Glaucon in Book II (357a – ff.), and which prompted the discussion in the ensuing parts of the dialogue – he sets out to establish that justice is preferable over injustice in every way. Glaucon retorts that this task has already been accomplished. At this point in the dialogue, Socrates has already delineated the nature of justice. He has also shown that justice is analogous to health, which grounds, to his interlocutor’s satisfaction, the status of justice as a good of the highest kind, which is also preferable over its contrary in every conceivable way. Socrates, however, insists on continuing the discussion, so as to establish its conclusions as clearly as possible (ὅσον οἷόν τε σαφέστατα) (445b5-7). In particular, Socrates sets out to distinguish between five different types of constitution (corresponding to five different types of human soul [445c-d]) – one of which (viz. the kallipolis) is ‘good’ and ‘correct’ while the others are ‘bad’ and ‘misguided’ (Rep. V, 449a) – and to explain the way in which these change from (and into) one another (449a-b). The purpose of Books VIII-IX is to supply such an account, after the topic has been diverted at the beginning of Book V by Adeimantus and Polemarchus (449b). Socrates is clear on the point that accounting for the good and just constitution (and soul-type) and comparing it to bad and deviant ones is intended to settle the issue concerning the preferability of justice over injustice, so that ‘either, being persuaded by Thrasymachus, we shall pursue injustice or, [being persuaded] by the argu- ment which is now forthcoming, [we shall pursue] justice’ (VIII, 545a-b). To the above end, Republic VIII-IX describe in detail the way in which the ‘good’ and ‘correct’ constitution mentioned in Book IV (viz. the kallipolis) deteriorates into progressively worse and more misguided ones (first into a timocracy, then an oligarchy, a democracy and, finally, a tyranny). They also describe, in detail, a parallel process of deterioration in the types of soul corresponding to those constitutions. Indeed, establishing the comparison between these different types of soul seems to be the primary concern of the discussion, since it is the main purpose of Books VIII-IX (as it is, in a sense, of the Polis, The Journal for Ancient Greek Political ThoughtDownloaded from35 (2018) Brill.com09/27/2021 374-400 09:02:29PM via free access Aristotle on Plato’s Republic VIII-IX 377 Republic as a whole) to determine whether an individual person should pursue justice over injustice, and why. The primary reason why the discussion of soul- types is accompanied by a discussion of types of constitution is that, as we are already in a position to know based on the ‘letters analogy’ of Book II, the (moral) character of cities is both more clearly given than, and once given is then indicative of, that of the human soul (545b-c). As to be expected, the discussion in Rep. VIII-IX reveals that the most just constitution and soul-type are also the ones in the most desirable state. Of the remaining constitutions and soul-types, the more a constitution or soul is unjust the less desirable its state, culminating in tyranny and the tyrannical man, who is a miserable person (e.g. VIII, 567e-568a). By the end of Book IX it is concluded, in large part on the basis of the process of political change and the corresponding process of deterioration in the soul, that ‘indeed in every way he who praises just things speaks the truth, whereas he who [praises] unjust things speaks falsely’ (589b8-c1).

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