Interpretation A JOURNAL A OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Fall 1993 Volume 21 Number 1 Carl Page The Unnamed Fifth: Republic 369d Patrick Coby Socrates on the Decline and Fall of Regimes Books 8 and 9 of the Republic Gulliver' Richard Burrow s Travels: The Stunting of a Philosopher Book Reviews Charles E. Butterworth AIf Layla wa Layla, The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy Michael P. Zuckert The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution, by Steven M. Dworetz Charles T. Rubin Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, by Arne Naess Lucia Boyden An Index to Interpretation, Volumes 11 Prochnow through 20 Interpretation Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens College Executive Editor Leonard Grey General Editors Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974) Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. 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(718)997-5542 Interpretation Fall 1993 Volume 21 Number 1 Carl Page The Unnamed Fifth: Republic 369d 3 Patrick Coby Socrates on the Decline and Fall of Regimes: Books 8 and 9 of the Republic 15 Richard Burrow Gulliver's Travels: The Stunting of a Philosopher 41 Book Reviews Charles E. Butterworth AlfLayla wa Layla, The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy 59 Michael P. Zuckert The Unvarnished Doctrine: Locke, Liberalism, and the American Revolution, by Steven M. Dworetz 67 Charles T. Rubin Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, by Arne Naess 73 Lucia Boyden An Index to Interpretation, Volumes 1 1 Prochnow through 20 81 Copyright 1993 - interpretation ISSN 0020-9635 The Unnamed Fifth: Republic 369d Carl Page Emory University Halfway through Book II of Plato's Republic, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adei speech" mantus embark upon their famous construction of a "city in (369c). Their aim is to read the idea of justice off the scrutable face of the city as an alternative to having to fathom the obscurer depths of men's individual souls (368d-369a). Full development of the city in speech occurs in a series of dis tinguishable phases, culminating in the program of education that Socrates pro poses for his philosopher-kings at the end of Book VII (521c-540c). Of the many transitions that mark the overall development, two stand out for being the only ones marked by a dramatic interruption of the conversation. The one is occasioned by Glaucon in Book II (372c) and the other by Adeimantus (on behalf of Polemarchus) at the beginning of Book V (449b). Groundwork for the city in speech begins with Adeimantus and runs through two stages before Glaucon interrupts. The second, elaborated from 370c-372b, produces a model "healthy" "truthful" city that Socrates soon calls and (372e), while the very first city" stage of the construction is dubbed "the most necessary (he anagkaiotate (andres)" polis) and it is made up "from four or five men (369d). As it hap city" pens, the very brief account of skills demanded by "the most necessary had included only four by name: the arts of the farmer, the housebuilder, the weaver, and the shoemaker. In light of the procedurally crucial resolve to spell out their city with the largest, clearest, most discernible alphabet possible, the casualness of this "four five" or at the very outset appears arbitrarily vague; there is no evident reason for allowing the outlines of the model city to become blurred so early on. Still worse, however, is the oxymoronic conjunction in exactly the same Socratic necessary"five." breath of "most and "four or Is the fifth needed or not? What sort of superlative necessity can they have discovered, if Socrates is unable even to count the number of occupations essential to "the most necessary city"? Socrates' These two observations suggest that mention of a fifth man is not embellishment. It is some casual slip of the tongue or thoughtless momentary too logically embarrassing or ridiculous for that. The unnamed fifth, therefore, presents a puzzle that calls for interpretation. Why should he (Socrates does say could unnamed function be? andres) have been mentioned at all? What his Socrates' Adeimantus happens to make no comment about the oddities in most would be made from four or summary statement that "the necessary city interpretation, Fall 1993, Vol. 21, No. 1 4 Interpretation men" Socrates' five (369d). Were it not for the fact that interlocutors are so often represented as only partially understanding the force and direction of his questioning, this might be some ground for dismissing the need to interpret the Socrates' unnamed fifth. More importantly, though, remarks do not have to be meaningful in the context of his immediate conversation in order for them to be meaningful at all. Not only in the particular case of the Republic is there an audience represented within the dialogue, there is also the audience beyond the dialogue for whom Plato has constructed his monologic text. Moreover, it is to this latter level that all intradramatic speculations must eventually be referred. I have already given two reasons for supposing that at least Plato intended the unnamed fifth to be noticed, whether or not it could also be said that Socrates was tacitly addressing others in the dialogue or saying more than he knew "own" Adeimantus would understand for reasons of his own where has only dramatic meaning. My aim in what follows is to confirm that the unnamed fifth was meant to be noticed and to show that it is worth noticing, by deriving directly from the document entitled Republic the means for articulating its larger contextual significance. Plato's dialogues are full of the quirkiest details. Hermeneutic response to such details varies along a continuum from impatient dismissal to sycophantic obsession. While I intend to pursue an expansive rather than lean interpretation of the unnamed fifth, there is in this case an obvious deflationary (though not dismissive) reading that in the interests of moderation needs to be considered first. It will turn out to be not so much incorrect as inadequate. Socrates' Here is the entire discussion leading up to summary characteriza city" tion of the "most necessary at 369d: S. "Well now, first and greatest of our needs is the provision of food for the sake living." of being and A. "Absolutely." S. "Second is the need for housing, and third the need for clothing and such things." A. "That's so." then," S. "Come I said, "how will the city be up to such provision? How else but that one be a farmer, another a housebuilder, and some other a weaver? Or shall we also install there a shoemaker or some other caretaker of bodily things?" A. "Quite." men." S. "So the most necessary city would be from four or five A. "Apparently."' Socrates' countdown of needs stops at three: food first, shelter second, then things" "clothing and such third. There is some vagueness built into the last of The Unnamed Fifth: Republic 369d 5 these needs, and it seems to be the ground for the question of whether the enumeration of skilled men corresponding to them should be extended to in things." clude "a shoemaker or some other caretaker of bodily Although the caretaker" (tin' "other is not named, he is different allon) and therefore counted separately from the shoemaker, in the same way that the weaver is "some other" (alios tis) in relation to the farmer and housebuilder. The named occupa "four" Socrates' tions may reasonably be taken to correspond to the of sum things" mary, which leaves "some other caretaker of the bodily as the obvious candidate for the unspecified fifth. Whatever else may be said about this, the number of human occupations in other words, the character of human life even in the most necessary city is underdetermined by the number of man's "three" basic needs.