Language, Politics and Order in Plato’s Political Thought: A Study of Four Platonic Works Russell K. Bentley Submitted for the degree of Ph.D., University of London London School of Economics & Political Science April 1995 UMI Number: U615783 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615783 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 7215 \ l £ o 7 g 2 , f To every complex problem there is a simple solution; and it is wrong. - H.L. Mencken Table of Contents A bstract ..............................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements.........................................................................................2 Introduction........................................................................................................... 4 Summary.................................................................................................... 4 M ethod .....................................................................................................7 Scope........................................................................................................ 8 Section Summaries.....................................................................................1 1 Section One: The Creation of Order in the Protagoras................................2 1 Summary.................................................................................................... 2 1 Introduction................................................................................................2 1 Crafts and Analogies............................................................................2 6 Protagoras...................................................................................................4 5 The Opening Scene ............................................................................... 4 9 The Great Speech .................................................................................. 62 Poetic Interpretation ...........................................................................7 6 Conclusion............................................................................................... 8 6 Section Two: Speech, Truth andPower in the Gorgias............................8 8 Summary.................................................................................................... 8 8 Introduction................................................................................................8 8 The Legitimate Use of Power ............................................................9 2 Gorgias....................................................................................................... 9 8 Polus...........................................................................................................11 3 Callicles....................................................................................................121 Conclusion............................................................................................... 141 Section Three: Political Order and Collective Morality in Republic 1...............................................................................................................143 Summary.................................................................................................... 143 Introduction................................................................................................144 Political Foundation and Constitutions ...............................................150 The Rule of Force .................................................................................. 159 The Rule of Dogma ............................................................................... 168 The Mytho-Poetic Inheritance .................................................. ............... 17 9 The Flight from Association ...............................................................192 Conclusion............................................................................................... 217 Section Four: Order and Self-Revelation in the Phaedrus........................220 Summary.................................................................................................... 220 Introduction................................................................................................2 2 0 The Dramatic Setting (227a-230e) .....................................................240 Lysias’ Speech .........................................................................................2 5 3 The First Interlude (234c-237b) ...................................................... 260 Socrates’ First Speech (237b-241d) .................................................268 The Second Interlude (241d-243c) ..................................................277 Socrates’ Second Speech ...................................................................... 281 An End to Speeches - Dialectic, Rhetoric and Soul .......................295 Conclusion................................................................................................ 3 1 6 Conclusion........................................................................................................... 317 Bibliography of Works Cited ................................................................................ 3 2 5 Other Works Consulted ................................................................................... 335 Abstract This thesis is an examination of Plato's Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic I, and the Phaedrus. The focus is on Plato's political thought and my aim is to examine politics and language within the context of Plato's belief in and desire for order. I try to show how he connects the way language is used with the political life of a community. I argue that he identifies a link between the stability of a political association and the uses, and users, of language. Given his fundamental belief in a metaphysical order, existing beyond and prior to human existence, I argue that Plato seeks to anchor language and politics, to rationalise them in accordance with the the universal harmony characterised by the Forms. In making this argument I try to show that, for Plato, the spread of order logically culminates in a harmonisation of the physical and metaphysical. So much is this so, I claim, that the stability of order in any sphere of human existence depends on the existence of order in all other spheres. Thus, an orderly political association, one organised in accordance with Platonic moral principles, simply cannot exist if the language its members share does not exhibit the very same order. Psychological order is the avenue through which the metaphysical order enters human affairs. Given the Greek assumption that life in the polis is the natural life for man, examination of the human psyche becomes for Plato also an examination of communal, or associative, living. The moral as intrinsically part of the political. Plato is concerned with both the quality of the association and the quality of its mode of interaction. Both politics and language must be harmonised to ensure a concordance between human existence and the metaphysical order in which Plato believes. 1 Acknowledgements It is harder at this stage to determine who or what does not merit acknowledgment than to determine who or what should be acknowledged. It seems to me that even a minor change in circumstances or acquaintances would have resulted in a profoundly different thesis. Such a belief is impossible to validate, but I am able to see in these pages the influences of certain people and certain events that helped make it what it is. A number of individuals have read parts of this work at various stages of completion. Professor Janet Coleman, my supervisor, has read it in its entirety at a time when it was all but complete. Throughout the exhilarating ordeal of writing the thesis, she has been the very picture of encouragement and support. If she can recognise herself in these pages, it will confirm how much I value her advice and friendship. Matt Matravers, Vittorio Bufacchi and Duncan Iveson have been boon companions during the last four years. They have listened, read and argued the^ way only true friends can. I thank them for all they have done for me and for all I have learned from them. If that learning does not appear clearly in this work, I can only blame it on my failure to pay sufficiently close attention. It may be a mitigating factor that much of the learning occurred in the pubs around the LSE. 2 Finally, I must acknowledge the LSE itself. The Government Department at the LSE concentrates these days on contemporary political philosophy. My anomalous position as an historian of political thought has given me insights into the vast, but not unbridgeable, space existing between the ancients and the moderns. If anything, this has underscored for me the need to do history as part of a well-rounded approach to political theory. On