Socrates' Views: Women, Family, State, Philosopher Kings

The Role of Women in a Just Society - Socrates “1st” wave - Women ought to share in instruction, performance of societal rules alongside men - Glaucon – Don’t women and men have a different nature? - Socrates replies - There is no occupation or societal role that inherently ought to be performed by one Sex or another - Not a difference of “nature”, but “strength” - Women ought to be able to partake in the same societal roles - Women who are physically weaker should engage in lighter aspects of the occupation - Supports co-education The Organization of the Family - Socrates views on education, occupation roles of the sexes very progressive for his time - Socrates then turns to “2nd wave” of his controversial argument - Want to produce the best citizens and guard against conflict - Brave, courageous, intelligent, skilled - Not lazy, wasteful, gluttonous, stupid - Need to replace the existing family structure with one in which the state is one’s Family Regulation of the Family by the State - Socrates “modest” proposals - Women shall be “common wives” of the men of society - Procreation and sex to be regulated by the state - Will need to engage in deception to accomplish this - “Unauthorized” children taken and abandoned - Children of the best citizens taken at birth and raised the city itself - Rigorous system of population control: punishment for “unsanctioned mixing” Between classes The Life of the Guardian and Ruling Classes - No private property – all they need will be provided by the state - Live in common dwellings together; Dine in mess halls together - Educated together - Existing family structure no longer exists - Socrates wary of the dangers which family and kinship introduce, possibility of factions - Desperately wants unity among powerful individuals within society – feels this is how We achieve it Obstacles to the Rule of the Philosopher - Adeimantus objects to this idea - Common people feel philosophers take advantage of them… they view them as Vicious eccentrics or depraved dreamers - Socrates - This is true – but this is because we live in unjust society - True philosopher – lover of wisdom - Philosopher is courageous, moderate, magnificent, intelligent, endowed with a Good memory - Task of the philosopher is make society realize that the only just society is the one Ruled by the philosopher king - Make them see the light The Return to the Cave - What would happen if a freed individual returned to the cave? - Laughed at, scorned, ridiculed - Would have to convince prisoners that all they knew and had ever known is false, Incomplete - In short, they’d be viewed as useless and vicious - Useless – their ability to make practical judgments within the cave is ruined - Vicious – seriously disrupting the social order, the accepted mode of thinking About what is real, what is true, what it means to possess wisdom - What does this sound like? The Rule of the Philosopher King - Plight of the freed prisoner much like the plight of the philosopher within an unjust society - Seen as useless, vicious - Authority is rejected - For this reason, philosopher likely to be skeptical about “returning to the cave” - Does not want to endure the hardship that is attempting to reform and alter And unjust society - He’d rather be lost in the realm of his own ideas - Socrates argues then that the “philosopher king” must be compelled to rule. We have To make him do this Socrates on the Proper Form of Government - Is Socrates a democrat? Does he have faith in popular rule? - What is Socrates favored form of government? - Basically an “aristocracy” - Not an aristocracy of the rich as we tend to use the term today - Although an aristocracy based on wisdom, the search for truth, the rejection Of falsehood and error - Those who are most wise and can see truth most clearly ought to be in charge - Although Socrates sees political history as cyclical – even the best government won’t Last forever