By Franz S. Klein
December, 2012
Since justice exists between individuals, it makes sense that Socrates and his
interlocutors in the Republic would, as they do, construct a city in speech to perceive more
clearly this central human virtue. One city becomes three in quick succession
as the city of utmost necessity, the “true” city, as Socrates terms it, gives
way to the city of luxury, the so-called “city of sows,” and finally to the
proposal of a moderate city governed by the guardians and the philosopher-king.
But underlying all the proposed cities, including the last, is Socrates’
proposition that one man ought to practice one art—that one man practicing one
art causes things to become “more plentiful, finer, and easier” (370b). The
proposition is readily accepted because the formation of a city automatically
leads to the need for things to be more plentiful. The farmer, for example,
must produce four times as much as he himself needs in the first city, the city
of utmost necessity, and far more than that as the city grows beyond its four
original inhabitants. It appears to be a matter of justice that he produce an
ever larger amount of food because the housebuilder, the weaver, and the
shoemaker are providing for all his other needs and require their own needs to
be met in turn. In justice the farmer owes them food, as they, in justice, owe
him a house, clothing, and shoes. The justice of the city, in other words,
calls for one man to practice one art so that he can give to the others what is
their due. On one hand, therefore, the proposition makes perfect sense. Leo
Strauss says, “In order to be as good as possible, the city must be united or
one as much as possible: every citizen must devote himself single-mindedly to a
single art… Justice is simplicity.”[1]
On the other hand, the proposition of “one man, one art” is troubling because,
to me at least, it seems unnatural. Let me hasten to note that others readily
accept the naturalness of the proposition. To give one example, John F. Wilson
reflects on Socrates’ division of labor as follows:
There is a perfect natural division of labor and thus a perfect
natural harmony, with each of us serving the needs of others by acting upon our
unique, and uniquely useful, natures. Everyone has his place in the overall
scheme, and that place is perfect for him or her. The human beginning is marked
not by cruel chaos, as Glaucon’s speech has implied, but by association.[2]
To qualify my initial feeling of unease, I should add that I am
far from denying that there is a basis of some sort for a natural division of
labor as Wilson, and Socrates, suggest. In a hunter-gatherer situation, strong,
young men might hunt while older men employ themselves with tasks like
preparing weapons and dressing the meat. In an agricultural community, men
might work in the fields while women stay inside to cook and to care for the
children. The stronger, in other words, are naturally fit for tasks that
require strength and endurance, while the weaker are fit for tasks matching
their natural capacity. As Socrates notes to Adeimantus, “[E]ach of us is
naturally not quite like anyone else, but rather differs in his nature;
different men are apt for the accomplishment of different jobs.”[3]
To this proposition,
Adeimantus rightly agrees. Different men are more inclined toward some tasks
than others. But Socrates takes things a step further, asking, “And what about
this? Who would do a finer job, one man practicing many arts, or one man one
art?”[4] Adeimantus chooses the latter, granting Socrates leave to give the
proposition its final form: “So, on this basis each thing becomes more
plentiful, finer, and easier, when one man, exempt from other tasks, does one
thing according to nature and at the crucial moment.”[5] In describing a
“perfect natural harmony,” Wilson must be presuming that it is a man doing a
single thing that is, for Socrates, “according to nature.” But Allan Bloom’s
translation is ambiguous on this point. Is “one man, one art” according to that man’s nature, as Wilson assumes, or does one man doing one thing
permit that man to do that thing according to that
thing’s nature? Other translations are less ambiguous than Bloom’s. Paul
Shorey translates the proposal, “[M]ore things are produced, and better and
more easily when one man performs one task according to his nature, at the
right moment, and at leisure from other occupations.” B. Jowett renders it,
“[A]ll things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality
when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right
time, and leaves other things.” Nonetheless, the Greek is ambiguous: “when a
certain man practices a certain thing according
to nature,” “ὅταν εἷς ἓν κατὰ φύσιν…πράττῃ.”
The insertion of “its”
instead of “his”—“when a certain man practices a certain thing according to its nature”—is both reasonable because of the context in which
Socrates makes this statement and dodges the problematic claim that “one man,
one art” accords perfectly with human nature. Socrates has just argued that a
man needs the freedom that having a single occupation gives him because the
thing to be done is not “willing to await the leisure of the man who does
it.”[6] The farmer, for example, must harvest his crops before the first frost.
The housebuilder cannot put up houses during the spring rains. The occupations
of farming and housebuilding have natures according to which they must be
carried out if they are to be, in Socrates’ words, “more plentiful, finer, and
easier.”[7] The farmer and housebuilder, on the other hand, must bend their
natures to the natures of their professions in order to meet the demands the
city places upon them in justice.
What difference does the
choice of possessive pronoun make? To start with, if I am wrong and Socrates is
in fact saying that one man ought to do one thing because it is his nature to
do that one thing, then he fails to support his claim. It is one thing to say
that people are naturally inclined to perform one job over another but another
to say that people are naturally inclined to perform a particular task—that
each person finds a “soulmate,” so to speak, in a particular vocational
activity and would be unhappy in any other vocational activity. It might be the
case that the city of utmost necessity, and each of the cities that follows,
requires its citizens to practice a single art out of justice to their fellow
citizens. But that is a different argument. The argument that one man ought to
practice one art because he is, by nature, inclined to do so is simply never
made. In fact, it appears to me to be unnatural to practice a single art
because it divorces one from the natural diversity of occupations that would
permit him to explore complementary strengths and to remedy areas of weakness,
achieving a sort of interior balance. Farming, for example, is an art that
might allow a man to better himself in some ways, but it might also keep him
from contemplation if it is all he does. The solitary life of the philosopher,
on the other hand, might lead to great insight into justice, but working with
his own hands might help the philosopher develop even greater insight. Cicero,
after all, says farming is the life of the true philosopher, the beautifully
cultivated fields and orderly olive groves being the places where justice is
most readily perceived.[8]
The second
interpretation—that a man ought to practice one thing according to its nature—better
fits the demands that justice places upon the inhabitants of the city of utmost
necessity, in which context Socrates has made the proposal. The farmer, for
example, must feed all of the city’s inhabitants out of justice because they
took care of his other needs. The housebuilder is fed and clothed and must
therefore provide shelter for his fellow citizens. If the farmer attends to the
nature of farming or housebuilder to the nature of housebuilding, the results
become “more plentiful, finer, and easier.” The farmer and housebuilder are
able to fulfill the demands the city places on them in justice. But even this
is problematic because, again, it means that the inhabitants must bend their
natures to the natures of their professions in order to meet the city’s just
but onerous demands. The problem that the second interpretation exposes,
therefore, appears to be with the city itself.
Is the unified city as
Socrates conceives of it, to use Strauss’ description, “good” for its
inhabitants? The answer is not to be found in the city of utmost necessity
because Socrates and his interlocutors quickly abandon that first city as being
impractical. The feverish quest to fulfill the onerous demands of justice and
to exploit the nature of the professions—for the farmer, for example, to get as
much food out of the ground and to feed as many people as possible—leads
to the addition of plowmakers, cowherds, and shepherds; then there need to be
merchants, sailors, and tradesmen. Finally, Glaucon’s perceived need for
relishes leads to the “city of sows,” the “luxurious city,” the “feverish city”
replacing the city of utmost necessity. Socrates accepts the transition to the
“city of sows” not because it is better—in fact, he sadly bids farewell to the
city of utmost necessity as having been the “true” and the “healthy” city—but
in light of the original proposition: to see “in what way justice and injustice
naturally grow in cities.”[9] He is accepting, in other words, that the city of
utmost necessity, in growing beyond necessity as the number of occupations
grows beyond the initial four, will not be content with the relishes of salt,
olives, cheese, and boiled onions. Glaucon had just prodded him, implying that
people will not be content with this rustic simplicity, “If you were providing for
a city of sows, Socrates, on what else would you fatten them than this?”[10]
The city of utmost necessity is necessitous of more than itself. It proposes a
self-sufficiency based on reciprocal justice but needs to expand as desire
exceeds the bounds of justice.
While “one man, one art” was
proposed as a means to fulfill the dictates of justice that the city of utmost
necessity places upon its citizens, it causes the city to outgrow itself
because it subjects the nature of man to the nature of his profession, chaining
him to an assembly line where he is obligated to churn out houses, food,
clothes, or shoes. Recognizing the need to dampen the desire fueling this
insatiable growth and making the demands of justice ever heavier, Socrates and
his interlocutors propose the moderate city governed by the guardians and the
philosopher-king. The guardians will be schooled in justice, living and eating
in common; they will practice the same gymnastics, listen to the same music,
and have relations with the same women. They will be denied money, possessions,
and all private property. “And thus,” Socrates says, “they would save
themselves as well as save the city.”[11] But the same problem besets the
guardians, at least, as beset the original city’s inhabitants. Although their
education is supposed to teach them justice, their natures end up being forced
into the unnatural mold of the new profession—that of guardians—that Socrates
and the others have devised for them. Aristotle’s famous critique of the Republic picks up on this:
Is it not obvious that a state may at length attain such a
degree of unity as to be no longer a state?—since the nature of a state is to
be a plurality, and in tending to greater unity, from being a state it becomes
a family, and from being a family, an individual; for the family may be said to
be more than the state, and the individual than the family. So that we ought
not to attain this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be the
destruction of the state.[12]
Aristotle’s complaint, Patrick Coby explains, is that the Republic’s institutions “impose a oneness of life and thought that
suffocates the individual and stifles his moral growth. Morality, Aristotle
believes, depends on diversity.”[13]
If Strauss is right that the Platonic dialogues “do not convey a teaching, but,
being a monument to Socrates, present the Socratic way of life as a model,”[14]
then perhaps Aristotle’s critique—and mine—are unimportant. Perhaps Socrates
never actually meant for his city to be enacted as such. Claes G. Ryn
summarizes this position succinctly:
Many of Plato’s admirers argue that his political scheme must
not be taken too literally. The Republic is not a roadmap for practical politics. It sets before us an
image of perfection, which, even if it cannot be realized, imparts the lofty
spirit of good. The main purpose of the Platonic ideal is to found justice in
the soul of the individual. And just persons may elevate politics.”[15]
For Ryn, however, the problem with the Republic is that the philosopher is asked to transcend everyday life,
rising above its obligations, duties, and demands, in order to establish
justice in his soul. He only returns to the worldly milieu grudgingly when it
is his turn to undertake, for a time at least, the distasteful task of ruling;
ordered as it is, the city is not so much just as it is the best situation for
the philosopher who is seeking justice for himself. But if Strauss is right,
then the focus should turn to Socrates’ interlocutors and to readers of the Republic. Are they, like the guardians and the philosophers of a city
that was apparently never meant to be, really made more just by participating
in the dialogue or by reading it? Does the Socratic way of life, in other
words, make them persons who will have the potential and the ability to elevate
politics? Or is Socrates guilty of the age-old charge of corrupting the youth?
Not
even Ryn is willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Speaking about
Plato’s and Aristotle’s twin emphases on the education of the young, he writes
that it is “entirely consistent to endorse this insight and to insist that the
two Greeks, especially Plato, do not sufficiently understand and appreciate
individual personhood and the need for individual freedom.”[16] Indeed. But one
might wonder if only the baby can be saved. To put it another way, could the
city of the Republic also be saved, not just the dialogue’s insight about the
importance of education? If so, then the necessary reconsideration would need
to begin with the foundational proposition of “one man, one art.” I wonder how
Socrates might have proceeded if Adeimantus had objected to this foundational
principle right away. After all, the ambiguity of the Greek text practically
begs Socrates’ interlocutors to press him on the point. If Socrates meant that
one man ought to practice one art according to that art’s nature, then
Adeimantus might have questioned the onerous demands of the city of utmost
necessity. Shouldn’t the nature of a city follow from the nature of man rather
than the other way around? Shouldn’t the situation that best cultivates justice
and equanimity within individual souls be the starting point for the collective
of individuals, not just the ending point for the fortunate few who are chosen
to guard the city? In any case, the city of utmost necessity and all the cities
that follow fall short in this regard in subjecting the nature of man to the
nature of his occupation. There are also grounds for reconsideration if
Socrates had meant, as so many translators have assumed, that a man ought to
practice one art according to his nature. Adeimantus could have challenged
Socrates on this too since it is evident that diversity in the soul, as well as
in the city, fosters right order and justice.
Justice in the soul, it
seems, is not simplicity. Perhaps if he were pressed, Socrates would have
acknowledged that such a diversity is a good—even a natural—thing. After all,
his vision of education presupposes just such a balance between music and
gymnastics for the guardians. Why would it be any different for the inhabitants
of the original city? Frederick Rosen makes the interesting point that “[o]nce
formed, a society by definition would be assumed to meet the basic needs of its
members.”[17] This is the underlying principle of justice that leads Adeimantus
to agree that each inhabitant of the city of utmost necessity must put his work
at the disposal of all in common. The farmer has the basic need of a house, the
housebuilder of clothing, etc. But need the farmer, in justice, submit to the
onerous demand that he provide all the food? Need the housebuilder build all
the houses? In short, the answer is no; it does not follow that the farmer
provide all the food because not only is the housebuilder capable of balancing
his main occupation with secondary occupations, but it might also be beneficial
for the housebuilder as a human being to foster this diversity among his
occupations for the justice and equanimity of soul that it will bring him.
Justice in the human soul is not simple, but complex. Socrates might note that
such a city, where people have more responsibility for their own basic needs,
would be less likely to expand so rapidly into the luxurious city because the
nature of the profession is secondary to the nature of the individual, but
recall his reluctance to leave what he called the “true” city. Indeed, if
justice can be readily perceived—and learned from—in this first city, then what
need have Socrates and his interlocutors—and Plato’s readers—of the city of
sows and the city conceived to moderate that city’s excesses?
Works Cited
Aristotle. Politics. In The Basic Works of
Aristotle. Translated by B.
Jowett. New York: Modern Library, 2001.
Cicero. On Old Age, On Friendship,
On Divination. Translated by W.A.
Falconer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Coby, Patrick. “Aristotle’s Three Cities and the Problem of
Faction.” The Journal of Politics 50, no. 4 (1988): 806-919.
Plato. Republic. In Five Great Dialogues
of Plato. Translated by B.
Jowett. New York: Classics Club, 1942.
---. The Republic of
Plato. Translated by Allan
Bloom. 2nd edition. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
---. Republic, With an
English Translation. 2 volumes. Translated
by Paul Shorey. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.
Rosen, Frederick. “Basic Needs and Justice.” Mind 86, no. 341 (1977): 88-94.
Ryn, Claes G. “The Politics of Transcendence: The Pretentious
Passivity of Platonic Idealism. Humanitas 12, no. 2 (1999): 4-26.
Strauss, Leo. The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964.
Wilson, John F. The Politics of
Moderation: An Interpretation of Plato’s Republic. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984.
[1] Leo Strauss, The City and Man, 101.
[2] John F. Wilson, The
Politics of Moderation, 13-14.
[3] Plato, Republic, 370a-b. I am using Allan Bloom’s translation, except where
otherwise noted, and consulting the Loeb edition of the Greek.
[4] Plato, Republic, 370b.
[5] Plato, Republic, 370c.
[6] Plato, Republic, 370b.
[7] Plato, Republic, 370b.
[8] See Cicero, On Old Age, 15.
[9] Plato, Republic, 372e.
[10] Plato, Republic, 372d.
[11] Plato, Republic, 417a.
[12] Aristotle, Politics, 1261.
[13] Patrick Coby, “Aristotle’s Three Cities and the Problem of
Faction,” 897.
[14] Leo Strauss, The
City and Man, 51.
[15] Claes G. Ryn, “The Politics of Transcendence,” 15.
[16] Claes G. Ryn, “The Politics of Transcendence,” 9.
[17] Frederick Rosen, “Basic Needs and Justice,” 89.
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