Episode 04: The Child of the Good idealinthewest.com /episode-4-the-child-of-the-good Stream Audio The events of “The Republic” take place in Athens’ port city, called the Piraeus, about a five mile walk from the Acropolis. Not that there are that many events; as narrated by Socrates, he goes down to the Piraeus to see a festival in the company of Glaucon, who is the brother of Plato. They are ready to return to Athens when they are stopped by a young man named Polemarchus and Plato’s other brother Adeimantus. Soon they fall into a discussion of the nature of justice, considering what makes a just person and a just state, and the rest of the book is an account of a major allnighter in which this question is examined in detail. While most interpreters focus on the political implications of the the work, it is worth remembering that Socrates makes it clear that justice and wisdom cannot be just functions of the state; they must exist in the individual as well. The state is the citizen writ large. Now the politics of the Republic has been debated and analyzed endlessly since it appeared, and we won’t be entering into that territory. But about midway through the book, Plato has Socrates make the remarkable statement that perfect justice cannot be established in the state (or the individual) until philosophers become the rulers. And to be true philosophers he says, the must be schooled in “the highest knowledge.” His interlocutor, Adeimantus, rightly asks, “… do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge?” To which Socrates replies, “Nay, I said, ask if you will; but I am certain that you have heard the answer many times, and now you either do not understand me or, as I rather think, you are disposed to be troublesome; for you have of been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. You can hardly be ignorant that of this I was about to speak, concerning which, as you have often heard me say, we know so little; and, without which, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness?”
A Latin translation of Plato's "Republic"
Well, of course not. But when Adeimantus and Glaucon press him further, Socrates says that he cannot speak of the Good itself, but he can describe “the child of the Good.” He goes on to use three different analogies to describe it, which will be the subject of our next few episodes.
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