Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar (IDS 175)

Study Questions for Plato, The Republic

Part VII, Sections 1 and 2

1. How does Socrates justify his inability to show that a just state could, in fact, be realized? What analogy does he use?
2. What prevents current societies from aspiring to the ideal state? What primary change would Socrates make?
3. What distinguishes true philosophers from others, such as sight-lovers, art-lovers, practical men, and so on?
4. What are the differences between knowledge and opinion?
5. What are philosophers truly focused on and what do they have the ability to grasp?
6. What other character traits follow from the philosopher's love of wisdom and truth?

Part VII, Sections 5, 6, 7

1. What features of the ideal state have already been addressed?
2. What does Socrates say about the possibility of defining the good in itself? How does he propose to circumvent this problem?
3. Describe the simile of the sun. Does the simile work? In what sense are the sun and the "child of the good" comparable?
   What are compared to the sun and the moonlight?
4. What is the relationship between the good and 1) knowledge and truth, 2) reality, and 3) being?
5. Discuss the Divided Line.
6. What is the difference between dialectic and mathematics/science?
7. What mental states correspond with the four sub-divisions?
8. Can you visualize Plato's Cave? Do you think this description is meant to be capable of visualization?
9. How would the prisoner react upon a) leaving the cave and b) returning to it?
10. What are the consequences for one who returns to human activity after contemplation of the divine?
11. What justification does Socrates provide for why philosophers are required to return to the "lower world"?
12. What is it about the philosophers' attitude toward governing that makes their government necessarily the best?
13. Why will the philosophers not refuse their obligation to rule?

Part VIII, Sections 1, 2, 3

1. What kinds of education are insufficient to produce philosopher-rulers? What kind of study needs to be undertaken?
2. What are the key features of the philosophers' study of mathematics?
3. What distinguishes the superficial study of astronomy from the study of astronomy to be undertaken by philosophers?
4. Why is only the power of dialectic capable of revealing the truth itself?

Part III, Section 1

1. Why should the ideal state's education begin with fiction?
2. What does Socrates say about most of the fiction in Greek culture?
3. Socrates says that Zeus cannot be shown as the source of both good and evil. Why?
   How does this ideology compare with the one found in the Jewish and Christian Bibles?
4. What else should be censored regarding the portrayal of gods?
5. What does Socrates say about the fact that most of what must be censored is, in fact, good poetry?
6. What are some of the other types of behavior and character traits that are prohibited?
   What is the primary rationale for censoring them?
7. Why does Socrates postpone a discussion of literature dealing with people (as opposed to gods)?
8. Would you agree with Socrates that poets and storytellers are wrong in "matters of greatest human importance"?
9. What does Socrates, and in the larger sense Plato, mean by "representation"?
10. What are the three classes of fiction? Which does Socrates most/least favor?
11. Why will the Guardians be forbidden to engage in representation?
12. What does Socrates conclude about the role of poets and actors in the ideal state?

Part X

1. What claim does Socrates make at the beginning of Part X?
2. What is the difference between a craftsman and a painter?
3. What do poets really do, according to Socrates, and what do they really know?
4. What hypothetical questions does Socrates ask of Homer?
5. What conclusions about poets' knowledge does Socrates reach on page 344?
6. What is Socrates' primary critique of representational art in section 2?
7. What are some of the dangerous effects poets produce that cannot be allowed?
8. What types of literature might be permitted?
9. Given what he has said thus far, why does Socrates suggest the possibility of allowing "poetry written for pleasure"?
10. Under what conditions might poetry be allowed to return to the just state? Who can make this defense?

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