When I cannot sing my heart
I can only speak my mind, Julia
-John Lennon
In the Republic Plato argues that the common conceptions of justice
presented by Polemarchus and Glaucon commit a logical fallacy. They all attempt
to explain what justice is by arguing from particular instances of justice. But
since any particular act is just depending on the circumstances, the accounts necessarily
fail to explain justice in all cases.
But why, then, does he introduce the wild metaphysics of the Forms, a
special intellectual discipline, (philosophy) and a division of humanity based
on a natural capacity for that intellectual discipline? Because he is not
merely interested in the negative critique of the common conceptions of
justice; he wants to provide a positive account. He wants to say what justice is.
But since he’s disbarred any inductive account of justice how shall he proceed?
Where, as professor Bloom asks, shall wisdom be found?
Consider just how difficult a bind Plato is in. He won’t allow us to
use our human experience at all to come up with an account of how humans
should best constitute institutions of human interaction. No matter how
exemplary an individual’s behavior has been (e.g., Gandhi, Dr. King) –nor how
reprehensible (Stalin, Pol Pot) – we can’t infer anything about justice from
their examples. Please understand why that is: while we may have universally
lauded (or vilified) them, their exemplary status can only provide us with opinions
about justice. We fail of knowing what justice is by their examples because
they were just (or unjust) given their circumstances. From some other set of
circumstances they fail to meet what we expect of just (or unjust) behavior.
Let us, in the grand philosophical tradition, call the common conceptions
of justice the “bottom up” approach. By contrast Plato’s approach then would be
the “top down” approach. Where the bottom up approach lays brick on brick to
build a tower of Babel, the top down approach starts with the discovery of some
inspiring vision, and rains justice down on our city on the hill.
Well everybody's dancin' in a ring around the sun
Nobody's finished, we ain't even begun.
So take off your shoes, child, and take off your hat.
Try on your wings and find out where it's at.
Hey hey, hey, come right away
Come and join the party every day.
-Grateful
Dead “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion”)
For Plato the vision is the “form of the Good” – an ideal for all
ideals. Someone who unerringly lives according to this ideal is a man for all
seasons. There is constancy and universality implicit in the form of the Good. Plato
needs this because he believes that we have a better nature that we lose sight
of in the hurly-burly of the market. We have a “soul” that transcends this
earthly frame and if we don’t attend to its needs, if we don’t nurture it there
will be hell to pay.
This is the step, then, that leads down the road to metaphysical
disaster.
Well, I’m leaving in the morning as soon as the dark clouds lift
Yes, I’m leaving in the morning just as soon as the dark clouds lift
Gonna break the roof in—set fire to the place as a parting gift
Summer days, summer nights are gone
Summer days, summer nights are gone
I know a place where there’s still somethin’ going on
- Summer Days, Bob Dylan
