The topic of this dialogue is how the guardians will be educated in body and soul. Starting with the soul, it is discussed what cultural education is appropriate. They will discern the good stories from the bad ones to develop passion in a person.

The idea of scale investigation to understand morality in individuals from a community view is applied to understand small storie from grand ones. The first of defects to prohibit is false representation. The gods in Homers works are portrayed as not being purely good for example. The gods should as an example of morality. «Im a bit confused at the greek idea of moral gods. The popular depictions show them being imperfect, but in the dialogues people generally agree that they gods should be good.» Stories should not show bad thoughts or actions since they might influence the people.

Stories will not be created for the community, only guidelines and principles.

God is good and cannot damage (i.e make things worse). God is not responsible for bad or evil. Tales of god changing forms are prohibited. The form of god must be perfect and changing would imply the form was not perfect or that god would change for the worse. God never lies, but lies can be good for people in some circumstances. Only rulers of the community may lie if necessary, but it will be prohibited for hte rest of the population.

Hades should not be disparaged as by Achilles in the Odyssey. People should not fear it and death, but accept it stoically. Even laughter is an indulgence of emotion and should be prohibited. Self-discipline includes obedience to authority. All stories must exclude mentios of behaviors that lack self-discipline. No stories of buying the favors of the gods with gifts.

Next up is representation. In short, trying to appear like something else is bad as you can never be as good as a thing as the thing itself, i.e it goes against the specilaisation principle. No speaking as if you are someone or something else. No representation will be allowed for the guardians or the community. Perhaps a small amount will be permissible in poetry.

What kinds of music should be allowed is discussed next, such as what harmonies, rhythms and melodies are good for the development of a person. Only modes instilling courage and patience are allowed, the dorian and phrygian modes. At this point it is remarked that the previously indulgent community has become quite disciplined.

All works in the community must be elegant and good. Crude and ugly works will corrupt the people. The people will love beauty and abhor ugliness, though badness and ugliness will be a foreign and unknown thing for them.

The physical education follows, they conclude that the mental and cultural education will already have done much of the work to keep the guardians healthy and in shape.

Lawmakers should be kept away from being in contact with immorality. If they recognize it from experience it is because the badness is inside them. Instead they should only know good and deduce it from reasoning.

The guardians will not train like athletes for strength but for passion. Gentle but passionate as said earlier. Neither too focused on exercise to become brutes nor too studious to become docile.

These balanced guardians will always be needed to balance the community.

Observations:

That god is only responsible for good and not evil is a very interesting divergence from Christian thought.

The unchanging nature of god touches on the immutability of good and the forms.

I wonder where the distinction lies in honoring the gods with sacrifices and bribing them with gifts according to the Greeks.

There is a line saying that comedic actors cannot be good tragic actors and vice verse, but didnt Socrates advocate for writers being able to be good at both plays at the end of Symposium? I suspect this must have been a common topic in Ancient Greece, but my knowledge of the culture is too lacking to see its significance.

The introduction of the book pointed out how our contemporary sense of individualism and freedom did not exist in Ancient Greece. There is little attention put to the individual experience of the community's inhabitants. Goodness is optimised for the community as a whole, the freedom of the individuals is limited to benefit it. The people are limited in what kind of works they can read and experience.

Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Inner Politics

Starts with the idea that we can inspects things on a larger scale in order to understand them in a smaller one. To understand morality for a person we will explore it first in a community. «One common discussion point around Republic is whether the imagined community is intented to be realized or if it just serves as a mental model.»

A human has several needs and cannot be self-sufficient. The community will need multiple people doing different jobs to satisfy the needs of necessary goods and services. The community will need sailors, merchants, stallkeepers to facilitate trade with other communities.

The principle of specialication is introduced where it is agreed that everyone in the community should work on one thing only and that it should be what they are talented at.

The description of the consumption of the community goes from necessities to indulgence. "A community for pigs". Healthy moral community contra indulgence. The indulgent community cannot live of its own land and must grab from its neighbor. If the neighbor is also indulgent then they will want to grab land too, thus indulgence is the cause of war. War necessitates a warrior class, guardians of the community, which will require even more land to be sustained. The specialication principle applies to the guardians as well, protecting the community will be their sole vocation and expertise.

The mentality of the guardians will have to be gentle to their citizens and aggressive to enemies. These two natures are mutually exclusive but it is found in dogs who hate the stranger and love their friends. Since they must learn to tell people apart dogs must be intelligent and lovers of learning. The same applies to the guardians who must also be philosophes. «I feel like anyone can be called a philsopher in this manner. A carpenter must learn to distinguish good and bad wood and is therefore a philosopher for example.»

Observations:

Republic does not start with joining might is right with hedonism, but the union makes it's appearance here. Its clear that Plato holds might is right and hedonism to be connected, given this chapter and Callicles in Gorgias. Then why make Thrasymachus only espouse might is right if the hedonism connection appears later anyways?

«Where did the land for the moral community come from? Why is it only now that it must be grabbed from others? Perhaps its more than just land grabbing, the other communities will be enslaved to provide surplus to the indulgent one.»

Chapter 2: The Challenge To Socrates

Summary: Adiemantus and Glaucon want Socrates to go further in proving the superiority of morality over immorality.

There are 3 categories of things worth pursuing: 1 - Things that are pleasureable without any future negative consequences, such as 2 - Things that are pleasureable and have positive consequences, such as knowledge. 3 - Things that are unpleasant but ultimately good such as medicine or discipline.

Socrates will prove that morality belongs to the second category, it is worth pursuing for its own sake and for its advantages. That is to say morality has both intrinsic and instrumental value.

The conventional view is that morality is a compromise. Everyone would benefit from it but fear being on the recieving end of immorality. Immorality is socially shameful but is individually beneficial. Morality is a compromise and anyone who can be immoral and get away with it ought to.

Adeimantus and Glaucon steelman the case for immorality by putting some key assumptions and restrictions in the investigation: Immorality cannot be hindered by the gods because they are either uninterested, non-existent or can be bought of with the riches gained from immorality. The immoral person is an expert and never makes a mistake that puts them at a disadvantage thus all their immoral actions are unknown to society and they have reputation for being good. The opposite goes for the moral person who gets no benefits of seeming moral and has the lowest reputation.

Discussion:

I really like the dilligence here, after many dialogues criticisng the ideas of others we see Plato put himself to a high standard when advocating for morality. I also appreciate the separation between intrinsic and instrumental value. Too often in discussions around choices or policies will I hear people confuse these two aspects. For example its often said that Thing A is good because of B, but they would not say Thing A would be bad if B was not.

Observatons:

I wonder if Tokien was inspired by the ring of Gyges that turns its wielder invisible, directly or not.