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The Modification of Plan in Plato's Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. Hackforth
R. Hackforth
Affiliation:
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
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Extract

In a recent number of the Classical Quarterly Mr. F. M. Cornford argues against the commonly accepted view, according to which the tripartite social structure of the Republic is a corollary, in Plato′s mind, to the tripartition of the individual Soul. In the present paper I propose to examine the general plan of the dialogue, in the hope of showing that Plato′s conceptions of State and Soul were not, as generally assumed and as assumed by Mr. Cornford, ready-made and clearly formulated in his mind before he began to write the Republic: that, on the contrary, we can detect profound and vital modifications of his original views as the argument proceeds: and that the conceptions of the Ideal State and the rightly constituted human soul grow out of one another and react on one another in such a way that it is impossible to give a simple answer, affirmative or negative, to the question ‘ Which is prior, the tripartition of State or the tripartition of Soul ?’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1913 , pp. 265 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1913

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References

page 265 note 1 Classical Quarterly, October, 1912, pp. 246–268.Google Scholar

page 265 note 2 loc. cit., p. 252.

page 266 note 1 Italics mine.

page 266 note 2 412c:

page 266 note 3 Quoted by Adam on 427E.

page 266 note 4 427E.

page 266 note 5 Vide Adam′s note on 375c, 19, where re-ferences are given.

page 267 note 1 Thuc. ii. 40:

page 268 note 1 Contrast, however, 410C: (i.e., Music and Gymnastic) with 521E:

page 269 note 1 404E, 410A, 410E:

page 269 note 2 He is helped by the common definition of

page 270 note 1 Loc. cit., p. 259.

page 271 note 1 504B. Here, as in 435D, the object of the is to distinguish the ‘ parts ’ of Soul. Adam is wrong in taking αvτà. in 504B to refer to the Cardinal Virtues; according to a common Greek idiom the emphasis of the sen-tence beginning in 504A falls on the participial clause, . When this is seen it will readily follow that αvτà. below refers to εíδη Moreover, in the participial clause itself the emphatic word is not but αvτà. Socrates′ concern is not whether the ‘ parts ’ of soul are three in number or not, ls but whether he is right in distinguishing ‘ parts ’ at all.