Tragedy And the Philosophical Life: A Response to Martha Nussbaum: The Republic

by Beck, Martha C.

• ISBN13: 9780773459236
• ISBN10: 0773459235
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-28
• Publisher: Edwin Mellen Pr

Table of Contents

Preface: Dr. Mark Moes	i
Foreword: Dr. Patrick Henry	v
Acknowledgements	vii
I. Introduction	1	(4)
II. Nussbaurn's Position	5	(4)
A. Nussbaum: Plato is Anti-Tragic	5	(1)
B. Nussbaum: Plato's Writing Style is Linked to a View of Human Rationality, Articulated most clearly in the Republic, that Is Detached from Emotions	5	(2)
C. Nussbaum: Plato Completely Changes His Mind in the Phaedrus	7	(2)
III. Response to Nussbaum #1: Plato's View Did not Change, or Change as Radically, as Nussbaum Claims	9	(8)
A. Creating a Dialogue between the Dialogues	9	(1)
B. The Education in the Republic Trains the Mind to See Connections; a Dialectically Trained Mind Can Achieve a Unified Vision	10	(1)
C. Connections Between the Protagoras, Republic, Phaedrus and Symposium	10	(7)
IV. Response to Nussbaum #2: Plato is not Anti-tragic	17	(14)
A. Plato and Tragedy	17	(1)
B. Aristotle's criteria for Tragedy	18	(8)
1. Plot Is the most Important Aspect of Tragedy, the Soul of a Tragedy; the Tragic Context, or Plot, of the Republic	18	(5)
2. Aristotle's other Criteria for Tragedy and Plato's Dialogues	23	(3)
C. Connections between Tragedy and Plato's Dialogues in Recent Scholarship	26	(5)
V. Tragedy in the Republic, Book I	31	(52)
A. The Setting and Context Foreshadow the Tragedy to Come	31	(14)
1. The Republic and the Democratic Personality	33	(3)
2. The Decline of Regimes	36	(6)
3. The City (soul) within the City (Republic) within the City (Cephalus' House) within the City (Athens) within the City	42	(1)
4. The Spirit of the Law versus the Letter of the Law in Athens: A Legal Democracy and a Spiritual Tyranny	43	(2)
B. Socrates' Descent to the Piraeus: The Justice of the Philosopher	45	(3)
C. Definitions of Justice in Book I: The Low Road and the High Road	48	(26)
1. Cephalus: Blind and Unteachable	48	(9)
a. "Telling the truth and giving back what is owed"	48	(4)
b. Tragedy and Cephalus' life	52	(2)
c. Socrates' Philosophical Reinterpretation of Cephalus' Definitions of the "Truth" about Life and Justice	54	(3)
2. Polymarchus: Blind but Teachable	57	(6)
a. "Helping friends and harming enemies;"	57	(1)
b. The Tragedy of Polymarchus' Life	57	(4)
c. Socrates' Philosophical Reinterpretation of Polymarchus' Definition	61	(2)
3. Thrasymachus: Not Blind, but Ignorant and Unteachable	63	(11)
a. Justice as "The advantage of the stronger;"	63	(5)
b. Tragedy and Thrasymachus' Life	68	(2)
c. Socrates' Philosophical Reinterpretation of Thrasymachus' Definition	70	(4)
D. The Republic Book I and tragedy	74	(9)
1. Aristotle's Criteria for Tragedy as Literature	74	(2)
2. A Tragic Worldview	76	(1)
3. Recent Scholarship on Plato and Tragedy	77	(1)
4. The title, "Republic", is Ironic and Tragic	78	(5)
VI. The Low Road: Books II-V and VIII-IX	83	(22)
A. Books The Founding of a City	83	(10)
1. The Low Road: The Luxurious City	84	(2)
2. The Low Road: The Education of Habits Only	86	(2)
3. The Low Road: Courage, Moderation, Justice, and Wisdom	88	(4)
4. The Low Road: The Three-Part, Harmonized Soul	92	(1)
B. Book V: Taking the Irrational Model of the Soul to its Logical Conclusion	93	(7)
1. The Low Road: The Equality of Women	93	(1)
2. The Low Road: The Community of Women and Children	94	(3)
3. Socrates' Introduction of the Philosophical Ruler: The Rejection of Everything in the City and the Soul thus Far	97	(3)
C. Book IX: Conventional Education as a Path to the Love of Learning	100	(5)
VII. Response to Nussbaum #3: Plato Goes Beyond Tragedy Books VI and VII: The High Road within the City	105	(14)
A. The Philosophical Soul and the Desire to Know	105	(2)
B. Mind as a Natural Power of Soul, Present from Birth	107	(2)
C. The Education of the Philosophical Soul	109	(4)
D. The Republic and the Divided Line	113	(6)
VIII. Socrates as the Philosophical Ruler/Educator	119	(22)
A. Glaucon and Adeimantus Accept the Model of the Soul as Irrational	119	(2)
B. Glaucon and Adeimantus Are not Examining their Lives or Assumptions	121	(1)
C. Educating Adeimantus	121	(3)
D. Adeimantus Does not Understand the Philosophical Soul and City	124	(3)
E. Educating Glaucon	127	(4)
F. Socrates and the "Divine Image" in the Human Soul	131	(2)
G. Socrates' Relationship to Glaucon and Adeimantus; the Image of the Cave	133	(3)
H. The Image of the "Ideal City" in Books II-IV, VI, and VII Is, or Could Be, Athens	136	(2)
I. Philosophical Ruling and the Power of the Mind	138	(3)
IX. The Discussion of Homer in the Republic: Socrates' Effort to Reeducate the Youth	141	(24)
A. Book II and III	143	(5)
1. Misreading Homer and Advocating Censorship	143	(2)
2. Analogies between Plato's Dialogues and Homer	145	(3)
B. Book X: More Analogies between Plato and Homer	148	(1)
C. Unphilosophical Poetry and the Divided Line: Poets at Three Removes from Reality	149	(3)
D. Book VI	152	(2)
1. Philosophical Poetry and the Divided Line	152	(1)
2. Homer and Plato as Philosophical Poets	153	(1)
E. Plato's Criticism of Homer in Republic VI versus Republic X	154	(2)
F. Plato's Criticisms of Homer also Apply to Plato	156	(9)
1. An Active Life is Superior to a Contemplative Life and Action Is Superior to Teaching; Plato Did not Think so	156	(1)
2. Homer Cannot Prove his Work Has Made People Better; Neither Can Plato	157	(1)
3. Homer Did not Set Up an Isolated Community Based on a Homeric Way of Life; Neither Did Plato	158	(1)
4. Homer Did not Achieve Worldly Success; Neither Did Socrates	159	(1)
5. Homer Wandered around as a Rhapsode; Socrates Wandered around as a Dialectician	160	(1)
6. Glaucon's and the Athenians' Inability to Read Homer Cathartically	160	(2)
7. Irrational Desires and Political Repression: The Censorship of Homer	162	(3)
X. Socrates' Creation of Rational Art	165	(8)
A. The Images of the Two Roads, the Divided Line, and the Cave	165	(1)
B. The Myth of Er: An Example of Dialectical Rhetoric	166	(7)
1. The Soul Is Rewarded or Punished on the Basis of its Choices	167	(2)
2. Education Enables the Soul to Choose Well	169	(1)
3. The Education of Habits Will not Enable the Soul to Choose Well; the Education and Laws in Books II-V Will not Change the Soul or Educate the Mind	169	(2)
4. Only the Education in Books VI and VII, the Education of the Mind, Will Enable the Soul to Make the Right Choices	171	(2)
XI. Socrates as the Philosophical Ruler throughout the Republic	173	(14)
A. Socrates is Exercising the Rational Powers of the Soul throughout the Dialogue	173	(1)
B. The Philosophical Ruler	173	(3)
C. The Republic as One Part of an Education of Rational Intuition	176	(5)
D. The Republic as a Tragedy	181	(2)
E. The Republic as a City (the Soul) within a City (Republic) within a City (in Cephalus' House) within a City (Athens) within a City (the Reader's own City)	183	(4)
XII. Response to Nussbaum. "The Republic:" True Value and the Standpoint of Perfection	187	(26)
A. Different Assumptions and Methodologies	187	(3)
B. Nussbaum on the Democratic Personality in Book VIII	190	(4)
C. Nussbaum on the Models of Soul in Books IV and IX	194	(3)
D. Logistikon and the Philosophical Life	197	(4)
E. Nussbaum on the Philosophical Soul in Books VI and VII	201	(4)
F. Nussbaum on Plato's Aspiration to a Life of "Virtue Without Fragility"	205	(3)
G. Nussbaum on Plato's Criticisms of Homer in the Republic	208	(1)
H. Nussbaum on Plato's Elitism	209	(4)
XIII. Conclusion: Martha versus Martha	213	(2)
XIV. Epilogue: Teaching Plato's Republic in 2004 in the Republic of the United States of America	215	(20)
A. The Philosophical Ruler	217	(9)
1. Philosophical Courage	217	(1)
2. Philosophical Temperance	218	(1)
3. Philosophical Ruling and the Natural Desire to Know	219	(2)
4. Philosophical Ruling and International Relations	221	(1)
5. Philosophical Religion	222	(1)
6. Philosophical Justice	223	(1)
7. Philosophical Education	224	(2)
B. Recent Trends in Platonic Scholarship as They Apply in 2004	226	(2)
C. Tragedy in the United. States since 9/11	228	(3)
D. The City (soul) within the City (Republic) within the City (Cephalus' House) within the City (Athens) within the City	231	(4)
Bibliography	235	(16)
General Index	251	(2)
Index of Passages	253