Plato's The Republic: Should Athens Live As A Democracy?

In Plato’s time Athens was run as a democracy (the etymology of which being demos, meaning the citizens and kratos meaning to rule). Plato saw many problems with using this style of government and so set out an alternative utopia within The Republic which focused on the merits of philosophical rule and education. By looking at the ideas that Plato puts forward we can seek to understand his alternative view point and how it would attempt to fix the problems in ancient Athenian democratic society.

In ancient Athens, like many other city states of the time, oligarchy and democracy vied for control. Throughout the majority of the 4th and 5th centuries, Athens was mainly a democracy although Oligarchs managed to overthrow and reform the government

Women went from the guardianship of their fathers before marriage, to the guardianship of their husbands after. They weren’t allowed any part in politics, philosophy or cultural pursuits and instead were trained in basic domestic tasks such as “weaving, cleaning, and cooking” (Plato, YEAR:217) However Plato was a much more liberal thinker on this topic and so by way of Socrates raised the question ‘should they be active participants in the traditionally male world of honour, politics and philosophy or be kept in purdah…?’ (Reeve, YEAR: 218) He concluded that if the only difference between men and women is that one bears them then there is no real difference and so “shall continue to believe that our guardians and their women should follow the same way of life” (Plato,

Bodily desires ensured a person’s survival, the spirited emotions allowed people to have aspirations and finally the most important, as Plato stressed, knowledge and reason. He believed that without disciplining reason people would become self-destructive. The society that Plato described in the Republic had a homogenous tripartite structure like that of the human soul. The bodily desires and appetites became the main classes of the people within a state, all of which belonging to a craft (farmers, merchants, manufacturers, etc) and were referred to as “lovers of money”. Spirited emotions became the smaller class of soldiers who were referred to as “lovers of honour”. Finally, reason and knowledge became the scientists and philosophers and these were known as “lovers of wisdom”. According to Plato just as a person must be restrained by knowledge and reason, so too must a society. This requirement for “lovers of wisdom” who would provide structure and guidance to the Republic gave way to Plato’s core concept of philosopher kings. This was an essential part of the Republic because according to Plato ‘entrusting the state to ruler without…knowledge would be turning it over to the blind’ (Klosko,