Rehabilitating the ‘City of Pigs’

The Dialectics of Plato’s Account of his Beautiful Cities

Abstract

In this paper, I contend that the standard interpretation of the Republic, according to which “the city of pigs” (CP) is an entirely deficient precursor to the one ideally just state, Kallipolis, is untenable. In the vital respect of unity, which for Plato is the defining condition of virtue in the soul and the city, CP is equally if not more just than Kallipolis. In part 1, I outline CP in terms of what I contend are the three organizing principles that secure its unity (“trade specialization”; “right size”; and “modesty”), before proceeding to defend this unity from some typical criticisms. The aim is to show that CP is unified and hence just, which allows us to make sense of why Socrates describes it as “complete” (telea), “true” (alêthinê), and “healthy” (hugiês), despite Glaucon’s protestations. To do so, I will have to first argue against objections from those who interpret CP as a suggestio falsi, or an exercise in playful irony, sketched only to establish the need for Kallipolis. In part 2, I then proceed to show that although Kallipolis is in certain respects superior to CP, it suffers from structural disunity relating to its heretofore unnoticed or downplayed geographical and social scissions—scissions that are requisite and unavoidable for its very organization. As such, Socrates tacitly suggests, I contend, that these scissions mark a disunity that results from reneging CP’s third organizing principle: the “modesty” principle. When Socrates, on his interlocutors’ demands, expands CP by allowing in items and conditions of luxury that provoke pleonexia (greed or covetousness) thus giving birth to the “feverish city,” he leads us to see the necessity of a kind of set-up in Kallipolis with a socially and geographically disparate class of guardians that is saturated by disunity. The overall argument of this paper is that Socrates takes us on a dialectical journey, leading us to see that unity and hence justice in each city depends upon each citizen doing her job and no more than her job (i.e., the principle of trade specialization) (433A-B). Both CP and Kallipolis are sketched for this heuristic purpose—to allow us to see this vision of justice. Socrates’ point in taking us on the dialectical journey, I contend, is to enable us to realize not just what justice is but what inhibits or threatens justice—namely, luxury, or more precisely wealth. CP is not a good model to allow us to see this, but this does not render it a suggestio falsi or an unrealistic false start. Indeed, on my reading, Socrates is not only serious when he dubs the city of pigs true and healthy, but we have to take these pronouncements seriously in order to properly accompany him on the journey and properly see his vision of political justice and injustice.