Disclaimer: This post was originally written in Chinese and translated into English by GPT-5.2.
At the beginning of Book V of the Republic, what was originally to be discussed was the types of “bad constitutions,” because this was precisely the question left over from the end of the previous book. But this topic was interrupted by the appearance of Polemarchus. Polemarchus believes that all of Socrates’ earlier answers involved a tendency to evade what is weighty and attend to what is light, that he “means to dodge a whole large section of the debate that is by no means insignificant, trying to slip past without giving us an explanation.” In other words, Polemarchus is calling into question the theoretical presuppositions Socrates used in the earlier discussion—presuppositions that have not been proven and therefore cannot be satisfactory. Of course, if in discussing an issue people had to clarify all theoretical presuppositions, or if people’s discussion lacked any shared consensus as the major premise for discussing a specific issue, then any discussion would be endless. Polemarchus’ challenge here, of course, is not intentionally meant to make this discussion endless; rather, it is to enable it to be built upon a firmer theoretical consensus—that is, to make the theoretical presuppositions used in this discussion as impeccable as possible. This is also why the Republic goes back and forth repeatedly in its discussion of a specific issue; this back-and-forth is in fact the characteristic of Socrates’ method (Socrates’s Methods) that we pointed out in Book IV. From this we can see the role Polemarchus plays in the Republic: to urge Socrates continuously to test the theoretical presuppositions he employs, allowing the Socratic method to be brought to full expression. This is something we should pay attention to when reading the Republic.
The question of the education of women and children within the ideal polis thus becomes the first topic explored in this book. Regarding education, the principle adopted by the ideal polis Socrates constructs is: “each person should do the work for which he is naturally suited.” And an obvious fact is that there are natural differences between men and women; they are different. Yet this natural difference, in Socrates’ view, is not qualitative but quantitative. He holds that the only difference between men and women is merely physiological—namely, that “the female conceives and bears children, the male begets”—so there is no occupational difference between them arising from differences in innate endowment. He affirms in summary: “All kinds of natural capacities are distributed alike in both sexes. According to nature, all offices, whether for men or for women, can be shared, except that, generally speaking, women are weaker than men.” This enlightened view of Socrates, although from the perspective of modern feminism it is not completely gender-equal—since it still acknowledges differences between men and women and remains male-centered in essence—still far surpasses backward male chauvinism, because it fully affirms women’s potential and talents and can be called very avant-garde. And the reason Socrates remains male-centered in essence is that in the ideal polis he constructs, the most important social class, such as the guardians, for physiological reasons, men will be somewhat stronger than women, and thus men will also be more important in this ideal polis. But in skills such as “weaving, cooking, making cakes,” and so on, women are often stronger than men. Therefore, in the ideal polis, regardless of status, both men and women should, according to their talents, be selflessly assigned the positions best suited to them and receive corresponding education. Conversely, “if we are to use women in the same indiscriminate way as we use men, we must also give women the same education.”
The purpose of the operation of the ideal polis is to pursue its public good, or the maximization of the interests of the whole state; it adopts the educational principle described above. For the same reason, it should ensure that the best women unite with the best men, so as to obtain the best next generation from birth. This requires that these best women must be shared by these best men: “no one may form a small monogamous family with anyone.” The result of doing so is that the children they bear must also be shared, because “parents do not know who their own children are, and children do not know who their own parents are.” This is the true meaning of the “no distinction among friends” in marriage, mating, and having and raising children spoken of in 424 of Book IV of the Republic. There are also two interesting points here: ① The eugenics Socrates insists on—having the best combine to produce the best next generation—is derived through an analogy with animal breeding. In other words, when Socrates, this “philosopher-king,” calmly constructs his ideal polis, he treats humans as animals, which is also reflected in his many other related analogies; this will be omitted here. Generally speaking, apart from the highest rulers, the other members of the ideal state are treated in an animal-like way. This animal-like mode of treatment reflects Socrates’ understanding of human nature, with no value judgment in it. ② Socrates believes that the kinship relation between children and parents can be identified through the following method: a man can “count as his sons all boys born in the tenth month or the seventh month after he has married, and girls as his daughters.” That a child’s sex difference is actually determined by the time in the womb is very interesting. Of course, this is not something this article can prove; we merely single it out for reference.
This way of educating and treating women and children that Socrates proposes, in real society and even in his ideal polis, is bound to arouse ethical and moral disputes. This then requires “some falsehoods and deceptions,” and the reason for doing so is “probably that the rulers, for the benefit of the ruled,” have no choice. This once again affirms, from another angle, the discussion of deception in Books II and III. In addition, Socrates also discusses sexual behavior, the marriage system, and the ages at which men and women marry and bear children; these will be omitted here.
Socrates is a realist, so he recognized the importance of deception as a means of governance within the ideal polis; and at a deeper level, his realism comes from his utilitarianism—namely, for the sake of realizing his ideal, the mode of governance he regards as best for the best polis, he will stop at nothing. This embodies his understanding of the best polis. He says: “When a state is most like a single person, it is the best-governed state.” In such a state, selfishness does not exist, and the interests of the state and the interests of the individual are unified. Any one person’s happiness will become the happiness of everyone else; any one person’s misfortune will also become the misfortune of everyone else. Everyone’s fortune and misfortune will be felt empathically by others, just as damage to any part of the human body will also be felt by the other parts of the body. This is exactly like the human community enthusiastically depicted in Marx’s Communist Manifesto, in which each person’s freedom will be everyone’s freedom. What Rousseau realized in Reveries of the Solitary Walker—“I will truly be happy only when everyone is happy”—is in fact also an extension of this Socratic thought. This shows a certain universality in people’s understanding of the ideal state. Second, in order to realize the maximal utilitarianization of this ideal, even if it is necessary to adopt behaviors that do not conform to the ethical values of the real world, it is worth it. For example: eliminating the “inferior stock” among the next generation, and ensuring that the guardians have no private houses, land, or other private property. However, in the ideal polis Socrates constructs, because each person obeys the overall interests of the state and believes that this best accords with their personal interests, he believes that guardians who lose worldly pleasures are instead freed from some very trivial and boring matters; they will “live more happily than the happiest Olympic victor.” This conclusion is a reaffirmation of Polemarchus’ earlier challenge in Book III and once again displays the repetitive character of the Socratic method.
In order to construct the ideal polis described above, Socrates puts forward the important concept of the “philosopher-king.” He says: “Unless philosophers become kings in our states, or those whom we now call kings and rulers seriously and earnestly pursue wisdom, so that political power and intelligence are united in one; those mediocre people who get one but not the other and cannot have both must be excluded.” Of course, if a polis could be constructed strictly according to Socrates’ depiction, then such construction might really become merely a matter of knowledge or philosophy; but the crux of the issue, as we have realized, is that the real world does not operate this way, which is also why the “ideal state” is only “ideal.” Socrates’ realism carries an ideal coloring behind it, but the ideal itself also presupposes the existence of reality; the most ideal person may also be the most realistic person. The antinomy between idealism and realism is worth deep reflection.
Then what kind of person is qualified to be a “philosopher-king”? Socrates believes that only the philosopher who loves wisdom in its entirety is qualified to be a philosopher-king. This leads Socrates to distinguish between “knowledge—opinion—ignorance.” In his view, these three are different. Taking beauty as an example, he holds that knowledge refers to “knowing beauty itself, being able to distinguish beauty itself from the many particular things that include beauty, and not confusing beauty itself with the many individual things that contain beauty”; opinion, by contrast, refers to “liking beautiful sounds, beautiful colors, beautiful forms, and all works of art composed from these, but … being unable to know and love beauty itself”—it is something that seems right but is not; ignorance is the state of having not a bit of knowledge. In other words, knowledge is related to “being,” ignorance to “non-being,” and opinion lies between the two. But here “being” and “non-being” must both be All or Nothing and have a universal character. According to this distinction, a natural conclusion is that the philosopher loves wisdom in its entirety, that is, loves the entirety of knowledge; this “entirety of the entirety,” extended to the extreme, perhaps ultimately becomes what Plato calls the Ideas. For such a thoroughgoing philosopher, beauty is “one,” not “many”; the good is “one,” not “many”; truth is “one,” not “many.” Ultimately everything is unified in a single “one,” and the world of truth, the ideal world, and the divine world all become forms that are in constant flux. All of Socrates’ constructive acts regarding the ideal state are merely in order to find this “one” and submit to it. Once this is understood, all the issues discussed above are easily resolved. Socrates is precisely the “philosopher-king” he acknowledges.
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