Plato and Political Dialectic is SCAPh’s inaugural research project. It is a four-year project that will explore Plato’s political philosophy with a particular emphasis on the use and possibilities of the dialogue form. The project is not only desinged to help deepen and advance our understanding of Plato’s political philosophy, but also to contribute to a broader conversation about the future of democracy, citizenship, and the role of reason in public life.
Political Dialectic
There is no doubt that Plato’s political philosophy conceptualizes and underpins the notion of an active, responsible citizenship. This conceptualization is distinct and unprecidented in may ways, but one methodological choice stands out: the dialouge. Plato’s dialogues, far from being mere theoretical treatises, are also acts of political intervention. They do not only thematize and discuss the relation between philosophy and contemporary politics, they also aim at fostering societal transformation. Plato developed the dialogue to solve certain distinct politico-philosophical problems, yes, but also to supplement existing public discourse with a new and improved concept of political deliberation. This concept we label Political Dialectic. To identify and describe this concept, this project will develop three main arguments: (i) that Plato’s notion of political dialectic was intended as a critical response to three dominating forms of intellectual discourse: poetry, rhetoric and sophistry, which he regarded as manipulative and irrational; (ii) that he envisioned political dialectic as a collaborative and consensus-oriented task, immune to the corrupting forces of the political discussion in fifth century Athens; and (iii) that this concept is grounded in a novel, highly individualized, notion of citizenship.
A Dangerous and Totalitarian Philosophy
Plato’s political philosophy has often been dismissed as abstract and idealistic, at best labeled utopian, and at worst dangerous and totalitarian. Consequently, it has also often been depoliticized. This is perhaps most evident in the case of the Republic, but the tendency extends to other texts as well. This project aims to challenge these views by demonstrating how Plato’s philosophical dialogues offers an alternative to the three most dominant forms of discourse characterizing the political climate of 5th-century Athens: poetry, rhetoric and sophistry. The project will examine how Plato’s dialogues not only articulate an alternative to existing public discourse, but that they also serve as exemplary models of how such discourse should function, challenging a corrupt political and cultural climate through their inherent practice. Plato’s political dialectic, we argue, in contrast to existing public discoruse and deliberation, is characterized by openness, objectivity, and a relentless pursuit of consensus and shared decision-making. Yet, ultimately, it is also about fostering a new kind of consciousness. The individual must be shaped and allowed to develop into someone capable of carrying the weight of the community by actively internalizing its ideals, not as an act of submission, but as an active embodiment of that which binds us together.
The creation of this form of reflection will not only be examined through the form of the dialogue itself; this form will also be situated within a broader socio-political context. In this context, sophistry, rhetoric, and ancient drama play central roles, as does the religious dimension of Plato’s thought. The latter delves into how the individual gradually becomes the locus of the divine, a concept that will be elucidated, among other ways, through a reinterpretation of ancient sacrificial and festive culture from a political and ethical perspective.
The Individual and the Collective
Plato is widely recognized for his utopian vision of an ideal state in the Republic, where justice is conceptualized as each individual fulfilling the role they are uniquely suited for, based on their inherent abilities. In the conventional interpretation of Plato as a political philosopher, he here appears to have subordinated the individual to the collective from the outset. The proposed project, however, takes a different approach to understand what Plato is trying to accomplish here. It explores how he, through the character of Socrates, attempts to portray the inner foundations of society by introducing a new type of subjectivity, which in turn embodies a new form of citizenship ideal, that reflexively carries the weight of the whole. We, therefore, read him, not primarily as a thinker of state perfection, but rather as acutely aware of human failures and compromises. The crux of Platonic politics emerges as ethics, in the care for oneself, which must be practiced by every individual.
New Problems, Old Solutions
This project centers on Plato, but the proposed inquiry also demands a broad contextualization in relation to his predecessors, primarily Greek tragedy and the Pythagorean ascetic tradition, as well as his successor, Aristotle. Through Plato’s writings, we gain an opportunity to explore the political tensions and conflicts inherent in Western society’s construction from its inception. In addition, it is also our strong conviction that while the political system within which Plato operates, with its profound injustices, and the challanges Plato thus takes on to solve, may seem alien to the modern world and its problems, the fundamental questions raised in his dialogues remain valid, and offer us an important opportunity to reflect on our own day and age with clarity and objectivity.
Research Tasks
All researchers involved in the project will contribute to the collective endeavor, working collaboratively to address its fundamental inquiries. To mitigate the individual workload and facilitate efficient progress, the project has however also partly been divided into specialized tasks, ensuring that each researcher contributes their expertise to specific areas while remaining integral to the overall project goals.
The Dialogue Form
Olof Pettersson’s main research task will be to examine the profound implications of the dialogue form as a political tool in relation to Plato’s concept of citizenship. While existing scholarship has demonstrated the direct socio-cultural impact of Plato’s philosophy, aligning with the development of the dialogue genre itself (Nightingale 1996; Jf. Levin 2014; Peterson 2011), Plato himself never explicitly explains his choice to present his philosophy, including his political doctrines, in dialogue form (Long 2016; McCoy 2008). Pettersson will address this gap by examining the dialogue form and its relationship to Plato’s explicit political theory, and vice versa. This methodological approach bridges two crucial areas of research: political theory and philosophical methodology.
Pettersson further analyzes Plato’s concept of political dialectic as a consensus-based form of decision-making. According to Plato, truth cannot be achieved through voting. A competitive political debate is therefore insufficient and must be replaced by one grounded in the shared foundation of reason and argumentation. Contemporary political strategies, fueled by rhetorical tactics and sophistic argumentation, must be undermined and replaced by a form of political decision-making that hinges on dialogue, reason, understanding, and collaboration. Instead of persuasion and probability, Plato aims to establish a public political discourse that, like the dialogue, strives for harmony and truth.
Ultimately, Pettersson also seeks to examine Plato’s concept of citizenship and its role in public discourse. According to Plato, all citizen must understand their roles in society and the demands placed upon them. This, in turn, requires self-knowledge (see esp. the Alcibiades I, the Charmides, and the Phaedrus), a type of knowledge that is itself conditioned by dialogue. As Plato strongly suggests, an individual can only know herself by seeing herself reflected by another human being (Annas 1985; Foucault 2005; Remes 2013). Genuine citizenship, therefore, can only be achieved through dialogue, and dialogue can only function if the parties involved, understand its principles: sincerity, reason, and the pursuit of a common goal.
Political Tragedy
Charlotta Weigelt’s will focus on exploring the historical dimension of Plato’s political philosophy also in relation to the concept of citizenship. She will particularly examine how Plato views the influence of epic poetry and tragedy on prevailing political norms and their impact on the individual. The focus lies on demonstrating how the Homeric norms, still championed by politically influential Athenian intellectuals, are portrayed as outdated (see, esp. the Gorgias and the Republic). These norms stem from a patriarchal society based on warfare, where the people were merely subjects, not citizens. This diagnosis paves the way for the task of formulating norms that can serve the purpose of building a society more heterogeneous than the Homeric clan society, where the primary challenge is to enable diverse individuals to coexist and rally around a perceived commonality. The idea is that the dialogue form itself largely demonstrates how such a community can come about and take shape.
In this vein, the project can also test the hypothesis that Plato views citizenship as a construction (see esp. the Republic and the Statesman), and that the roots of this notion lie in Greek tragedy. In the great tragic works, a recurring theme is how human ambition to establish a just society clashes with the forces of nature, primarily in the form of family and blood ties. Here, therefore, lies a fundamental conflict between society and nature, as the latter forms the foundation of the former while simultaneously being its primary adversary. Plato’s political philosophy is illuminated here as a response to this tragic conflict.
This response also connects to the challenge of finding a bond that can unite the people in society. Here however the starting point is that this bond is not to be found in nature, nor in the creation of various institutions. Instead, it is the educated citizen who must themselves constitute this bond, by taking their share of responsibility for society. This is precisely what education should achieve, and once again, the dialogue form itself largely demonstrates how such education should look.
In addition, Weigelt will also examine Plato’s ideal of consensus. She will explore how Plato undermines the notion that personal power and influence serve as the source of law in political debates. Instead, it is the dialogical conversation or argument, logos, that should be elevated as a new measure of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, even if it is only through individuals taking responsibility for and being guided by the argument that the latter holds validity. Against this backdrop, it becomes possible to understand the theory of ideas in a new light. Ideas have often been viewed as Plato’s way of securing absolute norms in politics and ethics (e.g., Arendt 2005), but rather they function as guidelines for discussion by being something that the participants in the dialogue seek together, as norms and measures. In this quest, all people are equal, as no one possesses the truth, but all seek it, and in this sense, Plato’s political dialectic is democratic. Unlike existing democracy, it does not desire absolute freedom but seeks an argument-based consensus.
The Sacred Self
Hans Ruin’s research will focus on investigating the intricate relationship between the inner and outer, the individual and the collective, as it is shaped and transformed through the public culture of festivals and sacrifices, which served as the primary context for Greek public life. His study particularly focuses on how Socrates embodies what has recently attracted significant interest in comparative religious studies: the gradual “abolition of sacrifice”. During this period, a transition occurs from public sacrificial rites to a more internalized and personal engagement, accompanied by the creation of the inner self as a sacred space and source of legitimacy.
By examining Socratic thought practice, with its asceticism and abstinence, alongside Socrates’ claim to embody the art of true politics, a partially new perspective emerges on Platonic Western political philosophy. In the trial against Socrates, he was found guilty of failing to show due respect for the city’s gods and invoking his own daimon. The latter is sometimes interpreted as a remnant of an older mythical conception of a protective spirit, and sometimes as a poetic-philosophical articulation of autonomous reason. However, by instead focusing on the reshaping of sacrificial culture in Plato’s political philosophy, all of this can be interpreted in a new light. Socrates’ philosophical activity undermines traditional sacrificial methods while simultaneously internalizing sacrifice through the renunciation of one’s own desires to create a higher type of rationality.
This theme has been partially explored by Guy Stroumsa (2006) and also in Jackson & Sjödin (2016), where the topic is also linked to philosophical asceticism. But by connecting the analysis of the cessation of sacrificial culture with political philosophy, Socratic intellectual practice can be understood as the creation of a new form of political consciousness. The study will also examine the transformation of death rituals, particularly how Socrates insists on performing the typically posthumous rites on himself while still alive (cf. the Phaedo). More generally, however, it is about establishing the various ways in which the inner person is transformed through sacrificial practices into a new kind of inner space that can reflect and contain the outer public space. Interpreted in this way, the Platonic dialogues can open a new way to interpret later notions of the sanctity of the individual and the person, but as part of a transformation of sacrifice, which points forward to the ideas of individual autonomy and inviolability in modern liberalism.
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