This is David Makinster again.
The topic now is going to
be Plato, the Navigator
and Related Analogies.
If you're in my Intro
Philosophy class,
this lecture covers
the first set
of readings in Plato, the
prejudice against philosophy.
There is a study guide that
will be noted on your syllabus
that you should look at
that summarizes some of this
and asks you some
questions about it.
As this section begins,
Glaucon and Adeimantus
have been talking with
Socrates and they say,
well, you know, if it's
such a worthwhile thing
to do, to pursue philosophy,
why don't ordinary people
understand that philosophy
is to their benefit?
And Socrates says,
well, you know,
they're right in thinking it's
useless or dangerous, in so
far as, anything's useless
if you don't use it.
It doesn't matter how
much potential it has.
If you don't use
it, it's no good.
How many people
know someone who was
purchased an expensive
piece of exercise equipment
and then used it
as a clothes horse?
It happens all the time.
I've know in any
number of people
who will go to the doctor,
get a prescription,
take it a couple of times then
have it sitting on the shelf
and say, I don't understand
why I'm not getting any better.
Well, if you don't use
it, it does you no good.
Any more than if you buy
a whole slew of good books
and put them on your bookshelf.
That's not going to make you
more knowledgeable unless you
actually read them
and think about them.
So most people don't have any
idea how to use love of wisdom
as part of their own lives.
How to navigate
through their own
lives using that as a compass.
Now I'm going to mention,
probably a few times
in the course, an
analogy that Plato
uses in a different
dialogue, the Phaedrus.
About the self being
like a chariot.
The chariot is pulled
by three horses.
Appetite, passion, and reason.
There's nothing
wrong with appetite.
Appetite keeps us alive.
If we didn't have appetite
for rest and for activity,
we'd grow lethargic and die.
If we didn't have an appetite
for food and for drink,
we'd wither up and die.
If we didn't have
an appetite for sex,
there would be no
new generation.
Appetites actually are good
if they are well managed
and if they are
healthy appetites.
Their appetites for
things which will actually
make us stronger, more
robust, and healthier.
So that's the difference between
appetite, say, and an addition.
Nothing wrong with
appetite, but appetite,
is, as well as being
a strong horse,
it is a horse that is
not capable of steering
the chariot.
Because appetites
left on its own
we'll just go right
for what it wants.
I had a cat for about 13 years.
And every morning, I would
sit down on the floor
and begin to open
the can of wet food.
And the cat would
reach up and start
trying to push the can down
the floor with her paw.
So I would let her do it
and then she'd realize,
the can's not open.
And she'd just look at
me like, what's going on?
I'd pick it up and
start opening it again
and very anxious she'd
start pushing it down again.
And I would let her do that
until I got bored with it.
And, actually, what I was
hoping was that one day she
would figure out, I'm
going to get the wet food
sooner if I don't do that.
But, in fact, she
couldn't figure that out.
She was just being
driven by her appetite.
I want that wet food.
And, in fact,
acting in a way that
made it more difficult for her
to actually get to the food.
Appetite isn't able
to steer the chariot.
Appetite gives a lot of energy
and power to the chariot
but it's not
capable of steering.
The same is true about passion.
If we don't care about
anything, we won't do anything.
We won't even do anything
about our appetites
if we don't care about them.
A complete lack of
caring, essentially
means that we've fallen into
a deep clinical depression
and we are going to die.
It's not enough to
simply have appetites,
you have also have to
care about something.
Passion gives a lot of
energy to the chariot.
But again, it has to
be a healthy passion.
It has to be a
well-managed passion.
One that works for the
benefit of the chariot
and not against it.
Passion will take us right
off the road, into the river,
into the rocks, destroy the
chariot, as will appetite,
if it's put in
charge of steering.
You never tether appetite
and passion out in front.
What do you tether out in front?
Reason.
Reason, Plato says,
is not a strong horse.
It is the weakest of the three.
But it's virtue is that
it is capable of steering.
It's capable of
weighing alternatives.
It's capable of
foreseeing consequences.
It's capable of making
reasonable choices.
So he says be sure
that you always
have reason tethered
out in front.
It's not like you can live
without appetite and passion.
Nor should you.
Reason alone isn't enough.
No matter what it is we realize,
if we don't want anything
and we don't care
about anything,
we won't do anything about it.
The important thing is to
have every element of the self
healthy and doing
its proper job.
It's a historical
note, Sigmund Freud
points back to this
explicitly and says,
it's really to a
large extent Plato,
who inspired me to
think of the self
as being a set of
dynamic processes
that have to work together.
And out of this he
creates his notion
of the id, the ego,
and the super ego,
which is not exactly
like this idea
but has its
historical roots here.
Plato gives us a series
of four analogies
to try to explain
why philosophy might
be seen as useless or
dangerous by ordinary people.
By ordinary people
he just means exactly
that, ordinary people
like me like you.
And, of course,
since it's Socrates,
he means like himself as well.
You have a ship, in this first
analogy you, have a ship.
The captain of the ship is
a little bigger and stronger
than everybody else.
Typically, at this period of
time, the captain of the ship
would be the person
who owns the ship.
So he's got a sense of
entitlement to run the ship.
To steer the ship.
That sense of entitlement
is a matter of ownership.
It's not a matter of
he's extremely well
qualified to run the ship.
But it's his.
But he will do with
it what he wants to.
Essentially when you have a
society that is an Oligarchy,
you often times have people
who are captains because they
fall into a position
of entitlement.
Oligarchy is ruled by
small privileged elite.
Interestingly enough--
and this is something
that you should
contemplate as you're
thinking about the implications
this material-- Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, in
the Roman Republic, Benjamin
Franklin, at the
beginning of our republic,
worried about democracy
degenerating into an Oligarchy.
As Cicero put it,
very eloquently,
if only a small
number of people have
the material means
to fully participate
in the political process, you're
only a democracy on paper.
In fact, you're being run
by a small, privileged group
of people.
Lots of contemporary
social thinkers have said,
you know what, we've
fallen into that ourselves.
Benjamin Franklin was
very worried about this.
When the Constitution
was first drafted,
Franklin wasn't invited be a
delegate to the Constitutional
Convention.
Why?
As he was like Socrates.
He would have been asking
the embarrassing questions
and pointing out the
embarrassing inconsistencies.
They wanted to just get done.
So Franklin, however, who
was in town for the occasion,
was asked by an elderly woman,
sir, what have you've given us?
Franklin replied, a republic,
Madam, if you can keep it.
And then he went on to
say how every democracy,
every republic, in
history had fallen.
The elderly woman asked
him, but, sir, why is that?
He said, I do not
know, Madam, but I
suppose it is because of
the eventual corruption
of the people.
Again, words to ponder.
So you have someone who thinks
he's entitled to the ship.
He owns the ship.
And he's at the helm, but
he doesn't necessarily
really do a very good
job of running that ship.
As a result, the crew
begins to crumble.
They begin to say--
and I know you've never
heard people grumbling about
our political leaders, right?
They begin to say, you
know, I could probably
steer the ship as
well as this guy.
Why should he get
to steer the ship?
They start forming little
conspiratorial groups
to try to use flattery,
or bribery, or force,
or whatever means necessary
to get control of the wheel.
As they do that, they start
neglecting their own jobs.
If you have ever worked
in the corporate world,
you'll probably immediately
run into the phenomenon
known as corporate politics.
I was-- for more
than 20 years, had
one foot in the
academic world and one
foot in the corporate world.
And it is amazing.
If you've never
experienced it, you
can't comprehend how
thick the politics is.
And how much of
the time and energy
actually goes into
the politics, rather
than actually doing the work.
Let alone doing it right.
That's true in many,
many, many institutions.
So here you have people
neglecting their jobs.
Neglecting their own craft.
Because they want to control.
The what power.
And they may have legitimate
gripes against the captain
but that doesn't mean that
they are any more qualified
than he is to run the ship.
If you ever go to
Plymouth and see
the reconstruction
of the Mayflower,
it's a very
enlightening experience.
You see there are so many
little jobs people had.
One thing that really
impressed me was,
there was a fire pit on the
upper deck where the blacksmith
forged metal pieces when they
needed to repair metal pieces.
And I though, this
is a wooden ship
out in the middle of the ocean
and a blacksmith actually
knows how to make that fire in
that fire pit in the upper deck
without burning the ship down.
And yet hot enough so
that he can do his job.
That guy was a craftsman.
He knew what he was doing.
The people who rigged
the sails, the people who
did all of the jobs that have
to be done to make a ship
run, those people knew
what they were doing.
Plato's not suggesting that
these crew members don't
know anything or that what
they know is of no value
or of lesser value than
what anyone else knows.
In another dialogue,
Socrates actually
expresses this concern
very, very clearly.
He says, when I talk
with ordinary craftsman,
I thought at last I found
a person of real knowledge.
Someone tells me, I know
how to make a copper pot.
He knows what materials
to get together.
He knows what tools to use.
He knows what to do.
And, by golly, when he's
done, he's got a copper pot.
He was right.
He did know how to
make a copper pot.
The problem is, he starts
thinking of himself
as an expert.
He is an expert at
making copper pots.
But now he's just generally
thinking of himself
as an expert.
Hubris creeps up.
He starts thinking,
well, I'm an expert.
My opinion is, of
course, very worthwhile
even if it's about something
of which I know very little.
If I know how to
make a copper pot,
well I also know how
to run the government.
I also know what the
gods expect of us.
I also know et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
In fact, he knows how
to make a copper pot.
He doesn't necessarily
know all that other stuff.
Maybe he could learn
those other things.
But the fact that he's an
expert at making copper pots
doesn't mean he's qualified
to do the rest of that.
So the crew is not qualified
to run the ship either.
But they may be able
to take the ship--
the wheel from the
captain and run the ship.
If they do that,
Plato says it's going
to become like a
drunken pleasure cruise.
Does that sound like fun?
Well, remember, this is not
like some Carnival Cruise line.
This is a ship out
in the sea which
is going to sink and lose all
hands if people don't know
how to do what they need to do.
If the crew doesn't
do their jobs
and if the person at the wheel
doesn't know what he's doing.
It is a life and death matter.
The ship will sink.
Now all the time Plato,
in making these analogies,
is talking about,
not only the state.
Not only politics, the
government, our social life.
He's also talking
about the self.
Here's what I believe
because I want to believe it,
it makes me feel
good to believe it.
Here's what I want to be true.
I hate these people
so they're bad.
These people are my
friends so they're good.
I find this entertaining
so it must be harmless.
Somebody tells me that
I should stop doing this
and that because it's
destructive, I don't want to.
I'll believe whatever
I want to believe.
The crew is in charge and I'm
lumbering around in my life
failing to achieve the
possibilities I could achieve.
And instead of that,
simply lost at sea.
Now there is also, on
board, a navigator.
Someone who was actually
study the art of navigation.
He doesn't know how
to get and keep power.
He knows how to plot the course.
Other people looking
at him say, this guy
knows nothing practical.
Look at him.
He stands there
staring at the stars
and making notes
about the stars.
And he's studying the
stars, the tides, the winds,
that sort of thing,
the currents.
Those are all things
that have nothing
to do with what he
wants to be true.
Nothing to do with
his self interest.
This is how it is.
The ancient Greeks had a
different idea of freedom
from ours.
And we tend to think
that freedom means,
I can do whatever I want to do.
The Greeks saw that as chaos.
And they didn't think that
flailing about chaotically
is any freedom worth having.
For the ancient Greeks,
the notion of freedom
was, you get a clear
idea of what's real.
You get a clear idea of
how the world actually
is so that you can act as
effectively as possible
in the world as it is.
The navigator isn't saying,
what do I want to be true?
What do I want to believe?
How do I promote my own
interests on this ship?
How do I get control
of the wheel?
He's saying, how does the sea?
What can I actually
know about the sea?
What can I actually know
about plotting our location
from the stars?
I have to be humble enough
to learn the way the world is
instead of saying I'm
going to lead with my ego.
And, of course, because
of that the crew
thinks this guy is worthless.
He doesn't know anything about
how to get control of the ship.
He doesn't know anything about
getting or keeping power.
He's useless to us.
Now, so of course they
think he's useless.
And if he keeps annoying them,
they'll probably say, look,
there is no art of navigation.
If there were an
art of navigation,
I'd know it because,
after all I'm, an expert.
I'm smart.
I know how to get control of
the ship so I'm a smart guy.
If there were am
art of navigation,
why wouldn't I already know it.
Keep up bugging us about this
and we'll cut your throat
and throw you overboard.
Plato will have a similar
image in the allegory
of the cave, which we'll
look at about halfway
through this course.
So the navigator could
advise the captain
and make him a better captain.
If the crew takes over
the ship, the navigator
could advise the crew
so they could actually
steer the ship effectively.
But they're not about
to listen to him.
He's useless as far
as they're concerned.
They don't know how to use him.
I remember, and this, you
know-- I'll will use examples
from all over the
political spectrum
and from all different
traditions and so forth.
And I'm not neither advocating
or critiquing for any of them.
They're just good examples.
I heard Robert Kennedy,
Jr. talking once
when he had just
published a book.
He's a very prominent
environmental attorney,
an environmental activist.
And he was talking about when
Arnold Schwarzenegger was first
elected governor of California.
If you don't realize
this already,
Schwarzenegger is by
marriage to Maria Shriver,
related to the Kennedys.
So apparently when Arnold
Schwarzenegger was first
elected governor, he called
Robert Kennedy Junior
and he said, Robert--
Kennedy did a much better
Schwarzenegger
than I do-- Robert
I want to be the greatest
environmental governor
the country has ever seen.
And I don't know
what the hell to do.
Get out here and help me.
I thought, that's
pretty cool actually.
And that's actually
a good example
of what Plato thinks
ought to happen.
I'm in charge.
I knew how to get power.
And I'm also wise
enough to realize,
I don't necessarily know what
to do now that I have the power.
I better get people
around me who
actually know what to
do and listen to them.
The plant.
The plant analogy is two-fold.
It's very, very brief.
If you're not reading
carefully, you may miss it.
It's only a few lines.
But it is important.
And many students
have actually found
that it really
resonated with them.
Weeds will grow anywhere.
They will grow on anything.
They will grow
seemingly on nothing.
But a valuable plant has
to be taking care of.
You have to make sure that
you pull out the weeds so they
don't strangle it because
we weeds are aggressive.
A valuable plant
will grow anywhere.
What Plato is
saying, is that this
is the same with
virtue and vice.
Our vices will grow on
whatever we feed them.
They'll find a way to grow
if we don't pull them out.
Virtues, on the other hand,
have to be cultivated.
It's not going to
happen by itself.
We have to be conscious,
and we have to care,
and we have to make the effort.
We're not just going to wake
up one day and be navigators.
The dangerous beast.
This is a very powerful analogy.
Plato was very
worried about the fact
that many politicians
in his time
are simply pandering
to public opinion.
They have no idea how
to solve the problems.
They do know who the
public wants to scapegoat.
They do know how to arouse
the passions of the crowd.
But they do not know what to do.
Once they have the crowd behind
them, all they know how to do
is to be swept into power.
And then try to stay in
power by placating the crowd.
This is like having a dangerous
beast who is allegedly trained.
The trainer says, you know
what, I've trained this beast.
If I throw him some raw meat,
he stops threatening me.
Well, no, it's the
other way around.
The beast has trained
the so-called trainer.
I want some meat and rraar
and the trainer feeds me.
Real leadership,
traditionally, has
meant that you have a
vision of what can be done
and how to do it.
And you are able to
articulate that vision
to the people in
such a way that you
persuade them to follow you.
Martin Luther King was
an example of that.
He was very, very good at that.
Here is my dream.
Here is my vision.
And here's how we
can achieve it.
And to be so persuasive about it
as to get people to follow him
in that regard.
Not, I'm going to
take a poll, try
to figure out what
you already believe,
and then try to convince
you that I already
believe what you
already believe.
In other words, you're as
clueless as everybody else
about how to solve our problems.
No thank you.
Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst.
You may be familiar
with him as someone
who explored the psychology
behind mythology.
The recurrence of mythological
themes in popular culture.
Carl Jung talked
about the shadow self.
Our capacity for destruction.
Our capacity for hatred,
for violence, for bias,
for ignorance, for
all these things.
That is our shadow self.
If we try to deny that it
exists, it grows stronger.
Shadows grow
stronger in the dark.
Until, finally, it's
so strong that it
strides forward and
can't be stopped.
Jung used this analogy to
describe the rise of Nazism.
As well as describing what
happens in someone's character
when the person is denying,
no, I'm not capable of hating.
I'm not capable of being greedy.
I'm not capable of being biased.
That denial means
that you're not
dealing with your own vices,
with your own shortcomings.
You're not able to
pull out the weeds
because you deny
the weeds are there.
And what happens?
That shadow self becomes
stronger, and stronger,
and stronger until
finally it destroys
other parts of your life.
It strides forward and
it can't be stopped.
Plato sees the dangerous
beast as being exactly that.
This is the dark side of
democracy, if you will.
Some people have said
Plato is anti-democracy.
That's really a very, very
incomplete and inaccurate
representation.
If you want to look at Plato's
political views, which we're
not going to do
really in this course,
you'd have to look at a
number of different dialogues.
His final statement about what
a government should be like
is you should have a strict
constitution that constrains
even the rulers or
especially the rulers.
There should be one
law for everyone.
You should have
separation of powers
because it's an inherent
conflict of interest
to have the same people both
making and enforcing the laws.
You should have an elective
legislature to make the laws.
And you should have term limits
so that special interests don't
become entrenched in those laws.
And if you understand
that the laws will
have to be changed constantly
because the laws will only
be as good as the
people who make them,
which means they will
always have shortcomings.
That's not exactly,
terribly radical.
Plato's criticism of democracy
is that his Athenian democracy
doesn't really have
those constraints.
It turns very easily into
rule by an angry mob.
And as he describes
it, an angry mob
will always look for a leader.
And when you finally
find a sufficiently
charismatic and clever leader,
who is empowered by that mob,
you won't be able
to get rid of him.
And thus, virtually overnight,
this unconstrained democracy
can be transformed into tyranny.
And tyranny, he says,
is the most unjust,
the worst form of government.
Now you probably-- in other
classes, if you've read
the Republic-- read
the whole business
about the philosopher
King having
absolute power and all
this sort of thing.
Plato himself, in his letters to
King Dionysus of Syracuse says,
that's a parity.
He's making fun of
the Spartan government
and how grotesque the Spartan
political conceptions are.
The fact that he
himself says it's parity
has been ignored
by lot of people
who want to present it as
if it's meant literally.
And then say, well,
look at Plato.
Plato just wanted this
incredible theocracy
or something.
No he didn't.
He was mocking it.
He was, essentially,
trying to make the point,
you can't ever give total
power to any human being
because no human
being is going to be
perfectly wise and
perfectly benevolent.
So the beast.
Again, as above, so below.
Right?
As the alchemist used to
say, as above, so below.
Just as there is a drunken
crew member inside of me,
I want to be careful
not to simply
give him the wheel of my life.
I want to be careful not
to let the dangerous beast
step out and take
over my life either.
And the first thing I have
to admit is that he's there.
The potential is there.
Finally, the bald-headed tinker.
A bald-headed tinker.
A tinker was someone who really
didn't have any specific craft.
He mended common household
items like pots and pans,
for instance.
This is one of the jobs that
Socrates did when he worked.
And he worked as
much as he needed to,
to provide for himself and his
family but no more than that.
So a tinker's not
a real craftsman,
a person who has really
expert knowledge.
What has happened
in this analogy
is that the tinker's old boss
has fallen on hard times.
The tinker's just
gotten out of jail.
He says, well, you know what?
If the boss is on
hard times, I'm
going to gussy myself up and
go offer to marry his daughter.
I mean, he's not going to
have any better prospects.
Well, says Socrates, look, this
is what happens to philosophy.
The people who have the talent,
the charisma, the education
to really be significantly
contributing to philosophy,
they're all seduces
away into other ends.
Bribery, flattery, whatever.
They're all seduced away
from the love of wisdom.
And that leaves philosophy
with nothing better
than a bald-headed tinker.
Now this is also self
effacement because he
is, himself, a little
bald-headed tinker.
And he's saying, look,
all these articulate,
intelligent, attractive
people who could really
promote love of
wisdom, they're all
seduced away into unworthy ends.
And that leaves philosophy
with the likes of me,
a grotesque little man
who professes ignorance.
Isn't that sad?
Of course, we would add,
at this point in history,
that maybe it wasn't
sad because as Plato,
and various others
pointed out, Socrates
was in their estimation
the wisest, and noblest,
and bravest man
they had ever met.
Or has Plato put it, or
am ever likely to meet.
So when you're thinking
about and writing
about these analogies,
two things to remember.
One, as above, so below.
This is not simply about
how we run our government,
this is also about
how we run our lives.
Also, this is not
simply a critique
of a historical situation
that's 2,500 years old.
This is something profound
about human nature.
One student, years ago, said
to me, it's amazing to me
that this was written so long
ago because this could have
been written yesterday and it
would be just as compelling.
Thank you.
