Oddly, now, rather than continuing to build the city and imagine how the people interact, what their laws are and how that shapes them, Socrates and Glaucon decide to take a detour and consider the education of the soldiers. Now, imagine reading a book published by someone alive today who was talking about justice or an ideal political community and decided to spend a good portion of the book describing how Canada’s military personnel should be educated and brought up. I can see spending time talking about the education and upbringing of the people, in general, but not specifically the soldiers. Even Socrates is unsure about the value of going down this road, asking whether this will help them with their goal of figuring out where justice comes into the city. But Adeimantus jumps back in at this point, saying that, yes, indeed, he thinks it will contribute to the goal. Is it the case that Adeimantus was interested in soldiering, himself, and so Socrates is drawing him into the conversation by appealing to something that interests him? That is, is the talk of soldiering just a pedagogical tool of Socrates rather than an indication that soldiering is an important topic on its own?

 

Socrates then says something very interesting: “Come, then, like men telling tales in a tale and at their leisure, let’s educate the men in speech (376d)”. This is so hard to unpack. Let’s just take the first part, to start, about ‘telling tales in a tale’. So Socrates with Glaucon and Adeimantus are imaging a city in speech. Now, they are about to imagine the education of the imaginary rulers, which makes it a tale within a tale. But from our perspective, we are reading a book written by Plato, who is telling us a tale. In that tale, his character Socrates is actually telling a tale about what has happened. This is Socrates’ recollection. So then, when we add on these two new tales, it is actually a tale within a tale within a recollected tale within a tale. We are four layers removed from reality here. What does this mean?

 

Is it simply the author, Plato, reminding us that we, as readers, are already reading a tale within a tale? That is, he is telling us that ‘wink, wink,’ I’m educating you in speech. Or are we supposed to take it as a caution? ‘Remember,’ Plato is saying, ‘this is just an exercise in imagination here, so don’t take this to be the literal truth’. But why does he add: “and at their leisure”? Is it somehow important that they’re not doing this for a reason other than leisure? Or, is it meant as, “let’s educate people through entertaining them in their leisure”? That is, “let’s put other people’s leisure time to good use by providing them with an education”. Again, it makes sense, I suppose, if it is Plato winking at the reader, saying: ‘I’m using these tales to educate you, dear reader”. I don’t know; perhaps I’m reading into this way too much. Maybe it’s just a play on words because Socrates and the gang are about to talk about the education of the guardians, hence they will “educate the men in speech.”

 

Of course, as we keep reading, it gets even messier, for when they describe their ideal education for the guardians, it consists of two things, music and gymnastic. Music, here, includes “speeches” and tales. Gymnastic is akin to modern physical education. With respect to “speeches,” Socrates then asks: “Do speeches have a double form, the one true, the other false (376e)”? On the surface, we are to take this to mean that when we read a story there is the falsehood in that tortoises and hares in real life don’t engage in running races. But there is also the truth, or moral, of the made-up story, which is that slow and steady wins the race. That is the truth the author is conveying through their falsehood. This is how we understand stories in our day.

 

But we have to ask, is Plato saying something more here? Is he, again, reminding us that this is just a story? The Republic is false, but its moral is true. Is Plato saying that he doesn’t intend for us to take the specifics of what he is saying as the truth, but, rather, the moral? For instance, there are those, including myself sometimes, who think that the point of The Republic is to teach us about the limits of the ideal. It is to show that in order to bring about a just society, it would be grossly unjust. At the end of book VII, Socrates says that the philosopher-kings would take over all the children ten and under, exiling their parents and the rest of the community so that they could raise the children under their system of education. Oddly, the reaction from Glaucon is, essentially, “yeah, that’s what they’d do if they wanted to start their perfectly just city.” Creating the just city requires taking everyone’s children away from them?!? I mean, again, can you imagine going to a lecture at a university in which a professor of political science, with all seriousness, proposed that all parents and people over 10 get forced to move to another community while a few philosophers take over the raising and education of the young? This is so absurd that it is hard to think of it as anything other than irony. Though, I suppose we ought to keep in mind that they did put Socrates to death. Perhaps we’re wrong not to take this talk seriously.

 

In any case, we’re jumping ahead of ourselves here. The important thing, I think, for now, is to just note that we should keep our minds open to the possibility that there are at least a couple of layers to The Republic and we would be wise not to judge it before we have considered the various ways we could interpret it. Let us return, then, to our education in speech.