Episode 20, Plato's Political Philosophy (Part I)
The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast
Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane
4.8 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2017
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Everything you could need is on www.thepanpsycast.com! Please tweet us your thoughts at www.twitter.com/thepanpsycast. This episode benchmarks the beginning of our mini-series on political philosophy. Plato provides a strong critique of democracy through his formulation of a utopian city-state. By attempting to find justice in the city, Plato prompts us to question whether or not democracy can promote the common good. In this episode we'll be asking questions like; What is justice? Is democracy worthless? and What can we learn from Plato today? Part I. Socratic Dialogues in Gorgias and The Republic (08:15), Part II. The Republic (31:35), Part III. Real World Application (00:10 - in Part II), Part IV. Further Analysis and Discussion (22:40 - in Part II). Make sure you've subscribed to us on iTunes to get new episodes as and when they're released! Thank you, we hope you enjoy the episode!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to why democracy is great! |
| 0:04.0 | Just kidding, Plato didn't think so. |
| 0:11.0 | In the words of Plato, |
| 0:14.0 | Suppose the following to be the state of affairs on board ship or ships. |
| 0:18.0 | The captain is larger and stronger than any of the crew, but a bit deaf and short-sighted, |
| 0:22.8 | and similarly limited in seamanship. |
| 0:25.4 | The crew are all quarreling about how to navigate the ship, each thinking he ought to |
| 0:29.2 | be at the helm. |
| 0:30.4 | They have never learned the art of navigation and cannot say that anyone ever taught at them, |
| 0:34.9 | or that they spend any time studying it. Indeed, they say it can't |
| 0:38.8 | be taught and are ready to murder anyone who says it can. They spend all their time milling |
| 0:43.7 | around the captain and doing all they can to get him to give them the helm. If one faction |
| 0:49.2 | is more successful than another, their rivals may kill them and throw them overboard. Lay |
| 0:53.8 | out the honest captain |
| 0:54.7 | with drugs or drink or in some other way. Take control of the ship, help themselves to what's |
| 0:59.6 | on board and turn the voyage into the sort of drunken pleasure cruise you would expect. |
| 1:08.0 | Okay, so today in part one we're looking at Socratic dialogue in Gorgias and Republic, |
| 1:12.6 | Part two, The Republic, Part three, Criticisms and Real Life applications, and in part four, |
| 1:18.6 | further analysis and discussion. Hello and welcome to episode 20 on Plato's political philosophy. |
| 1:39.5 | I'm Jack Symes and I'm joined today by Mr. Oli-Mali. |
| 1:44.0 | Hello. And Mr. Andrew H. Olly Marley. Hello. |
| 1:41.5 | And Mr. Andrew Horton as well. Hello. It's been a long time since the gang have been together. You count four or five weeks. Yeah, the band split up for a bit. You know, we had creative differences. I went and did a solo album. But we're back now. We're back together. And yeah, it's all exciting. Lots of things have changed, haven't they, Andy? |
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