Dear Lance,

> In the case of the Republic, of course, the
> context is
> unusually multi-layered, ...

Yes. That is why I suggested that the build-up to
speaking of "many natures" needs to be taken seriously,
which means to examine the Glaucon-Socrates
interplay-in-conversation, to examine the theme of
speech vs. deeds, to examine the theme of Glaucon's
being "content." Let me take that another step with
reference to one of your remarks:

> For reasons I explained in my piece on the title of
the dialogue, I
> believe that "regime" is an inaccurate and misleading
translation of
> "politeia".

Yes. Politeia in the title refers to the verbally
expressed action. And it is Plato's title. It is the
single word that is written as such. The story-teller
who only speaks does not need to provide his story a
title. But the single word politeia that we find in the
written title, for the same reasons of multi-layering,
does not always have the same meaning as spoken in the
text of the story. Consider specifically 470e: "Won't
the city *you* are founding be Greek?" -- Socrates'
question to Glaucon. Is it a debatable conclusion if I
point out that Socrates and Glaucon were NOT at this
point in the discussion talking about "the politeia" of
the title of the written work?

> > we have talked about, which is the
> > regime we have generated in speech, but is not the
> > regime that has been generated in and through the
fact
> > and deed of the conversation, does or does not
require
> > a relationship to reality or what comes to be, and
if
> > it comes to be, it comes to be by nature for there
is
> > no other coming to be?
> >
> I don't understand the meaning of this question mark,
since your
> sentence does not have an interrogative form.

Ok, backwards one and a half steps. Socrates and
Glaucon talk about justice-in-speech, the
just-man-in-speech, and all for the sake of talking
about the-city-in-speech, which, as exemplfified
briefly in the 470e section I just cited, is NOT "the
politeia" and is NOT Socrates' own city-in-speech, but
Glaucon's. If, in this layer of the multi-layering, the
city is not that of Plato or Socrates, where in the
story do we see what is that city? That is the
question, skirted several times here over the years, of
what Socrates shows his audience (a different layer) he
did yesterday. To avoid posing questions people think
are such bats in the belfry, I have suggested -- I can
only make a suggestion because whatever I merely *say*
does not constitute your or anyone else's *seeing* --
that Socrates founded a city yesterday. Is this city
"real"? -- A new layer. -- No, it is not "real" because
all we do know that is "real" is that Plato *wrote*
this work. We do not know that a real, historical
Socrates ever founded such a city, which is to say that
he actually did in real life what he shows us that he
accomplshed "yesterday" as a character in Plato's work.
For your question of the meaning of politeia, for which
the verbal action behind the noun needs to be
identified, you will need to find some action or deed
that results in that which is called politeia in the
noun-form. Your question, thus, requires that you not
be content with Glaucon's contentedness in deeds
approximating speech. To the contrary, your question
requires that you show us some action that is
identified with the verb. So where will you look for
such action? What will you look at? Will you look *in
Plato* or outside? If outside, who or what guides your
looking?

My solution to this is that Socrates today shows
himself having accomplished the action identified with
the verb that results in the noun-fact of politeia.
That is the reason for moving through the work from the
outset so slowly.

My question above, so misunderstandable, simply asks
whether, since there is a difference between the city
Socrates said is *Glaucon's city* and Glaucon's
*founding* and the city-generated-in-the-deed-of
conversation for the story as a whole, we do or do not
require a relationship between either of these cities
and reality? -- Now, Glaucon, as I showed or tried to
show by referencing the contextual frame of the talk
about "many natures," is content/satisfied for reality
to approximate speech. If *we* are as satisfied and
content as Glaucon, fine (for the sake of
conversation), but then let us not posit the ridiculous
claim that we are talking about the action of
city-founding (which Socrates shows himself having
accomplished). No, if we agree with Glaucon and his
having it easy with speeches, we do not acknowledge the
relationship between speech and deeds, we are not
looking at any deeds (which means we are not looking at
Plato's story for Socrates and are not looking at what
is accomplished there). If so, we may be startled by
Plato's writing into Socrates' mouth that there are
"many natures" and that the regime of the
philosopher-king comes into being out of nature to see
the light of the sun, and being startled is
confirmation, as a response or an impression, of what I
suggested yesterday: this language is a provocation and
its target is Glaucon. Glaucon, in turn, is
Glaucon-the-character and Glaucon is also the
Glaucon-in-us, he is our Glaucon-nature. If, that is,
we assume that Glaucon assumed, on the basis of the
discussion that shapes the context building up to this
provocation, that Socrates is also content to let the
speech about the justice-man (where justice had not
even be found!) be the precise speech (remember
Thrasymachus??) and reality may be content to
approximate speech taken to be precise on this issue
(again, without justice having been found in speech!),
then there is no nature at all to look at.


> I regret
> to say that I cannot find in it anything that seems
like an
> appropriate response to my question, so it appears to
me that either
> you have misunderstood what i meant to ask or you
have
> concluded that
> it was not worth answering.

To the contrary. -- You appeared to me to be looking at
the wording as Plato's wording directed to you. I
merely addressed and sketched the main features of the
context of the discussion in which this wording occurs.
As you said, you were speechless when you thought you
could talk with your students about what Plato meant. I
replied by way of indicating that you need not be
frozen in speechlessness if you would trust Plato to
have laid the groundwork for this language. If, as also
now appears to be the case, you believe that you can
articulate in speech what Plato articulated only in
this context of conversation, or only in letting the
unfolding conversation show what is not and cannot be
articulted in descriptive speech, then, firstly, you
believe you can do what Plato does not do, and,
secondly, you have decided that the issue of agreeing
or not with Glaucon that deeds and the nature of the
just man are sufficient if they merely approximate the
precision of speech, is not relevant to Plato's
articulation of the context of the nature of the
philosopher-combined-with-kingly nature.

Why not descend to the conversation? "Many natures" and
the question of "nature": if you (or anyone) can or
could articulate this in terms of what you will have to
reconstruct as that to which Socrates looked when he
employed this language, then I suppose you can snip the
conversation Socrates had with Glaucon and explain to
Glaucon what this language means. Of course, in light
of what you descibed as your hesitation, I suppose you
will have to say that you don't really think that is
possible, but, at the same, time, you do think it is
possible because you think that my sketch of the
context-in-conversation is not an answer. That is
tantamount to accusing Socrates, as Thrasymachus did
much earlier, of not doing what he might well do
(according to Thrasymachus), which is simply to explain
what it was he said and what he had in view when he
said it. My sketch was a sketch only, to be sure, so
either we need to discuss it in far greater detail or
we need to discuss what you believe can be articulated
without that context being accounted for. Your
impression that I concluded that your question was not
worth answering is the shadow-on-the-wall because I did
not answer in your terms, but in terms of the Platonic
work. That is why I ask and still ask how your own
question about politeia and the verbal action that has
politeia as its accomplishment is developing. What
action are you looking at? You want to understand the
verb so you want to undertand the action. Do you see
that Plato provides that action?

So, let me return ever so briefly to the issue of
trusting Plato.

It is not sufficient to talk about the manifold layers
of this composition. We need to work within each layer,
identify it, and identify the intersection of layers
having been in each of them. In the case of this
specific conversation you address now, we need to
separate the layer in which Socrates got Glaucon's
concession that he would be content at several points
from the layer of what Socrates accomplishes by showing
us Glaucon's contentedness. Readers of the book who are
satisifed to concede that there are manifold layers but
who also confound these two layers and thus assert that
Socrates is himself as content as he shows Glaucon to
be, are fudging. No, Socrates is not content. "But,
but," protests the reader, "look at the text: Socrates
is building an argument on the basis of what he wants
Glaucon to agree to." No, he is doing no such thing.
Dear reader, do not believe what Glaucon believes about
Socrates; do not believe that Glaucon asks Socrates to
teach him this and that, and that therefore Socrates
concedes to do what Glaucon wants. If you are compelled
to conclude, dear reader, that Glaucon does not know
what Socrates is actually doing in the conversation
that leads up to the talk about "many natures," then
you are compelled to face the issue that Glaucon could
not possibly understand the language of "many natures"
and the one in which the philosopher and the kingly are
combined, because he cannot see its instantiation right
in front of him. Then you are compelled to concede that
you do not have even the slightest hook on the question
of "many natures" if you do not understand what Glaucon
does not understand about Socrates. If, dear reader,
that which is to be understood about Socrates (in this
work) is extirpated from your reading, do what you wish
with the text, but please do not claim you are reading
Plato. If Glaucon could not possibly understand the
talk about "many natures," what -- as most readers
would ask, as readers -- is the point of showing us
*that* instead of explaining to us what "nature" is for
Plato. Ach, dear reader: I am afraid, as the famous
Vermont farmer once said, you can't get there from
here. Let's return to the beginning so that you can
practice sufficiently before confronting such issues as
here, where we are to understand first what Glaucon did
not understand before trying to understand what
Socrates was saying, as such.

Of course, you, Lance, are not the "dear reader" here
in my fictitious appeal. In your case, I presume it is
not illegitimate to explore issues of "how to read
Plato" when any particular issue makes that necessary.

Best regards,

George








since Socrates is reported as
> narrating to an
> unnamed audience a conversation that took place on
the previous day.
> So we need to think about what Plato intended us to
> understand as the
> meaning of what Socrates said when he said it, what
Plato
> intended us
> to understand as the meaning that Socrates intended
to convey to his
> unnamed audience "today", and what Plato intended his
various
> types of
> readers to understand from reading the dialogue.
After a brief
> reflection I decided to go with the expression "what
Plato meant,"
> because it seemed to me that ultimately whatever
meanings one
> finds in
> Plato's texts reflect, or ought to reflect, what
Plato intended.
>
> > -- Did Plato write this talk about "many
> > natures" for you;
> >
> Well, in a sense, yes. But, of course, that is very
different from
> supposing that Plato intended the speeches of
Socrates, addressed to
> other characters in the dialogue as speeches by Plato

> addressed to the
> reader. I mean I assume Plato wrote his dialogues to
be read by
> readers, but I assume he intended them to be read as
> dialogues and not
> as treatises. Thucydides envisioned that his book
might be read by
> readers beyond his own time. I can easily imagine
Plato having a
> similar intention.
> > is it possible or even intended that
> > you or another person who reads these words
understand
> > the words apart from the context, immediate and
> > extended?
> >
> No, of course not, as I have said above.
> > I suppose and suggest not, but, from the
> > small section we may now consider for itself, there
are
> > numerous points at which we are thrown back to
earlier
> > phases of the discussion. It is inevitable and it
> > belongs to the "nature" of this piece that any
single
> > word is but a part of a strand of Penelope's
weaving.
> >
> > First, let's recall that this small section is
> > Socrates' imitation of what he said at that
specific
> > point yesterday to Glaucon.
> >
> > Second, "nature" occurs twice, first in the phrase
> > "many natures," all those that separate the
> > philosophical from the kingly, or in whom these are
> > separated, and then in the bifurcation between
> > generation in speech and generation in nature. If
the
> > combined nature comes to be, is generated, it will
"see
> > the light of day," which we should think as
startling
> > and shocking as the phrase "many natures." "See the
> > light of day" -- let me quote and emphasize the
Greek
> > just so no one believes this is a peculiar American
> > phrasing creeping into the translation: phôs hêlion
> > idê. Literally: see the light of the sun. "See" =
idê,
> > a verb, 3rd person singular, aorist subjunctive and
> > active. The regime
> >
> For reasons I explained in my piece on the title of
the dialogue, I
> believe that "regime" is an inaccurate and misleading
translation of
> "politeia".
> > we have talked about, which is the
> > regime we have generated in speech, but is not the
> > regime that has been generated in and through the
fact
> > and deed of the conversation, does or does not
require
> > a relationship to reality or what comes to be, and
if
> > it comes to be, it comes to be by nature for there
is
> > no other coming to be?
> >
> I don't understand the meaning of this question mark,
since your
> sentence does not have an interrogative form.
> >
> >
> > Recall, however, that 471d, Socrates ellicited
> > Glaucon's agreement to the point that they, he and
> > Socrates, were looking for justice itself (that is
what
> > Glaucon demanded at the outset of bk 2, but it is a
> > great question whether Socrates ever set out to
give
> > him what he demanded) and the just man, and in what
> > they are "like" each other, "NOT for the sake of
> > proving that it's possible for these things to come
> > into being." If -- sorry if I have misunderstood
the
> > point of your question --
> >
> I am not sure whether or not you have misunderstood
the point of my
> question, but, after reading your message a number of
times,
> I regret
> to say that I cannot find in it anything that seems
like an
> appropriate response to my question, so it appears to
me that either
> you have misunderstood what i meant to ask or you
have
> concluded that
> it was not worth answering.
>
> Lance
>
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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