Abstract
Book 1 of Plato’s Laws, and particularly the image of the puppet introduced near its end, has been traditionally interpreted as presenting the moral psychology model that underlies the educational system delineated by the Athenian Stranger, which construes virtue as consonance between the non–rational and the rational elements of the soul. But a different and competing conception of virtue looms large in Laws 1, virtue as victory of the best part of the soul in psychic conflict. This paper argues that the Athenian’s conception of education as the correct conformation of originally conflicting psychic forces requires the simultaneous presence of the harmony and the conflict models of virtue in Laws 1. Education is in turn defined by calculation, the rational activity which persuasively leads the conflicting non–rational forces towards a consonant reciprocal rapport. By strategically developing his understanding of education and calculation in Laws 1, the Athenian shows how the harmony model of virtue overcomes the conflict model, while at the same time recognising that there is some truth to the conflict model after all and integrating it within the harmony model.
Highlights
1 Spousing what could be termed the ‘traditionalist’ reading, most commentators agree that the image of the puppet at the end of Book 1 (644d–45d) lays out the moral psychology for the construal of virtue as concord or consonance, the model of virtue which underlies the educational project that the Athenian Stranger develops in Books 1, 2 and 72, and some even extend the relevance of the image’s moral psychology
The Athenian announced this strategy by proposing that the old men take courage as the paradigm for understanding the three higher parts of ‘the whole of virtue’ (632e). To carry out this project, the Athenian agreed with a qualified version of Clinias’ all– pervasive conflict thesis, recognising that political and psychological conflict constitute the basis for any consonance–oriented legislative and educational project
The Athenian showed in the image of the puppet that calculation, the best part in us, is essentially ‘soft and forceless’, so that it can be victorious in conflict only by means of its alliance with the non–rational ‘helpers’. This is the point in which the Athenian will not agree with Clinias’ conflict model anymore, for the alliance between calculation and the better non–rational forces, an alliance initially operated through education, essentially aims at psychic consonance
Summary
Book 1 of Plato’s Laws has been the object of much detailed scholarly attention in the last years. 1 Spousing what could be termed the ‘traditionalist’ reading, most commentators agree that the image of the puppet at the end of Book 1 (644d–45d) lays out the moral psychology for the construal of virtue as concord or consonance, the model of virtue which underlies the educational project that the Athenian Stranger develops in Books 1, 2 and 72, and some even extend the relevance of the image’s moral psychology. This distinction will help untangle some of the difficulties raised by Sauvé–Meyer, so that the relation between the two models can be precisely formulated as the integration, within the harmony model of virtue, of some of the central theses of the conflict model To support his understanding of education the Athenian presents a moral psychology that explains how the state of conflict arises among the psychic forces and how the process of their correct conformation through education and legislation works. The argumentative strategy of the Athenian in Book 1 will become clear By exposing his understanding of the process of education, perfected with the development of calculation in the citizen, he shows that the ‘victory’ of ‘the best part in us’ is not the Anticipating the distinction, the term ‘harmony’ will refer exclusively to the Athenian’s model of virtue understood as a process, while the term ‘consonance’ is reserved for the psychic state at which the harmony model of virtue aims. The traditionalist reading of the puppet image prevails, but it has to grant that the psychic state of conflict is the starting point for any consonance–oriented form of education
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