Popper Chapter 4

Plato was a sociologist in the sense that "he successfully applied his idealist method to an analysis of the social life of man, and of the law of its development as well as the laws and conditions of its stability."

For Plato, the starting point of all change is perfect and good, and so any change must be for the worse (any change would be a move away from perfection, and since perfection cannot be improved, it must be a move towards the worse). The more closely a thing resembles its Form, the less corruptible it is.

No sensible things resemble their Forms sufficiently to be incorruptible. Every change of a sensible thing moves it further form its Form and so corrupts it. (this is a questionable claim: once you depart from perfection, why can't change move back towards it? Popper admits (P. 37) that improvement is possible, but says it is exceptional according to Plato).

Through combining Heraclitus' theory of omnipresent change (restricted, however, to sensibles) with the idea of unchanging Forms, says Popper, Plato came up with an ethical judgement of change: it is bad if it moves away from the Forms, and good if it moves toward them. Plato follows Hesiod in thinking that as time goes on, things deteriorate, in particular, society does (although it is not clear to me that Plato thinks individual humans have deteriorated: he should be committed to that on Popper's view, I would guess: that is interesting!).

Among Plato's impressive sociological intuitions:
Plato's sociology is found in three dialogues. In the Laws, Plato presents the story of society from prehistory to historical times. The Republic abstractly describes a development of government, and the Statesman gives a typology of governments.

Plato posited an originally perfect and incorruptible state (surely Popper is wrong here: Plato thought NOTHING sensible was perfect and incorruptible: the historical society that Plato describes can at best have been a better instantiation of the perfect state: it cannot have been perfect).

Plato saw a pattern of degeneration in the state. A kingship is the primitive state that most closely fits the description of the perfect state. Then comes timocracy (rule of the noble who seek honor and fame), followed by oligarchy (rule of the rich families), followed by democracy (rule of liberty/lawlessness), which is followed by tyranny. The fact that Plato identified this pattern and thought it followed an evolutionary path makes him a historicist.

The evolution is typical: the timocratic child hears his mother say "your father should be a ruler, but he is not" and then grows up ambitious, which leads to an oligarchy. The transition to oligarchy is complete when the standard of citizenship is a specific amount of wealth. Democracy occurs when the masses grow dissatisfied with the oligarchy and start a civil war. If they win, democracy results. Plato is intensely hostile to democracy, and makes all sorts of unsupported value judgements about the democratic person. Liberty is called lawlessness, equality before the law is called disorder, democrats are profligate, cheap, insolent, lawless, pleasure-driven etc. In all, these judgements are not supported by argument, according to Popper.

The oldest existing forms of states at Plato's time, in reality and according to Plato, were Crete and Sparta, tribal aristocracies. In holding these up as models, Plato is being reactionary, not progressive.

Plato avoids class warfare or struggle not by abolishing classes, but by introducing an absolutely rigid caste system. The upper class is educated to be superior. Upper class members are not allowed to have economic interests that might lead to conflict amongst them (remember that every political revolution, Plato says, involves disunity of the ruling class). The nuclear family is eliminated too, because it might lead to disunity. Too much prosperity (aka luxury) is avoided, because it too leads to disunity.

Such a rigid class system is justified by the superiority of the upper class to the lower classes. That superiority is intellectual, racial (remember Plato's eugenic plan), and moral (the upper class has a better scale of values: they know what is good).

All literary and other artistic activity is to be thoroughly censored in the best state. Education and art are simply tools for the mobilization of the ruling classes.

Although Plato criticizes Greek enslavement of Greeks, he approves of Greek enslavement of barbarians. That is barbarous.

In all, Popper is intensely hostile to Plato's views. He suggests that Plato's reviling of the democratic man is based upon no support whatsoever, that Plato's program is essentially similar to that of a Mussolini and a Hitler, and that Plato places no value on autonomy of the individual. The rigid class system which Plato creates is deeply repulsive to Popper.