Platonist "Republic"an state

Having done an exam on Greek Ethics today, thought I'd pose this question to the forum. Is it plausible that at any point in the fourth or third centuries BC, a group of Greek colonists led by a visionary individual could have seriously attempted to set up a city state that functioned along the lines of the ideal state of Plato's "Republic"? If so, how long would such a state have been able to last before, as I suspect, it fell to a revolution from either the worker or the auxiliary classes?
 
Awesome idea!

As for the eventual demise of the colony/republic, i think that the janissaries in the ottoman empire are a helpful example. after all, they were professional 'guardians', raised from childhood, who were not allowed earthly goods, the brightest of whom would be sent to the 'Enderun' institute to learn how to govern (the similarities blew my mind when i first noticed). So our republics guardians could gradually become a powerhouse which stands against innovation or reformation to ensure its own existence. among the highest order you would have byzantine levels of intrigue & backstabbing for the top job. the rabble could rise up with the core revolutionaries being the underground poetry&drama scene (banned by the law) and guardian rejects.

as per the setting &POD, perhaps a different pelepponesian war (which socrates took part in OTL), leading to a different socrates who ends up defending the imagined republic (which he calls 'kallipolis'-'the beautiful city': cool ironic name for a dystopian timeline imho), rather than ending the thought experiment on noting why it's not possible. Plato would then be more like a John Locke, or Rousseau, and would be formulating what the city would actually be like, institutions, laws and all.

mind you that when you have such a text, the colonizers don't have to contemporaries or greeks; karl marx was a german but russians liked his ideas. so i don't know, a rich and eccentric roman can give it a shot. even the discoverers of the new world (who would have rediscovered plato around that time) can want to do it. think utopian socialists in early american colonization.

not sure about the butterflies of the slightly different pelepponesian war and the book though..
 
Funny, despite my area of study, this is a question I'm not very well read in, as The Republic is one of the few of Plato's dialogues I haven't read all the way through.

But if I recall correctly and understand correctly what's in it, there's a lot of problems with this. In order for somebody to set up a city, they'd have to want to rule the city as it should be ruled, which means they'd need to be a philosopher, and not want to rule. But if they don't want to rule, and the city doesn't already exist, why would they go out of their way to form it and rule it?
 
Funny, despite my area of study, this is a question I'm not very well read in, as The Republic is one of the few of Plato's dialogues I haven't read all the way through.

But if I recall correctly and understand correctly what's in it, there's a lot of problems with this. In order for somebody to set up a city, they'd have to want to rule the city as it should be ruled, which means they'd need to be a philosopher, and not want to rule. But if they don't want to rule, and the city doesn't already exist, why would they go out of their way to form it and rule it?

indeed, along with the fact that plato/socrates pretty much explicitly says that the thought experiement fails; you can never have the perfect republic. that's why i suggest that we have a POD that changes socrates' philosophy, so that
1. he believes the perfect republic to be possible
2. he presents some practical advice (like john locke or rousseau)
3. he either skips the 'noble lie' (gold people, silver people and copper people) or, rather than calling it a noble lie, endorse it and become a quasi-prophet for the future republic.
this way you could have some 'founding fathers' who conform to the books requirements.

(as a philosophy major this is the first time in my years of lurking in AH.com that i actually know about stuff, so forgive me for my over-excitement :D )
 
I'm a philosophy major as well! In fact, I specialise in classical philosophy! But every now and then my field shows up in AH.

On this matter though, I know that Plato did not think that his ideals cities was impossible, or at least, it's a valid position that he didn't. I believe the differences between the Republic and the Laws is that Plato's views changed, not that he thought one was idea and unrealisable, and the other more practical.
 
In order for somebody to set up a city, they'd have to want to rule the city as it should be ruled, which means they'd need to be a philosopher, and not want to rule. But if they don't want to rule, and the city doesn't already exist, why would they go out of their way to form it and rule it?

It was typical of Romans (typically soldiers) to 'proclaim' an Emperor they wanted whether the candidate liked it or not - and will some Emperor's genuinely didn't want the job, but most of the time the candidate was just pretending to be reluctant and really wanted the office anyway. With a 'philosopher King' I assume a similar charade would ensue.

As far as I know, founding a new city was never an option for Plato - instead he concentrated on converting rulers of Syracuse to dubious results, often resulting in him being enslaved and beaten.
 

Skokie

Banned
The current Iranian regime is a platonic republic, btw.

The core of Khomeini’s political philosophy was a concept known as veleyat-e faqih, which means “rule of the jurisprudent.” Khomeini was a devotee of Plato (a rarity among mullahs), and in his utopian Islamic society, the state would be ruled over by a theocratic philosopher-king–a man so learned in Islamic law that all of his peers and all of his countrymen would recognize that only he could provide “right-minded” guidance. Michael Fischer notes that Khomeini was never able to cite textual bases for the concept of velyat-e faqih, largely because it was derived essentially from The Republic rather than from the Quran.

http://agonist.org/story/2004/11/22/161222/84
 
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