Summary of Book V of the Republic by Plato

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Socrates states that children will also be mounted to horses in case of their need to escape the battle. He also states that any guardian who performs an act of cowardness during battle must give up guardianship and assume another trade. Those who perform bravely in battle should be praised by their fellow guardians and children, as well as choose any spouse to marry. If he or she should die in an honorable way, however, they should be rewarded with the burial of their choice - one that suits a guardian of the “golden race”. On the topic of enemies, Socrates explains that Greek guardians should not enslave fellow Greeks, nor should they loot the dead bodies of their enemies, especially not those who are Greeks. Guardians also should not burn down Greek cities. Socrates’ reasoning for these requirements is stated as so, “I claim that the Greek race is itself with itself its own kind and kin, but alien and foreign to a barbarian race.” (470C) He further explains that when one who is Greek [guardians] is faced against an enemy who is foreign [barbarian], one can act as aggressive as one chooses.

After his extensive explanation of the lives of the guardians to his listeners, Socrates sums up his discuss on the subject by stating, what he knows will be viewed as, a radical claim: Philosophers should be kings, and all kings should actively engage in philosophy. This is a claim that will resonate throughout the rest of the text of the Republic. Socrates states, “Unless philosophers rule as kings in their cities...or those now called kings and supreme rulers genuinely and adequately engage in philosophy, and this combination of political power and philosophy joins together in the same position...there is no rest from evils for the cities...or, I think, for the human race…” (473D-E) In order to justify his claim, Socrates asks Glaucon to help him define what it is to be a ‘philosopher’. Socrates begins the discussion of the philosopher by asking Glaucon questions about beauty, and those who can identify things that are beautiful.

He explains to Glaucon that one may be able to identify beautiful things, but perhaps not beauty in itself. In this sense, one is only taking “part of” the meaning of beauty, and not beauty in its fullest capacity. Things that are beautiful can fade away as time moves onward, but the ‘form’ of beauty is something that remains constant - unchanged and pure for eternity. Socrates then explains that many lovers of sights and sounds claim to be able to identify beauty and beautiful things but cannot claim to have knowledge of beauty itself. He states, “The lovers of listening and of sights devote themselves to beautiful sounds and colors and shapes and everything crafted out of such things, but their thinking is incapable of seeing and devoting itself to the nature of the beautiful itself.” (476B)

This is the difference between the lovers of sight and sound, and philosophers. The lovers of sight and sound, unknowing of forms, speaks only through opinion. The philosopher, being able to recognize forms, speaks with knowledge. This is the premise behind why Socrates feels philosophers would be the ideal rulers. According to Socrates, they are the only individuals capable of truly ‘knowing’, rather than simply ‘seeming’ to know. Socrates further develops his argument by stating that there are three forms of existence: that which is known, that which is unknown, and that which is seeming. Those who “devote themselves to each thing” are truly philosophers, and those who do not are mere “lovers of opinion”.