Resiliency Rounds
This is a philosophy podcast. Eddie and Aneesh are practicing physicians who are trying to become the best version of themselves. They discuss a wide range of topics on the self, community, and humanity from the standpoint of ethical philosophy. Their mission is to develop authentic resiliency that comes from the pursuit of the Common Good. Their focus is Life, examined and well-lived.
Resiliency Rounds
Episode 50: Plato's Republic X-3: Conclusion
Hey guys, this is Anish and this is Resiliency Rounds. We'll start with talking about this past year. A lot has changed. Eddie is not here with me today. On the podcast he is having his own adventures in life.
Speaker 1:We started Resiliency Rounds as a way to participate in the Great Conversation, which was a series of books that was the brainchild of Mortimer Adler. The books are the Western line of philosophy. Along the way, we came upon the Foundations of Model Obligation, which was a course that started the US Neighborhood War College. It helps officers in the line of duty who have to make life and death decisions understand their own ethics and morals in order to maybe not help make the decisions but live with those decisions. It's a sort of philosophical toolkit that helps those who are in the line of duty to be able to live with the consequences of their actions. Now, the Foundations of Moral Obligation course in some ways parallels the Great Conversation, but there are additions to the Foundations course, and there are some sorry. There are additions to the Foundations course that are not present in the Great Conversation. Most notably is the Eastern line of philosophy, most notably the Bhagavad Gita. Also not all the books in the great conversation or all the philosophers, I should say make their way into the foundations course. Personally, I found the foundations course to be more relatable, also easier, it's easier to go through, and that was the underpinning of Resiliency Rounds.
Speaker 1:As a podcast, I'm not going to spend too much more time. All I'm going to say is that we didn't intend for the podcast to be something that will be widely popular. These conversations are hard. The material is dense. We intended this just to be a conversation between two friends on the most important questions in life what is truth? What is good? What is beautiful? What is good, what is beautiful? What is wisdom? Such questions one could ponder on, one could read, but the best way to try to understand them is in the company of others, is in the company of others. We've said this before in the podcast that reading alone is like drinking alone. So Eddie was my drinking partner and my reading partner and we created something beautiful together and I hope we get to continue to do that together.
Speaker 1:But while he is off on his own adventure, I discussed with him that I would want to at least close out what we had begun. I don't know why I have the urge to do so. Maybe it is because we came so close to finishing the Republic that I feel, strangely, I feel responsible, that I need to finish it. What I mean by that is discuss it in a podcast, which is strange now, because I had no intention of starting the podcast. As a matter of fact, it was Eddie who had recommended that we should think of creating a podcast. I don't know exactly if I've captured that right, but I think his intent was more that we should capture our dialogues just for posterity. I thought it would be a fun way to look back on these conversations and maybe, when we are wiser and older, look back on these conversations and realize how far we have come. It was also Eddie who, because he is a musical genius, created the soundtrack, the opening and the closing soundtrack that you are hearing on the podcast. He also created the logo, so my contribution to this has just been my thoughts on what we have read. A lot of this is his, and so I'm grateful to him that he has agreed for me to continue on this journey, all right, so, having said that, let's try to put a bow on the Republic, which is 10 chapters. Republic, which is 10 chapters For those who have been following along which, again, it's been a while since we recorded the last podcast episode. We were right at the end.
Speaker 1:Let me just sum up. The Republic it is Plato's attempt at trying to convince the reader that justice is the peak or the best virtue that a social animal like a man can possess. Now, he doesn't necessarily say exactly those words, but it's what it kind of comes down to. And he does this through the medium of Socrates Socrates being his mentor, his teacher, the medium of Socrates, socrates being his mentor, his teacher. And in the Republic, socrates is asked, or he's challenged, to prove that a just man, even if he is considered by everybody to be unjust, sorry, so a just man who's considered by everybody to be unjust would still be happier than an unjust man who's considered by everybody else to be just. And he proves that just through his own Socratic way, questions and answers, just logically, just answers that question. And that's what the nine chapters, almost More than three-fourths of the tenth chapter when he ends that argument, and he proves that A just man Would be happy and an unjust man would not be happy. Along the way, there are several beautiful dialogues, beautiful sayings, just pouring wisdom.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest takeaways is this concept of the apex principle or the soul, and some of this is allegorical. I have my own views on what he meant by the three part the operative element, the intermediary or auxiliary and the apex principle. Intermediary or auxiliary and the apex principle. I could go into it, but then this podcast episode would be really long and that's not my intent. So I would encourage anybody who's listening to this one to one read the Republic and two maybe listen to the podcast while you're reading it to help you maybe go through it faster or understand some of the concepts that are allegorical and maybe difficult to comprehend. In the first reading I have read this several times and even in this most recent read that I did just before this episode, I stumbled upon some things again. It's amazing how the human mind learns Well. So at the end of the argument.
Speaker 1:So at the end of the argument Socrates says that, yes, I proved that a just man, even if he is considered unjust and he is treated poorly by society, would be rewarded richly within and would be happy, would be able to live with his choices. He may not seem to be wealthy, he may not seem to hold office, to have value from a conventional standpoint. But when he is having a conversation with his innermost self, he would be in a state of peace, a state of happiness. When he is by himself, when he is in conversation with the deepest part of himself, you will find that he is unhappy. And once he's proved that, and then Socrates says well, we had started off this argument by saying just versus unjust and we created this caricature of this just man who was considered to be unjust by others. But that may not be the case. As a matter of fact.
Speaker 1:Socrates says that if a person is just, if a person is just, his disposition will be such that those around him will come to appreciate the fact that he's a good man. And it is very likely that a just individual will find himself in good stead dead, both when it comes to his relationship with his own self, with his friends, with his family, society at large. Because of that, he would have some of the accompaniments of a good life, and an unjust man would not. Now, that's arguable. There are many examples that I could think of where that doesn't necessarily happen. We see a lot of unjust people lead what seems to us at least, to be pretty good, conventionally good lives, and so I don't know if that is true or not, but I could say that that I would like to believe that to be so.
Speaker 1:Our opinions on whether someone is just or unjust really doesn't matter here. You really have to get to know somebody, and this is something that Socrates does mention, that you have to really know somebody. You have to know them from within. It's almost like you have to know them as they know themselves in order to know if they're truly just or unjust. Maybe not if they're unjust, but if they're just. And so whether or not a just man receives his due in a conventional life or not, you know that's not for me to decide, but whether he does receive conventionally what is considered to be good or not, I do get a good sense that a just man, especially if he has the right constitution, his apex principle is that of the philosopher king that person would be happy, no matter what befalls him in this world.
Speaker 1:And now the question is that gets posed to him is what? What happens after one dies? Right? And so it's not necessarily a question that gets posed to him. He ends up making a statement. He says well, this world that we live in, this life that we have is just a brief moment, and whatever accolades we receive here pales in comparison to what is bestowed upon the just person or the just soul after death by the gods. And when I read that part I was like you know, is he talking about reincarnation? Is he talking about immortality? Is he talking about life after death? What's going on? And I believe there's an allegory here too. I just can't be sure of what Plato believed in. Knowing that he was a scientific man, logical, I don't believe he was thinking truly about life after death. He does talk about the soul. He says after the body is gone, the soul persists. The soul is immortal, but the body is not. The soul embodies another body and is born on the earth. Once the body dies, the soul then inhabits another body. The number of souls are fixed. It gives a logical reason we discussed that in the last episode as well as to how he comes upon the concept of an immortal soul. And then he goes into this story.
Speaker 1:Socrates talks about the story of, of Er E-R, who is a nobleman's son. He is, it's probably called the myth of Er. Eddie mentions this in the last episode. We never got around to it, but the story goes that Er there's a battle and he is wounded and thought to be dead. And when the dead are being collected, after several days, all of them almost all of them are in various stages of putrefaction, but not Ur. Ur's body is pristine and when they put him on the pyre, he wakes up and he recounts to all those around him about his journey and he says he thought he was dead. He thought he was dead. He found himself in this place between heaven and hell, and there is adjudication of who should go to heaven and who should go to hell.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to go into all the details, but this is what I call Plato's version of heaven and hell. It is what you expect. There is a hole in the ground that leads to hell. There is a hole directly opposite to it that leads to the heavens, and you know there are some guys who were sitting around between that place and they are meeting out a sentence based on whether you're just or unjust in your prior life, you go to hell, and if you're just, you go to heaven. If you're unjust, you go to hell. Similarly, there is a door that leads back out from hell and then there's a door that leads back down from heaven, where souls are coming back down after they've spent time in heaven and after they've spent time in hell.
Speaker 1:And then there's some mathematical calculations and so on and so forth, but what he says is, for every year that you spend on earth, you spend 10 times that in heaven or hell. So you pay 10 times over for whatever you've done. If it's good, then you get 10 times as good. Bad, you get 10 times as bad. And he gives a few more stories about people who were tyrants and how their souls are not allowed to come back and they spend longer time in hell.
Speaker 1:And then there are other folks who just had their journey through hell and they recount their stories. There are those who come back from and they recount their stories. There are those who come back from heaven and they recount their stories, but nonetheless, after all that is said and done, he also talks about the universe as he understood it to be, where the earth is in the center and it is surrounded by all the heavenly bodies, including the sun, the moon, the planets that were known to them from Saturn, jupiter, mars and Venus, and how all of this is created and how there is what's called the spindle of necessity. That is just the turning of the heavenly bodies, the turning of time, and it is kind of a fate that no one can undo and everybody just has to follow. And the heaven and earth and all these heavenly bodies and all of us are all part of this machine, this big machine, and seated along this machine are uh, the, the, the fates, and uh, the, the, the. There is the future, there is a present and there's a past, and they, and there are three maidens, the three maidens, the, the daughters, the f faiths, I guess, is what they're called, and they are spinning this spindle through which contains all the heavenly bodies and which is spinning around the spindle of necessity, essentially. So they have their hand. It's all allegorical, I guess. It's like the passage of time and the play of chance in life, of chance in life.
Speaker 1:Well, he also talks about how, in this grand spectacle, the souls, after they have trekked through heaven and hell, they are. Then they're assembled there in front of the faiths, in the presence of this grand spindle of necessity, and they are given numbers or lots, and the best of them is given number one and two and three and so on and so forth, and if you have the worst of the worst. You know, you get, you get, you're further down the line and you and you get a number further down the line and the first number, the first soul that gets the best soul, I guess, now gets to choose life. There are all these lives that are presented to them and then they can pick from those lives. They just they're kind of strewn on the ground in front of them, is what is is made to understand based on the visual. These lives are strewn in front of them and the, the souls, can then pick up the, the lives that they feel would be fit. Herein lies the beauty of this allegory, because it all comes down to this question of what kind of life would one pick? If you had a choice? Of all these lives that you've seen, you have experienced one life you have done. If you're number one, you've done. If you're number one, if you're the first person picking, you've, you did really well in that life. You were a good person, even to the gods, you know. You went to heaven, you came back down and now you get to pick. What would you pick? See that's.
Speaker 1:He gives an example of somebody. Er says he saw somebody. Er actually sees all this. Remember, he's the one who's relaying all this to the folks around his pyre. You know, he came back alive and so he's talking about this and he says that he wasn't allowed to pick because he was told that you know, you're not dead, you're just a messenger. You need to go around, tell, you need to go back and tell the people what you saw here, so they know.
Speaker 1:And so he says the first person he picks a life that is that of a tyrant, and the reason he does that? Because of all the conventional good things that are in that life. But he picks it very hastily, he doesn't really think about it, um, even though he had the first choice. And then, later on, when he sees all the terrible things because you see the good up front and then as you, as you get to see more and more of that life while you're holding it, he realizes all the terrible things that are associated with it too. And then he starts beating his chest and crying as to he picked the wrong life. But well, guess what Bad luck, you cannot give it back.
Speaker 1:And what that shows is that the statement that he makes there, as Socrates says, is that you could practice virtue by habit. Just do it because of necessity, be it religious, be it whatever. You're just doing it without, like an automaton, not doing it out of understanding as to why you're doing the right thing, just doing it because you've been either told to do so or for whatever other reason. Now, doing good is doing good. There's no, you know. If you are uninformed and you're still doing the right thing, well, hey, it's better than doing the wrong thing. But those who are wise will choose, voluntarily, choose to do the right thing and they'll know why they do the right thing. That person, when that person makes a choice as to which life he wants, he or she wants, they would probably make a better decision because of wisdom.
Speaker 1:Wisdom is the key here. That is what we are all trying to go find. Is wisdom, practical wisdom, the one that comes with experience, comes with living life, making mistakes, learning from them. Then you get to choose, and you choose wisely, because each of these lives that are put in front of these souls have a mixture of everything. Some of them are cut short sooner, some of them are very long, but the one that is cut short sooner and one that is longer, they both have a share of good and bad that happened to them. And there is sorrow, there is happiness, there is success, there's failure. There's all of that.
Speaker 1:How do you pick a life Understanding that it is going to have all of these aspects to it? How do you pick one that would lead to the most happiness? If you think about it, that is what we're all trying to do. We're all trying to find a life that allows us to have the most happiness as we go through it. Not necessarily it's not the same kind of happiness. That is the small age happiness that Eddie talks about. We're talking about the big age happiness happy with our lives, knowing that we will have days when we will be feeling bad, we will be in pain, we will be sick, we will lose somebody. But still, at the end of it, when you look back on your life, you're like, yeah, this was a life worth living and this was a happy life. And so how can you make that choice up front?
Speaker 1:And I think there he gives an example of Odysseus. So in this mix of souls, there is the soul of Ajax and there's a soul of Agamemnon and all these folks who are, you know, from the Iliad, and they all pick this, that or the other. There's a story as to why they do that, why they do that. But Odysseus comes up to pick and Odysseus, after he's been through his odyssey, has learned, has gained practical wisdom. You know, when Odysseus leaves after Iliad and he's on his way back home, he's beset by many trials and tribulations in his path back home and he learns through each one of them that the journey of Odysseus, or the Odyssey, which is the other Homeric epic, as you guys know, is it talks about the midlife crisis.
Speaker 1:So when Odysseus comes up to pick, he picks a life of a private individual. He shuns public office. He picks a life of a private individual. He shuns public office. He picks a private individual who, who is according to the life that's presented to him, is going to keep to himself and would have leisure to participate in philosophy and would keep away from the trappings of the conventional life, office status, so on and so forth. That's what he chooses and he says that even if he was the first person to pick, he would have picked that life. As a matter of fact, that particular life, the life of a private individual who doesn't have all the conventional success, is actually found strewn to one side, no one is paying attention to it, and he goes and picks that up and he was actually looking for that life.
Speaker 1:And so Odysseus here is an example of someone who would be wise, and not just someone who was good because he was practicing virtue just out of habit gained some wisdom instead. So I would look at this and, well, I'll give you my thoughts on it. So then these souls pick these lives, and then they have to drink from this river of forgetfulness, and those who drink too much out of that river of forgetfulness forget everything. Those who drink too much out of that river of forgetfulness forget everything. And the wise ones don't drink more than they fill. So maybe they remember some of what they learned from their prior life. And then the souls get bound into their bodies and then they're born back on the earth. This is, this is his version of heaven and hell, and and that's how he ends he says that then er finished his story and, uh, and you know, he, he basically got off the buyer.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to read the last paragraph here of the Republic, and then I'm going to try and give you my understanding of this allegory of what Plato is trying to say. So here's the last paragraph. And so Glaucon, his story was saved and not lost, and it would save us too if we were persuaded by it, since we would safely cross the river Lethe I don't know if that's how it's pronounced with our souls undefiled. But if we are persuaded by me, we will believe that the soul is immortal and able to endure every evil and also every good, and always hold to the upward path, practicing justice with wisdom every way. We can be friends to ourselves and to the gods, both while we remain here on earth and when we receive the rewards of justice and go around like victors in the games collecting prizes. And so, both in this life and on the thousand-year journey we have described, we will fare well, all right. So you know, I don't know if Plato believed in reincarnation and all of that, but what I could say is that just hang on with me here. This is a concept that even I'm struggling with, a concept that even I'm struggling with, but I feel that every time we come upon a crisis which, you know, we've said this before in resiliency rounds crisis is what leads to change.
Speaker 1:Crisis is when your current thought, your current systems toolkit that you have completely fails when dealing with a situation. Now, sometimes crisis could be a life-threatening diagnosis that you get, or a near miss, or a divorce or whatever, or it could be. It doesn't have to be that big. If you're lucky, or if you're wise, wiser or not stupid, you may be able to realize that there are small crises that we have every day, and even that crisis can spur the right action, which, in this case, would be questioning everything. You have a crisis. You realize your current toolkit doesn't help. You ask yourself how come? What is it? Why is it that all of these things that I was told that I had, and all these, these defense mechanisms that I have, and all the, the, the, the ideas that I have, all the thoughts that I have, are not helping me here and you fail completely.
Speaker 1:And then you realize that you don't know anything. And that's the the first step to know. That's what Socrates says is that he was the wisest man in Athens, not because he knew everything, because he knew that he didn't know anything. And even that knowledge, even that knowledge, even that knowledge, knowledge that you do not know anything makes you more knowledgeable than somebody who believes they know everything but doesn't know anything. Knowledge is powerful. Knowledge is knowing every why, answering every why to a question, and that's virtually impossible.
Speaker 1:They have given this example before as to why do we have day and night. It's because the earth rotates around its axis. And then why do we have? Why does the Earth rotate around this axis? Is it because of the gravitational forces? And you know why do we have gravity? Well, because it's a mass of certain objects and it has this effect. And then you know why do those objects have mass?
Speaker 1:But at some point, you see, you don't have an answer to the, to the why. That means one really doesn't have knowledge. You have, you have an opinion. You don't have knowledge, and your opinion could be a true opinion or it could be false opinion, but you don't have knowledge. But see, I do have knowledge of the fact that I don't know anything, especially after a crisis. That's, that's the case.
Speaker 1:And once you have that, that crisis, in a way, you have to recreate yourself, you have to recreate your toolkit, you have to learn something, you have to start with nothing and learn something, and that process is almost like a rebirth. It's a painful process. If you play it right, you know, most of us end up dealing with a crisis by picking up a hobby or, worse, you know, getting out of a relationship or buying a fast car and all that's fine, but they're not answers really. You find yourself back in the same place where you began. If one is lucky, one finds philosophy, but you build a toolkit. Hopefully this is what happens to you.
Speaker 1:You go through what Odysseus went through and you gain a philosophical toolkit. You gain wisdom and you're reborn. You can choose to be whoever you want to be after you get done. But you see that choice that you make. Are you going to be somebody who drives a fast German car? You're going to be somebody who thinks that happiness in life is achieved through a better looking spouse or a trip or a new hobby? Or are you going to be Odysseus, who's going to choose a life of leisure, of philosophy, of reason, not a conventional life, trying to get as much of justice and wisdom and courage and temperance that one can build?
Speaker 1:I think that is what this allegory is about. It's about rebirth. You could go through hell, come out the other side, learn from it, accumulate wisdom. Don't drink too much from the water of forgetfulness so you remember what you did Keep learning from that. You'll see, with a 60 to 80 year lifespan it seems short but it's also really long. You have several such rebirths, countless, and at each stage, if one gains wisdom through each stage, one could come out wiser at the other end, and that would be. If one does in fact do that, one could, like Odysseus, achieve or get a shot at at least a good chance at a happy life, as opposed to this tormented one where we are just being tossed hither and thither by the fates and chance and necessity and our own appetites, and leading these engrossed lives. Yep. So that is the end of the Republic.
Speaker 1:I don't know if this is the end of Resiliency Rounds as a podcast. This work is of podcasting. It's not something that is. It's not easy, it's not. It's something that I was doing because of, because it gave me the opportunity to read and discuss and spend time with a dear friend. Without that, I don't know if it has the same appeal. However, I do want to continue my journey in reading and, you know, sometimes even just talking into a mic or saying things out aloud help me collect my thoughts better. So we may come back for another season. I hope Eddie finds some time as well to join back in some episodes.
Speaker 1:But it's goodbye for now, I guess, for all those who have been listening to this. I hope you pick up the books and read them and we hope we've been able to help you all in any way. This has been a transformational journey for me. One last thought that before I go is we shouldn't be armchair philosophers. This only helps if you're practicing it, and practicing it is not easy, but it's not hard either, and the more you practice it, the more it becomes a part of your life and it changes you from within to be a better person, a person who can look inside the mirror and truly, when you're speaking to the inner most part of you, you find that, no matter what has befallen you, you're happy. Thank you.
