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In Spring 2021, I took a course on Plato— Phil 441* Plato’s Republic—a topics and movement course that focuses on a particular figure and their work(s). This was taught by Professor Pierre-Julien Harter, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Professor of Philosophy in Buddhist Studies at the University of New Mexico. It is an advanced undergraduate course that may be taken by graduates for credit. Plato’s Republic, the course, wasn’t just any seminar on the Greek philosopher/writer’s work, it was a course entirely devoted to reading and carefully analyzing the Republic. This book by book approach to the Republic was supplemented with an attentive reading of passages focusing on the structure of arguments and their defense, this allowed students to better interpret this text and appreciate the richness of language and writing.
To begin by saying that this is one of Western philosophy’s most important works is an understatement. The Republic is a work that has shaped Western thought for nearly twenty-four centuries. And it is, fundamentally, a multifaceted endeavor that delves into ontology, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, politics, education, among other considerations that remain relevant to this day. And yet, the overall unity of this work is a defense of justice (and the just soul/individual), an exploration of its relation to happiness, and an elevation and justification of the rule of philosophers. Of course, this is but a partial picture, there is so much more to the Republic than one can say here. To read and [to begin to] understand the Republic requires the reader to pause, to go back and read a section over and over again, to stumble upon words, to trip and to fall until something in the text catches one’s attention, to acknowledge repetitions, to circle back in its multi-level ring composition, to descend into the darkness of ignorance, but also to ’turn around’ upwards to the light of understanding. In a way, it is a text that invites us to happily get lost and found in a pedagogical adventure; it becomes a renewed opportunity for us as readers to bring back the text to life, to “attempt” at interpretation. I am not here to discuss the book in depth and at length, but to focus rather on the pedagogical and methodological approach of textual analysis.
Although the course was held over zoom, since it was in the midst of the pandemic, Professor Harter, made sure we actively engaged with the text and with one another, and that we read the Republic as both “a total work of philosophy” and as a “work of art.” Within this dual reading, Plato the philosopher and the writer would come to the fore, and as such, this method of analysis did the text justice. As it was stated on the course description, “We will pay close attention to the literary aspect of the Republic, which has philosophical implications, especially regarding the way Plato considered what the activity of philosophy should consist in.” It is this literary aspect that first attracted me to take the course, for it is rare to spend a semester on one specific text. Rather than reading multiple authors and multiple arguments, vite fait et mal fait, the Republic is a text that in and of itself deserves to be disentangled in its most minute subtleties. For the most part, as graduates, we read an innumerable amount of pages, attempt one way or another to assimilate much of the content, but in reality and let’s be sincere about it, it is hard to fully understand an author/philosopher’s position if all is read once, in haste, probably the night before it’s due.
Instead, the seminar intended to “propose a complete and patient reading of the text and require students to spend time understanding it on its own terms. Students should expect to dive into the details of the text and strive to develop a charitable interpretation that resorts to the multiple resources the text has to offer.” In a way, the course provided students a dual pedagogical approach; not only was it about interpreting the text before us, it was also a hermeneutical experience, which implied a success in understanding as an edifying or educative approach. In taking the latter approach, we can read the text as if we are Glaucon or Adeimantus and let Socrates lead the way, reading the Republic as if it in itself was a path to follow, to speak in Gadamerian terms, a formation.
I had my first brush with textual analysis actually during my first philosophy class, which took place in Athens, Greece when I attended the Lycée Franco-Héllénique. I was in the economics and social sciences concentration, which meant I spent the senior year of high school taking philosophy courses and preparing to pass the Baccalaureat exam. To read Plato in Athens – the very place where Plato and Socrates would have lived, walked, discussed these very philosophies – was meaningful to me back then because it enabled me to make connections between the places and what I was reading. Despite all of this, and with deep regret, still, I somehow managed to fail the philosophy part of the baccalaureat! I truly enjoyed the analyse de textes (textual analyses) but had not yet learned how to properly extrapolate the philosophical concepts the texts presented.
Maybe this past experience is part of what motivated me to take this course, and more importantly, become a philosopher. Throughout the course, I found that the three main assignments – two written commentaries and one presentation all on different sections of the text – brought me back to the basics of textual analysis. The guidelines were specific: to propose a main angle of interpretation, to show how the text articulates this in a coherent argument, and to evaluate this critically — the “What-How-Why” method. What I truly enjoyed in these three exercises was that I got to print out a page or two of the text, find the structure of an argument, mark repetitions, phrases, metaphors that were alluded to, imagery deployed… start deconstructing the text to its core and somehow put all the pieces back together. There was a playfulness to delving into the text that I hadn’t experienced since those days in high school. For me, interpreting the text was about seeing it come to life, to see the problem appear right before my eyes, and let the text inform me of its progression. It wasn’t solely about dwelling with the problem or philosophical implications alone, but dwelling with the richness of the language, expression, structure, that just jumped at me during those brief but quiet engagements. It wasn’t solely about mastering the mechanics of properly writing a commentary using this textual analysis method, but about grasping word for word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the overall lavishness of the text. As if gathering all the tools necessary in order to start painting a picture.
Somehow, this became an encounter with the “work of art” rather than just the text as the “total work of philosophy.” Although the eternal conundrum remains unresolved, do we tackle the parts in order to build the whole, or the other way around, do we let the whole inform us of what the parts are about? I guess for now, we’ll let the Hermeneuts figure that out. However, to have a section stand alone permits one to interpret it on its own terms. For this reason, I tend to side with Gadamer that this becomes a “play” (spiel) as my interpretation of the text simply exceeds my subjective intentions. The text reveals but also remains hermetically sealed, revealing something more than what simply appears before me. It is in this happy play that I acknowledge this extensiveness, enlargement, expansion of formation. Simultaneously, I let the text play with me, and establish its own rules and directions. For it is this the beauty of interpretation, especially of a dialectical kind, where the issues at hand, and of ourselves, are all brought into question. Perhaps what we end up finding is an insight or a distinctive truth, a something that sparks a whole new conversation.
In the end, Plato and I found an agreement, learning is like an “ascent,” and yet, not necessarily reserved solely to that “what is” (Republic, Book VII, 521c). Learning is that ascent towards understanding, with the caveat that in these multiple attempts at interpreting, we merely arrive at incomplete or partial understanding. Rather than seeing the pessimism underlying this claim, we should approach this limitation as a renewed pursuit that opens up the door for new meaning. There is no ultimate arrival, but a path to follow, wherein over time, our understanding becomes gradually better informed. Rereading the Republic (as rereading any other text) allows for renewed interpretative focus and for new meanings to arise. During my work for my final paper, I became fixated over this sentence, “Come, then, let’s create a city in theory from its beginnings” (Ibid, Book II, 369c). It was the root of the Greek verb for “create” that permitted me to glimpse at, attempt to unravel, and to formally argue for an imaginary defense of democracy using Plato. Contradictory surely, and I can’t say the paper was entirely successful as it still requires a lot of work, but that furtive sighting found in the use of the verb still haunts me to this day, and I know I will have to pick up that paper again…some time soon.
I end this review with something Professor Harter mentioned in class, and I hope to be faithful to his words as much as possible. He said that reading and rereading the Republic will always allow us to see new things, to find clues, sections that will invite new interpretations or find parallels with other texts. The ascent, the path, the journey of understanding is precisely this, to return over and over again to basics, to something already read and find one thing that jumps out for it to find its own life on paper.
María Constanza Garrido Sierralta
María Constanza Garrido Sierralta is a M.A. student in philosophy at the University of New Mexico. Still finding her way, her research interests are Marxist theory and practice, philosophy of the Global South, and critical phenomenology. She is the proud cat-mom of two, Marx and Freud. She loves to knit and crochet.
