Article
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
The Unity of the Virtues and the Degeneration of Kallipolis
-
Mark J. Boone
Published/Copyright:
April 6, 2011
Abstract
Each of the degenerating constitutions in Book VIII of Plato's Republic is the result of the disappearance of one of the four cardinal virtues. The failure of wisdom creates a timocracy; the failure of courage, an oligarchy; the failure of moderation, a democracy; the failure of justice, a tyranny. The degeneration shows that the disunited virtues are imperfect, though they have some power to stave off vice. Thus Book VIII implies a unity of the virtues thesis according to which perfect virtues can only exist in a united state, but imperfect simulacra of virtue can exist in a disunited state.
Published Online: 2011-04-06
Published in Print: 2011-March
© Walter de Gruyter 2011
You are currently not able to access this content.
You are currently not able to access this content.
Articles in the same Issue
- Socrates, the philosopher in the Theaetetus digression (172c–177c), and the ideal of homoiôsis theôi
- The Unity of the Virtues and the Degeneration of Kallipolis
- Why Five Worlds? Plato's Timaeus 55C–D
- Soul and Elemental Motion in Aristotle's Physics VIII 4
- Natural and Neutral States in Plato's Philebus
Articles in the same Issue
- Socrates, the philosopher in the Theaetetus digression (172c–177c), and the ideal of homoiôsis theôi
- The Unity of the Virtues and the Degeneration of Kallipolis
- Why Five Worlds? Plato's Timaeus 55C–D
- Soul and Elemental Motion in Aristotle's Physics VIII 4
- Natural and Neutral States in Plato's Philebus
