The Problem of the Temperance in Plato’s Republic

Abstract

When trying to identify the four cardinal virtues in the city that he had just built with his interlocutors in the Republic, Socrates’ embarrassment in moving to temperance is notorious. This embarrassment seems to be due to the fact that he acknowledges it will not be easy to defend that temperance can be found in the city due to the lack of clarity about the conditions that would make it possible. Although temperance, as a “political virtue” only depends on the existence of a harmonious agreement between rulers and the governed ones on the question of who should govern, it is exactly the consonance between the rulers and the governed ones that seems to depend on the fact that the latter have all been educated aiming also that they have the “psychological temperance”. This is due to the degree of restriction on pleasures and wealth that is considered fundamental in the construction of the city and that would hardly be accepted harmoniously without individuals being educated to be temperate. This need is reinforced by the type of medicine that is adopted in the city and also by the expectation that positive laws are not necessary to regulate the behavior of citizens. All of this seems to indicate that a good reading of the work requires that one considers that “primary education”, by mousiké and gymnastiké, extends to all classes of the city.