Utopia and Fantasy

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Utopia and Fantasy

• Allison McCarthy
• and
• Andrew Murphy

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• M.F. Burnyeats main objective in Utopia and
  Fantasy, is that the non-existence of Platos
  ideal city is a fact of history not of
  metaphysics.
• In the Republic Plato asks for the acceptance
  of his fantasy, in order to construct his ideal
  city.
• In the end however, Plato must address the
  practicability of his utopia.

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Utopia?

• By definition, a utopia is an imaginary ideal,
  meaning literally no- place.
• Perhaps Platos ideal city would better be
  termed kallipolis, a good place
• Kallipolis could have all the excellences of a
  city, and a utopia, because it does not exist
  anywhere on earth, only in the imagination

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• The utopian city is based upon the forms of
  justice, virtue, and excellence, thus is not held
  to the form of a city, because it is imaginary.
• Burnyeat espouses that the reason that a city
  that exemplifies justice has never existed is
  because there has never been a philosopher-king
  to rule, a historical fact, not a metaphysical
  one.

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Philosopher- King

• A philosopher- king would recognize how a city
  should be organized.
• The philosopher- king would have justice as his
  first priority.

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The City as a Model

• The city must be thought of a model, not a form,
  because it is an imaginary exemplification of a
  perfect human society.
• Perhaps Platos utopia is a paradeigma en
  ouranoi, not something that could exist on
  earth.

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Is the City a Theoretical Exercise?

• Platos utopia cannot be thought of as something
  that can be put into immediate practice, but
  rather that its is something that can be achieved
  over time.
• The conditions for this utopia seem extravagant.
  Socrates argues for the equality of women and the
  abolition of the family.
• The interlocutors must accept these stipulations
  as fantasy, but at the same time take them
  seriously.

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• The societal structure of Platos Republic is
  very important for its success. The second
  motive of fantasy is that both women and children
  are the same.
• This is where Socrates devises the plan of
  compulsory mating rituals. The idea of free love
  is abolished and gives way to the idea of
  eugenics. Mating is determined by fixed
  lotteries to ensure that people are just in The
  Republic.

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• Platos fantasy tries to break free of everyday
  life.
• This is important to Plato because of the central
  aim of the Republic, dramatized in the parable of
  the cave.
• Through the superiority of philosophy over the
  shifting perspectives of earthbound existence.
• We must allow this viewpoint to take charge of
  human society.

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• Comic fantasy should not just be taken seriously,
  it must be indulged in order to take the idea of
  the Republic seriously and recognize its
  practicability.

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The Watchdog Analogy

• Plato believes that women getting the same
  training as men was not prescribing things
  impossible or like wish thoughts, since the law
  we proposed accorded with nature (456c).
• Would you not train your female watchdogs the
  same as you would your male watchdogs?

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• Plato uses alienating description one which
  presents some aspect of human life in terms which
  make it alien to us, as if it were another
  species, making it easier to imagine some
  fantastical idea.
• Burnyeat believes that the Republic is an
  exercise in the art of persuasion, designed to
  lead us from here to there. It is a city built
  in our minds by such argument, in such a way that
  successful persuasion guarantees the possibility
  of success in the actual world.

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Conclusion

• One must accept fantasy to be able to fully grasp
  Platos Utopia.
• But in the end, the fantasy must pass the
  practicability test- that is, at least an
  approximation must be able to be put into
  practice in reality.