PHI 1301 Lecture 7

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For Next Time

• Pay attention to the parts of the city and the soul (has to do with the gold/silver/iron-bronze class system)
• 4 virtues that will become the cardinal virtues

Music

Not just in the "music" sense:

• poetry
• literature (novels)
• architecture
• rituals
• painting
• cuisine
• anything with style and rhythm in general

• Music gives souls of guardians a gentle, supportive, protective disposition
• Guardians also need to be spirited: hence gymnastics and physical training

Advertisements for the marines: they appeal to people who want a challenge.

Laws Regarding Poetry/Music

Applies to stories of gods and heroes.

Content

• No depictions of uncontrolled emotion
• No lamentations, brutality, etc.

Form

• voice: no imitations (imitating a donkey makes you lower)
• instruments: nothing fancy; just boring instruments
• rhythms
• modes: only dorian and phrygian are suitable for guardians to listen to from a young age
  • dorian - "heroic"
  • phrygian - "reflective/meditative"
  • ionian - "sensual"
  • lydian - "lament"

Importance of Music

Aren't these the reasons, Glaucon, that education in music and poetry is most important? First, because rhythm and harmony permeate the inner part of the soul more than anything else, affecting it most strongly and bringing it grace, so that if someone is properly educated in music and poetry, it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite. Second, because anyone who has been properly educated in music and poetry, it makes him graceful, but if not, then the opposite. Second, because anyone who has been properly educated in music and poetry will sense it acutely when something has been omitted from a thing and when it hasn't been finely crafted or finely made by nature. And since he has the right distastes, he'll praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured by them, become fine and good. He'll rightly object to what is shameful, hating it while he's still young and unable to grasp the reason, but, having been educated in this way, he will welcome the reason when it comes and recognize it easily because of its kinship with himself.Republic 401d–402a

1. Inculcates a foregoing sense of and attraction to (repulsion from):
   • what's beautiful (ugly)
   • what's good (evil)
2. Begin at the earliest age of consciousness—well before age of reason
3. Effects
   1. Permeates and molds the soul
   2. Installs particular tastes/distastes
   3. not a reasoned, self-conscious decision, but an inclination, orientation, "instinct"
   4. Establishes a kinship between soul and values

Balance between wisdom-loving and spirited parts of the soul :: music and physical training, respectively:

It seems, then, that a god has given music and physical training to human beings not, except incidentally, for the body and the soul but for the spirited and wisdom-loving parts of the soul itself, in order that these might be in harmony with one another, each being stretched and relaxed to the appropriate degree.Republic 411e

For some reason, the whole class seemed to have difficulty understanding this simple passage.