Animal Republics

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Animal Republics:å Plato, Representation, and the Politics of Nature

Stefan Dolgert

It is something of a truism among contemporary French theorists thatPlatos !ision of politics is an elitist one that legitimates authoritarianschemas of non"democratic representation# I challenge this !ersion ofPlato the anti"democrat, e$empli%ed here by &ac'ues Ranci(re and)runo *atour, by considering Platos aesthetics and politics in light ofthe representation of nonhuman animals in the Republic and +imaeus#In these te$ts e see a Plato ho solicits the !oices of nonhumananimals in order to elicit cacophonous con!ersations on epistemology,ethics, and politics# -hile con!entional !ies of Platonic animalsemphasi.e their role as representati!es of ildness in need of taming, Iuse the or/ of 0hristina +arnopols/y and Peter 1uben to argue that

these te$ts are incitements to listen to the !oices of nonhumans in thereformation of both philosophy and politics# +hese !oices are notincluded by Plato merely to constitute the order of Ranci(res 2policelogic,2 but instead set up a 2.oopolis2 here human and nonhumancome together in strange, incomplete, but often producti!eencounters# )ringing Plato, Ranci(re, and *atour into a dialogue on thetopic of nonhuman representation challenges con!entional notions of2Platonism,2 but more importantly it produces a more nuanced !isionof the contemporary ecological polis#

Introduction345

6a!e you e!er reali.ed, all of a sudden, that someone has been tryingto get your attention for some time ithout you reali.ing it7 Perhapsits the barista at the local co8ee shop ho /eeps calling your name9scribbled so nicely on the to"go co8ee"cup, hile you ha!e beenstaring at the latest updates on your Faceboo/ nes feed 9anotherpicture of Sarahs 2/itteh,2 oy# ;r perhaps its the student in your largelecture class ith raised hand, ho sits on the right side of theclassroom and fails to understand that you ha!e the unfortunate habitof generally loo/ing only to the center and left of the room hensoliciting 'uestions# )ut it isnt only other humans ho are loo/ing at

us, trying to get our attention hile e blithely insist on ignoring them#Primatologists ha!e recently 9and all of a sudden come to a startlingreali.ation about chimpan.ees 9pan troglodytes in capti!ity# For sometime, researchers ha!e /non that these chimpan.ees illcommunicate using 2the raspberry2 9I /no this better as 2the )ron$0heer2, but they didnt reali.e the full dimensions of hat they erehearing until recently# -ild chimpan.ees apparently ne!er ma/e this/ind of utterance, and hile capti!e chimpan.ees ere using it to


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frameor/ for rethin/ing and reordering political life, but for himpolitics is more concerned ith creating possibilities for collecti!eaction than it is ith dissensus and conBict, as it is for Ranci(re# For*atour the modern polity has been, up until no, based on afundamental fracture beteen those ho purportedly /no the

transcendental las of 2Nature2 9those ho /no the 2facts2, andthose ho instead insist on the special place of humans as socialbeings endoed ith freedom 9those ho maintain the independenceof 2!alues2 9*atour, =>>H, pp# E>"E4# 1ach group has contended forsuperiority, ith scientists claiming e$pertise to decide matters ofimportant public policy 9nuclear inter, global arming againstdefenders of 2the social representation of reality,2 resulting in a deepincoherence in contemporary politics 9e#g#, is global arming a 2fact2or 2merely2 a social representation7# nli/e Ranci(re, hoe!er, *atourcontends that settlement, composition, and construction are thefundamental tas/s of politics 9he ill name the to basic tas/s of

political ecology as 2the poer to ta/e into account2 and 2the poer toput in order2 3*atour, =>>H, p# =>>5# I ill suggest in hat follos thatboth thin/ersRanci(re the defender of agonism and disorder, and*atour the con!ener of the 2Parliament of things2 here there is 2noreality ithout representation2 9*atour, =>>H, p# ==?J p# ===areessential to thin/ing about our chimpan.ees and the thorny 'uestion of nonhuman politics that they raise#

Staging this con!ersation beteen the to contemporary Frenchthin/ers and Plato is useful for a fe reasons# First, hile Ranci(re and*atour are in!aluable guides to conceptuali.ing the origins of

democracy and the institutions necessary to its functioning, both arehaunted by anthropocentrism to !arying degrees# Platos philosophypresents a non"anthropocentric !ision that can challenge thishumanism, but 9and this is the second reason by returning to Plato ealso see that the traditional image of -estern philosophy as thoroughlyhuman"centric 9Sorabi, 4GGE needs emendation# I ill also argue for aPlato ho is an ally of democratic politics rather than an opponent, asboth Ranci(re and *atour ha!e 9rongly contended, and that Platosutility for democratic theory is accentuated by attending to themoments of humanKnonhuman community in his thought#

Ranci(res conception of politics, as the site of the clash beteenpolice and egalitarian logics, can be e$panded and deepened byreframing his e$clusion of nonhuman !oices through Platos inclusion of these !oices# *atours 2politics of nature2 can be seen as the furtheringof Platos solicitation of nonhuman entities, !ia the creation ofrepresentati!e institutions, hile Platos critical 2disruption of thesensible2 9+arnopols/y, =>4> may indicate lacunae in *atours ne!ision of the institution of the 0ommons#


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+he roadmap for the rest of the paper is as follos: in the ne$t section,2Plato, Archipolitics, Science,2 I ill %rst e$plicate ho Ranci(re and*atour help us to re"concei!e of the political, before mo!ing on to theirmista/en criti'ue of Platos supposedly authoritarian 2archipolitics#2

+his accomplished, I ill then e$plore Platos concept ofmetempsychosis as a /ey tool in the criti'ue of anthropocentrism inthe second section, 2Platos +ransmigrating Souls#2 In the %nal section,2-hy *atour and Ranci(re Light *isten to Plato,2 I then s/etch thepolitical lessons that may be gleaned from Plato, not ust on behalf ofRanci(re and *atour, but also ith a !ie to the creation of the.oopolis to come#

Plato, Archipolitics, Science

Ranci(re and *atour are particularly useful for thin/ing about the

political engagement of humans and nonhumans# -hile Ranci(ree$plicitly denies that animals can be shoe"horned into his de%nition ofpolitics because they fundamentally lac/ speech 9and he acceptssomething li/e the con!entional Aristotelian or 6eideggerian distinctionbeteen humans and animals,3H5 gi!en Ranci(res on radicalstatements on pedagogy 9see belo there is no reason to concedethat he possesses the master interpreti!e /ey to his on riting90hambers, =>4E# Remember that for Ranci(re, politics is an e!entthat stages the clash beteen the police order and the order ofe'uality, and politics for Ranci(re is ne!er about ordering or agreeingbut alays about the ma/ing"present of a rong or miscount# +hat

clash erupts precisely on the terrain that animal ethicists e$ploretoday# Ranci(re describes the re!olt of the plebs in the Roman Republicalong lines that are !ery familiar to anyone in animal studies: thepatrician orator Appius 0laudius denies that the plebs should bebargained ith, because 9to use Aristotles terms they merely ma/esounds 9phone rather than ha!e speech 9logos#35 As Ranci(re puts it,summari.ing Appius:

)eteen the language of those ho ha!e a name and the loing ofnameless beings, no situation of linguistic e$change can possibly beset up, no rules or code of discussion M +he order that structures

patrician domination recogni.es no logos capable of being articulatedby beings depri!ed of logos 9Ranci(re, 4GGG, p# =H#

)ut of course, Ranci(re goes on to sho ho this denial of the capacityof speech to the plebs, hich is the hallmar/ of any police order 9that2structures the sensory order that organi.es M domination2 3Ranci(re,4GGG, p# =H5, is tharted hen the plebs establish another order,another partition of the perceptible, by constituting themsel!es M as


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spea/ing beings sharing the same properties as those ho deny themthese# +hey thereby e$ecute a series of speech acts that mimic thoseof the patricians M In a ord, they conduct themsel!es li/e beings ithnames# 9Ranci(re, 4GGG, p# =H35

+o my mind this sounds li/e a fairly precise description of theencounter beteen chimpan.ees and primatologists and the chimpsadoption of the raspberry, though Ranci(re himself is unilling to ma/ethis connection# +hat he fails to do so is perhaps because, in additionto the 'uasi"Aristotelian fetishi.ation of a certain /ind of speech"act9that he denies to nonhumans, he is unilling to concede hat is for*atour a 9pragmatic %rst principle: 2no reality ithout representation29*atour, =>>H, p# ===#

*atour is useful to pair ith Ranci(re, then, because Ranci(resagonistic politics tend to pri!ilege the presence of a spea/ing agent as

a /ind of auto"authenti%cation de!icea 2real2 spea/ing being is onethat spea/s in their on name, to claim the rong of the police orderand thereby create a moment of politicsand hile this may be thecase ith the lab chimpan.ees, it not clear that such a spea/ing agenteither is alays or must alays be present# *atour includes nonhumansfrom the outset in his ne political body, !ariously called 2theparliament of things2 or 2the collecti!e,2 though it is not so much anoun as a process: 2a procedure for collecting associations of humansand nonhumans2 9*atour, =>>H, p# =E@# 6e Battens Ranci(resontological hierarchy beteen humans and nonhumans by treatinge!erythinghumans, plants, animals, prions, hurricanesas

ontologically e'ual 9hich is not to say they are politically e'ualO#1!erything for *atour is a 2proposition,2 and e!ery proposition must berepresented 9by 2reliable itnesses2 and e!aluated alongside otherrepresentations to see hether it should be included in the collecti!e,and ho that inclusion might ta/e place# As an e$ample of thisrepresentation, *atour tal/s about prions 9the entities that apparentlycause )o!ine Spongiform 1ncephalopathy, though any other 2person2or 2thing2 ould do ust as nicely# In the case of prions, until they ererepresented 9through sets of scienti%c procedures by 2spo/espersons29the scientists they could not be considered for membership in thecollecti!e# -hen they are represented, of course, the collecti!e then

can decide ho to 2ta/e account2 of them, and hile in the immediatecase this resulted in the deaths of millions of cos /illed to stop )S1sspread, this response as not ine!itable 9*atour, =>>H, pp# 444"44H#*atours set"up of a collecti!e based on to poers, those of 2ta/inginto account2 and 2putting in order,2 includes the !ery real possibilityof di8erent outcomes than hat happened ith the 2Lad 0o2 panic,but ould re'uire a di8erent basis for e!aluating the moral claimsmade for certain /inds of 2propositions2 li/e the cos in the and the


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chimpan.ees in the lab# And hile *atour gi!es us a sense ofprocedures that could allo for such moral inclusion, it is to Plato that Iill turn to push *atour in this direction#

6oe!er, in staging this con!ersation beteen Plato and these French

thin/ers, on the ground of animals and ecology of all places, I amaare that my reading of Plato goes against the commoninterpretation of the Athenian adopted by his Callic interlocutors# +hough Ranci(re and *atour come from di!ergent traditions ithin theFrench academyRanci(re as a student of Althusser before 2goingrogue,2 hile *atour as trained as a sociologist ho then nearlyin!ented 2science studies2both imbibed a similar conception of therele!ance 9or irrele!ance of Platonic philosophy for their endea!ors:Plato, through his mouthpiece Socrates, stands for almost e!erythingthat is rong ith the tradition of political philosophy# Not surprisingly,neither Ranci(re nor *atour place much emphasis on the dialogical

character of Platos or/, unli/e contemporary classicists such as0hristina +arnopols/y 9=>4>, =>4H and others ho follo theinterpreti!e strategies opened up, !ariously, by *eo Strauss 94GH orPeter 1uben 94GG?J instead, they read Socrates as a dogmatic stand"infor Plato himself#

Lost Anglophone political theorists /no Ranci(re throughDisagreement 9originally published in French in 4GG, and translated in4GGG, here he loads upon Plato the dubious honor of founding thetradition of 2Archipolitics,2 hich 2re!eals in all its radicality the proectof a community based on the complete reali.ation of the ar/hQ of

community, total aareness, replacing the democratic con%guration ofpolitics ith nothing left o!er#2 9Ranci(re, 4GGG, p# -hat Platoinaugurates, in essence, is the replacement of politics by philosophy, inthe name of a 2geometrical e'uality2 that ill eliminate the unrulyhurly"burly of democracy# )ut ell before Disagreement, in +heIgnorant Schoolmaster, Ranci(re had seen that Plato, again through hispuppet 2Socrates,2 as the real opponent to be rec/oned ith#3?5 Inthat te$t it is again Platos authoritarianism that is Ranci(res target,though it is the seemingly emancipatory character of Socraticpedagogy that dras his ire# Socrates appears as something 'uiteother than he is, Ranci(re claims, since in Socrates claim that he is

ise in nothing sa!e the /noledge of his on ignorance one ouldthin/ that Socrates can hardly be an authority on anything# Not soO

+his is the secret of good masters: through their 'uestions, theydiscreetly guide the students intelligencediscreetly enough to ma/eit or/, but not to the point of lea!ing it to itself M In this case 3theLeno5 Socrates interrogates a sla!e ho is destined to remain one# +he Socratic method is thus a perfected form of stulti%cation# *i/e all


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learned masters, Socrates interrogates in order to instruct# 9Ranci(re,4GG4, p# =G

In Socrates profession of ignorance Ranci(re %nds only pretense,though this %ction is all the more e8ecti!e as a tool of mastery since it

feigns to liberate as part of the techni'ue of ensla!ement#

Placing these to narrati!es together, then, e can see that forRanci(re Plato is doubly suspect as a resource for democratic politics#6e is condemned as an outright anti"democrat for his construction ofthe archipolitical alternati!e to politics, but e!en in his seeminglyaporetic moments, in those dialogues termed 2Socratic2 for theirpurported %delity to the 2historical2 Socrates 9as distinguished fromthose that reBect the philosophic system of the mature Plato, Ranci(resees Plato undermining the possibility of democracy#3@5 Socrates ne!eractually belie!es that he /nos nothing hen he 2interrogates2 the

ordinary men of Athens 9or their sla!es, so that hat appears to bethe demonstration of radical human e'uality 9e!en the sla!e in Leno/nos geometryO is in fact ust the treachery of the 2learned master,2ho ants to foist a program of anti"democratic 2geometrical2 e'ualityupon an unsuspecting 9democratic populace# -hat better ay toteach the proles that they should buy into the archipolitical order thanto sho them that they themsel!es actually possess geometrical/noledge already, and that they ha!e but to contract ith someoneli/e Socrates ho can help to pull it out of them7

*atours criti'ue of Plato echoes Ranci(res, though it is not

2Archipolitics2 that *atour accuses Plato of constructing, but 2Science2hich claims to spea/ on behalf of 2Nature#2 *atour sees in PlatosSocrates 9Platos puppet the origin of the dogma that the real orld asit e$ists is essentially inaccessible to ordinary humansin Platos caseit is the beyond"human Forms, hich are translated into 2Sciences2/noledge of the in!isible las of physics in modernityhichnecessitates the rulership of e$perts 9philosophers or scientists o!erthe ignorant mob 9*atour, =>>H# )ecause the demos is alays inclinedto be inhuman, since it does not /no ho to control itself and its onlytrue possession is force 9the force of larger numbers, *atour claimsthat Plato de!ises the doctrine of the Forms 9and the philosophers

uni'ue access to them as a means of 2controlling inhumanity bymeans of inhumanity2J the philosopherKscientists grasp of the inhuman/noledge of 2Nature2 must be used to temper the mobs tendency toact barbarically 9*atour, 4GGG#

As I ha!e already alluded to in passing, there are a number of reasonsfor suspecting that the authoritarian !ersion of Plato is inaccurate,regardless of hat is going on ith nonhumans in the Platonic


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dialogues# *eo Strauss as among the %rst prominent readers of Platoin the =>th century to suggest that one cannot simply read Platosmind into the Socrates of the Republic, since Socrates is a character ina dialogue much li/e Lacbeth is only a role in a play, and as such notspea/ing simpliciter for Sha/espeare# For Strauss this implies that a

careful reading of a te$t li/e the Republic re'uires that one adopt themethodological principle that true philosophers ne!er mean hat theysay literally, and in Strausss interpretation of Platonic irony he %nds aserious criti'ue of the perennial irrationality of democratic politics# Inthis sense Strauss comes close to Ranci(res and *atours position onPlatonic philosophy as essentially anti"democratic, though Strausscomes to this conclusion by reading ironically rather than literally 9asdo Ranci(re and *atour# )ut this dialogical interpretation of thedialogues need not result in an authoritarian Plato, as it has been ta/enup by Peter 1uben, ho follos in the tradition of 6annah Arendt andSheldon -olin rather than Strauss, to imply something 'uite di8erent

from Strausss claim# Rather than seeing in Plato a continuing contestbeteen philosophy and politics, in hich the ob of the philosopher isto inoculate himself and his folloers 9and perhaps the polity itselffrom the dangers of democratic politics, 1uben sees a fruitful iftensional relationship beteen Platonic philosophy and democracy#Plato may be a critic of democracy, 1uben contends, but he is bestseen as engaged in an agonistic embrace ith Athenian politics ratherthan o8ering a holesale reection of democratic life, in the same aythat Arendt o8ers a stinging rebu/e of contemporary democracy in thename of the lost possibilities that inhere in democratic acti!ity 91uben,4GG?J =>>E# In a similar !ein 0hristina +arnopols/y sees Plato as a

friendly critic of democracy, since his dialogues esche foundationsand performati!ely disempoer any claims to %nal authority:

3+5he Republic as a hole o8ers its reader the possibility of choosingthe life of Socratic and Platonic philosophi.ing, hich re'uires thecourage to accept the groundless grounding of a life de!oted toconstantly 'uestioning ones groundings, e!en hile it also in!ol!espositing the !ery grounds that are constantly being pulled out fromunder one M democratic engagement need not be based on a one"sidedly heroic, tragic, inhuman, or for that matter, Pollyannaish, !ieof our oursel!es or our fello citi.ens, because e might all of us be in

the gutter, e!en hile e are also loo/ing up at 9and don from thestars# 9+arnopols/y, =>4H

For my purposes it is useful that +arnopols/y closes her piece on satyr"plays ith this reference to the oscillation beteen the gutter and thestars, since, as e ill shortly see, this is precisely the route ta/en bysouls mo!ing through animals to the hea!ens in Platos +imaeus, and


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this image helps bring us to the connection beteen Plato, democracy,and animals#

Platos +ransmigrating Souls

Folloing 1ubens Arendtian Plato and +arnopols/ys Ranci(rean Plato,3G5 I ant to claim that Plato is disrupting rather than shoring up the2distribution of the sensible2 for his readers, but I also ant to add totheir accounts by considering ho Platos animals 9hich both 1ubenand +arnopols/y lea!e aside shift the composition of commons# I aminterested in ho Plato hori.ontali.es the relations beteen humansand nonhuman animals, in particular through his de!elopment of thedoctrine of the transmigration of the soul in numerous passages acrossat least se!en dialogues# I contend that the combined e8ect ofincluding these nodes of boundary"blurring into our conception ofPlatonic ethics brings him into pro$imity ith philosophical radicals li/e

Ranci(re and *atour, though Plato ill also be useful in pushingRanci(re and *atour in directions that they might not ha!e chosenthemsel!es#34>5

Letempsychosis is not a topic that recei!es a great deal of attention inpolitical theory circles these days, though this neglect is an historicalcontingencyJ in the philosophical circle of the Neoplatonists, forinstance, it as a going concern for hundreds of years 9;Leara, =>>E#-hy this idea recei!es such treatment today is not dicult tounderstandthere are not many card"carrying belie!ers inreincarnation recei!ing their PhD in political science or philosophy

departments in North Americabut loo/ing at the e$tant Platoniccorpus should gi!e some pause to the ready dismissal of its salience toPlato# +he basic concept of metempsychosis, that each human andnonhuman animal body is inhabited by a soul, and that this soul lea!esthe body after death and %nds a ne body 9human or animal, ithoutany necessary distinction in hich to be reincarnated 9theoretically,almost ad in%nitum, appears in at least se!en of Platos roughly Edialogues#3445 For comparisons sa/e, the idea that the soul istripartite34=5 is commonly attributed to the 2mature2 Plato in thesecondary literature, but appears e$plicitly in only three te$ts#34E5 Itseems, hoe!er, that hen contemporary interpreters thin/ of

transmigration they ta/e it to be something marginal to Platosphilosophy, perhaps because it appears often in mythic form, andperhaps because unli/e the tripartite theory, it bears no resemblanceto any currently accepted theory of the self 9unli/e, say, the ay thatthe Freudian psychological structure resembles Platos# )ut ho mighte thin/ about Plato di8erently if e too/ metempsychosis to be asimportant to his philosophy as the di!ided soul7 0an Ranci(res


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authoritarian reading of Plato be sustained if e bring metempsychosisfrom the margins to the center7

Ci!en its association ith Ne Age philosophy and the 2theosophy2 of)la!ats/y et al#, metempsychosis may seem donright silly to many

contemporary -esterners, but this derisi!e stance is hardly sustainablein a multicultural orld here hundreds of millions of 6indupractitioners belie!e in it#34H5 Still, for secular -estern readers of Platothe idea does not pose much occasion for reBectionif long"dead Platoants to dabble in myths about the afterlife in order to ma/e hisphilosophy more palatable, hat of it7345 )ut our tolerance for Platosdalliance cannot be so easy# If Platos !ersion of metempsychosis, inparticular his adoption of the Pythagorean doctrine that souls mo!efreely beteen human and nonhuman bodies, appears li/e a 'uir/ tous, then e ha!e failed to appreciate the force of the idea for anypotential audience that Plato might be imagining# Platos Athens as a

political community that did not /no 2toleration2 as a concept, atleast in the sense that e generally accord to the practice of religiouspluralism in liberal democratic polities today# 0iti.ens ere re'uired asa normal part of the duties of being a citi.en to ta/e part in thereligious festi!als of the citythe Creater Dionysia at Athens, thefesti!al to hich e oe the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and1uripides, as inseparably both ci!ic and religiousas the di!isionbeteen public and pri!ate 9ta idia as dran along di8erent lines#Luch li/e Saba Lahmoods account of the entinement of the roles ofciti.en and belie!er in contemporary 1gypt, Athenians thought ofreligion more through ritual practice than through the inner !oice of

conscience 9Lahmood, =>>H# +hey sa no contradiction beteen theirdemocratic go!ernance and the prohibition of impiety 9asebeia, ande /no of many prosecutions for !iolations of the religioussensibilities of the demos, including, most famously, the cashiering ofAlcibiades in the Peloponnesian -ar 9documented in +hucydides #=?"E=, #>"4, as ell as the con!iction and e$pulsion of the philosopherAna$agoras#

I mention all this because it helps us to see ho intolerable Platosdoctrine of metempsychosis ould ha!e been to the a!erage Athenian9or Cree/, for that matter, since it is based in the heterodo$y of

Pythagorean beliefs about the relationship beteen humans andanimals that ere antithetical to the ci!ic religion of the polis# As isell /non by no, Athenian ci!ic life as dependent upon animalsacri%ce, since nearly e!ery public e!ent re'uired that an animal beritually /illed in order to consecrate the occasion# +here ere manyci!ic festi!als that ere thematically arranged around ritual slaughter,li/e the )ouphonia 9the ord means o$"slaying in Athens, here an o$as slain at an altar on the Acropolis 9)ur/ert, 4G@E, and the origin of


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2tragedy2 in the Creater Dionysia has been lin/ed ith the /illing of thetragos 9goat to honor Dionysius#345 )ut more often than not, itseems, animals ere sacri%ced ithout being the centerpiece of thee!ent, though e cannot be certain since e ha!e no records of thetotal number of animals /illed in any year# Since any meat that as

consumed in Athens came through sacri%ce, animals /illed must ha!enumbered in the tens or hundreds of thousands annually, and mostould li/ely ha!e come through more 'uotidian rituals li/e that hichattended the opening of business at the Athenian Assembly# )eforeeach of these meetings, hich occurred at least once per month, cityocials ould cut the throats of piglets and sprin/le the blood o!er theseats here the demos ould soon gather# 6o many piglets ere/illed for this ritual, and ho e$tensi!e the blood"spatter needed to be,e are again unsure of, but the general point is that such rituals ereso commonplace that the cumulati!e e8ect of the ci!ic machinery ofsacri%ce as to ma/e ritual animal death inseparable from !arious

dimensions of Athenian daily lifepolitical, economic, and religious9)ur/ert, 4G@E#

+he Pythagorean belief that souls mo!e freely from humans to animalsand bac/ again pro!ides the basis for a star/ repudiation of this entireci!ico"religious edi%ce# Pythagoreans such as 1mpedocles enoinedtheir fello Cree/s to end the practice of animal sacri%ce and also toshift to a !egetarian diet, since, in one of 1mpedocles morememorable sayings, he imagines that the cries of the sacri%cial animalmay actually be the screams of a deceased father, about to besacri%ced by his still"li!ing son 9Fragment HE># Pythagoreans ere

/non to ha!e formed their on independent communities, but erealso regarded as a source of disorder ithin e$isting polities becausethey ould not participate in rituals that ere simultaneously politicaland religiousthere as no ay to be a 2good2 Athenian hilesimultaneously critici.ing and opting out of such acti!ities# +hemetaphysical doctrine of metempsychosis as thus much more thanan idiosyncrasyJ rather, metempsychosis as a threat to a ci!ic ordergrounded in a theology of sacri%ce that did not separate theologicaland political spheres 9Detienne and ernant, 4GG=, pp# "?#

Plato refers to Pythagorean metempsychosis repeatedly, as I ha!e

already noted, and these references include dialogues in his early,middle, and late phases# I ant to loo/ at to passages here, to gi!esome sense of hat he is doing, one from the +imaeus and one fromthe Republic# In the +imaeus Plato discusses the nature of the uni!ersefrom its creation, primarily through the character of +imaeus, anastronomer# +imaeus says that souls ere %rst created and each lin/edith a star in the hea!ens, but due to 2necessity2 each soul descendedinto a human body for its %rst incarnation# If each soul beha!ed ell


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during its time on earth, controlling its anger and fear and li!ing inlo!e, it returned to its star to continue li!ing there 9perhaps eternally,though +imaeus is not e$plicit on this point# +hose souls ho failed toli!e such an upright life ere sent into the bodies of omen in theirne$t life instead of returning to the stars, and if they again li!ed poorly

as omen they ere sent into !arious /inds of animal body, inaccordance ith the /inds of life they e!inced pre!iously 9H=8# So, forinstance, +imaeus says that 2the race of birds as created out ofinnocent light"minded men ho, although their minds ere directedtoards hea!en, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearestdemonstration of the things abo!e as to be obtained by sight, these3souls5 ere remodeled and transformed into birds, and they grefeathers instead of hair2 9G4c# +hose ho ere less philosophicbecame 'uadrupeds ith their heads oriented toard the earth 9sincethey did not ponder that hich as more di!ine, according to +imaeus, and 9here is the connection ith +arnopols/ys gutter 2the

most entirely senseless and ignorant of them all2 became %sh andoysters in 2the most remote habitations as a punishment of theiroutlandish ignorance2 9G4c"G=c# +imaeus account is, by his onadmission, merely 2probable2 9=Gd, and it relies on a hierarchicalrelation beteen humans and animals 9as ell as maintaininghierarchy beteen di8erent types of humans, though this is not thehierarchy that one might e$pect# nli/e later philosophers ho illfundamentally demarcate humans and animals based on thepossession of rationality 9Sorabi, 4GGE, in Platos hands the bright lineis much muddier and bespea/s of fundamental continuity rather thandi8erence#

+he second passage I ant to consider is the Lyth of 1r, from theRepublic, here Plato 9!ia Socrates retelling of the story of 1r, hodied and returned from death does something slightly di8erent fromhat he does in the +imaeus# -hile the trans"species metempsychosisof this myth is not surprising gi!en the general consensus on theinBuence of Pythagoras on Plato 90ornford, 4G>EJ ;Leara, =>>EJPorphyry, =>>>, hat is most notable here is hat has gone least"obser!ed in recent Platonic scholarship: Plato 'uite literally tells us 9atleast if the plain ords of the Lyth are considered that e are /illingthe en"souled bodies of the ust hen e /ill domestic animals#34?5

Perhaps it is because Republic T has caused such consternation amongPlatonic scholars that this stri/ing claim has gone unrecogni.ed, but ecan see important details about the animalKhuman rela"tionship if ehighlight the surface meaning of the myth instead of denigrating therele!ance of these more literary passages in Plato#

Recall that 1r has crossed into the afterlife, and is obser!ing theprocess by hich souls emerge from the hea!ens or hell and then


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choose their ne$t life# +o the e$tent that any commentators ta/e themyth at all seriously, the common interpreti!e theme is to highlight;dysseus choice of the life of a common man, particularly as thiscontrasts ith those ho mista/enly choose tyrannical li!es in theerroneous belief that this ill be the most pleasurable 9as Claucon and

Adeimantus ha!e been half"arguing from )oo/ II onard# -hile this issurely important, consider the te$t that boo/ends this re!elation# First,1r itnesses se!eral Cree/s from the heroic past ma/e their choice,and this is the point here 2the hole danger lies for a man2 94@csince the choice at this one brief moment ill set the bounds to anentire mortal life and may ell bring retribution for the entirety of thethousand"year soourn in the underorld# nust deeds done in thecourse of a tyrannical life are 2countless2 and also ha!e 2no remedy294@e, so the choice is doubly important for the chooser 9ho maysu8er later as ell as his or her potential future !ictims#34@5 +hesalience of philosophy to this choice is immediately demonstrated

hen 1r sees the %rst person to choose, a nameless man hosegoodness as a product of habit rather than thought, pic/ the life of2greatest tyranny2 94Gb# 1r describes a number of other unnamedchoosers as a group and the general nature of their choices, but doesnot mention any crossing of species boundaries until he reaches thedescriptions of the heroes of Cree/ myth# At this point the choices ofthe heroes of the mythic past are re!ealed, and in succession the %rstfour named legends choose an animal life: ;rpheus that of a san, +hamyris a nightingale, Aa$ a lion, and Agamemnon an eagle# 1achchoice of an animal life is based on an a!ersion to humanity rooted inthat particular souls prior lifeJ for e$ample, ;rpheus does not ant to

be carried by a human female before birth due to his death at thehands of omen 9=>a"d# +hat the humans only choose animal li!esbecause of a hostility toard other humans ould seem to indicatethat Plato is still functioning ithin the standard sacri%cial frameor/at this point: these %rst %gures of metempsychosis across the speciesborder are not particularly friendly images of the humanKanimalrelation, though they do not necessarily imply that the animal li!esthemsel!es hold any antipathy toard human li!es#34G5

Ne$t, 1r sees ;dysseus placed by lot in the %nal spot3=>5 9ust after +hersites tellingly pic/s the life of a mon/ey, and reecting a life of

ambition he %nds a life discarded by all the others, 2the life of a pri!ateciti.en ho minded his on business M -hen he sa it, he chose itgladly, saying he ould ha!e done the same e!en if he had dran the%rst lot#2 9=>c"d Lost interpreters focus on ;dysseus choice, andignore the passage that immediately follos it# 6ere 1rKSocrates says:2Similarly among the ild animals there ere mo!es into humanbeings, and into one anotherthe unust changing into sa!agecreatures, the ust into gentle ones# 1!ery /ind of intermingling as


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ta/ing place2 9=>d"e# So the transformations beteen human andnon"human continue, folloing the changes seen in the earlierdescriptions of ;rpheus et al# )ut here Plato has added a ratherimportant detail: sa!age li!es are ta/en up by the unust souls, hilegentle animal li!es are ta/en up by the ust ones# +he %rst part of this

statement seems ob!ious enough, as e ha!e ust seen Aa$ andAgamemnon turn themsel!es into predators for their ne$t go"round,but the signi%cance of the second part has generated little interest#

I ha!e noted already the fre'uent scholarly attention to thePythagorean inBuence on Plato, and this is particularly emphasi.ed indiscussing his sometimes bi.arre fascination ith mathematics 9andnumber more generally as ell as the doctrine of metempsychosisthat 1rs tale assumes# )ut there is this added element of PythagoreaninBuence that becomes all the more clear if e loo/ at the atharmoi92Puri%cations2 of the Pythagorean 1mpedocles, ho as born about

si$ty years prior to Plato and ho Bourished in Sicily, here Plato ourneyed se!eral times#3=45 It is precisely the transmigration of soulsthat pro!ides the moral foundation for 1mpedocles radical criti'ue of6ellenistic sacri%cial ritual, as the implications of trans"speciesmetempsychosis lead to the most horrible of results:

A father ta/es up his dear son ho has changed his form and slays himith a prayer, so great is his follyO +hey are borne along beseechingthe sacri%cerJ but he does not hear their cries of reproach, but slaysthem and ma/es ready the e!il feast# +hen in the same manner sonta/es father and daughters their mother, and de!our the dear Besh

hen they ha!e depri!ed them of life# 9Fr# HE>

1mpedocles enoins his fello humans to 2cease from e!il slaughter2since they are 2de!ouring each other in heedlessness of mind2 9Fr#H=?, in contrast to an earlier age here 2it as the greatestde%lement among men, to depri!e animals of life and to eat theirgoodly bodies2 9Fr# H> and humanKnonhuman relations ere mar/edby comity: 2all ere gentle and obedient toard men, both animals andbirds, and they burned ith /indly lo!eJ and trees gre ith lea!es andfruit e!er on them, burdened ith abundant fruit all the year#2 9Fr# H=4As in 1rs tale from beyond the gra!e, 1mpedocles also claims that acts

of inustice committed during a lifetime ill follo the doer for manymore years, though he speci%cally lin/s this punishment to thesacri%ce and eating of animals:

+here is an utterance of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods,eternal, sealed fast ith broad oaths hene!er any one de%les hisbody sinfully ith bloody gore or perures himself in regard to rong"doing, one of those spirits ho are heir to long life, thrice ten thousand


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seasons shall he ander apart from the blessed, being born meantimein all sorts of mortal forms, changing one bitter path of life for another#9Fr# EG

1mpedocles mentions his on role in these cosmic cycles, 2born once a

boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting %sh in thesea2 9Fr# E@E, in hich he has played the part of the spectator horri%edat the immorality of his fello creatures, as he 2ept and shrie/ed onbeholding the unonted land here are Lurder and -rath, and otherspecies of Fates, and asting diseases, and putrefaction and Bu$es29Fr# E@, and also his implication as a doer of these !ery same e!ildeeds: 2;ne of these no am I too, a fugiti!e from the gods and aanderer, at the mercy of raging Strife#2 9Fr# EG

0omparing these passages to Platos 1r"tale is instructi!e, as it ma/essense of hat otherise appears an odd addendum to Socrates

capstone morality"play for those seemingly too dense to understandthe actual philosophic argument of the Republic 9as )loom, 4G@claims# And Plato adds a compelling philosophic punch line to1mpedocles religious storyit is not ust our fathers, mothers, sons, ordaughters hom e may be /illing on the altar, but 9orse, fromPlatos !antage it is the souls of the ust ho meet ith the sacri%cers/nife# It is only the ust hose souls go into gentle animals, and Cree/sacri%ce as ne!er 9not that I ha!e found, at least performed on ildanimals# +he gentle animal is the one sacri%ced, and so e /ill and eatthe ust# Perhaps the deed seems less horri%c gi!en that soulsthemsel!es are not really /illed, as e see in both 1mpedocles and

1rs tales# )ut this does not lessen the moral implications from eitherPlatos or 1mpedocles standpoint, since both are fully committed tometempsychosis but still maintain the necessity of se!ere punishmentsfor malefactors#

-hy *atour and Ranci(re Light *isten to Plato

+here are certainly a great many things that I ha!e no ish for Plato totell *atour and Ranci(re, or at least I ha!e no ish that *atour andRanci(re gi!e e'ual eight to all of the !oices e %nd in the dialogues#-hile Platos Pythagorean commitments re"distribute the boundaries of

the ethico"political community in all of the te$ts I ha!e considered,there are some moments in hich Platos le!eling is less pronouncedthan others# +hat is, if there are times, as in the Statesman and theRepublic, that Plato is closer to setting out a hori.ontal geography ofanimal and human sel!es, in the +imaeus and Phaedo Plato reinscribesa hierarchy beteen humans and animals# +hough this hierarchy is notbased on the /ind of ontological distinction that some 0artesians mightma/e, beteen humans ith souls and animals as machines, in the


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+imaeus the mo!ement from human to animal 9at least in the 2secondbirth2 is clearly a degeneration caused by a moral failure# 6ad those%rst humans been able to control their anger and desire, they ouldha!e returned to their stars and not mo!ed into an animal body# So theimplication is that these %rst animals, at least, hile still possessed of

the same soul that had earlier been in a human, ere also souls thatdid not 'uite li!e up to their full potential# +his !ersion is not consistentith the path of the transmigrating souls in the myth of 1r, hoe!er,since in 1rs tale the general mo!ement is for ust souls 9in humans tomo!e into domestic animals, hile unust souls 9in humans ill mo!einto ild animal bodies# +hough the +imaeus is probably a laterdialogue than the Republic, there does not seem to be a compellingreason to substitute hat seems later for hat seems earlier as ageneral ruleotherise hy not ust read the *as and Statesman andforget about the Republic7nor does Plato gi!e us any argument forhy one or the other may be the 2correct2 !ersion of metempsychosis#

And for my purposes it does not matter much either ay, since e!en inthe more hierarchical story Plato ould still be committed to the ideathat animals and humans share souls 9good, bad, or indi8erent,thereby Battening out hat had been 9under humanism a clearlyhierarchical dichotomy beteen humans and animals# 1!en the mildhierarchy in the +imaeus ould be subect to the ca!eat that the ustsoul in a human, if it ere destined to return to its star at the death ofthe human body, ould li/ely ha!e come from an animal body in apre!ious life 9thin/ of the +imaeus 2innocent light"minded2 souls inbirds, at H=d# It is the same souls that are in constant motion bac/ andforth beteen human and nonhuman bodies, and hate!er moral

failings 9in the +imaeus !ersion may attend those souls currently inan animal body, for Plato this ould not ustify the inBiction of harm#

+here is also no need for us to s'uare these to somehat di!ergentaccounts of the souls afterlife if e follo 1ubens suggestion that%nding ambiguity in Platos dialogues does not demand that e resol!eit 91uben, 4GG?, p# H, and instead ponder hether the 2misdirections,re!ersals, impasses, incongruities, and arnings M ma/e the orldseem strange and shoc/ing2 91uben, =>>E, p# 4># +arnopols/y 9=>4Halso counsels that e allo oursel!es to adopt multiple perspecti!eson the dialogues 9she is thin/ing of 2genre"sitching,2 say beteen

!ieing the Republic as a tragedy, medical treatise, comedy, or satyrplay seriatim, alloing each perspecti!e to undermine the con!entionsof the other ithout trying to reduce our account to any one narrati!ethat subsumes all others# )oth theorists suggest, then, that our time isnot necessarily best spent in %nding the one true Platonic doctrine, inpart because the dialogues dont seem to be trying to do this, and alsobecause e cannot escape the ordeal of ambiguity in our on thin/inge!en if someho e %nd an interlocutor ho as able to tame it in


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himself 92Plato2# In the case of our relations ith animals, ould itma/e any di8erence if Plato ere unambiguously on the side of eitherthe +imaeus or Republic narrati!es7 +hese are merely 2probable2accounts e!en if e ta/e +imaeus 9the character at his ord, but hatis the ord of a character in a =>> year old dialogues telling of a

myth7 I ould suggest that these !ersions of Battened ontology can atbest be spurs to our on imaginati!e recasting of the orld around us,particularly of ho e imagine the orlds that other animals arealready creating#

So hat about those chimpan.ees and their )ron$ cheers7 If e nomay be more inclined to see this as the emergence of acommunicati!e gesture that dynamically responds to the presence ofhumans, e can also see it through Ranci(res and *atours lenses,no refracted, or tempered, by Platonic impingements# Ranci(resdenial of speech to nonhumans cannot stand scrutinyat least in the

case of these chimpan.ees3==5and ith Platos push to see thepotential continuities that stretch from human to nonhuman e canthin/ of this inno!ation as something li/e an instance of Ranci(res2politics#2 -hile e might be disinclined to thin/ that suchcommunication is suciently conBictual to satisfy Ranci(res criteria,there may be more agonism in this encounter than %rst meets the eye# +hin/, for a moment, about hat the raspberry does in humancommunication: it generally mar/s a point of disagreement or derision,often e$pressed sarcastically as a cheer#3=E5 Raspberries can beplayful, no doubt, and perhaps thats ho the chimpan.ees learned theraspberry in the %rst placefrom obser!ing playful interactions

beteen their human captors# )ut e could also !ie the raspberry asa more aggressi!e act by the chimpan.eesmore in tune ith the2)ron$2 part of )ron$ cheeras a demand to be recogni.ed and toha!e desires addressed that as articulated as best the chimpan.ees/ne ho# +here are di8erences beteen the chimps raspberries andRanci(res tale of the cries of the pleb multitude assembled on theA!entine 9Ranci(re, 4GGG, pp# =E"=, to be sure, but from the !antageof the patricians 9Appius 0laudius in Ranci(res e$ample, or theprimatologists in mine its alays dicult to tell the di8erencebeteen 2mere2 !oice and speech# Is it too far"fetched to imagine thatthe chimps understood only too ell the contempt that hides behind

the raspberrys seemingly childish mien7

Perhaps *atour has less to learn from the anti"authoritarian Plato thandoes Ranci(re, on my account, since *atour is already on"board forbringing nonhumans and humans together in his ne 0ollecti!e# )ut ifyou recall the e$ample I culled from *atour pre!iously, about the prionsand )S1, I ould suggest that *atours politics can also gain from theencounter ith Plato# +hough *atours ne institutions are not in


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principle opposed to creating Platos !egetarian republic, he himself ismore concerned ith the ay that prions gain representation 9throughthe scientists than ith hat happens to the cos 9their status isalready settled for him, in some sense# )ut he is procedurally open tothe cos status in the 0ollecti!e being reopened, and listening to Plato

9no longer considered the author of 2Nature2 might help mo!e him inthis direction# For *atours ne parliament it is crucial that politiciansand moralists eigh in on the matter of ho is 2to be ta/en in account29the %rst poer of the 0ollecti!e no less than scientists, and if ecouple narrati!es li/e the primatologists 96op/ins et al#, =>>? ith themoral force of the accounts in the +imaeus and the Republic, thosecos begin to loo/ 9and spea/7 !ery di8erently#

+his is especially true if e consider the stretching 9or hat e couldcall 2trans"ing2 of the self that is accomplished in Platos theory ofmetempsychosis, and ho this ould impinge upon *atours

construction of the 0ollecti!e# Platos te$t pushes us to see nonhumananimals not ust as other beings 2out there2 ho need to be included,but potentially as other parts of our on beings# 6e in!ites us toe$tend the self into other bodies, by recogni.ing that e ha!e alreadybeen in those other bodies 9in the past and ill be in those otherbodies 9in the future# And hen e e$tend oursel!es thusly e beginto see a 2'ueer2 self that is stretched temporally and spatially,3=H5ithout the %rmly bounded notion of self"identity that still seemspresent in *atours conception of the scientist 9or politician, or moralisttas/ed ith in!estigating cos and prions# Platos concept of thetransmigrating, trans"ing soul destabili.es the sel!es of the humans

ho act to compose *atours 0ollecti!e, in!iting them to consider )S1from an alternate !antage: one that sees not ust a disease hose2actants2 9cos, prions need to be considered, but as a cripplingcondition from hich the scientists themsel!es, in some ay, arealready su8ering 9in their past and future li!es#

I am not suggesting, of course, that *atour or Ranci(re need to adoptPlatos speci%c doctrine of metempsychosis 9or that my readers belie!eit either# Platos particular reasons for his belief are interestingenough, but I am more pro!o/ed by the a8ecti!e bonds beteennonhumans and humans that they creati!ely imagine, as ell as by the

'uestions that they force us to as/ oursel!es hen e ponder humanand nonhuman encounters# -ho spea/s to us hen the chimpan.eera..es, or the co los7 -hat /ind of political e!ent is occurring, andho are e called to respond to it7 Platos animals do not pro!idedeterminate ansers to these 'uestions, but they intersect insurprising ays ith posthumanists li/e )runo *atour and radicaldemocrats li/e &ac'ues Ranci(re# *i/e the plebs on the A!entine theyerupt into our philosophic narrati!es, disturbing our humanist


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consensus and as/ing that e respond to them# And e ould do ellto heed Ranci(res mista/en humanism 9in denying speech tononhumans as a cautionary tale for the continuing process ofnonhuman representation as it is ta/en up in *atours 0ollecti!e: thereis no predicting ust ho the irruption of these ne demanding beings

ill happen, as the declaration of rong by those pre!iously deniedspeech alays comes all of a sudden#

+here is also a parallel beteen the chimpan.ees and Plato that onlyoccurred to me as I as %nishing this essay# +hough my !ersion ofPlato has made appearances in the past, as I ha!e noted 9Painter,=>4EJ Porphyry, =>>>J Dombros/i, 4G@H, Platos Pythagoreanle!eling does not ma/e many a!es in political philosophy circlestoday# Ne!ertheless, as I ha!e argued, he raises 'uestions abouthuman e$ceptionalism in the Republic and in many other dialogues,e!en though hat he says is perhaps indirect and sometimes

e$pressed sotto !oce# All this leads me to onder: are PlatosPythagorean utterances analogous to the chimpan.ees raspberries7-ere they too hiding in plain sight, all the hile aiting 9or demandingto be noticed7

2-hat as that72 e say# 2-ere you tal/ing to me72

345 Prior !ersions of this essay ere presented at the =>4H annualmeetings of the 0anadian Political Science Association, in St#0atharines, ;ntario, and the American Political Science Association, in-ashington, D0# +han/s to my fello panelists and to my discussants

endra 0oulter and Da!id Schlosberg, and also to the re!ieers andeditorial board at the ournal for their !ery detailed 9and muchappreciated commentary#

3=5 +his shift to an agentic !ie of nonhumans is broadly congruentith the di!erse usti%cations seen in de -aal, 4G@= 9!ia primatologyJ6ribal, =>>? 9!ia Lar$ist interspecies solidarityJ Seeley, =>4> 9!iaanimal beha!iorismKcogniti!e neuroscienceJ and )ennett, =>>G 9!ia2Ne Laterialism2# I do not ta/e any particular stand on the groundsfor such a claim, though gi!en my later discussion of *atour, clearly Iam sympathetic to the materialistKpolitical ecology schema#

3E5 In the e$periment reported in 6op/ins et al# 9=>>?#

3H5 See Richard I!eson 9=>4H for the details of Ranci(res denial ofpolitics to animals#

35 As I argue in some detail in another or/, it is not at all clear ho%$ed this di!ision is e!en for Aristotle, since he also considers bees,


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asps, ants, and cranes to be political in more or less the same ay ashumans#

35 +his issue of names and the pri!ileging of speech o!er silence andthe nameless is addressed by alpana Seshadris 9=>4= pro!ocati!e

musing on Derrida, Agamben, and animali.ation# It ould behoo!ecritical animal studies to ponder more deeply ho to engage ithnamelessness as if it ere not a pri!ation#

3?5 Ranci(re is similarly critical of Plato in +he Philosopher and 6is Poor9=>>H, originally published in 4G@E, though his interest there has moreto do ith unco!ering Platos denigration of the artisanKimitator as aconse'uence of Platos recognition that philosophy depends upon%ction 9or, lying# Interestingly, Ranci(re begins his discussion of Platoith the 2healthy city2 9E?=a that is the %rst city of the Republic,though in line ith the traditional interpretation he discounts the

possibility that this city is un"ironically called the best regime9something I ha!e argued against, in Dolgert, in press#

3@5 For a contrary !ie that ta/es the aporetic Socrates seriously seeNehamas 94GG@#

3G5 I ant to mar/ here a substantial di!ergence from +arnopols/ysapproach, though in many ays I %nd her !ersion of Plato asophisticated and eminently defensible one 9and one that I prefer tomost e!ery other ri!al approach to Plato that I can thin/ of# +arnopols/ys Plato is almost holly procedural or e!en Derridean, in

the sense that Derridas 2ordeal of the undecidable2 haunts e!erye8ort at constructing a %nal !ocabulary 9for the self or for the city# In +arnopols/ys 'uotation abo!e, I ta/e this as e$emplary of herorientation to see little of substanti!e !alue in the arguments in theRepublic# Instead she counsels her reader to loo/ at Platos dialogue 9atleast hen !ieed through the lens of the satyr"play as amethodological de!ice 9this puts it much more crudely than herelegant argument deser!es# +he poly!ocal narrati!e, unreliableprotagonist 9Socrates, and ironic turn of the argument in the dialogueendea!or to create a certain /ind of disposition in the readeroneattenti!e to the impossibility of an ethics or politics ithout remainders

or tragic choicethat comes close to Derridean deconstruction, though +arnopols/y is careful to tal/ of philosophy as both the 2constructionand destruction of orld!ies2 9=>4H# -hile I am also 'uite ta/en ithDerridean interpreti!e methods, I am not as interested in theproducti!e imagination performed in Platos dialoguesJ indeed I aminterested 9in this essay at least as much in the substanti!e %guresconured forth in Platos metempsychotic dreams as in ho these ideas


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might be or/ing at the metaethical le!el 9here I ta/e it that +arnopols/ys e8orts lie#

34>5 I ha!e discussed to other hori.ontali.ing thematics, separately:4 the doctrine of the 2!egetarian republic2 in the Republic 9Socrates

argument in )oo/ II that the 2healthy city2 is implicitly a !egetarianone, in Dolgert 9in press, and = the importance of animal"perceptionto philosophy in Platos Statesman, in Dolgert 9=>4=, unpublished# Fora similar argument to mine on the %rst of these themes, see alsoDombros/i 94G@H and Painter 9=>4E#

3445 Leno @4a, @bJ 0ratylus H>>bJ Phaedo ?>c, @>aJ Republic 4EeJ +imaeus H4d, G>eJ Phaedrus =HcJ Corgias HG=e 9see *ong, 4GH@#

34=5 0omprising reason 9logisti/os, spirit 9thumos, and appetite9epithumia#

34E5 +he discussions in Republic and +imaeus are the most e$plicit,though the metaphorical treatment in Phaedrus seems close enough tomerit inclusion# 0oincidentally enough, li/e metempsychosis thedoctrine of the tripartite soul also seems to be indebted to thePythagorean tradition 9see Stoc/s, 4G4# +he Pythagorean inBuenceon Plato runs far deeper than the mathematical fetishism of theRepublic#

34H5 In the )haga!ad Cita e read: 2-orn"out garments are shed bythe bodyJ -orn"out bodies are shed by the deller ithin the body#

Ne bodies are donned by the deller, li/e garments#2 9=:==

345 See )loom 94G@, for e$ample, for the idea that Platosphilosophic readers ha!e no need for myths, hich ser!e to cloa/ orma/e palatable Platos ideas for non"philosophers#

345 +he e$act origins of the tragoidia are obscure, and the connectionith the ritual slaughter of goats is debatable# For contending theoriessee the collection edited by -in/er < Uetilin 94GG=#

34?5 -hile this is noticed by Porphyry 9=>>>, here and elsehere the

Neoplatonists are generally ignored# Dillon 94GG is an importante$ception to this general trend#

34@5 Perhaps the lac/ of remedy for these crimes partially e$plains thenecessity of a thousand years of punishment 9paying 2ten times o!erfor each o8ense2 34b5# )ut it is signi%cant that Platos theory of ustice here is not a remedial onethough a thousand years ofretribution may fall on the head of the doer of inustice, the inustice


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itself cannot be remedied or righted# I ill attend to this later inconsidering the fate of animals in Platonic ustice#

34G5 Indeed, ust after +hamyris chooses the life of a san, se!eralother unnamed 2musical creatures2 follo him but choose a human

life# So the life of an animal may be an implicit reection of human life,but it does not indicate that animali.ed souls ill bear any ill illtoards human life#

3=>5 Socrates says that he had dran 2the last lot of all,2 though hegoes on to describe the choices made by ild animals after he hasdescribed ;dysseus choice# -hether this means that this lot assimply the last one chosen by a former"ly human soul and not the lastis not entirely clear, since in 4Ge it is left open to doubt hether 2thelast2 one really has !ery good options: 2pro!ided the ay the lot fallsout does not put him among the last to choose, the chances are, if 1rs

report is correct, not only that he ill be happy here M 3etc#52

3=45 All 'uotations from Fairban/s 94@G@, pp# =>H"=44#

3==5 +he e!idence of animal speech 9or animal intelligence that doesnot necessarily re'uire speech !ia ethology accumulates daily, inmany more species than ust chimpan.ees and ell beyond themammalian order# For the deliberation of bees, as ust one e$ample,see Seeley 9=>4>#

3=E5 I happily cite rban Dictionary on this matter rather than a more

standard dictionary: http:KK#urbandictionary #comKde%ne#php7termV)ron$W0heer, retrie!ed Lay =>, =>4H#

3=H5 See 1!e osofs/y Sedgic/ 9=>44 for the beginnings of apotentially rich combiningKconugatingKclashing of metempsychosis and'ueer theory#

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23/26

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Documents

Animal Republics