Plato (429?-347 BC) in the Republic describes in detail Kallipolis (Beautiful City) as a state with the (second) best political system. This city has a tripartite class structure, reflecting that of the human soul, and linking to those different psychological constitutions [1.2.5] and virtues [1.2.6].
| Part of the human soul | Psychological constitution | Virtue | Class of the City |
| Reason | Aristocratic | Wisdom | Guardians |
| Spirit | Timocratic | Honor | Auxiliaries |
| Appetite | Oligarchic Democratic Tyrannical | Temperance | Producers |
The OntoUML diagram below presents the structure of the Ideal City:
| Class | Description | Relations |
| IdealCity | The Ideal City, (Kallipolis, beautiful city) “includes three classes, two that guard the city and its constitution (ruling and auxiliary guardians) and one that produces what the city needs.” | |
| Class | Class is a collection of Citizens with common tasks and properties. | generalizes Guardians, Auxiliaries and Producers |
| Constitution | The constitution is the collection of laws, rules governing the city. | characterizes IdealCity |
| Guardians | The Guardians are the ruling class of the Ideal City. Propaganda, eugenics, falsehood, and censorship are among the tools used by guardians to rule. | subkind of Class; exclusive part of IdealCity |
| Auxiliaries | The Auxiliaries are a military class, with the main task to conduct the Ideal City’s wars and to enforce the Constitution. They are trained to be aggressive, and ruthless with foreigners, but gentle with the Citizens. | subkind of Class; exclusive part of IdealCity |
| Producers | The Producers are the class of workers, responsible for delivering the goods necessary for the city’s population. | subkind of Class; exclusive part of IdealCity |
| Citizen | Citizen is a human being. | role of HumanBeing |
| GuardianPerson | A guardian person is a citizen, trained in philosophy, member of the class of Guardians. For Guardian Persons, the nuclear family is abolished, man, woman, and children live in community, children are removed from their mother after birth and raised and educated collectively. | subkind of Citizen, member of Guardians |
| Philosopher-king | The Philosopher-king is a Guardian Person in his fifties, carefully educated in military, mathematics, government, and philosophical topics and chosen to be a leader. | subkind of GuardianPerson |
| AuxiliaryPerson | An auxiliary person is a citizen and soldier, a member of the class of Auxiliaries. | subkind of Citizen, member of Auxiliaries |
| ProducerPerson | A producer person is a citizen and worker, a member of the class of Producers. | subkind of Citizen, member of Producers and Family |
| Education | All the citizens receive a class-specific education. For guardians “this education is most often noted for its carefully censored ‘reading list;’ the young guardians-to-be will not be exposed to inappropriate images of gods and human beings… A well-trained guardian will ‘praise fine things, be pleased by them, receive them into his soul, and, being nurtured by them, become fine and good,’ and each will ‘rightly object to what is shameful, hating it while he’s still young and unable to grasp the reason’… Socrates has the young guardians not only responding to good things as honorable (with spirited attitudes), but also becoming fine and good.” For auxiliaries military education is available. For producers there is primary education “to make good on the commitment to promote especially talented children born among the producers and to enable the producers to recognize the virtue in the philosophers.” | provided to Citizen |
| NobleLie | The noble lie is part of education and promotes the universal acceptance of the individual’s class status. It states, that Guardians have gold, Auxiliaries have silver, and Producers bronze in their blood, thus the members of these classes can not mate. | part of Education |
| Family | Producers can have private families. | |
| Property | Property can be land, houses, materials, different assets etc. | |
| PrivateProperty | Private property is allowed for the producer persons. Guardians and Auxiliaries can not have private property | subkind of Property; is owned by ProducerPerson |
| StateProperty | State property is assets held by the state, controlled by the Guardians. | subkind of Property; is owned by the State |
| HumanBeing | A human being. | |
| Citizenship | Citizenship is a legal status of a human being that relates it to the state. | relates Citizen with State |
Sources
All citations from:
- All citations without explicit reference from: Brown, Eric, “Plato’s Ethics and Politics in The Republic“, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
- Mark R. Levin, Ameritopia, 2012, Threshold Editions
First published: 14/11/2019
Updated: 21/9/2021
Philosophy Models 