Utopia e pessimismo na República de Platão

This work addresses the controversial issue of the utopian nature of Plato's Republic. My thesis is that it is legitimate to consider the Republic as the founding utopia in the history of Western literature only if it is considered, at the same time, as the first critique of utopia in Western literature. I suggest that the Republic's several paradigms are counteracted by pessimistic dramatic gestures and philosophical theories, and that this is the core of the criticism at stake. In the first chapter I concentrate on the dramatic use of mockery and ridicule as strategies to stop and refrain certain naive and optimistic positions advanced or insinuated by Socrates concerning human motivation. We will see, here, an implicit pessimism. In the second chapter I observe how Socrates, while constructing positions of a more refined optimism, expounds—in parallel way— properly philosophical theories with a dense and explicit pessimistic content. I try to highlight this content with special emphasis on the Theory of the tripartite soul and the Allegory of the cave, in order to show two main points. First, the Theory of the tripartite soul suggests a vision of human interiority in which the internal conflict between the parts of the soul is inevitable and, consequently, the optimal psychic state is unattainable. Second, the Allegory of the cave suggests a vision of human reason in which the knowledge and communication of the idea of the Good escapes human intelligence, even for the best endowed and educated souls. I suggest that, for these reasons, the ideal of the philosopher, i.e., the ideal of self-control based on reason, is of doubtful and improbable attainment, and, consequently, the same applies both to the ideal of the philosopher-king and to the Kallipolis under his regency. In the third chapter, I concentrate on the phenomenon of pessimism, trying to expound its philosophical roots with attention to the secondary literature that examines it in the broader context of Plato’s thought, especially the Republic. I conclude that, far from constituting a paradox or a contradiction, the Republic is, in this specific context, an exercise in no way conclusive, but intentionally open. Its main message lies rather in a methodological recommendation relative to the search for a better life than in a definitive prescription or an equally consolidated path for its realization. Plato embarks on the construction of the ideal, but invites the reader to perform a serious critique of that very ideal based on an exhaustive and philosophical consideration of the limitations of experience, presented in all their adversity. Plato also invites the reader to engage in a positive action in relation to the ideal, not in the sense of its final and absolute realization—which is assumed, within the work itself and in the antipodes of traditional utopian writing, impossible and even undesirable—, but in a sense linked to resilience, focused on minimizing harm and heading towards a limited, but still possible progress (AU)