Plato’s Republic and Sterling’s Six Commitments
In my past discussion with Claude on the relationship between Sterling's six commitments and classical philosophy, The Republic and Nichomedean Ethics were given as sources of analogies to the commitments. Can you explain The Republic in those terms.
Claude: The past conversation retrieved the context. A full paper on this was developed in a previous session. Here is The Republic explained through Sterling's six commitments directly.
Plato’s Republic and Sterling’s Six Commitments
1. Substance Dualism
The Republic establishes the soul as categorically distinct from the body throughout, but Books IV and X make the case most forcefully. In Book IV Plato divides the soul into three parts — rational, spirited, and appetitive — and argues that the rational part (nous) constitutes the true self and is fitted to rule the others. The body and its appetites are obstacles to the soul’s proper function, not constituents of its identity. In Book X the Myth of Er presents the soul as pre-existing and surviving the body, choosing its next incarnation. The soul is not produced by the body. It uses the body.
Sterling’s radical distinction between prohairesis and externals — including the body itself as external to the self — maps directly onto this Platonic structure. Proposition 5 (everything other than the rational faculty is external to the self, including the body) is Platonic doctrine stated in Stoic vocabulary.
2. Libertarian Free Will
The Myth of Er in Book X is Plato’s explicit treatment of free will and the most precise anticipation of Sterling’s Metaphysical Libertarianism in classical literature. The souls choose their next lives before the spindle of Necessity. The Interpreter declares: “The blame belongs to the one who chooses. God is blameless.” The choice is genuinely free — no external force determines it. Responsibility is absolute and located entirely in the choosing faculty.
This is Sterling’s Proposition 11 in Platonic form: the act of assenting to or rejecting impressions is the only thing in our control, and it is genuinely ours. Plato also establishes in the Republic that the tyrant — the soul ruled by appetites — is the least free, while the philosopher-king — the soul ruled by reason — is the most free. Freedom and rational self-governance are identical, which is exactly Sterling’s identification of virtue with correct use of the faculty of assent.
3. Ethical Intuitionism
The Form of the Good in Book VI is Plato’s foundational statement of ethical intuitionism. The Good is not derived from anything else. It is not constructed, voted on, or relative to preference. It is grasped directly by the rational faculty that has been properly trained to see it — the famous analogy of the Sun, which makes all other things visible including itself. Moral truth is not inferred from non-moral premises. It is apprehended directly by nous when the soul turns toward it.
Sterling’s ethical intuitionism — that moral truths are grasped directly by reason rather than derived from empirical observation or social convention — is this Platonic doctrine operationalized. The Allegory of the Cave in Book VII makes the same point narratively: the philosopher who escapes the cave does not construct the Good. He sees it.
4. Foundationalism
The Divided Line in Book VI is the most explicit foundationalist epistemology in classical philosophy. Plato arranges all knowledge in a strict hierarchy: images, visible objects, mathematical objects, and the Forms, with the Form of the Good at the apex as the unhypothetical first principle from which everything else derives its intelligibility. The philosopher-king builds his entire understanding upward from the Forms as bedrock. Nothing above depends on anything below for its truth.
Sterling’s foundationalism — that all judgments trace back to the 58 propositions as bedrock — replicates this structure. The 58 Propositions function as Sterling’s Divided Line: a hierarchy of derived truths grounded in foundational commitments that are not themselves derived from anything more basic.
5. Correspondence Theory of Truth
The entire epistemological apparatus of the Republic rests on correspondence theory. Opinion (doxa) fails to be knowledge precisely because it corresponds only to the shifting appearances of the visible world rather than to the stable reality of the Forms. Knowledge (episteme) is true because it corresponds to what actually and unchangingly is. The prisoners in the Cave have false beliefs not because they lack sincerity but because their beliefs correspond to shadows rather than to real objects.
Sterling’s Correspondence Theory — that a value-judgment is true only if it matches the objective Stoic status of the object — applies this Platonic framework to moral claims specifically. Calling an external good or evil is a Correspondence Failure in exactly Plato’s sense: the judgment corresponds to an appearance rather than to reality. The Form of the Good is only participable by virtue, not by any external.
6. Moral Realism
Book I of the Republic opens with Socrates defeating Thrasymachus, who argues that justice is whatever the strong say it is — the ancient statement of moral relativism. The entire Republic is Plato’s systematic refutation of that position. Justice is not a convention, a preference, or a power relation. It is an objective structure of the soul in which reason rules spirit and appetite — a structure that can be instantiated correctly or incorrectly, well or badly, regardless of what anyone believes about it.
The Form of the Good is the ultimate ground of this realism: Good and Evil are not properties we assign to things. They are objective features of reality that our judgments either correspond to or fail to correspond to. Sterling’s Moral Realism — that Good and Evil are objective properties of the Will, not subjective opinions — is this Platonic doctrine applied to the Stoic analysis of virtue. Only the Will can instantiate virtue or vice because only the Will participates in the Form of the Good through correct or incorrect assent.
The Unifying Structure
What makes the Republic the single most compatible text with Sterling’s framework is not that it supports each commitment individually but that it supports all six as an integrated system through a single organizing insight: the soul’s rational part is the true self, it alone participates in the Form of the Good, its participation constitutes virtue, and its failure to participate constitutes vice.
Everything else follows. The body is external. Freedom is rational self-governance. Moral truth is apprehended directly. Knowledge is grounded in unhypothetical first principles. Judgment either corresponds to reality or fails to. Good and Evil are objective.
Sterling’s 58 Propositions are this Platonic system translated into Stoic operational doctrine.
Sterling Unified Stoic System — Classical Foundations.
Dave Kelly
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