Audience Psychology and Censorship in Plato’s Republic: The Problem of the Irrational Part

In Republic X the “problem of the irrational part” is this: Greek tragedy interacts with non-reasoning elements of the soul, affecting audiences in ways that undermine their reasoned views about virtue and value. I suggest that the common construal of Socrates’s critique of Greek tragedy is inadequate, in that it belies key elements of Plato’s audience psychology; specifically, (1) the crucial role of the spirited part and (2) the audience’s cognitive contribution to spectatorship. I argue that Socrates’s emphasis on the audience’s cognitive contribution to spectatorship allows him to anticipate a non-authoritarian solution to the problem of the irrational part. In Plato’s Republic Socrates infamously proposes a censorship program of stunning magnitude and ruthless scope, extending from Greek drama and literature to architecture, pottery, and even children’s games. Socrates bans or severely censors the entire Greek literary cannon. Plato’s interest in authoritarian “cultural catharsis” is real and enduring, resurfacing prominently in the Laws.1 In this paper I do not defend censorship. Instead, I point to the problem that ultimately motivates Plato’s censorship program—what I call “the problem of the irrational part.” Put simply, the problem is this: tragedy interacts with non-reasoning elements of the human psyche, affecting audiences in ways that undermine their reasoned views about value and virtue. In what follows, I focus on the neglected final book of the Republic (Republic X), wherein Socrates recruits his tripartite psychology to remake the case for censorship—in effect banning comedy and tragedy and banishing the “leader of the tragedians,” Homer. In Republic X, Socrates charges tragedy with appealing to the irrational (ἀνόητον, ἀλόγιστον) part of the soul—i.e., spirit (τὸ θυμοειδής) and appetite