Comedy, cannot be allowed in the state, 3. [394] [cp. Laws 7. 816 D]; accustoms the mind to vulgarity, 10. [606];
—same actors cannot act both tragedy and comedy, 3. [395].
Common life in the state, 5. [458], [464] foll.;
—common meals of the guardians, 3. [416]; common meals for women, 5. [458 D] [cp. Laws 6. 781; 7. 806 E; 8. 839 D];
—common property among the guardians, 3. [416 E]; 4. [420 A], [422 D]; 5. [464]; 8. [543].
[Community of women and children], 3. [416]; 5. [450 E], [457] foll., [462], [464]; 8. [543 A] [cp. Laws 5. 739 C];
—of property, 3. [416 E]; 4. [420 A], [422 D]; 5. [464]; 8. [543];
—of feeling, 5. [464].
Community. [The communism of the Republic seems to have been suggested by Plato’s desire for the unity of the state (cp. 5. [462] foll.). If those ‘two small pestilent words, “meum” and “tuum,” which have engendered so much strife among men and created so much mischief in the world,’ could be banished from the lips and thoughts of mankind, the ideal state would soon be realized. The citizens would have parents, wives, children, and property in common; they would rejoice in each other’s prosperity, and sorrow at each other’s misfortune; they would call their rulers not ‘lords’ and ‘masters,’ but ‘friends’ and ‘saviours.’ Plato is aware that such a conception could hardly be carried out in this world; and he evades or adjourns, rather than solves, the difficulty by the famous assertion that only when the philosopher rules in the city will the ills of human life find an end [cp. Introduction, [p. clxxiii]]. In the Critias, where the ideal state, as Plato himself hints to us (110 D), is to some extent reproduced in an imaginary description of ancient Attica, property is common, but there is no mention of a community of wives and children. Finally in the Laws (5. 739), Plato while still maintaining the blessings of communism, recognizes the impossibility of its realization, and sets about the construction of a ‘second-best state’ in which the rights of property are conceded; although, according to Aristotle (Pol. ii. 6, § 4), he gradually reverts to the ideal polity in all except a few unimportant particulars.]
Conception, the, of truth by the philosopher, 6. [490 A].
Confidence and courage, 4. [430 B].
Confiscation of the property of the rich in democracies, 8. [565].
[Constitution], the aristocratic, is the ideal state sketched in [bk. iv] (cp. 8. [544 E], [545 D]);
—defective forms of constitution, 4. [445 B]; 8. [544] [cp. Pol. 291 E foll.]; aristocracy (in the ordinary sense), 1. [338 D]; timocracy or ‘Spartan polity,’ 8. [545] foll.; oligarchy, ib. [550] foll., [554 E]; democracy, ib. [555] foll., [557 D]; tyranny, ib. [544 C], [562]. Cp. [Government], [State].
Contentiousness, a characteristic of timocracy, 8. [548].
Contracts, in some states not protected by law, 8. [556 A].