Plato on Shame

The chapter discusses shame in the Republic, in the Gorgias and in the Symposium. It argues that some influential opinions concerning Platonic shame are ultimately untenable: a) that shame in the Gorgias supports the “Socratic Axiom” and reveals the characters’ attachment to natural values; b) that there are two kinds of shame in the Gorgias: aporetic shame and “shame of shame”; c) that Socratic shame is fundamentally solipsistic; d) that reason is to be considered the ultimate source of shame. The chapter defends the following points: 1) between Book II and Book IV of the Republic Plato shows that there is a fundamental difference between the fear of the consequences of a bad reputation someone like Gyges may feel when attracted by wrong-doing, and the authentic shame someone like Leontius may feel when he feels torn between his desires and his ideals. 2) As it emerges in Book IV of the Republic, the ultimate source of shame is not reason but thumos (spiritedness), i.e., the part of the soul that responds to ideals, is receptive to the values endorsed by education and aspires to intersubjective recognition. 3) The role shame plays in a person’s life depends on the relationship between the individual soul (whether it is ruled by reason, by spiritedness or by the appetitive part) and the city in which an individual happens to live (whether the city is governed by philosophers, is a timocracy, an oligarchy, etc). 4) Philosophic or Socratic shame is not solipsistic: like every other form of shame it relies on inter-subjective recognition. 5) When someone (like Callicles in the Gorgias or Alcibiades in the Symposium) finds himself between ways of life that entail different ideals, his ambivalent attitude shows in the kind(s) of shame he may experience.