This essay compares the political philosophies of Plato and Machiavelli as expressed in The Republic and The Prince, with particular focus on the role of the military in each thinker's conception of the ideal state. Plato envisions a professional Guardian class that defends the city-state and maintains internal harmony, while Machiavelli argues for a citizen army personally commanded by the prince. The paper examines how each thinker's views on war, loyalty, human nature, and statecraft shape their prescriptions for military organization, and how those prescriptions reflect their broader philosophical commitments to idealism and pragmatism, respectively.
The paper exemplifies comparative philosophical analysis using primary source close reading. Rather than summarizing secondary scholarship, the writer places two canonical texts in direct dialogue, identifying shared premises (war as a permanent feature of human affairs, the need for strong central authority) while carefully distinguishing the conclusions each thinker draws. This technique — find the common ground, then isolate the divergence — is a model approach for comparative political philosophy essays.
The essay opens by framing the comparison and stating the central thesis, then develops Plato's position across two sections covering the Guardian system and military education. It then shifts to Machiavelli, examining his pragmatic theory of statecraft and his detailed prescriptions for arms and armies. A final synthesis section draws the two thinkers together, contrasting Plato's goal of harmony with Machiavelli's goal of effective rule, and showing how each thinker's military theory is a direct expression of his wider philosophy.
Plato and Machiavelli can both be considered theorists of the ideal state, and each assigns a high position to the military and military arts in achieving and maintaining order in society. However, they hold different views of the ultimate place and purpose of the military. What each thinker has to say about the military reflects on the broader nature of his philosophy — as expressed by Plato in The Republic and by Machiavelli in The Prince.
In The Republic, Plato uses Socrates to investigate the nature of the city-state and what the ideal city-state should be. The philosophical inquiry in this dialogue addresses two primary conceptions, both linked under the heading of idealism: the first details Plato's epistemology, and the second his political philosophy. The first is a metaphysical consideration of the nature of life and the world and how we can know what we know, while the second is the practical application of various concepts to the state, demonstrating the relationship between the individual and society within a utopian city-state. The Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that way of life within a civil state. What Plato seeks in this dialogue is a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain it — and in the broadest sense, the subject of the dialogue is justice.
Inherent in Plato's analysis is the view that relations among human beings are subject to conflict, and he seems to regard war as a permanent feature of human affairs. The city-state he develops will inevitably be a target of other city-states, and so the requirements of war must be considered. Machiavelli's view of the state, written several centuries later, has changed little in this respect: he too sees the state as subject to constant warfare, though he may also see war as a legitimate tool of diplomacy, whereby the state itself might seek to annex territory and extend influence through military force. Both ideal states are ruled by a strong central authority — for Machiavelli, the prince or benevolent despot; for Plato, a professionalized class known as the Guardians, with the philosopher-king as part of an oligarchy at the top.
The Guardians are the rulers and protectors of Plato's Republic, and they exist to prevent strife. Minimizing the threat or possibility of strife is a central component of the state Plato envisions, and he sees the avoidance of strife as deriving from unity within the community. Plato's city-state rests on a particular conception of the relationship between the individual and society — one quite different from the tradition that has informed Western political thought over the last three or four centuries and that is embodied in modern democratic systems. The individual who lives under Plato's system places himself or herself completely under the authority of the Guardians, accepting the idea that everything society does is right and beneficial for the individual as well as for the majority. The thrust of political development since Plato's time has moved in the opposite direction, as people have sought ways to curtail the power of government and to gain a voice in deciding what government can and cannot do.
The ideal state projected by Plato is based on his concept of the good life, developed in a way that would protect that life within a civil context. Plato sets forth a definition of both the perfect life and the perfect state. Much of what he embodies in the ideal state is a reaction to the imperfections of the government and society of his own time — a period of turmoil and warfare — and he created a model society free of all such strife. One difficulty with this ideal society is that it would require perfect people to sustain it. Plato attempts to produce such people through education and other means, but it is not clear that this could ever be fully effective.
Interestingly, Plato depends on the essential goodness of human nature within his city-state, yet simultaneously believes that others beyond its borders are not necessarily so good — hence the need for a standing army and the recognition that war is a continuing enterprise. Machiavelli differs from Plato on this point: he favors a citizen soldier or citizen militia rather than a standing professional army, though he too sees war as an ongoing enterprise, in his case rooted in a fundamental mistrust of human nature.
Education is especially important in shaping the Guardians, including their military education. Guardians are to be of both genders, with the best arrangement being "for our men and women to share a common education, to bring up their children in common and to have a common responsibility" (Republic, 466d). Women are to "take part in all the same occupations as men, both in peace within the city and on campaign in war" (Republic, 466d). Children are to be taken to war alongside their parents, "to let them see, as they do in other trades, the job they will have to do when they grow up" (Republic, 467a).
Socrates also addresses the conduct of war, drawing a distinction between war and civil strife: "the one internal and domestic, the other external and foreign; and we call a domestic dispute 'civil strife,' and an external one 'war'" (Republic, 470c). He further clarifies that all relations between Greeks, even from different regions, are internal, while all relations "between Greek and barbarian" are "foreign and external" (Republic, 470d). The way a good city-state conducts itself in civil strife might be called genuinely civilized, for the people will not "devastate Greek lands or burn Greek dwellings; nor will they admit that the whole people of a state — men, women, and children — are their enemies, but only the hostile minority who are responsible for the quarrel" (Republic, 471b).
The army in Plato's conception is a professional organization — a standing army with a dual purpose: to defend the city-state from external enemies and to suppress civil strife, punishing those responsible. In the latter role, the Guardian army would function more like a police force or local militia. Of course, Plato assumes that his soldiers are loyal to their city-state and that mercenaries would not be, yet he still holds that a professionally trained class is preferable to a citizen army conscripted to serve.
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