Patrick Graham
17 February 2019

Utopia, Republic, and Politics: Thomas More Stands on the Shoulders of Plato and Aristotle

            The word “utopia” refers to the idea of a society where everything is perfect. It is a generalized version of the title of the book Utopia by Thomas More. In that book, which is about a fictional perfect society, More presents several ideas that were inspired by ancient Greek philosopher Plato. More’s ideas also took inspiration from Plato’s student Aristotle. While one can see Plato’s influences on Utopia on its surface, Aristotle’s are more indirect but just as important.

            More’s Utopia is an important title to the genre of utopian literature, and it draws much influence from Plato’s Republic. More wrote Utopia in the 1500s, and it presents his ideas through a dialogue between fictitious characters. Raphael, an ambassador from the ideal community of Utopia, reports on the conditions of his society. In doing so, he makes references to Plato and his ideas in Republic. For instance, Raphael describes the intellectual training that would-be politicians in Utopia go through. He validates this by suggesting that Plato would approve of such a process (More I.9a). This shows the influence that Plato had on this particular society. Also, the appeal to Plato in justifying the ways of the society gives Plato’s importance in utopian thought validity.

            One can think of Plato’s Republic as the first work of utopian literature. Written hundreds of years before the common era, Republic “presents his [Plato, through Socrates] views on the…purposes for which…cities…were founded, the basic principles of just social and political organizaion, and the education of young people that those principles demand” (Cooper 971) Plato uses great detail to express his vision of a perfect society and how it should be organized. He wrote about a utopia, before the term was even coined.

            Utopia and Republic also have in common a style that makes them difficult for readers to interpret, yet more effective overall. Both works are dialogues: they are stories told through a conversation between two or more characters. James Steintrager argues that a dialogue aims to provoke “some [people] to thought by its ambiguity while being beyond the comprehension of…others” (Steintrager 358). In a dialogue, the author does not make her agenda clear. In the case of utopian literature, a dialogue does not give specific instructions for anyone who might want to put the ideas into practice. This ambiguity primes the work and its ideas for more analysis and more interpretation. Plato wrote Republic in this style, and More did too when he wrote Utopia. That is another similarity that shows the influence that the former has on the latter.

            Utopia also draws influence from the works of Plato’s student Aristotle, and Aristotle’s ideas seem more plausible for anyone actually planning to promote an ideal society. Aristotle wrote about how he thought a society should be organized in his work Politics. He takes a unique approach, though. Aristotle “starts from the bottom up, with the best life, rather than the top down, with the best constitution” (Jackson 10). In other words, when planning the perfect government, one should consider the wants and needs of the individual first. This is different from Plato’s ideas in Republic, which considered the outcome first. Although Aristotle’s approach differs from Plato, one can still see it replicated in More’s Utopia.

            Plato’s Republic clearly influenced More’s Utopia, and More’s Utopia spawned a whole genre of literature and thought. Utopia also took hints from Aristotle’s Politics, which added a degree of practicality to utopian thought. So, Aristotle should be considered just as important to the genre as Plato. Also, anyone with serious ambitions to change the world for the better should study the genre and its founders.

Works Cited

Cooper, John M., ed. Plato: The Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. Print.

Jackson, Michael. “Designed by Theorists: Aristotle on Utopia.” Utopian Studies. 12.2 (2001): 1–12. EBSCO. Web.

More, Thomas. Utopia. Trans. Rayphe Robinson, 1516. LITR 5431 American Literature. Craig White. Web. 17 February 2019.

Steintrager, James. "Plato and More's 'Utopia'." Social Research. 36.3 (1969): 357–372.