This essay offers a critical evaluation of Plato's political ideal. It also aims to advance a solution to the contrast between the “divine Plato” exalted by Christian tradition and the “Totalitarian” political philosopher condemned by modern democratic thought (cf. K. Popper). After a critical re-reading of the Platonic political project, the book identifies the dead end to which the clash between the Platonic ideal and social democratic thought leads. This assessment, however, creates an opening for Christian Revelation’s liberating proposal and, inspired also by the Fathers of the Church and Catholic Social Doctrine, reaches an original “ecclesiological” reading of the great Athenian.

The first chapters consist of philosophy “independent” of Christianity, whereas the final development documents the possible light that faith shines on human thinking: it is what John Paul II called the “circularity” of faith and reason, between philosophy and theology (cf. Fides et ratio, 73).

Before broaching the subject, Chapter I gives some biographical data and outlines Plato’s “form of thought” as thirst for truth conceived as perfection, i.e. as the Beauty of Unity from Goodness. After that, we identify the supreme and constant social ideal of Plato, his original “mystical” intuition, namely Koinonia as perfect communion among all members of the polis. This basic conception is common in the two major dialogues, The Republic (Politeia, 462c-e) and The Laws (Nomoi, 739c-d). The thought is that of a life of total sharing in opposition to idiōsis, the tendency to selfish pursuit of one’s own interests. The city is ruled by an attitude of spontaneous and effective love for the common good (that we call “ceno-philia”). The ideal has an inherently “therapeutic” and “soteriological” connotation: the perfect polis is one that “heals” and “saves” the citizens from the radical evil that is selfishness, excessive self-love. Within the perfect community there is absence of legal constraints (“trans-legality”), since perfection is lived spontaneously and everyone is looking for unanimity. The “beautiful City” (kallipolis) appears as complete unity, and then as communal-body where the individual is freely integrated as a member of a whole: this is the divinely governed City. Plato is aware that this ideal, in its perfection, is fitting only for “gods or children of gods”.

Chapter II, entitled “Transfigurations of the polis”, explains Plato’s effort in outlining a “several stages” attempt to find a possible embodiment of the ideal: the first is the proposal of the Republic: the Government of Wisdom (“Sophocracy”), through the mediation of the power of wise men in order to ensure the implementation of Justice as harmony. Here we see the well-known parallel between soul and city. This attempt to put the ideal into reality, in the political order, inevitably leads to severe and even inhuman policies (as the sharing of women and children). With the dialogue “The Statesman” Plato elaborates the theory of the “right measure”, which will be very useful in his final attempt in The Laws. In this mature dialogue (always searching for a concrete realization of the ideal of perfect Koinonia) Plato proposes a “Theio-cratic Legalism” or “Nomocracy”: a community ruled by sacred laws inspired by morality and rationality. The educational focus is very strong in order to convince the citizens, especially through the art of the “Preludes”, which present the divine character of the virtues promoted by the laws. Of course this is matched also by some pragmatic measures (censorship, penalties...) which, in fact, lead to what has been called the “totalitarianism of the Good”.

Chapter III faces the anti-platonic critique advanced by K.R. Popper and other contemporary thinkers. It shows that Plato and Democracy are ‘mutually exclusive’. In a nutshell: Plato condemns democracy in the name of the ideal of unity and ethical perfection; democracy condemns Plato in the name of anthropological realism, human finitude and the natural imperfection of political order. So, this is the aporia: the highest Platonic ideal of perfect communion must be rejected by political thinking which respects freedom and the objective limitations of human nature.

The title of Chapter IV recalls J. Maritain: “To distinguish in order to unite: the Christian integration”. It leaves the field of purely philosophical inquiry and opens up to Biblical Revelation and Catholic faith; this allows one to embrace both the ultimate Platonic dream and basic democratic requirements. In fact, Christianity gives birth, next to political society, to a different kind of community: the Church (ekklesia), in which communion can be lived as full fraternity through a spiritual sharing (Koinonia as community-body); and all this is avowedly “trans-political”, i.e. it falls definitely outside the natural sphere of political order and belongs to the order of supernatural gift (Grace). On the other hand, Catholic Social Doctrine urges us to reflect on the role God also plays in the human Polis as the source of dignity and human fraternity; which is compatible with the best examples of reflection on the rule of law and democracy. This Christian judgment bases itself also on the Patristic assessment of Platonic thought: many Fathers of the Church, especially the Alexandrian, saw Plato as a “prophet-plagiarist” of the City of God and recognized the ecclesiological relevance of social Platonism while denouncing its inevitable limitations and deficiencies. The “divine Plato” had the intuition about the highest truth of communal living, which is the perfection of unity; but this reality is hardly conceivable in the political sphere; rather it can be conceivable only for a humanity redeemed from sin and animated by divine charity, i.e. love in the Holy Spirit as source of true communion (agape). Trying to embody politically this ideal was the temptation of the “too human” Plato who therefore exposed himself to the inescapable risks of dangerously losing his way.

The Koinonia of the Church frees the public space from totalitarian impulses and acts as leaven for an “open democracy”, i.e. sensitive to transcendent dignity and universal solidarity.