The popular reading of The Republic is that it describes the best form of government that man can attain. Voegelin considers this to be a vulgar reading of the book which completely misses the point, which he explains in Order and History, Volume III in the section called “The Foundation Play”, where Voegelin describes the paradigm of the good polis (city-state) and its politeia (government).
Instead of involving himself with the hands-on business of running a government, as most have interpreted, Plato instead tells of how the just polis cannot be formed on earth. Instead, the philosopher must remain clear of the impious acts inherent in politics (Plato often uses such words as pious in the world of politics since he considers the polis to be merely an extension of the souls of its inhabitants, and participation in an unjust politeia will corrupt a just soul). Unfortunately for the philosopher, his true fullness can only be reached in participation in a just politeia, which leads to the paradox that human public stature decreases as the soul’s justice increases.
It can now be understood that Plato is not describing the correct order of an earthly polis, but the correct order of a soul, and without that all attempts at reforming earthly politics is pointless. Education should establish a “politeia within oneself”, of which the individual’s best elements will be the ruler. This internal politeia will be preserved by following a middle way between extremes of wealth and poverty and public honors and insignificance. The existence of an earthly politeia of such form is unimportant now for the philosopher, since he is concerned only with his soul and its link to the paradigmatic heavenly politeia, as Plato has Socrates describe it. Plato has now gone from apparently describing the formation of the perfect earthly polis to denying its possibility while attesting to the truth of the philosopher’s very real journey (zetema) toward the transcendent source of order. The earthly polis is the metaphor, and the individual’s soul and its connection with the transcendent and the just internal politeia which result from this connection is the reality. The dichotomy between Apollonian and Dionysian souls is apparent in the distinction between the political metaphor and the transcendent reality. The paradox of the earthly diminishment of the philosopher, who cannot take part in politics without risking his soul, is now solved through the individual polis and its ruler’s connection with the universe’s until now hidden order. The paradox remains for those who cannot see that political life is lower than eternal life.