Reflection Of Plato's Republic

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Recommended: A Reaction to Plato's Republic

This week in Senior Symposium we have been working with a book that seems to be unavoidable as a college student attending a liberal arts institution, Plato’s Republic. Specifically Books 1 and 7 of this well examined text. This text written as a play, and in this play a young Socrates is the protagonist. During the lecture relating to the reading for this week speaker Dr. Thomas Brickhouse (2016) brought up a very intriguing question early on in his discussion of this work of Plato. How good of a job does Plato’s republic do of representing the historical Socrates (Brickhouse 2016)? Finding a truly accurate interoperation of any historical figure is nearly impossible, but Brickhouse (2016) seemed particularly convinced that Plato took exceptional liberties with the actions and words of Socrates in The Republic using him as a character or talking piece, …show more content…

He apparently shared more in common with a satyr then a human and he had a habit of never changing his clothes (2014). These factors show in the first Book of Plato’s Republic. Socrates is invited to visit in the home of Polemarchus and begins discussing the nature of growing older with the elder man Cephalus. Cephalus, almost immediately, begins talking down to Socrates in the same way a middle school bully in talks down to the school nerd. Cephalus describes he and his friend’s revelry in their youth in a manner that seems to be almost taunting the disgusting, arrogant, philosopher to which he speaks. I would even describe the atmosphere of the home into which Socrates has stepped as being hostile towards his presence, the only reason he does not outstay his welcome seems to be his electrifying logic (Plato 2004, p. 3). However if you look further in the text past Book 1 you see the same man invited to stay at the house, which was not too long ago unwelcoming, for the rest of the extremely lengthy dialogue (Plato 2004, p.

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