“If you are willing, let’s first find out what sort of thing justice is in cities, and afterward look for it in the individual, to see if the larger entity is similar in form to the smaller one” (Republic 368e8-369a2). This idea that there will be more justice in a city as compared to a single person sets Socrates off on an extended tangent trying to create the just city, Kalliⲑpolis. Theoretically, he was making a utopian society. By utopia, I mean that the city possesses perfect elements, or more simply put, there would be no better city. In some respects this is true. For instance, the selection of the rulers is rather utopic. Furthermore, for the time, the treatment of women is relatively better than the average society. While at some points the women are treated like objects, in general women are better off. However, many of Kalliⲑpolis’ other aspects lead to dystopia. Dystopian societies are the opposite of utopias, where they are a city or society that possess disturbing qualities that usually lead to repression and unhappiness. This can be best seen with the strict class structure and censorship of information. This paper will analyze Kalliⲑpolis based on four points: selection of ruler, treatment of women, strict class structure, and censorship of information, to show that while for the time it might have been a better city then was available, by modern standards it is actually a dystopia.
In actuality, Socrates created two cities in the Republic. The first city is relatively small in size, with no luxuries. The small population produces enough material to trade and cover the basics of ancient life. However, Glaucon objects to this city and calls it a city fit for pigs (Republic 372d4-5). Socrates then consents to create...
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...ive elements. In theory, especially when set in ancient Greece, Kalliⲑpolis might have been the closest thing to a utopia the world would have ever seen. The city would have wise leaders who were supported by well-trained soldier, both male and female, whose only goal would be to protect the city. Yet, in practice Kalliⲑpolis is flawed. The leaders would keep the rest of the citizens oppressed and stupid through the censorship of information and strict class structure in order to maintain control. Kalliⲑpolis will never exist because it has too many components that would not work. Maybe if Plato had stopped with the un-luxurious city he would have created a utopia, yet he persisted in attempting to create a just luxurious city and instead created a dystopia.
Works Cited
Plato. Republic. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004. Print.
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Plato states that as the just city (i.e. an aristocratic society) develops, it will inadvertently fall into depravity, because despite the excellent constitutions of its wise leaders, they are still fallible human beings. He outlines four distinct forms of government—of which he considers to be depraved—that the just city will transform into, with each one being worse than its predecessors. The four systems, which are ordered by their appearances in the line of succession, are: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and finally tyranny. The focus of this essay will be on Plato’s criticisms of democracy. Since democracy is recognized and practiced by most of modern western societies, it is especially relevant and important to examine whether this model
Once he lays out the plan for a Just City he has the blueprint for a just person. According to Plato the city would need to be a republic ruled by as little or as many people who had all the necessary qualities for keeping the city just. They alone would know what was best for the city and they alone would rule it accordingly. The rulers would be one class of people in a 3 class system. They would be known as philosopher kings and queens. The virtues they would possess would be wisdom, courage and temperance. The next class are the guardians, they are responsible for protecting the city against outside invasion. This class would be the best of the third class called the citizens, who possess the virtue of temperance. The guardians would be chosen for their excellence in citizenship, and possess and develop the virtues of courage and temperance. A...
The subject matter of the “Republic” is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the “republic” contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which directs to a logical refutation and thus leading to a convincing argument of the true nature of justice. And that is the main function of Book I, to clear the ground of mistaken or inadequate accounts of justice in order to make room for the new theory. Socrates attempts to show that certain beliefs and attitudes of justice and its nature are inadequate or inconsistent, and present a way in which those views about justice are to be overcome.
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Socrates now introduces a new method with use of imagery. He mentions a city and all that's within a city, to be applied in reference to the human soul. There are three cities he speaks of the city of necessity, the city of luxury, and the feverish city. The city of necessity only includes items, such as food, shelter and clothing, needed for survival as well as laborers to provide them. Soon, the laborers begin to expand necessity to comfort, thus forming th...
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