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Reflections about plato's republic
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Reflections about plato's republic
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Paper Assignment 2- Prompt #1
According to Socrates in Plato’s Republic, justice is a virtue that allows the soul to perform its function well. This justice is chosen both for its own sake and its consequences. Every human soul has three parts, a spirit, a reason, and an appetite. When the soul is functioning properly the virtues of that soul is just. Education causes the soul to be moral in nature. Education in music and physical training contribute to the soul and body. In this essay I will explain how through education a soul is allowed to truly become just, contributing to a healthy balance of spirit, reason, and appetite within the soul.
Socrates believes that through the virtue of justice, an individual’s soul will perform its function well. Virtue has the definition of a trait or characteristic that enables a thing to perform its function. With this virtue a soul is able to function, which is taking care of things such as ruling, deliberating, and living. These functions of the soul are unique to only the soul. A just persons soul is balanced between its three parts, the spirit, reason, and appetite. A person’s spirit functions as reasoning. Rational calculating is the second part of the soul, which is in charge of ruling. Appetites functions as our thirsts and desires. When all of these functions are in balance a just person is able to live “blessed and happy.” The blessed and happy finds justice in doing their own work; this is because “justice should be loved both for its own sake and for the sake of its consequences by anyone who is going to be blessed.” When parts of the soul are performing there natural functions this creates health in the body. For example we choose health because we don’t want to be sick, and ...
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...support the guardians through their reason. Lastly appetites are our thirsts and desires. Farmers and producers serve as the appetites because they satisfy those needs. The idea of function plays the role of when there is justice in the soul; the soul and city are able to live “blessed and happy.” Socrates claim is interconnected through education providing a just soul, allowing a just soul to function properly, allowing for justice in the individuals and city.
This essay talked about how education is a fundamental step in creating a just soul, and how with a just soul creates a just city. This education in music and physical training allow guardians to contain a prudence concerning what is good for the city as a whole. And when there is love for the city, this allows Socrates account of justice to occur, which is doing ones own work. A just soul is a happy soul.
Socrates attempts to make other people reason well and therefore be virtuous by performing their human function; I believe that this action inwardly reflects Socrates’s own virtue. For example, if a professor can effectively teach mathematics to his students, then he most likely holds knowledge of the subject within himself. In a similar way, Socrates instills virtue in other people, which shows that he himself is a virtuous being. Although some people criticize him, evidence of his positive impact is reinforced by the approval and support of his friends in the Apology. While promoting virtue when alive, Socrates wishes to continue to encourage virtue even after death. For example, at the onset of his death, Socrates asks the jurors to ensure that his sons are given grief if they care for anything else more than virtue (Plato and Grube 44). While Socrates could have been thinking about himself or other things at that moment, he is thinking of how to guide people towards living virtuously. Both his actions while living and his intentions after death reveal that Socrates wished to aid people in living virtuous lives, which highlight his own state of
It is his companions, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who revitalized Thrasymachus’ claim of justice. Thrasymachus believes that justice is what the people who are in charge say it is and from that point on it is Socrates’ goal to prove him wrong. Socrates believes that justice is desired for itself and works as a benefit. All four characters would agree that justice has a benefit. To accurately prove his point of justice, Socrates has to reference his own version of nature and nurture. He, Socrates, believes that justice is innately born in everyone. No one person is incapable of being just. Justice is tantamount to a skill or talent. Like any skill or talent, justice must be nurtured so that it is at its peak and mastered form. The city that Socrates has built is perfect in his eyes because every denizen has been gifted with a talent, then properly educated on how best to use their talent, and lastly able to apply their just morals in everyday
Socrates states that living is a function of the soul; meaning that only a soul can live or a soul lives better than anything else (1) (Page 42). Anything with a function performs it well by means of its own peculiar virtue and badly by means of its vice or lack of virtue (2) (Page 41).This means that something that has a specific function would do it well because of a certain feature or attribute that it obtains. For example, a chainsaw performs its function of cutting by the virtue of its set of sharp blades and badly by its lack of its set of sharp blades or vice of dull blades. Therefore a soul would live by its virtue. So then it must be asked what is the soul’s virtue? The soul has multiple functions not just living. Since only a soul can take care of things,rule, deliberate, and the like, then another function of a soul is to take care of things,rule, deliberate, and the like (3) (Page 41). Only something with a soul could nurture things such as animals and children, rule over a country state or city, and deliberate what is right and what is wrong and come to a decision based off of the deliberation. The soul performs its function of taking care of things, ruling, deliberating and the like well by means of justice (4) (Page 42).Socrates defines justice as having a control and balance that creates harmony within a soul (Pages 53-54). To perform a
The Republic is Plato’s notion of an ideal state. Within the state, there is a hierarchal class system, which provides stability among the classes. Stability is achieved when each class performs their own duties and jobs, and does not interfere with the business of others. There are three hierarchal classes, the guardians and philosopher-kings, the auxiliaries, and the working class. With an increase in the power of the auxiliary class, a system was needed that would control the morals of the guardian class. The guardians are trained up through a strict curriculum which consists of music and gymnastics. Music is used to educate the soul, and gymnastics is used to train the body. They act on behalf of the good of the whole state, because through their education and their pursuit of knowledge, they have the moral capacity to seek “the good”.(505a)
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he thoroughly indicated a well-defined direction in order to achieve our true nature to which we seek happiness. For Aristotle, to be human means to be a rational animal who flourishes through reason to achieve the highest human good. To achieve happiness, one must li...
Traditionally justice was regarded as one of the cardinal virtues; to avoid injustices and to deal equitable with both equals and inferiors was seen as what was expected of the good man, but it was not clear how the benefits of justice were to be reaped. Socrates wants to persuade from his audience to adopt a way of estimating the benefits of this virtue. From his perspective, it is the quality of the mind, the psyche organization which enables a person to act virtuously. It is this opposition between the two types of assessment of virtue that is the major theme explored in Socrates’ examination of the various positions towards justice. Thus the role of Book I is to turn the minds from the customary evaluation of justice towards this new vision. Through the discourse between Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus, Socaretes’ thoughts and actions towards justice are exemplified. Though their views are different and even opposed, the way all three discourse about justice and power reveal that they assume the relation between the two to be separate. They find it impossible to understand the idea that being just is an exercise of power and that true human power must include the ability to act justly. And that is exactly what Socrates seeks to refute.
In Plato’s Republic, justice and the soul are examined in the views of the multiple characters as well as the Republic’s chief character, Socrates. As the arguments progress through the Republic, the effect of justice on the soul is analyzed, as the question of whether or not the unjust soul is happier than the just soul. Also, Plato’s theories of justice in the man, the state, and the philosopher king are clearly linked to the cardinal virtues, as Plato describes the structure of the ideal society and developing harmony between the social classes. Therefore, the statement “justice is the art which gives to each man what is good for his soul” has to be examined through the definitions of justice given in the Republic and the idea of the good
One of Aristotle’s conclusions in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics is that “human good turns out to be the soul’s activity that expresses virtue”(EN 1.7.1098a17). This conclusion can be explicated with Aristotle’s definitions and reasonings concerning good, activity of soul, and excellence through virtue; all with respect to happiness.
Plato’s Republic introduces a multitude of important and interesting concepts, of topics ranging from music, to gender equality, to political regime. For this reason, many philosophers and scholars still look back to The Republic in spite of its age. Yet one part that stands out in particular is Plato’s discussion of the soul in the fourth book of the Republic. Not only is this section interesting, but it was also extremely important for all proceeding moral philosophy, as Plato’s definition has been used ever since as a standard since then. Plato’s confabulation on the soul contains three main portions: defining each of the three parts and explanation of their functions, description of the interaction of the parts, and then how the the parts and their interaction motivate action. This essay will investigate each segment, and seek to explain their importance.
In his philosophical text, The Republic, Plato argues that justice can only be realized by the moderation of the soul, which he claims reflects as the moderation of the city. He engages in a debate, via the persona of Socrates, with Ademantus and Gaucon on the benefit, or lack thereof, for the man who leads a just life. I shall argue that this analogy reflecting the governing of forces in the soul and in city serves as a sufficient device in proving that justice is beneficial to those who believe in, and practice it. I shall further argue that Plato establishes that the metaphorical bridge between the city and soul analogy and reality is the leader, and that in the city governed by justice the philosopher is king.
For many years, dating back to the first birth of man there has been the ultimate question of what makes a man just. This question has been pondered by numerous great philosophers. The question is varied to answer because of a multitude of opinions due to the nature of human diversity. Whether or not there is an objective answer to the question still remains a mystery. Plato and Epicurus have both given their detailed opinions of what makes one just. Plato believes that justness is something that comes from a more internal location dealing with the soul this disagrees with the idea that Epicurus holds which is justness is more of a physical or external matter. In this paper I will prove that Plato's ideas on this subject are the more appropriate and more truthful.
The Republic is an examination of the "Good Life"; the harmony reached by applying pure reason and justice. The ideas and arguments of Plato center on the social settings of an ideal republic - those that lead each person to the most perfect possible life for him. Socrates was Plato's early mentor in real life. As a tribute to his teacher, Plato uses Socrates in several of his works and dialogues. Socrates moderates the discussion throughout, as Plato's mouthpiece. Through Socrates' powerful and brilliant questions and explanations on a series of topics, the reader comes to understand what Plato's model society would look like. The basic plan of the Republic is to draw an analogy between the operation of society as a whole and the life of any individual human being. In this paper I will present Plato’s argument that the soul is divides into three parts. I will examine what these parts are, and I will also explain his arguments behind this conclusion. Finally, I will describe how Plato relates the three parts of the soul to a city the different social classes within that city.
In Plato’s Republic, the main argument is dedicated to answering Glaucon and Adeimantus, who question the reason for just behavior. They argue it is against one’s self-interest to be just, but Plato believes the behavior is in fact in one’s self-interest because justice is inherently good. Plato tries to prove this through his depiction of an ideal city, which he builds from the ground up, and ultimately concludes that justice requires the philosopher to perform the task of ruling. Since the overall argument is that justice pays, it follows that it would be in the philosopher’s self-interest to rule – however, Plato also states that whenever people with political power believe they benefit from ruling, a good government is impossible. Thus, those who rule regard the task of ruling as not in their self-interest, but something intrinsically evil. This is where Plato’s argument that justice is in one’s self-interest is disturbed. This paper will discuss the idea that justice is not in one’s self-interest, and thus does not pay.
Socrates says that God determines what is right and wrong. “I owe a greater obedience to God then to you and so long as I draw breath and have my faculties, I shall never stop practicing philosophy and exhorting you and indicating truth to everyone I meet” (Apology, 29d). God’s rules and commandments are what you need to follow in order to assure a good life after death. God and his commandments come first over everything else. Socrates believes in the divine command theory and how you must listen to Gods commandments. God decides what is moral and obedience to God is how you live justly. Socrates also says he will never stop practicing philosophy because in his eyes philosophy is the way to live life. He has said that living without examining life is a life not worth living. Questioning and indicating truth to others by pointing out their ignorance is what he saw as an essential part of being moral. Morality ties in to the question of solution by asking questions and seeking wisdom you are doing what is just and fixing the condition of humanity. Morality also relates to condition because the soul must be more important than material objects in order to be moral. He says you must follow cities laws and obedience to Gods laws as well in order to be just. On top of that you should be self-examining yourself so that you can better the soul as much as
“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” According to Buddha, everyone needs some form of spirituality to define his or her life and existence. Webster Dictionary defines spiritualism as “a system of beliefs or religious practices based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, often times through mediums.” Though this is one general definition of spiritualism, this concept is one that does not hold a conclusive meaning. Each and every single person has the ability and right to create and practice their own idea of spiritualism. From ancient times to present day, the term and practice of spirituality has transformed, particularly from region to region. Despite the discrepancies in practices and overall understanding of this idea, spirituality has had an effect and impact upon all of humanity since the creation of time. This religion that is believed to have been established in the early eighteen hundreds, after two little girls claimed to have the ability to talk to spirits, sparked interest in this spiritual movement, allowing it to spread rather rapidly over many geographical locations. Aside from being recognized as a religion, spiritualism is also believed to be a form of philosophy and a science in which spiritualists believe that there is life after death and try to demonstrate this through the ability of attempting to communicate with those that have passed on. Spiritualism was socially different from other religions in existence at the time because it presented followers with a more tolerant belief system that assimilated the principles and facts from a selection the world's religions. Spiritualism also made it acceptable for women to play a disti...