Plato's Republic
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Plato's Republic is a dialogue in which Socrates investigates the nature of the city-state and what the ideal city-state should be. The philosophical inquiry in this dialogue can be seen as addressing two primary conceptions, conceptions which are linked under the heading of idealism, with one detailing Plato's epistemology and the other his political philosophy. The first is a more metaphysical consideration of the nature of life and the world and how we can know what we know, while the second is the practical application of various concepts to the state to demonstrate the relationship between the individual and his or her society in a utopian city-state such as Plato would create but which does not exist. Plato's Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. What Plato seeks in this dialogue is a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain that life. The primary subject of The Republic is justice, examined in broad terms. Several theories of justice are discussed in The Republic as different speakers offer their views of what justice might be, and indeed should be. In Book IV, justice is developed in terms of the inner state of the human soul. Plato has Socrates discuss the soul and the nature of the soul and to examine ways in which the soul may be said to be made up of divisions or parts r
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Socrates has already noted that the state has three natural constituents, wisdom, courage, and self-discipline, and he wants to show that these same three forces are to be found in the human soul.
The three parts of the mind are found to correspond exactly to the three classes of the state. Reason corresponds to the ruling class which also has to control the other two classes as the reason of the soul has to control the other two parts. Wisdom is the same as reason in this comparison. The emotional part of the soul corresponds exactly to the auxiliaries. The component of desire corresponds exactly to the craftsmen in the state, and self-discipline is manifested as the three elements are in perfect harmony with one another. Socrates has also described the Four Cardinal virtues found in the state--wisdom, courage, discipline, and justice. He expects to find these same four virtues in man just as they were found in the state, and the tri-partite division of the soul becomes the mechanism demonstrating that this is the case and that the four Cardinal Virtues do indeed exist in man as in the state. Again, they exist in the state because they exist in man, with the aggregate of people in the state imparting these virtues to the
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Approximate Word count = 1611
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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