Plato and Socrates on Government

In a number of dialogues, Plato presents his mentor Socrates guiding his listeners on analyses of the subject of government, the meaning of despotic government, and the ways to guard against despotic government. The solution offered in The Republic would not be such as to please us today, for we would see the hierarchical structure of that society and its training and placement of Guardians to oversee the masses and to be the government as a form of despotic action. This could lead many to assume that the study of Greek political thought should be dropped from the curriculum because it recommends some form of despotism. The ideal presented may be an all-knowing statesman or an ideal constitution, but in either case the effect is to impose an iron rule on every aspect of the life of the citizen. The citizen is indeed even denied a moral protect because this despotism has been imposed and justified in the name of morality or virtue. However, this point of view ignores the vital importance of understanding the nature of the various arguments throughout history both in support of and against a free government. Whether despotic or not, the governments suggested by Plato and other Greeks served as the foundation for the free governments of the liberal West today because these writers framed the arguments in clear terms, analyzed the meaning of freedom, correlated that meaning with specific government institutions, and created models by which to test these ideas. Three dialog

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the state. One of the benchmarks of a non-despotic government is the promotion of a true morality and moral sense. The fact that Athens is not following a moral path only means to Socrates that he must do so, even if that means his death. Harmony occurs when the moral individual and the moral state are in accord, and Socrates here seeks harmony not with the state but with god. In The Republic, Plato offers his conception of the ideal state, which achieves harmony when in accord with the individual and with the same process. The central issue in devising an ideal state is justice, and in examining this conception and the general structure and operation of the ideal state, Plato makes a direct comparison and connection between the individual state and the individual citizen. Both have a soul, and these souls are composed of three parts in each case. The sort of class structure Plato envisions also has a three-part structure, with the rulers at the top, followed by a class of soldiers and then the mass of citizens. Plato makes a comparison between this three-part social structure and the three-part structure of the soul, and in so doing he shows how the three parts of society are supposed to function. The soul is also ident

Category: Philosophy - P