Plato's Republic and the City-State
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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. To a degree, both Crito and Dionysius are correct--the Republic is a political work on its surface, but it has deeper intentions to bring together various philosophical conceptions around the definition of and application of the concept of justice, among others. Dionysius says Plato did not want the philosopher to become involved in politics, but explaining politics to others is different from becoming involved in it. The primary subject of The Republic is justice, examined in broad terms: The Republic is probably the most elaborate monograph on justice ever written. It examines a variety of views about justice, and it does this in a way which leads us to believe that Plato omitted none of the more important theories known to him. In fact, Plato clearly implies th
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f the relationship between the individual human soul and the society of which the individual is a part, intending to make a moral statement about the nature of the state and its relationship to the individual (Cornford 130). Socrates says that it is necessary to admit that the elements that make up the state have to exist in the individuals who compose that state, for they have to come from somewhere, and the human population is the only possible source. In this sense, all human actions and characteristics are political and go into the shaping of the state and into interactions with others in the state. Socrates notes that the state has three natural constituents, wisdom, courage, and self-discipline, and he then shows that these same three forces are to be found in the human soul. Thus the three parts of the mind identified by Socrates are shown to correspond exactly to the three classes of the state:
Socrates is therefore compelled in book 4 to defend the city he has constructed, a city he now identifies with Adeimantus. . . His defense resets on the claim that this city, like the soul, is divided into three distinct parts--one characterized by "calculation" (logismos), one by "spiritedness" (thumos), and one by "appetite"
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Approximate Word count = 1347
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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