The Concept Of Sameness And Difference By Socrates

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Philosophy defined as the study of the fundamental and general nature of things. It is natural that such a broad discipline encompasses the political sphere as well One of its greatest practitioners Socrates is obsessed with a particular concept of being. Sameness and difference. Sameness as it is understood by Socrates is that which is shared by all things. For example, a set of similar tables when reduced to their base form are a flat surface supported by several pillars, used to place things on. As much as this can be expanded upon none of the permutations could exist without this base definition. Plato uses this concept of the same to explain the links between the body politic and the political subject. For when a society (the macrocosm) is broken down piece by piece it results in the citizen (the microcosm) therefore, the construction of Plato’s ideal city required the construction of the ideal citizen. In pursuit of the ideal citizen the question of what makes the ideal citizen across the societal strata.
In the pursuit of this sameness they postulate the difference between the roles philosophy and sophistry should play in the creation of the philosopher king. They state that a philosopher king can only love that which is true and must reject all falsehoods. And could you find anything that belongs more to wisdom than truth does?... then someone who loves learning must above all strive for every kind of truth from childhood on.(485 c-d) To this end throughout the Republic Plato and others make fun of the sophist and …show more content…

Plato postulates that difference and sameness can’t exist in a singular entity, therefore the tripartite division of the soul describes how Plato believes that the soul is made up of multiple pieces/ has five different forms in correspondence with the five different constitutions. Aristocratic, Timocratical, Oligarchical, Democratic, and the

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