Plato's Republic

852 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A critique on Plato's Republic

The Philosopher King stands far above others in ancient Athens. At his own peril, amidst constant political chaos and corruption, Plato takes a brave stand for justice, for freedom, and for equality. The Republic, written around 375 B.C., isn't just Plato's treatise on the ideal state, nor is it just a state-of-mind journey from ignorance to enlightenment. Plato also taught at his Academy, the first university in Europe, that political science is the science of the soul.

Indeed, Plato's wisdom is a striking example of visionary perfection, where a pure idea of virtue allows the greatest possible human freedom in accordance with laws by which the freedom of each is made to be consistent with that of all others. The Republic also denotes a strong philosophic conviction, where the temporal is only a shadow of the eternal, and that ultimately, "the human soul is responsible not simply to itself but to God."

In addition, the Republic's allegorical contrasts between objective reality and empirical observation is the intuition of the form of the good revealed mathematically. This pure knowledge releases the true philosopher from the shadows and illusions of information derived from sensory observation. Plato explains that "what gives the objects of knowledge their truth, and the knower's mind the power of knowing, is the form of the good. It is the cause of knowledge and truth, and we will be right to think of it as being itself known, and yet as being something other than, and even more splendid than, knowledge and truth."

The cave allegory does not stand alone in the Republic, for it is best understood as a successful philosophical conclusion to a trilogy of allegories. This trilogy, expressed in beautiful pictorial and poetic fas...

... middle of paper ...

...with them, for they have their own reality.

This state-of-mind journey ends as it begins in the Republic, with the moral and intellectual condition of the average person. Plato defined this condition as an initial illusion, where thoughts without content are empty, and intuitions without concepts are mere shadowy notions of opinion, and not pure knowledge. In the cave analogy, prisoners restrained since childhood to look straight ahead at reflected shadows gain an uncritical, careless acceptance of the shapes of men and animals, made of stone and wood, thrown by the fire. A liberated prisoner experiencing the lack of sight during the transition either from light to darkness, or from darkness to light, recognizes that the same thing applies to the mind. The form of the good, once seen, is inferred to be the brightest of all realities, "the truth known only to God".

Show More
Related

  • Formation of Real Truth: Plato's Allegory of the Cave and Shakespeare's Othello

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato. “Republic VII.” Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy From Thales to Aristotle. Comp. and ed. S. Marc cohen, Patricia Curd, and C.D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. 370-374

    Read More

  • Allegory and Truman Show

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave has many parallels with The Truman Show. Initially, Truman is trapped in his own “cave”; a film set or fictional island known as Seahaven. Truman’s journey or ascension into the real world and into knowledge is similar to that of Plato’s cave dweller. In this paper, I will discuss these similarities along with the very intent of both of these works whose purpose is for us to question our own reality.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Allegory Of The Cave And The Great Gatsby

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    Plato is one of the most familiar and commonly studied philosophers. His work is of the highest intelligence and full of thought-provoking attributes. Plato’s “Allegory Of The Cave” is perhaps one of the works most easily related to life. This allegory creates a sense of advancing into the “light” of understanding and knowledge.

    Read More

  • Plato Republic The Noble Lie

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    As with all other topics discussed in “The Republic of Plato,” the section in which he discusses the myths of the metals or the “noble lie” is layered with questioning and potential symbolism, possible contradiction, and a significant measure of allusion. In Chapter X of “The Republic,” Plato presents “The Selection of Rulers: The

    Read More

  • Plato vs. Machiavelli

    1692 Words  | 4 Pages

    Plato's philosophy of government sees the State as a larger version of the individual, and the soul of an individual is comprised of three parts. Plato states that these three parts include the appetite, the spirit, and reason (167), and these parts have goals and desires that pertain only to them. For example, reason finds fulfillment in the study ...

    Read More

  • Plato and Bacon

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both authors make a point of showing the narrow-mindedness of humans by nature. In “Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoners believed that the shadows they were seeing were reality, with nothing more to it. The comfort of the said perceived, and therefore the fear of the unrecognized outside world would end in the prisoner being forced to climb the steep ascent of the cave and step outside int...

    Read More

  • Plato Republic Democracy

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Plato's Republic democracy made a controversial issue in a critique by Socrates. The theory of the soul accounts for the controversy as it states that the soul is divided into three parts: the rational, the spirited, and the appetite which are ranked respectively. The idea of the soul's three parts and the soul being ruled by a dominant part is used as the basis for identifying justice and virtue. However, the theory of the soul is not only used to identify justice and virtue, but also used to show that the virtue within a city reflects that of its inhabitants.

    Read More

  • The Allegory of the Cave

    1971 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Allegory of the Cave has many applications to both Plato’s writing and life in general. It describes the education of a philosopher, as well as how others look on the philosopher after he has gained the knowledge of the Forms. It also describes what it is like to see the forms. After understanding the forms, what once were objects, real things, become merely shadows. One sees everything as it truly exists, as it’s form.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Education And Truth In The Republic By Plato

    937 Words  | 2 Pages

    In book 7, the truth is hidden from the uneducated; when someone follows the path of the intellectual, they are able to see the world as an absolute truth. In the myth of Er, the truth is known by the judges in the afterlife, and will determine if one’s afterlife is painful or pleasant. The supernaturalistic theory is evident with the presence of the afterlife and how actions in life determine the fate of the soul. I believe in part Plato wrote the Republic to explain how education and truthfulness can lead to a better man and a better society. The name of “The Republic” further verifies the assumption. The main purpose of life and virtue is explained very well by Plato’s dialogue, where all people should “…be able to learn and may find someone who will make him able to learn and discern between good and evil, and so to choose always and everywhere the better life as he has opportunity” (pp. 27). In order to be an ethical and “good” person, one must have a sense of knowledge and the truth; with knowledge, one can be able to make decisions towards being a better

    Read More

  • The Republic of Plato

    1306 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato and Aristotle were both very influential men of there time bringing vast knowledge to the world. I honestly believe that Democracy does a lot of good but it definitely has some common side effects. Out of all of Plato's significant ideas, his best was the idea of democracy opening political decisions to the majority who cannot think on behalf of the community. Aristotle on the other hand is very optimistic when it comes to democracy so it becomes a rather interesting compare and contrast between these to men.

    Read More

  • Plato's Republic

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Plato’s Republic, Glaucon is introduced to the reader as a man who loves honor, sex, and luxury. As The Republic progresses through books and Socrates’ arguments of how and why these flaws make the soul unhappy began to piece together, Glaucon relates some of these cases to his own life, and begins to see how Socrates’ line of reasoning makes more sense than his own. Once Glaucon comes to this realization, he embarks on a path of change on his outlook of what happiness is, and this change is evidenced by the way he responds during he and Socrates’ discourse.

    Read More

  • Agamemnon as a Tyrant as Described by Plato's "The Republic"

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato. The Republic. Trans. Sterling, Richard and Scott, William. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985.

    Read More

  • The Noble Lie: Plato's Republic

    1371 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of the noble lie begins with Plato in the Republic, where in search of an ideal state he told of a magnificent myth^1.The society that Plato imagined was separated into a three tier class structure- the Rulers, Auxiliaries, and the labor or working class. The Rulers, he said, would be selected from the military elite (called Guardians).The rulers would be those Guardians that showed the most promise, natural skill, and had proven that they cared only about the community’s best interests. The Auxiliaries were the guardians in training, and were subject to years of methodical preparation for rule. The lower class would be comprised of the workers and tradesmen, who being the most governed by their appetites, were best fit for labor. The introduction of the "noble lie" comes near the end of book three (414b-c)* Where Plato writes "we want one single, grand lie," he says, "which will be believed by everybody- including the rulers, ideally, but failing that the rest of the city".* The hypothical myth, or "grand lie" that Plato suggests is one in which, the Gods created the people of the city from the land beneath their feet, and that when the Gods made their spirit the precious metals from the ground got mixed into their souls. As a result some people were born with gold in their souls others with silver, and others with bronze, copper,or more even common metals like iron and brass. It was from this falsehood that the first phylosophical society’s social hierarchy was established. The myth goes as follows: Those the Gods made with gold in the souls were the most governed by reason, and who had a predisposition to contemplation which made them most suitable for rule. Those with silver in their souls where the most governed b...

    Read More

  • Comparing Aristotle and Plato

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Republic is the most important dialogue within Plato's teaching of politics. It deals with the soul, which, as we know from the beginning, at the level where one must make choices and decide what one wants to become in this life, and it describes justice as the ultimate form of human, and the ideal one should strive for both in life and in state. Justice as understood by Plato is not merely a social virtue, having only to do with relationship between people, but virtue that makes it possible for one to build their own regime and reach happiness.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Plato's The Republic

    2022 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about Plato's Republic

Open Document