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A critique on Plato's Republic
aristotle and plato view on politics
A critique on Plato's Republic
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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".
Although these questions remain somewhat rhetorical, their answers can be conceived by referring to the principles in Plato's Republic. The concepts brought about in the Republic seem to relate directly to events and people that lived before the completion of this book. Moreover, those events and people exemplify the various aspects of education, justice, and democracy that Plato articulates through his character Socrates. A question that plagues many historians today is that if Plato had written the Republic before these events occurred, would they have taken the same course?
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 ...
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
In The Republic, Plato introduces a philosophy that transcends the exclusivity of the contemplative and the active lives. He defines the ultimate truth as “aletheia”, which literally translates to mean “unhidden” or “that which does not remain unnoticed”. Through his use of the term and his allegory of the cave, Plato makes the strong implication that philosophers must actively seek to discover the absolute truth, rather than relying on traditional methods of contemplation and the persuasive tone of rhetoric to prove its existence. To better explain his reasoning, Plato constructs a metaphor between the sun and the ultimate good. He argues that “the soul is like the eye” in that it requires an exterior force to establish clarity of vision (Book VI p. 25). When the ultimate good illuminates an idea with truth and reason like the sun illuminates an object, the soul understands with clarity. When an idea is not illuminated, the soul perceives nothing clearly and retreats to the ignorance of an unenlightened opinion. Plato extends this metaphor throughout his writings and succeeds in relating the complexity of the intellectual world to the tangibility and familiarity of the visible world. In this way, Plato allows for a complete understanding and, by only suggesting his position with figurative language and dialectic, he encourages Glaucon and the reader to come to their own realizations of the ultimate good, thereby achieving “aletheia”.
Plato’s Allegory uses the metaphor of the cave and the outside world to show the light vs. dark theme. The cave is “the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world.” (P.3) When the prison...
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
The Republic is an expansive work that touches on many areas of Plato's philosophy. And if we can understand it, we have moved a long way toward an understanding of Plato, who stands as one of the cornerstones of the Western philosophical tradition.
However, Plato now describes the Democracy that has been implemented by the lower classes with the aim of leading onto the democratic character. With new freedom and liberty, the average individual will arran...
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.
Plato defines Athens as a democratic society that “treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not.” Therefore, believes that there are those that are born to rule and others that are born to be ruled. Plato presents the argument that democracy does not achieve the greatest good, giving four main objections to democracy. Firstly, he identifies that most of us are ruled by passions, pleasure, sentiment and impulse. Hence, th...
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...
Plato was a well-known Greek philosopher who created foundational principles on subjects such as government, education, and citizenship. The Republic, arguably one of Plato’s most influential works, is depicted through many dialogues between his fellow philosopher Socrates and other characters who discuss a political theory for a model state. The Republic’s goal strives to demonstrate an ideal city-state must possess and hints at Plato’s ulterior motive to expose Athens as a city in chaos rather than one in order. Plato views on government offers no fondness for democracy due to the fact that he believed not all members of society are capable of making just decisions and succumb to corrupt desires. Instead
...onclusion, the considerations of knowledge and reality are ones that philosophers will continue to contemplate throughout the centuries. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is a wonderful attempt at trying to ascertain the answers to these inquiries with its revealing comparisons that contrast the darkness of ignorance and the light of the sun to knowledge to demonstrate an individual’s journey up and out of the cave to the immaterial world of heaven and a state of true enlightenment. The allegory also illustrates Plato’s ideal of dualism by liberating knowledge from any dependency on anything material or physical. This excursion into Plato’s teachings illuminated the “Allegory of the Cave” in detail, and affirmed the question that dualism does, undeniably, exist and that Plato is correct in his ideal that reality does, without a doubt, go beyond the material world.
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.
To sum up, Plato’s cave is an allegory of the human condition, each of us is a prisoner, chained down with distorted illusion of reality. To gain individual autonomy