Ones Socrates Believes example essay topic

The focus of Socrates at this time in Plato's Republic is of the ideal city and how it can be traced to the human soul. Socrates believes that the city he has proposed to the other men is perfect in itself. He says that this city possesses four virtues which are the base for the city being perfect. These are the virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation and lastly but most importantly is the virtue of justice. He breaks down the city into classes and he says how each man within the city is responsible for what his life work is. He says that the people of the city whom the mass will see as most educated will be most fit for rule.

"You remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the State, that one man should practise one thing only, the thing to which his nature was best adapted; now justice is this principle or a part of it". (433 a) It is here that each man concentrates on his own possessions and his own business where we find a just city. He explains that being able to compare social classes within the city is very important because it has produced the important virtue of justice. With Socrates being able to do this he now has to establish a proper dialogue for explaining justice and the soul of an individual.

Socrates is very earnest in his attempt to deliberate whether or not the soul is made of only one part or many. Socrates in his attempt brings up an important issue of one object not being able to perform multiple tasks. He says that the soul at times will have a desire to do something but there will be a sense of control that will come over it and therefore he concludes that it must have at least two parts. "Then we may fairly assume that they are two, and that they differ from one another; the one with which a man reasons, we may call the rational principle of the soul; the other, with which he loves, and hungers, and thirsts, and feels the flutterings of any other desire, may be termed the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions?" (439d) He goes on to give definition to this idea which he has just produced. He defines the three parts of the soul as appetite, reason and spirit. He says that the third part, spirit, is usually found along with reason.

Socrates now explains his reasoning for an individual being just. Being that Socrates was able to break the soul into three different parts he wants to compare each of these parts with an element of the city he talked of. Socrates example for this comparison is one in which parallels are drawn between reason and the Guardians, spirit and the Auxiliaries, and appetite and the masses. If the personality of an individual is able to stay in its proper role within a person when brought up on this comparison, then that individual will be just. He says that justice is something that is primarily from within the person. The just man "sets his own house in order and rules himself".

(443d) Injustice will only occur when the elements of personality are not in the proper relationship. The relationship that Socrates was able to produce leads me to clearly see a better focus of how justice is concentrated with the soul. Justice as Socrates has led me to believe is something that is not bothered with the material world and what it can provide. Justice as described by Socrates is something that can have a very positive effect on a man's soul.

A Philosopher as described in earlier text from this book is a man who has a true vision. This leads Socrates to say that Philosophers are the best option to be the ones to guard the laws and the rich customs of the city. The other men who try and perform this job are the ones that are blind as talked about in the allegory of the cave. He brings up specific points about the nature and character of the philosophical man. "And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn - noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?" (487 a) A philosopher is able to properly understand the nature of forms because of the grace which they possess and their ability to understand how things in society should be properly taken care of.

It is these people which are the ones Socrates believes that should be trusted for the welfare of the state. Socrates being himself a philosopher is very strong in his assertions about this point. He speaks very strongly against the man who is ruler of the government. "Since the philosophers are those who are capable of apprehending that which is eternal and unchanging, while those who are incapable of this but lose themselves and wander amid the multiplicities of multifarious things, are not philosophers, which of the two kinds ought to be the leaders in a state?" (484 b) He makes it very clear that rulers that are in charge now are too pre-occupied as he thinks with the things that do not help or benefit society. In order for a society to be totally unified Socrates creates a myth for the other men, which essentially is this "noble lie". He says that this lie teaches that all members of the community are in fact brothers, and that they were born of Mother Earth because they were forged in her womb.

While in the womb some members were forged with gold, others with silver and the others with bronze. "While all of you in the city are brothers, we will say in our tale, yet God in fashioning those of you who are fitted to hold rule mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious -- but in the helpers silver, and iron and brass in the farmers and other craftsmen". (415 a) This metal determines a man's place in society. The gold represents a ruler, the silver are the Auxiliaries and the bronze are the labor class of society. Socrates speaks that the rulers must be vigilante in knowing the nature of each child that is born into the community. He says that the state will ultimately be destroyed when a bronze or silver man is the guardian of the state.

This lie is something that Socrates may have come up with so that the members of the state could look at each other in a better sense, especially on a political level. Socrates essentially is taking the Athenian democracy and he is trying to fix its problem where he believes it needs it most, the root. Democracy is something that Socrates believes is becoming a critical problem in Athens society. He believes that people under a democracy have a tendency to let their bad desires overcome them. "And now", said I, "the fairest polity and the fairest man remain for us to describe, the tyranny and the tyrant."Certainly", he said.

"Come then, tell me, dear friend, how tyranny arises. That it is an outgrowth of democracy is fairly plain". (562 a) He sees a trace of tyranny that can be found in all democratic societies. He says that the lower classes are the one in which desire can have the most profound effect. Their knowledge of want and need is something that he believes will ultimately overcome them and plague the state.

He says this is what causes the establishment of a democracy. These desires overcome a man's rational thought and eventually it can lead to anarchy where the people can only hope for a dictator of some sorts to take over. The social classes are basically the reason that any of this would happen. Their destruction from within is what would destroy society.