Socrates Idea For The Just City example essay topic

The questions of what exactly knowledge, virtue and the soul are, are among the most important problems of philosophy The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and exist. If there is life after death, the soul must be capable of an existence separate from the body. The mysteries of birth and death, the lapse of conscious life during sleep, even the most common operations of imagination and memory, which abstract a man from his bodily presence even while awake; all such facts suggest the existence of something other. The quest to put a solid definition on what exactly knowledge and virtue was the basis of Socrates' life. Socrates discusses these things all the time but they seemed to be better explained in two specific dialogues The Meno and The Republic. In the Meno, Plato justifies the possibility for one's mind to uncover knowledge.

Plato presents a valid theory on how our minds can obtain knowledge. Socrates asks "What is virtue?" , when questioning Meno on the single definition of virtue, Socrates was never satisfied. He never accepted Meno's answers because Meno gave "virtuous" definitions, not the definition of "virtue". For example, Meno claimed, "A man's virtue, consists of being able to manage public affairs and in so doing to benefit his friends and harm his enemies and to be careful no harm comes to himself.

' Meno does not know what virtue really is, so he cannot apply which characteristics associate with virtue and which do not. So when Socrates asks, "Does anyone know what a part of virtue is, without knowing the whole?" , Meno agrees this is not possible. This presents a logical argument against Meno's definition of virtue. Socrates believes the conversation to search for what virtue really is should continue although they achieved no success in their first effort to form a definition. Meno questions Socrates, "And how will you inquire, into that of which you are totally ignorant?

What sort of thing, among those things which you know not, will you put forth as the object of your seeking? And even if you should chance upon it, how will you ever know that it is the thing which you not know?" . Socrates explores the subject that one not only obtains knowledge through perception but can also obtain knowledge through reason and hard work. Socrates then tells Meno of the theory of recollection. Socrates first explains the soul of man is immortal and has been born many times. The soul already has learned everything from the past.

This means, the soul has the ability to "recollect" information and knowledge from the past. To prove this Socrates asks a slave boy questions about a topic indirectly until he derives the answer to the question. Socrates never gave him any new knowledge but through his line of questioning the boy "recollected the answer". Therefore, the boy must have known the answer the whole time but simply forgot the knowledge needed. This demonstration illustrates Plato's doctrine of knowledge, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting". Meno now understands and agrees with Socrates' viewpoints on how one retains knowledge through recollection.

Although Meno does agree with Socrates' theory of recollection, the theory is still weak. Socrates' failure to answer how one obtains knowledge leads to a fallacy because of an infinite regress. Therefore, one can look upon the theory of recollection as being inaccurate, because one knows the human mind can learn. Platonic philosophy begins to appear in the middle dialogues. The Republic is an expansive work that touches on many areas of Socrates' philosophy. The question at the center of the Republic is whether it is better to live justly or unjustly.

To answer this question, Plato first constructs a perfectly Just City. This city has guardians, auxiliaries, and tradesman / craftsmen (the latter group comprising the majority of the populace). The guardians lead the city, and are all fully educated philosophers -- they represent wisdom in the city. The auxiliaries are less educated than the guardians, but still well-educated; they fight and represent courage. The rest of the population receives a general education. The balance of the city is guaranteed by a harsh and complicated system that guarantees that the best people will be selected to become guardians, and everyone else assigned to roles as their worth makes appropriate.

The city is moderate because the guardians, the wise part of the population, rule over the spirited auxiliaries and the population at large. The city is just because everyone is doing the job that best suits their nature. The guardians lead, the auxiliaries fight, the rest of the people work. According to Plato, Socrates broke down the perfect city into three parts; wisdom, courage (honor-loving), and moderation (appetitive) each part is tied to a specific virtue that he believes will help define justice. We all have a rational (wise) part, a spirited (courage) part, and an appetitive (moderation) part. Wisdom is the whole knowledge, which describes the rulers of the city.

The rulers should be the ones who incorporate philosophy and ruling together to rule the city wisely. Courage describes the guardians, who's job was to defend the city from invasion and take new lands for the city. The third virtue of the ideal city was moderation which is the concept of self-control and knowing ones role, also the concept of 'one man, one job. ' The ideal city described in the work is ideal to me because it relates all essential parts to bring harmony among the different kind of people and the virtues that go hand in hand with to bring about justice. The soul is just when, as the city is just, when the rational part rules over the other two and each part of the soul.

Socrates then argues that the just person is happier than the unjust person for this reason, that the just person's soul is in order, whereas the unjust person's soul is in disorder. Also, the just person's desires are satisfied, since their rational parts limits their desires, whereas the unjust person's desires are rampant and out of control. Socrates' next two arguments depend on the just person not only being just but being a philosopher as well, and in touch with the theory of the Forms. The first of these arguments is that, because the philosopher is ruled by his rational part and understands truth, he understands the pleasure of a hedonist and an honor-lover.

So, the philosopher has the knowledge in judging what way of life is best, whereas no one else does because they don't know about the all of the pleasures. The latter argument is in the theory of the Forms: the idea is that, speaking purely in terms of pleasure, the philosopher enjoys his pleasures, the pleasures of the Forms, more than unjust people enjoy their pleasures, pleasures of appetite or honor, because the pleasures of philosophy are greater than those of the ordinary world. Socrates' idea for the Just City, and even his division of the soul, is easy to follow, and can be taken at very literally. Souls themselves are as eternal and unchanging as the too are the Forms, and they already 'know' everything we learn during our lives, learning is simply a matter of helping them remember. Socrates' philosophy in the Republic is based on two presumptions. The first is that Forms exist.

Secondly, the human mind is capable of understanding them. The greatness of Socrates' philosophy in the Republic is that it makes an extremely well-supported, well-reasoned argument on these virtuous assumptions, and thus does provide a comprehensive way of looking at human good, rather than hiding from any hope of drawing concrete conclusions about right and wrong. As for the questions of what is virtue and what is knowledge, Socrates's ays himself 'Does anyone know a part of something, without knowing the whole?'. With that said who know if these questions will ever be answered, well at least Socrates made a valiant attempt to answer them.