The Republic
. Even though Socrates, Polemarchus, Glaucon
and Thrysamachus have dialectic in understanding the concept of justice, it is
believed that justice is the most fundamental of the human virtues, and a just
city incorporates arête and the principle of unity
Mainly in The Republic, Plato incorporates the
concept of justice as being the preeminent good for a just person. He believes that justice should be dealt with
on a level of truth. In finding out what
justice means, you must first understand truth by realizing what is real, and
what it means to be a human. Plato also
believes that a person must have ethos to understand truth. A person must be ethical and figure out how
to be true to oneself and others and also figure out how to reach excellence. Excellence is defined by another word known
as arête, and in order to reach arête, a person must be just. Plato wants to
restructure the society and make sure that there is justice and equal rights
for everybody. If all people in a
community are just then Plato believes it will lead to a perfect polis
(city).
Some of the major
characters in The Republic have
different views on what it means to be a just person and what it means to the
community to have justice. Coming from
Athens, Socrates is one of Plato’s most loyal and educated students who has
been enlightened and is trying to spread the philosophy of justice to
others. Polemarchus and his brother
Thrasymachus approached Socrates and listened to his enlightened words about
justice, but there is dialectic between each of the men’s beliefs. There are also characters in the book such as
Adeimantus and Glaucon who are interested in Socrates concept of justice but
they want him to prove that real justice is able to exist in a community.
Socrates has been
enlightened and is known for being the seeker of truth. He believes that speaking truth and repaying
ones debts is one way to have justice, but also goes on to say that justice is
giving to friends and enemies what is appropriate to teach and a just man must
give another person back whatever debt may be owed (R Book1 331b). In further detail, Socrates states that
justice is not only the advantage of the stronger person but also it is the
goodness of a ruler who doesn’t seek his own advantages but that of all his
subjects. In other words, Socrates
believes that a just ruler is that of a man who cares for himself, but also all
of the other people in his community.
Book
1 of The Republic deals with justice in the views of both Socrates and
Thrasymachus. Thraysmachus says to
Socrates, “Someone who is believed to be good and is good is a friend; someone
who is believed to be good, and is not, is believed to be a friend but is
not. And the same goes for enemies” (R
Book 1 335a). This is then answered back
by Socrates in saying, “Then we said it is just to treat friends well and
enemies badly. To treat a friend well,
provided he is good, and to harm an enemy provided he is bad”. Socrates speaks about human condition in that
justice is the advantage of the stronger.
In other words he is saying that justice is a human virtue that can only
be used to your own advantages. Socrates
supports his argument on justice by stating that good people are not able to
use their virtues or goodness to make people bad, but instead Socrates believes
that being just is something advantageous and should be used to help make
something or someone better as a person.
Of
course to every argument there is always another side, which brings up another
character in The Republic,
Thrasymachus. There is dialectic between
what Socrates thinks about justice and what Thrasymachus believes to hold true
regarding justice. Thraysmachus believes
that justice is only for the privileged people in the city and that it is
exclusive for certain people. He says,
“the life of an unjust person is better than that of a just one” (R Book1
347e). He asks whether an unjust city
would unjustly enslave other cities and succeed in enslaving them and Socrates
answers by saying that the city will become stronger with the help of
justice. Everybody has the ability to be
a just person and if you can hold true to this virtue then it would be a
perfect polis. Although there is
dialectic between Thrasymachus and Socrates’ view on justice, it still relates
back to Plato’s idea that a republic is a government that deals with justice
and truth.
The
Republic also deals with the idea that justice is desirable but it also has its
own consequences. A young apprentice of
Socrates named Glaucon says that justice can be divided into three
classes. One class is the things that
people desire for their own benefits.
Another class is the things that people desire for their own sake to achieve
happiness and the highest class are things that people desire for their own
sake. For example, good health and
knowledge are things that people desire for their own sake. Towards the end of Book 2, the principle of
education is discussed and how it has both good and bad states. According to
Plato, he believes that education determines what images and ideas the soul
processes and what activities the soul can or cannot engage in. Socrates argues that without education there
would be no justice in a city and Glaucon agrees with this thought. It is concluded by this that education
transforms a hierarchical city into a city that is pure and just.
As
you read deeper into The Republic you
will find that Plato believes justice and the rational law of numbers helps to
govern the universe. The rational law of numbers is better known as the
principle of Natural Division which is discussed in detail by Socrates. “The
city, was thought to be just because each of the three natural classes within
it did its own job; and to be temperate, courageous and wise, because of
certain other conditions or states of these same classes” (R Book4 435b). This passage is saying that a just man will
help spawn a just city, even if there are three different social classes. Justice is said to be the most fundamental of
all of the human virtues. Throughout
Book 4 the text discusses how “Arete” should relate to virtues. In other words, Plato believes one must be
excellent at their craft to relate to their human virtues such as justice. The Sophites had the power to teach arête and
they believed that virtues are eventually one, however Socrates disagreed and
says that a healthy republic requires different virtues. The rational part of people makes ideas and
concepts become real, and things aren’t how they appear.
One
of the last ideas mentioned in The Republic
is known as “The Allegory of the Cave”.
This is a very famous metaphor from Plato’s philosophy and it is meant
to show how education affects the human soul.
It is discussed in this Book 7 that there are four different stages in
the human soul. The lowest stage is
imagination and that is what your mind thinks something looks like. The next stage is belief and it is something
in your mind that is formative. The
third stage is thought and it is analyzing things that you read. The final and
highest stage is understanding and this is how your mind processes what is read
and thought. “In the knowable realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of
the good. Once one has seen it, one must
infer that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything,
that in the visible realm it produces both light and its source, and that in
the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding.” (R
Book7 517c) In other words, these four
stages attribute to knowledge but they do not aim at gaining knowledge for the
soul, in fact they are there to try and direct the soul towards the desires
that one has. The four different stages
to the human soul is a form of finding truth, and as discussed before, justice
should be dealt with on a level of truth.
There
is much dialectic in what it means to have justice and why a city needs justice
but I agree with what Plato has argued.
As discussed before, Plato believes his concept of justice is preeminent
good for a just person and it is the most fundamental of all of the human
virtues. I agree that justice is the
most fundamental of the human virtues because it incorporates so many different
ideas such as truth, unity, education, and equal rights.
Aside from this, Plato believes justice should
be dealt with on a level of truth and I completely agree. I believe that if one is not known to be a
true or loyal person then they are not a just person. Plato’s view on Natural Division is
definitely beneficial to where we are today in the world. Even though there are
different social classes here in the United States, there is still officials
elected by the people of the country in order to have just citied. Having justice in a society would mean that
there is no separate education and there are equal rights between all people,
which is exactly the way Americans are living.
Plato believed a just man will help spawn a just city, and Americans
elect officials that they deem to be just.
Although
there is dialectic between people in understanding Plato’s concept of justice,
it is believed that justice is the most fundamental of the human
virtues, and a just city incorporates arête and the principle of unity in
regards to natural division and education.
Book 3 of The Republic deals with
artistic expression and continues on with the discussion of education. Socrates mentions how people are supposed to
creatively portray people. Socrates says
that artists should not represent characters as vicious or graceless people but
instead they should be portrayed as educated people. The book also deals with the idea of “Eros”
being the emotion that allows people to be more knowledgeable. Eros derives from the word ethos and means, “all
things are one”. In other words, Eros is
being “one in the community”. It is a
connection between the world that we live in and the motivation people
desire. This idea of Eros relates back
to justice in a continuous circle going from Ethos to reality to justice.
Book
5 of The Republic has to do with equal rights between men and women and equal
education as well. Passage 454e suggests
that besides the physical appearances between men and women, “it has not yet
been demonstrated that a women is different from a man”. This idea is later discussed in passage 456a
where it says, “a women and a man can have the same nature.” Because men and women are able to have the
same nature, then Socrates believes there should not be a divided education
system. In other words there won’t be a
different education system for men and women because both of the sexes are to
be considered equal. This book also
makes the claim that only the philosopher has knowledge and that the
philosophers knowledge is not a threat to the city, but that it is essential to
the life of the city.
Book
6 deals with the idea of how the section of the intelligible is to be divided.
Passage 507b has Socrates saying “the one class of things is visible but not
intelligible, while the forms are intelligible but not visible”. In other words we cannot completely know something. Passage 510b expresses “the soul is compelled
to base its inquiry on the hypothesis, proceeding not to a first principle, but
to a conclusion.” What is knowable is
the first principle and the images are imitated and the hypothesis. This
particular passage is discussing the understanding of sovereignty. Plato
believes that thought is the reasoning that people have to make use and
understand images that we see.
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