City/Soul Analogy Essay

436 Words2 Pages
Instructions: The City Soul Analogy From passage 427d through 444e, Plato develops an analogy between the city and the soul. Specifically, he argues that certain groups of citizens are structurally parallel to certain desire-producing parts of the soul, and that the virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice are parallel in both city and soul. In 300 words or less, summarize Plato's analogy. If you have space, you may wish to raise an objection to the analogy. That is, point out any relevant places where Plato's analogy doesn't seem to hold. City/Soul Analogy Summary In the book The Republic, Plato’s main goal seems to be to define what Justice means. One of the methods that he uses to better help him describe justice in a man, is to define what justice in the city is and he uses this as his reasoning (To Glaucon and others): “…Lets find out what sort of thing justice is in a city and afterwards look for it in the individual”(368e). He starts of talking of the smallest possible working city only needing “four or five men” (369d): a farmer, a builder, a weaver, a cobbler and someone to provide medical care. He then brings up the fact that no one person can do all of the things that a city requires and therefore some people need to specialize at what they are “naturally suited” (370c). then after hearing Adiemantus’ comment on specialization, Socrates brings up the fact that there will be a need for more than 4 people. They then introduce more necessary people into their city such as “…Carpenters, metal workers, and many other craftsman of that sort…” (370d), one important person they introduce is the importer, they then establish that the city “must not only produce enough for themselves at home, but also goods of the right quality and quantity to satisfy the requirements of others…” (371a). They then go on to add more and more people into the city
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