In this essay I will discuss four different classifications of justice that are proposed by Socrates’ interlocutors, Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus, as well as his rebuttal to each of their proclamations. A final section of this paper will be dedicated to how Polermachus’s outlook on justice, which is doing good to one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies, can most effectively be defended against Socrates’s response that it is unjust to harm anyone. This is because of Socrates’s inadequate dismissal of Polemarchus’s claim. Socrates offers an unclear definition of what causing harm is. Therefore, it can be presumed that specific types of harm such as constructive criticism and disciplinary punishment are deemed unjust when they actually can be efficient instruments in the formation of a just human being.
Plato Represents the Right Side This report is on the Political Spectrum of Plato's The Allegory of the Cave in The Arlington Reader by editors Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. In the reading, Plato shows the readers how he is more on the right side of the political spectrum than the left. His story helps us understand his views on politics and people. He shows how people need to be controlled by a higher power of authority, how letting people control themselves brings them ruin, and how change isn't really what people need, or want. The Allegory of the Cave illustrates that Plato is on the conservative, right side.
Much of what Socrates uses to defend himself proves otherwise; this is proven in the story of the Oracle from Delphi. What does Socrates think of the gods? Socrates seems to contradict himself on several occasions on this issue. As Socrates defends his charge of atheism proposed by his accusers, he is able to prove to one of his accusers, Meletus, that he believes in the gods. In this essay I will prove that Socrates is in fact not a religious person, but he has had to act religious all his life as so he wouldn’t ever be accused for something such as this and uses this act to completely disprove the accusations made against him.
You may wish to compare Sophocles’ times with the present day, to highlight similarities or differences. If so, use specific modern examples to illustrate, in addition to text references. POSSIBLE TOPICS: a. Fate—Do we make our own, or are we “playthings of the gods?” Does the Greek view of this question differ from our “modern” ideas? If so, how? b. Blindness—“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” c. Arrogance—Is too much self-esteem a bad thing?
Once the foundations of the Republic are built and glued we can see that justice in the city is not only good but willingly practiced. Later Socrates aims at describing justice in the individual. He intentionally mirrors the creation of the city by saying that justice in the person is built on foundations of education of the body and mind. However, Socrates fails to provide me with enough evidence to believe that justice is better than injustice in the individual for all matters.
Thucydides’ work, however, was not simply a book written about Athens as the protagonist which was defeated by its foolish over-ambition, he wrote about the Athenians and Spartans with similar objectivity, acknowledging both their weaknesses and virtues. Thucydides regularly demonstrated a “determination to establish what happened and why”. He believed one of the primary reasons for the decline of Athens was because of the political problems with democracy and selfish imperialism. Whilst he used facts to support this belief, he expressed it most directly when quoting speeches. I will examine the purpose of Thucydides’ work by assessing his omissions, the events he chooses to focus on more closely, and his own analysis of his work.
Especially when you are not aware of what is it. “I am not saying that it is wrong to say that virtue is teachable if it is knowledge, but look whether it is reasonable of me to doubt whether it is knowledge" (PL 89D). It was a serious problem of how to explain the lack of input. Socrates begun by claiming that the soul is immortal and that it doesn't get destroyed when the human body dies. By this he meant that
Scholars have, however, been divided whether this claim is compatible with the position Plato attributes to Thrasymachus in the first book of the Republic. Plato’s account there is by far the most detailed, though perhaps historically suspect, evidence for Thrasymachus’ philosophical ideas. In the first book of the Republic, Thrasymachus attacks Socrates’ position that justice is an important good. He claims that ‘injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice’ (344c). In the course of arguing for this conclusion, Thrasymachus makes three central claims about justice.
Thrasymachus believed that the superior, or the stronger, has the best interest of justice. One of the major points made by Socrates to validate his argument was that how
WHAT DID PLATO WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIS DIALOGUES? According to Plato, Ideas, i.e. generalia, represent the only truth. What is true actually exists. What is true isn’t subject to decay.