Kallipolis Kallipolis is a Greek word meaning beautiful city. In Republic Plato used this word to name his perfect city. According to Plato this city has the most excellent social structure, most effective education system and administration. In Republic he explains rules of this city and what should be done to establish kallipolis. The important thing is he genuinely believes that kallipolis can be constructed under some right circumstances such as geopolitical position. I also believe that constructing a city that conform Plato’s requirements and definitions, is possible. However maybe the most crucial problem about Plato’s kallipolis is how long will the city survive? I think this city will not survive long. Its demise will not come from external threats such as an invasion provided …show more content…
Its demise will most likely come from internal insurrection or a civil war within the city. This war can be developed in many ways such as power struggle between guardians or revolt from producers. The fundamental reason behind all these wars is the system itself is too strict and in many ways contradicts with human nature. Plato thinks that a proper education can remove these detrimental features of human nature such as desires .However I think even the best education cannot completely eradicate human desires and the system should not directly fight against human desires, the system should be constructed in such way that it can resist harmful effects of human desires. There should be some kind of balance. Even when the systems collapse, it should have an ability to recover itself, in other words it should be resilient to live longer. The rules that constitute Plato’s system may seem useful and accurate, but they increase the complexity of the system and therefore making the system more fragile. I think the perfect system should establish the balance between quantities of the rules that keep order and governs the city properly, and freedom that promotes the
Adolescence is an age where children began to find themselves or, in some cases, lose themselves, an idea clearly developed by Satrapi in her graphic novel “Persepolis”. Satrapi explores the challenges and difficulties experienced by a sheltered and naive girl during the tumultuous and uncertain years of the Iranian revolution and attempts to solve the oppression she witnesses by the Islamicist government. This is important to the whole text as it identifies the religious conservatism and Islamisation of the state causes distress and confusion in Marjane who consequently had to redefine herself, given that her freedom and personal liberties were denied them in schools, public places, and even her own home.
Plato is remembered as one of the worlds best known philosophers who along with his writings are widely studied. Plato was a student of the great Greek philosopher Socrates and later went on to be the teacher of Aristotle. Plato’s writings such as “The Republic”, “Apology” and “Symposium” reveal a great amount of insight on what was central to his worldview. He was a true philosopher as he was constantly searching for wisdom and believed questioning every aspect of life would lead him to the knowledge he sought. He was disgusted with the common occurrence of Greeks not thinking for themselves but simply accepting the popular opinion also known as doxa. Plato believed that we ought to search for and meditate on the ideal versions of beauty, justice, wisdom, and other concepts which he referred to as the forms. His hostility towards doxa, theory of the forms, and perspective on reality were the central ideas that shaped Plato’s worldview and led him to be the great philosopher who is still revered today.
Plato’s Republic focuses majorly on the search to find justice, but also gives a lot of attention to education and how the quality of education dictates how just a person and a society will become. Socrates spends time creating the Kallipolis in order to disprove Thrasymacus’ claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger. However, through the methodology used by Socrates to educate the citizens of the Kallipolis, he supports the claim Thrasymacus makes.
A democratic city-state on the other hand looks much more practical and promising than what Plato has imagined. By definition Democracy is a form of government under which the power to alter the laws and structures of government lies, ultimately, with the citizenry. What that means is the people choose for the city instead of a few "wise men" described by Plato in The Republic. Aristocracy almost always
It resulted in corruption, dishonor of law and as a whole extends the frightening of the community, lessening of the control of the society over the private life of the individual. This is the reason why the principles and the institutions of the Athens democracy turned to be lifeless.
Plato’s, the Divided Line, separates the known from the unknown, visually and intellectually. It acts as a method for understanding different states of minds. First, the line is divided into unequal parts and then again two more times. The bottom section of the line represents the visual, while the upper, bigger portion of the line represents the intelligible. The goal for every human being is to take the images and learn to identify the objects from it. Only then can one reach the intellectual stage. The Divided Line Diagram is both objective and subjective levels of knowing and Being.
Throughout the Iranian Revolution, many events and changes took place that largely affected the views of Iranians by other nations. The graphic novel, The Complete Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi (Satrapi, 2003), conveys many of these events and changes through the eyes of a child growing up in the 1980s in Iran. Satrapi’s main purpose for this book is to describe how the Iranian government was corrupt, causing foreign nations to have a tainted view of all Iranian citizens. The Complete Persepolis does so by presenting major events and changes in a manner that is directed towards audiences that are willing to have an open mind about ethnicity and false stereotypes, and an audience that is young and can relate to the “coming of age” aspect of this novel. By exhibiting a credible first hand account of how Satrapi and many others were affected by the events that took place during the Iranian Revolution, The Complete Persepolis can effectively persuade a reader to eliminate the “Islamic extremist” stereotype that the corrupt Islamic Republic gave all Iranian citizens.
In Plato’s republic, a philosophical account on the kallipolis (the beautiful city) is built on the perspective of Socrates and his discussion between his companions. In the republic, the city in which ones live in depends on the soul and the character of the city one lives in. In this paper the character of human nature and politics will be discussed in how a city is ought to be by the influence of human nature and politics. Firstly, the influence of human nature on politics will be looked at, for example according to Plato on behalf of Socrates; he claims that a just soul creates a just society, where it is human nature to be just, that influences in creating a just political system. Secondly, politics influences human nature, where in
Samuel P. Huntington once said, “In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.” Two contrasting beliefs have a tendency to cause conflicts. When groups of people have opposing views, dangerous confrontations will occur to see which view is dominant. The Islamic Revolution was blood ridden, violent, and incessant; the conservative sect of the population, which viewed religion as the proper and only reasonable way for society to operate, and the more liberal side of the population, which had far more westernized views clashed with each other. In Marjane’s Strapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, the
Answer: One part of the political system focuses on specialization, the idea that each person would perform that "job" for which he is most suited. He would then stick to that job and that would satisfy him and thus keep structural order. Once this specialization occurs, there will be classes in the city and each class will do what it needs to do to make the city run smoothly: warriors, rulers, and producers will keep the city functioning smoothly. Rulers will make the rules, warriors will carry out the rulers ' commands, and producers will only figure out how their production helps the city. Socrates believes that if the city is set up this way, it will be a just city.
Amazing, intriguing, and unimaginable are just a few words to describe how I felt about Persepolis while I read this true life story of Marjane Satrapi. This book has helped me to see all the life struggles, good times, and adversities that Marji faced between the ages of nine to thirteen. The Islamic Revolution had such a daunting effect in the Middle East, especially in the county of Iran where Marji and her family resided.
In book VI of The Republic, Plato uses Socrates as his mouthpiece to reveal the ideal city. Plato points out that the idea city is based on the foundations of three basic forms. Consequently, these three forms are manifested in the individuals that make up the city. The functioning of the city will thus depend on the analogy of the structures within the city and within the souls of the people. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the argument by Socrates with respect to the three forms in the city and in the soul. Additionally, the paper seeks to analyze the rationale behind Socrates’ comparison and subsequent establishment of analogy between the forms in the city and the forms in the city in the context of justice. The paper also
In Book II, Plato begins to construct the first city, Kallipolis, analyzing the fundamental parts of societal life that relate to the needs of human life. Plato says, "The goal is not to create 'happy' individuals
Socrates continues the conversation with Glaucon and now focuses on the obligation of the guardians and philosophers to serve the people as a result of their education.
So effective is the education of the guardians that they fear not even death. In stark contrast to the guardians lie the producers or commoners. They serve to represent the appetitive part of the soul, and as such, are ruled from within by their own appetites. For this very reason, they are specialized to participate in economic activity. Plato goes to great pains later on to show that the least desirable existence, from both a political and individual standpoint, may be found in rule by appetite. Since the soul of the producer cannot be just, a producer cannot live a perfect life. By the presence of even one individual living a less than perfect existence, the kallipolis cannot be qualified as ideal.