Plato and the Republic Essay

Born in Athens in 437 B.C, Greek philosopher Plato is one of the most powerful thinkers in history. Coming from Greek aristocracy, Plato had political ambitions as a young man and appeared to follow the family tradition. However, Socrates and his dialectical method of inquiry, which was to question and answer everything to show ignorance, soon captivated Plato.

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.

He believes that we gain knowledge by understanding the idea of the object instead of understanding an object, which can be somewhat confusing. One of the examples given in class was that Plato sees people who can think and speak without being aware of forms as if they were prisoners in a cave who are unable to see what’s behind them. They can see only the wall of the cave as that is the way that they are facing. What they cannot see is the fire that is behind them they can only see and here the shadows and noise behind them. These prisoners who are unable to see behind them mistaken appearance for reality they think that the shadows are real. So objects are used to determine reason instead of it being a idea. This example that was talked about in class explains how we name things that we cannot see but things that we can grasp in our mind. But once the prisoners in the cave are set free and are no longer stuck at looking at the wall they can see the true nature that was being shown but the shadows and see that they have been mistaken. And once they get closer and closer outside the cave they are closer to the knowledgeable world. Once they adjust to this world they see these objects for what they really are. What Plato is trying to say is that our knowledge is what is certain and true while our opinions is what is

The best way to examine this would be to pick at the individual premises that Plato makes. An

Throughout his life, Socrates engaged in critical thinking as a means to uncover the standards of holiness, all the while teaching his apprentices the importance of continual inquiry in accordance with obeying the laws. Socrates primarily focuses on defining that which is holy in The Euthyphro – a critical discussion that acts as a springboard for his philosophical defense of the importance of lifelong curiosity that leads to public inquiry in The Apology. Socrates continues his quest for enlightenment in The Crito, wherein he attempts to explain that while inquiry is necessary, public curiosity has its lawful price, thus those who inquire must both continue to do so and accept the lawful consequences

Plato, being a Socratic apprentice, followed and transcribed the experiences Socrates had in his teachings and search of understanding. In Plato’s first work, The Allegory of the Cave, Socrates forms the understanding between appearance vs. reality and the deceptions we are subject to by the use of forms. In the cave, the prisoners’ experiences are limited to what their senses can tell them, the shadows on the walls, and their shackles; these appearances are all that they have to form their ideas. When one of the prisoners begins to question his reality he makes his way out of the cave and into the day light. This prisoners understanding of his reality has now expanded, thus the theory of forms; when he returns to the cave to spread the news, the others do not believe him. They have been deceived by their reality and what

Plato envisioned that there existed a perfect or impeccable world past our own physical earth. Our natural world is brimming with unevenness, defects, and polluting influences which have been duplicated from the genuine perfect world which is past us. Plato additionally trusted that our physical world and its Forms partake or mirror the genuine Forms disorderly. He guaranteed that there was a relationship between the domain of Forms and our reality. Aristotle protested Plato's view, contending that one can't know the kind of association which is happening between the two Forms.

Plato’s concept of philosophy seeks to clarify the concept of knowledge. The primary aim of the Republic is to set forth the parameters and defend the concept of a good

“Everything which exist in this world and all things that we see around us are not as they appear to us” this is the core idea behind plato’s theory of forms.From this idea only he moves towards explaining his world of forms or ideas.

Plato uses analogies and metaphors to convey his theory on knowledge and eradicating ignorance. In his Analogy of the Sun and the Good, he uses Socrates and his theories to introduce the Sun as a metaphor for the author of all visibility, growth and generation and the Good as the intelligibility of all being, but it itself is beyond being. The Good is the author of all knowing and promotes the necessity of truth in knowledge. Through the Good, Socrates makes apparent that evil

workers, so that they do not desire to be in the ruler's position. It is seen

The world of sense is at a constant change, so how can the truth be

shackles and goes up to the upper part of the cave and sees the fire

Greek philosopher, Plato, is considered to be one of the most influential people in Western Philosophy. The fact that he was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle leaves no questions about his competence. One of his fundamental works is the “Republic”. Even though it was written in 380 BC, Plato’s and Socrates’s thoughts are still relevant in twenty first century. This paper will evaluate the quote from the “Republic” and provide a summary of a quote; provide a context from the text for the quote; and finally, it will include my own thoughts on the quote and the Socrates’s argument as a whole.

Plato’s ideas regarding the body and the soul relates to his Theory of Forms/Ideas because he explains that the body is just a mere obstacle for the soul. IT makes it sound like when your soul is living its life within the body, its just an illusion, and when your