Socrates Ideal City Analysis

Plato’s idea of civic justice displays a criteria for specialization that holds each individual responsible for producing their own rendition of excellence that leads to a just life, which produces a just city, and ultimately civic justice. Plato describes civic justice as “…doing one’s own work provided that it comes to be in a certain way” (433b-pg.108).

In his philosophical text, The Republic, Plato argues that justice can only be realized by the moderation of the soul, which he claims reflects as the moderation of the city. He engages in a debate, via the persona of Socrates, with Ademantus and Gaucon on the benefit, or lack thereof, for the man who leads a just life. I shall argue that this analogy reflecting the governing of forces in the soul and in city serves as a sufficient device in proving that justice is beneficial to those who believe in, and practice it. I shall further argue that Plato establishes that the metaphorical bridge between the city and soul analogy and reality is the leader, and that in the city governed by justice the philosopher is king.

The Crito and the Republic were both works of Plato. Plato’s works were divided into early, middle and late dialogues. The Crito falls into the category of the formal while the Republic falls into the category of the latter. In his early dialogues, Plato was influenced by Socratic philosophy but as he ages, he starts to develop his distinct and independent philosophy. Justice is the fundamental concept that will be discussed in this paper. The scope of discussion will mainly revolve around the Crito, the Apology and the Republic. In Socrates’ submission and acceptance of his sentence lies the implication that Socrates agrees with democracy as a political system. Plato, on the other hand,

On the subject of the Guardians, education is one of high importance. The Guardians are meant to be brought up in such a way that the City can depend on them to not only being highly intelligent but also fierce fighters. Plato breaks down their education into two categories : gymnastics and music. These two categories serve to enhance both the body and mind to the highest level. However, it is important to note that Plato planned to filter and censor the majority of what was given to the Guardians in the mind category. This filter included removing any and all teachings of Greek mythology, as well as only allowing the Guardians to study what was deemed beautiful and just by Plato and his attendants. The claim made to support this was “ we can

Socrates is known for his unique practice of Greek philosophy. In The Republic, Socrates discusses building a just city with Glaucon and Adeimantus. Throughout The Republic, the three men decide what classes of people will live within the city, and how each person will be assigned to a class. There would not be a place for Socrates in the just city. Through examining the definitions of a guardian, auxiliary, and money maker, one can justify that Socrates is too complex of a man to be categorized as belonging to one specific group.

As Socrates was building the city, according to his different accounts of how city ought to be. There were different classes of people and the position they held in the cities community. In a just city as Socrates claims there will be citizens, guardians and a philosopher king as the ruler of the city. In order to maintain order, politics influence on human nature by politically influencing laws such as stopping peoples from changing their division of labour. For example, Socrates claims that it is impossible for an individual to practice many crafts proficiently as discussed by the companions earlier. (Plato, 1992, p. 49). The reason there is division of peoples in the city is so the city can run efficiently, if there were many people doing many thing, there will not be an efficiency of work. For this reason, politics constrained human nature in which individual as human nature wants to do more than one thing, but it is stopped through influence of ideology of how one ought to be. That individual does not want to do one job for the rest of his life; this form of ideology is first form pre capital which was discussed in the republic. Continuing, as politics influence increases in the republic the more constrained human nature becomes. In politics, the political thought of Socrates creates a guardian for city, a protector to defend against an enemy or to conquer land for the city. In

In Book II-IV of Plato’s Republic, Socrates* creates an ideal polis, and in doing so, will find justice in the soul. The two foundational principles of the city that Socrates creates, The City of Pigs** as Glaucon calls it, that eventually grows into the ideal city are self-sufficiency and one person-one art, referred to today as specialization. Due to the fact that individual people are not self-sufficient*, that is they are not able to survive on their own without the help of other people, the citizens of the city must take up a profession and utilize trade. Socrates believes in one person-one art*, the idea that each individual should only practice the craft that they are most naturally suited to do. Socrates considers war to be its own

In The Republic Book IV, pp. 130e-136d, Socrates sets out to prove that societal justice is analogous to individual justice. In order to substantiate the analogy, Socrates compares the individual and the city. As he previously defined, justice in the city involves the power relationships between the different parts of the city, namely the guardians, the auxiliaries, and the producers.

In order to question and reassess Thrasymachus’ view of justice, in this essay, I will first bring up cases for Thrasymachus being accused of being contradictory and inconsistent in his view for justice. For the second part of the essay, I will provide a counterargument in order to prove Thrasymachus’ consistency followed by a discussion on Socrates’ own contradiction in regards to his account of the city.

In Plato’s The Republic and The Apology, the topic of justice is examined from multiple angles in an attempt to discover what justice is, as well as why living a just life is desirable. Plato, writing through Socrates, identifies in The Republic what he thought justice was through the creation of an ideal city and an ideal soul. Both the ideal city and the ideal soul have three components which, when all are acting harmoniously, create what Socrates considers to be justice. Before he outlines this city and soul, he listens to the arguments of three men who hold popular ideas of the period. These men act to legitimize Socrates’ arguments because he finds logical errors in all of their opinions. In The Apology, a different, more down-to-Earth, Socrates is presented who, through his self-defense in court, reveals a different, even contradictory, view of the justice presented in The Republic. In this paper, the full argument of justice from The Republic will be examined, as well as the possible inconsistencies between The Republic and The Apology.

The component of specialization within the city-soul analogy, that of which classifies the working class as the most inferior in comparison to the ruling and guardians classes, and must succumb to the authority of the latter, raises questions to possible alternate purposes of the analogy. Perhaps, along with attempting to simply define the nature of justice, this analogy also attempts to pacify the portion of the city population deemed as appetitive and perhaps threatening, possibly to strengthen the political position of the philosopher-kings, a political class Plato was most likely apart of. Although Socrates is quite harsh in his definition of the working class and is straightforward in his requirement for it to succumb to the authority of its superiors, he provides a justification for the workers that allows the class to view their circumstance as inevitable or ‘natural’, thus not worth fighting against. Bernard Williams brilliantly words this view in his article ‘The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato’s Republic”:

In this paper I will be discussing the tripartite (three parts) of the soul that Socrates discussed in chapter 6 of Plato’s Republic, and I will compare and contrast them to that of Aristotle and Anthony Kenny. In Plato’s Republic the three parts of the soul consist of the rational, spirited and, desire. In this dialogue the three parts of the soul go hand and hand with three parts of a just society.

In the Republic of Plato, the philosopher Socrates lays out his notion of the good, and draws the conclusion that virtue must be attained before one can be good. For Socrates there are two kinds of virtue; collective and individual. Collective virtue is virtue as whole, or the virtues of the city. Individual virtue pertains to the individual himself, and concerns the acts that the individual does, and concerns the individual’s soul. For Socrates, the relationship between individual and collective virtue is that they are the same, as the virtues of the collective parallel those of the Individual. This conclusion can be reached as both the city and the soul deal with the four main virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice.

Plato’s Republic proposes a number of intriguing theories, ranging from his contemporary view of ethics to political idealism. It is because of Plato’s emerging interpretations that philosophers still refer to Plato’s definitions of moral philosophy as a standard. Plato’s possibly most argued concept could be said to be the analogy between city and soul in Book IV, partially due to his expansive analysis of justice and the role justice plays in an “ideal city,” which has some key flaws. Despite these flawed assumptions that my essay will point out, Plato’s exposition on ethics is still relevant for scholars and academics to study, due to his interpretive view on morality and justice.

More than two-thousand years have elapsed since Plato wrote what many consider his most famous work, Republic. To this day, students and scholars alike grapple with the challenging philosophical issues presented therein. The thematic crux of the work lies in the nature of justice. In defining this slippery concept, Socrates details the structure and workings of what he considers a truly just city, the kallipolis. There are those who would say that this kallipolis may be equated to a utopia, an ideal society; however, I intend to illustrate a much divergent point of view. The justice of this city, made analogous to the justice of the individual, is specifically what precludes the kallipolis from being an ideal society. For this