preview

Socrates 's View Of Justice

Decent Essays

“But when Socrates was busying himself with ethical questions to the complete neglect of nature as a whole, and was seeking in them for the universal and directing the mind for the first time to definitions, Plato, accepting his teaching, came to the conclusion that it applied to something other than the sensible world: the common definition, he reasoned, could not apply to any of the sensible, since they were always changing,” (Guthrie). Socrates was constantly wrapped up in thought about how the mind works, and of course, how and why the mind changes. These ideas strengthened many of the arguments that Socrates makes in Republic books one through seven. Some of these arguments can be modeled in the question: what is justice? In this question, Socrates plays many mind games with those around him and gets them to all change their mind about what their view of justice is and what it truly means. Later on in the books, Socrates describes the perfect city, and exactly how that relates to the ever-changing mind. This is interesting because it is nothing like the current society most live in, a democracy. Rather, it is based off of a republic form of government using education of those holding power to signify why they have power. In this world, education is everything. Finally, another idea in which Socrates, or rather Plato, discusses in Republic is the idea of pedagogy or, more simply said, education is modern society. Pedagogy is essentially the roots to all other

Get Access