William Miller 's ' The ' Of The Soul '

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.

According to Socrates one of the most important things that identify with human being is their desire. Socrates argues that desire that can change people minds quickly and very abnormally. The three-part division of the soul is crucial to Plato’s overall project of offering the same sort of explication of justice whether applied to societies or individuals.

Since the proper order of the city has now been established, it is time to turn inward to one’s soul to determine where justice and injustice might lie, and what the difference is between the two. Plato believes, “if an individual has these same three parts in his soul, we will expect him to be correctly called by the same names as the city if he has the same conditions in them” (Cahn 148). Now that Plato has found the four virtues within the larger environment of the city, he now wants to investigate their relationship to the smaller environment of the soul.

Richard E. Miller, the author of The Dark Night of the Soul, is an English professor/executive director of the Plan-genre Writing Center at Rutgers University. He studies the English curriculum in the U.S and questions if it is successful or a dying art. This is evident in The Dark night of the Soul,

Throughout Miller’s essay, he follows a similar format in the way he states his opinion about the connection between reading and writing to his readers. With every subheading, he tells a story of the influence of reading and writing on the protagonist of each story. Every subheading begins with the introduction of the protagonists through the final outcome of their actions. For example, the first story of the two boys, Harris and Klebold begins with the revelation of what they have done—murdering fifteen people with weapons they created on their own. This knowledge to create such weapons and to follow through with such an act is all blamed upon technology

All Souls, written by Michael Patrick MacDonald, is the story of a low-income family from Boston that ends up moving from the projects in Columbia Point to the projects South Boston, also known as Southie. From then, the book focuses on the MacDonald family and their lives in 1960’s South Boston and in particular the crime, violence and corruption that existed within South Boston but most importantly, how it was that the MacDonald family viewed Southie and how those views changed overtime. On the first page of the book, Michael Patrick MacDonald starts of by recalls his mother at one point calling Southie, “The Best Place in the World” (MacDonald 1). The comparison from Ma calling Southie the best place in the world compared to a couple of pages ahead where she says that she’d “Never come back to this hell hole of a fucking neighborhood ever again” (MacDonald 15). This change of mentality of not only Ma, but the rest of the family, especially Michael Patrick MacDonald, is categorized within C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination. In The Sociological Imagination, Mills speaks on two ways of thinking that are very prevalent in MacDonald’s All Souls. According to Mills’ there is an “ordinary” way of thinking and a then there is having a “sociological imagination”. In All Souls, both of these different mindsets are portrayed thru the MacDonald family as well as within their community of Old Colony. All Souls tells the story of a community suffering from the “ordinary” way of thinking and what kind of negative outcomes their fixed mindset.

Socrates’ argument for why the soul is analogous to the city begins with an observation--that the city is comprised of individuals. The city is therefore a reflection of the characteristics of the individual. This observation allows Socrates to derive the characteristics of an individual from the characteristics of the city that had previously been discussed and established. However, this task is more difficult than it seems at first because of the differences between the soul and the city.

Plato's view of Justice can be seen in his model of The Tripartite Soul. In this model Plato outlines 3 sectors of his ideal society. This theoretical society is composed of Guardians, Auxiliaries, and Producers. The Guardians were the upper class citizens who had the authority to pass judgment. Guardians were rational and wise, and could participate and become involved in politics. The Auxiliaries were positioned as courageous citizens who helped preserve the spirit and emotion of a society by "protecting and serving" much like a modern day public works department or police and fire squad. In the lowest tier of Plato's ideal society were the Producers, whose job it was to create. The Producers were to use temperance in their lives, for they were classified as appetitive souls who could easily succumb to bodily desires. The Producers were to practice asceticism, which is the eradication of bodily desires.

Plato continues to relate the categories of a just state to the individual soul. He says that the soul has different parts to it as well and for them to be in harmony is for

The story of And the Soul Shall Dance is a play of Japanese immigrant cultural. In the deserted area of America in the 1935’s one family in particular has been able to make the best of their situation and kept the upmost happiness in their family. While another family consist of a very abusive husband to his wife Emiko. Emiko fights her way to get back to Japan where her family and true love awaits her. During this time the great depression left a sense of poverty and relations between Japan and the US which turned rancid leading to Japanese Americans and laws that restrict them from their rights of property. And the Soul Shall Dance “refers to a line in a song Emiko sings about what happens when you drink a certain green wine”.

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.

In his philosophy, Plato places a large emphasis on the importance of the idea of justice. This emphasis can be seen especially in his work ‘The Republic’ where, through his main character Socrates, he attempts to define the nature of justice and to justify this definition. One of the methods used by Socrates to strengthen or rather explain his argument on justice is through his famous city-soul analogy, where a comparison between a just city and a just soul/individual is made. Through this analogy, Socrates attempts to explain the nature of justice, how it is the virtue of the soul and is therefore intrinsically valuable to the

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 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

In this section of Republic, Socrates sets out to demonstrate that the three classes of society have similarities to the soul of every individual. In other words, the soul, like the city, is a three-way entity. The just and fair individual is comparable with the just and fair society - the three parts of a man’s soul are set in the required balance of power and influence. However, in order to make this argument viable, Socrates must show that there truly are three parts of the soul, and that there are three separate entities that influence these parts.