Socrates believes that a virtuous person has reached internal peace. Please explain.
Plato's Republic, Book IV, begins with a question posed by Adeimantus: "What satisfaction do the city's guardians have because, unlike other citizens, they own the city and are not paid? As a result, they lack the financial means to live a lavish lifestyle?" 275 (Waterfield) Socrates responds by directing Adeimantus to the state of Utilitarianism. He maintains that a city's happiness cannot be based on serving a small group of people's interests to the detriment of the rest.Further, Socrates broadens that to solve the States problem, it ought to devalue wealth and uphold Justice. He starts by reminding his listeners that they should not be lovers of money and without greed, they will be in a position to form productive alliances. Consequently, Socrates revisits the debate on justice and argues that this virtue is in a person as harmony of the three soul principles (appetite, reason, and spirit), attained through rationality, which is the wisest faculty.
The philosopher reveals justice in operation in the state through an elimination process. However, Socrates himself notes that it was built into the state from the start. Therefore, a man practicing what he is best adapted to was one of the fundamental provisions of the state- this is the old formulation of Immanuel Kant's marriage of a thing and its role. Nevertheless, if this is justice, then it appears unfavorably simplified because a man can perform several tasks as well. So, a person cannot be defined by his occupation alone, meaning that justice for a person is the realization of an internal harmony of his/her disparate parts (appetite, reason, and spirit).
How does Socrates distinguish between knowledge and belief?
The difference between knowledge and true belief or opinion has already appeared in the previous book. Socrates argued that queries can trigger true opinions and turned into experience. However, what is the distinction between belief and knowledge? He points out to Meno that a person who possesses a sincere belief in the way to get Larissa is no less a guide like the one with knowledge. The difference is, experience goes on to explain; hence, an addition.
Accordingly, true opinions are useful as long as they remain with the people who possess them. The problem is, they do not stay, but escape our minds, suggesting that true opinions do not have significant value until to hold them down by developing a reason. The process of holding down is referred to as recollection. Once the true opinions are fastened, they become known and later more permanent, depicting that knowledge is a higher value than true views.
The argument suggests that a person who has knowledge is in position to back up his opinion by offering a justification or an account of explanation. Therefore, it is only when an idea is backed by balanced account or when one can explain the reason a belief provided is correct can the belief be bequeathed the concept of knowledge. Nonetheless, besides this straightforward distinction between the two, is another notion proposed by Plato. He argues that opinion and knowledge are believed to be different faculties or powers. Hence, true knowledge relates to what is or to objects that are believed to be large, beautiful and heavy.
What are the two respects in which Socrates thinks the sun and the good are similar?
Socrates was committed to the construction of a city that was just, and the question of the way philosopher kings arose. According to him, the most critical subject for a philosopher king is the inquiry into a Form of the Good. It is through understanding the Form of Good that a person possesses the highest knowledge level and becomes appropriate for a philosopher king.
Socrates argues that the Form of the Good is not exactly what is held to be good. Some people are convinced that the pleasure is the highest good. The more sophisticated, on the other hand, think that knowledge is the highest good. Socrates states that it is neither of the two, but he fails to state what it is directly. Instead, he proposes a metaphor the sun, the line, and the cave. The sun, Socrates posits that it is the visible realm while Good is the intelligible space and the two are similar in three aspects.
First, the source of light is the sun and therefore, visibility is the empire of visible while Good is the intelligibility source. Secondly, the sun's purpose is to provide us with sight since it is only through the incorporation of the sun-like stuff to a person's eye that the eye can see. Similarly, the Good provides us with the ability for knowledge. Lastly, the sun has the responsibility to cause the existence of things in the visible territory. The sun controls seasons, it helps the blooming of flowers and makes animals deliver. The Good, on the other end, is accountable for the existence of Forms- the creation of intelligible jurisdiction. The Form of Good, according to Socrates is above being it causes all existence.
The Form of Good has responsibility for all truth, knowledge, and for the mind of knowing. Notably, it is the genesis of the existence of Forms in the plain area and all that is beautiful and good in the visible territory. In this regard, it is not unjustifiable that it is the final aim of knowledge. Therefore, it is for all the discussed similarities that you can relate the sun to the concept of good.
How does Socrates apply the Allegory of the Cave to education and politics?
In Book VII, Socrates posits the most famous and beautiful metaphor in the philosophy of the west: the allegory of the cave. The metaphor is used as an illustration of education effects on the human soul. Education maneuvers the philosopher via the divided line stages, and finally brings him to the Form of Good. Socrates portrays a dark scene. Several people have resided in a deep cave since they were born, never seeing the day's light. These individuals are held together, so they are not able to look behind them or either side, but straight ahead.
There is a fire behind them and a partial wall behind the fire. There are various statues on top of the wall that is manipulated by another set of individuals. Due to the fire, the sculptures cast shadows on the wall the prisoners can see. The prisoners look at the stories played out by the shadows, given that they are all the prisoners will ever see as the most real things that the world has to offer. When they discuss women, men, horses and trees they are referring to the shadows. These captives depict the lowest level in the line known as imagination.
One captive is set free and forced to look at the statues and the fire. After persevering confusion and pain due to direct light exposure to the eye, he can see things that are more real than shadows. He appreciates the two as the most real things in the world. At this point, he makes contact with things that are real but is not aware of other things known as belief. Then the prisoner is taken out of the cave into the world above. At first, the light dazzles him, and then he sees the real objects real flowers, trees, houses among others. He acknowledges that they are even more real than the statues and at this point, he is at the cognitive stage of thought. When the eyes of the prisoner have entirely adjusted to the light, he raises his sight to the heavens and sees the sun. He gains an understanding that the sun is the reason behind everything he observes and that it stands for the Form of the Good. The former captive has reached an understanding stage. Therefore, the purpose of education is to move every individual as far away from the cave as possible.
How does Socrates describe the state of mind of a dictatorial person?
Book IX is commenced with a broad and psychologically insightful analysis of the tyrannical man, who is a person guided by his desires that are lawless; hence, attract men to all kinds of shameless, ghastly, and illegal things. According to Socrates, some examples of attractions that are lawless include going to bed with one's mother and perpetrating murder that is foul. Socrates claims that we all possess rebellious desires that sporadically surface in the night, in our dreams, when our minds rational part is resting. However, only the tyrannical man allows such desires to surface when he is awake.
The father of the tyrannical man is a democratic person. His father is not lawless, but he indulges in desires that are not necessary. The son, just like the father, is under the exposure of drones (men who possess lawless passions'). However, unlike his father, whose dad was an oligarchic man with the power to draw him closer to the middle of a democratic road, the son is raised on egalitarian ethos and drifts towards lawlessness. Such a tyrannical man lives for revelries, feasts, girlfriends, and luxuries. He uses a lot of money that he soon runs out of all he had and is forced to start borrowing.
Later, when nobody is willing to lend him, he resorts to force and deceit. He begins by trying to acquire money from his parents using all kinds of despicable ways, and then he starts robbing temples, breaking into houses and lastly taking away human life. He is living what he used to experience while asleep; he is experiencing his nightmare. Erotic love fuels the horro and keeps him lost in lawlessness and anarchy. He is willing to do anything to continue feeding the sensual love desires. In no time, he cannot trust anyone, and his circle of friends diminishes. He is always unsatisfied, miserable, and lives in fear.
Works Cited
Waterfield, Robin. Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Print.
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