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Back to Subjects - Philosophy

Platos Ideal World

Platos Ideal World Let’s join Plato and Socrates for another magical mystery tour of their ideal universe. A place where people are born into their position in life, with little or no chance of moving up in the world. This is place where there is a simple answer for everything, and everything is a black or white issue. There is no color here; just a yes or no, good or bad, right or wrong answer to everything. I must say that chapters three, four, and five left me hanging a little. I left me wanting some action! Parts one and two, and three was free-for-all. I thought I was reading a WWF transcript. Four, and five was like reading a high school debate team on large quantities of valium or some other seditive. But I suppose if your building your perfect city-state, there are going to have to be some things that will be agreed upon across the board. One of the things that everyone would probably agree upon would be the need for having a police or army force in your city. And that’s exactly what Socrates’ friends did; they all agreed, but it was the details of this operation where dissention lied. Socrates believed that children, who were born into been guardsmen, should be taken at a young age to places where they could begin their training as soldiers. When they enter the force, they will live in camp, possess no material goods, and not have a family. They were gifted from the Gods, this heavenly gold within their bodies, which could be tarnished by material goods. And so that they don’t rebel against this treatment, they are trained from an early age that this lifestyle is good and they are doing what is right for the community. Socrates seems to have this socialistic view for society. To me it seems he is always putting the good of the community before the good of the individual. I don’t necessarily agree with this philosophy. In part three of book four he expresses another socialist point of view. He outlines the guardian’s job as to see that the Third Class, which alone is allowed to posses property, excludes extremes in wealth. He believed extremes in wealth lead to corruption. In the first few lines of the chapter he asks, “Well, do you think that potter who has become rich will want to ply his trade any longer.” He doesn’t believe that people should have the ability to move up in the world. He believes the potter was good at making pots, in fact he was born to make pots, so heavens forbid he should one day want to make enough money to retire and move to the sunny beaches of Miami one day. Well-maybe not Miami. Part five was like a joke to me. His philosophy on building the perfect city just does not make sense. Maybe because this was written a few thousand years ago. We have seen socialist governments, like the one he so eloquently describes, rise and fall in the twentieth century. He believes the state will possess the four ‘cardinal virtues’ of wisdom, courage, discipline, and justice. Wisdom will come from the knowledge possessed by the rulers. Courage will come from the guardsmen, self-discipline will come from the ability of all the classes being able to live together, and justice will be the principle of one man one job, of ‘minding one’s own business’, in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted. Bibliography:

Word Count: 596