Plato’s Republic, Books VIII -IX

Here are yet more questions for you to think about (again, these are all just meant as jumping-off points for a wide-ranging discussion).

How do the regimes Socrates describes promote the moral characters that Socrates claims correspond to them?
What are the principles that lead to the transformation of each of these regimes into the next?
This is the crucial question: what about philosophy? What is the place of the philosopher in the regimes that Socrates describes? Of all of the regimes discussed in book VIII, in which one or ones is the Socratic life possible?
Do you see any parallels between the United States and the regimes described in book VIII?
Are any of these actual regimes just?
Socrates has some harsh words for the character of democratic people. Do you see any truth to his criticisms?
In what ways are the philosophical soul and the tyrannical soul alike? How does the presentation of education in the image of the cave add to our understanding of this question, and of the tyrannical soul more generally?

ANSWER

Plato’s Republic

            Plato identifies 5 types of regimes namely Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny. To promote moral characters, Plato employs one fundamental question: is it always better to be just than unjust? He uses illustrations to sketch an account of a good regime that is just and that defines justice and morality as a virtue. Socrates characterizes justice as a personal virtue and argues that a just city and a just person are in fact good and are possible to actualize. Socrates uses three philosophies to live well, to do well and to be successful. He contributes in a great way to the body of ethics.

The principles that guide the transformation of each of these regimes into the next include politics, justice, and equality. Justice depends on treating equals equally. Citizenship and privileges should be distributed accordingly. Oligarchical regimes consider only the elite and the wealthy landowners as full equals. In contrast, democratic regimes, tended to treat the many as political equals to the few elites. Native-born men are therefore considered politically equal to those considered elites.

Philosophers engage consciously with traditional writings. Socrates ideally wants kings to be philosophers and philosophers to be kings. He births idealism in philosophy and would like philosophers to be statesmen and guide the politics of the society. Although Socrates also criticizes democracy, it is in this regime that his idealistic and moralistic ideals can best be adopted and actualized. The world today largely uses the democratic model as a form of political rule led by the United States. Although not perfect and with many flows, modern democracy tries to assert the power of the majority and the “native-born.” The modern justice system in democratic societies is elaborate, and even if not perfect, it seeks to provide justice as imagined by Socrates.

Socrates terms democratic leaders as foolish. He does not like its rule by impulse rather than the pursuit of the common good. Socrate’s views are true to an extent. Some democracies guided through free and fair elections and supported by the majority have produced the most brutal of regimes. An example is Nazi Germany. The tyrannical man’s soul is governed by his lawless unnecessary appetite. The presentation of education in the image of the cave gives more understanding of the lust for power.