Use of dialectic

A detailed Summary of Use of dialectic

The Use of Dialectic to Define Justice

Through the use of Socratic dialogue, Plato has an advantage at obtaining answers by refuting other philosophers. Plato is able to achieve an answer to the question, what is justice. He derives this answer through an analogy of the ideal city. The ideal city parallels the concept of the ideal person as Plato uncovers with the aid of dialectic. Plato defines justice as a function of harmony, which must first be achieved in an individual before being extended to the city. Speaking through Socrates Plato defines justice as a philosophical understanding of excellence in the organization of society and human soul.

In book IV Socrates refutes the notion that justice is visible, while using the Socratic method of dialogue. He questions that justice is the virtue that has no physical representative. Through the state, Socrates inferred that justice can be understood as opposed to being seen. In order to grasp the concept of the ideal city or the happy state one must first analyze its components. Plato does this with dialectic. Then he questions that each individual is a member of one of three groups: Rulers, Guardians, and the Producer class. Each one of the specifications of labor

producer class. "Unlike courage and wisdom... Making the city brave and wise respectively, moderation spreads throughout the whole."(pg.107,431e) Moderation was necessary for each class, especially this one since the craftsmen are considered the appetites of kallipolis. Through dialogue with Glaucon, Plato concludes that producers were moderate; guardians were moderate and courageous; and the rulers were moderate, courageous, and wise.

Plato felt that to attain justice was to attain harmony in the state as well as the individual. Through conversing with Thrasymachus in a dialectic method, Plato philosophizes that both the state and the individual consisted of three separate parts, which must harmoniously commune with one another to achieve the virtue of justice.

mind, body, and spirit. The mind acted in each individual as a ruler. The virtue of the mind was wisdom just as the ruler of the state. Courage is also found in the soul of the individual in the form of the spirit. The spirit acts as the guardian of the soul just as the soldier does for the city. "And isn't in the individual courageous in the same way and in the same part of himself as the city?"(pg.117,441d) Moderation is throughout the soul but mainly focused in the body. The body is parallel to the producer class of the city. Socrates determined that an individual is just if the other three parts of the soul are doing one's own work. Compared to the city an individual achieved harmony and morality just the same. " And surely we have not forgotten that the city was just because each of the three classes in it was doing its own work."(117,441e) Socrates felt that through looking at the larger scope first, he could then infer more about the smaller scope. I believe in Plato's use of Socratic method to obtain a philosophy of the state and the human soul. The two concepts parallel each other as well as they are inseparable. The individual and the state are dependent upon one anothe

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Category: English