The Republic

A detailed Summary of The Republic

What is justice? What is wisdom? Can the meanings of these words even be universally accepted? Every individual has their own idea of how these words are defined. These concepts, among many others, are challenged and dissected in The Republic by Plato. The Republic is a philosophical book that puts a persons' mind into overdrive. It presents the reader with questions dealing with basic ideas and concepts, such as justice and knowledge, and throws them out and constructs new, in-depth meanings. Socrates goes into great detail of his views of the world around him. All of these views combine to become what he sees as the perfect state. His ideal civilization would be perfect in every sense of the word. According to Socrates, every individual would have his own task, and all of these jobs added up would create a society that would run at maximum efficiency and would be flawless. I see a problem to Socrates' views. What he is talking about is not possible. There can never be a prefect society, a "happy state." I believe that his views are well thought out, but are never capable of becoming a reality. He presents many flaws in his argument for an ideal civilization, which I will examine.

The perfect, or just, state as Socrates describes it is unattainable. In my mind, the ideal society would not be able to run without impurities. I believe that not being able to reach perfection is what makes states that much better. It gives people the drive and desire to do the best they possibly can at everything in life, not just the jobs they are assigned. The freedom of being able to choose what one wants to do gives people peace, allows them to expand their minds, and provides a happy body of people. Without happiness among individuals of a state, there cannot be happiness of the state as a whole. Socrates did provide many good qualities that a state should include, however his thinking was far to into the efficiency of a state as being the grading scale for a just state. There is far more involved besides getting the job done and performing your own task, and not worrying about anything else. The just state should be a society that is effective and complete, yet still allow personal freedoms, individual happiness, and not be discouraged by blemishes. This is the just state, the perfect state.

Adeimantus posed to Socrates a question of self-defense. "How will our state, possessing no wealth of its own, be able to wage war against wealthy states?" Socrates responds that his just state does not have to worry about attack or invasion. He believes that his state's lack of wealth, strong army, and good intentions will discourage enemies. Wrong. Germany invaded Poland in the thirties, Iraq took Kuwait by force in the nineties, and just about everyone stormed the Americas in the fourteen hundreds. None of these nations were provoked. All of t

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Approximate Word count = 1127
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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