- Published: December 21, 2021
- Updated: December 21, 2021
- University / College: Vanderbilt University
- Language: English
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Continuing off of thosepoints, Plato has an argument that cities come to be certain ways because ofthe ways that the people are as I mentioned before and if that’s true thenthere must be as many kinds of people as there are kind of cities.
Therefore, there are as many kinds of people as there are kinds of cities. This is where Ihave a problem with Plato’s argument. I believe that even if cities have theircharacteristics because of the type of people that live in them, the number ofkinds of cities don’t add up to the number of kinds of people. Cities can havemixtures of people. With my argument, I make Plato’s second premise deemedfalse. My thought process for this is that there can be cities that have avariety of people, but it could be people who repeat the same qualities as anothercity, therefore, the number of cities and people are not equal. For example, ifyou have three cities; City A, City B, and City C. City A are filled with onlynice people, City B is filled with bad people and City C is filled with bad andgood people.
This means that there are two kinds of people (bad and good), butonly three cities. Therefore, Plato’s second premise would be false, making hisconclusion false and his argument no longer valid. This argument wouldsuccessful against Plato because the reasons above would be valid enough toprove that Plato’s second premise would be false. Again, because of the mixturein cities, they can have people who repeat the same qualities over and overagain making the number of cities outnumber the kinds of people. The only waythat Plato’s argument could be real is if each city had a unique aspect and didnot repeat characteristics between people.
Take the example I just used, ifinstead of City C having a mixture of bad and good people, it consists ofaverage people then his theory would be correct, but in most cases, I believethat each city will always have a mixture of people because of characteristicsthat humans share with one another. In conclusion, throughout my paper, I talked about Republic by Plato and his comments andargument in chapter eight of this book. I answered and explained two of Plato’smain questions which were: What is justice? And what leads to democracy? Itouched upon some features where Plato’s talks about how they help make thecity just such as wives must be in common, children and all their educationmust be in common as well as that sex is only restricted by the rulers. When amother is in childbearing years, the rulers can decide who can have sex withwho and after they complete that, anything except incest would be allowed. Following the definition of a just city of man, Plato and Socrates listed fivecities where he believed each of the cities had their own type of people whichmade the city how it was such as democratic, tyranny and oligarchic. Plato’s argument was as followed: Cities cometo be certain ways because of the ways their individual people are. If that’strue, then there must be as many kinds of people as there are kinds of cities.
So, there are as many kinds of people as there are kinds of cities. As Imentioned in my paper, I did not agree with his argument and came up with anobjection to it and why it would succeed against Plato. My argument was: if you have three cities; City A, City B, andCity C. City A are filled with only nice people, City B is filled with badpeople and City C is filled with bad and good people. This means that there aretwo kinds of people (bad and good), but only three cities.
This argument isfairly straightforward and simple, but it gets to the point that there can becities that have a mixture of people and that not all cities have as many kindsof people. Making Plato’s premise 2 false and his argument no longer validsince the premises do not add up to the conclusion. My objection is strong andalthough there can be objections against it by many people, I believe that itwould withhold them and still be strong enough to be a true threat to Plato’sargument because of real-world examples we have today with different kinds ofpeople and the number of cities. Although not every person is the same, theshare mutual characteristics or personality traits that enable them to beclassified as the same type of person and undermine the fact that there couldbe fewer people than there are kinds of cities.