Word count : 1175 1. Explain the three parts of the soul in your own words as well as referring to the Republic, Book IV. In case of being corrupted by bad upbringing (441a), what is Plato’s suggestion/ solution? Explain. Do you think his solution is reasonable? Expand. In book IV Adeimantus wonders that except guardians who have the most power everyone seems happy in the city. According to Socrates in the city there is not such a duty to make rulers or guardians happy in fact their job is to provide justice and make citizen happy and do any necessary thing in order to live in honour and justice.
He defines justice and talks about relativeness of wealth or poverty : “ Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent”. (422A) One of the main arguments of Socrates was Souls of individuals and he tries to connect justice with the terms souls. Adeimantus ask Socrates to point out that being a ruler or guardian sounds unpleasant. Because the ruler has no private wealth, he can never go to a vacation, he can not keep a secret, or do the things that people think make them happy.
Socrates answers Adeimantus by reminding that their goal in building this city is not to make any one group happy, but to make entire city happy in most possible way. Then Socrates move on by talking the wealth of the rulers and the importance of money. Socrates told to greedy Adeimantus that there will be no wealth or poverty at all in the city since there will be no money. If there won’t be the term “ money” then the term “ poverty” or “ wealth” will be disappear accordingly.
However Adeimantus objects that city without money can not protect it self against the enemies, but Socrates wants Adeimantus to think like in the case of “ no money” we will have the best warriors in the world so therefore the problem of defending the city will be removed easily. Socrates go on with identifying the city by highlighting that this city is mainly created to the best city in the world therefore without a doubt it has includes its virtues like wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. Socrates point out that this virtues can be differ from city to city therefore it should be identifiable with our city.
According to Socrates we first find wisdom. Wisdom occurs with guardians because of the duty of ruling of the guardians. Let say if the system would be democracy not ruling system like this then this virtue would be in different meanings. Courage happened by the auxiliaries, warriors because in the system they are responsible to protect the city. However moderation and justice is not depending on one person or a group of people opposite of wisdom and courage, it spreads to all over the city. Moderation is about like a contract that citizens sign to decide who should run the city and justice is it’s supplementary in entire city.
Socrates defines justice as different roles in society which every citizen includes. Also in terms justice role of citizens should be best to fir their nature and best to service to society. So it is the societal parts of the justice that Socrates identifies with now it is important to point out individual justice. Socrates defines individual justice as in the city involves the correct power relationship among parts and in every specialized roles. This is important to remember that the term parts here is not classes of society instead they are parts of the souls or desires of the souls.
Socrates metaphorically says that city and soul is the same thing and argues the term tripartite of souls. Socrates divides this term into two legs the first leg attempts to establish the presence of three distinct sets of desire in every individual the second leg argues that these three sets of desire correspond to three distinct sources of desire, three distinct parts of the soul. Also it important to point out that Socrates identify this tripartite of soul with justice and political justice indeed. According to Socrates every human being has a tripartite of the soul.
In order to understand that why the word soul is used by Socrates it is necessary to look the term desire. According to Socrates one of the most important things that identify with human being is their desire. Socrates argues that desire that can change people minds quickly and very abnormally. The three-part division of the soul is crucial to Plato’s overall project of offering the same sort of explication of justice whether applied to societies or individuals. Plato begins his argument for the tripartite soul by setting up a criterion for individuation.
The same thing cannot be affected in two opposite ways at the same time (436c). As pairs of opposites, he includes “ assent and dissent, wanting to have something and rejecting it, taking something and pushing it away” (437b). Plato argues for the truth of this claim by bringing analogies from the behavior of bodies??? a method which may seem illegitimate, given that he wants to use the principle to apply to aspects of the soul (in particular, opposing desires), not to physical objects. Plato first tries to establish the existence of a purely appetitive part of the soul using this method.
Thirst is a desire. There is a subject of this desire. Thirst is a desire for unqualified drink??? that is, no particular kind of drink, just drink (437e). Now comes a logical digression, the aim of which is to preclude the combination of appetitive and rational forces in the same subject. The outcome of the logical digression is that if the truth about a is relative to the truth about b, then if b is qualified in a certain way, a must be analogously qualified (438a-e). Therefore, the agent of thirst desires drink unqualified (439b).
Because the agent desires unqualified drink rather than good drink, healthful drink, etc. , it cannot be argued that this subject is a combination of appetitive and rational forces. The subject corresponding to thirst is characterized by pure animal urge, with no rational discrimination. If, on the other hand, the desire for drink were theoretically inextricable from the desire for good or healthy drink, there would be no pure appetite, and correspondingly no purely appetitive subject. In conclusion we examine the very important ideas of Socrates in book IV in Republic by Plato.
First we try to understand the ideology of the justice. According to Socrates there are two parts of the justice one is related with society and the other one is related with individual part. We examine the important cases like wisdom, courage, moderation and justice. After analyzing these terms we move on the term souls of the individual which is related with social, individual and political justice. And also it is important to point out that parts of the souls is not related with society but related with soul. Bibliography Republic by Plato
