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Genius Of Socrates

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“The arduous things that ought to be shunned for themselves but pursued for profit and a reputation based on appearance.” Socrates was an extremely smart man to be able to predict how the world would turn out in thousands of years. This quote from Republic defines what it really means to be a modern day American. These ideas just go to further reinforce the fact that the work of Plato and mainly republic, serve as the centrum of modern western philosophy. Such an influential piece of literature must, of course, have a genius behind it. This genius is the renowned questioner of questions, Socrates. In only the first two books of the Republic, he introduces so many new and interesting questions that I have only been alluded to in my relatively …show more content…

In book one of the Republic, there is one main question in which Socrates and his comrades, Glaucon and Thrasymachos, bring into question. What is justice? Now to everyday people, of which most of us belong, this would be a question that would not only escape our notice, but also control our lives via an unknown and unexamined question. He can think of things that no one would have ever thought about. If you sit down and think about it, would anyone besides him have chance upon those questions, or are there questions that can only be asked by certain …show more content…

In today’s society there are many of the ideals that Socrates had hoped to achieve. That justice is “it keeps him from having to live life in fear of owing debts to man.” Knowing that this could still be considered true, not all of Socratic justice has been upheld today. There is still a stronger ruler that has control over the many, and that ruler is not a philosopher king. What I question is whether or not Socrates’s view of justice would work in today’s world. He mentions almost everything, from love hate and thieves and killers, but there are so many new factors in today’s world. Some would argue that, being alive today, Socrates would “find America remarkably similar to his own Athens. Socrates would witness a vibrant and proud democracy, and disdain it as an indulgence of the benighted, unphilosophical ‘herd’” An interesting notion; if Socrates were here to see America and enjoy its (perverse) sense of

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342 Words | 2 Pages

the Republic, Socrates argues that justice ought to be valued both for its own sake and for the sake of its consequences (358a1–3). His interlocutors Glaucon and Adeimantus have reported a number of arguments to the effect that the value of justice lies purely in the rewards and reputation that are the usual consequence of being seen to be just, and have asked Socrates to say what justice is and to show that justice is always intrinsically better than is acting contrary to justice when doing so would win you more non-moral goods. Glaucon presents these arguments as renewing Thrasymachus’ Book 1 position that justice is “another’s good” (358b–c, cf. 343c), which Thrasymachus had associated with the claim that the rulers in any constitution frame

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