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Justice As Depicted In Plato's The Republic

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PHIL-401A: Writing Assignment #2
In the second book of the The Republic by Plato, Socrates, ancient Greek philosopher and mentor of the author, attempts to define justice with the help of Adeimantus, and Glaucon. Socrates suggests beginning the expedition by first identifying justice within a city to then hopefully identify justice within a single individual. In order to effectively commence the search for justice within a city, however, the group must explore the birth of cities. The passage of concern is section 369b - 369d with Socrates and Adeimantus as the main interlocutors where Plato argues that cities are formed from need, more specifically basic needs.
Socrates: Well, then, a city comes to exist, I believe, because none of us is individually …show more content…

2) Single individuals fail to satisfy different basic needs. 3) Single individuals depend on different single individuals to satisfy different basic needs. 4) Single individuals form collectives with different single individuals to satisfy different basic needs. 5) Single individuals satisfy different basic needs within collectives by exchanging resources with different single individuals. 6) Single individuals that form collectives and exchange resources with different single individuals to satisfy different basic needs are called cities. The conclusion for the argument would be 7) cities are formed to fulfill the different basic needs of single individuals.
The argument that Plato presents for the development of a city is convincing. The reason being that the conclusion seems to be a likely result of the premises. With that stated, the premises must then be assessed based on truth. Using what is known about individuals it could be argued that the premises are truthful and difficult to question. The only exception being the second premise, which could be debated when considering the aptitude of individuals. In full, the argument gives the impression of being strong in structure, and cogent in terms of

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