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Socrates As Depicted In Plato's The Republic

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In The Republic, Socrates has some interesting views on the idea of what it means to be just and what a perfect and just society would look like. To me, some of his ideas made sense, while others seemed ridiculous. Despite some of Socrates’s faulty ideas, the way he uses reasoning and examples to justify his thoughts is noteworthy. Socrates seems to place wisdom, justice, and goodness above all other virtues, and he repeatedly comes back to these themes when he describes the perfect state and people who should live in it. First of all, I appreciated the way Plato wrote down Socrates’s words and thoughts. The Socratic dialogue helped me understand Socrates’s thoughts. When people, like Glaucon and Adeimantus, stopped and questioned Socrates and had him explain himself, his responses usually helped me understand him better. When Socrates was pressed to explain himself he would sometimes explain himself using hypothetical examples or stories. His analogy of the cave in book VII, for example, helped me understand what …show more content…

I was really happy with how book V started out with the conclusion that women could do some of the same things as men and should be able to be educated like men. He even said that women could be leaders and guardians like men, but then he later said that they would always be weaker. It took a dramatic turn for me when he started describing what marriage and everything regarding children would be like. I do not think it would be in anyone’s best interest to not known who your child was and for everyone to share children. Furthermore, I don’t think it is wise to take children to war, no matter how safe you think it is. Socrates pictures the perfect state to be able to share everything, so that they will unified. I personally don’t think that anyone would be able to share everything on that level, just for the sake of a unified

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