Socrates Definition Of Justice Analysis

In the very beginning of the Republic after Socrates poses the question, what is justice? Cephalus is the first one to answer. His definition of justice is that that a man must pay back all of his debts and legal obligations and live as honest of a life as possible. Socrates did not like this definition because if you barrow the sword of a mad man and then later that man comes to you saying that he is going to kill someone and requests you to give him his weapon back by that definition of justice you would have to return the sword. But that is crazy and wrong to return the sword to the man when you know he is going to hurt someone with it.

Then Polemarchus comes in saying that Justice is honoring and being loyal to your friends and bringing

Then behind them is a fire and another set of people with statues. The people that are chained up are only ever able to look at the statues. Because they are only ever able to look at the statues this is all they ever know, and they thing this is the most real thing. Then when they are released from the chains they are able to see the statues behind them and they realize that the statues are what make the shadows and they now think that the statues are the most real thing. Then when they go outside of the cave they see all of the plants and animals and they realize that these are even more real than the statues and that the statues were made in the image of the animals. Then the people look up at the sun and realize that the sun is the source that helps create everything on the earth. This story was told by Socrates to help describe how education is supposed to function. In the beginning of the story when the people are only able to see the statues and they think they are the only real thing they are at the imagination stage. When they are released and see that the statues create the shadows they are at the belief stage. When they see the animals outside the stage and realize these are the real forms of the statues they have reached the cognitive stage. Finally when the prisoner sees that the sun is the source for all of the life on the earth he has reached the understanding stage. This whole story just represented that when we are young we are nieve and we don’t know anything, but slowly throughout life we work our way out of the cave and become closer to the ultimate goal of