Plato-The-Republic

1、A Brief Analysis of HappinessFrom The RepublicThe Republic is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC concerning the definition of justice and the virtue and character of the just city and the just man.The dramatic date of the dialogue has been much debated and through it must take place

2、some time during the Peloponnesian War.It is Platos best-known work and has proven to be one of the most intellectually and historically influential works of philosophy and political theory.In the book,Socrates discuss the meaning of justice and examine whether or not the just man is happier than th

3、e unjust man by concerning a series of different cities with various Athenians and foreigners.The participants also discuss the theory of forms,the immortality of the soul,the roles of the philosopher and of poetry in society.The topic of happiness as the eternal subject of human being is also the i

4、nevitable problem of ethnics.As justice is one of the most important elements to human life,happiness is as important as the most fundamental element to maintain normal operation and steady development of human society.Plato is the first ideologist who firstly demonstrated the justice and happiness

5、systematically in western society.“The Republic”includes Platos systematic account of Justice and pursuit of happiness.Both early Platonic ethical and political philosophy take root in the account of justice.It is a main criterion for Plato to evaluate the values in the physical world. “The Republic

6、”,as called “Politeia”, has a subhead of“Theory of Justice”; “Politeia” demonstrates the justice wholly; the Platos deep thinking on city-state Athens as a great philosopher and his responsibility for concerning the country as the thinker are embodies from criticism on several popular justice ideas

7、to the definition of happiness,the virtue,from national to individual,and from the way to seek happiness to realize the happiness.Plato was born in an eventful time when the flourishing period was taken up by the continuous wars in Athens.Born in a noble family,Plato was influenced by poli

8、tics at an early age.After experiencing the brutal Peloponnesian War and the death of Socrates,he began to deeply think city-state Athens.“The Republic”is the solution put forward by Plato when he had an Athenian political problem.In Plato's The Republic, justice is depicted as a major part in a

9、 perfect society. Justice is said to breed a good society, whereas injustice will breed a bad one. Plato defines justice in dialogue as “keeping what is properly one's own and doing one's own job.”Under the rules set for this perfect society, people are to practice the one profession at whic

10、h they perform best. This profession also corresponds to a certain social class. Under no circumstances can one change this profession. Along with a set occupation, Plato has also determined that the perfect community would regulate what children (and the community) are taught, and to what the child

11、ren will be exposed.In Plato's perfect society, regulating the stories, songs, poems, and actions told to children is meant to enforce the standard of how people should act, think, and believe. Plato states that his “first business is to supervise the production of stories, and choose only those

12、 we think suitable, and reject the rest.”In these,Plato has described a ideal society.In the society,People are engaged on the pursuit of justice.And all those are in order to realize happiness.In many dialogues Plato grapples with the question of how we are to live a good life.He begins from an ass

13、umption which he shares with the rest of his society,namely that we all seek eudaimonia,which means happiness.What we think of as ethics emerges as the concern not just to live ones life,but to do it well,to make a good life.It is sharply distinguished from modern notions of happiness,which identify

14、 it from modern notions of happiness,which identify it with feeling good;happiness in all ancient thinkers is the achievement of someone who lives an admirable,enviable life.Plato never doubts that this is where ethical concern starts.He gives,however,a radically different answer than most people,an

15、d most other philosophers,to the question of what it is to live an admirable,enviable life and so to achieve happiness.Socrates belief in the reality of moral properties leads to an important consequence concerning happiness.According to classical views of happiness,ones own happiness is something t

16、hat one can be mistaken about. In other words, you may think you are happy and yet not actually be happy. This thought sounds strange to modern ears. According to most contemporary views of happiness, if you think youre happy, then youre happy. In fact, it may seem as if thinking and feeling that yo

17、u are happy is just about all there is to being happy. According to modern views of happiness, then, theres nothing more to being happy than thinking and feeling happy and, since you know how you feel, you cant be mistaken about whether you are happy.However, for the classical view of happiness, it

18、makes sense to ask, “I know you feel happy and think you are happy, but how do you know that you really are happy?” Many modern conceptions of happiness imply that having ample amounts of pleasure can make you happy, even if you are completely lacking in moral virtue.Many people,in the modern as muc

19、h as in the ancient world,find it natural to say that a happy life is one in which you are successful;the happy person will be,typically,the rich,secure person who has achieved something in life.It sounds odd,indeed perverse,to say that someone could be happy,could be living a life you admire and tr

20、y to emulate,if he or she turned out to be rejected and unsuccessful.But Plato was influenced by the example of Socrates,who gave up worldly success for philosophy,and who ended up condemned as a criminal and executed.But in Platos opinion,Socrates has lived a admirable life.And so,most people must

21、be wrong about how to achieve a happy life.Where do most people go wrong?They think that their life will go well and that they will be happy if they have the things that most people think are good-health,wealth,good looks and so on.But are these things good?Do they do you any good-do they benefit yo

22、u?Plato thinks that you are here like a craftsperson with tools and material-they do not do you any good until you put them to use.Do something with them.Moreover,you have to do the right things with them,put them to use which is expert and intelligent,or they will not benefit you,indeed may do you

23、harm.For example,someone who wins the lottery may well not be made any happier by just having the money.Unless she puts it to intelligent use,the money may do nothing for her,or even ruin her life.Happiness cannot just be the stuff you have;you have to put it to good use,deal with it in the way that

24、 a craftsperson deals with his materials,before it will benefit you and so make your life better.Hence we find that the virtues,which enables us to deal well with the material advantages of our life,are called“divine goods”,which has been mentioned in the Laws.In contrast to the “human goods”constit

25、uted by those material advantages.Without the divine goods,we will lose the benefit of the human ones.So the value for us of health,wealth and the like depends on our possession of virtues like courage and justice.And the virtues depend in turn for their value in a human life on the practical reason

26、ing which forms them and guides their application.Hence virtues which make something out of the stuff of our lives are identified with wisdom,the practical intelligence which guided virtuous living.Socrates claims that all that is relevant to the issue of whether someone is happy or not is whether t

27、hey are virtuous.If we know a course of action is wrong,then we should not do it and no amount of anything we could gain or lose by doing the action makes any impact on this point.Even if your life is at risk,you should not try to save it by compromising your values.We can get it from the Crito.Socr

28、ates examines why he should or should not try to escape from prison before execution as following: Socrates:We should now examine this-whether it is just for me to try to escape,or not.If it turns out to be just,let us try,and if not,;lets drop it.But these considerations you mention,about spending

29、money,and reputation,and bringing up my children,I suspect,Cristo,that these are in truth considerations that appeal tomost people.But for us,since the argument demands it,there is nothing else to examine expect what we just said,namely,whether we shall be acting justly or whether we shall in truth

30、be acting unjustly if we do all this.And if this will clearly be an unjust action for us to do,then there is no need at all for us to take into account whether I will have to die if I stay and do nothing,or have to suffer anything else whatever rather than do wrong.Why is Socrates so sure that the c

31、laims of virtue cannot be compromised-cannot indeed be weighed up against considerations like those of money,security and so on?We have seen that virtue is not just one good thing for me to have,something that might be measured against other good things,such as wealth or security.Rather,virtue is a

32、“divine”good.It is either the only unconditional good,or the only thing which is good at all.And it holds this position because it is virtue which enables us to put other conventionally good things to good use.Hence,it is what makes the difference between having things like health and wealth benefit

33、 us or do us no good,or even ruin our lives.Hence virtue is often thought of as a kind of skill or expertise-a kind of practical knowledge which is applied in making materials into a unified and finished product.The idea here is a powerful one.By the time I start thinking about how to live my life w

34、ell,I already have a life.I have a set of commitments and relationships,such as my family and my job and a set of goals,my ambitions and dreams.I also,typically,want to be a good person,to be courageous rather than cowardly, fair rather than unjust and the like.Plato tells us, uncompromisingly, that

35、 virtue has a special role and a special kind of values.To be virtuous is not just to have some goods like wealth,health and so on.It also includes virtue.Rather,virtue is the controlling and defining element in your life.Everything else is just material for it to work on and it produces a result wh

36、ich is either a well-organized whole or,if it fails,a mess.If we look at things this way, we can appreciate why Plato sees the role of virtue as so crucial in a life.Although sometimes we find Plato putting forward the idea that it is not enough to transform your life by getting virtue to direct you

37、r priorities,he for the most part thinks of virtue as a practical kind of knowledge,exercised in and on the agents life.As we have seen,Plato thinks that becoming virtuous is crucial for someone hoping to achieve what everyone hopes to achieve,namely happiness.How is a person to become virtuous?Aris

38、totle,Platos pupil,thinks that we start by taking as role models the virtuous people in our community,proceed to emulate and to criticize the content of their deliberations.If we develop well,we achieve virtue that is richer,more reflective and unified than what we start with.But we will not go far

39、wrong in beginning from our communitys standards.Plato wholly disagrees.Some of his most vivid passages present the person who aspires to virtue as being quite at odds with their community,finding little sympathy or support for their own ideas.The more talented and sensitive a person is,the more the

40、y will be moulded by the various kinds of pressure that society brings to bear.Plato recognizes that these pressures are not all of an overtly moral or political kind.What we call a societys culture affects people in lots of ways.In particular,Plato is the first to emphasize the importance of what w

41、e call the arts in forming the values of the members of a society.The role played in our society by films,television and books was played in Platos Athens by the performance of dramas in the theatre,festivals.Platos distrust of effects of popular culture in stifling individual thought comes out vivi

42、dly in this passage from the Republic. Socrates:The nature of the person who loves wisdom,as we laid it down,will necessarily arrive as it grows at every virtue,if,that is,it gets appropriate teaching.But if it is sown,and nurtured as it grows,in one that is inappropriate,then,unless some god happen

43、s to rescue it,it must turn out quite the opposite.Or do you too think what most people do,namely that some young people are corrupted by sophists,and that its some sophists,private people,who do the corrupting to any great extent?Dont you think that its the very people who say this who are the grea

44、test sophists of all,and who do the most complete educating,producing people to be the way they want them,young and old,men and women? When?He said. When many of them are sitting together in an assembly,the law-courts,the theatre,the camp or some other general meeting of a lot of people;they make a

45、huge uproar as they criticize some things said or done and praise others-excessively in both cases-by yelling and banging,and as well as them,the rocks and the surrounding place echo the uproar of praise and blame and return it doubled.When things are like this,what heart will a young man have,as th

46、e saying goes?What kind of individual education of his will hold out and not be swept away by criticism and praise of this sort,being carried off by the flood wherever it goes,so that he agrees with them about fine and base things,practices what they do,and becomes just like them.Plato takes these v

47、ery seriously,refusing to regard them as mere harmless entertainment.This theory still has significance nowadays.For example,students use the electric product as a toy rather than a tool.They are little thinking by themselves.It does harm to their creation.They will easily be seduced by the world an

48、d have no their own idea.Virtue is both necessary and sufficient for happiness.Virtue is necessary for happiness in the sense that you cant truly be happy without being virtuous. Of course, you can feel happy and may have a life filled with fun and good times, but you wont have lived the most excell

49、ent kind of life a person can live if you are a moral reprobate. According to Socrates, virtue is sufficient for happiness because he thought that if you have virtue, you dont need anything else to be happy. You may not be the wealthiest, prettiest, most successful person in the world, but if you ar

50、e honest, wise, fair, courageous and self-controlled, your life and character will merit praise and respect.If you cultivate the “four cardinal virtues”(courage, wisdom, justice and self-control) throughout your entire lifethough you achieve nothing elseyou will have lived a truly excellent life. Wi

51、sdom is a centrally important component of happiness for several reasons.To begin with, Socrates famously maintained that “the unexamined life is not worth living”.If we unreflectively go through life, not thinking about what kind of life we are living and what kind of goals we should be pursuing, t

52、he gift of rationalitythe capacity for critical thinkinghas been wasted on us.Moreover, we cannot develop virtue without wisdom.Since virtue is both necessary and sufficient for happiness and since happiness is obviously important to all of us, we need wisdom to know whether what we are pursuing in

53、our lives will really bring us happiness.Once we understand that only virtue can bring us happiness, we will want to make sure that we dont miss it. Therefore, Socrates believed that we should “discuss virtue every day”, regardless of our chosen profession.Furthermore, one cannot become an excellent

54、 human being blindly,foolishly or by accident.It takes a concerted effort on our part.Failing to become virtuous, however, can come about without lifting a finger.Since virtue does not fall into ones lap but must be pursued, we must have the wisdom to know that we are pursuing the right thing and are headed in the right direction.Without wisdom, this would not be possible.Thus, philosophical i