Essays on Plato

Plato battles that the spirit contains three fragments especially sensible, appetitive, and the vivacious. These parts also sort out the three spots of a fair framework. Solitary esteem consolidates keeping up the three zones in the correct change, where reason rules while hunger comes. As...

In Platos The Allegory of the Cave, he allows an individual to realize that which they already know. The situation in the cave seems dark and gloomy, like a place no one would ever want to go. However, the reality is that some people are...

The trio of classic Greek texts, The Last Days of Socrates, Antigone, and The Eumenides all strike a contrast between public and private morality. In each work one person carries forth an unpopular action that he alone believes in, and must later justify the result...

Plato employs a meritocratic logic in his proposal for gender equality in Book V of The Republic. In his ideal community, the kallipolis, comprised of producers, guardians, and rulers, Plato advocates a specialization of employment and status based on inherent nature and not on gender-typing....

In his Republic, Plato enlivens the character of Socrates with his own views of how a just and virtuous city would grow into existence. In describing his ideal city-state, a society ruled by an aristocratic Philosopher-king, Plato also makes note of the four other possible...

In the Praise of Folly, Erasmus creates a character critical of, yet indebted to, philosophical wisdom. Through Folly, Erasmus weaves his own ideas into her message, confusing readers unable to distinguish between the two voices. In Praise of Folly, Folly refers to Plato’s “Allegory of...

Analysis of Plato’s The Republic, City-Soul Analogy In an elaborate effort to comprehend individual justice, Socrates engages in a lengthy debate which explores intricate details, structures, and overarching principles of a just city. This analysis will explore the City-Soul analogy through three separate human lenses....

Although Mill’s On Liberty and Plato’s The Republic both advocate the abolishment of gender roles, their respective justifications and resulting ideologies differ saliently. The inception of these differences arises from the basic moral premises from which these ideologies are derived; justice is of fundamental importance,...

The nature of goodness is distinctly disparate between Plato and Aristotle. Plato argues for a higher form of goodness, while Aristotle argues back with a societal form of goodness. Aristotle’s view of goodness is far more realistic to the actual world, and it disproves Plato’s...

The concept of the virtuous city is central to both Plato’s and Alfarabi’s treatments of political science. The respective analyses of Plato and Alfarabi bear many similarities, but their final goals differ radically. Plato’s description of the republic is both an ideal towards which cities...

While many scholars are of the belief that Vergil penned the Aeneid to provide the Roman people with a propagandized epic glamorizing their own history, there is great evidence for Vergil’s intending the Aeneid to be something vastly more valuable: a parable on the powers...

Very early in Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus argues that “In any and every situation, a moral person is worse off than an immoral one”. (343d) Furthermore, that a moral person is a simpleton, while an immoral person exercises sound judgement. (348c-d) Socrates is faced with a...

Socrates was the first of three major philosophers in ancient Greece. He was born in the golden age in Athens. Socrates believed that there was a ‘universal truth’, and that every citizen should be searching for it. He was told he was the smartest person...

Plato’s Concept of the Forms stems from his dialogue ‘The Republic’, written in 380 BC. In this he discusses his use of ‘a priori’ knowledge – truth gained through logical and tangible thought. Instead of observing the world at face value, Plato was a rationalist...

What does it mean to be human? We are “decision-making creatures capable of overruling [their] own instincts.” It naturally follows that those tools which enable humans to exhibit these unique characteristics are the most essential to human existence and evolution. For thousands of years, Rhetoric...

Plato’s “Symposium” is an essential piece of philosophical literature that concerns itself with the genesis, purpose and nature of love, or eros. Love is examined in a sequence of speeches by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. A symposia, or drinking party in ancient...

Plato presents a complicated theory of human psychology spread out amongst his various works. In Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and others, Plato develops a view of human psychology centered on the nature of the soul. He presents the bulk of his argument in Republic and Phaedo,...

There exists a debate between Rousseau, Plato and the philosophers of the Encyclopedia over the experience of the passions. While Plato and the philosophers choose to philosophically debate over the reasons behind love and sexuality, Rousseau, who insists that “imagination wreaks so much havoc,” unfastens...

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren once said, “Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing norms is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness in our society.” This message combined with the government position of...

A seemingly excited lad initiates Plato’s Meno. Meno appears to have learned what virtue is and is eager to share this knowledge with the renowned Socrates. Thus, Meno tactically lays out calculated questions to Socrates: “…is virtue something that can be taught? Or does it...

Stories are an important part of society, an element that provides humanity with a way to connect, separate, cry, laugh, be happy or be sad. In fact, life is nothing but a story. Human history is a story. The universe is just a massive collection...

Though they were written centuries apart and in completely different societal conditions, Plato’s Phaedrus and several of William Shakespeare’s sonnets share distinct similarities. The more obvious, surface correlation is that they each describes a relationship (sexual or otherwise, depending on one’s reading of Shakespeare) between...

The Platonic Dialogue is written by Plato at the scene of Socrates prison cell and death bed. The government of the time and place of ancient Athens did not want to hear Socrates ideas and did not want to give him freedom of speech. (South...

From the time we are born, our minds are shaped by the environment in which we interact and are taught to view life in a certain way. We are limited by controlling forces that result from what we learn generally and from our parents, siblings,...

Plato’s Republic is searching for morality, justice and the just state while raising moral questions and examining them from different angles via educational conversations. Socrates claimed that the ideal way to teach philosophy is to have a one to one conversation, so one can raise...

The synopsis of The Matrix and the readings from Platos and Descartes all have similarities as well as differences. One thing that all three of these writings have in common is the topic. The synopsis of The Matrix and the readings from Platos and Descartes...

In both of Plato’s works Apology, and Crito, Plato portrays his mentor, Socrates, as he goes through trial, and thereafter in which he refuses to escape his punishment. In ancient Athens Socrates is on trial for corrupting the youth, which in reality is a crime...

The two texts of Plato, the Symposium, and the Republic seem to have various similarities in the definition of roles played by philosophers and philosophy. Both versions agree that a philosopher must be an individual that has a great love of knowledge. Likewise, both texts...

With the goal of creating the perfect society, the utopia of Plato’s Republic rather presents a dystopia that enforces the marginalization of the individual. Plato believes a strict regulation that constricts independence and individuality makes it possible for citizens to live simple and peaceful lives....

In the Allegory of the cave, there are four main stages of enlightenment. The four steps cover all aspects of enlightenment, from knowing absolutely nothing and perceiving reality only through your sensory organs to reaching full knowledge and having the capacity to understand “the good.”...