Plato was a classical Greek philosopher just like his teacher Socrates and also a great mathematician. He is known for the writing and the publishing of Socrates dialogues and his life journey as well. He is also credited with the founding of the first institution of higher learning, the Academy which was situated in Athens. He had great contributions in the forming of the foundations of science and western philosophy, especially concerning politics.
Plato’s political views come from a one specific idea of justice. When putting up his political conceptions, his fundamental guidance was revolving round justice walls. The issue of justice as it is availed in relation to the society as well as the individuals who came up with it, has sparked up several discussions. The justice issue was a topic of discussion which created immense points of view during Plato’s time. Due to this fact, Plato’s political opinions were building discussions of others. For instance he is known for the writing and the publishing of Socrates dialogues. The spread of Socrates literature finally led to the dumping of Democracy and the adoption of junta which was also known as Thirty Tyrants (Taylor 12). This movement was led by Critias who was the relative of Plato and a friend of Socrates as well. The tyrants ruled the city of Athens for about a year before the democracy rule was restored and amnesty was declared against all recent events. It is written by Plato that Socrates viewed the Tyrants rule also to be objective just as the Athenian democracy. To him, one cannot look into the affairs of other people and tell them how to go about with their own lives while yet he or she does not understand his own life.
The issues on justice came up out because of the nature of justice. It is an easy task to get one explaining justice as the delivering to every individual what they deserve, but the issue arises when the community finds it difficult to; determine what exactly each and every individual deserves, is the person to receive justice going to have it more or less than desired. Different people come up with political views to make up notions for such ideas. Such political notions are to be linked with Plato.
Plato uses different political notions to assert the interest of a genuine as well as absolute justice. He relies on the notions to make his attempts of coming up with a base for his opposition for the ideas that Plato did not support. Plato views justice as the basis of government as opposed to justice as the base of a character. At the onset of defining justice, it is the individual to whom the justice is directed as opposed to the whole society. On one thinking, it is an individual’s republic of lesser interest than the type of symbol of the human soul. Such an individual creates his ideology for the reason of comparison to the reset of the society (Plato and Church, 112). The justice that was a hard nut to crack on the individual’s eyes is easier to crack on the eyes of a city. The individual hopes to make better views on the eyes of the society. This is so because in the end, an individual and a city are colleagues and hence what an individual views to be justice for him, is also justice for the community.
The question that arises from the argument is as to what justice is, which is considered as the pillar for character and who the person who commits just deeds is. Plato’s definition hits the modern society as being strange and does not give attention to the rewards that come with (May 87). On the same note, the definition seems to possess one advantage over the others in that it is the only definition that provides a working formula for limitation and adjustment of human activities. This is so since the definition indicates the circumstances under which justice can work on its own.
Justice for an individual is hence made up of the balance between the positions by virtue and the wellbeing of the whole society. In more clear words, justice is determined by its requirements as opposed to the privileges that come with it.
Works Cited
Gottlieb, Anthony. Socrates. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
May, Hope. On Socrates. Australia: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000. Print.
Plato, and F J. Church. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Being the Euthyphron, Apology, Crito and Phaedo of Plato. London: Macmillan, 2000. Print.
Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. The Works of Plato. New York: Tudor Pub. Co, n.d.. Print.
Plato, Percy B. Shelley, Floyer Sydenham, Henry Cary, and J. Wright. Five Dialogues of Plato Bearing on Poetic Inspiration. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1910. Print.
Rudebusch, George. Socrates. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
Satie, Erik. Socrate. S.l: s.n., 2005. Print.
Schofield, Malcolm. Plato: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.
