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The Lover Of Wisdom In Plato's The Republic

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In The Republic, Plato writes about his thoughts on good, justice, and how we can achieve it. He starts off by stating that for human happiness and to live the best life philosopher-kings are needed. Not everyone can become a philosopher; certain people simply are non-philosophers also called lovers of sights and sounds. Plato makes the distinction between lovers of wisdom(philosophers) and lovers of sights and sounds clear using beauty as an example. Non-philosophers see ''fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them''(476b) but are unable to see or to understand absolute beauty. While lovers of wisdom will search for knowledge in everything and seek to find true beauty. The Greek philosopher then goes to explain the good through his three allegories. First, the Simile of the Sun consists of using the relationship between the sun and sight in the physical world to explain the intelligible world as well as the connections among good and reason. Light ''is the bond which links together sight and visibility''(508a) such as truth links the good and human reason. Second, the …show more content…

Poetry and art can be used in many ways to shape society. For Socrates, the only role they have is to form the youth and to show only good virtues. When a society is exclusively shown things the rulers want, the people at the bottom of the hierarchical triangle become in a sense brainwashed; only thought specific things so they don't act out. In that case, the society doesn’t have much liberty; it is under an authoritative ruling. On the other hand, permitting various types of poetry and spending more time teaching youth proper moral and values during their education will allow for more freedom. If the younger generation is thought to ''judge what is allegorical and what is literal''(378d) by philosophers and teachers, there wouldn’t be a need to banish

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