He was born in the decline of the Athenian city-state. There was a plague at that time. After Pericles died of illness, there was no leader, and the Peloponnesian War broke out, which was full of dangers. He comes from a noble family and cares about politics. He felt sad that the (best) aristocratic politics in Athens had degenerated into the (worst) oligarchy. The ideal country (royal politics or aristocratic politics) firmly believes that philosophers and politicians can govern this city-state.
Writing form:
The speculative logic and one's own thoughts are embodied in the way of dialogue, and Socrates is the main interlocutor of this paper.
Content of the article:
If Aristotle's knowledge is interdisciplinary, then Plato's knowledge is comprehensive. The discussion of justice runs through the book, and the book has been talking about justice in some way and from various angles. From the first volume, what is justice? It involves education, marriage, political system, music and so on. Finally, it constructs a complete utopia model and answers various questions about the definition of justice. Is it justice or injustice?
The main characters in the book:
Ariston's son-Ge Laokong and Ge Laokong's younger brother, Adesimatos.
Sophistic philosopher Salas Máthōs (also translated by Sluss Kyle)
Reading common sense:
Ancient Greece called knowledge, representing all truth;
Ancient Greek music includes music, literature and other meanings, which is equivalent to the present "culture".
The city-state, the country and the world are consistent. If China people often use the world, it actually refers to the country;
Virtue is basically used in a broad sense, that is, various advantages;
The usual way of thinking is teleology, which holds that everything has a purpose and every skill has its own interests;
Homer's epics (Odyssey and Heriat) and various tragedies are often quoted.
The Republic is one of the important dialogues of Plato (427-347 BC), a famous ancient Greek philosopher. It is generally believed to belong to Plato's mid-term dialogue. This book is divided into ten volumes. Among Plato's works, it is not only the longest, but also very rich in content, involving all aspects of his philosophy, especially his political philosophy and epistemology.
At the beginning of this book, a very important question is raised: "What is justice?" Justice is "Give something back to others?" Is justice "good for good, good for bad?" . Socrates asked others about the definition of justice. And the viewpoint that justice is the interest of the strong put forward by Trasumaku is refuted and discussed in detail. He thinks that rulers sometimes make mistakes. Rulers can rule themselves and others only if they have the knowledge to prevent themselves from making mistakes. An honest man not only cares about himself. Rule is for the benefit of the ruled, not for the benefit of the ruler.
In order to prove that a just life is a valuable life, Socrates began to discuss the justice of the polis in the second volume, arguing that the justice of the polis is consistent with the justice of the individual. In his view, every city-state has managers, guardians and laborers. These three classes all have their own responsibilities and virtues. When the people of these three classes perform their duties and coordinate with each other, this city-state is a city-state with "justice" as its virtue. Like the polis, everyone's soul has three factors: reason, will and emotion, and correspondingly, there are three virtues: wisdom, courage and temperance. When these three factors are harmoniously unified under the control of reason, they become a just person.
Plato believes that a just city-state or an ideal country must meet three conditions. First of all, rulers should be chosen from talented people, regardless of gender. Second, the ruling class should live a commune life. Third, the king should be a philosopher, or a philosopher should be a king, because only philosophers have the knowledge to govern the country.
In the sixth and seventh volumes, Plato put forward his metaphysical and epistemological theory of idealism, and explained his thoughts with three famous metaphors. He believes that everything has its own characteristics, such as "beauty" for beautiful things and "red" for red things. These similarities are the "* * * phase" or "concept" of things, and the concept is perfect, which is the essence and foundation of perceptual things. Good things are beautiful because of good ideas, and good things are beautiful because of good ideas. Ideas exist independently in the perceptual world. The conceptual world and the perceptual world are separated.
Plato emphasized the difference between feeling and reason and their different functions in the process of cognition. Feeling can only know the external world and its shadow, and only reason can grasp the essence of things and understand thoughts. His understanding of people is divided into: the understanding of the shadow of foreign objects is "speculation"; The understanding of external things is "faith". In the rational stage, people know lower concepts, such as "circle" and "triangle". The rational stage is the highest stage of human spiritual activities, and only at this stage can we grasp the highest idea and gain an understanding of truth. Guess and belief are not knowledge, but opinions. Knowledge is the understanding of ideas. In the famous "cave" metaphor, Plato tells how a person experienced the process of guessing the world, believing the world and thinking about the formal world. Having gained knowledge about ideas, the man felt it his duty to teach those who were still in the cave. Plato thus pointed out that in a just country, philosophers should become kings and govern the country responsibly.
Utopia is the name of a Latin document written by Thomas Moore. Full name is the most complete national system and a useful and interesting encyclopedia of Utopia New Island. Probably published in 15 16. The original word of Utopia comes from two Greek roots: ou means nothing, the other eu means good, and topos means place, which together means "no place" or "good place". It is an ideal country, not a real country, but a fictional country, perfect and harmonious, without disputes.
The Republic involves all aspects of Plato's ideological system, including philosophy, ethics, education, literature and art, politics and so on. , and mainly discusses the ideal country.
Today's utopia often has a broader meaning. Generally used to describe any imaginary ideal society. Sometimes it is also used to describe the attempt to turn some theories into reality in today's society. Utopia is often used to express some good but impossible (or almost impossible) suggestions.
Moore's own utopia is a completely rational republic, all property belongs to * * *, and mercenaries from neighboring belligerents are hired in wartime, instead of using their own citizens. Moore himself is a man of firm belief. He once wanted to be a priest, and his novels may have been influenced by the Jesuits.
Utopia in a broad sense can be ideal or realistic, but generally speaking, the word emphasizes what is optimistic, ideal and impossible to be perfect.