Sunday, 19 October 2014

The Republic - Plato

How is it possible to see something if you've been prevented from it your entire life? Information that is screened is information that we believe to be real, a whole truth. By removing the screen, you would object to this information as though it were false, thus believing what you used to see was truer. This is part of a painful, lengthy process in which your views and beliefs would adjust to be hit by a realisation of the force that is responsible for what we see. This is the idyllic life as it is much truer, however if you were to try and enlighten everyone else who's still being fed with screened information they will not believe you.  Views and beliefs may be unsighted in two ways however, a transition from the screening of information to a truer life without any screening and visa versa.

The capacity for knowledge is natural within everyones mind and everyone has the potential to experience a truer life. However you could never know if someone was experiencing a truer life as it is surely dependent upon their point of view; how could you know their sights were correct and not turned in another direction/the wrong way? The effects of belief can be useful and salutary or again useless and harmful according to the direction in which the person takes view.

Furthermore, people who have seen this truer life should be descended back in to the community as leaders, fully educated and better qualified to combine the practice of philosophy and politics. However they should live with their fellows until they are used to seeing what they see, the only difference being that they will distinguish every element of a view in comparison to the uneducated person seeing it as a whole. The ideal leaders should be people who do not love power,  these are people who are rich with true happiness of a good and rational life, otherwise there will always be rivals and quarrels.

Lee, D (1987). Plato - The Republic . 3rd ed. London: Penguin. 

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