Ephemeral Equality

If Plato’s city of words is an attempt at representing or defining justice, then what does the city’s inevitable degeneration suggest? Are we to assume that this city’s inevitable degeneration, and the categorical explanation of how the city could degenerate, are simply aspects of the city of words that further our attempted understanding of justice, or could Plato maybe be insinuating that justice itself is only temporarily attainable, and inevitably unstable, instead of a fixated and definable concept.

Fear v.s Faith

Socrates is made out to be “young and beautiful”, the epitome of wisdom, and in a way, the protagonist of many dialogues. Therefore it makes sense to value, within the text, what Socrates sets forth as valuable (such as the dialectic “Socratic” method of teaching). Plato’s Socrates’ actions are not driven by any form of selfish hope, or fear for himself. The dialogues are fictitious to an extent; though they may resemble true conversations and depict historical figures, they are Plato’s perceptions of the sunasia he valued, depicted the way wanted them to be perceived. Considering this level of fiction, we can also consider that the metaphor of Socrates’ oracle, despite being a fictitious tale, has predominant meaning to the text regardless of how aware we are of its fiction. From this fictitious tale it is stressed that Socrates does not seek out wisdom to solely benefit himself, but rather simply to find a wiser man than himself, or arguably to influence the youth to think critically, for benefit of themselves and the state. Does it not then make sense to question the idea that doing good out of hope for oneself and one’s character is much more noble or different than acting out of selfish fear, considering both are absent in the dialogues’ embodiment of philosophical value, Socrates?