(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Socrates


             Socrates tends to try and simplify his complex ideas so that the average person can understand. He uses many smaller scale examples to explain how society works, then he relates the too to prove they are alike. In the discussion of the perfect city they come across many areas that need rules and regulations to distinguish it from typical, unjust cities. They realize that the best way to make the city just is to have every member of the society contribute to the whole of the city in a way they are best suited. In the discussion of this specialization it is determined that to further the specialization those best suited should create an army. Several concerns arise with the creation of an army. One concern is that they take up resources that could be used for other things or which require the city to grow to accommodate the increased needs of the city. Another concern comes from choosing a method of training the soldiers. Socrates suggests that they be trained in a similar way to how you would train a dog. He chooses a dog's training because like a soldier, dogs are trained to be aggressive and loyal. When training a dog you show them the right thing then if they do wrong you show them the right thing again. To transfer this over to humans you must have an agreement as to what the "right". Once that has been determined you must use an extreme amount of censorship in your society to keep the soldiers from seeing things that would take away from making good soldiers. With dogs, you are much more likely to have them only pick up habits you want them to have if you start training early. As dogs, or humans, get older they develop bad habits which get harder and harder to break. .
             Socrates then goes in to a discussion of how human training and dog training is similar. The others agree upon this idea, so he continues. He then proceeds to say that if the two trainings are similar than you could train a soldier much like how you train a dog.


Essays Related to Socrates


Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question