Plato's Philosophy

Take, for example, the question of freedom of vocation. What is a person to do with his or her living? How is he to brand a living? What work shall he do? Plato has Socrates say, "In the first place, no two of us are immanent exactly a worry. We have different natural aptitudes, which fit us for different jobs" (118).

From this beginning, Plato goes on to argue that, based on this "natural" set of aptitudes (and who is going to argue with what is only "natural"?), distributively person "naturally" follows superstar vocation or opposite. He is, in effect, because of genius and because of the discernment which allows him and others to discern his aptitude and vocation, " born(p)" to do a certain sort of work. Plato goes on to find the three classes of the republic which, socioeconomically, correspond to the three parts of the someone. The workmen or craftsmen correspond to the passions of the individualist; the guardians correspond to the spirit of the individual, and the philosopher-kings correspond to the reason which rules the ordered individual.

Clearly, if an individuals role in life and lodge, his work, his aptitudes, his relations with other individuals and other classes --- if all of these things are determined by nature and delineated by the rulers of the state, then that individual can scantily be said to be free or lucifer to others. The individual who, it is determined by the state's authorities, is born to be a craftsman can hardly stand up one day and say, No, thank you, I

In other words, the freedom and equality of the individual is not interpreted forcibly from the individual --- at least not in The Republic --- but rather is reasoned away from him.

The individual is asked, in effect, Wouldn't you rather have a smoothly-running, efficient, balanced, harmony-laden society than be able to willy-nilly decide what you're going to do with your life? Wouldn't you have a clear understanding of where you fit into society in terms of job, power, responsibility, freedom, instead of every day universe uncertain of where you stood and having to find out for yourself?

Is in that location any mistrust that the freedom and equality of the individual is crushed by Plato in order to ensure a smoothly-running socioeconomic system? If there is such doubt, the reader has not carefully noted what he is reading: "We forbade [emphasis added] our shoemaker to try his hand at estate or weaving or building and told him to stick to his last, in order that our shoemaking should be well done" (124).

'd like to be a guardian or a philosopher-king. such(prenominal) an individual would correspond to a passion in an individual when that passion suddenly tried to usurp the ruling line of reason in that individual.

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