The Justice of the City and the Soul
What is justice? Justice, though a simple word, cannot be defined by just looking through the dictionary. Instead, justice should be searched further in depth. Socrates demonstrates this idea of learning from a bigger scale to a smaller scale by first discovering the justice of the city and later the justice of the soul. By finding the parts of the city and the soul, their relations from the city to the soul will later help us find the meaning of justice. Therefore, by discovering the justice of the city and its virtues, we can use these ideas of the city to extract the aspects and justice of the soul. Socrates begins to find the definition of justice by first making a just city. Eventually, after through many errors with finding the just city, Socrates and his companions finally come up with the City of Adeimantus. The City of Adeimantus contains three classes: the rulers, the auxiliaries, and the workers. With the City of Adeimantus completed, Socrates can now look into the city and identify the virtues that lie within the city. Within the city, Socrates comes up with four virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. These four virtues are then represented by the classes of the city. For example the first virtue, wisdom, is found in the guardians who rule the city with their good judgments. Secondly, courage is found within the auxiliaries who fight for the city and preserve everything that is feared within the city. Moderation and justice, however, involve the entire city as a whole. Moderation is the agreement within the city of who should rule and who should not rule, and justice represents the principle of specialization. This principle of specialization to the city becomes very important because it allows each citizen to maintain one job that they are best suited for, and therefore helps Socrates find the meaning of justice.
Luong 3
Since Socrates has discovered all the parts of the just city, he can now...