The Republic Part 1

Last Wednesday, I had the the first meeting with my reading club Winfried, in which we discussed the first two chapters of the Republic. One of the members is writing his PhD Disertation on Plato and introduced us the Plato's life and the structure of the Republic. I'll discribe below some major findings of our discussion.

The key question in the Republic is the question wether a just life bring hapiness. Before Plato could answer this question, he needed a definition what justice actually is. In his books he describe a just State and a just Soul. By means of the analogy between soul and state his tries to answer the main question of the Republic in book IX.

Book I Deals with three definitions of justice; the definition of justice of the old generation from Cephalus, the search for just of the young generation from Polemarchus and the definition of (in)justice of the Sophists from Thrasymachus.

Cephalus argues that just people life up to their obligations. Socrates makes this argument invalid by giving the example in which someone has to return borowed weapons to a madman.Polemarchus opinion is that just people do good to friends and harm enemies.But, is this judgement concerning friends and enemies fallible?

Sophist thinks that justice is just the advantage of the strongest.

Three interesting vision on justice. Especially because all these three definitions are still relevant and present in our society. Espcially the last interests me. The 'strongest' stands for the elite class. In a way, the elite determines in a society what is good & bad, and subsequently, coerces a moral regime which keeps them in their position of power.

An answer to our question to our question about a good life do we have not yet.This will be found in book IX.An interesting discussion question could be; in which appearance do the other three definitions come back in our society, and does it indeed not lead to a happy or good life.