The Virtue Of Power In The Republic By Plato

In The Republic by Plato, the antagonist Socrates who was Plato’s teacher, states that philosophers are best fit to rule due to their knowledge and understanding of the world. This statement feels like it’s just a bias opinion since Plato is a philosopher among other of his interests, but throughout this work of his he proves why the philosopher deserves power in the ideal state. Although the philosopher king seems like a fine idea in theory, it is unrealistic and contains very few sound ideas in relation to the way the modern state is run. One reason that Plato believes philosophers deserve to be rulers is due to the knowledge and understanding they have of the world. In Book II, Plato states that citizens of his ideal state should specialize …show more content…
It seems that based on this that philosophers possess all that it would require to be rulers, but these virtues and knowledge don’t necessarily entail all what is needed to be a suitable leader. To go along with this Plato states that one is required to have a specific education to be able to become a philosopher which would lead to becoming a ruler. If this were to be the case then, especially during his time period, the people that are being represented by the ruler aren’t really getting a say on who should be the ruler since there are only a select few who have this level of education. Although this seems like an unfair structure to the citizens of the ideal society, there are still many societies that function like this up to this day. One example of this in today’s world is the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, whose members rule over the Country and in which most of the members attended top schools. All of these members may be very smart to go along with the philosophers from Plato’s time, but no matter how intelligent one is, they won’t be a good leader unless they acknowledge and are aware of the people’s interests, because that should be the main priority when in a leadership position. Another major flaw in Plato’s argument is that he is pretty much describing a dictatorship where this knowledgeable person in charge isn’t …show more content…
This notion is unrealistic in theory and wouldn’t do justice in representing the population well. It is somewhat strange that Plato is attempting to create a “just” society but basically wants to put himself in charge, which makes it seem like he is just bias in his own favor and not trying to create something that is for the people. In a democracy in today’s world, the people have the right to choose who will be in charge, these people in charge may not always follow up on what they claim they will accomplish but at least the citizens are able to decide based on what ideals each candidate has. In this “ideal” society, the citizens’ voices would not be heard, which is why this type of society would fail along with all of the similar ones that have throughout