Socrates Argument In The Dissection Of A City

Also, Socrates will try to argue that a city is necessary because humans need to rely on one another in order to accomplish tasks. Socrates begins his argument when he states, “So if you approve, why don’t we start by finding out what sort of thing it is in cities? After that we can make a similar inquiry into the individual, trying to find the likeness of the larger version in the form the smaller takes” (line 369). He first proposes the dissection of a city. First, you must look for justice in the city, and once you have evidence of justice in the city, then you can continue to further your search for by analyzing the citizens for justice. Socrates furthers his attempt when he proceeds to use his analogy and continues to construct a city …show more content…
There are situations in which the two can be analyzed to see some sort of relationship, but in the case of Socrates’ argument in the defense of justice, it is a difficult to follow. A direct flaw of the argument is the misconception that Socrates has when he tries to approach the two in a similar matter. For both the city and the individual itself will have to have a similar structure, a structure in which the soul of the human being would have to have interconnecting parts that rely on one another just like people in cities rely on one another. The analogy that he presents would have to be validated, meaning that there are clear similarities in terms of the structure of a city and the structure of the human soul. Yet, the structures are in fact not similar because there is a difference in examination when looking at human justice in an individual versus the political justice within a city. Justice cannot be easily analyzed in people because there are several cases in which people can have just actions, but can completely appear to be …show more content…
Socrates claim is that humans need to rely on one another to reach their full potential and flourish in the environment, so this is why a city is necessary. Socrates believes that humans must be dependent on one another to achieve success and to be able to receive the best opportunities, whereas Glaucon is convinced that regardless of the resourceful people around you, humans are competitive by nature. Therefore, with this idea of innate competitiveness, humans be able to thrive in nature with the resources and opportunities that they can make on their own. Glaucon seems to cling to the idea that regardless of the circumstances, humans are self-sufficient, meaning that they are fully capable of persevering and pursuing any goals that they set for themselves. Socrates asserts that everyone would agree with his idea when he says that justice itself is good for its own sake. Socrates’ flow of argument revolves around the premise that regardless of what you have by acting unjust, you will never truly be happy because you have not attained your goals and your worth by being virtuous, but rather, you have cheated the system of justice. Therefore, Socrates thinks that you will never be truthfully fulfilled with what you have acquired because it was just a direct result of unjust actions. Socrates embraces the idea that the unjust man is never truly