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Critical Analysis Of Plato, The Republic By Plato

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Finally, The Republic by Plato. The entirety of the book should be read with one major piece of biographical information in mind. It is written after the death of Socrates, a death imposed upon him by the Democracy of Athens. Plato is a strong critic of democracy and the Republic he creates is a city of words that in theory would create a perfect or ideal city. It is not quite Utopian as Utopia means nowhere, and totally impossible. The Kallipolis of Plato in his mind is improbable but not impossible. After describing the perfect city, Plato tells a story of decay and the last stop before Tyranny, Plato discusses democracy in direct language. The three major critiques that Plato offers on Democracy is that it is susceptible to demagoguery, …show more content…
Plato believes that there is an unchanging truth that is beyond the ability of words to convey. And anyone who believes in this truth and the possibility for an individual to achieve it cannot possibly exist within the democratic political world. The debates are held on surface levels are just differing subjective truths competing for primacy. Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave is the best way to express this understanding. The Demos operates in the truth of the shadows on the wall, while only the true philosophers know of the world outside the cave and the Sun’s light which is the closest description to real truth as the character of Socrates is able to articulate. But when these philosophers go back to teach the rest of their ignorance they are killed for it. The man from the Allegory that went to the surface and returned is Socrates, the others who refuse to hear the truth from him when he comes back is the Athenian Democracy. The Democracy is deaf to hearing of a further truth, or finding the right answer, as it primarily wants to give people the freedom to do and be as they wish. There is no order, there is no truth in Plato’s Democracy and that is why he describes it as doomed to fall to tyranny. All things in nature must decay, and the democracy is one demagogue away from

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