Assignment 1.
Reflection on: the “Republic,” by Plato.

Greek philosopher, Plato, is considered to be one of the most influential people in Western Philosophy. The fact that he was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle leaves no questions about his competence. One of his fundamental works is the “Republic”. Even though it was written in 380 BC, Plato’s and Socrates’s thoughts are still relevant in twenty first century. This paper will evaluate the quote from the “Republic” and provide a summary of a quote; provide a context from the text for the quote; and finally, it will include my own thoughts on the quote and the Socrates’s argument as a whole.
The given quote is a paragraph from the fourth book of the “Republic”. It
However, supposing the same situation happened to different pair of friends, but another person’s reason will tell him to give the gun back to its owner, because he gave a promise to his best friend and he cannot violate it. Then, a person will be just if he will give the gun back. Socrates could argue that the reason of one of them is not enough developed. But those two friends, who both faced this uneasy dilemma, are both the best philosophers in the world. If Socrates’s objection is correct, then it is impossible to identify what is really just and what is really unjust, even if there is a proper idea of a “justice”. On the other hand, if Socrates’s objection is incorrect, then one possible explanation for this is that different people have different views about what is just and what is not.
To conclude, Socrates’s argument was that the idea of a “justice” is to maintain a harmony in the soul, so that all its parts (desires, spirit and reason) do not intervene in each other’s work. Also, he mentioned that a just person never acts without this inner harmony. However, from my personal perspective, the knowledge about the idea of a “justice” is not enough for analyzing just and unjust actions. The same issues might be just and unjust at the same time for different people. Therefore, “justice” is subjective term. However, the suggestions above do not contradict to the