Analysis of Plato's Views of Justice and Poetry - Essay Example

However, given Plato’s perception of justice, this appears to be an implausible argument within the point of view of The Republic. Certainly, Plato’s further analysis of the poets in Book Ten is appealing and commonly believed to be his ultimate conclusion on the issue; however, Socrates’s argument, which is found in Book Three, makes the argument of Plato quite unappealing to readers, which are placed in a shaky position that invites one to regard justice and poetry together, specifically, as being interdependent.

Hence, this paper examines both these arguments. This paper attempts to demonstrate that the issues of justice and poetry, which are widely viewed to be independent themes in The Republic, are not merely interconnected essentially but vital to one another in the theoretical or philosophical mechanism of comprehending them. The connection between justice and poetry involves the following premises: as Plato rejects the legally oriented conceptualizations of justice, in which interactions and relations between citizens are characterized by definite approaches to acting, he likewise denounces an accurate, or legally oriented, knowledge of poetic symbols.

However, this has a direct relationship as well: the legalistic fallacies of justice and poetry uncover their cure at the hermeneutical stage. . In contrast, legalistic refers to the similarly improper, or truthful, understanding of the figurative and metaphorical components of poetry, specifically, what Socrates calls symbolic sense. Thus, if this feature of poetry is misinterpreted or overlooked, it must look like that poets tell lies and hence incorrectly depict reality. Hence, it is not quite appealing to use the prohibition of the poets as a contemplative affair that becomes vital to the examination of the nature of justice.

Specifically, as Plato determines the way in which an individual should identify with poetry, this consequently indicates how the nature of justice is to be interpreted. In other words, this paper argues that the philosophical interpretation of justice entails a ‘poeticization’, which implies that the essence of justice is a fact which can be revealed only in the identification of the philosopher in accordance to the poetic feature of existence. Hence, this paper claims that in The Republic, the issue of the essence of poetry provides an interpretive means through which the philosopher can be harmonized with the essence of justice.

This basic relationship reconstructs the very old conflict between philosophy and poetry, envisioning their bond as dynamic and fruitful, although argumentative, opposed. The argument of Aristotle seems to be an important revision of Plato’s thoughts on the connection between ‘phronesis’ as the statesman’s wisdom, and the capacity to put this wisdom in practice. Plato hence talks about the connection between ‘phronesis’ (wisdom) and ‘techne’ (art) in his conceptualization of justice.

Conclusions The absence of frankness in The