Parallels of the Best-Legitimate Society - Essay Example

1) Parallels Of The Best-Legitimate Society Plato, in his work the “Republic”, brought out the essence of the societal structure as perceived and described by Socrates. The method used by Socrates while he engaged himself with his fellow citizens later came to be known as the Socratic Dialect or the Socratic Method. It is the method of pursuing a given truth is still adopted by many of the high school and university teachers, even at this present date. Plato adopted this particular method for all of conversational dialogues that he has used in the Republic. The particular type of opening up of the dialogue process as espoused by Socrates (and Plato) as mostly noticeable in almost every instance that arose posed a question searching upon a meaning, which hems in the intrinsic values of definition for the sake framing up an argument based on logic and viability. According to him an individual must know the virtue of being someone or possessing the attributes that can be perfectly defined by him. There should not be any apparent sense of belief in the awareness of a person who is claiming to know the virtues that he or she possesses but actually doubts still persists in the mind of that individual. So Socrates, after sharing his thoughts with many of the young men of Athens who were not at all by their teachers and conversing with them, came out with the understanding of analogous human tendencies that they traverse. He was considered to be the wisest by many, far more than the intellect level of the teachers in Greece. But in contrast, he claimed to know nothing much more than determination of an individual in knowing what he or she actually knows. There is enough wisdom in the process of listening to music, practicing poetry and getting involved into arguments, and according to him every man should explore through all these fields as because the life is not worth living, which is left unexamined or is not scrutinized. The politicians who proved to be the culpable part for some of the injustice that they perpetrated against the fellow citizens were taught by Socrates since they claimed to serve justice, and could not even define it. They were and still are the “leaders” who holds up the so-called legitimate structure of the state. “Then, as I was saying, our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, and the youths themselves become lawless, they can never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens” (Plato, Jowett, Cornford & Shorey, 226). So it is evident that Socrates uses the power of reasonability and logic in order to define the structure of the society as to be much higher in standards of thought and realization of its members to reach the summit of consciousness. The theory envisages the utopian structure that if an individual receives proper education and is morally sound, then society altogether becomes the optimum where there will be no disparity between rich and poor and nobody will be deprived of anything. The parallel theory as proposed by Hobbes in his work the “Leviathan” encompasses the nation that the society doesn’t contain any divinely established morality. Hobbes, being one of the proponents of the modern Materialism, conceptualizes one of the most legitimate structures of the society and brings out the importance of regulations and necessary precautions in order to resist human greed and associated violence. The basic framework of the human mindset is well delineated by Hobbes—“So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory” (Hobbes, 85). The greed of mankind is clear from this statement, as man only looks for materialistic gain, safety and reputation all that he fears is death. Sometimes regarded as a pessimistic approach to define the human nature, Hobbes claimed that the human beings are the most advanced species and are aggressive and dangerous who need to be rescued from themselves only. 2) Education: Socrates And Locke The educational system, as inferred by Plato in his work “The Republic”, should be well organized and capable enough of building moral framework of the youths in the society. By the possible structure of the theory postulated by Socrates, the perfect educational background of the ignorant members of the society brings about the mindset, which is aggregately much better in terms of realizations and gaining consciousness. The measure has the potential to demarcate the growth between justice and injustice. The State should and must be able to unite herself with the philosophy as mentioned and by following it she will be gaining strength and swiftness eventually. A man will be a true disciple of the knowledge and wisdom that he gains and will definitely be gentle enough to his fellow mates and acquaintances—“That we may safely affirm” (Plato, Jowett, Cornford & Shorey, 128). In the pursuit of true happiness, one individual must opt for the true level of education, which will guide him to become the true “good man”. When one man who is truly good by his nature comes across another man who is of the opposite character but possessing knowledge of education, the narrative style will be quickly adapted by the second individual by the virtue of his knowledge—“he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation” (Plato, Jowett, Cornford & Shorey, 170). So, in this kind of society that Socrates fantasizes, there will always be an urge in man to learn and to evolve into a better human. The Utopian view aids in framing the mindset of the learners that they are always determined to build up society which flawless, devoid of stringent rules and laws and compromising legitimate structure. Everybody will always be ready to play the part of a good man whenever they are provided with an opportunity, and likewise whenever anyone comes across another whose character is unworthy of him, the lacking standards of quality will immediately make the latter disdained by the former. The societal structure as described by Locke in his work “A Letter Concerning Toleration”, that there should not be any discrimination based on cast, creed, colour, shapes, features or mere classifications like people with black hairs or grey eyes. Everyone should have access to every privilege that is shared in shared in a society including access to food, place to live, access to proper education and administrative and legal benefits drawn. The societal structure depends upon all these factors to be in harmony. The utopian concept is not being considered here. People opt for different occupations and earning avenues, may be for earning profit, for leading a good livelihood and ultimately to derive peace and happiness from life. But the pace for achieving it gets impeded—“there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotions, and that is oppression” (Locke, Horton & Mendus, 34). Similar expressions are captured in Locke’s work of “Second Treatise of Government” where he mentions that the members of the society do submit their natural or normal freedom to the laws of the society, and in return they expect that the government will take their responsibility and protectionary measures. Together the people can form a strong executive power, which is capable enough of dethroning the government which shakes off the responsibility and replacing with another better one. The abstract ideas of Locke mostly penetrate into the sanctity of life where it focuses on more grounded view of the interests of the people leading them to form a better society and government. The view of Socrates in his Utopian thoughts has got stringent measures by considering the education level to be the most important in the upbringing of an optimum societal structure and everything has to be done in accordance to it. But Locke is much more liberal in his societal formation which is realistic as well as idealistic to a particular extent, in which he stresses on the governmental framework being free from every kind of discriminations and biased activities. 3) Role of Money in Human Life According to Aristotle and Plato both, the best way of living life is to devote oneself completely into the world of philosophy. An inquiry on life encompasses several reasons, which percolate into the system of philosophy. Human life by its nature is goal oriented or purposive. Man as the ultimate achievement considers happiness. For this purpose of reaching the conclusive target, man traverses through various means and activities. Aristotle defines the target as every human being seeks for happiness. There are fragmentations in his theory like the happiness (or eudaimonia) is actually composed of the two mystified similar wings. One is the subjective sense of a feeling of happiness or a good feeling which usually and quite obviously varies during the course of a day, so any criticisms by comparative analysis of happiness between two different individuals is not at all valid. The second point arises out of the feeling of living well, can be concept of getting everything together in the pursuit of evolving into a good human being. There are some formal characteristics of happiness as delineated by Aristotle that any and every so-called ‘contender’ must meet in his goal of achieving happiness. The first one is where the final activity of man ends. Money cannot hold any position in the true sense of happiness as money is evidently not an end in itself and is only just a mean—“its clear that riches are not the good we are seeking” (Pakaluk, 321). Secondly, it’s the self-sufficiency and not fame what constitutes true happiness. Thirdly, it is the unique and distinctive feature of human being to aim for happiness. Lastly, it is not that the end of human life is characterized by happiness. Because after everything, comes the death. So it comes after everything that one does. Money is just a part, more specifically a mean to achieve the happiness of well being. But its role, according to the Aristotelian theory is negligible in this vast concept of being happy. In the Locke’s concept, more emphasis was given to the public standard of settling up disputes rather than self- evident and individualistic sensations, which fell under the arena of personal adjustments. He increasingly embraced the share of the public regarding the textual authority and reasons, which he mentioned in the fourth edition of his work “Essay”. The individual persuasion was no longer reasonable and therefore had to give way to the public standards. Money was considered to be an important factor plying the role of a medium of exchange and also a non-perishable fund of wealth by Locke. Its importance in the social and economic structure of mankind heavily relied on the consumptions and requirements of the people. Most natural mindset as explored by Locke was quite different from the Aristotelian viewpoint that is the accumulation of money is considered to be gain or a way of enrichment of the society, and of the nation as a whole from a macro point of view. Again, the loss on the opposite is commonly considered to be bad in the sense that the effects on the society are harsh, mainly large-scale impoverishment—“an increase in the circulation of money was a necessary condition for prosperity” (Locke & Ashcraft, 283). Thus Locke advocated not only the concept of money which was according to him an important medium of trade relationship with other countries and the measure of purchasing power of a nation which indirectly shows the degree of well being and ‘happiness’. But this concept is totally unlike Aristotle who never gave ‘money’, the kind of importance as Locke’s. Works cited 1. Carey Daniel., Locke, Money and Enthusiasm, British Comparative Literature Association, 2006, retrieved on April 16, 2009 from: http://www.swan.ac.uk/german/bcla/money/abstract.htm. 2. Hobbes, Thomas, 1998, Leviathan, Forgotten Books, 1976 3. Locke, John. & Ashcraft, Richard. John Locke: critical assessments, Routledge. 1991 4. Locke, John. & Macpherson, Crawford Brough, Second treatise of government, Hackett Publishing. 1980 5. Locke, John., Horton, John. & Mendus, Susan., John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, in Focus, Routledge. 6. Pakaluk, Michael., Aristotles Nicomachean ethics: an introduction, Cambridge University Press. 2005 7. Plato, Jowett, Benjamin, Cornford, Francsi MacDonald & Paul Shorey, The Republic, Plain Label Books. 1946 8. Unit III C: The Role of Reason in Human Life (Aristotle), Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, retrieved on April 16, 2009 from: http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:X_r_npg5yXkJ:academic.mu.edu/phil/jonesj/courses/p05020061UnitIIIcNotes.pdf+role+of+money+in+human+life%2Baristotle&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=in&client=firefox-a. . Read More