Reading Notes of The Republic 1 Emerson, a famous American thinker, once said, "Plato is philosophy, and philosophy is that Plato burned all the libraries, because its value is in this book (the Republic)." Perhaps Emerson's words are exaggerated, but we have to admit that the weight of the Republic is really important in our human history. As the saying goes, "Plato is famous for his utopia, which is famous for his thoughts."
In the book, Plato divided the country into three classes: the ruling class with strict philosophy education, the samurai class to defend the country, and the civilian class. He believes that the ruler of an ideal country must be a philosopher, and the essence of a philosopher is knowledge, wisdom, justice and kindness. Therefore, the concept of "justice" is particularly important in the book. In addition, justice has always been an extremely important part in the history of human philosophy. For example, Rawls, one of the most important philosophers in the United States and even the West in the 20th century, also wrote A Theory of Justice, expounding the essence of Rawls' justice thought. Therefore, I choose to analyze this part about "justice" in the Republic in my thesis.
Starting with the discussion of justice, the book successively refutes the views that "paying debts is justice", "justice is the interests of the strong" and "the essence of justice is the compromise between the best and the worst", and puts forward the knowledge that "justice is the virtue of the soul" and "the just is happy". But these have not been fully recognized by everyone. Later, Glaucon and others begged Socrates to get to the bottom of it and find out what the essence of justice and injustice is and what their real interests are. So Plato abandoned the method of looking for justice only from individuals and expected to find justice from the "capitalized people" of the country, thus "seeing the big from the small"
Utopia Reading Notes 2 But when reading this book, my thoughts often wander quietly between the lines, so sometimes I have to stop and think about where my thoughts have gone and how they ran. This book is not easy to read. After careful reading, I always feel that talking with the sages has lost its openness and tolerance, and it has become more passive towards Nuo Nuo. I really want to understand and explore in my own words, but it is a long and arduous road after all, so I will move forward slowly, so I may gain more.
In the Republic, Socrates has just begun to discuss the topic of "justice". Justice is really a difficult question to answer. Sometimes it is more practical to do a just thing and speak out for some injustices than to think about conceptual justice for a long time in the house. Perhaps this is impetuous or guilty, because many people have not understood justice for thousands of years, and it seems that the probability of sudden understanding is very small. But I believe that, like Plato, I have a strong vision and yearning for justice! But he thinks that absolute justice lies in God. As an idealist, this is a good answer. For ourselves, even for a whole generation of China people, the lack of faith always makes us feel anxious, lonely and at a loss. We don't know the future, the past or even the present. Plato finally said, "Let's always go on the road and pursue justice and wisdom". I like it very much, maybe I understand it differently, but I really like it because I have my own different feelings.
Plato was not only a great political scientist but also a philosopher. Although there is no special philosophical monograph, his philosophical wisdom is embodied in almost every work. The wisdom of western philosophers shines from the early Republic, from politicians in the transitional stage, and from the law with great ideological changes.
In philosophy, Plato inherited Socrates' idealism and became the ancestor of western objective idealism philosophy. He established an objective idealism system with idealism as the core. When reading the Republic, one of Plato's leading thoughts, which is also the starting point of his dialogue, is that the thought itself is real, while the perception, concreteness and experience are illusory. For example, in the book, what is justice in terms of the origin of Plato's debate with others? Opponents of Socrates gave many answers to justice, such as traditional worship or popular at that time: justice means telling the truth, paying debts, doing good to friends, doing evil to enemies, helping friends and hurting enemies. These are concrete examples of justice, and we will always answer them as we are now asked. Because he believes that real knowledge is an idea, it does not exist in objectively visible objects. His philosophy can be simply summarized as: idea is an eternal "paradigm" and an entity independent of individual things and human consciousness. The perceptual concrete thing is not real, it is an imperfect "shadow" or "copy" of the perfect idea. These are well explained in the theory of justice and cave theory in the Republic. According to Marxist philosophy, his theory is typical idealism, but as a wise man and pioneer, he established an objective idealism system with idealism as the core.
One's philosophy has a great influence on his theory, and his philosophy can be seen everywhere in his theory. In the Republic, Plato's thought plays an important guiding role in the development of his thought in the Debate, which is the starting point of the dialogue in this book and one of the leading concepts. When reading this book, I often think of China's philosophical problems and another philosopher, Wang Yangming. Maybe their views are really seldom relevant. Perhaps the only connection is that they are all called idealism. In the past thinking, we have been instilled with Marxist materialism and dialectics since childhood, and we may not dislike idealism, but at least we stay at a respectful distance from each other and dare not approach it. It's just Yangming in Rainbow. Many people may only know that "you are not". When you come to see this flower, the color of this flower will be understood for a while. You will know that this flower is not in your heart. This sentence is full of poetry and life is difficult to understand, but it is also criticized by us in philosophy. Really further understanding of Wang Yangming is the fellow mentioned in the book. During his stay in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese specially sent someone to guard his tomb. A Japanese general even has a waist tag that says, "Bow and worship Yangming all your life". After reading it, I was deeply touched. People who feel so powerful are not mentioned in our thick textbooks, and I know little about them myself. Later, I got to know Wang Yangming and understood his greatness. Although I consider myself a materialist, this cannot stop us from appreciating his greatness.
In modern China's philosophy, our true philosophy is almost entirely dialectical materialism, while most of the truly great philosophers in the world in history are idealists, such as Socrates, Plato, Hegel, Kant and so on. Perhaps people who dare to talk to their hearts can only reach a spiritual intersection with some nothingness if they perceive existence. Such people are always particularly sensitive and smart. Reading the Republic often feels that many things are separated, and we can't understand some of Plato's thoughts. Perhaps it is really difficult for us to identify with an idealist in our hearts besides our superficial knowledge, and we can also appreciate his unique feelings and unique ripples in life.
In my opinion, philosophy is to teach you to do the right thing in the right way, which is the most important knowledge. For the correct understanding, we seem to be separated from the world by too many things like many things, lacking the same understanding. We China people are too bad at figuring out what the correct method is. What is the right thing? This is why China's philosophy has declined in recent years, and learning philosophy seems to be the laughingstock of others rather than a symbol of cleverness. In the latest global 100 goodwill ranking, China ranks eighth from the bottom, just ahead of Russia, Iraq, Iran and other countries. On September 28th, UNESCO's World Teacher's Day, California's Teacher's Day, Malaysian Teacher's Day and China's Taiwan Province Province and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Teacher's Day, few people know that this day is Confucius' birthday. I am a person who can go far in thinking. I wrote these things with a temporary desire for words. Maybe these things are too far away from the ideal country, but they are closely related when you think about it. Philosophy guides us forward, and many times we seem to have lost our way. Just as we just arrived in this school, this strange graduate life also has a feeling of loss, but sometimes it is good to be lost.
In Plato's view, only philosophers can rise from the visible world to the knowable world, and the wise can discover the real "beauty of freedom" through images. Plato wrote that he "knows how to distinguish between beauty itself and beautiful things, and neither regards the sharer as beauty itself nor beauty itself as beautiful things." Philosophers have the wisdom to define justice and kindness in order to govern the city-state. Ordinary people and soldiers only have courage and restraint, but they have no ability to discover the real world of thought.