In November 2015, Republic was named one of the 20 most influential academic books at academic book week in the UK.
Many people know Plato the deepest is the "platonic love" that is often on the lips, and some people also know that Plato was a student of Socrates, but what is written in his book "Republic"?
In short, it is from the perspective of a philosopher to explore how a country can achieve fairness and justice.
Plato wrote an interesting story in the Republic called the "Cave Myth":
Suppose that some people live in an underground cave with their hands and feet bound by chains, and there is a wall between these people and the cave entrance, so these people cannot see the world outside the cave entrance.
There is a large torch between the wall and the entrance of the cave, and some humanoid creatures hold the doll and walk between the torch and the wall, because the height of the doll is higher than the wall, so the shadow of the doll will be reflected on the wall inside the cave, and those who are locked with their hands and feet can see the shadow of these human beings.
In fact, they can only see these shadows.
But suddenly one day, a man broke free of the chain and ran out, seeing the wonderful world of birds and flowers outside the cave, he was shocked at first, and then he rushed back to the cave to tell everyone about the outside world.
He did not expect that everyone would not believe what he said, insisting that there were only those shadows in the world that saw, and then they could not stand each other, and those people killed him.
I think there is also a possibility in this story, that is, there is a person who has run out before him, and this person has become the leader of this group, and everyone has to listen to him, so he knows that if everyone runs out to see, then they must not "let go of themselves"? Who still listens to him?
Therefore, he wanted to kill this "demon-tricker" person.
I think Plato wrote this story in relation to what happened to his teacher, Socrates, because Socrates was the one who was killed.
In ancient Athens, Socrates was considered the wisest man, but he famously said that I knew only that I knew nothing. He wants everyone to know that we are all the same and don't know much about the world, so we can't stop the pursuit of truth.
But Athens had restored a slave-owning democratic society at that time, so the authorities certainly could not tolerate your nonsense, so they became angry and gave Socrates death for "preaching new gods and corrupting the young."
I think this is a bit unauthentic, because if everyone believes in God, you believe in your God, I believe in my God, what does it matter to you? Later, it dawned on me that the athenian authorities might have thought so, you can believe in your God, you can believe in yourself, but you can't bring bad young people.
This really did not wrongfully accuse Socrates, because his influence in the city of Athens was too great, and this guy did not stay at home every day, and went around the largest square in Athens without a problem, and pretended to nag people about nothing.
The point is nagging, and everyone finally thinks that Socrates is right.
Does this pay off? There are so many fans of one person, if you are a little different, Athens is not messed up?
No, I'll have to take care of it. But what if the official at the time ran to the fans of Socrates and said, don't believe him, this man is a bad person, so that no one will listen?
pregnant! Wouldn't it be enough to destroy the source of all evil? So, Socrates was sentenced to death.
In fact, Because Socrates had many fans and a certain social status, there were not a few, so there were other solutions at that time, that is, Socrates admitted a mistake: I will no longer talk nonsense in the future, and I will unify with the official caliber of Athens. In this way, a pardon for capital offenses can be requested.
But who was Socrates? After all, it is the person who ran out of the cave, let me lie to my fans with you guys? Sorry, I can't do it.
Socrates thought it didn't matter if I was dead, fans would know the world outside the cave sooner or later.
We have a saying that "the one who knows the time is a junjie", so it seems that Socrates is not a junjie, so he is going to die.
At that time, there was another buddy who had a similar experience to him, but the ending was better than his, and this person's name was Anasagras.
When everyone believed that there was a sun god, the old boy jumped out and said: Don't pull it, the sun is a big red and hot stone.
However, this brother's fans are not as many as Socrates, and his influence is limited, so he leaves a life and is deported.
In fact, Plato was a staunch follower of Socrates, but Socrates liked to play with his mouth in this life and did not leave any writings.
Therefore, in the book "The Republic", Plato fused Socrates with his own ideological theories, and explored the management mechanism of a country from the aspects of politics, ethics, education, and philosophy.
From the current point of view, the ideas of thousands of years ago may not be all right, but from the perspective of the long-term development of Greece, these "non-Junjie" have made greater contributions than those "Junjie".
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