A Defense of Plato's Idea of the Good In His Republic Anonymous

The main prompt or assertion provided in the lecture notes, being "Whatever might be its philosophical value, the idea of the Good has no political relevance," goes completely against Plato's philosophical tenets and contrasts sharply with his two major syllogisms concerning the idea of the Good and the relevancy of the Good in a political environment. Thus, it is the aim of this paper to defend Plato's viewpoint as presented in the concluding comments in Book One and the opening arguments in Book Two of his Republic with the assistance of Plato's supportive dialogues with Polemarchus and Thrasymachus and the refutations of Glaucon and Adeimantus.

In Book One, the passage related to justice demonstrates Socrates' powerful intellect and his unflinching skepticism. The conversation itself seems to end at several points with no clear-cut conclusions, such as when Socrates says "The just is happy, and the unjust miserable? So be it. But happiness and not misery is profitable. . . injustice can never be more profitable than justice." What appears to be functioning here is a type of irony in which Socrates and his fellow conversationalist accept without hesitation certain opinions that otherwise...