Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer;
In Books II, III, and IV Socrates tries to find out what justice in an individual is by creating a just city. If you can find justice in the city, then the individual will be exactly the same thing only on a smaller scale. The just individual will correspond to the bigger version of justice in the city. So, Socrates goes on to say that the critical group in the city are the guardians of the city. The workers are important, but only because the city needs the work of this class to continue to exist. The guardians are the ones who protect the city. They must have a special education that makes them brave but not vicious (like a good watchdog). In Book II, Socrates talks about their education. In Books III and IV, he talks about how children are selected to be trained to be guardians, what their training will be like, and then he looks for justice in the whole city. He ends up saying it's every group doing what it should do: workers being moderate in their desire for wealth; guardians being brave and ready to defend the city; the top guardian ruling with a knowledge of what is best for every class. Then Socrates says, that's what a just individual is: his lower appetites are moderate; his spirited element makes him courageous; his mind makes him wise about his whole being so that he rules himself properly. That takes us to Book V, which is what you have to read for today. In Book V, Socrates's friends ask him to say more about a couple of things that he said about the guardians. He said that they will not have families like normal people but will have "wives in common." He also said that the top ruling guardian must be a philosopher. These are strange assertions, and Socrates is asked to explain why women and men will live together in common but not in separate families, and why the ruler has to be a philosopher. The question for today is: why are the guardians not permitted to have their own families or private property? What does Plato think is wrong with private property?
