A man must learn to govern himself through his exercise of reason, lest he live a life of misery. Nothing can ever profit him for the evils he has visited upon himself, as well as upon others. Now we may behold the unjust man, who has ruined his own life by denying his reason and feeding to surfeit his bestial appetites. Thus it is that the just man, secure in his knowledge, is the happiest of men.Īt this point in the dialogue, Socrates summarizes his argument for the just man, and he answers the other participants in the debate who had argued that the unjust man would lead the best life so long as he could keep his reputation intact, thus fooling his fellow-citizens. And we must remember that the illusory pleasures are merely images knowledge and its study are real. But pure pleasure, such as the study of knowledge, is reflective of the pleasures of the soul independent of the body, such as aesthetic pleasures or contemplation of the Forms. Such an illusory pleasure might be that of eating (because we are hungry), or drinking, or, one assumes, any sort of sensual pleasure. Socrates' third argument proves out by his making a distinction between pure ( positive) pleasure and illusory pleasure (a kind of pleasure which is reliant upon an antecedent "pain"). And it is self-evident that the man of reason is best fitted to judge, since he alone of the three knows Justice. Thus it is that the man of justice is correct in his judging himself to be the happiest. It is entirely possible that each man may have experienced happiness, but only the man of reason could have experienced the happiness of knowledge because he alone of the three possesses it, besides possessing the happiness of the other two men. If we were to ask each of these men if he thought himself to be the happiest of the three, each would probably answer yes. Thus it is that the first man is the just man the second, the timocratic man and the third is a sort of mixture of the oligarchic, democratic, and tyrannical man. Remember that the man of reason possesses knowledge of the Forms, hence, Justice. So we must remember that there exist three basic types of men: the man of reason who seeks knowledge the "spirited" man who seeks honor and success and the man of desire who seeks gain (wealth) and satisfaction. In initiating his second argument, Socrates repeats his argument that the soul is divided into three parts: reason, the spirited part, and desire. In contrast to the tyrant, the just man is free he is enslaved to nothing, for nothing in his desires or emotions can captivate him since his whole life is governed by his reason, he lives a self-controlled life, happy in his knowledge and happy that he knows it. The tyrant, who is never in control of himself, is miserable. The best parts of the tyrant's soul are governed, tyrannically, by the worst part of his soul, and he can never escape the dark prison of his days. But we must remember that the tyrant himself is just as much a slave to his own mad master, his lust, as his subjects are enslaved to his tyranny. All of his subjects he may treat as objects he can kill any citizen of his state at whim. It might appear to an immature thinker, or a child, that the tyrant, exercising despotism as he does, is surely a happy man after all, it is plain that the tyrant can live surrounded by pomp and ceremony and all that wealth can buy. Socrates takes as his first example the tyrant. Socrates establishes three arguments to demonstrate that a man who is just lives a happier and better life than an unjust man.
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