? Reflection on the Republic Plato (427- 347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher and one of the greatest thinkers in the whole western philosophy and even the whole western culture. He is a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle. The three of them are widely regarded as the founders of western philosophy. The Republic is the most representative and far-reaching work in Plato's life. This is a typical comprehensive work, which integrates philosophy, politics, ethics, education, psychology, society, family, religion, art and many other issues. Zhu Guangqian once said:? The Republic is the source of western thoughts and the only western philosophical work I recommend to young people. ? I read this immortal book carefully, just like Leo? Strauss said: When reading Plato, you must have a pious and respectful heart. ?
Through the dialogue between Socrates and his opponent, The Republic repeatedly heckled for the definition of justice. In the first volume, Plato overthrew several definitions of justice with Socrates' knowledge-assisted question-and-answer method: 1. Justice means telling the truth and paying off debts; 2。 Justice is to help friends hurt enemies; 3。 Justice is the interest of the strong; 4。 Injustice trumps justice. These four statements are close to life and seem reasonable, but Plato analyzed them one by one and found out their defects, which has profound enlightenment for us to choose the road of life. In view of the first point of view, he refuted the just statement of paying back debts by taking weapons as an example. You can't simply play cards according to common sense, you should think about whether the result of things will be unfair. This statement ignores the true essence of justice, so we should learn more from Plato's way of thinking in our life, not only from our own standpoint, but also from our objects and the consequences of things. In response to the third point, Plato pointed out that those in power sometimes make mistakes, and that laws that are unfavorable to themselves and beneficial to the ruled will be enforced by the ruler, and justice will become? The interests of the weak? Yes Here, Plato proposed? In any government, a ruler, when he is a ruler, cannot only care about his own interests and ignore the interests of his subordinates. ? 1 Therefore, as a ruler, he should work for the welfare of the people, not just consider his own interests.
Plato discussed justice from two aspects: national justice and individual justice. He established a just city-state, and formulated a general principle: everyone must perform the duty that suits his nature best in the country. Plato believes that justice is something with self to do its own thing. He believes that a country consists of three parts: the ruler, the ruled and the helper. A country should possess four qualities, namely wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. In a country, the part with the least number of people and the smallest part of this part are worthy of being called wisdom, and the people who lead and rule it are always the least. The courage advocated by Plato is a completely continuous spiritual potential of correct belief, and it is believed that terrible things and things that are not terrible conform to the spirit of law. Temperance is a good control over certain pleasures and desires. About temperance, I was deeply inspired by one thing there. He mentioned: there are good parts and bad parts in the human soul, and the so-called? The master of self? That is to say, the bad part is controlled by the good part. This is undoubtedly a compliment. When a person is ruled by fewer and fewer people because of bad upbringing or association with bad people, he will be condemned and called a self-inflicted, unrestrained person? [2] This makes me feel a little. We often talk about being our own masters. In fact, we are both our own masters and slaves. If you want to break through self-control, you must deeply understand moderation and learn.
Control yourself, let the better part of the soul control the worse part, so as to dominate yourself, make yourself orderly and become your own master. In terms of personal justice, Plato believes that the human mind consists of three parts: reason, desire and passion. Plato advocates that these three parts of the individual soul should be independent, continuous and harmonious, and such a person is an individual. Isn't this internal division of labor and harmony external? Do your own thing? , but an internal harmony and order. When the whole country develops in a very harmonious way, all classes will get their share of happiness endowed by nature. When a country is most like a person, it is the best managed country, and the best managed country is most like an organism related to various parts.
Zhang's summary of the reasoning process in the Republic is a kind of reverse thinking. The governance of the country depends on the leading role of a few elite figures, and their leading role depends on the leading role of reason in their hearts; The leading role of reason depends on its grasp of the concept of good; Grasping the idea of goodness depends on the study of dialectics and the great governance of the country. In the final analysis, it depends on correct education. ?
Plato's Republic mentioned many educational problems, which also had a far-reaching impact on later education. Rousseau once praised it? It is the best educational paper, and no one has ever written such an educational paper. There are some other sayings? As long as Plato's Republic and Rousseau's Emile are still alive, even if other educational works are destroyed, the garden of education will be rich and fragrant. ? The educational thought in the book 3 is incisive and profound, which has benefited me a lot.
The Republic emphasizes the importance of early education. ? The most important thing in children's music literature and art education is preconceptions, and the views understood in the early years are always deeply rooted and not easy to change. In order to cultivate virtue, children should first hear the best stories. ? "4" Plato believes that when children understand music and literature, they will become polite and hate ugly things. When they grow up, they will be influenced by his understanding and education, and they will live in harmony with reason. He believes that children should be trained in war from an early age, and the spirit of obeying the law should be cultivated from music and games. Plato also suggested that children should not be forced to learn, but should use games to let us better understand the essence of each of them in the game. And this also makes us think about whether the education at this moment has brought more compulsion to children, and whether our education has made people confused and at a loss. Plato believes that the earlier the education for children develops, the better. The beginning is the most important thing. Personality is a creature. It is the easiest to penetrate in the effective and tender stage, and you can generate it as you want. "5" He urged the elders to tell their children some rules, such as being filial, paying attention to hairstyle and posture, and so on. He believes that the education a person received from childhood leads him to where he will go in the future. "6" With the progress of society, people in modern society respect and care for children more and more, and people have established a brand-new view of children. One of the opinions about children is? There is an inverse law in the development of children's talent. The sooner it is developed, the more developed it will be.
[7] This is similar to Plato's view that the earlier a child develops, the better. It can also be seen that Plato and The Republic have a far-reaching influence on early education. The Republic attaches great importance to the all-round and harmonious development of educational objects. Plato believes that first of all, we should understand the education of music and physical education, both of which are indispensable. Only when these two parts-love and passion for wisdom-are relaxed and properly coordinated can harmony be achieved. He also suggested that we should pay attention to the study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and dialectics. Personality attaches importance to the study of dialectics. ? If you don't understand something in advance, then the intermediate step between conclusion and conclusion is made up of what you don't understand. In this case, how can the consistency of results become real knowledge? Therefore, this kind of study is not enough. It is necessary to learn dialectics. Only philosophers who master dialectics and have good ideas can shape the ideal country on earth and protect it with good ideas as the prototype. According to "Primary Education", the specific characteristics of primary education include comprehensiveness. The so-called comprehensive means that for every specific individual, contemporary primary education should promote their all-round development in all aspects. Therefore, education should pay attention to comprehensiveness and explore and cultivate people's potential in all aspects in order to develop harmoniously.
After reading the Republic, I knew Plato for the first time. Like everyone else, I really came into contact with Plato's works in the history class of junior high school. It was an afternoon a few years ago, and I happened to read the book The Republic in Chengdu Library. At that time, I felt awkward when I read it, and the more I read it, the more headache I got, so I only read the first few chapters.
A few days ago, I saw an article on WeChat, "If you don't jump out of your comfort zone, you won't make progress if you read more books!" According to this article, reading can generally be divided into three areas. In the comfort zone, readers are in a state of psychological comfort, but progress is slow; In the extension area, readers will feel uncomfortable when reading books with certain difficulty, but they can still reach it in one jump, and their understanding ability is obviously improved; In the fear zone, readers who are too difficult to read will feel seriously uncomfortable because they are beyond their ability, so it is difficult to read. Many people are only willing to stay in the comfort zone and extension zone, and are unwilling to challenge the fear zone. After reading this article, they were deeply moved and decided to conquer some books that they could not understand.
Against this background, I chose the book Republic this week. Unfortunately, due to the time problem, I only read the first three chapters this week, mainly about the popular debate on justice, the justice of the polis and what kind of rulers and guardians the polis needs. What impressed me most was the author's summary of judging rulers and guardians (see the excerpt above), which is also applicable today. Dynasties change, time flies, and truth remains unchanged.
Some people say that reading Plato at the age of twenty is different from reading Plato at the age of forty. When I believe that in the years to come, do I still need to keep looking for Plato's books? Initial heart? Because Plato's wisdom is really a wonderful flower in the history of human civilization for thousands of years, and it is the jewel in the crown of philosophy.
After reading the Republic, what does it say on the back cover of the Republic? The origin of utopia, the origin of western philosophy? It can be seen that the immortal position of The Republic in the history of western philosophy can be compared with China's The Analects, but it is still inferior to Zhouyi and Tao Te Ching.
When reading the literature last semester, I often saw scholars quoting Plato's Republic, thinking that Plato's Republic can't be bypassed without going in. After borrowing it, I read a few pages, but I didn't care much, so I put it on the shelf and didn't have the patience to finish reading it. Because the epidemic was delayed for half a year. After returning to school, I decided to pick it up again, read it carefully and take notes. Only in this way can I know something about it.
Plato said that the soul has three components, namely reason, desire and passion. Only under the control of reason and passion can desire not destroy a person. At the same time, it attaches great importance to the noble quality of the mind or soul, while ignoring the desire of the body. It can be said that Plato is a dualist of body and mind in western philosophy. Sponsor? This idiom is not appropriate, but it is similar to Plato? Defend justice and destroy human desire? At that time, the idea of cultivating the mind or soul may be deafening and alert to the world. But today, we all know that this is wrong, but it still makes sense.
The charm of great works is that even wrong judgments will be inspired and quoted by generations. What I don't understand is what Plato meant by arousal. In other words, if you use another word instead of passion, which word will be more appropriate? Is it motivation or faith or something? I never understood.
Plato has the most classic theory of point metaphor, which is widely circulated. Every time I read this, I feel like I'm not from a cave. Looking at my self-righteous image in my narrow cognitive world, I think I have seen the world clearly. But when I bravely walked out of the cave and saw the real sun and the world, I realized that I was just a frog in the well, with very little knowledge. Everything that used to be haggle over every ounce was much ado about nothing, not worth mentioning.
What can lead people to turn their bodies and souls, get out of narrow misunderstandings and see the real world close to the truth is the best. The best is like the creator of sunshine, leading people to the bright road of rationality, wisdom and justice. Lao Tzu also talked about goodness. The so-called goodness is like water, which nourishes everything without dispute. At the same time, water is amorphous and flows day and night, just like the endless pursuit of truth.
Isn't the purpose of education to make students' body and mind change from visible to knowable, and guide students to constantly break through cognitive limitations and pursue truth and supreme wisdom?
In fact, every one of us, like the people in the cave, is sometimes deceived by our own eyes and other senses, believing the visible world images as true, thinking that they are all real-world things, and being passionate, resentful and worried about them. However, when you really pursue truth and perfection, your body and soul turn, and you walk out of your narrow cognition, you can get rid of yourself step by step and connect with the real world of truth and perfection, and you can gradually get rid of the shackles of cognition and become a free citizen with chic, broad-minded and independent thoughts. Knowing it is not confusing, the benevolent is not worried, and the brave is not afraid? It is not easy for us ordinary people to get real happiness in real life.
Plato mentioned it? King of philosophy? It's also very interesting. Plato thinks that philosophers are useless (I personally think so), which seems to be the most despised waste. However, due to the lack of rights, virtue has been developed purely and comprehensively. If the people love and philosophers govern the country for the king, then the country will prosper. On the contrary, philosophers are unpopular, and everyone struggles for power and profit. Philosophers are the most useless waste in this muddy society and have to hide in the mountains.
Plato's philosopher is quite similar to the hermit in ancient China. Prosperous times enter the phase, and troubled times hide mountains. He regarded the sage inside and the king outside as the highest ideal pursuit of scholars, and if he learned well, he would be an official.
What I mentioned above is what I feel most strongly after reading the Republic. After reading it, I also feel that it is very enlightening to my life. Even if philosophy is metaphysical, it is as unclear as artificial intelligence now, but the rise and start of philosophy is not between the bending and pitching of people who love wisdom.
Finally, if I have to hide my thoughts, I will sincerely mention these key words: equal dialogue, logical argument, analogy metaphor, duality of body and mind, soul turning, visibility and knowledge, and philosophy is king. Of course, there are other more important elements, so I won't explain them here. Of course, what I said above is also my personal feeling. If there is anything wrong, please tell me!
In my opinion, philosopher is a very advanced title. Although I can't reach it, my heart yearns for it. As a mediocre person, the original intention of loving philosophy is nothing more than to let oneself no longer be troubled by mediocrity and find a home for one's body and mind, a bright and clean home that is not disturbed by mediocrity. In short, loving philosophy is for the poetic dwelling of the soul!