The Philosopher King<\/p>\n
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The Philosopher King makes Kallipolis a utopian society because he seeks true knowledge and rules for the benefit of the city rather than himself. \u00a0A philosopher\u2019s soul desires to seek the truth above all else.\u00a0 This enables him to be the best ruler for the happiness of the city as a whole.\u00a0 Socrates\u2019 ship analogy explains how a philosopher is better suited to lead than other members of society because a philosopher would not lead to fulfil his own desires.\u00a0 He refers to a ship captain who is clearly not competent for his position.\u00a0 Each crew member plots a way to become the captain themselves by the use of force, trickery or persuasion.\u00a0 Consequently, the new captain is not the one who is most fit to navigate the ship but it is the one who was able to overthrow or convince the old captain.\u00a0 Naturally, the captain should be the one who is most knowledgeable on navigation and running a ship.\u00a0 In terms of a city, it is the one who is most knowledgeable on what is truly right and wrong who should rule: a philosopher. This makes it utopian because the ruler is not in charge of the city for personal benefit.\u00a0 In most societies rulers come to power because they are wealthy, persuasive or powerful.\u00a0 However, none of these traits make a good ruler.\u00a0 In fact, these traits tend to be associated with people who are selfish and greedy.\u00a0 For example, in Plato\u2019s time, the democracy was dominated by those who had wealth and could convince citizens to accept their ideas. Someone who is wealthy can use money to get their way, which can lead to an unjust law.\u00a0 A philosopher will never make a decision for personal gain like many rulers do.\u00a0 Additionally, he will not make decisions to gain honor and praise, but he will make decisions to be benefit the entire community.\u00a0 The knowledgeable part of his soul, which overpowers the other two parts, makes him just and thus fit to rule a utopian society.<\/p>\n
And important component of the Philosopher King is their unwillingness to rule which makes them the best fit to be the leader.\u00a0 One of Socrates subjects notes that the Philosopher King will be unhappy and reluctant to rule after being properly educated.\u00a0 Socrates responds by saying that they will have a sense of duty to pay back the city for their upbringing.\u00a0 One who rules out of duty rather than for personal gain will be a better ruler.\u00a0 They are chosen and rule for the benefit of the entire city, which will also erase conflict over who shall rule.\u00a0 It is utopian because no one part of society benefits at the expense of another.\u00a0 Each member of the society does their part by sacrificing some of their freedom.\u00a0 The Philosopher King, for example, would rather not rule, but he does because it is his duty.\u00a0 This is utopian because the happiness of the city as a whole is prioritized over the happiness of individuals.\u00a0 A philosopher would rather not associate themselves with people of less intelligence, however, by ruling he will benefit the entire community.\u00a0 Many ideologies seek to create a better means of government such as communism and democracy.\u00a0 But in both of these societies the wealthy and powerful benefit at the expense of everyone else.\u00a0 But Plato offers a truly Utopian society with a just and wise ruler fit to be King.<\/p>\n
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I pledge that I have neither received nor given unauthorized assistance during the completion of this work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Philosopher King
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\nThe Philosopher King makes Kallipolis a utopian society because he seeks true knowledge and rules for the benefit of the city rather than himself. \u00a0A philosopher\u2019s soul desires to seek the truth above all else.\u00a0 This ena…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-posts","column","twocol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6CkTy-3q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}