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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An 8 page paper which examines how Plato depicts the obligations an individual has toward the state and what the state owes the individual, considering the strengths and weaknesses of his arguments. No additional sources are used.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGplaind.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
2001 -- properly! In all likelihood, Plato was the first political philosopher. Through his dialogues featuring his
teacher and mouthpiece, Socrates, he openly questioned what an ideal society should be, and what a citizen owed to the city/state in the form of civic responsibility. One of
the most critically analyzed of Platos dialogues is Apology, featuring the famous trial in which Socrates is forced to defend himself against charges that his method of open philosophical inquiry,
of questioning everything, has corrupted Athenian youth. It is recommended that before writing about this topic, the student should first consider the historical context within which Apology was written.
During the time of Plato and Socrates, Athens was a completely democratic city/state, which was controlled not by a singular ruler or an oligarchy of the few, but by
all of its citizens. The charges against Socrates were not issued by any formal legal entity such as a prosecutor or district attorney, or any type of law enforcement
agency. The trio of accusers, Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, were private citizens, not attorneys or public defenders. By law, any citizen was guaranteed the right to be heard
in an Athenian court. Since the government structure was founded on the principle that since the state was nothing more than an assemblage of individuals, it could be, therefore,
assumed, that the individual was always acting in the best interest of the state. Socrates primary defense of his actions was that by engaging in his occupation as a philosopher,
he was simply exercising his right to freedom of speech. In a true democracy, Socrates argued, no citizen had to accept anything with blind faith. He further remarked
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