The Debate on Three Political Models in Plato's The Republic
With the decline of traditional Athenian democracy,democracy fell into the rule of opinion.Socrates tried to restore democracy to its true state by using philosophical dialogue to improve citizens'opinions and elevate them to truth,but the abyss of philosophy and politics led to Socrates'death.On the premise of the binary opposition between philosophy and politics,Plato com-pletely turned to philosophy.Plato takes the medical metaphor as the model,and regards the philosopher king as the doctor of the soul,whose rule over the people is the reign of truth for the whole interest of the city.Thrasymachus turned to politics completely,took real politics as a reference,and introduced the shepherd rule based on force,which was autocratic for the interests of the rulers themselves.Later Aristotle reconstructed democratic politics with practical wisdom,integrating philosophy and politics to some ex-tent.Therefore,the self-rule,the reign of truth and the rule of force are the three political models debated in The Republic,which also laid the foundation of the political model of the later generations.
reign of truthrule by forceself-rulemedical metaphorshepherd metaphor
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