Friday, April 18, 2014

What is Plato's Socrates and Aristophane's Socrates idea of Justice and law? Are they the same or do they differ?

Both the Platonic and Aristophanic Socrates expose the
difference between justice and law through situational
ironies.


In Plato's Apology, Socrates is condemned to death
by the Athenian democracy for the crimes of asebeia (impiety) and corrupting the youth.
Although Socrates argues that he was not guilty of either crime, he actually does not
fully answer the charges. When asked to name a lesser penalty, he mocks the system by
proposing a reward. Later, in Crito, he explains his views that it is just for him to
obey the laws whether the law is good or bad. Combined with the argument from Gorgias
that it is worse to commit than to suffer injustice, one can deduce that Plato
attributed to Socrates the position that human laws were imperfect, but that justice for
the individual involved obedience to existing laws -- and that since the laws affect
only external circumstances rather than the soul, that they are only minimally relevant
to the ideal justice which occurs in the individual
soul.


Aristophanes has a more conventional view of justice
in Clouds in which the Old Logos sees good laws and consonant with justice and the New
Logos, Socratics, and sophists articulate the position that laws are inherently
conventional, having nothing to do with any form of natural
justice.


The position of Socrates in Clouds is probably
closer to that of the historic Protagoras than that of the historic
Socrates.

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