Have you ever wondered to yourself: "How am I here? What is holding the universe together?" Have you ever driven yourself insane trying to understand all of the different methods and theories humanity has used to answer these terrible questions? Understanding the universe and humanity's place within it is an absurd undertaking. Nevertheless, it is an undertaking that has driven and baffled humanity for millennia. Fear not dear listener! Brandon Wilson and Christian Van Dyke are here to share in your confusion. Don your jester caps and professor robes as we analyze the laughably absurd!
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Have you ever wondered to yourself: "How am I here? What is holding the universe together?" Have you ever driven yourself insane trying to understand all of the different methods and theories humanity has used to answer these terrible questions? Understanding the universe and humanity's place within it is an absurd undertaking. Nevertheless, it is an undertaking that has driven and baffled humanity for millennia. Fear not dear listener! Brandon Wilson and Christian Van Dyke are here to share in your confusion. Don your jester caps and professor robes as we analyze the laughably absurd!
To begin perhaps one of Plato's most influential dialogues, it commences with Socrates and friends gathering at a buddy's house in celebration of a festival. The BIG question comes up almost immediately: What is Justice?
The first response: "Giving to each what one is due."
Socrates says "What about if you borrowed a dude's sword and he, in a crazed and murderous rampage, asks for his sword back?"
The second response: "Well then justice is giving to someone what is appropriate."
Socrates: "That's a circular argument dude. You're saying that you need justice already in place to define justice."
The third response: "Justice is whatever benefits the stronger and helps them become stronger."
Socrates: "Don't be such a Chad. Rulers serve the ruled; if all they do is seek to aggrandize themselves, then they rule nothing but themselves while making everyone else miserable; the ruler should not profit from the ruled."
The question is then left unanswered as Socrates and company seek to understand what an ideal city-state would look like that would benefit all who live there. He introduces a rigid caste system where a Philosopher King, who best understands the Forms (i.e. the cosmic architecture that organizes and defines the parameters of reality), rules the city. Those who cannot break free from the material world are left to run the city-state's economy under the jurisdiction of the Philosopher and for the benefit of the entire city-state.
In this city-state, the Philosopher King rules, not just by justice, but also by wisdom, fortitude, and temperance. Given this system, it should come as no surprise that Plato is very much against democracy, seeing it as the road that inevitably leads to tyranny.
Tune in to learn more!
The Analyst & The Fool
Have you ever wondered to yourself: "How am I here? What is holding the universe together?" Have you ever driven yourself insane trying to understand all of the different methods and theories humanity has used to answer these terrible questions? Understanding the universe and humanity's place within it is an absurd undertaking. Nevertheless, it is an undertaking that has driven and baffled humanity for millennia. Fear not dear listener! Brandon Wilson and Christian Van Dyke are here to share in your confusion. Don your jester caps and professor robes as we analyze the laughably absurd!
