Irony of plato assignment

Plato does seem to favor this aristocratic stability even as it comes at the expense of freedom derived from democratic political system. The underlying philosophy of democracy is economy: everyone’s equality before the law and in the creation of the law. Pure democracy, thus, gives everyone an equal chance of being elected to hold a political office through lottery. This system, while does allow the greatest degree of freedom to its citizens, comes with a price: a lattice office may be assigned to a completely incompetent person if his name is drawn from the lot.

Although such person may be incompetent, he is still equal to hold the office in the same way as any other person, according to economy. However, Plato does not believe this principle is legitimate when he states that equality is distributed between “ equals and unequal alike”. He makes a distinction between the knowledgeable and the competent and those who are not. He goes as far as saying that the latter are not equal to the former, alluding that they belong to an inferior lass. Plato, believing in aristocracy or the rule of the best, does not agree with democracy because it allows those who are inferior to rise to power.

It is quite difficult to Judge a man Just by glancing at him and it is even more difficult to summarize his philosophy Just by referring to very few of his notes. Many great philosophers used the mastery of the written word to convey secret messages through a literal meaning and it is quite possible that a deeper study of Plat’s work would open one’s eyes to different ideas Plato may have had.