MPSE-003: WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT (From Plato to Marx)
Course Code: MPSE-003
Assignment Code: ASST/MPSE-003//2016-17
Total Marks: 100
Q.
2. Assess Plato’s Political Theory.
Ans.
Evaluation of Plato’s Political Theory Plato’s Adversaries: Plato’s
ideal state as portrayed in the Republic contains much that is of abiding
interest and universal import but it is also vitiated by a number of defects.
In his organic conception and construction of the ideal state Plato sees too
much analogy between the individual and the state. He practically identifies
the two and this identification leads to confusion. Plato fails to distinguish
ethics from politics. Plato’s ideal state is absolute and totalitarian. Based
on communism and rule of philosophy it is too collectivistic to allow full
freedom for the development of all the various faculties of a human being. Plato
in his ideal state fails to take notice of and denounce the vicious institution
of slavery. The great mass of the people i.e. the producing or appetite classes
are almost completely ignored and are reduced to the status of mere producers
of consumable goods. Plato permits the promotion of men of the lowest class to
the higher classes of guardians but provides no system of education for this
class which might result in such promotion. His men of brass and iron are
doomed to remain brass and iron. He overestimates intellect and underestimates
character.
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