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The Ring of Gyges / ˈ dʒ aɪ ˌ dʒ iː z / (Ancient Greek: Γύγου Δακτύλιος, Gúgou Daktúlios, Attic Greek pronunciation: [ˈɡyːˌɡoː dakˈtylios]) is a hypothetical magic ring mentioned by the philosopher Plato in Book 2 of his Republic (2:359a–2:360d). [1] It grants its owner the power to become invisible at will.
Greece being at a crossroads, Plato's new "constitution" in the Republic was an attempt to preserve Greece: it was a reactionary reply to the new freedoms of private property etc., that were eventually given legal form through Rome. Accordingly, in ethical life, it was an attempt to introduce a religion that elevated each individual not as an ...
In Plato's Republic, the character of Socrates is highly critical of democracy and instead proposes, as an ideal political state, a hierarchal system of three classes: philosopher-kings or guardians who make the decisions, soldiers or "auxiliaries" who protect the society, and producers who create goods and do other work. [1]
Earlier in Book II of the Republic, Socrates points out that even the gods can be tricked by a clever charlatan who appears just while unjust in his psyche, in that they would welcome the pious but false "man of the people" and would reject and punish the truly just but falsely accused man. In the Myth of Er the true characters of the falsely ...
Plato's most self-critical dialogue is the Parmenides, which features Parmenides and his student Zeno, which criticizes Plato's own metaphysical theories. Plato's Sophist dialogue includes an Eleatic stranger. These ideas about change and permanence, or becoming and Being, influenced Plato in formulating his theory of Forms. [54]
In Plato's dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles. Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the Laws and Phaedrus) in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving yourself; the soul is a self-mover. He also thinks that the soul is the ...
Plato uses this observation to illustrate his famous doctrine that the soul is a self-mover: life is self-motion, and the soul brings life to a body by moving it. Meanwhile, in the recollection and affinity arguments, the connection with life is not explicated or used at all.
This version was recorded in Philodemus' History of the Academy, a text partially preserved among the Herculaneum papyri. [55] [48] According to Philodemus, on the last evening of his life, Plato suffered under a heavy fever and was entertained by the Thracian slave girl playing the flute. Despite "being on the brink of death", Plato listened ...