Book III starts by exploring the concept of courage. The idea of the Gods for the Athenians is something that is bothering Plato. His main concern is if the traditional way of thinking about the Gods is fostering real virtues of courage. This dialogue makes us understand the importance of questioning the consequences of things that we hear or read. Socrates questions Homeric writing “ It’s not that they are not poetic and sweet for the many to hear, but the more poetic they are, the less should they be heard by boys and men who must be free and accustomed to fearing slavery more than death.” (387b) It seems then that the media is that shapes what we ought to fear and we ought not to fear. This is interesting because I am currently taking a class where we are talking about End of Life and how currently the media has distorted our perception of death. If an alien were to land on earth and tried to understand the concept of human death and got his first glance from a TV news feed i
The Politics is a book dedicated to concepts of state, political communities. Aristotle starts his writing by defining state as a community of communities. All communities aim for a good. The state is the largest community and embraces the rest. Because of this relationship, it aims at a deeper and larger good. Aristotle debunks the qualifications and conceptions people have for rulers of a certain community (king, statesman, householder, master). The mistake he identifies is people differentiating between rulers by the number of their subjects. Aristotle suggests politics should not be viewed this way but rather as a compound composed of elements. This statement sets the tone for book 1. His mission now is to reveal these elements. According to Aristotle, looking at the origin will reveal "the clearest view" of the essence of a state. Family is first elements identified. Family is the union of people, starting with that of man and woman, who need each