Random Plato Works - important!!!

Question 1

In Plato’s Republic Book 5, how should children be bred

Answer 1

• Discusses breeding from the best only, and the best of either sex being united with the best as often - only their offspring should be raised if the flock is to be maintained in a first rate condition.
• Having the right sort of children is considered to be a duty of the state.

Question 2

In Plato’s Republic book 5, what is the suggestion about how we should raise children

Answer 2

• The offspring of the good parents will be taken to the pen or fold and deposited with certain (wet) nurses; the offspring of the inferior (or any who happen to be deformed) will be put away in some mysterious unknown place
• No mother will recognise their own child
• this is rooted in agriculture as then we can pass on virtue

Question 3

In Plato’s Republic Book 5, what is said about weddings

Answer 3

• Yet the number of weddings must be left to the discretion of the rulers (polyandry) - Procreation more important than the institution of marriage itself
• This was not uncommon polyandry happened in Sparta

Question 4

What is the chief concern of Platos’ Laws

Answer 4

• if society becomes too relaxed and allows young men and women to spend too much time together, there would need to be increased surveillance to prevent them fulfilling their sexual

Question 5

Why is the chief concern of plato’s laws fitting with greek society

Answer 5

• no greek father wants daughter pregnant before marriage
• doesn’t wanna be let with financial burden of daughter on household

Question 6

What is said about desire & friendship in Platos’ Laws

Answer 6

• friendship as an affection for someone with hwom we have something in common.
• Desire is specifically sexual and physical.
• Love is first defined as an intense feeling of friendship (contradicts celestial desire pausanias)
• It is then divided into two - there is the love which can allow desire to be part of it and there is love which cannot

Question 7

What is said about homosexual relationships in Plato’s laws

Answer 7

• The Athenian refers to homoerotic relationships as ‘barren and unnatural lusts,
• such practices have arisen because of a failure to control desire (consider how this contrasts with the Symposium).
• Thus, any relationships based on promiscuity (both hetero and homosexual) may be considered as a threat to the State.

Question 8

What are the key ideas in Plato’s Phaedrus - orgasm

Answer 8

• Socrates offers the idea that sexual desire urges the soul to grow wings and take flight;
• his description hints at the whole experience of sexual arousal with the body eventually shuddering as if experiencing an orgasm.

Question 9

What are the key ideas in Plato’s Phaedrus - soul

Answer 9

• Phaedrus 251a-b - Socrates compares the soul to two horses.
• The black horse represents instinctive desire and the white horse is moderation.
• A charioteer has the job of steering horses who would naturally oppose each other.

Question 10

What are the key ideas in Plato’s Phaedrus - friendship

Answer 10

• In Phaedrus, it is suggested that friendship should come before a sexual relationship because if u let desire rule yourlife u get reincarnated as a human being