Plato's Republic Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary terms and definitions derived from excerpts of Plato's Republic, covering core political concepts, classes, and analogies.

Justice (in the state)

The principle where moneymakers, military members, and guardians each do their own specific work in the city without intermeddling in the duties of others.

Injustice (in the state)

The intermeddling in or exchanging of roles among the three distinct classes (moneymakers, military, and guardians) within the city.

Tradesmen

Persons who remain in the marketplace to facilitate buying and selling by exchanging money for goods and goods for money.

Merchants

Agents who travel from city to city to export and import products.

Wage-earners

Individuals whose bodily strength qualifies them for hard labor, who sell the use of that strength for a price called a wage.

Healthy City

The initial, simple city formed out of basic natural necessities such as food, housing, clothing, and essential crafts.

Luxurious (Inflamed) City

A city that expands beyond basic necessities to pursue comforts, arts, and luxuries, requiring more territory and an army.

Complete Guardians

Elderly, prudent, and thoroughly tested rulers qualified to take care of the city and protect it against internal and external harm.

Auxiliaries

The younger guardians who assist the rulers and help execute their decrees.

Noble Lie (Phoenician Story)

A myth told to citizens claiming that they were formed in the earth and created with specific metals in their souls: gold for rulers, silver for auxiliaries, and iron or bronze for farmers and craftsmen.

Philosopher Kings

Rulers in whom political power and philosophy are united, identified as necessary to deliver cities and humanity from miseries.

Ship of State Analogy

An illustration comparing a mismanaged city to a ship where quarrelsome sailors ignore the true pilot's navigation art and deem the knowledgeable navigator a useless stargazing babbler.

Democracy

An agreeable, anarchic regime arising when the poor win power, characterized by absolute freedom, liberty of speech, and treating unequals as equals.

Tyranny

A regime that naturally grows out of democracy's excessive demand for freedom, originating when a popular protector transforms into an oppressive ruler.

Legend of Lycaean Zeus

An Arcadian story about a man turned into a wolf after tasting human entrails, used to illustrate how a popular leader transforms into a tyrant upon shedding citizens' blood.