Philosophers, Tyrants And Democratic Lif

Plato’s Republic is an important work in the study of western democratic politics,including Plato’s thought of democracy,philosopher king,justice theory,soul view,happiness view and education thought.Among them,democracy is the most studied subject by scholars at home and abroad.In the Republic,Plato classified the city-state politics in ancient Greece and determined the pros and cons.He believed that democracy was the worst political system outside of tyranny.Plato described the chaotic political order of Athens and the chaotic soul order of the Athenian people’s unrestrained pursuit of freedom and equality,and criticized the democratic system of Athens.He believed that the chaos of the polis and individual order brought about by Athenian democracy was against the justice of the polis and the justice of the individual.Under this system,the city and its citizens would degenerate,which would inevitably lead to tyranny.Under the tyrant regime,the tyrant,the people and even the whole city were dominated by the lawless desire,and the city seemed to be in a state of disorder,disharmony and dilapidated decline,which is no way to talk about democracy.On this basis,Plato proposed to establish an ideal city-state to save the order of city-state and the order of people’s mind.In the ideal city-state,philosophers become rulers,realize the combination of power and wisdom,and create orderly political life and healthy mental order of people to the maximum extent through the guidance of philosophy,leading the city-state and people to "the road to good".In the democratic era,how to better guide democratic life is still a topic worth discussing.Looking back on classical political philosophy,we may find a different way out.Most scholars’ studies of the Republic focus on the analysis of the defects of democracy and the discussion of the thoughts of the philosopher Wang,and they mainly discuss democratic life and philosophers.The further degradation of democracy will lead to tyranny,which provides another perspective for the study of democracy.Therefore,based on the study of the ninth book of the Republic,this paper analyzes the relationship between the three elements of the philosopher,the tyrant and the democratic life from the perspective of soul order and love.To study the relationship between the philosopher,the tyrant and democratic life,to explore more deeply the relationship between knowledge,love and opinion,because the philosopher represents knowledge,the tyrant represents love,and democratic life represents opinion.Therefore,on the basis of reflecting on the defects of Athenian democracy,to think and explore the way to perfect the democratic system,and draw the conclusion that the philosopher is the best "candidate" to save the democratic life,but the tyrant made the democratic life more decline.In the process of seeking to perfect the democratic system,the author has triggered a deep thinking on the problem of philosophy and political tension,and found that the fundamental cause of the conflict between the two lies in the heterogeneity of philosophy and politics,and the pursuit of complete knowledge of philosophy has a transcendent effect on the legitimacy foundation of politics--opinion.Finally,we draw the conclusion that the blueprint of the ideal city-state depicted by Plato in the Republic is a reference for modern western democratic politics.Building on Plato’s Republic,Aristotle studied hybrid regimes,which incorporated both opinion and wisdom into institutional designs to solve the problems of abandoning philosophy entirely and the dangers of overstepping opinion in realpolitik.