Key to understanding Plato's conception of the democrat is the emphasis he places on desires rather than reason, 'The democrat, is someone who has desires for many different things: : parties, exercise, money, victory and discovery. The city should be run by the “ guardians”, the “ philosopher – kings'', who have perfected the highest, rational level of the soul.įrom Plato's perspective, democracy was unbalanced, unstable and gave rise to the worst aspects of human nature. He equated the (dêmos) with the lowest, emotional, unthinking part of man's three level soul. According to Plato, most people are merely guided by emotion and impulse:
Furthermore, he believed that rationality is a particularly restricted skill that only a small number of people possess. Plato didn't approve of Athenian democracy precisely because it was participatory. Thus, it refers to people/ citizens possessing the power to rule. It combines two shorter words: 'demos' meaning whole citizen living within a particular city-state and 'kratos' meaning power or rule. The word 'democracy' has its origins in the Greek language.
I will consider each of these respectively and provide counter- arguments. In this article, I will evaluate each premise of Plato's argument against democracy: ruling is a skill it is rational to leave the exercise of skills to experts in a democracy the people rule the people are not experts, and his conclusion, that democracy is consequently irrational.
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