Justice As Order

Justice is the main focus of discussions in Plato's Republic.However,Plato's theory of justice also presented us as a much controversial issue,that is,what the theory of Justice is that Plato put forth in his Republic in order to respond to the challenges he faced with?This question can be analyzed into three interrelated studies.First,we should discover the ancient Greek context and its approach of inquiring justice,and whether this approach was different from the modern one.The second step is to analyze Plato's awareness of the problems of justice through interpreting the statements of Thrasymachus and his like in Republic in the ancient Greek context of justice.Thirdly, what the theory of justice was Plato put forth,in other words,how he responded the challenges in Republic.In this paper,I will argue that Plato's justice in his Republic is essentially a kind of order which is coincident to his predecessors' approach,and Plato's theory of Forms plays the role of ontological foundation for his theory of justice.I will carry out these three studies by means of text analyzing,context analyzing and philosophical argument.The first chapter will demonstrate that the ancient Greek concept of justice,which in Greek isδικαιΟσυνη(dikaiosune) originated fromδικη(dike),was mainly taken as a universal order of the cosmos or a force to bring balance of this order in the Pre-Socratic Greek world.The relevant Greek documents will be drawn upon to support my view. And then,through interpreting the propositions about justice raised by Thrasymachus and his like in the ancient Greek context,I will explain the problems of justice which Plato was aware of in the second chapter,they were the prevalent "Physical Force Determinism" in Athenian politics which held that power is justice,and the Sophists' "Social Contract Theory" which claimed that justice is only a result of human contract without necessity.In the third chapter,I will demonstrate that how Plato resolved the problems of justice through the approach of justice as an order in Republic.With the discovery of the city's justice and individual's justice through political and psychological analysis,Plato settled the challenges of the "Physical Force Determinism" and the "Social Contract Theory".And further,Plato put his theory of justice on the basis of his philosophical theory of Forms,that is,the principle of the division between the world of Forms and the actual world.In Plato's philosophy,this division is the ontological foundation of justice as order,and the justice in city and individual is the embodiment of this order.