Platos Dialectical Cut in Socrates Soul in The Being of the Beautiful

Platos Dialectical Cut in Socrates Soul in The Being of the Beautiful Within the spectrum of the policy-making realm, one of the mostimportant philosophical headers arises, What is the stovepipe regime? It isobvious that the best regime is one of complied consent. There still seemsto be difficulty in deciding the best means to the desired end. Politics,the persuasion force, operates in the realm of opinions. Its counterpart,philosophy, is an attempt to replace opinions about political things. Thispolitical science is the process of acquiring political knowledge for theguiding of political life. The displacement from opinions to knowledgeis through the dialectic method. This political science is not withoutits problems. It is plagued by relativism and nihilism. These problemstend to make politics unreceptive to philosophy. What philosophy is isbest seen in a confrontation between the philosopher and the city. It is byno small coincidence that these two conflicti ng views are seen in differentcharacters in The Being of the Beautiful. The obvious question now becomesWhy does Plato make a dialectical cut in Socrates soul between Theaetetusand Young Socrates? In answering this question it becomes central to befool that the universe of the beautiful is not contained in one character,and for that matter, may not be a character at all. It is crucial then totake up the characteristics of both Theaetetus and Young Socrates inrelation to what the beautiful is. In so doing, it will provide the basisfor political knowledge. To begin, Theaetetus is a youth just returned frombattle. War, being the harshest of all t separatelyers places one under the duressof necessity. This is a fo... ...nd this. Hesays that all has been said in a measured way... but this is hard to takein (Statesman, 293e). The Stranger explains that the rule of law is forone class and is corrupt, imperfect and seditionary. Through thequestioning of the laws, the foundations of th e one are seen. Politics andphilosophy are not inhering enemies. Both Theaetetus and Young Socratesunderstand the ideas to some extent. The goal now is to make each receptiveto the other. Both make distinctions between men and gods. They can eachunderstand the concept that something merely is. Within each characterseparately a vice is seen but when combined dialectically, the possibilityof a true political philosophy is possible. Perhaps Socrates sees in bothof them the idea of the philosopher and he wants to see it generated asproof of a permanent condition of human nature.