This is a good one—gonna use it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5883660&forum_id=2ค1¤7PHPSESSID=188a95202f833e097d78c96d76bac3f6#50009303)

Go to askphilosophy

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2y ago

GigaChan450

Why is Plato so Confucian

I am a beginner who got started with Plato, among others. (Plato's a good place to start, hehe) I'm halfway thru Republic.

My cursory thoughts are - given that he's the pioneer of Western philosophy, why is he so Confucian and authoritarian and Asian?

Some key ideas of his:

Everyone shld specialise, do what they're good at, not what they want to

Guardians shld never know their children, have families or wealth

He LOVES to put people into boxes

Perfect state is ruled by philosophers

This is because, we are not islands, we live in an inter-connected society. Our actions have consequences on others. This, altho our individual happiness is important, group happiness is very important too, and arguably more important, that's why all our actions shld consider the group, we cant just do whatever we want

This is essentially Confucianism. The family and the state is more important than the self

I expected Western philosophers to value the self more, broadly speaking

(Finally, can someone tell me if justice is better than injustice, for its own sake?)

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1awbqkp/why_is_plato_so_confucian/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5883660&forum_id=2ค1¤7PHPSESSID=188a95202f833e097d78c96d76bac3f6#50009135)