Plato's Republic Book 2 and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

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Plato's Republic Book 2 and Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
The Republic book 2 is considered one of Plato’s most-read dialogs from the mid-nineteenth century mainly because of its main character Socrates. In the dialog, Socrates tries to develop his position regarding justice by asking two questions, what is justice? And does it take is just to be happy as an individual? He, therefore, tries to understand the concept of justice through ethical and political lenses to quench his philosophical concerns. For the two questions to be answered, Socrates constructs a city of justice, Kallipolis together with his interlocutors. After explaining what justice is, they go ahead with to portray justice with a human soul analogy.
To start the debate, Glaucon, one of the three interlocutors along with Socrates and Adeimantus, describes justice as a legal compromise or a line drawn between committing an injustice to another and having an injustice committed unto you. For the analogy, he describes a situation with two men, one just and another one unjust and because of this they are perceived antithetically. Adeimantus weighs in and labeled injustice as being superior but has no way to prove it.CITATION Int20 \l 1033 (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020)
Socrates' approach is that of constructing a city to pit justice against injustice. After identifying the fundamental needs people require to live such as clothing, shelter, and food, they leave the individuals to act out of their natural inclination. As a measure of justice, he suggests a transcendent being, God and believes that evil manifests himself where God isn’t. CITATION Gra201 \l 1033 (Gradesaver, 2020) The fact that God’s description varies from the portrayal of Zeus during that time, it is incredible that is principles were made into law.
The comic book, on the other hand, is based on a dystopian world and places superheroes as part of the societies’ everyday life. In the book, Moore refuses to label his protagonists and leaves it up to the audience to make their minds up regarding the characters. He believes that individuals should not be told what to do, by a politician, superhero, or a writer such as him. The creation of the character Rorschach deemed the main protagonist in the comic shows a man that likes to do things his way. He is seen as the only vigilante that cats out of his initiative, unlike his fellow superheroes who work for the US government.
The world in Watchmen has other interesting characters such as mad genius Ozymandias and all-powerful Doctor Manhattan but unlike other comic book superheroes, they are more grounded. It supports the notion that with great power comes greater responsibility and at times, the personal responsibility disappears in the presence of the power. CITATION Ale19 \l 1033 (Abad-Santos, 2019)
The view of justice and injustice can be perceived in different ways. Pluto’s, republic book 2 bases the argument for a political and ethical perspective and the Watchmen view justice to form a personal and ethical perspective. According to Adeimantus, injustice always prevails over justice and that is because, with enough power, justice or personal responsibility disappears.
The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell and The doors of perception
Philosophy is a niche that will always spark a discussion on matters and that was the aim of Bertrand Russell in listing the problems in philosophy. The first point of discussion is the differentiation between appearance and reality. Through a practical analogy, he discerns that doubt is responsible for a lot of our assumptions making it hard for people to have the same point of view in an issue. For instance, if light falls on a table from an angle, the reality and color of the table will depend on the observer’s point of view. Just because the color of the table is the usual perspective of color brown, that doesn’t mean that other perspectives of the same brown should be considered less real.
Even the shape of the table changes when an individual walks past it therefore one can debate against the table being the usual perception of circular or rectangular. Russell, therefore, believes that the way we as individuals view physical objects differs from our mind-dependent objects that store data. As a result, he views the notion that idealism is wrong just because it does not fit with common sense as a major problem of philosophy.
He further discusses the two types of knowledge, the knowledge of truths and the knowledge of things. Elaborating further, he separates the two in the knowledge of acquaintance and knowledge of description. The knowledge of acquaintance describes the conscious realization of things humans have like the color of the table. By looking at the table, one is acquainted with the color brown and do not bother finding the truth about the color. The knowledge of description is projected onto items that we have been acquainted with and have a basic truth regarding it. Therefore, one can describe the table like a big, brown table.
Bertrand Russell claims idealism and the door of perception provides Aldous Huxley with a chance to tell his beliefs. He was partially blind but he had enough vision to study at Harvard though with the use of thick glasses and a magnifying glass. The vision, however, started to deteriorate in the following years and he was persuaded to try the Bates Method to preserve the sight. The theory involved exercises, not wearing sunglasses and the importance of sunlight. After trying it, he posted remarkable results and claimed that his vision ...