What is justice? What is wisdom? Can the meanings of these words even be universally accepted? Every individual has their own idea of how these words are defined. These concepts, among many others, are challenged and dissected in The Republic by Plato. The Republic is a philosophical book that puts a persons' mind into overdrive. It presents the reader with questions dealing with basic ideas and concepts, such as justice and knowledge, and throws them out and constructs new, in-depth meanings. Socrates goes into great detail of his views of the world around him. All of these views combine to become what he sees as the perfect state. His ideal civilization would be perfect in every sense of the word. According to Socrates, every individual would have his own task, and all of these jobs added up would create a society that would run at maximum efficiency and would be flawless. I see a problem to Socrates' views. What he is talking about is not possible. There can never be a prefect society, a "happy state." I believe that his views are well thought out, but are never capable of becoming a reality. He presents many flaws in his argument for an ideal civilization, which I will examine.
             I believe that there can never be a perfect society. Human nature alone is the main reason for this. Perfection is unattainable. Granted one can come very close, but it can never be achieved. For a single person to come near to perfection is one thing, but imagine an entire city or state, composed of numerous people, firing on all four cylinders, so to speak. It is a fantasy. A great fantasy, yes, but it is not possible. Human beings are not robots. According to Socrates, "Each class performs its tasks in accordance with its designated excellence." People cannot be expected to perform a single mundane task and in return get nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing they live in a perfectly run soci...