Perbandingan

Plato memang bijak!

Apabila sesuatu perkara yang hendak di teliti adalah terlalu halus dan kompleks, maka kita cari perkara yang sama (equivalent) tapi lebih besar kadar dan proporsi-nya.

Seterusnya pada perkara yang besar itu kita dapat perhatikan apa-apa hal kita mahu teliti dan kaji lalu dibandingkan dengan perkara halus kompleks yang kita mahu kaji awal-awal tadi.

Sudah pasti kesimpulan yang kita buat kemudian adalah hampir tepat kalau tak 'exactly' tepat.

Bagi Plato, dalam mencari erti keadilan, kezaliman (justice, injustice), kebaikan dan kejahatan dalam seorang manusia, dia telah mengusulkan idea mencari erti-erti yang sama dalam sebuah negara/kota dahulu.

Sebuah negara adalah besar, sudah pasti lebih besar dari manusia. Tapi kedua-duanya hampir serupa;

-Raja yang mentadbir negara adalah umpama otak/minda yang mentadbir badan.

-Sistem pertahanan negara adalah umpama sistem ketahanan badan,
memastikan badan sihat.

-etc etc 'you get the idea'

Dan di sini aku ingin bertanya, bolehkah perbandingan yang sama digunakan, tapi secara songsang. ie: memerhati tindak tanduk dan pemikiran individu atau sekumpulan kecil individu, bagi menentukan, meramal atau menjelaskan apa yang berlaku dalam sesebuah negara, negeri, kota, atau komuniti.

Aku rasa boleh.

To be continued.

Republic by Plato: Book II

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"Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages.

I told them, what I --really thought, that the enquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus;

suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger

--if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser

--this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune"

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"Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to
our enquiry?

I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State.

True, he replied.

And is not a State larger than an individual?

It is.

Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible.

I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them"

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