In arguing the merits of the state at large and attempting to adduce from that the merits of the individual, the speaker Socrates is again attempting to employ a manner of systematic thinking, the argument from generalities to particulars (deductive thinking). Thus if we can perceive justice in the state, we may be able to perceive justice in the individual. And Socrates in the dialogue continues to employ arguments from analogies.
We must remember at this stage in the conversation that Plato is a child of his times; he is a child of war and various sorts of enmities and strife. Having inherited the genius of his original thought, we must remember to place it in its historical context. Plato did not value much what we might praise as "freedom" or "personal liberty." We have seen that the speaker Socrates has already fixed each citizen in his allotted task in his ideal state in order to accomplish a division of labor and a balance of trade in a smoothly functioning state. Plato thought, apparently, that men could be happy at their appointed jobs; in fact, he seems to have distrusted "free spirits," who did not seem to him to accomplish much for the state. Plato, who had lived through the anarchy wrought, in his estimation, from democratic revolutions and counterrevolutions, saw his people as lacking in discipline and purpose in the service of the state. He seems to have thought, in fact, that unlimited liberty too frequently results in mob rule.
Plato now seeks to develop the Guardians as the leaders of the state in his ideal state. Since they are to be leaders, they must be educated in order to develop their philosophical frame of mind.
