Major Works

• Laws

  - Recommended translation: The Laws of Plato, trans. Thomas L. Pangle (Basic, 1980; University of Chicago Press, 1988).
  This is the best edition of the Laws available in English. Thomas L. Pangle’s edition also includes an extended interpretative essay that introduces the work. Excerpt: Athenian To whom do you ascribe the authorship of your legal arrangements, Strangers?… More

• Timaeus

  - Recommended translation: Timaeus, trans. Peter Kalkavage (Focus, 2001).
  Excerpt: Socrates One, two, three,—but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of our guests of yesterday, our hosts of today? Timaeus Some sickness has befallen him, Socrates; for he would never have stayed away from our gathering of his own free will.… More

• Republic

  - Recommended translations:
  • Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
  • Plato. The Republic. Translated by Tom Griffith. Edited by G. R. F. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  Excerpt: “What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice, shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and… More

Commentary

• How Farabi Read Plato’s Laws

  - Strauss, Leo, "How Farabi Read Plato's Laws," Mélanges Louis Massignon, Institut Francais de Damas, 1957, Vol. 3.  Reprinted in What Is Political Philosophy?
  Excerpt: At first it seems as if Farabi meant to say that all insights which he ascribed to Plato were peculiar to Plato. What he actually says however is that Plato did not find the science which he desired among the sciences and arts which are known to the… More

• On Plato’s Republic

  - Strauss, Leo, "On Plato's Republic," The City and Man, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, 50-138.
  Excerpt: Generally speaking, we can know the thought of a man only through his speeches oral or written. We can know Aristotle’s political philosophy through his Politics. Plato’s Republic on the other hand, in contradistinction to… More

• The Republic of Plato

  - Bloom, Allan, The Republic of Plato, New York: Basic Books, 1968, 1991.
  Excerpt: The Republic is the true Apology of Socrates, for only in the Republic does he give an adequate treatment of the theme which was forced on him by Athens’ accusation against him. That theme is the relationship of the philosopher to the… More

• On Plato’s Timaeus and Timaeus’ Science Fiction

  - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Timaeus and Timaeus' Science Fiction," Interpretation 2, no. 1, (Summer 1971), 21-65.
  Excerpt: (17a1-b4). Socrates counts out loud. He makes himself out to be somewhat ridiculous. He does not say, “There are three of you; there should be four.” Nor does he say, We are all here except so-and-so. Where is he Timaeus?” Socrates… More

• The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws

  - Strauss, Leo, The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
  Excerpt: In the traditional order of the Platonic dialogues the Laws is preceded by the Minos, the only Platonic dialogue in which Socrates raises the question What is law? It appears that not all laws are good or, at any rate equally good. The Cretan laws… More

• The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws

  - Pangle, Thomas L., "The Political Psychology of Religion in Plato’s Laws," The American Political Science Review 70, no. 4 (December 1976), 1059-77.
  Excerpt: Why is it important that we turn our serious attention to Plato’s Laws? How will the study of this antique work help us to come to grips with the dilemma of modern democracy? We find ourselves citizens of rich and powerful regimes which… More

• An Introduction to Plato’s Republic

  - Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato's Republic, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
  Excerpt: The Republic is Plato’s best-known work, and there are ways in which it is too famous for its own good. It gives us systematic answers to a whole range of questions about morality, politics, knowledge, and metaphysics, and the book is written… More

• Physique et poesie dans le ‘Timee’ de Platon

  - Hadot, Pierre, "Physique et poesie dans le 'Timee' de Platon," Revue de theologie et de philosophie 115 (1983), 113-33.

• Science, Faith, and Politics

  - Weinberger, Jerry, "Preface," Science, Faith, and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age: A Commentary on Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

• On Plato’s Political Philosophy

  - Bruell, Christopher, "On Plato's Political Philosophy," The Review of Politics 56, no. 2 (Spring 1994), 261-82.
  Abstract: This article consists chiefly in an examination of the Republic, but that examination attempts to determine the place of the Republic in relation to Plato’s other works (especially the Laws and the Statesman) as well as their place in… More

• Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays

  - Kraut, Richard, ed., Plato's Republic: Critical Essays, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
  Excerpt: Plato (427-347 B.C.) is the first Western philosopher who wrote systematically about the wide range of questions that make up the subject of philosophy, and it is in the Republic that he most fully expresses his conception of what philosophy is and… More

• Inside and Outside the Republic

  - Lear, Jonathan, "Inside and Outside the Republic," Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 219-46.
  Excerpt: An engaged reader of the Republic must at some point wonder how—or if—it all fits together. There seems to be jumbled within that text a challenge to conventional justice, a political theory, a psychology, a metaphysics, a theory of education,… More

• Plato’s Doctrine of Truth

  - Heidegger, Martin, "Plato's Doctrine of Truth," trans. Thomas Sheehan, Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 155-82.
  Whatever one makes of Heidegger’s own views, or his criticism of Plato and what he calls the Platonic tradition, this essay offers a profound meditation on Plato’s Cave and Plato’s “doctrine” of truth. Excerpt: The knowledge that… More

• Plato’s “Laws” by Seth Benardete

  - Benardete, Seth, Plato's "Laws": The Discovery of Being, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
  From the publisher: “The Laws was Plato’s last work, his longest, and one of his most difficult. In contrast to the Republic, which presents an abstract ideal, the Laws appears to provide practical guidelines for the establishment and maintenance… More

• Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato’s Republic

  - Baracchi, Claudia, Of Myth, Life, and War in Plato's Republic, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
  Excerpt: Yet another work on Plato, on that most universally recognized among the Platonic dialogues—the Republic. The Republic of Plato (so we call it, today, in this part of the world): a seminal text, inaugurating an epoch of which we are still… More

• City and Soul in Plato’s Republic

  - Ferrari, G. R. F., City and Soul in Plato's Republic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
  Excerpt: In this short book I attempt to say what Plato is getting at in the Republic. That is a grand ambition for a slim volume. My strategy has been to trace one bright thread, the comparison between the structure of a society and that of the individual… More

• Plato’s Republic: A Study

  - Rosen, Stanley, Plato's Republic: A Study, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
  Excerpt: Plato’s Republic is one of those works in the history of philosophy that is both excessively familiar and inexhaustibly mysterious. It has been studied endlessly by a wide range of readers, specialists and amateurs alike, and has become a… More

• Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s Republic

  - Reeve, C. D. C., Philosopher Kings: The Argument of Plato's Republic, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006.
  Excerpt: Book I of the Republic differs markedly in philosophical style from its fellows. In it we find Socrates questioning all and sundry about what justice is, using the elenchus to refute them, and refusing to provide any positive answers of his own.… More

• The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic

  - Ferrari, G. R. F., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  Excerpt: When is it that we choose to journey with companions? Most often, I suppose, when we want to make the journey fuller, more pleasant, more vivid. But we may also want a fellow traveler to point out landmarks we might be missing or perhaps to assure us… More

• Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger

  - Zucker, Catherine H., "Using Pre-Socratic Philosophy to Support Political Reform: The Athenian Stranger," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 51-146.
  Excerpt: The Laws and the Epinomis are the only Platonic dialogues in which Socrates does not appear. They are usually thought to be the last dialogues Plato wrote. All three of the interlocutors are elderly, and there is an ancient report that Laws was… More

• Plato’s “Laws”: A Critical Guide

  - Bobonich, Christopher, ed., Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  About the Book: Long understudied, Plato’s Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade, and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of… More

• Philosophy and Politics: The Republic

  - Blitz, Mark, "Philosophy and Politics: The Republic," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 166-90.
  Excerpt: We have now discussed several experiences that are at the root of philosophy, and a phenomenon, beauty, that helps to define both ethical and intellectual virtue. It is therefore reasonable to turn next to Plato’s Republic. For, beyond any… More

• Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws

  - Lutz, Mark J., Divine Law and Political Philosophy in Plato’s Laws, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2012.
  About the Book: All over the world secular rationalist governments and judicial authorities have been challenged by increasingly forceful claims made on behalf of divine law. For those who believe that reason—not faith—should be the basis of politics and… More