Tag: Republic

Topics

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

  • 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

  • Plato: The Man and His Work

    - A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work, Dover Publications, 2011.  Originally published in 1926.
    From the publisher: This outstanding work by a renowned Plato scholar presents the thought of the great Greek philosopher with historical accuracy and objective analysis. A brief introductory chapter about the philosopher’s life is followed by an… 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

  • 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

  • Plato

    - Strauss, Leo, "Plato," History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edition, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
    Excerpt: Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have come down to us as Platonic writings, not all of which are now regarded as genuine. Some scholars go so far as to doubt that any of the letters is genuine. In order not to encumber our presentation with… More

  • Socrates’ Second Sailing: On Plato’s Republic

    - Benardete, Seth, Socrates' Second Sailing: On Plato's Republic, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
    Excerpt: The title of this book alludes to the phrase Plato has Socrates use in his intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo. Socrates tells his story as a preface to his reply to Cebes’ counterargument to the proof Socrates has given about the… More

  • Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws

    - Laks, Andre, "Legislation and Demiurgy: On the Relationship Between Plato’s Republic and Laws," Classical Antiquity 9, no. 2 (Oct. 1990), 209-29.
    Excerpt: Glenn Morrow, who did so much to illuminate the historical background of the Laws in his book Plato’s Cretan City, also had a sense, one quite unusual among commentators, of how the Laws really belonged to Plato’s philosophy and was… More

  • The Cambridge Companion to Plato

    - The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
    From the publisher: Plato stands as the fount of our philosophical tradition, being the first Western thinker to produce a body of writing that touches upon a wide range of topics still discussed by philosophers today. In a sense he invented philosophy as a… More

  • 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 Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics

    - Bobonich, Christopher, Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
    About the Book: Plato’s Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato’s later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws,… 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

  • Why Justice? The Answer of the Republic

    - Brann, Eva, "Why Justice? The Answer of the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 246-55.
    Excerpt: In literature as in life, justice is taken to be something good, and there are two questions about “good” that are hard to ask. The harder one is “Why is good better than bad?” When Stan leaps over the wall into Milton’s… More

  • Introduction to Reading the Republic

    - Brann, Eva, "Introduction to Reading the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 88-107.
    Excerpt: The Republic is a dialogue, that is to say, a conversation. Since it is a conversation recorded between the covers of a book we cannot help but begin by reading it, but I think the author wants us as soon as possible to join it, to be converted… More

  • Imitative Poetry: Book X of the Republic

    - Brann, Eva, "Imitative Poetry: Book X of the Republic," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 256-72.
    Excerpt: A mindful reader of the grand finale of Plato’s Republic, the myth of the soul’s fore- and afterlife in the cosmos, might well feel scandalized. Twice in the work Socrates has inveighed against myth-making and vision-inducing poetry.… More

  • The Music of the Republic by Eva Brann

    - Brann, Eva. “The Music of the Republic.” In The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, 108–245. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004.
    Eva Brann’s The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates’ Conversations and Plato’s Writings offers a rigorous and insightful examination of Plato’s dialogues, providing a valuable resource for engaging with Socratic thought. Brann, a… 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

  • Plato: Political Philosophy

    - Malcolm Schofield, Plato: Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006.
    From the publisher: Plato is the best known and most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. Malcolm Schofield, a leading scholar of ancient philosophy, offers a lucid and accessible guide to Plato’s political thought, enormously… 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

  • The Development of Plato’s Political Theory

    - George Klosko, The Development of Plato's Political Theory, Oxford University Press, 2007.
    From the publisher: The Development of Plato’s Political Theory provides a clear, scholarly account of Plato’s political theory in the context of the social and political events of his time. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to take… 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

  • Virtue and Politics: The Laws

    - Blitz, Mark, "Virtue and Politics: The Laws," Plato's Political Philosophy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, 82-114.
    Excerpt: We pursue our study of virtue by considering more fully Plato’s understanding of its place in politics. His thematic discussion of politics occurs in three dialogues, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. As we have seen, moreover,… 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

Multimedia

  • Leo Strauss Courses on Plato

    - Audio of courses taught by Leo Strauss, 1958 - 1973, provided by the Leo Strauss Center at the University of Chicago.
    Courses include: Plato’s Laws, Symposium, Gorgias, Meno, Apology/Crito, Protagoras, Euthydemus and Republic.

  • Miles Burnyeat on Plato

    - "On Plato," The Great Philosophers, BBC, 1987.
    About the program: The dialogues of Plato are analyzed in this episode of the BBC series The Great Philosophers (1987), in which Bryan Magee interviews Cambridge philosophy professor Miles Burnyeat. Seeing Plato’s ideas initially as extensions of… More

  • Ronna Burger on Laughter and Anger in Plato

    - “Laughter and Anger in Plato’s Republic,” Montesquieu Forum, Roosevelt University, April, 2011.
    Tulane’s Ronna Burger lectures on laughter and anger in Plato at the Montesquieu Forum, Roosevelt University.

  • Plato’s Republic: A Tale of Two Cities…or Even More.

    - Catherine Zuckert, “Plato’s Republic: A Tale of Two Cities…or Even More,” Montesquieu Forum, Roosevelt University, March 31, 2011.
    Catherine Zuckert of Notre Dame lectures on Plato’s Republic at the Montesquieu Forum, Roosevelt University.

  • Steven B. Smith: Introduction to Political Philosophy

    - Smith, Steven B., "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Open Yale Courses, 24 lectures, Fall 2006.
    About the course: This course is intended as an introduction to political philosophy as seen through an examination of some of the major texts and thinkers of the Western political tradition. Three broad themes that are central to understanding political life… More

  • David Roochnik on Plato’s Republic

    - Roochnik, David, "Plato's Republic," Audio downloads, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
    Course description: It is the first work in the history of Western political philosophy and, arguably, the most influential—so influential that the entire European philosophical tradition has been described as being nothing more than a “series of… More

  • David Roochnik: Introduction to Greek Philosophy

    - Roochnik, David, "Introduction to Greek Philosophy," Audio lectures, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
    Course description: The first philosophers in Western history—the ancient Greeks—asked the most fundamental questions about human beings and their relationship to the world. More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge,… More

  • Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

    - O'Connor, David, "Ancient and Medieval Philosophy," Podcast,  iTunes University.
    Course description: This course, led by Professor David O’Connor (Notre Dame), will concentrate on major figures and persistent themes in ancient and medieval philosophy. A balance will be sought between scope and depth, the latter ensured by a close… More