The Republic

by Plato, Desmond Lee (translator)
The Republic
book data
6,605 ratings, 3.76 average rating, 426 reviews (more data...)
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published
January 30th 2003 (first published 380) by Penguin Classics

binding
Paperback, 496 pages

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setting
Greece

isbn
0140449140    (isbn13: 9780140449143)

description
Ostensibly a discussion of the nature of justice, The Republic presents Plato's vision of the ideal state, covering a wide range of topics: social, ed...more




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Brendan James
09/25/07
Brendan James rated it: 1 of 5 stars

Read in November, 2001
recommends it for: everyone
Let me explain why I'd recommend this book to everyone: Plato is retarded.

Seriously.

And it's important that you all understand that Western society is based on the fallacy-ridden ramblings of a retarded person. Read this, understand that he is not joking, and understand that Plato is retarded.

Every single one of his works goes like this:

SOCRATES: "Hello, I will now prove this theory!"
STRAWMAN: "Surely you are wrong!"
...more
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  7 comments

Jason Pettus
04/04/08
Jason Pettus rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2008
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read a hundred so-called "classic" books for the first time, then write reports on whether or not I think they deserve the label

Essay #11: The Republic, by Plato (~360 BC)

The story in a nutshell:
For those who don't know, the...more
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  1 comment

aisha
07/20/07
aisha rated it: 4 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0465069347)

i have read plato's republic...three times.

and i've actually enjoyed every time, although i hadn't thought i would each round.

i love greek writing, and though aristotle and thucydides are my favorite, plato is a close second (third?).

even if you disagree with the ideas he presents, the ideas are fascinating to discuss. i actually kind of think it is way more fun to discuss when someone contradicts an idea or assumption made.

the dialectic style is o...more
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Everyman
bookshelves: my-library
Read in January, 1967
All the criticisms of Plato are valid. He raises straw arguments. He manipulates discussions unfairly. He doesn't offer realistic solutions. And so no.

But he is still, and for very good reason, the most influential philosopher in Western civilization. He makes people think. Most authors we read today are trying to persuade us to agree with their point of view. Plato, not so. He wants you to disagree with him. He wants you to argue with him. He wants you to identify the fallac...more
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Mark
06/20/07
Mark rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2007
recommends it for: those with a philosophical bent
I finished reading The Republic on my birthday and now am both older and wiser. The Republic is in essence one long argument why a person should lead a just life verses choosing a life of pleasure, riches, ambition, or power. It is deeply concerned with the nature of the human soul and how to prepare one's soul for eternity. Socrates/Plato uses a plethora of logical examples for this argument, although it is the logic of 400 B.C. Greek culture, which seems somewhat fractured to us today. The ...more
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Thomas Pfaff
bookshelves: history
Read in March, 2000
This seemed like an appropriate book to read in the new milleneium. So I did. It was interesting. Some say it is the template for socialism.

Some say it is the template for democracy.
People say lots of things about it.

The concept of reading Plato's Republic is pretentious.
So I admit it- I'm at times such a little snot.

Some idjut on NPR said the other day that Plato's Republic was just sooooooooooooo much more enlightening after the third read...more
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  3 comments

Covert.adrian
06/27/07
Covert.adrian rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2002
recommends it for: Those seeking answers, or at least the means to help you find your own.
No book has influenced my life more than Plato's Republic. It admittedly can be a difficult read: it is almost entirely a back and forth conversation between two people, Socrates and Glaucon, discussing the nature of man, the soul, justice, and what the most just society, or Republic, would look like. In this highly utopian account, Socrates expresses little hope in the common man, and instead suggests authoritarian rule, by philosophers, would lead to the most just state. His contempt for democ...more
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Christopher
07/09/08
Christopher rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2009
I'm really glad a read The Republic. Even though I knew anecdotes for the books, and the discourse centered around the ideal city-state, I did not realize that it was really about the nature of Justice.
I was surprised to discover how much I disagreed with some points, in particular Socrates' final definition of Justice. There were many chilling moments when I contrasted his conclusions to such dystopian literature such as Brave New World. I was also heavily struck by his criticisms of D...more
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Erin
06/12/08
Erin rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in September, 2008
This was a tough book to get through, mostly because the ten chapters are so big, that it was hard to find a place to stop. If you're not familiar with it, it is a conversation between Socrates and some of his pupils or followers beginning with the question of who has a better life, a just man or an unjust man. The students make a pretty good argument at the outset as to why a person who is unjust but keeps it hidden is happier than the just man with a bad reputation. Socrates then begins to bui...more
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Tyler
05/28/08
Tyler rated it: 2 of 5 stars

bookshelves: philosophy
Read in June, 2008
recommended to Tyler by: _Socrates
recommends it for: _Academics, Philosophy Students
This essential work of philosophy suffers from its antiquity. Long stretches of Plato's famous dialog make the point over and over, too much for today's readers. Though repetition may have been useful in ancient times, it's through modern lenses that I read. Any editor today would have chopped fifty pages off this treatise in an eye blink.

Through these lenses too, the ideal state Plato suggests will make a reader's hair stand on end, knowing as we do how his proposals can only end...more
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Dan
02/04/08
Dan rated it: 1 of 5 stars

I'm not sure why people read this. For those interested in the history of philosophy it's undoubtedly important. For everyone else... meh. A lot of people comment that Plato deals seriously with all the big issues. Well, he brings them up, but never seriously engages with them.
Maybe the problem is that I'm reading this at 25 after spending a couple years seriously reading philosophy. Maybe Popper inoculated me. I might have felt differently if I started reading The Republic with a less cri...more
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Tim
01/11/08
Tim rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0465069347)

When I wrote this review I failed to mention Bloom’s essay (and translation). It’s possibly the best commentary on Plato I’ve read. An overly simple summary is that Bloom suggests many of Socrates’ proposals were intentionally preposterous, with the aim of leading his interlocutors to grasp that no truly legitimate political system is possible, and that the best course for individuals is to tend their souls, necessarily within a polity, going along with its requirements as necessary, b...more
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Lauren
01/09/08
Lauren rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2008
I have always enjoyed Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I love to think of truths visually, often using metaphors to articulate and organize thoughts. The Allegory of the Cave is an excellent metaphor of truth versus reality or pretence versus perception. I believe in absolutes. There is truth, and then there is what we perceive to be true. Because everyone is viewing ultimate truth from their own perspective, truth is often misconceived as ambiguous, “in the eye of the beholder,” or circ...more
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Zoeita
07/18/07
Zoeita rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: academia
Read in January, 1996
recommends it for: anyone
i freakin' love this book!!! of course, it helps that i had a most excellant professor who guided our naive freshman class through the text. the second time around, i had a wider breadth of expierence and again, an excellant professor to facilitate discussion in an even smaller class. plato lays out the groundwork for much of what was to become Western Civilization as we know it. i agree w/much of what plato says, particularly when it comes to focusing on encouraging the traits or morals that on...more
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Brian
12/16/07
Brian rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1593080972)

bookshelves: philosophy, politics
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for: people who are ready to accept that democracy is lame
This book is not for the faint of heart. It may in fact not be for anyone outside a select few who are either pretentious and intelligent or foolish and masochistic - or some combination of both.

The main thing one can take away from this book is the ability to tell the next person who says, "Democracy started back in ancient Greece with Plato and Co.," to shove off. The book attempts to answer the question of whether being good for goodness' sake is truly important, and i...more
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Kate
05/11/09
Kate added it (review of isbn 0915144034)

bookshelves: abandoned, wallbanger
I've tried to read this book twice. The first time I made it about 2/3 of the way through; the second time I made it less than halfway. I spent the entire time thinking of Dorothy Parker's review of The Cardinal's Mistress: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

My problem with the book was that Plato's ideas of what makes for an ideal society frustrate me. A lot. I would get so angry with the totalitarian regime he was s...more
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Maria
12/01/08
Maria is currently reading it (review of isbn 0465069347)

bookshelves: currently-reading
I picked up this book again (which I haven't read since freshman year in college) because what Plato says about the cave has been on my mind. I am working on that issue in my life and in a play I'm writing so I thought it was high time for a refresher course. A few pages in, I am reminded of why this book is classic. Socrates talks to an old man about what again is like to age and if he misses the pleasures of his youth. The man replies, "If they [human beings] are orderly and content w...more
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Carla
01/10/09
Carla rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
Not finished-finished, but within the last pages.
Better than I expected...glad that I got a Classical translation, and not one of the more idiotic lyrical-Modern English ones. *gags* Easier to read, my patoot! If it doesn't sound like Shakespeare, it's Not Classical language.
Not a dull book...just a tad verbose. Not Sexist, either...really, You have to Search for those conversations. Not unlike Socrates turning arguments onto his opponents, people that wants to see anti-female stanc...more
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Kris
12/03/08
Kris rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: scholarship
Read in January, 1997
recommends it for: philosophers/students
One of the greatest books ever written. Plato transcends time and locale to bring us THE philosophy text to begin and end all others. All one has to do is read his student, Aristotle, to appreciate the literary gift that Plato demonstrates in his Republic. Not only does he deal with such foundational concepts like metaphysics, political philosophy, epistemology, education, and ethics... but he does so in a deeply interesting dialogical format, using the quintessential philosopher Socrates as his...more
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Neal Tucker
05/09/09
Neal Tucker rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Plato's corpus is, as has been said, the footnote to all of Western philosophy. This text is a great basis for further reading in Plato. The translation is pretty good, and the book itself is pretty cheap in nearly any translation, unless you want a complete works, in which case I recommend Complete Works, a significant addition to any philosophical library, including even pseudepigraphal-Platonic works. I personally liked Republic so much because of the nature of the arguments, which are, at...more
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