Der Staat

Plato's Dialogues #4

by Platón

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings.

Genres: Philosophy, Classics, Nonfiction, Politics, History, School, Literature

Hardcover

First published January 1, 401

About the author

Librarian Note: This is an alternate name variant profile. See primary profile: Plato.
There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. For more information please see Platon.

Reviews

[Brendan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let me explain why I'd recommend this book to everyone: Plato is stupid.

Seriously.

And it's important that you all understand that Western society is based on the fallacy-ridden ramblings of an idiot. Read this, understand that he is not joking, and understand that Plato is well and truly fucked in the head.

Every single one of his works goes like this:

SOCRATES: "Hello, I will now prove this theory!"
STRAWMAN: "Surely you are wrong!"
SOCRATES: "Nonsense. Listen, Strawman: can we agree to the following wildly presumptive statement that is at the core of my argument?" {Insert wildly presumptive statement here— this time, it's "There is such a thing as Perfect Justice" and "There is such a thing as Perfect Beauty", among others.}
STRAWMAN: "Yes, of course, that is obvious."
SOCRATES: "Good! Now that we have conveniently skipped over all of the logically-necessary debate, because my off-the-wall crazy ideas surely wouldn't stand up to any real scrutiny, let me tell you an intolerably long hypothetical story."
{Insert intolerably long hypothetical story.}
STRAWMAN: "My God, Socrates! You have completely won me over! That is brilliant! Your woefully simplistic theories should become the basis for future Western civilization! That would be great!"
SOCRATES: "Ha ha! My simple rhetorical device has duped them all! I will now go celebrate by drinking hemlock and scoring a cameo in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!"

The moral of the story is: Plato is stupid.

[Everyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the criticisms of Plato are valid. He raises straw arguments. He manipulates discussions unfairly. He doesn't offer realistic solutions. And so on.

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 fallacies in his arguments (and some are deliberately fallacious). In short, he wants you to do the most difficult intellectual exercise there is. He wants you to think, and to think deeply.

The other thing to realize about Plato is that he is an exquisite poet and craftsman. There is nothing accidental about what he writes; there is nothing superfluous. Even the most minute seeming points are there for good reason. Part of the joy of reading Plato for the third, fourth, fifth time is to see each time a bit more about what he is doing and why he is doing it, to come closer to appreciating his extraordinary genius and encountering ever more deeply this incredible mind.

[Henry Avila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plato's "The Republic", is a great but flawed masterpiece of western literature, yes it makes sense, mostly, some of it. "I am the wisest man in the world because I know one thing, that I know nothing", said the smart man ... Socrates. Plato is writing for Socrates, his friend and teacher. Late teacher, since being forced to commit suicide by the uncomfortable citizens of Athens ( the famous poisoned cup of hemlock), for corrupting the minds of youth. Socrates didn't believe books were as effective as lectures, big mistake. Socrates advocates complete state control of everything, land, schools , businesses, homes, and even children to be taken away from their parents and raised by the state. In other words, an early form of communism. Plato agreed but Aristotle didn't , he knew only parents would love their children , which kids need. Most of the book is dialogues between various men as how to establish a perfect state. Socrates / Plato wanted Greece ruled by philosopher kings. With a professional army to back them up. An unreachable goal, as 24 centuries later, has shown. Greed is the primary motivation of the human race, but people keep on trying to reach the elusive "Utopia", and failing forever? Socrates the wise man, was correct.

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as I can remember, I've loved philosophy. Who hasn't dreamed of an ideal world?
"The Republic" is one of the books that you must have read; I think, if you like philosophy, I will dare to make an analogy that will perhaps make you smile, but it's a bit like reading "The Lord of the Rings." If you have to say that you love fantasy literature, this is a must.
It is an arduous and demanding read, very challenging; the style and turns of phrase from 2500 years ago do not make it easy to read. It will often be necessary to re-read specific sentences to ensure you have grasped the meaning of the argument.
If I have fond memories of "The Republic," it is not so much for the brilliant arguments offered to us, to be honest. However, I have forgotten the essential, even if I still remember that there is a superiority of good over evil, with one actor defending the good and the other trying to dismantle his arguments.
What left a lasting impression on me and still serves me today is the preparation of the "dispute" for a good part of the story. I will use almost that to avoid misunderstandings and wrong interpretations; it is the first and the only time I have seen this way of preparing a verbal game with such rigor.
Thanks to this reading, I sometimes make sure during a discussion that the meaning of the words is the same for everyone; in this sense, this book left me with something lasting in my daily life.
It is one of my rare classic readings, without going through the reading box imposed at school;)

[Emily May · Rating 3 out of 5]

My re-reading of this for my university course has led me to the same conclusions I found when I first read it a couple of years back, except this time I am fortunate enough to have understood it better than last time. My conclusions being that Plato, and through him Socrates, was very intelligent, believed he was more intelligent than everyone else (no matter how many times he declared himself unwise) and very much loved to talk. Socrates, in particular, must have been very fond of the sound of his own voice.

You can't give a book that revolutionised philosophy any less than 3 stars, even if about 70% of it features many generalisations, jumping to bizarre conclusions, and claims without good reason. And yes, Plato and Socrates had some brilliant ideas - all the more brilliant because they came up with them first - but they don't measure up to today's version of "rational thinking". Good, but outdated. I suppose the best thing about their ideas was that they laid the foundations for the next 2000 years of Western philosophy and politics.

Gender Equality?

And, though hardly feminists, Socrates and Plato were some of the first to publicly suggest that education should be equal to both genders (apart from military training) and that women should have as large a political role as men, seeing as they make up half of society. Go early Greek gender equality!! Though I suppose the line "whining and crying as if they were but women" (or something to that effect) kind of pisses on that feminist bonfire. Oh well...

Justice?

So here's some of the reasons why The Republic fails. Firstly, Socrates (the character) assumes that because one example demonstrates a certain type of relationship, then this idea can be applied to all. When he is arguing with Thrasymachus about justice, Thrasymachus says that justice is whatever the rulers decide it to be and that they use this power for their own good and the weaker (i.e. the subjects) get screwed over. Socrates then uses the example of a physician who is stronger than his patients but his agenda is only to help them. Well:

1) Even if a physician selflessly helps his patients, this does not prove that rulers have the best interests of their citizens in mind. There is not a naturally occurring relationship between the two.

2) As Thrasymachus goes on to point out, the physician is doing it for his own benefit because he is paid to do the job.

Stupidity & Contradictions

So then Socrates starts with the bullshit that doesn't get refuted because the author is on his side, of course. He says that the physician is divided into two roles: that of physician and that of moneymaker (yep). So, basically the two are separate and have nothing to do with each other... um, I beg to differ. You see? Some of the arguments are ridiculous. He also goes on to contradict himself later by stating that rulers do get a reward for ruling: money! If he had maintained his previous argument, then they should have done it anyway for the simple benefit of their subjects and moneymaking should be a separate thing entirely.

Agent vs. Act Virtue

Plato and Socrates talked a great deal about justice being an agent virtue and not just an act virtue. They believed that it wasn't good enough to act justly, you had to have a good soul as well. Makes sense until you get to where you judge people based on them having a good soul or not - and just how do you do that?

Person A: do you have a just soul?

Person B: oh yes.

Person A: Phew, let's be friends.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

And they have a very warped view of what makes a person good/just. "A just man values wisdom above all else"... does he? I imagine a person who likes to make friends with the super-smart individuals and disregard the rest to be a bit of an ass. Don't you?

[Roy Lotz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve gotten into the habit of dividing up the books I’ve read by whether I read them before or after Plato’s Republic. Before The Republic, reading was a disorganized activity—much the same as wading through a sea of jumbled thoughts and opinions. I had no basis from which to select books, except by how much they appealed to my naïve tastes. But after reading The Republic, it was as if the entire intellectual landscape was put into perspective. Reading became a focused activity, meant to engage with certain questions.

“Question” is the key word here because, in the end, that’s what Plato is all about: asking the right questions, the important questions. All academic disciplines are organized around a few basic questions—“what is the nature of human cognition?” “what are the fundamental laws of the universe?”—and in The Republic, Plato touches on almost every one of them. That’s why shelving the book in the philosophy section doesn’t quite do it justice. An exhaustive list of the disciplines touched upon in this dialogue would be massive—epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, eschatology, political science, economics, art, literature, music. In fact, it would be easier naming disciplines that aren’t touched upon.

That’s how Plato lit up the intellectual landscape for me. By posing these questions in their most basic forms, and attempting answers, he makes it clear which questions are the important ones in life, and how difficult they are to answer. And that’s why Plato’s Republic is the quintessential classic. It has everything a classic should have—a unique perspective, brilliant ideas, engagement with perennial issues, and a charming writing style. It is the greatest book of perhaps the Western tradition’s greatest thinker. I don’t care who you are—you should read it.

Nevertheless, there are some perplexing and frustrating things about Plato. For one, it is extraordinarily difficult to figure out where Plato stands in relation to his work. Unlike almost every later philosopher, Plato didn’t write didactic works. He puts his ideas—sometimes conflicting ideas—into the mouths of the people of his day. The result is a kind of double confusion. To what extent are the ideas expressed by Socrates actually Socrates’s? To what extent are they Plato’s? To what extent are they anyone’s? Perhaps Plato was just fond of playing intellectual games and creating philosophical pocket dramas.

Added to this is a kind of subtle irony that creeps up in several of his dialogues. In Phaedrus, Plato has Socrates complain about the evils of writing; yet Plato obviously loved to write. One of Plato’s most influential ideas is his theory of forms; yet one of the most influential arguments against the theory was put forward by Plato himself. In The Republic, as well as elsewhere, Plato repeatedly equates knowledge with goodness, and falsity with evil; yet he proposes to found his entire utopia on a massive lie. And again, in this book Plato puts forward one of the most famous arguments in history against poetry and the arts; yet Plato was one of the most artistic of all writers. Plato proposes to banish the myths of Homer and Hesiod; then Plato ends his magnum opus with his own myth. You see these contradictions again and again, which leads you to wonder: how many of his arguments are meant to be taken seriously?

What’s more, some of the arguments put forward in his dialogues are—it must be said—frustratingly stupid, relying on false analogies and several other types of fallacies. This would be no mystery if he was a halfwit. But the quality of his writing and the originality of his ideas make it clear that he was a genius. This again makes you wonder if he is putting forth his ideas in earnest.

There are many complaints commonly lodged at Plato (and his pupil Aristotle). Liberals criticize his hatred of democracy and freedom. Moralists complain that he embraced slavery. (A friend of mine once told me that his philosophy professor called Aristotle the “father of racism.”) Scientists—such as Carl Sagan—disparage Plato’s anti-empirical and mystical tendencies. Nietzsche and his followers condemn Plato for dividing up the world into self-evident good and bad. The list of complaints can be extended almost endlessly. And, it should be said, there is some justice in all of these criticisms. (But just you try and found an entire intellectual tradition spanning thousands of years, and see if you do any better!)

In Plato, I find something so valuable that it could outweigh every one of those criticisms: Plato's celebration of thinking for its own sake—argument for the sake of argument, debate for the sake of debate. Too often, we consider intellectual activity as merely a means to some desirable end; how rarely we consider that thinking is its own reward. Vigorous thought is one the keenest joys in life. And that is why Plato is so valuable, why he still has so much to offer our world—perhaps now more than ever.



[A note on justice. Even though Plato spills much ink in trying to prove that justice is more desirable than injustice, I think the real solution is in Glaucon’s speech in Book 2, where Plato manages to hit upon the solution provided by game theory. It’s worth quoting at length.

[Many have believed] that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. [I.e. The evil suffered from injustice is greater than the good gained from acting unjustly.] And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice; it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of the men to do injustice.

This view—purportedly the common view of justice—is game theory in a nutshell. Cheating your neighbor is (for you) the biggest positive, since you get their resources without having to work. But being cheated is the biggest negative, since you lose both your resources and the work you invested in procuring them. Creating laws to abolish cheating is a sort of compromise—avoiding the pain of being cheated at the expense of the gain from cheating. That, to me, seems like the most logical explanation of justice.

This is just one example of why it's rewarding to read Plato, because even when he's wrong, he's right.]

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is the attempt to determine the way of man’s life so small a matter in your eyes—to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? (1.344d)


I propose therefore that we inquire 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. (2.368e—369a)

The Republic: An Apology

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” 

~ Alfred North Whitehead

The Famous Republic

'The Republic' is either reverenced, reviled or just plain ignored. Though it keeps resurfacing, it has been pushed back often, being accused of bigotry, racism, elitism, casteism, anti-democratic nature, the list is endless. But it is beyond doubt, one of the preeminent philosophical works and has been quoted, referenced or adapted by almost all of the major thinkers since.

The ideas of Socrates have had an afterlife that is as long and varied as the thousand year journey envisioned for souls in the famous Story of Er. It is impossible to catalogue the full list of impacts but Whitehead's quote (introductory to this review) gives adequate flavor. The practical influence of Republic is more difficult to gauge than its impact on the theorizing of later thinkers - over the centuries, individuals have discovered in Plato’s works the inspiration for undertaking political or social or educational reform and have used it as the springboard for much revolutionary thought, and deeds.

Republic has inspired in addition to all the expository analysis, also countless creative interpretations, which have shaped our vision of future possibilities, limits and of extremities. Many depictions of both utopian societies and their dystopian counterparts, ranging from Thomas More’s Utopia to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to George Orwell’s 1984, have their roots in the ideal city brought to life by Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus. Contemporary films such as Gattaca and The Matrix may not owe direct inspiration to Republic, but they participate in a long tradition of artistic works that ultimately trace their concerns back to the political, social, and metaphysical issues raised in Republic.

But in spite of all this, the original work retains a reputation for being difficult and hard to penetrate. This has meant that the scholars have more or less appropriated this brilliantly composed treatise, and that is a pity. There is great suspense in every page as you eagerly try to work your way through Socrates’ arguments… anticipating now, guessing now, failing now, but always on the edge of your seats at the sparkle of his wit and wisdom. The dialogues are constructed with an almost unbelievable care and subtlety. The drama is breathtaking and all-pervading, even in the stock responses to theoretical or rhetorical questions. One is never allowed to sit and absorb passively, but is forced to constantly interact with the dialogue. It is as much fun to read as a Shakespearean drama.

The Offensive Republic

Now, to examine some of the reasons why The Republic offends modern sensibilities:

Much of the contemporary discomfort with Plato’s state arises from his countenancing of censorship, a rigid caste system, etc. But these are in a way unfortunate misunderstandings. A close reading of the text would make clear that these catch-all descriptions of Plato’s state are not as representative as they are made out to be. For example, the caste system that is first to get blamed is hardly a rigid hereditary system, but a strict meritocratic system that is much more equal than anything that we have seen till date. It involves a strict battery of tests (similar to the aptitude tests of today) based on which every individual is to be judged (and opponents of IQ tests may relax - these are meant to be much more practical examinations).

Also, the popular rendering of the title as “The Republic” itself is unfortunate, giving it an obvious political and ideological overtone. In the manuscripts and ancient citations, the title of Republic is given as Politeia (“Constitution”) or Politeiai (“Constitutions”); Peri dikaiou (literally, “concerning that which is just”) is sometimes listed as an alternative title.

The Misunderstood Republic

I had planned on giving a blow by blow defense of the most reviled aspects of The Republic, but that is not the point I wish to make here. The primary mistake in criticizing The Republic is to assume that it was meant to be a political treatise in the first place. It is not. The whole argument begins from a question of identifying what ‘Justice’ is and whether it is beneficial to live a ‘Just Life’. This is the crux. ‘Why’ and ‘How’ to be Just and ‘What’ is this “Justice’ anyway? That is what Socrates wants to explore. He takes detours in this exploration. He uses metaphors - of State (as larger manifestation), of Caves, etc. But they all lead us back to the same basic question.

To identify this basic concern, we need only look at the complex structure of the dialogue itself. Republic’s “narrative” is structured in an almost circular pattern. This circular pattern is complex, evoking the narrative patterns of epic poems such as Iliad and Odyssey. Most basically, the dialogue’s two main concerns (defining justice and ascertaining its relationship to happiness) are treated in two corresponding sections (books 2-4 and books 8-9) that are interrupted by what is nominally a series of digressions in books 5-7, and 10. These nominal digressions, of course, create the dialogue’s most memorable metaphors, but they are meant to be digressions that add to the core. Not the other way around.

At its most basic level, Republic is an effort to forge a consistent and meaningful redefinition of “Justice”. The aretê that is explored lies in nothing outward, but rests solely in the mature reason and regard for what is beneficial to the soul. Not all the details in these allegories stand up to logical analysis, but they are not meant to.

This is made clear by the fact that The Republic’s interlocutors repeatedly draw attention to the incomplete, provisional, and at times unsatisfactory nature of their treatment of justice, happiness, the ideal political community, the theory of the ideas, the cognitive faculties of human beings, etc. The inadequacy of “the method we are employing” is acknowledged at 4.435c-d, at 6.504b-d and in many other places.



The Personal Constitution: A Constitution of the Perfect Life

The Perfect State sketched out (which is the stub of almost all criticism) is only an approximation devised to arrive at the Perfect Man, and that is why the so called bad aspects can be deemed acceptable. The mistake, as stated already, is to see it as a purely political treatise while it is in fact a treatise on justice and how to live the perfect life - the ‘Constitution’ of a perfect life.

"He will look at the city which is within him, and take heed that no disorder occur in it, such as might arise either from superfluity or from want; and upon this principle he will regulate his property and gain or spend according to his means."

In the end, the state is not fleshed out enough to really form a complete constitution for any state that can exist in reality (and not just as an idea). But the psychological part (it is curious how this part has generated so much less criticism, in comparison) is - we return in the end (and all the way in between) to the original question of how an individual should order his life - what his virtues should be. It is a political critique piggy-backing on a  personal enquiry and hence any commentary of it cannot treat them differently. Censorship, slaves, aristocracy are all wonderful aspects in an individual but not palatable in a state (to modern eyes). Hence, we can only criticize that the greater to smaller equality is not well realized (i.e. from state => individual). But then Socrates, as above, is always eager to make the point about the provisional nature of his metaphor which is only meant to incite thinking and not as an answer - that is just not the way to deal with true lovers of truth, with true philosophers.

[Cheeky counterproposal by the reviewer's alter-ego: “Or all the personal stuff is just a convenient cloak for the political criticism that is the real purpose! After all, we cannot forget the historical milieu in which Plato composed it. He had enough axes to grind!”]

Indeed, the more we approach certain aspects of the text from analytic and conceptual standpoints, the more we find that Socrates and his companions make innumerable assumptions and leaps of logic that is not satisfactory or fully justified. Each of these can be fairly scrutinized and contested, and have been. We may raise any number of questions about its relevance to our experiences and value systems. Much of Republic, especially its political philosophy, argument for Censorship and Social structuring, is at odds with modern ideals; some readers will doubtless be dissatisfied with, among other things, its unapologetic elitism and naive (almost laughable) confidence in the integrity of “philosopher-rulers.” Some, however, may find that its critique of ancient Athenian society opens the door to meaningful questions about contemporary cultural practices and priorities. And even more meaningful questions on how to organize our inner impulses and constitution.

Philosopher, Be Thyself

We need to understand that the Platonic Dialogues, in principle, are not meant to represent a simple doctrine that can be followed, they instead are meant to prepare the way for philosophizing. They are not easy guide books to follow. They require work from the reader, above and beyond the ideas presented. That is one of the reasons for the dialogue nature in which they are structured. Plato’s overarching purpose in writing the Republic was to effect a change in his readers similar to the change that Glaucon and Adeimantus undergo at Socrates’ hands in the fictional world of the dialogue. This purpose can be summed up in the word protreptic, from the Greek protrepein, which means “turn (someone) forward,” hence “propel,” “urge on,” “exhort.” Plato uses literary art, which in his case includes but is not limited to philosophical argument, to move his reader toward a greater readiness to adopt a just way of life.

The dialogues are thus intended to perform the function of a living teacher who makes his students think. One must philosophize to understand them. One must look at the microcosm of the dialogues as well as the macrocosm of the world that we inhabit simultaneously to understand them. It is in this process that the dialogues assist, insist and themselves provide a training in.

We can only conclude by asking questions, in the true spirit of the dialectic method:

Can we then say that we are convinced, that justice, as defined by Socrates, is something intrinsically valuable? Are we convinced that the just man can be “happy” even if he does not enjoy a reputation for justice, nor any other material benefit, in this life or after?

OR

Have Socrates and his companions persuaded us that the ideal city-state they describe in Republic is truly the best political community possible? Do we believe that Socrates himself thinks so? Is that what we take away from such a deep examination of how to live our lives? Or do we let the Story of Er guide us back to the truer motives of the interlocutors?

"I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go."

[Piyangie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Republic is where Plato lays down his ideas of an ideal state and its rulers. Plato's Utopian state is just, and his ideal rulers are philosophers. Presented as a series of dialogue between Socrates and Plato's brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon, in eleven parts Plato step by step forms his ideal state (Part I and II), its rulers (Part IV and Part VII), their education, women's position (Part VI) and the position of art and poetry (Part X) in the new state. Although some of his views are far-fetched and absurd, many of them are thought-provoking. And if you examine carefully, you will see some truth in many of his viewpoints, especially those relating to imperfect societies (discussed in Part IX).

I truly enjoyed Plato's arguments, although I cannot say that I agree with them all. There are many insightful views, though at the same time, given the long years between the time in which it was written and which it was read, some of the arguments are absurd according to modern standards. Plato's Utopian state cannot be realized in reality; even Plato had his doubts about it ever being in existence. But on close examination of various governments in the world, we see instances where the views of Plato have been adopted. Taking all these into account, it is no wonder that The Republic is regarded as the cornerstone of Western philosophy.

The translation I read was done by Sir Desmond Lee. I found it easy to read. There were many explanatory notes within that which helped me considerably, if not fully, to understand the text. Overall, I loved the read and am very happy to say that, finally, one of my long-standing reading wishes is fulfilled.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
― Plato, The Republic

A book, that I suppose we all have to read, and in my personal experience should want to read. I read this as a task completing exercise, in that I need to get this read at some stage of other in my life. It also feels like the sort of book that needs to be studied to get the most of, or at least with some personal desire to understand.

Can this really be the foundations of Western philosophy within the pages of a medium sized book? Looking at some of the negative criticisms of this book, I would counter that this read was as much about the art of debate, questioning the status quo and exploring ideas to reach positive goals for me; also it is obviously needs to be taken into the context of the age that it was written in, which in itself makes this a remarkable piece of work, surely? 6 out of 12 for this truly classical read.

2008 read

[William2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Halfway through now and the ability to see the book as a metaphor for civic and personal moral development becomes difficult. The book is only useful if you are tracking the history of ideas, which I am not. The state Plato describes here is one that is highly prohibitive in almost every aspect. Arts and culture are severely controlled for propaganda purposes. There is a complete inability to view open, transparent government as an option. The guardians must be lied to and deceived constantly if they are to develop correctly. Moreover, to establish what we might call a footing for his premises, there is an overwhelming amount of presumption on the part of the author. Much of the reasoning seems specious. It strikes this reader how Plato did not have a long and detailed historical record to call on as we do. There are many assumptions, for instance, with respect to the education of the guardians, that shows a weak grasp of human psychology. The guardians should, in effect, be shielded from badness and wrongdoing if they are to develop the appropriate appreciation for virtue. Well, if they're not exposed to badness, how will they know it when they see it? Other aspects of guardian nurturing and education, too, are severe if not totalitarian by today's standards. First, the very sick are to be left to die. This was of course a sign of the times. Medicine was primitive. But there is not an iota of compassion about those left to die. This, indeed, would connote "softness," something not wanted in our guardians, who are to be simultaneously brave and happy, not unlike the family dog. Plato actually says that. The overwhelming import of the reading so far has been to show me how very far we as a culture (western) have come in the more than 2,400 years since Republic's composition. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, and I paraphrase, the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice. I stopped on p. 134, unable to finish. To use a line from Candide, "the book fell from my hands."
(AC says I should not be reading this translation at all but G.M.A. Grube's. So I will.)
.

[Mohamed El-shandidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

و من منا لم يسمع عن أفلاطون؟ 🌚
الفيلسوف الأشهر و أكثر من أثر علي الفلسفة علي مر العصور ، يكتب هذا الكتاب و الذي يعده الكثير أعظم كتاب فلسفة بالتاريخ. ✨.

كان أفلاطون من أسرة ثرية و كان له مكان محفوظ في حكم اليونان ، و لكنه آثر أن يعارض السلطة و يتمسك بأفكاره خاصة بعدما أعدموا معلمه الشهير سُقراط حيث جعلوه يشرب السم أمام تلاميذه.

الكتاب يدور علي هيئة حوار طويل يجرى علي لسان معلمه سقراط ، الذي قرر في الكتاب الجلوس و الاستماع لحكمة كبار السن ، ليجرى الأمر أن سقراط هو من يدير الحديث و يعلم كبار السن كل شيئ تقريبا 😂

يتحدث الكتاب عن كيفية بناء الدولة و هل العدالة أفضل أم الظلم؟
لتتفاجئ في النهاية أن العدالة أفضل حقاً 😮😂!



سأدعك الآن مع خلاصة فكر أفلاطون بالكتاب و مع هذه الاقتباسات التي أعدها مبهرة سابقة لعصره تنم عن عبقرية الرجل ✨

- و الناس الذين يستهجنون الظلم ، لا يخشون ارتكابه ، و إنما يخشون التعرض له.
فالظلم إذا تحقق بمقياس معين كان أكثر سخاء من العدالة.

- الظلم يولد العداوة بين الناس ، و وجوده يدعو إلي كراهية الناس بعضهم بعضاً ، فيؤلفون أحزاباً و يعجزون عن التصرف كجماعة ، و إذا حل الظلم بين شخصين يصبح كل منهما عدوا للآخر ، و كلاهما عدو للرجل العادل.

- فكمال الظلم أن يبدو عادلاً دون أن يكون كذلك حقاً .

- و لا يترددون في أن يصفوا الأشرار بأنهم سعداء ، و يكرمونهم بأحسن الصفات إذا كانوا أغنياء ، و بالعكس يحتقرون الفقراء و الضعفاء في جميع النواحي ، رغم اعترافهم بأنهم أفضل من السابقين.

- الرأي العام يصرح بأنه لا فائدة من كون الإنسان عادلاً مالم يعرف الناس عنه ذلك ، بل إنه سيؤدي إلي التعب و الخسارة.

- و الجسم السليم لا يجعل النفس خيرة ، بل بالعكس ، النفس الطيبة تجعل الجسم كاملاً.

- و نحن نرى في الأطفال الصغار الغضب منذ ولادتهم ، فمعظم الناس لا يحصلون علي العقل الرصين إلا بعد سنين طويلة ، و قد لا يحصل عليه بعضهم أبدا.

- و الناس عندما يمرضون لا يرون شيئاً ألذ من الصحة ، و قد كانوا لا يجدون لها هذه اللذة القصوى قبل أن يمرضوا.

- من الواضح أن الحكم الاستبدادي يأتي نتيجة الديمقراطية ، و الديمقراطية يهدمها تعطشها الذي لا يرتوي إلي الشيئ الذي اعتبرته الخير الاسمي و هو الحرية.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this right through a couple of times now – three, or there about, I think. And bits of it many, many times. This is one of the key books of ‘the western canon’, you really do need to be aware of it. And you might be surprised at how frequently it is referenced, particularly in science fiction – everything from The Giver to Brave New World to The Matrix. And while the world Plato is presenting is meant to be a utopia, it is generally used as the basis for the most terrifying of dystopias.

One of the things I noticed this time through was all the eugenics. Not just in the selective breeding of the human stock, but also in the murder of the ‘unfit’. I’ve always been very sensitive to ideas of killing people based on some notion of the ‘costs to society’ that they bring. I believe such ideas undermine our very humanity to the point where the ‘improved’ society would no longer be fit to be called human.

This book is seeking to provide an answer to the question ‘what is justice?’ – or rather, it starts by questioning if it is just to help your friends and harm your enemies? I’m not sure it is immediately obvious that we might go from these questions to answers concerning the division of labour in a society – but that seems to be a major consideration of the theory of justice being presented here. Basically, people are born with various levels of merit and a just society would identify those who are favoured with whatever merit they have, and it would set them to the tasks that best suit whatever merit they have. Plato talks of the merit of people as a bit like being assigned to different metals (not unlike in the Olympics) and those people metals differentiate them into different classifications – gold, silver, bronze and iron – and each will have their proper tasks in society. Once you have been assigned to one of these classifications you are pretty much stuck there. There are tasks that are appropriate to your abilities and the just society is one where people are assigned tasks that best meet their abilities. For this reason, it is important that parents don’t know their own children and that children are brought up in common by the whole of society. That way you won’t end up with a bronze child from two gold parents being given a gold education that they will not be able to make any use of, or their bronze child wreaking havoc trying to be a philosopher king, when they would have been a better baker or blacksmith or something.

All the same, the best people are still likely to have the best children and so the society should make all proper efforts to ensure that the best breeds with the best – in much the same way as you would if you were breeding race horses.

The best societies would be ruled by philosopher kings – and they would not be allowed to have any possessions of their own, since they ought to be focused on the good of the society as a whole. There is a kind of threat to such people – Plato believes they would be unlikely to really give a stuff about most things that others find very rewarding. For instance, wealth, power, prestige and so on. They are likely to be seen as too ‘other worldly’, even by themselves, and therefore they are likely to be uninterested in taking on the responsibility of ruling and they might need to be encouraged. This is all for the good – because the sorts of people who want to rule are generally not the sort of people who should ever be allowed to rule. This is one of the things in which me and Plato are very much on the same page – although, for me, rather than breeding a special class of philosopher kings to rule over us, I am increasingly becoming an anarchist as I struggle to think of a single person in my life who has been a worthwhile leader. I’ve certainly never met a philosopher I would be happy to have as my king.

These philosopher kings are expected to structure pretty well all aspects of life to make sure that the dumb (or rather we differently-abled with all too much base metal in our veins) are kept content in our ignorance. There are many, many things that the mass of society really shouldn’t be troubling their all too small minds over. It is also important that the philosopher kings do what they can to make sure that the rest of society doesn’t get their passions too excited by things like poetry either. A large part of religion will need to go – particularly the bits where the gods were seen fighting with each other or doing immoral things to women dressed up as bulls and such.

The allegory of the cave is the most famous part of this dialogue. It concerns the nature of education. What always strikes me about it is the pain that is associated with learning the truth and how once one has learnt the truth one appears to be foolish to all those around them. But that the point of learning is to return to those who are ignorant and to be forced to attempt to explain the truth of existence to them. This is almost always a near fatal enterprise. People generally don’t like being told they are wrong and being told ‘everything you have ever thought was true is actually false’ is hardly the first line in a new romance.

I keep going on about Marx’s utopia being based on the idea of there being no division of labour – so it is interesting that Plato’s is based on the exact opposite idea to this. In fact, Plato says that people really only have one thing that they are likely to be good at and that they must stick to that. He may have been both the first eugenicist, and the first Fordist/Taylorist too.

His discussion of the different types of government in book viii is a bit of a highlight to this, I think. I found his discussion of democracy particularly interesting. I’m not sure I agree with it, but I thought his discussion of how it tended towards tyranny was all a bit chilling, and perhaps also a bit too close to home. The power of money to buy democracy, the fact tyrants need to remove the best of those around them and so becomes increasingly stupid, and focused on giving the people ‘what they want’ – mostly bread and circuses – looks all uncomfortably like Trump’s America writ large.

[StefanP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bolesnici kad su bolesni kažu da nema ništa prijatnijeg od zdravlja, ali prije nego što su se razbolili oni nisu znali da je zdravlje najprijatnije.

Uvijek me lijepo osjećanje spopadne pri čitanju Platona. Njegova misao je jasna i budna, oštra i jednostavna. Iako ,,Država" napisana oko 380. prije n.e. njena relevantnost i viđenje ne smije da se dovede danas u pitanje. Koliko samo ova knjiga odjekuje i danas, i odjekivaće. Na trenutke se može izvući kontekst i reći da se Platon obraća pojedincu, a ne grupama, ne državi. Takva jedna država može postati idealna, tek kad pojedinac sebe učini idealnim; sada samo zavisi po čijoj mjeri. Ali ako te stvari koje on pripisuje kao važnim za pojedinca - uzmemo kao univerzalne, onda možemo reći da se država kroji onako kako sebe pojedinac kroji. Bez ikakvog ogoljenog politikanstva ikomješanja raznih podlih nameta, Platon problemu države pristupa temeljno, obrađuje strukturu čovjeka te njegovu kulturološku pozadinu stavlja u blokove svoje države.

Naime Platon često ističe fizičko i muzičko vaspitanje. Pojačavanjem ovog drugog ublažava se ovo prvo, fizičko vaspitanje, i tako individua postiže balans između onoga što se zove snaga, smjelost, i onoga što zovemo prijatelja razuma. I jedno i drugo je jako važno. Zapravo mnogi pojedinci žele da promjene svijet ili državu u kojoj žive, a sebe ne žele da promjene i tako se pojavljuje velika neskladnost između onoga što treba da bude i onoga što jeste. Fizičko i muzičko vaspitanje treba da budu predigra za pravednost. Gotovo pet knjiga je unutar države posvjećeno pravednosti. Platon pravednost gleda u hrabrosti, mudrosti i umjerenosti, što je koherentno s njegovim opisivanjen fizičkog i muzičkog vaspitanja; ili u najboljem rečeno država i ljudski životi su neraskidivi. Zapravo, čitavu knjigu treba uzetu kao cjelokupnu koherentnost, kod Platona se sve veže jedno s drugim. Potom Platon pravi modele i nijedan model državnog uređenja, po mom mišljenju nije srećno prošao, jer svi vode kao onom najgorem, bilo da se radi o timokratiji, oligarhiji, demokratiji ili tiraniji.

Mit o pećini zauzima zaista jedno posebno mjesto u knjizi, kao i okretanje vretena oko koljena Ananke, koje iznačava kosmološko viđene onoga što je bilo, što jeste i što će biti.

Sve u svemu, ne postoji idealna država niti će se takva pojaviti. I ova knjiga ne treba da služi kao neki teoretski vodič za njeno tobožnje postizanje. Svaki njen čitalac bi trebao da iz nje izvuče ono najvažnije, npr. fizičko i muzičko vaspitanje i otpočne dijelovanje istog. Knjiga samo tako može da ima korist, a i po samog pojedinca će to biti korisno. U suprotnom, ova knjiga će tek poslužiti umnožavanju nekih istorijskih ideja, koje će jedni nazvati ,,prevaziđenim" a drugi ,,ništavnim."

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Republic,” it must be stipulated at the outset, is a Latin term (res publica, a “public matter”; rei publicae, "public affairs"). Therefore, "Republic" is really not the right way to translate the name of this quintessentially Greek dialogue by Plato. Its original Greek title, politeía or πολιτεία, typically means “constitution,” and might best be translated in this context as “the ideal state” – a term that Plato uses quite frequently throughout the dialogue. Yet by any name, Plato’s Republic remains one of the most important books ever written; and if you care about topics like the way in which the government of your country serves – or does not serve – its people, then you should make a point of reading The Republic.

The Republic stands out among Plato’s dialogues in a number of ways. For one thing, it is among the longest of the dialogues (368 pages in this Penguin Books edition, not counting appendices and notes). For another, it has quite the cast of characters. The setting is the home of Polemarchus, a prominent resident of the Athenian port of Piraeus, and the eleven participants in the dialogue include not only Socrates and Polemarchus but also Polemarchus’ father Cephalus and brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus. Also along for the philosophical ride is the sophist Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, who here plays the role – one that will be familiar to readers of Plato’s dialogues – of sophist foil whose easy and facile assumptions are undone by Socrates’ more open-minded and ethically focused inquiries.

The subject of their discussion is the politeía, the ideal state, and the shape that it would take; and from the beginning it seems clear that Plato is not trying to set forth a realistic blueprint for an actual, temporal society. In his discussion of the education that a small group of elite Guardians are to receive, in order that they may be wise and fearless defenders of the commonwealth, Plato’s Socrates declares that epic poems like Homer’s Iliad should be shorn of their grotesque and horrifying passages, as “the better they are as poetry the more unsuitable they are for the ears of children or men who are to be free and fear slavery more than death….[T]he thrill of terror they cause will make our Guardians more nervous and less tough than they should be” (p. 78).

Does Plato really want to censor the Iliad? Almost certainly not; Homer’s poems were foundational texts for the classical Greek world, like the Bible for the medieval and early modern West. Rather, Plato’s purpose in this dialogue seems to be placing before the reader the contradictions that would be involved in moving from the imperfect states of the temporal realm to a theoretical “ideal” state.

At the same time, Plato’s theoretical state seems downright modern in many ways. Consider, for example, the way in which Plato’s Socrates declares that “We shall have to train the women also” in hitherto male-dominated skills like hunting and keeping watch, “and train them for war as well, and treat them in the same way as the men” (p. 161). Later in the same passage, Socrates states that as “it is natural for women to take part in all occupations as well as men”, accordingly “there will also be some women fitted to be Guardians” (pp. 165-66). A fairly radical declaration for the year 380 B.C. – 2300 years before the government of the United States of America recognized women’s right to vote – and one that puts Plato light-years ahead of his one-time pupil Aristotle when it comes to gender equity.

Central to The Republic is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. We hear so much about this allegory, in so many contexts, that any first-time reader of The Republic is bound to look forward to encountering the allegory in its original context for the first time. Yet the first-time reader of The Republic may not be ready for the violence of the metaphor, or for its focus on injustice and confinement:

“Imagine an underground chamber like a cave, with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave. In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there since they were children, their legs and necks being so fastened that they can only look straight ahead of them and cannot turn their heads. Some way off, behind and higher up, a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners and above them runs a road, in front of which a curtain-wall has been built, like the screen at puppet shows between the operators and their audience, above which they show their puppets" (p. 241).

As translator and commentator Desmond Lee of Cambridge University points out, a modern-day analogue for Plato's cave exists in television, as Plato seems to feel that the average person's "moral and intellectual opinions often bear as little relationship to the truth as the average film or television programme does to real life" (p. 240). Such considerations carry particular weight in a time when a U.S. president has come to power in large part because large numbers of American voters connected with a mediatic public image conveyed via something called “reality television” (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one).

The “ideal state” in The Republic, as with other topics like rhetoric or law-making in other dialogues, is of interest here because the shape that a political state takes has everything to with the one topic that is always Plato’s core interest: “the most important of issues…the choice between a good and an evil life” (p. 317).

Accordingly, I read The Republic the same way I listen to John Lennon’s song “Imagine” (1971). When Lennon asked his listeners to “Imagine there’s no countries,” or to “Imagine no possessions…Nothing to kill or die for,” I don’t think he was expecting the citizens of his native Great Britain, or of his adopted U.S.A., to adopt such a program as a matter of practical constitutional policy. Rather, he no doubt hoped that his listeners would question an unthinking attachment to “traditional” values like nationalism, materialism, and militarism.

Similarly, I believe, Plato wanted his readers, whether they were Athenian or Spartan or whatever, to question the underlying assumptions of their own societies, and to work for change where they saw fit – keeping always in mind the goal of building a state that would encourage people to be virtuous. It is, heaven knows, a goal still worth pursuing today.

Desmond Lee’s classic translation, with further refinements by Rachana Kamtekar of the University of Michigan, is a great way to get to know a dialogue that is described on the dust jacket – accurately, I believe – as “the cornerstone of Western philosophy.”

[Zoë!]

I like pretending I am smart!

[فؤاد · Rating 3 out of 5]

سوفسطایی ها
در یونان باستان، گروهی معلم دوره گرد بودن که فلسفه و وکالت به جوان ها یاد میدادن، به این ها "سوفیست" یا "سوفسطایی" یعنی "حکیم" می گفتن. معروفه که این گروه دو خصوصیت مهم داشتن: اول، شکاکیت در همه چیز. دوم: استفاده از مغالطه برای رسیدن به نتیجه.

افلاطون
معروفه که سقراط و افلاطون علیه این دو خصوصیت سوفسطایی ها موضع گرفتن و نتیجه ی مقابله با شکاکیت، ایجاد فلسفه و نتیجه ی مقابله با مغالطه، ایجاد منطق بود.

افلاطون این طوری توی کتاب های دیگران معرفی شده. مشکل اینجاست که توی کتاب های خودش ابدا این طور نیست. افلاطون توی کتاب هاش، شدیداً شکّاکه. توی بیشتر بحث هاش، فقط ایجاد سؤال میکنه و جواب های ممکن رو طرح و رد می کنه و آخرش، بدون رسیدن به جواب، مسئله رو رها میکنه.
ثانیاً مکرراً از استدلال های مغالطی استفاده میکنه. بعضی از استدلال هاش به قدری آشکارا مغالطی هستن که آدم مردد می مونه که آیا این ها جدی هستن یا شوخی.

این کتاب
اولین کتابی بود که از افلاطون خوندم. بعد از این کتاب، یه سری از کتاب های دیگه ش رو خوندم و بعضی هاش (مثل دفاعیات سقراط) خیلی عالی هستن. مسئله ای اخلاقی-فلسفی رو مطرح میکنن و راجع بهش بحث میکنن و ذهن آدم رو به کار می گیرن.

کتاب تماماً شرح یه مباحثه است که یه طرفش سقراط (استاد افلاطون) و طرف دیگه ش یکی از سوفسطایی هاست و یه سری تماشاچی هم داره. بحث سر اینه که آیا چیزی به نام عدالت حقیقی وجود داره یا نه. این بحث منتهی میشه به تعریف انسان عادل و جامعه ی عدل محور و بعد، مدینه ی فاضله ی افلاطونی.
بخش مفصلی از کتاب هم به شرح نظریه ی "مُثُل" می پردازه و تمثیل "غار" معروف هم بخشی از همین کتابه.

مهم ترین مشکل کتاب، تک صدایی بودنشه. یعنی سوفسطایی ای که طرف دیگه ی بحثه، پس از چند صفحه ی اول، عقب نشینی می کنه و تا پونصد صفحه ی بعد، فقط سقراط حرف میزنه و تماشاچی ها تأیید میکنن.

[Mackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been far too long ago since I read this to write a critical review, however, it should be required reading for all students in America at the very least. Oh how far we have strayed.

[Orhan Pelinkovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plato's Republic (c. 375 BCE) is a Socratic dialogue in which Socrates with his interlocutors devise a conceptually ideal State. Socrates is our protagonist who is leading the discussion and is clearly dissatisfied with his government and State's structure and its system of values and justice.

Plato describes an ideal State as one that encourages gender equality, education for all, meritocracy, and is ruled by no other than a philosopher-king. Nevertheless, Plato envisions a Republic that practices eugenics and enforces censorship on unsuitable writings and poems. A State in which the government is entitled to manipulate and deceive the public for the benefit of the State.

Plato describes the four forms of government and their characteristics and how one evolves from the other. Timocracy will end up transforming into an oligarchy, and oligarchy to the best available form of government, democracy. Although, excessive freedom in a democratic state will lead to tyranny. Plato bases and links the various State systems to the character of its people.

But the book has so much more to offer than dialogues on the various types of organized political States and governments.

Plato goes on to define a true philosopher as the one who yearns for knowledge of that which is eternal and unchanging and is not disturbed by things that come to be and decay. A philosopher contemplates the essence of a thing in search of a true understanding as this is the only way to enhance and elevate the soul towards the supreme good. He sees the dialectical method of reasoning as the most effective way to arrive at a truth, while knowledge attained by pure reasoning and logic is superior to the knowledge obtained by sense perception or experiences. Plato perceives the knowledge obtained by our five senses as just copies of the ideal form that only exists and is comprehensible by our intellect. But in order to attain this knowledge, one must first comprehend the abstract science of numbers, arithmetic, and geometry.

Reasoning is presented as the principal human cognitive power, followed by the process of discursive thinking, faith, and our ability to distinguish perceived images from reality. Similarly, our immortal soul's most elevated component is reason, as well, while the urges for honor and sensual pleasures are its lowest parts.

I read the book in my native Montenegrin language and I look forward to a reread in an English translation.

[Carl Audric Guia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plato's kinda annoying. Sure, he formulated a number of great ideas. In fact these ideas may have revolutionized philosophy back in his time. But these fallacy-ridden arguments don't really sit well. His perception of the perfect state and the perfect man, the just and the unjust man, is so flawed and so out of reach from reality. Despite these, I did learn something, especially about a good deal of ethics, which I think was the only aspect that I liked from this book.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

115th book of 2021.

It’s no secret that Plato isn’t fool-proof. A lot of the arguments within the 400 or so pages of Republic are what one might call a ‘stretch’—Plato has some (mostly) friendly men to converse, most of whom are very fond of telling him how brilliant he is and how his points are well-founded. The truth is, this does not happen in arguments, because there are always two people (or is this only in my own case?) trying to prove their own viewpoints, and in the end they both resist and persist so much that it frizzles out or they become sore with one another, or both. If I were to sit down with some friends and attempt something like Republic, it would be anarchy and we would probably not agree on a single thing. The idea that just two people could settle on creating a utopian society through dialogue is almost unfathomable. But where we cannot imagine it in real life, we can read it about it here in Plato, and, surprisingly, enjoy it as we do so.

As ever, Socrates is the ‘I’ of Republic, Plato’s mentor. The question at the heart of this book is simply, Why be moral when immorality seems to benefit more? What’s the point in being good?


Socrates, photo taken by me several weeks ago in the British Museum.

The book is comprised of 14 dialogues*, all of which are fairly similar to other dialogues I've read by Plato, particularly the first few. Though some I disagree with, there are many parts of the dialogues that I respect and some that, if nothing else, I find interesting to consider. In Chapter IV, Socrates says,

'The point is that a young person can't tell when something is allegorical and when it isn't, and any idea admitted by a person of that age tends to become almost ineradicable and permanent. All things considered, then, that is why a very great deal of importance should be placed upon ensuring that the first stories they hear are best adapted for their moral improvement.'

This is one of those 'if nothing else, I find interesting to consider' moments. I work with children a lot of the time when teaching and often baulk at things they allude to, be it TV Shows or certain video games they seem to have played since an early age. Already this singular line from Socrates could spin an entire web of arguments about what to tell your child/what they can watch/what they can do. I know a mother who refused anyone reminding her children, even when her children were nearing 10-years-old, where the meat on their plate came from. Chapter IV had many parts that I underlined, particularly when Socrates said, 'I mean, it's a good mind that makes someone good.' This line of thought reminds me of Harold Bloom in his defence of reading classics, reading only the best literature has to offer because what you own in your head through reading, also owns you. Socrates concludes Chapter IV after discussing a balance of physical education and cultural education (too much of the former makes one brutal, too much of the latter makes one docile) with 'it's the person who makes the best blend of physical exercise and culture, and who applies them to the mind in the right proportions, whom we should really describe as a virtuoso and as having the most harmony in his life.' It reminds me of something Kierkegaard once wrote,

I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it…but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill…Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.

The book is too rich to attempt to review without writing incessantly for hours, and having further conversations off each point from the book. Here are some quotes I underlined:
''Isn't the phrase "self-mastery" absurd? I mean, anyone who is his own master is also his own slave''
''So, Glaucon,' I said, 'it seems likely that this is in a sense what morality is—doing one's own job.''
''But it's like this: it makes no difference whether you fall into a little pool or into the middle of the largest ocean—you're still swimming.''
''Unless communities have philosophers as kings,' I said, 'or the people who are currently called kings and rulers practise philosophy with enough integrity [...] there can be no end to political trouble.''
''So because a philosopher's links are with a realm which is divine and orderly, he becomes as divine and orderly as is humanly possible.''
''It is, in fact, really hard for people to have confidence in the fact that studying this kind of subject cleans and re-ignites a particular mental organ which everyone has (while other occupations ruin it and blind it), and that this organ is a thousand times more worth preserving that any eye, since it is the only organ which can see truth.''

As for answering the central question, I will speak nothing of it here. The final Chapter was perhaps the best, a Dante like experience and explanation of where the souls go after death including my favourite Greek figure, Odysseus himself, as an example. I would recommend Republic for this final part alone. The rest of the book isn't always sound in its debate, but it is almost always readable and enjoyable, considering the reputation the book has as being one of the cornerstones of Western philosophy and literature. As far as reading Plato for the first time goes, Symposium is far, far, shorter and in some ways better, surrounded around the idea of love and what love is, something everyone can relate to faster than the idea of morality, politics and state as seen in these pages. I feel fairly happy with what I've read of Plato now and can move onto reading some Aristotle at last. I would love to end the review with some allusion to the end of the book, with Odysseus' choice when choosing a new soul and what that means for the rest of us and our lives and how we can learn from his choice, but that would be spoiling it; and the more beautiful something is, the worse a crime it is to spoil it.
____________________________________

*1. Convention Under Attack
2. The Challenge to Socrates
3. Fundamentals of Inner Politics
4. Primary Education for the Guardians
5. The Guardians' Life and Duties
6. Inner and Outer Morality
7. Women, Children, and Warfare
8. Philosopher Kings
9. The Supremacy of Good
10. Educating Philosopher Kings
11. Warped Minds, Warped Societies
12. Happiness and Unhappiness
13. Poetry and Unreality
14. Rewards Now and Hereafter

[Peiman E iran · Rating 2 out of 5]

دوستانِ گرانقدر، با وجودِ شناختی که از «افلاطون» به وسیلۀ مطالعه در تاریخ و رویدادهایِ زمانِ او، بدست می آوریم، بدونِ تردید افلاطون موجودی مغرور و مخالفِ دانش و هنر بوده است، و اگر حرفِ درست و مثالِ زیبایی، در این کتاب آمده باشد نیز، از نوشتنِ سخنانِ استادِ بزرگوار « سقراط» بدست آمده است، چراکه « افلاطون»، که با پیشرفتِ دانش و اندیشمندانی چون « دمکریت» مخالف بود و نظریه هایِ علمی مثلِ « هیچ چیز از هیچ حادث نمیشود» و یا نظریۀ « اتمی» دمکریت را شیطانی و مخالفِ دین و مذهب و فسادِ بشر، قلمداد میکرد، نمیتواند دارایِ سخنانِ اندیشمندانه باشد، زیرا در عمل چیزِ دیگر انجام داده بود
بهر حال دوستانِ عزیز، سخنی از این کتاب انتخاب کردم که برایِ درکِ بهترِ شما، آن را به زبانِ ساده و با اندک تغییراتی در زیر نوشتم و به حال و روزِ برخی از مردمِ عرب پرستِ ایران نیز شباهت دارد که از کودکی احکامِ غیرِ اخلاقی و غیر عقلانیِ اسلام را از پدر و مادر به ارث برده و همچون موجوداتِ بیخرد و مقلّد، شعارها و اعمالِ عرب هایِ نادان را تکرار میکنند و از انجام ندادنِ آن اعمال بیم و هراس دارند، انگار هیچ وقت نمی خواهند آگاه شده و از این باتلاقِ عمیق خارج شوند
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عزیزانم، تصور کنید غاری وجود دارد که از سوراخِ غار نور به درونِ غار میتابد، در این غار افرادی از زمانِ خردسالی زندانی هستند و دست و پا و گردنِ آنها را با زنجیر بسته اند، طوری که نمیتوانند به اطراف نگاه کنند، و تنها میتوانند دیوارِ روبه‌رویِ خود را مشاهده کنند... در بالا و پشتِ سرِ زندانیان آتشی فروزان است که نورِ درونِ غار از آن تأمین میشود، بینِ زندانیان و آن آتش، راهی وجود دارد و در امتدادِ آن، دیوارِ کوتاهی کشیده اند که بی شباهت به پردۀ خیمه شب بازی نیست
مردم از کنارِ آن دیوار گذر میکنند و انواعِ گوناگونِ اشیاء و مجسمه هایِ انسان و حیوان را با خودشان حمل میکنند، برخی از آن افراد که اشیاء را در دست دارند با یکدیگر صحبت میکنند و بعضی دیگر ساکت هستند
هنگامی که این افراد با اشیاء در دستشان از کنارِ آن دیوارِ موردِ نظر عبور میکنند، سایۀ اشیایی که همراهِ خود دارند به رویِ دیوارِ غار و روبرویِ صورتِ زندانیان بازتاب پیدا میکند و وقتی برخی از آن افرادِ رهگذر با هم صحبت میکنند، زندانیانِ بیچاره تصور میکنند که هر یک از این صداها متعلق به شیئی میباشد که روبرویِ آنها و در رویِ دیوار نمایان شده است
حال اگر برخی از این زندانی ها، آزاد شوند و به دهانۀ غار برسند، به محضِ دیدنِ نورِ خورشید، چشمانشان به دلیلِ عادت نداشتن به روشنایی اذیت میشود و اصلاً نمیتوانند آن اشیایی که قبلاً میدیدند را ببینند، به همین دلیل از ترس سریع برمیگردند به داخلِ غار و باز در همان جهل و نادانی باقی میمانند و همچنان به سایۀ اشیاء نگاه میکنند... ولی در این میان عده ای از آن زندانیانی که رها شده بودند به غار برنمیگردند و آنقدر تحمل میکنند تا چشمانشان به نور عادت میکند و سپس متوجهِ حقیقت شده و میفهمند که تا به حال فقط سایۀ اشیاء را مشاهده میکردند، نه خودِ حقیقیِ آنها را... و صداها نیز متعلق به انسان ها بوده است... درست است که ابتدا ممکن است که دچار سرگردانی شوند، ولی بالاخره با حقیقت روبرو شده و آگاه میگردند
سپس آن افرادِ آگاه شده به غار باز میگردند و حقیقت را برایِ کسانی که در غار هستند بازگو میکنند، ولی آن احمق ها و ترسوهایی که در غار ماندند به آنها میخندند و آنها را مسخره میکنند و میگویند: در بیرونِ غار نور به چشمانِ شما تابیده و چشمانِ شما فاسد شده است، خوب شد ما بیرون از غار نماندیم، وگرنه همچون شما دیوانه میشدیم
در این میان ممکن است کسانی که آگاه شده باشند بخواهند زنجیرِ بقیۀ زندانی ها را باز کنند و آنها را نجات دهند، ولی همان ترسوهایِ احمق و نادان با آنها مبارزه کرده و به اسمِ گناهگار کمر به ریختن خونِ آنها و کشتنِ آن انسانهایِ آگاه شده، میبندند

دوستانِ خردگرا، امیدوارم با بیانِ این مثال جرقه ای در ذهن عده ای زده باشم که به مانندِ کسانی هستند که از بندِ زنجیر رها شده اند، ولی میترسند که از غار و تاریکی و جهالتِ دین و مذهب خارج شوند
<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

[nini ♥︎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I-

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just to be clear, my rating is for the edition of the Republic I read- the Oxford World's Classics text translated by Robin Waterfield. Giving stars to the Republic is so flagrantly stupid that I can't even come up with a suitably stupid analogy. Giving stars to the Mona Lisa? Not even close. Giving stars to Dante? Not the same, because that deserves five stars. The Republic simultaneously deserves five stars, for kick-starting Western philosophy, social science, aesthetics, theology, and political thought. It poses a bunch of difficult questions in a way that no book before it does. That said, the arguments it uses and the answers it reaches are ridiculous and ridiculously flawed. That's okay. If you're smart enough to ask questions that keep people talking for over two millennia, you're allowed to airball the answers. You can tear the arguments of this book apart in more ways than any other work of respectable philosophy: Aristotle is way more internally coherent, even the most moronic contemporary popular 'scientist' has less absurd assumptions.

Anyway, really I wanted to review the edition. It's great. Waterfield jettisons the random 'book' divisions of the Republic. Ideally, I guess, you'd just publish the thing as one long rant, but in the interests of user-friendliness Waterfield's split the text up into chapters, each one of which more or less features one argument. This makes the flow of the dialogue much easier to follow. He also breaks up steps in the arguments of the longer chapters, so you don't get lost even if you're kind of half-arsing your reading. For that alone, he'd get four stars, but his notes are *brilliant* too. Philosophically engaged, historically aware, never willing to play cheerleader to Socrates' more obvious gaffs, but willing to go out on a limb to defend something that initially seems implausible. Waterfield's guiding thread is that you really should read the book as what it says it is: an investigation into morality (often translated as justice elsewhere), which proceeds by way of analogy. The political stuff is secondary; the real goal is to defend the idea that the moral person is happier and better in the long run. I say all this despite disagreeing with Waterfield's argument that the forms aren't metaphysical. I know why philosophers say that; the idea that Plato thought there were real Divine Bedframes floating somewhere in the fifth dimension is ridiculous. But he pretty clearly thought that ridiculous thing. Not because he was an idiot, though: he wanted to anchor truth is something which actually existed, but acknowledged the real lack of truthiness/justice/morality in the world as he found it. Good for him.

[لونا · Rating 3 out of 5]

ها أنا قد قرأت أخيراً 'جمهورية' أفلاطون، ولو طُلب مني أن أُعبِّر عن انطباعي حول جمهوريته بجملة مختصره، سأقول ما سطَّره قلمي في آخر صفحة من الكتاب:-

جمهورية أفلاطون يحكمها فيلسوف 'خيالي'، وسُكَّانها رجال آليين

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تنقسم هذه المحاورة إلا عشرة أجزاء، أو كما اسماها المترجم عشرة كتب، كل كتاب يختص بموضوع معين يرتبط بما سبقه ارتباطاً وثيقاً ومكملاً له بتوسع، وهذه المواضيع يتحاور فيها "سقراط" مع مجموعة من الأشخاص

ما هو العدل؟ وهل الشخص العادل شخص سعيد نتيجة لعدله والظالم تعيس لظلمة؟! من هنا تنطلق المحاورة ويتدرج سقراط مع محاوريه فيها صعوداً وتوسعاً ليصل إلى مدينته الفاضلة

سقراط محاور "مستفز" فكرياً وهذا ليس بالغريب لطبيعته "الفلسفية"، تبدأ المحاورة بجدال قوي بينه وبين محاوريه ولكن بعد ذلك يستلم سقراط وحده دفة طرح السؤال والإجابة على نفسه ويقتصر دور محاوريه في الثناء، والتأكيد، وإعادة سؤاله مره أخرى ونادراً ما يتدخل شخص بسؤال يقلب دفة الحوار. هذا الأمر ليس بالمؤثر كثيراً على مدى توَّسع الحوار لعدة جوانب من القضية المطروحة فسقراط بطبيعة حواره يجادل نفسه بنفسه وهنا تكمن المتعة، فما أن نرتاح لفكرة حتى يقلبها رأساً على عقب مرة أخرى



أردت كتابة مختصر شديد لتقسيم الكتب لإعطاء فكرة لمن يريد المعرفة عن طبيعة هذه الأقسام واحترت ولم تطول هذه الحيرة، بعد قراءتي للمقدمة التي أؤجلها دائما لحين الانتهاء من قراءة الكتاب. الكتاب مقسَّم كالآتي*:-

الكتب الثلاثة الأولى: عن العدالة وتعريفها وعن كونها أساس للحضارة الإنسانية

الكتاب الرابع عن هيكلية الدولة وكيف يجب بناؤها

الكتب الثلاثة: الخامس والسادس والسابع وصلت فيها الفلسفة إلى أعلى قممها

الكتاب الثامن والتاسع عن أنواع الحُكم بصفه عامة ونفسية من يرئسها

الكتاب العاشر: استنتاج شامل لما سبق، ودور الشعر ونوعه في 'الجمهورية'، ومسألة أن البدن يفنى والروح تبقى خالدة


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كشخصيه تعشق الكمال كانت أكثر الأجزاء متعة الكتاب الخامس والسادس والسابع، وخصوصاً خصوصاً 'السابع'. يا إلهي كم استمتعت به، وما به من حوار يبتدئ بقصة 'الكهف' وينطلق بها ليصل إلى "ترنيمة علم الجدل التي هي أصل يختص به الألمعي فقط، فالعقل المدُرك هو العقل الجدلي على الدوام*". قصة الكهف طويلة نوعاً ما ومحاولة اختصارها هنا ستصيبها في المقتل و تفرغها من جانبها الأهم ألا وهو التسلسل التصاعدي لفكرة فلسفية جمالها وقوتها يكمن في هذا الصعود التدريجي درجة درجة


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لو أردت تقسيم جمهورية أفلاطون لثلاث أقسام رئيسية فإني سأختصر محتواها كالآتي:-
سياسياً:- صحيح أن الكمال يُمتِعْنِي ودائماً ما أسعى له ولكني شخصية واقعية لدرجة الإزعاج وأدرك أنه غاية لا تُدرك، وهذه أبرز مشاكل جمهورية أفلاطون، أقصد البعد عن الواقعية

يقول 'كلوكلون' أحد محاوري سقراط له:- [إنك نحَّاتٌ، يا سقراط، لقد صنعت لحكامنا تماثيل آيةً في الجمال]

مع أن الجملة جاءت تعبيراً عن الإعجاب الكبير بما قاله سقراط وتأييده ولكني وجدتها تعبيراً عن القصور في فعالية الفكرة. فعلاً هم كما وصفهم كلوكلون بالتماثيل، أشخاص من عالم الخيال يمتازون بالكمال المطلق الذي أرى أنه غاية لا تدرك وواقع من المستحيل تحقيقه

اقتصادياً:- هي جمهورية اقتصادها اشتراكي الذي أجده اقتصاد ظالم و الجمهورية أساسها العدل كما فهمت؟!!

اجتماعياً:-هنا العجب العجاب، والاستنفار الشديد أثناء القراءة لا أعرف كيف اختصر الموضوع بكلمة ولكن سأنقل جملة كتبتها كثيراً على صفحات هذا الجزء من الممكن أن تعطي صورة واضحة، اجتماعياً هي أشبه {بزريبة الحيوانات} أكرمكم الله، فمفهوم العائلة مختل جداً ويشترك مع الاقتصاد من جهة الاشتراكية، فلكم أن تتخيلوا ما المقصود

هنا يجب ذكر نقطة للإنصاف وهي طبيعة المجتمع في ذلك الزمن وخصوصاً وضع المرأة فيه، عندي فكرة عن الموضوع سابقاً من قراءتي لكتابين عن أرسطو وأفلاطون وعلاقتهم بالمرأة لإمام عبد الفتاح إمام في تلك الحقبة من الزمن. لكن حل سقراط جاء بان ينتقل بالمرأة وخصوصاً 'الحرة' من ظلام الحُفر إلى الجهة الأخرى من التطرف وأقصد بأن ساواها بالرجل لدرجة أن يصبح التعري أما الملأ أثناء التمارين الرياضية والمسابقات القتالية أسوة بالرجال شيء طبيعي ومن يجد فيه علة وخصوصاً من الرجال فإن العلة والخطأ أساسها في نفسه المريضة (آليين). ولكن يحسب له أنه يعتبر أول من دعا لتعليم المرأة أسوة بالرجل



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التعريج على بعض النقاط:-

#قسًم سقراط الدول (بالعموم بعيداً عن جمهوريته) لخمسة أنواع:-
1. الدولة الأرستقراطية:- حكومة الأفضل
2. الدولة التيموقراطية:- حكومة الشرف
3. الدولة الأوليغاركيَّة:- حكومة الأغنياء
4. الدولة الديموقراطية:- حكومة الشعب
5. الاستبدادية:- حكومة الرجل الواحد

ولكم أن تتخيلوا أن هذا الترتيب تصاعدياً هو مقياس الفساد، لم استغرب طرحة التدريجي للأنواع وصفات حاكميها ونفسيتهم ولكن استغرابي الأشد هو وصفة للدولة الديموقراطية ومساوئها، أي نعم أنها غير منزهة عن الخطأ ولكنها تعتبر أقل الحكومات شراً في نظري، مع القراءة أكثر اتضحت فكرة ما يرمي له. سقراط يعتبر أن هذه الدولة "الأعظم تنوعاً للطبائع الإنسانية والفرد يكون قادراً أن ينظم حياته الخاصة كما يريد لأنها دولة أساسها الحرية*"، إلى الآن لا توجد مشكلة على ما أعتقد ولكن للعلم تعريف سقراط للحرية هو السبب في ذمِّه لها وطرحه الغريب للموضوع

الحرية بأن تفعل ما تشاء طالما أنك لن تؤذي أحد أو تنتهك القوانين المتفق عليها هذا متفق عليه، لكن سقراط أساس طرحه هو أن الحرية هي أن تفعل ما تشاء ولا تبالي بأحد فأنت حر وأقتبس هنا أكثر الأمور تطرفاً [ ويجب أن أضيف أن لا أحد ممن لا يعرف سيصدق كيف تكون الحرية التي لدى الحيوانات التي هي تحت سيادة الإنسان. إنها ستكون أعظم بكثير في الديموقراطية منها في أيَّة دولة أخرى لأنه يحق القول: "هي الكلاب، كما يقول المثل، هي ربَّة بيتها". وتمتلك الأحصنة والحمير طريقة للسير في موازاة مع كل الحقوق والجلال للرجل الحرّ وستدهس أي شخص ممن يأتي في طريقها إذا لم تُخلَ لها الطريق. إن كل شيء جاهز ليتفجر تماماً بالحرية] ... 'عجبي' يا فيلسوف يا سقراط!!! على رأي صلاح جاهين


# في جمهورية أفلاطون هناك تكتيك حازم حتى تنجح الخطة، من طبيعة المباح والغير مباح وتصنيف السُّكان حسب طبيعتهم وتجهيزهم بدنياً وعقلياً لمهامهم. جميل كل ما ذكره ولكنه يتكلَّم عن طبيعة بشرية التي بطبعها لها شواذ يشذون عن القاعدة ولن تكتمل الصورة المطلوبة أبداً لما يريده. و لأن شرط تحقق ما يريد هو نجاح الخطة 100%، وصفت سكَّانها بالآليين في بداية مراجعتي



# لفت انتباهي الشعر المسموح به في جمهورية أفلاطو�� [لكن علينا أن نبقى ثابتين في حكمنا أن الترانيم إلى الآلهة و الثناءات للرجال الشهيرين الفاضلين، هي الشعر الوحيد الذي يجب أن نقبله في دولتنا. لأنك إذا تخطَّيت ذلك وسمحت لعروس الشعر المعسولة أن تدخل، إما في مقاطع شعر البطولة أو الشعر الوجداني الغنائي، بدلاً من دخول القانون وعقل البشر الذي اعتُبِرَ الأفضل على الدوام بالرِّضا المشترك، فلن يكون الحكّام في دولتنا سوى اللذة والألم]



# هذا الكتاب سيكون متعة بلا حدود لمن يهوى التعرض للأمور الفكرية بجدلية وبمسميّات ونظريات أضمن بسماعها لأول مرة بالإضافة لتفصيص للفكرة لعدة أجزاء والخوص في تفاصيلها


#لا أعرف لماذا أحسست أن سقراط لو عاصر الإسلام لأسلم فوراً


# قرأت المحاورة بترجمة جيدة جداً لشوقي داود تمراز


# لماذا ثلاث نجوم؟! خمس نجوم للمتعة الفكرية ونجمة لجمهورية أفلاطون


#أخيراً هل أجرؤ على القول يا ترى أني أتمنى أن لا أكون قد نسيت شيئاً؟


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• ما بين "...*" مقتبس بتصرف
• ما بين [...] مقتبس
• وتستمر الرحلة مع المحاورات ......إلى الجزء الثاني
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[Brad Lyerla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading THE REPUBLIC for the second time just now. It is arguably the second most influential book in the western canon. We all should study it.

Allan Bloom's translation is a good one -- I am told by reliable sources -- and his interpretive essay is not to be missed. (I read the essay as it appeared in the 1968 edition.) But be aware that his interpretation is not a traditional one. For example, compare Bertrand Russell's summary of Plato in his HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. So don't be confused if Bloom's essay feels unfamiliar or seems to contradict other things that you may have learned or read about Plato.

After a second reading, more than forty years after the first, I am still uncertain when/whether Plato is writing esoterically. But I don't think it matters. We can decide the merits of the City in Speech for ourselves. And how do we feel about that philosophical, but unattainable regime? (We do not like it, of course. Socrates advocates censorship, separating children from their families, banning books and other methods of government control of personal thought, expression and association. Does it make sense that Plato would have intended for us to disapprove? Should we score one for esoteric writing there?)

What about the timocracy devoted to honor that the city in speech will decay into? Followed by oligarchy where wealth is valued above all else? Then unruly democracy? And finally tyranny?

I read THE REPUBLIC this last time in a reading group. That's the best way to read it, I think. It was written to be discussed and puzzled over. And we did.

[Sahar Zakaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

يحلم أفلاطون بتحقيق المدينة الفاضلة التي تسودها القوانين الصحيحة والمثل العليا .. ويطرح أفكاره في صورة حوار مع معلمه سقراط الذي مثل الشخصية المحورية في الكتاب ..

يبدأ أفلاطون كتابه بتعريف مفهوم العدالة وكيف يمكن تحقيقها لدى الفرد والدولة .. ويرى أنها فضيلة يجب أن تطلب لذاتها وليس للمنافع المترتبة عليها .. ثم قسم أفلاطون المجتمع إلى ثلاث طبقات .. طبقة الحكام وتتميز بالعلم والحكمة .. وطبقة الجيش أو الحراس وتتميز بالقوة والشجاعة .. وطبقة العمال وتتميز بقوة التحمل والقدرة على الإنتاج .. وفي رأيه أن مفهوم العدالة يتحقق عندما يعمل كل شخص في طبقته فلا يتعداها إلى طبقة أخرى .. أي أن يكون الشخص المناسب في المكان المناسب ..

ثم أكد أفلاطون على أهمية التربية السليمة للنشء ، سواء التربية البدنية أو التربية الروحية على تذوق الفن والشعر والموسيقى ..  وعلى مبدأ المساواة بين الرجال والنساء في فرص التعليم والعمل .. ودعا إلى مشاركة المرأة الرجل في الحروب والتدريبات العسكرية بل وفي الحكم أيضا .. أما أغرب آرائه فيما يتعلق بالمرأة فهو وجوب شيوعية النساء والأطفال في طبقة الحراس فلا تكون المرأة زوجة لرجل بعينه ولا الأطفال أبناء لأب بعينه !!

ورأى أفلاطون أن الحكام يجب أن يكونوا فلاسفة .. وأن يتقنوا علوم الحساب والهندسة والفلك .. وأن يتصفوا بالحكمة والشجاعة وقوة الحجة .. ثم عرض أفلاطون أنواع الحكومات وخصائص كل منها وعوامل إنهيارها .. كما تحدث عن حكم الطاغية ومساوئه ..

آراء أفلاطون ، برغم أنها تعود إلى نحو أربعة قرون قبل الميلاد ، وبرغم أن بعضها غريب ومستهجن ، إلا أن أغلبها آراء حكيمة ومتزنة تتفق مع الصالح العام والأخلاق الحميدة وتصلح لتطبيقها والإسترشاد بها في العصور المختلفة ..
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[David Sarkies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theorising the Perfect State
21 October 2013

Sometimes I wonder if people give this book five stars because it is either a) written by Plato, or b) if you don't give it five stars then you are afraid that people will think that you are some semi-literate mindless cretin whose reading capacity tends to extend little beyond the Harry Potter and Twilight Series. Yes, I realise that I have given it five stars, but I have given it five stars because I actually enjoyed the argument that this book outlines. Basically it is a very logical argument that examines the nature of the human soul and of justice and the structure of the argument is of the sort that you could only expect to see from a master. Mind you, some of the points that Plato makes, such as physicians role being only to maintain the health of society and not to heal or care for the sick or injured (thus simply letting them die) would be repugnant not only to us (to an extent) but also to the people of his day. However it is the way that the argument flows, and the way that Plato explores concepts that are relevant even to us today that makes me think highly of this work of literature.

First of all, let us consider the context of the book. This was written after the death of Socrates which meant that the democratic model that Athens had been based upon had failed, and this it was quite clear to Plato and his contemporaries that democracy had failed. As such, when writing about the perfect society, one could not write about a democracy, and if one did, one needed to outline how the previous experiment failed and how it could be improved. This is the case today with socialists examining how the Russian experiment failed, but seeking to build upon its ideals to create a government that will avoid those mistakes. However, in Plato's mind, this could not happen simply because he knew that the basic foundations of the democratic state could not support a functioning ideal government. The main reason for that is that, like our democratic system, the power brokers not only tended to be rich, but also very well spoken, meaning that the populace could easily be swayed and end up supporting the power-brokers flawed, and in many cases self-centered, policies.

However, while many consider that the Republic is about an idea of how to construct a perfect state, the treatise itself goes far beyond that because what it is actually looking at is the idea of perfect justice. Near the end of the treatise Plato once again outlines his theory of forms, which is that everything in this world his a pale reflection of the object's perfect form. For instance, all tables that we see are a reflection of a perfect table, and as tables can only be created by people who make tables, and because all table makers are different, it is thus impossible to create the perfect form of a table. However to help us understand this concept further, Plato brings out the idea of art. A painting of a table is a mere reflection of the table that is painted, and every painting of that table will be different and no painter is able to paint that table as it truly is – the painter is basically restrained by the medium of which the painter creates the table. The same goes with poetry, because the poet is only able to create a pale reflection of the event that the poet is writing the poem about, and no poet, through the medium of poetry, is able to create a perfect reflection of that event.



Thus, what Plato is doing is he is applying his theory to that of government. Thus every government is a reflection of the perfect government, and no government can replicate the perfect form of government. Further still, being a philosopher, Plato is restrained from being able to describe exactly what that perfect government is because he is restrained by the medium of which is uses to outline what he believes the perfect form of government is. That, by the way, is very important - what he believes the perfect form of government to be. The major restraint that Plato faces in outlining the perfect form is that it is his opinion, and his opinion is quite possibly wrong.

However, let us consider what this government is. First of all, it is not a democracy, and has no democratic institutions. The government is a oligarchic state which is ruled by philosophers, with the philosopher king at the top of the chain. It is also a very stratified form of government, with three castes, namely the ruling caste, the warrior caste (known as the Guardians), and the working caste. We must remember also that there is no room for anybody who cannot fit into any of these castes, thus the sick, injured, or disabled, have no part in this society because they are not able to fulfil any meaningful role within the state. However your caste his not determined by your birth, which means that just because you are born to working class parents does not mean you are automatically a part of the working class, and as such, just because you are born among the ruling class does not mean you are automatically members of the ruling class.

A few further points that I note is that Plato endorses religion in his state, but this is not surprising considering the Greeks were very religious people. However, Plato does not see a need to comment on religion, and while it is the case that there were philosophers who were atheists, Plato, nor his teacher Socrates, were one of them. Plato also does not support the idea of family, and actually believes that it should be abolished (though he does support monogamous marriage). I suspect that is this because the family unit tends to be a very tight unit, and if allowed in such a stratified society, having a family unit would mean that the idea of a person being a member of a specific class based on skill would fall apart as the members of a family in a specific class would not allow their children to fall down to a lower class.

Plato also believes in the abolition of wealth and property, which means that his state is a socialist state. Once again this is not surprising considering that most dictatorships tend to have the wealth concentrated at the top, with the rulers effectively being the progenitors of a kelptocracy. However, it is also the case in the democracies where wealth creates privilege, and privilege creates power. Just as it is today, the wealthy of fifth century Athens were able to buy the best minds to write their arguments and promote their policies to the detriment of the poorer classes. A democracy could quite well also be considered a form of kleptocracy.

Finally, Plato advocates censorship, particularly in education. He indicates that there are some things that should not be taught to our young for fear that our young may not understand what is being taught. This is very much the case today because there is a form of censorship that is basically accepted, and that is the rating systems for our movies, and now for our computer games. One cannot release a movie in an advanced democracy without getting the approval of the ratings agency. Further, studios will purposely self censor a movie so that it will receive a certain rating so that more people will go and see it and will be willing to see it.

[Gary Inbinder]

This is my first GR review without a star rating. Here’s the reason why.

I don’t like Plato’s Republic, but I think it ought to be read more than once. I didn’t like it when I first read it almost 50 years ago, and my opinion hasn’t changed over the years. Nevertheless, I think it’s an important book that should be read, analyzed and debated. In that regard, it’s much like Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Both books are, in my opinion, prescriptions for tyranny, the two sides of the same counterfeit coin. However, I won't compare Plato to Hitler. I believe Plato meant well, but more of that later.

Hitler was the prime modern example of a populist demagogue who based his “might makes right” ideology on race, blood and soil. “Justice,” for Hitler, was grounded on the “right” of the Aryan Superman to dominate and rule those inferior to himself. It followed that oppression, war and genocide could be justified when done in the name of the “Master Race” and their “Aryan Superman Leader.”

Plato despised the populist demagogues of his time, the products of ancient Athenian democracy, most particularly because he blamed them for the unjust death of his mentor, Socrates. Plato argued for a Republic governed by those most fit to rule, the Men and Women of Gold, the philosopher kings and queens. “Justice” for Plato, was grounded on the “right” of the ”best and brightest” to dominate and rule those who were naturally inferior to themselves. The justification for this peculiar form of injustice was that the naturally superior were "experts" who would rule the naturally inferior for their own good. In my opinion it follows that oppression, war and genocide could be justified when done in the name of “The City State and the People” by the reigning “Men and Women of Gold.” In other words, Plato’s Republic could be an authoritarian hell. If you want to argue that Plato’s hell was at least well intended, I’d refer to the old adage about the road paved with good intentions and where that road leads.

Hitler was the rattler who gives a warning before he bites. Plato was subtler. He used the Cave metaphor, an example of his idealistic epistemology, to show how some people have the special insight to see things as they really are, whereas the masses only see things as they appear to be. Therefore, the ignorant masses are always subject to the popular opinion of the moment.

Plato sets up his typical straw man arguments about justice, to get to the definition of justice that he wants: A system where the masses “mind their own business” leaving the experts, the “Men and Women of Gold” i.e. people like Plato, to run things for the common good. What’s more, he justifies propaganda in the form of a “Noble Lie” or "Noble Myth" to convince the masses that they are inferior, by analogy made of baser metal, and must submit to the will of their superiors “for their own good.”

I assume H.L Mencken agreed with Plato when he wrote: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Mencken was writing about U.S. politics in the 1920’s-1930’s. I wonder what he’d think of U.S. politics today? Plato was writing about Athenian politics, their ancient democracy, and other systems of government 2,500 years ago. I haven't a clue what he'd think of the 21st century.

Plato’s world is so remote in time and space that we can barely imagine it; Mencken’s world is still within the memory of the oldest among us, but it’s still distant and hard for the young to understand. Things change yet much remains the same. Governments are instituted by human beings, and all humans are subject to the same flaws and weaknesses as our ancestors. Imperfect beings will never develop a perfect form of government. Nevertheless, I believe that a Constitutional Republic with democratic processes and a rule of law that guarantees the rights of individuals, and that promotes equality, Abraham Lincoln’s “Government of, by and for the people”, is still about as good as it gets. As for Plato’s Republic, it’s a Utopian thought experiment. Government by an ostensibly “benign” elite of “intellectuals” and technocrats with little or no respect for individual rights has been tried and found wanting. Robespierre’s “Committee of Public Safety"* is an early modern example of the sort of hell that arises from the “good intentions” of Plato and others. Repeating that experiment over and over again while expecting a different result is worse than insane—it’s downright evil.

I recommend reading Robespierre's speech The Republic of Virtue (1794) and considering it in light of Plato's Republic, a good test of thought experiment as applied to reality.

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A man, tired from a long day of drudgery at work, walks towards his favourite haunt, an old-fashioned British working class pub in Essex called 'The Griffon'. Drenched from a heavy fall of rain, he enters the building and is greeted by its familiar smells and sounds.

Man: “Evening, all.” (The patrons demurely acknowledge his presence, and return to their drinks. The face of Roger, a much older man, lights up as he joyously steps towards the newcomer)

Roger: “Nate, ye bastard! Where have ye been all this time? Stuck in a sheep’s backside?”(he guffaws, while shaking his friend's hand)

Nate [smiling feebly]: “Evening, Roger. Oh no, nothing as queer like that. Had some family business to attend to. I also have been busy reading, as a matter of fact..”

Roger: “Reading? You?”

Nate [feeling slight shame]: “Yes..”

Roger:“Didn’t peg you as the intellectual type, mate.”

Nate: “Oh, I am not, I can assure you. Let me explain. You know about that particularly nasty storm a forthnight ago?"

Roger:"Aye, the Great Storm of 2017. Already a legend in these parts."

Nate:"Well, I got myself caught in the open street during its peak, and sought shelter in the nearest building. Turned out it was the bloody library! Quite a shock, let me tell you."

Roger: “Really? I didn’t even know we had one! Didn’t Thatcher close it down back in the eighties? What the hell else did we elect her for?”(he falls prey to a violent fit of laughter, and is soon joined by the others)

(Nate waits until the noise dies down and soberly resumes his tale) "All right, men, in all seriousness now. So here I found myself in that building I had never been in before, and which I couldn’t wait to leave. But, since the storm didn’t show any sign of abating, I thought it best to stay put and kill some time browsing. What else’s a man to do, eh? Well, for some reason I ended up in the philosophy section, and found this book titled the Republic by this fella named Plato. Does that ring a bell with anyone?”

(A stout little man named Edmund enters the conversation) “Plato? Famous bloke, innit?”

Nate: “Yes, rather. In it he sort of details how society should be run by so-called philosopher kings. Rather strict in his way of approaching it, methinks. Not a lot of freedom, or much fun at all really.”

Roger: “Hmm. Got you to keep flippin' the pages though, no?”

Nate: “Pretty much. The missus always said I was a right philistine, and should get some more culture in my system. The back cover did mention it was ‘a foundational text of Western civilisation’, so I figured I might bloody well start there. I read for an hour or so, and then took it home. First time I applied for a library card, funnily enough. Finished the whole thing in two weeks. I felt real smart for an instance there. A fine feat of self-improvement, if I do say so myself.”

(A fierce looking, burly man who goes by the name of Carlyle interrupts): “A philosopher, eh? Bah! Let me tell you something, lad. Buy these fine gentlemen (he intently looks around the room) enough pints of lager and they’ll all be “philosophizin’” soon enough. Isn’t that right, men?” (the whole room shakes with laughter)

Nate [uneasy]:“Well, Plato sort of advocated that philosophy is a serious business, to be handled with a clear, well-educated mind, you know. Among other things, he also viewed alcohol as a possible hindrance to that. So that’s us out, I’m afraid.”

Roger [jumping in]: “He did, did he? Well, I am a working man with a wife and the fruit of my overactive loins to provide for. After eight hours of breaking my back in the factory, I just want to go to me pub, unwind and drink my scotch. Anything other than that is a damned luxury. Ya see my meaning here?”

Nate: [exasperatedly sighs]“I do, and you’re probably right. More than likely, reading these things is a waste of time anyway for folk like us.”

Roger: [approvingly] “That’s the spirit, laddie! Don’t concern yourself with these things, it is quite useless. We are simple folk, ye know, who don’t count at all in the grand scheme of things. Trust me, I have seen it all. Best enjoy what we have and hope for the best. Leave that lofty thinkin’ to those smug arseholes in their lofty places. I wouldn’t have it any other way meself. Damn proud to be a nobody at the bottom. At least there is honour in that. (He pauzes for a moment, immersed in thought)

Bah, enough of this. Barman, a round of drinks for all!”

(They all erupt into loud shouts of appreciation)

[فرشاد · Rating 5 out of 5]

یکی از فوق‌العاده ترین کتابهایی که تا بحال خوندم .. گرچه سبک فلسفی کتاب باعث شد تا بخش هایی رو با سختی متوجه بشم اما طریقه استدلال افلاطون واقعا بی نظیره . تووی این کتاب افلاطون درباره عدالت صحبت میکنه .. در ابتدا افلاطون شروع به ساختن یه مدینه فاضله میکنه و با ذکر جزئیات وظیفه هر عضو این جامعه رو بررسی میکنه .. بعد از این برای شناخت مفهموم عدالت از کل به جزء برمیگرده .. مثال مشهور غار رو بیان میکنه و بعد از اون انواع حکومت رو از تیموکراسی و الیگارشی و دموکراسی و دیکتاتوری مطرح میکنه .. پس ازین ها افلاطون به موضوع هنرهای زیبا بخصوص شعر و نقاشی میپردازه و اونها رو تقلیدی از حالات نفسانی و شبحی از واقعیت معرفی میکنه که باید ازشون دوری کرد .. در نهایت افلاطون مفهوم عدالت رو معرفی میکنه و با روش خاص خودش ثابت میکنه که عدالت دقیقن هفتصد و بیست و نه بار از ظلم بهتره .. فصل آخر کتاب بگمانم زیباترین بخش کتاب هم هست .. توی کتاب دهم افلاطون روح انسان رو روحی فناناپذیر و جاودان معرفی میکنه و با نقل یه داستان از شخصی بنام ار که به دنیای مردگان رفته و برگشته جمله کلیدی کتاب رو مطرح میکنه و اون این هست که انسان در زندگی باید راه میانه و اعتدال رو در پیش بگیره و از مسیر عدالت خارج نشه .. کتاب بی نظیر و فوق‌العاده اس و باید از ترجمه خووب اقای فواد روحانی هم سپاسگزار ی کرد بخاطر معرفی این اثر باشکوه به مردم ایران ...