The Republic


Abstract:
An ideal state according to Plato.

Body:
I finished listening to Plato's The Republic during my holiday driving. It's an interesting, if rather long, dialog between Socrates and several others. At the outset the characters are trying to answer "What is justice?", but no one can find an answer that Socrates can't pick apart. After some prodding, Socrates is made to try to discover the answer, and he does so by, rather than looking for justice in a person, looking for justice in a state, and then considering a person of that state, whom he claims will be just. Several hours later, Socrates has completed the description of his ideal state and tries to tackle the concept of justice. In the end, though, he never really gives a satisfactory answer, though you might read it as saying justice is found in strict noninterference in every aspect of mind, body, and life. Of course, we can't blame Socrates; the words are Plato's, not his, and I think they demonstrate that Plato didn't really have an answer either, but tricked himself into believing he did and then wrote a dialog to talk around the issue so much that people might think he were correct. So in the end I'm not sure that The Republic is worth reading (or hearing), aside from the practice you get from thinking about arguments and the knowledge you gain about Greek thought and culture.

Posted: Tue - January 2, 2007 at 02:33 PM         |    

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