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Summary: Goodness, for which the Republic stands.
Review: Though by the look of it Plato's masterwork appears daunting I devoured it from the start. Though his idea's about government may seem to many beyong the pale Plato knew very well that his ideal government was just that, an ideal. Even if you don't agree with him (and I do) he will start you on a train of thought to a higher plain.
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Summary: Philosophy's wellspring of questions.
Review: It has been said that all philosophic work of the past 2400 years stands as footnotes to Plato's writings. 'Do the ends justify the means? What is justice? Whom does it serve? Who should serve as its guardians? Is it absolute or relative?'
Plato's protagonist is his old teacher, Socrates. The arguments are presented as dialogues and thus embody a literary aspect different from many, although certainly not all, subsequent philosophical writings. His object is "no trivial question, but the manner in which a man ought to live." The answers are seen to point to the manner in which a utopian society should be operated.
As a storied mountain calls to a climber from afar, Plato calls to the student of the art of thinking. This is why we read Plato, for the "neo-Platonists" -- Plotinus, Augustine, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Whitehead, Gödel, and others -- have certainly propounded improved philosophy. But it is Plato on whom they improve. Most thinkers (perhaps especially most mathematicians and logicians) yet agree with Plato, at least insofar as his understanding of "form" -- often adapted or restated as: ideas / perfection / consciousness / mind / or, 'the thing in itself'.
Plato's realm of [what he calls] "forms" acknowledges the mysterious, yet logically necessary, existence of non-material reality. In Republic he views this as the realm of reference in constructing his understanding of an ideal society. We find in the work of subsequent thinkers (and within Plato's Republic as well) that this non-material reality is perhaps more easily recognized in purer considerations of reason, aesthetics, mathematics, music, love, spiritual experience, and ultimately in consciousness itself, than in idealized human social institutions. Mathematics, for example, although readily practiced in material ways, is not itself material. Thus the understanding of the purity of reason as opposed to the synthetic (and uncertain) nature of empiricism, arises from the work of Plato (and is particularly well developed in Descartes' existentialism).
Modern readers should rightly find that Plato regards the State too highly; in pursuit of an ideal State his supposedly improved citizen is highly restricted and censored. His "utopian" citizens are automatons, bred by the State; unsanctioned infants are "disposed of." Where his ideas are wrongly developed, they are in fact important ideas, i.e., they are issues deserving serious examination. Should the ruling class be restricted to philosophers? Plato says yes, that wisdom and intellectual insight are more desirable in leaders than are either birthright or popularity. Of course we, in the democratic West, tend to see this idea as totalitarianism, but it remains an interesting argument.
Although the product of polytheistic culture, Plato is leery of the tangled accounts of the gods received from the poets, Homer, Hesiod, etc. His view of the divine -- that "the chief good" has one eternal, unchanging and surpassingly superior form -- which he also calls "Providence", hints strongly of the common ground which was to emerge between neo-Platonism and monotheism. Like Plato's proverbial cave dwellers, we perceive this transcendent entity through poorly understood "shadows" of the actual truth. Beside its philosophical, literary, political, and theological aspects, Republic is also important as a treatise on psychology, in fact the science of mind seems to have progressed very little beyond Plato's insights. Books 5-7 are particularly fascinating.
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Summary: It helps you pick the right boss, president, ruler...
Review: This books explained why it is important to be just, and to some extend who is the best people. Being also a believer of J. S. Mill, I appreciate the value of diversity and wouldn't judge who is the best, but the Republic of Plato made it clear who is the most suitable to rule. I strongly recomment you read this book before you pick up Machiavelli.
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Summary: A Good Book For Anyone
Review: Although this book is heavy reading and tends to be overlooked by the average reader it is a good book for any person to read. This was the first book that I had ever read on the topic of philosophy but I didn't find the topic too hard to digest.
Like all philosophy the point of this book is not to absorb fact after fact but break down the meaning of the topic and analyze it. Most people will find that some of the parts in the book are a bit obscure but the point is that it gets you thinking! If you learn nothing from Plato and Socrates then at the very least they will have challenged you form your own theories and opinions.
Therein lies the beauty of Plato and all good philosophical works.
I also recommend Symposium by Plato which is lighter and more accessable.
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Summary: Politics: The Search for the "Good"
Review: In The Republic, Plato aims to persuade the reader that justice is the highest end that man, as a micro-cosm of society, can pursue, because it creates a virtuous political harmony. This is an appealing idea if one believes in a perfectly functioning political system characterized by eternal balance. However, the actual attainment of this goal is only plausible if one grants Plato both his moral conception of human nature and his conception of the existence of "pure forms" of earthly things in heaven. In other words, Platonic justice rests on platonic psychology and platonic theology. Take away these arguments, and his case for justice is pure rhetoric, based on inaccurate descriptions of political reality and a dangerous defense of elitism by emphasizing men's "roles" and "crafts" over their free will and liberty. But even this elitist rhetoric must be taken seriously, for it has attracted numerous adherents and affected society in dramatically positive ways over the last 2000 years. Negative liberties and mutual Hobbesian suspicion alone cannot build a society. Furthermore, elitist criticisms can be made of any society, including any of our nominally democratic modern regimes. Plato is merely up front about his elitism. Why should we criticize him for that?
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Summary: Gerald F. Devlin
Review: I have used this text for five years with 10th - 12th grade students. At first there was borderline panic among a few and caution with the rest. Most students had an initial guess that we were going to spend a semester discussing a utopian city. But their interest perked up when it hit them early in the reading that the aim of The Republic "...concerns no ordinary topic but the way we ought to live (352d)." Grube' s translation seems to grow on students. He is clear and concentrates rather than dilutes meanings. When we arrived at the section defining school as "the craft concerned with doing this very thing, this turning around, and with how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do so...(518d)," one student exclaimed, "My eight bucks was the best investment I made in a book."
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Summary: The Gods of Philosophy
Review: Just as Catholics bow down to the Cross, us philosophers read the writings of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as the Trinity. One reviewer made the comment: "I want answers! I can get more answers from a Teen Magazine" What an ignorant statement, I think. Because Socrates says that the best knowledge comes from knowing that we know nothing. The problem with the Bible, is that people think it is all the answers. It isn't to be expected to be the answer for everything, just as this book isn't suppose to be the answer for everything. These are merely theories.What I like about the book is how Socrates thinks we should be good for the sake of it, rather than for what it gets us. For example, why do we tell our children to be just? Does being just mean being cruel and cunning underneath, while they are financially successful and appear to be honest? Socrates claims that the truly just person will be good even though he doesn't always get what he wants in life. Basically that justice is it's own reward. One thing I agree is that artists, as Socrates says, is that they tend to create illusions. But, I don't agree that they need to be censored; that's just hogwash. Nor do I think that a village should raise a child, or that a man should stick to one career his whole life. In their time, they lived by the authority of the poets, whereas nowadays people go by the Koran or the Bible for their answers.
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Summary: No wonder this book is still read!
Review: After reading this book I realized why it remains so popular more than two thousand years after it was written. It has some memorable phrases, those worth knowing by heart and if possible living a life in accordance to the direction they point. I rejoiced at how the dialogue is conducted and how Plato arrives at his conclusion, going step by step. The way it is written make it easy to follow, in fact we feel as if we were in the same room as the author. It is also amazing how actual the content is (seems like it was written yesterday) in both subjects and questionings.
The book is also not too abstract to a point that one can't grasp the concepts, but is philosophically palpable. The topics range from day-to-day actions to the immortality of the soul; from justice to happiness; from Timarchy to Democracy... Although not all conclusions should be taken too seriously or meticulously, his ideas are worth reading and most important - thought about. Plato and his ideal state (the form) will probably never become a reality, but from this ideal we can judge how far we are, and perhaps realize that "shadows" are all we see.
The Republic is an excellent book and should be read as such, and not as a manuscript of the TRUTH. It is though a guide, and a direction pointer towards the ultimate...realm!? Or as Plato perhaps would put it: towards the exit of the cave.
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Summary: The Bedrock of Modern Philosophy
Review: In the "Republic," Plato may or may not have accomplished what he set out to do, which is to define justice and prove that it is superior to injustice, irregardless of either's consequences. However, what he DID do is set the foundation for over two thousand years of thought. Read this work slowly; within each of the seemingly-simple discussions there is a world of though to be discovered. Anyone with the least bit of background in philosophical readings can literally read page-by-page, discovering the sources of many of the greatest philosophers of all-time. The "Republic" is not so much a work of literature as it is an explosion of thought; a ten-book brainstorm of one of the greatest minds of all-time. By the work's end, whether or not you feel Socrates to have successfully answered Glaucon's challenge is almost irrelevant, for the argument will have already left your mind reeling.
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Summary: Something every person of society should read
Review: If you are a member of POST 'personal property' you should read this book as a beginning of opening your eyes to the real world. It should be mixed with the introduction of "Sophies World" by Jostein Gaarder to open the "common" person's eyes to reality to see why our pety existence is so un-important to the real picture of 'mother nature' and will open one's mind to knowledge and appreciation of history and science.
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