Plato's Democratic Entanglements

by Susan Sara Monoson

In this book, Sara Monoson challenges the longstanding and widely held view that Plato is a virulent opponent of all things democratic. She does not, however, offer in its place the equally mistaken idea that he is somehow a partisan of democracy. Instead, she argues that we should attend more closely to Plato's suggestion that democracy is horrifying and exciting, and she seeks to explain why he found it morally and politically intriguing.


Monoson focuses on Plato's engagement with democracy as he knew it: a cluster of cultural practices that reach into private and public life, as well as a set of governing institutions. She proposes that while Plato charts tensions between the claims of democratic legitimacy and philosophical truth, he also exhibits a striking attraction to four practices central to Athenian democratic politics: intense antityrantism, frank speaking, public funeral oratory, and theater-going. By juxtaposing detailed examination of these aspects of Athenian democracy with analysis of the figurative language, dramatic structure, and arguments of the dialogues, she shows that Plato systematically links democratic ideals and activities to philosophic labor. Monoson finds that Plato's political thought exposes intimate connections between Athenian democratic politics and the practice of philosophy.


Situating Plato's political thought in the context of the Athenian democratic imaginary, Monoson develops a new, textured way of thinking of the relationship between Plato's thought and the politics of his city.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 8, 2000

About the author

Susan Sara Monoson is Professor of Political Science and Classics and Director of the Graduate Classics Cluster at Northwestern University. Her research interests include Greek political theory in historical context and classical reception studies, especially the history of appropriations of Greek philosophers in American political discourse (e.g., about abolition, war and peace, labor and industry, cold war, civil rights, education). She is currently working on two projects, Socrates in the Vernacular, a study of the figure of Socrates in 20th century popular media in the US, Canada and Greece, and Socrates in Combat, an account of the significance Plato attaches to military service and return in his theory of justice and in his portrait of Socrates’ distinctiveness.

Her work has received funding from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.