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Plato's Republic: A Philosophical Commentary
- GenresPhilosophy
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 17, 2018
This book is a walkthrough + a bit of commentary on the Republic. The commentary itself is both useful and appears to be quite accurate. The authors (Cross and Woozley) are extremely clear when there is difficulty in translating a particular word or when there is ambiguity of its meaning in a given context. This helps the reader understand which parts of the Replublic are up for debate and where additional reading might be useful.
One should be prepared to block out large portions of time to read this book as it has fairly long chapters and even some of the paragraphs are enormous. This makes it less than ideal as a book for commuting or, in cases such as mine, when re-reading sections is necessary to try and digest their meaning. Overall though, the authors did a solid job with what they were presented.
With regards to the Republic itself, I can't derive too much value from reading it. It starts off as possibly being a discussion on a theory of justice (which sounds interesting), but goes astray pretty quickly.
Plato speculates about what the first cities looked like (though he doesn't have any evidence for this). He moves on to what an ideal city should look like: a monarchy with a moral scientist/philosopher as king (so, a unicorn) supported by a well educated military. (The authors point out that Greeks of this time did not believe that the majority of humanity was created equally and so this might have a slightly eugenics flavor to it.) Plato moves on to what this three-part division looks like in the human soul (if you accept that a) we have souls and b) they are in three parts). Finally he moves onto who this emperor philosopher (nodes to Aurelius) looks like and the epistemology that describes his way of thinking.
Part of the subsequent sections also touch on useful things such group problem solving which allows for treating assumptions as hypothesis to be tested if any member of the group wants them sanity tested. There is also useful discussion on the difference between weak belief, understanding, and first-hand knowledge which is useful in leadership. During the course of this latter discussion though, we start to touch on the theory of Forms.
Forms, as described by Plato, are idealistic versions of anything which can't be seen or touched and which all of us implicitly hold the same view of. He gives the example of the Form of Bed from which all beds are derived, but somehow we miss the idea that people might have differing (even opposite) views on what qualities their ideal bed has. I'm not sure how this leads to One Form of Bed.
Based on this book, I cannot determine the value of The Republic, so I may search out other translations + commentary of it. Again, most of its content seems impossible for practical use, so at this moment I can't recommend spending time on it.
One should be prepared to block out large portions of time to read this book as it has fairly long chapters and even some of the paragraphs are enormous. This makes it less than ideal as a book for commuting or, in cases such as mine, when re-reading sections is necessary to try and digest their meaning. Overall though, the authors did a solid job with what they were presented.
With regards to the Republic itself, I can't derive too much value from reading it. It starts off as possibly being a discussion on a theory of justice (which sounds interesting), but goes astray pretty quickly.
Plato speculates about what the first cities looked like (though he doesn't have any evidence for this). He moves on to what an ideal city should look like: a monarchy with a moral scientist/philosopher as king (so, a unicorn) supported by a well educated military. (The authors point out that Greeks of this time did not believe that the majority of humanity was created equally and so this might have a slightly eugenics flavor to it.) Plato moves on to what this three-part division looks like in the human soul (if you accept that a) we have souls and b) they are in three parts). Finally he moves onto who this emperor philosopher (nodes to Aurelius) looks like and the epistemology that describes his way of thinking.
Part of the subsequent sections also touch on useful things such group problem solving which allows for treating assumptions as hypothesis to be tested if any member of the group wants them sanity tested. There is also useful discussion on the difference between weak belief, understanding, and first-hand knowledge which is useful in leadership. During the course of this latter discussion though, we start to touch on the theory of Forms.
Forms, as described by Plato, are idealistic versions of anything which can't be seen or touched and which all of us implicitly hold the same view of. He gives the example of the Form of Bed from which all beds are derived, but somehow we miss the idea that people might have differing (even opposite) views on what qualities their ideal bed has. I'm not sure how this leads to One Form of Bed.
Based on this book, I cannot determine the value of The Republic, so I may search out other translations + commentary of it. Again, most of its content seems impossible for practical use, so at this moment I can't recommend spending time on it.
July 20, 2020
Particularly cogent analysis of the Allegory of the Cave and intriguing commentary on the connection between mimesis and the political aspirations of the Myth of Er. This book is a powerful counterweight to the Allan Bloom school of Platonic interpretation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews