Status Updates From The Republic

Book 5 has a sudden turn into epistemology and metaphysics: Socrates is trying to define the philosopher and explain why only philosophers can rule, and the language gets very abstract, with talk about “being vs. becoming,” “knowledge vs. opinion,” and the “love of the Forms”. In Bloom’s translation, this shift can feel especially abrupt, because he preserves Plato’s literal, dense phrasing without smoothing it out.

Finished Chapter V
Starting commentary on Chapter V