Klowey’s Reviews > The Republic of Plato > Status Update

reading Book VI

(42:15 audible)

Finished commentary on Book V
Fabulous explanation by Bloom of how the key discussion is about:
- Socrates' and all citizens' private lives vs. the ideal city and the elimination of the private
- poetry vs philosophy
- ideal forms vs. individual examples
- justice as natural vs perfect city as art, thus art winning over nature and man

Starting Book VI

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

Finished Book 4 commentary (419c-427c), (427c-445e)
Seems to question the city vs the individual, the start of Socrates' trial.
This is the most intriguing book so far. Need to reread.

Finished Book 4
Starting Book 4 commentary by Bloom (419c-427c), (427c-445e)

Finished Book 3 and commentary.
Noble lie, poetry, Homer, education of military class, souls=metals, leaders have no wealth or privacy.

Starting Book 4.

Finished commentary on Book 2: discussion about the gods and the military class

Starting Book 3.

Commentary on (372e-376c) about giving up on the simple city and requiring war.

Finished commentary on Book 1: They have succeeded in defining the problem of Justice. Justice is either what makes a city prosper or it is a virtue of the soul and hence necessary to the happiness of the individual. The question is whether the two possibilities are identical? It is left to Glaucon and Adeimantus to pose this question
which is the distiHation of the arguments of Book I.