115. Plato, Republic (in translation)

The influence on the history of philosophy is enormous. The purpose of this topic is to enable you to make a critical study of the Republic, which is perhaps his most important and most influential work. Written as a dialogue between Socrates and others including the outspoken immoralist Thrasymachus, it is primarily concerned with questions of the nature of justice and of what is the best kind of life to lead. These questions prompt discussions of the ideal city (which Karl Popper famously criticised as totalitarian), of education and art, of the nature of knowledge, the theory of Forms and the immortality of the soul. In studying the Republic you will encounter a work of philosophy of unusual literary merit, one in which philosophy is presented through debates, through analogies and images, including the famous allegory of the Cave, as well as rigorous argument, and you will encounter some of Plato's important contributions to ethics, political theory, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and aesthetics.