The Republic
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 543 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). The Republic. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/the-republic
- MLAPlato. "The Republic." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/the-republic.
- ChicagoPlato. The Republic. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/the-republic.
What it is about
A dialogue about what justice is that ends up designing an entire city in order to see justice writ large, and that sets out along the way the theory of forms, the allegory of the cave and a complete programme of education.
Context and history
Written around 375 BC, in an Athens defeated in the Peloponnesian War and some twenty-five years after the city had condemned Socrates to death. That execution hangs over the whole book: it is where Plato's distrust of democracy begins. It is the work that has set the vocabulary of Western political philosophy for twenty-four centuries, and also the most disputed: each generation has read into it a utopia or a warning, according to its needs.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The scene is laid in the house of Cephalus at the Piraeus; and the whole dialogue is narrated by Socrates the day after it actually took place to Timaeus, Hermocrates, Critias, and a nameless person, who are introduced in the Timaeus. BOOK I. I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. I turned round, and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you, if you will only wait. Certainly we will, said Glaucon; and in a few minutes Polemarchus appeared, and with him Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, Niceratus the son of Nicias, and several others who had been at the procession. Polemarchus said to me: I perceive, Socrates, that you and your companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. But do you see, he rejoined, how many we are? Of course. And are you stronger than all these? for if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alte