The Republic

Written by Plato

Narrated by James Langton

"What is at stake is far from insignificant: it is how one should live one's life."

Plato's The Republic is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of Western philosophy. Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, it is an inquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: What is goodness? What is reality? What is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the roles of both women and men as "guardians" of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by "philosopher kings."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400186167

Plato

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher born in the 5th century BC. Being greatly inspired by Socrates, Plato extensively meditated on existential and political issues. Justice is a particularly important component of Plato’s explorations and it is at the heart of his best-known work The Republic. The philosopher is also renowned for establishing the Academy in c. 387 where one of the main subjects was unsurprisingly the study of justice. In fact, one of his brightest students, Aristotles became a canonical thinker himself. Subsequently, Platonism turned out to be the foundation of a whole school of thought within the canon of Western Philosophy. In fact, all the eminent philosophers of the past millenium – such as Machiavelli, Kant and Nietzsche – reflected on the works of Plato or used them to postulate their own dialectic ideas.