What justice actually is
Four definitions fail in the first book alone.
- What do I actually owe other people?
- Is it ever right to break a rule?
- What does fairness mean when everyone claims it?
Philosophy
Talk to The Republic by Plato
The Republic by Plato
- c. 375 BC
- Classical Greek
- Public domain
It begins with a simple question — what is justice? — and the first four answers all collapse under questioning within a few pages. That pattern is the book.
Somewhere in the middle a character called Glaucon raises the hardest objection in moral philosophy: give a man a ring that makes him invisible and he will do whatever he likes, so isn't everyone only good because they're being watched? The remaining eight books are Socrates trying to answer him.
Along the way it builds an imaginary city, argues that philosophers should rule it, proposes abolishing the family, and produces the allegory of the cave — the image of prisoners who prefer shadows to daylight, and would kill the person who tried to free them.
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What you can ask it
Would you be good if nobody was watching?
The ring of Gyges — the hardest question in the book.
- Would I still be honest if I'd never be caught?
- Why be good if being bad works?
- Am I moral or just afraid of consequences?
The cave and comfortable illusions
Prisoners who prefer shadows, and resent being freed.
- How do I know what I believe is actually true?
- Why do people get angry when you challenge their beliefs?
- What am I refusing to see?
Who should be in charge
His answer was philosophers, and he knew how that sounded.
- Why are the wrong people always in charge?
- What makes someone fit to lead?
- Should experts or the people decide?
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Message the consciousness of The Republic
Ask Plato's The Republic a question and hear it answer in its own voice — no uploads, no summaries.
- What do I actually owe other people?
- Would I still be honest if I'd never be caught?
- How do I know what I believe is actually true?
What The Republic actually is
The Republic is a Socratic dialogue in ten books, written by Plato around 375 BC and set in the Athens of his teacher Socrates, who executed the arguments and was executed by the city in 399 BC.
Its stated subject is justice — what it is, and whether a just life is better than an unjust one even when injustice pays. To answer it, Socrates builds a city in speech, on the theory that justice will be easier to see written large in a state than small in a person.
It is also the origin of a great deal else: the theory of Forms, the tripartite soul, the allegory of the cave, the philosopher-king, and a censorship regime for poetry that has troubled admirers for two thousand years. Karl Popper called it totalitarian. Others read the ideal city as a deliberate impossibility, constructed to say something about the individual instead.
In its words
Passages
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Behold! human beings living in an underground den.
The chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse than yourself, if a man will not himself hold office and rule.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
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