Republic (Classics of World Literature) - Softcover

Plato

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853264830 ISBN 13: 9781853264832

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1997

Synopsis

The ideas of Plato (c429-347BC) have influenced Western philosophers for over two thousand years. Such is his importance that the twentieth-century philosopher A.N. Whitehead described all subsequent developments within the subject as foot-notes to Plato's work. Beyond philosophy, he has exerted a major influence on the development of Western literature, politics and theology. The Republic deals with the great range of Plato's thought, but is particularly concerned with what makes a well-balanced society and individual. It combines argument and myth to advocate a life organized by reason rather than dominated by desires and appetites. Regarded by some as the foundation document of totalitarianism, by others as a call to develop the full potential of humanity, the Republic remains a challenging and intensely exciting work.

About this title

About the Author:

Plato (c. 427-347 b.c.) founded the Academy in Athens, the prototype of all Western universities, and wrote more than twenty philosophical dialogues.

Desmond Lee (1908-1993) taught for many years at Cambridge University and also translated Plato's Timaeus and Critias for Penguin Classics.

Review:

"Must we not acknowledge...that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?"

What does it mean to be good? What enables us to distinguish right from wrong? And how should human virtues be translated into a just society? These are the questions that Plato sought to answer in this monumental work of moral and political philosophy, a book surpassed only by the Bible in its formative influence on two thousand years of Western thought.

In the course of its tautly reasoned Socratic dialogues, The Republic accomplishes nothing less than an anatomy of the soul and an exhaustive description of a State that both mirrors and enforces the soul's ideal harmony. The resulting text is at once mystical and elegantly logical and may be read as a template for the societies in which most of us live today.

Vintage Classics are quality paperback editions of the world's greatest written works. They are durably bound and are printed exclusively on acid-free paper. --From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1853264830
• ISBN 13: 9781853264832
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Griffith Tom