Sokrates ve çevresindeki birkaç kişi doğruluk - eğrilik üstüne konuşurken (doğrudan kasıt adalet bu arada) ilerleye ilerleye ideal devleti oluşturdukları bir diyaloga başlıyorlar. Kitapta zamansız bilgi olarak nitelendirilecek çok iyi tespitler var. Demek ki bazı şeyler hiç değişmiyor. Devlet'i oluştururlarken özellikle eğitim hakkındaki kısmını keyifle okudum. Bazen de diyalog okumaktan sıkıldım, kitabı yarım bırakıp sonra tekrar başladım. Yine de milattan önce yazılan bir eserin günümüze ışık tutması harika bir şey. Bunu düşünerek okursanız bazı sayfalarda vay be diyebiliyorsunuz. Felsefe okumalarına bilinçli bir şekilde yeni yeni başlayan biri olarak Devlet'i felsefeye giriş yapacaklara tavsiye ederim.

Just say Notttt Yet!

Lướt qua The Republic của Penguin Random House, thấy dịch giả dùng I và You và văn phong khá bình dị thế mà ơ kìaaaaa tại sao bản dịch tiếng Việt lại phang toàn những đại từ nhân xưng chưa từng đc nghe bao giờ kiểu "bản nhân, tiểu điệt, quý hữu, ngô bối, hiền diệt, bỉ phu" khiến kẻ hèn hoang mang tột cùng, cứ ngỡ trong lúc não đi vắng đã mua nhầm sách tiếng Tàu. Để khuyến khích độc giả động não, dịch giả đã nhân ái tặng kèm những câu văn tối nghĩa một cách kì diệu, kiểu như: "Phải chăng đây là trường hợp vì lý do tồn tại mục đích của khả năng chuyên môn liên hệ là đẩy mạnh và lo liệu cho quyền lợi đó có phải không?" - đọc xong vài câu như này đảm bảo não ngừng chạy hẳn luôn

Romanian review: Pentru una dintre cărțile care reprezintă fundamentul civilizației occidentale, nu pot decât să mă declar dezamăgit. ,,Republica" este cel mai celebru dintre dialogurile lui Platon, deși, dacă mă întrebi pe mine, este mai mult un monolog al lui Socrate, având în vedere că, în cea mai mare parte, restul participanților la dialog intervin doar pentru a-l aproba.
Dialogul începe printr-o discuție etică privind diferența dintre dreptate și nedreptate, Socrate încercând să demonstreze că omul drept este mai fericit decât omul nedrept. De aici, Socrate încearcă să descrie cetatea ideală, mergând pe principiul că o cetate reprezintă oglinda cetățenilor săi- o idee destul de rezonabilă de altfel.
Problema mea este felul în care este descrisă această cetate ideală- o cetate în care întreaga viață a cetățenilor este controlată, de la cultură și muzică până la reproducere. Multe dintre principiile lui Socrate sunt atât de apropiate de eugenism, încât, dacă le-am fi regăsit într-o carte de-a lui Hitler, am fi fost oripilați. Pe scurt, majoritatea ideilor sunt extrem de învechite, iar descrierea cetății se bazează pe tot felul de generalizări foarte greu de demonstrat.
Totuși, am găsit și câteva idei bune, care au trecut bine de testul timpului. Una dintre ele este că femeile ar trebui să joace un rol egal cu bărbații în ce privește conducerea unei cetăți, iar alta este ideea că potențialul tinerilor ar trebui evaluat de când sunt mici pentru a-i pregăti exact în meseria/domeniul care li se potrivește cel mai bine.
Partea cea mai bună din carte este, categoric, celebra alegorie a peșterii. Ideea că percepția noastră este limitată la ceea ce am trăit și că, din acest motiv, este greu să cunoaștem adevărul obiectiv al realității este relevantă și genială. Trecerea timpului nu va schimba asta.
Prin urmare, ,,Republica" este o carte care nu a trecut atât de bine peste trecerea timpului, chiar dacă conține și idei bune, universal valabile, încă relevante. Dar, din câte înțeleg (recunosc că nu sunt un expert în ce prive��te filozofia și istoria ei), relevanța cărții se bazează pe progresul pe care l-a reprezentat pentru filozofie, mai ales, în ce privește dialectica.



English review: For one of the books that forms the foundation of Western civilization, I can’t help but feel disappointed. "The Republic" is Plato’s most famous dialogue, though, if you ask me, it’s more of a monologue by Socrates, considering that, for the most part, the other participants only chime in to agree with him.
The dialogue begins with an ethical discussion about the difference between justice and injustice, with Socrates attempting to demonstrate that the just person is happier than the unjust one. From there, Socrates tries to describe the ideal city, operating on the principle that a city reflects its citizens—a fairly reasonable idea, to be honest.
My issue lies with how this ideal city is described—a place where every aspect of the citizens’ lives is controlled, from culture and music to reproduction. Many of Socrates' principles are so closely aligned with eugenics that, if we found them in one of Hitler’s books, we would be horrified. In short, most of the ideas are extremely outdated, and the description of the city relies on all sorts of sweeping generalizations that are hard to substantiate.
That said, I did find a few worthwhile ideas that have stood the test of time. One is that women should play an equal role with men in governing a city, and another is the idea that young people's potential should be assessed early to prepare them for the profession or field best suited to them.
The best part of the book is undoubtedly the famous allegory of the cave. The idea that our perception is limited to what we’ve experienced, and that this makes it difficult to grasp the objective truth of reality, is both brilliant and timeless. The passage of time won’t change its relevance.
In conclusion, "The Republic" is a book that hasn’t aged particularly well, even though it contains some universally valid and still-relevant ideas. However, from what I understand (I’ll admit I’m not an expert in philosophy or its history), its significance lies in the progress it represented for philosophy, especially in terms of dialectics.

It's been far too long ago since I read this to write a critical review, however, it should be required reading for all students in America at the very least. Oh how far we have strayed.

"Uopšte nije važno da li ovakva država negdje stvarno postoji ili će tek u budućnosti postojati."

Čudo je Platon! Kolikogod da se iščitavaju njegovi dijalozi, svaki put će se uočavati odlomci koji su ranije promicali i uvijek će se rađati pitanja i dileme koje vam ranije nisu padale na pamet. Kada bih morao provesti ostatak života na nekom pustom ostrvu imajući dozvolu da sa sobom ponesem kompletna djela samo jednog autora, definitivno bih odabrao Platona.

Ocjene o "Državi" variraju od one populističke, po kojoj je Sokrat vodio dijalog-monolog sa intelektualno zaostalim klimoglavcima (čemu sam nekada davno i sam bio pomalo naklonjen - ako ćemo pravo), pa sve dotle da se smatra najvrijednijim ostvarenjem u istoriji filozofije. Ima jedan prikaz u kome se Platon doslovno naziva idiotom, što me ne bi toliko ražalostilo da taj prikaz nema ubjedljivo najviše lajkova (među njih preko 3300!).
Francuski filozof ruskog porijekla Aleksandar Kožev je napisao knjigu "Kako čitati Hegela?"; mislim da i Platon potrebuje jedan takav priručnik, imajući u vidu to da su - u odnosu na druge velike filozofe - šanse da kod njega odemo na stranputicu znatno veće - što zbog dijaloške forme i svima razumljive terminologije (naizgled olakšavajuće), što usljed toga što su Platonova pisana učenja samo obrisi i nagovještaji onoga što se moglo čuti na njegovim predavanjima, a dobrim dijelom i zbog Sokratove ironije i višesmislenih mističko-mitoloških ekskursa, koji prosječnog homo sapiensa lako odvode u ćorsokak. Tu zazornost od pisane riječi - a vrlo vjerovatno i od mogućnosti da i sam bude pogrešno shvaćen - Platon je izrazio u "Fedru", govoreći o slovima: "Kad su jedanput napisana, svaka riječ tumara ovamo i onamo, isto tako k onima koji je ne razumiju kao i onima kojima nije namjenjena, pa se ne zna s kime treba govoriti, a s kime ne. A zlostavljena i nepravična ružena uvijek treba roditelja kao pomoćnika: jer sama niti može sebe odbraniti niti sebi pomoći."

Za onoga ko umije da čita i da čitajući otključava - što je rijedak i potcijenjen dar - Platonovi dijalozi otvaraju mali milion vrata i vratanaca. U Sokratovom dijalektičkom vrtlogu se ne nude rješenja, nego se razmatraju mogućnosti; manje je važno o čemu se tu raspravlja, smisao je u samom vrtlogu; u njemu se čitalac podstiče da misli, da iznalazi sopstvene odgovore i osmišljava sopstvena pitanja; zbog toga je druženje sa Platonom - pod uslovom da ga se čita na pravi način - uvijek cjeloživotno, a njegova pojava jedinstvena u čitavoj istoriji filozofije.

i have read plato's republic...three times.

and i've actually enjoyed every time, although i hadn't thought i would each round.

i love greek writing, and though aristotle and thucydides are my favorite, plato is a close second (third?).

even if you disagree with the ideas he presents, the ideas are fascinating to discuss. i actually kind of think it is way more fun to discuss when someone contradicts an idea or assumption made.

the dialectic style is one of my favorite aspects of the novel. as a fan of conversations, i think this has got to be one of the most essential ways of communicating and debating ideas (i take it with a grain of salt - i am aware that plato was able to manipulate his contradictors - is that a word?... - since he was the author, but still. i like it despite that.)

last, the allegory of the cave is sooo wonderful to me. i love the idea - and even though i don't fully agree / believe in it, it has been the springing board of many of my ideas of human knowledge, capability, and (most importantly to a media studies major) reality.

All the criticisms of Plato are valid. He raises straw arguments. He manipulates discussions unfairly. He doesn't offer realistic solutions. And so on.

But he is still, and for very good reason, the most influential philosopher in Western civilization. He makes people think. Most authors we read today are trying to persuade us to agree with their point of view. Plato, not so. He wants you to disagree with him. He wants you to argue with him. He wants you to identify the fallacies in his arguments (and some are deliberately fallacious). In short, he wants you to do the most difficult intellectual exercise there is. He wants you to think, and to think deeply.

The other thing to realize about Plato is that he is an exquisite poet and craftsman. There is nothing accidental about what he writes; there is nothing superfluous. Even the most minute seeming points are there for good reason. Part of the joy of reading Plato for the third, fourth, fifth time is to see each time a bit more about what he is doing and why he is doing it, to come closer to appreciating his extraordinary genius and encountering ever more deeply this incredible mind.

No book has influenced my life more than Plato's Republic. It admittedly can be a difficult read: it is almost entirely a back and forth conversation between two people, Socrates and Glaucon, discussing the nature of man, the soul, justice, and what the most just society, or Republic, would look like. In this highly utopian account, Socrates expresses little hope in the common man, and instead suggests authoritarian rule, by philosophers, would lead to the most just state. His contempt for democracy can be disturbing to those who have faith in the said system, however, it behooves all to read. Forget trying to become enlightened by some eastern religion, the morals, lessons and philosophy of this cornerstone of Westernism will strike you as remarkably fresh and increasingly relevant today, some 2,500 years after it was written.

This is my first GR review without a star rating. Here’s the reason why.

I don’t like Plato’s Republic, but I think it ought to be read more than once. I didn’t like it when I first read it almost 50 years ago, and my opinion hasn’t changed over the years. Nevertheless, I think it’s an important book that should be read, analyzed and debated. In that regard, it’s much like Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Both books are, in my opinion, prescriptions for tyranny, the two sides of the same counterfeit coin. However, I won't compare Plato to Hitler. I believe Plato meant well, but more of that later.

Hitler was the prime modern example of a populist demagogue who based his “might makes right” ideology on race, blood and soil. “Justice,” for Hitler, was grounded on the “right” of the Aryan Superman to dominate and rule those inferior to himself. It followed that oppression, war and genocide could be justified when done in the name of the “Master Race” and their “Aryan Superman Leader.”

Plato despised the populist demagogues of his time, the products of ancient Athenian democracy, most particularly because he blamed them for the unjust death of his mentor, Socrates. Plato argued for a Republic governed by those most fit to rule, the Men and Women of Gold, the philosopher kings and queens. “Justice” for Plato, was grounded on the “right” of the ”best and brightest” to dominate and rule those who were naturally inferior to themselves. The justification for this peculiar form of injustice was that the naturally superior were "experts" who would rule the naturally inferior for their own good. In my opinion it follows that oppression, war and genocide could be justified when done in the name of “The City State and the People” by the reigning “Men and Women of Gold.” In other words, Plato’s Republic could be an authoritarian hell. If you want to argue that Plato’s hell was at least well intended, I’d refer to the old adage about the road paved with good intentions and where that road leads.

Hitler was the rattler who gives a warning before he bites. Plato was subtler. He used the Cave metaphor, an example of his idealistic epistemology, to show how some people have the special insight to see things as they really are, whereas the masses only see things as they appear to be. Therefore, the ignorant masses are always subject to the popular opinion of the moment.

Plato sets up his typical straw man arguments about justice, to get to the definition of justice that he wants: A system where the masses “mind their own business” leaving the experts, the “Men and Women of Gold” i.e. people like Plato, to run things for the common good. What’s more, he justifies propaganda in the form of a “Noble Lie” or "Noble Myth" to convince the masses that they are inferior, by analogy made of baser metal, and must submit to the will of their superiors “for their own good.”

I assume H.L Mencken agreed with Plato when he wrote: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Mencken was writing about U.S. politics in the 1920’s-1930’s. I wonder what he’d think of U.S. politics today? Plato was writing about Athenian politics, their ancient democracy, and other systems of government 2,500 years ago. I haven't a clue what he'd think of the 21st century.

Plato’s world is so remote in time and space that we can barely imagine it; Mencken’s world is still within the memory of the oldest among us, but it’s still distant and hard for the young to understand. Things change yet much remains the same. Governments are instituted by human beings, and all humans are subject to the same flaws and weaknesses as our ancestors. Imperfect beings will never develop a perfect form of government. Nevertheless, I believe that a Constitutional Republic with democratic processes and a rule of law that guarantees the rights of individuals, and that promotes equality, Abraham Lincoln’s “Government of, by and for the people”, is still about as good as it gets. As for Plato’s Republic, it’s a Utopian thought experiment. Government by an ostensibly “benign” elite of “intellectuals” and technocrats with little or no respect for individual rights has been tried and found wanting. Robespierre’s “Committee of Public Safety"* is an early modern example of the sort of hell that arises from the “good intentions” of Plato and others. Repeating that experiment over and over again while expecting a different result is worse than insane—it’s downright evil.

I recommend reading Robespierre's speech The Republic of Virtue (1794) and considering it in light of Plato's Republic, a good test of thought experiment as applied to reality.

I’ve read this right through a couple of times now – three, or there about, I think. And bits of it many, many times. This is one of the key books of ‘the western canon’, you really do need to be aware of it. And you might be surprised at how frequently it is referenced, particularly in science fiction – everything from The Giver to Brave New World to The Matrix. And while the world Plato is presenting is meant to be a utopia, it is generally used as the basis for the most terrifying of dystopias.

One of the things I noticed this time through was all the eugenics. Not just in the selective breeding of the human stock, but also in the murder of the ‘unfit’. I’ve always been very sensitive to ideas of killing people based on some notion of the ‘costs to society’ that they bring. I believe such ideas undermine our very humanity to the point where the ‘improved’ society would no longer be fit to be called human.

This book is seeking to provide an answer to the question ‘what is justice?’ – or rather, it starts by questioning if it is just to help your friends and harm your enemies? I’m not sure it is immediately obvious that we might go from these questions to answers concerning the division of labour in a society – but that seems to be a major consideration of the theory of justice being presented here. Basically, people are born with various levels of merit and a just society would identify those who are favoured with whatever merit they have, and it would set them to the tasks that best suit whatever merit they have. Plato talks of the merit of people as a bit like being assigned to different metals (not unlike in the Olympics) and those people metals differentiate them into different classifications – gold, silver, bronze and iron – and each will have their proper tasks in society. Once you have been assigned to one of these classifications you are pretty much stuck there. There are tasks that are appropriate to your abilities and the just society is one where people are assigned tasks that best meet their abilities. For this reason, it is important that parents don’t know their own children and that children are brought up in common by the whole of society. That way you won’t end up with a bronze child from two gold parents being given a gold education that they will not be able to make any use of, or their bronze child wreaking havoc trying to be a philosopher king, when they would have been a better baker or blacksmith or something.

All the same, the best people are still likely to have the best children and so the society should make all proper efforts to ensure that the best breeds with the best – in much the same way as you would if you were breeding race horses.

The best societies would be ruled by philosopher kings – and they would not be allowed to have any possessions of their own, since they ought to be focused on the good of the society as a whole. There is a kind of threat to such people – Plato believes they would be unlikely to really give a stuff about most things that others find very rewarding. For instance, wealth, power, prestige and so on. They are likely to be seen as too ‘other worldly’, even by themselves, and therefore they are likely to be uninterested in taking on the responsibility of ruling and they might need to be encouraged. This is all for the good – because the sorts of people who want to rule are generally not the sort of people who should ever be allowed to rule. This is one of the things in which me and Plato are very much on the same page – although, for me, rather than breeding a special class of philosopher kings to rule over us, I am increasingly becoming an anarchist as I struggle to think of a single person in my life who has been a worthwhile leader. I’ve certainly never met a philosopher I would be happy to have as my king.

These philosopher kings are expected to structure pretty well all aspects of life to make sure that the dumb (or rather we differently-abled with all too much base metal in our veins) are kept content in our ignorance. There are many, many things that the mass of society really shouldn’t be troubling their all too small minds over. It is also important that the philosopher kings do what they can to make sure that the rest of society doesn’t get their passions too excited by things like poetry either. A large part of religion will need to go – particularly the bits where the gods were seen fighting with each other or doing immoral things to women dressed up as bulls and such.

The allegory of the cave is the most famous part of this dialogue. It concerns the nature of education. What always strikes me about it is the pain that is associated with learning the truth and how once one has learnt the truth one appears to be foolish to all those around them. But that the point of learning is to return to those who are ignorant and to be forced to attempt to explain the truth of existence to them. This is almost always a near fatal enterprise. People generally don’t like being told they are wrong and being told ‘everything you have ever thought was true is actually false’ is hardly the first line in a new romance.

I keep going on about Marx’s utopia being based on the idea of there being no division of labour – so it is interesting that Plato’s is based on the exact opposite idea to this. In fact, Plato says that people really only have one thing that they are likely to be good at and that they must stick to that. He may have been both the first eugenicist, and the first Fordist/Taylorist too.

His discussion of the different types of government in book viii is a bit of a highlight to this, I think. I found his discussion of democracy particularly interesting. I’m not sure I agree with it, but I thought his discussion of how it tended towards tyranny was all a bit chilling, and perhaps also a bit too close to home. The power of money to buy democracy, the fact tyrants need to remove the best of those around them and so becomes increasingly stupid, and focused on giving the people ‘what they want’ – mostly bread and circuses – looks all uncomfortably like Trump’s America writ large.

Me propuse este año leer más libros de filosofía, y en el marco de ese plan, "La República" parecía una elección obvia. Antes de leerlo, solo tenía una vaga idea del tema del libro. Sabía que Platón describía aquí su Estado ideal, en uno de los tratados de teoría política más antiguos de la historia. En rigor de verdad, sin embargo, el libro trata muchos más temas que el Estado ideal.
Al ser un libro tan antiguo, ha tenido muchas interpretaciones diferentes con el paso del tiempo. En lo personal, me sorprendió descubrir lo mucho que la utopía platónica se asemeja en realidad a una distopía de acuerdo a los standards modernos: es un Estado regido por un sistema de castas, donde en el pináculo se ubican los filósofos. En este Estado se practica la censura, usando para ello el argumento paternalista: no hay que dejar que ideas extrañas contaminen la mente de la gente, de modo que es mejor dejar que unos pocos elegidos decidan qué pueden escuchar o leer el resto. Es un Estado donde se practican formas primitivas de eugenesia (el gobierno tendría la potestad de decidir quién puede tener hijos, quién no, y asignar las parejas) y eutanasia. Desde el punto de vista económico, es un estado comunista, toda vez que la comunidad de bienes, inmuebles y muebles, son de todos y de nadie. Tampoco se permite la familia: la noción es erradicada y los niños son criados por el Estado, que los selecciona en edad temprana en virtud de los talentos que manifiestan para ser educados en una de las castas. Mientras más uno lo piensa, menos gustaría vivir en un lugar como el que describe Platón.
Naturalmente, lo juzgamos de acuerdo a nuestras nociones modernas. Con el beneficio del conocimiento retrospectivo es fácil criticar. Platón instituyó su comunismo económico como una forma de responder a la brecha en las clases sociales y al poder de la oligarquía-agudas críticas que todavía resuenan en el mundo moderno-y la casta de filósofos para prevenir que políticos populistas se aprovecharan de la masa ignorante e impulsiva para alcanzar el poder-nuevamente, otra crítica que resuena actualmente.
Sí se puede criticar que Platón en realidad, a lo largo de La República, presenta sus argumentos como imbatibles: no hay espacio para reconocer que sus teorías pueden estar erradas, o que no se pueden aplicar en todas partes sin tomar en cuenta las características políticas o sociales de los pueblos donde se impondrían. Es por eso que no le doy 5 estrellas.
Más allá de eso, el libro no se detiene ahí. Aquí Platón elabora su famosa "historia de la caverna", acaso uno de los planteos filosóficos más importantes de la historia, y elabora sobre muchas otras cuestiones, como la justicia, el alma, e incluso, una teoría de la reencarnación (esto particularmente me sorprendió, porque hasta donde sabía de la cultura de la Grecia antigua, no sabía que hubiera ni siquiera una mención de la reencarnación).
Tan solo por su portento, su visión, su agudeza intelectual, aunque no compartamos sus tesis, es un libro que todos deberíamos leer.

Strange days indeed, when we are sent back to re-visit the very roots of philosophy within the ancient world.

Audio book 4:49:25