Book Bearings
The Republic of Plato
- 397 pages · about 7 hours
- 794 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
The Republic is a dialogue written by Plato around 375 BC and the best known of his works. In it Socrates talks with a group of Athenians and foreigners about what justice is and whether the just man is happier than the unjust one. To answer, he considers the kinds of government that exist and then imagines a series of cities, arriving at a state ruled by philosopher-kings. Along the way the conversation takes in aging, love, the theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the place of the philosopher and of poetry in society.
- Political science
- Science politique
- Philosophy
- Political ethics
- History
- History & Surveys
- Spirituality
- Ethics
2 What to expect
Plato's most famous dialogue: Socrates and his companions ask what justice is and design an ideal city to find out. It ranges over politics, education, the soul, knowledge and art, and makes the case for rule by philosophers. It is long and proceeds by question and answer, easier going than most philosophy but demanding in its middle books, and some of its proposals remain controversial.
Good for readers who want: classical philosophy, questions of justice and politics, and a foundational classic.
3 Read it free, right here
A free scan from the Internet Archive opens right here on the page, with no sign-up.
Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Plato
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
5 More by Plato
6 Similar books
- The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
- Great Books of the Western World by Blaise Pascal
- Politics by Aristotle
- Common Sense by Thomas Paine
- Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch
- The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Mutual Aid by Peter Kropotkin
- The Spirit of laws by Montesquieu