The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plato's Republic, by Plato

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Plato's Republic

Author: Plato

Release Date: May 22, 2008 [EBook #150]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLATO'S REPUBLIC ***

THE REPUBLIC

by Plato

(360 B.C.)

translated by Benjamin Jowett

THE INTRODUCTION

THE Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of
the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer
approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist;
the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of
the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the
Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other
Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same
perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or
contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not
of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony
or a greater wealth of humor or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor
in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and
speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is
the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here
philosophy reaches the highest point to which ancient thinkers ever
attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was
the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them
always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of
truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of
science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical
genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other
ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained. The
sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many
instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of
Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of
contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction
between the essence and accidents of a thing