Republic

The Republic offers a reasoned argument for why a person should live a just, rather than an unjust, life. It does so without recourse to religion or natural law or appeals to self evidence. In the process of the proof, the nature of a just society is also described and how the various unjust forms of government progress from one to the other. These governments are shown to be manifestation of the competing forces within the soul of the individual. If that weren’t enough, Plato calculates that the just man is exactly 768 times happier than the unjust man and then tops it off with a simple proof of the immortality of the soul.

The arguments are presented in the form of a dialog between Plato’s teacher, Socrates, and his friends. The dialog is pretty loose as mostly its just Plato presenting his arguments. This is actually a good thing as complicated dialog could have extended the book and diluted the content.

While reading this book I found myself wondering if the founding fathers in the U.S. leaned on this book for their source, because they seem to have taken elements from the various bad forms of government and set them against one another. If this is so, then I guess that explains all of the classical architecture in Washington. Its also kind of scary since nobody teaches this stuff anymore. It would seem that eventually the people living in the U.S. will be aware of how their government works but not why and might, inadvertently screw it up.

Its probably pretty easy to find a used copy of one of these around, I found one at my local used book store for $4, hard cover, can’t beat that.

2 October 2007 | Books | Comments