PLATOS REPUBLIC

Summary Handout
Plato is trying to do a large number of things in the Republic. His overall concern is
with the ways in which human beings can best live what is the good life? Plainly,
he wants to defend the idea that the good life involves virtue; he also believes that
it involves living in community. There are interesting questions about whether you
can live the right sort of life in the wrong sort of community.
The Republic is an encyclopedic text, one that wants to make claims in ethics,
political theory, social theory, educational theory, in metaphysics, epistemology,
and the philosophy of art. Plato starts with ethics, specifically with questions about
the right ways for an individual to live. His ostensible purpose in introducing the
ideal state is to reveal some features of the well-ordered soul (individual) more
clearly. But, on the encyclopedic interpretation, he takes the ideal seriously as a
proposal in political theory. Derivatively, he has to explore the character of genuine
knowledge (epistemology), the nature of reality (metaphysics), the proper ways of
training people (educational theory), social arrangements within the ideal society,
and the role of the arts.