The Republic (Ancient Greek: Πολιτεία, romanized: Politeia; Latin: De Republica) is a Socratic dialogue authored by Plato around 375 BC, concerning justice (dikaiosúnē), the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. It is Plato’s best-known work, and one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically.

In the dialogue, Socrates discusses with various Athenians and foreigners the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man. He considers the natures of existing regimes and then proposes a series of hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), a utopian city-state ruled by a class of philosopher-kings. They also discuss ageing, love, theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the role of the philosopher and of poetry in society. The dialogue’s setting seems to be the time of the Peloponnesian War.

Place in Plato’s corpus

The Republic is generally placed in the middle period of Plato’s dialogues. However, the distinction of this group from the early dialogues is not as clear as the distinction of the late dialogues from all the others. Nonetheless, Ritter, Arnim, and Baron—with their separate methodologies—all agreed that the Republic was well distinguished, along with Parmenides, Phaedrus and Theaetetus.

However, the first book of the Republic, which shares many features with earlier dialogues, is thought to have originally been written as a separate work, and then the remaining books were conjoined to it, perhaps with modifications to the original of the first book.

Outline

Book I: Aging, Love, and the Definitions of Justice

While visiting Athens’s port, Piraeus, with Glaucon, Socrates is invited to join Polemarchus for a dinner and festival. They eventually end up at Polemarchus’ house where Socrates encounters Polemarchus’ father Cephalus.

In his first philosophical conversation with the group members, Socrates gets into a conversation with Cephalus. The first real philosophical question posed by Plato in the book is when Socrates asks “is life painful at that age, or what report do you make of it?” when speaking to the aged Cephalus.

Cephalus answers by saying that many are unhappy about old age because they miss their youth, but he finds that “old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions. When the appetites have abated, and their force is diminished, the description of Sophocles is perfectly realized. It is like being delivered from a multitude of furious masters.” The repose gives him time to dedicate himself to sacrifices and justice so that he is prepared for the afterlife.

Socrates then asks his interlocutors for a definition of justice. Three are suggested:

Cephalus: To give each what is owed to them (331c)
Polemarchus: To give to each what is appropriate to him (332c)
Thrasymachus: What is advantageous for the stronger (338c)
Socrates refutes each definition in turn:

One may owe it to someone to return them a knife one has borrowed, but if he has since gone mad and would only harm himself with it, returning the knife would not be just.

Polemarchus suggests that what is appropriate is to do good to friends and bad to enemies, but harming someone tends to make them unjust, and so on his definition, justice would tend to create injustice.
If it is just to do what rulers (the stronger) say and rulers make mistakes about their advantage, then it is just to do what is disadvantageous for the stronger.

Thrasymachus then responds to this refutation by claiming that insofar as the stronger make mistakes, they are not in that regard the stronger. Socrates refutes Thrasymachus with a further argument: Crafts aim at the good of their object, and therefore to rule is for the benefit of the ruled and not the ruler.

At this point, Thrasymachus claims that the unjust person is wiser than the just person, and Socrates gives three arguments refuting Thrasymachus. However, Thrasymachus ceases to engage actively with Socrates’s arguments, and Socrates himself seems to think that his arguments are inadequate, since he has not offered any definition of justice. The first book ends in aporia concerning the essence of justice.

Book II: Glaucon and Adeimantus’s Challenge

Glaucon and Adeimantus are unsatisfied with Socrates’s defense of justice. They ask Socrates to defend justice against an alternative view that they attribute to many. According to this view, the origin of justice is in social contracts. Everyone would prefer to get away with harm to others without suffering it themselves, but since they cannot, they agree not to do harm to others so as not to suffer it themselves.

Moreover, according to this view, all those who practice justice do so unwillingly and out of fear of punishment, and the life of the unpunished unjust man is far more blessed than that of the just man. Glaucon would like Socrates to prove that justice is not only desirable for its consequences, but also for its own sake. To demonstrate the problem, he tells the story of Gyges, who – with the help of a ring that turns him invisible – achieves great advantages for himself by committing injustices. Many think that anyone would and should use the ring as Gyges did if they had it. Glaucon uses this argument to challenge Socrates to defend the position that the just life is better than the unjust life.

Adeimantus supplements Glaucon’s speech with further arguments. He suggests that the unjust should not fear divine judgement, since the very poets who wrote about such judgement also wrote that the gods would grant forgiveness to those who made religious sacrifice.

Book II–IV: The city and the soul

Socrates suggests that they use the city as an image to seek how justice comes to be in the soul of an individual. After attributing the origin of society to the individual not being self-sufficient and having many needs which he cannot supply himself, Socrates first describes a “healthy state” made up of producers who make enough for a modest subsistence, but Glaucon considers this hardly different than “a city of pigs.” Socrates then goes on to describe the luxurious city, which he calls “a fevered state”. Acquiring and defending these luxuries requires a guardian class to wage wars.

They then explore how to obtain guardians who will not become tyrants to the people they guard. Socrates proposes that they solve the problem with an education from their early years. He then prescribes the necessary education, beginning with the kind of stories that are appropriate for training guardians.

They conclude that stories that ascribe evil to the gods or heroes or portray the afterlife as bad are untrue and should not be taught. They also decide to regulate narrative and musical style so as to encourage the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice and temperance. Socrates avers that beautiful style and morally good style are the same. In proposing their program of censored education, they are repurifying the luxurious or feverish city. Socrates counters the objection that people raised in censorship will be too naive to judge concerning vice by arguing that adults can learn about vice once their character has been formed; before that, they are too impressionable to encounter vice without danger.

They suggest that the second part of the guardians’ education should be in gymnastics. With physical training they will be able to live without needing frequent medical attention: physical training will help prevent illness and weakness. Socrates claims that any illness requiring constant medical attention is too unhealthy to be worth living. By analogy, any society that requires constant litigation is too unhealthy to be worth maintaining.

Socrates asserts that both male and female guardians be given the same education, that all wives and children be shared, and that they be prohibited from owning private property so that guardians will not become possessive and keep their focus on the good of the whole city. He adds a third class distinction between auxiliaries (rank and file soldiers) and guardians (the leaders who rule the city).

In the fictional tale known as the myth or parable of the metals, Socrates presents the Noble Lie (γενναῖον ψεῦδος, gennaion pseudos), to convince everyone in the city to perform their social role. All are born from the womb of their mother country, so that all are siblings, but their natures are different, each containing either gold (guardians), silver (auxiliaries), or bronze or iron (producers). If anyone with a bronze or iron nature rules the city, it will be destroyed. Socrates claims that if the people believed “this myth…it would have a good effect, making them more inclined to care for the state and one another.” Socrates claims the city will be happiest if each citizen engages in the occupation that suits them best. If the city as a whole is happy, then individuals are happy.

In the physical education and diet of the guardians, the emphasis is on moderation, since both poverty and excessive wealth will corrupt them (422a1). He argues that a city without wealth can defend itself successfully against wealthy aggressors. Socrates says that it is pointless to worry over specific laws, like those pertaining to contracts, since proper education ensures lawful behavior, and poor education causes lawlessness (425a–425c).

Socrates proceeds to search for wisdom, courage, and temperance in the city, on the grounds that justice will be easier to discern in what remains (427e). They find wisdom among the guardian rulers, courage among the guardian warriors (or auxiliaries), temperance among all classes of the city in agreeing about who should rule and who should be ruled. Finally, Socrates defines justice in the city as the state in which each class performs only its own work, not meddling in the work of the other classes (433b).

The virtues discovered in the city