Aris & Phillips Classical Texts
2 total works
This edition offers a full and up-to-date commentary on the last book of the Republic, and explores in particular detail the two main subjects of the book: Plato's most famous and uncompromising condemnation of poetry and art, as vehicles of falsehood and purveyors of dangerous emotions, and the Myth of Er, which concludes the whole work with an allegorical vision of the soul's immortality and of an eternally just world-order. The commentary gives careful and critical attention to the arguments deployed by Plato against poets and artists, relating them both to the philosopher's larger ideas and to other Greek views of the subject. The sources and significance of the Myth of Er are fully studied. Among other topics, the Introduction places Republic 10 in the development of Plato's work, and makes a fresh attempt to trace some of the influences of the book's critique of art on later aesthetic thinking. Greek text with facing translation, commentary and notes.
This new edition provides a thorough reappraisal of one of the most remarkable and controversial sections of the Republic. Book 5's radical proposals for the ideal state include an argument for the essential equality of the sexes; provision for full female participation in the work of the Guardians (including warfare); the abolition of the family for this same ruling class, with a sexual as well as economic system of communism; and a policy of eugenic control. Plato feared that some of this material would arouse amusement in his readers; in fact, parts of Book 5 have been subsequently used to support a charge of totalitarianism against Plato, while other elements have led to description of him as the first feminist. Book 5 also examines the relation between knowledge and belief, and in doing so embarks on the great structure of metaphysical thought which forms the centre-piece of the entire work. All these topics receive fresh and detailed consideration in the introduction and commentary, which are designed to make this important work accessible to a wide range of readers. Greek text with translation, commentary and notes.