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The Republic by Plato

1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave

253 words  |  Chapter 8

irony, Plato, after the manner of his age, summons as a witness about ethics and psychology, as well as about diet and medicine; attempting to distinguish the better lesson from the worse, sometimes altering the text from design; more than once quoting or alluding to Homer inaccurately, after the manner of the early logographers turning the Iliad into prose, and delighting to draw far-fetched inferences from his words, or to make ludicrous applications of them. He does not, like Heracleitus, get into a rage with Homer and Archilochus (Heracl.), but uses their words and expressions as vehicles of a higher truth; not on a system like Theagenes of Rhegium or Metrodorus, or in later times the Stoics, but as fancy may dictate. And the conclusions drawn from them are sound, although the premises are fictitious. These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato’s style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations. Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation.
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Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 3. INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS. 4. Introduction to the Phaedrus). 5. BOOK I. The Republic opens with a truly Greek scene—a festival in 6. BOOK II. Thrasymachus is pacified, but the intrepid Glaucon insists on 7. BOOK III. There is another motive in purifying religion, which is to 8. 1. The constant appeal to the authority of Homer, whom, with grave 9. 2. ‘The style is to conform to the subject and the metre to the style.’ 10. 3. In the third book of the Republic a nearer approach is made to a 11. 4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better 12. 5. One of the most remarkable conceptions of Plato, because un-Greek 13. 6. Two paradoxes which strike the modern reader as in the highest 14. 7. Lesser matters of style may be remarked. 15. BOOK IV. Adeimantus said: ‘Suppose a person to argue, Socrates, that 16. BOOK V. I was going to enumerate the four forms of vice or decline in 17. Book IV, which fall unperceived on the reader’s mind, as they are 18. BOOK VI. Having determined that the many have no knowledge of true 19. 1. Of the higher method of knowledge in Plato we have only a glimpse. 20. 2. Plato supposes that when the tablet has been made blank the artist 21. 3. There is no difficulty in seeing that Plato’s divisions of knowledge 22. BOOK VII. And now I will describe in a figure the enlightenment or 23. BOOK VIII. And so we have arrived at the conclusion, that in the 24. BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to 25. 1. Plato’s account of pleasure is remarkable for moderation, and in 26. 2. The number of the interval which separates the king from the tyrant, 27. 3. Towards the close of the Republic, Plato seems to be more and more 28. BOOK X. Many things pleased me in the order of our State, but there was 29. 1. Plato expressly says that he is intending to found an Hellenic State 30. 2. The idea of the perfect State is full of paradox when judged of 31. introduction of the mere conception of law or design or final cause, 32. 3. Plato’s views of education are in several respects remarkable; like 33. 4. We remark with surprise that the progress of nations or the natural 34. 5. For the relation of the Republic to the Statesman and the Laws, and 35. 6. Others as well as Plato have chosen an ideal Republic to be the 36. 7. Human life and conduct are affected by ideals in the same way that 37. 8. Two other ideals, which never appeared above the horizon in Greek 38. BOOK I. 39. part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not 40. BOOK II. 41. BOOK III. 42. BOOK IV. 43. BOOK V. 44. BOOK VI. 45. BOOK VII. 46. BOOK VIII. 47. Introduction.) two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square 48. BOOK IX. 49. BOOK X.

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