Welcome back everyone!

I can’t believe that this is our final read for 2023. This year has been a busy, quick one for me. I’ve loved researching about and reading the texts we’ve read so far this year. Thank you all for taking part in our readings.

This week we will be reading Book 1 of the 'Republic'.

The mod team and I are hoping to continue with this book club in 2024 – we are currently thinking about what texts would be of interest for next year. I will be posting in the coming weeks to see what you all think as well, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, keep an eye out for that.

There are ten 'books' aka chapters within 'Republic'. We will be reading one or two books a week, depending on the schedule. You can check out reading schedule for 'Republic' at the end of this post, in our sidebar or here. If you haven't decided on what translation to use yet, please check out our Quick Translation Guide

Background Context:

It is believed that this text was published around 375 BCE. Plato (and his mentor, Socrates) were well known intellectuals during their lives. The ‘Republic’ is believed to be part of Plato’s middle period – so some of the ideas mentioned in the text did evolve further with time. Plato seems to have written ‘Republic’ with a more general audience in mind than just intellectual philosophers. The main area of debate within the dialogue is about justice – on both the political and social level and the personal ethical level. The text looks at how a society should be ruled and how the world needed more rulers who were well versed in philosophy.

The ‘Republic’ is written in the form of a Socratic Dialogue. As this format has gone out of mainstream favour for a while now, I feel it’s important to explain what it is. Basically, a dialogue is like a debate between two or more characters. The whole text revolves around the subject of the debate and as such it limits some other factors, we as a modern audience may expect (such as a moving plot-line or emotional character growth in the ‘present’ part of the story). For more on Socratic Dialogues, click here.

As a subreddit dedicated to mythology, ‘Republic’ may seem like an odd choice for us to read. However, Plato uses a lot of myths within this work, to illustrate some of his arguments and theories. I haven’t read the text yet, so I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers while doing my research. This site has a really interesting article on the subject of Plato’s use of myth: Plato’s Myths (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) From what I gather, Plato both repeats stories from the commonly known mythology of the time period and he creates some new myths of his own (including, possibly, the myth of Atlantis). He also likes to combine different myths and make them into one story. This is of interest to us because it gives us an idea of how the Greeks saw the myths during his lifetime and shows us how a writer could use the established mythology to their own ends. In modern day terms it’s a bit like how fantasy and literary writers use a lot of myths as inspiration for their stories today, (like Tolkien and Norse mythology).

Plato’s Background:

Plato was a philosopher and academic born during the fifth century BCE (roughly around 427 BCE). He came from a very aristocratic family that even claimed to be descended from Poseidon. He was taught by Socrates and went on to found the ‘Academy’ which many see as the first university within the Western world. Plato also taught Aristotle and had a big influence on writers for centuries after his death, such as Cicero. He was well known during his lifetime and is seen as one of the three legendary philosophers in Western philosophy. If you want to know more about the details of Plato’s life, check out this article. His mentor, Socrates, was also an interesting figure who ended up being executed for his vocal condemnation of democracy and heresy against the gods. Socrates death in 399 BCE was a huge influence on Plato’s later works.

Discussion Post Schedule:

• Book 1 - 28/10/23
• Book 2 - 04/11/23
• Book 3 - 11/11/23
• Book 4 - 18/11/23
• Book 5 - 25/11/23
• Book 6 - 02/12/23
• Books 7 & 8 - 09/12/23
• Books 9 & 10 - 16/12/23