Talk:The Republic (Plato)

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[edit] And Howard Zinn thinks....and Russell thinks

Blah! The interpretations. I think you lot should get shot of them? Or at the very least, the structure of this article should be changed. This is most unusual for a Wiki article - the lay out etc. 8"Jobby (talk) 08:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

O'pinions?

[edit] Title

As a matter of interest, why is this called "Republic (dialogue)," and not "Plato's Republic"? SlimVirgin (talk) 17:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think because the title of the work has never been "Plato's Republic". It is usually considered just "Republic" by Plato. Kind of like Homer's Odyssey's article's title is just Odyssesy, despite there being other similarly titled works. --Kentaur 17:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
It's usually called The Republic or Plato's Republic. Republic (dialogue) seems an odd choice. I didn't even realize what it was when I first glanced at it. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I can see why this may not be the best choice. Matters are complicated by the fact that Cicero also wrote De re publica, now usually called "Republic" or "The Republic", and to top it off, Cicero's work is also a dialogue. I don't think that Plato's Republic is a good choice, and it redirects here anyway. Maybe we should have The Republic redirected to The Republic (disambiguation) and this page redirected to The Republic, since 95% of people who look for The Republic are looking for this article. Kind of like how The Odyssey is handled. --Kentaur 18:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean move this page to "The Republic"? If so, I'd agree with that, then just add a disambiguation sentence at the top directing readers to The Republic (disambiguation), which we'll create by moving the current The Republic there. Is that what you meant? Any objections from anyone else? SlimVirgin (talk) 19:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 08:38, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see a date for "Cornford, Hildebrandt and Voegelin subdivisions." I added one, 1945, to the Bertrand Russell History mentioned immediately before.

[edit] Requested move

Republic (dialogue) → Republic (Plato) – Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Standard disambiguation – That it's a dialogue is obvious (while generally all Plato's works are dialogues) but not unambiguous with Cicero's dialogue; so I propose to leave out the "type of work disambiguator", and only the author's name as disambiguator, per the guideline mentioned.

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
  • Support (nominator) --Francis Schonken 08:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, as above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 11:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Theory of universals section

I have wrote three paragraphs covering Plato's theory of the cave which is integral to understanding the Republic. As such however it still needs an explanation of the divided line and the form of the good too. --Knucmo2 16:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

If anyone has some rigorous reasons for why The Affairs of the Polis is not a good alternate translation of the title please tell me you're going to delete it, so I can also delete the redirect page. I heard this was the proper translation of the title from a very intelligent colleague, though she may be wrong. --Matthew 06:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see wikipedia:naming conventions (common names). "Republic" is a bad, erroneous translation of the original title. But it is the common name. The Affairs of the Polis wouldn't be recognised very well as a title of a work by Plato ("recognition" being a first order principle of wikipedia's naming conventions).
See also wikipedia:naming conventions (books) and WP:RM. --Francis Schonken 08:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
But is it still alright if The Affairs of The Polis redirects to Republic? --Matthew 17:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
That would be redirecting to Republic (Plato) then. Was there ever a translation of Plato's dialogue published under the English title you indicate? Or is it a version of the title often used in English? I briefly looked, but couldn't find "The Affairs of The Polis" referring to the title of Plato's dialogue in Google... If it is unusual to talk about the dialogue under that English title, I don't see a reason for the redirect (and then it could be confusing, if it would be used as a link in other articles, without anybody recognising it refers to Plato's Republic) --Francis Schonken 18:38, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Politeia could be "Politics," is kindof closer in English. The Republic must refer to the state discussed in the book.

[edit] All this crap at the start

I deleted all this commentary at the top of the article. The person/people who wrote kind of short-circuit the entire article by 'dumping' their interpretation into the article at the top. What or who has the authority to succintly summarize the dialogue with this assesssment- maybe they should take the time to properly incorporate it into the article in more judicious spots.

All of these areas are examined with a view to discovering the nature of justice; indeed, the engine of the dialogue is this question: "What is justice"? With this view in mind, Plato (through Socrates) constructs an ideal "city in speech," a utopian city of perfect justice. Yet Plato constructs this theoretical city not only to examine the most just city imaginable, but primarily to discover how individuals themselves should best live. On still another level, Plato's Republic is a supreme work addressing the fundamental issue of philosophy; that is, the question of the universal versus the particular.
The original title of the work is the Greek word politeia. "The Republic", which is the traditional English translation of the title, is somewhat of a misnomer, taken from Cicero's latin; a more accurate English title would be "The Polis," which can roughly correspond to the modern term "city". However, the Polis was much more than that. It was a way of life; so in actuality a proper translation would be 'how we live as people' (for a better understanding see Aristotle's Politics).''

-I also added the cover of a book, and hope this does not get people upset that it is Bloom's version, but when i looked at the article this morning, I had a hard time recognizing it as a book's article, it had a lot of poorly edited italics and bolding and disambiguation heading. if you have a picture of a book, you don't need disambiguation headings. --Mikerussell 17:20, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 12 book divisions?

I also rewrote and edited-out this 'The Republic is one of Plato's longest dialogues, subdivided into 10 books for editorial reasons but more consistently into 12 preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue. I am no expert, but I have never heard of this 12 book division, and it seems like it needs to be further explained or edited-out. I know the first book was written probably as a single dialogue, but what the 12 book reference really adds to the article was lost on me.--Mikerussell 17:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I do not know who put that in there at all. Perhaps the editor who put it in might explain why, as I am sure they will have a source for it. --Knucmo2 19:01, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liddell & Scott translation of Politeia

Using a generic dictionary translation, without any indication Plato ever used the word in this meaning, in order to rewrite the interpretation of the dialogue (against the already manyfold interpretations by historians, philosophers and other authors), is "Original Research", per the definitions given at Wikipedia:No original research. In other words, something we try to keep out of Wikipedia.

If you want to refer to Liddell & Scott, then at least refer to the meaning in which the word Politeia, in the Republic dialogue was used according to that Lexicon. See the Politeia article for more on this. --Francis Schonken 16:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: Asserting that Plato did not use the word with full awareness of its ordinary meaning is more than original research, it's psycho-history. There was already a highly interpretive initial gloss of the word. Since this appears for the moment to be a controverted topic, I have returned the initial gloss to a literal state, er, condition. Jon Awbrey 16:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, as far as I'm aware, no author on Plato or on his Republic has ever mentioned this as a possible translation of the title, or even a meaning Plato might have been referring to with this title. So, unless you have a source that links the citizenship meaning with this particular dialogue by Plato, it goes. Liddell & Scott are clear enough about which meaning was intended by Plato when using the word Politeia in the text of this dialogue.
It's as absurd as translating Oidipous turannos by The Tyrant Oedipus, because *accidently* my dictionary mentions the "tyrant" meaning before the "king" meaning for "turannos" (which it does, contrary to LSJ).
And, FYI, my dictionary happens to have "Citizenschip" as fourth meaning of four. I don't get what kind of pseudo-linguistics you're trying out here. --Francis Schonken 18:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: This is moot since the initial gloss has already been reduced to the minimum, but a careful reading will show that I was not giving a translation of Plato's title but merely glossing the primary meaning of the word that Plato drew on for his title. I think that is uncontroversial and informative here. Thanks for the attribution of originality, but here I was only following the pattern of the gloss that was already in place. Jon Awbrey 18:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the "primary meaning" you allude to is moot, my dictionary has this meaning as fourth meaning of four for politeia. What you call "primary meaning" is irrelevant, even if this would have been the primary meaning, which is not clear when comparing dictionaries. How you use "primary meaning" is highly controversial (no two dictionaries agree) and does not clarify a thing about the title of the dialogue. --Francis Schonken 18:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: I'm not sure what the deal is here. It's clear that we have a complex of words with related meanings, and providing the reader with information about their relationships does not seem like a bad thing. Generally speaking, L&S do tend to give meanings in rough order of primal to derivative. Clearly, "Polis" is a root form, but Plato did not title his work "Peri Polis". As the article stands, you say "The Greek title referred to 'polis'", which is not exactly true, or true only mediately. Maybe the word "primary" is some kind of red flag here, but I was going on the information given that the concrete sense "body of citizens" was found in Aristotle, and I took that to be an adaptation of the other senses. To suggest that Plato did not invoke the entire complex of meanings is highly implausible, just on a common sense basis. Jon Awbrey 19:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Averroes's treatise on Plato's Republic

Is there someone who could help us editing something about Averroes's treatise on Plato's Republic? -- Szvest 22:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC) User:FayssalF/Sign

[edit] Careful with argument

Hi all. This is a fascinating subject (new to me). I have removed some "Howevers" from the text though as they don't seem to comply too well with neutral writing. I am referring to WP words to avoid [1]. If I removed any sourced arguments then feel free to restore any and quote the source. Also if the meaning of the terms has changed too much as a result then please feel free to alter the sentence so that it reads correctly without any wpwordstoavoid. Thanks AlanBarnet 06:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Holes

Education? Homer? Imitative poetry and censorship? Structure and nature of the soul? Ship of State? Myth of Er? Analogy of the sun? The article misses or glazes over many seemingly important topics and analogies. It's also odd to me that the section on justice seems to focus mostly on the beginning of the Republic. Besides all this, the article is unreferenced. Punctured Bicycle 08:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You clearly have some good ideas about where to add content, and I hope you'll go for it. This expert is unable to work on the holes and thinks that a careful non-specialist reader and writer can make vast improvements to this article's quality. It is indeed woefully incomplete and not well-structured. The city-soul analogy (and thus the structure and nature of the soul) is barely mentioned, and the article scarcely gives an impression of Callipolis as the dialogue develops its institutions. Wareh 14:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it says something about the Republic itself, I haven't read over the article for sometime, and I am far from an expert, but Punctured Bicycle makes it sound too easy to craft a short wikipedia article on the themes he mentions. This isn't a treatise. "Imitative poetry and censorship?" for example, this is suppost to be easily done, anybody who reads the varying opinion on structure alone might get a hint that there is widely divergent opinion about why and what Socrates is aiming at when he discusses censorship. What can one reasonably expect in this article? Like Wareh states, give it a go to anyone but remeber fools rush in where...something, something.--Mikerussell 04:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
One can reasonably expect a concise overview of the major topics (see summary style). Punctured Bicycle 19:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure of Plato's Republic article creation debate

There is a related discussion to this article at a newly created web page, Structure of Plato's Republic, and the issues raised above are furthered at this page- Talk:Structure of Plato's Republic. I thought it relevant to mention this here too if others want to read it or comment. --Mikerussell 20:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nag Hammadi

From Nag Hammadi library#Complete list of codices found in Nag Hammadi:

Codex VI:
...
Republic by Plato - The original is not gnostic, but the Nag Hammadi library version is heavily modified with current gnostic concepts.

Would it be interesting to mention how the Gnostics interpreted or altered Plato's text? --84.20.17.84 11:49, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new edits on Definition of Justice

I made some additions, amendments to this section as it wa swritten rather entropically, and inadequately in my opinion. I didn't really want to start editing b/c I get drawn in and I don't have the time to devote to it, and I am stopping now, but it still needs work. I know I did not add cites as they would help improve/justify the changes I made, but again, I just don't have time now and I am writing this just to let ppl know that I know cites should be added and other improvements continued. --Mikerussell 03:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Book divisions and section references

The original Republic was not written in "books" or "chapters" but rather as a continuous dialog. In some early reproduction it was divided into ten books, a convention that has pretty much stuck ever since. However there exist popular translations that use different divisions. The 1993 translation by Robert Waterfield, for example, divides it into ten significantly different chapters.

I suggest that the article try to adhere, where possible, to the standard means of referring to Plato's works, which is by use of the Stephanus pagination. For example, The Republic begins at 327a and ends at 621d.

I didn't change the article because I can understand why someone would disagree with this. For example, many editions do not display the Stephanus numbers, however at least most editions use the standard book division. At the very least, the article should specify where the sections it refers to begin and end.

Gdickeson (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that references should be made to Stephanus numbers, but referring to the dialogue in terms of Books is so widespread in the literature that failing to do so would be more of a disservice than a service. RJC Talk Contribs 21:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
I think Stephanus should definitely be used, and am fine using the Book divisions as well. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs summary and synopsis of each book

This article seems poorly structured. As a reader without a great deal of familiarity on this topic, I believe this article should start out with a summary of Plato's Republic, followed by a synopsis of each of the 10 Books therein.

The Topics section itself seems poorly structured, jumping around from Book to Book. In the Definition of Justice section, for example, it starts out with "Justice ultimately becomes..." which seems like belongs at the conclusion rather than the opening of a section. It then discusses Book IV, then jumps to Book I. Each Topics sections should open with a summary of the topic, then trace the topic as it develops chronologically within the Books before endeavoring on a general discussion, analysis and conclusion. Pbr2000 (talk) 19:03, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Virtue of the working class

The current wording "the working-class corresponds to the irrational part of the soul", seems to carry some negative connotations, particularly the word "irrational". Although the classes are clearly ordered with the working class at the bottom, there is a definate sense in Republic that each plays an important part within the society/soul, and thus there should be a more positive word to describe the class. Similarly, I am unsure whether "moderation" is the correct word to describe the virtue of the class. The first two virtues, wisdom and courage, seem to get translated the same by all authors, but there is some variation in the third; I have heard all of obediance, discipline, self-control and willpower. Does this virtue not translate as precisely as the others? 217.155.61.70 (talk) 15:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

While it may carry negative connotations, it is how it is put in the Republic. Although the iron and bronze class plays an important role in society, it is not for their contribution to policy or to defense, and they possess neither wisdom nor courage (cf. 428e-9a). The alternative translation for sophrosune to moderation is temperance; I've never seen it translated as one of the others. It literally means "sound mind," but in usage it fits most closely with the other two. RJC Talk Contribs 15:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)