Just Finished Reading :
Plato’s Republic – A Biography by Simon Blackburn
Oddly the author – philosopher Simon Blackburn – starts this
discussion of Plato’s Republic with two confessions. Firstly that, before
taking on the commission, he had never read the book from cover to cover (nor
me yet) and second with the fact that he’s no great fan of Plato (me neither
from what I’ve read). So as you can imagine I wasn’t entirely sure what to
expect…
What I got was an interesting, informative and at time
provocative discussion of many of the themes brought out in this seminal work.
I was aware of some of the main themes of the book (even before touching on it
slightly on my last University course) and was, seemingly in good company with
the author, singularly unimpressed by them. Fortunately for me, because I find
the whole idea bizarre and frankly boring, the author didn’t dwell on Platonic
Forms. He did however spend a chapter looking at Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
and had many of the same problems with it as I did. The majority of this
volume, admittedly slim at only 161 pages, focused on the political side of
Plato’s ideal city with its rigid caste system, lack of any kind of democratic
accountability and the rather strange idea that most forms of art, poetry and
theatre should be banned from any society wishing for order on the streets.
2 comments:
In my younger days I was quite taken with Plato's planned society. I liked the idea of people being put to their best use and making sure everything that needed to be done was done. Very tidy. Of course, that's changed!
Does he dwell much on the idea of philosopher-kings?
Philosopher-kings?
Yup, quite a lot (5 references in the index). IIRC - having read this about 6-7 weeks ago, yes, I'm that far adrift with my reviews - he was highly critical of the whole idea. I can certainly see its appeal but I think that something like the Minds (AI constructs) in Iain Bank's Culture Series of books would be more fitting.
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