Plato's open insistence on the political necessity to indoctrinate with lies brings out the tension between what's good for the city and good for the individualprecisely the difficulty the lie seeks to obscure. Hi there everyone. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Republ e+republic. Sachs adds another reassuring footnote in much the same vein to a passage in Book VI where Socrates claims "a multitude is incapable of being philosophic": Notice that Socrates is not saying that most people are incapable of philosophy, but only that a large group of people has no such capacity when acting or thinking as one mass. Any translation is good enough with translator's notes and an active mind. We, two thousand years later, are garbling it still. Is the analogy then between city and man a sound one? Republic, translated by G M A Grube and revised by C D C Reeve (Hackett Classics), Very readable and successfully renders much of the incisive energy of the original; expertly revised by Reeve.. In fact plenty of Sayres interpretations will elicit grateful, because sharply focused, disagreements.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); From The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. It is rather the education Socrates gives to Glaucon, Adeimantus, and the others who were fortunate enough to have been present that night in the Piraeus; and at yet a higher level, the education Plato gives his readers by showing us how Socrates educates. Perhaps the responses of dialogue participants doesn't really mean anything.

Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest. There is no such thing as the 'best' one. Or a greater good than what binds it together and makes it one?" You Save 11%. The, The Iliad ( sometimes referred to as the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium) is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. A single noble and generous fiction, to persuade especially the rulers themselves, but if not, the rest of the city? Thank you all for taking the time offering your opinions. Rousseau maintained that those who judge books by their titles mistake Plato'sRepublicfor a work about politics, when in fact it is the most beautiful treatise on education ever written.

It's not good if you want to be scholar of Plato. The Socratic existence is mentioned with awe now and then, without it being made clear whether or not it had a snub nose. And, lastly, if youre ready to read the Republic in the original Greek: 3. On matters epistemological, logical, methodological, metaphysical, and semantic he is uncommunicative. by Melchior Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:59 pm, Post Our target is now well marked for Bulls Eyes, Inners, and Outers.

What follows is Socrates' claim that the citizens of the city must come to believe that their education happened before their birth; that they and their "brother" citizens were born from the earth; and that the division of the city into guardians, auxiliaries, and craftsmen/farmers corresponds to the different metals mixed into each individual's soul at birth. A fortiori, even Plato, at the dawn of philosophy and before the dawn of logic, should be expected to garble the methodology of philosophy. Well, what is best for the city, unity or excellence? Rouse is one of my favourite because it renders so well the paragraph about the king and queen in the world of sight and the world of the mind.

Sorry for the typos/mistakes and thanks in advance to all responders! It might be news to him that Aristotle wrote an Art of Dialectic, i.e., his Topics, as a training-manual for a very different activity. Friedlnders exposition of the philosophical core of Platos Sophist is not so bad. But in the Introduction he translates this very phrase as "a kind of noble simplemindedness or stupidity." The ostensible occasion for offering a new one is the recent updating by S.R.

Re: Good Translation for Plato's Republic?

Okay so right now I have this translation.

News about upcoming issues, contributors, special events, online features, and more. by Paul Friedlnder, translated by Hans Meyerhoff. Glaucon could not have made this objection if he had not somehow been led by Socrates to glimpse, however inadequately, the superiority of philosophy to political life. The Theory of Forms is, of course, a very grand theory; but Sayre does not even hint that it was a lifeline for Plato in any sea of specifiable and sharable troubles. ", "Nothing new," I said, "but something Phoenician that has come into currency in many places before now, since the poets assert it and have made people believe; but it hasn't come into currency in our time and I don't know if it couldit would take a lot of persuading.". His rhetorical questions have often elicited from one contra-suggestible reader the unintended, but true, answers.

One quick way is to look up the book on Amazon and then click the 'search inside' option. He is overloyal to Cornford; and Cornfords amateurish philosophical exegeses are sometimes rendered more brittle by the technical stiffenings that Sayre contributes to them. Allen suspects, and rightly so, that Socrates never quite gets around to answering Glaucon's challenge to prove that justice is something good in and of itself.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but these translations are just a pleasure to read; all the more so if you grew up reading Hamilton's mythology, her language is like an old friend. I love the Jowett translation. They do not know that which they do correctly believe, so knowingcorrectly believing. For example, the technical problem What is the way to solve philosophical problems? to which Sayre devotes his book, did not merely interest, it desperately worried Plato. In the sentence immediately preceding and in the earlier passage about the lie in one's soul, Allen does translatepseudosas "falsehood." Of dialectic the student will learn: the friendly conversation, as practiced by Socrates, is this combination of daring and moderation, and Dialectic, beginning from the commonly held opinions, will lead to an ultimate agreement.

On the other hand he does fail to bring Plato to life by imputing to him perplexities that we do or could share. We are allowed to forget that Plato is or should be emulating G.E.

Friedlnder is at his best in his descriptions of the dramatis personae and in his comparative analyses of the dramatic structures of the dialoguesthough he exhausts us with his blessed tensions that are to make everything viscously relevant to everything else. by Melchior Mon May 12, 2014 9:49 pm, Powered by phpBB Forum Software phpBB Limited. Friedlnder contentedly construes the, of course authentic, Seventh Letter as showing that Plato, then an old man,has come to expand the world of Forms so that it includes geometric shapes and coloured surfaces, moral concepts, all bodies both artificial and natural, the physical elements, living creatures and all the states of the soul. Plus Uncle Tom Cobbley and All?

So, too, in the realm of translation, excellence has been well served by the current availability of several different. He acknowledges indebtedness to some unpublished lectures on this dialogue by Heidegger, who obviously had some idea of the drift of the dialogues argument. by Theawesomemanman Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:57 pm, Post The third book here reviewed is K.M. Political life may thrive on blurring sharp distinctions, but philosophy much less so. The second thing to note in Allen's translation is the way he renders Plato'sgennaios pseudosas "noble and generous fiction." Good luck with The Republic. When Thrasymachus complains of Socrates' irony, Sachs correctly wants to prevent the reader from confusing the term with sarcasm, and provides this gloss: "The Greek word refers only to the gracious self-deprecating way of speaking that was a specialty of Socrates."

The book by Paul Friedlnder is Volume III of a trilogy, and the second of a pair in which he expounds Platos individual dialogues. Socrates may not fully meet the extreme demands Glaucon places on justice, but this does not mean their conversation is to no effect. Kant? For Correspondence on this review, clickhere. Sayre belongs to our second tribe of expositors. Sayre, who has obviously never been worried by it himself, treats Platos attempted solutions of the problem merely as, so to speak, interesting contributions to the professional journal that G.E.

Word for word translation between languages is of course impossible, and English lacks a precise equivalent forgennaios: "well born" or "excellent for its kind" perhaps comes close. you better read Benjamin Jowett translation; Bloom's is completely confusing and useless. Alan Bloom is a good one. That way regardless of translation you should have a sense of what you're missing if you take everything as written. The thuds of fists and cudgels are hushed for the squeak of chalk on blackboard. These grave themes are not in the dialogue at all. For example, the Republic is a dialogue, and it contains numerous pauses where Socrates (or some other speaker) pauses and his interlocutor responds with something like "yes, that's right" or "certainly" or "You speak the truth, Socrates". We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview. He belongs to the school of thought that finds Plato's various accounts of his so-called Theory of Ideas contradictory and wanting, but resolves such difficulties by assigning their expressions to either the early, middle, or late Plato. Nowthereis a contradiction ripe for reflection, and one that cannot be dismissed or hidden from view by recourse to imagined distinctions between Plato's early, middle, and late periods of development. Similarly, where the Method of Collection and Division that is recommended in Platos Phaedrus and exemplified in his Sophist and Statesman is applauded by Sayre as an advance upon the Phaedos Method of Hypothesis, those of us who are tepid about armchair taxonomy, will, for Platos sake, wish to shoot down the idea that he either did frequent or thought that he should frequent this philosophical blind-alley. Read translator's notes, they often explain their reasons for doing what they did. Reeve of the University of North Carolina has tackled the translations and has approached them by using the rest of Platos work as a translation tool. by Aetixintro Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:04 pm, Post Fortunately, however, Sayre is so much interested in the actual argumentation of the Theaetetus that here he ceases, for long stretches, to match the ratiocinative moves that Plato makes against any prescriptions that he else-where advocates. Nonetheless, of the three authors it is to Sayre that Plato signals his thanks from above. We'll cause them to live a worse life when they're capable of better?"

But there are lots of things between the lines (almost literally, see below) that you'll miss if your translator is not careful.

Nothing quite so promising emerges from the introductions to these two new efforts, but the translations that follow prove to be more accurate and useful. Socrates would probably say that, given enough time in one-on-one discussion with someone who has begun to grasp philosophic possibilities, there would be hope for anyone. Here is his version of the preamble to the noble lie: How might we then devise one of those needful falsehoods we were just mentioning? Current price is $20.49, Original price is $22.99. Bloom's translation is ridicules see example below.. It is this activity which can guide us to the discovery of the natural objects; and it implies (sic) that we begin from the phenomena as we see them. Bloom does not explain why Socrates fiercely prohibits young men from taking part in these cosy chats about, presumably, flowers and sea-shells.

I heard Allan Bloom's book is way to focused on the political aspect and dismisses a lot of other points. by fiveredapples Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:17 pm, Post Below, philosophers and political scientists recommend which edition of Platos Republic to read and explain, in detail, why it remains a work of such significance: Which English translation of PlatosRepublicis best? What Socrates offers in its place is a concrete solution for "controlling the mischiefs of faction," a problem which Allen (if not Plato) considers to be "the political problem." Never have I been so aware at once of the beauty of the poetry, the physicality of Homers world, and the moral ambiguity of those who inhabit it. SUSAN CHIRA, This controversial new series raises fundamental questions about the authenticity of Shakespeare's texts as we know them today. It is indeed chiefly out of these shoals of scholarly associations that Friedlnder assembles the deeper meanings that all Platonic passages have to possess. What about W.H.D.

This rival interpretation is now before us in uncompromising black and white. The late Reginald Edgar Allen, Emeritus Professor in Classics and Philosophy at Northwestern University, has already published translations of a sizable chunk of Plato's corpus, as well as a number of scholarly studies in Platonic metaphysics. If that is so, I can understand your difficulty. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, early modern phil., epistemology, skepticism, http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Hackett-Classics-Plato/dp/0872201368/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445020597&sr=1-2&keywords=the+republic, http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Republic-Books-Classical-Library/dp/0674992628. Plato: Republic.

What could Aristotle have been objecting to? .

So begins the Introduction by G.R.F. It is left to the student to find out that in the text of the Republic there is only one sixteenline description of Glaucons character, plus two brief allusions to it. Ferrari that graces Tom Griffith's conversational translation of Plato'sRepublic(Cambridge University Press, 2000). This just reminded me that my first introduction to the Republic was Cornford's translation. Set during the Trojan War, the. His manifold magics had to attract to him the large tribe of unphilosophical interpreters who have been fascinated by the Platonic dialogue as literature, drama, biography, sermon, prophecy or jeremiad, or else as vignette of Athenian social and cultural life, but have been incompetent to appraise their arguments. It does turn out that the "excellent for its kind lie" is in fact an imaginative production modeled after what poets have made people believe in many other places.

In his sketch of the three stages of the argument in this first part of the Parmenides, Friedlnder says of its second move, namely that if one fragment of a Form occupies each one of its instances, it is fragmentable, that it is purely eristic and, with Socrates assenting, Parmenides himself shows that it [the argument] is nonsense. A reductio ad absurdum argument has itself to be an absurd argument.

Basic Books is the edition I would lean towards. Yet the other side always remains, carrying with it the distinction between those in the know and those out of it. The first thing to note is that Allen remains true to the form in which Plato casts theRepublic, that is, as Socrates' narration to some nameless listener of a conversation he had had the previous night. by Melchior Mon May 12, 2014 9:34 pm, Post They would have squandered the dialogues close and sustained argumentation if they had been there. IMO, the most recent (3rd) edition -- translated by C. D. C. Reeve alone -- is even better. I replied. You might try the Grube translation, recently revised by Reeve.

His dialogues are, for them, not just vivid conversation pieces or improving homilies; they are disputations in which things are or purport to be proved. We hear how the Sophist does or does not implement the Method of Hypothesis; we do not hear or see the concrete ways in which it differs in strategy and therefore also in tactics, from, say the Protagoras.

I really enjoyed Plato translated by him. Platos final methodology comes out as a plan for establishing definitions of a pre-Speusippan sort; but Sayre seems not even to ask himself what good such definitions would do, or why no philosophers, including Plato and Moore, have either provided us with any, or disappointed us by withholding them. I could not get the link to work, but the ISBN in the link appears to be for a reprint of the Jowett translation.

His anatomizations have, in consequence, to be genetic. Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by, Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser, Othello and the Tragedy of Mariam, A Longman Cultural Edition, Julius Caesar (Global Shakespeare Series), Midsummer Night's Dream: Texts and Contexts, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid Box Set: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition). At the beginning of the dialogue, Glaucon is full of political ambition and even tempted by the prospect of tyrannical rule. Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount. He's the first one that translated the Republic without the Christian reinterpretation other translations were filled with. But if you aren't using a particularly literal translation (or reading it in the original Greek), you cannot even hope to answer such questions for yourself. I understand now that I'll have to read more than one translation if I really want to get the closest to the original text. FWIW, whatever weaknesses Bloom's translation may have, it has the virtue of being extremely literal. It also boasts an extensive index, glossary, and bibliography for those interested in further reading. Oh dear!

Here Friedlnder expounds, in this order, the Symposium, Phaedo, Republic, Theaetetus, Parmenides, Phaedrus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and Laws.

In a radical departure from existing series, it presents the earliest, "The finest translation of Homer ever made into the English language. These interpreters try to do justice to Platos reasonings by Aristotelianizing them. He's the first one that translated the Republic without the Christian reinterpretation other translations were filled with. One immediate benefit of this approach is to make more palpable to the reader the fact that Socrates' (to say nothing of Plato's) poetic imitation would have been banished, on stylistic grounds alone, from the city he proposes: only the unmixed imitator of the decent is welcome there, whereas in his retelling Socrates goes so far as to imitate even the angry Thrasymachus. Blooms intrepidity in expanding Platos thoughts is well illustrated on the fifth page of the Essay, where, commenting on the mise-en-scne at the start of the Republic, he says: Polemarchus sees him [Socrates] hurrying off and orders a slave to order him to stay. http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Republic-Books-Classical-Library/dp/0674992628. I would like to read "The Republic". That Plato felt the problem in his heart and in his bowels does not occur to Sayre. In his exposition of the Parmenides he tells us That in this exchange he [Socrates] fails and Parmenides ultimately prevails is no reason to misunderstand the relative merits of the respective arguments. So Socrates arguments, though weaker, are stronger. Thus "the mere fact that [Bloom's translation] has held the field since 1968 is reason enough to try to discover whether a worthy alternative to it can be provided.".

This allows the concepts of the author to shine through and is especially great for those who have read the rest of Platos dialogues. The Romans called it Res Publica,the title we now use. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); 1963-2022 NYREV, Inc. All rights reserved.