Ancient Philosophy · Part 13 · Athens · C1
Plato II: The Republic and the Symposium
Part 13 of Ancient Philosophy: in the Republic, Plato imagined a perfect city ruled by philosophers, and a cave where prisoners mistake shadows for reality; in the Symposium, guests at a dinner party compete to praise love, and a woman called Diotima has the last word. Two of the most influential books ever written, and two of the most troubling. Imagining and comparing (imagine…, suppose…, as if…, as though…), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, Plato’s two greatest dialogues: one about justice, one about love.
That is exactly the right question. Some parts are beautiful; some are frightening. Let us look at both.
The Republic, written in Plato’s middle years, asks what justice is and whether a just person is happier than an unjust one. To answer, Socrates imagines a whole city built on justice, and the education of its rulers. It is Plato’s longest work after the Laws, in ten books.
The Symposium, “the drinking party”, describes a dinner held in 416 BCE to celebrate a playwright’s victory. The guests, including Socrates and the comic poet Aristophanes, each give a speech in praise of Eros, the god of love. It is set among the Athenian elite, where love between older men and youths was an accepted custom.
Both dialogues introduce Plato’s theory of Forms: perfect, eternal patterns, such as Beauty itself and Justice itself, which the things of our world only imitate.
Read the story. What does the ring of Gyges do? What do the prisoners in the cave see? What does Diotima teach Socrates?
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