The Republic or Politeia
18
Jul
The main work of Plato was written around 380 BC, is a speech developed 
in philosophical, political and social terms.
Its problem is the search for a formula that ensures harmony to a city, trying since that time to unlock private interests and disputes, as the sophists wanted.
This dialogue takes place in the house of Polemarco, brother of Lysias and Euthydemus, son of the old Cefalus, and there are the two brothers of Plato, Glauco and Adimanto; Nicerato, in addition to the host Polemarco, Lísias, Cefalus and Thrasymachus.
Thrasymachus is the sophist, Plato’s dialectical method is of dialogue and not of strife, the sophist argues that force is a right, and that justice is guaranteed by the strongest, so determines that the unjust can transgress its rules, Then it is said that they do not exist.
Books I and II are the first attempt to define what the application of justice to the community would really be, in Socrates’ dialogue with Glaucon and Adimanto, explains that justice is superior to injustice, and that alone leads to happiness.
Thus from the books II to V the dialogues will evolve to affirm what are the principles of justice, that is, what constitutes the true justice administered to the population, principle of its Republic.
From the books VI and VII evolve the principles of what the needs of justice itself are, it is where the famous allegory of the Cave appears, where they are trying to show that truth can be attained through knowledge, and therefore, justice depends on Know it, so the myth is mainly the fact that men “in the cave” only see shadows.
Books VIII and IX, develop the themes on the decadence of the city, which for Plato is due to the concentration of power in the oligarchies and the emergence of tyranny.
Book X makes a critique of poetry as an educational medium, this is not secondary, but fundamental to understand that the problem from the beginning of modernity is this conflict defended by Plato putting it in the mouth of Socrates that poetry should be replaced by Philosophy, educational environment, we would say today more “objective”, more real.
The rest of the book brings an exhortation to the practice of justice and other virtues, these are only indications for reading, which is nothing but looking at our deep roots.
