Talk:The Republic (Plato)

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• Talk:Republic (dialogue)/Archive 1

Contents 1 Title 2 Requested move 3 Theory of universals section 4 Title 5 All this crap at the start 5.1 12 book divisions? 6 Liddell & Scott translation of Politeia 7 Averroes's treatise on Plato's Republic 8 Careful with argument 9 Holes

[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)

[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) ^{Wiki me up ®}

[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)