A Socratic Introduction to Plato's Republic

by Peter Kreeft

Overview

This book is designed for three classes of people:

1. Beginners who want an introduction to philosophy;
2. Those who have already had an introduction to philosophy and who would like to see it in action now applied to a great book written by a great philosophy, but who have never read Plato’s Republic, the most famous and influential philosophy book ever written;
3. Those who have read Plato’s Republic before but did not understand its deepest significance. 

Why is Plato the best introduction to philosophy?
            Peter Kreeft has taught philosophy for over 50 years, including one section of a course for beginners every semester. He has tried just about everything possible, and a few new things that are impossible. He has experimented with every one of the many alternative methods available for teaching beginners. (He has A.D.D., so he easily gets bored and likes to try new things all the time.) But he has never found anything nearly as successful as Plato.
            Plato is the best writer in the history of philosophy. Most philosophers are dull, undramatic, abstract writers. (There are a few other exceptions besides Plato: Augustine, Pascal, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard.) But Plato wrote dramatic dialogues, in which Socrates, his famous teacher, interacts with a great variety of fools. These dialogues are like intellectual swordfights, and even though you know Socrates is going to win, they are exciting because you see his ideas come alive, like a sword in the handoff a master. Plato is a great dramatist, a great poet, and a great psychologist as well as a great philosopher. Nobody else who ever lived combined those four talents as well as Plato did.
            Apprenticeship to a great master is the best way to learn any art. The student will understand what philosophy is better by watching a master do it than by reading abstract definitions of it from a second-rate philosopher, or by a mere scholar. Concrete examples are always the easiest way to learn things. Plato’s dialogues are the world’s first, and still the best, concrete example of philosophizing.
            Kreeft introduces his students to this love affair through a great matchmaker, Plato, who is a better teacher than the student will ever meet in the land of the living.
            In fact, Plato still is in the land of the living. He’s still alive and kicking in his dialogues. He rubs off on those who are wise and humble enough to become a student.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587318283
Publisher:	St. Augustine's Press
Publication date:	12/03/2018
Edition description:	1
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Peter Kreeft, Professor of philosophy at Boston College, is the author of dozens of books, including, soon, twenty-five from St. Augustine's Press. He was educated at Calvin College (A.B., 1959) and Fordham University (M.A., 1961; Ph.D., 1965), and has been a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a Yale-Sterling Fellow, and a Danforth Asian Religions Fellow as well as a Newman Alumni Scholar. His works in philosophy and religion have made him famous throughout the world and a sought-after speaker on topics ranging from logic, epistemology, and metaphysics to science fiction, Zen, and surfing.

Table of Contents

I Introduction

1 Who is this book for? 1

2 Why do you need philosophy? 1

3 Why is Plato the best introduction to philosophy? 4

4 Who was Socrates? 8

5 Introduction to the Republic 10

II The Republic

1 The Beginning: Bringing Philosophy into Politics. 12

2 The Question: What is Justice? 14

3 The Deeper Question: How to Live: Socrates vs. Gyges 29

4 Societies as Mirrors of Souls 39

5 Plato's Ideal Society 40

6 Plato's Psychology 45

7 Plato's Metaphysics: the "Theory of Forms" or "Platonic Ideas" 47

8 Plato's Parables of the Sun, the Line, and the Cave 58

9 Education and Politics; the Parallel Between Souls and States 66

10 The Seven Liberal Arts: Plato's Curriculum 69

11 Book 8: Four Kinds of Unjust States: Plato's Critique of Democracy 71

12 The Main Point Finally Proved: The Profit (Happiness) in Justice 74

13 Life After Death: The Rest of the Story

III 31 Footnotes to Plato: The Rest of the History of Philosophy 81

1 Aristotle: Realism 82

2 Epicurus: Hedonism 84

3 Pyrrho: Skepticism 84

4 Epictetus: Stoicism 84

5 Plotinus: Mysticism 85

6 St. Augustine: Christian Platonism 85

7 St Thomas Aquinas: Christian Aristotelianism 85

8 Machiavelli: "Machiavellianism" 86

9 Bacon: The Conquest of Nature by Technology 86

10 Descartes: Philosophy by Scientific Method 86

11 Spinoza: Pantheism 87

12 Hobbes: Materialism 87

13 Pascal: Faith as a Wager 88

14 Rousseau: "Romanticism" 88

15 Locke: Empiricism 88

16 Berkeley: Immaterialism 89

17 Hume: Skepticism 89

18 Kant: Epistemological Idealism 90

19 Hegel: Historical Relativism 90

20 Marx: Communism 90

21 Mill: Utilitarianism 91

22 Kierkegaard: Christian Existentialism 91

23 Nietzsche: Atheistic Existentialism 92

24 Heidegger: Ontological (Being-directed) Existentialism 93

25 Sartre: Nihilistic existentialism 93

26 Husserl: Phenomenology 94

27 James: Pragmatism 94

28 Dewey: Ideological Pragmatism 94

29 Moore: Ordinary Language 95

30 Wittgenstein: Linguistic Analysis 95

31 Derrida: Deconstructionism 95

Postscript 97