Okay, time for a pop quiz. See how long it takes you to guess what I am reading.

On the basis of what has been agreed, I said, there is a need for the best men to have intercourse

as often as possible with the best women and the reverse for the most ordinary men with the most

ordinary women and the offspring of the former must be reared but not bad of the others if the

flock is going to be of the most eminent quality. All right, if you guessed Plato, you were right. We

are starting here on book five of Plato's Republic and boy oh boy, this is like Plato come get your

boy Socrates, he drunk. It really starts to go into dark territory here and this is some of the

stuff that has most troubled people for more than 2000 years about this text. If you're new

joining us here for the first time, first of all, welcome. Second of all, we are going through

Plato's Republic book by book. I often do episodes just on one work but this one, you know,

it's such a foundational text for the history of Western political philosophy, Western thought

generally, that I want you to know what's in it. I want you to like go through book by book. This

is the classical education that you did not know you were missing and this is one that I, you know,

think it's worth representing exactly how the argument proceeds because part of what I've

been arguing, you know, there's this longstanding debate and discussion about how serious is this book.

It's a book about the perfect states, the calipolus, right, the ideal government, the ideas,

what's what's true justice, what's perfect justice in a state, in a city, and then, therefore,

what's true justice in a man, right, the sort of macrocosm and microcosm versus justice. And

throughout, I have been saying like, it's probably impossible for us to tell exactly, you know, where

the irony takes over and where the play, it was really endorsing some of these programs.

But I think the main point is not whether, you know, play, it wants us to all to live in a city

that looks like the calipolus. But the point is that Socrates has understood the assignment. He

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