Plato's Republic

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2017

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato's Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests. Writing in c380BC, Plato applied this question both to the individual and the city-state, considering earlier and current forms of government in Athens and potential forms, in which the ideal city might be ruled by philosophers. The Republic is arguably Plato's best known and greatest work, a dialogue between Socrates and his companions, featuring the allegory of the cave and ideas about immortality of the soul, the value of poetry to society, and democracy's vulnerability to a clever demagogue seeking tyranny. With Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield MM McCabe Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King's College London and James Warren Fellow of Corpus Christi College and a Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:44.7	Hello Plato's Republic written around 380 BC explores whether it's always
0:49.4	better to be just than unjust and is seen as a cornerstone of Western philosophy. It takes the form of a dialogue
0:55.5	between Plato's teacher, Socrates and his companions, and is said around 430 BC since
1:01.5	when Athens had teetered between tyranny and direct democracy and other democracy
1:05.8	had put Socrates to death.
1:08.2	One companion argues that we would all behave unjustly if we could get away with it.
1:12.3	To address this, Socrates imagines what a perfectly
1:14.7	just city would be like and applies lessons from that to the individual soul. And if the soul
1:19.7	is best ruled by reason, he argues the city would be best ruled by philosophers.
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