Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, Declassified.

Episode R5, Philosopher Queens.

The Republic is a dialogue whose ostensible purpose is to define justice.

As you'll remember from last time, that is accomplished in book four, out of 10 books.

So at this point, you might be wondering, what is Plato going to do with the remaining

60% of the work? Well, remember how

at the very beginning of the series we discussed the onion-like structure of the Republic? How the

entire book resembles an onion chopped through the middle. It's got this concentric ring structure

where the beginning and end mirror each other. The second part from the beginning is echoed in the

penultimate section, third from the beginning corresponds to third from the end, etc. Well, after having

gradually constructed the ideal polis and defined justice, the logical next step for Socrates to bring

out this symmetrical structure of the dialogue would be to methodically deconstruct the ideal state

and to define injustice. And that is what Socrates intends to do at the beginning of book five.

He's about to explain how this ideal polis, if it ever were to be established, would inevitably

degenerate over time and manifest various kinds of injustice,

both at the political level and in the souls of its citizens.

But before he can do that, his companions interrupt him and spark a few digressions,

and so we get a few more layers at the very center of this onion.

It's not till book eight that we finally get the

mirror image of what we've had so far, that is, the unraveling of the city and the analysis

of injustice. If you were to cut out the middle layers and just have books one to four and then

eight to ten, that could still stand on its own as a philosophical work.

...