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Utopia

Plato’s Republic: A Utopia For The Individual

Alfred Geier says it’s not about the state of the state.

The Republic is Plato’s most famous dialogue, contains many of his best-known arguments and is one of the great classics of world literature. It is also the victim of a serious and widespread misconception, in that it is held to present a political utopia, a polis [city state] to be imitated. This assumption has led to a criticism of the Republic as recommending a totalitarian regime or an extremely communistic society. Nothing could be further from the truth.

How did such an error arise? As most errors in interpretation do, by a careless reading – in this case, by not considering the Republic as a whole, from beginning to end.

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