Customer Reviews

Plato's Republic (Books That Changed the World)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I'm a fan of Simon Blackburn's, having read his books on quasi-realism (a scholarly work), on ethics, and on truth (both of these being fairly popular works). I'm also an amateur Platologist (as a lark I almost wrote "Platonist"). This book was therefore one I looked forward to, not least because Plato is a remarkably potent dramatic writer, bequeathing themes and ideas that would inspire many later thinkers, from his student Aristotle through to those moderns who reject him (Kant, Nietzsche). Actually, almost all subsequent thinkers have disagreed -- often virulently -- with Plato; but isn't that a mark of a great thinker, namely that he must be considered? I think this is what Whitehead was driving at with his remark about Plato and "footnotes". (Blackburn, though, is determined to be pedantic regarding Whitehead's bon mot, charging that he (Whitehead) is literally mistaken.) Basically, this book isn't what I had hoped it would be: a smart, thoughtful, well-written book on Plato's Republic. (For that, you'll have to turn to Julie Annas' introduction to the Republic, or even better to Bernard Williams' wonderful little introduction to Plato, if you can find it.) Rather, this is Blackburn at his worst: grouchy, obsessive and sullen. You get the breezy tone of Blackburn's popular works of philosophy, but too few of the insights. He spends far too much time aggressively bashing Bush and the neo-cons, though without specifying their precise faults. (Woe to any student of Blackburn's that submitted such an essay. This is not to say that Blackburn is wrong; it is to say that he's intemperate.) As for Plato, he's rarely read charitably by Blackburn, who regularly accuses him leaving a legacy of totalitarianism. It's hard to grasp from Blackburn's book why the Republic has had such an influence, and why so many subsequent thinkers have felt the need to engage with it.

Simon Blackburn, professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge, calls Plato's Republic "the greatest and most fertile single book of the Western philosophical canon." Plato has strongly influenced modern philosophers such as Kant, Schopenhauer, Bergson, and Wittgenstein, and his influence on the development of Christianity has been immeasurable. Nevertheless, Blackburn has strong objections to Plato.

The mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote, "The safest general characteristic of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. This famous quotation contains an element of truth.

In reply to Whitehead, however, Blackburn replies: "Whitehead's famous remark is wrong as it stands. Much of the European tradition in philosophy contains vehement rejections of Plato, rather than footnotes to him. We can scarcely hold that the great materialist and scientific philosophers, from Bacon and Hobbes through Locke, to Hume and Nietzsche simply write footnotes to the Plato they regarded as the fountain of error."

Plato's Republic: A Biography does not consist of the text of Plato's seminal work, but rather is a critique of Plato and his philosophy. On the penultimate page of the book, Blackburn grudgingly admits an admiration for Plato's dogged pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, and truth: "I find I am less unconvinced than I had been eight books previously" (a reference to the ten "books" of Republic). He especially approves of Plato's persistent inquiry into the question, "How are we to live our lives?"

The burden of Blackburn's critique, however, is negative than positive. His intellectual affinity is with the assessment advanced by Nietzsche, the great anti-Platonist, that Plato's philosophy marked a fatal turn that has corrupted clear thinking for millennia.

Blackburn writes: "In Raphael's famous painting in the Vatican, known as The School of Athens, Plato and Aristotle together hold centre stage, but while Aristotle points to the earth, Plato points upwards to the Heavens. The poet Coleridge made the same contrast, saying that everyone was born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian."

Blackburn sides with the this-worldly Aristotle contra the otherworldly Plato: "[This book] is written, as is perhaps already apparent, by a natural sceptic. My temperament is irreligious and empiricist, down with Aristotle and the reality-based community, rather than up with Platonism in the heavens."

Francis Bacon regarded Plato as having "contaminated and corrupted" any chance of Greek natural science by an admixture of speculation and theology. And Lord Macaulay wrote: "This celebrated philosophy ended in nothing but disputation. It was neither a vineyard nor an olive-ground, but an intricate wood of briars and thistles, from which those who lost themselves in it brought back many scratches and no food."

In Plato's philosophical system, as in its "vulgarization in Christianity" (Blackburn's phrase), the mundane world in which we live is disparaged as being merely a shadow, or imperfect image, of the "real" world, which he called the realm of Forms or Ideas. Later neo-Platonists viewed existence in the same two-tiered fashion. Immanuel Kant spoke of the noumenon (or thing-in-itself) and phenomena; Arthur Schopenhauer spoke of the world as "will" (the blind, irrational, malignant essence of the universe) and "representation" (a reproduction, such as when an artist reproduces an image of some particular object).

Nietzsche rejected Plato's so-called "real world" and Kant's so-called " thing-in-itself," and denied the existence of "will" (in Schopenhauer's meaning of the term). He asserted that there is no "real world" (some supernatural, super-sensible, or idealistic realm); there is only the actual world in which we live. Expressed otherwise, there is no absolute, eternal, unchanging realm of "being"(no "Absolute Spirit," as in Hegel); there is only an eternal "becoming" (the ceaseless evolution of the universe).

So what? What does all this have to do with the price of tea in China? What relevance, if any, does a study of Plato's philosophy have to do with our contemporary world?

The crucial point is that our thoughts influence our actions. Our weltanschauung affects our ethics and politics. If people are wrong in their creed, their conduct will be compromised. Political blunders often spring from misguided metaphysics.

Writing as a advocate of political liberalism and "republicanism" (in the non-partisan sense of the world), Blackburn looks askance at the neoconservative regime in Washington--which he describes as the cynical and ideologically driven realpolitik of George W. Bush's White House--a regime which contemptuously pooh-poohs the "reality-based community" (the community which believes that "solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality").

Blackburn sees Plato, "the patron saint of ascent away from the reality-based community," as the seminal inspiration for reactionary conservatism, authoritarianism, and, in its final form, totalitarian dictatorship, such as under Hitler and Stalin.

Nor does Blackburn, writing as a secular humanist, have any love lost for Christianity, whose "cloud cuckoo-land metaphysics" brand it basically as an otherworldly religion. Blackburn implies that Christianity, because of its emphasis on the immortality of the soul and eternal bliss is the "real world" of a heavenly realm, owes more to Greek philosophy and in particular to Platonism (compare Nietzsche's aphorism, "Christianity is Platonism for the people"--a watered-down, simplified version for hoi polloi) than it does to the Judaic Old Testament, with its passion for social justice.

In Blackburn's assessment, therefore, Plato is the secret source for the disparagement of the empirical world, the world of the senses, and is the hidden inspiration for a reactionary realpolitik that seeks to impose its theological, political, social, and economic system on the rest of humankind. Blackburn points out that this is as true of the Islamic tradition, much influenced by Plato, as it is true of the Bush administration.

Plato wrote Republic about 375 B.C., a time of political turmoil when the old securities were threatened. Apparently fearing disorder more than the potential dangers of too much order, Plato concocted an "ideal society" that was a rigidly stratified caste system, with its tripartite division: the educated intelligentsia (guardians), the "spirited" auxiliaries (the military), and the artisans (the common workers). At the apex of this elitist system is the "philosopher-king," someone suspiciously like Plato himself, who knows all and sees all.

True, Plato apparently meant his vision of an ideal republic to be a paradigm of the best possible system of government, according to which his "faith-based initiative" would be a template against which to judge and correct inferior systems. Trouble is, the template itself may be defective; his project for a stable and secure government may sacrifice the freedom of its citizens. Plato's brave new world can easily degenerate into an Orwellian 1984.

A highly provocative and controversial work, Plato's Republic: A Biography will be hated by Plato's admirers but loved by his detractors. It is an eye-opening work with particular relevance and importance for our post-9/11 world.

This is a hard one to recommend. I have three major problems with this book. The first is truth in advertising. Because the book is called "A Biography," I purchased it thinking that it would be about the history and impact of Plato's Republic. What I got instead was simply one more author's engagement with the Republic. While there is of course nothing inherently wrong with that, if that's what you're presenting, please don't label it a "biography." Other works in this series, for example, "The Qur'an," are indeed biographies and as such discuss the impact and history of the work. My second problem is the author's political bias. As others have noted, Blackburn regularly interjects his anti-Bush political views into his writing. Again, nothing wrong with having such views; I just don't see this as the appropriate forum. My third problem is the smug tone of some of the material. It's clearly written with a marketing angle in mind: "See, even a book by a 60-something Cambridge professor about a 2,500-year old work can be cool." It just tries too hard to be jaunty and it seems forced in my opinion. For what it's worth, my advice to a prospective reader is to use the time that would have been spent on this book by reading Plato's Republic instead and forming your own opinions.

The philosophy of Plato as found in the Republic has certainly been analyzed, and debunked in many books, but this slim book by Simon Blackburn can be considered as a pleasant group of essays on Plato's philosophy. I've found that there is often a difficulty in the writing of short books on lengthy, complex subject matter. Mr. Blackburn rises to this challenge, and gives us a book that presents the essence of Plato's ideas in a style that is lucid and meaningful. This is no dry Cliff's Notes coverage.

The title of this review indicates that the author finds serious fault in many of Plato's arguments. Words like "outlandish" and "tedious" pop up from time to time. The various chapters discuss such things as politics, art, truth, Plato's cave, and virtue.

Let's take one topic, that of art. Plato felt that a painting was twice distant from reality. The painter cannot envision reality as it really is, and the painting is even less a reflection of the real world. Blackburn's point is that a painting, such as a portrait, can indeed express reality by showing an aspect of a person that is not readily noticed in the person himself. It can show the model to be humble, or proud; intelligent or stupid. So art has the capacity of telling us things just as language does.

Blackburn states that because of the failure of many of Plato's arguments people like Leo Strauss have proposed that in reality Plato may have been hiding his teachings behind the apparent opposite. Strauss does, however, seem to accept the philosophical position that it is acceptable for the government to tell noble lies for the benefit of the state. In this regard Blackburn notes the recent comment by one administration official who said that the administration creates its own reality.

Ultimately despite the many negative responses to Plato's views, the author commends Plato for the wealth of general ideas that pursue the question of how we should lead our lives, and how we should seek the truth. How quaint this may seem in our pop-culture that is filled with spin doctors.

The author tosses in a few comments from time to time to show that he is no fan of conservatism, yet such remarks should not dissuade anyone from reading this fine book. Those quite familiar with Plato's teachings might not find much new here, yet still might enjoy this pleasant discussion. Philosophy novices will find this elegantly written book to be reasonably easy reading, and surprisingly quite entertaining.

I've found the Books That Changed the World series consistently good, but this book by Simon Blackburn disappointed. Rather than explain why The Republic changed the world (which is the stated purpose of the series), Blackburn focuses exclusively on a criticism of the text. The publishers of the Books That Changed the World series need to understand that Blackburn has done them a disservice. Based on my very positive experience reading Alberto Manguel on Homer, Karen Armstrong on the Bible, and Christopher Hitchens on The Rights of Man, I'd be tempted to buy anything in this series on faith. After experiencing Blackburn's self-indulgence, I'm much less inclined to buy another book in this series.

lots of name dropping and quoting others' opinions of republic--i wanted more from the author himself and more from the republic--more direct analysis by the author. he admits several times that he does not like plato and seems to think himself above the subject matter. it is good to hear from a doubting thomas, but i think he enjoyed complaining about the republic and plato more than providing a critique.

I was disappointed by this book. The analysis of the book as a whole was Plato-lite and the injection of the author's political bias was jejune and unbecoming an academic of his caliber. If you must read it, wait for your local library to get a copy.

Blackburn wasted a great opportunity with this book, and I'm not surprised that it is no longer in print. His commentary is shallow, superficial, trivial, and hostile. If you want to know how Blackburn feels about the "neo-cons", then you will love this book. If you want to learn about Plato's "Republic", look elsewhere:

Leo Strauss "The City and Man", The City and Man Professor David Roochnik's DVD series Plato's Republic: The Great Courses Modern History (The Teaching Company).
Eva Brann The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings
Allan Bloom's interpretive essay in his translation of "Republic" THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO-2ND EDITION TRANSLATED W/NOTES & AN INTERPRETIVE ESSAY BY

epops

I have really enjoyed the "Books That Changed The World" series so far. The series has wonderfully accomplished the goal of producing book-biographies with deep analysis, an emphasis on how the ideas connect with the bigger picture, and all while delivered in an accessible format for a novice reader.

Which is why I was extremely disappointed after finishing Plato's Republic. Mr. Blackburn writes like a Cambridge philosopher, with plenty of obscure name-dropping, pointless details rather than the bigger picture, and a dense and overly-analytical prose. When will academia learn that the average reader wants your ideas, not your writing.

But what bothered me most was that it was no different than the typical Plato dissection sitting in a college library. Mr. Blackburn never really answers why this book changed the world. There is little effort to connect Plato's ideas to our daily lives, and that is why this book gets 1 star.

Also slightly annoying, Mr. Blackburn weaves his politics throughout the book, which reflects his sheltered academic environment. Both sides of the political spectrum have their own fair share of naive Platonic utopianism; singling out one for all of your analogies is nothing but a cheap shot.

If you are a philosophy student, I suppose this book could be a helpful primer. But it you are a reader like me, with little philosophical background but independently interested in big ideas, I'd try (free) Spark Notes before I'd buy this book.

If you have not read Plato's Republic, you will find this book, which is really one big essay, difficult to absorb.

I have read Plato back in school (Europe), when I was 13 years old! I honestly do not remember much, other than that he was a Greek Philosopher. I liked reading about that era, especially the books of Homer (Iliad and Odyssey). But what the Republic was about I do not have a clue, since I pretty much forgotten everything, until reading this book of course. The Myth of the Cave is probably the only thing people who read Plato as children would remember.

The author explains why Western thought is still conditioned by this book, and why this has given rise to such figures as Hitler and Stalin. I got the impression he really does not encourage people to read this book, and is against its mandatory reading in schools and universities.

The question that crossed my mind is, `Do people still read Plato's Republic?' I made my own little survey, and found out that either no one has read it, or read it but can't remember what it was about (exactly my case). So who is really reading it and shaping policies based on Plato's writings? I did not find the answer in Simon Blackburn's book.

I have to admit though that I am highly motivated to read Plato's Republic. Now that I have a good background of the book, it should be pretty easy reading. I am curious as to whether a book written more than 2,000 years ago can still have an influence on us today. It is obviously possible, since Holly scriptures, such as The Bible, Old Testaments, Qur'an, Buddhist writings etc..., which were written a few thousand years ago, still influence us and shape our society. Could Plato have been a prophet, the Buddha of his age? "How are we to live our lives?", is a question Plato persistently asked. This question is the basis of all religions.

Plato's Republic, the original work, is now on my booklist!