Reading Questions

W 15 Sep
Plato, Republic, IV–VII, 427d–541b

1) Parts and Virtues of State and Soul (427e–445e)

What are the virtues of the state?  To which groups in the state do they correspond?  What are the parts of the soul?  To which groups in the state do they correspond?  What is the relationship between the soul and the state?  Which comes first in Plato’s mind?  What is Socrates’s definition of justice?  Does Book 4 with its definition of Platonic justice answer Thrasymachus’s challenge?  Glaucon’s question?

2)  The Role of Women;  Community of Wives and Children (449a–471c)

What is the purpose of the community of wives and children?  Does the community of wives and children necessarily imply that women should be guardians?  Is Plato a feminist?  Does Plato think that these proposals are feasible?

3)  The Philosopher-Kings and the Theory of Knowledge (471c–541b)

What distinguishes philosophers from other people?  Why should they rule?  How does having knowledge differ from being right?  What are “forms”?  What conception of the good is presented in the Sun, Line, and Cave?  What is dialectic?  Why all this math?   How does the education of the philosopher-kings depicted in these books compare to the earlier discussion of education (books II and III)?