Plato's Republic in the Recent Debate

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 48, Number 2, pp. 125-151.

 By Francesco Fronterotta

 Plato's Republic continues to arouse intense controversy among commentators, both for its ethical and political project and for its psychological, epistemological, and ontological implications for the knowledge of philosophers, who, says Plato, should be set as guides for such a project. Considering just a few examples from recent years, we might recall that a new critical edition of the dialogue has been published ¹ that contains significant innovations both in the text and in the attribution of lines to speakers. Moreover, this new edition has been accompanied by a volume of philological commentary edited by the same author. ² Numerous translations in the main modern languages have also been published with a more or less detailed apparatus of notes. ³ An equally significant quantity of works of commentary, individual or miscellaneous, of extremely varied origin and composition has appeared, from the monumental work coordinated by M. Vegetti (1998–2007), to the volumes of O. Höffe (1997), E. N. Ostenfeld (1998), S. Sayers (1999), R. Gutiérrez (2003), B. Mitchell and J. R. Lucas (2003), S. Rosen (2005), M. Dixsaut (2005a–b), G. Santas (2006), and G. R. F. Ferrari (2007). Just this brief indication of the mass of philological, historical, and philosophical studies suggests the constant—and constantly renewed—appeal of a dialogue that is rightly considered as one of the most influential and representative of Plato's thought.

 Read the article.