Plato's Republic

Plato's Republic is about as canonical as it gets for Western Civilization. As our first text for this course, you should familiarize yourself with the place this text has had within history, culture and politics to appreciate its breadth and depth. In addition to the Study Materials link above, to the right are a few useful sites to visit to learn more about philosophy and all our course texts.

Specific to our meeting this Thursday (01/18/11), consider the following questions within the opening chapter (which Plato calls "Book I"):

1. For each of the major characters, what is their perspective on the question "what is justice?" That is, to put it in Socratic terms, what is their own account of justice?
2. Related to question one, what are the similarities and/or differences between Cephalus' brief account and Polemarchus' two accounts of justice?
3. What role does Thrasymachus play within Book I - is he a skeptic? a nihilist? an ethical or normative relativist?
4. Are you convinced by Socrates' responses to Thrasymachus' challenges?

In addition to these questions, what are your thoughts on reading this text which was written over 2 1/2 millennia ago? Does it still raise issues relevant to us today?