Plato, Politeia [Republic]

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University)

Domains

Political Philosophy

Dates

First circulation or publication c. -370

Places

Ancient Greece (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Dialogue

Resources

Politeia, or Republic, is Plato's best-known and most influential dialogue. In fact, Republic is considered by many scholars to be the foundational text of the Western philosophical tradition. This enormous dialogue was probably completed in Plato's mature middle-period. Ancient copies of Republic filled ten papyrus scrolls, and even today – after twenty-three centuries – most editions of the dialogue retain this division into ten books. The whole work is comprised of a number of shorter conversations between Socrates and various interlocutors. These discourses – all related to the primary inquiry into the nature of justice or righteousness – investigate the social dimension of human …

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2533 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "Politeia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 September 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13446, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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