More than 2,000 years later, Plato's Republic remains astonishingly relevant to our everyday lives. It poses one question after another that might well have been drawn from the headlines and debates of our nation's recent history: What sort of person should rule the state? Are all citizens equal before the law? Should everyone have equal access to health care? Plato's greater inquiry, however, was into the question of defining justice itself and the reasons why a person would choose a life aligned with that virtue. These 24 remarkable lectures lead you through the brilliant dialogue Plato crafted both to define and examine the issues with which political philosophy still grapples. Chapter by chapter, Professor Roochnik introduces you to Plato's literary recasting of his own great teacher, Socrates, and the dialogue through which Socrates and the Republic's other characters create the hypothetical ideal city. It is by dissecting life in this presumably just city - the "Republic" of Plato's title - that the nature of justice itself can be examined. Many of Plato's ideas will startle contemporary readers, who may recognize in them the foreshadowing of some of humankind's darkest moments. Indeed, some have called the Republic the "great-great-grandfather of all totalitarian experiments." You'll wrestle with Plato's controversial vision, and you'll be surprised just how contemporary these arguments sound.
All Lectures: 1. Plato's Life and Times 2. Book I - The Title and the Setting 3. Book I - Socrates versus Thrasymachus 4. Book II - The City-Soul Analogy 5. Books II and III - Censorship 6. Book III - The Noble Lie 7. Book III - Socrates's Medical Ethics 8. Book IV - Justice in the City and Soul 9. Book V - Feminism 10. Book V - Who Is the Philosopher? 11. Book VI - The Ship of State 12. Book VI - The Idea of the Good 13. Book VI - The Divided Line 14. Book VII - The Parable of the Cave 15. Book VII - The Education of the Guardians 16. Book VIII - The Perfectly Just City Fails 17. Books VIII and IX - The Mistaken Regimes 18. Book VIII - Socrates's Critique of Democracy 19. Books VIII and IX - The Critique of Tyranny 20. Book IX - The Superiority of Justice 21. Book X - Philosophy versus Poetry 22. Book X - The Myth of Er 23. Summary and Overview 24. The Legacy of Plato's "Republic"
