Read this over the last year in rather small doses, just a few pages at a time. Interesting, but not very entertaining. Obviously a classic and well-known philosophical text. Exploring the meaning of justice, organization of political systems and states, reality etc. It's basically a loooong monologue in the form of a dialogue. Plato puts the words of the monologue into the mouth of Socrates (apparently, it was common at the time, to use real-life people in poetic work in this way). The book is certainly more readable in this dialogue form, but, for the most part, the interlocutors other than Socrates do not really contribute anything meaningful - they just affirm what Socrates says (with some notable exceptions). Here's a typical example:
- Certainly not - Impossible - they must - that is evident - yes - certainly - no question .- to be sure.
Each dash stands for a paragraph of speech by Socrates, the interlocutor just affirms. Many of Plato's ideas seem shocking and awful from the perspective of modern western values. I'm sure a certain infamous German leader of the 1930ies and '40ies would have liked quite a few, on the other hand. For example the idea of separating children from the parents for selective breeding. Or extensive censorship of poetry and other forms of expression. Or the ruling by an elite group in the form of a dictatorship. This dictatorship of philosopher rulers Plato sees as the ideal form of government, whereas dictatorship by a tyrant is seen as the worst, with democracy the second lowest, just above the tyrant rule. Well, I do tend to focus on the negative, don't I?! Well, Plato also half-heartedly seems to promote the idea of equality of women. There are his acclaimed thoughts regarding the relativity of perception (the allegory of the prisoners in the cave, who see just shadows of the 'real' world). Like so many philosophical arguments, Plato's arguments are logically flawed, but, of course, that has to be expected and is perhaps kind of the definition of a philosophical argument... All right, it's late and I've been going on about this book sufficiently long, especially, as this is not the best place for such discussions...

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