The Republic of Plato by B. Jowett

The Republic of Plato: Translated Into English by B. Jowett, M.A.

Also Including:

• Introduction
• Analysis
• Marginal Analysis, and
• Index

The Third Edition: Revised and Corrected Throughout | 1888 Oxford: At The Clarendon Press

B. Jowett: Master of Balliol College • Regius Professor Of Greek In The University Of Oxford • Doctor in Theology of the University Of Levden

MDCCCLXXXVIII

Introduction & Analysis:

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them.

There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power.

Nor in any other of his writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp. especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any other ancient thinker, the germs of future knowledge are contained.

The sciences of logic and psychology, which have supplied so many instruments of thought to after-ages, are based upon the analyses of Socrates and Plato. The principles of definition, the law of contradiction, the fallacy of arguing in a circle, the distinction between the essence and accidents of a thing or notion, between means and ends, between causes and conditions; also the division of the mind into the rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, or of pleasures and desires into necessary and unnecessary...

Preface:

In publishing a third edition of the Republic of Plato (originally included in my edition of Plato's works), I have to acknowledge the assistance of several friends, especially of my secretary, Mr. Matthew Knight, now residing for his health at Davós, and of Mr. Frank Fletcher, Exhibitioner of Balliol College. To their accuracy and scholarship I am under great obligations.

The excellent index, in which are contained references to the other dialogues as well as to The Republic, is entirely the work of Mr. Knight. I am also considerably indebted to Mr. J.W. Mackail, Fellow of Balliol College, who read over the whole book in the previous edition, and noted several inaccuracies.

The additions and alterations both in the introduction and in the text, affect at least a third of the work.

Having regard to the extent of these alterations, and to the annoyance which is felt by the owner of a book at the possession of it in an inferior form, and still more keenly by the writer himself, who must always desire to be read as he is at his best, I have thought that some persons might like to exchange for the new edition the separate edition of The Republic published in 1881, to which this present volume is the successor. I have therefore arranged that those who desire to make this exchange, on depositing a perfect copy of the former separate edition with any agent of the Clarendon Press, shall be entitled to receive the new edition at half-price.

It is my hope to issue a revised edition of the remaining Dialogues in the course of a year...