Open Book Publishers
14. Are We There Yet? Books VIII–IX
- Sean McAleer (author)
Chapter of: Plato's 'Republic': An Introduction(pp. 275–298)
Export Metadata
- ONIX 3.0
- ONIX 2.1
- CSV
- JSON
- OCLC KBART
- BibTeX
- CrossRef DOI depositCannot generate record: This work does not have any ISBNs
- MARC 21 RecordCannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
- MARC 21 MarkupCannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
- MARC 21 XMLCannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
| Title | 14. Are We There Yet? |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Books VIII–IX |
| Contributor | Sean McAleer (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0229.14 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0229/chapters/10.11647/obp.0229.14 |
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| Copyright | Sean McAleer |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2020-11-06 |
| Long abstract | Chapter Fourteen, ‘Are We There Yet? Tying up Loose Ends in Book X’, explores the three topics of the Republic’s final book, Book X. The first is the status of poetry, which Socrates wants to revisit since he now has a psychology (the three-part soul) that he lacked when poetry was first discussed. He concludes, quite reluctantly, that very little poetry will be allowed in the ideal city, mainly because of its power to corrupt us: we give ourselves over to emotion and thus dethrone reason from its rightful place. After exploring his arguments for this view, we turn to his argument for the immortality of the soul, which Socrates offers in the context of showing the external advantages of living a just life (namely, having a reputation for justice), which were set aside to answer Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ challenge of showing that justice was intrinsically good—that all by itself it made its possessor better off. Lastly, we attend to the Myth of Er, with which the Republic ends. Er’s story is an allegory about the importance of careful choice in living justly and thus happily. It is a fascinating way to end the Republic, in terms of both content and style; we briefly explore what philosophical points Plato might be making by ending a work of philosophy this way. |
| Page range | pp. 275-298 |
| Print length | 23 pages |
| Landing Page | Full text URL | Platform | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0229 | Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0229.14.pdf | Full text URL | Publisher Website |