Plato’s Republic

Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato’s Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests. Writing in c380BC, Plato applied this question both to the individual and the city-state, considering earlier and current forms of government in Athens and potential forms, in which the ideal city might be ruled by philosophers. The Republic is arguably Plato’s best known and greatest work, a dialogue between Socrates and his companions, featuring the allegory of the cave and ideas about immortality of the soul, the value of poetry to society, and democracy’s vulnerability to a clever demagogue seeking tyranny.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Angie Hobbs 24 episodes
  Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
• MM McCabe No other episodes
  Professor of Ancient Philosophy Emerita at King's College London
• James Warren 4 episodes
  Fellow of Corpus Christi College and a Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge

Reading list

• An Introduction to Plato's Republic
  Julia Annas (Oxford University Press, 1998) Google Books →
• Plato and the Divided Self
  Rachel Barney, Tad Brennan and Charles Brittain (Cambridge University Press, 2012) Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic
  G. R. F. Ferrari (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Google Books →
• Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal Good
  Angela Hobbs (Cambridge University Press, 2000) Google Books →
• Plato's Republic
  Angela Hobbs (Ladybird Expert Book, to be published 2018 ) Google Books →
• Utopia 1516
  Thomas More (trans. Dominic Baker-Smith) (Penguin, 2012) Google Books →
• The Tanner Lectures on Human Values: 18
  Grethe B. Peterson (ed.) (University of Utah Press, 1997) Google Books →
• The Continuum Companion to Plato
  Gerald A. Press (ed.) (Bloomsbury, 2012) Google Books →
• The Blackwell Guide to Plato's Republic
  Gerasimos Santas (ed.) (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) Google Books →
• Plato
  Malcolm Schofield (Oxford University Press, 2006) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Plato’s Gorgias
  
  25 Nov, 2021 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• Aristotle’s Politics
  
  6 Nov, 2008 320 Political science
• Plato’s Symposium
  
  2 Jan, 2014 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• Socrates
  
  27 Sep, 2007 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• The Examined Life
  
  9 May, 2002 100 Philosophy
• Plato’s Atlantis
  
  22 Sep, 2022 100 Philosophy
• The Social Contract
  
  7 Feb, 2008 320 Political science
• Solon the Lawgiver
  
  23 Mar, 2023 930 History of the Ancient World
• Democracy
  
  18 Oct, 2001 320 Political science
• Virtue
  
  28 Feb, 2002 170 Ethics

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Programme ID: b08vwn6h

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vwn6h

Auto-category: 100 (Philosophy and Psychology)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. Plato's Republic, written around 380 BC, explores whether it's always better to be just than unjust and is seen as a cornerstone of Western philosophy.