Reading companion · Plato’s Republic
Before you ask
what justice is.
A first reading of the opening scene, 327a–328b.
Plato gives us people speaking to one another in a particular place, at a particular moment. Attend to that encounter. The first page already raises questions that the rest of the book will make harder to answer.
Bring: a copy of the Republic, a pencil, and a little uninterrupted time. Use Allan Bloom’s translation, the edition used in the Millerman School course.
Find the passage: look for 327a in the margin and read through 328b. These reference numbers stay the same across editions even when page numbers differ.
First pass: read the scene once. Notice who is present, what each person wants, and what changes before the group reaches Polemarchus’s house. Then return to it with the questions below.
Who can persuade whom?
Socrates and Glaucon are heading back from the Piraeus. Polemarchus’s party wants them to stay. The exchange brings strength, persuasion, and willingness to listen into view before anyone offers a definition of justice.
Follow the alternatives the speakers put forward. What gives each alternative its force? Consider what an argument can accomplish when the person addressed has already decided against listening. How would you distinguish agreement from merely getting someone to do what you want?
In your margin: identify a condition that persuasion depends on. Find the moment in the exchange that brought it to your attention.
Why stay?
The prospect of a torch race on horseback, a night festival, and conversation enters the exchange. Track how the reasons for remaining accumulate. Listen for the point at which the decision is made, and notice who makes it.
Try explaining that decision in two different ways. Does the group remain because someone has answered an argument, offered something attractive, asserted a claim of friendship, or made departure difficult? What does each explanation account for, and what does it leave out?
In your margin: circle the reason you find most persuasive. Beside it, write the strongest reason for choosing another explanation.
Why begin here?
The dialogue begins with a descent, a religious festival, and an interrupted departure. Ask what becomes visible when philosophy appears among these ordinary activities of a city.
Imagine that Plato had opened with a definition of justice and omitted this scene. What would have disappeared from our view? Consider the roles of place, companionship, desire, and obligation. Keep this opening in mind when the dialogue later turns to education and the cave.
In your margin: choose one detail you would initially have skipped. Explain why it might matter to a book about justice.
Continue through Book I.
As the conversation develops, keep a small record of each speaker’s account of justice and Socrates’s response.
- With Cephalus: attend to the connections among old age, wealth, and the way one has lived. What brings justice into this conversation?
- With Polemarchus: follow the account of what is owed to friends and enemies. What must we know about someone to treat that person justly?
- With Thrasymachus: watch how the dispute about justice becomes a dispute about rule and the better life. Which question seems most urgent to each speaker?
At the end of the book, compare your notes with Socrates’s assessment of the conversation. Which distinctions have become clearer? Which questions remain?
Read with Millerman
Take the next page seriously.
The Republic course follows all ten books with Dr. Michael Millerman, using Allan Bloom’s translation. Explore the published lecture list, or browse the complete archive.
Course: courses.millermanschool.com/p/plato-s-republic-seminar
Reading references: Plato, Republic, 327a–328b and Book I. This guide is original commentary and contains no reproduced translation text. Read it alongside your copy of Allan Bloom’s translation.
Free guide: millermanschool.com/reading-guide/