Abstract

In her study of the Republic Annas has progressed, she says, from initial shock and disgust to fascination with the parts, then to an understanding of the whole. The understanding she presents is on the whole traditional: Bk. I of the Republic is a Socratic introduction to a Platonic teaching; Bks. II-IV and VIII-IX contain the main argument, a moral argument about justice; Bk. X is a lame and messy appendix. This Introduction is uncommonly good in three respects. First, though she tells us that the Republic is not a self-contained whole, Annas shows us that one can gain much by treating the dialogue apart from earlier and later members of the Platonic Corpus, and by refusing to treat the dialogue's parts apart from the dialogue as a whole. Secondly, though it belies a residual waspishness, her writing is a model of lucidity. Thirdly, though she argues that Plato was mistaken or confused about many things, her work is primarily an introduction to the Republic for English-speaking readers today, only secondarily an exposition of her own thoughts about justice, and only incidentally a synopsis of recent literature about the dialogue.