La République

"The scene is in Piraeus. Attacked in the house of the old Cephale, Socrates and some friends begin to discuss the rewards promised in the afterlife. Who can better understand the essence of justice? Traditional wisdom, the ancient myths seem powerless and Socrates quickly has reason to the claims of the sophist Thrasymaque. Then begins with Glaucon and Adimante, the brothers of Plato placed in the position of philosophers interlocutors, a long interview which, from justice in the city, goes back to the justice of the soul. The history of Athens constantly passes through this powerful dialogue, where the proposal of a perfect city and the kingship of philosophers is both the response to the political torment of Greek democracy and the metaphysical search for the virtues of the soul and the objects of reason. In the translation and the comment I present here, I sought to build the most rigorous possible balance between a reading centered on history and the search for the objects of reason.