The Republic is the central work of Plato, the Western world's most famous philosopher. It is a penetrating inquiry into the nature and meaning of morality, and justice of the ideal state and its ruler. All subsequent European thinking about these subjects owes its character, directly or indirectly, to this most famous, and most accessible of the Platonic dialogues. Containing crucial arguments and insights into many other areas of philosophy, it is also a literary masterpiece: the philosophy is presented for the most part for ordinary readers, who are carried along by the wit and intensity of the dialogue and by Plato's unforgettable images of the human condition. This lucid translation is complemented by full explanatory notes and a critical introduction. The ideas of Plato (c429-347BC) have influenced Western philosophers for over two thousand years. Such is his importance that the twentieth-century philosopher A.N. Whitehead described all subsequent developments within the subject as footnotes to Plato's work. Beyond philosophy, he has exerted a major influence on the development of Western literature, politics and theology.
About the Translator
Francis Macdonald Cornford was an English classical scholar and translator. Cornford was educated at St Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Fellow from 1899 and held a teaching post from 1902. He became Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy in 1931 and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1937.
