book
Plato's dialogue on justice in the soul and the city — the central inquiry in classical political philosophy, traditionally dated to the middle period of his writing.
theme
The long inquiry into right order — in the individual soul, in the city, and in the relations between human beings.
theme
The classical inquiry into excellence of character — what it is, how it is acquired, and how it shapes a life.
philosopher
Athenian philosopher of the fifth century BCE — teacher of Plato and Xenophon, examined life on trial, and the central figure of the Socratic dialogues he himself never wrote.
philosopher
Greek philosopher, student of Plato, founder of the Lyceum, and author of the treatises that defined the Western vocabulary for logic, ethics, politics and natural philosophy.
philosopher
Athenian soldier, historian and student of Socrates — author of the Anabasis, the Hellenica, the Cyropaedia and the Socratic works that sit alongside Plato's as our second main witness to Socrates.
comparison
Two foundational philosophers, one Academy, and two different but deeply related answers to the question of how to read the world.
comparison
Two students of Socrates, two very different portraits of their teacher — and the standard scholarly check on reading any one of them alone.
philosopher
Greek biographer and essayist of the Roman imperial period — author of the Parallel Lives and the Moralia, and the main classical conduit for the European study of character through history.
philosopher
Athenian lawgiver, poet and reformer of the early sixth century BCE whose constitutional settlement laid the institutional ground on which Athenian democracy would later be built.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into andreia — the virtue that stands firm under fear, anger and the pull of dishonour.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into how polities lose the institutions, habits and characters that once held them — and into whether the loss is reversible.
theme
The classical inquiry into paideia — the formation of the citizen through habit, example, exposure to texts and the right kind of company — and the polities that took it seriously.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into nomos — the customs, statutes and institutional forms by which a polity holds its citizens to a common life.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into rule, command and stewardship — and into what kind of person is fit to hold authority.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into authority, force, legitimacy and the conditions under which power becomes rule rather than mere compulsion.
theme
The classical political form in which authority is shared, magistracies rotate, and the people are taken to be the ground of legitimacy — and the long inquiry into why it tends to be unstable.
theme
The classical inquiry into sōphrosynē — the well-ordered command of one's own desires and the steady governance of the self.
theme
The classical inquiry into politikē — the architecture of political life, the cycle of regimes, and the question of which constitution suits which people.
theme
The classical analysis of unbounded personal rule — what its conditions are, what it does to the ruler and to those who live under it, and why the European tradition has read the Greek and Roman texts on the subject for two thousand years as a working diagnosis rather than as antique curiosity.
theme
The classical and historical inquiry into war, peace, just cause and the conduct of conflict — from the Homeric epics through the historians to the just-war and modern international traditions.
comparison
Two recognisably different ways of being a teacher in fifth-century Athens — and the argument the Platonic dialogues build around the distinction.
essay
A reading of the classical case against power separated from the disciplines of character — Thrasymachus, the tyrant, the libido dominandi, and what they all argue against.
essay
An interpretive reading of the elenchus across Plato's early dialogues — what the questioning is doing, why aporia counts as progress, and how the Xenophontic Socrates uses the same method to different ends.
essay
An interpretive reading of the classical worry that virtue, when separated from political power, can preserve the individual life but rarely shape the city it sits inside.
guide
A short, practical guide to approaching Plato's dialogues for the first time. Where to start, what the dialogue form is doing, why Stephanus pages matter, and the misreadings that get in the way.
guide
A short orientation for a reader new to classical philosophy. The first dialogues to read, the order in which the texts repay attention, the reference works that help, and the things worth not rushing.
guide
A practical guide to reading Plato's Republic — the book-by-book structure, the central images (Cave, Divided Line, Sun), the misreadings to set aside, and the citation conventions to follow.