Document Type
Review Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
“Despite appearances to the contrary, especially passages from Book 8, the Republic actually offers a qualified and cautious defense, rather than a resounding condemnation, of democracy. This defense, however, is specifically dialectical” (2). Thus begins David Roochnik’s short but intriguing study of Plato’s Republic, a dialogue long regarded as evidence that Plato was an enemy of democracy. While Socrates adamantly condemns both democracy and the democratic man, Roochnik argues that the Republic as a work is dialectical in character, and only viewed as such can we come to truly grip Plato’s intention when composing it. The Republic, so construed, is a massive, living conversation (7), an instance of dialegesthai in which changes and revisions are not merely scrapped and forsaken but preserved in their partiality as a stage or moment in the development of the entire dialogue (5).
Repository Citation
Ambury, James. "On David Roochnik's Beautiful City: The Dialectical Character of Plato’s Republic." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 6, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1–4. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol6/iss2/9