Gerasimos Santas

_The Blackwell Guide to Plato’s Republic_ consists of thirteen new essays written by both established scholars and younger researchers with the specific aim of helping readers to understand Plato’s masterwork. This guide to Plato’s _Republic_ is designed to help readers understand this foundational work of the Western canon. Sheds new light on many central features and themes of the Republic. Covers the literary and philosophical style of the _Republic_; Plato’s theories of justice and knowledge; his educational theories; and his treatment of the divine. Will be of interest to readers who are new to the _Republic_, and those who already have some familiarity with the book.

This paper argues that in Plato’s utopia the good of the ideal city-state is not identical with the good of the citizens, but it is nevertheless not independent of the good of the citizens. And similarly with the happiness of the city-state and the happiness of the citizens in it, something that can be more clearly seen once the happiness of the city and the happiness of the individual are analyzed in terms of the goods appropriate to each. Plato’s principle of social justice distributes such goods proportionately so as to promote the good of the city as a whole. Popper and others have been mostly correct in criticizing Plato for his severe restrictions of various freedoms, but not correct in claiming that Plato’s ideal city-state is an organic super-entity with a good of its own separate and independent of the good of the citizens.