Ferrari Giovanni R. F. - Plato: The Republic

CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

PLATO
The Republic

CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT

Senes editors

RAYMOND GEUSS

Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

QUENTIN SKINNER

Professor of the Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London

Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought is now firmly established as the major student textbook series in political theory. It aims to make available to students all the most important texts in the history of western political thought, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century. All the familiar classic texts will be included, but the series seeks at the same time to enlarge the conventional canon by incorporating an extensive range of less well-known works, many of them never before available in a modern English edition. Wherever possible, texts are published in complete and unabridged form, and translations are specially commissioned for the series. Each volume contains a critical introduction together with chronologies, biographical sketches, a guide to further reading and any necessary glossaries and textual apparatus. When completed, the series will aim to offer an outline of the entire evolution of western political thought.

For a list of titles published in the series, please see end of book.

PLATO

EDITED BY

G. R. F. FERRARI

University of California, Berkeley

TRANSLATED BY

TOM GRIFFITH

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521481731

In the translation and editorial matter Cambridge University Press 2000

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2000
15th printing 2013

Printed in the United States of America by Edwards Brothers Inc.

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Plato.

[Republic. English]

The republic / Plato; edited by G. R. F. Ferrari; translated by Tom Griffith.

p. cm. (Cambridge texts in the history of political thought)

Includes index.

ISBN 0-521-48443-X (pbk) ISBN 0-521-48173-2 (hardback)

1. Political science-Early works to 1800.2. Utopias-Early works to 1800.I. Ferrari,
G. R. F. (Giovanni R. F.) II. Griffith, Tom. III. Title. IV. Series
JC71.P35 2000
321 .07-dc21 00-024471

ISBN 978-0-521-48173-1 Hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-48443-5 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsiblity for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

If you tell people you are translating Platos Republic, the question they almost invariably ask is Why? Surely there are plenty of translations already. The answer is fairly simple. For whatever reason, Plato chose to put his philosophical thoughts in dialogue form, and I believe that when he did so, he intended these dialogues to sound like conversations. Maybe not straightforward, everyday conversations, but conversations nonetheless. And it is still true, though things have improved in recent years, that there are many translations of Plato where you cannot read a complete page without coming across something which no English-speaking person would ever say, or ever have said. So in balancing the conflicting demands of the translator, I have tried to give the highest priority, with only a few exceptions, to the requirement that what I wrote should sound like a conversation. The danger in this, since I am not a professional Plato scholar, was that in trying to make it sound conversational I might commit myself to an interpretation which ran counter to the agreed and accepted views of those who were scholars. That being so, I have been exceptionally fortunate to have had John Ferrari as my academic minder. I would never have undertaken the project without his encouragement and guarantee of help and support. And once embarked on it, I found him ready and willing to give up huge amounts of his time to the task of vetting my early drafts a laborious task which involved reading the whole text against the Greek, flagging the hundreds (literally) of passages where he did not agree with what I had written, explaining in precise detail why he disagreed, and (bless him) suggesting an alternative in each and every instance. His influence is strongest in those passages where the translation of key terms has been the subject of much critical discussion, but there is no part of the translation which has not benefited immeasurably from his comments, advice and suggestions, and it should be seen, to a very considerable extent, as a joint effort rather than mine alone. It has been an enormous labour for him, and I am greatly in his debt for performing it.

TOM GRIFFITH

The thought of translating Platos Republic is not unlikely to cross the mind of any Platonist. Whenever it crossed mine, I dismissed it firmly. Too many scholarly ghosts hovered about its text, too many pitfalls lurked on every page, and the impossibility of satisfying all of the readers all of the time was only too easy to anticipate. Then I discovered Tom Griffiths remarkable translation of Platos Symposium, and saw that there could after all be a role for me in producing a new translation of the Republic, a technical, advisory role, and that the effort would be repaid many times over. I have had the privilege of exceptionally close editorial collaboration with Tom as his translation took shape, and he co-operated with unfailing intelligence, patience and tact. For all my relentless editing of details, the translation remains essentially his. I have contributed the introduction, notes, and other ancillary material all of which have benefited from Toms scrutiny.

JOHN FERRARI

Platos Republic is the first great work of Western political philosophy, and has retained its grip on the imagination of political thinkers for over two thousand years. It was also very much the product of particular historical circumstances. In this introduction we will consider the political instability of the Greek world in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC and investigate the cultural factors most likely to have influenced Plato when he came to write the