{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Book","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/","name":"The Republic","shortTitle":"The Republic","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Plato"},"isbn":"9780140455113","numberOfPages":10,"wordCount":4620,"timeRequired":"PT18.5M","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","publisher":{"@id":"https://readstacks.com/#organization","@type":"Organization","name":"Read Stacks"},"workExample":[{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-1-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-1-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 1: What is Justice?","position":1,"wordCount":445,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"The dialogue opens at the Piraeus, the port of Athens, during the festival of Bendis. Socrates is detained on the road by Polemarchus and brought to his father Cephalus's house. The old man's reflection on aging is the first move: wealth, Cephalus says, is good…","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-2-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-2-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 2: The Ring of Gyges","position":2,"wordCount":425,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Glaucon refuses to accept the loose ending of Book 1. He sharpens the question with the most famous thought experiment in ancient philosophy. A shepherd named Gyges finds a ring that makes him invisible. He uses it to seduce the queen, kill the king, and seize the throne.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-3-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-3-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 3: Education of the Guardians","position":3,"wordCount":440,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"The musical education of the guardians continues from Book 2. Music for Plato includes all the arts of the Muses — poetry, song, story — and his criterion is whether the form shapes the soul toward virtue or away from it.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-4-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-4-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 4: The Tripartite Soul","position":4,"wordCount":460,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Adeimantus interrupts: the guardians will not be happy under this arrangement. Socrates answers that the city's happiness is the goal, not any class's individual happiness. The guardian's happiness comes from doing the work well, not from possessing the goods of the city.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-5-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-5-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 5: Philosopher-Kings","position":5,"wordCount":470,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Just as Socrates is about to turn to the four bad regimes, Polemarchus and Adeimantus interrupt. They want details on the guardian arrangement. Socrates announces three waves of paradox he must swim through. First wave: women as guardians.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-6-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-6-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 6: The Sun and the Divided Line","position":6,"wordCount":455,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Adeimantus objects: actual philosophers seem useless or, worse, wicked. Look at the philosophers around Athens. Why would we put any of them in charge of a city? Socrates answers with the ship-of-state metaphor (488a-489d). The shipowner is large but slightly deaf and short-sighted.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-7-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-7-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 7: The Allegory of the Cave","position":7,"wordCount":480,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"The most famous passage in Western philosophy. Imagine prisoners chained in an underground cave, facing a wall. Behind them, a fire burns; between the fire and the prisoners, men carry objects whose shadows are cast on the wall.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-8-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-8-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 8: How Democracies Become Tyrannies","position":8,"wordCount":465,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Returning to the abandoned thread from Book 4. The kallipolis (aristocracy in Plato's technical sense — rule by the best) decays predictably through four worse regimes. Each regime corresponds to a soul type, and the political decay is mirrored by — and in fact caused…","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-9-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-9-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 9: The Tyrant's Soul","position":9,"wordCount":450,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Plato turns to the psychology of the tyrant — and through it, to the final answer to Glaucon's challenge from Book 2. The tyrannical soul is born when the democratic soul lets one master appetite (Plato calls it eros in its rapacious form) take over the household of the mind.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-10-the-republic-plato/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/the-republic-plato/book-10-the-republic-plato/","name":"Book 10: Poetry and the Myth of Er","position":10,"wordCount":530,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Plato returns to a topic he opened in Book 3 — the place of poetry in the just city — now armed with the full theory of Forms. The argument cuts deeper than before. Imitation (mimesis) is three removes from reality.","datePublished":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-23T10:30:00Z"}]}