Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato's "Republic"When Plato set his dialogs, written texts were disseminated primarily by performance and recitation. He wrote them, however, when literacy was expanding. Jill Frank argues that there are unique insights to be gained from appreciating Plato’s dialogs as written texts to be read and reread. At the center of these insights are two distinct ways of learning to read in the dialogs. One approach that appears in the Statesman, Sophist, and Protagoras, treats learning to read as a top-down affair, in which authoritative teachers lead students to true beliefs. Another, recommended by Socrates, encourages trial and error and the formation of beliefs based on students’ own fallible experiences. In all of these dialogs, learning to read is likened to coming to know or understand something. Given Plato’s repeated presentation of the analogy between reading and coming to know, what can these two approaches tell us about his dialogs’ representations of philosophy and politics? With Poetic Justice, Jill Frank overturns the conventional view that the Republic endorses a hierarchical ascent to knowledge and the authoritarian politics associated with that philosophy. When learning to read is understood as the passive absorption of a teacher’s beliefs, this reflects the account of Platonic philosophy as authoritative knowledge wielded by philosopher kings who ruled the ideal city. When we learn to read by way of the method Socrates introduces in the Republic, Frank argues, we are offered an education in ethical and political self-governance, one that prompts citizens to challenge all claims to authority, including those of philosophy. |
Contents
Learning to Read | 1 |
1 Reading Plato | 19 |
The Measure of Truth | 50 |
3 A Life without Poetry | 81 |
4 The Power of Persuasion | 111 |
The Work of Desire | 141 |
Making Sense of Logos | 172 |
Poetic Justice | 210 |
| 227 | |
| 243 | |
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Adeimantus Agathon's aisthēsis Alcibiades analogy and/or Apollodorus Arendt argues argument Aristodemus Athenian Athens authority Berger brothers calculative rationality Cephalus characters claims constitution contrivance deception Democracy democratic depicted desire dialogue's Diotima discussed in chapter dunamis earlier early education Eleatic erōs Eryximachus ethical and political Euclides euētheia Glaucon guardians Halliwell Hippias Minor ideal city images imitation injustice insofar interlocutors justice kallipolis knowledge ladder of love laws learning to read listen logistikon logos mimēsis mimetic poetry mode noted oriented paideia Parmenides Perils of Uglytown persuasion Phaedrus philosopher philosopher-kings Philosopher's Song Plato Plato's dialogues Plato's Republic poetic poetry's poets poikilia Polemarchus practice prompt Protagoras question readers reference Republic's Rhetoric rule rulers saw in chapter scholars seeks Simonides Socrates asks Socrates calls Socrates describes Socrates offers Socrates puts Socrates says Sophist soul speak speech Symposium Theaetetus Theuth Thrasymachus tion true true lies truth tyranny tyrant verbal falsehoods wonder words writing