The Republic

To what extent must a functioning state be hierarchal?

Respond using ideas from The Republic to the clam that the purpose of an education system is to create good citizens not free thinkers.

Respond using ideas from The Republic to the claim that having kings become philosophers is more plausible than philosophers becoming kings.

To what extent is Socrates’ ideal community an extended metaphor for the human mind? Are readers meant to take his political opinions at face value?

Socrates argues that poets and artists should effectively be banned from the ideal community. Do you agree?

Discuss Socrates’ view of democracy expressed in The Republic. Do you agree with this assessment? Does he undervalue democratic ideals?

Is intoxication always incompatible with the pursuit of truth?

How does Socrates’ conception of the afterlife inform his idea of morality and the good? Does it undermine his effort to show that morality should be pursue for its own sake?