Plato. The Republic

Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, GMAT, and AP English Test Preparation.INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS
The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the
Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to
modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or
Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly
drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of
higher excellence. But no other Dialogue of Plato has the same largeness of view
and the same perfection of style; no other shows an equal knowledge of the
world, or contains more of those thoughts which are new as well as old, and not
of one age only but of all. Nowhere in Plato is there a deeper irony or a greater
wealth of humour or imagery, or more dramatic power. Nor in any other of his
writings is the attempt made to interweave life and speculation, or to connect
politics with philosophy. The Republic is the centre around which the other
Dialogues may be grouped; here philosophy reaches the highest point (cp,
especially in Books V, VI, VII) to which ancient thinkers ever attained. Plato
among the Greeks, like Bacon among the moderns, was the first who conceived a
method of knowledge, although neither of them always distinguished the bare
outline or form from the substance of truth; and both of them had to be content
with an abstraction of science which was not yet realized. He was the greatest
metaphysical genius whom the world has seen; and in him, more than in any