Plato's Republic occupiesa central place in the study of politicalphilosophy. From antiquity down to the present day,it has remained one of the most frequently read,taught, and interpreted books in the philosophicalcanon. It is therefore both perplexing andunfortunate that the greatest medieval commentary onthe work remains so little studied. Averroes'sCommentary on Plato's“Republic” provides a worthy subject forthe present anthology, which, as far as we know,represents the first scholarly collection of itskind.

Averroes was by no means the first of the Muslimsfalāsifa to studythe Republic. Inspiredby Alfarabi's claim that Platonic philosophy was thetrue philosophy, generations of medieval Islamicfalāsifa strove tounderstand and expound the Republic. But Averroes alone hasbequeathed a full-blown commentary on Plato's mostfamous work. Even Alfarabi, who made such frequentand profitable use of Plato, has left us acommentary only on Plato's Laws. So while Averroes's Commentary on Plato's“Republic” clearly shows the influence ofhis predecessors, most notably Alfarabi and IbnBajja, it takes the project of commenting on Plato astep further. At the same time, Averroes'sinimitable creation is far from being a simplecommentary. It is divided into three treatises, thefirst corresponding roughly to books 1–5 of theRepublic, the secondto 6–7, and the third to 8–10. But in no case doesAverroes simply replicate Plato's argument, withoutsome additions, subtractions, or changes of his own.Most dramatically, Averroes omits many of the mostmemorable passages of the Republic, such as the opening discussionof justice, the divided line, and the Myth of Er. Healso adds a wide variety of arguments for which onelooks in vain in Plato, including a digression ofsome fifteen pages in the center of the work and anoriginal account of the nonvirtuous regimes. Some ofthese insertions may be traced to Aristotle andAlfarabi, but others appear to be Averroes'sown.

Averroes's Uncertain Knowledge of Plato

Averroes's deviations from the original text of theRepublic, combinedwith the puzzling absence of any medieval Arabictranslations of the dialogue or any unimpeachabletestimony to their existence, has understandably ledsome scholars to doubt his access to the dialogue,at least in the form that it has come down tous.