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  • 6 - Degenerate regimes in Plato's Republic

  • Edited by Mark L. McPherran, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
  • Book:
    Plato's 'Republic'
    Published online:
    04 February 2011
    Print publication:
    25 November 2010, pp 103-131

  • Summary

    This chapter concerns the negative end of the political argument of the Republic. According to the political philosophy presented in the Republic and the Laws, one's political standard ultimately determines the practical choices one makes about political institutions and laws. The political turmoil of the late fifth and early fourth centuries clearly lies in the background of Plato's Republic. The chapter overviews the system of degenerate regimes in Book 8 and examines what exactly goes wrong with them and why. It explains how the process of degeneration ought to be understood as the progressive decay of the rule of reason. The chapter shows how the central contrast between the rule of reason and the rule of appetite is prefigured in earlier and less systematic parts of the Republic: the Ship of State image and the argument with Thrasymachus in Book 1.