Review by Choice Review
Blackburn (Cambridge) offers an excellent little book that could better be titled an Autobiography. He confesses that he was never seduced by Socrates' muse, and his reluctant personal confrontation with Republic keeps him scathingly honest about the philosophic strengths and weaknesses of Plato's masterpiece, whose history and reception he traces from antiquity to the present. Greek scholars weaned on Julia Annas's more scholarly An Introduction to Plato's Republic (CH, Dec'81) will love Blackburn for his straight talk about Platonic ethical and epistemological problems, cashed out in contemporary parallels. Philosophers of more general bent will appreciate Blackburn's broad scope of reference--from Shelley to Shorey, Wordsworth to Whitehead. Nonphilosophers will find all the reasons they simply cannot ignore Plato. Blackburn works with broad strokes through each book of Republic. His recurrent theme of Plato's banishment of artists yields probing questions about the role of entertainment and illusion, not just in education and morality, but also in human life. Less satisfying but still illuminating are three alternative interpretations of the allegory of the cave. Blackburn brilliantly lumps George Bush with the Athenian pragmatists who coldly destroyed the island of Melos (in 416 BCE)--examples of Plato's perennial challenge. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers. P. W. Wakefield Emory University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
"A premier name in philosophy, Blackburn candidly expresses diffidence toward Plato's Republic. His objections are partly technical--Blackburn condemns its theory of knowledge as a disaster --but he acknowledges the work's staying power in the Western canon. His essay, an installment in the publisher's Books That Changed the World series, dispenses with The Republic's influence through history, instead directly tackling its main ideas. Reductively, they are about the origin and nature of morality and happiness, which Blackburn, unmoved by the dramatic dialogues in which they are examined, reduces to essentials. He traces how the Socrates in The Republic, challenged by foils who assert that morality arises from power and social convention, proceeds by analogy to compare the well-ordered person with an ideal well-ordered state. Blackburn's analytical breakdown of Plato's utopia, the transcendental and totalitarian overtones of which have annealed rapture and notoriety to The Republic, leads him to regard Plato as, if not always right, always asking the right questions about how to live. An animated and precise précis."--"Taylor, Gilbert" Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this critical but judicious study, Blackburn (Truth: A Guide) regards what's considered the greatest of Plato's Socratic dialogues as "the foodstuff of unintelligent fundamentalisms." Hitler, totalitarianism and neoconservatism can't be blamed solely on "time and circumstance, land, food, guns, and money, the economic and social forces," he argues, so it may be that Socrates' utopian republic, ruled by philosopher-kings, may also have influenced the world in the worst possible way. Blackburn explores the themes that support such an argument, from Socrates' defense of the right of armies to conquer and colonize, to his extolling the benefits of a caste system. Although Blackburn--a philosopher at the University of Cambridge who identifies more closely with Aristotle--admits that he "had never felt Plato to be a particularly congenial author," he presents a clear and sympathetic synthesis of approaches to the famous Myth of the Cave, and gives the Platonist defenders their due. He finishes by making the case that the most critical reading of the book may be the best defense against its insidious influences. Hardly a ringing endorsement, Blackburn's book is a provocative companion to an essential text. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Blackburn (philosophy, Univ. of Cambridge; The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy) provides an elegant and accessible overview of Plato's political and ethical theory as reflected in The Republic, the Greek philosopher's seminal fourth-century B.C.E. text. Taking a thematic approach to its concerns-e.g., analogy, elitism, disorder within a city-Blackburn discusses each idea in light of larger Platonic thought as well as the treatment these ideas have met throughout the past 2300 years in the work of later philosophers. The book is jargon-free and presented developmentally; it is balanced and popular in tone but does not gloss over nuances important to the understanding of the ideas expounded in the original text. Suitable reading for undergraduates in any discipline and a welcome accompaniment for those autodidacts looking for a frame of reference for Plato's work.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Plato's most influential text gets a going-over in the latest addition to Atlantic's Books That Changed the World series. Blackburn (Philosophy/Cambridge; Lust, 2004, etc.) summarizes the Greek philosopher's principal arguments and considers their contemporary relevance. He begins by undercutting Alfred North Whitehead's famous statement that all European philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, then moves to clarify the distinction between the "worldly" Aristotelian view and the "other-worldly" Platonic value system. These and other introductory matters (including some historical background) out of the way, the author launches into his exegesis, examining closely Plato's views on might and right, on ruling elites, reason and passion, knowledge and belief. After a chapter on Republic's best-known portion, the Myth of the Cave, Blackburn devotes his most compelling and significant pages to examining how three traditions have employed this famous allegory. Christians folded its ideas into their own theology and expelled Plato. Poets like Wordsworth and Shelley saw the allegory's enormous metaphorical and spiritual richness. Mathematicians and scientists were perhaps those whom Plato had in mind all along, for Blackburn notes that they alone understand "the unchanging within the changing" that lies at the heart of the parable. The author reluctantly leaves the cave and looks at Plato's "descending staircase" of political systems, with the philosopher-kings occupying the summit and absolute dictators lurking in the pits. Here and throughout Blackburn is forthright about his own political views. He repeatedly bashes Bush, Blair and neo-conservatives; he grieves that we are in the grip of a new oligarchy of the wealthy, who control the media and thus the ballot box. His final chapters deal with Plato's silly dismissal of painters and poets and with the "charming, and poetic" Farewell Myth of Er. Rigorous and humble, admiring and dismissive--a clear and accessible introduction to philosophy's first superstar. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
