Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's "Republic" (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 483 the facing page, it ought to become the standard English Phaedrus. Rowe rightly resists overdetermining the translation of key words (as when translating ~.~a as "form" at 273e2 and elsewhere) that in some contexts have a "technical" meaning. Putting aside relatively minor quibbles (e.g., the translation of "techne" at a75c5, 276e6 and elsewhere as "science"), I find the translation graceful, accurate, and often pleasingly colloquial (e.g., FIok~ XQvo~ov at 228a4 is "a stack of money"). Like Brisson, Rowe explicitly aims his volume to the Greekless and more or less beginning reader. The eighteen-page introduction and eighty-two pages of notes (constituting the "commentary ") will be helpful for that audience, but also to experienced students of the dialogue . For the most part, the introduction and notes are of necessity limited to sketching an interpretation of the dialogue. (Rowe has elsewhere set out his views in greater detail; see for example his exchange with M. Heath in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 7 [1989]: 15x-91.) Nevertheless, some of the discussion in the notes of specific passages is reasonably detailed and substantive. In a different context (one that permitted consideration of Rowe's other writings on the Phaedrus) I would quarrel with his interpretation of 274b3- 7 (the transition from the question of speaking to that of writing/s at issue). On the other hand, I applaud his recognition (in the note to 278b7) of the fact that the critique of writing should be taken to apply (with suitable restrictions , 1 would add) to Plato's dialogues themselves, so that the Phaedrus supplies us with an interestingly complex self-commentary on Plato's part (as Rowe suggests on p. lo). If the Phaedrus's "tone is light, ironic and playful virtually throughout" (Rowe, p. 1o), the dialogue's breadth, depth, indeed seriousness are astonishing. No doubt many more readers will look into the Phaedrus as into a mirror and, catching a glimpse of a soul completed, be moved to bring to light interpretations of their own. In doing so, a decade's patient labors by their predecessors will stand ready to help deliver. CHARLES L. GRISWOLD, JR. Howard University and The Woodrow Wilson Centerfor Scholars, Washington, D.C. C. D. C. Reeve. Philosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato's "Republic." Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. xv + 35o. $35.oo. In successive chapters of this excellent study, after one devoted to "A Problem about Justice" raised in Republic, Books 1 and 2, Professor Reeve offers detailed accounts of the epistemology and metaphysics, the psychology, the politics, and the ethics of the Republic. The sweep is impressive; even more so is the coherence and close integration of his interpretation. Add to this Reeve's familiarity with and responses to most of the recent critical literature on the Republic and we have a book which is a must for any serious student of Plato. Reeve's interpretation is self-consciously unorthodox. He cites four "myths" he claims to have proven false: (1) that the Republic is disunified; (2) that it is "vitiated by equivocation"; (3) that its epistemology and metaphysics are essentially the same as in 484 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 2913 JULY 1991 other Middle Plato dialogues (e.g., Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus); (4) that it preaches totalitarianism (xi-xii). He successfully shows the characterizations of disunity and equivocation to be false; he is less successful in showing that the Republic is not Middle Plato and not totalitarian, undoubtedly because these are not false "myths," but at least partial truths. (1) Reeve's interpretation is built on a particularly fruitful passage in Book 9--the differentiation of three sorts of individual: the lover of money, of honor, and of knowledge (the philosopher) (Republic 581c). Reeve brilliantly constructs a reading of the entire work from this germ. The satisfaction of the desires of each sort of individual (who embodies one-third of the tripartite soul) provides different sorts of happiness based upon the different sort of pleasure each feels. Satisfaction depends upon each following a cognitive method aimed at achieving what each perceives as his or her good. For the philosopher this is dialectic directed toward...