In chapter three we turn to Glaucon and Adeimantus who, appealing to a contractarian method of investigation, conclude that justice emerges from an agreement between parties not to harm one another. In chapter two, he describes how Thrasymachus, using an empirically-informed method, argues that justice is the interest of the rulers. Santas presents the Republic as a dialogue between three different accounts of justice. In what follows, I will offer a brief overview of Understanding Plato's Republic and then will look at two passages where Santas's silence is most problematic, given his aim of explaining the Republic's arguments about the nature and value of justice. In particular, I worry that Santas omits any meaningful discussion of passages that are, I think, fundamental to understanding the central claims of the Republic and, consequently, of the Republic as a whole. While I quite appreciated that element of the book, I have reservations about the exegetical component.

Indeed it is this last thing - Santas's critical engagement with the text and emphasis on getting the reader involved in its debates and arguments - that is the real strength of this book. The result is a book that gives its readers some grounding in the basic threads of argument in the Republic while also encouraging and empowering them to engage the text and see the arguments as making philosophical claims that are still relevant and worthy of our consideration today. Santas divides his attention between offering a text-based exegesis of Plato's arguments regarding justice and critically engaging in the text in a way that is highly informed by the works of other, more contemporary, thinkers. In his preface, Santas states that the Republic is 'a book that is always contemporary,' and this sentiment carries through in the focus and method of his book. He does this, though, through a particular methodological lens. In his book, Gerasimos Santas aims to help the reader better understand the Republic by focusing on its central argument - that we are better off just than unjust. This is, to be sure, a daunting task, particularly for readers who are approaching the dialogue for the first time. Readers must make sense not only of those issues in their own right but they must also understand them in relation to the larger themes and arguments of the work. There are any number of reasons for this, but one of them is the sheer breadth of topics and issues that Plato introduces over the course of the dialogue. It is also devilishly difficult to truly understand. The Republic is undoubtedly one of Plato's masterworks and one of the most influential and widely read books in the history of philosophy.

The republic book