Plato's Republic: A Dialogue in Sixteen Chapters

Alain Badiou

Published by Columbia University Press 2013

Plato's Republic

A Dialogue in Sixteen Chapters

Alain Badiou
With contributions by: Kenneth Reinhard
Translated by: Susan Spitzer

https://doi.org/10.7312/badi16016

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this innovative reimagining of Plato's Republic, one of philosophy's best known texts, Alain Badiou removes all references specific to ancient Greek society and modernizes the work's cultural ties. Socrates and his companions are now joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others, demonstrating that true philosophy endures, always ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Badiou's interlocutors also do much more than merely agree with Socrates. They challenge him and put him on the spot, recreating the thrill of thought and debate in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own time.

Author / Editor information

Alain Badiou is emeritus professor of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. One of the most well-known philosophers of our time, he is also a novelist, playwright, and political activist. He is the author of The Incident at Antioch/L'Incident d'Antioche: A Tragedy in Three Acts/Tragédie en trois actes.

Kenneth Reinhard is associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the coauthor of The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology and After Oedipus: Shakespeare in Psychoanalysis.

Susan Spitzer is a frequent translator of Badiou's works, most recently, Five Lessons on Wagner, and the play, The Incident at Antioch.

Reviews

Daniel Tutt:

What Badiou's translation of Plato leaves us with is a resounding passion for the truth. It leaves us with a rare sense that politics can once again be associated with courage and justice, and that we have an agency at our disposal that comes in the passionate work of bringing the idea of equality (communism) into existence.

John Vignaux Smyth:

[An] amusing, erudite, and intelligent book.

A must read for students of Badiou.

A highly entertaining intellectual exercise.

A lively rendering.... Those familiar with Plato's Republic will still hear Plato's voice in this engaging rendition.

Slavoj ¿i¿ek, author of Living in the End:

Badiou's translation of Plato follows the ancient habit of pre-copyright times: it freely changes the original to make it fit contemporary conditions. So instead of sophists, we get corrupted journalists; instead of soul, we get the subject; and instead of Plato's critique of democracy, we get... well, a critique of today's democracy. The result is a resounding triumph: Plato comes fully alive as our contemporary, as someone who directly addresses our issues. This, not aseptic scholarly work, is the mark of true fidelity to our past.

Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research:

Here is something really remarkable: a complete reimagining of the founding text of philosophy. This book calls itself a hyper-translation, but it is also a repetition with a difference: an utterly contemporary transposition—and even sublimation—of Plato's Republic. It is always our task to breathe life into the ancients. They feed on our blood. Badiou shows himself a master of vampirism.

Eleanor Kaufman, University of California, Los Angeles:

The hypertranslation serves on one level as a readable rewriting of one of Plato's most significant texts while on another it serves as a novel articulation of Badiou's consistent interests and sources of inspiration.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Badiou’s Sublime Translation of the Republic Kenneth Reinhard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Translator’s Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxiv
Author’s Preface to The English Edition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxix
Preface How I Came to Write This Unclassifi able Book Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxxi
Characters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xxxvi
Prologue The Conversation in the Villa on the Harbor (327a–336b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Reducing the Sophist to Silence (336b–357a) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
2. The Young People’s Pressing Questions (357a–368d) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
3. The Origins of Society and the State (368d–376c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
4. The Disciplines of the Mind Literature and Music (376c–403c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
5. The Disciplines of the Body Nutrition, Medicine, and Physical Education (403c–412c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
6. Objective Justice (412c–434d) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	106
7. Subjective Justice (434d–449a) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
8. Women and Families (449a–471c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
9. What Is a Philosopher? (471c–484b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
10. Philosophy and Politics (484b–502c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
11. What Is an Idea? (502c–521c) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
12. From Mathematics to the Dialectic (521c–541b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	224
13. Critique of the Four Pre-Communist Systems of Government I: Timocracy and Oligarchy (541b–555b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
14. Critique of the Four Pre-Communist Systems of Government II: Democracy and Tyranny (555b–573b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
15. Justice and Happiness (573b–592b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
16. Poetry and Thought (592b–608b) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	316
Epilogue The Mobile Eternity of Subjects (608b–621d) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	368
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	371

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 400

eBook

Published: January 22, 2013
ISBN: 9780231500654