The severe difficulties of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel's Phenomenology, or Wittgenstein's Tractatus lie forbiddingly on the surface. With the possible exception of sections from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, the same cannot be said for other philosophical masterworks. Although befuddled by, say, the divided line, the beginning student can still read the dialogue with pleasure and profit. The Republic, whose philosophical richness and complexity are undeniable, is nonetheless uniquely accessible. These autobiographical details are worth noting because even if what they report is common, it is nonetheless startling: Plato's greatest dialogue can be successfully taught both to beginners and to sophisticated students. The next spring, I worked through it with graduate students. During the fall semester of 1995, I taught Plato's Republic to a class of freshmen.
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