Plato's Republic: the Divided Line and the Cave

Reading order

1. 1
   RepublicBook

   Plato, fourth century BCE (Jowett translation)

   Read the whole dialogue once before the commentaries — it is shorter than its reputation.

2. 2
   An Introduction to Plato's RepublicBook

   Julia Annas, Oxford University Press, 1981

   Annas as the orienting reading. Chapters 1–3 will give you the shape of the dialogue.

3. 3
   Republic VI: The Divided Line (509d–511e)Paper

   Plato, fourth century BCE

   Now read the divided line passage alone. Take an hour. The proportion is the argument.

4. 4
   Republic VII: The Allegory of the Cave (514a–520a)Paper

   Plato, fourth century BCE

   And the cave, similarly. Read it alongside the line — the two figures answer each other.

5. 5
   City and Soul in Plato’s RepublicBook

   G. R. F. Ferrari, University of Chicago Press, 2003

   Ferrari for the way the central books fit into the dialogue's larger argument about the soul.

6. 6
   The Cambridge Companion to Plato — chapters on the RepublicBook

   ed. Richard Kraut, Cambridge University Press, 1992

   Cooper and Reeve in the Cambridge Companion for two distinct twentieth-century readings of the line.

7. 7
   Plato on the Self-Predication of FormsBook

   John Malcolm, Oxford University Press, 1991

   Malcolm only if you wish to follow the question into Plato's later metaphysics — the technical reading.