Book · -375
The Republic
by Plato
A 2,400-year-old Athenian asks why anyone would choose justice over injustice, then spends 400 pages building a city to answer the question.
What does Reddit think of The Republic?
Activity peaked at 11 mentions each in 2020 and 2024, which tracks with the book's perennial use as a gateway assignment. The core draw, per the ↑130 thread, is Adeimantus's provocation starting at 366b: why be just if injustice pays equally well? Glaucon's Ring of Gyges thought experiment (↑46) gets cited constantly as the founding move of Western ethics. The ↑42 thread shows the disputes: people routinely misread the city-in-speech as a political blueprint when commenters argue it's a paradigm for the public good, not a utopia to install. Book 1's Cephalus on old age and desire drew the ↑89 thread in r/philosophy.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Justice and why anyone should choose it
- · The Ring of Gyges and moral motivation
- · The city-in-speech as ethical paradigm vs. political blueprint
- · Desire, reason, and the tripartite soul
- · Old age, pleasure, and freedom from appetite
- · Philosopher-kings and the problem of political power
Common praise
- + The Glaucon/Adeimantus challenge at 366b lands as a genuine gut-punch that most contemporary ethics books never recover from.
- + r/askphilosophy commenters consistently point new readers here because almost every subsequent argument in Western philosophy is made against this backdrop.
- + The Cephalus passage on desire and aging (↑89 in r/philosophy) holds up as one of the most honest opening moves in any philosophical dialogue.
- + The Ring of Gyges section gives beginners a concrete, repeatable thought experiment rather than abstract axioms.
Common criticism
- − The city-in-speech gets misread as a literal political program by a significant slice of readers — the ↑42 thread exists largely to correct this error.
- − At 55 total mentions over 7 years across three philosophy-heavy subs, this isn't a book people recommend casually; it's assigned, not chosen.
- − The Stephanus numbers (366b, Book 1, etc.) mean the text demands an annotated edition — the Penguin translation alone leaves too many threads dangling.
- − r/Stoicism discussions (11 mentions) use it mostly as backdrop for Stoic comparisons, which suggests it's more quarried for passages than read through.
Who it's for
Read this if you've encountered a philosophy argument that traces back to 'but why be good at all?' and want to see where that question was first taken seriously. If your interest is Stoicism, r/Stoicism's 11 mentions mostly treat the Republic as context for Marcus Aurelius and Seneca rather than the main event — start here for the foundation, not the destination. Undergrads who want to skip it will find that r/askphilosophy commenters won't let them: 36 mentions in that sub, and a large share are redirecting people back to Glaucon's challenge. Get the annotated Penguin or the Grube/Reeve translation. Reading it without notes is how the city-in-speech misreading happens.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Republic?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“There is a really incredible passage from Plato's Republic that deals with this exact thing. Starting at 366b or so. The republic is really all about this single question. Adeimantus (strongly) asks "why be just/good if I justice serves just as well?" After another character in the republic gave …
“In Book 1 of Plato's Republic, the character Cephalus talks about how old age allows him to be free of certain desires that are popular amongst the youth. This includes partying, drinking, and other forms of fun pleasure. Many others, however, still feel desire and an anxiety to pursue these pleasur…
“I have to recommend Miguel de Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life. He's funky and not at all a starter philosopher but he is apparently very beautiful and poetic in the original Spanish. Otherwise, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine's Confessions, Blaise Pascal's Pensees, D…
“I would not personally start with Sartre. He is an important and interesting author. But, out of the stuff you have listed, him and Heidegger prpbably have the steepest learning curve and require a LOT of context. Plato's republic is an excellent read and most modern translations are quite accesib…
“The basic question "Why be good or just?" was raised in Plato's Republic. I recommend looking up Glaucon and the Ring of Gyges to find how this question was originally posed. It's pretty common in philosophy to make reference back to this discussion in framing their issues. With respect to giving …
“"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it." Marcus Aurelius...and yet the Stoics while actually in power, made all sorts of pragmatic, outcome oriented decisions (see: Seneca). Cato refused to bend or compromise and it, in part, contributed to Rome's Civil War. A generation l…
“I think you are completely misreading the Republic. Without going into too much detail, the city-in-speech is a city that is organized entirely with a view to the public good, as opposed to the private. It is intended to serve as a paradigm for the public good. As such, it reveals the primary sou…
“If you're interested in reading a novel that provides an introduction to philosophy you can try *Sophie's World*-- the book is sort of aimed at your age group. A good choice for an introduction for a general reader might be Julian Baggini's *The Pig that Wants to be Eaten*. Another one might be som…
Convinced? Pick up The Republic
What else does r/askphilosophy read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant
Kant's 1781 attempt to settle the limits of human knowledge — the book that split philosophy in two and still hasn't been fully digested.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
A 1942 essay that opens with the question of whether life is worth living and ends by insisting Sisyphus is happy.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein built a numbered ladder from logical atomism to the inexpressible, then said the ladder had to be discarded once you climbed it.
Being and Time
Martin Heidegger
Heidegger's argument that human existence only gets its meaning from death — 162 Reddit mentions, mostly from people explaining why it's so hard to read.
Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle
Aristotle's 2,400-year-old argument that living well depends on virtue, leisure, and the company you keep — still the canonical text for the field.
Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche dismantles the moral framework Western civilization built on, then refuses to tell you what to replace it with.
The Republic — frequently asked
Is Plato's Republic actually a political treatise or something else?+
Depends on who you ask, but r/askphilosophy's ↑42 thread argues firmly that the city-in-speech is a paradigm for the public good, not a governance manual. The persistent misreading — treating it as a utopian blueprint — comes up enough that multiple commenters have written correction threads. The political surface is a vehicle for an ethics argument about justice and the soul.
Where should I start if I'm reading The Republic of Plato for the first time?+
Go straight to Book 1 for the Cephalus scene (the ↑89 r/philosophy thread walks through why it works), then don't skip Glaucon's Ring of Gyges challenge around 366b — the ↑46 and ↑130 threads in r/askphilosophy both flag it as the hinge the whole argument turns on. An annotated edition will save you from losing the thread on the city-in-speech sections.
What does Reddit actually argue about in threads on The Republic of Plato?+
Mostly the correct interpretation of the city-in-speech (is it prescriptive or illustrative?) and whether Adeimantus's challenge at 366b is ever genuinely answered. The 55 total mentions skew heavily toward r/askphilosophy (36), where the debates are most pointed.
Should I read The Republic of Plato before diving into Stoic philosophy?+
It helps but isn't required. R/Stoicism's 11 mentions treat it as background context — commenters reference it when discussing Seneca's pragmatism or Marcus Aurelius's political decisions, but nobody in that sub treats it as a prerequisite. If your goal is Stoicism, you can pick it up after; if your goal is philosophy broadly, read it first.