[...]... neither there nor in the Timaeus do we find the Idea of the Good The Idea of the Good, we are told, stands in relation to the other Ideas as the sun does in relation to the visible and living things around us; as the sun is the source of their life and visibility, so is the Idea of the Good the source both of the existence and of the intelligibility of the Ideas.2 They derive from it, and are to be understood... education of the Guardians seems to be a programme of the studies that were to be pursued there ' ;5 the Idea of the Good, on the other hand, he assigns to the influence not of Socrates but of Euclides of Megara.6 However, the view of these two scholars that a major portion of Plato' s positive philosophy (in particular the Theory of Forms and the metaphysics of the soul) can be assigned to Socrates has met... outside the Republic there are two passages in Plato which help to point to a correct view, one earlier than the Republic and one later, viz Phaedo 97 B ff and Timaeus 28 A ff The former is also relevant to the simile of the line in its use of the notion of hypothesis.1 But the conception of teleological explanation in the Phaedo does not go as far as the Republic, and neither there nor in the Timaeus... of Plato' s attitude to the Forms.3 5 THE BACKGROUND TO THE 'REPUBLIC' We must on the whole count it prudent of Adam that he scarcely committed himself at all on the controversial questions of Platonic chronology: on the one hand there remain matters which are still today in dispute, and on the other the whole range of issues was at the beginning of the century in a more fluid state than it is now The. .. Burnet's text of the Republic, ibid, xvi (1902), 215-19 xvi INTRODUCTION chapters I have made much use of MS notes for lectures by my husband.' Two essays in The Vitality of Platonism and Other Essays (ed A M Adam, 1911) touch upon Plato and, among other works, upon the Republic, ' The Vitality of Platonism' and ' The Doctrine of the Celestial Origin of the Soul from Pindar to Plato' ; the latter Adam had... Murphy, 'The "Simile of Light" in Plato' s Republic' , Class Quart, xxvi (1932), 93-102; Idem, 'Back to the Cave', Class Quart, xxvm (1934), 211-13; Idem, The Interpretation of Plato' s Republic (1951), ch 8; P Shorey, What Plato Said (1933), pp 230-5; Idem, Introduction to vol 11 of edition of the Republic (Loeb series, 1935); J A Notopoulos, 'The Meaning of ecKaala in the Divided Line of Plato' s Republic' ,... But the correctness or incorrectness of Adam's more controversial theses of interpretation, as on the objects of mathematical study and the subject-matter of astronomy, or the astronomy of the myth of Er (let alone the 'nuptial number' of Book VIII), will not, I think, be in any way affected by the maintenance of any chronological ordering among the dialogues that is at all plausible 1 2 3 4 'Plato' s... seems to minimize the sharp gap for Plato between the sensible and the intelligible when he discusses the applicability of mathematics to the sensible world,6 and, somewhat similarly, when he appears to suggest that the Idea of the Good provides an explanation and justification of the totality of things, i.e the framework for a kind of theodicy with an impersonal Good in the place of a personal God.7... on the nature of the Platonic Forms or Ideas he found himself in sharp disagreement with some of the most influential expositions of his day, and in particular with those of Bernard Bosanquet (A Companion to Plato' s Republic, 1895)2 and R L Nettleship (Lectures on the Republic of Plato, posthumous, 1897).3 Students and admirers as they were of the critical philosophy the transcendental idealism of. .. for the study of Plato' s philosophy attaches, for instance, to the treatment of the soul in Book iv, studied by F M Cornford ('Psychology and Social Structure in the Republic of Plato' , Class Quart, vi (1912), 246-65, and 'The Division of the Soul', Hibbert J xxvm (1929-30), 206-19); R Hackforth ( 'The Modification of Plan in Plato' s Republic' , Class Quart, vn (1913), 26572); J L Stocks (' Plato and the . means of a commentary. In one sense of the term, indeed, there can never be a definitive or final interpretation of the Republic, for the Republic is one of those. claim the right to interpret the fountain-head of idealism for themselves, in the light of their own experience and needs. But in another sense of the word,