Contemporary philosophers still wrestle mightily with Plato’s Republic. A common reading has it that in the Republic, Plato’s character Socrates defends a conception of justice according to which reason should rule the soul and philosophers should rule the city. On all accounts, the Republic is centrally concerned with the question of what philosophers are and how they come to be. A standard reading contends that the multiple discussions in the Republic of the nature of the philosopher all aim to depict the very same kind of creature.

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