Cooperative Flourishing in Plato¿s 'Republic'

<p>In this pathbreaking interpretation of Plato’s foundational text of political philosophy, Carolina Araújo reveals how the <i>Republic</i> remains ripe for an interpretation grounded in notions of cooperation, flourishing and justice relevant to the diversity of contemporary life.<br><br> Plato’s <i>Republic </i>has the Greek name of <i>Politeia</i> that Araújo translates as “the way of life of the citizens,” not “the State” or “the form of government” as it more traditionally rendered. Plato’s treatise, <i>Politeia</i>, depicts the rich array of patterns emerging from human interaction and enquires into the best amongst them. <i>Cooperative Flourishing in Plato’s Republic</i> returns to these important questions about society – how to live with a vast diversity of personalities, with different interests and abilities, all of them trying to flourish – and asks how best can we share our environment? With rigorous philosophical analysis of the Greek text, accompanied by original translations of the most important passages, Araújo upends mainstream scholarship to progress Socrates’ “bottom-up” view of politics and rejects previous readings of the <i>Republic</i> as a proto-totalitarian text, psychological study or lengthy analogy.<br><br> By defending a theory of Platonic justice that is rooted in cooperative flourishing, the public education of all citizens and the contribution of philosophers to political life, “the beautiful city”, which Plato called <i>Kallipolis</i>, emerges as a hopeful possibility.</p>