ABSTRACT
Later ancient editors, not Plato himself, divided the Republic into ten parts, and the divisions are largely arbitrary. But in the case of Book 1, the editors were responding to a real feature of the text, for in every way Book 1 stands apart from the books that follow. Even the conclusions that Socrates reaches play only an indirect part in the rest of the Republic. The abrupt transition to Book 2 raises fundamental questions about the origin and purpose of Book 1, hence about the spirit in which its conclusions should be taken.
Book 1 places Socrates in a highly realized setting, with characters who stand out as definite personalities; they sit and get up, sweat and blush, wave their arms. Some speak elliptically and others hyperbolically, but each one seems to say what he really thinks. Socrates in turn treats each one differently, starting with the individual's particular claims about justice and tangling the man in contradictions. He offers very few doctrines of his own (336b-337e), and Book 1 closes with little in the way of fixed and satisfying conclusions.
