ABSTRACT
Plato's The Republic examines an extraordinary range of questions in ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Written in the form of a dialogue, The Republic is considered by many to be Plato's most important text; it is the first time a Western thinker attempts to set out a comprehensive political vision of a just society. The Republic aims to explain the true nature of justice in both the individual and the city-state. The breadth and sophistication of the discussions in The Republic are unlike any philosophical examinations of the machinery of the political community that came before. The work's characters chisel away at issues that are still part of important cultural and political debates in the twenty-first century, such as: the rule of law, the status of human rights, and education theory and its importance to the development of a flourishing society.
