Panta prattein. Socrate e il bene nella Repubblica

Abstract

The article is the shortened written version of a speech that the author has had the honour to give, together with Enrico Berti, Aldo Brancacci and Bruno Centrone, on the occasion of the presentation of Platone, La Repubblica, Traduzione e commento, 7 voll. A cura di Mario Vegetti, Bibliopolis, Napoli 1998-2007, February 5, 2009, at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome. First, attention is drawn to the strangeness (atopia) which Plato’s Republic has had not only for Plato’s contemporaries, but also for us. This strangeness consists for us not only in the famous three “waves”, but also in the fact that Plato’s Republic does not allow for a plurality of philosophical opinions, but enforces one true philosophy (philosophia alethe) or one conception of the Good to all citizens. The platonic Republic describes not only a state, but also a kind of pre-Christian church. Second, attention is drawn to the fact that the Socratic principle that every soul does everything for the Good (panta prattei) can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good or goes at all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the platonic Socrates in the Republic, an intellectualistic one for whom irrational desires do not exist or a Socrates who accepts also irrational desires. Finally, I draw attention to the laughter after Socrates’ claim that the Good is even “beyond being”. Who is laughing about whom, Glaucon about Socrates, or Socrates about Glaucon, or perhaps Plato about himself?