Are there some good ressources that help with the republic?
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
>>7892728
Yes, there are thankfully plenty.
To start with, here's a .rar I posted up on MEGA that contains lots of commentaries, essays, translations, and other resources for the Republic specifically. (The file's about 180 mb, just to warn.)
https://mega.nz/#!KU5lDJoA!Ol1zX1V-I5fhAQ4F5dAALmhgYcqMmZq3q_4A230akgA
There's an excellent lecture available by Leo Strauss on the Republic, and it focuses on a lot of details you'd otherwise completely miss.
https://leostrausscenter.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/Republic1957.pdf
Here are a few posts from a very good blog commenting on passages from the Republic. The first is part of a small series, the second is a stand alone.
http://www.ashokkarra.com/2007/03/on-polemarchus-commentary-on-the-republic-of-plato-331d-336a-part-1/
http://www.ashokkarra.com/2011/08/notes-on-statues-or-sculpture-in-platos-republic/
>>7893130
Further, all of the issues of the political philosophy journal Interpretation are available online, and the essays on the Republic in it are excellent. (Just search for "Republic" on the page to find the relevant issues.)
http://www.interpretationjournal.com/backissues.php
St. John's College also has a pretty good journal collecting the essays and lectures of their professors and associates called the St. John's Review. There are only a few issues that deal with the Republic, so I'll link to them all, but the first issue I link to is devoted entirely to the Republic, and contains a brilliant study of it by Eva Brann that is necessary reading for the student of the Republic.
http://www.sjc.edu/files/4413/9657/8568/sjc_review_vol39_no1-2_1989-1990.pdf
http://www.sjc.edu/files/6413/9657/8694/sjc_review_vol37_no1_1986.pdf
http://www.sjc.edu/files/9113/9657/8291/sjc_review_vol43_no2_1996.pdf
Remember this.
>>7892728
Try reading Bloom's translation, with his copious endnotes and excellent interpretive essay.
Slightly related question: if I'm struggling to understand some parts of Euthydemos (fuck these sophists), will I struggle with the Republic?
Also, is the Rouse translation well thought of?
>>7893223
If you're having trouble with the Euthydemus, then there are definitely passages in the Republic that'll be very hard going (the dialectical arguments in Book 1 might give you some trouble). Nonetheless, whether it'll give you trouble or not shouldn't be the worry; no one comes to the Republic actually ever "getting" it, though they may *feel* like they do. Struggle can be good for understanding.
Not familiar with the Rouse translation.
>>7893250
I shall struggle on, thank you.
>>7893194
(The Bloom translation is included in the file at >>7893130)
>>7893354
Rolling for Pimp
>>7893638
W H I P P E D
H
I
P
P
E
D
>>7893194
The Bloom translation is awful.
Stick to a philosophically-informed translation like Reeve 2004:
http://www.hackettpublishing.com/republic
>>7893673
>The Bloom translation is awful.
Why?
>>7893354
Rolling for pimp too
>>7893673
Eh. Having read his translation and his study on the Republic, I have to say Reeve is maybe the most overrated of the translators/commentators. Mind, unlike Bloom, who you could maybe criticize for being too "slavish" to the Greek text (though he's in truth not anywhere near as woodenly literal as neophytes like to think he is), Reeve can't translate without having to transform the entire *form* of the work, forcing the text to resemble a dialogue of the following sort:
Socrates: I'm saying a thing.
Glaucon: Sure you are.
Ignoring that that's not what the text ever says, having rather the form:
"I'm saying stuff right," I said to Glaucon. "As you would, Socrates," he replied back to me.
The issue with that difference is that *the discussion of poetry in books 2 & 3 reveals the Republic itself to be a form of the mixed style poetry banned from the city*. You're only enabled to notice that, *and the fact that it has huge consequences on how to interpret the whole book* if the actual form of the Greek text is translated as one continuous speech by Socrates relating everything everyone says.
Otherwise, the translation is merely alright, but Bloom's more consistent with key terms, making it easier to follow usages, and Reeves' interpretation suffers from lots of positivist and historical-critical assumptions that make nonsense of the text, or are simply incapable of grasping the text at its word.
>>7893354
Spearknight, check 'em
>>7893947
why
>>7893970
oh goddamnit
>>7892728
Check out this introductory lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqZGTtkVmdE
>>7893354
>not picking pimp
fucking scrubs
>>7893715
>Socrates: I'm saying a thing.
>Glaucon: Sure you are.
hilarious
>>7893354
rolling
>>7895738
>>7893688
>>7893638
Magic.
