Plato is somehow quite challenging in the present reading, which is the first part (Stephanus 484–502d) of Book VI of the Republic. Socrates tries to work out the third wave from the previous reading. Significant features are several analogies or figures:
- city as ship whose sailors neither know how to sail nor want to know;
- people and sophist as beast and zoologist or zookeeper;
- ruler as painter who compares a canvas with what the mind’s eye sees;
- philosopher as seed that needs good soil, lest it become a noxious weed.
I concurrently discuss the Republic readings in a group formed through the Catherine Project, which now has the website just linked to. The same was true for Pascal in the winter and Chaucer in the summer.
Ayşecik Sokağı, Fulya, Şişli, İstanbul, October 14, 2021.
The order of the books on the shelves of the cases being like that of words on the lines of pages of an individual book, the ordering is chronological, by birth date of author, editor, or personal subject. The youngest author for now is Sally Rooney, and Zena Hitz is on the same shelf. Plato is on the opposite wall.
Polytropy 