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Teaching Wisdom to Interest: Book Five of Plato's Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2009

Timothy J. Lukes
Affiliation:
Santa Clara University
Mary F. Scudder
Affiliation:
University of Virginia

Abstract

We suggest that Book Five of the Republic, where Plato discusses the status of women in the guardian class, is a superb source of Platonic insight. For it is precisely the discussion of women that is most vulnerable to co-optation by the modern vernacular of interest, a vernacular to which the Republic is vehemently opposed. If students come to appreciate an alternative perspective regarding this most sensitive of modern issues, the full impact of the Socratic approach is available to them.

Type
The Teacher
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2009

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