I think I first tried to read Republic in Y12, and since I’m now about to go into “Y16” it’s taken me rather a long time to actually read it properly. I even wrote a four thousand word essay which formed a third of my Philosophy A2 qualification without reading the whole thing, just reading particular bits.

My reaction has not been quite as favorable as I would have desired. Compared, at least, to how I reacted to /Phaedo/, the dialogue I read prior to the Republic: I am far less overwhelmed with this one. Of course this is hard stuff and only patient study and lots of secondary reading and conversations with tutors lets you really get at it, so perhaps it’s just a case of building it up a bit much as something far more interesting than revision.

So hopefully I haven’t actually put myself off writing eight essays on it come Hilary 2012. The tempting thing to do is shrug off Plato as just being mystical and being out-of-date but I’m convinced from past experience that this initial reaction is almost always wrong, so I’m looking forward to exploring the ramifications for the rest of Philosophy.

My next book is Williams’ seminal Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy which is much harder going because it’s got the density that twentieth century works of analytic philosophy always have, which makes it feel like very hard work but this is seriously good stuff even if you have to work around Williams’ tendency to ramble and rather arrogant All Souls-induced desire to slag off everyone else.