The Straussians in particular. In book two of the Politics, Aristotle tackles Plato's ideas at face value and deems them well intentioned but impractical. Are you seriously going to try and argue that Plato's top pupil who spent half a lifetime studying by his side was not in on the joke, had there been one?
>>25496448Bump
It's just Sparta.
>>25496448just because it's satire doesn't mean it's not serious
i know it's in the laws, but i refuse to belive plato unironically wanted states to have exactly 5040 citizens, it had to be some coded message, especially in the context of pythagoreanism going around
>>25496448Plato's text, which says outright at several points that actually setting up such a city is totally beside the purpose, supercedes Aristotle taking it as a serious proposal, that's the first thing. That highlights the other part, that Aristotle is *only* discussing the Republic and Laws for the sake of addressing them according to whether they ought to be taken as actionable proposals, he doesn't discuss a great deal of either dialogue, even the philosopher-king is never mentioned by him. The third thing is that either he knows something we don't about the Laws, or he also nods, because he takes the speaker of the Laws to be Socrates, not the Athenian Stranger.
>>25497787>says outright at several points that actually setting up such a city is totally beside the purposeSo essentially the same as all the other forms? Whether it's actionable or not doesn't matter, the point is that Plato really believed some approximation of what he described there to be the perfect ideal of the city.
>>25497831But isn't this just motte-and-baileying the point under contention? If he didn't think it was actionable, or only improbably so to the highest degree, then what's the issue? The framing of this in OP implies that Plato seriously meant that city to be actionable, not believed to be true but inactionable (which is in fact both Strauss's position and what he takes to be Plato's position).
>>25497856Additionally, the premise of the OP seems mistaken. Where does Strauss ever say the Republic is a satire? He says it's ironic, which I'm sure you're tempted to say is a distinction without a difference, but Don Quixote is a satire, while the Republic's irony is in apparently showing how much can be hoped for in politics while undermining that message by showing how little can be hoped for.
The Republic is Plato's worst dialogue and only fat neckbears like it.
>>25498406>neckbears
>>25496448Do people actually think the Republic is satire?Why would Plato, who famously hated the poets for being lying bastards, use a device such a satire?
>>25498543>Why would Plato, who famously hated the poets for being lying bastards, use a device such a satire?You're asking why the author who says lying is fine if it's for someone's truly good benefit might lie for someone's benefit?
>>25497831>>25497856It's been a while but doesn't Socrates insist that the city is realistic and could be created, even though his interlocutor doubts it? But they don't argue about it in detail.
