Plato on Democracy

Is Plato one of the most authoritarian authors ever to have appeared on the face of the earth? This question has received almost every conceivable answer in the past, but inquiry into it has not been helped by easy generalizations and unwarranted anachronisms. This book addresses this question by charting both the development of Plato’s political thought and the complex relationships between metaphysics, history, and politics in his work. Never losing sight of the social context in which Plato’s thinking developed, Plato on Democracy is a thorough and comprehensive analysis of Plato’s political philosophy.