PLATONIC QUANDARIES: Recent Scholarship on Plato

Recent scholarship on Plato falls into three categories: Straussian readings, Socratic readings, and the readings of the Chastened Utopians. The first group follows Strauss in reaffirming that Plato saw human nature as unchangeable and human political possibilities as relatively limited; on this account, the Republic is a joke that argues against all utopian projects. The second group focuses on Socrates rather than Plato, directing attention primarily toward individual self-fashioning that may or may not have political effects. The third group sees Plato as having believed in the possibility of political change and as having sought to intervene in the politics of his day. The central issue contested by these different schools of thought is whether human nature is malleable; specific issues of gender and militarism arise repeatedly in the discussion of this question.