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Glaucon's Fate: A New Take on Plato's Politics



A new take on Plato's politics, GLAUCON'S FATE, will be available from Paul Dry Books in about a month.

A new take on Plato's politics? A novel take on a subject that has been under debate for two and a half millennia? This speaks to a good deal of confidence on the part of the author, Jacob Howland, in the possibility that he really has something new to say.

And the newness consists in looking to the frame story. The Republic begins thus (Socrates is speaking):

I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. 

Socrates and Glaucon are then escorted as guests to the home of Cephalus and his extended family, and the debate on the nature of justice that constitutes the gist of the book takes place there.

Howland asks himself: Why does the book begin like this? Who is Glaucon to Socrates, and why is the relationship between them important to Plato, and what does THAT have to do with the debate over justice?

Judging from the write-up on the website of the Ancient Philosophy Society this book may bring home the goods.
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