This episode covers the last bit of book 10 of Plato’s Republic.

Imagine you get to choose your reincarnation. You can come back as a tyrant, a sports star, a swan, whatever you want. What do you pick? And what do you have to know to make a good choice?

Socrates has some advice. In this final episode of Republic, tell the story of a man who travelled to the afterlife and came back to tell the tale. This puts a didactic bow on the all-night conversation they’ve been having and demonstrates how Socrates thinks poetry should be written.

Socrates thinks that poetry is like candy: delicious but bad for us. If we consume too much, it’ll rot our souls. That’s because the poets just pander to our passions with no concern with or knowledge of the truth.

But pandering poets aren’t the problem. It’s us. Socrates thinks that humans have a poetic sweet tooth that makes certain kinds of stories irresistible to us. We let ourselves get carried away by them and start to believe that they’re true. Following our natural taste for art undermines reason and makes us into worse people. So how do we live if we can’t trust our taste?

This episode covers book 9 of Republic.

In this episode, Socrates is going to finally answer the question that started it all. Back in book 2, Glaucon and Adeimantus challenged Socrates to prove to them that it’s worthwhile to be just. To them, the life of injustice looks pretty good, if you can get away with it. Money, sex, power, what’s not to like?

Socrates has been building up his answer since episode 4 of this series. He’s built an imaginary city, and education system and a group of superhuman philosopher kings to rule it all.

In this episode, he’s going to finally explain what’s wrong with injustice. While the tyrant’s life may look fun from the outside, Socrates says it’s not so great when you get behind the music. According to him, the tyrant’s life is desperate, paranoid, and miserable. Not only is the philosopher king happier than the tyrant, he’s 729 times happier!

How does politics affect personality? In the ideal city, the perfect laws and education create philosopher kings. But what about everywhere else?

In this chapter, Socrates gets down to some real-world political science and analyzes the four kinds of regime that actually exist in the Greek world. And because the city matches the soul, each of the regimes has its own distinctive personality type.

Socrates reckons that living in a state like Sparta will make you spirited and proud; living under oligarchy will make you cheap; and living under democracy should chill you right out. Unfortunately, chilling out is the last thing you’ll do before the tyrant takes over the city and enslaves you. Easy come, easy go.

This episode covers book 8 of Plato’s Republic.

This episode covers book 7 of Plato's Republic.

Socrates is what I call a “philosopher of desire.” He cares more about the questions than the answers, the journey than the destination, the boner than the nut. And he brings that energy to his teaching.

In this episode, Socrates tells the boys that the “form of the good” is the one thing that anyone who wants to live a good life absolutely needs to know about. So what is it? Glaucon wants to know so badly he yells out to Apollo and begs Socrates to tell him. But Socrates won’t go all the way. Instead, he teases Glaucon with the analogies of the sun, line and cave which also happen to tell us about: the invisible forms; the nature of human knowledge; and why STEM subjects should only be used as prep for philosophy.

Get your goggles on, because this is a deep one.

This episode covers book 5 of Plato’s Republic.

What do you do when the private family causes too much corruption? Nationalize it! Create a giant family monopoly that includes every citizen in one giant clan. In this episode, Socrates explains his most normal proposal—that women should have jobs—and his most shocking, which involves a state eugenics program disguised as a religious festival.

This chapter makes some people think Plato’s a feminist and other’s say he’s a fascist. Either way, it shows us that values like family loyalty, political unity, gender equality, and meritocracy do not always fit well together.

This episode covers book 4 of Plato’s Republic. What does it mean to be a good person? What is justice?

To answer these questions, Socrates and the boys have built imaginary cities, raised educated and nobly lied to armies, and sent them all to live in a camp. Today’s the day Socrates brings it all home and explains his definition of justice both in the city and in the soul. And to boot, he explains the structure of the human soul.

This episode covers the second half of book 3 of Plato’s Republic. Glaucon and Socrates develop a completely immersive education program for the guardians that controls every aspect of their social and physical environment. Then, they tell them it never happened because actually they were sleeping underground being built by the god to defend the city. Glaucon doubts anyone would believe this “noble lie,” but Socrates isn’t too worried. Ideology finds a way.

This episode covers parts of books 2 and 3 of Plato’s Republic. Adeimantus and Socrates start planning an education for the guardians. As it stands, young Athenians are fed an unhealthy banquet of lies written by the likes of Homer and Hesiod. Socrates wants new lies that set a good example for the kids. Lies with less fighting and sex and crying. Boring lies. And they might be for adults too.

This episode covers the first part of book 2 of Republic. Glaucon and Adeimantus take over the conversation with Socrates and challenge him to prove that it’s good to be good. Glaucon gets wild with a ring of invisibility. The gang builds a utopian city of pigs and meets an army of good-natured dogs.

In this episode, Socrates goes up against his most formidable opponent yet: the sophist Thrasymachus.

Thrasymachus leaps at Socrates “like a wild beast” and yells at him for playing dirty. Then, he tells the boys that morality is a lie and that they should do as much injustice as they can get away with.

Socrates responds by winning the argument in the least persuasive way possible.

Plato’s Republic is full of bad arguments and worse political proposals and it may still be the most influential work of political theory ever.

Book 1 sets the stage for an all-night conversation between Socrates and some friends that covers: ethics; politics; education; epistemology; psychology; and a whole lot more.

It all gets started with the question “what is justice?”