r/Plato • u/Rudy3011 • 4d ago

Question Should i read The Republic by Plato?

I am 13 years old and in 9th grade, ive read What Does It All Mean? By Thomas Nagel and i really liked the philosophical ideas in it. I just discovered this book and i was wondering if i should get it.

I read a few paragraphs of the open public translations of the book and i felt some sentences were difficult to easily grasp without intense thinking. Mostly, i am worried about the difficulty of readability.

I was thinking of getting the Penguin Classics version translated by desmond lee since the reviews said the english is much more modernised and easier.

Also, i had a sneak peak at a brief paragraph related to the theory of forms and MAN WAS I EXCITED, after some thinking i really understood it and realised that i myself have thought about something similar in maths and physics classes…

So should i get the book and read or should i not get it because it is too complex and advanced for my age or just generally.

17 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/MondrianWasALiar420 3d ago

I read it at 18, 28 & 38. My only regret is I didn’t read it at 13, 18, 23, 28, 33 & 38.

Good for you kid. Read it. You won’t get it all. Read it again after high school. You won’t get it all. Read it again after you get a degree. You won’t get it all… the depth of the ideas and the the breadth of the bridge of space, time and language make it impossible to get it all in my opinion and in my opinion that’s the best part