republic · plato

Plato's Republic begins by asking what justice is and answers by building a city in speech, ruled by philosophers, in which each part does its own work. It contains the divided line, the cave, the theory of forms, the critique of poetry and of democracy, and the myth of Er, and it is the most influential book in Western philosophy.

Plato, Republic, in Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Hackett Publishing, 1997). Read in full over three sessions, Freshman Fall at Torrey Honors: Books I to IV, then V to VII, then VIII to X.