Against the scholarly norm that interprets the philosopher-kings of the Republic as paragons of Platonic philosophy, Roslyn Weiss's Philosophers in the Republic argues that there is more than one paradigm of philosophy in the dialogue and that the dialogue treats the philosopher-kings as “not only second but second-rate” (3). Calling philosopher-kings “philosophers by design” (chaps. 2–3) and demoting them below what she calls “philosophers by nature” (chap. 1), Weiss also advocates for the superiority over both of a third paradigm of philosopher, exemplified by Socrates (chap. 4). Offering an original appreciation of the dialogue's consideration of justice (chap. 5), one that tracks the different paradigms of the philosopher (145–49), Weiss develops her bold and refreshing alternative to standard interpretations of the Republic by way of close readings of the dialogue that attend with nuance to its language and arguments and also to its dramatic structure. Weiss's exceptionally rich footnotes supplement the careful arguments of her text, while also offering, over the course of the book, a sustained set of insightful gestures to undernoted proximities between Plato and Aristotle.

Weiss's negative assessment of the philosophers by design (whom she also calls “Book 7′s philosophers” and whose description she takes to begin at 6.502c and run through Book 7) rests on the contrast she sets up between these philosophers and philosophers by nature (whom she also calls “Book 6's philosophers” and whose description she takes to begin at 5.473c and end at 6.502c). “Inclined by nature to strive to grasp the highest realities,” Book 6's philosophers are “driven to ‘what is’ by an innate desire for truth and love of wisdom” (12). Full of eros and combining intellectual and moral virtue, these philosophers govern willingly and “for the sake of justice—that is for the sake of improving people's souls with respect to justice” (27). Because social and political conditions rarely favor their rule, philosophers by nature are more likely “to take refuge beside a little wall” (138), and their regime, which Weiss calls a “city of chance” (42), though possible,” is “only barely so” (33).

Lacking in eros (53, 69–72, 81) and with “nothing internal to propel them” (109), Book 7's philosophers, by contrast, must be coerced to rule their “chance-free” (62) city (103–12, 118–19), and they govern not for the sake of justice itself but in order to repay a debt (98–107, 114). Representing “nonphilosophic natures that … become philosophers” (40), philosophers by design are not truly philosophic, in Weiss's view, because they are made so by compulsion: they must be compelled to take the final ascent to the Good (70); their course of study is compelled and compels (81–83); “they must even be compelled to order their own souls” (74–77). Unlike philosophers by nature, Book 7's philosophers are never referred to by Socrates as “decent,” “good,” or “just” (66–69, 113–28). Instead, they are assimilated to warriors, as this is “the only way [Socrates] can make the philosopher appealing” to his interlocutors, particularly, to Glaucon (7, also 53–54).

Philosophers in the “Republic” does an excellent job elaborating the multiple philosophic paradigms on display in the dialogue and demonstrating that Book 7's philosophers are not its philosophic ideal. These contributions should alter substantially the ethics and politics conventionally associated with the dialogue. I'm less fully persuaded that the dialogue sets Book 6's philosophers by nature over Book 7's philosophers by design, however. Weiss is right to note that “strikingly new” in Book 6 “is the extensive catalogue it contains of the philosopher's moral, intellectual, and personal virtues.” She explains this “exaggerated” and “extravagant praise” as Socrates's response to Glaucon's skepticism about the worth of philosophy (16). This opens the possibility, however, that Socrates offers his “encomium” (34) of the philosophic nature for the same reason as he puts forward the account of the “hybrid philosopher-warrior” (44), namely, because this is “the only way he can make the philosopher appealing” (7) to his interlocutors. If the way to make Book 7's philosopher appealing is “by merging him with the warrior” (7), then might Socrates attach to the philosophic nature virtues typically associated with the high and well-born—neither “lovers of money” nor “braggarts” nor “cowards” nor “unsociable,” nor “savage,” nor “unjust,” they are instead “orderly” and “gentle” and graced with magnificence, memory, measure, and aptness to learn (486b, 487a, 490c)—not to endorse this paradigm of the philosopher but to make it appealing to his aristocratic gentlemen interlocutors, including the “genteel” Glaucon (4)?

According to Weiss, philosophic natures “are led astray and deflected from their natural course” (40) not through any fault of their own but by “those who fail to appreciate” their nature or by those “who value it too highly, seeking to enlist it for their own ignoble ends” (38). Nature, she says, can't be blamed when they become vicious (38). But in her view, it seems, nature can be praised, for she takes nature to grant eros, the love of wisdom and truth, that is the condition of the philosophic soul (12, 84). Socrates appears to suggest otherwise, however, insisting that where eros for truth and wisdom is lacking even the “gifts of nature which we praise” will tend “to corrupt the soul” and “divert it from philosophy” (491b). When it comes to philosophy, the Republic seems to position the love of truth and wisdom as the helpmate of nature, not the other way around. Indeed, the dialogue seems to be as skeptical about claims to philosophy made on behalf of nature as it is about those made on behalf of design and for the same reason, namely that the eros which conditions philosophy can be guaranteed by neither.

Might, then, the dialogue stand for (yet) another philosophic paradigm: the erotic philosopher? Is this Socrates? An erotic to be sure (161), Socrates, on Weiss's reading, “is in a class by himself” (138) not because of his eros but because of his piety, a key if “suppressed” virtue of the Republic (133–35): unlike Weiss's philosophers by nature or by design, Socrates serves “the god” (135–45); and, unlike them, and owing to his piety, he willingly serves justice in its fullest sense under all sorts of conditions, favorable or not (137–38, 218). Taking full justice to be “the social and interpersonal virtue of having regard for others” (164–66, 180–83), and taking the “internal” virtue of justice—harmony of the soul—to reduce to moderation (chap. 5), Weiss argues that if Socrates appears to defend soul justice that is only because interpersonal justice, offering no obvious benefit to the just agent, would fail to persuade his interlocutors (184–87).

In the end, Socrates's interlocutors seem to me to be persuaded by neither account, however. Perhaps this is because, as Christopher Rowe has argued, it is not Socrates's interlocutors who are Plato's primary targets of persuasion but the dialogue's readers. And if that is so, then perhaps Plato has Socrates fail because the goodness, decency, and justice (such as they are) of any of the dialogue's paradigmatic philosophers, including Socrates, matter less than the goodness, decency, and justice of the agents of action themselves. If, then, there is an encomium in the Republic, perhaps it is not of nature or piety or Socrates but of eros, for if agents of action are to be good, decent, just, or philosophic, the dialogue tells us, they must first and foremost desire to become so.