Poetic Justice challenges its readers to set aside standard assumptions about Plato generally and about the Republic in particular. In F.’s view, Plato's complex artistic works – F. offers rich analyses not only of much of the Republic but also of the Symposium and Theaetetus – are intended to encourage his readers to ‘self-constitute’ via their own individual partial, experiential and fallible reflections on matters ethical and political, as well as to engage with others in ‘free and beautiful discussions’ (Rep. 499a; F., p. 139). The truth, for Plato, comes not from an authoritative knower who commands acquiescence but from our own imaginative consideration of what is not but might be. Just as Plato prefers the second of the two models of learning to read that F. identifies in Plato's dialogues – the top-down model of the Statesman, Sophist and Protagoras, and the learner-centric model of the Theaetetus and Republic –, so, too, acquiring wisdom by trial and error is favoured over the transference of knowledge from knowers to non-knowers.

Beginning in Rep. 10 and working backwards, F. seeks to establish the importance to Plato of mimesis. She argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, Plato thinks a good city would banish not the poets but rather the coercive political institutions that make the cultivation of genuine human virtue impossible. Yet, even if Plato sees no gain in replacing the tyranny of tyrants with the tyranny of philosophers, it is unclear why he would think poetry is essential to moral, political and philosophical enlightenment. Granting F. the ‘indeterminacy of poetic authority’ (p. 56), the critical role interpretation plays in poetry, and the value in cultivating an appreciation for mimesis as representational, would we wish to say that ‘Socrates allies [with the poets] in the quest for truth about justice’ (p. 61)?

Among the casualties of F.’s reading is reason itself. As master of the other parts of the soul, which are in turn slaves to it, reason stands in the way of freedom and so obstructs virtue. But is the logistikon, the calculating element of the soul, a mere calculator, measuring what cannot be measured (p. 73)? Although Socrates speaks about it in this way in Book 10, nevertheless, elsewhere in the Republic it is the part of the soul that exercises sober judgement and looks out for the welfare of the whole even as it aspires to what is beyond the world of sense. Surely to the extent that our own reason reins in our appetitive and emotional excesses we enhance, in our gentleness (which for F. is not as admirable a trait as resistance – pp. 100, 125–6, 133), our excellence as human beings and citizens.

A variety of themes in the volume are worthy of attention and consideration. One is the importance of recognising that Plato never speaks in his own voice in the dialogues and that nevertheless none of his characters, including Socrates, speaks for him. While I am sympathetic to this view, no reader of Plato, including F. herself, can avoid frequently conflating Plato with Socrates: the way we know that Plato is unsympathetic to Callipolis or to philosopher-rulers is by seeing Socrates’ own unflattering portrayal of them; our grounds for thinking Plato is not thoroughly disdainful of poetry is that Socrates betrays ambivalence towards it. Second, F. makes a plea for ‘disidentification’, that is, she asks that we resist the temptation to identify with any of Plato's characters. It is difficult to know what it would mean to identify with Socrates; it is no less difficult to know what it would mean not to. Socrates is a moving target – not a know-it-all who instructs others ‘top-down’. Plato's interest in preserving possibility or the not-yet could hardly be advanced more successfully than by our engaging with Socrates (as F. seems to recognise; see esp. pp. 41–3). It is virtually impossible to read the dialogues thoughtfully without confronting one's own possibilities – via the questions that Socrates raises.

Third, F. believes that Socratic elenchus, in its failure to persuade and in its offering of ‘coercive’ binary choices that entrap the interlocutor rather than engage him in real conversation, invites the reader to consider what real conversations, genuine ‘middle-voice’ dialegesthai, might look like. One wonders, however, if all people are equally ready to enter into such conversations, if inflated egos, exaggerated confidence and foolish or pernicious views are barriers to the fruitful collective pursuit of wisdom. Does it matter to Plato and Socrates only that people think for themselves, or can what they think disqualify them from political engagement ‘in the democratic spirit’?

I found several of F.’s analyses of texts problematic. First, F., like many others, mistakenly thinks Thrasymachus, in proclaiming justice the advantage of the stronger, endorses the idea that might is right or justice is power. This notion is, however, Calliclean and not Thrasymachean. Thrasymachus thinks justice is weakness, insipid foolishness. The justice of the weak is the advantage of the unjust strong. (Thrasymachus’ association of justice with pitiful weakness could explain why he, unlike Glaucon and Adeimantus, as F. insightfully points out [p. 211], does not regard appearing just as a component of perfect injustice.) Second, F. thinks that Glaucon uses the tale of Gyges to show ‘the ways in which what seems or appears can fail to adequately distinguish justice from injustice (359b–361d)’ (p. 112). For Glaucon, however, the tale's point is surely that no one – not even the ‘just’ – is willingly just: anyone in possession of the ring would behave unjustly. Third, F. thinks (p. 212) that Glaucon and Adeimantus place justice in the first category of goods, the category comprising things desirable for themselves and not for their consequences. This inference is, however, drawn overhastily from the brothers’ demand that Socrates defend justice for itself and not for its consequences. Fourth, Socrates in Book 1 does not deny that he equates justice with the advantageous, profitable, beneficial etc. (p. 214); on the contrary, he embraces this equivalence as if on a par with 12 = 2 × 6, 3 × 4, 6 × 2 or 4 × 3 (336a–b). The only question is what does he mean by equating justice with this slew of near-synonyms. Fifth, at 603b–c, Socrates says not that dianoia is that with which poetic imitation keeps company (p. 74), but rather that a part of it does – in particular, the part of it that is phaulon (‘inferior’).

Sixth, and perhaps most serious because of how much turns on this for F., is her view that the principle of non-contradiction established in Book 4 is undermined by Book 10's contention that people indeed hold contradictory opinions (pp. 74–5). Socrates’ intent, however, in positing the principle of non-contradiction was never to deny contradiction; rather, it was to prove, in both books, that, since there is contradiction, there must be more than one part in the soul. (When Socrates says at 437e that this principle will be assumed unless something overturns it, all he means is that it is useless to go on forever considering objections such as the spinning top and the man who stands still but waves his arms.) Surely more noteworthy is the fact that the principle in Book 10 is not the same as the ‘former’ one in Book 4: it is no longer about the impossibility of a thing's doing or undergoing two opposite things at the same time with respect to the same thing and in the same part of itself, but suddenly about the impossibility of a person's holding contradictory opinions under these conditions. Surely the phenomenon of holding contradictory opinions – even in the same part of one's soul – is not ruled out by the original principle; indeed, the practice of Socratic elenchus depends on the incoherence in most people's belief-sets.

One theme that I would have liked to see F. explore is how Plato's apparent general regard for expertise aligns with his distrust of philosopher-rulers. Why is the deference to the expert that is normally recommended by Plato's Socrates suspended in the case of moral matters? Perhaps what is relevant here is Socrates’ declaration in the Apology (23b) that the highest human wisdom is the recognition of one's ignorance with respect to ta megista, the most important things. If Plato recognises human moral expertise as impossible – even in principle – then it stands to reason that for him the best option would be the politics of self-governance.

This volume is an inspired and inspiring book, thought-provoking and well worth reading.