For political scientists and theorists keen to address the many practical problems facing today’s world, the exercise of imagining an ideal society may seem like a colossal waste of time or, worse, a dangerous distraction. It is precisely this attitude toward idealism that Jonny Thakkar seeks to rectify in Plato as Critical Theorist. Responding to critics of ideal theory, such as Amartya Sen and Raymond Geuss, Thakkar argues that citizens in liberal democracies would do well to take a cue from Plato’s Republic by engaging in ideal-theoretic reflection.

Lest anyone, remembering the “beautiful city” or kallipolis that Plato’s character Socrates and his interlocutors construct in speech throughout much of the dialogue, think that this turn to Plato entails advocating pie-in-the-sky utopianism, Thakkar makes clear that he views Plato’s idealism as antiutopian. In fact, he presents Plato’s idealism as working in the service of his “critical theory,” or his intention to influence Athenian life. In pursuing this argument, Thakkar builds on recent scholarship showing that Plato aimed through his writings to effect change in Athenian society. (See, e.g., Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule, 1998; Danielle S. Allen, Why Plato Wrote, 2010; Melissa Lane, Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living, 2012; and Sara Brill, “Plato’s Critical Theory,” Epoché 17 (2), 2013.) Insightful and lucidly written, Plato as Critical Theorist contributes to this growing body of literature and aims to make its own intervention into contemporary politics by recovering from Plato the notion of “philosopher-citizens,” or democratic rulers who, like Plato’s philosopher-kings, “work out an ideal of how their society might best be and orient themselves toward this ideal in their day-to-day labors” (p. 272).

It is important to emphasize that on Thakkar’s account, “ideal theory” is not synonymous with utopianism. Rather, as stipulated in the introduction, an ideal must be possible, practically speaking; if it contradicts known laws of the universe or general human behaviors, or poses a possibility so remote from achievability that it cannot effectively guide our action, then it is not ideal. At the same time, Thakkar maintains, an ideal is like a map: It “helps us achieve clarity about some part of the world by bracketing certain features of reality,” and thus “there is a sense in which ideals are always impossible to realize” (pp. 6–7).

Later, the author shows that the city in speech developed in Plato’s Republic fits this conception of an ideal. However outlandish Kallipolis may seem, Plato’s Socrates takes care to ensure that it proceeds from realistic premises about the nature and needs of human beings (pp. 104–12, 146–50). This practical grounding is essential, as the ultimate reasonableness of the ideal helps to incite a “shift of perspective” by which Athens is made to “appear alien and strange” (p. 198). Plato’s Republic thus not only provides a model of ideal theory but also illuminates that such theorizing is beneficial because it “gives each of us a vantage point from which to critique the present situation” (p. 18).

To arrive at this conclusion, the first half of the book (Chapters 1–4) provides a close reading of the Republic. Thakkar begins by contesting the two-worlds interpretation of Platonism, offering substantial evidence that Platonic philosophizing involves perceiving two aspects of the same world. Simply put, uncovering something’s true form involves “an investigation not into some separate object that transcends the concrete particular before us, but into that object itself,” albeit on a deeper level (p. 67). It involves, in other words, engaging in ideal theory. This understanding of Platonic philosophy better explains the compatibility between philosophy and ruling in the “cave.” Thakkar next defends the thesis that philosophers should rule by showing that, for Plato, ruling means engaging in soulcraft or individual education, an activity requiring one to philosophize. While best accomplished by exercising political power, ruling can also be undertaken through indirect means; as the cave allegory implies, even poets substantially influence one’s orientation in the world. This suggests that ordinary citizens can also function to some degree as rulers.

In the second half of the book (Chapters 5–7), Thakkar explores how Plato’s political theory can apply to today’s world. His interpretation of Plato is traditional in the sense that he believes that Plato’s political thought “is illiberal and antidemocratic, and to pretend otherwise is special pleading” (p. 224). Hence, for Plato to be relevant to Western societies deeply committed to liberal democracy, Thakkar acknowledges that he must adopt a “concessive strategy that will modify Plato’s theory wherever it strongly conflicts with contemporary commitments” (p. 225). What remains is the notion that citizens and their political representatives should work out an ideal of liberal society and order their institutions and daily activities such that they help to “foster a culture that manifests and encourages liberal virtues such as tolerance and civility” (p. 266). Essentially, Thakkar thinks that even good Rawlsian liberals can get on board with Plato’s advocacy of philosophers as rulers, so long as by “rulers” one means all citizens and by “philosophizing” one means being an idealist who contemplates and works to bring about the common good within a liberal-democratic context. To demonstrate the ideal of philosophical citizenship in action, he shows how Plato’s theory on “money-making” can enrich Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism by providing an alternative set of beliefs about what is natural, possible, and desirable in economic life, while illuminating potentialities that might otherwise go overlooked (pp. 317–18). Recognizing Plato’s idealism as central to his critical theory thus clears a path for critiquing and improving contemporary life.

Although Thakkar concludes the book by casting a humble light upon it, most readers will likely agree that this is an ambitious argument. Yet he demonstrates an impressive level of expertise as he spans the political thought of Plato, Marx, John Rawls, and contemporary critical theorists. Moreover, his conclusions are based on a thorough review of the evidence, which he presents without obfuscation. On the whole, he successfully presents Plato in a light that liberal democrats will likely find palatable, and makes a strong case for the value of ideal theory.

I suspect, though, that many scholars of Plato will cringe at the “massive surgery” Thakkar performs on the dialogues (p. 24). In his own defense, he makes clear that his project is not to hold onto and defend every Platonic ideal, but to discover what in Plato’s political thought may be compatible with liberal democracy. Nonetheless, given that Thakkar purports to retain “the core of his political thought” (p. 24), it seems fair to level the critique that by transforming Platonic philosophy—on his own admission (pp. 250–51 n. 53 and p. 257)—from an all-absorbing, sublime passage through what is perceivable by the mind’s eye into mere reflection on liberal ideals, Thakkar has watered down Platonism so much that it is difficult to recognize. Indeed, I worry that this tamed version of Platonism risks making Plato too familiar to provoke the distancing effect extolled by Thakkar. Simply put, Thakkar’s commitment to developing “an ideal theory that bears some relation to contemporary practices—a vision of the best possible us”—seems antithetical to the spirit—or core—of Platonic philosophy in its refusal to question deeply held principles on the grounds that the many have decided in favor of them (p. 16).

Conversely, some may contend that Thakkar does not go far enough in contesting the traditional picture of Platonic thought as incompatible with liberalism. Though in a footnote he addresses interpretations that view Plato as undercutting Kallipolis and thereby positioning himself as a friend of democracy (pp. 174–75 n. 13), one might wish for a fuller response to this literature (e.g., see David Roochnik, Beautiful City: The Dialectical Character of Plato’s “Republic,” 2003; Arlene W. Saxonhouse, “The Socratic Narrative: A Democratic Reading of Plato’s Dialogues,” Political Theory 37(6), 2009; Harry Berger, Jr., The Perils of Uglytown: Studies in Structural Misanthropology from Plato to Rembrandt, 2015; and Jill Frank, Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s Republic, 2018).

These criticisms do not seriously diminish the book’s major accomplishment, however, which is to provide a formidable defense of ideal theory. With respect to this goal, Plato as Critical Theorist makes a compelling case for encouraging citizens of liberal democracies to become philosopher-citizens. The question is whether we should share Thakkar’s confidence that “there is nothing utopian” about the philosopher-citizen ideal, or abide by Plato’s conviction—per Thakkar’s interpretation—that such an ideal is but a “utopian dream” (pp. 335, 262).