The lives of citizens of contemporary Western liberal democracies are in bad shape and their institutions, especially the capitalist economic system, are malfunctioning. What we need, argues Jonny Thakkar in his stimulating book, is “political Platonism” (36). Citizens must philosophize, meaning that they are to aim for “a genuine society” (326) which they can approach through “a concrete, quotidian practice, supported by institutions and manifest in the day-to-day actions of citizens” (17; see 216–17). Thakkar uses Plato's Republic to generate a “suitably revised” idealism which can “provide the basis for both a contemporary ideal and a contemporary critical theory” (18); ideal theory and critical theory alike are nonutopian and help us uncover new possibilities.

Chapters 1–4 are an interpretation of Plato's Republic. Thakkar shows, first, how philosophy is necessary for ruling (chapter 1) and, second, why rulers must be philosophers (chapter 2). He then discusses how philosophers shape souls by attending to the social environment and how looking towards an ideal allows the environment to be shaped (chapter 3). Thakkar then offers an example of how ideal theory operates in nonideal societies, namely, the role the Republic plays in Plato's Athens (chapter 4). Chapters 5–7 argue for the normative thesis that excellent liberal democratic citizens ought to be idealists. First, Thakkar develops a notion of the ideal as constrained by possibilities, rebutting those who would tar idealists with a utopian brush (chapter 5). Thakkar then makes a positive argument for “the central claim of political Platonism—that those who govern should engage in philosophical reflection” (227) by pursuing a “concessive strategy” (225) which defers to the liberal democratic commitments we find in ideal theorists such as John Rawls over Plato's views; for example, we reject Plato's paternalism in favor of individual choice, or we constrain the soul-shaping ambitions of the philosopher-rulers to maintain the private/public distinction (chapter 6). Finally, Thakkar treats Plato as a forerunner to Marx to show how political Platonism can reanimate the Marxian critique of capitalism and motivate “a culture of true craftsmanship” (324) among liberal democratic citizens (chapter 7).

Thakkar grants that “Plato's artistic achievement” can be dazzling and pleads that it “should not distract us from what he is trying to tell us, which is that to turn toward the light, to be reoriented and converted, is to begin to ask questions about particular things in light of goodness” (83). Plato's artistry makes the Republic “remarkably reflexive” (29). For example, guardianship requires “the kind of ideal theory that Socrates models in the Republic” (112; see 138 et passim), which would permit the guardian “to master the thought process that animated the lawgivers” (104). (Note how this forecloses the question whether Kallipolis has a place for Socrates.) I hazard that it is Thakkar's emphasis on the reflexivity of the dialogue which urges him to look away from, rather than look to, the text; otherwise, it would be difficult to propose the “interpretive hypothesis … that Plato intends the Republic itself to model the kind of inquiry a true guardian might engage in” (96). Through strident claims such as that “Plato believes that society would be best ruled by philosophers—that much is clear” (118) and that “the Republic represents Plato's attempt to be an Athenian philosopher-king” (176), the reader might be excused if she forgot either that the Republic is one among Plato's thirty-plus works or that Plato does not appear in propria persona in the Republic (by which I do not mean to suggest that no views whatsoever can be attributed to Plato). Thakkar's focus on Plato's wider audience might also undermine Thakkar's dissemination thesis, borrowed perhaps from Danielle Allen, that, by design, the Republic propagates ideals, models, and images for Athenians; for if images can be variously interpreted, either independently of their context or as part of it, then Plato's “attempt to effect political change” (170) may not be as effective as Thakkar would have us believe.

Thakkar's interpretation of the Republic irons out the kinks its author introduces through the dialogue form. Indeed, the claim that “Plato's Republic might be understood as an essay,” that is, as something “more humble and open-ended” than a treatise, is revealing (328, my emphasis). Surely a dialogue is more humble and open-ended than an essay. Nothing in Thakkar's interpretation of the forms, itself heavily dependent upon J. C. B. Gosling, hinges on the Republic being a dialogue. Thakkar treats Plato and Socrates interchangeably (e.g., 51, 73, 74–75, 168, 285), mutes the most memorable interlocutor of Socrates, Thrasymachus, and dulls the color in the sparring between the citizen of Chalcedon and Socrates (see 88, 136, 283). Glaucon and Adeimantus are mere pawns in Socrates's argumentative game, the former “represent[ing]” the lovers of sight, sound, and making (46), the latter a vessel who might teach the image of the ship of state we read in book VI (173–74). When Thakkar does quote the conversation between Socrates and Adeimantus from which the principle of specialization is derived (370a–c), nothing in its interpretation hinges on it being a dialogue or upon Adeimantus's particular perspective (281–82).

Thakkar's focus on models and artifacts is a focus on the visual, to the detriment of the verbal or logos-as-discourse. Thakkar characterizes Kallipolis as a society where “control of the division of labor allows [the philosopher-rulers] to create an environment permeated with ideals and models, from the just man and the just city to the right kind of couch and the right kind of shoe” (162). Even if we grant Thakkar's broad understanding of labor as the process of making artifacts and the actions which constitute the social world, speech gets short shrift. Indeed, Thakkar's attention to artifacts (155–65), that is, the outcomes of productive activities (such as statues, couches, and shoes), does not erase the need for speech so much as substitute it. Thakkar rationalizes the images Plato paints in the Republic. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that all the images in the Republic are intended to convey some cognitive truth” (179). This claim evidences the implications of Thakkar's rationalizing interpretation: what matters is not the image, but its cognitive truth. By extension, whatever artifact a philosopher-citizen may produce, the question which hangs over it is whether it is a bearer of cognitive truth. Indicative also is the example of how to beautify a neighborhood by painting the houses (267, 270–71), to which speech is incidental. In Thakkar's portrayal, philosopher-citizens do not need each other to philosophize. Philosophy can be a dialogue with oneself or a seeing (theōria) for which one pair of eyes suffices.

A sporting metaphor runs throughout the book (107ff., 117n57, 150n42, 289–90, 338). Thakkar's analogy of the soccer team to the city captures how citizenship is a collective activity. The analogy also enlightens because of what Thakkar's discussion omits: the team of referees, who have the strongest grasp of the game's rules and who strive to enforce them in a nonpartisan manner. A game of soccer cannot be played without them, it is to them that talk on the pitch is directed and it is their voice that is authoritative. Thakkar's teleological characterization of the forms and of philosophy also reveals a limit of the sporting metaphor. Forms are “natural unities in a teleological structure” (76), where we understand “natural” to stand for the “optimal condition [of X] given its functional context” (132) and philosophy is “the activity of holistic, dialectical inquiry involving the construction of theoretical ideals against a teleological horizon” (151; see also 85–86). However, the functional context of the athlete is the competition and her aim is to win; her victories are a measure of her virtue or success (aretē). By contrast, Thakkar's philosophical citizen strives to make her labor fit into a coherent whole which is “orient[ed] towards goodness” (83). She is not permanently in a competitive context and thus not always oriented to winning.

Critics of liberalism claim that its central values, of freedom of choice and of the private/public distinction, depend upon the figure of the Other who is excluded on account of their race, gender, and lack of full citizenship. When we consider philosophical citizenship on Thakkar's terms, we might worry about this constituting Other. While it is persuasive to speak of the craftsman as “deliberat[ing] in light of standards of success internal to her craft, and hence with an eye to the benefit that craft characteristically produces and its function within the social whole” (284), when we, the citizens, think about the whole (“the cosmos,” 243; “the common good,” 287; “a form of life,” 310), which whole are we thinking about? Kallipolis, after all, is emphatically a Greek city. Socrates says to Glaucon: “What about the city you're founding? It is Greek, isn't it?” Glaucon: “It has to be” (470e). Thakkar's strictly normative project of accommodating the local and the global is consistent with his interpretation of the dialogue. How does political Platonism help liberalism answer the charge of exclusion? Or does Thakkar's strategy of “holding liberalism lexically prior to Platonism” (274) preclude this? Perhaps Thakkar could reply that what matters is what Rawls and Plato share, namely, the idea that citizens must reason according to some ideal. It is hard to gainsay this. But it does leave one with the nagging question about the distinctiveness of Plato as critical theorist. In sum, while Thakkar's book is unlikely to repay those who are looking for a fresh reading of the Republic, its aspiration and execution will reward those who regard political theory as a monumental enterprise in service of the present.