I must start by saying that I have precisely zero knowledge about philosophy so this is a complete beginners view. This book was not easy reading, I had to work at every single page. But I think perhaps that that was the whole point of it. It was fascinating, illuminating and most definitely opened my eyes to new ideas. So, difficult as it was, I am so very glad I read this.

Before starting to read it I read some reviews of the book and now realise that it is very easy to misinterpret.. or to forget what it sets out to achieve. It most definitely needs several readings to even begin to fully appreciate, but I will try to say what I thought on my first reading with no background knowledge at all.

No synopsis, because you can read that above in the summary and in the far better reviews given by other readers..but ..On one level it is about what justice is, what makes a moral person. I think the more important point is more HOW, to think, how to challenge our ideas/beliefs/opinions, and why we should do that.

Socrates/Plato, looks first at an individual and what makes for a just person and then sort of magnifies that analogy to see how that might look on a larger scale in a society. He states on a few occasions that this society he creates is a model… I am a scientist so the way I saw it was to think of a lab experiment..you take a hypothesis and maybe using test tubes, or cells in a dish, whatever, you test your ideas with controlled experiments and as few variables as possible. All those variables muddy the water so you can’t see the fishes. And I think that is the most important thing to keep in mind.. at times during reading this I felt annoyance about what was being postulated.. but had to remind myself that it was a model. It is showing a way of challenging ideas, thinking more deeply and why some ideas might not stand up to scrutiny. Some of the characters are a bit infuriating, but less so when you think they are more like oneself than is comfortable.


I think it is easy to see current political situations in the book. And it is true that in any experiment it makes sense that some aspects turn out to be as expected.. or we would never do expensive science. But for me, I found I gained more from the book by laying aside current politics and thinking more about how ideas and systems arise using current affairs only to ponder on in relation to everything else.

The most useful part of the book was realising how entrenched I probably am in my language and thoughts. Even simple things like the use of the word beautiful.. how little we think about what our language means precisely

My favourite parts…well of course Plato’s cave, but also the tripartite soul was really thought provoking and entertaining

In short, there is a reason why this book has endured. So very much in our world stems from this book.. but I will now need to reread the whole of the book a few times because I didn’t understand it all. By a long way..
Ps the title isn’t reflective of any current politics and actually can also be translated from Ancient Greek as Constitution. I think a better title might be.. How To Think in Ten Million ‘Easy’ Steps