第一篇 《理想国》 柏拉图生平简述 一般推测柏拉图出生的年份应该是在公元前427年或前428年的5月或12月（如同其他早期的西方哲学家，他的出生日期也依然未知）。他一生著述颇丰，其教学思想主要集中在《理想国》（The Republic）和《法律篇》中。

《理想国》内容简介 在《理想国》中，柏拉图设计了一幅正义之邦的图景：国家规模适中，以站在城中高处能将全国尽收眼底，国人彼此面识为度。柏拉图认为国家起源于劳动分工，因而他将理想国中的公民分为治国者、武士、劳动者3个等级，分别代表智慧、勇敢和欲望3种品性。治国者依靠自己的哲学智慧和道德力量统治国家;武士们辅助治国，用忠诚和勇敢保卫国家的安全；劳动者则为全国提供物质生活资料。3个等级各司其职，各安其位。

在这样的国家中，治国者均是德高望重的哲学家，只有哲学家才能认识理念，具有完美的德行和高超的智慧，明了正义之所在，按理性的指引去公正地治理国家。治国者和武士没有私产和家庭，因为私产和家庭是一切私心邪念的根源。劳动者也绝不允许拥有奢华的物品。理想国还很重视教育，因为国民素质与品德的优劣决定国家的好坏。柏拉图自称这是“第一等好”的理想国，其他的政体都是这一理想政体的蜕变。理想政体由于婚配的不善引起3个等级的混杂，导致争斗，军人政体（Timocracy）随之兴起。军人政体中， 少数握有权势者聚敛财富， 形成寡头政体（Oligarchy）。贫富矛盾的尖锐化导致民众的革命，产生民主政体（Democracy）。民主政体发展到极端时又会被僭主政体（Tyranny）所取代。

《理想国》内容概要 一、正义论 二、国家与国民 三、国家治理 四、国家制度 五、哲学王统治 六、理想国家与政体

第一节 正义论

1、正义就是欠债还钱 Well said, Cephalus, I replied; but as concerning justice, what is it? --to speak the truth and to pay your debts --no more than this? And even to this are there not exceptions? Cephalus 人名 exception n.除外, 例外, 反对, 异议

正义就是欠债还钱 Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition. deposit vt.存放, 堆积

2、伤害任何人都是不正义的 We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said. You would argue that the good are our friends and the bad our enemies? Yes.

2、伤害任何人都是不正义的 And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil? Yes, that appears to me to be the truth. evil adj.邪恶的, 带来麻烦的, 不幸的, 有害的, 诽谤的 n.邪恶, 不幸, 罪恶

2、伤害任何人都是不正义的 But ought the just to injure any one at all? Nor can the good harm any one? Impossible. And the just is the good? Certainly. Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust? I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates. Socrates 人名 苏格拉底

3、正义比不正义更有力 Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by any one. ignorance 无知, 不知

But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way: You would not deny that a state may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other states, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection? Thrasymachus 人名 enslave 奴役, 沉溺, 束缚

3、正义比不正义更有力 True, he replied; and I will add the best and perfectly unjust state will be most likely to do so.

4、正义的人更聪明能干，不正义的人根本不能合作 For we have already shown that the just are clearly wiser and better and abler than the unjust, and that the unjust are incapable of common action; naying at more, that to speak as we did of men who are evil acting at any time vigorously together, is not strictly true, for if they had been perfectly evil, they would have laid hands upon one another;

but it is evident that there must have been some remnant of justice in them, which enabled them to combine; if there had not been they would have injured one another as well as their victims; they were but half --villains in their enterprises; for had they been whole villains, and utterly unjust, they would have been utterly incapable of action. That, as I believe, is the truth of the matter, and not what you said at first. remnant 残余, 剩余, 零料, 残迹

5、正义者是快乐的，不正义者是痛苦的 But whether the just have a better and happier life than the unjust is a further question which we also proposed to consider think that they have, and for the reasons which to have given; but still I should like to examine further, for no light matter is at stake, nothing less than the rule of human life. examine v.检查, 调查, 考试

6、正义的本质就是最好与最坏的折中 They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. mutual adj.相互的

This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice; --it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honored by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. compromise v.妥协 tolerate vt.容忍

For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice.

7、我们选择正义而舍弃不正义的理由 On what principle, then, shall we any longer choose justice rather than the worst injustice? When, if we only unite the latter with a deceitful regard to appearances, we shall fare to our mind both with gods and men, in life and after death, as the most numerous and the highest authorities tell us.

Knowing all this, Socrates, how can a man who has any superiority of mind or person or rank or wealth, be willing to honor justice; or indeed to refrain from laughing when he hears justice praised? And even if there should be some one who is able to disprove the truth of my words, and who is satisfied that justice is best, still he is not angry with the unjust, but is very ready to forgive them, because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will; refrain vi.节制, 避免, 制止

unless, peradventure, there be some one whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth --but no other man. He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. peradventure n.偶然事情, 疑惑

The cause of all this, Socrates, was indicated by us at the beginning of the argument, when my brother and I told you how astonished we were to find that of all the professing panegyrists of justice --beginning with the ancient heroes of whom any memorial has been preserved to us, and ending with the men of our own time --no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice except with a view to the glories, honors, and benefits which flow from them. panegyrists vt.颂扬, 称赞

8、个人的正义与城邦的正义 I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied.

And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. quantity n.量, 数量

第二节、国家与国民

9、我们选择正义而舍弃不正义的理由 Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. restrict vt.限制, 约束, 限定

Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good.

But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. privilege n.特权, 特别待遇, 基本公民权力, 特免 vt.给与...特权, 特免 deem v.认为, 相信 pupil n.学生, 小学生, 瞳孔 gymnasium n.健身房, 体育馆

10、体育锻炼可以成就好的体质 After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. gymnastic adj.体操的, 体育的 n.训练课程

Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years; the training in it should be careful and should continue through life. Now my belief is, --and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my own belief is, --not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but, on the contrary, that the good soul, by her own excellence, improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. confirmation n.证实, 确认, 批准

11、良好的教育与城邦的护卫者 And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken. auxiliary adj.辅助的, 补助的

And would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are well-educated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said; I am much certain that they ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. humanize v赋予人性, 使通人情, 教vi.变为有人性, 变为有情, 有教化

第三节 国家治理

12、建立城邦的目的就是为了大多数人的利益 If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer. And our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men; but that our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; disproportionate adj.不成比例

we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find Justice, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy State, not piecemeal, or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole; and by-and-by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of State. piecemeal v.粉碎

Suppose that we were painting a statue, and some one came up to us and said, Why do you not put the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the body--the eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black --to him we might fairly answer, Sir, you would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes; consider rather whether, by giving this and the other features their due proportion, we make the whole beautiful. proportion n.比例, 均衡, 面积, 部分vt.使成比例, 使均衡, 分摊

13、城邦的统一与疆土的大小 That is not likely; and yet there might be a danger to the poor State if the wealth of many States were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you to use the term State at all of any but our own! Why so?

You ought to speak of other States in the plural number; not one of them is a city, but many cities, as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another; and in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be altogether beside the mark if you treated them all as a single State.

But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others, you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your State, while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her, will be the greatest of States, prevail vi.流行, 盛行, 获胜, 成功

I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but in deed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single State which is her equal you will hardly find, either among Hellenes or barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. barbarians adj.野蛮的, 粗野的, 毫无约束的, 肆无忌惮的

14、国家治理与立法 I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations.

These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the center, on the navel of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind. ancestral adj.祖先的, 祖传的 deity n.神, 神性