Some scholars maintain that there is no logical progression between the first three cities constructed in Plato's Republic. In this paper I show that they are wrong. On the view I defend, the dialectic of Plato's civic architecture is centred on an account of justice as geometrical equality. The first city expresses this account by assigning social roles on the basis of τέχνη. The second city disrupts the geometrical schema in order to accommodate the human desires for greatness and self-knowledge, with the third city re-establishing the geometrical pattern by means of poetic catharsis, a noble lie, and the placement of an armed camp.
The genre of philosophical commentary is characterized by an attitude of textual deference, or what I call a principle of authority. To read in conformity with the authority principle is to forego the prerogative to judge that the author has made a mistake. This article offers a defense of the principle of authority as hermeneutical precept by showing that it facilitates the practice of philosophy as care of the self. When its function is so understood, the authority principle turns out to be compatible with a substantial degree of intellectual autonomy and is also epistemically benign.
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