Into the Transcendent Light
Awakening Through Plato’s Republic
- Philosophy
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2025
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Publisher's Description
Each year, worldwide, people spend millions of dollars on self-help books, motivational lectures, and life coaches, trying to improve their lives. What people don’t realize is that 2,500 years ago Plato, one of our greatest philosophers, provided a guide on how to integrate mind, body, and spirit as the means for living a flourishing life. That guide is Plato’s dialogue the Republic. But modern readers miss the relevance of Plato’s central message. Why? They miss it because Plato has Socrates, considered the wisest man in all of ancient Greece, fill the Republic with bad arguments. Readers follow those bad arguments and conclude that the Republic is about the constitution of an ideal society. Instead, the Republic is about how to constitute character to live that flourishing life. In this work of creative nonfiction, through a fictitious conversation between Plato and three of his students, Jack Crittenden explores and redeems those bad arguments. By doing so, and by reinforcing his interpretation with excerpts from the Tao Te Ching and the Upanishads, Crittenden shows that all of us, and not just philosophers, can learn from the Republic how to live authentic, rich, full lives by searching out the transcendent light.
Endorsements (3)
“Jack Crittenden takes readers on a new kind of journey into a Platonic dialogue, one that lingers on the place of the Forms in an effort to understand the nature of morality . . . a striking perspective on the enduring pedagogical value of the Republic.”
“A beautifully written exploration of the Republic as soul-guide rather than political treatise. Employing Plato’s own dialogic method, Crittenden invites readers to view Plato as a mystic whose vision of the Forms bears a family resemblance to the insights of the Taoist and Vedānta traditions. His fresh account enriches our understanding and appreciation of the Republic.”
“This is the best book on Plato I’ve ever read. It is a masterclass in learning how to read Plato Platonically, which involves not simply expounding the arguments presented in the text, but interrogating them and pushing them. In all honesty, I was not expecting to agree with Crittenden’s case regarding the so-called ideal republic, but I am now well on my way to being persuaded. In brief: I am an enthusiast for this book.”
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