The topic of this dialogue is how the guardians will be educated in body and soul. Starting with the soul, it is discussed what cultural education is appropriate. They will discern the good stories from the bad ones to develop passion in a person.

The idea of scale investigation to understand morality in individuals from a community view is applied to understand small storie from grand ones. The first of defects to prohibit is false representation. The gods in Homers works are portrayed as not being purely good for example. The gods should as an example of morality. «Im a bit confused at the greek idea of moral gods. The popular depictions show them being imperfect, but in the dialogues people generally agree that they gods should be good.» Stories should not show bad thoughts or actions since they might influence the people.

Stories will not be created for the community, only guidelines and principles.

God is good and cannot damage (i.e make things worse). God is not responsible for bad or evil. Tales of god changing forms are prohibited. The form of god must be perfect and changing would imply the form was not perfect or that god would change for the worse. God never lies, but lies can be good for people in some circumstances. Only rulers of the community may lie if necessary, but it will be prohibited for hte rest of the population.

Hades should not be disparaged as by Achilles in the Odyssey. People should not fear it and death, but accept it stoically. Even laughter is an indulgence of emotion and should be prohibited. Self-discipline includes obedience to authority. All stories must exclude mentios of behaviors that lack self-discipline. No stories of buying the favors of the gods with gifts.

Next up is representation. In short, trying to appear like something else is bad as you can never be as good as a thing as the thing itself, i.e it goes against the specilaisation principle. No speaking as if you are someone or something else. No representation will be allowed for the guardians or the community. Perhaps a small amount will be permissible in poetry.

What kinds of music should be allowed is discussed next, such as what harmonies, rhythms and melodies are good for the development of a person. Only modes instilling courage and patience are allowed, the dorian and phrygian modes. At this point it is remarked that the previously indulgent community has become quite disciplined.

All works in the community must be elegant and good. Crude and ugly works will corrupt the people. The people will love beauty and abhor ugliness, though badness and ugliness will be a foreign and unknown thing for them.

The physical education follows, they conclude that the mental and cultural education will already have done much of the work to keep the guardians healthy and in shape.

Lawmakers should be kept away from being in contact with immorality. If they recognize it from experience it is because the badness is inside them. Instead they should only know good and deduce it from reasoning.

The guardians will not train like athletes for strength but for passion. Gentle but passionate as said earlier. Neither too focused on exercise to become brutes nor too studious to become docile.

These balanced guardians will always be needed to balance the community.

Observations:

That god is only responsible for good and not evil is a very interesting divergence from Christian thought.

The unchanging nature of god touches on the immutability of good and the forms.

I wonder where the distinction lies in honoring the gods with sacrifices and bribing them with gifts according to the Greeks.

There is a line saying that comedic actors cannot be good tragic actors and vice verse, but didnt Socrates advocate for writers being able to be good at both plays at the end of Symposium? I suspect this must have been a common topic in Ancient Greece, but my knowledge of the culture is too lacking to see its significance.

The introduction of the book pointed out how our contemporary sense of individualism and freedom did not exist in Ancient Greece. There is little attention put to the individual experience of the community's inhabitants. Goodness is optimised for the community as a whole, the freedom of the individuals is limited to benefit it. The people are limited in what kind of works they can read and experience.