The Republic - Plato - What is justice? In Plato’s Socratic dialogue, The Republic, the citizens of ancient Greece explore the world’s most fundamental question. In search of an ideal civilization, Socrates leads Glaucon, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and others in debates about various subjects, including justice, truth, class, and art. For without righteousness, tyranny and injustice give rise to oligarchy. The influential dialogues of The Republic helped shape all of Western literature and philosophical thought. It is as much a doctrine of ethics and politics now as it was for the ancient Greeks, and its dilemma remains: how to create a perfect society populated by very imperfect human beings. Plato was the most famous of the Greek philosophers, aside from his teacher Socrates. He founded the Academy in Athens, written dialogue, political philosophy, epistemology, the concept of religion, and many other crucial elements of thought. All were attributed to Plato, which laid the framework for Western philosophy as we know it. He was also credited for famed protégé Aristotle, whose contributions to philosophy and thought are often deemed of equal or greater importance.