Alain Badiou's Radical New Translation of Plato's Republic

Philosopher Alain Badiou has published a new translation of Plato's Republic, a project that occupied him for six years. Badiou, a novelist and playwright, aims to capture the literary quality of the original, diverging from the academic style of previous translators like Léon Robin (1950). He restructures the work into sixteen sections of his own devising, replacing the traditional ten books. The translation features anachronistic references to Freud and Jean-François Lyotard, and renames the male character Adimante as the female Amantha. Badiou also reinterprets key Platonic concepts: the Idea of the Good becomes the 'Idea of the True' or 'Truth,' and the soul becomes the modern 'subject.' He acknowledges that for at least two passages, unable to grasp Plato's meaning, he reinvented them entirely. The translation is presented in a unique format: Badiou wrote initial thoughts on the left page of a Canson sketchbook before finalizing the text on the right. The work opens with the declaration that 'besides bodies and languages there are eternal truths.' This translation is reviewed by Michel Vignard in artpress.