Plato Goes to China

Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer: Plato Goes to China

What happens when Chinese intellectuals read Plato, the figure at the origin of the Western philosophical tradition? Many things, but none of them much like the Plato of the west. Alternatively derided for a dependence on logic, praised for seeing the necessity for a “noble lie” (political propaganda) for the stability of the state, dismissed as a weaker version of Confucius, or even appropriated for anti-West rhetoric in the service of Chinese nationalism, Plato in China can tell us much about both our own culture and that of the behemoth on our doorstep.