Seeking to create an ideal city-state that would have virtuous as well as happy people, Plato set out a noble task for Western political thought. Did we succeed in fulfilling that task? On reflection, we seem to have got distracted and may have lost the plot. We did make progress but only a fraction of what our scientific progress would have enabled had we been concerned of the human soul as much as we had been of material wealth.
We created economic systems that run on greed and political systems that seem to pit one man's lust for power with another's. And finally, mankind stands confused with conflicting goals: economic growth threatening the very survival of man. This book is an invitation for reflection on our collective journey, as revealed through the thought of various thinkers from Plato to Habermas.