The paper analyses the first wave in Plato´s Republic V, taking into account the opposition between opinion (doxa) and science (episteme), formulated at the end of the third wave. Socrates questions the current opinion which accepts the difference in nature between men and women in order to propose the idea of a common human nature. It is this paradoxical thesis that justifies the proposal that all should have the same education, thus allowing them to fulfill the same functions and, eventually, to become guardians and rulers in the city.
Plato; Republic; nature; opinion; science