Thrasymachus is not at all consistent, but I think the most consistent way of fleshing out his position is what we might call the "cynical view".
In every society, there is a ruling class, and they make laws that they think are in their best interests. These laws are contrary to the interests of the other classes, because it's a zero-sum game. They call obedience to these laws "justice". This is the sense in which justice is the interests of the stronger.
Since these laws are not in the interest of the non-ruling classes, members of the non-ruling classes who obey these laws, in circumstances where they would not get caught disobeying them, are just suckers and losers. The smart thing to do is to obey the laws only when you think you'll get caught. This is the sense in which injustice is more advantageous than justice for the non-ruling class.
And when you look closely at the laws that the ruling class has made, and you look at their conduct, you'll find that the ruling class has exempted themselves from those laws, in practice if not in theory. If you're poor and steal a small amount of money, you are punished harshly, but if you're rich and powerful and steal a great sum of money, you get at most a slap on the wrist. But really the rich person is doing the same thing as the poor person, and if you wanted to be consistent you'd call it "injustice". This in sense in which injustice is more advantageous for the ruling class as well.
The key assumption of the cynical view is that the laws that are in the interest of the ruling class are contrary to the interests of the non-ruling classes. There is no common good that's in the interests of both the ruling and non-ruling classes. But Socrates correctly points out that even bands of thieves have to have rules to enable them to work together. So the rules set out by the leader of the thieves, which would be "justice" according to the cynical thesis, are also in the interest of the rest of the thieves.
So the question naturally arises, can we have a set of rules or laws that works for everyone in larger groups? What about at the largest societal groups that share the same laws? For us today the largest group would be the nation-state, but in ancient Greece the largest group would the city.
I think I just can’t wrap my head around the assumption early on in book one that following laws = justice because in real life laws are a pretty mixed bag.
Here’s an underdeveloped thought: is Thrasymachus actually arguing that strength is being able to act unjustly within a system where pretty much everyone else will try to act in accordance to justice? And further that justice doesn’t seem to have good ways to protect itself from strength- ie once someone is strong enough, they no longer have to even consider justice. Justice becomes irrelevant if someone is strong enough to just force whatever outcome they want.
Since at least WWI, I think it has become more and more urgent that human-kind creates a strong, equitable, and representative international governance body that can peaceably resolve conflicts among nation-states.
In spite of all the shortcomings of the United Nations (and its sub-agencies), I believe the world has been, and still is, better with it than otherwise. Just as individuals must work together in a community in order to avoid what Thomas Hobbes calls "the war of all against all;" countries now must learn to collaborate to avoid the same. We must continue to fight to make any international governance or regulatory body more fair, effective, and democratic until we can think of a better alternative.
One point to make about Thrasymachus (and his inability to recognize his own contradictions) has to do with your point about the form of Plato's communication. Plato is working with characters in a dialectical context and takes seriously the states of their own souls and relationship to justice as he's exploring in the dialogue the nature of justice in the soul. So he's doing as much (or sometimes more) showing than he is telling or explaining. With Thrasymachus this means showing someone who is upsettingly ruled by his passions (like a wild beast) and so unable to recognize what are actually obvious (to the reader) moves to make for a rationale interlocutor.
Another point I made when I did a summary of Book I a little bit ago is that I think it's significant that Plato's Socrates takes someone like Thrasymachus so seriously. It's one of the achievements of the Republic as a whole to take the "immoralist" as really worth listening to and try to give a vision of the happy life consisting of virtue that doesn't beg the question against them.
What I love about Plato's dialogues and the Socratic method when applied to philosophical questions is how thoroughly we are disabused of the notion that there are always easy answers to moral questions. Justice, fairness, what is "right"... we often think "yea, I know what those are, no problem." But then when we are forced to actually define these ideas, we quickly realize that it's actually not so easy to do.
For anyone frustrated with Socrates's approach, I think you really have to get into an investigative mindset and just surrender to the process. You may not get a complete answer, and likely some of the "answers" you already had will be busted to bits, but if you stick with the investigation, you will come away wiser for it.
I'm reading the Grube translation published by Hackett, but I wanted to have an audio version to listen to as well. I find if I listen after I've read, it makes the various details of the text stick in my memory. Since the Grube translation is not available as an audiobook, I'm listening to the Rowe translation published by Penguin, with the Kandinsky art on the cover that Jared used above.
One of the things that struck me listening to the audiobook, and it's something I really didn't get when reading the text, is how funny Book I is, especially when Thrasymachus enters the dialogue. The reader is British, and gives Socrates some sort of northern UK accent, while Thrasymachus has a much more posh southern UK accent.
The details of Plato's dialogues are mostly made-up (The Apology might be an exception), but I'm sure he was trying to capture the spirit of his beloved teacher, and based on Book I, we can see that Socrates was very witty, and that explains why he was so appealing to the aristocratic youths of Athens.
I had the privilege of seeing Yannis Simonides perform The Apology of Socrates in 2010, and it really impressed on me the theatrical qualities of Plato's work. I'd love to see a production of Republic Book I.
There is an ongoing debate about how much Plato has "shaped" the character and ideas of Socrates to fit his own purposes. Xenophon, for example, has a fundamentally different portrayal of Socrates. I also believe the character of Socrates plays different roles in different Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately, as Socrates has not written anything himself, we can never answer these questions with certainty.
On the point that much of this is "made up," my favorite example of this comes from the Phaedo. The Phaedo is introduced with a conversation between two characters, one of whom asks the other "hey, you were there when Socrates died right?" And the other dude says "Oh yes, I was there, and so was X, Y, and Z... Oh, but not Plato, he wasn't there that day, he was sick. Anyway, here's what happened..." It's like Plato wants to intentionally draw our attention to his absence from the drama, so that we are not tempted to take it as a historical recounting but instead the philosophical exercise it is.
Every time I revisit Republic, I'm struck by Book 1 as a kind of self-contained Socratic dialogue. Thrasymachus behaves frustratingly, like many of Socrates' interlocutors in other dialogues, often ceding ground he does need to cede or failing to provide pushback when it would seem appropriate. The book even ends with Socrates declaring, as he does in dialogues like Euthyphro and Laches, that he has learned nothing. He has debunked a few arguments, gotten caught up in a side quest about the implications of Thrasymachus's argument about profitability and benefit to one's self, but this doesn't get us any closer necessarily to a definition. As you say, this is all a bit of a preface, and book 2 is where people do what I'm always yelling at characters in these dialogues to do: push back!
I do think there is something very interesting about Thrasymachus's argument that a true ruler, considered as a ruler, does not err. I'm not even certain that Socrates disagrees. When he introduces the argument from function to describe the "virtue" of any particular thing, it seems that he thinks there are virtues appropriate to different professions (doctors, horse trainers, what have you), and that if any person who by name holds that profession fails to achieve the virtue of that profession (if a doctor harms instead of heals, if a horse trainer ruins a horse rather than preparing him well for the race etc), then they are failing to exemplify the virtue appropriate to their profession and thus are at least a *bad* such-and-such. We might be tempted to go a step further and say a bad doctor is no doctor at all! So this part of Thrasymachus's argument seems intuitive to me: if a ruler is making nothing but errors, in what sense is he really a "ruler" in anything but name or convention?
Oh, one more thing: I can't remember if it's Bloom who points this out in his interpretive essay or if I read it first somewhere else, but many commentators have recognized an additional example of dramatic foreshadowing here in Book 1. Socrates and company have gone "down" to the Piraeus, a seedy port town, for a festival to a "new" god. When his friends catch up to him and compel him to stay, they speak to him of a torch race on horseback in the night that he simply must stay to see. In a couple different ways, Plato seems to be evoking for us the later allegory of the cave. Socrates has descended into a dark place with torches casting shadows, and will begin the process of leading his interlocutors out of shadowy darkness into light. Even the playful threats and compulsion of his friends is echoed in the allegory: Socrates later will tell us that those who have left the cave and gazed on the world illuminated by the sun may need to be compelled to return into the cave to share his knowledge (but will be persecuted for doing so).
Some scholars (e.g. Gregory Vlastos) think that Book I was originally a standalone dialogue, and classify it with the other early dialogues. It certainly has that feel!
The interpretive issue I've been thinking about a lot is how broadly we should understand the word "justice" in The Republic.
We now don't usually apply the adjective "just" to an individual person. We speak of "just laws" or a "just society", but if we speak of a just person, this person is usually someone who makes, enforces, or interprets laws.
But justice (dikaiosune in Greek) was one of the four cardinal virtues of individuals in ancient Greece, along with courage, temperance, and wisdom. Plato is going to consider it as a virtue of society later in The Republic, but it's still a virtue of individuals as well.
I don't know when we stopped using the term "just" as an adjective for individuals. Maybe it's due to Plato's influence that we now use the word mainly for societies.
The Greek word dikaiosune is translated as "righteousness" in most English translations of the New Testament, so it seems like this change had occurred by the time the New Testament was being translated into English. Interestingly, I looked up the beatitudes in my Greek/Latin New Testament, and the Latin uses the word "iustitiam". "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice" has a rather different ring than the usual translation, doesn't it?
But since the word "just" is not one we usually apply to individuals, but for Plato it is, how are we to understand it? I feel like I don't even have a good grasp of the concept that Plato is wanting to define in The Republic.
In the version published by Oxford, Robin Waterfield translates dikaiosune as "morality", opting for a maximally broad reading. I'm not 100% comfortable with this, because that threatens to swallow the other virtues as well, except perhaps for wisdom.
I'm tempted to think of Plato's justice as "morality in one's relationship to members of one's own society". Then temperance can be thought of as "morality in one's relationship to oneself". Plato adds piety to the four cardinal virtues in Euthyphro, and it can be thought of as "morality in one's relationship to the gods". I'm not so sure how courage should be conceived of.
But this conception doesn't seem to work when Plato later talks about justice as a virtue of a city, where justice is something other than being full of just people. Could we even have parallel discussions about the other virtues with regard to cities? What could a temperate city even be, apart from a city full of temperate people?
Thank you for this comment, I really enjoyed it. I’m don’t particularly have anything elucidating to add but I enjoyed learning about these variations in translation.
Also a comment on the writing style… I found myself following the argument fine until it concluded, then it was like I completely forgot what brought us to this conclusion and had to go back several times to understand. I don’t know why the style just slides out of my brain, but I hope that’s not my experience of the whole book.
I think Socrates browbeats Thrasymachus with his superior rhetorical skills but poor arguments. Thrasymachus suspects this will happen so he acts brashly and argues carelessly and becomes more and more dejected as things go on. Everyone else is disappointed that Socrates has won the debate but proven nothing. And that sets the premise for the rest of the dialogue.
One thing that strikes me upon reading these dialogues is the great humility and warmth displayed by Socrates as he is portrayed by Plato: he often blames himself when his opponents are confused or attack him [e.g., 336e, 354b], asking if he hasn't been clear enough. He not only does not denigrate his opponents as fools, but often praises them for their frankness and forthrightness in disagreeing with him, as he does with Thrasymachus [351c]. Given that humans do not seem to be naturally inclined to be told that they are wrong and mistaken about their beliefs, Socrates provides a model for how we should conduct fruitful discussions.
Cephalus' opening reflections feel extremely modern and relevant: he converses about what is essentially the conscience and how a life lived in a certain way may torment one with fear of punishment in the afterlife. He also describes very well the tension that exists between, on the one hand, wealth (inherited or self-made) and the worldly life, and, on the other, the contemplative life.
That contemplation helps us realize the Good, which Plato held we are ignorant of. Thus, a bad action is committed, according to his logic at least, not because a person is "evil" (which Proclus and other Neoplatonists, being monists, cannot accept the real existence of) but because he is in a state of ignorance about what is truly good for him. But Plato is a metaphysician, and what he holds to be good, the true good that benefits the soul, isn't really beneficial for a person, at least in a material, apparent sense. Philosophers who contemplate, in fact, ought to "escape the body" and its needs as much as possible [Phaedo, 66d-e, 67a] in order to realize the good, which ties back to the points made by Cephalus.
I'm not sold on Plato's metaphysical conception of justice and the good, but there was absolutely valuable practical wisdom to be gleaned in this first book.
I have never actually read The Republic before, and a few things about Book I really surprised but delighted me.
First, I found the initial discussion between Socrates and Cephalus particularly relevant into today but also an interesting stage-setting/contrast then to the later "might makes right" argument for justice from Thrasymachus. Because, critically, Socrates interrogates Cephalus specifically about the role his wealth and inheritance have played in his capacities to be a more or less "just" man over the course of his life. There's something startling to me about the nuance present in Cephalus both agreeing with Socrates in the assertion that an agreeable person AND a cynic or disagreeable person will, in fact, both experience suffering in old age due to poverty but that the former will then be able to enjoy old age with wealth while all the wealth in the world won't make the latter any happier.
Later, Socrates seems to call back to the conversation with Cephalus and the points made about the difference in attitude towards money held by those who inherited it vs. made it and the virtue of the wealthy when he argues with Thrasymachus about whether those ruling (who typically have wealth) are, in fact, as self-interested as imagined or about whether in a society made up entirely of good men the fight would not instead be over the right to NOT rule.
Both conversations about justice in this opening book feel shockingly modern to me because they seem to be really about establishing some foundational understanding of a social contract present between the poor and the wealthy, and between the ruling class and those they rule, the way in which the two halves are co-dependent upon one another and the way in which a term like "justice" as a concept (much like wealth and right to rule) is subject to a kind of contextual legitimacy.
The ending where Socrates admits that nobody has won the argument and he knows nothing is also a great establishment of one of the things that is so interesting to me about Socrates' legacy and that so frustrates his antagonist: that the point may not be, in fact, to be able to come to a conclusion at all or to find the right answer, but instead to recognize our own subjectivities and the subjectivity of many of life's questions and make the journey of the conversation itself the point from which we then reflect. For anyone who believes that certain subjective and shared "truths" that we create as a society demand an underlying objective equation or firm refutation of all other arguments to arrive at "the answer", Socrates' refusal to provide one and insistence that he has none while refusing to stop questioning would seem infuriating indeed. But the fact that we are still hundreds of years later having the same arguments only proves Socrates more correct than ever to remind us to never forget that our certainty can always evaporate no matter how sure we think we are about many things the moment someone comes in with the right question we haven't thought to ask yet.
I’m greatly looking forward to the continuation of this series.
The Republic remains one of the greatest works of philosophy ever written, the issues it raises as relevant today as ever.
That it’s not written as an academic essay is, as you imply, deliberate; it’s a feature not a bug and a fascinating one. The work both has written contents and at the same time is itself the message. A “trick” that’s been attempted several times since but seldom as masterfully.
I would have to agree, many times while reading, Socrates' summations or interpretations of Thrasymachus' positions I'd think to myself "😯that was quite a leap"
I'm reading The Once and Future King now, and it's been really interesting to see the parallels between Plato's depiction of "might makes right" alongside White's. Socrates seems to convey that a truly just ruler (or, in this case, a just True Ruler) would never attempt to overthrow another True Ruler because they would both be excelling at the art or the craft of ruling; just in the same way that a true horseman wouldn't supersede another if that other horseman was performing to the same high standard of craftsmanship. In The Queen of Air and Darkness, Merlin is overjoyed that Arthur has turned away from "might is right", and Arthur justifies his battles against King Lot because Lot invaded Arthur's territory. Arthur is simply responding to Lot--who, in the act of invading, has actually lowered himself out of True Ruler status.
Similarly, Socrates expresses to Polemarchus that a just man may try to befriend an enemy, rather than injure him. Arthur ignores the serfs during the battle against King Lot, and attempts to bring in both Gaels and Galls to his Round Table.
I'm really curious to see how Plato's definition of justice evolves and how Arthur evolves as a just man/true ruler!
How familiar are you with Arthurian legend in general? I read Once and Future King such a long time ago I don’t remember it, but if it follows the shape of the legend there’s a rather large event related to justice in Arthur’s future… Maybe it’s silly of me to try to avoid spoilers on a centuries old story tho.
Thrasymachus is not at all consistent, but I think the most consistent way of fleshing out his position is what we might call the "cynical view".
In every society, there is a ruling class, and they make laws that they think are in their best interests. These laws are contrary to the interests of the other classes, because it's a zero-sum game. They call obedience to these laws "justice". This is the sense in which justice is the interests of the stronger.
Since these laws are not in the interest of the non-ruling classes, members of the non-ruling classes who obey these laws, in circumstances where they would not get caught disobeying them, are just suckers and losers. The smart thing to do is to obey the laws only when you think you'll get caught. This is the sense in which injustice is more advantageous than justice for the non-ruling class.
And when you look closely at the laws that the ruling class has made, and you look at their conduct, you'll find that the ruling class has exempted themselves from those laws, in practice if not in theory. If you're poor and steal a small amount of money, you are punished harshly, but if you're rich and powerful and steal a great sum of money, you get at most a slap on the wrist. But really the rich person is doing the same thing as the poor person, and if you wanted to be consistent you'd call it "injustice". This in sense in which injustice is more advantageous for the ruling class as well.
The key assumption of the cynical view is that the laws that are in the interest of the ruling class are contrary to the interests of the non-ruling classes. There is no common good that's in the interests of both the ruling and non-ruling classes. But Socrates correctly points out that even bands of thieves have to have rules to enable them to work together. So the rules set out by the leader of the thieves, which would be "justice" according to the cynical thesis, are also in the interest of the rest of the thieves.
So the question naturally arises, can we have a set of rules or laws that works for everyone in larger groups? What about at the largest societal groups that share the same laws? For us today the largest group would be the nation-state, but in ancient Greece the largest group would the city.
I think I just can’t wrap my head around the assumption early on in book one that following laws = justice because in real life laws are a pretty mixed bag.
Here’s an underdeveloped thought: is Thrasymachus actually arguing that strength is being able to act unjustly within a system where pretty much everyone else will try to act in accordance to justice? And further that justice doesn’t seem to have good ways to protect itself from strength- ie once someone is strong enough, they no longer have to even consider justice. Justice becomes irrelevant if someone is strong enough to just force whatever outcome they want.
👏🏻
Since at least WWI, I think it has become more and more urgent that human-kind creates a strong, equitable, and representative international governance body that can peaceably resolve conflicts among nation-states.
You mean like the failed League and its failing relation the United Nations?
In spite of all the shortcomings of the United Nations (and its sub-agencies), I believe the world has been, and still is, better with it than otherwise. Just as individuals must work together in a community in order to avoid what Thomas Hobbes calls "the war of all against all;" countries now must learn to collaborate to avoid the same. We must continue to fight to make any international governance or regulatory body more fair, effective, and democratic until we can think of a better alternative.
One point to make about Thrasymachus (and his inability to recognize his own contradictions) has to do with your point about the form of Plato's communication. Plato is working with characters in a dialectical context and takes seriously the states of their own souls and relationship to justice as he's exploring in the dialogue the nature of justice in the soul. So he's doing as much (or sometimes more) showing than he is telling or explaining. With Thrasymachus this means showing someone who is upsettingly ruled by his passions (like a wild beast) and so unable to recognize what are actually obvious (to the reader) moves to make for a rationale interlocutor.
Another point I made when I did a summary of Book I a little bit ago is that I think it's significant that Plato's Socrates takes someone like Thrasymachus so seriously. It's one of the achievements of the Republic as a whole to take the "immoralist" as really worth listening to and try to give a vision of the happy life consisting of virtue that doesn't beg the question against them.
https://substack.com/@patrickegc/p-149540501
What I love about Plato's dialogues and the Socratic method when applied to philosophical questions is how thoroughly we are disabused of the notion that there are always easy answers to moral questions. Justice, fairness, what is "right"... we often think "yea, I know what those are, no problem." But then when we are forced to actually define these ideas, we quickly realize that it's actually not so easy to do.
For anyone frustrated with Socrates's approach, I think you really have to get into an investigative mindset and just surrender to the process. You may not get a complete answer, and likely some of the "answers" you already had will be busted to bits, but if you stick with the investigation, you will come away wiser for it.
I'm reading the Grube translation published by Hackett, but I wanted to have an audio version to listen to as well. I find if I listen after I've read, it makes the various details of the text stick in my memory. Since the Grube translation is not available as an audiobook, I'm listening to the Rowe translation published by Penguin, with the Kandinsky art on the cover that Jared used above.
One of the things that struck me listening to the audiobook, and it's something I really didn't get when reading the text, is how funny Book I is, especially when Thrasymachus enters the dialogue. The reader is British, and gives Socrates some sort of northern UK accent, while Thrasymachus has a much more posh southern UK accent.
The details of Plato's dialogues are mostly made-up (The Apology might be an exception), but I'm sure he was trying to capture the spirit of his beloved teacher, and based on Book I, we can see that Socrates was very witty, and that explains why he was so appealing to the aristocratic youths of Athens.
I had the privilege of seeing Yannis Simonides perform The Apology of Socrates in 2010, and it really impressed on me the theatrical qualities of Plato's work. I'd love to see a production of Republic Book I.
I have a dream to one day put on some events in Austin where the dialogues are read aloud in whole or part.
There is an ongoing debate about how much Plato has "shaped" the character and ideas of Socrates to fit his own purposes. Xenophon, for example, has a fundamentally different portrayal of Socrates. I also believe the character of Socrates plays different roles in different Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately, as Socrates has not written anything himself, we can never answer these questions with certainty.
On the point that much of this is "made up," my favorite example of this comes from the Phaedo. The Phaedo is introduced with a conversation between two characters, one of whom asks the other "hey, you were there when Socrates died right?" And the other dude says "Oh yes, I was there, and so was X, Y, and Z... Oh, but not Plato, he wasn't there that day, he was sick. Anyway, here's what happened..." It's like Plato wants to intentionally draw our attention to his absence from the drama, so that we are not tempted to take it as a historical recounting but instead the philosophical exercise it is.
Every time I revisit Republic, I'm struck by Book 1 as a kind of self-contained Socratic dialogue. Thrasymachus behaves frustratingly, like many of Socrates' interlocutors in other dialogues, often ceding ground he does need to cede or failing to provide pushback when it would seem appropriate. The book even ends with Socrates declaring, as he does in dialogues like Euthyphro and Laches, that he has learned nothing. He has debunked a few arguments, gotten caught up in a side quest about the implications of Thrasymachus's argument about profitability and benefit to one's self, but this doesn't get us any closer necessarily to a definition. As you say, this is all a bit of a preface, and book 2 is where people do what I'm always yelling at characters in these dialogues to do: push back!
I do think there is something very interesting about Thrasymachus's argument that a true ruler, considered as a ruler, does not err. I'm not even certain that Socrates disagrees. When he introduces the argument from function to describe the "virtue" of any particular thing, it seems that he thinks there are virtues appropriate to different professions (doctors, horse trainers, what have you), and that if any person who by name holds that profession fails to achieve the virtue of that profession (if a doctor harms instead of heals, if a horse trainer ruins a horse rather than preparing him well for the race etc), then they are failing to exemplify the virtue appropriate to their profession and thus are at least a *bad* such-and-such. We might be tempted to go a step further and say a bad doctor is no doctor at all! So this part of Thrasymachus's argument seems intuitive to me: if a ruler is making nothing but errors, in what sense is he really a "ruler" in anything but name or convention?
Oh, one more thing: I can't remember if it's Bloom who points this out in his interpretive essay or if I read it first somewhere else, but many commentators have recognized an additional example of dramatic foreshadowing here in Book 1. Socrates and company have gone "down" to the Piraeus, a seedy port town, for a festival to a "new" god. When his friends catch up to him and compel him to stay, they speak to him of a torch race on horseback in the night that he simply must stay to see. In a couple different ways, Plato seems to be evoking for us the later allegory of the cave. Socrates has descended into a dark place with torches casting shadows, and will begin the process of leading his interlocutors out of shadowy darkness into light. Even the playful threats and compulsion of his friends is echoed in the allegory: Socrates later will tell us that those who have left the cave and gazed on the world illuminated by the sun may need to be compelled to return into the cave to share his knowledge (but will be persecuted for doing so).
Some scholars (e.g. Gregory Vlastos) think that Book I was originally a standalone dialogue, and classify it with the other early dialogues. It certainly has that feel!
The interpretive issue I've been thinking about a lot is how broadly we should understand the word "justice" in The Republic.
We now don't usually apply the adjective "just" to an individual person. We speak of "just laws" or a "just society", but if we speak of a just person, this person is usually someone who makes, enforces, or interprets laws.
But justice (dikaiosune in Greek) was one of the four cardinal virtues of individuals in ancient Greece, along with courage, temperance, and wisdom. Plato is going to consider it as a virtue of society later in The Republic, but it's still a virtue of individuals as well.
I don't know when we stopped using the term "just" as an adjective for individuals. Maybe it's due to Plato's influence that we now use the word mainly for societies.
The Greek word dikaiosune is translated as "righteousness" in most English translations of the New Testament, so it seems like this change had occurred by the time the New Testament was being translated into English. Interestingly, I looked up the beatitudes in my Greek/Latin New Testament, and the Latin uses the word "iustitiam". "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice" has a rather different ring than the usual translation, doesn't it?
But since the word "just" is not one we usually apply to individuals, but for Plato it is, how are we to understand it? I feel like I don't even have a good grasp of the concept that Plato is wanting to define in The Republic.
In the version published by Oxford, Robin Waterfield translates dikaiosune as "morality", opting for a maximally broad reading. I'm not 100% comfortable with this, because that threatens to swallow the other virtues as well, except perhaps for wisdom.
I'm tempted to think of Plato's justice as "morality in one's relationship to members of one's own society". Then temperance can be thought of as "morality in one's relationship to oneself". Plato adds piety to the four cardinal virtues in Euthyphro, and it can be thought of as "morality in one's relationship to the gods". I'm not so sure how courage should be conceived of.
But this conception doesn't seem to work when Plato later talks about justice as a virtue of a city, where justice is something other than being full of just people. Could we even have parallel discussions about the other virtues with regard to cities? What could a temperate city even be, apart from a city full of temperate people?
Thank you for this comment, I really enjoyed it. I’m don’t particularly have anything elucidating to add but I enjoyed learning about these variations in translation.
I completely agree with Michelle well done Brock
Also a comment on the writing style… I found myself following the argument fine until it concluded, then it was like I completely forgot what brought us to this conclusion and had to go back several times to understand. I don’t know why the style just slides out of my brain, but I hope that’s not my experience of the whole book.
Another comment by Michelle that I absolutely identify with. Thank you
I’m glad to know someone else feels similarly. Makes me feel less stupid and more like “this book is just tricky”
I think Socrates browbeats Thrasymachus with his superior rhetorical skills but poor arguments. Thrasymachus suspects this will happen so he acts brashly and argues carelessly and becomes more and more dejected as things go on. Everyone else is disappointed that Socrates has won the debate but proven nothing. And that sets the premise for the rest of the dialogue.
One thing that strikes me upon reading these dialogues is the great humility and warmth displayed by Socrates as he is portrayed by Plato: he often blames himself when his opponents are confused or attack him [e.g., 336e, 354b], asking if he hasn't been clear enough. He not only does not denigrate his opponents as fools, but often praises them for their frankness and forthrightness in disagreeing with him, as he does with Thrasymachus [351c]. Given that humans do not seem to be naturally inclined to be told that they are wrong and mistaken about their beliefs, Socrates provides a model for how we should conduct fruitful discussions.
Cephalus' opening reflections feel extremely modern and relevant: he converses about what is essentially the conscience and how a life lived in a certain way may torment one with fear of punishment in the afterlife. He also describes very well the tension that exists between, on the one hand, wealth (inherited or self-made) and the worldly life, and, on the other, the contemplative life.
That contemplation helps us realize the Good, which Plato held we are ignorant of. Thus, a bad action is committed, according to his logic at least, not because a person is "evil" (which Proclus and other Neoplatonists, being monists, cannot accept the real existence of) but because he is in a state of ignorance about what is truly good for him. But Plato is a metaphysician, and what he holds to be good, the true good that benefits the soul, isn't really beneficial for a person, at least in a material, apparent sense. Philosophers who contemplate, in fact, ought to "escape the body" and its needs as much as possible [Phaedo, 66d-e, 67a] in order to realize the good, which ties back to the points made by Cephalus.
I'm not sold on Plato's metaphysical conception of justice and the good, but there was absolutely valuable practical wisdom to be gleaned in this first book.
I have never actually read The Republic before, and a few things about Book I really surprised but delighted me.
First, I found the initial discussion between Socrates and Cephalus particularly relevant into today but also an interesting stage-setting/contrast then to the later "might makes right" argument for justice from Thrasymachus. Because, critically, Socrates interrogates Cephalus specifically about the role his wealth and inheritance have played in his capacities to be a more or less "just" man over the course of his life. There's something startling to me about the nuance present in Cephalus both agreeing with Socrates in the assertion that an agreeable person AND a cynic or disagreeable person will, in fact, both experience suffering in old age due to poverty but that the former will then be able to enjoy old age with wealth while all the wealth in the world won't make the latter any happier.
Later, Socrates seems to call back to the conversation with Cephalus and the points made about the difference in attitude towards money held by those who inherited it vs. made it and the virtue of the wealthy when he argues with Thrasymachus about whether those ruling (who typically have wealth) are, in fact, as self-interested as imagined or about whether in a society made up entirely of good men the fight would not instead be over the right to NOT rule.
Both conversations about justice in this opening book feel shockingly modern to me because they seem to be really about establishing some foundational understanding of a social contract present between the poor and the wealthy, and between the ruling class and those they rule, the way in which the two halves are co-dependent upon one another and the way in which a term like "justice" as a concept (much like wealth and right to rule) is subject to a kind of contextual legitimacy.
The ending where Socrates admits that nobody has won the argument and he knows nothing is also a great establishment of one of the things that is so interesting to me about Socrates' legacy and that so frustrates his antagonist: that the point may not be, in fact, to be able to come to a conclusion at all or to find the right answer, but instead to recognize our own subjectivities and the subjectivity of many of life's questions and make the journey of the conversation itself the point from which we then reflect. For anyone who believes that certain subjective and shared "truths" that we create as a society demand an underlying objective equation or firm refutation of all other arguments to arrive at "the answer", Socrates' refusal to provide one and insistence that he has none while refusing to stop questioning would seem infuriating indeed. But the fact that we are still hundreds of years later having the same arguments only proves Socrates more correct than ever to remind us to never forget that our certainty can always evaporate no matter how sure we think we are about many things the moment someone comes in with the right question we haven't thought to ask yet.
Oh no . . . I thought we would start reading on March 31th. I havent begun yet, need to start catching up.
It's still early! You can catch up!
So funny to hear your perspective on not liking Plato's dialectic style. It was my gateway into philosophy.
I’m greatly looking forward to the continuation of this series.
The Republic remains one of the greatest works of philosophy ever written, the issues it raises as relevant today as ever.
That it’s not written as an academic essay is, as you imply, deliberate; it’s a feature not a bug and a fascinating one. The work both has written contents and at the same time is itself the message. A “trick” that’s been attempted several times since but seldom as masterfully.
I was reading Cicero’s “On Old Age” when it struck me as familiar. Cicero is straight up using Cephalus’s report on old age as a jumping off point.
It's pretty simple - Thrasymachus is self-refuting and inconsistent, because he is Plato's strawman
I would have to agree, many times while reading, Socrates' summations or interpretations of Thrasymachus' positions I'd think to myself "😯that was quite a leap"
I'm reading The Once and Future King now, and it's been really interesting to see the parallels between Plato's depiction of "might makes right" alongside White's. Socrates seems to convey that a truly just ruler (or, in this case, a just True Ruler) would never attempt to overthrow another True Ruler because they would both be excelling at the art or the craft of ruling; just in the same way that a true horseman wouldn't supersede another if that other horseman was performing to the same high standard of craftsmanship. In The Queen of Air and Darkness, Merlin is overjoyed that Arthur has turned away from "might is right", and Arthur justifies his battles against King Lot because Lot invaded Arthur's territory. Arthur is simply responding to Lot--who, in the act of invading, has actually lowered himself out of True Ruler status.
Similarly, Socrates expresses to Polemarchus that a just man may try to befriend an enemy, rather than injure him. Arthur ignores the serfs during the battle against King Lot, and attempts to bring in both Gaels and Galls to his Round Table.
I'm really curious to see how Plato's definition of justice evolves and how Arthur evolves as a just man/true ruler!
How familiar are you with Arthurian legend in general? I read Once and Future King such a long time ago I don’t remember it, but if it follows the shape of the legend there’s a rather large event related to justice in Arthur’s future… Maybe it’s silly of me to try to avoid spoilers on a centuries old story tho.