This paper reevaluates the role of Adeimantus in Book 2 of Plato's Republic, arguing that his challenge to Socrates' view of justice—specifically, his interest in the influence of the outer world on our inner lives—serves a crucial yet underappreciated purpose in initiating the political project of the work. I suggest that it's due to Adeimantus' contribution in the Republic that Plato's wide-ranging inquiry into issues in ethics, politics, psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics hangs together as an integrated whole. A (...) further benefit of this reevaluation, I argue, is the way it illuminates Plato's assessment of poetry in the dialogue. This paper was delivered this past year as part of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. Comments are welcome but please do not cite without permission. (shrink)

The chapters in which Thucydides describes the revolt of Potidaea and the subsequent operations there have often been criticized for their lack of clarity and precision. Their unevenness suggests an inadequate mastery of technique, and it seems very probable that they were written in the earliest years of the Peloponnesian war and never revised. Although opportunities to interrogate Peloponnesian prisoners must occasionally have come his way , his accounts of military operations which took place long before his banishment are founded (...) very largely upon evidence derived from Athenian sources; but the chapters on Potidaea do not suffer from this disadvantage, and their faults are in no way attributable to a dearth of information from Peloponnesian sources, which seem, strangely enough, to have provided him with much of his material. His narrative is written as much from a Peloponnesian as from an Athenian point of view, and indeed it achieves warmth and colour only where its subject is the Corinthian Aristeus, whose plans and even motives are described in some detail, though they did not substantially influence the course of events. His treatment of Aristeus is sufficiently remarkable to merit examination with the object of seeking an explanation of its peculiarities. (shrink)

Tracing a central theme of Plato's Republic , G. R. F. Ferrari reconsiders in this study the nature and purpose of the comparison between the structure of society and that of the individual soul. In four chapters, Ferrari examines the personalities and social status of the brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato's notion of justice, coherence in Plato's description of the decline of states, and the tyrant and the philosopher king—a pair who, in their different ways, break with the terms (...) of the city-soul analogy. In addition to acknowledging familiar themes in the interpretation of the Republic —the sincerity of its utopianism, the justice of the philosopher's return to the Cave—Ferrari provocatively engages secondary literature by Leo Strauss, Bernard Williams, and Jonathan Lear. With admirable clarity and insight, Ferrari conveys the relation between the city and the soul and the choice between tyranny and philosophy. City and Soul in Plato's Republic will be of value to students of classics, philosophy, and political theory alike. (shrink)

This article considers two related and fundamental issues about morality in a virtual world. The first is whether the anonymity that is a feature of virtual worlds can shed light upon whether people are moral when they can act with impunity. The second issue is whether there are any moral obligations in a virtual world and if so what they might be. -/- Our reasons for being good are fundamental to understanding what it is that makes us moral or indeed (...) whether any of us truly are moral. Plato grapples with this problem in book two of The Republic where Socrates is challenged by his brothers Adeimantus and Glaucon. They argue that people are moral only because of the costs to them of being immoral; the external constraints of morality. -/- Glaucon asks us to imagine a magical ring that enables its wearers to become invisible and capable of acting anonymously. The ring is in some respects analogous to the possibilities created by online virtual worlds such as Second Life, so the dialogue is our entry point into considering morality within these worlds. These worlds are three dimensional user created environments where people control avatars and live virtual lives. As well as being an important social phenomenon, virtual worlds and what people chose to do in them can shed light on what people will do when they can act without fear of normal sanction. -/- This paper begins by explaining the traditional challenge to morality posed by Plato, relating this to conduct in virtual worlds. Then the paper will consider the following skeptical objection. A precondition of all moral requirements is the ability to act. There are no moral requirements in virtual worlds because they are virtual and it is impossible to act in a virtual world. Because avatars do not have real bodies and the persons controlling avatars are not truly embodied, it is impossible for people to truly act in a virtual world. We will show that it is possible to perform some actions and suggest a number of moral requirements that might plausibly be thought to result. Because avatars cannot feel physical pain or pleasure these moral requirements are interestingly different from those of real life. Hume’s arguments for why we should be moral apply to virtual worlds and we conclude by considering how this explains why morality exists in these environments. (shrink)

Plato's Republic, one of the great works in the history of philosophy, is presented here as it was written - as a dramatic performance exploring various perspectives on justice, truth, knowledge, and the good. Plato wrote each book of The Republic to be performed by actors playing the characters of Socrates, Glaucon, Adeimantus, Thrasymachus, and the others. When Book One was performed, he then invited his students—the brightest and best young people in Athens—to respond to each and every argument, (...) issue, and question posed by the characters. Rather than passively listening, they were lured into the process and challenged to evaluate and improve on the ideas presented in the performance. Based on their responses, Plato then wrote Book Two. The same process was repeated, and Book Three was generated. In this way all ten books evolved as part of a dynamic and creative dialectic intended to take place in the souls of each and every participant—including Plato himself. This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

Plato's Republic centers on a simple question: is it always better to be just than unjust? The puzzles in Book One prepare for this question, and Glaucon and Adeimantus make it explicit at the beginning of Book Two. To answer the question, Socrates takes a long way around, sketching an account of a good city on the grounds that a good city would be just and that defining justice as a virtue of a city would help to define justice (...) as a virtue of a human being. Socrates is finally close to answering the question after he characterizes justice as a personal virtue at the end of Book Four, but he is interrupted and challenged to defend some of the more controversial features of the good city he has sketched. In Books Five through Seven, he addresses this challenge, arguing (in effect) that the just city and the just human being as he has sketched them are in fact good and are in principle possible. After this long digression, Socrates in Books Eight and Nine finally delivers three "proofs" that it is always better to be just than unjust. Then, because Socrates wants not only to show that it is always better to be just but also to convince Glaucon and Adeimantus of this point, and because Socrates' proofs are opposed by the teachings of poets, he bolsters his case in Book Ten by indicting the poets' claims to represent the truth and by offering a new myth that is consonant with his proofs. (shrink)

In the Republic, Socrates undertakes to defend justice as being in itself a benefit to its possessor. Does he do this, or does he change the subject? In a well-known article, David Sachs pointed out that there seems to be a shift in what Plato is defending. The challenge to Socrates is put by Thrasymachus, who admires the successful unjust man, and by Glaucon and Adeimantus, who do not, but are worried that justice has no adequate defence against Thrasymachus. (...) In all these passages justice is discussed in terms of the non-performance of actions which are regarded as unjust according to common morality; Sachs calls this common concept of ordinary justice ‘vulgar justice’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:just Men and Just Acts in Plato's Republic JEROME SCHILLER I. Introduction Too MUCHhas already been written about Plato's Republic. But this, strangely enough, is why a little more needs to be written. For the book has been worked over so often that an obvious sign of fatigue has set in: critics are beginning to find such elementary flaws in the Republic that one wonders why he should waste (...) time on such a philosophically embarrassing work at all. It is to counter one of these recent criticisms and thus, hopefully, to help offset the fatigue, that this study is written. It purports not only to show the criticism mistaken, but also to sketch a way of looking at the Republic which should send the reader back for a further look at this incredibly rich work. The richness of the Republic is, indeed, a source of embarrassment for anyone writing on it. For because of its structure it is at least misleading to isolate one topic from the myriad others treated there, and because of its complexity, impossible to document interpretations of more than a few topics. I shall follow the time-honored practices here of merely expressing my bias on some topics (such as my non-political interpretation) and leaving it up to the reader to follow up hints of my interpretations of other topics (such as that of the Sun, Line, and Cave). II. Plato's Alleged Fallacy in the Republic David Sachs and A. W. H. Adkins have recently claimed that Plato commits the fallacy of equivocation in the Republic, not in the course of some minor argument, but in answering what is probably the central problem posed by the work: Why be just?1 Simply put, their objection goes like this: In the first book of the Republic, Socrates attempts to prove to Thrasymachus why justice is preferable to injustice. But even Socrates is dissatisfied with this answer and early in the second book, after a brilliantly fashioned defense of the Thrasymachean position by Glaucon and Adeimantus, the brothers ask for a more convincing demonstration from "You, [who have] passed your entire life in the consideration of this very matter." e Socrates seems to accept the challenge and proceeds to a search for the concept of justice writ large in the state. Now, claim Adkins and Sachs, Plato never does answer Glaucon's and AdeiDavid Sachs, A Fallacy in Plato s Republic, Philosophical Review, LX(XII (1963),141158 ;A. W. H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, A Study in Greek Values (Oxford,1960),p. 289. Adkins,in developingapolitical interpretation ofthe Republic, doesnot elaborate the criticism as does Sachs; hence I refer in this study primarily to the latter's article. sPlato, Republic 376e 2-3,trans. P. Shorey (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1937-42).All subsequent quotations are from this translation. [1] HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY mantus' request. For though he does eventually purport to show that justice is preferable to injustice, the justice he attempts to prove this of is not at all the same justice that Glaucon and Adeimantus have in mind. Plato has simply equivocated on the term "iustice," meaning at one time the set of acts generally considered just,s but at another time a certain order in the individual's soul. He has purported to show that an individual with a well-ordered soul reaps advantages, but unless he can show a clear relation between this "Platonic" notion of justice and the "vulgar" notion of justice, the notion which Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon and Adeimantus have in mind, he will not have answered the brothers' question, and will thus have avoided the central problem of the Republic. The relation he has to establish is, Sachs claims, that Platonic justice is a necessary and a sufficient condition for vulgar justice. Then he could argue that since he has shown that a man reaps advantages just to the extent that he is Platonically just, (1) a vulgarly unjust individual will not reap more advantages than a vulgarly just one (on the grounds that Platonic justice entails vulgar justice), and (2) a vulgarly just man will reap more advantages than a vulgarly... (shrink)

The present article aims to reconstruct some political consequences of aristippean philosophy in the light of fragment fs, 570 (= ssr, iv.a.163 = Memorabilia, ii.1.1–17) in order to show how Aristippus’ agreement with Socrates’ remarks fits the Cyrus composed by Xenophon in his Cyropaedia. In pursuance of this, I will review Aristippus’ ethics and will show how, despite the opposition with his hedonistic principles for a pleasureable life, Aristippus accepts that a good ruler needs to be a enkratic one—althouth he (...) argues that pursuing any rule is senselessness. After showing how it is possible to recognice some hedonistic position in Adeimantus’ question at the beginning of Republic, iv, I will present the enkratic character of Cyrus. Finally, I will conclude pointing out the political continuities between Aristippus’ acceptance in fs, 570 and the ideal of ruler constructed by Xenophon. (shrink)

I argue that Cephalus introduces the argumentative paradigm of the entire Republic, the Challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus, through his comments on wealth and his story about Themistocles.

From an etymological standpoint the word "interest" is well suited to phenomenological investigations, lnteresse, to be among, 1 or as Husserl sometimes translates, Dabeisein, 2 succinctly expresses the sense ofHusserl's more usual term, "intentionality." Mind, he never tired or saying, is not at all another thing alongside the various things of the world; it is already outside itself, and in the company of the things it thinks. Yet despite the appropriateness of "interest" to name this fact of psychic life, only (...) gradually does the word assume a place in the phenomenological vocabulary. The reason is not hard to find. Husserl's early work treats intentional achievements statically and hence rather thinly. Once he secured the transcendental or properly phenomenological stance he was free to move beyond his initial "Platonism" to a more truly Platonic position, which attempts to think the forms in motion. That is to say, Husserl discovered genetic phenomenology. 3 Mind is now considered in light of its purposiveness: genetic phenomenology highlights the teleological character of our thinking engagement with the world. "Interest," accordingly, may be said to name the history of our readiness to take up with things in their intelligibility. Alternately stated, Husserl's account of interest displays the drawing power of the real in virtue of its being thinkable or ideal. It is perhaps not too grave an injustice to read interest as the Husserlian analogue to the "idea of the good" proposed by Socrates to Glaucon and Adeimantus as that which lights the mind's way. (shrink)

In Books Three and Four of The Republic, Socrates and Plato's brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, discuss the best way to educate leaders for a just republic. In the course of their dialogue, the meaning of justice in individuals and in society shifts from external order imposed through rules and regulations to the harmony and balance internal to every person in the republic. Only then will an individual be ready to act—whether in acquiring wealth, in the care of the body, (...) or in any public or private affairs. This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

Plato gradually reaches the concept of the “Good itself” in the most extensive dialogue (apart from The Laws). The dramaturgy of Republic was included in the pedagogical idea. Plato’s own brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, representatives of the aristoia, want to hear from Socrates logically based instruction on what is really good and why, regardless of the prevailing public opinion in Athenian society. They both know that the most valued asset is the wealth and political influence that the use of (...) force provides. Thanks to this, you can effectively appear to be the fairest among citizens, despite the fact that you are extremely unjust. Appearances are highly valued in social life. Only minds exceptionally open to dialectics seek the truth, not content with appearances. Socrates introduces listeners to the knowledge of “the Good itself”, the “form of the Good”, as the most perfect object of knowledge and at the same time the highest principle. The Good, identical with the “One”, “is” above substance (509b). (shrink)

Plato’s characterization of the philosopher often emerges as a way to respond to popular conceptions and representations of the intellectual in Athenian society. In book 6 of the Republic in particular, he articulates his greatest defense of the philosopher against two major charges – that of being vicious and useless. Voicing what appears to be a commonly held view among Athenians, this representation of the philosopher is raised by Adeimantus as an objection to Socrates’ proposal of a philosopher-king. Surprisingly, (...) rather than dismissing the allegations as false, Socrates admits ‘that what they say is true’ and incorporates these criticisms into his argument. This paper proposes that the popular depiction of the philosopher as odd, vicious and idle plays a significant role in Plato’s own characterization of the philosopher, illustrating how Plato diagnoses the philosopher’s alienation from public affairs in a manner that defines and legitimates his own ideas of philosophy. (shrink)

In his original and illuminating essay, Tushar Irani offers a re-reading of Adeimantus’s and Glaucon’s challenges to Socrates in book 2 of Plato’s Republic. If correct, his interpretation has far-reaching implications for how we are to understand the dialogue as a whole. At the core of this re-reading is an attempt to rehabilitate Adeimantus’s reputation by demonstrating his central role in determining the trajectory of the dialogue’s argument. In my response I question Irani’s suggestion that Adeimantus’s challenge (...) to Socrates is as distinct from Glaucon’s as Irani suggests it is and, even if so, whether it is distinct in the precise way he suggests it is. Furthermore, I raise possible objections to his claim that large parts of the Republic—and, especially, its political project—are intended to meet Adeimantus’s challenge, not Glaucon’s. (shrink)

The passage containing this verb is in Resp. v. 450 B: χρυσοχοήσοντας οἴει τούσδε νῦν ἐνθάδε ἀφῖχθαι, ἀλλ᾽οὐ λόγων ἀκουσομένους; The situation is dramatic. Socrates, to his own mind, has just finished a discussion of the one part of his ideal state, and is intending to go on to the other. Polemarchus, however, seizes him by the cloak and at the same time whispers to Adeimantus. Then Adeimantus tells Socrates that they will hold him by force, until he (...) explains further some words of his that have aroused their interest, and finally Thrasymachus adds that they are unanimous in this decision. Socrates replies that they know not what a swarm of explanations they are stirring up. ‘Seeing this swarm,’ says he, ‘I let it pass, that it might not bother us greatly.’ Then Thrasymachus replies: ‘But do you think these persons have come here for gold-hunting , and not to hear explanations?’. (shrink)

In this chapter, Plato’s view of justice is presented, which possibly differs from Socrates’. Plato’s “sufficient thesis”, is compared with the “comparative thesis”, held by Glaucon and Adeimantus. A detailed discussion of all the relevant problems of book II, the relation between happiness and justice, is outlined. In conclusion, some aspects of Plato’s view are critically evaluated.

In this dissertation, I examine Socrates' defense of justice in Plato's Republic. I contend that recognizing the problematic character of Socrates' defense of justice in the Republic is a key to understanding his teaching regarding justice. In response to the request made by Glaucon and Adeimantus at the beginning of Book Two, Socrates tries to show, in the bulk of the Republic, that justice is intrinsically good and that it is better than injustice. In doing so, he relies especially (...) on the definition of the justice of the individual that he provides at the end of Book Four, i.e., allowing each of the parts of the soul to mind its own business. But this definition is paradoxical and appears to have little link with justice as ordinarily understood. It contrasts with the more commonsensical definitions of justice offered in Book One, e.g., that justice is giving to each what is owed and telling the truth. In Book Five through Book Ten, Socrates continues his defense of justice by equating the just man and the philosopher--indeed, by making clear that the philosopher is just more or less in the sense outlined in Book Four. But Socrates implicitly points to the problematic character of the equation of the just man and the philosopher by revealing, among other things, that the philosophers must be compelled to rule in the best regime even though it would be a matter of justice for them to rule willingly. I attempt to comprehend why Socrates provides such a problematic defense of the justice of the individual in the Republic. So too, I explore Socrates' equally problematic defense of the justice of the city. In particular, I consider the possibility and goodness of Socrates' three paradoxical proposals aimed at bringing about the greatest justice attainable within a city--namely, the community of women and children, the equality of the sexes, and the philosopher-kings. (shrink)

“Imagine A rather short-sighted person told to read an inscription in small letters from some way off….' So begins the quest for “the real nature of justice and injustice” undertaken in response to the challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus to show that “justice pays”. It is often alleged that the search leads through analogy to a monster “organic” state that lives by devouring individual rights. I believe that these charges are mistaken. Plato's political theory does not derive from an (...) analogy which makes the state a monster individual with interests superior to and independent of those of ordinary citizens; it derives rather from a doctrine of objective interests discernible by those with special training and ability, interests which later thinkers have taken to be the object of a “real will”, unerring even where a person's mere empirical desires are shortsightedly misdirected. Plato identifies the interests of his ideal state with the objective interests of its citizens , and in his harmonious world, metaphysics, moral psychology, and political organization combine to ensure that those interests need never override individual mundane interests for they never conflict: they coincide. That the whole theory is dubious should not prevent us from seeing that just what the theory is may be clarified by examining the arguments which putatively lead to it, and that those arguments provide grounds for not confounding Plato's theory with others which may reach similar conclusions about political organization and obligation. (shrink)

At the beginning of Book II of the Republic, Glaucon and Adeimantus ask Socrates to tell them what it is to be just or unjust, and why a man should be the former. Socrates suggests in reply that they consider first what it is for a polis to be just or unjust—a polis is bigger than an individual, he says, so its justice should be more readily visible. Now if we were to view in imagination a polis coming into (...) existence, he goes on, we should see also its justice and injustice coming into existence, and this might help us to discover what these qualities are. (shrink)

Republic. I summarised book I, and you read the challenge issued at the beginning of book II to Socrates by Glaucon and Adeimantus. They wanted Socrates to show that it is sensible to be just, not in terms of the material benefits of having a good reputation, but in terms of the effects of being just on the soul of the just person. To deal with this challenge, Socrates begins to construct an imaginary city, in the hope of being (...) able to understand the point of justice in a city, and argue from there to the point of justice for an individual. Socrates goes on Republic 369 ff to sketch out the founding of a new city (the idea of deliberately founding a city was familiar -- many cities had been founded as colonies). 'Society originates... because the individual is not self-sufficient, but has many needs which he can't supply himself'. Socrates suggests division of labour, specialisation: The things needed are 'more easily produced when a man specializes appropriatedly on a single job for which he is naturally fitted'. The city must therefore include specialist farmers, builders, weavers, toolmakers, merchants, etc. But these trades would support only a very basic society. As civilization progresses beyond the mere necessities specialists in other arts will be added: sculptors, playwrights, confectioners, doctors. As wealth grows this city and the neighboring cities may come to war, and military specialists will also be needed. (shrink)

This article argues that the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible in Plato’s dialogues (here with respect to the Republic) is not a dogmaticassertion or the foundation for a set of doctrines, but is rather the very starting point of philosophical activity. This starting point will be shown to be, in its most fundamental aspect, not something chosen by the philosopher, but rather the attribute that makes the philosopher who he is. Much of my argument will turn on a (...) consideration of the divided line. In Part I, I situate the discussion of the divided line within both its global and immediate context in the Republic. As the divided line will serve as the focal point of my argument it is important to clarify its place in Socrates’ discussion with Glaucon and Adeimantus from the outset of my presentation. Part II consists of a brief analysis of the key passages devoted to the divided line. This analysis will culminate by highlighting the problematic nature of geometrical objects with respect to the schema of the line. I will argue that geometrical objects have no secure place on the line. This insecurity will call into question the apparent continuity between the sensible and the intelligible that the divided line suggests, and might call for a way to mediate or bridge the gap between the sensible and the intelligible. In Part III, I consider one such attempt in Proclus’s commentary on Euclid in order to show how such an attempt failson Platonic terms and thus cannot constitute the true core of Platonic philosophy. Part IV will argue that if rightly interpreted the divided line itself offers a solution to the problem and clarifies both the nature of philosophical activity and the status of the sensibility/intelligibility distinction within Platonic philosophy. (shrink)

At least since the appearance of Aristotle’s Politics, Plato’s Republic has been read as arguing for a politics of unity in which difference is understood as a threat to the polis. By focusing on the musical imagery of the Republic, and specifically on its compositional organization around three ‘preludes’, this essay seeks an understanding of Socratic politics that moves beyond the hypothesis of unity. In the first ‘prelude’, Thrasymachus and his insistence that justice is the self-interest of the stronger threatens (...) to subject the harmony of the community to the tyrannical whims of the individual. In the second, the perfected justice of Adeimantus’s city threatens to destroy the erotic rhythm of difference that is the very condition for the possibility of the polis. It is only in the song of dialectic, which itself is called a ‘prelude’, that the tension between the rhythm of plurality and the rational homophony of unity is dynamically tuned in such a way that both the anarchic politics of self-interest and the totalitarian politics of rationalized oppression are equally muted. This conception of politics is embodied in the relationship that emerges between Glaucon and Socrates. Ultimately, the true political community is established here, between rational, erotic individuals seeking justice in concrete, living dialogue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 1-26 [Access article in PDF] "What Will Surprise You Most": Self-Regulating Systems and Problems of Correct Use in Plato's Republic Patrick Maynard University of Western Ontario 1. Republic's Third Wave: "On Philosophers" The title of this paper is taken from a line in Book VI of Plato's Republic that appears to reject not only the accounts of moral justice and other (...) virtues argued in Book IV, but also an axiom of Plato's earlier dialogues: that the virtues are good and beneficial things. It reads: "What will surprise you most, when you hear it, is that each of the things we praised in that nature tends to corrupt the soul that has it and to drag it away from philosophy. I mean courage, moderation, and the other things we mentioned" (491b7-10). Although these other things specifically include justice, magnanimity, grace, love of truth, and a tendency to consider "the form [idea] of each thing that is" (486d10), for their part, commentators have never shown surprise at this passage; indeed they have tended either to neglect or minimize it.1 To recall the context of 491b7-10, it actually comes as a second surprise, hard on the heels of a remarkable admission by Socrates, in early Book VI. The admission came in response to Adeimantus' challenge to Socrates' attempt to show that 'Platonic' philosophers, in the famous Book V sense of those who believe in the [End Page 1] forms, will be just and virtuous people, capable of political leadership (484d8-487a5). Book VI's page 487 thus contains Adeimantus' blistering attack on Socratic method, and a counter-argument against the idea of philosopher-rulers, based on common opinions about philosophers—an argument that should give pause to those who say that Republic left elenctic method behind with Book I. It is Socrates who now faces a forceful elenchus: that is, an inconsistency between the philosopher-rulers position he has just argued and another view he himself accepts, for his reply to Adeimantus is that "they seem to speak the truth" (487d10, 489d5), and "what he says is true, that the best among the philosophers are useless to the majority" (489b2), but that "the greatest and more serious slander on philosophy... results from those who profess to follow the philosophic way of life," especially the "vicious" ones (489cd).Most commentators, teachers, readers, eager to join the account of forms at the end of Book V with that of the form of the good well into Book VI, bridge over this discussion of philosophers' reputations, perhaps noting such of its features as the true pilot, the tinker, the figure in the dust storm, etc., but with little attention to argument structure.2 However, low estimate of structure in Plato's writings is usually a mistake, especially with Republic, and some commentators do make space to shape this bit of text, before getting on to what really interests them. They usually bracket the whole philosophers' reputations discussion, including 491b, as an early part of the so-called "third and greatest wave" (472a, 473c) of objections and replies, regarding the feasibility of the earlier social proposals of Republic: specifically, the objection to the possibility of philosopher-rulers. Socrates' reply to the third wave is usually taken to conclude with the transition at 502c7-503d12, which begins: "now that this difficulty has been disposed of, we must deal with what remains"—that is, with how such rulers could come about, and how they would be educated, a transitional remark that makes the gateway to the scholars' great attractor of the form of the good, with its discussions of the sun, the divided line, the cave of shadows—and few readers ever look back. Thus one recent commentator who does discuss the early part of Book VI moves on to those topics as follows: "Now that the combination of traits required in a philosopher-king has been shown to be a natural possibility... (shrink)

IN BOOK 9 OF THE REPUBLIC, Socrates tells Adeimantus that the “tyrantmakers” manage to defeat the relatives of the nascent tyrant in the battle over the young man’s soul by contriving “to make in him some eros, a sort of great winged drone, to be the leader of the idle desires.” This “leader of the soul,” Socrates claims.

This article suggests that the inconsistency between collective and personal conceptions of justice in the "republic" is an intentional platonic statement, reflecting the dialogue's distinction between opinion and knowledge. The five parts of the analysis consider the demands put forward by glaucon and adeimantus at the outset of book 2; the function of the city in speech; the two applications of justice in book 4; the relationship between philosophy and the consideration of the concept of justice; and the dimensions (...) which a concern for justice has for the distinction between opinion and knowledge. (shrink)

There's Crito, my contemporary and fellow demesman, the father of Critobulus. … [T]hen there's Lysanias of Sphettus, father of Aeschines. … [N]ext, there's Epigenes' father, Antiphon of Cephisus here … and there is Adeimantus, the son of Ariston, whose brother is Plato. …In his recent book, Against Individualism, Henry Rosemont takes up the modern notion of the free, autonomous individual and urges his readers to reconsider the central role it has played in moral and political thought.1 Arguing with a (...) clear eye on the problem of social injustice, Rosemont lays out reasons why we should view foundational individualism as a barrier to relieving huge disparities of wealth and unjust global practices. He offers a... (shrink)

In Books One and Two of The Republic presents a discussion of the nature of justice by Socrates, the aging Cephalus, his son Polemarchus, and the sophist Thrasymachus. Plato's brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, take over in Book Two, challenging Socrates to convince them that a just life is preferable to an unjust life with power, fame, and riches. They imagine and evaluate different ways of creating the best possible human life. First, they consider a republic based on health and (...) simplicity. When Glaucon dismisses that kind of life as fit only for pigs, they construct a republic based on wealth and luxury. Their analysis of economic and political reality introduces the division of labor, the origin of war, a common currency, and basic principles for educating the young. The goal of this quest is to reveal the foundations of justice and injustice and evaluate their merits. This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

In Books One and Two of The Republic presents a discussion of the nature of justice by Socrates, the aging Cephalus, his son Polemarchus, and the sophist Thrasymachus. Plato's brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, take over in Book Two, challenging Socrates to convince them that a just life is preferable to an unjust life with power, fame, and riches. They imagine and evaluate different ways of creating the best possible human life. First, they consider a republic based on health and (...) simplicity. When Glaucon dismisses that kind of life as fit only for pigs, they construct a republic based on wealth and luxury. Their analysis of economic and political reality introduces the division of labor, the origin of war, a common currency, and basic principles for educating the young. The goal of this quest is to reveal the foundations of justice and injustice and evaluate their merits. This dramatized version is an adaptation of the Benjamin Jowett translation. (shrink)

Aunque el Libro I de República parece un diálogo socrático estándar sobre un término moral como justicia, que culmina con un estado de aparente aporía, se termina afirmando que la justicia es como un estado del alma caracterizado por el conocimiento. El libro I termina siendo el preámbulo para mostrar que ser justo es mejor que ser injusto, y que la justicia es en y por sí misma beneficiosa sin relación con cualquier ‘recompensa o consecuencia’ que devenga para el individuo (...) justo (358b). Ello mueve a Adimanto y Glaucon a retar a Sócrates a que muestre cómo independientemente de cualquier otra consideración, el hombre verdaderamente justo está mejor que el verdaderamente injusto, aun cuando el hombre verdaderamente justo se halle en el máximo de dolor y su reputación de bueno haya sido destruida, y el hombre malo no esté sufriendo ningún dolor y disfrute de una reputación de absolutamente virtuoso. En el presente artículo se examina este argumento y la relación entre justicia y eudaimonía, como solución platónica al reto de los sofistas. La clave interpretativa consiste en examinar los sentidos en los que se entiende la noción de eudaimonía en el contexto del reto. Palabras clave: Platón; República; Sócrates; Justicia; EudaimoníaAlthough Republic’s Book I seems a standard Socratic dialogue on a moral term as justice, which culminates with a state of apparent aporia, it ends up asserting that justice is like a state of the soul characterized by knowledge. Book I ends up being the preamble to show that being just is better than being unjust, and that justice is in itself and by itself beneficial, regardless of any ‘reward or consequence’ to the just individual (358b). This leads Adeimantus and Glaucon to challenge Socrates to show how, regardless of any other consideration, the truly just man is better than the truly unjust one, even when the truly just man found himself in the highest pain and his reputation as a good man had been destroyed, while the mean man did not suffer any pain and enjoyed a reputation as an absolutely virtuous man. In this paper we examine this argument and the relation between justice and eudemonia, as a Platonic solution to the sophists’ challenge. The interpretative key consists in examining the senses in w ich the notion of eudemonia is understood in the context of the challenge. Keywords: Plato; Republic; Socrates; Justice; Eudaimonia. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that in Republic ii Glaucon and Adeimantus contend that being just is not a good of any kind; it is the good consequences of seeming just that place it in Glaucon’s third and lowest class of goods. The brothers challenge Socrates to prove that being just has good consequences. They do not ask him to prove that being just is good for itself apart from its consequences, nor is this something he attempts to prove.

This chapter contains section titled: The Situation of Republic II What Kind of Good is Justice? The Origin and Nature of Justice The Tale of Gyges Life Choices Socrates' Reaction and Ours.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Parmenides and Plato’s Late Philosophy by Robert G. TurnbullScott CarsonRobert G. Turnbull. The Parmenides and Plato’s Late Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 209. Cloth, $50.00.Plato’s Parmenides presents a number of puzzles for the interpreter. Some of these are the result of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato’s late philosophy; due ultimately to Plotinus and still widely influential, it fails to give a satisfactory (...) account of such elements of Plato’s metaphysics as the mathematicals, forms as “universals,” and an “acquaintance” explanation of our awareness of sensibles and forms. Turnbull strikes a decisive blow against the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Parmenides. More importantly, he makes considerable progress, where others have achieved only limited success, in placing the Parmenides into the wider context of Plato’s later thought.The present work is primarily a translation of and commentary upon the Parmenides. The translation is not intended to be a literary work but rather as an aid to the reader of the commentary, and translation and commentary move forward together, section by section, as in Cornford’s edition. The translation is fairly literal, and some passages are omitted; in the notorious “exercise” of Part II the responses of Aristoteles are regularly elided wherever possible. In some places Turnbull has sacrificed English style in favor of interpretation-neutral renderings: “no many” for Zeno’s ou polla einai at 128b2, for example. While this can sometimes make the translation difficult to read in isolation, it is very useful for the knowledgeable but Greekless reader who can do without such interpretive intrusions as, for example, rendering to hen as “Unity” (Allen). The four final chapters serve to put the dialogue into its place in Plato’s later philosophy. An appendix discusses Cornford, Allen, Sayre, Miller, and Meinwald, as well as the standard lines of the Neoplatonic interpretation.The strength of Turnbull’s interpretation is its attention to literary as well as philosophical detail. The significance of the dramatic coherence among many passages from dialogues generally thought to be late, particularly the Timaeus, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Philebus, has attracted the attention of other commentators, but it has not always been so convincingly connected to the related philosophical issues. With the Theaetetus and Sophist the Parmenides has been called “critical” in the sense that some commentators see in these dialogues a reassessment on Plato’s part of the ontology of forms as described in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic. Turnbull, by contrast, puts the Parmenides squarely in line with the Republic and Plato’s middle period generally by connecting the dramatic setting of the two dialogues through the characters of Glaucon and Adeimantus; this, in turn, connects with the Timaeus, which is set on the day following the discussion of the Republic. Similar dramatic ties relate the Theaetetus to the Sophist, and the presence of the Eleatic stranger in the latter and mention of Parmenides in the former complete the [End Page 355] artistic connections among these late dialogues and Plato’s middle period. The Philebus is connected with these dialogues because of its discussion of the four factors of the universe: Unlimited, Limit, the Mixture of Unlimited and Limit, and the Cause of the Mixture, factors that are also explored in Part II of the Parmenides.The philosophical connections among the dialogues have their foundation in Plato’s attempt to give an account of the rational structure of the world system (the World Animal of the Timaeus) that underscores the importance of the ultimate sources of intelligibility in the kosmos. The Parmenides opens with a discussion of Zeno’s largely destructive arguments against plurality; Plato then employs Zeno’s own “method of suppositions” to present a constructive thesis to the effect that “from the fundamental forms, through the generation of the intelligible numbers, thence to their being mixed with the Unlimited (apeiron), there is and can be nothing that is that fails to be a source of intelligibility or the intelligible product of such sources” (187). The difficult deductions of the second half of the Parmenides thus exhibit two aspects: a negative, or Parmenidean, version, and a positive, or Platonic version. The Parmenidean... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Standard Analysis First Alternative Analysis Second Alternative Analysis Third Alternative Analysis of Lying Fourth Alternative Analysis Further Reading.

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Justice? Glaucon's Theory of a Social Contract Glaucon and Thrasymachus on what Justice is: Results and Methods Why should I be Just?