CTI 302 - Thrasymachus (Aug 31-Sep 2, copy 2)

Thrasymachus' definition of justice

The advantage of the stronger; whatever the ruling element makes law to serve itself. Why Thrasymachus bursts in at 336b

Socrates only questions and refutes without asserting anything, which he reads as a dodge. He is also a paid sophist watching Socrates work for free. Two implications of "advantage of the stronger"

(1) Justice is conventional, not natural, varying with who rules. (2) Justice is another's good, served at your own expense. Who would hold Thrasymachus' view

Political realists and the ambitious. Athens' own imperial rhetoric is the live example. Socrates' first counterargument (339b)

Rulers sometimes mistake their own advantage, so obeying them would be both the advantage and the disadvantage of the stronger. Why Socrates' 339b move is surprising

He ignores the moral ugliness entirely and attacks on a technicality instead. Cleitophon's proposed repair

Justice is what the ruler believes to be his advantage, not what actually is. Thrasymachus' "precise sense" move (340d)

A ruler qua ruler never errs; error means he has ceased to be a ruler in the strict sense. Why the "precise sense" move backfires

It commits him to ruling as a craft, which is exactly what lets Socrates run the craft argument. Three shifts in Thrasymachus' speech at 343b

Definition becomes evaluation; the ruler's standpoint becomes the subject's; description becomes open advocacy. Shepherd and sheep analogy (343b)

Shepherds fatten sheep for their own profit, not the sheep's; so rulers tend subjects for their own gain. Euetheia

High-minded simplicity or naivete. Thrasymachus' label for justice after 343b. How Thrasymachus rates injustice at 343b

As prudence and good counsel, even a virtue. Tyranny is complete injustice and the happiest life. The craft (techne) argument

No art seeks its own advantage but the advantage of its subject; medicine serves the body, not the doctor. Why rulers need wages (345e-347d)

Because ruling as such benefits the ruled, not the ruler, so nobody would rule for its own sake. Three wages for ruling

Money, honor, and the penalty of being ruled by someone worse. Weakness of the craft argument

It concedes justice IS another's good, abstracts ruling from real human motives, and Socrates' own wage-earner's art admits practitioners chase gain. Role of law in Book I

Central at first (justice is obedience to law) then it quietly vanishes; the tyrant stands outside law and the craft analogy brackets it. The three arguments of 347e-354c

348b-351c on wisdom, 351c-352d on faction, 352d-354a on function. Pleonexia argument (348b-351c)

The just seek to outdo only their unlike; experts don't try to outdo fellow experts, so the just resemble the wise. Why the pleonexia argument is weakest

It rests on a bare analogy and on Thrasymachus getting flustered rather than convinced. Faction argument (351c-352d)

Injustice breeds internal conflict; a city, army, or even a gang of thieves cannot act together if thoroughly unjust. Limit of the faction argument

It shows SOME justice is needed among partners, not that COMPLETE justice serves the individual. A tyrant needs only honor among thieves. Ergon or function argument (352d-354a)

Everything has a work it alone does best; virtue lets it do that work well; the soul's work is living; justice is its virtue. Circularity in the function argument

It assumes justice is the soul's virtue, which is the very point in dispute. Socrates' glutton confession (354b-c)

He grabbed at each dish, asking whether justice is wisdom and whether it pays before ever settling what justice IS, so he knows nothing. Why the glutton confession matters

It marks Book I as a dialectical win over one man rather than a demonstration, and is the honest reason Books II-X exist. Glaucon's three classes of good (357b-d)

Good for itself alone; good for itself AND its results; good only for its results. Where justice belongs among the goods

Socrates puts it in the second, finest class. The many put it in the third. Glaucon's account of justice's origin (358e-359b)

Doing injustice is good and suffering it worse; those too weak to have the first without the second make a compact neither to do nor suffer. Justice is that covenant. Why the origin of justice matters

If justice is born of weakness and calculation, nobody ever chose it as good in itself. Its genesis reveals its status. Ring of Gyges

Give invisibility to a just and an unjust man and their behavior converges, showing nobody is just willingly. Why the ring of Gyges is not sufficient

It is a thought experiment, not evidence, and it presumes the just man's justice was only external restraint, which is the point at issue. Glaucon's rigged comparison (360e-362c)

The perfectly unjust man with a spotless reputation set against the perfectly just man taken for a criminal. Socrates' reaction at 361d

He whistles; Glaucon has scoured both men clean like statues polished for judgment. Admiration and alarm at once. Adeimantus' target (362d-367e)

Not the advocates of injustice but the conventional praise of justice for reputation and divine reward, which teaches that SEEMING just is the prize. Why Adeimantus attacks the poets

They are the authoritative teachers about gods and justice; they promise the just grow rich and depict gods as bribable by sacrifice. Glaucon vs Adeimantus

Glaucon argues from nature and self-interest; Adeimantus from speech, education, and public opinion. What Adeimantus' speech sets up

The censorship of poetry and the education of the guardians in Books II-III