Book 1 of Plato's Republic. Drew A. Mannetter

PART II: (336.b-339.b)

      The Sophist Thrasymachus enters the debate. He is upset by what he considers the naiveté of the discussion and admonishes Socrates accordingly. After feigned reluctance, Thrasymachus presents his definition of justice: “justice is the interest of the stronger.” Socrates criticizes this definition with an equivocation on the term “the stronger.” Thrasymachus then clarifies that he is thinking specifically of political power, regardless of the system of government.

       II.1: (336.b-338.c)

      Thrasymachus joins the discussion and chides Socrates for not answering the question himself. He demands that Socrates propose a definition but places restrictions on the terms he will allow Socrates to use in his definition. Finally, Thrasymachus offers to provide what he considers a better definition of justice. As a Sophist who is paid to teach, he demands payment of money. Socrates agrees to pay the price of learning from one who knows. The assembled company urges Thrasymachus on by promising payment.

       II.2: (338.c-338.d)

      Thrasymachus proclaims his definition of justice: “justice is nothing other than the interest of the stronger”. Socrates begins to problematize the definition by equivocating on the term τοῦ κρϵίττονος. Socrates interprets this as a masculine form meaning “the stronger man” while Thrasymachus intends it to be neuter meaning “the stronger party”. Since the forms are identical, Socrates is able to show the silly ramifications if the term is masculine. The equivocation serves to irritates Thrasymachus.

       II.3: (338.d-339.b)

      Thrasymachus makes clear that he is not speaking of a physically strong man when he speaks of the stronger but the political elite, regardless of the form of government.

      INTRODUCTION

      Plato, writing in the aftermath of the devastating Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (421-404 BC), wrestled with many of the problems of political philosophy that confront us today. His Republic, as a search for the definition of justice, is a timeless classic that has great relevance for the 21st century world. We, just as the ancient Athenians, struggle to find a definition for the word justice, let alone, even if defined, with the more difficult implementation of the concept. People throughout history have desired to live in a just society, but the term still seems to escape definition today. For a communist, justice is the fair distribution of wealth; for a capitalist, justice is the accumulation of wealth by the “industrious”; for an environmentalist, justice is the protection of the biotic community; for a feminist, justice is equality between men and women. There is now even what is termed “intergenerational justice,” wherein the looming effects of the 21st century environmental crisis will be passed on to succeeding generations and many people argue that justice demands that the present generation owes a livable environment to posterity. The necessity for a very sophisticated definition of justice confronts us in the here and now. We need our justice to be a powerful force with which we may confront a web of complex problems besetting society. Although the Republic may not ultimately deliver a satisfactory answer to the question “what is justice?”, it does provide a framework for thinking about the concept as it offers a series of definitions of justice, several that are still invoked in today’s world.

The Republic as a whole can be best understood as an extended argument against the philosophy of relativism and the sophistic worldview which results from that philosophy. In ancient Greece, there was no system of public education and consequently a group of itinerant teachers, called sophists, filled the gap for those who could afford to pay. The essence of their instruction was practical and intended to promote economic success through politics or the law courts. Protagoras (480-411 BC), a Greek itinerant philosopher from the northern city of Abdera, was a very successful educator and became wealthy by teaching throughout the Greek world.1 Gorgias of Leontini taught the art of rhetoric, which was employed in the law courts and popular assemblies. Thrasymachus of Chalcedon and Polus, the pupil of Gorgias, both argued that power should be wielded by the powerful for the sole benefit of the powerful. Hence, the sophists advanced a very aristocratic worldview, one in which exploitation, manipulation, oppression, and rigid hierarchy would not only be tolerated, but even lauded as a natural state of humankind.

      The worldview of the sophists depended on the philosophy known as relativism, the roots of which lay in the Fragments of Protagoras who laid the foundations for relativism with two deceptively simple statements that, when combined, allow for the political and social excesses that so vexed both Socrates and Plato:

      Fragment 1: “Man is the measure of all things; of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not.”

Fragment 6: “As for the gods, I have no way of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist; nor, if they exist, of what form they are. For the obstacles for that sort of knowledge are many, including the obscurity of the matter and the brevity of human life.” 2

      In the first fragment, Protagoras claimed that each person experiences the world in their own way and hence is the “measure” of the world, i.e. of what is true and what is not. In the second Testamonia taken from Plato’s Theaetetus, Protagoras is represented by Plato as using the wind as an example to exemplify this concept:

      “Well, he means something like this, doesn’t he – that particular things are for me just what they appear to me to be, and are for you just what they appear to you to be. For you and I are men. … It is sometimes the case, isn’t it, that one of us feels cold while the other, although blown by the same wind, does not? Or that one of us feels mildly chilly while the other feels very cold.? … And when such a situation occurs are we to describe the wind itself as cold or not cold? Or shall we accept Protagoras’ solution, that it is cold for him who feels it cold and is not cold for him who does not feel it so? … Protagoras means, then, that perception is always of something existent, and that the knowledge which it imparts is infallible.”

      Since no one can be wrong about how they perceive the world, there cannot be any ultimate truth; in this case, the wind cannot be objectively hot or cold, but only relative to the perceiver.

      Once Protagoras has established perceptual relativism, he moves on to establish social relativism. Just as one individual cannot be wrong about their perceptions, so a society cannot be wrong about its judgments. For example, if a country decides that capital punishment is wrong, then it is wrong for them. Conversely, if another country decides that capital punishment is right, then it is right for them. Protagoras states in the third Testamonia that “my position, then, is that whatever seems right and admirable to a particular city-state is truly right and admirable – during the period of time in which that opinion continues to be held.” Certainly the positions held by countries lead to better or worse outcomes, but Protagoras maintains that they are not true or false. If they lead to bad outcomes they will simply need to be reformed.

One might object to social relativism by arguing that standards of right and wrong do exist for social conduct and they can be found in religious texts. However, in the sixth fragment, Protagoras maintains the agnostic position and hence denies any type of divinely based standards to establish “right” or “wrong” conduct in a society. Very often, when people want to express a moral imperative, they invoke their religious texts as evidence. For example, a Christian may assert that violence is always wrong and then point to Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” in the Book of Matthew as evidence for this belief.3 However, if Protagoras is correct and we can have no knowledge of the gods, then we cannot know what they demand from us. We may still have a prohibition against violence in a society, but it is not due to divine command; instead, it is due to the fact that we, as members of the society, have agreed