Thursday 9/5
Republic, Book I
Readings
Texts
Discussion Questions
First Question: Many Mad Masters
At 378e-379e, Cephalus opines on the embittered elderly in light of the poet Sophocles' presumed insight:
Indeed, Cephalus, I replied, I enjoy talking with the very old, for we should ask them, as we might ask those who have travelled a road that we too will probably have to follow, what kind of road it is, whether rough [e] and difficult or smooth and easy. And I’d gladly find out from you what you think about this, as you have reached the point in life the poets call “the threshold of old age.”2 Is it a difficult time? What is your report about it?
By god, Socrates, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. A number of us, who [329] are more or less the same age, often get together in accordance with the old saying.3 When we meet, the majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from their youth, those of sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them, and they get angry as if they had been deprived of important things and had lived well then but are now hardly living at all. Some others moan about the abuse heaped on [b] old people by their relatives, and because of this they repeat over and over that old age is the cause of many evils. But I don’t think they blame the real cause, Socrates, for if old age were really the cause, I should have suffered in the same way and so should everyone else of my age. But as it is, I’ve met some who don’t feel like that in the least. Indeed, I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How are you as far as [c] sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love with a woman?” “Quiet, man,” the poet replied, “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage and tyrannical master.” I thought at the time that he was right, and I still do, for old age brings peace and freedom from all such things. When the appetites relax and cease to importune us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass, and we escape [d] from many mad masters. In these matters and in those concerning relatives, the real cause isn’t old age, Socrates, but the way people live. If they are moderate and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren’t, both old age and youth are hard to bear.
I admired him for saying that and I wanted him to tell me more, so I [e] urged him on: When you say things like that, Cephalus, I suppose that the majority of people don’t agree, they think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.
The virtue grateful elderly enjoy bitter elderly lack is σωφροσύνη, or sôphrosunê. Sometimes translated (perhaps incorrectly) as temperance, Plato will revisit sôphrosunê in Book IV of Republic and devotes and entire dialogue, Charmides, to exploring its nature and importance. How should we view the passions of youth? Are they savage and tyrannical masters, enslaving us all in our youth, only to be released when their fires dim? Or are they (as Hume would argue) the source of our creativity, inspiration, and motivation?
Second Question: On Giving What is Owed
Prior to Thrasymachus' interruption at 336b, Polemarchus has taken the torch of the argument from his father Cephalus and offered Simonides' insight into the nature of justice, that "it is just to give to each what is owed to him" (331e). Polemarchus shortly clarifies how we ought to understand Simonides:
Well, now, it isn’t easy to doubt Simonides, for he’s a wise and godlike man. But what exactly does he mean? Perhaps you know, Polemarchus, but I don’t understand him. Clearly, he doesn’t mean what we said a moment ago, that it is just to give back whatever a person has lent to you, even if he’s out of his mind when he asks for it. And yet what he has lent [332] to you is surely something that’s owed to him, isn’t it?
Yes.
But it is absolutely not to be given to him when he’s out of his mind?
That’s true.
Then it seems that Simonides must have meant something different when he says that to return what is owed is just.
Something different indeed, by god. He means that friends owe it to their friends to do good for them, never harm.
I follow you. Someone doesn’t give a lender back what he’s owed by giving him gold, if doing so would be harmful, and both he and the lender [b] are friends. Isn’t that what you think Simonides meant?
It is.
But what about this? Should one also give one’s enemies whatever is owed to them?
By all means, one should give them what is owed to them. And in my view what enemies owe to each other is appropriately and precisely—something bad.
It seems then that Simonides was speaking in riddles—just like a poet!—when he said what justice is, for he thought it just to give to each what [c] is appropriate to him, and this is what he called giving him what is owed to him.
Socrates seems perplexed by Simonides' statement where Polemarchus is evidently not. How does Socrates go about showing Polemarchus the puzzle with Simonides' apparently straightforward view of justice? What is the puzzle, to the best of your understanding of the conversation that ensues? Is Thrasymachus right to express frustration at the proceedings? Were you, in reading the exchange, likewise frustrated?
Third Question: Might Makes Right
Thrasymachus challenges Socrates from three directions. As Socrates describes it,
Let that be your banquet, Socrates, at the feast of Bendis.
Given by you, Thrasymachus, after you became gentle and ceased to give me rough treatment. Yet I haven’t had a fine banquet. But that’s my [b] fault not yours. I seem to have behaved like a glutton, snatching at every dish that passes and tasting it before properly savoring its predecessor. Before finding the answer to our first inquiry about what justice is, I let that go and turned to investigate whether it is a kind of vice and ignorance or a kind of wisdom and virtue. Then an argument came up about injustice being more profitable than justice, and I couldn’t refrain from abandoning the previous one and following up on that. Hence the result of the discussion, [c] as far as I’m concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don’t know what justice is, I’ll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy.
What are Thrasymachus' challenges, specifically? How does Socrates respond to them? Are his responses successful, or do you think Thrasymachus simply gives up too easily, as Glaucon will assert in Book II. Further, should we take seriously Socrates assertion that he has learned nothing by the discussion? More importantly, do you find in this discussion that Socrates in fact knows what justice is, while feigning ignorance, or do you think at this point of the dialogue that Socrates is genuinely perplexed? Lastly, the exchange with Thrasymachus is an excellent example of socratic inquiry. What are the characteristics of this sort of inquiry, and as a method of philosophical inquiry, do you think it successful or not?