Phaedrus III;  Republic Book I

0. For next class, read Books II and III, not just II.

1. Phaedrus: Differences from the Gorgias and other early dialogues:

• We get some allowance for the idea that a true science of oratory is possible and valuable.
• Aristotle tried to work out details.
• We get a more thoroughgoing criticism.  It is not just that oratory is useless.  It doesn’t even work on its own terms without knowledge of the nature of the soul.
• We get a picture that genuine knowledge of oratory involves knowing the metaphysics of soul.  We do not have a similar connection to metaphysics in the early dialogues, it looks like.
• We get an indication that the hoi polloi have a true grasp of concepts and reality, so that one cannot appeal to them through merely non-logical means. 

2. Republic I.

• Two problems:
• What is justice?
• Is justice worth pursuing?
• We move from the first to the second, and then Socrates complains that we can’t settle the second without the first.

3. What is justice?

We get a lot more refinement of views than in earlier works.

(1) Speaking the truth and paying one’s debts.  (Socrates, based on Cephalus.  331c)

• Shouldn’t give back weapons or tell the truth to those who are out of their minds.

(2a) To do good to friends and to harm enemies.  (Polemarchus.  332ab)

• But how does the just person benefit friends?  A doctor benefits health, a captain passangers, etc.  Polemarchus finally suggests that the just person is good at guarding stuff.  But only stuff not in use.  So justice becomes something quite unimpressive.

(2b) Friends = those who are believed to be good and useful;  enemies = those who are believed to be bad and harmful.  (Polemarchus.  334bc)

• One can make mistakes, and then it becomes just to harm good people.
• Is this really such a powerful refutation?  After all, maybe it is just to harm good people if you are convinced that they are bad?

(3) To harm unjust people and benefit just ones.  (Socrates, “helping” Polemarchus.  334d)

• This is very much like the notion behind the legal system.
• But then it is just for bad people to harm their friends, which friends are bad.  Yet surely this kind of chaos is not just.

(2c) Friends = those who are correctly believed to be useful;  enemies = those who are correctly believed to be harmful.  (Polemarchus.  334e)

• So we backtrack to friends and enemies, and combine (2b) and (3).
• To harm x is to make it worse at xness.  To harm a dog is to make it less good at being a dog.  To damage a computer is to make it less good at being a computer.  Thus, to harm a human being is to make this human being less good at being a human being.  Now a good human being is a just human being.  Thus, justice seeks to make bad people worse and hence more unjust.  Absurd!  Qualities strive to communicate themselves: heat doesn’t cool things, dryness doesn’t wet things, etc. 
• The principle in question seems not to be true in some cases.  Greediness doesn’t strive to make others greedy.
• But be that as it may, it is plainly absurd that justice doesn’t try to make anybody more unjust.
• What does this say about the appropriate purposes of a penal system?  Restorative, retributive, deterrent?
• We actually get an answer at 337d: The right penalty for ignorance is to learn.  If vice is ignorance, then the right penalty for everything is education.
• Does this answer hold if there is akrasia?

(4a) The advantage of the stronger.  (Thrasymachus.  338c)

• The strong create justice for their own benefit.  It is “the advantage of the established rule” (339a).
• An initial jibe: Does that mean that justice is the advantage of athletes?  Thrasymachus is not talking of this kind of strength.  But what kind of strength is he talking about.  (Think back to Gorgias and the analysis of power there.)
• But go back to an earlier argument.  Rulers are fallible.  Is it justice if one is doing things that harm the strong?

(4b) What the stronger believes to be to his advantage.  (Socrates, “helping” Thrasymachus who rejects this.  340c)

• Thrasymachus prefers the next definition, which lets him not have to change his original formulation.

(4c) Clarification: Someone who is in error is not “stronger”.  (Thrasymachus. 338c)

• Here, we deal with the “precise” sense of a ruler or a stronger person, i.e., a ruler insofar as she is a ruler.  The doctor insofar as she is a doctor makes no mistakes.  When she makes a mistake, she is not promoting health, which is the function of a doctor.  Making mistakes is not a part of the medical technê.
• Thrasymachus has thus introduced Socrates’ favorite analogy, that to other crafts.
• But now consider a doctor or a captain, Socrates says.  Once we have the notin of the “precise” sense, we can note that the doctor does not make money insofar as she is a doctor—even if she is a doctor in order to make money.  The medical art is not directed at money making but at health.  And so on with other arts.  Each is aimed at producing a benefit—in each one governs over something in order to benefit it.  Likewise, then, the ruler.
• Thrasymachus disagrees: Consider the shepherd who is raising sheep for slaughter.
• Does Thrasymachus actually need to disagree?  Why can’t he just say: “Yes, the art of ruling is there for the benefit of the people.  But the tyrant practices the art of ruling for an ulterior motive, in order to become happy at the expense of others.” 
• Maybe because this would be self-contradictory.  Suppose I say that I practice the art of healing you in order to make you sick.  Surely that is a self-contradiction.
• But why, then, can’t Thrasymachus simply say: “Yes, there is an art of ruling.  The strong do not practice it.  Rather, they practice the art of self-advantage.” 
• For if he said that, then in cases where there is a genuine ruler, he would have to admit that it is unjust to obey the law, since the law wouldn’t be the advantage of the strong.  And Thrasymachus thinks that obedience to the law is just.
• Socrates answers the shepherd story by distinguishing the art of gaining a wage from the art of benefiting someone.  The shepherd practices two different arts at the same time.
• We are told that good people only rule to avoid punishment—the worst being to be ruled by people worse than themselves.

(4d) When weak, doing what is the advantage of the strong;  when strong, high-minded simplicity.  (Not really a definition.  Thrasymachus.  349c)

• Eventually, Thrasymachus seems to be implicitly abandoning his definition, for he starts talking of the benefits of being unjust.  This is puzzling, because by his definition it is not beneficial for the tyrant to be unjust.  Justice is the advantage of the stronger, so it would seem that the tyrant’s actions are just, since he is acting to his own advantage, and he is the stronger.  That would seem to be what consistency would require Thrasymachus to say.  But he doesn’t.  I think it’s because the picture is like this.  Justice is a set of rules established by the tyrant for his own benefit.  The tyrant holds himself above these rules, and hence he is unjust.  (But why can’t the tyrant be fully obedient to the rules, but simply making sure the rules give him absolute power?)
• Anyway, at this point the discussion shifts to whether injustice can be knowledgeably done and can be beneficial.
• About knowledgeability:
• A knowledgeable person doesn’t strive to out-do another knowledgeable person, but an ignorant person.  An ignorant person strives to out-do a knowledgeable person and an ignorant person.
• A just person doesn’t strive to out-do another just person, but an unjust person.  An unjust person strives to out-do everybody.
• Hence, it is the just person who is knowledgeable.
• What’s going on here?  Doesn’t one musician strive to out-do another?  What about quiz show contestants? 
• Ah, but the musician doesn’t strive as a knowledgeable person to out-do another.  (We need again that “precise” sense.) 
• The picture seems to be that knowledgeable people have some objective good in mind, something that they are pursuing, and hence they welcome co-aspirers.  This really shouldn’t impress Thrasymachus.  (And doesn’t, but he has no answer.)
• About benefit:
• A completely unjust city or band fails.
• And so does a completely unjust soul.
• A good soul is a just one and does well and is happy.
• How convincing is all this?  It requires an analogy between the soul and the city for it to be convincing.  Thrasymachus can admit, after all, that a completely unjust city fails.  He doesn’t believe, after all, in a completely unjust city: ideally, from the point of view of the leader, everybody else should be just.
• We’re going to have to try harder.