13
(1.344a)
the happiest of men:
Compare “happy and blessed” at the end of 1.344b just below. “Happy” and “blessed” are both translations for the adjective
eudaimon;
“happiness” and “blessedness” are interchangeably used to translate the noun
eudaimonia,
which literally refers to the state of having a favorable guardian spirit
(daimon)
presiding over one’s life. The “happiness” that is
Republic’s
focus is thus not mere temporary joy or delight; it is, rather, long-term (that is, lifelong) fulfillment and contentment.
14
(1.344e)
Is the attempt to determine the way of man’s life so small a matter in your eyes
—
to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage?:
This is the first of several passages in
Republic
in which Socrates or another speaker accentuates the profound significance of the issues under discussion. Compare, for example, 1.347e, 2.367c-d, 5.450b, and 10.608b.
15
(1.345a)
even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play:
The Greek literally reads “even if one lets it [that is, injustice] go and does not prevent it from doing what it wants.” This sentence marks the beginning of Socrates’ effort, which he sustains throughout
Republic,
to disassociate “happiness” and personal “profit” from the satisfaction of appetites and desires—that is, “doing what one
wants.”
16
(1.347a)
no one is willing to govern ... without remuneration:
This important idea is developed in book 7, especially at 7.519c-521b and 7.540b.
17
(1.348c-d)
And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. Then would you call injustice malignity?:
For the broad range of meaning of
aretê
(translated in the text surrounding this passage as “virtue”), see note 6 on 1.335b. The word translated here as “vice,”
kakia,
has a similarly broad range of meaning and refers to the condition or quality that makes a given thing or individual “base”
(kakos),
including (for human beings) ugliness, poverty, and lowliness in social station, as well as moral defect. When Thrasymachus identifies injustice with
aretê
in the exchange that immediately follows, he asserts in essence that the self-aggrandizement he has associated with injustice makes one stand out and be “better.” The assertion is bold, since justice is typically conceived of as one of the chief “virtues”
(aretai),
but hardly nonsensical, given Thrasymachus’ view of the material advantages of injustice.
18
(1.352a)
And is not injustice equallyfatal when existing in a single person... making him an enemy to himself and the just?:
This statement and the discussion leading up to it look ahead to the analysis in books 4, 8, and 9 of injustice and its effects on the individual’s soul.
19
(1.352d)
Would you not say that a horse has some end?:
The word ergon in Greek, rendered here as “end,” is perhaps better translated as “function.” This question and the analysis it introduces reinforce a concept already introduced at 1.346a-b, that every thing (or person) has a single function (ergon). Both passages anticipate the crucial organizational principle of the ideal city-state-that is, the mandate that every citizen should have one and only one occupation (2.370a-b)—which becomes the foundation for the conceptions of justice in the individual as well as the community that are advanced in books 4, 8, and 9.
20
(1.353b)
And has not the eye an excellence?:
Once again, “excellence” is
aretê
in Greek; see note 6 on 1.335b.
21
(1.353d)
and has not the soul an end which nothing else can fulfil?:
The notions that the human soul (psyche in Greek) has a function—that is, to live—and that it fulfills that function well, producing a “good” and “happy” life by virtue of its excellence
(aretê),
are fundamental to
Republic.
Although we are not meant to be satisfied with the case Socrates makes in this passage for justice as the “excellence” that enables the soul to fulfill its function (see 1.354a-c, below), the formulations he develops in this passage preview the argument he will make at length, especially in books 4, 8, and 9.
22
(1.354b)
Nevertheless, I have not been well entertained; but that was my own fault and not yours:
Socrates’ observation about the unsatisfactory nature of the discussion so far (his ironic comment at 2.368b notwithstanding) directs attention to the problem of definition. The advantages of and happiness brought by justice (or injustice) cannot be properly assessed before justice and injustice are defined. Compare the end of Protagoras (361c).
Book 2
1
(2.357a-b)
do you wish really to persuade us, or only to seem to have persuaded us, that to be just is always better than to be unjust?:
The differences between seeming and being, appearance and reality, are central to Republic (especially books 6 and 7), and Plato does not miss an opportunity to draw attention to them. Compare Glaucon’s question here with 1.334c-335b and 1.339d-341a.
2
(2.358e)
They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good:
Glaucon’s summary of the (purportedly) common understanding of justice and injustice, especially the sentiment that suffering injustice is far worse than doing injustice, parallels in several aspects the views that Plato attributes to Polus and Callicles in
Gorgias.
Although Glaucon and later Adeimantus raise many important points concerning the ambiguities of popular moral values, their representations of “what most people think”—and of the moral messages of poetic works—are tendentious, and they provide the basis for Socrates’ claim in book 6 that it is “the many” who are in fact responsible for the corruption of young people. See 6.492d-494a and 1.344c.
3
(2.360c)
a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust:
Glaucon here inverts the maxim commonly attributed to Socrates that “no one does wrong willingly.” Compare Socrates at 3.413a and also Adeimantus at 2.366c-d, who adds that even someone who appreciates that justice is best will not be “angry with the unjust... because he also knows that men are not just of their own free will.”
4
(2.362c)
and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies:
By identifying the gain over antagonists (that is,
pleonexia)
as the phenomenon that enables one to “help friends and hurt enemies,” Glaucon makes an explicit connection between Thrasymachus’ boldly expressed defense of injustice (as
pleonexia)
and the traditional conception of justice as “helping friends and hurting enemies” that Polemarchus articulates at the beginning of book 1. See note 12 on 1.343d.
5
(2.365d)
secret brotherhoods and political clubs:
Brotherhoods (literally, “conspiracies”) and political clubs flourished in Athens in the late fifth century B.C.E.; their members typically included men from aristocratic families who were disenchanted with the institutions and practices of democracy.
6
(2.365d)
professors of rhetoric:
Several dialogues by Plato, notably
Gorgias, Phaedrus,
and
Protagoras,
are concerned with the teaching of rhetoric by professional (and at times highly paid) instructors. Plato sometimes distinguishes such “professors of rhetoric” from “sophists”; sometimes he does not (for example, in
Protagoras).
7
(2.366c)
men are not just of their own free will:
See note 3 on 2.360c.
8
(2.367a)
but everyone would have been his own watchman:
The word for “watchman” in Greek is
phylax,
also translated as “guardian.” Adeimantus’ use of the word here anticipates the attention that will be given in books 2-7 to the “guardians” in the ideal state. Compare the equally pointed use of
phylax
at 8.549b and 3.413e.
9
(2.367e)
I had always admired the natural ability of Glaucon and Adeimantus:
The Greek word
physis,
when used in reference to human beings, describes their natural and innate abilities, dispositions, and talents. Throughout the rest of
Republic,
Socrates will repeatedly emphasize the importance of
physis,
which, he asserts, varies considerably from individual to individual. (See, for example, 2.370b, where he and Adeimantus agree that “we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations.”) This view of
physis,
which has its roots in traditional aristocratic ideology and its assumptions about the innate superiority of the “well-born,” has enormous implications for the political philosophy advanced in
Republic.
10
(2.369a)
I propose... that we inquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them:
The assumptions that the same conditions give rise to “justice” in the community and in the individual and that, as a consequence, the “justice” of an individual is completely comparable to that of a city-state, are crucial to Socrates’ argument, and they are never challenged by his interlocutors. Compare 4.442d for another reassertion that “justice” in community is identical to that in the individual, and also 4.435d-e and 8.544d for the assumption that the traits of a given community or people are determined by the characters of its individual members.
11
(2.369b)
Can any other origin of a State be imagined?:
Theories about the origins of human society abounded in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.; compare, for example, Protagoras 320c-323a.
12
(2.370b)
we are not all alike; there are diversities of natures among us which are adapted to different occupations:
This is a crucial assumption and formulation in
Republic;
see note 9 on 2.367e.
13
(2.370c)
when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things:
This is another crucial formulation, which is anticipated by the argument at 1.353b—d concerning the unique functions of eyes, ears, etc.
14
(2.371c)
In well-ordered States [salesmen] are commonly those who are the weakest in bodily strength, and therefore of little use for any other purpose:
Plato has Socrates reflect typical Athenian prejudices about the inferior character and abilities of merchants and laborers. Compare 6.495d-e and 9.590c.
15
(2.372a)
Probably in the dealings of these citizens with one another:
Adeimantus’ inference about where to “locate” justice in the ideal community is borne out in the discussion at 4.432d-434a.
16
(2.372e)
But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection:
Despite Socrates’ reservations concerning the “fevered” and “unhealthy” condition of a city that provides for more than its citizens’ most basic needs, the refinements Glaucon asks for are in fact crucial to Socrates’ conceptual izations of the ideal city-state and thus of justice itself, since they enable him to posit the need in the “fevered” city for a force of specialized warriors—that is, the guardians (2.374d), whose education and way of life become a principal focus of
Republic.
17
(2.374c)
But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman [that is, a farmer], or shoemaker, or other artisan [?]:
Greek city-states, including Athens, did not have professional standing armies during the archaic and classical periods. Rather, citizens were called up for service at times of need, and even the elite warriors of Sparta had interests aside from their military duties, insofar as they were landown ers and therefore “farmers.” Although the Peloponnesian War brought about a marked increase in the number of mercenary soldiers and began a trend toward military professionalism, relatively few men in Plato’s day were full-time professional soldiers. The army of “guardians” that Socrates envisions would have been unprecedented.
18
(2.375c)
how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?:
This is one of several places in which Socrates acknowledges that the combination of natural qualities required for guardians (and later for the “true” philosophers who are to govern the ideal state) is rare and difficult to nurture properly. See note 9 on 2.367e, and compare also 6.485a—486e and 6.503b—c. There is surely some humor in Socrates’ ensuing comparison of the ideal state’s guardians to dogs and in his assertions concerning the dog’s “philosophical nature” (2.375a-376c). Nonetheless, the comparison pointedly looks back at the discussion in book 1, during which leadership in human communities is likened to the supervision of flocks by shepherds and their dogs (see note 11 on 1.343b). Moreover, the dog’s “philosophical” gift for distinguishing “familiars” from “strangers” harks back to the problem of recognition faced by those who define justice as “helping friends and hurting enemies” (1.334c—335b).
19
(2.376c)
Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found them, how are they to be reared and educated?:
Socrates asserts throughout
Republic
that the best “natures,” rare as they are, will amount to nothing (or, worse yet, become corrupted) unless they are carefully nurtured and trained from early childhood. Compare this long section on the early education and training of the ideal city-state’s future warriors, which continues through most of book 3 (to 3.412b), with the equally long section describing the education of future philosopher-rulers (6.502c-7.540c). Compare also passages at 4.423e and 4.429e—430b, 6.494a-495b, 8.546d, and 8.549b, where Socrates emphasizes the importance of education (
paideia
)
,
nurture (
trophê
), and “music”
(mousikê—
see the next note).