Thrasymachus is one of the most infamous villains in Plato’s dialogues; but he is not as villainous as he appears to be. Thrasymachus’ attack on justice and his debunking definition of justice are guided by a complex set of concerns, including a desire to expose the fraud that he thinks rulers are perpetrating against the ruled. Thrasymachus thus shows a concern for justice even in his expression of an argument that is regarded as the classic sophistic critique (...) of justice. Thrasymachus’ attachment to justice, however, has to be considered in light of his struggle with the problem of justice, a struggle that has driven him neither to a complete rejection of justice nor to a simple or solid commitment to it. By presenting Thrasymachus’ wavering positions, Plato presents an example of an apparent cynic whose concerns continue to be shaped by an unrecognized attachment to justice. In this way, Plato teaches a lesson about the power of justice in the human soul. (shrink)

In defending the view that justice is the advantage of the stronger, Thrasymachus puzzlingly claims that rulers never err and that any practitioner of a skill or expertise (τέχνη) is infallible. In what follows, Socrates offers a number of arguments directed against Thrasymachus’ views concerning the nature of skill, ruling, and justice. Commentators typically take a dim view of both Thrasymachus’ claims about skill (which are dismissed as an ungrounded and purely ad hoc response to Socrates’ initial (...) criticisms) and Socrates’ latter arguments (which are deemed extremely weak). In this paper, I clarify Thrasymachus’ views (and those of several other ancients) concerning qua locutions and the nature of skill and ability and I reconstruct Socrates’ arguments against Thrasymachus’ views concerning skill and justice. I argue that Thrasymachus’ views are not ungrounded or ad hoc and that Socrates’ arguments are rather different (and significantly stronger) than often supposed. (shrink)

Thrasymachus’ position on justice, as articulated in Book I of Plato’s Republic, has emerged in the literature as a frustratingly intractable problem because it seems to be made up of contradictory accounts. This paper accomplishes three objectives in relation to this problem. First, it offers an original solution, ‘the relativity view’, which reads Thrasymachus’ two speeches as a temporal narrative, thereby explaining away the notorious contradiction. Second, it highlights the little-noted and underappreciated relativistic and perspectival understandings of justice (...) in Thrasymachus’ account in order to demonstrate where the dominant positions in the literature have gone wrong. Finally, it connects the ‘relativity view’ to the Republic as a whole, a surprising deficiency in most of the literature, which gestures to a deeper understanding of the connections between Book I and the rest of the Republic. (shrink)

Socrates defends justice against the attack mounted by Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic, but it isn’t easy to say what the defense consists of. A careful reading shows that Thrasymachus himself is deeply though unselfconsciously attached to justice. Thrasymachus admires skillful artisans and thinks that devoting oneself to one’s art makes one a good man, worthy of good things. He feels that the skillful and unjust deserve to get the better of the artless and weak, which is to (...) say he unselfconsciously believes in a form of distributive justice. Moreover, his surprising attachment to justice resembles and casts light on the attachment to justice that most people feel. (shrink)

One issue of contention amongst scholars of the Republic is whether Thrasymachus initially espouses a conventionalist account of justice, according to which just actions are merely those which are lawful; required, or at least allowed, by the laws passed by the ruler of the state. A further question is then whether his initial conceptions of rulers and laws are positivist ones, such that to be a ruler or law of a state is simply determined by the state’s constitution. At (...) 340c Thrasymachus effectively rejects such positivism by placing a condition on being a ruler that one should be exercising the art of ruling and on being a law that it should work to the ruler’s interest. Some have maintained that this works to clarify his initial account and so shows that he was never a positivist about rulers and laws. In this paper I argue against such an understanding of Thrasymachus’ argument and explore the problems which beset the position he is, on my reading, forced into by Socrates’ objection to his opening claim that justice is what is in the interest of the stronger and the argument he first gives to support it. (shrink)

The conviction that Plato manipulated Thrasymachus’ views is today accepted by the scholarly opinion. Given the absence of testimonies regarding the political and moral views held by the historical Thrasymachus, the degree of this manipulation can be gauged only by assessing the degree of incoherence and ambiguity in the views of the Platonic Thrasymachus. This perspective, of necessity a self-referential one, is overcome by the hypothesis presented in the following article, namely, that Plato manipulates not as much (...) the views of the historical Thrasymachus as the extremely concise and ambiguous thesis which he has ascribed to him; and that the goal of this manipulation is to mock Thrasymachus’ style and rhetorical posture – both confirmed by testimonies outside the Platonic text – as ill suited to the philosophical reflection on the content of this thesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I oppose the now-dominant view that Thrasymachus offers a definition of justice in Book I of the Republic. This way of interpretation Thrasymachus does not pay sufficient attention to the methodological assumptions he makes during his disagreement with Socrates. To better understand Socrates’ antagonist, it is crucial to remember that he was, in fact, a sophist. I argue that what the character Thrasymachus is doing in Book I is importantly akin to a certain genre (...) of sophistic arguments from the 5th century. In his discussion with Socrates, Thrasymachus attempts a genealogical unmasking of justice, which he hopes will change the action-guiding beliefs of his audience. Although my discussion is primarily about the methodology or structure of Thrasymachus’ argument, I conclude by offering a brief discussion of its substance, as well. (shrink)

Provides an overview of the life and thought of the sophist and rhetorician Thrasymachus of Chalcedon.

In Republic 1, Thrasymachus makes the radical claim that being just is ‘high-minded simplicity’ and being unjust is ‘good judgment’ (348c–e). Because injustice involves benefiting oneself, while justice involves benefiting others, the unjust are wise and good and the just are foolish and bad (348d–e). The “greedy craftsperson” argument (1.349b–350c) attempts to show that the unjust person's desire to outdo or have more than ( pleon echein) everyone is a symptom of her ignorance. Many commentaries have found the argument (...) problematic and unclear. However, this paper argues that the greedy craftsperson argument defends plausible constraints on the nature of justice and wisdom. (shrink)

I deny that Thrasymachus' argument or position in Republic I is confused. He doesn't think that either justice or injustice is either a virtue or a vice. He thinks that justice is a device.

The aim of this paper is to explain why Thrasymachus, upon first appearing in Republic I, prohibits Socrates from defining justice as what is good. I argue that Thrasymachus views such definitions as equivocal, since he conceives of the good as relative: what is good must be good for someone. This relative conception of the good makes Thrasymachus similar to the sight-lovers, who believe in good things, which are relatively good, but deny the existence of the good (...) itself, which is absolutely good. Understanding Thrasymachus as a sight-lover permits an illuminating reframing of his outlook and his significance for the larger project of the Republic. (shrink)

Socrates' position in the Republic is usually opposed to the position taken by Thrasymachus, and with good reason. Still, there may be some value in recognizing the extent of their agreement. Both men see clearly what is going on in Athens. Thrasymachus, however, sees no further: this is the way things are, and there is nothing to indicate that they will ever get better. Socrates accepts Thrasymachus' factual statements. Indeed, he has little choice but to accept them, (...) especially if he is to head off the criticism that his account bears no relation to the real world, or to the reality that most people, including Thrasymachus, see. To move beyond Thrasymachus' description of what is, Socrates must find a way to convert the question from one of fact to one of value. Only then will he be in a position to ‘persuade those who will listen’. (shrink)

This is an earlier version of a chapter from my book "Plato's Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing Well" (2014). The book analyses Plato’s Politeia (= Republic) as a philosophical drama in which the participants turn out to be models of various types of psychic constitution, and nothing is said by them which may be considered to be an opinion of Plato himself (with all that that entails for Platonism). The debate in Book I between Socrates and Thrasymachus (...) serves as a test case for the assumptions that the Socratic method involves searching for truth or examining the opinions of interlocutors and that Socrates is the mouthpiece of Plato. Socrates and Thrasymachus are usually assumed to be arguing about justice. In fact, they are going through the motions of an eristic debate, where the aim is not to discover the truth about the matter under discussion but to defeat the opponent by fair means or foul, but especially foul. The outrageous wordplay used by both men is not so obvious in translation, and in any case tends to be ignored or explained away by scholars who assume that Plato the philosopher was writing a philosophical treatise (an exposition of philosophical ideas) and not a philosophical drama (a presentation of philosophically interesting models, to be compared and contrasted by the reader). (shrink)

Socrates’ refutations of Thrasymachus in Republic I are unsatisfactory on a number of levels which need to be carefully distinguished. At the same time several of his arguments are more powerful than they initially appear. Of particular interest are those which turn on the idea of a craft, which represents a shared norm of practical rationality here contested by Socrates and Thrasymachus.

"It is the purpose of this article to attempt to re-examine the account of Thrasymachus' doctrine in Plato's Republic, and to show how it can form a self-consistent whole. [...] In this paper it is maintained that Thrasymachus is holding a form of [natural right]".

Thrasymachus' variegated pronouncements on the nature of justice in Book I of the Republic have generated considerable dispute concerning whether those claims are consistent, and about what sorts of theoretical commitments those claims involve, if they are in fact consistent. After clarifying Thrasymachus' position and explaining how it generates charges of inconsistency, I argue that the charges dissolve if we approach the text with the proper conception of just action, as being synonymous with adherence to the norms that (...) proscribe taking advantage of others by fraud or force. A major virtue of this solution is that it allows us to give equal weight to virtually all of Thrasymachus' claims without being forced to isolate one as Thrasymachus' 'true' position as against his other 'merely apparent' positions. After completing my argument, I provide speculation as to why Plato might have been motivated to intentionally present Thrasymachus' position in a way so generative of consistency disputes. (shrink)

In Book I of the Republic, or so I shall argue, Plato gives us a glimpse of sheer horror. In the character, beliefs, and desires of Thrasymachus, Plato aims to personify some of the most diabolical dangers that lurk in human nature. In this way, the role that Thrasymachus plays for Plato is akin to the role that for Hobbes is played by the bellum omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all, which would allegedly be the (...) inevitable result of a "state of nature", where human beings have no government to terrorize them into obedience. It is also akin to the role that for Kant is played by the "radical evil" that is allegedly an indelible feature of human nature itself. As I shall try to show, the desires that characterize Thrasymachus are of the kind that are described in Book IX as "lawless" desires, desire of the wild insane kind that dominate the tyrannical soul; and his beliefs systematically reflect these desires, in a way that has its own hideously coherent logic. (shrink)

In a recent article, C. H. Kahn addresses an ‘old scholarly myth’, namely the idea that Book I of the Republic began life as an earlier, independent dialogue and was subsequently adapted to serve as a prelude to the much longer work that we know. The case for this hypothesis rests both on stylometric considerations and on the many ‘Socratic’ features that Book I, unlike the rest of the Republic, shares with Plato's earlier works. Having disposed of the positive arguments (...) in favour of the ‘myth’, Kahn turns to the contrary—and in his view overwhelming—evidence that Book I was composed from the start as an integral part of the longer Republic. He catalogues 12 passages in Book I, accounting for roughly half its length, whose full significance will, he argues, only emerge if they are seen as instances of prolepsis, deliberate anticipations of what is to come in later books. (shrink)

This paper is a close reading of the first book of the "republic". Plato prepares the reader for what is to come in the work by hinting at the elaboration of justice in its human, political and cosmic aspects. The paper attends to the argumentative, mythic and rhetorical strategies that plato employs to open the discussion and to develop it. In this way the paper is an aid to a competent, and by no means uncritical, reading of the "republic".

Research on distributive justice has shown that people’s judgments on how to distribute resources justly are shaped by various criteria including equity, need, equality, and prior ownership. Yet, an important question remains open: do people’s judgments about justice take the power of the actors under consideration? In other words, to people deem the powerful to deserve a larger share even when their contribution, need, and prior ownership are equal? The paper addresses this question. Online, participants had to judge the just (...) distribution of resources among actors who were equal in all respects except regarding power. Results revealed that a substantial proportion of participants believed that more powerful actors deserved more resources, an effect referred to as power justification. The effect was related with social dominance orientation (SDO), indicating that high-SDO participants manifested enhanced power justification. These results were replicated in three countries, suggesting that, although cultural differences are possibly important, in most societies power justification might be a criterion advocated by some people in certain occasions. These findings can inspire research about important domains where judgments about justice and power are at play, such as about how juries deliberate and about how public opinion reacts to international conflicts. (shrink)

Most scholars agree that Socrates’ arguments in the course of his refutation of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic are at best weak and at worse fallacious. Some interpreters have used this logical inadequacy to argue that Socrates’ aim is psychotherapeutic rather than cognitive, but this does not address why Thrasymachus feels shamed. I argue in this article that Thrasymachus blushes not simply because his explicit propositions are contradictory but because two principles of his sophistic ēthos—that his skill requires (...) knowledge and that his skill achieves victory in logoi—are fundamentally at odds. My claim that Socrates’ elenchus of Thrasymachus appeals to a principle of ethical consistency has the specific advantage of reconciling the otherwise opposed views of Socratic elenchus as exclusively ‘logical’ or ‘psychotherapeutic’. (shrink)

In the Platonic dialogues Socrates is shown talking to two, and only two, famous teachers of rhetoric, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon and Gorgias of Leontini. At first glance relations between Socrates and Gorgias appear to be much more courteous—they might even be described as cordial—than relations between Socrates and Thrasymachus. In the Gorgias Socrates explicitly and intentionally seeks an opportunity to talk to Gorgias and treats him with great respect. Socrates shows that Gorgias’s claims concerning the power of his (...) art are contradictory, but the philosopher does not press his advantage or embarrass the rhetorician (Stauffer 2006, 34). Although Gorgias indicates his interest in hearing what Socrates has to say by urging his young friends Polus and Callicles to continue the conversation, Gorgias never says that he is convinced by Socrates. And Socrates never announces that Gorgias has become his friend. In the Republic Socrates reports that Thrasymachus burst into the conversation like a lion. Socrates even claims that he and his interlocutor (Polemarchus) were frightened. The initial exchange between Socrates and Thrasymachus thus appears to be hostile. In the argument that follows, Socrates embarrasses Thrasymachus; the famous teacher of rhetoric blushes. Nevertheless, Socrates declares later in the conversation (1900, 498d) that he and Thrasymachus have become friends. (shrink)

This paper attempts a detailed and in-depth examination of the particular case of Thrasymachus’ behavior. Our attempt is not to provide a consistent analysis and interpretation of Thrasymachus’ account of justice, but to present his rhetorical skills. In particular, the aim of this paper is to provide an account of behavior as an essential parameter in his teaching of rhetoric. Plato’s choice of Thrasymachus in order to confront Socrates is not a random one. He chooses a renowned (...) Sophist in the art of rhetoric, who places great emphasis on the release of emotions in rhetorical speech. Against this backdrop, following Thrasymachus’ arguments and behavior, we might configure his pedagogical method of teaching rhetoric. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the first iteration of Thrasymachus’ claim as reported in Book I of Plato’s Republic that ‘justice is the interest of the stronger’, namely, a ‘political’ interpretation, according to which ‘justice is the interest of the stronger party in each polis as established in the law’. The author contends that this argument is logically and rhetorically distinct from Thrasymachus’ subsequent restatements of his position in Republic I. The ‘political’ version of the Thrasymachean position enjoyed currency (...) after the composition of the Republic — and in a way that was not entirely negative. The current paper examines two cases of this reception: the first, in Plato’s own late work, the Laws, where he reengages with the Thrasymachean doctrine; the second, in the De republica Anglorum of Sir Thomas Smith, an early modern theorist who self-consciously defended Thrasymachus’ theory of justice. The paper’s immediate purpose is to suggest that Thrasymachus’ conception of ‘political’ justice, in particular, has far more coherence and power than the supposed ‘refutation’ of it in the Republic might leads us to believe. (shrink)

The phenomenological vision, particularly, Husserl’s idea of critique as an infinite vocational theoria and Patočka’s as an enduring programme, view Platonic logic and Socratic act as the paradigms for a normative justification of the idea of universal science and philosophy. In light of that, the Thrasymachus-Socrates debate is interpreted as a case to testify the critical power of philosophy successfully exercised over sophistic tyrannical non-philosophy. This paper criticizes the phenomenological idealization of the Socratic victory as an ethico-teleologically anticipated success (...) of philosophy and rewrites the defeat of Thrasymachus as a political failure in warring with philosophy during which Thrasymachus questions the legitimacy of the act of philosophizing to decide its legitimacy and thereby exposes the politics played out in that act. (shrink)

The encounter between Socrates and Thrasymachus in Republic I is notoriously baffling. Most of what is said seems straightforward, and the issues at stake are ones of common concern, but the argument remains elusive. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature and grounds of this elusiveness, and to show that some of it can be dispelled by a sufficiently free-ranging exegesis that bears in mind the general character of Plato’s writing.

An interpretation is offered of Thrasymachus' account of the nature of justice and just action in book I of the 'Republic' which is internally consistent throughout on all important points. Just action is not defined in terms of its practical consequences, as many commentators assume, but rather in terms of its logical consequences 'vis-a-vis' just agents. When one man acts justly towards another, the performance of the just act renders the just agent vulnerable to unfair or unjust exploitation by (...) those with whom he deals. The "strong man", in Thrasymachus' sense, would thus never be a just man. It is argued that Socrates addresses himself to this position, but that, while the textual Thrasymachus is silenced, Socrates' best arguments are, in fact, inadequate to refute Thrasymachus. (shrink)

It was with this bitter intervention from Thrasymachus, occurring halfway through the first of its ten Books, that that work begins to come urgently alive. For the remainder of Book I the Socrates of the Dialogue asks questions and raises objections, while Thrasymachus keeps urging that in fact the just become through their very justice the victims of exploitation–the suckers!

The article suggests that the position ascribed to thrasymachus in book i of plato's "republic" may be confused but need not be self-contradictory. A formal argument is constructed that derives his conclusion from premisses based on things he says, though not always in the language he uses. It is not suggested that plato ascribes this argument to thrasymachus, but only that it is consistent and intelligible in itself and compatible with what thrasymachus does say.

It is argued that the true definition of justice in Plato’s Republic appears not in Book IV but in Book I, where it is clear that justice is other-oriented or external rather than internal as per Book IV. Indeed, on Book IV’s definition, there is virtually no difference between justice and moderation. Considered here is a single argument between Socrates and Thrasymachus, in which Socrates contends that imperfect injustice is “stronger” than perfect. Rather than producing a just group, the (...) justice between members of a group strengthens the injustice of a group whose external project is already unjust. (shrink)

Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, as a famous rhetor and an infamous interlocutor in the Republic, has experienced a rebirth in the disciplines of political science, history and rhetoric. A major question concerning work in these fields is the extent to which the historical Thrasymachus can be separated from the character of the Republic. In the historical record, Thrasymachus is an opaque figure. Only a single fragment of a speech survives for posterity. From this fragment, research has tried to (...) distil a system of political thought.What did Thrasymachus think of politics? In which political camp did he reside? Attempts to answer these questions run into a formidable wall: the abject paucity of evidence. Given few definitive clues, research into the political thought of the historical Thrasymachus has reached no tenable conclusions. Thrasymachus remains a fairly obscure rhetor most famous for a fictional confrontation with Socrates. (shrink)