Socrates vs. Thrasymachus on Justice

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Күн бұрын

In this episode, I recount Socrates and Thrasymachus' debate on Justice from Plato's The Republic.
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@sroycze9284 7 ай бұрын

i just finished reading the republic. in my mind, the dialectic by socrates and thrasymachus clashes due to not only the reasons you mentioned,but also perhaps because thrasynachus tries to describe what justice is (in his opinion) and socrates what justice should be(in his opinion)

@satyasyasatyasya5746 7 ай бұрын

*Makes me think of these two MLK lines:* "Power without love is reckless and abusive, love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love." & "True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice." Thus, I wonder if justice might be something like "justice is doing through necessary power, what is demanded of us by love in the direction of peace." Though, this strikes me as somewhat of a tautology. But maybe thats the point? Hmm...

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 7 ай бұрын

Thrasymachus- Nietzsche's greatest precursor I had no idea about.

@numbersix8919 5 ай бұрын

That may be a shallow reading of Nietzsche.

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 5 ай бұрын

@@numbersix8919 obviously Nietzsche goes further and deeper with his inquiries but this sounds a lot like the Will To Power and his views on truth, it's pursuit and weaponization being a manifestation of it.

@numbersix8919 5 ай бұрын

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 I recommend the Rick Roderick lectures on YT, including the one on Nietzsche.

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 4 ай бұрын

@@numbersix8919 I've listen to his lectures on Nietzsche along with Solomons etc.

@numbersix8919 4 ай бұрын

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 Glad you did.

@christinacurtis4140 9 күн бұрын

I just Googled the pronunciation of Thrasymachus and they have it as 'sounds like thra-zuh-maa-kus'.

@gregpappas 6 ай бұрын

I’ve read the Republic many times. Very saw the connection of Nietzche to Thrasymachus. I know this is not your intention, but helped me in this way.

@catherinegoodsett-wein3313 7 ай бұрын

The US is not a meritocracy. I have worked hard my whole life in order to not be ignorant, and have never been allowed to follow my dreams or to be happy.

@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060 7 ай бұрын

Happiness is fleeting regardless of your station in life. You have to almost be Machiavellian to be financially successful in the US a lot of the time.

@numbersix8919 5 ай бұрын

Such a rich subject. Sounds like Marxian alienation, but one good book for me was Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_ .

@numbersix8919 5 ай бұрын

Now I see clearly an instance where Ayn Rand "loathes" Plato.

@aryamoghaddam529 2 ай бұрын

great, but you skipped the point where Socrates makes an exception for the ultimate ruler. He mentions to be the ultimate ruler you'd have to serve in the interest of everyone else, but any good,just person that is in tune with their specific interest wouldn't want to do that, since they can only do it for themselves and live a happy life. Then he proceeds to say, that being the case, it is natural for unjust, bad people to get in power, unless for 3 things that let the good ones rule, passion, money and the risk of punishment pr something like that.

@crowboggs 7 ай бұрын

In the short, short version, I don't perceive Socrates' and Thrasymachus' (Thra-sim-a-cuss: is that the correct pronunciation?) positions as mutually exclusive contradictions. To my vantage point, humans are both self-interested (individual bodies require needs to subsist, want to feel pleasure and want to avoid pain) and social beings (subsistence, pleasure and pain in a vast variety of respects are contingent on communities, i.e. any grouping of people recognized as a grouping... so a monogamous relationship and a nation are both communities in intersect/union and subject to duration). Thrasymachus' focus is on self-interest. It is myopic and casts contingencies of interdependence into the periphery. Socrates' focus is on virtue, which is an expression of social being, but only accounts for people in communities like Thrasymachus by attempting to conform them to differ a degree of self-interests to the social order... I am not a musicologist, but I think it is somewhat accurate to say that this dialogue composes a sort of music that consists of melody (in this case Socrates) and counterpoint, that for Plato results in harmony with the ascendancy of melody. However, this ascendency can cause grave consequences. If the melody overrides the needs of enough individuals, the counterpoint will form its own melody to gain these needs, resulting in dissonance and eventually discord... which was the epistemic conditions in which Hobbes wrote Leviathan.

@gregpappas 6 ай бұрын

Thanks David.