Republic

It is in this loose way of speaking, then, that you must take the answer I gave you a little while ago. But the most precise statement is that other, that the ruler in so far forth as ruler does not err, and not erring he enacts what is best for himself, and this the subject must do, so that, even as I meant from the start, I say the just is to do what is for the advantage of the stronger.So then, Thrasymachus, said I, my manner of argument seems to you pettifogging? It does, he said. You think, do you, that it was with malice aforethought and trying to get the better of you unfairly that I asked that question? I don’t think it, I know it, he said, and you won’t make anything by it, for you won’t get the better of me by stealth and , failing stealth, you are not of the force[*](Cf. 365 D.) to beat me in debate. Bless your soul, said I, I wouldn’t even attempt such a thing. But that nothing of the sort may spring up between us again, define in which sense you take the ruler and stronger. Do you mean the so-called ruler[*](i.e., the one who in vulgar parlance is so; cf. τῷ ῥήματι, Plat. Rep. 340d.) or that ruler in the precise sense of whom you were just now telling us, and for whose advantage as being the superior it will be just for the inferior to act? I mean the ruler in the very most precise sense of the word, he said. Now bring on against this your cavils and your shyster’s tricks if you are able. I ask no quarter. But you’ll find yourself unable. Why, do you suppose, I said, that I am so mad to try to try to beard a lion[*](A rare but obvious proverb. Cf. Schol. ad loc. and Aristides, Orat. Plat. ii. p. 143.) and try the pettifogger on Thrasymachus? You did try it just now, he said, paltry fellow though you be.[*](καὶ ταῦτα = idque, normally precedes (cf. 404 C, 419 E, etc.). But Thrasymachus is angry and the whole phrase is short. Commentators on Aristophanes Wasps 1184, Frogs 704, and Acharn. 168 allow this position. See my note in A.J.P. vol. xvi. p. 234. Others: though you failed in that too.) Something too much[*](Cf. 541 B, Euthyphro 11 E, Charmides 153 D.) of this sort of thing, said I. But tell me, your physician in the precise sense of whom you were just now speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick? And remember to speak of the physician who is really such. A healer of the sick, he replied. And what of the lot—the pilot rightly so called—is he a ruler of sailors or a sailor? A ruler of sailors. We don’t, I fancy, have to take into account the fact that he actually sails in the ship, nor is he to be denominated a sailor. For it is not in respect of his sailing that he is called a pilot but in respect of his art and his ruling of the sailors. True, he said. Then for each of them[*](Plato, like Herodotus and most idiomatic and elliptical writers, is content if his antecedent can be fairly inferred from the context. Cf. 330 C τοῦτο, 373 C, 396 B, 598 C τεχνῶν, Protagoras 327 C.) is there not a something that is for his advantage? Quite so. And is it not also true, said I, that the art naturally exists for this, to discover and provide for each his advantage? Yes, for this. Is there, then, for each of the arts any other advantage than to be perfect as possible[*](Pater, Plato and Platonism, p. 242, fancifully cites this for art for art’s sake. See Zeller, p. 605. Thrasymachus does not understand what is meant by saying that the art (= the artist qua artist) has no interest save the perfection of its (his) own function. Socrates explains that the body by its very nature needs art to remedy its defects (Herodotus i. 32, Lysis 217 B). But the nature of art is fulfilled in its service, and it has no other ends to be accomplished by another art and so on ad infinitum. It is idle to cavil and emend the text, because of the shift from the statement (341 D) that art has no interest save its perfection, to the statement that it needs nothing except to be itself (342 A-B). The art and the artist qua artist are ideals whose being by hypothesis is their perfection.)? What do you mean by that question? Just as if, I said, you should ask me whether it is enough for the body to be the body or whether it stands in need of something else, I would reply, By all means it stands in need. That is the reason why the art of medicine has now been invented, because the body is defective and such defect is unsatisfactory. To provide for this, then, what is advantageous, that is the end for which the art was devised. Do you think that would be a correct answer, or not?

Correct, he said. But how about this? Is the medical art itself defective or faulty, or has any other art any need of some virtue, quality, or excellence—as the eyes of vision, the ears of hearing, and for this reason is there need of some art over them that will consider and provide what is advantageous for these very ends—does there exist in the art itself some defect and does each art require another art to consider its advantage and is there need of still another for the considering art and so on ad infinitum, or will the art look out for its own advantage? Or is it a fact that it needs neither itself nor another art to consider its advantage and provide against its deficiency? For there is no defect or error at all that dwells in any art. Nor does it befit an art to seek the advantage of anything else than that of its object. But the art itself is free from all harm and admixture of evil, and is right so long as each art is precisely and entirely that which it is. And consider the matter in that precise way of speaking. Is it so or not? It appears to be so, he said. Then medicine, said I, does not consider the advantage of medicine but of the body? Yes. Nor horsemanship of horsemanship but of horses, nor does any other art look out for itself—for it has no need—but for that of which it is the art. So it seems, he replied. But surely,[*](The next step is the identification of (true) politics with the disinterested arts which also rule and are the stronger. Cf. Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 11. γε emphasizes the argumentative implication of ἄρχουσι to which Thrasymachus assents reluctantly; and Socrates develops and repeats the thought for half a page. Art is virtually science, as contrasted with empiric rule of thumb, and Thrasymachus’s infallible rulers are of course scientific. Ruler is added lest we forget the analogy between political rule and that of the arts. Cf. Newman, Introduction Aristotle Politics 244, Laws 875 C.) Thrasymachus, the arts do hold rule and are stronger than that of which they are the arts. He conceded this but it went very hard. Then no art considers or enjoins[*](It is not content with theoretic knowledge, but like other arts gives orders to achieve results. Cf. Politicus 260 A, C.) the advantage of the stronger but every art that of the weaker which is ruled by it. This too he was finally brought to admit though he tried to contest it. But when he had agreed—Can we deny, then, said I, that neither does any physician in so far as he is a physician seek or enjoin the advantage of the physician but that of the patient? For we have agreed that the physician, precisely speaking, is a ruler and governor of bodies and not a moneymaker. Did we agree on that? He assented. And so the precise pilot is a ruler of sailors, not a sailor? That was admitted. Then that sort of a pilot and ruler will not consider and enjoin the advantage of the pilot but that of the sailor whose ruler he is. He assented reluctantly. Then, said I, Thrasymachus, neither does anyone in any office of rule in so far as he is a ruler consider and enjoin his own advantage but that of the one whom he rules and for whom he exercises his craft, and he keeps his eyes fixed on that and on what is advantageous and suitable to that in all that he says and does.