[340]
Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, said Polemarchus,
nothing could be more conclusive.
Of course, said Cleitophon, breaking in,
if you are his witness.
1
What need is there of a witness? Polemarchus said.
Thrasymachus himself admits that the rulers sometimes enjoin what is evil for themselves and yet says that it is just for the subjects to do this.
That, Polemarchus, is because Thrasymachus laid it down that it is just to obey the orders
2
of the rulers.
Yes, Cleitophon, but he also took the position that the advantage of the stronger is just.
340b
And after these two assumptions he again admitted that the stronger sometimes bid the inferior and their subjects do what is to the disadvantage of the rulers. And from these admissions the just would no more be the advantage of the stronger than the contrary.
O well, said Cleitophon,
by the advantage of the superior he meant what the superior supposed to be for his advantage. This was what the inferior had to do, and that this is the just was his position.
That isn’t what he said,
340c
replied Polemarchus.
Never mind, Polemarchus, said I,
but if that is Thrasymachus’s present meaning, let us take it from him
3
in that sense.
So tell me, Thrasymachus, was this what you intended to say, that the just is the advantage of the superior as it appears to the superior whether it really is or not? Are we to say this was your meaning? Not in the least, he said. 4 Do you suppose that I call one who is in error a superior when he errs? I certainly did suppose that you meant that, I replied, when you agreed that rulers are not infallible 340d but sometimes make mistakes. That is because you argue like a pettifogger, Socrates. Why, to take the nearest example, do you call one who is mistaken about the sick a physician in respect of his mistake or one who goes wrong in a calculation a calculator when he goes wrong and in respect of this error? Yet that is what we say literally—we say that the physician 5 erred and the calculator and the schoolmaster. But the truth, I take it, is, that each of these 340e in so far as he is that which we entitle him never errs; so that, speaking precisely, since you are such a stickler for precision, 6 no craftsman errs. For it is when his knowledge abandons him that he who goes wrong goes wrong—when he is not a craftsman. So that no craftsman, wise man, or ruler makes a mistake then when he is a ruler, though everybody would use the expression that the physician made a mistake and the ruler erred.
So tell me, Thrasymachus, was this what you intended to say, that the just is the advantage of the superior as it appears to the superior whether it really is or not? Are we to say this was your meaning? Not in the least, he said. 4 Do you suppose that I call one who is in error a superior when he errs? I certainly did suppose that you meant that, I replied, when you agreed that rulers are not infallible 340d but sometimes make mistakes. That is because you argue like a pettifogger, Socrates. Why, to take the nearest example, do you call one who is mistaken about the sick a physician in respect of his mistake or one who goes wrong in a calculation a calculator when he goes wrong and in respect of this error? Yet that is what we say literally—we say that the physician 5 erred and the calculator and the schoolmaster. But the truth, I take it, is, that each of these 340e in so far as he is that which we entitle him never errs; so that, speaking precisely, since you are such a stickler for precision, 6 no craftsman errs. For it is when his knowledge abandons him that he who goes wrong goes wrong—when he is not a craftsman. So that no craftsman, wise man, or ruler makes a mistake then when he is a ruler, though everybody would use the expression that the physician made a mistake and the ruler erred.
Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.
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