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Updated: May 13, 2025
The state, in distinction from the kinship group or the village community, was organized for power and profit. It was nearly a gigantic piratical enterprise, highly profitable to its managers. The shepherd, says Thrasymachus in Plato's dialogue, does not feed his sheep for their benefit, but for his own.
But suppose that he were to retort, 'Thrasymachus, what do you mean? If one of these numbers which you interdict be the true answer to the question, am I falsely to say some other number which is not the right one? is that your meaning? How would you answer him? Just as if the two cases were at all alike! he said. Why should they not be?
Then, I said, Thrasymachus, there is no one in any rule who, in so far as he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is for his own interest, but always what is for the interest of his subject or suitable to his art; to that he looks, and that alone he considers in everything which he says and does.
For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will recall what was previously said, that although you began by defining the true physician in an exact sense, you did not observe a like exactness when speaking of the shepherd; you thought that the shepherd as a shepherd tends the sheep not with a view to their own good, but like a mere diner or banqueter with a view to the pleasures of the table; or, again, as a trader for sale in the market, and not as a shepherd.
How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all.
The enquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. Certainly, he replied, we must do as you say.
You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded.
For as Thrasymachus appeared to him to be too concise with his closely measured rhythm, and Gorgias also, though they are the first who are said to have laid down any rules at all for the harmony of sentences; and as Thucydides was somewhat too abrupt and not sufficiently round, if I may use such an expression; he was the first who adopted a system of dilating his ideas with words, and filling them up with better sounding sentences; and as by his own practice he formed those men who were afterwards accounted the most eminent men in speaking and writing, his house got to be reckoned a perfect school of eloquence.
I dare say that Thrasymachus and others would seriously hold the language which I have been merely repeating, and words even stronger than these about justice and injustice, grossly, as I conceive, perverting their true nature.
I am delighted, Thrasymachus, to see you not only nodding assent and dissent, but making answers which are quite excellent. That is out of civility to you, he replied.
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