REDUCING THE SOPHIST TO SILENCE1 (336bâ357a)
A heavy silence had greeted Socratesâ question. So Thrasymachus felt that his time to speak had come. Many times over the course of the discussion heâd been tormented by a burning desire to take part in it. But the people sitting around him had kept him from doing so because they wanted to follow the progression of the argument. This time, however, taking advantage of the confusion that had followed the return (oddly abrupt, itâs true) to the original form of the question, Thrasymachus finally broke out of the silence theyâd imposed on him and, flexing all his muscles, crouching like a wild beast about to bare its huge claws, he advanced on Socrates as if to tear him apart and devour him alive. Socrates and Polemarchus recoiled in terror. Once heâd reached the middle of the room, the monster glowered at the whole audience and began speaking in a voice to which the roomâs high ceiling, the French windows, the darkness that had fallen over the sailboats, indeed the whole world, seemed to lend a thunderous power:
âWhat pathetic hogwash Socrates has been subjecting us to for hours now! Whatâs with all your kowtowing to each other and taking turns bombarding us with your stupid nonsense? If you2 really want to know what justice is, Socrates, stop asking pointless questions and rubbing your hands in glee when youâve refuted something one of your flustered sidekicks has managed to stammer out. Asking questions is easy, answering them less so. So tell us once and for all how you define justice. And donât come telling us that justice is anything but justice, that itâs duty, expediency, advantage, profit, interest, and so on. Tell us precisely and clearly what you have to say. Because I wonât be like all the bit players in your three-ring circus, I wonât put up with all your hot air.
At these words, Socrates, feigning â or really feeling? â panicky astonishment, stared for a moment at Thrasymachus, the way you do when, on a snowy evening, you encounter a wolf who might lock his cruel eyes on you first, in which case youâll be struck dumb, or so the old country women say. Then he went on in a somewhat tremulous voice:
âFortunately I saw you first tonight, you ferocious rhetorician! Otherwise I really might have lost my voice! But I still think Iâll try to placate the wolf who pounced on our conversation as on a little lamb trembling in fear⌠Dear Thrasymachus! Donât be angry with us! If Polemarchus and I were completely wrong in the way we went about considering the problem, you know very well that it wasnât on purpose. Suppose we were searching for gold, like in a Western, with big cowboy hats on our heads and all that sort of thing. Can you really think that, with our feet in the water and our pans in our hands, weâd bother deferring to each other and saying âAfter you, pardnerâ and run the risk of not finding anything at all? Yet here we are searching for justice, which is a lot more important than some heap of gold nuggets, and youâd think us capable of playing nice with each other all the time instead of devoting the utmost seriousness to bringing its Idea to light. No way! Thatâs simply not possible. The best hypothesis is that weâre just plain incapable of finding what weâre looking for. And in that case let me say to you and to all the clever people of your sort: instead of giving us a hard time, show us a little mercy.
After hearing this speech Thrasymachus let out a sardonic laugh that gave the whole audience the creeps.
âI was right, for Peteâs sake! Thatâs the famous Socratic irony3 all right! I knew it, I told everyone around me: Socrates will never agree to answer. Heâll be as ironic as can be and do anything he can to avoid having to answer a precise question. By Heracles! I told you so!
âThatâs because youâre so clever, Socrates said. You set up your calculations with the utmost care. If you ask someone how to get the number twelve in a math problem, knowing you, youâll add: âWhatever you do, my friend, donât come telling me itâs six times two, or four times three, or twenty-four divided by two, let alone that itâs eleven plus one, or eight plus four or, as poor Kant wrote, seven plus five.4 Spare me any such nonsense.â You, at any rate, know perfectly well that with those kinds of prohibitions no one will be able to answer your question. But the other person can still ask you a few questions. For example: âWhat exactly is your aim, O most subtle Thrasymachus? That I shouldnât give you any of the answers youâve forbidden me to give? But what if one, or even several, of them, happen to be true? Whatâs your hidden agenda then? That I should say something other than the truth?â How would you respond to this hypothetical interlocutor?
But Thrasymachus wasnât fazed and said:
âThatâs easy: Whatâs that got to do with the question of justice? As usual, youâre just switching horses as soon as you see that yours is going to lose the race.
âBut there is a connection! My twelve and my justice are horses from the same stable. But, OK, letâs assume that thereâs no connection. Do you imagine that if your interlocutor thinks there is one, heâll change the answer he thinks is right simply because youâve forbidden it?
âOh, for crying out loud! You want to do the very same thing! You want to define justice with one of the words I forbade you to use.
âWell, no wonder if I did. Iâd just have to think, after giving it serious dialectical consideration, that itâs the right word.
âAll that stuff about duty, propriety, interest, advantage! Thatâs the kind of junk you want to use to plug the leaky bucket of your argument? Confound it! If I can show you, first of all, that thereâs another answer you havenât even thought of and, second of all, that that answer blows to bits all the stupid things youâve been kicking around, what sentence will you impose on yourself?
âThe sentence that someone who doesnât know has to submit to: learning from someone who does know. Thatâs the punishment Iâll sentence myself to.
âWell, youâll be getting off lightly, Thrasymachus said with a sneer. In addition to having to learn, youâll have to fork over a big stack of dollars to me.
âI will when I have any, if I have any somedayâŚ
But Glaucon, a rich kid, didnât want the confrontation that was brewing to be put off on account of money.
âYou have everything you need, Socrates, he said. And you, Thrasymachus, if itâs money youâre after, go ahead and say so! Weâll all take up a collection for Socrates.
âYeah, right! hissed Thrasymachus. So that Socrates can do his usual number on me: he never answers, the other person answers, he makes mincemeat of what the person says, he refutes him, and thatâs that!
âBut, my dear friend, said Socrates calmly, how can I answer, given that, in the first place, I donât know, and, in the second place, all I ever do is say that the only thing I know is that I donât know, and, in the third place, even assuming that I do know and that I say that I know, I would nevertheless keep quiet, since someone whoâs topnotch, namely you, has forbidden me beforehand to give any of the answers I deem appropriate to the question? Youâre the one who should speak, since in the first place you say you know, and in the second place you know what you say. Come on! Donât play hard to get! If you speak, youâll be doing me a favor, and youâll show that you donât look down on Glauconâs and his friendsâ desire to learn from the great Thrasymachus.
Glaucon and the others all chimed in and begged Thrasymachus to give in. It was plain that he wanted to, certain as he was of the applause that his devastating answer to the question of the day â âWhat is justice?â â would earn him. But for a moment longer he pretended to go on arguing that Socrates should be the one to answer. At last he gave up, remarking:
âThis is the classic example of Socratesâ âwisdomâ: he announces he has nothing to teach anyone, but when it comes to stealing other peopleâs ideas, heâs only too willing, and never says thank you!
âWhen you say I learn from others, Socrates shot back, youâre perfectly right. But when you claim I never thank them, youâre wrong. Naturally I donât pay for the lessons, because I donât have any dollars or euros or drachmas or yen. On the other hand, Iâm very generous with praise. Whatâs more, youâll soon find out how fervently I admire someone who speaks well â in fact, just as soon as youâve answered my question, an answer that I have a hunch will surprise us all.
Thrasymachus then came forward, stood up very straight, and closed his eyes like the Pythia at Delphi, meditating. On the shade-filled patio the silence was deafening.
âListen, listen very carefully. I say that justice is not and cannot be anything but the interest of the stronger.
He then fixed his withering gaze on Socrates. But the silence persisted, since Socrates, short and potbellied, his eyes big and round and his arms dangling at his sides, looked like a disappointed dog being offered a slice of pumpkin.
Thrasymachus was annoyed.
âSo whereâs all this famous praise of yours? he said. Youâre as quiet as a mouse. Youâre such a sore loser, totally incapable of congratulating your opponent on his win. And you call yourself the wisest of men! Bravo!
âForgive me, but first I have to be sure I understand you. Letâs see. You say: âJustice is the interest of the stronger.â What exactly does that statement mean? Take a bicycle racer, for example. Letâs say heâs the stronger party when it comes to biking up mountains. Letâs say itâs in his interest to dope himself by shooting EPO in his behind, so as to race even faster and to shatter all the records. You canât really mean, can you, that justice for us would be to inject ourselves relentlessly in the backside, since thatâs whatâs in the interest of the stronger?
âOh, youâre downright despicable, Socrates! You purposely misinterpret my words and plaster them onto some disgusting anecdote just to make me look like a fool.
âNot at all. I just think you need to clarify your splendid maxim. Itâs as hard and black as coalâŚ
âCoal? What on earth are you talking about?
â⌠as the coal that diamonds are mined from. Let your maxim simmer a bit for us in the broth of its context, as our modern orators would say.
âAll right, I see what you mean. You know that the constitutions of different countries can be monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic. Furthermore, in every country the government has a monopoly on force, specifically armed force. It can then be observed that every government makes laws favoring its own interest: democrats make democratic laws, aristocrats aristocratic laws, and so on. In short, governments, which have force at their command, declare whateverâs in their own interest to be lawful and just. If a citizen disobeys, they punish him insofar as he has broken the law and acted unjustly. So that, dear friend, is what I say is invariably justice in every country: the interest of the government in power. And since that government has a monopoly on force, the conclusion that anyone who reasons correctly will draw from this is that justice is always and everywhere the same, namely whatâs in the interest of the stronger.
And, so saying, Thrasymachus cast a triumphant glance over the audience.
Socratesâ face lit up:
âNow I understand what you meant!
But just as quickly it darkened:
âUnfortunately, Iâm not at all sure that itâs true. Right off the bat, someone hearing you might say (and here Socrates impersonated a comic actor speaking with a nasal intonation): âVery odd! Very odd! And to be precise: very odd!5 Thrasymachus strictly forbade Socrates to say that justice is interest. But a couple of minutes later, what does he himself loudly proclaim? That justice is interest.â Naturally Iâd object to this guy with the stuffed nose: âCareful, sir, careful! He said interest, sure, but of the stronger.â
âAn insignificant detail! snorted Thrasymachus.
âWhether itâs important or not isnât clear yet. But what is absolutely clear is that we need to examine whether itâs really the truth thatâs coming out of your mouth, as naked and pure as a cherub.
âWould you get a load of this Socrates! said a jubilant Thrasymachus, turning to face the audience. He thinks I cough up angels!
âLetâs put off examining your sputum till later. Iâll grant you that whatâs just is in the interest of a Subject. Whether we should add âthe stronger Subjectâ Iâm not so sure, but we need to take a close look at that.
âGo ahead and look, Socrates, examine, consider, weigh, and quibble to your heartâs content. We know what youâre like!
âI thought I understood that, as far as youâre concerned, it is just to obey the rulers of the state. Furthermore, youâd agree, I assume, that these rulers arenât infallible but do in fact make mistakes.
âOf course!
âConsequently, when they go about enacting laws, sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it all wrong, donât they?
âYouâd have to look long and hard to find a comment as banal and utterly uninteresting as that one.
âNo doubt, no doubt⌠But if we follow your argument, weâll have to say that, for a ruler, to enact proper laws is to serve his own interest and to enact improper ones is to go against it. Right?
âThatâs self-evident.
âAnd to have to do what the rulers have decided, is that just, in your opinion?
âYou sound like a broken record! Yes, yes, yes!
âSo, if we adopt your definition of justice, we can conclude that it is just not only to do whatâs in the interest of the stronger, but also â and hereâs whatâs amazing â the opposite: what goes against the interest of the stronger.
âWhat on earth are you talking about?! cried Thrasymachus.
âThe necessary implications of your definition. Letâs slow down a bit. Weâd agreed on one point, which you even considered a trivial one: when the rulers order their subjects to do this or that, even though it sometimes happens that these rulers are mistaken about what their own real interest is, itâs still always just for the subjects to do exactly what the rulers order them to do. Yes or no?
âHow many times do I have to tell you?! What a drag this is! Yes and yes.
âYou therefore agreed that itâs just to go against the interest of the rulers, hence of the stronger, when these rulers unintentionally order things to be done that are bad for them, since itâs just â you said this over and over â to do everything decreed by said rulers. It follows inexorably from this that itâs just to do the exact opposite of what you say, since, in the case that concerns us here, to do what goes against the interest of the stronger is what the stronger orders the weaker to do.
The excitement this speech stirred up in the audience was enormous. Polemarchus awoke with a start, the pale Cleitophon turned red, Glaucon jumped up and down, and Amantha tugged nervously at her left ear. It was Polemarchus who took the plunge.
âI think Thrasymachus might as well close up shop and go home!
he exclaimed.
âYeah, sure, muttered Cleitophon, who had become as pale as a ghost again. Whatever Polemarchus says, Thrasymachus has got to do.
âBut it was Thrasymachus himself who...