Research work · 2024
Further Sophistic Echoes
Just Prospering? Plato and the Sophistic Debate about Justice
Abstract
Abstract The last two chapters argued that Plato was alive to the theoretical failings of the 5th Century Friends of Justice and that he constructed the central argument of Republic to avoid those failings. The present chapter shows that Plato not only learned from the failures of past moralists: in at least two specific places one can detect the positive influence of the past Friends. The form of Socrates’ argument defending the claim that the just life is best has been taken over directly from Glaucon’s earlier contribution to the dialogue, which, as was argued in Chapter Five, was itself influenced by past moralists. Socrates’ discussion of the origin and essence of justice also employs an important philosophical move plausibly derived from AI. Attending to the ways that Plato drew from the successes of past moralists confirms that he was a Friend of Justice offering a return to The Traditional View of Justice.