Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:36:57.180Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Choosing Justice: Socrates' Model City and the Practice of Dialectic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Darrell Dobbs
Darrell Dobbs
Affiliation:
Marquette University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Glaucon's demand to be shown the inherent choiceworthiness of justice exposes the limits of dialectical argument. Acknowledging these limits, Socrates proposes that his interlocutors join him in an alternative activity, making a city in speech. This model city proves to be “entirely opposite” to existing cities, above all (as Socrates observes) because it restricts the practice of dialectical argument to those who first demonstrate a capacity for synopsis, that is, for seeing things as a whole. Socrates holds that one must be able to see things as a whole in order to benefit from the use of dialectic. I interpret the political institutions of Socrates' model city accordingly, as being instrumental to the practice of dialectic. Hence, I reject the prevalent readings of the Republic, which present these institutions either as a blueprint for public policy or as a parody of political idealism. Instead, I suggest that the interlocutors' discussion of censorship, the noble lie, and communism is propaedeutic, fostering the synoptic capacity necessary to benefit from the practice of dialectic, including dialectic aimed at revealing the choiceworthiness of justice.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 263 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, James ed. 1902. The Republic of Plato. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1978. Politica. Ed. Ross, W. D.. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Benardete, Seth. 1989. Socrates' Second Sailing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, Allan, ed. 1991. The Republic of Plato, with Notes and an Interpretive Essay. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brann, Eva. 1967. The Music of the Republic. Agon 1:1–117.Google Scholar
Dobbs, Darrell. 1985a. “Aristotle's Anticommunism.” American Journal of Political Science 29:29–46.Google Scholar
Dobbs, Darrell. 1985b. “The Justice of Socrates' Philosopher Kings.” American Journal of Political Science 29:809–26.Google Scholar
Dobbs, Darrell. 1986. “For Lack of Wisdom: Courage and Inquiry in Plato's Laches.” Journal of Politics 48:825–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobbs, Darrell. 1994. “Natural Right and the Problem of Aristotle's Defense of Slavery.” Journal of Politics. 56:69–94.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood R. 1965. Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hesiod. 1970. Opera et dies. Ed. Solmsen, Friedrich. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Klein, Jacob. 1965. A Commentary on Plato's Meno. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Neumann, Harry. 1973. “Eros and the Maternal Instinct.” Psychoanalytic Review 60:443–53.Google Scholar
Plato. 1900–1907. Platonis opera. Ed. Burnet, John. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. 1964. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Voegelin, Eric. 1957. Plato and Aristotle. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Xenophon, . 1971. Opera omnia. Ed. Marchant, E.. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.