Law and Justice among the Socratics: Contexts for Plato’s Republic

Phillip Sidney Horky

doi:10.1163/20512996-12340342

Abstract

Abstract At the beginning of Republic 2 (358e–359b), Plato has Glaucon ascribe a social contract theory to Thrasymachus and ‘countless others’. This paper takes Glaucon’s description to refer both within the text to Thrasymachus’ views, and outside the text to a series of works, most of which have been lost, On Justice or On Law. It examines what is likely to be the earliest surviving work that presents a philosophical defence of law and justice against those who would prefer their opposites, On Excellence by an anonymous author usually referred to as ‘Anonymus Iamblichi’; the views on these topics among the Socratics, including Crito, Simon the Cobbler, Aristippus of Cyrene, and Antisthenes; and Socrates’ debate with Hippias ‘On Justice’ in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (4.4.5–25). Its main contention is that the ‘countless others’ referred to by Glaucon points chiefly, but not solely, to the members of the circle of Socrates, who themselves espoused a range of views on justice and law, and their relations.

Highlights

At the beginning of book II of Plato’s Republic, we witness a second sailing of sorts
The process here is described like an ostracism, in which law and justice, which provide fundamental benefits to the people, are banished21 – presumably by the people themselves. To conclude this part of the paper: when, in the reboot of the debate in Republic II, Glaucon speaks of the ‘countless others’ who talk about justice and its origins in the social contract, whereby law and justice are identified as related, he is referring to people such as Anonymus Iamblichi, who, if we are to date his text to 400 BCE, provides the most complete natural social contract theory prior to Plato’s works that survives in Greek literature
In the previous section we examined the wide-ranging defense of law and justice offered by a late 5th century BCE author, Anonymus Iamblichi, who showed us how a defense of law and justice could be rooted in the advancement of a natural social contract theory