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Bryant Windham

Blog 3

What is most striking about Book III is how Socrates manages to take Glaucon and Adeimantus  through their previous arguments step by step, and convince them to refuse their own previous requests and demands of the city. In a way of moving the veil aside and stepping outside the dialogue to view it as a whole and a work to be read, one can find many a flaw in the character (that is to say the character as role, not character as it has to do with personality) of Socrates.

What sticks out most troubling with the role of Socrates in this part of the dialogue is the extent to which Plato pampers him. Many of his arguments which go quite uncontested by the two brothers with whom Socrates is discussing have fatal flaws or draw tenuous connections. For example, to compare gymnastics to music at such a functional level as Socrates does simply does not follow (unless he were to be discussing the amount of time and practice necessary to maintain proficiency), yet neither brother raises so much as an eyebrow to this or the many other flawed arguments unless he is stating that he does not understand.

While Socrates’ overarching argument that the luxuries of a city can be its downfall do carry credence, the way in which Plato allows his assertions to go untested or unrefuted is to an extent troubling for the philosophy that Socrates tends to espouse. He is, after all, the one who stands as such a high supporter of questioning everything that he can in his search for wisdom, and yet he is not truly questioned here. Whereas Socrates is the gadfly of Athens, there is not even a mayfly to the founding rules of this new republic. So while he argument does not suffer from the lack of refutation, his example seems to fall short of what Plato is encouraging, unless Socrates is to be the only practitioner of philosophy in the dialogue. So while Socrates’ points still remain, the point of Socrates is more vague.