Hello all. I have decided to read the republic as an introduction to philosophy. In the early part of the dialogue Socrates gets Cephalos to agree that Justice...
... "A man might return a deposit unwillingly and from fear, and then he must not be said either to do what is just or to act justly, except in an incidental...
Thomas H. Chance
thchance@...
Feb 27, 2006 5:23 am
2440
Our "responsability" (in the sense expresed by Socrates in the Republic) is to do the best for the polis. The concept of "everyone is responsable of his own...
Hello Phil ... Socrates says justice is not telling the truth. and giving to ... Well, Socrates tells a story about his assertion to Cephalus that everyone...
Hello all, and thankyou for your replies. I like the idea of reading Cephalus as some kind of proto-christian. My understanding now is that if we see Cephalus...
Hi Phil, ... Please, no apologies. The more basic, the better. Which means, if you would like to do it, reading the text, line by line. Question what the text...
Phil, My suggestions are (sort of) along the lines of George G, i.e. that you/we should consider what Soc might have been intending to accomplish by his...
Hello Phil et al I am curious about why you like the idea of reading Kephalus as a some kind of proto-Christian. What on earth is a proto-Christian? (for that...
Hi Frank Thanks for the suggestion on what Plato might be doing. I appreciate that. Hi George I've some comments on your comments below and thought this would...
Frank Just curious - do you think Sokrates presents himself as having intended to get Ceph to retire from the conversation? Regardless of the self presentation...
Bill, I'm not so sure about Socrates intending to get Cephalus to retire; more likely he was just attempting to turn the conversation toward considerations of...
Hi Frank Hm - this just puzzles me more - Plato portrays Sokrates portraying himself as attempting to turn a conversation to a more overtly philosophical...
Hi there, I took proto-Christian to indicate the characteristics that were later to be found in the cult of Christianity. Cephalus acknowledges that his...
Phil Sorry but this is still unclear to me on a few points. Probably none are important. First I do not know what characteristics were later to be found in the...
Hi all! I'd like to offer some observations about Soc. and Cephalus that have more to do with the setting than with a detailed analysis of the conversation. It...
Hello William, I've answered your first question when I made the link between Cephalus being God fearing and Christianty. For Cephalus being moral and being...
Tony There is much to sink one's teeth into here. To see the need for security that motivates Kephalus and the need for friends that motivates Polemarchus, I...
Bill, I'm glad to have a companion in puzzlement! I meant a Socratic-philosophical, a "what is X" type issue. And perhaps with a bit of distortion of Cephalus'...
Hi Frank, I have been pondering this remark that Plato might have hoped readers would detect the inadequacies in Socrates's responses. Whilst it can't be ruled...
Phil, Inadequacies needn't equate with "pretty lame," 'tho they sometimes might. But here's a hypothesis. In Bk 1 Soc raises questions about and criticizes,...
Very interesting response Frank (its making me think). Thanks for posting this. Phil In plato-republic@yahoogroups.com, "Williams, Frank" <Frank.Williams@> ......
Bill, you're right about the use of the word "moral" and "morally," especially in light of Bernard Williams' excoriation of the concept in Kant. Concerning...
Frank Another hypothesis - if you read closely - the notions in books 2-10 are not Sokrates' but rather what he draws out of Gl and Ad... Seems to me that...
Frank This starts to make some sense - Sokrates needs to banish Kephalus in order to create the Republic in Speech. On the other hand he does not banish...
Tony Although K Pol and Th are not Athenians, do they not become citizens of the Polis in Speech created yesterday by Sokrates? I disagree with respect to...
Bill, I wrote too hastily by including Thrasymachus under the rubric of those who implicitly hold a kind of selfish view of dikaiosune. I should have...
Hi Tony Let us leave Thrasy to another day. I would like to hear your calculation of Polly and his need for friends. BTW I am not sure that the fact that P...
Tony Just curious but what evidence is there for the claim about Thrasymachus below? ... of those who implicitly hold a kind of selfish view of dikaiosune. I ...
Bill Would you agree that in so far as Plato appears to be trying to persuade his readers towards a certain conclusion his arguments can be criticised (by...