Thrasymachus of Chalcedon is one of several "older sophists"
(including Antiphon, Critias, Hippias, Gorgias, and Protagoras)
who became famous in Athens during the fifth century BCE. We know
that Thrasymachus was born in Chalcedon, a colony of Megara in
Bithynia, and that he had distinguished himself as a teacher of
rhetoric and speechwriter in Athens by the year 427. Beyond this,
relatively little is known about his life and works. Thrasymachus'
lasting importance is due to his memorable place in the first book of
Plato's
Republic. Although it is not quite clear whether the views Plato
attributes to Thrasymachus are indeed the views the historical person
held, Thrasymachus' critique of justice has been of considerable
importance, and seems to represent moral and political views that are
representative of the Sophistic Enlightenment in late fifth century
Athens.
Table of Contents (Clicking on the links below will take you to those parts of this article)
1. Life and Sources
The precise years of Thrasymachus' birth and death are hard to
determine. According to Dionysius, he is younger than Lysias, who
Dionysius falsely believed to be born in 459 BCE. Aristotle
places him between Tisias and Theodorus, but he does not list any
precise dates. Cicero mentions Thrasymachus several times in
connection with Gorgias and seems to imply that Gorgias and
Thrasymachus were contemporaries. A precise reference date for
Thrasymachus' life is provided by Aristophanes, who makes fun of him
in his first play Banqueters. That play was performed in 427,
and we can conclude therefore that he must have been teaching in
Athens for several years before that. One of the surviving fragments
of Thrasymachus' writing (DK85b2)
contains a reference to Archelaos, who was King of Macedonia from
413-399 BCE. We thus can conclude that Thrasymachus was most active
during the last three decades of the fifth century.
2. Doctrines
The remaining fragments of Thrasymachus' writings provide few
clues about his philosophical ideas. They either deal with
rhetorical issues or they are excerpts from speeches (DK85b1
and b2) that were (probably) written for others and thus can hardly
be seen as the expression of Thrasymachus' own thoughts. The most
interesting fragment is DK85b8.
It contains the claim that the gods do not care about human affairs
since they do not seem to enforce justice. Scholars have, however,
been divided whether this claim is compatible with the position Plato
attributes to Thrasymachus in the first book of the Republic.
Plato's
account there is by far the most detailed, though perhaps
historically suspect, evidence for Thrasymachus' philosophical
ideas.
In the first book of the Republic, Thrasymachus attacks
Socrates' position that justice is an important good. He claims that
'injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and
more masterly than justice' (344c). In the course of arguing for
this conclusion, Thrasymachus makes three central claims about
justice.
- Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger (338c)
- Justice is obedience to laws (339b)
- Justice is nothing but the advantage of another (343c).
There is an obvious tension among these three claims. It is far from
clear why somebody who follows legal regulations must always do what
is in the interest of the (politically) stronger, or why these
actions must serve the interests of others. Scholars have tried to
resolve these tensions by emphasizing one of the three claims at the
expense of the other two.
First, there are those scholars (Wilamowitz 1920, Zeller 1889, and
Strauss 1952) who take (1) as the central element of Thrasymachus'
thinking about justice. According to this view, Thrasymachus is an
advocate of natural right who claims that it is just (by nature) that
the strong rule over the weak. This interpretation stresses the
similarities between Thrasymachus' arguments and the position Plato
attributes to Callicles in the Gorgias.
A second group of scholars (Hourani 1962, and Grote 1850) emphasizes
the importance of (2) and contends that Thrasymachus advocates a form
of legalism. According to this interpretation, Thrasymachus is a
relativist who denies that justice is anything beyond obedience to
existing laws.
A third group (Kerferd 1947, Nicholson 1972) argues that (3) is the
central element in Thrasymachus' thinking about justice.
Thrasymachus therefore turns out to be an ethical egoist who stresses
that justice is the good of another and thus incompatible with the
pursuit of one's self-interest. Scholars in this group view
Thrasymachus primarily as an ethical thinker and not as a political
theorist.
In addition, there is a group of scholars (A.E. Taylor 1960, and
Burnet 1964) who read Thrasymachus as an ethical nihilist. According
to this view, Thrasymachus' project is to show that justice does not
exist. Burnet writes in this context: '[Thrasymachus] is the real
ethical counterpart to the cosmological nihilism of Gorgias.'
Finally, there are a number of scholars who claim that Thrasymachus
is a confused thinker. Cross and Woozley (1964) contend, for
example, that Thrasymachus advances different criteria for justice
'without appreciating that they do not necessarily coincide.' This
claim has been renewed by Everson (1998). J.P. Maguire (1971) argues
that only some of the arguments in book I of the Republic are
Thrasymachus' own, while other ideas are falsely attributed to
Thrasymachus by Plato in order
to prepare the ground for his own arguments.
3. Influence
In spite of the disagreement about how to interpret Thrasymachus'
arguments in book I of the Republic, his ideas have been
influential in ethical and political theory. In ethics,
Thrasymachus' ideas have often been seen as the first fundamental
critique of moral values. Thrasymachus' insistence that justice is
nothing but the advantage of the stronger seems to support the view
that moral values are socially constructed and are nothing but the
reflection of the interests of particular political communities.
Thrasymachus can thus be read as a foreshadowing of Nietzsche, who
argues as well that moral values need to be understood as socially
constructed entities. In political theory, Thrasymachus has often
been seen as a spokesperson for a cynical realism that contends that
might makes right. This view frequently associates Thrasymachus with
the arguments Thucydides attributes to the Athenians in their
negotiations with the island of Melos (History of the
Peloponnesian War, Chapter XVII). Thrasymachus is therefore
frequently portrayed as an early version of Machiavelli who argues in
The Prince that the true statesman does not recognize any
moral constrains in his pursuit of power. In the scholarship on
Socrates, Thrasymachus is sometimes seen as an interlocutor who shows
the limits of the Socratic elenchus. C.D.C. Reeve (1988) argues, for
instance, that the conversation between Socrates and Thrasymachus
illustrates that Socratic questioning cannot benefit a person like
Thrasymachus, who categorically denies that justice is a virtue.
Reeve contends that this limit of the elenctic method provided the
impetus why Plato
proceeded to modify Socrates' ethical principles in the remaining
books of the Republic.
4. Bibliography
Primary Sources
Diels, Hermann. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Rev. Walther
Kranz. Berlin: Weidmann, 1972-1973.
Plato.
Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube (rev. C.D.C. Reeve).
Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992.
Sprague, Rosamund Kent, ed. The Older Sophists: A Complete
Translation by Several Hands. Columbia SC: University of South
Carolina Press, 1972.
Secondary Sources:
Burnet, J. Greek Philosophy. London: Macmillian, 1964.
Everson, S. "The Incoherence of Thrasymachus" Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 16 (1998): 99-131.
Cross, R.C. and Woozley, A.D. Plato's
Republic. A Philosophical Commentary. London: Macmillian, 1964.
Grote, G. A History of Greece. London: J. Murnay, 1888.
Hourani, C.F. "Thrasymachus' Definition of Justice in Plato's
Republic" Phronesis 7 (1962): 110-120.
Kerferd, G.B. "The doctrine of Thrasymachus in Plato's
Republic" Durham Univ. Journal 40 (1947): 19-27.
Kerferd, G. B. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981.
Maguire, J.P. "Thrasymachus...or Plato?"
Phronesis 16 (1971):142-163.
Nicholson, P.P. "Unravelling Thrasymachus' Argument in the
Republic" Phronesis 19 (1974): 210-232.
Reeve, C.D.C. "Socrates meets Thrasymachus" Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie 67 (1985): 246-265.
Reeve, C.D.C. Philosopher-Kings. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1988.
Strauss, L. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1952.
Taylor, A.E. Plato, the Man
and his Work. London: Methenn, 1960.
Willamowitz-Moellendorff, U.v. Platon I.
Berlin: Weidmann, 1920.
Zeller, E. Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. New
York: H.Holt, 1889.
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