Secondly, as mentioned previously, I argue that Glaucon and Adeimantus are responsible for the just city and Plato’s Socrates is not committed to the proposals he makes. One reason for this is that Roochnik (2003) disputes is that in books 2-7, we see a change from the question-and-answer style of discussion seen in book 1 to a speech-against-speech style of discussion. This style was prompted by Glaucon, who challenges Socrates to defend that his claim that a life of justice is better than one of injustice with the same strength he displays when providing an argument in favor of the unjust life (358c-d). He states to Socrates:
I have yet to hear anyone defend justice in the way I want…I want to hear it praised just by itself.... That is …show more content…
However, in Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates scrutinizes speech giving and orators, claiming they are not performing a techne (465a). Instead, they are participating in a form of flattery. Socrates claims that persuasive speech making is flattery, because “…it guesses at what’s pleasant with no consideration for what’s best” (465a). In other words, when someone takes part in persuasive speech making, they are taking part in flattery because they are only taking into consideration what would best appeal and convince their audience versus, what they actually conceive as best or true. The sole purpose of persuasive speeches is to persuade, whether that which is being stated is true or false. As demonstrated previously, Socrates is taking part in persuasive speech making; therefore, if Socrates is taking part in speech making, he is not articulating his own convictions or committing himself to anything he states in his speech but, is building off of Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s conditions in order to persuade them. Thus, in the case of the city-soul analogy, he makes this shaky argument that was good enough to convince the brothers and show how easy it is to make people believe what they say is true using persuasive speech. He simply was persuading the brothers without actually proving/providing concrete
I have yet to hear anyone defend justice in the way I want…I want to hear it praised just by itself.... That is …show more content…
However, in Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates scrutinizes speech giving and orators, claiming they are not performing a techne (465a). Instead, they are participating in a form of flattery. Socrates claims that persuasive speech making is flattery, because “…it guesses at what’s pleasant with no consideration for what’s best” (465a). In other words, when someone takes part in persuasive speech making, they are taking part in flattery because they are only taking into consideration what would best appeal and convince their audience versus, what they actually conceive as best or true. The sole purpose of persuasive speeches is to persuade, whether that which is being stated is true or false. As demonstrated previously, Socrates is taking part in persuasive speech making; therefore, if Socrates is taking part in speech making, he is not articulating his own convictions or committing himself to anything he states in his speech but, is building off of Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’s conditions in order to persuade them. Thus, in the case of the city-soul analogy, he makes this shaky argument that was good enough to convince the brothers and show how easy it is to make people believe what they say is true using persuasive speech. He simply was persuading the brothers without actually proving/providing concrete