1 Harvard University Political Theory Colloquium For 11 March 2010 ...

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that reason’s rule is inherently different in kind from what I would call the impostor-rule
of the other parts of the soul. Consider for example the identification of injustice as a
kind of civil war at 444b. One of the parts rebels:
[it] rises up (epanastasin) against the whole soul, in order to rule it
inappropriately (archei….ou prosêkon), but this rebellious class is by nature such
as is suited itself (phusei…prepein) to be a slave (douleuein), while the other part
is not a slave but belongs to the ruling kind’ (444b2-5), reading with the
manuscripts as printed in Slings; trans. Grube/Reeve in Cooper modified).
The idea of the naturalness of the rule of reason is reiterated at 444d, following an
analogy with health and disease: ‘isn’t to produce justice to establish the parts of the soul
in a natural relation of control (kata phusin kathistanai kratein), one by another, while to
produce disease is to establish a relation of ruling and being ruled contrary to nature
(para phusin archein te kai archesthai), one by another?’ (444d7-10, trans. Grube/Reeve
in Cooper modified). So it is only rule by reason which is according to nature. Its rule –
its executive authority – is different in kind. It is not merely one rival among others, but
the only one which is a natural ruler (recall the language of knowledge as ‘fit to lead’ and
‘fit to rule’ on which Socrates and Protagoras agreed). The others are mere impostors.
VI. Conclusion
In closing, we may consider a rival reading of the refutation of the many in the
Protagoras advanced by Raphael Woolf. This reading concludes that after Socrates has
identified the special ‘indicative word-deed inconsistency’ of the many in that dialogue,
there is nothing which follows for the many to do. Woolf contends:
Socrates uses the many’s stated principle of action to show that they cannot be
acting akratically. There is nothing for the many to “do” as a result of this
discovery. What has been shown overtly is not the falsity of a belief that might
need eliminating but the non-existence of an action whose elimination is thereby
redundant. Nothing further is required on the basis of that conclusion - the many