The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

46 A Desire to Listen
See 449a-451b. Socrates’ four interlocutors, Polemarchus, Adeimantus,
Thrasymachus, and Glaucon, interrupt and ask what he meant by suggesting “that,
as regards women and children, anyone could see that it will be a case of friends
sharing everything in common.” (This had slipped into the discussion, in passing,
back at 423e-424a.) How, they wonder, are the children of the rulers and
auxiliaries to be conceived and raised? Socrates hesitates – how far do they want
to get into this “swarm of arguments”? – until Glaucon declares that “it is within
moderation . . . for people with any sense to listen to such arguments their whole
life long.” Socrates agrees to proceed, but only after making it clear that the
matters about which he is going to speak are matters about which he is unsure,
about which he is searching for the truth, and about which he would hate to
mislead his friends.
What kind of a desire is a desire to listen to arguments? Is it what Socrates
would call an appetitive desire – something fun to do while waiting for the
torch race on horseback to start up – or is it something else?
Do Glaucon and the others expect to be persuaded to share wives and
children? What do they hope to get out of listening to Socrates’ arguments?
Do you suppose Socrates knows where he is going with this discussion?
Does he have everything worked out, or is he discovering as he goes along?
Is Glaucon right about arguments of this kind being the sort of thing worth
studying one’s “whole life long”? Do you expect that you will study the
Republic again at a later point in your life?
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