To understand a concept...

To understand a concept, to grasp the meaning of an expression, is partially, but crucially to grasp its functions, to understand what can and cannot be done with and through it. Moreover, we cannot decide what words are to mean, or what role concepts are to play, by fiat.

We may on occasion wish to introduce a new concept and so legislate as to the meaning of a new expression; but what we can say in a given situation is limited by the common stock of concepts and the common grasp of their functions. No objection to the Republic is therefore more misconceived than that which would have been made by Humpty Dumpty (“When I use a word .

it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less”)14 and which was in fact made by Professor Karl Popper when he wrote, “But was Plato perhaps right? Does ‘justice’ perhaps mean what he says? I do not intend to discuss such a question. .

I believe that nothing depends upon words, and everything upon our practical demands or decisions.”15 The point I have tried to make is that only those demands and decisions are open to us which there are concepts available to express, and that therefore the investigation of what concepts we either must or may use is crucial. Thrasymachus’ own elucidation of the concept of justice is as follows.

He does not believe that “just” means “What is to the interest of the stronger”; but he does believe that, as a matter of historical fact, rulers and ruling classes invented the concept and the standards of justice for their own purposes, and that it is in fact more profitable to do what is unjust rather than just. Socrates’ initial probing of Thrasymachus’ position is highly reminiscent of the Gorgias.

He questions the concept of “the stronger” just as he did before, and he argues that the τέχνη of ruling, on the analogy of the τέχνη of medicine, must, if it is true art, be practiced for the benefit of those upon whom it is exercised. Medicine is for the benefit of patients, not for that of doctors, and so ruling must be for the benefit of the people, not of the rulers. But this thoroughly ineffectual analogy only belongs to the preliminary, sparring.

The position that Socrates had finally restated in the Gorgias is one which can be strikingly attacked from Thrasymachus’ premises, and is so attacked by Socrates’ own disciples Glaucon and Adeimantus.