MEDICINE, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCRATES’ PROPOSALS
TO GLAUCON ABOUT Gumnastikhv IN REPUBLIC 403C–412Bshall now explore a reading of Republic 403c– 412b whose cogency will
hopefully provide some further confi rmation that the model we have
been discussing is really at work in the dialogue.
In this passage Socrates elicits Glaucon’s consent to four propos-
als concerning the gumnavstikh to be practiced by the guardians of the
imaginary povli~. To understand the force of the proposals, we must
keep in mind Socrates’ characterization in the Gorgias of lawmaking
(nomoqetikhv) as gumnavstikh for the povli~ and yuchv.^28 Socrates’ pur-
pose in making the proposals comes into focus when one refers back to
Republic 368e– 372e, where Socrates and the others originally decided
to examine the founding of a povli~. Their guiding idea was that if they
could watch a city coming to be in theory, they could also see justice and
injustice come to be in it (369a). This in turn would facilitate insight
into how justice and injustice come to be in a soul (368e). But at 372e
it was Glaucon’s dissatisfaction with the simple diet and lifestyle of the
inhabitants of the healthy city that prompted a decision to focus their
examinations upon the origins of a luxurious and diseased povli~, and so,
by analogy, upon the origins of a diseased and vicious soul. Hence it is
signifi cant that Socrates directs his questioning concerning gymnastic
training to Glaucon and not (directly) to Adeimantus. Glaucon’s lack
of justice, not to mention his inability to recognize his own bad disposi-
tions, was earlier manifested in his overly eager assent to the project of
building a fevered povli~ ruled by military guardians and enforcing strict
forms of censorship of mousikhv. Now Socrates is attempting to prevent
the twenty-year-old Glaucon from acting on his naive and exaggerated
political ambitions. How then do Socrates’ proposals concerning gym-
nastic education constitute a Socratic strategy for providing Glaucon
with opportunities for diagnostic self-understanding?
The First ProposalSocrates’ fi rst proposal (403d– 404e) is that the diet, regimen, and life-
style of the guardians of the imaginary povli~ be kept simple and non-
luxurious. Glaucon’s athleticism and political ambitions doubtless dis-
pose him to imagine himself as one of the guardians, and Socrates’
language here plays to Glaucon’s elitist self-conception. Socrates says it
would be inappropriate and absurd for a guardian to need a guardian to
keep him from drunkenness and gluttony. He calls the guardians “ath-
letes in the greatest contest” (403e) and says they need a more sophisti-
cated kind of training than other athletes (404a). Any would-be warrior
who reads Homer, Socrates lectures, learns that a non-luxurious way of
life constitutes a “simple and decent gumnastikhv” and that Homer never