REPUBLIC(BOOKI) 63
“It makes no difference, Polemarchus,” I said, “but if Thrasymachus says it
this way now, let’s accept it this way from him. And tell me, Thrasymachus, was this
what you wanted to say the just is, what seems to the stronger to be the advantage of
the stronger, whether it might be advantageous or not? Shall we say you mean it
that way?”
“That least of all,” he said. “Do you imagine that I call someone who makes a
mistake stronger when he’s making a mistake?”
“I did imagine that you were saying that,” I said, “when you agreed that the rulers
are not infallible but are even completely mistaken about some things.”
“That’s because you’re a liar who misrepresents things in arguments, Socrates.
To start with, do you call someone who’s completely mistaken about sick people a
doctor on account of that very thing he’s mistaken about? Or call someone skilled at
arithmetic who makes a mistake in doing arithmetic, at the time when he’s making it,
on account of this mistake? I imagine instead that we talk that way in a manner of
speaking, saying that the doctor made a mistake, or the one skilled at arithmetic made
a mistake, or the grammarian. But I assume that each of these, to the extent that this is
what we address him as, never makes a mistake, so that in precise speech, since you
too are precise in speech, no skilled worker makes a mistake. For it’s by being defi-
cient in knowledge that the one who makes a mistake makes it, in respect to which he
is not a skilled worker. So no one who’s a skilled worker or wise or a ruler makes a
mistake at the time when he is a ruler, though everyone would say that the doctor
made a mistake or the ruler made a mistake. Take it then that I too was answering you
just now in that sort of way. But the most precise way of speaking is exactly this, that
the one who rules, to the extent that he is a ruler, does not make mistakes, and in not
making a mistake he sets up what is best for himself, and this needs to be done by the
one who is ruled. And so I say the very thing I’ve been saying from the beginning is
just, to do what’s advantageous to the stronger.”
“Okay, Thrasymachus,” I said. “I seem to you to misrepresent things by lying?”
“Very much so,” he said.
“Because you imagine that I asked the question the way I did out of a plot to do
you harm in the argument?”
“I know that very well,” he said. “And it’s not going to do you any good, because
you couldn’t do me any harm without it being noticed, and without being unnoticed you
wouldn’t have the power to do violence with the argument.”
“I wouldn’t even try, blessed one,” I said. “But in order that this sort of thing
doesn’t happen to us again, distinguish the way you mean someone who rules and is
stronger, whether it’s the one who is so called or the one in precise speech whom you
just now mentioned, for whose advantage, since he’s stronger, it will be just for the
weaker to act.”
“The one who’s a ruler in the most precise speech,” he said. “Do harm to that and
misrepresent it by lies if you have any power to—I ask for no mercy from you—but you
won’t be able to.”
“Do you imagine,” I said, “that I’m crazy enough to try to shave a lion or misrep-
resent Thrasymachus by lies?”
“You certainly tried just now,” he said, “but you were a zero even at that.”
“That’s enough of this sort or thing,” I said. “But tell me, the doctor in precise
speech that you were just now talking about, is he a moneymaker or a healer of the sick?
And speak about the one who is a doctor.”
“A healer of the sick,” he said.
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