Justice -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800; Utopias -- Early works to 1800
youth; Adeimantus has the maturer judgment of a grown-up man of the world.
In the second book, when Glaucon insists that justice and injustice shall
be considered without regard to their consequences, Adeimantus remarks
that they are regarded by mankind in general only for the sake of their
consequences; and in a similar vein of reflection he urges at the
beginning of the fourth book that Socrates fails in making his citizens
happy, and is answered that happiness is not the first but the second
thing, not the direct aim but the indirect consequence of the good
government of a State. In the discussion about religion and mythology,
Adeimantus is the respondent (iii. 376-398), but Glaucon breaks in with a
slight jest, and carries on the conversation in a lighter tone about music
and gymnastic to the end of the book. It is Adeimantus again who
volunteers the criticism of common sense on the Socratic method of
argument (vi. 487 B), and who refuses to let Socrates pass lightly over
the question of women and children (v. 449). It is Adeimantus who is the
respondent in the more argumentative, as Glaucon in the lighter and more
imaginative portions of the Dialogue. For example, throughout the greater
part of the sixth book, the causes of the corruption of philosophy and the
conception of the idea of good are discussed with Adeimantus. At p. 506 C,
Glaucon resumes his place of principal respondent; but he has a difficulty
in apprehending the higher education of Socrates, and makes some false
hits in the course of the discussion (526 D, 527 D). Once more Adeimantus
returns (viii. 548) with the allusion to his brother Glaucon whom he
compares to the contentious State; in the next book (ix. 576) he is again
superseded, and Glaucon continues to the end (x. 621 B).
Thus in a succession of characters Plato represents the successive stages
of morality, beginning with the Athenian gentleman of the olden time, who
is followed by the practical man of that day regulating his life by
proverbs and saws; to him succeeds the wild generalization of the
Sophists, and lastly come the young disciples of the great teacher, who
know the sophistical arguments {xiv} but will not be convinced by them,
and desire to go deeper into the nature of things. These too, like
Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, are clearly distinguished from one
another. Neither in the Republic, nor in any other Dialogue of Plato, is a
single character repeated.
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