Thrasymachus

Greek teacher, orator, and writer

• Born: ca. 459 BCE
• Birthplace: Chalcedon, Asia Minor
• Died: ca. 400 BCE
• Place of death: Athens, Greece (presumed)

Education: Unknown

Significance: Although much about the life of Thrasymachus has been pieced together only through references to him and to his reputation in period works, Thrasymachus is most familiar today as one of the figures in Plato’s Republic (388–366 BCE). He plays a pivotal role as a contentious debater who disputes with Socrates over the reality of justice and who claims, essentially, that might alone makes right.

Background

Using references to Thrasymachus in works by, among others, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Aristotle, modern scholars of antiquity have assembled a general timeline of his life. Thrasymachus born in Chalcedon, a busy port city along the Bosphorus Strait in what is today Turkey, most likely in the late 450s BCE. By his early twenties, he had already emerged as one of the most influential rhetoric teachers in Athens, which points to some considerable training in the art of communication and persuasion. He was by profession and training a Sophist, that is, a teacher who, in return for a considerable stipend, taught young men, most of them promising students of philosophy with ambitions to the powerful world of politicians, how to win arguments using a variety of logical and emotional strategies. Sophists came to be widely regarded as dishonest and too clever with too little commitment to truth.

Thrasymachus was himself known for his powerful (and often theatrical) oratory and, in turn, was much sought after as a speechwriter for prominent Athenians who recognized in Thrasymachus a formidable intelligence as well as a cunning and quick mind that excelled in the discipline of persuasion and argument. What few fragments of his original writings have been recovered suggest that Thrasymachus was hardly a philosopher—that is, someone concerned with abstract principles and cosmic operational premises—but that he was more a realist, a pragmatist fascinated by the political realities of his time and, specifically, how power was gained and used.

Life’s Work

Thrasymachus is known mainly for his appearance in Book 1, Part 3, of Plato’s Republic, one of the most enduring writings from antiquity. In the Republic, Plato records dialogues between his master-teacher Socrates and a number of prominent Athenians concerning the nature of the state, how a government works, how laws are determined, and, in turn, the nature of the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. Socrates’s position is consistently that wise men using gifts of wisdom, courage, honesty, and compassionate altruism control and define a happy republic, that virtue directs the successful state. The Republic is written in the form of a dialogue in which Socrates accepts the challenge of a succession of characters who each dispute different angles of his position, test it for its flaws, and attempt to assert alternative positions.

When an obviously testy and irascible Thrasymachus appears in the Republic, Socrates has posed a difficult question: what is justice? It is exactly the kind of big-picture abstract question that a realist such as Thrasymachus would disdain. Knowing Socrates’s predisposition, Thrasymachus deliberately challenges him by saying scornfully that justice is nothing more than the will of the strong and powerful, that justice has nothing to do with good or evil, right or wrong. People in power (however that power is secured) make the laws. In a republic, the strong define justice—they make the laws—and the weak, those not in power, must obey, thus making the will of the strong that state’s de facto template of justice. That, he cynically argues, is the way of nature itself—the strong exert and direct events and that makes their way the right way. To follow the law, which is the definition of justice, is to follow the will of the powerful. Socrates rejects Thrasymachus’s implication that there is no such thing as justice, or that it is a relative concept that changes from state to state, or ruler to ruler.

For a contemporary Athenian audience, Plato undercuts Thrasymachus’s argument based on the manner in which Thrasymachus delivers his case—he is too emotional, he raises his voice, he indulges in grand, stagey gestures, he openly mocks Socrates, he name-calls, he barely masks his dislike for his opponent, none of which elevates or strengthens the logic of his position. Indeed, Thrasymachus can be seen as a kind of straw man, that is, an extreme, almost cartoonish antagonist whom Socrates will easily challenge and overwhelm. Indeed, patiently, although barely masking his dislike for Thrasymachus, Socrates challenges the argument by suggesting that those who direct a state need to decide that direction based not on their own self-interest or on ways to maintain their power but rather on the welfare and well-being of the people they govern, by creating a system of law and order that preserves the universal concepts of right and wrong. Virtue alone ensures the ultimate happiness of the ruler and the state. Justice is not, cannot, be mere self-interest, nor is justice convenient to a particular state and to a particular ruler. Moral and ethical absolutes do exist and operate in the exercise of power in a just and happy republic. Stubborn and intractable, Thrasymachus refuses to accept Socrates’s visionary argument.

Impact

Thrasymachus’s argument, while a losing case in the Republic, has been used over the centuries to justify the rule of dictators, tyrants, military juntas, and really any who seize power illegally. The argument ultimately finds a more eloquent defense in the political pragmatism of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), who, amid the vicious political machinations of Renaissance Italy, argued that might makes right and that the powerful cannot make "wrong" decisions, because every decision is appropriately geared toward preserving their position. In the mid-nineteenth century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), in turn, extended Thrasymachus’s dialogue to its logical conclusion to argue for moral nihilism, a bleak vision that asserts there is no such thing as moral absolutes in the universe.

Personal Life

Although historians cannot even say for certain when or where Thrasymachus died, evidence from the writings of his contemporaries suggests that he never married, had no children, and was disdained for living a rather opulent lifestyle from the exorbitant fees he charged his students.

Bibliography

Bloom, Allan, ed. The Republic of Plato. 2nd ed. New York: Basic, 1991. Print.

Chappell, T. D. J. "The Virtues of Thrasymachus." Phronesis 38.1 (1993): 1–17. Print.

Ferrari, G. R. F., ed. Plato’s The Republic. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.

Joad, C. E. M. Thryasmachus, or the Future of Morals. New York: Dutton, 1925. Print.

Nederman, Cary J. "The Enduring Thrasymachus: A Preliminary Overview." Conference Papers: American Political Science Association. Washington, 2005. 1–23. Print.

Rauhut, Nils. "Thrasymachus (fl. 427 BCE)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, n.d. Web. 30 Aug. 2016.

Rowe, Christopher, ed. The Republic. New York: Penguin, 2012. Print.