[348a]
“Did you
hear,” said I, “all the goods that Thrasymachus just now
enumerated for the life of the unjust man?” “I
heard,” he said, “but I am not convinced.”
“Do you wish us then to try to persuade him, supposing we can find
a way, that what he says is not true?” “Of course I wish
it,” he said. “If then we oppose1 him in a set speech
enumerating in turn the advantages of being just and he replies and we
rejoin, we shall have to count up and measure the goods listed in the
respective speeches
1 This is done in 358 D ff. It is the favorite Greek method of balancing pros and cons in set speeches and antithetic enumerations. Cf. Herodotus viii. 83, the διαλέξεις(Diels, Vorsokratiker ii. pp. 334-345), the choice of Heracles (Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1), and the set speeches in Euripides. With this method the short question and answer of the Socratic dialectic is often contrasted. Cf. Protagoras 329 A, 334-335, Gorgias 461-462, also Gorgias 471 E, Cratylus 437 D, Theaetetus 171 A.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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