1. About Thrasymachus's view of justice: 339b-340b (short - the
same argument is presented
thrice here, by Socrates, then repeated by
Socrates, then repeated by Polemarchus)
2. About Polemarchus's view of justice: 332c-333e (longer)
3. About Polemarchus's view of justice: 333e-334a (short)
4. About Thrasymachus's view of justice: 341c-342e (longer)
5. About Polemarchus's view of justice: 334cd (short)
6. About Polemarchus's revised view of justice: 335ae
(longer)
7. About Cephalus's view of justice: 331cd (short)
DWA Question. Select either two of the short passages, or one of the longer ones, and then rewrite the argument therein by explicitly stating the conclusion and explicitly stating the reasons Socrates relies on to get his interlocutor to (apparently) accept that conclusion. You don't have to use the exact words found in the text; you can and probably should clarify things, or simplify them a bit, in your own words. There won't be any one correct way to to this, but there will definitely be some wrong ways! Give number(s), 1 to 7, of the passage(s) you select. Note that you are not being asked to judge how good or how persuasive Socrates' arguments are; you are merely to rewrite the argument (or, the reasoning) so that the reasons he relies on and the conclusion he reaches (and apparently gets others to agree with) are clearly separated and identified. One page maximum! Here's an example to give you a better idea what to do.
Example. In 351c-352c Socrates argues against Thrasymachus's view of the power of injustice. Here's one way, not the only way, to go about rewriting it to make the reasons and conclusion explicit. Thrasymachus thinks (351c) that a city, in order to achieve power over another city, will need to be unjust and will not need to rely on justice at all; it will not "need the help of justice." Socrates disagrees, concluding (352c) that to achieve such power a city or any group of (unjust) men must rely to some extent on justice; to achieve their unjust goals, they will "need the help of justice." So, a good first step in analyzing an argument is to be able to state clearly, for yourself, what the main conclusion is. Then you're ready for the next step, to find and state the reasons given. What reasons does Socrates give (or, pull out of Thrasymachus) that lead to the conclusion?
When you read over what's between 351c and 352c, it turns out that really only one basic reason is provided, illustrated several times, and repeated several times: in order to achieve any goal, even an unjust one, any group of people (city, army, thieves, even only two people) will have to refrain from constantly fighting among themselves. They cannot succeed if they treat each other totally unjustly; they have to rely on justice to some extent.
So this would be fine as an explicit rewrite of the page-long argument:
Reason: Any group of people (city, army, thieves, even two people) will be unable to achieve even an unjust goal if they act with complete injustice toward each other; in other words, they will have to exhibit at least some justice toward each other.
Conclusion: For one city to become stronger than another, it will need some help from justice.
Obviously, the reason and conclusion could be worded differently and still preserve basically the same meanings. And the one reason given above could be given a bit more elaborately as two or three reasons. So there's no one correct way to rewrite the argument. But if someone should say that "some help from justice is needed for a city to achieve anything" is the main reason; or that "a city or any other tribe with a common unjust purpose would be able to achieve it if they were unjust to each other" (351c) is either a reason or the conclusion, that would be seriously wrong!
By the way, this 351c-352c passage would count as a "longer" argument by Socrates, even though its rewrite is pretty short. "Longer" and "short" refer to how much space on the pages of the Republic the passages occupy, not necessarily to how lengthy a good rewrite will be. Also, the reason for suggesting that you clarify or restate reasons and conclusion in your own words is that you can copy words and sentences from the text without really understanding what they mean, but it's unlikely you can restate them in somewhat different words without understanding the original words.
Suggestion. As you work on this, help each other. Discuss the passages with others. See if you are (more or less) in agreement about reasons and conclusions. If not, discuss why not. For instance, if what you think is the main conclusion, someone else thinks is a major reason, chances are at least one of you is pretty far off base!
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