A new Thrasymachus: Genealogy and Essentialism in Plato’s Republic

Abstract

This article seeks to reread Thrasymachus, or more precisely, fragments of Thrasymachus’ position, in Book I of the Republic. To do so, I begin by articulating the sophist’s function as a philosophical-literary character. As Plato takes on the dual role of philosopher and writer, the interpreter of the Republic approaches Thrasymachus as both the mouth piece for a (possibly confused) set of claims and, as I seek to show, a plot device. Because the interpreter doesn’t only ask “what argument wins out?” but, “what lesson does Plato wish us to learn by argument X winning out?”, Thrasymachus is approached internally to the philosophical-literary throughline of the Republic. In this article, I suggest that this practice clips the wings of a portion of Thrasymachus’ position. This occurs because the philosophical-literary approach of the interpreter has as its condition that Thrasymachus thinks within the essentialist underpinnings of the Republic. Yet, this article argues that elements of Thrasymachus’ position don’t lend themselves to essentialism, and indeed call it into question. In the closing portion of this article, Foucault is turned to as a source of a critical methodology (in particular the genealogy) that can strengthen those anti-essentialist Thrasymachean fragments. I conclude that the interpretive tendency to approach Thrasymachus internally to the Platonic throughline of the Republic has withheld access from fragments which, precisely because of their incompatibility with said throughline, are the most rewarding to consider.