Why Does Thrasymachus Blush? Ethical Consistency in Socrates’ Refutation of Thrasymachus

Abstract

Most scholars agree that Socrates’ arguments in the course of his refutation of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic are at best weak and at worse fallacious. Some interpreters have used this logical inadequacy to argue that Socrates’ aim is psychotherapeutic rather than cognitive, but this does not address why Thrasymachus feels shamed. I argue in this article that Thrasymachus blushes not simply because his explicit propositions are contradictory but because two principles of his sophistic ēthos – that his skill requires knowledge and that his skill achieves victory in logoi – are fundamentally at odds. My claim that Socrates’ elenchus of Thrasymachus appeals to a principle of ethical consistency has the specific advantage of reconciling the otherwise opposed views of Socratic elenchus as exclusively ‘logical’ or ‘psychotherapeutic’.