'Il conflitto Callicle-Socrate nel Gorgia, non è il conflitto tra due individui, ma è un conflitto che si presenta nell’interno di una stessa anima (Callicle e Socrate, cioè, sono due tendenze o visuali del medesimo spirito); ed è un conflitto insolubile e ineliminabile.' G Rensi

The wise man Thrasymachus refutes Socrates in the most beautiful Thucydidean manner - might is right, so, the powerful individual, or group, can exercise might and give it the name right. Due to his power he is fully entitled to do so.

Tucidide 3,45,4.

''la povertà, spinta dal bisogno provoca l'audacia, la ricchezza, che con l'insolenza e l'orgoglio provoca l'avidità, e le altre condizioni degli uomini, in preda alle passioni, ogni volta che ciascuna subisce un impulso più potente e irresistibile, li spingono verso i pericoli.'

@suzania @trottskyathome Not at all. The sophists believed in virtue as art, man made better by the science of man, philosophy. Socrates believed in the same thing, and Plato has him being refuted by Thrasymachus, art in the hands of an expert crook leads to injustice. Philosophy for Plato is a katabasis

@wylfcen Stupid criminals get caught, smart criminals transform their crime into law, or, they protect their crime through it. This is how Thrasymachus refutes Socrates in the Republic - the criminal in high places is a very intelligent artist.

@EveKeneinan The good and law (thus god) are different things. The communists in murdering did so in the name of the good. Xenophon brilliantly proves that the good is not the law in the coat argument in Cyropedia. The woke also believe in the good (as fairness or fitting) as law.

@HarrisonGarlic1 Plato himself denies that the philosopher is a craftsman - or that virtue is a craft. Socrates believed in virtue as craft and Plato has him being refuted by Thrasymachus. You name ''Platonic'' something Plato refuted and waged war against - because it is a sophist invention.

Olimpiadi 2026: la nostra Laura Pausini che canta l’Inno di Mameli. Niente porcherie woke, niente travestimenti, niente immagini sacrileghe, niente ingrati piagnucolosi. Un’italiana, l’Inno, il Tricolore. In una parola: PATRIA 🇮🇹 Grazie, Laura.

@EveKeneinan Good actions can also lead to bad passions. The fight to defend yourself, the fear of slavery, you get strong to stop the fear, you conquer to be safe, establish empire, you become a tyrant. This is Thucydides, or Leo Strauss' dialectic of self defense (Callicles in the Gorgias).

The truly great man is defined by the behavior of Critias and Alcibiades in the sense that if presented with the choice between living as Socrates or dying on the spot, he would choose death.

Thucydides makes a distinction between what is unattainable by a man and what is realizable by a great man. Hubris is the dangerous desire of a low man/city to realize the ambitions of a great man/city. Athens was hubristic only in the wrong belief of taming tyche (chance).

@MJ_Hoole @ccpecknold There's nothing in Plato about a ''god that makes us happy.'' You use ''Platonism'' wrong or as a charlatanry. ''God'' for Plato is a noble lie that must be employed in order to make the people just through fear (plebeian virtue). This is actually Critias' invention.

@EveKeneinan ''social - psychoerotics'' - this smells like nonsense. ''Erotic creatures'' are very few. In all his dialogues Plato directly labels as being ''erotic'' only Callicles and Socrates. So, politically speaking, an erotic creature is of the right nature as to become a phil. king.

But he thinks that men better than he are harmed by [them]. He does not think of his own benefit and forgets himself in the sight of the higher. He is a noble man, an erotic man, a man who can forget himself in favor of that which he loves.'' Leo Strauss (Gorgias seminar).

''He accuses us, including himself, the many. He accuses us as unjust, and that is quite amazing. By accusing himself of injustice, he is just in the highest Socratic sense. Callicles does not think of his own benefit. He belongs to the many; he is well served by equal laws.

@HoansSolo It isn't that. Thucydides makes clear the conflict between justice and compulsion or necessity (ananke). A powerful, imperial city doesn't afford to act with justice, they are driven by what's advantageous for their power. Hubris, realism and injustice is part of that.

@davidfrum You miss Thucydides' point. The Spartans acted in the same manner, although their empire was old and people got used to it. The Athenian empire being new was the sole focus. Thucydides portrays the wiping out of Plataea by the Spartans in the same way as the Athenians at Melos.

@Athens_Stranger Funny, this coming from a platonist. Plato completely denies this. The just city needs to wage war against the past and against all its bad influences. The powerful only looks ahead completely ignoring the past. Just read the Republic and his war on Homer.

@Dr_TheHistories Wrong. In Xenophon's Anabasis, the Greeks, after they were betrayed, the new generals, especially Xenophon was concerned with the lack of cavarly - just because they were shock troops, to strike fear and kill quickly. If the Persians did it, the Greeks too, so did the Romans.

@TheGreatB00ks It's very dangerous to read Plato through the lens of Christianity. The purpose of Platonic philosophy is the separation of the soul from the body so that it becomes ''demonic'' (liberated) - or virtuous - not a slave to the needs and vices of the body.