ABSTRACT
As was pointed out in chapter I, in the Republic Plato aims to show that a really undisciplined man least of all does what he wants. This claim takes two forms, first that he is dominated by a subset of his desires, so that not all his desires are satisfied, and second, that like all men he wants the best out of life, but lacking adequate knowledge pursues something else. Already in the Protagoras (352-8) Socrates has argued that no one willingly does anything but what he thinks to be best, and so no one willingly does wrong. Some such doctrine runs through later dialogues too (e.g. Philebus 22b, Laws 731 seq., 859 seq.). In the argument with Thrasymachus one of the points at issue is who is free, and the fact that the philosopher does what he wants, the indisciplined man not, is used to argue that the former is free, the latter not.
