ABSTRACT
Plato’s Republic famously opens with a tour de force of rational argumentation as Socrates refutes the definitions of justice and then injustice of his various interlocutors: the metic, Cephalus, his son, Polemarchus, and the foreign sophist, Thrasymachus.1 The first book of the dialogue ends with Socrates refuting Thrasymachus’ defense of injustice as the best way of life, and offering instead a defense of the just life. What is less often noticed is that this first book of the Republic ends with a profession of dissatisfaction with these rational arguments, put into the mouth of Socrates himself: ‘However, I have not had a fine banquet, but it’s my own fault, not yours. For in my opinion, I am just like the gluttons who grab at whatever is set before them to get a taste of it, before they have in proper measure enjoyed what went before’ (Rep. 1.354b).2
