s back over his life and states that justice is found in speaking the truth and paying your debts. Plato implies in this dialogue that justice is not an art in the sense of a technique which can be empirically acquired because it is not a matter of the lesser knowledge, but rather of the greater knowledge which is based on a grasp of principle. Tradition, such as is referred to by Cephalus, is no more than inherited empirical opinion, and it fails in the face of any difficulty (Barker 179).
This leads to the argument of Thrasymachus, who defines justice as a form of radicalism. Thrasymachus is presented as a Sophist, and he takes up two positions and is driven from them in each case. He first says that justice is defined by the ruler and is whatever the ruler says it is:
In other words, might is right; a man ought to do what he can do, and deserves what he can get. . . The standard of action for a man living in a community is thus, according to Thrasymachus, the will of a ruler who wills his own good; and this, he maintains, is w
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