The Longer Way in Plato’s Republic
While discussing with Glauco whether the soul really consists of three parts, Socrates mentions a longer and more extensive route they could take in order to reach a more accurate conclusion. This is the route not taken, to misquote Robert Frost’s satire of his friend.
Much later, Adimantus, Glauco’s brother and rival, remembers the longer way. Or does he? What he recalls is not the route Socrates originally described, and even the destination has changed. Yet no one draws attention to the discrepancy.
The following extract details some of the problems.
A Trip-Up Down Memory Lane
As for his memory, Adimantus does not seem to notice the difference between a straight path leading to an answer elsewhere and a circuitous path which brings anyone who has travelled the length of it back to the beginning; nor does he recall that the original path was said to lead to an answer to the question whether the soul has three parts, a question prior to the search for justice in the soul; while here it is suggested that the longer way was to make all four virtues manifest.
Extract from Chapter 6, ‘The Digression’, in Ivor Ludlam (2014), Plato’s Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing Well, p. 182.
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