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Praxis as Property: the Concept of Justice in Plato’s Republic

In: Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought
Author:
L.J.A. Klein PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0426-7645
Online Publication Date:
02 May 2024
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Abstract

Scholarship on the Republic has tended to stress the centrality of the tripartite soul to the Republic’s conception of justice. Yet since Socrates’s task in the dialogue is to show the desirability of justice in the ordinary Athenian sense, any emphasis on idiosyncratic psychology would render his account of justice fundamentally beside the point. This paper suggests a way out of this dilemma. It argues that Platonic justice in the Republic represents a shrewd twist on the entirely conventional, distributive Athenian notion of justice as refraining from seizing for oneself what belongs to another. Plato’s twist is to substitute the performance of one’s own activity (πρᾶξις τα ἑαυτοῦ) for the possession of one’s household goods (ἕξις τα ἑαυτοῦ) as the proper object of justice. The paper then shows how this account of Platonic justice makes sense both textually and contextually, before concluding.

Title:
Praxis as Property: the Concept of Justice in Plato’s Republic
Article Type:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340435
Language:
English
Pages:
252–274
Keywords:
Plato; justice; Republic; democracy; intellectual history; political theory
In:
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought
In:
Volume 41: Issue 2
Received:
14 Feb 2022
Accepted:
07 Aug 2023
Publisher:
Brill
E-ISSN:
2051-2996
Print ISSN:
0142-257X
Subjects:
Ancient Philosophy, Classical Studies, Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy

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