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Essay on Plato's Republic
Madness first arises in the Republic in Socrates' book 1 conversation with Cephalus. Hard on the heels of his questionable reformulation of Cephalus' views Socrates presents a counterexample that encapsulates in a few words the most profound problems that any account of justice must confront. He says, “I mean something of this sort: everyone would surely say that if someone were to take weapons from a friend who is sane and that friend, becoming mad, demands them back, one must not give such things back, nor would the one who gives them back be just, nor again should one wish to tell the whole truth to a person in this state.” (Burnet, 1961)
Without going into Socrates' dialogic motivation for posing to Cephalus such a devastating counterexample to a definition that Cephalus never, in fact, offered, it is sufficient for now to recognize that the introduction of madness brings along with it deep questions about intentionality, objectivity, and responsibility that, if they are answered at all in the Republic, are only answered by the Republic in its entirety; that is, with this example Socrates already frames the question of justice in terms which could only be adequately resolved by the introduction of philosopher-rulers and the ascent out of the cave. For, as the account of the decline of the regimes in book 8 indicates, the Republic presents degenerate cities as in some sense pathological.
Given this fact, it is not unreasonable to assume that at least some tyrannical regimes will be as "mad" as the tyrannical individual of book 9. However, from the perspective of such a degenerate regime, it is the philosopher, the just man, and the just action that will appear insane. Consider, for example, Glaucon's claim that the person who is able to do injustice "would never set down a compact with anyone not to do injustice and not to suffer it."..............
