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True.
And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon
the enemy?
Certainly.
Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?
That, I suppose, is to be inferred.
Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.
That is implied in the argument.
Then after all, the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson
which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of
Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favorite of his,
affirms that
“He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.”
And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of
theft; to be practised, however, “for the good of friends and for the harm of
enemies”—that was what you were saying?
No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still
stand by the latter words.
Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those
who are so really, or only in seeming?
Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good,
and to hate those whom he thinks evil.
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not
good seem to be so, and conversely?
That is true.
Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends?
True.
And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the
good?
Clearly.
But the good are just and would not do an injustice?
True.
Then according to your argument it is just to injure those who do no
1019
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International