NationStates Jolt Archive


Glaucon?

Novikov
30-05-2005, 23:12
This is my last act of desperation. Please, someone, anyone, I must know:

When did Glaucon (Plato's Republic) die?

(The fact that Wikipedia doesn't have that information doesn't help matters.)
Letila
30-05-2005, 23:27
Wasn't Plato a pædophile?
Bodies Without Organs
30-05-2005, 23:32
Wasn't Plato a pædophile?

No more than was socially acceptable.


As far as Glaucon goes: the intro to the Penguin edition of Republic just lists him as one of Plato's elder brothers, and there seems to be little other firm information about him out there. Why do you need the date so badly?
Novikov
30-05-2005, 23:38
As far as Glaucon goes: the intro to the Penguin edition of Republic just lists him as one of Plato's elder brothers, and there seems to be little other firm information about him out there. Why do you need the date so badly?

Waited until today to write a paper on Social Contract Theory. Glaucon has the wonderful quote:

“They say that to do injustice is naturally good and to suffer injustice bad, but that the badness of suffering it so far exceeds the goodness of doing it that those who have done and suffered injustice and tasted both, but who lack the power to do it and avoid suffering it, decide that it is profitable to come to an agreement with each other neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. As a result, they begin to make laws and covenants, and what the law commands they call lawful and just.”

So I decided to throw the bastard in. I've checked damn near every website, and I can't seem to find anything about him other than that he was Plato's brother.
Bodies Without Organs
30-05-2005, 23:47
So I decided to throw the bastard in. I've checked damn near every website, and I can't seem to find anything about him other than that he was Plato's brother.

In that case I would just base his dates off Plato's: something like - Glaucon, circa 430-340BC

Another, perhaps more honest option, is to recognise that he was being used as a mouthpiece by Plato in the dialogues, and so ascribe the quote to Plato. It is unlikely that Glaucon actually said the words that Plato accredited to him.
Tluiko
30-05-2005, 23:47
Isn't it relatively likely that no one know when he died?
I mean, even for much more famous people from that time it is not not exactly known.
Novikov
31-05-2005, 00:11
Well, I'm just going to say "screw it" and move on. I have shit to write.