Key Arguments

• Method of residues: if four items are sought, knowing three allows identification of the fourth as the remainder.
• Assumes the rightly ordered city is perfect and thus possesses all four virtues.

Source Quotes

You are right, and we will do as you propose. But where, amid all this, is justice? son of Ariston, tell me where. Now that our city has been made habitable, light a candle and search, and get your brother and Polemarchus and the rest of our friends to help, and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice, and in what they differ from one another, and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion, whether seen or unseen by gods and men.

We will, he replied. Well, then, I hope to make the discovery in this way: I mean to begin with the assumption that our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect. That is most certain.

That is most certain. And being perfect, is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just. That is likewise clear.

That is likewise clear. And whichever of these qualities we find in the State, the one which is not found will be the residue? Very good.

Very true, he said. And is not a similar method to be pursued about the virtues, which are also four in number? Clearly.

Key Concepts

• where, amid all this, is justice?
• our State, if rightly ordered, is perfect.
• wise and valiant and temperate and just.
• the one which is not found will be the residue?
• the virtues, which are also four in number?

Context

Transition from institution-building to definitional inquiry: a methodological plan for locating justice via the city’s structure.

Perspectives

Plato

Endorses the dialectical method: analyze the city as a macro-soul to locate virtues structurally; justice emerges as the residual structural principle.

Socrates

Proposes a practical heuristic: find where wisdom, courage, and temperance reside; whatever virtue remains is justice.