The Centrality of Glaucon’s Myth of the Ring for the Intrinsic Worth of Justice Alexa Lynn White, McGill Glaucon’s story of the ring of Gyges is the pivotal thematic myth in the Republic. As I hope to show, the story of the ring narratively establishes the central question that the Republic aims to answer, namely the question of whether justice is intrinsically valuable, while simultaneously establishing the overarching theme of tyranny and slavery. In addition, Socrates’ myth of Er functions as the philosophical counterargument to Glaucon’s account of justice exhibited in the ring of Gyges, indicating the general prevalence of Thrasymachus’ contractual conception of justice as merely instrumental and Plato’s attempt to subvert this sophistic theory. There are three kinds of evidence for the philosophical importance of the story of the Gygean ring. First, Glaucon’s story of the ring stands in a symmetrical relation to Socrates’ myth of Er, since both instantiate varying representations of the most important theme of the dialogue, namely the exhortation to justice and its internal rewards, and share the generic form of the Greek katabasis. Secondly, the myth of the ring of Gyges is central to the argument that tyranny and slavery are inseparable from the unjust and unhappy life. Third, evidence for its importance can be found in Plato’s overlapping use of visual language in Glaucon’s ‘thought experiment’ (τῇ διανοίᾳ), the visual language of ‘looking’ upon the form of the Good as an analogue of philosophical contemplation, and the visual themes of the myth of Er. The myth of the ring of Gyges is introduced in the Republic in order to elaborate on the instrumental definition of justice advanced by Thrasymachus at the beginning of the dialogue.
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