Polemarchusian Wisdom

"When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means,

and when he who speaks does not know what he himself means,

that is philosophy."

-Voltaire

It seems like every one has a philosophy in their lives that, they claim, defines and/or justifies the way they live their lives. Really, though, no personal philosophy can really be original, because apparently everything goes back to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the "holy trinity" of philosophy. One such person in Republic with a radical philosophy was Polemarchus, son of Cephalus. His dad had just gotten shot down by Socrates, so he entered his beliefs on the definition of justice, which was do good to your friends and do harm to your enemies. Socrates, of course, destroys this philosophy by making him remember that our idea of friends and enemies can be very skewed, but let's take a further analysis of Polemarchus' way of thinking.

To build off of what Socrates said, it has long been my understanding that simply defining good people as "friends" and bad people as "enemies" leaves much to be desired. A fine, upstanding member of society like myself could easily identify what Polemarchus defines as good and evil by observing my personal friends and foes. However, those with decidedly amoral behavior or those that are straight up evil would have much more skewed perceptions, because an morally gray person may find friends in a gangster just as easily as he would a cop, and a wicked man would be against those that pursue justice and righteousness. So therefore, to hold everyone in society in all spectrums of morality to the same standard is destined to fail.

Also, did anyone notice that Polemarchus' logic is pretty much a bastardization of the Golden Rule? The Golden Rule states to do unto others as they would do unto you, which is meant to uphold a very high moral standard. The concept of thwarting your enemies instead of loving them is much more vengeful and spiteful. Of course, because it reflects Christian values the Golden Rule was not invented until much, much later in history it is still a noble way of life and a way of promoting social progress, unlike the Polemarchusian rule which does not promote a massive standard of justice but a personal one.

So, in conclusion, Polemarchus was way off. Better go back to the drawing board and keep asking questions. Please feel free to comment. BTW, I commented on Treya's post, "The Philosopher who must not be named."