They are concerned with Aristotle’s “First Cause”, the Material Cause, for which Socrates lays out an explanation for the city.
Recall the earlier claims of the two brothers. Each human being is erotic and humans share a common participation in eros with one another and as a result they are drawn to the city out of necessity. That is, the city in speech is not the natural city.Īt any rate, the city comes into being because each man is not self-sufficient but is in need of much. This is distinct from a city coming into being in physis (or nature). Socrates proposes that they watch a “city coming into being in speech” (369a) so that they may investigate the nature of justice on a larger scale, at the level of the city.
He suggests they examine the question of justice in a larger way, not like men who are squinting at small letters from a distance. In the second half of Book II, Socrates is put on trial, reluctantly defending justice against the false accusations of the Athenian brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus.
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