Plato's Republic Books I&II

I have never read the Republic in its entirety. In fact, in every class I have taken that covered Plato I only had to read books V-VII. So as someone who (a) finds Plato extremely interesting and thought provoking and (b) is interested in thinking about justice, I was particularly excited about working through the Republic from start to finish. Having finished reading the first two books, I find that I have far more questions about the structure and content of the beginning of this dialogue than I have for any other work by Plato. In what follows, I will list several of the most vexing questions that I continue to ponder. I will conclude with a few brief remarks about what I think that this dialogue teaches about the necessity of being a certain type of person in order to appreciate and benefit from philosophy. First, my questions. For the ease of reading, I will simply list these in bullet form. - Is it significant that the dialogue takes place outside of the main city of Athens? - What is the significance of Socrates going down to pray to the recently installed cult for Bendis in Piraeus? - Should we see this dialogue as a defense of Socrates in that it seems to emphasies that it is not Socrates who has corrupted the youth of Athens (here I am especially thinking about Thrasymachus) but others who have spread falsehoods about the value of injustice over justice? - Why is Thrasymachus so overwhelmingly rude to Socrates? - Does Thrasymachus give up debating Socrates, and merely nod his head to Socrates final set of questions? It seemed like it to me. In fact, this section reminded me of the debate between Callicles in Plato's Gorgias. - Why, after such a detailed and nuanced presentation of why injustice seems to be better/make people more happy/what people want more than justice, does Socrates launch into a rather convoluted discussion of how to construct a city? I realize that Socrates does this because he and his interloculors what to determine how jsutic and injustice come into a city and work within a city, but I must say that he seems to be a long way off from addressing Adeimantus and Glaucon. What is more, his response seems overwhelmingly tedious (perhaps as tedious as Thrasumachus was rude) and seems to distance the reader and the rest of those invovled in the dialogue from the tough questions set forth by Adeimantus and Glaucon to the point were all invovled could/perhaps do forget what questions Socrates is suppose to answer. - Why does Socrates resort to analogies far more often than examples? Those are all of the questions that I want to raise in this post. Now I will say a few things about what I think the dialogue teaches about the necessity of being a certain type of person in order to appreicate and benefit from philosophy. The difference between Socrates's conversation with Cephalus and every other conversationt that Socrates has is stark. Whereas Cephalus comes across as a wise, generous, elderly man who has learned much from his life experiences, the young ment that Socrates interacts with seem unwise, foolish, and inexperienced. It seems to me that Cephalus want to talk with Socrates and is in fact able to interact with Socrates well because he has become a certain type of person, one who can appreciate and learn what Socrates has to teach. Many of the youth, on the otherhand, seem plauged and malformed by innimical theories that they have accepted and strive to live by. They lack the journey-like experience that Cephalus discusses, and instead have bought into the quick and easy to understand moral instructions that the sophists have peddled. In short, it seems that this dichotomy draws attention to the necessity of being a certain type of person before you can rightly engage in philosophy. In this regard, the dialogue's beginning seems to support Aristotle's claims regarding why it is inappropriate for young people to engage in politics and why they will not be able to benefit from rich moral teaching if they have not reached a certain point in moral development.