¹ I call this son ‘adopted’ to avoid the implication, which comes from the perhaps more accurate translation ‘supposititious’ (ὑποβολιμαῖος), that the parents are duped. The image in Republic VII suggests that, if anyone is duped, it is the son—he is brought up thinking his adoptive parents are his biological parents, and the realization that this is not the case causes an upheaval. Despite this advantage of avoiding the term ‘supposititious’, ‘adopted’ is not ideal either. Unfortunately, we are supposed to think that adoptive parents are inferior. However, because this implication is already in the narrative regardless of the term used, the potential misleading nature of ‘supposititious’ is more important to avoid.

² By ‘corruption’ I do not mean anything technical, but rather mean to describe the move from being better to being worse. For example, the impious man used to not be impious, and the adopted son used to not honour his flatterers.

³ At the end of Book X, we are given a further division: each of the three types is divided into two subtypes, one that is naturally just and one that is not. Throughout Laws X, it is unclear whether the Athenian is addressing both subtypes, one, or the other.

⁴ Heckel, M., ‘Plato on the role of contradiction in education’, BJHP 25 (2017), 3–21Google Scholar analyses this passage along similar lines.

⁵ We are not told about the origin of the third type, but the Athenian attributes the corruption of the first type of impious man to contradiction in arguments. He makes a point of setting aside the poets as the cause of the corruption in the first type of impious man, instead, pointing the finger at philosophers (886a–e).

⁶ This is first called ἐλέγχω at 230d1, but it is also called διερωτάω and ἐξετάζω (230b4, 5).

⁷ This point is made briefly at Resp. 534b–d, where Socrates says that in order to be considered dialectical, a person must survive refutation.

⁸ This eventual aim of refutation is sometimes the only aim recognized by scholars. For instance, Robinson, R., Plato's Earlier Dialectic (New York, 1953), 17–18Google Scholar.

⁹ While it is possible to take the τότε to refer back to the dethroning that happens εὐθύς, this would require awkwardly ignoring the gradual process that follows this event. It is better to take the τότε to refer to the time in which it comes in the text: once the youth has gradually amassed property.

¹⁰ Your view will depend partly on whether you think the soul-parts bear a resemblance to agents, and on whether you think a person can make decisions that originate from soul-parts that are not in charge. The idea of a completely empty throne will be more appealing to those who think actions and decisions can continue to be made despite one part of the soul not being in charge. See Whiting, J., ‘Psychic contingency in the Republic’, in R. Barney, T. Brennan and C. Brittain (edd.), Plato and the Divided Self (Cambridge, 2012), 174–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a discussion of these alternatives.

¹¹ 553d describes the parts not in charge as enslaved. This is not unique to the oligarchic man, but rather a consequence of the hierarchical view of the soul. For instance, in an ideally configured soul, it is still true that the lower parts will do only what the rational part deems appropriate.

¹² Carpenter, M. and Polansky, R., ‘Variety of Socratic elenchi’, in G.A. Scott (ed.), Does Socrates Have a Method?: Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond (University Park, PA, 2002), 89–100Google Scholar, at 90–1 and Benson, H., ‘A note on eristic and the Socratic elenchus’, JHPh 27 (1989), 591–9Google Scholar, at 592 suggest this can be uncontroversially said about refutation. There are some scholars that think that Socratic elenchus can also provide positive beliefs, especially the belief that the original belief you presented is false, e.g. Vlastos, G., ‘The Socratic elenchus’, OSAPh 1 (1983), 27–58Google Scholar. While giving up a belief is compatible with believing it to be false or believing its opposite to be true (and thus compatible with a positive view of elenchus), it does not entail it, and there is no reason to assume that the interlocutors take that extra step in the passages I am considering. The youth believes things like ‘the fine is no more fine than shameful’, which, if his prior belief is that the fine is fine, does not mean he has come to believe that this is false, but rather that he believes it is just as true (and just as false) as ‘the fine is shameful’. In the Laws, the impious man is ‘forced to agree that he was not speaking correctly’ (903a10–b1). For the impious man, because he is said to be in need of some further charm in order to agree with the Athenian about pious beliefs (903b), he likewise has not undergone any positive form of refutation.

¹³ See Heckel (n. 4) for a discussion of puzzlement resulting from contradiction.

¹⁴ I take this to be a standard understanding of how aporia is connected to elenchus. This is, for instance, what M. Frede, ‘Plato's arguments and the dialogue form’, in J.C. Klagge and N.D. Smith (edd.), Methods of Interpreting Plato and his Dialogues (Oxford, 1992), 201-19 describes: ‘Clearly some belief needs to be discarded. But at the moment he is in no position to identify the belief, or the beliefs, which are the cause of the problem. This is what causes the aporia’ (211–12).

¹⁵ This could lead the refuted person to search for the truth, as the older man does (Resp. 539c). Note that this search is not necessitated by refutation. You do need to realize you do not have the truth to search for it, but multiple other reactions are possible downstream of being shown an inconsistency in your beliefs.

¹⁶ People may not have much agency in these decisions. For instance, it is plausible that our youths did not consciously decide to turn to undesirable beliefs, but rather their psychology, including their preferences, desires, etc., as well as being surrounded by ‘flatterers’ made them turn to undesirable beliefs.

¹⁷ See, for example, Resp. 614a–621d, Grg. 523a–524a and Phd. 108e–114c.

¹⁸ See especially Phd. 77e–78a, but also Laws II. For discussions of these Laws passages, see Morrow, G.R., ‘Plato's conception of persuasion’, PhR 62 (1953), 234–50Google Scholar; Welton, W.A., ‘Incantation and expectation in Laws II’, Ph&Rh 29 (1996), 211–24Google Scholar, and C. Helmig, ‘Die Bedeutung und Funktion von ἐπῳδή in Platons Nomoi’, in S. Scolnicov and L. Brisson (edd.), Plato's Laws: From Theory Into Practice (Sankt Augustin, 2003), 75–80.

¹⁹ Thus, we can speak of soul-parts gaining influence as well as being influenced. This might be deliberate or not. The influence of the flatterers sounds deliberate, but take, for instance, tragic poetry: it will influence the appetitive part of the soul to become stronger (Resp. 560a–b). Even though the tragic poet might not be deliberately trying to corrupt a person to their way of thinking like a flatterer is, they are no less influencing the person.

²⁰ This is the orthodox view argued against in Annas, J., ‘Plato's myths of judgement’, Phronesis 27 (1982), 119–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ e.g. C. Collobert, ‘The Platonic art of myth-making: myth as informative phantasma’, in C. Collobert, P. Destrée and F.J. Gonzalez (edd.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths (Leiden and Boston, 2012), at 87; L. Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, trans. G. Naddaf (Chicago, 1998), at 81.

²² Pace M.M. McCabe, ‘Myth, allegory and argument in Plato’, in A. Barker and M. Warner (edd.), The Language of the Cave (Edmonton, AB, 1992), 47–67, who argues that myths fit as one side of a refutation.

²³ Thus, Annas (n. 20) begins, ‘the myths in Plato's dialogues have been in general neglected by philosophers’ (119), and since then there have been several monographs and collections published on the subject, including Brisson (n. 21); C. Partenie (ed.), Plato's Myths (Cambridge, 2009); C. Collobert, P. Destrée and F.J. Gonzalez (edd.), Plato and Myth: Studies on the Use and Status of Platonic Myths (Leiden and Boston, 2012).

²⁴ e.g. Annas (n. 20), 121; P. Murray, ‘What is a muthos for Plato?’, in R. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason?: Studies in the Development of Greek Thought (Oxford, 1999), 251–62; Collobert et al. (n. 21), 99.

²⁵ It is also possible to have a myth with falsehoods rather than truths, so not all myths will help correct corruption.

²⁶ An exception is Gellrich, M., ‘Socratic magic: enchantment, irony, and persuasion in Plato's dialogues’, CW 87 (1994), 275–307Google Scholar, who argues against the metaphorical sense she sees in P. Laín Entralgo, The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity, trans. L.J. Rather and J.M. Sharp (New Haven, 1970) and J. de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, MA, 1975). Gellrich takes these scholars to be denying that there is a deep similarity between the metaphorical and non-metaphorical charms; this seems to be more of a problem with how the distinction is treated than with the distinction itself.

²⁷ The Laws is not the only place a myth is said to work like a charm in Plato (see e.g. Phd. 77e–78a).

²⁸ As Welton (n. 18), 214 points out.

²⁹ For discussion of epôdê in early education, see e.g. Morrow (n. 18), especially 238–40, Welton (n. 18), and Helmig (n. 18), especially 77. For discussion of early education in the Laws (but without mention of epôdê), see Stalley, R.F., An Introduction to Plato's Laws (Indianapolis, 1983)Google Scholar, especially 123–36.

³⁰ Discussion of the Charmides will no doubt seem conspicuously absent, since Socrates’ claim to having a charm that instils temperance is integral to the framing of that dialogue. Most suppose that the elenchus Socrates provides in the dialogue is this charm, but this cannot be right for reasons internal to that dialogue and independent of the argument in this paper. For the view that the elenchus is not the charm, see McPherran, M.L., ‘Socrates and Zalmoxis on drugs, charms, and purification’, Apeiron 37 (2004), 11–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Since we never see the charm in the Charmides, we cannot extract much useful information here.

³¹ e.g. Welton (n. 18), Morrow (n. 18) and Belfiore, E., ‘Elenchus, epode, and magic: Socrates as Silenus’, Phoenix 34 (1980), 128–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. De Romilly (n. 26) sees a role for both the irrational and rational. She focusses on Socrates, arguing that the irrational aspect is the divine inspiration he receives and the rational is the unyielding logic he uses (36–7).

³² Bobonich, C., ‘Persuasion, compulsion and freedom in Plato's Laws’, CQ 41 (1991), 365–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Thus, flattery (what corrupts the adopted son in Republic VII) and charms are parallel—they both simply influence the soul in a way that gives a particular part of the soul a leg-up in the contest for the throne.

³⁴ Compare Wasmuth, E., ‘ΩΣΠΕΡ ΟΙ ΚΟΡΥΒΑΝΤΙΩΝΤΕΣ: the Corybantic rites in Plato's dialogues’, CQ 65 (2015), 69–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which analyses passages, such as at the end of the Crito, which liken argument to the sounds made in Corybantic rites. Wasmuth points to a three-step process in the rites, which includes two stages very like my two: someone being prepared for a cure or initiation (the ‘chairing’ stage [θρόνωσις]), followed by the cure/initiation. Logoi are used in both stages (75) and can be used in my charm phase, though myth is safer, since it is less likely to prompt trying to solve contradictions. The arguments ‘buzzing’ in a way that prevents Socrates from hearing anything Crito would say in the Crito suggests they are not being used in the way they are used in a typical refutation and compatible with my view. The fact that Wasmuth and I both talk about chairs/thrones is coincidental, however, since the word refers to the seat of the soul and comes from Republic, whereas in Wasmuth's view the word comes from the stage of Corybantic rites, where a person would sit in a chair and be danced around, and does not have the same metaphorical significance.