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### What happens when no one's in charge?
- depends on the rules (/laws) - how transparent they are; how familiar one is with them
    - this can mean they're vulnerable to interpretation /  exploitation
- depends on culture & habituation 

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> You did not need to go to the rabidly undemocratic lengths of Plato, who would have restricted governance to an elite cadre of philosophers, to realize that “the people” ... could only exercise their political power properly if they had been trained to do so. Many Athenian democrats would have argued that **people must learn to do politics, they must learn to be citizens**. - [Mary Beard on Brexit, June 2016](https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/power-to-the-people-2/)

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### Do *I* know enough to...
- vote on this?
- answer this question? say something? 

In politics, we (me?) tend to think we might not know the details, but we know the aim / end: "the good"

In education, prof is (usu. given authority to set aims & means as well as know "content": it's believed to be a "craft")

For Plato, it's the opposite!

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Bk II: the challenge is proposed
Bk IV: def. of justice proposed
Bk VIII: comparison of lives resumes
Bk IX: challenge ends 


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The mission of the *Republic* (Bk II and following): 
- "track down what justice and injustice are and what the truth about their benefits is"
- "show us what effect each [justice & injustice] has b/c of itself on the person who has it"
- model justice in city & soul; model injustice; then compare 

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Bk X argument:
- why do we need it? Didn't we answer our question? 
    - only in part: recall division of goods in Rep II
    - human life is too short to be serious! 
