Abstract

This paper explores a parallel between Plato’s portrait of the sophist and the psychoanalytic conception of perverse structure. What I propose is that the desire to be tyrant and rule over others without limit, which is promoted by Thrasymachus in book I of The Republic, is the ancient name of what psychoanalysis calls perversion. Just as the pervert acts to bring into being a more durable, natural law that is not lacking in any way, the sophist also tries to bring a sham version of justice into being in order to demonstrate the inferiority of the conventional conception of justice because he clearly perceives its lack of foundation. After establishing that Plato’s portrait of the sophist exhibits the same structure as perverse disavowal, I consider how Plato uses the sophist’s disavowal of the lack in the law to set the stage for his inquiry into justice