Book I of The Republic has four parts. Plato doesn't name them, but we may call them the Cephalus, the Polemarchus, the build-up of Thrasymachus, and the critique of Thrasymachus. Let us take them one at a time. I. The Cephalus. Cephalus is an old and wealthy man, who owns the home in which the disputants have gathered. He and Socrates have a brief and courteous conversation, which establishes that there are consolations of old age. One of these is that the passions (the desire for sex, for example) die down and allow reason to govern one’s actions unchallenged. That is an important foreshadowing of later elements in the book. Cephalus and Socrates briefly discuss the issue of what is justice. But the old man doesn’t want to get too deeply into the question and says goodbye. II. The Polemarchus . Polemarchus is Cephalus’ son and heir, and Socrates says only half-jokingly that he may have inherited his father’s part in this discussion. Asked what it is to be just: Polemarch...
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This was my answer to the question whether Plato's account of Socrates can be relied upon: Plato’s account [or accounts] of Socrates has [have] to be considered in connection with other evidence, especially in my view the comedy THE CLOUDS, written by Aristophanes during Socrates’ lifetime. That is the TL;DR answer. For more, bear with me. Aristophanes portrays Socrates as a sophist, and in fact as the leader of the sophists. And he portrays sophism in general as what we might call a cult, the purpose of which is to make bad arguments seem good, and good arguments seem bad. Now this is odd on its face. Plato after all portrays Socrates as an anti-sophist. In PROTAGORAS especially, and even in the early going of THE REPUBLIC (the exchange with Thrasymachus), the Platonic Socrates devotes himself largely to showing the sophists — or to showing impressionable youngsters — the errors and arrogance of sophism. And Plato’s Socrates seems to object to s...