Gennaios: Our Take

Thinking through Plato's use of the term gennaios

From the outset gennaios is provided a meaning (by Thrasymachus who introduces the word to the dialogue) that makes it a characteristic of justice, as justice is said to be “gennaios innocence.”  While at first one may perceive this to mean that gennaios could be used as a synonym for naïveté upon reflection this proves not to be the case, rather gennaios would be a characteristic of naïveté.  As a characteristic of justice itself, gennaios necessarily becomes a characteristic of the truly just man.