Is the Republic Possible? Philosophers Must Become Kings (471c-474b)

          But Socrates, I think if you're allowed to go on this way, you'll never recall the question you earlier set to one side, namely, whether this constitution is possible, and how it is possible. No doubt if it ever came into existence, all manner of good things would accrue to the city which had it --- I can even add something which you left out, 

 d        that men who know and address each other as fathers and sons and brothers are least likely to desert one another and will best fight their enemies. And if the females also join the campaign, either drawn up in the same ranks, or at the rear to frighten the enemy and act as reserves, I know it would make them invincible. Yes, and I see many good things you also left out at home, all of which they'd have. So accept my agreement that these and

 e        countless other benefits would accrue if this constitution came to be, and say no more about it. Let's at this point try to convince ourselves that the thing is possible, and how it is possible, and let the rest go.

472a          What a sudden attack you make on my argument! I replied. You have no sympathy for my procrastinating.[1] Perhaps you're unaware that having barely escaped two waves, you're now sending the biggest and most difficult as the third. When you see and hear it, you'll have more sympathy for my natural reluctance, my fear to state and attempt to examine so paradoxical an account.

b                The more you talk like that, he said, the less we'll excuse you from telling how this constitution can come to be. Speak and be quick about it.

                  First, then, I replied, it's necessary to recall that we came here seeking what justice is, and injustice.

                  Yes. What about it? he replied.

                  Nothing. Except, if we discover what justice is, will we also require that the just man not differ at all from it, but everywhere be as justice is? Or will we be content if he approximates to it as closely as possible, and partakes of it in much greater degree than the others?

c                That will content us, he said.

                  So it was for the sake of a standard or paradigm, I replied, that we sought to discover of what sort justice is by itself, and the perfectly just man, if he came to exist, and of what sort he'd be if he did, and again injustice and the most unjust man --- so that we might look to them to see how they'd appear to us in the matter of happiness and its opposite. We'd also be compelled to agree concerning our own selves, that whoever is most like them will have an apportionment most like theirs. But our purpose was not to prove it possible for these things to exist.

d                That's true, he said.

                  Now, if a painter drew a standard or paradigm of what the most beautiful human being would be, and rendered everything in the picture satisfactorily, do you think he'd be any less skilled as a painter if he could not also prove it possible for such a person to exist?

                  Emphatically not, he said.

                  Well then, aren't we constructing in discourse a standard or paradigm of a good city?

e                Of course.

                  Do you think we'd describe it any less well if we couldn't prove it possible to found a city so described?

                  Surely not, he said.

                  So that's the truth of the matter, I replied. But if, to satisfy you, I must do my best to show how and in what way it would be most possible, you must again agree, relative to such a demonstration, that the same principles apply.

                  What are they?

473a          Can something to be acted out in fact exactly as

it was spoken in word? Or is it natural for action to touch less of truth than speech, even if most people don't think so?[2] Do you agree, or not?

        I do.

        Then please don't make me prove that what we've described in discourse must in all respects be realized in fact.[3] On the contrary, if we can discover how a city might be founded most nearly approximating to what has been described, we'll claim to have discovered what you require: that it is possible. Won't attaining that satisfy you? It surely would me.

b                Yes, and me, he said.

        Then next, it seems, we must try to seek out and show what defect in cities in fact prevents them from now being thus governed, and what least change would bring a city to this manner of constitution --- best a single change, or two, or at least the fewest in number and smallest in effect.

c                By all means, he said.

        There is one change, I replied, which I think I can show would accomplish this. Not a small change, however, nor an easy one, but possible.

        What is it? he said.

        I'm right at the edge of what we likened to the greatest wave, I replied. But it shall be told, even if it completely drowns us in laughter like a wave of ridicule and scorn. Consider what I'm about to say.

        Go on, he said.

d                Unless philosophers become kings in their cities, I replied, or those now called kings and potentates legitimately and sufficiently come to love wisdom, unless political power and philosophy coincide in the same person, while the many natures who now proceed separately, each apart from the other, are of necessity prevented, there can be no surcease from evils, dear Glaucon, for cities nor I think for the human race. Nor will this constitution we have now

 e        described in discourse ever till then grow to its full stature and see the light of day. I have long shrunk from saying this, for I saw how very paradoxical it would be: it's not easy to see that there's

          474a  no other way to attain happiness, private or public.

         And he said, After delivering yourself of a claim like this, Socrates, you must expect a number of by no means contemptible opponents to throw off their cloaks and strip, as it were, and pick up whatever weapon is handy and rush you --- intending awesome deeds. If you don't ward them off by argument and escape, you'll pay the penalty of really being jeered at.

        Well, I replied, aren't you're responsible for this?

        Yes, and a good thing too, he said. I won't desert you, I'll defend you where I can. I can offer good will and encouragement, and

 b        perhaps I'd answer your questions more suitably than someone else. Relie on this support, and try to prove to the doubters that it's as you say.

        Since you offer so powerful an alliance, I replied, I must try.

  

Philosophy as Love of Truth (474b-475d)

 

(Socrates continues) If we're somehow to escape these people you mention, I think we must define for them the philosophers whom we dare to claim ought to rule. Once this is clear, we can defend ourselves by showing that some people are by nature suited to understand philosophy and rule in a city, while others are unsuited, and should follow their leader.

c                Yes, it's time for definition, he said.

        Come then. Follow me in this, if we can somehow sufficiently explain it.

        Proceed, he said.

        Need I remind you, I replied, or do you recall, that when we say a person loves something, then, if we're right, it must appear that he doesn't love this or that part of it, but wants it all.

d                It seems you;ll have to remind me, he said. I don't quite understand.

         It might better suit someone else to say that, Glaucon, I replied: it hardly suits an amorous man to forget that lads in the bloom of youth somehow sting and stir the lover, seem delightful and worth caring about. Don't you act thus toward beautiful boys? This one you praise and call charming because he's snub-nosed; you claim the beak on that one is regal, while the one in between is

 e        perfectly proportioned. The swarthy have a manly look, blondes are children of gods, but then again there are the honey-hued --- do you think that name is anything but a euphemism invented by a lover who cheerfully puts up with sallowness, if it's on the bloom of youth? In a word, you allege every excuse and any pretext not to discard a single flower in its prime.

475a          If you mean to offer me as an example of how lovers act, he said, I'll agree for the sake of the argument.

         Don't you see wine-lovers acting the same way? I replied. Finding any excuse to delight in every kind of wine?

        Very much so.

        Yes, and you see it in lovers of honor too, I think. If they can't be generals, they're lieutenants. If they can't be honored by more important and serious people, they delight in being honored by nobodies, because they desire honor of any kind.

b                Quite so.

        Then yes or no: if we say a person is desirous of something, shall we say he desires every form of it, or one form but not another?

        Every form, he said.

        Then we'll also say that the philosopher desires, not some kinds of wisdom and not others, but all?

        True.

                                     c                 So if someone is finicky about what he learns, especially if he's young and doesn't yet have a reasoned account of what is or is not useful, we won't say he's a lover of learning or a philosopher, just as we don't say that someone finicky about food is hungry or desires food; he's not a lover of food, but a picky eater.

        Yes, and we'll be right.

        But if someone cheerfully tastes every subject and goes to learning gladly and can't get enough of it, we'll rightly say he's a philosopher. Not so?

 

Philosophers and Lovers of Sights and Sounds: the Theory of Forms (475d-476b)

 

 

d                And Glaucon said, Then many strange folk will be philosophers. For all lovers of sights and spectacles, it seems to me, are like this, because they delight in learning. And lovers of sounds are among the strangest to rank as philosophers, because they won't willingly engage in arguments and such pursuits as that, but run around to Dionysiac festivals as though they'd rented out their ears to every chorus, omitting no performance either in city or country village. Shall we then say that all these are philosophers too? And others who learn other things of this same sort, or practise the minor arts?

e                No, I said, but they're like philosophers.

        Who do you say are the genuine philosophers? he said.

        Those who love the sight and spectacle of truth, I replied.

        No doubt, he said. But what do you mean?

        It's not easily explained to another, I replied, but I think you'll agree with me in this.

         What?

        Since beautiful is opposite to ugly,[4] they are two.

476a          Of course.

        Then since two, each is also one?

        Yes.

        And the same account for just and unjust, good and evil, and all the forms: each in itself is one, but by communion with actions and bodies and each other, they make their appearance everywhere, and each appears many.

        You're right, he said.

        In this way, then, I replied, I distinguish separately on one side those whom you just now described as lovers of sights and

b        spectacles and lovers of arts and practical men, and separately again on the other side those with whom the argument is concerned, and whom one alone would rightly call philosophers or lovers of wisdom.

        How do you mean? he said.

        Lovers of sights and sounds, I replied, surely delight in beautiful tones and colors and figures and all that is fashioned from such things, but their understanding is incapable of seeing and delighting in the nature of the beautiful itself.

        Yes, that's certainly so, he said.

 

Waking and Dreaming (476b-d)

 

        But then, wouldn't those able to go to the beautiful itself, and see it by itself, be very few?

c                Yes indeed.

        Then someone who acknowledges beautiful things but does not acknowledge beauty by itself, and is unable to follow if someone should lead to the knowlege of it --- does it seem to you he lives awake or in a dream? Consider. Isn't dreaming just this: believing, whether asleep or awake, that what is like something is not like but the same as what it resembles?

        I'd certainly say dreaming is of this sort, he replied.

d                But then someone who believes the opposite of this, that beauty by itself is something, and is able to discern both it and the things which partake of it, and neither believes that it is the things which partake of it, nor that the things which partake of it are it --- does it seem to you, again, that he lives awake or in a dream?

        He is wide awake.

 

Knowledge and Opinion (476d-477b)

 

      Then we would rightly say that the understanding of the one is knowledge, since he knows,[5] but that of the other is opinion, since he judges by appearances.[6]

      Of course.

      What if this person whom we say judges by appearances but does not know became angry at us, and contended that we do not speak truly? Can we soothe and gently persuade him, while disguising the fact that he's unsound?[7]

e                We must at least try, he said.

           Come then, consider what we'll say to him. Or would you have us inquire of him in this way: by suggesting that if he knows something, no one begrudges him, but on the contrary we'd be delighted to see that he knows something. But he must please tell us this: does someone who knows, know something or nothing? You answer me then in his behalf.

           I'll answer that he knows something, he said.

           Something that is, or is not?

           477a          Something that is. For how would something be known if it is not?

           Then we are sufficiently assured from whatever point of view we may examine it, that the perfectly real is perfectly knowable, but what in no way is, is in every way utterly unknowable?

           Yes.

           Very well. But if there is something such that it both is and is not, would it not lie intermediate between what purely is and again what in no way is?

           Yes.

           Then since knowledge is[8] directed to what is, but ignorance of necessity to what is not, something intermediate between knowledge and ignorance must also be sought, if there happens to be such a thing, directed to this intermediate.

b                Of course.

           Now, we say that opinion or judgement of appearances is something?

           Certainly.

           Is it a power other than knowledge, or the same?

           Other.

           So judgement of appearances is ordered to one object, knowledge to another, each according to its own respective power.

           That's so.

 

Knowledge and Opinion are Powers Distinct in Object and In What They Effect (477b-478d)

 

           Then knowledge is by nature directed to what is, to know what is as it is? But first, it seems to me, we must draw the following distinction.

           What?

c              We'll say that powers are a certain kind among things which are, by which we and all else are able to do what we are able to do. For example, I count sight and hearing among powers, if perhaps you understand the form I mean to mention.

                Why, I do understand, he said.

           Hear then what appears to me about them. For of a power I see neither color nor shape belonging to it, nor anything of the sort, as I do with many other things toward which I sometimes look, and

 d distinguish some as different from others in my thought. Of a power I look only to this: to what it is directed, and what it effects. It is by this that I came to call each of them a power. If it is ordered to the same object and effects the same thing, I call it the same power; if it is ordered to a different object and effects a different thing, I call it a different power. What about you? What do you do?

  That, he said.

  Then back again, my friend, I replied: do you claim knowledge is a power, or into what kind do you put it?

  Into this kind, he said, strongest of all powers.

         e                Shall we rank opinion as a power, or as another form?

         Not at all, he said. Because that by which we have power to judge is nothing other than opinion.

          Yes, but you agreed a little earlier that knowledge and opinion are not the same.

         Of course, he said. How could any reasonable person ever assume that what is infallible is the same as what is not infallible?

478a          Excellent, I replied. Clearly then we're agreed that opinion is different from knowledge.     

 Yes.

So each of them, having a different power, is naturally directed to a different object.

Necessarily.

Knowledge, surely, is directed to what is, to know what is as it is.

Yes.

 But opinion, we say, judges?[9]

Yes.

The same thing which knowledge knows? Is the same thing both knowable and opinable, or is that impossible?

Impossible, from what's been agreed, he said, since a different power is naturally directed to a different object, while opinion and knowledge are both powers but each different from the other, as we claim. It follows from this that knowable and opinable cannot be the same.

b                Then if what is, is knowable, something other than what is would be opinable?

                  Yes.

          Does it judge what is not? Or is it in fact impossible to judge what is not? Think about it. Doesn't he who judges refer his opinion or judgement to something? Is it possible on the contrary to judge, but to judge nothing?

         Impossible.

         But he who judges, judges some one thing?

         Yes.

         But surely, not being would most rightly be described not as some one thing, but as no thing.

c                Of course.

         But of necessity we assigned ignorance to not being, knowledge to being?

         And rightly, he said.

         So it judges neither being nor not being?

         No.

         So opinion or judgement would neither be ignorance nor knowledge?

         It seems not.

         Then is it outside these, surpassing knowledge in clarity, or ignorance in unclarity?

         Neither.

         Does it rather appear to you, I replied, that opinion is darker and more obscure than knowledge, brighter and more evident than ignorance?

         Yes, very much so, he said.

d                It lies within both extremes?

         Yes.

         So opinion would be intermediate between them.

         Quite so.

 

The Objects of Opinion (478d-480a) 

 

         Now, we were saying before that if something should appear such that it at once is and is not, it would lie intermediate between what purely is and what completely is not, and neither knowledge nor ignorance is directed to it, but rather, what appeared intermediate between ignorance and knowledge.

         Right.

         But now what we call judgement has appeared intermediate between the two?

         Yes.

e                Then it remains for us to discover, it seems, what has a share of both being and not being,[10] and would rightly be addressed as purely neither, in order that, should it appear, we may rightly address it as opinable or judgeable, assigning intermediates to intermediates and extremes to extremes. Not so?

         Yes.

`        479a          Then given these assumptions, I'll say, I call for an answer from our good friend who does not believe in a beautiful by itself, a certain idea of beauty itself ever the same with respect to the same things, but does acknowledge the many beautiful things --- that lover of things seen who cannot in any way abide it if someone should claim that the beautiful is one, and the just, and so for the rest. We'll say, "Is there any among these many beautiful things, dear friend, which will not appear ugly? And among just things which will not appear unjust? And among holy things which will not appear unholy?"

b                No, he said. Rather, they necessarily appear somehow both beautiful and ugly, and so with all the others you ask about.

         What about the many doubles? Do they appear any less halves than doubles?

         No.

         And things which we might say are large, small, light, heavy --- will any be addressed as this more than the opposite?[11]

         No, he said. On the contrary, each always has both.

         Then each of the many things no more is than is not what one might affirm it to be?

c                They seem like the ambiguous stories told at banquets, he said, or the childrens' riddle about the eunuch who threw at the bat --- hinting obscurely at what he threw and on what it sat.[12] In fact, these things are ambiguous, and it is not possible fixedly to conceive any of them to be, or not to be, or both, or neither.

          Then how can you deal with them? I replied. Where better to put them than intermediate between reality and non-existence? For surely they will not appear more obscure than not being, beside what even more is not, nor brighter than being, beside what even more is.

d                Quite true, he said.

         So we have discovered, it seems, that the many conventional notions of the multitude about beauty, and other things, roll about somewhere between pure being and not being.

         Yes, we have.

         Yes, but we earlier agreed that if something of this sort appeared, it must be said to be opinable but not knowable, what is capable of intermediate wandering captured by the intermediate power.

         Yes, we did.

e                So those who contemplate many beautiful things but do not see the beautiful itself and are unable to follow another who would lead them to it, and many just things but not the just itself, and so in everything --- we'll say they judge and opine all things, but know nothing of what they judge.

         Necessarily, he said.

         But again, what about those who contemplate each thing by itself, ever the same in respect to the same things? Won't we say they know but do not judge or opine?

         That too is necessary.

480a          Shall we then also say they delight in and love these things to which knowledge is directed, but the others those things to which opinion and judgement are directed? Don't we recall that we said they love and contemplate beautiful sounds and colors and such things as that, but cannot abide the beautiful itself as something which is?

I do recall.

Then we won't strike a false note in calling them lovers of judgement and opinion, rather than lovers of wisdom or philosophers. Will they be angry at us if we say this?

Not if they're persuaded by me, he said; for it's not right to be angry at the truth.

So those who delight in each thing which is by itself must be called lovers of wisdom or philosophers, not lovers of judgement or opinion.

         Most certainly.

 

 

The Good Is Not Knowledge or Pleasure (504d-506d)

 

         Not the highest, surely? he said. Is anything greater than justice and the other virtues we've explained?

         There is indeed, I replied, and we mustn't contemplate a mere rough outline of these virtues,[13] as we're now doing, without

 e       proceeding to the completely finished work. Isn't it ridiculous to strain every nerve to get the most pure and accurate knowledge of other things of little worth, yet not to demand  greatest accuracy in matters of  greatest importance?

         Yes, he said. But do you think anyone would let you off without asking what the  greatest and most important study is, and what you say it is about?

         Of course, I replied. Go ahead and ask. You've certainly heard it often enough, though either you don't now realize that or you

505a intend to make trouble by raising objections. I think it's the latter. For you've often heard that the  greatest and most important study is the Idea of the Good, by which just things and the others become useful and beneficial. And you pretty well now know that I intend to mention it, and to say in addition that we don't sufficiently know it. But if we don't know it, then however well we may know other

 b       things without it, you know that we gain no benefit, just as we gain no benefit if we possess anything without the good. Or do you think there is profit in any possession, if it is not good? Or in understanding all other things without the Good, but understanding nothing beautiful and good?

         I certainly do not, he said.

         Furthermore, you also know that most people think the Good is pleasure, though the cleverer sort think it is knowledge.[14]

         Of course.

         Yes, and that those who believe the latter, my friend, cannot show what kind of knowledge, but are compelled in the end to say

 knowledge of the good.

         And quite ridiculously, he said.

         c                Of course, I replied, if they blame us because we don't know the Good and again speak as if they thought we knew it. For they say it is knowledge of good, supposing that we do after all understand what they mean when they utter the name 'good.'

         Very true, he said.

          What about those who define pleasure as good? Are they any less filled with wandering than the others? Aren't they also compelled to agree that there are bad pleasures?

         Yes, certainly.

         It follows then, I suppose, that they agree that the same things are good and bad. Not so?

         d                Certainly.

         Then it's evident that there is a great deal of dispute about it.

         Of course.

         But isn't it also evident that if many people choose what seems just and beautiful, even if it's not, nevertheless, in doing and possessing and judging these things, it's not still enough to possess what merely seems good, but they seek what really is good. Here, at this point, they all disdain the seeming.[15]

         Indeed so, he said.

e                         This then is what every soul in fact pursues, and for the sake

of it acts in everything, dimly divining that it is something, but perplexed and unable sufficiently to grasp what it is, or to attain to the sort of steadfast belief she has about other things, and therefore also missing any benefit those other things may have. May we say that the best men in the city, with whom we shall place everything, must be left in the dark about such and so great a matter?

506a                   Surely not, he said.

         At any rate, I said, I suppose that if it is not known in what way just and beautiful things are good, anyone ignorant of this would be far from possessing a worthy guardian of themselves. My guess is that no one will sufficiently know anything before he sufficiently knows this.[16]

         A good guess, he said.

         Now, our constitution will have been perfectly ordered, if this sort of guardian, who knows these things, oversees it?

b                         Necessarily, he said. But what about you, Socrates? Do you claim the good is knowledge, or pleasure? Or something else besides these?

         What a man! I replied. You've shown all along that what seemed so to the rest about this wouldn't suffice for you.

         No, Socrates, he said, because it didn't appear just in me to try to state the judgements of the others but not my own, while spending so much time worrying about these matters.

c                         Well, but do you think it's just to speak of what one doesn't know as if he thought he knew? I replied.

         Certainly not as if he thought he knew, he said, but nevertheless as one willing to say what he thinks, given that he thinks it.

         Aren't you aware, I said, that opinions without knowledge are all ignoble? The best of them are blind --- or do you think people without reason who judge something truly differ at all from blind men travelling the right road?[17]

         No, he said.

         d                Would you then contemplate ignoble things, blind and crooked, when it's possible to hear bright and beautiful things from others?

         For heaven's sake, Socrates, Glaucon replied, don't stop, as if you were at an end. Oblige us. As you explained about justice and temperance and the rest, please also explain about the Good.


The Sun And The Idea of the Good (506d-509c)

 

         Actually, I'd be very glad to oblige, my friend, I replied. But I fear that I won't be able to, and in my eagerness I'll only bring ridicule on myself for clumsiness. But let us for the present dismiss

e                what the Good is in itself, my friends. It appears to me to be a greater task than to arrive according to the present impulse at what seems true to me now. I'm willing to tell what appears to be both offspring of the Good and most like it, if it pleases you.[18] If not, dismiss it.

Why, speak, he said. For you'll pay your debt another time for the explanation you owe of the Father.

507a                             I might wish, I said, that I were able to pay the debt and allow you to receive the principal, rather than, as now, only the interest.[19] But at any rate receive the interest and offspring of the good itself. Take care, however, that I don't in some way mislead you against my will, and render a false account of the interest.

         We'll take care as best we can, he said. Only speak.

          Yes, I said, once we've come to agreement. Recollect what was said before,[20] and has at this point been stated often elsewhere.[21]

b                 What's that? he replied.

          We say there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so in each case, I replied, and we distinguish them in discourse.

          Yes, we do.

           And again, beautiful itself and good itself, and so for everything which we formerly assumed to be many: but now, again, we assume one single Idea of each, supposing that it is one, and we call each what is.

          That's so.

          And the many are visible but not intelligible, we say, but the Ideas again are intelligible but not visible.

          Certainly.

 c                           Then by what of ourselves do we see what is seen?

          By sight, he said.

          Then also what is heard by hearing, I replied, and everything sensible by the other senses?

          Of course.

          Then have you ever realized, I said, with what extraordinary lavishness the Craftsman of the senses has wrought the power to see and to be seen?[22]

          Why, no, he said.

          But consider this: do hearing and sound need in addition another kind in respect to hearing and being heard, such that if a third is not present, the one will not hear, the other not be heard?

d                           No, he said, they need nothing in addition.

          Nor I suppose do many other senses --- in order not to say none --- need anything of this sort in addition.[23] Can you mention any?

          I cannot, he replied.

          But don't you conceive that sight and the visible need something in addition?

          How so?

          Sight may be in eyes, surely, and he who has it may try to use it; and color may be present in objects; but if a third kind of thing proper and peculiar to this very purpose is not present in addition, you know that sight will see nothing and the colors will be invisible.

e                           What is it you mean? he said.

          Why, what you call light, I replied.[24]

          True, he said.

          So it is by no small idea[25] that the sensation of seeing and the power of being seen are yoked together by a yoke more valuable than that yoking the rest, if indeed light is not itself without value.

 508a                     But surely it is far from being without value, he said.

          Now, which among the gods in heaven[26] do you hold responsible as master of this --- whose light causes vision to see what is most beautiful, and things seen to be seen?

          Just what you and other people say, he replied: for it's clear you're asking about the Sun.

          Now, vision is relative to[27] this God in the following way:

          How?

          Vision is not the Sun --- neither itself nor that in which it comes to be present, which we call the eye.

b                           No.

           Yes, but I suppose the eye is the most sunlike of the organs of sensation?[28]

          By far.

          Then too, the power which it has is dispensed by the Sun, and possessed as a kind of overflow.[29]

          Of course.

          Then again, the Sun is not vision, but, as cause of vision, is seen by vision itself?

          That's so, he said.

          This then, I replied, you may say is what I meant as the

 c        offspring of the Good, which the Good generated in proportional analogy to itself: that as the Good stands to reason and things known in the intelligible place, so the Sun stands to vision and things seen in the visible place.

          How do you mean? he said. Please explain further.

          You know that eyes, I replied, when one no longer turns them toward those things whose colors are overspread by the light of day, but by moonlight or starlight, become dull and appear nearly blind, as if pure vision were not present.

          Indeed, he said.

d                           Yes, but I suppose when the Sun illuminates their object, they see clearly, and vision appears to be present in these same eyes.

          Of course.

          So also then conceive what belongs to the soul: when it is fixed upon what truth and reality illuminate, it conceives and knows it, and appears to possess reason. But when it is fixed upon what is mixed with darkness, upon what comes to be and passes away, it judges and becomes dull and changes opinions back and forth, and seems not to possess reason.

           Yes.

e                           This then, which provides truth to things known and gives the power of knowing to the knower, you must say is the Idea of the Good.[30] As cause of knowledge and of truth, you must understand it as being known. But beautiful as knowledge and truth both are, you will rightly believe it is other and still more beautiful than they.

 509a           Even as there in the sensible place it is right to regard light and vision as Sun-like, but wrong to believe them the Sun, so also here it is right to regard knowledge and truth as Good-like, but wrong to believe either of them the Good. Instead, the nature of the Good[31] is still more to be valued.[32]

You mean a matchless beauty, he said, if it provides knowledge and truth, but is itself beyond them in beauty.[33] For you surely don't mean it is pleasure.

Don't blaspheme, I replied. But examine the image of it still further:

b                         How?

         I suppose you'll say that the Sun not only provides the power of being seen to things seen, but also becoming or generation and growth and nurture, though it is not itself becoming and generation (g¡nesiw).

         Of course.

         And say also for things known, then, not only that intelligibility is present by agency of the Good, but existence (tò eänai) and being (oésÛa) is also present to them by it, though the Good is not being, but even beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and power.[34]

         And Glaucon exclaimed quite comically: By Apollo![35] he said, Divine superiority!

It's your own fault, I replied, for making me say what I think about it.

 

The Divided Line (509c-5lle)

Yes, and don't stop, he said, unless for good reason, but go through the likeness concerning the Sun again to see if you're leaving something out.

Why, I left out a great deal, I said.

Thrn don't omit even a little, he said.

I think I'm actually omitting a lot, I replied. Nevertheless, as far as possible at present, I won't willingly do so.

Please don't, he said.

d                         Conceive then, I replied, that as I say, there are these two, the one King over the intelligible kind and place, the other again over the visible --- I don't say 'heaven,' so that you won't think I'm playing on the name.[36] But you have then these two forms, visible, and intelligible?

         Yes.

         Then take a line divided as it were into two unequal sections,[37] one representing the visible kind, the other the intelligible. Divide each of the two sections again in the same ratio. By reason of their clarity and obscureness relative to each other,

          e        you will have, as one distinct section in the visible, images. By

          510a  images I mean, first, shadows, and next, reflections in water and in things so constituted as to be close-grained and smooth and shiny, and everything of that sort, if you understand.

         Why, I do understand.

         Put the other section then as that of which this is an image: the animals around us, and all plants that grow, and the whole class of artifacts.

         Yes, he said.

         Will you also say, I replied, that it is divided in respect to truth and untruth: that as the opinable[38] is to the knowable, so what is made like is to that to which it is made like?

         b                 I will indeed, he said.

         Consider again how the section of the intelligible is to be divided:

         In what way?

         In one section of it, soul is compelled to inquire from hypotheses, using as images the things which before were imitated,[39] and proceeding not to a first principle but to a conclusion. In the other section, again, it goes from hypothesis to unhypothetical first principle,[40] and, without those things which that other section used as images, it makes its inquiry by forms themselves through themselves alone.

         I don't sufficiently understand what you mean, he said.

         c                 Try again then, I replied. For you'll learn more easily when this is said by way of introduction: I suppose you know that those who busy themselves with geometry and calculations and such things as that assume or hypothesise the odd and the even, and the figures and three forms of angles, and other things sisters to these in respect to each inquiry, as if they knew them. They suppose they know them, making them hypotheses indeed, things laid down, and they do not think fit to render any further account of them either to themselves

          d        or others, supposing them evident to all. They start from these and then go through what remains, ending agreeably[41] at the conclusion for which they set in motion their inquiry.

         Of course, he said. I do know that.

         Then you also know that they make use of the visible forms and fashion arguments about them, not reasoning about them but about those things which they are like, making arguments for the sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself instead of what they

          e        draw? And so in other cases. They use as images the very things they construct and draw, of which there are also shadows and images in water, seeking to see those things themselves which one cannot see except by the understanding.

         511a           True, he said.

         This then is the form I said is intelligible, though soul is compelled to use hypotheses in the investigation of it, not proceeding to a first principle because it is unable to climb higher than its hypotheses, but using as images the very things from which images were made by things below them, and these, as opposed to those, have been adjudged and valued as clear.

        b                           I understand, he said: you mean what falls under geometry and its sister arts.

                  Then by the other section of the intelligible, understand me to mean that which reasoned discourse by itself grasps through the power of dialectic, making the hypotheses not first principles but really hypotheses, things laid down as stepping-stones and starting-points, in order to proceed to what is unhypothetical, the first principle of the All. Once having grasped it, soul again in turn takes hold of what it contains and in this way descends to a 

 c        conclusion, making use of nothing at all that is sensible, but of forms by themselves, through themselves, in respect to themselves, and it ends in forms.

         I understand, he said, though not sufficiently --- for I think you describe an immense task. But you wish to distinguish what is contemplated by the knowledge of dialectic, whose object is what is and is intelligible, as more clear than what is contemplated by the so-called arts,[42] for which the hypotheses are first principles. Those who contemplate them are compelled to contemplate them by

                   d       understanding, not perception, and because they do not go back to a first principle in their inquiry but proceed from hypotheses, you think they do not possess reason about them, even though they are intelligible with a first principle. I think you call the state of mind of geometers and people of that sort Understanding, not Reason, supposing that Understanding is something intermediate between Opinion and Reason.

         You've understood me most satifactorily, I replied. Apply

these four affections arising in the soul to the four divisions of the line: Reason to the highest, Understanding to the second, give Belief the third and Imagination the last. Arrange them in a proportion, supposing their objects to have a share of truth in the same ratio that they also have a share of clarity.

                  I understand, and I agree to arrange them as you say, he replied.

 

 

The Cave (514a-517a)

 

514a                   Next then, I said, please compare our own nature in respect to education and the lack of it to a situation like this: Picture people dwelling, as it were, in a cavernous underground chamber, with an entrance opening upward to the light and a long passageway running the whole length of the Cave. They have been there since childhood, legs and necks fettered so that they cannot move: they see only what is in front of

 b       them, unable to turn their heads because of the bonds. But light reaches them from a fire burning some distance behind and above them.  Between the fire and the prisoners, picture a track a little higher up and a little wall built along it like the screens in front of the performers at puppet shows, above which they show the puppets.

          I see it, he said.

          See also then people carrying all sorts of artificial objects

 515a alongside this little wall, statues of men and other animals made of wood and stone and all sorts of things. Naturally, as it were, some of the carriers are talking, others silent.

          A strange image you mention , he said, and strange prisoners.

         Like ourselves, I replied. For first, do you think such prisoners see anything of themselves or one another except the shadows cast by the fire on the wall of the cave in front of them?

         Why, how could they, he said, if they were compelled to hold their heads motionless throughout life.

b                What about the objects being carried by. Isn't it the same?

         Of course.

         Then if they were able to converse with one another, don't you think they'd acknowledge as real only the things passing, and give names to what they saw?[43]

         Necessarily.

         What if the prison also had an echo from the wall opposite. When some one of those passing gave utterance, do you think they'd believe anything except the passing shadow spoke?

         Emphatically not, he said.

c                Such prisoners, then, I replied, would not acknowledge as true anything except shadows of artificial objects.

          Quite necessary, he said.

         Consider then, I replied, what release and healing from bonds and unwisdom would consist in, if it should naturally occur in this way: whenever one of them was released, and suddenly compelled to stand upright and turn his head and walk and look upward to the light, he'd feel pain in doing all this, and because his eyes were dazzled, he'd be unable to

d       discern those things yonder whose shadows he had seen before. What do you suppose he'd say, if someone told him that what he'd seen before was foolishness, but that now, being somewhat nearer to what is and turned toward more real objects, he'd see more correctly? Especially if, after being shown each of the things which are passing, he was compelled by questioning to answer what it is? Don't you suppose he'd be perplexed and at a loss, and believe the things he saw before more true than those shown him now?

         Yes, he said.

e                Then suppose he were also compelled to look toward the light itself. It would hurt his eyes, and he'd turn away in order to escape to the things he was able to see, and acknowledge them as really more clear than what was being shown him.

          That's so, he said.

         But if someone forcibly dragged him from there up the rugged steep ascent, I replied, and didn't let go until he'd hauled him into the light of the Sun, wouldn't he suffer and be distressed as he was dragged along?  

 516a And when he came to the light, his eyes would be so filled with its brightness that he wouldn't be able to see even one among the things now claimed to be true?

         No, he said, at least not immediately.

         Then I suppose he'd have to become accustomed to it, if he's going to see the things above. It would be easiest first to look at shadows; next, images in water of men and other things, and afterward the things themselves; after this, it would be easier to contemplate things in the

 b       heaven and the heaven itself by night, and gaze at the light of the stars and the moon, than at the Sun and its light by day.

          Of course.

         Finally then, I suppose, the Sun. Not appearances of it in water or in alien seats, but he'd be able to look at it alone by itself in its own place, and contemplate it as it is.

         Necessarily, he said.

         After this, he'd at that point infer of it that it is this which produces the seasons and the years and governs everything in the visible place, and is in some manner is cause of all the things they used to see.

 c                It's clear, he said, that he'd arrive next at this conclusionalong with that.

         Suppose he were to recall his first dwelling-place, and the wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners then. Wouldn't he think himself happy in the change, and pity them?

         Indeed.

         Suppose they had honors and prizes for those who most acutely discern and best remember the shadows that pass --- which of them

 d       usually comes before, and after, and at the same time --- and from this was then best able to divine what was coming next. Do you think he'd want what they have, and envy them their honors and positions of power? Or would he feel, as Homer has it, that he'd much prefer to be the slave of a landless man and suffer anything at all, rather than believe those things and live that life?[44] 

e                Yes, he said, I suppose he'd suffer anything rather than accept that life.

         Consider this too, I replied. If such a man went down again and sat upon the same seat,[45] wouldn't his eyes be filled with darkness, coming suddenly from the Sun?

         Yes, indeed, he said.

         Suppose then he had to compete again in judging those shadows with

 517a people who'd always been prisoners, while his vision was dim, before his eyes settled down --- and it would take some little time to get used to the darkness. Wouldn't he be laughed at? Wouldn't it be said of him that he journeyed upward only to return with his eyes ruined, that it wasn't worth it even to try to go up? And if they were able somehow to lay hands on the man trying to release them and lead them up, and kill him, they would kill him.[46]

         Certainly, he said.

 

The Cave Applied to The Sun and the Line (517a-518b)

 

         This image, my dear Glaucon, I said, must be applied as a whole 

 b       to what was said before, likening the place which appears through sight to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the Sun. If you assume that the ascent upward and the vision of things above is the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible place, you will not mistake my surmise, since you desire to hear it. God alone knows if it is true, but this is how it appears to me. In the intelligible place, the Idea of the Good

 c       is seen finally and with difficulty,[47] but once seen, it must be inferred that it is in every case cause of all things right and beautiful. In the visible place it gives birth to Light and to the Sun, the Lord of Light; in the intelligible place it is itself Lord, and provides reason and truth. It must also be inferred that whoever intends to act wisely in public or private must see it.

          So far as I am able, he said, I concur.

         Come then, I replied, and concur also in this and don't be surprised: those who arrive at this place refuse to take part in the affairs of men;

 d       their souls ever press on to spend their time above. For that's surely natural, if the foregoing image indeed applies.

         Yes, he said.

          Then do you think it is at all surprising, I replied, if someone who has come from contemplation of divine things to the evils of human life is awkward, and appears quite ridiculous when with vision still dim and before becoming sufficiently accustomed to the present darkness, he is compelled, in lawcourts or elsewhere, to contend about the shadows of

 e       what is just, or about images of the things of which they are shadows, and to dispute about how they are understood by those who have never seen justice itself?

         It would not at all be surprising, he said.

518a          A reasonable man might remember, I replied, that eyes become disturbed in two ways and for two reasons: by shifting from light to darkness, and from darkness to light. He'd acknowledge that the same things also happen with soul, and when he saw it disturbed and unable to see anything clearly, he wouldn't thoughtlessly laugh, but inquire whether it had been blinded by unaccustomed darkness after coming from a

 b       brighter life, or whether in passing from greater ignorance to a brighter life it had been dazzled by more light; and thus then he would count one soul happy in its experience and its life, but pity the other, and if he wished to laugh at it, his laughter would be less ridiculous than laughter at a soul come down from the light above.

         A very fair statement, he said.

 

Education and Virtue (518b-519d)

 

         If this is true, I said, we must acknowledge that education is not

 c       what it is said to be by some, who profess to be able to put knowledge into a soul where it is not present, as though putting sight into blind eyes.

         They do claim that, he said.

         The present account signifies, I replied, that this power is present in the soul of everyone, along with the instrument by which each person understands.[48] It is as though an eye could not turn from darkness to

 d       the light except in company with the whole body. Just so, this instrument must be converted from what becomes by turning in company with the whole soul until it becomes capable of being lifted up to contemplate what is, and the brightest of what is. But this, we say, is the Good. Not so?

         Yes.

         Then there may well be an art whose object is to effect this conversion, I replied, to turn the soul around in the easiest and most effective way. Not to put sight into it, for we may suppose it already has it, but to contrive that it not be turned to look in the wrong direction, but where it should.[49]

         It seems so, he said.

         The other virtues commonly said to belong to the soul are not far

 e       removed from things of the body, for they are produced by habits and practices where they were not really present before.[50] But the virtue of thought is assuredly something more divine, it seems: it never loses its 

 519a power, but becomes useful and beneficial or useless and harmful because of the way it is turned. Or have you never noticed, among those said to be bad but wise, how shrewd is the vision of their petty souls and how keenly it sees the things toward which it is turned. There's nothing the matter with their vision, but it is compelled to the service of evil, so that the more keenly it sees, the more evils it works.

         Of course, he replied.

         And yet, I replied, if such a nature were pruned from childhood up,

 b       cleared, as it were, of those leaden weights akin to becoming which are attached to it by gluttony and greedy pleasures of that kind and bend the vision of the soul downward --- if, freed from these, it were turned round at last to things which are true, then this same thing belonging to these same men would see things yonder most keenly, even as the objects toward which it is now turned.

          Yes, likely enough, he said.

         But isn't it also likely, I replied, and even necessary, from what has been said, that a city cannot ever adequately be governed by those who are

 c       uneducated and without experience of truth, nor again by those allowed to pass their whole time in education. Not the one, because they have no single target in life at which to aim in every action, public and private; not the other, because they'll be unwilling to act, believing they've been transported to the Isles of the Blessed while still alive.

          True, he said.

         Then it is our own task as founders, I replied, to compel the best natures to attain to the knowledge we formerly described as most 

 d       important: to see the Good and rise upward in that ascent. And when they have ascended and sufficiently seen, not to allow them what is now allowed.

          What's that?

         To abide there, I replied, and refuse to go back down again among the prisoners and share their labors and honors, whether of lesser or more serious worth.

  

The Duty To Govern (519e-521b)

 

         Then we shall do them an injustice, he said? We shall cause them to live a worse life when they're capable of better?

         e                You again forget, my friend, I replied, that it is not a concern of law that some one class in a city should do and fare surpassingly well, but to contrive that this should come to be present in the city as a whole,[51] 

520a harmoniously uniting citizens by persuasion and necessity, causing them to share with each other the benefit each is capable of providing to the community at large. Law produces such men in a city, not in order to allow them to turn in any direction they each may wish, but in order that it may use them to bind the city together.

          True, he said. I did forget.

         Consider further, Glaucon, I said, that we'll not do an injustice to the philosophers who arise among us, but we'll speak justly to them in requiring them to care for and guard the others. For we shall say that

 b       people of their sort born In other cities reasonably do not share their labors; for they grew up on their own in despite of the constitution in each city, and it is right that, as self-sustaining and endebted for nurture to no one, they should not be quick to make payment for being nurtured. But as for you, we'll say, we bred you for yourselves and for the rest of the city, as kings and leaders in the hive. You are better and more

 c       perfectly educated than the rest, and more able to have a share of both ways of life. You must go down then, each in his turn, to the dwell with the others and become accustomed to see in the darkness. For once used to it, you will see immeasurably better than those there, and you will know each of the images for what it is, and of what it is an image,[52] through having seen the truth of things beautiful and just and good. And in this way you will govern our city wide awake instead of in dream, as most cities are now governed, where people fight over shadows and quarrel

 d       about office, supposing it a great good. The truth is surely this: that city is necessarily best and most free of faction in which those least eager to rule shall rule, and the city governed oppositely gains the opposite.

          Of course, he said.

         Then do you suppose those we've nurtured, when they hear this, will disobey and refuse to take their turn in sharing the labors of the city, but dwell most of the time with one another in what is pure?

e                Impossible, he said. For we require just things of just men. Still, each of them will assuredly enter office as a necessity, the opposite of those who rule in each city now.

          That's so, my friend, I replied. It is possible to have a well-governed 

 521a city only if you find a life better than ruling for those who are to rule. For in it only will the really rich rule --- rich not in gold but in the wealth required for happiness, namely, a good and reasonable life. But if beggars starved of good things in their private lives enter on the public business, thinking there to seize the good, it is impossible. When office comes to be fought over, this inner war destroys them and the rest of the city.

 b                Very true, he said.

         Can you suggest any life which scorns political office, I replied, except that of genuine philosophy?

         I most certainly cannot, he replied.

          But it is those who are not in love with office who must go to it; otherwise, rivals will fight.

          Of course.

         Then who will you compel to guardianship of the city, except those who are wisest about the things through which a city is best governed and have other honors and a better life than the political life?

         No one else at all, he said.

 

How Guardians are Led Upward to the Light (521c-522d)

 

c                Would you have us at this point consider how such people as this will come to be present, and how to lead them upward to the light, even as some are said to have ascended from the Underworld to the Gods?

         How could I not wish it? he said.

         This then, it seems, is no mere flip of an oystershell,[53] but a conversion of soul from a day which is like night to genuine day, an ascent to what is real, which we say is true philosophy.

         Of course.

          Then we must examine which studies have this power?

 d                Certainly.

         What study, Glaucon, would draw a soul from what becomes to what is? It occurs to me even as I speak: didn't we say that while young they must become athletes of war?

         Yes.

         So this study we're seeking must have this in addition:

         What?

         It must not be useful to soldiers.

          Certainly not, he said, if indeed that's possible.

e                In what went before, surely, we educated them in gymnastic, and in music and literature.

         Yes, he said.

         And gymnastic, I take it, is wholly devoted to what comes to be and perishes: for it presides over bodily growth and decay.

         It appears so.

522a          Then this is not the study we seek.

         No.

         Perhaps instead music, as we've previously explained it?

         Hardly, he said. That was the counterpart of gymnastic, if you recall.

 It educated the guardians by habit, not knowledge, imparting a kind of tunefulness by mode and gracefulness by rhythm, and certain other dispositions akin to these in the content of the verse, whether fictional or true. But there was no study in it leading to a good of the sort you're now seeking.

 b                You remind me most exactly, I replied: for really, it contained nothing of this sort. And yet, dear Glaucon, what does? For the arts all surely seem base and vulgar.

         Of course. But what other study is left, apart from music and gymnastic and the arts?

         Come, I replied. If we can't grasp anything outside them, let's grasp something that stretches through them all.

c                Such as?

         Such as that common thing which every art and branch of understanding and knowledge makes use of --- indeed, among the first things everyone has to learn.

         What's that? he said.

         That little matter of distinguishing one[54] and two and three, I replied. I mean in brief number and calculation. Isn't it true of them that every art and branch of knowledge is required to become a partaker of them?

         Very much so, he said.

         Including the art of war? I said.

d                Quite necessarily, he said.

         On the stage, at any rate, Palamedes constantly makes Agamemnon look utterly ridiculous as a general. Haven't you noticed that Palamedes claims he discovered number and marshalled the ranks for the army at Troy and counted the ships and everything else, as if he thought they'd never been counted before? Agamemnon, since he didn't know how to count, it seems, didn't even know how many feet he had. And yet, what sort of a general is that, do you think?

         A strange one, he said, if true.

 

Qualification by Opposites and the Existence of Ideas (522e-524c)

 

         e                Then shall we assume it a necessary study for a soldier to be able to calculate and count, I replied?

         Yes, especially if he's to understand anything at all about ordering in ranks --- or even if he's to be human.

         Then do you conceive this study as I do? I said.

         How is that?

523            Very likely it is among the studies we seek which by nature lead toward thought. Yet edven though it draws the mind toward reality, no one uses it rightly.

          How do you mean? he said.

         I'll try to make clear what I think, I replied. I distinguish in my own mind between what leads where we say and what does not. Become my coadjutor and assent or deny, so that we may see more clearly if it is as I suspect.

         Show me, he said.

         Very well, I replied. You'll observe that some among our

b       perceptions do not summon thought to inquiry, supposing them sufficiently judged by perception; others demand in every case that thought inquire, supposing that perception produces nothing healthy.

         Clearly you mean things appearing at a distance, and in scene-painting.

         You don't quite get what I mean, I replied.

         Well, what do you mean? he said.

         Those which do not summon thought, I replied, do not at the same

 c       time pass over into an opposite perception.[55] But I assume that those which summon thought do pass over, when the perception no more makes clear this than the opposite, whether projected from near at hand or far off. You'll know more clearly what I mean from this.[56] Here, we say, are three fingers, the smallest, the second and the middle.

          Of course, he said.

         Understand me then to assert they are seen near at hand. But  consider this about them:

         What?

d                Each of them appears equally to be a finger, and in this there is no difference, whether seen in the middle or at the end, whether black or white, thick or thin, and so on. For in all these cases, the mind or soul of most people is not compelled to inquire of thought what a finger is. For sight nowhere signifies to it that the finger is at the same time the opposite of a finger.

         Of course not, he said.

         Then such a thing as this probably does not summon or arouse thought, I replied.

e                No.

         What about their size?  Does sight sufficiently see the largeness and the smallness of them? Does it make no difference to it if one of them is situated in the middle or on the end? And so similarly for touch, and thickness and thinness, softness and hardness? And the other senses --- aren't they also deficient in making things such as this clear? Or does

 524a each of them act like this: first, the sense ordered to the hard is required also to be ordered to the soft, and announces to the soul that it supposes it is perceiving both hard and soft as the same thing.[57]

         That's so, he said.

         Then in such cases again, I replied, the soul is necesssarily perplexed as to what perception signifies to her by 'hard', since perception says that the same thing is also soft; and what perception of the light and heavy means by 'light' and 'heavy', if it signifies that the heavy is light and the light is heavy.

 b                In fact, he said, these messages to the soul are strange, and need investigation.

          So it is probably in these circumstances, I replied, that soul first summons calculation and thought to consider whether each of the things reported is one or two.

         Of course.

         If they appear to be two, each of the two appears different and one?

         Yes.

         So if each of two is one, but both are two, the soul will conceive the two as separate; for if inseparable, it would surely not conceive two, but one.

c                Right.

         But surely sight saw large and small, we say, not separated but mixed together. Not so?

         Yes.

         For the clarification of this, thought was compelled to see great and small, not mixed together but separated, in the opposite way from sight.

         True.

         From this it first occurs to us to ask what the large is, and again, what the small is?[58]

         To be sure.

         And thus then we called the one intelligible, the other visible.

d                Quite rightly, he said.

         This then is what I was trying to say just now, that some things summon the understanding, others do not. What affects perception in opposite ways at the same time I distinguish as summoning it; what does not, does not awaken thought.

         At this point I understand, and it seems so to me too.

 



[1]        See above, 457e-458b.

[2]        Shorey points out that Plato here rejects the usual contrast of words and deeds, with its assumed superiority of deeds to words.

[3]         In Laws V (739b-d), the best constitution answers to that of Republic IV and V, where friends have all things in common, and is that of a city inhabitated by gods or children of gods; the Laws describes a second-best city, inhabited by men.

[4]        Or, "since beauty is opposite to ugliness..." The neuter adjective, with or without article, may be used as equivalent to the corresponding abstract noun.

[5]        T¯n di‹noian ...w gign_skontow gn_mhn.

 [6]        dñjan ...w doj‹zontow.

[7]         Or, unhealthy. "He who has opinion (i doj‹zvn) is, in comparison with the man who knows, not in a healthy state as far as truth is concerned." Meta. IV 1008b 30-31, trans. Ross.

[8]        _n not temporal but durative, as often in Plato, the imperfect of the verb to be indicating aspect, not tense.

[9]        dñja... doj‹zein. The construction is cognate nominative, common in Platonic Greek.

[10]      Or, existence and non-existence, where existence is understood not as quantificational, but as equivalent to being.

[11]      Compare Theaetetus 152d, Phaedo 74b ff., 102, Phil. 14d.

[12]      A man who was not a man (a eunuch) seeing and not seeing (seeing imperfectly) a bird which was not a bird (a bat) sitting on a branch which was not a branch (a reed), threw a stone which was not a stone (pumice) --- and missed.

[13]      Adam remarks: "As clear a proof as we could wish that Justice and the other virtues, as described in Book IV, are not the transcendental Forms alone by themselves. They are only an adumbration of the Ideas, being, we may suppose, simply the psychological relations which result from the presence of the Ideas in certain particulars, viz. In human souls, during their union with human bodies."

[14]      Frñnhsiw. In the Protagoras, the claims that virtue is frñnhsiw and that virtue is ¤pist®mh are treated as equivalent.

[15]      In the Gorgias, Socrates contrasts what seems good to what one rationally wishes, what is good.

[16]      Adam remarks of this passage (abbreviated, Greek translated): "No one who does not know the Idea of the Good can possibly know in what respect or how far particular just things are good, because it is the presence of the Good in them which makes them good. And no one who is ignorant of how they are good can possibly defend just things (such as for example the just institutions of Plato's city), because he is at the mercy of anyone who attempts to shew that they are bad. Nor, until we know how far particular just things are good, can we adequately know these just things themselves, i.e. know which of these really is just and which not, for we do not know how they stand in relation to the ultimate source of all justice, viz.. the Idea of the Good. It is this which, in the last resort, is the true 'measure of all things' (Laws 716c ff., where Plato employs the language of theology). Hence the supreme necessity for our Guardians to know the Idea of the Good."

[17]       cf. Meno 99e, yeÛ& moÛr& paragignom¡nh �neu noè and the road to Larisa (97a).

[18]      Plural. Socrates is addressing the group.

[19]      tñkow. An untranslatable pun: the Greek word means both interest and offspring.

[20]      At 475e ff.

[21]      Perhaps a reference to Socrates' speech in the Symposium and Diotima's account of the ascent to Beauty itself.

[22]      Lavish because sight is unique in requiring an additional valuable element, namely light.

[23]      It may be objected that sound requires a third thing, namely, air, as Plato himself acknowledged. (Timaeus 67b-c) But unlike sight and the light of the eyes, hearing is passive, a stroke (plhg®) through the ears by air on brain and blood, reaching the soul; if sound is a stroke of air, air is not "a third thing," any more than water is a third thing when it touches the skin.

[24]      If sound is produced by particles striking the ear, it may be treated as an extension of touch, and therefore not analogous to light. The disanalogy becomes more evident if we correct for anachronism. We conceive light as rays impinging on the eye, a passive receptor, as sound waves impinge upon the ears. Plato thought of the eye as active, the visual image being the product of rays issuing from things seen and meeting with rays issuing from the eye which sees them --- the light in the eyes. Cf. Timaeus 45b-d, 58c, 67b, 80a.

[25]      _d¡&., here sort or kind, almost equivalent to g¡now above, 507c,d, but anticipating 508e3, t¯n toè Žgayoè _d¡an. The Wid root occurs also in eâdow, form, and in Greek verbs meaning to see and to know, and Latin video, German wissen, English wise and wit.

[26]      The stars are gods, that is, immortal living animals. Laws 821b, 899b, 950d, Epinomis 985b, 988d, Apology 26d. Cf. Cratylus 397d.

[27]      pròw with the accusative, in general 'relative to', perhaps here specifically 'dependent upon'.

[28]      Because the eye emits rays --- the light in the eyes. Adam remarks: "The Eye is the Body's Sun. Conversely, the Sun is often in Greek poetry called the eye of the World or of Day, and Shakespeare invokes the Sun in the words "O eye of Eyes!" (Rape of Lucrece): cf. Also Milton Par. Lost V 171 "Thou Sun. Of this great world both eye and soul."

[29]      ¤pÛrruton. Cf. Timaeus 80d.

[30]       Adam offers the following summary:

                  Visible Place          =            Intelligible Place

         (1) Sun                                           Idea of Good

         (2) Light                                         Truth

         (3) Objects of Sight                       Objects of Knowledge

         (4) Seeing Subject                         Knowing Subject

         (5) Organ of Sight                          Organ of Knowledge

         (6) Faculty of Sight                        Faculty of Reason

         (7) Exercise of Sight                      Exercise of Reason

         (8) Ability to See                           Ability to Know

[31]      T¯n toè Žgayoè §jin, that is, tò Žgayòn ...w ¦xei.

 [32]       The passage offers a series of ratios, explicable in terms of proportionality: the Good is to the Sun, as truth is to light, as Ideas are to objects of sight, as knowledge is to vision, as intelligence is to sight, as mind is to eye. Adam remarks: "The entire simile is plunged in confusion if Light is equated with anything except Truth. Plato means that as Light, coming from the Sun, enables colours to be seen, and the faculty of Sight to see, so Truth, coming from the Good, enables the Ideas to be known, and intelligence to know. It should be carefully noted that Truth (or its source, the Idea of Good) is not yet regarded as creating, but only as actualizing the faculty of Reason. The conception of the Good as the ultimate cause of all Existence follows later (509b ff.): here it is represented only as the cause of Knowledge."

[33]      êp¢r.  See 509b 9-10.

[34]       ¤p¡keina t±w oésÛaw presbeÛ&  kaÜ dun‹mei êper¡xontow, 509b 9-10. Compare êp¢r taèta k‹llei, 509a 7. This passage, along with the first deduction about Unity in the Parmenides, became the foundation of the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato: since the Good is an unhypothetical first principle (510b), Plato accepted an unhypothetical first principle which is beyond being, and cannot be said to exist. But that the Good surpasses being in dignity and power follows strictly by analogy to the Sun (506e), and does not imply that it is beyond being in that it cannot be said to exist. That the Good is an Idea is stated or implied (508e, 517c, 534c), and as such, it is intelligible (517c, 504d, 508a, 518c-d, 534c-e), grasped by an account (511b, 534c), and distinguished from other Ideas (534b). As an Idea, it is a thing which is (526c, 517c).

         The Good surpasses Being in dignity and power as the Sun surpasses things which become. But the Good is an Idea, as the Sun is not, and the appropriate relation of the Good to things which are is participation. Both good things and evil things participate in Being, whereas only good things participate in Goodness in so far as they are good. This assumes, of course, that evil is not a mere privation of goodness, and this assumption is made by Plato, who acknowledged the existence of Ideas of opposites, including various kinds of evil as the opposites of various kinds of good. (475e-476a) Plotinus, supposing that evil is purely privative and that whatever is is good, inferred that if the Good is not Being and is beyond Being, surpassing it indignity and power, it must surpass it in and through not being. That is, the Good does not exist by reason of its excellence. This is an example of philosophical projection, and produces a result neither stated nor implied by Plato's text, which shows, on the contrary, that he would have regarded it as nonsense. And since the Good is the first principle of explanation, it must follow that not all things that exist can be explained in terms of the Good. The Republic is on exactly the same ground as the doctrine of Necessity in the Timaeus.

         The passage suggests an account of evil which coheres with but goes beyond that offered in Book II. This world is collectively good, and nothing in it therefore can exist apart from the principle of goodness. Evil exists in and through its dependence on the good, but remains evil, taken distributively, since being and goodness are not equivalent.

 [35]      Apollo, god of music and poetry, is also god of the Sun.

[36]      The Cratylus (396b-c) suggests that the word for heaven, oéranñw, is etymologically connected with the verb ir�n, to see, from which tò iratñn, the visible, is derived.

[37]      Adam remarked, dispositively: "There should be no question that Plato wrote �nisa. If the line is bisected, all four segments are equal, and the elaborate proportions drawn in 510a, 511e, VII 534a represent no corresponding relations between the different segments of the line... The relevant consideration is...different degrees of clearness and truth."

 

[38]      tò dojastñn, the judgeable or opinable or believable, now substitutes for tò iratñn, the visible, with consequent breadth of application.

[39]      Reading mimhyeÝsin with A, Proclus and Adam; tmhyeÝsin with D, M and Shorey, "using as images what before was divided", is less specific and more vague.

[40]      The Idea of the Good, VII 532a ff.

[41]      imologoum¡nvw. Adam compares imologÛan at VII 533c 5, and suggests that the expression, "refers to the agreement between premises, intermediate steps, and conclusion." If so, agreement involves implication and not mere compatibility.

[42]      That is, the mathematical arts, to be described in Book VII as part of advanced education.

[43]      Shorey comments: "As we use the word tree of the trees we see, though the reality (aétò  _  ¦sti) is the idea of a tree, so they would speak of the shadows as the world, through the real reference unknown to them would be to the objects that cause the shadows, and back of the objects to the things of the 'real' world of which they are copies. The general meaning, which is quite certain, is that they would suppose the shadows to be the realities... They suppose that the names refer to the passing shadows, but (as we know) they really apply to the objects. Ideas and particulars are homonymous."

[44]      Odyssey XI 489-90. Achilles visits the place of the dead, and declares he would rather be the servant of a landless man on earth than king of the flickering shades of the dead. By implication, the prisoners chained in the Cave suffer a living death.

 [45]       y�kon: seat, but also privy seat.

[46]       An allusion to the trial and death of Socrates.

[47]       mñgiw. See Phaedrus 24..

[48]      Adam remarks: "Sophists profess to put knowledge into the soul; but Plato's argument indicates that the power or faculty of knowledge, and its organ reason are already present in the soul of each individual, just as vision and eyes are already possessed by the prisoners in the cave. Reason is in factc the divine thing in us, according to Plato, through whose indwelling man is most truly man by being like God (Vi 501b, IX 589d). The doctrine that learning is recollection implies fundamentally the same view; see Meno 81 ff., Phaedo 72e-76d, especialy 73a. We may even go further and say that Plato's conception of the divine element in man is the ultimate basis of all his proofs of immortality. In its deeper bearings, therefore, the view of education here presented is incomparably grander and more profound that the usual connotation of the word either in ancient or in modern times. We educate our pupils, not for time, but for eternity. (VI 498d, cf. 618c ff. and Phaedo 107d ff.)... It should carefully be noted that in Platos's theory of education the entire soul is involved. The Platonic turning around, although, or perhaps because, it applies primarily and immediately to the intellect, effects a moral not less than an intellectual revolution. The moral discipline of Books II-IV, so far from being overthrown, is strengthened and consolidated by being intellectualised."

[49]      Adam remarks: "Plato began by asserting that education is not what certain Sophists declare it to be --- the putting of sight, as it were, into blind eyes. For there is already in every man's soul an eye or organ, which sees or learns already; what is required is to turn this organ round. Hence he concludes education is not (as the Sophists say) an art of putting sight into the soul's eye, but an art of turning round just this very eye or organ which is present in every soul from the first."

[50]      Adam remarks: "Plato does not mean to deny that they are virtues, but that they do not belong to the soul essentially and from the first. Plato does not here discard the virtues of Book IV; he is contrasting these and other virtues or excellences with thinking."

[51]       cf. IV 4l9a-42lc, V 466a.

[52]      These images, eàdvla, evidently include both the shadows on the wall of the Cave and the objects, imitations of things outside, which cast those shadows.

[53]       The reference is to a children's game: the shell was black on one side, white on the other, indicating randomness of result, the flip of a coin. 

 [54]      tò §n. One, in apposition with two and three. Used as a noun, the expresssion has no opposite, as distinct from the adjectival use, whose opposite is "many".

[55]      The word aàsyhsiw may mean perception or sensation, or more generally, awareness. The contrary judgements which perception provides are attributed to opinion in V 479a-e.

[56]      Adam compares Phaedo 101a ff., especially 102b ff., and Theaetetus 154c.

[57]      Or, "Perceiving the same thing as both hard and soft."

[58]      Or, "What largeness is, and again, what smallness is."