Book 5

SOCRATES’ NARRATION CONTINUES: (449a) SOCRATES: That, then, is the sort of city and constitution—and the sort of man—I call good and correct. And if indeed this one is correct, all the oth- ers are bad and mistaken, both as city governments and as ways of organiz- ing the souls of private individuals.The deﬁcient ones fall into four kinds.

GLAUCON: What are they?

I was going to describe them in the order in which I thought they developedout of one another.1 But Polemarchus, who was sitting not far from Adeiman- (b) tus, extended his hand, gripped the latter’s cloak by the shoulder from above,drew Adeimantus toward him, and, leaning forward himself, said some thingsin his ear.We overheard nothing of what he said, other than this: Shall we let it go, then, or what?

ADEIMANTUS: (Now speaking aloud.) Certainly not.

SOCRATES: What is it exactly you won’t let go?

ADEIMANTUS: You! (c) SOCRATES: Why exactly? (a) ADEIMANTUS: We think you are being lazy, that you are robbing us of whole important section of the argument in order to avoid having to explain it.You thought we would not notice when you said—as though it were something inconsequential—that, as regards women and children, anyone could see that it will be a case of friends sharing everything in common.2

SOCRATES: But isn’t that correct, Adeimantus?

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, it is. But it is just like all the rest we have discussed; its correctness requires an explanation of how the sharing will be arranged, since there are many ways to bring it about. So, do not omit to tell us about (d) the particular one you have in mind. We have all been waiting for a long time in the expectation that you would surely discuss how procreation will be handled, how the children that are born will be reared, and the whole [1]: This task is taken up in Book 8.

[2]: See 423e4–424a2.

subject of what you mean by sharing women and children.You see, we think that this makes a considerable difference—indeed, all the difference— to whether a constitution is correct or incorrect. So now that you are beginning to describe another constitution without having analyzed this matter adequately, we are resolved, as you overheard, not to let you go until (450a) you explain all this just as you did the rest.

GLAUCON: Include me, too, as having a share in this vote.

And Thrasymachus said: In fact, you can take it as the resolution of all of us, Socrates.

SOCRATES: What a thing to do, attacking me like that.You have started up (a) huge discussion about the constitution—it will be like starting from the beginning. I was delighted to think I had already completed its description by this time and was satisﬁed to have what I had said earlier be accepted as is.You do not realize what a swarm of arguments you are now stirring up (b) by making this demand. It was because I could see it that I left the topic aside, to avoid all the trouble it would cause us.

THRASYMACHUS: What of it? Don’t you think these people have come here now to listen to arguments, not to smelt ore?3 SOCRATES: Yes—within moderation, at least.

GLAUCON: But surely it is within moderation, Socrates, for people with any sense to listen to such arguments their whole life long. So never mind about us. Don’t you get tired of explaining your views on what we asked (c) about: namely, what the sharing of children and women will amount to for our guardians, and how the children will be brought up while they are still small. After all, the time between birth and the beginning of formal educa- tion seems to be the most troublesome period of all. So, try to tell us in what way it should be handled.

SOCRATES: It is not easy to explain, my happy fellow. It raises even more doubts than the topics we have discussed so far. One might, in fact, doubt whether what we proposed is possible, and, even if one granted that it is entirely so, one might still have doubts about whether it would be for the best.That, then, is why I was somewhat hesitant to bring it up: I was afraid, my dear comrade, that our argument might seem to be no more than wish- (d) ful thinking.

GLAUCON: Do not hesitate at all.You see, your audience won’t be incon- siderate, or incredulous, or hostile.

[3]: A proverbial expression applied to those who neglect the task at hand for an uncer- tain proﬁt.Thrasymachus is reminding Socrates of his own words at 336e4–9.

SOCRATES: My very good fellow, are you saying that because you want to encourage me?

GLAUCON: I am.

SOCRATES: Well, you are having precisely the opposite effect. If I were conﬁdent that I was speaking with knowledge, your encouragement would be all very well. When one is among knowledgeable and beloved friends, and one is speaking what one knows to be the truth about the most important and most beloved things, one can feel both secure and (e) conﬁdent. But to produce arguments when one is uncertain and search- (451a) ing, as I am doing, is a frightening thing and makes one feel insecure. I am not afraid of being ridiculed—that would be childish, indeed—but I am afraid that if I fail to secure the truth, just where it is most important to do so, I will not only fall myself but drag my friends down as well. So I bow to Adrasteia, Glaucon, for what I am about to say.You see, I suspect that involuntary homicide is a lesser crime than misleading people about beau- tiful, good, and just conventions. That is a risk it would be better to run among enemies than among friends. So you have well and truly encour- (b) aged me.

Glaucon laughed and said: Well, Socrates, if we suffer from any false note you strike in the argument, we will release you, as we would in a homicide case, as guiltless and no deceiver of us. So you may speak with conﬁdence.

SOCRATES: Well, it is true; the one who is acquitted in that situation is guiltless, so the law says. And if it is true there, it is probably true here, too.

GLAUCON: On these grounds, then, tell us.

SOCRATES: I will have to go back again, then, and say now what perhaps I (c) should have said then in the proper place. But maybe it is all right, after having completed a male drama, to perform a female one next4—especially when you demand it in this way. For people born and educated as we have described, then, there is, I believe, no correct way to acquire and employ children and women other than to follow the path on which we ﬁrst set them. Surely, in our argument, we tried to establish the men as guard-dogs of their ﬂock.

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then let’s proceed by giving corresponding rules for birth and (d) rearing, and see whether they suit us or not.

[4]: This may be an allusion to the mimes of Sophron of Syracuse (c. 470–400 BCE), which were divided into male mimes, in which men were represented, and female ones, in which women were represented.

GLAUCON: How?

SOCRATES: As follows. Do we think that the females of our guard-dogs should join in guarding precisely what the males guard, hunt with them, and share everything with them? Or do we think that they should stay indoors and look after the house,5 on the grounds that they are incapable of doing this because they must bear and rear the puppies, while the males should work and have the entire care of the ﬂock?

GLAUCON: They should share everything—except that we employ the (e) females as we would weaker animals, and the males as we would stronger ones.

SOCRATES: Is it possible, then, to employ an animal for the same tasks as another if you do not give it the same upbringing and education?

GLAUCON: No, it is not.

SOCRATES: Then if we employ women for the same tasks as men, they must also be taught the same things. (452a) GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Now, we gave the latter musical and physical training.

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, we must also give these two crafts, as well as military train- ing, to the women, and employ them in the same way.

GLAUCON: That seems reasonable, given what you say.

SOCRATES: But perhaps many of the things we are now saying, because they are contrary to custom, would seem ridiculous if they were put into practice.

GLAUCON: Indeed, they would.

SOCRATES: What do you see as the most ridiculous aspect of them? Isn’t it obvious that it is the idea of the women exercising stripped in the palestras alongside the men?6 And not just the young women, but the older ones (b) too—like the old men we see in gymnasiums who, even though their bod- ies are wrinkled and not pleasant to look at, still love physical training.

[5]: Respectable, well-to-do women lived secluded lives in most Greek states: they were conﬁned to the household (see 579b8) and to domestic work and were largely excluded from the public spheres of culture, politics, and warfare. See John Gould, “Law, Custom and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of Women in Classical Ath- ens,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 100 (1980): 38–59.

[6]: The women will be gumnozomenas, which can mean stripped naked, but often also means wearing a tunic, or undergarment, without a cloak (see 457a6–7). A palestra was a wrestling school and training ground.

GLAUCON: Yes, by Zeus, that would look really ridiculous, at least under present conditions.

SOCRATES: Yet, since we have started to discuss the matter, we must not be afraid of the various jokes that the wits will make both about this sort of change in musical and physical training and—even more so—about the change in the bearing of arms and the mounting of cavalry horses.7 (c) GLAUCON: You are right.

SOCRATES: But since we have started, we must move on to the rougher part of the law, and ask these wits not to do their own job, but to be serious.

And we will remind them that it is not long since the Greeks thought it shameful and ridiculous (as many barbarians still do) for men to be seen stripped, and that when ﬁrst the Cretans and then the Lacedaemonians (a) began the gymnasiums, the wits of the time had the opportunity to make (d) comedy of it all. Or don’t you think so?

GLAUCON: I certainly do.

SOCRATES: But when it became clear, I take it, to those who employed these practices, that it was better to strip than to cover up all such parts, the laughter in the eyes faded away because of what the arguments had proved to be best. And this showed that it is a fool who ﬁnds anything ridiculous except what is bad, or tries to raise a laugh at the sight of anything except what is stupid or bad, or—putting it the other way around—who takes (e) seriously any standard of what is beautiful other than what is good.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Well, then, shouldn’t we ﬁrst agree about whether our propos- als are viable or not? And mustn’t we give anyone who wishes to do so— whether it is someone who loves a joke or someone serious—the opportu- (453a) nity to dispute whether the female human does have the natural ability to share in all the tasks of the male sex, or in none at all, or in some but not others; and, in particular, whether this holds in the case of warfare? By making the best beginning in this way, wouldn’t one also be likely to reach the best conclusion?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: So, would you like us to dispute with one another on their behalf, so that their side of the argument won’t be attacked without defenders? (b) GLAUCON: Why not?

[7]: A reference, perhaps, to Aristophanes, Assembly Women, which makes fun of the idea of women having political power and making laws like these. As in English, the term hoplon (“weapon” or “tool”) was used to refer to the male genitals, and ocheuein (“mounting,”“riding”) to refer to sexual intercourse (as at 454e1).

SOCRATES: Then let’s say this on their behalf: “Socrates and Glaucon, you do not need other people to dispute you. After all, you yourselves, when you were beginning to found your city, agreed that each one had to do the one job for which he was naturally suited.” GLAUCON: We did agree to that, I think. Of course we did.

SOCRATES: “Can it be, then, that a woman is not by nature very different from a man?” GLAUCON: Of course she is different.

SOCRATES: “Then isn’t it also appropriate to assign a different job to each of them, the one for which they are naturally suited?” (c) GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: “How is it, then, that you are not making a mistake now and contradicting yourselves, when you say that men and women must do the same jobs, seeing that they have natures that are most distinct?” Do you have any defense, you amazing fellow, against that attack?

GLAUCON: It is not easy to think of one on the spur of the moment. On the contrary, I shall ask—indeed, I am asking—you to explain the argu- ment on our side as well, whatever it is.

SOCRATES: That, Glaucon, and many other problems of the same sort, (d) which I foresaw long ago, was what I was afraid of when I hesitated to tackle the law concerning the possession and upbringing of women and children.

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, it certainly does not seem to be a simple matter.

SOCRATES: No, it is not. But the fact is that whether one falls into a small diving pool or into the middle of the largest sea, one has to swim all the same.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Then we must swim, too, and try to save ourselves from the sea of argument, hoping for a dolphin to pick us up, or for some other unlikely rescue.8 (e) GLAUCON: It seems so.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, let’s see if we can ﬁnd a way out. We have agreed, of course, that different natures must have different pursuits, and that the natures of a woman and a man are different. But we now say that those different natures must have the same pursuits. Isn’t that the charge against us?

[8]: The story of Arion’s rescue by the dolphin is told in Herodotus, Histories 1.23–4.

GLAUCON: Yes, exactly.

SOCRATES: What a noble power, Glaucon, the craft of disputation9 pos- (454a) sesses!

GLAUCON: Why is that?

SOCRATES: Because many people seem to me to fall into it even against their wills, and think they are engaging not in eristic,10 but in discussion.

This happens because they are unable to examine what has been said by dividing it up into kinds. Instead, it is on the purely verbal level that they look for the contradiction in what has been said, and employ eristic, not dialectic, on one another.

GLAUCON: Yes, that certainly does happen to many people. But surely it is not pertinent to us at the moment, is it?

SOCRATES: It most certainly is. At any rate, we are in danger of uncon- (b) sciously dealing in disputation.

GLAUCON: How?

SOCRATES: We are trying to establish the principle that different natures should not be assigned the same pursuits in a bold and eristic manner, on the verbal level. But we did not at all investigate what kind of natural difference or sameness we had in mind, or in what regard the distinction was perti- nent, when we assigned different pursuits to different natures and the same ones to the same.

GLAUCON: No, we did not investigate that.

SOCRATES: And because we did not, it is open to us, apparently, to ask (c) ourselves whether the natures of bald and long-haired men are the same or opposite. And, once we agree that they are opposite, it is open to us to for- bid the long-haired ones to be shoemakers, if that is what the bald ones are to be, or vice versa.

GLAUCON: But that would be ridiculous.

SOCRATES: And is it ridiculous for any other reason than that we did not have in mind every kind of difference and sameness in nature, but were keeping our eyes only on the kind of difference and sameness that was per- (d) tinent to the pursuits themselves? We meant, for example, that a male and female whose souls are suited for medicine have the same nature. Or don’t you think so?

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: But a male doctor and a male carpenter have different ones?

[9]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. disputation.

[10]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. eristic.

GLAUCON: Of course, completely different.

SOCRATES: In the case of both the male and the female sex, then, if one of them is shown to be different from the other with regard to a particular craft or pursuit, we will say that is the one who should be assigned to it.

But if it is apparent that they differ in this respect alone, that the female bears the offspring while the male mounts the female, we will say it has not (e) yet been demonstrated that a woman is different from a man with regard to what we are talking about, and we will continue to believe our guardians and their women should have the same pursuits.

GLAUCON: And rightly so.

SOCRATES: Next, won’t we urge our opponent to tell us the precise craft (455a) or pursuit, relevant to the organization of the city, for which a woman’s nature and a man’s are not the same but different?

GLAUCON: That would be a fair question, at least. (a) SOCRATES: Perhaps, then, this other person might say, just as you did moment ago,11 that it is not easy to give an adequate answer on the spur of

the moment, but that after reﬂection it would not be at all difﬁcult.

GLAUCON: Yes, he might say that.

SOCRATES: Do you want us to ask the one who disputes things in this way, then, to follow us to see whether we can somehow show him that there is (b) no pursuit relevant to the management of the city that is peculiar to women?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, we will say to him, give us an answer: “Is this what you meant by one person being naturally well suited for something and another naturally unsuited: that the one learns it easily, the other with difﬁculty; that the one, after a little instruction, can discover a lot for him- self in the subject being studied, whereas the other, even if he gets a lot of instruction and attention, does not even retain what he was taught; that the bodily capacities of the one adequately serve his mind, while those of the (c) other obstruct his? Are there any other factors than these, by which you distinguish a person who is naturally well suited for each pursuit from one who is not?” GLAUCON: No one will be able to mention any others.

SOCRATES: Do you know of anything practiced by human beings, then, at which the male sex is not superior to the female in all those ways? Or must we make a long story of it by discussing weaving and the preparation of [11]: 453c7–9.

baked and boiled food12—the very pursuits in which the female sex is thought to excel, and in which its defeat would expose it to the greatest (d) ridicule of all?

GLAUCON: It is true that the one sex shows greater mastery than the other in pretty much every area.Yet there are many women who are better than many men at many things. But on the whole, it is as you say.

SOCRATES: Then, my friend, there is no pursuit relevant to the manage- (a) ment of the city that belongs to a woman because she is a woman, or to man because he is a man; but the various natural capacities are distributed in a similar way between both creatures, and women can share by nature in every pursuit, and men in every one, though for the purposes of all of them women are weaker than men.13 (e) GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: So shall we assign all of them to men and none to women?

GLAUCON: How could we?

SOCRATES: We could not. For we will say, I imagine, that one woman is suited for medicine, another not, and that one is naturally musical, another not.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Won’t one be suited for physical training or war, then, while (456a) another is unwarlike and not a lover of physical training?

GLAUCON: I suppose so.

SOCRATES: And one a philosopher (lover of wisdom), another a “misoso- pher” (hater of wisdom)? And one spirited, another spiritless?

GLAUCON: That too.

SOCRATES: So there is also a woman who is suited to be a guardian, and one who is not. Or wasn’t that the sort of nature we selected for our male guardians, too?14 GLAUCON: It certainly was.

SOCRATES: A woman and a man can have the same nature, then, relevant to guarding the city—except to the extent that she is weaker and he is stronger.

GLAUCON: Apparently so.

[12]: Men were in charge of roasting meat. See 404b10–c4.

[13]: Epi pasi:The claim is not that no woman is stronger or better than any man in any such pursuit (which would contradict 455d4–5), but that the physical weakness of women is a relevant factor in all of them. See 451e1–2, 456a10–11. [14]: 374e4–376c5.

SOCRATES: Women of that sort, then, must be selected to live and guard (b) with men of the same sort, since they are competent to do so and are akin to the men by nature.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And mustn’t we assign the same pursuits to the same natures?

GLAUCON: Yes, the same ones.

SOCRATES: We have come around, then, to what we said before, and we are agreed that it is not against nature to assign musical and physical training to the female guardians.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: So, we are not legislating impossibilities or mere fantasies, at any rate, since the law we were proposing is in accord with nature. Rather, (c) it is the contrary laws that we have now that turn out to be more contrary to nature, it seems.

GLAUCON: It does seem that way.

SOCRATES: Now, wasn’t our inquiry about whether our proposals were both viable and best?

GLAUCON: Yes, it was.

SOCRATES: And that they are in fact viable has been agreed, hasn’t it?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, we must next come to an agreement about whether they are for the best?

GLAUCON: Clearly.

SOCRATES: Now, as regards producing a woman who is equipped for guardianship, we won’t have one sort of education that will produce our guardian men, will we, and another our women—especially not when it (d) will have the same nature to work on in both cases?

GLAUCON: No, we won’t.

SOCRATES: What is your belief about this, then?

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: The notion that one man is better or worse than another—or do you think they are all alike?

GLAUCON: Not at all.

SOCRATES: In the city we are founding, who do you think will turn out to be better men: our guardians, who get the education we have described, or the shoemakers, who are educated in shoemaking?

GLAUCON: What a ridiculous question!

(e) SOCRATES: I realize that. Aren’t the guardians the best of the citizens?

GLAUCON: By far.

SOCRATES: And what about the female guardians? Won’t they be the best of the women?

GLAUCON: Yes, they are by far the best, too.

SOCRATES: Is there anything better for a city than that the best possible men and women should come to exist in it?

GLAUCON: No, there is not.

SOCRATES: And that is what musical and physical training, employed as we (457a) have described, will achieve?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Then the law we were proposing was not only possible, but also best for a city?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then the female guardians must strip, clothing themselves in virtue instead of cloaks.15 They must share in warfare, and whatever else guarding the city involves, and do nothing else. But within these areas, the women must be assigned lighter tasks than the men, because of the weakness of their sex. And the man who laughs at the sight of women stripped for physical training, when their stripping is for the best, is “plucking the unripe fruit of laughter’s wisdom,”16 and knows nothing, it seems, about (b) what he is laughing at or what he is doing. For it is, and always will be, the ﬁnest saying that what is beneﬁcial is beautiful; what is harmful ugly.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: May we claim, then, that we are avoiding one wave,17 as it were, in our discussion of the law about women, so that we are not alto- gether swept away when we declare that our male and female guardians must (c) share all their pursuits, and that our argument is somehow self-consistent when it states that this is both viable and beneﬁcial?

GLAUCON: It is certainly no small wave that you are avoiding.

SOCRATES: You won’t think it is so big when you see the next one.

GLAUCON: I won’t see it unless you tell me about it.18 SOCRATES: The law that is consistent with that one, and with the others that preceded it, is this, I take it.

[15]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. cloak.

[16]: Plato is adapting a phrase of Pindar.

[17]: The metaphor begins at 453c10–d7.

[18]: See 432c3–4.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: That all these women should be shared among all the men, (d) that no individual woman and man should live together, and that the chil- dren, too, should be shared, with no parent knowing its own offspring, and no child its parent.

GLAUCON: That wave is far bigger and more dubitable than the other, both as regards its viability and its beneﬁt.

SOCRATES: As far as its beneﬁt is concerned, at least, I do not think any- one would argue that the sharing of women and children is not the greatest good, if indeed it is viable. But I imagine there would be a lot of dispute about whether or not it is viable. (e) GLAUCON: No, both could very well be disputed.

SOCRATES: You mean I will have to face a coalition of arguments. I thought I had at least escaped one of them—namely, whether you thought the proposal was beneﬁcial—and that I would just be left with the argu- ment about whether it is viable or not.

GLAUCON: Well, you did not escape unnoticed. So you will have to give an argument for both.

SOCRATES: I must pay the penalty. But do me this favor: let me take a hol- (458a) iday and act like those lazy people who make a banquet for themselves of their own thoughts when they are walking alone. People like that, as you know, do not bother to ﬁnd out how any of their appetites might actually be fulﬁlled, so as to avoid the trouble of deliberating about what is possible and what is not. They assume that what they want is available, and then proceed to arrange all the rest, taking pleasure in going through everything they will do when they get it—thus making their already lazy souls even (b) lazier. Well, I, too, am succumbing to this weakness at the moment and want to postpone consideration of the viability of our proposals until later. I will assume now that they are viable, if you will permit me to do so, and examine how the rulers will arrange them when they come to pass. And I will try to show that, if they were put into practice, they would be the most beneﬁcial arrangements of all, both for the city and for its guardians.These are the things I will try to examine with you ﬁrst, leaving the others for later—if indeed you will permit this.

GLAUCON: You have my permission; so proceed with the examination.

SOCRATES: Well, then, I imagine that if indeed our rulers, and likewise (c) their auxiliaries, are worthy of their names, the latter will be prepared to carry out orders, and the former to give orders, obeying our laws in some cases and imitating them in the others that we leave to their discretion.

GLAUCON: Probably so.

SOCRATES: Now, you are their lawgiver, and in just the way you selected these men, you will select as the women to hand over to them those who have natures as similar to theirs as possible. And because they have shared dwellings and meals, and none of them has any private property of that (d) sort, they will live together; and through mixing together in the gymnasia and in the rest of their daily life, they will be driven by innate necessity, I take it, to have sex with one another. Or don’t you think I am talking about necessities here?

GLAUCON: Not geometric necessities, certainly, but erotic ones; and they probably have a sharper capacity to persuade and attract most people.

SOCRATES: They do, indeed. But the next point, Glaucon, is that for them to have unregulated sexual intercourse with one another, or to do anything else of that sort, would not be a pious thing in a city of happy (e) people, and the rulers won’t allow it.

GLAUCON: No, it would not be just.

SOCRATES: It is clear, then, that we will next have to make marriages as sacred as possible.And sacred marriages will be those that are most beneﬁcial.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: How, then, will the most beneﬁcial ones come about? Tell me (459a) this, Glaucon. I see you have hunting dogs and quite a ﬂock of noble birds at home.19 Have you, by Zeus, noticed anything in particular about their “marriages” and breeding?

GLAUCON: Like what?

SOCRATES: In the ﬁrst place, though they are all noble animals, aren’t there some that are, or turn out to be, the very best?

GLAUCON: There are.

SOCRATES: Do you breed from them all to the same extent, then, or do you try hard to breed as far as possible from the best ones?

GLAUCON: From the best ones. (b) SOCRATES: And do you breed from the youngest, the oldest, or as far as possible from those in their prime?

GLAUCON: From those in their prime.

SOCRATES: And if they were not bred in this way, do you think that your race of birds and dogs would get much worse?

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: And what do you think about horses and other animals? Is the situation any different with them?

[19]: Both hunting dogs and aviaries were common in rich Greek households.

GLAUCON: It would be strange if it were.

SOCRATES: Good heavens, my dear comrade! Then our need for eminent rulers is quite desperate, if indeed the same also holds for the human race. (c) GLAUCON: Well, it does hold of them. But so what?

SOCRATES: It follows that our rulers will then have to employ a great many drugs.You know that when people do not need drugs for their bod- ies, and they are prepared to follow a regimen, we regard even an inferior doctor as adequate. But when drugs are needed, we know that a much bolder doctor is required.

GLAUCON: That’s true. But what is your point?

SOCRATES: This: it looks as though our rulers will have to employ a great many lies and deceptions for the beneﬁt of those they rule. And you remember, I suppose, we said all such things were useful as a kind of drug.20 (d) GLAUCON: And we were correct.

SOCRATES: Well, in the case of marriages and procreation, its correctness is particularly evident.

GLAUCON: How so?

SOCRATES: It follows from our previous agreement that the best men should mate with the best women in as many cases as possible, while the opposite should hold of the worst men and women; and that the offspring of the former should be reared, but not that of the latter, if our ﬂock is (e) going to be an eminent one. And all this must occur without anyone knowing except the rulers—if, again, our herd of guardians is to remain as free from faction as possible.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely right.

SOCRATES: So then, we will have to establish by law certain festivals and sacriﬁces at which we will bring together brides and bridegrooms, and our (460a) poets must compose suitable hymns for the marriages that take place. We will leave the number of marriages for the rulers to decide.That will enable them to keep the number of males as constant as possible, taking into account war, disease, and everything of that sort; so that the city will, as far as possible, become neither too big nor too small.21

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: I imagine that some sophisticated lotteries will have to be cre- ated, then, so that an inferior person of that sort will blame chance rather than the rulers at each mating time. [20]: 382c6–d3.

[21]: See 423b4–c5.

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: And presumably, the young men who are good at war or at (b) other things must—among other prizes and awards—be given a greater opportunity to have sex with the women, in order that a pretext may also be created at the same time for having as many children as possible fathered by such men.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: And then, as offspring are born, won’t they be taken by the ofﬁcials appointed for this purpose, whether these are men or women or both—for surely our ofﬁces are also open to both women and men.

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: And I suppose they will take the offspring of good parents to (c) the rearing pen and hand them over to special nurses who live in a separate part of the city. But those of inferior parents, or any deformed offspring of the others, they will hide in a secret and unknown place, as is ﬁtting.22

GLAUCON: Yes, if indeed the race of guardians is going to remain pure.

SOCRATES: And won’t these nurses also take care of the children’s feeding by bringing the mothers to the rearing pen when their breasts are full, while devising every device23 to ensure that no mother will recognize her (d) offspring? And won’t they provide other women as wet nurses if the moth- ers themselves have insufﬁcient milk—taking care, however, that the moth- ers breast-feed the children for only a moderate period of time, and assigning sleepless nights and similar burdens to the nurses and wet nurses?

GLAUCON: You are making childbearing a soft job for the guardians’ women.

SOCRATES: Yes, properly so. But let’s take up the next thing we proposed.

We said, as you know, that offspring should be bred from parents who are in their prime.24

GLAUCON: True. (a) SOCRATES: Do you agree that a woman’s prime lasts, on average, for (e) period of twenty years and a man’s for thirty?

GLAUCON: Which years are those?

SOCRATES: A woman should bear children for the city from the age of twenty to that of forty; whereas a man should beget them for the city [22]: Infanticide by exposure was commonly used in ancient Greece as a method of birth control.

[23]: See 414b8–c2. [24]: 452b1–3.

from the time that he passes his peak as a runner until he reaches ﬁfty- ﬁve.25 (461a) GLAUCON: At any rate, that is the physical and mental prime for both.

SOCRATES: Then if any male who is younger or older than that engages in reproduction for the community, we will say that his offense is neither pious nor just. For the child he fathers for the city, if it escapes discovery, will be begotten and born without the beneﬁt of sacriﬁces, or of the prayers that priestesses, priests, and the entire city will offer at every mar- riage festival, asking that from good and beneﬁcial parents ever better and (b) more beneﬁcial offspring should be produced. On the contrary, it will be born in darkness through a terrible act of lack of self-control.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: The same law will apply if a man who is still of breeding age has sex with a woman in her prime when the rulers have not mated them.

We will say that he is imposing an illegitimate, unauthorized, and unholy child on the city.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely right.

SOCRATES: But when women and men have passed breeding age, I imag- ine we will leave them free to have sex with whomever they wish—except (c) that a man may not have sex with his daughter, mother, daughters’ daugh- ters, or mother’s female ancestors, or a woman with her son and his descen- dants or her father and his ancestors. And we will permit all that only after telling them to be very careful not to let even a single fetus see the light of day, if one should happen to be conceived; but if one does force its way out, they must dispose of it on the understanding that no nurture is avail- able for such a child.

GLAUCON: All that sounds reasonable. But how will they recognize one (d) another’s fathers, daughters, and the others you mentioned?

SOCRATES: They won’t. Instead, from the day a man becomes a bride- groom, he will call all offspring born in the tenth month afterward (and in [25]: Greek women were often married before they turned twenty.The puzzling char- acterization of the minimum age for male procreation is, perhaps, explained by a pas- sage from Aristotle’s Politics:“As to the bodily characteristics in parents that are most beneﬁcial to the offspring being produced. . . . Neither the physical condition of athletes nor that of one who is overly reliant on medical treatment and poorly suited to exertion is useful from the point of view of health or procreation, or is the condi- tion needed in a good citizen. But the condition that is in a mean between these two is useful for these purposes.The proper physical condition, therefore, is one that is achieved by exertion, but not by violent exertion, and that promotes not just one thing, as the athletic condition does, but the actions of free people. And these should be provided to women and men alike” (7.16 1335b2–12).

the seventh, of course) his sons,26 if they are male, and his daughters, if they are female; and they will call him father. Similarly, he will call their children his grandchildren, and they, in turn, will call the group to which he belongs grandfathers and grandmothers.And those who were born at the same time as their mothers and fathers were breeding, they will call their brothers and (e) sisters. Thus, as we were saying just now, they will avoid sexual relations with each other. However, the law will allow brothers and sisters to have sex with one another, if the lottery works out that way and the Pythia approves.27 GLAUCON: You are absolutely right.

SOCRATES: That, then, Glaucon, or something like it, is how the sharing of women and children by the guardians of your city will be handled.The next point we need to have conﬁrmed by argument, then, is that this arrangement is both consistent with the rest of the constitution and by far the best. Isn’t that so? (462a) GLAUCON: Yes, by Zeus, it is.

SOCRATES: As a beginning step toward reaching agreement, shouldn’t we ask ourselves what we think is the greatest good for the organization of the city—the one at which the legislator should aim in making its laws—and what the greatest evil? And then examine whether what we have just described is in harmony with the tracks of the good we have found, and in disharmony with those of the bad?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Now, do we know of any greater evil for a city than what tears (b) it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or any greater good than what binds it together and makes it one?

GLAUCON: No, we do not.

SOCRATES: Well, doesn’t sharing pleasure and pain bind it together— when, as far as possible, all the citizens feel more or less the same joy or pain at the same gains or losses?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, doesn’t the privatization of these things dis- solve the city—when some are overwhelmed with distress and others over- (c) joyed by the same things happening to the city or some of its inhabitants?

GLAUCON: Of course.

[26]: These are lunar months.The period is from roughly seven to roughly nine calen- dar months.A fetus of less than seven months was considered nonviable.

[27]: Greek law did not usually permit marriage between biological siblings, who will be included in the class referred to here. See 427c3.

SOCRATES: And isn’t that what happens when people do not apply such phrases as “mine” and “not mine” in unison in the city? And similarly with “someone else’s”?

GLAUCON: Precisely.

SOCRATES: Then isn’t the city that is best governed the one in which the vast majority of people apply “mine” and “not mine” to the same things on the basis of the same principle?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And isn’t it the city whose condition is most like that of a sin- gle person? I mean, when one of us somehow hurts his ﬁnger, you know (a) the entire partnership—the one that binds body and soul together into single system under the ruling part within it—is aware of this, and all of it (d) as a whole feels the pain in unison with the part that suffers.That is why we say that this person has a pain in his ﬁnger. And the same principle applies, doesn’t it, to any other part of a person, whether it is suffering pain or relieved by pleasure?

GLAUCON: Yes, the same one. And, to answer your question, the city that manages to come closest to this condition is the best-governed one.

SOCRATES: I imagine, then, that whenever one of its citizens has an expe- rience, whether good or bad, such a city will most certainly say that the (e) experience is its own, and all of it together will share his pleasure or pain.

GLAUCON: That must be so, since it is well governed.

SOCRATES: It is time for us to return to our own city, then, to look there for the features we have agreed on and to see whether it, or rather some other city, possesses them to the greatest degree.

GLAUCON: Yes, it is.

SOCRATES: Well, now, what about those other cities? Presumably there are (463a) rulers and people in them as well as in ours?

GLAUCON: There are.

SOCRATES: And won’t all of them call one another “citizens”?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: But besides “citizens,” what do the people in those other cities call the rulers?

GLAUCON: In most, they call them “masters,” but in democracies they are called just that—“rulers.”28 [28]: The Athenian democracy had nine rulers (archons) in Plato’s time.These included the chief magistrates, the chief military leader, and an important authority in reli- gious matters.

SOCRATES: What about the people in our city? Besides “citizens,” what do they call the rulers?

GLAUCON: “Preservers”29 and “auxiliaries.” (b) SOCRATES: And what do they call the people?

GLAUCON: “Paymasters” and “providers.” SOCRATES: What do the rulers in other cities call the people?

GLAUCON: “Slaves.” SOCRATES: And what do the rulers call each other?

GLAUCON: “Co-rulers.” SOCRATES: And ours?

GLAUCON: “Co-guardians.” SOCRATES: Now, can you tell me whether a ruler in other cities could address one of his co-rulers as his kinsman and another as an outsider?

GLAUCON: Many do, at any rate.

SOCRATES: And doesn’t he regard and speak of his kinsman as belonging (c) to him, while he regards the outsider as not doing so?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: What about your guardians? Could any of them regard or address a co-guardian as an outsider?

GLAUCON: Certainly not. He will regard everyone he meets as a brother or a sister, a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, or some ancestor or descendant of these.

SOCRATES: Very well put. But tell me this, too: will your laws require them simply to use these terms of kinship, or must they also do all the (d) things that go along with the names? In the case of fathers, for example, must they show them the customary respect, solicitude, and obedience owed to parents? Will they fare worse at the hands of gods or men, as peo- ple whose actions are neither pious nor just, if they do otherwise? Will these be the sayings that are chanted by all the citizens, and that sound in their ears right from their earliest childhood? Or will they hear something else about their fathers—or the ones they are told to regard as their fathers—or about their other relatives?

GLAUCON: They will hear those. It would be ridiculous if they only (e) mouthed the terms of kinship, without the actions.

SOCRATES: So, in this city more than in any other, when someone is (a) doing well or badly, they will utter in concord the words we mentioned [29]: See 429c5.

moment ago, and say “my such-and-such is doing well” or “my so-and-so is doing badly.” GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true. (464a) SOCRATES: Well, didn’t we say that this conviction and way of talking are accompanied by the having of pleasures and pains in common?30 GLAUCON: Yes, and we were right to do so.

SOCRATES: Then won’t our citizens share to the fullest, and call “mine,” the very same thing? And because they share it, won’t they experience to the fullest the sharing of pleasures and pains?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And—in the context of the rest of the political system—isn’t the sharing of women and children by the guardians responsible for it?

GLAUCON: Yes, it is by far the most important cause.

SOCRATES: But we further agreed that this sharing is the greatest good for (b) (a) city, when we compared a well-governed city to the way a human body relates to pain and pleasure in one of its parts.

GLAUCON: And we were right to agree.

SOCRATES: Then we have shown that the cause of the greatest good for our city is the sharing of women and children by the auxiliaries.

GLAUCON: Yes, we certainly have.

SOCRATES: And what is more, it is consistent with what we said before.

For we said, as you know, that if these people are going to be real guardians, they should not have private houses, land, or any other possession, but (c) should receive their upkeep from the other citizens as a wage for their guardianship, and should all eat communally.31 GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: So, as I say, doesn’t what was said earlier, as well as what is being said now, make them into even better guardians and prevent them from tearing the city apart by applying the term “mine” not to the same thing, but to different ones—with one person dragging into his own house (a) whatever he, apart from the others, can get his hands on, and another into (d) different house to a different wife and children, who create private plea- sures and pains at things that are private? Instead of that, don’t our guardians share a single conviction about what is their own, aim at the same goal, and, as far as possible, feel pleasure and pain in unison?

GLAUCON: Absolutely. [30]: 462b4–c9. [31]: 416d3–417b8.

SOCRATES: What about lawsuits and accusations? Won’t they pretty much disappear from among them because they have no private possessions except their own bodies and share all the rest? As a result, won’t they be free from faction—at any rate, from the sort of faction that the possession of (e) property, children, and families causes among people?

GLAUCON: Yes, they will inevitably be entirely free of it.

SOCRATES: Moreover, lawsuits neither for violence nor for assault should justiﬁably occur among them. For we will declare, surely, that for people to defend themselves against others of the same age is a ﬁne and just thing, since it will compel them to stay in good physical shape.

GLAUCON: That’s right. (465a) SOCRATES: This law is also correct for another reason: if a spirited person vents his anger in this way, he will be less likely to move on to more serious sorts of faction.

GLAUCON: He certainly will.

SOCRATES: As for an older person, he will be authorized to rule and pun- ish all the younger ones.

GLAUCON: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And, unless the rulers command it, it is unlikely that a younger person will ever employ any sort of violence against an older one, or strike him. And I do not imagine he will fail to show him respect in other ways either, since two guardians—fear and shame—are sufﬁcient to prevent it.

Shame will prevent him from laying a hand on his parents, as will the fear that (b) the others would come to his victim’s aid—some because they are his sons, some because they are his brothers, and some because they are his fathers.

GLAUCON: Yes, that is what would happen.

SOCRATES: Then won’t the laws induce men to live at peace with one another in all respects?

GLAUCON: Very much so.

SOCRATES: And if there is no faction among the guardians, there is no ter- rible danger that the rest of the city will form factions, either against them or among themselves.

GLAUCON: No, there is not.

SOCRATES: As for the pettiest of the evils the guardians would escape, they are so unseemly, I hesitate even to mention them: the ﬂatteries of the rich (c) by the poor; the perplexities and sufferings involved in bringing up chil- dren; the need to make the money necessary to feed the household—the borrowings, the defaults, and all the things people have to do to provide an income to hand over to their wives and slaves to spend on housekeeping.

The various troubles men endure in these areas, my dear Glaucon, are obvious, quite demeaning, and not worth discussing. (d) GLAUCON: They are obvious even to the blind.

SOCRATES: They will escape from all these things, then, and live a more blessedly happy life than the most blessedly happy one—that of the victors in the Olympian games.

GLAUCON: How so? (a) SOCRATES: Surely, these victors are considered happy on account of only small part of what the guardians possess, since the latter victory is even ﬁner, and their upkeep from public funds more complete.32 After all, the victory they gain is the salvation of the whole city, and the crown of victory they and their children receive is their upkeep and all the necessities of life. (e) They receive privileges from their own city during their lifetime and a worthy burial after their death.

GLAUCON: Yes, those are very ﬁne rewards.

SOCRATES: Now, do you remember that earlier in our discussion we were rebuked by an argument—I forget whose—to the effect that we had not made our guardians happy, that though it was possible for them to have (466a) everything that belongs to the citizens, they actually had nothing? We said, didn’t we, that if this happened to come up at some point, we would look into it then, but that our concern at the time was to make our guardians guardians, and to make the city the happiest possible, rather than looking to any one group within it and molding it for happiness?33

GLAUCON: I remember.

SOCRATES: Well, then, if indeed the life of our auxiliaries has been shown to be much ﬁner and better than that of Olympian victors, is there any (b) need to compare it with the lives of shoemakers or any other craftsmen, or with that of the farmers?

GLAUCON: I do not think there is.

SOCRATES: Nevertheless, it is surely right to repeat here what I also said on that earlier occasion: if a guardian tries to become happy in such a way that he is no longer a guardian at all, and is not satisﬁed with a life that is moderate, stable, and (we claim) best, but is seized by a foolish, adolescent belief about happiness, which incites him to use his power to take every- (c) thing in the city for himself—he will come to realize the true wisdom of Hesiod’s saying that, in a sense,“the half is worth more than the whole.”34 [32]: Men victorious in the Olympic games were often awarded free meals for life by their cities. See Apology 36d5–9. [33]: 419a1–421c6.

[34]: Works and Days 40.

GLAUCON: If he takes my advice, he will keep to the former life.

SOCRATES: Do you agree, then, that the women should share with the men, in the way we described, in the areas of education, children, and guarding the other citizens; that whether they remain in the city or go out to war, they must guard together and hunt together, as hounds do, and (d) share everything to the extent possible; and that by behaving in this way, they will be doing what is best, not something contrary to the natural rela- tionship of female to male, and the one they are most naturally ﬁtted to share in with one another?

GLAUCON: I do agree.

SOCRATES: Then doesn’t it remain for us to determine whether it is also possible among human beings, as it is among other animals, for this sort of sharing to come about, and if so, how?

GLAUCON: You took the words out of my mouth.

SOCRATES: As far as war is concerned, I think it is clear how they will (e) wage it.

GLAUCON: How?

SOCRATES: They will go to war together.What is more, they will take the children with them to the war, when they are sturdy enough, so that, like the children of other craftsmen, they can see what they will have to do in their own craft when they are grown up. But in addition to observing, they (467a) should help and assist in every aspect of war, and take care of their mothers and fathers. For haven’t you noticed in the other crafts how the children of potters, for example, assist and watch for a long time before actually putting their hands to the clay?

GLAUCON: I have, indeed.

SOCRATES: Well, should these people take more care than the guardians in training their children by appropriate experience and observation?

GLAUCON: Of course not.That would be completely ridiculous.

SOCRATES: Besides, every animal will ﬁght better in the presence of its (b) young.

GLAUCON: That’s right. But there is a risk, Socrates, and not a small one (a) either, that in the event of a disaster of the sort that is likely to happen in war, they will lose their children’s lives as well as their own, making it impossible for the rest of the city to recover.

SOCRATES: That’s true. But, in the ﬁrst place, do you think they should arrange for the avoidance of all risk?

GLAUCON: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Well, then, if they must face some risk, shouldn’t it be one in which they will be improved by success?

GLAUCON: Clearly.

SOCRATES: But you think, do you, that it makes little difference—and so (c) is not worth the risk—whether or not men who are going to be warriors watch warfare when they are still boys?

GLAUCON: No, it does make a difference to what you are talking about.

SOCRATES: Starting from the assumption, then, that we are to make the children observers of war, we must further devise some way of keeping them safe.Then everything will be ﬁne, won’t it?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well, in the ﬁrst place, their fathers won’t be ignorant, will they, but rather as knowledgeable as people can be, about which military (d) campaigns are dangerous and which are not?

GLAUCON: Presumably so.

SOCRATES: So, they will take the children on the latter, but be wary of taking them on the former.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: And they will not put the worst people in charge of them, I presume, but those whose experience and age qualiﬁes them to be leaders and tutors.

GLAUCON: Yes, that would be proper.

SOCRATES: But we will say that the unexpected happens to many people and on many occasions.

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: So, with that in mind, my friend, we must provide the young children with wings at the outset, so that, if the need arises, they can ﬂy away and escape. (e) GLAUCON: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: We must mount them on horses when they are still very young, and when they have been taught to ride, they must be taken to view the ﬁghting, not on spirited or aggressive horses, but on the fastest and most manageable ones. In this way, they will get the best view of their own future job, and will be able to make the safest escape, if the need arises, by following their older leaders.

GLAUCON: I think you are right. (468a) SOCRATES: What about warfare itself? How should your soldiers behave toward one another and the enemy? Are my views correct or not?

GLAUCON: Tell me what they are.

SOCRATES: If one of them leaves his post, throws away his shield, or does anything else of that sort out of cowardice, shouldn’t he be demoted to craftsman or farmer?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if anyone is captured alive by the enemy, shouldn’t he be presented to his captors as a catch to use however they wish? (b) GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: But if someone distinguishes himself and earns high honors, do you or don’t you think that in the ﬁrst place, while still on campaign, he should be crowned in turn by each of the adolescents and children who are with the army?

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: What about shaking him by the right hand?

GLAUCON: That too.

SOCRATES: But I do not imagine you would go so far as this.

GLAUCON: As what?

SOCRATES: That he should kiss, and be kissed by, each of them.

GLAUCON: By all means. And I would add to the law that while they are still on campaign, no one he wants to kiss shall be allowed to refuse, so that (c) if anyone passionately loves another, whether male or female, he will try harder to win the prize for bravery.

SOCRATES: Excellent! For we have already mentioned that more opportu- nities for marriage will be available for a good man,35 and that men like him

will be selected more often than others for such things, so that as many children as possible may be produced from them.

GLAUCON: Yes, we did mention that.

SOCRATES: Moreover, according to Homer too, it is just to honor in such ways those young people who are good. For Homer says that when Ajax (d) distinguished himself in battle, he “was rewarded with the whole back- bone,”36 since he considered that to be an appropriate honor for a coura- geous young man because it honored him and built up his strength at the same time.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely right.

SOCRATES: Then we will follow Homer in this matter, at any rate. I mean that at sacriﬁces and all other such occasions, we too will honor good [35]: 460b1–5.

[36]: Iliad 7.321.

men—insofar as they have exhibited their goodness—not only with hymns and all the other things we mentioned, but also with “seats of honor, cuts of meats, and well-ﬁlled cups of wine,”37 so that while honoring our good (e) men and women, we may train them at the same time.

GLAUCON: That’s an excellent idea.

SOCRATES: All right. And if any of those who died while on campaign has had a particularly distinguished death, won’t we, in the ﬁrst place, declare that he belongs to the golden race?38

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: And won’t we believe with Hesiod that, whenever any of that (469a) race die, they become “unsullied daimons living upon the earth, noble beings, protectors against evil, guardians of articulate mortals?”39 GLAUCON: We will certainly believe that.

SOCRATES: Won’t we ask the god,40 then, to tell us how and with what distinction these daimons, these godlike people, should be buried, and per- form their burial in whatever way he prescribes?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And for the remainder of time, won’t we regard their graves as those of daimons, and take care of them and worship at them? And won’t (b) we follow these same rites whenever anyone who has been judged out- standingly good throughout his life dies of old age, or in some other way?

GLAUCON: It would be just to do so, at any rate.

SOCRATES: Now, what about enemies? How will our soldiers behave toward them?

GLAUCON: In what respect?

SOCRATES: First, as regards enslavement, do you think it is just for Greek cities to enslave other Greeks, or should they try as hard as possible not even to allow other cities to do so, and make a habit of sparing the Greek (c) race as a precaution against being enslaved by barbarians?

GLAUCON: Sparing them is by far the best course.

SOCRATES: So, they should not possess any Greek slaves themselves, and should advise the other Greeks to do the same?

GLAUCON: By all means. In that way, at any rate, they would be more likely to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands off one another.

[37]: Iliad 8.162.

[38]: See 415a1–c7.

[39]: Works and Days 122. See Glossary of Terms s.v. diamon.

[40]: Apollo. See 427c2 note.

SOCRATES: What about despoiling the dead? Is it a good thing to strip the dead of anything besides their armor after a victory? Doesn’t it give cowards (d) a pretext for not facing the enemy, since when they are greedily bending over corpses, they will be performing an important duty? And haven’t many armies been lost because of such plundering?

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed. (a) SOCRATES: Don’t you think it is illiberal and money-loving to strip corpse? And isn’t it small-minded and womanish to regard a dead body as your enemy, when the enemy himself has ﬂitted away leaving behind only the instrument with which he fought? Do you think that people who do this are any different from dogs who get angry with the stones thrown at (e) them but leave the person throwing them alone?

GLAUCON: No different at all.

SOCRATES: So they should not strip corpses, should they, or refuse the enemy permission to pick up their dead?

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, they certainly should not.

SOCRATES: Moreover, we surely won’t take weapons to the temples as offerings, and if we care anything about the goodwill of other Greeks, we (470a) especially won’t do this with Greek weapons. On the contrary, we would even be afraid of polluting41 the temples if we brought them such things from our own race, unless, of course, the god ordains otherwise.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely right.

SOCRATES: What about ravaging Greek land and burning Greek houses?

How will your soldiers behave toward their enemies?

GLAUCON: I would like to hear what you believe about that.

SOCRATES: Well, I believe they should do neither of these things, but (b) destroy only the year’s harvest. Do you want me to tell you why?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: It seems to me that just as we have the two names “war” and “faction,” so there are also two things, and the names apply to differences between the two.The two I mean are, on the one hand, what is one’s own and kin, and, on the other, what is foreign and strange. “Faction” applies to hostility toward one’s own,“war” to hostility toward strangers.

GLAUCON: Yes, there is nothing wrong with that claim. (c) SOCRATES: Consider, then, whether this too is correct. I say that the Greek race, in relation to itself, is its own and kin, but, in relation to bar- barians, is strange and foreign.

[41]: Greek views on pollution are discussed in R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: When Greeks ﬁght with barbarians, then, or barbarians with Greeks, we will say that that is warfare, that they are natural enemies, and that such hostilities should be called war. But when Greeks engage in such things with Greeks, we will say they are natural friends, that Greece is sick and divided into factions in such a situation, and that such hostilities should (d) be called faction.

GLAUCON: I, for one, agree to think that way.

SOCRATES: Now, notice that whenever something of the sort that is cur- rently called faction occurs and a city is divided, if each side devastates the land and burns the houses of the other, the faction is thought abominable and neither party is thought to love the city—otherwise they would never have dared to ravage their own nurse and mother.42 But it is thought rea- sonable for the ones who have proved stronger to carry off the weaker ones’ (e) crops, and to have the attitude of mind of people who will one day be rec- onciled and won’t always be at war.

GLAUCON: That attitude of mind is far more civilized than the other.

SOCRATES: What about the city you are founding? Won’t it be Greek?

GLAUCON: It will have to be.

SOCRATES: So won’t its citizens be good and civilized people?

GLAUCON: Indeed, they will.

SOCRATES: Then won’t they be lovers of Greeks? Won’t they consider Greece as their own and share the same religious festivals as other Greeks?

GLAUCON: Yes, indeed.

SOCRATES: Then won’t they regard their conﬂicts with Greeks—their (471a) own people—as faction, and not even use the name “war”?

GLAUCON: No, they won’t use it.

SOCRATES: And so, they will quarrel with the aim of being reconciled, won’t they?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: They will discipline their foes in a friendly spirit, then, and not punish them with enslavement and destruction, since they are disciplin- ers, not enemies.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: As Greeks, then, they won’t devastate Greece or burn its houses, nor will they agree that all the inhabitants in any city—men, [42]: See 414e1–6.

women, and children—are their enemies, but only those few responsible for the conﬂict. For all these reasons, they won’t be willing to devastate (b) their country, since the majority of the inhabitants are their friends, nor destroy the houses, and they will pursue the conﬂict only to the point at which those responsible are forced to pay the penalty by the innocent ones who are suffering painfully.

GLAUCON: I agree that this is how our citizens should treat their enemies, but they should treat barbarians the way Greeks currently treat each other.

SOCRATES: Then shall we also establish this law for the guardians, that (c) they should neither ravage Greek land nor burn Greek houses?

GLAUCON: Yes, let’s establish it. And let’s assume that this law and its pre- decessors are right. But, Socrates, I think that if you are allowed to go on talking about this sort of thing, you will never remember the topic you set aside in order to say all this—namely, whether it is possible for this consti- tution to come into existence, and how it could ever do so. I agree that if it came into existence, everything would be lovely for the city that had it. I will even add some advantages that you have left out: they would ﬁght excellently against their enemies because they would be least likely to (d) desert each other. After all, they recognize each other as brothers, fathers, and sons, and call each other by those names. And if the women, too, joined in their campaigns, either stationed in the same ranks or in the rear, either to strike terror in the enemy or to provide support should the need ever arise, I know that this would make them quite unbeatable. And I also see all the good things they would have at home that you have omitted. (e) Take it for granted that I agree that all these beneﬁts, as well as innumerable others, would result, if this constitution came into existence, and say no more about it. Instead, let’s now try to convince ourselves of just this: that it is possible and how it is possible, and let’s leave the rest aside. (472a) SOCRATES: All of a sudden, you have practically assaulted my argument and lost all sympathy for my holding back. Perhaps you do not realize that just as I have barely escaped from the ﬁrst two waves of objections, you are now bringing the biggest and most difﬁcult of the three down upon me.43 When you see and hear it, you will have complete sympathy and recognize that I had good reason after all for hesitating and for being afraid to state and try to examine so paradoxical an argument.

GLAUCON: The more you talk like that, the less we will let you get away (b) without explaining how this constitution could come into existence. So explain it, and do not delay any further.

SOCRATES: The ﬁrst thing to recall, then, is that it was our inquiry into the nature of justice and injustice that brought us to this point.

[43]: The third wave was proverbially the greatest.

GLAUCON: True. But what of it?

SOCRATES: Oh, nothing. However, if we discover the nature of justice, should we also expect the just man not to differ from justice itself in any way, but, on the contrary, to have entirely the same nature it does? Or will (c) we be satisﬁed if he approximates as closely as possible to it and partakes in it far more than anyone else?

GLAUCON: Yes, we will be satisﬁed with that.

SOCRATES: So, it was in order to have a model that we were inquiring into the nature of justice itself and of the completely just man, supposing he could exist, and what he would be like if he did; and similarly with injus- tice and the most unjust man.We thought that by seeing how they seemed to us to stand with regard to happiness and its opposite, we would also be compelled to agree about ourselves as well: that the one who was most like (d) them would have a fate most like theirs. But we were not doing this in order to demonstrate that it is possible for these men to exist.

GLAUCON: That’s true. (a) SOCRATES: Do you think, then, that someone would be any less good painter if he painted a model of what the most beautiful human being would be like, and rendered everything in the picture perfectly well, but could not demonstrate that such a man could actually exist?

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, I do not.

SOCRATES: What about our own case, then? Weren’t we trying, as we put it, to produce a model in our discussion of a good city?44 (e) GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: So, do you think that our discussion will be any less satisfac- tory if we cannot demonstrate that it is possible to found a city that is the same as the one we described in speech?

GLAUCON: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Then that is the truth of the matter. But if, in order to please you, we must do our best to demonstrate how, and under what condition, this would be most possible, you must again grant me the same points for the purposes of that demonstration.

GLAUCON: Which ones?

SOCRATES: Is it possible for anything to be carried out exactly as described (473a) in speech, or is it natural for practice to have less of a grasp of truth than speech does, even if some people do not think so? Do you agree with this or not?

[44]: See 369a5–c10.

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: Then do not compel me to demonstrate it as coming about in practice exactly as we have described it in speech. Rather, if we are able to discover how a city that most closely approximates to what we have described could be founded, you must admit that we have discovered how all you have prescribed could come about.45 Or wouldn’t you be satisﬁed (b) with that? I certainly would.

GLAUCON: Me, too.

SOCRATES: Then next, it seems, we should try to discover and show what is badly done in cities nowadays that prevents them from being managed our way, and what the smallest change would be that would enable a city to arrive at our sort of constitution—preferably one change; otherwise, two; otherwise, the fewest in number and the least extensive in effect. (c) GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Well, there is one change we could point to that I think would accomplish this. It certainly is not small or easy, but it is possible.

GLAUCON: What is it?

SOCRATES: I am now about to confront what we likened to the greatest wave.Yet, it must be stated, even if it is going to drown me in a wave of out- right ridicule and contempt, as it were. So listen to what I am about to say.

GLAUCON: Say it.

SOCRATES: Until philosophers rule as kings in their cities, or those who are nowadays called kings and leading men become genuine and adequate (d) philosophers so that political power and philosophy become thoroughly blended together, while the numerous natures that now pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils, my dear Glaucon, nor, I think, will the human race. And until that happens, the same constitution we have now described in our discus- (e) sion will never be born to the extent that it can, or see the light of the sun.

It is this claim that has made me hesitate to speak for so long. I saw how very unbelievable it would sound, since it is difﬁcult to accept that there can be no happiness, either public or private, in any other city.

GLAUCON: Socrates, what a speech, what an argument you have let burst with! But now that you have uttered it, you must expect that a great many people—and not undistinguished ones either—will immediately throw off (474a) their cloaks and, stripped for action, snatch any available weapon and make (a) headlong rush at you, determined to do terrible things to you. So, if you

[45]: As at 458c6 and 473e4–5, Socrates is supposing that Glaucon is designing the ideal city.

do not defend yourself by argument and escape, you really will pay the pen- alty of general derision.

SOCRATES: But aren’t you the one who is responsible for this happening to me?

GLAUCON: And I was right to do it. Still, I won’t desert you. On the con- trary, I will defend you in any way I can.And what I can do is provide good will and encouragement, and maybe give you more careful answers to your questions than someone else. So, with the promise of this sort of assistance, (b) try to demonstrate to the unbelievers that things are as you claim.

SOCRATES: I will have to, especially when you agree to be so great an ally!

If we are going to escape from the people you mention, I think we need to deﬁne for them who the philosophers are that we dare to say should rule; so that once that is clear, one can defend oneself by showing that some (c) people are ﬁtted by nature to engage in philosophy and to take the lead in a city, while there are others who should not engage in it, but should follow (a) leader.

GLAUCON: This would be a good time to deﬁne them.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, follow me on the path I am about to take, to see if it somehow leads to an adequate explanation.

GLAUCON: Lead on.

SOCRATES: Do I have to remind you, or do you recall, that when we say someone loves something, if the description is correct, it must be clear not just that he loves some part of it but not another; but, on the contrary, that he cherishes the whole of it?46

GLAUCON: You will have to remind me, it seems. I do not recall the point (d) at all.

SOCRATES: I did not expect you to give that response, Glaucon. A pas- sionate man should not forget that all boys in the bloom of youth somehow manage to sting and arouse a passionate lover of boys, and seem to merit his attention and passionate devotion. Isn’t that the way you people behave to beautiful boys? One, because he is snub-nosed, you will praise as “cute;” another who is hook-nosed you will say is “regal;” while the one in the (e) middle you say is “well proportioned.” Dark ones look “manly,” and pale ones are “children of the gods.” As for the “honey-colored,” do you think that this very term is anything but the euphemistic coinage of a lover who found it easy to tolerate a sallow complexion, provided it was accompanied by the bloom of youth? In a word, you people ﬁnd any excuse, and use any (475a) expression, to avoid rejecting anyone whose ﬂower is in full bloom.

[46]: See 437d8–e8, 475b11–c4.

GLAUCON: If you insist on taking me as your example of what passionate men do, I will go along with you . . . for the sake of argument!

SOCRATES: What about lovers of wine? Don’t you observe them behaving in just the same way? Don’t they ﬁnd any excuse to indulge their passionate devotion to wine of any sort?

GLAUCON: They do, indeed.

SOCRATES: And you also observe, I imagine, that if honor-lovers cannot become generals, they serve as lieutenants,47 and if they cannot be honored by important people and dignitaries, they are satisﬁed with being honored (b) by insigniﬁcant and inferior ones, since it is honor as a whole of which they are desirers.

GLAUCON: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Then do you afﬁrm this or not? When we say that someone has an appetite for something, are we to say that he has an appetite for everything of that kind, or for one part of it but not another?

GLAUCON: Everything.

SOCRATES: Then in the case of the philosopher, too, won’t we say that he has an appetite for wisdom—not for one part and not another, but for all of it?

GLAUCON: True.

SOCRATES: So, if someone is choosy about what he learns, especially if he (c) is young and does not have a rational grasp of what is useful and what is not, we won’t say that he is a lover of learning or a philosopher—any more than we would say that someone who is choosy about his food is famished, or has an appetite for food, or is a lover of food rather than a picky eater.

GLAUCON: And we would be right not to say it.

SOCRATES: But someone who is ready and willing to taste every kind of learning, who turns gladly to learning and is insatiable for it, he is the one we would be justiﬁed in calling a philosopher. Isn’t that so? (d) GLAUCON: In that case, many strange people will be philosophers! I mean, all the lovers of seeing are what they are, I imagine, because they take plea- sure in learning things. And the lovers of listening are very strange people to include as philosophers: they would never willingly attend a serious dis- cussion or spend their time that way; yet, just as if their ears were under contract to listen to every chorus, they run around to all the Dionysiac fes- tivals, whether in cities or villages, and never miss one. Are we to say that these people—and others who are students of similar things or of petty (e) crafts—are philosophers?

[47]: Trittarchousi:“command the soldiers in a trittys.” A trittys was one third of one of the ten tribes of which Athens consisted.

SOCRATES: Not at all, but they are like philosophers.

GLAUCON: Who do you think, then, are the true ones?

SOCRATES: The lovers of seeing the truth.

GLAUCON: That, too, is no doubt correct,48 but what exactly do you mean by it?

SOCRATES: It would not be easy to explain to someone else. But you, I imagine, will agree to the following.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: That since beautiful is the opposite of ugly, they are two things. (476a) GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And since they are two things, each of them is also one?

GLAUCON: That’s true too.

SOCRATES: And the same argument applies, then, to just and unjust, good and bad, and all the forms: each of them is itself one thing, but because they appear all over the place in partnership with actions and bodies, and with one another, each of them appears to be many things.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Well, then, that is the basis of the distinction I draw: on one side are the lovers of seeing, the lovers of crafts, and the practical people you mentioned a moment ago; on the other, those we are arguing about, (b) the only ones it is correct to call philosophers.

GLAUCON: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: The lovers of listening and seeing are passionately devoted to beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and everything fashioned out of such things.49 But their thought is unable to see the nature of the beautiful itself or to be passionately devoted to it.

GLAUCON: That’s certainly true.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, won’t those who are able to approach the beautiful itself, and see it by itself, be rare? (c) GLAUCON: Very.

SOCRATES: What about someone who believes in beautiful things but does not believe in the beautiful itself, and would not be able to follow any- one who tried to lead him to the knowledge of it? Do you think he is liv- ing in a dream, or is he awake? Just consider. Isn’t it dreaming to think— [48]: See 449c6–8.

[49]: A poem or play is fashioned out of sounds, a painting out of colors and shapes. See 600e4–601b4.

whether asleep or awake—that a likeness is not a likeness, but rather the thing itself that it is like?

GLAUCON: I certainly think that someone who does that is dreaming.

SOCRATES: But what about someone who, to take the opposite case, does believe in the beautiful itself, is able to observe both it and the things that (d) participate in it, and does not think that the participants are it, or that it is the participants—do you think he is living in a dream or is awake?

GLAUCON: He is very much awake.

SOCRATES: So, because this person knows these things, we would be right to describe his thought as knowledge; but the other’s we would be right to describe as belief, because he believes what he does?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: What if the person we describe as believing but not knowing is angry with us and disputes the truth of what we say? Will we have any (e) way of soothing and gently persuading him, while disguising the fact that he is not in a healthy state of mind?

GLAUCON: We certainly need one, at any rate.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, consider what we will say to him. Or—once we have told him that nobody envies him any knowledge he may have— that, on the contrary, we would be delighted to discover that he knows something—do you want us to question him as follows? “Tell us this: does someone who knows know something or nothing?” You answer for him.

GLAUCON: I will answer that he knows something.

SOCRATES: Something that is50 or something that is not?

(477a) GLAUCON: That is. How could something that is not be known?

SOCRATES: We are adequately assured of this, then, and would remain so, no matter how many ways we examined it: what completely is, is com- pletely an object of knowledge; and what in no way is, is not an object of knowledge at all?

GLAUCON: Most adequately.

SOCRATES: Good. In that case, then, if anything is such as to be and also not to be, wouldn’t it lie in between what purely is and what in no way is?

GLAUCON: Yes, in between them.

SOCRATES: Then, since knowledge deals with what is, ignorance must deal with what is not, while we must look in between knowledge and ignorance for what deals with what lies in between, if there is anything of (b) that sort.

[50]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. thing that is.

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: So, then, do we think there is such a thing as belief?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Is it a different power from knowledge, or the same?

GLAUCON: A different one.

SOCRATES: So, belief has been assigned to deal with one thing, then, and knowledge with another, depending on what power each has.

GLAUCON: Right.

SOCRATES: Now, doesn’t knowledge naturally deal with what is, to know how what is is? But ﬁrst I think we had better go through the following.

GLAUCON: What? (c) SOCRATES: We think powers are a type of thing that enables us—or any- thing else that has an ability—to do whatever we are able to do. Sight and hearing are examples of what I mean by powers, if you understand the kind of thing I am trying to describe.

GLAUCON: Yes, I do.

SOCRATES: Listen, then, to what I think about them. A power has no color for me to see, nor a shape, nor any feature of the sort that many other things have, and that I can consider in order to distinguish them for myself as different from one another. In the case of a power, I can consider only (d) what it deals with and what it does, and it is on that basis that I come to call each the power it is: those assigned to deal with the same things and do the same, I call the same; those that deal with different things and do different things, I call different.What about you? What do you do?

GLAUCON: The same.

SOCRATES: Going back, then, to where we left off, my very good fellow: do you think knowledge is itself a power? Or to what type would you assign it?

GLAUCON: To that one. It is the most effective power of all.

SOCRATES: What about belief? Shall we include it as a power or assign it (e) to a different kind?

GLAUCON: Not at all. Belief is nothing other than the power that enables us to believe.

SOCRATES: But a moment ago you agreed that knowledge and belief are not the same.

GLAUCON: How could anyone with any sense think a fallible thing is the same as an infallible one?

SOCRATES: Fine. Then clearly we agree that belief is different from (478a) knowledge.

GLAUCON: Yes, it is different.

SOCRATES: Each of them, then, since it has a different power, deals by nature with something different?

GLAUCON: Necessarily.

SOCRATES: Surely knowledge deals with what is, to know what is as it is?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Whereas belief, we say, believes?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: The very same thing that knowledge knows? Can the object of knowledge and the object of belief be the same? Or is that impossible?

GLAUCON: It is impossible, given what we have agreed. If different powers by nature deal with different things, and both opinion and knowledge are (b) powers but, as we claim, different ones, it follows from these that the object of knowledge and the object of belief cannot be the same.

SOCRATES: Then if what is is the object of knowledge, mustn’t the object of belief be something other than what is?

GLAUCON: Yes, it must be something different.

SOCRATES: Does belief, then, believe what is not? Or is it impossible even to believe what is not? Consider this: doesn’t a believer take his belief to deal with something? Or is it possible to believe, yet to believe nothing?

GLAUCON: No, it is impossible.

SOCRATES: In fact, there is some single thing that a believer believes?

GLAUCON: Yes. (a) SOCRATES: But surely what is not is most correctly characterized not as (c) single thing, but as nothing?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: But we had to assign ignorance to what is not and knowledge to what is?

GLAUCON: Correct.

SOCRATES: So belief neither believes what is nor what is not?

GLAUCON: No, it does not.

SOCRATES: Then belief cannot be either ignorance or knowledge?

GLAUCON: Apparently not.

SOCRATES: Well, then, does it lie beyond these two, surpassing knowledge in clarity or ignorance in opacity?

GLAUCON: No, it does neither.

SOCRATES: Then does belief seem to you to be more opaque than knowl- edge but clearer than ignorance?

GLAUCON: Very much so. 15 (d) SOCRATES: It lies within the boundaries determined by them?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: So belief will lie in between the two?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Now, didn’t we say earlier that if something turned out both to be and not to be at the same time, it would lie in between what purely is and what in every way is not, and that neither knowledge nor ignorance would deal with it; but whatever it was again that turned out to lie in between ignorance and knowledge would?

GLAUCON: Correct.

SOCRATES: And now, what we are calling belief has turned out to lie in between them?

GLAUCON: It has. (e) SOCRATES: Apparently, then, it remains for us to ﬁnd what partakes in both being and not being, and cannot correctly be called purely one or the other, so that if we ﬁnd it, we can justiﬁably call it the object of belief, thereby assigning extremes to extremes and in-betweens to in-betweens.

Isn’t that so?

GLAUCON: It is.

SOCRATES: Now that all that has been established, I want him to tell me this—the excellent fellow who believes that there is no beautiful itself, no (479a) form of beauty itself that remains always the same in all respects, but who does believe that there are many beautiful things—I mean, that lover of see- ing who cannot bear to hear anyone say that the beautiful is one thing, or the just, or any of the rest—I want him to answer this question: “My very good fellow,” we will say,“of all the many beautiful things, is there one that won’t also seem ugly? Or any just one that won’t seem unjust? Or any pious one that won’t seem impious?” GLAUCON: There is not. On the contrary, it is inevitable that they would (b) somehow seem both beautiful and ugly; and the same with the other things you asked about.

SOCRATES: What about the many things that are doubles? Do they seem to be any the less halves than doubles?

GLAUCON: No.

SOCRATES: And again, will things that we say are big, small, light, or heavy be any more what we say they are than they will be the opposite?

GLAUCON: No, each of them is always both.

SOCRATES: Then is each of the many things any more what one says it is than it is not what one says it is?

GLAUCON: No, they are like those puzzles one hears at parties, or the chil- (c) dren’s riddle about the eunuch who threw something at a bat—the one about what he threw at it and what it was in.51 For these things, too, are ambiguous, and one cannot understand them as ﬁxedly being or ﬁxedly not being, or as both, or as neither.

SOCRATES: Do you know what to do with them, then, or anywhere bet- ter to put them than in between being and not being? Surely they cannot be more opaque than what is not, by not-being more than it; nor clearer (d) than what is, by being more than it.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: So, we have now discovered, it seems, that the majority of people’s many conventional views about beauty and the rest are somehow rolling around between what is not and what purely is.52

GLAUCON: We have.

SOCRATES: And we agreed earlier that if anything turned out to be of that sort, it would have to be called an object of belief, not an object of knowl- edge—a wandering, in-between object grasped by the in-between power.

GLAUCON: We did.

SOCRATES: As for those, then, who look at many beautiful things but do (e) not see the beautiful itself, and are incapable of following another who would lead them to it; or many just things but not the just itself, and simi- larly with all the rest—these people, we will say, have beliefs about all these things, but have no knowledge of what their beliefs are about.

GLAUCON: That is what we would have to say.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, what about those who in each case look at the things themselves that are always the same in every respect? Won’t we say that they have knowledge, not mere belief?

GLAUCON: Once again, we would have to. (a) [51]: The riddle seems to have been this: a man who is not a man saw and did not see bird that was not a bird in a tree (xulon) that was not a tree; he hit (ballein) and did not hit it with a stone that was not a stone.The answer is that a eunuch with bad (a) eyesight saw a bat on a rafter, threw a pumice stone at it, and missed. For “he saw bird” is ambiguous between “he saw what was actually a bird” and “he saw what he took to be a bird,” xulon means both “tree” and “rafter” or “roof tree,” and ballein means both “to throw” and “to hit.”The rest is obvious.

[52]: See 484c6–d3, 493a6–494a4.

SOCRATES: Shall we say, then, that these people are passionately devoted to and love the things with which knowledge deals, as the others are (480a) devoted to and love the things with which belief deals? We have not forgot- ten, have we, that the latter love and look at beautiful sounds, colors, and (a) things of that sort, but cannot even bear the idea that the beautiful itself is thing that is?

GLAUCON: No, we have not.

SOCRATES: Will we be striking a false note,53 then, if we call such people “philodoxers” (lovers of belief) rather than “philosophers” (lovers of wis- dom or knowledge)? Will they be very angry with us if we call them that?

GLAUCON: Not if they take my advice. It is not in accord with divine law to be angry with the truth.

SOCRATES: So, those who in each case are passionately devoted to the thing itself are the ones we must call, not “philodoxers,” but “philosophers”?

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

[53]: See 451b3.

Book 5 ​

Book 5