Book 6

SOCRATES’ NARRATION CONTINUES:

SOCRATES: Who the philosophers are, then, Glaucon, and who they aren’t (484a) has, through a somewhat lengthy argument and with much effort, some- how been made clear.

GLAUCON: That’s probably because it could not easily have been done through a shorter one.

SOCRATES: I suppose not.Yet I, at least, think that the matter would have been made even clearer if we had had only that topic to discuss, and not the many others that remain for us to explore if we are to discover the differ- (b) ence between the just life and the unjust one.

GLAUCON: What comes after this one, then?

SOCRATES: What else but the one that comes next? Since the philosophers are the ones who are able to grasp what is always the same in all respects, while those who cannot—those who wander among the many things that vary in every sort of way—are not philosophers, which of the two should be the leaders of a city?

GLAUCON: What would be a reasonable answer for us to give?

SOCRATES: Whichever of them seems capable of guarding a city’s laws and (c) practices should be established as guardians.

GLAUCON: That’s right. (a) SOCRATES: So, is the answer to the following question clear: should guardian who is going to keep watch over something be blind or keen- sighted?

GLAUCON: Of course it is.

SOCRATES: Well, do you think there is any difference, then, between the blind and those who are really deprived of the knowledge of each thing that is, and have no clear model of it in their souls—those who cannot look away, like painters, to what is most true, and cannot, by making con- stant reference to it and by studying it as exactly as possible, establish here on earth conventional views about beautiful, just, or good things1 when (d)

[1]: See 479d3–5 for what happens to conventions not established in this way.

they need to be established, or guard and preserve those that have been established?

GLAUCON: No, by Zeus, there is not much difference between them.

SOCRATES: Shall we appoint these blind people as our guardians, then, or those who know each thing that is, have no less experience than the oth- ers,2 and are not inferior to them in any other part of virtue?

GLAUCON: It would be absurd to choose anyone but philosophers, if indeed they are not inferior in these other things. For the very area in which they are superior is just about the most important one. (485a) SOCRATES: Shouldn’t we explain, then, how the same men can have both sets of qualities?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then, as we were saying at the beginning of this discussion, it is first necessary to understand the nature of philosophers.3 And I think that if we can agree sufficiently about that, we will also agree that the same peo- ple can have both qualities, and that they alone should be leaders in cities.

GLAUCON: How so?

SOCRATES: Let’s agree that philosophic natures always love the sort of learning that makes clear to them some feature of the being4 that always is (b) and does not wander around between coming-to-be and decaying.

GLAUCON: Yes, let’s.

SOCRATES: And further, let’s agree that they love all of it and are not will- ing to give up any part, whether large or small, significant or insignificant, just like the honor-lovers and passionate men we described before.5 GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Consider next whether there is a further feature they must have (c) in their nature if they are going to be the way we described.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: Truthfulness; that is to say they must never willingly tolerate falsehood in any form. On the contrary, they must hate it and have a natu- ral affection for the truth.

GLAUCON: They probably should have that feature.

[2]: See 539e2–540c2, 581c10–583a11.

[3]: See 474b3–c3.

[4]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. being.

[5]: See 474d3–475b2.

SOCRATES: But it is not only probable, my friend; it is entirely necessary for (a) naturally passionate man to love everything akin to or related to the boys he loves.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Well, could you find anything that is more intimately related to wisdom than truth?

GLAUCON: Of course not.

SOCRATES: Then is it possible for the same nature to be a philosopher (d) (lover of wisdom) and a lover of falsehood?

GLAUCON: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: So, right from childhood, a genuine lover of learning must strive above all for truth of every kind.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: But in addition, when someone’s appetites are strongly inclined in one direction, we surely know that they become more weakly inclined in the others, just like a stream that has been partly diverted into another channel.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Then when a person’s desires flow toward learning and every- thing of that sort, they will be concerned, I imagine, with the pleasures that the soul experiences just by itself, and will be indifferent to those that come (a) through the body—if indeed the person is not a counterfeit, but rather true, philosopher.6 (e) GLAUCON: That’s entirely inevitable. (a) SOCRATES: A person like that will be temperate, then, and in no way lover of money. After all, money and the big expenditures that go along with it are sought for the sake of things that other people may take seri- ously, but that he does not.

GLAUCON: That’s right.

SOCRATES: And of course, there is also this to consider when you are (486a) going to judge whether a nature is philosophic or not.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: You should not overlook its sharing in illiberality; for surely petty-mindedness is altogether incompatible with that quality in a soul that is always reaching out to grasp all things as a whole, whether divine or human.

GLAUCON: That’s absolutely true.

[6]: See Phaedo 64c10–67c3.

SOCRATES: And do you imagine that a thinker who is high-minded (a) enough to look at all time and all being will consider human life to be very important thing?

GLAUCON: He couldn’t possibly.

SOCRATES: Then he won’t consider death to be a terrible thing either, (b) will he?

GLAUCON: Not in the least.

SOCRATES: Then a cowardly and illiberal nature could not partake, appar- ently, in true philosophy.

GLAUCON: Not in my opinion.

SOCRATES: Well, then, is there any way that an orderly person, who is not money-loving, illiberal, a lying imposter, or a coward, could come to drive (a) hard bargain or be unjust?

GLAUCON: There is not. (a) SOCRATES: Moreover, when you are considering whether someone has philosophic soul or not, you will consider whether he is just and gentle, right from the time he is young, or unsociable and savage.

GLAUCON: Of course. (c) SOCRATES: And you won’t ignore this either, I imagine.

GLAUCON: What?

SOCRATES: Whether he is a slow learner or a fast one. Or do you expect someone to love something sufficiently well when it pains him to do it and (a) lot of effort brings only a small return?

GLAUCON: No, it could not happen.

SOCRATES: What if he could retain nothing of what he learned, because he was completely forgetful? Could he fail to be empty of knowledge?

GLAUCON: Of course not.

SOCRATES: Then if he is laboring in vain, don’t you think that in the end he is bound to hate himself and what he is doing?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: So let’s never include a person with a forgetful soul among (d) those who are sufficiently philosophical; the one we look for should be good at remembering.

GLAUCON: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Moreover, we would deny that an unmusical and graceless nature is drawn to anything besides what is disproportionate.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And do you think that truth is akin to what is disproportionate or to what is proportionate?

GLAUCON: To what is proportionate.

SOCRATES: Then, in addition to those other things, let’s look for a mind that has a natural sense of proportion and grace, one whose innate disposi- tion makes it easy to lead to the form of each thing which is.

GLAUCON: Indeed. (e) SOCRATES: Well, then, do you think the properties we have gone through (a) aren’t interconnected, or that any of them is in any way unnecessary to soul that is going to have a sufficiently complete grasp of what is? (487a) GLAUCON: No, they are all absolutely necessary. (a) SOCRATES: Is there any criticism you can find, then, of a pursuit that person cannot practice adequately unless he is naturally good at remember- ing, quick to learn, high-minded, graceful, and a friend and relative of truth, justice, courage, and temperance?

GLAUCON: Not even Momus could criticize a pursuit like that.

SOCRATES: Well, then, when people of this sort are in perfect condition because of their education and their stage of life, wouldn’t you entrust the city to them alone?

And Adeimantus replied: (b) No one, Socrates, would be able to contradict these claims of yours. But all the same, here is pretty much the experience people have on any occasion on which they hear the sorts of things you are now saying: they think that because they are inexperienced in asking and answering questions, they are led astray a little bit by the argument at every question, and that when these little bits are added together at the end of the discussion, a big false step appears that is the opposite of what they said at the outset. Like the unskilled, who are trapped by the clever checkers players in the end and (c) cannot make a move, they too are trapped in the end, and have nothing to say in this different kind of checkers, which is played not with pieces, but with words.Yet they are not a bit more inclined to think that what you claim is true. I say this in relation to the present case.You see, someone might well say now that he is unable to find the words to oppose you as you ask each of your questions.Yet, when it comes to facts rather than words, he sees that of all those who take up philosophy—not those who merely dabble in it while still young in order to complete their upbringing, and (d) then drop it, but those who continue in it for a longer time—the majority become cranks, not to say completely bad, while the ones who seem best are rendered useless to the city because of the pursuit you recommend.

When I had heard him out, I said:

Do you think that what these people say is false?

ADEIMANTUS: I do not know. But I would be glad to hear what you think.

SOCRATES: You would hear that they seem to me to be telling the truth.

ADEIMANTUS: How, then, can it be right to say that there will be no end (e) to evils in our cities until philosophers—people we agree to be useless to cities—rule in them?

SOCRATES: The question you ask needs to be answered by means of an image.7

ADEIMANTUS: And you, of course, are not used to speaking in images!

SOCRATES: So! After landing me with a claim that is so difficult to estab- (488a) lish, are you mocking me, too? Anyway, listen to my image, and you will appreciate all the more how I have to strain to make up images.What the best philosophers experience in relation to cities is so difficult to bear that there is no other single experience like it. On the contrary, one must con- struct one’s image and one’s defense of these philosophers from many sources, just as painters paint goat-stags by combining the features of differ- ent things.

Imagine, then, that the following sort of thing happens either on one ship or on many. The shipowner is taller and stronger than everyone else (b) on board. But he is hard of hearing, he is a bit shortsighted, and his knowledge of seafaring is correspondingly deficient. The sailors are quar- reling with one another about captaincy.8 Each of them thinks that he should captain the ship, even though he has not yet learned the craft and cannot name his teacher or a time when he was learning it. Indeed, they go further and claim that it cannot be taught at all, and are even ready to cut to pieces anyone who says it can.They are always crowding around the (c) shipowner himself, pleading with him, and doing everything possible to get him to turn the rudder over to them. And sometimes, if they fail to persuade him and others succeed, they execute those others or throw them overboard. Then, having disabled their noble shipowner with man- dragora9 or drink or in some other way, they rule the ship, use up its cargo

drinking and feasting, and make the sort of voyage you would expect of such people. In addition, they praise anyone who is clever at persuading or forcing the shipowner to let them rule, calling him a “sailor,” a “skilled (d) captain,” and “an expert about ships” while dismissing anyone else as a [7]: Eikos: also, likeness.

[8]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. captain.

[9]: An intoxicant.

good-for-nothing. They do not understand that a true captain must pay attention to the seasons of the year, the sky, the stars, the winds, and all that pertains to his craft if he is really going to be expert at ruling a ship. As for how he is going to become captain of the ship, whether people want him (e) to or not, they do not think it possible to acquire the craft or practice of doing this at the same time as the craft of captaincy. When that is what is happening onboard ships, don’t you think that a true captain would be sure (489a) to be called a “stargazer,” a “useless babbler,” and a “good-for-nothing” by those who sail in ships so governed?

ADEIMANTUS: I certainly do.

SOCRATES: I do not think you need to examine the image to see the resemblance to cities and how they’re disposed toward true philosophers, but you already understand what I mean.

ADEIMANTUS: Indeed, I do.

SOCRATES: First teach this image, then, to the person who is surprised that philosophers are not honored in cities, and try to persuade him that it (b) would be far more surprising if they were honored.

ADEIMANTUS: I will.

SOCRATES: Furthermore, try to persuade him that you are speaking the truth when you say that the best among the philosophers are useless to the masses. But tell him to blame their uselessness on those who do not make use of them, not on those good philosophers.You see, it is not natural for the captain to beg the sailors to be ruled by him, nor for the wise to knock at the doors of the rich.The man who came up with that bit of sophistry was lying.10 What is truly natural is for the sick person, rich or poor, to go (c) to doctors’ doors, and for anyone who needs to be ruled to go to the doors of the one who can rule him. It is not for the ruler—if he is truly any use—to beg the subjects to accept his rule.Tell him he will make no mis- (a) take if he likens our present political rulers to the sailors we mentioned moment ago, and those who are called useless stargazers by them to the true ship’s captains.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s absolutely right.

SOCRATES: For those reasons, then, and in these circumstances, it is not easy for the best pursuit to be highly honored by those whose pursuits are its very opposites. But by far the greatest and most serious slander is brought (d) on philosophy by those who claim to practice it—the ones about whom the prosecutor of philosophy declares, as you put it, that the majority of those

[10]: Aristotle, Rhetoric 1391a7–12, says that when Simonides was asked whether it was better to be rich or wise, he replied:“Rich—because the wise spend their time at the doors of the rich.”

who take it up are completely bad, while the best ones are useless. And I admitted that what you said was true, didn’t I?[^11]

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Haven’t we now explained why the good ones are useless?

ADEIMANTUS: We certainly have.

SOCRATES: Do you next want us to discuss why it is inevitable that the greater number are bad, and try to show, if we can, that philosophy is not (e) responsible for this either?

ADEIMANTUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then let’s begin our dialogue by recalling the starting point of (a) our description of the nature that someone must have if he is to become fine and good person. First of all, if you remember, he was led by truth,12 (490a) and he had to follow it wholeheartedly and unequivocally, on pain of being (a) lying imposter with no share at all in true philosophy.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s what we said.

SOCRATES: Well, isn’t that fact alone completely contrary to the belief currently held about him?

ADEIMANTUS: It certainly is.

SOCRATES: So, won’t it be reasonable, then, for us to plead in his defense that a real lover of learning naturally strives for what is? He does not linger (b) over each of the many things that are believed to be, but keeps on going, without losing or lessening his passion, until he grasps what the nature of each thing itself is13 with the part of his soul that is fitted to grasp a thing of that sort because of its kinship with it.14 Once he has drawn near to it, has intercourse with what really is, and has begotten understanding and truth, he knows, truly lives, is nourished, and—at that point, but not before—is relieved from his labor pains.

ADEIMANTUS: Nothing could be more reasonable.

SOCRATES: Well, then, will a person of that sort love falsehood or, in completely opposite fashion, will he hate it? (c) ADEIMANTUS: He will hate it. (a) SOCRATES: And if truth led the way, we would never say, I imagine, that chorus of evils could follow it. [11]: 487d10. [12]: 485c3.

[13]: Autou ho estin hekastou tês phuseôs: literally, “the what it is of the nature of each thing itself.” See Glossary of Terms s.v. what it is.

[14]: See 611e1–612a6.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: On the contrary, it is followed by a healthy and just character, and the temperance that accompanies it.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: What need is there, then, to go back to the beginning and compel the rest of the philosophic nature’s chorus to line up all over again?

You surely remember that courage, high-mindedness, ease in learning, and (a) good memory all belong to philosophers.Then you objected that anyone would be compelled to agree with what we are saying, but that if he left the (d) arguments aside and looked at the very people the argument is about, he would say that some of those he saw were useless, while the majority of them were thoroughly bad. Trying to discover the reason for this slander, we have arrived now at this question: why are the majority of them bad?

And that is why we have again taken up the nature of the true philosophers and defined what it necessarily has to be. (e) ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: What we now have to do is look at the ways this nature gets corrupted; how it gets completely destroyed in the majority of cases, while (a) small number escape—the very ones that are called useless, rather than bad. After that, we must next look at those who imitate this nature and (a) (491a) adopt its pursuit.We must see what natures the souls have that enter into pursuit that is too valuable and too high for them—souls that, by often striking false notes, give philosophy the reputation that you said it has with everyone everywhere.

ADEIMANTUS: What sorts of corruption do you mean?

SOCRATES: I will try to explain them to you if I can. I imagine that every- one would agree with us about this: the sort of nature that possesses all the qualities we prescribed just now for the person who is going to be a com- (b) plete philosopher, is seldom found among human beings, and there will be few who possess it. Or don’t you think so?

ADEIMANTUS: I most certainly do.

SOCRATES: Consider, then, how many great sources of destruction there are for these few.

ADEIMANTUS: What are they?

SOCRATES: The most surprising thing of all to hear is that each one of the things we praised in that nature tends to corrupt the soul that has it and drag it away from philosophy. I mean courage, temperance, and the other things we mentioned.

ADEIMANTUS: That does sound strange.

(c) SOCRATES: Furthermore, in addition to those, all so-called good things also corrupt it and drag it away—beauty, wealth, physical strength, powerful family connections in the city, and all that goes along with these. You understand the general pattern of thing I mean?

ADEIMANTUS: I do, and I would be glad to acquire a more precise under- standing of it.

SOCRATES: Grasp the general principle correctly and the matter will become clear to you, and what I said about it before won’t seem so strange.

ADEIMANTUS: What are you telling me to grasp? (d) SOCRATES: In the case of every seed or growing thing, whether plant or animal, we know that if it fails to get the food, climate, or location suitable for it, then the more vigorous it is, the more it is deficient in the qualities proper to it. For surely bad is more opposed to good than to not-good.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: So, I suppose it is reasonable that the best nature comes off worse than an inferior one from unsuitable nurture.

ADEIMANTUS: It is. (e) SOCRATES: Well, then, Adeimantus, won’t we also say that if souls with the best natures get a bad education, they become exceptionally bad? Or do you think that great injustices and unalloyed evil originate in an inferior nature, rather than in a vigorous one that has been corrupted by its upbringing? Or that a weak nature is ever responsible for great good things or great bad ones?

ADEIMANTUS: No, you are right. (492a) SOCRATES: Well, then, if the nature we proposed for the philosopher hap- pens to receive the proper instruction, I imagine it will inevitably grow to attain every virtue. But if it is not sown, planted, and grown in a suitable environment, it will develop in entirely the opposite way, unless some god comes to its aid. Or do you too believe, as the masses do, that some young people are corrupted by sophists—that there are sophists, private individu- als, who corrupt them to a significant extent? Isn’t it, rather, the very peo- ple who say this who are the greatest sophists of all, who educate most (b) effectively and produce young and old men and women of just the sort they want?

ADEIMANTUS: When do they do that?

SOCRATES: When many of them sit together in assemblies, courts, the- aters, army camps, or any other gathering of a majority in public and, with (a) loud uproar, object excessively to some of the things that are said or done, then approve excessively of others, shouting and clapping; and

when, in addition to these people themselves, the rocks and the surround- (a) (c) ing space itself echo and redouble the uproar of their praise or blame. In situation like that, how do you think—as the saying goes—a young man’s heart is affected?15 How will whatever sort of private education he received hold up for him, and not get swept away by such praise and blame, and go be carried off by the flood wherever it goes, so that he will call the same things beautiful or ugly as these people, practice what they practice, and become like them? (d) ADEIMANTUS: The compulsion to do so will be enormous, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And yet we have not mentioned the greatest compulsion of all.

ADEIMANTUS: What is that?

SOCRATES: It is what these educators and sophists impose by their actions if their words fail to persuade. Or don’t you know that they punish anyone who is not persuaded, with disenfranchisement, fines, or death?

ADEIMANTUS: They most certainly do.

SOCRATES: What other sophist, then, or what sort of private conversations do you think will oppose these and prove stronger? (e) ADEIMANTUS: None, I imagine.

SOCRATES: No, indeed, even to try would be very foolish.You see, there is not now, never has been, nor ever will be, a character whose view of vir- tue goes contrary to the education these provide. I mean a human charac- ter, comrade—the divine, as the saying goes, is an exception to the rule.

You may be sure that if anything is saved and turns out well in the political (493a) systems that exist now, you won’t be mistaken in saying that divine provi- dence saved it.

ADEIMANTUS: That is what I think, too.

SOCRATES: Well, then, you should also agree to this.

ADEIMANTUS: What?

SOCRATES: Each of those private wage-earners—the ones these people call sophists and consider to be their rivals in craft16—teaches anything other than the convictions the masses hold when they are assembled together, and this he calls wisdom. It is just as if someone were learning the passions and appetites of a huge, strong beast that he is rearing—how (b) to approach and handle it, when it is most difficult to deal with or most docile and what makes it so, what sounds it utters in either condition, and what tones of voice soothe or anger it. Having learned all this through [15]: See Homer, Iliad 24.367.

[16]: I.e., rivals in the craft of teaching virtue. See Apology 24c–25c, Protagoras 317e– 328d, and Glossary of Terms s.v. sophist.

associating and spending time17 with the beast, he calls this wisdom, gathers his information together as if it were a craft, and starts to teach it. Knowing nothing in reality about which of these convictions or appetites is fine or (c) shameful, good or bad, just or unjust, he uses all these terms in conformity with the great beast’s beliefs—calling the things it enjoys good and the things that anger it bad. He has no other account to give of them, but calls everything he is compelled to do just and fine, never having seen how much the natures of necessity and goodness really differ, and being unable to explain it to anyone. Don’t you think, by Zeus, that someone like that would make a strange educator?

ADEIMANTUS: I do, indeed.

SOCRATES: Then does this person seem any different from the one who believes that wisdom is understanding the passions and pleasures of the (d) masses—multifarious people—assembled together, whether in regard to painting, music, or politics for that matter? For if a person associates with the masses and exhibits his poetry or some other piece of craftsmanship to them or his service to the city, and gives them mastery over him to any degree beyond what is unavoidable, he will be under Diomedean com- pulsion,18 as it is called, to produce the things of which they approve. But that such things are truly good and beautiful—have you ever heard any- one presenting an argument for that conclusion that was not absolutely ridiculous? (e) ADEIMANTUS: No, and I do not suppose I ever will.

SOCRATES: So then, bearing all that in mind, recall our earlier question: can the majority in any way tolerate or accept that the beautiful itself (as opposed to the many beautiful things), or each thing itself (as opposed to (494a) the corresponding many), exists?

ADEIMANTUS: Not in the least.

SOCRATES: It is impossible, then, for the majority to be philosophic.

ADEIMANTUS: It is impossible.

SOCRATES: And so, those who practice philosophy are inevitably dispar- aged by them?

ADEIMANTUS: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: And also by those private individuals who associate with the majority and want to please them.

ADEIMANTUS: Clearly.

[17]: Chronou tribê: On the distinction between a craft (technê) and an experience-based knack (tribê, empeiria), see Gorgias 462b–465a.

[18]: An inescapable compulsion.The origin of the phrase is uncertain.

SOCRATES: On the basis of these facts, then, do you see any way to pre- serve a philosophic nature and ensure that it will continue to practice phi- losophy and reach the end? Consider the question in light of what we said (b) before.We agreed that ease in learning, a good memory, courage, and high- mindedness belong to the philosophic nature.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Right from the start, then, won’t someone like that be first among the children in everything, especially if his body’s nature matches that of his soul?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course he will.

SOCRATES: So as he gets older, I imagine his family and fellow citizens will want to make use of him in connection with their own affairs.

ADEIMANTUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: They will get down on their knees, begging favors from him (c) and honoring him, flattering ahead of time the power that is going to be his, so as to secure it for themselves.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s usually what happens, at least.

SOCRATES: What do you think someone like that will do in such circum- stances—especially if he happens to be from a great city where he is rich and noble, and if he is good-looking and tall as well? Won’t he be filled with an impractical expectation and think himself capable of managing the affairs, not only of the Greeks, but of the barbarians, too? And won’t he (d) exalt himself to great heights, as a result, and be brimming with pretension and empty, senseless pride?19 ADEIMANTUS: He certainly will.

SOCRATES: Now, suppose someone gently approaches a young man in that state of mind and tells him the truth: that he has no sense, although he needs it, and that it cannot be acquired unless he works like a slave to attain it. Do you think it will be easy for him to hear that message through the evils that surround him?

ADEIMANTUS: Far from it.

SOCRATES: And suppose that, because of his noble nature and his natural affinity for such arguments, he somehow sees the point and is turned (e) around and drawn toward philosophy. What do we suppose those people will do if they believe that they are losing his services and companionship?

Is there anything they won’t do or say in his regard to prevent him from [19]: Plato seems to have had Alcibiades in mind here and in what follows. See Alcibiades 104a–c, 105b–c, Symposium 215d–216d. Alcibiades’ extraordinary career is described in Thucydides, Books 6–8.

being persuaded? Or anything they won’t do or say in regard to his per- suader to prevent him from succeeding, whether it is in private plots or public court cases?20 (495a) ADEIMANTUS: There certainly is not.

SOCRATES: Then is there any chance that such a person will practice phi- losophy?

ADEIMANTUS: None at all. (a) SOCRATES: Do you see, then, that we weren’t wrong to say that when philosophic nature is badly brought up, its very components—together with the other so-called goods, such as wealth and every provision of that sort—are somehow the cause of its falling away from the pursuit?

ADEIMANTUS: No, we were not.What we said was right.

SOCRATES: There you are, then, you amazing fellow! That is the extent of the sort of destruction and corruption that the nature best suited for the (b) noblest pursuit undergoes. And such a nature is a rare occurrence anyway, we claim. Moreover, men who possess it are the ones that do the worst things to cities and individuals, and also—if they happen to be swept that way by the current21—the greatest good. For a petty nature never does any-

thing great, either to a private individual or a city.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s very true.

SOCRATES: So when these men, for whom philosophy is most appropri- ate, fall away from her, they leave her desolate and unwed, and themselves (c) lead a life that is inappropriate and untrue.Then others, who are unworthy of her, come to her as to an orphan bereft of kinsmen, and shame her.They are the ones responsible for the reproaches that you say are cast upon phi- losophy by her detractors—that some of her consorts are useless, while the majority deserve many evils.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is what they say.

SOCRATES: And it is a reasonable thing to say. For other worthless little men see that this position has become vacant, even though it is brimming (d) with fine accolades and pretensions, and—like prisoners escaping from jail who take refuge in a temple—leap gladly from their crafts to philosophy.

These are the ones who are most sophisticated at their own petty craft.You see, at least in comparison to other crafts, and even in its present state, phi- losophy still has a grander reputation. And that is what many people are aiming at, people with defective natures, whose souls are as cramped and (e) spoiled by their menial tasks as their bodies are warped by their crafts and occupations. Isn’t that inevitably what happens?

[20]: The trial of Socrates in 399 BCE is the obvious case in point.

[21]: See 485d.

ADEIMANTUS: It certainly is.

SOCRATES: Do you think that they look any different than a little, bald- headed blacksmith who has come into some money and, newly released from debtor’s prison, has taken a bath, put on a new cloak, got himself up as a bridegroom, and is about to marry the master’s daughter because she is poor and abandoned? (496a) ADEIMANTUS: They are no different at all.

SOCRATES: What sort of offspring are they likely to beget, then? Won’t their children be wretched illegitimates?

ADEIMANTUS: Inevitably.

SOCRATES: What about when men who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and associate with her in a way unworthy of her?

What kinds of thoughts and beliefs are we to say they beget? Won’t they be what are truly and appropriately called sophisms, since they have nothing genuine or truly wise about them?

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: Then there remains, Adeimantus, only a very small group who (b) associate with philosophy in a way that is worthy of her: a noble and well brought-up character, perhaps, kept down by exile, who stays true to his nature and remains with philosophy because there is no one to corrupt him; or a great soul living in a small city, who disdains the city’s affairs and looks beyond them. A very few might perhaps come to philosophy from other crafts that they rightly despise because they have good natures. And some might be held back by the bridle that restrains our friend Theages— you see, he meets all the other conditions needed to make him fall away (c) from philosophy, but his physical illness keeps him out of politics and pre- vents it. Finally, my own case is hardly worth mentioning—my daimonic (a) sign22—since I don’t suppose it has happened to anyone else or to only few before. Now, those who have become members of this little group have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is. At the same time, they have also seen the insanity of the masses and realized that there is nothing healthy, so to speak, in public affairs, and that there is no ally with (d) whose aid the champion of justice can survive; that instead he would perish before he could profit either their city or his friends, and be useless both to himself and to others—like a man who has fallen among wild animals and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficiently strong to oppose the general savagery alone. Taking all this into his calculations, he (a) keeps quiet and does his own work, like someone who takes refuge under

[22]: See Plato, Apology 31c–32a, where Socrates explains that his daimonion has kept him out of politics.

little wall from a storm of dust or hail driven by the wind. Seeing others filled with lawlessness, the philosopher is satisfied if he can somehow lead (e) his present life pure of injustice and impious acts, and depart from it with good hope, blameless and content.

ADEIMANTUS: Well, that is no small thing for him to have accomplished (497a) before departing. (a) SOCRATES: But no very great one either, since he did not chance upon suitable constitution. In a suitable one, his own growth will be fuller and he will save the community, as well as himself. Anyway, it seems to me that we have now said enough about the slander brought against philosophy and why it is unjust—unless, of course, you have got something to add.

ADEIMANTUS: I have nothing further to add on that issue. But which of our present constitutions do you think is suitable for philosophy? (b) SOCRATES: None of them. But that is exactly my complaint.There is not one city today with a constitution worthy of the philosophic nature.That is precisely why it is perverted and altered. It is like foreign seed sown in alien ground: it tends to be overpowered and to fade away into the native spe- cies. Similarly, the philosophic species does not maintain its own power at present, but declines into a different character. But if it were to find the best (c) constitution, as it is itself the best, it would be clear that it is really divine and that other natures and pursuits are merely human. Obviously, you are going to ask next what that constitution is.

ADEIMANTUS: You are wrong there.You see, I was not going to ask that, but whether it was the constitution we described when we were founding our city or a different one.

SOCRATES: In all other respects, it is that one. But we said even then23 that there must always be some people in the city who have a rational account (d) of the constitution, the same one that guided you, the lawgiver, when you made the laws.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, we did say that.

SOCRATES: But we did not explain it clearly enough, for fear of what our own objections have made clear: namely, that the demonstration of it would be long and difficult. Indeed, even what remains is not the easiest of all things to discuss.

ADEIMANTUS: What is that?

SOCRATES: How a city can engage in philosophy without being destroyed.

You see, all great things are prone to fall and, as the saying goes, beautiful things are really difficult.

[23]: See 412a–b, which gives a hint of this need.

ADEIMANTUS: All the same, the demonstration won’t be complete until (e) this has been cleared up.

SOCRATES: If anything prevents that, it won’t be lack of willingness, but lack of ability. At any rate, you will see how passionate I am. Look now, in fact, at how passionately and recklessly I am going to argue that a city should practice philosophy in the opposite way to the present one.

ADEIMANTUS: How?

SOCRATES: At present, those who take it up at all do so as young men, just out of childhood, who have yet to take up household management and (498a) moneymaking. Then, just when they reach the most difficult part they abandon it and are regarded as the most fully trained philosophers. By the most difficult part, I mean the one concerned with arguments.24 In later life, if others are engaged in it and they are invited and deign to listen to them, they think they have done a lot, since they think this should only be (a) sideline. And, with a few exceptions, by the time they reach old age they are more thoroughly extinguished than the sun of Heraclitus, since they are never rekindled.25 (b) ADEIMANTUS: What should they do instead?

SOCRATES: Entirely the opposite. As young men and children, they should occupy themselves with an education and philosophy suitable to the young.

Their bodies are blooming and growing into manhood at this time, and they should take very good care of them, so as to acquire a helper for phi- losophy. But as they grow older and their soul begins to reach maturity, they should make its exercises more rigorous. Then, when their strength begins to fail and they have retired from politics and military service, they (c) should graze freely in the pastures of philosophy and do nothing else, except as a sideline—I mean those who are going to live happily and, when the end comes, crown the life they have lived with a fitting providence in that other place.

ADEIMANTUS: You seem to be arguing with real passion, Socrates. But I am sure that most of your hearers will oppose you with even greater passion and won’t be convinced in the least—beginning with Thrasymachus.

SOCRATES: Please do not try to raise a quarrel between me and Thrasyma- chus just as we have become friends—not that we were enemies before. (d) You see, we won’t relax our efforts until we convince him and the others— or at least do something that may benefit them in a later incarnation when, reborn, they happen upon these arguments again.26 [24]: I.e., dialectic.

[25]: Heraclitus’ sun was extinguished at night but rekindled the next morning.

[26]: See 614b ff.

ADEIMANTUS: You are talking about the short term, I see!

SOCRATES: It is certainly nothing compared to the whole of time! How- ever, it is no wonder that the masses are not convinced by our arguments. I mean, they have never seen a man that matched our plan—though they (e) have more often seen words purposely chosen to rhyme with one another than just happening to do so as in the present case.27 But a man who, as far as possible, matched and rhymed with virtue in word and deed, and wielded dynastic power in a city of the same type—that is something they (499a) have never seen even once. Or do you think they have?

ADEIMANTUS: No, definitely not.

SOCRATES: Nor, bless you, have they spent enough time listening to fine and free arguments that vigorously seek the truth in every way, so as to acquire knowledge and keep their distance from all the sophistries and eris- tic quibbles that—whether in public trials or private gatherings—strive for nothing except reputation and disputation.

ADEIMANTUS: No, they have not.

SOCRATES: It was for these reasons, and because we foresaw these difficul- (b) ties, that we were afraid. All the same, we were compelled by the truth to say that no city, no constitution, and no individual man will ever become perfect until some chance event compels those few philosophers who are not vicious (the ones who are now called useless) to take care of a city, whether they are willing to or not, and compels the city to obey them—or until a true passion for true philosophy flows by some divine inspiration into the sons of the men now wielding dynastic power or sovereignty, or (c) into the men themselves. Now, it cannot be reasonably maintained, in my view, that either or both of these things is impossible. But if they were, we would be justly ridiculed for indulging in wishful thinking. Isn’t that so?

ADEIMANTUS: It is.

SOCRATES: Then if, in the limitless past, some necessity forced those who were foremost in philosophy to take charge of a city, or is doing so now in (d) some barbaric place far beyond our ken, or will do so in the future, this is something we are prepared to fight about—our argument that the constitu- tion we have described has existed, does exist, and will exist, at any rate, whenever it is that the muse of philosophy gains mastery of a city. It is not impossible for this to happen, so we are not speaking of impossibilities— that it is difficult, we agree ourselves.

ADEIMANTUS: I certainly think so.

[27]: Plato is mocking the rhetoricians who were fond of forced rhyme. His own words ou gar pôpote eidon genomenon to nun legomenon—“they’ve never seen anything come into existence that matches our account”—exhibit the phenomenon he is mocking.

SOCRATES: But the masses do not—is that what you are going to say?

ADEIMANTUS: They probably don’t.

SOCRATES: Bless you, you should not make such a wholesale charge against the masses! They will surely come to hold a different belief if, (e) instead of wanting to win a victory at their expense, you soothe them and try to remove their slanderous prejudice against the love of learning.You must show them what you mean by philosophers and define their nature (500a) and pursuit the way we did just now. Then they will realize you do not mean the same people they do. And if they once see it that way, even you will say that they will have a different opinion from the one you just attrib- uted to them and will answer differently. Or do you think that anyone who is gentle and without malice is harsh to one who is not harsh, or malicious to one who is not malicious? I will anticipate you and say that I think a few people may have such a harsh character, but not the majority.

ADEIMANTUS: And I agree, of course.

SOCRATES: Then don’t you also agree that the harshness of the masses (b) toward philosophy is caused by those outsiders who do not belong and who have burst in like a band of revelers, abusing one another, indulging their love of quarreling, and always arguing about human beings—some- thing that is least appropriate in philosophy?

ADEIMANTUS: I do, indeed.

SOCRATES: For surely, Adeimantus, someone whose mind is truly directed toward the things that are has not the leisure to look down at human affairs and be filled with malice and hatred as a result of entering into their dis- (c) putes. Instead, as he looks at and contemplates things that are orderly and always the same, that neither do injustice to one another nor suffer it, being all in a rational order, he imitates them and tries to become as like them as he can. Or do you think there is any way to prevent someone from associ- ating with something he admires without imitating it?

ADEIMANTUS: He can’t possibly.

SOCRATES: Then the philosopher, by associating with what is orderly and divine, becomes as divine and orderly as a human being can.Though, mind (d) you, there are always plenty of slanders around.

ADEIMANTUS: Absolutely.

SOCRATES: And if he should come to be compelled to make a practice— in private and in public—of stamping what he sees there into the people’s characters, instead of shaping only his own, do you think he will be a poor craftsman of temperance, justice, and the whole of popular virtue?

ADEIMANTUS: Not at all.

SOCRATES: And when the masses realize that what we are saying about (e) him is true, will they be harsh with philosophers or mistrust us when we say that there is no way a city can ever find happiness unless its plan is drawn by painters who use the divine model?

ADEIMANTUS: They won’t be harsh, if they do realize this. But what sort (501a) of drawing do you mean?

SOCRATES: They would take the city and people’s characters as their sketching slate, but first they would wipe it clean—which is not at all an easy thing to do. And you should be aware that this is an immediate differ- ence between them and others—that they refuse to take either a private individual or a city in hand, or to write laws, unless they receive a clean slate or are allowed to clean it themselves.

ADEIMANTUS: And rightly so.

SOCRATES: And after that, don’t you think they would draw the plan of the constitution?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And I suppose that, as they work, they would look often in (b) each direction: on the one hand, toward what is in its nature just, beautiful, temperate, and all the rest; and, on the other, toward what they are trying (a) to put into human beings, mixing and blending pursuits to produce human likeness, based on the one that Homer too called divine and godly when it appeared among human beings.28 ADEIMANTUS: Right.

SOCRATES: They would erase one thing, I suppose, and draw in another, (c) until they had made people’s characters as dear to the gods as possible.

ADEIMANTUS: At any rate, the drawing would be most beautiful that way.

SOCRATES: Are we at all persuading the people you said were rushing to attack us, then, that the philosopher we were praising to them is really this sort of painter of constitutions? They were angry because we were entrust- ing cities to him; are they any calmer at hearing it now?

ADEIMANTUS: They will be much calmer, if they have any sense. (d) SOCRATES: After all, how could they possibly dispute it? Will they deny that philosophers are lovers both of what is and of the truth?

ADEIMANTUS: That would be silly.

SOCRATES: Or that their nature, as we have described it, is akin to the best?

ADEIMANTUS: They cannot deny that either.

[28]: See, e.g., Iliad 1.131.

SOCRATES: Or that such a nature, when it happens to find appropriate pursuits, will not be as completely good and philosophic as any other? Or are they going to claim that the people we excluded are more so? (e) ADEIMANTUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Will they still be angry, then, when we say that until the phi- losopher class gains mastery of a city, there will be no respite from evils for either city or citizens, and the constitution we have been describing in our discussion will never be completed in practice?

ADEIMANTUS: They will probably be less so.

SOCRATES: If it is all right with you, then, let’s not say that they will sim- ply be less angry, but that they will become altogether gentle and per- (502a) suaded; so that out of shame, if nothing else, they will agree.

ADEIMANTUS: All right.

SOCRATES: So let’s assume that they have been convinced of this. Will anyone contend, then, that there is no chance that the offspring of kings or men in power could be natural-born philosophers?

ADEIMANTUS: No one could.

SOCRATES: Could anyone claim that if such offspring are born, they must inevitably be corrupted? We agree ourselves that it is difficult for them to be saved. But that in the whole of time not one of them could be saved— (b) could anyone contend that?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course not.

SOCRATES: But surely the occurrence of one such individual is enough, provided his city obeys him, to bring to completion all the things that now seem so incredible.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, one is enough.

SOCRATES: For I suppose that if a ruler established the laws and practices we have described, it is hardly impossible that the citizens would be willing to carry them out.

ADEIMANTUS: Not at all.

SOCRATES: Would it be either surprising or impossible, then, that others should think as we do? (c) ADEIMANTUS: I don’t suppose so.

SOCRATES: But I think our earlier discussion was sufficient to show that these arrangements are best, provided they are possible.

ADEIMANTUS: Indeed, it was.

SOCRATES: It seems, then, that the conclusion we have now reached about legislation is that the one we are describing is best, provided it is possible; and that while it is difficult for it to come about, it certainly is not impossible.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, that is the conclusion we have reached.

SOCRATES: Now that this conclusion has, with much effort, been reached, we must next deal with the remaining issues—in what way, by means of what subjects and pursuits, the saviors of our constitution will come to (d) exist, and at what ages they will take up each of them.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, we must deal with that.

SOCRATES: I gained nothing by my cleverness, then, in omitting from our earlier discussion the troublesome topic of acquiring women, begetting children, and establishing rulers, because I knew the whole truth would provoke resentment and would be difficult to bring about.As it turned out, the need to discuss them arose anyway. Now, the subject of women and (e) children has already been discussed. But that of the rulers has to be taken up again from the beginning. We said,29 if you remember, that they must (503a) show themselves to be lovers of the city, when tested by pleasures and pains, by not abandoning this conviction through labors, fears, and all other adversities. Anyone who was incapable of doing so was to be rejected, while anyone who always came through pure—like gold tested in a fire— was to be made ruler and receive gifts and prizes, both while he lived and after his death. These were the sorts of things we were saying while our argument veiled its face and slipped by, for fear of stirring up the very prob- (b) lems that now confront us.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s absolutely true. I do remember.

SOCRATES: I was reluctant, my friend, to say the things we have now dared to say anyway. But now, let’s also dare to say that we must establish philosophers as guardians in the most exact sense.

ADEIMANTUS: Let’s do so.

SOCRATES: Bear in mind, then, that there will probably be only a few of them.You see, they have to have the nature we described, and its parts rarely consent to grow together in one person; rather, its many parts grow split off from one another. (c) ADEIMANTUS: How do you mean?

SOCRATES: Ease of learning, good memory, astuteness, and smartness, as you know, and all the other things that go along with them, such as youth- ful passion and high-mindedness, are rarely willing to grow together simul- taneously with a disposition to live an orderly, quiet, and completely stable [29]: At 412b–414a.The conviction referred to is identified at 412e6.

life. On the contrary, those who possess the former traits are carried by their quick wits wherever chance leads them, and have no stability at all.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s true.

SOCRATES: Those with stable characters, on the other hand, who do not change easily, whom one would employ because of their greater reliability, (d) and who in battle are not easily moved by fears, act in the same way when it comes to their studies.They are hard to get moving and learn with diffi- culty, as if they are anesthetized, and are constantly falling asleep and yawn- ing whenever they have to work hard at such things.

ADEIMANTUS: They are.

SOCRATES: Yet we say that someone must have a good and fine share of both characters, or he won’t receive the truest education or honor, or be allowed to rule.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s right.

SOCRATES: Then don’t you think this will rarely occur?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course. (e) SOCRATES: He must be tested, then, in the labors, fears, and pleasures we mentioned before. He must also be exercised in many other subjects, how- ever, which we did not mention but are adding now, to see whether his nature can endure the most important subjects or will shrink from them (504a) like the cowards who shrink from the other tests.

ADEIMANTUS: It is certainly important to find that out. But what do you mean by the most important subjects?

SOCRATES: Do you remember when we distinguished three kinds of things in the soul in order to help bring out what justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom each is?30 ADEIMANTUS: If I didn’t, I would not deserve to hear the rest.

SOCRATES: Do you also remember what preceded it?

ADEIMANTUS: No, what? (b) SOCRATES: We said, I believe, that in order to get the finest view of these matters, we would need to take a longer road, which would make them plain to anyone who took it, but that it was possible to give demonstrations that would be up to the standard of the previous discussion.31 All of you said that was enough. The result was that our subsequent discussion, as it seemed to me, was less than exact. But whether or not it satisfied all of you is for you to say. [30]: 434d–444e. [31]: 435d.

ADEIMANTUS: I, at any rate, thought you gave us good measure. And so, apparently, did the others. (c) SOCRATES: No, my friend, any measure of such things that falls short in (a) any way of what is, is not good measure at all, since nothing incomplete is measure of anything. Some people, however, are occasionally of the opin- ion that an incomplete treatment is already adequate and that there is no need for further inquiry.

ADEIMANTUS: Yes, a lot of people feel like that. Laziness is the cause. (a) SOCRATES: Well, that is a feeling that is least appropriate in a guardian of city and its laws.

ADEIMANTUS: No doubt.

SOCRATES: He will have to take the longer road then, comrade, and put (d) no less effort into learning than into physical training. For otherwise, as we were just saying, he will never pursue the most important and most appro- priate subject to the end.

ADEIMANTUS: Why, aren’t these virtues the most important things? Is there something yet more important than justice and the other virtues we discussed?

SOCRATES: Not only is it more important, but, even in the case of the vir- tues themselves, it is not enough to look at a mere sketch as we are doing now, while neglecting the most finished portrait. I mean, it is ridiculous, isn’t it, to strain every nerve to attain the utmost exactness and clarity about (e) other things of little value, while not treating the most important things as meriting the most exactness?

ADEIMANTUS: It certainly is. But do you think that anyone is going to let you off without asking you what you mean by this most important subject, and what it is concerned with?

SOCRATES: No, I do not. And you may ask it, too.You have certainly heard the answer often, but now either you are not thinking or you intend to make trouble for me again by interrupting. And I suspect it is more the (505a) latter.You see, you have often heard it said that the form of the good is the most important thing to learn about, and that it is by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial. And now you must be pretty certain that that is what I am going to say, and, in addition, that we have no adequate knowledge of it. And if we do not know it, you know that even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us, any more than if we acquire any possession without the good. Or do (b) you think there is any benefit in possessing everything but the good? Or to know everything without knowing the good, thereby knowing nothing fine or good?

ADEIMANTUS: No, by Zeus, I do not.

SOCRATES: Furthermore, you also know that the masses believe pleasure to be the good, while the more refined believe it to be knowledge.

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: And, my friend, that those who believe this cannot show us what sort of knowledge it is, but in the end are forced to say that it is knowledge of the good.

ADEIMANTUS: Which is completely ridiculous. (c) SOCRATES: How could it not be, when they blame us for not knowing the good and then turn around and talk to us as if we did know it? I mean, they say it is knowledge of the good—as if we understood what they mean when they utter the word “good.” ADEIMANTUS: That’s absolutely true.

SOCRATES: What about those who define the good as pleasure? Are they any less full of confusion than the others? Or aren’t even they forced to admit that there are bad pleasures?

ADEIMANTUS: Most definitely.

SOCRATES: I suppose it follows, doesn’t it, that they have to admit that the same things are both good and bad? (d) ADEIMANTUS: It certainly does.

SOCRATES: Isn’t it clear, then, that there are lots of serious disagreements about the good?

ADEIMANTUS: Of course.

SOCRATES: Well, isn’t it also clear that many people would choose things that are believed to be just or beautiful, even if they are not, and would act, acquire things, and form beliefs accordingly? Yet no one is sat- isfied to acquire things that are believed to be good. On the contrary, everyone seeks the things that are good. In this area, everyone disdains mere reputation.

ADEIMANTUS: Right.

SOCRATES: That, then, is what every soul pursues, and for its sake does everything.The soul has a hunch that the good is something, but it is puz- (e) zled and cannot adequately grasp just what it is or acquire the sort of stable belief about it that it has about other things, and so it misses the benefit, if any, that even those other things may give. Are we to accept that even the (506a) best people in the city, to whom we entrust everything, must remain thus in the dark about something of this kind and importance?

ADEIMANTUS: That’s the last thing we would do.

SOCRATES: Anyway, I imagine that just and fine things won’t have acquired much of a guardian in someone who does not even know why they are good. And I have a hunch that no one will have adequate knowl- edge of them until he knows this.

ADEIMANTUS: That’s a good hunch. (a) SOCRATES: But won’t our constitution be perfectly ordered if such (b) guardian, one who knows these things, oversees it?

ADEIMANTUS: It is bound to be. But you yourself, Socrates, do you say the good is knowledge or pleasure, or is it something else altogether?

SOCRATES: What a man! You made it good and clear long ago that other people’s opinions about these matters would not satisfy you.

ADEIMANTUS: Well, Socrates, it does not seem right to me for you to be willing to state other people’s convictions but not your own, when you (c) have spent so much time occupied with these matters.

SOCRATES: What? Do you think it is right to speak about things you do not know as if you do know them?

ADEIMANTUS: Not as if you know them, but you ought to be willing to state what you believe as what you believe.

SOCRATES: What? Haven’t you noticed that beliefs without knowledge are all shameful and ugly things, since the best of them are blind? Do you think that those who have a true belief without understanding are any different from blind people who happen to travel the right road?

ADEIMANTUS: They are no different.

SOCRATES: Do you want to look at shameful, blind, and crooked things, (d) then, when you might hear fine, illuminating ones from other people?

And Glaucon said: By Zeus, Socrates, do not stop now, with the end in sight, so to speak! We will be satisfied if you discuss the good the way you discussed justice, tem- perance, and the rest.

SOCRATES: That, comrade, would well satisfy me too, but I am afraid that I won’t be up to it and that I will disgrace myself and look ridiculous by trying. No, bless you, let’s set aside what the good itself is for the time (e) being.You see, even to arrive at my current beliefs about it seems beyond the range of our present discussion.32 But I am willing to tell you about what seems to be an offspring of the good and most like it, if that is agree- able to you; or otherwise to let the matter drop.

[32]: See 532a–534d.

GLAUCON: Tell us, then. The story about the father remains a debt you will pay another time. (507a) SOCRATES: I wish I could repay it, and you recover the debt, instead of just the interest. So here, then, is this child and offspring of the good itself.

But take care I do not somehow deceive you unintentionally by giving you an illegitimate account of the child.33

GLAUCON: We will take as much care as possible. So speak on.

SOCRATES: I will once I have come to an agreement with you and reminded you of things we have already said here as well as on many other occasions. (b) GLAUCON: Which things?

SOCRATES: We say that there are many beautiful, many good, and many other such things, thereby distinguishing them in words.34 GLAUCON: We do.

SOCRATES: We also say there is a beautiful itself and a good itself. And so, in the case of all the things that we then posited as many, we reverse our- (a) selves and posit a single form belonging to each, since we suppose there is single one, and call it what each is.35 GLAUCON: That’s true.

SOCRATES: And we say that the one class of things is visible but not intelligible, while the forms are intelligible but not visible.

GLAUCON: Absolutely. (c) SOCRATES: With what of ours do we see visible things?

GLAUCON: With our sight.

SOCRATES: And don’t we hear audible things with hearing and perceive all other perceptible things with our other senses?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Have you ever thought about how lavish the craftsman of our senses was in making the power to see and be seen?

GLAUCON: No, not really.

SOCRATES: Well, think of it this way. Do hearing and sound need another kind of thing in order for the former to hear and the latter to be heard—a (d) third thing in whose absence the one won’t hear or the other be heard?

[33]: Throughout, Socrates is punning on the word tokos, which means either a child or the interest on capital.

[34]: See 596b5–10.

[35]: See Glossary of Terms s.v. what it is.

GLAUCON: No.

SOCRATES: And I think there cannot be many—not to say any—others that need such a thing. Or can you think of one?

GLAUCON: No, I cannot. (a) SOCRATES: Aren’t you aware that sight and the visible realm have such need?

GLAUCON: In what way?

SOCRATES: Surely sight may be present in the eyes and its possessor may try to use it, and colors may be present in things; but unless a third kind of (e) thing is present, which is naturally adapted for this specific purpose, you know that sight will see nothing and the colors will remain unseen.

GLAUCON: What kind of thing do you mean?

SOCRATES: The kind you call light.

GLAUCON: You are right.

SOCRATES: So it is no insignificant form of yoke, then, that yokes the (508a) sense of sight and the power to be seen. In fact, it is more honorable than any that yokes other yoked teams. Provided, of course, that light is not something without honor.

GLAUCON: And it is surely far from being without honor.

SOCRATES: Which of the gods in the heavens would you say is the con- troller of this—the one whose light makes our sight see best and visible things best seen?

GLAUCON: The very one you and others would name. I mean, it is clear that what you are asking about is the sun.36 SOCRATES: And isn’t sight naturally related to that god in the following way?

GLAUCON: Which one?

SOCRATES: Neither sight itself nor that in which it comes to be—namely, (b) the eye—is the sun.

GLAUCON: No, it is not.

SOCRATES: But it is, I think, the most sunlike of the sense organs.

GLAUCON: By far the most.

SOCRATES: And doesn’t it receive the power it has from the sun, just like an influx from an overflowing treasury?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

[36]: Helios—the sun—was considered a god.

SOCRATES: The sun is not sight either; yet as its cause, isn’t it seen by sight itself?

GLAUCON: It is.

SOCRATES: Let’s say, then, that this is what I called the offspring of the good, which the good begot as its analogue.What the latter is in the intelli- (c) gible realm in relation to understanding and intelligible things, the former is in the visible realm in relation to sight and visible things.

GLAUCON: How? Tell me more.

SOCRATES: You know that when our eyes no longer turn to things whose colors are illuminated by the light of day, but by the lights of night, they are dimmed and seem nearly blind, as if clear sight were no longer in them.

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: Yet I suppose that whenever they are turned to things illumi- (d) nated by the sun, they see clearly and sight is manifest in those very same eyes?

GLAUCON: Indeed.

SOCRATES: Well, think about the soul in the same way.When it focuses on something that is illuminated both by truth and what is, it understands, knows, and manifestly possesses understanding. But when it focuses on what is mixed with obscurity, on what comes to be and passes away, it believes and is dimmed, changes its beliefs this way and that, and seems bereft of understanding.

GLAUCON: Yes, it does seem like that. (e) SOCRATES: You must say, then, that what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good. And as the cause of knowledge and truth, you must think of it as an object of knowl- edge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things. But if you are to think correctly, you must think of the good as other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly thought to be sun- (509a) like, but wrongly thought to be the sun. So, here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as goodlike, but wrong to think that either of them is the good—for the state of the good is yet more honored.

GLAUCON: It is an incredibly beautiful thing you are talking about, if it provides both knowledge and truth but is itself superior to them in beauty.

I mean, you surely do not think that it could be pleasure.

SOCRATES: No words of ill omen, please! Instead, examine our analogy in more detail.

(b) GLAUCON: How?

SOCRATES: The sun, I think you would say, not only gives visible things the power to be seen but also provides for their coming-to-be, growth, and nourishment—although it is not itself coming to be.

GLAUCON: I would.

SOCRATES: Therefore, you should also say that not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their existence and being are also due to it; although the good is not being, but something yet beyond being, superior to it in rank and power.

And Glaucon quite ridiculously replied: By Apollo, what daimonic hyperbole!37 (c) SOCRATES: It is your own fault, you forced me to tell my beliefs about it.

GLAUCON: And don’t you stop, either—at least, not until you have finished discussing the good’s similarity to the sun, if you are omitting anything.

SOCRATES: I am certainly omitting a lot.

GLAUCON: Well don’t, not even the smallest detail.

SOCRATES: I think I will have to omit a fair amount. All the same, as far as is now possible, I won’t purposely omit anything.

GLAUCON: Please don’t.

SOCRATES: Then you should think, as we said, that there are these two (d) things, one sovereign of the intelligible kind and place, the other of the vis- ible—I do not say “of heaven,” so as not to seem to you to be playing the sophist with the name.38 In any case, do you understand these two kinds, visible and intelligible?

GLAUCON: I do.

SOCRATES: Represent them, then, by a line divided into two unequal sections.Then divide each section—that of the visible kind and that of the intelligible—in the same proportion as the line.39 In terms now of relative (e) clarity and opacity, you will have as one subsection of the visible, images. (510a) By images I mean, first, shadows, then reflections in bodies of water and in [37]: Socrates’ claim ends with the words dunamei huperechontas (“superior in . . . power”), Glaucon responds with the punning daimonias huperbolês. Hence the joke.

[38]: The play seems to be on the similarity of sound between orano (“heaven”) and orato (“visible”). [39]:

A D C E B [4]: 2 2 1 VISIBLE INTELLIGIBLE

all close-packed, smooth, and shiny materials, and everything of that sort.

Do you understand?

GLAUCON: I do understand.

SOCRATES: Then, in the other subsection of the visible, put the originals of these images—that is, the animals around us, every plant, and the whole class of manufactured things.

GLAUCON: I will.

SOCRATES: Would you also be willing to say, then, that, as regards truth and untruth, the division is in this ratio: as what is believed is to what is known, so the likeness is to the thing it is like? (b) GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Next, consider how the section of the intelligible is to be divided.

GLAUCON: How?

SOCRATES: As follows: in one subsection, the soul, using as images the things that were imitated before, is forced to base its inquiry on hypotheses, proceed- ing not to a first principle, but to a conclusion. In the other subsection, by contrast, it makes its way to an unhypothetical first principle, proceeding from (a) hypothesis, but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigation through them.

GLAUCON: I do not fully understand what you are saying.

SOCRATES: Let’s try again.You see, you will understand it more easily after (c) this explanation. I think you know that students of geometry, calculation, and the like hypothesize the odd and the even, the various figures, the three kinds of angles, and other things akin to these in each of their investiga- tions, regarding them as known.These they treat as hypotheses and do not think it necessary to give any argument for them, either to themselves or to others, as if they were evident to everyone. And going from these first prin- (d) ciples through the remaining steps, they arrive in full agreement at the point they set out to reach in their investigation.

GLAUCON: I certainly know that much.

SOCRATES: Then don’t you also know that they use visible forms and make their arguments about them, although they are not thinking about them, but about those other things that they are like? They make their arguments with a view to the square itself and the diagonal itself, not the (e) diagonal they draw, and similarly with the others. The very things they make and draw, of which shadows and reflections in water are images, they now in turn use as images in seeking to see those other things themselves (511a) that one cannot see except by means of thought.

GLAUCON: That’s true.

SOCRATES: This, then, is the kind of thing that I said was intelligible.The soul is forced to use hypotheses in the investigation of it, not traveling up to (a) first principle, since it cannot escape or get above its hypotheses, but using as images those very things of which images were made by the things below them, and which, by comparison to their images, were thought to be clear and to be honored as such. (b) GLAUCON: I understand that you mean what is dealt with in geometry and related crafts.

SOCRATES: Also understand, then, that by the other subsection of the intelligible I mean what reason itself 40 grasps by the power of dialectical discussion, treating its hypotheses, not as first principles, but as genuine hypotheses (that is, stepping stones and links in a chain), in order to arrive at what is unhypothetical and the first principle of everything. Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follows from it, comes down to a conclusion, making no use of anything visible at (c) all, but only of forms themselves, moving on through forms to forms, and ending in forms.

GLAUCON: I understand, though not adequately—you see, in my opinion you are speaking of an enormous task.You want to distinguish the part of what is and is intelligible, the part looked at by the science of dialectical dis- cussion, as clearer than the part looked at by the so-called sciences—those for which hypotheses are first principles. And although those who look at the latter part are forced to do so by means of thought rather than sense perception, still, because they do not go back to a genuine first principle in considering it, but proceed from hypotheses, you do not think that they (d) have true understanding of them, even though—given such a first princi- ple—they are intelligible. And you seem to me to call the state of mind of the geometers—and the others of that sort—thought but not understand- ing; thought being intermediate between belief and understanding.

SOCRATES: You have grasped my meaning most adequately. Join me, then, in taking these four conditions in the soul as corresponding to the four sub- sections of the line: understanding dealing with the highest, thought deal- (e) ing with the second; assign belief to the third, and imagination to the last.

Arrange them in a proportion and consider that each shares in clarity to the degree that the subsection it deals with shares in truth.

GLAUCON: I understand, agree, and arrange them as you say.

[40]: Autos ho logos.