Republic

“And if,” said I, “someone should drag him thence by force up the ascent[*](Cf. Theaet. 175 B, Boethius, Cons. iii. 12 quicunque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis; 529 A, 521 C, and the Neoplatonists’ use of ἀνάγειν and their anagogical virtue and interpretation. Cf. Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, vii. 270.) which is rough and steep, and not let him go before he had drawn him out into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful to be so haled along, and would chafe at it, and when he came out into the light, that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see[*](Cf. Laws 897 D, Phaedo 99 D.) even one of the things that we call real?” “Why, no, not immediately,” he said. “Then there would be need of habituation, I take it, to enable him to see the things higher up. And at first he would most easily discern the shadows and, after that, the likenesses or reflections in water[*](Cf. Phaedo 99 D. Stallbaum says this was imitated by Themistius, Orat. iv. p. 51 B.) of men and other things, and later, the things themselves, and from these he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself, more easily by night, looking at the light of the stars and the moon, than by day the sun and the sun’s light.[*](It is probably a mistake to look for a definite symbolism in all the details of this description. There are more stages of progress than the proportion of four things calls for all that Plato’s thought requires is the general contrast between an unreal and a real world, and the goal of the rise from one to the other in the contemplation of the sun, or the idea of good, Cf. 517 B-C.)” Of course. “And so, finally, I suppose, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting,[*](i.e. a foreign medium.) but in and by itself in its own place.” Necessarily, he said. “And at this point he would infer and conclude that this it is that provides the seasons and the courses of the year and presides over all things in the visible region, and is in some sort the cause[*](Cf. 508 B, and for the idea of good as the cause of all things cf. on 509 B, and Introd. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. P. Corssen, Philol. Wochenschrift, 1913, pp. 287-299, unnecessarily proposes to emend ὧν σφεῖς ἑώρων to ὧν σκιὰς ἑ. or ὧν σφεῖς σκιὰς ἑ., ne sol umbrarum, quas videbant, auctor fuisse dicatur, cum potius earum rerum, quarum umbras videbant, fuerit auctor.) of all these things that they had seen.” Obviously, he said, “that would be the next step.” “Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them[*](Cf. on 486 a, p. 10, note a.)?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, sequences and co-existences,[*](Another of Plato’s anticipations of modern thought. This is precisely the Humian, Comtian, positivist, pragmatist view of causation. Cf. Gorg. 501 A τριβῇ καὶ ἐμπειρίᾳ μνήμην μόνον σωζομένη τοῦ εἰθότος γίγνεσθαι relying on routine and habitude for merely preserving a memory of what is wont to result. (Loeb tr.)) and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer[*](The quotation is almost as apt as that at the beginning of the Crito. ) and

greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,

“Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners in evaluating these shadows while his vision was still dim and before his eyes were accustomed to the dark—and this time required for habituation would not be very short—would he not provoke laughter,[*](Like the philosopher in the court-room. Cf. Theaet. 172 C, 173 C ff., Gorg. 484 D-E. Cf. also on 387 C-D. 515 D, 517 D, Soph. 216 D, Laches 196 B, Phaedr. 249 D.) and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worth while even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him[*](An obvious allusion to the fate of Socrates. For other stinging allusions to this Cf. Gorg. 486 B, 521 C, Meno 100 B-C. Cf. Hamlet’s Wormwood, wormwood (III. ii. 191). The text is disputed. See crit. note. A. Drachmann, Zu Platons Staat, Hermes, 1926, p. 110, thinks that an οἴει or something like it must be understood as having preceded, at least in Plato’s thought, and that ἀποκτείνειν can be taken as a gloss or variant of ἀποκτεινύναι and the correct reading must be λαβεῖν, καὶ ἀποκτεινύναι ἄν. See also Adam ad loc.)?” “They certainly would,” he said. “This image then, dear Glaucon, we must apply as a whole to all that has been said, likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul’s ascension to the intelligible region,[*](Cf. 508 B-C, where Arnou (Le Désir de dieu dans la philos. de Plotin, p. 48 and Robin (La Théorie plat. de l’amour, pp. 83-84) make τόπος νοητός refer to le ciel astronomique as opposed to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος of the Phaedrus 247 A-E, 248 B, 248 D-249 A. The phrase νοητὸς κόσμος, often attributed to Plato, does not occur in his writings.) you will not miss my surmise, since that is what you desire to hear. But God knows[*](Plato was much less prodigal of affirmation about metaphysical ultimates than interpreters who take his myths literally have supposed. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 515, on Meno 86 B.) whether it is true. But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the idea of good, and that when seen it must needs point us to the conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful, giving birth[*](Cf. 506 E.) in the visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely[*](This is the main point for the Republic. The significance of the idea of good for cosmogony is just glanced at and reserved for the Timaeus. Cf. on 508 B, p. 102, note a and p. 505-506. For the practical application Cf. Meno 81 D-E. See also Introd. pp. xxxv-xxxvi.) in private or public must have caught sight of this.” “I concur,” he said, “so far as I am able.” “Come then,” I said, “and join me in this further thought, and do not be surprised that those who have attained to this height are not willing[*](Cf. 521 A, 345 E, and Vol. I. on 347 D, p. 81, note d.) to occupy themselves with the affairs of men, but their souls ever feel the upward urge and the yearning for that sojourn above. For this, I take it, is likely if in this point too the likeness of our image holds” “Yes, it is likely.” “And again, do you think it at all strange,” said I, “if a man returning from divine contemplations to the petty miseries[*](Cf. 346 E.) of men cuts a sorry figure[*](Cf. Theaet. 174 C ἀσχημοσύνη.) and appears most ridiculous, if, while still blinking through the gloom, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the environing darkness, he is compelled in courtrooms[*](For the contrast between the philosophical and the pettifogging soul Cf. Theaet. 173 C-175 E. Cf. also on 517 A, p 128, note b.) or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the images[*](For ἀγαλμάτων cf. my Idea of Good in Plato’s Republic, p. 237, Soph. 234 C, Polit. 303 C.) that cast the shadows and to wrangle in debate about the notions of these things in the minds of those who have never seen justice itself?” “It would be by no men strange,” he said.

“But a sensible man,” I said, “would remember that there are two distinct disturbances of the eyes arising from two causes, according as the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light,[*](Aristotle, De an. 422 a 20 f. says the over-bright is ἀόρατον but otherwise than the dark.) and, believing that the same thing happens to the soul too, whenever he saw a soul perturbed and unable to discern something, he would not laugh[*](Cf. Theaet. 175 D-E.) unthinkingly, but would observe whether coming from a brighter life its vision was obscured by the unfamiliar darkness, or whether the passage from the deeper dark of ignorance into a more luminous world and the greater brightness had dazzled its vision.[*](Lit. or whether coming from a deeper ignorance into a more luminous world, it is dazzled by the brilliance of a greater light.) And so[*](i.e. only after that. For οὕτω δή in this sense cf. 484 D, 429 D, 443 E, Charm. 171 E.) he would deem the one happy in its experience and way of life and pity the other, and if it pleased him to laugh at it, his laughter would be less laughable than that at the expense of the soul that had come down from the light above.” “That is a very fair statement,” he said. “Then, if this is true, our view of these matters must be this, that education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions.[*](ἐπαγγελλόμενοι connotes the boastfulness of their claims. Cf. Protag. 319 A, Gorg. 447 c, Laches 186 C, Euthyd. 273 E, Isoc. Soph. 1, 5, 9, 10, Antid. 193, Xen. Mem. iii. 1. 1, i. 2. 8, Aristot. Rhet. 1402 a 25.) What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting[*](Cf. Theognis 429 ff. Stallbaum compares Eurip. Hippol. 917 f. Similarly Anon. Theaet. Comm. (Berlin, 1905), p. 32, 48. 4 καὶ δεῖν αὐτῇ οὐκ ἐνθέσεως μαθημάτων, ἀλλὰ ἀναμνήσεως. Cf. also St. Augustine: Nolite putare quemquam hominem aliquid discere ab homine. Admonere possumus per strepitum vocis nostrae; and Emerson’s strictly speaking, it is not instruction but provocation that I can receive from another soul.) vision into blind eyes.” “They do indeed,” he said. “But our present argument indicates,” said I, “that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul, like the scene-shifting periact[*](περιακτέον is probably a reference to the περίακτοι or triangular prisms on each side of the stage. They revolved on an axis and had different scenes painted on their three faces. Many scholars are of the opinion that they were not known in the classical period, as they are mentioned only by late writers; but others do not consider this conclusive evidence, as a number of classical plays seem to have required something of the sort. Cf. O. Navarre in Daremberg-Saglio s. v. Machine, p. 1469.) in the theater, until the soul is able to endure the contemplation of essence and the brightest region of being. And this, we say, is the good,[*](Hard-headed distaste for the unction or seeming mysticism of Plato’s language should not blind us to the plain meaning. Unlike Schopenhauer, who affirms the moral will to be unchangeable, Plato says that men may be preached and drilled into ordinary morality, but that the degree of their intelligence is an unalterable endowment of nature. Some teachers will concur.) do we not?” Yes. “Of this very thing, then,” I said, “there might be an art,[*](Plato often distinguishes the things that do or do not admit of reduction to an art or science. Cf. on 488 E p. 22, note b. Adam is mistaken in taking it Education (ἡ παιδεία) would be an art, etc.) an art of the speediest and most effective shifting or conversion of the soul, not an art of producing vision in it, but on the assumption that it possesses vision but does not rightly direct it and does not look where it should, an art of bringing this about.” “Yes, that seems likely,” he said. “Then the other so-called virtues[*](This then is Plato’s answer (intended from the first) to the question whether virtue can be taught, debated in the Protagoras and Meno. The intellectual virtues (to use Aristotle’s term), broadly speaking, cannot be taught; they are a gift. And the highest moral virtue is inseparable from rightly directed intellectual virtue. Ordinary moral virtue is not rightly taught in democratic Athens, but comes by the grace of God. In a reformed state it could be systematically inculcated and taught. Cf. What Plato Said, pp. 51-512 on Meno 70 A. but we need not infer that Plato did not believe in mental discipline. cf. Charles Fox, Educational Psychology, p. 164 The conception of mental discipline is a least as old as Plato, as may be seen from the seventh book of the Republic . . .) of the soul do seem akin to those of the body. For it is true that where they do not pre-exist, they are afterwards created by habit[*](Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1103 a 14-17 ἡ δὲ ἠθικὴ ἐξ ἔθους. Plato does not explicitly name ethical and intellectual virtues. Cf. Fox, op. cit. p. 104 Plato correctly believed . . . ) and practice. But the excellence of thought,[*](Plato uses such synonyms as φρόνησις, σοφία, νοῦς, διάνοια, etc., as suits his purpose and context. He makes no attempt to define and discriminate them with impracticable Aristotelian meticulousness.) it seems, is certainly of a more divine quality, a thing that never loses its potency, but, according to the direction of its conversion, becomes useful and beneficent, or, again, useless and harmful.