Complete Works (234 page)

This is a sudden attack that you’ve made on my argument, and you
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show no sympathy for my delay. Perhaps you don’t realize that, just as I’ve barely escaped from the first two waves of objections, you’re bringing the third—the biggest and most difficult one—down upon me. When you see and hear it, you’ll surely be completely sympathetic, and recognize that it was, after all, appropriate for me to hesitate and be afraid to state and look into so paradoxical a view.

The more you speak like that, the less we’ll let you off from telling us how it’s possible for this constitution to come into being. So speak instead of wasting time. [b]

Well, then, we must first remember that we got to this point while trying to discover what justice and injustice are like.

We must. But what of it?

Nothing. But if we discover what justice is like, will we also maintain that the just man is in no way different from the just itself, so that he is like justice in every respect? Or will we be satisfied if he comes as close to it as possible and participates in it far more than anyone else? [c]

We’ll be satisfied with that.

Then it was in order to have a model that we were trying to discover what justice itself is like and what the completely just man would be like, if he came into being, and what kind of man he’d be if he did, and likewise with regard to injustice and the most unjust man. We thought that, by looking at how their relationship to happiness and its opposite seemed to us, we’d also be compelled to agree about ourselves as well, that the one who was most like them would have a portion of happiness most like theirs. But we weren’t trying to discover these things in order to prove [d] that it’s possible for them to come into being.

That’s true.

Do you think that someone is a worse painter if, having painted a model of what the finest and most beautiful human being would be like and having rendered every detail of his picture adequately, he could not prove that such a man could come into being?

No, by god, I don’t.

Then what about our own case? Didn’t we say that we were making a theoretical model of a good city?
¹⁵
[e]

Certainly.

So do you think that our discussion will be any less reasonable if we can’t prove that it’s possible to found a city that’s the same as the one in our theory?

Not at all.

Then that’s the truth of the matter. But if, in order to please you, I must also be willing to show how and under what conditions it would most be possible to found such a city, then you should agree to make the same concessions to me, in turn, for the purposes of this demonstration.

Which ones?

Is it possible to do anything in practice the same as in theory? Or is it in the nature of practice to grasp truth less well than theory does, even if
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some people don’t think so? Will you first agree to this or not?

I agree.

Then don’t compel me to show that what we’ve described in theory can come into being exactly as we’ve described it. Rather, if we’re able to discover how a city could come to be governed in a way that most closely approximates our description, let’s say that we’ve shown what you ordered us to show, namely, that it’s possible for our city to come to be. Or wouldn’t [b] you be satisfied with that?
I
would be satisfied with it.

So would I.

Then next, it seems, we should try to discover and point out what’s now badly done in cities that keeps them from being governed in that way and what’s the smallest change that would enable our city to reach our sort of constitution—one change, if possible, or if not one, two, and if not two, then the fewest in number and the least extensive.

[c] That’s absolutely right.

There is one change we could point to that, in my opinion, would accomplish this. It’s certainly neither small nor easy, but it is possible.

What is it?

Well, I’ve now come to what we likened to the greatest wave. But I shall say what I have to say, even if the wave is a wave of laughter that will simply drown me in ridicule and contempt. So listen to what I’m going to say.

Say on.

Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophize, that is, until political [d] power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils, Glaucon, nor, I think, will the human race. And, until this happens, the constitution we’ve been describing in [e] theory will never be born to the fullest extent possible or see the light of the sun. It’s because I saw how very paradoxical this statement would be that I hesitated to make it for so long, for it’s hard to face up to the fact that there can be no happiness, either public or private, in any other city.

Socrates, after hurling a speech and statement like that at us, you must expect that a great many people (and not undistinguished ones either) will cast off their cloaks and, stripped for action, snatch any available
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weapon, and make a determined rush at you, ready to do terrible things. So, unless you can hold them off by argument and escape, you really will pay the penalty of general derision.

Well, you are the one that brought this on me.

And I was right to do it. However, I won’t betray you, but rather defend you in any way I can—by goodwill, by urging you on, and perhaps by being able to give you more appropriate answers than someone else. So, with the promise of this assistance, try to show the unbelievers that things are as you say they are. [b]

I must try it, then, especially since you agree to be so great an ally. If we’re to escape from the people you mention, I think we need to define for them who the philosophers are that we dare to say must rule. And once that’s clear, we should be able to defend ourselves by showing that the people we mean are fitted by nature both to engage in philosophy and to rule in a city, while the rest are naturally fitted to leave philosophy [c] alone and follow their leader.

This would be a good time to give that definition.

Come, then, follow me, and we’ll see whether or not there’s some way to set it out adequately.

Lead on.

Do you need to be reminded or do you remember that, if it’s rightly said that someone loves something, then he mustn’t love one part of it and not another, but he must love all of it?
¹⁶

I think you’ll have to remind me, for I don’t understand it at all. [d]

That would be an appropriate response, Glaucon, for somebody else to make. But it isn’t appropriate for an erotically inclined man to forget that all boys in the bloom of youth pique the interest of a lover of boys and arouse him and that all seem worthy of his care and pleasure. Or isn’t that the way you people behave to fine and beautiful boys? You praise a snub-nosed one as cute, a hook-nosed one you say is regal, one in between is well proportioned, dark ones look manly, and pale ones are children of the gods. And as for a honey-colored boy, do you think that this very term [e] is anything but the euphemistic coinage of a lover who found it easy to tolerate sallowness, provided it was accompanied by the bloom of youth? In a word, you find all kinds of terms and excuses so as not to reject
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anyone whose flower is in bloom.

If you insist on taking me as your example of what erotically inclined men do, then, for the sake of the argument, I agree.

Further, don’t you see wine-lovers behave in the same way? Don’t they love every kind of wine and find any excuse to enjoy it?

Certainly.

And I think you see honor-lovers, if they can’t be generals, be captains, and, if they can’t be honored by people of importance and dignity, they put up with being honored by insignificant and inferior ones, for they desire the whole of honor. [b]

Exactly.

Then do you agree to this or not? When we say that someone desires something, do we mean that he desires everything of that kind or that he desires one part of it but not another?

We mean he desires everything.

Then won’t we also say that the philosopher doesn’t desire one part of wisdom rather than another, but desires the whole thing?

Yes, that’s true.

And as for the one who’s choosy about what he learns, especially if he’s young and can’t yet give an account of what is useful and what [c] isn’t, we won’t say that he is a lover of learning or a philosopher, for we wouldn’t say that someone who’s choosy about his food is hungry or has an appetite for food or is a lover of food—instead, we’d say that he is a bad eater.

And we’d be right to say it.

But the one who readily and willingly tries all kinds of learning, who turns gladly to learning and is insatiable for it, is rightly called a philosopher, isn’t he?

[d] Then many strange people will be philosophers, for the lovers of sights seem to be included, since they take pleasure in learning things. And the lovers of sounds are very strange people to include as philosophers, for they would never willingly attend a serious discussion or spend their time that way, yet they run around to all the Dionysiac festivals, omitting none, whether in cities or villages, as if their ears were under contract to listen to every chorus. Are we to say that these people—and those who learn [e] similar things or petty crafts—are philosophers?

No, but they are
like
philosophers.

And who are the true philosophers?

Those who love the sight of truth.

That’s right, but what exactly do you mean by it?

It would not be easy to explain to someone else, but I think that you will agree to this.

To what?

Since the beautiful is the opposite of the ugly, they are two.

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Of course.

And since they are two, each is one?

I grant that also.

And the same account is true of the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, and all the forms. Each of them is itself one, but because they manifest themselves everywhere in association with actions, bodies, and one another, each of them appears to be many.

That’s right.

So, I draw this distinction: On one side are those you just now called lovers of sights, lovers of crafts, and practical people; on the other side are [b] those we are arguing about and whom one would alone call philosophers.

How do you mean?

The lovers of sights and sounds like beautiful sounds, colors, shapes, and everything fashioned out of them, but their thought is unable to see and embrace the nature of the beautiful itself.

That’s for sure.

In fact, there are very few people who would be able to reach the beautiful itself and see it by itself. Isn’t that so?

Certainly. [c]

What about someone who believes in beautiful things, but doesn’t believe in the beautiful itself and isn’t able to follow anyone who could lead him to the knowledge of it? Don’t you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? Isn’t this dreaming: whether asleep or awake, to think that a likeness is not a likeness but rather the thing itself that it is like?

I certainly think that someone who does that is dreaming.

But someone who, to take the opposite case, believes in the beautiful itself, can see both it and the things that participate in it and doesn’t believe that the participants are it or that it itself is the participants—is he living [d] in a dream or is he awake?

He’s very much awake.

So we’d be right to call his thought knowledge, since he knows, but we should call the other person’s thought opinion, since he opines?

Right.

What if the person who has opinion but not knowledge is angry with us and disputes the truth of what we are saying? Is there some way to console him and persuade him gently, while hiding from him that he isn’t [e] in his right mind?

There must be.

Consider, then, what we’ll say to him. Won’t we question him like this? First, we’ll tell him that nobody begrudges him any knowledge he may have and that we’d be delighted to discover that he knows something. Then we’ll say: “Tell us, does the person who knows know something or nothing?” You answer for him.

He knows something.

Something that is or something that is not?
¹⁷

Something that is, for how could something that is not be known?
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Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what is completely is completely knowable and what is in no way is in every way unknowable?

A most adequate one.

Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be, won’t it be intermediate between what purely is and what in no way is?

Yes, it’s intermediate.

Then, as knowledge is set over what is, while ignorance is of necessity set over what is not, mustn’t we find an intermediate between knowledge and ignorance to be set over what is intermediate between what is and [b] what is not, if there is such a thing?

Certainly.

Do we say that opinion is something?

Of course.

A different power from knowledge or the same?

A different one.

Opinion, then, is set over one thing, and knowledge over another, according to the power of each.

Right.

Now, isn’t knowledge by its nature set over what is, to know it as it is? But first maybe we’d better be a bit more explicit.

How so?

[c] Powers are a class of the things that are that enable us—or anything else for that matter—to do whatever we are capable of doing. Sight, for example, and hearing are among the powers, if you understand the kind of thing I’m referring to.

I do.

Here’s what I think about them. A power has neither color nor shape nor any feature of the sort that many other things have and that I use to distinguish those things from one another. In the case of a power, I use [d] only what it is set over and what it does, and by reference to these I call each the power it is: What is set over the same things and does the same I call the same power; what is set over something different and does something different I call a different one. Do you agree? I do.