Complete Works (235 page)

Then let’s back up. Is knowledge a power, or what class would you put it in?

It’s a power, the strongest of them all.

[e] And what about opinion, is it a power or some other kind of thing?

It’s a power as well, for it is what enables us to opine.

A moment ago you agreed that knowledge and opinion aren’t the same.

How could a person with any understanding think that a fallible power is the same as an infallible one?

[478]
Right. Then we agree that opinion is clearly different from knowledge.

It is different.

Hence each of them is by nature set over something different and does something different?

Necessarily.

Knowledge is set over what is, to know it as it is?

Yes.

And opinion opines?

Yes.

Does it opine the very thing that knowledge knows, so that the knowable and the opinable are the same, or is this impossible?

It’s impossible, given what we agreed, for if a different power is set over something different, and opinion and knowledge are different powers, then the knowable and the opinable cannot be the same. [b]

Then, if what is is knowable, the opinable must be something other than what is?

It must.

Do we, then, opine what is not? Or is it impossible to opine what is not? Think about this. Doesn’t someone who opines set his opinion over something? Or is it possible to opine, yet to opine nothing?

It’s impossible.

But someone who opines opines some one thing?

Yes.

Surely the most accurate word for that which is not isn’t “one thing” but “nothing”? [c]

Certainly.

But we had to set ignorance over what is not and knowledge over what is?

That’s right.

So someone opines neither what is nor what is not?

How could it be otherwise?

Then opinion is neither ignorance nor knowledge?

So it seems.

Then does it go beyond either of these? Is it clearer than knowledge or darker than ignorance?

No, neither.

Is opinion, then, darker than knowledge but clearer than ignorance?

It is.

Then it lies between them? [d]

Yes.

So opinion is intermediate between those two?

Absolutely.

Now, we said that, if something could be shown, as it were, to be and not to be at the same time, it would be intermediate between what purely is and what in every way is not, and that neither knowledge nor ignorance would be set over it, but something intermediate between ignorance and knowledge?

Correct.

And now the thing we call opinion has emerged as being intermediate between them?

It has.

Apparently, then, it only remains for us to find what participates in both being and not being and cannot correctly be called purely one or the other, [e] in order that, if there is such a thing, we can rightly call it the opinable, thereby setting the extremes over the extremes and the intermediate over the intermediate. Isn’t that so?

It is.

Now that these points have been established, I want to address a question
[479]
to our friend who doesn’t believe in the beautiful itself or any form of the beautiful itself that remains always the same in all respects but who does believe in the many beautiful things—the lover of sights who wouldn’t allow anyone to say that the beautiful itself is one or that the just is one or any of the rest: “My dear fellow,” we’ll say, “of all the many beautiful things, is there one that will not also appear ugly? Or is there one of those just things that will not also appear unjust? Or one of those pious things that will not also appear impious?”

There isn’t one, for it is necessary that they appear to be beautiful in a [b] way and also to be ugly in a way, and the same with the other things you asked about.

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

Not one.

So, with the many bigs and smalls and lights and heavies, is any one of them any more what we say it is than its opposite?

No, each of them always participates in both opposites.

Is any one of the manys what we say it is, then, any more than it is not what he says it is?

No, they are like the ambiguities one is entertained with at dinner parties or like the children’s riddle about the eunuch who threw something at a [c] bat—the one about what he threw at it and what it was in,
¹⁸
for they are ambiguous, and one cannot understand them as fixedly being or fixedly not being or as both or as neither.

Then do you know how to deal with them? Or can you find a more appropriate place to put them than intermediate between being and not being? Surely, they can’t
be
more than what is or
not be
more than what is not, for apparently nothing is darker than what is not or clearer than [d] what is.

Very true.

We’ve now discovered, it seems, that the many conventions of the majority of people about beauty and the others are rolling around as intermediates between what is not and what purely is.

We have.

And we agreed earlier that anything of that kind would have to be called the opinable, not the knowable—the wandering intermediate grasped by the intermediate power.

We did.

As for those who study the many beautiful things but do not see the [e] beautiful itself and are incapable of following another who leads them to it, who see many just things but not the just itself, and so with everything—these people, we shall say, opine everything but have no knowledge of anything they opine.

Necessarily.

What about the ones who in each case study the things themselves that are always the same in every respect? Won’t we say that they know and don’t opine?

That’s necessary too.

Shall we say, then, that these people love and embrace the things that knowledge is set over, as the others do the things that opinion is set over?
[480]
Remember we said that the latter saw and loved beautiful sounds and colors and the like but wouldn’t allow the beautiful itself to be anything?

We remember, all right.

We won’t be in error, then, if we call such people lovers of opinion rather than philosophers or lovers of wisdom and knowledge? Will they be angry with us if we call them that?

Not if they take my advice, for it isn’t right to be angry with those who speak the truth.

As for those who in each case embrace the thing itself, we must call them philosophers, not lovers of opinion?

Most definitely.

1
. This task is taken up in Book VIII.

2
. See 423e–424a.

3
. A proverbial expression applied to those who neglect the task at hand for some more fascinating but less profitable pursuit.

4
. Adrastea was a kind of Nemesis, a punisher of pride. The “bow to Adrastea” is a kind of apology for the sort of behavior that might otherwise spur her to take action.

5
. See Herodotus,
Histories
1.23–24 for the story of Arion’s rescue by the dolphin.

6
. Plato is here adapting a phrase of Pindar, “plucking the unripe fruit of wisdom,” frg. 209 (Snell).

7
. See 382c ff. and 414b ff.

8
. The priestess of Apollo at Delphi.

9
. See 416d ff.

10
. See 419a ff.

11
.
Works and Days
40.

12
. The last two quotations are from
Iliad
vii.321 and viii.162, respectively.

13
.
Works and Days
122.

14
. Apollo. See 427b.

15
. See 369a–c.

16
. See 438a–b.

17
. Because of the ambiguity of the verb
einai
(“to be”), Socrates could be asking any or all of the following questions: (1) “Something that exists or something that does not exist?” (existential “is”); (2) “Something that is beautiful (say) or something that is not beautiful?” (predicative “is”); (3) “Something that is true or something that is not true?” (veridical “is”).

18
. The riddle seems to have been: A man who is not a man saw and did not see a bird that was not a bird in a tree (lit., a piece of wood) that was not a tree; he hit (lit., threw at) and did not hit it with a stone that was not a stone. The answer is that a eunuch with bad eyesight saw a bat on a rafter, threw a pumice stone at it, and missed.

Book VI

And so, Glaucon, I said, after a somewhat lengthy and difficult discussion,
[484]
both the philosophers and the nonphilosophers came to light as who they are.

It probably wouldn’t have been easy, he said, to have them do it in a shorter one.

Apparently not. But for my part, I think that the matter would have been better illuminated if we had only it to discuss and not all the other things that remain to be treated in order to discover the difference between the just life and the unjust one. [b]

What’s our next topic?

What else but the one that’s next in order? Since those who are able to grasp what is always the same in all respects are philosophers, while those who are not able to do so and who wander among the many things that vary in every sort of way are not philosophers, which of the two should be the leaders in a city?

What would be a sensible answer to that?

We should establish as guardians those who are clearly capable of guarding the laws and the ways of life of the city. [c]

That’s right.

And isn’t it clear that a guardian who is to keep watch over anything should be keen-sighted rather than blind?

Of course it’s clear.

Do you think, then, that there’s any difference between the blind and those who are really deprived of the knowledge of each thing that is? The latter have no clear model in their souls, and so they cannot—in the manner of painters—look to what is most true, make constant reference to it, and [d] study it as exactly as possible. Hence they cannot establish here on earth conventions about what is fine or just or good, when they need to be established, or guard and preserve them, once they have been established.

No, by god, there isn’t much difference between them.

Should we, then, make these blind people our guardians or rather those who know each thing that is and who are not inferior to the others, either in experience or in any other part of virtue?

It would be absurd to choose anyone but the ones who have knowledge, if indeed they’re not inferior in these ways, for the respect in which they are superior is pretty well the most important one.

[485]
Then shouldn’t we explain how it is possible for people to come to have both these sorts of qualities?

Certainly.

Then, as we said at the beginning of this discussion, it is necessary to understand first the nature of the ones who are going to come to have both sorts,
¹
for I think that, if we can reach adequate agreement about that, we’ll also agree that the same people
can
have both qualities and that no one but they should be leaders in cities.

How so?

Let’s agree that philosophic natures always love the sort of learning that makes clear to them some feature of the being that always is and does not [b] wander around between coming to be and decaying.

And further, let’s agree that, like the honor-lovers and erotically inclined men we described before,
²
they love all such learning and are not willing to give up any part of it, whether large or small, more valuable or less so.

That’s right.

Consider next whether the people we’re describing must also have this [c] in their nature.

What?

They must be without falsehood—they must refuse to accept what is false, hate it, and have a love for the truth.

That’s a reasonable addition, at any rate.

It’s not only reasonable, it’s entirely necessary, for it’s necessary for a man who is erotically inclined by nature to love everything akin to or belonging to the boy he loves.

That’s right.

And could you find anything that belongs more to wisdom than truth does?

Of course not.

Then is it possible for the same nature to be a philosopher—a lover of wisdom—and a lover of falsehood? [d]

Not at all.

Then someone who loves learning must above all strive for every kind of truth from childhood on.

Absolutely.

Now, we surely know that, when someone’s desires incline strongly for one thing, they are thereby weakened for others, just like a stream that has been partly diverted into another channel.

Of course.

Then, when someone’s desires flow towards learning and everything of that sort, they’d be concerned, I suppose, with the pleasures of the soul itself by itself, and they’d abandon those pleasures that come through the body—if indeed he is a true philosopher and not merely a counterfeit one.

That’s completely necessary. [e]

Then surely such a person is moderate and not at all a money-lover. It’s appropriate for others to take seriously the things for which money and large expenditures are needed, but not for him.

That’s right.

And of course there’s also this to consider when you are judging whether
[486]
a nature is philosophic or not.

What’s that?

If it is at all slavish, you should not overlook that fact, for pettiness is altogether incompatible with a soul that is always reaching out to grasp everything both divine and human as a whole.

That’s completely true.

And will a thinker high-minded enough to study all time and all being consider human life to be something important?

He couldn’t possibly.

Then will he consider death to be a terrible thing? [b]

He least of all.

Then it seems a cowardly and slavish nature will take no part in true philosophy.

Not in my opinion.

And is there any way that an orderly person, who isn’t money-loving, slavish, a boaster, or a coward, could become unreliable or unjust?

There isn’t.