Complete Works (243 page)

That’s my opinion anyway, now that I hear it from you.

Then if, by really taking part in astronomy, we’re to make the naturally intelligent part of the soul useful instead of useless, let’s study astronomy by means of problems, as we do geometry, and leave the things in the [c] sky alone.

The task you’re prescribing is a lot harder than anything now attempted in astronomy.

And I suppose that, if we are to be of any benefit as lawgivers, our prescriptions for the other subjects will be of the same kind. But have you any other appropriate subject to suggest?

Not offhand.

Well, there isn’t just one form of motion but several. Perhaps a wise [d] person could list them all, but there are two that are evident even to us.

What are they?

Besides the one we’ve discussed, there is also its counterpart.

What’s that?

It’s likely that, as the eyes fasten on astronomical motions, so the ears fasten on harmonic ones, and that the sciences of astronomy and harmonics are closely akin. This is what the Pythagoreans say, Glaucon, and we agree, don’t we?

We do.

[e] Therefore, since the subject is so huge, shouldn’t we ask them what they have to say about harmonic motions and whether there is anything else besides them, all the while keeping our own goal squarely in view?

What’s that?

That those whom we are rearing should never try to learn anything incomplete, anything that doesn’t reach the end that everything should reach—the end we mentioned just now in the case of astronomy. Or don’t you know that people do something similar in harmonics? Measuring
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audible consonances and sounds against one another, they labor in vain, just like present-day astronomers.

Yes, by the gods, and pretty ridiculous they are too. They talk about something they call a “dense interval” or quartertone—putting their ears to their instruments like someone trying to overhear what the neighbors are saying. And some say that they hear a tone in between and that
it
is the shortest interval by which they must measure, while others argue that this tone sounds the same as a quarter tone. Both put ears before [b] understanding.

You mean those excellent fellows who torment their strings, torturing them, and stretching them on pegs. I won’t draw out the analogy by speaking of blows with the plectrum or the accusations or denials and boastings on the part of the strings; instead I’ll cut it short by saying that these aren’t the people I’m talking about. The ones I mean are the ones we just said we were going to question about harmonics, for they do the same as the astronomers. They seek out the numbers that are to be found [c] in these audible consonances, but they do not make the ascent to problems. They don’t investigate, for example, which numbers are consonant and which aren’t or what the explanation is of each.

But that would be a superhuman task.

Yet it’s useful in the search for the beautiful and the good. But pursued for any other purpose, it’s useless.

Probably so.

Moreover, I take it that, if inquiry into all the subjects we’ve mentioned brings out their association and relationship with one another and draws conclusions about their kinship, it does contribute something to our goal [d] and isn’t labor in vain, but that otherwise it is in vain.

I, too, divine that this is true. But you’re still talking about a very big task, Socrates.

Do you mean the prelude, or what? Or don’t you know that all these subjects are merely preludes to the song itself that must also be learned? Surely you don’t think that people who are clever in these matters are dialecticians. [e]

No, by god, I don’t. Although I have met a few exceptions.

But did it ever seem to you that those who can neither give nor follow an account know anything at all of the things we say they must know?

My answer to that is also no.

Then isn’t this at last, Glaucon, the song that dialectic sings? It is intelligible,
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but it is imitated by the power of sight. We said that sight tries at last to look at the animals themselves, the stars themselves, and, in the end, at the sun itself. In the same way, whenever someone tries through argument and apart from all sense perceptions to find the being itself of each thing and doesn’t give up until he grasps the good itself with [b] understanding itself, he reaches the end of the intelligible, just as the other reached the end of the visible.

Absolutely.

And what about this journey? Don’t you call it dialectic?

I do.

Then the release from bonds and the turning around from shadows to statues and the light of the fire and, then, the way up out of the cave to the sunlight and, there, the continuing inability to look at the animals, the plants, and the light of the sun, but the newly acquired ability to look at [c] divine images in water and shadows of the things that are, rather than, as before, merely at shadows of statues thrown by another source of light that is itself a shadow in relation to the sun—all this business of the crafts we’ve mentioned has the power to awaken the best part of the soul and lead it upward to the study of the best among the things that are, just as, before, the clearest thing in the body was led to the brightest thing in the [d] bodily and visible realm.

I accept that this is so, even though it seems very hard to accept in one way and hard not to accept in another. All the same, since we’ll have to return to these things often in the future, rather than having to hear them just once now, let’s assume that what you’ve said is so and turn to the song itself, discussing it in the same way as we did the prelude. So tell us: what is the sort of power dialectic has, what forms is it divided into, and what paths does it follow? For these lead at last, it seems, towards [e] that place which is a rest from the road, so to speak, and an end of journeying for the one who reaches it.

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You won’t be able to follow me any longer, Glaucon, even though there is no lack of eagerness on my part to lead you, for you would no longer be seeing an image of what we’re describing, but the truth itself. At any rate, that’s how it seems to me. That it is really so is not worth insisting on any further. But that there is some such thing to be seen,
that
is something we must insist on. Isn’t that so?

Of course.

And mustn’t we also insist that the power of dialectic could reveal it only to someone experienced in the subjects we’ve described and that it cannot reveal it in any other way?

That too is worth insisting on.

[b] At any rate, no one will dispute it when we say that there is no other inquiry that systematically attempts to grasp with respect to each thing itself what the being of it is, for all the other crafts are concerned with human opinions and desires, with growing or construction, or with the care of growing or constructed things. And as for the rest, I mean geometry and the subjects that follow it, we described them as to some extent grasping what is, for we saw that, while they do dream about what is, they are unable to command a waking view of it as long as they make use of hypotheses that they leave untouched and that they cannot give any account [c] of. What mechanism could possibly turn any agreement into knowledge when it begins with something unknown and puts together the conclusion and the steps in between from what is unknown?

None.

Therefore, dialectic is the only inquiry that travels this road, doing away with hypotheses and proceeding to the first principle itself, so as to be [d] secure. And when the eye of the soul is really buried in a sort of barbaric bog, dialectic gently pulls it out and leads it upwards, using the crafts we described to help it and cooperate with it in turning the soul around. From force of habit, we’ve often called these crafts sciences or kinds of knowledge, but they need another name, clearer than opinion, darker than knowledge. We called them thought somewhere before.
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But I presume that we won’t dispute about a name when we have so many more important matters to investigate. [e]

Of course not.

It will therefore be enough to call the first section knowledge, the second thought, the third belief, and the fourth imaging, just as we did before. The last two together we call opinion, the other two, intellect. Opinion is
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concerned with becoming, intellect with being. And as being is to becoming, so intellect is to opinion, and as intellect is to opinion, so knowledge is to belief and thought to imaging. But as for the ratios between the things these are set over and the division of either the opinable or the intelligible section into two, let’s pass them by, Glaucon, lest they involve us in arguments many times longer than the ones we’ve already gone through.

I agree with you about the others in any case, insofar as I’m able to follow. [b]

Then, do you call someone who is able to give an account of the being of each thing dialectical? But insofar as he’s unable to give an account of something, either to himself or to another, do you deny that he has any understanding of it?

How could I do anything else?

Then the same applies to the good. Unless someone can distinguish in an account the form of the good from everything else, can survive all refutation, as if in a battle, striving to judge things not in accordance with [c] opinion but in accordance with being, and can come through all this with his account still intact, you’ll say that he doesn’t know the good itself or any other good. And if he gets hold of some image of it, you’ll say that it’s through opinion, not knowledge, for he is dreaming and asleep throughout his present life, and, before he wakes up here, he will arrive in Hades and go to sleep forever. [d]

Yes, by god, I’ll certainly say all of that.

Then, as for those children of yours whom you’re rearing and educating in theory, if you ever reared them in fact, I don’t think that you’d allow them to rule in your city or be responsible for the most important things while they are as irrational as incommensurable lines.

Certainly not.

Then you’ll legislate that they are to give most attention to the education that will enable them to ask and answer questions most knowledgeably?

[e] I’ll legislate it along with you.

Then do you think that we’ve placed dialectic at the top of the other subjects like a coping stone and that no other subject can rightly be placed above it, but that our account of the subjects that a future ruler must learn
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has come to an end?

Probably so.

Then it remains for you to deal with the distribution of these subjects, with the question of to whom we’ll assign them and in what way.

That’s clearly next.

Do you remember what sort of people we chose in our earlier selection of rulers?
⁶

Of course I do.

In the other respects, the same natures have to be chosen: we have to select the most stable, the most courageous, and as far as possible the most graceful. In addition, we must look not only for people who have a noble [b] and tough character but for those who have the natural qualities conducive to this education of ours.

Which ones exactly?

They must be keen on the subjects and learn them easily, for people’s souls give up much more easily in hard study than in physical training, since the pain—being peculiar to them and not shared with their body—is more their own.

That’s true.

[c] We must also look for someone who has got a good memory, is persistent, and is in every way a lover of hard work. How else do you think he’d be willing to carry out both the requisite bodily labors and also complete so much study and practice?

Nobody would, unless his nature was in every way a good one.

In any case, the present error, which as we said before explains why philosophy isn’t valued, is that she’s taken up by people who are unworthy of her, for illegitimate students shouldn’t be allowed to take her up, but only legitimate ones.

How so?

[d] In the first place, no student should be lame in his love of hard work, really loving one half of it, and hating the other half. This happens when someone is a lover of physical training, hunting, or any kind of bodily labor and isn’t a lover of learning, listening, or inquiry, but hates the work involved in them. And someone whose love of hard work tends in the opposite direction is also lame.

That’s very true.

Similarly with regard to truth, won’t we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary falsehood, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when it exists in others, but is nonetheless content to accept [e] an involuntary falsehood, isn’t angry when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its lack of learning easily, wallowing in it like a pig?

Absolutely.
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And with regard to moderation, courage, high-mindedness, and all the other parts of virtue, it is also important to distinguish the illegitimate from the legitimate, for when either a city or an individual doesn’t know how to do this, it unwittingly employs the lame and illegitimate as friends or rulers for whatever services it wants done.

That’s just how it is.

So we must be careful in all these matters, for if we bring people who are sound of limb and mind to so great a subject and training, and educate them in it, even justice itself won’t blame us, and we’ll save the city and [b] its constitution. But if we bring people of a different sort, we’ll do the opposite, and let loose an even greater flood of ridicule upon philosophy.

And it would be shameful to do that.

It certainly would. But I seem to have done something a bit ridiculous myself just now.

What’s that?

I forgot that we were only playing, and so I spoke too vehemently. But I looked upon philosophy as I spoke, and seeing her undeservedly [c] besmirched, I seem to have lost my temper and said what I had to say too earnestly, as if I were angry with those responsible for it.

That certainly wasn’t my impression as I listened to you.

But it was mine as I was speaking. In any case, let’s not forget that in our earlier selection we chose older people but that that isn’t permitted in this one, for we mustn’t believe Solon
⁷
when he says that as someone grows older he’s able to learn a lot. He can do that even less well than he [d] can run races, for all great and numerous labors belong to the young.