Republic (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Plato

  Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question: Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him).

  I answer that he knows something.

  Something that is or is not?26

  Something that is; for how can that which is not ever be known?27

  477

  And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown?

  Nothing can be more certain.

  Good. But if there be anything which is of such a nature as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate between pure being and the absolute negation of being?

  Yes, between them.

  And, as knowledge corresponded to being and ignorance of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such?

  b

  Certainly.

  Do we admit the existence of opinion?

  Undoubtedly.

  As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty?

  Another faculty.

  Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties?

  Yes.

  And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division.

  What division?

  I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves: they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean?

  c

  Yes, I quite understand.

  Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, color, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them. In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking?

  d

  Yes.

  And will you be so very good as to answer one more question? Would you say that knowledge is a faculty, or in what class would you place it?

  Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties.

  And is opinion also a faculty?

  e

  Certainly, he said; for opinion is that with which we are able to form an opinion.

  And yet you were acknowledging a little while ago that knowledge is not the same as opinion?

  Why, yes, he said: how can any reasonable being ever identify that which is infallible with that which errs?

  An excellent answer, proving, I said, that we are quite conscious of a distinction between them.

  478

  Yes.

  Then knowledge and opinion having distinct powers have also distinct spheres or subject-matters?

  That is certain.

  Being is the sphere or subject-matter of knowledge, and knowledge is to know the nature of being?

  Yes.

  And opinion is to have an opinion?

  Yes.

  And do we know what we opine? or is the subject-matter of opinion the same as the subject-matter of knowledge?

  Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same.

  b

  Then if being is the subject-matter of knowledge, something else must be the subject-matter of opinion?

  Yes, something else.

  Well, then, is not-being the subject-matter of opinion? or, rather, how can there be an opinion at all about not-being? Reflect: when a man has an opinion, has he not an opinion about something? Can he have an opinion which is an opinion about nothing?

  Impossible.

  He who has an opinion, has an opinion about some one thing?

  Yes.

  And not-being is not one thing, but, properly speaking, nothing?

  True.

  Of not-being, ignorance was assumed to be the necessary correlative; of being, knowledge?

  c

  True, he said.

  Then opinion is not concerned either with being or with not-being?

  Not with either.

  And can therefore neither be ignorance nor knowledge?

  That seems to be true.

  But is opinion to be sought without and beyond either of them, in a greater clearness than knowledge, or in a greater darkness than ignorance?

  In neither.

  Then I suppose that opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?

  Both; and in no small degree.

  And also to be within and between them?

  d

  Yes.

  Then you would infer that opinion is intermediate?28

  No question.

  But were we not saying before, that if anything appeared to be of a sort which is and is not at the same time, that sort of thing would appear also to lie in the interval between pure being and absolute not-being; and that the corresponding faculty is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but will be found in the interval between them?

  True.

  And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion?

  There has.

  Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty—the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean.

  e

  True.

  This being premised, I would ask the gentleman who is of opinion that there is no absolute or unchangeable idea of beauty—in whose opinion the beautiful is the manifold—he, I say, your lover of beautiful sights, who cannot bear to be told that the beautiful is one, and the just is one, or that anything is one—to him I would appeal, saying, Will you be so very kind, sir, as to tell us whether, of all these beautiful things, there is one which will not be found ugly; or of the just, which will not be found unjust; or of the holy, which will not also be unholy?

  479

  No, he replied; the beautiful will in some point of view be found ugly; and the same is true of the rest.

  b

  And may not the many which are doubles be also halves?—doubles, that is, of one thing, and halves of another?

  Quite true.

  And things great and small, heavy and light, as they are termed, will not be denoted by these any more than by the opposite names?

  True; both these and the opposite names will always attach to all of them.

  And can any one of those many things which are called by particular names be said to be this rather than not to be this?

  He replied: They are like the punning riddles which are asked at feasts or the children’s puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat,29 with what he hit him, as they say in the puzzle, and upon what the bat was sitting. The individual objects of which I am speaking are also a riddle, and have a double sense: nor can you fix them in your mind, either as being or not-being, or both, or neither.

  c

  Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being.

  d

  That is quite true, he said.

  Thus then we seem t
o have discovered that the many ideas which the multitude entertain about the beautiful and about all other things are tossing about in some region which is halfway between pure being and pure not-being?

  We have.

  Yes; and we had before agreed that anything of this kind which we might find was to be described as matter of opinion, and not as matter of knowledge; being the intermediate flux which is caught and detained by the intermediate faculty.

  Quite true.

  e

  Then those who see the many beautiful, and who yet neither see absolute beauty, nor can follow any guide who points the way thither; who see the many just, and not absolute justice, and the like—such persons may be said to have opinion but not knowledge?

  That is certain.

  But those who see the absolute and eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only?

  Neither can that be denied.

  The one love and embrace the subjects of knowledge, the other those of opinion? The latter are the same, as I dare say you will remember, who listened to sweet sounds and gazed upon fair colors, but would not tolerate the existence of absolute beauty.

  480

  Yes, 1 remember.

  Shall we then be guilty of any impropriety in calling them lovers of opinion rather than lovers of wisdom, and will they be very angry with us for thus describing them?

  I shall tell them not to be angry; no man should be angry at what is true.

  But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.

  Assuredly.

  BOOK 6

  AND THUS, GLAUCON, AFTER the argument has gone a weary way, the true and the false philosophers have at length appeared in view.

  484

  I do not think, he said, that the way could have been shortened.

  I suppose not, I said; and yet I believe that we might have had a better view of both of them if the discussion could have been confined to this one subject and if there were not many other questions awaiting us, which he who desires to see in what respect the life of the just differs from that of the unjust must consider.1

  b

  And what is the next question? he asked.

  Surely, I said, the one which follows next in order. Inasmuch as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the rulers of our State?

  And how can we rightly answer that question?

  Whichever of the two are best able to guard the laws and institutions of our State—let them be our guardians.

  c

  Very good.

  Neither, I said, can there be any question that the guardian who is to keep anything should have eyes rather than no eyes?

  There can be no question of that.

  And are not those who are verily and indeed wanting in the knowledge of the true being of each thing, and who have in their souls no clear pattern, and are unable as with a painter’s eye to look at the absolute truth and to that original to repair, and having perfect vision of the other world to order the laws about beauty, goodness, justice in this, if not already ordered, and to guard and preserve the order of them—are not such persons, I ask, simply blind? 2

  d

  Truly, he replied, they are much in that condition.

  And shall they be our guardians when there are others who, besides being their equals in experience and falling short of them in no particular of virtue, also know the very truth of each thing?

  There can be no reason, he said, for rejecting those who have this greatest of all great qualities; they must always have the first place unless they fail in some other respect.

  Suppose, then, I said, that we determine how far they can unite this and the other excellences.

  485

  By all means.

  In the first place, as we began by observing, the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained.3 We must come to an understanding about him, and, when we have done so, then, if I am not mistaken, we shall also acknowledge that such a union of qualities is possible, and that those in whom they are united, and those only, should be rulers in the State.

  What do you mean?

  Let us suppose that philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption.

  b

  Agreed.

  And further, I said, let us agree that they are lovers of all true being; there is no part whether greater or less, or more or less honorable, which they are willing to renounce; as we said before of the lover and the man of ambition.

  True.

  And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess?

  c

  What quality?

  Truthfulness: they will never intentionally receive into their minds falsehood, which is their detestation, and they will love the truth.

  Yes, that may be safely affirmed of them.

  “May be,” my friend, I replied, is not the word; say rather, “must be affirmed:” for he whose nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or is akin to the object of his affections.

  Right, he said.

  And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth?

  How can there be?

  Can the same nature be a lover of wisdom and a lover of falsehood?

  d

  Never.

  The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth?

  Assuredly.

  But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they will be like a stream which has been drawn off into another channel.

  True.

  He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasure—I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one.

  e

  That is most certain.

  Such a one is sure to be temperate and the reverse of covetous; for the motives which make another man desirous of having and spending, have no place in his character.

  Very true.

  Another criterion of the philosophical nature has also to be considered.

  486

  What is that?

  There should be no secret corner of illiberality;4 nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human.

  Most true, he replied.

  Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?

  He cannot.

  Or can such a one account death fearful?

  b

  No, indeed.

  Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?

  Certainly not.

  Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward—can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings?

  Impossible.

  Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.

  True.

  There is another point which should be remarked.

  c

  What point?

  Whether he has or has not a pleasure in learning; for no one will love that which gives him pain, and in which after much toil he makes little progress.

  Certainly not.

  And again, if he is forgetful and retains nothing of what he learns, will he not be an empty vessel?

  That is certain.

  Laboring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation?

  Yes.

  Then a soul which forgets can
not be ranked among genuine philosophic natures; we must insist that the philosopher should have a good memory?

  d

  Certainly.

  And once more, the inharmonious and unseemly nature can only tend to disproportion?

  Undoubtedly.

  And do you consider truth to be akin to proportion or to disproportion?

  To proportion.

  Then, besides other qualities, we must try to find a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously toward the true being of everything.

  Certainly.

  Well, and do not all these qualities, which we have been enumerating, go together, and are they not, in a manner, necessary to a soul, which is to have a full and perfect participation of being?

  e

  They are absolutely necessary, he replied.

  487

  And must not that be a blameless study which he only can pursue who has the gift of a good memory, and is quick to learn—noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperance, who are his kindred?

  The god of jealousyes himself, he said, could find no fault with such a study.

  And to men like him, I said, when perfected by years and education, and to these only you will intrust the State.

  Here Adeimantus interposed and said: To these statements, Socrates, no one can offer a reply; but when you talk in this way, a strange feeling passes over the minds of your hearers: They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument, owing to their own want of skill in asking and answering questions; these littles accumulate, and at the end of the discussion they are found to have sustained a mighty overthrow and all their former notions appear to be turned upside down. 5 And as unskilful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skilful adversaries and have no piece to move, so they too find themselves shut up at last; for they have nothing to say in this new game of which words are the counters; and yet all the time they are in the right. The observation is suggested to me by what is now occurring. For any one of us might say, that although in words he is not able to meet you at each step of the argument, he sees as a fact that the votaries of philosophy, when they carry on the study, not only in youth as a part of education, but as the pursuit of their maturer years, most of them become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues, and that those who may be considered the best of them are made useless to the world by the very study which you extol.