| Notes on Plato's |
| Notes on Plato's |
1. Since only philosophers are able to grasp the eternal and unchangeable, and those who wander in the region of the many and variable are not philosophers, then philosophers should rule the State. 484b
2. Those persons are blind who are wanting in the knowledge of the true being of things, have in their souls no clear pattern, are unable as with a painter's eye to look at the original, and 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. 484c
3. Philosophic natures always love the sort of learning that makes clear to them some feature of the being that always is and does not wander around between coming to be and decaying. 485a
4. Philosophers must be without falsehood--they must refuse to accept what is false, hate it, and have a love for the truth. 485c
5. The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth. 485d
6. He whose desires are drawn towards 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.
7. Such a person 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. 485e
8. There should be no secret corner of illiberality; nothing can be more antagonistic than meanness to a soul which is ever longing after the whole of things both divine and human. 486a
9. A person who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all being, thinks very little of human life and does not consider death to be a terrible thing.
10. The signs which distinguish, even in youth, the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical are whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable. 486b
11. Another determination is 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. 486c
12. A person with a philosophic nature must have a good memory and a naturally well-proportioned and gracious mind, which will move spontaneously towards the true being of everything. 486d
13. Adeimantus: 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. And as unskillful players of draughts are at last shut up by their more skillful 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. 487b-d
14. The manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction. 488a
15. The genuine philosopher is similar to the captain in this fable: Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer's art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? 488b-e
16. A person who is surprised at finding that genuine philosophers have no honor in their cities should be shown that their having honor would be far more extraordinary. 489a
17. Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him--that is not the order of nature; neither are "the wise to go to the doors of the rich"--the ingenious author of this saying told a lie--but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers. 489c
18. For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed. 489d
19. The corruption of the majority of counterfeit philosophers is also unavoidable, and this also is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other. 489e
20. Counterfeit philosophers aspire after a profession which is above them and of which they are unworthy, and by their manifold inconsistencies bring upon philosophy, and upon all genuine philosophers, universal reprobation. 491a
21. The most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad. 491e
22. The philosopher follows the analogy of a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. 492a
23. The people who say the sophists are totally to blame for the production of counterfeit philosophers are the true sophists, since they fashion young men and women alike after their own likeness.492b
24. Will any private training enable a young person to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? He will most likely be carried away by the stream, heedlessly adopting the notions of good and evil which the public in general have, and he will do as they do and become as they are. 492c
25. If a young person doesn't bow to public opinion and become like others, then the public punishes him with disenfranchisement, fines, or death. 492d
26. It would be very foolish even to try to oppose public opinion, because there isn't now, hasn't been in the past, nor ever will be in the future anyone with a character so unusual that he has been educated to virtue in spite of the contrary education he received from the mob--I mean, a human character; the divine, as the saying goes, is an exception to the rule. 492e
27. If anyone is saved and becomes what he ought to be under our present constitutions, he has been saved--you might say--by divine dispensation." 493a
28. None of the sophists, whom the public claims are their adversaries, teaches anything other than what public opinion teaches. We might compare the sophists to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty beast who is fed by him. He would learn how to approach and handle the bear, also at what times and from what causes the bear is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of the bear's several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, the bear is soothed or infuriated. When, by continually attending upon him, the sophist has become perfect in all this subterfuge, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honorable and that dishonorable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which the beast dislikes. And the sophist can give no other account of his ideas except that the just and noble are what is necessary to manipulate the beast. The sophist has himself never understood nor has any power of explaining to others the immense difference between compulsion and goodness. 493b-c
29. The genuine philosopher (or genuine person) does not mindlessly cater to the tastes and opinions of the masses. 493d
30. The reasons the public gives for deeming anything (idea, artistic achievement, action) good or beautiful are absolutely ridiculous. 493e
31. The majority cannot tolerate or accept the reality of beauty itself as opposed to the existence of many beautiful things, or of the absolute in each classification rather than of the many in each classification.
32. The majority cannot be philosophic and hence they inevitably disapprove of those who practice genuine philosophy. 494a
33. A young person who has the requisite characteristics to become a genuine philosopher will be singled out by the public for its own purposes. This person will be filled with impractical expectations and believe himself to be capable of things which he is actually incapable and in the end will be brimming over with pretension, pride, and ignorance. 494c
34. If someone approaches such a young person in that condition and gently tells him the truth, namely, that he understands nothing and that understanding can't be acquired unless he works assiduously, he will most likely ignore such a person. 494d
35. If a person is drawn to philosophy, because of his noble nature and his kinship with reason, demagogues will do and say anything to prevent him from yielding to his better nature and to render his teacher powerless, using to this end private intrigues as well as public prosecutions. 494e
36. A person of a petty nature will never do anything great, either to an individual or a state. 495b
37. Persons unworthy of philosophy, seeing that she has no kinsmen to be her protectors, enter in and dishonor her. They are responsible for the reproaches which are cast upon her that some of her votaries are good for nothing and that the majority deserve the severest punishment. 495c
38. Other little men--the ones who are most sophisticated at their own little crafts--seeing that this position, which is full of fine names and adornments, is vacated, leap gladly from those little crafts to philosophy, like prisoners escaping from jail who take refuge in a temple. 495d
39. Despite her present poor state, philosophy is still more high-minded than these other crafts, so that many people with defective natures desire to possess her, even though their souls are maimed and disfigured by their meanness, in just the way that their bodies are mutilated by their crafts and labors. 495d
40. A man of this sort is exactly like a little bald-headed tinker who has come into some money and having been just released from jail, takes a bath, puts on a new cloak, gets himself up as a bridegroom, and marries the boss's daughter who is poor and abandoned. 495e
41. Persons who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and consort with her, producing only sophistry, ideas which have nothing genuine about them and are not worthy of being called true wisdom. 496a
42. There remains only a very small group who consort with philosophy in a way that is worthy of her, those with a noble and well-educated character, who in the absence of corrupting influences remain devoted to her. 496b
43. There may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her.
44. A few have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is and have, at the same time, seen the madness of the majority and realize that there are no honest politicians nor any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. 496c
45. The genuine philosopher is like a man who has fallen among demonic men and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficiently strong to oppose the general savagery alone. 496d
46. He sees that he would be of no use to the state or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.
47. Such a life is no small accomplishment, but an even greater life would be possible if he could find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he would have a larger growth and be the savior of his country, as well as of himself. 497a
48. None of the present constitutions, Socrates says, is worthy of the philosophic nature. 497b
49. If philosophy were ever to find in a constitution that perfection which she herself is, then would be seen that she is in truth divine, and that all other things, whether natures of men or institutions, are but human. 497c
50. Even with a perfect constitution, there must always be some people who have the same conception of a constitution as you do when you make the laws. 497d
51. We must know how philosophy can be correctly studied and so ordered as not to be the ruin of the State.
52. States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit. At present, philosophy is pursued by young men, who, when they come within sight of the most difficult part of the subject, I mean dialectic, abandon it. These are regarded as fully trained in philosophy, even though in later life the only experience of what they take to be philosophy is when they are part of an audience when others are said to be doing philosophy. By the time they reach old age their eagerness for philosophy is completely quenched. 498a
53. Socrates says he shall go on striving to the utmost until either he converts his dialectic collaborators, or do something which may profit them against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of being. This is a time which, though not very near, is as nothing in comparison with eternity. 498d
54. Socrates says that he does not wonder that the many refuse to believe that philosophy is worthwhile, for they have never seen realized that of which they are now speaking; they have seen only a conventional imitation of philosophy, consisting of words artificially brought together, not like these of ours having a natural unity. 498e
55. They have never seen a human being who in word and work is perfectly molded, as far as he can be, into the proportion and likeness of virtue. They have never seen such a man ruling in a city which bears the same image.
56. Nor have they listened sufficiently to fine and free arguments that search out the truth in every way for the sake of knowledge but that keep away from the sophistications and eristic quibbles that, both in public trials and in private gatherings, aim at nothing except reputation and disputation. 499a
57. No city, constitution, or individual man will ever become perfect until either some chance event compels those few philosophers who aren't corrupt--the one who are now called useless--to take charge of a state, whether they want to or not; or until a like necessity be laid on a state to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. 499b
58. None of these situations is impossible and people who work to understand them cannot be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. 499c
59. If in the limitless past, those who were foremost in philosophy were forced to take charge of a state or if this is happening now in some foreign place far beyond our ken or if it will happen in the future, we can maintain the argument of this dialogue that at whatever time the muse of philosophy controls a state, the constitution discussed herein will also exist at that time. 499d
60. The masses may overcome their prejudice against the love of learning when it's pointed out to them what a genuine philosopher really is, so they'll realize that a genuine philosopher is not at all what they thought a philosopher is. 499e
61. Thus instructed, the majority of mankind cannot feel enmity against one who loves them, who is himself gentle and free from envy and jealousy. 500a
62. The harshness the majority exhibit towards philosophy is caused by those outsiders who don't belong and who've burst in like a band of revelers, always abusing one another, indulging their love of quarrels, and arguing about human beings in a way that is wholly inappropriate to philosophy. 500b
63. No one whose thoughts are truly directed towards true being has the leisure to look down at human affairs or to be filled with envy and hatred by competing with people. Instead, as he looks at and studies things that are organized and always the same, that neither do injustice to one another nor suffer it, being all in a rational order, he imitates them and tries to become as like them as he can. 500c
64. The philosopher, by consorting with what is ordered and divine and despite all the slanders that say otherwise, himself becomes as divine and ordered as a human being can.
65. If by necessity a genuine philosopher is required to fashion--by discernment of what he beholds in a higher realm--not only himself, but human nature generally--he will be a skilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue. 500d
66. When the world perceives that what we are saying about the genuine philosopher is true, they will no longer be angry with philosophy; they will understand that no State can be happy which is not designed by artists who imitate the heavenly pattern. 500e
67. When people decide to create a new commonwealth, they must begin with a clean slate, first wiping clear the slate they find in their present experience. 501a
68. When they proceed to trace an outline of the constitution they will often turn their eyes upwards and downwards: I mean that they will first look at absolute justice and beauty and temperance, and then at those virtues they want to put into human beings; and will mingle and temper the various elements of life into the image of a man; and thus they will conceive according to that other image, which, when existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God. 501b
69. One such individual as described (as a philosopher) who has a city obedient to his will would be enough to bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous. 502b
70. The laws and principles laid out in the Commonwealth, once enacted, would be for the best, and the enactment of them, though difficult, is not impossible.
71. The idea of good is the highest knowledge, and all other things become useful and advantageous only by their relation to this. 504e
72. Without knowledge of the good, any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. The possession of all other things are of no value if we do not possess the good or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness. 505a
73. It's necessary to recognize that there are bad pleasures, so pleasure cannot be the good. 505c
74. Many people are content with ideas that are believed to be so, even if they aren't really so, and they act, acquire, and form their own beliefs on that basis. Nobody, however, is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good, but want things that reall are good. 505d
75. Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake. 505e
76. The persons who do not know that the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but sorry overseers of a state. The people who lead the state must know what real good is.
77. The sun is not sight, but the author of sight who is recognized by sight. The sun is the child of the good, whom the good begat in his own likeness, to be in the visible world, in relation to sight and the things of sight, what the good is in the intellectual world in relation to mind and the things of mind. 508b
78. The soul is like the eye: when it focuses on something illuminated by truth and being, the soul perceives and understands and is radiant with intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is first of one opinion and then of another, and seems bereft of understanding. 508d
79. That which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is the form of the good. And though it is the cause of knowledge and truth, it is also an object of knowledge. Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they. In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that they are the sun, so here it is right to think of knowledge and truth as goodlike but wrong to think that either of them is the good--for the good has a place of honor yet higher. 508e
80. The sun not only provides visible things with the power to be seen but also with coming to be, growth, and nourishment, although it is not itself coming to be. 509b
81. Not only do objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power. 509b
82. There are these two ruling powers, one sovereign of the intelligible kind and place, the other of the visible. It is like a line divided into two unequal sections, with each section divided again. The visible consists of images: shadows, reflections in water and in all close-packed smooth, and shiny materials, and everything of that sort. In the other subsection of the visible are that of which this is only the resemblance, including animals which we see, and everything that grows or is made. The sections of this division have different degrees of truth, and the copy is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge. The sphere of the intelligible is divided 
into two subsections. In one the soul, using as images the things that were imitated before, is forced to investigate from hypotheses,
proceeding not to a first principle but to a conclusion. In the other subsection, however, it makes its way to a first principle that is not a hypothesis, proceeding from a hypothesis but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigation through them. 509d-510b
83. When geometricians refer to particulars, they are really referring to geometrical forms. They use the particulars to allow them to see and understand the forms. 513b
84. The other subsection of the intelligible contains that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic. It does not consider these hypotheses as first principles but truly as hypotheses--but as stepping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach the unhypothetical first principle of everything. Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follows from it, comes down to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all, but only of forms themselves, moving on from forms to forms, and ending in forms. 513 c
85. Knowledge and being, which the science of dialectic contemplates, are clearer than the notions of the arts, as they are termed, which proceed from hypotheses only: these are also contemplated by the understanding, and not by the senses: yet, because they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. 513d
86. There are four faculties in the soul--reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last--and let there be a scale of them, and the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. 513e
Line: Understanding (noesis)
Thought (dianoia)
Belief (pistis)
Imagination (eikasia)
