The Republic

by G.M.A. Grube

he mustn’t love one part of it and not another, but he must love all of it?

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 {150} tolerate sallowness, provided it was accompanied by the bloom of youth?

And who are the true philosophers? Those who love the sight of truth.

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 [d] living 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,

Powers are a class of the things that are that enable us—or anything [c] else for that matter—to do whatever we are capable of doing.

They think that, because they're [b] inexperienced in asking and answering questions, they're led astray a little bit by the argument at every question and that, when these little bits are added together at the end of the discussion, great is their fall, as the opposite of what they said at the outset comes to light.

the ways in which this nature is corrupted, how it's destroyed in many people, while a small number (the ones that are called useless rather than bad) escape.

each of the things we praised in that nature tends to corrupt the soul that has it and to drag {165} it away from philosophy. I mean courage, moderation, and the other things we mentioned.

Furthermore, all the things that are said to be good also corrupt it and [c] drag it away—beauty, wealth, physical strength, relatives who are powerful in the city, and all that goes with these.

hardly anyone acts sanely in public affairs

At present, those who study philosophy do so as young men who have just left childhood behind and have yet to take up household management and money-making. But just when they reach the hardest part—I mean [498] the part that has to do with giving a rational account—they abandon it and are regarded as fully trained in philosophy. In later life, they think they're doing well if they are willing to be in an invited audience when others are doing philosophy, for they think they should do this only as a sideline. And, with a few exceptions, by the time they reach old age, their eagerness {172} for philosophy is quenched more thoroughly than the sun of Heraclitus, which is never rekindled.16

do you think that someone can consort with things he admires without imitating them? I do not. It's impossible.

people with stable characters, who don't change easily, who aren't easily frightened in battle, and whom one would employ because of their greater reliability, exhibit similar traits when it comes to [d] learning: They are as hard to move and teach as people whose brains have become numb, and they are filled with sleep and yawning whenever they have to learn anything.

It's ridiculous, isn't it, to strain every nerve to attain the utmost exactness and clarity about other things of little value and not to consider the most important things worthy of the greatest exactness?

Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake. It [e] divines that the good is something but it is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is or acquire the sort of stable beliefs it has about other things, and so it misses the benefit, if any, that even those other things may give.

Haven't you noticed that opinions without knowledge are shameful {180} and ugly things?

but unless a third kind of thing is present,

R12303301325 Is this the reference for the meme? Rx2308101545 I would discover from learning from and about other philosophies and philosophers that the "third thing" is a common term in the field. Now the question is - does the term originate in Socrates?

When it focuses on something illuminated by truth and what is, it understands, knows, and apparently possesses understanding, but when it focuses on what is mixed with obscurity, on what comes to be and passes away, it opines and is dimmed, changes its opinions this way and that, and seems bereft of understanding. It does seem that way. So that what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good. And though it is the cause of knowledge [e] 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.

the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature

The visible realm should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the power of the sun. And if you interpret the upward journey and the study of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, you'll grasp what I hope to convey, since that is what you wanted to hear about. Whether it's true or not, only the god knows. But this is how I see it: In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light and [c] its source in the visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it.

Education isn't what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes. [c] They do say that. But our present discussion, on the other hand, shows that the power to learn is present in everyone's soul

the virtue of reason seems to belong [e] {191} above all to something more divine,3 which never loses its power but is either useful and beneficial or useless and harmful,

Can you name any life that despises political rule besides that of the [b] true philosopher? No, by god, I can't.

But surely it is those who are not lovers of ruling who must rule, for if they don't, the lovers of it, who are rivals, will fight over it.

let's consider one of the subjects that touches all of them. What sort of thing? For example, that common thing that every craft, every type of thought, and every science uses and that is among the first compulsory subjects for [c] everyone. What's that? That inconsequential matter of distinguishing the one, the two, and the three. In short, I mean number and calculation,

Then won't we set down this subject as compulsory for a warrior, so [e] that he is able to count and calculate?

some sense perceptions don't summon the understanding to look into them, because the judgment of sense perception is itself adequate, while others encourage it in every way [b] to look into them, because sense perception seems to produce no sound result.

geometry is knowledge of what always is. Then it draws the soul towards truth and produces philosophic thought by directing upwards what we now wrongly direct downwards.

And what about astronomy? Shall we make it the third? Or do you disagree? [d] {200} That's fine with me, for a better awareness of the seasons, months, and years is no less appropriate for a general than for a farmer or navigator.

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,14 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.

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.16 Opinion is [534] {206} 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.

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.

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.

Forced bodily [e] labor does no harm to the body, but nothing taught by force stays in the soul.

Then don't use force to train the children in these subjects; use play instead.

during {209} that period, whether it's two or three years, young people are incapable of doing anything else, since weariness and sleep are enemies of learning.

anyone who can achieve a unified vision is dialectical, and anyone who can't isn't.

Like a sculptor,20 Socrates, you've produced ruling men that are completely fine. And ruling women, too, Glaucon, for you mustn't think that what I've said applies any more to men than it does to women who are born with the appropriate natures. That's right, if indeed they are to share everything equally with the men, as we said they should.

If a city is to achieve the height of good government, wives must be in common, children and [543] all their education must be in common, their way of life, whether in peace or war, must be in common, and their kings must be those among them who have proved to be best, both in philosophy and in warfare.

First, there's the constitution praised by most people, namely, the Cretan or Laconian.4 The second, which is also second in the praise it receives, is called oligarchy and is filled with a host of evils. The next in order, and antagonistic to it, is democracy. And finally there is genuine tyranny, surpassing all of them, the fourth and last of the diseased cities.

timocracy or timarchy.

Such people will desire money just as those in oligarchies do, passionately adoring gold and silver in secret. They will possess private treasuries and storehouses, where they can keep it hidden, and have houses to enclose them, like private nests, where they can spend lavishly either on women or on anyone else they wish. [b] That's absolutely true. They'll be mean with their own money, since they value it and are not allowed to acquire it openly, but they'll love to spend other people's because of their appetites. They'll enjoy their pleasures in secret, running away from the law like boys from their father, for since they've neglected the true Muse—that of discussion and philosophy—and have valued physical training more than music and poetry, they haven't been educated by persuasion but by force. [c]

rather than merely looking down on them as an adequately educated person does.

The treasure house filled with gold, which each possesses, destroys the constitution. First, they find ways of spending money for themselves, then they stretch the laws relating to this, then they and their wives disobey the laws altogether. {221} They would do that. And as one person sees another doing this and emulates him, they make the majority of the others like themselves. [e] They do. From there they proceed further into money-making, and the more they value it, the less they value virtue. Or aren't virtue and wealth so opposed that if they were set on a scales, they'd always incline in opposite directions? That's right. So, when wealth and the wealthy are valued or honored in a city, virtue and good people are valued less. [551] Clearly. And what is valued is always practiced, and what isn't valued is neglected. That's right. Then, in the end, victory-loving and honor-loving men become lovers of making money, or money-lovers. And they praise and admire wealthy people and appoint them as rulers, while they dishonor poor ones.

oligarchy—I mean the one that gets its rulers on the basis of a property assessment [553]

it's most of all under this constitution that one finds people of all varieties. [c]

this is the finest or most beautiful of the constitutions, for, like a coat embroidered with every kind of ornament, this city, embroidered with every kind of character type, would seem to {228} be the most beautiful. And many people would probably judge it to be so, as women and children do when they see something multicolored. They certainly would. It's also a convenient place to look for a constitution. [d] Why's that? Because it contains all kinds of constitutions on account of the license it gives its citizens. So

The desire for delicacies is also necessary to the extent that it's beneficial to well-being.

Sometimes the democratic party yields to the oligarchic,

And so he lives on, yielding day by day to the desire at hand. Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; at other times, he's idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he even occupies [d] himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he's carried in that direction, if money-makers, in that one. There's neither order nor necessity in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows it for as long as he lives. You've perfectly described the life of a man who believes in legal [e] equality. I also suppose that he's a complex man, full of all sorts of characters, fine and multicolored, just like the democratic city, and that many men and women might envy his life, since it contains the most models of constitutions and ways of living.