Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  You’re following the road we set, and we must do as you say.

  Well, then, are things called by the same name, whether they are bigger or smaller than one another, like or unlike with respect to that to which that name applies?

  Alike.

  Then a just man won’t differ at all from a just city in respect to the form [b] of justice; rather he’ll be like the city.

  He will.

  But a city was thought to be just when each of the three natural classes within it did its own work, and it was thought to be moderate, courageous, and wise because of certain other conditions and states of theirs.

  That’s true.

  Then, if an individual has these same three parts in his soul, we will expect him to be correctly called by the same names as the city if he has the same conditions in them. [c]

  Necessarily so.

  Then once again we’ve come upon an easy question, namely, does the soul have these three parts in it or not?

  It doesn’t look easy to me. Perhaps, Socrates, there’s some truth in the old saying that everything fine is difficult.

  Apparently so. But you should know, Glaucon, that, in my opinion, we will never get a precise answer using our present methods of argument—although there is another longer and fuller road that does lead to such an [d] answer. But perhaps we can get an answer that’s up to the standard of our previous statements and inquiries.

  Isn’t that satisfactory? It would be enough for me at present.

  In that case, it will be fully enough for me too.

  Then don’t weary, but go on with the inquiry.

  Well, then, we are surely compelled to agree that each of us has within himself the same parts and characteristics as the city? Where else would [e] they come from? It would be ridiculous for anyone to think that spiritedness didn’t come to be in cities from such individuals as the Thracians, Scythians, and others who live to the north of us who are held to possess spirit, or that the same isn’t true of the love of learning, which is mostly associated with our part of the world, or of the love of money, which one might say [436] is conspicuously displayed by the Phoenicians and Egyptians.

  It would.

  That’s the way it is, anyway, and it isn’t hard to understand.

  Certainly not.

  But this is hard. Do we do these things with the same part of ourselves, or do we do them with three different parts? Do we learn with one part, get angry with another, and with some third part desire the pleasures of food, drink, sex, and the others that are closely akin to them? Or, when we set out after something, do we act with the whole of our soul, in each case? This is what’s hard to determine in a way that’s up to the standards [b] of our argument.

  I think so too.

  Well, then, let’s try to determine in that way whether these parts are the same or different.

  How?

  It is obvious that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the same time. So, if we ever find this happening in the soul, we’ll know that we aren’t dealing with one thing but many. [c]

  All right.

  Then consider what I’m about to say.

  Say on.

  Is it possible for the same thing to stand still and move at the same time in the same part of itself?

  Not at all.

  Let’s make our agreement more precise in order to avoid disputes later on. If someone said that a person who is standing still but moving his hands and head is moving and standing still at the same time, we wouldn’t consider, I think, that he ought to put it like that. What he ought to say is that one part of the person is standing still and another part is moving. [d] Isn’t that so?

  It is.

  And if our interlocutor became even more amusing and was sophisticated enough to say that whole spinning tops stand still and move at the same time when the peg is fixed in the same place and they revolve, and that the same is true of anything else moving in a circular motion on the same spot, we wouldn’t agree, because it isn’t with respect to the same parts of themselves that such things both stand still and move. We’d say [e] that they have an axis and a circumference and that with respect to the axis they stand still, since they don’t wobble to either side, while with respect to the circumference they move in a circle. But if they do wobble to the left or right, front or back, while they are spinning, we’d say that they aren’t standing still in any way.

  And we’d be right.

  No such statement will disturb us, then, or make us believe that the same thing can be, do, or undergo opposites, at the same time, in the same [437] respect, and in relation to the same thing.

  They won’t make me believe it, at least.

  Nevertheless, in order to avoid going through all these objections one by one and taking a long time to prove them all untrue, let’s hypothesize that this is correct and carry on. But we agree that if it should ever be shown to be incorrect, all the consequences we’ve drawn from it will also be lost.

  We should agree to that.

  [b] Then wouldn’t you consider all the following, whether they are doings or undergoings, as pairs of opposites: Assent and dissent, wanting to have something and rejecting it, taking something and pushing it away?

  Yes, they are opposites.

  What about these? Wouldn’t you include thirst, hunger, the appetites [c] as a whole, and wishing and willing somewhere in the class we mentioned? Wouldn’t you say that the soul of someone who has an appetite for a thing wants what he has an appetite for and takes to himself what it is his will to have, and that insofar as he wishes something to be given to him, his soul, since it desires this to come about, nods assent to it as if in answer to a question?

  I would.

  What about not willing, not wishing, and not having an appetite? Aren’t these among the very opposites—cases in which the soul pushes and drives things away?

  Of course. [d]

  Then won’t we say that there is a class of things called appetites and that the clearest examples are hunger and thirst?

  We will.

  One of these is for food and the other for drink?

  Yes.

  Now, insofar as it is thirst, is it an appetite in the soul for more than that for which we say that it is the appetite? For example, is thirst thirst for hot drink or cold, or much drink or little, or, in a word, for drink of a certain sort? Or isn’t it rather that, where heat is present as well as thirst, it causes the appetite to be for something cold as well, and where cold for [e] something hot, and where there is much thirst because of the presence of muchness, it will cause the desire to be for much, and where little for little? But thirst itself will never be for anything other than what it is in its nature to be for, namely, drink itself, and hunger for food.

  That’s the way it is, each appetite itself is only for its natural object, while the appetite for something of a certain sort depends on additions.

  Therefore, let no one catch us unprepared or disturb us by claiming that [438] no one has an appetite for drink but rather good drink, nor food but good food, on the grounds that everyone after all has appetite for good things, so that if thirst is an appetite, it will be an appetite for good drink or whatever, and similarly with the others.

  All the same, the person who says that has a point.

  But it seems to me that, in the case of all things that are related to something, those that are of a particular sort are related to a particular sort of thing, while those that are merely themselves are related to a thing [b] that is merely itself.

  I don’t understand.

  Don’t you understand that the greater is such as to be greater than something? Of course.

  Than the less?

  Yes.

  And the much greater than the much less, isn’t that so?

  Yes.

  And the once greater to the once less? And the going-to-be greater than the going-to-be less?

  Ce
rtainly.

  And isn’t the same true of the more and the fewer, the double and the half, heavier and lighter, faster and slower, the hot and the cold, and all [c] other such things?

  Of course.

  And what about the various kinds of knowledge? Doesn’t the same apply? Knowledge itself is knowledge of what can be learned itself (or whatever it is that knowledge is of), while a particular sort of knowledge is of a particular sort of thing. For example, when knowledge of building [d] houses came to be, didn’t it differ from the other kinds of knowledge, and so was called knowledge of building?

  Of course.

  And wasn’t that because it was a different sort of knowledge from all the others?

  Yes.

  And wasn’t it because it was of a particular sort of thing that it itself became a particular sort of knowledge? And isn’t this true of all crafts and kinds of knowledge?

  It is.

  Well, then, this is what I was trying to say—if you understand it now—when I said that of all things that are related to something, those that are merely themselves are related to things that are merely themselves, while those that are of a particular sort are related to things of a particular sort. [e] However, I don’t mean that the sorts in question have to be the same for them both. For example, knowledge of health or disease isn’t healthy or diseased, and knowledge of good and bad doesn’t itself become good or bad. I mean that, when knowledge became, not knowledge of the thing itself that knowledge is of, but knowledge of something of a particular sort, the result was that it itself became a particular sort of knowledge, and this caused it to be no longer called knowledge without qualification, but—with the addition of the relevant sort—medical knowledge or whatever.

  I understand, and I think that that’s the way it is.

  Then as for thirst, wouldn’t you include it among things that are related [439] to something? Surely thirst is related to …

  I know it’s related to drink.

  Therefore a particular sort of thirst is for a particular sort of drink. But thirst itself isn’t for much or little, good or bad, or, in a word, for drink of a particular sort. Rather, thirst itself is in its nature only for drink itself.

  Absolutely.

  Hence the soul of the thirsty person, insofar as he’s thirsty, doesn’t wish [b] anything else but to drink, and it wants this and is impelled towards it.

  Clearly.

  Therefore, if something draws it back when it is thirsting, wouldn’t that be something different in it from whatever thirsts and drives it like a beast to drink? It can’t be, we say, that the same thing, with the same part of itself, in relation to the same, at the same time, does opposite things.

  No, it can’t.

  In the same way, I suppose, it’s not well put to say of the archer that his hands at the same time push the bow away and draw it towards him. We ought to say that one hand pushes it away and the other draws it towards him.

  Absolutely. [c]

  Now, would we assert that sometimes there are thirsty people who don’t wish to drink?

  Certainly, it happens often to many different people.

  What, then, should one say about them? Isn’t it that there is something in their soul, bidding them to drink, and something different, forbidding them to do so, that overrules the thing that bids?

  I think so.

  Doesn’t that which forbids in such cases come into play—if it comes into play at all—as a result of rational calculation, while what drives and drags them to drink is a result of feelings and diseases? [d]

  Apparently.

  Hence it isn’t unreasonable for us to claim that they are two, and different from one another. We’ll call the part of the soul with which it calculates the rational part and the part with which it lusts, hungers, thirsts, and gets excited by other appetites the irrational appetitive part, companion of certain indulgences and pleasures.

  Yes. Indeed, that’s a reasonable thing to think. [e]

  Then, let these two parts be distinguished in the soul. Now, is the spirited part by which we get angry a third part or is it of the same nature as either of the other two?

  Perhaps it’s like the appetitive part.

  But I’ve heard something relevant to this, and I believe it. Leontius, the son of Aglaion, was going up from the Piraeus along the outside of the North Wall when he saw some corpses lying at the executioner’s feet. He had an appetite to look at them but at the same time he was disgusted and turned away. For a time he struggled with himself and covered his face, but, finally, overpowered by the appetite, he pushed his eyes wide [440] open and rushed towards the corpses, saying, “Look for yourselves, you evil wretches, take your fill of the beautiful sight!”

  I’ve heard that story myself.

  It certainly proves that anger sometimes makes war against the appetites, as one thing against another.

  Besides, don’t we often notice in other cases that when appetite forces someone contrary to rational calculation, he reproaches himself and gets angry with that in him that’s doing the forcing, so that of the two factions [b] that are fighting a civil war, so to speak, spirit allies itself with reason? But I don’t think you can say that you’ve ever seen spirit, either in yourself or anyone else, ally itself with an appetite to do what reason has decided must not be done.

  No, by god, I haven’t.

  What happens when a person thinks that he has done something unjust? Isn’t it true that the nobler he is, the less he resents it if he suffers hunger, [c] cold, or the like at the hands of someone whom he believes to be inflicting this on him justly, and won’t his spirit, as I say, refuse to be aroused?

  That’s true.

  But what happens if, instead, he believes that someone has been unjust to him? Isn’t the spirit within him boiling and angry, fighting for what he believes to be just? Won’t it endure hunger, cold, and the like and keep [d] on till it is victorious, not ceasing from noble actions until it either wins, dies, or calms down, called to heel by the reason within him, like a dog by a shepherd?

  Spirit is certainly like that. And, of course, we made the auxiliaries in our city like dogs obedient to the rulers, who are themselves like shepherds of a city.

  You well understand what I’m trying to say. But also reflect on this further point.

  [e] What?

  The position of the spirited part seems to be the opposite of what we thought before. Then we thought of it as something appetitive, but now we say that it is far from being that, for in the civil war in the soul it aligns itself far more with the rational part.

  Absolutely.

  Then is it also different from the rational part, or is it some form of it, so that there are two parts in the soul—the rational and the appetitive—instead of three? Or rather, just as there were three classes in the city that [441] held it together, the money-making, the auxiliary, and the deliberative, is the spirited part a third thing in the soul that is by nature the helper of the rational part, provided that it hasn’t been corrupted by a bad upbringing?

  It must be a third.

  Yes, provided that we can show it is different from the rational part, as we saw earlier it was from the appetitive one.

  It isn’t difficult to show that it is different. Even in small children, one can see that they are full of spirit right from birth, while as far as rational calculation is concerned, some never seem to get a share of it, while the [b] majority do so quite late.

  That’s really well put. And in animals too one can see that what you say is true. Besides, our earlier quotation from Homer bears it out, where he says,

  He struck his chest and spoke to his heart.7

  For here Homer clearly represents the part that has calculated about better [c] and worse as different from the part that is angry without calculation.

  That’s exactly right.

  Well, then, we’ve now made our difficult way through a sea of argument. We are pretty much agreed that the same number and the same k
inds of classes as are in the city are also in the soul of each individual.

  That’s true.

  Therefore, it necessarily follows that the individual is wise in the same way and in the same part of himself as the city.

  That’s right.

  And isn’t the individual courageous in the same way and in the same part of himself as the city? And isn’t everything else that has to do with [d] virtue the same in both?

  Necessarily.

  Moreover, Glaucon, I suppose we’ll say that a man is just in the same way as a city.

  That too is entirely necessary.

  And we surely haven’t forgotten that the city was just because each of the three classes in it was doing its own work.

  I don’t think we could forget that.

  Then we must also remember that each one of us in whom each part is doing its own work will himself be just and do his own. [e]

  Of course, we must.

  Therefore, isn’t it appropriate for the rational part to rule, since it is really wise and exercises foresight on behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to obey it and be its ally?

  It certainly is.

  And isn’t it, as we were saying, a mixture of music and poetry, on the one hand, and physical training, on the other, that makes the two parts harmonious, stretching and nurturing the rational part with fine words and learning, relaxing the other part through soothing stories, and making it gentle by means of harmony and rhythm? [442]

  That’s precisely it.