Complete Works

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

  I do indeed.

  Then does this person seem any different from the one who believes that it is wisdom to understand the moods and pleasures of a majority gathered from all quarters, whether they concern painting, music, or, for [d] that matter, politics? If anyone approaches the majority to exhibit his poetry or some other piece of craftsmanship or his service to the city and gives them mastery over him to any degree beyond what’s unavoidable, he’ll be under Diomedean compulsion, as it’s called, to do the sort of thing of which they approve. But have you ever heard anyone presenting an argument that such things are truly good and beautiful that wasn’t absolutely ridiculous?

  [e] No, and I don’t expect ever to hear one.

  Keeping all this in mind, recall the following question: Can the majority in any way tolerate or accept the reality of the beautiful itself, as opposed to the many beautiful things, or the reality of each thing itself, as opposed [494] to the corresponding many?

  Not in any way.

  Then the majority cannot be philosophic.

  They cannot.

  Hence they inevitably disapprove of those who practice philosophy?

  Inevitably.

  And so do all those private individuals who associate with the majority and try to please them.

  Clearly.

  Then, because of all that, do you see any salvation for someone who is by nature a philosopher, to insure that he’ll practice philosophy correctly to the end? Think about what we’ve said before. We agreed that ease in [b] learning, a good memory, courage, and high-mindedness belong to the philosophic nature.

  Yes.

  And won’t someone with a nature like that be first among the children in everything, especially if his body has a nature that matches that of his soul?

  How could he not be?

  Then I suppose that, as he gets older, his family and fellow citizens will want to make use of him in connection with their own affairs.

  Of course.

  Therefore they’ll pay court to him with their requests and honors, trying [c] by their flattery to secure for themselves ahead of time the power that is going to be his.

  That’s what usually happens, at any rate.

  What do you think someone like that will do in such circumstances, especially if he happens to be from a great city, in which he’s rich, well-born, good-looking, and tall? Won’t he be filled with impractical expectations and think himself capable of managing the affairs, not only of the Greeks, but of the barbarians as well? And as a result, won’t he exalt himself to great [d] heights and be brimming with pretension and pride that is empty and lacks understanding?

  He certainly will.

  And if someone approaches a young man in that condition and gently tells him the truth, namely, that that there’s no understanding in him, that he needs it, and that it can’t be acquired unless he works like a slave to attain it, do you think that it will be easy for him to listen when he’s in the midst of so many evils?

  Far from it.

  And even if a young man of that sort somehow sees the point and is guided and drawn to philosophy because of his noble nature and his kinship with reason, what do you think those people will do, if they [e] believe that they’re losing their use of him and his companionship? Is there anything they won’t do or say to him to prevent him from being persuaded? Or anything they won’t do or say about his persuader—whether plotting against him in private or publicly bringing him into court—to prevent him from such persuasion?

  There certainly isn’t. [495]

  Then, is there any chance that such a person will practice philosophy?

  None at all.

  Do you see, then, that we weren’t wrong to say that, when someone with a philosophic nature is badly brought up, the very components of his nature—together with the other so-called goods, such as wealth and other similar advantages—are themselves in a way the cause of his falling away from philosophic pursuits?

  I do, and what we said was right.

  These, then, are the many ways in which the best nature—which is already rare enough, as we said—is destroyed and corrupted, so that it cannot follow the best pursuits. And it is among these men that we find [b] the ones who do the greatest evils to cities and individuals and also—if they happen to be swept that way by the current—the greatest good, for a petty nature will never do anything great, either to an individual or a city.

  That’s very true.

  When these men, for whom philosophy is most appropriate, fall away from her, they leave her desolate and unwed, and they themselves lead [c] lives that are inappropriate and untrue. Then others, who are unworthy of her, come to her as to an orphan deprived of the protection of kinsmen and disgrace her. These are the ones who are responsible for the reproaches that you say are cast upon philosophy by those who revile her, namely, that some of those who consort with her are useless, while the majority deserve to suffer many bad things.

  Yes, that is indeed what is said.

  And it’s a reasonable thing to say, for 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 [d] refuge in a temple. 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 cramped and spoiled by the mechanical nature of their work, in just the way that their bodies are mutilated by their crafts and labors. Isn’t that inevitable? [e]

  It certainly is.

  Don’t you think that a man of this sort looks exactly like a little baldheaded tinker who has come into some money and, having been just released from jail, has taken a bath, put on a new cloak, got himself up as a bridegroom, and is about to marry the boss’s daughter because she is poor and abandoned?

  [496] They’re exactly the same.

  And what kind of children will that marriage produce? Won’t they be illegitimate and inferior?

  They have to be.

  What about when men who are unworthy of education approach philosophy and consort with her unworthily? What kinds of thoughts and opinions are we to say they beget? Won’t they truly be what are properly called sophisms, things that have nothing genuine about them or worthy of being called true wisdom?

  That’s absolutely right.

  Then there remains, Adeimantus, only a very small group who consort with philosophy in a way that’s worthy of her: A noble and well brought-up character, for example, kept down by exile, who remains with philosophy [b] according to his nature because there is no one to corrupt him, or a great soul living in a small city, who disdains the city’s affairs and looks beyond them. A very few might be drawn to philosophy from other crafts that they rightly despise because they have good natures. And some might be held back by the bridle that restrains our friend Theages4—for he’s in every way qualified to be tempted away from philosophy, but his physical illness [c] restrains him by keeping him out of politics. Finally, my own case is hardly worth mentioning—my daemonic sign5—because it has happened to no one before me, or to only a very few. Now, the members of this small group have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and at the same time they’ve also seen the madness of the majority and realized, in a word, that hardly anyone acts sanely in public affairs and that there is no ally with whom they might go to the aid of justice and survive, that [d] instead they’d perish before they could profit either their city or their friends and be useless both to themselves and to others, just like a man who has fallen among wild animals and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficiently strong to oppose the general savagery alone. Taking all this into account, they lead a quiet life and do their own work. Thus, like someone who takes refuge under a little wall from a storm of dust or hail driven by the wind, the philosopher—seeing others filled with lawlessne
ss—is satisfied if he can somehow lead his present life free from injustice and impious acts and depart from it with good hope, blameless [e] and content.

  Well, that’s no small thing for him to have accomplished before departing. [497]

  But it isn’t the greatest either, since he didn’t chance upon a constitution that suits him. Under a suitable one, his own growth will be fuller, and he’ll save the community as well as himself. It seems to me that we’ve now sensibly discussed the reasons why philosophy is slandered and why the slanderer is unjust—unless, of course, you have something to add.

  I have nothing to add on that point. But which of our present constitutions do you think is suitable for philosophers?

  None of them. That’s exactly my complaint: None of our present constitutions [b] is worthy of the philosophic nature, and, as a result, this nature is perverted and altered, for, just as a foreign seed, sown in alien ground, is likely to be overcome by the native species and to fade away among them, so the philosophic nature fails to develop its full power and declines into a different character. But if it were to find the best constitution, as it is [c] itself the best, it would be clear that it is really divine and that other natures and ways of life are merely human. Obviously you’re going to ask next what the best constitution is.

  You’re wrong there; I wasn’t going to ask that, but whether it was the constitution we described when we were founding our city or some other one.

  In the other respects, it is that one. But we said even then6 that there must always be some people in the city who have a theory of the constitution, the same one that guided you, the lawgiver, when you made the laws. [d]

  We did say that.

  Yes, but we didn’t emphasize it sufficiently, for fear of what your objections have made plain, namely, that its proof would be long and difficult. And indeed what remains is by no means easy to go through.

  What’s that?

  How a city can engage in philosophy without being destroyed, for all great things are prone to fall, and, as the saying goes, fine things are really hard to achieve.

  Nevertheless, to complete our discussion, we’ll have to get clear [e] about this.

  If anything prevents us from doing it, it won’t be lack of willingness but lack of ability. At least you’ll see how willing I am, for notice again how enthusiastically and recklessly I say that the manner in which a city ought to take up the philosophic way of life is the opposite of what it does at present.

  How?

  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 for philosophy is quenched more thoroughly than the sun of [b] Heraclitus, which is never rekindled.7

  What should they do?

  Entirely the opposite. As youths and children, they should put their minds to youthful education and philosophy and take care of their bodies at a time when they are growing into manhood, so as to acquire a helper for philosophy. As they grow older and their souls begin to reach maturity, they should increase their mental exercises. Then, when their strength begins to fail and they have retired from politics and military service, they should graze freely in the pastures of philosophy and do nothing else—I [c] mean the ones who are to live happily and, in death, add a fitting destiny in that other place to the life they have lived.

  You seem to be speaking with true enthusiasm, Socrates. But I’m sure that most of your hearers, beginning with Thrasymachus, will oppose you with even greater enthusiasm and not be at all convinced.

  Don’t slander Thrasymachus and me just as we’ve become friends—not [d] that we were enemies before. We won’t relax our efforts until we either convince him and the others or, at any rate, do something that may benefit them in a later incarnation, when, reborn, they happen upon these arguments again.

  That’s a short time you’re talking about!

  It’s nothing compared to the whole of time. All the same, it’s no wonder that the majority of people aren’t convinced by our arguments, for they’ve never seen a man that fits our plan (and the rhymes of this sort they have heard are usually intended and not, like this one, the product of mere [e] chance). That is to say, they’ve never seen a man or a number of men who themselves rhymed with virtue, were assimilated to it as far as possible, [499] and ruled in a city of the same type. Or do you think they have?

  I don’t think so at all.

  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.

  No, they haven’t.

  It was because of this, because we foresaw these difficulties, that we were afraid. Nonetheless, we were compelled by the truth to say that no [b] city, constitution, or individual man will ever become perfect until either some chance event compels those few philosophers who aren’t vicious (the ones who are now called useless) to take charge of a city, whether they want to or not, and compels the city to obey them, or until a god inspires the present rulers and kings or their offspring with a true erotic love for true philosophy. Now, it cannot be reasonably maintained, in my view, that either of these things is impossible, but if it could, we’d be justly [c] ridiculed for indulging in wishful thinking. Isn’t that so?

  It is.

  Then, if in the limitless past, those who were foremost in philosophy were forced to take charge of a city or if this is happening now in some foreign place far beyond our ken or if it will happen in the future, we are prepared to maintain our argument that, at whatever time the muse of [d] philosophy controls a city, the constitution we’ve described will also exist at that time, whether it is past, present, or future. Since it is not impossible for this to happen, we are not speaking of impossibilities. That it is difficult for it to happen, however, we agree ourselves.

  That’s my opinion, anyway.

  But the majority don’t share your opinion—is that what you are going to say?

  They probably don’t.

  You should not make such wholesale charges against the majority, for they’ll no doubt come to a different opinion, if instead of indulging your love of victory at their expense, you soothe them and try to remove their [e] slanderous prejudice against the love of learning, by pointing out what you mean by a philosopher and by defining the philosophic nature and way of life, as we did just now, so that they’ll realize that you don’t mean [500] the same people as they do. And if they once see it your way, even you will say that they’ll have a different opinion from the one you just attributed to them and will answer differently. Or do you think that anyone who is gentle and without malice is harsh with someone who is neither irritable nor malicious? I’ll anticipate your answer and say that a few people may have such a harsh character, but not the majority.

  And, of course, I agree.

  Then don’t you also agree that the harshness the majority exhibit towards [b] philosophy is caused by those outsiders who don’t belong and who’ve burst in like a band of revellers, always abusing one another, indulging their love of quarrels, and arguing about human beings in a way that is wholly inappropriate to philosophy?

  I do indeed.

  No one whose thoughts are truly directed towards the things that are, Adeimantus, 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 [c] 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. Or do you think that someone can consort with things he admires without imitating them?

  I do not. It’s impossible.

  Then the philosopher, by consorting with what is ordered and divine and despite all the slanders around that say otherwise, himself becomes [d] as divine and ordered as a human being can.

  That’s absolutely true.

  And if he should come to be compelled to put what he sees there into people’s characters, whether into a single person or into a populace, instead of shaping only his own, do you think that he will be a poor craftsman of moderation, justice, and the whole of popular virtue?

  He least of all.

  And when the majority realize that what we are saying about the philosopher is true, will they be harsh with him or mistrust us when we say that [e] the city will never find happiness until its outline is sketched by painters who use the divine model?

  They won’t be harsh, if indeed they realize this. But what sort of sketch [501] do you mean?

  They’d take the city and the characters of human beings as their sketching slate, but first they’d wipe it clean—which isn’t at all an easy thing to do. And you should know that this is the plain difference between them and others, namely, that they refuse to take either an individual or a city in hand or to write laws, unless they receive a clean slate or are allowed to clean it themselves.