25
(5.476d)
But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement:
Some scholars suggest that this is an allusion to Antisthenes (450-c.360 B.C.E.), a member of Socrates’ circle, who became a rival of Plato in the fourth century and, it seems, was skeptical of the theory of ideas that Plato has Socrates advance in this passage. On the other hand, “the latter” (literally, “this man”) could refer generically to any hypothetical “lover” of sounds and sights “who opines only.”
26
(5.476e)
Something that is or is not?:
The verb “to be”
(einai
in Greek) has a broad semantic range; it can refer to existence, essence or quality, or truthfulness. Socrates’ question is therefore open to interpretation.
27
(5.477a)
for how can that which is not ever be known?:
Parmenides similarly asserts that “that which is not” cannot be “spoken or thought.” In his “On Nature” (or “On What Is Not”), a treatise apparently aimed at challenging Parmenides’ conception of “being,” Gorgias argued (1) that nothing “is,” (2) that, even if something “is,” it cannot be comprehended, and (3) that, even if something could be comprehended by an individual, this comprehension could not be communicated to another. Socrates’ insistence in this passage that there is something “that is” which is absolutely knowable seems aimed at valorizing Parmenides’ conception of knowledge in the face of challenges such as Gorgias‘.
28
(5.478d)
Then you would infer that opinion [doxa] is intermediate?:
Compare 6.506c, where Socrates claims “all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind.”
29
(5.479c)
or the children’s puzzle about the eunuch aiming at the bat:
According to an ancient commentator, the riddle is: “How did a man who isn’t a man aim at (
ballei
) but not hit (ou
ballei
) a bird that isn’t a bird, which he saw (that is, thought he saw) but didn’t see (that is, didn’t actually see) sitting on a tree that wasn’t a tree, with a stone that wasn’t a stone?” The eunuch is the man who isn’t a man, and the bat is the bird that isn’t a bird; the verb
ballein
means both “to aim at” and “to strike”; the word for “tree” (
xulon
) can also mean “reed” or “rafter,” and a pumice stone both is and isn’t a “stone.”
Book 6
1
(6.484a)
if there were not many other questions awaiting us:
Socrates’ reminder is yet another acknowledgment of the incomplete nature of
Republic
’s discussion of justice and its advantages; see note 9 on 4.435c.
2
(6.484c-d)
are not such persons, I ask, simply blind?:
Analogies comparing knowledge and wisdom to sight, and ignorance to blindness, are common in Greek poetry; for example, they figure prominently—and paradoxically—in Sophocles’
Oedipus the King
(produced c.430 B.C.E.). In
Republic,
Socrates uses the faculty of sight and the experience of seeing visible objects with the eyes as a metaphor for the faculty of “knowledge” (
epistemê
) and the experience of apprehending intelligible objects (that is, the ideas) with the mind (6.507b-509c); see also the allegory of the cave, 7.514a-518b). But he also contrasts intellectual apprehension of the ideas with the apprehension of visible and other phenomenal objects with the eyes and other senses, most notably in his description of the divided line (6.509d-511e).
3
(6.485a)
In the first place ... the nature of the philosopher has to be ascertained:
See note 18 on 2.375c.
4
(6.486a)
There should be no secret corner of illiberality: Aneleutheria
(“illiberality”) refers first and foremost to stinginess with property and resources;
megaloprepeia
(“high-mindedness,” “magnanimity”) denotes generosity with material goods. Socrates uses the terms more broadly to contrast general narrow-mindedness with breadth of spirit and “vision.”
5
(6.487b)
They fancy that they are led astray a little at each step in the argument
...
all their former notions appear to be turned upside down:
Adeimantus’ frank remarks about Socrates’ method echo, in a friendly way, the complaints of interlocutors in other dialogues, such as Callicles in Gorgias 497a. By having Socrates take pains to satisfy Adeimantus’ questions about the differences between the common estimations of philosophers (as being either useless or corrupt) and the claims that have just been made about their fitness for political rule, Plato further discredits the allegations that Socrates carelessly and unscrupulously “corrupted the youth” (see also note 12 on 6.494c and note 3 on 5.451a.)
6
(6.488a-b)
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 image of the ship of state provides an unflattering image of contemporary Athenian politics. The captain/ship-owner, who is tall and strong but short-sighted and hard of hearing, represents the Athenian people; the unruly and ignorant sailors who compete to steer the ship stand in for politicians who vie for control of the government. The true pilot, who is dismissed as a useless stargazer because no one respects his expertise and abilities, is the philosopher.
7
(6.491d)
we know that all germs or seeds ... when they fail to meet with proper nutriment, or climate, or soil ... are all the more sensitive to the want of a suitable environment, for evil is a greater enemy to what is good than to what is not:
Compare Socrates’ emphases throughout book 3 on the strict education of future guardians in the ideal state.
8
(6.492a)
he is like a plant which, ... if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power:
Compare 6.493a, 6.496a-c, and 8.558b. It seems likely that Plato intends his readers to see Socrates as one such divinely protected individual.
9
(6.492a)
Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists?:
Compare 6.493a on how the sophists, whom the many “deem to be their adversaries, do, in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many”; see also note 12 on 1.343d.
10
(6.493d)
the so-called necessity of Diomede:
This is a proverbial expression (of uncertain origin) for unavoidable necessity. It perhaps refers to an incident (not related in
Iliad
or
Odyssey)
that occurred when Odysseus tried to kill Diomedes; on the way back to the Greek camp he in turn bound Odysseus and beat him with the flat of his sword blade.
11
(6.494a)
Then the world cannot possibly be a philosopher?:
Literally, the Greek reads “Then the many [or the majority] cannot be philosophic.” This brief but crucial statement provides a succinct connection between the metaphysical and epistemological and political concerns of
Republic
and echoes Parmenides’ disparagement of the “confusion in the breasts” of most mortals, who “know nothing.”
12
(6.494c)
And what will a man such as he is be likely to do under such circumstances, especially if he be a citizen of a great city, rich and noble, and a tall, proper youth?:
Plato undoubtedly means his readers to think of the Athenian general and statesman Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.E.). Alcibiades, the ward of the famous statesman Pericles, was aristocratic, handsome, charismatic, successful, and also undisciplined and capricious. He is memorably represented in
Symposium
as being completely in love with Socrates. Suspicion that Socrates had unduly influenced Alcibiades, who defected to the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War, may have lent weight to the charge of “corrupting the youth” that was leveled against Socrates in 399 B.C.E. In this passage and elsewhere (for example,
Symposium
215e-216b), Plato seems keen to clear Socrates of responsibility for Alcibiades’ misdeeds. He may have had other young men in mind, as well, such as Dionysius II of Syracuse. As a young man, Dionysius was encouraged by his uncle Dion to study philosophy with Plato, but upon succeeding his father as tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius fell out with both his uncle and his tutor.
13
(6.496d)
he holds his peace, and goes his own way:
Socrates’ defense of the man who, in a dysfunctional political community, keeps to himself (that is, practices
apragmosynê,
or “lack of involvement”) is in keeping with his criticism of “meddlesomeness” (
polypragmosynê
) that impairs city-states such as Athens; see note 8 on 4.433a.
14
(6.497c-d)
you may remember my saying before, that some living authority would always be required in the State having the same idea of the constitution which guided you when ... you were laying down the laws:
Compare 3.412a-c.
Statesman
293c-297e offers a different perspective on the supreme importance of the “living authority” of the statesman.
15
(6.497e)
I declare that States should pursue philosophy, not as they do now, but in a different spirit:
In particular, Socrates objects to permitting young men to study philosophy; he elaborates his reasons at 7.537b-540c.
16
(6.498d)
against the day when they live again, and hold the like discourse in another state of existence:
The reference to reincarnation anticipates the myth of the afterlife that Socrates relates at 10.617b-621b.
17
(6.499b)
whether they will or not:
Compare 1.345e and book 7 in general, especially 7.519c-521b and 7.540b.
18
(6.499d)
There is no impossibility in all this; that there is a difficulty, we acknowledge ourselves:
Compare Adeimantus’ query at 5.471e, and also 7.540d.
19
(6.499e)
do not attack the multitude: they
will
change their minds:
It is to be assumed that the people in the ideal state’s bronze/iron class, though unable to be
philosophoi
themselves, would harbor no hostility to philosophy, since its practitioners would be their rulers and caretakers. If the ideal state is a possibility, however remote, so too is the widespread acceptance of philosophy that Socrates optimistically envisions in this passage.
20
(6.500d)
will he, think you, be an unskilful artificer of justice, temperance, and every civil virtue?:
Compare 7.540c, where Glaucon proclaims that Socrates is a “sculptor” who has “made statues of our governors faultless in beauty”
21
(6.501a)
They will begin by taking the State and the manners of men, from which, as from a tablet, they will rub out the picture, and leave a clean surface:
Compare 7.540e-541a. The assumption in both of these passages—that it is practically impossible to rehabilitate the attitudes and beliefs of adults (and even teenagers) who have been acculturated to a dysfunctional system of values—underlies the emphases in book 2 and 3 on the early education of the guardians. Plato arguably demonstrates the impossibility of such rehabilitation in his many “aporetic” dialogues (for example,
Protagoras, Gorgias, Laches, Ion, Euthyphro,
etc.), which feature Socrates in conversation with men who, though ultimately incapable of accounting for their beliefs and values, are nonetheless unable and unwilling to give up them up.
22
(6.502a)
Will anyone deny the other point, that there may be sons of kings or princes who are by nature philosophers?:
Some scholars see in this question a reference to Dionysius II of Syracuse. See note 12 on 6.494c.
23
(6.503b)
Yes, my friend, I said, and I then shrank from hazarding ... that the perfect guardian must be a philosopher:
Socrates assimilates the reluctance experienced by the personified discussion, or logos, to the “fear and hesitation” he claimed to feel at 5.472a. From this point through the end of book 7, Socrates makes several disclaimers about the inexact and provisional nature of the concepts he advances; see note 10 on the remarks at 4.435d, about which Socrates reminds Adeimantus at 6.504b.
24
(6.503b)
And do not suppose that there will be many of them:
Compare 6.485a-486e and 2.375c.
25
(6.504b)
We were saying ... that he who wanted to see them in their perfect beauty must take a longer and more circuitous way, at the end of which they would appear:
Compare 4.435c-d. In his or her investigations of justice, temperance, courage, etc., the philosopher who is a guardian in the ideal state would be able to take none of the “shortcuts” that Socrates and his companions have taken in
Republic.
Socrates’ comments are perhaps intended to remind readers that they should not confuse the conversation represented in this dialogue with true “dialectic” practiced by philosophers (compare 7.531d-534e).
26
(6.505a)
for you have often been told that the idea of good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this:
According to the theory of the ideas, all “good” objects in the phenomenal realm are “good” by virtue of their participation in the form/idea of the good; therefore, the only sure way of knowing the “relative” goodness of something is to evaluate it in light of the form of the good. Since what is “good” is the ultimate object of every human pursuit (6.505d-e), knowledge of the idea of the good is supremely important. As he has Socrates tentatively express his ideas about what the form of the good is, Plato invites readers to imagine that Socrates, Adeimantus, and presumably Glaucon have often discussed it, and that Socrates’ insistence that the idea of the good is the supreme object of learning is nothing new.
27
(6.505b)
You are further aware that most people affirm pleasure to be the
good: For Plato’s recurrent concern that most people identify what is pleasing with what is good, see note 2 on 3.391a.