Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 1.353

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[353] 353a
τί δέ; μαχαίρᾳ ἂν ἀμπέλου κλῆμα ἀποτέμοις καὶ σμίλῃ καὶ ἄλλοις πολλοῖς;
πῶς γὰρ οὔ;
ἀλλʼ οὐδενί γʼ ἂν οἶμαι οὕτω καλῶς ὡς δρεπάνῳ τῷ ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἐργασθέντι.
ἀληθῆ.
ἆρʼ οὖν οὐ τοῦτο τούτου ἔργον θήσομεν;
θήσομεν μὲν οὖν.
νῦν δὴ οἶμαι ἄμεινον ἂν μάθοις ὃ ἄρτι ἠρώτων, πυνθανόμενος εἰ οὐ τοῦτο ἑκάστου εἴη ἔργον ὃ ἂν ἢ μόνον τι ἢ κάλλιστα τῶν ἄλλων ἀπεργάζηται.
ἀλλά, ἔφη, μανθάνω τε καί μοι δοκεῖ τοῦτο ἑκάστου 353b πράγματος ἔργον εἶναι.
εἶεν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ. οὐκοῦν καὶ ἀρετὴ δοκεῖ σοι εἶναι ἑκάστῳ ᾧπερ καὶ ἔργον τι προστέτακται; ἴωμεν δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ πάλιν· ὀφθαλμῶν, φαμέν, ἔστι τι ἔργον;
ἔστιν.
ἆρʼ οὖν καὶ ἀρετὴ ὀφθαλμῶν ἔστιν;
καὶ ἀρετή.
τί δέ; ὤτων ἦν τι ἔργον;
ναί.
οὐκοῦν καὶ ἀρετή;
καὶ ἀρετή.
τί δὲ πάντων πέρι τῶν ἄλλων; οὐχ οὕτω;
οὕτω.
ἔχε δή· ἆρʼ ἄν ποτε ὄμματα τὸ αὑτῶν ἔργον καλῶς 353c ἀπεργάσαιντο μὴ ἔχοντα τὴν αὑτῶν οἰκείαν ἀρετήν, ἀλλʼ ἀντὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς κακίαν;
καὶ πῶς ἄν; ἔφη· τυφλότητα γὰρ ἴσως λέγεις ἀντὶ τῆς ὄψεως.
ἥτις, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, αὐτῶν ἡ ἀρετή· οὐ γάρ πω τοῦτο ἐρωτῶ, ἀλλʼ εἰ τῇ οἰκείᾳ μὲν ἀρετῇ τὸ αὑτῶν ἔργον εὖ ἐργάσεται τὰ ἐργαζόμενα, κακίᾳ δὲ κακῶς.
ἀληθές, ἔφη, τοῦτό γε λέγεις.
οὐκοῦν καὶ ὦτα στερόμενα τῆς αὑτῶν ἀρετῆς κακῶς τὸ αὑτῶν ἔργον ἀπεργάσεται;
πάνυ γε. 353d
τίθεμεν οὖν καὶ τἆλλα πάντα εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον;
ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ.
ἴθι δή, μετὰ ταῦτα τόδε σκέψαι. ψυχῆς ἔστιν τι ἔργον ὃ ἄλλῳ τῶν ὄντων οὐδʼ ἂν ἑνὶ πράξαις, οἷον τὸ τοιόνδε· τὸ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι καὶ ἄρχειν καὶ βουλεύεσθαι καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πάντα, ἔσθʼ ὅτῳ ἄλλῳ ἢ ψυχῇ δικαίως ἂν αὐτὰ ἀποδοῖμεν καὶ φαῖμεν ἴδια ἐκείνης εἶναι;
οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ.
τί δʼ αὖ τὸ ζῆν; οὐ ψυχῆς φήσομεν ἔργον εἶναι;
μάλιστά γʼ, ἔφη.
οὐκοῦν καὶ ἀρετήν φαμέν τινα ψυχῆς εἶναι;
φαμέν. 353e
ἆρʼ οὖν ποτε, ὦ Θρασύμαχε, ψυχὴ τὰ αὑτῆς ἔργα εὖ ἀπεργάσεται στερομένη τῆς οἰκείας ἀρετῆς, ἢ ἀδύνατον;
ἀδύνατον.
ἀνάγκη ἄρα κακῇ ψυχῇ κακῶς ἄρχειν καὶ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, τῇ δὲ ἀγαθῇ πάντα ταῦτα εὖ πράττειν.
ἀνάγκη.
οὐκοῦν ἀρετήν γε συνεχωρήσαμεν ψυχῆς εἶναι δικαιοσύνην, κακίαν δὲ ἀδικίαν;
συνεχωρήσαμεν γάρ.
ἡ μὲν ἄρα δικαία ψυχὴ καὶ ὁ δίκαιος ἀνὴρ εὖ βιώσεται, κακῶς δὲ ὁ ἄδικος.
φαίνεται, ἔφη, κατὰ τὸν σὸν λόγον.

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

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Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 1.353 focus

[353] Once more, 353a you could use a dirk to trim vine branches and a knife and many other instruments. Certainly. But nothing so well, I take it, as a pruning-knife fashioned for this purpose. That is true. Must we not then assume this to be the work or function of that? We must.
You will now, then, I fancy, better apprehend the meaning of my question when I asked whether that is not the work of a thing which it only or it better than anything else can perform. Well, he said, I do understand, and agree 353b that the work of anything is that. Very good, said I. Do you not also think that there is a specific virtue or excellence of everything for which a specific work or function is appointed? Let us return to the same examples. The eyes we say have a function? They have. Is there also a virtue of the eyes? There is. And was there not a function of the ears? Yes. And so also a virtue? Also a virtue. And what of all other things? Is the case not the same? The same. Take note now. Could the eyes possibly fulfil their function well 353c if they lacked their own proper excellence and had in its stead the defect? How could they? he said; for I presume you meant blindness instead of vision. Whatever, said I, the excellence may be. For I have not yet come¹ to that question, but am only asking whether whatever operates will not do its own work well by its own virtue and badly by its own defect. That much, he said, you may affirm to be true. Then the ears, too, if deprived of their own virtue will do their work ill? Assuredly. And do we then apply 353d the same principle to all things? I think so. Then next consider this. The soul, has it a work which you couldn’t accomplish with anything else in the world, as for example, management, rule, deliberation, and the like, is there anything else than soul to which you could rightly assign these and say that they were its peculiar work? Nothing else. And again life? Shall we say that too is the function of the soul? Most certainly, he said. And do we not also say that there is an excellence virtue of the soul? 353e We do. Will the soul ever accomplish its own work well if deprived of its own virtue, or is this impossible? It is impossible. Of necessity, then, a bad soul will govern and manage things badly while the good soul will in all these things do well.² Of necessity. And did we not agree that the excellence or virtue of soul is justice and its defect injustice? Yes, we did. The just soul and the just man then will live well and the unjust ill? So it appears, he said, by your reasoning.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

Πλάτωνος Πολιτεία . On the name, characters, and date of action of the dialogue, see Introd. §§ 1, 2, 3.

ἀποτέμοις —see cr. n.—can hardly, I think, dispense with the particle ἄν. It should be noted that the illustrations are of two kinds—the first to illustrate ἢ μόνῳ ἐκείνῳ, the second to illustrate ἄριστα; after each division the conclusion is stated, in the second case more diffidently ( ἆρ’ οὖν οὐ—θήσομεν), perhaps because it is less obvious.

μόνον τι . Cornarius unhappily suggested τις for τι and Stephanus μόνῳ τις for μόνον τι (cf. 352 E). μόνον τι is of course the subject to ἀπεργάζηται .

οὐκοῦν ‐‐ προστέτακται . Cf. Men. 72 A οὐκ ἀπορία εἰπεῖν ἀρετῆς πέρι ὅ τι ἔστιν. καθ’ ἑκάστην γὰρ τῶν πράξεων καὶ τῶν ἡλικιῶν πρὸς ἕκαστον ἔργον ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἡ ἀρετή ἐστιν. ὡσαύτως δὲ—καὶ ἡ κακία: also infra X 608 E with Arist. Eth. Nic. II 5. 1106^{a} 15 ff.

ἦν : ‘is, as we saw,’ viz. at 352 E: cf. infra IV 441 D, VI 490 A, VII 522 A.

ἀπεργάσαιντο . Heindorf (on Crat. 424 E ) would read ἀπεργάσαιτο, and Baiter adopts his suggestion; but (as Stallbaum observes) the use of ὀφθαλμοί just above may affect the construction. In the same way, perhaps, the occurrence of γυναῖκες καὶ τἄλλα θηρία immediately before causes Plato to write δεήσοιντο (the reading of A) rather than δεήσοιτο in Tim. 76 E . Of the other alleged cases of a plural verb after a neuter plural in Plato, some (e.g. Laws 634 E, 683 B) are not supported by the best MSS; one— ἐξ ὧν τά τε ὀνόματα καὶ τὰ ῥήματα συντίθενται (so AT) Crat. 424 E —is distributive; some refer to living objects, e.g. Laws 658 C (with which contrast κρίνοι just before) and Lach. 180 E ; at least one ( Phil. 24 E ) is perhaps corrupt. See also on Rep. II 365 B.

τυφλότητα κτλ. τυφλότης is also said to be the disease or vice of the eyes in Alc. I 126 B, a passage probably imitated from this. In the stricter discussion of X 608 E it is not τυφλότης but ὀφθαλμία which is the vice to which the eyes are subject.

οὐ γάρ πω ‐‐ ἐρωτῶ is ‘I do not, at this stage, enquire’; but the words do not, I think, contain an express promise that the subject will be afterwards resumed. Although the peculiar vice of the eyes is specified in Book X (l.c.), their virtue is not; and τοῦτο refers to ἥτις αὐτῶν ἡ ἀρετή. Cf. 347 E note

ψυχῆς ἔστιν τι ἔργον : cf. III 407 A and Arist. Eth. Nic. I 6. 1097^{b} 22—1098^{a} 17, where this discussion is closely imitated. That it is the ἔργον of soul (and in particular of νοῦς) to rule ( ἄρχειν, ἐπιμελεῖσθαι, and the like), is continually asserted in Plato: see for example Phaedr. 246 B πᾶσα ἡ ψυχὴ παντὸς ἐπιμελεῖται τοῦ ἀψύχου, Crat. 400 A , Phil. 30C, Laws 896 A. The same doctrine is made the ground of the subjection of body to soul which is inculcated in the Phaedo (80 A, 94 B), and in Alc. I 130 A. Cf. also Isocrates περὶ ἀντιδόσεως 180 ὁμολογεῖται μὲν γὰρ τὴν φύσιν ἡμῶν ἔκ τε τοῦ σώματος συγκεῖσθαι καὶ τῆς ψυχῆς· αὐτοῖν δὲ τούτοιν οὐδεὶς ἔστιν ὅστις οὐκ ἂν φήσειεν ἡγεμονικωτέραν πεφυκέναι τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ πλείονος ἀξίαν· τῆς μὲν γὰρ ἔργον εἶναι βουλεύσασθαι καὶ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ περὶ τῶν κοινῶν, τοῦ δὲ σώματος ὑπηρετῆσαι τοῖς ὑπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς γνωσθεἶσιν.

ἐκείνου . The reading ἐκείνης—see cr. n.—can only be defended by supposing that Plato was guilty of a strange confusion, unless we make a pause at ἄλλῳ, and take ἤ as ‘or,’ not ‘than’; but ἤ after ἄλλῳ would certainly here be understood as ‘than,’ and an alternative question should be less ambiguously expressed. After ψυχῇ the corruption to ἐκείνης was natural enough. Madvig would eject the word.

τὸζῆν is κατ’ ἐξοχήν the ἔργον of ψυχή in Plato: cf. Crat. 399 D , E τοῦτο ἄρα (sc. ψυχή), ὅταν παρῇ τῷ σώματι, αἴτιόν ἐστι τοῦ ζῆν αὐτῷ, τὴν τοῦ ἀναπνεῖν δύναμιν παρέχον καὶ ἀναψῦχον, ἅμα δὲ ἐκλείποντος τοῦ ἀναψύχοντος τὸ σῶμα ἀπόλλυταί τε καὶ τελευτᾷ· ὅθεν δή μοι δοκοῦσιν αὐτὸ ψυχὴν καλέσαι, and Phaed. 105 D . The influence of this idea makes itself felt in all the proofs of immortality in Plato, and not least in X 608 E ff. See notes ad loc.

συνεχωρήσαμεν κτλ. The reference is to 350 C, D: cf. also 348 C. In these passages Justice has been identified with Virtue, but not expressly with virtue of soul. For this reason Hartman would eject ψυχῆς. But as Plato has just been using ἀρετή ‘excellence’ in connexion with things other than soul (ears and eyes), it is important that he should now make it clear that in identifying δικαιοσύνη and ἀρετή, he meant soul's ἀρετή. Otherwise a soul may possess its ἀρετή without being just; in which case the conclusion which he is aiming at will not follow.

Plato Republic 1.353

ed. John Burnet

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