Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 7.532

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[532] 532a
οὐκοῦν, εἶπον, ὦ Γλαύκων, οὗτος ἤδη αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ νόμος ὃν τὸ διαλέγεσθαι περαίνει; ὃν καὶ ὄντα νοητὸν μιμοῖτʼ ἂν ἡ τῆς ὄψεως δύναμις, ἣν ἐλέγομεν πρὸς αὐτὰ ἤδη τὰ ζῷα ἐπιχειρεῖν ἀποβλέπειν καὶ πρὸς αὐτὰ τὰ ἄστρα τε καὶ τελευταῖον δὴ πρὸς αὐτὸν τὸν ἥλιον. οὕτω καὶ ὅταν τις τῷ διαλέγεσθαι ἐπιχειρῇ ἄνευ πασῶν τῶν αἰσθήσεων διὰ τοῦ λόγου ἐπʼ αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἕκαστον ὁρμᾶν, καὶ μὴ ἀποστῇ πρὶν 532b ἂν αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἀγαθὸν αὐτῇ νοήσει λάβῃ, ἐπʼ αὐτῷ γίγνεται τῷ τοῦ νοητοῦ τέλει, ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος τότε ἐπὶ τῷ τοῦ ὁρατοῦ.
παντάπασι μὲν οὖν, ἔφη.
τί οὖν; οὐ διαλεκτικὴν ταύτην τὴν πορείαν καλεῖς;
τί μήν;
ἡ δέ γε, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, λύσις τε ἀπὸ τῶν δεσμῶν καὶ μεταστροφὴ ἀπὸ τῶν σκιῶν ἐπὶ τὰ εἴδωλα καὶ τὸ φῶς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ καταγείου εἰς τὸν ἥλιον ἐπάνοδος, καὶ ἐκεῖ πρὸς μὲν τὰ ζῷά τε καὶ φυτὰ καὶ τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς ἔτι ἀδυναμία 532c βλέπειν, πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἐν ὕδασι φαντάσματα θεῖα καὶ σκιὰς τῶν ὄντων, ἀλλʼ οὐκ εἰδώλων σκιὰς διʼ ἑτέρου τοιούτου φωτὸς ὡς πρὸς ἥλιον κρίνειν ἀποσκιαζομένας—πᾶσα αὕτη ἡ πραγματεία τῶν τεχνῶν ἃς διήλθομεν ταύτην ἔχει τὴν δύναμιν καὶ ἐπαναγωγὴν τοῦ βελτίστου ἐν ψυχῇ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ἀρίστου ἐν τοῖς οὖσι θέαν, ὥσπερ τότε τοῦ σαφεστάτου ἐν σώματι πρὸς τὴν τοῦ φανοτάτου ἐν τῷ σωματοειδεῖ τε καὶ 532d ὁρατῷ τόπῳ.
ἐγὼ μέν, ἔφη, ἀποδέχομαι οὕτω. καίτοι παντάπασί γέ μοι δοκεῖ χαλεπὰ μὲν ἀποδέχεσθαι εἶναι, ἄλλον δʼ αὖ τρόπον χαλεπὰ μὴ ἀποδέχεσθαι. ὅμως δέ—οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ νῦν παρόντι μόνον ἀκουστέα, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὖθις πολλάκις ἐπανιτέον —ταῦτα θέντες ἔχειν ὡς νῦν λέγεται, ἐπʼ αὐτὸν δὴ τὸν νόμον ἴωμεν, καὶ διέλθωμεν οὕτως ὥσπερ τὸ προοίμιον διήλθομεν. λέγε οὖν τίς ὁ τρόπος τῆς τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι δυνάμεως, καὶ 532e κατὰ ποῖα δὴ εἴδη διέστηκεν, καὶ τίνες αὖ ὁδοί· αὗται γὰρ ἂν ἤδη, ὡς ἔοικεν, αἱ πρὸς αὐτὸ ἄγουσαι εἶεν, οἷ ἀφικομένῳ ὥσπερ ὁδοῦ ἀνάπαυλα ἂν εἴη καὶ τέλος τῆς πορείας.

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).) — 7.532 focus

[532] “This, then, at last, Glaucon,” I said, “is the very law which dialectics¹ recites, the strain which it executes, of which, though it belongs to the intelligible, we may see an imitation in the progress² of the faculty of vision, as we described³ its endeavor to look at living things themselves and the stars themselves and finally at the very sun. In like manner, when anyone by dialectics attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all perceptions of sense⁴ to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist 532b till he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the good in itself, he arrives at the limit of the intelligible, as the other in our parable, came to the goal of the visible.” “By all means,” he said. “What, then, will you not call this progress of thought dialectic?” Surely. “And the release from bonds,” I said, “and the conversion from the shadows to the images⁵ that cast them and to the light and the ascent⁶ from the subterranean cavern to the world above,⁷ and there the persisting inability⁸ to look directly at animals and plants and the light of the sun, 532c but the ability to see the phantasms created by God⁹ in water and shadows of objects that are real and not merely, as before, the shadows of images cast through a light which, compared with the sun, is as unreal as they—all this procedure of the arts and sciences that we have described indicates their power to lead the best part of the soul up to the contemplation of what is best among realities, as in our parable the clearest organ in the body was turned to the contemplation of what is brightest 532d in the corporeal and visible region.” “I accept this,” he said, “as the truth; and yet it appears to me very hard to accept, and again, from another point of view, hard to reject.¹⁰ Nevertheless, since we have not to hear it at this time only, but are to repeat it often hereafter, let us assume that these things are as now has been said, and proceed to the melody itself, and go through with it as we have gone through the prelude. Tell me, then, what is the nature of this faculty of dialectic? 532e Into what divisions does it fall? And what are its ways? For it is these, it seems, that would bring us to the place where we may, so to speak, rest on the road and then come to the end of our journeying.”

Commentary

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

περαίνει =‘performs’: cf. Plut. Crass. 33. 3 ἀναβακχεύσας ἐπέραινεν ἐκεῖνα τὰ μέλη κτλ., Tim. 29 D τὸ μὲν οὖν προοίμιον θαυμασίως ἀπεδεξάμεθά σου, τὸν δὲ δὴ νόμον ἡμῖν ἐφεξῆς πέραινε, and Laws 723 E. The metaphor is still from music, though D. and V. erroneously translate “of which dialectical reasoning is the consummation.”

ἣν ἐλέγομεν κτλ. It follows that the progress of the prisoner after he has begun to look on real objects outside the Cave represents Dialectic: cf. 516 A note and 532 B.

αὐτὰ ἄστρα . I formerly read αὐτὰ <τὰ> ἄστρα with Baiter; but there is no MS authority for the article, and its presence is unnecessary even between αὐτὰ τὰ ζῷα and αὐτὸν τὸν ἥλιον.

οὕτω καὶ κτλ. : ‘so also whenever by means of dialectic one attempts through discourse of reason’ etc. On τοῦ λόγου and ἄνευ πασῶν τῶν αἰσθήσεων see VI 511 B note and App. III. Ast's conjecture ὁρμᾶν (see cr. n.) is supported by Clement Strom. V 112 B Migne (quoted by Schneider) ἐὰν ἐπιχειρῇ τις ἄνευ πασῶν τῶν αἰσθήσεων διὰ τοῦ λόγου ἐπ’ αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἕκαστον ὁρμᾶν κτλ., and closely corresponds with ἐπιχειρεῖν ἀποβλέπειν in the last sentence. There is no occasion for Stallbaum's professional ridicule of Schneider's view: ‘quasi vero recte dici potuerit: τῷ διαλέγεσθαι ἐπιχειρεῖν διὰ τοῦ λόγου ὁρμᾶν ἐπί τι!’ for οὗ αὐτὸς ὁ λόγος ἅπτεται τῇ τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι δυνάμει in VI 511 B is an exact parallel. On other views see App. XII.

ἕκαστον is omitted in A (see cr. n.) and some other MSS. It is however necessary both in itself, and in order to provide a proper contrast with αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν ἀγαθόν. For the process here described see App. III.

τότε . 516 B.

ἡ δέ γε κτλ. Having described διαλεκτική in terms of the cave-simile, Plato now proceeds to describe his προπαιδεία in the same way: cf. 515 C, 516 A notes Bosanquet finds a difficulty in ἡ λύσις—ἐπάνοδος, and thinks it just conceivable that these words describe the training in music and gymnastic and not the προπαιδεία (so also Susemihl Gen. Entw. II p. 201). But Plato's language is perfectly definite; and τῶν τεχνῶν ἂς διήλθομεν (532 C) cannot mean anything beyond or except the five studies just described. Nor is this the only passage where the ‘turning round’ of the prisoners while still in the cave and their gradual ascent are identified with the προπαιδεία, or with part of it: see 521 C. Plato means that the emancipation of the soul is a gradual process, and that we are not to expect our mathematical studies to deliver us from δόξα all at once. ἡ λύσις —εἴδωλα suggests that their first effect will be to loosen our intellectual bonds, and turn us as it were from reflected to original δόξαι—from εἰκασία to πίστις (VI 511 E, VII 517 A notes). The higher we mount, the less of δόξα we retain, and in the higher stages of the προπαιδεία (symbolized by ἐκεῖ—ἀποσκιαζομένας) we escape from δόξα altogether. See App. I.

καὶ ἐκεῖ κτλ. ‘and when there, their inability still to look upon animals and plants and the light of the sun, but upon divine reflections in water and shadows of things real, not, as before, shadows of images thrown by a light which is itself but an image compared with the sun.’ Cf. 516 A, B. ἔτι ἀδυναμία is due to Iamblichus: see cr. n. and cf. Bywater in J. Ph. X p. 78. Nägelsbach also conjectured ἔτ’ ἀδυναμία. The difference between ἔτι and ἐπ in an uncial MS is practically nil. With πρὸς δὲ τὰ κτλ. the positive counterpart of ἀδυναμία ( βλέπειν) is to be supplied: cf. Ap. 36 B (where Schanz's insertion of οὔ after οἱ πολλοί is inelegant and unnecessary) and Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 1072. For ἔτι with a verbal noun cf. IV 434 C note ‘Divine’ φαντάσματα is a half-technical Platonic phrase for reflections of natural objects produced by natural lights: they are θεῖα because θείας ἔργα ποιήσεως ( Soph. 266 C , where the whole matter is very clearly explained). Even without the aid of the Sophist, we might deduce the meaning from the antithetical clause ἀλλ’ οὐκ —ἀποσκιαζομένας, if we remember that the sun is a θεός (VI 508 A). The adjective is regularly placed after the substantive when two coordinate qualifications have to be expressed (here ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν and θεῖα): cf. III 397 D τὸν τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς μιμητὴν ἄκρατον, IX 573 A τῶν ἐν ταῖς τοιαύταις συνουσίαις ἡδονῶν ἀνειμένων. Other examples are given by Jebb on Soph. O. T. 1245 and Sandys on Arist. Ath. Pol. 51. 3: cf. also Stallbaum on Phil. 20 B . The present passage explains why Plato was so careful to make the originals in the Cave σκευαστά and εἴδωλα, and not φυτευτά: see on 514 B. Other views of this sentence are discussed in App. XIII.

πᾶσα κτλ. The anacoluthon is illustrated by Engelhardt Anac. Pl. Spec. III p. 45.

ταύτην τὴν δύναμιν : viz. λύσιν ἀπὸ τῶν δεσμῶν κτλ.

οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ νῦν κτλ. We ought not to interpret this as a promise of future dialogues (with Siebeck Unters. z. Phil. d. Griechen p. 118); it is only a way of indicating, before we pass on, that the subject is not exhausted. See on IV 430 C.

οὐκέτι κτλ. With the general tenour and form of the sentence cf. (with Jackson) Symp. 210 A. I can see no reason for suspecting the text (with Madvig, who proposes εἴ γ’ ἔτι, or εἰ σύ γ’ ἔτι, and Badham, who would insert εἰ before οἷός τ’ ἔσει). Glauco has not without difficulty (517 C) followed Socrates thus far: nor is there anything rude in telling him frankly that he has reached his limit, and even if there were, Socrates does not spare Glauco's feelings (cf. 527 D, 529 A). That his audience would not be able to follow a description of the Good, has already been implied in VI 506 E ff. βουλοίμην ἄν, εἶπον, ἐμέ τε δύνασθαι αὐτὴν (the account of the Good itself) ἀποδοῦναι καὶ ὑμᾶς κομίσασθαι. Here Socrates appears to be a trifle more confident of his own expository powers, though he is careful, as before, to avoid the appearance of dogmatism and therefore introduces the expression ὅ γε δή μοι φαίνεται etc. (cf. τοῦ γε δοκοῦντος ἐμοί l.c.) and προθυμίας (cf. προθυμούμενος δὲ κτλ. VI 506 D). Krohn (Pl. St. pp. 179 ff.) bitterly complains of Socrates for drawing back; and Whewell (Phil. of Discovery p. 436) observes “We may venture to say that it does not appear that he had any answer ready.” The dialectical method recommended by Plato in the Republic is doubtless, in its full significance, an unrealised ideal (cf. nn. on ἀρχὴν ἀνυπόθετον VI 510 B and τοῦ ἀνυποθέτου 511 B), just as the ultimate object of Dialectic, the Idea of Good, will still recede as we approach it. The description which follows merely recapitulates the account already given in Book VI, with a few additional characteristics already familiar in the Socratic school: but the majority of the Platonic dialogues furnish practical illustrations of many essential features in Plato's dialectical method: so that it is possible to form a tolerably clear idea of the kind of answer which the Platonic Socrates might have made in reply to Glauco's invitation. See on the whole subject App. III.

Plato Republic 7.532

ed. John Burnet

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