Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
Such a city and constitution, then, and such a man, I call good and correct; but the others I call bad and mistaken, if this one is right—both in the administration of cities and in the shaping of character in private souls—since they fall into four kinds of badness. "What are these four kinds?" he asked. And I was going on to describe them in order, as each seemed to me to grow out of the one before,
when Polemarchus—he was sitting a little way off from Adeimantus—reached out his hand, took hold of Adeimantus's cloak from above at the shoulder, drew him close, and leaning forward said something to him in a low voice, of which we caught nothing except this: "Shall we let him go, then—or what should we do about it?" "Not a chance," said Adeimantus, his voice now loud. And I said,
"What exactly is it you won't let me off?" "You," he said. "Why," I said, "what exactly?" "You seem to us to be skimping," he said, "and to be stealing away a whole section—not the smallest one—of the argument, so as to avoid going through it, and you thought you'd get away with tossing it off lightly, as if it were obvious to everyone that where wives and children are concerned, friends will hold all things in common." "Well, wasn't that right?" I said,
"Adeimantus?" "Yes," he said, "but this word 'right,' like everything else, needs an account of what manner of community is meant—there could be many kinds. So don't leave out the one you mean. We've been waiting a long time now, thinking you'd surely say something about the begetting of children—how they'll be begotten, and how, once born, they'll be raised—and this whole community of women and children that you speak of.
We think it makes a great difference—a whole difference, in fact—to the constitution, whether it's done rightly or not. So now, since you're taking up another constitution before adequately settling these matters, we've resolved—this is what you overheard—that you're not to be let off until you've gone through all of this as thoroughly as the rest." "Count me too," said Glaucon, "as party to this resolution." "You may be sure," said
Thrasymachus, "that all of us have voted on this, Socrates." "What a thing you've done," I said, "catching hold of me like this! What a huge discussion you're stirring up again about the constitution, as if from the very beginning—one I was glad to think already finished, content if someone would just let those things stand as they were said back then. You have no idea, in calling this up now, what a swarm of arguments you're rousing—which I saw coming and let alone at the time,
so it wouldn't cause a great deal of trouble." "Well, what of it?" said Thrasymachus. "Do you think these men have come here now to pan for gold, rather than to listen to arguments?" "Yes," I said, "but in due measure." "The measure, Socrates," said Glaucon, "for hearing arguments of this kind, for people with any sense, is a whole lifetime. So never mind about us—don't grow weary, on your side, of explaining, in whatever way seems best to you,
what community will exist for our guardians in the matter of children and women, and of the rearing of the young while they are still young, in that interval when they are being born and educated—which seems to be the most laborious part. Try, then, to say in what manner this should come about." "It isn't easy to go through, my happy friend," I said; "it holds many grounds for disbelief, even more
than the things we went through before. For even granting that it's told as something possible, people will disbelieve it; and even if it should come about in the fullest way, that it would be best—that too will be disbelieved. That's why there's a certain hesitation to touch on it, for fear the argument may seem to be no more than a wish, my dear friend." "Don't hesitate at all," he said; "for those who will hear it are neither unreasonable nor incredulous nor ill-disposed."
And I said, "My excellent friend, surely you say this wanting to encourage me?" "I do," he said. "Well then," I said, "you're doing just the opposite. If I were confident that I knew what I'm saying, your encouragement would be well placed—for among sensible friends, speaking the truth as one knows it about the greatest and dearest matters is safe and reassuring. But to make one's arguments while both disbelieving oneself and still searching—
which is exactly what I'm doing—that is frightening and precarious, not for fear of being laughed at (that would be childish) but for fear that, having slipped from the truth, I may drag down not only myself but my friends along with me, falling on the very matters where one should least stumble. I bow before Adrasteia, Glaucon, for what I'm about to say—for I expect it is a lesser fault to become a killer of someone unintentionally
than to be a deceiver about fine and good things and about the laws of justice. This is the kind of risk better run among enemies than among friends—so your encouragement really does me good." And Glaucon, laughing, said, "But, Socrates, if we suffer any harm from your argument, we discharge you as innocent, as in a case of homicide, and clean of any deceiving of us. So take courage and speak." "Well, indeed,"
I said, "one who's discharged is clean there too, as the law says; and it's likely that if it holds there, it holds here as well." "Speak, then," he said, "on that basis." "Well," I said, "I must now speak in reverse order from what perhaps should have come first; but perhaps it will turn out right this way—that after the drama of the men has been fully played out, we should in turn play out that of the women, especially since
you're inviting me to it in this way. For human beings born and raised as we have described, in my opinion there is no other correct way of acquiring and using wives and children than by following that same impulse along which we first set out—for we undertook, if you recall, to establish the men as guardians of a herd." "Yes." "Let us follow it through, then, assigning a similarly matching birth and
upbringing, and let's examine whether it suits us or not." "How do you mean?" he said. "Like this. Do we think the females among the guardian dogs should join in guarding whatever the males guard, and hunt together, and do everything else in common with them, or should the females stay indoors, kept at home as incapable, because of bearing and raising the puppies, while the males do the work and bear all the care
of the flocks?" "Everything in common," he said; "except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger." "Is it possible, then," I said, "to use any creature for the same tasks if you don't give it the same rearing and education?" "It isn't possible." "So if we're to use the women for the same tasks as the men, we must teach them the same things." "Yes." "Now music and gymnastics
were given to the men." "Yes." "So these same two arts, along with the matters of war, must be given to the women as well, and used in the same way." "That seems likely, from what you say," he said. "Perhaps, then," I said, "much of what's now being said might appear ridiculous, set against custom, if it's actually put into practice as described." "Very much so," he said. "What," I said, "do you find
most ridiculous of it? Isn't it obvious that it's the women exercising naked in the wrestling grounds together with the men—not only the young ones, but even the older women, just like old men in the gymnasiums, who, wrinkled and unpleasant to look at, nevertheless keep at their exercise?" "By Zeus," he said, "that would look ridiculous, at least as things stand now." "Well then,"
I said, "since we've set out to speak our minds, we mustn't fear the jokes that clever wits would make—whatever and however many they might say—about such a change coming over the gymnasiums and over music, and not least over the handling of weapons and the riding of horses." "You're right," he said. "But since we've begun to speak, we must go on to the rough part of the law, begging these people not
to mind their own business but to take it seriously, and reminding them that it wasn't so long ago that the Greeks thought it shameful and ridiculous—as most of the barbarians still do now—for men to be seen naked; and when the Cretans, and then the Spartans, first began gymnastic exercise, it was open to the wits of that time to mock all of it. Don't you think so?" "I do." "But once, I believe, it appeared better, for those practicing it,
to strip than to keep all such things covered, then the ridiculous element, which had appeared to the eyes, faded away before what reason showed to be best. And this demonstrated that it's a fool who thinks anything else ridiculous except what is bad, and whoever tries to raise a laugh takes aim at some other spectacle as ridiculous than that of the foolish and the bad, and, in turn,
takes seriously some other target for what's fine besides that of the good." "Absolutely," he said. "Then mustn't we first come to an agreement about these matters—whether they are possible or not—and grant the chance to dispute, whether one wants to argue playfully or seriously, over whether human nature, the female sort, is capable of sharing in all the tasks of the male sort,
or in none at all, or in some but not others, and specifically whether it is capable in the matter of war? Wouldn't this be the finest way to begin, and so, plausibly, also the finest way to end?" "Very much so," he said. "Would you like, then," I said, "for us to argue against ourselves on behalf of the other side, so that the positions of that other argument aren't left undefended and taken
by siege?" "Nothing stops us," he said. "Let us, then, speak on their behalf: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no one else needs to argue against you, for you yourselves, at the very start of founding the city you were settling, agreed that each single person must, in accordance with nature, do the one task that is his own.'" "We did agree, I believe—how could we not?" "'Is there, then, any way it isn't an enormous difference, the nature of a woman from that of a man?'"
"How could it not differ?" "'And doesn't a different task, then, belong properly to each, the one suited to his own nature?'" "Of course." "'How then are you not mistaken now, and contradicting yourselves, when you claim in turn that the men and the women must do the same things, though they have natures set as far apart as can be?' Do you have any defense to offer against this, my remarkable friend?" "Off the cuff,"
he said, "it isn't at all easy; but I'll ask you—indeed I do ask you—to explain the argument on our behalf, whatever it may be." "These are the very things, Glaucon," I said, "and many others like them, which I long foresaw and feared, and so hesitated to touch the law concerning the possession and rearing of women and children." "No, by Zeus,"
he said, "it doesn't look like an easy matter." "No, it doesn't," I said. "But here's how it is: whether one falls into a small swimming pool or into the middle of the greatest sea, one swims all the same, no less." "Quite so." "Then we too must swim, and try to save ourselves out of the argument, hoping either that some dolphin will come to bear us up, or for some other unlikely rescue." "So it seems,"
he said. "Come, then," I said, "and let's see if somehow we can find the way out. We agree that a different nature must pursue a different way of life, and that the nature of woman and of man is different; yet we're now saying these different natures must pursue the same things. Is this the charge against us?" "Precisely." "What a noble thing, Glaucon," I said, "this faculty of disputation is!" "Why so?" "Because,"
I said, it seems to me that many people fall into it even against their will, and think they are not disputing but discussing, because they're unable to examine what's said by dividing it according to kinds, but instead pursue the contradiction of what was said purely by its wording, using contentiousness rather than dialectic with one another. "Yes," he said, "that does happen to many people. But surely it doesn't apply to us here, in the present case?" "It applies completely," I said. "At any rate we're in danger of laying hold of contradiction against our will."
"How so?" "We're pursuing, quite bravely and contentiously, the mere wording of the claim that natures which are not the same must not be given the same pursuits, but we haven't examined at all what kind of sameness or difference of nature we meant, or what it was aimed at,
when we were allotting distinct occupations to distinct natures, and identical occupations to the identical nature." "No, we didn't examine that," he said. "So it seems we're free," I said, "to ask ourselves whether the nature of bald men and long-haired men is the same, and not opposite, and once we agree it's opposite, then if bald men are cobblers we shouldn't allow long-haired men to be, and if long-haired men are,
not the others." "That would be ridiculous," he said. "Ridiculous for any reason," I said, "other than that we weren't positing sameness and difference of nature in every sense back then, but were guarding only that kind of difference and likeness that bears on the pursuits themselves? For instance, we said that a man with medical skill and a woman with medical skill have the same nature in soul.
Or don't you think so?" "I do." "Whereas a man with medical skill and a man with carpentry skill have a different one?" "Certainly." "So then," I said, "if the class of men and the class of women appear to differ with respect to some skill or other pursuit, we'll say that pursuit must be assigned to each accordingly; but if it appears they differ only in this respect, that the female bears young and the male
begets them, we'll say nothing has yet been shown as to how a woman differs from a man in the sense we mean, and we'll still think our guardians and their wives ought to practice the same things." "And rightly so," he said. "So after this, don't we tell the person making the opposite claim to teach us exactly this: with respect to which skill or which pursuit involved in the
organization of a city the nature of woman and of man is not the same but different?" "That's only fair." "Then perhaps someone else might say what you yourself said a moment ago—that it isn't easy to answer well on the spot, but on reflection it's not hard at all." "Yes, he might say that." "Do you want us to ask the one making these objections to follow along with us, in case we can
show him that there's no pursuit peculiar to a woman with respect to the management of a city?" "By all means." "Come then," we'll say to him, "answer: did you mean that one person is well suited for something and another poorly suited, in the sense that the one learns something easily, the other with difficulty; that the one, from little instruction, is able to discover much on his own in that subject, while the other,
even after much instruction and practice, can't even retain what he learned; and that in the one the body serves the mind adequately, while in the other it works against it? Are there any other marks than these by which you distinguish the person well suited for each thing from the one who isn't?" "No one," he said, "will claim there are others." "Do you know of anything practiced by human beings in which the male sex isn't
superior to the female in all these respects? Or should we go on at length talking about weaving and the tending of cakes and stews, in which the female sex is thought to amount to something, and where it's most laughable of all for it to be beaten?" "What you say is true," he said, "that one sex is decisively mastered by the other in practically everything. Yet many women
are better than many men at many things. But on the whole it's as you say." "Then there is no pursuit, my friend, involved in the management of a city that belongs to woman because she is woman, or to man because he is man, but the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and woman shares by nature in all pursuits, and man in all, only in all of them woman is weaker than man." "Quite so."
"Are we then to assign everything to men and nothing to women?" "How could we?" "No—there is, I think we'll say, a woman with medical skill, and one without it, and one musical, and another unmusical by nature." "Of course." "And is there not also a woman fit for gymnastic and for war, and another unwarlike and no lover of gymnastics?" "I think so." "And what of this: a woman who loves wisdom and one who hates it? And one spirited, and another
lacking spirit?" "That too." "Then there is also a woman fit to be a guardian, and one who is not. Or was it not this sort of nature that we chose for the men who are to be guardians as well?" "Yes, that very sort." "So woman and man have the same nature with respect to guarding the city, except insofar as one is weaker and the other stronger." "So it appears." "And such women, then, must be chosen to live together
and to guard alongside such men, since they are capable and akin to them in nature." "Quite so." "And must not the same pursuits be assigned to the same natures?" "The same." "So we've come round in a circle back to what we said before, and we agree it isn't contrary to nature to give the guardians' wives training in music and gymnastic." "By all means." "Then we weren't legislating things impossible, or like mere wishes,
since we were laying down the law according to nature; rather it's what happens today, contrary to this, that turns out, it seems, to be contrary to nature." "So it seems." "Now wasn't our inquiry whether what we were proposing is both possible and best?" "It was." "And that it's possible has been agreed?" "Yes." "And that it's best must be agreed next?" "Clearly." "Now with a view to a
woman becoming fit to be a guardian, surely one education won't produce men for us and another women, especially since it takes hold of the same nature to begin with?" "No, not a different one." "How do you stand, then, on a certain opinion?" "What opinion?" "On supposing in your own mind that one man is better, another worse; or do you think them all alike?" "Not at all." "In the city we were founding, then, do you think
the guardians we've turned out will be better men, having received the education we went through, or the cobblers, trained in cobbling?" "That's a ridiculous question," he said. "I understand," I said. "Well then: aren't these the best of the other citizens too?" "By far." "And what of the women—won't these women be the best of women?" "That too," he said, "by far." "And is there anything better for a city than that its women and men
become as excellent as possible?" "There is not." "And will music and gymnastic, coming to bear as we described, bring this about?" "How could they not?" "So it wasn't only possible but also best as a law that we were laying down for the city." "Just so." "The women of the guardians, then, must strip for exercise, since they'll be clothed in excellence instead of garments, and must share in war and the rest of the guarding of the city, and
must do nothing else; though of these very tasks, the lighter ones must be given to the women rather than the men, on account of the weakness of their sex. And any man who finds it laughable that women exercise unclothed for the sake of what is best is 'plucking the unripe fruit' of a laughter that has no wisdom in it, and he knows nothing, it seems, at what he's laughing or what he's doing; for this is and always will be said most rightly, that
the beneficial is beautiful, and the harmful is ugly." "Quite so." "So let's say we've escaped one wave, as it were, on this matter of a law about women, so as not to be entirely swept under in laying down that our guardians and guardian-women must practice everything in common—so that the argument is at least in some way consistent with itself, in saying that these things are possible and beneficial." "And indeed," he said,
"it's no small wave you're escaping." "You'll say it isn't a big one," I said, "once you see what comes next." "Tell me, then, so I may see," he said. "Following on this," I said, "and on all the earlier laws, there comes, I believe, this one." "Which one?" "That all these women are to belong to all these men in common, and no woman is to live privately with any one man; and likewise
the children likewise are to be shared in common, with no parent recognizing his own offspring, nor any child his parent." "This," he said, "is far harder to credit than the other, both as to its possibility and its benefit." "I don't think," I said, "there would be much dispute, at least about the benefit—that it isn't the greatest good for the women to be held in common and the children in common, if indeed it's possible; but"
I think there would be a great deal of dispute over whether it's possible or not." "Both points," he said, "could well be disputed." "You mean," I said, "a combined attack of arguments; but I was hoping to escape from one of them at least, if you agreed it was beneficial, and that the only thing left for me would be the question of possibility." "But you haven't gotten away with
slipping off," he said. "You must give an account of both." "I must submit to justice," I said. "But grant me this much: let me have a holiday, the way lazy people are accustomed to feast their own minds when walking alone. Such people, before discovering how something they desire will come about, set that question aside so as not to wear themselves out deliberating over what is possible and what isn't; they simply assume
that what they want is already there, and go on from there arranging the rest, and take delight in going through all they'll do once it happens, making a soul that was already idle even idler still. So now I too am growing soft, and I want to put off that question and examine later how it's possible, and for now, treating it as possible, I'll consider—if you'll allow me—how the rulers will arrange these things once they come about, and how
it would turn out most advantageous of all, both for the city and for the guardians. These are the things I'll try to examine with you first, and those other questions afterward, if indeed you allow it." "Well, I do allow it," he said, "so go ahead and examine." "I think, then," I said, "if the rulers are to be worthy of that name, and their auxiliaries likewise, the latter will be willing to do what is ordered, and the former will do the ordering, in
part themselves obeying the laws, and in part imitating them in whatever we entrust to their discretion." "That's likely," he said. "You, then," I said, "as their lawgiver, will select the women just as you selected the men, and hand them over as being, so far as possible, of similar natures; and since they have houses and common meals in common, and no one possesses anything private of that sort, they'll be
together, and being mixed together in gymnasia and in the rest of their upbringing, they will, I think, be led by an innate necessity toward mingling with one another. Or don't you think what I'm saying is necessary?" "Not by geometrical necessities," he said, "but by erotic ones, which are likely to be sharper than the others at persuading and drawing along the mass of people." "Quite so," I said.
But after this, Glaucon, it will not be right—nor will the rulers allow it—for people in a city of happy citizens to mate with one another haphazardly or do anything else of that sort. "No, that would not be just," he said. "Clearly, then, we shall next make the marriages sacred, as far as possible—and the most beneficial marriages would be the most sacred." "Absolutely." "How then will they be most beneficial? Tell me this,
Glaucon: I notice you keep hunting dogs in your house, and a good many well-bred birds too. Have you ever, by Zeus, paid any attention to how they mate and breed?" "What do you mean?" he said. "First of all, among these animals themselves, well-bred as they all are, aren't some of them—or don't some of them turn out to be—the best?" "There are." "Do you then breed indiscriminately from all of them alike,
or do you take special care to breed from the best?" "From the best." "And again—from the youngest, or the oldest, or as much as possible from those in their prime?" "From those in their prime." "And if breeding isn't done this way, do you think the stock of birds and dogs will be much worse?" "Certainly," he said. "And what's your view of horses," I said,
and the other animals? Is it any different with them?" "That would be strange," he said. "Good heavens," I said, "my dear friend, how excellent our rulers will need to be, if the same holds for the human race as well." "Well, it does hold," he said, "but why do you say that?" "Because," I said, "they will be forced to use a good many drugs.
We think that a doctor is of a lesser sort when patients' bodies don't need drugs but are willing to submit to a regimen; but when drugs actually have to be administered, we know a bolder sort of doctor is needed." "True—but what are you getting at?" "At this," I said: it looks as though our rulers will need to make plentiful use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of
those they rule. And we said, I think, that all such things are useful in the manner of a drug." "And rightly so," he said. "Well, in the matter of marriages and childbearing this rightness seems to come into play more than anywhere else." "How so?" "It follows from what we've agreed," I said, "that the best men must have intercourse with the best women as often as possible, and the worst with the worst as seldom as possible, and that the offspring of the former
must be reared and the latter not, if the flock is to be of the highest quality—and all this must happen without anyone knowing it except the rulers themselves, so that our herd of guardians remains as free of strife as possible." "Quite right," he said. "So then certain festivals must be established by law, at which we'll gather the brides together with their bridegrooms, along with sacrifices, and hymns composed by our poets fitting
the marriages taking place. As for the number of marriages, we will leave that to the rulers to decide, so that they can keep the number of men as constant as possible, taking into account wars, diseases, and everything of that kind, so that our city becomes neither too large nor too small, as far as that can be managed." "Right," he said. "Then, I think, some clever lottery must be devised, so that the inferior man
blames chance rather than the rulers on each occasion of pairing." "Quite so," he said. "And surely the young men who prove good in war or elsewhere must be given rewards and prizes—among other things, more generous opportunity to sleep with the women—so that at the same time, under this pretext, as many of the children as possible will be fathered by such men." "Right." "And then the officials in charge of these matters—whether men or women or both, since
offices are held in common by both women and men among us—will take charge of the children as they're born from time to time." "Yes." "The children of the good, I imagine, they will take and bring to the rearing-pen, to certain nurses living apart in a section of the city; but the children of the inferior, and any child born
defective among the others, they will hide away, as is fitting, in some secret and unknown place." "Yes, if the guardian stock is to remain pure," he said. "And these same officials will also see to the children's nourishment, bringing the mothers to the rearing-pen when their breasts are full, taking every precaution that no mother recognizes her own child, and providing other women with milk if the mothers themselves don't have enough, and they will also take care
that the mothers nurse only for a moderate length of time, handing over the wakeful nights and the rest of the labor to wet-nurses and attendants." "You're describing a very easy time of childbearing for the guardians' wives," he said. "And rightly so," I said. "Let's go on to what we set out to discuss next. We said that the offspring should come from parents in their prime." "True." "Do you agree with me that a moderate span for the prime of life is twenty
years for a woman, and thirty for a man?" "Which years exactly?" he said. "For a woman," I said, "beginning at twenty and continuing until forty, she should bear children for the city; for a man, once he's past the sharpest peak of his running prime, he should father children for the city from that point until fifty-five." "That is indeed," he said, "the prime of both body and mind for both sexes." "So if anyone older or younger than these ages
touches the business of common procreation, we shall declare the offense neither holy nor just, since he will be fathering a child for the city who, if it escapes notice, will be born not under the sacrifices and prayers offered at each set of marriages—which the priestesses and priests and the whole city pray will make the offspring always better from the good and more beneficial from the beneficial—but
born in secrecy through dreadful incontinence." "Right," he said. "The same law applies," I said, "if any man still of childbearing age takes hold of a woman of that age without a ruler's pairing; we shall say he is establishing a bastard child for the city, unsanctioned and unconsecrated." "Quite right," he said. "But once, I think, the women and the men have passed the age for bearing children,
we will surely allow them freedom to have intercourse with whomever they wish—except a daughter, a mother, a daughter's daughter, or an ancestor above the mother; and likewise the women, except with a son, a father, and their descendants and ancestors in the same lines—and even this only once we have instructed them above all to try not to bring any offspring at all into the light, should one be conceived,
and if something forces its way through, to dispose of it on the understanding that no rearing is available for such a child." "That much," he said, "is reasonably stated. But how will fathers and daughters, and the others you just mentioned, recognize one another?" "They won't at all," I said. "Rather, from the day a man becomes a bridegroom, all the children born in the tenth month afterward, and in the seventh,
he will address as his own—the males as sons, the females as daughters—while they in turn will address him as father; and in the same way their children will be called his grandchildren, and those children in turn will call this generation grandfathers and grandmothers; and those born in the period when their mothers and fathers were begetting children will be called sisters and brothers, so that, as we just
said, they will not touch one another. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to live together, if the lot happens to fall that way and the Pythia gives her approval as well." "Quite right," he said. "This, then, Glaucon, is the community of women and children for the guardians of your city—of this sort and to this extent. Now we must
confirm from our argument that it does indeed follow from the rest of the constitution and is by far the best arrangement. Or how shall we proceed?" "Just that way, by Zeus," he said. "Isn't this the starting point of our agreement—to ask ourselves what we can name as the greatest good for the constitution of a city, the very thing the lawgiver should aim at in laying down laws, and likewise what the worst evil is, and afterward to examine whether what we've just described
fits into the track of the good and clashes with the track of the evil?" "More than anything," he said. "Do we know of any greater evil for a city than what tears it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or any greater good than what binds it together and makes it one?" "We do not." "And doesn't the sharing of pleasure and pain bind a city together,
whenever, as much as possible, all the citizens feel joy or grief alike over the same events of gain or loss?" "Absolutely," he said. "And doesn't the privatizing of such feelings dissolve a city, when some are in deep grief and others in great joy over the same things happening to the city and its people?" "Of course." "And doesn't this
sort of thing come about whenever the words 'mine' and 'not mine' are not spoken together in a city, and likewise about what belongs to someone else?" "Exactly so." "In whatever city the greatest number say these same words, 'mine' and 'not mine,' about the same thing at the same time, that city is governed best?" "By far." "And whichever city comes closest
to the condition of a single human being? For instance, whenever one of us has a finger struck, the whole community bound together throughout the body, stretched toward the soul into a single ordered system under the ruling part within it, perceives it, and the whole feels the pain together as one, though only a part suffered—and that's how we come to say the man's finger hurts him. And the same account applies to any other part of a person,
the same reasoning holds for pain when a part suffers and for pleasure when it recovers?" "The same," he said. "And this is exactly what you're asking—the city governed best lives closest to that condition." "So then, I think, when any single one of its citizens experiences anything at all, good or bad, such a city will above all say that this experience belongs to itself, and either the whole will share the joy or the whole will share the grief."
"That must be so," he said, "at least for a well-governed city." "Then it's high time," I said, "we went back to our own city and examined in it the points we've agreed on in our discussion, to see whether it, most of all, possesses them, or whether some other city does more." "We must," he said. "Well then? In other cities too there are, I suppose, rulers and a populace, and there are in
this one as well?" "There are." "Will all of these call one another citizens?" "Of course." "But besides 'citizens,' what does the populace in other cities call their rulers?" "In most cities, masters; in the democratically governed ones, this very word, rulers." "And what does the populace in ours call them? Besides 'citizens,' what does it say the rulers are?" "Saviors,"
he said, "and helpers." "And what do these call the populace?" "Paymasters and providers." "And what do the rulers in other cities call the populace?" "Slaves," he said. "And the rulers—what name do they give each other?" "Fellow rulers," he said. "And what do ours call each other?" "Fellow guardians." "Can you tell me, then, whether among the rulers in other cities, any of them would address one of his fellow rulers as kin,
—as a stranger's, and many people's? Of course. So he thinks and speaks of his own as belonging to himself, and of a stranger's as not belonging to himself? Just so. And what about your guardians? Is there any one of them who could consider or address any of his fellow guardians as a stranger? Not at all, he said. Because whoever he meets, he will consider himself to be meeting either as a brother or as a
sister or as a father or as a mother or a son or daughter, or as one of their descendants or ancestors. That's beautifully put, I said, but tell me this too: will you legislate that only the names be shared among them, or that all their conduct follow the names as well—that toward their fathers they observe everything the law prescribes about fathers, concerning reverence and
care, and being obedient to one's parents—or else it will go worse for him before both gods and men, on the ground that he's acting neither piously nor justly if he does anything other than this? Will these be the very sayings, or others, that all the citizens chant straight into the children's ears from birth, about the fathers pointed out to them,
and about the other kin as well? These, he said. For it would be ridiculous if, without any actions behind them, kinship names were merely uttered through the mouth. So in this city, more than in any other, they will all speak in unison when someone does well or badly, using that phrase we mentioned just now—that 'what is mine is doing well' or 'what is mine is doing badly.' Very true, he said.
And along with this belief and this phrase, we said pleasures and pains would be shared in common? And rightly did we say so. So won't our citizens share most of all in that one thing which they will call 'mine'? And by sharing in that, won't they have community of pain and pleasure to the highest degree? Very much so. Now isn't the cause of this, in addition to the rest of the arrangement,
the community of women and children among the guardians? Yes, that above all, he said. And yet we agreed that this is the greatest good for a city, when we compared a well-run city to a body in how it relates to pain and pleasure in one of its parts. And we were right to agree to that. So the community of children and women among the
auxiliaries has been shown to be the cause of the greatest good for our city. Quite so, he said. And indeed this agrees with what we said before—for we said, I think, that these men should have neither private houses nor land nor any possession, but should receive their upkeep from the others as wages for their guarding and spend it all in common, if they are really going to be guardians. Right, he said. So isn't it just as I say,
that both what was said before and what's being said now make them even more truly guardians, and prevent them from tearing the city apart by each calling something different 'mine'—one man dragging off to his own house whatever he can get apart from the rest, another to his, a different house, with a wife and
different children, bringing about private joys and pains over private things; but rather, holding one single belief about what is their own, all straining toward the same thing, being as far as possible alike in feeling pain and pleasure together? Absolutely, he said. Well then, won't lawsuits and accusations against one another practically vanish from among them, because they own nothing private
except the body, everything else being held in common? Hence they'll be free of the factional strife that arises among people over the possession of money or children and relatives. It's a great necessity, he said, that they be rid of it. And moreover there could be no just lawsuits for violence or assault among them; for age-mates defending themselves against age-mates we'll say is a fine and just thing,
putting the necessity down to bodily fitness. Rightly, he said. And there's this too that's correct, I said, about this law: if anyone ever gets angry at someone, in venting his anger in this way he'd be less likely to proceed to more serious factional strife. Quite so. And an older person will be charged with ruling over and disciplining all the younger. Clearly. And it's also clear that a younger person will never
attempt to use force against an older, or strike him, unless the rulers order it, as is likely. Nor do I think he'll dishonor him in any other way; for the two guardians are enough to prevent it—fear and reverence, reverence keeping him from laying hands on someone as a parent, and fear that the others would come to the aid of the one suffering, some as sons, others as brothers, others as fathers. That's how it turns out, he said. In every way, then, from
these laws the men will live at peace with one another? Very much so. And since these are not at odds among themselves, there's no danger that the rest of the city will ever be split, either against them or against itself. No indeed. As for the smallest of the evils, I'm reluctant even to mention them, out of a sense of propriety—things they will be rid of, such as the poor flattering the rich, and the anxieties and
pains people have in raising children and in money-making because of the necessity of feeding household slaves—borrowing here, denying debts there, procuring money by any means whatever and depositing it with wives and servants to manage—and, my friend, all the things people suffer in connection with such matters, which are obvious and demeaning and not worth mentioning. Obvious indeed, he said, even to a blind man. Of all these things then
they will be rid, and they will live a life more blessed than the most blessed life the Olympic victors live. How so? Those men are counted happy for a small fraction of what these men will have. For their victory is finer, and their upkeep at public expense more complete. For the victory they win is the preservation of the whole city, and with respect to food and everything else life requires, they and their children
are crowned, and they receive honors from their own city while living, and when they die they share in a burial worthy of them. Yes indeed, he said, very fine things. Do you remember, then, I said, that earlier some argument or other of ours—I don't recall whose—reproached us for not making the guardians happy, since, though it was in their power to have everything the citizens have, they would have nothing? And we said, I believe, that this
matter, if it should come up, we would consider later, but that for now we were making the guardians guardians, and the city as happy as we could make it, not molding it with an eye to any one class within it to make that group happy. He remembered, he said. What then? Now that the life of our auxiliaries has appeared far finer and better than that of the Olympic victors, surely it isn't
anywhere near comparable to the life of shoemakers, or of other craftsmen, or of farmers? It doesn't seem so to me, he said. But indeed, what I said there is fair to say here too: if a guardian tries to become happy in such a way that he's no longer even a guardian, and a moderate, secure life such as we say is best won't satisfy him,
but some foolish, adolescent notion about happiness seizes him and drives him, on the strength of his power, to appropriate everything in the city for himself, he will learn that Hesiod was truly wise in saying that the half is somehow more than the whole. As for me, he said, if he takes my advice, he'll stay with this life. So you agree, I said, to the community of women
with men that we've gone through—concerning education and children and the guarding of the other citizens—that whether they remain at home in the city or march out to war, the women must guard together and hunt together like dogs, and share in everything everywhere as far as possible, and that in doing this they will do both what is best and nothing contrary to the nature of the female in relation to the male, the nature they
both have for sharing with one another? I agree, he said. Well then, I said, it remains to determine whether it's even possible, as with other animals, for this kind of community to arise among human beings—and in what way it's possible. You anticipated me, he said, in saying what I was about to bring up. As for what happens in war, I think, I said, it's clear how they will fight. How? he said. That they will campaign together, and
moreover they will take along to war those of their children who are sturdy enough, so that, like the children of other craftsmen, they may observe the tasks they will have to perform once grown; and besides observing, they should assist and serve in everything to do with war, and attend to their fathers and mothers. Or haven't you noticed, in the crafts, how the children of potters, for instance, spend a long time
assisting and observing before they lay a hand to the potter's wheel? Indeed. Should those men train their children with more care than the guardians train theirs, through experience and observation of what concerns them? That would be ridiculous, he said. But surely every animal will fight differently when its own offspring are present. That's so. But there's no small risk, Socrates, that if things go wrong, as often happens in war, they might
cause their children to be lost along with themselves and make it impossible for the rest of the city to recover. What you say is true, I said. But do you think, first of all, that one must guard against ever running any risk at all? Not at all. Well then, if risk must be run somewhere, shouldn't it be where success will make them better? Clearly. But do you think it makes only a small difference, not worth the risk of observing, whether or not the children
who will become fighting men watch what pertains to war? No, it makes a difference, in relation to what you're saying. So this much must be laid down as a starting point—to make the children spectators of war—but also to contrive safety for them, and that will be well; isn't that so? Yes. So then, I said, first of all their fathers, so far as men can be, will not be ignorant but will be good judges of which
campaigns are dangerous and which are not? Likely so, he said. So they will take them along on some, and be cautious about others. Rightly. And they will surely set over them, I said, not the most worthless commanders, but those competent by experience and age to be leaders and tutors. That's fitting. But, we'll say, many things have turned out contrary to expectation for many people before now. Very much so. So in view of such things, my friend, the children
must be given wings from the start, so that if anything is needed, they can take wing and get away. How do you mean that? he asked. They must be mounted on horses, I said, as young as possible, and once taught to ride, they should be led on horseback to the spectacle—not on spirited or combative horses, but the swiftest and most tractable. For this way they will get the best view of their own future work, and will most safely escape to safety, if need be, following along with older
guides. You seem right to me, he said. And what about the conduct of war itself? I said. How must your soldiers behave toward one another and toward the enemy? Does what occurs to me seem right, or not? Say, he said, whatever it is this time. Of them, I said, whoever leaves his post, or throws away his weapons, or does anything else of that sort out of cowardice—shouldn't he be reduced to a craftsman
—should he be made a farmer? Certainly. And the man taken alive by the enemy—shall we simply give him as a gift to his captors, to use as booty however they like? Absolutely. And the man who distinguished himself and won honor—don't you think he should first, while still on campaign, be crowned by each of the young men and boys serving with him, in turn?
—or not? I think so. What about this—shaking his hand? That too. But this, I think, said I, you no longer agree with. What's that? Kissing and being kissed by each of them. Most of all, he said—and I add this to the law: for as long as they're on that campaign, no one may be allowed to refuse the kiss of anyone who wants it, so that if someone happens to be
in love with a boy or a girl, his keenness to carry off the prize for bravery will only grow. Good, said I. That the good soldier will have more marriages available to him than others, and more frequent choices of such partners than the rest, so that as many children as possible will come from someone like him—we've already said. Yes, we said that, he said. And indeed, following Homer, it's
only right to honor such young men, as many as prove good. For Homer too said that Ajax, having distinguished himself in the war, was honored with the long cuts of meat, as though this were the fitting honor for a man in his prime and courageous, since through it, along with being honored, he will also increase his strength. Quite right, he said. So we'll follow Homer in this too, said I. And indeed we too, at sacrifices and
on all such occasions, will honor the good—so far as they prove good—with hymns and with the things we just mentioned, and besides these, with seats of honor, meat, and full cups of wine, so that in honoring them we're also training our good men and women. Excellent, he said, what you say. Well then—of those who die on campaign, whoever dies having won distinction, shall we not first
say he belongs to the golden race? Most certainly of all. And shall we not believe Hesiod, when some of that race die, that— they become pure spirits upon the earth, noble, warding off evil, guardians of mortal men? We shall believe it, then. So after inquiring of the god how we ought to establish those who are divine spirits, and by what distinguishing mark, we will establish them in whatever way
he directs? What else could we do? And for the rest of time we'll tend and worship their tombs as we would those of spirits? And shall we hold the same practice whenever someone dies of old age or some other way, among those who were judged to be outstandingly good in life? That's only just, he said. And what about this—how will our soldiers treat the enemy?
What do you mean? First, regarding enslavement—do you think it right for Greeks to enslave Greek cities, or should we not allow it to any of them so far as possible, and accustom them instead to spare the Greek race, being wary of enslavement at the hands of the barbarians? Sparing them, he said, is altogether and entirely the better course. So neither should our own people own a Greek as a slave, nor should we advise the other Greeks to do so? Certainly
not, he said—that way they'd be more inclined to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands off one another. And what about this—stripping the dead of everything but their weapons, once victorious—is that a fine thing to do? Doesn't it give cowards an excuse not to go toward the man still fighting, as if they were doing something necessary when they linger over the corpse—and haven't many armies already
been destroyed through just such plundering? Very much so. And doesn't it seem petty and greedy to strip a corpse, and the mark of a small and womanish mind to treat the body as an enemy once the real enemy has flown off, leaving behind only the thing he fought with? Or do you think those who do this are any different from dogs, who get angry at the stones thrown at them but don't
touch the one who threw them? Not in the least, he said. So we must give up despoiling corpses and hindering the recovery of the dead? We must give it up indeed, by Zeus, he said. And surely we won't dedicate the weapons at the temples as offerings—especially not those of Greeks—if we care at all about goodwill toward the other Greeks. Rather we'll be afraid there's some pollution in bringing such things from kinsmen to a sacred place,
unless the god says otherwise. Quite right, he said. And what about ravaging Greek land and burning houses? What will our soldiers do to the enemy in this regard? I'd be glad, he said, to hear your own opinion on it. Well, it seems to me, said I, that neither should be done, but only the year's crop taken.
—as for why, do you want me to tell you? Certainly. It seems to me that, just as there are two names, war and civil strife, so too there are two things, corresponding to two kinds of difference. I mean by the two: the one, what is one's own and akin; the other, what is foreign and alien. Now the hostility toward one's own is called civil strife, while that toward
the foreign is called war. And that's not at all off the mark, he said. See then whether this too is on the mark. I say that the Greek race is, to itself, its own and akin, but to the barbarian race, alien and foreign. Well put, he said. So when Greeks fight barbarians and barbarians fight Greeks, we'll say they're at war and are enemies
by nature, and that hostility should be called war. But when Greeks do such things to Greeks, we'll say they are friends by nature, but that in such a case Greece is sick and torn by faction, and that such hostility should be called civil strife. I for my part, he said, agree to think of it that way. Then consider, said I, that in what is now agreed to be civil strife, wherever such a thing happens and
a city is split apart, if each side ravages the other's fields and burns houses, the strife seems a wretched thing, and neither side seems to love its city—for otherwise they would never dare to ravage their own nurse and mother—but it seems moderate for the victors only to take the crops from the defeated, and to bear in mind that they will be reconciled and not go on warring forever. Yes, he said, that attitude is far gentler
than the other. Well then, said I—the city you're founding, won't it be Greek? It must be, he said. Won't its people be good and gentle? Very much so. But won't they be lovers of Greece, and consider Greece their own, and share in the same rites as the other Greeks? Very much so indeed. So won't they treat any difference with the Greeks, as being among their own, as civil strife, and not even call it
war? No indeed. And won't they conduct their disputes as people who will be reconciled? Certainly. So they'll bring them to their senses in a kindly spirit, not punishing them with a view to enslavement or destruction, acting as correctors, not as enemies. That's how it will be, he said. So being Greeks themselves, they won't ravage Greece, nor burn dwellings, nor agree that in every city everyone is their enemy—men, women, and children alike—but only ever a few
the ones responsible for the difference. And for all these reasons they won't be willing to ravage the land of those they consider mostly friends, nor tear down houses, but will carry the dispute only so far as the guilty are forced by the suffering of the innocent to pay the penalty. I for my part, he said, agree that this is how our citizens ought to treat their Greek opponents; but toward
the barbarians, as the Greeks now treat one another. Shall we then set this law too for our guardians—neither to ravage land nor burn houses? Let's set it, he said, and let this, along with what came before, stand as good. But really, Socrates, you seem to me—if anyone lets you go on talking about such things—never to get around to what you set aside earlier when you pushed all this
forward: whether such a constitution is even possible, and in what way it could be possible. For that if it did come about, all good things would come to the city where it came about—including things you leave out that I'll mention myself, that they would fight best against their enemies because they'd be least likely to abandon one another, recognizing and calling each other by these names—brothers, fathers, sons. And if
the women too took part in the campaign, whether stationed in the same rank or posted behind, both to frighten the enemy and in case there should ever be need of reinforcement, I know that in every way they'd be unbeatable in this respect—and I see, too, all the good things left at home that would come from it. But since I grant that all this would follow, and countless other things
besides, if this constitution came to be, don't say any more about it—rather let's now try to convince ourselves of this very point, that it's possible, and how it's possible, and let the rest go. All at once, said I, you've made a sort of raid on my argument, and you show no mercy for my hesitation. Perhaps you don't realize that I've barely escaped the first two
waves, and now you're bringing on the greatest and most difficult of the triple wave—which, once you see and hear it, you'll fully forgive me for, seeing how reasonable it was that I hesitated and was afraid to state and attempt to examine so paradoxical a claim. The more you say such things, he said, the less we'll let you off from telling us how this constitution could come about.
Just tell us, and don't waste time. Well then, said I, first we must recall this—that it was in searching for what justice and injustice are like that we arrived here. We must; but what of it? he said. Nothing—except that if we find what justice is like, will we require that the just man differ from it not at all, but be in every way such as justice itself is? Or
will we be satisfied if he comes as close to it as possible and partakes of it more than others do? That's how it will be, he said—we'll be satisfied. So it was for the sake of a model, said I, that we sought justice itself, what it is, and the perfectly just man, if he could exist, and what he would be like once come to be—and likewise injustice and the most unjust man—so that, looking to them, and to how they appear to us in respect of happiness
and its opposite, we would be forced to agree also about ourselves, that whoever is most like them will have a portion most like theirs—not for the purpose of showing that these things can actually come to be. That's true, what you say, he said. Then do you think a painter any less good who, having painted a model of what the most beautiful human being would be like, and
having rendered everything in the picture adequately, cannot show that such a man could actually come to exist? No, by Zeus, I don't, he said. Well then—weren't we too, we say, making a model in speech of a good city? Certainly. Do you think we're speaking any less well, on that account, if we can't show that it's possible to actually run a city in the way we described? Not at all,
he said. —Well, that is the truth of it, I said. But if, for your sake, we must also make the effort to show how and under what conditions it would be most possible, then grant me again the same admissions for the purposes of such a demonstration. —Which ones? —Can anything be carried out in practice exactly as it is stated in speech, or is it the nature of action to lay hold of truth less than speech does, even if
someone thinks otherwise? Do you agree with that, or not? —I agree, he said. —Then do not compel me to show that what we went through in speech must come about in every respect in deed as well. If we prove able to discover how a city could be governed most nearly as we have described, say that we have discovered how these things you demand can come to be. Or
will you not be content to get that much? I certainly would be. —So would I, he said. —Next after that, it seems, let us try to seek out and demonstrate what it is that is now done badly in cities, on account of which they are not governed this way, and what would be the smallest change by which a city could come to this manner of constitution — preferably one change, or if
not, two, or if not, the fewest in number and the smallest in force. —Absolutely, he said. —Well, I said, with one change I think we can show that it would be transformed — no small change, to be sure, nor an easy one, but possible. —Which? he said. —Now I am at the very point, I said, which we likened to the greatest wave. It shall be said,
then, even if, exactly like a breaking wave, it is going to drown me in laughter and disgrace. Consider what I am about to say. —Say it, he said. —Unless, I said, either the philosophers become kings in the cities, or those now called kings and rulers pursue philosophy genuinely and adequately, and this comes together into the same hands — political power and
philosophy — while the many natures now proceeding separately toward one or the other are forcibly shut out, there is no rest from evils, dear Glaucon, for the cities, nor, I think, for the human race; nor will this constitution we have now gone through in speech ever grow into possibility and see the light of the sun. This is what has long made me shrink
from speaking: I saw how very contrary to opinion it would sound. For it is hard to see that no other city could be happy, in private life or in public. —And he said: Socrates, what a saying, what an argument you have hurled out! Now that you have said it, expect a great many people, and not paltry ones, to strip off their cloaks, as it were, and, naked, snatching whatever weapon comes to each man's hand,
rush at you full stretch to do wondrous deeds. If you don't fend them off with argument and escape, you will pay the penalty by being well and truly jeered. —And isn't it you, I said, who got me into this? —And a good thing I did, he said. But I won't betray you; I'll defend you with what I can — and what I can offer is goodwill and encouragement, and perhaps I might answer you more suitably than another
would. So, with a helper like that, try to show the doubters that things are as you say. —I must try, I said, since you offer so great an alliance. Now it seems to me necessary, if we are somehow going to escape the people you speak of, to define for them which philosophers we mean when we dare to say they must rule, so that, once they are clearly marked out, one can defend oneself by showing that
to some it belongs by nature to lay hold of philosophy and to lead in a city, while to the rest it belongs not to lay hold of it and to follow the leader. —It would be time, he said, to define them. —Come then, follow me this way, and see if we can explain it adequately somehow or other. —Lead on, he said. —Will you need reminding, I said, or do you remember, that when we say a man loves something, he must,
if the description is correct, be seen not to love one part of it and not another, but to cherish the whole? —I need reminding, it seems, he said, for I don't quite grasp it. —That answer, Glaucon, I said, would have suited someone else; it does not suit a man of eros to forget that all boys in their bloom somehow sting and stir the lover of boys, the erotic man,
seeming worthy of his attention and affection. Or isn't that how you people behave toward the beautiful? One boy, because he is snub-nosed, will be called charming and praised by you; another's hooked nose you call kingly; the one in between, you say, has perfect proportions; the dark ones look manly; the pale ones are children of gods. And 'honey-pale' — do you think that word is the invention of anyone
but a lover coining pet names and cheerfully putting up with sallowness, provided it comes with the bloom of youth? In a word, you make every excuse and give voice to every plea, so as not to reject a single one of those flowering in their prime. —If you want, he said, to take me as your example of how lovers behave, I concede it for the argument's sake. —And what about this? I said.
Don't you see wine-lovers doing exactly the same — welcoming every wine on every pretext? —Very much so. —And the lovers of honor too, I think you observe: if they cannot be generals, they serve as brigade commanders, and if they cannot be honored by the greater and grander, they are content to be honored by the lesser and meaner, being desirers of honor as such. —Precisely. —Then affirm this or deny it:
when we call a man desirous of something, shall we say he desires the whole of that kind, or one part of it and not another? —The whole, he said. —So the philosopher too we shall call a desirer of wisdom — not of one part and not another, but of all of it? —True. —Then a man who is fussy about his studies, especially while young and not yet possessed of an account of what is useful
and what is not — him we will not call a lover of learning or a philosopher, just as we say a man fussy about his food is not hungry, does not desire food, and is not a food-lover but a poor eater. —And we shall be right to say so. —But the one who is readily willing to taste every kind of learning, who goes gladly to his studies and cannot get enough — him we shall justly call a philosopher. Won't we? —And
Glaucon said: Then many strange people will fit your description. All the lovers of sights seem to me to be what they are through delighting in learning things, and the lovers of sounds are a very strange lot to count among philosophers — men who would never willingly go to a discussion and that kind of pastime, yet who run around to all the Dionysian festivals, as if they had hired out their ears to listen to every chorus,
missing none, whether in the cities or the villages. Are we to call all these, and others with a taste for such things, and the devotees of the petty crafts, philosophers? —Not at all, I said, but they resemble philosophers. —And the true ones, he said — whom do you mean? —The lovers of the sight of truth, I said. —That much is right, he said; but what do you mean by it? —It would not be at all easy
to explain to someone else, I said; but you, I think, will grant me this. —What? —Since beautiful is the opposite of ugly, they are two. —Of course. —And since they are two, each is also one? —That too. —And about just and unjust, and good and bad, and all the forms, the same account holds: each is itself one,
but by their association with actions and bodies and one another, each appears everywhere and seems to be many. —You are right, he said. —This, then, is how I divide, I said: on one side those you mentioned just now, the lovers of sights and lovers of crafts and men of action; on the other, those our argument concerns, whom alone one would rightly call philosophers. —How do you mean? he said. —The lovers of sounds and of sights,
I said, cherish beautiful voices and colors and shapes and everything crafted out of such things, but their thought is incapable of seeing and cherishing the nature of the beautiful itself. —That is indeed how it is, he said. —Whereas those able to approach the beautiful itself and see it
by itself — would they not be rare? —Very rare. —Then the man who believes in beautiful things but neither believes in beauty itself nor is able to follow if someone leads him to the knowledge of it — do you think he lives in a dream or awake? Consider: isn't dreaming just this — whether asleep or awake, to think that what resembles something is not a resemblance
but the thing itself which it resembles? —I at least, he said, would say that such a man is dreaming. —And what of the opposite case: the man who believes there is something beautiful itself, and is able to discern both it and the things that partake of it, and neither takes the partaking things for it nor it for the partaking things — does he seem to you to live awake or in a dream? —Very much
awake, he said. —Then we would rightly call this man's thought knowledge, since he knows, and the other's opinion, since he opines? —Certainly. —And what if the one we say opines but does not know grows angry with us and disputes that we speak the truth? Will we have some way to soothe him and persuade him gently, while concealing that he is not in his right mind? —We need one,
at any rate, he said. —Come then, consider what we shall say to him. Or would you like us to question him like this — telling him that if he knows something, no one begrudges it, and we would be delighted to see that he knows something — 'But tell us this: does the one who knows know something, or nothing?' You answer me on his behalf. —I'll answer for him, he said: he knows something. —Is what he knows a thing that is, or a thing that is not?
—That is. How could something that is not be known? —Then are we satisfied of this, however many ways we might examine it: that what completely is, is completely knowable, and what in no way is, is in every way unknowable? —Most fully satisfied. —Good. Now if something is so constituted as both to be and not to be, would it not lie between what purely is and what in no way
is? —Between them. —Then since knowledge is set over what is, and ignorance necessarily over what is not, over this in-between we must seek something in between ignorance and knowledge, if there happens to be such a thing? —Certainly. —Now do we say opinion is something? —Of course. —A power different from knowledge, or the same? —Different. —Then opinion is set over
one thing and knowledge over another, each according to its own power. —Just so. —And knowledge is by nature set over what is, to know how what is, is? — But rather, it seems to me necessary to draw a distinction first. —How? —We shall say that powers are a certain class of beings by which we can do what we can do — we and everything else that
— whatever it can do, this is what I mean by calling sight and hearing 'faculties' — if indeed you understand the kind of thing I want to say. — I do understand, he said. — Then hear what I think about them. Of a faculty I see neither color nor shape nor anything of that sort, as I do of many other things, by looking at which I distinguish some things from others in my own mind.
Of a faculty I look only to this: what it is set over, and what it accomplishes; and it is by this that I have called each of them a faculty — the one that is set over the same thing and accomplishes the same thing I call the same faculty, and the one set over something different and accomplishing something different I call a different one. — And what about you? How do you do it? — The same way, he said. — Come back here then, my excellent friend,
I said. Knowledge — do you say it is a certain faculty, or in what class do you place it? — In this one, he said, the most powerful of all faculties. — And opinion — shall we put it in the class of faculty, or in some other kind? — By no means, he said; for that by which we are able to opine is nothing other than opinion. — But surely just a moment ago you agreed that
knowledge and opinion are not the same thing. — How could anyone with any sense, he said, take the infallible to be the same as the fallible? — Well said, I replied, and it is clear that opinion is agreed by us to be something other than knowledge. — Something other. — Then each of them, being different, is by nature set over something different? — Necessarily. — Knowledge, surely, is set over that which is, to know it
as it is? — Yes. — And opinion, we say, opines? — Yes. — Does it know the very same thing that knowledge knows? And will the knowable and the opinable be the same thing? Or is that impossible? — Impossible, he said, on the basis of what we have agreed: if a different faculty is by nature set over a different thing, and both of these are faculties — opinion and knowledge — each different from the other, as we say, then it follows from this that the knowable and the opinable
cannot be the same. — So if that which is is knowable, would not the opinable be something other than that which is? — Something else. — Does one then opine what is not? Or is it impossible even to opine what is not at all? Consider this. Does not one who opines direct his opinion toward something? Or is it possible to opine, yet to opine nothing? — Impossible. — But rather one who opines opines some one thing,
does he not? — Yes. — But surely what is not could most correctly be called not some one thing but nothing at all? — Quite so. — And to what is not we assigned ignorance of necessity, and to what is, knowledge? — Rightly, he said. — Then one does not opine either what is or what is not? — No. — Then opinion would be neither ignorance nor knowledge? — It seems not. — Is it then outside these, exceeding
either knowledge in clarity or ignorance in obscurity? — Neither. — But does opinion, I said, appear to you darker than knowledge, yet brighter than ignorance? — Yes, much so, he said. — And does it lie within the bounds of both? — Yes. — Then opinion would be something between these two. — Quite so indeed. — Did we not say earlier that if something should appear to be at once both being and not-being, such a thing would
lie between that which purely is and that which in every way is not, and that neither knowledge nor ignorance would be set over it, but rather that which appears between ignorance and knowledge? — Rightly. — And now there has appeared between these two the thing we call opinion? — It has appeared. — It remains for us, it seems, to find that thing which partakes of both, of being and of
not-being, and which could not rightly be called purely either one, so that, if it should appear, we may in justice call it the opinable, assigning the extremes to the extremes and the intermediate to the intermediate. Is that not so? — It is so. — These points being laid down, let him speak, I shall say, and let him answer me — that good man who believes there is no beauty itself, no form of beauty itself, ever
remaining the same in the same respects, but believes instead that there are many beautiful things — that lover of spectacles who cannot stand it when anyone claims that beauty is a single thing, and justice likewise, and the rest in the same way. For of these many beautiful things, my excellent friend, we shall say, is there one that will not also appear ugly? And of the just things, one that will not appear unjust? And of the holy things, one that will not appear unholy?
— No, he said; rather it is necessary that they appear in some way both beautiful and ugly, and likewise for all the other things you ask about. — And what of the many things that are double? Do they appear any less halves than doubles? — Not at all. — And great things and small, light and heavy — will they be called any more by the names we give them than by their opposites? — No, he said; each will always partake of both. — Then is each
of the many things this, which one might say it is, more than it is not? — It resembles, he said, those double-edged jokes at feasts, and the children's riddle about the eunuch and the bat — about what and with what he is said to have struck it — for these too admit of both, and none of them can be firmly conceived as either being or not being, neither both nor neither.
— Do you then, I said, have anything to do with them, or any better place to put them than the position between being and not-being? For surely they will not appear darker than not-being so as to be more not-being, nor brighter than being so as to be more being. — Very true, he said. — We have found, it seems, then, that
the many conventional beliefs of the many about the beautiful and about the rest roll about somewhere between what is not and what purely is. — We have found that. — And we agreed beforehand that if something of this sort should appear, it must be called opinable, not knowable — the wandering intermediate thing caught by the intermediate faculty. — We have agreed. — Then those who look upon the many beautiful things, but do not see the beautiful itself
nor are able to follow another who leads them to it, and who see the many just things but not justice itself, and so with everything else — these, we shall say, opine all things, but know nothing of what they opine. — Necessarily, he said. — And what of those, in turn, who look upon each thing itself, ever the same in the same respects? Do they not know, rather than opine? — This too is necessary. — Then shall we not say that these
love and cherish the things over which there is knowledge, and those the things over which there is opinion? Or do we not remember that we said the latter love and gaze upon beautiful sounds and colors and such things, but cannot bear it said that the beautiful itself is anything real? — We remember. — Would we strike a false note, then, if we named them opinion-lovers instead of wisdom-lovers? And will
they be very angry with us if we speak this way? — No, not if they are persuaded by me, he said; for it is not right to be angry at the truth. — So the name for those who embrace each thing that is, in itself, is philosophers — wisdom-lovers — and opinion-lovers is not their name? — Absolutely.