Republic (6.509-6.511)

But as for knowledge and truth, even as in our illustration it is right to deem light and vision sunlike, but never to think that they are the sun, so here it is right to consider these two their counterparts, as being like the good or boniform,[*] but to think that either of them is the good[*] is not right. Still higher honor belongs to the possession and habit[*] of the good.An inconceivable beauty you speak of, he said, if it is the source of knowledge and truth, and yet itself surpasses them in beauty. For you surely[*] cannot mean that it is pleasure. Hush, said I, but examine the similitude of it still further in this way.[*] How? The sun, I presume you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is not itself generation. Of course not. In like manner, then, you are to say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still transcends essence[*] in dignity and surpassing power. And Glaucon very ludicrously[*] said, Heaven save us, hyperbole[*] can no further go. The fault is yours, I said, for compelling me to utter my thoughts about it. And don’t desist, he said, but at least[*] expound the similitude of the sun, if there is anything that you are omitting. Why, certainly, I said, I am omitting a great deal. Well, don’t omit the least bit, he said. I fancy, I said, that I shall have to pass over much, but nevertheless so far as it is at present practicable I shall not willingly leave anything out. Do not, he said. Conceive then, said I, as we were saying, that there are these two entities, and that one of them is sovereign over the intelligible order and region and the other over the world of the eye-ball, not to say the sky-ball,[*] but let that pass. You surely apprehend the two types, the visible and the intelligible. I do. Represent them then, as it were, by a line divided[*] into two unequal[*] sections and cut each section again in the same ratio (the section, that is, of the visible and that of the intelligible order), and then as an expression of the ratio of their comparative clearness and obscurity you will have, as one of the sections of the visible world, images.

By images[*] I mean, first, shadows, and then reflections in water and on surfaces of dense, smooth and bright texture, and everything of that kind, if you apprehend.I do.As the second section assume that of which this is a likeness or an image, that is, the animals about us and all plants and the whole class of objects made by man.I so assume it, he said. Would you be willing to say, said I, that the division in respect of reality and truth or the opposite is expressed by the proportion:[*] as is the opinable to the knowable so is the likeness to that of which it is a likeness? I certainly would. Consider then again the way in which we are to make the division of the intelligible section. In what way? By the distinction that there is one section of it which the soul is compelled to investigate by treating as images the things imitated in the former division, and by means of assumptions from which it proceeds not up to a first principle but down to a conclusion, while there is another section in which it advances from its assumption to a beginning or principle that transcends assumption,[*] and in which it makes no use of the images employed by the other section, relying on ideas[*] only and progressing systematically through ideas. I don’t fully understand[*] what you mean by this, he said. Well, I will try again, said I, for you will better understand after this preamble. For I think you are aware that students of geometry and reckoning and such subjects first postulate the odd and the even and the various figures and three kinds of angles and other things akin to these in each branch of science, regard them as known, and, treating them as absolute assumptions, do not deign to render any further account of them[*] to themselves or others, taking it for granted that they are obvious to everybody. They take their start from these, and pursuing the inquiry from this point on consistently, conclude with that for the investigation of which they set out. Certainly, he said, I know that. And do you not also know that they further make use of the visible forms and talk about them, though they are not thinking of them but of those things of which they are a likeness, pursuing their inquiry for the sake of the square as such and the diagonal as such, and not for the sake of the image of it which they draw[*]? And so in all cases. The very things which they mould and draw, which have shadows and images of themselves in water, these things they treat in their turn[*] as only images, but what they really seek is to get sight of those realities which can be seen only by the mind.[*]

True, he said. This then is the class that I described as intelligible, it is true,[*] but with the reservation first that the soul is compelled to employ assumptions in the investigation of it, not proceeding to a first principle because of its inability to extricate itself from and rise above its assumptions, and second, that it uses as images or likenesses the very objects that are themselves copied and adumbrated by the class below them, and that in comparison with these latter[*] are esteemed as clear and held in honor.[*] I understand, said he, that you are speaking of what falls under geometry and the kindred arts. Understand then, said I, that by the other section of the intelligible I mean that which the reason[*] itself lays hold of by the power of dialectics,[*] treating its assumptions not as absolute beginnings but literally as hypotheses,[*] underpinnings, footings,[*] and springboards so to speak, to enable it to rise to that which requires no assumption and is the starting-point of all,[*] and after attaining to that again taking hold of the first dependencies from it, so to proceed downward to the conclusion, making no use whatever of any object of sense[*] but only of pure ideas moving on through ideas to ideas and ending with ideas.[*] I understand, he said; not fully, for it is no slight task that you appear to have in mind, but I do understand that you mean to distinguish the aspect of reality and the intelligible, which is contemplated by the power of dialectic, as something truer and more exact than the object of the so-called arts and sciences whose assumptions are arbitrary starting-points. And though it is true that those who contemplate them are compelled to use their understanding[*] and not their senses, yet because they do not go back to the beginning in the study of them but start from assumptions you do not think they possess true intelligence[*] about them although[*] the things themselves are intelligibles when apprehended in conjunction with a first principle. And I think you call the mental habit of geometers and their like mind or understanding[*] and not reason because you regard understanding as something intermediate between opinion and reason. Your interpretation is quite sufficient, I said; and now, answering to[*] these four sections, assume these four affections occurring in the soul: intellection or reason for the highest, understanding for the second; assign belief[*] to the third, and to the last picture-thinking or conjecture,[*] and arrange them in a proportion,[*] considering that they participate in clearness and precision in the same degree as their objects partake of truth and reality. I understand, he said; I concur and arrange them as you bid.