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Chapter 10

Educating Philosopher Kings

Granted that the rulers need to understand goodness, what kind of education will take them there? This was a delicate subject for Plato. Higher education—intellectual rather than character-building—had been in the hands of the sophists, who also claimed to teach goodness, but whose chameleonic values Plato mistrusted. He first draws a distinction, based on the metaphysics of Chapter 8, between pure and applied subjects. The philosophers will need both, but in the present context Plato stresses the ability of some subjects to lead the mind away from mundane reality and towards the realm at whose apex goodness stands.

5zic 'So would you like us to consider next how to produce people of this type in our community, and how to lead them up to the light—like the people we hear about who rise from Hades to dwell among the gods?'*

'Yes, of course I'd like us to do that,' he replied. 'Now, what we're dealing with here, it would seem, is not

the spinning of a potsherd,* but the reorientation of a mind from a kind of twilight to true daylight—and this reorientation is an ascent to reality, or in other words true philosophy.'

'Quite so.' 'We ought to try to see which intellectual pursuits can have

d this effect, then, oughtn't we?' 'Of course.' 'What intellectual pursuit, then, Glaucon, might attract a

mind away from the realm of becoming and towards reality? Oh, something just occurred to me while I was speaking: we said that in their youth these people had to be warriors, didn't we?'*

'Yes, we did.' 'Therefore, the area of study we're after must have an

additional feature.' 'What?'

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'It must be of value to men of war.' 'Yes, it certainly must,' he said, 'if possible.' 'Now, the education we've arranged for them so far consists

of physical exercise and cultural studies.' e 'Yes,' he said. 'And physical exercise is concerned with the world of coming

into being and passing away, since its domain is physical growth and decay.'

'I suppose so.' 'So it isn't the area of study we're after.' 'No.' 52.za

'What about the cultural education we described earlier?' 'But that merely complemented the physical exercise,' he

said. 'I'm sure you remember that it trains the guardians by habituation: it doesn't produce knowledge, but harmony in the sphere of music, elegance in the sphere of rhythm, and other allied habits in the field of literature, whether the literature in question is fictional or closer to non-fiction. There's nothing in it which can lead a student towards the kind of goal you're after at the moment.' b

'Your memory is very accurate,' I said. 'Thanks for reminding me: it's true that there's nothing like that in it. But then, what sort of intellectual pursuit are we after? I mean, all the professions seemed servile, somehow.'*

'Of course they did. But if we exclude cultural studies, physical exercise, and the professional occupations, what else is there that anyone could study?'

'Well,' I said, 'if they're all we can take, then let's take something which applies to them all.'

'What?' 'For example, there's that everyday thing—one of the first c

things everyone has to learn—which all the modes of expertise, thinking, and knowledge make use of.'

'What are you getting at?' he asked. 'It's nothing special,' I said. 'It's the ability to distinguish one,

two, and three—in short, I'm talking about number and counting. I mean, isn't it the case that every branch of expertise and knowledge is bound to have some involvement with numbers and with counting?'

'Definitely,' he said.

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'Even military expertise?' I asked. 'Yes, certainly. It has to,' he said.

d 'At any rate, tragedy after tragedy has Palamedes showing up Agamemnon's utterly ridiculous deficiencies as a military commander,'* I said. 'Haven't you noticed how Palamedes claims that, once he'd invented counting, he deployed the troops at Troy and added up the ships and so on? The implication is that previously none of them had been counted, and Agamemnon's inability to count presumably means that he didn't even know how many feet he had. What sort of military commander do you think he was?'

'A peculiar one, I'd say, if there's any truth in this,' he replied.

e 'So our position will be—won't it?—that it's essential for a man of war to learn how to calculate and count,' I asked.

'He absolutely has to,' he said, 'if he's going to know anything at all about deploying troops, or rather, if he's even going to be a human being.'

'Now, there's an idea I have about this subject, and I wonder whether you share it,' I said.

'What is it?' 5Z3a 'It rather looks as though it's one of the subjects we're after,

which stimulate a student's intellect. But it also seems likely that no one makes correct use of its consummate ability to attract one towards reality.'

'What do you mean?' he asked. Til try to clarify my point of view,' I said. 'In my mind, I

distinguish between things which arc and things which are not attractive in the way we're talking about. I'll try to get you to appreciate the distinction as well, and then you can tell me whether or not you agree, so that we can be better placed to see how accurate my hunch is.'

'Yes, do explain,' he said. 'All right,' I said. Tm sure you'll see what I mean if I say that

at the level of the senses, some things don't encourage the b intellect to explore further, because the situation can be

adequately assessed by the relevant sense, while other things can't help provoking an enquiring attitude, because sense- perception fails to produce a sound result.'

'You're obviously talking about distant impressions and illusory paintings,' he said.

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'No, you haven't quite got my point,' I said. 'What are you talking about, then?' 'In order to count as thought-provoking, in my opinion,' I

explained, 'they have to produce contradictory sense- c impressions at the same time; otherwise, they aren't thought- provoking. The impression sense-perception has to give of an object is that it is no more X than the opposite of X, however close or far away it is when you encounter it. An example will help you understand what I'm getting at. Here are three fingers, we'd say, the little finger, the second one and the middle one.'

'Yes,' he said. 'And please assume that I'm talking about seeing them from

close range. Now, here's what I want you to think about.' 'What?' 'Well, each of them equally gives the impression of being a

finger. There's no difference between them in this respect, and it doesn't matter whether the finger that's being looked at is in d the middle or on either end, pale or dark, thick or thin, and so on and so forth. It's almost inconceivable that anyone's mind would feel impelled in any of these circumstances to think and try to come up with an answer to the question what a finger is, since sight has given the mind no grounds for supposing that the finger is at the same time the opposite of a finger.'

'That's right,' he agreed. 'So it makes sense to say that this situation doesn't provoke

or arouse thought,' I said. e 'Agreed.' 'What about the bigness or smallness of the fingers, however?

Is what sight sees adequate in this case? Does it make no difference to it whether or not the finger it's looking at is in the middle or on either end? And doesn't the same go for touch and the fingers' thickness and thinness or hardness and softness? And the other senses also give inadequate impressions in this kind of situation, don't they? I mean, here's how each sense works: the main point is that the sense into whose 5143 domain hardness falls is inevitably also the sense into whose domain softness falls; and the message it passes on to the mind is that, in its perception, the same thing is both hard and soft.* True?'

'True,' he said. 'So isn't what happens in these situations that the mind

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inevitably feels puzzled about what this sense means by hardness, since it's saying that the same thing is soft as well? And when the sense that perceives weight reports that something heavy is light and that something light is heavy, isn't the mind bound to wonder what lightness and heaviness are?'

b 'Yes,' he said, 'because the messages it's receiving are strange and demand clarification.'

'It makes sense to suppose, then,' I went on, 'that these are the circumstances in which the chief thing the mind does is summon up calculation and thought to help it examine whether in any given case it's being informed about one object or two objects.'

'Of course.' 'And if there turn out to be two objects, then each of them is

single and they're different from each other, aren't they?' 'Yes.' 'If each of them is single, then, and it takes two of them to

make two, then it'll think about them as two separate objects. I c mean, if they were inseparable, it wouldn't be thinking about

two objects: it would be thinking about one object.' 'Right.' 'However, in our current example sight sees both big and

small as a kind of mixture, not as separate from each other. Yes?'

'Yes.' 'And in order to clarify the situation, the intellect is forced in

its turn to look at big and small as distinct entities, not mixed together, which is the opposite of what sight does.'

'True.' 'And this, in outline, is why it occurs to us to ask what in

fact bigness and smallness really are, isn't it?' 'Absolutely.' 'And that's how we come to distinguish what we call the

intelligible realm from the visible realm.' d 'You're quite right,' he said.

'So that's what I was getting at just now, when I was saying that some things are thought-provoking, and some things aren't. I define as thought-provoking the things which impinge upon our sense-perception along with their opposites, whereas I

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describe things which don't do that as incapable of arousing thought.'

'I understand now,' he said, 'and I agree.'

The curriculum is laid out. Trainee philosopher kings must study arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and musicology. In each case, these subjects are interpreted until they reveal an aspect which will help to 'extricate' would-be philosophers from the 'world of becoming'; they also serve to sharpen the mind generally. Mathematics is chosen because it was, in Plato's day, the subject which had been developed furthest towards being laid out along systematic lines (leading within fifty or so years to Euclid's Elements^, and Plato wants dialectic to achieve that kind of coherence.

'All right, then. Which of these two categories do you think number—which is to say, oneness*—belongs to?'

'I don't know,' he answered. 'Well, you can work it out from what we've already said,' I

replied. 'If oneness is adequately seen (or grasped by any other sense) for what it is, then it doesn't have any power to attract e towards reality—as a finger doesn't, we were saying. However, if it's never seen without its opposite simultaneously being seen, so that the impression it gives is no more of oneness than of the opposite, then evaluation becomes imperative and the mind has no choice but to be puzzled: it sets its thought-processes in motion, and casts about for an answer to the question what oneness itself actually is. And if this is what happens, then oneness is one of those subjects which guide and turn people 5153 towards the contemplation of reality.'

'But that's exactly what seeing oneness does, in fact,' he said. 'We see the same thing simultaneously as one and as infinitely many.'*

'And if oneness is like that,' I said, 'then number as a whole is as well.'

'Naturally.' 'Now, calculation and arithmetic are entirely concerned with

number.' 'Certainly.' 'And they clearly guide one towards truth.' b 'Yes, they're exceptionally good at that.'

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'Then arithmetic is one of the subjects we're after, apparently. A man of war can't do without it, because he deploys troops, and a philosopher can't do without it, because he has to extricate himself from the world of becoming and make reality his field of operation, or else he'll never be able to reason and calculate.'

'True,' he said. 'And our guardians are, in fact, both warriors and

philosophers.' 'Of course.' 'Therefore, Glaucon, we ought to provide for this subject in

our legislation, and to persuade the people who are going to undertake our community's most important tasks to take up

c arithmetic. They shouldn't engage in it like dilettantes, but should keep at it until they reach the point where they can see in their mind's eye what numbers really are, and they shouldn't study it as merchants and stallholders do, for commercial reasons, but for the sake of warfare and in order to facilitate the mind's turning away from becoming and towards truth and reality.'

'You're absolutely right,' he said. 'Now that arithmetic has been mentioned,' I said, 'it also

d occurs to me how neatly it fits in the context we're getting at, and how commonly it could be used by anyone who applies himself to it for intellectual rather than commercial purposes.'

'How?' he asked. 'Because it's particularly good at guiding the mind

upwards—which is what we've been talking about—and forcing one to discuss numbers in themselves. It excludes the slightest hint, in a discussion, of numbers which have attendant visible or tangible material objects. I mean, I'm sure you're

e aware that the experts in the field pour scorn on any attempt to divide the actual number one and refuse to allow it. If you chop it up, they multiply it; they take steps to preserve one's oneness and to prevent it ever appearing to contain a multiplicity of factors.'*

'You're absolutely right,' he said. 52.63 'What do you think they'd say, then, Glaucon, if someone

were to ask them, in surprise, "What are these numbers you're

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talking about? What numbers involve a oneness which fulfils your requirements, where every single unit is equal to every other unit, without even the smallest variation, and without being divisible in the slightest?"'

'I think they'd reply that the numbers they're talking about are only accessible to thought, and cannot be grasped in any other way.'

'So can you see, Glaucon,' I said, 'that it really does seem as though this subject is essential, since it apparently forces the b mind to rely purely on intellectual processes and to aim for truth in itself?'

'Yes,' he said. 'It certainly does do that.' 'Now, have you ever noticed that people who are naturally

good at arithmetic are also naturally quick at just about every subject? And that if you make slow-witted people learn and study arithmetic, then without exception they end up quicker than they used to be, even if they gain nothing else from it?'

'That's true,' he said. 'Moreover, I don't suppose it would be easy for you to find c

many subjects which require more effort from the student learning them.'

'No.' 'For all these reasons, then, this is a subject we'd better take

seriously; we must have our best people study it.' 'I agree,' he said. 'That's the first subject dealt with, then,' I said. 'But in the

second place, let's consider whether the subject which follows on its heels suits our purposes.'

'What subject do you mean?' he asked. 'Geometry?' 'Exactly,' I said. 'It obviously suits our purposes,' he said, 'because it has d

some military applications. You see, it does make a difference whether or not a person is good at geometry when he comes to organize an encampment, occupy territory, deploy an army over a narrow or wide extent, and form up troops in any other way in the course of a battle or while on the move.'

'Yes,' I said, 'but it hardly takes the whole of geometry and arithmetic to enable someone to cope with that kind of situation. What we have to consider is whether the more advanced aspects of geometry which constitute the bulk of the

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subject have any relevance in the context of smoothing the way e towards seeing the character of goodness. And what we're

saying is that anything is relevant in this context if it forces the mind to turn towards the realm where the most blessed part of reality is to be found, which the mind should do its utmost to see.'

'You're right,' he said. 'So if it impels the mind to see reality, it suits our purposes;

but if it impels the mind to see the world of becoming, it does not.'

'Yes, that's what we're saying.' 5z?a 'Even people who know very little geometry', I said, 'won't

dispute the fact that this branch of knowledge is quite different from how it is described by its practitioners.'

'In what sense?' he asked. 'They have a very absurd, if very inevitable, way of talking

about geometry. They talk as if they were actually doing something and as if the point of all their theorems was to have some actual effect: they come up with words like "squaring" and "applying" and "adding" and so on, whereas in fact the

b sole purpose of the subject is knowledge.' 'Absolutely,' he said. 'And there's something else we'd better agree on.' 'What?' 'That this knowledge is of things which exist for ever, rather

than of things which come into existence at some time and subsequently pass away.'

'There's no difficulty in agreeing to that,' he said. 'The objects of geometrical knowledge do exist for ever.'

'Therefore, Glaucon, geometry can attract the mind towards truth. It can produce philosophical thought, in the sense that it can reverse the misguided downward tendencies we currently have.'

'It's particularly effective at that,' he agreed. c 'Then you'd better be particularly effective at telling the

inhabitants of your Goodland* to do their utmost not to dismiss geometry,' I told him. 'I mean, its by-products are not unimportant either.'

'What are they?' he asked. 'There are the military ones you mentioned,' I replied, 'and

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also, as we know, people who've studied geometry are much more receptive than those who haven't to intellectual work in general; it makes absolutely all the difference in the world.'

'Yes, it certainly does,' he said. 'So shall we make this a second subject for the young people

of our community to study?' 'Yes,' he said. 'And don't you think the third should be astronomy?' d 7 do, anyway,' he said. 'I mean, it's not only farmers and

sailors who need to be sensitive to the seasons, months, and phases of the year: it's just as important for military commanders as well.'

'You seem to be naively worried about what people will think of you,' I remarked. 'You don't want them to think you're recommending studies which have no practical benefit. It is, in fact, really hard for people to have confidence in the fact that studying this kind of subject cleans and re-ignites a particular mental organ which everyone has (while other occupations ruin it and blind it), and that this organ is a e thousand times more worth preserving than any eye, since it is the only organ which can see truth. People who acknowledge this fact will be incredibly happy with your ideas, but all those people who are completely unaware of it will in all likelihood think you're talking rubbish, because, as they can see, this kind of study doesn't produce any worthwhile benefit of any other kind. So you'd better hurry up and decide which group of people you're addressing. Alternatively, you're not really 52,83 addressing either group: you're mainly framing your arguments for your own sake—which is not to say that you'd resent anyone else profiting from them as well.'

'That's what I'd prefer to do—talk, ask questions, and answer them chiefly for my own sake,' he said.

'Well,' I said, 'I'd like you to backtrack a bit. Just now we chose the wrong thing to follow geometry.'

'What do you mean?' he asked. 'We went straight from surfaces to solidity in circular

motion,' I said, 'before we'd taken solidity on its own. The b correct procedure is to go from the second dimension to the third—which is, of course, the domain of cubes and anything else with volume.'

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'True,' he said. 'But I don't think this domain has been explored yet, Socrates.'

'There are two reasons for that,' I replied. 'First, no society respects it, and therefore its complexity makes people diffident about looking into it. Second, exploration isn't feasible unless the research is conducted under supervision, but a supervisor is unlikely to be found, and moreover, even if one were to be found, the current situation is that the people doing the

c research in the field are so self-assured that they wouldn't listen to him. However, they would listen if a whole community treated the subject with respect and supervised it, and once research was undertaken with continuity and determination, then facts would be discovered. I mean, even under the current circumstances of its general disrespect and depreciation—at the hands of the researchers as well, since they can't explain what good it is—it still manages to be attractive enough to overcome all this opposition and to develop, and I wouldn't be surprised if discoveries were made.'

d 'Yes, it certainly is a particularly attractive subject,' he agreed. 'But please can you explain what you were getting at just now. You referred to geometry as the study of surfaces ...'

'Yes,' I said. '... and then at first you said that astronomy came next, but

later you took this back,' he said. 'I was in a hurry to complete the discussion,' I explained,

'and that was slowing me down. Although investigation of three-dimensionality came next, the research in the field has made the subject so difficult to take seriously that I missed it

e out and put astronomy, which is solidity in motion, after geometry.'

'You're right,' he said. 'So let's make astronomy the fourth subject,' I said, 'on the

understanding that, if a community were to underwrite the research, the branch of knowledge we're omitting at the moment would be available.'

'Yes, that sounds reasonable,' he said. 'And since you ticked me off just now for my crude endorsement of astronomy, Socrates, I'll now give it the kind of endorsement you're after. I

5zga mean, I can't imagine anyone doubting that it forces the mind to look upwards and guides it from this realm to another realm.'

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'It seems as though I'm the only one to doubt it, then,' I said. 'You see, I disagree.'

'On what grounds?' he protested. 'Because I think its current usage, in the hands of those who

try to interest people in philosophy,* is guaranteed to make people look downwards.'

'What do you mean?' he asked. 'I get the impression,' I said, 'that your conception of the

study of things up on high is rather generous! It looks as though you'd think that the study of decorations on a ceiling by b bending one's neck back, and the acquisition of information that way, makes use of the intellect rather than the eyes! You may be right, and I'm probably being simple-minded, but it's only a field of study which is concerned with immaterial reality that I can regard as making the mind look upwards, and I wouldn't describe the attempt to study perceptible things by gawping upwards or squinting downwards as learning (since there's no knowledge involved in these cases); neither would I say that in these cases the mind is looking upwards rather than c downwards, even if the studying takes place while lying on one's back^ on the ground or in the sea.'

'That's a fair comment,' he said. 'You're right to have told me off. But apart from how it's studied at the moment, then, how do you think astronomy should be studied, if studying it is to have some point in the context we're talking about?'

'Like this,' I replied. 'It may be that there's nothing in the visible realm which is more beautiful or less erratic than these decorations in the sky, but even so, since they're within the d visible realm, they should be regarded as considerably inferior to true decorations, in respect of the beauty and precision of the movements which, in the realm of true number and all the true figures, genuine speed and slowness make relative to each other as they transport things which are not accessible to sight, but only to reason and thought.* Don't you agree?'

'Definitely,' he said. 'Therefore,' I continued, 'we should use the heavenly

decorations merely as illustrations to help us study the other realm, as we would if we were faced with exceptional geometrical figures drawn in fine detail by Daedalus or some e other artist or painter. On seeing figures of this kind, an expert geometer would think that for all the beauty of their execution,

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it would be absurd seriously to expect an examination of them 5303 to reveal the truth about equals or doubles or some other ratio.'

'Of course it would be absurd,' he agreed. 'Don't you think that a genuine astronomer feels the same

when he looks at the movements of the heavenly bodies?' I asked. 'He'll certainly think that the artist of the heavens has constructed them and all they contain to be as beautiful as such works could ever possibly be, but what about the ratio between night and day, between them and a month, between a month and a year? And what about the relations of the heavenly

b bodies in general to these phenomena or to one another? Don't you think he'd regard it as ludicrous to suppose that these things are constant and unvarying, and never change in the slightest, when they're material and visible, and to devote all one's energy to discovering the truth about these things?'

'1 agree,' he said, 'or anyway, I do when I hear your account.' 'So the way we'll do astronomy will be identical to the way

we do geometry,' I said, 'since in both cases we'll be making use of matters that require elucidation.* And if we don't ignore the heavenly bodies, we'll never be engaged in true astronomy,

c and we'll never develop rather than atrophy our mind's innate intelligence.'

'Your instructions will involve astronomers in a great deal more work than they're used to at the moment,' he remarked.

'Yes, and I think we'll be issuing further instructions of the same kind,' I said, 'if our legislation is to do any good. But are there any other suitable fields of study that you can think of?'

'Not just at the moment,' he replied. 'There are, however, several types of movement, I think,' I

d said. 'An expert would probably be able to give us a complete list, but even we can easily see two of them.'

'What are they?' 'In addition to the astronomical variety, there's one that

complements it too,' I said. 'Which one do you mean?' 'The eyes are made for astronomy,' I said, 'and by the same

token the ears are presumably made for the type of movement that constitutes music. If so, these branches of knowledge are allied to each other. This is what the Pythagoreans claim,* and we should agree, Glaucon, don't you think?'

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'Yes,' he said. 'Music is a difficult subject,' I said, 'so we'll consult the e

Pythagoreans to find out their views, and to see if they've anything to add. But throughout we'll be looking after our own agenda.'

'Which is what?' To make sure that our wards don't set about learning any

pointless aspects of music—any aspect which doesn't unfailingly fetch up at the place which (as we were just saying in the case of astronomy) ought to be the destination of all these subjects. Don't you realize that people get music wrong 53ia too? They laboriously measure the interrelations between audible concords and sounds, which is as useless an activity as anything astronomers get up to.'

'Yes, they really make fools of themselves,' he said. 'They talk about "concentrations"* and bring their ears close to the source of the sound—as if they were trying to hear what the people next door were saying! And then some of them claim to be able to detect a further intermediate resonance and maintain that they've found the smallest possible interval, which should be used as the basis of measurement, while others dispute all this and claim that the notes in question are to all intents and purposes identical. But both camps rate their ears above their b intellect.'

'You're talking', I said, 'about those excellent characters who make life hard for strings and torture them by twisting them on pegs.* I don't want to push the image too far and mention how they strike the strings with a plectrum and challenge them, and how the strings refuse to talk and come up with specious pleas. So I'll drop the image and tell you that I wasn't thinking of those people, but the ones we were saying just now would explain music to us, because they act in the same way that astronomers do. They limit their research to the numbers they c can find within audible concords, but they fail to come up with general matters for elucidation, such as which numbers form concords together and which don't, and why some do and some don't.'

'That's a superhuman task you're talking about,' he remarked.

'But a useful one,' I said, 'if it serves the aim of trying to

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understand what morality and goodness are. In any other context, however, it's a pointless pursuit.'

'I suppose so,' he said. 'What I'd say', I continued, 'is that engaging in all the

d subjects we've been discussing has some relevance to our purposes, and all that effort isn't wasted, if the work takes one to the common ground of affinity between the subjects, and enables one to work out how they are all related to one another; otherwise it's a waste of time.'*

'I suspect you're right,' he said. 'But you're talking about an awful lot of hard work, Socrates.'

Following the course in the mathematical sciences, the crowning part of the curriculum is dialectic, which gives one the ability to understand things as they are in themselves, and therefore to understand their relation to goodness. Without dialectic, we are condemned to the semi-conscious level of belief.

'What?' I asked. The prelude is hard, you say? Don't you realize that this is all just the prelude to the main theme, which is the important subject? I mean, you surely don't think that being accomplished in these subjects makes one good at

e dialectic.' 'No, certainly not,' he answered, 'although it does happen

sometimes—very occasionally—in my experience.' 'But don't you think the inability to explain anything, and to

understand explanations, rules out the possibility of knowing any of the things we're saying are important?' I asked.

'Yes, I agree with you on this too,' he replied. 532.3 'And isn't this exactly the theme which dialectic develops,

Glaucon?' I asked. 'It may be an intelligible theme, but sight can be said to reflect it, when, as we were saying,* it sets about looking at actual creatures, at the heavenly bodies themselves, and finally at the sun itself. Just as, in this case, a person ends up at the supreme point of the visible realm, so the summit of the intelligible realm is reached when, by means of dialectic and without relying on anything perceptible, a person perseveres in

b using rational argument to approach the true reality of things until he has grasped with his intellect the reality of goodness itself.'

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'Absolutely,' he said. 'And this is the journey a practitioner of dialectic makes,

wouldn't you say?' 'Of course.' 'And the prisoners' release from their bonds,' I went on,

'their reorientation away from shadows and towards figurines and firelight, their ascent out from under the ground into sunlight, their lingering inability to look in the upper world at creatures and plants and the light of the sun, rather than gazing1" at reflections in water and at shadows (shadows, that c is, of real things, not the shadows of figurines cast by a light which, relative to the sun, is of the same order as the figurines)—just as, in this case, the most lucid part of the body is taken up to see the most lucid part of the material, visible realm, so the whole business of studying the areas of expertise we've been discussing has the ability to guide the best part of the mind upwards until it sees the best part of reality.'* d

'I'm happy with that,' he said, 'despite the fact that acceptance and rejection both seem to me to be problematic, from different points of view. However, we shouldn't let this be just a one-off discussion today, but should often return to the issue. So let's assume that our ideas are correct, and get on with discussing the actual main theme in as much detail as we did the prelude. So please tell us the ins and outs of the ability to do dialectic, and how many different types of it there are, and e what methods it employs, since they'd presumably be the means of approaching that place which, once reached, is travellers' rest and journey's end.'

'You won't be able to follow me there, my dear Glaucon,' I 5333 said, 'which is a pity, because there'd be no shortage of determination from me, and what you'd see there wouldn't be an image of what we're talking about:* you'd see the truth itself—or that's what I think, anyway. I may be right, and I may be wrong—that's not for us to insist on at the moment; but we can state with confidence that there'd be something of the kind to be seen, don't you think?'

'Of course.' 'And what about the idea that dialectic alone can elucidate

these matters, to someone with experience in the subjects we've discussed, and that otherwise it's impossible?'

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'Yes, we should state that confidently too,' he said, b 'Anyway, what is indisputable in what we're saying', I said,

'is that dialectic is the only field of enquiry which sets out methodically to grasp the reality of any and every thing. All the other areas of expertise, on the other hand, are either concerned with fulfilling people's beliefs and desires, or are directed towards generation and manufacture or looking after things while they're being generated and manufactured. Even any that are left—geometry and so on, which we were saying do grasp reality to some extent—are evidently dreaming about reality.

c There's no chance of their having a conscious glimpse of reality as long as they refuse to disturb the things they take for granted and remain incapable of explaining them. For if your starting- point is unknown, and your end-point and intermediate stages are woven together out of unknown material, there may be coherence, but knowledge is completely out of the question.'*

'Yes, it is,' he agreed. 'So dialectic is the only field of enquiry', I went on, 'whose

quest for certainty causes it to uproot the things it takes for granted in the course of its journey, which takes it towards an

d actual starting-point. When the mind's eye is literally buried deep in mud,* far from home, dialectic gently extracts it and guides it upwards, and for this reorientation it draws on the assistance of those areas of expertise we discussed. It's true that we've often called them branches of knowledge in the past, but that's only a habit and they really need a different word, which implies a higher degree of clarity than belief has, and a higher degree of opacity than knowledge has. Earlier, we used the term "thought".* But I don't suppose we'll quarrel about

e terminology when we're faced with matters as important as the ones we're looking into at the moment.'

'No, we won't,' he said, 'just so long as whatever term is used expresses the state of mental clarity.;t

'So the terms we used earlier will do,' I said. 'We'll call the first section knowledge, the second thought, the third

5343 confidence, and the fourth conjecture; and the first pair constitute intellect (which is concerned with real being), the second pair belief (which is concerned with becoming). As being stands to becoming, so intellect stands to belief; and as intellect stands to belief, so knowledge stands to confidence and

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thought to conjecture.* However, we'd better pass over the proportionate relations between the objects of intellect and belief, Glaucon, and the twofold division of each of the two realms—the domain of belief and the domain of intellect—if we want to avoid getting entangled in an argument which would be many times as long as the ones our discussion has already thrown up.'

'Well, I agree with everything else you've said, in so far as I b can follow it,' he said.

'And don't you think that the ability to understand what it is to be any given thing, when someone else explains it, is indicative of a dialectician? And wouldn't you say that, in so far as anyone who lacks this ability is incapable of explaining anything to himself or to anyone else either, then he doesn't know anything?'

'Of course I would,' he answered. 'The same principle applies to goodness, then, as well. If

someone is incapable of arguing for the separation and distinction of the character of goodness from everything else, and cannot, so to speak, fight all the objections one by one and c refute them (responding to them resolutely by referring to the reality of things, rather than to people's beliefs), and can't see it all through to the end without his position suffering a fall—if you find someone to be in this state, you'll deny that he has knowledge of goodness itself or, in general, of anything good at all.* Instead, if he does somehow manage to make contact with a reflection of goodness, you'll claim that the contact is due to belief, not knowledge. He dreams his current life away in a state of semi-consciousness, you'll say, and he'll never wake up here: he'll go to Hades, the place of total sleep, d first. Agreed?'

'Yes, definitely,' he said. Til certainly be making all of these claims.'

'Now, suppose your theoretical upbringing and education of your younger generation were to become a reality. I imagine you'd deny them power and crucial responsibility in the community if they were as irrational as surds.'*

'Yes, I would,' he said. 'Will you include in your legislation, then, the ruling that a

major part of the education they engage in must be the subject

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which will enable them to acquire particular expertise at the give and take of discussion?'

e 'I will,' he replied, 'if you join me.' 'Don't you think', I asked, 'that dialectic occupies the highest

position and forms, as it were, the copestone of the curriculum? And that, if so, there's no subject which ought to occupy a higher position, and therefore it completes our educational

5353 programme?' 'Yes, I agree,' he answered.

Plato repeats (from Chapter 8) the qualities potential philosopher kings must have, stressing in this context their enthusiasm for intellectual pursuits. The main educational stages are allotted to ages: the primary education of Chapter 4 goes up to about 17 or 18; there will follow a couple of years of intense military training; then ten years spent with the mathematical sciences; then five years of solid dialectic, Trainees who are found to be unsuited to each successive stage will be weeded out. Those who make it through to the end will now become executives and teachers for fifteen years, until finally they understand goodness and are allowed to alternate periods of contemplative philosophy with periods of rulership. Now that we have seen (a) what it is to be a true philosopher, and (b) how to produce true philosophers, we can see the truth of the proposal that the imaginary community will be feasible (if at all) only when philosophers are kings.

'All that remains for you to do,' I said, 'is distribute the subjects: to whom, and on what basis, shall we assign them?'

'Yes, that's obviously what we're left with,' he said. 'Well, do you remember what kind of people we chose as

rulers, when we made our choice earlier?'* 'Of course I do,' he answered. 'Now, on the whole,' I went on, 'the characteristics we

should favour ought to remain the same, I suggest. I mean, we should prefer people with a high degree of reliability and courage, and also, within reason, people who are very good-

fa looking.* In addition, however, to being good and solid, we must also look for people with a natural talent for these studies.'

'What special qualities do you have in mind?' 'They must be sharp and quick at learning, Glaucon,' I said.

'You see, physical exercise is far less appalling to the mind than

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intense intellectual work, since intellectual work is more exclusively mental. It belongs to the mind, rather than being shared with the body.'

'True,' he said. 'And we should also look for people who have good c

memories, are tenacious, and enjoy all kinds of work. Otherwise, there's no way that they'll be prepared to complete such a long course of intellectual study over and above all the hard work of the physical programme.'

'That's right,' he said. 'That'll take all the advantages nature can provide.'

'The problem nowadays, anyway,' I said, 'and the reason why philosophy has become devalued, is (to repeat ourselves)* that its practitioners are people who aren't good enough for it. It should be practised by men of true pedigree, not by bastards.'

'What do you mean?' he asked. 'The main thing', I explained, 'is that the practitioner must d

not be hamstrung in his enjoyment of work, with half of him enjoying it and half of him not. That's what you get when someone enjoys exercising and hunting and all kinds of physical work, but doesn't enjoy using his mind or listening to lectures or undertaking research, and instead loathes working in all these contexts. Then there are also people who are hamstrung in their enjoyment of work by having the opposite attitude.'

'You're absolutely right,' he said. 'By the same token,' I continued, 'we'll call a mind

handicapped in the context of truth if, while loathing conscious e lying (in that it not only finds it hard to stomach from itself, but also gets highly irritated when others do it), it happily puts up with unconscious lying* and doesn't get irritated when its ignorance is exposed, but wallows in ignorance as cheerfully as any pig.'

'Absolutely,' he said. 536a 'And the same goes for self-control, courage, broadness of

vision, and all the other aspects of virtue,' I said. 'It's particularly important to distinguish men of true pedigree from bastards in all these contexts. The inability to look at these qualities from every possible angle leads people and

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communities to use crippled bastards for some purpose or other—as their friends, maybe, or as their rulers.'

'Very true,' he said. 'It's important for us to take precautions against all traps of

b this kind,' I said. 'If we bring people who are in perfect physical and mental condition to this lengthy study programme and course of training, and educate them in it, we'll have done nothing wrong even by the strictest standards of moral behaviour, and we'll be preserving the integrity of our community and political system. However, if we introduce people of any other kind to it, we'll not only achieve the opposite results, but we'll also increase the flood of ridicule which pours down on philosophy.'

That would be disgraceful,' he said. 'Yes, it would,' I agreed. 'But it looks as though I'm open to

ridicule myself at the moment.' 'In what respect?' he asked.

c 'I forgot that our tone has been light-hearted,' I answered, 'and I spoke with rather too much intensity. You see, while I was speaking, I looked at philosophy and saw how unjustly it has been dragged in the gutter. That made me cross, and I suppose I used the over-serious tone that I did because I felt a kind of rage.'

'Well, from my point of view as a member of the audience,' he said, 'it didn't strike me as excessive.'

'But from my point of view as the speaker,' I said, 'it did. Anyway, we should bear in mind that although our earlier selection procedure favoured old men, our present one rules

d them out.* I mean, we shouldn't let Solon convince us that while growing old there is still plenty of scope for learning:* in fact, there's more scope for running than for learning! In any given sphere, it's up to young people to work long and hard.'

'That's necessarily true,' he said. 'So it's while they're young that we should set them

arithmetic, geometry, and the rest of the studies which are the essential preliminaries before taking up dialectic. But we shouldn't present the work as compulsory.'

'Why not?' e 'Because an autonomous person should never learn a subject

in a slavish fashion,' I explained. 'It's true that if physical work

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is performed under compulsion, the body isn't impaired, but compulsory intellectual work never remains in the mind.'

'True,' he said. 'So the educational environment in which you foster your

younger generation, Glaucon,' I said, 'should be light-hearted 5373 rather than authoritarian. This will also help you to see what natural abilities every one of them has.'

'That's plausible,' he said. 'And do you remember', I continued, 'our assertion that the

children should be taken on horseback to observe warfare* and, if they can do so safely, should also be taken up to the front and given a taste of blood, as young dogs are?'

'Yes, I do,' he replied. 'Well, any of them who demonstrates a high degree of

proficiency in his exercising, studying, and facing fear should be enrolled in a special unit,' I said.

'At what age, do you mean?' he asked. b 'When they've finished with the basics of physical exercise,' I

said. 'The point is that it's out of the question for them to do anything else during the period in question, which may last for two or three years, because exertion and exhaustion don't mix with intellectual work. Also, one of the crucial ways we'll be testing them will be by seeing what impression each of them gives during the period when they're concentrating on physical exercise.'*

'Of course,' he said. 'After this period', I went on, 'a select group of the twenty-

year-olds will receive promotion above the rest, and will be required to consolidate the subjects they were taught unsystematically as children until they gain an overview of the c relationships these subjects have to one another and to reality.'

'Yes,' he said, 'it's only when this has occurred that one's learning has a secure foundation.'

'And it's also the main way of testing whether or not someone is naturally suited for dialectic,' I said, 'since the ability to take an overview is the distinguishing mark of a dialectician,'

'I agree,' he said. 'What you'll have to do, then,' I said, 'is look out for this

quality and try to see which of your people are particularly

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d capable in this respect, and have staying power in their intellectual work, in warfare, and in their other duties. These are the ones whom, once they're past the age of thirty, you must select from among the select and promote even further; and you must subject them to dialectical training, to try to see which of them is capable of letting go of vision and of sense- perception in general, and can proceed to the realm of truth and reality itself. But you have to be very careful at this point, Glaucon.'

'Why?' he asked. e 'Don't you realize how much harm occurs in the way

dialectic is practised nowadays?' I said. 'What harm?' he asked. 'People become thoroughly rebellious,' I answered. 'They certainly do,' he said. 'Well, it's not a surprising state for them to get into, is it, do

you think?' I asked. 'Can't you forgive them?' 'Why should I?' he asked. 'Here's an analogy,' I said. 'Suppose an illegitimate child is

5383 brought up in affluent circumstances, in the midst of a large, powerful family with hordes of flatterers;* and suppose that, when he grows up, he becomes aware that he isn't the child of his self-styled parents, but can't find out who his real parents are. Can you guess what his attitude would be towards the flatterers and towards his surrogate parents when he didn't know that this wasn't his rightful place, and then when he learnt the truth? Or shall I tell you what I suspect?'

'Please do,' he said. T suspect', I said, 'that, before he learnt the truth, he'd be

b more inclined to respect his father and mother and the rest of the people he'd presumed to be his relatives than he would the flatterers, and less inclined to turn a blind eye to any need of theirs, and to do or say anything rebellious to them, and to disobey them in any important respect.'

'That's likely,' he said. 'However, once he'd become aware of the true state of

affairs, I suspect he'd leave off giving them his respect and concern, and transfer his attention to the flatterers instead. He'd listen to them more than he did before, model his lifestyle

c on theirs, openly spend time with them, and not have the

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slightest interest in that father of his and the rest of his pseudo- family—unless he's inherently a person of high principles.'

'Yes, that's exactly what would happen,' he agreed. 'But how does this analogy apply to people who are exposed to rational arguments?'

'Like this. From childhood, we've held certain views about moral and right conduct. These views formed the environment of our upbringing, we are subject to them as we are to our parents, and we obey them and respect them.'

True.' 'Now, there are also enjoyable practices which run counter d

to this moral code. These practices flatter and tempt our minds, but anyone with even a scrap of restraint doesn't give in, and continues instead to respect and obey those traditional views.'

'True.' 'Well, suppose', I went on, 'that the kind of person we're

imagining is faced with a question like "What is right?" He answers that it consists in the conduct enjoined by the originator of his society's code, but the argument proves him wrong, and proves him wrong again and again, until he's battered into thinking that this code is no more right than wrong. Then the same happens with morality and goodness e and all the qualities he used particularly to respect.* What do you think the consequences of this are on his behaviour? What will happen to his respect and obedience?'

'He'll inevitably become more disrespectful and disobedient than he was before,' he said.

'Now, when he's changed his mind about what to respect and about his former familiar code,' I said, 'and at the same time can't discover the truth, where can he turn? Doesn't it only make sense to think of him being seduced by the tempting 5393 lifestyle?'

'Yes,' he said. 'So he'll stop being law-abiding and become rebellious.' 'Inevitably.' 'People who are exposed to rational arguments, then,' I said,

'are quite likely to rebel and, as I suggested a moment ago, we should forgive them, don't you think?'

'Yes, and feel sorry for them,' he added. 'So if you want to avoid having to feel sorry for your thirty- P : T . R . - J 6

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year-olds, then you must handle rational arguments with the utmost circumspection, mustn't you?'

'Yes, definitely,' he said. b 'And one important precaution you can take is not to let

them get wind of rational arguments when they're young, don't you think? I mean, I'm sure you've noticed how when adolescents get their first taste of argumentation, they abuse it and treat it like a game. They can't find any other use for it except disputation;* they use knock-down arguments which they borrow from others to demolish people's positions. Like puppies, they love to tug away at anyone they come across and to tear his argument to shreds with theirs.'

'Yes, it's incredible,' he said. 'So before long—once they've demolished a lot of arguments

c and often had their own demolished as well—they find they've radically changed their minds about everything. And the result of this is that people take a dim view of them, and of philosophy in general.'

'You're absolutely right,' he said. 'An older person, however,' I went on, 'is hardly likely to

succumb to this insanity: he'd sooner resemble someone who's willing to practise dialectic and look for the truth, than someone who trivializes everything with his game-playing and disputatiousncss. His own behaviour will be more moderate,

d and he'll increase, rather than decrease, dialectic's reputation.' 'Right,' he said. 'And hasn't the point of what we've been saying been to get

rid of the current practice of letting absolutely anyone, even when entirely unsuitable, come to rational argumentation, and to ensure that it is only orderly and stable people who get involved in it?'

'Yes,' he said. 'Suppose, in order to complement the way physical exercise

was approached, someone were to study, with constancy and concentration, nothing but rational argumentation for twice as many years as he devoted to physical exercise. Would that do?'

e 'Do you mean six years or four years?'* he asked. 'Why don't you just make it five?' I suggested. 'You see, the

next thing you have to do is make them go back down into that cave and force them to take charge of warfare and whatever

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E D U C A T I N G P H I L O S O P H E R K I N G S

other areas young people should be responsible for, so that they gain just as much practical experience as everyone else. Moreover, while they hold these positions of responsibility, you'd better test them to see whether they remain unmoved by all the various temptations they're exposed to, or whether they 5403 go astray.'

'How long do you suggest for this?' he asked. 'Fifteen years,' I replied. 'Not all of them will reach their

fiftieth year unscathed and with absolutely outstanding performances in every task they undertook and branch of knowledge they studied, but you can guide those who do to the climax of their lives. You must make them open up the beam of their minds and look at the all-embracing source of light, which is goodness itself.* Once they've seen it, they must use it as a reference-point and spend the rest of their lives ordering the b community, its members, and themselves. They take turns at this: they spend most of their time doing philosophy, but when their turn comes, then for the community's sake they become involved in its affairs and slog away at them as rulers. This is something they do as an obligation, not as a privilege. Because they have this attitude, they're constantly training others to follow suit, and once they've completed this process and have bequeathed guardianship of the community to others in their place, they depart for a new home in the Isles of the Blessed.* And the community constructs public memorials and establishes ceremonies in their honour, and treats them (if the Delphic oracle gives its blessing) as deities,* or otherwise as c happy and godlike men.'

'You've created an image of the rulers which makes them as thoroughly attractive as a master sculptor makes his statues, Socrates,' he remarked.

'And there are female rulers too,* Glaucon,' I said. 'Please don't think that what I've been saying doesn't apply equally to any women in the community with the required natural abilities.'

'That's right,' he said. 'Men and women will share everything equally, as we explained.'

'Well then, do you agree that our community and political d system weren't just wishful thinking?' I said. 'The community may be difficult to realize, but it's feasible; the essential

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R E P U B L I C

prerequisite, as we've insisted, is that genuine philosophers— one or more of them—wield power. They have to be born in a community, but grow up to regard the political rewards currently available to them as despicable, as mean and worthless. Instead, they have to find nothing more valuable

e than integrity and its rewards, and nothing more important and essential than morality, which they serve and foster as they take in hand every detail of their community.'

'How do they go about this?' he asked. 'First, they banish everyone over the age of ten into the

54ia countryside,' I answered. 'Then they take charge of the community's children and make sure that they're beyond the reach of existing conventions, which their parents adhere to, and bring them up under their own customs and laws, which are similar to the ones we were describing before. That's the quickest and simplest way* for the community and political system we've been discussing to be established, to attain happiness, and to benefit the people among whom they occur.'

'Yes, definitely,' he said. 'And I think you've given an b excellent explanation of how our community would be realized,

if it ever were.' 'So is that it, then?' I asked. 'Have we finished discussing this

community of ours and its human counterpart? I mean, I suppose it's obvious what kind of person we'll claim he has to be.'

'Yes, it is,' he said. 'And, to answer your question, yes, I think we've finished.'

2.76Co py ri

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ap pl ic

ab le c op yr ig ht l aw .

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