H.W.B. Joseph - Knowledge and The Good in Plato's Republic (1981 (1948), Greenwood Press) PDF

KNOWLEDGE AND
THE GOOD IN
PLATO'S REPUBLIC
BY
H. W. B. JOSEPH
GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS

WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT
C]
PI; ,2 J :1 ,1 5~
) lJ
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Joseph, Horace'~il1iam Brindley, 1867-1943. HIS short study was written in September 1925 as part
Knowledge and the good in Plato's Republic.
Pr Reprint of the ed. published by Oxford University

T of the course of lectures on Plato's Republic which the
author delivered in the University of Oxford. He would
ess, London, in series: Oxford classical '& philoBoph·
cal monographs. 1-
probably not himself have published it in this form since its
Includes bibliographical referen~es and index style, as the reader will find, is very much that of the lecture.
1. Plato. Re publi ca. 2. Good and evil I ' Title
JC71.p6J59 1981 321' .07 80-29430.·· . But the Platonic doctrine which it is concerned to expound
ISBN 0-313-22762-4 (lib. bdg.) was considered by him to be of very great philosophical
importance, and yet was not the subject of any of the essays
on Plato which he published in his lifetime.
I have divided the work into chapters and chosen titles for
the chapters and for the book, but apart from a few minor
verbal alterations which were obviously necessary, the text
is as the author wrote it.
I am much indebted to Sir David Ross and to Mr. C. H.
Salter, Scholar of N ewCollege, for their assistance in correct-
ing the proofs.
UnlversltatsbibliothGk H. L. A. HART
ElchsHitt
NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
October "947·
83) 254S1
Copyright Oxford University Press 1948.
This is a reprint of the 1948 Oxford University Press edition.
Reprinted by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
Reprinted in 1981 by Greenwood Press

A division of Congressional Information Service rne
88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881 .
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
r
CONTENTS
I. THE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION AND THE GOOD I
H. THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOOD WITH

PLEASURE AND WITH THOUGHT. 8
Ill. THE RELATION OF THE GOOD TO OTHER

OBJECTS. THE SUN, THE LINE, AND THE CAVE. I3
IV. THE LINE AND THE CAVE-DIFFICULTIES OF

INTERPRETATION CONSIDERED • 3I
V. MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 46
VI. THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION

OF IDEAS TO EACH OTHER 6I
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 75

CHAPTER I
THE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION AND THE GOOD
N Book VI of the Republic, Plato leaves the defence of
I the great paradox that philosophers should be kings. It is
agreed that knowledge or wisdom is the real qualification of
a ruler-not any knowledge, but the knowledge of what is
real or true which indeed is alone properly deserving of the
name; and it is those whose life is absorbed in the pursuit
of this knowledge and whose gifts fit them to pursue it, whom
we should make rulers. And these are what Plato calls
philosophers. The prejudice against philosophers is directed
against men who masquerade under the name, but are not
of the nature which Plato describes. It is an intelligible
prejudice, because there are very few genuine philosophers,
and men can only form their notion of philosophy from the
miscalled counterfeit. Why there are so few has also been
explained. And we must try to devise a remedy (502 c).
The passage which follows, from here to the end of Book
VII, may be said therefore to contain a sketch of what Plato
thought that a philosophic-Le. the highest-education
should be. It has been suggested' by Burnet that it gives us
the programme of the Academy itself. It was Plato's am-
bition, I think, to train statesmen. In a sense he continued
the work of the Sophists. They had promised to fit men for
public life and the conduct of affairs of State. Isocrates
undertook the same task. That the Sophists knew how to do
it, Plato would never admit. How could they, as he asks in
the Gorgias, if they did not know what was just, or if they
thought (as in the Theaetetus he maintains that Protagoras'
doctrine meant) that to be true for every man which to him
seems so? Yet he had faith that it could be done.
At the same time the passage deepens and enlarges the
conception of philosophy itself. For philosophy is not a
thing, the nature of which can first be described, and then
1 Platonism, pp. 101-2 (Berkeley: University of California Press).
4380.8 B
2 THE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION AND THE GOOD THE PHILOSOPHIC EDUCATION AND THE GOOD 3
~h,: means of attaining it indicated. The process of attaining could give and you receive the account of it' (507 A). But he
It IS not external to it, nor can we understaud it without gives only an analogue.
understanding the road to it. And indeed it is only by our- On what Plato meant by holding that the Good is the
selves travelling the road that we can understand it; just as supreme object of knowledge Nettleship has excellent
the conclusion of an argument is not really known, without things to say in § x of his Lectures (pp. 2I2 sqq.). He calls
the premisses which are said to lead to it, and to know them attention to the light which the passage 502 C-504 E throws
in turn is not to believe them on report but to understand on the connexion between the earlier exposition in Books II-
them. For, as Plato goes on to say, what is most real is the IV and the middle books. 'The principle upon which the
object of thought, and not of sight. Visible things may be original rulers were selected was that the best man to guard
put together for us by another, and given us to see. But the anything is the man who loves it most' (p. 2I5). Evil,
object of thought can be 'seen' only by thinking it oneself. thought Plato, is that whiclt is really most to be feared: and
Only the process of reaching it can present it to us reached. Good that which is really most to be loved. What a man most
The road and the goal are distinguishable, but not separable. loves, that he seeks to get and to maintain; and we said before
There are ~any who are incapable of travelling that road; that the ruler mnst be one who loves the State (503A), who
for them, hfe has other tasks. There may be a divine intelli- thinks its good his good. Men should therefore be tested in
gence, which is eternally at the goal, and does not need to this devotion, and none be put in office who do not hold fast
follow the stages of man's travel to it. But those men who to it in all trials. But there was another sort of test which
are capable of penetrating to the nature of things cannot do we did not at first venture to impose-an intellectnal test.
it by a leap, nor be shown it from the top of Pisgah. They We had not then ventnred to insist that rulers mnst be
must make the journey if they are to know what lies at the philosophers: and the qualities now to be insisted on are not
end of it.
easily nor often combined with those insisted on before.
For this reason, there is much in the present passage which This opinion recurs in the Theaetetus, in the description
is tentative and obscure. For though the road is to be which Theodorus there gives of Theaetetus (I44) :
pointed out, we are not now to be taken along it; and perhaps
Plato did not think he had yet travelled it to the end himself. I may freely say that in all my acquaintance, which is very
He knows what it is of which he is in search, viz. the Good; large, I never knew anyone who was his equal in natural gifts:
for he has a quickness of apprehension which is almost unrivalled,
and yet he is not prepared to state its nature. 'Every soul',
and he is exceedingly gentle, and also the most courageous of men;
he says, 'pursues it, and all her actions are for the sake of it there is a union of qualities in him such as I have never seen in any
for s.he divines that there is such a thing; yet she is in per~ other, and should scarcely have thought possible; for those who,
plexIty. and cannot find out assuredly what it is, nor use any like him, have quick and ready and retentive wits, have generally
firm eVIdence as about other things, and loses therefore what also quick tempers {Kal 'TTPOS 7"ds opyds d~';Pp01TOt Elaw}; they are
advantage there may be from them' (505 D-E). It is ignorance ships without ballast, and go darting about, and grow mad rather
of this which is the source of our troubles; knowledge of this than courageous; and the steadier sort, when they have to face
which the best men in the State, to whom everything is to be study, are stupid and cannot remember. Whereas he moves surely
and smoothly and successfully in the path of knowledge and
entrusted, must have. And yet when Socrates is asked to
enquiry; he is full of gentleness, and flows on silently like a river
state its nature, he draws back. 'I wish', he says, 'that I of oil; it is wonderful at his age (Jowett).
Yet it is the supremacy of the philosophic element, in accurately known by way of the arguments in their present
Plato's view, which is the source both of that more dog-like ,
discourse I EK I
'TOLOVTWV
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fLEVOOWV O(.atS VUI' ev
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devotion which was all he looked for in Book Ill, and of the This does not mean that a later part of the dialogue will
fully intelligent guardianship which he here aspires to. As supply what is lacking; the vOv lv 70'S Myo<s must cover the
N ettleship says, the conception of the philosophic element in whole conversation. But the Rep"blic, if it gives a programme
the soul which binds together the different things said about of the studies in the Academy, and an indication of their
the philosophic nature from Book II to Book IX is of principles and purpose, might naturally say that these prin-
that which makes the soul go out of itself under the attraction of ciples can only be fully justified to those who will submit to
something that is familiar to it and akin to it, and in union with the discipline of its studies. What, however-we may ask-
which it finds satisfaction. In all its various senses the philosophic will be changed in our conception of the soul by those more
element in man is the attraction to what is like oneself and yet accurate investigations, and where was our method in Book
outside. oneself, whether it be attraction to other people, or IV defective? Taylor, I so far as I understand, thinks that
attractIOn to beautiful things in art or nature, or attraction to
truth. In these different things Plato seems to see the more and Socrates does not explain there how
less developed stages of a single impulse in the soul, the highest in the man who achieves his eternal salvation, the elements of
stage being that in which the soul goes out not only to human 'mettle' and 'concupiscence' are, so to say, transubst~:mtiated,
beings, nor only to what is attractive through being beautiful, but swallowed up iu intellect; and therefore we must take the
to the truth of the world about it, in understanding which the doctrine of the tripartite soul, which Posidonius held to be
soul finds a satisfaction of the same nature as that which it finds Pythagorean, as no more than a :vorking ,account of. 'active
in union with its fellow men (p. 213). principles' or 'springs of action', whIch suffiCiently ?e.scn~es the
I would add that only in understanding that, does it lay to leading types of 'goodness', as goodness can be exhIbIted m any
rest its doubts about the goodness of that in which it had form short of the highest.
previously sought satisfaction. I should think Plato held it more than that; whether he took
Plato then reminds us in 503 c of the gifts and qualities over the doctrine from Pythagoreans does not much matter;
needed of those who are to be guardians in the most perfect Wilamowitz (Plato, i. 39I n.) sees in the distinction of the
sense-aKp,fNuTa7'o, ",vJ..aKE<; the members of the guardian powers of the sonl, not yet worked out fully in the Phaedo,
class must be exercised in many branches of learning if we a great step forward, and holds the discovery to have been
are to discover who can bear without flinching the burden of later fathered on Pythagoras in forgeries which borrowed from
the greatest-the l'iy,u7a l"a8~l"a7'a. The studies to be used Plato and imposed on Posidonius. But Plato seems to me to
for this exercise are indicated in Book VII. Here he gives us have held it true, though not accurately understood in the
what inkling he can of the I"'Y'U7'OV wJ.8"'l"a. way of exposition given in Book IV. The defect there is
Plato tells us that the course of study now to be prescribed perhaps this: that the existence of the three .13", was only
(which presumably he endeavoured to carry out in the shown regressively, by appeal to its effects in various con-
Academy) is that l"aKp07"pa Ka1 7TJ...{WV 030s spoken of already trarieties of attitude appearing in the soul. These spring
in IV. 435 D, when the constitution of the soul was to be principally from the presence in it at once of what is rational
discussed. There Socrates said to Glaucon, that whether the and what is not: which are cal1ed in Timaeus 69 c apx~v
soul has three kinds in it or not was a matter not to be I Plato: The Man and his Work, 4th ed., p. 282, n. I.
tjJvxfjs dBdvWTOV and aA,'\o dSOST6 f}vrrr6v respectively. Howthey things good-and not all of them the same things-they are
can be combined is clearly a question not to be solved without not ready to explain what that being good which they ascribe
u~derstanding the relation of what is eternal and intelligible to them is. Now if you do not know what it is to be a College,
wIth what is transitory and sensible in the universe gener- you will make mistakes in what you call Colleges; you will
ally. That is really the task of the fLaKpoT<pa 'TT.pl080s now to think institutions to be Colleges which are not; and so with
be sketched; and therefore we might expect better to nnder- good. It is true that (as we shall see) good is something far
stand the Tp'TTa .18,) .pvxfj< and the excellences or virtues otherwise related to particulars of which it can be predicated
of which they and it are capable, when we have taken this than being a College is. But till we know and can show this
journey. Then we might see its true nature, T~V dA')Bfj </>Jow, -and till we know what it is-we shall be in danger of mis-
'"'T' 7TOIlVEW1jS'
'\ '" \ " ~ , EL'T€
H'T€ fLOVO€tO'1]S', " 01r'{)
" €X€(.
" Kat,\ 07TWS
" (as judgements. It is clear then that there is a subject of study
Socrates puts it in X. 612 A) ; but as it is, he adds there, we which we have not yet attempted, and one of chief import-
have sufficiently described its affections and forms in human ance, if all men act for the sake of good: a fL'Y'fJTOV fLdB,)fLa.
life.
then.
But there is another respect in which our present discussion
is inadequate, and nothing short of the long studies now to be
?r~sc~ibed will serve. We have been asking whether justice
IS III Itself profitable; and it was agreed in Book IV to be in
the soul what health is in the body, so that it seemed absurd
to qnestion whether it were profitable to be just. I do not
~hink we need here take the profit to be something lying as
It were beyond the practice of justice, separable from and
additional to it : as a profit of ID per cent. is additional to the
capital on which it is made; though we shall find Plato not
free from this way of regarding it in Book IX. But here the
question is whether justice is in itself good. Now that issue
is fundamental, for Plato was not content, as some are, to say
that if we ought to act justly, no further question arises: that
to ask for assurance that our good lies in doing our duty is
superfluous, not because it plainly lies there, but because our
obligation is plain, whether it lies there or not. I Every soul,
he says, seeks good and acts to get it, divining it to be, with-
out knowing what it is (505 D); and unless men are satisfied
that justice is good, they are not likely to guard themselves
from neglect of it. But though men are ready enough to call
I Cf. H. A. Prichard, 'Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?' Mind
N.S., val. xxi (1912), p. 21. 1 ,
THE GOOD PLEASURE AND THOUGHT 9
what is most unseemly;' for though the act may be improper,
CHAPTER II I1ro1Tos, out of place, the pleasure arising from it is good and
to be chosen: a good man (Cl1TovSa£os), however, will have
THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOOD WITH
regard to penalties and reputation; thought is good, but to
PLEASURE AND WITH THOUGHT be chosen for its results, not for itself. Euclides of Megara, on
HAT the Goo~ is Plato does not pr~fess to tell us rightly the other hand, declared that the good, though called by
W now, but only mdIcates by compansons and in a figure
the place which a knowledge of it must hold iu a complete
many names, was really one: it was called sometimes God,
and sometimes thought (cpp6V'Y}CI<S) , and sometimes intelli-
system of knowledge. Some positive uuderstauding of what gence (VOVS),2 and so forth. Adam 3 refers also to the saying
is meant by good we should be able to gain this way; but recorded of Antisthenes: Tf:'i:XOS dmpu),iuTUTOV rpp6V1]uW,4 and
he first refers to two doctrines which must be rejected. These to Xenophon (Mem. iv. 5-6), where Clocpia is said to be
are that the good is pleasure, aud that it is thought, or thiuk- I'lY'Clrov aya06v; and he thinks Plato is here criticizing or
iug, cpp6v'Y}CI<S. The same views are discussed aud again rejected supplementing the view of Socrates, and even perhaps his
in the Philebus. That dialogue begins with a statement of them own earlier view. The advocates of these views in the
(u B). 'Philebus says that every animal eujoyment, pleasure, Academy, when the Philebus was written, after 367 B.C. and
and delight, and everything of that sort, is good. We traverse many years after the Republic, if Taylor is right, were
this, and maintain that wisdom, thinking, memory, right Eudoxus and Speusippus respectively. It is not necessary to
opinion, true reasoning are better and of more worth than suppose that in the Republic there is any attempt to settle a
pleasure to everyone capable of them; and that they are of controversy within the school, which according to the usual
all things of most worth to those now living, or who shall view was but just established; but if in the Philebus Plato is
live hereafter, if only men have capacity for them.' But (as Taylor says) determining a quaestio disputata, like a
neither of them, pleasure nor thought, thus confronted in 'moderator' in the schools of the middle ages, though he does
their claims at the outset, is allowed to be itself the good of so through the mouth of Socrates, I see nO reason to think
man at the close of the dialogue: which does not raise the that in the Republic he was not equally discussing, through
question of a good more comprehensive than the good of the mouth of Socrates, questions living in his own day, and
man. It was held by Zeller that the reference in the Republic expounding his own doctrine. It is not sufficient answer to
to views discussed at so much greater length in the Philebus this to point out that Socrates again takes the leading place
showed the Philebus to be the earlier dialogue, and referred in the Philebus, for the first time in any dialogue since the
to here. No one would date them so now, since the investiga- Theaetetus, because the subject-matter of the Philebus is one
tions into style, but ueither is any such reference needed. which Plato always represents to have been Socrates' own
For the two views were held both outside the Academy, aud, chief interest; his interest in ethical problems no one disputes;
as Taylor shows reason for thinking,' within it. The Cyrenaics and the reason why in the Philebus we meet the Pythagorean
held2 that the end (r',-os) was always some particular pleasure; antithesis of 1T'paS and 111T€<pov rather than what Aristotle says
and Aristippus said pleasure was good even if arising from I Diogenes Laertius, ii. 88, R.P.9 270.
2 Ibid., ii. 106, RP.9 290.
lOp. cit. 409. 3 Republic oj Plato, H. 523.
2 Diogenes Laertius, ii. 87, R.P,9 266. 4 Diogenes Laertius, vi. 13, R.P. 9 282.
10 THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOOD WITH PLEASURE AND WITH THOUGHT II
was the Platonic substitute 'TO EV and n} fl.Eya Ka~ 7"6 ,.u,Kp6v~ is, however, in Aristotle's theory something we do not find in
may be that the first is more suitable to Socrates as speaker.' the Republic. Plato, as we shall see, seems to treat the Good
Yet it remains that what is discussed by the mouth of as capable indeed of being known, and in fact the only object
Socrates is a question still alive for Plato. of complete knowledge; but also as there to be known,
Here, as in the Philebus, Plato seems to regard those who independently of the knowledge. At least he does not pre-
hold pleasure to be the good as farther from the truth than clude this interpretation, though in the Laws, where Soul
those who identify it with knowledge. His reasons for dissent- rather than the Ideas appears to be the most real of all things,
ing from them are more fully developed in Book IX. He is he has perhaps passed beyond it. And Aristotle wonld have
content at present to say that even its supporters admit some certainly rejected it, for he makes God, who is the supreme
pleasures to be bad. One may suggest one reason in particular, reality, the object of his own thought, so that there is no
connected with the argument of these books, for refusing this Good distinguishable from the intelligence which contem-
identification of good and pleasure. If we consider mere plates the Good. The ultimate separation of mind from
pleasure, in abstraction from all the apprehended features of reality, and the ascription of Goodness to this rather than to
what is found pleasant (and unless we do this, we have no that, are not consistent with Idealism.
right to say that it is the pleasure rather than the other But though the Good is not knowledge or thought, and
features of what is pleasant that makes it good), we find that Plato rightly refuses to treat thought (in the way in which
it is just feeling, of a certain sort, variable in intensity, and Professor G. E. Moorewould treat Consciousness') as indifferent
in its intensest forms least accompanied by any exercise of to the variety of its objects, and the same while they shift
understanding or intelligence. The experience of the good -for the activity of thinking differs as its objects differ-
would not then guarantee itself by the fact that we at the yet the Good is akin to thonght or knowledge, in that it is
same time understood the goodness of it-which is what grasped thereby. If the universe is to be known to be good,
Plato wants. Nor would it be easy to find the key to an its goodness mnst be intelligible, an idea and not a mere
understanding of the universe in its goodness. For the quality of feeling.
system and harmony in it, and all that our efforts to under- A mistake the same in principle with that which Plato
stand it discover, seem to have little connexion with mere imputes to those who identify ayaB6v and <pp6v"Y)a<s is some-
intensity of feeling, of which beasts may be as capable as men.2 times made to-day, when we are bidden to find something
That the good is knowledge, or <pp6v"Y)a<s, Plato regarded also good and admirable in the conformity to law displayed by the
as an unsatisfactory doctrine; to know, or think, is good, but physical world. The intricate and varied detail in plants and
only if the object of your thought or knowledge is so. ~ ot.. animals, its connexion with the succession of the seasons, the
'T(. 'TT'Aiov €Tvat ... 1TaV'Ta ra;\Aa g;pove(;v av~ 'TOV aya8oiJ, KaAov whole stupendous procession of cosmic change, may all depend
8. I<al ayaBJv ","y)8'v <ppov.'v (505 E). Something similar is sald on comparatively few and simple laws. But it is only if the
by Aristotle. 3 He describes the divine life as pure intelligence; detailed result in which these laws are exhibited is good, that
but it must be intelligence of what is best, ~ v6"Y)a<s ~ l<a8' au- the laws can be called so. Mere conformity to law in the pro-
I D) ... I
f \ , \, 2\ 1\ h
TrJV TOV Kau aUTO apuprov, Kat '1} fJ-lJ.I\tc7Ta 'TOV fJ-al\tUTa.4 T ere duction of results, without regard to the nature of the results
I f'
Taylor, op. cit., 408. Z Cf. Rass, The Right and the Good, p. 149.
produced, is not good.
3 Met. A. vii. I072 18. 4 Cf. Rass, The Right and the Good, p. 148. I Principia Ethica, p. 28.
I2 THE GOOD PLEASURE AND THOUGHT
And we should bear this in mind in trying to understand
Plato's teleology. Nettleship, in the § x I have already CHAPTER HI
referred to, does not bring this out. I The teleological view, THE RELATION OF THE GOOD TO OTHER
he says, 'simply consists in seeing everywhere a certain OBJECTS. THE SUN, THE LINE,
function to be exercised, a certain work to be done, a certain AND THE CAVE
end or good to be worked out.' 'The Good of anything is to
be or do what it is meant to be or do.' 'To put the matter in
a summary way: the word "good" means that which any-
T HE main positive teaching of Plato regarding the Goodis
of great importance to an understanding of his thought
generally, and is contained in the passage 506 D-509 c, but the
thing is meant to do or to be.' 'A man's life is morally good interpretation of it cannot be separated from that ofthe whole
in proportion as it exhibits purpose, and not merely purpose, passage to the end of Book VII, and much controversy besets
but a purpose going beyond himself.' All this identification many sections in this passage. The general position is clear.
of end and good ignores the question whether there may not The Good is the ",'ytfrrov ",<i8rwa, to a knowledge of which the
be bad ends. No doubt we often use the word 'good' of that rulers of the city must attain, if they are to know the true
which fulfils its purpose, without regard to the nature of the nature of their task and carry it out. We must therefore
purpose; Charles Peace may be a good burglar. But just as devise an education which will bring them to that knowledge;
knowledge is not good because good is the proper object of but as it is only by way of such education that it can be
knowledge, so neither is the end of a purposive activity good reached, the knowledge cannot be imparted to us now. All
because good is the proper end of purposive activity. At that is now possible is to indicate the relation of this to other
least it must be shown, on the one hand, that only the good objects of knowledge, and make us understand how and why
is completely intelligible, and therefor~ knowledge in the full the knowledge of it is so central and important, and why the
sense can have no other object; and on the other hand, that education prescribed may be expected to help to the attain-
only the good can be the object of rational purpose-i.e. of ment of that knowledge. In pursuance of this undertaking,
purpose in which there is noself-contradiction-and therefore Plato offers us first a simile, in which the plan and function of
purposive activity in the full sense can have no other object. the Good among other objects of knowledge is compared to
Nettleship does not bring this out: but it is, I think, part of that of the sun, its visible offspring, among other objects of
Plato's meaning. sight (506 D-509 c). Then (509 D-5II E) he sets out diagram-
Cf. pp. 222-8. matically, by help of a line divided in certain proportions,
the relations of clearness and obscurity between different
levels of understanding; and between their objects. Then at
the beginning of Book VII (5I5 A-520 A), he offers us an
allegory to depict the present state of men, whom he com-
pares to prisoners in a cavern underground, and to contrast
it with that of those whom education has rescued and brought
to an apprehension of the real; and then proceeds to sketch
the sort of education by which such a rescue may be effected.
The divisions I have given are not sharp; later sections take
14 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS THE SUN, THE LINE, AND THE CAVE 15
up again points in those before them. And the view you may (I) that it is not knowledge, nor yet (I suppose Plato would
take of the meaning of each section-the Simile of the Sun,
add) the intelligence in which knowledge is found; (2) yet
or the Line, Or the Cave-will depend on the view you take
truth and knowledge are of all things most akin to the good;
of the others. On many points that will arise, it is, I think,
(3) being the cause of knowledge, it makes not only oth:r
impossible to have a very definite opinion, though one may
indicate the issues, and one's own inclination. forms but itself known; (4) not only is it the cause of their
being known, but of their being, thongh no more to be
The Simile of the Sun, however, taken by itself, is, I think,
identified with being than with knowledge. So, as the eye
not difficult to understand. Socrates cannot, he says, show
sees clearly that on which the light of the sun shines, but
us the good, but he will show us its offspring, which is most
like to it. He recalls us to the old distinction between the blinks dintly in the presence of that on which only the lights
many things of various kinds, and the kinds themselves or of night are shining, the soul also understands that which is
13.10.&; the first are objects of sight, the second of under- illuminated by truth, but has only dim and shifting opinion
standing. He goes on to say that there is the same distinction of that which becomes and perishes; and as the sun is the
between the one form and the many sensibles in the obi ects noblest member of the visible world, so is the Good supreme
of other senses, but does not here at any rate substitute for in dignity and power in the intelligible. And Plato adds in
the contrast between vOTJTd and apara one between VO'1)Tct and VII. 5IB E that as you cannot put sight into a man, but ~nly
o.lerOrrrd. generally. On the contrary, he draws particular turn his eyes to the light that he may see, so understandmg,
attention to a difference between sight and other senses ~ TOV cppovfjero.& ap<-nl, is something which cannot ~e produ~ed
which is of great importance for his Simile. In order that you in a man by edu.cation and training, like other virtues which
may hear me, nothing more is needed than speech on my side, we call virtues of the soul, but which are almost like bodily
and hearing on yours; but in order that you may see me, it is excellences; its nature is more godlike, and it cannot lose its
not enough that there should be the visible surface of me on power. but by being turned to the good can be made helpful
one side, and sight on yours: a third thing, light, is needed, instead of mischievous.
if colours are to be seen; and the source of it is a god, the Clearly here Plato's main purpose is to illustrate, by the
SUn in heaven, whose light makes us see most clearly, and Simile of the Sun's Light, and what it does for the growth of
makes the seen clearly seen. Now of the sun in relation to things in the visible world and the see.ing of. them, ~hat ,:~ich
sight we may say these things: (1) it is neither sight, nOr the the Good does for the being of objects m the mtelllgtble
eye in which sight is found; (2) the eye, however, of all organs world and the understanding of them: so that if he had
of sense is most akin to it, and gets thence its power; (3) spoken of the sensible world, and considered other senses
being the cause of sight, it not only makes other things visible, than seeing, the illustration could not hav~ proceeded; an~
but itself also; (4) it is the cause not only of things being seen, although in soB D it is the world of generatIOn an~ decay, .TO
but of their generation, growth, and nourishment, though no y'y,,,ip.<vov Ko.! a.".o>'>'vp..vov, that is contrasted With ~e ~n
more itself generation than it is sight. And what the sun is telligible world, as what we dimly see u~der the stars IS w:th
in the visible world, that the Good, or Form of Good, is in what we see by daylight, this is mentIOned as somethmg
relation to intelligible things and to intelligence. As one is belonging to what is symbolized, and not .to the. symbol. !he
the source of light, so is the other of truth, and we may say: point is of some importance in conneXlOn With questIOns
about the interpretation of the Line.
It must be admitted that when we press the analogy points to as the goal of philosophic education, and believes
between symbol and symbolized, difficulties appear. Know- to be achievable, only that here nothing is said of an in-
ledge and truth apparently correspond with sight and light; telligence working: for he is not considering generation. And
but truth can hardly mediate between knowledge and reality the distinction between explanation through the Good and
as light is conceived to mediate between sight and colonr. explanation through Ideas corresponds with the unique
Nor does Plato's conception of the function of light as an position here assigned to the Good, although it is now called
intermediary bear investigation. But the analogy serves very ~ 13'a ToD aya80D. We may consider separately what is said
well, nevertheless, to indicate to us the part which the Good of it as a source of intelligibility and understanding, and as
plays in the uuiverse and in our knowledge of it. a source of being in the objects of understanding.
There is a well-known passage in the Phaedo (96 A-<)9 D), That in some sense to know things is to know them through
to which Leibniz more than once refers with admiration, their caUses is admitted by all who do not reject the notion of
where Socrates describes his discontent with the explanations cause. The sciences attempt to satisfy men's desire to know,
of the <pV(nOAoyo" and the causes they assigned for things, and by showing how the existence of one thing is connected with
tells with what excitement he first heard that Anaxagoras the previous or simultaneous existence of others, and one
had declared mind (voDs) to be the cause of thiugs. If that event happens because others have happened before, the
were so, says Socrates, a man seeking to explain the genera- same general laws or principles of action being exhibited
tion or destruction or the being of anything, should show how throughout. In this way coherence and some degree of unity
it is best for it so to be or change; about everything the proper are introduced into our view of the world. But it is a common-
subject of inquiry is what is best---r6 r'lPUITOV I<a~ r6 f3'ATta'TOV. place that this method of explanation falls short of its goal.
But great was his disappointment, when on reading the book It leaves us with an unexplained residuum: something which,
he found none but physical causes assigned after all (for the if granted, makes the rest intelligible, but for whose own being
voDs of Anaxagoras was a very subtle matter which pene- no reason can be assigned. The ultimate, as opposed to the
trated between the parts of grosser bodies and so disposed derivative, laws of nature are such a residuum. So are the
them), as if the reason why Socrates was sitting talking in material constituents of the world, for though we may
prison, instead of being off to Megara or Boeotia, were to be reduce the multiplicity of the elements to protons and
found in his bones and sinews, and not in the fact that it had electrons diversely arranged, these at any rate we must
seemed best to the Athenians to condemn him, and to him accept as we find them; they are, in Bacon's phrase, res
to obey their sentence. These physical facts may be a sine positiva et surda, and, for all we can see, might have been
qua non, rtVEV OV'T6 a,tnov 01)K /Lv 7TO'T' Et')] aZnov. But the true otherwise. Mill again has pointed out that what he calls the
cause, he was convinced, was the Good. And most gladly original collocations of matter are in like case. The solar
would he learn from anyone of this; but since he could system may be explained on the nebular hypothesis, but why
neither discover for himself, nor learn of others, how it works, was all that matter aggregated once in such a way that a
he had adopted as second best another line of explanation, solar system must arise from it? Herbert Spencer offered the
through Ideas, which he goes on to describe. instability of the homogeneous as a reason why the nebula
What Socrates in the Phaedo says he could not work out, should pass into this differentiated arrangement; but if the
the explanation of things through the Good, is what here he nebula was homogeneous (and of course it was not) it is as
4380.8 c
18 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS THE SUN. THE LINE. AND THE CAVE 19
much a brute fact that there was a homogeneous as that hension of that goodness gives us knowledge, or makes us
there should be a heterogeneous aggregate. Even mathema- understand. If we find anything evil. or indifferent and
tics, though free from the infinite regress of efficient causes worthless. we ask why it should be. as we do not ask about
that perplexes us in the physical sciences, and having no facts what is good. The same reaSon in man which rebels against
which we think might have been otherwise, may leave us contradiction rebels against evil; and does not find intelligible
asking why there should be such things as space and time or what is evil, any more than what is contradictory. Coherence
the number-series at all. At this stage of the problem, when by itself is not enough. This is why we speak of the 'problem
things have been so far explained that, given certain starting- of evil' : we should not speak correspondingly of a problem of
points, the rest appears coherent with itself and them, but good. In that we acquiesce and are content; but for what is
no reason can be given why the starting-points are as we evil we seek a reason why it is not otherwise. In this way
find them, the mind, as Bacon says, ad ulteriora tendens, ad ethical and metaphysical issues run together.
proximiora recidit. It suggests an explanation through the But it is important to understand the peculiar character of
end or final cause, as we explain our own actions. (It is true this predicate, Good. Its goodness. we may say. is not a
that Bacon thought this improper in science: the final cause, quality of that which is good. but the whole essence or being
tanquam virgo consecrata deo nihil parit.) And this is in of it. If honey is sweet, the sweetness is the same in each
principle the same as finding the cause of things in intelli- drop of the honey. and the nature of sweetness can be learnt
gence or voiJ", as Plato in the Phaedo indicates. For it is of by tasting any drop. But the goodness of what is good is not
the nature of intelligence to act purposively, whereas in a the same in each part or detail of what is good, for all the
mechanical system changes occur as a result of what has details are necessary to its presence, and if any were altered.
preceded, without any reference to what may come. But the this goodness would not be present. though some other
purposive action of an intelligent being is, in Plato's view, character. not of perfect goodness, might be present instead.
directed to what is Good; no such being would intentionally In the myth of Genesis, God saw the world that it was good;
produce evil, and to produce it without intending argues and it was because of what he had created in it. He could
defect either of power or intelligence. But here we are dealing not have created the same things, but made it evil. There are
with the uncreated. The reason for the existence of the whole other characters which in the same way are unitary, or belong
then is to be sought in the fact that it is good. Now we think to the unity which is constituted of many parts. without
of such 'final causality' generally in connexion with a process being a common quality of the parts. The genius of Napoleon.
in time, where the goodness of what is to follow is the ground for example, is not anything of which we can conceive his
. for bringing into being the preceding means. But Plato nature deprived. yet remaining otherwise the same. But the
thinks of it also in connexion with what is eternal. The best example is furnished by what is beautiful. The beauty of
goodness of the whole explains the detail of the parts. We a beautiful thing-poem, or piece of music. or building-is
may come back to this point in a moment; it is what he one. but not as the colour of the sky is one when it is blue.
means by saying that the Good is the cause of being to all It is not to be found in any part separately, nor in all of them
that is intelligible. But first we may consider how the fact of together as an aggregate, but as they make a unity. That it
its goodness may be taken to render anything intelligible; should be there, the parts must be different from one another,
and this is, of course, at the same time to say that the appre- having severally their own qualities; but those qualities are
20 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS THE SUN, THE LINE, AND THE CAVE 2I
not instances of the beauty in the whole, as the blue of the the rest. But the world might be bettet for containing
sky in the zenith is an instance of the colour pervading it. them all.
And if you ask what makes the poem beautiful, what can Now of the Good, in Plato's view, that is not true. 'Good'
you do but recite the poem? There is nothing in it which does is no doubt a common predicate of many subjects. But
not help to make it beautiful, supposing it to be a perfect whether they are rightly called good we cannot know, so long
poem. as we do not look beyond them. A man, he says, is not
We try indeed to find general conditions common to the satisfied with anything short of the absolute good, the good
structure of all beautiful things, or to all of some one genus. itself, the best, not in the comparative sense, as when we say
But even if we were successful, they are insufficient to account 'the best of a bad lot', but what, as it were, completely fills
for the beauty of any; since each beautiful thing has a dis- the notion of goodness. And that must be one; for if there
tinct beauty. This detachment as it were of one beautiful were any good falling outside it, the full nature of goodness
thing from another is (as Collingwood pointed out in his would not be realized in it. Anything less than the whole
Speculum Mentis, although he would not claim it for his own therefore is incapable of displaying or containing the full
discovery) one of their most characteristic marks. Each act goodness which the whole contains. Its justification is that
of aesthetic appreciation is new; they do not form a genuine it is necessary to the being of that full goodness in the whole
whole. Nevertheless Plato speaks of beauty as if it were of which it is a constituent part. So the goodness of Justice
a single form, aVT() 1'6 KaMv (Collingwood indeed denies cannot be securely established, till we can see that the being
that KaMosmeans beauty'). He may have thought that of Justice, as one element in the whole scheme of things, is
though particular beautiful things differed qua beautiful (as necessary to the being of that full goodness which only the
he points out inPhilebus I2 E that colours differqua colour, at whole scheme contains.
the same time that they are the same qua colour) yet it was The expressions ath'6 76 aya06v and ~ l3'a TOV dyaOov mean
possible theoretically to exhaust the forms of beauty, and to the same thing. But what I am trying to bring out can
see how the nature of beauty is capable only of differentiating perhaps be made clearer, if we regard 1'6 cJ.ya06v as goodness,
itself into just these forms. The infinite reproduction of in- d:ya(}6'T'f}S and 'TovayaOov as genitive of a nl aya86v which is
J
stances of the same form is a question with which in the not goodness, but the subject displaying goodness. That
Philebus he refuses to be concerned. In some cases this in- subject is the VO'f}T6S K6"p.os, the system of ideas, the eternal
sight into the differentiation of a genns seems possible to us. plan, perhaps we might say, imperfectly realized in the
We understand how number must be odd or even a line sensible world. Its goodness gives the reason for the details
straight or curved, a conic section elliptic, parabolic, hyper- 0; of it, and they are good because it is shown in them.
bolic. Even so, the beauties of different beautiful things It is in this way that I think we are to understand the state-
would not, by their diverse natures, make them parts of one ment of 509 B, that to what is known not only its being
absolutely beautiful thing: as in anyone among them the known comes from the good, but also 76 €lval TE KO.' -r1]V
features of its parts make them parts of one particular ov,,!av 7Tpo"eLva£. It has sometimes been objected to Plato
beautiful thing. Beautiful things remain detached, each that he ought to have spoken thus not of any abstract
complete in itself, not owing its beauty to the existence of character in the real, but only of a spiritual being, or God:
I 'Plato's Philosophy of Art'. Mind, N.S., val. xxxiv (1925), p. 161. at any rate, that he here assigns to the Idea of Good the
function which others, and he elsewhere, assigns to God. 'In contradictory; it implies that a condition can be found on
the Timaeus', says Nettleship (op. cit., p. 232), 'the supreme which that which is the condition of all else depends. It asks
power in the universe is described in a personal way, ,;n the why anything exists at all; and that question posits as con-
Republic it is described in what we call an abstract way .... ceivable, that there might be nothing at all, and since it is
!he "form of the good" in the Republic occupies the place conceivable, asks why it is not actual; whereas in putting
m regard both to morals and to science which the conception the question, we unconsciously show that we have failed to
of God would occupy in a modern philosophy of morals and conceive the case alleged to be conceivable. We have asked
nature, if that philosophy considered the conception of God why what is possible is not actual, forgetting that it is
as essential to its system.' This does not seem to me cor- meaningless to speak of possibility, except in some set of
rect. The Timaeus is concerned with explaining the sensible actual conditions, so that we have not conceived complete
world, I in which there is coming to be and passing away, and non-existence as possible, since if nothing is, nothing is
God, or the 0"lIuovpy6s, is said to have looked to the Good and possible. How can there be anything in the nature of things
to have fashioned the sensible world as nearly as possible preventing the otherwise possible alternative that there
after the likeness of that. Here we are concerned with the should be no nature of things? We should give as a reason
intel.ligible world, in which there is no coming-to-be nor why there is not nothing, the fact that there is something,
passmg-away. The Good, therefore, cannot be a Cause of being and offer what is as the explanation of itself. A question that
to what is known precisely as the sun is of growth to what is can only be answered thus is a senseless question, which
seen; for in this there is process, but not in that; what is ought not to be asked. But though we must not ask, why
know~ has ~o Creator. I described the intelligible world just anything at all is, we may ask why what is is thus and thus;
now, m WhICh alone complete goodness is displayed, as the and Plato says that the only adequate answer is, that being
eternal plan of things. It is this and not the goodness of it thus it is good. Similarly, if we asked why God is thus, we
which might be said to take the same place in the Republic could give no other answer. Leibniz held that the created
as the Creator takes in the Timaeus. If Plato, as has been world is as it is, because if it were anywise different it would
said, here 'hypostatizes an abstraction', it is because he finds be less good: in that sense it is the best of all possible worlds.
the ultimate reality in a system of Ideas, rather than because E.ut it was brought into being by the free decrees of God, to
he finds it in the Form of the Good. For that we cannot whose intelligence the natures of all possible worlds are
substitute God for the Form of the Good may be seen eternally present. If we then ask, why God freely chose to
from the fact that what Plato says of the relation of the bring this world rather than one of the other possible worlds
Form of the Good to the intelligible world might be said into being, we can only say 'because he is good'. But a God
equally of its relation to God. In the sense in which the whose plans and whose activities were different would him-
being and essence of the intelligible world are due to it self be different. The reason therefore why God is as he is, is
the being and essence of God might equally be said to be. W; to be found in his goodness: that is to him the cause, in the
do not ask why God exists; we can ask, as Aristotle says, Tt same sense as for Plato to the intelligible world, of TO .Cva, Kal
<UT" & 0.6s; but not 0,,1 Tt; For to ask why that exists which rljv ovalav 71'POCfE'iVUL.
is the ultimate real, and whereon all else depends, is self- The Form of the Good then is not one among the other
I Cf. the passage from the Phaedo mentioned on p. 6. forms, to which being belongs and which are objects of
THE SUN, THE LINE, AND THE CAVE
24 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS
four parts in all and th 25
knowledge. From one point of view, reality is exhausted in the fourth" the 'fi t de first : the second :: the third'
.. rs an second togeth' . .
them. That which is good, and the goodness of it, are the fourth together. It f0 IIows from th' th er . the thIrd and
same; for nothing of what is good fails to contribute to that not mention it that th IS,· ough Plato does
, e second d th'
goodness which consists in its being just all that it is. From same length . The I I' an Ird are of the
. ower Ine re t'
another point of view, its goodness is something beyond se~ments represent respectivel pres.en mg the visible, its
everything contained in our description of what is good: for thmgs of men's maki d y ammals and plants and
we describe it by running over its constituent parts, the Forms their reflections in n g , an the shadows of these and
. wat er or any smooth f
which are the various objects of our knowledge; and its Images (.ldvES) are to th' " sur ace. These
elf ongmals .
goodness is none of these. This, which I think we can under- falseness as are the obJ' ecsoopini t f m respect of truth or
St'
stand in principle, though we cannot verify it in a complete knowledge, yvwC1Ta. Th . on, o~aaTa, to those of
apprehension of the real and of its goodness, is what Plato ligible or knowable is t e ~pper hne, representing the intel-
in 510 C-E. Summ~rily the S:~!ivided i~ a way described
0
means when he says that this goodness is bTI.KEtVa 'Tfjs ovalas
R' Kat.\~,
7TpEGpEtCf ~,
ovvap..Ef.. V7TEPEXOV, as the sun surpasses every- ideas or forms studied.' t: Ig er portIOn represents the
thing else in the visible world. (Ct. the scholastic doctrine what is studied in geo~nt e p~ocess of dialectic, the lower
that God is not good but goodness.) corresponding to th ert Y an the kindred sciences. And
. e con ents of th f
509 C-511 E. In further development of the same Simile objects respectively of knowled e ese . ~ur segments, or
of the Sun, T~V 7TEpt TdV ~i\"ov 0fLotb-n1'ra., Socrates introduces four conditions of th . d
emm or soul 'TT e~
g and OpInIOn, Plato names
,,,
the diagram of the Line. He proposes thereby to help out the vO')7'6v generally v07]a~s, , and to ' th0. ,)1-'0.7'IJ. .v 7'T! ",vXV"' to
f I ,. •
his account of the relation of the visible tothe intelligible, the Ideas vovs or J I e 0paTOV, Soga; but to
, 0 vo~u's, and to the
• ' 'TTu:rTrJf1,,1J as one form f '
in which the Sun and the Good are respectively sovereign. objects of mathematical t Ud
Of the interpretation of his Simile so far I feel little doubt. he distinguishes rriu7"S as tSh ~, &<o.vo<o., whIle within Mgo.
.. e mInd's co d't' .
What is to follow raises questions much more uncertain. vlSlble originals and' , . n llon m face of the
• J €LKaaLa as Its c d 't' .
Images. These terms h on 1 IOn In face of their
. ' owever, are not II d .
We are to take a line (a vertical line, as the dVWTl.pW, K(t-rW, sIstently: in 5 D" a use qUIte con-
II vO,)U« IS used in dist' t'
A and dVWT<t7·w of 5II A and Dimply) as appropriate to t h 'o .' mc IOn from S"lvo,o.
e <to'), eqUIvalently t " '
vovs, ;~,_ and divide it into unequal parts: 533 E he reverts to uSI'ng" 0 vovs, though in
VO,)U« m the
a<~~~ ,l~~ the upper represents the intelligi- sense, and takes J'TTLa~ th more comprehensive
V6'1)UtS' V01']'TOV
ble, Tb vooVp..evov, and the lower the . . ',1-'') as e term appr . t .
The relatIOn insisted 0 n b et ween the opna e to Ideas.
J!€VOV or So~aaT6v generall . V01JTOV and the opdJ~
I
D visible, T6 OpWp..EVOV ; and the upper d
is the longer; for the ratio of their . y, an agam with'
th e objects of dialectical d th In each between
c lengths symbolizes how the two scientific study and b t an.. ose of mathematical and
~cea> , . , e ween vlSlble thi d
'"tans <0 .pvm<ov, spheres are related in respect of and Images resembling th . ( ngs an the shadows
1'0 UK€Vo.- dpa:Tov clearness and obscurity, aarprr clearness. In each propor~:~ ISth:S was said) o~e of truth or
VElq. Ka.~ aaa.rp€lq.. We are then to clear, than the lower 'iI n' '. P upper term IS truer, more
• 0. ,)u.sm It' f
E subdivide each segment in the true thought grasps, the real' d a 0 '~ 0 ten used of what
ElKaala.1uKtcd. ElKOVES'.
same ratio, so that there are ,an that IS clear, uo.~.!s, which
B
does not leave us puzzled about itself or mistaken-a thing several mysterious passages. Plato imagines such a passage,
c~ea~ly seen, so that we recognize it for what it is, words wide and opening into a cave-chamber, and along the opening
dlstmctly heard, a message leaving us in no doubt as to the men are sitting bound since childhood by their legs and
events, an oracle that does not mislead. As the whole passage necks, so that they cannot look round, but only before them
professes to continue the Simile of the Sun, we might suppose towards the inner face of rock; while behind, on a higher level
Plato to mean that as the sun's light shining on them is the and some way back, a fire is burning. Between this and the
cause of the greater clearness of the higher visibles, so, in a prisoners, but above them, all along the width of the opening,
sphere anyway clearer than are they, is the good the cause of a wall has been built, and under the wall, on the fire side of
the greater clearness of the higher intelligibles. But he has it, men go to and fro, holding up above it figures of men and
been held to mean a great deal more than this. animals and things of all sorts. Of these the prisoners see the
shadows pass and repass, and that is all they see. Those who
514 A-517 A. The reason for imputing these pro- carry these marionettes sometimes speak, and their voices
~ounde~ meanings lies in the Allegory of the Cave, which come to the prisoners in echo from the face of the cave; but
lI:,medl~tely follows the account of the Line, and by Plato the prisoners think it is the shadows that are speaking. The
hllllse.lf IS connected with it. This allegory is a figure of our galanty show is their world; they have no acquaintance with
state In respect of education and its contrary. 7TatOetas rE 7dpt any other. How then can they be freed from their chains,
Ku1 a1TU<a.VO'{us. I think it is important to ask What is meant and cured of their folly, a,ppoO'vv7J? If one of them were
?y d1TaL&evala. An infant is in a sense a7Tal8evTos, but its state released, and made to stand up and turn round and walk
IS not that of an uneducated man. a1TU<a.VO'{u is not that towards the fire, and raise his eyes towards it, the whole
undeve~op~d phase, of which 1TU<a.{U is one possible develop- process would be painful to him: 7Td.V'Ta 'Tavra l7O,6)V aAyot:,
ment: It IS the other and contrary development of this. 515 c. He would be dazzled, so that he could not clearly see
~orgzas 52 7 D gives an excellent example of its meaning. 'It the things whose shadows he had seen before; he would not
IS a shame', says Socrates, 'that being as it now appears we be able to recognize and name them, and if he were told they
are, we should then plume ourselves as men of some worth were more real, and the shadows but foolery, would refuse to
w~e~eas on the same matters we never keep to the sam~ believe. And if he were made to look directly at the fire itself,
opmlOns, and those matters the greatest-so rude are we the pain would make him turn away back towards the
become' els TOO'OUTOJ) 7]KOfLEV a1TaLoevutas. It is this state of
J
shadows. If then he were forcibly dragged up the rough and
men, and the contrasted state which by a proper education steep ascent into the light of the sun, he would at first be in
may be gained, and the nature of the transition from one to agony, and on first coming out would be unable to see any-
the other, that the Allegory of the Cave presents.' thing. But as his eyes grew stronger, he could bear to look
. Plato is supposed to have been thinking of a cave in the first on the shadows of things, and then on their reflections
hills between Athens and Sunium. There is a slit in the hill- in water or other images of them, and then on things them-
side, like a deep hole, running about ten feet down, steep and selves, and then upon the stars and the heavens by night,
smooth, on to a sort of platform; and thence steps have been and at last upon the sun itself and not an image of it, and
cut to a lower level whence the ground slopes away into understand how it brought the seasons and years, and ruled
I Cf. also Gorgias, 510 B, &1TOV Tvpa.vv6s EUTn.' r'lpXCl.JV ciyptos Ka~ a1Tal8evTos. all in the visible world, and was the cause in a way of what
even the prisoners saw. If then he remembered whence he first learn the great lesson, and then descend again among the
had come, and what had counted there for wisdom, where it prisoners, even though unwillingly; for we remember that the
was counted knowledge to guess from their order in the past well-being of one kind in the state must give way to that of
how the shadows would follow each other in the future he the whole, and these men's privileges have been given them
could set little store by the praise of those men, and think that they may serve the rest, as all should, and that state is
a?y lot in the sunlight better than to live and believe as they best ruled where men are least anxious to rule it, because
dId. And should he return to his old seat, at first the now they know of something better than what power can secure.
unfamiliar darkness, like the unfamiliar light before, would And it is the philosopher who has this knowledge; so that
confuse his sight, and his jUdgements about the shadows we may next consider what education will bring a man to
would be less correct than those of his old fellow-prisoners; philosophy. This brings the conversation to a discussion
and they would jeer at him, and say that he had ruined his (521 c-531 c) of certain mathematical studies which should
eyes by his ascent, and threaten with death anyone who belong to this education: a discussion which we may defer
should try to release them and lead them up. for the present. They belong to the level of ehavo"", and are
This figure or allegory, Socrates says, is to be connected only an overture to the main melody, Success in them does
in its entirety-------rav'T')}v ~v €l«6va 7Tpoaa1TTt.ov a1Taaav-with not make a dialectician. It is only by a training in dialectic
what was said before, likening (dq,0I'.otoiJVTa) to the Cave this (532 A) that the scholar may come to know what he needs
visible seat, and to the firelight in it the sun's power; while must know-that intelligible melody (v6(<os) of which sight
the ascent to the sight of things above means the soul's furnishes a figure or imitation-sight, which we said should
ascent to the intelligible world, where it sees at length and strive to look on living things themselves (and not their
hardly the Form of the Good, aud understands how it is the shadows) and the stars and at last upon the sun. The training
cause of all that is right and fair, begetting light and its lord in the mathematical sciences is for the soul a preparation
the s~n in the visible region, giving truth and intelligeuce, so whereby its best power may be brought to see what is best in
that It must be seen by whoever is to live wisely as private the realm of being, as the successive stages in the prisoner's
man or statesman. And those who have reached this vision release up to and including his looking on the shadows and
do not willingly thereafter mingle in the business of men and reflections of things in the sunlight were a preparation,
at first if they come back to it cut a poor figure in law-c~urts whereby the clearest of the bodily senses might be brought to
and elsewhere, compelled to contend with men about shadows gaze on what is brightest of bodies and in the visible sphere.
of what is just, or images by which the shadows are cast (,,<pI But Socrates refuses, as one may say, to produce this dia-
TWV TOV D('Katov UKtWV ~ ayaAJ1.aTwv mv at uK('at, 517 D). But a lectic; Glaucon must be content with the figure which he
wise man will remember that one may be blinded by passing has given of it. Something more is said, however, about the
fro~ light to darkness, as well as from darkness to light, and difference of procedure between it and the thinking of Ihavo,a,
not Jeer equally at the first with the second. And we have to mathematical thinking, as we may call it; the word 3,avo,a
ask what education will effect the conversion of the soul is defended, because we want to indicate something clearer
so that it may see the light, for we cannot trust the State t~ than SOga, though less clear than i1Tt(n~",'fJ (as had been said
those who have not been so trained; but neither must they in 5II D, fL€'Ta6$ 'T'f, S6g1]S 'rE Ka~ voD) ; anyway, we are reminded
stay always in those speculations. The best natures must (533 E-534 A) that there are these four divisions, i1TtO"nl"''fJ
,I
I
1
[;
I
30 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS

3 ' I , ,
tavom 'mans ELKaata : that the first two are v6'Y)(fts, the second
two S6ga , concerned respectively with ovalu and YEV€Uts' and
CHAPTER IV
that what ouota, is to ,,'VEalS, vc51]ut-s is to 86~a' and ~hat
v6'l'luts
"I
is to cS of,a,
' t . 'E7f'('UT'Y)/l!Yj
I • t ' '
IS 0 '71'tuns and SL(ivota to dKaala' THE LINE AND THE CAVE-DIFFICULTIES OF
the same relation among their respective objects we need no~ INTERPRETATION CONSIDERED
dwell upon. The relation throughout is doubtless one of
HAVE tried in this abstract to emphasize the parts which
cl:arness and obscurity. The rest of the book is concerned
wl~h more practical details about the selection of those
I have most bearing on the problems connected with the
interpretation of the whole. If we had only the Simile of the
sUitable for this training and the years to be devoted to the
several parts of it. Sun, I do not think there would be much difficulty; if we had
that and the Line, we might think the second did not help
much, but we should be prepared to treat it as being what
Plato seems to offer it for, a continuation of the Simile. The
Sun and its place in what is visible are an analogue of the
Good and its place in what is intelligible. It was called the
offspring of the Good. We are now given a new metaphor of
the relation between the YVW0"7'6v and the Sogaa7'6v, that of an
original and its copy, and we may expect to find in the copy
something which will illustrate what is to be found in the
original. That the copy is called Soguu7'6v instead of &pa7'6v
need not surprise us. Our main theme is that the vision of
the Good alone makes the true nature of being clear to us ;
what is illumined only by its offspring or image will be less
clear than what is illumined by itself, and will be matter
therefore of Mga, not of yv6lats. Within each field, the clearer
and the less clear, we may distinguish parts in the same
relation; in the visible world, we may study things in their
shadows or reflections, or may study them directly; in the
intelligible world we may study forms, ideas, as they appear
to the mathematician, who helps himself out by sensible
diagrams and models, or we may study them directly, with
no appeal to sense; and as the greater clearness about visibles
comes when we look at them in direct relation to the light of
the sun, and not at one remove, in the shadows or reflections
of them which the sun produces, so the greater clearness
about intelligibles is reached when we look at them in direct
relation to the light of the good.
32 THE LINE AND THE CAVE-DIFFICULTIES OF INTERPRETATION CONSIDERED 33
This, I think, is a fair acconnt ofthe interpretation ofthe Line the visible sphere; but at the level of 8"fvo<a we do not clearly
advocated by Professor Stocks.' On this view, the reference apprehend their particular natures. 8,,!vo<a is not concerned
to the realm of 86ga is illnstrative only. The Line no donbt is with a different kind of intelligible object from ideas. That
a whole, divided into four segments, within each of which are view has been held. We know from Aristotle that Plato did
placed certain objects of the mind's consideration. But the at some time come to the view that mathematics was con-
Line does not represent the whole range or gamut of being, cerned neither with ideas nor with sensibles, but with an inter-
and there is no attempt to classify exhaustively all possible mediate kind.' (Met. A. vi. 987b14: In 8. ",apa Ta ala87JTa
objects of our consideration. Again, we pass within the Kat\ 'Ta\.,~
€l.O'r] Ta\ p.,u87JfLct'TLKct
, TWV 'r
- 7TpaYILctrwv 'A. (;'
€ vat 'P'Y]UL fLeraf:,v,
visible from €lKaala to 1Tta'TlS regarding the same things, as we '8(,a~'povTa nov p.Jv alaBrJ'rwv rijJ atSL(t Ka2 aKlvrrra elv(tt, rwv SJ
pass within the intelligible from 8<cfvo<a to vovs. It is not €lSwv rip 7(1 ftJv 7ToM' I1TTct 6jLOtU elvut, T6 SJ eloos aVT6 ~v ;Ka-
Plato's point that there are four levels of being, and four UTOP 1"6vov.) It is plain enough why Plato came to suppose this
corresponding stages of intelligence, and that the mind of -arithmetic is concerned with addition, &c. of units, and
man starts at the lowest, and may gradually advance through its units are not sensible things, nor yet are they the common
the intervening stages to the highest. There is a transition nature of them all, unity; geometry is concerned with lines,
from 86ga to v67J(I<S; and each may apprehend its own objects which are not three-dimensional wires or trails of chalk, but
more or less clearly, so that there is also a transition from neither are they linearity--or with intersecting circles, not
elKaala to 7TtCfTIS, and again from OL(tvOtct to poDs or l7TtO"n]/k'1}. the roughly round rings used in the demonstration, but also
But these are not, so to say, on the same journey as that from not circularity. I will come back to this distinction, and the
86ga to vovs. The proportions of the Line are against this; evidence in the text for and against the view that Plato has
for as we saw, the second and third segments are equal: it in mind in the Republic. It is one of the most contested
whereas if Plato had wished to set forth a progress in four points. But, on the present interpretation of the Line, he
stages, he should have given us a continuous proportion in has not.
four terms; and his resources, mathematical and linguistic, But we have not only the Simile of the Sun, and the Line:
were equal to it. .lKaa{a is not the name of a complete attitude there is also the Allegory of the Cave; and of that we are
of mind, in which we live before we pass out of it into ",{ans, told, 'TfpOaa7T,rlov a7Taauv Tots gpmpoaf)ev 'AeyoflivoLS'. It is plain,
as is implied when Nettleship speaks of four stages of in- too, that a conversion and updragging of the soul by means
telligence; neither is 8"fvo<a; though 86ga and v67Jats are. of education from its present to a clearer state is somehow
.1Kaa{a is a state of conjecture or doubt, as opposed to figured; and 532 B seems to describe as stages in a continuous
assurance, about the nature of certain things-not of the process within the figure the turning of the prisoner from the
.lK6v€S, for they may be apprehended clearly enough, but of shadows to the marionettes, and then to the fire, and then to
the things whose images they are: and therefore in .1Kaa{a the shadows and reflections up above, before he is made to
our general view of the nature of the real is the same as in look on things themselves. Does not the allegory then imply
",{ans: it is a world of things in space; our doubt is about the that there is a continuous process from contemplating the
particular nature of these things. Similarly in v67Ja<s, we take objects of .1Kaa{a to contemplating those of ",{ans, and then
as real the intelligible unities which are somehow copied in
I See J. Cook Wilson, 'The Platonist Doctrine of the clavp.f3A'T}TOL dp~e1Lot',
1 Classical Quarterly, I9II, p. 73. Classical Review, 1904, p. 247, § 4, and Statement and Inference, i. 351.
4380.8 D
of 8trivo"" before the Forms? And are not those right who see by the love of analogy (cf. T imaeus, 32 B) to make four terms in-
in the Line a setting out of four stages of mental develop- stead ofthree, although the objects perceived in both divisions
ment, in which men come to know more and more of the of the lower sphere are equally objects of sense.' So Shorey
nature of reality, as they ascend? (Nettleship, pp. 238-4r.) (op. cit., p. 229) speaks of the fourth segment as 'playfully
A consideration of this issue is necessary. And we shall thrown in to secure a symmetry of subdivision in the two
find a great variety of view among interpreters. Nettleship's worlds and to suggest a depth below the lowest depth'. This
view has the support of Adam, I to some extent of J owett and surely is inadequate. Campbell, I while finding a reason for
Campbell, and of E. Caird, and of Professor H. J. Paton in the distinction of 7tta7'~S and elKua{a not in Plato's love of
a paper to be found in the Proceedings of the London Aristote- symmetry, but in his desire to mark a distinction between
lian Society, I922. On the other side you may consult Appearance and Reality in nature, nevertheless regards
Professors P. Shorey,> H. Jackson,' J. L. Stocks,' and reality in nature as something which is not sensible. He
A. S. Ferguson. s might be supposed, therefore, to make the shadows of the
The crux of the matter, if we are to make the Allegory of Cave correspond to the objects of elKaata, and the dyrillp.ara
the Cave correspond with the Line, is in the lowest stage. to those of ",tans; but though the objects of ",tarts are said to
The contents of the lower division of the 6pa-r6v are Q'K~a~ Ka~ be seen, and things on which the sun shines, he says (p. I7)
€lK6v€s, and the prisoners see nothing but shadows; do the that the dyallp.ara 'constitute a lower stage of the ideal .. .
prisoners typify men who see no more of what exists than not the immediately visible, but the truth of phenomena .. .
objects of elKaata? The correspondence of Line and Cave the inftma species', and are not known till we get behind
seems to require it, and yet surely it is not true. Who lives what is seen, though themselves images of something higher.
all his life at this level? Do not common men take for real So in 517 E the ayaAfl-u'Tu wv al aKtU~ 'ToO OtKa{ov are laws, rules
the animals and plants and human works they see, of which of right, intermediate between Justice itself and particulars
the lower Jparri are shadows and images, as the shadows in that are just. A somewhat similar view is offered by E.
the cave are of the marionettes? And yet the prisoners are Caird? The shadows in the Cave being what common men
unaware of the marionettes until the conversion which few take for real, one might expect them to be shadows of the
undergo begins. things in the sunlight: for these typify what is intelligible,
Various methods of dealing with this difficulty have been and the intelligible is the real of which the sensible is an
tried. Jowett 6 boldly says that the first term of the series, image. Yet they are shadows only of marionettes. 'What
i.e. elKaata and its objects, lis nowhere else mentioned, and Plato would suggest by this is, I think', says Caird,
has no reference to any other part of <Plato's> system. Nor, that individual things are not seen as what they are till we have
indeed, does the relation of shadows to objects correspond to turned away from their first appearance and tried to define them.
the relation of numbers to ideas. Probably Plato has been led Then we find, as Plato shows in the fifth Book, that they cannot
I Appendix i to Bk. vii. be defined. They are great or smaJI, good or bad, according to the
2 'The Idea of Good in Plato's Republic', University of Chicago Studies in reference in which they are viewed. We thus discover that they
Classical Philology, val. i, p. 194.
3 Journal of Philosophy, vo!. x, p. 132.
are aK€Vur.rra, combinations of elements which have no real unity,
4- Classical Quarterly, I9II, p. 73. but are merely imitations of real things. We are therefore obliged
S 'Plato's Simile of Light', ib., 1921, p. 131, and 1922, p. IS. I Jowett and Campbell, The Republic of Plato, ii. 16.
6 The Dialogues of Plato Translated into English, vol. 3, rntrod., p. xcv. 2 lb., ii. 14 n.
to go up to the intelligible world in order to find real things, first realm of fancy and poetry and to the world of sense, and he
in the sciences under their subordinate principles, and finally in refers to the early education of childhood and youth in the
dialectic. The process of rising to true knowledge involves two fancies of the poets, though he has said that the distinction
steps: first to turn from the shadows to the marionettes, and then has no reference to any other part of Plato's system. Nettle-
to discover that they are merely artificial figures, and to turn from ship I similarly includes in the state of mind called elKauta
them to the realities they copy. the illusion produced by poetry and rhetoric. 'When Plato
This is ingenious; but do not both Campbell and Caird talks of images', in the Republic-and the <.owAa there must
really make the shadows of the Cave correspond to the con- be placed in this lowest segment along with the UKtat and
tents of both divisions of the opaT6v in the Line? It is true
Plato compares the Cave and ~ 8,
o.p<ws cpatVo,.,.'v"! ~8pa
(517 B), but in the same passage he compares the firelight in
.IK6v« mentioned in Book VI-'he is not thinking specially
of pictures or statues, what he is primarily thinking of is
images produced by words'. 'The literal translation of
it to the power of the sun; for what the comparison is worth, elKaa{a is imagination', not in the deeper sense in which we
therefore, fire and marionettes and shadows should all corre- say a poet is a man of great imagination, but in the super-
spond to sensibles, and the sight of the marionettes and of ficial sense in which we call a man 'a slave of his own imagina-
the fire (like that of the shadows) to something in ordinary tion'. The great body of men are, in Plato's view, in that
sense-experience, not to stages in the soul's attempt to pass sort of state. What occupies their minds and what they take
beyond this. for real is of the nature of shadows, illusion. They have not
We may say with Cook Wilson ' that there is no such come into first-hand contact with facts, and so their judge-
differentiation in the Cave as corresponds to the division of ments are conjectural. When they learn of things directly,
the lower part of the Line, and blame the natural stubborn- and not through report of others and popular prejudice, they
ness of allegorical material for this failure of correspondence. have 'lTtUTtS, certainty. But for the most part we take the
But if the distinction between the objects of 'lTtrTT<S and of shadows for real (the picture, say, of the British Empire raised
.IKauta as it is explained in the acconnt of the Line does not in men's minds by the Communist Press), like the prisoners
appear in the Cave, whence, rather than from the Line, the in the Cave, and are at the level of ElKaala.
notion of stages in the soul's continuous ascent to knowledge Much the same view is taken by Adam. Noting that the
must be fetched, why did Plato make such a point of it in the bpaT6v of the Line is also called oogauT6v, he treats as un-
Line? Can we not after all find an interpretation of .IKauta important in connexion with the interpretation of this seg-
and its objects, other than that of seeing the shadows and ment the peculiar stress laid on sight among the other senses
reflections of things produced by the sun, which will give in the Simile of the Sun, and goes back to the account of Mga
more importance to that level of men's experience than in 476 B-480 A. There we find among objects of o6ga, Ta TWV
belongs to the sight of these shadows and reflections? 7TOAAWV 7ToMa v6fLtfLa KUAOO TE 7rlpt IW~ 7'(VV aAAwv. The visible
That solution has also been tried. J owetV in spite of elK6vES' which alone are mentioned in the passage on the Line,
having ascribed the distinction between 1Tla'Tf,~ and elKaala to he allo~s to be 'of little or no metaphysical importance'; it
a mere love of analogy, says that the shadows and the is the Er8wAa spoken of in the Cave, 520C, KaAwv T€ Kat l;t.-
images (i.e. the marionettes) correspond respectively to the Katwv Kalciya8wv 'IT'pt (cf. 517 D), which are the important con-
I In an unpublished MS.
2 Op. cit., val. Hi, Introd., p. cviii. lOp. cit., pp. 243-5.
tents of the lowest segment of the line, and 'the whole domain they say, do you think a young man will keep in such a case? or
of imitation' criticized and condemned in the Xth Book, what home training will hold out, and not be overwhelmed by
where Plato justifies the banishment of the poets. And Adam such blame and praise, so that he will be carried headlong with the
stream, and will call noble or base what they call so, and do what
finds confirmation of this interpretation in the description
tbey do, and be as one of them?
offered in the SOPhist of the sophist's activity. His art is
described in 236 D as a branch of eiSwA07TOHK..). We may The real sophist is there said to be the public opinion of the
distinguish in this the making of eiK6v's--images, that is, multitude, but its work is the same as is given to the sophist
which are really like their originals-and the making of in the dialogue of that name. And it is true also that Plato
1>avT<ia".am, which pretend to a likeness they do not possess. charges poetry with a fault of the same kind, producing false
And in 265-8 we find language to the same effect. ".iWfja,s opinions in matters of good and evil when the poet does not
is a kind of 7Toi'la,s, a making of .tSwAa. Some of these- know. It is natural enough, therefore, thatthe language of the
dreams and the shadows and reflections in water of things Sophist and Republic enables us to fill out the description of
around us-are the work of a divine 7Toi'la<s. This branch of the shadows in the Cave; but the question is whether all this
image-making we may call €lKaO'T('K6v. But there is also was in his mind in the account of the Line, and we should
human image-making, cpavTaanK6v, in which what is false similarly fill out the sphere of its E1Kaa{a. It is surely sur-
parades as something real. And the maker of these 1>aVTd.a- prising, if Plato meant the fourth segment of the Line to
".aTa may know that which they travesty, or may not; and if include all this, that he mentioned only the shadows and
not, he may think he knows it, or suspect that he is ignorant; reflections of things which the sun's light produces: we may
and the sophist is of the last sort, producing with words notice, too, that in Sophist, 236, where these are mentioned
illusory views about the nature of that which he is conscious again, they are the work of a divine <lSwAOVPY'K..); it is that
he does not know. which is called .lKaanK6v; and it is just as much contrasted
Now I think it is true that the state of mind here said to as connected with the 1>avmanK6v which is the work of the
be produced by sophists is much what Plato in the Allegory sophists, and of which the prisoners in the Cave are victims.
of the Cave ascribes to those prisoners. I think Professor A. S. I think it is a mistake to ground too much, in the interpreta-
Ferguson is right in holding that the Allegory of the Cave is tion of these books of the Republic, upon verbal resemblances
not epistemological, nor intended to illustrate the transition between them and other dialogues, as if when Plato wrote the
from sense to nnderstanding, bnt political. The prisoners' lot others he must have had the imagery of the Republic in his
in the Cave is a fignre of that which has been described already mind and he intended to conform to it. He chose his words
in 492 as the case in which men now live; and one of philo- as they were suitable to expound his theme at the moment.
sophic nature can hardly grow np unspoiled But for what they are worth, the verbal resemblances
between the Republic and the SoPhist do not seem to me to
when a multitude sits packed together in assembly or law court
bear out this enlargement of the sphere of the .lKaa{a of
or theatre or camp, or any other common place of gathering, and
with much tnmult blames some things that are said or done, and the Line.
praises others, and either in extremes, shouting and clapping, Still less do I think that the more generous enlargement pro-
till the rocks and the place wbere they are sitting echo and posed by Professor Paton is tenable. Like Adam he includes
redouble the tumult of their blame and praise. What heart, as the work of the artist and the 1>aVTJ.a".ara of the Sophist; but
he adds all objects of a1uB'lu',;--proper sensibles. For defence judgements are true. The artist is said to bid farewell to
of this he relies upon the Theaetetus, where the doctrine that truth-xalp€W'TO dA1']6ES' laaav'Tf;s-(cf. Republic, 600 E, 'Tijs SE
b,,<rT'1)f''l is a1uB'lu<s is examined, and held to be identical with aA'lB.ias otlX a1T'T.aBa,)-but what warrant is there for adding
the Protagorean maxim that to each man things are as they 'and therefore to falsehood'? (p. 93). Again, it must be re-
appear to him. That being irreconcilable with there being membered that, if we are to find in the Cave a quadripartite
any truth, a distinction is drawn between aluB'lu<s and S6ga, scheme corresponding to that of the Line, .lKaaia will be the
and it is suggested that knowledge is dA'lB~s S6ga (Theaetetus, condition of the common man. Yet nobody lives all his life
195 c); a1uB'lu<s is conceived as a stage below judgement, in that 'first ingenuous and intuitive vision of the real' which
with which alone truth and falsehood arise. 'In the tenth has not yet been troubled by affirmation and negation. It is
book Plato practically identifies the sensible appearance with suggested in answer to this objection (p. 100) that perhaps
the .lKWV of the artist or the mirror.' 'These appearances then Plato thought most men are always in elKaala; 'most men
we may treat as Eldv.s and so long as we take them merely are satisfied with the seeming good and do not go behind it'.
at their face value, so long as we are satisfied with making But 'the seeming good' is what we falsely judge good: the
them clear to ourselves and do not seek to go behind them, notion of good does not belong to the level of .lKaaia as thus
we are in €lKaala' (pp. 85-6). r elKaa{a is the first ingenuous interpreted. Moreover, this answer considers only the politi-
and intuitive vision of the real. Its object is simply what cal bearing of the Allegory of the Cave: whereas Plato is
appears, 'T6 q,aw6f"vov, It makes no distinction between the supposed in this theory to be offering an epistemological
different levels of reality' (p. 76). Further, it is held, follow- doctrine as well.
ing Croce's theory of aesthetic, that the artist is in the same
state of ingenuous and intuitive vision, outside the sphere It seems to me hopeless to seek in the Allegory of the Cave
of affirmation and negation altogether, and that Plato in for four stages in the soul's journey towards the apprehension
Republic, x, teaches this; a view which Professor Colling- of Reality that can be made to correspond with the distinc-
wood also makes the basis of Plato's Philosophy of Art, in tion of the four 7TaB~f'a'Ta 'Tfjs .pvxfjs in the quadripartite Line.
his article under that title.' r do not think Plato was repeating in the Allegory what he
But it is surely strange that when Plato named as objects had set out diagrammatically in the Line. We must give
of .lKauia the shadows and reflections of things, he meant to some other meaning than such interpretations do to the
include the sensible appearances of things as we perceive injunction of 5I7 A-D, 'Ta;v'T'YjV -rljv elK6va 7TpoaaTrTlov d:rraaav
them and not their shadows and reflections; nor, when Plato 'TO'S gf'7TpoaB.v A.y0f"vo<s. This has been attempted, as I said,
says that the poet is twice rem'oved from truth, can I persuade by Henry Jackson and by Professor A. S. Ferguson in his
myself that he means he is removed altogether from truth two papers on 'Plato's Simile of Light', to which may be
and falsehood. The charge throughout against him is that added another essay of his, 'Plato and the Poet's .tswAa','
he deceives, he makes a lie. So in Theaetetus, 167 D, Socrates criticizing the theory we have been last considering. In the
supposes Protagoras to say, in defence of the doctrine that following suggestions I am building on their work, and
J7nU'T~f''l is atuB'lu<s, otlS.ls .p.vSfj Saga' ... But that does not Professor Stocks's.
mean that we live below the level of judgement, but that all I In Philosophic Essays Presented to John Watson (Queen's University
I Mind, N.S., vol. xxxiv (1925), loco cit. Kingston, Canada, 1922), p. lIS.
I suggest then that Professor Stocks is right in saying that condition of its success. Its imagery is not to be 'applied'
the Line schemati2es no 'Four Stages of Intelligence'. We are in one-one correspondence to the account of the Line, but,
not being taught that the mind begins at a level of elKaO'La, in as Jackson says, 'attached' to it; it is an extension of the
which it merely has the 'impressions and ideas' into which attempt to teach by figures, not an alternative. The sunlit
Hume would resolve it, and passes thence to an experience in world of the Allegory is a figure of the intelligible, it represents
which it has judgements or opinions about things taken to or stands for it; the visible world of the Line does not stand
be real, and so forth. Such genetic psychology is far from for it, but exhibits relations analogous to relations in it. In
Plato's thoughts. In the lower segment of the Line we are the Line it was the sunlit world of you and me; in the
throughout at the level of Mea. There is a contrast between Allegory it is that to which the prisoners typifying you and me
this, in which what we see and otherwise sensibly perceive is mayrise. Therefore in the Allegory our world, which is used as
held real, and v6"10"" in which that is held real which we can a figure to represent something else, needs a figure to represent
only grasp by thought; and Plato's primary purpose is to it if anything is to be told about it; and that is the Cave;
hint to us how we may come, in the work of thought, to know but the purpose is not to show again how relations within the
the intelligible forms, and this depends on their connexion visible may illustrate relations within the intelligible world.
with the Good, by noticing how we come, in the work of The Allegory figures the soul's rescue; the Line did not,
sight, to know visible things, and this depends on their though when Socrates described it his hearers already knew
connexion with the sun. In the Line, and by means of the that the philosopher must pass from Mea to J7T'O'rrlfL"I' The
analogies in it, he is continuing, as he professes, his attempt favoured of heaven, or philosophic spirits in a rightly ordered
to indicate the nature and the need of that P'<Y'O'TOV I"ri8w,a, state, must rise to the level of JmO'T0fL"I by stages, but for
and the training for it, without their rulers reaching which, them the progress might be continuous, it need not pass
States will never be made secure from their present troubles. through a7Tma.vuLa. They would pass through so many
Their fate depends on finding for their rulers the true 7Tma.La ; 'Stages of Intelligence'; for doubtless the individual mind
and the Line is meant to throw light on the nature and goal must develop. And all of us must travel a certain distance
of it. along that road. But this development necessary to all is not
In the Allegory of the Cave Plato sets before us the present what Plato is setting forth. The soul's rescue is not just an
plight of mankind, living without the guidance which a advance beyond that level to which in our development we all,
knowledge of the Good would give, victims of false doctrine. and rightly, come; it is a conversion, as Professor Ferguson
The Cave is indeed this visible world-he tells us so; and its insists, from a plight into which we ought not to have come.
fire is our sun; and the sunlit world outside is the eternal O:1TatDeva{a, as I said before, is not the mind's case before
order which the philosopher will know; and the upward education begins, when the baby lives in a stream of im-
struggle of the rescued prisoner is the philosopher's escape pressions and ideas,' and has not yet made to itself the dis-
from the bondage of false opinion to the truth. But the tinction of real and uureal (ib., p. 84), but has an 'ingenuous
Allegory does not report, in its description of affairs in the and intuitive vision' without affirming or denying. It is the
Cave, what the lower segment of the Line was to teach us, by case of grown men through evil training judging falsely. For
an analogy, about the nature of a philosophic education, and men cannot live without institutions of some sort, and these
how the vision of the Good is the cnlrnination of it and the I Paton, op. cit., p. 82.
must bring good or evil, truth or falsehood: they cannot be rather as incidental to the picture, and having meanings of
neutral. It is a mistake often made, that you can remove the its own (as the language of 5I7 D suggests), than to repeat its
influence and pressure of existing institutions, and leave men application in the lower Line. And the same imagery or
free to develop naturally; you will inevitably let other pres- metaphor comes in Republic x, and in other dialogues where
sures begin to act on them. And it is the pressure of lies that other, though sometimes connected, issues are discussed. But
acts on us all in States as they now are; and only by a hard Plato's fondness for it, and the significance which he thought
struggle can a man reach, and only in face of obloquy and he found in it, should not lead us to make equations which
opposition from those whom it disturbs can he teach, the introduce confusion into the passages of the Line and the
truth. That conversion is figured by the Allegory, but is not Cave, or saddle these with meanings so difficult in themselves
a step in some orderly development of the intelligence figured and so remote from the natural interpretation of his state-
by the Line. It is true that in 533-4, long after the Allegory ments elsewhere as some of those we have considered.
has been given, when the sciences of the Propaedeutic,
which form the work of a,,;(vota, have been described, Socrates
reverts to the relations of the four TraO~l"aTa Tfi< ofroxfi< belong-
ing to the Line. But he does not try to fit them to stages in
the prisoner's progress. He is concerned there with the steps
of the true Trata.ta, not with the conversion that must precede
it, if a man brought up in the false valuations of the world is
to enter upon it; and in particular he is reminding us how
a training in the mathematical TlXVat, useful as they are to
make us realize the distinction between the objects of intelli-
gence and of opinion or a6ga, is still not the genuine way
of dialectic. Therefore he reiterates that we may call the
apprehension of the mathematician au[vo~a, not lm,ar1P-'I],
and that their relation within intelligence is analogous to
that of TrtaTt< and .ll<aata within opinion; and his thought
has gone back to what he was indicating by the quadripartite
Line, without equating the illustrative function of the lower
segment of that to the illustrative function of the Cave in the
Allegory.
This seems to me a possible interpretation that avoids the
difficulties of the other views put forward about the signifi-
cance of the lower Line. It is true that the metaphor of copy-
ing, in images or shadows, comes both there and in the UniversltatsblbUothak
Allegory: in the sunlit world of the Allegory, with the same Eich sHitt
application as in the Line; in the Cave of the Allegory,
1
I
MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 47

refuse to admit these universals, if you admit universals at
CHAPTER V all. It is true that some mathematicians, Lord Russell among
them, have wished to substitute for the common dozenhood
MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC
of all groups of 12 the group itself, defining a number-i.e.
E must now pass to the other main issue raised by these the aa6po{3A'1TOS ap£Opo6s, the being thus many-as the class of
W passages, concerning the status of the lower V0'1T(1,
the objects of 8£avo£a. I have already spoken of the Platonic
all classes similar to a given class. But I think that only
shows that the question is not of interest to the mathematician
doctrine, about which we learn from Aristotle, I which made in his procedure, and that when a mathematician philoso-
the poaO'1poaT£Ka neither Ideas nor Sensibles, but something phizes, he can go wrong about it without being any the worse
intermediate. It is clear, I think, that Plato was right when mathematician. But what is it that he studies, if it is not
he denied that the mathematician studied Ideas: less clear these ideas?
that he had come to deny it when he wrote the Republic. An Aristotle ascribed the peculiar accuracy of mathematics to
Idea is the common nature of many individuals, the circula- their abstraction; i.e. in considering the figure, or quantity,
rity of all circles, the duality of all pairs, &c. Plato points or number of subjects, we may disregard all other characters
out the necessity of recogniziug these forms in Phaedo, 100 D- in the subjects, and no error will be involved. That is not so
101 E. 'Again,' says Socrates, 'would you not be cautious of in all inquiries: if you study, e.g., the colours of bodies dis-
affirming that the addition of one to one, or the division of regarding their temperature, you will not do much good. Now
one, is the cause of two? and you would loudly asseverate it is quite true that no difference is made to the relation of
that you know of no way in which anything comes into length between the side and the diagonal of a rectangular
existence except by participation in its own proper essence, table-top by differences in the material it is made of, the cloth
and consequently, as far as you know, the only cause of two it is covered with, and so on. And so you might think that in
is the participation in duality.' For it is not because I add the table you have an instance of rectangularity, and can
them that my eyes are two, but because the group is a two- safely study the rectangular figure of it without troubling
group that I find them to be two by adding. Considerations about any other of its characters. But are you sure that its
of this sort are of no importance in the procedure of mathe- figure is really rectangular? The angles perhaps are not quite
matics. But they led Plato to recognize what he, or Aristotle true, and if so, the ratio of sides to diagonal which you ascer-
for him, called a"tipo{3A'1TO£ ap£Opooi: unaddible numbers: the tain is not exemplified there. You must have abstracted not
numerical characters, that is, of divers aggregates, the dozen- only from the other characters of the table-top, but from the
hood of the months and the apostles and the signs of the defects of its figure. There is an ambiguity, however, in that
zodiac, the hundredhood of the runs in an innings when a language. When I abstract from the other characters of it,
man is bowled at that figure, and of Sir John Lubbock's list the figUlie is still there, in the actual table-top, complete.
of best books. You cannot add these characters; what you When I abstract from the defects of the figure, the perfect
add is the units, or aggregates of units, that exhibit unity or figure is not there. A trapezium is not a rectangle plus
one of these forms of multiplicity. I do not see how you can defects.
The rectangle which I study then is not the figure of this
I Ross, ed. Ay. Met. i, p. 166; cf. Met. A. vi. 987bI4; B. ii. 997b2; r. iv.
loo6b I2; Theo. Smyrn., ed. Hiller, p. 21. 5. table-top. And Plato notices that. Consider what he says, in
MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC
4 MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC water, we use these as ima es b 49
8 themselves which a g, ut we seek to see those things
S"O-I!, about the division of the upper half of the Line, It is man may see WIth th '
to be divided so that the soul is forced to investigate the one are two features then siguali d' e mmd only, There
part of it (i.e, the lower) from hypotheses by using as images cedure, He starts from' eZ,e m the mathematician's pro-
V7TO Ea«, above h' h
what was copied in the visible sphere, proceeding not to a a ttempt to rise and h , w IC he makes no
ots ' arithmetic)
m ' e, uses senSIble fi gures (or counters or
startiug-point but to a result, but the other part by going d I
, '
from an hypothesis to an unhypcithetical starting-point, about and cannot pa: In;ages of what he is really thinking
rcelve b y sense At th
making its way among ideas by means of ideas themselves, are concerned with th I tt ' e moment we
thinking about' What e, ~t e~,feature, What is he really
I
(I have, with Adam, adopted here in S"O B 6 Ast's pro-

are like? ' IS 1 w Ich these models or drawings
posal to omit 1'6 after eTEpoV, though Burnet reads it, In
order to make a contrast between the two procedures, since You may ask either for the true a : i
both are Jg ~7T08IaEwv, there must be a difference of direction; for Plato's answer Th
,
nswer to the question or
, e y need not be th
the first is O~K J7T' apx~V aM' J7T! TEAEVT~V, the second J7T' answer IS very difficult to fi d e ~ame, The true
apx~V avv7T68ETOV ; but these words cannot be constructed with we are thinking of perfect n 't!n geometry It might be said
, par Iculars wh' h ' d
Jg ~7T08IaEw, loiiao. unless 1'6 before Jg ~7T08IaEw, is omitted,) eXIst,
, but being part'ICUIars can be lik' IC m eed do not
Socrates elucidates this as follows, In geometry and mgs, which are also parti ' I e our models or draw-
arithmetic, he says, we take for granted odd and even, the must be sensible and th cuhars; yet to be like them they
" ' oug , so far as I
figures, the three kinds of angle and such like: these are our nothmg mconceivable ' , can see, there is
, m a senSIble r b'
hypotheses, and we do not attempt to give any account of straIght and perfectly at ri ht I me emg perfectly
them to ourselves or others, as if they were plain to every- without breadth Wh gang es to another, it cannot be
, en we pass to E I'
body: and starting from these we go through our demonstra- and ask what that' b " non- uc Idean geometry
IS a out It 1 t'll h '
tions and arrive at an agreement on the question under certainly it is about h t ' ,s S 1 arder to say' for
, w a no senSIble d I '
investigation, It must be remembered that Plato ;has in mind b e IIke, And in arithmet' 'f mo e or drawing can
discovery, not instruction, The instructor has proved his nature of what is countI~ 1 we abstract altogether from the
conclusion before he begins expounding, To the discoverer are not like the counter: ;r ~~eS~~ll be left with units that
it is a problem, 7Tp6~A"I1'0. ; what relation is there between the sheep that we enumerate, ts we use, or the men or
angles in the same segment of a circle? Can I divide a straight As to Plato's answer what h
ings are like is' " e says our models and draw-
line into two unequal parts such that the whole is to one as 'TO Terpaywvov , \ \ aI
that is to the other? And in tackling these problems, we take f~rth, And these phrases n:::a~o., ,00I'ETPO' IJ.llT0, and so
certain things for granted, the definitions, postulates, and dlag?nality, Adam thinks that h : mean squareness and
axioms, We need not go now into a discussion of the differ- medIates, and that the c t t ' e e they mean the inter-
tobe 'mtermediate bet on ex m 5I! D wh 0'
ences between these, Further, we use and we talk about the 0 't ,ere O'o.vo,o. is said
ween oo~a and '" .
figures we draw (TO" opwl'lvoLS EtoEa,); but we are not gest that the expressI'on h f ' VOV" IS enough to sug-
' , s ere or ItS b' t
thinking about them but about what they are like; our th mg mtermediate ' An d there are pas
PI
0 Jec s refer to some-
argument is on behalf of the square itself and the diagonal ato uses language wh' h' sages enough where
In Republic vii 5 A hIC I~ appropriate to the intermediates
e p01~S out that the units spoken of
itself, not the diagonal drawn; and so as to the rest, our 26
.,80,8 '
models or drawings, which have their shadows and images in
50 MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 51
in arithmetic are nothing divisible, but faov €KaU'TOV nav
7'€ Line;' the Line was probably not in Plato's mind there at all.
\ \ ,<;:>1 \ 0:;:.)..1 ' I ., ,t .... '~I
1TClvn Kat QVDE U/Lf,KPOV OI,U'f"EpOV, fJ-0Pf.,OV TE EXOV El' eav'TCp OVOEV, And the elaL6v'Ta Ka~ €g~6v'Ta of Timaeus, 50 C, which Adam
and objects therefore of thought only. In Phaedo, 74 c, he identifies with the p,E7o.g,; appear to me to be sensible things.
distinguishes between sensible equals, which to another ob- I should conclude, though not very confidently, that Plato,
server may appear not to be equal, and aV'nl 'TCt tau. In when he wrote the Republic, supposed the mathematician
Philebus 56 E, we read of p.ovd80. p.ovd80< iKdu7'f)< p.'f)8.p.io.v to be thinking about Ideas, and had not yet distinguished
O'AA'f)V O'M'f)< 8,0.q,'poVUo.v.' Adam thinks also that in Philebus, between these and the p,.mg,;, although recognizing such facts
23 C, D, where Socrates distinguishes l1lpas, aTrEtpOV, 'TO Jg as are mentioned in 526 A, which later helped him to make
•
afLcpol.v TOVTOW El' Tt. aV/LfuaYO/LEVOV, an
I " I d the ULna
' I 'TYJS
" ,t,
fLLf;,EWS, the distinction. And I would suggest one or two considera-
the ""pas is mathematical forms, and the al'Tta 'Tfjs p,tg€WS is tions making it not unlikely that he may have confused an
the Ideas; and that in Timaeus, 50 c, there is another reference Idea with a P.0.8'f)P.0.7,dv--i.e. have been really at times
to them. thinking of the latter without appreciating it, still snpposing
On the other hand we nowhere find in the dialogues any himself to be thinking of the Idea.
such explanation of the distinction between the p.ero.g,; and It seems to me very easy to think of the Form of a sensible
the Ideas and Sensibles respectively as Aristotle gives us, circle as an outline into which it will fit. The same ring will
whereas it would have been quite easy to give it, if Plato had fit many discs. Let the ring be refined away till it is like the
intended to distinguish them, and in the present passage it grin without the cat, and it may seem to be just the shape
seems almost required. Moreover, the passage in Phaedo, common to all the discs, which because fitting each is its shape
74 c, rather seems to show that he had not then himself seen when fitted. And .180< means shape, in ordinary usage. Of
the distinction, for he is expounding the doctrine of &.vdp.v'f)uI< course this is wrong; for if our discs differ in radius, they will
as an argument for the Ideas, and in 74 A it is aUTO 'TO laovof not all fit into the same ring, whereas their form, cirCUlarity,
which he spoke as 1To.pa. 1Tdvm 70.Vm (i.e. sensible equals) is still the same.
l7.pOV 7'. Philebus, 56 E, has merely the same point as My second point is this, that we find people to-day often
Republic, 526 A, and this passage occurs in the course of saying of the sciences what Plato erroneously says of the
explaining why arithmetic is a suitable study for those who mathematician, if 76 'TE'TPct.ywvov aV'T6 Kat 'fnct.f1-€'TpOS av'T~ in
would be philosophers: now the philosopher must recognize 5IO D did mean Ideas. It is often said that scientific generali-
the difference between intelligible form and the many sen- zation establishes connexions between universals. Now it
sibles that exhibit it; and arithmetic requires us to distin- establishes universal propositions. But a universal proposi-
guish its units from the sensibles taken as such. Does it not tion does not state a connexion between universals, at least
look as if Plato had not here distinguished between the in- not that connexion in which a man of science is interested.
sensible unit and the insensible form, because neither is If the destruction of a fuse wire causes the electric lights in
sensible? The other passage in Philebus, 23 c, D, ought not, the circuit to go out, that is a connexion between one parti-
I think, to be cited. I doubt if the 0.17io. 7i}< p.ig.w< is the Idea, cular event and another. The common nature of all such
or the '1Tlpas the fLaB1JjLanKd, any more than the IJ:TrEI,POV can be destructions does not canse the common nature of all such
identified with the contents of the lowest segment of the extinctions of light. Doubtless the connexion between the
I These two references are given by Ross. ed. Ar. Met. i, p. 1 67. I Cf. Sidgwick, Journ. Phil. ii. 103, who rejects this 'plausible theory'.
j
particular events occurs in virtue of their natures, but it is Plato's language. Though the mathematician contemplates
not an instance of a causal connexion between their natures, these objects with his thought, S,avoi<t, and not with his
as they are instances of those natures; just as the diagonal senses, yet by reason of his considering them 19 ~"o8'!u<wv
is incommensurable with the side of a square (for that is the and not after ascending to an apx~, he has not intelligence of
demonstration Plato had in mind) in virtue of the general them, vovs; nevertheless they are vO'fJ'Ta /.LETa apxf}s. Adam, it
nature exhibited in those lines-if you like, of diagonality is true, translates this 'intelligibles with a principle of their
and side-of-square-ness; yet diagonality is not incommensur- own' ; but the usual translation, 'intelligible with a principle'-
able with side-of-square-ness. That universal connexions i.e. after ascending to the dp~ just spoken of-seems prefer-
between particulars are not instances of some corresponding able. And in VII. 533 B, the mathematical sciences, so long
connexions between universals, and yet are often spoken of as they leave unmoved the hypotheses they use, are said to
as if they were, is a matter which may well make us think it dream "<pI TO (iv, and to be incapable of seeing it iJ"ap. This
possible that Plato in the Republic failed to see that universal language is at least consistent with regarding the objects of
connexions between perfect mathematical particulars were 8,avo,a and vovs as the same. I do not press it; for when I
not connexions between mathematical universals, and so did dream of Jerusalem, there is a dream-picture, which is not
not distinguish Forms and the I"a87JI"aTtKa. Jerusalem. 'Last night I saW you in my dreams, And how
But arguments of another sort have been adduced in your form and face were changed.' But after all it is
favour of the view that he did make the distinction, drawn Jerusalem itself that the dreamer is thinking of; and the
from the other feature of the mathematician's procedure dream-picture perhaps corresponds not to the I"a87JI"aTtKa,
which he signalizes and from the general interpretation of but to the sensibles by aid of which I think of them.
Line and Cave. He says the mathematician starts from
hypotheses and proceeds to a conclusion, c!1T~ 'TEAEVn}V, There is, however, a difficult passage in 533 c, D which we
whereas dialectic goes to an dpX~ o.vv1T68ETOS, aV'TOLS €fOEm. S,,' must finally consider. In contrast to the I"a87JI"aT'Kd T.!xva"
aVTwv Tijv pl803ov 7TOLOVplVl} (510 B). He makes fLa81JfLaTLKd which leave their hypotheses dKiV''1TO', dialectic proceeds TaS
objects of a faculty, S,avota, intermediate between Soga and ' 8 eUeLS
V7TO ' , ,. .
ava"povaa, ," aVTrJv
err \ TTJV
, apXTJv " f3 Ef3'
, \ 'wo., atwCM'j'Tut,. I n
vovs (5II DJ, and according to the doctrine of V. 476 sq., where what sense does Dialectic destroy the hypotheses of mathe-
l"'UT~I"7J and 86ga were distinguished, different faculties have matics? You remember the examples given of them-odd
different objects. Again, v07JUtS: Soga in the Line:: vovs : and even, the figures, the three kinds of angles. Are we to
8tctvo/,u, and the vOTJT6v and 6paTC)V are confessedly different; give up the proposition that every number is odd or even,
while those who hold the quadripartite line to be a classifica- and our definitions of geometrical figures? The suggestion is
tion of the contents of the universe, and equate with them so so difficult that Stallbaum wished to construct ava'povua
many different sorts of objects in the Allegory of the Cave, with l"l and translate it 'taking up to' ; while others have
are naturally committed to distinguishing the superior and "
propose d avatpovaa, raiSIng t'
'00 "
0 J or aVEtpOVaa, 'as
fellIng
t ' t o. '
the inferior vorj'ra. Adam, however, takes it as a reference to the constant pro-
Against these argnments may be set what has already been cedure of Plato shown in dialogues, of setting up one theory
said about the interpretation of the Line and the Allegory of after another, and showing its inadequacy (as Polemarchus'
the Cave; and we may call attention also to other points in and Thrasymachus' definitions of Justice are treated in
Book I), until something is reached which will stand all granted. The theory of ideas explains sensible particulars
scrutiny, Std. 1TflVTWV J).iyxwv lhegufw, as is said in 534 c. But through the participation of something indeterminate in
the inquiries to which he refers were none of them mathe- a determinate form, or its being fashioned after the pattern
matical, and it hardly seems true that the hypotheses of thereof. But the ideas themselves are eternal, and no account
mathematics are overthrown like bad definitions of Justice is offered of them. We have found that among the ideas are
in the Republic or of Knowledge in the Theaetetus. We might certain arithmetical and geometrical forms, distinct, as
think that Plato has in mind that procedure which Aristotle, Plato came at some time to see, from the subjects of mathe-
Topics, 1. ii, names among the uses of what he calls Dialec- matical treatment, and holding to the p.a8T)p.aT'l<o. the same
tiC---77POS Tas KaTa c/nAo(]'o4>tav E7Tt(j'T~f.Las. By investigating relation which aVToo.v8pw1ros holds to men: these are the
difficulties on either side of a question we are helped to distin- dUVP.{3AT)TO' dp,8p.oi, and linearity, circularity, &c. If when
guish what is true, and where dpXai or starting-points are in Plato wrote the Republic he had not yet distinguished these
question, which cannot be demonstrated from anything more from the p.a8T)p.anl<o., he would have thought them to be the
ultimate, we may follow out the consequences of accepting subjects of mathematical treatment. Now these, or at least
and of rejecting them, and confirm them by showing the some of them, he did attempt to get behind, and to derive
contradictions or paradoxes to which their rejection would from principles more fundamental.
lead. This, I think, is what Plato does in the second part of The numbers in the decad he thought to derive from two
the Parmenides; though the purpose of it is much disputed, principles, unity, TO ~v, and another variously referred to by
it seems to me intended to show the contradictions that arise Aristotle, as TO piya Ka~ 'TO ILLKpOV, or less frequently, though
if either the assertion that the real is one, or the assertion more significantly, TO piya Ka~ JLtKpOV: as d6puYros Dvas: as
that it is many, be taken in a sense excluding the other. With TO aVLuov and in other ways.! One may compare the mention
this interpretation, Zva {3€{3a".r,uT)Ta' will mean 'in order to in the Philebus of 'TO TTlpas and TO d:TrEtpOV, but according to
confirm them', not (as I think Adam takes it) 'in order to Aristotle (Met. A. 987b 25) Plato substituted the One and
make itself secure'. But such process of confirmation is not the d6pLU'TOS Svas, for these as dpXal, The fdya Ka~ ftLKp6v he
by going to an unhypothetical dpX~; and in the Phaedo, seems to have conceived as a sort of principle of multiplicity,
101 c, D, something very like it is described as part of the which in itself is not determinately of any quantity or
procedure which Socrates had adopted as second best (TOV magnitude. How the one generated upon this indeterminate
SdT€POV 1rAoiJv, 99 D), because he was not able to explain multiplicity definite numerical forms is not quite clear, and
things by reference to the good: whereas here he assumes this different views seem to have prevailed in the Platonic
to be possible. School: cf. Ross, ib., lix-lxiv. 'It seems most probable', says
Can we then find a sense in which Plato may have thought Sir David Ross, 'that Plato thought of the ideal numbers ...
that Dialectic would destroy the starting-points or dpXai of vaguely enough, as successive resting-places determined by
mathematics? Professor Burnet thinks we can. the principle of limit in the indefinite ebb and flow of the
We know from Aristotle that Plato at any rate attempted d1r€<pia, the great-and-small.'2 Plato thus obtained what one
to get behind and give some account of what mathematics I A discussion of these phrases will be found in Rass, ed. Ar. Met., Introd.,
takes for granted. The attempt was connected with another lvii-lix, and more fully in Robin, La Thlorie platonicienne des idees et des
nombres d'apres Aristote, p. 261.
-to get behind what his own theory of ideas had taken for 2 Cf. A. E. Taylor, op. cit., p. 512,
MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 57
may call the simplest and most abstract system of unities, or cannot be done so long as their special hypotheses remain. It
differentiations of the One: in which the One was the formal, is only when these have been removed that we can ascend to
aud this quite unspecific great-and-small the material factor. a first principle which is no longer a postulate (to an dVV1T6-
The next stage was to find in the numerical forms thus 8ETOS dpX~)' viz. the Form of the Good. Then, and not till
obtained the formal priuciple in entities slightly more con- then, can we descend once more without making use of
crete, viz. in the geometrical essences. Iu Met. Z. x. 1035'- sensible diagrams of any kind. The whole of science would
I036b Aristotle is discussing the relation of matter and form; thus be reduced to a sort of teleological algebra.' But further,
the form of man has never been found except in bones and Burnet thinks (v. 320-4) that in regarding the Great-and-
flesh; should these enter into the definition of man, or are Small as a principle of number Plato was abandoning the
they but a material in which the definable occurs, but out of view that all numbers are integers. The conception of number
which it might also occur? Such a case seems to occur, was to be extended to cover such quantities as 012. Similarly
though it is not clear when it occurs; so that some have held the point was no longer fJ-OVOS e'aw gxovaa, as Zeno had said,
that circle and triangle should not be defined by lines and but dpx0 ypaf'f'fjs : the line being generated from it by fluxion.
the continuous, but that these are like the flesh and bones of That Plato did give up the indivisible unit, and so regard
a man, or the brass and stone of a statue; and 'they bring irrationals as numbers, 'the best proof is', says Burnet, 'that
everything up to the numbers' (avayovat. 7TdvTU els TOVS Aristotle always insists against him that there is no number
dp.8f'0vs) and say that the definition (A6yov) of line is that of but number made up of units (f'ovaS.K<ls dp.8f'6s). It follows
two. Among the advocates of the Ideas some say that the that Plato maintained there was.' And if he did, the hypo-
dyad is aVToypaf'f'~' others that it is the form of the line; theses of arithmetic, which treats a number as a sum of units,
since in some cases the form and that of which it is the form and maintains that every number is odd or even, must be
are indistinguishable (e.g. the dyad and the form of the given up.
dyad), but in the case of the line it is so no longer. Plato, I think this part of Burnet's view probably wrong. The
according to Sir David Ross, was of the first opinion.' But contention that there is only f'0VaS.K6s dp.8f'6s is expli-
either way, we have an attempt at reducing the geometrical cable as a rejection of the dC"!f'i3A7]TO' dp,8f'0i, which were
to the arithmetical. not sums of units, but were also not irrationals, and whose
Now the mere derivation of geometrical notions from nature we have seen Aristotle failed to appreciate. The
arithmetical, and of these from something more general, is derivation of numbers from gv and r6 p-'ya Kul p.('Kp6v seems,
not an dvaip""s of what is derived. But if you are giving an in the text of Aristotle, to have been a derivation of integers;
account of line when you say it is really two, you are leav- and in the Republic at any rate the indivisibility of the unit
ing out something which the geometer retains. As Burnet is asserted very strongly. But it seems to me he may be right
says:2 'The hypothesis of three kinds of angles has a spatial in supposing that Plato hoped to reach, in such principles as
character, and that is just why the geometer is forced to use the One and the Great-and-Small, and what could be deduced
sensible diagrams. The ideal is that Arithmetic, Geometry, from them, something more abstract than the entities from
and the rest should all be reduced to one science, and this which mathematics starts, and so to show that in those
I Met. ii. 203; cf. Robin, op. cit., pp. 620-2.
entities the eternal forms appeared in a matter which was not
2 Greek Philosophy, p. 229. indeed the sensible matter of bones. and flesh wherein the
form of man appeared, but none the less obscured the true E'T£ ovBJv a:.\Ao '1TOtEZ d 'rOVTO Aiywv aA,\' ~ aptBfLOv ~'T€poV' TO ydp
nature of the forms appearing in them. The doctrine that '1TAfjBoS' d8tatpETWV EaT~v apLf)p.,6s: i.e. in presupposing 7TAfjBos
there are matters of various kinds, ;;;>...,., al(]8""T~ in sublunary you presuppose the very fact of number, which you are
bodies, ;;;>...,., TO"'K~ in the heavenly bodies that, although attempting to deduce. I
eternal, move, and even a fIAT) v01J'T~, appears in Aristotle; I have referred to this because of recent years attempts
and it would not be surprising if here, as often elsewhere, he have been made to find a science more ultimate than geo-
was building on the very teaching which he criticized. And metry, and even than arithmetic, which shall show the truths
it would accord with such a view that Plato should think of those to be only special applications of its own: and the
that the forms are more clearly seen in dialectic, which con- philosophizing mathematicians are many of them disciples.
nects them with the good, than in mathematics, as visibles R. Dedekind, in a famous pamphlet (pub. 1887) Was sind und
are more clearly seen in sunlight themselves than in their was wollen die Zahlen ? first tried to show that from considering
shadows or reflections. The view also imputes to him a con- the nature of aMenge or Manifold, and of the correspondence
fusion between mathematical ideas-the common natures that there may be between one such manifold and another,
of aggregates of the same number, or of all lines or circles- and how the terms in the representative or imaging manifold
and particnlar numerical aggregates or lines and circles; or may be terms in that imaged, you can elucidate the nature of
rather, a passing from one to the other without noticing the the infinite series of natural numbers or integers; and he and
difference. others have tried to show that the whole nature of the
I admit that if Plato did hope thus to find the truth of the continuous, or quantity, can be elucidated in relations of
mathematical sciences in a system of forms more universal number. For this purpose they extend the term 'number', as
than those of mathematical objects, I think he was mistaken. Burnet thinks Plato did; so that! and ";2 are called numbers.
There I should agree with Aristotle, who dissents from Plato But they do not think they are introducing any fresh hypo-
expressly on the point that you cannot deduce the dpXa{ of theses, of space or time. It seems to me there is the same
the special sciences from any common dpXa{. In this con- error here as Aristotle imputes to Plato. The M enge from
nexion there is, too, a very instructive criticism (Met. M. viii. which Dedekind starts is itself an aggregate, a l7Mj80s dS,a,-
lo8S bS-21). He is discussing not the Idea-numbers indeed, P<TWV. The so-called rational numbers, like t, are relations
but mathematical number. This, however, was also to be exhibited in aggregates either of units or of unit-quantities-
derived, according to the view at any rate of Speusippus,I quantities, i.e. not indivisible, but equal and considered
from <v and 17;>";)80s.2 But the many units of arithmetic are without regard to their divisibility. The irrationals are
not each allT6 T6 <v, the principle from which with l7Mj80s all relations of quantities, not of aggregates of units, and could
numbers are derived. They therefore must be derivative not be understood without reference to lines and other
themselves from these principles. Aristotle indicates various quantities. The belief of mathematicians that there is an
difficulties besetting that supposition, and winds up by saying abstract science of order, which studies the nature of mani-
I v. Ross, ed. Ar. Met., p. 457, on M. viii. Io8SbS.
folds of as many dimensions as you please, without need to
2 v. Taylor, op. cit., 506-7 where he holds Aristotle wrong in thinking that in
'3+ I = 4',3 is a nAfjBos (.Lovrf8wv: but surely he himself is overlooking the dis- 1 Cf. Taylor, op. cit., 503-16 and Mina, val. xxxv, N,S. (1926), p. 418 and
tinction between lLaB 7J1WTtKa and ideas of number. And it did not need the vo!. xxxvi, N.S. (1927), p. 12. But again Aristotle seems to think Plato was
consideration of surds to lead Plato to his aptBp.ot davp.f3A1JTOL. concerned with the derivation of integers, not of irrationals.
60 MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC
consider what other nature-spatial, e.g., or temporal-these
may have, I am convinced is illusory. But if it is true, they CHAPTER VI
are dispensing with any reference to objects that we need to THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION OF
think of by the help of sensible models and diagrams, pre-
IDEAS TO EACH OTHER
cisely as Plato thought the dialectician would. For if we can
think at all of objects belonging to a 4-dimensional or a non-
Euclidean space, we certainly cannot do it by the help of
visible bodies like them. It has been said that intelligence is
T HOUGH the words ,loos and lata occur often in untech-
nical senses, yet as technical terms they mean to Plato
the common nature of many particulars, or what we call a
a three-dimensional manifold. This does not mean anything universal. On the origin of this doctrine, cf. Ross's Ar. Met.,
so absurd as that there are cubic feet of it: but that there Introduction, xxxiii-li. It is enough here to remind you that
'are three factors-I forget what, but say power of attention, Plato contrasted these Ideas, as unchanging objects of know-
of association, of discrimination-each capable of continuous ledge, with the changing and perishing sensibles in which
variation, independently of the others, and all involved in they are somehow revealed. Whether, as Aristotle says, he
every manifestation of intelligence. Thus the formal nature went beyond Socrates herein, or, as Burnet and Taylor would
of intelligence might be represented as identical with that of have, is only expounding Socrates, does not matter at the
spatial volumes. The universe might be exhibited as con- moment: it is the doctrine that we are examining. At any
structed throughout on the same principles, whether these rate Aristotle' expressly ascribes to Plato the position that
principles of construction appear in the spatial or the mental. definition is not of anything particular, but of something the
I do not wish to maintain this. But there is a good deal of relation of the particulars to which is expressed by the word
such doctrine knocking about; and I think Plato may have Trap&., signifying a separation: and this XWP,u06s is again
had notions like it. ascribed to the Platonists or Plato (01 0,) in the parallel
But supposing he had, yet I think there are more valuable passage M. iv. I078b32. It is one of Aristotle's principal
elements in his notion of Dialectic than that. What I have grounds of dissent. It remained a subject of controversy
been saying refers to the derivation of the Ideas from prin- in the schools of the Middle Ages; some realists asserting
ciples more ultimate. There is the problem also of the rela- universalia ante rem, others only universalia in re. Modern
tion of the Ideas to each other when derived. The dialectician critics have at times refused to believe that Plato could have
will understand this also. Plato in his dialogues indicates to taught the transcendence, XWP'U06S, of the Ideas· because
us various ways in which these relations may be traced. But it has seemed to them so fantastical. I should like therefore
before coming to them, I should like to make here some to suggest that it is not thus incredibly foolish.
general remarks about the doctrine of Ideas. One of the arguments mentioned by Aristotle (Met. A. viii.
99ob14) for the belief in Ideas is referred to in the words .<UTa
TO VO"V Tt </>8ap'vTos. The sensible thing has perished: its
nature still remains an object of thought. To the apprehen-
SIOn of this nature sense-perception is not necessary: the
r Met. A. vi. 987br-ro.
z Cf. Lotze, Logic, IU. iii, and Microcosmos, ii. 324-8, 651-7.
62 THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION OF IDEAS TO EACH OTHER
nature therefore is nothing sensible. We understand it with- is true that this physically real world is somehow connected
out at the same time perceiving any sensible. But if it could with the sensible world-how, he does not always trouble to
only exist in connexion with what is sensible, in the isolation inquire, and often he will say they are the same thing; and
of conception it would be misapprehended. For to conceive in many ways what he describes in terms of colour and soft
apart what in its being is not apart is to misconceive. The or hard, of sound and scent and flavour, is far more important
apparent possibility, on the side of the mind, of intelligence to him than what he describes in his equations. But, though
without sense was, I think, to Plato a strong argument for without experience of the first he would never have been led
the independent existence of the intelligible. And though to try to account for it by the second, if he ceased to have
Aristotle in places says that if there is not sense there must senses, he would cease to have experience of the first. On the
be imagination (OUK gUT(' YoerV I1v€v cpavrualas), there are objects theory of the subjectivity of the secondary qualities it does
of thought which cannot be imaged, as Hume saw to his not follow that the second would cease to be; and the
perplexity; and Aristotle himself denies imagination, not less ordinary explanation of sense-experience, which states that
than sense, to the divine intelligence. Nor, if you are to take the first and the experience of it arise together when certain
seriously the statement that the soul can exist apart from the combinations of elements occur in the second, implies that it
body-and that Plato did so, is evident not only from Repubiic, would not cease to be. The real, on this view, is at least non-
x, but from such passages as Phaedo, 76-8, Phaedrus, 247-can sensible. It is not conceived as Plato conceived his world of
you avoid considering whether it can then retain a conscious- Ideas; for these are universals, but the physicist's is a world
ness of sensibles which seems to be bound up with the condi- of non-sensible particulars. Yet even this distinction may at
tions and limitations of the body's organs of sense. We see times wear thin; for the ever-shifting play of elements in the
from Parmenides 133 B-134 E that Plato was alive to the physicist's real world is contrasted with the laws which that
difficulties involved in this separation of intelligence from play constantly exemplifies and his equations express. These
sense; it is hard, he says, to see either how the mind sensU- equations involve among their variables space and time.
ously conditioned can really know what is purely intelligible, But we are told (how truly does not now matter, for the
or how pure intelligence can know the things we do. Never- question is not how far we are to believe what physicists tell
theless beliefs like that in the XWp'GTa <13'1 lie not very far us, but what right they would have to cast a stone at the
from the language at least, if not from the thought, of men Platonic doctrine of Xwp'GfJ-6s)-we are told that space and
of science to-day. It is a commonplace to say that the time are relative to the individual, not less than sound and
physicist is concerned with abstractions. He thinks of the colour; for him they are somehow separated out from that
world as a system of invisibles, in whose movements certain Space-Time which can only be expressed mathematically;
laws are increasingly exhibited, and though their dispositions my real world as described by the help of particular space-
are continually ch,mging, the changes always satisfy the same relations and time-relations is not the same as yours, until
equations. The colour and sound and scent and all the other abstraction is made from the differences which relativity
glories of this visible scene-1} 3,' 5.p<ws ",o.,"ol'",v'1 i!3po.-have brings: and then what is left identical is the purely intelligible
no being in the world of which he gives an account; he is even all-comprehensive equation, which somehow the conditions
content to speak of its contributive parts in terms of energy, of our several experiences alike satisfy. I do not think, if
which, whatever it may be, is nothing properly sensible. It paradox is absurd or scandalous, that there is less absurdity
THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION OF IDEAS TO EACH OTHER
or scandal in this teaching than in Plato's universalia laws, you will find great difficulty in distinguishing between
ante rem. what does and what does not fall within the sweep of his
I have compared the Platonic Ideas to our laws of nature; providence. And so Christ said that the hairs of our heads
and the comparison has often been made, though the two are are all numbered, and that not a sparrow falleth to the ground
not equivalent; e.g. we think that the laws of nature are without our Father. And Parmenides in the dialogue called
always exactly exemplified in sensible events, but Plato after him (130 E) tells the young Socrates that some day he
thought the Ideas were not adequately expressed in sensible will regard nothing as too trivial to be considered, when
particulars; and laws of nature formulate change, whereas Socrates has boggled at admitting Ideas of such things as
Ideas define things so far as they do not change. But there hair and mud and dirt-i.e. at regarding their being as pro-
is another notion, that of a plan or purpose, which may also vided for in the eternal plan of things.
help us to understand the Ideas. For though Aristotle com- This question, of what there are Ideas, rightly attracted
plained that Plato had not shown how Ideas were causes of attention in the Academy. The uncompromising spirit which
change, in calling them patterns or rrapaa.tl'/,a:ra Plato im- made Plato maintain the transcendence of the Ideas perhaps
plies that somehow they controlled the process of becoming failed him when he considered what Ideas there were. The
in sensibles; and the doctrine of the lS'a. TOV ayaOov, as we instances given in the dialogues are indeed multifarious. The
have seen, brings even into the being of the ideas something commonest are moral, like aya86v and KUK6v, justice, &c.;
like a purpose eternally fulfilled. And to the difficulties aesthetic, like Ka'\6v and alaxp6v; and mathematical, like
besetting the doctrine of XWp,aT(; .taT) there is a difficulty laov, ovo, EV, lJ.ly€eo~J 'TE'Tpaywvov, &c. But we find bodily
closely analogous in what is often nevertheless believed states like vl'i«a and laxus (Phaedo, 65 D, E), states or activi-
to-day about the place of purpose in the world. We talk of ties of the mind, like J7TL<7T'I)/'T) (Parmenides, 134 C), manu-
a divine providence or plan being worked out in the world: factured things, like K'PKis and Tpurravov (Cratylus, 389 A-C),
whether as somehow immanent, or through the power of a K,\[V1J and Tprf.rr.~a (Republic, x. 596 B), grammatical facts like
Creator who leaves the world he has made to run itself, does IIvo/,a (Cratylus, 389 D), natural kinds, like /f.vOpwrros and
not here matter. But we do not generally think of this f30vs (e.g. Philebus, IS A), the elements, like rrvp atlT" Jcfo'
purpose as embracing all the trivial details of events. Now JaVTov (Timaeus, SI B). The most important enumeration,
it is extremely hard to draw any line. We talk of a general one in which the instances are given in the order of their
providence; but if there is a providence, can anything be too claim, is in Parmenides, 129 D-I30 c. There Socrates has no
special for it? Such tiny things determine the shape of doubt about admitting 0fL0t.6Trj'Ta Ka~ dvojl,()l,6"'1}'Ta Ka~ 1TA'ijOoS
Cleopatra's nose as determine also the wart on Cromwell's Ka~ 'TO ~v Kal O'Taaw Ka~ KlVTJClW Kal 7TaV'Ta 'Ta 'To£av'Ta; nor
cheek; yet the first is said to have changed the course of regarding ideas of,Kalov Kal Ka~ov Kat a.yaOofi Kat 7TaV'T(f)V 'TWV
history, and the second had no historical importance. A TOWUTWV: he has often been puzzled whether there is atlT6 T'
general providence would have to include the conditions E' · 'ay0
('oos ' "'YJ 7rVpOS
PW7TOV TJ Kat voaros; and
\'t\\"~ re]' ects sueh0 'LOP
1{; \ , \ \ ~ I H\ \ ,I. \' I \ ' ,
which determine the first; and how could it then exclude Op~ K(J.I. 7T7]I\OS Km pV71'OS
'1\
1J Ul\l\O 'TI. 'f'UVI\O'TU'TOV T€ KUI. (J.TI.P.OTUTOV :
those which determine the second? Unless you are content he says that he has often been tormented by the question
to regard the deity as intervening where the consequences whether there are not ideas equally of all things, but has fled
accordant with his laws would defeat his purpose in those from the suggestion in fear of falling into a pit of nonsense. It
-4380.8 F
66 THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE
is at that point that Parmenides, who in his question has
r RELATION OF IDEAS TO EACH OTHER
mud, dirt, and others despicable or trivial. Why? I think
given this fourfold grouping of instances, says that when he for the same sort of reason that would make us hesitate to
is older he will think nothing despicable. There is indeed a regard as providential events that seem trivial or unimportant.
passage in Republic, x. 596 A which is commonly taken to be The world of ideas is something whose existence is justified
thus all-embracing-dSos yap 7TOV on EV EKaU'TOV EldJBafLEv by its absolute goodness; and after this goodness (which,
'0 0 ,... \ \\ I r . \., 'A..'
'Tt Ea at WEp/" €/(aU'Ta 'Ta 1TOl\l\a, 0 S 'TUVTOV ovofl-a E7Tl,'f'EpOp.,EV.
B ut as we saw, is hardly distinguishable from the articulated
it is doubtful if that interpretation is right. On the other system wherein alone it eau be displayed), the sensible world
hand, according to the testimony of Aristotle, Plato, or the is fashioned, though iucapable of reproducing it fully. Can
Platonists, rejected Ideas of relatives, TO. 7rp6s T<; of nega- we suppose that it matters to the goodness of this system,
tions, ai aTr0cPd.aE£S; and of artefacts, GICf:vaO''Ta; while some that there should be things like mud and dirt? They are
that he admitted Aristotle thinks he shonld have rejected. rather mere accidents. We mean by calling something acci-
Various explanations have been offered of the apparent dis- dental not that it occurs uncaused, but that it is not pur-
crepancy between this testimony and the evidence of the posed. It occurs in the course of executing a purpose, perhaps
dialogues. The whole matter is very fully discussed in pp. owing to the nature of the material in which the purpose has
I2I -8 of Robin, La Theorie platonicienne des idees et des to be executed; and Plato seems to have put down much
nombres d' apr.s Aristote. At any rate it is clear that this of the disorder found in the sensible world to the fact that the
point in the theory exercised men's minds. And it is in- Ideas manifest themselves in a material not completely sub-
structive to consider the order in which Parmenides is made to dued to them. And hair perhaps he conceived as accidental
propound examples to Socrates for his acceptance. The latter too; its biological significance was not recognized, and it was
introduced his distinction between the sensible many and counted by Aristotle as a product of superfluous nutriment.
the ideas in answer to Zeno, who had attempted to confute From these considerations we can perhaps understand what
the existence of the many sensibles we perceive by pointing Plato meant by saying in Republic, x that God made the Idea
to the fact that contradictory predicates can be asserted of of a bed or table. These artefacts are not without purpose;
them, so that they cannot be real, and thereby had brought they are designed to satisfy certain needs of man; and if
support to the Parmenidean doctrine that nothing exists but what belongs to man's nature occasions these needs, a plan
the One. Sensibles, says Socrates, may be at once like and which includes the being of manhood will include that of
unlike, one and many; but likeness cannot be unlikeness, nor bedhood. Necessary relations, we saw, hold between indi-
unity multiplicity; and if we distinguish xwp1s allTa KUO' viduals, not between universals; but if the side of a square
~\\H~ f'f, I" , 1\0
aVTa 'Ta Eoo1], OtOV ofLowTrJ,.,a 'rE Kat aVOfLOtOTTJTa Kat 1Tl\ij os Kat must be incommensurable with its diagonal, something in the
76 ~v Ka~ UTcfat,v Kat KlvTJutv Kat 7Tfiv'TU 'Ta. TotafJTa, we shall not natures of squareness and diagonality seems involved in the
find the same contradictions in them, and can admit them fact. Similarly, if a man's needs cause him to make a bed,
to be real, although many. Parmenides, by proffering succes- something in the manhood of the man and the bedhood of
sively the other three groups of examples that I quoted above, the bed seems involved in that: and both will be Ideas.
is asking in effect how far Socrates is prepared to carry this That ideas of natural kinds, and of the fuudamental in-
articulation of the ideal world. organic kinds or elemeuts, should be less readily rejected is
We find Socrates drawing the line at instances like hair, not surprising. Neither seem to arise accidentally. Both, on
4380,8
F2
68 THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION OF IDEAS TO EACH OTHER 69
Plato's view, belonged to the permanent order of the sensible instances that we find, and we cannot go beyond them;
world, though individual plants or animals arise and perish, whereas of the just or beautiful we seem to apprehend more
and individual elementary particles, according at least to the than any particulars reveal to us-we can proceed from the
Timaeus, may do the same. Further, in these, according to judgement that an act is unjust to the conceiving of justice,
the same dialogue, the mathematical necessities that deter- in a way to which nothing in the other case corresponds. One
mine the regular solids are exhibited; and in those men have might say that these natures stand waiting to be exemplified,
at all times been ready to see evidence of design. It is just and could not have been otherwise than they are. Descartes,
the denial of design, and the explanation of living things in jealous of any limitation on the omnipotence of his first
terms of chemistry and physics, that makes it so hard to cause, said that God made that to be just which is so, by an
attach any reality to those species which yet biologists will arbitrary act of will. But, if so, he could not approve justice
often tell us have evolved. Nevertheless, though it may before injustice; that implies that its superiority is inde-
belong to the eternal plan of things that there should be pendent of him. A man who arbitrarily decides that red shall
constant forms of living things or non-living elements, it is be the colour for regimentals does not approve it as more
hard to see why they must be just such as we find. Leibniz suitable. And C]ldworth in his Eternal and Immutable Moral-
invoked here the principle of sufficient reason, and the ity quite rightly criticized Descartes on this count, and urged
sufficient reason was that if they had been otherwise the that such essences were eternal, and independent of will.
universe would have been less good: though he did not The same may be said of those which Socrates in the Par-
pretend to demonstrate this in detail. I think in effect Plato's menides himself puts in the forefront, but with this addition:
ciVV7T60€TOS cipx0 was the same. Neither would confine the that whereas those like Justice and Beauty need not be
application of his principle to contingent truths. But Leibniz exemplified, these must be exemplified in any whether sen-
recognized also necessary truths or truths of reason; and what sible or intelligible world. Hence in SOPhist, 248-60 Plato
they concern could not conceivably be otherwise, even though signalizes these-aTda~S', Klvfjats, QV, EV, Tav'T6v, E'TC:pov-and
making contribution to this being the best of all possible he could have added 6fLoWV, dv6ftowv, 7ToAJ, as fI.i.ywTa rtwf},
worlds. which participate in each other, and all else in them: for
When we come to such terms as Just, Beautiful, Good, and there can be no object of thought or sense which has not
so forth, we find Socrates admitting there are Ideas denoted being, and is not one and the same with itself, and different
by them without hesitation. I think the reason is this, that from something else, and so forth. The inclusion of KivrJU'S
there is nothing contingent in them. That there should be as a necessary character of any intelligible, as well as aTri(ns,
instances is contingent, just as it is that there should be a presents some difficulty. But we shall not be persuaded, says
material octohedron: but the distinction between just and the Eleaiic Stranger, in 248 E, that movement and life and
unjust seems not to be one between particular acts or soul and thought are absent from the most real, the 'lTavT'A",s
characters, but to hold or exist independently of them. You liv. Perhaps Robin is right in understanding this movement
may say that animal nature also is what it is, whether there as meaning not change, but a sort of eternal procession of
are instances of it or not, and Plato no doubt held this, or he ideas one from another, in their hierarchy, and an eternal
could not have spoken of aDrorivOpw7ToS &c. ; yet there is this movement of interconnexion. I
difference, that what it is we can only discover by examining lOp. cit., pp. 493-4, 593.
That the ideas did not stand each in isolation from all the tions of that relation. It is problems arising within the field
rest, like a world apart, but intercommunicated, was a fuuda- of Ideas which in Philebus, 15 A he indicates to be really
mental part of the doctrine. And we may turn now from serious; just as in Parmenides, 129 A, B Socrates is prepared
questions concerning what ideas there are to questions con- to admit particulars to exhibit contrary characters, but not
cerning their relations. Two problems arise here: that of that these characters themselves should exhibit self-contra-
their relations to sensibles, and that of their relations to each diction; cf. Republic, vii. 523. And there is a reason we may
other. It looks as if the second only attracted attention after readily conjecture for this. The sensible world is not com-
the first. It is well known that several metaphors were used pletely intelligible: the intelligible must be. Any problems
to indicate the first-p..EBEgts, 6p..otWCFLS, 7fupova{a: and the therefore arising there about the one and the many must be
inadequacy of the first two is shown in the Parmenides. H. solved.
J ackson held that the substitution of 6fLoiwuts for fL,O.gtS Now to deny unity to what is is to deny being. If x is, it is
marked a later theory of Ideas; but both are criticized in one; else it is not x, but y and z; and so ad infinitum. Yet to
the Parmenides, and both occur in the Timaeus, which is deny plurality is equally impossible; for unity and being are
ascribed to the period of the later theory. The truth surely is distinguishable, yet what is has both. These forms KotVWV.<
that the relation of a universal to its particulars can only be dXh]AWV. But not all forms thus intercommunicate. To set
apprehended by reflecting on instances of it; it is not the each up in complete isolatioll----To 7TaV 0:170 1TaJ.'ToS' l7TI"X€tpetv
same relation as any of those terms, piBEgt8, dfl-olwats, 7Tapov- , 'Y . f at aI ; T€I\€WTO:T7j
a7Toxwp",';,€tV"---IS ' ' 7TUVTWV
, ,'
I\oywv " ,a-raJ'£UlS,
eUTW "- '
uia, is properly intended to denote; and therefore we can says Plato, Sophist, 259 E, 'TO otaAvELv /lKarrrOY a1T(~ 1TavTwv' ~ha
only be misled by trying to regard it as a case of what they yap Tijv dAA~l\wv 7"(OV ElSwv aVf1!1TAoKijv d 1\6yos y'YOVEV ~f1tv. It
properly signify. But we must recognize that there are 'in- is equally fatal to misconceive the connexions; and the
stances of the same'-that particulars called by the same business of Dialectic is to trace them as they are.
name may have the same nature, in spite of being each a Needless to say, this was never achieved by Plato. It
different individual, in respect of that which the name is would have been the completion of the journey which
intended to signify in them. The problem of the one and the Socrates says he cannot now make with us. But we may ask
many presents itself in various forms: when one subject is what he had in mind, and whether he could point to any
the many alleged in divers predicates, or many parts are one modes of connectedness in earnest of the mind's power to
whole, as well as when many subjects are one in respect of trace them in Dialectic.
some predicate. In Philebus, 14 D, E, the two former are I think there are four kinds which he would have in-
dismissed as 'vulgar marvels about the one and the many, stanced. The firstis that of StaipeaL<, orlogical division. There
which almost everyone is now agreed to let alone' ; and the is a great deal up and down the dialogues about this. That
first is really inseparable from the third; that one sensible a generic nature should display itself in just those specific
subject shonld have many predicates, and that one predicate forms which we find ought not to seem a mere accident.
should be in many sensible subjects, raise the same problems Sometimes it does not; we understand how angle is capable
about the relation of the particular and the universal. We of the forms right, acute, obtuse, and of no others. We ought
may perhaps conclude that Plato at that date was prepared to understand this equally in all cases. If we did, we should
to trouble no further about the criticisms levelled at descrip- make a division rightly, by differentiae that were not
1
I
arbitrary--r6 pipos d.p.u €looS' EX'-TW, says Plato; we should the connexions here again are not those of genus and species,
proceed by due stages, not overlooking the intermediate not yet are they the same as among the I-"YLuTa y<v'l ; for they
steps of differentiation nor goiug straight from summum display themselves only in subjects of a certain sort, not in
genus to infimae species;' we should divide nature at the all subjects; nor are they displayed mutually in each other.
joints, Ka7.' ({p8pa, fi 7r'CPVK€V; our species would be properly How this sort of demonstration can be carried on without
balanced at each stage, not a small part against all the rest any thought of particular figures or aggregates, Plato has not
of the genus. Perhaps Plato at times thought of TO 8v as shown; we saw before that modern mathematics in some
a summum genus, which we could trace necessarily differen- respects claims to do this.
tiating itself into all particular modes of being. That this But besides all this, there is more required. For of the
cannot be done, is a fundamental part of Aristotle's doctrine genera whose differentiations we trace, or of the species
of categories. whose properties we show to be connected, even of those
Aristotle says of 3LutpeatS that it is OrOY aa(}€vf]S avA"AoytafL6s most universal characters which we call piYUJ'TU yJ.vYj, we may
-an attempt to prove the definition of a species, which ask a reason why they are. It is here that we reach the
breaks down; because it is proved neither that the genus 8p'yKbs. Only if we can show the whole system, which we
must have the differentiae assigned to it, nor that the species have thus delineated and linked into one, to be good, do we
falls in that branch where it is placed. This is true; but Plato fully understand it. I need not add to what I have said above
was not conceiving the movement of thought in Dialectic as about the meaning of this is'a TOV dl'a8ov. But we can see
syllogism, nor could it well be. now that it is not on a par with any other Idea. It,;s not a
S,aip€(f<S would exhibit the relation and connexion of all genus of which they are species, though it can be predicated
forms that can be ranged in a hierarchy-of uxfil-'a, KIiKAOS, of each of them; it is not like one of the l-"ywTa Y'VII, a highly
and T€Tpd.ywvov and so forth. But if there are charaders abstract character in what is; it is not a particular character
cutting across the divisions made in our classification, or demonstrable of this subject and not of that. It is one,
mutually predicable of each other, they will not fit into an because only the whole system displays this goodness; it is
hierarchical scheme. Such are the I-"YLU-ra Y'VII already many, because it can be displayed only in the system of all
spoken of. In regard to them we can trace, with immediate these forms, and each of them is good, though not with the
apprehension of the facts as necessary, how they connect goodness of the whole. And it furnishes a reason for the
with each other and with all else, but the procedure is not presence of every term and relation in the system, because
Dtutpe(ILS' . each is necessary to its being.
Thirdly, I suppose that the demonstrations of the mathe-
matical sciences would, in Plato's view, somehow be retained,
though without the help of sensible diagrams and models, at
the level of Dialectic. The characters exhibited by numbers
and figures must be somehow connected in their own natures,
in order that in particular numerical aggregates or figured
bodies they should accompany each other as they do; but
I Cf. Phile.bus, 16 C-E.
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES
Adam, James, 9, 34, 37, 38, 39, 4 8 , Napoleon, 19.
49, 50, 51, 53, 54. Nettleship, R. L., 3, 4, 12, 22, 32,
Anaxagoras, 16. 34,37·
Antisthenes, 9.
Aristippus, 8. Parmenides, 54, 62, 65, 66, 69, 70,
Aristotle, 9, 10, 22, 23, 46, 47, 48, 71.
50, 54-9, 59 n. I, 61, 62, 64, 66, Paton, H, J., 34, 39, 43 n. I.
67,72. Peace, c., 12.
Phaedo, 5, 16, 18, 22 n. I, 50, 54, 62,
Bacon, Francis, 17, 18. 65·
Burnet, John, 1,48,54,56,57,59, Phaedrus, 62.
61. Philebus, 8, 9, 10, 20, 50, 55, 65, 7
71, 71 n. I.
Caird, E., 34, 35, 36. Polemarchus, 53.
Campbell, L., 34, 35, 35 n. 1, 36. Posidonius, 5.
Cleopatra, 64. Prichard, H. A., 6 n. 1.
Collingwood, R. G., 20, 40. Protagoras, I, 40.
Cratylus, 65. Pythagoras, I, 5, 9.
Croce, Benedetto, 40.
Cromwell, Oliver, 64. Robin, 55 n. I, 56 n. I, 66, 69.
Cudworth, 69. Ross, Sir D., Ion. 2andn. 4,46n. I,
50 n. I, 55 n. I, 56 n. I, 58, 61.
Dedekind, R., 59. Russell, Bertrand, Earl, 47.
Descartes, Rene, 69.
Diogenes Laertius, 9 n. I and n. 4. Shorey, P., 34, 35.
Sidgwkk, 51 n. 1.
Euclides, 9. SoPhist, 38, 39, 69, 71.
Eudoxus,9. Spencer, H., 17.
Speusippus, 9, 58.
Ferguson, A. S., 34, 38, 41, 43. Stallbaum, 53.
Stocks, J. L., 32, 34, 41.
Glaucon, 4, 29·
Gorgias,I, 26, 26 n. I.
Taylor, A. E., 5, 8, 9, 10 n. 1,55 n. 2,
58 n. 2, 59 n. I, 61.
Hume, David, 42, 62.
Theaetetus, I, 3. 9, 40, 54.
Theodorus, 3.
Thrasyrnachus, 53.
Isocrates, I.
Timaeus, 5, 22, 35, 50, SI, 65. 68, 70.
Jackson, H., 34, 35 n. I, 41, 43, 70. Watson, J" 41 n. I.
J owett, Benjamin, 3, 34, 36. Wilamowitz, 5.
Wilson, J. Cook, 33 n. 1.
Leibniz, G. W., 16, 23, 68,
Lotze, H., 61. Xenophon, 9.
Mill, J. S., '7, Zeller, 8.

Moore, G. E., H. Zeno, 57. 66.
Unlversit-atsbilJliothek
EiChstatt

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KNOWLEDGE AND

GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS

Pr Reprint of the ed. published by Oxford University

This is a reprint of the 1948 Oxford University Press edition.

Reprinted by arrangement with Oxford University Press.

Reprinted in 1981 by Greenwood Press

Printed in the United States of America

H. THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE GOOD WITH

Ill. THE RELATION OF THE GOOD TO OTHER

IV. THE LINE AND THE CAVE-DIFFICULTIES OF

V. MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 46

VI. THE DOCTRINE OF IDEAS AND THE RELATION

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 75

30 RELATION OF GOOD TO OTHER OBJECTS

MATHEMATICS AND THE DIALECTIC 47

(I have, with Adam, adopted here in S"O B 6 Ast's pro-

Mill, J. S., '7, Zeller, 8.

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