Socrates For anyone acquainted with geometry who saw such designs would admit the beauty of the workmanship, but would think it absurd to examine them seriously in the expectation of finding in them the absolute truth 530a with regard to equals or doubles or any other ratio.” “How could it be otherwise than absurd?” he said. “Do you not think,” said I, “that one who was an astronomer in very truth would feel in the same way when he turned his eyes upon the movements of the stars? He will be willing to concede that the artisan¹ of heaven fashioned it and all that it contains in the best possible manner for such a fabric; but when it comes to the proportions of day and night, and of their relation to the month, and that of the month to the year, and 530b of the other stars to these and one another, do you not suppose that he will regard as a very strange fellow the man who believes that these things go on for ever without change² or the least deviation³—though they possess bodies and are visible objects—and that his unremitting quest⁴ the realities of these things?” “I at least do think so,” he said, “now that I hear it from you.” “It is by means of problems,⁵ then,” said I, “as in the study of geometry, that we will pursue astronomy too, and 530c we will let be the things in the heavens,⁶ if we are to have a part in the true science of astronomy and so convert to right use from uselessness that natural indwelling intelligence of the soul.” “You enjoin a task,” he said, “that will multiply the labor⁷ of our present study of astronomy many times.” “And I fancy,” I said, “that our other injunctions will be of the same kind if we are of any use as lawgivers.

“However, what suitable studies have you to suggest?” “Nothing,” he said, “thus off-hand.” “Yet, surely,” said I, “motion⁸ in general provides not one but many forms or species, 530d according to my opinion. To enumerate them all will perhaps be the task of a wise man,⁹ but even to us two of them are apparent.” “What are they?” “In addition to astronomy, its counterpart, I replied.” “What is that?” “We may venture to suppose,” I said, “that as the eyes are framed for astronomy so the ears are framed,¹⁰ for the movements of harmony; and these are in some sort kindred sciences,¹¹ as the Pythagoreans¹² affirm and we admit,¹³ do we not, Glaucon?” “We do,” he said. 530e “Then,” said I, since the task is, so great, shall we not inquire of them¹⁴ what their opinion is and whether they have anything to add? And we in all this¹⁵ will be on the watch for what concerns us.” “What is that?” “To prevent our fosterlings from attempting to learn anything that does not conduce to the end¹⁶ we have in view, and does not always come out at what we said ought to be the goal of everything, as we were just now saying about astronomy.

531a Or do you not know that they repeat the same procedure in the case of harmonies¹⁷? They transfer it to hearing and measure audible concords and sounds against one another,¹⁸ expending much useless labor just as the astronomers do.” “Yes, by heaven,” he said, “and most absurdly too. They talk of something they call minims¹⁹ and, laying their ears alongside, as if trying to catch a voice from next door,²⁰ some affirm that they can hear a note between and that this is the least interval and the unit of measurement, while others insist that the strings now render identical sounds,²¹ 531b both preferring their ears to their minds.²²” “You,” said I, “are speaking of the worthies²³ who vex and torture the strings and rack them²⁴ on the pegs; but—not to draw out the comparison with strokes of the plectrum and the musician’s complaints of too responsive and too reluctant strings²⁵—I drop the figure,²⁶ and tell you that I do not mean these people, but those others²⁷ whom we just now said we would interrogate about harmony. 531c Their method exactly corresponds to that of the astronomer; for the numbers they seek are those found in these heard concords, but they do not ascend²⁸ to generalized problems and the consideration which numbers are inherently concordant and which not and why in each case.” “A superhuman task,” he said. “Say, rather, useful,²⁹ said I, for the investigation of the beautiful and the good,³⁰ but if otherwise pursued, useless.” “That is likely,” he said.

“And what is more,” I said, I take it that if the investigation³¹ 531d of all these studies goes far enough to bring out their community and kinship³² with one another, and to infer their affinities, then to busy ourselves with them contributes to our desired end, and the labor taken is not lost; but otherwise it is vain.” “I too so surmise,” said he; “but it is a huge task of which you speak, Socrates.” “Are you talking about the prelude,³³” I said, “or what? Or do we not know that all this is but the preamble of the law itself, the prelude of the strain that we have to apprehend? For you surely do not suppose that experts in these matters are reasoners 531e and dialecticians³⁴? “ “No, by Zeus,” he said, “except a very few whom I have met.” “But have you ever supposed,” I said, “that men who could not render and exact an account³⁵ of opinions in discussion would ever know anything of the things we say must be known?” 532a ““No” is surely the answer to that too.”

“This, then, at last, Glaucon,” I said, “is the very law which dialectics³⁶ recites, the strain which it executes, of which, though it belongs to the intelligible, we may see an imitation in the progress³⁷ of the faculty of vision, as we described³⁸ its endeavor to look at living things themselves and the stars themselves and finally at the very sun. In like manner, when anyone by dialectics attempts through discourse of reason and apart from all perceptions of sense³⁹ to find his way to the very essence of each thing and does not desist 532b till he apprehends by thought itself the nature of the good in itself, he arrives at the limit of the intelligible, as the other in our parable, came to the goal of the visible.” “By all means,” he said. “What, then, will you not call this progress of thought dialectic?” “Surely.” “And the release from bonds,” I said, “and the conversion from the shadows to the images⁴⁰ that cast them and to the light and the ascent⁴¹ from the subterranean cavern to the world above,⁴² and there the persisting inability⁴³ to look directly at animals and plants and the light of the sun, 532c but the ability to see the phantasms created by God⁴⁴ in water and shadows of objects that are real and not merely, as before, the shadows of images cast through a light which, compared with the sun, is as unreal as they—all this procedure of the arts and sciences that we have described indicates their power to lead the best part of the soul up to the contemplation of what is best among realities, as in our parable the clearest organ in the body was turned to the contemplation of what is brightest 532d in the corporeal and visible region.” “I accept this,” he said, “as the truth; and yet it appears to me very hard to accept, and again, from another point of view, hard to reject.⁴⁵ Nevertheless, since we have not to hear it at this time only, but are to repeat it often hereafter, let us assume that these things are as now has been said, and proceed to the melody itself, and go through with it as we have gone through the prelude. Tell me, then, what is the nature of this faculty of dialectic? 532e Into what divisions does it fall? And what are its ways? For it is these, it seems, that would bring us to the place where we may, so to speak, rest on the road and then come to the end of our journeying.”

533a “You will not be able, dear Glaucon, to follow me further,⁴⁶ though on my part there will be no lack of goodwill.⁴⁷ And, if I could, I would show you, no longer an image and symbol of my meaning, but the very truth, as it appears to me—though whether rightly or not I may not properly affirm.⁴⁸ But that something like this is what we have to see, I must affirm.⁴⁹ Is not that so?” “Surely.” “And may we not also declare that nothing less than the power of dialectics could reveal⁵⁰ this, and that only to one experienced⁵¹ in the studies we have described, and that the thing is in no other wise possible?” “That, too,” he said, “we may properly affirm.” “This, at any rate,” said I, “no one will maintain in dispute against us⁵²: 533b that there is any other way of inquiry⁵³ that attempts systematically and in all cases to determine what each thing really is. But all the other arts have for their object the opinions and desires of men or are wholly concerned with generation and composition or with the service and tendance of the things that grow and are put together, while the remnant which we said⁵⁴ did in some sort lay hold on reality—geometry and the studies that accompany it— 533c are, as we see, dreaming⁵⁵ about being, but the clear waking vision⁵⁶ of it is impossible for them as long as they leave the assumptions which they employ undisturbed and cannot give any account⁵⁷ of them. For where the starting-point is something that the reasoner does not know, and the conclusion and all that intervenes is a tissue of things not really known,⁵⁸ what possibility is there that assent⁵⁹ in such cases can ever be converted into true knowledge or science?” “None,” said he.

“Then,” said I, “is not dialectics the only process of inquiry that advances in this manner, doing away with hypotheses, up to the first principle itself in order to find confirmation there? And it is literally true that when the eye of the soul⁶⁰ is sunk 533d in the barbaric slough⁶¹ of the Orphic myth, dialectic gently draws it forth and leads it up, employing as helpers and co-operators in this conversion the studies and sciences which we enumerated, which we called sciences often from habit,⁶² though they really need some other designation, connoting more clearness than opinion and more obscurity than science. “Understanding,”⁶³ I believe, was the term we employed. But I presume we shall not dispute about the name⁶⁴ 533e when things of such moment lie before us for consideration.” “No, indeed,” he said.⁶⁵