My approach to Plato is entirely focused on his thought about virtues. The present essay is meant to counter the view common to academic scholars today that there is little connection between Socratic reasoning about virtue, presented in Plato’s “Socratic” dialogues, and Plato’s theory about “divine” virtue-Forms, imitation of which is able to make a person “divine, so far as this is possible.” This leaves the latter theory completely without any rational foundation.
I think that, in chapters 5-7 of Plato’s Republic, he does present some general principles that can be put into practice in a way that would lead from Socratic reasoning about virtue to rationally well-founded knowledge of perfect divine virtue-Forms. The present essay gives a detailed analysis of passages in these chapters which describe these principles.
The details of this argument are rather complex however, so in this introduction I want to present a summary of the conclusions I argue for on the basis of detailed textual analysis.
The most basic idea here has to do with a complex relation between our perceptions of moral goodness/badness in concrete cases, on the one hand, and abstract concepts of goodness, on the other. That is, Plato assumes that our perceptions in concrete cases are our only source of knowledge of virtue. For example, we only gain knowledge of the virtue of courage by witnessing particular concrete acts of bravery on particular occasions. For example when we witness a fireman risking his life to save someone from a burning building, our perception of admirable courage in this case, might be one source of our knowledge of what admirable courage consists in. That is, our perceptions in many such particular concrete cases constitute our only source of knowledge of what admirable courage consists in, thus the only materials we have to work with when trying to formulate a concept representing a precise concept of “divine” courage, a model that is flawless in its ability to represent the most perfect kind of courage.
On the other hand, one conclusion that will come to anyone who engages in serious and sustained testing of proposed definitions of courage by means of Socratic questioning-by-counterexample, is that any definition tied to any description of courage in terms of concrete behavior will turn out to be ambiguous. One reason for example: A person who lacks admirable courage as part of his character can nonetheless imitate the behavior of a courageous person. Another reason is that it is hard to give a specific description of some kind of concrete behavior that will represent true courage in all possible circumstances.
Plato presents this problem and its solution by means of metaphors of “mixture” and “separation.” In the case of the courageous fireman, for example, he would describe the courage we perceive to exist in the character of any given fireman, and exhibited in his actions, as pure “virtuous” courage “mixed with” other motives that are not purely virtuous; for example a given individual fireman’s brave actions might also be motivated by a personal concern for reputation or promotion to a higher salary.
The solution to this problem that Plato proposes is to reflect on our perceptions in such concrete examples and “separate” what we would call an idealized and “abstract” concept of courage from our perceptions in many concrete cases, where, as we perceive it, this pure concept exists “mixed” with other things that are not pure goodness.
(One thing striking about this account is that, if true, it provides our knowledge of divine virtue Forms with what we would call today an ultimately “empirical” basis, a basis in our individual perceptions of what is ethically admirable in concrete cases. Ever since Kant, philosophers have been taught that philosophers can be historically divided into those in the “rationalist” camp and those in the “empiricist” camp, and that Plato definitely belongs with the rationalists. One reason for this is that, unlike Plato, modern empiricist philosophers since David Hume have assumed that our perceptions of concrete reality have no ethical content.)
Here then is the long and detailed version of this paper.
First, it is crucial to keep in mind the overall purpose of Plato’s thought about virtue- Forms, the particular goal he sets himself and the problems he has to resolve to reach this goal. Plato is in search of personal norms or ideals to guide an individual the process of striving for moral excellence (arētē). If I want to become a better person by cultivating in myself the virtue of “honesty” for example, is “always tell the truth” the ideal I should be striving for? The problem: If “telling the truth” is not a precise description of something only and always morally admirable, then following the rule “tell the truth” on more and more occasions will not invariably constitute progress in becoming a more admirable person. An ideal of honesty to strive for has to be an ideal that is only and always perfectly admirable — not because reaching the full perfection of honesty is a realistic goal, but because I can only be assured that striving toward an ideal is always making me a better person, if the goal itself contains no imperfections. Suppose I come closer and closer to resembling a person I take as a hero and model for myself. If this model is herself imperfect, then coming to resemble her more and more will not invariably make me a better and better person.
Enter “Socratic” questioning. I can make up a story in which “telling the truth” is obviously not admirable — e.g. telling a murderer where her victim has gone. This shows that the phrase “telling the truth” does not precisely describe something only and always admirable. The suppositions behind Socratic reasoning, as here reconstructed are:
First, personal perceptions in clear concrete cases are the most reliable basis for moral knowledge. In the passages below, the Greek word aisthesis, “sense-perception” covers also these kinds of intuitive perceptions of the admirable or not-admirable character of human actions. (This is very different from modern science-inspired “empiricism,” which would regard these latter intuitive perceptions as much too “subjective” to provide a basis for reliable knowledge.)
Secondly, we have no direct access to intuitions about the idea “honesty,” or intellectual grasp of self-evident principles, that are separate from these concrete perceptions, which would possibly be more reliable than these concrete perceptions, and provide some alternate source of moral knowledge. Socratic questioning consists in making up concrete stories in which an individual’s personal intuitive perceptions are in conflict with general concepts or rules. And in the case of such conflicts, preference is always given to the intuitive perceptions.
Thirdly, serious practice of Socratic questioning shows pretty quickly that no rule for concrete external conduct can ever be a description of something always and only perfectly admirable. So, although intuitive perceptions of external conduct visible to the senses (aisthesis) form the only ultimate basis for all moral knowledge, all attempts to formulate pure and perfect ideals in terms of things visible to the senses, are doomed to failure.
There would be no problems to resolve if we did not trust our concrete perceptions (aisthesis). On the other hand, the problems that arise in this way can never be resolved if we stay in the realm of aisthesis.
Pure and perfect ideals, rationally known to be always and only perfectly admirable, can be formulated, but only if they are formulated in terms of abstract concepts, i.e. concepts separated from anything visible to the senses. Platonic Forms, being just such abstract virtue-concepts, are thus Plato’s answer to problems uncovered by Socratic questioning. In passages below, Plato uses the Greek word noesis “mental understanding” to refer to the capacity of the mind to mentally extract such abstract concepts from concrete perceptions (aisthesis). Platonic Forms can only be grasped by noesis, not aisthesis.
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Coming to relevant texts, we need first to consider the connection between two passages about different kinds of opposite concepts. “Long” and “short” are one kind, but Plato relates these physical opposites to concepts of moral opposites, “right” and “not right.” Although Plato’s main interest is of course in the moral concepts, his passage about “long” and “short” illustrates the main principles of his thought in a clearer fashion.
The passage in question begins with a question: Is the ring finger long or short? Answer: The sense of sight (aisthesis) reports it to have contradictory qualities, both “long” (in relation to the little finger) and “short” (in relation to the middle finger.)
In Plato’s words
[In the case of the ring finger] the sense of sight sees “long” and “short,” but not as separate, but as mixed together [in one finger]. So in order to clarify this, mental understanding [noēsis] is compelled to see “long” and “short” not as mixed together but as separate, the opposite way from sight.
And it is from some such circumstances that it first occurs to us to ask, “What is ‘the long’, and again of ‘the short’?” And so we call these [latter] things “mentally understood” (noēton) and the other things “visibly seen” (horaton, a kind of aisthēsis).
Some among our sensory perceptions [aisthesis] do not call upon noēsis to examine them… Others certainly summon the help of noesis to examine them because aisthesis/sense-perception produces nothing sound. They do not call for help…if they do not at the same time signal contradictory perceptions [enantian aisthēseis]; I describe those that do as calling for help whenever the sense perception does not point to one thing rather than its opposite.
In these cases we need to call upon… noesis, to examine whether each of the things announced to it is one or two…
The important points here:
The problem about long and short only arises if we have a basic trust in aisthesis. In fact, we only learn what the concepts “long” and “short” mean, by means of aisthesis, sense-perception of long and short objects. There is no direct mental intuition of the meaning of “long” and “short” that is a source of knowledge of these concepts separate from what sense-perception tells us about long and short.
Problems arise when sense-perception reports that a single visible object (finger) appears to exemplify two opposite concepts, “long” and “short.” Although this problem arises out of sense-perception, the problem cannot be resolved so long as we stay within the realm of concrete objects perceived by the senses. The problem can only be resolved by a process of mental separation, performed by a different mental faculty, noesis, capable of treating “long” and “short” as abstract concepts, disconnected from anything concrete like a finger. This cannot be done on the level of aisthesis, but can be done by noesis, the mental ability to grasp abstract concepts.
Retrospectively, from the point of view of a Platonist in whom noesis has been able to grasp abstract concepts, aisthesis can be said to be “seeing [the concepts] ‘long’ and ‘short,’ but not as separate [the way noesis is able to see them], but as mixed together [in one finger].” Only noesis is able to clarify this, resolve this problem, because of its special ability to grasp “long” and “short” as abstract concepts, separated from any concretely visible objects. Noesis alone can “see ‘long’ and ‘short’ not as mixed together but as separate, the opposite way from sight (aisthesis).”
Plato makes a similar point, described in similar language, in another comment on a different subject:
“Since these [two concepts] are two, each is one, but because of mixing with bodies… and each other.. each appears everywhere under diverse appearances.”
That is:
“Since ‘long’ and ‘short’ are two [completely different and opposed concepts],
[As concepts] each is one [single concept, unmixed with its opposite]
It is when these concepts are “mixed together in bodies (like fingers, visible to aisthesis)” that they confuse our minds by becoming also “mixed with each other” (as when aisthesis reports that contradictory qualities “long” and “short” are “mixed together” in the same finger-body).
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Anyone coming to Plato’s Greek text from English translations cannot help but be struck by the relative crudeness of his language and imagery. What modern philosopher would describe abstract concepts as “mixed together” in a finger? Modern translators usually make it sound like Plato has a much more sophisticated philosophical vocabulary than he actually has. Standing at the very beginning of the Western philosophical tradition, he seems retrospectively to have been groping toward philosophical clarity by the use of crude images rather than completely clear concepts.
This is true also of the present “critical reconstruction” of Plato. In using terms like “concrete” and “abstract,” I am trying to clarify Plato’s thought in ways much less clear in his own writing. For example, this passage actually seems to be one of the few places where Plato comes close to using the term “abstract,” which he expresses more in terms of mental “separation” of concepts that have gotten confusingly “mixed together” in concrete objects, using very ordinary Greek words for “mixing” and “separation.”
This is a crucial point for the project of critical reconstruction itself. That is, Plato’s crude way of expressing himself often makes it unclear when to take his statements very literally at face value, and when to take them as metaphors and imagery that needs further interpretation to become clear. Critical reconstruction provides a criterion for this: Rather than trying to guess at how Plato himself would have interpreted and clarified his statements, critical reconstruction clarifies them in a way that makes them fit into a well-reasoned whole.
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To proceed, consider next a passage where Plato connects these points about long and short fingers to his main interest, moral concepts:
Is there any one of the many “beautiful” things that will not appear “shameful”? or any one of the many “right” things that will not [appear] “not-right”? Or any one of the many “holy” [things that will] not [appear] “unholy”?…
What about the many things that are “double”? Are they any less “half” than “double”? So with things “long” and “short”, – – can these things be said of them [any more than] the opposite?…
No… Each of these things partakes of both opposites.
‘Long’ “partakes of its opposite” ‘short’ when aisthesis perceives it as “mixed together” with ‘short’ in a concrete finger.
When does ‘right’ “partake of its opposite” ‘not-right’? This I think is a throwback to the discussion about the weapons-owner gone insane in an earlier passage of the Republic. That is, suppose we try to define “rightness” inv very concrete terms, so that aisthesis can easily tell which external behavior is living up to this definition and which is not, then aisthesis will report that the same behavior “returning belongings to owners” will sometimes appear “right” and sometimes “not right.”
Since ‘right’ and ‘not right’ are two [concepts]
Each is one [unmixed, as concepts with each other],
But because of mixing with [concretely visible] actions [such as the action “returning belongings] these opposite concepts also get mixed with each other, so that the same action appears contain in itself opposites, ‘right’ and ‘not-right.’
When does “the beautiful” get mixed with “the shameful”? First, we have to remember than in Greek kalos does not only refer to visual beauty, but has a broader meaning roughly equivalent to “refined,” “noble.” This is why the opposite of kalos is not “ugly” but aischros “shameful,” or in more colloquial English “gross.”
Secondly, this statement about ‘beautiful’ and ‘shameful’ is made in the context of a criticism of young Athenian men who travel about to Greek villages attending Dionysiaca, festivals in honor of the Greek god Dionysos, god of theater, wine, sex, and orgies. They are looking for ‘beauty,’ and indeed do see many things in the theater that are truly noble and ‘fine’ [kalos], but a lot of what they see and hear is also not refined but gross, aischros. Because they love only the kind of beauty which can be perceived by the senses (sight and sound), the concrete “beautiful” people and behavior they observe will not be pure beauty, but beauty mixed with grossness. Relying on the senses is what causes them to be unable to see pure beauty and pure grossness unmixed with each other. This is possible only to noesis, able to grasp ‘beauty’ as an abstract concept, separated from anything concretely visible.
The following passage about Beauty (to kalon) quoted from Plato’s Symposium suggests further ways in which the single pure concept of Beauty can become mixed with its opposite when it is a beauty visible to the senses.
[The Form of Beauty] is something always-being, not coming into being and perishing, not increasing and decreasing… It is not partly beautiful and partly shameful, nor now [beautiful] now-not [beautiful], nor in some respects beautiful and in some respects shameful… Nor will the beautiful appear to him as a face, or hands, nor any other part of the body… nor something existing in something else… but always being something single-formed having its own being with itself in itself… All other beautiful things participate in this, in such a manner that, while these other things come into being and perish, this thing becomes neither greater nor lesser…
That is, beauty that appears in the visible form of a beautiful face is a changeable beauty, beautiful this year but not next year. No bodily person is completely and perfectly beautiful, but will be a being in whom there exists opposites, “refined beauty” and “grossness” — “in some respects beautiful and in some respects shameful.” Only an abstract concept of Beauty, grasped by noesis separated from anything visible to the senses, can be perfect in its beauty, unmixed with anything not beautiful, and unchanging in its beauty, never changing into anything opposite to beauty.
But note here in this Symposium passage the suggestion that beauty visible to aisthesis, imperfect as it is, is the ultimate basis for all knowledge of beauty, including a pure abstract concept of perfect Beauty, which noesis arrives at by mentally separating the pure and perfect concept of Beauty from other things that are mixed with pure Beauty in concrete beautiful objects and people.
We cannot directly and immediately leap to the top of ladder pictured in this passage, directly intuiting the abstract concept of Beauty already separated from concrete reality. The passage recommends, rather, beginning by “pursuing one beautiful body.” Even at the end, the passage speaks of “seeing the Beautiful [invisible in itself] through what is visible.”
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Next I want to quote more fully and comment on the passage from Republic Book 5 referred to briefly above. This passage contains many statements regarded by most interpreters as key to understanding Plato’s Form theory. (References to Julia Annas are to her book An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1981.)
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Text First, 507b …. [I] remind you of things that have been said here before and often on many occasions:
There are any beautiful things and many good things… We speak also of the Beautiful Itself and the Good Itself And so, everything which previously we considered “many,” We now go back and consider each to be “one” according to [its] Form.
The former [many] things we speak about as “seen,” not “mentally understood” (noes-thai) But Forms we speak of as “understood,” not “seen”…
We speak of many beautiful things and many good things And Beauty Itself and Goodness Itself and so with all the things which before we considered many we now consider them again according to a single Form of each, which is one, and which we in each case call ‘that which is’ … |
Commentary As Julia Annas points out (p. 195), Plato’s Republic does not try to prove to the general public that the Forms exist. It refers to this theory as something already well-known to an intended audience already familiar with the basics of this theory, something “said here often before.”
Plato’s contrast is not a contrast between “one” valid definition of Beauty and “many” invalid definitions. It is the contrast between a single concept “beauty” on the one hand, and many concrete examples of beautiful things. This leaves open the possibility that there might be several valid definitions of Beauty, each one of these instantiated in many different beautiful things.
The contrast between one concept and many examples is also associated with the contrast between abstract concepts, seen only by the mind, and concrete examples visible to the senses.
The final phrase here “that which is” (ho esti) introduces Plato’s somewhat peculiar use of the Greek verb “to be” (einai), and its derivatives like “is” (esti), “being” (on), etc. He can scarcely mean that only the Form of Beauty “is” – – that it “exists,” in contrast to concrete examples of beauty which “are” not, i.e. do not exist. As will be made clearer in passages quoted below, it makes more sense to suppose that he is using “is” to mean that only the Form of Beauty “is” fully beautiful, that only a Platonic Form represents something only and always purely beautiful. The contrasting case is the case of many beautiful concrete objects, which might be partly beautiful and partly not beautiful, or which might change from being beautiful to being not-beautiful. (See the discussion in Annas p. 195-199 about this particular “predicative” rather than “existential” meaning of “being” in this passage.) |
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Next 476a-476d. Sight-lovers [philo-theamones]… and sound-lovers [phil-ekooi] are a strange group to be numbered among wisdom-lovers [philo-sophous]. You could not get them to attend any serious debate… they lend their ears to every chorus and run around to all the Dionysiac festivals, never missing one in all the villages. Are we to call such men… “wisdom-lovers”? -No. But they are like wisdom-lovers… [because] true wisdom-lovers are sight-lovers of [the sight of] truth [philo-theamones tes aletheias]. – How do you mean? – It’s difficult, [but let me explain]: |
This paragraph introduces the main passage I want to comment on. It begins with a reference to men who travel around Greece to Dionysiac festivals, which were an occasion for theatrical performances as well as partying (Dionysos was the Greek god of theater, wine, dancing, and revelry). It plays on the Greek word philo-sophia, literally love (philos) of wisdom (sophia). Since in Plato’s mind true wisdom consists in love of the abstract Forms seen with the mind and not with the senses, philosophers as wisdom-lovers are contrasted with party-goers who love instead only the many beautiful concrete things they see with their eyes and hear with their ears – – hence they are called sight-lovers and sound-lovers in contrast to wisdom-lovers. |
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Since “the Beautiful” is the opposite of “the Shameful,” they are two… Since they are two, each is one. And in respect to “the Right” and “the not-Right,” “the Good” and “the Bad,” and all the Forms… each is one, but because of mixing with bodies and actions and each other, each appears everywhere under many appearances. |
Note Plato’s way of picturing things here: The abstract Form of Beauty exists in many beautiful objects, but it exists there “mixed with” concrete bodies (somata), and sometimes even mixed with the opposite Form, the Form of “the shameful.” The context suggests, for example, a specific scene in a theater-performance presenting the audience with some things inspiringly beautiful and some things Plato regards as shameful. This is explicitly related to a discussion of Rightness earlier in the Republic, where Socrates uncovers a contradiction in Kephalos’ overly-concrete definition of rightness, “return to each what you have received from him.” Since this definition can refer both to actions which are right and also to actions which are not right, the definition can be said here to contain in itself a “mixture” of the Form right and the Form not-right. This shows that Plato conceives of his Form theory as a way of resolving contradictions uncovered in Socratic inquiry. |
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I make a distinction like this: I set apart… the sight-lovers and lovers of skill and action, and separate them from those whom our talk concerns, who alone are rightly called lovers of wisdom [philo–sophous]. The lovers of sound and sights delight in beautiful tones and colors and shapes, and everything that artful skill creates out of these, but their thought is unable to see and take delight in the nature of the Beautiful Itself. [Those are] few who are able to approach Beauty Itself, and see it by itself…. [So we have one kind of person] who attends to beautiful actions, but does not attend to the Beautiful Itself, nor is able to follow when someone tries to guide him to the knowledge of it… [And then there is the person who is] the opposite of these: someone who recognizes the Beautiful Itself, and is able to see both it and what participates in it, and does not mistake what participates in it for it itself, nor mistake it itself for what participates in it…. |
Only the Form of Beauty is only and always purely Beautiful, whereas beautiful sounds and sights are only partly and changeably beautiful. This explains why it is important to be able to “see and take delight in the nature of the Beautiful Itself,” rather than only be able to take delight in beautiful sights and sounds.
Here we have the important Platonic notion of “participation.” Plato does not deny that beautiful sights and sounds are beautiful. But Platonist spirituality requires that a person not let her love for beauty be focused on concrete beautiful objects which exhibit beauty only in mixed and changeable form. Her love for beauty should be focused primarily on the Form of Beauty, and she should think of beautiful objects as participating in the pure and unchanging beauty of the Form of Beauty. |
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479a [Suppose there is] a person who does not think there is the Beautiful Itself, or any Form of Beauty Itself always remaining the same, but who attends to many beautiful things – – the sight-lover, I mean, who cannot endure to hear anybody say that the Beautiful is one and Rightness is one, and so of other things.
Is there any one of these many beautiful things that will not appear shameful? And of the right things, that will not seem not-right? And of the holy things, that will not seem unholy?
And again, do the many double things appear any the less halves than doubles? And likewise of the long and the short things, the light and the heavy things – – can these things be said of them [any more than] the opposite?… |
Here we see the phrase “always remaining the same,” which causes many to associate Plato with the thesis that there is only one correct definition of Beauty “always the same” for all people everywhere. But note that nowhere in this passage does Plato bring up the problem that different people might be attracted to different abstract definitions of beauty. He does not speak of one valid abstract definition in contrast to many invalid abstract definitions. He speaks of an abstract definition of Beauty which is “always the same” in its ability to represent beauty, in contrast to many beautiful things which are changeable in their beauty, and in which beauty might be mixed with what is not-beautiful. Again he relates the problem of concrete vs. abstract Beauty to the problem of Kephalos’ overly-concrete definition of Rightness in Republic Book I.
“Long and short” here connects this discussion to the discussion in Book 7, treated above, of the ring finger that is both-long-and-short (long in relation to the little finger, short in relation to the index finger). There Plato’s picture is even clearer: Abstract Forms are contained in our concrete sensory perceptions, but they occur there sometimes mixed with opposite Forms. This is a problem that can be resolved by mentally separating abstract Forms from concrete perceptions. |
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So in regard to each of these many things: “Is” it more than it “is-not” whatever one might say it is?
It is like those who pun on double meanings at banquets, or the children’s riddle about the eunuch and his hitting the bat – – what they say he hit it with and as it sat on what. These things too are double-meaninged, and it is impossible to conceive firmly any one of them to “be” or “not-be,” or both, or neither. [There is not] a better place to put them than midway between being [ousia] and not being [me einai]. For we shall surely not discover a darker region than not-being [mē on], that something should “not be” still more, nor a brighter region than being [on], that something should “be” still more.
We would seem to have found, then, that the many conventions of the many people about the beautiful and other things are tumbled about in the mid-region between what “is-not” and what exactly “is.” |
This passage shows Plato’s peculiar use of the terms “to be” (einai), “is” (esti), and “being” (ousia and on). Regarding Kephalos’ definition “return to someone whatever you have received from him,” one cannot properly say that it “is” right, any more than one can say that it “is-not” right. Plato describes this by saying that such a definition lies in a region between “being” and “not-being.” The context suggests: It would be wrong to say that Kephalos’ definition does not represent the being of Rightness at all, since most of the time it is right to return belongings to someone. But it would also be wrong to say that this definition represents the pure being of Rightness, because in the case of the man gone insane, returning the weapons is clearly not right. So we should say that what this definition says lies somewhere “between being and not being” – – between representing pure rightness and not representing rightness at all. This reading is supported by the reference to the children’s riddle concerning the eunuch and the bat, which Paul Shorey gives more fully as follows: A man not a man Seeing and not seeing A bird not a bird Sitting on a limb not a limb Hit at it and did not hit it With a stone not a stone. The riddle’s answer: A half-blind eunuch saw (a man not a man, seeing did not see) a bat (a bird not a bird) perching on a reed (a branch not a branch) threw at it a pumice stone and missed (hit and did not hit it with a stone not a stone).
A eunuch (a castrated male) and a bat are also examples of things that lie “between being and not-being.” Clearly ‘being” and “not-being” here do not mean “existing” and “not existing,” but “being fully an X” or “not being fully an X. A bat is not a being lying between existing and not existing, but lying between fully-being-a-bird and not-being-a-bird-at-all. Just so, the above discussion has argued that concrete examples of beautiful things lie between fully being-beautiful and not being beautiful at all.
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479c-479e Anything of this kind… must be called “what one observes the appearances of” [doxaston] not what is Known [gnoston], the wanderer between being caught by this in-between [mental] capacity [which goes by appearances]. Those who see many beautiful things, but do not see The Beautiful… and see many right things but not The Right, and everything like this – – we should say they “go by the appearances” [doxazein] of everything, but do not Know what they observe the appearances of. What about those who see each of those things, the things [i.e. the Forms] that always are the same? [We should] say they “Know,” not that they “observe the appearances” [doxazein]. [We should] say that those who take delight in and love those things about which there is Knowledge, the others [take delight in and love those things] about which they observe the appearances [doxa]… These love and give their attention to beautiful sounds and colors and similar things, but cannot bear the Beautiful as something that “is”. [We should] call them “lovers of appearances” [philo-doxous] rather than “lovers of wisdom” [philo-sophous]…
Those who delight in the “being” of each thing [hekaston to on] should be called “lovers of wisdom” [philo-sophous] not “lovers of appearances” [philo-doxous]. |
Here we meet another special term in Plato’s vocabulary, the noun doxa, its verb form doxazein and the participle doxaston. The most common translations of doxa are “opinion,” or “belief.” But “opinion” suggests a theoretical discussion, in which some people have only subjective and unreliable “opinions” or “beliefs” in contrast to others who have certain and objective “Knowledge.” The preceding paragraphs suggest a very different contrast. The people described as philo–doxous are not “lovers of particular opinions or beliefs. They are the same as the “sight-lovers and sound-lovers (philo-theamones and phil-ekoos) described earlier. It is not that they have false theoretical beliefs about beauty, but that the beauty they love does not go beyond the beauty visible to the senses (aisthesis). This is why I think doxa and related words are better translated here as “[visible] appearances,” a meaning this word clearly has in some earlier Republic passages as well (See appendix below.)
In this last passage, Plato uses other Greek words — gnosis and episteme — that I read as equivalent to noesis. I think it is a mistake to treat this passage as “Plato’s theory of knowledge,” as though there were some common thing called “knowledge” about which Plato and other philosophers might have different opinions. A fully contextual understanding of this passage should regard Plato has here implicitly redefining all these terms so that they refer to that specific kind of knowledge of most importance to him because it is the kind that resolves problems raised by Socratic questioning, and also the kind necessary to grasp those kinds of virtue-concepts which will serve as an invariable guide for an individual striving for moral excellence. |
Additional note on doxa as “appearance” or “seeming” in contrast to “being.”
The understanding I propose for doxa and doxazein in this passage is the same as the use of doxa and its cognates in an earlier passage of Republic Book II (360e to 367e). In this passage, Socrates’ goal is to make a very clear and complete distinction between the most just man (dikaiotaton), and the most unjust man (adikÇtaton 360e). The height of injustice, he says, is to “seem just (dokei dikaion einai) [while] not being [mē einai] [just]. The most unjust man will then be the one who commits the greatest injustices while procuring for himself “the greatest seeming [doxa] of justice” [tēn megistēn doxan… eis dikaiosunen]. Doxa here clearly does not refer to theoretical opinions about how to define “justice.” It refers to the external appearances, external “seemings” of justice, in contrast to actually being (einai) just. (Shorey translates doxa here as “reputation.”)
Proceeding further, Socrates says that a perfectly just man must be one who “does not wish to seem [dokein] just, but to be [einai] just.” If we want to picture such a man, we must “deprive him of the seeming [to dokein]. Because if he seems [doxei] just, honors and gifts will come to him on account of this seeming [dokounti toiouto]. Then it will not be clear whether he is this way for the sake of justice or because of honors and gifts. He must be stripped bare of everything except justice… Doing no injustices, he must have the seeming [doxan echeto] of the greatest injustice.” (361c-d) (Shorey again translates doxa here as “reputation.”)
This meaning of doxa is also similar to its meaning in another passage in Book 6 of the Republic:
Regarding “the Right” and “the Beautiful,” many would prefer the seemings [ta dokounta] not the Being. Likewise with doing and possessing and seeming those things. But regarding Goodness [ta agatha], possessing things that have the seemings [ta dokounta] satisfies no one, but they seek those things having the Being [ta onta]. Everyone here disregards seeming [doxa]. [What has the Being of Goodness is] that which every soul seeks, and on account of this does everything, having a sense of what it Is [ti einai], but puzzled and unable to adequately get what it is, or have a trustworthy belief about it as of other things, and because of this not able to obtain what is [truly] beneficial in other things.
“Goodness” here [ta agatha] as seems to have a meaning broader than “right” and “beautiful.” Putting on the appearances (doxa) of rightness and beauty might satisfy the desire for admiration and social prestige, but is not “soul-satisfying.” That is, there is something in people that wants to satisfy itself, and is able to sense the difference between the truly soul-satisfying Being of goodness, and mere appearances put on to impress others.
#3. The Forms as “Divine Paradigms” for the Soul
(from the Republic)
At the center of Platonic thought is the quest for the right criteria a person should use for self-evaluation. Plato thinks that only perfect virtue-concepts are suited to this purpose, because as he says “the imperfect is not the measure of anything.” (Winemakers do not take imperfect wines as a measure to try to live up to, but a sense of what a perfect wine would be.)
One peculiarity of Plato’s language in the Republic is his use of the word “Being” to refer to the full perfection of Platonic-Forms. What he means is that only the pure Platonic Form of Justice has the full being of the goodness of Justice. Concrete just actions and just people are never perfect in their justice, but in Plato’s words “participate in” this perfect Form. So they are said in a later passage to “roll around between being and not-being” — i.e. it’s wrong to say that they fully lack the Being of Justice, but also wrong to say that they fully have the Being of Justice. This causes him sometimes to refer to the virtue-Forms themselves as simply “the Beings,” and also describe them as “always Being” because they are pure and unchangeable in their goodness, unlike a virtuous person who is partly good and partly not good, and might change from being good today to being not good tomorrow.
This use of “Being” as interchangeable with “perfect” is illustrated in Republic 504c, where Plato says:
A measure of such things [as justice, sobriety, courage, and wisdom] that falls short in the least degree of Being [hotioun tou ontos] is not a measure at all because the imperfect [ateles] is not a measure [metron] of anything, although it appears to some that they have already done enough and there is no need to seek further.
Here are some other passages illustrating this use of “Being” to refer to the Perfect Forms as perfect models to model oneself on.
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Does it seem to you that those differ from the blind [the Platonic Essence of each virtue] and always attending to what is “over there” (ekeise) and contemplating it most exactly about the beautiful and the just and the good. (484c-d) |
This passage describes the function of Platonic Forms in the life of the ideal Platonist. They are models, or “paradigms,” and the ideal person tries to make her character resemble them as closely as possible, as an artist tries to make her painting an exact copy of the model she is painting. Ekeise is the normal Greek word for “over there,” and its use in this passage illustrates well the vague way that Plato refers to the otherworldly character of the Forms — not “here” in this world but “over there.”
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Those of a philosophical nature the being of the always-being (tes ousias tes aei ouses), (485B)
[the Platonist philosopher is] the nature [i.e. the Form] of each [virtue] |
“Always being” is often interpreted to refer to Eternal Absolute Truths — universal because they are free of any shaping by particular cultural forms. But Plato is not addressing this issue at all in the Republic, and he uses here a very ordinary everyday Greek word for “always,” aei. Plato “always” makes his home in Athens — one would not say he “eternally” makes his home in Athens. The contrast he wants to make is rather the contrast between, for example, the beauty of particular things which “come into being and perish” as opposed to the Form of Beauty, “always being something single-formed having its own being with itself in itself… All other beautiful things participate in this, in such a manner that, while these other things come into being and perish, this thing becomes neither greater nor lesser…” (Symposium passage quoted above.) The Form of Rightness also “always has the pure and unmixed Being of Rightness, in contrast to rules like “return belongings” which sometimes have this being and sometimes do not. Concretely visible reality, and rules for concretely visible conduct, always constitute the “appearances” (doxa) of goodness, not its Being.
Plato’s psychology makes a distinction between “lower” parts of the human mind, focused on concrete appearances, and a “higher” part of the mind capable of understanding the full Being of human Goodness. This more “otherworldly” part of the mind feels a kinship between itself and the otherworldly Forms, feels an innate love for them and wants to draw close and “mingle” with them as a person mingles with a group of friends. |
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… the one who truly has his mind on the Beings [ta onta] |
The Forms are “divine.” The ideal Platonic philosopher tries to become like them as much as is possible, and in so doing becomes as divine as is possible for human beings. |
The Parable of the Cave
(From Plato’s Republic 514-519)
The ladder-image in the Symposium passage quoted above pictures the positive relation between concrete reality and the abstract Platonic Forms. Concrete beautiful bodies serve as imperfect but easily accessible “bottom rungs” on Plato’s ladder which serve as necessary starting points for understanding the much less easily accessible perfect Forms at the top of the ladder.
The parable of the Cave quoted below pictures the negative relation between concrete reality visible to aisthesis, and the Forms grasped only by noesis. Human concrete-mindedness makes people tend to mistake concrete visible actions and results of goodness for the invisible reality of goodness itself. Plato compares this to an imagined situation in which prisoners are chained in a cave only able to face forward to a wall in front of them. People behind a wall in back of the prisoners invisible to the prisoners carry statues of men and animals back and forth, casting shadows on the wall in front of them. The cave-dwellers, who have never seen the real world, mistakenly think that these shadows [the concrete appearances of goodness] are the real world [are true Goodness itself]. “These men are like us” says Plato.
In Plato’s parable, the individual who manages to climb out of the Cave represents the ideal Platonist philosopher. This is the very purpose of philosophy in Plato’s mind: to raise our minds beyond the imperfect concrete appearances of goodness visible to aisthesis, (cave shadows) to grasp by noesis the abstract essence of perfect Goodness itself (the ‘”real world” outside the cave). Such a person is said to have undertaken a metaphorical mental journey upward into the “realm of what-is-Understood” ton noēton topon, i.e. the realm of the Forms grasped only by noēsis. In what is probably a deliberate reversal of what people normally consider “the real world,” in this parable the world of perfect Forms (which do not “exist” at all, in the way concrete objects exist) is pictured as the Real world, the world of “the most bright Being.”
Plato has the parable end rather drastically: the individual who got free tries to return to the cave to free his companions. But they are so attached to the world of the cave shadows, and so threatened by the idea that this is not the real world, that they want to kill him. Again it seems likely that this parable is Plato’s way of representing the life and death of his ideal philosopher, Socrates.
Imagine men living in an underground cave-like dwelling place, which has a way up to the light along its whole width, but the entrance is a long way up. The men have been there from childhood, with their neck and legs in fetters, so that they remain in the same place and can only see ahead of them, as their bonds prevent them turning their heads. Light is provided by a fire burning some way behind and above them. Between the fire and the prisoners, some way behind them and on a higher ground, there is a path across the cave and along this a low wall has been built, like the screen at a puppet show in front of the performers who show their puppets above it.
See then also men carrying along that wall, visible over its top, all kinds of artifacts, statues of men, reproductions of other animals in stone or wood fashioned in all sorts of ways.
[These men] are like us.
Such men could not see anything of themselves and each other except the shadows which the fire casts upon the wall of the cave in front of them? And is not the same true of the objects carried along the wall? If they could converse with one another, do you not think that they would consider these shadows to be the real things? Such men would believe the truth to be nothing else than the shadows of the artifacts.
Getting Free, Seeing “the Real World”
Consider then what deliverance from their bonds and the curing of their ignorance it would be if something like this naturally happened to them:
Whenever one of them was freed, had to stand up suddenly, turn his head, walk, and look up toward the light, doing all that would give him pain, the flash of the fire would make it impossible for him to see the objects of which he had earlier seen the shadows. What do you think he would say if he was told that what he saw before was foolishness, that he was now somewhat closer to reality and turned to things that existed more fully, that he saw more correctly? If one then pointed to each of the objects passing by, asked him what each was, and forced him to answer, do you not think he would be at a loss and believe that the things which he saw earlier were truer than the things now pointed out to him?
If one then compelled him to look at the fire itself, his eyes would hurt, he would turn round and flee toward those things which he could see, and think that they were in fact clearer than those now shown to him.
And if one were to drag him thence by force up the rough and steep path, and did not let him go before he was dragged into the sunlight, would he not be in physical pain and angry as he was dragged along?
When he came into the light, with the sunlight filling his eyes, he would not be able to see a single one of the things which are now said to be true.
I think he would need time to get adjusted before he could see things in the world above; at first he would see shadows most easily, then reflections of men and other things in water, then the things themselves. After this he would see objects in the sky and the sky itself more easily at night, the light of the stars and the moon more easily than the sun and the light of the sun during the day.
Then, at last, he would be able to see the sun, not images of it in water or in some alien place, but the sun itself in its own place, and be able to contemplate it.
After this he would reflect that it is the sun which provides the seasons and the years, which governs everything in the visible world, and is also in some way the basis of those other things which he used to see.
Returning to the Cave
What then? As he reminds himself of his first dwelling place, of the wisdom there and of his fellow prisoners, would he not reckon himself happy for the change, and pity them?
And if the men below had praise and honors from each other, and prizes for the man who saw most clearly the shadows that passed before them, and who could best remember which usually came earlier and which later, and which came together and thus could most ably prophesy the future, do you think our man would desire those rewards and envy those who were honored and held power among the prisoners, or would he feel, as Homer put it, that he certainly wished to be “serf to another man without possessions upon the earth” and go through any suffering, rather than share their opinions and live as they do?
If this man went down into the cave again and sat down in the same seat, would his eyes not be filled with darkness, coming suddenly out of the sunlight?
And if he had to contend again with those who had remained prisoners in recognizing those shadows while his sight was affected and his eyes had not settled down – and the time for this adjustment would not be short – would he not be ridiculed? Would it not be said that he had returned from his upward journey with his eyesight spoiled, and that it was not worthwhile even to attempt to travel upward?
As for the man who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could somehow lay their hands on him and kill him, they would do so.
Interpreting the Story
This whole image… must be related to what we said before [about the perfect virtue-Forms]. The realm of the visible should be compared to the prison dwelling, and the fire inside it to the power of the sun. If you interpret the upward journey and the contemplation of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the realm of Understanding, [ton noeton topon] you will grasp what I’m suggesting.
In the realm of pure Understanding, the Form of the Good is the last to be seen, and with difficulty. When seen it must be reckoned to be for all the basis [aitia] of all that is right [orthos] and beautiful, to have produced in the visible world both light and the fount of light, while in the realm of Understanding it is itself mistress of truth and understanding [nous], and he who is to act intelligently in public or in private must see it.
Do not be surprised that those who have reached this point are unwilling to occupy themselves with human affairs, and that their souls are always pressing upward to spend their time there, for this is natural if things are as our parable indicates.
Is it at all surprising that anyone coming to the evils of human life from the contemplation of the divine behaves awkwardly and appears very ridiculous while his eyes are still dazzled and before he is sufficiently adjusted to the darkness around him, if he is compelled to contend in court or some other place about the shadows of justice or the objects of which they are shadows, and to carry through the contest about these in the way these things are understood by those who have never seen Justice itself?
Anyone with intelligence would remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, coming from light into darkness as well as from darkness into light. Realizing that the same applies to the soul, whenever he sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he will not laugh mindlessly but will consider whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed because unadjusted, or has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is filled with a brighter dazzlement. The former he would declare happy in its life and experience, the latter he would pity, and if he should wish to laugh at it, his laughter would be less ridiculous than if he laughed at a soul that has come from the light above.
If these things are true, [then] education is not what some declare it to be; they say that knowledge is not present in the soul, and that they put it in, like putting sight into blind eyes
Our present argument shows that the capacity to learn and the organ with which to do so are present in every person’s soul. It is as if it were not possible to turn the eye from darkness to light without turning the whole body; so one must turn one’s whole soul from the world of becoming [gignomenon] until it can endure to contemplate Being and the brightest Being [to on kai tou ontos tou phanotaton], which we say is the Good.
Education then is the art of doing this very thing, this turning around, the knowledge of how the soul can most easily and most effectively be turned around; it is not the art of putting the capacity of sight into the soul; the soul possesses that already but it is not turned the right way or looking where it should. This is what education has to deal with.
The virtue of Understanding belongs above all to something more divine [theios], which never loses its capacity but, according to which way it is turned, becomes useful and beneficial or useless and harmful.
Have you never noticed in men who are said to be wicked but clever, how sharply their little soul looks into things to which it turns its attention? Its capacity for sight is not inferior, but it is compelled to serve evil ends, so that the more sharply it looks the more evils it works.
Yet if a soul of this kind had been hammered at from childhood and those excrescences had been knocked off it which belong to the world of becoming and have been fastened upon it by feasting, gluttony, and similar pleasures, and which like leaden weights draw the soul to look downward – if, being rid of these, it turned to look at things that are true, then the same soul of the same man would see these just as sharply as it now sees the things towards which it is directed.
Appendix: Summary of the Interpretation of Key Greek Terms
Doxa is what a person has whose knowledge of what is admirable is based on aisthesis, sense-perception. Doxa perceived by aisthesis gives a person knowledge only of the external appearances of a virtue, not its internal and invisible essence or “being.” Doxa is thus contrasted with various forms of the verb einai “to be”: The participle on “being,” and the noun form ousia “essence” or “being” (as a noun).
When used of a particular virtue, “being” refers to the essence of what makes this virtue admirable, grasped in its most pure and perfect form. Such essences can only be grasped by means of abstract concepts describing internal invisible habits of mind, so can never be grasped by aisthesis perceiving doxa. The ability to grasp abstract essences is called by Plato noesis, gnosis, or episteme and their cognates (noesis is specifically contrasted with aisthesis, and episteme with doxa but the contrast is the same).
Moral thought based on aisthesis and doxa can never be knowledge of something invariably good. Partly this is because aisthesis is knowledge of particular concrete people, who might be partly courageous and partly not courageous, courageous today but not next year. More importantly, Socratic questioning shows that no rule for external conduct visible to aisthesis can never be a rule invariably representing goodness (“Tell the truth” can prescribe admirable conduct on one occasion, and conduct not admirable on a different occasion). Only when one grasps the essence of what makes a particular virtue admirable, through an abstract concept, does one grasp something invariably admirable.
A Platonic Form of Courage is the same thing as the “Being” of Courage, hence in the Republic Plato sometimes refers to the Forms as “The Beings.”
Plato describes the Forms as aei on, “always being.” This refers to the fact that the Platonic Form of Courage, for example, is a concept of courage that invariably represents something admirable (in contrast to “Don’t run away,” which is sometimes admirable and sometimes not).
Forms are also described as hōsautōs aei echei, a phrase difficult to translate, sometimes translated as “always the same,” but more literally translated “always remaining like-itself.” (Hōsautōs is an adverbial form of hōs autos, literally “like itself.”) What would it mean for a virtue-concept not to remain always like itself? When used as a moral guide or ideal, “tell the truth” does not always remain like itself because sometimes it is a guide to morally admirable conduct, and sometimes to conduct that is not morally admirable.
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