CVSP 201 Handout
Plato’s Republic: The Parable of the Cave
28 October 2013
Dr. Ray Brassier
(Dept of Philosophy)
1. 427a: “[…] is an ideal pattern we were looking for when we tried to say
what justice and injustice are in themselves, and to describe what the
perfectly just or unjust man would be like if he ever existed. ”
2. 473d: “The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see
the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states or indeed,
my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this
world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become
philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same
hands, while the many natures now content to follow either [i.e. political
power or philosophy] to the exclusion of the other are debarred from doing
so. This is what I have hesitated to say for so long, knowing what a paradox
it would sound; for it is not easy to see that there is no other road to real
happiness either for society or for the individual.”
3. 505b: “Do you think there’s any point in possessing anything if it’s not
good? Is there any point in having all other forms of knowledge without
that of the good, and so lacking knowledge about what is good and
valuable?”
4. 477e: “Does a man who knows know something or nothing?
He knows something.
Something which is or which is not?
Something which is; how could he know something that was not?
Then we are satisfied that, whichever way we look at it, what fully is is
knowable, [and] what in no way is is entirely unknowable?
Quite satisfied.
Good. Then if there is anything whose condition is such that it both is and
is not, would it not lie between what absolutely is and what altogether is
not?
It would.
Then since knowledge is related to what is, and ignorance necessarily to
what is not, we shall have to find out whether to what lies between them
there corresponds something between ignorance and knowledge, if there is
such a thing.
Yes.
Isn’t there something we call opinion?
Of course.
Is it the same faculty as knowledge or something different?
Different.
So opinion and knowledge must have different correlates corresponding to
their difference of faculty.
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They must.
Then knowledge is related to what is and knows what is as it is.”
5. 479e: “Those then who have eyes for the multiplicity of beautiful things
and just acts, and so on, but who are unable, even with another to guide
them, to see beautify itself and justice itself, may be said in all cases to have
opinions, but cannot be said to know any of the things they have opinions
about.”
6. 505b: “The highest form of knowledge is knowledge of the form of the
good, from which things that are just and so on derive their usefulness and
value […] If we are ignorant of it the rest of our knowledge, however
perfect, can be of no benefit to us, just as it’s no use possessing anything if
you can’t get any good out of it.”
7. 508e-509a: “What gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the
knower’s mind the power of knowing is the form of the good. It is the
cause of knowledge and truth, and you will be right to think of it as being
itself known, and yet as being something other than, and even more
splendid than, knowledge and truth, splendid as they are. And just as it
was right to think of light and sight as being like the sun, but wrong to
think of them as being the sun itself, so here again it is right to think of
knowledge and truth as being like the good, but wrong to think of either of
them as being the good, whose position must be ranked still higher.”
8. 509b: “The good therefore may be said to be the source not only of the
intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also of their being and reality;
yet it is not itself that reality, but is beyond it, and superior to it in dignity
and power.”
9. 509d-510a: “Suppose you have a line divided into two unequal parts. And then
divide the two parts again in the same ratio to represent the visible and intelligible
orders.”
The Visible The Intelligible
AB: Illusion
BC: Belief
CD: Mathematical ReasoningDE: Intelligence or Dialectic
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The Allegory of the Cave (514b)
Correspondence between degrees of knowledge and cave positions
10. 518b: “We must reject the conception of education professed by those who
say that they can put into the mind knowledge that was not there before—rather
as if they could put sight into blind eyes. […] Our argument indicates that the
capacity for knowledge is innate in each man’s mind, and that the organ by which
he learns is like an eye which cannot be turned from darkness to light unless the
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whole body is turned; in the same way the mind as a whole must be turned away
from the world of change until its eye can bear to look straight at reality, and at the
brightest of all realities which is what we call the good.”
11. 519c-d: “Then our job as lawgivers is to compel the best minds to attain what
we have called the highest form of knowledge, and to ascend to the vision of the
good as we have described, and when they have achieved this and see well
enough, prevent them behaving as they are now allowed to.
What do you mean by that?
Remaining in the upper world, and refusing to return again to the prisoners in the
cave below and share their labours and rewards, whether trivial or serious.”
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