Timaeus — Plato

p. 174

Things beautiful and absolute beauty.

Republic V. Socrates, Glaucon.

True knowledge is the ability to distinguish between the one and many, between the idea and the objects which partake of the idea.

loving, art-loving, practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of the name of philosophers. How do you distinguish them? he said. The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them, but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty. True, he replied.

Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this. Very true. And he who, having a sense of beautiful things has no sense of absolute beauty, or who, if another lead him to a knowledge of that beauty is unable to follow — of such an one I ask, Is he awake or in a dream only? Reflect: is not the dreamer, sleeping or waking, one who hkens dissimilar things, who puts the copy in the place of the real object?

I should certainly say that such an one was dreaming. But take the case of the other, who recognises the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place of the idea nor the idea in the place of the objects — is he a dreamer, or is he awake? He is wide awake.

And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows has knowledge, and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion? Certainly. But suppose that the latter should quarrel with us and dispute our statement, can we administer any soothing cordial or advice to him, without revealing to him that there is sad disorder in his wits? We must certainly offer him some good advice, he replied.

Come, then, and let us think of something to say to him. Shall we begin by assuring him that he is welcome to any knowledge which he may have, and that we are rejoiced at his having it? But we should like to ask him a question : Does he who has knowledge know something or nothing? (You must answer for him.) I answer that he knows something.

Being, not being, the intermediate. 175 Something that is or is not? Republic v. Something that is ; for how can that which is not ever be Socrates, •t ^ Glaucon. known?

And are we assured, after looking at the matter from many ^^^^^ '^^^" ' " ^ ■' intermediate points of view, that absolute being is or may be absolutely between being known, but that the utterly non-existent is utterly unknown? and not being, ' . ^ •' and a cor- Nothing can be more certain. responding Good.

But if there be anything which is of such a nature b^^t^J^l^e^n'^''''^ as to be and not to be, that will have a place intermediate ignorance and between pure being and the absolute negation of being? xhirinte^!

Yes, between them. mediate is a *j 1 ij jji.1-' J* faculty termed And, as knowledge corresponded to bemg and ignorance j^jon of necessity to not-being, for that intermediate between being and not-being there has to be discovered a corresponding intermediate between ignorance and knowledge, if there be such? Certainly. Do we admit the existence of opinion? Undoubtedly. As being the same with knowledge, or another faculty? Another faculty.

Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties? Yes. Arid knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. What division? I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves : they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties.

Have I clearly explained the class which I mean? Yes, I quite understand. Then let me tell you my view about them. I do not see them, and therefore the distinctions of figure, colour, and the like, which enable me to discern the differences of some things, do not apply to them.

In speaking of a faculty I think only of its sphere and its result ; and that which has the same sphere and the same result I call the same faculty, but that which has another sphere and another result I call different. Would that be your way of speaking?