Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Republic VI, 509c-511e

"Well you," said I, "are the one responsible
for getting me to explain how I think it is."

"And don't," said he, "stop, if nothing else,
going the whole way through what the sun is
like; & you won't leave anything out?"

"Actually," I said, "I do that quite a lot."

"Then," he said, "don't omit a bit."

"Rather much," I told him, "I think; but as far
as possible right now, I will not intentionally
make omissions."

"Not one."

"Then understand," said I, "just what we're talk-
ing about: there are two sides even to being in
charge. One rules over the realm of the mind's
type & place, and the other's of the eye (just so
you don't think I, in speaking to you of the sky,
am crafting clever tricks about the word); but you
do have these dual forms -- the visible, perceived."

"O.K."

"It's like if you took a line chopped in two un-
equal parts; cut up either piece again in the
same way, both that of the type that's seen and
of the one perceived, and you will have, invisibly
and clear, either division looking like one an-
other in the section that is seen -- & by 'like-
nesses' I mean first the shadows, second the pro-
jections that form in standing pools and on both
dense things & smooth and conspicuous, and every-
thing such as this, if you catch my drift."

"No, but I understand."

"Then put the other one to that which it is like,
the animals around us and every thing that grows and
the entire type of which has been prepared or made."

"I'm comparing them," he said.

"And would you also be willing to say that" I asked,
"dividing it, both in truth and not, as an opinion's
formed in relation to cognition, so is the like
related to its likeness?"

"I do" said he, "indeed."

"Look once again at the mental slice, how it is
to be cut."

"Wait, what?"

"How there is one thing the soul here treating
individual images as they appear is compelled to
examine from underlying suppositions, proceeding
not to an initial rule but to a goal, but the
other -- the one not assumed for the purpose of
beginning -- goes from a hypothesis and, without
the representations that relate to the other,
is made by these observations from them
in creating the approach."

"I do," he said, "not understand what you
are saying very well."

"But once again," I said, "because you will get
it more easily than from preceeding statements;
for I think you know that the people who practice
geometry and math and such subjects start by
postulating the odd and even, the figures and
three types of angles, related types of objects,
according to each system and, viewing as known
these things after making them hypotheses, assume
there is no longer a need to give any explanation
of them, either for themselves or to someone else
since they seem entirely obvious, and from these
facts they start going the whole way throu' the
rest and end up with the same line of reason
they set out to examine."

"Of course," he said, "even I know that."

"Then also that they use these observations
as they're seen and make arguments over them,
but they are not considering of these, but those
concerning which these things look alike, speaking
for the sake of the square itself and the 'real'
diagonal, but not the one they draw and th' other
things like this, these very ones they form in
their heads and draw, which they are both shadows
of and likenesses in water, then use these as images
and seek them out themselves to see what someone
might not otherwise apprehend by sight or tho't."

"You are telling truths," he said.

"And the perception of this they call 'the known'
and claim that their mind must use hypotheses
to begin the present investigation by going to a
beginning principle, as it were unable to rise
above its own underlying assumptions, and treat
the likenesses themselves represented from the
ones below and those that relate to these as
completely clear opinions and their honors due."

"I know what," he replied, "you mean about that
which is under the geometrical and its sister arts."

"Then know for sure that the other thing I mean
is a slice of the mind's part, this one which,
in a word, reason itself is bound to by the power
of conversing, making hypotheses for itself, not
as rules to start from, but suppositions supported
in reality, like stepping stones and marches, in
order that -- in going on up to the unassumed for
the purpose of an initial cause of everything, by
taking hold of it is held already again by the things
that bind to that rule as to a final goal -- it may
disembark in applying not an individual perception,
no not that a bit, rather observations real in them-
selves and relation to each other and end-up at
true appearances."

He said: "I understand well, no: 'cause you seem
to me to be saying a great deal; & I get that you
want to distinguish the thing seen by the knowledge
of reason thru conversation, both of that which is
and as perceived, that is more clear than what's
seen as known by the so-called technological arts
in which the conjectures hypothesized are forced as
starting points even in thought's opinion, but not
if the ones viewing see that they're a perception;
and because of their not having gone back up to start
in their inquiring, but from initial guesses, they
don't seem to you to apply their mind about them,
even though, given a rule, they are intelligible;
and I think you're calling the angle-makers' habit
and opinion of people as such an actual notion,
but not with respect to mind, since the idea
is in between appearance and their brain."

"Your demonstrated proof is, as always, sufficient to
the last. And take it from me," I said, "in the case
of the four sections there comes about these four
mental states in the soul: the highest is intelligence,
and understanding, second; but give faith back to the
third & abstract comparison for the last; and put them
together in order, just as it is for the things they
share in truth so after you consider them do they
participate in obvious clarity."

"I comprehend, agree with and am writing as you say."

No comments: