Captain Harlock's blog: "Politics & Philosophy"

" And will not a genuine astronomer, think you, have the same thought when he looks at the movements of the stars ? Whatever perfection the artist has been able to put into his works will not the astronomer expect to find in the work of Him who created the heaven and all things therein? But as to the relation of night to day, of both to the month, of the month to the year, and of the other stars to the sun and moon and to one another,- do you not believe he will hold to be foolish the man who imagines that these relations are always the same, and that they never change, when it is a question of things material and visible; and will he not deem it absurd to take no end of pains in the attempt to discover their true condition?"

" I am in perfect agreement with that view after hearing what you have just said."

" We shall then pursue astronomy, like geometry, by the help of problems which it presents; and we will take leave of the heaven and its phenomena, if we are, after the manner of true astronomers, to render useful instead of useless the intelligent part of the soul."

" You are," said he, " making the study of astronomy far more laborious than it is at present."

" Yes," I replied; " and I think we shall prescribe the same method in other subjects also, if we are to be of any use as law-givers.

XII. " But can you bring to mind some other study which is suited to our purpose ? "

" I can think of none on the spur of the moment."

" Motion," I said, " as it seems to me, is surely not limited to a single form; it has many more. A learned sage might perhaps enumerate them all; but there are two which even to us are intelligible."

"Which are they?"

" We have just spoken of one," I said; " the second is its counterpart."

"What is that?"

" It would seem," said I, " that, as the eyes have been made to observe the motions of the stars, so the ears are intended to catch harmonious movements, and these two sciences, astronomy and harmonics, are sisters, as the Pythagoreans say, and as we, Glaucon, admit, do we not ? "

" Yes, we do."

" Then," I said, " since the subject before us is long and difficult, we will ask the opinion of the Pythagoreans upon these matters, and upon other questions, if any arise, but besides all that we will hold fast to our own principle."

" What principle do you mean ? "

" Never to permit our pupils to attempt any study of the kind which is imperfect, and which does not invariably tend toward that point where all our researches ought invariably to end, as we were saying just now on the subject of astronomy. Or do you not know that nowadays the science of harmony suffers the same treatment as her sister? For its teachers limiting themselves to measuring audible notes and concords, one against another, -labor, like the astronomers, to no purpose."

" Yes, by heaven," he said, " and in a ridiculous fashion, when they talk about their diatonic nuances, and apply their ears closely, as if they were bent on catching a sound in the neighborhood; and some of them say that they still hear an intermediate sound, and distinguish the smallest interval which must be the unit of measurement; while others contend that it is one and the same tone, both parties preferring their ears to their reason."

" You mean," said I, " those fine musicians who vex and torture the strings, and rack them upon the pegs. But that my similitude may not grow too tedious by dwelling upon the blows delivered with the plectrum, and the charges brought against the strings, together with their denials and effrontery, I abandon the imagery herewith, and simply say that I do not mean these men, but those whom we just now proposed to question on the subject of harmony. For these behave just like the astronomers; that is, they seek for the number subsisting in the concords which strike the ear; but they do not rise to problems employed to discover which are harmonic numbers, and which are not, and what is the reason for the difference in each."

" You are speaking of a study that is too high for human knowledge."

" Very useful," said I, " in the quest of the beautiful and the good, but if one pursues it with other ends in view, it will prove altogether useless."

" That may well be true."

XIII. " If the pursuit of all these sciences which we have enumerated were carried far enough to reveal their mutual connection and relationship, and to show us wherein they are akin to one another, I, for my part, believe the study of them would contribute somewhat to the object we have in view, and that the labor expended upon them, which were otherwise wasted, would prove serviceable."

" I hazard the same opinion; but the work you speak of, Socrates, is very great."

" What have you in mind ? " I said; " do you mean the prelude, or what? Or do we not know that all these studies are but the prelude of the strain which we must learn? For doubtless you would not hold the experts in these sciences to be dialecticians."

" Indeed I would not," he replied, " with the exception of a very few that I have met."

" But did it ever thus far seem to you that persons who are not competent to give and accept a reason will never have any knowledge of the things which we affirm they ought to know ? "

" No, indeed," he replied; " that again I do not believe."

 " Well, Glaucon," I continued, " have we not here the very hymn which dialectic performs? This is that strain, which belongs to the realm of the intelligible, but which is imitated by the faculty of sight, as we described it, when it attempts to look at real animals, then at the stars and last of all at the sun himself. In like manner whoever by the help of dialectic, without the intervention

of any of the senses, attempts to rise by reason alone to the essence of things, and does not desist until by sheer intelligence he has laid hold on the absolute good, he at last reaches the summit of the intelligible world, just as that other who beholds the sun has reached the summit of the visible world."

" Undoubtedly."

" Well then, do you not call this procedure dialectic ? "

" Yes."

" But call to mind," I said, " the prisoners of the cave, their release from their chains and their transition from the shadows to the images and the light and their ascent from the underground dwelling into the sunshine; and when there, their inability still to fix their eyes directly on animals and plants and the light of the sun, whereas at first they are only able to trace in water divinely wrought reflections and shadows of things real, instead of shadows of images formed by a light which is itself nothing more than an image when compared with the sun. This gradation prefigures the power of all that study of the arts which have been mentioned, this power, I say, of elevating the noblest part of the soul to the contemplation of what is best in real existence, precisely as just now we beheld the clearest organ of the body raised to the contemplation of what is brightest in the corporeal and visible world."

" For my part," he replied, " I accept what you say; although it certainly appears to me hard to believe, and yet, from another point of view, hard to deny. However, as our consideration of the subject need not be confined merely to the present occasion, but may claim our attention again and again, let us assume the truth of your assertion, and proceed at once to the principal strain itself, and discuss it as we have discussed the prelude. Tell us therefore what is the nature of the faculty of dialectic, into what specific parts it is divided, and what are the paths which lead to it. For these, apparently, are the ways that conduct the traveler to the goal where he may find rest from his journey and finish his course."

 " My dear Glaucon," I replied, " you will not be able to follow me farther; although there would be no want of good will on my part; and you should no longer behold an image of that whereof we speak, but the truth itself, or at least that which seems to me to be such. Whether I would be absolutely right or not I dare not confidently affirm; but doubtless I might venture to maintain that what you would have seen could not be a mere illusion. Don't you think so ? "

" Yes, indeed."

" And may I not also affirm that it is the power of dialectic that alone can reveal the truth - and to him only who is versed in the sciences which we have just now discussed, and that otherwise its attainment is impossible ?"

" That also," he replied, " may be positively asserted."

" Upon one point at least every one will agree with us, that it is some other method which in every case endeavors to ascertain by a scientific process the true nature of each individual thing. Whereas the other arts are in general either occupied with the opinions and desires of men, or with production and construction, or are without exception directed to the care of natural and artificial products. But as to the few that are left, such as geometry and kindred sciences, which, as we were saying, are somehow related to real existence, we see how they merely dream about being, but can never behold it as a waking reality, so long as they employ hypotheses which they pass over unexamined, and of which they are unable to give any account. For when one does not know his premises, and when his conclusion and intermediate steps are made up of he knows not what, how can such consistency (or agreement) ever constitute a science ? " " That is impossible."

XIV. "Well then," said I, "the dialectic method alone, by discarding hypotheses, proceeds directly to the actual first principle, in order to attain secure results; and the eye of the soul, which is actually buried in a barbarian swamp, it gently draws and raises upwards, using as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion the sciences which we have discussed. These, in conformity with custom, we have often called sciences, but they should have some other name intermediate between the obscurity of opinion and the clearness of science; and this farther back in the course of our conversation was termed understanding. But, as I think, we must not dispute about names, while we have awaiting us matters of such importance to be considered."

"That," he said, "is rightly spoken; [we only need a term which when applied to a mental state shall clearly indicate what concept it describes.]"

" At any rate," I proceeded, " it is sufficient for us, as before, to call the first of the four divisions science, the second understanding, the third be lief, and the fourth conjecture,- opinion standing for the two latter collectively considered, intelligence for the two former. Opinion is concerned with becoming, intelligence with being; and as being is to becoming, so is intelligence to opinion; and as intelligence is to opinion, so is science to belief and understanding to conjecture. But let us, Glaucon, omit the proportion of the subjects to which these terms apply, the subjects, I mean, of opinion and intelligence, and the subdivision in detail of each one of them, lest we become involved in discussions longer by far than the foregoing."

" Well, Socrates, for my part, I certainly agree with what you have just said, so far as I am able to follow you."

" And further, do you call by the name ' dialectician ' the man who takes account of the essence of each thing? And if he is unable to do this, so far as he can not give to himself and to others an account of such inherent quality will you to that extent deny that he possesses intelligence on the subject? "

" How can I fail to deny it ?"

" Then you will say it is the same with the good. When a man cannot define the idea of good by a reasoning process, abstracting it from all else, and when he does not, as though in a battle, make his way through all objections, eager to apply the tests, not by appealing to the opinion, but to reality, and is unable to come out of the conflict with his logic unvanquished; will you not maintain that the man thus handicapped knows neither the idea of good nor any good at all; but if he have laid hold of any image of it, he owes this to opinion and not to science, and that dreaming and slumbering through his present life, before ever awaking in this world, he is gone to the other for his final sleep?"

" Yes, indeed," he said; " in all that I shall agree with you perfectly."

" But doubtless, as regards the children of your ideal State, whose education you are conducting

theoretically, if some day you shall give them . practical training, you will not, I suppose, suffer them to be, as it were, mere irrational quantities, when they are to rule in the city and control the highest interests."

" Certainly not."

" Will you then make it a law that they shall apply themselves particularly to that science which shall enable them to attain the highest skill in asking and answering questions ? "