[443c]
we chanced to
hit upon the original principle and a sort of type of justice.”
“Most assuredly.” “It really was, it seems,
Glaucon, which is why it helps,1 a sort of adumbration of justice, this principle that it is right
for the cobbler by nature to cobble and occupy himself with nothing else,
and the carpenter to practice carpentry, and similarly all others. But the
truth of the matter2 was, as it seems,
1 The contemplation of the εἴδωλον, image or symbol, leads us to the reality. The reality is always the Platonic Idea. The εἴδωλον, in the case of ordinary “things,” is the material copy which men mistake for the reality (516 A). In the case of spiritual things and moral ideas, there is no visible image or symbol (Politicus 286 A), but imperfect analogies, popular definitions, suggestive phrases, as τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, well-meant laws and institutions serve as the εἴδωλα in which the philosophic dialectician may find a reflection of the true idea. Cf. on 520 C, Sophist 234 C, Theaetetus 150 B.
2 Cf. Timaeus 86 D, Laws 731 E, Apology 23 A. The reality of justice as distinguished from the εἴδωλον, which in this case is merely the economic division of labor. Adam errs in thinking that the real justice is justice in the soul, and the εἴδωλον is justice in the state. In the state too the division of labor may be taken in the lower or in the higher sense. Cf. on 370 A, Introduction p. xv.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.