[444a]
that presides over such conduct; and believing and naming the unjust
action to be that which ever tends to overthrow this spiritual constitution,
and brutish ignorance, to be the opinion1 that in turn presides2 over
this.” “What you say is entirely true,
Socrates.” “Well,” said I, “if we
should affirm that we had found the just man and state and what justice
really is3 in them, I think
we should not be much mistaken.” “No indeed, we should
not,” he said. “Shall we affirm it, then?”
“Let us so affirm.”“So be it, then,” said I; “next after this,
I take it, we must consider injustice.”
“Obviously.”
1 ἐπιστήμην . . . δόχαν: a hint of a fundamental distinction, not explicitly mentioned before in the Republic. Cf. Meno 97 B ff. and Unity of Plato's Thought, pp. 47-49. It is used here rhetorically to exalt justice and disparage injustice.ἀμαθία is a very strong word, possibly used here already in the special Platonic sense: the ignorance that mistakes itself for knowledge. Cf. Sophist.
2 ἐπιστατοῦσαν: Isocrates would have used a synonym instead of repeating the word.
3 Cf. 337 B.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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