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καθιστάναι: “sc. λέγοντες h.e. κελεύοντες” Schneider. τυφλῶν. They who cannot see the Ideas are blind: cf. Plato's retort to Antisthenes quoted on V 476 D. καὶ μηδὲν κτλ. A transcendental παράδειγμα of which he knew nothing would be useless to the philosopherking. It does not however follow that the Ideas are not αὐτὰ καθ᾽ αὑτά, but merely that we are concerned with them in so far as they are known by the φιλόσοφος. See on V 476 A. ὡς οἷόν τε ἀκριβέστατα admits that he may not see them in all their fulness and purity. εἰς τὸ ἀληθέστατον κτλ. Cf. 500 C, 500 E—501 C (where the same figure is employed). The political value of the philosopher's knowledge of the Idea is here for the first time explicitly affirmed and explained: see V 479 D note ἐκεῖσε: because truth is ‘yonder’— in the Heaven of the Ideas. The philosopher must call it from Heaven to Earth, by assimilating to it ‘the earthly canons’ (τὰ ἐνθάδε νόμιμα). οὕτω δή=‘then and not till then’ suggests that it is otherwise in existing States.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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