[from John Sallis, Being and Logos]

The Philosopher and the Eide (475e—476d)

[p. 382] Socrates proceeds to explain what he meant in describing the philosopher as a lover of the sight of truth. For purposes of this [p. 383] explanation he introduces eide such as the beautiful itself. This introduction of deliberate speech about eide into the discussion is crucial in determining the course which the entire central part of the Republic will take. We need to attend to it with utmost care.

Socrates uses the word "eidoV"; later he uses, more or less synonymously, the word "idea." The word "eidoV" is derived from the verb "eidw," meaning "see." Thus, its root meaning is: that which is seen, the seen, that which presents itself to a seeing, that which shows itself (which makes itself manifest) to a seeing. Likewise, "idea" is derived (by way of "idein") from "eidw" and refers even more pointedly to the look of something, to its way of showing itself to a seeing. The reference of these words to a seeing, to something's showing itself to a seeing, is of utmost importance. If they are thoughtlessly translated as "form" or "idea" and regarded as meaning something like "concept," then the issue to which these words are addressed in the dialogues will simply be left untouched (cf. Ch. III, Sect. 2 c, iii).

Socrates' introduction of deliberate speech about eide is prefaced by a curious remark to Glaucon. Glaucon has just asked Socrates to explain what he means by calling philosophers lovers of the sight of truth. Socrates answers:

It wouldn't be at all easy to tell someone else. But you, I suppose, will grant me this (475 e).

When Glaucon asks what he is supposed to grant, Socrates proceeds to speak of the beautiful (kalon) and its opposite and then of all the eide (475 e - 476 a). That Socrates introduces the eide by speaking first of the beautiful is appropriate in light of what is said in the Phaedrus regarding the pre-eminent capacity of the beautiful to shine forth in and through the visible (250 b - d; cf. Ch. III, Sect. 2 c, iv)—especially appropriate, since Glaucon is an erwtikoV. But what is most amazing is that Glaucon proceeds simply to grant what Socrates has said as though it were perfectly obvious. This abrupt introduction of the eide, the first explicit introduction of them in the Republic, is not questioned at all, and Socrates makes absolutely no attempt at anything like a justification—no more than he did when he introduced them through the [p. 384] medium of dreams near the end of the Cratylus (cf. Ch IV, Sect. 7 b). The eide are simply posed, posed as hypotheses. What Glaucon can be assumed to grant is the posing of the hypotheses.

Socrates' first statement regarding the eide is not an assertion that they are; on the contrary, what he says corresponds closely to that single determination which he stated in the Cratylus. Socrates says: "Since the beautiful is the opposite of ugly, they are two when Glaucon grants this, he continues: "Since they are two, isn't each also one?" What Socrates says of the eide is that each is what it is, totally distinct from what it is not; each eidos is one, and its being one is identical with its being the same as itself, with its being, as was said in the Cratylus, always such as it is.

When Glaucon grants without hesitation that the beautiful is one and the ugly also one, Socrates proceeds to extend what he has said to all the eide:

The same logoV also applies then to the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, and all the eide; each is itself one, but by showing themselves everywhere in a community with actions, bodies, and one another, each looks like many (476a).

This statement not only extends to all the eide what was previously said regarding the beautiful and the ugly but also introduces a fundamental development beyond Socrates' first statement. As he has already said with regard to the beautiful and the ugly, each eidos is itself one, that is, Is one with itself. Now, however, he adds that, though each eidos is itself one, it can, nevertheless, show itself in such a way as to look like many. It is especially important to note here that the eide are not introduced in distinction from visible things or, more extensively, the things immediately manifest to perception. On the contrary, they are introduced by the statement that each is itself one, and, when a distinction is then introduced, it is a distinction, not between eide and visible things, but rather between what an eidos is—namely, itself, i.e, the same as itself, i.e., one—and what it shows itself as when it shows itself in [p.385] community with actions, bodies, and other eide—namely, as many, as different from itself, as not itself. In slightly different terms we call say that the distinction is a distinction between two modes of showing: on the one hand, a showing in which an eidoV shows itself as it itself is, as one, as the same as itself; on the other hand, a showing in which it shows itself as many, in which it shows itself as it is not, in which it shows itself as being different from itself. What is remarkable is that even this second mode of showing is not necessarily linked to visible things; an eidos can show itself as many, as what it is not, by showing itself in community with other eide. Thus, there is reason to suppose that the distinction between the two modes of showing is more fundamental than the distinction between "intelligible" and visible. In fact, it is only after this distinction has been drawn between the two modes of showing that Socrates introduces the distinction between the eide and visible things; and, even then, this latter distinction is not posed for its own sake but as a way by which to clarify the distinction drawn earlier between the philosophers, on the one hand, and the lovers of sights and the lovers of sounds, on the other. The latter, Socrates observes, take delight in beautiful sounds, colors, and shapes—the same things that in the Cratylus were said to be imitated in that kind of imitation from which Socrates distinguished the imitation proper to a name (cf. Ch. IV, Sect. 6 b). On the other hand, he now continues, the lovers of sights and the lovers of sounds are unable to see—what he says precisely is that their thought (dianoia) is unable to see (idein)—the nature (fusiV) of the beautiful itself. Without explicitly saying so, he suggests that the philosophers are the ones who have this capacity that is lacking to the lovers of sights and the lovers of sounds (476 a - b).

However, the implied parallel of the distinction between the philosophers and the lovers of sights and of sounds and the distinction between the beautiful itself and beautiful sights and sounds is, in fact, revoked in the discussion which immediately follows. The distinction between the two kinds of lovers—the lovers of the sight of truth over against the lovers of sights and of sounds—does not turn out to correspond to the distinction between eide and the things immediately manifest to perception. On [p. 386] the contrary, Socrates proceeds to distinguish between, not two, but rather three kinds of men. First, there are those who are able to approach the beautiful itself and see it by itself. This kind of man, Socrates says, is rare (476 b) indeed, he turns out to be so in the subsequent discussion: he is not mentioned again. The second type of man is the one to whom we referred earlier in connection with Socrates' appeal to his dreams near the end of the Cratylus (Ch. IV, Sect. 7 b): he is the one who holds that there are beautiful things but does not hold that there is the beautiful itself and who, if he were led to knowledge of the latter, would be unable to follow. Such a man, Socrates says, lives in a dream in the sense that he believes "a likeness [homoion] of something to be not a likeness but rather the thing itself to which it is like" (476 c). The second kind of man is one who sees only beautiful things and who, because he does not pose the beautiful itself, takes the beautiful things to be the originals. failing to distinguish them as likenesses from the beautiful itself to which they are like. He fails to distinguish between image and original—that is, he fails to pose the original which "lies under" (i.e, the hypothesis) in the way enacted by Socrates and Glaucon at the point where the eide were first introduced. By contrast, the third kind of man is one who, in Socrates' words,

believes that there is a beautiful itself and who is able to catch sight both of it and of what participates in it [ta metaconta] , and does not believe that what participates is it itself, nor that it itself is what participates (476 c - d).

The third kind of man is one who is awake; he is one who, seeing both the beautiful itself and the beautiful things, is able to distinguish between image and original. This man's thought (dianoia), Socrates says, is knowledge (gnomh) whereas the other's is opinion (doxa). And, at the end of his extended consideration of this distinction, Socrates identifies the philosopher as the one whose thought is knowledge as the third kind of man. Thus, the philosopher is not the one who has to do only with eide in contrast to the lovers of sights and sounds. Rather, the philosopher has, in a still undetermined sense, to do with both the beautiful itself and beautiful things.

[p. 387] We need, finally, to relate Socrates' three-fold distinction to the preceding discussion of the kinds of lovers. Within the framework of the earlier discussion each kind of lover was at first defined in terms of that whole which he loves. As the discussion proceeded, however, the kinds of lovers tended to be defined in terms of a partition of the whole; thus, the whole of learning was partitioned between the lovers of sights and the lovers of sounds and possibly other unnamed lovers of such things. Finally, it appeared that in the case of the philosopher the relevant love was not even a love of a part of a whole but of a part of a part; the philosopher appeared to be a lover of part of that part of learning loved by the lovers of sights. In other words, the philosopher appeared to be that lover whose love is least directed to a whole.

The identification of the philosopher in the subsequent three-fold division stands in marked contrast to the earlier restriction of the philosopher's love to a part of a part. It turns out that the philosopher not only sees that part which is loved by the lovers of sight, hence also, presumably, those wholes loved by the other lovers; he sees not only the beautiful things but also the beautiful itself. That which is seen by the philosopher is a whole of which that which is loved by each of the other lovers is a part. With respect to what he sees, the philosopher is directed to the only whole which is truly a whole, to the only whole which is not a particular kind of whole, to the only whole that could not simply be regarded as a part alongside other wholes within a still larger whole. The philosopher, with respect to what he sees, is directed to the whole, not a whole, and in this connection the irony of the earlier descriptions of the various types of lovers as in every case loving a whole is evident; what each of them loves is his own particular whole, which is, thereby, not a whole in any final sense if at all.

But, granted that the philosopher is directed to the whole, to the only whole which cannot itself be regarded as a part of another whole, what is his relation to this whole? Socrates says that he sees it; more precisely, Socrates says, not that he sees the whole, but that he sees what are presumably its two principal parts; he sees the beautiful itself and the beautiful things. Yet, Socrates does not say that the philosopher loves the whole. On the [p. 388] contrary, when, at the end of the discussion of knowledge and opinion, he returns to the task of identifying the philosopher, the philosopher is said to love that on which knowledge depends (479 e - 480 a); what the philosopher loves is just the beautiful itself—apparently, therefore, not the beautiful things. The philosopher's love, no less than that of the other lovers, seems to be, in the end, only a love of a part. The philosopher, it seems, sees the whole but loves only a part. In fact, it is questionable whether he even sees the whole, for certainly he does not see those sounds that are loved by the lovers of sounds. It appears that what he sees cannot, by virtue of the fact that it is something to be seen, be the whole .

George Hartley—Department of English—Ohio University