Section 137

Well, my aim, I said, is merely to recall our agreements upon what has been stated. The matter stands somewhat like this. We agreed that philosophy is an honorable thing, and that philosophers are good; and that good men are useful, and wicked men useless: but then again we agreed that philosophers, so long as we have craftsmen, are useless, and that we always do have craftsmen. Has not all this been agreed?

Yes, to be sure, he replied.

Then we agreed, it seems, by your account—if philosophizing means having knowledge of the arts in the way you describe—that philosophers are wicked and useless so long as there are arts among mankind. But I expect they are not so really, my friend, and that philosophizing is not just having a concernment in the arts or spending one’s life in meddlesome stooping and prying and accumulation of learning, but something else; because I imagined that this life was actually a disgrace, and that people who concerned themselves with the arts were called sordid. 1 But we shall know more definitely whether this statement of mine is true, if you will answer me this: What men know how to punish horses rightly? Is it those who make them into the best horses, or some other men?

Those who make them into the best horses.

Or again, is it not the men who know how to make dogs into the best dogs that know also how to punish them rightly?

Yes.

Then it is the same art that makes them into the best dogs and punishes them rightly?

It appears so to me, he replied.

Again, is the art that makes them into the best ones and punishes them rightly the same as that which knows the good and the bad ones, or is it some other?

The same, he said.

Then in the case of men also will you be prepared to agree that the art which makes them into the best men is that which punishes them rightly and distinguishes the good and the bad ones?

Certainly, he said.

And that which does this to one, does it also to many, and that which does it to many, does it also to one?

Yes.

And so it is also with horses and everything else?

I agree.

Then what is the knowledge which rightly punishes the licentious and law-breaking people in our cities? Is it not judicature?

Yes.

And is it any other art than this that you call justice?

No, only this. And that whereby they punish rightly is that whereby they know the good and bad people?

It is.

And whoever knows one will know many also?

Yes.

And whoever does not know many will not know one?

I agree.

Then if one were a horse, and did not know the good and wicked horses, would one not know which sort one was oneself?

I think not.

And if one were an ox and did not know the wicked and good oxen, would one not know which sort one was oneself?

That is so, he said.

And so it would be, if one were a dog?

He agreed.