Position Paper 1. (Ethics and Knowledge)

Instructions

For the assignment, I would like you to take a position on one (or two) of the assigned readings for the first section of the course (Ethics and Knowledge), and write a well argued, critical essay of around 1000 to 1200 words (12 point font, in Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing, with a Works Cited section at the end).

For your paper, you are required to take a position on one (or two) of the philosophers that we have examined so far in the course. 

What this means is that you can write your paper on one of the following philosophers:

1. Plato (The Allegory of the Cave)

2. Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus)

3. Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)

Or, you can compare two of these philosophers’ ethical theories:

1. Plato and Epicurus

2. Epicurus and Kierkegaard

3. Kierkegaard and Plato 

The main point of the assignment is that you take a position in your essay on the reading(s).

From the texts that we have examined, clearly and accurately describe the ethical theories of the philosopher (or philosophers) that you have decided to write about.

Also, tell me why you agree or disagree with the ethical theory(or theories) in question? (You may agree with some aspects of a philosopher’s ethics, but disagree with others. Or you may entirely agree or disagree with their main ethical theory).

Also in your paper, argue for the applicability (or inapplicability) of the ethical theory (or theories) in the world today, and in our contemporary society.

Above all, take a clear argumentative position, and make this clear in your essay.

Suggested Questions and Topics:

As mentioned in the assignment description, you are free to develop your own original topic for the essay, as it relates to the philosophers and the readings we have examined in this first part of the course.

However, here are two suggested topics that may also help guide you with the assignment:

1. (Plato and Epicurus)

Both Plato and Epicurus write about the “good” and the “good life” in their writings, specifically in the Republic (380 BC), and Letter to Menoeceus (341-270 BC), respectively. How do these terms relate to each philosopher’s ethical theories? Also, how does each philosopher think we should live the most ethical life? How should we act? And what is the purpose of life for each philosopher? Are there any similarities or differences between them? And most importantly, do you agree or disagree with them?

(Use examples from the text to support your arguments).

2. (Kierkegaard and Plato)

How do Kierkegaard’s and Plato’s ethical theories relate, if at all? What is the main aim of ethics in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in the Republic (380 BC)? And also, what does Kierkegaard have to say about ethics in Fear and Trembling (1843)? What is the highest purpose in life for each philosopher? Are there any similarities or differences between the stories both philosophers recount? (The “Allegory of the Cave,” and the “Story of Abraham”). Most importantly, do you agree or disagree with each philosopher? And can you apply their ideas about ethics to your own life and the world today? 

(Use examples from the text to support your arguments).

LETTER TO MENOECEUS
Epicurus

Epicurus (c. 341-271) was born on the island of Samos of
Athenian parents, and thus was an Athenian citizen. He
eventually established a philosophical school outside of
Athens, next to Plato’s academy, where he bought a house
and garden. Along with Stoicism, Epicureanism became a
dominant philosophical system during the Roman Empire.
In his letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus offers a summary
of his ethical system. Translated by Cyril Bailey (1926).

[1] Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor
when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can
come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul.
And the man who says that the age for philosophy has either
not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that
the age for happiness is not yet come to him, or has passed
away. Wherefore both when young and old a man must
study philosophy, that as he grows old he may be young in
blessings through the grateful recollection of what has been,
and that in youth he may be old as well, since he will know
no fear of what is to come. We must then meditate on the
things that make our happiness, seeing that when that is
with us we have all, but when it is absent we do all to win it.

[2] The things that I used unceasingly to commend to you,
these do and practice, considering them to be the first princi-
ples of the good life. First of all believe that god is a being
immortal and blessed, even as the common idea of a god is
engraved on men’s minds, and do not assign to him anything
alien to his immortality or ill-suited to his blessedness: but
believe about him everything that can uphold his blessedness
and immortality. For gods there are, since the knowledge of
them is by clear vision. But they are not such as the many
believe them to be: for indeed they do not consistently repre-
sent them as they believe them to be. And the impious man is
not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches
to the gods the beliefs of the many. For the statements of the
many about the gods are not conceptions derived from sensa-
tion, but false suppositions, according to which the greatest
misfortunes befall the wicked and the greatest blessings the
good by the gift of the gods. For men being accustomed al-
ways to their own virtues welcome those like themselves, but
regard all that is not of their nature as alien.

[3] Become accustomed to the belief that death is nothing
to us. For all good and evil consists in sensation, but death
is deprivation of sensation. And therefore a right under-
standing that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of

life enjoyable, not because it adds to it an infinite span of
time, but because it takes away the craving for immortality.
For there is nothing terrible in life for the man who has truly
comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. So
that the man speaks but idly who says that he fears death not
because it will be painful when it comes, but because it is
painful in anticipation. For that which gives no trouble
when it comes, is but an empty pain in anticipation. So
death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so
long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death
comes, then we do not exist. It does not then concern either
the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the
latter are no more.

[4] But the many at one moment shun death as the greatest
of evils, at another yearn for it as a respite from the evils in
life. But the wise man neither seeks to escape life nor fears
the cessation of life, for neither does life offend him nor
does the absence of life seem to be any evil. And just as
with food he does not seek simply the larger share and noth-
ing else, but rather the most pleasant, so he seeks to enjoy
not the longest period of time, but the most pleasant.

[5] And he who counsels the young man to live well, but
the old man to make a good end, is foolish, not merely be-
cause of the desirability of life, but also because it is the
same training which teaches to live well and to die well.
Yet much worse still is the man who says it is good not to
be born, but “once born make haste to pass the gates of
Death” [Theognis, 427].

[6] For if he says this from conviction why does he not
pass away out of life? For it is open to him to do so, if he
had firmly made up his mind to this. But if he speaks in jest,
his words are idle among men who cannot receive them.

[7] We must then bear in mind that the future is neither
ours, nor yet wholly not ours, so that we may not altogether
expect it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it, as if it will
certainly not come. We must consider that of desires some
are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are neces-
sary and others merely natural; and of the necessary some
are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the
body, and others for very life. The right understanding of
these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to
the health of the body and the soul’s freedom from distur-

Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus” 2 of 2

bance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness. For it
is to obtain this end that we always act, namely, to avoid
pain and fear. And when this is once secured for us, all the
tempest of the soul is dispersed, since the living creature has
not to wander as though in search of something that is miss-
ing, and to look for some other thing by which he can fulfill
the good of the soul and the good of the body. For it is then
that we have need of pleasure, when we feel pain owing to
the absence of pleasure; but when we do not feel pain, we
no longer need pleasure. And for this cause we call pleasure
the beginning and end of the blessed life. For we recognize
pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we
begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we
return again, using the feeling as the standard by which we
judge every good.

[8] And since pleasure is the first good and natural to us,
for this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but
sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater dis-
comfort accrues to us as the result of them: and similarly we
think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater
pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long
time. Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to
us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as
every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature
to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the con-
sideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form
our judgment on all these matters. For the good on certain
occasions we treat as bad, and conversely the bad as good.

[9] And again independence of desire we think a great
good-not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but
that, if we do not possess many, we may enjoy the few in the
genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in
luxury who least need it, and that all that is natural is easy to
be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard. And so
plain savors bring us a pleasure equal to a luxurious diet,
when all the pain due to want is removed; and bread and wa-
ter produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them
puts them to his lips. To grow accustomed therefore to sim-
ple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and
makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and
when after long intervals we approach luxuries, disposes us
better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune.

[10] When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end,
we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that
consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either
ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but free-
dom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind.

For it is not continuous drinkings and revellings, nor the
satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other
luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life,
but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice
and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are
due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.

[11] Of all this the beginning and the greatest good is pru-
dence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even
than philosophy: for from prudence are sprung all the other
virtues, and it teaches us that it is not possible to live pleas-
antly without living prudently and honorably and justly, nor,
again, to live a life of prudence, honor, and justice without
living pleasantly. For the virtues are by nature bound up
with the pleasant life, and the pleasant life is inseparable
from them. For indeed who, think you, is a better man than
he who holds reverent opinions concerning the gods, and is
at all times free from fear of death, and has reasoned out the
end ordained by nature? He understands that the limit of
good things is easy to fulfill and easy to attain, whereas the
course of ills is either short in time or slight in pain: he
laughs at destiny, whom some have introduced as the mis-
tress of all things. He thinks that with us lies the chief
power in determining events, some of which happen by ne-
cessity and some by chance, and some are within our con-
trol; for while necessity cannot be called to account, he sees
that chance is inconstant, but that which is in our control is
subject to no master, and to it are naturally attached praise
and blame. For, indeed, it were better to follow the myths
about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the
natural philosophers: for the former suggests a hope of pla-
cating the gods by worship, whereas the latter involves a
necessity that knows no placation. As to chance, he does
not regard it as a god as most men do (for in a god’s acts
there is no disorder), nor as an uncertain cause of all things:
for he does not believe that good and evil are given by
chance to man for the framing of a blessed life, but that op-
portunities for great good and great evil are afforded by it.
He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable
action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a
man’s actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather
than that what is ill chosen should be successful owing to
chance.

[12] Meditate therefore on these things and things akin to
them night and day by yourself, and with a companion like
to yourself, and never shall you be disturbed waking or
asleep, but you shall live like a god among men. For a man
who lives among immortal blessings is not like to a mortal
being.

FEAR AND TREMBLING
REPETITION

by Søren Kierkegaard

Edited and Translated
with Introduction and Notes by

Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

EXORDIUM1 [III 61]

Once upon a time there was a man who as a child had heard that beautiful story
of how God tempted [fristede]2 Abraham and of how Abraham withstood the
temptation [Fristelsen], kept the faith, and, contrary to expectation, got a son a
second time.3 When he grew older, he read the same story with even greater
admiration, for life had fractured what had been united in the pious simplicity of
the child. The older he became, the more often his thoughts turned to that story;
his enthusiasm for it became greater and greater, and yet he could understand
the story less and less. Finally, he forgot everything else because of it; his soul
had but one wish, to see Abraham, but one longing, to have witnessed that
event. His craving was not to see the beautiful regions of the East, not the
earthly glory of the promised land, not that God-fearing couple whose old age
God had blessed, not the venerable figure of the aged patriarch, not the vigorous
adolescence God bestowed upon Isaac—the same thing could just as well have
occurred on a barren heath. 4His craving was to go along on the three-day
journey when Abraham rode with sorrow before him and Isaac beside him. His
wish was to be present in that hour when Abraham raised his eyes and saw
Mount Moriah in the distance, the hour when he left the asses behind and went
up the mountain alone with Isaac—for what occupied him was not the beautiful
tapestry of imagination but the shudder of the idea.
That man was not a thinker.5 He did not feel any need to [III 62] go beyond

faith; he thought that it must be supremely glorious to be remembered as its
father, an enviable destiny to possess it, even if no one knew it.

That man was not an exegetical scholar. He did not know Hebrew; if he had
known Hebrew, he perhaps would easily have understood the story and
Abraham.

I.6 [III 63]

“And God tempted [fristede]7 Abraham and said to him, take Isaac, your only
son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt
offering on a mountain that I shall show you.”8

It was early in the morning when Abraham arose, had the asses saddled, and

left his tent, taking Isaac with him, but Sarah watched them from the window as
they went down the valley—until she could see them no longer.9 They rode in
silence for three days. On the morning of the fourth day, Abraham said not a
word but raised his eyes and saw Mount Moriah in the distance. He left the
young servants behind and, taking Isaac’s hand, went up the mountain alone. But
Abraham said to himself, “I will not hide from Isaac where this walk is taking
him.” He stood still, he laid his hand on Isaac’s head in blessing, and Isaac
kneeled to receive it. And Abraham’s face epitomized fatherliness;10 his gaze
was gentle, his words admonishing. But Isaac [III 64] could not understand him,
his soul could not be uplifted; he clasped Abraham’s knees, he pleaded at his
feet, he begged for his young life, for his beautiful hopes; he called to mind the
joy in Abraham’s house, he called to mind the sorrow and the solitude. Then
Abraham lifted the boy up and walked on, holding his hand, and his words were
full of comfort and admonition. But Isaac could not understand him. Abraham
climbed Mount Moriah, but Isaac did not understand him. Then Abraham turned
away from him for a moment, but when Isaac saw Abraham’s face again, it had
changed: his gaze was wild, his whole being was sheer terror. He seized Isaac by
the chest, threw him to the ground, and said, “Stupid boy, do you think I am your
father?11 I am an idolater. Do you think it is God’s command? No, it is my
desire.” Then Isaac trembled and cried out in his anguish: “God in heaven, have
mercy on me, God of Abraham, have mercy on me; if I have no father on earth,
then you be my father!” But Abraham said softly to himself, “Lord God in
heaven, I thank you; it is better that he believes me a monster than that he should
lose faith in you.”

When the child is to be weaned, the mother blackens her breast. It would be
hard to have the breast look inviting when the child must not have it. So the
child believes that the breast has changed, but the mother—she is still the same,
her gaze is tender and loving as ever. How fortunate the one who did not need
more terrible means to wean the child!

II. [III 65]

It was early in the morning when Abraham arose: he embraced Sarah, the bride
of his old age, and Sarah kissed Isaac, who took away her disgrace, Isaac her
pride, her hope for all the generations to come.12 They rode along the road in
silence, and Abraham stared continuously and fixedly at the ground until the

fourth day, when he looked up and saw Mount Moriah far away, but once again
he turned his eyes toward the ground. Silently he arranged the firewood and
bound Isaac; silently he drew the knife—then he saw the ram that God had
selected. This he sacrificed and went home. — — —From that day henceforth,
Abraham was old; he could not forget that God had ordered him to do this. Isaac
flourished as before, but Abraham’s eyes were darkened, and he saw joy no
more.

13When the child has grown big and is to be weaned, the mother virginally
conceals her breast, and then the child no longer has a mother. How fortunate the
child who has not lost his mother in some other way!

III. [III 66]

It was early in the morning when Abraham arose: he kissed Sarah, the young
mother, and Sarah kissed Isaac, her delight, her joy forever. And Abraham rode
thoughtfully down the road; he thought of Hagar and the son, whom he drove
out into the desert.14 He climbed Mount Moriah, he drew the knife.
It was a quiet evening when Abraham rode out alone, and he rode to Mount

Moriah; he threw himself down on his face, he prayed God to forgive him his
sin, that he had been willing to sacrifice Isaac, that the father had forgotten his
duty to his son. He often rode his lonesome road, but he found no peace. He
could not comprehend that it was a sin that he had been willing to sacrifice to
God the best that he had, the possession for which he himself would have gladly
died many times; and if it was a sin, if he had not loved Isaac in this manner, he
could not understand that it could be forgiven, for what more terrible sin was
there?

15When the child is to be weaned, the mother, too, is not without sorrow,
because she and the child are more and more to be separated, because the child
who first lay under her heart and later rested upon her breast will never again be
so close. So they grieve together the brief sorrow. How fortunate the one who
kept the child so close and did not need to grieve any more!

IV. [III 67]

It was early in the morning, and everything in Abraham’s house was ready for
the journey. He took leave of Sarah, and Eliezer,16 the faithful servant,
accompanied him along the road until he turned back again. They rode along in
harmony, Abraham and Isaac, until they came to Mount Moriah. Abraham made
everything ready for the sacrifice, calmly and gently, but when he turned away
and drew the knife, Isaac saw that Abraham’s left hand was clenched in despair,
that a shudder went through his whole body—but Abraham drew the knife.
Then they returned home again, and Sarah hurried to meet them, but Isaac

had lost the faith. Not a word is ever said of this in the world, and Isaac never
talked to anyone about what he had seen, and Abraham did not suspect that
anyone had seen it.

17When the child is to be weaned, the mother has stronger sustenance at hand
so that the child does not perish. How fortunate the one who has this stronger
sustenance at hand.

18Thus and in many similar ways did the man of whom we speak ponder this
event. Every time he returned from a pilgrimage to Mount Moriah, he sank down
wearily, folded his hands, and said, “No one was as great as Abraham. Who is
able to understand him?”19

PROBLEMA I [III 104]

Is there a Teleological Suspension of the Ethical?

The ethical as such is the universal,1 and as the universal it applies to everyone,
which from another angle means that it applies at all times. It rests immanent in
itself, has nothing outside itself that is its τέλος [end, purpose] but is itself the
τέλος for everything outside itself, and when the ethical has absorbed this into
itself, it goes not further. The single individual,2 sensately and psychically
qualified in immediacy, is the individual who has his τέλος in the universal, and
it is his ethical task continually to express himself in this, to annul his
singularity in order to become the universal. As soon as the single individual
asserts himself in his singularity before the universal, he sins, and only by
acknowledging this can he be reconciled again with the universal. Every time
the single individual, after having entered the universal, feels an impulse to
assert himself as the single individual, he is in a spiritual trial [Anfægtelse],3
from which he can work himself only by repentantly surrendering as the single
individual in the universal. If this is the highest that can be said of man and his
existence, then the ethical is of the same nature as a person’s eternal salvation,
which is his τέλος forevermore and at all times, since it would be a contradiction
for this to be capable of being surrendered (that is, teleologically suspended),
because as soon as this is suspended it is relinquished, whereas that which is
suspended is not relinquished but is preserved in the higher, which is its τέλος.
[III 105] If this is the case, then Hegel is right in “The Good and Conscience,”4

where he qualifies man only as the individual and considers this qualification as
a “moral form of evil”5 (see especially The Philosophy of Right), which must be
annulled [ophævet] in the teleology of the moral in such a way that the single
individual who remains in that stage either sins or is immersed in spiritual trial.
But Hegel is wrong in speaking about faith; he is wrong in not protesting loudly
and clearly against Abraham’s enjoying honor and glory as a father of faith
when he ought to be sent back to a lower court and shown up as a murderer.

Faith is namely this paradox that the single individual is higher than the
universal—yet, please note, in such a way that the movement repeats itself, so
that after having been in the universal he as the single individual isolates himself
as higher than the universal. If this is not faith, then Abraham is lost, then faith
has never existed in the world precisely because it has always existed.6 For if the

ethical—that is, social morality7—is the highest and if there is in a person no
residual incommensurability in some way such that this incommensurability is
not evil (i.e., the single individual, who is to be expressed in the universal), then
no categories are needed other than what Greek philosophy had or what can be
deduced from them by consistent thought. Hegel should not have concealed this,
for, after all, he had studied Greek philosophy.

People who are profoundly lacking in learning and are given to clichés are
frequently heard to say that a light shines over the Christian world, whereas a
darkness enshrouds paganism. This kind of talk has always struck me as strange,
inasmuch as every more thorough thinker, every more earnest artist still
regenerates himself in the eternal youth of the Greeks. The explanation for such
a statement is that one does not know what one should say but only that one
must say something. It is quite right to say that paganism did not have faith, but
if something is supposed to have been said thereby, then one must have a clearer
understanding of what faith is, for otherwise one falls into such clichés. It is easy
to explain all existence, faith along with it, without having a conception of what
faith is, and the one who counts on being admired for such an explanation is not
such a bad calculator, for it is [III 106] as Boileau8 says: Un sot trouve toujours un
plus sot, qui I’admire [One fool always finds a bigger fool, who admires him].

Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single
individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it
but as superior—yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual
who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by
means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single
individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in
an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all
mediation takes place only by virtue of the universal; it is and remains for all
eternity a paradox, impervious to thought. And yet faith is this paradox, or else
(and I ask the reader to bear these consequences in mente [in mind] even though
it would be too prolix for me to write them all down) or else faith has never
existed simply because it has always existed, or else Abraham is lost.

It is certainly true that the single individual can easily confuse this paradox
with spiritual trial [Anfægtelse],9 but it ought not to be concealed for that reason.
It is certainly true that many persons may be so constituted that they are repulsed
by it, but faith ought not therefore to be made into something else to enable one
to have it, but one ought rather to admit to not having it, while those who have
faith ought to be prepared to set forth some characteristics whereby the paradox
can be distinguished from a spiritual trial.

The story of Abraham contains just such a teleological suspension of the
ethical. There is no dearth of keen minds and careful scholars who have found
analogies to it. What their wisdom amounts to is the beautiful proposition that
basically everything is the same. If one looks more closely, I doubt very much
that anyone in the whole wide world will find one single analogy, except for a
later one, which proves nothing if it is certain that Abraham represents faith and
that it is manifested normatively in him, whose life not only is the most
paradoxical that can be thought but is also so paradoxical that it simply cannot
be thought. He acts by virtue of the absurd, for it is precisely the absurd that he
as the [III 107] single individual is higher than the universal. This paradox cannot
be mediated, for as soon as Abraham begins to do so, he has to confess that he
was in a spiritual trial, and if that is the case, he will never sacrifice Isaac, or if
he did sacrifice Isaac, then in repentance he must come back to the universal. He
gets Isaac back again by virtue of the absurd. Therefore, Abraham is at no time a
tragic hero but is something entirely different, either a murderer or a man of
faith. Abraham does not have the middle term that saves the tragic hero. This is
why I can understand a tragic hero but cannot understand Abraham, even though
in a certain demented sense I admire him more than all others.

In ethical terms, Abraham’s relation to Isaac is quite simply this: the father
shall love the son more than himself. But within its own confines the ethical has
various gradations. We shall see whether this story contains any higher
expression for the ethical that can ethically explain his behavior, can ethically
justify his suspending the ethical obligation to the son, but without moving
beyond the teleology of the ethical.

When an enterprise of concern to a whole nation10 is impeded, when such a
project is halted by divine displeasure, when the angry deity sends a dead calm
that mocks every effort, when the soothsayer carries out his sad task and
announces that the deity demands a young girl as sacrifice—then the father must
heroically bring this sacrifice. He must nobly conceal his agony, even though he
could wish he were “the lowly man who dares to weep”11 and not the king who
must behave in a kingly manner. Although the lonely agony penetrates his breast
and there are only three persons12 in the whole nation who know his agony, soon
the whole nation will be initiated into his agony and also into his deed, that for
the welfare of all he will sacrifice her, his daughter, this lovely young girl. O
bosom! O fair cheeks, flaxen hair (v. 687).13 And the daughter’s tears will agitate
him, and the father will turn away his face, but the hero must raise the knife.
And when the news of it reaches the father’s house, [III 108] the beautiful Greek
maidens will blush with enthusiasm, and if the daughter was engaged, her

betrothed will not be angry but will be proud to share in the father’s deed, for the
girl belonged more tenderly to him than to the father.

When the valiant judge14 who in the hour of need saved Israel binds God and
himself in one breath by the same promise, he will heroically transform the
young maiden’s jubilation, the beloved daughter’s joy to sorrow, and all Israel
will sorrow with her over her virginal youth. But every freeborn man will
understand, every resolute woman will admire Jephthah, and every virgin in
Israel will wish to behave as his daughter did, because what good would it be for
Jephthah to win the victory by means of a promise if he did not keep it—would
not the victory be taken away from the people again?

When a son forgets his duty,15 when the state entrusts the sword of judgment
to the father, when the laws demand punishment from the father’s hand, then the
father must heroically forget that the guilty one is his son, he must nobly hide his
agony, but no one in the nation, not even the son, will fail to admire the father,
and every time the Roman laws are interpreted, it will be remembered that many
interpreted them more learnedly but no one more magnificently than Brutus.

But if Agamemnon, while a favorable wind was taking the fleet under full sail
to its destination, had dispatched that messenger who fetched Iphigenia to be
sacrificed; if Jephthah, without being bound by any promise that decided the fate
of the nation, had said to his daughter: Grieve now for two months over your
brief youth, and then I will sacrifice you; if Brutus had had a righteous son and
yet had summoned the lictors to put him to death—who would have understood
them? If, on being asked why they did this, these three men had answered: It is
an ordeal in which we are being tried [forsøges]—would they have been better
understood?

When in the crucial moment Agamemnon, Jephthah, and Brutus heroically
have overcome the agony, heroically have lost the beloved, and have only to
complete the task externally, there will never be a noble soul in the world
without [III 109] tears of compassion for their agony, of admiration for their deed.
But if in the crucial moment these three men were to append to the heroic
courage with which they bore the agony the little phrase: But it will not happen
anyway—who then would understand them? If they went on to explain: This we
believe by virtue of the absurd—who would understand them any better, for who
would not readily understand that it was absurd, but who would understand that
one could then believe it?

The difference between the tragic hero and Abraham is very obvious. The
tragic hero is still within the ethical. He allows an expression of the ethical to
have its τέλος in a higher expression of the ethical; he scales down the ethical

relation between father and son or daughter and father to a feeling that has its
dialectic in its relation to the idea of moral conduct. Here there can be no
question of a teleological suspension of the ethical itself.

Abraham’s situation is different. By his act he transgressed the ethical
altogether and had a higher τέλος outside it, in relation to which he suspended it.
For I certainly would like to know how Abraham’s act can be related to the
universal, whether any point of contact between what Abraham did and the
universal can be found other than that Abraham transgressed it. It is not to save a
nation, not to uphold the idea of the state that Abraham does it; it is not to
appease the angry gods. If it were a matter of the deity’s being angry, then he
was, after all, angry only with Abraham, and Abraham’s act is totally unrelated
to the universal, is a purely private endeavor. Therefore, while the tragic hero is
great because of his moral virtue,16 Abraham is great because of a purely
personal virtue. There is no higher expression for the ethical in Abraham’s life
than that the father shall love the son. The ethical in the sense of the moral is
entirely beside the point. Insofar as the universal was present, it was cryptically
in Isaac, hidden, so to speak, in Isaac’s loins, and must cry out with Isaac’s
mouth: Do not do this, you are destroying everything.

Why, then, does Abraham do it? For God’s sake and—the two are wholly
identical—for his own sake.17 He does it for God’s sake because God demands
this proof of his faith; he does it for his own sake so that he can prove it. The
unity of the two is altogether correctly expressed in the word already used to
describe this relationship. It is an ordeal, a temptation.18 A temptation—but what
does that mean? As a rule, what tempts a person is something that will hold him
back from doing his duty, but here the temptation is the ethical itself, which
would hold him back from doing God’s will. But what is duty? Duty is simply
the expression for [III 110] God’s will.

Here the necessity of a new category for the understanding of Abraham
becomes apparent. Paganism does not know such a relationship to the divine.
The tragic hero does not enter into any private relationship to the divine, but the
ethical is the divine, and thus the paradox therein can be mediated in the
universal.

Abraham cannot be mediated; in other words, he cannot speak.19 As soon as I
speak, I express the universal, and if I do not do so, no one can understand me.
As soon as Abraham wants to express himself in the universal, he must declare
that his situation is a spiritual trial [Anfægtelse], for he has no higher expression
of the universal that ranks above the universal he violates.

Therefore, although Abraham arouses my admiration, he also appalls me. The

person who denies himself and sacrifices himself because of duty gives up the
finite in order to grasp the infinite and is adequately assured; the tragic hero
gives up the certain for the even more certain, and the observer’s eye views him
with confidence. But the person who gives up the universal in order to grasp
something even higher that is not the universal—what does he do? Is it possible
that this can be anything other than a spiritual trial? And if it is possible, but the
individual makes a mistake, what salvation is there for him? He suffers all the
agony of the tragic hero, he shatters his joy in the world, he renounces
everything, and perhaps at the same time he barricades himself from the sublime
joy that was so precious to him that he would buy it at any price. The observer
cannot understand him at all; neither can his eye rest upon him with confidence.
Perhaps the believer’s intention cannot be carried out at all, because it is
inconceivable. Or if it could be done but the individual has misunderstood the
deity—what salvation would there be for him? The tragic hero needs and
demands tears, and where is the envious eye so arid that it could not weep with
Agamemnon, but where is the soul so gone astray that it has the audacity to
weep for Abraham? The tragic hero finishes his task at a specific moment in
time, but as time passes he does what is no less significant: he visits the person
encompassed by sorrow, who cannot breathe because of his anguished sighs,
whose thoughts oppress him, heavy with tears. He appears [III 111] to him, breaks
the witchcraft of sorrow, loosens the bonds, evokes the tears, and the suffering
one forgets his own sufferings in those of the tragic hero. One cannot weep over
Abraham. One approaches him with a horror religiosus, as Israel approached
Mount Sinai.20 What if he himself is distraught, what if he had made a mistake,
this lonely man who climbs Mount Moriah, whose peak towers sky-high over
the flatlands of Aulis, what if he is not a sleepwalker safely crossing the abyss
while the one standing at the foot of the mountain looks up, shakes with anxiety,
and then in his deference and horror does not even dare to call to him? —
Thanks, once again thanks, to a man who, to a person overwhelmed by life’s
sorrows and left behind naked, reaches out the words, the leafage of language by
which he can conceal his misery. Thanks to you, great Shakespeare,21 you who
can say everything, everything, everything just as it is—and yet, why did you
never articulate this torment? Did you perhaps reserve it for yourself, like the
beloved’s name that one cannot bear to have the world utter, for with his little
secret that he cannot divulge the poet buys this power of the word to tell
everybody else’s dark secrets. A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only
by the power of the devil.22

But if the ethical is teleologically suspended in this manner, how does the
single individual in whom it is suspended exist? He exists as the single

individual in contrast to the universal. Does he sin, then, for from the point of
view of the idea, this is the form of sin. Thus, even though the child does not sin,
because it is not conscious of its existence as such, its existence, from the point
of view of the idea, is nevertheless sin, and the ethical makes its claim upon it at
all times. If it is denied that this form can be repeated in such a way that it is not
sin, then judgment has fallen upon Abraham. How did Abraham exist? He had
faith. This is the paradox by which he remains at the apex, the paradox that he
cannot explain to anyone else, for the paradox is that he as the single individual
places himself in an absolute relation to the absolute. Is he justified? Again, his
justification is the paradoxical, for if he is, then he is justified not by virtue of
being something universal but by virtue of being the single individual.

[III 112] How does the single individual reassure himself that he is legitimate?
It is a simple matter to level all existence to the idea of the state or the idea of a
society. If this is done, it is also simple to mediate, for one never comes to the
paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the
universal, something I can also express symbolically in a statement by
Pythagoras to the effect that the odd number is more perfect than the even
number.23 If occasionally there is any response at all these days with regard to
the paradox, it is likely to be: One judges it by the result. Aware that he is a
paradox who cannot be understood, a hero who has become a σϰάνδᾰλον
[offense] to his age will shout confidently to his contemporaries: The result will
indeed prove that I was justified. This cry is rarely heard in our age, inasmuch as
it does not produce heroes—this is its defect—and it likewise has the advantage
that it produces few caricatures. When in our age we hear these words: It will be
judged by the result—then we know at once with whom we have the honor of
speaking. Those who talk this way are a numerous type whom I shall designate
under the common name of assistant professors.24 With security in life, they live
in their thoughts: they have a permanent position and a secure future in a well-
organized state. They have hundreds, yes, even thousands of years between them
and the earthquakes of existence; they are not afraid that such things can be
repeated, for then what would the police and the newspapers say? Their life task
is to judge the great men, judge them according to the result. Such behavior
toward greatness betrays a strange mixture of arrogance and wretchedness—
arrogance because they feel called to pass judgment, wretchedness because they
feel that their lives are in no way allied with the lives of the great. Anyone with
even a smattering erectioris ingenii [of nobility of nature] never becomes an
utterly cold and clammy worm, and when he approaches greatness, he is never
devoid of the thought that since the creation of the world it has been customary

for the result to come last and that if one is truly going to learn something from
greatness one must be particularly aware of the beginning. If the one who is to
act wants to judge himself by the result, he will never begin. Although the result
may give joy to the entire world, it cannot help [III 113] the hero, for he would not
know the result until the whole thing was over, and he would not become a hero
by that but by making a beginning.

Moreover, in its dialectic the result (insofar as it is finitude’s response to the
infinite question) is altogether incongruous with the hero’s existence. Or should
Abraham’s receiving Isaac by a marvel be able to prove that Abraham was
justified in relating himself as the single individual to the universal? If Abraham
actually had sacrificed Isaac, would he therefore have been less justified?

But we are curious about the result, just as we are curious about the way a
book turns out. We do not want to know anything about the anxiety, the distress,
the paradox. We carry on an esthetic flirtation with the result. It arrives just as
unexpectedly but also just as effortlessly as a prize in a lottery, and when we
have heard the result, we have built ourselves up. And yet no manacled robber of
churches is so despicable a criminal as the one who plunders holiness in this
way, and not even Judas, who sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, is more
contemptible than someone who peddles greatness in this way.

It is against my very being to speak inhumanly about greatness, to make it a
dim and nebulous far-distant shape or to let it be great but devoid of the
emergence of the humanness without which it ceases to be great, for it is not
what happens to me that makes me great but what I do, and certainly there is no
one who believes that someone became great by winning the big lottery prize. A
person might have been born in lowly circumstances, but I would still require
him not to be so inhuman toward himself that he could imagine the king’s castle
only at a distance and ambiguously dream of its greatness, and destroy it at the
same time he elevates it because he elevated it so basely. I require him to be man
enough to tread confidently and with dignity there as well. He must not be so
inhuman that he insolently violates everything by barging right off the street into
the king’s hall—he loses more thereby than the king. On the contrary, he should
find a joy in observing every bidding of propriety with a happy and confident
enthusiasm, which is precisely what makes him a free spirit. This is merely a
metaphor, for that distinction is only a very imperfect expression of the [III 114]
distance of spirit. I require every person not to think so inhumanly of himself
that he does not dare to enter those palaces where the memory of the chosen
ones lives or even those where they themselves live. He is not to enter rudely
and foist his affinity upon them. He is to be happy for every time he bows before

them, but he is to be confident, free of spirit, and always more than a
charwoman, for if he wants to be no more than that, he will never get in. And the
very thing that is going to help him is the anxiety and distress in which the great
were tried, for otherwise, if he has any backbone, they will only arouse his
righteous envy. And anything that can be great only at a distance, that someone
wants to make great with empty and hollow phrases—is destroyed by that very
person.

Who was as great in the world as that favored woman, the mother of God, the
Virgin Mary?25 And yet how do we speak of her? That she was the favored one
among women does not make her great, and if it would not be so very odd for
those who listen to be able to think just as inhumanly as those who speak, then
every young girl might ask: Why am I not so favored? And if I had nothing else
to say, I certainly would not dismiss such a question as stupid, because, viewed
abstractly, vis-à-vis a favor, every person is just as entitled to it as the other. We
leave out the distress, the anxiety, the paradox. My thoughts are as pure as
anybody’s, and he who can think this way surely has pure thoughts, and, if not,
he can expect something horrible, for anyone who has once experienced these
images cannot get rid of them again, and if he sins against them, they take a
terrible revenge in a silent rage, which is more terrifying than the stridency of
ten ravenous critics. To be sure, Mary bore the child wondrously, but she
nevertheless did it “after the manner of women,”26 and such a time is one of
anxiety, distress, and paradox. The angel was indeed a ministering spirit, but he
was not a meddlesome spirit who went to the other young maidens in Israel and
said: Do not scorn Mary, the extraordinary is happening to her. The angel went
only to Mary, and no one could understand her. Has any woman been as
infringed upon as was Mary, and is it not true here also that the one whom God
blesses he curses in the same breath? This is the spirit’s view of Mary, and she is
by no means—it is revolting to me to say it but even more so that people have
inanely and unctuously [III 115] made her out to be thus—she is by no means a
lady idling in her finery and playing with a divine child. When, despite this, she
said: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord27—then she is great, and I believe it
should not be difficult to explain why she became the mother of God. She needs
worldly admiration as little as Abraham needs tears, for she was no heroine and
he was no hero, but both of them became greater than these, not by being
exempted in any way from the distress and the agony and the paradox, but
became greater by means of these.

It is great when the poet in presenting his tragic hero for public admiration
dares to say: Weep for him, for he deserves it. It is great to deserve the tears of

those who deserve to shed tears. It is great that the poet dares to keep the crowd
under restraint, dares to discipline men to examine themselves individually to
see if they are worthy to weep for the hero, for the slop water of the snivellers is
a debasement of the sacred. —But even greater than all this is the knight of
faith’s daring to say to the noble one who wants to weep for him: Do not weep
for me, but weep for yourself.28

We are touched, we look back to those beautiful times. Sweet sentimental
longing leads us to the goal of our desire, to see Christ walking about in the
promised land. We forget the anxiety, the distress, the paradox. Was it such a
simple matter not to make a mistake? Was it not terrifying that this man walking
around among the others was God? Was it not terrifying to sit down to eat with
him? Was it such an easy matter to become an apostle? But the result, the
eighteen centuries—that helps, that contributes to this mean deception whereby
we deceive ourselves and others. I do not feel brave enough to wish to be
contemporary29 with events like that, but I do not for that reason severely
condemn those who made a mistake, nor do I depreciate those who saw what
was right.

But I come back to Abraham. During the time before the result, either
Abraham was a murderer every minute or we stand before a paradox that is
higher than all mediations.

The story of Abraham contains, then, a teleological suspension of the ethical.
As the single individual he became higher than the universal. This is the
paradox, which cannot be mediated. How he entered into it is just as inexplicable
as [III 116] how he remains in it. If this is not Abraham’s situation, then Abraham
is not even a tragic hero but a murderer. It is thoughtless to want to go on calling
him the father of faith, to speak of it to men who have an interest only in words.
A person can become a tragic hero through his own strength—but not the knight
of faith. When a person walks what is in one sense the hard road of the tragic
hero, there are many who can give him advice, but he who walks the narrow
road of faith has no one to advise him—no one understands him. Faith is a
marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that which unites all
human life is passion,* and faith is a passion.

* Lessing has somewhere said something similar from a purely esthetic point of view. He actually wants
to show in this passage that grief, too, can yield a witty remark. With that in mind, he quotes the words
spoken on a particular occasion by the unhappy king of England, Edward II. In contrast he quotes from
Diderot a story about a peasant woman and a remark she made. He goes on to say: Auch das war Witz, und
noch dazu Witz einer Bäuerin; aber die Umstände machten ihn unvermeidlich. Und folglich auch muss man
die Entschuldigung der witzigen Ausdrücke des Schmerzes und der Betrübniss nicht darin suchen, dass die
Person, welche sie sagt, eine vornehme, wohlerzogene, verständige, und auch sonst witzige Person sey;

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SOCRATES’ NARRATION CONTINUES:

SOCRATES: Next, then, compare the effect of education and that of th

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lack of it on our nature to an experience like this. Imagine human beings
living in an underground, cavelike dwelling, with an entrance a long way
up that is open to the light and as wide as the cave itself. They have been
there since childhood, with their necks and legs fettered, so that they are
fixed in the same place, able to see only in front of them, because their fet-
ter prevents them from turning their heads around. Light is provided by a
fire burning far above and behind them. Between the prisoners and the fire,
there is an elevated road stretching. Imagine that along this road a low wall
has been built—like the screen in front of people that is provided by pup-
peteers, and above which they show their puppets.

GLAUCON: I am imagining it.

SOCRATES: Also imagine, then, that there are people alongside the wall
carrying multifarious artifacts that project above it—statues of people an

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other animals, made of stone, wood, and every material. And as you would
expect, some of the carriers are talking and some are silent.

GLAUCON: It is a strange image you are describing, and strange prisoners.

SOCRATES: They are like us. I mean, in the first place, do you think these
prisoners have ever seen anything of themselves and one another besides
the shadows that the fire casts on the wall of the cave in front of them?

GLAUCON: How could they, if they have to keep their heads motionless
throughout life?

SOCRATES: What about the things carried along the wall? Isn’t the same
true where they are concerned?

GLAUCON: Of course.

SOCRATES: And if they could engage in discussion with one another,
don’t you think they would assume that the words they used applied to the
things they see passing in front of them?

GLAUCON: They would have to.

SOCRATES: What if their prison also had an echo from the wall facing
them? When one of the carriers passing along the wall spoke, do you think

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they would believe that anything other than the shadow passing in front of
them was speaking?

GLAUCON: I do not, by Zeus.

SOCRATES: All in all, then, what the prisoners would take for true reality
is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts.

GLAUCON: That’s entirely inevitable.

SOCRATES: Consider, then, what being released from their bonds and
cured of their foolishness would naturally be like, if something like this
should happen to them. When one was freed and suddenly compelled to
stand up, turn his neck around, walk, and look up toward the light, he
would be pained by doing all these things and be unable to see the things
whose shadows he had seen before, because of the flashing lights. What do
you think he would say if we told him that what he had seen before was
silly nonsense, but that now—because he is a bit closer to what is, and is
turned toward things that are more—he sees more correctly? And in partic-
ular, if we pointed to each of the things passing by and compelled him to
answer what each of them is, don’t you think he would be puzzled and
believe that the things he saw earlier were more truly real than the ones he
was being shown?

GLAUCON: Much more so.

SOCRATES: And if he were compelled to look at the light itself, wouldn’t
his eyes be pained and wouldn’t he turn around and flee toward the things
he is able to see, and believe that they are really clearer than the ones he is
being shown?

GLAUCON: He would.

SOCRATES: And if someone dragged him by force away from there, along
the rough, steep, upward path, and did not let him go until he had dragged
him into the light of the sun, wouldn’t he be pained and angry at being
treated that way? And when he came into the light, wouldn’t he have his
eyes filled with sunlight and be unable to see a single one of the things now
said to be truly real?

GLAUCON: No, he would not be able to—at least not right away.

SOCRATES: He would need time to get adjusted, I suppose, if he is going
to see the things in the world above. At first, he would see shadows most
easily, then images of men and other things in water, then the things them-
selves. From these, it would be easier for him to go on to look at the things
in the sky and the sky itself at night, gazing at the light of the stars and the
moon, than during the day, gazing at the sun and the light of the sun.

GLAUCON: Of course.

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SOCRATES: Finally, I suppose, he would be able to see the sun—not reflec-
tions of it in water or some alien place, but the sun just by itself in its own
place—and be able to look at it and see what it is like.

GLAUCON: He would have to.

SOCRATES: After that, he would already be able to conclude about it that
it provides the seasons and the years, governs everything in the visible
world, and is in some way the cause of all the things that he and his fellows
used to see.

GLAUCON: That would clearly be his next step.

SOCRATES: What about when he reminds himself of his first dwelling
place, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners? Don’t you
think he would count himself happy for the change and pity the others?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And if there had been honors, praises, or prizes among them
for the one who was sharpest at identifying the shadows as they passed by;
and was best able to remember which usually came earlier, which later, and
which simultaneously; and who was thus best able to prophesize the future,
do you think that our man would desire these rewards or envy those among
the prisoners who were honored and held power? Or do you think he
would feel with Homer that he would much prefer to “work the earth as a
serf for another man, a man without possessions of his own,”1 and go
through any sufferings, rather than share their beliefs and live as they do?

GLAUCON: Yes, I think he would rather suffer anything than live like that.

SOCRATES: Consider this too, then. If this man went back down into the
cave and sat down in his same seat, wouldn’t his eyes be filled with dark-
ness, coming suddenly out of the sun like that?

GLAUCON: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Now, if he had to compete once again with the perpetual pris-
oners in recognizing the shadows, while his sight was still dim and before
his eyes had recovered, and if the time required for readjustment was not
short, wouldn’t he provoke ridicule? Wouldn’t it be said of him that he had
returned from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it is not
worthwhile even to try to travel upward? And as for anyone who tried to
free the prisoners and lead them upward, if they could somehow get their
hands on him, wouldn’t they kill him?

GLAUCON: They certainly would.

1 Odyssey 11.489–90. The shade of Achilles speaks these words to Odysseus, who is
visiting Hades. Plato is likening the cave dwellers to the dead.

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SOCRATES: This image, my dear Glaucon, must be fitted together as a
whole with what we said before. The realm revealed through sight should
be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the
sun’s power. And if you think of the upward journey and the seeing of
things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, you
won’t mistake my intention—since it is what you wanted to hear about.
Only the god knows whether it is true. But this is how these phenomena
seem to me: in the knowable realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of
the good, and it is seen only with toil and trouble. Once one has seen it,
however, one must infer that it is the cause of all that is correct and beauti-
ful in anything, that in the visible realm it produces both light and its
source, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and
understanding; and that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public
must see it.

GLAUCON: I agree, so far as I am able.

SOCRATES: Come on, then, and join me in this further thought: you
should not be surprised that the ones who get to this point are not willing to
occupy themselves with human affairs, but that, on the contrary, their souls
are always eager to spend their time above. I mean, that is surely what we
would expect, if indeed the image I described before is also accurate here.

GLAUCON: It is what we would expect.

SOCRATES: What about when someone, coming from looking at divine
things, looks to the evils of human life? Do you think it is surprising that he
behaves awkwardly and appears completely ridiculous, if—while his sight is
still dim and he has not yet become accustomed to the darkness around
him—he is compelled, either in the courts or elsewhere, to compete about
the shadows of justice, or about the statues of which they are the shadows;
and to dispute the way these things are understood by people who have
never seen justice itself?

GLAUCON: It is not surprising at all.

SOCRATES: On the contrary, anyone with any sense, at any rate, would
remember that eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes:
when they change from the light into the darkness, or from the darkness
into the light. If he kept in mind that the same applies to the soul, then
when he saw a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he would not
laugh absurdly. Instead, he would see whether it had come from a brighter
life and was dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the
dark, or from greater ignorance into greater light and was dazzled by the
increased brilliance. Then he would consider the first soul happy in its
experience and life, and pity the latter. But even if he wanted to ridicule it,
at least his ridiculing it would make him less ridiculous than ridiculing a
soul that had come from the light above.

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GLAUCON: That’s an entirely reasonable claim.

SOCRATES: Then here is how we must think about these matters, if that is
true: education is not what some people boastfully declare it to be. They
presumably say they can put knowledge into souls that lack it, as if they
could put sight into blind eyes.

GLAUCON: Yes, they do say that.

SOCRATES: But here is what our present account shows about this power to
learn that is present in everyone’s soul, and the instrument with which each
of us learns: just as an eye cannot be turned around from darkness to light
except by turning the whole body, so this instrument must be turned
around from what-comes-to-be together with the whole soul, until it is able
to bear to look at what is and at the brightest thing that is—the one we call
the good. Isn’t that right?

GLAUCON: Yes.

SOCRATES: Of this very thing, then, there would be a craft—namely, of this
turning around—concerned with how this instrument can be most easily
and effectively turned around, not of putting sight into it. On the contrary,
it takes for granted that sight is there, though not turned in the right way or
looking where it should look, and contrives to redirect it appropriately.

GLAUCON: That’s probably right.

SOCRATES: Then the other so-called virtues of the soul do seem to be
closely akin to those of the body: they really are not present in it initially,
but are added later by habit and practice. The virtue of wisdom, on the
other hand, belongs above all, so it seems, to something more divine,
which never loses its power, but is either useful and beneficial or useless and
harmful, depending on the way it is turned. Or haven’t you ever noticed in
people who are said to be bad, but clever, how keen the vision of their little
soul is and how sharply it distinguishes the things it is turned toward? This
shows that its sight is not inferior, but is forced to serve vice, so that the
sharper it sees, the more evils it accomplishes.

GLAUCON: I certainly have.

SOCRATES: However, if this element of this sort of nature had been ham-
mered at right from childhood, and struck free of the leaden weights, as it
were, of kinship with becoming, which have been fastened to it by eating
and other such pleasures and indulgences, which pull its soul’s vision down-
ward2—if, I say, it got rid of these and turned toward truly real things, then
the same element of the same people would see them most sharply, just as it
now does the things it is now turned toward.

2 See 611b9–612a6.

5
c
5
10
d
5
10
e

519a

5
b
5

Reeve-PlatoRepub-00Book Page 212 Wednesday, June 23, 2004 2:26 PM