Mlithexis XXVII (2014) pp.

47-60 Articoli

WHY THE GOOD? APPEARANCE, REALITY AND THE

DESIRE FOR THE GOOD IN REPUBLIC, VI, 504B-506D*

DIMITRI EL MURR

ABSTACT: What arguments does Plato offer to explain the pre-eminence

he confers to the idea of the Good in Republic, 6? Considering in detail
the short but key section of the Republic (504b-506d) that precedes the
analogy between the Good and the Sun, this paper argues that it is what
Plato claims to be the universal recognition that the Good exists inde-
pendently of any opinion that makes it so important for human thought.
Nothing less than the concept that can make everything else intelligible,
as the sun makes everything in the sensible world visible.

When, at Resp. VI, 506d, Glaucon breaks into the discussion Socrates and
Adimantus are having ab out the idea of the Good, he can barely hide how eager
he is to know what the Good really is, according to Socrates. But Socrates is not
ready to give in to his demands: he thinks preferable to 'leave aside the question
of what the good itself is' and concentrate on its ojJspring.
The offspring of the Good, which 'bears a very close resemblance to it', is
the sun.

So that's what you need to take me as calling the "offspring" of the good
- the sun, which the good fathered, in proportion to itself: as the good it-
self is, in the sphere of the intelligible, in relation to intellect and the
things that are grasped by intellect, so the sun is in the visible sphere in
relation to sight and the things that are seen. (Resp. VI, 508b12-c2, trans.
Rowe 1)

An earlier version of this paper was read at the conference on Platonic Dualisms organized by
Franeo Trabattoni and myself at the Palazzo Feltrinelli in Gargnano in May 2012. I wish to thank all
the participants for stimulating criticisms, especially Aldo Brancacci, Gianni Casertano, Francesco
Fronterotta, Franeo Trabattoni, Mario Vegetti, David Wolfsdorf and Frederico Zuolo. Very special
thanks are owed to Olivier Renaut, Raphael Woolf and Mary Louise Gill who discussed this paper
further with me. A shorter version of the argument put forward here has appeared as a 'reflective
commentary' on Christopher Rowe's work on the same topic: see EL MURR (2013).
1 Throughout this paper, translations ofthe Republic are borrowed from ROWE (2012).
48 Dimitri EI Murr

The analogy between the sun and the Good (507a-509d) is such weH-worn terri-
tory that only a few selective remarks shall be needed to present the issue I wish
to consider in this paper. 2
As the passage quoted above distinctly shows, the type of analogy used by
Socrates is an analogy of the form AlB = CID, one which could be labe lied,
using Aristotle' s terminology, 'discontinuous'. 3 This type of analogy may be
contras ted with the one the Demiurge of the Timaeus favours to produce the
body of the world from the four basic elements:

But two things cannot be satisfactorily united without a third ; for there
must be some bond between them drawing them together. And of all
bonds the best is that which makes itself and the term it connects a unity
in the fullest sense; and it is of the nature of a continued geometrical pro-
portion to effect this most perfectly. (Tim. 31 b8-c5, trans. Cornford)

The comparison between the two passages makes clear that while the continuous
proportion introduced by the Demiurge aims at producing an optimal unity, the
type of analogia applied by Socrates to the relation of the sun and the Good is
designed to draw a sharp distinction of orders, or realms. The analogy shows,
therefore, that the intelligible sphere, where the Good stands, is radically distinct
from the sensible one, where the sun mies. The set of entities belonging to the
first sphere (forms) are grasped by the intellect, and not seen, whereas sensible
things are seen and not grasped by the intellect (507b).
Furthermore, making the sun the ojftpring ofthe Good (508b12-12: TOV TOV
aya60v EKYOVOV) indicates that, although the Good and the sun belong to two
radically distinct realms, the Good is the cause of its own brightful image. That
the Good is endowed with a causal power is made clear when Socrates, later in
the passage, claims that the 'condition of the good' (509a5: TT]V TOV aya60v
ESIV) is superior to that of knowledge and tmth, insofar as the Good is the cause
4
ofboth.
As the analogy unfolds at 508c-509a, we learn that, just as the sun produces
light and makes vision possible, the power of the Good is to produce tmth and
knowledge (508e). The possibility of vision is only mediately dependent upon
the sun, since the Sun produces light which makes vision possible. Samely, the
Good makes intelligence possible insofar as it creates the condition under which
this intelligence can not only grasp its specific objects, but also consider that
these objects exist as etemally stable entities, as essences.

2 For detailed analyses of this passage, see, e.g. VEGETTI (2003) and, in the same volume, CALABI
(2003). See also DIXSAUT (2000).
3 See Aristotle, N.E. 1131 a31-b2.
4 On the causal power ofthe Good, see FERRARI (2003).
Why the Good? Republic VI,504b-506d 49

It is clear, then, that the analogy is built on the distinction, brought up at the end
of Book V, between the plurality of sensible particulars and the uniqueness of the
Fonn that cannot be perceived by the senses, a distinction which Socrates recalls
to the attention of his interlocutors at 507a-b. In Book VI, we leam that it is the
Good which confers being (ousia) to the set of entities accessible to intellect
alone and not subject to becoming (genesis). Hence Socrates' famous claim that
'even while the good is not itself being, [it] is even beyond being, superior to it
in dignity and in power' (509b 8-10). The analogy between the sun and the Good
not only shows that the power of the Good in the intelligible realm is analogous
to the power of the sun in the sensible realm: the Good is also, or so it seems, the
cause of that very distinction between the realm of appearances and true reality.
It is now time to ask why it is the Fonn of the Good which is endowed with
this extraordinary power. Why did Plato choose to grant this particular Fonn
such a decisive role to play in his ontology ? By itself, the analogy between the
sun and the Good does not provide an answer to this simple, yet crucial, ques-
tion. In Resp. VI, 507a-509d, the Good is just said to be the principle making the
Fonns real and intelligible, just as the sun makes sensible things visible: the
analogy merely illustrates the point at stake, but does not prove it. Julia Annas
seems right to claim that 'Plato is putting forward [these] thoughts, though he
leaves them deliberately schematic', because 'presumably he believes that they
are true, but has no idea how to argue for them, and perhaps thinks that they are
not the kind of truth that can be argued for'. 5
I should like to suggest, however, that Plato may have a distinct idea of how
to argue for these thoughts he puts forward. I venture to think one can account
for Plato's choice of the Good as the Fonn responsible for the distinction be-
tween appearance and reality, provided one understands how the analogy be-
tween the Good and the sun (507a-509d) sterns from Socrates' analysis ofhuman
action in the pages immediately preceding the analogy (504b-506d).

11

I am weH aware, though, that this proposal will sound highly implausible, for the
section of the Republic devoted to the idea of the Good (504a-509b) seems to
have been written from two very different, and some might think, incompatible,
standpoints. The first part of the passage (504b-506d), the only one I shaH con-
sider in detail in the remainder of this paper, seems written from the standpoint
of human motivation and of an exclusively human good. But as soon as Socrates,
pressed by Adimantus, compares the idea ofthe Good to the sun (506b-509b), he
seems concemed with a very different notion of the Good, nothing less, or so it
seems, than a grand ontological and metaphysical principle. As a consequence,

5 ANNAS (1981), 246.

50 Dimitri EI Murr

most commentators have held that the fonn of the Good has no ethical role to
play in human motivation and action or, perhaps less charitably, that that the
metaphysical notion of the Good is merely homonymous to its ethical counter-
part, our human good.
Consider for instance how Martin Heidegger, whose profound interest in
Books VI-VII ofthe Republic is beyond doubt, accounts for Plato's analysis of
the idea of the Good. In the section devoted to Die Idee des Guten in the Frei-
burg lectures of 1931 and 19366, Heidegger repeatedly claims that the idea of the
Good has no ethical pertinence or importance whatsoever. 7 Heidegger holds that
'Good' simply means what maintains itself, endures and is fit for something, in
the sense that (Heidegger's example) good skis are skis that hold up, endure a

beatmg, etc ... 8
It is in that precise sense that the Fonns, he argues, are said to be good. What
Heidegger considers the crucial point of this passage of the Republic is that the
Good is the expression of Ermchtigung: the Fonns are said to be good because
their very essence consists in making things possible. 9 According to this exclu-
sively ontological approach, the idea of the Good has nothing to do with the
guidance of action nor with what is truly beneficial to us: 'aya8os, gut, hat
ursprnglich keine moralische Bedeutung' (GA 36-37, p. 192).\0 Heidegger is
right to lay emphasis on the ontological importance of the Fonn of the Good in
this passage, but is he right to disconnect this passage from its immediate context
and, thereby, from Socrates' preceding remarks on the desire for the good ? 11

6 Gesammtausgabe [= GA], band 34, 95-116.

7 The lectures Heidegger gave in Marburg between 1924 and 1928, then, after the Kehre, in Freiburg
in 1931-1932 and 1933-1934, show how deep and long-Iasting his interest in Resp. VI-VII was. The
Freiburg lectures have been published in the Gesamtausgabe under the title Von Wesen der Wahreit.
On Heidegger's reading ofPlato in general and on his interpretation ofthe Republic in particular, see
ZUCKERT (1996), 33-69, COURTINE (1990), and GONZALEZ (2003).
8 GA, bd 36-37,192: ' ist, wenn wir sagen, etwa nach einer Auseinandersetzung: Gut, die Sache wird

gemacht (nach einer Entscheidung). Das Gute is das, was sich durchsetzt standhlt, aushlt, was
etwas taugt. Ein Paar gute Skier, Bretter, die etwas aushalten.'
9 See GA, bd 36-37,192: 'Die Idee hat das Amt, das Seiende in dem, was es ist, sichtbar werden zu

lassen und damit die Wahrheit entspringen zu lassen. Die hchste Idee hat die Aufgabe, die Unver-
borgenheit berhaupt zu ermglichen, das Seiende zu dem zu ermchtigen, was es eigentlich als das
Seiende ist. Das bedeutetformale Entwicklung der Idee der Idee.'
10 See also the very clear statement at GA, bd. 36, 202: 'Das Gute, aya86v ist ein Wort aus der

alltglichen Sprache, das nichts anderes bedeutet als dieses Ermglichende, vor allem anderen sich
Durchsetzende und Bestimmende. aya86v bedeutet nie einen Inhalt, sondern mehr ein Wie, eine
ausgezeichnete Weise des Seins.'
11 See, e.g., Kar! Popper who claims that the ethical context ofSocrates' analysis ofthe Form ofthe

Good does not 'enrich our information'. See POPPER (1971), 145-146: 'Its [the Good's] function is
therefore of the greatest importance for the founder of the city. But this purely formal information is
all we get. Plato's Idea ofthe Good nowhere plays a more direct ethical or political rle; never do we
hear which deeds are good, or produce good, apart /Tom the well-know collectivist moral code whose
precepts are introduced without recourse to the Idea of the Good. Remarks that the Good is the aim,
Why the Good? Republic VI,504b-506d 51

The radical distinction Heidegger makes between, on the one hand, the ethical
notion of the good, which, according to hirn, has nothing to do with the idea of
the Good of the Republic, and on the other hand, the metaphysical notion of the
Good, goes back to Aristotle and to his famous criticism of the Platonic idea of
the GOOd. 12

For even if the good that is predicated in common of things is some one
thing, something separate 'itself by itself (XWpIOTOV alfrO TI
Ka8' aUTO), it is clear (SfjAOV wS") that it will not be anything doable (OVK
av e'{Tj lTpaKTov) or capable of being acquired by a human being (OVSE
KTTjTOV av8pw1TC~). (N.E., I, 6, 1096b32-34, trans. Rowe l3 )

Is the section of the Republic devoted to the idea of the Good (504a-509b) a
paradigmatic example of the confusion, diagnosed by Aristotle, between an
av8pwlTlvov aya8ov, a human good, object ofhumanpraxis, and a metaphysi-
cal notion, only homonymous to its ethical counterpart? To address this issue,
we need to pay more attention to the passage immediately preceding the analogy
between the sun and the Good, a passage where Socrates deals with what he calls
the megiston mathema (504b-506d).

III

At 504b, Socrates refers back to his treatment of the virtues of the soul in Book
IV and emphasizes the need to explore from now on the 'longer road'
(lJaKpOTEpa lTEpioSo<;).
This back reference has often puzzled commentators and given rise to diver-
gent interpretations. 14 Suffice it to say here that the analysis of Book VI is indis-
pensable to the philosopher insofar as it aims at explaining what remained in
outline in Book IV. At Resp. IV, 442c, Socrates has defined the specific task of
the rational part of the soul: this task, corresponding to <J>POVTjO\s", consisted in
'the knowledge in itself of what is in the interests both of each part and of the
whole community made up by the three of them together' .15 But what this

that it is desired by every man, do not enrich our information. This empty formalism is still more
marked in the Philebus. '
12 Departing from the neo-Kantian interpretation ofPlato, as illustrated by Natorp, Heidegger argued,

as early as 1924, that reading Plato through Aristotle was a good hermeneutical principle, inasmuch
as it consisted in using what is clearer (Aristotle) to shed light on what remains obscure or concealed
(Plato). See his 1924-1925 Marburg course on the Sophist: GA, bd. 19,8-12.
13 Borrowed from BROADIE and ROWE (2002).
14 See SEDLEY (2013), 75-76.
15 Resp. IV, 442c6-8: emaTr'U.lTJV ev a0Tc\) Ti]V TOV av~cpEpoVTOS EK6:aT~ TE Kai A~ Tc\) KOIVc\)
acpwv a0Twv TPIWV OVTWV.
52 Dimitri EI Murr

knowledge is rea11y about remains, as yet, to be explained. While the short road
aimed at defining the virtues and the part they play in the soul, the longer one is
directed at proving why these virtues are what they are, forms of exce11ence
which are unconditiona11y good for uso Hence the different points made by Soc-
rates when he is asked by Adimantus to define what the lJeYIOTOV lJa8Twa iso

Anyway, it's something you heard ab out on more than a few occasions. Ei-
ther you don't remember, or you're deliberately attacking me just to make
trouble. I think the second is the more likely, because you've heard often
enough that it's the form of goodness (11 TOV aya80v iSea) that is the most
important subject (lJeYIOTOV lJa8Twa), since it is what brings about the
goodness and usefulness both of just things and of everything else (i) Si] Kai
SIKala Kai TaAAa lTpooXPTJoalJEVa XPl10llJa Kai wq>eAllJa yIYVETat).
And you pretty much know that's what I'm going to say now- as you know
I'11 go on to say that we don't have sufficient knowledge of it (aVTi]v) ; and
if we don't, even if we had the greatest knowledge possible of everything
else, and not of this (VEV SE TaVTTJ')), you know that it's of no more use to
us than possessing anything if good doesn't co me of it (VEV TOV aya8ov).
Or do you think it takes us any further on, to have made any acquisition you
like, but never a good one ? Or to be wise ab out anything and everything
else, but with the good left out (VEV TOV aya8ov), and have no wisdom
about anything beautiful and good ?' (Resp. VI, 504e7-505b3)

Three points should be noted. First, the highest object of knowledge is the idea
of the Good (505a2: 11 TOV aya80v iSea). Second, every good thing derives its
goodness and usefulness from this idea, so that if one knew everything except
this idea, his knowledge would be of no use to hirn. In the mouth of Socrates,
this last claim is hardly surprising. In the Charmides, for instance, a long section
(172c-174d) is devoted to showing that it is necessary to postulate the existence
of a knowledge of good and bad in addition to the particular sciences. The reason
why that knowledge of good and bad is at the top of the scale of sciences is that
it gives to every particular science its usefulness. The idea of the Good is thus the
value that adds to anything hypothetically valuable and makes it unconditionnaly
valuable. Third, and most importantly, the idea of the Good Socrates refers to
throughout this passage is not disconnected from usefulness and advantage inas-
much as it is always beneficial and useful to us (505a7: 111J1v). By all accounts,
this passage makes c1ear that Socrates is not considering an impersonal or, as
some would put it, a 'non-self-referential' goOd. 16

16 For this view, see, e.g., WHITE (1979),35 and WHITE (2002), 198-211. On the broader issue of

egoism and self-interest in P1ato's ethics (and on the effort made by scho1ars to discharge P1ato !Tom
egoism), see PENNER (2006), 156-160. See also PENNER (2005a), 246-262, and ROWE (2007), 252-
253.
Why the Good? Republic VI, 504b-506d 53

Socrates emphasizes that all this is what Adimantus already knows Socrates is
going to say. Socrates'next move consists in reminding Adimantus of other
things he knows and may well have heard Socrates talk about 17 : the majority of
people think the good is pleasure, while more sophisticated people think it is
knowledge (eppOVTjOlS). Why does Socrates think Adimantus needs to be re-
minded of these two views on the Good ?

IV

The philosophical urgency, as it were, to explore the view ofthe 'subtler people'
(505 b 6: TOIS KO~~OTEpOlS) sterns from Socrates' concluding sentence in the
previous passage on the megiston mathema. 18 Do you think, he asks Adimantus,
that we will be better off if we are 'wise about anything and everything else
(lT6:VTa TclAAa eppovEiv), but with the good left out (VEV TOD 6:ya800), and
have no wisdom about anything beautiful and good (KaAov OE Kai 6:ya8ov
~TjOEV epPOVEIV)?' (505b2-3) When identifying the Good with epPOVTjOlS, the
subtler people miss the exact point Socrates has just made: if there is no good-
ness in knowing everything without knowing the idea of the Good, then the good
of knowledge is object-related and comes from knowing the idea 0/ the Good,
not from knowing alone. The mi stake of the subtler people therefore consists in
moving from the all-importance of the knowledge of the idea of the Good to the
identification of the idea of the Good with knowledge. However, even though the
definition of the subtler people amounts to begging the question and to the circu-
lar definition of the good as 'the knowledge of the good', they are perfectly at
ease talking about the Good as such, about the true nature, or idea, of the Good.
The idea of the Good is exactly what they think they have defined and so much is
clear from Socrates' allusion to the reproach they address to 'us': how couldn't
this situation be comical, he says 'if they blame us for not knowing what the
good is' (505c1-2: Ei OVEIOii;oVTES YE TI OVK '(a~Ev TO 6:ya8ov)? So, as far as
the subtler people are concemed, we can safely assurne that what they are seek-
ing is the idea of the Good but that their account of it is harmlessly uninforma-
tive.
What about the many, ordinary people ? The examination oftheir position al-
so sterns from Socrates' former analysis ofthe megiston mathema. Are we better
off, he asks, 'to have made any acquisition we like, but never a good one'
(505b 1-2: lToaav KTi'jOlv EKTi'ja8al, ~i] ~EVTOI 6:ya8f)v)? There is indeed
something anyone will want to possess, and this is pleasure. The many go for

17 Resp. VI, 505b5: KaI T6Se ye oio8a. On the Socratic background of Resp. VI, 505b-c and the

broader issue of Socratic intellectualism in Resp. VI, see ROWE (2007), 239-254, SEDLEY (2013) and
my comments in EL MURR (2013), 128-129.
18 On the possible allusion to members ofthe Socratic circ1e, see ADAM (1963) note ad 505b12.
54 Dimitri EI Murr

what seems good to them and what seems good to them is what brings them
pleasure. Nonetheless, as Socrates notes, they are compelled to recognize that
there are bad pleasures, pleasures that come from things that are pleasurable and
detrimental at the same time. 19 Given that not all pleasures are good for this
reason, the Good, as such, cannot be identified with pleasure.
Although Socrates concludes this section by claiming that the Good gives
rise to many disputes, the whole of 505b5-d3 shows that he thinks these disputes
may be reduced to two opposed theses: the Good is knowledge and the Good is
pleasure. Wehave seen that the subtIer people engage with the definition of the
true nature, or idea, of the Good which Socrates defines as the megiston
mathema. But is that also true ofthe many who think the Good is pleasure ? How
could the many even begin to conceive of an idea of the Good ?
Note that Socrates moves from one description of the view of the many to
another description. He starts with claiming that: 'to the many, the good seems to
be pleasure' (505b5-6: TOIS ~EV lTOAAOIS i]SOVT] SOKEI elVaI Ta aya86v) ; then,
he mentions them as 'those who define pleasure as something good' (505c6: oi
TT]V i]SOVT]V aya8av apls6~EVOl). As Christopher Rowe has convincingly ar-
gued, this shift is no accident: the latter formulation recalls the way the sight-
lovers - who were explicitly identified with the many in Book V (see Resp. V,
479d3: TWV lTOAAwv) - were unwilling to recognize beauty as one thing. 20 In
the case of pleasure, they will consider that pleasure on every occasion is a good
thing, but they will refuse to consider that there is such a thing as an idea of the
Good: all there is to the Good is pleasure, that is, the many bodily pleasures. If
this is correct, Socrates is examining here a position similar to the one he has
already considered in Book V.
In Book V, as Christopher Rowe and others have shown, Socrates does not
claim that the lovers of sight hold that there is no such thing as a form of beauty
but that beauty as such consists in beautiful things and nothing else. 21 Even
though the lovers of sight do not know beauty itself, the form of Beauty, they
have merely beliefs about that Form in the dream world they live in and they
think that the beautiful is constituted by the plurality of beautiful things. Philo-
sophically speaking, the lovers of sight are thus radical deflationists?2
If the beliefs of the many on the Good are the very same kind of beliefs dis-
played by the lovers of sights and sounds in Book V, what Socrates is address-
ing, and criticizing in our passage, is a position regarding the true nature, or idea,
of the Good, which is identified with all the pleasurable things.
Therefore Socrates' joint analysis ofthe views on the Good held by the many
and the subtIer thinkers is not as asymmetrical as it would seem at first sight:

19 See Gorg. 499b-500a.

20 See Resp. V, 479a and ROWE (2007), 240.
21 See ROWE (2007), 200-213; see also PENNER (1987), 20-24 and PENNER (2005b), 197-200.
22 I borrow this from PENNER (2005b), 198: 'Nous avons ici un argument deflationniste'.
Why the Good? Republic VI,504b-506d 55

both parties engage with the idea of the Good as such, which is Socrates' con-
stant and only preoccupation throughout the passage.

v
When Socrates concludes his examination of the views of the subtler people and
of the many, he says that it is 'obvious' (505d3: epavEpov) that the Good gives
rise to fierce and numerous disputes (d2: ~EyaAal KaI TToAAal
a~eploT]T1l0EIS). He adds that this situation is distinctly surprising when one
considers what is no less 'obvious' (505d5: epavEpov):

And isn't it also plain (TOOE 01.1 epavEpov) that whereas many would
choose to do, or possess, or think (TTpaTTEIV KaI KEKTfi08at KaI oOKElv)
things that seemed to them just and beautiful, even when they were not so
in fact, they draw a line when it comes to good things? They won't be
satisfied with getting things that merely seem good (aya8a OE OUOEVI ETI
apKEl Ta OOKOVVTa KTo:o8at) ; they'll ins ist on seeking out what really
is good (aAAa Ta VTa ST]TOVOIV). This is one sphere in which nobody
needs to be told to scom mere appearances (Tf]V OE 06~av EVTav8a flOT]
TTO:S aTI~aSEI). (Resp. VI, 505d5-9)

In this passage, Socrates compares two distinct situations: what happens when
one desires ta kala or ta dikaia, and what happens when it is ta agatha that one
strives for. Whereas most people are perfect1y happy with possessing the appear-
ance of just or beautiful things, that is, with the reputation of possessing them, no
one would strive for things which only appear to be good. When goodness is at
stake, what we want is the real thing (505d8: aAAa Ta VTa ST]TOVOIV), not its
mere semblance.
Note the universality of Socrates' claim here, which aims at explaining hu-
man motivation as such. Socrates remarks that, as far as ordinary virtues are
concemed Qustice, piety, temperance, etc.), most people realize that the appear-
ance of such virtues is often perfect1y sufficient. Given that the appearance of
justice or piety entails the social gains that come with good reputation, why in-
deed bother striving for the real thing? The aim of the Republic as a whole is to
show that this opinion is wrong-headed and that desiring the appearance of jus-
tice rather than desiring to be really just comes from a complete ignorance about
what is really good for ourselves. Even so, this is how most people behave.
However, the same ignorant people would never admit that they are striving for
the appearance of the good: when they go for the appearance of justice, they do
so because they think that the appearance of justice is areal good.
Socrates' next move consists in accounting for the situation he has just de-
scribed:
56 Dimitri EI Murr

What every soul pursues, then, the very thing for the sake ofwhich it does
everything ( oi] OIWKEl ~Ev lTaoa \jJvxi] KaI TOVTOV EVEKa 1T<:XVTa
lTpaTTEl) - divining that there is such a thing (alTO~aVTEVO~EVll Tl
ETvat), but puzzled and unable to get an adequate grasp on what exactly it
is (alTopovoa OE KaI OVK EXovoa AaE1V tKavw) TI lTOT' eOTIV), or
come to any stable conviction about it as it can about everything else
(ovoE lTIOTEI XP1l0a06al ~OVI~~ Olq. KallTEpI T&AAa), and so missing
any benefit there might have been in anything else (010 TOVTO OE
cmoTvyxavEl KaI TWV AAWV E'( Tl cpEAO) Tjv): are we going to say
that the best of the citizens ought to be similarly in the dark on a subject
like that, and a subject of such importance, when we're going to put eve-
rything in their hands ?' (Resp. VI, 505dI1-506a2)23

What we leam from this decisive passage is that, even though most people ignore
what the idea of the Good is, everybody divines its existence, divines that it is
something (alTO~aVTEvO~EVll Tl eTVat).24 To use a Gadamerian concept, there is
a form of universal Vorverstndnis of the existence of the Good. But what does
the soul divine about the Good without being able to grasp its true nature? My
guess is that what the soul divines is that its natural desire for the Good reveals a
deep and universal commitment to objective reality. I can indeed desire to pos-
sess something which is only apparent because it seems profitable, but I cannot
desire that profit to be only apparent, because what I des ire is always the real
good. Socrates' analysis of the universal desire for the Good shows that each and
every one of us accepts a distinction between appearance and reality, between
what is really and objectively the case, and mere opinions or beliefs. 25
We can now return to the central issue raised in this paper. Contrary to what
some commentators have c1aimed, the analysis of the des ire for the Good in
Republic VI does enrich our information on the reason why Plato gives such
prominence to the idea of the GoOd,z6 The idea of the Good is specifically en-
dowed with the extraordinary power to distinguish appearance and reality, be-
cause the Good is the only thing among the many things one desires that one will
see as implying this distinction. As soon as we reflect on the relationship of our
desires to the Good, there is a distinction that becomes evident for anyone: the
distinction between appearance and reality. This is why the Good can be said to

23 I altered Rowe's translation on one small point. Rowe translates the clause Kai TOVTOV EVEKa
mXVTa lTPO:TTEI at 505dll-el as follows (my italies): 'the very thing for the sake of which it does
everything it does'. Absent from the Greek, the last two words seem to me unecessary.
24 On this verb and its possible meanings in Plato, see FERBER (2013).
25 On this issue and, more generally, on the desire for the good in Plato, see the illuminating paper by
BARNEY (201Oa).
26 See the passage from Popper quoted note ll supra.
Why the Good? Republic VI,504b-506d 57

be the cause of this distinction: even though most people do not know what this
distinction is really about, anyone reflecting on what is good for hirns elf will
recognize that something exists beyond mere appearances. Most people, so Plato
thinks, may weH deny existence to anything beyond what they actually experi-
ence and believe. However, because every soul desires the real Good, every soul
recognizes, however dimly, that reality as such cannot be reduced to mere ap-
pearance.
This simple argument may not explain, by itself, why Plato has made the idea
of the Good the principle confering on the Forms their mode of being and their
intelligibility. One thing, though, is obvious enough: subjectively speaking, as it
were, the Form of the Good has the extraordinary capacity to make us discover
the existence of an objective reality which only knowledge and intelligence can
get hold of. The section of the Republic devoted to the idea of the Good (504a-
509b) is not concemed with two incompatible notions of the Good, but shows
that Plato thinks we can safely infer from the universality of adesire to the reali-
ty of what would satisfy it.

VI

In conelusion, I should like to suggest that once it is recognized that the distinc-
tion between appearance and reality is at the forefront of Socrates' argument in
Resp. VI, 504a-509b, it is possible to shed new light on the part this passage
from Book VI is intended to play in the overall argument ofthe Republic.
As David Sedley has recently demonstrated, the section of the Republic we
have been considering belongs to a long digression which Plato has deliberately
placed at the centre of his dialogue. 27 This digression, extending from 471c, in
the middle of Book V, in the familiar ten-book division, to 541a, at the elose of
Book VII, is unified by Glaucon's question ab out the practicability of the ideal
city and Socrates' paradoxical argument (472a6: lTapaOol;ov AOyov) in re-
sponse to that challenge. This is the 'third wave', showing the need for philoso-
pher-rulers and therefore the definition of the true nature of philosophers. Note
that what stands at the exact center of this central digression is the passage we
have read in detail on the relation between human desire and the idea of the
Good (505 e-506 a). In my opinion, this location is no accident.
Scholars have long recognized the pedimental structure of the Republic, cul-
minating in the passage devoted to the idea of the GOOd?8 But what has been
seldom noted is that Socrates' argument on the universal recognition ofthe exist-
ence of the idea of the Good as a principle of reality can be read as a partial re-

27 SEDLEY (2013), 74-75.

28 See the stimulating papers of NAILS (2012) (with the references given in note 4) and BARNEY
(201Ob), 38-43.
58 Dimitri EI Murr

sponse to Glaucon's challenge, formulated in Book H as a follow-up to Thra-

symachus' defence of a merely conventional existence of values.
That the overall argument of the Republic sterns from a discussion of the differ-
ence between conventional appearances of justice and the true nature of justice is
obvious enough from the start of the dialogue and the discussion opposing Soc-
rates to Cephalus, Polemarchus and, above all, Thrasymachus. In Book H, build-
ing on Thrasymachus' conventionalist relativism, Glaucon famously argues that
it is only the appearance, or reputation, of justice that is universally favoured,
and that it remains to be shown that justice as such is better than injustice. Glau-
con has a point: as I noted earlier, given that the appearance of justice entails the
social gains that come with good reputation, why bother with the real thing?
On that matter, our passage from Book VI shows that, when we desire to
benefit from the appearance of justice, we do so because we consider that this
appearance is really good, since desiring the appearance of any value entails that
we consider the value of this appearance to be really good for uso Anyone is thus
bound to recognise that one thing at least seems to exist independently of any
opinion, and this is the idea of the Good. Our passage from book VI not only
explains what makes justice (or any other virtue) areal excellence, it also reveals
the nature ofthe soul's relationship to reality and thus helps refuting the Protago-
rean assumption grounding Thrasymachus' relativism ofvalues. 29

Dimitri EI Murr
Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne et Institut universitaire de France
dimitri.el-murr@univ-parisljr

29 On the connection between Thrasymachus' position and Protagoras' relativism, see MENN (2005).
For a detailed analysis ofthe relationship between Resp., 505 d and Socrates' refutation ofProtagoras
in the Theaetetus, see KHN (2005),75-106.
Why the Good? Republic VL 504b-506d 59

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