"And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul [like an eye looking into the pupil of another eye], and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul--wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?"
— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)
Author
Work Title
Date
c. 390 B.C.
Metaphor
"And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul [like an eye looking into the pupil of another eye], and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul--wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?"
Metaphor in Context
ALCIBIADES
That is true.
SOCRATES
Then an eye viewing another eye, and looking at the most perfect part of it, the thing wherewith it sees, will thus see itself.
ALCIBIADES
Apparently.
SOCRATES
But if it looks at any other thing in man or at anything in nature but what resembles this, it will not see itself.
ALCIBIADES
That is true.
SOCRATES
Then if an eye is to see itself, it must look at an eye, and at that region of the eye in which the virtue of an eye is found to occur; and this, I presume, is sight.
ALCIBIADES
That is so.
SOCRATES
And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul—wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?
ALCIBIADES
I agree, Socrates.
(133b)
That is true.
SOCRATES
Then an eye viewing another eye, and looking at the most perfect part of it, the thing wherewith it sees, will thus see itself.
ALCIBIADES
Apparently.
SOCRATES
But if it looks at any other thing in man or at anything in nature but what resembles this, it will not see itself.
ALCIBIADES
That is true.
SOCRATES
Then if an eye is to see itself, it must look at an eye, and at that region of the eye in which the virtue of an eye is found to occur; and this, I presume, is sight.
ALCIBIADES
That is so.
SOCRATES
And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul—wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?
ALCIBIADES
I agree, Socrates.
(133b)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Text from Perseus, which draws from Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955).
Date of Entry
01/11/2017
