Saturday, February 5, 2011
Plato's Republic: Book VI & VII
Throughout the whole discussion between Glaucon and his master I was reminded of the process of osmosis. The master emphasizes the transition from one state of seeing into another which I believe is what characterizes the intellected good and bad, light and dark. The transition is the actual act that represents what is good or bad but is not good or bad itself. The relationship between image and reality is mutualistically dependent. If it were not for the shadows cast across the wall by the "reality" above then no acsention into "truth" is possible. For without shadows of representation there would be no variation between good and bad and everything would simply and neutrally exist. Without the knowledge of what exists in the shadows, the greatness of all the truths splendor could never be quantified. The transition is the same reversed. Without reality, no illusions could be cast beneath this reality and deemed "less real" which in fact simply states that reality is more real. One would have to endure the evilest of evils to truly know the greatest of good. One would have to have seen the greatest of good to truly quantify the evilest of evils. This is how one, I believe, would achieve enlightenment. And I definitely think that reality is superior.
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Sarah, what you're suggesting here (if I understand you correctly) is that knowledge of anything depends on knowledge of its opposite (and therefore depends on the very existence of the opposite). This is an idea that has been developed quite a bit in religion -- for example, the theory that we could not understand the concept of God if we did not also have the concept of Satan. In a sense, then, each is a part of the other. So how do you say clearly that one is superior?
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