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Cleinias. By all means, if Heaven wills. Go on.
Athenian. Well, then, proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that the
greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now, as then,
ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must endeavour to implant
wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the utmost of his power.
Cleinias. That is evident.
Athenian. Then now consider what is really the greatest ignorance. I should
like to know whether you and Megillus would agree with me in what I am
about to say; for my opinion is—
Cleinias. What?
Athenian. That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he
nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces that which
he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement between the sense of
pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul is, in my opinion, the worst
ignorance; and also the greatest, because affecting the great mass of the
human soul; for the principle which feels pleasure and pain in the individual
is like the mass or populace in a state. And when the soul is opposed to
knowledge, or opinion, or reason, which are her natural lords, that I call folly,
just as in the state, when the multitude refuses to obey their rulers and the
laws; or, again, in the individual, when fair reasonings have their habitation in
the soul and yet do no good, but rather the reverse of good. All these cases I
term the worst ignorance, whether in individuals or in states. You will
understand, Stranger, that I am speaking of something which is very different
from the ignorance of handicraftsmen.
Cleinias. Yes, my friend, we understand and agree.
Athenian. Let us, then, in the first place declare and affirm that the citizen
who does not know these things ought never to have any kind of authority
entrusted to him: he must be stigmatized as ignorant, even though he be
versed in calculation and skilled in all sorts of accomplishments, and feats of
mental dexterity; and the opposite are to be called wise, even although, in the
words of the proverb, they know neither how to read nor how to swim; and to
them, as to men of sense, authority is to be committed. For, O my friends,
how can there be the least shadow of wisdom when there is no harmony?
There is none; but the noblest and greatest of harmonies may be truly said to
be the greatest wisdom; and of this he is a partaker who lives according to
reason; whereas he who is devoid of reason is the destroyer of his house and
the very opposite of a saviour of the state: he is utterly ignorant of political
wisdom. Let this, then, as I was saying, be laid down by us.
1381
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book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International