1 Ferguson, A.S., ‘Plato's Simile of Light Again', Classical Quarterly, XXVIII (1934), p. 190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ferguson has been given less than his due recently. I have learnt more about the ‘simile of light’ from him than from any other writer. I cannot accept his interpretation of the Cave, but the account in the next paragraph of how the three constituent ‘similes’ interrelate is greatly endebted to his discussion in the article cited, and in its two-part predecessor ‘Plato's Simile of Light', Classical Quarterly, XV (1921) and XVI (1922).

2 The most common view is that perceiving the shadows stands for the acceptance of second-hand opinions, perceiving the objects which cast them for the state of mind of one who decides for himself. but still within the field of doxa. First propounded by Nettleship, R.L.(Lectures on the Republic of Plato. 2nd ed., London, 1901Google Scholar, Chapters XI and XII), its adherents includeRaven, J.E. ('Sun, Divided Line and Cave', Classical Quarterly, N.S ., III (1953) and Plato's Thought in the Making, Cambridge, 1965,Google Scholar Chapter 9). Cross, R.C. and Woozley, A.D. (Plato's Republic, London, 1964CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapter 9), Cornford, F.M., and Lee, H.D.B. (in their translations of the Republic. Oxford, 1941,Google Scholar, and (revised) Harmondsworth, 1974, respectively). Very similar views are advanced by). Adam, (The Republic of Plato, Vol. II, Cambridge, 1902Google Scholar, Appendix I to Book VII) and Crombie, I.M. (An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol. 1: Plato on Man and Society, London, 1962Google Scholar, Chapter 3). Other interpretations are proposed by Ferguson, A.S. in the articles cited, Jowett, B.(The Dialogues of Plato Translated into English, Vol. II, Oxford, 1871, p. 84)Google Scholar, Campbell, L.(Plato's Republic: The Greek Text, Edited with Notes and Essays by Jowett, B. and Campbell, L., Oxford, 1894, Vol. IIGoogle Scholar, Essays, pp. 16f), Jackson, H. ('On Plato's Republic VI 509d sqq. journal of Philology, X (1882)Google Scholar, an interpretation recently revived by Ferguson, J. in ‘Sun, Line, and Cave Again', Classical Quarterly, N.S., XIII (1963)Google Scholar), Paton, H.J. ('Plato's Theory of Eikasia', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, XXII (1921-2)Google Scholar), Murphy, N.R. ('The “Simile of Light” in Plato's Republic', Classical Quarterly. XXVI (1932)Google Scholar, 'Back to the Cave', Classical Quarterly, XXVIII (1934), and The Interpretation of Plato's, Republic, Oxford, 1951Google Scholar, Chapter VIII),Gould, J.(The Development of Plato's Ethics, Cambridge, 1955,Google Scholar Chapter XIII), Hamlyn, D.W. ('Eikasia in Plato's Republic', Philosophical Quarterly, VIII (1958)Google Scholar), Malcolm, J. ('The Line and the Cave' Phronesis, VII (1962)Google Scholar), and Elliott, R.K. ('Socrates and Plato's Cave', KanrStudien, LVIII (1967)).Google Scholar

3 A.S. Ferguson cites Aeneas Tacticus to show that the nukterina phengē of 508C are artificial lights such as lamps and watchfires, not the moon and stars, as commonly supposed. See ‘Plato's Simile of Light Again', p. 194 n. 2.

4 A.S. Ferguson suggests as a translation of the much disputed sentence which follows: ‘If then they were able to talk to each other, do you not think that they would consider they were addressing those objects before them, the objects they saw?’ ('Plato's Simile of light, Part II', p. 22). If this were correct, it would fit my interpretation nicely, for Socrates would then mean in this and his next remark that the men whom the prisoners represent, when they talk to one another, take themselves to address and to be addressed by one another's bodies.

5 Apology 38A, Tredennick's, H. translation in The Last Days of Socrates, Harmondsworth, 1954.Google Scholar

6 Apology 30A-B, Tredennick's translation.

7 Phaedo 115Cff. We hear a much later echo of this when Plato deals in the Laws with funeral regulations: ‘While I am alive I have nothing to thank for my individuality except my soul, whereas my body is just the likeness of myself that I carry round with me. This means we are quite right when we say a corpse “looks like” the deceased. Our real self ― our immortal soul. as it is called ― departs, as the ancestral law declares, to the gods below to give an account of itself.’ (Laws 959 A-B. T.J. Saunders’ translation. Harmondsworth, 1970). The description of the body as a ‘likeness’ of the self obviously supports my thesis in this article.

8 Meno 71E. W.K.C. Guthrie's translation in Protagoras and Meno. Harmondsworth, 1956.

9 Lachces 190E, R.K. Sprague's translation in Laches and Charmides,, Indianapolis and New York. 1971.

10 Charmides 1598, Sprague's translation.

11 See M.F. Burnyeat, ‘Socrates in Action'. in G. Vlastos (eel.), Socratc>s, New York. 1971.

12 Euthyphro 5D-E. Tredennick's translation in The Last Day’ of Socrates'.

13 As Rosemary Sprague points out. Charmides nPeds no such guidance. (op. cit., p. 66 n. 24.).

14 The Euthyphro is an apparent exception. but only apparent. if what Socrates is trying unsuccessfully to make Euthyphro see is that our obligation to the gods is the improvement of our souls. as Taylor and Vlastos claim. See Taylor, A.E., Plato, London, 1960, p. 155Google Scholar and G. Vlastos, ‘The Paradox of Socrates', in G. Vlastos (ed.). Socrates. p. 14. On the general point at issue. see Penner, T.. ‘The Unity of Virtue', Philosophical Review. LXXXII (1973).Google Scholar and M.F. Burnyeat, op. cit.

15 4430-E, Cornford's translation.

16 443E and 444C-D.

17 Vlastos, ’ rendering of ‘to ta hautou prattein’ in ‘Justice and Happiness in the Republic', Platonic Studies, Princeton, 1973.Google Scholar This article was also published in a slightly different form in Vlastos, G. (ed.). Plato, II, New York, 1971.Google Scholar

18 Vlastos remarks that ‘what a man does is, for Plato, only an “image” of what he is’ ('Justice and Happiness in the Republic', p. 126). He does not see the full implications of this.

19 Bosanquet saw this, though he missed its significance. See Bosanquet, B.. A Companion to Plato's Republic, 2nd ed., London, 1895, p. 107.Google Scholar

20 See J. Adam, op. cit., Vol. I, ad 402C16, and]. E. Raven. Plato's Thought in the Making, p. 126.

21 Beauty, perhaps unlike the other qualities, will be reflected in physical appearance as well as in behaviour. Socrates could not at this point use a virtue to illustrate his meaning, for the nature of these has yet to be explained.

22 Shorey's ‘convey’ captures the sense of ‘peripheromena', but Lindsay's 'scattered about', Lee's ‘in all their many manifestations’ and Cornford's 'wherever they occur’ disguise the rather strange description.

23 See my article ‘The Argument of Republic IV'. Philosophical Quarterly, XXVI (1976).

24 575A. P. Shorey“s translation, Loeb Classical Library, London, 1934.

25 See e.g. Shorey. op. cit . ad loc. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 267, and Hamlyn. op. cit. pp. 20ff.

26 Cf. 426C and 493A-C. and Corgias 465A and 50lA.

27 Cooper, N., ‘The Importance of Dianoia in Plato's Theory of Forms', Classical Quarterly, N.S., XVI (1966).Google Scholar See also Tanner, R.G., ‘Dianoia and Plato's Cave', Classical Quarterly, N.S., XX (1970).Google Scholar and, for a useful discussion of Plato's reliance on analogy and imagery in the middle dialogues. Robinson, R., Plato's Earlier Dialectic, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1953Google Scholar, Ch. XII.

28 At 533A Socrates says that Glaucon would not be able to follow him further, but that if he could, he would no longer be looking at an eikōn of the truth but at the truth itself.

29 R. Robinson. op. cit., pp. 183f.

30 Ross, W.D., Plato's Theory of Ideas,, Oxford. 1951. p. 74.Google Scholar

31 J. Malcolm. op. cit., p. 40. Cf. B. Bosanquet, op. cit . p. 298.